Beyond Compare

by Candace Camp

  Ashcombe nodded unhappily. “Yes. I am afraid that he is. He has become more and more determined to find that diamond over the last few years. Frankly, I wasn’t sure that either it or the reliquary existed except in his mind—until you and Lady Kyria showed it to me here. Lord Walford is sick. He…well, as I told you, he was a wild young man, and he contracted syphilis long ago in his youth. He is already showing signs of the mania. He knows that he is unwell, that he will die. But he believes that the Heart of the Night can cure his illness.”

  “What?”

  “I told you, the disease has affected his mind. He believes that the diamond and the goddess will give him immortality. He has started a group of worshipers. Some are men who worked for him in the Levant. Others are Englishmen, susceptible young gentlemen with too little to do and not much sense. They hold meetings and worship the goddess. Lord Walford wants to have a ceremony—the sort of thing I told you about the other day, Mr. McIntyre.”

  “That explains why he took the box, but what about Kyria?” Theo asked. “Why the devil did he take our sister?”

  “Is he so far gone that he plans to kill her?” Reed added anxiously.

  Ashcombe’s gaze skittered around, and he started to speak, then paused, then cleared his throat. “He plans, I think, to reenact the ancient ceremony where the king, ah, couples with the goddess in the form of a priestess. The king, ah, becomes a god, immortal, and the goddess is reborn.”

  The three men stared at him, shocked. Finally Rafe said through bloodless lips, “You are saying he means to use her in the ceremony, to rape her.”

  “And precisely how will she be reborn?” Theo asked him grimly.

  “Well, in some of the cultures, it was merely a…a symbolic thing. The couple retired and, um…But in others, the king took the ceremonial knife and after the, ah, intercourse, the priestess, a virgin, of course, was, um…slain.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Kyria slowly returned to consciousness. Her head was pounding, and she had no idea where she was or why she was there. She closed her eyes and lay still for a moment, and gradually she began to remember the day. Theo returned home late this morning, and then sometime this afternoon, he and Reed…

  Her eyes flew open as she remembered Lord Walford coming into the study unannounced. He had seized the reliquary at gunpoint and forced her to come along, too. She remembered walking to the front door, then out…After that, there was nothing.

  Clearly, she thought, he succeeded in abducting her. Why else would she be in this strange room? She tried to sit up, and it was then that she realized that she was bound, hand and foot. It was not rope, but a soft, silken cord that did not abrade her skin. Her bound feet and hands were each tied to one of the posts of the bed, and she effectively could not move.

  And she was not wearing her own clothes. A shiver ran through her as she gazed down at her body. She was dressed in a white garment resembling something she might have seen on a piece of her father’s pottery. A gold clasp fastened one shoulder, leaving a sweep of train that would fall down her back if she stood, and around her waist was a golden cord. Her hair had been taken down, and it fell in curls around her shoulders.

  It made Kyria’s skin crawl to think of someone changing her clothes while she was unconscious. Worse, she wondered if it had been Walford who had done it.

  The door opened, and she tensed. Lord Walford entered. Kyria saw that he, too, was wearing a long, tuniclike costume, white, like hers, but with a purple train fastened at the shoulders with clips and trailing down his back. A gold belt went around his waist, and on it was fastened a scabbard with a jewel-encrusted hilt sticking out. His feet were clad in gold sandals.

  It looked to Kyria as if they were dressed for a costume ball.

  Walford smiled. “Ah, my goddess, you are awake now. I am glad. It is growing time for the ceremony. We eagerly await you.”

  Kyria stared at him dumbly. The man sounded quite mad.

  “Please, do not be angry with me,” he went on in an apologetic tone. “I am sorry that I had to hurt you. I would not have harmed you for the world, but there was no time to explain to you, to make you understand. I assure you, you have been treated with the utmost respect, as befits you.”

  “Respect?” Kyria asked, dismayed that her voice came out in a rusty croak. She looked down expressively at her clothes.

  “Of course. Do not worry. It was not I who put on these garments. One of your handmaidens helped to dress you. You must, of course, be properly attired for the ceremony.”

  “Ceremony?” Kyria repeated. “What are you…? I don’t understand.”

  “No, neither did I, at first.” He came closer to her, his eyes blazing with eager delight. “The goddess does not reveal all of her plan to us mortals until the time is right. But when you received the Heart of Night, I knew that it was meant to be. I saw for the first time the true wonder of Her plan, the breadth of Her wisdom.”

  The goddess? Kyria simply looked at her captor, thunderstruck. Is he talking about the goddess Inanna that Ashcombe had told us about?

  “I knew she would give me immortality. I knew the sacred stone would heal me. But I did not understand until you appeared that I must conduct the entire ceremony. The warrior king must come to his goddess. And you—you are the very embodiment of the goddess, pure beauty and fire. It is you who must carry the dark jewel that Inanna brought forth from the depths of the underworld. You who must bring immortality to your mortal lover and be yourself reborn.”

  Kyria’s mind was spinning. The man was clearly mad—and quite terrifying. She could not get around the fact that he sounded as if he intended to mate with her in the sort of ancient ceremony that Ashcombe had described to them. Everything within her quailed at the thought. Oh, Rafe, where are you? Where are Reed and Theo? Do you have any idea where I am or what has happened?

  “No. Please, I know you think that this is what is meant, but I am quite sure that it is not,” she said. “You have the box, you have the Heart of Night. You don’t need me.”

  “Oh, no, my goddess. You test me. But I know now what must happen. I will not swerve from it. The time has come. Your worshipers await you.”

  He turned with a grand gesture and clapped his hands. Four men trooped into the room. They were dressed in hooded black robes. They wore no masks, and Kyria realized with a thrill of fear that they were not worrying about her identifying them. They knew that she would not leave this place alive.

  The men came forward, and one of them bent to untie the cords that bound her feet to the bedpost. As soon as the knot came loose from the post, Kyria whipped back her legs and lashed upward, using the whole force of her body to crack the man in the face with her feet. His head snapped back, and he stumbled backward, falling and crashing into a chair. Kyria hopped off the bed, but her hands were still tied to posts and she could not move. In frustration she yanked at her rope.

  “Bloody hell!” she exclaimed, using one of Theo’s favorite oaths.

  “Well, go get her,” Walford said pettishly, waving the other men forward. He turned to Kyria. “You have no need to fight. You are going to be honored.”

  Kyria looked at the other men. “You dare to touch me!” she shouted at them. She flung her hair back with a toss of her head, straightening as best she could while still attached to the bed, trying for as haughty a look as she could manage. “The goddess will smite you for laying a hand on her high priestess! You will die a violent and horrible death, for Inanna allows no harm to come to her handmaidens!”

  She thought it was a pretty good speech, and it seemed to work on the men, for they hesitated and looked from her to Walford.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” Walford snapped irritably. “She is lying to you. The goddess wants us to conduct the ceremony. You know that. Take her downstairs.” He quirked an eyebrow. “What, is this something you Englishmen haven’t the courage to do? Do I have to call the bloody Turks?”

  His remark seemed to decide the men, for
they came forward, though they moved warily as they reached past Kyria and unfastened the other ropes from the bedposts.

  “Then you are Englishmen?” Kyria gasped. She could see that, indeed, their hands and their faces inside the hoods were fair-skinned. Somehow this kicked her fear into an even greater anger. “Englishmen, and you would do this to a woman?”

  They dragged her out from the bed a little, one man on either side of her, firmly grasping her arms. As they held her, Kyria immediately kicked out at the third man and then twisted, trying to kick the two who held her. It was difficult, however, to land much of any blow, as she had to kick sideways, and the men immediately began to drag her forward through the door, so that she had to use her feet to walk.

  She did not cease struggling as they dragged her out the door after Walford, the other two men falling in behind them, one of them still cupping his sore jaw. Nor did she stop the steady stream of verbal condemnation she rained down on them, denigrating their ancestors, their courage, their strength and their masculinity.

  The small procession made its way down a set of back stairs, coming out into a room, then going down and down a circular staircase for what seemed an eternity to Kyria. They came out at last onto a landing, which opened out onto a vast room. Kyria drew in a sharp breath.

  The room was enormous, at least two stories tall, the ceiling supported by huge stone pillars. Around the gray-stone walls were sconces that held torches, casting an eerie, flickering light. Dozens of men in black robes stood in a ring around a raised dais in the center of the room. A block of dark marble lay in the middle of the dais, and on either end of it were low braziers. Both were lit, and thick smoke curled up from them, strongly aromatic.

  Kyria remembered her dreams—the dark stone walls and the flickering torchlight, the braziers. She remembered, too, the fear that built inside her to the point of terror. Did I dream this moment, foreseeing the future? Or was I remembering something, instead, some moment from thousands of years past? Kyria shivered, the hair on the back of her neck prickling in a fear more primitive than the dread of what waited before her now.

  Walford paused at the edge of the wide staircase leading down to the floor below, and all heads in the room turned toward him. When he had everyone’s attention, he started down the stairs, Kyria and her guards right behind him. When they reached the bottom, two of the black-robed figures came forward, carrying cushions on which rested two golden circlets. Behind them marched another man, this one holding in his hands the Reliquary of the Holy Standard, turned so that the black diamond on the front of it faced upward.

  The men knelt before Walford, and he held out his hands over their heads as if in blessing. Then he reached down and took the smaller of the two crowns and turned to Kyria. She saw that it was a simple golden band, the front of which rose into the Knot of Inanna. Gravely Walford set it onto her head. Turning, he picked up the matching crown and set it on his own head. Then, taking the reliquary, he held the box up in the same manner as the other man had and walked to the altar. They moved in a slow, measured tread, Kyria continuing to struggle even as she schemed to get out of this some way. She had to fight and delay them, to give Rafe time to find her. She realized with a cold stab of fear that it might be that he and her brothers would not be able to find her at all. In that case, her only hope was herself.

  She looked at the dozens of men around her, their faces avid inside their hoods. It was a daunting prospect.

  They reached the dais, and Walford set the reliquary down on the altar, then turned to Kyria. A ring on one end of the altar held a set of chains, manacles attached to the ends. The men beside Kyria held her arms tightly, pinning her in place, and Walford proceeded to place the manacles around her wrists. She saw that the chains were long enough for her to lie on the altar. The thought of what awaited her there made her stomach turn.

  She closed her eyes, willing herself not to give in to her fear, but to remain calm and clearheaded. She needed to think, to take advantage of whatever opportunity might show itself. So she forced herself to stand calmly, facing Walford. She did not even try to kick out at her guards, for she was afraid that they might bind her ankles again, and she wanted them unbound if she ever managed to get the chance to run.

  Kyria coughed. The smoke from the braziers was almost overwhelming, and she wondered whether the fire might have some sort of drug in it that intoxicated everyone in the room. She swallowed hard and made herself focus on Walford. She could not afford to fall into lassitude.

  “We do not need this Christian box,” Walford said with a sneer and, wrapping his fingers around the black diamond, tried to pull it away.

  The stone remained firmly attached to the front of the reliquary. He tugged and tugged, his face growing red and the cords in his neck standing out, but still the stone stayed on the reliquary. His eyes flared with anger, and he muttered a curse.

  Taking the box in his hand, he brought it down hard on the marble altar to break it. It remained intact. Again and again he crashed the reliquary onto the table, but it did not break. The scene would have been quite comical, Kyria thought, had it not been for the red haze of madness that rose in Walford’s eyes.

  Finally, panting in his rage, he whipped out the large ceremonial knife from its scabbard at his waist and stabbed at the sides of the stone, trying to pry it out or carve it from the box. The box remained impervious. Walford let out a shriek of rage and flung the reliquary onto the stone floor. It bounced and rolled off the small stage onto the floor below.

  There it lay, the stone still very much attached.

  Walford stood for a moment, glaring at it, but at last he pulled the tattered edges of his dignity about him and gestured at one of the black-clad figures to get the box. The man did so, handing it up to Walford. Kyria caught a glimpse of the man’s rapt face, his mouth slightly open, his face slack and his eyes blank. Kyria suspected that Walford had made sure that all the men here had had a great deal more drugs than just whatever was smoking in the braziers.

  Walford took the box and set it on the altar. He put his hands on the box, turned his face upward, and began to chant in a singsong voice:

  * * *

  Come to us, oh, Goddess.

  Come to us, your humble servants.

  Oh, Inanna, the beautiful, the magnificent…

  Queen of Heaven, Queen of Night.

  Come to us…

  * * *

  Ashcombe led Rafe and Kyria’s brothers to Walford’s mansion. It was, he told them, the place the man was most likely to have taken Kyria.

  “It is the ancestral home,” he told them, “a stone fortress, built after the Great Fire. It is no longer in a fashionable part of town, and the family more or less abandoned it. His father and mother lived in a more modern place in Mayfair. But when Gerard returned to take the title, he decided to refurbish the old place. He has modernized a small portion of it to live in and conduct his affairs.” Ashcombe made a small moue of distaste, adding, “His father would be devastated if he had any idea how his son turned out.”

  He seemed lost in reverie for a moment, but then he went on. “The most significant change was the renovation of the cellars beneath the house. Gerard has turned them into one large empty room, where he has placed a marble altar. It is here that he conducts his worship of the goddess.”

  “You have been there? You’ve seen it?” Rafe looked hopeful.

  Ashcombe nodded. “He wanted me to join his group of worshipers.” He grimaced. “I found it appalling, and to call what they do ‘worshiping,’ I suspect, is largely inaccurate. God knows what all they do down there—smoke opium and drink and cavort with prostitutes, I imagine, and pretend it’s all some sort of religion.”

  “Why aren’t you there, then, for this ceremony?” Reed asked.

  “I refused to join. I told him I was too old for such nonsense. As he was still avidly searching for the reliquary at the time, I think he needed me too much to force me to do it against my will. Besides
, he probably decided I would just throw a damper on the proceedings.”

  “But you can get us into that room,” Rafe said.

  Ashcombe nodded. “Oh, yes, at least, I know where it is. One goes in a side door. There will probably be a guard or two.”

  “We’ll take care of them,” Theo assured him grimly.

  The estate was indeed in a run-down area close to the Thames, an area that had been fashionable hundreds of years before. Stone walls surrounded the house, with tall iron gates barring the drive. There was no one standing guard, but Rafe quickly climbed the gates and opened them to let in the others. They left them open and instructed the hansom cabdriver to wait on the street. A gold sovereign and the promise of more to come ensured his compliance.

  They hurried down the driveway, moving as fast as they could without leaving Ashcombe behind. The square, stone house loomed up in front of them, dark and foreboding. There were no lights burning in any of the windows. Ashcombe went around to the side, where a tower jutted out. A black-robed guard stood outside the tower, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed.

  Rafe grasped Ashcombe’s arm, halting him, and glanced at the other two men. They nodded to him, and the four men spread out and began to creep closer to the guard. The guard did not see any of them until they were almost upon him. He glanced to the side and saw Theo, and he let out a cry, yanking a knife from a scabbard at his waist. But before he could lunge at Theo, Rafe brought down the butt end of his pistol on the back of his head, and the man crumpled to the ground.

  Quickly they stripped him of his weapon, robe and a ring of keys, then tied his hands and feet together using the ascots Theo and Rafe wore. Rafe donned the robe and unlocked the door to the tower. Inside was a round room, empty except for another guard, who stood at an inner door. He turned questioningly toward Rafe when he entered. Rafe crossed the floor in two quick strides and felled him with a swift blow to the jaw. The others came in behind him. They used Ashcombe’s and Reed’s neckties this time to bind the man, then unlocked the inner door. A dark, narrow staircase wound down in a spiral before them.