Struggling for breath, he gazed into her eyes. Black through and through, those eyes stared back, shinning like wet obsidian. “You have survived my testing, Prince of Aradan,” she said. “You have taken your gift.”
Varis nodded mutely, vaguely knowing she did not mean the gift of her body.
“In you is now contained a measure of the powers of chaos and creation, of all life and death.”
Her eyes grew larger then, dragging him into their bottomless depths.
He did not try to resist.
“The world will be ours,” she whispered, “but first the battle must be joined, for all that the Three gave up and hid away is soon to be released fully into the world. Go, my prince, and remake all that the Three abandoned in their foolishness.”
Varis nodded again, captivated, yet suddenly uneasy about what she was saying. She had not previously mentioned anything about measures of the powers of creation, nothing about chaos, nor anything about him sharing the world with her….
His thoughts drifted. Looking into her gaze was like falling into a lightless sea, and he was beginning to lose himself, his questions.
Peropis’s voice came again, now as a dwindling sigh. “So, too, shall my kindred find their long-awaited freedom.”
She drew his head down as if for another kiss, but instead of meeting her lips, he felt as if he were dissolving, being rendered from flesh to liquid, and that distilled essence spilled into her eyes. A rushing sound filled his being, growing steadily louder until it became a roar. The dark pressure returned, propelling him not down or inward, but up and up. When he could not bear it anymore, the crushing weight vanished in an explosion of light-
Varis found himself standing within the confines of the lost temple, feeling at once confused and panicky. The smoking shards of the basin, the Well of Creation, once covered by collected powers of dead gods, were scattered around his feet. Where the basin had been now roiled with some boiling, black fluid. Of the nacreous veil, there was no sign. Overhead, a perfect circle had been cut through the dome, the edges clean and smooth as glass. The rest of the dome, and the walls of the temple, were crumbling.
He flinched at a stealthy touch and found monstrous, inky shapes swimming around his legs, caressing him with vaporous fingers. Her kindred, he thought, the mahk’lar … demons freed. As he watched, many of the spirits flashed through the crumbling temple walls, unhindered by stone. Others flew up and out through the hole in the ceiling, vanishing from sight.
Blinking, he realized that all he saw was in shades of gray. More importantly, though, a sense of long-sought power swelled inside him. Moment by moment, that sensation increased. It was her gift, the powers of creation forsaken by the Three. His head and eyes began to ache for want of release of that power.
A sudden, violent rolling of the earth knocked him off his feet. He lay on his side, gasping. With his ear pressed to the stony floor, he heard a low, steady grinding noise rise from the bowels of the earth. Or is it from the Thousand Hells?
A stone fell from the ceiling, striking him on the head. With a pained curse, he struggled to his feet. Gingerly, he touched the ragged wound on his scalp, then held his bloodied fingers up for inspection. The blood-hisblood-was black to his eyes, but that did not concern him as it might have. What did bother him was the thin, pale skin stretched taut over the bones of his fingers and hand. It was as if he had been sick near unto death, and all his color and flesh had been eaten away. As the trembling of the world increased, he glanced at his nakedness, shocked to see how wasted his legs were. But not just his legs. All over, his bones pressed out from under tight, pallid skin.
“What affliction is this?” he rasped. No discernable answer came, but he knew he had to escape the crumbling temple before it fell in atop him.
When Varis strode out of the temple, he instantly cowered back from the sunlight lancing through his eyes into his brain. Through slitted lids, he saw yelling men scrambling like disturbed ants over the quaking ground. All around, trees swayed and whipped, as if shaken by a giant’s hand. Varis barely noticed. As within the temple, the whole of the outside world filled his vision with shades of gray, save the once golden light of day. That radiance shone like white fire.
Someone pointed at him, shouting to be heard over the grumbling of the earth. Varis sensed danger, not from the pointing Asra a’Shah, but from somewhere else. He found a trio of men who had not seen him emerge from the temple. Two were hunched over a third sprawled on the ground. On the instant, he knew the source of danger: Kian Valara. Why the Izutarian mercenary posed a threat did not matter. All that did matter was that Varis knew he needed to destroy the man, with haste.
Varis’s hands flexed, power and an unbidden hate rising in him, bubbling out, like lightning bursting forth from jet black clouds. He could not contain it, nor did he desire to. In that moment all was clear. He began to wield his newfound power, ineptly, but deadly all the same.
Chapter 5
Kian’s spine arched until only the back of his head and his heels were digging into the damp soil. A thousand icy needles stabbed into his skull, and tiny crabs seemed to be feasting on his skin. He wanted to scrape them away, but could not control his arms.
“Do something!” Hazad roared.
Azuri slid into view, gray eyes searching Kian’s face. “Breathe,” he said evenly, “you are suffocating.”
If it had not been true, and had he not felt as if he were dying, Kian might have laughed at the request. Instead, he took the advice. Cool wind rushed into his lungs and, as if an elixir had been poured down his throat, all his paralyzing agonies vanished. He went limp and lay gasping. Before he could ponder what had happened, the world heaved upward and shuddered. Trees swayed and creaked; limbs snapped and fell to the forest floor. Shouting Asra a’Shah had gathered in the clearing about the temple, many of whom were trying to calm the lunging horses.
“Hazad,” Azuri said, his tone as calm as if asking for a glass of wine, “get that fool of a prince out of the temple.”
Hazad gave a last concerned glance at Kian, then leapt up. He moved no farther. “Gods good and wise,” he breathed. “I think he has come out on his own.”
Azuri looked toward the temple, eyes widening.
Feeling better by the moment, Kian lifted his head. A man stood in the doorway of the temple, his skin whiter than that which lay under the garments of the three northern-born mercenaries. The man was naked and hairless, emaciated to the point of death. A gash showed on his bald scalp, and from it flowed some black substance.
Blood … what manner of man has black blood? Kian thought uneasily.
No matter how impossible it seemed, the man standing before the temple bore a strong resemblance to Prince Varis Kilvar. Part of Kian denied this, but another part knew he was looking at his charge. Stranger still, swirling patches of oily darkness poured out of the temple. A few of those figures stayed near the prince, others streaked deep into the swamp and out of sight. Where they passed near Asra a’Shah, men screamed in revulsion.
“Help me up,” Kian commanded Azuri.
Varis stared at the trio, his teeth bared in an expression of hate, fingers curled as if he were about to throttle an enemy’s neck. His flesh rippled, seemed to swell.
“What is wrong with his eyes?” Kian muttered in shock, trying to understand how the youth could see anything with eyes gone completely white. The part of him that commanded he uphold the duty he had been paid to perform said he should go to Varis, offer some aid, but the appearance of the youth rapidly birthed a deep loathing in him that he could not quash.