by S J Hartland
“Look at me.” The ghoul god grasped his jaw. “You’re ill.”
Kaell’s legs buckled. Slumped against his captor, he managed a grim smile. “I’m dying. I feel it. You lose.”
Archanin stared, unblinking. Then he turned on the guardsman. “Who was here?”
“No one entered, my lord. I swear it.”
“Find Raggamirron. At once.”
The guard retreated. Archanin scooped Kaell up and carried him to the bed. “What did you take?” He leaned. “I smell something syrupy on your breath.”
“I willingly drank poison. To escape you. You can’t use me to be free. That’s what you want isn’t it? But I won’t let you. You’ll forever be trapped here in this cursed castle.”
Raggamirron appeared at a run. He looked in bewilderment from his lord to Kaell.
“What happened here?”
“Someone poisoned him.”
“No one entered, my lord.”
Kaell laced a laugh with scorn. “I poisoned myself. To escape you.”
“Silence.” Archanin wound a fist through Kaell’s hair, dragging him close. “The only sounds I want from that lovely mouth are moans of pleasure.” His kiss bruised. Then he shoved Kaell down and licked his lips.
“That taste.” He frowned, tonguing his lips again. Shock, then horror darkened his inhumanly blue eyes. “Gudverinal. But that’s impossible. No one knows how to use Gudverinal. Only a sorcerer with real power could understand.”
Kaell balled, wheezing.
“What’s wrong with him?” A stunned Raggamirron stared at Kaell. “Is it this Gudverinal? What does it do?”
“It dissolves magic. Now it’s in his blood, I can’t control him. But to a mortal, it’s deadly.” Archanin’s frown tightened. “How? No one has this knowledge. Myranthe Damadar? Roaran Caelan, yes, but he’s long dead.”
“Is the boy—?” Raggamirron tongued his top lips. “Dying?”
Archanin tapped a fist against his chin. “Whoever did this, they’re foolish to think they can trade magic with me. They will not rob me of what’s mine. Bring me blood wine.”
Raggamirron returned with a cup. Archanin took it, stooped and pressed the rim to Kaell’s closed lips. “If you want to live, drink.”
Kaell whipped his head away. Archanin gripped his jaw, forcing his mouth open. Wine splashed Kaell’s face and neck. Some he spat out. Some he could not help swallowing.
“Stop fighting. Gudverinal will kill you if you remain human. I must quickly complete your transformation. One last time, I’ll stop your heart. Then my blood will save you.”
Warm breath tickled his throat. Pain erupted. Kaell screamed. Blackness rushed in.
He resurfaced in Archanin’s arms, still screaming, spun into emptiness, until relentless torment roused him to groggy, wretched wakefulness.
Archanin forced Kaell’s head down, his lips to the ghoul god’s wrist. Kaell’s mouth filled with blood. He swallowed, gagged on blood, metallic on his teeth, thick in his throat.
“Enough, enough.” Archanin pushed him off. Kaell curled, a gnawing in his gut.
The ghoul god stroked his face. “I need your surrender, Kaell. That was the third death. Surrender your will or you’ll suffer unimaginable agonies.”
Kaell pulled away. He rolled with a thud onto the floor and crawled on his elbows. Raggamirron scooped him up like a toddler and flung him back on the bed.
He thrashed a pillow with his fist. “I won’t give in to you.”
“You must bow to me, accept me as your lord and god. Until you do, until you beg for death, until I kill you a final time, the agony twisting through you will only grow until you do truly die.”
“I don’t care.”
“I have no time for this nonsense. You will surrender. Or I’ll butcher those of your men still alive.”
A cold fear snaked across his scalp. “You lie,” Kaell whispered. “They’re all dead.”
Archanin shook his head, his look hard and merciless.
“We always take prisoners. To feed upon later. I’ll leave you to wrestle with your thoughts while I prepare for the ceremony. I doubt you’re selfish enough to sacrifice others for the sake of stubborn pride.”
Kaell howled. He thumped the bed, screamed, retched to spew out Archanin’s blood.
None of his men lived. He knew it. When he shut his eyes, the nightmare of that ambush played out in all its brutal horror. The scent of blood, his helpless rage as ghouls dragged wounded captives to the fire.
No, Archanin lied. This foul god needed his surrender to turn him into a monster. Maybe he was a monster already. All because of his hair, his eyes that marked him as different.
No wonder his lord could not love him. Who could love him now after he’d let a ghoul god, his enemy, seduce him?
A blitz of pain sapped breath from his lungs. Kaell wished he could black out. But he could only beat the mattress, shouting out his misery.
Then at last, his strength drained, he collapsed and wept into a pillow.
Archanin found him huddled on the bed, shoulders heaving, his body jarred by huge sobs. The ghoul god sat and pulled him to his breast. He stroked his damp hair. “Hush, hush. Accept me as your god. Then this all stops.”
“Please,” Kaell sobbed. “It hurts.”
“I can end the pain. Kneel. Offer your pledge.”
“No.”
Archanin sighed. “I didn’t intend it to be like this. Such a momentous occasion demands an elaborate ceremony, the hall ablaze with candles, everyone gathered, awestruck, gasping as they witness your surrender. To see my release from this prison after so many centuries.”
“You’ll never be free. I’ll never turn from my gods.”
“How can you be this stubborn? Must you suffer? Must your men suffer and die?”
“They’re dead already.”
“Two live. One is called Olier, the other says he’s known as Smiler. They’ll die horribly unless you obey me. I’m so close, Kaell. So close. Give me what I want. It is written you will serve me.”
Kaell lifted a tear-stained face, spat: “Never. Whatever it costs me, I’ll defy you.”
Archanin’s fingers stilled in his hair. His roused breaths rent the curtained stillness.
Darkness gloved about Kaell as though awakened shadows crept forward untroubled by a flame’s pitiful flicker. Better the shadows than this tormenting half-light. Better to see nothing. To feel nothing. Better to be dead.
“Defy?” Archanin said. Then louder: “Defy?” Coldly, with deliberate control, he backhanded Kaell across the mouth. “I will not be denied. Not this close to freedom. You will submit.”
“No.” Kaell forced the word through split lips.
“Wretched child.” Archanin dragged him from the bed and dumped him on a rug. He strode to the door, shoved it back and jabbed a finger at a guard.
“Bring in the girl.”
Girl? Kaell dragged his bruised body to his knees.
Guards shoved a protesting Caitlyn inside. Kaell bucked. A ghoul pressed him down.
“What is this?” Dread ran cold through him. “Why is she here?”
Dispassionately, Archanin said: “Kill her.”
“No, wait. She means nothing to me. I don’t know her.”
“Kill her. Then if he is still stubborn, bring in the prisoners from Thom.”
“No,” Kaell shouted, his resistance shattered. Another young woman could not die because of him. First Azenor, now this girl. Even if Archanin bluffed about his men, Caitlin was right here. Defenceless. Blameless.
Archanin’s pitiless stare did not move from him. “Poor Caitlin. So unfair she must die because you are obstinate. I hear you like her. That you had a moment together in the hall. That she spoke kindly to you.”
“Don’t. Please. This is between you and me.”
“I’ve no patience left. Accept me as your god. Or she dies and your men follow.”
A door banged far way. Footsteps tapped stone. What
if guards dragged Olier into this chamber? If by some small chance he and Smiler lived, Kaell must do anything to save them.
“Kill me,” he pleaded. “Don’t hurt her. I’m your enemy.”
“Beg to serve me. Renounce your gods. Beg me to give you my blood.”
Kaell trembled. “If I do, you won’t hurt her or my men?”
“You have my word.”
“Then—” The word was little more than a sliver of breath through his clenched teeth. “Then—”
“Then?”
All sound drained. Archanin tensed like a bowstring, expectant. A guard turned to stare. A candle wick flared in a draught then stiffened. Caitlyn’s wide eyes held a plea.
Each of them waiting.
Instinct screamed do not do this. But if he saved this girl, if he saved even one of his men, then he had to put aside Khir, accept the shame and guilt.
“What do I do? What do I say?”
Every breath released. Caitlyn dropped her head into her hands and wept. A storm of emotions exploded across Archanin’s face. Joy. Elation. Triumph.
He pressed a knife into Kaell’s hands. “Spill your blood with this Seithin temple knife. This is dark magic, like the sort that bound you to Khir. I need a blood oath to once and forever break that bond.”
Kaell held the knife in shaking fingers. Jewels the colour of claret glittered in its hilt. Its long, silver blade gleamed, but beneath its brightness burned an awakening power.
“Spill your blood.”
Kaell cut his palm. As though caught in a spell, he stared at the slow, mesmerising drip of blood to the floor. That blood, the knife, this chamber unreal; his mind buckling in disbelief.
Archanin gripped his shoulder. “Say these words: I pledge my life, my body, my will to Archanin.”
“I pledge my life, my body, my will to Archanin—”
“God of Seithin. I renounce all other gods, all other lords.”
“God of Seithin.” The words choked within. He swallowed.
“I renounce all other gods, all other lords.”
Archanin’s eyes blazed with smouldering fires. He knelt beside Kaell. “Ask me.”
In a shaking voice, Kaell whispered, “Give me your blood. Take my life.”
The god sighed. It was a drawn-out sound; ancient and terrible like a wordless cry in a void. In its wake a hush fell, so deep, so bare, Kaell could hear droplets of his own blood strike the floor.
The room quaked. The tremor threw him flat. Wind rattled branches. A high-pitched wail, a shrieking, grated his backbone with cold horror.
Kaell scrambled to his knees, hands clamped over his ears, his teeth gritted against the boiling, thundering chaos. Candlesticks crashed. Glass shattered. A toppled pot plant spilled vine and dirt. Somewhere close a dog howled.
Archanin snatched up the spilled knife and slashed his own wrist. He pulled Kaell into a fierce embrace, hand on the nape of his neck, thrusting his captive’s mouth to the wound. “Drink.”
Choking, gasping, Kaell swallowed blood. It tasted hot and strange; as though he drank down darkness, drowning, unable to scream, unable to struggle in its ugly fetters.
Archanin’s arms closed about him, his tongue at his throat. When the ghoul god bit, Kaell’s inflamed body convulsed.
As he wavered at the edge of a black chasm, Kaell glimpsed Archanin rising, face turned to the maelstrom, arms spread. “Your spell breaks, Roaran Caelan,” he shouted into the darkness. “You’ve lost. I only wish you lived to see my triumph.”
Pain possessed him. Kaell no longer knew where it ended and he began.
Through its ether, he thought he heard whispers, felt soothing hands on his skin or cool cloths on his brow. Sometimes he tasted blood on his tongue or numbing poppy juice.
Yet even in slumber, his dreams writhed with fragmented images and the cries of dead friends. He woke drenched in sweat, sobbing.
Kaell could not grasp how much time passed while he lay like a stone, aware of little beyond pain burning like venom. When he at last opened his eyes, his dulled mind struggled to take in where he was.
He curled on a straw pallet, his unwashed body sluggish, his skin feverishly slick.
Stone walls caged an inky stillness. Empty at first of memory. Slowly it rose from a black pit of delirium. Kaell tossed. Moaned. He dug nails into his cheekbones to shield against it.
But Archanin’s cry of triumph echoed in his mind. With it, those nauseating scents of beeswax and incense from that chamber where he knelt to deny his god and his lord.
What had he done?
Appalled, Kaell ran his hands down his breast over his hips and groin, onto his thighs. He touched his face. In appearance he seemed unchanged. But within? Did he really become a ghoul? Would he soon be no better than a slavering beast? Hideous. Disgusting.
A monster his lord must despise. Hunt.
Kaell scrambled back against the wall. This shell, this flesh, was no longer him. He wanted to rip free of it, to take his spirit away. Escape the terror swilling in his gut. A beast awoke inside and he could not stop it.
His captors left him a candle and flint but Kaell did not light it. He belonged in this shifting darkness, the stagnant air fetid, where ghosts tormented with accusing voices.
Shapes, faces, rose from shadows like slashed patchwork; a hazy, delusional nightmare playing out in his troubled mind. “Why have you come?” Kaell whimpered, shrinking away. His words echoed off walls.
“You abandoned us.”
“I didn’t want to,” he sobbed. “I wanted to stay and die with you.”
Gorged shades closed to take him, their moans like an aimless wind. Kaell covered his ears until he realised the gruesome sounds came from him.
Sleep offered no release. Broken memories twisted into ghastly dreams.
He dreamt he hunted in the forest with Arn. Their prey didn’t matter; only being together, laughing. Then Arn screamed. Kaell whipped about to see Archanin snap his neck.
“Parry,” Vraymorg instructed. “Parry quicker, Kaell, or you’ll die in the snow with a sword in your side.”
Kaell jolted awake, arms flailing, howling out his despair. Then he wept and wept.
“Kaell, can you hear me?”
“My lord.” A yearning sigh released. “You came.”
But the fingertips on his brow weren’t Vraymorg’s. Raggamirron lifted a lantern to his face. “You look better than the last time I was here. When you’re well enough, your lord and god is impatient to embrace you.”
“I want only death’s embrace.” Kaell rolled onto his side. “Go away.”
Raggamirron’s short laugh echoed. “Always so stubborn. I left wine by the pallet. It’s been two weeks. You need blood.” Footsteps rang on stone. A door scraped.
Kaell sat up. Hunger coiled like a fanged snake. He resisted it. And resisted. The wine’s ferrous odour infused his pores. He imagined that first sip, the hot, smooth blood in his mouth, its thickness coating his tongue.
With an angry cry at his weakness, he snatched up the cup and drained it.
Strength blasted through him. Kaell managed to stand, to stagger a step. The floor tilted. He plunged to his knees. Helpless tears welled again. Why did he cry? Warriors didn’t cry. They endured. They fought. They died.
The stone walls rippled like a dreamscape, hardly real. Nothing was real. Not even him. There was only blackness.
The next time Kaell lurched to his feet he stayed upright. His body enlivened with a giddying power, his every sense heightened and intense.
When he traced the floor’s flagstones, his subtle fingers identified every grainy crevice, every abrasive lump, the silt in corners, slime on walls.
He tasted distinct juices in his mouth, the pleasurable remnants of blood wine.
Every scent broke down to its essence; the damp, the mould, the cinders of distant fires.
A rat’s scuttle in the murk resounded like booted steps. Darkness no longer veiled the faint outlines of a door.
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He marvelled briefly at his new abilities. Then terror beat up. This strength. His sharper senses. All because of how Archanin changed him. Kaell had to escape himself.
Staggering to the door, he thumped fists against its iron until his knuckles bled.
No one came. They had entombed him in stone. Alone.
Kaell slumped, his mind splintered in despair. Captivity and the shocking knowledge of what he had become; all too much to bear.
He began to rock, back and forth, back and forth, singing a nonsense song.
A key rattled. Raggamirron lifted his lantern.
“This can’t go on. It’s been a month. Are you ready to greet your god? You gave him a great gift, Kaell. He only wants to reward you.”
“Go away.”
The door shut.
That night—or day, Kaell could no longer tell—the old dream waited. He breathed in the scent of damp earth. Water trickled down stone glowing with moss. The girl with dark hair trailed fingers through his hair.
“I must find you.” Kaell ached with need at her touch. “Tell me where to look?”
“A secret,” she whispered as she rose on tiptoes to kiss him.
Cold snatched him from her and from the comfort of dreams. Miserable, he curled into a ball. Maybe she was dead like the others. Only he remained.
“What do you say now?” Raggamirron brought more wine. “Will you greet your lord with a kiss or a curse?”
“I’ll never serve him. I’d rather die.”
“You can rot, but he won’t let you die. You’re precious to him.”
Kaell put his back to the wall. Even through dense stone, sounds and scents carried with impossible clarity: Chirring insects at dusk, a bird’s gilt melody, wings like a composition of drums. Distant rain, silver as mist. Dew.
But his keener senses, the strength surging through his muscles shamed him. His altered body revealed his weakness. It meant one thing: He failed his lord.
Weak. Flawed. Different. Why should his lord love him? Vraymorg knew the truth. That he raised a flawed boy to become a flawed bonded warrior. That’s what his lord feared when he rushed to Kaell’s bedside in Dal-Kanu.