OrbSoul (Book 6) (19 page)

   Troubled in his heart, and in a kind of reverie, Anzejarl had returned to the bed, where he removed his clothes. Naked, he lay down upon the soft covers, his gaze taking in the shadows that crawled upon the ceiling.

   Leth's absence left him somewhat deflated. It was unexpected. Where might he be? Assembling some mighty force somewhere, preparing to strike back in the hope of re-taking his kingdom? To Anzejarl's mind it was not probable. His spies informed him that the kingdoms of the Northern Modane had responded negatively to Leth's appeals for aid, and he knew of no other such force. And with the city-castle and Orbia now securely in his hands, he could imagine no force capable of taking it back. Unless . . . might Leth himself, or his Queen, be seeking aid from within Enchantment?

   Again, it seemed most unlikely. The Highest Ones had no interest in anything but their own affairs. Olmana, whatever her true origins, was hardly an exception, for she had come here solely in pursuit of her own particular ends. She had used Anzejarl and his
Karai army purely as tools to achieve these. Anzejarl could not imagine the Highest Ones paying heed to a kinglet like Leth.

   Further questioning of the Lord Protector, Pader Luminis, had revealed little more. Anzejarl was inclined to believe him when he declared his ignorance of Leth's and Issul's whereabouts. Pader openly stated that they both intended to return and vanquish the
Karai invaders, but Anzejarl perceived his words as little more than bombast and bluff, to be expected in a broken man. Torture might elicit more. Anzejarl considered its application on the morrow; tonight he had grown weary of violence and force, and had more pressing matters on his mind. He had instructed the Lord Protector as to the modes of conduct he expected in the aftermath of the battle, and made it plain that any form of resistance or uprising would invoke the severest reprisals. Then he had left him to stew in his cell.

   So had Leth simply fled? From what Anzejarl knew of his character, this also seemed improbable. But the King's non-presence created potential complications with the True Sept, who, in return for their services, had been promised his life from the very inception of this campaign. It had occurred to Anzejarl that Leth might yet be secreted somewhere within the Palace or city-castle. He had given orders for a thorough search, but so far had turned up nothing.

   In the royal bedroom Prince Anzejarl brooded on. Now his thoughts assumed a more darksome cast as he began to contemplate his own future. He accepted that the task for which Olmana had commissioned him was as good as complete. He had done all she had demanded of him. Her ambivalence in regard to the mysterious Child that she sought was not his affair. He would help her seek on if she so required, but it was surely hardly more than a matter of hours now.

   What then?

   She no longer needed him. What was to be his fate?

   To be abandoned? She would leave here, taking her booty, taking her trolls and
slooths. . .

   Or would he retain command of them? Would he be master or hapless victim of her Gift?

   The question sent a tremor through him. He reached out, grasped a fistful of
ghinz
leaves and stuffed them into his mouth. His thoughts grew more anguished. Could he bear to be parted from her? Why,
how
, could she not care? He loved her with a passion unlike anything in his experience. Enchantment's Reach meant nothing if he was to lose her. Why could she not love him in return?

   It scarcely mattered that she had used him. Not even that she despised him. But to be spurned . . . to lose her . . .

   Anzejarl threw himself from one side to the other upon the bed.

  
Woman, what have you done to me?

   What have I become?

  The answer slammed into his mind with a force that brought him to sitting bolt upright upon the royal bed, clutching his head, his gem-eyes stretched wide. A swelling wave of nausea slid through him, raising gooseflesh. He gasped, retched, cold clammy sweat breaking out all over his skin and his mind reeling.

   As the initial sickness began to pass Anzejarl lay back again, exhausted. He was weak, his limbs trembling. Gradually, with effort, he located that distant part of himself that remained
Karai. He entered that place, standing back from himself, and his thoughts assumed a measure of detachment. He began to consider his position. How might it be improved?

   He thought of the rose crystal. It was undoubtedly most precious to Olmana. What was she without it? She was still not aware that he knew of its existence. Could he profit from this? Through ownership of the crystal might he deprive her of her power over him? Could he oblige her to bend to his will?

   The thoughts turned over and over. Wild possibilities came to him, and were dismissed as far-fetched and impracticable. But the idea that, through the crystal, he might yet find a way to turn the situation to his advantage was not so quickly discarded.

   Since entering Enchantment's Reach Olmana had kept the crystal upon her person, hence Anzejarl had no further opportunity to gain access to it without her knowledge. She no longer showed any interest in bedding with him, but he knew she still came to him in the night. Usually she held him in some mysterious paralysis whilst, with the aid of the crystal, she performed her ministrations upon him. Might he, with supreme effort, resist that and remain fully conscious?

   The idea had great appeal. Olmana needed the crystal, Anzejarl knew that. It was not only that she employed it to bestow upon him command of the trolls and slooths, but he had become convinced that under the crystal's weird influence she took something from him. She had told him that she had placed something inside him. In some wise she fed off him. There was something he possessed that she needed. Could he be in some way vital to her existence here?

   The idea galvanized him. But then he began to doubt.
These are the thoughts of a madman!

   Still, he could not let them go. They spun and twisted, taking him through a gamut of doubts and enthusiasms. He chewed more
ghinz
, dismally aware that he was helpless in the grip of these teeming, autonomous thought processes. They stole his detachment, blurred that last part of him that remained Karai. He was addicted to them.

   And in their grip, he waited.

*

   Olmana came in the night's deepest hour. She was careful to make barely a sound as she entered, assuming Anzejarl to be sleeping, and having no desire to wake him. She stole to the bed where he
lay, reaching with one hand into the leather pouch she wore at her belt. She withdrew a smaller pouch, made of green velvet, and from this brought forth the rose crystal. Then she lowered herself onto the bed beside Prince Anzejarl, holding the crystal over him, and began to chant.

   Her voice was soft at first, crooning words in an unknown tongue. As the crystal began to emit its rosy glow her voice grew stronger. She leaned closer, her human semblance altering. The crystal burned with a fierce light. She moved to straddle Prince Anzejarl, putting the crystal to his forehead.

   At that moment Anzejarl reached up and seized her wrist, holding it immobile while with the other hand he wrested the crystal from her grasp. Then he rolled swiftly to one side, pushing her off him. He slid from the bed, snatching up his sword which rested close by.

   'Anzejarl, what do you do?'

   Anzejarl stood back from the bed, revolted by the sight of her, for she was far from human - all tight, grey, horny knobbled skin, scrawny little limbs and a physiognomy that he could barely look upon. From within her mouth a long grey tongue protruded, then withdrew. Her slit eyes flared murderous red.

   Sword in one hand, Anzejarl held the crystal high with the other. 'What have you done to me?'

   'What? I have helped you, Anzejarl. You know it. I have given you power. Only power.'

   'No! Stay
still, or I will cast the crystal down and smash it upon the floor.'

   Olmana shook her vile head. 'That would lose you everything.'

   'I want you to tell me what you have done to me. I want to know how it can be reversed.'

   'Reversed?' Olmana gave a harsh snort of laughter. 'Reversed? Anzejarl, you are a bigger fool than I had believed. After all I have given you, why would you want to return to what you were?'

   Anzejarl shook with anger. 'You have not given me. I am transformed, it is true. But it is because you have taken. You have taken from me what I was. I am no longer Karai!'

   'You are a fool!' she spat.

   Anzejarl's temper flared - something that, in the past, could never have happened. Sternness, yes; but a loss of self? Never! It was yet another indication of how far he had been led. 'You--' he began, barely able to get the words from his mouth. 'You--'

   'I have given you the ability to conquer the world, you fool! Your army sweeps across nations. Humans fall like flies before you.'

   He shook his head vehemently, his fabulous eyes ablaze.

   'It is yours. All this is yours!'

   'At what a price!' he roared. 'Do you not see? All you say may be true, but look at what I have become. Everything I now know and feel is alien to me.' He gesticulated wildly. 'You have made me weak, made me into that which I most despise! One of them!
I have become my own enemy!
'

   The admission brought a great sob from deep within him, violently racking his lungs and shoulders. And at that moment Olmana sprang, reaching for the crystal.

   Anzejarl was not totally distracted. He sidestepped and struck out with his sword, slicing into her arm and opening a dreadful wound. Olmana drew back, glanced down at the wound, then smiled. 'You fool. You poor, poor fool.'

   She laughed and came at him again. Again he struck out. She made no move to resist him. The blow half severed her head from her shoulders. Still she laughed. Anzejarl swung once more. Her head parted company with her shoulders and fell to the floor with a dull thud, the body folding to the ground beside it.

   Anzejarl stared, breathing hard, scarcely believing. The room seemed to rotate around him. He was dizzy and faint. A dim taint reached his nostrils.

   He sank to one knee, eyes still glued to the disjoined corpse.

  
No blood!

   Even as the thought raised the question in his mind he saw Olmana's body move. A thin arm reached out, the clawed fingers flexed. The body twisted and sat up. Anzejarl recoiled. 

    Olmana's severed head, lying upon the floor, grinned demoniacally and cackled out loud. 'Fool! Poor, poor, pathetic fool! Will you never learn?'

   As Anzejarl scrambled to his feet the headless body leapt. With astonishing strength, for her metamorphosed grey limbs and torso were small and wiry, she grasped him by wrist and flank, twisted him around and hurled him across the chamber. At the same time she yanked both sword and crystal from his hands.

   Anzejarl rammed into the wall, scattering candlesticks, the back of his skull slamming against the stone and the air rushing from his body. He sagged and slid limply to the floor, near senseless but for a shrieking haze of pain.

    He was dimly aware, though he could not
move, that Olmana had bent and grasped her severed head. Two clawed hands lifted it and placed it back upon the scrawny grey shoulders.

   Through the haze he saw her stalk across and
lower herself over him. She grasped his head roughly between her hands. 'Just a little longer, Anzejarl. I need you just a little longer.'

   She plied open his jaw. Her grey tongue snaked out and inserted itself between his lips. Anzejarl choked and gagged but was powerless to resist as the thing burrowed swiftly down his throat, deep into his chest and beyond. He found himself staring up into her dreadful eyes. His body bucked, but she held him firm.

   When she was done she withdrew and stood over him. For a moment she looked down upon his naked form with bestial contempt. Anzejarl made no move. His eyes were open, but glazed and appeared to be gazing elsewhere. Olmana licked her lips and wiped away spittle with the back of her bony wrist.

   Something happened then to Anzejarl, something that had never and could never have happened before. It was alien to him, utterly strange and innately human. He had witnessed it on countless occasions among humans, when they stood or knelt or were pinioned before him, pleading for mercy, for life, or, in the end, for death. He had witnessed it, too, in animals.
But in a Karai? Never!

   Slowly, in the corner of each of his eyes a glistening tear gathered. It brimmed,
then tumbled down the sides of his face, and he lay there, in pain, in shame, in strange and helpless wonder.

   Reassuming human form, Olmana turned and strode from the chamber.

*

   Presently Anzejarl heaved himself to a sitting position, slumped against the wall. With one hand he cautiously kneaded his throat. A weight of despair lay upon his soul, like nothing he had known. He could not bring himself to move. For perhaps an hour he remained where he was. The fire had died to little more than embers, but though he was still naked Anzejarl was insensitive to the night's cold.