by Mark Eller
* * * *
Fourteen hours later, Simta groaned as she crouched behind a statue of Trelsar in the wee hours of the night. Gods, what had she been thinking when she agreed to steal a book from the Evertrue estate? And what in the two Hell’s did Malaria want with the damn thing? Simta clenched her hands tight in frustration. This was not where she wanted to be. What she wanted was to be with Malaria, in his arms, wrapped in silk sheets.
Another deep breath and still no relief. She needed to get this task over. Then she would be okay, get back to Malaria with the book, and the new life awaiting her.
Three bells rang through the night. A crisp spring breeze blew around her, penetrating her thin black leggings and shirt. It brushed against her bare neck, sending shivers down her spine. Reaching up, Simta pulled her ponytail tighter and gave her mask another tug just to be sure all was secure and wouldn’t expose her at the wrong moment. The last light inside the manor had disappeared half an hour earlier, but she wanted to make sure everything went perfectly, with not a soul awake to interrupt her. If she had to deal with someone, it could screw the whole burglary up and cost her life’s ambition, relegating her to being nothing but the wife of a pansy priest.
Thoughts of Charmaine brought bile to her throat, which she quickly swallowed back down. The last thing she needed was to be ill when action waited. Fighting back her uneasy stomach, Simta hated Charmaine, despised him. Even absent and unaware, the smarmy bastard interfered with her plans.
Another deep breath brought her the delicate floral scents of the flowers and blooming trees scattered about the garden, soothing Simta’s frayed nerves a bit. With cat grace, she moved out from behind Trelsar’s statue, giving it silent thanks for protecting her from idle eyes. The garden was bathed in deep shadows. The twin moons of Callendale and Cafia had not yet risen, wouldn’t for another half an hour, giving her another advantage to be thankful for. Every shrub and tree and flower seemed to loom as she crept across the ground to the manor’s side.
Pausing, Simta waited, her eyes darting about, halfway expecting some of the plants to attack. It had happened to her before, though not often. Only a few of the highest families worshipped Omitan, god of the land and woods. Some of those few had formed pacts with Omitan’s servants, tree gelfs and sprites who crept about at night, ready to either warn the house guards or attack intruders with trees or bushes infused by their spirits. Bad enough, but gods forbid if one of the little buggers got their teeth into a person. They owned nasty bites and were mildly poisonous.
After a few moments of stillness, Simta relaxed. Nothing. As she had suspected, Omitan’s servants shunned this place.
Imagining herself as just another piece of the dark, Simta hugged the manor wall and slipped around until she crouched beneath the study window. Earlier in the evening, while attending the party, she had made an excuse to slip off by herself in order to unlock the study window. No one questioned her absence. Truthfully, she made people nervous. With what she knew about many of their personal lives, more than a few of her social peers felt better with her gone. Fine with her. Simta didn’t care for their company either, bunch of liars, cheats, and uppity prigs.
She heard only the quiet chirps of insects and an occasional night bird’s call. Here, in the upper echelons of Yylse, the rich and richer maintained a tight community tucked carefully behind stone walls and cold, iron fences. Nothing touched the aristocracy that they didn’t allow in. Even Hell approached only with an invitation.
With a gloved hand, Simta reached up to the window. The hinged panes swung wide, coming open with barely a squeak. Simta hefted herself inside. Her lithe frame slid silently over the sill and landed without incident on the other side. She closed the window behind her, leaving it cracked just enough so she could push them open for a quick escape. The study held pools of deep shadows. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. The desk containing the book pressed against the far north wall, directly opposite of where she stood. Two chairs, a globe stand, and a filing cabinet were the only objects she had to worry about knocking into. Along with these potential obstructions, the room also held the desk and chair, a couch along the wall, and an oversized bookcase filled with massive tomes.
Nodding satisfaction, Simta slid one booted foot in front of the other, careful to mind the rug’s edge. Once she made it to the desk, it would be easy to find the exact drawer and begin picking it open.
Simta paused for a moment. This really was very easy. Much easier then she thought it should be. Then again, she’d done jobs requiring less than ten minutes work. People tended to get careless the longer something sat safe. How long had Malaria been after this book, and why hadn’t he come to get it himself?
Bent down, her mind preoccupied with too many thoughts about the why of this job and not enough on the precautions, Simta failed to notice the door had opened until the brazier next to it flared to life.
Tools slipped from her hand. She was too shocked to care that they fell. Jerking her head upward, she saw the worst of all possible people standing in the doorway.
“Looking for something?” A voice holding no warmth, one which very seldom ever did, racked over her scathingly. High Priest Lord Calto Morlon, the queen’s personal advisor, a distant cousin on her father’s side, and worst of all, head of the extended family, stood like death himself in the doorway.
Instinct kicking in, Simta lobbed a small statuette of Anothosia at the priest while diving for the window, but when she shoved on the panes, instead of swinging easily out, she found them locked— and shuttered. Panic flooded her mind like a great sea swell.
Lurching away from the impossibly locked window, she grabbed at the only other things available to her and started chucking books from the case lining the west wall. Only one left her hand before a blast of light struck her full in the chest, sending her careening backward into the bookcase. Heavy tomes of leather bound misery rained down upon her head, knocking her nearly unconscious.
The world became fuzzy. The room tilted from side to side. A gruff hand grabbed her mask and ripped it from her face, causing her to slide sideways to the hard, polished wood floor. To Simta’s fuddled brain, the cool surface almost felt good against her fevered skin, but not for long.
“Simta, how very disappointing. It will grieve me to strike your name from our family tree.” Calto’s voice drifted to her from far away, sounding less than sincere in its regret.
Putting her hand down, she tried to rise when she was jerked upright and dragged across the floor. Calto shoved her hard into the desk chair, nearly spilling her over backwards when he shoved it toward the middle of the room. Vertigo hit her in waves as she finally gave up trying to hold her dinner down. Doubling over, Simta hurled over a new rug she knew the Evertrue’s had recently purchased from Illian.
Good, the smug bastards deserved it for inviting Calto into their home.
It seemed like forever before she could sit upright and not have everything spin. The sight greeting her didn’t make it any better. Leaning on the edge of the desk, holding a gleaming white leather bound book big enough to club someone to death, Calto stood rigid with anger in his white, long priestly robes. In his right hand, he held a replica of Anothosia’s staff of truth complete with a moonstone set atop it. The stone glowed so brightly it made the brazier’s fire seem dull in comparison. Calto regarded her with cold, emotionless blue eyes, eyes so pale they appeared to be ice, but not ice made of water— more like ice on fire.
Trembling, Simta sank deeper into her chair. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. Calto wasn’t even supposed to be in Yylse. She had recently heard he was in Grace, the king’s city, visiting Queen Elise. Did he know she was coming? Had he the sight, or did she just have a case of bad luck on this job?
“How dare you.” Calto’s voice emerged as a bare whisper, but it held all the sting of a slap to her face.
Simta flinched.
“Do you have any idea what you were stealing? By all the l
aws of church and state, I could have you publicly hanged for this attempted theft?”
Each word stabbed her with Calto’s righteous anger, scalding and tearing at Simta unmercifully, making her whimper and cringe. Gods, she hated him for making her feel this way, cheap and pathetic, like filth beneath his feet. Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she refused to cry in front of this bigoted bastard. She would at least die with some pride.
“Answer me!” Like an erupting geyser, Calto leapt from the desk’s edge and stormed over to her, standing before her like a towering white flame. The aura previously possessed only by his staff’s moonstone now radiated from his body as well. Calto appeared to be a blazing white pillar of godly power, ready to smite her where she sat.
Crying out, Simta protectively flung her hands over her face.
“If you will not willingly tell me the truth, I will pull it from you painfully.” Extending his staff, Calto touched the moonstone to her head.
Like being physically jerked forward, Simta’s hands flew from her face in a spread eagle position. Layers of her mind, her memories, her past lies, and deceits burst free. She felt Calto shuffle through her lies and carelessly toss them aside. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. Simta wanted to beg for mercy, call for help, but she did not. Those were options she no longer owned.
“Well, isn’t this interesting,” Calto mused, and Simta’s mind crashed into a forgotten memory. She found herself back in her room at the inn, sprawled across her bed, naked, moaning, clutching at Malaria’s ass as he jammed his cock deep inside her. Instead of experiencing feelings of pleasure, an intense pain ripped through her body. Like water colors on a too wet canvas, Malaria’s features melted, transforming into something which made even the pain of what Calto did to her a mercy.
Malaria’s sleek, muscled body grew larger, grotesque in its shape. Long blue barbs protruded from the backs of his arms and head. Spikes grew crookedly down his spine. More of the same needle-like barbs riddled the back of his calves, dripping a green poisonous liquid that burned and ate away at her skin. Simta knew her face was a twisted mask of silent horror as Malaria dipped his head down to her breasts. She heard herself scream as he tore at her pale skin, shredding delicate flesh with long, razor sharp teeth. When she thought she could scream no more, as blood poured from her body to soak the sheets beneath her, sickly grey and black tendrils of magic wrapped around her dying body. Malaria stopped feeding and raised his head to look down curiously at her. Frowning, he lifted a clawed hand above her chest. Simta watched in horror as he shoved bits of his magic into her ruined body. The blood on the sheets reversed its flow to rise and reenter her wounds. In mere seconds, those wounds were healed, but a horrible squiggling, grayness covered her skin.
The scene disappeared suddenly. Simta found herself back in the Evertrue study, lying on the floor in a ball, hugging her knees to her chest, and crying hysterically. Long, agonizing moments passed before she realized someone had put their arms around her and stroked her face, trying to give her some small measure of comfort. No comfort was there for her. No peace was to be found and never would be. What she had witnessed in the inn’s room would haunt both her waking and dreaming hours for as long as she lived.
“This cruelty was unnecessary, Calto. You nearly destroyed her.” A man’s voice speaking gently near her ear, barely carried past her sobbing.
“Please,” Calto sneered. “Our cousin deserved that and more. She’s a disgrace. A piece of filth who would better fit in among the lowborn trash.”
“‘And I say unto thee, walk among my people with compassion, walk among them with mercy in your eyes and forgiveness in your heart.’” Although the man holding Simta spoke with a low voice, it held passion as he recited one of Anothosia’s teachings, one all her priests were ordered to follow. Opening her red, swollen eyes, she turned her head to look into the face of Calto’s twin brother, Larson, knight and captain of the Order of the Sword and the Staff. Seeing Larson, tears streamed down her face in a silent torrent.
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Calto ignored his brother. “Save it for church services.” He studied Simta. “You have no idea what your lover sent you to steal, do you?”
Cringing again, Simta shook her head. Every time Calto spoke, fresh tendrils of pain whipped at her mind. “Please, stop. I–I don’t know why he wanted it. I swear to you on my very soul, I do not.”
When a low humming filled the air, Larson hugged her tighter. Warmth and peace eased over her body and mind, allowing her to feel something other than abject horror and unrelenting fear, but just barely.
Anger flashed across Calto’s face, twisting it into cruel, hard lines as he glared at Larson. “I am not finished, brother.”
“Yes, brother, you are.”
In a battle of wills, the two stared at one another, caught in a deadlock. Long moments passed before they both looked away. The room’s tension eased.
Picking her up, Larson carried her to a dark red leather couch set along the east wall and laid her gently upon it. “Simta, you‘re lucky the demon only touched you once. Malaria is known to be powerful and well connected. Once he got his hooks fully into you, he would have owned you body and soul. Did it not occur to you to wonder why he didn’t just come and get the book himself?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Simta answered. “I just— I was desperate I guess. I didn’t care why. I just needed the money.” A sudden surge of anger made Simta glare at Calto. Men like him and her father were why she was in this mess.
Baring his teeth in a feral snarl, the priest took a step forward. “I know what you are thinking, but you have no one to blame for the mess of your life but yourself. No one told you to whore, or thieve, or drink.”
Like a house made of mud caught in a torrential rain, Simta’s anger dissolved into dark streams of pain. A fresh onslaught of tears coursed over her raw cheeks at the realization all her secrets had been revealed.
“I saw it all while I was within you.” Calto’s cold whisper opened new wounds. “The petty remarks, the blackmail, the thieving. I even saw how you ended up betrothed to that idiot Charmaine. Did you think to hide these things from me, Anothosia’s most high priest and head of our House?”
Larson turned to his brother. “I said enough. Simta might be guilty of all you say, but she is also a victim. I won’t allow you to rape her mind further. All deserve Anothosia’s forgiveness. All deserve a second chance.”
With a toss of his head, Calto sneered at them both. “Fine. She will get her second chance, but she will also atone for this sacrilege. Tomorrow evening she will meet with her demon lover at the inn where he raped her. She will help us spring a trap on him. If she does not, I will march her straight to her father’s house in the evening and explain why she is being stricken from the family books and sold off to the highest bidder in the Illian slave markets.”
A cold wind tore through Simta’s soul at the thought of facing Malaria again. She started shaking. Even being sold as a slave was a fate she would willingly face over being in Malaria’s presence once more. “No,” she mumbled through numb lips, “please no. Don’t make me face him again.”
Gods, is this what Calto did to others in his role as Anothosia’s high priest? Is this how he gathered the truth, by shredding a person’s soul, tearing out their hearts, and destroying their minds? Simta shrank as far into her seat as she could.
Kneeling, Larson placed a reassuring hand upon her cheek. “You won’t face him alone, Simta. I wouldn’t allow anyone to do that. I will be there along with Calto and several of my knights. We will kill him when he shows us his true form.”
Simta clutched at Larson’s arm. The memory of Malaria feeding on her body remained fresh. “He’ll rip me to pieces again, only this time he won’t put me back together.”
With a gentle tug, Larson pulled his arm from her grasp. “I swear upon my soul no harm shall come to you, dear cousin.” He stroked her disheveled hair. “You will be safe, but Calto
is right. We need you to do this. We have tried to catch Malaria for a long time, but he always sees through our traps and murders our spies. You have no idea how many good men and woman have died at his hands. Help us stop the evil bastard, and you’ll have your second chance.” Drawing back, Larson looked at her with pleading eyes.
A deep shudder ran through her body. Calto had made it very clear what he would do if she didn’t comply. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
Seeming regretful, Larson shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not, but Simta, think of all the good you will do. Think of the men and women who will go home to their families alive and unscathed to kiss their spouses and hold their children, all because you helped us stop Malaria.”
Larson stoked her cheek. The calluses on his hand felt rough against her tender, tear soaked skin, nothing like the hands of other Yernden nobles. Unlike Larson, those prigs knew little about an honest day’s work or sacrifice. Unlike them, Larson’s hands bore the scars of many battles. A long puckered line ran down his left check, marring the perfection of his looks. Both brothers were handsome beyond words, but she could always tell the twins apart even without the scar. Where Calto’s face was arrogance and cold justice, Larson’s was a sun-kissed summer day. Warmth and joy danced over his strong features. Why couldn’t he have asked her to marry him? Why had her father never presented him as a choice? After all, Larson was still unmarried, and though they were cousins, they were not closely related.
With the world weighing down her head, Simta gave a weary nod and became limp within Larson’s embrace. It was all just too much for her. In this one night, she felt as if she had aged twenty years, all her youth gone in an agonizing stripping of her soul.
“Good. Now get out of here!” Calto snapped. “And you had better be at the Dancing Unicorn tomorrow, Simta, at nine bells.” Calto’s eyes narrowed. Something unnatural stirred behind them, something powerful, something Simta knew she dared not break a promise to.