|
Chapter 61. Six Prayers at the |
|
 |
endaran drifted at the edge of awakening, the floral sweetness of Clarissa’s perfume lulling him into a state of blissful calm. His cheek was warm against her milky shoulder and he sighed contentedly to feel her hand running like a zephyr through his hair. The morning chorus of spring birds drifted through the open window and he heard the distant baying of his father’s hounds. “Good morning my slugabed,” Clarissa said softly, nuzzling his crown and tracing a path of kisses over his brow. “I’ve missed you,” he murmured. “Kaela brought us some butter mint tea and strawberry tart. I thought you might be hungry after all that work.” Pendaran felt disoriented and he had no idea what she was talking about. At some point he had been kissing her and then he remembered nothing. And that big gap of nothing worried him. Something had happened and it was important. How had he gotten here? He was dreaming, he had to be. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her pale eyes filled with concern for him. Pendaran sighed as her hand brushed his shoulder. Everything was as he remembered it: the sweet smell of her, how she soothed away his anxieties with a simple touch. Now that the desperate heat of passion had cooled it was difficult to look upon her with more than a faint whisper of grief. She was the past and her familiarity was disorienting and troubling. “Who are you?” he asked, sensing that while he was being deluded, whatever she was meant him no harm. Zhou had once told him that the mind could splinter during trauma and he may in fact be speaking with some tormented shard of himself. “Don’t you love me any more?” she asked, her youthful visage filled with pain and panic. “I loved Clarissa, but she is dead. She has been dead for many years. This place is rubble and ashes. It no longer exists except in my memory. Please tell me what is going on. I want the truth.” “Are you certain of that, Pendaran Caradec?” His head snapped around at the sound of that voice, so smooth and potent and strangely familiar. Clarissa clung to him, her cheek pressed against his crown and her hands warm upon his breast. A tall man stood at the end of the bed and his beringed hand rested upon the ornate woodwork of the footboard. Pendaran stared up at him in confusion. His well-proportioned features were both sharp and comely with skin the color of freshly turned loam. He wore a princely diadem of gold filigree studded with rubies and amethysts and his silken robes were edged with gleaming brocade woven into intricate sigils of power. Their eyes met and it was an act of will not to flinch away from that dark depthless gaze. “Who are you?” Pendaran asked again, his voice hoarse with fear. He knew this man and yet he could not place where or why. “I thought you would rather not know the contents of your dreams.” “Forget this,” Clarissa murmured, “I will tell him to go away, my love.” “No, I want to know the truth. It is all I have now.” “It is the only thing you have never had,” the man replied coldly. Pendaran centered himself with a softly whispered mantra and the fear fell away. This phantom, too, was merely another figment of his tormented imagination. It could not harm him. He would not allow it. “Then speak it,” he said calmly. “This is the best the gods could do for a champion?” the man laughed cruelly, ignoring his request, “Your spirit is so fragmented you could house a small army of demons.” “I am no champion of the gods,” Pendaran replied, “I have never claimed to be.” “Their mark is upon you,” the man replied derisively, “Lyssa touched you, but you are an ill-formed vessel for her art. Chosen they called your kind in the days when they still walked upon Tyria.” “And your god? What did he give you in exchange for immortality?” “Finally the sleeping fool awakens. I think perhaps you know that answer, Master Caradec.” “He gave you power, but you lost your humanity and now you have a name that can be bound,” Pendaran replied. “Bravo, you have been diligent in reading your Master’s demon hunting books. Where is he, by the way? It seems you are the disposable half of the Lyssan pair.” “What do you want with me?” Pendaran demanded, growing angry. “Did you enjoy your time in Torment, Master Caradec?” the figure demanded coldly, turning away now, his shoulders squared beneath his rich raiment and his hands folded tightly behind his back. His long black mane rustled metallically at the gesture, forming a river of darkness against his rich red robes. Hundreds of finely braided strands of hair formed it, each delicately ornamented with bands of gold and adorned with glistening beads. “Why do you toy with me, Haodrim?” “Let us suppose that by some miracle you survive this ordeal. In thirty or forty years you will grow old and die with perhaps less dignity. Why not let go now instead of waiting around for the inevitable? Does all this pain and suffering not seem rather pointless?” Pendaran hesitated, remembering the stone chamber and the Mursaat, the hours of horrifying pain. He had asked himself that question more than a few times. “It is my life. It is all that is truly mine.” Haodrim turned to gaze upon him again, the harshness gone from his face. “Not because you fear death?” “What do you want, Haodrim? I know you did not come here to parry worn out philosophical notions with me,” Pendaran said. For once he was thinking clearly, for once he was at the threshold of understanding his predicament. If he could just hold on and make Haodrim speak to him. “No, I did not.” “Did Kanen finish what your brethren started or is he simply using you?” Haodrim studied him for a moment, his arms folded arrogantly over his breast “If you would cooperate, I could defeat him,” Haodrim snarled, “Yield to me.” “Go rot in Torment where you belong.” “Idiot mortal,” Haodrim shouted, stepping away, “You toy with power far greater than anything you can imagine. I was the far seeing eye of Abaddon, the first of those to serve him.” “I don’t care who you are, and your god is dead,” Pendaran shouted back at him, “This is my life and I have a right to choose my path, so either help me or go away.” “Help you?” Haodrim spat, “You are a weak little worm of a man.” Pendaran laughed bitterly. “It takes courage to be weak. Strength is nothing without will.” “Then suffer,” Haodrim replied coldly, “I have all the time in the world.” His surroundings faded into darkness, its beauty pouring away. A cry of pain tore past his lips and in an instant he was back in the world of the living. The bloodstone lay beneath his stretched body and sheets of raw chaotic power shimmered all around him. The odor of blood and sweat violated the frigid air, but he could see little past the slits of the Margonite mask. “Speak to me, Haodrim! Awaken in the flesh.” All he could see of the Mursaat was the golden hem of its robe and its strange metallic talons hovering above the stone. The creature made no sound as it glided around him awaiting a response. Pendaran’s first awareness was of suffering, his poor body pushed to its limits and pleading for release. His ribs and thighs burned and it was all he could do to breathe once the scream had faded from his lips. “Haodrim! Speak to me!” Pendaran could not sense the oppressive shadow of Haodrim looming over his mind. The ancient Margonite had retreated, abandoning him to the Mursaat’s tender mercies. “I obey,” Pendaran rasped, afraid to reveal what had happened and choosing to play along. He wondered how long the Mursaat would be fooled, or even if it were possible to do so. His muscles tensed as he awaited the creature’s punishment. “Is the human under your control now?” “Yes, Master.” “Did the vision work as planned?” “Yes, Master,” he replied slowly although he had no clue what the Mursaat was asking. “I want its spirit broken completely before we proceed; it has been much too troublesome. One more vision.” “I obey,” Pendaran replied, fighting to keep his voice flat in an attempt to imitate Haodrim. What was the Mursaat talking about? He needed to know and yet he was terrified. The stone trembled hungrily beneath him as the Mursaat began a slow familiar incantation. He knew what happened next and his stomach tightened in protest as struggling and grunting indicated some poor creature being led to its death. Gods help him, gods help all of them, it was a nightmare from which he could never awaken. Tears burned his eyes as the unseen creature scrabbled and bleated amid the sickening splatter of its blood. He clenched his jaws against an urge to cry out in disgust, resisted the instincts of his animal nature to struggle and flee. He dared not make any indication that he was not under Haodrim’s control. His limited vision was awash in a blaze of fiery light and chaos as the enruned stone blazed hungrily to life. Helplessly his body twitched and danced as potent magic curled around his frail flesh. Then he was falling, falling forever into darkness. It was an effort of will to stay silent, to remain conscious until he felt the burn of Haodrim’s hatred. He landed with a jolt, his knees buckling as his booted feet hit stone. Pendaran’s breath rasped loudly in the enclosed space. He struggled to stand, his hands pressed against sweating bricks and mortar as he clawed at the wall. “What is this about?” he shouted into the darkness, “Damn you, Haodrim, tell me!” “Why do you resist me? Why won’t you break? There is no hope for you. No one is coming for you. You are lost; your body is no longer yours. Why?” Haodrim demanded harshly, his dark features emerging from the shadows. “I may be doomed, but I am not going without a fight. I owe my loved ones that much.” “You have seen your loved ones die! Your daughter is dead.” Pendaran gazed coldly back at Haodrim. “That was a nightmare. I know she is not dead.” “I assure you, it was quite real. We made it real.” “But I would know if she were dead,” Pendaran replied, annoyed when his voice came out as a plea. He simply would not accept that he had seen his beloved daughter murdered. It had to have been a dream. “All of your nightmares have manifest, Master Caradec. Those you love have been slain or driven mad by torment. There is nothing worth living for. There is no reason to resist.” “No,” he murmured as doubt percolated through his spirit. He knew Zhou was still alive, and Mabane as well. Surely if his nightmares had come to pass, he would know through his Lyssan bond. “Now you will see your master and all who serve him die.” Before he could protest, the shadows shifted again. An icy wind washed over him, freezing him in place with unearthly terror. Around him emerged the forms of warriors and magi clad in the snow white cape of his master’s guild. The prismatic hand emblem emblazoned upon their backs urged him to stay away. All were turned toward a low platform upon which blazed a hideous portal. It seethed like a wound upon the fabric reality, its sucking darkness pulling at him with the promise of oblivion “You always knew it would come to this,” Haodrim growled, “The final meeting. Unbound, the demon is no longer restrained from killing its former host. Look upon it, Master Caradec, and know that it is your fault your master is slain this night.” All he could do was watch in mute horror as the nightmare unfolded as it had on all the other nights he had dreamed it. It flowed like a stage play as Keisha’s tiny figure emerged from the darkening portal with a bundle clutched to her breast. A moment later the portal pulsed with blackness and an immense shadow clawed free of its chaotic throat. Keisha made a small cry of despair as she fought against the demon’s will, her impossibly small and frail form trapped between its obsidian talons. The slaughter had not yet begun, but Pendaran knew that the walls would drip with gore and the beast would emerge unfettered and bring carnage to the city above. His throat tightened with grief as Zhou arrived on cue in his flowing black robes, alone and ill-prepared. This time he felt the pounding of his master’s heart, detected his fatalistic dread. He watched his beloved friend stride boldly to his death. Zhou knew he would die, knew that if the demon were free upon this plane he could do nothing to stop it. His only option was to sacrifice himself and hope that in the expending of his life energies he might free his people from the dread spell. That perhaps if they were able to fight the demon might be stopped. Pendaran could not bear it. In that moment, it was real. The man he loved better than his own father was going to his death over Pendaran’s foolish mistake. Without thinking, he drew the battered rapier he had used to slay Ashekoroth. “Dwayna, ward me! Balthazar, give me courage.! Grenth, grant me justice! Melandru, let me strike true! Lyssa, grant me luck!” And then, gazing back once at Haodrim’s startled visage, he offered a sixth prayer. “Kormir, may your truth guide me.” |
