“You won’t call the Old Guard!” she shouted after the people of Clan Aberdyfi in her sing-songy voice, storytelling them into obedience.
Another half dozen warriors with a pack of dogs on their heels rushed forward.
“They’re wolves!” Delphine shouted again and again. Kahtar glanced over; like magic, every single dog had become a wolf. Startled by the sight, a couple warriors tripped and fell.
It’s not real! It’s not real! Shades of the Abyss this woman is dangerous!
“How does that help?” Kahtar shouted. Goose bumps stood up all over his body. Wolves and warriors ran toward them.
“Watch!” The dog-wolves neared, and Delphine nearly sang to them, “Get em! Get em! Good boys!” The dog-wolves turned on their owners. Kahtar wondered if maybe they would clear the entire path, then spotted a big blond warrior stepping into their path, his blade drawn.
Quester.
Internally Kahtar groaned. Battles were won or lost by men who either believed or didn’t believe they could win. This one didn’t just believe he could win, he knew it.
As Kahtar and Delphine ran right for them, a dozen more warriors joined the quester with their swords drawn, taking position and waiting. The strength of their giftings seemed to form an impenetrable barrier and Kahtar doubted a flick of Delphine’s wrist could topple these men.
“Do you trust me?” she shouted, grabbing his hand.
“Hell, no!” Kahtar said, and for the briefest moment he made eye contact with the quester and knew the man had heard.
The quester smiled.
Delphine’s left hand flicked, not at the wall of warriors, but at the seawall to their right. Momentum took their feet up an invisible ramp and right over the seawall into thin air, where they dropped straight down.
Bracing himself for a landing that would involve two broken legs, Kahtar fell and sensed Delphine doing the same. Before they crashed onto the rocky beach below they hit a thin filmy bubble. It gave under them and popped, cushioning the blow as they landed on the beach. Another tesseract.
Blast. She’s good.
Delphine panted, her hands resting on the knees of her stripped leggings. “Did you see that gorgeous quester?”
Kahtar tugged on the back of Delphine’s dress to force her upright. “I think you’re going to get a chance to meet him!”
Far above them, the man leapt off the seawall after them, sword in hand.
“He’ll break his legs!” Delphine twisted her wrist in that direction and a large bubble appeared beneath the man.
Kahtar grabbed her wrist. “Fool girl, let him! It’ll slow him down! Where to?”
Delphine took off across the sand, tugging Kahtar in her wake, and despite his grip on her hand she managed to make a creaking and grinding tesseract. It moved them instantly over half a mile of beach to the base of a cliff.
“It’s through here.” Her voice sounded grim. “And what comes out must go in. I think.”
“That quester’s crossing the beach, so think fast.”
Delphine made a quick gesture. “That should slow him down.” She used her right hand to hold her left wrist and moved it in circles, her small body swaying with it. “Just gotta figure a few things out. You don’t want to get inside one of these puppies and have it collapse.”
Kahtar’s stomach dropped, but with the quester still charging across the beach, broadsword in hand, he wasn’t certain if he’d rather die slowly crushed cell by cell inside Delphine’s makeshift tesseract or hacked to pieces by a man who’d smile the whole time. “Decisions, decisions,” he said.
“What?”
“Nothing. Hurry up. You didn’t slow that quester down a bit.”
“You were making a morbid joke, weren’t you? We could have made a great pair.”
“I’m two feet taller than you and even my boots are older than you are. We would have made a great joke.”
Shimmering lights appeared near the shore. Kahtar swore.
“Old Guard coming?” asked Delphine conversationally as the quester bore down on them not twenty yards away.
“At least we’ll have a great death,” muttered Kahtar. “Your quester’s on us.”
Delphine whipped around to face the quester with him. To Kahtar’s surprise the man slowed his approach, arms wide, sword lowered and smiling.
“If you wanted to meet me, love, I could have thought of less dramatic ways.”
“But how boring,” said Delphine. “If you could manage to fit a car chase in with all this I’d follow you anywhere.”
Kahtar feigned to his left, but the grinning quester shifted with him. “Don’t make me, big fella,” the man warned.
“Big Fella’s name is Kahtar, and I’m Delphine, and you’re not going to do anything but stand right there and cover our backs from the people barreling down on us,” said Delphine in her sing-songy, spell-casting voice.
“By all means.” The quester laughed. “Anything else?”
“Actually, I would love a kiss.”
“Delphine!” Kahtar glared. “No! His Old Guard are coming!”
“Maybe some other time,” said the quester.
“I only have now,” said Delphine. She rose on tiptoe and kissed the startled man.
Kahtar yanked her back onto her feet. “Can we go?”
“Best ever,” she breathed and commanded, “Now stay right there.” Light shimmered behind the quester and she said, “Oh, no! Those are our Old Guard, Kahtar, not his!”
Not waiting for his reply, she plunged right through the cliff wall, taking him with her. The stone turned to liquid around them, propelling them forward. Delphine leaned her head back to shout instructions. “Hold onto me tightly, Kahtar! If Tartarus senses me coming he’ll close the tesseract off to anyone else.”
Kahtar gripped Delphine’s slight shoulder. He’d only died from a collapsing tesseract once, and although he’d long forgotten the details of that time, the memory of the pain had remained.
Someone gripped his shoulder, and Kahtar turned to find the smiling quester holding onto him. The man winked as though it were a great joke. The strangely liquid tesseract rumbled around them like an earthquake and shifted beneath their feet, but Kahtar’s fear of being crushed cell by cell in a slow and painful death was replaced by a new one. Beth and Abigail were right behind the quester, framed by the sparkle of Old Guard behind them.
Kahtar’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach even as the touch of Beth’s neared.
Sweet El, no! If the tesseract collapsed, Beth might die, or be trapped inside for eternity.
“Hold onto each other!” he bellowed, but the sound moved oddly, unable to travel inside the now shaking tesseract. Terror gripped his heart as he watched Beth’s pale face and he willed her to understand, shouting with his second voice, “Hold onto each other! Touch!”
In the shimmering storm of light he watched her move as if in slow motion, reaching for the quester’s shoulder. Her fingers had barely skimmed the man’s blouse before the tesseract crackled with the sound of breaking glass. Wind belched through it, and they were ejected out like water escaping the blowhole of a whale.
BLEEDING RELATIVES—PERSIAN MISTS
SKIDDING ACROSS A desert landscape, they landed flat on scalding hot sand. The sound of a collapsing tesseract sounded like the detonation of a megaton nuclear bomb. The flash of an explosion moved through the air causing a split-second sandstorm that buried everyone. The expulsion had saved their lives.
Wiping sand from his eyes, Kahtar looked around the desert landscape. Somehow the quester had remained on his feet, his hair still neatly tied in a sandy bun.
“Kahtar,” Beth called, and he scrambled over to uncover her. Gazing at her, both angry she’d followed and thankful she was there, he realized she’d been right. The clear summer eyes he’d come to love were still in there, beyond the steely glint. Lifting her under the arms, he hauled Beth to stand and brushed the gritty dust off her. Kahtar sensed the quester behind him politely assist
Abigail and Delphine, his blade clutched in his right hand the entire time.
Spitting sand out of her mouth Delphine asked, “What was that noise?” Her voice sounded dim after the crushing sound of the explosion.
“That’s the sound of an Old Guard ending. The tesseract collapsed on him,” Kahtar said.
Instinct made them all duck and cover their ears as a second blast blew over them. Kneeling, Kahtar only half-closed his eyes as the force of it moved past them and from a distance he sensed a composition he recognized only too well—his own. It approached from the courtyard of a villa, the only structure on the vast plain of desert.
“And that sound,” said a vaguely familiar, deep voice, “is a second Old Guard ending. Very little can kill an Old Guard, but a collapsing tesseract can finish off pretty much anything. It’s quite painful I hear. Isn’t that a shame?”
Standing, Kahtar forced himself to look at the man, despite the darkness of the approaching heart warning against it. He’d faced evil before, but this was the first time it wore his face. There could be no denying he and Tartarus were related. They were almost identical, yet he felt no real stir of recognition and hoped such a look of wicked delight had never once crossed his own face.
“You!” Beth spat, brushing sand off her arms and taking a brave step toward the man. “How dare you hurt Old Guard and laugh! Your life is forfeit! They will end you!”
Tartarus cocked his head, examining Beth with his brows raised. Dirty hair hung to his shoulders, several shades darker than Kahtar’s had ever been. A beard brushed the top of his striped desert robe. As dangerous as his heart felt, the man carried no weapons. His hands hung loose at his sides, his feet encased in sandals. He looked very much a peaceful man of the desert.
Kahtar was not fooled.
If the fierceness of Beth’s newfound steely gaze hadn’t been enlightening enough for Kahtar to understand why people avoided looking into his eyes, the cold expression in this man’s would have.
Tartarus’s eyes flickered with amusement over rotund little Abigail still brushing sand off her plain green dress to the big quester, and came to rest on Kahtar as he responded to Beth’s threat.
“The Old Guard have no quarrel with me. I didn’t invite them, nor any of you, and it was not my tesseract that killed them. You forced your way to my doorstep and the Old Guard paid the price. Since you return what is mine, I will demand no restitution for the trespass. You have my leave to go and bother me no more.” His steely eyes carried no threat or curiosity for Kahtar and they moved to Delphine standing partially behind the big quester like a red flower seeking the protection of a tree.
Tartarus licked his lips as he looked at her, and the relief in his eyes reminded Kahtar of his own whenever he saw Beth after an absence. “Come to me, woman.”
Like an obedient puppy Delphine skirted around the big quester and darted across the sand to stand in front of Tartarus, eyes lowered, hands clutching the sides of her red dress. Half a dozen plebes jogged through a domed archway in a wall to encircle Tartarus and Delphine. The boys looked old enough to be studying on Atlas, which was too old to be dressed in the broadcloth tunics and tall boots of young plebes. They were the only other people Kahtar could see, but he suspected there were others within the walls of the adobe villa. He resisted the urge to scan.
Tartarus smiled, his eyes shining as he reached for Delphine as though to brush his fingers over her cheek. Instead he made a fist, hitting her so hard she fell to the ground. Kahtar stepped halfway in front of the quester to stop his interference, holding the man’s sword arm.
“Wait,” he whispered, ignoring Beth’s violent protests. Abigail kept her distance and remained quiet.
Crumpled in the sand at Tartarus’s feet, Delphine kept her head submissively bowed, but her abuser grabbed a handful of her dark hair, hauling her to her knees. He shot a look of warning at the rest of them.
“She broke her oath to me!” he said, and yanked Delphine’s head back to look into her eyes. “And you lied to me, didn’t you little one? You will never lie to me again!” he commanded in the same sing-songy voice Delphine used when wrapping someone into one of her stories. “You’ll do as I say!” He lifted Delphine by handfuls of hair and dress until her feet dangled above the ground. Tartarus closed his eyes and leaned close, brushing his tongue across her cheek, his expression blissful as he slid his tongue up and over an eye and back down her nose. Reaching her mouth, he sucked in her full bottom lip and bit.
Delphine gave no reaction, expressionless even as he slid one hand to encircle her neck.
“Aw, come on!” growled the quester, pulling his arm from Kahtar’s grasp. “You can’t allow this!”
Tartarus let Delphine drop to the sand, his lips reddened with faint streaks of blood. He licked them off slowly and said, “My apologies if I’ve offended your sensibilities, quester. Perhaps you are too young to understand the draw of a woman you can truly feel.”
“I sincerely doubt you can feel anyone’s heart,” said Beth.
Kahtar grabbed her shoulder before she could move toward the man. “She came of her own free will, Beth,” he told her, “to fulfil her oath to him. You can’t interfere.”
“Screw that, Kahtar! I will interfere! I know what he wants to do to her! He did it to me, and he’s not doing it to another woman as long as I have breath in my body!”
“No, Beth,” said Kahtar. “We will obey the laws.”
Still licking his lips, Tartarus nodded. “Yes, and you have no business here. Go, Attar. Take what is yours and be gone.”
Attar. The familiar name echoed through Kahtar’s mind. Attar and Artarus. Perhaps he had heard of this man long ago, but he’d certainly never laid eyes on him or sensed his heart before today. He’d remember that dark heart.
“Are you my brother?” asked Kahtar, unable to keep the doubt out of his voice. “Artarus?”
“Ah!” A look of distaste lit Tartarus’s features. “Such a paternal term for an experimentum. A failed one in your case. Our father,” Tartarus looked highly amused by the term, “is a patient—man.” Again the look of profound amusement. “He waits for you still, but he hasn’t seen her, has he? Your addition.” Tartarus gestured with a slight movement of his head toward Beth, his amusement turning to disgust. “I understand needing an anchor. Repeating is a waste of time.” He waved toward Delphine, and looked again at Beth. “I use one too! They are rare and attractive, but giving yourself to one of these women—especially that one! You’re stuck now and nearly mortal, sharing your energy with her and her spawn. Failed experimentum is an accurate description of you. Go, Attar, you bore me.”
“What is our father? Answer me and I will leave.”
Beth put her hands on Kahtar’s restraining arm and squeezed, her heart swelling around his as though protecting him. Kahtar turned to her in surprise. She knows the answer!
“It doesn’t even matter,” Beth said. “You’re mine now, and Dianta’s.” Placing her hand over the swell of her belly, she added, “And our new daughter’s. Let’s go, you don’t need the answers he can give you.”
“Ah, yes!” said Tartarus, “Go, Attar. If I see you again I won’t be so lenient to your friends and family.” The look he shot at Beth’s belly was pure hatred, and Kahtar moved Beth behind him. Destruction was much easier than protection, and he knew what this man was capable of because he knew what he could be capable of, should he ever care to abandon all he believed in. Time had taught him much.
Tartarus lifted his hand and pointed at a spot past the quester. A tesseract blew inward with brute force, like a black hole ripped open in space. “Go. I won’t ask you again.”
“After you answer my question I will leave, but I will only go in a tesseract Delphine makes.”
The hatred in Tartarus’s eyes was all for him this time. “If I wanted you dead, brother,” he drew the word out, every syllable dripping with loathing, “you would be gone.”
“It’s the truth, Kahtar,” B
eth whispered. “I don’t think he will hurt us.”
“There are more than us here, and he left you dead in the veil,” Kahtar whispered back.
Tartarus no longer paid them any attention; his eyes were focused on Delphine trembling before him. He seemed to be enjoying it. Something inside Kahtar shifted painfully to see the little spitfire so cowed by any man.
“If you want me to leave her, I need assurance of her well-being.”
“I give you my word, Attar.” The comment dripped with condescension.
“I can’t leave a member of my clan to be abused by you.”
Impatience transformed Tartarus’s face into something far from Kahtar’s as he snarled, “Do not speak foolishness to me!” Slicing his hands sharply through the air, something ghosted from them like a sheet of glass, moving in a semi-circle past Delphine. Like dominos all six of his own plebes dropped to the desert sand, spurting blood. Kahtar shoved Beth roughly to the ground, mentally pleading with her to stay put while he and the quester ran to the plebes’ aid.
Kahtar put a hand on two of the boys, not bothering to draw his sword. A blade was no use against this man. The quester determinedly clung to his weapon, somehow managing to heal two boys at the same time despite it. Delphine crawled to their aid as well, shaking, blood dripping from her swollen lips.
“You will not die, none of you. You will be fine. Breathe. Stay conscious!” she ordered in her lilting storyteller voice.
Tartarus circled them, his big sandaled feet scraping through sand. “She’s mine, willingly and by her own oath,” he snarled. “You have no right to interfere with her choice to stay.”
“Give me your oath no harm will come to her and I will go.”
“Harm will come to her; she’s human. Harm comes to them all.” Tartarus’s eyes seemed to be drawn unwillingly to Beth, who hadn’t stayed in the sand. She now moved from boy to boy to help, though her healing skill did little. “Perhaps not all. Your anchor is more like you than a human now.”
“I’m human!” Kahtar defended. Warm anger lit through him as Beth’s wide eyes and Tartarus’s sarcastic laughter told him that wasn’t entirely true.
FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel Page 23