by Joy Nash
“I don’t understand.”
“No clan dwells at the Seventh Sign. The Circle is empty.”
“The Circle?”
“The spirits of the Na’lara are linked,” Malia said. “We form a Circle of six around the Seventh. She who stands in the Center unites her sisters. When the talismans are linked, the web opens.”
Gina started. “Then it’s true—you can open the web!” Had Zera lied? She could hardly believe the Na’lara had possessed the power to send her home, yet hadn’t offered to do so.
“No. Without the Seventh, the life of the forest weakens. We cannot reach the veil.”
“Where is the Na’lara of the Seventh Clan?”
“There is none. The Seventh Clan dwells with the Skyeagle Clan.”
“Why?”
Malia’s eyes clouded. “Many winters ago, when I was a girl, a young man of the Seventh Clan loved a girl of his own clan. He refused to seek a partner elsewhere. Danala, Na’lara to the Seventh Clan, did not allow the joining.” She shook her head. “Anger turned his heart to stone. That night he set fire to the Na’lara’s dwelling. The next morning, Danala and her son-by-joining lay dead in the ruins. Her daughter’s body had been consumed completely. The talisman was never found.”
“The man stole it?”
“Perhaps. He was never seen again.”
Sleeping Harta extended his hand, palm up and fingers spread, the Baha’Na gesture signifying emptiness. “A clan cannot live apart from a Na’lara, and there can be no Na’lara without the talisman,” he said. “The Seventh Clan left their home and journeyed to the village of the Skyeagle Clan. They dwell there still, awaiting the return of the lost talisman.”
Malia swept her arm to one side. “That day approaches. The Circle has dreamed the return of its Center.”
A shiver ran the length of Gina’s spine. “You have?”
Malia nodded. “Seven winters have passed, not once, but four times since the talisman was lost. At the last full moon, the night visions came to me. The time is not far off.”
She touched her thumbs to her forefingers, making two circles. Slowly, she brought her hands together, until the circles were linked.
“The People will soon be whole.”
Chapter Twenty
A fat hand slapped Ariek on the back.
“Tarol take me, boy, if they ain’t the finest tits I ever seen. Bring that Bride wench here. I’ll make her moan fer it. My cock’s bigger than Lotark’s, ye know.”
Ariek turned and slammed his fist between a pair of red-rimmed eyes. The drunk staggered backward into the arms of his equally sotted companion.
“Swiving idiot,” Ariek muttered.
Choking on his rage, he shoved his way through the crowd until he reached one of the side streets leading away from the frenzied celebration. Throwing himself down on the marble stoop of a stately mansion, he cursed again, this time at himself, for venturing into the streets for the festival. He’d come because he’d known he would see her. He should have stayed away for the same reason.
The Feast of the Rising marked the holiest celebration of the Temple, the day when Lotark and his Bride ascended to the heavens. The feasting had begun at noon the day before and would continue unabated through the following night and day.
Food dominated the revelry. It had been the focus of solemn ritual and of frantic merrymaking. It had been blessed, thrown in the air and trampled. Now the putrid remains of the celebration decorated the cobblestones. Masses of flies swarmed in blissful gluttony.
The frenzy rose as the night descended. True Believers crowded the Upper Plaza, clad in white. There were few women about. Any with virtue to guard had been locked away.
The male revelers wore masks, cheap imitations of the Visage of Lotark. Ariek wore white as well, though he was unmasked. His wizard’s garb would have attracted an angry assault. No one wore black on this day.
An hour before sunset, the tall doors of the Temple had swung open, and a high ceremonial platform had rolled into the center of the plaza. Solk towered above the mob, masked with the face of the God. A brilliant white robe draped his lanky frame.
The high priest glimmered in the light of the ceremonial torches. The Bride stood at his side. A sheer netting of white lace revealed the pleasures in which Lotark had reveled during his earthly stay. Danat had stood erect, her expression calm and serene, as if unaware of the effect her figure had on the swarm of drunken men at her feet.
A cheer echoed from the plaza, piercing Ariek’s tortured memories. He dropped his head into his hands. The culmination of the ceremony was beginning. The God would join with his Bride before the people, then rise to Paradise. Self-loathing burned like acid in his throat. How could he allow Danat to endure this humiliation? Was he not man enough to rescue her?
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block the sordid images from his mind. Raucous jeers surged from the plaza as the ceremony unfolded.
After an eternity, a deafening roar told Ariek the farce had ended. Lotark and his Bride had once again ascended to Paradise.
Streams of revelers poured down the street, voices loud with swaggering bravado. One youth staggered and fell across Ariek’s knees, retching a day’s culinary excess onto the marble steps. Ariek sprang to his feet and threw the boy to one side.
He ducked into an alley leading to the rear entrance of the Stronghold, giving wide berth to a pair of fornicating True Believers. Dark passions consumed him. His hands tingled, yearning for the feel of Solk’s throat. Ariek ached to kill the swiving hypocrite for the humiliation he’d inflicted on Danat. No, not just kill, but torture, until the arrogant bastard broke and begged for mercy.
Intent on his imagined revenge, he stumbled on a heap of rubbish. A cat screeched and darted through his legs. He whirled in time to see a stiletto poised in the air above him, its thin blade glistening in the shaft of light cast from a nearby window. It was held by a man dressed in white, masked with the face of the One God.
Ariek lunged to one side. His attacker’s arm sliced through empty air. The masked man stumbled, thrown off-balance by the force of his fruitless blow.
Ariek grabbed for his own dagger and cursed when his hand came away empty. Lost—or stolen? He floundered in the trash heap, searching for something to serve as a weapon. Grasping a broken table leg, he spun around and met the second attack.
The man slashed, then dodged Ariek’s counterattack and slashed again. Ariek lunged, swinging the table leg at the man’s head. The attacker ducked. The brittle wood glanced off the stiletto, knocking it to the ground, then hit the wall and splintered into fragments.
Ariek dropped the remnants of the table leg and threw himself at his opponent. They fell in a wild grapple of limbs onto a heap of slime.
They rolled across the alley, skidding through excrement. The masked man shoved Ariek onto his back. Iron fingers closed around his neck, cutting off his breath. The Visage of Lotark leered down at him.
Strength, driven by primitive fear, surged through Ariek. He gripped his assailant’s arms and twisted, gaining the upper position. He hauled the man to his feet and drove him against the wall. The man’s skull hit stone with a sickening crack. His grip on Ariek’s throat loosened.
Ariek sucked in a rasping breath and watched, chest heaving, as the man’s limp body slid down the wall and dropped face-down into a slimy puddle. Patches of black swarmed his vision. He dropped to one knee.
Who had attacked him? A commoner overcome by the Madness?
Ariek rolled the still body onto its back and removed the mask. His breath seized, almost as if the man’s hands were once again wrapped around his throat.
He recognized the face beneath the mask. A Servant of Lotark, one of Solk’s most trusted acolytes. That this man had been sent to kill him could mean only one thing.
Ariek staggered to his feet and set out at a run toward the Temple.
* * * * *
The tall doors swung shut with a dull thud, shutting
out the worst of the manic cheering. The chill of the main worship room touched Danat’s skin through the white lace of her Bride’s robe, recalling the touch of Solk’s cold fingers. The crowd had watched him take his pleasure of her. Her heart had turned to ice. Would she ever feel warm again?
An acolyte pushed a short flight of stairs to the platform. The high priest descended with regal grace. Danat followed, turning at once toward the Inner Sanctuary. Despite all she had endured, the ceremony was not yet complete.
The holiest of rooms lay in darkness, relieved only by the thin light cast by a torch above the altar. Danat covered her ears with her palms, trying to block the howls of the mob. But the shouts were in her head and could not be erased.
“Come to me.” Her spine stiffened at the sound of Solk’s voice. She turned.
The high priest removed his mask and set it in its niche by the altar. The cold angles of his face twisted into a tight, cruel smile.
“Come,” he repeated. Danat’s blood froze in her veins.
But she knew well enough there was no place to hide. She obeyed, stepping closer, every fiber of her being shouting in protest. She dropped her eyes and turned her palms outward in a gesture of submission, waiting for Solk’s next command.
The force of his blow sent her sprawling across the altar steps. Pain exploded under her eye. Solk loomed over her, his body rigid, his pale eyes blazing with righteous fury.
“You slut,” he spat. “You harlot! You are honored above all women, yet you defile the name of the Lotark in his own sanctuary with a wizard lover!” He leaned toward her, his face contorted with rage.
Danat shrank back against the altar. Solk knew of Ariek? How?
“Lotark’s Temple must be cleansed in blood. Already your lover has paid with his life.” Solk reached inside his robe and drew forth a silken scarf.
A scarf she’d last seen in Ariek’s hand.
“You have…killed…Ariek?” Grief burst over her, eclipsing the pain under her eye. Solk gave a horrible laugh.
He raised his hand. Danat twisted and the high priest’s second blow crashed on the altar. He howled his outrage.
Danat scrambled over the altar and dropped to the floor on the other side. Ariek was dead. The words echoed in her head, tore at her heart. She, too, would be dead before long—of that she was certain.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter.
“You hypocrite,” she hissed. The high priest’s face flushed—the Bride was not permitted to speak in Lotark’s sanctuary. “You dare call me a defiler. You, who took me from my home and used me as a whore.”
“What blasphemy is this? You have been honored with the highest place a woman can hope to attain.” Solk’s voice grew deathly quiet. “It is insufferable.” He darted around the altar and grabbed Danat by the wrist.
She drew herself up to her full height and spat in his face.
“You will pay for your insolence,” Solk thundered. He raised his free hand and struck her again, across the cheek already swollen from his previous blow. Danat cried out. She brought up her free arm to ward off his fists.
The door to the Sanctuary burst open and Danat caught a glimpse of a reveler covered in the filth of his merriment. The high priest’s head jerked around. Danat took advantage of his distraction and wrenched her arm free.
The man lunged for Solk. The high priest fell under his attacker’s weight and rolled toward the altar. Danat backed away, sending a prayer of thanks to whatever fortune had led a madman to her rescue.
The man’s hands went for Solk’s throat. Solk rammed his attacker into the side of the dais, into the light of the altar torch.
Danat’s heart leapt. “Ariek!”
Ariek let out a curse and fell on Solk, landing a blow to the high priest’s jaw.
“You bastard. You sent your lackey to kill me while you stayed here to abuse a woman. I’ll kill you for what you’ve done to her!”
“Blasphemer! It is Lotark’s will that you be destroyed.”
A metal blade flashed between the men. Before Danat could cry out a warning, Solk struck. Ariek’s blood spread in a dark stain across his chest.
Ariek’s struggle became even more crazed. He squeezed Solk’s wrist in a crushing grip and smashed it against the altar. When the knife dropped to the floor, his hands shot toward the high priest’s neck.
Solk dealt a blow to the side of Ariek’s head. Ariek dropped to his knees, grunting when Solk’s kick connected with his gut. He fell backward, gasping for air.
Solk slid a second, smaller knife from his sleeve and bent low, a wild laugh emerging from his throat.
He will kill him. He will kill Ariek.
Danat lunged across the floor. Her fingers closed on the hilt of the high priest’s fallen dagger. Vivid colors swirled before her eyes. She leaped up behind Solk, brought the weapon high over her head, and drove it downward with all her strength.
Blood spurted from the high priest’s neck, spraying her in the face. She pulled the blade from his flesh and let it fall a second time, then a third. “I will not let you kill him! I will not!” The knife plunged into Solk’s flesh, hitting bone and sinew with a satisfying whack. “I. Will. Not.”
Ariek shoved the limp body of the priest aside and pulled himself upright, gasping. Danat doubled over, shaking. “I…will…not…”
Ariek’s arms closed around her from behind. He pried the dagger from her fingers.
“It’s all right, Danat. He’s dead.”
She stared at the body sprawled face-down on the floor. Blood was everywhere—on her hands, her body, the altar. She knelt in a warm puddle of the priest’s fading life.
“I killed him,” she whispered.
“You’ve given him what he deserved,” Ariek replied grimly, turning her toward him. “You saved my life.”
Blood soaked his shirt. “Ariek, you’re wounded! How bad is it? Let me see.”
“I’m fine. We have to get out of here. I took care of the two at the door, but there will be others.” He rose, staggering slightly, and pulled her to her feet behind him. “Is there another way out?”
“Here.” She led him to a passage hidden by a tapestry. “It leads to Solk’s private chambers. There’s a doorway to the street.”
“Wait.” Ariek fumbled at his belt for his pouch of crystals. “I’ll shadow us.” Once outside, he threaded a dizzying path through the drunken revelers, descending to the Lower City.
“Where will we go?” Danat whispered as soon as they were clear of the crowds.
“I don’t know, but we can’t stay in the city.” He turned and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “I’ll find a place where you’ll be safe, Danat.” His tone hardened. “I should have done it long ago. Now I’ll kill anyone who tries to touch you.”
They followed a narrow alley to its juncture with the waterfront. With the aid of a crystal, Ariek eased open the door of a long, low building. It opened onto a tack room, perfumed by manure and hay. Along one wall hung saddles, bridles, and riding crops. Wooden bins were lined up opposite. The snicker of horses could be heard from behind a heavy door.
“This is my father’s stable,” Ariek whispered. “The stable boy is probably dozing on the other side of that door. I’ll make sure he doesn’t wake up.”
Ariek ducked through the doorway and returned a few moments later. “He’s out.” He opened one of the wooden bins and pulled out an assortment of riding clothes. “Some of these belong to the jockeys. They might fit you.” He tossed her a bundle. “Try these.”
Danat stripped off her bloodstained gown without a word. The shirt and breeches fit well enough to wear, though the boots Ariek handed her were too large. He’d found clean clothing for himself as well. He shrugged out of his shirt and bit back a gasp of pain.
She flew to his side, horrified to see the deep slash across his shoulder and upper chest. Undressing had torn it open. She pressed her bare hand over the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood.
“You need a healer!
We must go to the Stronghold!”
“No. We haven’t time.”
“Let me bind it then, at least.” She tore one of the jockey’s tunics into strips and bound Ariek’s wound, then helped him into a new shirt.
They entered the stables, stepping around the unconscious stable boy. Ariek chose a horse from one of the stalls and threw a saddle over its back, straining at the effort. Danat, afraid he would injure himself further, refused his attempt to lift her into the saddle. Using a stool she found in a corner, she scrambled onto the horse’s back unaided.
He took a package and a flask from a low table. “Food. Not much, but better than nothing,” he said, stashing the bundle in a saddlebag. He opened the stable’s main door and led the horse into the street, then swung into the saddle behind Danat. They inched across the crowded market square.
The night’s revelry showed no signs of abating. Danat’s heart pounded in her chest as they negotiated a path through the mob. She bit down on her lower lip, not daring to distract Ariek with her fear. She sensed he needed every bit of his concentration to keep them hidden.
He kept a steady pace. When they had passed the last staggering drunk some distance from the city, he slowed the horse.
“We’re safe enough for now.”
Danat looked up into the glaze of his eyes. “You need to rest.”
“For a few minutes. We need to put a good stretch of road between us and the city.”
Danat unwrapped the stable boy’s bundle and found several hearty slices of bread and cheese. The flask contained dark ale.
“Here,” she said, offering both to Ariek, “drink this, and eat. You are near to collapsing.”
He accepted the flask. “You’re right.” His voice shook. “I barely held the shadow while we passed through the crowd.” He took a deep draught and bit into a wedge of cheese. “I won’t be able to hide us from a dog unless I get some rest.”