JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING II

by JANRAE FRANK

  When Margren looked about eight or nine, Mephistis took out a blade and cut his arm. He pressed the bleeding wound to Margren's mouth. She sucked on it, then raised a happily blood smeared face to him. The scene skipped to Margren and Mephistis beneath the same pine. Margren's body was still not fully mature, but Mephistis appeared to be around fifteen or sixteen. Dree guessed Margren's age at around ten or eleven. They shared blood, and then he opened his pants and hers, and entered her. The pool glazed over in soft blue and cleared: the scrying was ended.

  Josiah became aware of Dree weeping softly against the priest's shoulder. "There was never anything anyone could have done different. The die was cast before anyone knew."

  "She said she met me first, but she didn't. She'd been lying with him, sharing blood since childhood. She never really wanted me. She..."

  "Dree," Josiah said. "She could have loved you also."

  "No. She couldn't've. She just wanted a womb for her children. She knew how I was. She knew I would never've even considered handfasting with someone involved with a sa'necari. She knew it. My ancestor, Carliff suffers under an undead curse, he and his household guard the valley, defend the living, and each night they pray for forgiveness and release to true death. Every night until I ran away – I was fourteen – I heard their cries and lamentations, their pleading with the gods for release. Only a priest or paladin of the Lineage of Rowan can release him."

  "So you went looking for the Rowans and found Margren."

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't you talk to the others?"

  "Because Margren said not to. Later she said they had all refused and would break up our relationship if they knew I was descended of Carliff. She said they would kill me."

  "So then you were too frightened to speak."

  Dree hung her head. "Yes. She said a necromancer, a close friend, would find a way to do it. That was Mephistis. But they never intended to do it. Later, I caught them talking. I confronted them. They told me the dead were to be ruled, not released. Now the Rowans are all dead – except for Aejys."

  "Can the rule be taken from Carliff?"

  "I don't know. Mephistis seems to think that if he can reach Carliff's castle in the north that he can wrest control from him. He's spoken endlessly of such possibilities."

  "This is bad," Suthana said. "Very bad. If he took the valley, then the Waejontori could strike at Vallimrah. Carliff's valley borders on the fireborns' breeding grounds. The Waejontori could possibly destroy the fireborn themselves. Or their breeding grounds. That would be just as bad. With the fireborn gone or heavily reduced in numbers, the dragons would come back."

  "You must not let that happen," Dree said.

  "I am not sure how to do that," Josiah replied, shaking his head slowly.

  "Aejys must get the sword. You must secure that castle, mage," the priest said. "As only the living can."

  "I'll try."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  JULDRID

  "Your young friend is alive," Lord Hoon told Mephistis. The prince lay in bed, recovering from an especially bad attack following an argument with Margren. Like so many illnesses that had their origins in rite, ritual, and magic, Mephistis' attacks could be set off by strong emotions, especially anger or rage.

  "Isranon?" Mephistis asked hopefully, sitting propped against many pillows.

  "Yes. But we had a time of discovering it. Claw and his people are hiding him very well and never leaving him alone."

  "They've always been very protective of him. Their lawgiver, Nevin, is his guurmondru."

  Hoon steepled his fingers, tapping them against his lips as he thought. "I have never heard of that happening. Humans are indiscriminate, teaching any who have a taste for it and an ability. Not so our folks, yours, and the lycans. We keep our teachings to our own species. And did you already know they named him clan-brother? A first I think for a sa'necari."

  Mephistis took another swallow of Sanguine Rose from the glass on the bedside table. "I did not know about the clan-brother. It must have happened after we parted company and I sent him to Claw with a companion to ward him."

  "Sa'necari companion? They are hiding him in a cave with a bleeding table in front of it. My lycans say they smelled old sa'necari blood upon it. Might they be hiding him because he ate his companion?"

  Mephistis stiffened and took a long swallow from the glass before answering. "No. Isranon would never do that."

  "How can you know that? The youth is, after all, sa'necari. There is no question of that. You know your people."

  "And I know Isranon."

  "Your Isranon sounds like a very strange sa'necari."

  "He is."

  "You care for him very much. As much as for Margren?"

  Mephistis finished the glass and sat it on the table. "These days, I think I may well love him more."

  Hoon smiled. "Were you lovers?"

  "What exists between Isranon and me is private, Lord Hoon."

  "As you wish. If there is nothing more that I can do for you, then you should rest, my prince. I have a magical working planned for tonight that I will need your assistance with."

  Mephistis nodded. "Thank you for checking the rumors. I look forward to assisting you." Then he closed his eyes and settled into the bed, shifting several of the pillows to the side.

  Hoon watched him slip beneath the pleasant tugging of Sanguine Rose, knowing the troll blood cocktail with its arcane drugs to be highly addictive. He had not shared that information with the prince.

  * * * *

  Bodramet availed himself of the castle gardens. Hoon rarely went here and neither did Mephistis much. Margren, however, came often in search of her assignations or new delights.

  The garden was a delightful mix of flowering hedgerows, many up to twelve feet high.

  He saw Margren slip into a green curtained alcove near the inner walls with Juqwanch. So now she was fucking trouble as well. That female had set sail on an endless voyage of appetite. The potential for going rogue existed in all forms of dead. Generally the wiser ones destroyed those insane ones. Margren definitely showed the symptoms to those who remembered what she had been like as a living female.

  "That one is wilder than any necari I have known. Hungry too," a new voice said at Bodramet's elbow.

  He turned to find a vampire standing there. The male wore a bearskin cloak thrown back which matched the generally hirsute aspect of his stocky, powerful body.

  "I haven't seen you before," Bodramet remarked.

  The vampire extended his hand. "I arrived from Minnoras this morning. I'm called Haig. I left some of my nibari here to be bred and it is time to retrieve them if they've all caught. Lord Hoon owns several of the finest nibari studs in all of the realm."

  Since the newcomer clearly expected him to accept his hand, Bodramet grasped it and shook quickly. "Yes, she's wild. She belonged to my prince in life. I wonder who she belongs to now that she's undead."

  Haig gave a long, harsh laugh and ran a hand through his unkempt, coarse black hair. "How like a woman."

  Bodramet frowned. He was not certain that he found that funny. "She only became sa'necari a few months before they killed her."

  "If they, and I assume you mean Sharani, killed her, why didn't they burn her?"

  "I rescued her body before they could do so."

  Haig frowned, raking his fingers through his hair again and then pulling at his coarse beard. "And she rewards you by screwing everything in sight? Ah, mon, that's women. No gratitude."

  Bodramet replied a tad stiffly, "I am not certain all females are so ungrateful." This situation with Margren gave him an uneasy feeling. He began to see treachery in every direction among those who were close to him.

  Haig gave a bellowing laugh. "Perhaps not, but I could tell you some tales that would grow hair on your palms."

  Bodramet grinned, beginning to like this odd vampire. "I would like to hear them sometime."

  "Why not now? I've nothing to do before morning
. My private nibari are waiting in my chambers and I have put back several bottles of wine and blood in interesting vintages. We could have a tiny little party. Just us and my seven nibari. I made two very fine acquisitions before I left last time and neither, I am told, has caught yet. You know how it is, nibari are a bit skittish and fragile once they catch. But they settle down. So there's at least two females and a couple of interesting mules I can offer."

  Privately owned nibari in Hoon's castle? Was Haig highly placed and perhaps someone he should cultivate? "Why not? Lead on, friend Haig."

  Haig never stopped talking as they walked through the halls to a section of the castle Bodramet had never entered before. "I was the High Lord of Oakleigh's youngest son three hundred years ago and I've never lost my taste for the good life."

  Bodramet entered the sitting room of Haig's suites and caught his breath sharply when he saw the lovely blonde nibari he had met at that party of Hoon's. He sucked air in through his flaring nostrils. "You."

  The nibari blushed prettily.

  Haig grinned. "Ah, so you've met my Nainee?" He went over and kissed her forehead with his eyes closed. Bodramet knew the vampire was Reading her. Haig raised his head with a stern look. "For shame, Nainee! You're not pregnant yet. I bought you as a breeder to improve my stock, not just look pretty."

  Nainee dropped her head until her chin rested on her chest in the most subservient, yielding position she could assume, presenting her neck to the vampire who owned her. "Forgive me, Master. I have been trying."

  Haig stroked her a moment. "Well, perhaps this will work out after all. You can help me entertain my new friend, Lord Bodramet. You do have a taste for Nainee, don't you?"

  Bodramet's fangs showed fully. "Most assuredly."

  "However," Haig paused to wag his finger at Bodramet. "If you swell her, you'll owe me two hundred gold for the child."

  Bodramet laughed. "I have no children yet. If I swell her, I'll give you three hundred for the child."

  "Very well, until I need to move on to my estates in the south, consider my Nainee loaned to you. Nainee, break out a bottle of the best for us. And some white for yourself."

  * * * *

  "She took my ma'aram away from me. Now she's turned Juldrid. She's stealing my children." Margren paced about the tower room in a loose black robe that swished against her legs, pausing to stare from time to time at the scrying mirror lying in the center of the pentagram. She had felt it when Dree assumed her human form and then scryed them.

  "You don't know the shielded one is Aejys," Mephistis said, struggling to sound patient.

  His placating tone angered her. "Who else would it be? Who. Else. Would. It. Be?"

  "She is right," Hoon said, rising from a chair set in the corner. "We have not been able to scry her for months now. Twelve mortgiefan and you have not sensed her. Her mages have shielded her very well."

  Mephistis nodded. Hoon's efforts and knowledge still staved off the effects of deijanzael, but sometimes the pain was near to breaking the Waejontori prince. It worsened with time, demanding greater and greater amounts of drugs, death, and blood to ease it. But for the fact that necari could not be king; he would have killed himself to find relief in undeath. When he suggested it, however, Hoon had pointed out that undeath would not cure him: deijanzael would wither his undead form into dust. Only the mortgiefan of Aejys Rowan could cure him. That or a greater death – such as a yuwenghau. Hoon knew a certain pair of twins, brother and sister, that he would dearly love to see Mephistis devour and had suggested that it might be possible with help from a powerful ally to get him one of them.

  A sudden, searing pain started in Mephistis' loins, ripping through his body and doubling him over. He cried out as he stumbled to the ground. Margren grabbed him, dragged him into her lap and pressed her lovely undead face against his, weeping bloody tears. "Help him, Hoon."

  Hoon fetched a preserving bottle from the shelf, containing the Sanguine Rose, a troll's blood base laced with heavily refined powders of poppy, pollendine and cactus buttons, among other arcane and very rare substances: a dangerously addictive cocktail. Nothing less had been strong enough to ease the prince. He measured five fingers into a cup, returned the bottle to the shelf, and knelt beside Margren, taking Mephistis from her. He tilted Mephistis' head, lifted the cup to his lips. At the first taste of blood, Mephistis responded. After three swallows, he was sitting up, drinking. Give it half an hour and Mephistis would be floating in strange, waking dreams.

  Hoon stroked Mephistis, the vampire had not been much of a Reader in life, but in his undead state this had improved. He sensed the hunger in the sa'necari. He turned to Margren. "If your highness would be so gracious as to have the captain send up three full meals – or will you still be dining from our plates?"

  Margren giggled. "You always leave the best parts for me." She found the vampire's habit of referring to their victims as meals and such quite charming. "I will include wine."

  "As you wish."

  * * * *

  "Father?" Timon knocked upon the door and then entered. He did not like being here in The City of the Dead. The debauchery of this place always offended his sensibilities. He preferred the quiet estate he had retired to near Minnoras. Yet, whenever his father called, he always answered. He was the good son and good sons often had to suffer for their fathers. He accepted it, for he was a mon of duty.

  "Come in, Timon."

  Hoon emerged from his bedroom wearing only a short black dressing robe wrapped around his nudity and loosely tied so that the sash settled around his narrow hips.

  "You have invited trouble into your home, father."

  "I knew that when I invited the prince. What kind of trouble, Timon?" He poured himself blood and mixed it with wine. "Do you wish some?"

  "No, thank you." Timon settled on a chair at the small table. "I sent for Haig, Dane Jayce, and Nainee. Haig is here now. He sent Nainee on ahead of him."

  Hoon drank from his glass deeply. "I saw him yesterday in the gardens."

  "Dane refused to come. But he sent me his reasons at length and I replied to them. Margren has apparently never been stable. So she could be going rogue. Isranon is a young sa'necari, not more than eighteen. His powers, for reasons Dane did not elaborate upon, are weak, yet he found favor with Mephistis. Dane thinks highly of this Isranon, but would like to see the youth protected and kept out of political matters."

  Hoon's lips curled up sardonically. "This Isranon gets stranger all the time. I have rarely heard of vampires protecting sa'necari, and never heard of Dane doing it. Go on."

  "Margren is jealous of anyone who climbs into Mephistis' bed, but has no compunctions about climbing into others besides his. She tried twice to murder the youth with Bodramet's assistance. And she was sleeping with Bodramet while still living. Dane tried to get Isranon to leave with him, but the youth refused out of devotion to Mephistis."

  "Devotion in a sa'necari? Phahhg," Hoon made a disparaging noise. "It does not exist. So they are the source of their own rumors?"

  "Yes, father. And if you're wondering whether Isranon is Mephistis' catamite, he isn't."

  "And what does Haig say?"

  "Haig says that it's mostly jealousy. Bodramet refers to Isranon as 'that half-a-mon' and Margren as 'the bitch who owes me.' What they have in common is Mephistis. Bodramet became very drunk last night. Haig laced his blood wine with troll's blood and poppy milk. Bodramet became very forthcoming. The sa'necari believes that Mephistis has the Legacy, and so does Haig. Bodramet wishes to steal it from Mephistis through mortgiefan. We will need to prevent that."

  A smile spread across Hoon's face like sunrise. "Finally! Finally I am close to what I always wanted. Control of the prince who carried the Legacy."

  "You say you intend to heal him. If you heal him, how will you control him?"

  Hoon laughed. "One thing at a time, my son. One thing at a time. First I must make Aejys Rowan come here. Then I must take Mephistis to Minnoras and introduce
him to Anksha."

  Timon laughed at the image of Mephistis meeting Anksha and imagined the pleasure of listening to him scream. Yes, he would enjoy that. He hated all sa'necari and had no sympathy for those who became Anksha's blood-slaves.

  * * * *

  Hoon brooded silently while Mephistis raged about the small ritual chamber. He was growing tired of the petty sa'necari prince; but as long as the prince had his uses, Hoon would supply his needs and desires. Margren nestled against the vampire, watching her mate through half-parted lashes.

  "Dingarim is dead! And those damned mages have shielded the bitch so tightly I cannot get past them."

  "You must calm yourself, my prince," Hoon said silkily. "These rages will only make your need and pain worse. It will quicken the effects of the deijanzael."

  Hoon nodded at the preserving bottles on the shelf behind the pentagram. Margren rose and took down the bottle of Sanguine Rose, pouring six fingers into the chalice on the working table. The fact that it now took half again what it had at solstice to ease him spoke worlds to Margren. She brought it to Mephistis.

  The prince stopped pacing and accepted the chalice. He drained it, wiping the back of his hand across his lips. His body eased and his face calmed. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth flow through his veins and nerve endings. He was growing more and more dependant on Sanguine Rose to keep the pain away. On bad days he would feel his powers fraying at the edges with the increasing deterioration of his body.

  It had not escaped his notice that as his condition worsened, Margren spent more and more time with Hoon – his lovely undead Margren was deserting him. She had not been the same since he raised her. That had never happened before. The undead were supposed to be the mirror of the living – especially the necari – perhaps Margren had never really been his to begin with.

  "You should rest," Hoon told him. "Let me think and plan. I will find a way to bring Aejystrys Rowan into your hands. Should she escape our reach, I will find you a greater death for your healing."

  "Thank you." Mephistis walked out, leaving Hoon alone with Margren.