JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING II Page 3

  "Look at me!" A deep male voice demanded.

  Aejys' eyes opened. The sa'necari, a living necromancer with all the powers of the undead, stood naked before her. "When you die with me inside you, your soul will shatter and I will have the death-gift – a piece of your soul – mortgiefan. Even if they destroy your undead body, your shattered soul will walk the earth in torment for eternity." Then he shoved his manhood inside her dying body and Aejys screamed in anguish.

  * * * *

  Josh returned to the Southwest End near the wharves where the Cock and Boar lay as twilight gave way to full dark. The lamplighter, leading a small donkey, passed him with his lantern. The nearer Josh got to the tavern the faster his pleasant mood faded and he began to worry that he had taken too much time talking to people he knew in passing. The minute he entered the tavern, Josh realized something had gone terribly wrong. Zacham sat upon the bottom stair; his face twisted and tear streaked. Josh's stomach did a queasy roll and his muscles seemed to crawl beneath his skin.

  "Aejys?" Josh demanded, already knowing the answer.

  The boy nodded in mute misery.

  Josh took the stairs two at a time, pausing in the parlor to fling open the doors to Aejys' liquor cabinet. His glance fell instantly on a bottle of Dragonsbreath, a dwarven whiskey famous for its raw strength and intensity more than its flavor: Only dwarves drank it straight. He ripped the cork from the bottle as he spun on his heel and plunged into the bedroom, taking a long swallow. The strongest whiskey he had ever tasted, it seared his throat and stomach. His stomach heaved in rebellion, but Josh kept it down, taking another long pull from the bottle as he saw what was happening. Aejys' body jerked in rapid spasming; writhing and twisting; her chest heaved and her eyes rolled up in her head. Omer and Raim, the two big drivers fought to hold her still as the healer, Taun, tried to administer the blue powder.

  Josh shoved Taun aside. "Get out of the way!"

  Taun glared, grabbing at him. "Her heart's weakening. We're losing her."

  Josh ignored him, roaring at Omer and Raim. "Get the hell out of my way!"

  He took another long swig, sat the bottle on the nightstand. A stunning clarity gripped him as he remembered the one spell from his past life that could make a difference. The two drivers obeyed without thinking: all long time members of Aejys' household knew not to mess with Josh when he was drinking because they had all seen the strange things that tended to manifest when he did. Josh quickly straddled Aejys, his buttocks settling across her hips as he pushed her back down. Her frantic writhing intensified and for a moment it looked as if she would throw him off. His palms pressed her shoulders to the bed with the surprising strength that only came when he drank. Josh bent forward; his lips brushed Aejys' bruised lips gently.

  "I love you," he said so quietly no one but himself and Aejys could hear him. He would never have said it if he believed she would comprehend his words, but she appeared to be in no state to understand.

  "Get off her!" Taun shrieked, catching Josh by the shoulder. Josh ignored him, totally focusing on Aejys. Blue white light sprang up around the sot, spreading quickly to envelop Aejys as well. Taun released Josh with a startled yelp, stumbling backwards to land on his bottom. "What in Haven's Name?"

  Aejys stilled as the blue-white cocoon of power embraced her with his touch. As they watched Josh's body turned transparent, fading into a ghost-like pattern of undulating energy. Josh's body sank into hers, visible only as a visual distortion surrounding and surrounding her. The convulsions ended. Her breathing and heartbeat returned to normal. Josh's ghostly form rose out of the paladin's body, coalescing above her. Josh pushed himself away, falling and rolling onto the far side of the bed, weak and exhausted.

  Taun, visibly shaken by what he had seen and filled with uncertainty about what it meant, gripped Aejys' wrist, Reading her. Her blood levels were higher than before the convulsions began – in fact they were at safe levels for the first time since the healer had seen her. Then he knew what had occurred: Josh was clearly not a lifemage and there was only a single spell that could mimic some of their powers; only a single mage in all of history had been able to work it: Josiah Abelard, the mage that created it, the only mage so incredibly powerful he had been called the mage-master. "That spell..." Taun's voice shook. "That was Shared Life... You passed your blood and life force into her body."

  "Yaw," Josh said, got up and staggered over to the nightstand to snag his bottle of whiskey. He took another long pull from it. The Dragonsbreath was strong, but after those first few swallows, Josh had no trouble keeping the raw stuff down. He liked the fire it set burning in his veins, if Aejys had more of the stuff he wanted to find it. He returned to the overstuffed chair by the window seat.

  "Only one man ever worked that spell successfully," the little nerien remarked, half-question, half observation. "It's creator."

  "Josiah Abelard," Josh said, snuggling up to his bottle of whiskey and pulling his blanket back around himself. "Three ... he had three..." his words started to slur and he worked hard to speak carefully so he could be understood.

  "Signature spells?"

  Josh nodded sloppily. "Revelation, Shared Life, an –an Shaukra Death. I ken do'em all."

  "Where did you learn? What mage school?" Taun moved to the window seat, leaning close to Josh, trying to see how he could have missed the presence of such power in the sot.

  "None. I'm..." Josh took another long pull from the bottle. "I'm jess uh drunken sot uf a sailor."

  "But the mage-master's spell... How? How could you work that spell? His spell book was lost and without it no one could duplicate those spells."

  "Anythin' Josiah did I ken do. If'n I toll you why you'd jess call me mad." A tear slipped down Josh's drunken face as much for himself as for Aejys: he was the magically and emotionally crippled reincarnation of Josiah Abelard, with all of his knowledge and none of his memories; with all of his power, but twisted and damaged in its channels. His sobriety had only lasted two days before disaster forced him back to the bottle. Despair clamped down around his heart and soul like a demonic vise. Yet underneath that was a tiny core of relief, life felt better somehow with a haze of alcohol between him and it. He could stop thinking now, stop feeling, stop fighting.

  "I think you have had more than enough of that," Taun said, trying to gently, but firmly, pry the bottle from his hands. He had had no experience with hard-core drunks before or addicts of any other variety, so he really did not know what he was getting into. He thought Josh was simply drinking to deal with his problems in a momentary lapse, that the landsmon would sober up and be back to normal soon – but Taun had not yet realized that sobriety was the anomaly for Josh, not inebriation.

  Josh wrapped his arms around the bottle, hunkering down to shield it from the healer's hands. No one had tried to take his bottles away in years, not since Aejys extended him her protection and became his guardian, but he still remembered how often he had lost one before that. "Lemme be!" he growled, glaring suspiciously at the healer. "Ish not yers. Ish mine."

  "Josh, you keep drinking like this, you'll damage your body."

  "Awreddy have, go way."

  Taun looked stunned. "Did another reader tell you that? How many years have you been drinking like this?"

  "Go way. None uf yer bishnish."

  Taun tried to get hold of Josh's wrist to Read the sot, but Josh balled up even tighter, thinking that Taun was still trying to take his bottle away. Taun shoved his free hand down the back of Josh's shirt, his fingers brushing close to the organs most frequently affected by prolonged alcoholism. "Holy Mothers of Life! You're dying, mon!"

  Outrage surged up in the young healer, he had witnessed a miracle, but the source of it was killing himself with drink; the total unfairness and utter, to Taun's mind, stupidity of it inflamed him. Taun thought of all the people that he could have saved had he known or been able to cast the spell of Shared Life. He pulled his hand free, shoving Josh backwards. The chair overturned, s
pilling the two myn on the floor. Anger lent the small half-nerien strength and with a twist he managed to rip the bottle from Josh's hands, throwing it across the room. The bottle struck the wall and shattered, splattering Aejys' bed with whiskey, filling the room with its sharp odor.

  Josh burst into tears. "Ya broke it! Ya broke it!"

  "What is going on?" Aejys struggled to sit, as Josh broke free from Taun, fleeing the room.

  Molly had sent for Becca, after telling her about Aejys. Becca, returning from the north cellar where she had been taking inventory, encountered Josh on the second floor landing. She reached out to stop Josh, but he shoved past her, racing down the stairs in full, heedless flight.

  "Josh?" Becca called after him, then entered the suite. And asked Taun, "Aejys ... is she–"

  "I'm all right," Aejys answered her question.

  The sound of her voice snapped Becca's attention around. Her eyes widened in wonder and she crossed the room to reach one hand hesitatingly toward Aejys, half afraid that what she saw and heard could scarcely be true – Molly had fetched her, saying that they were losing Aejys, yet here she was sitting up.

  "What in the Nine Seas is happening?" A vibrant, basso baritone demanded archly. All eyes turned to see the tall triton mage, Skree standing in the door to the bedroom. Tiny sea-green overlapping scales covered his face and body – except for his lips, the tips of his fingers and palms of his hands – reminiscent of a reptile, which he was not; his long hair green to the edge of black hung loose about his shoulders, draping the delicate lace-work of gills that ran from the back of his jaw down his long neck; suspicion was written large on his face, his half-past six foot body tensed as if ready to rescue Taun from some danger he had sensed. Neriens, like Taun, were a much smaller amphibious race than the tritons, and Skree was fiercely protective of his mate.

  "Did he hurt you?" Skree demanded, drawing the much smaller Taun into his arms.

  "Who?"

  "The sot. Did he? When I passed him in the common room, I saw you, fighting." Skree touched two fingers to his forehead, indicating to Taun that he had had a telepathic incident with Josh in passing. Such incidents were infrequent for Skree was not a full-blown mind-speaker except among his own kind and the creatures of the sea; to catch something from a landsmon's thought was highly unusual for him.

  Taun shook his head. "It was my fault. I tried to take his bottle away."

  "I don't like people interfering with each other's private matters," Aejys said as Becca put a pillow to her back, helping her sit better.

  Taun's face twisted up at the rebuke. "You don't understand. He worked a miracle. You're alive because he worked a miracle..." Taun's eyes glistened with angry, frustrated tears. "But if he doesn't stop drinking, he won't last three years. Maybe not even one. This is not right. It is not fair. I will not allow him to keep drinking without trying to stop him. If that gets me thrown out of your household, so be it. But I will not stop trying."

  Skree glared hard at Aejys, as if daring her to do so and prove him right about the treacherousness of landsmyn.

  Aejys nodded at a packet lying on the floor where it had fallen from Josh's pocket. "I think that's my pipe. Would someone help me with a smoke?" She held up her splinted hands. "I have not had one in several days. Then maybe we can talk this over more calmly." She gave Taun a lopsided grin, which was the best she could manage.

  Taun returned the smile with just a touch of uncertainty. He emerged from Skree's protective arms, scooped up the package, and carried it over to Aejys.

  * * * *

  Josh paused just long enough in his flight to snag another bottle of whiskey from the bar before running out into the frigid weather in his shirtsleeves, muttering unhappily about the broken bottle of Dragonsbreath and wondering if Aejys might have another somewhere among her private stock. He ran recklessly across the hard-packed ground, plunging into the barn. The sot lost his balance as he reached the rows of stalls, his body twisting sharply around with a little spin that crossed his ankles and pitched him face forward into the stout stall door. Josh lay stunned, hugging the bottle. When he could pull himself together, he rose on hands and knees, crawling down the line to a big box stall at the end. It was one of the few still empty, most contained horses and mules belonging to Aejys' people currently in winter quarters. He threw himself down in the hay, wondering for a single drink-blurred instant where Aejys' big wynderjyn – a unicorn-horse hybrid – Gwyndar was, and then he remembered with a sob that Gwyndar was dead. He had been slain by the vargeis Margren sent to kill Aejys. Josh let out a long howl of grief: His drunken magic had let him talk to Gwyndar as Aejys could; he found comfort in the big animal's presence. Josh huddled deeper into the straw. He would just get drunker and drunker, pretending that Gwyndar was standing there, that they were talking. Eventually the alcohol would overcome him and all the sadness and pain would go away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SKIRMISHES

  Tagalong Smith strode down the main corridor in the east wing of Castle Iarwind in the Sharani Mar'ajanate of Yarrendar, the heels of her heavy boots thunking against the polished floorboards overlaying the cold stone. The stout dwarf was not usually awake in the early morning hours, but sleep had eluded her for all but the briefest handful of hours each night since losing Aejys. Grief etched deep lines in her broad, blunt-featured face. The tangled masses of her thick shoulder-length, crimson hair, uncombed for days, flared around her face like a matted aureole. She wore the same blood-spattered tunic she had worn into battle at Dragonshead two weeks earlier in what proved a vain attempt to rescue her closest friend and partner, Aejystrys Rowan. The usually fastidious dwarf stank of sour sweat, dirt, and blood, which she had made no effort to remove. Aejys' death robbed her life of meaning: Only a bone-deep stubbornness kept her going when all she wanted was to curl up in a dark corner and howl with grief. Aejys had reminded Tagalong with her dying breath of the promise that Tagalong had made to take care of her people and her children, the twins Aejys' lover Tamlestari carried beneath her heart to be born in the spring. Tagalong intended to keep that promise and woe betide anyone or anything that got in her way. She often bragged that she was "a hard-nosed obstinate bitch and proud of it."

  The Sharani were triadic, requiring three biological parents to produce a viable child: Sire, blood mother or ma'aram, and a wombmother or lasah. The embryo passed from the blood mother to the womb mother by way of the kyndi, a magical sexual energy. Centuries past, the golden banewitch queen of Waejontor had cursed the Sharani causing nearly all their male children to be miscarried or still born. They had appealed to Ishla Twice-Gendered, god of love and fertility for aid in removing the curse. But Ishla was not a remover of curses, instead she had altered their genetics, giving them a quasi third gender that could be assumed by any and all of their women, allowing one woman to bear the children for both of them which shared in the womb mother's genetic inheritance along with the blood mother and sire. The curse had ended fifteen years ago, yet that had done only a little to lift the birth and survival rate of Sharani male infants. There was, of necessity, a still burgeoning trade in male love-slaves.

  Tagalong and Aejys had been friends since childhood. For over thirty years the young dwarf had built her life around their friendship. Only a very small number of dwarves lived in Shaurone, mostly in Rowanslea, and Tagalong had been the first of them to be allowed to study at the Aroanan temple university. Except for Aejys, none of the other students and nobles had wanted her there. She had been snubbed and harassed until Aejys befriended her, forcing and later encouraging her acceptance as only the heir of one of the five mar'ajanates could. The lower classes fascinated Tagalong, who made frequent forays into the Poor Quarter and brought back tales of adventure to regale Aejys with. Eventually Aejys tailed Tagalong into the Quarter and nearly got seriously hurt by a kid gang, the Market Street Urchins, who marked her as being in the wrong part of town. Tagalong showed up and settled the score, after which Aejys was free to come
and go as she wished in the neighborhood. From that day on the friendship was sealed. But Tagalong had seen Aejys die at Dragonshead and, not knowing that Josh's love and magic had called her back from death, was deep sunk in grief.

  Tagalong's surviving troops, a scant handful of the two score from her and Aejys' household who had set off with them the previous summer, were settling into the rooms that Geoa Odaren's seneschal, Quilla, had given them in the east wing. The Assassins' Guild chieftain Hanadi and her Guildsmyn had parted with them in Rowanslea disappearing into the streets that first night after Aejys' death. Aejys had been deeply loved both by her own folk and her allies.

  As Aejys' partner, Tagalong needed to reassure their people that she would take care of everyone, too often in such uncertain times the loss of a liege lord meant danger and dire circumstances for those who had followed her. She knew also that they should hold some kind of wake for Aejys to ease the pall of sorrow hanging over everyone's spirits; but Josh's disappearance with Aejys' body had come as a final blow, staggering Tagalong's usually indomitable spirit, for it made one part of her promise impossible: Aejys had died by a baneblade which meant that she would rise as undead, almost certainly a voracious revenant, endangering the very people they both wanted to protect. Tagalong had promised to take Aejys' head and heart from her body so she would not rise, thus freeing her soul. She was not confident that Josh could or would do so and, with the arrival of the winter storm season, no messages could be sent to Vorgensburg to warn Becca who was far more tough and capable than the sot. She dreaded the possibility that she might have to hunt down and kill whatever monstrous undead creature Aejys became.

  What small comfort she did have came only from the knowledge Tamlestari Odaren Havenrain, wombdaughter of the Mar'ajan Geoa Odaren, carried Aejys' children. The fact that the children were Aejys' was a relatively close kept secret, although Aejys and Tamlestari made no secret of their love. To keep the children safe from Aejys' enemies they had let it out that Tamlestari was already pregnant before they became lovers, that the sire and blood mother had been companions of Tamlestari's slain by orcs on their journey from Shaurone to Vorgensburg to petition Aejys to return from her self-imposed exile.