LITMIR.BIZ

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pain upon one another.” I guess my face didn’t register much shock (keep in mind, he’s never been exposed to MTV, as I, unfortunately, have been), so he continued. “They inflicted pain during sexual acts. And there was evidence that they had been dallying with a dark god.”

      I had the unnerving feeling that maybe my question to Alanna earlier that day had been prompted by more than a random thought. I swallowed, not particularly liking where this might be taking me, but knowing that I had to follow my goddess-touched instincts. “A dark god? What do you mean?”

      He looked as disgusted as he sounded. “Amidst the paintings of their perversions there were drawings that showed the Triple Face of Darkness.”

      “Wait, I don’t understand what you mean. What’s a Triple Face of Darkness?”

      He lowered his voice, which only heightened my feeling of unease. I mean, we were totally alone. Why was he lowering his voice?

      “I do not like to speak of such things. One should not name a dark god without care—even if he is a High Shaman, or the Chosen of a Great Goddess. But as Epona’s Beloved you have the right to know exactly what the Fomorians, and the decadence of the Guardian Warriors, allowed to enter Partholon.”

      “Tell me.” I sounded much braver than I felt.

      “Pryderi is the Triple Face of Darkness. Ancient stories say that he was once a god, like Cernunnos, only he chose the mountains and the Northlands in which to reign. Legends also say that he was Epona’s consort and that she loved him. Then he began to lust for more power—power to subjugate Epona to his will.”

      I felt the wrongness of Pryderi’s attempt to usurp Epona in the depths of my soul. Partholon was a matriarchal world. There were gods who were worshipped as consorts to the goddesses, but their place was definitely secondary. Men were not bullied or repressed in Partholon. They respected the Goddess as birth-giver and creator; therefore, they respected women. Anything else would ultimately destroy the beautiful balance that made Partholon such an incredible place.

      “What did Epona do?” I asked, even though my heart already knew the answer.

      “The Goddess’s anger and hurt were terrible. She cast him from Partholon with such wrath that his aspect fragmented, much like a soul can be shattered if it is too traumatized, which is why the depictions of him show three faces.” Clan-Fintan looked away from me when he said this and I could tell he didn’t want to explain further, but I needed to know, so I prompted, “What do the faces look like?”

      He sighed deeply. “One face has nothing but eyes. The mouth has been seared closed. The rest of it is featureless. Another has only a gaping, fanged maw, terrible to behold. The eyes of that face are hollow holes. The third is unbelievable in its beauty. That face is said to look exactly as he did before he betrayed Epona.”

      I sipped my tea, trying not to notice that my hand was shaking. “And there are people in Partholon who worship him?”

      “No. Or at least if there are they are only in the most obscure parts of the nation.”

      “But Guardian Castle isn’t an obscure part of Partholon.”

      “No, it’s not. But the people there had been corrupted, whether by the Fomorians or by greed and sloth before they infiltrated the castle—the sequence of events have never been entirely clear. What is apparent is that Pryderi had been influencing them for some time.” He touched my cheek reassuringly. “Don’t worry, love. People must be open to Pryderi’s poisonous whisperings for him to gain a hold on their souls, and Epona’s Partholon will not so easily open itself again to such darkness. We need not fear that the new Guardian Warriors will forget their duties.”

      “Good.” Purposefully I shook off the creepy feeling discussing Pryderi had begun to give me. “So, you think my idea is going to work?”

      He smiled. “Yes, your orders to make Guardian Castle a working school to train warriors resonated with its new inhabitants.”

      “Vigilance and education—always an excellent mix.”

      “It is certain that Guardian Castle will not fail Partholon again,” he said soberly.

      “You don’t think enough Fomorians survived to attack us again, do you?” Those creatures were evil, vampiric beings that belonged in hell. Yes—the thought of them plotting to come back through the mountain pass Guardian Castle had been built to guard definitely made my skin crawl.

      “I believe the pox and their losses in battle weakened them to the point of annihilation, but we must remain prepared for their resurgence.”

      “You think they took pregnant women back over the pass with them?” I asked, horrified.

      “I pray they did not.”

      Which really didn’t seem like a positive answer to me.

      “So we stay prepared and keep our eyes open.”

      “Yes,” he acknowledged.

      “Okay.” I yawned and his ears pricked (not literally).

      “When your body tells you to rest, you must rest,” said the father-to-be.

      “For a change, I won’t argue with you.” I stood, stretching like a cat. Even after the rather morbid dark god subject, the warm broth and tea, and the absence of worrying that I might have a fatal illness, had made me feel more than ready for a long night’s rest. Not to mention the wonderful orgasm.

      “Perhaps your not arguing with me will be a nice side effect of your pregnancy,” he said as he followed me to our bed.

      “I wouldn’t count on it,” I retorted through another yawn.

      He folded himself down onto our mattress first, then I settled into a position curled comfortably against him. I realize it should be an awkward pairing, a being who was half horse, half man, sleeping with a human woman, but it wasn’t. No matter how I lay, one of his hands would find the small of my back, or the curve of my leg, and rub gentle circular patterns over my skin. His warm caress was like a sleeping pill. I loved that his touch could lull me to sleep. My eyes were already closed when his voice interrupted my foggy thoughts.

      “It surprised me that you did not use the Magic Sleep to visit me.” He paused, then added, “Or did you come to me, and I failed to feel your presence?”

      “No…” His question brought me fully awake. “I have not had the dream-thing since your battle with Nuada.”

      Except for a quick grunt of acknowledgement, he stayed silent. I knew we were both thinking back to that terrible last battle when Nuada, the leader of the Fomorians, almost killed ClanFintan. I had been knocked unconscious, and my Goddess had called my spirit free from my body so that I could distract Nuada. ClanFintan had killed the creature, causing the Fomorians to react in confused panic, and the tide of the battle to turn in our favor. Before then, Epona had used my dreams to call me out of my body and send me on what amounted to spiritual reconnaissance trips to spy on our enemies and taunt them into falling into our traps.

      But since the Fomorians had been vanquished, I had not been called by Epona to go on any nighttime spirit trips, even when I had tried to will myself on one after ClanFintan left. Nor had I heard the whisper of her voice, which I had become strangely accustomed to hearing, until today when she had breathed into my mind the words You are not playing, Beloved. It took hearing her voice again for me to realize how much her silence had bothered me.

      “I tried to send my spirit out of my body to visit you, but it didn’t happen. I asked Epona to let me visit you. It was such an easy thing before—I even traveled so much that I got really tired of it.”

      “Yes, I remember.” I felt him nod his head.

      “And she hasn’t been talking to me, either,” I said in a small voice.

      “Rhea, your Goddess would not leave you. You must believe that.”

      “I don’t know,

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