Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9)

by Michael R. Hicks

  “In here, you are free of her,” Ayan-Dar told him. “I did not know what she did to you, but T’ier-Kunai had always known that something was amiss, and I know now exactly what she did.”

  “What? How can you! No one knows beyond the Ka’i-Nur!”

  Ayan-Dar’s lips curved upward in a grim smile. “I know because I have passed on to the Afterlife, young priest. I know far more now than I did then.” He stepped closer, his hand still holding Ria-Ka’luhr’s like an armorer’s vice. “And I know how you may redeem your honor and cleanse your soul.”

  Ria-Ka’luhr could not believe his ears. “You are dead?" he whispered, and the spirit of his old friend and mentor, a spirit that felt every bit as powerful in death as he had in life, nodded. “How may I be saved?”

  The smile on Ayan-Dar’s lips faded. “We must first make sure the Dark Queen no longer has power over you.” He released Ria-Ka’luhr, then reached into a small pouch on his belt, producing two black rings. “If you sever the Braid of the Covenant, you will be beyond her sight.”

  “Yes,” Ria-Ka’luhr said, seeing the wisdom of what must be done even as he shivered in anticipation of what lay ahead for him. Putting the dagger back in its scabbard, he took the two rings. Undoing the coils of his braids around his upper arms, he carefully slid the rings along the Braid of the Covenant, working them as close as he could to his scalp.

  Ayan-Dar drew his dagger, but Ria-Ka’luhr shook his head. “No. I must do it.” With a respectful nod, the old priest agreed, handing him the dagger. Ria-Ka’luhr held the braid steady in one hand as he put the blade’s edge into the tiny gap between the rings. “Let me be free of her,” he whispered before slicing through the tightly woven hair.

  With a scream, he fell to his knees and doubled over, feeling like his entrails had been ripped from his body. He had never known such physical or emotional agony. Even the torment that Syr-Nagath had wrought upon him had not been nearly so terrible. Ria-Ka’luhr rocked himself back and forth, his arms clasped tightly around his midsection as he fought to control the searing pain of the spiritual silence that had swept over him. “It is…a small enough price…to pay,” he gasped.

  After a time, he was not sure how long, the pain eased into a bone deep ache that beat in time with his heart and he began to breathe more easily. He voiced the thought now foremost in his mind. “I can return to Keel-Tath’s service?”

  “Yes,” Ayan-Dar told him, “but not in the way you might have hoped.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The old priest frowned as he helped Ria-Ka’luhr to his feet. “I am setting a task before you that will be as difficult as it is necessary.”

  “I will do anything you ask of me,” Ria-Ka’luhr said fervently. “Anything!”

  His enthusiasm faded as Ayan-Dar proceeded to tell him what he must do. After his old mentor had finished, Ria-Ka’luhr slowly nodded his head in agreement, his heart heavy. “In Keel-Tath’s name, so shall it be done,” he whispered.

  ***

  A weary smile crossed Ria-Ka’luhr’s lips as he finished his tale.

  “But what did he ask you to do?” Tara-Khan said, exasperated. “Why have you lived here in the frozen wastes all this time, waiting for me? And how did you know it would be me?”

  “It is easier to show you.” Ria-Ka’luhr got to his feet. Pausing to light a torch from the fire, he beckoned Tara-Khan to follow. “Come.”

  Getting to his feet, Tara-Khan did as he was told.

  Ria-Ka’luhr led him from the domed chamber through a low tunnel that had been hacked through the ice, which reflected the hues of yellow and gold from the flickering light from the torch.

  After a few paces, the tunnel angled sharply downward, and it was tricky for Tara-Khan to keep his footing on the carved ice steps that were slick as wet glass. Ria-Ka’luhr took the steps easily, as if he was intimately familiar with each and every one.

  Down and down the tunnel went. How far, Tara-Khan could not guess. But along the way, just when his ears popped, he felt something strange, a sensation not unlike that of transitioning from a vivid dream to full consciousness. Or, perhaps it was the other way around. The deeper they went into the ice, the more he was sure that the reality around him was not as it seemed.

  “Where are we going?” He spoke in a whisper, as if he did not wish to awaken the ancient gods that had long been cast aside, and were perhaps buried in the ice around him. With nervous flicks of his eyes he looked through the clear patches of the walls, expecting to see their long dead faces staring back at him.

  Ria-Ka’luhr paused and looked back over his shoulder. “We are nearly there.” In the light of the torch, Tara-Khan could have sworn it was not Ria-Ka’luhr ahead of him, but Ayan-Dar.

  At last, the tunnel emptied into a cavern that was perhaps twice the size of the one above. The ceiling was solid ice, perhaps four or five times Tara-Khan’s height above them. One long wall was of stone, as was the floor, both of them roughly hewn and clearly not the work of any builder. A wooden door with thick black metal hinges, roughly fashioned and with a small grated window at eye height, hung open before him. Torches beyond the doorway beckoned with a warm glow of light.

  Approaching the door, Tara-Khan asked in a quiet voice, “What is this?”

  “Take a look for yourself. There is nothing to fear.”

  Stepping through the doorway, Tara-Khan found himself in a room that was neither small nor large. In fact, he was at a loss to come to grips with its size. Everywhere he looked, stacked in precise order on shelves and stands along the walls and in standalone cases that went from floor to ceiling, were scrolls. Reaching for one, he gingerly removed it from its place and unrolled it enough to see the neat, graceful glyphs of one of the ancient tongues. He could understand a few words, but the rest was beyond him. But he knew well enough what these were. “Books of Time,” he whispered. “And very ancient ones, at that.”

  “Yes,” Ria-Ka’luhr told him. “Some are inscribed upon stone, of course, others upon metal. But most are as you see here, on scrolls that are more elegant and easier for one to hold for study.”

  “But of what use are these to me?”

  “If you are to help Keel-Tath, if you are to become what she truly needs you to be, your skill with a sword is not enough. Merely being a warrior, however great, will not be enough.”

  Tara-Khan stared at him, uncomprehending.

  “You must become a consort who will be worthy of what Keel-Tath herself must become if she is to fulfill the prophecy and save our people,” Ria-Ka’luhr told him.

  “And you would have me do that by reading from dusty parchment?” Tara-Khan angrily tossed the scroll onto the nearest rack, and was stabbed by a spear of guilt as he missed and it clattered to the floor. Books of Time were as sacred as healers, and to treat one in such a fashion was shameful.

  Ria-Ka’luhr balled his fists as he glared at Tara-Khan. “The secret to the greatest weapon at her disposal is in this room, penned by the very hand of Anuir-Ruhal’te.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “The resting place of the Ka’i-Nur Crystal of Souls,” Ria-Ka’luhr told him. “Keel-Tath’s ascension will fail, and she and countless others — including yourself — will be lost without it.”

  “I have heard enough.” Tara-Khan shook his head, looking at Ria-Ka’luhr with pitying eyes. “I do not understand how or why you are here, but being alone so long has addled your brain. Put an end to this nonsense and take me to her. You have been here all this time, and must know where the Ka’i-Nur crystal is. You can tell her yourself. There is a war to fight, and both of us should be at her side!”

  “You will return to her when you are ready, and not before.” Deftly stepping back outside, Ria-Ka’luhr slammed the door closed and slid home the thick bolt, locking it.

  “No!” Tara-Khan crashed into the thick wood, which was as hard and unyielding as living metal. Drawing his sword, he slashed at the gray-brown timbers, but the bl
ade left little more than faint scratches in the wood.

  “Do not bother, young one,” Ria-Ka’luhr advised. “You could chisel away at the door for all eternity and still not break free. You cannot escape until you have done what has been tasked to you.”

  Tara-Khan looked through the window at the priest, and in a fit of rage stabbed his sword through the window at Ria-Ka’luhr’s face.

  The priest snatched the weapon away with contemptuous ease. “You will not be needing this, but you might want to hold onto your dagger to cut the meat I feed you.” He turned and headed back toward the ice encased steps. “Best you take to your studies. The faster you learn what you must, the sooner we can get to the rest of your training.”

  Tara-Khan thought not only of the thousands of scrolls behind him, but of those that were not even written in languages he could understand. “Are you mad? To do what you ask would take me a dozen lifetimes!”

  Ria-Ka’luhr paused and turned to face him, a dark expression on his face. “I know, my son. Believe me, I know.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Uulan-Rul’te, warrior of the Ka’i-Nur, stood upon the world that bore the name of the T’lan-Il priesthood, savoring the carnage that he and his brothers and sisters had unleashed. They had first driven the priests and priestesses from their ancestral home, leaving the temple little more than a smoldering ruin, before turning their attention to the various kingdoms that opposed Syr-Nagath and the rightful ascension of the Ka’i-Nur.

  With a flick of his powerful wrist, he cleared some of the blood from his blade before sheathing it in the scabbard that, like his armor, gleamed like a mirror, spattered though it was with gore from the most recent battle. “I accept your honor on behalf of my mistress and high priestess of the Ka’i-Nur, Syr-Nagath,” he said in a low, gruff voice to the exhausted and battered warrior who knelt before him, sword held high in both hands. It was the second battle they had fought and won this day against one of the lower kingdoms. But who they were and to whom they were bound mattered not at all to him. His only concern was their obedience once they surrendered. “Attend to your affairs.”

  The warrior bowed his head and saluted, but Uulan-Rul’te had already turned away, the warrior forgotten. Making his way across the blood soaked battlefield, not even bothering to step around the mangled bodies, he headed to where the porters of water and tenders of animals had established the field kitchen. He had not eaten since late the day before, and the exertions of battle had left him famished. Cutting to the head of the line of warriors of his cohort who had already gathered to eat, he took for himself an entire haunch of a food animal and a mug of ale that would have been a small cask in the hands of a warrior not of Ka’i-Nur.

  Taking a seat on a grassy hillock that was largely free of the detritus of battle, he sighed with relief as he removed his helmet. It was a necessary encumbrance to make the most of the advanced armor he and his companions wore, but he spared no love for it. While the armor afforded him immense protection in battle, making him nearly as powerful as a priest, in battles like the one fought today he would have preferred his traditional armor. In truth, he was ashamed to face regular warriors while wearing anything but simple metal. His opponents were already badly outmatched by warriors such as he, who were far larger and more powerful, and the armor made them nearly impregnable.

  Nearly. He noted with grudging admiration toward the day’s opponents that a number of his warriors lay among the dead, the rust orange light of the afternoon sun reflecting from their armor. His was the First Cohort of one of the Ka’i-Nur legions that had been sent to subdue T’lan-Il, with eight hundred warriors under his command at the time they landed. From his vantage point he could see no fewer than twenty dead, and no doubt there would be more tallied by his First when she presented her report. He could see her, perhaps a quarter league distant, giving orders to the most junior among his warriors, who were bearing the bodies of all the cohort’s dead to one of the landing ships. The fallen would yet serve Syr-Nagath, their essence used by the builders to create more ships, or whatever else his great mistress might require.

  He tore off a hunk of meat with his massive canines and began to chew, ignoring the fatty juices that ran down his chin and neck to soak the black undergarment he wore beneath his armor. The conquest of this world would not take overlong, he knew, now that the priesthoods had been gutted. They must never have suspected that all these long generations since the Final Annihilation, the Ka’i-Nur had been quietly preparing for just such a day. Having banished his ancestors to their ancient fortress in what was now the Great Wastelands, but had once, long ago, been a tropical paradise, the other priesthoods had done their best to forget their ancient kin.

  But the Ka’i-Nur had never forgotten. Even as the waters had dried up and the trees had died, even as the desert had swallowed up their solitary redoubt, the Ka’i-Nur had prepared. They had dug deep into the earth and built a chain of subterranean cities with the same care that they had crafted their own offspring. Every pairing between male and female was deliberately chosen by the elders, guided by the healers and the keepers of the Books of Time as they sought to keep the bloodline as pure as possible, preserving the desired qualities of the past while eliminating weaknesses in future generations. As time went on, the warriors became far more powerful and ferocious than the greatest of those birthed by the other bloodlines, and the robed castes became ever more powerful in their own arts. While the robed ones often lived to be as old as three hundred cycles, few of the warriors survived beyond the age of thirty. Uulan-Rul’te himself was twenty-five, among the very oldest in his cohort. Unlike their counterparts in the other bloodlines, who outside of war fought to the death only during infrequent ritual challenges, Ka’i-Nur warriors over the age of twenty faced a series of trials every two cycles that was to the death. One of them was to face a genoth with nothing more than claws and swords as weapons. He had slain two, and proudly bore the scars on his body and the eyestones on a crude collar about his neck. Only the very strongest and most capable warriors survived. And it was those warriors who filled the ranks of the Dark Queen’s legions.

  The Dark Queen. He snorted at the pathetic war name the other bloodlines had bestowed upon Syr-Nagath. To him and the rest of her people — her true people of the Ka’i-Nur — she was a goddess made flesh and blood. She was the sacred redeemer of his ancestors, the avenger of the humiliation they had endured for millennia. While her body was not cast from the same mold as his own, but had been specially crafted for the peculiar task she was destined to fulfill, her heart and spirit were worthy of the greatest of the bloodline. Her spiritual voice was a sacred melody in his Bloodsong, savage and feral, terrible and beautiful all at the same time. Hers was a roiling river of emotional extremes that was as intoxicating as it was powerful. While he had never beheld her with his own eyes, he would gladly have torn out his own heart should she but ask it of him. It was for her that he and his kin now lived, and it would be for her that they died.

  Taking a swallow from the enormous mug of ale to wash down the meat, he knew that his own life would likely be spent in this war, but he could imagine no greater end, no more meaningful death, than to perish in true battle for one such as his queen, his high priestess. For a hundred thousand cycles, his ancestors had been pitted against one another in the arena, honing the great sword that Syr-Nagath was now thrusting into the heart of her enemies. The thought that he was part of that great weapon made him swell with pride and honor. Getting to his feet, he threw back his head and let out a primal roar that was echoed by his brothers and sisters across the battlefield while their vanquished foes looked up in fear. As well they should, he thought savagely. The false Way they had been following while the Ka’i-Nur quietly rebuilt their strength was now ending, and the true Way that his own people had maintained since the fiery end of the Second Age would be upon them. Then they would know the true meaning of honor.

  He roared a second time, giving vent to his bloo
dlust, and was again joined by a fierce chorus from his cohort. Even some of the vanquished joined in, which further stoked the fire in his veins. Hurling his mug to the ground, he drew his sword and charged toward the nearest group of T’lan-Il warriors, who drew their own swords and turned to face him. Ritual combat among the Ka’i-Nur had never been something that needed to be satisfied in a formal arena. He could sense their fear, but gave them credit for standing fast. Inferior as they were, they would not die as meat animals.

  Before he reached them, the battlefield was shaken by echoes of thunder. Looking up into the cloudless sky, he saw a group of perhaps two dozen warriors falling toward the earth. But they did not fall so much as descend with a peculiar grace, their cloaks fluttering behind them like wings. He threw his arm up to cover his eyes as bolts of lightning exploded from their outstretched hands and he felt the voices of a number of his kin silenced in the Bloodsong, then more and more, and not just here, but far away. When he dared to look again, the battlefield was littered with pyres of molten silver metal and scorched bodies.

  “Attack!” His scream was drowned out by the sudden bedlam that erupted around him. His warriors needed no orders to attend to such a threat. Energy beams crisscrossed the sky, but each time one came near a target, the floating warrior vanished, only to reappear above and behind one of the warriors who fired. More cyan bolts lanced down, killing more of his warriors.

  Dropping his sword, which any other time would have been an unthinkable act, he drew his energy weapon. He lifted the muzzle toward the sky, but never got a chance to fire. The cold eyes of a Desh-Ka priestess a stone’s throw away were the last things he saw before she vaporized him in a blaze of cyan.