Chains of a Dark Goddess (5 page)

“And the training fields where I earned my skills in battle, serving as Colonel Fortrenzi’s squire, where—” He stopped, having no wish to think of Fortrenzi any longer.

“My home … My small estate on Three Hill, with its vegetable garden and goldfish pond. Who owns it now that Orisala is gone? Some undeserving cousin I barely knew, I suspect. They probably inherited the fortune I left behind for her as well.”

Breskaro’s eyes narrowed and the viridian flame flared. Nightsoul started toward the city. “I wonder if Kedimius is there now. He swore to me he would always look after Orisala. Did he betray me as well? Was everything I knew, everything I gave my life for, a lie? It seems so to me now.”

Nalsyrra placed a hand on his arm. “We need to get away from here.”

“The city wears its own mask. There is no beauty here, only deception.”

“Breskaro, now is not the time.”

“Of course.” His eyes cooling, Breskaro glanced about the cemetery. “Where are the guards? There should be four at the cemetery entrance. They never would have allowed these horses in.”

“I neutralized them. Do not worry. They will wake with the dawn.”

He flicked his gaze back to the city once more and shrugged. “I don’t care whether they wake at all.”

Chapter 6

The weeping walls of the abandoned dungeon beneath Togisi Castle glowed with a violet iridescence emanating from the slime growing on the stones. A lantern burned at the door leading into the small chamber. Candles placed at the points of a pentagram drawn in blood on the floor burned steadily in the stale, unmoving air.

Deltenya Togisi, a middle-aged woman of striking beauty and soft, patrician features, knelt within three concentric circles chalked outside the pentagram. Having finished a long series of chants, she lay bent over, gasping for breath.

A jet qavra stone lay within a pool of warm blood in the center of the pentagram. Over the stone hovered a ghost whose features were masked by a voluminous, undulating cloak and a deep hood. The ghost spoke in a woman’s voice, ancient and hollow yet steeped in power.

“Child, we succeeded.
You
succeeded.”

“Everything went as planned, Lady Harmulkot?”

“Yes! Your lover is returned to the world of the living. Because of you.”

Deltenya smiled, tears rolling from her eyes. “My beautiful Breskaro,
returned
.”

She began to laugh, lightly at first, then with abandon. Her laughs became sobs. Her sobs became the moans of a lover embraced. Smearing the blood spattered onto her body, she ran her hands along her thick, naked thighs, her softly curving stomach, her full breasts, her long, white neck. Her fingers curled into the dark ringlets of her hair, and she tugged. She shuddered with orgasm. She thrust her hips forward and arched backward. She cried out, and her eyes rolled back into her head. She convulsed and screamed from pain, or perhaps it was pleasure.

“Stop!” cried the ghost of the goddess Harmulkot. “You must stop, Deltenya! If you give in to the urge, you will lose everything.”

Deltenya stopped writhing, but neither her fool’s grin nor the mad look in her eyes departed.

“You will lose him again if you give in.”

Deltenya’s eyes focused and her face fell into a scowl. She shuddered once from a thousand pricks of pain and joy. Then the fluttering within ceased. Panting, Deltenya pulled herself back up to her knees and looked at the ghost still hovering above the qavra.

“Child,” said Harmulkot, “you
cannot
embrace sexual pleasures with so much power in the room, not without directing it somewhere.”

“To him, then?” she said, her voice pleading desperately. “It could make him stronger still.”

“No. That channel is severed now. Just let it go. The darker powers of this world and beyond are trying to seduce you. The dark powers want you to give yourself over to them. The only way they can reach you through the protective circles is for you to invite them in.”

“Would that truly be such a bad thing, my lady? They have served me well.”

“You could lose yourself to them. Or worse, they could impregnate you in this state. It has happened before. What would your lover think as you gave birth to a demonic being?”

“Y-You’re right. I am sorry, my lady.” 

“Of course I am right, child. Now, you should clean up. All is lost if Magnos should return and discover what you have done.”

Deltenya beckoned to the pale-skinned barbarian who hovered in the shadows, his eyes gripped by terror. He obeyed, but only because Deltenya held him under the
spell of compulsory obedience
. 

“Krenthor, dispose of the bodies.”

Krenthor lifted a tiny body, born an hour ago, from one of the spokes of the pentagram. It was a limp, ragged thing, fully spent in the sorcery that had restored Breskaro Varenni’s body. Krenthor placed the baby in a drainage chute and it slid away.

Tenderly, Krenthor lifted the other body into his arms. A soft-featured young woman, sixteen years of age, her throat slit. Krenthor’s face struggled, muscles twitching, but it couldn’t show emotion. 

“Your love for my daughter served us well,” said Deltenya. “You were
blessed
, heathen savage, to touch one of blood so pure and noble. Count yourself lucky that I needed you.”

“Child, you must banish the powers now,” Harmulkot instructed.

“Krenthor, take Albiria’s body and step into the pentagram.” He did as she commanded then collapsed to his knees, sobbing despite her command over him. She allowed him a moment of suffering, but only a moment. “Take up the blade lying next to the qavra stone.”

He obeyed.

“You must follow her.”

He nodded, seeming to understand.

“Follow her,” said Deltenya, “but do not drop the knife.”

Krenthor, with one brutal slash, severed his jugular. 

Knife in hand, Krenthor perished. As one, Deltenya and Harmulkot shouted a command of banishing in Ancient Eirsendan, the language of sorcerers. The dark powers howled as they fled the room and returned to the nether regions of the Shadowland from which they had come. Along with them went the pentagram lines and the other diagrams she’d drawn.

Deltenya carefully placed a note beside Krenthor. In it, he confessed to Albiria’s murder and explained how he, a slave everyone had trusted, had regularly sneaked in from the stables to see her. Then, when she could live with her guilt no longer and planned to expose him, he lured her down here. It made no mention of the baby Deltenya had carefully hidden with subtle glamours and Albiria’s feigned illness of the last six months.

Deltenya twirled around the dank, stone room. “My Breskaro will soon return to me! I can hardly wait.” She giggled like a girl of fourteen, not a woman of thirty-seven years. “Are you sure he must first go on this errand of yours, my lady?”

Harmulkot sighed with irritation. “Yes. This quest
must
be done first. And if he is the great warrior you believe him to be, he will return safely.”

“I have no doubt that he will, my lady. Breskaro is invincible.”

Harmulkot glanced down at the slain girl. Glistening eyes drew tight and she breathed a deep sigh. Then she disappeared, retreating back into the qavra.

Chapter 7

Under the cover of night, Breskaro and Nalsyrra rode along the broad Issalian Way, heading southeast, following along the banks of the River Ayre. They rode fast, wanting to be finished with the Issalian Way before daylight brought out bustling crowds of merchants and travelers.

Nightsoul galloped with sinister delight, and with such speed and determination that Nalsyrra’s mount, which was a fine beast, had trouble keeping up. An hour before dawn, they reached a fork, where the Issalian Way turned east while the Ayre bent to the south. Hooves struck dirt instead of paved stones as they took a smaller road that paralleled the river, winding past quaint farming and fishing villages.

As the sky lightened, Nalsyrra veered off into a thickly wooded area along the river. “Come. We can wait out the day here without being seen.”

Breskaro stayed on the road. “Wait. I haven’t seen a sunrise in seven years.”

As the sun peeked over the hills, Breskaro fidgeted. After what seemed to him an eternity spent in shadows and mist, the promise of sunlight moved him with desire. The first rays penetrated the trees and struck him. He shielded his eyes with a hand. The skin on the hand blistered. Cursing, he joined Nalsyrra in the well-shadowed glade she’d chosen.

“You didn’t tell me the sun would hurt me.”

“If you were a mere wraith it would be almost ... deadly, but you are more than that. It will take a few days for the animation process to complete itself. After that, you should adjust to the daylight. Though you will likely remain sensitive to it.”

“Just as well. The sunrise wasn’t as grand as I’d hoped. The Keeper was right. Part of my soul is still dead.” 

Breskaro dismounted and stretched. “Nightsoul may need rest, but I could ride on. I don’t feel the least bit sleepy. Perhaps I have slept long enough.”

“You will never need sleep again.” She sat on a bed of moss and pulled out a musty grimoire. “Come. It is time to learn how to use that qavra heart of yours.”

Breskaro sat beside her and put a hand over his heart. “It’s a strange thing, this stone. It feels alive, like it has a life of its own.”

“In a way it is, and does. What do you know about qavra?”

“Only that you need them to perform magic and that they originated with the Zindari in ancient times.” He knew little of the Zindari, despite having encountered a few on his quests. They were a tall, brown-skinned people of delicate features who inhabited the Far East and formed the ruling castes of nations such as Pawanare and Jhindahar. 

“Not exactly. They originated with the Qaiar. The Zindari are the descendants of the Qaiar.”

“I have heard stories of the Qaiar. Demigods and wizards, right?”

“To you, they would be. Most of the beings humans have called gods were Qaiar. Every qavra you see once housed the soul of a Qaiar. It is that presence you feel, though the soul within this stone has long since lost its identity.” With her long fingers Nalsyrra caressed the orange-red stone embedded in her forehead. “With the proper ceremony, a slain Qaiar can be reborn through her qavra into any Zindari who offers himself as a host. The two then become one, though the Qaiar is dominant. This only works with someone who has Zindari blood, no other humans. And if the blood is pure enough, the individual will have a birthmark matching that of his Qaiar ancestor. Such pairings are best.”

“How is it that we have these stones then? They are rare but not impossible to find. I know because we seized dozens in the crusades and dumped them into the sea.” 

Nalsyrra grimaced. “The Qaiar numbered thousands in the beginning, but over the millennia many lost their will to live after dozens of rebirths and chose to fade away. Others were slain on the field of battle and their stones were captured. No one resurrects an enemy. Those are the more powerful stones. Yours is one of those.”

“So the soul within this gem could be reborn into a new body?”

“In theory. After many centuries locked within the qavra, the will remains, but for this one, the identity is lost. It would give birth to a blank soul, a being of pure essence and no identity.”

Having walked the Shadowland, he could understand that. If he had spent another seven years there, he doubted there would be much left of the old Breskaro in him. And what would he be then? Little more than the demons who roamed the mists. Was that where the demons came from? Men like him who never moved on and eventually lost themselves? He banished the thought. 

“So if a stone without identity were merged with a host, would that not leave the host fully himself?”

Nalsyrra smiled. “It would make the host one-half himself and one-half nothing. By the time unwanted Qaiar souls had faded, most Zindari had forgotten the art of resurrection. Those few attempts made with blank gems…” She appeared lost in thought for a moment. “It went poorly.” 

“So what are you, Nalsyrra? You don’t wear a qavra as any normal witch would, but you have one embedded in your forehead. And you do not look like a Zindari nor any sort of human I’ve ever seen before. Are you a Qaiar?”

“I am unique.”

“Your skin, is it tattooed? It doesn’t seem a natural color.”

“It is unique as well.”

Breskaro felt rage pulsing within him suddenly, being denied what he wanted, but he kept it in check. “Keep your secrets then.”

“I will.”

Breskaro’s eyes narrowed. “You have already told me more than most know, haven’t you?”

“I was worried about you, Breskaro. The legends about you portray a mighty warrior of faith with little cunning. But the few I interviewed who knew you in life said you were intelligent. I am glad they were right.”

They led the horses down to the river to drink. Breskaro removed his mask and then eagerly plunged his hands into the river and splashed water into his face. He remembered the water of the Ayre being cold and pure with a lightly metallic flavor. This was ... wet, and nothing more. It was tasteless, lifeless. But he craved it, and the more he drank the less … dry … he felt.