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.“What is he talking about? Ven’s not here.Unless.”She scrambled to her feet.Running over to Jorge, she pulled him up and shoved him bodily toward the door.“Get out!” she cried.“Get out! Hurry up!”Jorge didn’t need telling.He flung open the door and bolted out, holding his unlaced britches up with one hand as he dashed into the night.Evelina slammed shut the door and put her back to it and faced Marcus, who was staring straight at her and, apparently, not seeing her.Evelina waved her hand in front of his face.His eyes darted back and forth, and his breath came short and fast, as though watching some harrowing contest.“Fight!” he cried again, then he suddenly clutched at his head and reeled backward, staggering halfway across the room.“I was right.He’s possessed.He’s fighting a demon!” Evelina breathed.Evelina knew something about demons.She’d been in a tavern once when one of her father’s companions had been seized by a demon.The man had fallen to the floor, writhing and twitching and foaming at the mouth.Someone had wanted to call a priest, but his woman said that wasn’t necessary.Her man fought with demons on a regular basis and he always came out the winner.She told all his friends to pin him down, and she gave him a stick to bite on so that he wouldn’t choke to death.He wrestled with the demon for a short time, then, victorious, he fell asleep.When he came back to consciousness—and this Evelina remembered quite clearly—he had no recollection of anything that had happened.Marcus gave another cry and made a swipe and a lunge at the air, as though he were holding a sword, though his hand was empty.Evelina watched for her chance, and when he moved near the mattress, she rushed at him and struck him hard in the chest, knocking him down.Evelina pounced, straddling him and holding his arms.He did not resist her, but lay there, staring up at whatever it was he was seeing—which wasn’t her.His face contorted.His hands twitched and he gasped or cried out.Fearing someone would hear him yelling like a madman and interfere, she stuffed a rag into his mouth to stifle his shouts, and she swaddled his arms against his sides with the blanket.Now, it was up to Marcus.Either he won or the demon did.At this point, Evelina was almost too exhausted to care which.She left Marcus to his fight and went back to pour herself a cup of the strong red wine.She gulped it down and poured out another cup, drank half of it, then carried it to the bed and splashed a bit of wine onto the mattress.She examined the red stain and was pleased.It resembled blood, if one didn’t look too closely.Evelina finished the rest of the wine, then stripped off all her clothes and lay down beside Marcus.He stirred and gave a muffled cry.His arms bulged against the bindings.His body twisted and heaved.“Freak!” Evelina muttered, shoving him over to make room for herself.“Just like his monster of a brother.I’m glad Marcus isn’t going to be the father of my child.He’ll just think he is.And he will marry me.Oh, yes, he will.I deserve nothing less, after all I’ve put up with.”Closing her eyes, she gave a contented belch and let the wine fumes carry her pleasantly into slumber.Beside her, on the bed, Marcus fought the dragon.24THE WORMWOOD EVELINA HAD SLIPPED INTO MARCUS’S WINE ACTED as a key on the lock of the door of his mental room, removing all fear of the dragon that lurked outside, removing all his inhibitions.He left that little room and went stumbling about into the minds of the dragons like a drunken man, weaving and laughing along a street of swirling, shimmering dragon dreams that were beautiful and horrifying, bestial, alien—like himself.Marcus cavorted inside the minds of dragons.He didn’t know how many dragons, but a lot, seemingly, for the fantastically colored images flew at him from every direction, fluttering around inside of him, like being bombarded by ribbons of rainbow.Then suddenly lightning splintered the rainbow and a voice intruded, shocked and dismayed.“What are you doing, Human? Please, stop! This is not wise.”“My name is Marcus.Who are you?” he cried merrily.“I told you! I am Lysira.” She sounded stern and thoroughly put out, like his old tutor.“And this is not proper behavior!”Marcus had never liked his tutor, and so he ignored her.Like a drunken reveler—or an escaped prisoner, drunk on freedom— Marcus capered into and out of the minds of the dragons.Naked, shouting his defiance, shouting his adoration, he wrapped his nakedness in the colors of their amazement and danced from dragon to dragon.He glided into their minds with the elegance of a dancer, doing a turn, singing a song with the colors of his own mind, then gliding swiftly out.He played tag with them, hide-and-go-seek, dodging and darting, evading and avoiding, all the while laughing wildly at the sheer joy of it all.Marcus was a child again, a lunatic child, and his soul remembered what his brain worked hard to try to forget—the beautiful, dazzling, alien world of wondrous, magical beasts, whose thoughts wove silken tapestries, using the stars for needles and the sunbeams for thread.This was the reason that, long ago, he had traded madness for sanity, traded the lonely, isolated, shut-off, locked-up-tight gray world of humans for the dreams of dragons.The dragons soon got over their shock that a human had actually managed to invade their minds.They were horrified and angry, just like his parents had been.He knew how that worked.It made him powerful.Some of the dragons tried to catch him.Another dragon, a young female, sought to protect him.They all ended up in a bitter argument, and Marcus was forgotten or shoved aside.The flames of their passion roiled around him, but could not touch him.Marcus kept it up, made himself a nuisance.The young female fluttered about after him.“Listen to me, Human! You must come to your senses.Draconas sent me to warn you—”“Draconas!” Marcus called.“Where are you, you old fart? Still alive? I should have known it.I escaped, by the way.No thanks to you.”He laughed and stumbled about in a dazzling, brilliant fog.And then the fog shredded, torn apart by a dragon’s claw.The eyes that had found him in the cave found him again.Marcus had stumbled into the mind of Grald.No pretty colors here.Steel blue bars slammed down around Marcus, trapping him.He hurled himself against Grald’s mind, trying to free himself, but the dragon held him fast.“As long as you are here, Prince Marcus,” the dragon said, “you can see what I see, feel what I feel.When next you meet your brother, you’ll be meeting me.”Ven stood in a dark room.In back of him was a tomb—Ven’s tomb.Marcus could hear Ven’s heart beating, and it was a thrilling sound to the dragon, for that beating heart was the key to the magical spell that would allow him to take over Ven’s body and make it his own.Grald opened the tomb, and there inside lay the human Grald, a look of horror on his face, his mouth gaping wide in screams of agony that had long gone unheard.The dragon held a golden locket in his hand.He opened the lock, dumped the heart into the bloody cavity of the human’s chest.When the heart fell, the human gave a last, shuddering cry and died.The body lay in the tomb, eyes wide, mouth still open.Grald discarded the human body he had worn, crawling out of it, leaving it on the floor like a snake leaves its shed skin.The dragon advanced on the new body he had chosen.“Fight!” Marcus cried.“You have to fight!”Ven turned to flee, but the dragon seized hold of him.“Fight, Ven!” Marcus shouted [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]