DARK BROTHERS OF THE LIGHT
BOOK I
BLOOD RITES
By
JANRAE FRANK
A Renaissance E Books publication
ISBN 1-58873-609-1
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Janrae Frank
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
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PageTurner Editions
Futures-Past Fantasy
DARK BROTHERS OF THE LIGHT
I. Blood Rites
II. Blood Heresy
III. Blood Dawn

"The Darkness hunts us and the Light does not want us. Better to
step willingly into the fires than to live undead. Better to die with
honor than to take a life in the rites. Let each mon go to his own path,
but these are ours. And these will always be ours, for this is what we
were born to. This is the path the gods have given us, for we are the
Dark Brothers of the Light. We are the walking dead who live, for our
lives were forfeit with our birth. Forfeit twice over for our choice to
live as myn, not monsters, though we are forced to dwell among the
monsters. Set yourself apart in your words, in your deeds, in your
silence–always in your silence, for silence is your castle. Be as still
as the deer in the forest, and if you are fortunate the predators will
not notice you. For when they notice you, they will eat you."
–Creed of the Dark Brothers
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon
called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed,
first of sa'necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his
descendants forced into the darkness.
–St. Tarmus of Lorendon


BEWARE THE BEAST
Fear the night my darling child.
The Beast-she hunts where no one walks.
Anksha-demon of the wild.
No mercy there for those she stalks.
Akin to none–though human seeming,
Beware her claw–lest ye turn pale.
Though the Bitch of Brandrahoon's preening
Can never hide her furry tail.
All Sa'necari fear her well…
She feeds alike on those, and man.
She'll rend and tear your skin to hell,
Or worse–your soul in mortgiefan!
Sad met this mistress in the dark.
Draw not close and don't be crude.
For an erring child out on a lark.
Shall meet their end as foul Anksha's food.
–Lycan traditional teaching song


CHAPTER ONE. CONDEMNED MAN
The house stood in the tradesmyn's quarter, a large stone box, three
stories high with a basement. Lord Hoon, demon-vampire of many
names and guises, regarded the pattern of the blue rough-hewn stone
shot through with grey, the stark white painted frames of the windows
and the heavy white doors, considering whether to knock. Anksha the
Beast stood beside him. Hoon's divinator and his officers had told him
the exiled necromantic Prince Mephistis of Waejontor had acquired a
handful of followers from the lower classes as well as his seven
sa'necari soon after moving into this house.
Sa'necari, necromancers, were the only serious rivals within the
ranks of darkness that the vampires like Lord Hoon had. They had
stolen all of the powers and abilities of the undead that they could take
or control, assuming them through their rites, mastering and
perfecting them in addition to their native arcane talents. This had
been gained at a price, for they also had the needs and cravings of the
undead, the unnatural appetites for blood. After generations of
sa'necari being created in the rites, their very genes had altered until
more and more of their descendants began to be born sa'necari with
those appetites and powers manifesting in puberty. their rites of blood,
rape, and death had become merely the means for increasing their
powers through the shattering of souls.
Hoon moved with a polished elegance and spoke with an oldfashioned
precision as crisp as if it had come from the pages of a
book. His shoulders were broad and his hips narrow. The glow from
the street lamps glinted on his black hair, grazed the points of his ears
and gilded his olive skin with golden highlights. A dangerous
sensuality lay in the depths of his large eyes, exposed itself on the
chiseled planes of his cheekbones with their hollows, and settled on
his full lips. A sword hung from his hip in a black and silver scabbard.
"What do you think, Anksha? Can we do this ourselves? Teach him a
lesson?"
Her eyes narrowed in a sleepy feline expression, broken by a faint
showing of her fangs. "He's taken the bit in his teeth and thinks he's
free."
Hoon laughed softly. "Next time he should wear a check rein,
perhaps?"
"Let's knock on the door."
Hoon smiled and did so.
A servant answered. "Lord Darmungaard!"
Hoon inclined his head at his alias. "I must see Prince Mephistis
immediately."
The servant showed them into a parlor, indicating that they should
sit. "The prince is engaged in a magical working at the moment."
"Mortgiefan?" Lord Hoon inquired, watching the servant flinch
from the word. "I know what he is and what his proclivities are. We
are old friends, are we not, Anksha?"
"Oh, yes," Anksha said, swishing her robes with her hands in a
seductive little turn. He had dressed her for an outing at the theater,
like a fine lady in silk and satin, fit to accompany a high lord, and it
brought out her beauty. The tiniest bit of fur, so sleek as to be
indistinguishable from the skin of her face, throat, and hands, showed
beneath the edge of her neckline. A small, tightly curled tail poked
from the back of her skirts. Except for that it was easy for her to pass
for human.
Through countless centuries she had been known as 'the Beast'
because no one knew exactly what she was, not even Anksha herself.
She proclaimed herself by her deeds, 'troll-tamer', and 'demon-eater.'
Lord Hoon had found her as a toddler in a forest and raised her as his
pet. Anksha had the instincts of a cat that liked to play with its food
and steal nestlings out of trees as well as claws, fangs, and a taste for
blood and flesh–especially the blood of the powerful.
"Please," the servant gestured at the couch again. "They will finish
presently."
Hoon wagged a finger at the servant with a feral smile. "No. You
will take us to them now. Otherwise I will return with my people and
be even more insistent."
"My Lord Darmungaard, please…"
Everyone here respected or feared Hoon–or more often both.
"Now."
The servant walked away without a word. Hoon and Anksha
followed. The servant made a tiny gesture at a door and kept going.
Hoon grinned at Anksha. The vampire put his ear to the door and
heard chanting. He turned to Anksha, his grin spreading wider. Very,
very carefully he opened the door and they crept down.
Mortgiefan indeed.
Three bleeding tables stood in the center with victims bound
spread-eagle to their surfaces while three sa'necari busily sated their
appetites upon them and four more watched hungrily. The middle one
was Mephistis, cursing and moaning, gripped by the ecstasy of
mortgiefan, matching the movement of his cock in the dying woman's
body with each thrust of the blade into her flesh. "Anksha. Anksha.
Die you stupid Beast!"
Anksha's lips writhed back from her fangs at his words and she
licked them as she slipped up behind him without anyone noticing her
presence: they were all too caught up in the rites. Hoon drew his
sword and came to stand behind the watchers.
"Wishing she were me, O randy prince?"
Mephistis shrieked, climbing the corpse beneath him and rolling
over, nearly sliding off. "Anksha!"
She smiled at him with honeyed poison and he edged away with his
hands on the altar. Anksha studied the dead woman, brushed back a
string of blond hair matted with blood. "Pretty. Send the body to my
sanguiner to be properly drained for my bottles."
"Is this the creature?" A sa'necari cried, raising power to strike at
Anksha.
"I wouldn't," Hoon said, prodding him with the point of his blade
and making his presence known. He extended his free hand, letting his
secondary nails emerge from beneath his primaries like claws,
dripping Lemyari venom. The watchers whirled, noticing the vampire
lord for the first time.
Anksha did a turn on the balls of her feet, making her skirts swirl
and triggered her primal scent glands. She hit the one who had
suggested attacking her in the face with the full force of her
pheromones.
He dropped to his knees sobbing and writhing, "Bite me! Bite me."
"Not yet." Anksha bent and stroked his face. "Soon. What is your
name?"
"Gareth." He opened his tunic, offering his neck, his expression full
of longing.
Mephistis watched her, his eyes wide with terror. She was tearing
apart his little coven and there was nothing he could do to stop her.
Her nearness had set off the Presence Pain and he hurt throughout his
being, his nerve endings, his muscles, his neural and mage nets–all of
him hurt, burned and ached. He released the altar and eased off it,
doubling over as his souring stomach felt ready to spew its contents
on the floor.
"Kill one for me, Mephistis," Anksha said, her casual tone belying
the savagery with which she snapped the dominance-link awake in his
mind and body. The dominance-link, which she had placed within
every fiber of his being with her first bite months past, blazed like fire
in his veins, his neutral and mage nets. She could bring him to heel,
break him entirely, or persuade him to acts he normally found
unthinkable.
Mephistis' eyes glazed, and his lips parted, allowing a trickle of
stolen blood to run from the corner of his mouth. He seized the nearest
sa'necari before the mon could move, dragging him close. The prince's
fangs extended and he sank them into the hapless sa'necari's throat,
sucking the blood, life, and stolen souls out of him. His victim
convulsed in his grip, and then stilled. Mephistis let the corpse fall
against the table and slip to the floor while he eyed the others, ready
to turn on them also should Anksha command it.
Anksha smiled. She strolled past the rest, regarding them, wafting
her Circean fragrance across them as she passed. The littlest one
collapsed, whimpering like an abused puppy before her conquering
sensuality. This would not be a gradual game. There would be no
more talk of rebellion. She sniffed them, nostrils flaring, smelling
their power. When she had determined which of them was nearest to
Mephistis in strength, she rubbed against him smiling. He shivered,
his body reacting to her power.
"What is your name?" she asked, her eyes meeting his. Her breasts
tilted invitingly, the nipples hard and erect against the silk. She
enjoyed the way he had to fight his impulse to reach for them.
"Bodramet," the sa'necari answered, breathing hard, his thick
member shoving against his pants.
"That is a nice name," Anksha purred, pressing herself against him,
rubbing his hardness with her thigh. "Would you like to walk with me
tomorrow?"
Bodramet trembled, his eyes growing large with lust and need.
"Yes. Yes, I would like that."
"Come for me at Lord Darmungaard's at noon. Do not be late."
Anksha smiled like a cat with a small bird between its paws. She
would have her fangs into him and the dominance-link set before
sunset tomorrow.
"I won't be."
"Wear something without a collar," Anksha told him, stroking her
finger along his neck. "I want your neck to present nicely."
"I will. I promise."
Hoon smiled at the rest of the sa'necaris, "Please continue. I would
not wish you to suffer from an unfinished rite."
The others began to work themselves up again. Two climbed
nervously onto their victims, and Hoon laughed.
Anksha returned to Mephistis. "We need to talk." She crooked her
finger at him and they left the basement. "Show me your rooms."
Mephistis led her upstairs to his suite on the second floor, opened
the door, and stepped aside. "You're going to take them all, aren't
you?" Mephistis's voice shook.
"Yes," Anksha replied, stalking past on the balls of her feet. "One at
a time they will all beg me to bite them and I will. One is missing.
Where is the one you call Isranon?"
"He's gone to the theater with friends."
"Then I will get to him later."
"Not Isranon. Please not Isranon." Mephistis caught at her arm, an
edge of desperation cracking his voice. "Please, not Isranon."
Anksha cocked her head at him, her eyes filling with an odd mix of
curiosity and anger. "Because you love him?"
"Yes. I love him. He's my only friend."
Anksha growled. "Don't beg. It's too late to beg. I should take him
now, simply because you love him. I should make you watch while I
tear him apart. Do not anger me and I will leave him for last. Because
he is the weakest in magic. I did not like what I found you doing."
Mephistis knew that other sa'necari noticed Isranon, just as Anksha
did, the burnished shine of his skin and the heavy curling black hair
that the youth caught casually at his neck. It was impossible not to.
The sa'necari were an arrogant lot, but there was no arrogance to
Isranon, just a simple stubborn pride. He held to himself, spoke to
none, and went about his business, yet he stole the notice from the
others. Those were some of the reasons that Mephistis loved him.
Mephistis trembled violently, knowing what was coming. She
might take blood or sex or both. His body was not his own. She could
separate his mind from the rest of him so that he became a
disembodied cock and no matter how terrified he became his erection
would not fail. He was no longer a mon, but a toy, a plaything,
something she would destroy when she tired of it. It was that way with
all of her blood-slaves.
His loins came to attention even as fear shivered through the rest of
him and his stomach soured. Anksha had him perfectly conditioned to
her will. A table and chairs stood to one side, boasting a bottle of fine
wine and three glasses. The broad bed, with its slightly rumpled red
and green covers, lay under the window as if daring someone to see
what the occupants were doing from the street.
Anksha smiled approvingly as Mephistis disrobed without being
asked and stretched out in the middle of the bed to await her pleasure.
She poured herself a glass of wine, tasted it, and, deciding the vintage
was acceptable, drank it down. Then she rummaged through his
dresser and found a silk sash to stuff in his mouth. No need to terrify
the others with his screams since she planned to take them all in a few
days.
The Beast climbed onto the bed and straddled him, shifting him
around inside her until she hit the nub of pleasure just right. She had
heard the Sharani built toys that worked as well and did not get tired.
She would ask Hoon to buy her one. She had also heard that some
Sharani had a power over the male body with which they could force
the toy to stay up until they had ridden it to their satisfaction. Anksha
wished there were some way to steal that power, it would make life
much more pleasant.
He started to weep as soon as he came. Anksha shoved a corner of
the sash into his mouth. "Oh troublesome prince, if I had not caught
you killing a mon in my name, wishing she were me, I would not be
nearly as rough with you now."
She flexed her claws and let her large, tearing fangs slide from their
sheathes.
****
Isranon and his friends, the lycans Nevin and Olin, walked through
the quiet streets of Charas, returning late from seeing a comedy
performed. He loved the comedies and had begun learning how to
laugh freely at last. Nineteen years old, the young sa'necari had spent
most of the first fourteen years of his life running and hiding from his
own kind, and the past five struggling to survive among them as the
prince's mon.
They had started out laughing and exchanging pleasantries, but the
nearer they came to the mansion, the quieter Isranon became.
"What are you thinking about?" Nevin asked, the light of the street
lamps casting an orange glow along an ugly scar traversing Nevin's
face from his forehead, across a broken nose to his upper lip that was
half-split from a wound that had failed to heal properly. A second
long scar crossed his right cheek from the outer corner of his eye to
the edge of his jaw. Only runed-silver and kenda'ryl could do that to a
lycan. It gave his words a sibilant quality.
"That I hope Mephistis' rites are over. The vibrations always leak
out. The cellars aren't shielded enough." The terror, suffering, and
deaths of the victims in Mephistis' rites always caused Isranon
physical, mental and emotional pain, therefore he tried hard to avoid
being present when they were being held.
Nevin gave a snort. "There would be no rites to pain you if we
returned to Claw's Valley."
"I would like to go home, but I can't. Mephistis needs me."
"Being with the prince grows more dangerous by the day, Isranon.
His fate will overtake you if you do not leave him."
"When my fate comes for me, it comes. I will accept it like a man,
unflinching."
"That's your father talking. You should shed yourself of it," Nevin
growled in his coarse lycan brogue.
"My father was a good man."
"Your father is a dead man. The three of us should return to the
valley."
"I can't go home. I can't leave Mephistis. I owe him my life."
"He's been taken by the Beast. You've known it for months. The
battle is lost. Let go of it."
"No. I will never leave him. He is my prince and my friend. If fate
decrees that I must die beside him, then I will not flinch from it. I will
meet fate with my honor intact."
"Take hold of life with both your hands and not surrender to fate,
my brother."
Isranon started to answer and stopped as two familiar figures
stepped out of the house. He froze.
"See to your prince," Hoon said. "Anksha was a bit rough."
Anksha laughed, bouncing along beside him.
Then Isranon was running. He found Mephistis, lying badly torn in
the middle of his bed. Isranon immediately started to cut his wrist and
offer it to the prince, but Mephistis stopped him.
"You must flee… Anksha… she's going to take you all. All my
sa'necari."
Isranon felt chilled and hollow, yet that simple stubborn pride that
Mephistis loved squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. "No. You
are my liege-lord. I will stand beside you until death parts us."
"Isranon, be reasonable…."
"I am being realistic, my prince," said Isranon, going very formal to
stress his obstinacy. I have nowhere to run to. The Beast would merely
hunt me down. No one escapes her for long. Nevin and Olin would die
trying to defend me. I could not bear that. The Darkness hunts me and
the Light does not want me.
Mephistis sucked in a ragged breath. "I have been a fool. She
caught me riting a mon in her name. This is how she intends to punish
me. Anksha… she wants you especially… because I love you. Forgive
me."
"Always." Isranon cut his wrist, put it to Mephistis's mouth and the
prince drank. Isranon remained beside him until the prince slept and
then went downstairs where Nevin and Olin waited. They barraged
him with questions, but he simply shook his head.
So it has come to this? That all my hopes are ashes. Isranon felt
empty. He built the castle in his mind, withdrawing into it, into the
silences, ordering himself not to think about his fate. There he
centered and grounded himself with deep breaths that brought calm
and stillness to his core. He was the last of his kind, of his name.
There would be no more Dark Brothers of the Light. No more
descendants of the Dawnhand. His life wound toward its end and there
was no way to prevent it. So he took refuge in acceptance, which was,
after all, part of the silences. The creed of the Dark Brothers, sa'necari
heretics who had rejected the rites of blood, rape, and death, echoed
through him.
"The Darkness hunts us and the Light does not want us. Better to
step willingly into the fires than to live undead. Better to die with
honor than to take a life in the rites. Let each mon go to his own path,
but these are ours. And these will always be ours, for this is what we
were born to. This is the path the gods have given us, for we are the
Dark Brothers of the Light. We are the walking dead who live, for our
lives were forfeit with our birth. Forfeit twice over for our choice to
live as myn, not monsters, though we are forced to dwell among the
monsters. Set yourself apart in your words, in your deeds, in your
silence–always in your silence, for silence is your castle. Be as still as
the deer in the forest, and if you are fortunate the predators will not
notice you. For when they notice you, they will eat you."
Isranon had been Prince Mephistis of Waejontor's sworn Mon since
he was fourteen. Mephistis, in turn, had allied himself with Lord Hoon
against the Sacred King. Hoon had proved a treacherous ally, ordering
Anksha to take the prince as her blood-slave to make certain of his
loyalties and cooperation. I hate you, Hoon.
****
Isranon sat in the garden, playing his flute in the darkness. The
heart had gone out of him. The music emerged listless and
melancholy, resigned and sad. He could not play his way out of his
depression, his grief. He found himself thinking about his father. The
elder Isranon had not fought back when the sa'necari came for him.
He had attempted, instead, to reason with them and buy the others a
chance to get free. Only Isranon and his sister–whose name he had not
spoken in years–escaped. The teachings had failed his father and his
people. So Isranon, playing his flute, found no solace in the teachings
either. Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, sang the notes from the flute.
He felt like an old mon with many memories and no tomorrow,
looking always backwards and never forwards. He remembered the
words of a ghost to him after he killed the sa'necari, Troyes. He had
pursued Troyes expecting to die.
Over a year ago, Troyes had tried to carry off a lycan clan-princess,
Merissa, Isranon's childhood playmate. Isranon had left Troyes
stretched dead across the altar of dark magic where he had intended to
rite Merissa. Claw, Merissa's father, found them there and accused
Isranon of riting Troyes. In the end, rather than feeling triumphant and
courageous for having rescued Merissa, Isranon felt ashamed and
humiliated.
The only positive thing that happened was the ghost that had
emerged from Troyes' hellblade and told him that one day he would
walk with kings and Gods of Light to Ildyrsetts to find the staff of his
ancestor Isranon the Dawnhand, his namesake. He had clung to that
foreseeing as a raft in rough waters. Now that was gone. He had
listened to tales of the staff called Warrior, while sitting at his
grandmother's knee.
When he had boasted at eight years old that he would reclaim the
staff from the sa'necari who had stolen it, his father had rebuked him,
saying 'You are too full of yourself, it is not proper, and it is not our
way to seek conflict.'
Nevin had overheard this and placed a blade in his hands, telling
him, 'This is how you win back the staff.' Then Nevin and his father
had quarreled. Now Isranon had to put all that behind him.
No one ever escaped the Beast once she decided to take him as her
blood-slave. She was swift, relentless, and matchless in her ability to
track her prey. Not even horses could outdistance her. Anksha's power
and influence over her blood-slaves was built in complex layers:
knowing this did not aid him. When Anksha chose a victim, she
overwhelmed their reason initially with sexual allure based upon an
intense pheromonal wash and compounded by supernatural means;
when they opened their minds and veins to her, she bit them and
drank, establishing the dominance link in their bodies, minds and
souls–afterward they could refuse her nothing. Finally there was the
Presence Pain, being around her for a sustained period without
feeding her made it worsen into sheer agony. It was rumored that
some of her blood-slaves had perished from going untouched for too
long while in her presence. How much more there was to Anksha's
power and nature, no one knew for certain unless it was Anksha
herself and Lord Hoon.
If Isranon ran, she would descend upon him before the sun set the
following day. And she would kill anyone she found with him as
punishment for his flight. Isranon had seen her do it to others. He
refused to spend the rest of his life running in fear of his fate the way
his father's people had. He would accept it like a man when it came.
"What bothers you?" Nevin asked, settling on his haunches beside
him. His black hair reflected his coat color in wolf form, with a bit of
grey in it.
Isranon shook his head. He had withdrawn into his castle, his
silences, retreating even from his clan-brothers.
"What did Mephistis say to you?" Olin growled. His hair, like his
coat in wolf-form, was white spiked with black. He stood a few inches
shorter than his cousin Nevin.
Isranon lowered his flute. "Fate has come to call."
"We need to leave here quickly," Nevin told him.
Isranon shook his head. "I cannot out run my fate and I will not
abandon my prince."
"We could head for the clan's valley," Nevin persisted.
"No. We would never reach it before Anksha overtook us and I will
not have you risking yourself in my defense.
Nevin looked stricken. "My brother…."
Isranon gave Nevin a resolute glance. "No. Fate cannot be denied.
When it comes to call, it can only be faced with fortitude and honor."
"Damn your pride… Damn your philosophy. Stop sounding like
your father." Nevin dragged Isranon into an embrace and held him.
Isranon could not bear to be within sensing or hearing distance of
others' suffering when he could do nothing to affect it. There was so
little he could do to affect it. Mostly Isranon chose his dead father's
path of passive resistance among the monsters, as he did now, but he
would defend himself if forced–in that much he differed from his
father's beliefs and he had that from his guurmondru, the lycan
lawgiver, Nevin.
"Acceptance of fate leads to peace and serenity," Isranon quoted
back at Nevin. No defense existed against Anksha. She would track
him down if he fled, strike him with her pheromones, and render him
impotent to resist her. It was as simple as that. He would not have
time to draw a blade in the flash of an instant in which she struck.
And, he was as tired as an old mon of running and hiding.
"No, my brother," Nevin shouted at him. "It leads to death."
"Yes." Isranon heaved a sigh as he thought of his father. My father
did not fail in his teachings, yet his teachings failed him, he thought.
Then he shoved the thought away from him, disturbed by it,
remembering things he wished he would not.
Isranon stopped in his tracks, seeing a nibari, arms raised to
protect his head, crouched beneath a rain of blows from an older
sa'necari wielding a whip. Isranon did not fear pain, yet witnessing
the suffering of others always made his stomach clench. He could
taste the nibari's pain through the same psychic awareness that other
sa'necari used to feed upon terror and anguish. He stepped between
the next blow and its victim, taking the full force across his face.
At that moment, his friend Dane appeared at his side, grabbed the
nibari and ran with him down the corridor.
Isranon met the raging sa'necari's eyes calmly. Fangs bared, the
sa'necari fetched Isranon a series of hard blows that would have
made a nibari howl and beg. Isranon gave him no sounds, no taste of
fear to savor. The youth merely regarded him with stone-faced pride
and righteous indignation in every angle of his bearing. He made no
move towards his blades. No other sa'necari carried swords; they
carried the runed hellblades and bane blades for the rites at their
belts. Only the vampires of Dane's unit and the human soldiers of the
prince carried swords.
The sa'necari hesitated, trying to figure Isranon out. The younger
sa'necari refused to respond to violence with violence, holding himself
there with stoic composure and giving no sign that he had even felt
the blows. This was where his reputation for liking pain had
originated; the rumor was untrue.
With a snarl, the older sa'necari withdrew.
When Dane returned, he stared at the bloody tears the whip had left
in Isranon's clothing. "You've done this before?"
Isranon refused to look at him, staring at a point over the vampire's
shoulder.
Dane caught his elbow, turning him about. "What if he had killed
you?"
Isranon's voice went chill as the stone around them. "They always
stop."
Dane snarled, drawing his lips back from his fangs, which were
larger and more impressive than those of the sa'necari. "There will
come a time when they will not stop. I begin to think I know your
brethren better than you do."
Isranon shook him off, took two steps, and staggered, almost
falling.
Dane caught him. "Shit, the prince will think…"
He carried Isranon to his chambers, and encouraged him to feed
from Rose. Isranon took only as much as he needed, then pushed her
away, and gingerly stripped off his shirt.
Dane stared at the multitude of old scars on the youth's body. For a
sa'necari, blood would heal nearly anything. Some said that they had
stolen that trait from the vampires, while others held that the vampires
had acquired it from the sa'necari.
"What made these?" he asked. "Kenda'ryl?" The magic metal often
left hideous scars when it failed to kill. "Runed weapons?"
"He's not sa'necari," Rose interjected.
Isranon stiffened, the line of his mouth going tight. Dane regarded
him and Rose, waiting for an answer. Instead, Isranon drew his flute
case from around his neck and placed it in Dane's hands.
Sa'necari hated flutes. They were the sound of life and, the more
deepened in death they became, the more intensely the sound of one
appalled them.
Dane glanced at Isranon. At the youth's nod, he took the flute out of
the case.
Isranon watched the realizations passing across his friend's face
with interest.
The vampire turned the flute lovingly in his hands, recognizing
what a fine instrument it was. It was silver and runed with a pattern
glorifying life. Struck by the presence of such a thing in a sa'necari's
hands, he read them to himself. His head jerked up. "Isranon, son of
Isranon, son of Isranon…. This is Dawnhand's flute."
At another nod from Isranon, Dane put the flute to his lips. He blew
softly and low so that the sound would not bring the sa'necari
screaming. Isranon smiled in bliss at Dane's delicate mastery of the
instrument.
"I have never taken a life in the rites. I have never crossed that
line…." Isranon said. "My father always told me, when the craving for
blood arrived with puberty, that so long as I could play that flute and
enjoy it, I would never become a monster."
Dane lowered the flute. "Then one day the others will kill you."
"To die for one's beliefs is a fine death."
****
Soldiers led by Anksha arrived at dawn and moved Mephistis and
his sa'necari into Hoon's mansion. they took their weapons away.
Isranon felt naked without his blades, but as always, he said nothing.
Under Anksha's sway, Mephistis had agreed to this disarming. The
only way to serve his prince and remain by his side had been to obey.
Once at the sprawling mansion of Lord Darmungaard, they were
limited to a certain section of it on the third and fourth floors. They
were not allowed to leave it.
The mansion covered most of the north block forming a half moon
around the Hall of Words where the Charisian ruling council met.
When viewed from the highest tower, the ebony-gray, cut stone and
mortar palace of Lord Darmungaard spread across the thickly planted
grounds like a dark gray bat with open wings. Abutments surmounted
by tall pinnacles stood at intervals along the building to receive the
weight of the flying buttresses, which channeled rainwater into the
leering mouths of the gargoyles on the lower roofs. It was rumored to
have several levels of crypts and underground reaches, but no one
knew for certain. If anyone had ever known, they had not lived to
speak of it.
The high, machicolated outer walls enclosed elegant gardens and
courtyards, planted to the edge of wilderness for Anksha's games. The
Lord's private solar occupied a central section, set off from the rest,
reached only by a single corridor and included a roof top garden, as
well as a study, bedrooms, chapel and private audience chamber.
Isranon kept to his rooms with his flute, finding it harder and harder
to remain centered, the lycans ever at his side. Black pants and a
wraparound robe that closed with a sash had been sent to all the
sa'necari, which was how Anksha dressed her blood-slaves. Anksha's
symbol of a claw gripping an A rune was on the left shoulder. No one
in Hoon's household could mistake what he was destined for.
Isranon separated from his two companions only when Hoon
ordered him into a room without them. He felt certain that Hoon's
command lay behind Anksha's decision to take them all. And, he
waited for it with the discipline of his people, waiting for it as for
death come calling. When his turn came, he would show her no fear.
The first afternoon, a despairing scream came from the upper floor.
The lycans glanced; Isranon did not, saying in a resigned voice,
"Anksha has taken Bodramet." Then he began to play again. He felt
grateful that Anksha had allowed the lycans to come with him,
although that increased his concern for them.
"Why?" Nevin demanded.
"I don't wish to discuss it. You'll understand in time."
Nevin watched him with a look that Isranon could not decipher, a
still sorrow, and something else. "She always kills her toys…."
Isranon thought of Merissa, the lycan Chieftain Claw Redhand, his
wife Aisha and all of the others he had known in Clan Redhand
Valley. Merissa was Claw and Aisha's daughter. He and Merissa had
been lovers. When Claw learned of their relationship, he had sent
Merissa away. Then Isranon looked up, pausing in his playing, the
flute settling in his lap. "You will tell them I died well; that I stared
fate in the eyes and showed no fear…. And Merissa… tell her I loved
her."
Nevin's hand tightened on Isranon's shoulder with understanding.
"You're destined for her? The Beast is the fate you spoke of?"
"Yes." Isranon studied the scarred wolf, thinking of how much he
had loved him since childhood. Nevin had always been his patient
older brother and mentor. An image flashed across his mind of Nevin
laying dead, slashed apart by Anksha's claws and then another of him
taken by her, which was even worse, swept through Isranon's vivid
imagination and he shivered. He could not allow that to happen. better
for him to simply surrender to her and not draw his spirit-brothers in
any further, than to put them at risk.
"It isn't fair."
"Fate comes in whatever form it chooses."
Isranon had made the same request of Dane Jayce when he was
seventeen. He writhed inwardly at another memory. I have not kept
the teachings. I have killed. My father would be ashamed of me. I am
sliding into the darkness. I am a monster.
Three hours later, Anksha ordered all of the sa'necari branded and
collared. Yoris screamed himself sick when the hot iron was pressed
into his shoulder, the others groaned loudly, but Isranon bore it in
silence.
****
Isranon turned and twisted in his sleep, unable to escape the
anguish of his memories, which would not release him in his dreams.
Torches burned in black iron sconces along the walls of the
circular Great Hall of Dragonshead. Branches of candles on the
tables scattered throughout amid the chairs and couches produced a
garish light, throwing patterns of shifting shadow into every crevice
and nook. Two high backed chairs sat upon a central dais. Many
sa'necari enjoyed feeding publicly on nibari in the Great Hall,
showing off the quality and training of privately-owned stock.
The Great Hall was, in essence, an orgy room–although Mephistis
had so far refused to grant his sa'necaris one. Isranon paused at the
edge and judged the room. Rose was part of the common herd, which
Mephistis had smuggled in over the years to satisfy the needs of the
lower ranks. Sometimes the upper castes fed from that herd also.
Isranon could not bring himself to ask favors of Mephistis: he did
not like asking anyone for favors as a matter of pride. Instead, he
simply worried whenever one of the others chose Rose. If he had had
rank and power, which he would never have because of his beliefs–his
determination not to cross the line into the darkness–then asking for
her would have been a small thing.
The youth went down the three tiers into the chamber to cross it,
watching for her. Two sa'necari rose from chairs and approached
him. One was Bodramet, who was rumored to be second in power
only to Mephistis. He was a sturdy man who wore his hair slicked
back and woven into dozens of tiny braids at the base of his skull. The
other was Troyes, a sa'necari of middle rank, lighter haired and
skinned than Bodramet. They intercepted Isranon in the middle.
Bodramet regarded Isranon speculatively, running a finger along
the youth's cheek. "Do you play nibble games, Isranon? Troyes is of
the opinion that you do."
Troyes grinned, moving closer to Isranon.
Isranon sucked air through his nostrils. "No."
"That's not the rumors, Isranon," Troyes said. "We've all heard you
feed the vampires. That you bend over for Dane."
"You're a fine looking tidbit," Bodramet continued to stroke
Isranon's face.
Isranon shoved between them, his heart hammering. Troyes caught
his arm. Isranon drew his knives, putting one to Troyes's throat, the
other at his gut. "Let me be."
Troyes's eyes lowered to the blades and then lifted to Isranon's
face, "Another time, perhaps?" He released the youth.
"Never." He swept his gaze across their faces and repeated,
"Never."
Isranon sheathed the blades and strode away, refusing to run or
give the smallest sign that they had shaken him. Their laughter
followed him. Isranon found Rose with Dane in an adjacent chamber.
He hungered for a taste of his Rose, but the encounter with Bodramet
and Troyes had left his stomach clenched up and a revulsion for what
he was lodged in his throat. Dane walked them to the circle of rooms
his own people occupied. It required two glasses of wine before
Isranon could relax enough to feed from Rose. When the little nibari
fell asleep, Dane had his nibari put her to bed while he and Isranon
talked.
"My father did not believe in violence, even in self-defense,"
Isranon said, allowing Dane to pour him a third glass. "Nor in
vengeance."
"Yet, I saw you draw those blades you wear on Troyes."
Isranon looked up sharply at Dane. "You were watching?"
Dane nodded. "You know how to use them. We've practiced
together."
"My godfather Nevin is lycan. Every time we had to scatter and
flee, I was sent to Nevin in Claw Redhand's valley. He taught me."
Godfather was the closest Isranon could come, with his limited
knowledge of the common tongue, to guurmondru, the lycan term for
his relationship to Nevin who was only twelve years older than he.
"I've heard of it. It's a waystation for sa'necari sneaking through
the Sharani-occupation zone and then south. I've never been there."
Dane opened another bottle, refilled his glass, and settled opposite
Isranon. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "You
should ask Mephistis to send you there."
"No. I am my prince's man." Isranon met Dane's eyes squarely. "I
will stand by his side until death parts us. I will step between it and
him if I can."
"You do not belong here among the monsters."
"I am a monster. I was born a monster." Isranon's voice became
devoid of emotion. "I keep my father's teachings as far as I am able.
What happened in the hall…. That is merely their nature, like lions of
the forest. It does not have to be my nature."
"Why not?" Dane persisted, trying to drag it back around.
"Because all of Dawnhand's lineage is different."
"You tell yourself you are different, but are you really?"
"They enjoy violence. I don't. When I resort to violence, I feel as if
my heart, soul, and honor have been soiled."
"Not even in self-defense?"
"Not even then. Violence is the law of the brute. Kindness,
compassion, and gentleness are the law of the spirit."
"That's no way to survive."
"The Dark Brothers tried to teach and reason with the predators.
They all perished, except for me. I am not very good at keeping the
teachings, but I try."
"What happened to your sister?"
Isranon's eyes dropped. "They made her a monster. she stepped
into the flames."
"You mean she killed herself?"
"Yes."
"Was she living or undead?"
Isranon was far too young for what showed in his eyes. "Undead.
They killed her, knowing she would rise…." Isranon sucked air,
seeming every bit his mere seventeen years, all vulnerability. "Should
I rise or somehow be forced into the rites, I will step into the flames as
honor demands–as she did." Isranon hesitated, his expression
troubled. "Should I perish here, Dane, I would judge it a kindness if
you would carry word of it to Nevin. And tell him I died well."
"I swear it, Isranon." Dane clasped the youth tightly in his arms
and then released him. "If I had had a son of my body before I was
turned…Isranon, I would have felt honored for him to have been like
you."
****
In the guise of establishing an embassy, the Sacred King of
Rowanhart had entered the city in pursuit of Hoon and Mephistis. For
two years she had bested them at every turn. Tonight Hoon had
learned that the rabble had risen to her banner and Isranon wondered
how that might affect matters.
Anksha had taken Gareth a week ago, Petros three days past, and
last night she had taken Ennis. Now there were only two of them left:
Isranon and Yoris. Isranon suspected that if the king turned in this
direction, she would simply take the last of them in a single night of
frenzy. Nonetheless, Isranon consistently refused to quail before her.
Hoon sat in his favorite chair in his study, cupping a glass of wine.
"Abelard is alive?" He had already been answered twice and the
repetition made the minion kneeling before him nervous. Abelard was
the Sacred King's husband.
Anksha had Ennis on the floor behind the potted plants, worrying
him by the throat like a dog with a rat, as she drank. His screaming set
the other sa'necari on edge. She had promised not to kill any of them–
yet. She would let them heal themselves with blood afterward.
"The wards are down, the tower is empty. All the rooms we could
never find are open and have been emptied." The lesser blood
vampire, an Ylesgaire, cursed.
Hoon set his glass aside, and steepled his fingers, regarding the
lesser blood with arrogant contempt. Three of his 'royals', Lemyari
vampires like himself, flanked him standing; Anksha moved to curl at
his feet running her gaze hungrily across Mephistis and his sa'necari
who were seated on the couches. From the corner of his eye, Isranon
saw a nibari kneel and offer the sobbing Ennis her wrist to drink from.
Isranon sat across from Mephistis, as impassive as stone, while the
prince huddled on a corner of the couch, breathing in rapid catches,
fighting an attack of panic. His stomach hurt, a desperate spasmodic
clenching; yet he was far better off than his prince who struggled not
to send his body's expression of distress spewing across the soft
carpets in a stinking acidic mess.
Hoon drummed his long fingers on the clawed arm of his chair. "If
you had not mismanaged Abelard's death and turning, those things
would have been ours."
Isranon remembered his father trying to reason with the sa'necaris
attacking their small compound, how he tried to persuade them to
cease their assault and so buy time for the others to escape. In the end
only Isranon and his sister had won free. He felt vaguely like his
father, sacrificing himself for what he believed in. Yet, what was he
really doing? Was it truly devotion to his prince?
"Why didn't you turn Abelard the first time?" Mephistis snapped,
his eyes wild.
Hoon gave him a furious glance, hot and contemptuous. "Kalirion
marked his first incarnation. The last Abelard was of his bloodline but
was not marked. My blood taints his body. That should have left a
nasty surprise, though I have not heard. Willidar can be turned if I can
catch him again. According to the rumors of the times, there were
artifacts of great power and incomparable spell books in those rooms.
I want them. And I do not want them turned against us. If the Sacred
King discovers how to use them, she will."
"Then we take Thorn Hall." That was where the Sacred King
resided.
"Easier said than done. I will need to bring a divinator into play.
Hell knows what might have been in those rooms."
"Margren was one of the best, but she is gone." Mephistis turned to
look at Hoon as he spoke. His moods had become shifting and fragile.
It troubled Isranon to watch him.
"She was unstable. Nearly useless," Hoon said, disparagingly.
Isranon listened uneasily. Anksha had insisted on having all six
sa'necari present for this little gathering so she could play games with
the last two. Mephistis and the other four wore neither shirt nor tunic,
so that their scars from her feedings would show. She no longer
bothered to stifle their screams: she made Isranon and Yoris listen and
watch each time she did it, like with Ennis just then. Witnessing it
sickened Isranon. But so did the constant stream of muffled
whimpering coming from Yoris.
"Do not take that tone with me, Brandrahoon!" Mephistis snapped
in an unexpected flaring of temper, which only the name of his dead
wife, Margren, or mention of his lost sons could bring on.
Anksha snarled, nostrils flaring, and Mephistis subsided.
"I apologize," Mephistis said, his gaze sliding over his sa'necari.
Anksha rose and walked slowly around the chairs, smiling in a
calculating fashion, her hands behind her back like a child planning
naughtiness. Isranon suspected his prince's outburst had provoked
something in her.
Isranon felt detached from all the people speaking around him, no
longer putting names to voices. Words were empty things. He
watched Yoris blubber, trembling uncontrollably as Anksha picked
Bodramet and pulled him down, dragging him over to Yoris' feet. The
sa'necari were accustomed to having cattle, not being cattle. They bred
and kept nibari herds, genetically altered humans, to satisfy their
arcane appetites. This made finding themselves as the cattle all the
more difficult and terrifying to endure.
"Watch, Yoris," she purred. "Watch closely. See what I intend for
you."
Yoris cringed away from her, his eyes saucering in panic,
whimpering like a small creature pinned beneath a cat's claws.
"What I intend to do…." Another royal spoke somewhere to the left
of Isranon.
"Anksha, I can't stand it any longer," Yoris wept brokenly, opening
his robe and shoving his chair away as he sank to his knees beside his
compliant fellow. "Bite me, I beg you. Get it over with. You'll do it
anyway. Please, do it now. I can't stand this waiting, this not knowing
when…or if I'll be next."
The Beast shoved Bodramet aside, sending him back to the couch.
Isranon experienced a sharp surge of contempt for Yoris'
cowardice, the first emotion to break through his walls completely. He
would not go down like this, sobbing in terror.
Yoris had always survived at Mephistis' court by playing one
person off against another. Isranon understood the pattern of Anksha's
depredations: she had taken the strongest of them first, working her
way through their ranks to the weakest in power and the weakest of
them all was himself.
Had he believed it would achieve anything, he would have offered
himself in their places; but it would not have helped matters any. It
might even have angered her further.
"Are you certain?" Anksha asked, flashing her fangs. "Will you die
for me? Can I take all I want? Can I drain you to death?"
"Yes. If that's what you want. Only do it now. Please," Yoris
gibbered.
"I will." Anksha leaped onto him.
As her fangs tore into him and her power swept through him, Yoris
screamed as shrill as a woman gone mad, "Noooooo!" Then he wet
himself.
Mephistis closed his eyes until the screaming stopped. Yoris curled
up in a tight, moaning ball when she finished with him.
Isranon decided it was time to make an end of it with all the
courage he could muster, show himself to be a mon like his father,
unafraid of pain and death. He opened his robe, and knelt. The young
sa'necari drew in a fortifying breath, folding his hands together behind
his back.
Hoon paused in his speaking, staring at the multitude of scars on
Isranon's body.
"Since there is no escaping my fate, Anksha," Isranon said. "Then
let me meet it well, rather than whimpering like the others."
Anksha looked at him curiously, taking in the calm stoicism, the
proud tilt to his chin, shoulders and back straight. From her
expression, the fact that his body bore the many scars of others
feedings, had registered in her mind; yet she did not question what she
saw. "You I could like," she said.
"No!" Mephistis shouted. "No, please, Anksha. Not Isranon. He is a
good mon. He isn't like the rest of us." Mephistis crossed the room,
dropping to his knees and pushing between them. "Please. Don't do
this! Hoon, please ask her not to do this."
"Move aside," Anksha hissed. "Or I'll not just take him, Mephistis,
I'll kill him." She twisted about, tearing her claws deeply across
Isranon's chest, gouging him. He bore it well, making not the smallest
sound.
Hoon turned his back. "Take him and be done with it, Anksha."
"Do not plead for me, my prince. Do not dishonor me," Isranon said
calmly. "Let fate find me a man who does not fear it." The Darkness
hunts me and the Light does not want me. He centered himself in the
serene acceptance of the teachings, waiting for her with his head tilted
now like a nibari's before a hungry master, exposing the favored vein.
A stoic stillness framed his utter surrender.
Mephistis withdrew, burying his face in his hands.
Anksha asked Isranon the same questions that she had Yoris, which
he answered and then she took him more savagely than the others,
tearing him further with her claws as well as her fangs. Isranon's
sphincters tightened and his body went rigid with the pain. He fought
to stifle the groan that felt as if it were climbing up his throat inch by
inch until it escaped past his clenched teeth despite his efforts.
Yet, he did not scream.
All his hopes and dreams died as his blood welled into her mouth
and her power swept through him in a roaring presence, claiming all
of him–body and soul. She snapped the dominance-link into place,
jerking him hard and then slashing through him with the blade of her
mind, cutting him heart, mind, and soul; lodging her links agonizingly
in every fiber of his being. She was an inferno in his awareness, an
existential anguish beyond anything he had ever believed possible.
Anksha shattered his barriers, blasted the castle of his will into dust,
and left him utterly broken like a doll dismembered by a hostile child.
Isranon's eyes closed, and he crumpled to lay unmoving before her.
Mephistis cried out in sheer wretchedness, his arms straight down
and fists tightening until his knuckles paled. "No…." He stared at
Isranon's chest, trying to catch the slightest movement to suggest his
friend still breathed: none of the others had been rendered
unconscious by the impact of Anksha's power.
Before Isranon slipped from consciousness, his and Anksha's minds
touched fully. She let out an anguished shriek of total desolation,
circling him in a crouch, tearing her hair and keening his name,
"Isranon, son of Isranon, son of Isranon."
Hoon spun around, stricken by comprehension. He snatched
Anksha up, pressing her face into his shoulder to stifle her noises.
"Take Isranon upstairs," the Lemyari ordered his royals as he carried
her out. Mephistis followed, his eyes wide.
"Hush her quickly. Please. If the others figure out what she means
they'll kill him," Mephistis said. "I discovered him by accident. He's
been my only real friend. Every time another sa'necari stumbles on
those of his lineage, they kill them. But they are too proud to change
their names. It's probably the only decent thing I ever did. Why did he
have to join me at your estate? I told him to stay away."
Hoon's eyes closed briefly. His son, Timon, acting on his orders,
had altered all of Mephistis' letters. Hoon's plots had just doomed the
last surviving male carrying his brother's name in unbroken
succession. For generations they had been forced to become sa'necari
by performing unspeakable acts with their families held hostage to
their compliance. Eventually they began to be born sa'necari. Then the
killing started as they refused to continue. They fled and disappeared.
Hoon assumed they had all been slain at last. Yet here was Isranon
and Hoon had ruined him. Bloody tears ran down his face.
"For many years I tried to get close enough to pull them from the
House of Waejonan's grasp. By the time I was able to, they were gone.
As little power as he possesses, he'll wither and be dead within a
fortnight." Hoon stalked off, carrying the still weeping Anksha.
****
Mephistis followed the royals bearing Isranon to his rooms. He had
barely managed to hold himself together until they had gotten Isranon
onto the bed. The prince could see how badly Anksha had torn him.
She had punished Isranon because Mephistis had tried to intervene,
clawing his chest as well as biting deeply into his neck.
"Get out! Get out all of you!" Mephistis' voice began to crack with
grief and shame even as it rose with rage. When the royals did not
move fast enough he threw a chair at them, then he collapsed on his
knees, falling forward, bent at the waist, his shoulders pressing
Isranon's side. His breathing came in sobs and gasps, tears streaming
his face. "It's my fault. It's my fault she hurt you. It's my fault she
owns you."
Mephistis pressed his forehead against the edge of Isranon's chest
as he wept. Fingers brushed his face.
"My prince?" Isranon's voice was weak and faint. "The bite of the
blade… is nothing… compared to this."
Mephistis raised his head and seeing that Isranon's eyes were open,
he slit his wrist, pressing it to the injured sa'necari's mouth. "Drink,
that's my command." Mephistis had never willingly fed anyone in his
life.
Isranon drank and the sheer potency of Mephistis's blood closed the
wounds in his neck and chest, leaving only scars. Although the blood
healed him swiftly, he would still need more.
"I was going to be free. A ghost promised me…." Isranon's voice
came out jagged, beaten, and haunted as he finally released himself to
despair. "She promised I would walk with gods and the kings of light
to Ildyrsetts. That…that they would give me the staff of Dawnhand….
Now, I'll never be free! Never! She's a roaring noise in my head! Oh
gods, it hurts so." Isranon covered his head, balling up and rolling into
the corner, pressing himself into the wall as if he had lost his mind.
Anksha had not simply taken him, she had broken him.
The strong, stalwart Isranon, that Mephistis had known for years,
was gone, destroyed beneath the psychic claws of the Beast: the old
Isranon would never have been weeping in a corner like this. It hurt
Mephistis to see it.
Anksha did not feed simply on the blood of her slaves, but upon the
entire bio-alchemy of their beings, including their magic; and that was
what caused the withering. It was also why those with less magic died
sooner than those with more. It was the reason for the agony of her
bite. The only worse death that Mephistis could think of would be in
the rites themselves. Yet, the anguish of the rites was short compared
to the lingering death that was Anksha's gift to her blood-slaves.
"The pain will lessen with time. At least you met your fate like a
man. Better than the rest of us. And you were right. She would have
come for you eventually. Anksha left you for last, not because I cared
for you, but because you were the weakest magically."
A knock preceded Nevin and Olin's entrance. They came close,
glancing from Mephistis to Isranon. "What?" Nevin asked.
"Anksha took him. She was angry. To punish me, she shattered
Isranon's psyche and his sense of self."
Nevin's eyes hardened as he listened to Mephistis.
Mephistis went very still, his arms around Isranon. "When Anksha
tires of her toys she kills them," his voice grew ever softer. "Isranon
may be an exception to this, but Hoon's words were 'I've doomed him.'
I don't like the sound of that. It does not bode well for any of us who
have been bitten. I have heard that even those she does not kill
outright wither and die from simply being in her presence. Hoon says
he'll wither and die within a fortnight. Olin, find a bottle of Sanguine
Rose. Maybe if we could get some of that into him…."
Olin obeyed and, when he returned, they dosed Isranon. Sanguine
Rose was a cocktail of powerful drugs and herbs in a troll's blood
base. Troll's blood had an intense effect upon those who lived upon
blood, passing along some the creature's regenerative qualities for as
long as it lasted in the imbiber's system. It was not a healing potion for
humans. Coupled with the drugs that laced the blood, Sanguine Rose
eased pain, brought sleep, encouraged healing, and, in very large
doses produced hallucinations.
As soon as the Sanguine Rose had drawn Isranon into slumber,
Mephistis turned to Nevin. "What is this about a staff?"
"Warrior the staff of Dawnhand. Your ancestor, Waejonan, stole or
ordered stolen," Nevin growled. "As a child, he pledged himself to
recover it from your people."
Mephistis nodded, his eyes downcast. "We do not have it.
Waejonan took it… or rather one of Dawnhand's people betrayed him
and stole it at Waejonan's orders. It was stolen from us. No one knows
where it is. I could have told him that had he asked."
"Isranon learned to keep his own counsels young."
Mephistis nodded again and left them. Then the two lycans, in wolf
form, slept with Isranon. He drifted in and out of drugged slumber,
weeping for his loss, but by morning he had built his castle again and
withdrawn into it, finding that armored center of reason, acceptance
and discipline. He hurt, but he would wall himself in and survive.
****
Nevin woke in the night, changed, and sat beside Isranon, watching
over him with a deep poignant pain in his chest. He stroked the young
mon's dark hair with touches so feather light that Isranon did not wake
to them. The wolf had always believed he would lose him eventually,
yet never dreamed it would be this way. Isranon had been eight when
his father first left him in Claw's valley, hidden away among the lycan
while he searched for a new refuge for his people. Nevin had loved
Isranon from the start, but fallen in love with him when the boy was
fourteen and first starting to run with the wolves to hunt. He had never
said anything, and he would not now. He had taught him to hunt and
fish, to track and trap, to ride like a lycan. He had taught him to fight,
to use his blades. It was wrong for the mentor to fall in love with the
student, especially with such a difference in their ages. So he would
love him in silence. Isranon would wither swiftly. When he died…
when he died, Nevin would return to the clan and write a song about
him. They would howl his name beneath the full moon; add his name
to the list of those great-hearted who had dwelled among them. Then
Nevin bent, and gently, oh so gently, kissed Isranon without waking
him.
"I'll raise your child as if he were my own. I swear it. I will take
your body home and bury it where you were happiest, near the cave
where you and Merissa trysted."
Nevin wished they had told Isranon about the child Merissa carried,
which had been the true reason that Claw sent his daughter away.
Now it seemed wrong to do so. It would give Isranon one more thing
to mourn for: the child he would never know.

CHAPTER TWO. A VERY STRANGE SA'NECARI
Midnight. The soft breezes of summer that should have been
pleasant at that hour smelled of storms–and they were not the storms
of nature. Five thousand years ago the prophet, Ishladrie, had built her
home here and proclaimed that the City of Magic would rise in this
place, only to fall on the morning after it snowed at mid-summer.
Yesterday it had snowed in the early evening, but only over the city
of Charas. Heeding the omen, Lord Hoon was sending some of his
people to safety before the battle with the Sacred King broke, slipping
them out into the night with a small guard.
Isranon lay curled onto his side in pain upon the large bed with its
thick black posts that rose almost to the ceiling. Tasseled ropes held
the emerald bed curtains open. Isranon clutched the heavy blanket in
his fist in the strange cold that had fallen over the city in the night.
Nevin and Olin confronted Anksha, who stood growling softly deep
in her throat. Her black hair had bits of leaves and twigs caught in it.
She wore tight, black leather breeches with her tail sticking out and a
black blouse buttoned to her neck. Her eyes were wary, yet
undeterred. Anksha, all four foot nine of her, was the deadliest one in
the room despite the lycans' greater size.
"You betrayed us, Anksha," Nevin growled. "We trusted you,
befriended you." They had romped with her like two huge dogs and a
feral child since spring. The two lycans had hoped that by forming a
bond with her, however tenuous, they would be protecting Isranon. In
the end it had all been for nothing. The tall, scar-faced lycan stepped
between her and Isranon.
Anksha cocked her head at him, frowning slightly in a blend of
perplexity and irritation at being opposed. "I did not touch you or your
cousin Olin."
Nevin remained intransigent, his hand upon his sword. He could
draw and change to his hybrid form, increasing his strength and speed,
but it would probably do no good against her. His clan had lived in
fear of 'the Beast' for generations. The Beast was a law unto herself,
deferring only to Lord Hoon, precariously balanced between sapience
and instinct. Nevin had been the lawgiver of his clan until he and his
cousin followed Isranon to Charas in a vain effort to protect him. He
knew all the lore of the Beast that his clan possessed. "He is my
spiritbrother.
I raised him. I taught him."
"Be grateful I have not ordered you sent off," Anksha growled.
"I am. That doesn't change anything."
The demon-eater brushed him off. "I am hungry. Tomorrow there
will be battle. Lord Hoon refuses to allow me to feed from my other
blood-slaves."
With haunted eyes, Isranon uncurled, pushed himself up on the bed,
and opened his black robe until all of his neck and chest were
exposed.. "Fate, I am ready."
Olin, standing to the left of Anksha, turned away, closing his eyes
as he ran his fingers uneasily through his black and white hair.
"Isranon…" Nevin moved closer to him.
Anksha snarled, her lips writhing back from her deadly fangs.
"It is too late for this, Nevin." Isranon gestured for him to move
aside. Please don't provoke her, Nevin. Please. "Don't dishonor me."
Nevin's eyes went soft with concern and understanding, as he
looked at the nineteen-year-old. Yet when he turned his gaze back to
Anksha, his eyes had gone hard again. He straddled a chair near the
bed and gripped Isranon's hand firmly, knowing what was coming,
imagining what his spirit-brother must go through each time.
Isranon waited for her. Stoic acceptance shoving aside the distress
in his eyes. He straightened his body and turned his face to the side,
giving her the best angle on his neck. His hand tightened on Nevin's.
Anksha straddled Isranon, her knees in the opened robe lying to
either side of him. "So many scars," she remarked, staring down at his
body.
Thoughts of Mephistis flooded his mind suddenly. "My prince… I
don't want to go without him," Isranon managed to exhale the words.
Anksha snarled at him. "Just you."
"Please…."
Anksha hissed. "Don't beg. I hate beggars. You will do as you are
told, slave."
Slave. Isranon's face twisted briefly and he forced it to smooth out.
He had thought he would be there for Mephistis, but instead he had
deluded himself. He was merely a blood-slave and slaves had no
choices.
"More," Anksha growled softly. "Show me more neck."
At least when she is drinking from me, she is leaving my prince
alone. Isranon swallowed and then tilted his head to his shoulder,
bowing the angle of his throat. "Enough?"
"Yes."
A low whine escaped from Olin.
She smiled and her fangs, always large and tearing, grew larger
still. Anksha was fully capable of severing the spine of even the
largest demon with the strength of her jaws and the sharpness of her
fangs. Then she darted her face down and took him in the neck.
The breath caught in his chest and his body went rigid. Isranon
struggled to repress the sounds of pain, to catch a scream in his throat
and imprison it behind his gritted teeth. Her power burned his psyche
and resonated like thunder and the sizzling crackle of lightning
striking all the nerves in his body. Her claws dug into his arm and
shoulder to hold him still as his muscles twitched involuntarily in
reaction. She drank his blood, his life-force, his magic, and all the
bioalchemical
sources in his being. Isranon's chest heaved up and he
made a shallow gasping sound. His hand tightened convulsively upon
Nevin's for an instant before his eyes rolled up in his head and he went
limp.
Anksha continued to feed from his unconscious body, snatching
glances at Nevin from around Isranon's head. When she had her fill,
Anksha lifted her bloody mouth, licked the wound closed, and wiped
her lips upon a corner of Isranon's robe.
Nevin continued to hold Isranon's hand in silence.
Anksha left the bed and prowled around him. "Have him ready to
ride in three hours."
"That isn't enough time," Nevin growled. Isranon would never be
able to sit a horse that soon after being dined upon, yet Hoon's people
intended to travel fast and whoever could not go ahorse was being left
behind.
"Have him ready." Anksha walked out.
Olin headed toward the door. "I'm going to see if I can gather a few
things to strengthen him. Some Sanguine Rose."
Nevin nodded. "Bring every last bottle of it."
His cousin departed.
With no one to see him, Nevin allowed his emotions to show. Grief
was chief among them, a narrowing, down turn in his eyes and a
tightness in his mouth. Anger lent a glitter to his pupils, darkening
them to shining black.
Nevin foraged in the dressers for a bit of cloth and cleaned the
oozing blood from Isranon's arm and shoulder. The Beast had been
rough and savage with him, which rankled Nevin. He bandaged the
tears. Isranon was fading fast. Anksha was killing him.
"Once there were three brothers: Brandrahoon the vampire; Isranon
Dawnhand speaker to spirits; and Waejonan, first of sa'necari,
accursed be his name forever…." Nevin murmured and then shivered,
refusing to say the rest of it.
****
Anksha woke them. Isranon lay shivering, chilled to his bones,
although the night was warm. Her nearness gave him a savage
headache, her power and presence roaring in his mind, disrupting his
ability to center and withdraw into his inner castle, which still lay
shattered in the rubble of his psyche. He stared at her glassy-eyed,
unfocused and struggling with the physical shock of the earlier
encounter. The effect she had upon her other sa'necari blood-slaves
was magnified fifty times over in Isranon.
Like all the Dark Brothers before him, Isranon had crippled himself
magically and physically compared to the other sa'necari by never
crossing into darkness with the rites, which intensified their powers,
enhanced their ability to heal themselves with blood, and–eventually–
made them nearly unkillable by ordinary means. Isranon had their
gifts and talents, but only in far lessened degree. He could repair
himself by taking blood, but not as well as those steeped in the rites.
None could fight the kind of damage that Anksha wrought upon
them; it was something neither blood nor magic could even begin to
address. All present knew this and it colored their concern.
She leaned close to Isranon, sniffing, and caught the scent of
Sanguine Rose on his breath. Why were they giving him Sanguine
Rose? Was he that frail? That damaged by her feeding? She had never
seen that happen before.
"Get him up," Anksha ordered Nevin. "The horses are ready."
Nevin nodded, eyes still conveying his feelings that she had
betrayed them. Anksha spun on her heel, striding out and leaving
Nevin to get Isranon downstairs. The lycan shifted into his transitional
form, wrapped Isranon in a blanket, and carried him out. "Don't know
how she can expect you to ride, when you can barely stand."
A bit of Isranon's old stubborn strength crept into his voice as he
said, "I'll…manage."
"I put your father's flute in my saddle-bags, Isranon," Nevin told
him. "You won't be playing it with all these sa'necari about."
"Thank you." The flute was safer with Nevin. It was the only
surviving heirloom of Isranon's ancestor, Isranon the Dawnhand and,
therefore the only tenuous connection to all that Dawnhand
represented to him. Isranon did not want to see it broken or damaged.
Nevin knew its importance to him, beyond the intrinsic comfort it
offered. Once a sa'necari had taken a life in the rites, they found the
melody of a flute at best discomforting and at worse an agony. Over
the years many sa'necari had threatened to break his flute, but Isranon
and his companions had always prevented it.
Nevin stepped to their horses, settling Isranon into the saddle. The
sa'necari bent forward over the pommel, the reins in one hand,
clutching the blanket with the other. It was evident that he would have
a hard time staying in the saddle.
Mondarius the divinator Hoon had placed in charge of the march,
approached as the lycans mounted up near Isranon. He wore long
black robes with a belt of strange ritual tools, a length of chain
wrapped around his waist with the end hanging to his knees,
spellcords ready at his waist to bind a mage–any kind of mage–from
accessing his gifts. The divinator reached up from where he stood and
stroked Isranon's cheek. "I want you, Isranon," he murmured softly.
Isranon stared at him, too tired and ill to respond, wrapped in the
drifting dreams of Sanguine Rose, the potentially addictive troll's
blood cocktail of drugs and herbs. It made the world look sharply
lined in colors close up and misty farther back. Too much of it caused
hallucinations, yet since the day Anksha had taken him he had begun
to rely more and more upon it as his Prince had. It dulled his mind to
Mondarius' words, but not the menace in them.
The divinator stroked him with words as well as touch, his voice a
deep and hungry purr. His finger traced the line of Isranon's jugular. "I
want to taste you. I want you belly-down on my table."
Belly-down? Rape or the Rite? In mortegiefan, they placed the male
victims on their bellies and the females on their backs. Isranon tried to
draw away from him, but that made his seat feel uncertain. Instead he
folded forward more, over his hand on the high pommel, clutching the
blanket tighter. He felt sick, his muscles aching and weak. His feet
were in the stirrups, yet he could not grip with his knees and legs.
Always, he had been proud of his strength, his skill with his weapons
that made up for his miniscule grasp of the dark magics–and now that
had all been taken from him by Anksha. Before this he would have
put a blade under Mondarius' chin and ordered him to back off
whether it was a struggle he could win or not. The Sanguine Rose
could not entirely mask the bitter bile rising from his stomach into his
throat.
Mondarius was an ugly man. Some said he was not human. He had
a large mouth with full lips that dominated the elongated rectangle of
his face. His prognathous jaw and long, hooked nose suggested an
insect grown to human proportions. His forehead was broad and high
with a conspicuous widow's peak of ebony hair over deathly pale flesh
reminiscent of the underbelly of a fish. Mondarius continued to stroke
him. "Then I will open you up, last of your lineage, and make a
powerful spell from your death."
Isranon shivered beneath the touch of those silken fingers, feeling
soiled and threatened. My people have become so creative in the uses
and ways of death.
Nevin brought his horse closer, causing the divinator to smile and
move away. "What was that about?" he asked.
Isranon shook his head, unable to shake off the cobwebs and think.
Sanguine Rose made twisted images dance in his head and blurred his
grasp of Mondarius' words. The only thing emerging clear was a sense
of being endangered by the divinator. "Keep him away from me,
Nevin."
"So be it." The old wolf would have asked more, but Mondarius
had reached the head of the van, mounted and was now signaling
them to move out.
They rode from Lord Hoon's compound through a postern gate,
heading for the east side of the city, away from the imminent conflict.
Already sounds of fighting and flames from burning buildings could
be seen in the west. It had begun, but not yet reached the place where
Lord Hoon intended to make his stand.
In the darkness, Isranon's thoughts drifted back to Mephistis. "My
prince, please be safe. I don't want to leave you."
****
Lemyari, the highest royalty among the lineages of vampires, led
the march, twenty strong. Daylight never bothered them, holy
symbols–even backed by faith–could not touch them, their strength
and skill with the blades they carried was tremendous, and beneath
their nails were secondary nails that emerged like claws to inject a
terrible venom for which no antidote existed.
Behind their first rank rode the sa'necari of Mondarius, the
divinator's precious necromancers. Many of them had been made in
the rites, but most of Mondarius' inner circle had been born high-caste
sa'necari.
Lycans in wolf-form ran ahead of the force as scouts. They were
considered the royalty of the wolven skin-changers because they
always bred true and changed at will. Most of their clans lived in the
northern forests, comprising battle-clans and settled clans who
farmed. The most powerful of the settled clans was Red Wolf in
Waejontor, the clan from which Nevin and Olin came.
Their destination was Hoon's estate near Minnoras. They took the
north road, which was little used and largely overgrown by brush and
a thickening canopy of oak, red, white, and black, with shagbark
hickories throughout in smaller clusters. Five hundred years ago the
dominant tree had been lofty chestnuts, many of them more than
twenty feet in diameter that littered the ground each autumn with their
nuts. The majority of them had been burned off during the wars of that
time and their territory overwhelmed by the oaks, the birches, and the
hickories. Charas did not trade to the north and little traffic came
down this road.
Despite the shade and the freakish snowstorm–that could only be an
enchantary working–on the hottest day of summer, heat simmered
along the road. Isranon felt the heat more strongly the further he got
from the moment of Anksha's feeding. At midday the company
paused to rest the horses. Isranon dismounted, sliding and falling from
the saddle as both his grip on the pommel and his foot in the stirrup
gave. Instantly Nevin was beside him, supporting him, holding him a
moment more than was necessary as if fearing to let him go.
Isranon blinked, sucking in a breath, and found his feet. "I'm all
right…." The words came out in a hissing of breath. He wanted to fall
to the ground and curl up, but his pride would not allow it. So his will
asserted itself and he straightened with an effort.
A surge of power cascaded across the ground as a wave of ghosts
crested over them, which only Isranon could see. Ghosts hated
sa'necari and hid from them, lied to them, and stood beyond their
powers to compel. Yet, they made Isranon an exception: he possessed
his distant ancestor, the Dawnhand's gift of speaking to spirits. They
came in a long, sustained rush as if thousands of years of rites had
been broken, releasing their shattered pieces to wholeness. It was too
much for him to bear; in his fragile physical condition, the impact on
his senses staggered him to his knees. He collapsed in the dirt, rolling
onto his side and clutching the tears that Anksha had left in him hours
past. The company struggled with their mounts as the animals reacted
to the presence of the ghosts.
Nevin crouched over him, trying to shield him from things unseen.
Some ghosts paused, looking at Isranon. He felt strange beneath their
gaze. They reached for him in a cacophony of voices that he could not
sort out. His horse's reins slipped from his fingers.
"What do you want?" Isranon asked the spirits, pulling the blanket,
which he had barely managed to retain, tighter around him. So cold.
He felt as cold as death.
The ghosts parted, pointing to a pool of water beside the path.
Isranon could hear the vampires shouting to him as if from a great
distance as he crawled toward it.
"What is it, Isranon?" Nevin asked, following him.
Isranon knelt, peering into the waters. An image formed.
His friend, the mage Josiah Abelard screamed at the Sacred King,
Aejystrys Rowan, to get out, that it was a trap. Prince Mephistis
shoved a blade into Josiah's back and Hoon thrust a blade into his
chest. For an instant the blades suspended him. Then Hoon and
Mephistis jerked them out; and he crumpled, his arms pressing in
across his wounds as he fell to lie unmoving on the ground.
A red-gold haired yuwenghau screamed in rage and grief as Josiah
fell. Aejys charged into the ranks of the undead, scything through
them like a storm out of Haven. The yuwenghau drew his golden
sword even as he lashed out with power. green leaves and vines of
energy whipped through the chamber, destroying the undead with a
touch, cutting a path for Aejys to reach Josiah, preventing the
pressing hordes from reaching her from either side. Only the living
went untouched. A ha'taren, paladin of the god Aroana, leaped into
the room, engaging the nearest sa'necari, screaming "Aroana!"
Isranon knew nothing of the God of Light, Aroana of the Walled
Cities. He had craved the knowledge of these gods and of their
yuwenghau, divine knights-errant, all his life. Growing up in the dark
realm of Waejontor, he had never had access to such knowledge.
Mephistis seeing the Sacred King come for him, turned to flee.
Hoon shoved Mephistis into the path of her scything blade.
With one lunging swing, Spiritdancer severed Mephistis' head. It
rolled to Hoon's feet. Hoon fled through a window.
Spiritdancer… Isranon knew that blade could only be Spiritdancer,
healer of souls. When a sa'necari died by that blade, all the souls he
had taken in the rites were finally released. He had never seen the
Sacred King before, but he recognized her from her descriptions, for
she had feathered wings of azure, tipped in scarlet. And still the
images rolled across the water.
White mist with sparkling silver motes of power flowed forth from
the bloody gushing stump of Mephistis' neck. The chamber filled with
ghosts, crowding it, flowing out into the corridors. A wail went up
from the sa'necari and they fled through the windows.
The ghosts murmured in a thousand voices. "Beware the Sacred
King, Dark Brother. And the allies of Hell besides. The Darkness
hunts you and the Light does not want you."
"It's too late for me," Isranon sighed, caught up in feelings of utter
desolation as deep as death itself. "The Darkness has taken me and I
will never be free."
Still the ghosts of the victims of a million unholy rites continued to
pour from the prince's corpse. They streamed around Aejys as she
knelt, gathering Josiah in her arms.
"Did…did you…get them?" Josiah asked, his voice a hoarse,
struggling whisper.
"Mephistis. Hoon got away."
Josiah touched the spot of wetness gathering in the corner of her
eye. "Don't cry for me." Then his hand fell away and he was gone.
Both of his friends were dead.
His life was a painful dichotomy wrought of his father's pacifistic
teachings and the lycan ways of honor and strength that Nevin had
tried to instill within him. He knew it. He acknowledged it in random
moments. Yet he rarely acted upon it, except fleetingly. He believed
that he had been closer to Mephistis than to Josiah, yet seeing
Mephistis fall, the name he spoke, the one that sent the most profound
rush of grief and loss through him was "Josiah." He could not
understand it, since he had known the mon so briefly.
"Isranon?" Nevin shook him gently, seeing his eyes start to close
and his head fall back.
Isranon rallied for a moment. "My prince…. He's dead."
Then his eyes closed and he lost himself.
****
Anksha crouched beside Isranon, her gaze flicking from his still
face to those of Nevin and Olin. "Mephistis is dead?"
"That is what he said," Nevin snarled at her.
Anksha turned inward, reaching for Mephistis and found only an
empty spot in her awareness where he should have been lodged. "Yes,
he is dead." She sighed heavily. "And I didn't get to send his body to
my sanguiner to be drained."
Nevin cradled Isranon in his arms, calling his name. Resentment ate
at the wolf. Three weeks was all that Isranon had gained with his
prince by refusing to abandon him; and in exchange, Isranon had lost
his freedom and was losing his life.
Stretching her arm out, Anksha tentatively stroked Isranon's curly
black hair. Then she saw the gathering crowds watching them and she
hissed like a cat. "Help him."
"Why should you care?" Nevin growled, wolf and lion eyeing each
other with unspoken threat.
"Because I do," she said and brandished her claws in his face.
"Get him moving or I'll have him put down!" Mondarius shouted,
stalking toward them. The divinator had a hungry look in his eye as he
regarded Isranon.
"He's mine," Anksha hissed, her tone bordering on that of a spitting
cat. Her nostrils flared and she caught Mondarius' scent, which made
her shake her head twice as if she had come upon a skunk. He stank of
odd things and she needed to sort it out, to identify it.
"And I am in charge here." Mondarius stood over them.
The vampires formed a half moon behind her, while Mondarius'
sa'necari retainers cautiously eyed them and others in the mixed
company; Hoon employed a wide range of talents in his scattered
holdings. Charas had contained the most diverse selection of retainers
of all of them, because the City of Magic tolerated such things. Nevin
lifted Isranon into his arms, nodding at Olin to mount, and handed the
unconscious sa'necari up to him. Anksha subsided in her hissing. She
preferred to ride crouched upon her pillion pad behind Lord Hoon, but
Hoon was not here so she rode mounted alone instead.
"Don't like this," she hissed at Nevin, sliding into her crude
childhood dialect out of habit. "Mondarius smells funny."
Nevin grabbed the reins of Isranon's horse, tying them onto his
saddle. The barriers he had raised between them since the evening that
she took his spirit-brother eased back. "Funny as different species, or
funny as you catch moods?"
"Like you can smell fear? I can do that and yes, that kind of funny a
bit."
"You know what it is?"
Anksha shook her head, sending some of the leaves and twigs loose
from her long black hair. Then she bounded onto her horse.
"Just what kinds of folk does Hoon have?" Nevin had watched
many different folk appear and fall in with them along the way since
leaving Charas. It made him suspicious and uncomfortable. "Are you
certain all of these are his?"
"Galee is gone. Mephistis is gone. Many leaders gone." She
continued to hiss intermittently.
"My point. A lot of masterless sa'necari, vampires, and worse."
Anksha did not answer immediately: she was thinking. "Once there
were three brothers," she muttered under her breath. "Brandrahoon the
vampire; Isranon the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits; and Waejonan the
Accursed, first of sa'necari."
Had she known that Isranon was the last descendant of someone
she had loved above all others, she would never have touched him, no
matter what Hoon wished. How many people had Hoon told of
Isranon's lineage? Eventually she would have to learn whether Nevin
knew what he truly was. Isranon baffled her. His powers were no
more than a child's and he smelled off. Sa'necari, yet not sa'necari.
Things that baffled her made her uneasy, and uneasiness frequently
made her cross. And what made her cross…. Well, sometimes she
killed and ate them.
She had no memory of her family or tribe, nothing to tell her
whether she was or was not the last of her kind. Hoon claimed he had
thoroughly searched the island where she had been found, and
promised to take her there eventually, yet in all these centuries he had
never done so.
"This Isranon is not that Isranon…. This Isranon is not that
Isranon," Anksha whispered her tiny chant far back in her throat as if
to reassure herself that what she was doing to him was not wrong. She
did not understand why her blood-slaves withered and died, and why
the lesser ones in power lasted only a short time.
****
Sanguine Rose distanced Isranon from the present, but increased
his tendencies to dream and to relive the past in its embrace. The drink
was both seductive and terrifying with its effects. Sometimes he
forgot what he had remembered in the night and sometimes the
images lingered to haunt him. Sanguine Rose kept him alive, made the
pain bearable, and tormented him. In its grip that night, Isranon
dreamed of Josiah in pieces of fragmented images. Hoon had held the
mage captive for a week, torturing and placing compulsions in his
mind, bending him to his will like a dog. Isranon had cared for him
and provided for his needs in the attic of a house near Rowanhart.
"I've brought you some dinner," Isranon said, setting the tray on a
small table near the window. Sunlight slipped through the thin linen
curtains in slender beams along the edge of the worn dark wood.
Josiah turned on his side, regarding him with tired eyes. Isranon
helped him to rise, got him seated, and took the other chair. They
watched each other silently, both wanting to speak, but not quite
knowing what to say. Josiah ate slowly, reluctantly.
"I'm sorry," Isranon said suddenly.
"For what?"
"That they are doing this to you."
A tense silence settled. When Josiah had finished eating, Isranon
helped him back to bed.
Isranon took Josiah's wrist, extending his senses through his body.
The amount of damage shook him, and the natural power of the mage
impressed him. This was the terrifying mage who knocked down the
ruins at Dragonshead, who split the gate to arrive at the topmost altar
in the Chamber of Hecatomb to rescue Aejystrys Rowan.
Zyne, Josiah's lover, had spellcorded him as he slept and given him
to Hoon. Such treacheries deepened Isranon's hatred and terror of
Hoon. Were the mon well, he could easily have stood against
Mephistis. His prince's power was not natural: it had been built
through the Legacy by centuries of horrific rites. How incredible to
have simply been born with it, a gift of the gods and natural order like
Josiah. Even Isranon, as isolated as he had been growing up and as
oblivious as he had chosen to be among the sa'necari, had heard of
Josiah Abelard. In his previous life he had been a mage-paladin of
Kalirion, a mon of unbelievable power; yet in this one he had been
damaged beyond repairing–the mon was dying, even without the
added stress Hoon placed upon him by feeding on him and tormenting
him. Hoon had brought Josiah here to break him.
"How did this happen?" Isranon asked. "The damage?"
"The magic was burned out when I was a child," Josiah said,
impulsively trusting him. "It came back sideways, but only when I
drink."
Isranon nodded. He had heard of that being done to sa'necari who
displeased King Baaltrystan. "But that cannot be all of it."
"It isn't. I cast a dangerous spell to save my mate."
Isranon remembered how he had felt in going after Troyes to save
Merissa and identified with the mon in that instant, sensing a kindred
soul in Josiah. "You knew what it would do to you?"
"Yes."
The mage's devotion to his loved one shamed Isranon. Josiah had
far more courage than he. Isranon had not fought Anksha and Hoon
for his prince.
Mephistis came in and reached out to touch Josiah.
"Mephistis…." Isranon said.
"I won't hurt him. I'm not ready to die. I just want to know what
kind of duel we might have had had he been well. Hoon holds both of
us, Abelard. With different leashes." Mephistis closed his eyes as he
Read Josiah. When he finished, he nodded. "Impressive." Then he left.
A few minutes later a scream echoed from the stairs.
Isranon went very still. "Anksha must have seen him leaving. He
was told not to come up here."
"That was Mephistis screaming?"
"Yesss!" Isranon sucked in a deep breath. He wanted to rush to
Mephistis' side, but he had been ordered to remain in the attic;
disobey and they would hurt his prince. "I wish that I were not
sa'necari, but merely Waejontori so that I could tell your people what
has really gone on in my lands. The secrets. But if I were not
sa'necari, I would not know them. And then, because everyone kills
first and asks questions later, in the end the truths are lost. The
knowledge gone."
"You are a very strange mon."
Isranon snorted. "No. I am a very strange sa'necari."
"Why do you stay with them?"
"Because so long as Anksha holds my prince in thrall, I will never
leave. They will have to kill me to take me from his side."
Isranon stirred in his bedroll and woke. He stared at the ceiling of
his tent in the darkness. "Both dead." His voice sounded dull and
worn. "Letting Josiah go would have been a better sacrifice and I
didn't do it. Father, I have been a fool. I wanted to be worthy of your
memory and I have failed. My prince is dead. My sacrifice has been
for nothing. Ancestors forgive me."

CHAPTER THREE. THE QUEEN IS COMING
Isranon slept upon the ground, wrapped in both his blankets and
Olin's. The wolf stretched out beside Isranon, whose hand rested upon
Olin's black furry ruff. One of the lycans was always with him. He
shifted without waking, clinging to Olin like a child desperate for the
comfort of physical closeness, shattered even in his dreams.
He woke, feeling her nearness first as a pounding in his head and
then a raging agony in his body, followed by searing pain through his
veins and nerve endings. Not even large doses of Sanguine Rose could
suppress it entirely. Mephistis had told him that the Presence Pain
would lessen with time, but so far it had not. The passage of the
ghosts and the viewing in the pond had left him fragile. She curled
against him, looking down into his eyes. Her eyes were dilated like a
cat's to take in more light and glowed green in the darkness. They
would go slitted in the brightness of daylight.
"You've come for me, Anksha?" Isranon asked. He opened his
black blood-slave robe, and waited for her. He did not know whether
she had come for blood or sex, but she owned him through the
dominance-link.
Anksha chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "Isranon? I want to talk
to you."
Talk. She wanted to talk when he hurt so bad he wanted to weep
like a child. He wondered suddenly why she made him think of
Juldrid. "Anksha, the link… it hurts. Feed. Then talk."
She frowned curiously. "Once I've fed it doesn't hurt as much?"
"Yes." Isranon resisted the sharp urge to twist up into a ball: to do
so would shame his pride. He clutched at Olin as Anksha climbed on
top of him. I will be strong. I will be strong. I will be a man, like my
father. I will not give way to fear.
The lycan gave a sympathetic whine, pushing his head tight against
Isranon's side, eyes closed. She took him hard and Isranon writhed
under her, one foot slipping out of the blankets to dig at the soil
convulsively until consciousness fled and he lay still.
The corners of Anksha's lips drooped as she regarded him. It had
been two weeks and Isranon still fainted. He was not as strong as the
others she had taken, which made her sad. She felt as if she were
hurting Dawnhand. She had said that to Hoon, but he had refused to
understand her feelings. Sometimes Anksha believed that Hoon loved
her; other times she thought he had never loved her at all. Dawnhand.
Dawnhand had been different and she never questioned the fact that
he had always loved her. And, in all the centuries that had passed
since his death, she had not stopped missing him.
Anksha cradled Isranon's head in her lap and sat chanting his name,
stroking his face, and waiting mournfully for him to wake. "Isranon,
son of Isranon, son of Isranon, son of Isranon, Dawnhand. Dawnhand,
Dawnhand, Dawnhand." Then she kissed him, weeping. "This Isranon
is not that Isranon…. This Isranon…."
****
Isranon sat upon a square of stone surrounded on three sides by
bushes. The concealment comforted him, lending him an illusion of
safety. If he allowed himself to think about it, he would lose the
illusion, so the youth worked hard at maintaining it. He built castles
in his mind to wall out his awareness of what went on around him in
order to stay calm and centered. Anger was his frequent and
unwanted companion living among his own people, whose violent
ways he detested.
His flute helped him get past his anger at his people. So he sat and
played. The first songs were sad and troubled, but slowly the music
lifted him out of it and the notes changed until they were as pure and
sweet as birds.
The sounds of a lute came from nearby. Isranon raised an eyebrow
at that, but did nothing. He continued to play and now he could hear
the minstrel coming nearer. From the corner of his eye, he saw
Juldrid sitting. He gave her a small nod. Isranon did not want to
frighten her away by attempting conversation: She knew what he was.
They played together in silence until dark, then she rose and left him
without speaking.
****
Isranon became aware first of the feather light touches of her hands
and then the roaring noise in his psyche and pain in his body,
somewhat lessened. His neck and shoulder hurt. The other pain,
Mephistis had called it the Presence Pain, had dimmed. Isranon
opened his eyes.
"Is it better now? Is it better?" she asked, anxiously, between
rounds of crooning his name.
"Yes, Anksha, it is better." What did he see in her and why did it
touch him? Was it because of a child-like concern in her voice? Or
because it appeared so unexpectedly and unlooked for by him? He
could neither decide nor place his finger upon it.
He had seen what she had done to the others, especially his slain
prince. His entire sense of reality had been built upon Prince
Mephistis, the most powerful sa'necari who had ever existed…
Mephistis who had been his protector and his friend, concealing his
traitorous lineage and heretical beliefs. It had all been shattered when
he was forced to watch Anksha tear into Mephistis while the prince
cowered in a corner unable to fight back. As those images ran through
his mind, he silently repeated the creed of the Dark Brothers to raise
the inner castles in his mind against his fear of her.
The Darkness hunts us and the Light does not want us….
His father had been right. By giving his allegiance and love to
Mephistis as his prince, Isranon had emerged from the protective
shadows and the predators had noticed him–and pulled him down like
a deer beneath the lion's claws. He had no choice now, save to see the
lion as she was and try to make the best of it.
He finger-combed the leaves and twigs from her hair and touched
the angles of her face as if seeing her for the first time. Anksha had
shed her clothes: Isranon knew she wore them with great reluctance.
The creature was actually pretty. Her soft fur, which covered her from
her collarbone to her wrists and ankles, felt finer than the most costly
velvet; and was a trace more ivory than her fair skin. The dark areolas
of her erect nipples on her firm, pointed breasts tempted him in a way
Isranon felt they shouldn't. The long, black, and exquisitely silken hair
veiling her loins called out to him to part it and he forced his mind away. She
did not seem like a monster then; more like the feral child
who had romped with Nevin and Olin last spring.
The feral child, whose innocent capacity for joy, caused him to shift
from hatred upon learning the true nature of her relationship to his
prince to a difficult swirl of alternating patterns of amusement and
animosity. Hatred did not come naturally to Isranon, which made it
harder for him to continue feeling hostile toward her. With a few
people, like Bodramet, he worked hard to keep his guard up around
them, to maintain his anger as a shield because he knew they would
come back at him at the first sign of weakness. Sometimes that served
him well and frequently it failed him, leaving him open to those who
would use or abuse him. He wondered which way it would go with
Anksha.
If he could find a way to sooth her as he had Juldrid, who had been
like a shy forest creature herself, then she would be less of a danger to
Nevin and Olin.
"I didn't know the link hurt." She snuggled around him. "Unless I
meant it to."
"Mephistis told me it would lessen in time. Perhaps it's just me,"
said Isranon, taking responsibility for his own suffering, as he always
did.
"Perhaps. There are too many sa'necari in camp. Mondarius is in
charge. Do you know what he is?"
"No." Isranon knew there was something he should remember
about Mondarius, an exchange of words, yet he had been too weary
and lost in the grip of Sanguine Rose to hold onto it; so it hovered
along the edges of his mind as if he could touch it if he tried and he
had not the strength to try. All that he had left of it was a gripping
terror of the mon. Two years past the ghost of a murdered Sharani
farmer had told him to 'learn or die', yet by the time he learned….
Isranon closed that thought out, reaching for his father's teachings to
grant him a calm center once more.
It had become hard to hold onto his center and withdraw into his
inner castle of serenity for more than a handful of moments. It had
been easy when he had been free and strong, carrying the sword at his
shoulder and two blades at his hips: Nevin had trained him in them.
His father had disapproved of Nevin's teachings; Nevin had
disapproved of his father's; and they had trapped him between them.
Yet his father had trusted Nevin enough to send Isranon to him every
time the Dark Brothers were forced to flee again.
"He's a divinator. Cuts people open while they're alive…." Anksha
hissed and spit like a cat, sliding through a dozen dialects as she
struggled for the right words.
"Vivisectionist priest," Nevin said, slipping into the tent. Isranon
caught a glimpse of Olin crouching nearby, guarding them. "Living
the kind of isolated life you had with your father's people; keeping so
much to yourself once Mephistis found you, you would not know
about them. We don't speak of them among the clans."
"They read entrails?" Isranon asked. He extended his hand to
Nevin. "A little of the Rose?"
The lycan pulled the bottle from his shirt pocket and passed it to
Isranon. Nevin did not allow him to keep the bottle for fear that he
would stay continuously under the influence of the Sanguine Rose or
take enough to kill himself. Isranon took several swallows and passed
it back.
"Worse than that," Anksha said.
"Much worse," Nevin's voice took on the tones he had used as the
lawgiver to Clan Redwolf. "They seal their spells up inside them, time
their deaths, and call it sealing a prophecy. When the victim dies the
curse cannot be turned or altered in any way. Some times it is
something they've seen in the victim's entrails. Other times it's
something they've foreseen and they alter the prediction to suit them.
They seal it so folks can't find a loophole in the prediction and alter it
themselves as sometimes happens in prophecy."
"Yes," Anksha hissed. "Nasty mon."
"In all the Waejontori temples, the bodies are sealed in the
masonry, the basements and foundations. That's why the Sharani don't
find the bodies, don't know the divinators exist. It was a tenhecatombic
rite of the divinators, presided over by Aurean, that laid
the curse on Shaurone."
"Why are you telling me this?" Isranon asked, feeling chilled.
Exhaustion ate at him and he struggled to respond, to think. The
Sanguine Rose caused his thoughts to drift, adding to the confusion in
his mind.
Nevin sighed. "Anksha thinks Mondarius wants to use you for one
of those rites."
"Why?"
"There's an ugly prophecy and he wants to make certain that his
side wins. One part has already come to pass. Kalirion already has his
sacred king and we've reason to believe that the twisted child–or the
blessed child–depends on your point of view, has been born. This pup
is both sa'necari and life mage."
"Sa'necari and life-mage?" Isranon sat up, startled. "Is such a thing
possible?"
"Must be. It has Mondarius spooked. You know why he wants you?
You're Dawnhand's last surviving descendant."
Sa'necari and life-mage. Both sides of the coin of existence. I wish
it were me. Then I would be strong enough to fight. Isranon forced the
thought aside as a foolish fantasy. He would never be free. It was too
late for dreams. His father had been right. He should have found
himself a hiding place and stayed there. Now he was a blood-slave
and blood-slaves had no future save death.
"You are mine, Isranon," said Anksha. "No touches you, but me. I
will rip anyone who tries."
"You must tell us if he approaches you," said Nevin. "If he says
anything to you, you must tell us."
"I will." Isranon wished he could remember exactly what
Mondarius had said. Then he noticed how closely Anksha and Nevin
were cooperating and hoped it meant they might be able to repair the
crude relationship that had existed before he was taken by her. It
would ease his concerns about Nevin.
****
Sanguine Rose sang through Isranon's blood, bringing the
memories rushing through his dreaming mind as it always did. He
could not control his grieving for his prince and it colored his dreams.
Isranon ran hard, darting through the bushes and trees with his
bow at his shoulder and his skinning knives at his hips. Panic gripped
him. His heart raced. Breathing was a lance of fire in his lungs and
chest. He could hear the sa'necari coming closer, riding him down.
There must have been twenty or more of them. Nevin had told him not
to hunt this side of the river, to stay on the clan lands. Yet, the buck
had been too beautiful not to bring down. Such tremendous antlers! At
fourteen, Isranon prided himself on his hunting skills. He had been
straddling the stag with his knife shoved into its throat to finish it
when the sa'necari appeared out of nowhere; making leering remarks
about riding and riting him. Isranon cut one of them and got loose,
fleeing.
The woods ahead of him thinned and he could see the bridge that
would take him onto clan lands where his pursuers could not go
without permission–which the clan chief, Claw Redhand, would never
give them under the circumstances. He burst from cover into the path
of four horsemyn he had not realized were there because of his
concentration on those chasing him. Strong hands caught him by the
collar and yanked him off his feet, dragging him across a saddle.
Isranon twisted and thrashed. The horse sidestepped uneasily. A fist
clipped his head in an admonitory thump.
"Be still, boy!"
Isranon looked up into a thin, almost effeminately sensual face with
a tiny goatee of silken black hair. "Let me go! Nevin and Claw
will…."
"Are you lycan then?" The mon frowned, touching his face lightly.
"I'm here to buy horses from Claw."
Isranon's hair stood on end as the mon continued to touch him. He
felt the shivering goosebumps along his arms that betrayed the touch
of the mon's power. Isranon screamed. The mon was Reading him
and, in a moment, would know what he was.
"Sa'necari," the mon hissed. "And not blooded in the rites or your
powers would be stronger."
Isranon squared his shoulders the best he could despite being
draped head down. "Kill me and be damned. I do not fear death."
The mon laughed. "You were running away from it fast enough."
The boy's pursuers drew rein around them. One rode forward,
bowing low in the saddle to Isranon's captor. "I see that you caught
him, highness."
The mon tilted his head with a thin, indolent sneer. "Caught who?"
"The heretic. We planned to rite him when we caught him."
"There is no heretic here, only my young friend," the mon snarled
and then whispered to Isranon, "what is your name?"
"Isranon," the boy whispered back.
"There is only my young friend Isranon here and he is not a heretic.
Furthermore, he is under my protection." The mon's voice took on a
dark, venomous tone. "Touch him and I will destroy the lot of you."
Isranon goggled at the way they all started fading back into the
forest without contesting further. "Who are you?"
"Prince Mephistis Coleth de Waejonan."
****
The gray wolf sauntered into camp just as dawn broke, sniffing for
signs of the ones she sought. She moved with the easy step of youth,
picking out the various scents with swift sureness: Isranon. Darianna,
called Daree, had been excited when Merissa asked her to carry the
news to them about the child instead of one of the older wolves. She
had reached the Minnorian estate without trouble, only to find that
they had moved on and then spent months tracking them. Darianna
trotted along the edges of the camp until she picked up Isranon's scent,
but it was mixed with the scent of the Beast, which made her hackles
rise.
Darianna nosed along the edges of several tents until she found one
that smelled so strongly of Isranon that she guessed it had to be his.
The scent of the Beast was easily as strong, if not stronger. The low
groan of a male in pain emerged. Dread rose up in her and she stifled
the instinct to bolt from it in order to stick her head inside and look.
The Beast straddled one of her blood-slaves, feeding noisily. The
groaning mon stiffened, his chest rising sharply as he writhed beneath
her, his hands clawing reflexively into the blankets he lay upon, his
feet digging at the ground and then went still. She recognized him and
the wolf he clutched at convulsively before he lapsed unconscious.
Backing away, she turned to run–had she had tears to cry in this form,
she would have–and found herself facing Nevin. The scarred lycan
grabbed at her, but she eluded him.
"Daree!" he called after her, changing to chase her down.
He caught her, rolling her across the ground. She snapped at him,
but Nevin was larger, stronger, faster and had her by the throat before
she got far. Darianna stilled beneath him, signaling surrender, and he
released her.
"Blood-slave!" Her voice cracked with the first words from her
throat as she changed. "How could you allow this to happen?"
"The prince is dead."
Daree's young eyes filled. "To be taken by the Beast is to die."
Nevin did not reply to that, knowing she was right. "What word?"
"The child is a boy. Merissa has named him Darmyk. For her
grandfather."
Nevin considered that. "Tell them I will stand as father in my
brother's place when we return."
"You intend to see it to the end?"
"I cannot leave him to face this alone. I will bring his body home.
He should be buried where he was happiest."
"You are stronger than I, Nevin. I will tell them."
****
Anksha cleaned Isranon's neck with her tongue, tending the wound
she had left, making certain that it was completely closed. She paused
in her ministrations to listen to him murmuring a name over and over
without regaining consciousness. "Josiah…. Josiah." She frowned.
Sometimes it was Josiah and other times it was Mephistis. She knew
that Hoon had had something to do with both deaths, sensing it
through her link with Isranon. However, she had hesitated to ask
Isranon how he knew and what he knew. Hoon would tell her when he
overtook them.
Isranon watched Josiah, who lay staring at the crossbeams of dark
wood in the attic room of the stone house on Sophren Bay. The mage
glanced at him and Isranon knew the mon was wondering about his
eyes. Sa'necari eyes became amaranthine without pupils, irises, and
whites after their first act of mortgiefan. Isranon's were the same as
he had been born with: black.
Nevin and Olin lay on the floor at Isranon's feet in wolf-form. They
had helped him change the mage into clean clothing.
"Why did that sa'necari keep calling you half-a-mon?"
Isranon felt drawn to Josiah. If he could have let him go, he would
have. So he answered. "Because I have never committed mortgiefan,
or any of the other rites. I have never taken a life out of appetite. Only
in self-defense or the defense of others. There are so many things I
wish I could tell you, all the secrets of the sa'necari."
"Don't endanger yourself."
"The Darkness hunts me and the light does not want me. If you
swear not to betray me to the others I will tell you what I am."
"You have my word, Isranon."
"I am Isranon Dawnhand's last descendant, Isranon son of Isranon
son of Isranon for generations. We need the blood to survive, but we
take no lives. I am the last Dark Brother. The sa'necari have slain the
rest of us."
Isranon twisted in the dreams as he had so many times, trying to
wake and finding that he could not. His best efforts simply dragged
him to another scene, another memory, another nightmare. It was the
price he paid for a taste of Sanguine Rose, for the only thing that
could ease him waking and let him sleep at night.
He dipped the cloth in warm water, squeezed it out and bathed
Josiah's face, gently cleaning away the blood and vomit from Hoon's
most recent session with the mage. Josiah stirred, opening his eyes
under Isranon's ministrations. Isranon carried the basin back to the
small table across from the bed.
The residents of the house had changed. People came and went
constantly as Hoon brought his army secretly into position around the
city. Isranon thought the house was empty that late afternoon. Then he
heard the door open and looked up.
"Hello, half-a-mon. So this is the great and terrible mage that
leveled the ruins at Dragonshead?" Bodramet stepped across the
threshold with a spell on his lips to snare Isranon before the mon
could reach for his blades, wedging him into a corner. "I've come to
pay Mephistis back for humiliating me when all I wanted was a little
taste of his catamite. Give me what I want and I'll leave you alone."
Isranon struggled against the spell imprisoning him as Bodramet
ran a finger along his inner thigh. "No."
Josiah levered himself up. He dragged the whiskey from the
nightstand, taking a long pull from the bottle. Over Bodramet's
shoulder, Isranon could see the change in the damaged mage as his
power flared.
"Josiah!"
Bodramet released Isranon. He threw a snaring web of dark magic
at Josiah and drew his blade. Isranon, freed in that instant, seized
Bodramet's blade hand. Bodramet whipped back on him, angrily,
shoving the spell in Isranon's face and the blade in his gut. Then
Josiah was on him. The wasted, puny drunkard came like a tiger, his
magic searing through Bodramet. The sa'necari screamed as he was
thrown backwards, hurled from the room and down the stairs.
Isranon slipped to a sitting position between the dresser and the
wall. Josiah drew the blade from his body and began that strange
spell of his, shared life, giving from his own wasted body to strengthen
Isranon's. Isranon's sa'necari constitution received the blood
differently from ordinary humans and the wound closed. He felt odd.
Something was changing inside and he could not say what.
Josiah screamed, losing control of his spell and flooded Isranon
with pieces of himself. Isranon broke the contact, shoving Josiah
away. Hoon stood over them.
"I told you, you were not to touch anyone in this building!" Hoon
shouted.
Josiah writhed, clutching at his head and sobbing.
Hoon must have hit Josiah through the link of compulsions he had
set. "Bodramet attacked us," Isranon said. "He was trying to rape me
and then cut Josiah."
Hoon spun. "Anksha! Punish Bodramet."
She scampered out with Hoon following behind her.
Again the scene shifted in Isranon's dream and became three days
later.
He cradled Josiah, trying to get a little broth down him. The mage
had become so weak that he could no longer rise to dine at the table.
"What did you do?" Isranon asked.
"Shared life…random factor. I don't know. I'm not a Reader."
Josiah closed his eyes, turning his head into Isranon's shoulder.
"Josiah, please don't pass out. Please." Isranon shook him gently.
Josiah stirred again. "Isranon, don't tell them… what I did… I
was… only trying to help."
"I know. I won't tell them."
Isranon finally freed himself of the tangling folds of his dreams
when he heard a voice call his name. It came as clear as if he heard it
aloud rather than with that inner spirit-ear of his gift. Since he had
been dreaming of Josiah, Isranon thought at first it would be his
friend's ghost. He was wrong. This was the ghost of a different friend.
"Isranon."
He rolled onto his side by digging his fingers into the earth. Anksha
slept beside him with a contented expression, his blood rimming her
mouth. He felt half-dead. His neck on both sides was such a mess of
healing wounds that she had begun to feed from his shoulders. He
knew, also, that he had partaken of far too much Sanguine Rose than
was good for him. "What is it?" He looked and then he stared at the
ghost. "Mephistis?"
The ghost seemed sad. "Hadjys has me in his hells."
Isranon shuddered. He had heard stories about the Nine Hells of the
nethergod Hadjys the Dark Judge, to whom the souls of those who
had harmed others were consigned upon their deaths. The sa'necari,
worshippers of the hellgods, always prayed that their souls would not
be captured by Hadjys, but go instead to their liege-god Bellocar.
There was no way to know how many of their souls had been caught
by Hadjys, rather than Bellocar.
"For my one good deed, I am given time to speak to you. Hadjys
has spoken to Ishla the Tinkerer, who made Anksha's kind. You must
be like the water, yielding and accepting, see her as she is, not as
Hoon has made her. She is a chaos tool; she can be turned either way.
She is a cat that likes to play with her dinner. If her master is good,
then she is good, and if her master is evil? If you do not fight the pain,
the roaring in your mind, it will ease more quickly. Rest and sleep,
slide into it and do not fight it. And someday, Isranon, if she lets you
and you are brave enough, bite her back. You will be surprised at
what happens."
"Will it free me?"
"No. No way exists to free one who has been taken by Anksha, save
death." Inexplicably, Mephistis smiled. "But it will surprise hell out of
Anksha. She's never been bitten. Ishla said to tell you to bite her if she
asks you to. They told me it would not free you, but it would surprise
her. Only that." Mephistis's ghostly form wavered. "I am called back
to Hell. Remember that I loved you, my friend." Mephistis vanished.
"Had I a god to pray to, I would pray for you, Mephistis. But I will
never turn to Bellocar."
****
Nevin wrapped a blanket around Isranon, who was shaking with
chills, lifting him easily in his transitional form to carry him to the
waiting horses. He dared, for a moment, to press his cheek against the
semi-conscious mon, resenting the way the feedings left him ill, a
necessary evil once Anksha had bound him. With only a single bloodslave
in the van, Anksha was feeding daily from Isranon's veins and
leaving him fragile. She did not feed from the nibari, the geneticallyaltered
herds of the hemovores, because they did not possess the
magic and intense bio-alchemy that Anksha required.
Olin was already mounted. They could not risk Isranon slowing the
march with Mondarius looking for any reason to have him abandoned
so that someone could sneak back and rite him or put him down like a
broken animal. As Nevin started to give Isranon to Olin, a mon
touched him on the shoulder to get his attention. Nevin turned to
discover they had been quietly surrounded by royals, most of them
female, in an odd uniform, tightly tailored short tunic over long tunic,
slate over murrey, the long under sleeves blousing beneath the
sleeveless over tunic. They were newcomers, who smelled odd, yet
distinctively of vampire; Nevin had never seen any of them before.
One stepped forward with a small bow of her shoulders.
"I am Zulaika of the Ymraudes, the Proud Six Hundred. I have ten
of my sisters here and our nibari. We do not trust Mondarius. Let us
help you." Zulaika must have come from Treth by the look of her, or
Jedrua; she was tall, black-skinned with a cap of nappy hair that
bloused on top and hung in beaded braids to the small of her back.
Amiri, one of Zulaika's companions extended her arms to take
Isranon. Nevin glanced at Anksha who was de facto leader since she
owned Isranon. Anksha nodded. Nevin relinquished Isranon to Amiri.
Olin gathered their horses, tying them together.
"Wolf form both of you, Nevin and Olin," Zulaika said, surprising
them with their names, showing that she had been watching them.
"We will need your scouting and spying skills. We royals are not
fools. Look around you."
They did so and saw that a wall of royals had formed; a line was
being drawn in the sand between the sa'necari, their allies, and the
royals. Mondarius would try to take Isranon at his peril.
Amiri rode with Isranon cradled in her arms. She had knotted her
reins and dropped them to rest against her horse's neck, controlling the
animal with her knees and voice alone. The Ymraude held him like a
child, pressed tight to her chest, refusing to allow him to free himself
of the enveloping folds of the blanket as the day wore on and he
slowly roused. "Rest is what you need. Rest is what you will get. Do
not tire yourself by trying to climb out of my arms. Lie against me and
be still. At the next city or village we will get a wagon and Mondarius
be damned."
Isranon felt strangely safe in her arms. He could not explain exactly
why. His pride demanded he try to ride, but he did not want to–he
wanted to stay in those comforting arms. Amiri's golden-haired nibari,
Randilyn, moved her horse closer to ride beside them and smiled at
him.
"If anyone can help you, it's my master Amiri," Randilyn said,
using the Sharani form of address, which was to apply male titles to
both genders.
Help me. Can anyone help me? Isranon relaxed against Amiri,
worried that they would think badly of him for it and grateful at the
same time. I did this for my prince, and my prince is dead. Nevin…
Nevin is alive because I didn't let him intervene. I have not completely
failed.
****
A set of lanterns lit Mondarius' tent, throwing the shadows of his
four lieutenants large against the canvas sides. Their outlines shifted
in the flaring light as the night breezes slid through the flap to tease
the wicks. Mondarius sat upon his pallet with his four lieutenants
sitting on cushions around him. He wore only a loin clout and a
vibrant tattoo covered his livid skin with splashes of color. A nibari
lay nude on her back between them, her head in Mondarius' lap and a
limb gripped by each of the sa'necaris. He had spelled her to silence so
there would be no screams in the night as they fed. The female came
from one of Hoon's best bloodlines, bred for the superior taste of their
blood. Mondarius intended to explain her loss as an accident along the
way; however, he wanted to serve up something special for dinner in
light of the revelation he was about to make. His fangs and teeth were
triangular and shark-like, suggesting the seafolk, tritons or seiryn in
particular. He waited to bite into her. The sa'necari could sip, but his
teeth were made for gashing open his prey so that they bled out
quickly.
Mondarius cast his gaze across his companions, calculating their
reactions. "The Queen is coming," he said to them.
"You are certain?" asked his first lieutenant, lowering the nibari's
wrist from his lips. He took out a handkerchief and dabbed at the
edges of his mouth.
"Yes. We will reach Minnoras ahead of Hoon and I will make a
death to reveal when she will arrive and where she will come from."
The second lieutenant inclined his head with a thoughtful
expression and pursed lips. "Is she Zyne? I have heard that Hoon has
ambitious plans for her."
Mondarius shook his head. "No, it is not she. Zyne will summon
the queen."
The sa'necaris smiled to each other, fastening onto the nibari for a
few more sips.
Mondarius smirked with venomous pleasure. "Once the queen has
come, we shall have large herds of the best nibari. Our sanguiners will
have only the best blood to make their blends from."
"Delicious," said the third of his lieutenants.
The first lieutenant raised his head, his mouth smeared with blood.
"And Isranon?"
"The prophecies say he must die. All three lineages must perish, but
Dawnhand's must end first."
"Hoon will drain the lot of us, if he finds out."
Mondarius laughed. "Hoon will either give Isranon to me or drain
the half-a-mon himself. Once the queen has come, there will be
nothing that he can do." Mondarius bent his head and thrust his fangs
into the nibari's carotid artery. He ripped her open and fastened his
mouth over the wound.

CHAPTER FOUR. STEALING ANKSHA
Mondarius reacted as they had predicted, striding through with a
dozen of his sa'necari when he saw the wood-enclosed sigurni wagon
arrive. His black robes swished, the chain and leather belt holding his
tools clinked and jingled, and his eyes flashed with the rhythm of his
movements. "What is this? This will slow us down."
Zulaika faced him with her sisters in a skirmish line. Anksha
squatted beside her grinning. "Isranon needs to ride in a wagon.
Anksha's feeding leaves him ill."
"No other sa'necari was affected this severely. He is defective. He
should be put down. I will take him and see it done... humanely."
Mondarius swept his arm at them, sending his sa'necari toward Amiri
who held Isranon in her arms. "He is holding us up. We have plenty of
blood and meat for you, Anksha. You will not miss this one."
Isranon tried to slip to his feet and Amiri crushed him to her chest.
"Be still," she hissed in his ear, turning to cover his movement.
He closed his eyes and laid his head against Amiri's shoulder as if
asleep.
Zulaika gestured and a group of Lemyari closed ranks before
Amiri. Amiri faded back with Isranon as Nevin, who was driving the
wagon, turned it around and joined her behind the royal wall.
Randilyn arrived as well, her neck showing two faint bruises from
Amiri's feeding. If handled delicately, nibari tended not to scar and
evidently Amiri had the knack for it.
"Mutiny, Anksha?" Mondarius demanded.
"Treachery, Mondarius?" Anksha laughed, rolling onto her back
and kicking. Then she sprang up, bouncing onto her the balls of her
feet. "I am Anksha. I am a law unto myself. I am the troll tamer, the
demon eater."
A frown deepened the folds of Mondarius' jowly face. "Hoon
placed me in charge."
"In charge of the march, yes, but not of Anksha's meat," said Haig,
the Lemyari came to stand beside Zulaika. He was a large, thickbodied
mon and hairy, the perfect embodiment of the bear whose skin he wore as
a cloak, with a growly bass voice. "Royals do not take orders from
divinators and sa'necari concerning our private matters. Anksha is our pet.
Our pet and her meat is our private matter."
Isranon stirred at the sound of Haig's voice. "Haig."
"Hush, be still," Amiri commanded. "Haig fetched us and many
scattered Borealysyn. We regret not reaching you sooner."
Randilyn stroked his head. "Just rest. Don't worry. Poor Isranon,
we'll make it right somehow."
"We'll try," Amiri said, seeming less convinced than her nibari.
"The king pursues us," protested Mondarius, sweeping his gaze
across all present to emphasize his point. "There is need for haste."
"Is there?" Zulaika inclined her head. "Our lycan scouts assure us
that she does not." Her voice softened with implied threat. "The only
one riding swiftly to overtake us is Hoon. Why would you want to run
from Hoon?"
"Hoon said to make all speed to Minnoras."
"Then we are not running from the king, now are we?"
Haig laughed and, as if that were a signal, all the royals laughed,
closing tighter together, further blocking Mondarius's view of Amiri.
She settled Isranon into the wagon, and Randilyn climbed in after
them. He pushed at Amiri, trying to sit up.
"Don't," Amiri admonished him with a whisper. "Rest as much as
you can. We know what you are. We Ymraudes. Ask no questions.
The more often the Beast feeds on you the sooner the contact and
Presence Pain will diminish to a bearable level. That is harder for you
than for others. The Beast was never intended to take one of so little
power and so much humanity as you."
Olin jumped in, lying down next to Isranon.
"Watch him."
Olin barked an affirmative.
Amiri climbed out. She saw Mondarius still arguing with Zulaika
and Haig, getting nowhere. Amiri joined Zulaika. "Go to him,
Anksha, we'll handle this."
Anksha considered her words and then scampered.
Haig folded his arms, taking a spread-legged stance with his head
thrown back. "We're riding at our own pace, give Lord Hoon a chance
to catch up with us. You go ahead and get your twisted divinator ass
on up to Minnoras however you want. I've got no respect for folks
who take souls. I've never killed for appetite or pleasure, but you
sorely tempt me."
Mondarius scanned the assembled royals. "Does Haig speak for all
of you?"
A chorus of "ayes" went up. Mondarius snarled and spat at Haig's
feet before spinning on his heel and stalking off with his sa'necari.
They broke camp and departed swiftly, leaving the vampires and their
allies behind.
****
Isranon could feel Anksha's nearness by the way it hurt him even
though she was not inside the wagon. He dug his fingers in Olin's
coat, pulling at it, finding comfort in the warm furry body. He waited
for what seemed an eternity for her to come and she did not. The only
way to ease the pain was to endure it.
"Anksha! Anksha, come here. Anksha, I want to talk to you."
Anksha's head popped in through the little door behind the driver's
seat in front of the wagon. None of her captives had ever asked her to
come to them before, so she felt startled and curious.
Isranon shifted, hearing the little door open. "Come here, Anksha.
Come to me." Gods, the closer she came, the worse he hurt. Her
presence was an insane roar in his mind. He wanted to curl up and
scream. And the pain–it was agony. He began to force air into his
lungs, determined to take Amiri's advice. "Come here and let me
touch you."
Anksha frowned, crouching low, her head and neck inclined toward
him as she crept close. Finally she settled beside him.
With one hand clutching Olin for comfort and support, he reached
for her with the other, stroking her hair. "I like you, Anksha. You are
rather pretty, you know. Not at all the monster I thought you were."
Anksha blinked. "Is. Ra. Non?" She made a little uncertain chant of
his name, sounding perplexed.
"I want you to feed now. I am ready." Where he got the courage to
say this, Isranon did not know, for he felt certain that all the courage
had been sucked from his being. All that he had left was stubbornness
and stubbornness had never failed him.
Anksha shook her head, starting to draw away from him. "You are
very strange."
"Please."
Anksha sighed. "You make me feel sad."
"I want you to bite me. That is why I called you here." He
wondered what he could offer her. Juldrid had responded to his flute;
what would Anksha respond to? In so many ways, she was a child.
"Do this and later I will tell you stories."
Anksha perked up, wiggling all over with pleasure. "I will do it."
She climbed on top of him. Isranon lay back, willing himself to relax
as much as possible, to simply let it happen. Then her fangs sliced into
him like searing blades. He clenched his teeth against the pain, his
body writhing beneath her despite his efforts, heels digging at the bed.
His fingers clutched convulsively at Olin and then he lay unmoving;
his consciousness vanished into the darkness.
Anksha released him when she felt him still, withdrew her fangs,
and licked the wound thoroughly to close it. No matter how hard she
tried to be gentle with Isranon it was always too rough because he was
too nearly human.
Her eyes filled at the thought of hurting him, but her mere presence
hurt him if she did not feed on him frequently enough. How much
longer did this have to go on before they could just sit and talk?
Anksha gave a series of hiccupping sobs.
Olin licked her face. Anksha rolled away from Isranon, burrowed
against the wolf, and cried herself to sleep.
****
Nevin had adjusted things until Isranon could ride propped in a
corner of the peddler's wagon, his head bumping the shelving, still
resting on the bed with pillows to his back. On a trunk lashed tight
across from him, Anksha curled like a cat her arms wrapped around
her knees, her head laid sidewise on them, eyes watching him as if he
were a bird – her next meal.
"Merissa was a princess," Isranon began the promised the story,
sipping the glass of Sanguine Rose Nevin had forced into his hand
minutes before. He spun Anksha a modified account, lengthened here
and shortened there, designed to please a child, of the tale of Merissa
and Troyes. "She lived in a manor house in a distant lycan village
hidden away from all the chaos of the wars. One day two strangers
arrived at the manor and asked for shelter through the winter because
the passes were closed. One rode in from the north and the other from
the west."
Anksha's eyes brightened with interest. "Was one of them a bad
mon?"
"Oh, yes, Anksha. The one from the north was a very bad mon. He
was a very powerful and evil sa'necari."
"I would have bitten him and ripped him." Anksha gave an
emphatic shake of her head.
Isranon smiled. "I am sure you would have. Now let me continue."
Anksha gave him a nod and went silent.
Isranon described how Troyes courted Merissa, even though her
father disapproved.
Anksha listened patiently for a time and then interrupted again.
"But what about the other mon? The one from the west?"
"Well, the one from the west was very special. You see, he was a
prince in disguise who had heard of the beautiful lycan princess and
come seeking her hand. But seeing her already courted by the
sa'necari, he held back and did not yet present his suit."
Olin put his paws over his muzzle at one point and whimpered in
embarrassment as Isranon waxed especially inventive.
"A prince!" Anksha clapped her hands. "I have only taken a single
prince. Mephistis. Hoon doesn't want me taking princes without
permission."
Isranon faltered in his story, thrown off balance by memories of his
prince.
Anksha schooled the dialect out of her voice and asked in perfect
Waejontori, "Does it hurt you when I mention him?"
Isranon lifted his head and looked her in the eye. "Yes, it does. He
was not just my prince, he was my friend."
Anksha dropped her gaze. "I'm sorry."
In the tale he wove, a prince, not a lowborn sa'necari heretic named
Isranon, rescued Merissa from Troyes. Spirits talked to the prince and
with their aid, he vanquished Troyes, saved the princess, and lived
happily ever after with her.
Olin sighed heavily when Isranon finished.
****
"She will kill him," Haig said disconsolately. His heavy shoulders
were hunched and he pressed his palms together as he sat by the fire
with Nevin. Nibari, built the fires each night. "If only I had come
sooner. If only I had not become embroiled in other matters…. He
shames me, accepting my apologies as if nothing had happened to
him."
"You did all you could, mon," Nevin growled softly, throwing more
branches into the flames and watching them lick up. "You did all you
could."
"Perhaps Anksha will not," Amiri said, joining them. She twined
her fingers through the thin, beaded braids of her cornrowed hair.
Then she shook her head and the beads clacked softly together. Some
of the beads were wood and others ceramic.
"Can you free him?" Haig demanded sharply. "Nothing else will
prevent her killing him."
"He cannot be freed. Such cannot be done," Amiri said, her voice
filling with sadness. "But there are other solutions. Leave me to work
on them."
"What else is there?" Nevin growled lower. "Haig is right. She will
kill him–she is killing him."
Amiri shook her head hard. The beads clacked louder. "Trust me. I
have come to turn the Beast. If she can be turned, then she will not kill
him."
"She ripped through him… there is very little left of him," Nevin
growled. "Mephistis said she shattered his psyche and sense of self."
A sharp squeal of alarm turned all their heads to Amiri's nibari,
Randilyn, who swiftly blushed a deep red. She was blonde and pale as
butter cream frosting except for those moments when she looked like
a cherry. "A mouse… it ran across my hands…"
Haig laughed and then the others did so. Amiri grabbed Randilyn's
arm, shaking her head ruefully, and brought the nibari to her feet.
Randilyn's flinch and shriek reaction to startlement and fright amused
everyone except Amiri. Some of the others, including Haig, liked to
set Randilyn off, just to watch her go into conniptions.
"I swear, Randilyn," Amiri muttered, leading her away, "If I didn't
love you so much, I'd suck you dry just to shut you up…."
Randilyn kissed Amiri on the mouth and teased her with a turn of
her neck to expose the favored vein. "Not."
Nevin stared off into space, remembering something that happened
the winter before last, remembering Isranon as he had been.
"Isranon!" Nevin knocked on the door and entered, drawing a chair
close to his young friend and straddling it. He studied Isranon's face
for a long time, his expression thoughtful. Nevin was his guurmondru:
brother, friend, teacher. The easiest translation was godfather, but it
was a vastly inaccurate one.
He had known Isranon since the youth was eight and now he was
eighteen. The last four years Isranon had dwelled in their valley only
intermittently, following his prince more often than not, and they had
missed him. Especially Nevin. He had taken Isranon under his wing
when the boy first arrived in the valley, and remained so until
Mephistis had discovered the boy's nature and carried him off at six
months past his fourteenth birthday–the coming of age birthday, at
which Nevin had given him the blades he wore and cared for so
diligently. The lycan had trained Isranon to fight, even as Isranon's
father had once taught the youth to hide. Nevin had knowingly created
a dichotomy in Isranon, a conflict of which path's teachings to follow.
Isranon lowered the flute. "Hello, Nevin."
"They treated you hard, pup?"
Isranon shrugged. "They are sa'necari."
"Just because you were born sa'necari, Isranon, does not make you
one of them."
Isranon turned his face to the window. "I know that."
"How long will you be here?"
"Until my prince sends for me. Troyes is supposed to continue on to
King Baaltrystan."
"That is well," Nevin growled deep in his throat. Had he been in
wolf form, his hackles would have risen to match the sound. Then his
visage softened. "Have you spoken to Merissa?"
"A little." Isranon sounded uncertain.
Merissa, Claw's daughter, was a year younger than Isranon. When
they were children she used to say she intended to marry him when
she grew up and chase him through the woods trying to kiss him. If
she could not catch him on two legs, she would change shape and
chase him on all fours. Isranon had always considered that unfair and
shinnied up the nearest tree quick as a squirrel, where he would sit
until an adult came to end the game. Last time he had come here,
Merissa had chased him in a different fashion, teasing and playful
with seductive looks and words. There had been none of that so far
this time. Merissa seemed to be ignoring him.
"Have you and Merissa fallen out?"
Isranon tried not to open up on that subject, tried to hold back,
even though Nevin was the person he had always gone to growing up.
The scarred lycan regarded him closely, leaning over the back of
the chair he straddled. "Talk to me. I read you like a book."
Isranon managed a small unhappy smile. "I fell in love."
"And you didn't bring her with you? Or him?"
Isranon lowered his head. "She's dead."
"Ahh, boy. I'm sorry." Nevin rose from his chair and wrapped his
arms around Isranon. That unleashed the flood that Isranon had been
holding in for two months and he wept into Nevin's shoulder.
****
"What Hoon knows about Anksha would not put piss in a cup,"
Amiri told Isranon, Reading his body thoughtfully. She took a small
package wrapped in paper from her pouch, shoving it to his side. "Call
the Beast and give her some when I'm gone."
"What is it?"
"Candy. There's no magic to it. At least not in and of itself."
"I hope you're keeping some candy for me," Randilyn said, poking
her head through the door. Amiri shot her a disapproving glance.
Randilyn's sweet tooth was a thing of legend.
"Amiri–" Isranon began. He disliked feeling manipulated. With his
prince dead, part of him wanted to rebel. An argument formed in his
thoughts and he bit it back.
"No questions. Just keep your promises. Do what I tell you. When I
feel you are ready to know more I will tell you. Do not speak of what
I tell you except to your lycans. What I tell you of the Beast must
never become known to Hoon or his people."
Isranon stiffened at the sound of shouting. "Hoon has overtaken
us." Anger flared and then subsided back into weary resignation. He
hated Hoon, but there was nothing he could do about it. The image in
the melting snow of Hoon shoving his prince into the path of the
Sacred King's blade rankled. Hoon had set Anksha upon him as surely
as he had set her upon his prince. He would follow his prince into
death and Hadjys would have his soul simply because of what he had
been born. When the craving for blood had come upon Isranon at
puberty, he had been appalled and distraught. His father had taught
him to feed lightly and infrequently upon their nibari. Haig had
offered to share one of his nibari with Isranon, but the young mon had
refused. For the moment he was content with the troll's blood base in
the Sanguine Rose.
"Say nothing of these conversations." Amiri left the wagon.
Candy. Was she asking him to befriend Anksha? Was that the
secret to Anksha? Had none of her other blood-slaves ever befriended
her? Or had they all been so caught up in resentment and anger at
being trapped by her that they lost themselves to hatred? If so, was
there some lonely core to her, some loss that she had never recovered
from that others were unaware of? That started him remembering
Juldrid and how he had befriended her through his music. He didn't
like thinking about someone being terribly lonely, for he knew how it
felt.
Isranon heard the soft, sad strains of Juldrid's lute before he had
walked far into the dense woods near the hunter's trace that led from
the bluffs to the valley. He wondered what Margren had done to her
this time… or had his prince done it? A sick anger coiled in his
stomach as he lifted the flute to his lips and began to play. Isranon let
the music announce his presence so that he did not come suddenly
upon her and frighten her. He shouldered his way through a tangle of
trembling aspen and a tighter knot of evergreens until he could see
her.
Juldrid wore the black of mourning, which made her look very pale.
He wondered what she was mourning over. Rose crouched beside her,
listening and, from time to time, patting her shoulder comfortingly.
Rose's reassurances had gone a long way toward persuading Juldrid
to talk to him. Isranon settled cross-legged a short distance from
them. He found the rhythms of the song she played and joined her in
them. Juldrid gifted him with a small, sad smile and nodded. Then she
began to sing. Isranon's grasp of common was limited since it was
rarely spoken in Waejontor, yet after awhile he realized it was a very
old song about rape and grief, suicide and the fall of houses. It made
him shiver.
As always they played until dark when Juldrid rose to leave. This
time Isranon took a chance and caught her arm. She flinched, her eyes
widening with fear, but he did not let her go until he could get the
words out. "Mephistis raped you, didn't he?"
"Yes."
Isranon released her arm and Juldrid fled. He prayed he had not
ruined their tentative relationship. He dropped back to the ground,
feeling numb as he retreated into the silences. Having his fears
confirmed did not make it better, if anything it made it worse. Rose
crept up to him and laid her head in his lap.
"All sa'necari are like that," she said. "But you are not sa'necari."
Isranon lowered the flute again. "I know that. A lion must be a lion,
or the others devour him… and yet… I feel for her." In Waejontor
women were property, except among the sa'necari whose women were
sometimes strong enough to eat their mates.
"She carries his children. Two sons for your prince."
Two heirs for his prince, what a wondrous thought! But such a
tragic way to get them. Isranon pitied Juldrid. He put the flute away.
Rose turned her head to the side, waiting for the touch of his fangs.
Instead he began to undress her.
"If I got a child on you," Isranon said. "By law, they would not be
allowed to harm you." Sa'necari born were too rare. They were
fortunate to produce three in the course of a long life and only their
longevity made up for it. He hoped that, having not crossed the line in
the rites, he would prove more fertile than the others. And taking a
non-sa'necari increased the chances. "Will you allow me to try?"
Rose arched up, presenting herself to him and shrugging out of her
dress. "You are the only one who bothers to ask…. I have had many
sa'necari inside me, whether I wished it or no. I love you, Isranon."
"And I, you." Isranon realized that he was trembling as he opened
his own clothing and Rose's soft, gentle fingers closed on his cock.
Abruptly Isranon balled up. "Damn you all! Damn every one of
you." His throat tightened and he pressed his face into his pillow. A
sob forced its way up and Isranon finally released the expression of
his grief, for Rose, for Josiah, for Mephistis… and at the end himself.
He had made too many mistakes and he saw no way to repair them.
"Father…."
The little door at the front opened and Nevin slipped inside. Isranon
fell silent, swallowing back the sounds in his throat. Nevin sat on the
edge of the bed and drew Isranon into his arms.
"Let it out, pup. Let it out. There is no shame in it."
"My father…. Was a good mon."
Nevin's eyes half-closed as he nodded. "Yes. I don't often say it, but
he was. He was kind and compassionate. Everyone in the valley liked
him."
"Why didn't we simply stay in the valley?"
Nevin lowered his head. "Because it meant too much danger for my
people. Your father always moved on after a season or two. You didn't
always go with him. It is easier to hide one small boy, than an entire
community."
"He knew you were teaching me."
"Yes. He was ambivalent."
Isranon inhaled sharply. "I unpacked my blades once while I was
living with him. He caught me. He said that the only way I would ever
be able to keep the teachings would be to die."
Nevin looked disconcerted. Anger breathed across his face and he
mastered it in a flash. "When was this?"
"I was eleven. It was the summer before they killed him."
"No one could keep those teachings and survive, Isranon. There
might be a few realms civilized enough that you could live that way.
However, that gift is bought with the lives of others, their armies."
Isranon turned halfway around in Nevin's arms, staring at the red
painted door of a cabinet over his head. "No way at all?"
"None."
Isranon fell silent.
Nevin let go of him and sat back with his arms at his sides. "It was
a cruel thing for him to say."
Isranon shook his head in a distracted fashion. "It was an honest
thing. Unlike my father, I can kill. I have killed. I am stained by it."
Nevin turned Isranon around. "No. You had every right to defend
your life and that of others. You did the right thing."
"I want to believe that."
****
Hoon walked through the camp, slapping his riding gloves
impatiently across his leg while Anksha bounced beside him. While
he had lost those few of his own sa'necari he had kept with him, he
had been chagrined to find that Mephistis's five had managed to
escape out the windows of the council chambers in the first moments
after their prince died. They had seen what he did, but said nothing,
the spectre of Anksha hanging in their minds. They followed behind
him, watching her uneasily, Bodramet leading.
"Where is Mondarius?" Hoon scanned the camp.
"Said we were not riding quickly enough to suit," Haig answered,
walking to his left with Zulaika. "It's the wagon. Anksha needs it for
Isranon."
Hoon's eyebrow lifted. "You are traveling him in a wagon, my
pet?"
Anksha's eyes were large and guileless as she nodded, "He doesn't
mend fast when I feed, Hoon. Makes him sick."
"Still?" Hoon frowned. "He's the frailest sa'necari I have ever heard
of." How can my brother's descendant be so fragile? He shook the
thought off, not wanting to go near it.
"Mondarius wanted to have him put down. Some of us suspect he
wanted to rite him," Haig said.
Hoon froze, crumpling the gloves in his hands. "You did well,
Haig. I will commend you to Timon."
When they had gotten fresh horses, Hoon went looking for Anksha,
expecting her to mount and ride behind him as she always did,
crouching on her pillion pad. He found her on the wagon next to an
Ymraude driver. "You are not riding with me?"
Anksha shook her head. "With Isranon."
Hoon wondered at that, but chose not to make an issue of it. He
turned to one of his lieutenants standing at his elbow, "Bring the
blood-slaves up and have them ride behind Anksha's wagon with a
guard. She hasn't had time to break in them in properly and I don't
want any incidents between here and Minnoras."
The mon nodded and left with a precise stride. Anksha trailed after
him.
Hoon watched her go with a shiver of unease. If anyone could drive
a wedge between himself and Anksha, it would be a descendant of his
brother. People had always respected Hoon, but they had loved
Dawnhand: Anksha most of all. Hoon would never have allowed
Mondarius to rite Isranon, yet he hoped the young mon died quickly
before he could become an influence upon Anksha. Since Isranon was
so weak that he required a wagon, then the odds were that he would
not reach Minnoras alive. "I loved you, Dawnhand," Hoon murmured
so low no one could hear him. "Yet I betrayed you to your death. You
were not the first nor were you the last. I will survive these setbacks
and I will win. Your last descendant will not steal my best weapon
from me."
As Hoon strode to the front of the van, where servants were
saddling his re-mount, he saw Ymraudes sprinkled among the rest of
his vampires. He had not seen any in centuries. Where had they come
from? And, why? He would have to find out.
****
As soon as Hoon had gone, Isranon's hand tightened on the wolf
beside him, Nevin this time as he heard and felt Anksha creep into the
wagon. He reached into the bag of candy at his side and pulled out
several. "Anksha, I have something for you."
Isranon extended his hand and opened it to reveal the honey candies
wrapped in twists of wax paper.
Anksha blinked and licked her lips. "I'm not allowed candy. Hoon
would be unhappy with me."
Isranon wondered at that. "Why? What harm can there be in
candy?"
Anksha's head lowered and she said in a very soft voice, "Hoon
says all I get to eat is blood, flesh, and lives."
Hoon… how much of Anksha has been formed by Hoon? "I thought
you were a law unto yourself."
She stiffened and straightened. "I am."
"Then why shouldn't you have candy if you want it? Do you want
the candy?"
"Yes, I want the candy." She snatched it from his hand as if afraid it
would be taken away, unwrapped two of them quickly and popped
them into her mouth. She crunched them with a blissful expression
and laughed when she finished them. "Dawnhand gave me candy. He
hung a little bag of it around my neck."
Dawnhand? His ancestor Isranon the Dawnhand? What did the
Ymraudes know? "You knew him?"
Anksha froze like a small creature caught in the sudden glare of a
lamp. "I was a baby."
"Don't you remember anything? Can't you tell me something,
anything?" Isranon searched her face desperately. "All my life I have
wanted to know more about him."
"I was a baby…." she growled.
Isranon sighed, his brief hope extinguished. "There should never be
a reason for you to give up the things you enjoy, Anksha. There is far
more to life than blood, flesh, and the taking of lives. Come here." He
patted the bed.
Anksha sucked in a breath and started shaking her head at him
furiously. "Don't make me sad."
"I am not asking you to feed."
With a sigh of relief, Anksha went and sat next to him. "What do
you want?"
"To touch you. Just that." Isranon stroked her shoulders. "You are
very soft and I enjoy touching you. Simple things, Anksha. Simple
kindnesses. Simple beauty. The color of the sky, the shine of the stars,
spring leaves and summer flowers. There is far more to enjoy than
you are allowing in your world."
"You sound like Dawnhand." Anksha clapped a hand over her
mouth and fled.
****
Hidden at the back end of the wagon, Yoris peered through a crack
in the rear door. He had heard the entire conversation. Here might be
something he could use. His family had been landless, of the lowest
caste of sa'necari, living off the leavings from others tables. He
blinked, rubbing his pale, almost colorless red-violet eyes. One of the
ways to tell the strength of a sa'necari's powers was the richness of
their eye color. Yoris had taken less than a hundred deaths, all given
to him in exchange for the gossip and information he carried to those
of higher rank. His diminutive stature and lack of status had always
invited bullying, which gave him another reason to place the powerful
in his debt in any way that he could. Information was his most
powerful tool.
He would think about who best to carry this to, and the best way to
approach them. Yoris felt certain there must be a way to resist the
promised withering, and the gratitude of someone who knew would
go a long way toward preserving himself.
Two guards walked past and Yoris straightened quickly, smoothing
his robes. He ran his finger under his slave collar and then scratched
around the brand on his shoulder. Yoris remembered how it had hurt
when the slave-master put the hot iron to him. The shame of the brand
and collar burned his soul and he grew angry.
He saw Bodramet was mounting up behind the wagon. Yoris went
straight to him. "Isranon is in the wagon."
Bodramet's eyes, so dark they were almost black, flashed in rage.
"So he's here. I had hoped, when I didn't see him, that he was dead."
"I am always helpful," Yoris said, his tone obsequious. Bodramet
had been one of his greatest patrons when they were freemyn.
"Yes." Bodramet squeezed Yoris' shoulder.
****
Amiri favored Zulaika with a thin smile, not wanting to be too
public with her thoughts as they watched Anksha refuse Hoon's
request that she ride with. Randilyn and Zulaika's Willa stood nearby
in case they should be needed or wanted.
"It has begun," Amiri said. "Isranon is stealing Anksha from
Hoon."
"Begun, but only begun." Zulaika settled her five javelins in a
booted sleeve on her saddle and turned. "If Hoon detects it or realizes
the true reason we are here, he will kill Isranon outright and turn on
us."
"Then Anksha will turn on him."
Zulaika shook her head. "Not if he does it before the bond has time
to shift firmly and settle. As for ourselves, it is too easy to misstep and
lose our pretense of mercenaries in search of work."
Amiri's expression remained confident as she insisted, "We only
need to reach the Minnorian estate. Hoon's son is a more reasonable
person."
"Hoon isn't stupid and Timon rarely defies his father outright. I
would not count on Timon to provide safety for either Isranon or
ourselves, Amiri."
Willa followed Randilyn, leading their masters' packhorses and
their own riding animals. Randilyn was giggling about some trifle,
which irritated Willa, who put a hand over her mouth. Both of them
bore healing bruises to show that they had spent part of the morning
feeding their vampires. Nibari had been bred to recover from such
treatment faster than normal humans. The Ymraude nibari were even
stronger than the others. Willa and Randilyn moved with a free,
confidant stride absent in non-Ymraude nibari.
Amiri gave Randilyn a push when Willa released her and Randilyn
grabbed at her hand in an impertinence that would never have been
seen in the non-Ymraude nibari. Amiri ignored it, turned, and
continued her conversation with Zulaika. "The more he reminds her of
Dawnhand; the more she thinks of him as Dawnhand; the more deeply
she becomes his and not Hoon's."
"I've known that for awhile," Zulaika replied. "I've watched them
together the few times Isranon has found the strength to emerge from
the wagon."
"So, I would say that I have turned the Beast," Amiri's tone was
smug.
Zulaika went back to her original arguments, "Not yet. The bond is
still fresh and tenuous. If Isranon dies before we can remove her from
Hoon's influence and reach, she will simply settle back into the bond
with Hoon."
Amiri thought on that and nodded. "There is the matter of keeping
Isranon alive. Period. We still do not know why the Dark Mother
wished to destroy all of the descendants of Dawnhand, what threat he
might have been to her."

CHAPTER FIVE. UNDERSTANDING
Isranon's father had always told him that gentleness and kindness
could tame the most savage of animals given time; because
underneath all savagery was a need for love and acceptance. He did
not know whether to think of Anksha as a person or as an animal, she
seemed to be something in between. Isranon felt driven to understand
her, and his father's words ran loud in his contemplations.
His ability to think and center had begun to creep back in tiny
increments and all of it focused on Anksha. He kept thinking of the
sorrow he saw in Anksha's eyes just before she took him each time
since the march began. It affected him: he did not like seeing people
cry. It made him yearn to improve their situation, especially when it
derived from himself. He thought of how she laughed at his stories,
how she crunched the candy, how soft she was. He remembered
watching her romp with the lycans before she had taken him. Nevin
and Olin had begun to warm to her again.
Her reaction to his asking about his ancestor, Dawnhand, had
gotten him wondering whether Anksha suffered from some deep inner
pain connected to the mon. He held himself back from asking, but the
rare mentions of his name by either of them always produced the same
melancholy he had seen the day he first gave her the candy.
Amiri used the trunk lashed to the wall of the wagon at the end of
Anksha's cot as a table. Her potions, glass mixing rods, measuring
cups and spoons, herbs leaching in bottles of strong liquor, sat on the
trunk. She measured a sapphire potion into a glass and followed it
with a green one, stirring them together with a slender glass rod. Then
she poured from a bottle of Sanguine Rose into another earthenware
cup. She helped him to sit and he took the cup, drinking from it
gratefully.
"We must get her to feed again. I can sense the Presence Pain
increasing," Amiri told him, returning with a cup of the potion. "Drink
this. It will strengthen you."
"The pain is worsening." Isranon leaned against the wall of the
wagon, drinking the potion. "She weeps over me."
"Anksha is a child-woman. As innocent as the beasts of the forest
and as wise as the oldest woman." Amiri moved to a cabinet. "Do not
think badly of her."
"I am finding that I can't. She was the great evil thing that Hoon set
upon us. Now I find myself unable to conceive of ever having felt that
way."
"Good. You are learning."
'Learn or die'. That was what the ghosts had said. "I want to learn."
"What languages can you read?"
"Waejontori. Sharani. Common. I am not strong at common. I had a
book once that I had found. It was written in common and spoke of
the ways of the light. I failed to understand much of it."
"You need to learn more. When I have time, I will teach you. For
now, I do have a few books that you could read."
"I will read. I will learn."
Amiri began putting her supplies away in a large satchel.
"Remember what I told you about dealing with the pain from the
dominance-link when she feeds. You must use your imagination to
visualize responses that are compatible with hers. If you visualize
intensely enough, they will form in your magic in reciprocal patterns
and you will handle it all better. There were books on the techniques
once, but they are gone with the ages. I wish I could call up the ghosts
of the past and ask them the rest. For now, we use my limited
knowledge."
Ghosts of the past…. A very powerful ghost of his own past
reached across the barriers and he could see it all again in his mind.
Troyes' powerful body draped a hidden altar in the mountains;
Troyes' bane-blade protruding from his back where Isranon had
plunged it to finish the monstrous sa'necari off after Merissa broke
Troyes' spine with Isranon's sword. It had taken both of them to stop
Troyes from killing Merissa on that altar. A strange stirring of power
began around the bane-blade and then the hilt fell away as the blade
disintegrated.
"Isranon! Isranon!" Merissa shouted.
"What?" Isranon opened his eyes, pushing himself painfully onto
his side, levering himself onto his elbow. Troyes had cut him up badly.
He had expected that. He had expected to die. But he had refused to
allow Troyes to harm Merissa.
"Look!"
"When I do it, this is how it happens," he said.
A white mist emerged from the hilt, swirling motes of power
dancing through it. A figure formed in the mist until it became a mon,
clearly Valdren.
She walked toward them, pausing before Isranon. "Dawnhand," she
said, and then frowned slightly in perplexity, her head tilting. "No,
sa'necari, yet not sa'necari. Son of Dawnhand. You freed me, so I give
you a gift and a promise. I give a kindling of the echo to fullness so
when you are touched by the all-talent you will have it all. I promise
you the staff of the Dawnhand, once you have ridden with gods and
kings of light to the shores of Ildyrsetts."
The ghost touched him. Isranon cried out at the searing ecstasy and
for a moment he could not see. When his vision cleared the ghost had
departed.
"What was that?"
"When they die by their own blade, it destroys the blade. The magic
being turned back on them."
"I meant the ghost. But that too. I thought ghosts didn't like
sa'necari."
"I'm an exception. I am a speaker to spirits, as Dawnhand was."
Isranon fell back, exhausted from speaking, struggling with the pain
and the darkness sucking at him. "I'm so cold, Merissa. So very cold."
Then the dark whirlpool wrapped around him and dragged him into it.
"Isranon? Are you all right?" Amiri waved her hand in front of his
face.
Isranon started and then flushed. "Yes. Yes, I'm all right. I got lost
in my memories for a moment."
"Would you like to share them?"
He shook his head. "No."
"Are you certain?" Amiri persisted. "Perhaps I can help you with
them."
Isranon sucked in an uncertain breath. Only the lycans had ever
believed him when he told them. "I am a speaker to spirits."
"Like Dawnhand?"
"Yes. I have so many of his gifts…. Someone once said that I'm so
like him that I could be Dawnhand reborn. I wish I knew more about
him."
Amiri gave him a smile that spoke of hidden things as she said,
"The only one who can tell you is Anksha."
"She refuses to speak of him. A ghost prophesied that I would have
the staff of my ancestor and walk with gods and kings of light to
Ildyrsetts." Isranon's fingers slipped inside his robe and traced the
slave brand on his shoulder, emerged and ran along beneath Anksha's
ownership collar around his neck. "But that will never be now. I think
it was a false prophecy."
"I wouldn't spit in the face of prophecy, Isranon. Especially when it
comes from a ghost." Then she turned and left him.
The staff, Warrior, to have reclaimed it would have restored his
family's honor, which had been compromised over the generations
that they were forced to become sa'necari with their families held
hostage to insure that they practiced the rites. Eventually his family
had begun to be born sa'necari as the rites altered their genes, like he
had been. The ghost must have simply been telling him what it
believed he wanted to hear–not a true prophecy at all. Certainly, as
Anksha's blood-slave, he would never live long enough or possess the
freedom to look for it now.
Anksha climbed in and sat looking at Isranon. "Amiri sent me. I am
sorry."
He shook his head at her. "You have gone five days without
touching me. I hurt."
Anksha crept up to him, her eyes large, and her mouth soft with
concern in the corners. "I wanted you to rest."
He shook his head again, reaching into a jar of candies that he had
wedged between his pillows and the wall. "It doesn't work that way.
Besides, I'm stronger now."
The demon-eater smiled and climbed further onto the bed. She
caught the candies he tossed her and crunched them up happily.
Isranon opened his robe and let it slide from his shoulders. "To
keep clarity between us, you need to feed." Isranon stroked her head.
"Anksha, you are my very special friend. You must not continue to
avoid this."
Anksha dropped her eyes. "I don't like hurting you."
"The longer you put it off, the worse the link hurts me." He
gathered the little she-creature into his arms, wrapping her tightly. She
came unresisting.
Anksha straddled his narrow waist and stroked his scarred neck. "I
can make it better. The scars I make, I can take away."
"You can?" Isranon had not realized until that moment how
uncomfortable the marks on his neck made him. They screamed
'blood-slave' to all who saw them.
"Yes. I can't do anything for the rest." She stroked the scars on his
chest, moving from one to another, scrutinizing them with her usual
intensity. "They don't go away?"
Isranon shook his head. For sa'necari who had participated in
the rites, blood healed such marks until nothing remained to show
where they had been–unless the wound had been made with
kenda'ryl or runed-blades. Some of Isranon's scars were from
runed-blades, sa'necari blades, but most of them were not. "At
least my insides heal right." Until I start to wither… how long will
that be before it begins?
"Turn your head so I can get into your neck," Anksha told him.
Isranon took a deep breath and tilted his head to the angle she liked.
Anksha grasped his shoulders and sank her fangs into his neck. He
stiffened briefly and then relaxed as Amiri had instructed him. With
the pain came ecstasy. Either he had grown stronger or his body and
psyche more tolerant, but he rode the energy, the pain, the link in
ways he had believed impossible by simply giving himself over to it.
He became like the water, flowing around the rocks of suffering that
Anksha inflicted. He released his lingering sense of self, yielded
entirely, and the last vestiges of pain slipped away from him. She was
fire and he was ice and together they danced in a whirlwind of
opposites.
Anksha linked him to her own ability to heal and ordered the scars
and marks she had made to leave his body. They vanished. She
withdrew from him, licking his neck. Her eyes were glazed with
repletion. "You satisfy me in ways no one else ever has."
She reached down and, discovering his body had responded to the
energy in other ways. "That too," she said, caressing his loins.
****
Anksha woke from where she snuggled against Isranon with an arm
around Olin's neck. She nested with the three males in a non-sexual
manner, like the comfort nesting of the lycans where they simply
wanted the comforting nearness of another body in the night. Their
wild counterparts, wolves and dogs, did it also, sleeping in furry piles.
She extricated herself and climbed out of the wagon. As her foot
touched the ground she noticed her other slaves sleeping behind the
wagon. It was still dark with dawn an hour away, but Anksha could
see them clearly. The nearest one was Bodramet.
She could have waited to see what the nibari prepared for breakfast
and have a share of that, but she craved more blood that morning. She
had been taking smaller and smaller meals from Isranon's veins so as
not to over tire him. Bodramet, however, was fresh and strong.
Anksha sprang on him, waking him. He flailed with a snarl and she
snarled back. "Shut up!"
"I'm sleeping," Bodramet protested.
"I don't care. I'm hungry." She yanked him down as he tried to turn
over and get to his feet. Then she dragged him under the wagon.
Anksha removed her sash and shoved it in his mouth. He struggled to
push her away and pull the sash out. She hit him through the
dominance-link and he writhed. His scream foundered behind the sash
when she sank her fangs into him. He went still, panting hard as she
hauled a large quantity of his life force, magic, and bio-alchemy out of
him. Resistance was futile once she got her fangs in. His hands
tightened into fists, his body tensing like a drawn bowstring. He stank
of lust and hatred.
Bodramet's blood was strong, his magic substantial, although it was
nothing compared to what Mephistis' had been. Anksha found the
taste of him pleasing, but harsher and coarser than the flavor of
Isranon. On reaching the estate, she would send each of them to her
sanguiner for bleeding. For now, she would have to take it straight.
Anksha finished with Bodramet and sat back on his chest. His
wound was already closing as she watched with no aid from her. Yes,
he was very strong. She would get many meals from him. "I will send
you to the sanguiner when we get back. A pint or two to blend with
wine. You're strong enough for weekly bleedings."
Bodramet said nothing, staring up at her with an emotionless
expression. Anksha climbed out from under the wagon and
disappeared inside. Bodramet continued to lie there. "Bitch," he said
softly.
****
Hoon had seen very little of Anksha over the past two weeks and
that irritated him. She spent most of her time in the wagon with
Isranon. He turned to his aide, "I want a meeting called. That
Ymraude captain and her shaman, Haig, Nevin," he began to tick
them off on his fingers. "Also, Anksha, enough nibaris for all, Isranon
for myself, and Ennis for Anksha. If Anksha complains, tell her to talk
to me."
He settled at his main fire and waited. Anksha came trailing behind
Isranon. Her eyes were wide and her lips pursed. "What are you
doing?"
Hoon gave her a pleasant, faintly arrogant smile. "You have never
denied me a taste before. That is all I want–a taste of him."
Anksha growled softly beneath her breath. "Not too much."
Hoon pointed to Isranon and snapped his fingers before pointing to
a spot in front of him. "Do not be a spoiled child, Anksha. You have
never been selfish with me before."
Isranon sat down cross-legged, staring at the ground and glancing
from the corners of his eyes as people began to arrive. Zulaika and
Amiri took a spot beside Hoon. Haig and Nevin settled on the
opposite side.
"None of them were Isranons," Anksha continued to complain at
Hoon's elbow.
Zulaika glanced a silent question at Amiri from the corner of her
eye and Amiri gave a short shake of her head as she pulled at her
braids.
Hoon gestured at Isranon. "First position."
Isranon inhaled sharply at the humiliation, his heart hammering.
Disobedience was punishable by death. He opened his robe and let it
drop, crossed his wrists behind him and inclined his head at an angle
to expose his neck. Anksha never forced him to act the role of slave
publicly; Hoon was doing so in front of his friends. Possibly to
demonstrate his status to them.
Ennis knelt beside Anksha, snatching glances at Isranon.
Hoon began stroking his head and back like a pet dog. "I had
wondered how you came to join my party in my absence," he
addressed Zulaika.
Isranon shivered, wondering how long until Hoon sank his fangs in.
The vampire went through the motions of putting a fang-shy nibari at
ease. Isranon had never given himself freely to anyone except
Mephistis, until Anksha became his master. He felt cheapened being
given to another person, especially Hoon, who had murdered his
prince. Resentment flared and he squashed it. Slaves were not given
choices.
Zulaika studiously ignored Hoon's attention to Isranon. "We
encountered Haig riding to overtake Anksha. It had come to our
attention that some sa'necari were troubling a band of vampires. You
know how those types of situations can go."
Hoon nodded. "All too well."
"Nibari rustling is becoming a problem in the south, as you
probably know."
"Yes, I am well aware of it." Hoon's fingers tightened in Isranon's hair while
he ran his index finger up and down his neck. "Please enjoy
my hospitality."
The others began to feed. Nevin sat back and watched it.
Isranon's stomach clenched as Hoon twisted his head to the angle
he wanted, using his hair and his slave collar.
"You need more training, Isranon," Hoon said. "Your posture is
wrong." His hooked fangs scraped Isranon's neck before puncturing
the skin and sinking into him.
Isranon flushed with mortification interwoven with pain. Hoon had
not bothered to blunt the pain with his gifts. Isranon suspected that
Hoon wanted him to hurt, although he could not imagine why.
Anksha squatted close by, watching them. "Not too much, Hoon.
Not too much," she repeated several times.
Hoon pulled out with a swipe of his tongue to close the wound.
"You should speak with my son Timon when we reach my estate,
Zulaika. He's always looking for a few more good myn."
Isranon started to ease from his knees and Hoon's grip on his head
yanked him around.
"Stay. I did not give you permission to move, slave. I am not
finished yet."
Isranon straightened, feeling the increased pressure on his head and
neck.
Anksha looked worried, but said nothing more. She ignored Ennis.
"I will consider it," Zulaika replied to Hoon.
Hoon bit into Isranon again and sipped. Isranon was so focused on
the humiliation and the fangs in his neck that he failed to notice Hoon
raising a discreet amount of dark magic until the vampire lord struck
him down.
Anksha shrieked when Isranon collapsed unconscious. Hoon bent
over him and closed the wound quickly.
"He's not dead, Anksha," Hoon said, his hand on Isranon's neck
Reading him. "Apparently, he is the most frail sa'necari you have ever
taken. Maybe you should consider putting him down before the
withering starts."
Anksha glared at Hoon. "No."
"I will take him to the wagon," Amiri said. She lifted Isranon up
and walked away with Randilyn following. Anksha glanced from
Hoon to Amiri and then ran after them. A wave sent Ennis back to his
place among the blood-slaves.
Hoon watched them closely. If he had needed any more proof that
Isranon was a dangerous rival, he had just gotten it. "Anksha!" Hoon
called after her. "I want to talk to you. Now."
Anksha shuffled her feet as she turned around and went back.
"What is it? My Isranon needs me."
Hoon licked his lips and took out a handkerchief to wipe around his
mouth. "I wish you to be careful with the other five. I may have need
of them again. Do not do anything that cannot be repaired with blood.
Leave their minds alone."
Anksha looked unhappy at that. "Yes. Can I go now?"
"Of course. Choose a different favorite. Isranon will not last long."
"He will last. I will make him last," Anksha's voice filled with
stubbornness.
Hoon ran his fingers through her hair. "I am certain you will try,
pet. But I barely sipped and he fainted."
Anksha swallowed with a nod and fled.
Yoris, listening crouched between two tents, giggled softly with a
hand over his mouth and then stole back to his spot behind Anksha's
wagon.
****
Amiri made Isranon comfortable on the bed and sat Reading him.
Zulaika reclined on Anksha's cot. "What happened to him?" Zulaika
asked. "I thought he was getting stronger."
"He is. He no longer faints from Anksha's feedings. There is a
residue here that I am not certain of. I think Hoon hit him."
"Why?"
Amiri shook her head as she thought, making her beaded braids
clack. "Humiliate him. Show us how helpless he is, how weak.
Perhaps even to hurt Anksha. Odds are Hoon has twice that many
reasons, but it is a start. Maybe he already realizes how much of a
threat Isranon is."
Isranon stirred with a groan. "I am back in the wagon."
Amiri glanced at Zulaika with a tiny shake of her head. "You
fainted."
"I hurt. My head."
Amiri shared another glance with Zulaika.
****
They camped that night on an open hillside dominated by a
tremendous sycamore tree with a fifty-foot crown that rose eighty feet
above them filled with golden fruit. Anksha immediately claimed a
spot beneath it as shelter from summer sun.
Bodramet rubbed his horse down with a soft cloth, while his four
companions did likewise around him beneath the shade of the
sycamore. The beauty of it went unnoticed by Bodramet. To him a
tree was simply a tree. It shaded him from the heat of the summer sun.
The horses pulled at the scattered patches grass as they worked. The
five sa'necari stood together brushing down their horses.
He had listened to the sounds in the wagon for two weeks, certain
that Anksha was not feeding on Isranon. First Mephistis had taken the
half-a-mon as his favorite, and now Anksha had. It seemed as if every
time he turned around, she was coming after him and the others. He
had felt like a man again during the three weeks it had taken Hoon to
overtake Anksha's company. That feeling was gradually disappearing
and he resented it. He worked hard to hold onto to it and keep the
others feeling it. Freedom. He could almost taste it.
"Slaves. Sa'necari are not slaves," Gareth grumbled, loosening his
black hair so that it fell across the fresh mark on his neck.
"But we are," whined Yoris, putting away his brushes. He gave his
slave collar a despairing yank. "We're slaves. Food for the Beast."
"We are only slaves, if we think we are slaves," Bodramet said. "No
matter what they say, a way must exist to be free again." He shoved
his cloth into his saddlebag.
"She travels the half-a-mon in a wagon like he was special," Yoris
whined. "She makes us do chores."
Gareth shook his dusty head. "Shut up, Yoris. I see her coming."
Anksha stalked across the camp on the balls of her feet; her fangs
down and an angry look on her face. "I hear you've been
complaining." Anksha licked her fangs.
They picketed their horses and moved away from them into a semicircle
at a tiny gesture from Bodramet.
"Sit, all of you," Anksha said, walking into the center of them.
Bodramet refused and stood glaring at her, which caused the others
to take a defiant stance also. They drew strength from their numbers
in a way they had not before, responding to Bodramet's determination.
"You," she said to Bodramet. "You are their leader."
Bodramet put his knuckles on his hips. "I am."
She walked up to Bodramet. "Open your robe."
Bodramet simply stared at her, with a dour turn to his lips.
Yoris whimpered and cringed at the rear of the group.
Anksha hit Bodramet through the link, twisting him up inside. The
cords in Bodramet's neck stood out as he fought the raging chaos in all
the centers of his being. Monsters stalked his psyche to chew upon his
limbs in hallucinatory echoes. He groaned, his face turning pale. She
hit him again and he screamed. His mage and neural nets burned as
her power skittered through him like a spider wearing razor blades for
shoes.
"Open your robe," Anksha repeated. "Open it."
"Not in front of the others," Bodramet said, gritting his words out.
"Now." Anksha hit him again.
Bodramet dropped to the ground, curling on his side, screaming and
struggling with the sash. Anksha caught the cloth at his neck and
ripped through it with her claws.
"Don't make me break me you," she hissed. "Hoon doesn't want
your minds torn, but I'm tempted."
Bodramet lay twisted. "I won't."
She turned her powers through his mind. "Do you love me?"
Bodramet blinked and his expression softened. "Yes, Anksha. I
love you."
"Are you prepared to die for your love?"
"Yes. Yes, please."
"Good." She straddled him. The way he had curled up in his
suffering made it awkward. She sank her fangs into him and her claws
into his arm and chest. Bodramet writhed, but did not go into the
convulsions the way Isranon had. He was stronger in body and magic:
he must have taken thousands in the rites to be this strong.
Seeing what she did to Bodramet, the others opened their robes
before she reached them. She took them one by one, deciding they all
required more training to make proper slaves. When she reached
Yoris he had assumed the position of a nibari. He was shaking with
panic and trying to appease her. "I am a good slave."
She walked around behind him and waited. "See that you stay that
way." Then she wrapped him in her arms and took him from the back.
"Tomorrow I will begin taking one of you each day and teaching
you the nibari positions of submission. You are my cattle."

CHAPTER SIX. FAVORITE
They returned to the estate near Minnoras as the first chill breezes
of autumn stirred in the nights. A year had passed since Isranon left
Claw's Valley for a place at his prince's side. The mansion's nibari
followed the royals and Timon into the yard to welcome them. Timon,
Hoon's son by both blood and flesh, was a tall, broad-shouldered
Lemyari, dark and earthily handsome. He seemed no more than
eighteen until you looked in his eyes, which were old with existence.
Timon's full expressive mouth curved into a smirk when he noted the
six wearing the ebon robes of Anksha's blood-slaves. All of those
sa'necari deserved what had happened to them, including that strange
one named Isranon who so disturbed Timon. Anksha gave a squeal of
delight and rushed to Timon, leaping into his arms. He wheeled her
around and kissed the top of her head. "I see you have filled your
larder again, my pet."
"Yes. Sa'necari all." Anksha ducked her head, sliding from his
arms.
"Filthiest feeders on death…" Timon muttered abruptly. "At least
someone has a taste for them." His eyes were drawn to Nevin and
Olin helping Isranon into the manor. There was no way in hell that he
was attracted to a sa'necari. He turned away to find his officers from
the march and speak with them as he followed his father inside. He
especially wanted to know where the Ymraudes had come from.
****
Haig lingered before following Timon into the manor. He had
served as one of Timon's eyes and ears for two centuries, but not his
father's. Timon paused at the doorway, indicating that he was
expected to participate in this arrival briefing. Haig gave Timon a nod
that he would be there anon and smiled as his nibari herd swarmed
him, nine females, and a sterile male he kept for their pleasures. He
had ordered his herd bred last winter and early spring to a friend's
stud, a particularly fine male of Black Cliff bloodlines, and five of
them were already hugely swollen; including his beloved Nainee. His
Nainee was tall and blonde, which was rare among Waejontori-bred
nibari except among the Black Cliff stock. He kissed her, fondling her
belly.
"I wish I were a living mon," Haig said. "And that were mine."
"As do I," Nainee responded. "When we learned Isranon had been
given to Anksha, Timon confiscated Isranon's nibari, Eustyn. He sold
him."
Haig's face darkened. "Eustyn was my gift to Isranon. Who bought
him?"
Nainee laughed. "You did. I exercised your proxy."
"Good girl."
****
Anksha turned toward a small cluster of nibari, who had been
specially bred for centuries as servants and as food sources for the
hemovores. All of their estates had nibari herds. This cluster, led by
Auclos and Eilwen, eyed her warily with a trace of dismay.
"You took Isranon, Anksha?" Auclos sounded unhappy. "He never
hurt anyone."
"Isranon was good to us. Not like the others." Eilwen's voice
trembled towards breaking. "How could you do this?"
"He was always kind…." Molikei, the lone part sylvan among
them, wiped a hand across her face to catch the tears. The nibari
always spoke of Anksha's blood-slaves in the past tense–even while
they remained alive.
Anksha's lips parted in distress, her eyes widening just a bit before
their protestations.
"If you must kill him, leave him for last, please, Anksha," Jules
begged. He was brown-haired with delicate features and a favorite of
Timon's.
Anksha sucked in a deep, sighing breath. Then she fled into the
thickest, most untamed portions of the gardens.
****
The foyer to the manor was full of people greeting returning
masters and loved ones. Mondarius stood apart from them. They gave
the divinator more space than anyone else. His belt of tools and blades
clanked a bit as he stepped forward to greet Lord Hoon.
Mondarius and Hoon gripped forearms in a perfunctory greeting–
they had more use than friendship between them–and walked into the
Great Hall together. "I have many things to discuss with you."
Hoon gave him a curt nod. "We'll talk in my private garden." He
pointed at the ceiling indicating it would be the rooftop garden that his
suite let out on.
Haig shook his head at Timon and gestured at Mondarius. He did
not want to participate in a discussion that included the divinator.
"Later."
Timon watched Haig walk away and started after his father and
Mondarius. He understood Haig's reluctance and wished he did not
have to either. They entered the Great Hall, which was divided into
small alcoves by assemblages of couches, chairs, and tables that were
scattered throughout the huge chamber. To Timon's right was the
backswept double staircase that led up to the second and third floors.
When they reached the third floor landing and started down the
corridor that led to Hoon's suite and his private garden, Zyne came
running, and threw herself into Hoon's arms. She wore a silk band
around her neck to cover the puckered scar on her throat: her mother
had severed her vocal cords with a hot knife. Lord Hoon licked her
neck, shoving his tongue under the edge of the band and she shivered.
Zyne pushed away from him and signed rapidly. : Is it time yet? :
She wore an emerald dress with the sides of the outer skirt pulled
up and tacked at the waistband to reveal the rose colored underskirt.
Timon's mouth settled into a hard line. It seemed as if Zyne was
always spending more of his father's money on clothes. She always
had something new and it was always of the most expensive cloth and
lace she could find.
"Not yet, my pretty one," Hoon ran his fingers through her hair, the
black locks that had once been green; for Zyne was seiryn before
Hoon made the tiny modifications on her body which were necessary
for her to pass for human.
Ornate double doors in a scrollwork frame opened at the end of the
corridor on Hoon's large suite of rooms. Timon followed the others
into the suite and beyond it to the curtained glass doors that entered on
the garden. On emerging into the garden, Zyne's mouth sought Hoon's
and fastened onto his lips for several breaths.
Timon looked away and kept walking. He enjoyed the garden,
which was filled with fragrant trees, shrubs, flowering bushes, and
vines. Rows of planters formed several alcoves. Hoon had imported
variant soil types and the scent of lilac was almost overpowering
blending with the heathers.
He found himself a chair at the long table in the center of the
garden rather than watch them. Snatching the golden preserving bottle
from the middle of the table, Timon poured himself a goblet of blood
wine. He swirled the first mouthful around his tongue. It was a good
blend: at least fifty percent human. He had never been able to get the
recipes from his father's sanguiner and it was frequently an irritation
to him. He rolled another mouthful across his tongue and made more
guesses as to the blendings.
Zyne hung on Hoon's arm, leaning her head on his shoulder. He
pulled a chair out for her at the long table and poured her a glass of
blood wine. Zyne smiled up at him as she spread her skirts and
petticoats around her. Hoon drew a chair close to her and sat down
with his knee against hers.
Timon glanced at her from the edge of his eyes, wishing his father
had not included her. He shifted in his chair as Mondarius chose a seat
close to him.
Mondarius smiled faintly, his thick lips spreading across his ugly
face. "You were very fortunate to capture these five sa'necari. I will
have many uses for them."
Timon resisted squirming under Mondarius' eyes. He realized that
Mondarius was watching him from the corner of his own eyes. If
Hoon had not been present, Timon would have handled Mondarius
with a sharp sternness, but with his father there everything was
different.
Hoon tapped an impatient rhythm on his chair arm. "They are
Anksha's. And, she has six."
Mondarius shook his head. "No. She has five and the half-a-mon."
Zyne laughed softly. "I don't believe he has anything between his
legs at all. I call him not-a-mon."
Hoon frowned deeply. "You mean Isranon?"
"Yes." Mondarius looked uneasy as if he had said something
wrong.
"Don't call him that. He's my brother's descendant."
Timon's ears perked up at that, wondering why a descendant of
Waejonan would have named his son Isranon, after a traitor. Perhaps
the sa'necari had hated the child or the mother had named him to
punish his father. Whatever the reason, for a sa'necari, it was an illomened
name. Isranon had always struck him as strange. Perhaps
Anksha would allow his sanguiner to bleed Isranon a bit for the
bottles.
"I merely want to set him apart from the others," said Mondarius.
Hoon made a dismissive gesture. "Then we will take that as a
given. Now what is this about the other five?"
A scowl passed swiftly across Mondarius' face and vanished. "Only
that they must be kept alive as long as possible. I need to milk them
for information on the prophecies and have their help from time to
time."
Zyne leaned in and whispered something in Hoon's ear. He kissed
her. "No, Zyne. Ask for something else. They belong to Anksha." He
turned to Mondarius. "I can ask Anksha not to kill them until you are
finished with them, however, once they start to wither, there is no cure
for it."
"I understand. Now about Isranon. I would like to take him back
with me to Minnoras."
Hoon's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?"
Mondarius sniffed a moment. "That should be obvious. I want to
stretch him out across my altar."
"No." Hoon's voice had a flat, emotionless tone.
Zyne tilted her head with a moue. "He isn't any use to anyone.
Except Mondarius. And I hear rumors about him and Anksha."
Hoon threw Zyne a glare and she shrugged it off.
"He is dying anyway." Mondarius tapped the table for emphasis.
"The withering will be on him soon–if it isn't already. What does it
matter if he dies a little sooner?"
Timon leaned forward in his chair, wondering where this was
going. It seemed entirely too much fuss over a sa'necari blood-slave.
"No," Hoon repeated, his tone like sharp ice.
"I am not talking about mortgiefan, Lord Hoon. I want to use him
in a rite of divination."
Zyne's eyes sparkled. "Can I watch?"
"No! It is out of the question," Hoon said. "I will not have him die
on someone's bloody altar."
"Very well," Mondarius said. "But, he is a dangerous one to keep
alive. Already he influences Anksha."
Timon glanced at his father. "What is going on?"
"Anksha refused to ride with me. She chose instead to ride on the
wagon with Isranon." Hoon looked away from them, staring out the
window. "I may decide to kill him myself, but I will not allow you to
rite him."
"Decide quickly, Lord Hoon. I fear what would happen, should
Anksha become too fond of him."
"Does it really matter how he dies, father?" Timon asked. His face
twisted in distaste. "He's just another filthy sa'necari. Let Mondarius
have him. The fewer I have to deal with on the estate the better I'll feel
about it." This was more Timon's estate than his father's, he managed
it and filled it with his own people: there were no sa'necari among the
members of Timon's household.
Hoon stroked his lower lip. "I understand your feelings, Timon.
However, I will decide when I decide."
"You should reconsider letting me have him. We would gain great
power from his death on my altar."
"Listen to Mondarius," said Zyne. "He knows what he speaks of. If
there is a benefit to be had from his death, then grasp it."
"No. Suggest it again, Mondarius, and you will find yourself
draping mine."
Mondarius dipped his shoulders in acquiescence. "As you wish."
Zyne shifted in her seat to regard Hoon with concerned eyes. She
licked her lips. "You can't afford to have someone influencing
Anksha."
Timon shot a sharp glance at Zyne, hearing the honeyed poison in
her voice. Zyne made no secret of the fact that she resented Anksha.
Anything and anyone that Anksha grew too fond of, Zyne tried to
either steal or to destroy.
"It has to be handled delicately," Hoon said. "If Anksha connects it
to me or catches me in the act, she'll turn on me. Anksha is interesting
that way…a law unto herself."
Hoon rose and left, signaling that the meeting had ended. When he
reached the second floor, he passed the nibari moving the bloodslaves
into their quarters, which were much reduced from their former
opulent surroundings on the third floor.
The small, scrawny one with the pale eyes sidled up to him. "Lord
Hoon, a moment, please," he murmured.
"Make it brief," Hoon's voice sounded impatient, irritated by the
blood-slave's impertinence at approaching him.
Yoris nodded and bowed. "He gives her candy. She says he sounds
like Dawnhand."
Hoon snarled and strode away from him. He did not need to ask
who Yoris was talking about. Yoris would get a nibari in his bed
tonight. Hoon always rewarded his informants.
****
The next morning, Timon summoned Anksha's six blood-slaves to
a gathering. The vampire-prince sat at the walnut desk in his study
and Anksha sat atop it with her legs hanging down, swinging them as
happy as a child.
Isranon stepped away from the clustered, vaguely defiant sa'necari,
who made no move toward the chairs and couches until Timon had
gestured twice. Bodramet, as always, had placed himself as their
leader. While free he had stood as second to Mephistis. The contrast
between Bodramet and Isranon was strong and intense. The sa'necari's
loose ebony robe, over matching trousers, made him look larger and
broader through the shoulders. Yet Isranon, who was finally
beginning to get the impressive width of shoulders, heavy muscles
and chest his frame had promised him from childhood, topped him in
all ways.
Bodramet's dark violet eyes without pupils, irises or whites, ran
along Isranon's bare chest and shoulders. His were the eyes that came
when a sa'necari first participated in the rites that increased their
powers, eyes of darkness. Isranon's dark brown at the edge of black
eyes remained clear as the day he was born without the necessity of
the artifice the sa'necari used to pass for human in the cities. Bodramet
wore his black hair oiled back and woven into many tiny braids at the
base of his neck. Isranon trapped his long curls at the nape of his neck
and tied them with an unpretentious strip of leather. Bodramet always
smelled of blood and death, while Isranon did not. There was no way
that Timon could miss it and Isranon found the vampire's gaze
returning to him time and again, studying him almost reluctantly.
"We have rules for the blood-slaves here," Timon told them in
severe tones. "You no longer feed with the masters in the public
rooms. There is a room set aside for Anksha's little wine-jars. You
will feed there and only upon such nibari as are assigned to you and
only by our leave."
An uproar started among the sa'necari, but Isranon sat in silence.
Anksha snarled and that quieted the others. Timon focused on Isranon
again, drawn by his troubling quiescence.
"You will have duties and chores. They will be assigned as
necessary. You will work until the withering becomes so acute you
cannot be forced to stand. Then you will be allowed to lie down and
die; or if I am feeling merciful I will have you put down. You will
obey. Obedience is key to your continued survival. Never for a single
moment think you can escape the bonds Anksha has placed upon you,
even in her absence. She and I will see you eaten."
This time there was no grumbling.
Anksha gestured at Bodramet. "Come upstairs with me. I am
hungry."
From the look in her eyes, Isranon suspected she intended to make
Bodramet scream. Timon rose and walked toward the door. He paused
for an instant before Isranon, staring into his eyes oddly before
stalking out.
****
Isranon came down to the kitchens late the next day, having
drowsed through the last bit of weakness from Anksha's dining on
him. He was trying hard to do without the Sanguine Rose to spare
himself its visions and dreams. The nibari always saved him leftovers
from meals when they learned that Anksha had visited him. Like
servants everywhere they knew more of what occurred than their
masters; and once one knew, they all did. They clustered around him,
clucking, stroking, and patting solicitously. He failed to notice that
two had moved to the outer doors as lookouts. His alertness had
suffered as a side effect of the blood-slave condition.
"No one's coming," one of the lookouts said.
Isranon glanced. In that fraction of an instant four nibari seized
him, shoving him into the pantry closet. His eyes widened in
startlement as they pushed a chair to his legs and gently, yet firmly,
pressed him onto it. They patted him reassuringly, murmuring small
noises and half-spoken words. He felt totally confounded and
confused. Nibari had never treated him this way before. He had no
idea what it meant or where it was going.
"Feed! Go on, mon," Auclos, arch-conspirator, insisted, opening the
vein in his wrist and thrusting it into Isranon's face.
"We're making certain you get extra," explained gray-haired Pippa
who ruled the kitchen staff.
Isranon nodded, unable to ignore the blood welling from Auclos'
wrist. They knew that his horror of becoming a monster often
prevented him from allowing his fangs to emerge, so they were
opening their veins before urging them upon him. He fed lightly,
thinking that would be the end of it until another nibari immediately
opened a vein and presented it the same as Auclos had. Now he
understood a bit, but could not think how to react. So he fed again.
Timon had told him that taking from nibari who had not been assigned
to him was forbidden; yet these were insisting.
Blood-slaves could not own anything. His Eustyn, a gift from Haig,
had been left behind at this estate when they rode for Charas.
Doubtless, Timon had given Eustyn to one of his supporters. The
thought of Eustyn reduced to feeding someone who might be unkind
to him tightened Isranon's throat. He should have asked about Eustyn
days ago, but had not been able to bring himself to do so.
Rapidly speaking voices made everyone pause. Then came the
sound of nibari being pushed away from the pantry door, while more
tried to crowd between someone who was trying to open it. A tremor
of worry slipped through Isranon, knowing that he was about to be
discovered breaking the rules.
"That's enough!" a familiar voice shouted. The door opened and
Timon stared inside. His expression shifted swiftly from irritation to
utterly still and indecipherable. "You have a very strange effect on my
nibari, Isranon."
The pantry immediately filled with a rush of voices that Isranon
could not separate as the nibari protested Timon's statement and
defended what they were doing.
"Anksha took him…."
"We don't want to lose him–and he isn't as strong as the others."
Timon shook his head at this. "A very strange effect … on the
nibari and upon my royals as well. We don't befriend sa'necari. You
are the only exception."
Vampires did not befriend sa'necari. Isranon knew that well, for his
father had taught him this. Sa'necari and vampires were rivals in
power, jealous and hostile. Yet, he had made friends among other
vampires, Dane, Haig, the Ymraudes.
"Does this mean that you will allow this?" Auclos asked.
The tall vampire sighed. "So long as the work gets done and no one
is injured by this, yes. It's none of my affair. You've always had your
favorites. Only, none of them have ever been–."
"Sa'necari," Isranon supplied, uncertainly.
Timon's expression hardened. "Or Anksha's blood-slaves."
****
Timon returned to his study after his discovery in the pantry and
tried to work on his ledger entries. After two tries, he gave it up and
leaned back in his chair with his head almost touching the heavy
broad sword on the pegs above him. Every day the nibari added some
new twist into their relationship with Isranon. And, yes, he told
himself, it is a relationship. They mothered, protected, and coddled
him at every opportunity–embarrassingly so. What hold or influence
did this mon have upon them? The questions made his head ache.
He remembered his conversation with his father. If his father
carried out his threat against Isranon, Timon suspected that the
resulting repercussions would be far more severe than his father
realized. Suddenly, Timon wanted to know why the nibari, the lycans,
and Anksha cared so much. He had known only one person who had
been loved like that. "Dawnhand."
He heard the small secret section of panel slide open and then close
quietly. Timon did not need to look to know who had entered: only
Anksha used it. "Why did you take him, Pet?"
Anksha climbed into his lap, pressing her forehead against the
Lemyari's chest, giving him nothing beyond soft sobbing for answer.
Timon frowned, curving his forefinger under her chin to lift her
face up. "Why are you crying? I am not upset with you. He's just
another filthy, sa'necari blood-slave. No different from any other
you've taken before. Nothing to cry about." He tousled her ebony hair.
"If it upsets you so much, let's go upstairs and put an end to him, pet."
"Nooooo!" Anksha pushed his hand away, dropping her head and
refusing to look at him. "Was angry with Mephistis… took all his
sa'necari… made him watch."
"You've done that before. Come now, pet." Timon pushed the chair
back from his desk making more room to cuddle her. "If it's the nibari,
ignore them. They are silly creatures."
Anksha sniffled and began to sob again. "Dawnhand… he's
Dawnhand."
"Dawnhand is dead." Four thousand years dead.
"Isranon, son of Isranon, son of Isranon. Last Dark Brother of the
Light."
Timon understood finally, and clutched her to him as she continued
to cry. His voice, when words would at last come, emerged hushed
and low, troubled, "My pet, what have you done?"
He had loved his Uncle Isranon, called Dawnhand for the auric
manifestation that accompanied his use of his gifts. Everyone had–no,
not everyone. Waejonan, youngest of Timon's uncles, had murdered
him. Timon would never forget watching it, unable to intervene,
unable to look away lest Waejonan take that as a sign of
rebelliousness. Waejonan's guardsmyn had driven the sharpened pole
between Dawnhand's legs, through his body and out his shoulder. It
had taken Dawnhand a full day to die.
Timon began to understand all of the strangeness surrounding this
Isranon, last of his lineage. He needed to talk to everyone involved
with Isranon to sort it out further. If what Anksha said was true, then
something wondrous had been ruined. Timon sighed.
****
Isranon lay on his bed staring at the ceiling with Nevin and Olin
beside him as wolves. His father would have been proud of him for
his acceptance of his fate and the stalwart way he had met it. His
father had died because he chose to try and reason with their enemies
rather than fight them. Violence is the law of the brute. Isranon's heart
had always been torn between his father's teachings and Nevin's.
When he defended himself or others with violence, Isranon always
felt soiled afterward.
His father would forgive him for killing Troyes and those two when
he walked the gauntlet. Yes, he would be forgiven for that and for
mastering the blade in the first place. He drank the small glass of
Sanguine Rose that Nevin had poured earlier and the memories came.
Isranon accepted the water flask from Rose, wiping a sweaty arm
across his face before drinking. He stood bare to the waist in the early
autumn sunlight. The first chill was on the trees and a few leaves had
turned, although none had fallen yet. Dane sheathed his blades and
moved to sit on a boulder. Isranon found him unusual for a vampire:
they did not often befriend sa'necari, in fact, before meeting Dane, he
would have said it could never happen. They were rivals in power.
Yet, Isranon had always sensed a difference in Dane that he did not
understand.
Dane's nibari, Iola, lifted both a wine bottle and her wrist,
gesturing for him to chose which he needed more after their hours of
exercise.
"You are improving, Isranon. Were you human, they would call you
blademaster."
Isranon settled beneath a pine tree, drawing Rose into the circle of
his arms and resting his head on hers. "My father would be ashamed
of me."
"This is not a time to be thinking about your father."
"Violence begets violence he always said."
"Yet, it did not save them. It only takes one side to make a massacre
when the other will not fight back." Dane pointed at the wine and Iola
poured him a glass. He sat sipping and watching Isranon's face
closely.
Isranon hugged Rose tighter. "I try to avoid them."
"You should not feel ashamed of defending yourself, young one.
Nor your mate."
"It is not for one man to prevent another doing evil, but only to
prevent himself."
"High minded words, Isranon, but foolish."
Isranon stiffened, his obstinate pride pricked by Dane's words. "If
they kill Rose, it is their choice, their fault, and they shall bear the
guilt of it."
"You should come away with us, when we leave."
"No. I am my prince's man," Isranon replied stubbornly. He owed
Mephistis a debt, had sworn an oath, and, even more important, at
times he thought he understood the prince. He loved him, even while
despising what he was. It twisted his insides up.
"Then Isranon, you must work harder than ever to learn to defend
yourself and use whatever resources you can call on. Otherwise, both
you and Rose are going to die."
Rose gave a small sound of fright at Dane's words and clutched at
Isranon's pants legs before turning in his arms to bury her face
against his chest. She had still not caught a child from Isranon,
despite their efforts and hopes: a nibari lucky enough to produce a
child with the sa'necari gene was handled far more gently than the
others and rarely killed. Isranon's mother had been nibari, although
he never told anyone save Rose that.
"I will defend us both," Isranon vowed.
Dane heaved a sigh. "Isranon, at least, do not travel alone through
the citadel until Mephistis returns."
"I will consider it."


CHAPTER SEVEN. SHAME
Isranon woke to a weight on his chest, opened his eyes, and saw
Anksha sitting astride him. "Have you come for me?"
Anksha shook her head, making her long locks dance. "Just
looking."
Impulsively, Isranon shifted her to his lap as he sat up and licked
her nipple. Anksha gave a low moan. Isranon liked the sound of that
so he caught her by the shoulders and rolled over on top of her,
opening her legs with his knee. His hardening member bobbed against
her loins.
Anksha gave a screech. Clawing his arm and his chest, she
squirmed out from under him and faced off hissing. "Male is never on
top of Anksha. Never."
Isranon sat up, the sheet tumbling around his nudity, with a blend
of surprise and shock on his face. Blood ran from the claw marks. "I–I
didn't know. I apologize."
Anksha spat at him, and raced out of the suite, slamming the door
behind her.
A short time later, a soft knock at the door forced him away from
the questions this provoked. Eilwen came in with a tray of food. She
wore transparent dancers pants and a blouse, with only her loins and
breasts covered by thin bands of cloth.
"I thought you might be hungry." She set the tray on the end table
and pushed up her sleeve, offering Isranon her wrist while running a
finger along her neck suggestively.
Isranon patted the bed. He needed to relax in order to be able to
feed most of the time. Eilwen slipped out of her clothing and climbed
on beside him. Isranon nuzzled her neck, entering the vein as his
hands began to fondle her. A brief wisp of thought slipped through his
mind. His mother had been nibari, and his father had gotten him on
her by accident. He barely remembered what his mother had looked
like, but he remembered very clearly the sa'necari that rited her.
Isranon almost lost it and then he calmed and began to suck.
****
Like all the slaves at the estate, Anksha's blood-slaves had the run
of the building once their chores were done. All of the slaves were
branded and collared. Flight was rare because the price of trying it
was death. Flight and defiance had been bred out of the nibari;
coercions set deeply in the minds of the others kept them tame; and
the dominance-link made freedom impossible for the blood-slaves as
Anksha could force them back without touching them.
Isranon stepped out of his rooms to look for Anksha, determined to
apologize again in a more thorough manner. He did not want her
avoiding him, knowing how swiftly the Presence Pain could build up.
A few nibari passed him in the hallways and he stopped one of them.
Isranon dressed in simple black pants and a loose robe held closed by
a sash. Anksha had chosen to dress her slaves in this manner so that
she could tug the sash away and the robe would fall open, giving her
access to their flesh.
"Auclos, do you know where Anksha is?"
Auclos smiled at him, turning his neck in an inviting way. "Out in
the gardens. Is there something I can do for you?"
Isranon responded with an appreciative slide over Auclos' body. He
had shared Isranon's bed on many pleasant afternoons. "No thanks. I
just want to find Anksha."
"You're a strange blood-slave. None has ever gone looking for her
before you."
Isranon laughed. "I'm a strange everything."
He started walking again when he saw Hoon coming toward him.
He almost ducked him head and went in the opposite direction, but
then his pride caught up to him. He straightened and started past
Hoon.
"Come here, Isranon," Hoon said in a preemptory tone.
Isranon wondered that this was about, since he had been making
every effort to stay out of Hoon's way. "Yes, Lord Hoon."
Hoon led the way to Isranon's rooms and, once inside, closed the
door and slid the bolt home. "Stand there and look at me."
Isranon obeyed, noting the faint resemblance between Hoon and
Mephistis. All the lineages of the three brothers tended to breed true
to type physically.
Hoon looked him up and down. "After all these generations, it
seems incredible that a descendant looks so much like the ancestor."
Isranon sucked in a breath. "I am proud of it."
Hoon nodded. "That is a good thing for you. However, it is a bad
thing for me. Anksha favors you too much. When the withering
comes, if it hasn't started already, you will die in agony."
Isranon squared his shoulders. "When it comes, it comes."
Hoon closed the distance between them in a single stride, locked
his arms around Isranon's just above the elbows, pinning them to his
sides. The vampire's perfume smelled of patchouli and jasmine as it
filled Isranon's nostrils in a proclamation of Hoon's vanity. Sharp
edges of something Hoon wore beneath his tunic pressed into
Isranon's chest. "I do not allow competition for Anksha's affections."
The young sa'necari tilted his head away from Hoon's, and the turn
of his neck exposed the artery. "I am not competing with you."
Hoon's eyes traced the carotid artery in Isranon's neck as he snarled,
"You are stealing Anksha from me."
Isranon sensed where this was going. He flexed his heavily muscled
body and threw his shoulders back, shifting his weight in an attempt
to break Hoon's hold using leverage and strength. Yet, he was held too
tightly and too close. His strength could not match Hoon's, who held
him easily with his hands locked together behind Isranon's back. It
would be simple for Hoon to crack his spine. "I befriended her. That's
all."
Hoon exhaled in Isranon's face, showing his fangs were fully down.
His tone was casual and unaffected by even a trace of conscience.
"Your tampering ends now. I do not tolerate rivals."
"I am not your rival."
"I am not a fool. I should simply inject my venom into your heart
and walk off, but I am feeling kind today."
Isranon jerked and struggled, trying to pull one of his arms free. I
am not ready to die…. Not by your hand. You killed my prince. "Damn
you."
"Others have said that. They are dead." Hoon nuzzled Isranon's
neck while the young mon twisted in his grasp. His large pointed ear
rubbed against Isranon's round one. "I will enjoy the way your death
slides down my throat."
Isranon gathered all his magic and hit Hoon with every bit of black
energy he possessed in a spell of undeath denial that would have torn
the soul out of a lesser blood vampire and left them an empty husk.
Hoon turned Isranon's spell with a disparaging laugh that set
Isranon raging inwardly at his impotence.
"I hate you. You murdered Josiah and Mephistis."
"Be still and it will end quickly with very little pain," Hoon said.
"Continue to struggle and I will make you feel all of it."
Isranon shifted his weight and snapped his leg up to knee Hoon in
the groin. Hoon blocked it with his own knee and jerked Isranon onto
his tiptoes.
"I know all the tricks, Isranon. I am a warrior too."
"Damn you, bastard. Damn you to the deepest hell of Hadjys."
"I am already damned. There is nothing you can add to it."
My blades. If only I had my blades… if only they hadn't taken them
from me. "Had I a blade, I'd shove it through your black heart."
"I am sure you would." Hoon laughed for a moment. "A bloodslave
caught with a blade is executed."
Enraged, Isranon bit Hoon's ear, tore off one pointed tip, and spat it
on the floor.
A cry of anger mingled with pain erupted from Hoon. He shouted a
word of command, and sent a lance of darkest energy through
Isranon's body. Isranon cried out and his body jerked in an attempt to
double over, but Hoon's grasp would not let him.
"You can suffer for that!" Hoon said.
The savagery with which Hoon stabbed his fangs into Isranon's
neck made his eyes bulge in shock. Their brief struggle ended.
Through the blood, Hoon corded Isranon's body in bands of power
that held him helpless. Hoon sucked strongly with greedy gulping
noises. Isranon had been bitten and sucked before, but never like this.
He had never before felt his life being hauled out of him with such
swift authority. Clearly Hoon had perfected his technique dealing
thousands of deaths over the centuries. Hoon intended to dispatch him
as quickly as possible. His heartbeat became rapid and fluttering. In
desperation, Isranon turned to the one who could take Hoon and
gasped out, "Anksha…. Anksha."
****
The first chill of autumn had faded the roses in the outer garden.
The tangle of briars lingered with leaves in tight bundles over the
arbors. Anksha paced back and forth beneath them, fuming and
chuntering under her breath. No one had tried to mount her in
centuries. She reserved that right for herself. The feelings of
vulnerability brought forth by being on the bottom irritated her. The
vampire that tried it centuries ago had paid with his existence. Not
even Hoon had been allowed to be on top during the years that she
slept with him before Zyne supplanted her in his bed.
"I am a law unto myself. I rule my own," she muttered.
Nevin, who was wandering the garden, walked up to her and
listened for a few minutes. "What is bothering you, Anksha?"
She snarled wordlessly and then ran through a dozen dialects before
settling into her comfortable patois. "Isranon did it."
Alarm passed over Nevin's face. "What did he do? Did you punish
him?"
"No," she said quickly. "Not much."
"Is he okay?"
"Yes. I sent Eilwen to him."
Nevin gave a huff of relief. "What did he do?"
"He mounted me. Me! Anksha the troll-tamer. The demon-eater."
Nevin's lips curled into a tiny smile made ugly by his scarred
mouth. "I am sure he meant nothing wrong with it."
Anksha tilted her head in question. "You like him?"
"Of course, he's my spirit-brother. I helped raise him."
"He got on top of me." Anksha pouted at Nevin.
Nevin's smile broadened. "Did he apologize?"
Anksha stuck her lower lip out. "Sort of."
Nevin took her hand. "Let's go back and talk to him about it."
They walked hand-in-hand back into the building and climbed the
sweeping staircase together leading up to the second floor. As they
started down the corridor, Anksha's face suddenly took on a
frightened look that passed swiftly into anger. "Someone is hurting
Isranon!"
She pulled free of Nevin and bolted down the hallway. Nevin ran
after her.
****
Hoon's cock hardened against Isranon's thigh, aroused by the taste
of blood and the way Isranon's life force flickered like a candle in the
wind. The vampire rubbed his pelvis along Isranon's body.
A thin line of blood escaped the confines of Hoon's mouth, which
was pressed tight to Isranon's flesh, and trickled down Isranon's neck
into the collar of his robe. Isranon's chest heaved and his breath
stammered between his lips. "Uhn uhnnn," he groaned. His heart
struggled and his skin began to pale. He hurt worse and worse as he
weakened, writhing in Hoon's grip.
Isranon relived the death of his people and his parents as the
sa'necari rode them down as they ran; as the sa'necari burst into their
homes where they hid; and bound them when they tried to reason with
their attackers. He looked again from the hillside with his sister and
saw his mother rited and his father burned alive. Father… Mother, I
hate the monsters. I hate all of them of them… forgive me for my
hatred… the law of the brute…
Hoon moved his fangs to tear Isranon's neck further, and stuck his
tongue into the wound, stroking the tendons and muscles, before
settling into a suggestive in and out motion. The feel of Hoon's tongue
moving inside him made Isranon nauseous and he managed a choking
scream.
Hoon sucked him to the edge and Isranon's knees buckled. He
toppled against Hoon. His forehead fell onto Hoon's shoulder. Hoon's
grip tightened on Isranon as he sagged, holding him up. He changed
his hold the instant Isranon became too far gone to fight him,
withdrew from Isranon's neck, and licked the wound, closing it.
"They tell me you liked the theater. Think of this as the
denouement to your play. The hero dies and everyone weeps."
Lifting Isranon in his arms, Hoon carried him to the couch and sat
down with him in his lap, cradled like a lover. Hoon tugged the sash.
Isranon's robe opened revealing more of his neck and the upper part of
his scarred chest. Hoon fingered the scars. "I am ending my brother's
lineage. I suppose I should feel something, but I do not."
He caressed Isranon's face. "The resemblance… it is like seeing
Dawnhand dead. I kissed his dead body hanging on the pole."
Hoon rubbed his lips along Isranon's neck. "You gave me no
choice, Isranon." He kissed Isranon's forehead, cheeks, and lips in a
traditional farewell bestowed upon a corpse. Isranon could smell the
salt and copper of his blood on Hoon's breath. "Anksha will find you
dead and not know which of us did it."
Lord Hoon tilted Isranon's head, turning it so that his neck arched
and offered a decent angle for accessing the artery. He thrust his fangs
back in and set to finishing what he had begun with no blood wasted.
< Now is the time to die, Isranon. Let go and I will take away the
pain of your death. > Hoon whispered in his mind.
Isranon's head lay limp against Hoon's supporting arm, the
vampire's silken sleeve smooth against his cheek. He moaned. The
last, lingering vitality fled his body.
Isranon's breathing shallowed out, and then strengthened only to
shallow out again as his body failed. He began to gasp for air like a
beached fish. Isranon's skin turned bluish and clammy. He felt cold.
His hand fell to the floor, the knuckles striking the wood loudly. Fog
wrapped his world in the gray mists of deteriorating vision. Unable to
see clearly, Isranon's hearing intensified and the sound of Hoon's
sucking and slurping fell loudly on his ears. Sharp pains shot through
his chest as his depleted heart fought to continue beating. He thought
he heard his name called as he slipped into the darkness.
The doorknob turned and Nevin's voice called from the other side,
"Isranon? Open the door."
Hoon glanced at the rattling knob. His grip on Isranon's neck
loosened and a thin trickle of blood ran down into the black curls. A
nibari would already have passed into death; but a sa'necari's body
fought harder to remain alive. It was taking longer than Hoon had
counted on. A little more and it would be over, his rival's heart would
be stilled forever. Then Hoon could go out the window and vanish
before they saw him.
****
Nevin ran down the corridor behind Anksha. She darted around
nibari and others in the hallway. Nevin simply shoved them from his
path, sending them tumbling. Anksha stopped outside the door to
Isranon's rooms and turned the knob. She pushed at the door.
Nevin lifted her up by her shoulders and set her aside. She tolerated
it without a complaint. Nevin turned the knob and then saw that the
bolt had been shot. "Isranon! Open the door!" He rattled the knob.
Anksha looked up at him, her face filling with concern. Her sharp
ears picked up a low groaning and then nothing at all. "Force it,"
Anksha said.
Nevin stepped back and kicked the heavy, solid maple door at the
lock. Wood cracked as the door splintered around the lock and
slammed open. Isranon lay unmoving in Hoon's arms on the sofa, his
head hanging limp across Hoon's forearm, his lips parted and eyes
closed. Hoon's face was burrowed into the ebony curls. Nevin could
hear him feeding, loud in the silence. Hoon glanced at the lycan and
then ignored him.
"Let him be!" Nevin roared. He rushed across the floor, but Anksha
was faster.
She let out a shrill shriek. "Stop! He's mine!"
Anksha came hissing at Hoon, claws bared. "Get out of him!" She
jerked Isranon free and blood spurted from his neck as he fell to the
floor, splattering Hoon's immaculate tunic. Anksha straddled Isranon,
licking the wound closed, while glaring at Hoon. The vampire had
made a mess of Isranon's neck and Anksha worked her tongue over it
with great care and thoroughness to be certain that she had stopped the
bleeding, both internally and externally.
Isranon's blood rimmed Hoon's mouth and stained his fangs, which
were still down as if in threat. Hoon stood up and straightened his
blood-splattered tunic. He drew a handkerchief from a pocket, wiped
his lips off, and returned it to his pocket with an air of casual
indifference. "I have done him a mercy. He will be gone in moments."
Nevin bent over them and Anksha grabbed his wrist, slashing it
open and shoving it into Isranon's mouth before the lycan could react.
At the taste of blood, Isranon's fangs came down instinctively and bit
into Nevin. The strong lycan blood filled his mouth. His breathing and
his heartbeat stabilized.
Anger triggered the beginnings of the change into wolf and Nevin's
scarred face became snouted and hairy as he glared at Hoon.
"Bastard."
Hoon shrugged. "I care more for him, than you do. I was giving
him a better death than he is destined to die."
Nevin said nothing more, knowing that if he did he would soon be
going for Hoon's throat. Fully into his transitional form, Nevin shoved
his free arm beneath Isranon, lifting him and shouldering his weight.
He brought Isranon into the bedroom and eased him down onto the
bed.
Isranon's eyes fluttered open and he disengaged his fangs from
Nevin's wrist, licking the wound closed. "I am sorry…." Isranon's
voice was whispery soft as he struggled to speak.
"That you bit me? Don't be foolish."
Isranon dropped his eyes. Exhaustion dragged at him. He wanted to
close his lids and sleep.
They could hear Anksha still shrieking at Hoon in the other room.
"He's mine. Don't touch him. Don't ever touch him."
"That cockwhoring son of a pig took you past the edge," Nevin
growled deep in his throat. "You need more than that."
"The Rose."
Nevin went to the bedside table and poured a glass. Then he
supported Isranon's head and shoulders while he drank it. The color
came back into Isranon's face.
"More?" Nevin asked.
"Yes."
Nevin refilled the glass and held the bottle up to the light: it was
half gone and it was the last bottle left of the stock they had stolen in
Charas. He wondered whether he dared approach anyone in the manor
about getting more of it.
They heard the door close as Hoon exited the suite. Anksha came
in.
"My poor Isranon," she said mournfully. "Hoon will not touch you
again."
Strengthened and eased by Sanguine Rose, Isranon found his voice.
"You came when I needed you." Anksha's protectiveness which went
beyond what he had expected.
Anksha took the glass from Nevin and helped Isranon with it. She
stroked his curly hair and kissed his face. "You're mine."
"Yes, I am."
"I will fetch you some nibaris. Rest, my Isranon."
When Anksha had left, Isranon said to Nevin. "I hate Hoon. He
killed my friend Josiah, my prince, and now he has tried to kill me. It
is hard to keep the teachings."
"Then maybe you shouldn't."
"Violence is the law of the brute…. Oh, gods, I am still so cold,
Nevin. Hold me."
Nevin wrapped his arms and a blanket around Isranon and held him
until the Sanguine Rose called the younger mon into slumber.
He settled Isranon between the blankets, went to the closet, and
found a second one, which he threw over the sleeping youth. Nevin
heard someone examining the broken lock in the next room and went
to the doorway to see who it was. Olin stood there.
A crowd had gathered in the corridor and several faces peered
through with others struggling to see around them. Yoris stood at the
front of the crowd, licked his lips, and then smothered a giggle with
his hand. "Is he dead?"
"No," Nevin snapped.
His cousin looked up at the sound of Nevin's voice. "What
happened? There is a crowd in the hallway."
"Close the door."
Olin shoved and shouted, getting the crowd to move back. Yoris
lingered and Olin shut the door in his face.
Nevin gestured for Olin to join him in the bedroom. Olin frowned
quizzically and went in. He stared down at Isranon. Nevin gently
brushed aside the long hair, revealing the wound in Isranon's neck.
The main three types of hemovores all had distinctive marks: the
sa'necari were needle thin and delicate, rarely tearing or ripping the
flesh; Anksha's canines were large, more like a lycan or a tigerkin,
made to tear and rip; the vampires were hooked so they slid along the
skin as they went in leaving a scrape and it took great skill for them to
not leave a scar.
"Who did it?" Olin asked.
"Hoon."
"This is a place of darkness, Nevin," Olin said. "It is without hope
for anyone."
****
Isranon remained in his rooms sleeping through the lingering
affects of Hoon's assault. Anksha brought him nibari several times a
day and Amiri came frequently with her potions. He drowsed alone
into the late afternoon of the second day and roused to the sound of
the door opening. He glanced at the bedroom door, expecting to see
Nevin or Olin, but instead Zyne came sweeping into the room.
Dressed in shades of pink ranging from a deep rose skirt to the
palest pastel of her bodice that accented the darkness of her brown
skin, she was a desirable statuesque woman. Zyne stood six feet tall
with a small waist, flaring hips and large firm breasts. The low cut
neckline of her bodice showed their rounded mounds to good effect.
Most males at the estate would have been happy to stroke those fine
breasts. Isranon thought she looked like a slut in comparison to the
savage innocence of Anksha's feral nudity.
She regarded him in a careful assessment. : So, Hoon thinks you
dangerous enough to kill, : she signed.
Isranon's thoughts went to the week he had spent dwelling in an
attic with Josiah, caring for him between Hoon's daily tortures. "You
betrayed Josiah to Hoon."
Zyne's lips curved into a venomous smile. : Love takes second
place to power. :
He wished his companions had not left him alone while he was still
too weak to defend himself. Zyne had always disgusted him, and now
she felt menacing.
"Hoon killed him."
: That's a lie. Don't try to drive a wedge between us. I know all the
tricks. :
"You would, betrayer. But I am not lying."
Zyne slapped him and he caught her wrist. With the impressive
strength of her seiryn race, she pulled free and moved further from the
bed. : When I come into my power, I will eat you. :
"Anksha will never let you."
Zyne's mouth framed a laugh and no sound emerged. : I will be
more powerful than Anksha. :
"Get out."
: Slaves don't give orders. :
An image of Josiah dying with Hoon's blade in his chest flashed
across Isranon's mind, and knowing that Zyne had betrayed Josiah
into Hoon's clutches, sent anger rushing into him. "Get out. Your own
mother cut your vocal cords for your treacheries."
Zyne's eyes blazed. : Who told you that? It's a lie. :
"And who would know better about lies, than you, Zyne?"
: Who told you? :
"All the slaves know it. All the nibari." He sat up, fighting back a
wave of dizziness and lunged at her. "Get out."
Zyne retreated with that soundless laugh. : Touch me and you'll be
punished. I am Hoon's mistress. :
"Because you warm his bed, does not mean you can treat me like
this."
Anksha bounced through the door and into the bedroom, nude,
streaked with mud, and her hair a mass of tangles with leaves and
twigs caught in it. She stopped in her tracks and stared at Zyne. "Go
away, Zyne. Leave my Isranon alone."
Zyne curtsied and left.
"Are you all right?" Anksha asked him.
"Yes." Isranon sat down on the edge of the bed.
"I used to like her. I don't anymore." She joined him on the bed.
Isranon began to finger comb the twigs and leaves from her hair. "I
have never liked her."
****
Hoon assembled an audience for his rite at midnight. The six bloodslaves
knelt on the cold stone floor, feeling the dampness through the
knees of their pants. Timon and Mondarius stood beside the altar. This
was the first time that Isranon had been in Hoon's chapel. The oblong
altar was different from the mon-shaped bleeding tables that the
sa'necari used as altars. It was subtly concave, higher on the sides than
the middle, with holes drilled into the center, forming channels that
opened at the bottom into spouts poised over basins to catch the blood
and fluids spilled upon it. Behind the altar stood a carved wooden
reredos covered in images of sporting and feeding demonic creatures.
A retable jutted from the reredos with a statue of Bellocar bearing a
scythe in one hand and a severed head in the other set in the middle of
it. That poise was called Bellocar Magnificus. A small table of tools
sat near the altar, laid out with pots of scented black pigment, oils, and
blades of various types from tiny splinter thin to cleavers more suited
to a butcher. Scarlet and crimson candles burned in banked rows along
the edges on tables and upon the retable. Their flames flickered in the
cool breeze insinuating itself through cracks in the masonry.
Isranon wondered what kind of rite Hoon intended.
Zyne entered smiling, wearing a wraparound gossamer robe, belted
with leather that Isranon's necromantic senses told him was either
human or nibari skin. Two nibari accompanied her as attendants. She
unfastened the belt and dropped it to the floor. One of the nibari
picked it up. She shrugged out of the robe and they took it from her
shoulders as it started to slide down her back. Zyne stood forth nude
and Isranon acknowledged the perfection of her body. She carried
herself like a queen as she approached the altar and stretched out upon
it on her back.
A voluntary sacrifice? Isranon wondered. That was beyond strange
to him.
Hoon wore neither shirt nor tunic on his upper body. A small box
hung from a chain around his neck. Isranon noted his mangled ear
with satisfaction. Hoon stepped forward and stood beside Zyne's head
while Mondarius read from a book in a language Isranon did not
recognize. The sounds made his skin crawl and set his necromantic
awareness on edge.
Timon lit the incense and the heady fumes filled the chamber.
Mondarius continued to read, holding the book open in one hand
while he marked Hoon's chest with the knife-edged rune of Bellocar.
Hoon looked on stone-faced as Mondarius began painting symbols on
Zyne's body from her loins to the base of her throat. When Mondarius
finished, he returned to his table picked up a small blend of herbs
sealed in thinly scraped nibari entrails. He parted the lips of Zyne's
vagina and pushed them inside her. The divinator thrust a second
packet up her ass and carried a third to her mouth. Zyne's lips parted
to receive it and he placed it on her tongue. She swallowed it. Then he
began to read once more.
Isranon shivered as Hoon kissed her forehead, cheeks, and lips. He
remembered the feel of Hoon's lips on his face, the smell of his blood
on Hoon's breath, as Hoon had kissed him in the same fashion.
Farewell to the dead.
Zyne smiled serenely. Hoon knelt beside her. Mondarius walked
widdershins around them, reading. Zyne shuddered as Hoon's fangs
entered her neck. Isranon suppressed a shudder of his own. He
watched how swiftly and efficiently Hoon pulled the life out of her.
She was still smiling when she died.
Hoon repeated the ritual kisses and then drew a black and crimson
gossamer cloth over her corpse before stepping back. The vampire
gestured at the two nibari. "Wait for me in my bed chamber."
They bowed to him and left. Isranon guessed what Hoon intended
for them and felt sickened. Whenever nibari participated in one of the
rites, they were killed afterward.
Hoon turned next to the blood-slaves. "Two of you will keep watch
at all times in case she rises sooner than I expect."
Rises? She's going to become undead? But why the ritual? It took
no ritual to make undead, only the exchange of blood in the case of
vampires and summonings for zombies and revenants. This is terribly
different.
"Zyne will be the first nekaryiane to exist in thousands of years."
Isranon sucked in a fortifying breath and worked to check his
shaking. He understood now what Zyne had meant about being more
powerful than Anksha. Legend had it that the nekaryiane death angels
were the most powerful undead ever to exist. Hoon was creating a
monstrous undead thing that had not been seen on their world since
the Burning Age, which scholars placed at somewhere between
20,000 and 50,000 years past. What the hell is Hoon doing creating
such a dangerous creature? It's madness.
"Bodramet and Gareth. You will stand watch first. If she rises and
eats you, it will be no loss."
Isranon glanced with the corners of his eyes and saw the way that
Bodramet stiffened briefly before repressing a scowl. He heard a hiss
and turned his head slightly, not enough to draw Hoon's attention.
Anksha stood in the doorway.
"Isranon," said Hoon. "I want to talk to you in my private garden."
"Not without me," Anksha hissed.
Yoris watched them closely. He exchanged a glance with
Bodramet, who shook his head when Yoris started to rise.
"Then come along, Anksha, and I shall talk to both of you." Hoon
swept out of the chapel.
They walked up four flights of stairs, and turned north along the
corridor leading to Hoon's suite. The outer room was done in shades
of scarlet and green, from the intricately woven carpets to the wall
hangings depicting scenes of vampiric debaucheries. The first light of
dawn gilded the window curtains and the delicate linen hangings over
the glass doors that led out into the garden. Isranon glanced at the
heavy door to the bedroom, knowing that the two nibari waited
beyond it for their deaths.
When they entered the garden, Hoon turned to Isranon. "Kneel in
the corner." He pointed to a spot near a bench and a pot of azaleas.
Isranon obeyed. The garden covered most of the roof and could be
accessed from both Hoon's rooms at this end and Timon's at the other.
Trees, fragrant flowers, vines of honeysuckle and pots of jasmine
made a series of alcoves with benches, chairs and tables sprinkled
among them. Rose bushes splashed the garden in gaudy shades of red
and orange. Yet for all the complexity of the garden, there was only a
single pot of azaleas and that one sat in the corner nearest Hoon's
door. Every time Isranon saw it, he wondered what the significance
could be since Hoon did nothing without layers of intention.
"I don't want Isranon keeping watch, Hoon," Anksha told him.
"You have already ruined him. It will surprise me if he lives three
months. What loss can it be?"
Three months, Isranon had wondered on hearing that. Do I really
only have three months to live? No. Hoon was guessing, just as he had
months past when he said a couple of weeks. He had already outlasted
each of Hoon's estimates and there was no sign of the withering yet.
That could have been because of Amiri's potions. Isranon did not
know.
Anksha's eyes filled with tears. "I want to keep him as long as I can.
It isn't fair."
Isranon was discovering that Hoon was one of the few who could
make her cry.
Hoon sat in a huge chair with a flair back and clawed arms. His
fingers tapped out an impatient rhythm. "I need six. Without him, I
will not have six. I will have five."
"I don't care." Anksha's lower lip jutted out petulantly.
Hoon's next words seemed to come out of nowhere. "Have you quit
loving me?"
Isranon wondered how many days Hoon had spent shaming her for
that day in his rooms. The nature of Hoon and Anksha's relationship
became clearer to him at that moment. A large part of it seemed to be
based upon Hoon's ability to make her feel guilty about wanting
things Hoon did not wish her to have. Including himself.
Anksha looked stricken, and lowered her eyes. "I love you, Hoon.
But he is Isranon…. He is mine."
Hoon's dark eyes glittered, his lips curling into a derisive snarl. "He
is not that Isranon. Dawnhand is dead. We are not who we were. We
can only be who we are. I have taught you blood and lives."
Anksha glared at him. "Yes, you did. Are you trying to kill him…
again?"
"No. I am merely risking him a bit," Hoon's voice took on a
disdainful air. "I doubt she will rise before two full moons. That is
what the ritual says. She will rise between one full moon and the next.
It is unclear. I will move her long before the earliest rising noted in
the text. However, we cannot know for certain that it will take that
long. I do not intend to risk my own people."
"Hoon…"
"No. You are either with me or against me, Anksha. You cannot
have it both ways. And you have me wondering whether you have
become an ungrateful little bitch after what happened in his rooms a
week ago."
Anksha dropped her head and shoved her hand into her pocket
where Isranon knew she always kept the candy he gave her. "As you
will."
"Now that is a good pet." Hoon rose from his chair to stroke her
head and pat her.
"Can we leave now?"
A sneer slid across Hoon's face. "Take your withering wine-press
and leave."
She sprang up and grabbed Isranon's hand, urging him to his feet.
They had not passed three doors, when Isranon tasted the terror of the
nibari in Hoon's bedroom as the vampire began to kill them. His
stomach clenched and he remembered the way Hoon had stabbed his
fangs into his neck, the way it had felt to be dying. I hate you Hoon.
Anksha ran him back to his rooms and curled up on the sofa
looking unhappy.
Isranon knelt in front of her. "I'll deal with it."
"I don't want to lose you."
Isranon caressed her head. "I know."
A small sob escaped her. "Hoon makes me feel bad."
"I am sorry he treats you like this."
Anksha nodded.
"Have some candy." He lifted the lid of the jar and her hand shot
into it, snatching a fistful.

CHAPTER EIGHT. THE RISING
Isranon knelt in the small, dark chapel to the Hellgod Bellocar
across from Yoris. He had sworn he would never serve here, yet a
blood-slave had no choices. Anksha's blood-slaves were expendable
in Hoon's–Brandrahoon's–eyes. Should the creature upon the altar rise
from death prematurely, she would kill them both to satisfy her
hunger, buying Hoon time to react.
The cold stones, moist and very cold, felt rough beneath Isranon's
black-clad knees. He squared his shoulders, head up with a steely
pride. To his left, he heard Yoris whine and closed out his words. Of
the other five sa'necari, Yoris was weakest and the least in courage,
yet they were all far more powerful than Isranon. Isranon knew that he
had more inner strength than any of them; his pride in not allowing
them to see the smallest weakness out of him held the young mon's
body straight as a rod. Still, they called Isranon 'half-a-mon' because
they could tell, from the weakness of his powers and the scent of his
body and aura, that he had never crossed into the darkness of the rites.
Again a worried whine came from Yoris.
Yoris is a coward. Why am I always being paired with him for these
watches? Nevin, you have taught me well. I am a man. Yoris is not. If
this thing on the altar wakens and eats me, I will not die a coward.
Yoris will probably flee out the door if it so much as twitches… and
pretend he was doing everyone a favor.
Isranon closed his eyes briefly, turning towards the bloodstained
altar. A gauzy cloth of crimson and gold covered Zyne's corpse,
clinging to the outlines of her body like a shroud. The stone and wood
walls were black, coated with blood, which had been applied with
brushes like paint. Crimson candles cast a flickering light in a draft
that entered through tiny cracks and imperfections in the stone.
She had been Lord Hoon's agent in Rowanhart, until the Sacred
King's spy-catchers discovered what she was. Isranon found it
difficult to imagine that Hoon had rewarded Zyne's treacheries with
undeath, transforming her into this creature out of nightmare legend ...
assuming he could actually make this happen. Zyne had betrayed
Josiah, what was to stop her from betraying Hoon once she held such
power?
Timon and Hoon entered silently and stood regarding the sa'necari
a moment before turning their attention to Zyne's corpse. Hoon flicked
back the gauzy covering and stroked Zyne's face fondly before kissing
her dead lips, pushing them open with his own. Isranon shivered, yet
refused to look away and betray his discomfort watching Hoon's
sexual explorations of the corpse. Finally the vampire rose and
covered her again, his hands moving in arcane gestures. Isranon felt
Hoon's power rise.
As Brandrahoon, eldest of the three brothers of darkness, Hoon had
been a mage of great power before becoming a Lemyari of even
greater power, adding the vampiric gifts to his magery. Hoon had
once had secret holdings from as far north as Waejontor to as far
south as the continent of Jedrua. King Aejystrys Rowan had destroyed
his citadel in Waejontor; forced him to sell his his holdings in
Shaurone before they could be discovered when her allies breathed
too heavily along his trail, and now his holdings in Charas were gone
as well. There was still much that had not been found; his resources
were many and varied, held under many names and in a multitude of
guises. Soon he would have an incomparable weapon and it would
give him a kingdom. Lord Hoon had decided it was time to come out
of the shadows.
Hoon stroked Zyne's face through the gauze. "My nekaryiane," he
murmured, with a small tremor of fear and uncertainty in his voice
"my sweet nekaryiane, when you rise, we will consume this sacred
king." They all questioned whether Zyne would be strong enough to
handle the power he had given her without going mad when she rose.
Anksha appeared in the doorway. She spied the two sa'necari,
recognizing Isranon and Yoris from behind. She crouched down at the
base of the altar with her tail lashing and crept around, so that her face
appeared suddenly in front of Yoris.
Yoris started and then cowered with a whimper. He cringed as
Anksha came around him, knowing what she was up to. She licked
her fangs and smacked her lips.
"Anksha," Isranon said, his voice steady. "Let him be." He opened
his robe, letting it slide from his shoulders. His slender metal collar
shone in the candlelight, illumining Anksha's name as his owner. She
turned and Yoris fled to the farthest side of the chapel without waiting
for permission. Hoon chuckled, walked over, and toed Yoris in the
ribs, making him jump.
"Isranon?" Anksha dropped to all fours, crawling to him, her head
cocked. She pushed him onto his back, straddling him. Feeding on
him had become almost an act of love. He was the only blood-slave
who invited it freely and even sought out her company for
conversation and companionship.
Isranon trailed his fingers down her cheek, unafraid and
welcoming, a gesture of comfort knowing how she hated to hurt him.
He had made his peace with Anksha.
Timon knelt beside them, touching Anksha. "My pet, the larder is
stocked. Would you prefer a fresh caught demon perhaps? Or some
imps?"
Anksha perked. "Imps? What color?"
"Green ones. Streganari, I believe."
Anksha leaped off Isranon, running from the chapel. "Green imps
and ham!"
Timon put his hand on Isranon's shoulder. "Go to the private garden
and wait for me. Ephry's there. We need to talk."
Isranon balled his robe up and walked out into the corridor. The
stonewalls smelled of mold and damp in a sharp acrid blending.
Torches in wall sconces lit the way, their flames flickering in the
shifting air that entered through unseen cracks. The shielded
chambers, branching off from this hallway beneath the manor, were
places of dark rites. He walked obediently toward the stairs leading
up.
Bodramet appeared ahead of him in the corridor and stepped into
his path. "Feeding the vampires again? Do you like the touch of them
so much? Their kisses?" Bodramet sneered.
Isranon's mouth tightened, his eyes hardening, refusing to respond
or acknowledge the other even by a meeting of the eyes. The
teachings of the Dark Brothers raced through him, 'Be as still as the
deer in the forest, and if you are fortunate the predators will not notice
you. For when they notice you, they will eat you.'
Then anger crept in to dance a counterpoint to the strictures of the
creed. Isranon refused to dance to Bodramet's tunes. Bodramet wanted
him physically. Isranon had sworn that he would never bend over for
a sa'necari, even if it cost his life. He would defy every one of the
filthy death-eaters.
"You are sa'necari, half-a-mon, even if you refuse the rites."
Bodramet ran his finger along Isranon's arm. "Are you a heretic? Or
simply a coward?"
"Don't touch me," Isranon growled, drawing out each word,
wishing for the blades that were denied him as a blood-slave.
Bodramet was the most powerful of the sa'necari currently on the
estate. He smiled thinly. "If you must play nibble games, play them
among your own kind."
Isranon shivered. He had no desire to play such games–sharing
blood during an act of sex–with Bodramet. He would not bend to him.
"What I do or do not do… What I am or am not," Isranon gritted out
between clenched teeth. "It is none of your business."
"Oh, but it is. With Mephistis gone, I rule our little fellowship of
the winepress. You will play or I will make you play. I have wanted
you for five years, Isranon. To play the nibble games with your blood
in my mouth."
Isranon said nothing. After a moment, Bodramet laughed at him
and walked on.
He remained uncertain who he hated more–Bodramet or Hoon. It
depended on which he had encountered most recently. They both
disgusted him, filthy, repellant creatures with not a shred of humanity,
decency, or compassion, always plotting; corrupting everything they
touched.
A flash of remembered pain and the loss of all his hopes took
Isranon and he leaned against the dank walls as the ghost's promise
echoed through his mind–that he would be free and have the staff of
his ancestor Isranon Dawnhand, something that could never be now.
Nevin had told him that no one knew where the staff called Warrior
was. Warrior? Warrior, where are you? Who has you?
"You will walk with kings and gods of light to Ildyrsetts to claim the
staff of Dawnhand," the ghost had told him.
The cycle of loss completed itself with thoughts of Merissa. He had
been seventeen when he and Merissa became lovers. Then Claw,
Merissa's father and chieftain of Clan Red Wolf, sent Merissa away.
Isranon assumed that Claw had taken offense at the thought of his
daughter sleeping with a sa'necari. Nevin had promised to take
Merissa word after he perished that he had died well and had loved
her.
He forced the thoughts from his mind. It would not do for them to
find him standing here. While Anksha never punished him, it still
would not be wise to test her.
Isranon climbed the stairs, which folded themselves inside the
tower walls at the front ell of the mansion, opening behind the
kitchens. The smell of baking bread and strawberry pie wafted over
him and made his mouth water. Nevin and Olin waited for him there,
sitting upon a bench to the side near the door that led to the formal
stairs.
He suspected they were using it as an excuse to harass the kitchen
nibari. Haig's Nainee, a slender and aristocratic nibari of Black Cliff
stock, very expensive and coveted among both the hemovores, stood
near one of the tables. She was near to term in pregnancy by a Black
Cliff stud belonging to a friend of Haig's, and extremely swollen. Haig
had arranged to have all of his nibari bred before he followed Isranon
to Charas. Black Cliff nibari were said to have the sweetest, most
savory blood of all. And they made a satisfying death in the sa'necari
rites of mortgiefan. She smiled at Isranon, her hands folded over her
belly. Haig had promised her that she would be allowed to keep this
child, that he would not sell it: her first master had always sold her
young before they were weaned to cover his gambling debts.
Three of the younger girls were laughing and daring the scarred
lycan to change in front of them. Nothing would come of it. Olin
frequently played the game of seduction with them. Nevin never did
more than tease since his taste ran to males. Olin remained sitting, his
face leaning toward the nearest of the kitchen nibari.
"Change, Nevin," said Eilwen. "It isn't as if I haven't seen a lycan in
the–" she raked Nevin with her eyes, letting them linger on his crotch
before raising them again.
"What would you want with a scarred old wolf like me?" Nevin
grinned at her.
Olin grabbed Eilwen's dress. "Yes, what would you? I am far more
interesting to watch and ten years younger than my cousin. And I have
no scars…."
Isranon grinned, because from the nuances, he suspected they were
not talking about his shape. Then he started walking again.
Nevin put his hands on his knees, started to rise and follow. "Where
are you going?"
Isranon shook his head, thumbing at the ceiling. "I've been sent to
the garden," adding at Nevin's frown, "I'm not in trouble."
Nevin settled again. Even if he were, there was nothing any of them
could do about it. His spirit-brother and friends tried to go everywhere
with him, like guardians. That was neither comfortable nor possible.
Hoon kept finding chores for him that left him alone or nearly so.
Isranon suspected Hoon was trying to find an opening to kill him.
Then Isranon thought of Nainee and how much he had once wanted
children, a family of his own. Isranon loved children. Blood-slaves of
the Beast did not produce them. The temporary distraction provided
by watching Nevin and Olin faded and he found himself dragged back
to brooding.
Isranon reached the rooftop garden and discovered Ephry there, the
pale lycan whom Timon called his mate. The intense fragrances of
rose, honeysuckle and jasmine, favorites of Timon's father, permeated
the air, rising from the lush growths in the orange-glazed planters on
the glassed in rooftop garden, which was artificially heated to keep
them blooming all year long. Ephry went shirtless in the humid late
summer-like warmth that had swept in to challenge autumn, showing
his lean perfection, his white hair loose. He glanced over his shoulder
at Isranon's entrance, surprised, clearly expecting Timon.
"Isranon?" Ephry made his name a sensual note of speculation,
drawing it out.
Isranon closed his eyes briefly, placing his hands behind his back
with his wrists crossed as if corded: he was learning the positions the
masters here expected of their slaves, and assuming them
automatically when summoned. He was not certain what Ephry's
intentions and feelings were toward him; whether he was friend or foe
on the estate. "Timon sent me to wait for him."
"Did he?" Ephry grinned, rose from the couch, and ran his tongue
along his lips.
Isranon went very still. "A disagreement in the chapel."
"Yoris again?" Ephry sounded interested, his lips just slightly
curving at the edges as if bemused by a secret.
Isranon said nothing. He had never had a chance to become
acquainted with Ephry, and had no idea what to expect from the lycan.
Isranon doubted that he and Ephry had exchanged more than ten
sentences in all the months since he had returned as Anksha's bloodslave.
They had never spoken during his previous stay with Mephistis.
It had been during that first stay that Anksha had taken Mephistis, and
he had not known it for several months–Hoon and Mephistis had
concealed the fact from him until later. If only I had known what she
was before she took you…. My prince.
"It's nearly always Yoris, you know. Anksha says so. We're not
blind." Ephry walked around him, moving like a cat, rather than the
wolf that he was, assessing him. Ephry had never come so close to
him before. "You are a very strange sa'necari, Isranon. You even
smell different. It isn't because you are a blood-slave. Although there
is that. Anksha's blood-slaves always smell slightly different from the
way they did before."
Ephry leaned in, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed and ran his nose
along Isranon's shoulder, inhaling the odor of him. Isranon had
dwelled long enough among lycans to become accustomed to this and
take no offense. "Yes, you smell far different from any sa'necari I've
ever encountered in my entire life. I don't understand it at all."
"I am what I am." Isranon squared his shoulders, pride drawing him
into a firmer stance, his chin tilted in defiance. He would only bow as
far as he was forced to.
Other lycans had said he smelled different. Surely by now Ephry
knew the answer to that one. Ephry's clean, guileless sensuality moved
Isranon's desires. He had always loved a mon's spirit first and then
their body. Isranon's first sexual explorations had been with another
boy when he had been twelve and the other thirteen. He felt some of
that old pull as Ephry continued his inspection.
"There are more who care for you, Isranon, than you suspect. We
would protect you, if you would let us."
Isranon did not answer, but his expression went colder. If, as Hoon
believed, he had no more than three months of life left, then why
should they bother? A thread of anger slipped through the weave of
his thoughts and emotions. How many knew that Hoon had tried to
kill him? A shiver swept him as he remembered the fierce stab of
Hoon's fangs. a thread of resentment formed at how impotent he had
been in the arms of the vampire lord and dangled, demanding to be
added to the weave.
"You're not listening to me."
"I'm listening," Isranon answered with his resentment flaring hotter.
Ephry sighed and returned to his chair, folding his hands across his
knee with a shake of his head.
****
"Yoris," Hoon said. "Fetch two others to keep watch here for the
rest of the day. Have them wait outside until we are finished."
"Yes, Lord Hoon." Yoris bowed and departed.
Hoon gazed after Isranon as he left; he was so very like his brother
had been. Watching Isranon offer himself so freely in another's place
irritated the ancient vampire. This sa'necari, always giving himself
like some willing sacrificial victim, stinking of purity and nobility,
virtues no sa'necari had a right to own–Isranon son of Isranon was too
much like his ancestor, Isranon Dawnhand. No wonder Isranon was
stealing Anksha from him. He wanted to eliminate this rival, but he
had to do it in such a way that Anksha would not blame him for it or
trace it back to him: for then she would turn against him.
He had told only Timon and a very few others that Isranon's name
was also his lineage, that he was descended from his brother; if the
other sa'necari discovered that, they would kill Isranon. If he did not
object so much to the manner in which the sa'necari would commit the
deed, he would see that word was leaked to them. Mephistis had done
only a single noble deed in his entire savage life: he had kept Isranon's
secret and protected him. It was both a secret and a defiance in that
Isranon kept his name and did not hide it, while refusing to answer
questions about his lineage.
"Father," Timon said, once they were alone, "I have never seen a
rising take so long. Are you certain she is going to rise?"
"No mistakes." Hoon fingered the box handing from a chain around
his neck. "On the full moon I will open the little box Galee gave me
and she will rise."
"A nekaryiane. A death angel. No one even knows what one looked
like. Are you certain it can be controlled?"
"Tonight I will move her to my house in Minnoras to complete the
rite. This estate will remain secret. Zyne will not be able to find her
way here from there. I have more resources in Minnoras to deal with
her if she goes rogue." Hoon had never completely trusted Galee, the
vampire that had made him–only survivor of her kind after the godwar
that had sealed the Hellgod and his wives beyond the Katal
Escarpment. Galee had been destroyed by a yuwenghau, one of those
who considered themselves divine knights-errant: minor young gods
and demi-gods; they were powerful and unpredictable. Hoon bitterly
resented their existence–too many of his plans had come to naught
over the centuries because of the breed. Some served the Nine, the
elder gods, or other more powerful liege-gods than themselves. Others
wandered, taking up causes, pitting themselves against monsters and
demons, scattering their seed like holy rakehells, always dangerous.
Galee had killed many of them before she fell to the twice-born son of
Willodarus, Dynarien, twin brother to Dynanna God of Cussedness
and Perversity.
"Timon, let Isranon die. Stop all this nonsense of giving him extra."
Timon frowned. "Father, Anksha will not be happy if I do that."
"Let him die, Timon," Hoon growled. "Find a way to hasten it
without Anksha noticing. The sooner he is dead, the better it will be. I
do not want him putting ideas in Anksha's head. He is teaching her
things I do not wish her taught."
"I understand, father."
"Do not get involved with him. Send me his blood when he is
dead."
"I will do what I can do," Timon said.
"You should find an opportunity to sink your fangs into him and
drain him. His blood has a fine taste."
Timon looked uneasy and Hoon scowled at him.
"You still cannot bring yourself to drain a living enemy. After all
these centuries, I would have thought you would get over your
squeamishness. Killing with the blade does not bother you."
"I am what I am, father."
Hoon's lips curled back in distaste. "Go on, then. Keep your
assignation with him. Just remember, I want his death hastened."
****
Timon swept out of the chapel, thinking furiously.
Don't get involved with him? How can I not? Isranon… I don't
want you dead… Gods! I can't do it. What a delicate, narrow path I
walk between loyalty to my father and devotion to my philosophy.
What will happen when I tumble from the path? I am tumbling from
the path.
He had assured Ephry time and again that there was absolutely no
way he could be attracted to a filthy sa'necari. Yet, he began to
suspect that he was lying to himself and to Ephry. Anksha told him
that Isranon was different, that he had never participated in the rites,
but he had no proof of that. Well, not in regard to the rites. Isranon
was definitely different from any sa'necari Timon had ever met. There
was something inherently noble and honorable about the young mon
that stirred a nameless longing in Timon.
When Timon reached the roof top gardens he gestured for Ephry to
leave.
Ephry gave Isranon a knowing glance as he departed the garden.
"Sit down, Isranon," Timon ordered as soon as they were alone,
taking a place beside him on a low backed bench, almost touching
him, wishing he dared to touch him.
"You can't keep doing this for them, Isranon," Timon said, bluntly.
"They don't appreciate it. Sooner or later they'll betray you. Even if
they never learn your lineage."
"I can't watch her do it. They're all terrified of her. The bloodslaves'
nerves settle when she's away for a few days, but as soon as
she's back they're like mice caged with a large snake."
"For hell's sake, mon," Timon shouted, his eyes darting from scar to
scar, around Isranon's neck, along his arms, across his chest and sides;
not wanting to stare and yet unable to do otherwise–Isranon wore just
his pants as if defying him to stare.
Did he like being bitten? These savage scars were not token marks
from nibble games. Isranon did not seem the type to enjoy being
casually brutalized like that. Nonconsensual biting between freemyn,
and between freemyn and other people's property was strictly
forbidden. Why the hell didn't he heal like the rest?
"With all the death you've dealt. All the mortgiefan you've taken–
how can you be…so…" Timon saw him wince and hesitated. The
thought entering his mind did not seem possible. Sa'necari were the
filthuest feeders on death that existed–the vampires abhorred them–
and yet. Were the rumors true? Could he be as pure as he seemed?
Anksha believed it. Until meeting Isranon, he had thought the legends
of the Dark Brothers to be just that–legends. "You've never done it
have you? Mortgiefan?"
Isranon refused to meet his eyes, staring straight forward, a defiant
angle to his chin, his stance proud. He distanced himself further from
Timon in the tone of his voice, dispassionate, giving away nothing of
his feelings though the words were, by their very nature, highly
charged with emotion. "I've never done it. I feed only when the
craving forces me. Although Hell Knows, they're after me all the time
to feed since I became a blood-slave. For generations my family has
been born sa'necari. Waejonan himself forced this on us. We bear it as
a curse. You can Read me if you want. Or have it done."
Timon moved nearer to Isranon, feeling drawn to him, wanting
desperately to touch him, to kiss him. Timon and Ephry were a not
entirely monogamous couple. Ephry would understand. "You have
offered yourself in place of others before?"
"As I said, I cannot bear to watch their terror."
"So you suffer in their place."
"I can bear it. It is nothing to the suffering of being what I am since
the craving came on me at puberty."
"You are a very strange sa'necari."
A troubled look flashed across Isranon's face, he bowed his head
and then lifted it again. "One day they will kill me for it," irony gave
his voice a twist of sourness, "as they did my father and his father
before him."
"You will not rise. Those bitten by Anksha, never do."
Isranon gave a small bitter laugh. "When sa'necari kill sa'necari
they do it well."
Timon regarded him for a long time in silence. The sa'necari were a
bi-sexual culture, although some among them were not. He wondered
whether Isranon would welcome his advances, wanted to simply ask
him directly, and then decided to ask Anksha. She knew the
preferences of those she had taken. If a male wavered in the least in
his lusts or simply had a taste for many flavors, then she could take
him. Timon did not understand the randomness of those she managed
to take. There had been a few males who preferred females yet were
somehow immune to her and there had been males who preferred
males that she had snared. She found females who preferred females a
tasty delicacy. Her powers transcended race and species. She seemed
somehow outside all laws and rules. Then he realized his mind had
wandered and Isranon still sat in silence. Isranon was far different
from anyone Anksha had ever captured before. Isranon! Isranon!
Timon could barely hold back.
"The rite my father and Anksha did with Mephistis to Read the
Legacy. Would you permit us to do that with you?"
"Anksha can order me to do it and I will," Isranon replied, his
fingers tracing the collar on his neck.
"I'm not ordering anything," Timon said, his voice softening. "I'm
asking. If what you say is true, you are one of a kind. You intrigue
me. But I will not force you."
Isranon lowered his head, finally meeting Timon's eyes. He
searched their dark depths. "For you, I will do it. If you will excuse
me, I need to think." His hand brushed Timon's as he rose and
Timon's heart raced.
Isranon had scarcely departed when a trapdoor opened in the floor
and Anksha scooted out. The manor was a warren of secret passages
known only to Anksha and used only by the demon-eater.
Timon started at her sudden appearance and then settled again on
the bench. He knew a few of her most frequently used secret doors
and tended to be less surprised when she came out of them than when
she emerged from a seldom used one or one that he had no previous
knowledge of.
The manor had been built by Anksha's blood-slaves five centuries
ago as her playhouse. She bound the slaves' minds so they could not
speak of it. They had all been dead for centuries. Eventually Timon
and Hoon had moved in with her and taken over the use of most of it,
but the secrets of her passages remained known only to Anksha.
"You startled me, pet. At least announce yourself."
"Ah kay." She curled up beside Timon's leg and popped a handful
of candy in her mouth.
Timon frowned and leaned close to her. "What have you got?"
"Candy."
"You're not supposed to have candy. You know that. You're
breaking a lot of the rules nowadays."
"I am a law unto myself," Anksha growled.
Timon shook his head. There were very few rules that applied to
Anksha and Timon felt a sudden urge to remind her of them. "Where
are you getting the candy?"
Anksha looked uncomfortable. "Isranon."
Timon shook his head. "Do you understand the risks you are
taking? If Father learns that Isranon is giving you candy, he'll kill him
outright."
"Because of Dawnhand…."
"Yes. Because of Dawnhand. And don't ever mention the staff or
Dawnhand to Isranon. That too would provoke my father to forget
your feelings and simply kill him."
Tears rolled down Anksha's face. "Why does he have to be so mean
to me?"
"He thinks he knows best. He likes to control everything." Timon
tousled Anksha's hair. "Just be quiet and stay out of his way until he
leaves tomorrow. Then you can have things your way with Isranon."
Anksha climbed into Timon's lap, wrapped her arms around him,
and kissed him on the forehead.
Timon suspected that she had heard the entire conversation from
her stone covert.
****
Hoon sat in his favorite chair on the rooftop garden under the shade
of a potted almond tree, regarding his son who sat opposite him. The
last of his belongings that were to make the journey to his mansion in
Minnoras had been placed in a wagon, the horses were ready and he
needed to depart within the hour. So he had summoned Timon for one
more talk. "Under no circumstances are these five sa'necari to be slain
out of hand."
Timon cursed under his breath. "They are a danger, father." To
Isranon.
Hoon shook his head, running his fingers around the rim of his
glass of blood wine. "I need their knowledge. Mephistis' sa'necari are
among the best trained and possessed of the widest knowledge
available to me now that Waejontor has fallen and the Legacy of
Waejonan has been destroyed."
"I want to have them put down."
"No. Ask me again after the rising. But not before."
"But father–"
"No. Now leave me. I wish to contemplate other matters."
Timon left and Hoon watched him go. Anksha was distancing
herself from him more and more each passing day. He needed to be
rid of Isranon in a way that would not trace back to him. Perhaps if the
other five knew what Isranon was and who he was, they would do the
work for him. The price of heresy was death. Yet, did he really want
his brother's descendant to die that way?
Finally, he sent for Yoris. The blood-slave crept in, bowing and
nodding to him. Hoon's fingers drummed the clawed arm of his chair
impatiently. "Sit."
Yoris eased into the chair that Timon had vacated. "Thank you,
Lord Hoon. You are gracious."
"Be silent and listen."
Yoris cringed and said nothing in reply.
"I want you to watch Isranon closely. He has many secrets. Some of
them may interest you."
"I will, Lord. I will."
"Get out of here."
Yoris fled.
****
The encounter with Bodramet in the hallway rankled. Isranon felt
like a corner of his nerves had been filed away to a raw edge.
Someone was always watching him and it all seemed to swirl around
Bodramet. "I am not afraid of him. I will handle it."
Sitting in the middle of his bed, Isranon enjoyed the few minutes he
had gained alone by racing up here ahead of Nevin and Olin. Nevin
was fetching food for the three of them. Olin had been right behind
Isranon and would arrive soon.
In the stolen moments waiting for the others, which dragged out
longer than Isranon expected, he found himself remembering another
encounter with Bodramet. It drew him rapidly in and he could not
shake it off or thrust it away. He folded over across his arms, wishing
he could get free of it.
Isranon answered the knock on his door, wondering what Dane's
people wanted now. Yoris, one of Bodramet's sycophants, stood there.
"Your little Rose," Yoris grinned, his watery eyes glittering. His
thin lips twitched into a snicker that emerged from his nostrils as well
as his mouth. "She has been taken. Go to the Great Hall immediately
or she dies." Then Yoris scampered off.
Isranon snatched up his blades, buckling them on as he ran. He
passed no one in the corridors. They must all be in the great hall. At
the entrance he found his way blocked by sa'necari, guardsmyn and
nibari several ranks deep. They were seated everywhere, on the steps
leading down, on the couches, chairs and on the steps of the dais
where Margren sat watching from her throne beside the empty one
which Mephistis normally occupied. Laughter and conversation filled
the great hall. The only silence came from those who were already
feeding. Wine flowed freely through a thousand glasses. A cold tight
knot formed in Isranon's stomach. Margren had declared a Sowayn
orgy on the night of Isranon's eighteenth birthday. He had no doubt
that he would leave this world on the same night as his birth.
Margren saw him and gestured with her glass. "The entertainment
has arrived."
A small corridor of sa'necari opened down the center, allowing
Isranon to enter. Bodramet, Troyes, and four others waited on the far
side with Rose. Bodramet had her by the hair, keeping her on her
knees. He yanked the gag from her mouth.
"Isranon, no! Go back," Rose sobbed. Her arms and breasts,
exposed by her torn gown, showed savage bite marks, and bruises.
They had already been abusing her.
"Cross the gauntlet and I will let you have her back," Bodramet
promised.
Isranon snapped his shields tightly around his mind and body. They
would have to get past the shields with their spells; but he did not lie
to himself–they would not hold long. If he were lucky they would hold
long enough for him to strike and interrupt the assaults. He sucked in
a deep breath and started down the steps. Margren's laughter drifted
over the room in a moment of silence. As his foot touched the bottom,
voices rose again, making bets on how far he would get before they
killed him.
Isranon's expression went flat as he drew his blades and sought the
stillness in the core of his being. This was not the silences, such as his
father had taught him, but the predator's way he had learned from
Nevin. This was the moritausa, to walk with death, in its certainty. He
knew Dane would keep his promise to tell Nevin he had died well. His
gaze never wavered from Bodramet's, yet he opened his vision to the
farthest corners of his eyes in an all-inclusive manner, and his
awareness would catch the smallest movement around him. Nevin had
taught him this, as well as how to use his blades, which appalled his
father. He tried to be every bit the man Nevin would expect him to be.
He will be proud of me and make a song of my death.
He left the sword at his shoulder. This was a battle of presence
even more than power. Drawing the sword would be perceived as a
sign of fear, whereas his belt knives, in their approximation to what
the sa'necari carried themselves, would not be. Isranon moved
instinctually with straight-backed, loose-limbed arrogance carrying
the blades in his hands, but not poised to strike. Should he move too
quickly toward Rose, that would be interpreted as weakness and they
would swarm him. Should he stumble and not regain his feet fast
enough or should he hesitate, the result would be the same.
For the first two yards, the sa'necari hung back like hungry wolves
waiting for a traveler's fire to go out before descending upon him.
Then one of them hit him between the shoulder blades and it began.
Isranon pivoted with an economy of motion, and kicked that one in the
face, sending him into those pressing forward. He walked on. Three
more hit him, coming in a small rush from the sides. Isranon ignored
those, continuing his walk. Another sank fangs into his shoulder,
trying for his neck. Isranon slashed that one across the face, blinding
him. He crossed two more yards. His shoulder throbbed. Getting
loose from that one had torn him open. blood spread through his blue
tunic.
Hungry noises cresendoed into a roar. More came at him. Isranon
saw the blades coming out. The sa'necari held them low, half hidden
in their sleeves and around the folds of their robes. The rules barred
the use of runed blades, hell-blades that always killed, but that did not
mean that one of them would not do so. His flesh crawled, wondering
which direction it would come from. He controlled his fear, forced it
away–they would taste it and, the taste of his fear could provoke
them–even though it was fear for Rose and not himself.
The assaults grew more frequent, more savage. He responded with
attacks, short and vicious, on those around him. Just enough strikes to
make his point. Not turn it into a prolonged fight, for then they would
simply kill him. They beat him and knocked him down. He dragged
himself up and walked on. Then the first blade slid under his ribs with
a twist. Isranon stifled a gasp, spinning to drive his blade into his
attacker's throat even as that sa'necari lifted his dagger to stick him
again. The assailant fell gurgling and clutching at his throat. Blood
would not heal that one since he no longer had throat to swallow with.
The others fell back from him. Each step had become an agony with
the wound in his side. Yet he walked on.
Bodramet's eyes flamed with lust watching Isranon, he ran his
tongue over his fangs, and his member tented his pants. He shook
Rose by his grip on her hair to emphasize his control of her and she
clutched at his wrists, twisting. "Watch him die. He's lycan-reared. To
look away is to dishonor him."
Tears gleamed on her face, but Rose did not look away.
Isranon stalked deeper into the crowd, reaching the midway point.
By then his presence vied with Bodramet's for control of the room.
Margren came down from her chair and pushed through to the
outer edge just ahead of Isranon's advance. "Thief of his affections,"
she muttered low.
Two pulled Isranon down, sinking fangs into his arm and leg.
Isranon grimaced, swallowing back a cry as he put a blade through
their hearts, striking down through the back of one and arching the
other knife up under the breastbone of the second. Then he rose and
went on, limping now.
Margren drew her blades as Isranon neared her. A putrid green
coated the silvery metal. "'When sa'necari kill sa'necari, they do it
well."
She allowed him to pass her, then stepped forward as two large
males grabbed him. She used them to cover her intentions. A gap
showed between them and she could see Isranon's exposed back.
"You'll not steal Mephistis' affection any longer."
Margren shoved both lengths of steel into his back with a vicious
twist.
Isranon's eyes widened in shock at the impact of the blades,
staggering forward, struggling now for each step. The venom that
Margren had coated her blades with burned like acid in his body. A
sa'necari deepened in the rites might have shrugged it off. Isranon's
will alone kept him moving. Sensing weakness, the sa'necari closed
tighter around him. Another blade found him and Isranon responded
by killing the one nearest him. He knew then he would never reach
Rose. His awareness began to gray along the edges. He could no
longer take in all of them. At least he would not rise, sa'necari always
made certain of that when they killed one of their own.
Isranon reached the foot of the stairs and stood looking up at
Bodramet. He swayed on his feet, fighting to stay upright. He went to
his knees, striking the step hard, cracking his knees against the edge.
Four rushed him from the back and sides. A blade entered his ribs and
fangs his neck. Isranon fell face down, twisted, and put a blade into
the eye of the one sucking blood from his neck. The sa'necari released
him and Isranon dragged himself forward step by step.
Bodramet's expression turned incredulous and he moved back a
short distance, gesturing for those around him to stop the youth. They
allowed Isranon to reach the top and then fastened on him. Isranon's
blades slipped from his fingers. Bodramet kicked them down the steps.
The youth struggled briefly, making small, suffering animal noises
and then lay still.
Nevin entered and set the platter on the center table before going to
Isranon. "Are you all right, my brother?" He laid his hand on Isranon's
shoulder.
Isranon straightened, sucking in air and nodded. "Where's Olin?"
"Distracted by a pretty skirt."
Isranon nodded again, his eyes taking on a sad, distant quality. "I
wish I had been born to the light and not to the monsters. There has
been so much darkness in my life."
"You are not a monster."
"I am sa'necari. Sa'necari destroy everything beautiful that they
touch."
Nevin sat down beside him. "Except the Dark Brothers. They
didn't."
"And they're all dead!" Isranon snapped. The feeling from his
memory lingered, making him edgy and raw.
"Except you."
"I am not a true Dark Brother. I have killed. And I'm going to
wither and die," his tone turned bitter. "Then we will all be gone and
only the ugliness will remain. Only the ugliness…."
"Isranon," Nevin took on his lawgiver tones. "Amiri believes she
can prevent the withering, that there is an alternative. Do not belittle
our efforts by giving up."
"I didn't mean to, Nevin." Isranon pulled himself together. "I
believe in Amiri."
"Good."
Olin entered and shut the outer door emphatically. "Be more
careful," he called to them. "I saw Yoris and he appeared to be
listening at this door. He had spilled some papers in the hall, but he
wasn't trying very hard to pick them up."
****
Hoon could see the moon through the horizontal slit of a window
near the chapel's ceiling; it glowed brightly on a perfect, cloudless
autumn night above the spreading fields and woodlands surrounding
the tremendous city of Minnoras. He had prepared well for this night,
having danced with death, danger, and betrayal for all of his existence,
save for those brief halcyon years before they had fled Imralon after
his brother murdered Melorien.
Six male sacrifices were shackled nude along the walls, their ankles
and wrists chained together behind their backs; a thin band of bloodstained
iron imprisoned their necks to expose their throats. To heighten the taste of
terror for his prize, Hoon had given her captured humans instead of nibari.
He had been giving them water, but no food for days to clean out their
bodies and purify their blood.
Red candles stood their burning watch like unholy soldiers in three
ranks upon the two small stone tables flanking the oblong, basalt slab
on which Zyne's body lay covered by crimson and gold gauze.
Billowing smoke, moving in the unseen rise and fall of shifting air
from tiny cracks in the cellar's ceiling edge, carried the scent of yew
chips smoldering on hot coal within the braziers placed like roundbodied
officers before the candles.
He brooded through the hours, watching the body on the basalt
slab. Would it be Zyne, who had trusted him with childlike simplicity,
or something else that rose from the altar? It would rise starving and
desperate for a kill. It would be seiryn to some incalculable degree,
despite the changes he had wrought upon Zyne's body before her
death. Seiryn were genetic parasites whose chosen prey was male;
hence his choice of males for her first meal upon awakening.
Changes in Zyne's body over the last week had alerted Hoon that
the night of her rising finally approached. Her skin had turned white,
her hair blood red, and she had sprouted leathery wings; but her heart
did not beat, she did not breathe, and her skin still retained the
clammy chill of death. Hoon folded the gauze back to her waist. The
gills were gone from her throat, as was the scar where her mother had
severed her vocal chords so she could no longer work the magic of her
song. Hoon ran his hands over her longingly, ran his fingers along the
slit between her legs where once he had so freely sheathed himself,
kissed her nipples and then her lips. He probed her mouth with his
tongue, and then drew back from her with a sigh. Hoon took the little
box on the chain from around his neck, which his slain mentor had
given him, and opened it, laying it beside Zyne's head. Galee had told
him that it would ensure that Zyne would rise; give her the wisdom of
the Age of Burning; and the locations of all Galee's caches of weapons
and treasures from the godwar, things of incomparable power.
Hoon backed away and knelt cautiously near the door, to speak the
last words of the rite necessary to raise the first nekaryiane, death
angel, to exist in over twenty millennia. A blue-black vapor rose from
the box, flowing into the mouth and nostrils of Zyne.
The body moved, breathed.
The gauze slipped to the floor.
She rose, spreading her arms and leathery wings. She flexed her
lamian claws, extending them fully from their sheaths, watching tiny
droplets of venom–which could kill a yuwenghau–beading and then
ran them through her hair. The creature threw her head back,
screaming with hunger, long fangs glinting in the light of the crimson
candles.
Hoon's hand settled on his sword hilt and he shifted uneasily into a
crouch.
The nekaryiane was magnificent. He hoped he would not have to
fight her. She scanned the room, her gaze touching him with a flicker
of recognition, but he did not release the sword hilt. She smiled, one
corner of her upper lip curling back, half snarling. Then she rushed the
nearest shackled offering. The nekaryiane sank her fangs into his
throat, sucking his life out in huge pulls like a deprived sot with her
first bottle in months. He died quickly. The others screamed, thrashing
in mindless terror.
Her flesh took on a crimson color.
The edge of her hunger dulled, Zyne regarded them. She gripped
the second, sinking her claws into him, gazing into his eyes as the
venom killed him, dispassionately studying the way he died. She
opened his belly and ate his entrails. Zyne played with the third,
stroking, and nuzzling between splitting his skin with her primary
nails, leaving him to anticipate when the next wound would come.
She was no longer hungry. She simply sliced him up to watch him die.
"Hoon," she said, her voice throaty and sensual, turning to him
finally. "Where is Josiah?"
Hoon had hoped that she would stop thinking about him. Zyne had
loved Josiah in her twisted way–and Hoon had shoved a blade into
him. "Dead… Aejys killed him."
Zyne gave a shattering shriek and spun about, her face disfigured
by rage. "I will destroy her."
"He was dying anyway." Hoon watched her reactions closely.
Josiah had, indeed been dying long before he journeyed to Charas for
their final match, his body damaged by desperate magics and the
torture that Hoon had inflicted upon him. He had carefully never told
Zyne his part in it.
"He was mine!" Zyne gave a wild, wordless howl of animal rage.
"Destroying her will not be easy. She is the Sacred King." Yes.
Zyne will be the perfect weapon, the most powerful form of undead,
the problem would be controlling her.
Sacred King. Ah, and you have given me the perfect body to
consume one of those with, Hoon, Gylorean Galee thought, but first
my father's box. She swished through Zyne's mind like a breath of
instinct, unrecognized, unnoticed; for her soul, as it always did, had
returned to her box at her death and the gray vapor had been her
essence that awakened the nekaryiane. Zyne quieted. She stalked to
the altar, snapped the box closed and hung it around her neck by the
chain.
"The box is mine," Hoon protested.
"Then I will hold it for you," Zyne responded. "As for the Sacred
King. There have been many such. The nekaryiane were created to
consume them and all others of divine power and lineage."
Hoon listened closely to the nuances of her speech, for there was
something oddly familiar to it and very different from Zyne's.

CHAPTER NINE. THE FIRST TO WITHER
In the dim light of dawn, Yoris turned over on his side and studied
the nibari sleeping beside him. He had gagged her with two of
Anksha's scarves so no one would hear her scream. Hoon had sent her
to "seal the bargain." Her first words to him when he found her
waiting in his bed had been, "Lord Hoon commands, do with me as
you will."
So Yoris had taken her at her word and brutalized her. It had been a
sweet, satisfying night. Had she belonged to Timon's herd, Yoris
would never have dared to be so rough, but Hoon clearly understood a
sa'necari's needs. He flicked the sheet back and gazed at her buttocks,
at the blood along her crack and inner thighs where he had made her
bleed from both entrances. His gaze ran up to her neck and arms
where he had left marks with his fangs.
He had taken her as close to the edge as he dared, but not past it:
she would recover. Yoris had savaged the last one Hoon sent to him
also; therefore Hoon knew what to expect from him. Two nibari were
coming for her in a few hours to return her to the vampire lord's nibari
chambers. It had been wondrous to give full rein to his predatory
instincts for the first time in months. Even better, both times Hoon had
sent him prime stock and not table leavings from others. This one had
been barely blooded, no more than fourteen or fifteen, and still
somewhat fang-shy.
The doorknob turned, the door creaked, and opened. Yoris looked
to see who it was, expecting the nibari escorts. Instead, Bodramet
entered and strode across the sitting room into the bedroom. He
stopped and stared at the sleeping nibari. "What is this? You know the
rules, Yoris. Do you wish Timon to tear your head off?"
Yoris winced. "She was sent to me. A token of someone's
appreciation."
Bodramet scowled. "And you didn't share?"
Yoris dropped his eyes. "Forgive me."
The nibari stirred, moaning and opening her eyes at the sound of
their voices. Fear touched her expression with delicious delicacy and
Bodramet smiled.
"Who have you been doing favors for this time, Yoris?" He began
disrobing.
"I can't tell you. He'll kill me," Yoris whined.
Bodramet flipped the nibari onto her back. "So will I."
The nibari whimpered behind the gag as Bodramet loomed over
her.
"Lord Hoon," said Yoris.
"I see you're still ambitious, Yoris." Bodramet grasped the nibari's
arm and Read her. "You haven't left much for me."
"Don't take her past the edge. Hoon wants her back."
Bodramet did not bother to reply as he savored the tears rolling
down the nibari's face. "Third position," he growled to her. She
opened her legs and drew her heels up to her buttocks. Then Bodramet
was on her.
****
Worn and bedraggled, Darianna trotted across the stout wooden
bridge spanning the cataract known as the Eirlys River onto Red Wolf
lands, which were bounded on the west by the nearly impassible river
and the east by the place of piled boulders and six pines. Their borders
to the north ended at the first caves of the Eiralyskali range and south
at the broad meadows and place of fallen trees. On three sides the land
descended into the rugged canyons and twisted valleys that looked
like an impossible giant had ripped his fingers through the soil.
A thick stand of fragrant white pine and cedars stood just three
spear lengths from the bridge, with a heavy barrier of brush and briars
offering concealment for the clan bridge guards hid there watching.
The seven guards rushed out in gigantic wolf form as she trotted
wearily across it. Their valley lay in Sharani-occupied Waejontor, and
they were ever vigilant against both their old overlords and their new
ones. Most did not know the valley existed; for the upper echelons of
the sa'necari it had been a waystation while some of the late King
Baaltrystan's lords still held the mountain fastnesses.
Her gauntness displayed how long and hard she had been traveling,
eating little in her need to reach them. Had she been a stranger, they
would have sent for the lawgiver to explain the rules of conduct in
their domain. Instead, the captain changed into a tall, dark haired man.
He wore nothing, the lycans having no nudity taboos. Thick curly
hair began as a narrow tip of a black triangle that began between his
breasts and broadened to his hips. and asked her. A charm hung
below his neck that could have covered him in a semblence of
clothing, but he had chosen not to use it. "What has happened?"
Then the other six changed. They all knew Darianna had gone to
tell Isranon of his son by Merissa, and must have guessed that
something was wrong, for as she transitioned, another asked, "What
has happened to Isranon, Daree?"
Darianna shook her head. "I must give it to Claw and Merissa.
What they wish you to know, they will tell you."
Two ran ahead of her to alert Claw. She found the chieftain waiting
for her before his great house. The nooning sun, threw a shadow from
the dark timbers of the second story across the yard, and concealed the
expression on his face. He was a coarse old wolf in homespun wool
and the simple robes of his people that could easily be slipped out of
and dropped to the ground in the moments before changing. His
people were farmers and herdsmyn. "Is he dead?"
Darianna shook her head. "Not yet–not when I…." She swayed
with exhaustion, nearly toppling against him. Claw caught her, helped
her into the house, and got her seated. Aisha, Claw's wife, rose from
her loom near the hearth in the large central hall and sent nibari
running for wine, which Darianna accepted gratefully.
She tossed back her silver hair with the red streak running through
it–like most lycans, her hair color matched her coat color–and told
them the tale, sipping slowly on the wine and finding a bit of strength
returning.
Claw's eyes narrowed. "A terrible ending for a fine young man. At
least he was not rited, which was what I feared would happen."
"We should have told him about Merissa," Aisha said. "Knowing
she carried his child might have kept him here."
"Are you saying it's my fault, woman?" Claw grumbled testily. He
had made matters difficult for Merissa when he learned that she was
pregnant, initially demanding that she abort the child rather than see a
sa'necari born into his family's lineage. Nevin and Aisha had
persuaded him otherwise and they had compromised by sending
Merissa away to bear it with her grandmother's people. Eventually he
had thawed still more, allowing the child's parentage to become
known to his clan. After all, he had adopted Isranon into the clan and
the young mon was highly thought of among them. Now he regretted
all of it, but he was not about to say so since Aisha would probably
shove it in his face the moment he crawled into the blankets with her
tonight.
"Only if you believe it is," Aisha replied coolly.
Claw gave a wordless growl.
Aisha walked out of the room, and headed for the stairs, forcing her
husband to follow. "Now we must tell her what happened to him."
Claw entered Merissa's room, finding his daughter nursing the child
in an old rocking chair. Nude from the waist up, she continued feeding
the infant from her milk-swollen breast when she saw her father. The
infant pushed at her breast with his tiny hands, making contented
noises while pulling at her nipple. She wore her ginger hair pinned up
and her muslin skirt had two petticoats that filled the sides of the
chair. The women of Claw's household spent very little time as
wolves, and dressed themselves in complex manners that would have
required more time than most to disrobe.
The warm and cozy room befitted a princess of farmers. A quilt in
earth tones of greens and browns lay folded over the window seat, and
two down stuffed chairs framed the dresser. He caught the back and
the arm to still the rocking chair, squatting beside her. "Sweetling," he
said, his voice rougher than usual, "I need to tell you something."
Merissa looked up from the sucking child at his tone and the
uncharacteristic endearment. She saw her mother and Darianna
standing, grave-eyed, just inside the door. "You found them?" The
light in her face dimmed at the expression on Darianna's face. "He's
dead, isn't he?"
"He has been taken by the Beast. Nevin and Olin are remaining
with him until the end. Then they'll return."
Merissa rose from the chair, settling Darmyk into his cradle by her
bed, trying to gain some small control over her grief as she drew a
deep breath to steady herself. "My son will never know his father."
"Nevin says he will stand as father to the boy when–it's over," Claw
said.
She found no comfort in her father's words. "Leave me."
"Merissa…."
Aisha shook her head at him, then pushed both of them out before
going to her daughter. She held her, laying her graying head stop
Merissa's, pressing her daughter's face into her breasts as if she were a
child, and listened to her sobbing.
****
Haunted by the knowledge that her lover was doomed, Merissa's
dreams became a series of nightmare memories.
Merissa woke at the tug on her wrists. She had fallen asleep,
spooned around Troyes. They had camped far into the hills. Her
father would be angry at their running away together, but he would
never catch them. She would have fine clothes and a high place as the
mate of a sa'necari. She would become powerful in her own right.
"Troyes?" She blinked sleepily, her eyes widened at what he was
doing. She screamed. Two slender strands of spellcord–ropes woven
of enchantary fibers, puce, ebony, cerulean, and gold– banded her
wrists like deadly bracelets, preventing her shifting. She twisted,
pummeling and kicking the large sa'necari. Troyes shrugged off her
blows, striking with a word. Merissa's screams of terror turned to a
shriek of pain and then to whimpering anguish. She curled up,
pressing her folded arms across her abdomen, and drew her knees in.
Troyes's fangs extended fully as he stroked her hair. "Foolish
Merissa. I only wanted you because Isranon loves you. I rited his little
nibari, his beloved Rose. Oh, how she screamed!"
She tried to speak, but her mouth would not form words.
"Your remains will never be found because there will be none. I
will consume all of you. I cannot begin to tell you how hungry I have
been for a death like yours. You will make a fine death. I am tired of
lesser humans and dared not take a Sharani."
He carried her through the trees to the far side of a little copse. As
they broke through she could see the tables: a large mon shaped one
with spouts and basins poised to catch the blood that would flow
through the grooves; and a smaller one on which he would lay his
tools.
There were many versions of the rite: from a brief one that required
only spoken words before his cock and the blade entered her to the
full rite which could take nearly her entire soul, requiring him to
carve and write arcane symbols upon her body before plunging flesh
and steel inside her. He might even begin to drink her blood and eat
her flesh while he rode if he was one of those who were slow to
climax. Those were the kind who usually chose shifters for the rites
because shifters–like sa'necari–died hard. Troyes was one of those.
She always had to be patient with him.
He stripped Merissa, secured her to the bleeding-table, and drank
the fear in her eyes. "It was only a matter of time, Merissa, before one
of us ate you. You were always so inviting. Your blood is so rich and
strong."
Troyes laid his black blades on the table beside her, considering
them. He took one and sliced her leg open from hip to knee with
languid slowness, regarding the welling blood reflectively. The spell
loosened, allowing her to scream. Hoof beats sounded and then
Troyes skidded across her, spinning into the dirt beyond with Isranon
on top of him. Isranon's horse bolted off into the woods. She watched
them struggle for a moment. Then Isranon hurled Troyes into the
trees, pivoted and trudged back, staggering slowly. She could not
understand why he had so much trouble moving. Then he faltered and
almost fell, grabbing at the table and she saw why: Troyes's deathruned
blade was shoved to the quillons in his ribs. Isranon
straightened, mastered his body, and stood swaying. He drew a knife
from the sheath at his hip and cut her wrist free, placing the hilt in her
hand, folding her fingers over it. "Get loose and flee… I can't… hold
him long."
Merissa set to cutting her bonds as Isranon turned to face the
returning Troyes. That one was truly a monster. How could she have
been so foolish as to think she had loved Troyes! Sa'necari were hard
to kill, but the match had been decided already: Isranon was dying
from the runes on the blade. While their other victims who fell to such
blades would rise undead slaves, their own kind would simply perish.
Merissa slid the knife under the spellcord on her wrists, slicing it
away. Instead of bending to her ankles she simply changed and tore
free.
Merissa bounded from the table to crouch in the shadows as they
grappled. Her hind leg hurt. She could deal with it because she had
to. The struggle ended quickly. Forcing Isranon's sword from his
hand, Troyes sent it spinning into the trees. He pulled his bane-blade
from Isranon's body, shoving it in again repeatedly. Isranon jerked
and twisted, his legs gave and he sank to the ground. Merissa sprang
onto Troyes' back snarling and biting. He caught her by the throat
and slammed her into the table, stunning her. Isranon staggered to his
feet, drew his last blade and stabbed Troyes in the back.
Troyes laughed at them. "I have taken a hundred times a hundred
mortgiefan. I am not an easy kill." He turned on Isranon with a word
of power, summoning a net of death, striking him. Isranon screamed
in anguish and fell to lie unmoving at Troyes' feet. Troyes shoved
Isranon onto his belly, tore his pants open, and mounted him.
"I killed your little Rose," Troyes growled. "I rode her into death as
I ride you." He shoved the blade in again and bent to drink the rising
flow, preparing to swallow as many fragments of Isranon's soul as he
could when it shattered at the moment of Isranon's death. Even with
his immature powers, Isranon was still sa'necari: it would take longer
for him to die than it would a human.
Merissa fled into the trees. There she slunk through the forest on
her belly, watching Troyes riding Isranon, taking the rite, and feeding.
Merissa tried to look away and could not, she had to see it in order to
scan the clearing as she tried to find Isranon's sword. She dared not
make any more heedless rushes at Troyes. He would kill her; her wolf
form was no match for him. But with the sword–with the sword she
could break his spine, swinging it in her hybrid form when her
strength and power was greatest. There. She saw it. Merissa crept up.
Troyes was totally oblivious. He must be close to completion of the
act. Shame and rage filled her. Her heart was breaking as she
realized it had been Isranon she loved all along. She changed, seized
the weapon, and reared up as she swung. The blow caught Troyes
below his neck and she heard bone snap. Troyes stiffened, his eyes
strange, and toppled to the side. His blade fell from his hand and his
seed fountained over them both. She had saved Isranon's soul, if not
his life.
"Bitch!" Troyes' lips twisted as if to speak a spell and Merissa drew
back, circling cautiously. She spied strips of spell cord in his belt.
Shifting the sword to one hand, she knelt and snatched them free. She
banded his hands in them. His broken spine had paralyzed him. Blood
could heal almost anything, but Troyes would get no more blood.
She turned Isranon over, feeling for a pulse. And found it. Merissa
shouldered his arm, dragging him to the table where she laid him
beside it. Then she went back for Troyes. Merissa kicked him in the
side of the head twice before dragging him to the table. He was much
larger and, even in her hybrid form, harder to manage. She threw him
across the table on his stomach–the position for a male intended for
mortgiefan–and fastened him in place. The expression of terror on his
face pleased her.
"You always thought you'd be the taker, not the taken!"
Merissa crouched by Isranon, opened the vein in her wrist with her
claw, and put it to his mouth. She knew her blood would not be strong
enough to save him, but it might be enough to waken him. Her blood
filled his mouth, dribbling down the corners, getting no response. A
sob formed in her throat as her chest tightened, but before she could
release it Merissa saw him swallow and felt the brief sharp pain as his
fangs entered her. Some of the pain left her heart. Isranon's eyes
opened and he pushed weakly at her.
"Don't, Merissa… I need too much." His eyes clenched shut as if
riding a wave of sheerest agony. "Troyes?"
"I've bound him to the table. Spellcorded. Would mortgiefan heal
you?"
"No."
"No, it would not heal you? Or no, you won't do it?"
"No, I won't do it. Death is…better. I've known… this was coming.
Hold me."
Merissa shook her head. "Isranon! You could have his power! And
live! Please, there must be a way."
Isranon's eyes slowly closed and then blinked open again. "Kill
him, Merissa. With the blade he wounded me with. The same blade…
must be the same blade."
"Will that save you?"
"Possibly. Dispel the death magics. The rest is chance…if I don't
get enough strong blood in time."
Merissa nodded, and then ran to the spot where she had felled
Troyes. The blade was not easy to find. She picked it up and could feel
the darkness swirling in it. A soul. There was a soul in it. She carried
it back.
"Wait," Isranon called. "It's best I do it…. Help me up…." he
struggled to breathe, to speak. "I don't understand why. But every
time I do it, it works. But…but not always…for the others."
Merissa placed the blade in his hands.
"Dawnhand, give me strength."
The lycan clan-princess shouldered his weight, slipping her arm
around his waist as she helped him rise. She steadied him as he stood
over the bound sa'necari. Troyes sensed what they were about and
screamed curses and spells, but corded, his power would not answer.
Isranon raised the blade and brought it down in a single skilled strike
into his heart. Troyes stilled.
"His throat, help me around to his throat…."
The table was angled and spelled for the draining of the body.
Merissa settled Isranon against the table. He leaned his head on it,
wedged between the cold stone and the cooling flesh of Troyes's neck
and chin. "Another minute or two, Merissa and I would have joined
my family." His voice was soft, as if he did not quite want to say it but
could not quite stop himself. Isranon fastened on the body and began
sucking the fluids from it. He drank as much as he could before
weakness claimed him and he fainted. Isranon slumped forward, his
head pressed between the table and Troyes' neck.
Merissa went into the cave to search for blood in bottles and
returned to find him there. She swallowed back a cry, thinking the
death magics had claimed him after all, but his heart beat strongly.
She retrieved their gear, wrapping him in blankets, built up a fire and
made camp to watch over him. Troyes's cave was well stocked.
Apparently he had been feeding regularly. There were many, many
shelves of the golden preserving bottles, all labeled. She drained
Troyes' body, leaving it bound on the table as a trophy. A strange
stirring of power drew her eyes to Troyes's body. As she watched, the
blade in his heart moved and then the hilt fell away as the blade
disintegrated.
Merissa woke from the nightmare sobbing and went to the cradle to
gaze fondly at her child. Darmyk slept soundly, wrapped in a soft
blanket. She resisted picking him up and waking him. She wanted to
hold her child and cling to him. Considering how far Daree had
traveled to reach her, her lover was either dying or already dead by
now. "I loved you, Isranon. I will never want anyone else."
****
"We should have killed Mondarius, Zulaika," Amiri murmured,
leaning on her spear as she watched Isranon start up the broad swept
stair in the great central hall. They had returned from a hunt, bringing
meat for the nibari. "He is the treacherous priest from the prophecy. I
swear it."
She and Randilyn had been debating this possibility for weeks.
Randilyn was nearly as well versed in prophecy as Amiri, even
supplying some that information Amiri had not been aware of before.
"We were sent to turn the Beast, Amiri. Nothing more. The
Tinkerer would not be happy if we meddled more than ordered. Now
behave yourself." Zulaika left to put away her weapons, bathe, and
change.
Amiri turned to her own tasks. She needed to check her supplies.
Two days ago she had had another secret meeting with the little old
mon who sold second-hand magic items to her. Dyna was a queer
human with two lovely grandchildren. At first she had been reluctant
to deal with a vampire, but Amiri had shown her that she was
godmarked by the Tinkerer and that had produced an interesting
change of heart. Now they met at unexpected moments. Dyna would
send her word by Pie, who would just suddenly appear in Amiri's
room when no one was around to announce a rendezvous.
Amiri's most recent acquisitions were glass balls of Beast repellent.
They came in three colors and shattered easily, releasing their
contents. Amiri had told Dyna that she did not need to repel the Beast,
but Dyna persuaded her to take them gratis on the grounds that they
would drive off worse things than the Beast and when she traveled she
should always have them with her because troubled times lay ahead–
the god, Kalirion Sun-Lord, was making prophecies again. Amiri was
an etheric and shaman; in the Age of Burning, her task would have
been to run the beasts. Much knowledge had been lost when the beasts
and the Six Hundred had nearly been wiped out. One of their own, a
male apparently–though Amiri would have sworn that there had never
been male Ymraudes–had set off a device that split atoms inside the
principal temple of Bellocar's third wife, the Glistening One, and
caused widespread destruction. The handful of surviving Ymraudes
had escaped to the cleansed lands and heard rumor that a beast might
have survived. They had found her, but she had fallen under Hoon's. If
Isranon continued to work and listen to them, however, they might yet
turn this chaos tool of the Tinkerer to the purpose for which she was
created. And then woe betide the minions of the hellgods.
When she reached her rooms, which she shared with Randilyn, she
found the nibari with her hands in the candy jar. "Randilyn, you're
going to get fat."
Randilyn blushed. "Did you talk to Zulaika?"
"Yes." Amiri stacked her spears in a corner and started peeling off
her hunting leathers. "She said it was none of our affair…."
"But it is," Randilyn protested. "The treacherous priest will slay the
last of Dawnhand's lineage and all of our attempts to turn the beast
will come to naught."
Amiri sighed. "Prophecies aren't set in stone, they are many sided
things."
"Unless a divinator seals them in a body…."
"You mean Isranon's?" Amiri crossed the room, sunlight glistening
on her chocolate skin, and sat down on their bed.
"Yes," Randilyn said and then shivered. "Think what a powerful
curse could be sealed into the dying body of Dawnhand's last
descendant."
"I don't wish to. Come here, I'm hungry."
****
Yoris shivered in his blankets, a feverish glaze in his eyes.
Bodramet slipped into the room and watched him, certain that beneath
the signs of illness lay a tangle of emotions that could only be called
panic. A gray haired nibari sat beside Yoris, pointing to a cup of tea.
"This will help," she said patiently.
"I don't want tea," Yoris snarled. "I want blood."
"You're not to have blood before this afternoon when your chores
are done."
"I'm sick." Again came a note of panic in his voice. "I can't do
chores. I am sick!"
The sa'necari rarely became ill; their bodies were too efficient for
such things. Bodramet inclined his head. "What is wrong with him?"
The nibari shrugged with a subtle smile. "The withering has
begun."
Bodramet's face tightened. "How many of us have…?"
The smile on her face broadened. "Just him."
"What about the half-a-mon? Does he wither?"
"Isranon? No."
Bodramet detected a hint of smugness in her tone and it angered
him. "What are the signs of this? Do we simply feel it inside
ourselves? Do you Read us?"
Yoris flinched, trying to pull away as she opened his robe and
indicated a long red rash beneath his arm.
"That is the first sign."
"Why Yoris first? What are you doing for Isranon, that you are not
doing for us?"
She backed away from Bodramet and slipped to the doorway. He
came after her and she laughed defiantly. "Touch me in anger, and
Timon will have you skinned."
Bodramet followed the nibari into the corridor. "Answer me!" he
demanded.
"Anksha will eat your liver while you watch." Then she ran away.
Seeing others moving about the corridor, Bodramet returned to
Yoris' chamber and Read the sa'necari himself. Whatever it was, it had
spread through Yoris' body like a cancer. "Why you first?"
"It's Isranon's fault," Yoris whimpered. "It's his fault, I know it."
"Shut up."
"They are giving him something to prevent it, but they won't give it
to me!"
Bodramet's interest perked. "Is this a fact?"
"Yes," Yoris snapped. "I listened at the door. I heard them
discussing it. Amiri is giving him something."
"Soooo, they want us to die first. I wonder what that bitch has?"
THE END
(The fate of Bodrmet, Yoris, and the other beings of the tale will be
recounted in Book II of this trilogy, Blood Heresy.)