Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 02 (20 page)

           
“You are honored,” Hattim corrected,
“and if you please me in other ways I will honor you further. ”

           
“My Lord,” she simpered, and moved
with deliberate languor toward the bed.

           
Hattim threw back the covers and she
saw that his body was smooth and white, with the same hint of softness that
robbed his features of firm character. No matter, he was the Lord of Ust-Galich
and this night would shape her future. She settled herself beside him, reaching
for him with expert hands, sighing ardently as she applied her skillful mouth.

           
Hattim found himself pleased with
Celeruna’s choice.

           
So pleased that before long, lulled
by her ministrations and the liquor he had consumed, he slept.

           
Ellebriga lay awake beside him,
listening to his snores as she stroked the bruises he left on her and thought
of the morrow. He was a vigorous lover, with a taste for pain and, she
suspected, a fierce appetite: she did not want him to find her asleep should he
awake and require her again. She wanted to please him in every way, that come
dawn she might voice her request to sail south, either to Andurel or, if he
chose it, on to Ust-Galich. She had heard that his city, Tessoril, was a place
of opulence and splendor and she wondered if the lords of the southern kingdom
kept seraglios.

           
She was occupied with these pleasant
musings, close to drowsing but sufficiently alert she would respond should
Hattim awake, when a movement in the comer of the room caught her eye.

           
It came from the clothes tossed
carelessly against the angle of floor and wall, and when she turned her head
she realized that it was less a movement than some strange alteration in the
light. A rubescent glow hung about the piled clothing, shimmering as might the
flames of a fire, or a fresh-lit torch. The chamber was dark, the lanterns
doused, and the shutters denied the wan moonlight entry, yet from the comer
came a distinct glow that strengthened even as she watched. Shadows elongated
across the floor, creeping to the bed as if possessed of independent life, and
Ellebriga turned to see if Hattim sensed them. He remained soundly asleep and
she wondered what she should do. Had his clothes taken fire? How could they?
Perhaps he had inadvertently tossed them onto a flambeau that had smoldered
through their lovemaking and now caught flame. She sniffed the air and wrinkled
her nostrils as the reek of sulfur pervaded her senses, suddenly sharp and foul
as the stench of a midden. Naked save for her jewelry she lifted the covers and
set her feet to the floor. Hattim slept on as she moved silently to the weirdly
glowing clothing, the sulfurous stink causing her to gag, her bare skin
prickling with apprehension. Tentatively she thrust a hand toward the discarded
garments.

           
Then sprang back, her mouth opening
in a scream as fire erupted against the wall, splashing over her so that she
felt her eyebrows singe and breathed in malodorous heat that stifled her cry
stillborn.

           
The muscles of her jaw and throat
locked; her eyes bulged. Her hands lifted before her face and froze there as,
despite the wash of fire, a cold that penetrated to her bones pierced her even
as the sweat of pure terror beaded her forehead.

           
There was no glow now, and the
stench was fading, but what she saw was infinitely worse for it had no right to
be there. Could not be there. Yet was, emanating an aura of malice that
threatened to unlatch her bowels, her reason.

           
It was a man in delineament only,
for the shape was oddly wrong, somehow warped so that the image formed in her
dumbstruck brain was that of some gigantic predatory insect. The shoulders
humped, thrusting curiously angled arms, which ended in taloned hands, toward
her. The torso descended, a hollowed triangle, to an overly narrow waist,
reinforcing the impression of insectility. The skull was maned with hair the
color of snow, or ash. and the features that she saw were less human than those
of a mantis, the forehead wide and crenellated above deep-sunk eyes that glowed
with hellish fire, as if the sockets opened on to craters of burning coal. The
nostrils were slits in a protrusion of bone, and the mouth was a gash that
smiled at her with a hideous intent.

           
Terror paralyzed Ellebriga and she
stood in trembling silence as elongated legs brought the shape toward her,
shifting, changing even as she watched so that she did not know whether she saw
a man or an insect or a demon.

           
That knowledge came as the taloned
fingers cupped her chin and tilted her head back so that she looked directly
into the pits of the eyes. All will to scream left her then and she could do
nothing as the face descended toward her, save think that she would never see
Andurel now. Do nothing as the mouth came toward hers and the fleshless lips
touched her in obscene parody of a kiss. Make no movement or sound as the
embrace drained her life, sucked out her very soul, and the creature let her
fall, limp, to the floor as it smiled horribly and said in a voice that carried
the susurrating malevolence of a serpent’s hiss, “I am Taws.”

           
The mage stood over the drained body
of the luckless doxy, savoring the sweet, strengthening essence he had taken,
feeling his power return in full measure. There was no protective magic here,
no glamours set to ward against such as he, nor any of the blue-robed women
that he could sense in the vicinity. There was only his chosen servant, snoring
in drunken sleep on the crumpled bed.

           
He crossed the chamber in a single
stride and hovered above Hattim Sethiyan, peering down at the supine man. It
was good to once more possess binocular vision and he stared long at Hattim’s
slack features, the gash of his mouth twisted in parody of a smile.

           
Then he bent, knees resting against
the bed, and clapped a hand over Hattim’s mouth.

           
The Lord of Ust-Galich grunted and
turned onto his back. Against Taws’s palm he mumbled, “Not yet, girl. 1 will
tell you when I am ready again.”

           
“My Lord,” Taws mocked, his voice
soft, colder than the snow to the north, “I am ready for you now.”

           
“Damn you,” Hattim grunted,
struggling to free his face. “Leave me be.”

           
The pressure on his mouth refused to
go away and he forced his eyes open. They cleared rapidly of sleep as they
focused on the features hanging above him, filling with loathing and a stark
terror. He tried to shout, but Taws’s grip tightened, stifling breath, and he
began to choke, clutching at the wrist of the apparition.

           
Taws chuckled, a rasping, grating
sound more akin to the rattle of dry bones than laughter, and Hattim began to
struggle in earnest.

           
He was a strong man but helpless
against the thing that clutched him, the tendons along his forearms bulging as
he fought to free the grasp that threatened to suffocate him: uselessly. He
tried to kick the monster away, but his legs tangled in the bedding and he
succeeded only in arching his back, the blows he directed at the triangular
visage deflected casually by a hand that he saw bore only scant resemblance to
human digits.

           
“Be still,” Taws commanded, and
Hattim felt his gaze locked by the glowing red orbs, the will to struggle
departing, his limbs giving in to a strengthless lassitude.

           
“What are you?” he gasped when the
creature released its grip. “Do I dream?”

           
“You are awake,” the mage declared,
“and I am Taws. You know me as the Messenger.”

           
“May the Lady save me!” Hattim
moaned, his features blanched of color as his teeth rattled between trembling
jaws.

           
“May the Lady roast in Ashar’s fires
for all eternity,” Taws blasphemed. “She will not save you. You do not need
her.”

           
Hattim looked to his discarded
clothes. His sword was stowed aboard the
Vargalla
,
but on his belt there hung a ceremonial dagger, more decoration than real
weapon, but long enough of blade, and sharp enough, that it would pierce ribs
to find the heart—if this demonic creature was equipped with such an organ.

           
Taws followed his glance and shook
his head. “It will do you no good. See ...”

           
He fastened a hand in Hattim’s hair
and rose, bringing the Galichian moaning from the bed as he ducked sideways to
scoop the blade from its ornate, jeweled sheath. Tears filled Hattim’s eyes as
his scalp was stretched and he thought he should find the skin tom from his
cranium, but Taws tossed him back on the bed as easily as he might have tossed
a kitten and sent the blade swirling into the air. As it rose he made a single
pass with his right hand and Hattim saw a blue fire dance briefly about the
taloned fingers. Then gaped as the dagger spun impossibly long in midair, the
steel of the blade abruptly red, melting, dripping molten metal that seethed
and sputtered on the boards of the floor, the odor of burning wood acrid as the
taste of fear in his mouth. The large jewel that decorated the pommel fell
loose, shattering into iridescent fragments that were joined by the shards of
the smaller stones set into the grip and quillon. Blackened, the hilt thudded
to the floor and broke into pieces.

           
“You can do nothing.” Taws made
another pass with his unhuman hand and Hattim felt the cry for help forming in
his throat cloy and halt against his chattering teeth. “Nothing at all save
listen to me.”

           
“Why should I?”

           
Hattim heard his voice quaver, thin
as the mewling of an infant . He could not seem to fill his lungs with
sufficient breath to shout, and the numbing lassitude pervaded his limbs so
that he found movement impossible; all he could do was lie helpless on the bed
as the Messenger studied him, the rubescent eyes hideously fascinating. In that
moment, Hattim Sethiyan knew how a rabbit must feel when confronted with the
implacable stare of a hunting cat.

           
“Because I can give you everything
you want,” Taws said.

           
“You are Ashar’s Messenger and sworn
enemy of the Kingdoms,” Hattim responded, the words thick and slow on his
tongue.

           
“Ashar’s Messenger, certainly.” The
ashen mane of hair ducked in confirmation. “But enemy of the Kingdoms? That
depends on the definition.”

           
Hattim stared at the mage, still
consumed with sheer terror, but also, now that it seemed his life was not
immediately threatened, with a degree of morbid curiosity.

           
“I am my master’s servant,” Taws
declared, his voice sonorous, as if he delivered a lesson, “and consequently
the enemy of the Lady and those who serve her. Do you serve her, Hattim
Sethiyan?”

           
“Of course,” Hattim gulped. “I am
Lord of Ust-Galich.”

           
“But you would be more,” Taws said.
“So much more, would you not? Ambition clogs your pores, Hattim. It oozes from
you like the reek of sweat. I can smell it on you, sweet and sickly as the
perfume on that doxy. ”

           
“I,” Hattim began, but halted at a
gesture from the mage.

           
“You would take the White Palace,”
Taws continued. “You would claim Darr’s throne for your own and take his
daughter to your bed. You would extend your rule across Kesh and Tamur until
the sun sign rose over all the Kingdoms, from your borders to the Beltrevan, from
the Gadrizels to the Tenaj Plains. Did you but think you had the strength of
arms, you would take the field against your fellow lords; but you know you
cannot, and so you place your hope in marriage to Ashrivelle and the subsequent
tenancy of the Andurel throne.”

           
Hattim dragged a fear-furred tongue
slowly across sour lips and knew that those cratered eyes saw into his soul.
“How can you know that?” he muttered.

           
“Because I am what lam,” answered
Taws. “Do you think the Sisterhood would permit your dream reality?”

           
“I,” Hattim said slowly, “I do not
know.”

           
“You do,” Taws informed him. “You
know they would not. They would speak against you. They would side with your enemies.
They would lend their influence to Kesh, to the Caitin line.”

           
An image of Kedryn flashed briefly
before Hattim’s eyes. He saw the boy as in the duel; saw the kabah swing toward
his head; saw Kedryn hailed as victor of the war.

           
“Oh, yes,” murmured Taws, sibilant,
“you bear no love for Kedryn Caitin, yet the Sisters do. They would see him
ascend the throne before you. They are enemy to your dreams, Hattim Sethiyan.”