For a moment, fear seized her. What if the Gorgon wanted her? The legends did not speak of Raesene’s having a wife. It was something she had never thought to consider. But now she thought about it.
He had been here ever since he fled the battlefield of Mount Deismaar, centuries ago. The city of KalSaitharak was old, but Raesene was older still. He had come here when there was nothing and had founded a settlement with his minions, raised this castle, and then over the years, the city had grown up around it.
All that time, and he had never had a mate. What if that should be the price? What if, this time, she would not be going back? What if she would never be going back again?
As they walked down the corridor toward two mammoth, intricately carved ebony doors at the far end, Laera’s pulse quickened, and she bit her lower lip. She had been repulsed by Arwyn when betrothed to him.
Raesene would be much worse. It was said the Gorgon wasn’t even human anymore.
And if he wanted her, how could she refuse? He held the power. Laera felt a chill run through her, and it wasn’t just the dismal, unearthly cold within the castle.
The two huge doors swung open of their own accord. A perverse thrill of excitement ran through her as flames burst from braziers along the walls.
Her breathing grew rapid and more shallow. The fear was intoxicating, sensual … carnal.
They had entered the great hall of the castle. It was huge, cavernous.
The vaulted ceiling high overhead shimmered with dark crystals.
Black, winged creatures flitted between the sharply curved stone supports and buttresses, creatures she thought were bats until she noticed they made no cries and floated rather than flew, their shapes undulating like amorphous shadows, like primordial organisms floating in a waterless sea.
On the opposite end of the chamber, a large, frayed and tattered tapestry hung upon the obsidian wall.
Laera recognized the crest of the Roeles, but it had been modified. A single bloodred dragon, rampant, crimson dripping from its gaping jaws and claws, upon a field of black cracked with stylized, jagged golden lightning. Beneath the ancient tapestry, upon a raised dais of murky black and silver crystal stood a huge throne carved from a single giant block of obsidian. It was three or four times larger than the Iron Throne of Anuire, built to accommodate a giant, and from its back sprouted two huge horns carved from faceted bloodred crystal.
Callador stopped her in the center of the chamber, upon an inverted arcane rune of inlaid silver circumscribed by glazed red tiles set into the black stone floor. For a moment or two, they simply stood there, waiting. And then Laera heard the footsteps, and cold sweat trickled down her spine.
Nothing human could walk like that. The sounds came from somewhere in the shadows, through an archway to the left side of the throne. They echoed through the hall like fantastic drumbeats, and Laera held her breath.
Thoom, thoom, thoom, thoom …
A huge shadow loomed beneath the archway, and Laera felt her knees start to tremble violently. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed heavily through parted lips, her gaze riveted on that darkened archway.
And then Raesene appeared.
Laera’s chest felt constricted. He was huge, easily three times the size of a normal man, with a thick, muscular, bare chest; immensely strong arms with bony spikes rising from the elbows and the shoulders; a wide, powerful back that tapered sharply to chiseled stomach muscles; skin that seemed the
color and texture of dusky stone; and the lower extremities of a satyr.
Large, powerful, goatlike legs covered with thick black fur ended in hooves that gleamed like the black stone of the castle walls. But it was his face as he sat upon the throne and gazed down at her that made Laera’s heart start beating like a wild thing trying to claw its way out of her chest.
Whatever Raesene may have looked like once, he was unrecognizable now.
The face that stared at her with unblinking yellow eyes was a nightmare.
The stories said the Gorgon had the head of a bull, but even that would have been preferable to the reality.
There were gray-black bullish horns sprouting from his head, and he had bovine ears, but any resemblance to a bull ended there. The shape of the face and head was roughly human, but Raesene had no hair. The top of his head was covered with spiky, bony projections, like the shell of some tortoise armored for battle. The once-human nose had spread out until it was almost a snout, and the jaw was elongated, allowing for a gaping mouth with sharp teeth and prominent canines. From the upper part of his cheekbones and the lower part of his jaw, on either side of the chin, sharp spikes protruded, smaller versions of the upwardly curving horns on his head.
Callador was ancient, and he had used magic all his life without its altering his human appearance, so the only explanation for such a grotesque mutation had to be the divine essence Raesene had inherited from Azrai, the dark god. Augmented by centuries of bloodtheft, these powers had twisted and transformed him into a horror. Laera recalled the stories
about Raesene’s being insane and remembered doubting them. However, seeing him in the flesh made her wonder how anyone could possibly experience such a terrifying transformation and still retain his sanity.
Callador stepped forward one pace and went down to one knee, bowing to his lord and master.
“Allow me to present the Duchess Laera of Boeruine, Your Highness.”
Laera did not know what to do. She was numb with fear, but despite that, told herself she was still a princess of the House of Roele, and Gorgon or not, Raesene was a prince, albeit illegitimate, of the same house. Her relative. By rights she would not bow down before him. I must not let my fear show, she thought as she made an effort to stand erect and proud, gazing directly at him.
Raesene simply looked at her for a few moments, then spoke.
Incongruously, his voice sounded completely human, deep, and resonant, well modulated and precise. The accent was Anuirean, but somehow slightly different. And then she realized it was not so much Anuirean as Andu, the way her people spoke centuries ago.
“Callador has told me much about you, my lady,” said the Gorgon. “He tells me that you have made unusual progress with your studies, that you are very gifted.”
“I try to apply myself, my lord,” she said, choosing thL-formally polite yet neutral address.
“That is most commendable,” the Gorgon said. He paused briefly. “Does not my aspect frighten you?”
“In truth, it is most fearsome, my lord.”
“Do you find me repulsive?” Laera swallowed hard. Where was this conversation leading? “I find you terrible,” she said.
“You choose your words most carefully,” he replied. “That, too, is commendable. I can sense your fear of me, yet you refuse to show it.
You are proud and canny, both admirable traits.”
“Thank you,” she replied. Time to take the bull by the horns, she told herself, then suppressed a hysterical giggle at the irony of the thought. “You are gracious, my lord, but I do not think you have brought me here to pay me compliments.”
Raesene’s expression might have been a smile, but it looked more like a snarl. “Indeed. I have a task I wish you to perform. If you perform it well, there will be benefits for you in the near future. But if you fail, I shall take your soul.”
Laera gulped. He meant bloodtheft. The thought of her death filled her with dread, but at the same time, there was an underlying sense of relief that he had apparently not brought her here for some more intimate purpose. She would rather have died.
“What is it you wish me to do?” she asked.
The Gorgon produced a tiny vial, no larger than a thimble, on a golden chain. He dangled it off one claw. “Your brother the emperor comes to your castle for the holding of his Summer Court. He brings his new empress with him. On the night of the summer solstice, you shall see that the empress ingests the contents of this vial. You may slip it into any liquid and give it to her. But i
t must be precisely on that night. You must not fail, else your life is forfeit to me.”
“What will it do?” asked Laera tensely.
“It shall cause a child to quicken,” said the Gorgon. “My child.”
Laera gasped.
“If the empress is already with child when she arrives at Seaharrow,”
said the Gorgon, “Callador shall give you a special potion she must take. It will abort the child, and thenceforth, she must be given a preparation to prevent conception until one week before the summer solstice. At that time, you shall feed her the contents of this vial.
The firstborn of Emperor Michael of Anuire shall be my son. And through him, I shall found a new dynasty and rule the empire that rightfully belongs to me.”
The Gorgon stretched out his huge clawed hand, and the vial floated through the air toward Laera.
She reached out and took it, then slipped the chain around her neck.
The feel of it against her bosom made her skin crawl.
“Go now,” said the Gorgon. “You know what you must do.”
He got up and lumbered from the great hall, back into the stygian darkness of the shadows beyond the archway.
Laera stood motionless for several moments, stunned. Then she turned and slowly followed Callador out of the great hall. Once they had passed through the large ebony doors, which swung closed behind them, she turned to Callador and whispered, “This is madness!”
“No,” said Callador calmly, “it is merely politics.”
“Politics!”
“Yes, politics,” repeated Callador. “Raesene has lusted for control of the empire for generations. He had failed once in supporting Azrai, and the specter of another failure still haunts him after all these years.
For centuries, he has been building up his blood powers and strengthening his domain, increasing the size of his army-not an easy thing to do, since they keep killing each other in street brawls.
If they ever had a common enemy, they would probably be a force to be reckoned with. The trouble with Raesene is that his lust for power has become virulently addictive. He needs more and more. He has become obsessed with it to the exclusion of all else.”
“And he thinks by impregnating the empress with his child, he will accomplish his goal? That is insane!
What sort of monster will the empress give birth to?”
Callador shrugged. “An awnsheghlien child. It will be killed, of course, but the spirit of the child will live on in the consequences of the birth. The firstborn of the emperor will be an abomination.
Clearly, a sign from the gods.” He smiled. “Or perhaps you can call it Fate.”
“And what does that mean?”
“There are those within the empire who will interpret such a birth as an omen,” Callador replied. “The inevitability of the ascension of the awnsheghlien.
And Raesene is foremost among all the awnsheghlien. There are also those who do not believe in gods.
At least, not in the new ones. They are a group who call themselves the Fatalists. They started as a small conclave of disenchanted bards, tavern philosophers-wide-eyed impressionable wenches and the occasional young aristocrat with artistic pretensions, but they have since grown into something of a movement. Blame the bards who travel frequently and bring such fads with them where they go.
“In a number of cities of the empire, these dilettantes have captured the imagination of the common
people. The group has no real leader, and its dynamics fluctuate.
That sort of thing can make them rather useful. They are ripe, to paraphrase the old maxim, for the picking.
“When the empress gives birth to an abomination, they can spread the word and place upon it an interesting interpretation. Fate, having taken a hand, has poisoned the seed of the Roeles. The god essence they inherited at Deismaar has corrupted them over the years, as it has the awnsheghlien. All the Roeles have ever done was plunge the empire into one war after another in the name of glorious expansion, increasing their holdings at the cost of rivers of blood. The War of Rebellion is still a recent, painful memory to many. Such memories can be exploited.
Perhaps it is time for the Roeles to be overthrown and the people to rule themselves.”
“You mean to start another civil war,” said Laera.
“The empire is weak from the last one,” Callador replied. “Another one would cripple it. And Raesene’s forces could move in. With Michael unable to raise an army strong enough to stop them, defeat would be a foregone conclusion. Raesene would seize his blood abilities and increase his power. And the Gorgon would sit upon the Iron Throne.”
They were descending a long flight of stone steps, heading toward the subterranean levels of the castle where Callador had his sanctum. A glowing ball of fire he had formed lit their way as it floated before them, casting garish shadows on the dank walls.
“You devised this plan!” said Laera, with sudden comprehension. “You gave Raesene the whole idea!”
“And why not?” said Callador. “Had Arwyn won the throne, I would have been the royal wizard to
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the emperor, with all the resources of the empire at my command. No more scouring for obscure supplies and ingredients for my spells, no more projects abandoned due to lack of funds; I could have pursued my art with no restrictions. But Arwyn lost, the fool, and I had to make new plans or face penury. I had grown accustomed to a reasonably comfortable life-style, enough that I developed a desire for more.
When the empire collapses and Raesene takes power, I shall become the preeminent wizard in the land. And you, as my prized pupil, shall stand to become Cerilia’s most important sorceress.”
“You fool!” said Laera. “You think I care about so lowly a distinction?
I had planned to ensure that the empress never bore a child! If Michael leaves no heir, my son would be the next in line to rule, and when Michael dies, I would become regent! I would have it all!”
Callador raised his eyebrows. “Indeed. And needless to say, you would take steps to ensure that your brother did not live long. But you forget, if your son were next in line and yet too young to rule, it is your husband, the duke, who would become the regent and…” His voice trailed off. “Ah, but of course. You have doubtless already made plans to become a widow at the proper time. I see that I have greatly underestimated you. Your plan is as sound and logical as it is diabolical. My compliments.”
“Only now you’ve ruined everything,” said Laera furiously. “If I do what Raesene wants and follow the plan you designed, I shall be left with nothing except whatever he chooses to bestow on me. And whatever that may be, it will be a poor substitute for what I would have had otherwise. I could have
appointed you the royal wizard when I assumed the regency. If that was what you wanted, why in the names of all the gods couldn’t you tell me?”
“Well, there was the question of trust,” said Callador. “It is something I do not bestow very easily.
Force of habit, I suppose. And I had not imagined you would plan something so bold and ambitious. I must admit, now that I have heard it, your plan has much to recommend it over mine. I wish I had thought of it myself. Unfortunately, it is too late now.”
“Perhaps not,” said Laera as Callador made a pass with his fingers and the arched door to his sanctum opened with a loud creak of its ancient iron hinges.
“Perhaps there is still a way…..
“How?” said Calladbr. “We cannot betray Raesene. As I hold power over you, he holds power over me. I had to give Raesene a token to seal my oath to him, just as I took one of you. There is now a bond between me and the Gorgon. If I fail him, there will be nowhere I can hide.”
“Then you must get that token back somehow,” said Laera.
Callador chuckled. “Easier said than done, my dear. You don’t think he would miss it?”
“What form does it take?” she asked.
“A lock of my hair, the same as yours, wh
ich he keeps in an amulet around his neck.”
“And if that amulet were empty? Would he be likely to open it and check?”
Callador raised his eyebrows. “I should think not,” he replied, “but how exactly do you propose I reclaim my lock of hair? Sneak into his bedchamber while he sleeps? I think not. Discovery would mean my life, and with the bond between us, he would feel my presence if I drew so near.”
“But he has no such bond with me,” said Laera.
“You would risk such a thing?- asked Callador with astonishment. “If he awoke while you tried to sneak into his bedchamber, he would tear you apart.”
“Not if I were welcome in his bedchamber,” she replied.
Callador’s eyes grew very wide. “You don’t mean… .
“How long since he has had a woman? Does he still have the desire?”
Callador stared at her, mouth agape, absolutely speechless. For several moments, he was too shocked to reply. Finally, he said, “I …
I don’t know. But …
you can’t seriously mean you would … give yourself to him?”
Laera’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “When you first brought me to him, I feared that was precisely what he wanted, and I thought that I would rather die. But with all my plans at stake, if there is no other way, I suppose I could overcome my revulsion for a short while.”
Callador sat down unsteadily. He gripped the arms of his chair, shaking his head. “Even if you could, you would be taking a great risk. There is no telling what Raesene might do. I have never known him to be with a woman. I. . . I cannot guess his appetites. Nor can I imagine. .
.” He glanced up at her. “He could hurt you. He might even kill you.”
“I know,” said Laera.
The thought of going to Raesene’s bed filled her with dread. And yet, at the same time, there was that
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