The Hidden Relic (The Evermen Saga, Book Two) (20 page)

When the time came, Dain Barden would fall under the Primate's power just as had Tessolar of Altura, Raoul Maul of Loua Louna, Koraku of Torakon, Dimitri of Vezna, and Xenovere of Tingara. In the end, none of them could resist the elixir.

The parade was over, and Melovar withdrew from the balcony. The Imperial Palace, huge as it was, was too small, he found, and not high enough for his liking. He missed Stonewater, but sometimes this was where he needed to be.

Melovar walked over to where Zavros was seated on a plush velvet chair, thoroughly engrossed by the book of the Evermen in his hands. "I can almost see what it is," Zavros said. "Such a strange shape. It looks like the chamber is inside something, like a mountain."

"I would say it was inside Stonewater, if I didn't know for myself that it isn't there," Melovar said.

"The Akari expect you to tell them where it is, Your Grace," Zavros said, placing the book to the side. "You've promised them a great deal of essence and the most powerful relic the Evermen ever created. Dain Barden Mensk isn't a man to take promises lightly."

"Which is why you've been learning their secrets, Zavros," Melovar said. "We just need to develop our own source of essence before the Akari find out how we've seized power. We must also be the first to find the relic and use its power for ourselves. So tell me, what have you learned?"

Zavros nodded. "I can do it, Primate. I can build the vats. I know how to extract essence from the dead."

"Excellent," Melovar smiled.

"But, Primate, the amount of life energy in a human is still not that great. For what you're asking for the war effort you will need mountains of the dead. The Akari themselves cannot field the draugar in battle for long, not with the amount of essence they possess, and not in this climate, which is warm by their standards. Where do you expect to find so many of the dead?"

Melovar's smile broadened. "Why, where else do the dead come from? From the living. Zavros, I've already begun. The prison camp in Halaran was the first, but we can set up more, here in Tingara."

"Prisoners? Primate, they aren't dead," Zavros said flatly.

"Easily remedied. Oh, surely you aren't having a crisis of conscience now, Zavros? The things I've seen you do. And think, you will have free run of the camps. You can perform any experiments you want on them. Think of all you will learn."

"There is one experiment." Zavros looked up. "You wouldn't let me do it before."

"That? Zavros, you can have an entire camp to yourself, where you can do whatever you want. I will give you books, apparatus, assistants, anything gilden can buy. You can build your quarters and laboratory right next to the camp."

"The apparatus do not come cheap."

"Anything, Zavros, provided the essence takes precedence. Go and build the vats. Moragon knows nothing takes greater precedence — you can look to him for whatever you need. Bring me essence and bring me elixir. We are in a race against the Akari. Dain Barden cannot see any weakness."

Zavros stood and bowed. "It will be done."

21

A
MBER
lived in constant fear for her life, and that of her unborn child. Life in the prison camp in Halaran was hard, but since Moragon had taken over the running of the camp it had grown worse. Much worse.

She'd almost died, after her failed escape attempt. The guards had beaten her remorselessly, the hilts of their swords knocking her to the ground and their heavy boots kicking again and again at her head and back as she curled up and waited for the end.

Somehow, though, she'd found reserves of strength from deep within, and under the tending of her people Amber had survived. She had been terrified she would lose her baby, but one of the prisoners had been a midwife, and assured Amber that the baby was unharmed.

When the woman told her, Amber had cried, for the first time in weeks. She'd cried for Beatta, the Halrana who had died so close to freedom, and for Ness, the old woman who had sacrificed herself just to give them their chance. Most of all, she cried for her child. Amber had tried, but she had failed. Her child deserved its chance at life.

In the time since her try for freedom Amber had healed, but she now worried for the health of her child even more. She shivered at night and the pangs of hunger were like red hot pokers in her chest.

Now the time had come, and Amber had a different plan.

It was a plan that caused her heart to quail with fear.

With her auburn hair brushed and glowing, lips ruby red, and brown eyes lowered, she walked towards the guard post and tried to ignore the tightness in her chest.

She was hardly showing her pregnancy, and while the rations of the prison camp meant her waist was the slimmest it had ever been, Amber still filled out the silk dress she'd pillaged from a dead woman's belongings. She had modified the dark blue dress so that the neckline was low, scandalously low, and the material was sheer, so that Amber felt near-naked.

As she picked her way through the groups of huddled prisoners, heading for the check point, Amber caught the disapproving stares of both the Halrana and her Alturan countrymen. The Alturans here were mostly soldiers who had been captured at the battle at the Bridge of Sutanesta, and they'd seen their friends killed by the Black Army, by the very men that Amber was evidently giving herself to. Amber lifted her chin and ignored them. In her position they would do the same thing.

She hadn't made the decision lightly. People were disappearing from the camp. They certainly weren't being released, for the ones disappearing were the old and the infirm, the weak and the dying, but if they weren't being released then where were they going? Then others started vanishing — those who argued with the guards, or even looked at them the wrong way.

Amber's trouble started in the food line when, two days before, Hugo, a vicious Tingaran, had tried to kiss her. When she'd turned her head, he'd angrily pulled her ragged dress from her shoulders, displaying her breasts for all to see. Without thinking, Amber had responded by slapping him across the face.

Hugo, a big man with the typical shaved head of a Tingaran, had looked surprised for a moment, and then glared at Amber as his fellow guards hooted and jeered. "You're going next." He had prodded Amber's bare chest with his finger. "I'll make sure of it," he said with venom. Amber had hung her head and pulled her dress back up, before realising what it was he meant. Wherever they were taking the vanishing prisoners, she was going, too.

Amber could see only one way out, a way she could save her life, and provide security for her unborn child. She had spent two days getting ready for this moment. She was beautiful, she reminded herself.

Amber reached the guard post. She saw the guard in front of her breathe in as he caught the scent of lavender and rose from the fragrance Amber had placed at her neck and wrists. The other guard looked her slowly up and then down, his gaze finally setting on her chest.

"Hello, beauty," the first guard said. "Where did you turn up from? How come we 'aven't noticed you before?"

"I'm new," Amber said.

The second guard came forward, his mouth open and eyes still fixated on Amber's body. He leered, his hand running over the soft material on Amber's waist. "Good news for us," the guard said.

Amber smiled up at him, letting his hand run over the material and up, feeling the outside of her hip, moving further still to the underside of her breast. She finally stepped back and pushed his hand away. "I'm not here for you two, I'm afraid. I'm here for someone else."

"Who?" asked the first guard.

"High Lord Moragon," Amber said. "His command tent is out there, isn't it?" She smiled up at the guard sweetly.

Both men stood back and exchanged worried glances. The leering guard's expression was fearful.

"Could you let me through?" Amber asked.

The guards lived in a separate compound to the main prison camp, Moragon with them. Amber prayed to the Lord of the Sky. If they let her out unescorted she could potentially escape, and she wouldn't have to do what she came here to do.

Amber remembered Hugo's words: he'd said she would be next. She owed it to her unborn child to stay alive.

The first guard whistled, and a uniformed man came over. "Take her to High Lord Moragon's tent."

Amber's escort quickly looked her over, but said nothing about Amber's obvious purpose. "Come with me," he said.

Amber's heart raced as her escort led her away from the fenced prison and between two pine trees. The air was sweeter, out here in the open, away from the stench of the prisoners, and the two dozen or so tents of the guards' compound were laid out in neat rows, interspersed with the occasional tree.

Some guards sat about, finishing their evening meal, drinking hot drinks from steaming metal mugs. Amber saw them nudge one another and felt their eyes on her body as she walked past. Good — the more who saw her the better.

Six guards stood in a circle around Moragon's command tent. A tall flagpole was planted to the left of the tent, the
raj hada
of Tingara double-circled to indicate the High Lord was in residence.

Amber's escort promptly halted outside the tent. "For the High Lord," he said.

One of Moragon's bodyguards came forward, a slim Tingaran who wore his sword with ease and walked with a lithe grace. "I see," the slim man said. "Here," he told Amber, "stand still with your arms to your side and your legs apart. I do not do this for pleasure." He looked at Amber's escort. "You may leave, soldier."

The bodyguard's search was thorough, but brusque, lacking the intimacy that would make Amber feel violated. That would come, she thought.

He met Amber's eyes, made curious by her heaving chest, her breath coming fast and strong. "He's a melding, but he's still a man," the bodyguard said. "You've done this before."

Amber had only ever been with one man, Igor Samson, the husband she had lost. She almost cried, but she held it in. She wasn't just doing this for herself. She had to be strong.

"You can go in now," the bodyguard said.

Amber nodded. She stood for a moment before she could make her legs move. Her feet took her forward and she reached the door to the tent, pushing it to the side and entering.

Swords and armour stood on racks, lining the walls at either side. The light inside the tent was dim, but a nightlamp burned at the desk where Moragon sat, a stack of papers in front of him, frowning at one in his hands. He looked up. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Amber had seen Moragon only once before, when the new High Lord of Tingara had arrived in Halaran and followed his welcome in Ralanast with a tour of the prison camp. He was tall, at least as tall as Miro, with the muscled body of a warrior and the black eyes of a man accustomed to dealing out death. Amber remembered his former title: the Emperor's executioner. She controlled her body, preventing the shudder that tried to force its way out.

The light of the nightlamp reflected from his shaved head, and he was clad in loose garments of black with white trim, but what drew Amber's gaze was the glistening metal of his right arm. Covered with tiny runes, the metal started below his neck and moved down to his shoulder, descending to his elbow, wrist and hand. The lore of Tingara had given him a perfect new limb, stronger than the original, if the stories were true. Amber's eyes rested on the superbly-formed metal hand and fingers that matched the pink flesh of his opposite. It even had nails.

Amber realised he had asked her a question. She could do this, she told herself again. "I'm Amber, High Lord. I'm a gift from the men. A welcome of sorts."

Moragon's eyebrows went up. "Come closer," he said. "I want to see if I can put a price on you. How much did they front up, I wonder? How much am I loved?" He smiled.

Amber stepped forward, into the light of the nightlamp.

"Are you a virgin, girl?" Moragon asked.

"Yes, High Lord," Amber said.

All of her hopes rested on him believing her.

"And where are you from?"

"I'm from Altura, High Lord."

"Ah." Moragon grinned. "An Alturan girl. This pleases me, knowing I will be taking one of the enemy."

Amber's heart raced. She had to do this, she reminded herself. It was the only way. She had seen the promise of death in Hugo's eyes.

Moragon leaned back in his chair. "Come yet closer, Amber of Altura," he said.

Amber moved forward until the desk was barely a pace in front of her. The melding had yellowed eyes, she could see now. It made him look feverish. His teeth were sharp and jutted in different directions.

"How much are you worth, Amber of Altura?"

"High Lord?"

"How much did they pay for you?"

"They… they said I would be given more food, and warm blankets, and the guards wouldn't trouble me, and I wouldn't be taken to wherever the others are disappearing to."

"And you shall have all that," Moragon said.

Amber inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. She had accomplished one of the things she had come here for.

"Provided you please me, of course."

"I will, High Lord," Amber's voice trembled.

"So, a proud Alturan girl — for I can see you are proud, Amber — gives herself to the enemy for nothing more than some scraps of food and a blanket to keep her warm at night. It's good to know Alturans value themselves so little."

"Yes, High Lord," Amber said.

"Remove your shoes and your dress," said Moragon, still sitting at his desk.

Amber heard the command like a stone hitting her stomach. Lord of the Sky, she could do this. She kicked off her shoes, and then slipped the strap from her left shoulder, followed by the right. Swallowing, she reached down and pulled the bottom half of her dress up to her hips, revealing the small scrap of white underwear she wore underneath. She then gathered the dress and pulled it up and over her head, letting it fall to the ground.

Amber heard Moragon's breath catch as she hung her head, her eyes closed, resisting the urge to cross her arms over her bared breasts. It was cold in the tent, and she felt her nipples stiffen.