"What are you …?"
"Hold still," he said.
And then in one sweeping motion, tore the shirt in half.
Mericlou had been about to become utterly mortified. She had been prepared to scream. She had been about to do those things and worse, had it not been for what she saw afterwards.
She stood fully clothed … even more fully, as a matter of fact.
It was a wedding dress of the most elegant and expensive make, reminiscent of those worn by noblewomen in magazines and on the video ether. She wore a gown fit for a queen, made of diaphanous materials as delicate as gossamer, richer than chiffon, ornate as lace, and as light as spider's webbing.
Through the mirror that Aldrec had formed from the wall beside the door, Mericlou saw that the dress flowed around her body in soft hues of carnation pink, lavender, and sky blue. It was cut low at the chest and shoulders and was bound firm at the waist by a sky blue ribbon and train that ran in elegant folds to the floor. Her hands were cloaked in soft gloves of pink lace, and her feet wore velvet shoes that hinted at purple. Her ringlets of green hair had been restyled using clipped rose stems, with their deep red blossoms resting prominently atop her head. Even her black leather choker necklace was now pure gold, and with the jewel he had given her set into its center, where the amethyst once was.
"You like?" Aldrec said, proudly admiring his handiwork. "By the maker …!" Was all that Mericlou could say, once she could find a voice to speak. And even this was uneven and wobbled.
"I take it you're impressed," he replied, and then turned the doorknob. "Ladies first."
Slowly, Mericlou walked through the rune-covered doorway, and stopped.
The chapel resembled the temple in Gheed, but on a much smaller scale, and with a simpler style in its flowing, spiraling columns and rafters. There were only a couple of pews, and there was a white marble altar shaped in a semicircle at its front. Gold candelabras were set at the room's four corners, but the main illumination came from the runic sigil that was painted into the stained glass of the skylight above. The moonlight outside filled the room with soft patterns of red, gold, and blue through the only other window, behind the altar.
"Come, Tulyr," Aldrec said.
His voice sounded farther away, although it should not have. After all, he had been right behind her when she came in.