“It looks like you have been playing with a new toy while I was dead,” he said as he nodded toward her belly. “So kill me and let me be at peace.”
Calmarel’s smile broadened.
“Ah, but I’m much farther along than six months. You should know that.”
Jundag started, and stared into her dark eyes. He had seen them filled with anger and bloodlust and cruelty; now they seemed almost aglow.
“What do you mean?” he asked slowly. His mind seemed to tingle, a common feeling after revivification as his memories returned, but he rejected the emerging thought, forcing it back behind the veil of forgetfulness.
"Oh, come now, Jundag," she teased as she stepped closer, pressing her belly against his. "You can’t say that you don’t remember the tender moments we’ve shared when we’re alone."
It hit him then, and he sagged as his strength fled, uncaring that the manacles gouged into his wrists. The memory played in his mind; Calmarel flushed from her sadistic play and gleaming with sweat, standing over him as he lay chained to a stone slab, then the touch of her flesh on his, and—
"Oh, gods, NO!!"
"Really, Jundag," she admonished playfully, though her eyes were hard, "I would have thought you'd be excited. After all, I went to the trouble of revivifying you again so you could share in this experience."
Despair gripped his stomach and he retched, the bitterness of bile and acid burning his throat. Calmarel jumped clumsily back, but not quickly enough to avoid being splattered. Jundag barely felt her touch as she slapped him across the face.
“How dare you!” she seethed, her face “How dare you react like this to me! I’ll give you reason to cringe!”
Calmarel glanced around wildly, her gaze focusing on the closest thing at hand. She grasped a glowing iron from the brazier and turned back to Jundag.
Jundag screamed as she applied the hot metal to his flesh, but it wasn’t just the pain. Mere physical pain was nothing to the pain that pierced his soul to its core as he realized that the child that dwelt in Calmarel's womb was his.
Avari bolted upright, choking on her sobs. Tears streamed down her face as she fought to free herself from the sweat-drenched sheets that clung to her clammy skin. Her breath came in gasps, her eyes clearing slowly from the dream.
The dream...
The same damned dream.
In surreal slow motion, a slim woman garbed in blackest armor and cloaks strode forward, ebony tresses framing her pale, cruel face like raging black flames. Around her neck hung two pendants. One was a grotesque spider with a bloated black abdomen hanging on a barbed chain. The other was an exquisite blossom of ivory feathers.
With a cruel laugh, the woman savagely jerked on a golden chain, and Jundag crawled into sight. This wasn’t the powerful warrior that Avari had known, but a hobbled and crippled wreck of a man. His once-strong hands were a twisted mass of splintered bones, his legs maimed and misshapen, his formerly robust body gaunt and streaked with long, red scars. But worst of all were his eyes, the white, pupilless orbs of a cave-dwelling creature.
Slowly, painfully, Jundag reached a mutilated hand toward Avari, and called to her.
"Avari! Help...me, Avari! K-k-kill me... Please..."
Avari stretched out, but she could never touch him; he was always just out of reach. Desperately she strained forward, always failing as he slowly receded into darkness, until all that was left to her was the contemptuous laughter of his captor.
Avari dropped her tear-streaked face into her hands as sobs wracked her broad shoulders. She hadn’t had this dream in months, and had thought that she finally had put the horrors of Zellohar behind her. After several long minutes, she threw the blankets aside; she’d never get back to sleep. A chill spring breeze blew through the open window, raising goose bumps on her damp, bare skin. She pulled on a thick quilted robe and slipped her bare feet into a warm pair of sheepskin slippers. From the color of the starlit sky outside her window, dawn was still hours away.
Slipping out of her bedroom, Avari padded down the hall to the stairs, moving quietly so as not to wake any of her employees who shared the expansive house with her. Descending the curved staircase to the main floor, she absently trailed her hand along the polished banister. She had watched Tinarre, a woodling and her masterful carpenter, shape this banister from a single branch of a massive, gnarled oak. Miraculously, he had taken only the one limb from the tree, coaxing it free with his hands, then treating the scar with a thick, healing tar. It was only one example of the skill and care that had gone into creating her new home, and she thanked Eloss that she had found such talented, loving folks with which to surround herself.
At the bottom of the stair, Avari tiptoed across the common room and down the hall to her study. As soon as she entered, carefully closing the latch so the click wouldn’t wake anyone, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cool wood of the door. Feeling her shoulders finally relax, she turned around and walked to the wide window that was set in the back wall, rested her hands on the thick frame and gazed out at the moonlit view. The short lawn behind the house ended abruptly at the White Cliffs; an unwary walker would plummet four-hundred feet to the ever-changing ocean below. Although the sea tonight was calm, during the winter storms salt spray cleared the top of the cliffs to lash against this very window.
One ocean, with so many different faces, she thought with a pang in her heart. Just like some people.
She tried to peer across the ocean to the dark horizon, toward the island she had once called home. There her father lay in his eternal rest. She had loved that home when he was there, but she knew she could never go back.
Her thoughts of her father drew her from the window to the stone hearth, where she stoked the banked embers of yesterday's blaze into a bed of glowing coals, then placed a log of cured oak among them. She held her hands toward the growing flames while gazing at the two swords that hung above the mantel.
The lower sword, with its sturdy blade, plain scabbard and leather-wrapped hilt, had been her father’s until his untimely death, and it had served her well in her quest to avenge him. The upper sword was as different from the first as she was from DoHeney. The dwarven-made Gaulengil was five feet long from tip to pommel, with a hilt of braided silver wire. The broad blade, with its diamond-cut emerald set into the tip, was hidden within the black scabbard. The weapon had chosen her as its agent of justice, to be wielded against the vile creatures that had overrun Zellohar Keep, against the Nekdukarr, Iveron Darkmist. It, too, had served her well, saving her life and the lives of her friends many times over. All except one: Jundag’s. The anguish of that failure, amplified by the nightmare, clutched painfully at her heart.
On impulse, she reached for Gaulengil. Carefully lifting the scabbard from its pegs, she stepped back and held the sword toward the fire blazing merrily on the hearth. The flames glinted off the crosspiece, seemingly setting it afire, though it was cool in her grasp. With her left hand, she slowly drew the scabbard from the razor-edged blade, and the emerald’s enchanted radiance tinged the air. Placing the scabbard on the mantel, she took another step back and assumed the proper two-handed grip; the familiar warmth of the sword’s power and personality spread up her arms and throughout her body.
Avari reveled in the weapon's strength and grace, sweeping it in a few slow arcs, then held it near the flames to admire its beauty. The steel gleamed, and the firelight danced through the emerald at the sword’s tip.
*Aaaaavvvvvv*
A faint scream on the wind; Avari whirled, holding the blade at the ready. It was still full night, and no hawk or osprey was apt to be aloft and screeching at this hour. Taking a deep breath, Avari peered out the window, thinking that perhaps she had heard the death cry of an owl’s prey, but all she could see was her own uneasy reflection in the glass, backlit by the firelight.
"I’m getting paranoid," she muttered. She was chilled now, whether due to the cold air by the window or her
own night terrors, she knew not which, and she returned to the hearth to warm up. She reached up for Gaulengil’s scabbard with her left hand.
*Aaaaavvvvaaaaarrrrriiiii*
She leapt away from the hearth. This call had been distinct; her name had issued forth from the flames. Avari leaned closer, but now heard only the crackling of the fire. She held Gaulengil at the ready; between the fairy stories her father had told her and the real-life horrors they had encountered in Zellohar Keep and elsewhere, she didn’t discount the chance of an attack from even the most unlikely quarter. But her scrutiny was met only by the pop and snap of the blazing log. No specter rose from the fire to challenge her. No spirit of some long-dead wood sprite cried foul at the burning of the oak.
"Not only paranoid, but delusional as well." Avari shuddered and was again reaching for the scabbard to resheath the sword—perhaps reading for a while would help clear her head—when she felt a tug on her right hand. She looked down, and this time she actually saw Gaulengil move toward the fire, tugging her hand with it. Sometimes she forgot the weapon had a mind of its own.
Uncertainty overwhelmed Avari. She had experienced such tugs or pushes from the weapon before and knew that she could trust its judgment, but what was it trying to do?
Slowly, warily, she complied with the blade's pull, moving it closer to the fire. As it neared the blaze, the clear depths of the emerald were obscured by a faint swirling haze, and she heard a muted cry.
*Avvvaaarrriii*
Startled, she nearly dropped the weapon, but tightened her grip instead. Gritting her teeth in defiance, she pushed Gaulengil closer to the fire until the emerald was bathed in flames.
*AAAAAVVVVVAAAAARRRRRIIIII*
Jundag's face, his features twisted in agony, shone within the emerald. Avari couldn’t tell if the flames that licked at his skin were those behind the gem, or part of the vision.
She dropped the blade in horror, back-pedaling as the steel clanged against the hearthstone. Avari stumbled over a chair, but she fumbled to her feet and backed against the far wall, her hands grasping the bookcase behind her as she stared in terror at the blade, now silent on the floor in front of the hearth.
She didn’t realize she was yelling until she heard the pounding of feet outside the door and Hufferrrerrr and Brishalla, her foreman, burst in with a roar and a shout, weapons drawn.
Hufferrrerrr immediately came to her side, while Brishalla stalked the circumference of the room, brandishing his great curved scimitar. Avari barely saw them; she couldn’t tear her gaze from the emerald in Gaulengil’s blade. The gem now looked benign, pouring forth its normal green glow, augmented by the orange flicker of firelight.
"I'm going crazy," she whispered so softly that Hufferrrerrr had to lean in close to hear her words. "By the gods, I pray I'm going crazy..."
“How dare you call another woman’s name when I am the one who carries your child!” Calmarel snapped as she paced before a battered and bloody Jundag. The heat of her anger rivaled the heat of the coals in the brazier, which she had put to good use in disciplining her wayward captive. It infuriated her to no end that his mind was on that woman, when his attention should be focused solely on her.
After all this time, you would think he would show some— She dismissed the thought as an unaccustomed pang wrenched her.
“I will teach you,” she seethed under her breath, “to attend to me, and only to me.”
She raised her arm, and brought her many-thonged whip to bear once again.
Jundag gasped for breath and gritted his teeth. The pain nearly overwhelmed him, but it at least made him forget for a moment the anguish in Calmarel’s claim. Closing his eyes, he focused his thoughts on a happier time, storm-stranded in a barn warm with the heat of the animals and fragrant with the smell of hay. In his arms lay a woman—young yet bold, strong yet vulnerable—a woman he could grow to love.
The pleasant image shattered as the barbs of Calmarel’s whip tore through his flesh, and he cried out.
“AAAAAVVVVVAAAAARRRRRIIIII!”
Lysethra gazed through the portal and trembled. Not physically, of course, not with the mediator and the rest of the clan rulers watching; never would she give them the satisfaction of seeing her distress. But deep inside, her heart and soul quailed. For beyond the portal were dragons.
Dragons of all sizes and hues flew by, pouring forth all manner of flame and ice and acid as they attempted to breach the citadel’s shield. Innumerous smaller lizard-like beings flew among the dragons, apparently egging them on. Lysethra knew that they were beyond the shield and therefore harmless, but the sight was disconcerting nonetheless. She wondered if the mediators had planned it thus.
The matriarch of Clan Darkmist stood before the portal from Xerro Kensho to the citadel. The portal itself unnerved her. The huge stone gateway was mage-built, inscribed with magical runes alien to Lysethra’s eye; as a priestess, her powers were divinely bestowed, and she had no need to construct crude spells and read esoteric languages. Each of the dark cities had its own portal through which materials, slave labor, soldiers and wizards passed back and forth as their duties required. This was the first time that the councils of each city, the patriarchs and matriarchs of the ruling clans, would visit the citadel.
Lysethra felt the keen prick of the mediator's pitiless gaze urging her through the portal; even as the clan nobles competed amongst themselves, so she imagined the mediators of each of the dark cities competed, and the mediator of Xerro Kensho would be judged on the manner in which her nobles acted today. Without hesitation, and despite her misgivings, Lysethra stepped boldly through the portal, her head held high, even as an enormous dragon flew seemingly straight at her and let loose a fiery blast. She swallowed a cry of alarm and managed to casually flick her long black hair from her shoulder in a contrived act of apparent disregard. From the corner of her eye, she saw her peers hesitate—still standing beyond the portal in Xerro Kensho—and Druellae Gorgoneye actually recoil from the advancing dragon.
That, she thought triumphantly, will cost you dearly.
Lysethra strode toward the mediator as if she had not a care in the world, but inwardly shivered in delight at her nod of approval. She positioned herself to the right and slightly behind the mediator to await the rest of the matriarchs and patriarchs of Xerro Kensho. Surreptitiously, she glanced along the shield wall toward the nearest portals from the other dark cities, and noted that the other mediators were apparently having similar problems coaxing their spoiled nobles out of their comfortable and familiar abodes and into the exotic environs within the citadel shield. Some openly yelled at and berated laggards who hesitated too long before stepping through the portal.
How crass, she thought contemptuously. The mediator's implacable mien and strong, proud stance, which usually irritated Lysethra to no end, now seemed to represent the best of Xerro Kensho. From her close position, however, Lysethra could see the tics that expressed the mediator’s annoyance: knuckles gripped white behind her back, tension in her shoulders beneath her dark robes, and a fleeting twitch to her upper lip. Finally, after several long seconds of hesitation, the mediator’s patience finally snapped.
"Get out here now!" she hissed quietly, maintaining her outward composure. Lysethra felt the power of The Five lash out in a palpable wave from the mediator beside her, and thanked Xakra that she herself was not a target of that wrath. The remaining council members stumbled through the portal like they were drunk, and had to hurry to catch up as the mediator spun with a swirl of her robes and strode toward the citadel itself. Lysethra smoothly turned and followed close behind.
Lysethra got her first good look at the citadel as they approached. From this angle it was difficult to see it in its entirety, but the construction plans had been presented to the councils. The base structure—septagonal in shape to represent the seven dark cities complicit in this enterprise—rose high overhead. There resided the wizards who tended the protective shield and the citadel with their arcane
magics, as well as the thousands of slaves who performed the actual construction, and the hundreds of soldiers who guarded against revolt. The center of the base structure was open; it would serve as a receptacle for the Void essence. Seven spires, one from each sector, thrust up from the base and curved inward toward the core. There dwelt the mediators, each in their own spire, and there would dwell their city councils. The living quarters were low in the spires. The upper rises were solid stone enchanted with the most powerful of spells to allow the spires to penetrate the barrier between Pytt and The Void, and draw out the deadly nothingness that was the Void essence.
But beyond the design details, the citadel’s impact on Lysethra was visceral, and her breath caught in her throat as she gazed upon it. To her it appeared as an enormous black flower, its petals opening to The Void, ready to be inseminated by its stark essence.
How she wished Calmarel could be here now to see it! But until the spires of the citadel were fused to The Void and the extraction spells stabilized, the wild energy fluxes that occurred intermittently could adversely affect her sister’s pregnancy. Which reminded her... Calmarel had never revealed to Lysethra the identify of the father of her child, only dropping hints about his rank and status, marveling at his strength, and boasting of how this mating would bring powerful new blood into Clan Darkmist. Her sister had visited several of the other dark cities in the past year, and Lysethra glanced toward the other councils as they filed into the citadel; was the mysterious man among them?
Lost in her speculations as they approached the great archway that led into the Xerro Kensho sector of the citadel, Lysethra inadvertently slowed her pace. Immediately, Druellae of Clan Gorgoneye shoved ahead of her into the coveted position behind the mediator.
Oh, no you don't! Lysethra thought as she stepped ahead quickly while still maintaining her decorum; the mediator would not appreciate obvious strife among her ensemble while within sight of the other mediators and their councils. Druellae gasped in surprise and anger, reaching reflexively for her snake pendant of Seth the Defiler.
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