She had been brought at his command, to this place, to this great, dark wood-paneled room with the stone fireplace, a room barren of furnishings except for his sheepskin-covered chair and footstool and the small table beside it that were arranged comfortably before the roaring fire. The flickering radiance of the fire did not reach either ceiling or walls, so vast was the room.

He sat in the chair now, in the small island of light in the midst of the dark, his long, black leather-booted legs on the stool, sipping his wine from the golden goblet. He, long face with chiseled features, neither cruel nor handsome, gray eyes so light they almost seemed white, long dark hair and trim beard, clothed in a soft black leather jacket and pants, a snow-white silk shirt, a heavy studded black leather belt around his waist. He, disquieting in his stillness, his command, his patience. He, who had uttered but two words since she had been brought here.

"Disrobe her," he had said. It had been done quickly and efficiently and the servants had withdrawn.

But he had made no move towards her, made no demands, paid no attention to her at all. Wild with humiliation and outrage, she had tried to cover her nakedness and find an exit, a hiding place, anything, in the vast shadowed room. She had scurried around the room, hands and arms trying to shield herself from his eyes, eyes that were not upon her. Her frenzied search had turned up nothing. And when she had realized that there was no exit she could find, no hiding place, nothing with which to cover herself, no weapon -- nothing at all, she had sat huddled in a corner and screamed "What do you want?"

He said nothing. Again she demanded to know. Still he said nothing.

She, from the cold and distant corner of the room, screamed and raged at him over and over, pleaded, demanded, whimpered. Who was he? What did he want? Where was she? Why was she there? Would he let her go? What did he want? For hours. Until she had exhausted herself, could do no more than lie there miserably and weep.

Then he said, "I would like you to come warm yourself by the fire."

She disdained an answer, shattered by his indifference, his coldness, and yet stunned by the simplicity of his demand. She would not -- could not -- come close to him, allow him to savage her with his eyes. Or worse. And she knew with a certainty that far worse was in store.

And yet he did not speak again. Did not demand. Did not turn to search her out. There was about him that arrogance of complete control. She was naked and defenseless, trapped. His captive.

She shivered with fear and cold. Surely he would grow bored with the game. Sooner or later he would see that she would not submit and would just let her go. Surely he would.

Hours passed.

The fire blazed, he sipped his wine. The chill gnawed at her bones.

Neither the fire nor the wine needed to be replenished. She watched. The flames licked and crackled, sparks leapt high and faded, tendrils of smoke curled around the ends of the logs yet they did not burn, were not consumed.

Hours passed.

She found she could no longer weep nor rage. He spoke not. The fire burned. Her terror rose and fell like the tides. Then despair. Then desperation. Then surrender. A surrender that was inevitable.

She knew that she could have closed her eyes and known his location anywhere in the room. He pulled at her somehow, like the pole affects a lodestone. If he had moved, her soul would have swung to follow him.

That frightened her more than anything she had ever known.

Slowly, hesitantly, she crept from her corner, crossed the vast floor and lurked at the edge of the fire's light and warmth.

He neither spoke nor acknowledged her.

Slowly again, she, huddled on her knees to cover her nakedness, her long blond hair brushing the polished stones of the floor, crept closer to the fire, stopping out of his sight and reach beside his chair. The fire warmed and chilled her at the same time, as fires will. That parts close to the fire became warm, even hot, reminding those parts of her away from the fire how cold they were.

She turned, silently, to warm her backside. The fire seemed to ignite an unwelcome heat within her exposed and vulnerable parts that caught and spread as if on dry tinder. She turned quickly to again face the fire. But it was too late. Such fires, once kindled, are not easily quenched.

She understood that he would answer now that she had complied with his request. "Where am I?" she asked hesitantly. "And why am I here?"

He stood, glanced at her and smiled. His face, lit by the fire, seemed both appealing and dangerous. Then he turned away from her and began pacing the long room, his boots making soft whispers on the hard floor.

"We are 'between' ," he said. "Between heartbeats, between breaths. Between light and dark. Between life and death. Between the stars and the earth, the water and the air. We are in a place that is no place and yet is all places, a time that has no time and yet has all the time in the world, a place that has no depth yet has no end. We are in shadows."

He stopped pacing, somewhere in the dark reaches of the room. "Some call this place 'Forever.' And you are here because I wish it."

She shivered at his words but it was more at the power she knew was behind them. If he wished something, it would be. As well she knew. One moment she was enjoying the bright sunlight in the Gardens and the next instant she was in this cold, gloomy room. Because he had wished it.

A thousand fears and questions tumbled through her mind but the only one she could frame in words was, "Why?"

He returned to the fire and drew from a pouch on his belt a fine thread, thinner than a hair yet sparkling with such intensity it seemed as wide as her finger. He dropped it into her hands. It tingled and moved like a thing alive yet there was a fascination in it, a hypnotic quality that transfixed her. It was more beautiful than any necklace or jewel she had ever seen.

"To offer you this," he said simply. "It is a Starlight Cord, woven of magick on the dark of the moon from the light of a thousand stars. It binds the wearer forever to the giver."

She recoiled at his words and angrily threw the cord into the fire. Surging to her feet, heedless of her nakedness, she demanded hotly, "You brought me here to enslave me? Then why this drama, this pretense?"

He seemed unperturbed by her actions. The chord floated softly back to his hand. He shook his head. "No, is not my purpose to enslave you. You must willingly accept the Cord. I cannot force it upon you. You must place it around your neck yourself."

"I'd rather place a hangman's noose around my neck," she spat. She glared at him despite, or perhaps because of, her growing attraction to him. He was not threatening, not hard, not any of the things he could have been. He seemed weary and at the same time wishful. Yet he also knew he was in complete control and that infuriated her.

He merely nodded and walked slowly to the far end of the room. "It is true that the Cord would compel you to my Will and that is something you might find...objectionable...at first though you would find I am not a harsh Master. But that is not its true purpose. Its true purpose is to allow us to find each other no matter where in the world we are."

"It would be useful then," she snapped, "to help me avoid you."

He laughed a little. "But you have not asked what would happen if you refused the Cord."

She watched him warily as he walked slowly away. "And what would happen?"

"You would be returned to where you were at the instant you were brought here."

"Then send me back now."

He sighed, "As you wish." He raised his hand as if in dismissal.

"Wait!" She whirled and faced the fire, feeling a little less exposed and not wanting him to see the raging conflict within her. He was infuriating. To have brought her here, had her stripped and then to have ignored her for so long, to have forced her through the emotional turmoil he had, then to simply let her go?

Her heart was beating so hard it blurred her vision. And the fires that had started to burn within her earlier were threatening to consume her. She roughly fought for control of herself.

"And if I accept it?"

"Then we shall live a hundred lives together, always finding each other no matter what the circumstances."

Even though what he said was impossible, she did not bother to ask. Instead, she asked the more pressing question. "Why? Why me?"

He paused at the far end of the room, lost in shadows. "Because I have searched a thousand lifetimes for one such as you." His voice floated on the darkness like the whisper of wings but she could not tell if they were angles' wings or bats'.

And again she asked, "Why?" This time the word was scarce more than a whisper of butterfly wings in the vast room but it carried to every corner of the space and seemed to echo soundlessly.

It was his turn to speak in hushed tones, as if the words had lain so long within him they had become a sacred relic, brittle and dry with age, to be handled with the greatest care. "There are within this room," he said, " a hundred doors, entries to a hundred different lives." There was a slight glow around him as he waved his arm. The room was suddenly infused with a thousand different colors as doors appeared around the walls of the vast room. Each door gave view onto a different vista, some lovely, some harsh, some fantastic. "And I have long awaited the woman worthy to join with me in exploring them...have waited for the woman to whom I would bind myself for a hundred lifetimes."

She walked slowly past the nearest doors, marveling at the worlds unrolled before her. Here was a grand castle, there a rude hut, there a mountain on which dragons nested, there one in which men flew like birds. The sight made her dizzy.

She was unaware that he was at her side until he caught her as she stumbled. He guided her to the chair and eased her into it. He offered her the wine. Unthinking, she drank of it and gasped as it passed her lips.

It tasted of snow and springtime, of the summer sun and the harvest time. It tasted of everything in the world and everything in the heavens. It tasted of time.

She gazed into his eyes and saw his sincerity.

"But why this way?"

He smiled. "Because I had to be sure. Had you refused...well...I can wait another thousand lifetimes. If you had simply surrendered, I would have sent you back."

It was her turn to smile.

"But you did neither. You remained strong and proud. You yielded only when there was no other choice and only as much as was necessary. You had to be won. You were a challenge."

She eyed him over the rim of the goblet. "So I am just the prize in a game?"

"No," he said, his eyes blazing with delight as he knelt before her, "you are the game itself, one that I shall never tire of playing in a hundred lifetimes. You are an endless puzzle to be solved, a path that leads forever over the horizon, and you are an oasis for the weary soul, the pitfall for the unwary."

She stood abruptly. "I would go back now."

He stood slowly, his eyes suddenly as empty as the goblet. He nodded sadly. "If that is your true wish," he said, "it shall be so. May your life be full of joy and years." He raised his hand to dismiss her but her fingers twined in his.

"I had to be sure as well," she said, pulling his hand down and pressing it to her heart. "All this is madness and yet I know it to be truth. If we are to be bound to each other for a hundred lifetimes, then you must at least tell me your name."

A smile hesitantly crept across his face. "Here, I am known as Gansig Alvar. But out there," his hand swept across the panoramas ringing the room, "I shall have a hundred different faces, a hundred different names. As shall you."

He took the Starlight Cord again from the pouch and again offered it to her. This time she took it gladly, placing it around her neck where it glittered briefly like a shooting star then disappeared.

"And now that I am yours," she said, her face tilted up defiantly yet with a sly smirk flickering at the corners of her mouth, "what would you have of me?"

"Everything," he whispered as he enfolded her in his arms. "Everything."