The Fall Of Celene (The Prophecies of Zanufey Book 2)

by A. Evermore

  Hand over mouth she stared blankly at the book-filled shelves lining the walls. She hadn’t been hurt, had she? But that was a strange thing indeed. Why does a harpy think I have need of an amulet? But then it wasn’t just an amulet was it? That is what scared her. Having that powerful thing… She was out of her depth. But when had she ever felt out of her depth where power was concerned? She was being foolish, it was just a stupid necklace, some harpy joke on her. But harpies were not known for foolery, only killing and stealing things. Not giving them.

  “…but there is another, greater, more powerful being who watches you…”. Were they watching her now? Cirosa swallowed, her heart pounded as her gaze darted about the room. Did they know she had touched it?

  She stood up, annoyed at her own paranoia. Whatever it was it was most certainly evil. She would throw it into the sea, but later, she had to wash and dress before the other priests and priestesses were up. What would they think if they saw her still in her night clothes? She left her office and went back to her room.

  But for all the time Cirosa was away from the bloodstone amulet her thoughts were upon it. The only break came when she thought of Rance, and with it feelings of anger and worry forced themselves upon her.

  Like everything she did in life she had spent much careful planning trying to win Rance. Wearing her long blonde hair down, her lithe body cleverly dressed in loose yet clinging clothes, her blue eyes made large through the use of black eyeliner. She was no other than the High Priestess of Celene, attractive and clever, what could he not resist? She knew he could not help but be attracted to her. She also sensed he was afraid of her; but that only served to fuel her sense of power and allurement.

  For all her efforts over a whole year, in the end he had finally refused further offers of her bed. The rejection had infuriated her. No one denies a priestess and certainly not the High Priestess of Celene. The last time she had bothered to speak to Rance had been like the others since he had rejected her, strained and unpleasant. After watching him fooling around with Issa at the Midsummer Celebrations she had approached him dressed in her High Priestess robes and flanked by her priests and priestesses.

  ‘Found yet another wench to flirt with?’ She had said. She had intended to humiliate him in front of everyone and was pleased when he flushed red in anger. He had dared to ignore her and stalked off. His flirting and reaction cemented her dislike of Issa into cold hard bitter hatred. That bitch has ruining everything!

  It was with that bitter taste in her mouth that she now swept back towards her office, not an hour since she had left. Once more she locked the door from the inside, slumped down at her desk and opened the drawer.

  She lifted up the amulet, holding it by its chain as thick as her fingers and watched as the light glinted off the dark surface. She cupped it in her hand and stared into the bloodstone, again the strange feeling of alluring corruption seeped into her, only stronger than before. This time she felt less afraid of it and as she looked it began to glow once more with that odd dark light. How did it work and what would happen if it did work?

  She frowned. Something was moving in that dark red surface. She brought the stone close to her face and stared intently into it. It began to glow brighter and brighter filling her vision with red. She wanted to look away but found she could not and instead pressure grew in her temples and her heart began to pound. She suddenly knew without a doubt that she was not alone.

  She wanted to be commanding and imperious, she was the High Priestess! But in the end she trembled and shivered under the weight of the power that now exuded from the amulet. She was to be commanded, whether she wanted it or not.

  ‘Cirosa…’ the name slithered out of the amulet and wrapped around her shoulders like chains. She could not release the amulet even if she wanted to.

  ‘Who is this? …I,’ she tried to speak but her voice was a quivering rasp that caught in her throat.

  ‘Cirosa…’ the voice breathed again. The unseen chains about her shoulders lengthened and slipped about her neck and arms firmly grasping her. Panic rose in her stomach as the cords tightened on her throat and then released, as if to remind her who was in control.

  ‘Cirosa…’ her name echoed around her a third time and the cords lengthened and gripped around her waist and then her legs. Her own name was being used to bind her. She could not move an inch, not even to talk, not even to blink. Even the feeling of panic was not hers to command and it slowly seemed like a distant emotion. She felt like a fly trapped in a web, being bound by a spider who would consume her later.

  ‘Who slays Keteth?’ the voice demanded softly.

  It was so airy and deep the voice could almost be mistaken for the howling of the wind were it not for the words it spoke. The bloodstone seemed to deepen, if that was possible, or she was being drawn into it, floating in the swirling blood red. Images began flickering through her mind, her own memories being sorted through by whatever it was that ensnared her.

  ‘Who slays Keteth?’ the voice whispered again.

  An image of Issa came to the fore. She was dressed in grey robes and looking away as she stood beside Freydel. The last time Cirosa had seen her before she had gone to Keteth. Now just the sight of Issa caused hatred to course through her. Just a stupid wench! With her throat being constricted the rising fury made her feel faint.

  Laughter, too deep to be from a human throat, echoed around her and she felt the cords about her throat loosen a little. Her breath came a little easier, the hatred rose a little higher.

  ‘Your hatred will be your undoing,’ the voice laughed.

  ‘I care nothing for her, whoever you are,’ she rasped. The effort to speak made her choke. The cords tightened again. She had to sit extremely still and upright to get enough breath into her body to keep from passing out.

  ‘Keteth is dead,’ the voice whispered dangerously, Cirosa’s heart pounded with the lack of oxygen. She tried to choke to get more air but could not.

  ‘She cannot have killed him, she is nothing, she is dead,’ Cirosa croaked.

  The image of Issa rose in her mind again. The cords constricted tighter. Cirosa could barely take sips of air. Her head began to pound in time with her heart. Blood-red waters filled her vision, her mind. She was drifting away.

  ‘Keteth is dead. I will have who has killed him. This girl must be found.’

  Cirosa nodded, or at least she thought she did for she could not feel her body anymore. Her consciousness was drifting. She will return to Celene. The thought was read by whatever held her.

  The voice laughed again and the cords around her neck loosened completely. Blood rushed through her body filling her head and heart. She would have fallen had the cords not been constraining the rest of her body. She quivered and gasped and dribbled. A shameless wreck and yet, for the very first time in her life she was grateful to be alive.

  ‘Thank you,’ she rasped and gasped, ‘thank you, thank you.’

  ‘Feel the power I can give you,’ the voice said low and commanding.

  There came a strange feeling then as the blood flowed through her body once more. Great energy moved and weaved through her and she suddenly knew how to speak the commands that would bend that magical energy to her will. The room around her quivered and shook, or perhaps it was only her eyes that did so. Waves of dark reds, violets, blacks and greens swirled around and through her.

  Was this how Wizards felt? Was this magic?

  It could not easily be described only felt. She had power over the very elements. She closed her eyes in the ecstasy of that power that grew and grew within her. Immense power over all things. She groaned in desire willing for more and more. More came and filled her until it felt like a hundred orgasms rolling through her one after the other and she lost all sense of herself. It was totally consuming and yet not wild, but contained, controlled and directed. She felt that she could destroy the world with her will if she wanted, she only had to say the command.

  But the power was stop
ped abruptly and it flooded from her as quickly as it had come, leaving her weak and as powerless as lamb in the jaws of the wolf that had taken her power away.

  ‘My Maphraxies are coming. Your information has been most useful. I will have need of you again, Cirosa.’

  The voice became faint as it spoke and the bloodstone seemed to be shrinking, or she was being pushed out of it. As soon as the bloodstone became dull and cold the cords constraining her vanished. Cirosa slumped forwards onto her desk, sending her papers spraying into the air in all directions.

  She lay there sprawled on her desk, panting and sweating and unable to move a muscle. Her rifled mind was a mess that could not organise itself. She felt raped - body, mind and soul - and yet no one had been here and there was no mark upon her body. It took several minutes for her heart to calm itself, several more for her mind to settle, but she knew she would never get over the memory.

  Finally her breath came a little easier but still her weak muscles could not move. All the while she lay there she lay in paradox. The power she had felt she could only dream of. Yet the horror of utter domination, the ease with which her mind, body and soul had been taken, crushed and conquered, she had never felt before, not even in her darkest nightmare.

  And yet still I would do it again, if only to feel that power once more, if only for a second… The harpy was right, the Immortal Lord is not silent and impotent like the Goddess….

  Chapter 13

  Marakon The Half Elf

  FAR to the north-west of Frayon, whilst Freydel and Cirosa were speaking, Marakon the half-elf, commander of the second attack fleet stationed on the coast of northern Frayon, lent heavily against the metal railings and looked out over the calm blue sea.

  He rubbed his short dark beard impatiently; he could never relax when they were soon to engage the enemy. They were supposed to be given ample notice before any attack force was planned in order to prepare his ships and soldiers in time. But he had been told only an hour ago by his senior that they would be leaving tomorrow. The ships were barely checked over from the last operation and his soldiers were not recovered.

  As if to rub it in his senior was walking towards him now in his usual chest forward purposeful striding fashion. His slight limp caused his scabbard to constantly clink against the studs of his high boots. An unmistakable sound that let everyone within earshot know the admiral was about, and a sound Marakon was certain the older man deliberately tried to make for that intended purpose. Marakon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Though he actually respected the older man, he just wanted to be alone right now.

  ‘Admiral Linker,’ Marakon said with a slight bow to the shorter fatter man.

  The admiral wafted his hand dismissively, ‘Enough of that, we trained together for six years, Marakon, bunked together for two. The only reason I have this rank is because you turned it down, and well you know it.’

  Marakon gave a half-smile, ‘Enjoying the paperwork then?’

  The admiral snorted, ‘You made the right decision, I was ever the fool.’

  ‘My place is not behind a desk, never will be,’ Marakon said. ‘I don’t have the brains or patience for it either.’

  ‘You know if we had more time I would give you more time, Marakon,’ Admiral Linker got to the point as he smoothed down what remained of his grey hair that circled his otherwise shining bald head. ‘You saw back then in the meeting how uptight everyone is. The dark moon has given people hope and spurred them on but it has also made the enemy fight harder. The Maphraxies are moving quickly now and we must move quickly to counter them if we are to keep them from the shores of Frayon.’

  Marakon nodded and looked out across the glistening ocean. Though he tried to deny his feelings, knowing how psychologically important it was for a soldier to keep faith in himself and the Feylint Halanoi, deep down he knew this war was one they could not win. Not without some miracle. A miracle in the form of a hundred thousand of the most powerful wizards or the goddess herself coming to fight against the Maphraxies.

  The blue moon that rose filled him with foreboding whereas it filled most others with hope-filled fervour. The goddess had not abandoned them after all, that’s what they thought. But to Marakon’s suspicious mind this blue moon was probably another trick of the Immortal Lord. He had been at war for too long to have any real hope that there would ever be a peaceful life left for him.

  ‘We are outnumbered, as always, and that gap is widening. We just cannot find enough soldiers to replace the ones we lose each battle,’ Marakon shook his head, wondering why he spoke his thoughts aloud, it’s not like they would change anything. They couldn’t out-breed Baelthrom’s war machine. Those soldiers not killed were captured, enslaved, turned Maphraxie before the day was through. ‘I’m sure that each one of those bastard Maphraxies I meet is bigger, stronger, and quicker than the last.’

  ‘Ah I understand your concerns, Commander, but we have no choice; fight and die or die sooner,’ the admiral reasoned, completely unfazed. If he ever doubted they would win this war he never showed it. But he was right, they could not simply surrender, they were forced to fight. Baelthrom did not do negotiations.

  ‘Every day new soldiers arrive to join the ranks of the Feylint Halanoi,’ the admiral continued and spread his arm back towards the camp.

  Marakon glanced back to where the once green fields were now filled with soldiers’ tents of all sizes. There were so many they spread back to the line of trees and beyond them into the horizon. The morning mist was dissipating under the sun’s rays and he could just make out a short but growing queue of people lining up outside the largest gleaming white tent, all eager to sign up.

  Men and women of all ages, some old enough to need walking sticks and some very young. They carried simple weapons, old blunt swords of grandfathers long dead, notched and rusted axes that were now more useful as gardening tools and, more often than not, no weapon at all. At least the weapon’s smith could sharpen a nicked blade and possibly clean a rusted axe.

  ‘I bet the young ones are barely past their sixteenth birthday,’ Marakon murmured at the pitiful sight of skinny young girls and boys that would barely be able to lift a short sword. ‘I’ll bet again that they’ll lie about their age too.’

  ‘Just like you did, Commander,’ Admiral Linker said with a tilted grin.

  Marakon grinned wryly back. Indeed he had, full of the glory of war. What a lie that had been. It seemed like such a long time ago.

  ‘I remember the day well,’ Admiral Linker said, ‘Not only did you lie you lied a lot. Said you were twenty-five when you were not long past your fifteenth birthday. Was sixteen not good enough for you?’ he squinted at Marakon in the bright sunlight.

  ‘Well, if you are going to lie, may as well make it a big one,’ Marakon grinned.

  ‘You had everyone fooled. Thanks to your elven heritage you were already a foot or so taller than the men of twenty five, and now you are taller than most tall men. I think that was the only time you ever used your heritage as a positive.’

  The admiral was right, again. Marakon’s mother had been an elf, his father human, much to both their parents’ woe. He felt a confusing mix of shame and pride at the elven half of him. After his acceptance into the Feylint Halanoi he tried to hide his elven looks but he could not hide his height and his complexion was always smooth and unblemished – which is why he now grew a very human beard.

  He rubbed the coarse thick black hair on his chin. He kept it short, mind, just enough to throw people off. Luckily his ears were only slightly pointed and his eyes barely almond shaped at all. Thankfully his hair was dark brown, so dark it was almost black, and thick and cut short like his beard. Very unlike elven hair that was glossy and fine and usually fairer. He scratched his beard again absently.

  As if reading his thoughts the admiral said, ‘You do a good job of hiding it but what will always give you away is the colour of your eyes, or should I say “eye”?’ Linker jested, Marakon smirked.
>
  His eyes were violet in colour and indigo in the sunlight, just like his mother’s.

  ‘It is lucky, then, that I only have one of them now,’ he thought and rubbed under his leather eye patch.

  It wasn’t quite true, what he just said, but his strange eye was another thing about him that he tried to keep secret. He still had his left eye but not one he wanted others to see. It was pure white now yet see with it he could. It had been damaged in battle by a monster of a Maphraxie eight years ago. The brutal encounter happened on an uninhabited island many miles north of Frayon, closer to Drax than here. He was lucky to still be alive, out of a band of ten soldiers only he survived, and so he always considered it a small price to pay.

  ‘The training camps are full,’ the admiral said proudly, changing the subject.

  Marakon could hear the high-pitched twang of weapons clanging from new people training. So many soldiers he saw, new and fresh to battle. All fought bravely, feverish battle lust in their eyes, their hearts brimming with retribution and all died gallantly, painfully, yet still believing they were making a difference, that through their death they had somehow won a little bit. Just a little bit. Marakon knew the bitter truth of it, knew that in the end they died in pain for nothing, in a war they couldn’t hope to win.

  ‘You are right, as always, Admiral. What else can we do? Let the bastards come without a fight?’ It was Marakon’s job to command his soldiers, and so he did it as he had been trained to do; if he did not then he had no job, no wages, no use when he had a family to support. The Maphraxies were moving ever closer; they could not simply give up arms. ‘But still our numbers never seem enough.’ Not nearly enough. Marakon said too quietly for the older man to hear and turned back to the ocean, hoping his morose mood would get rid of the optimistic admiral.