Darkstone - An Evil Reborn (Book 4) (22 page)

Chapter Eighteen

~

“N
o!” Vishan said.

Fateem’s eyes were locked on the jewel as her hands grasped the Darkstone, and then she took a few steps back. A look of ecstasy covered her face, but then she screamed. “No, Stay away!” she cried. Her skin began to fragment into tiny motes.

“Fateem!” Vishan yelled as he saw the woman he loved dissolve into a column of dark smoke. It swirled and coalesced around the now-dropped Darkstone. He stood in horror as the smoke began to be sucked into the dull blackness of the stone. “No!  This is unfair!  I just found her!” Tears flooded his eyes and ran down his cheeks. No body to hold close to him, not even a wisp of the smoke that she turned into. She should have never touched it.

“I killed her. I killed her.” He didn’t know how long he knelt in front of the now-inert Darkstone. Her sorcerer’s light had gone out and he lit another, hoping her death was just another illusion, but nothing had changed in the room. “I’ll join her.” He couldn’t return to Hustafal. A life with Vestya and as Fenakyr’s son-in-law seemed like too bleak of a future to possibly bear. “Life in Besseth wouldn’t have any savor without you, Fateem.” Vishan said as he picked up the stone.

The stone grabbed onto his mind and threw him to the floor. He struggled with the entity that had killed Fateem until he felt his body tingle and then he lost all feeling.

“A person of real power! A man’s body?” the entity said in his mind. “Interesting.” The voice was cold and detached… a woman’s voice.

Let me out.
Vishan said.

“From time to time,” the voice said. The voice sounded more like his own. The Darkstone had taken over his body. “I’ll need you to be close so I can use your memories.”

Vish felt a force pushing and pulling at his mind.

“A prince? How wonderful. I have the kernel of my new empire with this body.”

He struggled and struggled for ascendancy, but Vish couldn’t break through. He tried sorcery, but without his body, he couldn’t tap into the power of the nexus. He wondered what had happened to Fateem. He railed against the invasion, but eventually stopped.

“Are you through, little prince?” his voice said. “You may call me Daryaku. No first name, so I can call you Vish. That’s how you name yourself. Vish for you and Daryaku for me” Vish heard his own voice.

“Now to see what my new empire looks like.” Daryaku stood up. Vish had no power over his body. He/she/they staggered to the doorway and looked out. “Ankenyr!   What happened to it?”

It’s now a ruin called Onkyr. The city died out long ago. It’s been thousands of years.

Vishan felt regret, a loss. Ankenyr had meant a lot to the woman.

“My home. I played in its streets and became a sorcerer in the academy.”

Like a Sorcerer’s Tower?

He felt the rumbling in his mind.

“Precisely, little prince.  There is a strong nexus buried in that rubble.”

“It’s time to leave.”

No it’s not,
Vish said.
We will stay the night here.

“Of course,” Daryaku said. “I’ll let you guide your body until morning. We share the space inside your head. We will become marvelous friends as we live a long, long time together.”

Vishan found he could move his body and arranged the camp. He cooked a dinner from his dwindling supplies and went to sleep. He couldn’t bear to retrieve Fateem’s saddlebags from the tomb, so he just closed the door. Daryaku left him alone, perhaps she slept.

He woke riding his horse. I—

“Slept in, while I took care getting us down from the meadow. That used to be a shallow lake. So beautiful, so long ago.” His body sighed. “You will have to tell me what has happened. I have slept for millennia.”

In the Darkstone?

Vish waited for a pause.

He heard a sigh. “Indeed. I was dying from an assassination attempt from my Ropponi general. I made the mistake of touching the Sunstone as he did and he knew all that I had done. I had one chance to save myself and this is the result.” Vish could see through his eyes, but he couldn’t control them. The Darkstone lay like a dead lump on his hand.

“That’s close enough. It captures anything with Affinity and kills anything without, but I know how to shield it. I had prepared the Purestone to act that way in case… well, in case this happened. Your friend is inside and in many ways, I think you are too. Too bad. I know you loved her. But a first love is never a true love, Vish. I am certain of it.”

He didn’t want to have an argument with her over that. Vish wondered if he were mad. Perhaps the Darkstone captured him and his relationship with the Great Empress was illusion. Great Empress. What a shock.

So you have great powers?

“Me?” Daryaku said. “Your body has the power. I’m no more powerful than you are, which is to say powerless without a youthful body, even if it is of the male variety.” She spoke a spell in a language Vishan didn’t know and he no longer had any control of his body.

What have you done?

“I don’t want to take a chance on you, little prince. A little spell to cut you off from control of your body for the rest of our lives.” She laughed with his voice.

Vish’s mind whirled with confusion and fear. He retreated into a small place at the back of his mind.

~

“Let me in!” Daryaku said.

Vish would have blinked his eyes if he had controlled them. Something ruffled up his mind again.

“That’s enough. We will have to kill your father. He’s done so many bad things to you, little prince. His testing. Bah!  I’d bet he plays the same tricks on all of his boys. Survival of the most fit. With me, there is no contest.”

I don’t want my father killed,
Vish said.

“You don’t have any choice. Your father will be dead within two days of our arrival at Baku. I’d like to meet this Peleor of yours. He seems a perfect vessel to use.”

Vish couldn’t do anything to stop the monster than inhabited his body. She didn’t seem evil, but she didn’t care for anyone but herself. Was that what drove her to become Empress?

“No, little prince, I was a great sorceress. I made the Warstones for my father, the Emperor Wallyr. He conquered Ayrtan from Zarron, before there was a country named Dakkor. A bloody two decades of fighting that was. He used the Warstones to take over and rule all of Goriath.

“It worked too, until he died. A heart attack.” Daryaku chuckled. Vish could tell she had killed her own father. “I used a technique to change the appearance of my body into his and that worked until I made my mistake with Yoshiaku, my Ropponi general and the Sunstone. When he found out I wasn’t my father, he ordered an assassin to infiltrate my palace on Ayrtan. I suffered a deep slice to the stomach. I could heal enough of the damage to put my soul into the Purestone. It obviously lost it purity and turned dark.” Vish heard his own laughter. “It took all of the power of the Ayrtan nexuses to put me in here. I died and they put me into my tomb. I had already arranged this site and the sprinkling of legends. It seems I didn’t do quite as good of a job as I intended. I thought to rest for a much shorter period…”

And now?

“And now I regain my father’s triumph. We will take over the world, but we need to learn a lot more of how this world turns,” Daryaku said. “Oh how I’ll just love this.” She clapped their hands.

“We will need to retrieve the three other Warstones first. I need to unite them with a special spell, similar to the one that created them. The Purestone will return to its former glory and the nexuses, which I had to cut off in order, generate the power to put my soul into the Purestone, will flow again in Ayrtan. Lovely, don’t you think? A simple plan, elegant, and we will make it happen.”

What if I don’t want it to?
Vish said.

“Oh, my little prince, you have no choice.” How Vish hated the sound of his own voice.

~~~

Chapter Nineteen

~

V
ishan didn’t feel hunger or pain
. His mind did get tired and slept, although he didn’t know what happened to him while he did. Daryaku kept him imprisoned while her mind went dormant at nighttime. He didn’t understand how she did such things.

Occasionally she would give him his body back to perform supervised activities, like cook and tend the horses. He tried to speak with a merchant they met on their trip back to Baku, but he couldn’t make his mouth work. He attempted to write a note in the dirt. He had no control over his hand whatsoever. She trapped him, utterly, in his own mind.

Daryaku could banish him at her whim, which was quite often and that disturbed him the most. What if she just expelled him from his own body? Could she do that? He didn’t know. At least he could think by himself. When she ruffled through his mind for some information, he could feel the intrusion. Most days, it was the only thing he really could feel.

He could sometimes tap into his senses, like sight, smell, hearing and touch, but in a faded way. He detected a diminished level of life’s color, but only when Daryaku let him look through the eyes that they shared.

She had him buy common clothes, not trusting her own tastes in this era. Vish learned how much life had changed since the Great Emperor lived. They had only used scrolls in her day. No carriages, just carts. There were more sorcerers. Power seemed to have diminished over the centuries.

They entered Baku, walking two horses. Vish had helped sell Fateem’s mount. He hated loosing connection with her, but by then, he’d been a prisoner of Daryaku for as long as he had known Fateem. The thought depressed him along with just about everything else.

They walked up the steps to Peleor’s rooms and knocked on the door. Peleor opened it.

“This is him, right?” she said.

Yes.
Vishan wished he could enter into her mind as she could enter his, but the sorceress was too strong.

“Peleor, I have escaped from the very awful Fenakyr and fall upon your good graces to let me stay with you for some time.”

Peleor gave Vish a hug. She tried to escape his greeting, but couldn’t.

“Fenakyr sent a bird that you had died, trying to abduct his ward.”

“Would that I had,” she said. “The woman served me well enough and I have returned with a jewel of unique value.”

Vish groaned. Daryaku seemed to converse with him naturally enough, but now she seemed to be trying too hard to talk like someone else. He’d let her talk in her archaic manner as much as she wished.

“Are you certain that a great stone did not land on your head? Where did you ever learn to speak that way?”

“I speak in an odd fashion tongue to you?”

“Indeed,” Peleor stood back with his arms folded. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Alas, it is not,” she said as she pulled out the Darkstone. “Behold, the Darkstone, once a legend of yore, now a reality in my very hands.”

Peleor’s face took on a look of astonishment. “It must be. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Don’t touch it,” she said.

Peleor put out a finger as Vish yelled out a warning in his mind. Daryaku put him to sleep.

~

Vish woke up, his body sitting at a table with Peleor. He ate the humble fare that the sorcerer knew how to cook.

“I have awakened him and you can speak to him through me,” Daryaku said. She continued to eat and Vish wished he could taste the full flavors.

“What of the girl, Vish?”

Speak to him,
Daryaku commanded.
I will allow you to use your voice.

“Fateem was her name,” Vishan said. He cleared his throat to pause at the sudden brightening of his senses. He took a bit of food and rolled the food in his mouth to feel the texture and appreciate the taste. “My whole time spent at Fenakyr’s castle was a game. First switching his ward, Fateem, with his daughter and they all got a laugh out of the betrothal. The Darkstone had become an obsession for Fateem, so we escaped from Fenakyr’s castle and set out to find it and became lovers along the way.” Vish actually sighed. He did it again just to feel the air rush into his lungs. “We found the Great Emperor’s d…” he couldn’t say the word daughter and gave up. “Great Emperor’s tomb and the Darkstone killed her. She didn’t have enough power, I think.”

Vishan’s senses dulled quickly as Daryaku took over.

“Nor did I wish her to continue to exist in corporeal form.  She had insufficient power to allow me to accomplish my tasks,” Daryaku said. “I now inhabit Vishan Daryaku’s body.”

“You are the Emperor again. I can see the personality changing your face.”

Vish felt her disappointment. “Is it that obvious?” she said.

“Probably only to me and his mother. No one else knows Vish well enough,” Peleor said. “So, now how exactly are we going to take over the world?”

The thrill of Peleor’s words brought a measure of joy to Daryaku. Her emotions always seemed to leak through despite her efforts. Vish had no idea what had transpired between Peleor and Daryaku when he had slept in his own mind, but it appeared that she had converted him to her cause. He couldn’t feel more disappointed in his erstwhile mentor.

“Re-take the world, Peleor.” She put her hand on his arm and he withdrew it. Peleor still sensed something wrong or odd about Daryaku. “First we must kill the remaining sons and the Emperor. Then I must gain control over the Warstones. Once that is done, then we can restore the Purestone and no one will ever be able to stop us.”

Peleor furrowed his brow. “What makes the Purestone so important?”

“I can manipulate the flow of power in the nexus and reduce any sorcerer to a person without power. The Purestone once allowed me to look into a person’s mind and cut off their power. When I get all of the stones, the only one to remain will be the Purestone. You will help me regain them.”

“I can do that.”

Vish could feel the amused smile.

Yoshiaku, the first Ropponi emperor had no power. Was that why the Bloodstone rulers bred power out of their dynastic line?
Vishan had questions, but he couldn’t answer them.

“That protects you from the sorcerers. What keeps you safe from everyone else?” Peleor said.

“Political power. That’s why I have to rise to the throne. Taking over Dakkor, and then all of Zarron will give me the base to retrieve the remaining stones. I have other tools to bend men’s minds, but they will have to wait. First of all, we will make the Emperor the true lord over this entire continent. No country shall be permitted freedom like Cuminee and Bomai and then we can strike to take over the rest of the world.”

Vish found himself blocked out of the rest of their conversation. Peleor seemed to hang on every scheme Daryaku proposed. The man seemed to have been drawn in by Daryaku’s mad goals. As for him, he still had no desire to rule or to play any of the games that Fenakyr, his father, and now Daryaku played.

~

Time passed as Peleor and Daryaku plotted the overthrow of Emperor Shalil. Daryaku used Vishan less and less. Vish just rode along, like a child on his father’s back—observing, but not in control of where they went.

Daryaku finally decided to announce Vishan’s appearance. They arrived at the guarded gate to the Imperial Compound. She demanded to be taken to Princess Yalla’s house.

“Vishan!” his mother said as she hurried into the hallway. “You have returned. We all thought you dead.”

I am in a way,
Vish thought.

“I am so glad to be back,” Daryaku said. “And how are my sisters?”

Yalla looked at him oddly. “Vish?” She shook her head. “You look like my son, but you aren’t.” Daryaku put their hand to the Princess’s forehead.

“You look ill, mother. Let me help you into the sitting room.”

Vish had his mind ruffled prior to their expedition back into Imperial life and Daryaku knew the layout of the house and the faces of his mother and siblings. He felt a pulse of power. His mother collapsed into his arms. “Help, the princess has fainted!” Daryaku said. He picked up Yalla and moved her to a couch.

Two of his sisters ran into the room. “Mother!” They knelt beside their mother. Vish felt another pulse of power and his mother sighed. Vish knew it for her death rattle. “She’s gone. My return…”

Daryaku sniffed as if overcome with emotion and tried to cry, but couldn’t, Vish observed. He wanted to weep for the passing of his mother after he had watched Daryaku take her life. Vish had no power to stop Daryaku and the frustration built within him. He wanted to yell out that he was possessed, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t affect any part of his body.

“My sudden return, it must have been too much. Oh, what have I done? My dramatic return from the dead has terminated my mother!”

Vish recognized the stilted language again, but his sisters were so upset as they cried at their mother’s side that they didn’t take notice.

“I can’t…  I can’t bear to see her like this.” Daryaku left the house. She tried to show on her face the grief that Vish felt.

Terror gripped Vishan. He tried to wail, to somehow release the emotional pain that he felt. His mother, as detached as she was, had never let him doubt her love and now she died by his very hands. Vishan now knew how Wallyr, the Great Emperor had died at the hand of his daughter.

He hadn’t perceived Daryaku as particularly evil before. He had enough brothers who wanted the same thing she did, but that changed in the instant she had so dispassionately killed Princess Yalla.

~~~