Bloodwalk (3 page)

After a long morning of magical castings and prayers, Sameska found herself lying on her back, staring helplessly at the ceiling and out of breath, without vision or prophecy. She had only silence to comfort her damaged pride. Her heart hammered in her chest and pounded in her ears, but she could not hear it. She could only feel her body succumbing to fatigue and slumber. Lazily, she rolled her head sideways, looking to the large, barred doors on her left.

She could imagine the lesser oracles there, praying and meditating, waiting for her to appear. She had nothing for them, and inwardly she hated them for it. She loathed the looks on their faces, still young and full of faith and immortality. She could see the disrespect in their eyes, the jealousy in their hearts, and she knew their secret desires, their whispered offenses. They despised her and wished failure upon her at every chance. Yet they smiled and played at kindness in her presence, for each wished to be her favored as they waited for the old bat to wither and die so they might take her place within the Hidden Circle.

None of them carried her blood, the blood of a Setha’Mir. She was the last, the end of a bloodline that had built the six towns of the Qurth Forest as surely as any farmer, woodsman, or carpenter who had settled there. Her true successor had died many years ago, her daughter, Ilyasa, who had been born sickly and weak. She’d barely lived a year before passing away while Sameska could only watch, helpless.

A candle sizzled as it burnt itself out behind her, and she realized she could hear her own breathing again. The chimes above sang anew, their silvered designs reflecting the early glow of dawn on the horizon.

Slowly she pushed herself up and stood in the center of the rune circle, staring at the age-old designs and symbols surrounding her, carved by her grandmother’s grandmother when the sanctuary had first been built. She looked to her own hands, full of lines and wrinkles carved by time and experience. Both had dug furrows into her brow, the reminders of years spent in thankless service. Looking to the double doors at the chamber’s entrance, she once again dreaded opening them, allowing those young upstarts within to snicker and point at her failure behind smiles and seeming pieties.

She reached into a pocket of her pale yellow robes, pulling forth a handful of golden flower petals from a plant called the fethra, or “destiny,” unique to the Qurth Forest and the western edge of Shandolphyn’s Reach. These she squeezed between her palms, releasing their heady fragrance, then touched the small tattoo of the eye of Savras on her forehead with each forefinger. She began to speak the spell of sight, though her throat was raw and sore from earlier attempts.

Iron-gray hair lay matted to her scalp. Her eyes were puffy and dry, and her skin was chilled with sweat, but she would try, one last time before dawn, to contact her god. Weaving magic and prayer together, she sought his attention, his voice that granted her the truths and secrets of tomorrows to come. The spell hovered around her, a whirling translucent cloud sent spinning by her beseeching prayer and enhanced by the faintly glowing runes of the circle.

Her muscles ached as the magic grew, but she continued concentrating for as long as she could. Waiting and praying, she fought the slow return of frustrated rage. Nothing. Silence. She began to draw a breath, abandoning her prayer, preparing to scream and curse the fading, shimmering cloud around her.

But then it intensified.

The circle of magic flared brightly and closed on her, the force of its power hitting her full in the chest and sending her reeling to the steps of the altar behind her. She felt constricted and couldn’t breathe as the vision rushed into her weary mind. Once again her heart hammered inside the frail cage of her chest. Blood rushed through her body as though attempting to escape, filling her with warmth and cold all at once.

She gasped for air as images formed before her eyes. Accompanied by tiny stars at their edges, she could faintly feel the pain they heralded, having hit her head on one of the dais steps when she fell. Visions forced themselves upon her mind, violent and powerful. Reeling, she watched, overwhelmed by this sudden return of the sight but unable to look away.

Storms ripped through the forests of her homeland and the lightning seemed to tingle down her arms and through her fingertips. She felt suffering and terrible pain, wails of unimaginable horror emanating from the trees as their trunks split and formed mouths full of splintered teeth. Blood flooded the forests as thunder rumbled overhead.

Nightmare upon nightmare flashed in her mind. Scenes of absolute terror assailed her senses, but through it all, Sameska was full of joy.

Sunrise was a brief affair the next morning. The light disappeared quickly behind dark clouds and cast the scene below in shades of gray. A cool breeze blew through the empty streets and unshuttered windows of Logfell, an unnatural autumn breeze more than a month early.

Morgynn stood on the shore, dressed in red. Eyes closed, she breathed in the bittersweet scents of plague and wild flowers as they mingled in the air. As the slight chill in the wind caressed her tingling skin, she was reminded of summers in Narfell. The cold at Bildoobaris, a gathering of the Nar tribes each summer, never quite warmed to even the early autumn chill of the Border Kingdoms.

Her left arm felt as if it were on fire, a sensation she reveled in as the last remnants of magic danced on her skin and slowly faded, leaving clean white lines where the scars of her spell had once been. She sighed, reluctantly opening her eyes to lament the spent incantation. She loathed the blank flesh on her forearm and absently rubbed her shoulders and neck with her right hand, mollified somewhat by the remaining swirls of magic carved there.

She pulled her tattered red robes around her and walked to the low stone wall that marked the edge of the little town. She couldn’t suppress a growing smile as she stood staring at the empty streets, doors left open and abandoned merchant carts crushed in the chaos of her magic. For a moment she fancied herself the last being alive in all Faerűn, looking upon the sad remains of a world that no longer held any meaning. In that moment she felt the cold eyes of death over her shoulder, a silent companion that rarely stood apart from her, a memory that hid beneath all others.

Her eyes settled on a patch of ground near the town gates, stained in the browns and rusts of old blood, and wondered at the memories of these folk. She briefly imagined she envied them, those swift heartbeats on the edge of oblivion where denial meets the inevitability of nature’s design. She shook her head and stretched her neck, almost a spasm of movement as she righted her thoughts. Refocusing, she turned away from morbid curiosity, banishing the imagined specter.

She followed the sounds of her followers, their chanting and prayers echoing in the silent and empty avenues. Speaking the languages of the infernal realms in deep, sonorous voices, they gave praise to Gargauth, their devil god, violating the once peaceful and sleepy cottages that lined the streets. She enjoyed the contrast of dark worship and the still-life of rustic architecture around her, a composition of sight and sound that no artist’s brush could render.

Turning a corner into a small square, she found the source of the comforting voices, chanting in a circle, sitting on the edges of a drawn symbol, their steady hands marking profane runes and designs as they lost themselves in a trance of unholy praise. They did not pause in their ceremony as she approached, nor did they reveal any awareness of her arrival. Though she led them, she was not Gargauth.

The high priest known as Talmen, named after one of Gargauth’s many defeated enemies, a high honor among the order, remained standing and apart from the circle with a few others. All of them wore masks depicting the faces of devils, but only Talmen bore the mask of the broken horns, the traditional symbol of Gargauth. He awaited Morgynn’s approach quietly.

She could feel his powerful lust for her, could see it in the dark eyes that stared at her from beneath his mask. She did not dissuade his affections, but rarely did she encourage them. The thought of his hands upon her sickened her far more than he would ever know.

Talmen watched Morgynn’s every move, and she subconsciously graced his expectations. She walked as if she owned all that she surveyed, even him, and cared nothing for the wants and desires of anyone else. Her hair, a deep black, was worn wild and long but she controlled it like an extra limb to suit her whims. She wore tattered red robes that would have been indecent if not for the belts and scraps of leather armor that served only to accentuate what could not be seen.

Talmen had served Gargauth for many years before she’d met him one cold Nar summer. He had seen far more than potential in her, and she had returned as much of his attention as necessary to get what she wanted. Morgynn held no illusions about their partnership, and she held no qualms against maintaining his illusions.

She parted her lips slowly, gathering his attention. His eyes almost dulled beneath the mask, and she could barely hide her disgust at the ease with which she could control him. No spell had ever passed between them to precipitate such submission. None had been necessary.

“Where is Khaemil? Has he returned?”

He scowled as she mentioned the name of her beast, and she could sense his displeasure, had counted on it, in fact. The lines at the edges of his eyes deepened, and his head turned slightly away. She could almost hear his cursing thoughts and smiled demurely to frustrate him further.

“He awaits you in the temple of their witches, Lady. A blasphemous and dangerous act I could not persuade him from,” the high priest replied. His annoyance with Khaemil was clear, as he was unwilling even to speak her favorite servant’s name.

Morgynn’s smile grew at the news, imagining her dark thrall in the hallowed halls of their enemy’s place of worship.

“Come now, Talmen.” She reached out, lightly brushing the cheek of his hideous mask, tracing its edge downward to rest a fingernail tip on his bare neck. “Blasphemy and danger are in our blood.”

His pulse quickened at her brief touch. His blood rushed beneath her fingertips and she imagined its distress at being trapped within a frame as poor as his. Her touch could remedy his blood’s imprisonment in mere moments, and she lingered a bit before pulling away.

“As you wish, Lady.”

He bowed briefly and hastily returned to the circle of his brethren, seeming more content to watch the object of his unrequited lust from a safer distance.

As she made her way to meet Khaemil, Morgynn stopped to study an ancient statue in the central square. The stone—broken, cracked, and heavily weathered—depicted elf warriors defeating a faceless enemy on a pinnacle. It was of dwarven design and looked far older than the town which had grown around it, carved for the elves centuries before when they inhabited the Qurth forest and its distant sister, the Duskwood.

She’d studied much of the region’s history while in Innarlith to the east. That was before its leader, Ransar Pristoleph, had ousted her nomadic Order of Twilight from his court. News of its current state she gained easily from contacts in Derlusk, as well as other beneficial services.

She quickened her step, eager to speak with Khaemil and be on her way. The near trees to the south waved and twisted in the growing wind as a pulsing sensation called to her from within the forest’s thick branches and underbrush. Since she had discovered it, she hated to be apart from that kindred pulse for too long.

The Temple of the Hidden Circle sat alone in a large circular glade bordered by stout oak trees, their long and sheltering branches framing the simple stone building. Though the oracle-priestesses visited only a few times a year, the people of the little town kept up the grounds with pride. A cobbled path led through a once bright and flowered garden, now stripped of leaves and blooms. Morgynn gazed upon the broken stems in amusement. She’d heard them called “oracle bells” and “destinies,” and she wondered how honest their auguries had been. Had they seen her, she wondered, huddled over their teacups, fevered and chilled as they looked for signs of the future?

The heavy wooden doors stood open before her, a stylized eye carved into the frame overhead. She walked in boldly, as much to spite Talmen’s misgivings as to satisfy her own curiosity and audacious nature. Stained glass lined the walls to either side of the sanctuary, depicting scenes of daily life and terrible battles. None seemed relevant to the history she’d studied, but perhaps they were images of the future.

Before the altar, Khaemil stood like a shard of night, his thick black robes wrapped around him. He seemed almost a void amid the colorful glass and the bright marble floor, mirroring a small statue of a one-eyed sage set behind the altar, an image of the god Savras. Her darkening mood in the presence of the oracles’ sanctuary brightened as she approached her favored champion.

She leaned in close, resting her head on his shoulder, breathing in his strange scent and soothed by its familiarity.

“Talmen says you shouldn’t be here, pretty one, that you blaspheme against Gargauth.” Her tone was mocking and light, but she enjoyed the tensing of his broad shoulders. No love was lost between him and Talmen, and neither cared to hide the fact much.

Khaemil did not move except to incline his head in supplication.

“I remain your servant as ever, Lady, and will obey no other. The high priest has no respect for the rewards of faithful service.”

His voice was deep, rumbling from his large chest and seeming to shake the stained glass on either side.

Morgynn stepped back, studying his large frame, still amazed at his unwavering loyalty after so many years. He had become a symbol of her ambitions, a bold and dark knight sent by Gargauth as a blessing to the revived Order of Twilight.

“How went your hunting?”

The query hung like a blade in the air, razor-thin and cold, full of possibility. Morgynn did not enjoy disappointment and rarely tolerated failure. Though favored, Khaemil was not above her punishments, and she had earned his respect all the more for that fact.