by JANRAE FRANK
JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING
Book I
MY SISTER'S KEEPER
By
JANRAE FRANK
A Renaissance E Books publication
ISBN 1-58873-778-0
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Janrae Frank
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
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PageTurner Editions/Futures-Past Fantasy
First Book Edition
In memory of Gertrude Lois Simms.
"[S]he loved not wisely, but too well."
Shakespeare, Othello
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa'necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness. In those days there rose up three women, Asharen, Danae, and Rowan. They built Shaurone to hold back the brothers' darkness. And then there was Abelard who will be born again into his own lineage to ride once more beneath Rowan's banner. Mage-paladin to the God Kalirion the Lord of Light, healing and prophecy, Abelard's return will signal a godwar. Should he fail or perish, then only the Children of the Risen Dead will stand between the Fathers of Darkness and the destruction of the world.
St. Tarmus of Lorendon
Priest of Willodarus, God of the Woodlands and Wild Creatures.
PROLOGUE
Margrenan Lahktormi brye Rowan, called Margren, younger daughter of the Mar'ajan of Rowanslea, stirred uneasily in her sleep wrapped in coverlets of crimson silk in the depths of her curtained bed. She had slept late into the morning without resting, troubled by a dream that wound again and again through her sleep like an unending echo. Several times in the night she had risen to pace about the room, trying various ways to be freed of it before trying again in vain for true rest. Now a shaft of sunlight lanced between the crimson draperies to graze her dark-skinned oval face, the heavy curling masses of her black hair that fanned across her pillows, and laid a golden glimmering on the long, thick lashes of her large eyes.
She dreamed of her sister again. Margren teetered on the edges of a yawning abyss built of loneliness gaping at her feet like the hungry maw of some incomprehensible demonic beast, waiting to swallow her whole, to crush her fragile security in its teeth and suffocate her feelings of acceptance within the ranks of the Sharani nobility as it sucked her down its throat. She could feel the cold stone beneath her feet, see its gray-black outline, but she knew what it was – it existed both within her and without her, and it mattered not at all whether her body or her psyche fell into it. The result would be the same. She felt abandoned, unwanted, alone, and very lost.
"Step in. Step in," Her sister's voice at her elbow coaxed her toward it. "It's where you belong, isn't it? No one wants you, Margren. No one at all."
Margren turned to protest, her eyes met the dark gray, confident eyes of her sister, and she winced away, causing her foot to miss its step. She fell screaming, "No!" only to wake with a start in her bed, clutching the silken sheets tightly enough for the blood to retreat from her knuckles.
She lay shaking for a long time. Margren used to try and tell people why and how her sister hurt her so, but no one seemed to care. Then, when she would get upset and start crying, they would write her off as overly emotional and tell her to not be so sensitive. She hated that. It put her on the defensive. There was a difference between having passionate feelings and being excessively hysterical. The former was strength, while the latter was weakness. But she had never been able to convince anyone that she was the former. The nobles and retainers at her ma'aram's court kept telling her that she got carried away and did not really see clearly. One day she would fix them all and then they would wish that they had seen clearly!
Her big bed was wedged tightly into a corner, one side and the head pressed solidly against the stone walls, trapping the heavy curtains on those sides. It felt secure and sheltered, like a stolid soldier who could not be moved. The heavy, hard-rock maple bed had required six people to get it into her room.
Magical energies prickled at the edges of Margren's awareness, slowly and insistently drawing her attention from the grip of her dream. She rolled over, pushing herself up on her elbows to gaze expectantly at the head of her bed. When the bed had been placed there, there had been nothing but a solid wall at the head. Margren's lover had changed that. He was the most powerful mage in the Sharani Empire, though no one even knew he was in the realm. The curtains parted as two slender, long-fingered hands slipped through, pushing them further and further apart, revealing the hidden enchantary gate connecting Margren's bedroom to an arcane fortress concealed beneath the ground on a distant bluff crowned by ancient ruins.
"Mephistis?" Margren sat up, crossed her legs, and made more room for the almost gaunt, young mon to emerge at her side. She opened her arms, reaching to draw him into them as she did on their frequent trysting only to draw back again at the grim expression in his eyes.
"Ladonys has sent for your sister," Mephistis whispered softly into her ear.
Margren's large, doe-like eyes widened, "No! She mustn't come back! She mustn't. I'd... I'd shrivel up and die if she came back..."
"She's sent the one person your sister can't refuse: Brendorn," his voice was soft with a very slight lilt, so unlike the Sharani, Margren's race, seductive even in its seriousness.
Margren sucked in a deep breath, steadying herself, her eyes going suddenly hard as black ice. "Then our agent will have to get there first."
"I've also sent people to stop Brendorn from reaching her."
"Good. What can a silly flower tender do?" she said, anger edging her voice now. "Even if he is her lovemate... a gardener."
"Don't underestimate him, my love. He may not know how to fight, but he is sylvan. His woodscraft is great."
Margren turned away from Mephistis, folding her arms across her stomach. "First you tell me not to worry, now you tell me to worry."
"Not at all. Just to be very careful." Mephistis wrapped his comforting arms around her, his black goatee tickling her neck as he pressed his face into the back of her cheek. "Besides, the Blade of Nine Souls is nearly done. Not even a paladin of Aroana can fight that."
"Ha'taren," Margren said, supplying the Sharani word for the paladins of the God Aroana. "She got everything I ever wanted handed to her on a platter as if she'd earned it. But she's not ha'taren any longer. She's wallowing in the filthy gutters of Vorgensburg with the rest of the pigs she attracts. Now her filthy lifemates, Ladonys and Brendorn, think they're going to bring her back here to tear up my life... rip all my plans and dreams to pieces all over again... For all I know they're bringing her back to rip my heart out despite all the oaths and promises she made not to. Oaths don't mean much to one who abandoned her faith, her god and her family – her small child."
"I won't let her touch you. If she comes, she dies. If she doesn't come, she dies. You are very, very safe, My Love." He felt her trembling with rage as his hands slipped beneath her robe to cup her breasts.
She paused in her rant as if startled, then relaxed against him. "Yes, I am. And no one is ever going to hurt me again."
Mephistis turned her in his arms, kissing her forehead and working his way down to the cleft between her breasts, murmuring between kisses, "Soon there will not be anyone left who can hurt you. Just as I promised."
A strangled sob forced its way past a sudden catch in Margren's throat, "You're the only one who's ever kept their promises to me... t
he only one."
"There will be others – others who recognize your worth." Mephistis gently pressed Margren backward onto the bed. "Together... we will bring this land to heel... punish those who have caused you so much pain... so much sorrow and loneliness."
As his body began to move in rhythm atop hers, Margren released herself to pleasure and ceased to think about her sister for the first time in days.
* * * *
On a rocky beach, curled into a fetal ball around a bottle of whiskey, a drunk woke screaming in a desolation of the soul more deep than death. He had found himself this small corner, little more than a wedge of large stones last night when he realized the drink was close to overcoming him, rather than trying to make it home. Josh often did that. Eventually someone would come looking for him. They always did since Aejys took him in. The Vorgeni called him Josh the Sot, or more often simply The Sot and left it at that. No one else invoked as much contempt in the town as Josh.
Sand crusted his grey-brown hair and untidy beard. The bridge of his nose, crooked from a childhood break, was squarish and his chin was blunt like pushed-in clay. He reeked of whiskey and vomit, yet he pulled the cork and got another drag down, causing his stomach to heave again. Josh slapped at the cobwebs of images still lodged in his half sleeping mind. Demons on thin legs pranced through his thoughts and tore him with knives that left no blood in their wake. He twisted and howled again.
A voice echoed in his mind, "Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon, Isranon called Dawnhand, and Waejonan the Accursed."
Josh screamed and howled, clutching his bottle, gulping at it. He raised his eyes and stared out at the waters, thinking how easy it would be to simply walk out far enough into the tide to let the undertow catch him, to let the terror end, to let it all be over. He straightened and started toward the water, feeling the fear draining out of him as he listened to the waves. Josh kept swigging from the bottle as he walked into the water. Suddenly, seemingly from out of nowhere, a group of children rushed around him and he hesitated.
"Grandfather is looking for you," shouted a little girl, her black hair in two braids and sand coating her buckskins.
Josh blinked and the lure of the water was broken. Yes, he thought, someone always comes looking. Before Aejys, it had been just Branch and his grandchildren and great grandchildren. The old Kwaklahmyn shaman had befriended him when he was a child. Now there were many watchers, as if they all recognized the despair in his soul. But his despair came from within. He had Aejys and others now who cared. So long as they were around he did not feel that void as keenly and could distract himself from his awareness of it. It was only there, pounding in his awareness, when he found himself alone.
CHAPTER ONE. DEADLY PROMISES
The City-State of Vorgensburg sat on the northernmost point of Sophren Bay, sheltered from the worst of the seasonal storms by the rainshadow of a long, jutting northwestern spur of mountains. The wet temperate region was more suited to fishing than farming with the lush growth of the northern rain forests, pines, fir, evergreen and red oaks covering a rocky soil unfriendly to less substantial flora. The fisher folk lived alongside a growing merchant class who bought furs, herbs and delicately carved cedar boxes, furniture, and basketry from the Kwaklahmyn villages to the north, which they traded in the south for spices, porcelains, incense, and a great variety of drugs and medicines.
The Cock and Boar tavern was fuller than usual, owing to the fact that for the last five days the three o'clock breeze had not come and the weather was unusually hot, which brought folks seeking a satisfying tankard of the good Neridian ale the proprietor had just laid in. All across the city those who could took refuge in the cool shadowed taverns and taprooms of the city where they could comfort themselves with a pint.
Becca deWythe, tavern master of the Cock and Boar and de facto seneschal of Aejys' growing household and expanding properties, emerged from supervising the kitchen, tray in hand. She felt bound and determined to make this a very good day for the tavern. A very important discussion was going on upstairs between the owner and the city-syndics, which could benefit all of them. Becca was one of those folks who tended to jump in when a task needed doing or was not being done to her taste rather than delegating it or brow-beating her employees. That late afternoon, in addition to the over-flow of customers, They short-handed by two: one girl had run off with a sailor and the other had come down ill. Aejys Rowan would not let her people work sick. The gangling youth that had been recently hired was not ready to handle the late afternoon rush that came with the return of the fishing fleet. So Becca pitched in to help.
Until two years ago Becca had been a mere serving woman at the Cock and Boar, waiting tables and occasionally turning tricks to make ends meet. Then her best customer, Aejys Rowan, bought the place and promoted her twice, raising her to heights she never dreamed of reaching. A bosomy woman with a tiny waist and boyish hips, Becca stood five feet six. A wide-necked white blouse discretely covered her high ample breasts. Her burgundy skirt hung to her calves and clung to her legs and a triangle of matching cloth held her chestnut hair back. As she moved from table to table, her hips swayed coquettishly, more out of habit than advertising, though she had done a fair bit of that in less prosperous times. Every man in the room watched her hungrily, wishing they could find themselves between those legs one sweet night. Some remembered the taste of her from earlier days; yet not one made the slightest untoward comment or grab at her, for there was a half-breed ogre living in the inn's stable that would smash the first one to try.
She had just set three tankards down on a table occupied by sailors whose ship had put in that morning and started back for the kitchen when the door opened and three more customers came in. Becca had never seen them before. They stood looking around as if for someone they knew. She measured and weighed them in a single shrewd glance. The male, a half breed sylvan to judge by the breadth of his shoulders and deep ivory tones of his skin, was as fine a piece of manhood as Becca had ever seen. Becca prided herself on having sampled the bedroom artistry of all the races of the coast, but had never tasted the wares of the woodland peoples because of their rarity in the region. Seeing this one triggered a moment of speculation, a wisp of fantasy, and a tingle between her thighs, all of which she shoved away with a toss of her head. "If he's still here when things slow down," she muttered, sweeping her gaze over him once more.
A silver circlet wrought like tiny leaves held the heavy masses of his curling auburn hair in place and, though combed to conceal them, the delicate tips of his pointed ears showed through. He carried a yew bow almost as long as he was tall, a slender sword hung at his hip and he wore the simple rustic green tunic and breeches of the Sharani yeomynry.
Two Sharani women flanked him, dressed and armed as he was; both black-haired and a head taller than the half-breed; both boyishly slender, hard and well muscled, with modest breasts. The older one carried herself with the cool pride of a woman accustomed to command. The burnished bronze of her skin was a shade lighter than Aejys Rowan's. She wore her smoky black hair pulled back in a simple tail. Becca guessed her age at early twenties, then reminded herself that the usual measurements were less than precise when applied to members of the long-lived Sharani race: She could as easily be sixty as twenty. The woman's hands were scarred in the middle as if a narrow blade had been driven through each one. Becca started slightly: hadn't she heard stories during the Great War about a young woman with scarred hands?
The other, who looked to be a girl of sixteen, was an odd shade of walnut that didn't look quite real. Her green eyes drank everything in as if it were all incredibly new to her. Her high cheeks formed a delicate triangle with her small chin. Sensitivity and compassion lay in her glance and mischief in the turn of her mouth.
They drew every eye in the taproom: Sharani were rare along the coast. Becca observed the reactions of her patrons and, not knowing whether that might mean trouble despite the fact that the Cock and Boar was Sharani owne
d, intercepted the trio heading for the bar.
"Can I help you, sir? I am the tavern master," Becca said with crisp politeness, stepping in front of them.
The half-breed smiled shyly, his large dark green eyes, shaped like sidewise tear drops, shone. "I hope so," he said. "We are looking for Aejys Rowan. I was told we could find her here." As he spoke, his eyes ran with longing toward the stairs leading to the apartments above as if searching for a glimpse of someone very precious.
"Aejys can't be disturbed right now." Becca idly hugged her tray while tallying his physical attributes more closely. The knuckles of her left hand almost touched her chin. "Take a table and I'll let her know you're here as soon as can be."
The half-breed's brow furrowed, his mouth drew together in a worried way. "It is urgent we speak to her without delay," he said with soft insistence.
"No." Becca scowled in irritation, slid the tray onto a nearby table, and assumed a spread legged stance, arms folded. These days, it seemed to her, everyone wanted to see Aejys and wanted to see her now. An unspoken part of her job was keeping them away or at least delayed when more important things were occurring. "There's a deputation from the city syndics up there negotiating to make Aejys lord-mayor. Nothing interrupts this. You hear me? Nothing. Give me any trouble and I'll have Grymlyken put you all out."
"We hear you," said the older woman stepping protectively in front of the half-breed. "Now. You. Hear. Us." Her quiet voice was like a sword sheathed in velvet. "This is a matter of life and death. You will tell Aejys we are here. Immediately."
Becca stared at her a moment, wincing away from the intensity of the Sharani's stare. Her stomach tightened, she recognized the urgency and knew they had come a very long way, months of travel, to get here from Shaurone; yet in spite of that Becca deeply resented being pushed around by anyone, especially now that she finally had some power to back up her resistance. In the few seconds of indecision, her resentments poured lava-like up from her stomach into her throat, overwhelming her reason and intuition.