JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING III

by JANRAE FRANK

  "No." The old man said. "No, Alysyn. It's Yukiah. He's dead. The vampire is back. It butchered him." He sucked air. "Brutally... brutally butchered him. Isen found what was left of him." He gave Alysyn the letters. Three of them had been following her around for weeks before they finally caught up with her there along with one for Leish pleading with him to bend all efforts make certain that she got them.

  Alysyn settled more heavily against the wall, her lips parting to let more air into her lungs. Her vision had been true. "My husband ... my child ... my poor family. I should never have left him."

  "Duty is where you find it." Leish made a clumsy attempt at comfort and went silent, unable to find more.

  "Ah, my dear god. I could not bear to dwell in Havensword so near to where Rygen died. And Yukiah could not bear to dwell away from the Halls of the Guild." Her face tightened and moisture gathered in the corners, but she did not release it. "I did not tell him about Isen. Give me a double and then show me these fresh horses, Leish."

  "The prince..." Kerr's expression as he repeated his words, grief etched into every line of it, tore at Alysyn. "They murdered the prince."

  Alysyn handed the letters over to him as the Shivari sat down beside her.

  "Like in your vision..."

  "Yes. Exactly as in my vision."

  * * * *

  Derryl lay naked in the filthy straw of a dank cell beneath one of Wrathscar's warehouses, shivering with fever and chills. The cell smelled rank with urine and feces, and the lingering musk of the rats that ran through. He could smell rot and decay and a sharp acridness of the sewers, so he knew they were below ground and close on them. The heavy weight of the irons on his wrists and ankles twisted and pulled at him. He could barely manage to move wearing them. The irons lacerated his wrists and ankles, which then swelled and bled painfully with the burning tenderness of infection. The irons never came off.

  Galee did not want to lose him too quickly, so she would periodically send one of her tame healers to tend him. She liked having him heal enough that she could do it all over again. The process broke down his sense of self, knowing that he waited for it to begin once more, which instilled fear. Yet, so far none of his answers to her questions had satisfied her. She had made all of that plain to him.

  He dreamed of Maya and Leslie mostly, praying for their safety when he could manage a coherent thought amidst the anguish. Sometimes his brothers' spirits visited him, or at least he thought they did. He wished he could go completely mad, slide off into a realm where none of this was real. Or die. That would be the true victory. But Hadjys' lady of the sacred blade never came for him.

  Three of Galee's jailors had made him their butt-boy, adding humiliation to his suffering. He could hear them coming in the darkness, but not yet see the faint light of their lantern. His damaged sphincters puckered at the knowledge of their approach. What had hurt even more was having his myn watch.

  A wall of iron bars separated his cell from that of his five surviving myn. Galee wanted them to see what she did to him each day, to see what his jailors did. She thought to break his myn by forcing them to watch and him by the humiliation of their watching. The opposite had occurred. Derryl felt more determined to withstand her. In return, his myn stood fast and did not break, as a gift to his courage. They could not be less than he; and he could not be less than they.

  He heard the keys rattle in the door and then the jailors entered quietly with their shielded lamp. They dug Derryl out of the straw and forced him onto his stomach, took hold of his shoulders and pulled him backwards until his ass was positioned for their pleasures. Derryl clenched his teeth and locked his jaw, refusing to cry out or beg as he felt the first one's hard knob begin to force its way inside him.

  "We're gonna wear your noble ass out," the jailor told him, grunting loudly as he thrust with deliberate savagery.

  "But not before I have my piece," said the other one.

  Derryl retreated into a corner of his mind where they could not reach, detaching himself from his body in the moment of violation.

  * * * *

  The only light came from lamps in the corridors so the cells were very dark. One of the five myn remained awake at all times, listening for their lord and what chanced with him. Bram, the oldest of them, sat up when he heard the keys rattle in the door to Lord Derryl's cell and he moved closer to the iron bars. Then he turned his back to it, his face tight, knowing. A younger mon woke at the sound of grunting in the next cell. His eyes widened with a stricken expression and he said to the older man, "Are they...?"

  "Yes. It happens every night. Sometimes one, sometimes many." The man's voice was grim and chill, detached from his heart and head. "I have heard them each night since we have been here. Our good lord will not break and neither shall we."

  "We should give her what she wants," said Hurst, roused by the sound and his cellmates' voices.

  "Shut up, Hurst," Bram growled. "And don't watch."

  "Give her what she wants, for hell's sake!" Hurst repeated. "Then she'll let us go."

  The youngest of them, a beardless youth, balled up and covered his ears at the sound coming from Derryl's cell. Bram squeezed his shoulder in sympathy, and then turned on Hurst. "You're an idiot if you believe that."

  * * * *

  They rode into the city of Havensword in the dawn light, as it stretched pale fingers across the snow tipped peaks and broke across the high walls. Alysyn led. She held herself stiffly in the saddle, determined and straight as the blade at her hip. People watched them and no one stayed them. They had never seen such a large unit of the border riders before. She did not betray the tension in her body at being here after thirty years. It had not changed at all. She remembered every twist and turn of it as if it were only yesterday that she and the others had raced about it, fought the undead through its alleys and dark paths. Rygen had competed with Yukiah for her. But she had only wanted Yukiah. Only really wanted Yukiah. Yet for a time, in a brief flirtation she had turned to Rygenas Tormuth. He had been dashing, wealthy, and highborn. Everything a poor girl from the back streets could dream of and her head had turned. She had lost her virginity with Rygen. For years she had kept telling herself that briefly, only briefly had her head been turned. That was before Alysinjin had appeared to her and revealed what she was.

  She had meant to meet Rygen that long ago night. They had planned a rendezvous, but then she came upon Yukiah and forgot Rygen. She genuinely loved Yukiah. And when the morning came, and she woke in Yukiah's arms, Rygen was dead. The creatures had killed him. And it was her fault. If she had kept the rendezvous it would not have happened. Rygen would have been somewhere else, not waiting for her in that tavern. When the war with the creatures ended, she left Havensword and that would have been the end of it, but she encountered Yukiah again and they married fifteen years later. But it hadn't lasted. His duty called him back to Havensword, a place where she had sworn never to go again. Yet here she was. They had remained legally married, neither of them wanting to entirely let go. She had never told him about Isen, not wanting him to be forced to chose between his duty and a child. Bad enough he was choosing between her and duty.

  "Kerr, you sense them yet?"

  "Yes, commander. Scry wards in place. Scouts securing positions. Havensword doesn't know it yet, but they are now invested. No one enters or leaves the city without our knowledge and, when the time comes, without our permission."

  Six hundred Netherguard and three hundred Riders of the Escarpment Guard had assembled around Havensword after traveling there in smaller groups cloaked by scry wards.

  "Thank you, Kerr."

  Yukiah ... Yukiah should have been safe. Not slain taking it in the back from a slimy little toad you could have broken in half with one hand. Yukiah. Alysyn felt doomed by her name, for she had been named for the Black Swan, the swan-may who had been too late to save her lover. She rode into the courtyard of the temple and dismounted. One of her riders took her reins.

  "I'll t
ake it, Alysyn," said Kerr.

  A priest came up. "Can I assist you Rider?"

  "Yes," Alysyn replied, her eyes avoiding his uncharacteristically, almost distant. "I want to see the armsmaster's grave. That is what we are here about."

  "Ahhhh. Come this way."

  Alysyn followed and when she saw the grave, covered in flowers and offerings, her eyes filled and her throat choked up. She dropped to her knees, dragging her fingers through the offerings until she could clear a spot and then clawed into the soil with a sob. "Yukiah, my love..."

  The other Riders withdrew and knelt, giving her a modicum of privacy.

  The privacy did not last long, for a large mon dressed in priestly robes emerged from the back door of the temple and called out to her, "Alysyn?"

  She glanced at the voice and saw Eshraf approaching with seven Hadjyshadon, a temple battle unit, which sent a tremor of disquiet along her arms. "Holy father." She rose, walked to him, and then dropped briefly to one knee before rising again. "I would like to talk about Yukiah. Perhaps see my daughter."

  Eshraf tilted his head, considered. "That would be well, come with me." Then he gestured to a priest among them. "Show the other Riders to where they can rest and clean up. Have Captain Osterbridge brief them completely."

  "Osterbridge is my daughter's husband?"

  "Yes and he is a fine mon. You will approve of Yukiah's choice."

  They walked through the gardens and into the temple. Alysyn strode along beside him. She had a loose comfortable gait, the grief, and tension showed only in the tightness of her shoulders, and the way she held her neck. Alysyn's eyelids hooded to conceal the questions that entered her mind as they turned away from the student dorms and headed for the teacher's annex. Eshraf led her along a little used corridor, down a long flight of stairs into the lowest level beneath the temple, and he stopped near a bookcase and rapped on the wall beside it. She could see nothing odd about it. Abruptly the scent of spring air and a rush of pine, laurel, and mint swirled through the room with a taste of sweet power that tingled the tip of her lips and tongue.

  "Open it for me, Queiggy," Eshraf said. "She's here."

  The wall opened.

  "Queiggy? He's still alive?" Alysyn asked, wonderingly. "He must be well past a hundred." It startled her past her brooding.

  Eshraf smiled. "Yes."

  The wall drew inward and then slid aside. Alysyn gaped. "What is this?"

  "The secret paths of the first Grand Master."

  "You know them?"

  Eshraf shook his head. "Our yuwenghau has deigned to show me this one recently. Only he can open it."

  Alysyn followed him through. The scent of laurel and mint soon overpowered the pine as they traveled. "My love died hard." She drew the letter from her shirt.

  "Yes, he did. I was with him. Isen held his hand. She cried."

  "He knew? She told him?"

  "He recognized her eyes."

  Alysyn smiled at that and her eyes misted. "I am glad. I should have told him. He had a right to know. Oh gods, I made so many mistakes, Patriarch. So many mistakes."

  "We all do, child. We all do." Eshraf patted her arm and then put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close, holding her against him as they walked. "Isen is holding up well."

  "I am certain that you did. The vampire. It was the same one?"

  "It was Milady, you remember little Milady? The one who claimed to have a trace of sylvan blood, but not the ears?"

  "Yes." She thought about that for a moment. Milady had come from Darr near the Vallimran border with her husband Lord Ambrose thirty years ago. Both with traces of Valdren blood that had been confirmed by one of Galee's healers. Enough to have kept them young this long... And yet no ears. "What happened to her? And Ambrose is he one?"

  "Milady is dead. Yukiah got her. Ambrose stuck him in the back. Right at the start of it. Otherwise he might have gotten away."

  Tension hummed in her blood and she closed her eyes. The image from her vision still haunted her and her mental words over the past weeks had become a repetitive chant with little variation. In the back. Oh Gods, Yukiah. Not in the back. Not by that slimy little toad. "Has Ambrose been brought to account?"

  "No. We were watching him, but he fled and escaped us."

  "I am going to find him and I am going kill him." The corners of Alysyn's mouth had drawn down in a sneer. "He is dead. I have the means of overtaking him, no matter how swiftly he's ridden."

  "He is Lemyari."

  "The vampire?"

  "One of them. That is why we had been watching him, but there is more. I assume you haven't spoken to anyone in the city yet?"

  Alysyn shook her head. Eshraf was as shrewd as ever. "No. We rode straight on. Why?"

  "Then I need to brief you as we walk." Eshraf told her everything up to the moment Isen found Yukiah, covering months in swift clear sketches. Alysyn listened, catching it all with the skilled ear of a verbal as well as a visual eidetic.

  They traveled through the hall and linked up through the cellars into a corridor into the Guild Wing by a path she had never seen before. Queiggy greeted them, looking younger than she remembered him, which startled her. He led them to the door of the guarded annex. Alysyn found that startling. And even more startling, even in view of Eshraf's words, were the number of Guildsmyn in armor and the numbers moving about the Wing itself.

  "Queiggy, before I introduce Alysyn to my special patient, I want you to summon Mohanja to join us in the star room. Leonè has been waiting most of the day already. I want all of you here for this."

  They strode down to the Star Chamber at the end, nodding to the guards at the door and entered the outer chamber in the center of the bottom floor. A ginger haired mon sat with his feet propped in a low table, his nose pressed tiredly against his steepled forefingers. He appeared to be dozing lightly. Yet he snapped to attention, his head lifting and turning to the side to regard them and then his eyes brightened and a smile sprang across his face to pop his lips wide revealing his large white teeth. "Alyssyssyn!"

  "Leonè!"

  The mon was out of his chair in a trice to catch her up as she rushed him. He lifted her and swung her around. Then he set her down, hearing the sob emerge

  "He's dead..."

  Leonè glanced a question at Eshraf who shook his head. "I am sorry, Alysyn. You want to see Isen?"

  "Yes."

  "Isen is in with our friend upstairs," Leonè said, glancing at Eshraf.

  Eshraf ran his eyes across them. "When I take you up, I will be revealing one of my most closely kept secrets. You must not go near this mon. Especially you, Alysyn. He was badly injured the Night of God Rage. He's being held together partly by an auric field and other magics. Entering that, you could damage him."

  The Patriarch led them upstairs. Mohanja's eyes widened into disbelief, for there, propped up on several pillows sat Yukiah with Isen spooning broth into his mouth. "What deviltry is this? I touched his dead body."

  Queiggy gasped in shock and then burst into tears of joy.

  A strangled cry erupted from Alysyn as her hands went up, reaching in Yukiah's direction.

  "Quietly. Softly." Eshraf said. "I wanted you to see before I spoke. He's barely alive, scarcely there."

  "But it's my husband. He's alive. You lied to me," Alysyn accused.

  "Come away to the next room and listen."

  They did so and sat down at a table in the upstairs study between the bedrooms.

  "Yukiah died."

  "But..." She glanced back, shaking her head in silent denial.

  Mohanja frowned deeply. "Guildsmyn cannot be raised."

  "For three days he lay dead, wrapped within a stasis web." Eshraf said to Alysyn, adding to Mohanja, "For those days, his soul resided within the vessel of Dynarien Willodarusson. Hadjys removed his mark from Yukiah and released his soul as Kalirion manifested through the vessel of Dynarien. When the stasis was released, the morning before the funeral, I discovered that they had ac
cidentally split his physical body into two myn at the malikyoles level that only a highly skilled Reader can perceive. One was completely dead, past raising. We buried that one in his grave. The other was barely viable. Kalirion raised that one from the dead. It was a chancy thing. Hadjys and Kalirion's sovereignty, brushing against each other, caused the earthquake. Worse, his soul nearly shattered and was left with cracks in it. The connection between his soul and this body is very fragile, tenuous. It strengthens day by day. The Kalirioni are trying to re-weave the fabric of both his soul and his body. He cannot be left alone while his damaged body heals and regains substance. Yukiah will never again be truly well, certainly never as strong as he was. Fifty-three and doing things more suited to someone in his twenties? He was getting too old for this. You understand?"

  Alysyn nodded. "From what you've told me, losing three of his students must have been part of his decision to go after the creatures himself. I should have been here. I should have come at the first indication of trouble. I would have sent in squads sooner. I was never one to wait as long as Yukiah. Except when it came to returning to Havensword..."

  "He needs you, Alysyn. Because of the manner of his raising, he is now a mon without a god. Hadjys cannot take Yukiah back. Yukiah would shatter at his god's touch. He is a devout mon, and this steals his purpose in life. You must give him a reason to heal, to live."

  "I will try." Alysyn closed her eyes against the flood of memories. "I should have come when you sent that first letter last spring. I should have come."

  Mohanja clasped her shoulder. "We have all made mistakes. I am equally to blame for this, parroting the Grand Master's words until no one trusted me."

  "You unit is free to take up quarters here. This area, the annex has been specially secured for people of rank and others. We expect to be bringing special groups into the annex, which is why we opened it to the wing and closed it to the others. One of our yuwenghau has shielded it. Lord Channadar's people are lodged here."

  "One? You have more than one?"

  "Yes. If he decides to take you into his confidence, he will."