Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  “Can we even wait for the negotiation?” Eleshen spoke, watching Temlin carefully.

  He drew a deep breath. “If this information is true,” he spoke, loud enough for the two men at the foot of the dais to hear, “than we have to clear the Abbey. Now. Forget the rest of the books. Forget the breweries, forget the vaults. If Lhaurent knows we have his books and ledgers, those books, he will come for them. Men like Lhaurent don’t wait to pummel their foes.”

  “He’s right.” Khouren’s gaze was infinitely sad. “Lhaurent is not forgiving with his enemies. You need to evacuate. Right now. Which is why we’ve come – to help you.”

  “Give me a straight answer, Ghost,” Temlin eyeballed Khouren. “You were Lhaurent’s lackey for some time, privy to his private information. What does he have that could destroy my Abbey without an army to back him?”

  “Awakening wyrria,” Khouren’s speech was soft as shrouds. “My grandfather’s grandfather, Leith Alodwine, Last King of Khehem, was a tyrant. In his time, he devised a tremendous evil – to trap all the earth’s natural wyrria in its core, effectively arresting the use of magic everywhere. Only the strongest bloodlines, and those blessed by Leith, maintained a fraction of what was once possible.”

  “Your line,” Temlin cut in, keen. “And the Khehemni Lothren, and the Kreth-Hakir Brethren. All blessed by Leith, I suppose?”

  Khouren nodded, his gaze level. “And the greatest work of Leith Alodwine was the creation of the Rennkavi – the creation of the Goldenmarked bindings that grace the flesh of both Lhaurent and Elohl. I don’t know exactly what Lhaurent will be able to do with the wyrria beginning to fountain up below Roushenn Palace since the accident at Highsummer. He’s shown diverse gifts; able to use many of the ancient systems Leith built here, albeit crudely so far. But Lhaurent is a dedicated study – he will learn. And you do not wish to be here, sitting in the fountainhead of magic, when he does.”

  “We must leave, then,” Eleshen quipped firmly. “At once. Any more time might mean Lhaurent getting the drop on the Abbey.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Temlin agreed, rubbing his red beard as he watched the two men before him with an evaluating eye. “But we will not go empty-handed.”

  “King-Protectorate?” Ihbram cocked his head, his brows knit.

  Temlin straightened, a dire gleam in his eyes. “I see a singular opportunity, gentlemen, with your coming to me.”

  “What opportunity?” Khouren frowned.

  A slight smile played about Ihbram’s lips. “Why do I get the sense that you want to fuck Lhaurent in the ass before you abandon the Abbey?”

  “Because I do.” Temlin growled, with an answering smile. “Because no one steals the throne of a lion, gentlemen, without getting bit. And I see an uncanny opportunity to bite Lhaurent in the balls. Or bite out his throat. Whichever works best.”

  “Assassination?” Ihbram’s lips had turned up into a pleased, dark smile.

  “Indeed.” Temlin growled. “If Lhaurent’s powers are growing, there will come a day, soon, when we will no longer be able to touch him. If everything you say is true, and I feel in my bones that it is, Lhaurent is doing everything he can to hasten that day, and let us kill ourselves in our bid for more time. More time is exactly what he wants. So we’ll not give it to him.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Ihbram asked with a sly grin.

  “Lhaurent and I have a meeting in three day’s time,” Temlin continued, “out in the fountain plaza before the Abbey gates. Technically, it was to negotiate the return of ale to the masses, but we all know that’s a sham. He has called for my step-down as King-Protectorate. I possess his den’Alrahel genealogies that prove his royal blood, and I was intending to use them as bait to buy us more time to evacuate the Abbey – but perhaps we have a different option now. How good is your mind-blocking?” This last was addressed to Ihbram.

  Ihbram lifted one russet eyebrow. “I can feel the silver mind-threads of the Kreth-Hakir at a five-league radius. I can block at least four at a time within that distance, keep them ignorant of me and a few companions, as long as they have no High Priest. I can shield people other than myself, make them unseen to normal eyes. I can bend minds to my will and convince people, or cause them to paralyze, but Kreth-Hakir train in mind-attacks, like throwing a spear or cutting with a sword. In those arts, I am unfortunately lacking.”

  “Fascinating.” Temlin’s lips lifted in a fierce grin. “A demonstration, if you would. On me.”

  Ihbram’s lips smiled, though his eyes were warning. “I’ve given an oath to yon lady Eleshen, not to harm anyone inside these walls.”

  “You have my blessing,” Temlin’s raze was rash, piercing.

  “Mind-invasion is just that,” Ihbram countered, “invasion. It removes a man’s free will. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “If I am to gauge the strength of potential allies against Lhaurent,” Temlin’s smile was hard, “then I must know.”

  Without warning, Temlin was on the move. He’d vaulted down from the dais faster than Eleshen could blink, his sword out from across his back even faster. He was barreling down upon Ihbram, fast as a lion in the leap, with a roar to match.

  Ihbram raised no weapon. He simply fell back into a fighter’s stance and set the knuckle of his thumb fast to his brow, eyes closed. Eleshen felt an enormous energy blast out from the Alodwine man, hot as forge-fires. She could almost see a net of living flame flung out from the center of the man’s forehead, directly at Temlin and his swiping cut. Temlin was arrested. In mid-arc, he toppled, crashing to his side – so rigid with paralysis that he landed in the same form, only his eyeballs able to roll up and meet Ihbram’s opening eyes.

  Without thought, Eleshen was in motion, leaping in to protect Temlin. But a second blast of that incredible forge-hot energy was turned upon her, seizing her entire body in a vise-grip. She toppled also. The guards heard the commotion and the doors to the hall boomed inward, four Kingsmen barreling in – all paralyzed before they could take so much as a single step.

  Ihbram lowered his knuckle from his forehead. His gaze found Temlin’s, still bound upon the floor. “I could do this all day with normal men, if they come at me in small groups. Especially here in Lintesh, where the wyrria unleashed at Highsummer awakens. If I can use it, so can Lhaurent and the Kreth-Hakir. But if Lhaurent has four Hakir or less attending him, I can hold them off. I’ve trained for seven hundred years in my art. I know my limits.”

  Suddenly, the searing binds around Eleshen slipped away like sparks on the wind. They left her shivering with a chill, brushing at her skin with a sensation of burning cobwebs still clinging to her. She rose and Temlin pushed to his feet beside her. The Kingsmen at the door rushed forward, but Temlin arrested their charge with an upraised hand.

  “Halt. I’ll not have our allies molested.”

  The Kingsmen halted, though incredulous eyes gazed over Ihbram and the nearby Khouren.

  “So.” An eager smile lifted Temlin’s lips. “Let’s talk assassination, gentlemen. And lady.”

  CHAPTER 15 – JHERRICK

  Jherrick was nowhere. And he was everywhere.

  Some part of him knew he was dead, that his heart had stopped from the shell-poison’s work. His breath had ceased, his veins were cold, and his body had no more sensation to give him, no more life. Some part of him knew this was what death felt like, this expansive emptiness of space. Looking down, he could see his body in the darkened hole inside the goddess’ cave. Her effigy kept watch over him, wings spread wide as if to welcome a weary traveler to his death. A weary warrior with nothing left to fight for.

  Turning from his supine body, Jherrick found his way up and out. Floating, or perhaps flying, he found that wherever he looked, he could go. He could focus on the blue mountains in the far distance above Khehem, and there he went. He could search for his birth-home outside of Quelsis, abandoned when his Khehemni family had burned to death, and there he went also. He could dig deep into the bow
els of Roushenn Palace, those dire blue-lit byways, and there his consciousness would also go.

  All of it was empty. In all his traveling, there was no one else; he was alone in this universe –no one was searching for him. No one was looking for Corporal Jherrick den’Tharn of the Roushenn Palace Guard, a fallen Khehemni warrior who had died from poison in some unknown realm. A realm where it was never really night or day, surrounded by people who weren’t precisely human, who worshipped ancient gods that weren’t exactly his. Now he was dead at the foot of their goddess, who didn’t even care enough about him to show her face.

  Jherrick drifted, out over Alrou-Mendera, over oceans, over deserts and barren tundras. Wherever he looked, it was the same: emptiness. No other souls, just him – alone. Further he pushed on. Beyond his continent, beyond his comfort zone, beyond his life. To other worlds, other places, barely glimpsed through an incandescent mist upon every horizon, a mist filled with ancient stars and darkness.

  Where are you?! Jherrick’s soul called out to the dead-realms.

  But I’m here. Came an answer back. It stopped him in mid-float. Jherrick was arrested, solid in space yet not solid at all, fixed yet everywhere. Listening.

  Show yourself. He called again, words without language, thought with no voice.

  Here. The mind-thought coalesced, walking toward him from the ancient emptiness. He saw it approach, indistinct, a halo of light around a human-like shadow – or perhaps a halo of darkness around the light. It seemed to be both, and as it approached, it solidified into something human, though Jherrick knew it was not. It looked at him with unfathomable eyes, ancient, head cocked as if searching for something deep within him.

  Then it smiled. Its radiance lit the emptiness, violet on white, white on black, all the colors that have ever been or would be. It looked at him with its expansive, subtle smile, and its eyes changed to a livid violet. Smiling with all the kindness of a mother or a father, or a best comrade, it spoke again.

  I’ve been waiting for you, Jherrick. It’s good you’ve found your way here at last.

  Waiting for me? Jherrick cocked his head that was not. What do you mean?

  It is for you alone, that I wait. To be your Strength in this Endeavor you now engage in.

  And what is it that you think I engage in? Jherrick asked, curiosity jangling his soul-form.

  Dusk magic. Its whisper was everywhere. Jherrick felt that resonance lift him – causing him to soar out over open fields, ripe with grain beneath a drowning violet evening. And now, the world was filled with people. Soaring high over Alrou-Mendera, Jherrick saw them all, and felt their pain. Every love or fear or annihilation of every person upon his world. Every hope that had died, every connection sundered, every babe that had lost the conquest of life. Like a forge-hammer, it rocked Jherrick, punched his gut. He found himself sobbing for them, shuddering in despair as his soul howled – because they could not even perceive the vast nature of their suffering.

  How can I help them? The thought cried out from Jherrick, the only thing he could ever want, the only thing left to wish for in all the world.

  By taking this. The presence turned and thrust a hand of violet light through Jherrick’s chest. Through his skin, through his sternum. Right to his very core, it twisted and burned, expanded and churned. Filling him, eating him alive, devouring him and spitting him out – transforming him.

  A scream burned Jherrick’s throat, flooding the dark cavern as he sat bolt-upright from his deathbed. His living pulse thundered in his body where there had only been silence before. Panting in the darkness from a lack of breath, Jherrick clutched his burning chest, keening in revulsion and elation. Something had been pressed into him, some knowing, some otherness he’d never had before; the darkness around him felt alive. With every breath, his heart raced frantically in his chest. One shaky hand reached out, fumbling for the candle: it was out, the wick gone. The others he touched were the same. All out, all dark – all flame and light gone.

  But his sight. The things he could feel now in the darkness. They pressed in with velvet hands; they touched and caressed; they sought him, eased over him like spiderwebs in the darkness. Jherrick felt himself begin to panic and his pulse sped to unnatural dimensions, his breath shallow. Shrieking burned in his throat. As the scream was nearly out, flung full into panic, he suddenly felt a heavy hand settle to his shoulder.

  Easy, kid. A voice said in his ear. Breathe. C’mon, I know you can.

  Jherrick blinked as he gulped air, hiccoughed, dry-retched. He fought to remain conscious and control his thundering heart as his body tried rejecting this newness, this otherworldly dimension he now possessed. He also knew it was only himself he fought, some part of his being that had always been there – not new, only awakened.

  The touch came again at his shoulder, heavier. Soon a hand was at either shoulder, a presence lifting tall in the darkness behind him, uncompromising, protective. His body sobered. The presence spoke again, with Aldris’ chuckle. Nah, kid. I’m not really him. I’m a part of you, actually, but it just so happens that you listen when I talk like him.

  Jherrick blinked. The presence in the darkness was giving him sass, just like Aldris. Something about it caused the corner of Jherrick’s mouth to twitch, even though he still felt like he was going to vomit. A dead boy’s glassy eyes surfaced in Jherrick’s mind, and then Olea’s face, her blue-black curls shining in the sunlight, her effortless smile, luminous and heroic. Jherrick’s heart expanded, filling the darkness: he knew what he’d come here to do. Olea was the savior this world needed, to end the suffering he’d felt in his death-vision. He would find her, and pull her back from the Void to right the wrongs of this world. Jherrick felt that passion fill him, resonate like a thousand lute-strings plucked at once.

  Then get your ass out of this shithole and pay some fucking attention, the thing in the darkness growled.

  Jherrick pushed to standing from his death-hole, resolute. He could see nothing, the darkness infinite with a touchable quality Jherrick had never known before. Inside his mind, space opened up – a realm through the real where he could see a million stars in the dark, all strung together in a vast network like a spider’s web. He was now in two places simultaneously: here in the cavern, experiencing the velvet dark and cold, wracked with shivers and gut-wrenching cramps, but also in another realm; awakened to a space that transcended darkness and light into a unity of sensation and vibration.

  The Void.

  A space that Jherrick suddenly understood surrounded everything, wove through everything. The true fabric of the cosmos, a gossamer emptiness and fullness that Jherrick could now feel. He found he knew where the cavern’s entrance was, where the well was. With weak limbs still flushed and shaking, slick from poison, Jherrick staggered to the water bucket and stuck his face in, drinking like an animal. When he’d had his fill, he wiped his mouth with one arm, tasting the acridity of the killing poison in his sweat as he cleared it.

  Movement suddenly breathed around the room – from everywhere and nowhere. It was so full and pressing that Jherrick startled, dropping the water bucket and spilling its contents over the stone floor. Water dripped in the darkness as he hunkered in a ready posture, perfectly still.

  Touches came, gossamer hands playing along Jherrick’s skin. He shivered, eyes wide, seeing nothing yet everything. All around him in the Void, etheric tendrils manifested, seeking him. To take or corrupt, he didn’t know, and it wasn’t an enemy he could fight with hand or knife. Jherrick panicked all over again, flailing in the dark backwards over the wet stone. A subtle laugh came, assaulting his ears with seductive languor. Not his own soul’s manifestation now, but a woman’s voice. A woman’s breath, hot on his skin.

  Olea’s chuckle in his ears, a sound of darkness and flesh.

  “Olea!” Jherrick gasped.

  Feeling the siren touch again, sliding along his forearm, he shuddered. As that touch slid up his shoulder, her face swam out of the darkness. Jherrick’s brea
th caught in his throat. She was there – so frighteningly beautiful with those perfect features and regal bearing. Moving close, her breasts and figure were exquisite, just as Jherrick had always imagined. Sex rolled through the darkness as sighs echoed in his ears. Olea chuckled in a bravado as her breath found his lips. Jherrick’s heart thundered as her touch slipped over his chest, pressing in, finding the racing of his heart under his ribs. Need coiled out from her, seeping into Jherrick with a pulling sensation like leviathans under the black. His breath came fast as her opal-grey eyes bored into his soul – wanting him.

  Possessing him. Draining him.

  Jherrick could feel Olea’s need coiling into him, licking through his flesh like tentacles of evil. The thought hit Jherrick like a sledgehammer: this thing, whatever it was, would take his body, his mind, and his very essence until nothing was left. Terror flooded Jherrick, making his pulse rage. His breath came hard as his body roiled with the worst kind of chill – the kind that takes a man down. His heart jolted in his chest as if it might quit again, and he saw it was shot through with darkness, wormed into his very fabric. With a deep and wretched instinct, he knew that only darkness filled the presence that showed itself as Olea.

  Only darkness and the emptiest kind of destruction.

  Red eyes flashed in the Void. Olea’s grey gaze was consumed by a burning destruction the likes of which Jherrick had never seen: it was pure malice. As if stars could implode with the chill of a dark and uncaring universe, the being that flowed into this manifestation had no understanding of creation. All it wanted, all it was built for, was to destroy – until the end of time.

  With a cry, Jherrick jolted backwards, his spine smacking up against the lip of the well. Sprawling, he ripped his essence away from that annihilating touch, but it had snared so much of him, seduced its way into far more of him than he’d known. Jherrick felt those evil tentacles pull like taffy in his flesh – stretching, sticking, winding in deeper even as he hauled himself away. For it had a will, and a need: its need was to possess him, to take those vile appendages and sink them into everything that Jherrick was, and use him for its own aims.