Oh, Ciire, heal me and I promise this shall be the last of my thieving!
A low guttural moan drew his attention from his hand.
Surely, it can't be…? He turned his eyes on the only other occupant of the chamber. A pang of guilty panic surged through him. The man was alive!
Trying to rise, Morgan's body went into a spasm of violent contortion. Suddenly, he stilled, lying quietly. The fit passed, and he began to breathe normally. After a long wrenching moment, his eyelids quivered. His fathomless eyes opened, staring, attempting to find focus.
"Assassin?" Lynar said, as if disbelieving his own eyes. He blinked and repeatedly shook his head. He wanted to run, but his legs wouldn't move. He wanted to scream, but no sound passed his lips. Not even trapped in Xavier's dungeon had he experienced such terror. He didn't possess any spells that could ward off the dead.
Morgan stirred again, awkwardly, struggling to gain his bearings and sit up. He labored to breathe, and his strained features bespoke the incredible agony he was fighting in order to remain conscious. He was at the end of his endurance, besieged by the wounds that had suppressed his great strength.
Holding himself grimly erect, he lifted a quaking hand and pressed it against his heart. Sweat ran cold across his brow and pain again seized him, twisting him double. He set his teeth and fought the waves of nausea. Slowly and with difficulty, he turned his head, almost too weak and fatigued to move.
Catching sight of the Danarran, he gasped, "You pulled…the blade…?"
His voice dragged with weariness.
Heart hammering wildly, Lynar nodded dumbly. After a moment of disordered thought, he forced a reply.
"I…ah…I did," he gulped. The stale air in the room felt so heavy he couldn't bring it into his throbbing lungs.
"I am…not sure I…give…thanks…for my…life." A feeble self-effacing laugh escaped Morgan's lips. He smiled, a brittle, hollow-eyed grimace in the lurid candlelight. "It would…have been better…"
Beset by another tremor, he attempted to steel himself against the slow, pulsing agony racking his torn body.
Pulling his wits about him, Lynar remembered why he had come. "I am a healer. I can help."
His gaze was riveted on the assassin's wounds. Though no blood currently flowed, the incised wounds in his chest and abdomen did not bode well.
Morgan slowly shook his head. "I only need time. I will be…unconscious…" He began to murmur slowly, painfully, in a strange tongue. His face turned a drained, ghastly white, a waxen mask. Then, as strength deserted him, he pitched facedown, the thump echoing harshly. No further movement or sound came from him.
"Now what to do?" Lynar choked out, though the assassin was long past hearing.
The answer was clear.
He had come to serve, and part of that servitude was to look after the needs of his new master. Perhaps the mother goddess would even forgive his small lapse into attempted thievery if this being survived. He reached into his sash and removed a few small items. He began to arrange them in a certain order upon the floor.
"Ciire," he begged, beginning his prayer, "I am only a small elf, but grant me a circle of protection, not for myself but for the master I serve…" The sanctity of the old prayer enfolded him, providing a sense of calm, of succor. For once he knew he was doing right, and Ciire would smile upon him.
Chapter Nine
The shrine of privacy that all initiates must use to cleanse themselves was a circle of clear shimmering water, ethereally cerulean beneath a low-arched ceiling of bone-white alabaster and floored with black marble. The pungent aroma of sandalwood hung heavily over the water; the light from the many candles twinkled like a thousand blinking eyes upon its smooth surface.
To undertake the rite of welcome into the Dragon's lair, one must wash with the holy water of the Dragon's tears--ceremonially slough off old practices and be ready to assume new ones. Kneeling at the edge of the pool, Megwyn ran the tips of her fingers through the water, swirling a circle on its glinting face. The water was clear, clean and pure. She half-expected to feel some great mystic power surging through it.
But she felt nothing, except a slight trembling in her stomach from having to endure Xavier's unpleasant touch. Reflected in the water, her face was haggard, seeming to unnaturally add the illusion of great age. But the reflection looking back at her was no illusion. The water was a truthful mirror, one she cursed.
She groaned, turning her head away and hiding her face in her hands. A queer surging of restless tension spiked through her, a thousand thoughts rioted through her mind.
Did she have the courage to go through with her plans or was she being foolish? She quickly squashed the doubt. It was not only that she wanted to proceed with her plans. She must proceed.
Rising, she began to undress. Laying aside her clothing, she twirled up her long hair and secured it with a single straight pin. She stepped down into the pool until she stood waist high in the sparkling water, scented with holy oils. It radiated light and heat and shimmered around her, flowing in ever-widening circular patterns away from her body.
For a moment she was seized by the wild impulse that what she was doing was wrong, that in turning against her bloodline she would suffer dire consequences, that she would be stricken down by the hand of a vengeful god. Sternly disciplining herself, she sent her fear away into the dark abyss of her heart. Only for an instant did the strange intoxication of doubt linger.
She began to bathe, splashing the water over her shoulders and breasts. Her hands lingered, rubbing at the light liver-colored spots that were beginning to dot her alabaster skin at regular intervals. She was approaching her cycle of burnout, a hateful sequence that would bring the crushing weight of her age down upon her.
She envied her twin's power. The scars he presently wore etched into his flesh were there because he'd refused the raising of his ci'biote for so long. He could have brought it forth in his youth, as she had, as their father had wanted, but he had refused--fought against it--to the point of trying to kill himself to escape his heritage.
She, on the other hand, willingly embraced her gifts. It was a cruel trick that she must fight every day for every breath she drew, constantly practice the rites that kept a body intact and ageless through the ravages of the centuries. Unlike her brother, she did not inherit a physical system that would self-regenerate when wounded. Because of that, she was doomed to seek out victims from which to draw her youthful vitality. Underneath her beauty, her youth, lurked an aged, haggard crone.
Her jaw hardened. It is a fate I am hardly resigned to endure longer than I have to.
Completing the ritual purification, Megwyn came out of the water with a new sense of purpose. She stood a moment, naked, reveling in the beauty that was hers when she was whole, the hateful hungers of her weak corporeal shell sated. Flooded with a sense of indefinite strength, she became aware that being immortal, she was truly close to being one of the divine.
A small, still smile settled on her lips. There was a saying among her kind: Immortality is easy to obtain. Eternity is impossible.
She had immortality.
She wanted eternity.
Using the guise of taking on the practices of the Dragon, she would work her way toward her goal. She had no fear of betraying Ouroborous's legions. The unrevealed truth was that her bloodline was already committed to the darkest of practices, older even than those of the Dragon's cult.
Her twin preferred to tell the lie that their father was only a mortal. Morgan told a lot of lies, as if he were unwilling to admit the real origins of their occult heritage. She didn't know why he struggled so hard against the truth. What her brother conveniently ignored was that, while their father was human, as a young boy he was pledged to serve a sect of Celtic druids calling themselves the Gwyd'llyr, or seekers of purity. Moreover, as an apprenticed acolyte to the Ard-saggyrt or Arch-priest Kellyn, Celeon was a trusted member of the clan.
Settled for centuries among mortal people
and eschewing their Sclydian ties, the Gwyd'llyr did not observe the strict caste laws of the two worlds. Once Celeon's studies were completed and he carried the title of Master-adept, he was considered an equal. A tall, blond Basque, impressive both in looks and action, the genes he brought into the mating pool were much desired by women seeking a husband. The bride he took was Kellyn's daughter, Birgid, a young priestess with a great ability for healing.
Theirs was not a happy union.
There were always those adepts who could not be restrained from seeking out the forbidden arts of ancient times, those who would bastardize pure magic, use it for their own foul and nefarious purposes. Celeon Ese-Yevenaston was such a man. He soon grew beyond the boundaries of the elementary magic practiced by the druids. Stifled by the vows that the Wicca be used to do no evil and commit no harm, he broke away and began to devise forbidden ceremonies to bring forth ancient and deviant forces, the deepest blasphemies that shunned the truth of the light and summoned the lies of the depraved dark.
His practices soon took no regard of mortal humanity and its many frailties, turning him more inhuman and sadistic by degrees. It was not long until Celeon became a predator among his own.
In the face of such flagrant blasphemies, the elders of the clan had to pass a harsh judgment. Celeon was cast out of the cult, stripped of his rank and forbidden formal ceremony and rite. To set order to his house, Kellyn was also required by law to deny his daughter her rank and privileges, for she was then pregnant with the spawn generated by Celeon's forbidden ceremonies of unhallowed witchery and ritual fornication. Had she wished to remain with her people, the children she birthed would have to be stoned, their bodies cremated and scattered to the four winds. Birgid had refused the harsh penalty, only to find harsher trials awaiting her at the hands of her husband.
Though cast down, Celeon never ceased his degenerate worship. It eventually destroyed Birgid; she hanged herself in a fit of insanity, the only way she knew to escape the physical and spiritual torture her husband inflicted. Their children, only five years of age, witnessed her death; and it impacted them in vastly different ways. Both reacted to their childhood experiences with mixed emotions--one accepting, the other denying.
Morgan defied Father's wishes, refused to embrace the occult as I did.
Frowning slightly, Megwyn could not stay a shiver that coursed through her with unexpected force. A slight moan of agonized despair broke from her lips, half gasp, part whimper. Her right hand flew up to her shoulder, as if a lash had come down across her naked skin.
She closed her eyes, but not before a few tears escaped. She did not wipe them away, taking one step, another, before the impulse died. For a moment she stood, straight, stiff and very still. She groaned in anguish and sorrow. In these rare moments when she allowed examination of her past the memories burst forth, oddly coherent visions and long glimpses of self-perception that lurked in her deeply damaged psyche. Fighting the bonds of extreme repression, the images her in mind awoke from their long sleep and reared monstrous heads.
It was hard to forget the way her father had enacted his cruelties upon her twin. When Morgan was a boy, Celeon had beaten him unmercifully, determined to break Morgan's mind the way he had broken their mother.
Against her will, her hands clenched into fists so tightly her fingernails dug into the soft flesh of her palms. Though seen by none, her face revealed her own madness when she lost all strength and sank down on her knees. Through the shadowy corridors of her head, she moved into that secret space she kept to herself. Minutes became as hours, ticking by with agonizing slowness as time was suspended.
As if looking through a dark glass, she saw ugly reflections of herself and her father. She remembered the strange, bitter drink, her mind going dim, her father lifting her onto the altar, his smile distorted by the shadowy firelight, the air thick with incense. A fearful, hulking form, her father's hard hands fell heavily on her shoulders, pressing her down, his legs spreading hers, the straining heat of his erection poised to rip through the soft petals of her young womanhood. She could not raise her hands or move her head, even to summon the strength to cry out.
An acrid wave of revulsion lodged in her throat. Her hand flew to her mouth. The little demons that had been circling were all of the sudden set free in her skull, gnawing at her. Their sharp teeth and claws tore into the soft tissue of her brain. Their bellies grew fat as they glutted themselves on her memories of fear, shame and abuse.
A spasm of grief washed over her. She felt caged, locked in and shut out all at the same time. The images inside her head would not relent. She fell into a strange terror, too powerful for prayer. How could she possibly have forgotten what had been done to her? She had been a slave to her father's lust. He used her in incestuous rites to channel the energies he could no longer possess himself. Her mother's suicide had denied him his chance to become immortal through his mate, so Celeon had attempted to use his daughter.
A cry broke from her mouth, of torment, of shame.
"Do not condemn me, brother." Her voice broke in agony, sadder than the tears she had shed. "I didn't submit to him willingly."
She drew a long breath, fear and shame swirling inside her guts. Her flesh crawled with horror; her insides churned with sick loathing. She wanted to flee, get away, but there was no place to go when the nightmare was inside one's own mind. Far-off voices rose to taunt her, whether from an outside source or inside her own tormented brain she did not know.
Do not twist your poor brain to remember these things, the whispered words echoed in her skull. The high god bids you be silent. Speak not, think not of the past…
The unearthly intonation slid off into a gentle croon. And, as commanded, Megwyn let herself forget what had been done to her by her father--her betrayer, her abuser, her lover. As abruptly as she had opened the Pandora's box of ugly truths, something stronger within her slammed the lid firmly shut.
A slow-kindled chuckle broke from her throat, and she began to rock back and forth. Her unblinking stare became vacant, sightless. Sanity faded like a candle snuffed out, and she tumbled headlong into the abyss that was her own madness.
"Morgan tries to deny this part of his cultic heritage," she murmured to the voices, "but until he fully accepts and embraces it he will be in torment."
He carries the gifts that should have gone to you, the voices uttered in unison. Your father maneuvered it so. Your mother's choice was not accident, but defiance…
But such was of the past, and the damage had already been etched into the folds of time. She could only go forward, attempt to rectify what had gone wrong. Just as her father had once betrayed his oath to seek the divine truths of blasphemous sorcery, so now would she.
I will take back what should have come to me, she vowed, and avenge our father's murder at my brother's hand.
Like her father, Megwyn possessed the inborn ability to twist certain forces of psychic nature. She could make people see what she wished them to see, believe what she wished them to believe. That she herself was so easily deluded was part of her own internal madness and only helped feed the methods she used to keep herself functioning.
Ah, my brother…On one hand, she pitied him the trials of carrying the great burden of power that had been passed to him. Pity was easily overtaken with envy, though. She envied his capabilities, his effortless ease in walking the centuries unscathed, untouched by any age or disease. Only his mind was affected; and she believed that was because he fought it, refused to fully accept the awesome legacy that could only belong to one.
I will be that one, she told herself. And when that power is mine, mortal and immortal alike will tremble under my shadow.
With new concentration, she got up off the cold floor and began to clothe herself in the sacramental garments she had been given to wear, refusing to think of the ceremony she must endure. It was necessary she make Xavier believe she stood with him and supported him. And if the old fool actually did lay his hands on the lost
Scrolls of Cachaen, she would be ready to help him use them.
When she was dressed, she paused a moment to compose her thoughts. Then, she struck the small gong that would summon the women who would accompany her on her walk.
"Father," she murmured, "let me not fail."
* * *
The sacred chambers of Ouroborous were walled with intricate stonework overlaid with sheets of hammered gold. Lit only by fire, shadows played across the figures entering its sacred confines. An oval mirror hung high reflected back the pulsing flames that bestowed an elusive, unreal quality throughout. Under the oval was an altar of virgin marble, its surface etched with magical symbols worked in black.
Megwyn passed beneath a softly shadowed archway, dressed in a simple gown of creamy white silk, low of neckline, loose of sleeve, easily removed. Her long hair was braided, the plaits interwoven with a gold circlet. She deliberately kept her expression frozen, impassive. Only her mouth held the shadow of a smile.
Ilya walked on her right, another unnamed woman on the left, both dressed in formal clothing. The women did not touch her, yet all walked in unison; and the small entourage moved in silence.
Around the perimeter of the chamber stood the lesser priests of the Dragon's legion, brightly adorned in robes of a deep cerulean, the color of peace, serenity and joy. All eyes were riveted on the newest initiate.
The women escorted Megwyn to the base of the altar, where the sorcerer waited. They divested her of clothing so that in a few moments she stood naked, her body unadorned.
Xavier motioned for her to take her place. "Kneel."
He made a holy sign, and the lower adepts stepped forward to form a rough circle around her, taking great pains to assume the correct positions. From their ranks came a low murmur, the beginning of the ceremony. Their controlled voices filled the chamber with steady resonance as they began the chant of invocation.
"Why have you come before us?" the sorcerer asked.
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