The commander prodded Rafen with his sword tip, just to feel more in control.
Rafen moved across the long courtyard separating them from the inner wall.
The journey through the inner wall seemed to take hours. At every turn, guards and philosophers stared at him, their eyes small and suspicious. They had received his description from the authorities and knew they were looking at either Francisco or his hunted twin, Rafen.
His escort turned into another corridor, and Rafen recognized the route they were taking. The Tarhian prodded him again with the sword, and Rafen continued walking, almost absentmindedly as he absorbed the familiar walls, the chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings, and the lofty, open windows that let in the last of the summer day’s breezes. The Sianian artwork had long ago been replaced with paintings of ancient Tarhian conflicts in crude, one-dimensional style and tapestries of one color alone – teal, navy, or most frequently, dingy gray.
Rafen clasped his phoenix feather and savored each breath he drew, each footstep he walked, each pulsation of his drumming heart. No one knew what was beyond the curtain, but he hoped he would see his mother… he hoped he would see Zion once more.
In his mind’s eye, he glimpsed the churning force of Nazt as he halted before the double doors of the throne room. The hands were flapping on the air, reaching for him, and he pulled back. What if death meant surrender to Nazt? What if it meant they would finally possess him?
Half panting, he placed a hand on his phoenix feather. Zion was stronger than Nazt, even in death. He told himself over and over. Now that he was here at last, the anger was taking over again, and all he could think of was his mother. He felt his will become unbendable as iron.
Control yourself. Think.
His best chance was either attempting to absorb the Lashki’s kesmal or to create another collision. He had to make the fight last as long as possible, doing the greatest amount of damage he could. And he couldn’t transform, otherwise the Lashki would have ample opportunity to take him to Nazt. The ghoul knew that little trick by now. Rafen would have to rely on his other, newer strengths.
The Tarhian behind him murmured something to the two guards there. He sheathed his sword rapidly and clasped Rafen’s shoulder, moving toward the doors.
One guard shook his head. “He said not to go in,” he whispered.
However, the other fumbled with the handles and threw one door open.
A silence, and the putrid, rotting smell of the Lashki rolled out toward them. Shaking violently while he bowed, the guard trembled and choked out, “Someone to see My Lord and Your Grace. It is Ra—”
“What does the fool want?” the Lashki’s low voice said, still clearly audible through the doors. “I said no disturbances.”
The guard in the open doorway screamed at something Rafen couldn’t see (probably the Lashki directing the copper rod) and threw himself behind the still closed door. The commander behind Rafen shoved him forward, and Rafen stumbled into the throne room.
He halted, the familiar red and pearl checked squares of the floor stretching away before him. At the far end, they met the moth-eaten, frayed brown hem of the Lashki’s robe. Still wearing King Robert’s gold circlet on his head, the Lashki stood before the gilded oak throne, Talmon flitting nervously at his side. The light of the afternoon was golden, streaming through the long thin windows and making each decaying drop of moisture on the Lashki’s bubbling skin twinkle silver.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The
Lashki’s Curse
Wearing an unreadable expression, the Lashki met Rafen’s eyes. The copper rod twitched, signaling the sudden screaming of Nazt in Rafen’s head. As blue ignited the rod’s tip, Talmon hurled himself before his master with arms outspread, crying in accented Tongue, “Forbear, Master, forbear only a moment!”
Rafen laughed and stepped forward, the terrified Tarhian guards slamming the door at his back.
“I am not Francisco,” he said.
The Lashki swept his rod into Talmon’s right shoulder, sending him sprawling on the checked floor. Then the ghoul raised his dripping head and waited for Rafen to walk closer. Nazt was screeching impatiently in Rafen’s head while he removed the black-handled dagger from his belt. His right hand was glued to his phoenix feather.
The Lashki laughed low in his throat.
“You knew I would come,” Rafen said quietly. “You were right. I couldn’t stay away. I was always meant to be the one to fight this battle for Siana.”
“What brings you here, Rafen?” the Lashki said, moving sideways toward the windows in the circling motion characteristic of fencing opponents. His eyes roved Rafen’s body, attached to his every movement.
“You,” Rafen said. He saw now he had always been going to come, but it wasn’t really Siana or Alexander or Etana or anyone else that he was thinking of at this moment. “YOU!” he screamed. “MY MOTHER’S KILLER.”
A demented smile sprung to the Lashki’s face. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. Yet his words did not fool Rafen. “I would have spent more time on her Rafen – defiled her – but why waste time on a filthy-blooded human when there was the royal family?”
Any semblance of emotional control was gone. Rafen couldn’t do it; it was too much being here. With an inarticulate roar, he raised the dagger and charged it with kesmal. The flames that exploded from the end of the little blade were orange shot with green; Sirius’ kesmal still lingered from recent combat.
The Lashki lazily flicked the copper rod sideways, and the flames that had been making for his head fell to the ground in a trail of ash. A dangerous light had come into his black eyes.
Rafen realized dimly that the ghoul had become stronger since they had fought in King Robert’s bedchamber. While Rafen’s torrent of kesmal had formed a threat then, it was now merely amusing to the Lashki, who had undoubtedly communed with Nazt and increased his powers by further giving himself over to the Voices. Perhaps also the Lashki’s growing obsession with Rafen gave his abilities more potency.
“It is over, Rafen,” he said in a clear voice, even as Rafen lifted the dagger again. “Nazt has won Siana. And Nazt will win you.”
The voices in Rafen’s head were still bellowing. Rafen’s fury drowned them out as he unleashed another torrent of kesmal.
Talmon shrieked and rushed toward a side door on the right wall, but the Lashki again swept the rod effortlessly through the air, absorbing Rafen’s kesmal. Then he rushed forward, a mad gleam in his eyes. Rafen stumbled backward hastily. A rope of blue shot through the air in swirling motion. Rafen directed the dagger at it, aiming a beam at its core. Yet the Lashki’s kesmal was slippery and faster than Sirius’; tingling, it wound itself round the back of Rafen’s legs, and Rafen fell heavily onto his spine on the floor. With a powerful muscular movement in his shoulder, he attempted absorbing the Lashki’s kesmal. The azure rope came partially into Rafen’s fingers before his whole body went rigid – it was too powerful; he was vibrating out of control. Releasing it, he rolled sideways, the dagger still in his hand. The Lashki bent in a fluid movement, his free right hand grasping Rafen’s bandaged left one and wrenching the weapon from it. Though Rafen sent more flames down his arm, the Lashki’s grip became icy, and they fell away in ash before reaching the gray flesh. Rafen’s veins chilled at the kesmal in the ghoul’s touch, the fire dying within him. Before he could scamper away, the Lashki lowered the rod, his hand shooting to Rafen’s face and grabbing it, squeezing it to a sliver.
“What did you think you could do, Rafen?” he spat, his saliva settling on Rafen’s nose. “Kill me? I have lived beyond death, but you will not.”
Rafen reached up with his left hand and snatched King Robert’s gold circlet from the Lashki’s head, hurling it to the right, where it bounced out of his vision. Though he attempted kesmal again, the Lashki was still holding him, pouring his frigid power into Rafen’s body, freezing it into inertness. The Lashki shoved Rafen’s head backward, dashing it a
gainst the floor, one, twice, thrice – Rafen lost count. Ten times? Clouds were heavy in his vision. He struggled again, feebly, to rise, but the Lashki’s slimy fingers still had him by the face.
“Did that hurt, Rafen?”
In the dimness surrounding Rafen, Nazt was punctuated, once again sharply audible, consuming his every thought: “RAFEN! RAFEN!” He was about to see the empty, flapping hands and screaming faces again, as he had always feared.
“Now I will show you pain,” the Lashki said.
A blast of blue filled Rafen’s blackening vision.
*
He lay on his back in the forest, which was strangely dark. A feeling of dread thick in his mouth and throat, he sat up now and slowly rose. In the surrounding circle of basswoods, the smooth gray forms of Nazt hovered, pearly, eyeless, toothless, howling words Rafen could not understand. The language filled his head; he clutched his temples, trying to breathe. It was hard, nearly impossible.
He was trying to remember something incredibly important. His mother? He had to find her. When he reached down to put his hand on his phoenix feather, his chest was cold and the hem of his shirt was empty.
“No,” he panted.
He searched himself, his hands scrabbling wildly over his clothes. It was gone. He fell to his knees and groped along the forest floor, which felt oddly dry and hard, the carpet moss, leaves, and dirt papery. It was not there.
How stupid of him! If it had been there – and this thought was difficult to voice, close to unthinkable with the deafening chant of Nazt – it would have given a light. He threw his head back, staring up into the leaves that fluttered like black birds far above. Then once again he scanned the ground.
There was no light.
Shaking, he rose again, his hands hanging listlessly at his sides. He was surprised at his ability to move. Something told him he shouldn’t have been allowed to, that it simply wasn’t done in the presence of Nazt.
He paused. If the phoenix feather was gone, was Zion gone too?
“No!” he cried, but his voice sounded faint to his own ears.
He felt like he was underwater. He had to break out of this circle to find his phoenix feather.
He glanced around himself, the many arms of Nazt stretching out for him, flapping on the air, clawing. The forms were fixed in the places they now occupied. Yet if Rafen came to them, they could touch him.
This discovery was important. The forms were only two steps away. By reaching for him, they lessened the space within the circle already. He moved forward with slow, definite surety.
No!
Rafen froze. Someone had called him. The voice cried out again, distantly.
Don’t move!
A realization like a thunderclap blotted everything else out from his mind momentarily. He was hearing himself: his own, fifteen-year-old, cracked, soon to be a man’s voice.
He stared around wildly, searching for a duplication of himself. There was nothing.
The shrieking of Nazt had become an imploring lament, and Rafen hated himself for staying where he was.
“Go,” someone said much closer by, within his ear. “It is meet that you should, Rafen.”
The voice sounded wise, fatherly. With cold revulsion, Rafen recognized the tone and Ashurite accent. It was the Lashki. Once again, Rafen frantically searched the small clearing he stood within, but no one else was near him except the figures of Nazt.
“Rafen, now is the time,” the Lashki whispered, so close. The wind around stirred, one minute cold, the next smoky and heavy. “Listen: they call you.”
“RAFEN! RAFEN!” the voices screamed, and then once again cried words he couldn’t understand, sounds that probably weren’t even words, but emotions and temptations and lies and truths and sweet disclosures that bubbled in his blood.
“They will accept you, Rafen,” the Lashki said gently. “Do not be afraid. You will be strong – without grief, without loss, everything gained. I promise…”
Where are you? Rafen thought. Because when I find you, I’m going to break your neck…
The idea of someone’s neck being broken sounded ominously familiar. Yet before he could summon to mind the memory recalled, an unseen force propelled him forward, so that the extended arms and fingers almost touched Rafen’s torso. The voices were maddening; the bodies writhed in both ecstasy and agony before him. Rafen screamed and stumbled backward. His own voice sounded strangely muted.
“I won’t do it!” he shouted, though it seemed like he hadn’t spoken at all. His body thrilled with a hate so strong it would have burned the Lashki like acid if he had touched Rafen’s skin.
His eyes were magnetically drawn to his hands, and he had an odd feeling that his refusals, his anger, had done something. His fingers were dripping with coagulating tendrils of blood. He couldn’t bear to look at them. He gave a cry and closed his eyes.
“Look behind you, Rafen,” the Lashki said quietly. “See what your resistance costs others.”
Rafen turned in slow horror, taking a long time to open his eyes. When he did, he saw Francisco lying on the ground, his limbs still twitching in the death palsy. His throat was a gaping hole, and his dark blue eyes, so like their mother’s, were still open, expressive of bewilderment. His mouth was stretched.
“No,” Rafen whispered. “No, no.”
He made to clap his hands to his eyes, before remembering and wishing he had no hands.
“Francisco, wake up!” he screamed, and he threw himself to the ground near his brother, trying to wipe himself clean so that he could shake Francisco, rouse him from this stupor.
He rubbed his hands across the dirt, scraping them violently back and forth. Nothing came off on the papery leaves and twigs. He lifted his palms, and the blood clung to his skin with a moist, tenacious grip, still dripping but never falling.
“Will you still resist, Rafen?” the Lashki said, and his voice rose to an agonizing pitch. “What have you done? Take it back!”
“I-I can’t,” Rafen choked. “FRANCISCO, WAKE UP! This isn’t real,” he realized. “It’s not real! But you are. I can hurt you.” He spoke directly to the Lashki now. In his mind, he was working frantically to shut down the voice of his opponent for good.
Then he discovered he had a memory of doing this thing. He remembered doing it not as a Wolf, but as a man, his fingernails like knives as he tore away the skin of his twin’s neck. He was surprised he had not recalled it before.
Why would his hands not become clean? He threw them at the ground again and hit the hard earth with painful force. The blood was a parasite that would not relinquish him. Its tentacles wrapped themselves around his fingers.
Frantically, he swiveled on his knees to face his sleeping brother, because Francisco must have been sleeping, he was sleeping, he was not really dead. It had been a play-fight, a moment of insanity, a blip in time, nothing, nothing, nothing…
He lurched forward and buried his head in his brother’s chest, trying to keep his defiled hands from the purity of Francisco’s flesh. He listened. It was still. Francisco’s face was cold like marble, and the eyes were steadily losing the glisten of humanity.
“You killed him, Rafen,” the Lashki said evenly in his ear.
“No,” Rafen said, and his voice sounded slightly louder this time. Why couldn’t he shut the Lashki up? “No, I DIDN’T! FRANCISCO! WAKE UP!”
He lifted his head, his mouth dry. He wanted desperately to hold his brother, to comfort him, to beg his forgiveness until the world ended, but his hands were still obstinately soiled.
“Zion, please help me,” he groaned.
At the sound of Zion’s name, Nazt clamored louder than ever, flapping gray hands at his head.
He leapt to his feet, shrieking a curse at the sky, whirling around and around and trying to find a gap in the encircling smoky figures so he could flee. With a strong muscular movement in his upper arm, he tried to blast a way through with kesmal. There was no warmth left. His flame was gone.
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Chapter Thirty-Five
The
Transformation
of Sherwin
“Raf,” someone gasped, and Rafen knew who it was. “Raf, what is this?”
Sherwin’s voice was so shaky he could barely get the words out. His fast breathing reached Rafen’s ears. Rafen wondered distractedly how Sherwin could get within the circle when he would give anything except his soul to get out of it.
“Sherwin, you have to help me,” Rafen panted, his words a harmless, rambling drone on the air. “I have to get away. I didn’t do it!”
Sherwin stood behind him. Rafen felt his presence like a warm, comforting shadow fall over him. He placed a hand on Rafen’s arm.
“Raf, let’s get out of here,” he said. Even through the thickness of his voice (which denoted tears), he was mustering courage. “There are enemies here.”
“Can you see them?” Rafen asked, raising his head.
“I can’t see them,” Sherwin said, hearing him for the first time and glancing around. “No, Raf, I can’t. Raf, please get out of here with me.”
Rafen at last looked him fully in the face. Sherwin’s teeth were clenched with the pain of the body he had seen, and his eyes were vividly blue with grief.
“’ow did it ’appen?” he said, getting to what was really important at last. “Who did this, Raf?” he half screamed, his grip on Rafen’s arm tight.
That was when Rafen realized he was holding the copper rod in his bloodied left hand. It was quite still, with none of the usual jerking, none of the attempts to slit his throat. He was appalled as he stared at the burnished red metal, and he made to drop it.
His left hand wouldn’t open. Rafen moved his slippery right hand to his left and tried frenziedly to pry open his fingers. They were coiled so tightly around the rod, he thought they were iron. The blood had turned to glue.
“Do not fight any longer, Rafen,” the Lashki said, and Rafen jumped. He had forgotten him. “It is not wise.”
Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3) Page 30