Bride of the Stone: Circle of Nine Trilogy 2

by Josephine Pennicott

  Later, after that first union, his memories had been confused. A mouth upon his, the sensation of white liquid fire in his mouth. A dark terrible stickiness that seemed to surround them. The sensation of an owl banging against his bedroom window. His hands, as cold as snow, touching his body, turning him to ice, releasing all previously known emotions from him. His tongue on his prick, and his shoulders, seeming to burn, to cry out for the memory of something lost. His body had been polished with oil, there had been no warmth to his skin, and he could never remember the exact moment that Ishran had penetrated him.

  They were howling, moving as one, but, in a corner of his mind, Lazariel watched, and knew that what was inside him was no ordinary prick. He could only think this for a few minutes, however, before the pleasure took over and he was beyond caring. The odour of burnt roses had filled the room slowly. When he climaxed with a scream, he had seen, for a second, the face of a beast in his mind, behind him. A hideous clawed demon, with yellow eyes and a red mouth of love.

  Afterwards they had lain together, in each other’s arms, and he had felt sated. A tear had run slowly down his face. Ishran had looked at it in wonder, and picked it carefully off his cheek. In his fingers, the tear solidified and became a shining jewel. A gold chain now adorned it.

  ‘Wear this to remind you of this moment always,’ he said.

  Lazariel thought he would die of happiness when he fastened it around his neck. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. He knew, but he wanted him to say the words.

  Ishran smiled and tenderly caressed his cheek. ‘I am the Ghormho,’ he said. Fluid, dark and heavy, lay between Lazariel’s legs. He could feel darkness within him, spinning a web.

  The days had passed in an idyllic blur. Blue, mellow days, that began early with group meditation and contemplation. They would come together to send healing rays to the world, while tensions and desires snaked between them. Lazariel was aware that the entire group, with the sole exception of Theresa, wanted to sleep with Ishran. But to his relief, Ishran showed no sign of wanting to be with anyone else but him.

  His favourite days were when most of the commune had left for the city, and they worked together in the garden, exclaiming in delight over the latest bud or vegetable that had sprouted. In the evenings he had to share Ishran with the others, as they sat around studying and discussing, listening to Ishran’s ideas on angels and devic life forms that Lazariel had never heard of. He seemed to have a wealth of knowledge.

  When he tired of talking, Ishran would produce roses for them, materialising them from his hands. Once, he pulled a pair of gold earrings from the air, and tossed them casually to Theresa as she sat listening sullenly. Lazariel could feel the envy of the other women in the room that they hadn’t been honoured in this fashion.

  But Theresa had only sneered. ‘Parlour tricks,’ she had said under her breath.

  ‘Well, let’s see you do it then!’ Daniel had snapped. The others glowered at her, but Lazariel had only smiled.

  One day Lazariel had seen a ghost. It was not the first time he had seen thought patterns of the dead, but he had never seen one that looked so human, and so obviously alarmed, as this one had. While chopping vegetables for the stir-fry that Alan was cooking that night, he had disturbed a woman who turned around, her hand to her mouth in terror. She wore a long grey skirt that fell to the floor, and a wrinkled burgundy lace blouse. Her short dark hair was in need of a wash. She was sitting at the table, examining a small box with a shell on the outside, and she looked up at Lazariel with agony in her face. Her mouth opened in surprise as she slowly began to dematerialise.

  Lazariel nicknamed her Emma, and began to look for her in the spaces between words and dreams, but he never saw her again. However, at least he now knew his powers were increasing. Ghosts were everywhere, calling to him with silvery voices and beseeching hands. He saw thought patterns escaping in great clouds from strangers. There were days when he no longer knew whether he was dreaming or whether he was awake. Ishran had kissed him with the breath of darkness, and all that he knew was that he wanted more.

  Ishran walked slowly up the winding column of grey stairs. A white dingo growled at him, sitting perched halfway up the stairs. He clapped his hands, laughing as it dissolved into dust. Charmonzhla loved his little games. He found the angoli seated on a child’s swing, his hands clasping the ivy sides. The child demon, one of the Looz Drem that often accompanied him, was pushing the swing. She turned and snarled briefly at Ishran as he approached, then resumed her play. She wore a blue satin dress, and her golden-blonde hair was pulled back with a black satin ribbon. Ishran felt a finger of fear inside his belly at the haunted, dead emptiness of her eyes. This child had not died easily in life. Her name came to him, like a snake’s hiss: Rachel.

  ‘He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not,’ Charmonzhla chanted as he swung. Ishran sat down beside him and closed his eyes. He felt momentarily soothed, feeling the swish of the swing as it swung upwards. A grey peace crept over his bones. Charmonzhla was giggling, his sly secret giggle, as he swung. ‘You like the Aussie Fallen One,’ he said in a mock Australian drawl. Snow fell gently upon them, then autumn leaves dropped softly. The sun shone and a cool breeze blew. Ishran waited. ‘He is not for you, Ghormho. His flesh reeks, it is crawling with maggots of the human kind. His blood is for me, his pain will be mine. His agony and his dying screams will give energy to the Eom.’

  Ishran nodded, feeling nothing. He had suspected as much. Butterflies flew in front of his face — thousands of butterflies, the soft flutter of their wings filling him with terror.

  ‘Can I drink the dying?’ the demon child hissed. ‘Can I feast on the screams of the lost?’

  Charmonzhla laughed again. Ishran lifted his face to the sun. ‘He stinks like a Bluite,’ the demon girl commented to Charmonzhla.

  The angoli nodded in agreement. ‘He has been too long in their world. His own Glamour is beginning to fool even him. Poor lost Ghormho!’

  A low rumble came from the heavens. Ishran heard the laughing mockery of a thousand listening angels. The taunts continued as the angoli related a list of his deficiencies to the demon child. Lightning flashed as he spoke, and Ishran began to realise how angry the angoli was. He hugged his knees, willing himself not to feel, feeling his breath slide between worlds. They were all doomed. Charmonzhla wouldn’t rest until he had finished what he had begun. He could feel the demon child’s smile, and her white-hot knowing.

  *

  The early hours of the night. A hot, sultry night, filled with sweaty longing. Ishran awoke to an angel in his room. Lazariel was sleeping peacefully, his white-blond hair blue in the moonlight, a small smile on his face. His throat was exposed as if in offering. The air was fizzing, and Ishran recognised the energy of the being before him. His hands made an automatic offering of respect. The angel’s wings were at full span, deep black with stripes of grey and blue running through them. His hair fell in long snaking curls of red; his eyes blazed with the colour of the night sky. In his hands he held an unlit fire torch, and Ishran wondered why the divine flame had not been lit. ‘Bless me,’ he whispered. ‘For I am the Ghormho, not worthy. Divine, yet not worthy.’

  The angel smiled, and there was no mockery in his face. Only acceptance, only love. Ishran prayed that Lazariel would continue to sleep. He had lived on the Blue Planet too long to gaze with any safety upon one such as this. He had heard many stories of people’s eyes exploding into flame when they witnessed the Great Ones. Blood dripped from the corners of the angel’s mouth, while Ishran cowered in awe. It was Ezihhiam, the Angel of False Prophets. He knew then what was to come.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  From the stomach of the silver-hair, a spider weaves a fatal web. We are all lost in its deadly strands. From death comes birth, from birth comes death. Blessed be the mother of darkness. The Heztarra angels weep at the loss of lives, and the Dreamers shift restlessly in the Shell. All around lies abomination, desolation. The n
ight screams for the light. Eom rejoices to see Hope is dead, and Life is formed.

  All that remains — a grim and unending despair.

  — Condensed from the Tremite Book of Life, Column XXI

  Jessie howled again, and Fenn cowered in terror. It had been seven moon-ups since they had crossed into the Web, and neither of them was capable of settling into this unfamiliar territory. Jessie had been continually howling her protest at being in this opaque, white world, so different from the other two worlds she had known, the Blue Planet and the Wastelands in Eronth. ‘Big Jessie does not belong here!’ Fenn could hear the old dog’s distress at this last shattering change, in a life of shattering changes. ‘This is a world of death, not a world for Bluite dogs!’

  Nor is it a world for Faeries, Fenn reminded herself. Not that Fenn had seen outside the white state building where Seleza lived. The Azephim High Priestess had given instructions to the electronic servers that Fenn was to be closely guarded at all times, and be denied access to the outside until she had adjusted to life in the Web. Jessie had been walked every night by two servers, but she had always returned subdued and whimpering, disliking the atmosphere of the twilight world of the Kondoell. Fenn could see brief glimpses of her new home from the tiny slitted windows and had been shocked by the bleakness of the landscape, the dark grey-blue sky. An eerie mist seemed to hang over the Web day and night, and pulsating death rays from the Web itself throbbed through the world of Kondoell.

  So far, in the little that she had glimpsed of outside life, she had not seen any other Azephim. Her only contact had been with the electronic servers, who seemed far more surly than the servers in the Wastelands, and with Rashka and Seleza, who had only spent brief periods of time with her, distracted as they were by the problem of resetting the Eom and releasing the Webx Elders from the spinnerets they were encased in.

  Fenn had slept for only brief periods of time, and then it was confused sleep filled with ghostly, jarring images and voices. She would often wake from these disturbed periods of rest with a splitting headache. Crossing shock, Seleza had pronounced, and had warned her against doing anything too strenuous until it had worn off. As if I would, Fenn thought in disgust. She had little energy for anything at the moment. She spent most of her waking time lying on the small hard bed they had provided her with, dazed and dissipated, stroking Jessie, trying to calm the agitated dog. She hated the food in the Web-Kondoell; it tasted like air and seemed to dissolve on her tongue before she could even swallow it. Originally, they had made the mistake of bringing a huge platter of spiced meat to her, which Fenn had thrown up all over her bed, to Rashka’s disgust. Even Jessie had turned her nose up at the meat. Fenn suspected it was Bluite meat. Gradually the dog had begun to cat it, but never with any degree of real enthusiasm.

  As the days slowly passed, she grew even more listless and depressed. She found herself frantically missing the familiar castle she had grown up in, the beautiful oil paintings that adorned the walls, the dazzling library, the ornate flower displays — and Sati. She hated to admit it to herself, but she missed Sati, whose eyes had filled with kindness when she looked upon her, and the stunning way she would shape-shift into a bird in front of her eyes. Her limp, her manner of looking at Ishran when she thought nobody was observing her, and the multiple kindnesses she had shown both Jessie and Fenn.

  When thoughts like these came, she forced herself to counter them with memories of the hateful laboratories that her jurma had shown her. Sati had obviously been party to the tortures inflicted within the stone walls, and the hate this certainty brought gave strength to her body. Fenn nursed the hate. Sometimes she thought it was the only thing that was keeping her alive.

  Once, very early in the morning, when the house was filled with the sounds of the sleeping, Fenn awoke to the strain of a strange, all-encompassing humming vibration. It was the Eom, she knew, and she shivered as she lay there. Somehow the Azephim had managed to totally reactivate it.

  A glow outside her small window made her curious, and she carefully inched her way out of bed, taking care not to disturb Jessie, who was making distressed sounds in her sleep. Outside hovered a large black bird, its colour a dramatic contrast to the pristine whiteness of the world. For a long second, the two of them stared at each other. Then, with a silent flurry of its wings, it was gone. Sati. Fenn stood for a long time after Sati had flown away, her face pressed to the cold window, watching the blue-grey sun rise higher in the sky. Fear and anger merged with a scream of betrayal. She observed all her emotions coldly, transforming every feeling into ice. It is easier not to feel, she realised, with a small laugh at this simplicity of truth. Her eyes, her face, her fingers, her heart — all was ice, all was glass. Perfect, glistening, whole. If she didn’t feel the emotions, then the pain couldn’t reach her. She became splinters, and pain transformed the inadmissible into something more bearable.

  Fenn had no idea how much time had passed when Rashka approached her one midday as she sat staring at the white world beneath her window. In the distance Fenn fancied she could see a single tree. Her mind was visualising the trunk of the tree, ripe and heavy with secrets. Its green veil of shining leaves promised new life. A tree that she could sit under and . . .

  ‘What are you thinking of?’

  The interruption made her jump. Rashka was standing behind her, watching her with suspicious, glowing eyes. Fenn shivered inwardly. There was something inordinately repellent about Rashka. Not her appearance, for even when she rarely used Glamour, she was still very attractive for an Azephim. It was an air of unwholesome eagerness about her, Fenn decided. As if there were a great tide of passion within her that could only be sated by killing and inflicting pain. She was quite similar to Ishran in appearance. Her classically perfect features and luxuriant hair that touched her hips masked another face: the grotesque, tormented features of a demon. It was obvious that Ishran and Rashka had been hatched from the same nest of eggs.

  Without asking permission, Rashka indicated the server to pass her a pomegranate from an ivory fruit bowl. She bit eagerly into the succulent fruit. Fenn watched warily, while Jessie half-cowered under a table. The dog had never shown any affection for Rashka, although she seemed to be growing more used to Seleza. Fenn noticed that Rashka wore her outdoor clothes, a white fur cloak over her grey tunic, and white overshoes.

  ‘Well?’ Rashka demanded.

  ‘Nothing. I’m thinking of nothing.’

  ‘Well, you can stop thinking of nothing. Seleza has ordered me to take you for a walk outside.’

  Fenn attempted to look enthusiastic, but her heart sank. She felt too listless and depressed to attempt something as normal as taking a walk.

  ‘Don’t think I haven’t got better things to do with my time, Faery spawn. Seleza’s word is law, however. And if you could see how white and sick you look, you would realise you need some fresh air.’

  Fenn was silent. She had seen what she looked like in the looking glasses. She had lost so much weight her eyes appeared over-large for her face. Her face was tinged slightly green and, since her abduction, she had been nauseous and sick constantly, which she blamed on the food.

  Rashka held out a white cloak to her. ‘Put this on, you are conspicuous enough as it is. The mutt can stay here.’

  Jessie let out a grateful moan, sneaking an apologetic look at Fenn. Apathetically, Fenn slipped the white cloak around her shoulders. It smelt like dried blood, and she was sickened momentarily by the thought of the pain of the animal that had died for the fur. But then she shrugged, no longer caring. If Seleza had demanded she had to see this white, alien world, she would do so. She could no longer bother to resist.

  It was colder outside than she had realised. The wind was chill and bracing, and it seemed to straighten her chaotic thoughts. The sky was different from Eronth, she thought, tilting her head back to stare at its steel-grey colour. There were no moons, and she ached with homesickness for the triple moons that always shone over her home count
ry. Rashka watched her, sneering, guessing at her thoughts.

  ‘That’s what’s wrong with you, Eronthite. Your triple moons pull at your emotions all the time, letting your heart chakras weaken! Not like Azephim!’

  Fenn stared at her through a world of pain.

  ‘What of Ishran?’ She couldn’t resist enquiring. ‘What of the migrant Azephim to Eronth?’

  Rashka snarled slightly. ‘The Ghormho is a perfect example of how only weaklings are attracted to Eronth! Ishran is a weakling, an inferior specimen. You would do well not to contaminate the air in the Web with his name. I am ashamed to have him as my other hatch! You know he crosses to the Blue Planet and feeds on those weaker than himself? Not only does he feed, but he fucks them, and drives them mad with his kylon. He still uses the spinnerets, despite our Hosthatch banning them. He has failed to get his wife pregnant and then . . .’ She paused, and Fenn wondered about what she had been going to say next. She had begun to shake as the memory of what Ishran had done to her returned.

  ‘I hate him!’ Rashka snarled to the sky. ‘I swear on Alecom’s cold prick that I long to hold his crushed sparrow in my hand and, by all that is held holy, that day will come!’

  The air smelt differently in the Web, Fenn suddenly realised. It was not an entirely unpleasant smell, but there was something faintly repugnant about it, like rotting mushrooms. There appeared to be no form of animal or plant life anywhere. After the exotic colours of Eronth, the blank Web was a shock to Fenn. A mournful note hung in the air, permeating the atmosphere. Every few breaths, death rays would flash through the sky from the elaborate strands of proactive energy that the Azephim had woven around their planet.

  Rashka walked quickly, obviously knowing where she was heading, and Fenn had to nearly jog to keep up with her. She was lagging well behind, feeling dizzy and disorientated in the new atmosphere, and from being inactive for so long.