Chapter 65. The Rite of Midnight

endaran arrived as the city bell struck midnight.  The servants had detained him with preparations and he was out of breath from running across the courtyard and racing up the stairs.  Clad in the finest black silk he presented a stunning figure, his green eyes flashing boldly through a gold edged illusionist mask.  He clutched a fine ebon wood cane that flared at its crown with magenta energies and a jeweled chakram whose empty center swirled with chaotic potential.  Attired once more as a mesmer, eagerness drove him to throw the door to the study boldly aside.

Zhou awaited him within, gleaming in his scarlet finery.  The lifeless gleam of a domination mask hid his features as he turned to glare at Pendaran, bringing him up short.  He felt the crackle of anger directed at him.

“You are late,” Zhou snapped, “I hope you have prepared exactly as I instructed you.”

Pendaran hesitated, clenching his violet gloved hand anxiously around the shimmering loop of his chakram.  He bowed slightly, certain he had followed every detail of the message.

“Where is the sword?” he demanded coldly, “I ordered you to bring it.”

“I do not know how to use a sword, Master... but it is here,” Pendaran said quickly, unaccustomed to such harshness.  He pushed aside the long black cloak of crushed velvet so that Zhou could clearly see the short single-edged blade was indeed accounted for.  It was a crude thing and he had seen it resting over the mantle in the green drawing room.  There were runes traced along its dull upper surface, the only indication that it was something more than a decoration.  The servants had seen to its sharpening and now its curved edge was honed to brilliance and safely encased in the leather scabbard that was tucked within his sash.

Zhou’s eyes narrowed behind the cruel mask and he gestured with his crystalline staff toward the center of the chamber.  The rug had once more been withdrawn and the bare tiles were etched with chalky lines that converged in a central spiral with eight potent rays gleaming faintly toward its knotted heart.

“Vengeance is our Rite, Pendaran.  My master and my friend lie dead, and were it not for Brigit, I too, would now be ashes.  I cannot rest until every member of that vile clan is slain.  The head of the snake shall be severed this night.  Kiku must die by your hand.  I need you for this rite, I need your hatred.”

Pendaran stepped back involuntarily as a mental wave of fury emanated from his teacher and shuddered against his focused calm.  Zhou had given himself over entirely to the mask, opening himself to the rawness of grief and anger at the loss of his beloved master.  It was terrible to behold as Pendaran’s newly awakened senses were lashed with the churning emotions, so raw and potent.  So focused and deadly.

“What must I do, Master?”

“Find her with your hatred,” Zhou snarled, “You are the key and the door.”

Pendaran shuddered, inexplicably chilled by those words.  He had not come prepared for this, he had not killed anything more significant that a charr for ages.   He hated Kiku, but she was a human being and a figure of no small amount of personal terror.

“She tortured you, Pendaran, she bound you like an animal for the slaughter and left you to die in misery alone and unloved,” Zhou howled at him, “Does that mean nothing to you?”

He swallowed, closing his eyes as Zhou’s anger broke over him like a wave of fire, his nerves and emotions raw.

“I earned her anger,” Pendaran choked, “I stole from her, I took her father’s heirlooms and lied about my love for her.  I led Uriel and Lemony into danger through my stupidity.”

Pendaran cried out as Zhou charged him, flinging him harshly against the wall, his black gloved hand pressing over his breast.

“That does not excuse what she did, Pendaran!  You made no move to harm her, you were simply an idiot thief bumbling in greed.  She is a cold blooded murderer.  She answered your stupidity with senseless violence against you and your companions!”

“I’m scared,” Pendaran cried.

“And so you should be for letting evil go unanswered.  You will back down as a coward, or rise up as a man and a mesmer.  Choose.  Quickly.”

Through the harsh mask he saw the pleading in Zhou’s dark eyes.

“Don’t betray my trust in you, Pendaran.  I need you to rise to your full potential this night.  Prove my instincts were correct.”

His throat tightened with his love for the man.  Zhou had given him a new life.  He owed him this as a friend and teacher.  Closing his eyes, he moved back into the darkness of the past, remembering Kiku’s gloating laughter as he lay screaming for mercy at her feet.  In the beginning, in the first hour of that long night of torment, he had hated her.  His mouth grew bitter, his jaws clenching now with anger as he recalled her thoughtless cruelty.  He now knew she had enslaved innocent Uriel and Lemony, two souls who had been dragged into the wreckage of his life and made to suffer for his sins.

He opened his eyes now, capturing the essence of his rage and trembling with it as Zhou led him toward the center of the room.  He realized now that his master was also struggling to maintain the fevered poison of hatred, for his hand shuddered where he grasped Pendaran’s arm.

“Your connection to her is strong,” Zhou growled, “It is the key to the door.  We must open a portal forged of rage and you must open it to her.”

Zhou released him, placing the iron shod base of the crystal staff at the center of the spiral and indicating that Pendaran must place his left hand upon it also.  Slowly he chanted and livid red tendrils of fury flowed from them, swirling slowly at first around the glowing staff and then bursting into a livid actinic flare.  The staff flashed violet and at its white hot core a flat plane of shimmering magenta chaos formed a tear in the fabric of reality.

“I cannot help you,” Zhou said coldly, “The portal goes nowhere until it is attuned to you.  It will allow your passage only once in both directions and it will last for but one short hour.  Seek Kiku with your malice, Pendaran.  Seek her well.”

He held out his cane to Zhou and clasped the man’s hand over it.  Now he gazed into the shimmering field of raw energy, focusing, remembering.  He heard Kiku’s harsh laughter and recalled their first meeting, a memory he had shoved away out of sheer disgust and misery.  He had boldly crashed a masked ball in the Emperor’s Palace, using his wit and charm to wend his way into the heart of the celebration.  Once there, Kiku had detected his vagabond ways and seduced him with promises of comfort and pleasure.  But when she had lured him to her palanquin, she had held a knife to his throat and bound him.  He had been terrified and alone in a foreign land.  She had wrapped his face in silk, delighting in his breathless struggles as she lay atop him laughing until he passed out, certain he had died.

He had forgotten the prison of her boudoir and the hundred small cruel things she had done to break his will.  She had forced him to sign the marriage contract for fear of his life.  He wanted her dead.

And now the magenta energies shimmered over his form as he strode boldly through the portal.  His mind seethed as he sought for her, his fury like an arrow shot from Melandru’s bow.  She was there in the shadows, a seething mass of hatred, a soulless shard of evil.

“Fight,” Zhou said into his mind, “She strikes.”

Her shocked and enraged scream pierced the stillness of the great forest, drawing his eyes open.  He glimpsed her filthy and bedraggled figure awash in the chaotic glare of the portal.  In her torn black silks and wild tangled hair, she was more beast and human, a venomous creature of some far off nightmare. 

“I killed you!” she shrieked at him, the very thought that he still drew breath an affront to her.  Pendaran dropped his chakram as her voice tore his composure, the helplessness he had felt under her sway returning to him.  Daggers drawn, she rushed him only to fall back with a startled cry under a flare of Zhou’s magenta energies.

“Fight her! Pendaran!” Zhou commanded, his figure wreathed in an aura of power as he struck out at Kiku once more.  Now she rounded on Zhou, realizing Pendaran presented no threat.  With a flick of her wrist, she pulled envenomed daggers from her shoulder sheaths, their poison hissing and blacking the earth as they dripped.

“Fool!” she snarled as Zhou danced gracefully away from her first sweep, “You put your faith in a weak groveling fool.  Now you will pay.”

Gathering the shadows to herself, she vanished for an instant, only to reappear behind him.  Unfazed, Zhou tore at the refuge of her enchantment, shattering it with a brutal shout so that she was driven back, moaning in pain.  But she had struck.  Pendaran stared in mute horror at the wound blackening and streaming venom where the red silk had parted across Zhou’s heaving ribs.

“Fight!” Zhou rasped, staggering, “She deserves your hatred! Kill her!”

She will kill Zhou.  Then you will be next.

Reaching out for her, he grasped the shimmering black knot of malice that was her mind and focused, drawing horror and helplessness up from the depths of his being. 

Here is my fear and pain, the nightmare you seeded in me.  Here is the death you so richly deserve!

The hex snarled from his lips, wrapping her in magenta energies so potent she staggered as her life energies melted swiftly before it.  Rage now as he saw Zhou collapse in pain.  A new hex burned from his throat and sundered her being.  Kiku reeled blindly away from him, choking on blood.  She tried to flee, but he cursed her yet again, calling upon the forces of chaos to drag her flailing body to the earth so that she crawled from him, sobbing for mercy.

“Release me,” she pleaded, “I will trouble you no more.”

“You are in no position to bargain,” Pendaran said coldly, drawing the sword.  Cold and controlled in his rage he struck.  Her head rolled cleanly from her body.

“Bring her head,” Zhou whispered, “Quickly.”

Pendaran swiftly grasped the hideous trophy by its bloodied hair before going to his master’s side.  Zhou had let his mask fall against his chest to ease his breathing.  He was pale and bathed in a sheen of sweat as the poison tore into his internal organs.  Cursing, Pendaran lifted him into his arms, carrying him toward the portal.

“Thank you,” Zhou gasped through his pain, “I knew you could do it.”

The shimmering embrace of the portal burned once more through his senses and collapsed with a low roar as he stepped once more into the study.  Shouting for the servants, he staggered under his master’s weight.  He dropped the head at the center of the circle and wobbled toward the door.  It was late.

“Help me!” he cried into the darkness as he drew aside the door, aware that Zhou was fading.  He could no longer feel the bright burn of his master’s intellect, only a dire emptiness.

“Don’t die,” he pleaded, furious with himself for hesitating.  He had killed his master with his cowardice.  He nearly fell down the stairs as he rushed for the infirmary, his voice ringing in the corridors as he shambled forward.  How could he ever forgive himself for being such a weak miserable fool?

His knees buckled, his adrenalin expended.  His light frame was not designed to carry Zhou even a fraction as far as he had.  He leaned toward a wall to break his fall, his shoulder grating against the ornate woodwork as his shins struck the smooth wood planks.

“No!” he sobbed into the darkness, rising once more to drag Zhou after him and nearly falling over in his exhaustion, “Help me!”

At last they came, servants with lanterns and the aged healer from the infirmary.  Pendaran curled over on his knees and vomited as the horror of the night returned in full.  His rage cooled and grief once more found a crack in his heart.

“Oh Pen!” Teleri cried, rushing to his side and gathering him against her like a lost child.  He sobbed into her shoulder.

“I killed him.  It’s my fault.”

“He’ll be alright,” said Brother Gao, “I’ve stopped the poison.”

Teleri gently lifted the mask of illusion away and dried his tears, kissing his eyes.

“You look exhausted, sweet one,” she whispered, “Come with me.”

Numb with grief and the terrible events of the night, he allowed her to take his hand and lead him away.  He glanced back once to see Zhou being borne toward the infirmary, a little color having returned to his cheeks.  Then, stumbling once with weariness, he allowed Teleri to pull him into a room and close the door behind them.

“Sit,” Teleri told him and he perched mutely at the edge of a plush bed as she removed his dark suede boots and tossed them aside.  Working quickly, she stripped off his stockings and massaged his feet until he stirred from dullness and pulled off his jacket and sash.  They smelled of blood, vomit and sweat.  He cast them aside bitterly.

“Trousers off,” she said firmly, gathering up his fallen clothes and placing them gently on an ornate lacquered chair.

“Thank you,” he said simply, grateful that she had pulled him back from a plunge into darkness.

“I remember that look,” she said softly, “My Rhys did not kill easily, either.”

And then, drawing back the sheets and blankets, she pointed at the bed.

“In.”

He smiled weakly at her and obeyed.

“Sleep, my beloved,” she said, caressing his face as his head fell back on the pillow.

“Stay with me a while?” he asked, embarrassed when the faintest note of pleading caused his voice to quake.

“Of course, Pen.”

She lay beside him atop the blankets, warm and reassuring as he drifted off to sleep.