Not dead, she agreed.
But he should suffer, and be more humbled than he has ever been. With their minds and souls working in tandem, they weren’t sure who spoke, who fanned whose fires of wrath. A dark plan was being spun in their heads. A vision of revenge against the King. We must call him out of his ivory palace. We must bring him into the streets where all of Eod will see him bow, will see him stripped of the virtue he uses as a shield. You want to be a man, Magnus? Then be judged as one. Be treated as one. Be scorned and praised as one. An age of truth. Let the people decide who is guilty of what. Let the people be our court—they smiled, then kissed, flooding each other with a delirious, shivering malice—and his.
Their purpose was now twofold: they would deliver the message to Elissandra from her dead husband, Sangloris, and they would cleanse themselves of their past with Magnus. Why sneak into Eod like cowards when they should come to the gates screaming for justice for the people of Menos, for her rape, for Magnus’s lies?
Drunk on their black kiss, Erik didn’t sense the two men coming down the road in their cart; Erik was again distracted by the rigidity of his lover’s mouth and throat, as if she were becoming a woman of rock, as well. The strangers walked to within tens of paces of the pair, then stopped to stare at them. It was an arousing sight for two men: a comely lass tipped backwards, hood fallen—hair radiant as a falling cascade of sunshine—and held by a broad-backed, swarthy warrior. Young and aimless fellows, the wandering peddlers were in no hurry to make it to Meadowvale’s shores to scavenge for crab shells and pearls. They cared not if their mothers complained about their laziness, and this sight was worth a pause. At first, the louts guffawed and elbowed each other. Then they quieted down so they might watch without disturbing the show.
Unwittingly, Lila had held on to the Mind while Erik dipped her; one finger grazed the sphere’s cold crystal skin. Navigator, two bipedal humanoids are displaying signs of increased temperatures, agitation, and sexual arousal. I believe they wish to see you and the Erik mate. I did not mean to disturb you, but I thought you should know.
The bloodmates rose. The queen moved past Erik and strode toward the aroused voyeurs. One of the men gasped, then nearly choked on his tongue when he realized who this extraordinary golden woman with the amber eyes was—and by extension, who the dark and terrible man looming behind her must be. Lila gazed upon the unwelcome guests with pure detestation. She whirled through visions of all the men in her life who had spat upon, chastised, or otherwise scorned her. She remembered the sour-butter stink and sticky heat of spinrex milk on her fingers, and the warrior who had slapped her black and blue for not squeezing teats quickly enough. She remembered her former chieftain and how he’d laughed at her, then beaten her, when she’d asked to become a warrior. An Arhad woman was never meant to hold a weapon, only a prick. She recalled the many gray and ancient fools who’d silently mocked her, with their stares and carefully worded reprimands, when she had first begun to chair at the Chamber of Echoes. Wise men, they were supposed to be—but none of them were. All of those withered bastards were dead now. She remembered the state in which she’d found Rowena in the desert: dry and cracked, blisters from head to toe. Men had done that to her because of her sex. Finally, Lila dwelled in a waking nightmare where a man—towering, fat with muscle, and reeking of beast—and a pale, pretty prince of ice took turns raping her. It hadn’t happened like that, though close enough. The fantasy was not so far from the truth.
As she neared the men in the road, her scent—her poison of spice, rage, and sweetness—became a field of blooming oleander. Erik could almost see the pollen of her power, a glittering particulate in the air, and he cringed from the reek of sulfur and the crackle of great magik. Was she set to destroy these men? He wanted no such wrath or blood upon her. Either his wish or her temperance helped them avoid this end. She did, though, walk toward the quaking men, who bowed and buried their foreheads into the dirt with such force that rocks and filth made their faces bleed. Her voice sweet and lethal as a tea of sugar and nightshade, she said, “No man shall look upon me but one: my beloved. My rock. My black mountain and gray sea. He has earned my love, as I have earned his. You have earned nothing, not even a glance at our greatness. Cower, and know that the queen of Eod has spared your wicked, weak lives. Cower, cry, and wriggle on the earth like the worms that you are.”
The men mewled, their hips exploded with spastic jiggling, their hands came to their sides, and they snaked on the earth in senseless circles, as commanded. The queen motioned to her knight, and by the time he reached her, the strange scent and toxic cloud seemed to have disappeared. Lila didn’t address what she had done, what kind of magik she had used on these men—for it was magik of a kind unfamiliar to Erik that had broken their wills and turned them into puppets. When he glanced back over his shoulder, he could see them still worming and weeping in the dirt.
VI
An ancient breath of sand and death doth hiss across in haste. Vultures cry and all men die within Kor’Khul’s great waste. Another of the queen’s lyrical ramblings flitted into Erik’s mind as they climbed the peaks and valleys of sand. The drifts flowed in endless white waves toward a shimmer of gold. It became difficult to know how far they had traveled, how much farther they would have to go before the shimmer became Eod. The heat made them dizzy and conjured strange twists on the horizon that never turned out to be anything more than mirages.
When Erik and the queen had last ridden by caravan through the region, the going had been pleasant as they relaxed in the shade of a coach. Traversing Kor’Khul by foot was a fool’s exercise. Already the waterskins they’d brought with them from St. Celcita had begun to shrink. Erik counted the drops they drank and took less than a mouthful of water for himself. Thankfully, Erik was more or less impervious to the pains of deprivation. He drank and ate only because he felt that he should. He supposed that was an aspect of now being a stone man: stones didn’t eat or drink; they endured. Likewise, the winter cold that came with night was a nuisance to him. Lila slept in the warm rock of his embrace while he stayed awake, haunted by hissing sand ghosts and a bold, glaring moon. In the morning, his queen woke and smiled at the sandy face of her bloodmate. Erik didn’t tell her that he hadn’t slept in three days. They each kept certain silences.
Since the incident on the road, Lila had been reserved, but occasionally a thought wafted to Erik. She realized now, as did Erik, that she’d invoked a hitherto unknown sorcery upon those men in the road: a magik similar to that of legendary enchantresses. The queen, though, was no such enchantress. So from where had she summoned such power? She had little to say on the matter—to her knight, at least. Erik sensed her speaking to the crystal babe she cradled, and could not repress a certain amount of jealousy and concern.
Lila and the Mind made peace soon after the incident. Although it had been invasive about Magnus, and when it had warned them of the leering men, she could not deny it had been helpful. Also, she would need its insight to understand how and why her magik had suddenly developed new branches after hundreds of years. By her understanding, magik, once developed, never changed. It matured, perhaps—an earthspeaker, for example, might learn to move and manipulate larger and larger rock into ever more extraordinary shapes. She had always been an emotional sorcerer, one whose power manifested as light, fire, and smoke—physical elements of passion. Her sorcery produced a wrath gentler than the ice and thunder of Magnus.
That morning, at her request, the Mind explored many theories that could account for her metamorphosis. When it reported back around noon, though, it was able to offer nothing conclusive or comforting. I apologize, Navigator. I do not have the information you have requested. I cannot deduce what metascience could animate a transmorphic matrix such as yours. I shall search my memory banks for evidence of similar transmorphic matrixes. If I am successful, we may know more about the cause of your transformation. I hope that pleases you.
It does, thank you, she replied. And yo
u may call me Lila; it’s less formal, and I prefer it.
I hope it pleases you, Navigator Lila.
She produced a harsh laugh from her cracked throat.
The next day, the Mind was quiet all morning as they pressed forward across the sizzling desert. As soon as she touched it while adjusting her burden, though, it jarred her with speech, blurting out a summary of the theories and information it had been processing since their conversation yesterday: Navigator Lila. I have discovered information related to your condition. Basiloriverflax. River basilisks. These cetaceous lizards found in the deltas feeding off the lower River Feordhan have been known to molt not once, but two or more times each season. Biological markers and strengths often persist in subsequent generations; however, each generation is just as mutable as the preceding one. Basiloriverflax are among the only creatures that radically and rapidly alter their biological matrixes according to stimulating environmental factors. If the spring thaw of the Northlands is considerable, and the temperature of the Feordhan dips too low, they develop insulated carapaces. Likewise, if the waters become overly warm, they shed their extra layers and produce pliable, thin skins, even growing additional appendages to help them speedily navigate waters filled with saltwater predators migrating up from the Scarasace Sea. In one recorded season, when mudslides and runoff from the war with Taroch polluted the Feordhan, Basiloriverflaxes developed quadrupedal appendages—flippers with webbed toes—and climbed out of the water and onto dry land. During that season, until they returned to the water to breed, they moved farther inland and preyed on the river fowl and mammalian life found in the Feordhan’s glades and swamps.
Lila knew of these rare creatures of which the Mind spoke. Still, the comparison remained unclear. What does this have to do with me?
Your biological matrix has changed.
Changed?
Since your union of blood and sweat, the exchange of bodily humors with the Erik. Your matrix—and the Erik’s—has become brighter and more complex. Yours is now as complex as the Magnus’s, and it grows more elaborate with each sand. Your condition, your metamorphosis, has accelerated.
Metamorphosis? Into what?
Nigrum plectum. The black quill, continued the Mind, leaping to the next fact it had uncovered. A peaceful herbivore of the Ebon Vale that has a highly toxic natural defense mechanism. Its spines—which have small, flesh-tearing anchors—can be detached and then flung by way of a sub-epidermal contraction of the intramuscular system. A lesser-known fact is that this is not its primary defense against the most dangerous predators. The spines deter the smaller nuisances of the forest: foxes, wolves, ravenboars. When confronted by the bears that would crack their slow and spiny forms open like sea urchins, though, they release a musk, a cloud of psychotropic toxin. Animals under the influence of this poison have been known to ram themselves into trees until their skulls shatter, to drown themselves in rivers, or to engage in other self-destructive behaviors. The poison alters perception and usurps the host’s natural survival instincts by issuing its own commands to the parietal cortex—
Pardon?
The section of a creature’s cortex that controls action and, theoretically, free will. The toxin specifies its own protocols to the parietal cortex and in so doing disrupts its natural function. That is why the animals go mad. Lila felt as if her feet were sinking into quicksand. Her stomach flipped and flopped as the Mind ambled toward a conclusion she did not want to face. I have identified bio-sympathies between the attributes of these two species of animal, Navigator Lila—between the river basilisk’s propensity for transmutation and the black quill’s toxins. You exhibit the adaptability of the basiloriverflax, though you exist in a sphere of complexity all your own. As for the parallels between you and the Nigrum plectrum, I was able to analyze your spray—
My spray?
A diffusion of phosphorus-laced chemicals that can be released from the engorged salivary packets now found in your throat.
Lila gasped and clutched at her neck with a hand. She shrieked when she discovered the small fat caterpillars burrowing alongside her trachea. Whipping around, Erik ran to her side and demanded that she speak. But she remained silent, fearing that if she opened her mouth, she would spew poison, even though she wished her bloodmate no harm. Both the sick, suffocating heat and her fear drained her strength, and she fell into Erik. Nonetheless, one of her hands remained upon the crystal sphere, and she soon discovered the enthusiastic Mind was not yet finished with its analysis. May I resume? When it comes to the order and bioactivity of species, however, your behavioral patterns are inconsistent with those of the black quill. The bipedal humanoids on the road ten point five spans back in distance were not threats to you, but you nevertheless released your distinctive spray. Because of the location of your glands, and your aggressive behavior, I would invert the order of predator and prey and name you as the former.
I’m a predator?
My data suggests so.
“Lila! What’s the matter?” When no answer came to him in his mind, Erik ripped her hand off the relic. Lila blinked, and her eyes found her bloodmate. She remained afraid to open her mouth, and definitely noticed a thickness in her throat now when she swallowed. My poison sacs, she thought.
“What poison sacs? What are you talking about?” Erik demanded.
Fumbling for footholds in the strangeness, Lila reached out and caressed the hard, bearded face of the man who’d changed her. She felt only love, the purest, deepest love, even if their marriage in magik and blood had brought out the reptile in her sprit. At least Erik wasn’t her natural enemy; she realized that because he was part of her, he was therefore immune to her poison. However, the same couldn’t be said of the species Erik had left behind, those who wronged, chased, raped, and enslaved the weak: men.
As she kissed him—not deeply, merely pressing her lips to his—he understood in flashes what it was she was uncovering within herself. Erik shivered in sympathy with her chills of self-disgust. Then he pulled away and forced her to open her mouth and look up at the sun. In the far shadows of her throat, past the vacancy that had once been her tonsils, the flesh appeared ridged, like rings chipped in stone. He remembered, then, how odd and hard her mouth had felt when he’d kissed her back on the lordvessel, and then again on the road. Shocked, he then noticed she had two small teeth like those of a cat tucked away behind her canines. Lila stopped his examination, turning her head away from him.
“I have become some kind of monster,” whispered Lila, looking down.
“I am a man of rock.” Erik took her hand. “You—Lilehum, Lila, my queen—are the beautiful and exotic serpent who charmed me decades past. We have finally become our truest selves, and we should be grateful.”
Should she? She needed to think about what he’d said. If she was a monster, then she was a monster who knew love, fear, and all that it meant to be mortal—unlike her cold, former husband. She strode away from her bloodmate, pondering, watching the desert, thinking of all she’d been before now: slave-bride, queen, outlaw…Erik drifted to her, when he felt the turmoil in her heart subsiding. A warm black hand, as hot as the passion from the sun above, stroked her neck; she turned and Erik wiped away the tears she’d not felt herself weep.
“I am myself, finally,” realized Lila.
They stood in the sands, caressing. Stone man and serpent. In a moment, the serpent began to hiss her darkest thoughts. “If I can do that to two men…what might I do to ten? Or twenty? Or a hundred?”
Ancient and ingrained traditions of brotherhood and subtle misogyny were not so easy to dispel, even in the progressive city-state of Eod. The majority of the Silver watch was male—even the term “watchman” was gender specific. Rowena was one brave challenger to this order, and the queen could come up with the names of perhaps another hundred women who possessed her determination. Menos, for its part, was no better. Gloriatrix was to be admired for her daring, at least.
“My queen?” he gasped.
For suddenly, her skin had taken on a sheen, a dusting of iridescent pink, amber, and green that resembled scales. Her fearsomeness enticed Erik, as did the puff of cinnamon and prickle of magik she misted into the air—her toxin. Then the monster within Lila retreated into its basket, and she was again all softness and beauty. She slipped a hand into her sling and chatted with the crystal child there, before speaking again. “Come, my knight. The Mind senses a grand encampment several spans to the north. Arhad.” She practically spat the word. “I would like to return to my people and offer them the chance I once had.” She held her breath, and her stare glittered. “The chance for freedom.”
She felt enflamed with purpose. Reborn. She spoke for the khek, the lizard-milkers, the first to seventh wives, the sewn-up, mutilated women who dragged themselves low to the ground and lived every moment in shame—a shame they had never deserved. Lila knew who it was should suffer.
VII
A stillness had fallen over the Arhad encampment, which lay scattered over the sands like a spilled pack of dull brown and beige cards. The warriors had spent their seed and filled their bellies with food, and now slept fat and fit as children. The children themselves slumbered, too. Boys and girls lay in their separate tents, both groups watched over by humming old crones—wives no longer needed or desired for coital duties. Some of the old wives’ husbands were dead and once they began to fail in their wits and wakefulness, they would be cast out and left to wander the desert until they met their former mates in the afterlife. The old wives told themselves this would be an honor, yet their hearts were full of dread. They were the first to sense the presence. A wind of fragrant spice and dangerous sweetness blew through the encampment. It ruffled the tents, slithered through any tear in the fabric walls, and entwined the late-night guardians in a coil of scent.
Feast of Chaos (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 3) Page 37
