JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING II

by JANRAE FRANK

  Tagalong jumped down from her pony and charged up to them, seeing the condition of Josiah sent a sharp worry through her. "Where's Aejys?"

  "Climbing the mountain after the Spiritdancer," Dynarien told her as he relinquished Josiah to a large Sharani.

  "How is she?"

  "That's hard to say and will take a long explanation."

  Laurelyanne looked serious, "The Spiritdancer. Does she know the requirements for drawing that blade?"

  Dynarien looked unhappy. "Yes. She meets them. This is starting at the end of the story. I'd rather start at the beginning. This is Dree, Aejys' cousin. She's catkin."

  Tagalong gave him a long glance. "Mighty strange. Ya've got a lot ta explain."

  Dynarien handed Dree to Laurelyanne. "It looks like you came to fight." He glanced down the long rows of soldiers and rangers; he could not see the end.

  "One thousand Valdren rangers and soldiers, support units, and a sprinkling of obstinate others. They caught up to us yesterday with a little help from the fireborn. A full company of ha'taren and knights, all heavy cavalry. A full company of bradae. We managed ta leave most of the settlers back in Green Hollow. Little village near the mouth of this valley," Tagalong said. "When word got out near tha first thaw that Aejys was alive, rescued by a mage." She paused to give Dynarien an odd look. "People just started flocking ta tha banner, masterless paladins, soldiers, and settlers. Freeswords'a every description."

  "How did they know?" He asked innocently, knowing he could get away with it only because Birdie had been left in Green Hollow.

  "Well, seems a priest of Dynanna found out first. When she showed up in mid-winter with the news, Laurelyanne scryed Aejys. After that we couldn't scry her anymore, but she could sense the mage shield around her. Then we listened ta a few conversations, heard Becca announcing that Aejys was now the Prince Protector of Vorgensburg and King of a brand new realm called Rowanhart."

  * * * *

  Dynarien told Tagalong and the others the rest of the tale. He had covered his shield so that no one could see the blazon, knowing for certain that all of the Valdren would recognize it. Tagalong's eyes kept tracing along his armor as he spoke with an odd intensity. When he finished, she confronted him.

  "That's some mighty fine armor fer a mage," she said suspiciously. The armor fit like finely tailored clothing. "Where'd ya get it?"

  Dynarien gave her a smile and a nod. "My grandsire's smith."

  "What's his name? I know all the best armorers."

  "You've never met him."

  "Hmnph! I'm an Angtraden. Try me."

  Dynarien's expression turned impish and impulsively he told her the truth. "Eldarion Havenrain."

  Tagalong felt sorely tempted to call him a liar.

  One of the Valdren healers stepped into the command tent and whispered in Laurelyanne's ear. The old mage's face turned worried, she gestured for Dynarien to follow them out.

  "Josiah has worsened," Laurelyanne told him, walking quickly toward the back of the camp where the healers' wagons were gathered. "He'll be gone before morning if we cannot figure this out. The wounds are bad, but not like this. There is no sign of infection in his system. Yet he shows all the symptoms. Lord, if there is more that you can tell us about what happened..."

  Lord? Had his remark about Eldarion Havenrain given him away? "He used magic to hold his body together long enough to rescue Aejys. I think they call it making a last stand."

  The spell had ultimately done more damage than the wounds. It had been created to sustain a battlemage in a situation where he desperately needed to sell his life as dearly as he could: wounds went unfelt and it was possible to bleed to death without realizing it until the moment of final collapse; it exhausted the life force, spending every bit of energy and magic that could be wrung out of the body. Unless a healer intervened in time the spell frequently killed the caster even if his wounds did not.

  Laurelyanne gave him a sharp look. "That's battle magic. Advanced battle magic. There is no way he could have learned it in the four months since I last saw him." She climbed into the wagon where Josiah lay. He shivered under the blankets, cold sweat coating his face, moistening the pillow as it gathered and dripped. "It's dangerous magic. Practically a suicide spell."

  "He's Josiah Abelard."

  "Sonden told me..." Laurelyanne Read Josiah, her face tightening.

  "With all of his knowledge and skills intact. The two incarnations merged two months ago." Dynarien stooped to enter and joined her there.

  "Ahhhh. Now it makes sense. I think I can deal with this. At least I know what we're fighting." She spoke to Josiah softly and his restless stirring ceased.

  She turned to him. "Now tell me who you really are, Lord. If our people know you, they will not speak. We are a discreet people, as you should know."

  Dynarien uncovered his shield, showing her the eagle and blue roses.

  Laurelyanne nodded. "Dynarien Willodarusson, as I suspected. Welcome, Lord."

  "What's goin' on?" Tagalong poked her head in, saw the shield, and glowered.

  Dynarien grinned. He pointed to the maker's mark. Tagalong's eyes widened, recognizing the ancient runes, which she had been forced to memorize as a child. "I thought ya were shittin' me. Still doesn't explain where ya got it!" Tagalong refused to give an inch, glaring at him suspiciously. The only thing in his favor was that the armor fit as if it had been made for him.

  "It's his by right," Laurelyanne told her. "This is the Rose Warrior. Now both of you get out of here. I've work to do."

  Tagalong's glare lessened as she trotted along beside him. "Yer a yuwenghau. Only thing stupider than a paladin is a yuwenghau. Always lookin' fer trouble."

  Dynarien laughed. "My sister is Dynanna. The one who cursed you with all that luck at games so that no one wants to play with you anymore."

  Tagalong stopped in her tracks, goggling.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  SPIRITDANCER

  Aejys woke to herself, lying on a pallet in a small, single room of the bottommost waystation of the sacred mountain, Kaliridonni. She wore woolen trousers and tunic with a bearskin cloak thrown over her as a blanket. A huge figure sat at the table. She squinted in the mage light hovering about his head. He was a skeletal figure with skin like ancient leather the color of parchment pulled over it. Her instincts cried lich. He turned as she sat up.

  She felt her teeth, but found no change in them and felt oddly relieved. "Have I risen?" Aejys asked, feeling the wounds in her throat where Hoon had fed.

  "No. You are still living." Carliff rose from the table. His withered, undead face was impossible to read – there was no flesh beneath the skin to twist into expression – but he held himself stiffly, hands balled into fists of rage.

  "How?" Aejys asked, watching him uneasily, wondering if he meant to attack her for reasons she did not yet know. What had she done to him? Or not done?

  "I pulled the death web out of you," Carliff's voice whistled slightly like a high wind between rocky edges. He brought his fist to his sides, as if fighting his own inner demons to hold himself back from striking her. "It will spread again, but for now you live. Josiah cast Shared Life on you to replace the blood Hoon took."

  "Josiah is alive?" Hope pushed back the shadows from her heart and mind.

  "Yes. As, after a fashion, is my many times great granddaughter, Dree."

  "Then you are Carliff?"

  The lich smiled, pulling back his yellow lips to reveal long fangs. "Yes. Called mad because I will not feed upon the living. The living you would now be feeding on had I not intervened." The smile became a snarl of disgust. "I see questions in your mind. Dree lives as a cat, never to be human again. Because she tried to help you – you who are not worth helping. Were you not the last of the Rowans, I would have destroyed you."

  Aejys sucked in a sharp breath, wishing she had the comfort of her pipe. "Where are we?"

  "We are at the foot of the sacred mountain. You must start climbing now, at
once. I let you rest as long as I dared. Hoon will soon discover you were not destroyed. He will sense this as soon as you leave my presence. He will know you are on the mountain. He will speak in your mind, trying to persuade you to lie down and die." He paced back and forth, raging, his words cutting her to the bone.

  "I won't listen to him." Aejys turned her head away and down, remembering the taste of Hoon's blood, and shivering.

  "Mephistis will try to finish you through the link. Should either manage this you will become a vampire. The change will come too swiftly to stop a second time. I do not know what Hoon told you – your mind is a jumble of images – but it takes centuries for a vampire to learn to control their blood lust. You would kill those you loved most first, mistaking appetite for love. That is the way of it. Furthermore, you have dishonored yourself by accepting his blood. You are no longer a paladin. You have fallen from grace with your liege-god, as I did mine."

  "But, I..."

  "No!" Carliff cut her off. "Words are valueless. You willingly made yourself a tool of Hoon. If there were not so much riding on the chance of your reaching the sword I would have destroyed you myself. You would have risen as a paladin of the night. You are filthy and disgusting. You have spent eight years lying to yourself and all the others. NO. Fifteen years. I looked into your heart and your mind while you lay there. You saw the evil in your sister, you knew the harm she would do."

  Aejys bowed her head in shame. "I suspected, but I..."

  "You knew!"

  "Yes... yes, I knew." Ever since that day on the High Meadows, I knew.

  "Yet you let a mon's tears and empty threats turn you from the path of righteousness when you made that vow. You betrayed all that you stood for when you made it. You betrayed your family, left them to die because you would not stand in opposition to the evil in your midst. The lifemages are all but extinguished because of your weakness. Their deaths are on your head. A thousand deaths are on your head. You are a traitor and a coward. I would rather that me and mine spent eternity in torment as we are, than that a single innocent should die. Can that be said of you? You do not deserve the chance the Dancer offers."

  Aejys dropped her eyes, her face burning. Her stomach knotted and her throat tightened. She wanted to protest, but knew that he was right. She could do nothing save listen to the lich's rant.

  "Tagalong Smith has entered Norendel, riding to your aid with a small army. They will all perish."

  "By your hand?" Aejys retorted hotly, roused by their names from the paralysis of shame.

  "Never. Hoon comes to claim you as his bride. His forces will overwhelm them. You will have brought it on them yourself."

  "And where will you be?" Aejys demanded, wanting desperately to turn his words back on him and knowing that she could not.

  "Trying to prevent Mephistis Coleth de Waejonan from taking my seat of power and forcing me and mine into his service. When my seat of power falls, Norendel falls with it. Then they will wheel and destroy the fireborn. The dragons will return and all the realms will fall before them. And it will all be because of you. Because of that one moment of weakness and betrayal."

  Aejys stood and faced him, wondering if there could possibly be any thing at all she could say to redeem herself, yet knowing that words were empty and it was far too late to speak them. It was fifteen years too late and Carliff was right.

  "The sword. You must get it. Only then can you have the means and hope of regaining both your life and your honor. The undead cannot touch the blade."

  Aejys fumbled with the bearskin cloak. Carliff rose and fastened it around her neck. She winced away from him as he touched her.

  "I have given you as much help as I can. But you must now move quickly."

  "What do you want?"

  "You already know that. Forgiveness for my sins of five hundred years past."

  "You have that."

  "No. Only a paladin or a priest of your lineage can release me with their forgiveness. You are neither. There is another thing you must know. In this valley, in my seat of power, lays a thing that allows those undead – those such as vampires who would be hindered or damaged by the sun – who enter here to move freely in the daylight, both friend and foe. If that power could be extended by the sa'necari, they could put this world into eternal night. Daylight here will not protect you. Now go. Perhaps you may yet steal victory from the teeth of defeat. I must see to the defenses of my valley." Carliff vanished.

  Aejys nodded and went out. The morning light made her flinch. She looked up at the mountain and began to walk.

  * * * *

  Carliff emerged from the shadows beneath a small stand of trees, watching her ascend the mountain. "My apologies, Aejystrys Rowan," he murmured too low for her to hear. "While my words were true, they were also harsh, but you strike me as one who learns more from pain than from kindness. As I did." Then he descended to the Gate Arcane at the mountain's base, activated it with a word and stepped through it.

  * * * *

  The mountain was thick with fragrant trees, flowering in golden blossoms. Here and there among them were mountain ash and laurel as well as aspen. The path rose steadily in an easy ascent. The path itself was not an obstacle. It welcomed. By noon the place had warmed. Aejys fumbled with the strings and dropped the cloak on the path, leaving it. Her body ached. She had pushed herself to her limits trying to outrun the shifters and a deep soreness lingered. Added to her wounds, it made movement hard at first. She was already healing with surprising speed, although she had not noticed it. Carliff knew far more about Josiah's spell of Shared Life than the mage master himself. Josiah was not a Reader; Carliff was. She had gained some of Dynarien's and Pieface's magical and physical gifts with the blood transfusion through the spell in a bonding that went as deep as the genes and cells themselves.

  She thought about Carliff's words, running them through her mind again and again. She knew nothing, really, about vampires beyond how to hunt and kill them. Carliff had nothing to gain by lying about newborn vampires seeking out those they loved and killing them. If that was, indeed, the nature of their hunger, then by taking Hoon's blood she had doubly betrayed them. Hoon had nothing to lose by lying to her and everything to gain. No. He had not lied, so much as misled. He had promised her free will, not self-control. She had assumed the rest. She felt filled with shame and guilt. What would be the price of redemption? If she could even win it?

  Aejys remembered Tamlestari's grief at Cassana's death and her imagination doubled it as she pictured her beloved weeping over the dead bodies of their children, knowing their ma'aram had killed them. She shuddered. Maybe it was not wise to try and walk in another's shoes. She had accepted her ma'aram's pain as her own in that confrontation that led to her making that vow. If somehow she could have stepped outside it, found her center and held there against Kaethreyn's tears.

  "The road to damnation is cobbled with good intentions."

  She heard the bubbling rush of a stream and turned from the road onto the side. Aejys pushed aside the bushes and flowering shrubs. The stream ran right beside the road there and a drinking cup lay beside it. Kneeling, she considered the cup. It seemed an incredible thing that just as her thirst was becoming unbearable she should not only find a stream, but a cup. She regarded them suspiciously, remembering how Laurelyanne had spelled her glass and put her to sleep when her grief over the loss of Ladonys and Laeoli had been unbearable. She scooped water in her twisted hands and drank, watching the cup from the corner of her eye. She splashed water on her face. It felt good. Then she caught the sound of large wings, larger than any bird, yet when she looked she saw nothing.

  There were supposed to be guardians on the mountain. Had she just heard one of them? She hurried back to the road and continued to walk. By late afternoon she could see the top and began to wonder about Carliff's warnings.

  < My sweet, my dear one, there is no need to walk so fast or so long. >

  The voice whispered in her ear, and she faltered a
few steps, looking about her in confusion, but there was no one there. A chill swept over her. She picked up her pace. An itch crawled up her throat and down her tongue as she remembered the wondrous taste of Hoon's blood; the strange mix of anguish and ecstasy as his fangs broke the skin on her throat. Her twisted fingers brushed the twin wounds on her neck.

  < Slow down. Please, wait for me. I'm coming, my dear, my sweet. >

  "No!" Aejys covered her ears, scarcely noticing that she walked slower and slower. Her heart raced, her loins grew wet, and she shivered at the thought of his touch. She hated him – hated and yet wanted.

  < Let me show you the path of true faith. You liege-god has deserted you. Mine will not. Wait for me. >

  "Hoon! You bastard!" Bastard ... Bastard ... bastard. She shivered. Her shivers worsened into violent trembling. She wanted him. Her nipples grew sensitive, tingling with need. Her loins ached for him. She could hardly breathe.

  < Such harsh words for one you love. You love me. You know you do. You cannot but love me. My blood has passed your lips. >

  "Get out of my mind! Damn you!" Aejys stumbled and fell, curling for a moment on the ground. It felt so good to be sitting. She had to wait for someone. Someone she loved was coming for her. They would sit together and laugh about old times, looking forward to better times. They would feed and drink and then lie together in the sweet grasses beneath a full moon. His blood would run down her throat while hers filled his mouth. Death had such a sweet taste. "Josiah. Tamlestari."

  As if their names were a talisman, she broke loose from the dream and sprang to her feet, chanting their names as she began to jog. "Josiah. Josiah. Josiah. Tamlestari. Estari. Estari. Loyal heart, forgive me."

  < Forget them. You are mine! Mine! I am the one you love. My blood passed your lips. You belong to me! >

  "No. They are my loves. Not you! Never you! If I rose tomorrow it would be to rip your throat out, your head off, and eat your heart." Even as she said it she knew it was a lie. She wanted him.