There seemed to be two Towers, one sheathing the other. The outer was the seat of Empire, manned by the Lady’s functionaries. The inner, as intimidating to them as was the whole to us outside, took up a third of the volume and could be entered at only one point. Few ever did so.
The entrance was open when we reached it. There were no guards. I suppose none were needed. I should have been more scared, but was too dopey. The captain said, “I’ll wait here.” He had placed me in a wheeled chair, which he rolled through the doorway. I went in with my eyes sealed and heart hammering.
The door chunked shut. The chair rolled a long way, making several turns. I don’t know what impelled it. I refused to look. Then it stopped moving. I waited. Nothing happened. Curiosity got the best of me. I blinked.
She stands in the Tower, gazing northward. Her delicate hands are clasped before Her. A breeze steals softly through Her window. It stirs the midnight silk of Her hair. Tear diamonds sparkle on the gentle curve of Her cheek.
My own words, written more than a year before, came back. It was that scene, from that romance, to the least detail. To detail I had imagined but never written. As if that fantasy instant had been ripped from my brain whole and given the breath of life.
I did not believe it for a second, of course. I was in the bowels of the Tower. There were no windows in that grim structure.
She turned. And I saw what every man sees in dreams. Perfection. She did not have to speak for me to know her voice, her speech rhythms, the breathiness between phrases. She did not have to move for me to know her mannerisms, the way she walked, the odd way she would lift her hand to her throat when she laughed. I had known her since adolescence.
In seconds I understood what the old stories meant about her overwhelming presence. The Dominator himself must have swayed in her hot wind.
She rocked me, but did not sweep me away. Though half of me hungered, the remainder recalled my year around Goblin and One-Eye. Where there is sorcery nothing is what it seems. Nice, yes, but sugar candy.
She studied me as intently as I studied her. Finally, “We meet again,” The voice was everything I expected and more. It had humor, too.
“Indeed,” I croaked.
“You’re frightened.”
“Of course I am.” Maybe a fool would have denied it. Maybe.
“You were injured.” She drifted closer. I nodded, my heartbeat increasing. “I wouldn’t subject you to this if it wasn’t important.”
I nodded again, too shaky to speak, totally baffled. This was the Lady, the villain of the ages, the Shadow animate This was the black widow at the heart of darkness’ web, a demi-goddess of evil. What could be important enough for her to take note of the likes of me?
Again, I did have suspicions I would not admit to myself. My moments of critical congress with anyone important were not numerous.
“Someone tried to kill you. Who?”
“I don’t know.” Taken on the wind. Lime thread.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know. Even if you think you don’t.” Flint razored through that perfect voice.
I had come expecting the worst, had been taken in by the dream, had let my defenses fall.
The air hummed. A lemon glow formed above her. She moved closer, becoming hazy-except for that face and that yellow. That face expanded, vast, intense, swooping closer. Yellow filled the universe. I saw nothing but the eye...
The Eye! I remembered the Eye in the Forest of Cloud. I tried to throw my arm across my face. I could not move. I think I screamed. Hell. I know I screamed.
There were questions I did not hear. Answers spooled across my mind, in rainbows of thought, like oil droplets spreading on still, crystal water. I had no more secrets.
No secrets. No thought I’d ever had was hidden.
Terror writhed in me like snakes afraid. I had written those silly romances, true, but I also had my doubts and disgusts. A villain as black as she would destroy me for having seditious thoughts...
Wrong. She was secure in the strength of her wickedness. She did not need to quash the questions and doubts and fears of her minions. She could laugh at our consciences and moralities.
This was no repeat of our encounter in the forest. I did not lose my memories. I just did not hear her questions. Those could be inferred from my answers about my contacts with the Taken.
She was hunting the something I began to suspect at the Stair of Tear. I had stumbled into as deadly a trap as ever snapped shut; Taken as the one jaw, the Lady as the other.
Darkness. And awakening.
She stands in the Tower, gazing northward... Tear diamonds sparkle on Her cheek.
A spark of Croaker remained unintimidated. “This is where I came in,”
She faced me, smiled. She stepped over and touched me with the sweetest fingers ever woman possessed.
All fear went away.
All darkness closed in again.
Passageway walls were rolling by when I recovered. The Guard captain was pushing me. “How are you doing?” he asked.
I took stock. “Good enough. Where you taking me now?”
“The front door. She said cut you loose.”
