Slave of Sondelle: The Eleven Kingdoms

by Bevan McGuiness

  For Onaven, the honour of walking beside the Eye as the noble ritual was followed was beyond estimation. She led the Eye of Varuun out of her room with pride and joy. Even though Myrrhini would suffer during the ritual, her Bane would be near and offer what scant comfort she could.

  The wide corridor outside was lined by the curious, who simply wanted to catch a glimpse of the mysterious and beautiful Eye of Varuun, and the necessary members of the Belly or Arms of Varuun fulfilling their prescribed roles.

  The corridor was ten paces wide with a high, arched ceiling. It took Myrrhini and Onaven in a straight line from the living quarters to the Place of the Arms. Beneath her bare feet, Myrrhini felt the smooth tiles of the intricately patterned floor, its mosaics made of semi-precious stones gathered from the frozen traditional northlands, home to the Scarens. To either side of her, large windows were covered by heavy drapes that kept some of the chill at bay. The slow progress she had to make barefoot along the stone floor meant that by the time Onaven pounded on the doors that led into the Place of the Arms her feet were aching.

  ‘Who seeks entrance?’ came the reply to Onaven’s ritual knock.

  ‘The Eye of Varuun comes to seek purification.’

  ‘Let her enter.’

  The door swung open on well-oiled hinges to reveal the antechamber of the Place of the Arms. Unlike the soaring audience camber of the Key Wielder, this was functional. The guard glared at Onaven as if he had never seen her before shifting his gaze to Myrrhini. Slowly, lasciviously, he allowed his eyes to wander over her, drinking in her form. The clothing for the Ritual of Kantele was less ornate than that for an audience with the Key Wielder. It consisted of a simple white shift that ended just above her knees, covered by aheavy blue cloak. Ritual demanded that the Eye open the cloak before the Arms so as to reveal her openness to the Acolytes — that she came humbly for purification. The fact that she was forbidden to wear anything under her shift and thus revealed a good deal more than her openness was merely an added bonus for the guard on duty.

  Every aspect of her ritual dealings with the Acolytes seemed to Myrrhini to be designed purely to degrade and humiliate her.

  His leering inspection of her body completed, the guard stepped aside to welcome the Eye and her Bane. They stepped past him without a look and moved into the Place of the Arms.

  All around her, Myrrhini could hear the muted sounds of conversation, the clank of metal on metal as the Arms trained, the laughter of men. There were times when she envied them their lives away from the rigid strictures that so dominated her own life, but they had their own disciplines. Every aspect of life here with the Acolytes was controlled by ritual and every ritual had its roots in the Mertian-Varuun alliance.

  Myrrhini doubted anyone besides the Wielder himself knew the history of the alliance better than she did and knowing it gave her insight into the Acolytes.

  She hated them.

  She hated their arrogance, their smug superiority, their never-ending gloating over the downfall of her people. She hated that they continued while her whole race was all but extinct. In her more reflective moments, she even hated thedestruction of the Scaren race. Mostly, she hated everyone involved in the Ritual of Kantele. Myrrhini pulled her cloak closed over her body and wrapped it tight around her, trying to regain some of the heat she had lost during the guard’s inspection.

  Onaven led her through the antechamber, past the next two doors, through which they passed unchallenged. The final door opened to reveal a plain, circular room in the centre of which was a dome that rose nearly three paces above the featureless floor. On the front of the dome just above the floor was a metal disk — the entry into the first stage of purification, the Chamber of Kalev.

  Myrrhini shrugged off her cloak and stepped up to the small, round door. She kneeled before it and bowed so that her head rested on the solid iron. The cold metal stung, but when she made contact with it, a sharp tingle ran through her head and the door swung inwards. On her hands and knees, the Eye of Varuun crawled into the chamber.

  Once inside, the door clanged shut, leaving her in dark. She sat cross-legged on the floor and waited.

  While she waited, she kept her mind active by mentally reciting the epic poem that told the story of the last great days of the Mertian race. It was long believed lost, destroyed by the Acolytes, but she had found a copy hidden behind a loose brick in her room. Obviously it had been left there by a previous Eye. Often, Myrrhini had thanked the long-dead woman for her foresight. She memorisedthe ancient text, savouring its every word, its every nuance. Sometimes, she amused herself by translating the early Mertian into modern Mertian, but it did not sound as rich or beautiful in the new language. There was a certain dignity, a depth of meaning in the original language lacking now.

  Fram the tree’s border

  Fram where the ice meets the soil

  They came to plunder, to hunt

  No matter the time …

  The first beam of light cut across the hemispherical room making her blink, shattering her concentration. The words of the old poem vanished from her mind as she focused on the light. Quickly, light flickered across the room, changing colour, slicing the darkness from every direction, each time getting closer to her. She remained perfectly still as she concentrated intently on the dazzling display, knowing the pattern the colours made could be important later. Each flash seemed brighter and closer to the one before until it seemed that she was completely enclosed in a cocoon of shifting light. Only a small region remained unpierced by the light beams; impossibly, this little space was still dark despite the brilliant light all around her.

  Only when the light encased her did the voices begin.

  Low and insistent, the murmurs filled the room. Whenever she concentrated, they hovered on the edge of understanding — almost a language, butnot quite. Tantalising fragments of words, hints of meaning danced at the very corners of her mind, but always the meaning eluded her groping thoughts until she gave up and let the voices wash over her. She sat, content to not understand but to feel, to sense the meaning.

  How long she sat, immersed in the voices, she did not know, but slowly they faded and fell silent. After silence fell, the lights blinked out and she was left in darkness. Stiffly, she rocked forwards onto her hands and knees to seek out the door that would release her into the world once more, although knowing what awaited her she did so slowly, her legs stiff and cramping.

  As soon as she emerged from the Chamber of Kalev, hands grabbed her and pulled her upright. Myrrhini bit back the gasp of anguish as she forced her legs to support her weight. With no regard for her pain, the members of the Arms half carried, half dragged her into the cold through a door opposite the chamber and let her fall face-down onto the snow-covered ground. The freezing bite of frozen earth made Myrrhini cry out. She forced herself to stand. Teeth chattering, arms wrapped around herself, she turned to face the Arms and her Bane.

  She stammered the words of ritual: ‘I begin my purification. Please leave me to my thoughts.’

  The Arms saluted smartly and left with Onaven. Myrrhini stood in the Mertian village, shifting her weight from foot to foot. The brutal cold cut through her useless white shift and ate into her bones. She knew it would take days before she would feel warm again, and tried not to thinkabout the next eight days during which this process would be repeated.

  This strange village was the only one left in the world as far as she knew and it was, according to legend, the very place where the Mertian-Varuun alliance was sealed. The Acolytes preserved it, built their Place around it to commemorate, celebrate, the ages-long ‘cooperation’ between the two peoples. Personally, Myrrhini felt it was kept to humiliate the Eyes by reminding them of the end of their freedom, the slow death of their way of life.

  The Ritual of the Five Wastes was of indeterminate length, so Myrrhini shuffled and hopped for as long as she could stand the cold before making her way back to the door. Her hands were weak and shaking and it took th
ree attempts before she managed to complete the requisite pattern of knocks for the Arms to open the door and admit her back into the warmth.

  It was a matter of pride that she did not collapse the moment her feet touched the stone floor.

  The three soldiers of the Arms of Varuun marched her — one either side, one behind — through the corridors towards the Ritual of the Naphthon. Onaven walked in front, as befitted her station. Myrrhini softly recited a tale of Scaren history — the legend of the Naphthon — as she walked. The tale told of a lengthy quest by an ancient Scaren hero who pledged to slay the mighty Naphthon, a hideous beast of the far northern wastes, to win the hand of his true love. As always, the high drama of the overblown verse lifted her spirits, nearly to the point of a smile.

  There was nothing remotely funny about the Ritual of the Naphthon and the moment the next door was opened, the details of the ritual crashed into Myrrhini’s mind.

  She stood, alone already, at the entrance to the utterly lightless maze. With a deep breath, she stepped forwards into the maze and closed the door behind her.

  Somewhere in here was a vial of viscous fluid containing the key to the door she had closed behind her. The Ritual of the Naphthon was simple — find the vial, drink the fluid and leave before the narcotic robbed her of consciousness.

  Each stage of the Ritual of Kantele was designed to take her deeper into the trance state required for her to cross the Sixth Waste and see What Cannot Be Seen. After only two-thirds of the first day of nine, Myrrhini was sensing the beginning of the dizziness that presaged the slide into the altered state of Seeing. She almost grinned again — certainly, the hunger and thirst she was experiencing had nothing to do with that dizziness.

  Were it only a matter of negotiating the maze and finding the vial, it would be very simple — she had memorised the layout the first time through — but there was another complicating feature. Somewhere in here with her was a small but vicious predator: a young julle. She had read that many now regarded the beasts as a thing of the past, almost legend, but the Eye of Varuun had more scars than she cared to count to testify to their continued reality. The Acolytes had several captive breeding pairs. While ayoung julle could not kill her unless she was very careless, it could inflict some nasty wounds. She took a deep breath and started the ritual.

  With her back to the door, Myrrhini reached out her right hand until she touched the wall. At the feel of the rough-hewn stone, the path she needed to follow reappeared in her mind and she stepped forwards.

  The vial was less than halfway through the maze, and she was yet to find the julle. She clutched the vial tightly to her chest and started to retrace her steps. Scarcely had she taken three corners before the low grumbling sound of the julle rolled across the silence.

  Ice and wind! That’s a big one, Myrrhini thought. She had faced several, but this one sounded by far the largest yet.

  It was, of course, between her and the exit. This left her with a choice: attempt to get past the animal and suffer yet more wounds or, as she had done in the past, outrun it and lose it in the maze. The julle growled again. The deep chesty rumble decided her. Myrrhini turned and ran.

  With the vial clutched in her left hand and her right lightly touching the wall to keep track of the maze, she could not run fast. The julle was faster and already its even, flowing strides were bringing its wicked fangs closer.

  Myrrhini was searching, looking for the right junction where several tightly curving, narrow corridors met in a mad confluence. It was in this jumble of openings and short passages that she had lost most of her previous hunters.

  There! Her right hand felt the oddly shaped knob on the wall. She darted left, losing contact with the wall for a moment while she stepped across into the first narrow corridor.

  First left.

  Second right.

  Around the curve.

  Over the narrow pit …

  The directions ran through her mind, drawing a ghostly image for her to follow as she drove her protesting body through the maze-within-a-maze. Over the pounding of her heart and the rasping of her breath, she could hear the julle’s claws scraping on the floor. It was falling behind, its growls becoming less confident, more concerned, as it became lost.

  When it sounded far enough behind, Myrrhini stopped to concentrate, to try and get a sense of where it was. She stayed silent, even to the point of holding her breath as she listened to it moving away. Finally, when the bright lights of lack of air were starting to sparkle behind her eyes, she heard it stumble and fall into the steep, narrow pit.

  She let out her breath with a rush — she was safe, for now. With a sigh, Myrrhini made her way back to the door that would release her once more.

  When she stood before the door, she unstoppered the vial and drained it. In the fleeting moments before the daven juice would rob her of reason, she tipped the key out into her hand and unlocked the door.

  Onaven caught her as she fell and gently held the twitching, groaning Eye of Varuun in her arms.

  9

  There were six of them. All, as Slave had suspected, pathetic inhabitants of the vorbyndjaarge. The two men in the lead were armed with rusty swords. They skidded to a halt at the sight of Slave standing calmly in the middle of the alley.

  ‘You,’ one of the men snarled. ‘You did this.’ He gestured with his sword at Slave. With what was presumably designed to be an intimidating display of strength, the man advanced. His every movement screamed his incompetence with the blade. Everything about his actions declared him to be a dark alley bully, more equipped to rough up fellow dwellers than deal with another armed man. His bravery stemmed from his considerable bulk — much now turned to flab — and the five others behind him.

  Slave raised the Warrior’s Claw in front of his face and stepped forwards into the light. He gripped the weapon in the middle where the three equally spaced, curved blades met. His silver eye stared at the big man in front from between two of the blades.

  At the sight of Slave’s face, the leader of the six men visibly recoiled.

  ‘Ice and wind,’ he whispered. ‘What are you?’

  Slave did not answer. Instead, he exploded into action. Dropping into a low crouch, he crossed the distance to the leading thug in a heartbeat. He spun around with the Claw in his outstretched left hand and the razor-sharp blades sliced open the man’s thigh to the bone. With a cry of surprise and pain, he let his sword slip from his fingers and fell to the ground.

  As if the Claw had encountered little more interference than from a curtain, Slave’s swirling attack continued into the next man. He too fell as Slave rose from his crouch to face the next rank of his attackers. Altering the angle of his arm, he sliced the Claw upwards to tear the next man open from pelvis to collarbone.

  The remaining men dropped their swords and fled, leaving their fallen friends to this fiend who moved faster than the eye could follow.

  Slave watched them go with contempt; they were weak cowards who could not even use the weapons they left scattered behind them. He turned to look down at the three wounded men. They had attacked him for no real reason. He could accept that they were afraid of the explosions, and that they might have considered him as possibly to blame, but to simply come at him, armed …

  He shook his head in disbelief — no one had died here. Slave felt relief. At least he was able to stop himself and that strange blackness had not come over him again.

  Over the groans and whimpers of the wounded men at his feet, he could hear Ileki retching.

  ‘We need to leave,’ Slave said quietly, looking at him, but Ileki was already backing into his room through the sorcerous doorway.

  Slave crossed the distance between them as quickly as he could, only to find they were both inside the room with the door firmly shut behind them.

  ‘We need to leave,’ Slave repeated.

  Ileki regained control of his heaving stomach long enough to look up and meet Slave’s eye.

  ‘No,’ Ilek
i whispered. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I need to prepare.’

  ‘Prepare what?’

  Ileki turned away to rummage once more among the contents of his cupboard. He picked up and discarded items apparently at random. When he finally found what he was looking for, Ileki turned back to Slave with a look of triumph, brandishing a small box. It was silver, ornately filigreed, with a blue-green stone set in the top. He deftly operated a complex series of motions, manipulating the box until it opened.

  Inside was a white stone carved in the shape of an insect. Slave frowned. He had read about insects, but did not recognise this one. Ileki started a low chant over the carving, making Slave step back with a hiss of feral anger. His Warrior’s Claw slipped unnoticed from his fingers. The fear, the remembered horror, started to creep up on him again as he sensed the magic flowing from Ileki infusing the stone.

  The surge of magic was short-lived and was over before the ingrained terror could take hold of Slave entirely. Even so, he was left weakened and shaking as he leaned back on the wall.

  ‘Ice and wind,’ exclaimed Ileki. ‘What is wrong with you?’

  Slave swallowed hard and pushed himself away from the wall, willing himself to stand without trembling. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘We can leave now,’ Ileki said. He raised the box and a glowing point of orange light drifted up to hover in front of his eyes. ‘This will help.’

  Slave tried not to cringe as the light drifted towards him, but he could not hide his instinctive recoil.

  ‘What did Sondelle do to you?’ Ileki whispered.

  Slave did not speak, contenting himself with a tight shake of his head.

  ‘There is nothing to fear from this little light,’ Ileki assured him. ‘It will warn us if your master tries to track you magically.’