I swear it. If you win this war, he is yours before he is mine.
Marun smiled. “Then come!”
And she filled him. The cold wrenched his innards and tore at his remaining humanity. When he faced the pavilion, he was a shell filled with black desire and blacker will, and how strange it was that their unified passion matched so very perfectly; but hers seemed an unbearable obsession that spanned history to the beginning of time.
“What is he?” he asked.
She jerked his legs forward. The answer she would not give, only the dominance he had failed to obtain alone.
***
“I don’t belong here!”
Kehfrey paced to the other side of the tent. He considered the odds of bolting through the combined Winfellan and Stohar armies, but the chances of succeeding were bleak, and should he make it through the Stohar lines, the opposing army might shoot him down for a defector.
“I’m a traitor!” he whispered. “I’m a traitor!”
It didn’t matter that harpies had taken him. The Ulmeniran forces must have seen him. He walked the enemy camp unbound. He moved freely, working closely with Marun’s general. He had been seen.
Remorse overwhelmed him. He thudded to his knees, looking heavenward as if he might plead for mercy. The guilt was unbearable. Despairing, he pulled a dagger and raised it above his heart. Seconds before he plunged it inward, he froze. He had a memory, a distinct memory of having done this before. And he hadn’t died.
Brutal truth flashed in his mind. “I can’t die! Gods! My soul is in a stone! My soul is—!”
The tent flap opened and Marun stalked in. “With me! Your soul is with me!”
Kehfrey looked at him bleakly. “You lying bastard!” He dropped the dagger from his hand. “You twist everything! You twist everything! I was happy with him! I know I was!”
“You were happy with me!” Marun shouted. “You were happy these last few days! Do not deny it!”
“I deny it!” Kehfrey screamed, jumping to his feet. “You! You march children with red hair in your vanguard of dead! Did you think I hadn’t noticed? You killed them all because of me! You twisted, evil bastard! How did those deaths honour the love you say you bear me?”
“I didn’t want those deaths!”
“Liar! So many! So many children! If you hadn’t wanted them, why are they there? Why?”
Marun winced. He hadn’t lied, but she was in him, his Dark Mistress, and she did lie. There was no excuse adequate to salvage Kehfrey’s good regard, nor would the Dark Mistress give Marun the time or mercy to speak such.
“Come to me!” he whispered, urged on by her passion. “Come to me, Kehfrey!”
“You’re mad!” Kehfrey edged back. Shadows leapt up behind him and forced him forward. “Get away from me!”
“I love you!” Marun said.
Kehfrey stopped moving. He had heard the words twice. Another voice had spoken at the same time from out of Marun’s mouth. Even as he comprehended this, the sorcerer’s brown eyes grew darker and commenced to bleed power, a blackness of ancient anger and want. “Marun! She’s in you!”
Then save him, the Ancient Power said coldly. If you love him, you will save him.
“Get out of him! You bitch! You selfish bitch!”
I grow tired of this servant. He is weak. You weaken him.
He shook his head. “Don’t! Don’t hurt him! I beg you!”
Do you love him after all? With Marun’s body, she stepped forward. Kehfrey retreated, but the shadows at his back surged up his calves and dragged him to his knees. You weaken him, my love. Just as you have weakened yourself.
“No! It is you! You weaken him!”
Then take him back! she taunted. Dance with him! Dance with me!
Marun knelt before him. “Kehfrey!” he whispered. “Kehfrey, my love.”
“Marun! You said you’d never give me to her!”
With a noiseless snarl, the sorcerer yanked his victim up and claimed the lips that grimaced in pain and horror, and then Kehfrey heard the Ancient Power in his head.
Dance for me! Dance!
He shuddered in rebellion, but was already too weak to fight free. The shadows had sunk into his marrow, and the darkness sapped his reserves with each second. Marun retreated to pull the vest and shirt off Kehfrey’s chilled body.
“Stop! Marun! I love you! I swear I never stopped!”
Marun glared at him in disbelief. Cursing, he levered Kehfrey about and thrust his trousers down. The shadows rose higher, leaping over Kehfrey’s bared thighs and flanks, gathering together for a black thrust over the bastion at his groin.
And there was no defence, not with his limbs frozen, not with the beloved violator at his back. The chill power seized his genitals and invaded his shaft, a wriggling thing of cold that oozed toward his centre. He hissed. It was pain. It was rapture.
This! He wanted this! He wanted her!
“Kehfrey?” Marun touched his back. He kissed a shoulder. He pulled the slender body back with a fierce jerk and pressed his erection hard against his victim’s buttocks. “Kehfrey! Say yes! Say yes to me once and mean it! I beg you!”
The shadows swirled eagerly. Kehfrey groaned. Now every limb shook with need rather than numbness, and the thing inside his cock sucked at his marrow even as it squeezed his outer flesh so deliciously. The chill had stopped hurting and become a delightful, irresistible sin. “Do it!” he cried. “Just do it!”
Let her take me! Let it end! Let it all end!
Marun thrust into his body. Kehfrey gasped, a shock of pleasure running down his abdomen and into his groin, a stab of sweet pain behind. A hand reached around and cradled his aching shaft. The darkness leapt higher.
They arched back, a pair of sacrifices waiting for the final moment, and then the shadows swallowed them both.
***
“Go in!” King Quei commanded. “Go in and look!”
Domel hesitated.
“Do it!” Quei snarled.
Domel lifted the flap slowly. Quei shoved him inward. Domel stumbled into the dimness, caught his balance and stared down at them. They were still locked together. Marun had fallen on top. Domel stepped forward tentatively.
“Master?” he whispered, but Kehfrey was the first to respond.
“Who?”
“Master Kehfrey? Are you well?”
“I …!”
Marun groaned and shifted. He pulled away from Kehfrey and rolled onto his back.
“Master?” Domel called.
The answer was too soft, almost numb. “What?”
“We had wondered if you were all right,” Domel said. “There was a blackness in the pavilion. It spread outside of it.”
“I’m fine,” his master said, but he didn’t look it. He was pale and too weak to move properly. Kehfrey hadn’t moved since the initial moment.
“Master, I think the young man is unwell.”
This alert propelled Marun upward. “Kehfrey?” He rolled him over.
Kehfrey blinked up at him. “Who are you?” he whispered.
“Oh!” Marun cried. He shut his eyes in agony. She had ripped it all from him. All of it. Gently, he pulled his victim into his arms. “It’s all right, my love. You will be all right.”
“Will I? I feel so weak.”
“Let me help you. I will give you strength.”
He summoned healing green. Kehfrey cried a protest. He clutched at Marun, frightened but too debilitated to struggle. The energy rose quickly, a veritable torrent of emerald. It sank into Kehfrey’s body and filled him until he crackled. When the aura shifted to blue, Marun bade the flow to halt, but the goddess blasted through his resistance and rammed the power inward all the harder. In his arms, Kehfrey began to shake as if having a seizure.
“No! Stop it!” Marun cried. Kehfrey’s grip on the sorcerer loosened. He lurched away from Marun’s clasp and clawed at the floor tarp, but their legs were still entwined. The flow continued without interruption.
A hint of white sparked over the azure encapsulating the goddess’s victim, and then the current cut off. There came a small implosion as the ambient energy sank into Kehfrey’s flesh. The shock jerked the sorcerer’s body violently. In the resultant dimness, Kehfrey lay gasping , no longer shaking and showing evidence of returned strength. His fingers had gouged the tarp into the dirt beneath.
“Domel!” Quei shouted from outside. “Domel! Are they well?”
“Yes!” Domel answered. Marun looked at him. “Do you need anything master?”
“No. Leave!”
Domel bowed and hurried out.
“Kehfrey?” Marun called.
“Is that me?”
“Yes, my love.” He caressed his face. “How do you feel now?”
“Stronger. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I remember anything?”
“She took it from you. The Ancient Power. She took everything.”
“Why?”
Foreboding rattled Kehfrey’s frame. Marun felt his lover’s trepidation as if it were in him, and perhaps it was. He had never felt closer in their soulstone. The goddess had expunged all of Kehfrey’s resistance. His soul was a malleable warmth in the granite vessel that lay so very far from their bodies.
“You displeased her,” Marun answered truthfully. “You were to help me, but you tried to forsake me instead.”
Kehfrey’s features filled with remorse. “I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you,” Marun said gently and kissed his forehead. “I forgive you.”
The entrance flapped open, but it wasn’t the servant returning. The water witch stepped in. “Tell me, boy!” she said stridently. “What do you think of King Ugoth?”
Kehfrey started. The hag was a feral, frightening stick of a woman. “What? Who is she?”
“The water hag,” Marun snarled. “Get out!” he snapped at her.
She ignored him. With a flick of her hand, she threw a mist into the room. From it, Marun saw Ugoth’s face peer out at them. Sapphire glared coldly, almost seeming to focus on them.
“There, boy! That is King Ugoth! Do you like what you see?”
“He’s magnificent,” came the answer.
“He’s the enemy! He would see your lover die!”
Kehfrey stiffened. “Then he must die instead!”
“Indeed,” she said. The image distorted and broke apart. The hag looked at Marun triumphantly and stalked out of the tent.
Marun held Kehfrey, but could not smile. He had broken him. He had wanted Kehfrey’s love freely given, but instead he had helped the Ancient Power rape his mind. He had made of him a tool to be used.
“Why are you weeping?” Kehfrey’s soft voice asked.
“I love you!” he sobbed. “Oh, Kehfrey! I’m sorry!”
Kehfrey shifted until he cradled Marun instead. His slender arms were strong around him, steel within a wrapping of silken skin. “Don’t be unhappy. I’ll protect you. I’ll do what I must.”
Steel sounded in the words as well. Marun chilled with foreknowledge. Kehfrey was not broken. Deep within, the real Kehfrey lurked. They had only melted him. He would rise from the forge. He would become once more a weapon that willed its own striking.
Nothing can hold him forever.
Marun remembered the goddess’s words. Somehow he knew they were true, but he would still try. He could not but try. He loved Kehfrey helplessly, more now than ever before.
***
Ugoth stared down the mount. There had been a disturbance around the pavilion of his enemy. Darkness had bloomed within it and crept outside the structure. Shadows had clawed toward alarmed soldiers like the appendages of an amorphous monster, and then they had coiled back within the canvas structure, disappearing as mysteriously as they had arisen. Now men stared at the entrance. He could almost feel their anxiety.
He lowered the spyglass and faced his memory of the darkness without flinching. It was this same black power that sought to kill him.
“Majesty?”
“Vik,” Ugoth breathed. He didn’t turn.
“Did you see him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He walks about freely.”
“He’s been spelled!” Vik cried. “Ugoth! Please! You cannot believe him a traitor.”
“I don’t. Another spell was just cast on him.”
“What? You saw something? Ugoth?”
Ugoth glanced at him. “You are frantic, Vik. Chant the dirge.” His frigid glare fixed on the pavilion once more.
Vik sucked in a calming breath. “I’m sorry. He’s so close and we can’t get him.”
“I know. You aren’t helping by reminding me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said more calmly. “Tell me what you saw.”
“I saw Marun call him closer to be kissed. The sorcerer did it to taunt me. Herfod wasn’t that willing. Afterward, he used a spyglass and saw me. There was an altercation.”
“He saw you? What did he do?”
“He thrust Marun off and went into the pavilion. Did you see the shadows swelling from it just now?”
“Yes. Everyone did. That was the spell to control him, wasn’t it?”
“They dressed him in brown,” Ugoth said, his tone almost reverent. “Cloth and leather. Stohar of cut. He wears his daggers, but only on his legs and waist. He’s so beautiful, and I will never touch him again.”
“The future is not fixed, Ugoth,” Vik snapped. “You have seen him again. You will touch him again.”
“He’s going to kill me, Vik,” Ugoth said flatly. “I should have seen it before. This is why telling him didn’t change it. Nicky didn’t see that it would be Herfod who would be the death of me.”
“Oh! Ugoth! No! He wouldn’t!”
“Not in his right mind,” Ugoth agreed. “I know that.”
“He would die first,” Vik said.
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? I can’t kill him. Therefore it must be me who dies.” He lifted the spyglass.
“Ugoth, I’m so sorry.”
“None of this is your fault!” Ugoth snarled. “Be quiet!”
A hag had left the tent. Ugoth stared down the tube for a silent minute, aiming at the entrance. He was rewarded. Herfod bent beneath the flap and stepped out; he stared about as if in confusion. The sorcerer issued from the pavilion and pressed him forward. Ugoth saw his lips move. Herfod glanced at the Shadow Master, but his expression didn’t resolve into firmness. It remained uncertain.
The skinny hag approached them. Herfod backed off, his features distrustful. A glowing ball developed in his hand. Marun knocked his arm down. Herfod scowled, but let the orb fade into nothingness. Marun pulled him away from the witch and toward a taller man.
“King Quei,” Ugoth murmured. “How trapped you must feel now.” He watched a moment longer and lowered the telescope. “I wonder how he did it?”
“Majesty?” Vik said.
“Appearing in the night like that,” Ugoth said, “with no warning at all. An entire army, it marches into the field unnoticed, unheard, sets up camp and awaits the dawn to greet us. How?”
“I suspect our Brother Herfod had something to do with it,” Abbot Vehre said from behind them.
Ugoth turned to regard him. “And what do you mean by that?” he demanded. His hand touched the hilt of his sword. Vehre backed a pace.
“Ease up, man! I do not suggest he works with a whole mind. I know he is spelled. I admit to being an idiot about the boy. I know better now. Look at me! I’ve gained two decades at least by his grace. Do you know how rare that sort of divine sanction is? He’s blessed! He belongs to the gods.”
Ugoth shut his eyes until he calmed. “Go on,” he said presently. “Explain what you meant.”
“I’ve learned a few things since taking over the training,” Vehre said. “One of them being that witches can slip in and out of places unnoticed if they have the skill for it. Imagine that skill paired with Brother Herfod’s power? I suspect the dark coven
worked that spell with him, spreading his power like a cloud of silence and blackness.”
“A moving ward that hides an army from detection?”
“No, not a ward,” Vehre corrected. “A spell empowered with Herfod’s holy energy. The witches were the tossers, not Herfod. It makes a big difference.”
“Ah, I see.” Ugoth looked toward the enemy camp. “But why didn’t our enemy order the attack last night?”
“That would be because of me,” Vik said flatly.
Ugoth whirled toward him. “You! What are you saying?”
“Marun made a promise to Kehfrey. He swore never to kill any of us, my family that is.”
“And here you are, standing with the enemy. Poses something of a problem, doesn’t it? For him in any case.”
“We should attack!” Vehre barked. “We should attack while he holds back!”
Ugoth paced several feet forward and pointed. “Do you see that?” He indicated a giant gouge in the earth that broke upward mere yards from their first stone barricade. “The dragon is out there, Vehre. We must take that out of the equation before we can march our forces over that field.”
“Thank the gods we sank wards into this hill,” Vehre said. “Think of the damage it could have caused if it had attacked in the night.”
Ugoth nodded agreement. “If we attack, we run the gauntlet. I say we let Marun run it.”
“Yes. Our little traps may give him grief. It’s fortunate you came up with them after Herf ….” Vehre’s voice faltered.
“After Herfod was taken. Yes, I know. He can’t have told Marun of them, because he didn’t know.” Impatiently, Ugoth lifted the spyglass to his eye. He froze. Herfod stared up the mount toward him. He was frowning. Ugoth watched him lift a hand to his temple as if his head ached.
“He fights it,” Ugoth said. “He fights what Marun’s done to him.”
“May I?” Vik begged. Ugoth handed the spyglass over. Vik scanned the foreground of the pavilion until he found his brother. “Brown suits him,” he remarked. “But I don’t think I like the beard.”
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