"This is ridiculous. Why have I been kept waiting? You should have greeted me the moment I arrived." His upper body was covered by goose bumps, and he masked his disquiet with offended dignity. "And why are we meeting down here? You should receive your guests properly." He turned to look for a seat, but no chairs were set for him, and he found the notion of reclining on the floor like his nieces distasteful. He elected to stand over them.
"May we ask why you are here today, Uncle?" Loria questioned, tilting her head only enough to keep him in the corner of her eye.
"You know very well why. I've come to talk some sense into you. I can't imagine why no one else in the family hasn't done so!" Brucius's arms waved and punched to lend emphasis to his diatribe. "Have this woman dismiss herself immediately!"
"You have always lacked imagination, Uncle," Loria, replied. "Surely you recognize old Tomaya. She has been a nurse to two generations of our family. She's practically family herself." Through all this Tomaya swayed and stared at nothing.
Brucius was livid that his orders should be refused and that he was considered related to a servant. He roughly grasped the old woman's shoulder and hurled her to the side. She fell like a tree and made no attempt to catch herself.
"I have helped keep this family great when other families and nations have fallen to advancing glaciers. You are an investment in the future, Loria, and I won't have you destroying your value in the company of this spinster! You will leave this house." He turned to Tayva. This girl was dark and cold in a land where those qualities were abundant, and she had enjoyed few suitors. "You will turn control of this house to me!" he began to storm, but the words crashed against something in his throat.
Tayva was a placid pool except for one hand that trembled with tension. Brucius felt that tension on his throat and was frozen. He could not even struggle to continue. Tayva held him with something much stronger than just her hand. He stared out of a body that was completely severed from him. He could hear Loria rising behind him, and she whispered in his ear.
"You seem, very quiet, Uncle. Did you run out of orders to give?" Loria dragged one fingertip down his neck, and it burned. But even a whimper was beyond him. "You cannot command us. No one can command us. We are greater than you. We are greater than anyone!"
Loria moved into the corner of his vision, and her face shook with intensity. "Show him, Tayva, why no one gives us orders."
Tayva raised both hands. Brucius turned a half step and saw old Tomaya standing up, still looking at nothing, with a knife in her hands. His throat was not blocked anymore, and he cried out.
"Stop! Don't hurt me! I'll do anything!" He was gasping for breath, and he tried to run without result.
Tomaya raised the knife and stepped within a single pace of him. Her eyes finally seemed to focus, and she looked into his. Tomaya spoke, but her voice was young. Brucius recognized it as Tayva's.
"Loria was right. You have no imagination at all." Tomaya raised the knife to her own wrinkled neck and cut a wide, red smile. Brucius screamed anew as Tomaya stood, looking in his eyes, blood pouring down her body.
Suddenly Brucius felt relief as Tayva's grip on him loosened and he was given back control of his frame. Tomaya collapsed, and he ran from the room. The crash of furniture overturned by his flight faded only when he reached the outside door.
Both cousins had fallen at the same time as the corpse of Tomaya. Loria was the first to stand, despite the pain that knotted her muscles.
"By the gods, why did you do that, Tayva?" she demanded as she reached desperately for wine to dull her pain. "We weren't nearly done with Uncle. And why did you let Tomaya expire so soon?"
"I didn't allow anything to happen!" Tayva exclaimed as she too rose and reached for wine. She was even more unsteady than her cousin, and she cursed the decision that left this room without any chairs. "I don't know what happened!"
More screams sounded throughout the house. Tayva reached down to Tomaya's cooling body and wrenched the knife from her dead hand. Loria squared her shoulders and gestured to the open door.
"We need to find out what is happening. Ebnezzer should still be in the west wing." The pair climbed a wooden stairway up into the rest of the house.
Ebnezzer had appeared as a refugee from some mysterious struggle in the south. He had been destitute and in dire need of a patron. Tayva had been delighted to provide him with the use of her own home. He became her tutor in the arts of sacrifice and control. Within a year the bored elite of the city had congealed around Tayva and Ebnezzer. Things were done in the night that soon had the city whispering, rites that turned most away except for a core of true devotees.
Tayva had inducted Loria into this dark world. The cousins gained power that freed them from any need to conform or obey the rules of society or their families.
Soon they dominated the group, and most of their compatriots in darkness had been sacrificed to feed their hunger for power. Loria ignored her branch of the family and moved in with her older cousin.
If a servant vanished, well, times were hard and uncertain. Surely things whispered in terror of night could not happen when considered in daylight. Tayva and Loria reveled in their abilities. Now they wanted answers about what curbed their power.
It was madness they saw as they moved to the west wing. Bodies of servants, formerly under control, sprawled over the floors, some in repose of death while others writhed in mindless agony. A young maid, a recent victim grasped within the past month, ran in circles in the center of the sitting room. At the sight of the cousins her orbit contracted, and she moved to the back of the room as if driven by the wind. Her impact with a cabinet smashed wood, and she fell, a broken bag of bones.
Loria was attacked by a page as they traversed the main hall. The young boy had run at her with his arms flapping, an ungainly bird returning to the falconer. His hands were boneless flippers swatting at Loria while she covered her face with her arms. The boy whistled with relief as Tayva plunged her knife several times into his side.
Ebnezzer was mumbling and rocking when they forced his inner sanctum. Books and apparatus were piled high on tables throughout the room, and a dissecting tray held a large rat still leaking blood. Ebnezzer had obviously been interrupted in the practice of his craft. The aura of darkness and energy that had pervaded this room was replaced by the sour stench of suffering and death. Both cousins felt disgust that one whose power had so impressed them should be brought so low.
"What happened, Ebnezzer?" Loria demanded as she grasped the head of the kneeling man. Her hands felt a spark of something, and she shook him harder. "Why did we lose power? Why are the servants free!"
"Don't know, don't know. Felt some great power, swept me away. Swept it all away!" Ebnezzer tore his head free and began to sob and wail.
Tayva circled the room, examining what her mentor had brought into the house. Anything that was valuable and easy to sell she fingered with a speculative air. "Ask him if the power will return," she urged her cousin. "Ask him what he can do."
Loria stooped beside him and spoke with more urgency as she realized that her victims were free and that Uncle Brucius had escaped with his mind nearly intact.
"Do you have anything left? Any spirit to call on? Will our powers ever reappear?" Each question caused Ebnezzer to shiver, and Loria felt hope slide away.
"What I knew is gone. I don't know when or if anything will return. I tasted a spirit before it was torn away. I've got it in my mouth, and it sings to me. It's singing now," he muttered and stared blankly at the floor.
Tayva looked to Loria, crouching with her hands on a madman, and clapped softly to gain her attention.