WindSeeker (24 page)

from the Brotherhood’s initiate. Along the retable at the altar’s apex sat three more receptacles used at

the Final Rite of Consecration, the ceremony performed at the sixth hour of the sixth day of the sixth

week after the Preliminary Rite of Ordination.

Circling slowly counterclockwise around the altar, seven High Priests, each clothed in the deep green

robes of the Abbots of the Order, chanted the Rune of Belonging, a sing-song command that bound the

initiate to the Order. Each Abbot, one from each of the Seven Kingdoms, carried in his hands a golden

chalice into which the Six Secretions taken at the ceremony would be placed.

At the foot of the altar stood the Cardinal of the Ordination. Clothed in the scarlet robe of his office,

Kaileel Tohre’s eyes never left the initiate, whose screams had subsided to garble half-phrases and

incoherent mumbling.

Inside the sleeves of his robes, Tohre’s nails had dug into the flesh of his forearm as each new scream

subsided into a whimper of pitiful hopelessness. The long, curving nails gouged thin craters of flesh from

his arms and blood stained the robe’s inner lining. Pale blue eyes flickered, the thin lips tightly

compressed, the breath held, but there were no outward signs, no telltale weakness to show to the

others, that Kaileel Tohre felt anything but the great import of the moment.

Standing at the head of the Altar of Souls, Tolkan Coure fastened his hooded eyes on the young man

whose head sagged between the two upper arms of the cruciform. The initiate’s throat was arched

backward; the cords stood in sharp relief. Blood trickled from his parted lips; he had bitten through his

tongue at some point during the evening. His eyes were glazed, pain-filled, wide and staring. The hands

clenched into agonizing claws with each fresh spasm of agony. The wrists were clamped tight under the

bronze bands, as were the ankles, and fresh, moist bruises were already showing on the scraped flesh.

Tolkan smiled. The initiate’s full lips pulled back in a rictus of pain and the sweet harmony of a piercing

scream wafted over the old man. Such a sweet, fulfilling sound, he thought.

Conar was in agony. Chanting moved round him. Words as old as the very dawning of time slithered

over him. Hideous incantations, unheard by those outside the sect, worked their evil deeper and deeper

into his susceptible mind. The cloying incense transcended his body, seeped into the pores to poison and

corrupt. Cold, prodding fingers coated with noxious slime drew patterns on his naked flesh.

They touched him.

They stroked him.

They caressed him.

They hurt him.

Daggers with blades so sharp and so thin the cutting edges were almost invisible to the naked eye, put a

shallow cut here, a nick there. Cuts so light they would leave no scar, but would draw from him those

fluids necessary for the culmination of the ceremony. And they stung just the same, and seemed to

underline the other, more refined tortures he was feeling from some Unseen Source.

He was partially aware of what they were doing. He knew from his experiences as a child that this

ceremony would give him the Power these men already possessed. He also knew there would be

another, more prolonged, more hideous, more painful ceremony to follow, in a few days, and it was that

ceremony which filled him with both abject terror and hopelessness, for he knew he would never be the

same again.

His body was chained, immobile, glistening with a fine sheen of sweat. Although he shivered from the

frigid air, his body was fevered, burning with an inner fire he knew would never be quenched. It could

never be.

It was the fire of hell being instilled within him.

He felt another twist of pain and squeezed his eyes shut, tears welling in the blue depths. They were

torturing him and he hurt so badly his mind barely functioned beyond the pain. He tried to cringe away

from another sharp flick of agony and heard Kaileel’s voice raised in warning to the Abbot who had just

caused such intense pain.

He swung his head from the sight of Tohre’s red robe. He doubted he would remember this evil place if

he survived the night’s torture. In case he didn’t, he wanted to take the memory of it to his grave. He

moved his head, his view inverted as he glanced at the candelabras, anything to take his mind from the

agony. He tried to focus on the high, blood-red walls that seemed to be running rivers of blood down the

slick, sweating stone. But his vision jerked away, danced off to the candle flames of the black tapers in

the candelabras circling the altar.

A splatter of blood hit his face and he tried to lift his head, to look at the black goat carcass suspended

above him. The viscous, cooling blood covered his naked body.It ran down his sides and behind his

shoulders, matted in his hair, trickled between his thighs. He gagged at the slimy feel of it running between

his spread legs, and had felt a sharp, twisting agony in his manhood. He couldn’t stop the scream as the

sudden, sharp pain of it thrusting upward inside his body ravaged him.

The chanting had changed, he realized. It was now so intense, filling, invading, that he found himself

eagerly awaiting each nick and cut the daggers made, each horrible twist of pain from the Unknown,

Unseen Entity that gripped his flesh in an ice-cold hand. He felt each stab of pain and gloried in it. His

body was on fire with it. Some strange incense wafted under his nostrils and he inhaled deeply, the aroma

permeating his mind, saturating it with a vile sickness that left him weak and drained. Susceptible. It

interfered with his concentration. It intensified the pain.

"Feel the pain," Tolkan cooed, floating into his line of vision. The old man hovered with a grin of pure

malice on his weathered face. "Feel the beginning of a pain you will grow to cherish!"

Conar’s stomach heaved as Tolkan’s sharp nails ran over the heaving muscles of his chest, the thin,

wrinkled hands kneading the flesh, down his belly and into the thick crop of blond curls at the juncture of

his thighs. The Arch-Prelate rubbed in the chilled goat blood, spreading it over Conar’s naked body,

lubricating his manhood with the viscous slime.

He shut his eyes to keep from seeing Tolkan’s leering face. He couldn’t shut out the sound of the

Arch-Prelate’s maniacal laughter, but he could drown it out with his own scream of outrage when

Tolkan’s hands lingered, probed, mauled. A splat of goat blood hit his cheek and he reflexively turned his

head. The goo slid into his ear, and he shuddered as it went further into the ear canal. It, too, burned. He

began to cry again, his nostrils dripping mucous.

An Abbot moved over him, scooped the thin, white fluid into a chalice, and then moved away. Another

turned Conar’s head, held his mouth over a chalice, and Conar drooled uncontrollably into it. They had

his tears; they had his urine; they had the seed; they had the yellowish ooze from numerous open sores.

They now had the Six Secretions, and the ceremony was ready to be finalized.

"There is a Storm coming, Conar!" Tolkan lifted his arms over the prince’s prone body. "In the tempest

you will become One with the Brotherhood of the Domination. You will live to serve Our needs, Conar

McGregor. As morning light spreads over this land, so shall your power spread."

Kaileel’s voice echoed over him. "You will wield power more awesome than any who has gone before,

for you will have the combined power of the White and The Black Paths. With the howling wind, you will

obtain swiftness. With the pelting rain, you will have strength. With the hail, you will know the ability to

destroy all who stand in your way. With the cyclone, will come a power so immense, not even Alel,

Himself, can stand against it!"

"You, who are the Chosen One of the Chosen, will be at the head of our army, and with you as our

leader, nothing can stand in our way!" Tolkan’s eyes flared with insanity as he flung his arms to the

heavens, invoking the Bringer of Storms, the Destroyer of Souls to lay ruin to the countryside around

them in preparation for Conar’s coming. "Come, Evil of Evils! Come, Lord of the Serpents! Bring to us

the cleansing fire of Your destruction!"

A keening wind surged through the chamber. The air turned noxious with the smell of burnt flesh and

sulfur. Ice cold currents of air ripped about the room and extinguished the candelabras, leaving only the

glow from the braziers. Lightning bolts surged overhead, flicked down the moist walls, ran along the

ceiling, hissed as the current connected with moisture. Loud booms of thunder shook the room and set

the goat carcass swaying on its wrought-iron hooks.

Conar’s head was lifted. His lips touched the cold rim of a chalice. He tried to turn his head, but

whomever, whatever, was holding him, caught a handful of thick blond curls and forced the his head

steady. He tried to press his lips together, but could not keep them closed as Tolkan spoke.

"Open your lips, sweet prince. Open your lips and drink of the fluids that course through your precious

body." Tolkan took the cup from the Abbot and put it to Conar’s lips. "Drink. Drink and become One

with Us!"

He couldn’t stop himself from drinking the bitter, slimy liquid. From his childhood, he knew what was

mixed with the urine, mucous, semen, tears, pus and saliva—the blood and bodily fluids of the men

moving about him, the blood of the sacrificed goat, his own blood. All mixed with the Holding Potion that

would lock them together. His throat worked convulsively as he swallowed, his fingers spasmed as he

digested the vile concoction. An immediate numbing began in his lips and his tongue felt thick and leaden

in his suddenly dry mouth. His head started to swim unmercifully and a bright, flashing stream of light

swirled over him to snap away the last remaining vestiges of human thought and recognition. He was

becoming One of Them.

"Pain is Power, Conar McGregor!" Tolkan said. "There will be a surging power in the pain you will

experience. Embrace it, Conar. Take it into you. Feel the agony and draw your strength from it!"

With a suddenness that snapped his eyes wide open, a tight squeeze of gut-wrenching pain gripped his

belly. He arched his back, his mouth gaping in his effort to scream, but no sound issued forth. He sucked

freezing air into his parched, burnt lungs, and gagged as the vile stench of his own burning flesh filling his

nostrils. His belly started severely cramping, his head splitting apart. His ankles scraped raw as he tried to

bring up his knees to ease the torture of the cramps. His mouth opened in a silent scream of pure agony.

His vocal chords seemed paralyzed. A crackling noise shot through the room as he strained against the

horrible wrenching pain, pulling on his restraints, and he snapped the bones in his left wrist. No one

noticed.

"Do you not feel the ecstasy in the agony, Conar McGregor? Do you not feel the sweet promise of the

climax to end all climaxes? You are about to go beyond pain to the plethora of torment only the gods,

Themselves, know!"

A piteous moan escaped Conar’s lips, a whining, hopeless cry for help. A thin stream of mucous ran

from his nostril and tears cascaded down his face. An Abbot rushed forward to gather the liquids.

Jerking on the arm restraints, Conar broke his right wrist, as well. He didn’t even feel that break, but

Kaileel placed a hand on the young prince’s wrist. The bones automatically knitted.

"Let him feel the pain, Tohre!" Tolkan shouted.

He does, Conar thought wildly.
He feels it
. The pain grew more intense with every breath. He tried not

to breathe. He could smell his urine and semen running down between his legs, could feel the touch of a

cold chalice against his manhood—gathering.

"As you are bound to this altar," Kaileel said, "so shall you be bound to our Brotherhood. As you are

one with the pain, so shall you be one with the pain the Brotherhood has had to endure at the hands of

the unbelievers. Draw strength from your pain, Beloved. Let It claim you for Its own!"

Tolkan moved to the head of the Altar of Souls. He lifted Conar’s head, willing the young man’s

pain-glazed eyes to his own.

"You are Ours, Conar McGregor!"

By all that was holy, and unholy, he hurt!
Conar had never known such raw, intense agony. Nothing

Tolkan had ever done to him as a boy could compare with the torture he was now enduring. He felt as

though his very innards were being drawn from his body in quick, unrelenting jerks. He tried to look

away from Tolkan’s triumphant face, but the old man held his head still, satisfaction on the lined face as

he enjoyed watching the suffering.

"Endure, McGregor," Tolkan taunted. "Endure!"

Kaileel came forward, and put his lips close to Conar’s ear. "You will be the stuff of legends, my

Beloved. You will be our champion. You now have within you the power you were destined to wield.

Do you not feel it drawing out the goodness in your soul? Can you not feel the virtues being stripped

away? You are being hollowed out. Your soul is being cleansed of the purity instilled in it at birth. When

the Rite of Consecration binds you, the supremacy of evil will fill every pore of your precious body. Evil

will course through your veins. I will teach you all you will ever need to know about the Magic of Evil.

The seeds that have been planted within you will grow and I shall cultivate the harvest of them. After the