JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING BOOK I: MY SISTER'S KEEPER

by JANRAE FRANK

  "Pregnant?" Tamlestari folded her legs under her and sat back on her heels. "You didn't know?"

  "Hell shitting damnation! I'm no saint! But I'm not a rapist either!" Abruptly tears started in Aejys' eyes, she sat up folding her hands across her abdomen. "Brendorn. We were only together one night. I had been celibate since leaving him and Ladonys."

  Tamlestari moved to sit beside Aejys. She touched the lapsed paladin's hand and Aejys jerked back. Tamlestari sighed.

  "Estari, I want you. I need you. Understand me. This child would be such a comfort to me if Ladonys were here to womb it. But I'm not going to get you pregnant."

  "I love you, Aejys," Tamlestari protested. "I want to have your child."

  "Go away!"

  "Don't you love me?"

  "I love you! Now get out!"

  "If you don't kyndi in the first six weeks you endanger yourself and the child!" Tamlestari shouted back at her.

  "Get out!" Aejys roared at the top of her lungs.

  Tamlestari grabbed up her wet clothes and fled naked down the hall. The brothers stopped in their tracks as she ran past. She burst through the main doors and plunged across the courtyard. Every head went up. Several whistles of admiration sounded. Johannes, emerging from his tent to find out what was going on, almost bumped into her.

  "What the hell?" His eyes grew wide as he got a good solid look at the youth's well-shaped flanks and buttocks. "Wonder who found that one in his bed?"

  Tamlestari rushed into Aejys' tent, dropped her wet clothes on the ground, and rolled up in Aejys' blankets on the cot.

  * * * *

  Tagalong paused at the door to the bathing room. She had just watched Tamlestari streak down the hall from that direction and the dwarf had a suspicion that something had happened between the youth and Aejys. She had been observing the way they looked at each other for a month now. She saw the water seeping under the door and raised one eyebrow quizzically. Then she opened the door and went in.

  The room was a mess. She took in the overturned tub and fallen table. Aejys' clothing, both the dirty and the clean lay scattered and sodden upon the floor. Tagalong righted the tub and the table. She glanced about the room and spied Aejys sitting nude in a corner, puffing furiously on her pipe, which had been the only thing not ruined by the water.

  "What happened?"

  "Get me some dry clothes and I'll tell you." Aejys talked around the pipe stem still held in her mouth.

  Tagalong smirked. "Any thing else? Like carry yer apologies to Tamlestari?"

  "Tag." Aejys pulled the pipe out and stared down at it for a moment. "Tell Cassana I need to speak with her. Father Keikero will not mind if we use his private library."

  "Yer gonna have Cassana carry yer apologies?" Tagalong trundled over and stood looking at Aejys curiously.

  "I'm not apologizing, damn it!" Aejys snapped.

  "She's just a bit big fer Cassana ta take over her knee and spank, don't ya think?" Tagalong suggested with an innocent air.

  Aejys glared in thorough exasperation. "Don't push, Tag. I have a very serious problem, go get me some dry clothes and find Cassana."

  Tagalong eyed Aejys for a moment, then nodded, and left.

  * * * *

  Father Keikero's private library served also as his study. Tapestries covered the walls behind his large desk and the long couch piled with embroidered pillows. Three large well-stuffed chairs framed the desk. A small fireplace warmed the cozy room. Bookcases lined one wall that extended into a nook with four freestanding bookcases filling it. Every tapestry, pillow, and piece of furniture in the room had been made by the brothers out of love for the old abbot.

  Aejys stared into the fireplace, watching the flames and wondering what to say to Cassana. She really did not have a lot of options. Tamlestari was right about a lack of time, for the longer the ma'aram waited to make the transfer, to kyndi, the harder it was on her physical and psychic body to achieve it. Among her people an unkyndied pregnancy resulted in an azdrin, an androgyne, genderless and sterile. The eldritch genetic patterns of the Sharani gave the child a mix of its three parents with the ma'aramlasah determining the gender. Azdrins could not inherit and compassies were considered questionable. For the purposes of inheritance a child's lineage was counted as passed down through the bloodmother whom the gene readers had established made the most significant contribution to the child's genetic inheritance.

  Cassana and Tagalong entered.

  "Aejys, you wanted me?" Cassana asked.

  Aejys turned from staring into the fireplace and nodded. "I have a problem, Cassana," she said without preamble. "I need you as you once needed Valeda."

  Tagalong's eyes saucered. "Omagosh! A baby!"

  Cassana smiled quietly. "That's why I saw Tamlestari fleeing naked across the courtyard?"

  Aejys sighed. "A back scrub turned into something else. I felt the kyndi stir and chased her off before anything could happen."

  "Do you have feelings for her?" Cassana, thinking fondly how much Tamlestari looked like her ma'aram had with her blond roots showing when they left to find the Moonstone of Reyanon.

  "I don't know. Sometimes I think I do. Sometimes I think I must just be lonely. She's so like Brendorn."

  Cassana slipped her arm around Aejys and gave her a companionable squeeze. "So when shall we take care of your problem?"

  "Tomorrow. I need to get used to the idea first."

  * * * *

  Hanadi pressed the letter into Aejys' hands. "Feel better now," she said smugly. "My people, we do it right."

  Aejys unfolded the document, reading quickly.

  Windhawk,

  Laeoli is safe, completely unscathed. She turned up two days ago at our meeting place, got lost for a while is all. Just get Aejys here and retrieve her.

  Archer

  * * * *

  To those who thought all sylvans looked much the same, they did. They shared many features in common: slanted eyes and fair skin, narrow features and full lips, high delicate cheekbones and, most conspicuous of all, pointed ears. But there were racial differences that those who really looked at them could discern. Three races predominated at the monastery: the Valdren, the Eldari, and the Nordrei. The Nordrei were the tallest, a very few were as tall as Aejys. There was a ruddy, pink undertone to their fair skin and their eyes were the most nearly round. Their eyebrows though slanted tended to feather out at the tips. Their hair tended to be shades of brown and black. The Eldari, whom many called elves, had the narrowest, most deeply slanted eyes and their skin was like aged ivory or parchment with a soft yellow cast. They were smaller than the others, almost halflings. Their eyes were all the shades of blue imaginable, from the palest cornflower to the deepest midnight. And their hair ranged from ice white to deep yellow. The Valdren were blondes and redheads; their cheekbones were wide and their faces angular; and, though not as tall at the Nordrei, strongly built – broad through the shoulders and narrow hipped. Those three together with the Fae, also called the Faery, and the winged Jesmyrran, were the royals of the sylvan folk. The Badree Nym came in all colors, shapes and sizes, but as the pariahs of the sylvan peoples, would never be found at the monastery. Even the compassionate Father Keikero would have turned them away; their chaotic immature natures coupled with tremendous magical powers, however well intentioned, always created havoc.

  Aejys spotted a single Jesmyrran, rarest of the six races, as he walked along the ambulatory toward the lesser chapel which, out of consideration to the occasional guest, the brothers maintained as a place to pray to the other eight Greater Gods. The eyes of the Jesmyrran slanted upward at the outer corners with a delicate lacework pattern of silken black hairs beneath them and impossibly long lashes. The back of his robe was slit to allow his wings. He inclined his head politely as Aejys passed and she nodded back. She had seen none of the Fae, the most magical of the six, but she felt certain there were some at the monastery.

  Perhaps it was something in the stillness that bothered Aejys
that first night at the monastery. She had an uneasy feeling, something which she had never experienced on her previous visits. She had set only a light watch out of custom and not because she felt a need. Willodarus took care of this special valley of his and nothing evil had ever come as far as the monastery, even during the height of the Great War. But she had an itch. So she came to pray before the statue of Aroana in the monastery's lesser chapel.

  An assortment of rugs covered the stone floor of the little chapel. In eight niches along the walls stood representations of the other eight of the nine elder gods. Before each stood a small stand with an incense burner, candles and a snuffer. Aejys lit the candles and incense, then knelt and began the penitent's prayer as she had each night since leaving the Willowhorn Shrine. Her troubled feelings vanished and peace came into mind and body. She breathed deeply of the scented air. Then she prayed for guidance. A soft breeze swept through the room, caressing Aejys and playing with the smoke from the incense. When she left she felt certain that she would have an answer to the sense of unease that had brought her here to pray rather than in her tent.

  * * * *

  "Gather the bears," Josh told the shaman. The air of clarity shrouding the man dispelled all resemblance to the sot's usual self. His clear eyes, though showing the outward signs of his drinking, stared at things the others could not see and he held his head like a proud man who had never been beaten in his life. Clemmerick focused on Josh with intense attention to every word. This was a Josh few besides Clemmerick had ever seen, and certainly not the one regarded with such contempt in Vorgensburg.

  "What do you sense?" Grawl asked.

  "A change in the winds." He stank of liquor. He had been drinking steadily, not stopping even for a moment since they reached the entrance to the monastery's path. "Something dark has blown here on the winds. It will arrive at midnight. Go swiftly."

  Grawl eyed him. The man's voice had changed as if someone else spoke to Grawl, someone who had been known in the winter dreaming. Grawl called into the night and the march began.

  Then the mood, the awareness of things beyond himself, and most of all the sense of power and self-possession fled the sot and he was simply Josh again, haunted by his nightmares. Josh huddled down, weeping, clutching his bottle as if it were his last friend, slugging down pull after pull. And then he heaved it up.

  Clemmerick knelt beside the sailor, touching him in concern.

  Josh began to speak in a small voice, tentative and turning about in its efforts to resist speaking. But the visions had him once more with the drink. "Once there were ... three brothers ... two by darkness chosen and one to darkness forced... Beware the first brother... Beware." He vomited again and lay shivering. Clemmerick dragged him aside, got a basin wedged under his head to catch the spew, and began to clean him up and wrap him. The ogre did his best by Josh. Grymlyken dug through the packs looking for the medicine.

  "Two sisters... Rowan... Three lineages..." Josh began to thrash and scream, nearly upsetting the medicine so that it took all the ogre's massive strength to hold him and the little pixie climbed onto his forehead, along his nose and spilled the bottle into his mouth with a yelp. "Asharan ... Rowan ... Danae." A long howl of desolation swelled out of Josh that raised goose-bumps and the hairs on Clemmerick's arms. "And then there was Abelard. Beware the first brother. Beware the scions of the third. Abelard!" His voice twisted into a shriek. "Abelard!"

  "Why does he keep coming back to this?" Grymlyken whimpered, slipping off Josh and retreating from him.

  Clemmerick shook his head. "I don't know. It frightens me. I think he's going insane. I think this whole thing was a mistake, but we're too far along to turn back now. We're committed."

  * * * *

  When Aejys returned to her tent she found Tamlestari asleep on her cot. Aejys grinned and shook her head, then up-ended the cot. Tamlestari awoke with a start as she hit the ground. The youth glared at Aejys. Aejys laughed and Tamlestari's glower turned to a hot blush.

  "Why did you do that?"

  Aejys bent, cupped her chin, and kissed her lightly. "Because you don't sleep here yet."

  "Yet?" She sounded hopeful and eager.

  "We'll talk about it." Aejys gave her a hand up, wrapping a blanket around Tamlestari to cover her nakedness. "Tomorrow," she added when Tamlestari appeared about to start talking.

  Tamlestari smiled, caught up the pile of her still wet clothing, and darted back to her own tent.

  * * * *

  Aejys dreamed.

  Flowers of every color and shape filled a garden to overflowing. She walked down a narrow path laid with broad flagstones. The flowers to her right were all of shades of blue or rich violet, flags and irises and lover's buttons. The other side was a thicket of roses ranging in color from blood red to flaming orange to deep gold. At the end of the little path stood a tremendous Aroanan willow. Beneath the willow, brushed by its trailing branches, stood a worn stone bench. On the bench sat a figure all in white. The breath caught in her throat, her heart raced and tears started in her eyes. She reached for him, but he raised his hand and stopped her, "Do not touch me," he said, his voice soft and sad, "for I must vanish if you do."

  Aejys' mouth tightened. She pressed her hands to the corners of her eyes to blunt the tears. "Brendorn. I have missed you." She sat down on the far end of the bench.

  The spirit smiled, his eyes full of wisdom and sorrow. "Willodarus granted me leave to come here to this sacred ground. I cannot stay long. I have come to warn you. Margren has unleashed the harpies and winged demons. They will attack this night. You must rouse your camp and wake the brothers."

  Horror and disbelief washed over Aejys. "How?" she gasped. "How does such power come to be Margren's?"

  Brendorn's face grew still sadder. "Her lover, the sire of her unborn child, is Mephistis Coleth de Waejonan. Shintar, Prince of Waejontor, was his sire. Aurean the Golden, his paternal grandma'aram, wombed him. He is a sa'necari of unsurpassed power. He called them."

  "How can I prove that?"

  "You cannot. Now you must wake and warn them all." Brendorn's form began to mist away as he spoke.

  "No. Not yet. Don't leave me yet." Aejys, forgetting his admonition in a wave of despair and grief, reached for him. Her fingers passed through him and he dissolved around them.

  Aejys started awake, the words still on her lips, "Don't leave me. Please don't leave me..." She stared into the darkness of the tent, her arms aching with the memory of his dying within them. Then the moment was past. Aejys moved quickly. She buckled on her sword, slid her arm through the straps of her shield, and snatched up a horn that lay on the chest at the foot of her bed. She stepped swiftly from the tent, clapped the horn to her lips and blew the Arm and Mount repeatedly.

  The camp came alive; soldiers rushed their tents with drawn weapons. Torches flared in the darkness. The birds that nested on the walls rose in a cloud of wings and fled into the night in every direction. Tagalong and Tamlestari reached Aejys almost immediately.

  "What is it?" Tagalong shouted, "We under attack? Here?"

  Aejys pointed to the sky. The beating of wings could be heard. Myn, seeing her pointing arm, looked up. The sky filled with huge wings, blotting out the moon and stars. Two groups of creatures bore down on them. Huge, gaunt demons, red-skinned on leathery wings spanning nearly twenty feet with three-toed taloned feet and clawed hands. Among them flew harpies, foul-smelling, feathered creatures, with engorged female breasts and twisted gnarled faces full of hate. The harpies were the swiftest, darting down to strike.

  Aejys grabbed Tagalong. "Warn the brothers. Tell them to bar their doors and windows. This isn't something they can fight." Aejys dropped the horn. Then the creatures were upon them.

  "Form up!" Aejys' voice broke across the camp, pitched louder than the wings, carrying to every ear. "Fight them in groups. Guard your backs!" The struggle was disintegrating into a confused melee as she watched. Aejys added to herself in a low mutter, "Damn it all! I wis
h I'd brought pole arms! Those wings make it hard for us to strike at them but easy for them to strike at us!"

  She strode out into the thick of it, shield raised and sword ready. "To me!" She shouted, gathering the ragged soldiers into a coherent formation as she fought her way across the courtyard.

  As a demon dove at her, her shield came up. It seized her shield and she cut its hands off before it could rise. The tremendous presence of Aejys Rowan, calm and in control, seemingly unafraid, slowly drew the myn together. A shield wall formed. The demons and harpies dove and darted, striking and retreating in a mad dance of death. Now and again a soldier was dragged screaming into the air. There was not enough light for the archers to shoot effectively. In frustration Aejys, reaching the central fire, snagged a flaming brand. She fought her way to the tents closest to the monastery, but still far enough away to not endanger the brothers, and set fire to three tents. As the demons became outlined against the leaping flames, archers in the shadows began to shoot.

  * * * *

  Only one person had heard Aejys' muttered wish for pole arms and complaint about the difficulty of reaching the monsters. He stood beside her tent, almost at her elbow, unseen and unnoticed. As she moved out into the melee, he moved back into the shadows, away from the battle and the sight of the struggling soldiers. He lifted CallThunder. Illusion dropped away. No longer a simple pilgrim's walking staff, its dark wood turned completely black with strange carven runes twined about its entire length and inlaid with silver.

  At the top a claw grown from the wood itself held a glowing azure orb. The winter mage reached into the upper air with his awareness. He sensed the bitter cold in the uppermost layers of the air, stroked it with a lover's tender caress, and drew it down. At the touch of the freezing air, the warmer layer pressed up to meet it. Thunder rumbled angrily as the power of CallThunder spoke, demanding obedience from the elements. An icy wind rose up in the high heavens and reached toward the battlements and then the courtyard of the monastery. Eliahu released the cold layer just a little, playing it out and drawing it back like a fisherman with a tremendous struggling fish on the end of a slender easily broken line. If he brought it down too fast the resultant storm would shatter the monastery, destroying every one in it including himself. But worked with care he would steal their assailants one great advantage: flight.