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Young men, working hard at love … the oracle glimpses through the broken mirror of time and sees such beauty as wrings the heart. Fine as godlings in the light of lamps and lanterns are these two mortals, moving together like dancers, as if some divine hand choreographed the act. Never have I seen my sweet Soran so gentle; he might be handling a dove … never has he seen such wild beauty as the witchboy, though if he knew what flesh lay sighing in his arms, desire might fly away like a swarm of hornets.
O, do I recall the nights when I was a living, breathing man! I remember well the days of a beating heart in my breast, and limbs that ran, flesh that rose up readily in desire … eyes that saw with the keen vision of mortals who live one instant at a time, and savor them all.
Soran presses him into the divan, devours him with hungry kisses, caresses him in ways, in places, that send Faunos spinning in realms unimagined. Soran earns the whimpers of the freeman and treasures them as if they were pearls and sapphires.
By tortured steps, Faunos discovers the widths and depths of his sensuality, which is vast as the ocean, to Soran’s delight -- but I believe sweet, confounded Soranchele Izamal-xiu Ulkan learns more about himself. He loses himself utterly in the dance of love, the sweated pulse of desire, the heady intoxication of the night. He forgets who he is, and what, until only the dance remains.
Half mad with wanting he can scarce understand, Faunos opens for him like the bud of the rose, and Soran has the wisdom to pluck the bloom in the perfect instant between dewy bud and full-bown flowering. Time, at last, to be a man, Faunos Phinneas Aeson!
How hast thou wished and longed for some rite of manhood, some ritual of passage. No leopard skin ever cloaked thy shoulders, there can be no trophy for thee. So take this Prince of Vayal -- gently, delicately, cut the heart from his breast, take it for thine own, and call this the trophy of thy manhood.
And Faunos cries out aloud, wreathed in the heady perfumes of Incaria and Ilios, sundered, breathless, giving all that he has and not knowing what he takes in return --
One thought haunts him, on the periphery where sense mingles into dreaming. I hear it, whispering through the dark places in his mind, where reason and caution linger while the jaguar of manhood has sprung loose. Foolish, he thinks, to be here and do this. Foolish to trust any many, much less the witchfinder.
But in this sublime moment he has forgotten who Soran is, and where he comes from … he has forgotten the names of Faunos, and Mykenos, and even Diomedas. There is only the dance.
Will the truth be told? Even Iridan gives scant thought to the glories of the past, the hazard of the present and the uncertainty of the future, as fleeting pain becomes savage pleasure, heady rapture.
How well do I know sweet, lovesome Faunos, whom I have watched since the moment of his birth in the shelter of the Whispering Well? There, where the elkhorn runes were tossed and read – where the prophecy was spoken -- this was the place of Faunos’s birth, though only Galen knows it, and would die before he spoke.
O, I know Faunos better than he knows himself! He would bite off his tongue before he begged even for his life, yet his fingers are talons on Soran’s shoulders, and he wants so much, with such desperate hunger --
He has quite forgotten what he is -- the witchboy hidden away these twenty years, lest this very moment come to be. He has forgotten how shock and pain, joy and pleasure, kindle the Power in him as if it were a fire. And as passion soars, he has no slightest memory that it is the witchfinder of Vayal who kindles the Power in him as surely as if he were working at the hearth.
There is a price to be paid for such forgetfulness. I would pay it for him if I could, but Iridan’s time for paying such accounts is long past.
O, do I recall the nights when I was a living, breathing man! I remember well the days of a beating heart in my breast, and limbs that ran, flesh that rose up readily in desire … eyes that saw with the keen vision of mortals who live one instant at a time, and savor them all.
Soran presses him into the divan, devours him with hungry kisses, caresses him in ways, in places, that send Faunos spinning in realms unimagined. Soran earns the whimpers of the freeman and treasures them as if they were pearls and sapphires.
By tortured steps, Faunos discovers the widths and depths of his sensuality, which is vast as the ocean, to Soran’s delight -- but I believe sweet, confounded Soranchele Izamal-xiu Ulkan learns more about himself. He loses himself utterly in the dance of love, the sweated pulse of desire, the heady intoxication of the night. He forgets who he is, and what, until only the dance remains.
Half mad with wanting he can scarce understand, Faunos opens for him like the bud of the rose, and Soran has the wisdom to pluck the bloom in the perfect instant between dewy bud and full-bown flowering. Time, at last, to be a man, Faunos Phinneas Aeson!
How hast thou wished and longed for some rite of manhood, some ritual of passage. No leopard skin ever cloaked thy shoulders, there can be no trophy for thee. So take this Prince of Vayal -- gently, delicately, cut the heart from his breast, take it for thine own, and call this the trophy of thy manhood.
And Faunos cries out aloud, wreathed in the heady perfumes of Incaria and Ilios, sundered, breathless, giving all that he has and not knowing what he takes in return --
One thought haunts him, on the periphery where sense mingles into dreaming. I hear it, whispering through the dark places in his mind, where reason and caution linger while the jaguar of manhood has sprung loose. Foolish, he thinks, to be here and do this. Foolish to trust any many, much less the witchfinder.
But in this sublime moment he has forgotten who Soran is, and where he comes from … he has forgotten the names of Faunos, and Mykenos, and even Diomedas. There is only the dance.
Will the truth be told? Even Iridan gives scant thought to the glories of the past, the hazard of the present and the uncertainty of the future, as fleeting pain becomes savage pleasure, heady rapture.
How well do I know sweet, lovesome Faunos, whom I have watched since the moment of his birth in the shelter of the Whispering Well? There, where the elkhorn runes were tossed and read – where the prophecy was spoken -- this was the place of Faunos’s birth, though only Galen knows it, and would die before he spoke.
O, I know Faunos better than he knows himself! He would bite off his tongue before he begged even for his life, yet his fingers are talons on Soran’s shoulders, and he wants so much, with such desperate hunger --
He has quite forgotten what he is -- the witchboy hidden away these twenty years, lest this very moment come to be. He has forgotten how shock and pain, joy and pleasure, kindle the Power in him as if it were a fire. And as passion soars, he has no slightest memory that it is the witchfinder of Vayal who kindles the Power in him as surely as if he were working at the hearth.
There is a price to be paid for such forgetfulness. I would pay it for him if I could, but Iridan’s time for paying such accounts is long past.
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