“Oh, nothing so mysterious as that.” She smiled. “By your own hand were you undone, Keel-Tath. You severed my Braid of the Covenant in the vessel of the Ka’i-Nur Crystal of Souls, remember? You blinded yourself to my soul.” Reaching back with her free hand, she tore one of her braids loose, tossing it in Keel-Tath’s lap. “This is from one of my former lovers, to keep up appearances.” She gestured to the males surrounding them. “But I must confess that I have been very busy while you have been fighting your great War of Unification, creating my own army, a task made much easier with the powers of the crystal of my people. You never sensed the change in the song of their souls when I took them, did you?”
Keel-Tath knocked the braid away in anger and disgust. “Your army is doomed. The Imperial Guard shall make swift work of them, and then…”
Again, Syr-Nagath laughed, cutting her off. “Your guard is nothing. Even those of the priesthoods are nothing. Observe.”
With a motion of her hand, a pair of warriors emerged from an adjoining room, dragging a familiar figure with them.
“Dara-Kol,” whispered Keel-Tath in shock. Her old friend and protector, now high priestess of the Desh-Ka and her First, had been bound and beaten. Her hands were bound in heavy steel manacles, and a metal band had been used as a gag, pulled so tight that the corners of her mouth bled. Her powers, too, had been somehow nullified by Syr-Nagath, and she must have been taken completely by surprise, or every conspirator in this room would have died by Dara-Kol’s hand. She looked at Keel-Tath with eyes filled with impotent rage, but Keel-Tath could barely hear her song in her own blood.
Syr-Nagath looked at the priestess in silent speculation. “I have never forgotten how she stole you away from my warriors. I only kept her alive because I owe her a special death.” With a nod, the warriors shoved Dara-Kol to the floor. She struggled until one of her keepers struck her on the head with a metal rod. Then she lay still.
“And let us not forget another of your favorite pets.” Another warrior brought forth a severed head, blood still dripping from the neck. Holding it high, Keel-Tath saw the face of Sian-Al’ai.
“No.” Keel-Tath briefly closed her eyes, quivering with helpless rage, the image of the great priestess’s severed head burned into her consciousness. “Once this is over,” she promised, “I will find you, and there shall be no words to describe your suffering.”
“Then I shall make it easy for you to recognize me.” Syr-Nagath reached up with her free hand to her left ear, and with a wet sucking sound peeled away the skin to reveal her true face beneath. The flesh was charred and blackened, the white of the cheekbones and nose showing through. The lips had largely been burned away, and the eyelids were gone, as were the ears. Her right cheek was burned through to expose the molars on that side, the tongue glistening behind them.
Keel-Tath turned her head away in revulsion. She had not seen Syr-Nagath after the crystal had shed its light, but her appearance matched what Tara-Khan had described. “Your face exposes the truth of your soul.”
“No matter what the healers tried, it never healed,” Syr-Nagath explained, her words slurred and bearing a heavy lisp without her mask of living tissue. “The crystal gave me the power to control others — males, at least — to bend them to my will without using the magic I once wrought upon them, and to nullify the powers of the other crystals, but it also robbed me of my ability to heal. This,” she held up the faux face, “is the best the healers could do. Once they are all bound to me, I think I shall tear the heart from every one of them.” With a practiced motion, she put the mask of living tissue back on.
Keel-Tath shook her head. “They will never be bound to you.”
Syr-Nagath took one of Keel-Tath’s braids in her hand, her touch sending a chill down Keel-Tath’s spine. “When I take your Braid of the Covenant and fuse it to the stump of my own, they will. Every last soul of our kind, living and dead, will belong to me, and they will bend to my will. After that, I will take my time with you. A very long time.” Releasing the braid, she added with a smile, and Keel-Tath imagined the burned flesh beneath oozing blood and fluid, “But there is something we must do first.”
“What?”
“You shall see.”
The door to her chamber opened, and her heart was flooded with relief as Ka’i-Lohr entered the room, pushing past the suborned warriors who stood guard at the door. But her hopes tasted like ash in her mouth as he stepped forward, not raising a sword against those who held her. “Ka’i-Lohr,” she whispered, aghast. “Please, not you.” Now she understood how Syr-Nagath had survived. Ka’i-Lohr had rescued a robed one from the collapse of the vessel of the Ka’i-Nur Crystal of Souls, but the body in the robes must have been that of Syr-Nagath. “How could this be? We have shared so much and saved one another’s lives countless times! How could you fall under her spell?”
Once again, Syr-Nagath laughed. “Come to me…my son.”
Keel-Tath’s breath caught, and her spirit shattered at the Dark Queen’s next words. “And you, Keel-Tath, have always felt close to him, for you share the blood of his sire, Kunan-Lohr.” She leered. “Ka’i-Lohr is your half brother.”
“No,” Keel-Tath whispered, unable to believe. “It cannot be true…”
“It is,” Ka’i-Lohr hissed as he dropped a sword at Keel-Tath’s feet. It was Tara-Khan’s, and it was unblooded.
Keel-Tath body trembled as her mind, already reeling from Syr-Nagath’s revelations, grappled with the dreadful reality of what the sword represented. Looking up to Ka’i-Lohr, she whispered, “What have you done?”
“Only what I have wanted to do for a very long time.” He leaned down and put a hand behind Syr-Nagath’s head, drawing her into a passionate kiss that she eagerly returned. But even so occupied, the blade of her dagger never wavered from Keel-Tath’s throat.
After he reluctantly drew his lips away from those of this mother, Ka’i-Lohr returned his attention to Keel-Tath. “Tara-Khan is dead by my hand, and Drakh-Nur and the Imperial Guard are as good as finished.” He began to remove his armor while favoring Keel-Tath with hungry eyes. “Since the day I became tresh to Tara-Khan have I despised him,” he told her, “but it was my mother’s will that I call him brother and stand by his side, just as it was her will that I stand by yours, even when he stole away your love, the love that should always have been mine. All these long cycles have I waited for this day, patiently biding my time and doing my mother’s will for the greater glory of Ka’i-Nur. Now…” He shed the last of his clothing. “Now, my love, my sister, I will take you as my own.”
“No!” Keel-Tath lunged upward, knocking Syr-Nagath’s blade hand aside, but stopped short as Ulana-Khan squealed with pain.
“Please, Ka’i-Lohr,” Keel-Tath begged as she froze, terrified for her child, “do what you would with me, but spare my daughter. Let no harm come to her!”
“I will do with you as I will, for that is my right,” he replied in a voice she barely recognized, for it was cold and cruel, a male echo of the voice of Syr-Nagath. “As for your child, she belongs to my mother, who cannot bear any more children. You shall bear them for us, for as long as my mother sees fit to let you live.”
“And as my son consummates his right,” Syr-Nagath hissed, “so shall I do the same.” Snatching one of Keel-Tath’s hands, she drew the dagger across the palm.
“No!” Keel-Tath fought, knowing what Syr-Nagath intended, but she was no match for Ka’i-Lohr, who roughly pinned her to the bed.
Syr-Nagath ran the blade along her own palm, then clasped Keel-Tath’s bleeding hand as Ka’i-Lohr clambered on top of her. Syr-Nagath’s laughter echoed from the walls, mingling with Ulana-Khan’s terrified cries. Over Ka’i-Lohr’s shoulder, Keel-Tath saw her daughter in the healer’s arms, his talons poised over her face and throat. The other males stood around the bed, their gazes filled with lust as if they expected to participate in the sport Ka’i-Lohr was about to begin.
Keel-Tath felt the tingle in her palm from
the blood bond, known among the Desh-Ka as the ritual of drakash, and cried out in helpless rage. For through Keel-Tath’s own blood might Syr-Nagath inherit some, and perhaps all, of Keel-Tath’s powers. This much, Tara-Khan had once told her of the power of the Ka’i-Nur crystal. She struggled and fought, but Syr-Nagath’s grip on her hand was like iron and Ka’i-Lohr, breathing heavily, pressed her to the bed.
“I can feel it,” Syr-Nagath whispered in wonder as she stared into Keel-Tath’s burning eyes. “Your blood is now my blood. I can feel all that you are, all that I shall soon become.” She shuddered as their blood continued to mingle. “Now shall I begin to kill you ever so slowly, first by tearing apart what remains of your soul.” With a cruel smile, she turned to the healer who held Ulana-Khan. “My son can sire more children upon her. Kill the whelp.”
Without so much as a pause, the healer drove his talons into the infant’s face and throat, silencing her screams.
As her daughter’s blood soaked the swaddling blanket and spurted upon the floor, time froze. Keel-Tath stared at her tormentors for an eternity as a blind and boundless rage grew within her, joined by the unleashed fury of the dead, the countless souls beyond this life who were bound to her. For while Syr-Nagath had negated the powers of the other crystals and separated Keel-Tath from the spiritual voices of the living, she could not do the same with the powers Keel-Tath had inherited from the Ka’i-Nur crystal: the dead were with her, already bound to her soul, bound to her will. Like clouds of dust floating through space, the tendrils of power from their individual spirits began to bind together in a whirling maelstrom. More and more, faster and faster, did their rage and fury grow until it ignited like a newborn star, and that immense power had a single, terrible focus: vengeance. She was no longer an empress, a warrior, a woman, a mother, or a lover. Keel-Tath had become an all-powerful god whose heart was filled with boundless, merciless wrath.
In the end, it was the blood bond between them that was Syr-Nagath’s downfall, for while it allowed Syr-Nagath to draw upon Keel-Tath’s spirit and soul, it allowed Keel-Tath to do the same. It was through this conduit that the rage and fury of Keel-Tath and the countless dead souls bound to her was unleashed, exploding through the Bloodsong like a star going nova.
Ka’i-Lohr whirled away from her to crash into the far wall. He howled in agony as his body began to transform. His skull shrank and his forehead sloped back, crushing his brain, while the rest of his body, save his manhood, withered away. He would have died, but she refused to let his spirit depart his body. “If mating is all that you crave,” she whispered, “then that is all you shall know before you die. And you, betrayers, males all, shall suffer the same fate.” With shrieks of pain, the other males around her fell to the floor, writhing as their bodies, too, were transformed.
Then she turned to Syr-Nagath, who was frozen like a statue. “You so desired more children, and so you shall have your wish. Your fate will be to bear a child every cycle, or die in terrible agony. When you breed, your mate will die, writhing in pain…starting with your wretched son. And to forever remember that you were barren, one child of every two will be so, marked with silver talons.” She leaned closer, reaching up and tearing away the false face from Syr-Nagath. Staring into her eyes, Keel-Tath imagined the Dark Queen’s soul writhing in a universe of flame, and by her will it was so. “And when at last you die, Syr-Nagath, your soul and any born of your bloodline shall rot for all eternity in the Endless Dark, beyond my light or love.” Solid rock at the center of the moon parted to form a huge chamber, and Keel-Tath endowed it with water and plants that could grow in complete darkness, and that could be eaten for meager sustenance. “You shall never again see the light of the sun, and none shall ever find you. Your names shall never again be spoken, for as long as our sun burns, and for all time thereafter.” With a single thought, Syr-Nagath and Ka’i-Lohr were stricken from the Books of Time throughout the Empire, their stories ripped from the pages of history. “Be gone with you, forever.”
Syr-Nagath, Ka’i-Lohr, and the others vanished, to be marooned for all time in the black tomb at the center of the moon’s cold, dead heart.
At last, her vengeance having run its course, Keel-Tath took Tara-Khan’s sword in one hand before crawling to where the mutilated remains of her child lay upon the floor. Her cheeks black with the marks of mourning, Keel-Tath placed her lover’s sword across her lap and cradled her precious daughter’s body to her breast. Slowly rocking Ulana-Khan, Keel-Tath stared out the great crystal windows at the Homeworld, praying for death.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Dara-Kol awoke from a terrible, horrible dream in which every one of her people had been cast into a burning sea of blood, their souls doomed to spend eternity in the Endless Dark. Her body ached as if she were covered with bruises from head to toe, and it was only with the greatest of difficulty that she managed to struggle to her knees. Near her left hand was the severed head of Sian-Al’ai, and the memories of what had happened returned in a kaleidoscopic flood, as did the symphony of the Bloodsong. But the spiritual voices she heard, no longer muted or muffled as they had been before Syr-Nagath’s attempted coup, were crying out in fear and anguish. It was the sound of an entire race that had been cast into turmoil and despair. “My Empress,” she called out in a raspy voice. “Keel-Tath.”
Only silence greeted her. Looking around, she saw a solitary figure dressed in white robes who stood near the windows that looked out upon the palace.
Getting to her feet, Dara-Kol staggered slowly toward her sovereign, noting that only the bodies of those killed by Syr-Nagath remained here in the Empress’s chambers. The Dark Queen, Ka’i-Lohr, and the conspirators had vanished. Upon the Empress’s bed lay a tiny bloodstained bundle, and Dara-Kol’s heart tore at the sight. She knelt down to look more closely at the child, hoping against hope that she still lived. Horrified, she shied away from the sight of what was left of the child’s face and neck. It was clear that Ulana-Khan was beyond even the healing touch of the Empress herself. Many were the powers of the Empress, but restoring life to those already dead was not among them.
Moving to where the Empress stood, Dara-Kol knelt down and bowed her head to the floor. She reached out with one hand and tentatively, fearfully, touched Keel-Tath’s sandaled foot. “My life and soul are yours,” she whispered. “I beg you to take them, for I failed you.”
Keel-Tath remained silent for a long time. At last, she whispered, “All is darkness. There is no love. There is no light. All has been for naught.”
It was then that the doors flew open and a dazed Sar-Ula’an, trailed by ten warriors of the Imperial Guard, staggered in. “My Empress!" he cried as he and the others fell to their knees, but she did not turn to face him, or answer. After a moment, he said, “Dara-Kol, what has become of us?”
“The conspirators are gone,” she told him quietly, wishing he and the others had not come, for her only wish now was to die at the feet of the one she had so loved.
“I speak not of them. Have you seen what has become of the males?”
At that Dara-Kol looked up. “What do you mean?”
He gestured for someone outside to come in, and a pair of guards led a misshapen beast into the room. It was in the general shape of one of their kind, but its head and body were shrunken, grotesque. The only thing about it that had remained anything close to normal was its manhood. “They are all like this, warriors and robed ones alike,” Sar-Ula’an explained, horrified, “all but those of us in the Imperial Guard. And look.” He gestured for one of the female warriors to come forth. Her talons, once black, were now silver. “Some of the females are like this. Not all, but some. What has become of us?”
“You are cursed.”
They both looked up at Keel-Tath, whose barely whispered words stunned them into silence.
“Those with silver talons are barren,” the Empress told them slowly. “And those with black will wish they were so. All has been written in the Books of Time. There you m
ay discover your fate.”
“But my Empress,” Dara-Kol pleaded, “what have we done? We are yours, and always have been.” She reached out and took Keel-Tath’s hand. “Take my life. Take those of the Guard. Cast us into Darkness. But I beg you, have mercy upon the innocent.”
Keel-Tath rounded on her, and Dara-Kol screamed as her soul burned with the dark fury of the Empress. “Tara-Khan and my child are dead, and you would speak of the innocent?”
“Is this why Drakh-Nur gave up his life?”
Dara-Kol gasped in relief as Keel-Tath’s attention, and no doubt her wrath, turned upon Sar-Ula’an.
Bowing his head to the floor, he said, “He is fallen, my Empress. He and many of the Guard. But he died believing that you were a mother to us all. He died loving you.”
“As do we all,” Dara-Kol whispered.
“I…I know this.” Keel-Tath blinked, and her expression softened. “I can feel it in you. I spared you and those of the Guard this fate. Somehow, part of me knew, even in the blindness of my rage.” Turning back to Dara-Kol, she said in a bitter voice, “You ask for mercy. I shall grant you a gesture…in exchange for obedience.” Looking beyond the door, she said, “Enter, the most high, and kneel before me.”
The most high of the priesthoods and the robed castes — all females, now — had already come, their hearts frozen with fear at the strange and terrible fate that had befallen their people. They did as their Empress commanded, kneeling in a semicircle before her, quivering with fear. None feared mere death, Dara-Kol knew. They feared that the anguish in the Bloodsong that radiated from the Empress would never end. It was a fear that she herself shared, for the agony was all but unbearable.
The Empress slowly walked to where an ornate vase sat upon a pedestal. Handing it to the most high nearest her, the surviving elder of the builder caste, she then produced a dagger and said, “Prove your love for me. Cut off your talons and put them into the urn. For those who do this, your children will be born without talons, and will be known forever among our people as those most loyal to my will.”
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