Chapter Eleven
“Who will be the one to do my bidding, my beauties?” Colton asked of the eight women lying prone, spread-eagle in a semi-circle around him. “It is a very special task I have for you and if you are successful, you will share my bed the evening you return,” he exclaimed.
The women dared not raise their heads from the stone floor. Nor did they even move a muscle during this encounter with their Lord, but their hearts beat faster and their bodies responded passionately to the suggestion of lying with the Dark One. Each of the women was shrouded in a black sheath that covered her from head to toe. All that distinguished one from the next was the soles of their bare feet and the hair upon their heads.
“Adrianna? Shall it be you, my lovely one?” he walked to one of the women whose blonde hair stood out sharply against the black of her garment. “Will you possess the girl for me? Will you bed the boy, seduce him and bring him back here?”
Colton asked the question rhetorically. None of the eight would answer him. They knew he did not wish to hear their opinions. He would make the choice all by himself. He walked around each supplicant, but he spoke only to Adrianna.
“You are lovely, my dear. And you are ruthless, a wonderful trait which you alone have turned into an art. Is it your jealously that drives you? Or is it bitterness? Perhaps envy?”
Colton grew in stature as he spoke. His raven hair flew wildly about his shoulders and his crimson cape flapped relentlessly in the windless room. His large, almond shaped, black eyes were rimmed in a deep orange glow that radiated outward with each word. He floated a few inches off the burnished floor with his hands outstretched and his long fingers twitching and extending in expectation. Sparks crackled and flew from them each time his fingers uncurled.
In the past days, he had recreated castle Sedahar in a far different image than before. The room he now occupied was his finest work to date. The floor was polished to the point of reflection, carved from the whitest of white marble. He liked the contrast of black against white. It reminded him of the forces he contended with. The entire palace was riddled with contradictions.
He also wished to torment himself with the memory of his recent defeat, and what better way than to be constantly reminded of it visually, in the whiteness of the floors and the whiteness of the furniture, so stark against the black background. The agony of this recollection drove him forward with greater passion and the pain caused him pleasure for that reason. He relished each glimpse of the reflected sunlight as it caught his eye, and he imagined the brightness and sparkle of the Gem of Eternity. He pictured it shrouded in black, careening headlong into the void, its light extinguished for all eternity.
This room he now occupied had eight sides to it. The walls were solid black granite that were highly polished and rose to seemingly endless heights. An octagonal pattern was inlaid into the floor as well, spiraling round and round in concentric squared circles. From the center, a chandelier of ebony wood hung upon an endless black chain, illuminated by spheres of pure white crystal. As he spoke, it turned slowly, sending waves of prismatic light spinning across the black walls.
The eight women barely breathed while Colton hovered near them.
“Rise, my pretty one,” he said again to the one he called Adrianna. “Rise and join me now. I will tell you of your journey. You are the one, most definitely,” he said to her, but still she remained prostrate. “Do not fear me, my child. You need do only what I bid and you will be rewarded. Come now, the hour grows late,” he said, motioning with his hand as her body rose upward from the head, until she was perpendicular to the floor and eye to eye with Colton.
The look upon her face was one of reverence mixed with fear, but her master could also sense the arrogance and pride that made her so delectable. She knew that the other women envied her and would trade anything to have been chosen in her stead.
He let her drop to her feet, cushioning the fall somewhat so that she could remain standing. He released her to her own power and she gratefully stretched her long fingers.
“May I speak, my Lord?” she asked of him in the softest and most supplicant of voices.
“Speak.”
“I am honored, my Lord. I will do anything you ask. Anything. Please tell me my charge so that I may serve you as soon as possible.”
“Good, good. You understand well, Adrianna. You are just the one for this errand. You will not fail me.”
“Never, my Lord. I could not fail you,” she said, knowing the double meaning to that sentence. Failure meant death.
“Come. We shall retire to my chambers and I will tell you what you must do.”
He curled his index finger toward him and her body spurted forward, following behind him as he moved upon the air toward the opposite side of the chamber. Colton pointed to the wall and a small doorway opened allowing them to depart the room. The other women he would leave where they were, knowing that they would remain in the same positions that he left them in until he returned, in mortal fear of possibly displeasing him. He laughed to himself at the thought of that, considering briefly just how long he might allow them to remain there before relieving them of their duty.
Pride welled up in the young maiden he had singled out; pride and a feeling of limitless power. He would let her taste the power momentarily, tease her with it and then take it away from her, causing her to desire it like nothing else. After all, he was the master, the great manipulator, the Lord of Darkness. Who better knew how to exploit a human for his own purposes?
“My beauty? Are you happy now? Are you not filled with joy?” he asked, the words dripping from his tongue.
“It is like nothing I have ever felt before, master,” she said, barely able to speak. She was so filled with ecstasy, she could imagine nothing greater.
“I will allow you to covet this moment so that you will remember what you will receive when you return with the young man,” he soothed her. “You must go quickly. There is much to do before he arrives at her doorstep.”
“Where is it I am going, my Lord?” she asked.
“Close your eyes my beauty, and I will show you.”
Adrianna closed her eyes tightly and Colton entered her mind. As if he had taken her by the hand and physically led her to the spots he wished her to see, he manipulated her inner vision as if it were his own. She saw the small cottage in the forests of Lormarion beneath Seramour. She heard the old man speak to his daughter as if she were present in the tiny chamber. Adrianna watched as the young maid scoffed behind her father’s back, knowing that she would not heed his admonitions. She felt the lust rise in the girl’s loins at the thought of her lover. She felt more than she expected she could through Colton, and the feelings caused her to close her eyes and sigh in sympathy.
Suddenly she was no longer in the small house but rather in the forest itself, gazing at the ceiling of tree branches obscuring the sky. Her vision passed through the protection of the branches and entered the winding streets of Seramour. It seemed as if she was running down the passageways and alleys, following something, catching up with the back of a young elf’s cape. She felt the anger in the youthful elf before her and saw the crazed look in his eye. In an instant she was in front of the boy. He was yelling at an old woman who stood before him, his ire growing with each word. She watched as he took the woman’s life from her with an infuriated sweep of his arm. She felt his frenzy, his vulnerability, as he hurried to conceal his bloody deed.
“You have seen enough, my dear,” Colton said, as the vision abruptly ended.
Adrianna staggered momentarily as she adjusted to her original perspective.
“He is the one. You must possess his lover and persuade him to return to me here in Sedahar. He must come willingly. He has information that I desire, and I will be able to use him because he is so susceptible, so unprotected. The others in the accursed city are all, each and every one, loyal to their King and to the First. This one is different. His hatred drew my awareness to him like a Tsenso fly to cloudberry nectar. I felt his anger as it built and I watched him as he was possessed by it. In all of Seramour, he alone drew my attention, as if he had invited me into his home. He glimpsed the void and he did not shrink from the vision. He has given his soul to me already and he does not even know it. He will be very useful. I will find out what I need to from him. The secrets of Seramour will be mine. He will know why they seal themselves so tightly from the world beneath them, why no one has been allowed to enter or leave. They have never been so prudent before. What are they protecting? Good King Treestar would never deceive his people, and that weakness, that foolish honesty, will be his downfall. This renegade will know, and I must have him.”
Colton was so gleeful as he spoke that Adrianna could not help but smile in response, her body reacting to his emotions like a puppet mimicking its directors moves. She welled with pride as he talked to her, confided in her, allowed her to share his thoughts. She loved him so that it hurt to gaze upon his face, yet she could not help herself.
“I will do whatever I must, my Lord,” she said to him, bowing to his feet, prepared to sacrifice all that she had for him, all that she was.
His power drew her to him and enveloped her in its evil arms. She had long ago forgotten wherefrom she came, her previous life, her parents and sister and her friends. All that mattered now was Colton. Pleasing him was what she lived for, the only reason for her existence.
“Go, my beauty. Leave now. Return as soon as you can with the elf. Look upon me and I will show you the way.”
Adrianna gazed into the black eyes of her possessor, and her entire mind opened wide to him. He rummaged through her soul carelessly, making room for the information she now needed, discarding what remained of her memories. When he released her, she collapsed upon the floor, exhausted but strangely satisfied and now filled with his essence, his glory. She remembered less and less about herself with each encounter, but she grew more impassioned and more enamored of Colton every time he touched her.
The young woman dazedly walked to the great door that revealed itself before her, and then departed the chamber. She would need no nourishment, no succor, to assist her on her journey, even exhausted as she was. Colton had given her all that she required and she cared not for other wants. Her singular purpose in life was to satisfy him and she now had the means with which to do that. She would find the boy and bring him back to Sedahar, to Colton, and then she could rest.
Before she withdrew from the shadow of the door itself, she heard her master’s voice and her heartbeat quickened at the sound.
“Belaflor, my beauty, come to me,” he said sweetly to another of the eight still prostrate upon the cold floor. “I have need of your company and your warmth…”
Adrianna was so thoroughly entranced by Colton that this betrayal did not even bother her. Rather, she was happy that he would find joy with another. In fact, yesterday it was the men who satisfied his pleasures. Anything that would please him was sanctified and blessed. She left the shadows of castle Sedahar thinking only of the sweetness of his voice, the power of his body, his bewitching eyes, his magnetic potency and above all else, the anticipation of lying with him after she returned with her prey, the current object of his desire.
Chapter Twelve
“Sister, can you not feel the difference? The air about us is no longer of the same quality.”
“Yes, sister, I do. I have been aware of the change for some time now.”
“As have I. What shall we do?”
“I do not know sister, for certain. But, let us convene the entirety and we can ponder this together.”
“I will ring the bell, sister.”
“Yes, it is time. I will prepare the chamber.”
The dark skinned woman gathered her grey shawl about her shoulders with the intricately embroidered sigil of Parth on the lapel, the only decoration distinguishing what would otherwise be a quite ordinary cloak, and left the small room. She walked down the dark and constricted corridor, needing no illumination to guide her along the way, and opened a high and narrow wooden door at the end of the passage. Purposefully, she ascended the steep, stone steps, lifting her heavy skirts as she walked so that she would not trip. The stairway wound upward sharply. The cold, cobbled walls were damp with summer’s perspiration and she listened to her own footsteps as they echoed off of them.
As she neared the top, she noticed the light of the moon streaking through the slits in the thick rock and reflecting off of the polished walls of the tower room. It played upon the stone and danced across the buffed surfaces in a crescendo of pale colors. No door hindered her entrance. Emmeline stepped lightly over the final tread and headed directly for the heavy silken cord that hung from the silver bell above it. She pulled upon it once and a delicate sound immediately flooded her ears. She closed her pale grey eyes, raised her chin slightly and listened to the beauty of the chimes.
“The perfection of the bell remains steadfast, regardless of the reason for its sounding,” she noted ironically. “Some things remain always apart from conflict,” she sighed.
Emmeline pulled upon the cord once more and then left the chamber, while the sound pressed upon her back portentously as she descended the serpentine stairway.
Each of the other eleven maids of Parth lifted their heads from what they were doing upon hearing the chiming of the tower bell. Courtney, raven haired and thin as a rail, dropped her pen and ink and stood up. She closed her dark, oval eyes and allowed the sound to resonate within her before leaving her chamber and heading for the meeting room. Tamara, short and squat, forever cleaning and forever talking, ceased her chatter for a moment and laid her broom against the cold wall. Sevilla remained perfectly still, timid and frightened as was her nature, and deep creases appeared upon her brow when the sound commenced.
Rella flicked her auburn hair off of her cheek and sat upon the cool soil. She lay her pretty face back upon her long neck and followed the vibrations of the summons across the moonlit field, until they dissipated in the far woods. She farmed the night truffles, and she reluctantly placed what little she retrieved in her pouch, certain now that her endeavors were done for the evening.
The remaining sisters, Bethany, Dahlia, Rose, Angeline, Jocasta and Violet had been in the kitchen and adjacent dining room when the bells tolled. They immediately stopped their conversation and congregated close together in the larger eating area. None needed to speak in order to understand the importance of the moment. Each sister had been restless of late, awakened at night by the heaviness of the air, disturbed in her dreams by unwanted images and affronted by smells and sights that she was unaccustomed to. There was an unspoken comprehension of the changes all around them and a silent agreement as well to make no verbal mention of them. Nevertheless, they all anticipated that this moment would come.
Each maid gathered what they chose to and made her way to the great hall in the very center of the structure. The room was built at the very heart of the Tower of Parth, and its amber colored stone walls rose steeply on all five sides. There were no windows disturbing the graceful sweep of stone as it ascended to the roof far above their heads. The room was illuminated by candles recessed into the smooth stone all around the perimeter and by the light of the moon that spilled itself carelessly onto the gleaming marble floor, cascading down through the pale and opaque quartz skylights that comprised the ceiling aloft. A simple table and chairs of wood made up the only furniture in the entire space around which the women gathered, some of whom were already seated, while some were still standing. As Emmeline walked to what might be considered to be the head of the oval table, she heard Tamara chattering away to whomsoever would listen. A warm smile briefly curved her graceful lips upward.
Gretchen too smiled as the group gathered. She was already seated when Emmeline took the chair next to hers, and she laid her strong hand atop the other woman’s momentarily as a sign of reassurance and solidarity.
“Hush now sisters,” Gretchen said in a steady and controlled voice.
The group of maidens immediately focused their attention on the cropped haired Gretchen. That is, all but Tamara who continued to talk, seemingly unaware of the fact that she was the only one making any noise at all.
Emmeline grinned and addressed the talkative sister, “Dear Tamara, you will have ample time later to discuss this momentous evening.”
Tamara raised her head to the other with a start and blushed a deep crimson. She placed her hand over her red-lipped mouth and covered that one with her other, as if she required the two to stifle her words. The ladies in the room chuckled in response, except for the stern faced Angeline who simply shook her head from side to side, and frowned all the while.
Gretchen cleared her throat and leaned forward a bit, resting her open hands on the wood.
“It should be no surprise to any of you that we are here this evening. There is not a one of us who has not felt the changes. I am sure you are all as concerned and confused as I am. We have all known our purpose here. It has ostensibly been no secret amongst ourselves as to what we do. The world at large may think we are here for another reason all together. But for countless tiels, the maids of Parth have simply been guardians, and those outside these walls needed never know what we were guardians of. We, and those before us and those before them were never required to do more than reside here and maintain the tower and its lands. Of course, our training and our studies kept us apart from the rest of the world. But you were each and all chosen for this and you were also given the opportunity to reject the commission.”
The maids all listened intently to what Gretchen was saying, and not even Tamara spoke a single word.
“Our ultimate purpose, to safeguard the map, is known only to us and those few who charge us with this task year after year and tiel after tiel. But, now I fear things have changed. The world is not what it was before. The void encroaches upon us all, and I am sure you feel its approach as I do each and every day.”
“Our sister speaks truly. I fear that the time draws nigh when our guardianship may be tested,” Emmeline interjected, her pale grey eyes almost opaque against her ebony skin. “The maids have been fortunate all these years. The threat of power has been enough to keep the wolves at bay. But alas, they have become more vociferous of late, and they are driven by a force that is ravenous and relentless in its need,” she continued.
“But sister. We are completely untested. If we are the target of an attack, how will we possibly defend ourselves. It may be that the threat of our power being utilized has sufficed until now, but if we are called upon to exercise it against a real menace, what shall we do?” Rose questioned the group.
“Untested and ineffectual are two entirely different things, Rose. I for one am certain that I could defend myself quite well if the need arises.”
“I too,” Violet reiterated. “We are here to protect and defend that which was placed within this hall a hundred tiels ago. What else have we had to do but prepare for that eventuality? The prospect had never been far from my thoughts, particularly of late.”
“What type of foe would dare attack us here?” Bethany asked perplexed. “Have I been this blind these past years that I did not see so great a change in the world around me?” the scholarly looking old woman asked.
“Perhaps merely blinded by your devotion, sister. You have rarely raised your head from the Tomes for all these years. Your fingers are red and stained from your many hours of work. I would not expect you to be cognizant of all that the others may see and feel outside of these walls,” Gretchen responded tenderly.
“I do not think that the question should be ‘if we are challenged, but rather ‘when’,” Angeline said, half sitting, half standing, with her strong arms propping her up on top of the broad table. “May the First protect us all, but I can feel the enemy approaching. I wake up in the night and I think I can even hear it,” she concluded.
“Angeline is right, sisters. I have had no incertitude with regard to the issue. What form the assault will take, I surely do not know. But I know it will come,” Dahlia said, and she looked from one sister to the next as she spoke. “The question is, as guardians of the map, how best can we discharge our duty knowing that we are threatened?”
“We know not how much time we may have to prepare. We don’t know who the enemy is or what form an attack will take. The air is rampant with the stench of evil. The sky itself darkens, even though the summer sun shines.”
“We have one purpose to fulfill sisters, and only one. We are the custodians of the scroll. We must protect it from whatever may threaten that trust,” Emmeline responded. “It will serve no one well if we lose our lives in service, if we also lose possession of the map. It is unlikely that our enemy would approach us here in the tower if it did not already know or suspect that we harbored it here. I think that we can be perfectly sure that when the attack begins, whatever form it may take, the enemy will have only one thing on its mind, and that will be to retrieve the scroll from the tower.”
“Need we refrain from speaking his name even at this late hour? We all know who organizes the attack. Colton dar Agonthea is a formidable foe. If he himself deigns to engage us, we cannot win. But it is unlikely that he would venture this far north himself at this time. After all, Oleander and Liam are alive and well, the First willing, and even the evil one would not dare invade a land where a Chosen and his Lalas prevail, at least not yet. That is not to say that he would not sacrifice others of his own ilk on such a mission,” Violet scoffed.
“You have brought up two very important points, sister,” Emmeline interjected. “First, we should never think for a moment that there is any being other than Colton who leads the opposing forces. Second, you mention dear Oleander. I think it prudent that one of us visit Oleander and his Chosen. If they so desire they may be able to enlighten us. If nothing else, we can at the least express our concerns and hear their comments.”
“I agree. But who shall go?” Gretchen asked.
All the maids raised their hands at once, each anxious to commune with a Lalas and his bondmate.
“Well, everyone cannot go certainly,” Rose said. “I think Violet should be the one. She has the confidence of a lioness and the wits of a fox.”
“A wonderful choice. I agree,” Jocasta chimed.
“You have my vote, sister,” Sevilla said, and all the others nodded in agreement.
“What say you, Violet?” Bethany asked.
The maid stood slowly before the others. She bowed her head slightly and closed her dark eyes tightly, allowing her jet black hair to fall over her shoulders and obscure her face momentarily. When she again raised her head, her eyes were wide open and sparkling.
“It would be an honor, sisters. I go gladly to Oleander. My only hesitation is in leaving here and depleting our strength by one twelfth,” she said.
“I do not think an attack is as imminent as that,” Rose said, more as a question than a statement.
“No, Rose. I believe we do have enough time for Violet to go and to return before anything happens here,” Gretchen replied.
“You will be careful though, won’t you sister?” Tamara said, practically bursting forth with the words. She had been quiet much longer than she was accustomed to. “If in fact our purpose has changed, we must know. It would do us no good at all to be barking up the wrong tree, after all…”
Bethany who had been silent and contemplative as was her nature all this time, laid her head heavily upon the table and stretched her arms out before her. All the others gasped, thinking she was ill and having a seizure of sorts. Dahlia stood up immediately and rushed to her side. She was about to place her hand upon the older maid’s head when Bethany sat up straight once more.
“What did you say, Tamara?” she asked, and she stared straight at the sister across the table from her, with her eyes focused and intense.
“I said that it would do us no good to be barking…”
“No. Before that,” she practically snapped at her.
“Well, I think I said that maybe our purpose has changed,” she replied, surprised at how anxious Bethany was.
“Yes. You did. What made you say that?”
All the other sisters were watching this encounter raptly, not knowing what it was that could have caused the normally complacent Bethany to react so violently to anything, let alone a seemingly innocuous comment from the garrulous Tamara.
“I do not really know, Bethany. It did not require too much thought. It just occurred to me that if we are being called upon to defend ourselves for the first time, and that if circumstances have changed so drastically in the world around us, then maybe we need to consider that our purpose, the safeguarding of the map, may be changing in some way too,” she concluded thoughtfully.
Bethany rose from the table, and her chair crashed to the floor behind her in her haste. She swiftly walked to the wall behind Emmeline and placed her hands upon the cold, polished stone.
Pushing against it forcefully, a panel opened and her hands disappeared into a newly revealed chamber. She reached inside and retrieved a large, leather bound manuscript. With the book weighing her down, hunched over and belabored, she walked back to her place at the table and dropped it heavily down on the wood with a loud crash. She quickly raised her chair from the floor which in their surprise, the other sisters had allowed to remain where it fell. Pulling it in to the table once more, she sat heavily in her seat and started to rifle through the pages. When she found the passage she sought, she began to recite for all to hear. A hush descended upon the hallowed hall and not a sound could be heard other than Bethany’s steady voice.