Slowly the flames faded to nothing. The glow outside the palace was once again that of moon and stars.
Alua embraced Maelthyn with a loving smile. Vireon raced forward to join them, but stopped when both their faces turned to stare at him. They smiled as one.
“The evil is gone, My King,” Alua told him, stroking Maelthyn’s hair. “I have cleansed it from the land.”
Vireon blinked. Maelthyn looked up at him and smiled. Her mother’s smile. They were so much alike, it still amazed him. He dropped the greatsword and wrapped them both in his arms.
“Don’t fret, Father,” said Maelthyn, taking his great hand between her two small ones. “Everything is as it should be.” Her blue eyes bored into his. Her pupils were now of such a dark blue that they seemed nearly black.
Vireon nodded and laughed. He took her in his arms and lifted her up. Alua kissed his cheek. Her pale skin still gleamed with the glow of fading magic.
“You can let the fools in your dungeons go free now,” said Alua. “They are all innocent.”
“Tell me what happened,” Vireon said.
“Later,” said Alua, caressing his cheek. “I am weary. I must rest…”
“Of course.”
Maelthyn would not leave her mother’s side. She slid into the great bed with Alua. “Come,” Alua beckoned him. Some instinct or restless itch dissuaded him.
“No,” he said. “I will not sleep this night. Take your rest now. I will remain here, watching over you.”
Vireon dismissed all but the two Uduri door guards, and soon mother and daughter lay asleep beneath the purple blankets. He sat near to the bed on a cushioned divan, watching the two of them. They breathed in a simultaneous rhythm. Each day Maelthyn grew more and more like her mother. Had Alua truly destroyed the heart-eating devils so easily? He could not be sure until he spoke with her more at length. Until that time he could only sit here, greatsword across his knees, and ensure that his wife and daughter slept undisturbed. He took a little mulled wine from a discreet servant, but did not remove his gaze from the royal bed.
Sir Ryvun approached him after a little while, bowing to ask, “Should I release the prisoners and open the gates, Majesty?”
Vireon watched little Maelthyn’s chest rise and fall. The love he bore for her was so mighty, it could ultimately destroy him. This is what it meant to be a father. To open yourself to the risk of tragedy in order to receive the blessings of love.
“No,” he told Ryvun. “Let it stand.”
The City General marched off to his supper while Vireon sipped at his cup and watched his family sleep. Dahrima the Axe lingered outside the chamber door, conversing softly with her two sisters. Wrapped in the sound of their whispers, nestled in the flickering warmth of torches, Vireon felt his eyes grow heavy. He laid his head back against the divan.
In his dream he spoke with his dead father, as he had done on many occasions. Vod was an idol of stone, but his mouth and eyes moved as if they were living flesh. Vireon was a youth again, just old enough to learn the way of the sword. Father and son sat in a dark cavern somewhere far beneath the earth. Flames burned somewhere beyond the enclosing shadows, casting the dream in shades of orange and black.
I never wanted to be King, said Vod. His voice was grinding stone.
You were a Great King, said Vireon.
So say Men and Giants. But there are others. Those who walked this world before any of our kingdoms existed. A flow of blood and ages you cannot fathom. We are tiny things tossed on the ocean of time.
Why did you leave us? Vireon asked.
I loved you, said the stone Vod.
Why did you leave? he asked again.
I was mad, said Vod. She drove me mad. You know this.
Mother? Mother drove you mad?
The stone Vod frowned at him.
No, Son. It was the other one. The sorceress. The White Panther.
Ianthe.
He started awake with a jerk that nearly toppled him from the couch. His sword fell clanging to the floor. The name in his mind had shocked him awake.
Maelthyn, too, was awake. She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him. She blinked. “Did you have a nightmare?” she asked. Her voice was innocent, playful.
Vireon looked at his daughter. Alua lay still sleeping behind her. He rubbed his face with both hands.
Maelthyn stared at him with infinite patience.
The crackling of flames in a brazier filled the silence.
“What is your name?” he whispered.
Maelthyn smiled. “You already know.”
She leaped for him, as she had leaped into his arms many times. But this time she landed in his lap with her little fingers wrapped tight about his throat. She bared her teeth like a rabid dog. Her eyes were glistening black jewels.
The torches died in an instant, the burning braziers extinguishing themselves. A flood of darkness fell into the room through the open casements. Suddenly the tiny hands about his throat were great grasping claws pressing into his stone-hard flesh.
Shadows flowed across the floor where the white flame had earlier danced. They converged on Maelthyn as she crouched in Vireon’s lap. She opened her tiny mouth impossibly wide. A black maw full of crooked fangs hung before his face. She roared at him, assaulting his ears. Alua slept an arm’s length away.
It was not his daughter that squatted atop him. It was a black wolf, flapping leathery wings against its shoulders. Larger than a full-grown man now, it strangled him, seeking to drive the points of its talons through his bronze skin. In the corners of his eyes, similar beasts prowled about the room. Some walked on all fours, others upright like wolfish Men. Some sprouted extra arms from their sides, multiple claws for rending and tearing. A black Serpent flowed in through the window and wound itself about a pillar. Its head was a leering wolf skull with crimson eyes, staring at him with a bottomless appetite.
The wolf-beast atop him whispered in his ear.
Blood is power, Father. I want your blood.
The Heart is Emperor of the Blood.
Give me your heart…
The cold talons dug at his chest now, piercing his skin like no arrow or blade had ever done. This thing–Maelthyn?–wanted to open him up. To feast upon the very center of his being. He understood now. These shadow-things took power from the hearts they devoured. They took life from the slaughter.
Black shapes slithered and loped beyond the door of the chamber, where the battle cries of Uduri rang out against the night. Soon other voices joined. The clash of steel and the tramping of boots. The ghosts were filling the palace, searching for blood and hearts.
They serve me, Father. They feed it all to me. All that blood. All that power.
I’ve waited so long for this.
Seven long years…
Vireon cried out, sinking his fingers into the dark substance of the wolf-beast on his chest. With a grunt, he hurled it across the room. Something hit the far wall. It was again the frail body of Maelthyn, with bloody little fingers. She wept, then laughed horribly. Once again Maelthyn pounced, this time crossing the entire length of the bed. Vireon bent to grasp the hilt of his fallen sword. She landed on his back, tearing and rending his stubborn flesh. She was a frightened little girl inside a ravenous wolf-shadow, a blood-hungry monstrosity.
The howls and screams of dying men filled his ears now. The hungry spirits were feasting. Alua slept through it all.
He wrenched himself backward, slamming the beast on his back against the wall. He heard a little girl’s moan mingled with a beast’s yelp. It sickened him. He leaped away and faced the swirling mass of shadow that had been Maelthyn. She stared up at him with a lupine face, fangs distorting her jaw, distended and horrible. Her eyes were the same: black jewels, though now they gleamed with malevolence. Her arms had grown longer than her body, the claws curling and twitching, dripping with her father’s blood. A red tongue slid out from between her fangs to lick at the crimson droplets.
All a
t once it came to him: this was not his daughter. Whatever it was, it was not Maelthyn. There was no Maelthyn. Only this mockery of life, this dark seed waiting to bloom.
Something is hiding within your daughter. Something wicked.
Ianthe.
He said the name aloud as he stared over his glinting blue blade at the wolf-ghost.
She laughed. It was not the laughter of a child, but the malicious glee of a grown woman.
Shadows swirled behind Vireon, swarmed about his legs, over his shoulders, into his mouth. Ravenous maws gaped close to his flesh, while heavy chains seemed to wrap his limbs. He could no longer move. The sword in his fist was useless. The shadows held him steady, baring his chest for Maelthyn–Ianthe!–as she drew near.
She reached a single talon out to draw a red line across his chest, just above the heart.
Such power in the heart of a Giantborn, she said.
Power you never even knew.
The talon’s tip punctured his skin with a popping sound and sank deep.
He would have screamed, but wriggling fingers of shadow choked him.
A flash of silver split the gloom. Dahrima’s axe cleaved the dense shadow. Now the massing darkness split, dividing itself between Vireon and the Giantess. It coalesced about Dahrima’s limbs and torso, digging fangs and talons into her flesh. The hungry ghosts sought both their hearts now. The axe blade sliced through the shadows restraining Vireon, but it could not harm them. Might as well fight water with a knife.
Dahrima would die for him, as would any of the Uduri. They would all die this night if he let this thing devour him.
Maelthyn clung to his chest and shoulder, her feet now claws wrapped about his thighs. She tore at his flesh, scoring and slashing his skin in the effort to reach inside his ribcage.
Vireon leaped across the chamber with the strength of an angry tiger, and all the shadows but Maelthyn lost their grip for a fleeting moment. The jump landed him atop the broad bed where Alua slumbered. Maelthyn’s wolf jaws snapped at his face, slathering him in shadow filth.
The mass of shadows rushed forward to reclaim him as he raised the greatsword high. He plunged it into the snarling she-beast with all his might. The blade sank deep into the mattress, pinning the false Maelthyn beneath him. She wailed a cry of pain that combined a child’s torment with a demon’s lust. It broke his heart.
He wept as she writhed on the blade, the entire shadowy substance of her wolf-body flowing away from the metal like greasy pitch. The shadows enclosing his body faded into nothing, nightmares vaporized by a waking dreamer.
Maelthyn, only a little girl again, scurried across the bed to her mother. Alua woke immediately at her touch. Vireon pulled his blade free of the mattress, scattering a cloud of goose feathers across the sheets. The cobalt steel was soiled with black blood. Or whatever passed for blood among the ghost-wolves.
Alua stared at Vireon in utter horror as Maelthyn’s tiny arms wrapped about her neck. They both looked at him now as if he were the monster. He stood over them, greatsword poised, panting and bleeding and ready to kill. In the eyes of Alua he saw only terror. She grasped Maelthyn closer to her. The child was bleeding red from a deep puncture wound at the center of her belly. The same wound gaped from her narrow back.
“Father wants to kill me!” she screeched.
Alua rolled from the bed with her daughter held close. Maelthyn buried her head in Alua’s bosom, sobbing like an infant.
“Vireon! Get away! Stay away from us!” Alua shouted. Her eyes were fixed upon Vireon’s bloody sword.
Behind him Dahrima lay panting and bleeding on the marble. The shadow-beasts had fled or gone into hiding beneath the palace stones. Now he knew who summoned them, and why. This creature was not his daughter.
“Give her to me,” he said, reaching a bloody hand to his wife.
“No!” Alua bellowed, dashing away from him. “You’re mad! Like your father!”
“Look!” he yelled at her. “See what this thing has brought upon us! This is not our daughter! It’s not!”
Alua looked across the chamber at the dazed Dahrima. The Giantess rose slowly to her feet, searching for her fallen axe. If there were any signs of the shadow-beasts left, Alua surely did not see them.
“She is Ianthe,” Vireon said. “She made you sleep. She has fooled us both since the day you burned away her body. This is not our child…”
Alua called for the guards, but none came. She moved toward the tall open window. Stars glittered in the black canopy of night. “Stay back,” she said. “You’re mad, Vireon. Maelthyn is your daughter–our daughter–you know this to be true! You love her as you love me! Lay down your sword. Don’t do this thing.”
Vireon shook his head. Sweat and blood flew from his locks.
“No, she has you in her spell. Give her to me. She is Ianthe.”
“Ianthe is dead!”
Alua unleashed a wall of white flame. It rushed across Vireon, this time with terrible heat. He screamed and dropped the blade.
Through the brightness he saw the faces of mother and daughter looking at him. Maelthyn kept her arms firmly wrapped about her mother’s neck. Alua said nothing as the white flames blew through her hair.
It was the false Maelthyn who spoke for both of them. “I don’t need your blood after all, Father,” she said. “I already have it.”
The white flame swirled about the mother–daughter pair and Vireon squinted into the glare. “No!” he screamed. “Let her go!”
A sphere of white flame surrounded them both. Vireon knew what this meant.
The flaming sphere flashed out the tower window.
Vireon leaped empty-handed after it.
His arms penetrated the flames up to the elbows. His fingertips brushed Alua’s heel as she rose higher into the night.
He fell then from the highest window in his colossal palace. Time ceased its flow. He watched the white flame race like a comet into the northern sky as he plummeted.
The courtyard trees rushed up to meet him like a forest of green spears. His view of the comet was lost behind the palace’s outer wall when he fell past its rim. The tangled foliage accepted him as a pond accepts a heavy stone. Branches cracked and splintered.
He crashed to earth, steaming like a doomed meteor.
8
Bloodshadows
Her first sensation was the sound of rain pelting stone. A chorus of thunder moaned somewhere in the distance. The cool night wind caressed her face and arms. She opened her eyes to discover the apex of a vaulted ceiling. She lay on a soft bed, her body wrapped in dark silk with hems of black lace about the neck and sleeves. The flickering of a single flame cast dancing light across the walls. About the chamber seven leaf-shaped windows stood open to the storm, revealing only darkness and silvery rain.
She could not raise her heavy head from the pillow. Trying to do so only brought pain… a raw sensation of torn flesh beneath the line of her jaw. Her fingers twitched on the brocaded blanket, but her arms would not obey. The muscles in her legs flexed, but she could not move them. She lay helpless in the silver gloom as damp mists wafted in through the windows. She tried to cry out, but only produced a gurgling moan. A twinge of fire burned inside her gashed throat.
Something dark and glittering lurked in the far corner of the chamber. It moved slowly from an open window toward the bed. Her eyeballs shifted inside their sockets. The bed itself lay at the very center of the room, and she could not see the floor. Nor could she see the face of the dark figure that strode closer. Yet this she did not need to see. She knew it was her half-brother who stood over the bed now. She reached past his looming presence into the storm itself, called upon the lightning to strike this chamber, reduce it to rubble. Another knell of distant thunder was her only answer.
A low chuckle reached her ears as she fought to change her shape. As owl or eagle she would flee into the storm and take her chances. Yet her stubborn body lay where it was, heavy as lead and helpless as an infant
. A pair of yellow eyes gleamed above her. A white smile framed by thin lips red as blood. His hair was long and black, combed smooth as the silken bedsheets, his robe a starry mantle of darkness set with constellations of tiny jewels.
“Sister, at last you awake.” His voice was deep and calm. There was none of the wolf in it. He could obviously hold that side of himself completely at bay. A pale hand reached out to caress her cheek. His flesh was cold against hers. A rash rose across her skin. Her tongue, like her body, would not move. The predator’s eyes stared into her own. “It pleases me greatly that you have come. You are most welcome here.”
A coughing in her throat. “You wish to speak?” he asked, smiling. “Only promise that you will treat with me gently. I could not bear harsh words from you.”
Suddenly her tongue broke free of its bondage. “Fangodrel—”
He cut her off with a raised finger. His nails were long and black. Talons.
“No,” he said. “Never call me that again. That name was given to me by a false father. My name, as I have told you, is Gammir. If you wish to speak, you must remember this.”
“Gammir.” The word fell from her mouth like a profanity.
He nodded, stroking his pointed chin, where a narrow beard was plaited with silver thread. He had removed the black crown, exposing his alabaster forehead.
“Yes.” He grinned. “Now you have it.”
“I knew it was you,” she said.
He sat down on the bed beside her. She could move her mouth, but her body still lay immobile. The coppery smell of blood lingered about him. “Of course you did,” he said. “You were always such a smart girl. You and your books… such a curious child. See where it has brought you?”
“You… you killed Tadarus,” she said. “Why?” Tears might have welled in her eyes, but she did not even have his permission to weep. His mastery of her was total.
“Tadarus was a blustering fool,” he said. “He always hated me because he sensed that I was different. I needed his blood to awaken my sorcery. The Blood of Vod is powerful. That same gifted blood fills your own veins.”
Seven Kings Page 15