Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  “Fuck me!” Aldris’ head came up, someone home in those emerald eyes at last. “Don’t you ever bring me back like that again, kid! Or I will cut your fucking head off next time, I swear to all of Halsos’ Hells.”

  CHAPTER 26 – THEROUN

  Theroun was in agony. Bedridden in his monk’s cell and bare-chested in the chill autumn night, he burned with poison, fighting the wyrria that rose ever higher within him. For two whole days, his condition had deteriorated as his awakened wyrria snapped Khorel Jornath’s silver net left and right. Acrid sweat stood out upon Theroun’s body tonight, the reek that dead men suffering a blood-poison have at the end. Despite his concentration, despite everything he had tried, still it came for him – the massive darkness of his own vicious will weakening his body by the hour. Trying to kill him for reasons he didn’t understand.

  The midnight hour had come and gone, the depths of the cathedral silent. Propped up with pillows and doing his breathing to push back the pain, Theroun slid in and out of sanity. The young Valenghian with violet eyes and silver hair, Brother Antonius, sat by Theroun’s bedside, as if in vigil. Leaning forward at intervals, the lad mopped Theroun’s brow and neck with a cool sponge, letting water trickle down Theroun’s poison-hot skin. About Thaddeus’ age, Brother Antonius seemed to hold a sorrowful fascination for Theroun, and Theroun didn’t refuse the lad’s care, sometimes hallucinating in the height of his agony that the lad was actually Thaddeus.

  The hour was deep when Theroun heard the door-latch click and the hinges creak. A chair was dragged up beside Theroun’s bed and Brother Antonius was dismissed with a low exchange of words that Theroun couldn’t make out. He felt someone lean in, then felt more than saw the massive quicksilver-woven paw of Khorel Jornath placed upon his brow. A deep ease poured from Khorel’s palm, entering Theroun like a lifeline of silver light in his fever-fugue. But it was only enough to clear his mind a little, allowing him to see the room at last rather than the massive blackness that devoured him.

  “You’ve not got much more time, Theroun,” Jornath’s voice was soft, vague to Theroun’s tortured ears. “Your choice is upon you.”

  Another wash of silver threads snapped inside Theroun as his wyrria roiled, striking at his insides. Theroun grit his teeth against it so he could speak, his voice rasping with pain. “I would rather die than fight for Lhaurent. I am bound to Queen Elyasin den’Ildrian Alramir’s service. And to none other.”

  A great sigh issued out from the Kreth-Hakir High Priest. Jornath sat back in his chair, regarding Theroun like a stone watches time.

  “I will save your Queen,” Jornath spoke at last. “If you join our Order... I will save Queen Elyasin from harm.”

  Theroun blinked. He struggled to sit up, but only managed to produce a ripping pain that spasmed his back and lungs. When he could speak again, he fixed Jornath in his most formidable glower. “What are you saying?”

  Leaning forward in his chair, Jornath rested his elbows on his knees and set the tips of his massive fingers together. “I know the secret of the tunnels out of Lhen Fhekran, Theroun. I gleaned from Adelaine’s mind the working of it, how to place myself in the right kind of trance to make the music come alive as the woman Ghrenna did to open the passageway. I can have ten Kreth-Hakir Brethren in pursuit of your Queen within the hour. We have cleared the rose-crystal gateway beneath Fhekran Palace of the last debris from the palace’s burning. All is in readiness for me to follow Lhaurent’s command and chase my retinue in pursuit of your Queen and her King.”

  “What stops you?” Theroun growled.

  “You.” Jornath’s grey eyes glowed like burnished opals in the flickering candlelight. “I sense within you a power too great to be ignored, Theroun. You have something that could change the game of ages, that could shape the world to come, if given the chance. My conscience cannot rest, knowing that you would so blindly take that to oblivion with your own selfish death. So I’m offering you a deal. The sweetest offer I could possibly fathom for you, based upon what you long for most, in your heart of hearts – your shadow-will.”

  “And what do you think I long for?” Theroun growled through his agony. “What is this darkness that breaks me to your command?”

  “Absolution.” Jornath’s gaze was deep, penetrating. “You long for your Queen to set her hand to your brow. To tell you it will be alright. To tell you that you are forgiven for your atrocities against your King her father. To tell you that you are forgiven, for having this rabid Beast that lives deep within you.”

  Something gripped Theroun. It wasn’t his rising wyrria, but his own heart, screaming in agony. It was his soul giving a horrible wail to know that Khorel Jornath was absolutely, terribly right. The man had read him like a hand of cards, and Theroun folded to that wretched understanding of his shadow-will. For a long moment, he could not even breathe, so keen was his suffering – because no one had ever forgiven him for the atrocities he had committed in his long and brutal life. No one had ever looked into his eyes and set their hand upon his head, and allowed him to kneel before them and pour out his guilt and regret for everything he’d done at the Aphellian Way.

  And if Elyasin died, he would never have it.

  “I’m listening,” Theroun growled softly.

  “Take our oaths.” Jornath leaned in, his grey eyes intent. “Learn our ways. Choose our Order over your own death and I will spare your Queen from my hunt. I am the only one that knows the secret of the tunnels from the Dremorande. None of the other Brethren encamped here can penetrate my mind. If I say that Adelaine died with her secret firmly locked inside her, if I tell my Brethren and Lhaurent that I was unable to break that last piece of her, then so shall it be. The tunnels shall remain sealed. No Brethren will pursue your Queen. And we will move on to where Lhaurent wishes to send us, and engage ourselves elsewhere.”

  Theroun breathed softly, considering all that had been said. “Can you ensure Elyasin’s safety against Lhaurent?”

  “No,” Khorel breathed. “But I can give her a fighting chance. If she comes forward directly against Lhaurent to take her throne back, I cannot protect her. But I can give her this escape. If we catch her in the tunnels, Theroun, she will die. But not before Lhaurent makes her suffer.”

  Theroun drew a breath against his pain, then let it out. “Lhaurent is a madman.”

  “Lhaurent is a tyrant,” Jornath responded. “Nothing more, nothing less. Will you take my bargain, Theroun? Will you save your Queen and yourself?”

  “Will I have to serve Lhaurent?”

  “Perhaps,” Jornath murmured, his dark eyes ancient. “But I can promise you that as an Acolyte of our order, you will not be put to task for some time. You will be trained, tested, kept close to monitor your success in besting that which writhes within you. But we will not activate you in the field unless we have a dire need for your talents.”

  “So I become your peon.”

  “You become my Scion. Personally.”

  Something in Khorel’s gaze was so penetrating, so ancient, that Theroun’s curiosity rose. “Scion? What do you mean?”

  Khorel breathed deep. “You are precious, Theroun, perhaps more than you know. The natural wyrric talents within you, which have been latent until now, are tremendous. Even without training, even without your wyrria awake and aware, you were able to best me, thrice. Do not think that has gone unnoticed. All my Brethren whisper of it. Contrary to what you might believe, I have not truly been bested in a god’s age, and the last time I was...” Jornath’s lips lifted in a haunted smile, “it was by the grandson of my god, a man named Fentleith Alodwine. I submit to Lhaurent because he carries the strongest power we’ve seen in over ten decades. But though I have let his power wash over me, thunder through me so all my Brethren could taste it and know Lhaurent for what he is, that power has not truly hammered me down in the way that you struck me. Thrice.”

  “So what is it that you want of me?” Theroun growled.

  Khorel leaned forward in his ch
air, elbows on knees again. “I want to train you. I want you to take up my lineage. I want to give you the surname den’Jornath, so that all may know you are my Scion, my adept-in-training. The one who will replace me in my position of High Priest when I fall. There are only eight High Priests in our entire Order. Above me are only four Sages. And above them, only the High Master stands supreme. Who once was balanced by our High Mistress, Metrene den’Yesh – but that is a story for another day. You would come into our order twenty ranks above the regular Acolytes. It will cause a stir, but it is not without historical precedent for a man so highly accomplished and naturally talented.”

  “And what of the captured Elsthemi army?” Theroun spoke, processing this information.

  Jornath sat back. “They will be used as Lhaurent sees fit. Conscripted. After I send pursuit after your Queen, I am ordered to take the entire host south, to fight at the Aphellian Way against Valenghia. Now that he controls Alrou-Mendera and has culled Elsthemen, Lhaurent sets his gaze upon the tilthlands of the Vine. And we will support him, until his aims are finished.”

  “What if his aims never cease?”

  “Then we will continue to fight at his side,” Jornath responded. “And watch behind his back. For as absolute power grows, so does the window to the Red-Eyed Demon. Lhaurent wishes to have control of the world. The Demon wishes for the world to fall. Some enemies are the ocean, Theroun, and some are but a drop of rain upon that ocean. I have learned to choose my battles over the millennia that I have been alive. And enduring the orders of tyrants has only made me know my deepest darkness, which makes me strong. Stronger, to face the Demon when he comes at last.”

  “You sacrifice the few to save the many,” Theroun murmured.

  “Just as you have upon every battlefield of every campaign you’ve ever fought.”

  “The soldiers I sacrificed knew what they were in for.”

  “Did they?” Jornath’s grey eyes pierced in the candlelight. “Boys hardly grown into men. Green fodder for arrows and lances. Terrified and shitting themselves at the moment of death, their sword limp in their hands. Plenty of innocents die in battle, Theroun. And the ones who do not are forever changed. Stronger. Just as you will be to join the battle of the ages.”

  Theroun breathed softly in the dark night. A roiling pain gripped him and he grunted, resuming a brief spate of fast breaths. But upon its heels came another, and another. With a roar, the blackness inside him surged, slamming against the last threads of Jornath’s silver net, ready to be free.

  “Your time has come.” Khorel Jornath sat up straight in his chair, his eyes narrowed upon Theroun. “In moments, your wyrria will be free and your sanity will be gone. Choose, Theroun. And choose quickly.”

  Theroun closed his eyes. Fighting back the raging wyrria within, he breathed steadily, processing his choice. If he took Khorel’s bargain, it would make him a slave, entered into a contract he could never be free of. But that choice would save his Queen from a fate more horrible than death at the hands of his worst enemy. More than that, it would place Theroun in a position to learn a skill that might make him of tremendous use to his Queen.

  Or perhaps learn enough to bring the entire Order of the Kreth-Hakir down from within.

  Theroun took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “I accept your bargain.”

  Khorel said nothing. He watched Theroun for a long moment, something ancient in his grey gaze. “I see you, Black Viper,” the High Priest murmured at last. “I see my death in your eyes.”

  “Take my acceptance or let me perish,” Theroun growled, vicious. “For I cannot arrest what I am, not anymore. My wyrria longs to strike, Khorel Jornath. And if Uhlas learned anything during his kingship, it was this: that the viper cares not for friend or foe. It strikes the one who is closest to it – the hand who feeds it.”

  “And yet,” Jornath returned, his dark eyes dire, “you have more loyalty to your dead liege than any man I’ve ever met.”

  “Because he was my greatest regret.”

  Theroun could say no more. The wyrria within him surged, ready for release. In a sudden burst, it roared free. Khorel Jornath’s net exploded into silver mist. Theroun screamed, his body alight with pain. Poison ran his veins. Fire and ice, hot and cold, the fevers of the viper’s venom, and there was no stopping it this time.

  Some part of his breaking mind felt Khorel Jornath leap up from his chair, yanking back his herringbone-woven jerkin and exposing his chest as Theroun began to thrash upon the bed. A knife made of nothing but woven quicksilver threads flashed across the High Priest’s chest over his heart. Blood blossomed crimson at Khorel Jornath’s heart as he pinned Theroun down fast as a striking scorpion, seizing Theroun by the nape of his neck and drawing his thrashing lips to the blood.

  Drink, viper. Khorel Jornath’s command thundered through Theroun with the weight of eons. Sink your fangs in and drink of our blood. Drink of our lineage, drink of our pain. Drink of our heart and our body. Let the essence of the Kreth-Hakir Brotherhood live within you. Take of our will, and be taken by ours in return. Theroun den’Vekir of Alrou-Mendera is dead. Let Theroun den’Jornath of the Scorpions be born.

  Theroun’s wyrria raged. It was ruin, it was death, and it wanted nothing more than to strike Khorel Jornath and drink him dry. With a roar, Theroun did, sinking his teeth into the High Priest’s chest. Khorel Jornath cried out, and Theroun began to suck at the wound. Blood flowed into his mouth, sweet and metallic with the taste of life and death and ruin. A tremendous energy rushed through him and his hand flashed up, seizing behind Jornath’s neck and holding him fast. Theroun’s seizures abated as he drank and drank; all the pain, all the wretchedness. And what had begun with Adelaine ended with Khorel, as the waking of the Beast subsided within Theroun, and he felt the enormous darkness of his wyrria settle at last – awake, aware, and ready to be used.

  “Enough.” The words rasped from Khorel’s throat. “Theroun, enough.”

  Theroun made a vicious hiss in his throat. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. The blood was too sweet, the satisfaction of draining his enemy too pure.

  “Enough, Scion!”

  The command thundered through Theroun and slammed him backward beneath a pummeling wave of quicksilver. His lips broke from Khorel’s chest and he drew a gasping breath. The High Priest shuddered above him, breathing hard, blood gushing from the mangled bite and blade wound.

  Gazing down, Khorel stared into Theroun’s eyes. Breath heaving and eyes misted, his voice was shaky when he finally spoke. “Scion of my Blood. I see you now for what you are. Others have called you a black viper, but there are many vipers of dark and destructive will in this world. You are something else. You are the suna hebi, he of black coils who rises up from the desert sands to attack without warning. With this consecration tonight, I commit you to what you are. Just as I also commit myself, to my own death in the hebi’s black coils.”

  Lowering his head, Khorel Jornath brought his lips to Theroun’s. The coiling wyrric darkness rose inside Theroun, enjoying the blood shared between their mouths. A promise between them, sealed in blood, of everything that had been and everything that would come to be. When Khorel drew away, his breath was shaky. For a moment he trembled with the power of what they had shared. And then his eyes hardened, until he stared down at Theroun with twin opals of utter dominance.

  “This is the first and last time I will ever be at your mercy, suna hebi,” Khorel spoke. “Come and kill me now, if you can.”

  With a fast whip-strike, Theroun’s wyrria rose. He lunged at Khorel Jornath not only with his body but also with his mind, a wrath of oilslick black tendrils rather than quicksilver, shooting from his essence in a tremendous weave. A complexity he didn’t understand but knew would kill. Jornath jerked backwards, eyes wide. And slammed Theroun’s dark, venomous weaves back with a wall of solid silver, smashing him down through the bowels of the earth.

  Theroun den’Jornath fell back to the bed, annihilated, as hi
s vision flickered out to darkness.

  * * *

  No one came to wake Theroun. His door stood open, unlocked, as morning sunlight flooded in through his meager window. Kreth-Hakir and Menderian soldiers bustled about the cathedral’s corridor, carrying sacks of grain over their shoulders, kegs of ale, and crates of telmen-wine. Theroun stretched, feeling better than he had in weeks. The wyrria inside him was quiescent, and even his regular aches and pains did not bother him. The old wound in his side was merely a twinge this morning, and Theroun marveled at the good that sleep had done him.

  Or perhaps Khorel Jornath’s blood.

  The wyrric force within him stirred at the thought of blood. Of shedding it, of causing it, of drinking it, of watching it flow from his enemies. Theroun shrugged on his shirt, then the Elsthemi garb and furs he’d been captured in. He was most of the way through dressing when he spied something upon the bedside table. Frowning, he stepped over to it. It wasn’t like him to miss a detail about his surroundings.

  Standing at the table, Theroun stopped cold. His fingers reached out, touching the garment that lay there. So neatly folded, with military precision. The weave of the leather and the setting of the silver studs were impeccable, the stitching detailed. His fingers slid over the jerkin, lifted it. The leather was supple in his hands, feather-light with a thin quilted silk under-jerkin.

  All of it, black as death.

  The herringbone garb made the reality of his decision hit him. Theroun was theirs. No longer Elyasin’s, or Uhlas’. No longer a General of Alrou-Mendera, or a leader of armies. After whatever had passed last night, he wasn’t entirely certain he was even a man any longer. But that was the question he needed answers to – where the Black Viper stopped, and the man began.

  He left the garb upon the table. Pushing out the open door, he took the hallway at a military clip. Jogging up the stairs to the chapel two at a time, he pushed through the doors to find the cathedral’s main hall in disarray, full of crates and barrels, sacks and provisions. Kreth-Hakir came and went through the open main doors into the high autumn sunshine, transporting goods. They nodded their notice of Theroun, but that was all, rushing silently about their tasks.