In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born (7 page)

Ria-Ka’luhr realized that he had been baited into a trap. He fought as long as he could, and killed over ten of them before the venom overcame him.

Still conscious, he could only scream in his mind as they stripped him of his armor and took the sword, the precious sword. They bound him in chains, hand and foot, and forced a device into his throat that would prevent him from swallowing his tongue.

They cut the third braid from his hair, severing his emotional tie to his bloodline. It was a cruel, horrible act that left a sudden stillness in his soul. The emotional song of the others of his bloodline had been with him since birth, and to have it suddenly cut off was like being rendered deaf.

That was when he realized why they had done it. With the link severed, he would have simply disappeared, his own emotional song would have stopped in the perceptions of others. Ayan-Dar and the others of the priesthood would likely think him dead.

They tossed him into a wagon and covered him with a fetid tarp. And that is how they delivered him to the queen’s First.

With a groan, Ria-Ka’luhr pushed the shame of his capture from his mind.
 

Beside him, Syr-Nagath propped herself up on one elbow, tracing circles on his chest with her index finger, the talon scoring the skin deep enough to draw a thin thread of crimson.
 

“Your cares will soon fall away, acolyte of the Desh-Ka.” She smiled, fresh blood staining her teeth from having bitten him in her passion. Her face was still covered in the blood of the opponent she killed earlier that day. “Soon you shall know my will. You will live for that, and nothing else. And what others shall sense of your heart, your emotions, shall be what I will.” She leaned toward him, and her lips brushed his ears as she whispered, “I shall sing the song of your blood, and your soul will be linked to the Afterlife only through me.”

He raised a hand to her, willing it to claw out her eyes, but he could not. His body was no longer his to command.

She reached out and closed his fingers with her own and pressed his hand back to his chest.
 

He stared up at her, his heart pounding. What she had done to him was so alien, so unspeakable, that he could not comprehend it. Syr-Nagath was nearly the same age as he, but she seemed so much older, an evil relic from some long-ago age. And should the Desh-Ka or any of the other orders learn of what she had done, they would descend upon her like a raging pack of
genoths
, great dragons that would destroy her, body and soul. The ancient orders had isolated themselves from the affairs of the race beyond the temples and the training grounds of the
kazhas
, but for an abomination against the Way such as this, they would act.
 

If only they could be warned.

* * *

Finished with Ria-Ka’luhr, Syr-Nagath got to her feet and poured herself a mug of ale. The dark blue skin of her body glowed in the fading light of the sun that shone through the opening of the pavilion that overlooked her newest city.

Her First appeared in the entryway to the chamber, kneeling and rendering a salute.

“Take him to the healers, then the armorers.” Syr-Nagath gestured at Ria-Ka’luhr. “Once he is cleaned up, provide him with a mount and sufficient pack animals to reach the Desh-Ka temple. Then release him.”

The First glanced up, surprised, before she remembered her place and returned her eyes to the floor. “Yes, my mistress.” She turned to beckon the guards.

“They will not be necessary.” She looked at Ria-Ka’luhr. “Will they?”

“No…my mistress.” He rose unsteadily to his feet. Turning to her, he lowered his head and saluted, his body moving in jerky motions as if controlled by an invisible puppet master.
 

Nodding in approval, Syr-Nagath turned away as the acolyte followed the First from the room.

The Dark Queen thought of the life that she sensed growing in her womb, and reflexively brought a hand to her belly. Having a child had also been part of her plan, but she had been forced to wait, for not just any male would do. How surprised Kunan-Lohr would be, she thought, showing her fangs in a wicked smile, to know that he had sired the child that would lead their civilization to its undoing?

The fire that lit the sky as the sun fell toward the horizon blended into the Dark Queen’s vision as she imagined her world, the Settlements, her entire ancient race roiling in flame, to be remade by her own hands.

* * *

Ria-Ka’luhr rode the
magthep
along the ancient road that led west. Behind him, the three pack animals plodded along, occasionally bleating in complaint at their lot in life.
 

A part of his mind that seemed to think on its own, as if his head was now occupied by two brains, was focused on how to explain his extended absence.
 

Perhaps, he thought, the best lie would be one founded on the truth. He would tell Ayan-Dar that he had been captured by honorless ones and taken to the east, for what purpose he could not discern, and that he had escaped. It was a rare thing, but had been recorded in the Books of Time. Ayan-Dar would no doubt welcome him with open arms and praise him for escaping an unworthy fate. The newly cleaned armor and his fresh mounts could be easily explained away, for even the smallest village of T’lar-Gol would provide whatever was needed to an acolyte of the Desh-Ka.

He clenched his hands so tightly that his talons pierced his palms, drawing blood. While his body had been healed and cleansed, and his armor and clothing made new, he felt unutterably soiled and wretched. He was worse than a traitor to his honor. He was a parasite the Dark Queen was injecting into the temple, the carrier of her plague of hatred. His only hope was that the priesthood would be able to recognize him for what he was and kill him quickly, before he could carry out her will.
 

Before he could become a priest.

He leaned over, spewing vomit to the ground as he thought of the evil that Syr-Nagath could do through him. His becoming a priest was only a question of when, not if. He knew that Ayan-Dar would almost certainly consider his final quest successful, even if based only on Ria-Ka’luhr’s word. Beyond that, only the formalities had to be observed. As the temple’s senior acolyte, he would soon face the cyan fire of the ancient crystal that was the heart of their order. If he survived that final trial, he would be a member of the priesthood.

Then, all would be lost. And he was utterly powerless to save himself or those he held most dear.

He brought his
magthep
to a halt and turned around to look back the way he had come. Night had fallen and the stars now reigned supreme in the sky, the great moon not yet having risen. He could see the flickering torches of the pavilion and the glow of fires in the valley beyond from the Dark Queen’s army, a pox rapidly spreading across the lands of T’lar-Gol. He imagined the world opening up, a great maw that would swallow whole the Dark Queen and her dreadful ambitions.
 

For the thousandth time since he had lain with her, he brought his claws to his throat, desperately seeking Death’s embrace and release from whatever the evil harlot might have in store for him and his temple.
 

And for the thousandth time, he could not. He could sense her will like a serpent coiled in his mind, an undeniable force that was devouring him. He could not even speak of the horror he carried within him, even to himself. He could give no warning of what he had become. It was as if his soul had been torn in two, with his true self locked into a rapidly shrinking cage, while the other part, the Dark Queen’s puppet, roamed free and grew ever stronger.

He threw his head back and screamed, a soul-wrenching cry of anguish that tore the stillness of the night.

* * *

Ayan-Dar’s eyes snapped open. He had been in a state of deep meditation, his mind’s eye cast far away, when a tremor of such pain and dread echoed through his blood that it broke even his tremendous concentration.

It had been three weeks since he had encountered the group of honorless ones and had heard the young warrior’s troubling words about the Dark Queen. The thought worried him, but it did not occupy his full attention.

That was reserved for his search for the child. Each night had brought him closer to her, and he knew that he was close now, very close. He would have found the child long before, were it not for the epic tides of pain and fear, of agony and ecstasy roiling the waters of the bloodline from the Dark Queen’s campaign to the east.
 

Each night he swept the world around him, looking for the child. Each day he rode in the direction from which the tiny voice was strongest, when he could hear it during the ebbs in the great tide of emotions from the queen’s war.

What he heard now, this piercing wail, was something else, something that set every one of his senses afire. It was a bone-chilling keening that erupted above the momentarily quiet war, voicing a depth of despair the likes of which Ayan-Dar had never known. He sought to grasp it, to seek out the poor soul to which it belonged, but it faded too quickly.
 

Then it was gone.
 

Deeply troubled, Ayan-Dar rose to his feet, his eyes peering through the darkness around him as his spirit looked far beyond.
 

As if in sympathy with the terrible cry he had felt in his soul, the song of the child he sought rose, so clear and pure that he instinctively turned to the southeast.

Toward the city of Keel-A’ar.

CHAPTER FOUR

“We can tarry no longer.” Kunan-Lohr stood on the balcony of the chamber in the citadel that served as the sleeping quarters for himself and Ulana-Tath, watching the sun rise over the great forests and plains to the east.
 

The Dark Queen had granted him a cycle of the great moon to greet his newborn child and attend to any affairs of the city, but then he and his consort were to return to the war that continued to rage ever closer to the Eastern Sea.

He felt the roar of those of his bloodline who fought the raging battles that would soon leave Syr-Nagath the undisputed ruler of T’lar-Gol. The thought had left a deep sickness in his heart.
 

He felt Ulana-Tath’s nude body press up against his back, her arms wrapping around his waist. Her recovery from birth had been rapid, as was the nature of their kind. Since then, they had spent every possible moment together, much of it in bed. “Why does despair fill your heart, my love?”

He covered her hands with his own, grateful for the warmth of her body against the chill morning air. It took him a moment to speak, for the words were little short of heresy. “I feel as if we have bound ourselves to one of the evil gods of old. We live for war, for that has been the Way since the First Age. But this…” He shook his head slowly. “This is something different.”

“How is it different from any other great war from the Books of Time?” Ulana-Tath rested her chin on his shoulder as she, too, watched the sun rise. “Syr-Nagath will unite T’lar-Gol for the first time in a thousand cycles, and will no doubt force a crossing of the Eastern Sea.” She paused. “Are you sure that what troubles your heart is not envy, great master of Keel-A’ar?”

With a snort, Kunan-Lohr shook his head. “I envied the old king, for he was a great warrior who followed the Way, whose path was dictated solely by honor. Syr-Nagath follows her own path, a twisted road with its mysterious roots in the Great Wastelands from whence she came. And no one can sense her spirit, to know what she feels.”

“There are many we cannot sense. Even some few of our own city, and beside whom we have fought.”

“You do not understand me, my love:
no one
can sense her feelings.” He turned around to face her. “I spoke, in private, to many of the other senior warriors of her army about this. Between them flow all of the bloodlines. None could feel her song in their blood. None.”
 

Ulana-Tath made to speak, to protest. For to do such a thing, to question the one to whom their honor was now bound, could easily lead Kunan-Lohr to be bound to the
Kal'ai-Il
for punishment.

He put a finger to her lips. “I know, my love. I did not do this lightly. In truth, most of those to whom I spoke approached me for counsel in the matter. Her soul is shrouded in shadow like no other, and I believe there is dark knowledge at work here. But what it is, and what we may do about it, I do not know.”

“We can only do what the Way demands of us.” She held his gaze firmly. “The path of honor is ours, and it is a path we will follow to the end of our days.” A gentle smile suddenly graced her lips. “We may do no less for our daughter.”

“Indeed.” The mention of their daughter, Keel-Tath, banished his dark thoughts. She was a full moon cycle of age now, and had been peered at or held by nearly everyone in the city, or so it seemed. He knew that, as a father who thought he could never have a child, he was grievously biased, but the child was beautiful by any measure. She stood out like a beacon among the other children of the creche with her lush white hair and red talons. Keel-Tath was boisterous at play and a vision of peace when asleep. The healers kept close watch on her, but so far she was nothing more or less than an extraordinarily healthy female child, the visible and unexplainable genetic anomalies notwithstanding.

The wardresses had already determined that she would be a warrior. Just as the healers knew the intimacies of the body, the wardresses keenly understood all the traits in young children that determined caste. Caste was determined purely on ability and affinity, not on the caste or status of the parents. A mated pair of warriors could produce a healer or porter of water, just as builders could give birth to warriors. It was a complex dance of genetics that the wardresses instinctively understood, just as the skygazers understood the movements of the stars and planets across the heavens, and the healers understood their symbionts.

The proud parents had looked in on their daughter at every possible opportunity, making the most of the time that Kunan-Lohr’s pact with the Dark Queen had given them. Time that had been all too fleeting.