by JANRAE FRANK
Wilstryn sheathed her blades. With a curt sign, she indicated the woman should follow. They entered the study that Ladonys had so recently departed. The newcomer went to the bar and poured herself a straight whiskey, knocked it down and turned. She met Wilstryn's eye; held it for a significant moment. "Ranlyn's dead."
"Damn!" Wilstryn gritted between clenched teeth.
"She was getting close. She must have gotten too close." Talons' glance was cold as stone, utterly composed and controlled. At barely nineteen she had twenty kills to her credit, all difficult extractions requiring the utmost care, planning and cleverness in their execution. It had required calling in all her favors for Wilstryn to obtain Talons' services: Normally Talons worked for the Grand Master alone.
"Talons, figure out what she did last and where she went."
"Margrenan Rowan is a dangerous woman, Archer. She'll be hard to bring down," Talons said softly, adding, "You knew that when you started this."
Wilstryn sat down, nodding for her agent to sit. She slid the charm across the table.
The agent's dark eyes widened with amazement, then narrowed as the full impact showed on her face for an instance before vanishing. "What does this mean?" she hissed, suspecting the answer, waiting for Wilstryn's confirmation.
"Margrenan brye Rowan killed my son. That's what it means," Wilstryn snarled. "I also got word from a stonemage who read Sohkoran's life ring. Margren ritually disemboweled him to Read his entrails while he still lived... Drank his blood..." Wilstryn fought to keep her voice steady, but it was breaking up as she spoke. "Put a blade through his heart..."
The agent's mouth tightened and her eyes closed as the horror sank in: the Guildsmyn made clean kills, they did not torture; they killed those who needed killing, for a price and in accordance with the strictures of their religion, as a sacrifice to their liege-god, Hadjys the Dark Judge. She remembered Sohkoran's gentle laughter, his innocence, how she and the others had bounced him on their knees as a babe. "Why don't you just take her out? It would be a suicide run. But we all loved Sohkoran. You'd have volunteers. I – I would be honored to die for him."
Wilstryn stared, incredulous at the offer – she had always thought Talons a stone-killer, impervious, unfeeling, relentless. Then she shook her head. "Aejys would take the fall for it. I owe her my life several times over. We've got to do this carefully. I've begun a list of her allies and servants. She's got a citadel on Dragonshead. Find it."
"You think she's found a way into the underground ruins?"
"I know it."
The agent rose with a curt nod. "Then I'll find it." She flicked her cloak of darkness around her, disappearing into the shadowed hall. Wilstryn heard the door close with almost inaudible softness.
She sat for a long time in silence, staring grimly at nothing. She wondered how many of her agents would die before she could safely slam the nails into Margren's coffin.
She had uncovered one fact she had not shared at that meeting weeks ago: the Gold Ravens stalking her people were Waejontori; part of a newly established cell in Rowanslea. Wilstryn had meant to make it known, but her eldest two daughters, Laeth and Sorrow, had dissuaded her. Sitting there in the wake of Talons' departure, Wilstryn began to question that advice. What if Talons' lack of that information cast her into more danger than even she could handle? But it was already too late, for Wilstryn had no way of contacting her – that was the way Talons worked.
Then Sohkoran's sweet young face filled her head. Sometimes she could almost hear his voice, feel the nearness of his spirit. She folded her arms on the table and pressed her face into them to muffle her weeping lest her daughters hear her. She did not want her sorrow added to theirs' lest it provoke them to desperate actions; some fool's errand that would cost their lives and gain nothing.
* * * *
She sat with her back wedged into the corner of an L-shaped fragment of wall, sheltered from the high winds by the willow's long branches draped over the ruins. Margren stared up at the full moon, pulling her heavy wool cloak tighter around her. It was a bad night to be outside, but worse inside where her thoughts seemed to rebound and multiply against the walls. She had been asleep until the nightmarish loneliness of her dreams awakened her. None of the techniques of mind or magic she had learned so well could push the loneliness and feelings of abandonment away.
She had dreamed again of the way the courtiers, people she had called friends, swiftly deserted her every time Aejys came home. She stood, basking in their affections, speaking at length on philosophy, music and art or she played her mandolin, singing to their praise, she had always had a gifted hand and a sweet voice. Then Aejys would appear and suddenly she was speaking to the cold empty air. What did they see in Aejys, whose only talents were swords and war? Loneliness cut deeper than a sword.
Margren shivered and it was not from the wind and cold, but from her heart. Aejys liked taking it all away from her or she would not have prevented Margren from bonding with a wynderjyn colt she tried to rescue from a snare. Everyone said she had deliberately set the snare to force a bond from gratitude when she released the animal. "But I didn't. I didn't!"
As irrational as she knew it was, she could not stop from feeling that even in death Aejys would return to take everything away again. And Laeoli, as well, she was taking it all away now too. Laeoli was the heir and the heir was more important than Margren could ever be – ever would be. A wordless shriek of despair and pain rolled up through her throat and broke into the night where the wind swallowed it up as if it had never been.
"Everyone," she sobbed. "All love Aejys and Laeoli. No one loves me! I hate them! I hate them... I..." And now there were times when she believed that Isranon was stealing Mephistis from her. It was all too much! If Isranon... No! She could not bear to think on that at all.
"That isn't true you know, my love," said the smooth, deeply masculine voice from just outside the willow curtain. "Hate them if you will, but don't say you are not loved." A slender dark man with a long narrow face, a tiny black wisp of a beard on his chin, knelt and parted the willows. He crawled into the rude shelter beside her.
Margren opened her arms, letting her cloak slip back and he slid into them. In the darkness his slanted deep violet, sa'necari eyes could not be seen. "Mephistis," Margren's voice cracked as she fought back another round of tears. He had come looking for her. Surely that meant he cared?
Mephistis took her face in his hands, kissing away the tears, his mouth moving lower until his lips met hers. His questing tongue pushed hungrily between her lips, reaching deeply, then twining with her tongue. Margren's hand slipped down his body to caress his cherished hardness, fumbling with the hooks of his trousers. Then her hands were inside, lifting him out, caressing him, guiding him inside her to the place of ecstasy. Their bodies moved together in a single rhythm as he thrust deeper and deeper, in and out. Margren moaned softly, her fingers digging into his back, her legs fastening around his buttocks, tighter and tighter. Her womanhood sucked him, clenching, throbbing with need. She climaxed as his seed erupted within her.
Margren lay in his arms for time uncounted; the warmth of their bodies pressed together defeated the worse efforts of the wind to chill them. Her loneliness was dispelled as if it had never been.
"Swell my belly," Margren hissed the crude phrase. "Give me a child. Fill me with your seed until there's no room for more." Her hands slid down his hard lean body, caressing him again to hardness. She raised her legs straight up, wrapping her arms around them in the clamshell position. "Service me, stud," she whispered in a low, sensual tone. Mephistis locked his arms around her arms and legs, his cock pressing against the sweet wet lips of her womanness. He entered gently at first, finding his way to the place of ecstasy. Margren moaned as he touched it, crying out as he struck deeper and harder.
So they sped the hours until dawn.
* * * *
Blackbird's house stood in the poor quarter of the city, a ramshackle three story wood structur
e desperately in need of repairs that the crippled knight could not make herself and little money to pay for on her modest pension. She could have lived in relative comfort in Castle Rowan, but chose not to. She had been badly crippled, saving Mar'ajan Kaethreyn's life from an assassin's knife in an attack that cost her the use of her right arm and hand as well as damaging her left leg. Still she lived where she wished with her mates and their seven children, paying her way with money from the small pension Kaethreyn had given her.
The older children had begun the repairs, but they were young and it was a lot of work even with their 'lasah's and sire's help. Then their 'lasah had taken ill with a degenerative disease the healers could not cure. And they could not afford a lifemage, even were there any left in the city which there were not. So the repairs went unfinished.
Battered, threadbare furniture filled the front room of the old house: A long couch with its legs missing stretched beside a door leading deeper into the house. Two ragged over-stuffed chairs stood near a window, some of the original embroidery still showed, faded beige against dark rose, the seats worn through at the edges and middle, straw stuffing poking through. Birdie and Lizard were lounging on a long faded gray couch when Ladonys entered with two of her knights. Lizard went out the window with a yelp, but Birdie stood her ground, shouting for her ma'aram.
"That warrior tried to kill me is here! She's gonna cut my head off... And I didn't do anything to her!" Birdie stood, hands defiantly propped on her hips, "Touch me and I'll beat the crap out of you," she hissed at Ladonys.
"Who?" A rough voice came from the narrow hallway, coming closer. Blackbird limped heavily into the room. She was a large, broad woman once heavily muscled, but now going to fat. Her face was battered and scarred, but her eyes still had fire in them. She saw Ladonys and smiled widely. "Shut up, Birdie!" She limped across the room, throwing her good arm around Ladonys who responded warmly.
"Blackbird, you old bitch! Seven kids!"
"Better'n you you old sack of troll bait."
Birdie stood agog and fully at a loss for words, realizing she had ripped off one of her ma'aram's oldest friends.
"Birdie, close your mouth 'fore you catch flies and fetch a bottle of the good stuff. Some glasses too."
The girl bolted the room. She ran up the stairs to the tower cell at the top where she slept. She only dispersed their takings once a month during a ritual worship service she conducted during the full moon. Otherwise every bag and piece of booty rested within a small chest on her altar to the God of Cussedness, Perverse Dynanna. Dynanna, although a minor deity, always listened closely to rebels, thieves, and curmudgeons as well as to outcasts in general and frequently responded. She even blessed their loot so that they would never be caught and would always invest it wisely.
It was her own fault, not Dynanna's, that she had chosen the wrong patsy. She retrieved Ladonys' purse with its contents untouched, shoving it in her pocket. "Forgive me, Dynanna, but this one is a return to sender."
Soft inhuman laughter echoed through the room and Birdie winced: she really hated it when the God laughed at her.
Then she rushed down to the wine cellar, bringing up a bottle of Iradrim whiskey a case of which she had stolen from a local vendor. She snatched glasses from the kitchen, swishing into the front room where she set every thing out, poured for them and then plopped Ladonys' money pouch next to her drink.
Ladonys laughed. Birdie flushed and fled.
Blackbird nodded at her retreating back. "My oldest, Birdie. Then there's Jysy, Arruth, Mathryn, Tomlyn and Tomyrean, they're twins, full blood twins, can you imagine the luck? And then ... then my prize, Mauritius, my son. Conceived year the curse ended. Of course I've some strays and add-ons living with us, like Lizard. Lizard is a good one, she is."
"Lizard's a boy," Ladonys said sharply.
"Ah, so you know that, do you?" Blackbird said softly. "If you haven't already, please keep it to yourself. Lizard's an orphan, got no one. Makes him slaver bait, scoopable material to any noble or moneybags that spies him. Older sister escaped with him when their village got massacred, but not before they saw all the other children butchered. She died on the walls of Armaten, fighting the Waejontori. Most of the Market Street Urchins got similar stories to tell. War was Hell."
Ladonys nodded, sitting in silence, remembering her own military engagements with Waejontori forces that had broken through to the gates of Rowan City; how Aejys had been brought home to die and somehow lived. "Market Streets Urchins?"
"Birdie's gang. She leads them." Blackbird gave her a shrewd glance, "They do no real harm..."
"Except thieving."
"Yah, a bit. But they see and hear a lot, information in the right hands fetches a good price, if you take my meaning, old friend. I think you could use more ears just now."
Ladonys considered that, she could turn a blind eye on their escapades and get something in return that might save her own daughter. "I could use them, yes."
"Then we can work something out?"
"Yes."
Blackbird heaved a great sigh of relief and refilled their glasses.
* * * *
Drapes covered the wide windows, keeping out the light. Margren liked the darkness. It felt cool and soothing; safe and hidden. She liked small places rather than open areas full of light such as the Market Square and her ma'aram's Great Hall, but she coped with them. No one suspected how vulnerable such places made her feel. The curtains of her great bed were parted slightly. She turned over, closing them, making it even darker and more womb-like.
"There has been no word from Vorgensburg in nearly a month, Margren," purred the soft voice of Mephistis.
Margren turned back to her lover, stroking his slender boyish figure. He came and went through the portal he had opened at the head of her bed, between their secret citadel at Dragonshead and her bedroom. The one place no one would look for an enchantary-gate. Mages might have sensed it, but Margren had long ago eliminated all mages from her ma'aram's household.
When Margren informed her ma'aram that she and her mate, Juldrid, had chosen to use a male from one of the stud-houses to get a child, Kaethreyn had been overjoyed at the thought of having more grandchildren: though she would have preferred a formal triading as Aejys had done. Had she known the true nature of the male Margren coupled with she would have been horrified, perhaps enough to disown her. But Kaethreyn would never know.
She ran her fingertips suggestively over his body. "Then Farendarc failed. Aejys must have found our operatives and killed them all."
"We must take stronger measures, my love." Mephistis waited for her to make the decision he had already made for her, playing with her, letting her have a few illusions of control and influence. He had received the birds four days ago telling him his brother was dead. The only thing he regretted about Farendarc's death was that he had not eaten him. Farendarc had been useful, but Mephistis had far more useful tools. His best pawn in Vorgensburg would be in hiding for months now, rendered useless by Farendarc's failure. Once in a while over many generations Waejonan's lineage produced a fool and Farendarc had been this one's. Let Margrenan worry for a moment and then turn to him.
Margren paused, thinking. "It will take her at least twelve weeks to reach Shaurone and another two to get here unopposed but that isn't going to happen. She's going to have to fight for every inch of ground she crosses." Margren pushed the Waejontori back, climbing on top of him. "Quicken my womb. Give Kaethreyn a new heir. I'm going to kill the one she has."
Mephistis Coleth smiled languidly. "As you wish."
Margren spread her legs, grasping his cock, guiding it in as she descended on it. She rode him hard and wild, taking all that she wanted. A small, pained sound escaped Mephistis, telling her she was being too rough, but she could not stop, she was filled with a savage exultation, grinding her hips and thighs into his body. A sudden bright fire erupted within her. Energy danced in every cell of her body, a golden glow of energy enveloped her and s
pread its burning power through her into Mephistis who writhed and screamed in pleasure so intense it hurt. "The kyndi! Juldrid! Juldrid, come here!"
Margren's na'halaef hesitated in the doorway. She had never before witnessed the burning light of the kyndi. Margren reached out to her. Tentatively, Juldrid started forward. Then she saw Mephistis; knowing him for what he was – sa'necari – he terrified her. For months now she had resisted their efforts to draw her into the sex play, frequently locking them both out of her rooms. Juldrid retreated from the room and Margren came after her. Margren quickly cornered her, capturing her hand. The exquisite ecstasy of kyndi swept over her, shattering her resistance, yet she wept with terror as Margren pulled her to the bed, shoving her down. Already the mystical appendage was materializing between Margren's legs. Without preliminaries, Margren threw herself atop Juldrid. Juldrid, unprepared, screamed in fear and anguish as Margren forced her way into her body. She tried to scream again, but Mephistis mounted her mouth, his cock thrusting deep into her throat, choking her.
Juldrid gagged, trying to turn her head away. Mephistis clouted her with his fist, ripped away her shirt, and began to bite her nipples. "Suck you stupid bitch. Suck good!" Juldrid obeyed, tears streaming from her eyes. Margren continued to thrust the kyndi deeper and deeper into Juldrid's body until it seemed she would split the young minstrel's womb open. Lightning lanced through Juldrid and a weight settled in her womb like rocks in her stomach: the moments-old embryo had passed to her. Mephistis came in Juldrid's mouth, twisted around, and pinched her cheeks, forcing her to swallow it.
