Read Dumarest 33 - Child of Earth for Free Online Page B

girl of gold and alabaster glided with the smooth agility of a fish.
    Dumarest rose. He was naked beneath the gossamer silkiness of the fabric that had covered him and he wound it around his waist. The girl smiled as he approached lifting an arm in greeting
    “Earl Dumarest. Welcome to Shandaha. Would you care to join me?”
    “I would rather have some answers.”
    “Of course. You are curious. That is to be expected. But there is time. There is always time. Too much time if the truth be admitted.” She swam to the edge of the pool and rose from the water to stand, a symphony of feminine perfection, droplets like pearls adorning her skin. “If you are interested you may call me Nada.”
    “I am very interested.” Dumarest took a step towards her. “In you and this place and what has happened. Howlong have I been here? Am I alone? Was it your men who captured me? Those wearing white. What some poor, dying woman thought of as the Shining Ones?”
    “So many questions, Earl. I promise you all will be answered but not now. You have just woken, you have yet to become accustomed to Shandaha, there are things to explain and ideas to exchange. You will accommodate me?”
    “Have I a choice?”
    “No, Earl. You have no choice. Here, in this place, the will of Shandaha is paramount.”
    Not a haven then, but a jail. One luxurious beyond imagination but still a place where he was to be held and dominated and forced to live to the dictates of another’s whim. A prisoner of some unknown war. A captive as if he had been held by a raiding band. As a slave? For ransom?
    He closed the space between them and gripped her upper arms and, thrusting his face close to her own, snarled his anger.
    “I’ve had enough of this! Now take me to the one who owns this place! Move, damn you!”
    “Don’t be a fool, Earl!”
    “Just do it! Do it before I break your damned neck!” His hands lifted, changed their grip, fingers resting on soft tissue, firm bone. “Your choice, Nada. You have five seconds to make it. Shall I count?”
    “Four,” she said calmly retaining her smile. “Three. Two. One—goodbye, Earl.”
    And, suddenly, she was gone.
    He stared before him, at his hands still raised before him, the fingers curved to mirror the shape of a neck that was no longer there. Perhaps had never been there. Like the imagined dragon of his dream the girl could have been a trick of his mind, a vision conjured from scents and colorsand wistful longing. Nada—Nadine. Shandaha—Shemmar. Women he had known and loved and lost. Was he hoping to find them again? Here, on Earth, the planet of legend, all things were deemed possible. Or perhaps he was still lying in the snow where he had fallen. Freezing, lost in delirium, dying of hypothermia as Tazima had died.
    “No. Earl, you are not dying.”
    A man, tall, strong, graceful, with a deep musical voice. One with a thick mane of neatly dressed hair and an elaborately patterned beard. Hair, beard, eyes all of the same ebon hue as his skin and the clothing he wore. A creature of jet adorned with the glitter of gems. They flashed as he lifted a hand in warning as Dumarest strode towards him.
    “Come no further!” Then, smiling, he added, “I must apologize. It seems my initial greeting was not to your liking. The girl, perhaps? Some men resent their air of superiority induced by the biological reactions of their opposite gender. Most lack that fine delicacy of feeling so essential to the establishment of a congenial harmony. I had hoped she would soothe your fear. I misjudged your reaction. It was a mistake to have used her as I did. Can any but a man truly understand another man? Your comments, Earl?”
    “I think you talk too much and say too little.”
    “A man of action as I had determined. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Shandaha.”
    “My jailer.”
    “Never that, Earl. You are my most welcome and treasured guest.”
    “You own this place?”
    “This place, the surrounding area,