Six Celestial Swords (58 page)

We have to find Alere. Once we find Alere we can leave.

BODIES LITTERED THE floor. The dark blood of the Keirveshen coated the marble pillars with a wet, slimy sheen. Somehow, the elf remained white against the sea of blackness, alive against the mounds of death. His blade glowed violet in the dark, untainted. The Blade, like the elf, knew little of fear and nothing of boundaries. There was a way to succeed against all odds, no matter how terrible they seemed. Once again,
Aerkiren
and its bearer had demonstrated that.

Vorhaven was impressed. He sat back upon his throne in the great hall within the palace of his forefathers, smiling as his thumb glided over the pommel of a long, broad blade, whose tip rested against the floor at his feet. The metal appeared black, obsidian, almost as if it had been forged of stone instead of metal. An energy radiated from it, like tendrils of black mist, forming intangible fists that squeezed and choked the light around it.

“He has come to take you from me,
Behel
,” Vorhaven murmured. “I will not allow it. The elf will not have you and take from me my solace; my world that you have helped me to reshape. How many centuries have I existed in night without understanding it? How long have I hidden myself in the shadows, sheltered beneath my children…lost in my study? I was a negligent parent. My children ran wild and without purpose, without direction. You have changed me,
Behel
. You have made me understand. I know what must be done...and no elf will stop me. Though they have tried for centuries, they have always and will always end in failure. Just like the Brotherhood.”

Focusing on the elf now, he projected his voice. “The Brotherhood believes only in silencing. Others have discovered
Behel’s
power and it almost killed them. They were unfit. I am able to fully understand
Behel
…to bond with it, one might say. I can use it to restore order to this land.”

“By creating demons?” the elf answered in disgust, finally coming forward, out of the black death behind him.

“The Keirveshen were not intentional,” Vorhaven answered, regarding the pale creature before him with as much admiration as hate. “As you may know, all plagues require carriers. I happen to be such a carrier, an individual who twists and ruins all that he touches, but who remains perpetually unaffected.”

He stood calmly, dressed in the fine clothes he was entitled to wear as a member of the Vorhaven family, head of a broken, scattered household. Beneath the dark velvet and white lace was an ancient man of diseased beauty, held forever in the soft skin of his youth while his mind and spirit decayed. He’d watched his world become shadow.

One by one, his family, his friends, his lovers...all who did not flee his curse were inflicted by it, transformed into hideous variations of the monster Malek Vorhaven saw each time he dared to look into a mirror. He could not honestly remember when or why this curse had befallen him, but he did know one thing with maddening certainty. “Elves are not susceptible, of course.”

As he spoke the words, a piece of his memory flashed at the front of his mind, like a shard of broken glass turned into the light.

Elves...long had they been the source of his envy and his hatred. Yes, he remembered now. It was her. He could still see the elf maid in the forest, looking like a ghost against the snow, white from head to toe… perfect. Her beauty was crisp and clear, as a field of freshly fallen snow, untrod upon, unsoiled. Her purpose so near to Eishencroe was a mystery to Malek, but the sensation he felt in his heart was not. He’d fallen in love with her, instantly. He would make her his, somehow...but the look of scorn in her luminous gray eyes when she looked at him!

Malek knew he was not ugly—far from it—but she made him feel like a wretched, vile creature, crawled up out of some stinking bog to attack her. There were no words to describe his fury. It overwhelmed him, and ultimately he did attack her. Sadly, his skill as a swordsman was no match for her inhuman quickness. She slashed him across the face with her slender, elven blade, and justified her disgust by making him ugly. Malek returned home in a darker, quieter rage, determined to have his revenge.

Against his father’s wishes—for he was not old enough nor skilled enough—he sought the power of his house, the secret spells of his family that enabled them to rule the region. The people were too afraid to stand against them. The elves would be afraid now as well, and he would have the woman who dared to cut him.

The wound burned as perspiration entered it. He touched his cheek absently while he continued to consume the powers of the ancient tome locked in his father’s private library. He had entered without permission and read fast to avoid being caught, knowing that he would be no match for his father in a test of sorcery. He was looking for a spell to satisfy his hatred. He left the library angrier than before, certain that he had failed. While he’d taken in the magic, he’d cast no spell, finding nothing that suited his plans for revenge. His thoughts only grew darker in the time that followed.

It was during the Autumn Feast, when all the members of his house gathered to celebrate the harvest and the turning of the seasons, that his cousin of sixteen—blossoming as all young Vorhaven’s did, with beauty and arrogance—looked upon Malek and made mention of his scar.

He glared viciously at the girl, reminded at once of the appalled look on the elf woman’s face. He could no longer remember what he said to his cousin, only how he felt, the anger that became a twisted satisfaction as the girl’s fair image putrefied before his eyes. Shadow consumed her. It poisoned her flesh and ravaged her soul, leaving a demon in its wake. A foul creature that leapt over the dinner table to make a feast of the horrified observer seated across from it.

Vorhaven smiled at the elf responsible for reminding him of that. “You are as handsome as she was beautiful, hunter. You remind me of her, your gray eyes looking at me with a similar disgust. Do not worry. You shall not be forced to look upon me long. Death will blind you.”

The elf did not seem threatened, but he also did not attack. “You know the Blade I hold,” Alere Shaederin said. “Do you also know what will happen if it crosses with yours?”

“
Aerkiren
,” Vorhaven purred. “Sky of dusk; twilight...the passing of day into night. I didn’t need
Behel
to be rid of your father, Alere.” He smiled as the elf tensed visibly. “I don’t see why I’ll need it for you either. Elves guard their minds better than most, but that is because they are often guarding the most terrible secrets. Fears and nightmares they have had too many centuries to accumulate. I realize you are young yet, hunter, but I know what scares you.”

“You know nothing,” Alere said.

“Give me
Aerkiren
,” Vorhaven said. “And I will end your life quickly. It is more than I offered your friends.”

“They are here, then,” the elf replied, as if to confirm the matter to himself. Surely, he had seen them in the manor.

Vorhaven smiled as the elf’s secret thoughts became his own. They were not his friends. Alere despised the Phoenix Elves, and all other elves, who had failed to assist their own kind during their direst hour. He needed someone to blame, unaware of how it was one of his own who had brought the shadows down upon the Verres mountains, through simple arrogance. As to humans, such as the young knight who had followed him here, Alere remained undecided. Vorhaven found that interesting, but it was too little, too late. This elf’s changing perception of humans could not make up for the unfounded contempt of his ancestors.

“The fools came here almost more eagerly than you,” Vorhaven finally said. “I’ll have their weapons as well, when the berserker finishes with the elf woman, and when my pets have finished with him.”

Alere foolishly tried to hide his concern by not displaying it. Vorhaven knew, however, that it was in his thoughts. Still, the elf continued with his bravado. “You haven’t enough shadows here to deal with a man who feels only rage. If you have provoked him, you have only succeeded in drawing out Ilnon. A true berserker is the living embodiment of the god of rage and vengeance. He will tear this house apart, and everything in it.”

“Even if that’s true, it won’t be your concern,” Vorhaven told him. “Give my regards to your father if your wandering spirit should happen upon his at any time.”

More shapes came out of the darkness that enshrouded the hall. Vorhaven watched them surge toward the lone white figure, then sat down upon his throne once again and closed his eyes, laughing to himself. He’d not been so entertained in years.

Let the berserker tear apart the house. Let him bury himself alive. He’ll calm down quickly enough as he suffocates beneath the rubble and rebuilding the house will give me something to do. I will have four of the six Swords. I will have the strength to stamp out the elves of Yvaria at last. And then I will head south, claiming the cousins of the Verressi next.

The Eastern sorcerer had done well. The blades came, as he believed they would, once Vorhaven concentrated his efforts on finding them. He had only to wait for the Moon Blade to be delivered. The Sun Blade would remain in Sheng Fan, but five would be enough—and he had only bargained with one dragon anyway. It would take more than one shadow beast—no matter how powerful it happened to be—to wrest a coveted treasure from a royal family’s stubborn grip.

He heard Alere before him, introducing the shadows to
Aerkiren
before making his final stand against them. There were too many of them. Try as he might, he was only one elf, and he could not last forever.

“Bastien!”

The young knight’s voice elsewhere in the house drew Vorhaven out of his thoughts. They must have found the gypsy. Evidently, his pets had finished with him and the others had come upon the remains.

How bothersome. Tristus Edainien should have been hacking Shirisae to pieces by now. That he wasn’t, spoke well for his resolve…something Vorhaven hadn’t considered one of the knight’s stronger aspects. Still, his young mind was so open....as easy to read as the pages of a book.

TRISTUS DIDN’T KNOW what to think as he looked upon the gypsy. He believed the man dead long ago. To find his body here made him wonder if this was also in his mind, part of the dreams the master of this place used as a twisted form of entertainment for his unwanted guests. He closed his eyes and opened them again, horrified to find the gypsy’s broken, shredded body still lying on the floor just inside the dark hall he and Shirisae had entered.

“Do you know him? He looks familiar.”

Tristus shook his head as Shirisae arrived beside him. “His name was Bastien. I... didn’t know him well. He traveled with us, but disappeared during a battle with men from Sheng Fan. We thought he was dead. In fact, ...” Tristus swallowed with effort. “No one was certain whether or not I had been the one to kill him...in my...”

“In your psychotic rage?”

Tristus started, looking everywhere for the voice, that was not Shirisae’s. The lady elf had left him again, else he had left her, gone once again into the dark recesses of his mind where the killer waited behind a flimsy cage door to be let out. Tristus had barely managed to maintain control throughout this ordeal of the mind. Recently, he tried thinking of Xu Liang while he clutched
Dawnfire
. The mystic was the only person who had been able to calm him, and he’d felt blessed whenever the spear was in his possession. The combination of two such strengthening forces proved to be just enough. However, the past was also strong…and the warmth and security provided by the mystic and
Dawnfire
were slowly beginning to slip. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be anyone around to be concerned with killing. Whoever had spoken to him seemed just as suddenly to be gone.

And that was when Bastien rose from the floor, only it wasn’t the gypsy. The form that lifted from the red, pooling blood was no battered corpse. The figure stood tall and moved with an ease and grace that stole Tristus’ breath. Dark, almond-shaped eyes regarded him gently. Tristus knew better. He knew Xu Liang was not here, but he stared helplessly at the image of the mystic, healthy again and so beautiful.