Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  “Have you Seen it?” Elohl cupped her face, searching her eyes.

  Not precisely. Ghrenna held firm, taking the deep breath of her Kingsman training. Morvein’s memories recall a tyrant, King Alcinus den’Alrahel of Alrou-Mendera, who had much power back in her day, even though he wasn’t Goldenmarked. Because of his immensely dominating wyrria, that man brought nations to ruin eight hundred years ago because he believed in his right to rule, similar to Lhaurent, and he had the Kreth-Hakir Brethren on his side. The Brother Kings fought him hard, but no power was enough to overcome him. It was utter chaos, Elohl. I fear––

  “That Lhaurent would bring such chaos upon us.”

  And worse. He will bind every living soul into his madness.

  “How do I stop him?”

  Find the reason the Marks chose you.

  “What do you mean?” Elohl pulled Ghrenna closer, watching her face.

  The Goldenmarks... Ghrenna’s brows knit, as if recalling something. Morvein received a vision through the sands of time, Elohl. Of a king with umber hair out in the desert at a ruined city. He sent a desperate jumble of thoughts through time, Elohl. Like a lifeline flung out with every power he had left. He sent it to find the one person strong enough to continue his work, to complete the Rennkavi’s Ritual. That vision found Morvein, two hundred years after it was sent. She ventured under the mountains to find a Giannyk named Bhorlen, to learn how to create the Goldenmarks the way this desert king had shown her.

  “Leith Alodwine. Last King of Khehem...” Elohl’s gaze lifted to the massive dragon-stone, and he felt it give a slow pulse, as if acknowledging his attention.

  You know of Leith? Ghrenna blinked, startled.

  “I met Bhorlen. And I’m traveling with Leith’s grandson, Fentleith Alodwine,” Elohl chuckled, finding some amusement in fate at last. “I’m blood-kin to Leith, apparently.”

  The Wolf and Dragon rise within you. Ghrenna’s hand pressed his chest at his Blackmarked Inkings, but it was the Goldenmarks that thrummed to her touch. Leith created the Marks you wear. When his plans were sundered by his untimely demise, he threw them through time to Morvein, who learned from the Giannyk how to fashion them. When her attempt to impart the Marks to the young Theos den’Alrahel failed, destroying the White Ring of power before she could even get to the true Rennkavi’s Ritual, Morvein thrust her understanding of the Marks into her Brother Kings and trapped them in Alranstones, binding herself to her bones so her soul would rise again when she was needed once more. Hahled Ferrian marked you because the Marks resonated with you, Elohl. You are the Rennkavi. And your destiny with me is bound, leading us to the White Ring to complete this eons-old magic.

  “But what of Lhaurent? Why did he receive the marks?” Elohl countered.

  I don’t know, Ghrenna breathed to the night. I only know that Hahled felt compelled to Mark Lhaurent, because the Marks understood Lhaurent also. Perhaps it was a mistake, perhaps there is a reason for it. Leith didn’t pass his whys along to Morvein in his last desperate feat of communication, Elohl. He only passed on what had to be done to prevent the rise of an ancient evil. Without the Rennkavi brought into the fullness of his power by the Rennkavi’s Ritual, to unite the world against the Red-Eyed Demon, we are all destined to fall.

  “The Red-Eyed Demon. It sounds like a nightmare,” Elohl mused, a shudder sweeping him in the starlit night.

  It’s more than a nightmare, Ghrenna cuddled close against him, burying her nose in his chest, her warm cheek to his skin. It’s ultimate, fathomless destruction. Long ago, two wyrric peoples united to fight against it, the Giannyk and the Albrenni. They banished it, but against such an evil even winning was a loss...

  Elohl brushed back strands of Ghrenna’s luminous hair back from her face. She glanced up beneath the starlight, her drowning blue eyes filled with ancient pain. Ghrenna had always been in pain, abandoned, alone, and Elohl wanted to banish that pain. He wanted to take it and shred it with teeth and claws; to coil around her and crush her close until she understood that she was never alone, – and that nothing could separate the powerful love they held between them.

  Pulling her close, Elohl let that feeling flood him. His Goldenmarks blazed beneath his jerkin, scalding his skin like they breathed fire. Ghrenna inhaled, her eyelashes fluttering, and Elohl knew she could feel it, everything he was feeling. All his raw emotions and his love with it. The roar of his Goldenmarks filled the night, shuddering the tall grass. Sliding over the dragon-stone and making it heat with a mirage upon the midnight wind, like it writhed beneath the stars – talons stretching, coils sliding, jaws snarling.

  “What do we have to do?” Elohl held Ghrenna firm in his hands and in his power, even though she was a thousand leagues away.

  Find me, Ghrenna breathed. I am under the Kingsmountains, at the place where I must work the Rennkavi’s Ritual – the White Ring. The Rennkavi can’t hold the Unification without this final piece, Elohl. And this is what we have that Lhaurent doesn’t – me. I am your Gerunthane, the one who can begin the ceremony, channeling it for you, that you will complete. A ceremony that will open all the ways of wyrria for you to bind and use. Lhaurent’s efforts at Unification will be incomplete without this. I can deliver this power to you, and you alone. Watch for me, Elohl. I will find you when the time comes.

  Holding her close, Elohl didn’t want to let her go, no matter that dire fates were being planned this night. “Stay. Be with me tonight. Tomorrow we may go to war. But tonight––”

  Tonight we love.

  Ghrenna moved in. Pressing her body against his, her spirit molded to Elohl’s flesh. The taste of evergreen and wintermint slid across his tongue as she set her lips to his. Her arms wound around his neck as he crushed her close. Her midnight breath sighed through the field, kissing him in a thousand ways as Elohl took her body down to the tall grass. His power blazed, heating the night as they moved in the darkness.

  Consummating their love in bliss, even though their heart’s other half cried out a thousand leagues away.

  CHAPTER 38 – THEROUN

  Come, Scion. It is time for our meeting with Lhaurent.

  Khorel Jornath’s grey eyes sliced Theroun like cold steel as Jornath stormed into the command tent in the depths of the midnight hush. His high-cheeked face a thundercloud, he flicked his fingers, an imperious gesture he hardly used with Theroun. Theroun had been packing extra armor in a trunk, preparing for their march out of Ligenia at dawn, and he straightened, massaging out a cramp in his side. Khorel was obviously in a terrible mood, and Theroun lifted his eyebrows at that, as the man rarely let his emotions be seen.

  Theroun kept his cool far better than the High Priest tonight, moving toward the tent-flap in his Kreth-Hakir garb and ducking out into the luminous night after Jornath. Three days after their mind-meeting with Lhaurent, they still had no answer about the extra naval support Jornath had requested. And though Theroun had been predominantly unsuccessful at joining in that meeting, Lhaurent had felt his presence, and his displeasure had tainted the entire negotiation. Jornath had been visibly tense ever since.

  Ships far down in the harbor gleamed beneath the sickle moon, deck-lanterns flickering like fireflies in the brisk night as Khorel strode quickly down the cliff-walk through the salt spray, zigzagging down the steps that led away from the harbor and towards Ligenia’s Alranstone at the edge of the cliff-camp. The camp was quiet tonight, only a few soldiers striding about with final preparations to move the army out in the morning. Khorel threaded through it all with hooded eyes, acknowledging no-one, and Theroun followed. Through a copse of salal, they came to the small Alranstone clearing. A three-eye Stone, it wasn’t a terribly impressive one, squat and tapered to an oblong point. Formed of a smoky Hellenthine quartzite that was native to the area, the Alranstone had only the top eye open to the moonlight, casting a hazy carmine glow through the night.

  Menderian soldiers with lanterns ringed the Stone, hands ready at their weapons. They nodded to Jornath a
s he stepped up, and Theroun could see with his improving mind-sight that the smooth character of the quicksilver weaves threaded through these men were Jornath’s impressively subtle bind. Since his blood-oath to Jornath, Theroun was seeing mind-weaves more and more, sometimes just a subtle flash of silver at the corners of his vision, sometimes strong and glowing so bright in his mind-sight that he was surprised they weren’t visible in the real world.

  Jornath’s binds were such; bright, impeccably created, strong. The soldiers who guarded the Alranstone made no move to intercept Khorel and he did not address them. With a look from Jornath, the soldiers parted, permitting access. Striding forward, Khorel set a hand to the Stone, then turned to Theroun, his grey gaze piercing in the wan moonlight.

  “Put your palm to the Stone,” Khorel commanded. “When we arrive at Roushenn, you are to be absolutely silent unless instructed by me to respond. Am I clear?”

  Theroun lifted an eyebrow. “Do you expect trouble?”

  “From Lhaurent? Always.” Khorel’s thick lips lifted in a small smile, but it was quickly doused. “Don’t be a problem tonight, Theroun. Remember that you and I are far more aligned in interest than he whom we serve. But we go because we must. Place your hand upon the Stone.”

  Theroun didn’t like the sound of that, but he did as he was instructed. He promptly felt that horrible, vise-grip sensation of being sucked into the cavernous maw of the universe, ground up into powder, and spat back out the other side. He stumbled as he emerged from an Alranstone upon the other side and caught himself from falling.

  They’d come out in an enormous, vaulted room. Flickers of images showed high above – vantages of the City of Lintesh, the Kingsmount, the Elhambrian plains. Theroun knew those vantages well. One was of the First Abbey grounds, but he hardly recognized it, as if some enormous earthquake had swallowed the Abbey whole. They stood upon a high dais in the center of a vast sea of Praoughian clockwork machinery that chugged on in a thundering drone.

  “This way.”

  Khorel flicked his fingers, and they moved across the high dais and down along an avenue through the machinery, coming to the wall of the dome. Khorel pressed his hand to a section and a door opened in it, where only seamless bluestone had been before. The door swung outward and Khorel strode into a dim hall, lit by vapid blue globes that swirled in the high vaults.

  “Where are we?” Theroun murmured.

  “Have you never been back here, behind the walls of Roushenn?” Khorel turned a slightly surprised glance upon Theroun as they ducked into another hallway, vaulted like the last. Theroun gazed up and around, impressed even as he set his jaw, realizing how many secrets Lhaurent had kept from him, and from his Queen. Blue globes whirled overhead, some wisping down near his face as if curious.

  “I’ve never been in a part of Roushenn that looks like this. Are these Lhaurent’s secret spy passages?”

  “Among other things. Here.”

  Khorel turned, pushing against another section of rough bluestone wall. It moved to his touch as if it had been primed; swinging inwards and admitting them to a vast octagonal room full of bookshelves. Crammed with arcane items, tomes, and scrolls, the room was elegantly appointed like a lord’s reading-room. Lush Perthian carpets were strewn over the cold bluestone floor, velvet chaises grouped here and there. A fireplace blazed in one corner, though as Theroun approached, he saw it was not a real fire but a swirling collection of the same globes that haunted the hallway, except these were crimson and gave a deep heat like real fire.

  Theroun’s eyebrows climbed his face as he and Khorel approached the fireplace. And then promptly scowled, to see the man sitting in the ancient leather armchair there, sipping blood-red wine from a golden chalice as he perused a slender volume bound in cobalt leather resting in his lap. A second matching volume sat upon the table next to him; a rack of resplendent white armor made of a silvered metal Theroun didn’t recognize stood near the fire also. Matching weapons with rubies in their hilts glimmered in the fire’s sorcerous light, as if their jewels drank the blood of the flames. The ruby ring upon Lhaurent’s index finger did the same as Lhaurent set aside the cobalt volume with practiced stillness, then gestured to a chaise near his chair. Khorel Jornath dipped his chin in respect before settling to the chaise. Theroun, wondering what this was all about, did the same.

  Lhaurent den’Alrahel regarded them with cool dispassion, but did not rise. His grey-opal eyes shone in the false firelight, as if they drew energy from the swirling globes. Immaculately trimmed, slicked, and perfumed as ever, he nonetheless had a haggardness about him. Highlighted by the sorcerous fire, Theroun could see that Lhaurent’s cheeks were gaunt, and a fever seemed to burn in the hollows of his eyes.

  As Theroun’s gaze fell to the man’s royal white robe chased with golden thread, he couldn’t hide his surprise. Lhaurent was missing an arm, right from his Aeon-damned shoulder. His left sleeve draped, empty, only his right hand protruding from his right sleeve and bringing his wine goblet to his sallow lips again before setting it aside.

  “The prodigal General returns.” Lhaurent gazed upon Theroun as if someone had taken a shit on his shoe, his lips twisted in distaste. His voice held his regular smooth tones, but raspy, as if the man had done much screaming of late. Theroun wondered again how Lhaurent’s arm had been taken, and couldn’t stop the small smile that crept in around his lips as he glorified in Lhaurent’s maiming. He wanted to stride over there and grab that stump; dig his knife into that tender flesh. But Khorel Jornath’s slicing quicksilver words inside Theroun’s mind made him flinch.

  Envision our Rennkavi again in such a manner and I will make you grovel, Scion.

  Theroun took a steadying breath, then gave Jornath a nod. “Forgive me, Brother Jornath.”

  He watched Lhaurent’s black eyebrows climb his forehead, an astounded watchfulness tensing his lean frame. “So. It is true. You have broken him to the Brethren.”

  “As I said before, Brother Theroun is an asset to our cause, Rennkavi.” Khorel Jornath’s words were placid, and he let no emotion show, not upon his person and not from his mind.

  “He was supposed to die in Elsthemen, as an example. Not be broken into your Order.”

  “Brother Theroun’s mind is tethered to mine,” Jornath was pleasant as he argued back, giving nothing away. “His stratagems, his battle plans, his knowledge of the Aphellian Way. When we are finished with our campaign, he will be dealt with. But for now, his asset is his living memory.”

  “Can you not simply drain his memories and stick a knife in his gut?” They were talking about Theroun as if he wasn’t there. Theroun wondered if Khorel had told him to be silent because they needed to show Lhaurent he was essentially a prisoner. But he’d been allowed to wear the studded black of the Brethren to this meeting. Theroun puzzled on that as Khorel answered his Rennkavi.

  “Our mind-abilities don’t work that way, Rennkavi,” Khorel gave Lhaurent a thin smile, but a deferential nod. “Memories degrade quickly when stolen from the host. I would have Theroun’s memories a few days, little more. Not long enough to fight this war for you. Keeping Theroun alive and tethered to me allows his thoughts and memories and planning to be ever-available to my inquiry. Which is essential to our success upon the Aphellian Way.”

  Lhaurent’s gaze narrowed upon Theroun. And then his smile grew cruel. “Show me. Show me the cur has been tamed.”

  Theroun had but a moment of Khorel’s thought wisp through his mind, this will hurt, before he was suddenly twisted with so much pain that he spasmed off the chaise. Falling forward, he landed upon the rug before the hearth, seizing uncontrollably. Pain exploded through his body – ripping, twisting, devouring, exploding behind his eyeballs in lurid starbursts so badly he couldn’t even scream. The vastness of his torture was unlike anything he’d ever felt, besides the roaring agony of his own wyrria rising.

  Suddenly, his own power whipped back. Like a lash of black oil, it struck at Khorel Jornath. The man didn’t s
hudder and his body didn’t wince, but Jornath rolled back his power, something like a smile twisting into Theroun’s dazed and ravaged mind.

  Very good, Scion. Your abilities are growing. Now play along, or get us both killed.

  Theroun gasped with his cheek upon the carpet. His breath was pure fire, his body worse, but at least he had his mind back. Tears of pain leaked from his eyes, and he barely heard Lhaurent’s smooth voice when the bastard said, “Now. Have him kiss my hem.”

  Do it. Jornath’s voice was inside Theroun’s mind, but without any pull against Theroun’s will. It was simply one man urging another to not be stupid. Theroun struggled to his hands and knees, everything an aching fury. His mangled side hurt most of all, but he managed to struggle over to Lhaurent and press his lips to the hem of Lhaurent’s robe down by his feet.

  The man struck out like a whip, booting Theroun up under the chin. Theroun’s jaw clacked hard, gouging his tongue with his teeth. He was kicked over, his palms barely finding the hearth before his head smacked the lintel of the fireplace. Blood filled his mouth, dripping down his chin. Theroun gasped, additional pain rioting through his head.

  Lhaurent rose. Staring down with vast pleasure in his fevered eyes, he came to one knee. Before Theroun knew it, the bastard had gripped Theroun’s hair in his fist. Gazing into Theroun’s eyes, he let Theroun see his mind. Something awful moved there. Something dark and bright at the same time, that held nothing but evil. A shiver of shock lanced Theroun, horror fast upon its heels. Suddenly, the empty sleeve of Lhaurent’s silk robe filled. Like an eel slithering out of dark waters, the fabric now had mass behind it. A writhing, terrible presence, as if the sleeve was occupied by a nest of snakes.

  Shrugging down his robe without releasing Theroun, Lhaurent bared his left shoulder. Showing Theroun a new arm made of dark matter that twisted through with writhing golden sigils. As Lhaurent’s arm filled out to a fully-functional hand, Theroun saw it was being emanated from the sigils that cascaded across his pale skin. As if the golden seal written inside Lhaurent’s flesh caused this arm to be made from the vastness of the cosmos itself. That spectral arm moved with inky currents, swirling and spreading out from the Goldenmarks and being resorbed. As Theroun watched, a slow sunlight blaze seared through those marks, lighting them up like a night full of imploding stars.