by JANRAE FRANK
"Yes." He nodded at the farmer. "Yours. All yours."
She whirled around, seized the farmer, and threw the woman to the ground, flinging herself atop her. Her fangs glinted for a moment in the firelight, then her face bent down as she sank them into the farmer's carotid artery. She slurped and sucked noisily, raising her bloody face from time to time to stare at him, then went back to drinking. The farmer died quickly. When she had consumed the blood, she ripped away the farmer's clothing, opened her stomach, and began to eat the entrails and organs.
Finally she settled back on her haunches, regarding him steadily. "Made me?"
"Yes."
She nodded, thinking about that. "Feed me?"
"I will always feed you."
Mephistis started toward her and she barred her fangs, hissing. He halted, extending his hands and murmuring softly, "Easy. Be easy, beloved."
She cocked her head, frowning, but let him approach. Then she hissed again when he was within reach.
He sent his power out, reaching into her mind. She resisted this intrusion, hissing louder and more threateningly. Mephistis pushed harder, forcing his mind in and finding himself confronted with tremendous strength. Amazed, he pulled back and stared at her. He could simply have taken her by force, at the risk of ripping her mind to shreds; but he wanted her as whole as possible.
"Beloved," he murmured reassuringly.
Her hissing became less threatening. He dropped to his knees beside her, knowing he was taking a terrible chance. He touched her hair, stroking it. She cocked her head like a questioning dog and her hiss faded away. In a flash Mephistis slid a thin lance of power in under her mental guard and took her. She smiled tamely, purring. Mephistis licked the blood off her face while he opened his pants. He fondled her breasts, and then laid her back across the farmer's corpse. She did not respond to his touch, accepting him like a simple dead thing, but he knew that soon she would start to respond and then she would become fully aware, she would be Margren again. He entered her, beginning to move inside her.
CHAPTER FIVE
BROKEN THINGS
Becca awakened in the wee hours of the morning with a vague sense of unease. She had been doing this more and more since Josh brought Aejys back. Becca had always felt more or less in control of her life, even when it had been far from what she wished it to be. The condition of Aejys' hands upset Becca, seeing the ha'taren crippled sent her into periodic crying jags in the privacy of her office with the door locked. There was almost nothing that the paladin could do for herself. Becca kept servants sitting within earshot in the little parlor and occasionally in the room with Aejys herself. A few of the guards and drivers came up to visit from time to time from the fifth day on, sharing their anecdotes and tales of past adventure, some of it fairly humorous and Becca appreciated hearing Aejys laugh. She suspected that Omer and Raim were deliberately pressuring their comrades into coming up to talk, since most of them had never so much as engaged in casual conversation with Lord Aejys before: as the very first drivers Aejys had hired, Omer and Raim were the most comfortable with her of all of them and quite accustomed to sitting and talking with her about anything and everything. But at night, sometimes she thought she heard noise coming from Aejys' rooms.
This time she was certain of it. She got out of bed, threw a robe around her, and walked down the hall. She entered the parlor and found Omer sitting with Molly. They looked downcast. Omer was not among those she had originally assigned to be in the room at night.
"What are you doing here?" she asked suspiciously.
"Relieving Molly," Omer told her.
"I've had him doing it since the first night," Molly spoke up. "I did not want you upset with my reasons. You've got enough to worry and concern you as it is."
"What are you talking about?"
Just then a low, almost whimpering sound came from the bedroom. Becca frowned and walked in, followed by Omer and Molly.
"What's wrong with her?"
"Night-terrors," Omer told her, in a low voice. "We didn't want the rest of the household to know about it. Raim and myself, we've seen it before. Molly too. So the three of us have been taking turns up here. What happened at Dragonshead... It hit her hard. Along with a lot of other stuff. A few of us knew about Bucharsa. We'd heard rumors. She nearly wound up undead."
Becca paled.
Aejys muttered in her sleep. "Laeoli. Laeoli..." Then a low sob emerged.
"Her daughter," Becca supplied.
Molly nodded toward the parlor and they slipped out. They sat around the table in silence. "It might have been kinder..." Molly said, at last. "Merciful... if Josh and those lifemages had not brought her back."
"Why?" Becca was aghast at the suggestion.
"She's been broken," Omer said. "They broke her, deliberately. I know she seems all right at times. But at night it seems to close tight around her. I've seen it before. I think she was just beginning to get over the horrors at Bucharsa, and then this..."
Molly nodded. "Day times she uses anger to get past it. Like a crutch. I think she's leaning too heavily on it."
Omer sighed, his handsome face tightening. "I'd like to kill that sister of hers."
"No!" Becca said sharply and seeing Omer's scowl, rephrased it. "No, I meant what they did to her, not your wanting to kill her sister. I'd do it myself if I could."
Molly reached over and patted her hands. "Becca, dear, she's been broken. Trust me, she's not the same person who left last summer. Much of the strength is gone. You haven't set with her at night ... listened to her moaning and whimpering. The way she sometimes screams into the pillows in the grip of the night-terrors, waking in cold sweats. She isn't right."
"I don't think this will seriously impair her judgment. We're not saying that, Becca," Omer interjected, seeing her troubled expression. "She seems to have it pretty much under control in the daytime. But it might make some of the household wonder and if it got out, Cedarbird would use it against her and us." Omer put his hand over Becca's, trying to be reassuring.
"Yes. He would," Becca conceded. "You should have told me."
"We did not want to worry you," Molly said gently. "I've heard those crying jags of yours."
Becca flushed. "Well, now I know. You just keep on like you've been doing."
"We will," Molly told her, patting her other hand, then got up and hugged her.
* * * *
Taun stirred from a restless dream, reaching for Skree in the darkness. Finding him gone, the little nerien sat up and looked about the room. He could barely make out the triton standing near the door, half-leaning on the door facing. Then he heard the soft whimpering from the next room. "What is it?" Taun asked, climbing out of bed. He covered his nakedness with a green dressing robe and joined his mate.
Skree turned slightly to look at him. "Aejys. I have listened to it for several nights. They broke her."
"I don't understand," Taun said, catching the undercurrent in his mate's words. "She seems all right."
"By day, when there are things to distract her, yes – but at night? No."
"I need to go to her."
"There is nothing you can do for her, little seal," Skree told him, catching his arm before he could leave. "It is the spirit and heart – perhaps the mind also. I don't know yet. I have only spoken to her a few times."
"But she's the Lion of Rowanslea..." Taun protested.
"Any one can be broken. Even I could be in the right circumstances. It is hubris to think otherwise. You are too young to remember the seiryn wars. My grandfather was a strong male – until the seiryn caught him. They shattered him. I was too young to fight, but not too young to know and recognize what they did."
* * * *
Becca did not go back to bed. Instead she went to her office and spent the rest of the hours until dawn making entries in her ledger-book. By the time the sun came up, however, Becca had an agenda of her own firmly in mind. She went to Aejys' room and sat in the overstuffed chair beside the bed:
she wanted to know what had happened and she was tired of waiting for Aejys to volunteer the information. Last summer Aejys had still been playing tongue-in-cheek head-games on Cedarbird that they all laughed about afterwards. Now she was making dire threats and actually taking steps against him, including making Becca her heir. Something had definitely changed. She could see it now. There was a hard edge to Aejys that had not been there before.
Becca fell silent for a long space, looking for a good way to phrase her question since tact was not one of her finer points and she knew it.
"Waiting for something, Becca?" Aejys said, her voice soft and tired. "What is it?" She no longer insisted on Josh's presence, though she always felt better when he was there. After the touch of shared-life, she felt more able to deal with her nightmares alone – at least in the daytime – as if part of him remained with her always.
"It shows that much?"
"Yes, it shows." She turned her head to look fully at the tavern master. "Is it Cedarbird?"
Becca grinned uncomfortably, inclining her head. "I have him on my mind... But no, I just want to know what happened on your journey. Such as how many survived."
Aejys winced inwardly at the memory of how many had not survived. "I can tell you up until I was taken a day's ride from Castle Rowan. Past that you'll have to ask Josh."
"Fair enough."
Aejys told her about the manticores attacking on the road to St. Tarmus, how they wore a charm around their neck which proved later to be Margren's: three rowans gripped by a large dragon. At the monastery harpies and winged demons attacked them; that was where Cassana Odaren died from an assassin's arrow meant for Aejys; later her guard was ambushed and suffered heavy casualties at the hands a large orc army and the charms kept appearing. It was during the orc battle that Josh and Clemmerick finally overtook them, helping to turn the tide from imminent defeat to victory. She alluded to her falling in love with Tamlestari enough that Becca understood without her having to say it aloud. The last major assault came as they were leaving Vallimrah by an army of vargeis. When she came to the part where she learned that both her daughter, Laeoli, and her na'halaef, Ladonys, had been slain by Margren's followers, she choked up and fell silent. Tears ran freely down her battered face: she could not wipe them away with her splinted hands. Becca pulled a soft cloth from the nightstand, one of the fresh unused bandages, and gently patted her face dry. Aejys told her then of how close Shaurone had come to being taken by a Waejontori coup d'etat led by her sister and her sister's lover, Mephistis Coleth de Waejonan; the intervention on her behalf by the Old Man of the Mountains, the Grand Master of the Assassins guild that served the god Hadjys the Dark Judge, had uncovered and revealed the plot in time for action to be taken by all the mar'ajans and the Saer'ajan Zaren. But Aejys' ma'aram, her bloodmother, had refused to act on the documents, believing them to be just another ploy to discredit her younger daughter, Margren. She did not add that had her ma'aram acted on the documents she would never have been taken and tortured by Margren – that was too bitter a thought for her to speak. Nor did she tell her what had happened to her at Dragonshead, for she could not bear to even think about it: her wounds would have to speak for themselves.
Aejys felt as if she had been punished for being strong, while Margren had been rewarded for being weak... She had given her ma'aram, Kaethreyn, everything she demanded and in the end found herself abandoned in spite of it. Perhaps she had never been loved at all–perhaps it had all been an illusion. Perhaps she had been lying to herself then about her ma'aram's feelings. And in the end what had she seen in Kaethreyn's face? Had it been grief or guilt? She might never know.
"Your sister has become a very powerful mage."
"My sister is sa'necari," Aejys snarled in a sudden flaring of anger. "She betrayed her family, her people, and her very race. The last thing I remember is my ma'aram releasing me from my vow. I am now free to destroy Margren. And I will see her in hell if it's the last act of my life."
Becca folded her arms across her stomach, feeling the force of the paladin's rage as if it were a hammer slammed into the core of her being: the change in Aejys from the easy going, mellow soldier who had ridden out last summer into this implacable, dangerous woman disturbed her. The change was understandable considering all that had happened to her. Becca wondered if this side of Aejys had always existed, if this was the way she had been during the Great War. The unyielding, aggressive way Aejys handled Cedarbird, reflected this. It was necessary, but it also was very hard to accept and deal with. Becca decided then to find Josh and get the rest of the story. She wished Clemmerick were there to discuss this change with her, to help her deal with it. In the future, Becca knew, she would hesitate to bring problems to Aejys' attention: she would try harder to solve them herself.
* * * *
Josh had a single large room with a bed in the northeast corner shoved tight against the walls covered in blue and green quilts. The small fireplace in the west wall warmed the room nicely. A modest oblong table stood near the fireplace, flanked by two simple chairs with small cushions tied to their seats. Josh sat in a third chair, large and over-stuffed with clawed arms and legs that occupied the floor between the table and the bed.
Taun carried one of the chairs from the table and placed it beside Josh, then sat down. He leaned forward. "Just relax. I want to get a clear Reading. Not like the hasty one I did the night we quarreled over the bottle."
Josh nodded and extended his arm to Taun. He doubted the nerien would tell him anything he did not already know for Tamlestari had Read him last summer, telling him then that he was killing himself with drink. He was not suicidal, nor did he care whether he died or not, but many times death seemed like a good idea – and when the pain, emptiness and nightmares came to visit he wished for it with all his heart.
Taun gripped Josh's wrist and closed his eyes, concentrating deeply. The first thing he noticed was that Josh was clearly much younger than he appeared, maybe by as much as fifteen years. Then he allowed his attention to be drawn to the lower organs. There was damage everywhere, but the worst of it was Josh's liver, which he perceived as having spreading black splotches of deterioration. He released Josh's wrist and sat back with a sigh. "Your liver. That is what is going to kill you. Every time you drink heavily you destroy pieces of it. Eventually it will cease to function. Your body will poison itself and you will collapse."
"It isn't easy to stop. I've been drinking since I was seven. I started when the magic was burned out."
Taun nodded. "Then again, you could simply have a severe toxic reaction to the drink and die."
Josh frowned at his hands. He felt that Taun was not listening to him. Aejys wanted him to stop drinking. He wanted to stop drinking. But when he did he would have to deal with the pain in his body, the burning in his nerve endings, the muscles crawling under his skin – and he would have the nightmares again waking and sleeping, the myriad dark memories tormenting him. "If you want me to stop drinking, then you must find something in your satchel to help me."
Taun's face brightened. "Becca told me about your problems, especially as a result of the burn out. I have never seen anything like it before, but I have a special blend I made up yesterday that may help. You surrender to me your flask of whiskey and I will give you the medicine. I also intend to lock up Aejys' liquor cabinet."
Josh pulled his silver flask from his shirt pocket, extending it to Taun. His stomach knotted up and he wanted desperately to hug the bottle and run. But he forced himself past it. Taun took the flask, handing him a glass one wrapped in leather.
"This is a very good thing, Josh," Taun told him. "Especially since I think Aejys loves you."
Josh's eyes widened and he stared dumbfounded at the little healer. "You truly think so? I mean – I – I love her so very much..."
"Yes, I truly think so. I've seen the way she looks at you."
"I hate to break this little session up," Becca said, poking her head in the door, "but I need
to talk to Josh awhile myself. Privately, Taun. Okay?"
* * * *
"Aejys, you need to hear this," Becca said, entering the room with Josh in tow. She dismissed the servant with a nod, dragging the chair by the window seat over beside the chair nearest the bed. Josh was sober, scrubbed, and wearing clean clothing at Becca's insistence. She caught him by the arm, propelling him into the second chair, leaving the one nearest the bed for herself.
"Help me sit." Aejys tried to get up using her elbows and pushing with her legs to bring her shoulder against the headboard. She cursed Margren silently: Her sister had been thorough and except for her legs there was not a place on her body that did not hurt when she moved. She had not yet allowed herself to grieve for the loss of her daughter and halaefs: that would come in time, but for now she clung to her anger and that kept the rest at bay. To let out the grief, to let herself experience it, threatened to overwhelm her precarious self-control and she would not – she could not allow that to happen, not now, maybe not ever.
Becca took Aejys under the left arm trying to help her into a sitting position, struggling to neither pull too much on her wounded shoulder nor touch her hideously scourged back. A low, involuntary groan forced its way from Aejys' throat despite her attempt to stifle it and the tavern master's effort to be gentle. Becca put pillows behind Aejys, but their softness was not enough to prevent momentary stiffening when her torn back first touched them. Aejys closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to subside a little and to find the focus necessary to push past what remained. She did not like to face things lying down; it just emphasized her feelings of helplessness and frustration with her wounded body, feelings that crept back in no matter how hard she resisted them. She knew her enemies would not hold off just because she needed time to heal – if anything her condition would encourage them to move against her that much more quickly to try and take her out before she was strong enough to fight back.
Aejys opened her eyes, taking in the serious expression on Becca's face, seeing that Josh looked more miserable than she had ever seen him, his shoulders hunched and his eyes fastened on his hands gripped together so tightly the knuckles whitened. "So what is it? Cedarbird?"