by Katy Winter
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Knellen made his way to the dormitories where he knew Varen were being cared for and strode into a large room where beds were set close to one another. It was a few hours since the shards had been broken, so most of the Varen either sat or lounged in reasonable comfort. Some still looked and felt anything but well and the group with mature writhlings who were dosed still lay in a group, unmoving, much to Knellen’s satisfaction. Lisle was at Knellen’s heels.
He watched as Knellen demanded attention, his expression and air of authority, not to mention his eyes, such that every Varen there who could, stiffened or straightened. He listened as intently as the resting Varen as Knellen spoke concisely. His explanation of what had been done was explicit. Lisle saw shocked relief in eyes upturned to Knellen but also deep concern at the predicament the men found themselves in. He sensed, from their smell, that some felt trapped. Knellen smelt it too.
“You need have no fear,” he reassured them, the bass voice echoing about the dormitory. “What has been done to you is because no Varen, of any level, needs or deserves to have a writhling inserted. I have told you that unlike yours, mine was a large mature one that would have devoured me. Yours will always be manageable and will ultimately die. This has not been done to punish or endanger you. You may return to your city, whichever it is, with the Red Council, or as I have told you, you may choose to remain here at the home of your origin. The choice is yours. If you remain, as I have explained, you can no longer be servants with writhlings: you would instead be one of those who now reside here and have taken the oath I outlined to you. I will speak in the same way to every dormitory where Varen rest.”
Knellen paused and scanned the faces. One Varen spoke, his voice still weak.
“There will be no further writhling insertions?”
“Certainly not. Varen do not need writhlings to know and respect their duty. Coercion is unnecessary and insulting. If you stay with the Red Council they will eventually suspect you have no writhling so you will undoubtedly go through a repeat experience.”
Knellen saw fear and revulsion on faces turned to his.
“And the oath to you?”
“It frees you of allegiance to any other.”
“We need time to think,” protested another.
“Do, but be aware the Red Council stay will be of short duration.”
“What of our brothers still unconscious?” whispered another elite Varen.
“Upon recovery they will have the same choice,” assured Knellen with, Lisle noticed, a glint to his eyes. “Lisle here will await your decision. He will apprise me of it.”
With that Knellen turned and left the dormitory. He moved on to the next one.
The Red Council entered very comfortable quarters where they were offered rest and the sort of liquid sustenance they required. They were well pleased with their reception and felt there was no haste to either appoint a new Mythlin or to insert writhlings in Varen who were compliant and unfailingly obedient. They were duly gratified. It had been a long journey and not one undertaken lightly. When they were told all their escort had been greeted and lodged in the city they hissed their acknowledgment. They merely said they wished, later, maybe the next day, to have a meeting with senior Varen of the city so they could decide if one among them could take the Mythlin’s place.
While the Red Council rested, oaths were whispered from bed to bed as Knellen stood beside each one, listening gravely and acknowledging each oath that was witnessed by Lisle. The knowledge that they’d been saved from a horrific fate had struck each Varen with stunning effect and produced emotion new to them. Not only did they still feel very unwell, but their world was suddenly an unfamiliar one that was extremely unsettling. They knew they were free of obligation to their Cynas and their Red Council but only knew of Knellen by repute. They found they confronted a formidable Varen who commanded respect and, now, unquestioning obedience as well. Some of the Varen simply drifted into sleep, aware their constant summons, through activated writhlings, to instantly obey would no longer come.
The small group of Varen who escorted the Red Council into the city received the same treatment. Only two had large mature and aggressive writhlings, so, reluctantly, Knellen asked the Doms to dose them so they could be taken to join others in the same condition who lay restfully in a dormitory.
As Varen recovered they were laughingly told their brothers from many city-states were enjoying candemaran. Many demanded the same. It was, however, to the Maenades most were taken. There, to their astonishment, they encountered women unlike any they’d seen. As warrior women had, in general, contempt for men other than as instruments of gratification, work or reproduction, Lisle had to have a chuckle as he left the Varen to their charms and went back to the now emptying dormitory to find Knellen.
The dosed Varen with large writhlings, now awake, were belligerently bewildered at where they found themselves. They sat, heads turned when they heard Knellen ask if they’d care to share some pleasure with their brothers. Eyes lit up at that and the men got to their feet to follow Lisle who led them to join the warrior women. This time he encountered Saneel.
“More of them?” she enquired with her fruity chuckle. “Certainly we intimated our desire to enjoy them, but so many? My Maenades will be occupied for hours.”
“More of them,” agreed Lisle with a smile at her. “They have much to learn. You are thorough teachers.” His smile broadened.
“Where is this last group then?”
“With Iola.”
“They have my sympathy. Her tribe are,” Saneel paused. “Well,” she went on amused, “they’ll find out. Lessons will be hard learned.” She chuckled again. “For how long have we the pleasure of their company?”
“Until Knellen says so. He says Jepaul will tell him.”
Saneel nodded and let him past.
“They’ll be more than pre-occupied,” she murmured. “Nor will they want to leave.”
The Red Council kept to themselves until the following morning. They were about to summon an assembly of elite Varen when, to their dismay, they saw a very tall, broad-shouldered man, with long curly auburn hair and disturbingly acute rare amber-coloured eyes, enter the room and stand in front of them. They immediately went into the circle formation. Jepaul eyed them, aware that he both baffled and alarmed them, but he was also well aware they believed that as a synthesis they could overpower him and subject him to their will. He was, after all, only a younger man, admittedly clearly powerful, but as yet untested and therefore vulnerable to careful manipulation.
Jepaul knew they’d soon attempt to more fully assess what he was. Their suspicions of his motives was patent. He saw their current confusion and uncertainty as his most potent weapon but that was beginning, he sensed, to crystallise into the first inklings of doubt about him. So he knew he had to move quickly and ruthlessly. He did. He spoke. His voice, coldly dispassionate, made the circled heads bob and the bodies, fully shrouded in fluttering robes, weave a little.
“I promised you a meeting soon, so here I am, Nedru. You should be pleased to see me. Two of you I recognise. Answer me.”
“You’ve only spoken to us as the Red Council,” hissed a reedy, high-pitched voice.
“I call you what you are,” came the response as two heads bobbed in answer to him.
“We answer you.”
“You’ve presumably come to choose and establish a new Mythlin.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you would. That’s why I’m here.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nedru don’t question directly in that manner, do they?”
“No.” There was a very long silence, then as one the voices added on a long drawn out wailing whisper. “Master of the line.”
“From what I can gather the Mythlin over-indulged in his usual fashion, but even more so and beyond physical, sensual capacity. He became, through that abuse, his t
rue age. After that the end was inevitable.”
“Ah, the fool, he was useful to us.”
“You need no other tool. I am here.”
“No Mythlin?”
“Unnecessary. You have other priorities. It’s to be within your city-states where you must maintain enforced control. Do your Cynases obey you?”
“Yes,” one hastened to reply, anxiously reassuring lest Jepaul find fault.
“I’ve sensed distant Maekwies. Did you call to them some time ago?”
“Only to be prepared, Master, nothing more.”
“It’s not yet time. It is premature.”
“We bow to your judgment.”
“You were unwise to leave your city-states. Should anything go awry in your absence I will hold you responsible.”
There was considerable twitching and sneezing followed by prolonged bouts of odd light snuffling coughs. A single voice responded.
“We will return. When shall we go?”
“Shortly. You serve no purpose here. I’ll allow you an escort of some of your accompanying Varen but the majority of them remain where they belong - here. They now answer to me not to you and I have a use for them. I believe we may need their services before long. There are enemies all about us. They will grow in number.”
“We will listen and be aware.”
“You will answer to me as they will. Do you remember your promises from long ago?” Agitated whistles were the response. “Repeat after me, one at a time, the first promise you made.” Jepaul’s words were brief. They were followed by gasping, almost whimpering whispers hissed in monotones barely audible as Jepaul was obeyed. The Red Council shivered and shook. “That was the first step you took with the Progenitor. You took others. Recall them to your minds, Nedru. Like all his minions and hirelings, you made one specific oath. I know this.”
“How can you?” came an aghast moan.
“I know where you come from and your history too, so you would be ill-advised to anger me. I know much of what the Progenitor did to you and your kind, Nedru, and I can tell you that your place of origin is now compromised and in jeopardy. Believe me.”
“How can you know all this?”
“I’m of the Progenitor’s line. Do you still doubt it?”
“No.”
“Then obey me as you know you’re bound to do. The promise you just made binds you too. The original oath to the Progenitor also now passes to me. Say it.”
“Our brethren back in our city-states?”
“They, too, will answer only to me.”
There was another long silence before the circle parted, swaying bodies indicative of increased agitation.
“You leave us no alternative.”
“No.”
“You’re hurting us.”
“As you would me.”
“We will respond as desired.”
“Under duress, yes, and with hatred and resentment at the heart of you all and with the intention to seek revenge just as your kind always do.”
“He promised us power and a place to call ours.”
“You have been granted it, here on Shalah.”
“It was in return for that we took the oath.”
“True. And now for your continued survival and retention of power on Shalah, you take it again.”
“We can stay here, on Shalah?’
“If that is your wish. The choice, in the end, will be yours.”
“And what about our brethren?”
“Where and what they will.”
“Your progenitor brought us here to use this world before we ultimately ensured its ending.”
“Yes. Nihilists such as you, the Nedru, are very good weapons of corruption and destruction.”
“We obeyed him.”
“Yes.”
“But even so, you still demand the oath after all this time?”
“I do. My trust of you is as deep as yours is of me. Say it, each of you in turn.”
A reedy exhalation, much like a wailing sigh followed by another at a higher pitch, answered him. One by one the Red Council touched Jepaul as he heard, from most ancient times, words in a language unknown to those on Shalah. The Doms, sitting in another room, kept very still with their eyes startled and wide, as, with Jepaul, they heard the faintly uttered oath. When the last words faded away on a hiss Jepaul, now desperately fighting cold shivers that threatened to shake him with each touch that affected his control, moved back from the Red Council.
“You’ll now leave Baron/Kelt. Your place is no longer here.”
“We know. We acknowledge you.”
Jepaul stayed silent as the Red Council slithered past, their robes brushing against him, their sibilant breathing very close. He couldn’t move. It took him some moments before he even noticed the spread of white marks on his hand that felt like shafts of ice. It made him feel ill. He finally, almost drunkenly, reached the room where the Doms awaited him most anxiously, Quon, as usual the first to reach him. His hands were out in support and succour. With assistance he helped the very tall figure into a chair.
“We’re with you, young one. Can you still sense us, Jepaul?” Weakly, Jepaul nodded. He tasted bile. “Did they sense us?” There was a shake of the head.
“You invoked the ancient first oath, young one.” Sapphire’s voice was low. “That took enormous courage.”
“Well done, Jepaul,” added Dancer, a hand on Jepaul’s shoulder.
“Indeed.” Ebon’s voice spoke respect. “Young one,” went on Ebon, his voice gentle, “let us each touch your hand where the anti-spirit still lingers and causes you such pain and anguish.”
When each Dom passed a finger lightly over the white marks, the profound cold pain eased with each touch. The marks remained. They were permanent.
“His soul shrivels with such a horror,” whispered Quon, a distraught note to his voice. “The anti-spirit still eats at the inner being.”
“Where’s his pipe?” asked Dancer tersely. “It may well ease his suffering.”
Ebon, after a quick glance around, was the one to see where the pipe lay on a writing table at the far side of the room next to the fire and he quickly collected it. He strode back to Jepaul, stooped and pushed it into trembling hands, the coldness enveloping Jepaul so much he shook as though fevered.
“Take it, lad, take it,” he urged.
Jepaul lifted a heavy, weary head and blinked blearily at the Doms. His fingers firmed on the pipe. Without thought, he raised it to his lips and began to quietly play, a hauntingly mournful melody that filled the room. But the spirit that was Jepaul responded. Quon sensed the letting go of the despair that always gripped the younger man when he was around ugliness or evil: an overwhelming sense of relief pushed back the chill and warmed Jepaul from the inside out. The Doms slowly eased back from him both mentally and physically as they simply sat, listened and watched him. Again, they all thought he seemed a figure from a remote world – not from Shalah.