Blood of Jackals

by Todd Marcelas Moreno

  Sukain expelled her breath. “Enough. I would not have come this far if I could not see a man like Jordan for what he is. My loyalty is to your grandson, Ashincor Linse, and I will accept whatever consequences may come of it.”

  “I believe you,” Ashincor said, bowing his head once again.

  “Good,” said Sukain. “Now, what do you suggest is done with Lord Jordan?”

  “Neutralize his power.”

  “That is a little vague, Patér. Forgive me if I am a bit slow. I have not slept since my return to the planet. Please explain.”

  “Bring forth other contenders for the throne. Jordan’s strength is the idea that he is Derrick’s true successor. If that cannot be corrected, it must be confused.”

  “Few potential heirs on the Possór side have a better claim to the throne than Lord Jordan. Should we dip into your grandson’s maternal relations?”

  Ashincor’s face soured. “I think we have gone beyond testing each other, First Advisor. We both know where the other stands.”

  “Very well. Lord Derrick’s great uncle Seonas is still alive, but it is an open secret that he is a hapless addict. His claim is technically higher than Jordan’s, but few would take his bid for the throne seriously. The claims of his sons, Varian and Guishaun, are also higher than Jordan’s, but the incest issue is a problem.”

  “We do not have to defend their claims. The government can be neutral. We have but to spark their interest in the throne. Let them argue their own claims.”

  “It would work for Lord Guishaun. Lord Varian however has deep psychological issues.”

  “Then let Guishaun Possór’s claim carry with it his brother’s as well,” Ashincor replied.

  “While we are at it, we might also include Cary Morays,” Sukain offered. “His mother is older than Jordan, and would have a better claim, if not for her marriage contract.”

  “Fine. Try to bring as many into the field as possible.”

  “This kind of inter-family squabble was what Lord Derrick’s father wanted to avoid. It is why the general populace knows very little about the other members of House Possór. If Lord Derrick dies, Lord Jordan will be hard to overcome.”

  “Our objective with Jordan is only to buy time, First Advisor. If my grandson dies, none of it will matter anyway.”

  Sukain’s lips thinned. “Very well,” she said finally. “Perhaps it is time I met with the other members of House Possór.”

  - - -

  VII

  Vialette stood at the threshold of Lilth’s private chambers, torn by the sense of urgency drawing her forward, and the trepidation of crossing into her aunt’s sanctuary uninvited. Having told herself that her godmother would never harm her, given the way the hairs along her arms stood on end, and the blood retreated from her hands as she reached for one of the doorknobs, there was at least a part of her that was unsure. She believed the boy though, and so proceeded on the belief that she alone could save Derrick and that, without her, he would die.

  Sealed only with the threat of fearful consequences, both doors swung open at the barest touch. Feeling her pulse pushing against her inner ear, Vialette entered the room, allowing the doors to silently enclose her in darkness.

  Suddenly she heard voices drifting through the air.

  Someone is here. Who’s there? Is that you, Mistress?

  Vialette fell back against the heavy doors as a clamor arose, her hand reaching for a light panel her mind was sure to be nearby.

  Do not turn on the lights, a familiar voice said within her thoughts, clearer and stronger than the others. Vialette froze. Come this way, the voice resumed, seeming to retreat to her right. Vialette stepped toward it, continuing as the voice gave her further encouragement and direction. Finally she reached the point where she thought the voice originated.

  Take care to keep your mental shields strong, Vialette Carland, the voice intoned. And do not speak, or attempt to use the Mental Disciplines, for they will sense it, and alert your aunt.

  Vialette was about to ask who “they” were when she stopped herself, registering the voice’s words. Something shot past her from behind. Vialette turned abruptly but saw no one.

  They do not know who you are, the voice explained. All they know is that you possess psychic power. Until you identify yourself to them, they will not risk enraging you by their impertinence, should you turn out to be their dark mistress.

  Vialette wanted to speak but said nothing.

  Come here, the voice commanded, and reach out with your hand. Vialette did so. Higher and to the right. Keep going. There, now reach and take what is there on the shelf.

  Vialette complied, and an image of Soror Cathena Barell formed in her mind.

  “Do not be alarmed,” the Soror’s image said. The woman looked as she did when she first arrived on Legan months before, as the court’s truthseer for Seffan Possór’s trial. “Through the doll you hold in your hand, the Viscountess of Voxny retains a connection to me. Of course, in turn, I have a connection to it.” As if sensing Vialette’s agitation, the Soror added, “You may now direct your thoughts to me through the doll. The others cannot hear us.”

  “What others?” Vialette asked.

  “The other dolls. Victims of your aunt and her unholy sisters, most having no defense against her powers. She made this doll of me for the same reason she made the others – for control. Fortunately, she underestimated my abilities.”

  “Victims of my aunt?” Vialette said without comprehension.

  “This doll is now as much a toy for her as it is a tool for me. She can no longer hurt me with it, but she yet torments me. Its existence, like that of the other creations in this room, is an anathema. But now it serves a purpose.” Vialette felt the doll of the Soror focus its eyes on her. “I asked you here to tell you that your cousiné Derrick is being held in this very building.”

  Vialette let out a small gasp.

  “Your aunt has him subdued. I cannot contact him, but I know it is him.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Vialette whispered silently. “Aunt Lilth would never harm one of the Family. How would you know anyway?”

  “By using a modified psychic projection, I have traveled forth,” she replied. Vialette knew nothing of the bond between the Soror and Derrick, and there was no need to disclose it now. “In the months that Lady Morays has kept this doll, I have learned some of Crucidel’s secrets. I know where Derrick is being kept.”

  “No,” Vialette insisted. “You don’t know my Aunt. She loves the Family. Cousiné Seffan’s death hit her—”

  “I can prove it,” the Soror replied. “You can see for yourself.”

  “If you know he is here,” Vialette said skeptically, “why not come back and save him yourself? Why not tell—?”

  “I have searched through many paths with my vision, Vialette,” the Soror said. “You are Derrick’s only hope. Mention of him being here to anyone will bring about his death. Any outside rescue attempt will fail, and bring about the same result. You must help him escape, if he is to live.”

  Vialette shook her head. “Even if this is true, what can I do?”

  “Time is short,” the Soror said, her voice growing distant. “To impart all the information that you will need, I must Share with you.”

  Vialette drew back. She knew what the other woman was asking of her, a woman whom she had neither liked nor trusted. “No,” Vialette replied.

  “No one else can accomplish this, Vialette,” the truthseer implored. “Do it for him,” the Soror’s voice whispered, her image replaced by that of Derrick, lying in a bed with his wrists and ankles bound, haunted by unknown nightmares which stabbed and cut at him. “He is alone, and has no chance by himself.”

  “This is a trick. If I Share with you, I will be vulnerable.”

  “As will I,” the Soror replied. “Derrick trusted in me.”

  “You are more powerful than me.” Vialette swallowed. “And Derrick trusted a lot of people.”

 
“Please Vialette. See for yourself. For Derrick’s sake.”

  Vialette bit at the inside of her cheek as the image of Derrick’s suffering continued. “Stop,” she said finally. “Please.” She inhaled deeply. “All right. I will see for myself. Tell me what it is I have to do.”

  - - -

  Ashincor looked up at the over-flattering and idealized portrait recently hung in the Palace’s main gallery. Feeling that his political victory over Sukain was assured, Jordan had indulged yet another whim.

  Still, put shit in a uniform and it can look good, Ashincor said to himself. From what he knew of his enemy, life for Jordan was a masquerade, where he put on costumes and faces for any foolish enough to believe his deceptions. Even friends were victims of his game. Few lasted long. Those knowing the true Jordan Possór were nearly all his servants. They knew his temper. And they saw him strike at his enemies from the shadows, enemies he publicly embraced as friends.

  You can give a good show, Jordan, Ashincor conceded. Just like Seffan. But success as a deceiver does not prove you smarter than your peers. Sometimes, all it shows is that you are a goddamned sonofabitch.

  First Advisor Sukain might slow Jordan’s plans with other contenders for the throne, but that would not be enough. What was Jordan’s soft spot? What lever could knock him off-balance? Walking into a side gallery, Ashincor looked for further results of Jordan’s redecorating.

  “Grotesque” barely described the new art objects. Could Jordan have made them himself? In them, elegance and beauty had no place. Offensiveness seemed the only aim, with no attempt to make the lewder works even comical. Here one saw artistic endeavor as a contest for attention, where one forgave the lack of technical skill if the message the artist claimed to make was one of contempt.

  Yet the image Jordan projected was one that preferred art as state propaganda, not low-grade social commentary. And certainly he had an interest in defending the established order. So what part of Jordan did this public room come from? What was his message?

  You ridicule the very people you would head, Ashincor said to himself. Like a spoiled child that never grew up, everyone is beneath you. An emotional infant. Indulged not as a probable heir to a throne, but...as misguided compensation for the loss of your mother? Jordan’s mother had died when he was four standard years of age, an accident involving a military shuttle.

  Defiance? Ashincor wondered. If you have no one to blame, blame the world? He glanced about the room again. Still reacting, even as an adult? Or are you just cramming shit down people’s throats? Punishing them. Realization over Jordan suddenly came to him. You never grieved for your mother. You would not allow yourself, and cannot now. And you hate people for it.

  Ashincor had a possible lever he could share with Sukain. Perhaps together they could figure out how and when to pull it.

  - - -

  Vialette walked along one of Crucidel’s inner courtyards, waiting for the right time. There were no guards out, the area being well within the palace’s outer defense perimeters. She would be alone. Listening to the odd birdcalls and insect noises, she realized that she had never been in these gardens at night. Not that she spent any significant time there during the day. Unlike most gardens she knew, she did not feel any peace here. It was not the formality of the garden’s structure, or the botanical choices made in its creation. There was something more. The prettier flowers, at least in her opinion, were quite vibrant in color, and grew very dense. There was an unnaturalness to it though. The soil around each of them appeared to be new as well, as if they were recently planted.

  Maybe that was it: The flowers gave too much too quickly.

  As if all the life in them was squeezed out in one short burst, thought Vialette.

  The jeweled device around her wrist signaled that the time had come. According to the Soror, Lilth and her spiritual sisters would be gathering for their eventide rites. There would be no one psychically watching Derrick’s room.

  Walking to singular bench as instructed, Vialette sat down and pulled her hooded cloak around her. She was not cold, but she would be going into a deep trance. Such a state tended to bring her body temperature down below normal.

  With a slow exhale, Vialette reached that point of inner calm that allowed her to use the Disciplines. Quickly she projected her awareness outside her body and down to the courtyard floor. Moving deeper through dirt and stone, she came to one sub-level of Crucidel Palace and continued down to the next. Once at the level she wanted, she turned and went through a wall.

  Derrick lay on a bed, sleeping fitfully. Bound and naked beneath a light covering, the scene fit the image the Soror had given her exactly. If Vialette’s projection had tears to give, he would have had them. In spite of all that she would have believed, her cousiné was being kept in a cell in the house of her aunt.

  Vialette sent her awareness closer, close enough to touch him, if she had physically been there. Derrick’s eyes flickered open and met her own. She froze instinctively. He sensed her, but his gaze wandered, unable to track her floating awareness before him. With his training in the Disciplines, Derrick should have been able to know exactly where she was. Even the weak scan she cast over him was met with no resistance. Derrick shook his head warily to clear it, but gave no other reaction. He did not have any Mental Shields.

  Steeling herself, Vialette decided to go deeper and touch his awareness. Derrick’s eyes flew wide as he physically recoiled. But there was no place for him to go. Bringing his legs up, Derrick hugged them as he huddled in his bed, his eyes tightly closed. It was the only defense he had.

  Oh Derrick, she thought, again wanting to cry. How could anyone do this?

  - - -

  “I gathered the files you wanted, Master,” Ansel said as he entered Ashincor’s room. “It was all public information, and I only accessed files where personal identification was not required. No one should be able to trace my search.”

  “Good. After I review it, we will focus the inquiry accordingly. Once HOPIS figures out that I am investigating Lord Jordan’s past actions, my security clearance will likely be revoked.”

  “But what about Commander Lerrero? Or the First Advisor?”

  “Best not risk their positions over information we can get on our own. We need them where they are. Keep your options open when you can, Ansel.”

  “Are you sure you can find something on Lord Jordan, Master?”

  “I do not know. Our efforts could go nowhere. But the right information applied at the right time can make a big difference.”

  “But even if we find something, we may not get the chance to use it.”

  “True, but it is better to have possibilities open than to have them foreclosed.”

  The bell-tone at the door silenced both conspirators.

  “Answer it, Ansel,” Ashincor instructed, not having sensed anyone nearby. Dear Mother! Does everyone here at the Palace cloak their presence?

  “Forgive my intrusion, Patér,” the woman said as Ansel opened the door. It was Marcea Curreck, the keeper of the royal household. “But there is something I think you should know.”

  “Please come in, Madam Curreck,” said Ashincor, rising from his table and pushing back his chair. “Would you like to sit?”

  Curreck shook her head. “The Countess-Grandia’s rooms. Nearly all is as she left it, but Lord Jordan has ordered everything to be cleared away.”

  Ashincor did not know what to say. He had assumed that Seffan would have changed the rooms by now. Was his former son-in-law that indifferent toward his wife? Or did the bastard tell himself he loved her? “How soon?” Ashincor asked.

  “Tomorrow, Patér,” Curreck answered. “Lord Jordan plans on taking up residence in that part of the Palace as soon as possible.”

  - - -

  Her stomach still knotted from what she had learned about Derrick, Vialette turned uncomfortably in her bed at Crucidel, aware that her discomfort was nowhere near his. There was so much at stake. But was there no ot
her way?

  An image of Derrick writhing under the torment of unseen demons forced itself upon her as the Soror’s voice echoed in her mind. “He has only you.”

  Vialette felt a coldness grip her as a tremor shook the room. Sitting upright in the darkness, she saw the eyes of the dolls around her glow faintly before winking out, their inner mechanisms simulating the sound of crying infants and small children. Their voices died with the sound of a bell-tone.

  Having dismissed her maid for the evening, Vialette rose from her bed and grabbed her robe on the way to the door, never noticing the sets of small eyes following her movements. “Yes?” Vialette said as she opened the door.

  “Excuse the disturbance, Lady Vialette,” the servant began, his head bowing once as Vialette pulled her robe in closer. “But Her Ladyship wishes to see you.”

  “My aunt? At this hour?”

  “Yes, Lady Vialette. She is most...expectant.”

  - - -

  Ashincor Linse froze as his hand touched the door leading to the rooms once belonging to the late Countess-Grandia...to Derrick’s mother...to his daughter.

  The locking mechanism should not have been a challenge for one like him. Yet Ashincor shook as he sent forth his awareness to neutralize the obstructing circuitry. Derrick’s disappearance had negated any thought of resuming his inquiry into his daughter’s murder. But now he had no choice but to put his other tasks aside. This opportunity was too great to let pass. Besides, he was getting close to something. He could feel it. Perhaps the answer that he had long been denied was finally at hand.

  But how would the answer be revealed? And would he be able to endure it?

  In a rush of impatience, Ashincor sent a burst of energy and overwhelmed the lock. The door was free. Taking a calming breath, he opened his awareness, readying his mind to accept what psychic images the room would give him. He entered with his eyelids half-closed.

  And felt absolutely nothing. Inside, the darkened room’s furniture was hidden by dust covers. Its positioning though confirmed that the room was likely as his daughter had left it. Still he received no sense of her.