Dark Dreams

by Rowena Cory Daniells

  He smiled. ‘He was such a bright boy. No one else cared about the old manuscripts, but he read them all.’

  ‘Reothe?’

  The Keeper nodded.

  Someone set candles on the table, illuminating the old man’s features.

  ‘What happened?’ Imoshen pressed. ‘They say he hurt you?’

  She searched the Keeper’s face, noting how one side drooped. He’d had a seizure. Reothe had not done that, unless the surprise of seeing him had triggered it.

  ‘I had to call for help. I didn’t want...’ He seemed to recollect himself. ‘Reothe grabbed me, dragged me into the room. He touched the back of my head then suddenly I had this blinding pain in my chest. I could not breathe. I knew nothing until I came around on the floor.’

  Imoshen nodded. ‘I’ll brew you something to drink. It will help you sleep.’

  But nothing would help him. In her work as a healer she had seen death too many times not to recognise it. Within a day or two he would have another seizure and his heart would simply stop beating.

  ‘Before you go, Lady Protector...’ Kinraid appeared before her. ‘The men and I want to know how Reothe got in here and how he escaped.’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’ Imoshen knew her dislike for the Vaygharian must have been evident. ‘Reothe grabbed me, held something over my face, and the next thing I knew I was here with all of you.’

  ‘Then you did not see him come, or go?’

  ‘No.’ It was the truth.

  ‘Then you don’t mind if we search the library?’

  A protest leapt to the Keeper’s blue lips and Imoshen had to smile.

  ‘You may search, but you will not destroy or damage any of the valuable manuscripts stored here. Now I must go and brew this tonic. Have the Keeper carried to his room.’

  She returned to her own room with Merkah at her heels. ‘I must concentrate on my healing. Leave me.’

  As soon as the door closed, Imoshen withdrew the slim volume, still warm from her body. T’Endomaz. The law of the T’En. She desperately wanted to believe it had belonged to the boy emperor, T’Ashmyr, greatest of all the T’En rulers.

  What if someone stole the book before she could translate it? She strode to her chest and threw it open but it was too obvious a hiding place. Her gaze fell on the Aayel’s T’Enchiridion. The book should have been burnt with her great aunt, in keeping with tradition, but Imoshen had saved it, knowing she would have to refresh her memory to say the words at the Harvest Feast the following day.

  Swiftly she retrieved the T’Enchiridion. It was twice the size of the T’Endomaz. As she unsheathed her knife from its original hiding place, she realised Reothe must have replaced it. She slit the inner lining of the larger book’s back cover and slid the T’Endomaz inside. Unless someone inspected her copy of the T’Enchiridion closely, they would not find it.

  Reothe had given her more than a book. He had given her the key to controlling her gifts. She could not help comparing his bonding gift to Tulkhan’s. How well Reothe knew her. But she was not going to bond with the last T’En warrior. He might claim to know the future but the Sight was often misleading.

  She had bonded with Tulkhan and nothing could change that, not even Reothe’s lure of a union so powerful it would unlock the secret of all her gifts.

  IT WAS THE talk of T’Diemn. Reothe had entered the palace unseen, seduced T’Imoshen and killed a dozen men before disappearing in a flash of light.

  It brought Tulkhan back in less than ten days.

  He returned without warning late one evening after Imoshen had already retired to her room. She was reading by the hearth when he stalked in. The sight of him made her heart leap with joy, then plunge in despair when she saw his expression.

  Tulkhan threw his cloak and gloves on the table then strode towards Imoshen, thinking she looked more beautiful than ever, her fine features softened by the bloom of new life. This late in her pregnancy a Ghebite woman would have been hidden away from all but the women of his house-line. Instead of being repelled by her changed body he wanted to run his hands all over her, to savour every ripe curve. But he must know the truth first.

  ‘Is it true what they’re saying? Did he rape you?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She laughed and he wanted to strangle her. ‘That is a Ghebite custom.’

  Cursing, he ignored the insult. ‘Then you submitted willingly?’

  ‘I was not conscious when the Keeper found me with Reothe.’

  ‘In every village or nobleman’s keep I hear the same thing,’ Tulkhan growled. ‘They are saying this was not the first time, that the babe you carry is his and you two plot to kill me when it suits you.’

  Imoshen came to her feet, pushing herself out of the chair. The added weight of the baby made her movements slower but no less graceful. It hurt him to look on her, knowing what was being said. According to the rumours she was sweet treachery itself.

  She approached him with her hands out, palm up, her face gentle and mocking, but underneath he thought he read an urgency not quite masked.

  ‘General, how can you worry about what they are saying when you know you were the first and only one for me?’

  He knew it was true. He caught her to him, feeling the hard swelling of the baby between them. A number of swift kicks told him his son resented the pressure. Shocked, he met Imoshen’s eyes. She smiled.

  Any day now he would be a father. The evidence had just kicked him. A delighted laugh escaped Tulkhan.

  ‘Our son is an active little being,’ she said. ‘Tell me, how many men did you lose fighting the rebels?’

  The abrupt change of subject startled him. One minute she was all woman, the next she thought and spoke like a man. It unnerved him more than he cared to admit.

  He shook his head wearily. ‘Too many died for what we achieved. Enough for me to know that you were right. The rebels hide and strike without warning, melting into the ravines so that we can’t pursue them. If we do chase them, my men get separated and picked off one by one.’ He felt the weight of their deaths. ‘But I won’t try your way either.’

  ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘I am considering.’

  She pressed her face into his neck. Her breath was warm on his skin and his body responded to her touch. She had to twist her hips so that the baby lay to one side of them. This was his child yet Reothe had stolen it from him without ever touching Imoshen.

  ‘Why didn’t you call for help?’ he demanded. ‘We could have had him!’

  He felt her sigh.

  ‘Take off your things, you smell of horse and sweat. Let me bathe you.’

  She moved through to the bathing room where she checked that the burner was heating and released the valve. Water steamed as it poured into the waist-high tub.

  Tulkhan watched in awe. He had not been so long in the palace that he took such extraordinary T’En inventions for granted, especially after a small moon of living rough in the inhospitable ranges.

  Imoshen approached him, ready to help him disrobe. The thought of her hands running over his soapy body made him ache to have her despite the Ghebite stricture against such things. By rights they should not share any intimacy in the last small moon of her pregnancy.

  But she was deliberately distracting him. Reothe had been here in this very palace. He caught her hands before she could touch him. ‘Is there something you aren’t telling me?’

  She looked obliquely up at him. Her expression seemed calculating but it could have been the way the light fell on her features.

  ‘I did not willingly invite Reothe into the palace. He grew up here. He knows of secret passages.’

  ‘He didn’t just appear?’

  ‘In a flash of light? No.’ She shook her head, smiling fondly at Tulkhan.

  ‘He grows arrogant.’

  ‘I don’t know how he slipped in and out unseen,’ she admitted, sounding disgruntled, then she grinned. ‘But I’m glad he did, because it brought you back to me.’ S
he tugged at his laces. ‘You will stay here now?’

  ‘I don’t know. My men are withdrawing –’

  ‘Consolidating.’

  ‘It looks like a defeat. It stinks of defeat.’

  ‘Defeat is when you are dead,’ Imoshen told him. ‘And not before!’

  ‘True.’ He smiled, admiring her spirit.

  Imoshen turned her back to him. ‘Undo my lacings.’

  His heart pounded and his fingers trembled as he fumbled with the knot. Tulkhan swallowed, dry-mouthed.

  ‘Wait,’ Imoshen whispered.

  She walked over to the door and slid the bolt, then turned to him and let the gown fall from her shoulders. As he drank in her naked splendour, he knew he would put aside all the strictures of his upbringing to have her. What wouldn’t he do to possess her?

  THE FOLLOWING DAY Tulkhan stood in the map-room studying the Keldon Highlands. If he were to build fortresses to hold the two passes into that region, it would contain the rebel army’s freedom of movement. He was considering the reaction of the proud Keldon nobles when a servant scratched at the door.

  Merkah entered with the ink and scriber he had requested.

  ‘Close the door,’ Tulkhan told her.

  She placed the instruments on the table.

  ‘So?’ Tulkhan prodded.

  ‘T’Imoshen asked for word of you every day.’

  ‘Did she have any meetings with unexpected people?’

  The girl looked perplexed.

  ‘Any of the Keldon nobles or their servants?’

  Merkah shook her head.

  ‘So nothing out of the ordinary happened?’

  ‘There was that time when T’Reothe –’

  ‘Apart from that.’ Idly Tulkhan wondered what the maid hoped to achieve by spying on her mistress. Surely she realised he would never trust her, and if Imoshen ever discovered her deceit Merkah would lose her position.

  ‘No, General.’

  He dismissed the girl and returned to the maps. His men expected him to lead them to victory even against overwhelming odds. But Reothe did not follow the standard rules of warfare. He attacked then melted away, shielded by the sullen farm folk who claimed they hadn’t seen him come or go.

  A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘Yes?’ he answered, expecting one of his men.

  An unfamiliar servant backed in with a tray of food.

  ‘I...’ The General caught sight of the man who accompanied the servant. ‘Come in, Kinraid, join me.’ Tulkhan heard the false welcome in his voice and wondered at the man he was becoming.

  Twice before, the Vaygharian had brought him news. Tulkhan preferred to let Kinraid believe he had won his trust with information. Besides, he would rather hear it from the snake’s mouth than hear Kinraid’s lies from people he trusted.

  ‘You may leave,’ Tulkhan signalled the servant.

  ‘No, he should stay. What my man has to say will concern you,’ Kinraid said.

  Tulkhan nodded, masking his irritation. Shoving the maps aside to clear a space on the table, he sat down and stretched out his long legs. He knew he appeared casual and relaxed. It was a lie.

  The little man poured a goblet of wine for Tulkhan then his master.

  ‘Speak, Kinraid.’ Tulkhan accepted his wine.

  ‘The palace is riddled with secret passages,’ he announced. ‘That is how Reothe made his way in unobserved.’

  ‘So Imoshen told me.’

  ‘She also claimed to be unconscious. But my man here heard her speaking with the rebel leader.’

  ‘They spoke?’ Warily he watched the two men for any sign of complicity. ‘Was your man able to make out what they said?’

  Kinraid shook his head. ‘Their words were muffled by the door, Protector General. But they spoke for a good while before the Keeper returned and caught him ravishing her.’

  Tulkhan looked away. The room swam before him.

  ‘My man was one of the first into the room,’ Kinraid continued inexorably. ‘He found the Keeper on the floor and your wife appeared to be unconscious. She was almost naked. The Keeper said he caught them embracing –’

  ‘If she was unconscious, Reothe was the one doing the embracing,’ Tulkhan corrected.

  Kinraid’s mocking silence presented a thousand possibilities to Tulkhan. Imoshen was a swift thinker. What better way to avert suspicion than to feign a faint?

  ‘Whether she was unconscious or not, it is clear she had the opportunity to call for help,’ Kinraid said. ‘We could have had the rebel leader arrested and awaiting you even now in the cells below!’

  The vision of Reothe brought low was a pleasant one. But Tulkhan doubted if a mere prison cell could contain the T’En warrior for long.

  Exasperation filled the General. How was he to defeat Reothe? No one alive today knew the extent of the Dhamfeer’s gifts. No one but Imoshen.

  The thought drove him to action.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Kinraid asked.

  Fury filled Tulkhan. He did not have to explain his actions to a man whose trade was treachery.

  Seeing the General’s expression, Kinraid stepped aside and made an obeisance of apology.

  The corridors were remarkably busy with servants. No, Imoshen was not in the library. No, she was not in any of the entertainment rooms, nor the kitchen or storerooms. Someone had seen her go out for a walk.

  Tulkhan’s boots crunched on the fine white gravel path of the palace’s formal garden. What had Reothe said?

  The one you love has the most power to hurt you.

  Tulkhan felt a bitter smile twist his lips. Love. He had no time for that weakening emotion. He would be utterly calm and trick the truth from her. There she was, through the trees.

  Imoshen tilted her head to study the fruit tree. According to the gardeners this blossom-laden bush would produce masses of stone fruit. Now, if she could only take a cutting and graft it onto their fruit trees back at the stronghold.

  ‘Imoshen!’

  When she turned to face Tulkhan, his expression made her heart sink. But she waved and maintained her calm, snapping off a twig heavy with blossom before greeting him. ‘I think I’ll take some cuttings back home. They tell me not only is this tree exquisite in the spring, but it’s an excellent fruiter.’

  ‘Imoshen!’ He caught her by the shoulders. ‘You lied to me. You said Reothe knocked you out. But now I’m told you spoke with him.’

  ‘Your spies took this long to report that?’

  He glowered and she cursed her unruly tongue.

  ‘You lied, Imoshen.’

  ‘I omitted to mention it. Reothe did knock me out and I don’t know how he did it.’ That still rankled. ‘But not before we talked.’

  ‘What about?’

  It was time for the truth. With a twist she freed her shoulders and rubbed the imprint of his anger from her skin. ‘It was the eighteenth anniversary of my birthing day, the day I would have been bonded to Reothe. He came to see me, to ask me to go with him.’

  Tulkhan blinked. She could tell he found the truth unpleasant but was not surprised.

  ‘What was your answer?’

  ‘I am here, aren’t T?’ Imoshen thumped his chest with enough force to let him know she was angry.

  Tulkhan absorbed the blow but it appeared nothing would pierce his foul mood.

  ‘Why didn’t you call for help?’ he demanded. ‘We could have had Reothe arrested, awaiting execution even now.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘So you think a Mere-man couldn’t hold one of your kind?’

  Imoshen hesitated. She had never seen Tulkhan so furious. Why was he referring to his people as Mere-men? Then she recalled that Reothe had used that term. Had Reothe planted a seed of doubt in the General’s mind to fester and finally destroy him?

  Instinctively she lifted her hands to cup Tulkhan’s face, but he caught her arms, pulling them down. His strength, fuelled by rage, threatened to crush the small bones
of her wrists. She gritted her teeth.

  ‘Don’t play your Dhamfeer tricks on me!’

  ‘On the contrary, I think Reothe may have played a trick on you.’ She kept her voice even. ‘I was going to search for a sign of him planting doubts in your mind.’

  She felt Tulkhan shudder with revulsion before dropping her wrists.

  ‘I am not your enemy, General.’

  ‘If you wanted to convince me of that, you would have had Reothe lying in a cell when I came back.’

  ‘That is easy for you to say.’ A flush of warm, velvety anger rushed through her, leaving a metallic aftertaste on her tongue. ‘I am not Reothe’s equal. How many of your men would have died trying to restrain him?’

  ‘They would have died gladly for me.’

  ‘I am not so quick to order the deaths of others.’

  Tulkhan flinched.

  She lifted her hands, palm up. ‘General?’

  ‘What was he doing with you naked in his arms?’ The agony in his voice cut her.

  ‘I was not naked. The laces on my underdress were cut.’

  Tulkhan snorted.

  ‘I don’t know what Reothe was doing. I wasn’t conscious. He used his gifts. Maybe he was planning to carry me out through the secret passage. In which case you can be glad the Keeper found us when he did.’

  The General took a step back from her.

  ‘Tulkhan, please.’

  ‘Answers trip too easily off your tongue, Imoshen. From this day forward I will not be coming to your bed. I no longer trust you.’

  It was the final blow. ‘Then you are lost, because I am the only one you can trust. I love you.’ It was torn from her.

  She saw him flinch. Was her love such a terrible thing? His rejection felt like a physical blow. She almost staggered. ‘General?’

  He turned on his heel and walked off.

  Through a blur of unshed tears Imoshen watched the stiff angle of General Tulkhan’s broad shoulders as he walked away. He rounded the corner. As the blossoming trees obscured him from sight, her legs gave way and she sank onto the gravel path. The pain in her knees was nothing compared to the pain in her chest.

  This was beyond repair. The General would never trust her again. By withdrawing from her he was sealing his fate and fulfilling Reothe’s prophecy of his death.