“It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, irritation evident in his voice. “Look.” And he took a substantial gulp from Spirk’s goblet before plonking it down in front of His Lordship, spilling a bit of its contents onto the tablecloth.
Trembling all the while, Spirk raised the goblet, acknowledged his new family and took a brief sip of wine. When he’d finished and lowered his drink, he again observed the entire assembly staring at him, waiting for instruction. “Er…let’s eat,” he said.
Now the food came, in wave after wave. Whilst everyone else was preoccupied, Spirk made a careful study of his knife and fork, both of which seemed willfully dull, but also clean. Turning his head discretely left and right, he saw that Faenia and Briedach’s utensils were not dull. That worried him. Somehow, though, he was able to sense that almost everything that had been put before him was safe to eat or handle. His plate – a large platter, really – seemed to radiate malicious intent, and he noticed that anything set upon it soon took up the same character. Experimentally, he reached into a nearby breadbasket and brought a thick slice of bread directly before his eyes. Receiving nothing from it but warmth and an enticing odor, he bit off a sizeable hunk. He pretended to make small talk, which, in his case, was very, very small, with Briedach, Faenia and anyone else who might glance his way. At last, he tossed the remainder of his bread onto his platter and had his suspicions confirmed when it, too, went bad (as he thought of it). For the next several minutes, he was able to eat an adequate meal by grabbing things off their serving trays and biting into them before they reached his platter. Eventually, Faenia intervened.
“My lord, it is unseemly for the Head of the Family to snatch his food out of the air. You must wait until you are served. You must be served!”
Unfortunately, Spirk was hypnotized by Faenia’s bosom and didn’t catch a word of her speech, forcing Briedach to reiterate what his cousin had said.
“You can’t be snatching things out of the air, your Lordship. It’s embarrassing. Now, eat off your plate like a civilized man!”
“Uh…I’m full,” Spirk proclaimed, as he emerged from his mammary trance.
Briedach laughed a harsh, angry laugh. “You’re what? You’re full? We’ve just gotten started. We’ve had cooks working for days on your account.”
“Well, I…er…I’m sure I’ll want more, later.”
“You’ll want more now,” Briedach said through gritted teeth.
In a moment of panic, Spirk looked across the chamber and locked eyes with Ron, who, as promised, was watching the proceedings with grim interest. Suddenly, Ron made a strange gesture with his hands and mouthed something without speaking.
“What?” Spirk asked softly.
“I said you’ll eat more now!” Breidach repeated.
Spirk looked over at the man, confused. “Whu…? Huh? I wasn’t talking to you, I was…”
Briedach’s face turned a dangerous shade of crimson. “I was talking to you, though!”
Except for the musicians, the room had gone quiet. Spirk could hear Briedach breathing heavily, like an ox after pulling the plow on a hot day. As expected, everyone resumed staring in Spirk’s direction.
“More wine?” Faenia suggested, extending a jug across Spirk’s platter towards her cousin.
“More wine!” Spirk squeaked. “Yes, more wine!” Clumsily, he wrenched the jug out of Faenia’s grasp, lost control of it and let it drop onto his platter. Both items broke into shards, spilling wine across the table and down into laps on either side.
Briedach roared in fury, grasped Spirk by the hair, and flung him over the table and out into the middle of the great room’s floor. Ron dashed to his master’s side, even as the room’s other guards moved to block the doors. By the time Spirk was able to sit up, Briedach, Faenia and a host of other D’Escurzys had closed in about him.
“You whoreson idiot! You couldn’t go quietly, could you?” Briedach snarled through his spit-sodden moustache.
“Go? O’ course I’ll go!” Spirk replied.
“I think he means ‘die,’ milord,” Ron whispered in his ear.
“Die?” Spirk squawked, struggling to his feet. His new family had completely encircled him and his companion, leaving no room to maneuver in any direction.
Briedach barked out a harsh laugh. “Yes, die! Lord Titus could level no greater insult to the rest of us than to put a yokel like you in power!”
The room erupted in laughing agreement.
“And I think I’ll enjoy killing you with my bare hands!” Briedach reached out towards Spirk’s neck, only to be brushed aside by Faenia.
“Please, cuz,” she crooned, “there’s no need to be so boorish and violent.”
Suddenly, Spirk loved the woman.
“No need for violence, I say, when the mere touch of a real woman is enough to make him crumble and blow away like dust!”
More laughter from the crowd. Suddenly, Spirk hated the woman all over again.
“Indeed?” Briedach asked. “One of those, is he?”
Everywhere he looked, Spirk saw sneering, piggish faces, sniggering at his weakness and impending demise. It was like being surrounded by a bunch of animals that couldn’t decide whether to eat or to violate him. Of course, they might do both. To his horror, Faenia continued her advance until her chest brushed against his own.
The room grew quiet, no one so much as breathed, and time itself seemed to wait upon the moment’s outcome.
“Are you wondering, little Shaper, why your magics don’t affect me?” Faenia drawled in her most lustful voice. Her wide eyes directed Spirk’s gaze back to her bosom and into her cleavage, where a charm of some sort hung on the slenderest of chains.
Spirk felt his knees begin to wobble something terrible. He had never known such an impossible mixture of desire and fear. Forgotten were His Lordship Briedach, his companion, Ron, or the gawking faces of the extended family D’Escurzy; nothing existed outside the all-consuming hunger he felt for the woman in front of him and the terror he experienced at the thought of giving in to it.
“Nothing to say, milord? Quite chopfallen?” Faenia prodded, in her intimate, husky whisper. Then, louder, “Or do you still burn for me, little Shaper?”
To his horror, Spirk felt a hand…down there. Faenia’s hand.
She giggled in delight. “Ooh!” Raucous laughter reverberated throughout the chamber. “It seems His Lordship does burn for me.”
He burned for her, all right. Inside and out. A heartbeat later, Faenia’s eyes flew open and her mouth pulled into a small ‘o’ of surprise. And she began to stiffen, to harden. Spirk heard a few murmurings of concern that built into shouts of outright alarm as, little by little, Faenia became translucent. In an instant, Spirk had breathing room and then some. The crowd that moments ago had been pressing the air right out of his lungs now retreated a good five to ten paces, mortified and transfixed by the spectacle that was unfolding before them. In seconds, Faenia transformed into a crystalline statue of her former self.
“How? What evil is this?” Briedach bellowed, rallying his troops. “What have you done to my cousin, cowardly whelp?”
The tide of D’Escurzys flowed inward again, staring with curiosity at Faenia and rancor at Spirk and his guard. Just as Briedach stepped forward, his fist raised in fury, a loud crack resounded throughout the room. There was a fleeting period of confusion, until someone yelled, “It’s Faenia! She’s breaking apart!” Another loud crack from the statue confirmed this assertion, and before anyone could decide what to do about it, the woman exploded, blasting the room and everything in it with sparkling, jagged shards of crystal. Briedach went down, his face a mask of absolute confusion. Spirk toppled backwards onto Ron, more out of panic than injury. An unholy symphony of terror and death broke out, comprised of the sounds of people shrieking, yelling, falling to the floor or dropping whatever they held.
In the chaos, Ron spoke forcefully into Spirk’s ear. “We have to go, mi
lord. We have to leave, now!”
“Huh?” Spirk moaned in shock.
Grabbing his master under the arms, Ron proceeded to drag him backwards, towards the nearest door. “I say, we must needs go!”
In the hallway, Spirk began to regain his composure. “What happened to the other guards?”
“They’re down,” said Ron. “Everyone’s down. Don’t know how we escaped it, frankly. But we can’t stay here.”
“I know where we can go!” Spirk announced.
*****
Arune (and Vykers), In Pursuit
He should have felt the increased burning. For the longest time, Arune told herself that he’d come to expect it as part of her regular scrying, efforts to conceal the group’s back-trail, or roust game each evening. But her long-distance manipulation of the A’Shea required a much greater use of magic than she’d had to expend in the past, and, damn it, Vykers should have noticed. Then she told herself that the pain of his wound made him numb to other discomforts, and the extra she added through shaping was negligible by comparison. But that couldn’t be true, either.
On top of all this, there were the many attempts, large and small, that she’d made to slow Vykers down, so that Aoife might reach him before the coming conflict. The great cat, for example, had come by on her invitation; such creatures could not be compelled. Arune wasn’t sure what she expected from the encounter, but it sure as all hells wasn’t a five minute sniff session and a fare-thee-well. Yet, she couldn’t risk taking more obvious measures for fear of angering her host.
Thus, with each passing day, it became more evident that Aoife would not catch up with Vykers in time, that the Reaper might well have to face his greatest test since the End-of-All-Things without any additional help or hope of healing. Arune could only think of one last thing to try. If Vykers found out, it could well be the last thing the Shaper ever tried.
*****
Aoife, In Pursuit
The A’Shea had troubles of her own. The desperate scramble after the Reaper had brought her no closer to rejoining or even spotting him, and her mystical and natural resources were fast nearing their limits. Even her horse, despite the A’Shea’s constant ministrations, was almost finished.
In a fit of despondency, Aoife led her mount into a small grove of trees, slid from its saddle and threw herself down onto a patch of grass. She pulled a water skin from one of her robe’s many pockets and shared half its remaining water with the mare, before downing the rest herself in three great swallows. In frustration, she threw the empty container into the dirt.
What was she doing? How, in Alheria’s name, had she convinced herself to chase that beast, Tarmun Vykers, halfway across the world, through lands she knew nothing about and from which she might expect no help or mercy? And for what? For Vykers’ sake? What was he to her or she to him that this made any sense? Whether he meant to save or to kill the Queen made little difference to the poor and suffering, to whom Aoife ought to have been tending all this while. Surely, Alheria hadn’t empowered Aoife with the skills she had for the sole purpose of chasing after a violent brute like the Reaper? To be an instrument of a god was exhausting, aggravating work – especially when the god in question remained so aloof, so remote. What was it Alheria expected of Aoife? How could she best be of service?
Grappling with these conundrums, the A’Shea fell asleep.
Aoife.
???
Aoife. I need to speak with you. Let me in.
Aoife understood she was still asleep, that no one was literally speaking to her. Was this Alheria, then? Had her prayers finally been answered? No. This had a more familiar flavor – the arcane tang of Tarmun Vykers and his…Shaper. What do you want? Is Tarmun suffering?
Whether he is or is not, it’s become clear you cannot help him.
I absolutely can, Shaper. If I can reach him. Who are you to try and stop me?
This was met by a short, agitated laugh and then, Stop you? Woman, I have been helping you every step of the way.
Say you so? Aoife asked, astonished. And why would you want to do that? Do you think me unaware of your dislike for me? The Shaper said nothing, so the A’Shea continued. Do you think I didn’t notice your attempts to burn me whenever I touched the Reaper?
It’s true, the Shaper sighed. I did that. And I am sorry. Things were…different…then.
And now?
There is a tremendous battle ahead and, despite our combined talents, you cannot get here in time to be of help.
Are you a seer, then? Aoife asked.
Would that I were, the Shaper replied. No, I cannot see the future, cannot say for certain whether Vykers will triumph or…
Or die.
Yes.
Without knowing why, Aoife suddenly comprehended the Shaper’s predicament. And if he dies, you die.
Yes.
Then why were you resistant to my efforts to help him for so long?
Because I thought you an unnecessary distraction.
Aoife’s belly began to flutter in anxiety. A distraction? How a distraction?
Because he…fancies you. And I was afraid that might get him killed.
It was hard to focus, hard to breathe as deeply as she wanted. How…how would that get him killed?
Aoife, the Shaper said softly, almost lovingly, Tarmun Vykers was made for one purpose: destruction. It’s what he does best, what he enjoys most…at least, that was true until he met you. Whenever you’re around, he’s…conflicted.
And if he is, how is this bad?
Tarmun Vykers is poison. He exists only to kill those worse than himself. If he forgets that….if his purpose is diluted with…with affection for you, for instance, he may be vulnerable by being less effective.
Aoife wanted to scoff at the Shaper, reject her arguments with some sort of clever dodge, but she found she could not. She, too, had considered the man poison upon occasion. What is your name?
Arune.
A shock. A woman’s name, Aoife remarked coldly.
And a woman I once was. But you have nothing to fear from me, A’Shea. Then, Aoife.
After a lengthy pause, Aoife asked, What would you have me do?
I don’t know. I simply do not know. Short of catching up with us, is there anything else you can think of that might prove helpful?
I will….meditate on it.
Do so, Arune responded. And be well, until fate reunites us all again.
Is Tarmun well? Aoife called out, Has his strength held out?
But the Shaper had gone.
A strange darkness descended upon the A’Shea in her sleep after that, an almost-familiar sense of the Fey folk, the Children of Nar, mingled with energies and emotions beyond her ken. The awkward, nervous fluttering in her gut at the news of Vykers’ affection for her became a deeper, more purposeful rustling, a thing dimly remembered but now stark and clear in her mind’s eye: Aoife was birthing again.
*****
Kittins, House Blackbyrne
The whole city seemed on edge somehow, like an animal in the hours before an earthquake. Something was coming.
Kittins was going to be a part of that something, he knew, even if he died in the next hour or so. An assault on one of the Great Eight could not but result in repercussions for the other seven and, by extension, the city and crown.
Lord Darley’s map had been impressively detailed and accurate, leading Kittins to the perfect spot to await his cue. As he’d been promised, a noisy collection of revelers accumulated outside the main gate of House Blackbyrne and grew and grew until its numbers became impossible to ignore. Several guards emerged from the estate and tried to encourage the partiers to move along peaceably, but the crowd’s continued growth made the task beyond impracticable. Just when it looked as if the guards might have to adopt more persuasive measures, a small explosion boomed through the night, accompanied by loud shouts of anger and alarm. This was the second, more-threatening diversion Darley had promised.
In the con
fusion, the black-clad Kittins bolted from the shadows in which he’d been hiding and approached the south wall of the Blackbyrne compound. He challenged himself to be over the wall in less than a minute. With a great heave, he tossed his grappling hook over up and over and dragged it back until it found purchase, a far trickier proposition than most people assumed. In fact, he was forced to pull it several feet to the left and back again to the right before it finally snagged on something well enough to support his weight.
Someone in Lord Darley’s employ must have caught a glimpse of Kittins, because the celebrants at the front gate instantly became alarmingly belligerent, improving the quality and duration of their diversion substantially.
As Flies to Wanton Boys (Immortal Treachery Book 2) Page 33
