It had been civil, really, for a conquering army.
“What do you want of me?” Theroun grated.
“I only ask that you hear my words,” Jornath returned, his grey eyes frank. “That you consider a life among the Brethren. We have honor in what we do.”
“But you suffer no resistance.”
Jornath stood at last. Gazing down at Theroun with a complex look in his eyes, he spoke. “No. We do not. Those who oppose us are cut down. Any who cannot feel our mind-bending are of especial danger to the greater good. They cannot be controlled when the Red-Eyed Demon comes. Even with all our strength, my Brethren cannot pull the minds of the wyrric-blind away from the seduction of the Demon, and it would cause unimaginable chaos. We cannot have chaos, Theroun. Chaos is the enemy of order – of a strong foundation from which we can all flourish. Our god Leith understood how strong that foundation had to be against the Demon’s Rise – he sacrificed everything for it. The question is: would you? Would you sacrifice everything you have to become something greater? To protect the world from an evil far worse than the rise and fall of nations or tyrants? Would you serve an Order that sometimes must make dire bargains, to prevent the destruction of all peoples? Think on it, for this world is far larger than Lhaurent, or you, or even Alrou-Mendera. Without a strong foundation when the Demon rises – we will all fall.”
Theroun laced his hands, thinking. “What if Lhaurent is evil? What if he is this Demon you speak of, already possessed by this spirit of ultimate destruction?”
“I hate him as you do, Theroun.” Jornath’s smile was hard, his grey eyes dead as slate. “I hate Lhaurent den’Alrahel with all my heart. Many of my Brethren do. He has no honor, but we feel in him much strength, and though you do not wish to hear it, he possesses none of the red-eyed madness we have trained all our lives to know. You may not believe it, but my Order is ancient. We remember a time when the Red-Eyed Demon rose in ages past. And those who survived that madness founded my Order, many thousands of years ago.”
“I thought you were the progeny of your god, Leith?” Theroun interrupted.
“No. The Kreth-Hakir Brethren are ancient, but we had fallen into disrepair when Leith came to us,” Jornath corrected mildly. “We had forgotten our lineage when he revived in us the oldest memories of the Giannyk and the Albrenni, with whom the Kreth-Hakir were once aligned. Leith revived our power and solidarity; our long-forgotten practice of Knowing the Beast. For only those who truly know their darkest wyrria will be safe when the Demon comes.”
“How does facing one’s darkest wyrria keep them safe from the Demon?”
Jornath’s words were very soft. “One cannot be a vehicle for the Demon when one knows and confronts the entirety of one’s inner torment. When one embraces the very worst of who one is, and accepts it more deeply than any lover. Kreth-Hakir face our inner darkness. We face it and embrace it, Theroun, with open eyes. Once we understand and accept our Beast, we can calm it. And when a man embraces the deepest darkness of his nature, then no man nor god can control him with it. So will you accept your Beast, Theroun – to become part of something greater? Or will you let it take you down like a dog?”
With that, Khorel Jornath dipped his chin in goodnight and swept from the room. The wooden door clicked shut. Theroun was left with only a roiling and snapping of silver threads inside his body as he pondered everything the High Priest had said. Knowing he’d get no more sleep, Theroun moved to the floor.
Sitting in meditation, images came and went through his mind – of betrayal and death. The more he tried to banish them, the more they came, borne of darkness and annihilation. An energy built in him as he sat, a vast and terrible thing that soon trembled every limb. Some part of him that knew darkness, and was not afraid of being the terror in the night.
Dawn found Theroun moving through his fighting stances, flowing through sword-forms. He’d given up on meditation, the violence in his limbs far too much to contain. As the first rays of the sun seeped in through the cracks of his shuttered window, he dropped yet again into pushups upon the cold stone floor. Heaving through lunges to squats, flipping himself upside-down at the wall and doing pushups inverted.
Energy surged through his muscles like burning peat. It simmered within him, something he’d not felt for ages: a tremendous energy, filled with a lust for ruin. With every heave, Theroun tried to banish it. With every twist of his torso, he tried to wring it from his body. With every lunge and pivot he tried to spear it, to kill it with an invisible blade.
Memories dredged up. Theroun as a boy on his father’s estate, watching his father’s hired soldiers. Watching how they moved, the power in them as they fought on the practice grounds. Taking up the sword simply because he wanted to be among that hunt and bloodshed. To pummel, to strike and wrestle, even if it meant getting damaged. To have the power they had, the strength.
The killing strike.
Theroun pressed, lunged, flipped his bare feet back up the cold wall, holding his extension with strong arms. His face flooded with blood, wisps of steam curling from his body in the dawn. Thoughts swirled through him, each darker than the last. What if he was nothing but the hunt? Nothing but a killer? What if he had no loyalty, no honor? What if he stepped upon the battlefield only because he was actually darkness, and his will was only death?
The Black Viper.
Theroun’s elbows buckled. He came crashing down, barely catching himself upon the balls of his feet before his knees drove into the stone. Theroun’s fingers spasmed in his sweat-slick hair. Like a beast, all his anguish came roaring out of his mouth. He balled his hands into fists, smashing them into the stone floor. He gripped his head; pressed his forehead to the stone. His body shook as silver threads snapped and snapped again. The net around the black leviathan inside him was shredding, and with it came all the horrors Theroun had banished from his mind in order to survive the long drone of years.
He saw that day again; the day his life changed. The camp at the Aphellian Way. His Captain Aerundahl den’Bhern approaching, to ask if his General was alright. Red rage surging inside Theroun, a beast with nothing but the desire to kill. More than kill. To destroy the world, to bring it all crashing down in godlessness without a code of ethics in sight.
Theroun sat up, shivering in his sweat-drenched shirt and trousers. A tirade of silver threads snapped in his mind, and with it came a surge of agony. As if on cue, the door-latch clicked. The chamber door opened to admit the young Valenghian Brother with his short shock of silver mane. His violet eyes widened to see the state Theroun was in.
Banishing memories, Theroun hauled himself to his feet. He was a General. He served his Queen. The past was dead.
“Well?” He barked at the lad.
“Brother Jornath would see you.” The young man gestured to the door, shrinking back slightly.
With a hard growl, Theroun gathered his ruined Elsthemi jerkin and slung it on. He strode through the hall and up the stairs to the chapel. Taking the steps two at a time, a fire lit his body as he pushed through the white-pine doors, slamming them back so hard they ricocheted off the stone walls with a boom. Standing at the war-table, Khorel Jornath turned from a scroll he’d been perusing.
“What do you want?” Theroun snapped, marching forward.
“My weave within you is breaking this morning, Theroun.” The Kreth-Hakir’s fingers slipped from the scroll as he straightened and faced Theroun. “You have far less time than I’d hoped.”
“I’ll give you none of my allegiance, Khorel,” Theroun snarled. “I serve only my Queen. Your bastard tricks cowed me before Lhaurent, but I’ll not succumb again.”
“You must face the vastness inside you,” Jornath spoke, watching Theroun carefully. “Or it will kill you, soon. We can help.”
“I’ll face it in my own way.”
“Do that.” Jornath’s sneer was derisive.
“Did you call me here just to beleaguer me?”
“No. I called you here bec
ause I wish you to witness how one’s deepest darkness can be used against them.”
Jornath moved away from the table. As he did, eight Kreth-Hakir Brethren stepped from the shadowed gables, forming a circle in the open space of the cathedral. Suddenly, Adelaine was hauled in by two strong Brethren, dragged in on her knees like a dead cat. Stripped naked, her head hung with her tousled white mane tumbling around her bruised flesh.
Theroun surged forward with a roar. Khorel Jornath stopped him with a firm hand to his arm, and a vise-grip of silver around his flesh. “Try to free her and I will cut you down. With mind and blade I will flay you, no matter how valuable you may be. The others in my Order cannot penetrate your rising wyrria, but I can. The Dremorande will fall today and you are here as witness, nothing more. You will watch as I gain access to her secrets, because of what she fears. What she fears, and what she longs for with the darkest part of her being.”
“And what is that?”
“Watch and see.”
Khorel Jornath turned from Theroun. Four Hakir lowered Adelaine to the stone floor, legs straight together, hands by her sides. As twelve Kreth-Hakir Brethren ringed the fallen woman with their gazes fixed upon her, the High Priest stepped into the center. Adelaine seemed unconscious, her mouth open and head fallen to one side as shallow breaths rattled her throat. Her skinny ribs billowed like sails as she shivered, every muscle rigid. Her eyes rolled up, showing whites as her eyelashes fluttered. Though they stood in a sanctuary, Theroun knew this was was to be no holy right. This would be a breaking by demons, straight to Halsos’s Burnwater, and there was nothing Theroun could do to stop it.
But he would be damned if he’d let her die this way. With a will, Theroun strained against Jornath’s silver that held him. It gave with a sad sigh, and Theroun marched into the circle. As he crossed the boundary, the full weight of the Kreth-Hakir’s combined mind-weave hit him like a furious silver ocean, something terrible already at work. Setting his jaw against the inundation, Theroun waded in to the fallen woman. The black oilslick nature of his own wyrria surged, fighting those silver waves and its own prison. It was because of its enormous strength of will that Theroun gained Adelaine’s side, falling to his knees and taking up her hand.
“High Dremorande of Elsthemen,” Theroun growled gently. “You’re not alone. Even if you die, soldier, know that you do not go to that dark oblivion alone.”
One ear turned his way, as if Adelaine listened even in her fugue.
“Say whatever you wish to comfort her,” Khorel Jornath’s baritone came at Theroun’s side as he knelt. “But know that she will not suffer, not by my hand.”
Jornath stroked Adelaine’s face. A keening sound left her. She pressed her cheek into his touch as if it was the last comforting thing in the world. Theroun’s bile rose at the High Priest’s vile seduction. If he’d had a weapon, he would have buried it in Jornath’s eye, but Theroun was also stunned to see that Jornath gazed at Adelaine with surprising tenderness, his visage a mixture of calm sadness and dominant benevolence.
“You fight so hard,” Jornath stroked Adelaine’s cheek. “Don’t fight so hard. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
As Theroun watched, Jornath settled to a seat beside the fallen Dremorande. The rest of the twelve Kreth-Hakir prowled the circle, fixated upon their prey, pummeling into Adelaine’s mind, but Jornath was the purveyor of mercy. With gentle hands, he stroked Adelaine’s face, her neck, smoothing her tangled white hair away from her cheeks.
She keened harder, eyelids fluttering rapidly.
“Shh...” One of Jornath’s big hands slipped behind her neck, cupping her nape. And suddenly, Adelaine was like a puppet with strings broken. One moment she spasmed, and the next she sagged. Jornath caught her with his big hands. Slipping his other hand beneath her back, he pulled her up into his lap. Wrapping her thin frame in those enormous arms, he cradled Adelaine like a child. Rocking her, he smoothed her hair, kissed her cheek.
“Easy. You’re safe now,” Khorel Jornath crooned. “I won’t let them hurt you, ever again.”
Suddenly, Theroun felt Khorel’s mind surge in a wave of obliterating power. With the force of a maelstrom, he smashed back the twelve men who ringed them. The Brethren fell, stumbling to their knees, some crying out. Theroun saw one man’s nose fountain blood as he fell back in a dead faint.
It was no ruse. It was real. Jornath had played the part of Adelaine’s hero, commanding her foes to abandon their torment. Deep in Jornath’s eyes was the last thing Theroun thought he would ever see in such a vile man – love. Not a sham, but real love, as if Adelaine was his most precious beloved. As if Jornath believed it to his fundament that he was her savior, her protector. Giving her the thing she desired most, and the only thing she feared. Her deepest darkness, the horrific shadow behind her wyrric power.
True love, and its protection from her nightmares.
“You’re safe,” Jornath murmured in Adelaine’s ear. “They can’t hurt you now. Let me see, my love. Let me smooth your pain... let me in...”
Theroun watched Adelaine unfurl for Jornath like a flower. She turned her face up, burying it in Jornath’s neck above the high collar of his studded leather jerkin. She inhaled his scent, then rested her forehead against his neck. Her limbs relaxed. Her breath was shallow, laying at ease in his arms. Jornath lifted her with impossible gentleness, maneuvering her back onto the stone floor. With ultimate care, he laid her out, hands folded atop her breastbone, legs together in a position of repose.
Theroun could not take his eyes away. He could not bring himself to stop it, some fascination holding him to watch this terrible ritual and understand the true power of will-wyrria. Jornath smoothed Adelaine’s hair to one side, then slid one big hand beneath her naked hips and the other beneath her neck, cradling her by her entire spine though she remained resting upon the floor. Lifting his face, Jornath closed his eyes in an expression of benevolent rapture.
Theroun felt a thickness to the room, a rippling heat issuing from the High Priest of the Kreth-Hakir. As if the very air simmered with quicksilver fire, it lipped over Theroun’s skin with unseen fingers, compelling. The dark wyrria inside Theroun stretched, resonating with whatever was happening – but it could not break free, nor stop the ritual. Adelaine gave a deep sigh, feeling the energy build. She began to breathe faster, little sips of air. With subtle undulations, she began to writhe upon the floor, but Jornath made no move to consummate with her or touch her in any other way.
Undulating, Adelaine sighed hard, her legs pressed together with tension. She began to arch and heave, crying out not from pain, but pure, blissful pleasure. Her hands flew from her chest, slapping the stone near her hips. One of her hands contacted Jornath’s wrist; gripped him. Theroun saw Jornath’s lips twitch. He was rocking now, affected by the energy he wove, the interaction he willed. Adelaine arched, crying out in a wail of passion. Khorel Jornath echoed it with a gasp and a shudder, eyelids flickering.
Theroun’s pulse raced, feeling it, the incredible wyrria they wove. He was a part of it as much as they, their weave rolling over his skin, raising his cock and driving deep into places untouched for years. The men in the ring had recovered and now faced the center with eyes closed. Hands palm-open, they directed their terrible focus into the circle, reflecting Jornath’s weave of passion back upon those within – commanding it to heighten.
Adelaine surged. Khorel Jornath shuddered. Theroun gasped. The Dremorande writhed upon the stones, affecting them all as ecstasy flooded her. Fed back by the men at the perimeter and by the one touching her, it was an infinite loop of not just lust or pleasure, but pure, infinite lovemaking.
“Feel me...” Jornath whispered through the press of wyrria. “Know me. Open for your own beloved, come for you at last.”
Adelaine climaxed in an explosion of bliss. Arching upon the stone, she screamed out in passion and love. Jornath cried out, bowing from the tension as the magic roared. The force of it hammered the men at the peri
meter, who were driven to their knees, spasming. Theroun was slapped back, suffused with waves of gripping ecstasy.
Then, as if two bodies became one, Khorel Jornath’s silver will-weave flowed through Adelaine completely, until she glowed beneath the colored glass windows of the cathedral like a Madonna of quicksilver starlight. Jornath took a tremendous breath. A satisfied smile lifted his lips, and though it was dominant, it was also tender. Moving his hands from beneath Adelaine, Jornath reached out, stroking her face with his fingertips.
“Thank you, my beloved.”
Leaning over, he moved his lips over Adelaine’s. She arched and shuddered, lifting her chin. Lips parted, the Kreth-Hakir High Priest gave her the softest kiss. Then inhaled, massive and slow, as if pulling the life of the world into the bellows of his lungs.
Adelaine arched beneath him. And then fell back, strings cut.
Her head fell to the side, pale eyes glazed like frosted glass. Khorel Jornath touched fingertips to her eyelids and drew them closed. Gazing down, Jornath paused a long moment, then pushed to his feet, his face set with careful blankness. The men around him were recovering to standing. Jornath continued to gaze down at Adelaine’s corpse, an unidentifiable emotion in the hard depths of his eyes.
“She was a dedicated adversary,” he murmured at last. “For such a warrior of tremendous will, we show our highest respect. Brother Kiiar. Have a pyre made to burn her body in the Elsthemi way. I will give her the Rites of Kotar, the traditional right of passage for dead Elsthemi warriors, and chant over her until the sun dawns tomorrow. Then we will move as Lhaurent den’Alrahel wishes us to.”
“Yes, Brother.” White-haired Brother Kiiar signaled three others, the most recovered of the twelve, who came forward to lift Adelaine’s body from the stones. They left the cathedral, followed by the rest of the Brethren with hoods pulled up, as if in respect for the dead.
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