Starstone

by Denise M. Main

  Relleshom stayed at the keep for seven days, then vanished on the seventh evening, and he had not heard of her since. Until, four weeks ago, on the first day of spring, an old woman had arrived at the door, pushed the girl in and demanded payment for her fostering services of the last 15 years. Varen had smiled and bade her come inside to receive her dues.

  The girl stirred feebly on the couch, drawing his attention back to the present. Omell was not beautiful as Relleshom had been; her small triangular face was like that of a starved cat. Eyes, neither large nor small, tilted up at the outer corners, adding to the feline resemblance. They were thickly lashed, gold-flecked and azure. Her eyebrows were thin and arched, nose small and snub, mouth full and curved – but never smiling. Short, curly hair bore the streaked coloring of a marmalade tabby cat. And, as if to spite the gloom of her surroundings, she wore a velvet gown of warm orange tones.

  Groaning faintly, she opened her eyes, a bruise beginning to shadow one side of her chin. Varen sat on the edge of the couch and leaned over her, resting one hand on the high-carved back, his pale face set once more into its normal hard lines. The girl glared defiance at him like an alley cat on a garbage heap.

  He reached out a pale, sinewy hand, and with one jerk, tore the front of her gown apart. Breath hissed between her clenched teeth and her body tensed. Varen smiled.

  “Do you wish me to rape you, Omell?” he asked softly. “Is that how you'd like your first taste of love?”

  A touch from his finger parted the front seam of her long skirt.

  “To be forced. Hurt. Held down while I take you?”

  His voice was light and pleasant, at odds with the small cold smile on his lips. He stood and ripped the long sleeves from her arms, tossing them contemptuously to the floor.

  Omell lay unresisting as he tore off every shred of her clothing. When at last she was naked, red friction burns marred her skin like lash marks. Varen looked her up and down. Almost boy-like in her slenderness, there were few of the soft curves of a grown woman about her small supple body.

  “Or should I take you as I would a boy?”

  Her narrowed eyes widened a fraction, as she understood the implication.

  Varen smiled again, eyes hooded, lips curved arrogantly.

  “Shall I whip you – or chain you in the cells and let the rats soften you a little first?”

  Omell shivered, a mixture of fear, anger and the chill air. “Let me go,” she breathed.

  “Let you go? Oh, no. I can't do that.” He lightly touched the purpling bruises left by his hands on her shoulders. A muscle twitched beneath his fingertips. Abruptly, she knocked his hand away and rose fluidly to her feet. Varen took a step backwards.

  “Why me?” she demanded. “You have enough women – and boys – to satisfy your warped needs. Leave me alone!”

  He chuckled, and his eyes took on a light of their own. Omell shivered again as she felt the power in him. And finally realized, like many before her, that she has unequivocally lost to the strange lord of the keep. The cold stone floor sucked the small warmth from her body, just as Varen's green eyes drained the will from her mind.

  “Please.”

  It was a word never spoken by him in her presence before.

  “Lay with me once. Then, if you wish, you may leave forever.”

  Omell sighed wearily. If that’s all he really wanted, was it so hard to comply?

  “I...”

  The pale, black dressed man took a step towards her and encircled the girl within his arms. She trembled against him, almost relieved, and didn’t see the small smile of triumph on his lips before they covered hers in a deep, burning kiss.

  He led her to his dark covered bed and laid her gently between the black sheets. A few quick gestures rid him of his clothing and he stood naked for a moment – tall, lean, tight muscled – then gracefully slid into the high, wide bed beside her.

  She felt light-headed, detached, hardly aware of Varen's weight as he pressed against her, or of his mouth on hers. His hands moved slowly, warming her chilled body, bringing her alive, drawing her scattered senses together, playing her like a musician would a fine instrument. Long slender fingers caressed her face, brushed across her closed eyelids. His lips were soft on her throat, then she felt a short pain at her neck as his teeth nipped. He moved lower, following the line of her body with hands and mouth. A tiny moan darted past her lips as hands roamed ever more intimately over her, leaving a trail of cold fire in their wake.

  “Do you want me?” His soft whisper echoed around her, around and through her mind. Her reply was neither yes nor no, but a wordless sigh.

  “Do you want me?”

  Beyond coherent speech, she opened her body to him, and let it answer for her.

  Smiling, Varen slowly entered her, halting when he met resistance. Her face below him was tilted back – eyes closed, lips parted, a faint flush tinting cheeks recently paled from lack of sun and fresh air.

  He let her lay still for a few moments, enjoying the sensations he created within her. Hands fluttered over his lean back and silken skin, pressing him tighter against her. She moaned a mixture of frustration and eagerness, and lifted her hips. Varen thrust past the final barrier. He sighed, then lowered his head until their foreheads touched, as he sought the mental contact necessary for the next step of his plan.

  Around them, unnoticed by either, a faint rosy glow gathered in the air. As Omell moved with him, her mind unfolded like a flower to the sun, petal by petal, as Varen searched for his prize. At the center was a tiny silver spark, hung upon a background of velvet blackness. It grew, filling his mind. Suspended within the light was a pulsing dark purple gem, shot through with golden lightning. He reached for it, breath coming faster, blood pounding through his pale body. Beneath him, Omell flowed like the racing tide. Her short cries were like those of gulls wheeling in the sea air. Her muscles gripped him tight, tighter, as he felt the familiar surge.

  Then searing white light – and release.

  Their minds spun outwards, merged into one kaleidoscopic whole. Expanded, exploded, drifted downwards like silver snow, until once more, they lay on the rumpled black sheets of Varen's high, wide bed.

  ***

  On the great trade world of Carnaté, in a locked room rarely visited, a dagger-like gem pulsed gently – suspended within its own force-field. When it received its next visitor perhaps they would realize that the little gold veined gem was merely an illusion – a hologram. Although for the last 16 years, no one had noticed.

  ***

  In the palm of Varen’s clenched hand, something small, hard and warm pulsed for a moment, then stilled. He uncurled his fingers and looked at the small, purple gem: a triangle, one short side, two long, elegant and faceted – a shard. Its fine tracery of gold marbling gleamed in the dim light, and he smiled coldly. Then he became aware of the slender girl beneath him, the way she glared anger and suspicion.

  “What did you do?” she demanded, the flush fading from her cheeks, leaving them almost as white as his own.

  “I thought that was rather obvious, my dear,” he replied. Then he shifted his weight from her and sat up.

  “You took something from me,” she said accusingly. “I felt it go. What was it?” The timbre of her voice changed as she spoke the last three words, becoming stronger – almost commanding. Her blue, flecked eyes glowed with a feral light.

  Varen frowned. “I took only what was put there for me at your birth,” he answered, coldly studying her. She had changed subtly. Of course, his taking of the gem would have affected her in some way; he had expected that. But instead of detracting from her, it appeared to have had the opposite effect.

  For a fraction of a second, he was almost drawn back to her. Then abruptly he turned away from the disturbing blue and gold gaze and threw back the bed sheets. Naked and silent, he picked up a dark robe from the floor. Wrapping it around his pale body, he ignored Omell's questions and demands, and padded across the black stone floor
to his work desk, the gem held firmly in his hand. Vaguely, he noted the pitch of her voice rising while he stood in front of the huge carved desk and opened one of its many drawers. From a polished jet box, he took a short heavy chain and laid it gently down on the desk-top. Empty triangular settings, six of them, had been fashioned around a small hexagon, perhaps an inch and a half in diameter, forged into the golden links. Into the uppermost one, he dropped the purple and gold gem. It settled there as though it had never been anywhere else, and pulsed softly for a second.

  The gem was part of his key to a world long locked away; a place which no doubt held wealth and riches. More importantly, he could become Prime Lord of that place. And with the Danaachians to do his bidding, he could oust Morgan bron Sultain and become the Prime Lord of Anraun, and of Iantii too.

  “Varen!”

  A sharp voice broke into his thoughts. He looked up, surprised by the force of it. Omell stood close behind him. For a moment, she glared furiously at him. Then the anger dissolved and she was just a confused 16-year-old girl again.

  “What did you do, Varen?” she asked quietly.

  The dark lord studied her anew, and decided to tell her. There was a latent power in the small, thin girl, one that perhaps he could tailor to his own requirements.

  “Long before you were born, I was your mother's pupil in the theurgical arts. She was an excellent mage and teacher – and a very beautiful woman. After seven years, she left to find a certain type of man to father her child; two years later, she returned. You had been born, and, she told me, carried something within you that would be mine in years to come. This is it.” He held up the chain with its gold-veined gem glowing oddly in the top triangulate setting. “The thing I took.”

  Omell stared long and hard at it, as if trying to work out where inside her it had been. “That came from me...how?” She looked at Varen, deep blue eyes almost black in the dim light, yet the gold flecks made them seem shrewd and sharp. “And what's it for?”

  “To know how, to understand, you would have to be a student of the art. As to its use – this pretty bauble is a portion of the key to riches and power not known outside the Temple. This will help unlock the path to another world. The one your people's nemesis was sent to. The next part of the key will grant me power over these...beings. I shall be their ruler. With them, I shall conquer Anraun. Once that is done, I shall add them to my warriors, and invade the Iantii. I shall be lord of three realms.” He turned away from her and gently laid the chain back in the jet box.

  “But the second portion is yet to be given,” said Relleshom's voice.

  He turned slowly back, saw Omell staring at the gem, saw her lips move, but heard her mother speak. “Go to the island. Make an ally of the night seer. He can bring you the heart from its resting place.”

  “Relleshom...?” he murmured.

  The girl fixed her strange, intent gaze on him. “If you took that from me,” she whispered, “then I want something in return.”

  Varen paused, then closed and locked the box, wondering where Relleshom was at that moment. “And what would that be?”

  “I want to be your pupil – as you were my mother's. And, I want to be at your side when you lead the Danaachs against the descendants of those who wiped out my people.”

  Varen laughed, amused at the girl's nerve. “You may accompany me to the island – after that, I promise nothing.”

  “Agreed. But on the way, you'll begin teaching me?”

  “My dear child, I shall teach you things you will never forget,” he smiled.

  ***

  But Relleshom had not told him everything about the gem-key. Now that it had been released from her daughter's mind, of its own accord it had already begun re-building the pathway, so long closed. Far away on yet another world, other plans and plots were stirring into life, where something thought long-lost gently resonated, and a much stronger pale, dark-haired lord became a god.

  Chapter 2 – Out of the Singing Plains

  Standing at the side of a narrow dirt path, the old man leaned his weight on a well-weathered staff and nodded encouragingly.

  Borkham looked at the slender youth blocking the path, then back at the old man, feeling a twinge of disgust at the expression of senile anticipation on the creased, leathery face.

  “This the one?” Borkham grunted, raising his bushy eyebrows in the direction of the tawny haired boy.

  Again, the old man nodded, his bright black eyes twinkling with silent amusement.

  The taller of Borkham's two cronies gave a snort of laughter. “That skinny little runt isn't even armed!”

  “Right,” the other agreed, “I could take him with one hand tied behind my back!”

  “Try then, my friends,” the old one cackled.

  “Come on,” Borkham growled. “Let's get this over with.” He drew his battered sword and stepped confidently forward, flanked by the other two.

  When the old man had come into the tavern, boasting that he knew a lad who could beat three armed men at the same time, Borkham had laughed and asked him to bet on that. Willingly, the old fellow agreed, telling them that this invincible fighter waited on a path over the hill just outside town.

  Borkham wanted the man to bide his time, until more people besides his cronies came into the tavern to witness the event. However, the old man refused, saying it had to be now or never. So, laughing and joking, the three rogues made their way to the path, and found a small skinny boy there. This was going to be the easiest money Borkham had ever made, and he was a past master at turning a quick crown or two.

  The drably dressed boy stood silent and still in the middle of the path, his oddly-flecked blue eyes assessing each man in turn. Overhead, a crow cawed raucously, splattering the dirt in front of the men with its droppings. Then it circled again and flew away. Bees droned lazily in the early flowering grasses. The tallest man broke wind loudly, bringing chuckles from the other two.

  A lone white cloud passed briefly in front of the mid-morning sun. There was a small movement from the youth. As the cloud drifted on, sunlight sparked off a tiny silver star, streaking through the air like a metallic insect. It came to rest deeply embedded in the greasy forehead of the tallest man, splitting bone and spiking into brain. He dropped to the ground with a small surprised sigh – and a final fart. A tiny thread of blood crept slyly down the side of his forehead, worming its way to the dusty soil a few inches away.

  Borkham and his remaining friend exchanged a rapid glance, then lunged at the boy, intent on hacking him into pieces. Their prospective victim danced lightly towards the smaller man, easily avoided Borkham's attack, leapt high into the air and lashed out in a powerful, flat-footed kick.

  The man staggered, retained his balance for a moment, then crashed down onto his back, gasping for air and clutching frantically at his throat. Gurgling and choking, he writhed in the dirt. Fingers clawed convulsively at his neck, trying to force air past a crushed larynx and into starving lungs.

  Borkham skidded round, puffs of dust spurting up from the soles of his boots, and stared at his friend. The speed with which the boy had moved shocked him to a standstill. He'd seen lucky kicks produce very effective results before. But this was not luck. There was more to the blasted brat than met the eye. And when he'd finished with the runt, he'd take the old man apart for leading them into a trap.

  He looked away from the blue-faced body and into the boy's calm eyes. Seeing only a mirrored reflection of the clear sky, and the lost lives of his dead companions, he spat to one side, hefted his sword in both hands and moved in to meet the challenge.

  Borkham was luckier than his companions. He merely lost the fight and wager, not his life.

  “Good. Neatly done.” As the old man spoke, his voice changed from a high quaver to the deep rich tones of a man in his prime. The air around him shimmered slightly as if he were surrounded by a heat haze. He straightened up, the illusion of age dropping from his shoulders as easily as a discarded cloak. Gre
asy rat's-tails of thin, scum colored hair became a gleaming fall of pure silver. Skin smoothed and tightened, stretching over hard muscle and sinew.

  The boy nodded and stepped away from Borkham's unconscious body. He bent to retrieve the throwing star from the first man's forehead, lips curling briefly in distaste, and cleaned it on the man's shirt before slipping it into his belt lining alongside other stars. Firearms, guns of any sort, were banned from Anraun and always had been, along with any other manufactured weapon that made killing too easy. Resh almost felt guilty for being so good at killing.

  ‘Should I have killed those two?’ The mute boy glanced at the illusionist, his question relayed by thought.

  “Unfortunately, yes. And when this one wakes, he will tell others about you, doubtless embellishing the tale, and so adding to your reputation.” The silver-haired man picked up a small pack and a sand colored cloak from the grass at his feet, and held them out. “Come Resh, we still have a long way to travel.”

  Resh took the proffered pack and looked up at the tall, brown robed man who now stood head and shoulders above him.

  ‘Do we have to go to this city?’

  “Yes,” he said firmly, lowering his eyebrows a fraction. Resh bowed his sunstreaked head to the inevitable.

  And so, just after the spring rains, they came from their home deep in the desert lands of the Singing Plains where by night, the sand, wind and rocks blended their voices, sometimes in harmony, to give the place its name. They passed through villages and towns until they reached Sancurr, chief city of those parts; silver haired Mesar, who most agreed was a magus, and his mute pupil, Resh, with gold-flecked eyes, drawn by the futures invisible reins, by the first faint stirrings of a power that did not belong on Anraun.