PART 12: The Man Who Had Everything and The Woman With No Art

The Man Who Had Everything - buffeted by the inner surges of some strange fluid magic surging in his veins - rose up and grasped the woman in his arms.
“What have you done? What have I become?”

She stood quite unresisting between his grasping hands.
“As you see me, so shall you be, for a time.”

“I don’t understand. Explain, speak plain”

“Why, I have infused your blood and flesh and brain with some small measure of a Fae’s treasured power.”

“Your power?” The Man Who Had Everything stared at her in astonishment, “You have yielded power? To me?”

“A small measure only, and only for a little while.”

“How little and for how long?”

“The power of glamour, the power of forcing fate; that in a small measure is yours. You may take the very world by storm…”

“So I could go now, go back and be whatever I wanted? Have anything I desired?”

The woman smiled:”Yes. You may go back, of course you may. Did you think I’d imprison you, Michael? How could I? Is not the Rule of Truth and Free-Will the one absolute for all Gods, Demi-Gods and Men?”

The Man Who Had Everything laughed in delight. “I can go back…Take the world by storm…Have everything I lacked before!”

The Woman With No Art smiled her odd feline smile.
“Oh yes…But do you think you can decide, or find that one missing speck you lacked and left you bereft of true desire?”

She slid one long taloned finger down his arm.
“Tell me Michael, what power or wanting can fire up the furnace of the avidity for life, once absolute satiation has drowned that flame?”



Manuela Cardiga