JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING III Page 3

  "There's a party tomorrow," Terrys said, twirling and watching her skirts flaring out like a morning glory's petals. The morning sun, flowing through the open windows and shafting between the lacey curtains that were blowing restlessly in the early breeze, brought out the golden highlights in her chestnut hair. Terrys was a lovely, light skinned Creeyan with slanted, dark East Creeyan eyes; and she was everything Belyla wished she could be: pretty, talented, energetic, and witty. She adored Terrys, basked in her reflected glory; at times, that reflection made her feel lonely, but she would never tell Terrys that.

  "I know," Belyla answered listlessly. "Father insists we all come."

  "Well, it's good he's bringing you. But you don't sound happy about it." Terrys gave another twirl about the room.

  "No one talks to me at parties." Belyla's eyes dropped. "I'm not pretty like my sisters."

  Terrys paused in mid-whirl, causing her skirts to settle abruptly around her legs and regarded her friend closely. "Nonsense, Belyla. A little make-up and the right clothes and we'll make a swan of you."

  Belyla shook her head. "I am going, but I don't want to, Terrys. I get snubbed."

  "Well, you won't this time and I'll introduce you to Yahni Kjarten."

  "I've noticed him ... he's so handsome." Belyla sighed heavily.

  "He's my age. Twenty-six is not too old for you. The male should be older. Ten years is not such a difference, especially since he's Sharani and they don't age as fast as the rest of us." Terrys added with a smile, "He likes women who can talk about books."

  Belyla brightened. "Really?" She read constantly and the thought that someone as wondrous to the eye as Yahni Kjarten could prefer a woman who liked to read gave her a thrill of hope.

  "Yes. He gets bored quickly with the others who are always throwing themselves at him... Or being thrown at him by his parents."

  Belyla sobered as quickly as she had brightened. "But my father doesn't like the Kjartens."

  "Hmmph! A lot of people don't like your father. We'll be discreet. You'll be with me, after all, and no one's ever questioned that." She shared a conspiratorial wink at Belyla. "Yahni and I go way back ... all the way to nappies."

  Belyla flushed and then laughed.

  * * * *

  Yahni lounged about the edges of the party, watching the rest of the nobility and their little fluttering entourages, catching bits and pieces of the various conversations, but hearing nothing to interest him. If he continued to lean against the wall in this corner sooner or later his father or other relatives would notice him and drag him off in the direction of one female or another. He needed to move on soon, if he wished to avoid them. He watched his father, Lord Oakwithe Kjarten, talking to Lady Milady, an exceedingly slender woman most of the younger set called the "matchmaker from hell" and winced. He pressed his back against the wall and slid a little lower, murmuring a small prayer to the god of love that they did not notice him. Derryl, Leslie, and Maya stood just in back of Lady Milady listening to them.

  "Nooooo. I do not need this."

  He fiddled with his wine glass while scanning around for a direction in which to escape. His buddies, Jajinga SwallowsWing and Ceejorn Osterbridge had already managed to attract a couple of pretty ladies and he saw their backs as they deserted the party in favor of the gardens by heading through the stained glass doors on the far right of him. Damn! There went his best excuse for getting out of here. He had gone out of his way to get them invited just so they could help him escape. Yahni glanced back at his father. They were still talking. He moved casually along the wall until he came to a table, not wanting to appear to be in full flight and thus draw familial attention to himself.

  Yahni kept thinking about his conversation with Maya yesterday, he had tried to conceal his own bitterness and disappointment in love from her, as he always did. They chased him, played him, and then tried to change him; and when he couldn't stand it any longer, Yahni broke the relationship off; or they did because they became bored by his intransigence. His family believed he was being too picky and were beginning to despair that he would ever marry. Their expectations were turning these requisite court parties into nightmares. "Damn it, Jajinga! Osterbridge! You were supposed to be my excuse to leave." He cursed again and edged closer to the door, but still had half a hall to go.

  They were commoners and had absolutely no idea what it felt like to be in his position. The only thing working in his favor was that a godmarked Guildsmon could not be forced into marriage easily unless he were the only heir to major estates like Talons. Yet it could be done and was not entirely unheard of and the thought of some woman dragging him off like a prize horse made him shudder. Yahni checked one more time and saw that the dreaded Lady Milady had wandered off with his sister, Derryl and Leslie in another direction. That gave him some breathing room and he grinned. He felt a good deal safer now.

  Yahni straightened and began sipping his wine again, noticing that something was going on around the Grand Master, where Takhalme sat flanked by his first lord-lieutenant, Gylorean Galee, and Lord Wrathscar. Bryndel and Talons had come up to them. Yahni could not hear what they were saying across the noise of the party, but he saw the flash of displeasure and then weary resignation cross Talons' face. She placed her hand on Bryndel's upraised own and was led away in a cheap display of ownership. "Why that sorry son of a gutterwhore..."

  What they were doing to her angered him. For Yahni, anger was a soul-deep slow moving force, like tectonic plates inching together. An earthmage who could see those things tried to describe them once. She had even made drawings. Yahni just shook his head, but the image remained. That was definitely the way he felt, watching Galee and Wrathscar move Talons around in front of him like a toy. He had never been part of her circle, only an admirer, yet like so many of the students a few years older than the heir, he watched her rush up through the ranks and then run past them with that incredible precocity. So he felt a simmering anger at seeing the flashing hawk brought down. Yahni pushed away from the wall, feeling the pieces inching together inside him. He sat his wine glass down on a small table and put his hands together like the mage's drawing, and then brought them up and thought, "boom."

  "I wish there were something I could do," he muttered. Then he picked up his glass and started to move into the crowd to lose himself a bit more before any of his family could spot him and prevent him from making another approach toward that garden door. "I've come, I've spoken, I've done my duty, and I'm getting out of here."

  "Yahni?" a soft voice spoke at his side. "I wanted to show Belyla your eyes."

  At first he wanted to just walk away, but instead he turned. Terrys was always showing other girls his eyes. She had been doing this since they were children in school together and for a time they had been lovers, but now they were only friends. So he found himself smiling at Terrys and beside her a girl of sixteen who he did not recognize. Terrys' friend was slightly plump and olive complexioned, but pleasing in a way. She looked a little uncomfortable, maybe shy, Yahni thought. Shy always drew him. The shy ones tended to be less shallow and silly than the others Terrys threw at him. Sometimes he suspected Terrys was in league with his family in their attempts to get him married.

  "Yahni, I want you to meet Belyla Wrathscar, Lord Wrathscar's daughter. Belyla, doesn't he have the most beautiful eyes?"

  Yahni lifted her hand and kissed it. Poor girl! With a father like Wrathscar, no wonder she's shy. Belyla's face changed, flushed, and for a moment she was pretty. "You have arrived to rescue my poor soul from a boring party. Would you ladies care to escape into the garden?"

  * * * *

  "Your brother is stealing my lines, you know," Derryl observed dryly as he passed them with Leslie on one arm and Maya on the other. Both women laughed. Derryl had a perpetual "naughty boy" swagger and a playful gleam in his blue eyes suggestive of a rapier that was always seeking an opening for a thrust. He delighted in uproar, a target for his wit – but always to make a point, not simply for
the sake of knocking someone down, when he thought one needed to be made. Coming from a family that delighted in uproar for the fun of it, Maya fell into the game with him more often than not. Although at first she had shied away from him, forcing him to chase her, having gone through a period of trying unsuccessfully to fit in at court – Karl's idea and a painful one at the end – and had fled from both things that reminded her of Karl and things that reminded her of her family.

  "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, my lord," Maya said. While Yahni had been properly trained to courtly manners, he had only recently begun to steal lines and mannerisms from Derryl, whose intense panache and style had many of the younger myn mimicking him – with far less success.

  "Don't encourage him, it will go to his head, Maya. Look how big it is already," Leslie grabbed at the clubbed knot of Derryl's thick, wavy blond hair, giving it a yank, and then she glanced more closely at the young women disappearing with Maya's brother. "Wasn't that Belyla Wrathscar?"

  Derryl's eyes hardened. "That's a dangerous woman."

  "Belyla?" Maya responded. "Nonsense. She's very sweet."

  "Not because of who she is, but because of who she belongs to."

  Maya was silent.

  * * * *

  Talons retreated to the edge of the party, hating formal functions, and then disappeared into one of the little side rooms where people, especially the younger set, tended to conference, tryst or otherwise vanish into for a variety of purposes – those who could not manage to escape completely into the palace gardens. This room held a long bench in the back left corner with a table before it and several chairs around it. Talons slid onto the bench, pressing her face into her hands, feeling weary in body, mind, and spirit. She moved farther into the corner, desperately wanting to shake her feelings of being exposed and naked, caught up in a meshing of fears she could not set name to. She drew the vial of rose essence from her pocket, opened it, and sat smelling it. Dynarien always smelled of roses: it was an unconscious expression of his divinity. Gradually the scent, reminding her of him as if he sat near her, filled her with reassurance and calm.

  "Have you heard from your young scoundrel of a yuwenghau?" asked a pleasant baritone.

  Talons immediately closed the bottle and shoved it into her pocket again before looking to see who had spoken. The yuwenghau were divine-knights errant, rouge younger gods and demi-gods of the Light that fought against the Hellgod's minions and other dangerous creatures. Sometimes they died. That was what Talons most feared: that Dynarien might have been slain at the Battle of Errilyn.

  "Patriarch," Talons smiled, rising to hug him across the table. Over the last stressful months much of the formality had gone out of their relationship, replaced by a growing friendship. As her relationship with her grandsire grew ever more distant and strained, she leaned more heavily on Eshraf. "No, I haven't."

  His eyes searched her face with an expression of concern. "You look tired. Are you resting?"

  "As much as they let me." Talons forced a smile.

  "I did not see you at Temple last week for services."

  "Galee had things for me to do."

  "That is no excuse. I will send Mikkal for you in the morning." Eshraf sat down, covering her hand in both of his very large, broad ones. He had risen in the church from among the peasants; and when he felt his spirit troubled, he chopped wood to relieve it. His assistant, Mikkal, who had been a solicitor of the court before entering the priesthood on the death of his Guildsmon wife, found that infinitely amusing, although they were devoted friends.

  "Have you had any word from Norendel?" Talons asked.

  "Only that the battle was fought and Rowan victorious. No word from your scoundrel?" He pressed gently. "Or from someone who knows him?"

  "None." Dynarien. Dynarien!

  "I am sorry to hear that."

  "Excuse me, Patriarch, but I need a word with Talons, privately." Galee swished into the little room, moving to Talons' opposite side, two glasses of wine in her hands. She set one down before the young Guildsmon.

  Eshraf regarded Galee, his eyes going cold as drawn steel. Takhalme had made the mon Guild by fiat, by-passing the temple, thus his god had not been given an opportunity to either confirm or deny her. He never trusted her and kept tally of her allies. For thirty years, from the first day she appeared in Creeya, he had watched her and written it all down out of a nameless suspicion, a haunted instinct that he had yet to share because he had no proof. He discreetly acted to keep her people out of the temple, banning them even from attending services. He excommunicated them for the smallest trespasses once he became Patriarch. He could sense the wrongness in them, yet could not explain, or justify it.

  "Of course." He patted Talons' hand again. "We'll talk later, child. You'll visit with me tomorrow after services?"

  "Yes."

  "Good." Eshraf left without another word.

  Galee knew his abrupt exit was meant as a snub, but shrugged it off. She always got that from Eshraf. She closed the doors and settled back with Talons. "Bryndel will be coming for you soon. The party is breaking up."

  The vampire stroked Talons' cheek, slipping into her mind. The paladin smiled at her, reaching to open her tunic so that the vampire could feed and Galee stopped her. The triggers and sways had become so deeply set that the first touch now set the pattern of responses off without Galee having to direct them.

  Galee took out the vial, pouring it into Talons' wine. "Drink your death, child. The best things in life take time to achieve." She almost laughed aloud. Humans. Cattle.

  "Will there be pain, Galee?" There was the tiniest note of resignation within a distant hollowness.

  Galee eyed her closely, thinking that was a very strange question to ask. It was not the first time Talons had asked it. "Yes. And I will drink it in." The Lemyari, demon-vampire, stroked her face, watching her drink, wondering at the fact that she still possessed that tiny bit of awareness. Her mind was stronger than Galee dreamed. Galee sipped her own glass, savoring the taste, wishing it were stronger stuff, the sweet, salty vintage of living veins. She stroked Talons again, resenting the godmark between the paladin's breasts that prevented Galee from turning her. Talons would have made a powerful child of her blood. No matter. When the palace slept, Galee would drink from her consecrated veins and be satisfied for a time. To open the God Box she would require the blood of a sacred king and the flesh of a nekaryiane. Then she could drain this world dry if she wished, or gather its people as her herds – her cattle. That was where Bellocar had gone wrong; he had improperly maintained his herds of cattle, gluttoning heedlessly on death and destruction instead of establishing breeding programs. Galee had learned much from observing the Tinkerer over the past centuries since the last godwar. Once this cow was in calf and she had stolen Creeya – well, that thought could wait, she did not have Creeya yet.

  Galee stood, taking Talons by the shoulder and waking her from the spell. "Come, Bryndel is looking for you."

  * * * *

  The crowd in the great hall of the northeast wing, the Grand Master's private wing, had thinned to almost nothing. The Grand Master sat in a large chair near the front beside Lord Wrathscar with Bryndel at his elbow. Bryndel immediately went to Talons and extended his hand for her to place hers within it. Talons winced. He was going to make her act like a lady. She could refuse, since she was Guild and they operated under a differing set of customs, yet this had to mean something had been discussed. She glanced at her grandsire and at Lord Wrathscar, saw their expectant expressions. That confirmed her suspicions.

  "Take his hand, Talons," Takhalme ordered. "And for future functions, it would behoove you to show your acceptance of this alliance by acting more the Creeyan lady and less the Sharani Guildsmon."

  Talons felt chilled to the marrow of her bones, her stomach hollow. "As you wish, grandsire." She placed her hand in Bryndel's so that he could lead her.

  "And start wearing dresses," Takhalme said.

 
Talons nodded and then allowed Bryndel to lead her away.

  Lord Wrathscar smirked. "You spoiled her, Takhalme."

  "I made her a Guildsmon. The finest we have ever had. My matchless Talons." He sighed, a weary note of resignation in his voice.

  Galee draped herself across Takhalme's chair. "And now you must make her a lady. The two need not be mutually exclusive, my lord."

  "Think you not, Galee?"

  "Some of our best Guildsmon are ladies."

  "When that is their nature, perhaps. But it is not Talons." He watched Bryndel lead her away, feeling a trace of sadness watching her. "Where is Mohanja? I am tired and I wish to return to my chambers."

  * * * *

  As the party waned indoors, it waxed outdoors, winding around and through the intricate sculptured labyrinth of gardens, hedgerows, and the vine-wrapped alcoves of stone and trellis. Belyla followed Yahni with Terrys beside her. She had initially felt overjoyed to find herself actually speaking with Yahni Kjarten, but now her old fears of rejection had reared their hoary heads, and she dragged her feet. She wanted to run away and cry from fear of what she wanted most.

  People feared and resented Lord Wrathscar and they took it out on Belyla by snubbing her. So she, not Wrathscar, paid for her father's sins. She held back, her feet catching reluctantly at the ground so that at times it seemed that Yahni was half dragging her or she was half stumbling. Terrys elbowed her several times with an inclined head and an impatient look. A crowd had gathered just ahead of them and Belyla shrank against Terrys, who patted her back reassuringly.

  Lord Channadar sat nearby on a couch surrounded by his Fae and others of his entourage, waving his golden fan while he told his stories to the delight of his audience – he always attracted an audience from among his peers, their households, and even those servants who managed to find the smallest excuse to delay and watch – both from the allure of his magic and his sheer exoticness. A second fan lay tucked in his belt. Seven nobles stood around listening while others sat upon the grass. His narrow, slanted silver eyes glowed as he gestured, illustrating his tale with small illusions that trailed from the fan as he spoke. The half-Fae lord of Hellsguard – a large holding in eastern Creeya, bordering the Katal Escarpment where the Nine had sealed up the Hellgod, Bellocar – loved an audience. When he saw Yahni and the two ladies he straightened with a flourish.