The Bonds of Blood (31 page)

“But that is just the upset,” Grace
leaned forward. “You don’t know any of this for sure, do
you?”

“No, I don’t, and you don’t know for
sure that it is not true, do you?” Maeven said in a dangerous voice
that none of the other three would ever have the nerve to use in
conversation with Grace. “Besides, none of that is any of my
concern.”

“I am sure that it just may soon be all
of our concern. As for the validity of either of our suspicions, I
feel it is much more prudent to be cautious rather than
ignorant.”

Maeven turned scarlet.

“I am not being ignorant. I just don’t
think it will serve any purpose for us to lose our heads over a
pigment-challenged man with bad teeth.”

Grace barked a cold, humorless
laugh.

“The Verax-Acis are much more than men
with bad teeth, Maeven,” Grace said.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

_“W
e should reach the Temple
of
Badock by tomorrow evening.” Maeven
sounded very excited about that.

Grace grunted at him and
frowned.

“I do not like the idea of even passing
by there, Maeven, let alone spending any amount of time in the
company of those … priests.”

Maeven shrugged. Off and on the past
few days since they left the way station Grace and Maeven had been
arguing about this very thing with no resolve. Maeven was bound and
determined to visit the temple as it was the first stop on his
pilgrimage, and Grace was resolute to leave him behind if that is
what it took to stay away from the temple.

“You may not relish the idea, but I
have to travel there. It is the first stop on my pilgrimage, and I
am sure you would not deny someone such a holy experience as that?”
Maeven shot her a dangerous look. He knew that Grace did not
approve of the temple, yet he also knew that she fully supported
religious creed. In many ways Grace reminded him of
Rosalee.

“No, I would not,” Grace said stiffly,
and when she fell into a sullen state Maeven urged his horse beside
Joya who giggled not long after he joined her. Jovian
scowled.

“What’s wrong with the Temple of
Badock, Grace? Why don’t you want to go there?” Angelica
asked.

“Because it is little more than a
whorehouse,” Grace snapped.

“I take it Grace does not hold with
whores?” Jovian joked, but the scathing look from Grace was enough
to stifle his mirth.

“Why would Maeven want to go to that
sort of place?” Angelica stifled a giggle.

“The Temple of Badock is not actually a
whorehouse, though I can see little better in it. It is one of the
homes of the Hierdule and Hetaira.” She peered around them as if
looking for something out of place, a habit she had taken to since
learning of Beckindal’s disappearance.

“What are those?” Angelica asked.
“Destra never told us of them.”

“She wouldn’t have. If your father had
encouraged you all to tutor under Candalyn you would have learned
of them, for they are creatures that belong more to the pages of
religious texts than compendiums of dalua. However, they are
related to a creature I am sure that Destra taught you about in
depth. Did she teach you about incubi and succubi?”

“Why would the church send them there?
Is it a test?” Jovian asked.

“No,” Grace said, a hint of a smile
forming on her lips. “They are meant to gain a vision from
them.”

“Um . . . how?” Angelica
asked.

“They are like the concubines of the
Goddess. The belief is that coupling with the Hierdule or Hetaira
is like coupling with the Goddess herself. The Hierdule or Hetaira
will actually call the Goddess into their bodies so that the person
can easier commune with her, but it is not in the calling of the
Goddess that their power lies, but instead in their very skin.
Their touch is said to bring such immense pleasure that it
hypnotizes the person, puts them in an altered state where they can
commune with the Goddess herself.”

“Well then they would not have to …
couple with the person at all then,” Jovian said. “I mean, if they
can just do this by touching you, then all they would have to do,
in a sense, would be to hold your hand, right?”

“That depends. Would you want to pay
someone for watered down whiskey, or full strength
whiskey?”

“What?” Jovian said.

“They can bring this state by mere
touch, but it is a very weak version where the pilgrim will still
be aware of the physical world. When they are in this state it is
easy for them to influence the vision, or not grasp it in its
entirety because of interference around them.” Grace looked a
little uncomfortable. “Sex, however, brings them to a deeper state
of relaxation. It allows the pilgrim to relax completely. Sex in
itself is like trance because in the act you can often think of
little else, or at least are focused on it. The power of the
Hierdule or Hetaira helps to bring that state much faster and much
stronger.” Grace thought for a moment and then concluded. “I have
been told that the pilgrim is encouraged to do nothing but lay
there and focus their thoughts on the Goddess. The Hierdule or
Hetaira will then do their thing and the pilgrim will quickly fall
into their vision trance.”

“What are they, though? Why do they go
by different names?” Angelica asked.

“The Hierdule are the men, the Hetaira
are the woman. They are said to sit around the courtyard of the
temple and await pilgrims and their gold. The pilgrim will choose
whichever one they desire, pay them, and their vision will come in
time.”

“You know a great deal about this,
Grace,” Angelica jibed with a quirky grin.

“Don’t even start,” Grace
warned.

“I think Grace may have visited the
temple a few times in her youth,” Angelica commented to Jovian,
whose face turned beet red from trying to control his laughter.
Grace shot him a lethal look.

“What did I say?” he asked innocently,
laughing at the narrow glare that pierced him.

“Maybe Grace does hold with whores,
Jovian,” Angelica teased, but all Grace could do was splutter in
irritation.

“Silence!” Maeven commanded.

“We weren’t talking to you,” Jovian
declared angrily, all mirth seemingly forgotten.

“I said shut up,” he said, riding back
toward them. He slid gracefully out of his saddle and handed his
reins to Jovian who took them grudgingly. The older boy walked a
ways away from them and knelt down to the ground. Closing his eyes,
he placed his ear to the road and listened for a while then stood
again, brushing dirt from his knees.

In the distance along the path they had
just come from a cloud of dust rose into the sky, and they could
see a black coaled figure approaching them. As Jovian watched, he
was sure he saw a shadow rising up behind the figure like a
malicious storm threatening to engulf them. He blinked rapidly a
few times and looked again. The darkness was gone from his
vision.

His heart beat faster than
he had ever thought possible.
What the
Otherworld was that? What was that darkness I saw?

“I do not like his air,” Grace said
darkly.

“We are being followed,” Maeven said,
tearing his reigns from Jovian. Jovian rubbed his palm as the
leather grazed his skin.

“Beckindal?” Grace hazarded.

“That is my thought. We have no time to
waste. We must travel through the night to reach the Temple of
Badock for safe harbor.” Maeven mounted his horse, urging the
animal into a full-scale gallop.

“How did he know?” Jovian asked
Angelica as they all followed suit, and the two of them closed
ranks behind Grace leaving the old lady in the center of Maeven,
Joya, Angelica, and Jovian.

“He is to be a votary; they can
probably sense evil.” Angelica looked at him worriedly and he was
horribly reminded of the hungry look the verax-acis had turned on
him in the courthouse. With a shiver he checked his mother’s sword
at his belt and made sure his bow was easily in reach. “Did you see
it too?”

“The darkness?” Jovian looked at her
intently.

Angelica nodded. So stunned was she by
the vision of the shadow that she could not find her voice to
speak.

“I did.” A shiver crept through
Jovian’s flesh as he prepared himself for the worst.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

_“M
aeven!” Grace yelled over
the
thundering hooves. “Maeven, we need to
stop for a moment. The horses are tiring.”

Maeven frowned at her, but he seemed to
take her words as wisdom when he slowed the progression, finally
drawing his sweating horse to a halt. They had been riding hard for
hours, and now night was closing in on them.

“It would not hurt to stretch a little
and grab something to eat anyway. No fires though; tonight we dine
on rations.” Maeven slid out of his saddle onto wobbly knees and
undid his pack. “Jovian, make sure your bow is at the ready. It
appears we have outpaced him for now, but there is no telling with
a creature of such darkness.”

“Be reasonable, Maeven. A verax-acis
has no control over wyrd, only the mind, and it would certainly
take a fair amount of wyrd to transport him to us now.” Grace was
panting with the effort of riding, and as she slid out of the
saddle Angelica went to her aid to help her to a rock. “Thank you,
dear. I am not as spry as I once was; I dare say I am nearly as
tired as poor Holly is.”

Jovian was not paying much attention to
the goings-on in camp; instead he did as was instructed by Maeven
without incident. The truth was that Jovian was too scared to make
a fuss over being told what to do.

“You do realize that we will be trapped
in the temple,” Grace warned Maeven. “This is not a ploy to get you
to not go there, but we will be trapped until Beckindal decides to
leave us be, which, given the way he looked at Jovian back in
Meedesville, I doubt will be anytime soon.”

“Maybe,” Maeven considered. “Then again
we need a place we can shelter and face him. It will be hard for us
to fight here in the open. Jovian and I are the only ones who carry
swords. Angelica will have to be fast with her mace, and in my
experience a weapon as bulky as that cannot be wielded with as much
speed as would be needed.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “There is
also the problem with his mental powers. A verax-acis does not have
to be within touching distance to work his will, though touch is
always more powerful.”

“How well I know,” Grace muttered.
“Alright then, we make for the temple. I dare say that I will not
be much help in the battle; neither will Joya, for she is not much
of a close range fighter as I understand from their old weapons
master.”

“If I could only get the book to
respond,” Joya said, nearing the group with the book of sorcery
firmly clasped between her hands as if in prayer.

“I don’t think there is much that book
would be able to tell you about the verax-acis anyway. The one
thing it would be able to help you with would be to confuse it, and
even that would be difficult at best.” Grace looked to the girl and
patted the boulder beside her with a tired gesture. “The truth is I
doubt there is much that even the boys’ swords will do. There is
only one weapon that can kill the Verax-Acis.”

“But as we don’t have that weapon,
Grace. The best we can hope for is to injure it enough to stall
it.” Maeven paced as he spoke. It was obvious that their repose was
not going to be restful for Maeven.

“What is the weapon, Grace?” Angelica
asked.

“There is no need to worry about that;
I know we do not have it with us. We should be focusing more on
what we can do to escape, as defeating the verax-acis is something
we obviously cannot do at the time.” Maeven cleared his throat and
jutted his chin out to where Jovian stood statuesquely a few feet
away keeping watch along the trail. Grace handed some rations to
Maeven who passed a portion to Jovian.

“Anything?” Maeven asked as he came up
beside Jovian

“Nothing,” Jovian answered. “How did
you know that it was Beckindal following us?”

“Why do you want to know?” Maeven
didn’t picture Jovian the type to really care one way or another
what went through his mind.

“No reason really,” Jovian
said.

“Very well. It was just a strange
feeling I got. I have always been able to sense malice at times;
normally it comes from dalua. I remember back before your birthday
party just before Astanel came up missing I had such a malign
feeling come over me for nearly the whole month. It was horrible; I
had to seclude myself in my room at nights because the feeling
nearly drove me insane.”

“Why at nights?” Jovian
wondered.

“At night the feeling was stronger. My
walls are blessed, you see. It made the feeling weaker, but not
enough that I could sleep well.” Maeven flicked his hand as if
dismissing something. “Anyway, I hunted for the creature that gave
this energy off all day long, and could never find where it was
coming from. Normally I can track dalua by sensing this power they
give off. It is something like tracking an animal, only instead of
using your eyes you use your mind. Hard to explain,
really.”