Keepers of Eternity

by kimberly

  Morgan clamped his free hand over her nose and mouth. And though self-loathing rose in the back of his throat, a flaming acrid bile, his grip was hard. Unrelenting. Merciless. Julienne did not have a chance to defend herself. There was hardly a struggle from her weakened body as she quickly lost strength. Her breathing grew rapid and shallow. Her face grayed. A film of sweat appeared and her back arched high in agony as her lungs began to burn from the deprivation of life-giving oxygen.

  Morgan held his hand firm, defeating her chance to breathe. His grip around her wrists tightened, his fingers imprinting in her pale skin, bruising the delicate tissue.

  Moments passed in agonizing silence as he snuffed out the spirit of her life. Her laboring heart beat no more. A weak kittenish whimper escaped her pale lips when he drew away his hand.

  "Is she gone?" Anlese's reedy voice came from behind.

  "Yes. It is done."

  Less than ten hours after arriving at Blackthorne Manor, Julienne was dead.

  Chapter Nine

  Anlese Blackthorne's quarters were on the same floor as the master suite down the turn of the hall leading into a cul‑de‑sac of rooms. The advantage of this location was that no one could enter or exit the room without being seen. There was one entrance, a single door of carved oak. It was beautifully decorated with symbols of Celtic imagery, a work of art.

  The door swung inward on well-oiled hinges. Inside her dim room the furnishings were simple and somewhat meager, considering the lavishness spread throughout the rest of the manor. The largest piece of furniture was the bed, covered with a black-and-gray patchwork quilt. Beside it stood a table. An oil lamp turned to a low flame sat on its smooth, indigo surface. At the foot of the bed was a huge cedar chest, intricately carved and covered with a hand-tatted shawl of silken thread. The chest's well-polished varnish was dark with age, a sign of the times it had passed through since fashioned by a carpenter more than a century earlier. A matching chest of drawers and an armoire completed the bed suite. Hand-woven rag rugs covered the floor. Several paintings of Blackthorne's landscape over the decades hung on the walls. There was nothing in the way of photographs to be found. All Blackthornes eschewed that form of capturing an image.

  Another door led to a small private dressing room with an attached private bathroom, a room she also usually lit by candlelight or an oil lamp. The electrical outlets throughout the rooms went unused.

  Anlese led Morgan to a third, less obvious, door. He carried Julienne's limp body effortlessly, as if she were no more than a small child asleep in his arms. Opening it with a key only she possessed, she beckoned for him to enter into the depths of the shadows residing within her secret chamber. The only illumination was a snapping fire burning in the hearth, the fireplace mantel, like the walls of the manor itself, fashioned out of natural rock harvested from the area. A large black kettle was suspended over the flames. The pleasant scent of herbs mingled with the humid steam filling the room. On the floor around the hearth were several clay pots and hand-woven reed baskets. Each contained a different element needed in herbal conjuring.

  In the exact center of the room was a large altar, six feet long and four feet wide, its ends pointing east and west. Covered with a white silk cloth, a table beside the altar held the items needed in ritual conjuring: four colored candles, a small dagger and--most impressive, for it was the most personal of her ritual items--a large crystal chalice. The glass was etched with a scene of a full moon amidst a background of stars, grouped in a constellation most astronomers would not recognize. The four arms of a crucifix extended behind the moon. Segments of the smoky-blue glass surface were splashed with firelight, dozens of tiny rainbows dancing across its surface. Except for a plain wooden rocker shoved aside in a dark corner, there was no other furniture.

  "Put her here." Anlese pointed to the altar. A Wiccan, or earth witch, she was the one who used the properties of nature to heal and soothe.

  Morgan carried Julienne to the altar, lowering her limp body to the cold stone, laying her out as one would a breakable object. Despite his outward calm, he was on edge. As a former necromancer, he was familiar with the tenets of ceremonial magic. Many centuries ago, under personal duress, he had turned from the ways of a darker, more devouring witchcraft than what he had taught the Blackthorne women to practice since his occupation of the mortal realm.

  Anlese smiled with satisfaction. She began to arrange Julienne's body in the proper position for the ceremony that would repair her weak body. "Do you remember when you built this first house?"

  Morgan nodded absently. "Yes. Over two hundred and fifty years ago."

  "A great amount of time for mortals," she said, "but nothing to you."

  He said nothing.

  Anlese went to the fireplace. She lowered herself to her knees, cushioning her legs with a thick woven straw mat. From one of the clay pots, she picked out a few items whose properties would help soothe her arthritis. Camphor was one, peppermint another. Boiled down, they would create a liniment to alleviate the pains of an aged body. She basked in the damp heat of the steam swelling from the kettle. Her wrinkled skin grew rosy as she held her gnarled hands over it.

  "There are no children to be born here at Blackthorne," she said. "I think this place is truly coming to its end. The forces once here are leaving it."

  "It was never meant to be a permanent thing." Watching her, Morgan folded his arms across his chest. It was a posture of frustration, one that betrayed his pique. He understood human nature better than most of his kind, for he had been born on the mortal side and lived as one for the first thirty-seven years of his life.

  "This body's been worn hard," she commented. "I'll be glad to be freed of its pains."

  Morgan shrugged. For him, there was no escape through a simple death.

  "I hate to think of leaving here," she murmured, adding more camphor to her kettle. "These walls have given us so much shelter."

  "Everything comes to its end," he said gravely.

  "That's easy for you to say." Anlese doled out a secretive, knowing smile. "I'd love to be as you are. Forever under forty. The best years of a man's life. You were at your strongest when your legacy claimed you."

  "I would prefer it had not claimed me at all," he said sourly. "These centuries have been too damn long for me."

  Anlese 'tsked' in disapproval. "Despite your will to the contrary, I know you're a survivor."

  "Forget this talk, Anlese."

  "As you wish. I must put my mind toward healing my granddaughter. She deserves to have this life. She's been so unhappy. Hers is a searching soul."

  Morgan furrowed his brow into a thunderous scowl. "Cassandra is to blame for her ruin. She took the girl away, would not allow her to know her rightful place."

  "You and Cassandra were oil and water. It is my failing that I did not prepare her better. She did not understand why we serve you."

  "When your ancestor made her pact with me to become a sentinel…" His words trailed into silence.

  "And we have served you well. You gave us the secrets, taught us to manipulate the invisible world around us. It was a true gift, one I do not regret having."

  "Many would call it a curse."

  She picked up a clay bowl. "I must get to my work."

  "Be done with it," he said irritably. Feeling the stress of his coming punishment, he was shifting toward an unreasonable frame of mind.

  One would think that to exist forever, to be eternally untouched by time's decay, would be a magnificent experience. Not so. Although he didn't age, his mind, his psyche, was doomed to chip away. It was a horrifying, long disintegration. Some believed he had brought the curse upon himself through his own self-loathing. Perhaps he had, but there was nothing he could do to alter it now. Another cycle of burnout was rapidly approaching. The price of who he was, of what he was, was an agony he could not escape. It was something he had to endure as an immortal being. His legacy had been foisted upon him before his birth, many centuries before
he had left his mother's womb, at a time when even this world was ruled by the occult.

  "Come," said Anlese.

  Morgan walked to the fireplace where she waited. Going down on one knee, he extended his right arm to her, palm face up, revealing there the absence of a love line, heart line or life line.

  Taking up a small knife from among the clutter of her clay pots, she took his hand into one of her own for support. The feel of his flesh was cool, as opposed to hers, which had been warmed by the heat of the fire. Placing the blade against his skin, she murmured a few words. "Cead mile beannachta." One hundred thousand blessings. "May you always remember the energies that dance within every creation."

  "Wishing me a quick healing?" he asked, watching as she cut into the center of his palm. He did not wince, nor otherwise acknowledge the pain of the blade slicing into him. Blood welled to the surface on a quick rush of crimson. Tipping his hand, he let the blood drip into the bowl.

  "Just a bit is all I need," she said when she had collected enough. "It'll help to strengthen her own."

  Morgan closed his fingers over his palm. Lifting it, he brought it to rest upon his chest. The wound was minor and the healing properties of his regenerative system brought an almost immediate halt to the flow of blood.

  "How is it?" Anlese asked. "It never fails to amaze me how easily you take for granted the great gift you have been given as an immortal. So few of your kind are given the godlike ability."

  Morgan lowered his hand and uncurled his fingers. The wound was completely healed. "It is as you knew it would be."

  It had not always been so for him. Before he had left his mortal existence and crossed completely over to the occult, his body had taken damage several times. He still wore the scars of those occasions. It was why one rarely saw him undressed. During his first thirty‑seven years, he had lived a hard and destructive life. Although twelve centuries had since passed, those days still haunted him, shaping him into the man he was in this present time.

  Taking up the bowl, Anlese said, "I must begin before your blood loses its warmth."

  Morgan scowled. He still harbored the suspicion that Julienne was dangerous to him, for her presence aroused emotions he believed he'd lost over the centuries. You know what happens when you give blood to save mortal lives, he thought. You lose another piece of yourself to them…

  Anlese stood, careful not to spill any of the contents of the bowl. More than holding his blood, it held her granddaughter's life; and with it the future fate had written for her.

  Getting up from the fireplace, Morgan settled into a corner, sitting on the bare floor, his back to the wall. He pulled up a leg and laced his fingers around the knee as he watched Anlese begin her night's work over her altar. She faced the east, honoring it as a place of renewing power because of the daily rising of the sun. At the four corners around Julienne's body she placed a candle; yellow for east, white for south, gray for west and black for north. Next, she took up her dagger and drew with the tip of the blade an invisible circle of protection around the perimeter of the altar.

  "Great Mother, may you manifest and bless this child I lay before you."

  Laying down her dagger, she put her hand over the yellow candle and held it, calling forth the element. "I call upon you, powers of the air, to witness this rite and guard this child." The candle came to light, producing a strong, steady flame.

  She stepped to the south. "I call upon you, powers of fire, to witness this rite and guard this child." The white candle, too, came to light. To the west, "I call upon you, powers of water, to witness this rite and guard this child." As expected, a flame appeared and the gray candle was lit. Last, to north, to the black candle. "I call upon you, powers of earth, to witness this rite and protect this child." The last candle, too, lit itself. She repositioned herself back at the center of the altar, again facing the east. "By the powers of the ancient spirits, I bind all power within this circle into this spell. So must it be."

  Morgan followed the rest of the ritual in his mind. He knew this one, for he had once performed a deeper, transcendental version of it.

  How long had it been since he had last given sacrifice? Centuries. He didn't regret giving up his own witchcraft. It had taken too much out of him, eaten away at his existence as surely as the migraines ate away at his mind. He had sworn he would never go back to practicing. He could think of no circumstance that would ever entice him to embrace those powers anew.

  As Anlese continued her spell-work, his mind turned back to the coming days that would bring his departure from Blackthorne. He could tell by the shifting of the stars that the time was drawing ever near.

  Come the Samhain, I will once again see the dark skies.

  Samhain. The Feast of the Dead, and the end of the Celtic year. The new year would begin on October thirty-first, come sunset. It was on this night that the veil between the three worlds would be thinnest. At that time, the seals closing the portals between the mortal and occult realms would begin to open. It could be not stopped. Once the bonds were undone, Sclydian entities would again be free to hunt among the mortal race. They would come, slowly at first, wielding the godlike power that would bring upon the mortal people the apocalypse that would ravage their world.

  It was, too, the prophecy of the Lioar Fàisneachd, the hallowed scriptures of the Celtic druids, written over seven thousand years ago, foretelling the end of days: The Dragon and his legions will wage a great war--the will of the beast will rise and death shall reign over all…

  Death. Ironically, it was what he was best at delivering. It was what he did. He was, after all, a professional mercenary.

  As an assassin, he had been instrumental in ending the first war of the Dark Ages. He had been the catalyst. Then, it was believed he would take Sclyd as his own. As suddenly as he had reached his own pinnacle of power, though, he abandoned it. With so much death delivered by his hand, he found there were few who would dare stand against him. He had become known as the Reaper incarnate, become the type of being he had fought against, sacrificing lives to feed his own power. His penchant for murder was boundless--until one act alone caused him to realize the evil he had become.

  Nisidia.

  Her name resounded in his mind. Why had he opened her grave, disturbing her memory? Was it because her rest would never be an easy one?

  The sash…tightening around her neck…

  They were tied, the two of them,

  Her pleading words, begging for her life…

  Forever…

  Her betrayal…

  The child she carried…became the bond on his soul…

  Her death would haunt him until the end of his days, had turned him from the occult, making him realize the senselessness of bloodshed. There was no sport in killing, and he wanted it to end. There had been only one path to redemption: he renounced the legacy of his birth and became an exile, slipping into the mortal realm and performing the ritual of separation--just as the three worlds went out of celestial alignment and sealed up the portals of travel.

  He was not alone, either. Many immortals like himself had also found a haven in this world, and he encountered them often during his travels throughout the many lands. For some of them, the wars were over, and they only wished to survive their centuries in peace. Others, however, were not so likeminded, and he had no compunction about exterminating them before they did the same to him.

  All that is about to change.

  Now that the dimensions were realigning, those seals were literally coming apart at the seams. For every action, there was one to oppose it. Time was all that was needed, and time had been granted. With each passing year, the three worlds had been drawn back toward each other as the skies shifted. He'd known the separation would not last, for the three worlds were meant to be a single entity. Parted, they must, like magnets, be drawn back together. His plans to depart Sclyd before the division had been a perfect casting, done without haste and with much planning. Soon, however, he would be payi
ng dearly for his disavowal of the legacy.

  Abandoning his world to pandemonium, he had done the inconceivable: turned on his own. For over three centuries, he had attempted to dodge the ramifications of his decision to forsake the metaphysical, a crime unto itself, but he did not care. Life had become a game to him--to keep it or lose it was a matter of chance. Returning to Sclyd would be to sign his own death warrant. He wondered if he had been right in trying to escape the destiny fate had written for him. His list of enemies was long and many. The price on his head was high. If he did not return to Sclyd, they would come looking for him, just as they would come to molest this land and its people, descending like locusts to replenish the mortal resources they had been denied these last few centuries.

  Take a look inside yourself, Morgan. You can no longer run or hide from the inevitable. You knew it would not last, that the three realms would come back together. Value every breath you take. Those who betray must fall.

  If I am to die, he mused, I will choose a warrior's death, fight for what I believed in. It hardly mattered. His existence had become nothing in this mortal world. He grew tired of having to play human games, change his identity every few decades because he did not age as they did.

  When the portals open, the dark wars will begin anew and chaos will reign.

  It was as the ancient writings predicted: The Dragon shall ascend in the skies as souls are devoured. High mountains shall become canyons, seas will swallow land and oases become arid deserts--it was a fitting end. One day, this land would be ravaged, its people mere slaves, sacrifices to feed the hunger of those who would be gods.

  And did the Christian Bible not say to each thing there is a season?