JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING III

by JANRAE FRANK

  Edouina groaned.

  * * * *

  Edouina and Dynarien sat up all night with Talons. She roused twice in drifting consciousness, not recognizing either of them, and then away again.

  "What's this doing to the children?" Edouina asked him.

  "Nothing yet. I invoked the kweigeyl to suppress only those aspects of the bi-kyndi that responded to touch. It's still preventing the drug from reaching the babies."

  "I suppose that's something to be grateful for." Edouina leaned back in Dynarien's arms, her head resting against his shoulder. Dynarien felt wonderfully solid and strong. He kissed Edouina's lips lightly. "If I wasn't so tired and worried, honey, I'd make something of that," she drawled.

  On the second and third day, Talons had more episodes of unconsciousness, but after that things appeared to level off.

  * * * *

  "There! There's your bloody book!" Wrathscar shouted, slamming it onto the table. "Now, dance with me, as you promised. As you used to."

  "Very well," Galee sounded petulant, stalking from the room with him in tow, as Yahni and Belyla watched discreetly around the edges of the door facing of the guest hall. Yahni had a bit more strength, for they had been anticipating the book's arrival and Belyla had resisted feeding from him for days, although it made her ache with need and desire. Philomea had not returned from the castle once Yahni refused to conceal her secret visits from Belyla.

  "Why doesn't she just kill him?" Wrathscar demanded.

  "She's Passion-Dancing," Galee observed, smiling with unusual appreciation. "I must admit she does it well, with far more skill than I expected. Savoring him like fine wine, to be sipped, rather than gulped greedily."

  "Like a nibari."

  "Somewhat, except that she is killing him by taking too much and too often and he does not have the nibari stamina. When she finally stops his heart, she will be very sad, then she will console herself with another of his family and another until there will be no Kjartens left alive."

  Wrathscar smiled. "No more of the bloody Kjartens to annoy me will suit fine."

  They entered the next room, leaving the book behind.

  "Now, Belyla, let's get the book." Yahni pushed from his chair, faltered and then steadied. Belyla waited for him. They stole into her father's study, and Yahni took the book off the shelf, slipping it inside his shirt as he heard Galee and Wrathscar, still arguing loudly, coming up from the basement, and hurried back to the sitting room where he had left Belyla.

  "Let's go."

  "The gardens?"

  "And into the trees." Yahni kissed her quickly and started walking along the hallway, which was dotted with tables, couches, and chairs. "The way you went up the walls to the tower."

  Belyla gripped his arm, careful to keep her claws sheathed. She had never used the venom, but she knew it was there; she knew it could kill. Did using it count as the kind of kill that would cost her soul? Even if it were in self-defense? Could she bring herself to kill? If it meant defending Yahni? They came to the middle of the hallway where the landing of the stairs interrupted it without seeing anyone. Then they heard Galee's shriek of rage, followed by Wrathscar's roar.

  Belyla quailed. "They know."

  Galee stepped into the hall, lifted a table, and threw it. The table struck them, hurling them beyond the landing. Belyla came to her feet first, dragging Yahni up, crying in terror. Galee swept down the hallway, seized Belyla, ripping her away from Yahni, and cast the girl into her father's arms. Wrathscar imprisoned Belyla in his grasp, forcing her to watch as Galee continued to pursue Yahni. Yahni stumbled again, twisting and staggering into a wall. Galee stalked after him, throwing furniture each time he tried to straighten and run again until he fell. Belyla sobbed. Galee stood over him, glaring deeply. She seized his face, forced it up, and sank her mind into his, capturing it securely.

  "Belyla, mark me, you will be punished." Galee snarled, "You were told to take his mind, not simply feed upon him."

  "I love him."

  Wrathscar laughed and released her. "The only love you'll get is what I give you between your legs, slut."

  "I have a lesson to teach both of you. Yahni is a truehearted, godmarked Guildsmon. Therefore he will not rise. So you must sit and watch him die." Galee ripped his shirt open and took the book out. "Each time I catch you doing something like this, Belyla, I will repeat the lesson. Your next meal will be a kill. No more nibble games."

  Galee lifted Yahni to his feet, "Go into the sitting room, and wait for us with Belyla. Do not speak."

  "The only mon who teaches Belyla is me, Galee," Wrathscar growled.

  Yahni did as he was bid, Belyla following him in tears. Belyla sat down at the table beside him, stroking his hair, patting his hand, and getting no response. She felt unable to think. The moment her father touched her, the strength had gone out of her. She felt numb, weak. She looked into Yahni's eyes, those lovely eyes that were now so empty.

  "What do I do?" Impulsively she pushed into his mind, awkwardly, uncertainly, knowing she could not free him, but wanting to touch him somehow before Galee killed him. She found something odd that filled her with thoughts of trees and green growing things. It eased her fear a bit, calmed her and, for the first time since they were taken, she thought of the Black Swan as more than a name, as a presence.

  Galee returned with her arms loaded down with several items and arrayed them before Yahni: a glass, a brown bottle like the one Solance had brought to the swan room, pen, paper and ink – and the book. She cupped his chin, touching his mind again. "You're geised, by someone with tree-gift. We've two yuwenghau, it seems. The Master of Blood will kill them both. What were you supposed to do?"

  "Protect the records, return the book."

  Galee laughed. "You've come looking for the book I burnt, and found my journal instead. Well, since you belong to Mohanja, and are wearing this silly geis – not to mention the fact that Belyla had the poor sense to take a Kjarten, we'll handle it like this." She poured him a glass of the drug. "Drink. Master of Blood brewed this one special. A single dose was not enough to kill you last time. This one is stronger."

  Yahni obeyed and Belyla began to cry again.

  "Now write. Say you have betrayed the Guild, your god, and your vows by coupling with vampires. Once dead, they should not be able to tell the difference."

  Yahni wrote and she poured him another glass. "Drink."

  "What are you doing, Galee?" Wrathscar came in, his face still stormy.

  "Repairing the damage your daughter has done. When they find his corpse in front of the temple tomorrow whatever he may have told them will have lost its credibility, especially since he's chosen a woman's death over a man's." She filled the glass a third time. Yahni drank. Galee blew on the paper to dry it, folded it up, and placed it in his pocket. As she saw him start to sag, she released him to feel it more fully.

  Yahni clawed at the table, trying to both remain upright and clutch at his chest and stomach at the same time. His chair listed backwards and then to the side, toppling over and spilling him onto the floor. Belyla screamed.

  "Enjoying yourself?" Galee asked.

  "I hate you!" Belyla screamed.

  "Hate is fine. So long as you learn obedience. Before the night is out, I will have taught you. You will sit here and watch him die. You will not touch him."

  "The only one teaching my daughters is me," Wrathscar growled, grabbing Galee and shoving her out of the room.

  "Then I will teach you, as well."

  Belyla wept harder as she disobeyed to drag her husband into her arms. She closed out the sounds of her father and Galee having another of their frequent fights. They'd never fought like this before she turned him. "I don't want to be a monster."

  "Love. You." His words emerged soft, struggling to escape, to be heard.

  It had been a long time since she had dreamed of being the Black Swan in her cloak of black feathers and silver armor, with her flight of blue gryphons in service to Willodarus a
nd the woodland divines. Black Swan and White Swan. Channadar had called her the Black Swan and Yahni the White. She did not even know if the Faery lord still lived. He had tried to help them. What would the Black Swan do? She would shake out her cloak of feathers and leap from the window. She would carry the dying White Swan from this place and pass the book to her blues so that the word could reach the right ears even if it meant her life. Belyla could almost hear Channadar's voice singing. She could remember the swans coming from his fans that first day he actually spoke to her when she was with Yahni that evening in the gardens. Then she was not afraid anymore, merely angry and desperate.

  Belyla snatched the book off the table, lifted Yahni into her arms, and remembered the paper in his pockets. He was not dying with a lie in his pockets. She pulled it out and threw it away. They went out the second story window as only a vampire could, the way she had gone out of the swan window and up to the spire. She still could not think clearly, but anger and grief was gradually burning a hole through her fear and terror.

  People were dismounting in the courtyard. There was no way to be subtle about it, so she simply walked into their midst, knocked several down and grabbed a horse. Belyla was frightened badly and shaking, but she was trying hard to act like a ferocious vampire, or at least her idea of how one would act.

  Galee had more resources than Belyla dreamed, and they had not gone four blocks in the deepening twilight before they found their way barred by a dozen lesser bloods. Belyla reined hard, forced away from the direction of the castle and back into the city. She clutched Yahni tightly, panic growing again as they cut her off repeatedly no matter which way she turned. "Which way, Yahni? Which way?" But he could not answer.

  She lost all sense of direction, finding herself in a part of the city she had never been before, a place of taverns and shops. Myn grabbed the reins of her tiring horse, jerking the beast roughly. The hands seizing her were strong, stronger than she was and she screamed as they pulled her off. Yahni fell from her arms and the book skittered from her grasp, sliding along the gutters and then into the sewers.

  Struggling with Belyla and figuring the Guildsmon to be too far gone to escape, they ignored him. Yahni lay in the wet filth, staring up at the sign on the tavern, trying in his pain and weakness to remember why it looked familiar: The Black Lady Tavern. He caught the edge of the windowsill, dragging himself up. That was when they noticed him. He managed the two steps to the door, walking the wall with his palms flat for support, turned the knob, and staggered inside.

  * * * *

  Maya had been talking for an hour about the complexities of Sharani relationships and how there simply were not enough words in common or any other language except Sharani to encompass it. Tomorrow they would make a formal announcement of their triading, a more conventional Sharani arrangement – if anything Sharani could be called conventional – than that of her parents. Her uncle, father, and six mothers had already given them a small private party earlier that day to introduce Derryl and Leslie to the delightful insanity of Sharani pod marriages as well as to the five of her sixteen sibs who could be gathered on short notice. Her only disappointment was that no one could find Yahni.

  "So you see, we say our daddies, meaning both of them, speaking in emotional terms and that confuses people. Because Sharani will often chose a different bloodline to produce a child, rather than their mate, so then you say sire to be specific, but you still say daddy and it's daddy who counts, not sire. And then, oh my look at all the ma'arams. You just have a single word. Mother. Ma'aramlasah or 'lasah is a specific word, and it's cold, but speaking directly to her, you say ma'aram. Which is warm. But in a pod, they are all your ma'arams. But your ma'aram proper is your bloodmother where the initial conception process began."

  "You're trying to confuse me, love," Derryl grinned.

  They had escaped to The Black Lady Tavern owned by Derryl's friend Tuhk, and sat in a booth in the innermost recesses far from the doors, the women cuddling Derryl between them contently, letting the last of a fine day wind down before heading back to his house with its pleasant grounds. They overnighted at the palace as little as possible, and this was to be no exception.

  The door slammed open and then closed, forcing their attention to the front of the tavern as a fight erupted. One man had his hips against the wall, wedged into a corner near a long table that had been overturned. He appeared drunk, possibly sick, or injured, one arm pressed across his middle. Black, stringy hair hung in long mats around his face and slumping shoulders as he spouted accusations of treason in slurring tones and something about the "heir," "poison" and "Galee's catamite, Wrathscar," then the three soldiers in Wrathscar's colors grabbed him. Lord Derryl was out of his seat in a flash, sword drawn. "Stay here, Leslie, far back," he admonished his wife. She moved to the farthest corner of the booth. Maya followed him closely.

  "Be safe, my darlings," Leslie called after them, flicking her burgundy scarf in their direction for luck.

  "Hell shitting damnation, turn and fight." Lord Derryl raked the blade across their shoulders. It was not in him to strike from behind. They jumped and spun on him.

  Maya laughed; she loved seeing him like this as much as Leslie did. She stepped to the side to go after the third. Maya could not see their victim's face clearly with his dark hair all down in it, and what she could see was so terribly drawn and haggard as to be unrecognizable, yet he seemed familiar. The third had more wit than the others. He grabbed the drunk, driving his blade deep into the boy's side, jerking it free. Maya cried in outrage and ripped the soldier across the legs, hamstringing him to bring him down and then across the throat as he stumbled. She wiped her blade, sheathed it, and dragged the young mon clear. As she turned him, brushing his hair back, her eyes went wide with grief and horror. "Yahni."

  Leslie came to her side and the two myn got him to the booth. She drew a scarf from her pocket, futilely pressing it to the heavily bleeding wound in his side "It's your brother!" Then the tavern master appeared, lifted him up, and carried him into the backroom.

  Maya noticed an odd mottling and twisting of the flesh along his neck, brushing his hair back further to see it: a track of rough scars ran along both sides. "No, Yahni! Oh, Gods, no..." Maya opened his torn shirt further, ripping it, and only when she found the material resisting her did she pull it off completely as she saw more and more scars from Belyla's feedings. The scars covered his arms, neck, and upper body until there was almost no patch of unblemished skin left. She glanced at his pants with a sick feeling that, were she to remove them, she would find still more of those hateful marks.

  "Yahni..."

  * * * *

  Yahni staggered into the tavern, grabbing at the tables and chairs to keep his feet, and overturning several. He reached the opposite side of the room, put his back against the wall, and managed to turn as he heard soldiers behind him.

  "There he is! Get him," said a soldier.

  Yahni glanced at them, unable to straighten because of the pain and dizziness. He decided to die with every word of defiance on his lips that he could force through them. The young Guildsmon knew they had taken Belyla, and felt certain she would pay the same price that he did. "Traitors ... traitors! Poisoning the heir..." His words slurred. "Damn Wrathscar!"

  The three soldiers in the umber and pine of Lord Wrathscar's household drew their blades. "Silence him, quickly," said the one who appeared to be in charge.

  They reached for him and two myn arrived behind them, shouting for the soldiers to turn and fight. Yahni stared through the matted strings of his hair at them, recognizing – in a dulled miasma of anguish – Derryl and Maya. Two soldiers turned to face them and, for an instant, Yahni felt hope that he would be able to pass on his message before dying. The third caught hold of him, sliding his blade into Yahni's ribs before being forced to turn at bay by the Guildsmon's sister. Yahni barely felt the blade go in, only the searing burn of its being drawn out of him for another strike.

  He colla
psed on his knees, his back sliding along the wall and his head tilting to the side as darkness took him. The next thing he became aware of was laying on a table in a back room of Tuhk's Black Lady Tavern with Maya looking down at him.

  "Maya..." Yahni's eyes opened, glassy and dilated by the drugs, a bit too moist and glistening. His hand closed on hers. "Hold me ... I'm so cold."

  Maya slid her arm under his shoulders, lifted him up, and rested him against her body like a child. Yahni smiled then, a sweet, simple child-like smile. He had believed that he would greet his death with fortitude, been prepared for it since the night Belyla bit him; and yet when the moment arrived he felt this overwhelming isolation and abandonment. Only his sister's arms made it better. He felt grateful that he was not dying alone and, at the same time, regretted that it had to be Maya who found him. The young Guildsmon could see the grief in his womb-twin's eyes. "Overdose ... street drug." Yahni struggled for each word. "Creature took me ... made me drink it ... made me write note ... wanted to call it ... suicide."

  Maya leaned close, smelling his mouth. "Fire poppy and death lotus base. Oh, Yahni!" Her voice cracked. Wrathscar sent the soldiers after him because they were afraid he might talk before the drugs could kill him.

  Leslie's sweet face filled with sorrow and her eyes with tears. "Maya, I'm sorry." She moved to the other side and grasped Yahni's hand in both of hers.

  "Listen ... tell them ... vampire ... poisoning the heir..." Yahni's body stiffened, tightened in shuddering convulsion. After a few minutes it eased and he was able to speak again. "Wrathscar ... wants her dead ... in childbirth..."

  Maya shuddered: Sharani rarely died that way.

  "The book. I had it... I was trying to leave... Spare Belyla ... she helped me escape."

  "Where's the book?"

  "Dropped it. Street somewhere. Tell them. Please tell them. Galee and Wrathscar. Evidence in ... the book. Tell them."