Authors: Vera Nazarian
Then, the ultimate violation. He was embedded within her, and she surged in terror, moving against her own volition, for she felt her heat yet rising unto eternity, swallowing her up despite herself, while the demon was atop of her and within her, and moving within her very mind.
She died then, sank away into a terrible death of pleasure and hatred and fury, convulsing eventually, as it all ended, and for once did not call dark self-despising names upon herself, for there was no longer herself, only
himself
. And he, this impossible demon lover of her secret dreams had come to make her feel helpless and out of control, and terrified, and small. . . .
She lay silent, much later, against his dark giant form, her skin beaded with dew, her eyes shut tight with the final inevitability and sadness of having known, at last, such terrible fulfillment. And then, gently, she felt an utmost soft pressure upon her lips, as he came to lean over her, and drink her mouth, and breathe the scent and shadows of her thick hair.
And like the side of a mountain, the very dark living earth, she felt and heard the steady beat in his chest, a beat of a demon heart against her traitor own.
“
F
eale,” said Elasand, “I will swear to obey you as my liege as soon as I have a written contract that will guarantee me the safety of all your prisoners, and will spell out in detail your plans for this City. Only then will I tell you the whereabouts of the one known as the Guildmaster of the Light Guild.”
Again came a low terrible laughter.
And then, “Enough,” said the dark one. “I am done playing with you. You think you can lie to me? Tell me now if you are the one I seek, if you are the Guildmaster. And if not you, who is he?
Speak!
”
The voice had grown from a whisper to a booming terror. Somehow echoes of it came to resound within Elasand’s mind. And with it, for the first time in his life, came a pang of uncertainty, and the beginning of fear.
The darkness of the room served to amplify the psychic feel of confusion. Truly, for an instant, Elasand blinked, and was not even sure whether he was looking at Feale or not, for the dark silhouette seemed to double in his eyesight, waver like an image beyond a layer of hot air.
He was feeling weak, impotent. Who was he anyway, but a single puny man before this terrible lord? The Twilight One was so much stronger than he, so much greater, all-encompassing. Even to gaze upon him hurt his feeble human eyes. Another instant, and his very sight was gone, and he stood blind, seeing only a blot of faint glimmer where supposedly was the window of this chamber, seeing no shadows even, no movement, nothing.
Only a hypnotic pair of eyes. They alone were steady, while the whole world around him spun like a slowing carousel. They were his anchors now, they would be his source of relief, they would center him and tie him to reality.
And then a memory came to him, like a drop of pure reason, a memory of other eyes, pale, intimate, fathomless windows upon another world of indescribable true
violet
.
And with that memory, he was steadied suddenly, could once again see clearly in the twilight of the room before him, could see the dark very real silhouette of his Enemy.
And Elasand knew what to do. He understood suddenly by what means the Enemy could wield power against him, and by what means he could withstand the attack that came insidiously within the mind.
He focused his memory of what he loved best, his memory of
her
, and with that raised his hand before him, palm upward, drawing upon a deep power and knowledge within himself. As he did thus, warmth gathered in his solar plexus—rich, exhilarating—and then spread through all his extremities, focusing upon his hand. It poured forward so that his fingers bloomed with fire, and then suddenly a bolt of pure
violet
ignited from his fingertips, and sat like a disembodied sun upon his palm.
The room was thrown into sudden
lavender
brilliance, and together with violent shadows upon the walls, the dark form of his Enemy started back for an instant. Within his smooth bare skull, the Enemy’s phosphoric pupilless eyes narrowed from the light. But then, just as suddenly, he put his own ebony hand forward, with beautiful chiseled fingers of a corpse, and upon his dark palm gathered a spherical hole of blackness, of absolute vacuum.
He then appeared to toss it forward like a feather, and the black sphere floated into the air and converged suddenly upon Elasand’s own palm.
A hiss, and
violet
beauty was extinguished. However, the sphere of darkness was gone also, for the two opposites apparently canceled each other out.
The room was back to normal night twilight, and Elasand heard Feale’s deep soft dead laughter.
“
A pretty demonstration,” said the dark one. “Now, Vaeste, that we know a bit more about one another, I suggest you think well what you are about to do. I can destroy you and your puny Light Guild with one breath of my being. Instead, I simply ask you to reveal your knowledge to me without a struggle. I will come to it eventually. But if you try to fight me, you will only postpone the inevitable and destroy yourself and all that is yours.”
“
What are you?” said Elasand. “What are you really, that calls itself Feale?”
But there was no answer from the dark form. Instead, the Twilight One slowly reached out to Elasand, and started to place his slender beautiful black hand upon his forehead.
In an instant flash of awareness, Elasand knew as surely as anything that if the hand touched him, he would not be able to fight any longer, and it would be his end.
And so, with a burst of adrenaline, he did the only thing he could under the circumstances.
He ran.
The two black guards did not know what hit them, as he spun around suddenly, slamming one of them hard in the abdomen, and knocking the other back with a wicked jab of the fist. Then in the span of a second, as one guard doubled over with pain and the other staggered backward, Elasand thrust himself past them, kicked out the door, and was out in the corridor.
This was mindless, ridiculous reflex. He knew it was such, but it was too late, and so he had to go on. And so he ran through the stillness of the corridor, his boots clattering against fine marble, hearing yells begin to build on all sides. Up ahead, there were approaching Qurthe soldiers. Up ahead, and behind him. . . .
He slammed forward, turned a corner, turned another. Lucky for him, no one had expected him to attempt this escape, not here, not in the very heart of the Palace, and this section was relatively unguarded.
Damn! His memory did not serve him well, where the hell was he? This place was like a maze, and he had never been through all the Palace, never knew all the ins and outs, all the secret turns of this structure like his demon half-brother knew it. Damn! For once, he wished Elasirr was here at his side.
He needed a sword. Another corridor, and he would face the black guards. A sword would at least give him a last fighting chance. For, he was a cornered beast, and he knew it.
Up ahead, a narrow passage loomed, without any visible outlets, illuminated with wall torches. On one side, the Palace inner wall, embellished with delicate mosaic and tapestries. On the other, an exquisite colonnade balcony, a place he could possibly use to climb outside, to jump—anything!
Up ahead, voices, running footsteps. The same from behind. They were coming from both directions, and he had nowhere to go but out on that narrow balcony, and to jump down, who knew how far down, very likely to his death—
A squeak in the wall, just behind him. Elasand whirled around just as a small door opened, a door that had not been there before. A hand grabbed his shoulder, pulling him around with unexpected force, throwing him off balance. As he sank backward, nearly tumbling into the secret dark recess of the wall, a familiar female voice hissed violently, “Shut up, and don’t even breathe, my lord!”
Ranhé pulled him tight into a small crevice-like space, with hardly any room to breathe, and closed the tiny door behind them unto utter dark. His temples were still beating madly, but he was smart enough not to make a sound, while a ridiculous joy surged forth in him. Somehow, impossibly, Ranhé was here, his loyal disobedient Ranhé!
There were shouts in the passage outside as Qurthe soldiers arrived. They spoke a strange barely understandable dialect of the Tongue; several harsh commands were given to search the corridor, for he couldn’t have gone far.
“
Check the balcony!” someone said. And then another deeper voice of authority cried out for them to search the walls.
Elasand and Ranhé, breath held in their throats, heard with a sinking feeling how there were loud taps on the walls, only inches away, and tapestries that would possibly conceal a passage were being lifted and ripped off their hangers.
Luckily, the tiny cubicle in which they were concealed appeared seamless, and opened only from within.
Eventually, the sounds of searching moved farther away. Ranhé and Elasand remained quiet. Both knew that someone on the outside could very well be secretly waiting, to hear their lightest noise.
And then as their beating pulses stilled they felt a light draft coming from one of the walls. Elasand pressed inward, and silently the wall receded before him, and they were now within a pitch-black inner passage. So, these were those secret catacombs within the Palace, thought Elasand, the ones Elasirr was so familiar with!
Elasand felt in the dark for Ranhé’s hand, and fumbling slightly, they moved noiselessly into the corridor, feeling the floor with their feet, following the draft, the flow of damp air. The passage started to slope downward, and eventually the sounds of the Palace had grown remote enough for it to be safe to speak.
Elasand removed a flame-stone from a pocket and struck a small fire, which illuminated the passage before them, and nearby, a dead torch in a wall sconce. Lighting the torch, they proceeded again, deeper down.
“
Why did you come for me?” said Elasand gruffly, pretending outer displeasure, while on the inside hope danced within him, and ridiculously, he wanted to reach forward and hug her.
“
Don’t tell me you are displeased, my lord!” Ranhé grinned, her eyes reflecting the torchlight.
“
How did you know?” he continued. “How did you know where to find me?”
“
Believe it or not,” said Ranhé, “there I was, crawling along the outside of the Palace, hanging on for dear life and cursing you very loudly in my mind, yes indeed, cursing you for making me do this thing, my lord. When suddenly, what do I see, but a flash of very bright definite
violet
in one of the windows! Yes, the only instance of
color
light anywhere in the City! Who else could it be but you?”
“
He can put out
color
light . . .” whispered Elasand suddenly, remembering, and with the memory came a surge of debilitating doubt. “Our Enemy is stronger that any one of us.”
“
Well then, damn him,” said Ranhé fiercely. “We must do something about it!” And she continued to walk forward, undaunted. Seeing her confidence, Elasand could not help but continue forward also.
They had no idea where they were, where they were going. This was the system connected to the sewers, Ranhé knew, remembering Elasirr’s words. They must keep going, and eventually, somewhere, the passages would again lead to the surface.
At some point indeed, about an hour later, the ground began to incline upwards. They had come to a dead end, and with it, a door. The old lock was rusty, indicating that it had probably not been used in quite some time. Not a good sign.
Who knows where we are?
Elasand applied force, and eventually the lock gave with a jolt. They opened the door upon fresh air, and monochrome night.
They were within an overhang of another balcony, while a section of paler darkness, the sky, glowed overhead to the right.
“
Where in Rainbow’s name are we?” whispered Elasand, quickly putting out the torch, so that they were in natural darkness, and looking at the ebony shapes of buildings around them.
Ranhé said: “I think, sir, we’re southeast of
Dirvan
, in the Academic Quarter. That building with the angled roof is the Lyceum.”
“
Quite correct, Ranhé. You do know this City well.”
The voice had come from some ways away, and a tall cloaked man stood before them, disengaging from the walls, from night itself.
“
Elasirr!” exclaimed Lord Vaeste.
“
It took you long enough,” said the Guildmaster, nearing them, so that Ranhé saw a pale serious face illuminated by the dim moon. He was not smiling.
“
How did you know we would be here? How—” began Vaeste.
“
I knew where the passage surfaces,” replied the cloaked man. “Since my men had been following you all day, they’ve notified me as soon as it was obvious you had escaped in the Palace. I have eyes everywhere, Elas, especially among the servants in the Palace. And I am particularly glad that your bodyguard had enough brains to follow you and to find the hidden door in the wall.”
“
Actually,” said Ranhé, “I have no idea how I came upon it. I’d just climbed upon that same balcony from the outer ledge, and saw the little door ajar in the wall. Hearing voices, I hid there.”