by Darcy Sweet
Unlike his father, Nadar came. I heard his voice as he commanded my guards to open my chambers to him. They denied him entrance as they had been duly instructed. He called out my name, first pleading and then in anger, his fist thumping the heavy wooden door rattling it in its hinges.
I almost succumbed. I was at the door with my hand reached out when Hatha pulled me back. “I think it best if we avoid further complications Mistress Vessel,” she said in a low and urgent tone.
I nodded. She was right. Nadar could do nothing for me now. Only confuse me further. What I needed was knowledge and truth. I needed the Sarran Coven.
We left at Dawn. Hatha told me it was when the powers of the Masters were at their weakest. No doubt that was why Roth had not sensed me in the corridor outside his chambers. I had wondered why he had not felt me there. I felt glad to know there was a reason and then chided myself, caring to need one at all.
We carried few items, Hatha opting for speed rather than comfort. I did not mind so much. My lodgings at my Uncle’s had been austere and as I had yet to become accustomed to the luxury of living at the Palace I was comfortable with very little. Happy in fact—even with a stomach growling in hunger—just to be free and to be finally taking each step forward at my own choosing rather than at the behest of my Uncle, or Bandar, or Roth, or Nadar.
Nadar.
I felt a tug of wanting at the thought of him. While each step away from the Night Palace seemed to dull the seductive pull of Roth, it did little to ease my yearning for Nadar. The further away I was the clearer my feelings for him became. I missed him. Wanted him. I felt a bond of friendship that I had had with no other.
Which saddened me as I knew he was simply yet one more person in my life that I could neither trust or rely upon.
I did not speak of the Dark Prince or his son to Hatha. I did not speak much at all. She did not seem to mind my reticence at conversation—she did not talk either. All her energy seemed focused on one thing. Finding the Coven.
How exactly we were to do that I did not know. We had no map and by her own admission Hatha had no idea where the Sarran Coven now lay.
“My skin is my map,” she said to me when I asked her how we would know where to go.
She traced a finger along her tattoos, the markings hidden under a long dark cape. She had spells she said, to hide the markings, but they would drain her power and she could not risk that while we were exposed in the open.
We met few people on our travels. Hatha planned it that way. We moved on foot, avoiding the main travel routes. The few times we came across others on the same path we acted out the story that Hatha had concocted. We were sisters, heading south to family after the death of our mother. The travelers bought our story easily which I found quite surprising as we didn’t look alike and were travelling through difficult and dangerous smuggler paths.
Hatha laughed when I told her I was surprised. “Why do you think they travel the same paths as us Mistress?’” she’d said, “They hide like us naïve girl. They likely lie too.”
We rested in short bursts rather than sleep. We had to keep moving as we knew that Roth would be coming for us with all the forces he could muster. He would not risk losing the prize of The Vessel. The one thing in our favor was that he too would have to hide so as not to reveal the magnitude of his loss. A full scale search for a mere servant and a Pleasure Chosen would raise far too much attention from the Crown.
Hatha taught me as we trekked. She spoke of nature and magic and I soaked it in like a sponge. She carried a kohl stick and with it I drew simple spells on my arms. I felt the power burn with each stroke of the black stick on my flesh. It felt so right. So much a part of me that it was as if I had finally discovered I could see.
After two and a half days the land changed from the Forests of Palace Shire to the marsh-like terrain of the Farsah Shire. Here, Hatha told me, we would find the Sarran, or rather they would find us.
“We need to create a beacon,” Hatha told me as we set up a small camp.
“Won’t that attract the attention of others?” I worried about the logic of shining a light when Roth was so desperately searching for me.
“A magical beacon. Only the Sarran will see it,” Hatha said, swiping at the air, brushing away a swarm of the nasty biting flies that abounded in the wetlands.
The patch of land we had chosen to use as camp sat like a small island in the swamp. To get to it we’d trudged through the brackish water. It had rimmed my skirts black with slime, as the foul stain dried it stiffened, scratching my legs as I moved. There was nowhere to clean my clothes, or myself. I thought of the copper bathing tub I had left behind and hoped that we would be found soon.
Hatha drew a circle on the ground as wide as the small patch of land would allow. She shook her head and muttered to herself, “Not big enough.”
I did not question her as she seemed stressed enough without the added burden of my curiosity. She marked the ground, North, East, West and South and then set about filling the circle with lines and markings like those upon her skin. I watched and marveled at her steady and quick hand. The sky rumbled and the air crackled, cooling fast, becoming heavy with the damp metallic taste of coming rain. Hatha looked up at the darkening sky and slumped her shoulders.
“Should we wait until tomorrow?” I asked her as she looked forlornly at the coming rain clouds.
“It must be now,” she said.
I nodded. “Let it be now then, show me what to do.”
“I haven’t finished,” she said, pointing down at the intricate markings of the circle.
“What can I do?” I asked. “Let me help, please.”
A fat drop of rain hit the earth at her feet. She shook her head. Frustrated, I just stood and watched as she stripped off, baring her skin to the cold rain. I stayed in the circle, not sure what I should do. As the rain began to sheet down she chanted and began to step around the inner edge of the circle. I moved to the middle, wrapping my arms around my body. My gown hung wet and heavy, I was cold. So cold.
The cold did not stop Hatha, she stepped around and around the circle, moving faster and faster. Through the filter of the rain I could see her mouth moving in chant. I could not hear her over the beat of the water but I knew that she shouted. Water streamed down her body, her hair was soaked, stuck to her cheeks and neck.
I wanted to tell her to stop. I wanted to find shelter. I was tired. Oh so tired.
The rain let up, falling softly now rather than sheeting down in a curtain of icy needles. Hatha came down on her knees in the soft mud. I stumbled to her, the soaked skirts of my gown constricting my legs.
“Hatha, Hatha.” I fell to my knees and brought her head into my lap.
“Di…did..n’t work,” she stuttered, shaking from the cold.
I had no way to make her warm. What little we owned was wet. There was no way to make fire in the damp. What could I do?
Fear and worry so overwhelming hit me like a punch to my chest. Air sucked from my lungs. Panic became action. My vision blurred. I moved, but not with conscious effort. Instinct overcame logic. My hands came up to strip my wet gown away. The fabric peeled from my skin and landed in a heap at my feet. I stepped over it and Hatha.
Naked, with deliberate steps I walked, the water dissolved the line of the circle that Hatha had made. No markings remained, all washed away by the beat of the rain, but I saw them in my mind. They floated above the mud, so real I was sure that if I knelt down I could touch them. Once I had walked the circle three times I went back to the center, stepping over the prostrate form of Hatha. I did not even look down, too focused on completing my task.
My hands came before my face. Steepled fingers touched my lips, my chest and then my naked sex. I knelt, knees sinking into the cold green-black mud. My hands swept around me in the mud to create a smaller circle around my body. Within the marked circle I came up on my knees. Fingertips wet with mud encircled my naked body, drawing a black line at my hips, my waist and
my neck. Between each circle I began to paint. Mark symbols I had never seen, but knew. Right down to the marrow of my bone I knew these markings. They were mine and mine alone. Their power sang on my skin and pulsed in my sex.
Down to the mud and then back to my skin my fingers flew until I was all but covered in symbols and lines from neck to Mons.
I was no longer cold. My skin crackled with the heat of the markings. I was on fire.
No! I was the fire.
I was the heat of the earth, the burn of the sun.
The last symbol I painted on my forehead and down the bridge of my nose. Knowing I was complete, I raised my arms. Wide and high. My head I threw back and arched my spine. Through me from the earth came the surge of light and heat. My sex convulsed in orgasm as the light hit the sky.
The Beacon, was my last thought as darkness overcame me with a blanket of exhaustion.
* * * *
“They should not be here,” a low male voice spoke.
“So, we should have left them to die?” The whispered words of a woman.
“Are they worth us dying Lena? Are they worth the children?”
“Shut up Fa! What is done is done. I am not taking them back out there now. No one is.”
I carefully opened one eye a slit. It hurt to do even that. My body ached as if I had been pummeled with a shower of stones.
“No good will come of this. Mark my words. This will bring doom to us all.”
People were fighting. Whispered words of anger. Over me. One wanted to leave me to die. It may not have been the welcome I had hoped for, dreamed of, but it was familiar. I was, oddly, comforted by the disappointingly familiar sounds of rejection.
Through the blur of my eyelashes I saw two figures. One tall, one short. The tall one leaned over a figure in the cot opposite mine.
Hatha!
I shot up in the cot, regretting my actions the moment I was upright. My vision blurred white and red and my stomach rolled in nausea. The tall one came forth. A woman. “Shhhh,” she crooned, “lay back. Rest. You need time to recover after setting a spell like that.”
Spell?
And I remembered. The mud, the circle, the drawings, the heat, the light. The Beacon. I had raised a Beacon.
“Hatha,” I said, in a voice I hardly recognized as my own, husky and brittle.
“Your companion?” she asked.
I nodded and then groaned at how my head throbbed at the movement. Cool fingers brushed my head and gently lowered me to the cot.
“Do not worry. Your companion is fine,” she said. “Better than you. I gave her a sleeping draught to aid her rest. She will awaken soon.”
“And then you will leave,” said the short one. A man appeared before me scowling. Brick-like, he stood square and squat with flaked red skin and an angry scowl.
“Hush Fa!” the tall woman said, scowling over her shoulder at him, “There will no talk of going anywhere for some time.”
She looked back down at me with silver rimmed blue eyes. “Rest,” she said softly and ran a cool finger gently down the bridge of my nose.
My eyes fluttered closed and I fell into dreamless sleep.
I awoke to the sound of laughter. Not close but echoing farther away. I opened my eyes tentatively, remembering the pain. I was slow and deliberate in my movements. My head did not ache and though I felt sore I did not feel as bruised as before. I wondered how long I had been asleep. There was no window in the room. Soft light came from a lamp hung in the corner of the room.
I sat. The cot beside me was empty. Hatha was gone. I stretched out my arms and bowed my back until my spine cracked. I stood, and as I did realized that I was clothed. A simple, light blue chemise covered my body. I looked at my hands and then pulled the neckline of the chemise open to check my torso. I was clean. All the mud I had painted upon myself was gone. I brought my fingers to my hair and ran them through the length. There were no knots, my hair had been washed and dried.
I sat back down on the cot and looked at my surrounds. The walls were stone, but not built, carved by nature or by hand. This was a cave, the room of a cave.
One wall was wooden. Smooth and painted light blue, evidence this was not a rush construction. This had been here for some time and had been built for comfort and longevity.
At the centre of the wooden wall was a door. I stood and was moving towards it as it opened.
“Hatha!” I exclaimed and stepped forward to take her in my arms. The hug was awkward. I wasn’t the kind to hug regularly and wasn’t sure what to do with my hands.
She released me and dipped into a bow. “Welcome to Sarran Vere Mistress Vessel.” She was dressed in a tight sleeveless bodice, her tattooed arms bare. Probably for the first time in years. I smiled, reached forward and traced a finger at the band of ink on her right arm.
She shivered and released a low moan. Grabbing my finger she said, “Careful who you touch here Mistress. Your power is getting stronger.”
“Stronger. Since the Beacon?”
She nodded and released my finger.
I could not resist one more trace of her skin. The feel of the power radiating from the brief contact was too delicious. I sighed as I removed my hand.
“Your power is very sexual in nature,” Hatha said, inclining her head and looking at me intently.
“Is that strange for a Vessel? I thought release was the source of Vessel power?” I asked.
“Not strange as such,” she said in that slow measured Hatha way, “Just different. More potent. The people here are used to hiding. They are frightened. Your presence here could…” She paused and frowned, searching for the right word.
“What? Could what?”
She didn’t get time to answer as the tall woman who had cared for me and the angry brick man entered the room.
“Good, you’re awake,” the woman smiled at me.
“Much sooner than was anticipated,” the brick man growled. His words more accusation than observation.
I had a very infantile urge to stick out my tongue.
“She is young. And healthy. It is not so strange that she would recover fast,” Hatha said, defending me quietly.
“True,” the smiling tall woman said. Steepling her fingers at her chest she bowed and said, “I am Lena of Sarran Coven Vere. We welcome you.”
My body moved once more without thought, as it had in the rain of the circle. I stepped to her, raised my arms and took her steepled hands between my palms. I pushed them together and then slid my hands down her forearms to her elbows.
She dropped her head to her chest and let out a breathy gasp. She lifted her eyes, not to look at me, but Hatha. They exchanged a loaded look, Hatha nodded and Lena brought her fingers up to her mouth as if in shock.
“What?” barked the angry little brick man. “What’s going on Lena?”
“Fa, she is The Vessel,” Lena breathed.
“The Vessel? The Vessel!” Fa threw his arms up as if in disgust. “She cannot be here. She has to go now! Right now!”
Lena looked to answer Fa’s outburst but did not get to as another couple entered the small room. Both Fa and Lena bowed their heads. I turned to Hatha and noticed that she too had bowed her head.
I did not. For a brief moment I thought to but decided against it. At that very second I resolved to bow only to those who deserved my respect or submission. At my decision and my decision alone. I pulled back my shoulders and stared directly at the couple as they came to stand before me.
The woman was tall. Her hair silver, not the shining brilliance of Nadar but a softer color, almost white in appearance.
“This is her?” she asked softly, looking at me but obviously directing her question to Fa and Lena.
“Yes Lady Vere,” Lena answered raising her head slightly and bowing once more.
The woman watched me with curiosity but without an obvious emotion I could decipher. She seemed at once to be both interested and indifferent. As if I were an animal she was examining to
purchase. Behind her stood a smiling blond man. Unlike the woman he did not hide his appraisal of me, or the sexual purpose behind it. His eyes filled with wicked promise, he had the look of a man who played and was used to winning. I could not determine his age, but he seemed to me more boy than man. A youth teetering on the precarious cusp of manhood.
I liked him immediately. I could not say why, but the cheeky play he made with his eyes did not offend, it made me want to grin.
“I am Talia,” I said. “Once of Hawthorne Shire and more recently of the Night Palace.”
“Chosen of Roth. Dark Prince of Pleasure,” Lady Vere said, more statement than question but I nodded in answer anyway.
“And you are now here. For what?” she asked.
I glanced at Hatha. Uncertain of what I should say. Could I just declare myself The Vessel? Hatha stepped forward, bowed deeply and to my relief answered for me, “She is The Vessel, my lady.”
“The Vessel,” the Lady Vere murmured, “You are certain?”
“She called The Beacon,” the youth behind Lady Vere said, “Captain Farso found her in a self circle, marked with the light of The Beacon.”
“You! You taught her?” Lady Vere turned to Hatha and spat out the words in angry accusation.
Hatha held up her hand, cowering under the whip of the verbal attack. She stuttered out her defense so fast she stumbled over the words. ”No my Lady. No. I did not. She did it herself. In the rain I collapsed. My circle was destroyed by water, my power drained at the attempt to raise The Beacon. I did….”
I moved to Hatha, stepping between her and the Lady Vere, cutting off her explanation. “She did nothing wrong. You do not need to explain yourself Hatha.”