JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING II

by JANRAE FRANK

  Omer returned. He helped Skree pin Dinger down while Josiah drove the long nails through his wrists and ankles, bending the heads so that the sa'necari could not rip himself loose.

  "My only regret," Talons said, "is that your death will not free or heal the souls you have taken and broken."

  She summoned her claws and started with his genitals, then rethought it, sheathed her claws and started again with her knives. She slit his cock lengthwise, peeling back the thin layer of skin, sliced rounds off it like a cook with a sausage. When she had it down to a stump, she slit the testicle sacks open, popped the rounds out, and shoved them into Dingarim's mouth.

  Omer looked green when she got that far, covered his mouth with his hands, and fled. Josiah's eyes followed him out, but Skree never took his from Dingarim. The triton's face reflected an unholy enjoyment of the whole process.

  Each time the sa'necari tried to slide into unconsciousness, Talons nodded at Skree who put his hands to Dingarim's temples and forced him back to awareness. She removed his toes, then slit the skin of his calf, peeling it away in long strips. When she tired of his screaming and pleading, she cut his tongue out. Sa'necari were hard to kill, they could take a lot of punishment and continue breathing, especially the older ones who had taken hundreds of mortgiefan. She skinned him; all except his face, then slit his stomach open and pulled his intestines out, draping them about his head. She reached into his chest through the stomach cavity and cut his heart loose. Dingarim died. Talons spoke a single word as his soul rose from his body and sent it screaming to the Dark Judge.

  Talons put Dingarim's heart in Skree's hands. "Take his head. Throw it all into the sea and summon lots of fish to clean his bones." Then she turned to Josiah. "Is there a place where I can clean up? Then I want to see this viper."

  "How old are you?" Josiah asked, looking her over closely as he walked her back to the Cock and Boar. While it was difficult to tell, the Sharani being long-lived, she looked like a young, barely pubescent girl, which made her stone-cold butchering of the sa'necari so disturbing.

  "Nineteen." Her voice was casual, indifferent. She already had more kills than most forty-year veterans.

  "Are all nineteen year old Guildsmyn as bloody minded as you?"

  "No. My grandsire rules Creeya."

  "He's the Grand Master?"

  "Yes."

  "How long have you been doing this?"

  She shrugged. "I made my first kill at eleven."

  "Eleven?"

  "He was a pedophile, raping and murdering children. Young girls to be exact. I went undercover and let him grab me."

  "How did you kill him?"

  "With a kiss. Do you know what bi-kyndi are?"

  Josiah nodded.

  "Then you know how I killed him. I am the strongest bi-kyndi the Sharani have ever produced and I've never been trained. That means any male who touches me intimately dies whether I want him to or not."

  Josiah shuddered, as he had not while watching the torture death of the sa'necari. The unleashed bi-kyndi burned out the nerves, then the brain and finally stopped the heart.

  * * * *

  "Yes," Talons said, turning the dead viper over in her hands, "I think I can help you here. This one had a nerve toxin, right?"

  "Yes," Taun answered watching her hopefully.

  "Several of the strongest nerve toxins have little difficulty getting past the Sharani resistance factor. One of these, magically enhanced," she shook the viper, "killed my ma'aram. So my grandsire put his Readers and apothecaries on the problem. They produced this." Talons pulled a tiny vial from a hidden compartment of her belt. She took Taun's hand, put the vial into it, and folded his fingers over it. "Even if the venom was magically enhanced, this will still help her. Give her all of this. You should see a difference within hours."

  Taun immediately turned to race out.

  "Another thing," Talons drew him back. "Study the fangs, think about the way they force the venom into the body. They're hollow." The Guild had a hollow fang technology down pat, but they used it to kill. She had always wondered what a healer might do with it. In the back of her mind she could still hear Wilstryn telling her how wondrous it had been to discover that, in a family long known for taking life, there was finally one who would be giving life: her son Sohkoran. They were both dead now, but Talons hoped she had just done some small act that would atone for her having been unable to protect them.

  * * * *

  They sat upon a bit of rock, the surf pounding around them: Branch in his deerskins and a necklace of wolf's teeth and carved bone beads; Skree in a simple breechclout, seemingly immune to the cold; and Josiah in black wool and leather. A small bowl sat in the center. A red and black silk pouch lay atop the bowl and beneath were seven small objects: hematite to heal, ground and stabilize; red jasper to repel and reflect Mephistis' assaults back at him; scarlet pearl to close the door on the link and prevent scrying; tawny agate, a warrior's stone of victory in battle; piece of bone from the archenwyrm Aejys killed to lend her strength and power; chalcedony to ward off psychic attack; and then a perfect blood red ruby to block all magical attacks.

  They chose out stones one at a time, speaking to them, chanting and calling their innate powers to life, enhancing them with their own powers and strengths. As they finished imbuing the stones they placed them in the pouch. When all the stones were in the pouch, the pouch went round, each of them tying it closed with a bit of deer hide supporting a rune or animal: A carved bone raven for Branch; the rune of Nerindalori for Skree; and the rune of Aroana for Josiah.

  When they finished Skree gave the pouch to Josiah, who Jumped himself and Branch to the beach near the spot where Skree had left his clothes. Skree sprang down from the rock, wading through the surf. He dressed quickly and they walked back together.

  Josiah carried the pouch to Aejys. Zyne was sitting with her when he entered. He gave a nod at the door and Zyne – after throwing a measuring, reflective glance at his back – left. Aejys slept curled on her side with her hands shoved under the pillows. She was much better, but still very tired. He kissed her awake, slipping the amulet over her head.

  "Never take this off. So long as you wear it Mephistis cannot touch you."

  Aejys smiled and pulled his face down for another long kiss. "Thank you. I've been dreaming about you. Climb in and I'll show you what the dreams were about."

  * * * *

  Taun sat for days with the dead viper. Skree had skinned it and the hide was now stretched across a long frame to cure in salt and some other smelly chemicals that made the nerien's nostrils ache when he got too close to it. Paper, pencils, and a wealth of various sketching materials, were spread across Taun's desk. The viper resided in a jar of snow to preserve it. Taun lifted the viper from the jar, extended his awareness into the dead thing, studying the muscles and the sack and gland arrangement that delivered the venom. Then he put it back into the snow and started sketching.

  If there were a way to deliver medicine directly to the blood stream it would act faster than both the by mouth and the refined powder through the mucus membranes methods many healers used. Perhaps there might even be a mundane method to mimic the effects of Josiah's spell of Shared Life.

  Taun put away his sketching, hefted the jar in the crook of his arm, and went downstairs. The number of people in the common room startled him until he remembered the Cock and Boar had reopened that morning. A guardsmon snagged his sleeve. "Let me help you with that," she said, taking the viper jar from him.

  Taun did not know what to say, so he just nodded and let go.

  "Where are you going with it?"

  "Cook. I want to boil the flesh off. I'm doing a diagram of the skeleton."

  One customer stood up, waving a mug of beer and sloshing some of the foam over the side. "Here's to the good mon who saved Aejystrys Rowan, Prince Protector of Vorgensburg, King of Rowanhart!"

  "But..." Taun protested startled.

  Everyone in the room stood up,
shouting and waving.

  "But..."

  The guardsmon leaned close, whispering, "It's all over town how you and Becca nailed Dinger. And how you cured Aejys."

  Taun sighed. The attention made him distinctly uncomfortable, especially since it had been Talons' medicine and not his that brought the cure; and he knew he had not been nearly as ferocious as they were describing him. After all it had been Becca who hit Dinger with a book. That part seemed to have gotten lost.

  "I'll get this to Cook, get the thing started. You stay. You deserve this."

  Omer launched into another retelling of the tale, including the part where Taun decked Skree with embarrassing embellishments.

  Someone pushed a chair seat against Taun's legs, pressing his shoulder to get him to sit. Someone else ordered another round and Taun found himself holding a foaming mug of golden ale before he could refuse. Someone else started singing a congratulatory song. The rest of the room took it up.

  Taun lost count of how much beer and ale he had obligingly drunk as people kept refilling his glass and shoving it at him in a friendly manner. The minstrel Becca had hired to entertain Aejys during her convalescence climbed onto a table, announcing he had written a new song in Taun's honor. Taun winced, but endured it. All the attention brought out his shyness, making him distinctly uncomfortable. The impromptu celebration continued until late evening when Skree finally appeared and rescued him, but not before stopping to add his own embellishments to the tale.

  Skree put him to bed, but Taun was out of it in an instant looking for a basin to spew in. He knelt on the floor, feeling wretched as he heaved. He thought briefly about Josiah, wondering how he could endure this so regularly.

  "You will have a mighty headache, little seal, come morning."

  Taun nodded and that set him off again.

  Skree settled next to him, supporting him when it looked as he would follow the vomit into the basin. "And you will be very busy come morning. You promised to examine nine or ten children as possible apprentices."

  "I did?"

  Skree laughed, a deep roar that started in his belly. "Yes. You did."

  "Ohhhh!"

  "The town wants many more fighting healers."

  "But I didn't... Oh, my!"

  Skree laughed again. "You not only heal, you defend your patients. Ferocious little seal."

  "But I can't..."

  "You can. We will manage. Whatever you can't teach, I can."

  Skree fetched water and cloth, cleaned him up, and then put him back to bed. This time Taun stayed there.

  * * * *

  Zyne crouched upon the floor of the Great Grotto, beside a small fire. She slipped out of her clothing, bowing to the fire, throwing incense into it, and breathing in the fragrant smoke as it rose. She wrote a name upon a cedar chip and threw it into the fire. Then she began to sing softly, not enough to waken anyone. The song wafted out along the strand, drifting on a private breeze, reaching undetected for the one she sought.

  "Come to me. Come to me. Come to me," she chanted.

  Soft footsteps on the sand told her when he arrived. She continued to sing, her spell wrapping itself around his sleeping mind tighter as she rose to greet him. This male was strong. She might never be able to take him awake and sober. This was the one she wanted. The one whose lineage would make her people strong again. He would make them strong enough to defeat the hated tritons – whose race she passed herself off as. She undressed him, pulling him down on top of her, taking him inside her as she wrapped her legs around him. She would sing Josiah back again to Aejys' bed at dawn before anyone would miss him. The Abelard heritage would end among the landsfolk and be continued among her own kind alone. Once she had gotten a child from him, she would kill him according to the ancient rites of the seiryn.

  * * * *

  Talons did not return to Creeya. One of Hadjys' servants was waiting for her on the beach. He dismissed the gryphon, summoned a gate, and took her through to the neutral ground Hadjys and Dynanna had chosen for divvying up the spoils of the Dragonshead soul vault.

  Hadjys himself greeted her. The god was tall and dark, broad of shoulder and narrow at the waist and hips. He wore black leather trousers and a silken tunic split fore and aft from his waist to his knees. There were three priests beside him. One carried a censor that billowed with fragrant smoke. Another carried a decanter of thick blue oil. The third held a small pillow upon which rested a silver-hilted obsidian blade.

  "Remove your tunic and kneel." Hadjys ordered her.

  Talons obediently stripped down to her breast band and knelt.

  "Remove that also."

  Talons hands shook as she laid aside the breastband.

  The priest with the censer came and waved it about her, chanting in a language she did not know. Then the second priest came and anointed her head, throat, and heart. Then the third one came forward. Hadjys took the blade from the pillow and knelt before Talons.

  "Will you serve me always as my paladin, defender of our ways and faith, in this life and the next, avenging the crimes perpetrated on the innocent and helpless?

  "Yes."

  Hadjys cut his right palm and, as the blood welled, he placed his hand between her breasts and a little to the left so that it was precisely over her heart. The touch of his blood sent a searing rush of pain through her. She wanted to scream, but held it in. He took back his hand and the pain ended. Talons looked down and saw the tendriled Rune of Hadjys burned into her breast. Now the sa'necari could still kill her, but they could no longer take her soul in mortgiefan. Of all the gods and yuwenghau, only Hadjys had that knack of snatching his paladins' souls so quickly from their dying bodies that the sa'necari could not catch any of it.

  "Dress," Hadjys told her. "Come and sit with me. Dynanna should arrive soon with the sack of souls."

  Dynanna arrived wearing a scarlet silk dress with a neckline that plunged almost to her waist and looking a bit whey-faced. She lowered the sack, gave Hadjys a long look, and rushed into his arms as he rose to greet her.

  Hadjys held her for a long time, kissing her deeply and then just holding her. She trembled in his arms and he murmured soft reassurances, whispering finally where only Dynanna could hear. "Who caught you this time?" He stroked her stomach as if to feel the child he knew was there.

  "Kalirion."

  "Ah. Now many things make sense." Hadjys lifted Dynanna into his arms and carried her to his pavilion, settling among the pillows with her. "At the request of Kalirion, I sent our paladin, Talons Trollbane, to execute an apostate priest who had become sa'necari. Among a list of heinous crimes, Kalirion made an odd comment concerning a lady he would not name whom this sa'necari had insulted by calling her an 'idiot'. Would that be you?"

  Dynanna nestled deeper into Hadjys' arms, nodding against his shoulder, seeming thoroughly and oddly chastened.

  "Did he catch you stealing or did you go to him?"

  "I needed information. I – I traded."

  "It must have been very important for you to submit to his rough handling again."

  Dynanna nodded into his shoulder.

  Hadjys kissed her face, starting at the top and working his way down to her lips where he lingered. "My poor darling. Dynarien is making us wait. Perhaps we should make him wait." She nodded again. Hadjys rose, still holding her. He turned to Talons, speaking loud enough to be heard this time. "We have things to discuss in private. Ask Dynarien to be patient when he arrives."

  Then he carried Dynanna off to the far end of the garden, disappearing into the trees. He found a cozy spot and laid her down, stretching out beside her. He caressed and kissed her with infinite tenderness, knowing he would probably be giving her a second child that day to reside with the other beneath her heart. Her unbridled fertility was one of the issues that kept them apart. They had discovered early in their relationship that she could conceive more than once if she lay with him on successive days. Since he had a good relationship with the Nine, he decided then that
he would consult with Ishla Twice-Gendered about finding a potion to help her control it the way that human women did. He wanted Dynanna for herself, not for the children she could give him: unending pregnancy would eventually destroy her wild spirit and that would be very sad indeed. He hoped she had cursed Kalirion for his roughness.

  Hadjys gently freed one of her breasts from the dress. She moaned softly as he ran his rough tongue over the nipple. Give her a couple of weeks and her body would be past the danger of multiple conceptions, then he would go to her in her garden.

  * * * *

  Dynarien fumed, pacing up and down, knowing full well where his sister had gone and what was transpiring. She did not mate with gods often, but when she did he always found himself carrying both their workloads. He wanted to complain, but knew he would feel guilty later: after all she had gotten Kalirion's child trying to help him.

  "I take it my granddaughter and Hadjys are trysting."

  Dynarien snapped to attention, swiveling around. "Father, what are you doing here?"

  Willodarus stood in the clearing, surveying Dynarien, the pavilion, Hadjys' priests, and finally the sack of souls. The ancient god looked like a gnarled and twisted old tree that had mysteriously grown into a man. His skin was a deep, warm brown; his fingers long and twiggy; his hair a long dark forest green hanging to his knees; his face was gaunt and seamed while his eyes were a midnight blue alive with dancing silver sparkles. He wore only a rough loincloth. "I take it your sister is giving me more great-grandchildren?" He chuckled. "The other eight in our grand pantheon are currently in an uproar over her. Most of the females want to lock her up. Ishla has become very curious about her, but means her no harm. Kalirion is desperately petitioning me for her hand in marriage. Badonth is setting traps for her, convinced that if he can get her into bed she'll never leave him. Torrundar is just shaking his head at it all."

  "What did you tell Kalirion?"

  "I told him Dynanna had to make up her own mind."