22
Walking the last few kilometers toward Queen Madb's Realm, my only wish was not to meet her, again.
I heard during one of my first visits back to my home that she picked her name from a book of faerie stories.
On my return to Myriana’s realm, I’d asked Iris about it and she went digging until she found a book on the subject. In this book, it described Badb as the Queen Of War, The Goddess of The Sky, and Darkness and Goddess of the Forever Winter lands. She changed the spelling to Madb, for her own reasons.
Coming through the low hills, and down into the vast farmlands on my last visit home, I met Madb face to face. It felt like yesterday, and if not yesterday, far too soon to risk meeting her again. I should have told Myriana, or at least Iris.
She scared me, and not just a little.
When I came into her camp, led there by her guards, she knew who I was, and where I was traveling to. She called me Minotaur, not Shifter or Kind.
"Minotaur, is the proper name," she’d said, once I was seated. "Your kind has been on this earth for thousands of years, perhaps longer than the Wolf breeds or the Bear breeds. Do you know the stories of the Minotaur?"
"The Greek story, about the sea bull, and the maze?” I offered.
Her dark, black eyes glinted with pleasure, "Good, good. That tells me much about your queen, and her realm. Do you read much?"
"I’m not sure what ‘much’ is,” I admitted. “Karal might read more than I do, but none of the others do… I enjoy reading stories. Facts are not as appealing,” I said, my attention drawn to the meat in the bowl that was set before me. As I finished my sentence, I decided I wasn’t hungry anymore.
"They used to call it an illness or curse — at one time — Boanthropy was the term...." she said conversationally, continuing with her knowledge of Babylonian mythology.
She knew I was visiting my mother, she knew my name. "It’s not all that mysterious," she said, giving me an amused grin. "There are only a hand full of shifters who visit their parents. Most don’t remember them. And, there is only one Minotaur in your realm."
This explanation made perfect sense, but did nothing to ease my discomfort.
She asked what felt like harmless questions, sure. Her words were not deadly on their surface, their sides all smooth —each edge cut with a master’s hand. She carried the conversation for the both of us, as though there wasn’t much I could or needed to say. Her use of language, innuendo, and tonality felt like she was wiping my ass with silk.
If this was her way of calming me, her efforts were epic in failure. No matter how intelligent or witty her performance portrayed me, a torment waited. Somewhere — off scene — a branding iron sat ready in the coals and it was my skin she was after.
She had me so off balance the whole time I felt slightly dizzy after she said good night and bid me a safe journey.
For a queen of war and darkness she was beautiful. Older than myself by at least ten years. This only added to her beauty. Her muscles glowed under her skin. The whites of her eyes had no blemish. Her upper lip was shaped the way children draw birds in an empty sky. Her lower lip, pouted slightly, teasing my desire to nibble at it, vying my attention from her ear lobes. A nibble, is all. Just to feel her between my teeth, and on my tongue. It was all tricks of course. Some kind of spell she had me under.
Her scent was maddening. And she was deeply aroused during our interview. My own pheromones were embarrassingly strong; answering hers.
I did not flirt, however. While I longed to stare at her and take every facet of her presence into my memory, to cherish as a gem, I kept my eyes down, only lifting them enough to be polite.
As seductive as she was, in the vibrations of her voice, a tremor, a thread of discord tainted each expression. A tremor far back, and below the normal auditory spectrum. I’m not sure even the Kind who served her had noticed the flux. At first I thought it was a false tone, but it was there. It was there, and a shadow inside the night pitch of her eyes moved with the blemish. Not in a dance step, but in the motions of wrath and rage. It howled at her, because she was not saying the words she wanted to say.
All of her words were lies. She did not wish me well, she did not like Minotaur, or even cattle. She was not sexually aroused sitting near me, but rather driven and ensnared in narcissistic eroticisms promising climax and euphoria beyond mere sexual indulgence. Her lust for this promised release traveled across her skin like tectonic voltage.
I understood enough to know she would only be interested in my cock if it were prepared and set before her, on a plate.
Yes, she was beautiful, and gifted. Her logical precision heroic, and a master of politics. I had no doubts about her military skills — stories of her battles and campaigns were discussed frequently — the way chess players might discuss the games of a legendary grandmaster.
I had only terror — bone deep terror — to thank for keeping my cock flaccid, and my mind sharp. Karal had frequently told me otherwise, but I believe the main flaw in our evolutionary design is: men have a brain and a cock, but only enough blood for one to work at a time. Be that as it may, if she stood and removed her top, and invited me to her bed, I would have known better than to enter it. Not just because of my love for Myriana, though that reason was a reason above all, but also because of the terror Madb drove in me.
In spite of beauty, experience, cunning and intelligence, it is very accurate to say Madb was also bitterly insane — its scent cut the air around her, marbling all of her other traits with its fine lines of corrosion. The affliction felt more like a flu or physical illness than a mental one. The madness tainted her breath, and danced in her eyes. A violent lunacy.
Perhaps others saw it, and simply didn’t know how to deal with her malady, or perhaps they were unaware. After all, there was the matter of geography — and her proximity to the wastelands. There she had leave to engage in slaughter without explanation or critic. With such a resource nearby, how long would it take to notice an abnormal need for slaughter in anyone?
For more than six months after that night I had nightmares about her. I don’t know what about me aroused her, what visions in her mind hardened her nipples, and drove her into such a powerful state of lust — and I hope I never do. The ill ease of her Shifter guards suggested that her madness had reached new areas of brazenness — and they now knew that whatever explanation they had was wrong.
If she were Kind, and not Queen, I would have been sure her animal had taken her, and that it was pestiferous, lewd and contagious. Since she was not Kind, I had no experience to suggest anything else, and still didn’t today.
I came to a point in the road, up on the ridge, and felt compelled to stop — to clear my mind of history and memory and pay attention to my surroundings.
Sitting down on a high rock, I sipped some water and looked up at the sky. For the last two years, I had found ways of diminishing my encounter with her, and even chided myself for indulging in wild fantasies of my own. Since I was a child, Madb had been the boogie under my bed, and in my closet. The tales of the Faerie in that book Iris found for me, had more than enough fare to fuel several lifetimes of horrors.
I didn’t understand why anyone thought faeries were cute and wished to see them. They were not cute, and meeting them didn’t go well for mortals. Still, they were stories, and I convinced myself that I had fallen into the trap of indulging my fantasies for far too long. It was time to put away childish things.
Now, however, on the edge of the last ridge, looking down into Madb’s realm, I sobered.
Looking north, I knew it would be a simple matter to hike back a kilometer, and find the road leading through the hills, and into Kate’s realm. Continuing in that direction for a day, I could then turn east again, and use the Silver Pass through the mountains to the Tribes. It would only add twelve hours to my trip.
Behind me was queen Myriana, my queen. I did not feel comfortable with the details surrounding my departure. I understood why she needed me to leave, that I’d be helping by seeing what word traveled around in the other realms. However, when a woman is as imprinted on your heart as Myriana is on mine, worry doesn’t stay away. Karal could protect her, I knew that. Adian was more than capable too. And that Fenrir, sure, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I knew he’d have her back. But I still didn’t like not being by her side.
I thought about returning, claiming the road was blocked, that the bridge had been washed out — or say nothing. Take her in my arms and fuck her six way to Sunday. Fuck and tease and please her until she forgot I ever left at all.
There was no need to risk crossing Madb’s lands, and no advantage or gain in doing so.
Even here, clear minded, and resting, the memory of Madb, the scent of her aroused body wafted into my mind — ludicrous how potent she was. I have read that our minds remember smells and the events surrounding acute scents better than any other type of information pairing. Which would be why only a small collection of molecules was needed for the wind to tell me Madb was near — and only a few heartbeats longer to ensure me — I wasn’t paranoid or wrong about her need for slaughter.
"I know you." Her voice — soft, articulate and loose — came from twenty meters behind me. "You are bully bully. The Bully that got away. Oh, I have missed you my little bully. I’m so happy you are here." She then gave a sharp gasp, "Oh, I am sorry! How common of me, Minotaur. I apologize. How embarrassing to be so familiar with you. My only excuse is the breathtaking fantasies I have endured about you, and your — body. Every night for months. But, of course none of those actually happened. Oh dear. I have a head full of the most sanguine scenes, and not one of them shared."
If I remembered correctly, sanguine meant: cheerful, hopeful, confident. It also meant, bloody and blood thirsty. "Good to hear your voice again, Queen Madb. Your wit has not dulled."
I turned to face her, but remained sitting on the high rock. "Your teeth look a bit sharper as well, and your nails."
She was nude, with only nail polish applied delicately on her claws.
"Why are you here, Minotaur?" she asked, looking around with bird jerks and hesitant movements, her eyes narrowed to skeptical slits. "Don’t you know that it’s dangerous in these woods? Come over here, I’ll protect you."
Even without the blackening coat of blood on her chin, I would doubt the legitimacy of that offer.
I was far enough away — being much faster, stronger and with far more stamina than she had — and yet — my nose described at least six dead bodies in the nearby woods.
Forty meters north, on a tree limb I saw the remains of a coat. The dark blue and silver oak leaves told me it was from the uniform of her guard. Her personal guard. Each of them were shifters. Veterans of over three decades of war — each serving her mother before her. I would lay good money on a barrel that they were no longer her guards.
Six to one, and she unscathed?
"Don’t worry about them," she said, glancing behind her, and then back to me. "They won’t be jealous. Hell, you won’t hear them at all."
"I’m sorry you’ve lost so much of yourself Madb, I truly am. Those men loved you since your first breath." I said, without sarcasm or lightness.
"And they gave me their last breath," she said, and then grinned.
Such a lewd creature. It was difficult to believe she was Madb, but if I wanted to live through this, I had better believe. This woman had forgotten more about war and battle than I would learn in a hundred years. If ever there were a war goddess, a battle crow, she was in front of me, incarnated across time.
Her weight shifted, so slightly that even studying her as I did, I could have missed it in the shadow of a passing bird. She was about to attack.
"I know it won’t matter, Madb, but I need to remind you — you are not my queen."
Her head cocked to the side, as if she had not expected those words in that order, and was now forced to translate her own language. Then she straighten, rolled her neck and said, "You’re right, doesn’t matter at all."