Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 19:39:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Corrinne S <quasito_cat@yahoo.com>
Subject: Dark Wishes Installment37: Part 5 Chapter 10

This is the on-going sequel to `Dark Wishes' both
copyrighted under Nifty and International Common Law.
It's a love story so if you're looking for something
else, choose another story.  While it's illegal for
anyone to read this type of story in some places, this
is a `G' rated work because anything that happens is
in your own mind.

Unspoken Wishes

M.C. Gordon

Part Five: Markel

Chapter Ten

     Efren lay on a large rock by the side of a pool
at the bottom of a waterfall, his nude body absorbing
the warm rays of the afternoon sun.  He had spent his
afternoons thus for the past two weeks, Markel his
only companion.  His skin was acquiring a golden tone
and the darkness around his eyes was slowly fading.
He glanced toward the narrow waterfall where Markel
was swimming.  He loved his friend dearly but still
felt a pang of envy as he watched Markel step from
beneath the waterfall.

     More fair of complexion than Efren, as are most
whose hair is the red of sunset, Markel avoided direct
sunlight when possible and swam in the shadows of the
tall cliffs that circled half round the pool.  As he
emerged from the waterfall he shook his head to
release excess water from his hair.  From where Efren
lay watching, the droplets of water thrown out were
caught by the sun and seemed to glisten and form a
form a rainbow of colors.

     "How are you feeling?" Markel asked as he joined
Efren on the rock, water dripping from his also nude
body.

     "I feel much better than I ever remember," Efren
replied.

     "You should have told us that the journey was
tiring," Markel scolded, not for the first time.
"Tynan was beside himself with worry."

     "I know," Efren said, "and I am truly sorry I did
not.  But I was afraid I would be left behind in
Aolane."

     "You are not telling the entire truth, I think,"
Markel replied.

     Tears formed in Efren's eyes before he confessed,
"I was afraid, deep in my heart, that Tynan would
reject me as his lover if he knew I was weak."

     "Illness is not weakness," Markel said.  "And now
your health is returning, Narcia said so this
morning."

     Efren bit his bottom lip and his brow furrowed
before he replied, "Only so long as I keep at hand the
herbal brews she gave me."

     "For which I will be grateful that our lords
return soon," Markel said.  "The cottage we share with
Narcia smells too much of herbs and ladies flowers.
Lord Tynan will need to stuff his nose against the
aroma else he will think you have breasts when he
makes love to you."

     "Will not!"

     "Will!"

     The two began to tussle in a game of pin and
giggle until Efren began to cough.  Markel rushed to
their ponies and took one of Narcia's brews from
Efren's pack.  Running quickly to his friend he leaned
Efren against his chest and held the small vial to his
lips.

     "I am sorry," Markel said when the coughing
attack passed and Efren was breathing easily.  "The
fault was mine."

     "There is no fault," Efren replied.  "I am
supposed to increase my strength.  I should have
signaled you to stop before I lost my breath."

     They were watched from a distance by two separate
sets of eyes, one wild with hunger and crazed by
madness from an earlier fight with one of its own
kind.  It frothed at the mouth and charged toward the
two unsuspecting young men, huge tusks intent on
death.

     The other, deep blue eyes guarding that which
belonged to a Qell, sprang into action.  Swifter than
any eye could follow it lunged toward the invader, the
tremendous power of his back legs propelling him
forward with blinding speed.  His back and front legs
leapfrogged each other as he covered the distance
between himself and the wild boar.  Letting forth an
ear piercing cry he pounced on the boar, bringing it
down in one quick movement.  Saber sharp teeth sank
deep into the boar's carotid artery as claws plunged
into the soft belly.  The skirmish was short, the end
predetermined.  With a snuffle the white feline batted
the dead boar aside and disappeared into a stand of
birch trees, his coloring masking his appearance.  The
humans were safe and he had no further interest in the
beast for he had already fed.

     "We did not see what killed it," Markel told
Bidwell later as he sat eating his share of
spit-roasted boar with Efren, Narcia, and the elder's
family.  "We heard a fearsome cry and saw the
underbrush tremble.  By the time I had pulled on my
breeches found my knife, the boar was dead and the
other creature gone."

     "I have heard word of a large wild cat which
roams here of late," Bidwell said.  "Perhaps that
beast killed this one."

     "And left the kill behind?  Why would it do
that?" Efren asked.

     "Because the white tiger and I reached an
understanding one night during a snowstorm," Tynan
said behind them, and Efren rose to cast himself into
his lover's arms.  "You have added meat to your
frame," Tynan announced as his arms circled his young
love.  "I hesitated to leave you but now see that it
was a wise decision."

     The weeks had been long for Tynan and Iashain as
they traveled through their western domain, separated
from the young men they had recently taken as their
lovers.  But Narcia had announced that Efren's heart
and lungs were weak and he could journey no further
until his health improved.  Iashain had reluctantly
asked Markel to remain with Efren.  Elder Bidwell
insisted that the Qell chose from among the swiftest
and strongest of the small Lippiz herd the village
kept to speed them on their travel of discovery while
Efren rested and recovered.

     Able to travel swiftly, the Qell managed to
traverse most of the western kingdom in two short
months.  They were greatly relieved by what they found
for there were small pockets of villages dedicated to
the ancient crafts.  Farmers, herders, smithies,
weavers, and potters were found.  One village,
directly on the edge of Lake Sorrow, boasted divers
who found shell creatures containing pearls which they
strung into necklaces and bracelets.  One village of
smithies worked a soft golden-red stone into works of
art.

     The Qell spread Trelaine's gold coins freely
through the villages, even managing to convince the
divers to work with the goldsmiths and others they had
found who dug emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, and
rubies from the hillsides.  Trelaine's memory told
them that women, and not a few men, prized things made
of gold and jewels.  This was yet another avenue of
trade to be explored.

 . . .

     "My heart missed you," Iashain told Markel that
night as he held him in his arms.

     "Only your heart?" Markel asked, his green eyes
glistening in the light from Narcia's fireplace.

     "You know it was not my heart alone," Iashain
replied as he drew Markel into a kiss that promised to
last long past dawn.

     "You need not be afraid to love me," Efren was
saying to Tynan at the same time.  "Narcia has given
me potions to take if I begin to feel ill.  Now I feel
no illness at all, only the desire to have you show
your love for me."

     Tynan took Efren into his arms and gently showed
him the love a Qell can have for a mortal man, wishing
and yet not wishing that Efren would be with him for
countless years.  When he had accomplished what he
wanted the mighty Qell, summoned by the forest
grandmothers, drifted into peaceful sleep with his
lover's head nestled on his shoulder, his own dark
hair serving as a blanket.

To be continued.

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