Masque of Death (Kormak Book Nine) (The Kormak Saga 9) (4 page)

L
ady Khiyana felt
sure she was being watched. She glanced around and saw the Guardian Kormak staring at her, his gaze that of a great hunting cat studying a gazelle. He knew something; she was certain. He was going to take her to the dungeons and question her.

She bit the end of the strand of her hair. In a way she was glad. Soon the long nightmare would be over, one way or another.

One of the servants walked past. She flinched then smoothed her dress with both hands to cover the motion. The man’s mask was off papier mâché. It showed the face of a loyal hound. Even on this night of all nights, the servants were made to know their place. The Governor was a stickler for keeping the divisions between classes visible, no matter how much he liked to tup his servant girls.

The servant offered her a glass from the tray he carried. She shook her head, a quick sharp motion. She changed it to a longer more emphatic one and added the languid gesture of dismissal of a society lady for her inferiors.

The man nodded respectfully and moved on. Clearly, he was not one of those who hoped for a dalliance with a noble lady this night. Not that she hadn’t done such things in the past. Back when she had been a silly girl. That all seemed so long ago now, though. The action of another woman in another life.

She wondered how much longer the Guardian was going to make her wait for the axe to fall. This was a game of cat and mouse to him. If he was trying to frighten her, he was succeeding. It would not take much to make her tell him everything. Several times over the past few weeks she had come close to confessing to Frater Ramon. Her fellow cultists were starting to look at her oddly. It was only a matter of time before everything fell apart.

Once again she went over her story, polishing it. She wanted to reveal only the angles that showed her in the most flattering light. It was close enough to the truth anyway. She was not a Shadow worshipper. She was not.

Oh, she had taken part in the rituals. She had seen human sacrifice performed. She had watched demons manifest and feed upon blood and souls. She had taken part in orgiastic rites of celebration. But she had never meant to.

She had not. She had not. She had been deceived as so many had been deceived before her, and when she had found out the truth it was too late to back out. She was in too deep. She had gone too far. She had blackened her soul, stained it so deep that perhaps she would never again walk in the Light.

No. That could not be true. That was not what scripture said. It was not what the priests said. No one was so steeped in sin that they could not find their way back to the Light. The Holy Sun would accept sincere repentance and there had never been a more sincere repentance than hers. She could not go on like this. She could not.

She looked over at where the Guardian had been standing, but he had disappeared. Perhaps he was not interested in her after all. She did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

What if the Guardian did not believe her? Or what if he believed her but yet took her to be guilty. The Church had dungeons in which heretics were put to the rack and the hot iron. She could not face that. She could not face the thought of her skin being marked and her body being broken.

A couple moved towards her. One of them was a man, tall and dark, and she wondered for a moment whether it was the Guardian. Had he brought a companion? Did he mistake the purpose of her earlier glance? She should not have flirted with him. But she could not help herself. It was what she did with men. It had been ever since she was fourteen years old.

The couple moved past. It was a tall swordsman alright, but he was with one of the paid companions the Governor liked to provide for those who could not find their own, or for those whose tastes were so outré that volunteers could not be found. They pushed by her, heading for a dark spot among the trees, away from the lanterns. The man giggled. His companion stroked his arm and then moved her hand lower.

It would not have been so long ago that she might have been taking part in such sport. She looked back at those innocent times as if they had happened to somebody else.

She felt as if she had aged a score of years over the past few. She was sure that if there were a magic mirror that showed the way she felt, her reflection would look like a hag. It was her membership of the Cult of Xothak that had aged her. How could she have been such a fool? How could she have believed it would lead her to power and immortality? All it had done was lead her into sin and death.

She realised that she had stepped out of the circle of light when the couple had approached. Hastily she stepped back into it. She did not like to be in the dark any more.

There he was. The Guardian. That was his tall, lean figure. She could see the hilt of the sword protruding across his right shoulder. He gazed around for a moment and then strode straight towards her, his step purposeful. She swallowed. There was no doubt he wanted to speak to her.

There was something different about him, she realised. In the dim light, she could not quite put her finger on it. She was relieved that he had come, though. He moved towards her with his distinctive animal stride. He looked ready to fight anyone at any time. Good. He would need to be. Once he heard what she had to tell there would be a lot of fighting.

“I want to speak to you,” Kormak said. “On a matter of great urgency.”

She felt sick and flinched back as if expecting a blow. The moment she had dreaded for so long was here. Pull yourself together, she thought. You have only one chance at this. Make the man believe you.

“Guardian of the Dawn—thank the Light that you are here. I am in urgent need of your aid.”

“This is hardly the most private of places, and I suspect this would be a conversation better held in private.”

Lady Khiyana looked around. Nobody was within easy eavesdropping distance, but better safe than sorry. “I believe that would be for the best. Let us head to one of the bedrooms. If anybody sees us, they will assume it is an assignation.”

The Guardian extended his arm, and she hooked own into it. There was something reassuring about the feel of hard muscle against her skin. She started to believe that perhaps everything would be all right after all.

They walked back inside the mansion. No one paid any attention. They were all far too drunk or far too wrapped up in their own intrigues.

They made their way up the stairs and along the corridor. In the light from the chandeliers, she suddenly realised what was different about him.

“You’ve changed into a new costume,” she said. He was wearing a soldier’s tunic and a different sword belt. There was something different about the hilt of his blade as well, and there was no hint of any elder signs. “You’ve come as a soldier.”

He smiled as if at some private joke. “As a marine actually.”

“Why did you bother to get changed?” She was just talking for the sake of it. She was nervous and trying to hide it. She hoped that he didn’t notice. She was going to have to be more convincing and more relaxed when it came to her confession.

“I decided that I wanted to be like everybody else—pretending to be something I am not.”

“I suppose it was easy enough to swap costumes with one of the marines who came with you.”

“Easier than you might imagine.”

A serving girl was staring at him. He smiled at her. The wench licked her lips. Perhaps she thought she was going to be invited into the bedroom as well.

“Perhaps you’d better run along now,” Lady Khiyana said to her. “The Guardian and I would like to be alone.”

The smile disappeared from the woman’s face. It was a pretty one too even beneath the skull makeup. She gave a curtsey and backed off down the corridor. The Guardian winked at her as she went. Perhaps he wanted her to remember him for later. Well, no matter. She had things to say to him that would take his mind off serving wenches.

She listened discretely at the door of the chamber and heard nothing. She pushed the door and stepped inside. It was dark within. The light of the moon filtered in through the glass doors to the balcony. A four poster bed, partially shrouded by a mosquito net dominated the chamber. It was a guest room she was familiar with from previous visits to the Governor’s mansion.

“So what is it you want to tell me?” Kormak asked. His smile looked more predatory than ever.

Lady Khiyana took a deep breath. It was now or never. She had best confess before he started interrogating her. “Oh Guardian,” she said. “I have been a weak and foolish woman.”

“In what way?”

“First, I need to know you will not judge me too harshly.”

The Guardian’s face was grim. “I cannot promise you that before I hear what you have to say. If you have something on your conscience, tell me. You have my word I will do what I can for you.”

That seemed like the best she was going to get so she nodded agreement. “A few years ago I was approached by a friend, an acquaintance really. He belonged to a select group that gave interesting parties.”

They had been interesting parties too, with some very important people present. There had been the finest wines, sophisticated conversation, sophisticated drugs. She remembered how thrilled she had been to attend the first of them, to be the centre of attention for so many powerful people. It was even more thrilling than taking lovers had been after the first few years of her marriage.

“The parties were just the beginning. After I had been to a few, the conversations turned to other things, to magic, to immortality, to alchemy, to the preservation and extension of life. One of the men said it was a pity that beauty such as mine should be spoiled by the passage of the years.”

Tears rolled from her eyes now. She had nodded agreement when she had been told that. It had been foolish vanity, she knew that now, but back then she had thought it only the truth. What mortal would not?

“That was the first conversation I had with Count Balthazar.”

She looked at the Guardian to see how he was taking it. The man’s face was a blank mask. He was listening intently. “You must have heard this sort of thing before.”

“More often than you would think. Go on.”

“That conversation turned to the topic of alchemy and the preservation of life. Count Balthazar mentioned that the Old Ones who came before us knew so much more about these things than we did, and they had found the way to make their chosen servants immortal, or at least very long-lived.”

“All that is true,” said Kormak. “But those servants always paid a terrible price in the end.”

She nodded. “I knew that even then, but I could not help but think about it. I sensed that the Count was watching me carefully, judging my response. He must have seen what he wanted to see because he changed the subject and did not return to it.”

“Not that night anyway,” Kormak said.

“You understand.”

“It is the way certain cults recruit new members.”

“Yes. Yes. It is.”

“Please continue. I have the feeling that you are going to tell me something of the utmost importance.”

He had not struck her. He had not summoned warriors to drag her away to the body-breaking dungeons. He simply seemed to listen more intently. Encouraged she went on. She told him of the round of parties which had become wilder, of the ever more potent drugs that were used, of the way the conversations had of coming back more and more often to the magic of the Old Ones and the secret of immortality.

Count Balthazar kept talking about alchemy, kept judging her with his wise eyes. In the end, she came out and asked him directly whether he was an alchemist. When he said yes, she had asked him if he would teach her. She begged him to teach her.

He told her it was a high and serious undertaking, frowned on by the Church, practised in secret to avoid persecution. He could not teach her until she had proven she would not betray him.

“And how would you do that?” Kormak asked. Lady Khiyana felt certain he already knew the answer. He was just trying to provoke her.

“I had to do something forbidden, commit a crime that would ensure that if I did betray him, I would suffer the same fate.”

The Count had not told her this all at once. He had made her work to get that from him. Looking back she could see she had been cleverly manipulated into doing all the work of recruiting herself. At the time, it had not looked like that. Every piece of information she had talked out of him had felt like a small victory.

“Why did you not go immediately to the Church?” Kormak asked. “When Balthazar told you that he dabbled in alchemy. You knew he was talking about a serious sin.”

“He was, but talk was all it was. It would have been my word against his, and he is a powerful man. There was no proof.”

“But the thought did occur to you.”

She felt her face flush. “It did. Even then. I told myself that if I found anything evil, I would report it. But it all seemed so harmless. Just rich people experimenting with drugs and alchemy. There was nothing sinister about it.”

“There never is, to begin with,” Kormak said. “You agreed to do what was asked of you, in the end, though, didn’t you?”

“I did. Curiosity overcame me. I wanted what I knew I couldn’t have. I wanted it because it was forbidden.”

And she had. The allure of the forbidden had been part of the attraction.

“What did you do?”

“I took part in a ritual. I sacrificed some birds.”

“That hardly seems horrific.”

“The Church forbids it. I made a sacrifice to one of the Old Ones, Xothak, a known enemy of the Sun.”

“You realise that by confessing this to me you could be put on trial for heresy and witchcraft. The punishment is death.”

“I no longer care. I am tired of living the way I do. I am tired of the evil I have seen. If you wish to have me killed so be it. But at least my death may have some useful purpose, some meaning.”

“That is an admirable impulse. There may be hope that your soul can be saved. Perhaps your body too. Pray, continue.”

“Of course, I learned nothing immediately.”