This story is protected under international and Pan-American copyright conventions. Please remember to donate to Nifty if you're financially able to do so.
MY WEBSITE: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html
My email: kavrik@hotmail.com
My art: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/my-artwork.html
Forum discussion thread: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html
(Anonymous registration is perfectly fine on the forum)
You will find pictures of Kian on my art link above.
You will find a MAP of the world on the FORUM link above.
Chapter 29
"Luminara means light," Talen whispers in my ear. We walk side-by-side down the corridor which I now surmise must lie somewhere underground, yet still near the city of Soulwarden. To keep things "professional" I don't hold Talen's hand. But I really want too.
Gods...I can't say that enough. I REALLY WANT TO.
There. Now I feel better.
"Professional" I remind myself in a meek voice. It gets filed somewhere in the dusty recesses of my mind. If my life ever becomes a bard's tale, I want to be remembered as a "professional" and not a horny "love-obsessed" seventeen-year-old boy too immature to embrace the great responsibility suddenly thrust upon him. Yet, I think that may be what happens.
Sigh. There's also a part of me that says I shouldn't care so much what others think of me. But in practice, that's a really hard thing to do.
Am I too fat? Is my hair the right color?
Does he think I look attractive? Do I smell?
Would he like to see me naked, because I'd like to see him naked?
These are all distractions that my teenaged mind forces to overlap those OTHER thoughts.... You know...the things I've trained my body to do. I'm a killer, but when the day ends, I want to put that job away and be a lover. Can I balance both? Has anyone even tried?
Can I introduce myself at a party in the evening and when someone asks, "Kian, what exactly do you do?" Can I respond with "For my day job, I kill people for money?"
Somehow, I suspect an admission of that kind is an instant mood-killer.
So here I am with my boyfriend. We're both walking with our glass visors raised out of the way. Talen's appearance puts butterflies in my stomach. If I had to describe perfect, it would look like him. Talen's head framed by that insanely attractive alien metal helmet makes me so fucking hard it's difficult to walk. He looks delicious.
The Auditor of Eilustriel said I had an athletic twink body type.
It should have said I have a horny twink body type. It's difficult to remember a time when a mere breeze didn't give me an erection, much less walking next to Talen. I wonder if other boys ever get hard as often as I do. I wish I knew more even if they didn't kill people for money and religion. I'd ask them straight out.
Does Talen think the same of me? He must because he keeps checking me out.
I know when a guy is checking me out...there's a look in his eyes. And Talen ALWAYS has that look when he's staring at me. He's so cute: lips parted, and the tip of his tiny tongue barely visible on his lower lip.
And why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't I? I mean...we're both physically perfect. We're paragons for the young gifted athletes that we are. Talen and I are suited to each other like two halves of the same puzzle.
And now we're both eternally young.
Frozen at the age of seventeen.
What a mind job!
I'm still in shock over this fact. Can there possibly be any downside? I guess if you're a fan of having hair grow out your ears it might upset you. But I'm definitely not a part of that fan club. Eternal youth could have sufficed as the crowning achievement in a lifetime filled with extraordinary accomplishments. But Tethyr didn't stop there. No, he gave both Talen and I a fortune in body armor. Each of our suits is molded with corobidian and magic. The divine skin hugs our own so seamlessly that even the veins of my penis can be seen detailed upon my tight codpiece, provided one examines it closely enough.
I suddenly wonder how strong the armor is. It's literally as thin as a single sheet of silk. Can it stop an arrow? Can it thwart a sword? Or is it just tissue thin and made to look pretty?
I hope not. I have faith that it's at least as strong as a leather jerkin.
So Tethyr gave me a suit of armor. Wow.
I feel humbled, I feel excited, I feel like something incredible has happened.
My mind races; it flips from subject to subject. "Does my name mean anything?" I ask Talen. "I-I mean, if Luminara means light...what does Kian mean?"
"I'm not sure," he whispers, voice pensive. "I know mine means 'gray-eyed mouse' in the tongue of the Valions. If I had to choose what Kian means...I'd say 'beloved.'"
Tears well up in my eyes, and I blink to stop myself from crying.
He called me 'beloved."
To hear Talen say that makes my heart skip a beat.
I swipe a tear before he can detect it. Yet, I can't stop my heart from feeling what it feels. "Awh," I manage to stammer out. It causes him to pause, and that's when I break down. I seize him in my arms and hug him as tightly as I can. Good thing he's wearing armor because I might have squeezed the breath out of him otherwise. I bury my nose in his cloak and enjoy the feel of his body.
I need to take time for him every second that I can. Time to appreciate him, time to quench any lust he may have, and time to satisfy his emotional and physical needs. Nothing matters anymore. Not Angelaria and certainly not any decision I have to make regarding her future.
Only Talen matters, and that's the way it should be. Well Tethyr and Talen. God first, then boyfriend.
I also think I'm going to start letting Talen call the shots more often. I admit, I'm a little domineering at times and some people may even think I'm stuck on myself. I choose to think I'm getting the confidence I need to be an adult in this world. So I'm going to work on that. I'm not going to argue with him just to get my way. He deserves equal input on every decision to be made that affects both our lives. He's my boyfriend, my lover, and the master of my destiny if need be.
"I give myself to you," I whisper.
He grins. "Don't make promises you can't keep," he whispers back.
I kiss him and press his shoulders to the rocks. I nibble on his lips and we swap a little spit. Luminara stands by with arms folded, and Swift taps his fingers on the rough-hewn wall.
"Can you two just save it for tonight after all of our business is concluded?" Swift asks.
Is he jealous? I glance, but honestly, Swift is irritated. I can see that in his body posture. Am I being too sappy? Maybe. Just in case, I part from Talen's lips but take one more second to drink in the astounding glow of those stunning eyes.
Yeah "professional" has been tossed out with the bathwater.
Talen closes his peepers and breathes deeply. "I'm so in love with you, your scent, your everything," he says, voice soft on his plump lips.
"Sorry," I say to them all. "It won't happen again."
I shake him by the shoulder, and we start our walk again. But he does reach over under my cloak and massage my ass. It puts a quick in my step especially when he says, "I want to rim you so bad right now."
Up ahead there's a thick wooden door on the right with a guard standing out front. He's wearing boiled black leather armor, has a shock of black hair, and moves aside as Luminara approaches. I see the guard insert a key into the lock and then he holds it open for me.
"Is that your race? Valion?" I ask Talen before we enter.
Talen nods.
That explains things, I think to myself. Valions are very beautiful...the second most beautiful race in the world behind Atlanteans (who essentially are no more). I hope that isn't true though. I hope I find another Atlantean someday. I don't want to be the last of my race. But even if I am the last of my race, I'll never be alone. Not as long as Talen is alive.
I walk in. Angelaria looks at us from a chair.
The sorceress from Sulasia is a vision of beauty even if the bags under her eyes indicate how tired she is. Clothed in a resplendent cotehardie made from light blue silk, she watches with careful contemplation as Talen and I enter. The room has candles, a bed with a mattress stuffed with straw, a basin and chamber pot, and an empty tray of food on the floor. She has her kitten! I look at Verrr who's rolling around on the mattress.
"You saved her cat?" I ask Swift.
"Of course," he replies. "We're not the knights of Taleta who murder, plunder, and rape for our own pleasure. We're paladins of Tethyr. We're thorough and methodical; our very business depends on an attention to detail. In case you decide she lives, I want her to know that the paladins of Tethyr treated her with respect unlike followers of other religions."
She listens to us converse, and I wonder what she's thinking.
I kind of wonder if seeing me makes her drip between the legs.
"I suppose our business does depend on details," I say, agreeing with him.
It occurs to me that I never thought of myself as a paladin. But I guess I am. A paladin by definition is a holy warrior. Sure...I'm an assassin, but I'm the closest thing to a warrior that the god of thieves has. So in his church, I'm a paladin because of my faith. I just don't look like any paladin most people have heard of because my whole morality is a reflection of my god and what He desires. That and I wear a killsuit and not full plate mail.
I tithe, I pray, I kill based on a contract chosen by my church.
How is that any different to what a conventional paladin might do? I suppose a paladin of healing and the light would be able to call upon much different powers and could possibly be driven to abstinence.
Eww, I think. Why did I have to say abstinence?
I shudder. A life without great sex is definitely not worth living.
"Have you come to kill me?" Angelaria asks. Her voice has no hint of terror. In fact, she's bold, haughty, and almost angry.
"You deserve as much!" Talen says stepping in front of me.
She stares at him; then me, and with an amused look on her face. "Am I supposed to be intimidated by you wearing that fabulous armor?" Her eyes linger on my body, and then his. "The way it hugs your skin leaves little to the imagination. Milbar's Beard...I can see every muscle and vein on your chest and pubic area. I suppose Tethyr is as perverse as they say he is."
"Shut up!" I yell. "You may say what you will about me in this meeting, but never take my god's name in vain. Do so again, and I WILL kill you."
My outburst shakes her resolve. She smooths out her dress and stands. "So you haven't decided." It's a statement and not a question.
I open my mouth to speak, but I can't find the words. I'm angry with her, yes. But despite the fact I know how to kill, I don't particularly enjoy it. And the situation is so different now. Four days ago I stood on the verge of being gang raped almost to death by men sporting huge dicks and feet. They wanted to lick every insufferable inch of me for hours while I cried for mercy. Now, thanks to Talen's cleverness, I'm standing here alive and in love with my best friend. My body for the most part remains untouched by other men (they only got to lick and spit all over my face and neck). And I'm lucky enough in life that the one I love now loves me back! Sure...I went through a terrible ordeal that may have cost me my chances at having a child. But with an immortal life, there's time to look for a cure to the destructive path Eros carved through my body. There's time for me to seek out whatever magics this world has to offer that may be able to reverse the sickness that the drug caused to my balls.
Do I really want to kill her? She's already a broken woman.
"Kian," Talen begins, "may I speak for you?"
I nod at him and Talen takes another step toward her. He even pushes me back with his hand, protectively shielding me from Angelaria as if she could still bring her magic to bear in this place. I suspect Angelaria can't because if she could, she would have used it to escape some time ago. I need to remember this is a place where magics cannot find me. There must be more to this though than a mere ward versus scrying.
"I should have you tied down. I should have your body stripped of clothes, and then unleash a zombie on you! I should watch while it eats your cunt and listen to your screams until I see you bleed to death and rise from the dead as a rotting corpse. That's what I should do to you," Talen says, balling his fist. Ridges appear on Talen's corobidian gauntlet. They line the knuckles and look very sharp.
Angelaria swallows. "So why don't you?"
"Maybe I will," Talen says.
"What's holding you back?" she taunts.
Talen swallows. "What's holding me back? The fact that any torturous death I come up with won't be enough. I love Kian...I love him with all my heart and that made you so jealous that you wanted to see us destroyed. You tried to sabotage our love and in so doing, you almost devastated the only thing in my life that's good. I hate you!"
"Fuck you," she says. "If you love him so much...fine. But spare me your platitudes. I didn't ask to be your friend. You and Kian killed all of my hirelings in Clothol...men that I chose for their talents and loyalty. Then you burned my charge to the ground. It was really hard getting the contract to guard that keg of ale, and it was my first job and you blackened my name! That made me angry. And when you didn't pay up what I was owed and expected that I just tag along for an adventure on the high seas...well you're right. I thought about you two continuously as you swallowed buckets of his cum and lapped at the sweat between his toes. While you swabbed his balls with your tongue and took it in the ass, I thought of a way I could get the better of you two and make a profit. Don't forget the bitching you did behind his back. Didn't you complain his dick was too big and that he took you for granted and sometimes fucked you without asking? I seem to recall seeing you limp once and you came to me for a salve because he tore your asshole. My plan ALMOST worked. We were both almost free until things started to spin out of control. Until King Braedir decided to backstab ME! ME of all people! Out of all of us, it's I that's been screwed the most. An irony considering you've been on your back almost every day I've known you, probably wishing you could get pregnant and bear Kian a child. So don't even stand there and pretend that you're the one that's hurt. I'm the one that has nothing. No reputation. No money. No one to love. No God-given gifts...nothing," she says, eyes tearing up. "So fuck you, I say. I hate you too."
I swallow hard, but let Talen hash this out. He has all the anger, and I'm going to support him. I step up behind him, move his cloak a little out of the way, and clasp my hands around his waist. Then I lay my head sideways against the back of his shoulders and sigh.
"I'm not going to kill you," Talen says, voice both smug and assertive. "I may have complained some, but you take my comments out of context. You're just a jealous bitch. You don't deserve an easy way out. Your punishment will be to live knowing that you'll never be as happy as I am. You'll live knowing that you'll never get to suck or fuck my boyfriend...or for that matter...that you'll ever see him naked again. He's mine, and you can't have him. Kian's got the best cock in the world between his legs, and you never got to taste it. How do you like them apples?"
Angelaria screams and throws herself at Talen. The move startles me, and he grabs her wrists after she pounds on his breastplate a couple of times. He thrusts her backward into the chair where she composes herself after a few seconds.
"You're free to go," Talen says, pointing at the door. "The guards will show you out." He turns to the guards waiting outside. "Allow her to take nothing but the clothes on her back and that kitten she loves."
"You're just going to turn me loose with nothing?" she asks, drying her tears. "They'll come after me. They'll be searching for all of us. Braedir wants his money for the special suit of Timeron Knight Armor he forced Kian to wear and probably for whatever other bills they've come up with in the company of that corrupt priest of Moh-Dehll. I can't come up with that on my own!"
"Add to that the murder of their captain," Talen says, hopping up and down on the balls of his feet. He looks rather proud of himself. "We intend to spread rumors through the city that you killed him. We've got his armor to prove it. If I were you, I'd flee the city as soon as possible."
"Lies!" she screams. "No one will believe you!"
"We're the church of thieves," Swift speaks up. He's listening just behind my shoulder and outside the door. "We have networks of scurvy pickpockets, beggars, and informants the world over. If anyone can spread a rumor, it's us. We may not be the god of wealth, but we've got other assets...namely information. And if you're thinking you'll lead them back to our den, you need to think again. No one can find this place unless Luminara wishes it to be so."
Angelaria stares at me and Talen, the look of defeat simmering in those unforgettable eyes. She goes and scoops up Verrr and then walks to the door. Angelaria stops to look at me, and then jerks her head in the opposite direction. But not before she says something intended for my ears alone. "For what it's worth, you're the most handsome boy I've ever seen," she says. "What I did, I did out of business. But I meant no personal malice."
I swallow uncomfortably, because I know she means it.
Angelaria looks at Talen then. "If we meet again, be prepared for a fight. You may have spared me from this, but the humiliation and shame you've heaped upon me will not easily be forgotten."
"If we meet again," Talen says. "Call me Tiburon. And as for Kian...he's Hunter to the likes of you. Those are our assassin names. You'll call us that because it means we've come to kill you."
"Tiburon?" I ask.
"It means shark," Talen says smiling. "I just made it up on the spot, and I hope you like it."
"That's very clever," I say, complimenting him. Then I give him a kiss.
"Whatever!" Angelaria exclaims. "Tiburon...Hunter...you'll still be two boys I whooped with magic before, and I can do it again. Be prepared for a fight."
I roll my eyes. "If it's about the money, I'll pay you back if it calms you down a little. It just may take a while."
"Hunter, don't!" Talen says using my assassin name. "She doesn't deserve a fucking copper farthing. She doesn't deserve to even smell you, or taste a drop of sweat form your glorious nutsack." He reaches up and closes my visor. "As a matter of fact, she doesn't even deserve to look at you."
Angelaria scowls and walks out the door, the guard moving aside to let her pass, two others following her down the hall. Luminara exits to make sure that the sorceress finds her way to the outside world.
"You handled that well," I say to Talen from behind the visor. My voice sounds mechanical.
He turns and his expression softens. He lifts my visor and says, "I'm sorry, Kian. I didn't mean to slam your visor down. You're so pretty." He pecks me on the nose.
"It's okay," I say to him between moist caresses, "lover."
And we kiss for about a minute or two.
By the time we stop, even Swift has left. The remaining guard waits for us, cheeks inflamed by watching our passion. He's probably twenty years old, but it's difficult to tell. He says, "Matron Luminara said for you to pursue your assignment as soon as possible and to not allow distractions to detain you from your holy cause any further."
"Right," I say.
"Right," Talen repeats, closing his visor.
Professional it is.
The preceptor of the Church of Thieves had been living in an old manor not far from the basilica of the assassins near the center of town. It takes us about an hour to walk there, and I'm sure no one sees us. Much of the time we jog along rooftops, cloaks flapping in the wind, and a red glow from Tempest Mountain somewhere behind us. Once we find it, I'm taken by how much the preceptor's mansion resembles a haunted place where I'd expect flickering apparitions to linger amidst shadows and in other dark places.
We hop over the ten-foot wall and approach through the wooded lawn just to the south.
Talen and I easily slip past King Braedir's guards. The magical field created by Kahket is also no problem. It parts before our suits of armor like a hot knife through butter. In our killsuits and cloaks, we move unseen, unheard, and unfelt. It's literally like we are part of the night. We are a part of the darkness that breaks the world into highlights and shadows. Eyes fall upon us but do not see us for what we are. As Black Dragon Assassins we are just another section of Urbana, another piece of jungle that goes unnoticed to the jaded eye.
Talen and I are so physically athletic, we can support ourselves with just our fingers, walk on our hands, and jump onto each other's shoulders from a standing position. If we give each other a boost, we can easily leap obstacles that are three to four times our height and scale those that go even higher without rope or grappling hook.
I follow Talen inside the dark manse and make note of the sumptuous paneled rooms and parlors easily visible through the glass of my helmet. I pass beneath plaster works and gorgeous friezes. The dining room and many of the bedchambers date back centuries. The architecture whispers to me of an age of bygone elegance.
I love the atmosphere immediately, this place of solitude, the dignified furnishings, the stone fireplaces, and gleaming oak floors. The sheer wealth of the place is startling. But as we pass into the back of the house, the walls become marred with smoke damage. The regal carpets of brilliant red and gold lie in ruin. They are threadbare and discolored with the tracks of many boots. Through a large crack in the wall, I cringe at the mud carried in by hundreds of workers who labored with pails of water to keep the fire contained. There's damage on the walls; everything beautiful has been destroyed by the firefighters. And beyond the crack in the wall are the flickering torches of the King's guard who stand vigil over this place of death that shimmers with the magical field created by a sorceress of great power.
It all ends at a door of heavily tarnished brass, warped from a heat on the far side.
My reflection in its surface seems somehow distorted and evil and Talen looks like a little devil whose body is either amazingly obese or waspishly thin and tall. I levy my hand against the door, and it moves aside revealing a horrifying room of black ash and mud.
The shelves of this once lavish library hang like limp little hands, burnt and withered, still smoldering. Everything's as black as burnt pitch, and the darkness smothers us, making it seem somehow dimmer and colder than it actually is. The temperature of the room is frosty and the quiet is overwhelming. Large holes in the walls let the night in but no sound seems willing to enter this place from the street, almost as if life itself is being repelled or driven away.
Talen fans out from my side, delving deeper into the trash. He kicks aside books that somehow survived the ravages of the flames looking for anything that his instincts tell him must lie in this room. There's evidence here in this ashen tomb. But where does it lie?
And does the one that caused the fire still reside here?
How could it after so many days? But anything is possible with the aid of magic.
My thoughts are troubled in this place, listening to drops of water, which are the only sound in this room. I think that the murmur of rain must be soft tonight because I can't quite hear it. But the small noise the raindrops make when striking puddles seems somehow to lighten the burden of the darkness.
Talen moves over to me, his feet making little clouds of black dust as he steps over the various burnt objects, broken clay pots, the shells of wondrous books and blackened wood. "There's nothing here," he says.
I don't vocalize my disappointment.
He shrugs and pokes around near the fireplace, his feet scuffling in the mud. "It's empty," he declares. But just to be thorough, Talen peers inside the chimney and moves his hand around, dislodging black soot from the nook above the flume.
I'm missing something. We're both missing something.
I pause there, musing quietly to myself. I listen to the steady thrum of a single rain drop, hearing its comforting rhythm in the chamber of my mind.
Talen touches my hand with his outstretched fingers and raises his visor.
I watch his bold eyes search the darkness. Something puzzles him; I can see that in his expression... in those tiny lines around his peepers and the endearing smile on his face.
"Do you hear that?" Talen whispers.
"Hear what?"
"That drip. There it is again."
"It's probably just the rain."
"It's not raining, Kian," he says. "The sky's been clear all night."
I lift up my visor, startled by the revelation.
His eyes search my face to see if I catch what he's getting at. I do. I look to the floor and see the mud caked around Talen's armored boots. It clings to his individually shod toes.
"Water!" I say excitedly. "Water from the fires. This whole room was drenched, right? But it's dry now, except around the fireplace. It would have pooled there, but the climate's too humid for it to have just evaporated." I kiss him passionately then say, "Tethyr's teeth you're brilliant," while holding his head delicately in my hands.
Talen grins. "I know. Now, it must've drained somewhere," Talen offers. He walks over to the fireplace and crouches, inspecting the floor. "Help me lift this out of here." He gives the grate a strong tug, and it only barely moves.
I cross over to him. "Step aside, please." I've always been stronger than Talen, forced to lift heavier and heavier weights since the first day I became Constantine's apprentice. My arms and chest are very well developed. I heft the iron rack out of place with ease. The mud beneath it is dyed red from rusty runoff, but I can make out a faint outline here and there.
It has to be a place where two stone slabs intersect each other.
It's a trapdoor.
"Fascinating," Talen says, with his elbow on my shoulder. "Have you seen anything like this before?"
"No," I answer.
I take a knife from my belt and dig around the mud with the point, seeking to wedge my blade under the stone and force it up. The slabs are about an inch thick, and I pull the first one up, breaking the tip off of my blade as I do so. As I set that one aside, Talen reaches past me and grips hold of the second stone tablet with his fingers. Grunting just a little, he sets it atop the first one I'd removed.
"What?" he asks once he's done.
"Nothing," I say, with one eyebrow raised.
"There's a reason I like you to be on top," Talen says. "I don't have your muscles. You can do pushups for hours...I can't. I'm built more delicate; I'm built to be loved."
"Yes you are," I say, pecking him on the nose.
Then I turn my head to take a peek.
The abyss seems to open up before me. The putrid scent of things rotten, of stagnant, dirty water wafts up from below. I close my visor again and turn on night vision. It also filters out the smell much to my relief. Talen does the same.
I make out a small room with a single metal door, gleaming there, at the very edge of the darkness. There's enough water in the room to rise to about my waist, and it's brackish and foul. The shelving on the walls holds strange statues of grotesque things, horrifying and yet eerily fascinating in their nakedness. I spot statues with bloated bodies and yawning mouths.
We've discovered a pit of evil.
I grip the edges of this narrow opening and lower myself toward the water using sheer upper body strength. Suddenly, my metal-shod fingers slip, and I drop ten feet into the water with a loud splash. The water's cold as ice, and the walls around me glitter. I press the button on the tongue pad that seals my armor. I've a theory with this button engaged; the individual pieces of the killsuit will lock into place. That way no one on the outside can take off my helmet or remove my breastplate, boots, greaves, or gauntlets.
"What do you see?" Talen's voice emanates over a speaker in my helmet. It sounds like he's right next to me. Wow...that's just cool. I don't immediately answer him because of all the things vying for my visual attention. I blink the nervous sweat from my eyes. It's so quiet here.
"I see small statues, perhaps idols." I slosh over to the wall with my boots finding purchase on something slimy and squishy. I see a broken pot made of clay and the inside of it is filled with dried leaves. "I think I've found something here," I report. "It looks to be herbs of some kind."
I take a few of them in my hand and stuff them in a leather belt pouch.
I turn around and I see two eyes looking at me. I'm startled but the eyes aren't real! It's an immense fresco of a jackal or wolf with yellow irises. Tethyr's teeth, I think to myself. I'm being tested here...that has to be it. This beast wears an expression of deep cunning, and its body is painstakingly reproduced on the wall with excruciating detail. I can even make out the fine hairs adorning its legs and the luster of its rich sable coat. This creature seems to be alive; it seems to move. And it watches the steel door, never blinking.
"What's wrong?" Talen asks.
"Nothing," I whisper. "A painting just startled me."
"A painting of what?" he asks.
"I think it might be Tethyr. You know...in dog form."
"Well this is the house of a Preceptor of our church. He might have had it commissioned," Talen says. "Do you want me to come down?"
"No," I say. "It may not be safe."
"If it's not safe then I don't want YOU there either," Talen answers somewhat testily.
I sigh. "Well...I'm here first. Just stay put for now. I'm going to open the door. I'll be all right."
I step toward the portal, my hand outstretched before me almost protectively. It's polished steel and has two rows of three small metal buttons. The surface is highly reflective, and I can see myself undistorted. I look extraordinary in skin-tight metal armor and a highly polished helmet of black and silver.
Dare I touch it?
I close my eyes and place my fingers on the freezing metal. The nerve impulses relay the sensation through my armor to my actual fingertips. I'm aware instantly of how cold this door actually is. Had the suit not protected me, I'd have frostbite right now. Perhaps my fingers would have frozen solid and then fallen off.
I imagine that the door is exactly like how I'd expect a Reaper to feel like. Those legendary monsters that take people to Hell. Cold and hard and unyielding to the press of flesh, a Reaper is immune to Death itself. Supposedly, they will outlast everything, and even reap the gods when the time is right. I open my eyes and I see the door still there, standing before me, challenging me to spill forth its secrets.
I set my jaw and press my hands against the metal, pushing. It doesn't give at all. I study the edges of it; I study the lintel and the door jamb but I see no detail to clue me into what to do. I press my hand against the door again, shoving harder, thrusting my shoulder into the effort. All at once, it slides open, revealing a set of stairs that rise out of the water. They are covered in ice.
A misty hand appears to beckon me enter.
When I blink, the hand is gone. Did I just imagine that?
The other side of the door's completely cloaked in darkness.
Good thing I can see in extremely low light, even that reflecting off the water behind me is enough.
My curiosity overwhelms my fear, and I take a step onto the icy stone, my armor and cloak shedding foul water upon the steps with loud plops. I'm the Black Dragon Assassin of the Silver Rose. I have nothing to fear in this world at all. Nevertheless, the plops of water dripping from my body echo into the small chamber at my back, and the effect is spooky. I squint, holding my hands out in front of me, trying to pick out details in the dark. Even with the suit, things do not seem quite right.
I suddenly think that a little practice with this armor might have been useful before going on this mission. Sigh.
It's so quiet and my senses are so keen. I even hear ice crystals forming. But, I can also hear breathing. It's a heavy, labored breathing. It sounds familiar...like some terrible sound in my worst nightmare. It comes from the forest in rare phantasms that had me waking with a scream stuck in my throat and chest drenched in sweat. In my nightmare, I've got Talen on a blanket, his ankles on my broad shoulders, and he's squeezing his eyes shut against the tide of pain the first thrust always brings. The moon Mondath is high in the sky, and it's a hot summer night. That's when I first hear the throaty noise, as if something watches us fuck but from a distance. It's aware of me, this thing, and I can hear its heartbeat as clearly as my own. It's a killer of boys. It collects parts of them in specimen jars, and it wants our parts too. It would have us cut, stem and berries, and then display our meat on shelves that also hold the pickled heads from other victims.
It's wanted me for a thousand thousand years. It's wanted me from beyond the Schism where only the cruelest and vile things reside, called by the Dark Gods to endless slavery, torture, and sadism. It's where the tongues of men forced to lick infibulated genitals fall from demonic laps like hundreds of slugs.
Only then do I realize that this room is affecting even my killsuit! The temperature on the inside of the armor is dropping. I'm freezing despite the magic trying to keep my body warm.
"Tethyr's teeth!" I swear.
"Kian," Talen begins, but his voice is broken by static. "A-Are you okay?"
"I'm so cold," I whisper back to him.
"Fuck," Talen says. "An alarm's been raised. Get out of there."
I pull my arms in around my body, trembling, searching the shadows. I want two things. I want to see it, this faceless monstrosity that plagues my nightmares. But I also want to live; I want to flee from this place, to run like I've never run before.
I want both of these things.
Then I feel something touch me. I try to turn my head but clawed hands strike out from the shadows and grip my helmet. I hear something slide from the shadows on leathery scales, and its heartbeat is so loud I can feel my skin quiver with each contraction.
"Who are you?" I manage to ask. "Tell me your name before I kill you."
It laughs. If ever a thing could bring chills to my body, it's the sound of this Hellish laugh. It's so ancient, perhaps it predates the gods. "You should be dead," it responds with a deep voice. "My touch kills; it rots bare flesh from bone. What is this metallic skin you wear? No matter, I can crush steel columns into dust."
I feel a terrible compression as tentacles wrap around my arms and legs with lightning speed. But the armor doesn't cave-in. Not even a little.
"Impossible!" the voice screams.
I feel the thing lick the area around my throat. I feel the sensation through the armor, but nothing more. It lifts me with ease into the embrace of darkness where I can see little, but where I'm aware of its gentle but perverse groping while I lay there, unable to move, my blood like ice in my veins. Somehow, it has overcome me with magic. It's able to enter my mind psychically and has paralyzed my body.
"Help me," I say to Talen through the helmet.
But my voice is as silent as a whisper. Dimly, I can make out the light from the other room, reflecting off the contaminated water. It might as well have been miles from here. The sight of it serves to tantalize. It's freedom that lies in waiting for me beyond the steel door.
I squirm in its grasp.
Useless.
The monster holds me fast with limbs as thick as tree trunks and as unyielding as stone. The odor from its body penetrates even the filters in my helmet. It creates a miasma of poisonous vapors and fumes that begin to force water from my eyes.
The demon holds me still, raking its teeth along my throat. Sparks fly form the contact. I tremble, feeling weak. Am I become a figurine of fine porcelain, fragile, and delicate in its grasp of titanic strength? I have no idea, but I hope not.
It bites me. Sparks fly. When my armor repels its teeth, I hear the thing shriek. I look on with bleary eyes and see torches approaching. I hear men sloshing in the water, and I see figures outlined in the doorway. One of them grabs me by the hand, and pulls me from the shadows where I fall down upon the ground, dizzy and my head swirling with confusion.
I sit up and look about the room.
The monster stands in a corner, watching us with cold, calculating eyes. He appears human but its skin is onyx and muscular. The demon is completely naked with long claws for hands and fine scales covering its bones. Its face is a maw of evil, and it possesses a lifeless stare. Nevertheless, it watches me. It's clearly aroused...an immensity rises betwixt its legs to dwarf my own by at least half if not more. And tentacles sprout from its back.
I turn from the demon to the figures around me. They're clad in chainmail and wear steel basinets. Guards, I realize! Braedir's men! Where's Talen?
As if in answer, I hear his voice over my helmet. "I'm hiding. They didn't see me. Lock your facemask so they can't pull your helmet off," he tells me.
Luckily, I already thought of that. I try to rise but whatever the demon did to me still weakens my muscles. I never would have believed a thing could attack the mind. But somehow, that's exactly what's happened here.
One of them wears a red feathered cap and has such bushy eyebrows; they grow as one across his forehead. He tears down shelves of paperwork and scrolls, looking for something. But what? What's he searching for?
"Who are you?" I manage to ask, voice disguised by the metallic ring the killsuit adds to it whenever I speak with my helmet on.
The man in the red cap turns to the guards. "Take him from the room and bind him before the psionic blast Ravidan afflicted him with begins to wears off," he orders. "Our demon prince could have killed anything mortal instantly. The fact that it did not, is a testament to this man's power. Whoever he is, Mistress Kahket and General Calisto Blackmore will want to interrogate him personally."
I shall post Chapter 30 next week.