His home was remote by design as he was not the sort to blend in with the village folk and farmers who expected simplicity in life and who reviled the extraordinary. The few who knew of him and sought his aid were forced to undertake a long and arduous journey to his distant retreat.
Four days hard ride north of the farming village Dubrin one's mount would sicken in the altitude and shy in the steepening terrain of shale. Beyond the last patches of sickly trees one would snare a rabbit or fowl and keep the cooked meat in salt for the journey ahead. Across the immense expanse of the barren plateaus one would fervently wish for more water as the sun beat down on the rocks all around. Through the ever-thick layer of cloud wreathing the peak of Sulumayan's home one would stumble in circles, directional senses reduced to drunken delirium.
For those who made it, the journey was well worth it for the man they sought, it was said, could command the four elements with his strange incantations. He could see the future and knew the hearts and minds of all men. He travelled through dreams and could change his form at will. He was an old, wise, and tired druid.
Looking out across the vast land far below his mountain perch Sulumayan frowned, though the movement was hidden beneath the mass of grey hair matting his face. Despite his power to summon food and wine from nothing, to bend the elements to his every whim, there were times when he felt a different rumble deep in his body, gravitating through his frail old frame with the deep pulse of Nature herself. Soon he would have to tend this burgeoning need.
That very night he knelt in his cave and draped his cloak over himself, surrounded by a large wreath of goat and oxhair. He drank from a long curled ram's horn and coughed as the liquid filled his veins. His bones creaked as they thickened, his flesh stretched over newly grown muscles, his hair darkened and his beard fell away to reveal a firm chiseled jaw. He disappeared and the cloak settled quietly to the floor, the candles in the cave guttering with curiousity.
"My Lord." Her sleepy eyes fluttered open as he stood framed in the moonlit window. He savoured the moment, staying still to gather in the sight of her perfect form as she lay on the wide bed covered in silk sheets.
She lay on her side, one slender arm tucked beneath her head, the other draped over the saddle of her narrow waist. The silk sheets faithfully followed the turn and heel of her sculpture, stilling the breath in his lungs. Her hips peaked steeply above her thighs and swept down smoothly to her waist far below, a perfect landscape of fertile mountains and valleys. Her naked breasts surged together, channeled by her arms and spilling out of the top of the sheets like wild rapids tumbling through a rockfall. Long trails of curled hair covered her shoulders, the sheets and the pillows, extending from her body like a tall oak tree's roots.
She lay back for him as he approached, ready.
"It has been so long My Lord," she whispered, her delicate fingers reaching up and trailing fiery courses over the taught muscles of his chest.
Like the king he was pretending to be, he raised himself up over her. The paramount drive of Nature thundered in his blood, deafening his awareness of anything but her. Obedient to the supremeness of his need the glorious creature beneath him opened herself, drawing away the thin intervening sheet and revealing her spread thighs, the dark fur between her legs ready to be tilled, and the flat plain of her youthful belly heaving gently in anticipation of his planting.
He wanted to speak but was afraid his voice would betray his disguise. Instead he kept his thoughts buried, kept his wonder and joy inside, and assured himself that their sharing would still be complete even if he didn't tell her his admiration.
He entered her with the slow movement of rare enjoyment. Closing his eyes he felt her hands stroke up along his forearms and biceps, delight in his strong shoulders and then run encouragingly along his back. Her thighs lifted and her ankles locked behind him, capturing him inside her and increasing the heat and demand between them.
Her moans resonated deep within her, tremors like thunder grumbling across a midsummer sky. He surged against her, driving steadily onto her shores as the great oceans meet endless smooth beaches, merging wet salt and undulating power under pale moonlight.
A sudden, quick gasp and his core collapsed and then exploded, shattering the cohesion of his senses. He felt her body shudder as she tumbled into her own climax.
"My Lord, yes, I love you," she gasped.
Him, he thought, she loves him. Even as he spent himself within her welcoming recesses the void he had created within himself began to fill with self recrimination. His muscles and hair now felt as alien as they truly were. His member wilted with exhaustion and embarrassment as he looked down at the beautiful maiden turning her innocent eyes up to him. He became afraid that her eyes could see into him, past the lies he had draped over himself and see the rickety old perverted man he truly was.
She did not belong to him. She belonged to her king and he had disingenuously stolen her because she would otherwise find him revolting.
"My Lord?" she asked as he rose abruptly, trying to quell his sudden and confusing anger. "Will you not stay?"
He stopped at the window but did not turn for he knew that if he looked at her she would be young and beautiful and innocent. He would be old, ugly, and not human.
He should have done one more thing before he left, a thing that he normally did do but for some reason it escaped his mind this time. He should have turned, looked directly into her eyes and whispered the five word chant that would have bent the delicate fabric of her memory, creating a small fold just before and just after his visit and making it impossible for her to recall him coming to her. Instead he stepped forward to the window and was gone.
The bedchamber door opened and sharp yellow torchlight stabbed into the room, causing the queen to throw her hand over her eyes.
"Who's there?" She demanded, squinting hard into the bright light.
"My Queen, who but me can enter this bedchamber?" The familiar deep bass of her king's voice resonated on the bare stone walls and her heart caught in her chest.
"My Lord - you were just... here... with me?"
The alarm sounded through the castle. Voices shouted, armoured boots clattered down every corridor and into the corridor and across the ramparts. The queen, Ruler of the Temple of Daughters to the Great Mother, had been defiled in the night and retribution was to be won. Drums beat, hard words rang out into the night, and the soldiers of the king marched.
* * * * *
Lying in his cave, Sulumayan did not move that night or the next day. Rain came, pelting his naked flesh, sending powerful shivers through his entire body as the chilly water pooled around him. She would not leave his mind as he relived the few sweaty minutes in the queen's bedchamber. He saw her trusting eyes filled with the beautiful, natural love that he had tainted with his vile ravaging of her body.
He was nothing more than a thief, using cheap disguises to steal the most precious thing a woman could have: her love for her man. But unlike a simple guilt-ridden thief he could not just return the thing he had taken. He had soured her forever.
"Sulumayan."
