JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING II Page 13

  "Linden has told me much about you – I thought perhaps to include you in our nibble games."

  Linden grinned. "Sounds fine to me. What do you say, Quellyn?"

  Her stomach tightened, she knew that Mephistis was covering all possibilities, but she wanted to weep when she realized he meant to take Quellyn too. Mephistis was the only sa'necari prince she had ever knowingly encountered. She had always been told that if she met one she should give him whatever he wanted, withholding nothing; now she knew why. There had been another sa'necari prince, but she had not known who and what he was until far later. They had fallen in love. He placed the wards in her mind to protect their child, to conceal the knowledge of her. He was the one who warned her about other princes like himself. He was long dead, but the wards remained. Linden's only comfort in that moment was that if Mephistis destroyed both her and Quellyn, their sa'necari child would surely destroy him. Hoon knew about her daughter, including the name of her sire: Linden thanked the fates that Hoon took his role as godparent seriously enough that he would never reveal the child's existence to Mephistis or anyone else.

  Quellyn shrugged and disrobed. "Could be fun."

  Mephistis slipped out of his clothing.

  Quellyn grinned, eyeing his tight, slender body. "Yes, indeed."

  Mephistis cupped her breasts, working them with his thumbs.

  "Come on, Linden. Get naked," Quellyn yelled, and then moaned as Mephistis found all the right spots.

  "I just want to watch," Linden said, unable to entirely suppress an odd catch in her throat.

  Mephistis smiled at Quellyn, his fangs extended.

  "I've never been bitten before – except by Linden." Quellyn glanced at Linden, one eyebrow quirked. Something was wrong, but she could not say what. But it could not be bad or Linden would have said something.

  "Then you'll like this." Mephistis' head reared back like a viper, then struck, taking her in the throat and mind simultaneously. She collapsed against him. Linden screamed. He drank, and then laid Quellyn down gently. Linden scrabbled over to them, grabbing at Quellyn. Mephistis pushed her away.

  "I didn't kill her." He said. "However. Should I ever feel your binding break – or hers – mortgiefan. I have laid a link in her mind and body. I can kill her through it like that!" He snapped his fingers. To complete the lesson, he began to beat and cut Quellyn. Then he took them each in turn.

  * * * *

  Margren crouched on the stairs, hidden by the balusters, her eyes glowing crimson with her rage. The rags of the dress Mephistis had insisted she wear hung about her lean body. She had shredded it with her claws the minute he left the room. The more her intellect returned, the more she began to shrug off the initial bindings he had placed upon her. What held a revenant could not hold a necari. She listened to Mephistis grunting as he rutted with his two new lemans. She hated them. Mephistis had banished her from his bed after she tried to rip Linden's throat out. Oh, he still said he loved her, but Margren questioned that now that she was no longer a living woman and could not give him a child.

  Perhaps she hated him too. A noise from the other end of the hallway made her tilt her head like a listening dog and she scuttled down the stairs, hunched over, her fingers brushing the floor as she moved. Mephistis had never been loyal to her. First there had been Isranon, that gutless half-a-mon, and now there were these two. Margren reached the common sitting room at the room and hid herself behind a chair, waiting in the darkness. There were very few people in guesthouse at night, other than the meals in the dungeon. She was hungry again. Rage made her hungry. Mephistis would punish her if she went down to the dungeon and took another one. She did not want blood from the bottles; she wanted it pulsing in the veins with the taste of their terror. Yes, that was the best way to feed.

  Margren imagined sinking her fangs into Mephistis' throat and tearing it out, tasting the warm, rich blood as it fountained into her mouth. That would teach him. Then she sensed a sweep of necromantic awareness brush across her with a hint of magery – Hoon's signature. The ancient vampire had been a mage of great power, not a sa'necari, before his turning. His aura tasted different from those she had known at Mephistis' citadel beneath Dragonshead. She huddled down more and stilled her thoughts. Hoon's footsteps started back to his rooms. Margren moved swiftly before he could notice her psychic scent again, darting to the door and out.

  Linden and Quellyn had children. She knew that from bits of overheard conversations in the guesthouse. Margren crept into the bushes of the garden, crawling along the edge of the hedgerows. Children. Delicious. Children. Footsteps again made her pause and fade back into the shadows by flattening beneath the hedges. The guard stopped, listening for a moment and then went on.

  Margren found the windows along the stone building and climbed the ledges, scrabbling for hand and toeholds between the blocks of masonry. She stopped from time to time, listening, as she made her way like a lizard up the side. Sniffing, she caught the smell of children's bodies, so similar and yet different from Linden and Quelyn's. Pausing at their window, Margren listened again and then opened it silently. Two small girls lay asleep together in a large bed. Margren stared down at them, her fangs descending to fullness. Necari fangs were not the delicate things that sa'necari had, but savage ones like a beast, rivaling the greater vampiric lineages – not needles, but daggers – which was why so many of the undead left scars of their feedings, while the sa'necari rarely did unless they chose to.

  She slipped her mind, an easy thrust, into the first sleeping child and drew the girl to her breast. Margren fondled her head a moment, savoring the scent of her, and then bent to nuzzle her throat.

  "No, Margren. You may not have the child," said a severe voice and a powerful hand clamped onto her neck. "I am their guardian."

  Margren snarled wordlessly, straining to pull forward and sink her fangs in despite the grip upon her.

  "I said no!"

  Power slammed through Margren's head like a hammer to her temples and she cringed, blinking in pain. Strong hands took the child and returned her to the bed. Then Lord Hoon turned Margren about and looked down at her.

  "When I tell you to obey, you will obey. Is that understood?"

  "Yes," Margren hissed.

  Hoon released her. "Come with me before someone sees you."

  He took her to the window and, instead of climbing down as she had come up, he floated them to the garden below. "You knew not to come here, Margren."

  "He's playing rod in the hole with them," Margren snarled.

  "So this is as much about vengeance as about appetite? How interesting." Hoon's long fingered hand stroked Margren's hair as he walked her back to the guesthouse. "Are you hungry, lovely Margren?"

  "Yes," Margren said in a wheedling voice and rubbed against him.

  Hoon's laugh was like silk with a blade concealed beneath it. "Then I will see that you are fed. Mephistis has been neglecting you, but I shall not."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DEADLY CONNECTIONS

  Solstice, the day that Shaurone would have fallen had Margren's plot not been stopped, arrived two weeks after Aejys came home. Aejys spent more and more time sitting up. Her splinted hands were an aggravation: she could not hold a book or even turn the pages; she needed help to fill and light her pipe; she could not feed herself. Becca got creative, trying to keep the paladin from becoming too bored and restive, and sent up first the household's children who were just learning to read, thanks to the good offices of Tagalong Smith and Cassana Odaren who had provided the funds to hire a teacher before leaving with Aejys last summer; later Becca collared all the members of the household who could play or sing, sending them up to Aejys; finally she traded a snowbound minstrel lodging and meals to entertain her lord.

  That afternoon, Aejys called a council. There had been no further altercations between her people and those of Thomas Cedarbird, but she felt certain that as soon as the winter storms no longer held the ships to harbor and trade routes tha
wed out trouble would come. There had also been no word from the other syndics and guild-masters concerning her offer, some called it a demand, clearly they were also waiting for spring. Aejys decided then to call their bluffs early, if bluffs they were, and withdraw her protection from Vorgensburg. If the freebooters out of Brunstrat came raiding in the spring she would not stop them, she would simply move her people to safer ground.

  Taun and Skree sat to her left, Josh and Becca to her right around the table in the parlor. It was a far different gathering from the last time she had called a council and she could not suppress a wave of loneliness thinking of the absent faces, wondering how they fared: Tagalong, Clemmerick, Tamlestari and Grymlyken were still in Shaurone; Cassana was buried on the grounds of the Willodarian Monastery of St. Tarmus.

  "I have always toyed with the idea of founding my own city, my own state. There is more than enough room in these wildernesses. So I have decided to do it."

  "You should stay on the bay," Skree said. "You will need harbor for your ships."

  "Perhaps the south talon," Aejys suggested.

  "There is a place along the eastern tip of the south talon's rainshadow," Taun put in, his eyes bright and shining. "It would be perfect."

  Aejys smiled at the enthusiasm of the young healer. The swelling had gone from her face, the bruises faded to gray-green splotches, the large cuts – one on her right cheek and the other a long gash along the left side of her face from just below her eye to her jawline – were turning into pink scars beneath the scabbing. Like most Sharani, she had always been a handsome, rather than a pretty woman, but that was gone now. Taun had done what he could for it. Aejys did not think about those things: Sharani put less stock in personal beauty out of necessity, since their women were warriors.

  "I don't know," Becca began uncertainly. "The Cock and Boar..."

  "I'm not taking away your tavern, Becca. I will be keeping about half of my holdings here, including the Cock and Boar. As long as you can handle Cedarbird. But if things get ugly here, then you will just have to let me build you a new tavern in Rowanhart."

  Becca grinned then, brushing her knuckles across her chin. "Wuss bait. Just leave me Clemmerick when he comes home."

  "Becca, you can have him. He'll be hard to replace, but you can keep him. You'll be in charge of all my holdings here, but I'll need someone to handle the details for me in Rowanhart. There are three things that Cedarbird can try: one, to steal my fledgling trade contacts; two to pressure the other syndics to stop doing business with me; third to physically damage my holdings or members of my household. If it comes to the last, then you will have to move, Becca. That's it. Period. End of story."

  Becca snorted, then grinned at Aejys for using Tagalong's pet phrases. "You give me full freedom to act and I'll make mince of Cedarbird."

  "The Neridian Isles have not traded with Landsmyn in twenty years. I could see if any would be willing to set up a trading post with your new city," Skree volunteered, earning him an odd, questioning glance from Taun. "The way that Branch works with you in that Kwaklahmyn post of his."

  "We would all benefit from that," Taun said. "There are many things from the deep seas that landsmyn have no access to. Just as there are many things, especially herbs, that our people cannot grow on the islands."

  "Just so, little seal. And, Aejys, I can get a boat across the bay in even the worst weather. We could have your city marked out and started long before the spring thaw. By the time any of Cedarbird's people notice what is happening your city would already be a fact."

  "We have a lot of people living in winter quarters who would appreciate having something to do" Becca chimed in.

  "Good. Becca, get me some architects and I think that about does it. Have Omer and Raim get a crew together. We can get the settlement star–" Aejys broke off abruptly, doubling over in sharp pain as if someone had just shoved a blade into her stomach. Dark magics seared through her and she felt the sa'necari slide into her, his body moving on hers as he took mortgiefan. She stiffened, falling back in her chair, which over turned. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she writhed on the ground in the harsh grip of a seizure.

  Everyone came to their feet in a rush. "What's wrong with her?" Becca cried.

  Taun reached her first, gripping her wrist and Reading her quickly. "I don't know." He sounded frightened.

  Skree sniffed the air, snarling. "Sa'necari!" His lips drew back, revealing the long, shark-like teeth as rage suffused his face, narrowing his eyes. He thrust his arms skyward with a shouted word of command. The roaring of the sea surrounded them. The sharp tang of ocean air filled the room. He sketched the Rune of Nerindalori in blue-green energy that hung in the air before him, forcing the dark power to reveal itself: Black tendrils of sa'necari magic could now be seen oozing through every opening in the room, between the cracks in the shutters, the small places between the boards along the outside walls. A single tendril split into four appendages each one sunk deep into Aejys' body: Into her left breast inches from her heart; right shoulder; stomach and groin.

  "Taun!" Skree drew his athame from his belt, tossing the blade to the nerien healer. Taun caught it. The undulate blade was tinted sea green with the Rune of Nerindalori etched just beneath the crosspiece. The hilt and crosspiece were set with ritually charged stones: Taun slashed the tendril embedded in Aejys. It released her, recoiling from the sacred blade's touch. Aejys went abruptly still, wet red stains erupting, spreading across her pale tunic.

  "No, no, no!" Taun snatched his medicine satchel from beneath the table. He pulled out bandages and opened her tunic. The shoulder and breast wounds had re-opened completely, but the bleeding stomach wounds were shallow, looking worse than they actually were: Taun suspected that lifemage work was not so easily undone as his own.

  Becca screamed, diving under the table. A sea-green glow began as a halo above Skree's head, spread over his body and then outward, shoving at the dark magics. The room seemed to tilt and spin. Becca balled up, covering her head with her arms, terrified of what she could not fight.

  Josh knocked over his chair, tumbling to the floor. He turned over, scrambling toward the liquor cabinet on hands and knees. A tendril curled around his ankle, jerking him down hard, his face striking the floor.

  Skree's face tightened and twisted with effort, moisture trickled down his face, oozing out between his scales. He cried out in the high-pitched whistling tongue of the sea-folk as his power touched the tendrils.

  Taun pulled out the flask of whiskey, which he had taken from Josh days earlier, "Josh! Heads up!"

  Josh sat and turned as Taun tossed the metal flask. The sailor caught it easily, ripped it open, and gulped the burning liquor. Power rose in him, unleashed. For the first time memories of another life flooded into him and he became fully Josiah Abelard. Josiah crisped the tendril gripping him with a finger of blue fire. If he struck and shielded independently in a room this small, his magic might disrupt the sea-mage in a possibly dangerous manner, better to simply feed power to him. He twisted and lunged toward Skree as a tendril pierced the sea-mage's glowing shields. The tendril struck Skree hard between the shoulder blades, staggering him. The glow wavered. Instantly all the tendrils lunged for Aejys.

  Josiah came to his feet beside Skree, catching and steadying him before he could fall. The sot slid his hand into Skree's and fed his power to the sea-mage. Skree's eyes widened in a brief moment of shock and surprise, then he drew on it. The glow steadied, extended itself again, darkening to a deep blue-green. Each tendril touched by the glow turned to ash. The glow shoved outward swiftly, filling the room and sealing the cracks. The tilting stopped. The darkness fled. Josiah released Skree's hand.

  Skree dropped to his knees trembling with exhaustion and reaction. Aejys lay quiet beside him, eyes closed, breathing hard, her heart racing. Taun quickly checked Aejys again, finding her weak but stable, then he wrapped his arms around Skree linking with him in rapport.

  "What the hell was that?" Becca
demanded, emerging from under the table. Becca slid an arm around Aejys, lifting her. Taun released Skree and went to help her. Together they moved Aejys to the bed.

  Skree turned to Josiah. "You have filled my head with questions, landsmon. First, how is it that a sa'necari has a magic link to Aejys Rowan that allows him to attack her? Tell me how this is possible!"

  "Mortgiefan," Josiah replied, visibly shaken. "When we reached her we interrupted a sa'necari taking it from her."

  "And you did not kill him?" Skree demanded.

  "He was mortally wounded, but escaped..."

  "Healed by blood, no doubt. They are linked. The paladin and the sa'necari. Each time he takes mortgiefan from another she feels herself die with that one. Eventually he will kill her with these attacks and take the mortgiefan from her through the link." Skree understood now why he had smelled sa'necari and mortgiefan in her room that day when Taun and Josh quarreled over the bottle, why she had gone into a seizure that nearly killed her.

  Josiah's face twisted up in shock and horror as he fought to hold himself in check. He had detested the sa'necari so intensely last time around that he had refused to closely study their methods and patterns, which was ultimately how he had fallen victim to their arts. He was unique among mages, having the ability to master all forms of magic; and the only form he did not investigate was the one that murdered him. "Then I'll find a way to stop him."

  Skree gave a harsh bark of laughter. "Who is he, this sa'necari?"