Kindred Spirit Lodge Presents
Heron's Fan Fiction
Heron D'Arc
Conclusion
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The Tale of J’hraz
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Babylon was young when J’hraz started studying with the magi. The great walled city was the center for sorcery, the levels descending beneath the earth as the ascending ranks of enchantment were accomplished. There were spells and rituals to control ten thousand daemons, but not one to control the white fever that crept in, unseen and unstoppable. Whether it came through a caravan or a merchant ship, or simply from the morning mist, no one knew.
J’hraz had a son, scarce three years old but he was the brightest star in his mother’s firmament. His father, a high placed temple guard fell to the sickness, so too did many others. She saw the first bodies taken into the ziggurats for burial rites, then the trickle became a flood and carts carried away the pale still cargo.
“Bring out your dead!” Echoed in the streets at all hours. The rich were not spared for their wealth, nor the scholars for their wisdom, nor the holy pilgrims for their piety. Bonfires fed well and strong from the ghastly fuel thrown into deep pits in the frantic attempt to save the city.
J’hraz fasted, she memorized forbidden scrolls and lit candles made of rare unguents. She drugged the slave girl who had attended her since before the birth of her son, easing her limp body prone onto a stone slab where upon the desperate sorceress slit the slave’s throat and collected the steaming blood in a silver basin. With the girl’s pure life, J’hraz drew esoteric and malefic symbols not seen on the earth in a hundred thousand years. She uttered words that would have, in healthier times, been her death had any person heard them.
“Save my son,” J’hraz ordered the dark amorphous shape held at bay within the twinned circle.
The daemon shifted, trapped inside the wet scarlet tracings, “What will you give?” Came from a mouth more used to rending writhing screaming prey.
“He is my heart and soul,” the young sorceress held back tears, remembering how her son lay quiet, his bright eyes dull, his flesh pale and his breath coming so shallow and so fast. “I give that for his life.”
“So be it,” rasped the fiend, a pleased tone reverberating over J’hraz. A black tendril of ectoplasm shot out from it and anchored into her heart, nearly knocking her over. Her hands grabbed in reflex, but the tenebrous ichor was not of the physical plane. “His heart shall last as long as yours, his soul as yours. His body is mine.” The tentacle snapped back out and J’hraz fell to her knees with a moan. She reached out with her mind and felt her son had disappeared from the rooms that were their home. The daemon had vanished. Her hands crossed over her breast feeling nothing, her heart was gone, with her son, somewhere.
***********
“It took me seven hundred years to find my son, by that time…” J’hraz’ eyes clouded over, “I was one of a half-dozen mortals with powers to rival the gods and I was powerless to save him. He had daemon blood in him so I thought to let him be. He had my heart next to his own, beating for him, sustaining him. Others took care of him; he was still like a child, despite his looks. Four thousand years later I saw him again. What the serpent priests had made of him into Sha-Jhia is an abomination. He’s impervious to weapons, to fire. I must destroy my son, and I need you to help me.”
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“For a year and a day you will reside and serve me here at the Villa D’Arc,” J’hraz explained as she gestured to the lands about the castle in the minutes before dusk. We rode odd striped horses, the likes of which I had never seen. “We are in a nexus, located outside of the rest of the world, or perhaps within it.“
“How did you bring me here?” I called out as the turf scattered away from our mounts’ hooves. Krait was hugging my throat under a silk wrap I had on to protect her. I only saw a small coil of Hycis who was entangled in the necromancer’s hair.
J’hraz reined in and pointed up.
My eyes followed a translucent surface that resolved into pillars-- no, feathered legs, rising to breasts and then a face of regal proportions. Wings stretched out from the sides, defying gravity with the massy stone. Five hundred paces away, her twin stood opposite. The two leviathan winged women/lions stared at each other across a quarter-mile of space. Their backs were part and parcel of the cliffs to either side behind them.
“They must be ancient; how were they made? Why are they here and who are they?” I asked, awed as the setting sun stained the unearthly figures with coral, rose and saffron.
J’hraz pushed a wild silver lock away from her lovely face and spoke softly, her eyes glinting coldly, “They came from the stars, and I sacrificed an innocent to stop them.”
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“On a distant world, two powerful sisters were born within moments of each other. Each held the wrist of her sibling as they passed out of their mother. That rivalry grew in a vicious hatred with much destruction of their home, until the elders, in fear for their planet, sent the sisters away, to battle each other in a far off place. Only one would return to rule.
“They came to earth in different lands, falling like errant comets. They observed the beings that lived here and separately, yet in an odd symmetry, drew on the strongest of both earth and sky. Bodies of mighty lions, wings and fore claws of great eagles, and as they were the epitome of beauty and grace, they kept their feminine upper bodies.
“One spoke to Pharaohs and her form was duplicated in bricks of stone, drawn together by slave labor, whose lives were worth less than the blocks they dragged across the hot sand. The other was said to wander through Macedonia, asking an unfathomable riddle of wandering heroes, and slaying them when they failed. After decades of entertaining themselves with insignificant lives taken on a whim, the twins found each other and their war began in earnest.
“Whatever else, they were as equals, neither able to do any real damage to the other, but to our earth, that was different. Their massive struggle in Rome caused the Tiber to flood its banks and level the Acropolis, the Senate, sundry temples and numerous homes. The sisters moved on, but the stagnant swamp they left behind bred disease; crops rotted and livestock broke out with oozing sores. What the fevers did not kill, starvation did.
“One laid a trap in a quiet innocuous volcano, drawing her sister inside. Molten rock was as harmless as spring water to them, but the titanic struggle roused Vesuvius. Amid the black fall of cinders burying hundreds of thousands, the women flew off, neither winning an iota from the other. For years, sunsets were unusually vivid, as if a memorial to the families entombed alive under tons of solid ash.
“I lost… someone very special. I stood above our home, and kneeling on the frozen lava, perhaps where she last lay, I vowed to use all the skills I had to stop the twins.
“The elements had no effects on their bodies, it was as if they were of adamantine. But what if they could be made so, into still, quiet rock? I had to find or make a weapon, and soon.
“Medusa was truly exquisite, naïve and unaware of the evils in the world. Barely seventeen, a simple village girl with a body made for love as yet untouched. Though none else came close to her beauty, she was not envied for the simplicity and purity of her spirit. Her warmth and generosity could soften stone; I needed the reverse. She was the perfect weapon, but I didn’t have the resources to activate the power; I needed to conserve it until I faced the twins. Humans did not have the abilities I required, and it would take too long to find the proper spell for daemonic aid. However, the Gods were notoriously unresponsive and unreliable, except when hubris was involved.
“In darkness, I desecrated temples and defaced statues of the resident deity that the locals worshipped, those of Athena. In her stead, I placed the comely features of the young beauty. With the morning tide would come the wrath of Pallas.
“Medusa had come out early, a shawl about her bare shoulders, watching the sunrise in earnest solitude for several moments before the air incandesced, revealing a gleaming, armored, imperial woman. The unfortunate girl fell to her knees as the helmed head lowered its baneful gaze upon her. Ignoring her confused pleadings, the silver spear pointed downwards and the Goddess spoke, her tone too low for me to hear from my place nearby, disguised as I was as an itinerant intoxicated peddler, dozing under a pile of torn netting, by a small dune.
“Her luxurious dark locks writhed and twisted together, and Medusa wept. Her hair thickened in spots and bulged at these ends, and she cried out. The bulbous tips swelled and split, dozens of glowing eyes opened and peered out at the new sights of the world, and a profusion of scarlet forked tongues probed the tangy salt air. At this horrific display the girl screamed. An older couple emerged from the nearby cottage, running to give succor to their daughter.
“For a heartbeat her parents stared, motionless, then they ceased moving altogether as their robes caught the wind, folding hard and impermeable over invisibility. Veins of a peculiar opalescence spider-webbed over their flesh. Eyes, lips, hands, feet, all metamorphosed into the finest Corinthian marble, smooth and unblemished. A low moan of hopelessness came out of Medusa; the Goddess turned her back on the snake-haired girl.
“The immortal blurred and vanished; Medusa ‘s tears went unheeded as she implored the unresponsive skies. Two seagulls glanced down, wheeled, froze and fell from the sky. One shattered into marble shards as it struck the rocks, the other sunk heavily into the sand before the terrified girl.
“I had my weapon, now to prepare her for use.
“Malevolent news travels fast, so do those who wish to capitalize on the misfortune of others. It was easy enough to persuade a self-described hero to: ‘slay the monster whose gaze turns living flesh to stone’. My disguise this time was armor, coated in phosphorous. I gifted the blustering Perseus with a tri-folded mirrored shield and an ornate, but exceedingly sharp sword.
“In less than a fortnight, Perseus returned with a bloodstained bag, still damp. The ‘grateful Goddess’, feasted the victorious conqueror, filling his wine cup with my own hands. It was a special vintage, dark and rich, and it didn’t take long for him to slide onto the floor, dead to the world. It also didn’t take long to find a young prostitute, ebon of hair and eye, new at the temple of Aphrodite and eager to minister to a supplicant. She looked shocked when my dagger plunged up into her heart. A convenient labrys took care of separating her head from her body.
“I had the requisite vipers in a pit in back of the house I rented. It was a matter of minutes to pierce a couple dozen skulls with a fine needle, killing them instantly without leaving a noticeable wound. I fused their tails to the whore’s skull and switched it with Medusa’s, careful not to look into her eyes. In the morning, I sent the champion home to a triumphant welcome, then I set out on the trail of the sister Sphynx.
“Their progress was easy to follow, burnt villages, fresh deep furrows gouged in a hillside, crushed fields, devastations remaining from a war in which neither could prevail. I had finally deciphered their language and to each I sent a message, offering my not inconsiderable skills to destroy the other, living only to serve the winner.
“The twins met in this valley, hearts burning with destruction. Opening the discolored bag, I flung Medusa’s head up, holding it aloft with my powers, spinning it slowly. Their eyes followed the sad, lovely features as it spiraled higher, hair and scaled lengths whipping about. They hated each other more than they cared for my betrayal. By the time they thought to move they were disabled, thickening, solidifying. Wings spread but did not beat, muscular legs tensed but did not release. The air crackled as the spell condensed about the alien sisters.
“Under their last malefic stare, Medusa’s head burst, scattering rust-colored gravel over me. When I uncovered my head, the twins were as you see them now, albeit without the layers of lichen, and weeds growing about their feet. I stepped forward and found myself in a new land. Somehow a transfer nexus was created between the bodies, like the mirror’s edge--neither reflecting, nor solid, but something in between.”
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“I caused the Villa to be constructed as my home and refuge from the world. Often travelers from other lands and times come through this Sphynx Gate; some stay and settle in the valley. Sometimes I pass into different lands, as the Gate is random in its access, but I always return home. I had hoped to bring my son here, but there is nothing left of the child of my flesh.” J’hraz looked like she wanted to weep, but simple tears were forbidden to her.
“So, J’hraz, am I to be the sacrifice this time to stop a great evil?” Frost crept up my spine. Had I but a scant year to live?
“No, Heron, should you live, and I shall do all in my powers to assure that you are--to inherit this sanctuary.”
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The Villa D’Arc was to be mine. J’hraz had promised as much, pending my survival of the destruction of her son. I didn’t understand her, but she offered me what had been absent for so long, a home. I would serve her howsoever she wished for thirteen moons. I hope the cost would be bearable.
“What are you thinking, young Heron?” The necromancer asked as our striped horses cantered back home, eager for their stalls and oats.
“Why now after so many aeons? What drives you, J’hraz?”
“Weariness, in some small part. Loss and a need for redemption are the greater. Sorcery has become a cold comfort to me. Perhaps that is why there are so few mages who have existed for more than few thousand years. In the search for that vast unfathomable we lose the little things that give so much meaning. Even the dead, not safe from my incantations, seem blessed by something I have missed.”
The silver-haired woman swung down off her mount as did I. She handed me her reins, “When they’re settled in, go to the hotsprings behind the Villa. I’d like you to pull the weeds out. I’m afraid I’ve neglected that area.” She went inside, unconscious of the graceful sway of her hips, or the way her vulnerability was so apparent and appealing to me. Despite all her powers, she was still a woman, with needs and hopes and fears.
I unburdened the horses and gave them each an apple to munch on while I brushed them down. The heat was rising fast for so early in the day. I shed my tunic and boots and wrapped the wide scarf from my throat about my waist, mostly to keep the sun from burning that sensitive part of my backside anatomy.
**Toasted buns?** Krait sniggered from her place in my braids as I picked up a sack for the discarded weeds. J’hraz had plaited my hair into forty-eight sections, saying it would be cooler and that the look flattered my cheekbones. Her touch was gentle as she had deftly twisted the thin locks and finished the ends with silken thread. Krait enjoyed her new nesting site, entangled among like-minded plaits.
“Ha and ha, worm-breath,” I replied, feeling her still smirking. Her tongue tickled my right ear. I gave her nose a gentle rub, just the way she loved it and I bent to my task, yanking and tossing the scraps into the sack. The humid warmth was quite conducive to anything green. Even the tiniest crack produced an entrepreneurial spirit in the least weed.
The main pool was shoulder deep and about fifteen by twenty feet with the rock lining it descending in natural ledges as if specifically catering to bathing. The far corner spilled from an overhang to another smaller pool about eight feet below, the lip as wide as it was tall. A few steps away, a cold spring gurgled to regenerate the laxity from pampered flesh. A pipe fed directly from this to the Villa and to the stables through a stone trough. I washed my hands and drank of the crisp deliciousness. I was reaching over a thigh-high retaining wall when I heard J’hraz behind me.
“No, don’t get up on my account. I like you just as you are.” Her tone conveyed more than enough for me to blush as I remained bent over. The damned scarf barely covered anything, especially from her vantage. I felt the edge of the silk turned up over my lower back. I tensed, I still didn’t like anyone to see the flogging scars, but there was no hesitation from the cool hand that cupped one nether cheek.
“Am I to serve for your pleasure as well?” I was of two minds, the smaller, irate that my servitude included being her plaything and the larger, that J’hraz was one of the most stunning, complex and fascinating women I’d ever seen, and I wanted her. Her hand stroked down one thigh and her firm bare breasts pressed into my back.
“Would this between us be such a hardship for you, my Heron?” Her other hand curled under my left breast, hesitantly, pending my answer.
My breath quickened, “Only in the consummation, when the bloodlust rises and I must follow it, into you.”
She rolled my nipple in her smooth elegant fingers, “That is as it should be. Krait--"
Her little burgundy head perked up as my guardian listened to the sorceress. I was surprised at that connection between them.
“When your mistress peaks, give me your kiss. I will not be harmed. It is necessary, little guardian, for the successful completion of our task.”
**I shall do so.**
Wetness trickled down inside my thighs; I wanted J’hraz badly.
“Watch Heron, let your senses be filled,” she then murmured words I could not follow, more like ancient music than a language. “Observe the Pleiades, seven woman, who love as one.”
I felt her lips on my shoulder as the warm vapors rose off the springs, became solid, and took seven feminine forms from as many lands. Lush and spare, tall and petite, youth to maturity, all with eyes and hands and lips only for each other. As J’hraz’ touches wandered over my body, so too did the seven with each other. These fabled women were of such legend all that remained were the constellation named in their honor. I saw them as they had all been lovers in life. Soon I knew not where they ended and I began.
Lips and tongues and teeth, kissing and licking and nibbling. Hands caressed, stroked, fondled, entreating to hardened peaks of rose, coral, pale sepia and dusky carmine. Moans of delight and soft whispers of encouragement, but were they mine or did they come from those floating before me? My hips raised, my thighs parted as J’hraz’ caresses went exploring everywhere, never lingering in the soft moist darkness where I needed her.
Pairs and triads formed and broke in an intricate pavane, all flesh was holy and given due worship. The hollow of the throat, nape of neck with hair swept away, valley between breasts, declivity of the spine, rippling over ribs, the back of the knees, teasing strokes and feathery wisps over the curve of a hip.
My arms braced as J’hraz navigated, bending about to bite softly along my side, using one of my own braids to tease my aching nipples tight and dark. I could not look down but I felt her lips on my inner thighs, her tongue trailing arabesques across my trembling flesh.
The seven were working downwards, squeezing full cheeks and parting thighs to find the moist treasure within, twirling dark curls and fair, lush or sparse scattered with grey. Fingers trailed through the nectar, teasing the about the hidden pearl tucked behind the pliable labia. Their scent, borne by the moist wafts of air was real, as heady as strong brandy. All sensation abruptly focused on J’hraz as her tongue forged into my center and her lips fastened on to my swollen need.
Now the women lay, each head between the legs of her paramour in a mandala of pure pleasure. I heard the lapping and suckling, the moans of ecstasy building, the flush of arousal glowing over the smooth skin. Thrusting tongues delved, lips plucked and teeth chattered about fiery nubs. They were open completely, trusting and loving, their tastes filled my mouth, soaking into my lungs as I gasped for air.
J’hraz was not done, I was not filled and so unsatisfied. Her fingers slipped off the edges as if she heard my unspoken complaint. A single digit spread my juices about my sphincter then slipped into that last orifice. A second and third stretched me unbearable, then filling my heated core as well, and everything shifted. I was as lost as the ghostly women who writhed and plunged, impaled upon each other.
“Not yet,” J’hraz whispered roughly from below me and I held on past heaven and hell, restraining every morsel of flesh that begged to be consumed. Her lips left me, as did one hand. The other remained, slowly twisting about the edges of my center, her thumbnail scraping over my sensitized clit, reminding it who ruled. She rose and pushed my back to the wall; I felt something thick pressing for entry inside me. Her fingers left me to coat the shaft with my secretions then she pressed in hard and fast. Tiny flexible ripples at the base bumped maddeningly over the protruding bundle of nerves. I could not see the spectral figures for the red vision had clouded my eyes, but I heard their rising cries and gasps as they fell bursting and flowing over each other.
J’hraz’ breasts crushed hard against me, she bared her throat, tying her long pallid tresses upon themselves. I felt Krait slither to the far side of my shoulders for access to her. Fangs broke through my jaw as she bucked up into me. The other end of the phallus was nestled deep within the sorceress for I felt her tremors as my own.
I needed no urging other than the scent of J’hraz and the singular sight of the blood pounding under the delicate skin of her throat. I tore into her; it was harsh and I wept, I didn’t want to hurt her, forgive me. Krait bit deeply; within moments I tasted the odd anise flavor of her venom with the lush coppery sweet and salt from the necromancer.
We rocked against each other, each spasm magnified by the following rush of blood into my greedy addiction. Aeons in times I could not even imagine, places dead and long past even the memory of dusty legend. Inconceivable beings, but a glimpse, that she had known, pervaded my soul with a terror impossible to control. I could no more drink so deeply. I eased out of her, shuddering as much from the climax as the unclean feel of the things she’d done, the beings she knew. There were monsters, and then there were monsters. Compared to my paltry state, I was no more than a passing annoyance.
We were still joined, J’hraz shuddered in my arms and I held her close, licking off the last scarlet drops. Krait radiated worry as she wriggled back into the nest of my braids. The Pleiades had vanished, their passion untainted.
“Now you know, “ J’hraz said softly, not meeting my eyes. She gently disentangled us. Krait nudged me and disgorged two Tears of the Night, but these were unlike any she had heretofore secreted. These were drops of smoky-filled midnight, bright with veins of silver veering about like captured lightning.
“I’ve never seen any like these before.”
J’hraz turned a bit unsteady and dropping the harness and toy, slipped into the pool. She held out her hand and I gave her the peculiar drops before I unknotted the scarf and followed her in.
“These are priceless. A melange from the venom of Sha-Jhia, your life, dear Krait’s venom and my blood. A most potent beginning for the weapon I need. To get more, I can only accomplish that with your willing love,” J’hraz touched my cheek.
Again, I saw tears, but ones she could never shed. “What are they J’hraz?”
“Poison, to kill a serpent god.”
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J’hraz cried out under me as I drew out her blood while stimulating her highly sensitized nub with my fingers around below her stomach. The double-ended thick leather shaft half in me thrust into her from behind as she braced on her hands and knees. We both came once more, her blood losing its acrid taste as Krait let go from the other side of her throat and the venom taste declined. My fangs receded, as did the red haze. I pulled away from her gently and fell over onto my side just before she slumped, breathing heavily, facing me.
I couldn’t help but regret the permanent scars J’hraz now bore on her wrists, inner thighs, on either side of her neck and over her heart from our essential daily encounters. She needed all the Tears she could get, thus Krait pierced her, and I received my serpent’s venom diluted in the necromancer’s blood. Instead of my getting the pure toxin thrice in a fortnight, I required it every day as well. My guardian herself fed quite often over these near four seasons past, a shrew, newt, or small fish every second or third day, enough to keep up her strength but not so much as to induce torpor.
The sorceress held out her hand and my guardian deposited two smoky silver-veined Tears. J’hraz dropped them with the others in an amber bowl on the table by the bed. “That’s the last, six hundred and sixty-six, the number of my beast. We shall not need to do this again.”
“Has this been such a hardship for you?” I echoed her words back to her from our first experience. “What about love?”
“How can one love without a heart?” She answered quietly, rising from the bed.
The room blurred, and she with it through my tears, “I thought-- "
“I am truly sorry, my Heron.” She looked back at me, her hair flowing behind her by that bizarre breeze that could never be felt by others. “If I was able to love again, then I would be with you as long as love shall last. I am afraid you must be content with that.”
I nodded, “Yes, I’ll have to be. At least spend this last night with me, even if we do not touch.”
“You know I do not sleep. The year and a day come to a close, and I still have preparations. There is something else I need you to do for me. Do not take in any of your guardian’s venom.”
“For how long?”
“As long as you can bear it, ‘til the moon wanes back to the barest crescent. It will not be pleasant. I will not relieve the suffering you will feel for your blood must be uncorrupted. Can you do this?”
“I’ll try.”
“Then sleep while you can, my Heron.”
The last I saw that night was a gesture she made, giving me to Morpheus.
**********
Strips of raw lamb and boar lay on my plate, but it wasn’t enough anymore. J’hraz had removed Krait, putting her with Hycis somewhere beyond my call and I was confined to my room. I hadn’t slept in days; the craving was like wasps stinging inside me whenever my heart beat. Every vein was shredded under steel talons and I felt that I was going mad. I had to have the venom, a drop, a mote. I sat naked on the bed looking at my hands shaking in a blue blur and turned over my right. Surely, there had to be a trace left in my own body, just below the surface. My fangs wouldn’t descend and it hurt badly when I gnawed through the skin of my wrist. But not as bad as the desperate hunger.
Warm and wet, salt and sweet, and nothing more.
“Heron, no!” J’hraz pulled my arm away from my mouth. “I’m sorry I have to do this.” She dragged me off the bed and pushed me up against the wall murmuring a spell. The tapestry behind me flowed down and up, binding my arms out to the side, the back fibers sunk into the stone walls anchoring me.
“I can’t take it anymore, J’hraz please help me, “ I pleaded from my captivity.
“Two more days, just two more days.”
Two days of torment trapped inside my own flesh, the only things that changed were the light and shadows. I kicked my heels against the stone, banged my head back hard hoping to shatter my own skull, or at least knock myself out but the tapestry folded thrice behind me and the threads whipped about my ankles, preventing me from harming myself. I wept and cursed and tried to will myself to die.
Cool hands on either side of my face and neck, “J’hraz?” The necromancer stood before me.
“I’m with you, my Heron. I need one last item from you.”
“Krait, I can have her back?”
“Yes, and I promise you’ll feel better soon, very soon.” Her attire was odd, more like luminous pearly netting draped over her from breasts to hips with a pale feathery cape caught in the same windless wind as her hair. I felt something sting on either side of my neck then J’hraz stepped back a dozen paces, weaving her hands in the air. Two thin scarlet ribbons flowed out, twisting and entangling upon themselves to either side of her. She whispered and the burgundy streamers danced attendance upon every syllable. As the floating ruby skeins grew and taller, the pain lessened to a tingling, then it became a numbness in my hands and feet.
I was finally relieved of the horrid ripping of thousands of minute claws under every inch of my body. A single drop of clarity expanded as I grew more weary and weaker watching the red strands flow out. “J’hraz, you’re taking my blood?” I panicked, “How much?”
For a heartbeat, her eyes met mine, “All of it.”
The rivulets became geysers gushing horizontally over to her before I could scream. I was cold, my vision faded, my head sunk to my breast and I became so still.
Two points of light throbbed and spread like Greek fire on my neck, the air rasped back into my lungs. A welcome coppery scent was just at my lips and the fangs sunk in to tap the proffered sustenance.
** All of it, all of it, ** Krait’s dear voice reiterated in my mind as the tapestry relinquished its hold and I clutched the warm body that was pressed hard against mine. I kept drinking in the richness, the fullness, replenishing my strength. Something pushed against me as I opened my eyes; J’hraz was trying to get away. It was her blood I was draining, her life I was absorbing into myself.
“Enough…” and a small flash came from her, knocking us apart, J’hraz back onto the floor. I was slammed against the wall and slid down with the force, my head bursting with the sudden impact. She was so pale, except for the gashes over her heart and I was restored. She had tricked me into emptying her veins. She stretched one trembling hand up between the tangled red suspended masses of my blood and I saw her lips move. Her arm fell and the twisting clouds stayed above her. Her eyes were open but unfocused and unblinking; her hair lay about her motionless.
That concerned me more than anything else, “J’hraz?” I got to one knee, still half-stunned, ”J’hraz, are you all right?”
** Don’t touch her, ** Krait warned from her perch about my neck.
One faint tendril reached down to the open lacerations over her heart, it was joined by a second. To my great relief, they grew thicker, pulsing from the dark tangles into the necromancer. The scarlet webbed knots shrunk as they slowly filled her, in time they were gone and she was restored. Her heart… she didn’t have one, not in her body. She was just weakened, not dying as I thought.
“My Heron…” She looked over to me.
I crawled over to her, the throbbing in my skull lessening. I cradled her as she took deep breaths, “Why?”
“Sha-Jhia infected you, ravaged you but he did not kill you as he did all others who were given to him. Something in you fascinated him, your taste, your scent, the vibrations of your body, your essence. For that is how all serpents, great and small perceive the world. My blood will protect you, and your blood… makes me the perfect bait.”
____****____
As we rode toward the gate, J’hraz looked over at me, the muted coral silk robe she wore was less ornate than was her wont, just knee high, with silver sandals tied crosswise up to her calves. Softly stunning, she could be nothing else. I was content in my grey silk vest and breeches tucked into low boots. I put my hand over my shoulder to touch the cat’s head hilt of the sword strapped across my back. Her sword, wielded once upon a time by my panther queen. Did her beasts still haunt the Zoras’ lands? I suppose it didn’t matter.
“I know this blade will have no effect on the serpent god,” I explained, “but if there are flesh and bone defenders, it will serve.”
My fox-haired warrior,” the necromancer said fondly. “I could have called Iska for you, had you but asked.”
I shook my head, “Our time together can’t be recalled by mere sorcery, J’hraz. I thank you but I prefer my memories as they were.”
We dismounted at the Sphynx portal and ground tethered our striped mounts. The nexus shimmered before us like summer heat off a rock ledge.
An orb of black light pulsed between J’hraz’ hands; from them, beams shot up into the eyes of the twin Sphynx. “Show me where my son is,” the necromancer demanded. The nexus shuddered as if struck a heavy blow and fogged over. Her eyes closed as she saw with a mystic sight beyond mortal sight.
“What do you see?”
“The nexus has opened up ten centuries after the day we met.”
“That much when but a year has passed here?”
“This portal exists connected flanked by these alien women, albeit now of stone they still command space and time as if the battle between them is not yet finished. On the rare occasion when the powers fully attend me, only then can I select the when and the where. Otherwise I have no say in the portal’s choosing.”
“Krait, I want you to stay safe here,” I told my little guardian.
**Where you go I go. I’ll just follow if you leave me behind, I’ll wear off all my belly scales if I have to,** the small burgundy serpent’s tongue flickered against my ear.
“Very well, my dear friend,” I rubbed her nose and she tucked back around my braids. I saw one glittering ruby eye from Hycis before he hid completely in the necromancer’s flaxen hair.
J’hraz held out her hand, “It is time, my Heron. We shall cross invisible to avoid detection.” Her fingers were cool and dry, her grip firm. We stepped through.
I fell, was pushed, was pressed upon all sides and full to bursting. I was frozen, drowned, burning, suffocating. I opened my lips to breathe, but there was no air--I had neither mouth nor lungs, bodiless, unable to cry or scream just panic blind formless lost nothingness--
“--Heron, take a breath and open your eyes.”
J’hraz, my anchor.
I did as I was bade, gratefully conscious of solid footing. Seeing that we were alone in a dimly lit corridor, I felt safe asking in a whisper, “Is it always going to be like that?”
“The first time through the nexus can be a bit disconcerting for some.” The sorceress had a penchant for understatement.
“But my first time was when you brought me through with two broken legs from the rockslide.”
“And you were unconscious. Your mind--without physical senses, could not fathom the experience. It sought stable memories and found confusion. It will not be as bad on the return, I promise you.”
We walked down the strange tunnel, shallow depressions above our heads smoked with a foul-smelling oil that provided our only illumination. It combined unhappily with the decay and rot exuding from the very stone about us. In many spots, the discolored walls were strangely concave, the greasy brown/grey rock interspersed with irregular white pieces.
We still had not encountered a single soul when J’hraz stopped and I drew up beside her. Our hallway had opened up into a large octagonal area with seven other tunnels leading away. She closed her eyes and turned her head, perceiving with a greater sense. While the necromancer searched, I saw three of the strange white pieces running parallel to each other, a little lower than shoulder-height. A bit above them was a large oval patch that I reached out to.
“Do not touch them, Heron--they are bones. Something, or someone crushed them into the stone.” She opened her eyes, “Wait for me here, you will still be unseen by mortal eyes.” I saw J’hraz place her hand on a pouch at her waist the same color as her dress. A soft clinking faded as she went down the second tunnel to the left. She had the Tears with her.
A thousand years, a world of dank bone-trimmed tunnels and our mad quest. The smell grew worse, combined of battlefields, slaughterhouses and charnel pits, decomposing plague-ridden flesh. I coughed and choked as the stench thickened, pouring in from the tunnels around me. I fell to my knees, hoping for a clean breath. I thought I heard the hissing susurrations of legions of maggots, their ribbed segments rubbing obscenely against each other.
“Krait!” She didn’t answer me and I felt she was in a strange sleep, her body locked in my braids.
“Sssssssssss, our sister, sweet sister…”
I staggered to my feet, the reeking waves receded as the voices grew louder. I tried to draw my sword but my limbs were no more responsive than the rock against my back.
From each of three tunnels furthest opposite me, came three pairs of burning eyes that resolved into three voluptuous women, pale as wraiths. They came in hissing, their teeth sharp and gnashing. They were nude save for their grayish-green hair that hung past their hips in lank strips. Their albino limbs moved oddly like a spider’s as they walked on tiptoe. They touched each other and themselves, red eyes darting, teeth flashing hunger--so like mine. Their hands tattooed in a series of blue dots, front and back, just like mine. They could be me.
“You are the one, the first gifted, the foremost taste from Sha-Jhia.” They spoke with one mind and one voice as they pressed against me. Their hands were everywhere, on my face, cupping my breasts through the vest, stroking my thighs, pinning me to the wall. Their breasts swayed heavily, flushed and hard-tipped under the constant arousal. The two on either side of me ground into my hips with their own; I could smell their scent, the heat of them palpable and cloying.
“You are the promised, the immortal returned, the legend made flesh.” The dominant one pushed my legs apart and knelt down, her hot mouth through the thin silk at my groin bringing an unwelcome wet response.
“You blood shall make us undying, your blood shall make us strong, your blood shall never die.” The two standing nipped at my hands while their fingers twisted and pinched my breasts. I heard silk tear and felt the one below licking at me, parting my lips, thrusting her tongue deep inside. There was no humanity to appeal to, nothing I could do to stop them.
My hips moved of their own accord and my back arched under their erotic touches. My hands were bent inward, exposing the vein as their teeth ripped into my wrists. The one below replaced her tongue with fingers. When I bucked under the pressure and screamed, she bit into the great artery inside my thigh. All the lamia fed from me and I was writhing, helpless.
As my blood flowed into them, I saw as if through their eyes a wall or huge altar of overlapping stones. Two cream colored tusks hung over a large basin below, dripping iridescent fluid into it. The viscous solution changed colors with the flickering torches, like oil on water, sliding violet into cyan, agate into carnelian; bilious yellow became ashen grey. Three hands took three cups. Lips opened to receive the liquid and the young women fell after they drank. Spasms racked their naked forms so violently, bones broke and each bled from several wounds.
“AVANT!”
A brilliant blue light poured up to the ceiling illuminating the vault. J’hraz stood, hands holding blue flames that enervated me and broke the hold from the three blood-drinkers.
“Witch’s blood, you’re next, sweetest taste,” they snarled.
Their spell undone, I pulled the sword free and swung at the nearest as J’hraz fended off the others. I hoped what would stop me would stop them as well. I knelt, thrusting the sword up into the first albino’s heart. As she bent over, I jerked the blade out and brought it down hard; her head fell at my feet. The second spun to meet me. I gashed her arm and saw it heal in the space of two breaths. She shrieked and clawed at me as I struggled and her nails ripped across my face. I shoved her off then arced down. Her severed hands twitched on the stone floor. Once in the shoulder, then under her chin and her blood sprayed over me. I made the third strike count and decapitated her.
The last woman, the lead, whirled about J’hraz, enraged. She brushed off the blue flames, knocking some of the fireballs back to the necromancer. With a low blow, I cut through the tendon at her right heel and she fell forward. I dropped to my knees; sword high in both hands and slashed down as she rose up on her elbows.
I stayed down, breathing heavily, “Being invisible doesn’t work for their kind,” I panted, wiping the sword on my thigh. The cloth was ruined.
“Apparently not,” J’hraz agreed as she picked up the leader’s head by its oily hair. She wiped two fingers across the neck, touched her bloody fingers to her lips then smeared them across the open sneering mouth. “By the blood that beat, shall flesh and spirit meet. Thou shall speak naught but truth, answer each query in sooth.”
“How did you come to be?” I asked the head as I stood and sheathed the sword.
The eyes blinked slowly, “We were handmaidens of the great Serpent God, chosen to carry His terror and worship. Like you, the venom changed us.”
I felt Krait stir; she looked at the talking head.
“But not like you,” the lamia’s brow furrowed as she saw the little burgundy snake.
“How many more are there of you?” Asked the necromancer.
“Just one other--now.” The red gaze rested on me then the eyes closed.
**What did I miss?**
“Nothing a new wardrobe wouldn’t cure, little one,” I told the serpent.
J’hraz dropped the head and called up a blue fireball with which she washed the blood off her hands. She made a motion in my direction and I felt the ripped silk of my pants draw together, “That should cut down on the draft. Do you feel well enough to continue?”
“Yes, I’ll heal. What I saw--their vision of the change, they weren’t tusks, but fangs. The women took the venom of their own accord. Why was the hunger the only thing they knew?”
“Your Krait did more than save your life. Hycis tells me there haven’t been any guardians here in centuries.”
“I could have been like them. Did you find your--" I didn’t know what to call him anymore.
She nodded, stepping over a body. “Do you remember what size he was when you last saw him?”
I had been half-dead from the beating, barely able to move. I shuddered and held out my hand about waist-high. “And the length, four times my height or thereabouts.”
“In the thousand years he has grown to monstrous proportions, quite capable of impressing bone into rock. Those concave areas in the walls are from where he’s passed by. His scales are the size of body shields, he is impervious from the outside, but from the inside…” J’hraz had a sad smile.
I looked for the pouch of Tears at her waist. The bag was now empty.
____****____
“J’hraz--where are the Tears of the Night? What have you done with them?”
She ignored my query, answering instead, “We must leave this place. Our conflict may have drawn notice and we do not have time to battle everyone here.”
I shook my head but followed her down many corridors, our path winding about like the trail of a drunkard or a madman. We passed a large planked door reinforced with iron-bands and three cross beams. I heard a plaintive cry come through the grate and I went back to look inside the cell.
“Heron don’t--"
Fitful torches revealed about two dozen of them, children, or what might have been childlike shapes. The ones with limbs were shackled, those without arms or legs wore collars; all of them were chained to the walls. They were naked and filthy, covered with abrasions and scars whether their bodies were scaled or flesh. Who knows when they had last tasted clean water, been fed wholesome food, or seen the sun? When had they felt a touch that was not a blow, a look that was not disdainful, or heard other than curses, threats and imprecations?
A boy with a scraggly beard who appeared to be in his late teens pulled himself along with his hands since his legs were fused into a single thrashing mass, speckled yellow on black. A little girl of three or so staggered to her feet, which was no easy task without arms. Sparse hair stuck out between the small pale pink scales on her head, coarser dark violet scales covered her torso to her hips. She fell, skinning her knee. I saw tears from the wide set eyes and a thin wail came from the flat lipless mouth. My heart broke. These were the forgotten children of the lamia.
J’hraz pushed me away from the grating, “We don’t have time--"
“There must be something that can be done. We’ve killed their mothers; we’re going to destroy their sire… What kind of life can they have? They aren’t loved; they’re nothing to what the expectations of this damned cult wanted. That much is… horribly evident. What is left to them after we’re through? To rot here? Maybe they’ll be sold as oddities to a circus, beaten and starved until their bizarre look is old news? Or some lordling will want a hunt for such abominations. Send his dogs to tear them apart after he’s hounded them to exhaustion. After all, they’re not really children are they? They’re just things, odious blasphemies without nature or art to redeem them.” I took a breath, and lowered my voice. “J’hraz, all I ask for them is peace. They will never have justice. I know you have the power to end their suffering. They are what my daughter would have been, what your--" I stopped myself at her icy look.
The necromancer raised her blue glowing hands.
“Forgive me, I had no right.”
“Shield your eyes,” J’hraz said quietly.
“Let me witness their end, to see them free.”
“I will not have you blinded but I will let you see when it is done. Obey me in this.”
I covered my eyes with my arms and turned away from the sorceress, my face to the wall. I felt a sudden heat and a blast from a strong wind.
“You may look now….”
I turned back, I’d never heard such a defeated tone from J’hraz before. She looked weary, as if she truly wore every year she lived. Before me, the thick planked door was but a swath of ash and warped metal on the floor. Inside the cell, small dark twisted forms sizzled as cinders condensed in the cool air.
“Did--they--?"
“A quarter heartbeat of pain perhaps. Then nothing.”
I saw J’hraz grimace and put her hands between her breasts, I suddenly knew where the Tears were. She turned and hurried away and I followed her through the labyrinth. I’d never be able to find my way back, but that was a minor concern.
J’hraz finally stopped, she appeared pale even with the poor light. She looked up and I followed her gaze. We were before a massive steel door five times our height and wider than that. No more than a handbreadth was not reinforced with overlapping strips held by studs thicker than my thumb. Great dents pouched out from something that had struck repeatedly from inside. I felt along the nearest edge for a lever or catch.
“It won’t open from this side,” J’hraz said. “Wait a moment.” She took a breath and stepped in close, her lips nearly touching the metal. The necromancer reached up, her fingers meeting and glowing blue. She lowered her arms slowly and a blue arc followed each touch. She knelt; bringing the glowing lines down to the floor where upon they drew inward, meeting in the center between her feet. “Come,” she walked through the solid steel.
How she did it, I had no idea, but I stepped through, amazed that I hadn’t hit anything. The unaccustomed brightness made my eyes smart, torches burned every few steps and layered up past tiers rising into darkness. We were in a huge sand-strewn arena with great columns arching up from the floor and branching overhead. A grinding scraping and the leviathan came into view.
Here was my foe, the monster that raped me body and soul, once the child of the woman I loved. My rage and hatred had no limit until Sha-Jhia shambled out of his den from the far end of the arena. The huge blunt head raised up, searching blindly and worse.
Great gouges that looked to be from an axe still scarred where his eyes should have been. I saw a dull glint at one tympanic area, a jagged shaft of metal protruded from the discolored circle. His nose looked misshapen, lumpy… some places shone, others were dark… molten lead had been poured over his nostrils. And when his tongue probed the air, out of instinct…it was no longer a trident tip, just a short ragged stump. They had blinded and deafened him, taken away scent and taste and left him darkling. An extensive iron collar welded on when he was much smaller had all but disappeared under his scales. The wound oozed, the thick ichor a soft putrid scab that cracked opened as he turned.
“Ka--Kazi?”
I looked at J’hraz. The name she whispered was his, the baby boy she had lost and now found like this. I found tears of pity were on my face, and I saw that she too wept softly. “Why? I don’t understand.”
“He tried to escape from the cult, that was how the bones were impressed into the walls and floor. So to keep him under control, they took away everything they could without killing him, making him helpless. The children were part of a failed breeding program to replace him. He’s in constant pain.”
As if in acknowledgment, a shaky low bellow came from the deformed, disfigured serpent god.
The sorceress turned back to me and held out her arm. Silvery Hycis spread his hood and spiraled down from her hair to her hand, “Take him.”
I let the small cobra come onto my own arm and he coiled up into my braids. Before I could ask, J’hraz ran across the sand to the serpent god and clapped her hands on either side under his chin. Faster than I could see his enormous fangs struck out into her again and again.
I grabbed the hilt of my sword--
**No! No!** Krait and Hycis struck at either side of my throat. Two steps and J’hraz fell to her knees as again his fangs pierced her through like two ivory scimitars which protruded from her chest. The smaller serpents bit into me again, and my actions mirrored the necromancer’s.
We fell together, a world apart. I tried to crawl to J’hraz but the mixed poison Hycis and Krait delivered froze my limbs. I could only watch as she was impaled over and over. Between venom and blood, her robe was stained lighter and darker. Finally she lay still; even her hair was motionless. That, more than her battered form convinced me as nothing else could have, that J’hraz was gone.
Sha-Jhia’s lower jaw unhinged and he began swallowing his mother. Head to breast, gone. Strips of coral dress hung limp as he gulped, ingesting to the knees, a flicker of silver sandal and then nothing.
**It is done.**
I think that was Hycis, who wound about my neck. Krait went back into my hair as I got slowly to my knees. I saw the bulge of the necromancer in the serpent god’s throat. His muscles undulated and the mass moved further, deeper then disappeared.
She had failed. J’hraz had tried so hard, and she had failed.
**No, watch,** said Hycis.
The chain, large enough to hold a trireme, jangled harshly as Sha-Jhia trembled violently. I thought I saw a small flash from his collar--but that couldn’t be. Then a larger blue flash followed bursting through the pus of the stagnant necrotic flesh at his neck. Another and a fourth and more, many bright narrow beams between the thick shingled scales. The serpent god thrashed, his vast bulk cracking into the stone supports, marble chunks the size of huts fell. He bellowed and roared, the blue lightning consuming him from the inside out.
I crouched against the nearest wall, watching Sha-Jhia dissolve. His mutilated head fell, the neck more than halfway gone. Scale and skin and backbone exposed and disintegrating with the vast ribs crumbling into nothingness. More rubble falling and the vastness of him diminished, organs and muscles ebbing. I saw something coral, and an arm? Then that was too gone…and all that remained was his head, some bones, and a segment of tail. Small pieces of stone still rained down, thudding muted in the sand.
**Get them. Bring them home.**
“What? What’s left?” I asked Hycis.
**Go,** and his chin nudged mine. A few steps in the direction he indicated and I saw a scrap of coral. It was the bag that had held the Tears J’hraz had swallowed, knowing they would poison her son. I picked it up and went further, up to the ruins of what had been a god, a monster, an accident. Between a pair of melted whale-sized ribs was an odd lump, two lumps actually, fused together. Hearts. Those of a mother and her child, just as the daemon had promised.
I opened the bag, turned it inside out and picked up the hearts. I folded the bag back upon itself and pulled the laces tight.
____****____
A fist-sized chunk of marble fell, ricocheting off the column nearest me and striking my temple. More pieces fell as the arena collapsed. I ran for the vast door, shaking the blood out of my eye. The blue glow was faint but I saw enough to assure me that it was still a valid exit. I passed through and stopped to tie the strings about my neck. Then I tucked the bag with its precious contents under my vest, drew my sword and realized I knew how to get out after all. The venom from Hycis held the path. I felt it tug at my blood and I hurried down a way my boots knew not.
**Two men on the next right,** Hycis warned. I kept running as I knew they'd be listening to my progress. They didn't expect me to slide to my knees in front of them, gutting both before they could lower their blades. I picked up one of their swords and ran on, turning and turning.
The silver cobra mindspoke to me, **Three on the left.** I swung up with my right, blocked with my left and groaned, hearing and feeling the thwack of a crossbow bolt sinking into my left shoulder. Hycis flared his hood and spat poison as I slashed across one guard's eyes, blinding him. The borrowed sword found a home tight between another's ribs after he struck out and missed. The third found the trigger mechanism jammed on the bow but he swung it at me driving the first shaft deeper into my body. I was able to slash his arm to the bone then drive my sword point into his throat.
I wasn't moving as fast now. Again, I wiped the blood from over my eye and took a moment to snap off the feathered end of the bolt. That pain was enough to make me wish I hadn't but done was done. I just hoped there weren't any more soldiers. The lamias' bites on my wrists and below had opened up with the fight. My side felt sticky; I don't know when that wound happened. I felt the stone beneath my feet quaking. Was the whole temple falling in upon itself? If so, I hoped I was out before it did.
Where was the portal? How would I recognize one wall of stone from another? There were only the three white bones… It was here--somewhere. I held out my good arm feeling for--I didn't know what until my hand passed through the wall as if it was smoke. I pulled back a bit and tapped my sword back and forth finding the width. I stepped partially into the gap, taking a last look back into the crumbling hall. A shout and a mace swung hard into my wounded side, a guard had snuck up, holding to the wall like a spider. I fell through the portal and lay on the sand between the two Sphynx.
I heard a wavering cry from behind me, as I rose to my hands and knees. Looking back I saw the guard trapped, shrieking as the portal shut, sending his body into a thousand different lands and times. I felt a slipping from about my neck then a tightening, Krait was awakening, but Hycis dropped to the earth. A deep gash nearly severed his silvery body in two, his tongue flickered weakly and I felt a mental link between the two small serpents fade then cease to exist.
My tears fell on his still body as Krait spoke to me in a very soft tone, ~ He took the death meant for me. Put him with the hearts. ~
The horses ambled over, by the looks of the sun I had hardly been gone any time at all. With the gates at my disposal, I had all the time in the world, and none I cared to know. I carefully placed Hycis inside the pouch. I dragged myself to my striped mount and somehow got on her. J'hraz' horse followed us.
I recalled the ground being much rougher on the way back, I kept bleeding and I didn't care. Krait wanted to give me his kiss but I didn't want it, I didn't care to live. I knew J'hraz wasn't blameless, by her own admission she had killed many innocents. I had loved her, I understood how her one wish had given birth to horrors she had no control over. My life had been set on revenge, and hatred of what made me into a monster. That object had twisted to become just another innocent preyed upon by the mere evil of a few humans seeking power. It was all very simple, all very still, and gone from my grasp. I had nothing.
Someone's arms were helping me up, a dark woman with eyes like onyx stars. "I had not thought you would be back so soon," her softly accented voice. "You can call me Karmas. That is my name here, Lady D'Arc."
"I'm not--" She placed me on a cot and set the kettle on the hob.
"You are alone. Our J'hraz has passed from the world of flesh. I was ready to ride to the gate to meet you but I was delayed. Greetings, little one," she said to Krait who poked her head out of my braids. "I have a mouse for you if you are hungry." She held out her arm.
My burgundy friend went over to Karmas, eager for dinner. I wondered at the trust placed so quickly, but it would be good for Krait to have a friend. On a nearby table, t he woman removed the lid to a basket that held small skittering noises. My snake went in and Karmas turned to me.
"She'll need her strength to heal you." The dark woman poured warm water in a bowl then started to undo my tunic. "You're not going to die." Her eyebrow raised to punctuate that statement.
"How-- how much did J'hraz tell you? And who are you to plan my life." I turned my face to the wall, neither helping nor hindering her. She left the bag about my neck.
Karmas squeezed the sponge and undid the work of several weapons. Her hands were gentle as she cleaned my wounds. "I was famous in my way. I ruled half the world, and was beloved by men whose hearts loved power more. When the last fell on his sword, I gave up. I had looked for death when J'hraz found me. She took away the venom that filled my veins and brought me here. So I have had experience with both vipers and self-pity."
I looked at Karmas, her eyes were black lightning still, not condemning, but understanding. She pulled her robe to the side and I saw two sets of scars like punctures over her heart. The sponge went lower as she cleaned the wound on my inner thigh.
"So you serve the hereditary mistress of D'Arc?" I saw her look over to a slow and midriff swollen Krait as she wobbled out of the basket, to slither over the table and drop on the pillow by my head. Karmas touched me, teased with one hand as she undid her robe with the other.
"I serve as I am needed, and where I'm wanted…" When she leaned closer; her scent was of amber and musk, "And I also enjoy touching a woman, and receiving her touch in return."
Despite my pain, I responded to her. I wondered my much J'hraz had told this exotic woman of my proclivities. I moved as she straddled my thigh. Krait's head moved along the edge of my ear, her tongue flickered against my throat.
"Do you know--" I arched as she filled me, bringing me higher. "I'll take your blood--ahhh…"
Karmas pushed deeper, smiling as her beasts pressed against mine, "Even as I take what I want, Lady D'Arc"
The world turned red, Krait bit into my throat, and I pulled Karmas to me as she rubbed herself faster along my thigh. I bit her throat and her blood filled me, my guardian's healing venom wove into the climax as we shattered together.
***********
By morning my wounds had gone, so had Karmas. No--she was just by the fire providing the scent of breakfast and the clatter of earthenware plates. It was reassuring. Krait snorted herself awake and tickled my chin with her head.
"The horses have been fed and are ready to go." Karmas brought over a full plate for me. "I've got clothes ready for you when you're finished."
Mid-bite I swallowed and asked, "Why?"
"You've got a promise to keep, and a keep to fulfill a promise." Karmas tapped her finger on the pouch hanging between my breasts.
** You need to deliver that, ** Krait said.
************
Karmas held the reins as I looked up at the villa. I pressed my hand over the silken bag. "I'll wait until it's done," she said.
"Until what's done?"
** Enter and close your eyes, ** Krait told me. ** I will guide you. **
I pushed open the thick door and closed it slowly behind me. I shut my eyes and felt Krait nudge my chin. I followed her directions, my footsteps echoed through corridors, I went up and down stairs, felt sunlight from windows on my face, scent of cold ashes from fireplaces. Dampness pressed on my skin as I went down a spiral staircase with the walls barely wider than my shoulders. My legs were cramping and I took a moment to sit.
"How much farther?"
** A ways, glad I'm riding. **
I felt the little serpent smirk; I didn't need to see it. I rose up and descended another hundred steps, two hundred, three hundred and seven, and stopped per Krait's order. A cool draft blew over me.
** Open your eyes. Go to the white stone, lift it and place the bag there. **
I looked about and saw the small chamber, glowing, though we were completely enclosed. Three paces away the pale stone was central on the floor of stones. And it was loose. Underneath it was just soft dirt. I knelt to dig a hole, then I undid the ties of the bag. I felt the larger lump and the soft length of Hycis. I laid them inside and just wept. I felt Krait nudging me and I pushed the dirt back and put the rock on top. I lay my hands on it, and the rock trembled.
The air shook and the walls-- they rippled like the quarried rock and thick mortar were no more substantial than water.
** Heron. **
That wasn't Krait, it was--the castle?
"Who speaks?"
** Call us Aether. **
"J'hraz? Is it you?" I turned about expecting to see, yet knowing there was nothing visible to me.
** We obey you who live in the villa until we make recompense. **
An unseen hand cupped my cheek, so like J'hraz. And did a child's fingers tap my knee? Kazi? More touches, reassurances, comforting. Many souls. Were they victims or allies of Sha-Jhia and the sorceress? They receded but they were there, waiting on my merest command.
** We are souls who serve the Mistress D'Arc. **
** Aether, let Karmas in to our home, ** I said as I climbed the stairs.
____****____
The End - 'Heron D'Arc' - by Heron