Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9) (10 page)

“Such a small thing,” she said softly as she turned the bloody metal band in her hand to look at the Desh-Ka sigil. Beneath it hung the dead priest’s pendants, gemstones arrayed in an ages old tradition to mark his accomplishments since the day he donned the collar of living metal. “And yet so precious.”

With a snarl, she drew back her foot and kicked the priest’s severed head, sending it over the edge of the plateau before she hurled the collar after it. She watched the head as it fell to the valley below, letting her anger cool before she turned back to the warrior and said, “Carry on with your duties.”

The warrior gave a slow bow of the head before heading off to where an airship was held steady by more silver clad warriors gripping mooring lines. Warriors, both her own and those not of Ka’i-Nur but whose honor was bound to her, threw the bodies into the long gondola of the enormous ship. When the shipmaster judged that he was carrying the limit the craft could accommodate, he waved at the body bearers to hold off. The engines roared as the shipmaster increased power, and as the ship rose the Ka’i-Nur warriors released the mooring lines. The ship moved slowly away from the plateau, the engines straining at full power now, heading to the northwest.
 

Another ship pulled in close behind, and once the warriors on the ground secured the mooring lines, the loading of bodies commenced. Down in the valley below, more airships were at work, gathering the dead.

“Never have I seen a leader with such a penchant for tidying up after a battle,” Ulan-Samir said. “I have heard that it is the same everywhere, that these airships have appeared over every battlefield and are bearing away the fallen.”

Syr-Nagath looked at him, but offered nothing more than a cryptic smile.

“I must confess, Syr-Nagath,” Ulan-Samir went on as he surveyed the extent of the carnage on the plateau, “that I am impressed. No one, myself least of all, would have thought any but the other priesthoods could have laid the Desh-Ka so low.”

“The Ka’i-Nur
is
one of the priesthoods, and always has been. The other orders, the Desh-Ka foremost among them, robbed us of our rightful place in the Books of Time in this, the Third Age.” She looked him in the eye, making sure that he truly understood that it was her victory, and hers alone. He and his fellow Nyur-A’il had departed the battle when the Ka’i-Nur warriors had arrived. “Do not forget that all six of the other orders suffered the loss of much blood to bring us to heel. We shall never again suffer such an insult.”

“The most junior priest could kill you with little more than a thought,” Ulan-Samir warned.
 

She threw her head back and howled with laughter. “One could, oh yes, one could. But he would sacrifice his precious honor by doing so.” She stepped toward him. “I would be meat for your blade in open battle or if I gave sufficient insult for you to call for a challenge.” She came closer, so close that her lips nearly brushed his as she said, “What is the price for one of the priesthood who has dishonored himself?” Her tongue snaked out to run across his lower lip. “You would lose the braid of the covenant, wouldn’t you, most high of the Nyur-Ai’l?”

In a languid motion, she put her hands behind his neck and pulled him to her, her lips on his, her tongue seeking his. His resistance was fleeting, and she shied away from the urge to laugh as his arms wrapped around her, drawing her into an embrace that would have been crushing save for the armor plate that separated their bodies.

“I see you have not forgotten the pleasures of the flesh, my priest,” she whispered as their lips finally parted.
 

“I am not so old as you might believe…my priestess,” he said, his eyes locked on hers.

For that, she kissed him again, long and deep. While she found him physically repulsive, the thought of what she had in mind for him made her passion rise, and rise quickly. But now was not the time, she knew. Not yet.

Gently pushing him away, she said, “Would you like to see what I am doing with the dead?”

Ulan-Samir’s expression betrayed his confusion. “Why would I care to?”

“Because it is far more impressive than what you have seen here.”

“Indeed.” He cocked his head to one side, clearly intrigued. “Then show me.”

Stepping back slightly, she took his forearms. “Take us to the Plain of Ul-Kan’nai.”

“Nothing is there,” he said, puzzled. “The land is flat as a cook stone from horizon to horizon, barren of everything but steppe grass and countless shallow pools of water.” His eyes flicked to one of the departing airships, heading northwest. “That is where your airships are bound?”

“Yes. Take me there, and you shall see.”

“Very well, high priestess of the Ka’i-Nur.”

***

“I do not believe it,” Ulan-Samir whispered. He and Syr-Nagath stood at the edge of the Plain of Ul-Kan’nai where it met the foothills to the mountain range that, thousands of leagues to the southeast, led to the plateau upon which the remains of Desh-Ka temple stood. A regal pavilion of crimson stood nearby, guarded by a cohort of Ka’i-Nur warriors.

“Your eyes do not deceive you.” Syr-Nagath’s sense of pride swelled in her breast at the sight before them. “Thus shall I reach for the stars and take them for my own.”

Arrayed across the plain in orderly rows were hundreds of starships, each far larger than the greatest of the airships. The ships farthest away were little more than transparent shells upon sturdy support platforms, while those closest appeared to be complete. Each of the ships was surrounded by builders, their hands outstretched, and from the pools that dotted the plains arose clouds of the black matrix that the Ka’i-Nur had recreated from ancient times. The clouds flowed into the ships, forming all the complex shapes and components of the designs provided by the keepers of the Books of Time. The black particles were to the builders what living metal was to the armorers, or water to the porters of water: the builders could bend it to their will with great ease, shaping it to whatever purpose their mistress desired. It was far easier to work than the traditional transformation of one substance, such as stone, into another, such as metal or wood. It was self-replicating, requiring only an equivalent mass of other material from which to create more matrix.

“Your ships are made of the dead.” Ulan-Samir frowned as an endless stream of magthep drawn wagons carried bodies from the airship landing field to the myriad pools serving the builders. Warriors, not of Ka’i-Nur, heaved the bodies into the matrix pools, where they disappeared into the matte black surface without so much as a ripple. The bodies of warriors, robed ones, younglings, and even dead magtheps were all tossed in, along with charred stone and wood, rubble from fallen cities.

“They may still serve me in death,” she told him, “rather than burning to smoke and ash upon a funeral pyre.”

“I was still a youngling when the last war between the Settlements was fought,” Ulan-Samir said thoughtfully. “From what I recall, none of the ships were nearly as powerful as these.”

Syr-Nagath nodded. “These vessels are drawn from the Ka’i-Nur Books of Time.” With a look upward, into the sky, she added, “They were used to destroy the Settlement on the Great Moon.”

“You must have drawn builders from every part of the world. I have never seen so many.”

“All of them are here, save those who remain at work building airships and other implements I require. They build until they can build no more, and only then are they given rest. I have drawn most of the healers and other robed castes here to support them.”

“But what of the cities and villages? They must be suffering terribly.”

“Their suffering will not last overlong,” she said quietly. “That, I promise you.” Pointing at the nearest ship, which was a scene of orchestrated chaos as warriors loaded supplies, carrying them up several massive ramps through yawning hatches, she said, “Would you like to see one?”

“Of course,” he breathed.
 

At a gesture of her hand, one of her warriors dashed forward, leading a pair of magtheps. Quickly mounting them, Syr-Nagath and Ulan-Samir rode to the ship.

“It is larger than it appeared,” Ulan-Samir said as he dismounted, following Syr-Nagath’s lead. He craned his neck, looking up at the sleek hull. It was dark green in hue and highly reflective, and Syr-Nagath’s name, written in stylized Ka’i-Nur script, was emblazoned across the raked prow. The hull’s rakish lines were broken only by streamlined weapons turrets and recessed gun ports.

She led him on a tour of the vessel, laughing as he gaped like a child at its intricate complexities. Through the main sections they went, from the propulsion section to the galley, and finally to the bridge.
 

“Sit here,” she told him, indicating the large chair, almost a throne, that occupied the center of the bridge, from which the shipmaster or shipmistress commanded the vessel. Around that central chair was arrayed two circular tiers of consoles that were already occupied by warriors preparing the vessel for action.
 

He did as she bade him, and she smiled at the look on his face. Even as powerful as he was as the high priest of one of the ancient orders, he was not immune to the sense of power that sitting in the chair evoked. It was as she had hoped.
 

Ulan-Samir touched a control on the console and was rewarded with the main display springing to life, showing a view of Syr-Nagath’s pavilion, which lay ahead of the ship. Pressing the button again, the display went off. He touched several other controls that served different functions, a look of puzzlement growing on his face.

“I have never seen such a thing before,” he told her, “and yet I seem to understand how it works.”

“It is in our blood,” she told him. “The warriors require training, yes, but they take to their tasks quickly, as if they have done this all before and need only a reminder.” Standing behind him, she put a hand on his shoulder and leaned close. “Do you like it?”

“How could I not?”

“Then take me to my pavilion, and I will show you something you shall like far more.”

After he did as she told him, she led him to her private chambers. By the light of flickering torches, she slowly removed her sandals, her armor, then her black undergarment, to stand before him wearing nothing but her collar. “Do you like what you see, most high of the Nyur-Ai’l?" she whispered.

“Yes,” Ulan-Samir rasped, his eyes drinking in her beauty.

She came to him and removed his armor with torturous slowness, undid his sandals, then peeled away his undergarment. She ran her fingers over his hardness, making him moan and quiver until he seized her arms and shoved her to the floor where he took her with savage passion.

Syr-Nagath let him take her, then took him in her turn, pleasing him one moment, giving him pain the next. Both were soon streaked with blood from the wounds left by their talons and fangs as they rolled and thrust against one another. Time and again she took him to climax, her own satisfaction fueled by what would soon come.
 

Finally, Ulan-Samir lay exhausted on the thick bed of soft skins, damp now from their exertions. He was on his stomach, with her straddling his back, massaging the muscles of his shoulders with the knuckles of her fingers. He sighed with contentment, and her lips curled away from her fangs in a chilling parody of a smile as she dragged one of her talons along his skin, pressing just hard enough to pierce the skin and draw a tiny bead of blood. Unbeknownst to Ulan-Samir, she had coated the tip of that particular talon with the carefully distilled venom of the churr-kamekh, a small but vicious hive creature that inhabited the Great Wastelands.
 

Ulan-Samir had only time to draw in a single sharp breath before his body went completely limp, paralyzed. The Books of Time from which she had obtained the formula for the poison had said that it would temporarily render useless the powers of a priest, but she had not truly believed it until now.

In a well practiced move, she placed a small braid of hair taken from her own head against the base of his Braid of the Covenant that bound him to his bloodline, sealing it with blood from a gash on one of her palms. “This will make you mine,” she whispered, “and none who hear your Bloodsong will ever be the wiser.” Drawing a small knife from between the folds of the hides on which they lay, she slashed the rest of his hair from the hybrid braid.
 

Despite the paralyzing effect of the poison, whose effect was only momentary, the priest thrashed in physical and spiritual agony.
 

She wrapped her free arm around his throat and clamped her legs around his midsection in a grip so tight that she heard some of his lower ribs snap. “Oh, be still, my love!" she hissed in his ear as the braids of hair fused, growing hot in her hand. She could feel the hair growing back, and soon his braid would appear to be whole again. “Be still!”

With one final convulsion, Ulan-Samir went rigid. His body trembled from head to toe, as if taken by a terrible fever, then finally relaxed.

“There, now,” Syr-Nagath told him, keeping her grip in case he was deceiving her. That had happened before, much to the woe of those who had tried. “Who now holds your soul?”

“You…do,” he rasped.

“Very good. You are mine to do with as I please. Would you like to know what that means?”

He fought to keep his mouth shut, to keep from uttering the answer, but it was no use. “Yes.”

Releasing him, she rolled him over on his back and straddled his stomach, ignoring the grinding of the ribs beneath his flesh that made him scream in pain. When the screams stopped, she said, “Look into my eyes, high priest of the Nyur-A’il.”

His eyelids fluttered open, and he stared up at her. She could sense his true soul, trapped in his pirated body like a wild animal.

“Good. Now, my love, let us test your loyalty.” She leaned down, her hands on his shoulders, her face a hand’s breadth from his. “Gouge out your eyes.”

With trembling hands, unable to stop himself, Ulan-Samir did as he was told.