by Anna Carven
As I drift into the seductive darkness of unconsciousness, I cast a final thought out into the world, projecting my mind-voice the way I learned when speaking with Andoku.
Vyloren.
Silence.
If you are listening, there is a sanguisu in the underground tunnels of the mountain. His weakness is a woman called Salanke. Your rider will know her. If you want to free yourself of whatever the Ven are using to hold you hostage, then find Salanke and Andoku. The sanguisu is powerful. He can help you.
And perhaps the insane Andoku will cause chaos in the citadel while these mad Ven drag me to my fate.
Choose wisely, dragon.
After all, it is her cursed magic that got me into this mess in the first place.
Twenty-One
Amali
I brush a small colony of weevils from the roll of hard, stale bread and take a bite, working hard with my rear teeth to grind it into something remotely edible. It turns into a thick lump of sludge that I wash down with foul tasting water from a small battered cup.
I force myself to swallow the morsel, because I need all the strength I can get. They don’t feed me very well, and I’m starting to grow weak. It’s been days and days and days since they threw me into this small, stuffy prison somewhere on the lower decks of the ship. Perhaps a half-moon has passed by now. I don’t really know, because the days have all blurred together. Daylight is short. Darkness is long. It’s deep into winter now, and the cold bites through the wooden walls and right into my bones.
The only bright spots in this torture are the small gifts placed in my room from time to time, always in the middle of the night when I’m asleep.
It’s as if the one leaving them doesn’t want me to know his identity… or get caught.
A handful of dried grapes. A piece of cheese. Half of a sausage. Even a cup of some foul-tasting liquor that burned down my throat and spread pleasant warmth through my chest and belly.
I don’t know who shows me such kindness, but it helps.
I take another bite of the tough bread and glance around at my bleak, stuffy quarters. My bed is a pile of rags in the corner. They’ve left me a bed-pan that is rarely emptied. A metal pitcher of stale water sits on a small crate that doubles as a table.
Occasionally, a rat or cockroach scurries past, disappearing into a small gap in the wooden walls. Being confined in here for so long is torture, but it’s far better than the alternative, which is to be tied to that ugly, ridiculous statue of Elar.
I miss the sweet forest air.
I miss the majestic mountains; the wide open skies.
Crossing the Talamassa with Kaim was one of the greatest things I ever did.
Hunger gnaws at me. I close my eyes and dream of the succulent wild game Kaim used to hunt and cook for me over an open fire.
Snow hares. Mountain pheasants. Fresh trout he caught with his bare hands in the clear mountain streams.
All delicious.
The memories only make my hunger a thousand times worse. Still, I can’t help thinking of good things; of the fresh air outside, of freedom for my people, and for me. I pray Enak has made it to Kalabar with Kaim’s treasure.
My belly growls like a monster.
I dream of him.
I look up, staring out of the small port-hole that provides my only window to the outside world. Some time ago, the scenery changed from endless blue ocean to skeletal trees and mountains. The rhythm of the ship has changed too; no longer does it sway up and down with the waves and the squalls. Instead, it’s surprisingly steady.
We’re sailing along the coast now. I do not know the geography of the Middle Rift very well, but I think there is a port south of Daimara. The Imperial Navy sails from there. Perhaps that’s where we’re going.
From there, the Syal river snakes toward Daimara. Perhaps we’ll travel overland from the port, or sail on a riverboat right into the capital.
That would make sense, but I can’t be sure.
They don’t tell me anything.
I drop down onto my makeshift bed and close my eyes, trying to conjure Kaim in my mind, because he keeps me sane.
But just as his alabaster face appears, a harsh scraping sound startles me.
The heavy bolts of the wooden door slide back. Someone enters the room.
It’s the boy from before; the sandy-haired youth who gave me water back there in the hold. After I spoke with him, he kept stealing curious glances at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.
He stops at the threshold, fidgeting nervously.
“Hello,” I say softly, surprised to see another human being. I thought they were all scared of me.
He freezes. “Uh…” He looks afraid.
Well, there’s no reason I can’t treat him like an ordinary human being, is there? “What’s your name, lad?” I ask softly.
“I-Iyen,” he stutters, his eyes going wide, as if realizing he’s made some kind of mistake.
Well, I am the Marked One, after all.
I smile, trying my best to look non-threatening. I’m not such a scary looking person, am I? “Thank you for taking me off that dreadful figurehead when you did, and thank you the water you gave me back there during the big storm. You have no idea how desperately I needed that.”
“They shouldn’t have left you out there in the sun all day. See what happened?” He glances around furtively. “Look, I shouldn’t be here, but I must warn you that the Commander is coming. The storm, the things you’ve been telling us… he’s very angry about it all.” He starts to back away. “I just wanted you to know. Maybe you can… you know, curse him.”
Oh, if only I had that power. I don’t tell Iyen that, though. I meet the lad’s gaze. “Some of you sailors don’t like Trise, do you?”
Iyen shakes his head. “He’s a right old scummy bastard. The ones from the capital always are. He has us whipped for just looking at him the wrong way. I fear he might do the same to you.”
“I’m not afraid of Trise. Even if he tries to hurt me, he can’t really touch me. I’ll deal with him.” I make a shooing motion with my hand. “Go on now, Iyen. Don’t get yourself into any trouble on my behalf.”
The lad gives me a skittish nod and slips out of my cell.
“Thank you for the warning,” I say softly as he bolts the door shut behind him.
I close my eyes and try to find Kaim in my memory again, but this time, he eludes me.
Where are you, my love?
I pull the stinking rags over my body, trying to find some warmth as the cold seeps through the walls, making my breath mist in the air.
I start to shiver.
Trise is coming, huh?
Let him do his worst.
I’m not afraid of that miserable old bastard.
Twenty-Two
Kaim
Freezing water splashes over my face, jolting me out of my dreamless sleep. I blink the water from my eyes and stare up at an ornately carved stone ceiling.
Where am I?
It takes me a moment to fully regain my senses. I’m naked, lying on my back. There’s something cold and hard beneath me; a bed of smooth stone.
Above me is the rough stone ceiling of a cave. Golden light flickers and dances across the ceiling, which soars into darkness.
What is this place? Another of the dark catacombs that lies in the labyrinthine network beneath the Black Mountain?
I try to move, but my arms and legs are firmly bound by metal shackles.
Solemn faces loom over me. Some I recognize, some I don’t. Their stares are cold and distant; they regard me as if I’m nothing more than a curiosity; an exotic wild beast they’ve caught for mere entertainment.
My invisible hands twitch.
The dark stranger’s voice echoes in my mind.
Patience, child. I am coming.
It’s terribly cold in here, but my body feels scorching.
Well, mostly scorching. The ring around my neck and the stab-wounds in my chest and bell
y and limbs have turned to pure ice.
Fire and ice.
I feel strange. Lightheaded. Lighter.
The pain isn’t so bad anymore.
My heartbeat has slowed to a steady rhythm. I center on it. It calms me.
Something slithers and writhes across my arms; it’s almost as if the half-finished Oraka serpent tattooed on my skin is moving.
“He’s changing,” one of the Ven says, his voice cold and detached. “What does it mean?”
“He’s a demon,” another says. “Hard to believe that he used to walk amongst us, disguised under human flesh.”
“He was sent to destroy us. Of that I have no doubt.”
Suddenly, a dark face looms over me. Not a human face, but a featureless demon, with narrow tilted eyes and smooth lacquered skin.
It takes me a moment to realize that this is no demon.
It’s a man, wearing a ceremonial mask. Who is this person? Long black hair threaded with grey emerges from the edges of the mask.
“I’m not going to waste time with unnecessary words,” he says, and instantly I recognize that deep, gravelly voice.
“Well, that’s a bit different from how I remember you,” I rasp, my voice equally as hoarse. “You always talked too bloody much. Why do you hide your face like a coward, Khelion?”
One of the Ven sticks their thumb into the stab wound in my left shoulder and twists. Agony shoots through my body. “You will address the Grand Master by his proper title.”
The Grand Master inclines his head, the smooth surface of his mask glittering in the darkness. It makes him look flawless and inhuman. “We all wear masks at some point, Kaim. It is the very nature of the Ven to hide our true natures, to submerge our identities and become servants to our purpose. In a way, we remove any last trace of humanness from our outward visage.”
A cynical smile twists my lips. So much for not talking too much. Just can’t help it, can you, Khelion? Pompous ass.
“But you were the opposite, weren’t you? Hiding your true nature behind a human face for so very long. What trouble you have caused us, Kaim.” He slips his fingers beneath the edge of the mask and lifts it up. “What trouble your mother has caused me.”
I stare into the Grand Master’s eyes, only his eyes are no longer there.
Puckered, twisted black flesh grows out from the corners of his eyes, spreading across his pale face, extending tendrils of fibrous growth down his nose, his cheeks, across his forehead. The white sclera of his eyes has been almost completely obliterated. His irises and pupils are no more, replaced with a mass of tumor.
He is grotesque. I’d almost pity him if he weren’t so loathsome.
“You have the black eye disease,” I say softly as the cold sensation in my neck starts to spread up into my jaw, my mouth, my face. “Why do you have the black eye disease, Khelion?”
“Disrespectful cur,” hisses the Ven who has his thumb stuck into my wounded flesh. He digs his thumb further, sending agony shooting down my arm.
I resist the urge to squirm or hiss in pain. They don’t get to see my weakness.
Khelion leans in, his lower face twisting into an expression of pure hatred. His eyebrows narrow. His sightless, disfigured eyes are filled with venom. “Your mother gave it to me,” he whispers. “I did not know she had it when she first came to the River Gate with you strapped to her back. She hid it so cleverly, with carefully painted pigment. I did not know she had until after I fucked her.” His voice turns malicious. “When I found out, I killed her. I stabbed her in the belly and kicked her off the side of the ravine.”
Anger rips through my soul, momentarily turning my vision white. I start to tremble. “You killed my mother?”
“She cursed me. With this disease. With you. She cursed me with her dying breath.”
A strangled cry erupts from my throat as I pull against my restraints, trying to rip solid iron out of stone.
Unbidden, an image flashes through my mind.
A woman, a Tieglander, standing at the edge of a cliff, her wild brown hair whipping in the wind.
Khelion has her. His blood-soaked hand is at her belly, clutching a dagger that he has driven into her.
She presses her lips against his ear. “I curse you, Ven. In this life and the afterlife. Death wears a pale, beautiful face, and he will come for you when you least expect it. This is a warning. Don’t you dare lay a finger on my son, or you will suffer for eternity.”
Then she falls, wild hair fluttering about her face. She closes her eyes, and her expression becomes serene.
Unearthly.
Terrifying.
Beautiful.
My mother. The woman who brought me here. Who protected me until her last dying breath.
The pieces slide together in my mind, like a bolt ramming home. “You are the one that tried to have me killed when I changed. You thought I was the curse.” I stare at Khelion’s disfigured face. “But then you got the disease.” The Black Eye disease can lay dormant for years. It must have hit him after I left. “And the sanguisu’s blood wasn’t powerful enough to cure you, was it?”
Alongside the terrible anger, a spark of love flares in my chest. To sow the seeds of fear in this ruthless bastard’s mind…
My mother must have been fierce, indeed.
“Your little Tieglander will suffer the same fate,” Khelion whispers in my ear, hatred twisting his words into sharp blades. “Emperor Krogen is going to fuck her and kill her with his own hand in front of the adoring Midrian crowds. As we speak, his army is traveling north to Kalabar. He’s going to obliterate your mother’s people from the face of this world.”
If I thought I was angry before, now I am almost paralyzed with rage. The coldness spreads down into my chest and enters my heart. My pulse slows. Grey shadows start to bleed into the edges of my vision.
If I don’t figure out what I am right now, it will be too late.
They’ll take everything from me.
Patience, child. I am coming.
I can’t afford to wait for you, bastard.
Because of all this, they have brought me here.
To bargain.
With who?
Only the death-god, of course.
They know what I am.
They know.
“How did you know?” My voice comes out perfectly cold, hiding the full extent of my rage. “Who told you? Was it Vyloren? The sanguisu?”
Why would they tell Khelion, but not me?
He laughs. “That is none of your business. There are powers beyond the seas that even you can’t comprehend. But enough. The winter cycle is almost at its nadir. Time to call him forth.”
What could possibly be so special about me?
You’re only the most valuable bargaining chip in the history of the world.
Fueled by anger and ice, my dark fingers twitch. Shadows swirl across my vision.
Amali calls to me.
Come back to me.
I don’t care about any of this. I don’t want to be a bargaining chip or a pawn, or even the son of an indifferent fucking god.
I just want to be with her.
I just want to exist… with her.
My anger spills over, threatening to explode. If only I weren’t cursed with this infernal illness; this dragon-fire sickness in my veins.
This weakness.
I fight against it, trying to draw on the coldness that feels so familiar, and yet so elusive. It’s the same coldness that engulfs me whenever I slow time.
Why can’t I grasp it just now?
My body is riddled with stab-wounds. I’ve bled so much I don’t have any blood left.
I should be dead.
Why am I not dead?
Because I refuse to die.
A gentle voice enters my mind, so soft at first I almost miss it. Don’t fight it, my son. Embrace it. You of all people don’t need to fear death. You are death.
Mother?
The flickering golden light turn
s grey. Khelion’s face swims in and out of my vision. I want to kill him so badly.
A single chime sounds from somewhere outside, ringing through the halls and corridors.
“The sun is setting,” someone says softly.
The Ven start to chant in Ioni. “O Nek’tem, O Oomani, O Lok, master of time, lord of the afterlife, walker of dreams, our one and only true god. It is the longest night. The coldest day of winter. The veil is thin. Come now and appear before us. We have something of value to you. Will you accept our bargain?”
Suddenly, my mortal body feels like a dead weight.
I want to break free of it, but I can’t.
Skeletal branches of cold, silent trees appear in the periphery of my vision. Instinctively, I know it’s the other world, the one I visit in my dreams.
The lines between the two worlds are starting to blur. They merge together; dark cave and colorless forest.
Excitement surges through me.
This is it.
The moment I’ve been waiting for.
I reach for my hands.
“Look at that,” someone says, his voice filled with shock and fear.
The flickering lights go out, plunging us into darkness.
The Ven fall silent.
My fingers tremble. They feel more real and solid than ever. The darkness grows thicker and blacker and deeper than anything I’ve encountered before. It feels heavy like a dense fog, obliterating every last trace of light.
A terrible dark energy hits me, a thousand… no, a million times more powerful than the energy I felt from Andoku or Vyloren. The dragon’s poisonous magic surges in my body, as if in response to this new presence.
He’s here. At last.
I writhe in silent agony, reaching for the cold with my half-formed hands.
“Who summons me?”
The voice is both soft and harsh, hot and cold; a million voices distilled into one.
I recognize it. It’s the voice of the dark presence that visits me in my dreams.
And right now, it’s the most menacing sound I’ve ever heard.
“I am Khelion Rel, Grand Master of the Order of the Ven. I summoned you, God of Death. I have something I think you will want.”
