The Nomad - By Simon Hawke Page 0,67
after sunrise. He sat up in bed and looked down at the curvaceous young woman lying beside him, who had come to massage his muscles with her strong and skillful hands when he came back from the fight with the marauders in the Avenue of Dreams. She had stayed to cater to his other needs, as well, and had done so eagerly and expertly.
She was just twenty years old, young enough to be his daughter—no, his granddaughter, actually—and her svelte and lean young body looked beautiful and inviting as she lay there in the early morning sunlight, the covers thrown back. For a moment, Valsavis simply stared at her as she slept, one leg straight, one slightly bent, the gentle curve of her hips accentuated by her position as she lay upon her side, a slight smile on her lips. He looked at the fullness of her shapely, young breasts, the firmness of her youthful body, and the clarity and smoothness of her skin, which had responded with a trembling eagerness to his caresses as they had made love throughout the night.
Valsavis recalled how she had moaned softly, her eyes closed, her lips parted as she had gasped for breath, saying his name over arid over again. And for all her beauty, for all the fierce passion of her youth, for all the tenderness that she had lavished on him, a tenderness the intensity of which had told him that this time it was much more than merely a service she performed for money, for all the kisses she had covered him with, kisses that had all the fervor of a young woman truly awakened for the first time to the joys of physical fulfillment with a man who knew, from long experience, how to bring out the full intensity of passion in a woman—for all that, as immediate and powerful as all those sensations had been—all Valsavis had been able to think about as he coupled with her was Ryana.
It was the villichi priestess he had imagined staring down at him, her expression filled with passion and longing. It was her body he had imagined pressed against his, her voice he had heard, saying his name over and over again. The beautiful young woman was, unknowingly, merely a surrogate for what he had really wanted and, to his immense frustration, knew he could not have.
And as he looked down at the young woman now—whose name he could not even recall—as he watched her lying there peacefully, the embodiment of youth and passion, a dream most men his age would sell their souls for, Valsavis felt a disappointment and a longing he had never known before. He tried to superimpose upon her sleeping features the face of the young villichi priestess and he knew that until he had the real object of his desires, he would never truly know what it meant to feel complete satisfaction. For the first time in his life, Valsavis felt a need for a woman. And only one would do.
Anything else was just a fantasy. This young woman, lovely as she was, had been no more than a substitute that left him feeling, for all her genuine emotion, loss and hunger that demanded satisfaction. And no mere substitute, no matter how young and beautiful and passionate, no matter now genuine her feelings and responses may have been, would answer to his need.
Valsavis quietly got out of bed and quickly started getting dressed. Tonight, he thought, they would leave for Bodach. They would go to meet the Silent One, who would guide them through the city of the undead. He still did not really believe that she was what she claimed to be, but either way, it didn’t really matter. The lure was Bodach, and both the riches and the terrors it contained. For most men, this would have represented a doom that would have frozen their blood in their veins. For Valsavis, it only meant a way to feel more stimulation, a challenge to all of his abilities and skills, an adventure to make his blood boil and make him feel alive. He was looking forward to it.
He tried to imagine what it would be like, fighting the undead. No warrior could face a more dangerous or fearsome opponent. It would be the ultimate test of a man who had devoted his life to being tested. And it would mean a resolution, one way or the other. If Sorak found the talisman known as the