Each candle came to light. She then picked up a short, sharp dirk, pressing its tip into her left index finger. "With a prick of the finger, I give in blood. As darkness spreads its wings, so shall my will be done."
She began to draw a series of symbols around the edge of the crystal disk. "Bound by me, all light shall be withheld from their eyes, all words from their ears. Be mine enemy blind and deaf."
For a long moment, all was still as she worked her blinding spell, calling the eleven names of those she wished to deceive. She had no doubts that they, in their turn, were spelling against her. Spelling and counter-spelling. The energies--negative and positive--would clash, and all would be neutralized, accomplishing little except to buy time.
Though she was outwardly calm, anxiety twitched inside her heart. She was nervous. Today, she was to go before the council to plead for Xavier. She had to do this in a convincing way. It would be best not to arouse any suspicions--yet.
She was still in a vulnerable position. Several members of the council had yet to completely agree to an alliance that was still tentative, at best. They were wary, watching every move, analyzing every word. If they withdrew their support, the council would be divided. Divided, it would turn against itself.
Lose them, she warned herself, and they may seek out my brother.
That, though, was exactly what she wanted. A council divided would be in chaos. Out of that chaos she could emerge in victory, if she placed her soldiers in the correct places. Xavier, that damned old fool, was already in his place, ready to be sent into battle.
Her plea for the sorcerer would be easy. He needed to make a journey to Ula'dh, where he now believed the scrolls would be found. To get there, he could take one of two routes--through Danarra, land of the elfin people, or through Gidrah, land of the trolls. Of the two, Gidrah was the preferable. The elfin people would never sanction the sorcerer's passage. They were firmly against the rise of Ouroborous. So were the trolls, for Xavier had once wrought much destruction through Gidrah.
But trolls could usually be persuaded to forget past battles if the price was right. The sorcerer was prepared to pay steeply in gold for safe passage through Gidrah. She only need convince the council his journey was a necessary one.
That done, there was one more spell to cast.
The witch murmured a few words and the scene in her looking glass changed for the last time, revealing a new face.
Azoroath. Alone in his chamber. So blissfully unaware.
She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
"Naughty boy," she admonished. She knew that Xavier's messenger had defied the sorcerer's order in trying to kill Morgan. He'd come too close to succeeding, too. In that brief moment when her twin had allowed her into his mind, she had experienced for herself the grip death had briefly had on him. He had nearly lost his life--something she was not quite ready for him to do. Yet.
"Good thing for you he survived, you oaf!" she spat at Azoroath's unaware image. "Your plotting nearly cost me my heritage." Rage filled her. It was time from a little payback.
Taking up her dagger, she made two swift, clean cuts across her palms. Clearing her mind, she held out both her arms, her recessive and her projective hand curling into tight fists. Throwing back her head, she began to chant: "As I do cast this spell, bring my enemy to the gate of hell. Hex of anger, hex of hate, bring him down, my time to wait. My revenge will have its day, afflict him with a fatal blow…"
She continued her chant, feeling the energies she had summoned entering into her recessive hand, flowing through her body to her projective hand. The blood warming her palm sizzled with a strange animation. Unable to hold it back a second longer, she cast her right hand toward the looking-glass, spattering her blood across its unblemished face.
Azoroath was cursed. The Reaper would soon take scythe in hand to cut him down.
He just didn't know it yet.
A wicked animation came into her eyes, glee mixed with anticipation. "Thy will shall be done," she murmured. "You shan't always rest safe behind Xavier's walls." Opening both hands, the cuts were still there. She cursed lightly under her breath and reached toward a small bowl filled with a powdery peachy-hued substance. She packed each cut with the powder. It stung like a thousand little claws digging at her flesh. She gritted her teeth and bore the brief pain. Wiping the leigheas powder away revealed no hint of damages, not even a scar.
Finished with her spell work, Megwyn closed her eyes and pulled a deep breath into her lungs. Her hand rose to her left breast, where the tattoo of the Dragon had been etched into her flesh. A detestable thing, but a necessary one. For her plan to work, Xavier had to trust her. She had to appear to be giving herself to him completely, spurred on by the same hatreds.
She was wise enough not to entertain any true belief that the scrolls of the Cachaens actually existed. Maybe they had once, but surely, they had been destroyed a long time ago. She believed them to be a Golden Fleece, pursued by an old fool who dreamt of power he would never again really hold. Xavier was weak; regeneration was beyond him. Any physical injury he suffered further crippled him.
But she was never one to rule out possibilities. What if the scrolls did exist?
I plan to have them.
She smiled. This is where I must play my part most convincingly, she warned herself. Because all are tied to sacrifice in one form or another, one thing the council cannot prohibit is the right to make sacrifice of human life for worship or hunger. That is an inalienable right.
Her mind jumped to another track. The war of the Dark Age had sprung up only because Xavier wished to overrun the mortal world. The entities opposing him foresaw that to let the legion have its way would destroy both worlds. The witches' council was founded on the belief that the ways of the occult should be concealed from mortal people, and that the two worlds should be kept separate and independently functioning.
At present, many opinions were changing. Sclyd was close to becoming a dead world. Fewer and fewer half-breed children were conceived, and the ancient suthaenn bloodlines were in danger of becoming wholly nonexistent. Mortals were desperately needed. But no people would willingly enslave themselves to another.
Humans were the inferior. Like cattle, they were useful only for breeding and slaughter. On that point, all council members agreed. What they did not agree on was whether or not the mortal world should be completely invaded and conquered. Some still wanted to hide behind that veil of secrecy.
Do they not see how foolish that idea is? Throughout history, the civilization that survives is the civilization that uses force to take what it needs to sustain itself. To survive, we must take the mortal world completely and without apology.
So it was written. So it would be done.
At last she rose, cramped and cold. She lifted her hands, whispering for the circle of flames to be broken. It vanished in an instant, leaving no wisp of smoke behind or a scorch mark on the marble floor. She stood, naked, stretching her arms. Across the room was a full-length mirror. Catching sight of herself, she smiled.
Reflected back at her was the image of a stunning woman. Her hands skimmed over her slender, perfect figure. Her body was in its prime, as she had accepted the occult at an early age. Morgan had not crossed over until well into his thirties. Physically, she was merely twenty-two years of age, even though more than twelve centuries had passed since her youth experienced its first bloom.
Though half-human herself, she despised the weaknesses of that race. Her whole life had been centered on the shedding of mortal constraints, conquering the needs and frailties of the physical shell. Feeding her ci'biote the energies of life was her price.
But for all it granted her, it was not enough. It would never be enough.
Not while Morgan walks through time untouched.
That he also paid a price meant little to her. Nothing mattered except her own selfish wants and needs. Insanity had made her temperament a strange and uncertain thing--she would do anything neces
sary to satisfy her desires. Lying, conniving and murder were all within her realm of operation. Unlike Morgan, who would willingly accept death as an escape from what he considered a living hell, Megwyn feared the gray realm of disembodied existence. She dreaded the fear it raised in her soul, was revolted by the seemingly cruel knowledge that, while she was immortal, she was by no means eternal. Her days, however long and many they might be, were numbered.
Her arms, with a strange, pathetic gesture, fell to her sides. She flushed, appalled by the knowledge she was, after all, a flesh-and-blood being. Vulnerable.
"That shall all be overcome," she said to the woman in the mirror. "When I have what my brother holds, I shall be complete…Mother be damned. It was to be mine."
A stirring to her left caught her attention. The woman who entered gave a guarded smile.
"Are you ready to dress, my lady?" Her maidservant, Loran, gave a courtly, almost ritualistic bow.
Megwyn, with a little frown, inclined her head. "I am."
She could not be sure, but it seemed to her that even in courteous inquiry her slave's voice held a mocking tone. She suspected all eyes to be spying, all ears to be listening. Paranoia. She gave her head a small shake. She could not afford to fall prey to delusional thoughts. Such would cause her to stumble. No, not when she was close, so close to gaining what had always been denied her.
Loran bowed again and crossed the chamber to fetch the clothing Megwyn would be wearing for the day. A petite woman in her later forties with soft brown eyes, she was dressed in a plain muslin wrap as befitted one of her status. Her chestnut hair was long, braided in a single rope down her back--her sole claim to beauty. Her plain face was deeply marked by the pox in early childhood. Eyes set too widely apart, nose just a beak, she much resembled a little brown sparrow.
Keeping her touch impersonal, Loran deftly robed her mistress in a narrow-sleeved, high-necked garment of white woven with bursts of a rich cerulean that flatteringly deepened the color of her eyes. She encircled Megwyn's slender waist with a wide girdle, fastened it with lacing in the back. Soft ankle-high boots covered her feet.
Around her mistress's throat, the servant hung a sigil of silver, Megwyn's totem as a witch and a protective talisman.
Thus clothed and adorned, Megwyn strode across the chamber. Her robes made sibilant whispers around her legs as she sat down before a vanity table. Following her, Loran took up a brush and began to pull it through her mistress's long hair. Her free hand followed each stroke.
Lulled by the relaxing brushstrokes, Megwyn sat lost in thought, staring at nothing. Around the chamber, Chinese lamps burned brilliantly. Tapestries of great beauty and age, relics of a bygone era, splashed gentle color across the walls. Thick hand-woven rugs blanketed the hardwood floor, jealously protecting the delicate feet of black teak cabinets and tables.
Polished to a mirror shine, the tables held oriental curios from dynasties long extinct. Yards of multi-colored silk were draped overhead in deep swags and folds. Ornaments of polished silver, green jade and black onyx completed her collection. As lovely as the items were, they hardly seemed to fit the personality of the woman inhabiting the chamber.
No one questioned her right to live well, when others of the council lived in more austere, less well-appointed quarters. She enjoyed her luxury, reveled in it. It was her right. She was, after all, the ard-corrym.
A First Justice who wishes to see them all dead at her feet.
Acting leader of the council was not originally her position--that honor had been reserved for Morgan. And he had, perhaps wisely, refused it; Megwyn had cunningly offered herself in his stead. The hunger for power, to be a great leader, was simply not something he pursued. He much preferred independence, to be bound to nothing. The requirements of ritual, ceremony and tradition meant little to him. He took instead a more informal thirteenth position, serving as executioner for the council.
In the beginning, before there was a council, many had foreseen the coming war and aligned themselves accordingly. Spelling and counter-spelling was all very good and well, but physical effort was still needed. At that, Morgan excelled. He possessed many unique abilities, and was one of the first to employ them as a mercenary along with those of a conjurer. Many entities, preferring cerebral pursuits, believed physical effort to be beneath them. That was no way to fight a war, and many had been stunned when one of their kind, wielding the power of death, began to move among their number. Morgan had been the Reaper incarnate. Those who stood with him were spared. Those who stood against him were destroyed.
The council had formed naturally as the dark war began to wind down. A tentative peace emerged as Xavier's legion was beaten back to more manageable numbers. Indeed, Xavier was--for a brief time--defeated. His loss had cost him all.
Even his wife.
Nisidia.
That surge of jealousy rushed in again, tearing Megwyn's heart with steel-tipped talons. Her jaw tightened. How she had hated that woman. Despised her.
Nisidia was Morgan's trophy. The spoils of war. She was also the woman who destroyed him, brought about his downfall. Nisidia made him question what he was, what he had become.
Megwyn believed it a perversity that her brother should want to take the woman of a vanquished enemy. The two had mixed like oil and water, seeming to hate each other on sight. Yet, opposites though they were, there was an undeniable attraction. They could neither keep their eyes nor their hands off each other.
Their affair began long before Xavier's fall. That Nisidia played husband and lover against each other only spurred Morgan to possess her entirely.
Nisidia, of course, had her own designs. She believed she had Morgan utterly bewitched. She was wrong. Morgan was unpredictable and unreliable and unable to commit to anything, much less a mere woman. Nisidia had been wilier than any suspected, though. What plan she had in mind in choosing Morgan to sire her child, none could ever know. Perhaps she believed a child would give her more leverage with Morgan. He was clearly the more desirable choice in visage and lineage. In temperament he was a poor selection, but that could be overlooked when considering the skills in his lovemaking.
Nibbling at her lip, Megwyn turned her mind again to Julienne. What did that slut have that attracted him? It was true she had been beautiful at one time--that was clear enough. But she was flawed, her face scarred. What could he see in that ugliness?
A snarl in her hair snapped her head back.
"Have a care!" she snapped. "Keep it up and you'll pull me bald."
"I'm sorry, my lady," Loran answered hastily. She divided the long tresses into sections and braided it around a gold circlet.
"Arrange it well."
"Yes, lady, I shall," Loran promised.
"I want to look my best this day."
Thinking again of those council members she must plead to, a strange mixture of rage and resentment filled her.
I'll have to play these games just a little while longer.
She raised eyes that teemed with devious plans. Her lips turned up in a smirk of self-satisfaction.
And then, no more. When I am done, all the lesser people will bow to me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Morgan stood quietly by the altar, vaguely disturbed. The fire in its bowels flickered and glimmered raggedly, like the phrases of a broken chant. Around him, a cold chill whispered in the air.
Save for the muted trickle of water, the chamber below had grown quiet after the midnight hour. Shadows hovered in every corner. The air was motionless.
Julienne lay on the altar. Eyes closed, lips parted in gentle repose, she slept a dreamless sleep. No black tendrils wound their way through her veins. The color in her cheeks was heightened. His eyes skimmed her nude body. Hair spilling around her head like silk, her body was unblemished. Perfect. He had done it. He had begun the process to bring his lover across.
There was so much in life he'd denied himself, keeping deliberately aloof, refusing to put his heart on the line for
any woman. Now, he wanted to touch her. Hold her and make love to her. Look into her eyes as he took her, letting her know she belonged to him, and he to her.
Drawing in a breath, he felt the familiar ache deep in his loins. He could recall the way she looked after sex, covered with a gloss of sweat, jade eyes shielded by the fall of long lashes, a satisfied smile curving her lips.
His own lips tightly set, eyes half-closed, he guided his hand across her skin--the flat plane of her belly, the curve of her breast, her throat. Her chest rose and fell gently. He felt the softness of her, the warmth. He could hear her every breath, feel the pulse driven by her heart.
He ran his finger down her breastbone. Under his touch, the wonder of the physical body had come to life. He had never felt so keenly alive, the rush of his own energies amalgamating with those of the netherworld, becoming the spark that granted form to the mysterious, sometimes frightening, shadows of conjuration. His senses had coalesced, falling together in a single coherent moment of sensation so intense it brought the meaning of creation home to him.
To change her, he'd struggled over the concepts Xavier had introduced into his alchemy, marveling over the complex essences the sorcerer employed to create his mutants, raising animation where there should be none. Moreover, he had managed to take his work one step further. He had actually merged one with a human body.
The result was fascinating. A new respect for his former ally had developed as he explored the formation of an entirely unique being. Only a single ingredient would be needed to complete her transformation.
Blood.
It was the beginning, it was the ending, bringing the spell full circle and into completion. When her hunger finally came--if she accepted it--he would give himself as her first victim to seal his gift.
She will have to give pain to get what she needs…And he would be glad to take that pain to get the release he needed.
Feeling curiously disturbed, he drew his hand away.
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