At Your Command Read online

  This story copyright 2001 by Christine W. Murphy. Published by Hard Shell Word Factory.

  8946 Loberg Rd.

  Amherst Junction, WI 54407

  http://www.hardshell.com

  Electronic book created by Seattle Book Company.

  eBook ISBN: 0-7599-1182-7

  Cover art © Mary Z. Wolf

  All electronic rights reserved.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatever to anyone bearing the same name or names. These characters are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  * * *

  This book is dedicated to my daughter Abigail, who, although too young to read this book, gave me plenty of advice anyway. She always finds time in her busy day to sit down and say, "Mom, let's talk about your book." Abigail, you are a blessing. One of these days, you are going to decide boys aren't so yucky after all. Then we'll really be able to talk. Special thanks to Jan Minter for doing the first read on this book and giving me her honest opinion— "It's great, Christine. Send it out." And to my friend Liz Kading, who listens to my ranting and still accepts my telephone calls.

  * * *

  Prologue

  BOY TUGGED at his leather collar, then stopped when he noticed the embarrassed glances of his friends. He fingered the bowl of food that he'd left untouched at his feet until now. Other members of the circle of nine looked away, giving him time to switch bowls with Owl, the youngest and the most in need of food, aside from Boy.

  "Prince is a cruel fellow," Tandia whispered. She stroked Boy's bare arm with her painted nails.

  Her touch sent whispered taunts between his legs, which he dared not answer. Boy shook his head. After three days in the collar, it hurt to speak.

  Prince, so named because he was the only one among them who could gather the coins for a meal, hadn't meant to cause Boy pain. Like a thoughtless fool, he gave his friend candied sweets Boy could not eat. Nothing could pass the constricting bands that circled his neck except for the smallest sips of water. The collar provided the master with insurance Boy would return with what he stole.

  If he weren't so busy stuffing his face with boiled honey sticks, Prince would doubtless scold him from staying away from his master for so long. "The collar ensures the slave return to his rightful owner. You don't wish to go against the natural order do you? I must attend school every morning and work with my father every afternoon. My mother has already picked one of my fat cousins for my bride. When I marry, I won't have even these few hours to spend with you, my friends."

  Boy had received the lecture before with a respectfully bowed head. He did not want to hear it again, not when his stomach had shriveled to an aching nut.

  Now, Boy looked at Prince, one of his eight friends, who squatted around the fire with him and shared stories of the day. What about his smiling friend made him more worthy of a happy life? Why did he wear embroidered linens and have food enough to share?

  Tandia scratched at Boy's arm for attention. He fought to ignore her. Only a rich man could afford a wife, or a woman such as Tandia.

  "Let me take you back," Tandia said. "I can say I found you in a ditch, beaten by palace guards. You are dirty enough that your master will believe me. Where did you get all these bruises?"

  Aware of his scars and filthy loincloth, Boy pulled away again, ashamed to have his well-washed friend touch him and afraid she might guess his secret desire for her. He was a slave, he could be nothing more.

  She wore her second best dress, tightly woven threads dyed a pale yellow. The hue made her skin glow golden, like the sand. He could almost wish he, too, served a master who required a clean slave, a well-fed slave, but Tandia had told him he would not like the work.

  "You have to go back, Boy." The haughty words of Prince came to him over the smoky fire. The rest of his friends nodded. No one dared disagree, not when their fingers were still sticky with his treats. "You are a slave and a thief. It is your destiny. If you are afraid someone will catch you, come home with me. Mother has a broken bowl you can take. That should satisfy your master for a day or two."

  Boy didn't contradict his naive friend. A broken bowl, a silver one, would not satisfy his master. Only beating his property would sate him, and then, only for a few days. Boy would return to his master, he had no choice.

  Soon the gnawing pain in his stomach would grow more unbearable than his fear of a beating. He would kneel before the man who held the key to the shameful band he wore about his neck. Certain knowledge of the humiliation to come and the beating that must follow were not what kept Boy from returning. Fear trapped him outside the village and kept him hiding in the scraggly shrubs that dotted the dunes.

  Three days ago, he had faced death for the first time.

  The end had come swiftly to the man kneeling in the square. The victim's head rolled from his shoulders, severed by a shining blade, and came to rest at Boy's feet. A guard retrieved the head and stuffed it into a basket.

  Boy couldn't stop staring at the spot where the dead man's eyes had fixed him in place. "Who was this man?" he'd asked.

  "A thief," barked the guard. "What's that you're hiding there under your shirt?"

  Boy turned and ran, dropping the apple he'd so skillfully taken from the vendor's stand.

  The guard called after him shaking his fist. "You're next, Boy. I'll see your head roll in the dirt."

  The words still rang in Boy's ears. He hadn't been back to his master since. And the collar placed around his neck, to keep him from eating any food he might find the courage to steal, kept growing tighter.

  A quick look around the fire confirmed his lot was far worse than his fellows. Tandia might not like whatever it was her father made her do with the men who visited his tent, but she was well fed, owned two dresses and was hardly ever beaten. Owl would be all right if he survived until he was big enough to claim his share of the food at home. At least his mother had died, Boy's had simply left.

  The two black-haired girls across the fire from him, their heads together, had secure futures, one with a potter, the other with a maker of cloth. Then there were the twin boys and their sister, all of them with strange red hair of various degrees of brightness. Their father ran the only inn in the area. They complained about their work and the roughness of the customers, but they seldom went without supper.

  Boy had two choices, starve or lose his head in the Town Square.

  Before he could decide which death he preferred, a wind descended from the heavens and put out their fire. Instinctively, he grabbed the bowl in front of him and wrapped it in a loose end of his loincloth. Then he tried to decide which way to run.

  Owl pointed upward and they looked at the star-filled sky, a blanket of black studded with laughing lights. Boy had never found comfort in the stars. Cold, unfeeling eyes of the gods, his master had told him. Gods who amused themselves by watching the futile struggles of men as they sought to avoid their fate, eternal torture in the pit of death.

  The stars vanished.

  Prince broke ranks first. His finely embroidered tunic dragged in the ashes as he ran from the shadow that threatened to swallow the sky.

  Tandia pulled Boy to his feet. He grabbed Owl and tucked the five-year-old under his arm. Together, the three followed their friends, screaming as they ran toward town. The bowl Boy carried dragged on his only piece of clothing, where it became tangled in his feet. He paused long enough to kick himself free and continued on, naked.

  Wind whipped their legs, turning them in circles before they could travel half the distance to safety. Laughter sounded behind them, then in front. All around them, a spinning figure in
white waved his arms, his sex made clear by the beard that seemed to precede him. The nine friends fell on each other.

  When they lay panting on the ground, unable to move, paralyzed by fear and exhaustion, the words began.

  Magic words.

  Boy held his breath and waited for the wizard to turn him into stone or transmute him into a beast. Nothing happened.

  Nothing happened to Boy or to his friends. Something happened to the world.

  It grew large around them.

  The giant wizard bent, his hand as big as the sky. Without a word, he scooped them from the ground and dropped them into his pocket.

  Chapter 1

  MAGGIE SLID her foot forward another inch. Her father's arm pressed hot against hers as they stutter-stepped down the aisle. When she tried to shake off his touch to keep his sweat from staining the delicate fabric of her white gown, he clutched her more tightly.

  At this rate, it would take forever to reach the altar, which, oddly enough, didn't bother her. She studied the welcome distraction of the stained glass windows that lined both sides of the narrow country church. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--old friends in fractured glass--stared down at her.

  The windows had entertained her as a child while she endured the minister's interminable, hour-long sermons. Today, events threatened to progress too quickly.

  Pastor Hague, white hair spiked in disarray and his eyes wild, motioned her forward. Her wedding veil slowly slipped to the right. She straightened it with her free hand. It slid to the left. Finally, it left her head altogether, and rolled on the floor under her mother's feet. Ruined! She'd ruined the wedding.

  Maggie froze, her gaze riveted on the back of the man who stood in front of the altar rail. The man she would promise to honor and cherish, and something else, something important. Something she'd forgotten.

  Chet turned, cold and disapproving. The two men, the minister and her bridegroom, motioned her forward. She'd spoiled things, spoiled everything. She couldn't get married now.

  Finally, she turned to her father. His hot hand still supported her arm. She looked into his blank face. Not a single feature, eyes, nose or mouth, marred the smooth surface. The breath whooshed out of her. She didn't have to go through with the wedding.

  Reality woke her. Father was dead. He'd died five years ago.

  Maggie stretched her hand out from under the blanket long enough to crank the temperature control down to low. A blast of sunlight glared off the snow and through the window to catch her in the eye and send her blinking back under the covers. "I hate winter."

  "Yes, dear," her mother said, patient as always, but firm. "You do have to get out of bed sometime. It's been three weeks. Your father never would have stood for this behavior."

  Maggie pulled the blankets higher, this time out of embarrassment. Twenty-seven years old and no reason to get out of bed. Afraid to. Who would have thought? Maggie Yates, Master of Science degree, graduate assistant in psychology, no less, and she was falling apart.

  Maggie's mother dropped a cardboard box, not too gently, on Maggie's legs.

  "It can't be three weeks, Mom. Besides, I do so get up. What's in the box?"

  "A wedding present."

  "I thought you were going to return those." Maggie winced at the whine in her voice. Reduced to living on charity and whining at her mother.

  "I can't return this one. It's special."

  Maggie peeked from beneath the covers again. She didn't like what she saw. Whatever the cardboard box held strained the seams. She'd have to repackage it. The thought sent her under the covers again. She wasn't ready to face the world, not long enough to rewrap a package and certainly not long enough to walk to the post office.

  "I'll send it back later, Mom. Leave me alone for a few minutes, so I can get dressed. All right?"

  Maggie recognized her mother's sigh. They both knew she wasn't getting out of bed until the sun went down.

  "Your great-aunt on your father's side mailed this package fifty years ago. How she knew he would have only one daughter, I have no idea, but she left instructions for you to have it on your wedding day."

  "I didn't get married, remember?"

  Silence met Maggie's question. Of course, her mother remembered. The entire town would be talking about it for decades. Maggie Yates canceled her Christmas Eve wedding two days before the big event. "Can't we send it back with the rest of the presents?"

  The sound Sarah made changed from a sigh to a disapproving cluck. "The old lady died fifty years ago. She mailed it on her deathbed. Where am I going to send it? I'm streamlining things around here, so I'd appreciate you taking it and the rest of your junk with you when you leave. It's been four weeks. The postmaster asked if you want forms to have your mail forwarded here."

  Maggie grimaced under the covers. She had no idea where to go or what to do. She had only just admitted it to herself. She wasn't ready to tell her mother yet. How could she have canceled the wedding? Over the phone, no less. Chet would never forgive her.

  "I told Pete down at the post office that you weren't staying long enough to need your mail forwarded. The new quarter starts next week. Shouldn't you be back at work?"

  No wedding, no job. "Fine, Mom. Just go, please."

  Sarah Yates continued to talk from the other side of the closed door. "You're going to have to talk to me someday, young lady. If not me, someone else."

  "Not if I can help it," Maggie muttered. Normally, Maggie got along famously with her mother. Or she did during the week at Christmas and the occasional phone call, the only contact they'd had since she graduated from high school.

  The box her mother left on the bed pressed the hot coils of the electric blanket against her legs. She endured the torture for as long as she could. With a groan, Maggie rolled out of bed, taking the blanket and the box with her. The crash shook the room. Maggie held her breath, expecting her mother to come running up the stairs.

  A scrapping noise outside the window drew Maggie to her feet. From the second story window, she could see her mother clearing snow from the sidewalk. Had all that snow fallen last night? Was her mother right? Had she been home almost a month?

  Maggie looked at the bathroom door where she'd always hung a calendar. With shock, she realized the picture of the bare-chested hunk belonged to her mother. The calendar was brand new, "Go get `em, Sarah" sprawled across the January pin-up guy. Who would send such a thing to a woman over fifty? A gag gift, obviously.

  Maggie ignored her mother's daily visits to the room to mark off the days on the calendar with a red marker. Most days, she managed to sleep through it, spending her waking hours wandering around the kitchen in the middle of night and watching old movies. Thank God for 24-hour television.

  Assuming this was Wednesday, Maggie really had been home almost four weeks.

  The scrap of metal against sidewalk stopped. Maggie crossed the room. Her mother planted the snow shovel in a snow bank and headed down the road toward town. A sting of conscience sent her looking for her slippers. If she was going to hit her mother up for free room and board, she could at least help with chores. When she backed out of the closet, slippers in hand, the room was full of smoke.

  Before she could fill her lungs with air to scream, she realized this was not regular smoke.

  Maggie yanked the electric blanket cord out of the wall socket. Her mother's computer, left on 24 hours a day, hummed happily behind her on the desk. The overhead light her mother turned on each morning didn't waver.

  Not an electrical fire. Not a fire at all. The white cloud that filled half the room wasn't smoke, but dust. Old, musty, incredibly fine dust.

  At the heart of the cloud stood the box that she had knocked from the bed, one side split open, contents strewn across the floor. Her great-aunt obviously had a sense of humor. She'd sent her unborn niece a pile of dirt.

  After several minutes, Maggie managed to fight open the window and raise the storm glass. When she turned, she found a man in her bed. A n
aked man.

  "A BREAKDOWN. I've had a full, psychotic break." Maggie steadied herself with a cup of her mother's coffee. Nothing said reality like her mother's kitchen table.

  "Don't be silly, dear. You'll be back to your old self soon. You just need some time."

  Maggie wasn't so sure. Never in her life had she suffered from hallucinations. But then she'd never canceled a wedding before, and she still didn't know why.

  Oh, she remembered reaching for the telephone. Chet was in California, finishing up the term while she made the final arrangements in Minnesota. She hadn't even known what she was going to say until the words poured out of her.

  For the past few weeks, she'd blotted out that moment, but it had come back in a rush this morning after that dreadful dream. It was the twenty-second of December and she had put on her wedding dress for a last minute fitting. Not just any wedding dress, but the wedding dress, the one her mother and grandmother had worn.

  Maggie remembered growing dizzy while her mother went on and on about how happy she was that Maggie had fallen in love, how lucky she was to have found Chet. They would have problems, of course, and children were always a challenge, but nothing that couldn't be overcome by true love and patience.

  Problems, children, true love.

  Seconds later, Maggie was on the phone canceling her wedding, leaving a message on Chet's machine for godsake, telling her fiancé he should stay in L.A. She'd changed her mind.

  Maybe the incident this morning explained her odd behavior. Maybe she could tell Chet she'd been suffering from stress. He would understand. Chet was a psychologist, after all. That would certainly explain her hallucinations; although, some people would say finding a gorgeous, naked man in your bed in the middle of a cold, hard Minnesota winter wasn't a hallucination. It was a vision.

  At least she'd had the good taste to imagine him with his arm strategically placed over what her mother would call "the interesting parts."