Ilias noticed at once that Lady Rosamund appeared a bit unsettled, which, considering that she’d just been subjected to Myca at his no-doubt less than diplomatic best, was not entirely surprising. He recalled also that the lady had a pronounced poor reaction to ugliness of any sort, and he didn’t doubt that Nikita of Sredetz was not the most pleasant thing to look upon. He surrendered his seat at the table to her and begged her pardon, on the grounds of minor matters of a domestic nature requiring his attention. As it happened, there were, and he ended up instructing the brothers sent to retrieve the Archbishop’s belongings from Lady Rosamund’s baggage to place the two boxes in the main study, dispatching two more brothers to monitor the activities of Sir Gilbrecht and his men, and almost going downstairs to check on Myca.
He restrained that last impulse, knowing that, should his lover require him, he could make that need known silently and efficiently through the blood they shared between them. He almost whispered a question through that bond, but checked that impulse, as well; whatever he was doing, Myca was clearly, fully engaged in it, and disturbing him unnecessarily when he was absorbed was one of the surest ways to put him out of sorts. Ilias sensed stillness and concentration emanating from below, Myca’s intellect very much at work, and decided to leave him alone. He would come upstairs when his initial rush of curiosity quenched itself.
Lady Rosamund, he had been told, was supposed to be very good at backgammon, which was more than could be said for Myca.
The night wore on. Lady Rosamund proved to be as skilled at tables as she was in diplomacy. Ilias was privately glad that they weren’t playing for more than boasting rights, as she bested him slightly more than half the time. As the night passed, her unease gradually left her, as well, and once or twice he thought he coaxed a real smile and a genuine laugh from her. It was difficult to tell, for her charming manner was the most perfect of her many masks. He observed her closely, but kept his hands to himself. It would be easier to sculpt her likeness into the flesh of another if he had liberty to touch her, to sample the texture of her skin and the shape of her bones, but he rather thought Sir Landric and the lady herself would respond rather poorly to such an act on his part. As dawn approached, Sir Landric made quiet noises about returning to their chambers and Ilias, exercising his rights as host, escorted them back, then sought out Sir Gilbrecht and saw him safely to his chamber, as well.
Myca was no longer downstairs. Ilias realized that at once, as he disengaged himself from thoughts of guests and entertainments and future pleasures in the dark. Myca was no longer downstairs, and he was no longer coolly centered, tightly intellectually focused; a disquiet close to fear vibrated in the bond between them, and Ilias nearly ran through the corridors, suddenly disturbed, as well. He found his lover sitting in the study at his writing desk, the room dark but for the guttering stump of a single candle, staring blankly. His elegant, patrician face was empty of expression and the way he sat, half-slumped in his chair, sent a jolt of fear up Ilias’ throat. He crossed the room in three strides, and caught one of Myca’s limp hands in is own. That elicited a response. He felt, deep inside himself, Myca’s instinctive urge to pull away from the contact, and his deliberate refusal to do so. Ilias released his grip, and instead laid his hand next to Myca’s own, close enough to take if he wished.
“My flower,” Ilias kept his voice low and soothing, “Myca. What troubles you?”
Myca’s head lifted slightly. In the uncertain light, his dark eyes were emotionless, reflectionless, yielding no clues to the direction of his thoughts or what he was feeling in those few places Ilias could not touch. “I… have had a rather unsettling experience. No—I do not wish to speak of it yet.”
Ilias held his tongue and nodded silently.
“Can you…” Myca stopped, moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, and continued. “I know that it is within your power to cast protections on a place, to ward it against harm. Can you bind a place, as well? Close it against entry.”
“Yes. Or, rather, I do not think it beyond me.”
“Then I wish you to do this for me. I wish the downstairs study barred against intrusion. I want no one to enter there without my express permission. Not even you.” He clasped Ilias’ hand suddenly, his grip bone-crushingly fierce.
Ilias inhaled through his teeth, and whispered. “It shall be done, my flower.”
Chapter Five
Ilias spent the next three nights preparing, secluded in his own sanctum, making himself a pure vessel for the magic he planned to work. He slept alone and fasted. He bathed nightly in water in which a selection of astringent herbs had steeped, and forced himself to breathe in the aromatic smoke his censers spilled into the cool air. He knelt before his small carved-bone altar and meditated deeply, summoning peace and serenity, contemplating the tools he would need to accomplish what his lover asked of him. On the second night of his vigil, he began grinding salt and dried herbs together, mixed with a handful of earth taken from the monastery garden and nine drops of his blood. He left the mixture in its earthenware bowl on the altar over the day to continue strengthening, and that day dreamed strange dreams in which a mighty tower of stone and glass rose from the crest of the hill on which the monastery sat, shining by both night and day. On the third night, he rose and, before he engaged in any of his rituals of cleansing, he went to his lover and begged a small bone cup of his blood, which was given without comment or objection. They did not touch, though they each wished to do so, and Ilias returned to his labors, his cleansing, and his lonely bed.
On the fourth night, Ilias rose feeling that he still lacked something to make the spell complete, but uncertain what that thing was. He sent a note to Myca, requesting that the halls between his sanctum and the lower study be cleared that he might travel between the rooms undisturbed, in the hope that Nikita himself might hold some answer to that uncertainty. He received a prompt reply, a note indicating that this would be done, and a small leather pouch containing, Myca said, a sample of Nikita’s grave-earth.
It was what he needed, and Ilias knew it at once.
Nikita looked as though he were sleeping, his face still and every inch of his body utterly relaxed, by all visible indications utterly at peace. Given the violence that Ilias imagined attending his capture, the witch-priest found that apparently peaceful repose odd and disturbing, and avoided looking at Nikita whenever possible. In truth, he had not much time to waste on idle curiosity: the ritual would consume time as well as strength, and the length of the night waned.
A fat beeswax candle burned in each quarter of the room, incised with symbols of elemental correspondence, their bases marked with a drop of his blood, the very action of their burning forming the first layer of the invocation. In the silver censer that once belonged to his sire a selection of incenses beloved of the spirits smoldered, filling the room with the sweet-bitter scents of amber and myrrh, hazing the high ceiling in a pall of fragrant smoke. Ilias himself wore gold and amber, braided into his hair, set in two cuff bracelets and a heavy necklace that hung nearly to his navel, metal and stones worked into a pattern that was itself a subtle invitation to the little spirits and greater gods of Earth and Sky. He was otherwise naked, cleansed in salt water, bare areas of skin painted in a mixture of myrrh oil and his own blood.
He used that same mixture to mark Nikita of Sredetz as one of the objects of his spell. The Archbishop of Nod was utterly helpless. Ilias knew that intellectually, and yet he could not deny the fear he felt in the man’s presence—the visceral, instinctive fear of laying hands on a thing that could destroy him at will. His own fear roused a hiss of terror from his Beast, which was many things, including a good deal more craven than the man who owned it. He felt that blind terror clawing at the dark places of his soul and reached out to clasp it, admitted it for what it was—the knowledge that, somehow, Nikita of Sredetz was a thing to fear even immobile and incapable of defending himself. He knew it for truth, but did not permit that knowledge to stay his h
and or turn him aside and his Beast, recognizing the acceptance of its wisdom, subsided, watchfully subdued but not quiescent.
Ilias touched the tip of one finger, moistened in blood and oil, to Nikita’s brow, drawing a sigil that his sire had taught him before her destruction, a word encapsulated in a single sign, to draw the notice of gods and spirits. It was a language no longer spoken by any mortal tongue, his sire had taught him, a language older than that of the Romans and Greeks, handed down through their line and, possibly, only the other koldun lineages. It was properly used for only a few purposes—written or spoken entreaties to the Eldest or its bogatyr-childer, invocation, propitiation, thanks, or praise to gods and spirits. Tonight, Ilias invoked. He requested the attention of the ethereal beings of Earth to Nikita of Sredetz, to himself, and to the room in which he stood, for the purpose his will defined. His deft fingers traced sigils on Nikita’s brow, eyelids, throat, hands, feet, begging a binding of the Earth upon him, to hold him in his place, even should he, through some agency, manage to rise. He spelled out a similar request in blood and oil on the floor, in a tight circle around the casket, then laid in place a fine circle of the mingled salt, earths, and blood that he had prepared earlier. A second circle went around this one, and then a third. All the while, he incanted softly in the tongue of spirits, singing praise and offering petition, his voice sweetly seductive.
Ilias could feel his request being answered. The attention of the earth-spirits, deep-rooted and strong but sluggish yet from winter’s grip, turned to focus upon him, hear his words, sample the offerings he held up for their delectation. They favored the perfume of amber and myrrh, scents derived of tree-sap and earth-life, and the rich taste of salt and blood spilled in their honor. The stones of the floor rippled slightly as the earth beneath them stirred, the spirits stretching up stony fingers and rocky tongues to taste of the essences provided and consider his request. Dimly, around the sensations that assailed him, the caress of spirit hands and the slow, deep sound of spirit voices, he realized that the whole of the monastery was trembling gently in response to his call. It seemed a touch excessive, and he altered his incantation slightly, to weave in a question…
And received an answer. A numbingly intense sensation washed over him and through him—age, incredible age, married to a vast expanse of sorrow and regret, a grief as infinite as the sky and as deep as the roots of the earth. Ilias swayed and fell to his hands and knees as the sensation filled him, tears washing his face and a sob locking in his chest, choking off his voice and his invocation. He found his lips forming a word, two words, but he lacked the air to give them sound.
Fortunately, no more words were needed of him.
Blood and oil, salt, earth, and blood, sank into the stones of the floor, leaving behind traces that gleamed with the light of the magic that formed them. He felt his strength drawn from him in a single great rush as the spirits accepted the bargain—to bind Nikita of Sredetz and ward his place of rest against all comers but the magnat of the land, its rightful ruler, and to endure until such a time as the bonds were dismissed. Earth was always amenable to such arrangements, for it was earth’s purpose to endure, and the offerings he made were rich and sweet. Ilias let his forehead slump to the floor and he whispered a word of thanksgiving to the stones of the floor, remaining in his posture of deeply submissive honor until he felt strong enough to move. His face was stiff with tears, his soul still quivering with the pain he had experienced, and his body felt as though it were a statue cast of solid lead. His Beast was roused, and lashed hungrily inside him, woken by the sudden drain on his strength.
And the stairs were many and high.
Setting his feet on them, leaning hard against the wall to support himself, Ilias promised his Beast the first thing they met on the way up. Fortunately, the first thing they met was an Obertus brother, and not a guest.
Ilias found Myca in the oriel room with Lady Rosamund, Sir Gilbrecht, and Sir Landric, evidently doing his duty as host. He came to the door still naked and bloody, his chin and hands coated with the remnants of his meal, mentally exhausted from his efforts if full again. Sir Gilbrecht, unfortunately, saw him first and leapt to his feet with an emphatically Christian exclamation of shock and disgust, reaching for the sword he was not permitted to wear. Ilias found he had neither the inclination nor the lingering tolerance necessary not to smirk at him in response. “Myca.”
Myca sat with his back to the door, opposite Lady Rosamund who, after a single, startled glance kept her eyes modestly averted. He rose slowly, with the perfect elegance of carriage and bearing that Ilias found so attractive, and motioned Sir Gilbrecht to sit. “Please, my lord… do not be alarmed. My companion will do you no harm.”
“Alarmed?” Sir Gilbrecht yelped, the affront so obvious it was almost comical. “I’m not alarmed by that filthy heathen —“
Myca turned sharply, and the Teuton’s voice choked off just as quickly. Distantly, Ilias felt Myca’s cool fury sweeping the room and washing off the walls, silencing Sir Gilbrecht as effectively as a slap. He smiled tiredly, but gratefully, at his lover. “Myca, I fear that Brother Istvan is somewhat indisposed.”
Myca’s dark eyes swept over him in a single, assessing glance, then he turned fully to Lady Rosamund and bowed deeply to her. “My lady, I fear that I must leave you, for a moment, to your own devices. If there is anything that you require in my absence, ask it of the servants. There will also be brothers outside to attend your needs and see to your safety. Please excuse me.”
He did not remain to accept Lady Rosamund’s polite murmur in response, but turned, Ilias by the elbow and guided him out into the hall. Silk-clad arms closed around him and swept him from the floor, carrying him with the ease of an adult hefting a sickly child, and Ilias let his head fall against his lover’s shoulder, his eyes drift closed and weariness to claim him for a time. He came back to himself as he was laid on a length of silk and a mass of furs, a cushion beneath his head, as gentle hands removed his necklace and bracelets, took the ornaments from his hair. He lacked the ambition to force his eyes open or move in any way, and passively submitted to the care he was being given. A cloth dipped in warm water scented with bath herbs washed the blood from his face and hands, and the remnants of the oil from his skin. A warmed towel blotted away the water. Then those wonderful, glorious, gentle hands poured a stream of lightly dampened earth down the center of his chest and began massaging it in, stroking slowly and deeply, spreading it across his chest and belly, down his arms and over his thighs. He moaned softly in pleasure and found, for the first time, the will to open his eyes as the strength of his own earth suffused him, restoring him in a way that even blood could not.
Myca leaned over him, naked to the waist, hair bound back in a loose knot, his hands coated in grave earth and an expression of undisguised concern on his face. “Ilias?”
“I am here, my flower.” Ilias pushed himself up on his elbows, and from there into a boneless sitting position, half-slumped over his own legs. Myca stroked a muddy hand down his spine. “Did the whole monastery shake, or was that just me?”
“We felt a tremor, yes. But it did not last for very long.” Both hands now, working loamy earth into the muscles of his back, and Ilias felt immensely better, all at once. “It seemed different for you?”
“Yes. Much stronger. It shook everything in the realms of spirit, I felt for quite some distance. It should not have done that.” He lifted his head slowly. “And I felt very odd in Nikita’s presence, and the impressions I received while I was working were stranger still.”
Myca’s hands went still against his back, and through that contact Ilias felt a sharpening of the tension inside him. “Odd?”
“Yes. I feared him, completely, immediately. It was all I could do to work in his presence. And during the spell…” Ilias paused to consider both the memory of it and his words. “I felt a sensation of great sorrow, a terrible pain, the beginning of which I could not see, nor its ending. I could not
tell if it came from Nikita himself, or the spirits of his earth. It might have been both.”
Myca’s hands restarted their soothing motion, but his tension persisted. “When I was alone with him I felt impelled to lay my hands on him. The desire was not my own, and I cannot explain where the need to do so came from, or why I obeyed it.” He fell silent. Ilias turned his face to watch his lover’s expression as he worked, and found it alarmingly empty. “He appeared to be in pain when he arrived. The Ventrue was not gentle with him. When I lifted my hands away, he was as you saw him, as though he had been soothed and comforted, somehow.”
“Who is he, Myca?” Ilias whispered, unnerved. “Who is Nikita of Sredetz that he can command such power, even helpless?”
“I do not know.” Softly. “But I will find out.”
Chapter Six
“Stapân Vykos.” Father Aron bowed as deeply as his arthritic joints would allow. “A man has come to the gates, and craves an audience with you.”
Myca lifted his eyes from the letter he was reading for the half-hundredth time. “Tell me of him. Is it a messenger from Jürgen of Magdeburg, seeking after his missing ambassador?”
“No, my stapân, it is not. He is dressed roughly, in the garments of a knight-pilgrim, and he claims to be a traveler,” the old monk hesitated slightly, “from Constantinople. He gives his name as Malachite.”
“Malachite.” Through a heroic application of willpower, Myca managed to keep his tone cool and level. “By all means, Father, show our illustrious guest to the small receiving chamber, and make certain that he is offered any refreshment he requires. I shall join him presently.”
Father Aron bowed again and departed as swiftly as his legs could carry him. For a long moment, Myca sat at his writing desk, unmoving, his thoughts winding around themselves as he considered what this development meant. Malachite, the Rock of Constantinople. It strained credulity to ascribe his appearance, so soon after the arrival of Nikita of Sredetz, to mere coincidence. Malachite, when last Myca had spoken with him, was on a quest, chasing the tattered remnants of the Dream to which he had dedicated his unlife, seeking the last survivor of its founders, Myca’s own not so distant ancestor, the Dracon. When they met in Magdeburg, Malachite had enjoyed little success in his effort thus far, having traveled from Constantinople to Erciyes, seeking the wisdom of the ancient Cappadocian oracle who dwelt there and receiving ultimately little guidance from that effort. From the holy mountain temples of Erciyes he traveled much of the world, seeking some clue or sign that would lead him further and, evidently, coming across that clue in Paris. Malachite had admitted, somewhat tersely, that he felt there was a connection of some kind between the Dracon and the heretical Archbishop of Nod, an assertion that Myca himself was not immediately prepared to credit without significantly more evidence than Malachite had been able to provide.
Dark Ages Clan Novel Tzimisce: Book 13 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga Page 5
