Wielding a Red Sword by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page B

quailed. Fair was fair—but naturally he had suffered the masculine reaction; if he stripped, this would be all too evident.
    Rapture blushed. “Some other time,” she decided, and fled.
    Of course his thought had been about as revealing as his body would have been. He blushed himself; he had not meant or wanted to expose her to that. She was a fine, discreet woman, who had probably never seen a man in—
    Enough
! her thought came, undiminished in intensity despite the distance she had put between them.
    At that he had to laugh, ruefully. The Castle was making fools of them both.
    Rapture reappeared. She was trying to maintain her anger, but the perverse humor of it was spreading to her.
    “We must escape this castle!” she exclaimed.
    “Y-y-yes!” he agreed fervently.
    “Y-y-yes,” she echoed, and she was not mocking him.
    But neither of them had much of an idea how to do it. The estate was girt by a high enchanted wall that could not be scaled, with a lake on the back; the only approach was by magic carpet, and they had none. They agreed to ponder during the night and compare notes in the morning.
    They got through the evening meal, and then Rapture shut her eyes and pumped while Mym washed. If she peeked it didn’t matter, for she could not help but read his physical state through his mind. She merely flushed and continued pumping, while he counted numbers backwards constantly to drown out what he could of his own thoughts. He was glad when it was over.
    They separated, each going to the appropriate suite. But Mym had hardly entered his when her scream resounded through his mind. He charged to her section, threw open the curtain—naturally there were no doors—and found her standing with her delicate fist in her mouth.
    “Something was there!” she cried.
    From her mind he got the image—some shadowy, skeletal, demonic figure that had sought to sneak up on her, but retreated when she turned to look.
    “But there are no other people or creatures on the premises,” Mym reminded her. “We would intercept their thoughts.”
    “I
saw
it,” she insisted, and he knew she had—or believed she had.
    Which left open the possibility of something other than a person or a creature, he realized. Was this Castle haunted by demons?
    “Demons!” she exclaimed, horrified.
    But why would there be anything like that in a castle intended for lovers?
    “To ensure that they are together,” she said.
    And that, of course, was it. Those who insisted on sleeping apart would discover company of an unpleasantly alien nature. Rapture was obviously extremely ill at ease; he felt it throughout her mind. What were they to do?
    “I will ignore it,” she said bravely. But though she intended to make the effort, he read her deep fear of the demonic. She would not be able to sleep.
    It was a man’s business to protect a woman from whatever threats existed, in whatever way he could. Mym knew that his sword would not be effective against a demon—but that was not the point.
I will stand guard
, he thought.
    “I couldn’t ask you to do that!” she protested. “We must sleep apart!” But she wished he
would
do that, for she was genuinely afraid.
    I will sleep by the door
, he decided, amending his notion.
That will be no hardship
.
    Her relief was manifest. “I wish I could thank you, Prince Pride,” she said.
    They both knew why she could not. “I prefer Mym,” he sang.
    “Mym—the name they gave you at the sideshow,” she said, reading the context. “Where you met the woman you love.”
    Where I was happy
, he agreed.
    She retired to her large, soft bed of feather pillows and colorful quilts, and he settled down in the doorway and slept in the way a warrior did, alert for any intrusion. They left the lamp on, so that nothing could enter unseen.
    In a moment he jerked awake. A horrendous demon was tiptoing toward the bed. Rapture turned and saw it, and screamed.
    Mym leaped up, his sword whipping from its sheath—but