Chapter 12

"Rise and shine, Beauty, we have reached the pinnacle of my domain." Edana looked around as she sat up from where she had been stretched out on the floor. Ciaran was no longer a dragon, he was once again the tall, dark haired man whom she had seen briefly in the woods. He wore a maroon doublet and loose black linen trousers with a constant mocking smile on his face. He was busily lighting candles, as the room was pitch dark.

"Where are we?" Edana asked suspiciously.

"My castle. I believe we’ve not been properly introduced, you’ll forgive my barbarous manners. You may call me Fafnir."

"Yes, of course. Norse mythology – a scoundrel who killed his father for riches and turned himself into a dragon," she responded. "What is your real name?"

Fafnir was, for a moment, too surprised to do anything but stare. "Ciaran," he said finally, determining all the more to keep a close watch on her. "But I have grown to like Fafnir more and more since I adopted it."

"Fafnir was not indestructible, you know. He was killed by Sigurd."

"And Sigurd was betrayed by his lover," Fafnir pointed out meaningfully. She looked away, less sure of herself around him. The comment had procured the desired effect. "You have not told me your name."

"Edana." She stood up and went to one of the shiny black walls. It was like glass, cold to the touch, smooth, and reflective. The colour, as near as she could discern from the light of the candles, was a purplish-black. "What is this on the walls?"

"That is the wall – the entire subterranean part of the castle is obsidian, the top made of basalt. You have probably seen the spires and towers from your lover’s castle. My land of shadows is… hard to miss, and notorious throughout the entire Underground.

"We’re not lovers," she said in a cool voice. She thought back to one day when she had asked Jareth about the distinct darkness she could see nearly at the horizon from the castle, a dirty smudge on an otherwise breathtaking landscape, and what he had told her of it. Edana swallowed hard. Fabulous, she thought hopelessly. The most dangerous, evil man in the Underground – and that’s according to Jareth – decides to kidnap me.

Fafnir spoke, interrupting her mental discussion. "You can make yourself at home here. You may go in any parts of the castle, but do not try to leave. The gates are enchanted and will put up a huge fuss to alert me should you try to escape. Perhaps you will find it less objectionable than you think, however. I can be a gracious host, given the proper incentive."

"Do you forget I have no desire to be here? I have every objection to being held prisoner." Edana stubbornly told him.

"Because I keep you ‘against your will’, is that it?" Fafnir chuckled. "It would be simple enough to change what you desire, no one is an island, least of all yourself. Will is so easily influenced it is hardly worth discussing. Be with me, be with Jareth, there is no difference really."

"There is!" Edana insisted. "Everything is dependant upon how I feel in the matter – certainly you are correct in that under different circumstances it might be you I loved and Jareth I hated, but it is not so, and I could not change that even if I wished to – and I do not wish to," she stated with finality.

Fafnir laughed as if he knew something she did not. "But you love him against your will." At her argumentative look, he continued, not allowing her to speak. "You did not want your feelings towards him at all. You were terribly angry with yourself over it, were you not? You ran away from him, you must have been unhappy about the fact that you had fallen in love with the man. So you see, you have no control over the situation whatsoever. You love him against your will. Again I say, there is no difference." He watched as this new idea sunk into her brain. She did not like the logic at all, less so because she could think of no way to argue it. Fafnir read the emotions on her features, mostly in her eyes. She was denying what he had said because she did not want to give him an advantage by admitting he was right, but there was nothing she could say in rebuttal. "I’m quite near to starving," he said. The conversation could now be abandoned; as long as she was off-guard he had achieved what he wanted. "How about you?"

Edana was ravenous, but she wanted to spend as little time with the man as possible. "I suppose."

"To the kitchens we go then," he said cheerfully. They passed gnomes on the way, busily carving away at the obsidian to form rooms, tunnels, and furniture. They all dashed out of their lord’s way, stepping up their pace as soon as he entered a room or they heard his footstep on a stairway. The staircases were caved out of the glassy substance as well, curving steeply upwards along the wall.

At the top of one of these sat a young gnome, deeply engrossed in staring into space.

"Wasting time?" Fafnir asked accusingly. He gave the gnome a shove, sending it tumbling down the steps with a squeal. It lay dazed on the floor, several other gnomes rushing to its side. "Back to work, all of you!" Fafnir ordered. "Or I’ll send you all to the mines!" The gnomes stopped in their tracks, turning pale at the threat, and returned to their jobs without another word.

"You needn’t be so vicious," Edana said, taking pity on the little people.

"They’re only gnomes," he said callously. "That’s what they’re bred for."

"Bred for?"

Fafnir gave her a harsh look. "They’d have been extinct, entirely killed off, by now if not for me. I keep them alive and I give them a job. Don’t presume to judge what you don’t understand. It allows nearly all of my subjects to have house slaves. What could be a more ideal situation?"

Edana declined to answer. "What do you mine for?"

"The Underground is rich in gems, many with healing or other magical properties. Needless to say, they are in great demand. They seem to be concentrated in my lands, which makes it so much simpler." They went through a door and entered the basalt portion of the castle. It seemed to have taken a long time to get there, but Edana was fairly sure he had taken an indirect route to confuse her. He snapped his fingers at a gnome. "Dinner, bring it now. And the best of my wine – heated, with cinnamon." The gnome bowed, its cap flopping forward over its eyes, then scurried off.

There was a rumbling and shaking from deep beneath the ground, and Edana stumbled. She looked to Fafnir. "What was that?"

"Just the volcano. Come look." He took her by the arm and led her to a window in the great hall. A day’s ride away, she saw smoke pouring forth from one of the mountain peaks. Orange flashes lit the dark cloud eerily from beneath. Edana shuddered.

"How can you live with that so close? Doesn’t it frighten you?"

"Oh, it does. But then, I thrive on fear." He stepped closer to her. "Don’t look at me like that. We all love to be afraid – have you never thought about it? Fear is the purest of emotions. We live for it. Fear is the same as love, don’t you know? Fright creates a honing of the senses, all of them. It is the lure of the dark, your desperation to see what stalks you from the shadows inseparable from your disappointment at the rising of the sun. The kiss of the vampire, tell me - does it bring death or release? The sacrifice of oneself for an all-consuming passion…"

The pitch of his voice was mesmerizing. Edana knew he was seducing her, but could not tear herself away. She could not even break away from his gaze as he studied her. Somehow, he had moved closer to her and she had not noticed. He held her gently now, his hands at her waist, waiting to see what she would do now that she had figured it out. His mouth was twisted into an exultant smile. "And so you see," he murmured, releasing her abruptly, "you are susceptible… you thought you were so unchangeable, but you are just like anyone else. Lesson finished just in time for dinner."

They sat down opposite one another at the obsidian table, while several gnomes came stumbling in with trays of food. The wine was placed before them in ornate silver goblets, steaming but not too hot to drink. It was a rich golden orange colour, and Edana had never tasted anything so delicious as the strongly spiced drink. She was still shaken from the past few minutes, and drank the wine more quickly than she had meant to do. It went straight to her head. Fafnir was drinking it just as liberally, but it did not seem to be affecting him at all. Edana put down the goblet worriedly and tried to compensate by eating some of the equally delicious dinner, but she had already consumed half the wine in her goblet. Her vision quickly fuzzed over, and she felt dizzy.

"Oh, dear," she heard Fafnir say in a silken voice. "Too much excitement for one day, I suppose. How easy you make it." He laughed, a disquieting sound that seemed to echo from every corner of the room. "What a prize Jareth has lost to me."

Edana was horror-stricken. How could she forget about what seemed to be a favourite trick in the Underground? She berated herself for being suspicious of Jareth’s food, but blindly accepting Fafnir’s. Her vision had gone completely now, she could only detect light and dark around her. Her hearing was distorted as well, every sound, including her own voice seemed like it was bouncing back at her from a deep hole, shattered into multiple pitches that assailed her from every side.

Anticipating her question, Fafnir confided, "When I told the gnomes to make the wine with cinnamon, that was their order to add a small poison to yours. Don’t worry, it’s not fatal. The sensory effects will wear off in a few days and you will remember nothing – I give you that kindness." He paused, and Edana felt that he was behind her by intuition, as that was all that was left to her. "Why, you don’t look so good. Perhaps I should take you to bed."

A sinking feeling told her he did not mean to sleep.