"Aye," Occultus agreed. "And watch her like a hawk!"

* * * Conar laid aside his book and looked through the lacy branches of the tree to see an eagle soaring through the heavens. He watched the bird of prey until it sailed out of sight, then crossed his arms under his head and closed his eyes. If he concentrated, he could see her face. For a long time, he thought he had lost the memory of that beautiful visage, but in the last few weeks it had returned to haunt his dreams. The nightmares had fled and he suspected that was due to the potion Occultus insisted he take each night under the guise of being a vitamin drink.

"That potion," he muttered, "is closer kin to Meggie Ruck's dream garden variety than any Healer's vitamin drink."

"Talking to yourself, Milord?" Se Huan sank gracefully to the gra.s.s. "Am I interrupting?"

"No," he said and closed his eyes again.

"A copper for your thoughts."

He smiled. "I see long black hair that curls at the end when it's wet. I see vivid green eyes that sparkle with humor and mist with the merest hint of sorrow. I see a tiny waist and shapely hips and pretty little feet that can be so cold in winter..." He smile drifted slowly from his face.

"Your lady,"

" Once she was mine," he replied, opening his eyes.

"And will be again?"

He was silent a long time, his eyes searching the heavens for the answer. At last, he drew in a long breath, then exhaled slowly. "She will never be mine again."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because the world moved on. I have moved on. And she has moved on."

She heard tears in his voice. She gripped his hand as he pressed his lips together so hard a white line formed over his upper lip. "I am sorry I made you think of her."

"I think of her every moment of my life. With every breath I take."

The sheen of tears in his eyes made the azure depths shimmer. "Brelan says she's happy. The man at her side loves her and has done well by her. She belongs to him and as long as she's happy, that's all that matters." A solitary tear eased down his scarred cheek.

Sweat coated his body. His heart pounded like the crashing of the tide during a hurricane. He put a trembling hand through his hair and stared into the darkness. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and laid his cheek on the cool fingers.

"They are still there?" Se Huan asked, softly stroking the tense muscles.

"Aye." His voice was ragged.

"I had hoped they had left you." She sat up in bed, letting the coverlet fall from her. With regard to his dictates, she slept now clothed in a silk shift that kept her warm, enticing flesh from touching his. Her hand slid down his back. "Is it the same dream? Has it changed at all?"

He shook his head, unable to answer. He brought up his knees, put his elbows on them, and buried his face in his hands. Se Huan knew he was silently crying.

"Can we at least try to dispel these awful dreams?" Her heart broke as she watched his shoulders tremble. "Let me see if I can do something to help."

"It isn't the release I need, sweeting."

"Then, what?" she challenged, coming to her knees beside him. "Tell me what will help and I will move heaven and earth to make it so!" She flinched from the stark misery lurking in his face.

"I need to know that Ican, Se Huan. I have to know that Ican! But I'm afraid to try."

"Why?"

"If I fail, I..." He shook his head. "I'll know there's something wrong with me!"

One moment she was kneeling beside him, the next she was atop him, her lips pressed tightly to his, her hands roaming freely over his body. Her tongue plunged between his lips and drew sustenance from his sweet mouth. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against his naked chest. She used every movement of her body to inflame his; she used every touch, every kiss, every breath to make him want her. She used every wile and technique she had been taught to bring him to erection, and when at last her small hand closed around the tumescence of his manhood, throbbing, steel-hard, she sighed with satisfaction. She drew up her shift, straddled him, her lithe thighs gripping his with the sheer force of her own building desire.

"I'll hurt you like this," he said, remembering the obstruction of her maidenhead. "Let me-"

"No!" she whispered. "Letme!"

Her thighs tightened; she began to lower herself to him. Her hand guided him toward the entrance to her womanhood. She was vaguely aware of his hands on her willing body, stroking, caressing, fondling her through the silk shift. Her one objective was to impale herself upon his shaft before he tried to stop her.

But Conar's entire being was focused upon the throbbing ache in his loins. He needed the fulfillment she promised. His hands gripped her slim hips and he helped position her atop him, preparing to drive home.

"I love you." She found herself partially breached, felt pain as the size of him stretched her.

He heard a loud buzzing, a blinding burst of white-hot pain going through his head, zig-zagging back through both temples, and nausea galloped up his throat like the erupting lava of a volcano. His erection shrank with sudden swiftness.

"No!"he screamed, frustrated beyond the limits of endurance. "Dammit! No!"

He arched against her, pushing his flaccid flesh along the wet silk of her v.a.g.i.n.al lips, but he remained useless. He groaned in anger and twisted, burying her beneath him as he continued to pommel her flesh with his, seeking entry, demanding the return of his erection. Feverishly he pounded against her to no avail. His flesh was a soft reminder of his nightmare.

"Oh, G.o.d!" He rolled off of her, covering his face with his hands. He shook uncontrollably.

Se Huan lay there for a moment, her body aching for the loss of something she had never known, but needing it just the same. Tears slid down her cheeks. She cradled him to her with the gentleness of a mother with her child. He buried his face in her neck, and sobbed until she thought his heart would break. She stroked his hair, hummed to him, until sleep claimed them.

She did not awaken when he crept silently, furtively, ashamedly from their bed and went in search of another's help. * * * Morning found him staring bleary-eyed out the window of Raja's room. He sat with his hands clenched, his full attention on the soft rain pelting the windows. "Perhaps you were trying too hard, love," Raja told him as she knelt beside him, caressing his taut thigh. "Sometimes these things happen."

"Not to me. Not ever before."

She smiled gently. "Then you were lucky. Every man I have ever known has experienced such as you did last eve." She laid her head on his thigh. "With your sleeplessness and worry about the dreams, you cannot expect to perform as though you have not a care. Besides, it has been a long time since you made love with a woman." She ran her fingers to the juncture of his thighs and caressed him. "We'll try again tonight. I promise you we will see an end to this problem."

He nodded absently, his mind elsewhere. He had tried with Se Huan and, against his better judgment, with Raja.

Neither had been able to help him.

Four times Raja had tried to bring him to release; each time she had failed. Each time he had neared the moment of entry, his flesh had shriveled as though being touched with ice-cold pain. Blinding fury had lashed through his temples; nausea had sprung up like a charging beast. His pa.s.sion had died instantly and his distaste had seemed like a vicious reminder that this was not what his manhood was seeking.

Now he sat watching storm clouds building in the distance and knew he would not try again with Raja. Or Se Huan.

There was another answer, there had to be, and he must find it on his own.

"Conar? What are you doing here?"

"May I speak with you, please?"

"Of course! I'm sorry! Come in, come in! I don't know where my manners are! Please, sit down. May I get you something to drink?"

Conar shook his head, declining the invitation to sit. "I'm not thirsty." He looked about the hut, taking in the spa.r.s.e furnishings, the Spartan walls and floors. He hunched his shoulders, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his breeches.

"Is there something wrong?"

"Not really." He looked away, his forehead wrinkling with unease. His body seemed as taut as a freshly strung bow.

He looked fitfully about as though he half-expected a gobbledegookin to jump out at him.

"May I be of some a.s.sistance?"

"I don't know." The answer was too quick, too highly charged. "Maybe." The word was a staccato burst of uncertainty. "I hope so." "You know I'll help in any way I can."

Conar nodded, his wary eyes straying beyond his companion to the bedroom. He flinched, seeking a way out of his predicament.

"Take your time," Pearl told him in a soft, rea.s.suring voice. "I'm in no hurry."

Conar took a hitching breath. He viciously plowed one of his hands through his hair, tugging on the golden ma.s.s, gathering his courage from the pain in his scalp. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He slammed his hand into his pocket once more. A muscle worked in his jaw as he sought to ask what he had come to ask.

Pearl watched him with worry. "Does this concern something Occultus has ordered you to do? Something you find distasteful?" He thought perhaps Conar had already been introduced to his next instructor, a man Pearl both feared and admired. When Conar shook his head, Pearl was at a loss. "Has someone offended you?" Again the vigorous shake. "Didyou offend someone?" Pearl asked in accusingly.

"How did you know?"

Pearl waved his hand. "Because you'realways offending people!"

"I haven't offended anyone!"

"No, you just scare the s.h.i.t out of them!" Pearl mumbled.

"Will you just listen?" Conar shouted. He was on the verge of running from the room. "You don't everlisten!"

"I'm listening!"

Conar took a deep, steadying breath. "How'd you know...what you wanted?"

He's finally lost his mind, Pearl thought with dismay. The nightmares had finally pushed Conar over the edge. "I haven't the foggiest notion what..." Sudden, clear understanding hit him as he looked into the dismal face filled with such acute embarra.s.sment. "Oh, I see what you're asking."

Conar looked away.

"Sit down." Pearl gestured toward one of the plush cushions on the floor. He waited until Conar settled before he took another cushion and sat facing his guest. He was aware Conar's body was as tight as a coiled spring, his knuckles white where he gripped his knees. The blue eyes held stubbornly, unwavering, on Pearl's, but Pearl knew it was taking a great deal of self-control and courage for Conar not to look away. The young man wasn't making it easy on himself.

Pearl took a deep breath, arranging his thoughts until he could formulate an explanation that did not ramble, did not dissemble, would not confuse and provoke. He wanted desperately for the words to be right, for the explanation to make as much sense to Conar as it had to him over the years. He took great pains to keep his voice light and narrative.

"Let's say that I come to visit in your hut quite frequently. You serve me ale, but I don't particularly like ale. I don't want to be impolite and offend you because I respect your right to choose what it is you serve in your home. So, I drink the ale, not wanting to hurt your feelings, even though I prefer wine. A fact of which you are not aware.

"If I should invite you to my home, knowing your preferences, I would naturally serve us both ale, because I want you to be relaxed and happy while you are visiting. Again, not wishing to offend, I would wait until you had left before pouring myself a gla.s.s of wine.

"That is much the way it was when I was at home with my five brothers. I drank the ale, never truly understanding why I didn't care for it. They drank it, a manly drink, and I drank it, too, but I never did develop a taste for it. I had not as yet tasted the wine I would learn to love and need.

"When I was sixteen, a boy, not much older than I, gave me just a sip of his wine." Pearl closed his eyes, remembering. "It was sweet, gentle, and flowed through my senses, intoxicating me with its body and strength, its essence. I took a sip more and was hooked." He looked at Conar. The tawny brows were drawn together in thought.

"I had always felt as though a part of me was missing somehow. When I was with a woman, I didn't particularlydislike it, but I didn't particularlylike it, either. But when that boy put his hands on me that day, I knew in my soul I had found the missing part of myself."

Conar nodded as though the explanation made perfect sense. Pearl was relieved the G.o.ds had allowed him to have his say with clarity.

"Why are you here, Conar?"

Conar flinched. "I tried to make love to Se Huan last eve."

"And could not do so."

"I also tried to make love to Raja."

Pearl made a face. "I can see why you couldn't bring yourself to get it up withher!"

"Both times I lost... I couldn't...when it came time to..."

"I see. And this has never happened to you before?"

Conar looked away. "I've never considered myself to be a satyr who could mount any maiden, willing or not. There have been times when I couldn't arouse myself to take a certain woman, but never,never, have I lost an erection before taking one."

"And yet most men have had that problem at some point. It's not so unusual." Pearl stretched out on his side, propped his head on his fist and crossed his ankles. "Even a lover as great as I has had such an annoying problem on occasion."

"It's more than just being unable to sustain an erection!" Conar stood up, his hands clenched into fists. "If it were just that, I wouldn't be worried. I'd put it down to exhaustion or worry or illness or just the woman!" He looked at Pearl. "I can understand my reluctance with Raja. I've never liked her, but Se Huan is different. I wanted her, Pearl. I really wanted her."

"What changed your mind?" Pearl asked, coming to his feet.

Conar violently shook his head. "I wish to the G.o.ds I knew!" he shouted, turning his back on Pearl's probing stare. He sat down with a hiss of anger.

Pearl hunkered beside him. "Was it more than a physical reaction to these women that made it impossible for you to consummate the act?" Conar's silence was his answer. "You felt repelled by them, is that it?"

Conar nodded.

"And you're concerned that what happened in the Labyrinth has changed you, altered you?"

Again the nod.

Pearl put his hand on Conar's shoulder and made him turn around to face him. "And you're worried that perhaps the ale has lost its power to attract you."

"Aye." The answer was bitter.

Pearl let out a long breath. "And you've come to me to see if what you fear is true."

Conar's eyes fused with Pearl's. He didn't speak. He couldn't.

Pearl smiled warmly and touched Conar's scarred cheek. "It took a lot of courage for you to come here. There was a time when you couldn't have. Now you are concerned, terrified, that you have been changed because youcan come to me for help."

"I have to know, Pearl." Conar's voice broke with despair.