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As swiftly as she dared, she raked through the gowns, selecting three that most caught her eye, and draped them over the lounge. Rising up through the first, she became momentarily solid all over...and gasped at the cold emptiness that coiled within her. "Mustn't do this ... for long," she gasped aloud, her breath hissing out to cloud the mirror. "Dare not use ... too much, but these must fit...."
The blue ruffles of the first gown were flattened and wrinkled from their visit to the wardrobe, the black one, with its daring slits all over, looked better but would tear and fall apart most easily. The last gown was red, and far more modest, but she liked the quality it shouted, with the gem-highlighted crawling dragons on its hips.
Her strength was failing fast. Gods, she needed to drain lives soon, or ... With almost feverish speed she shifted her shape to fill out the three gowns most attractively, fixed their varying requirements in her mind, and thankfully collapsed into a whirlwind again, dumping the red gown to the ground in a puddle.
As mist she drifted over it, solidifying just her fingertips to carry it back to the wardrobe and hang it carefully away.
As she returned for the other two garments, an observer would have noticed that her twinkling lights had grown dim, and her mist was tattered and smaller than it had been.
By the time the wardrobe door closed behind the last gown, Saeraede had noticed that she was a little dimmer now. She sighed but couldn't resist coalescing back to womanly form for one last, critical look at herself in the mirror.
"You'll have to do, I suppose ... and another thing, Saeraede," she chided herself. "Stop talking to yourself. You're lonely, yes, but not completely melt-witted."
"Try over there," a hoarse male voice said then, in what was probably intended to be a whisper. It was coming from the forest beyond the ruin, through one of the gaps in the walls. "I'm sure I saw a woman yonder, in a red gown...."
The ghostly woman froze, head held high, then smiled wolfishly and collapsed into winking lights and mist once more.
"How thoughtful," she murmured to the mirror, her voice faint and yet echoing. "Just when I need them most."
Her laughter arose, as a merry tinkling. "I never thought I'd be around to see it, but adventurers are becoming almost... predictable."
She plunged out through a hole in the wall like a hungry eel. Seconds later, a hoarse scream rang out. It was still echoing back off the crumbling walls when there was another.
Fifteen: A Dark Flame Rising
And a dark flame shall rise, and scatter all before it, igniting red war, wild magic, and slaughter. Just another quiet interlude before the fresh perils of next month …
Caldrahan Mhelymbryn, Sage of Matters Holy
from A Tashlutan Traveler's Day-Thoughts
published in The Year of Moonfall
Dread Brother Darlakhan.
It had a ring to it. It would go well with the branding and the whip scars that crisscrossed his forearms. He'd worked hard with a paste of blood and urine and black temple face paint to turn those scars into dark, permanent, raised ridges. His eagerness to take branding in the temple rituals had not gone u
The wind off the Shaar was hot and dry this night, and he'd been looking forward to a quiet evening of prostrate prayer on the cold stone of the cellar floor...but the adeptress he'd paid to flog him first had come to him with a harshly whispered mission instead: by Dread Sister Klalaera's command, he was to immediately bear this platter of food and wine to the i
"I'm excited for you, Dread Brother," she'd whispered in his ear, before she'd given him the customary slap across the face. Kneeling, he'd clawed at her ankles with even more than the usual enthusiasm, his heart pounding with his own excitement.
He'd thought the cruel Overmistress of the Acolytes had been eyeing him rather closely for the last tenday or so, was this his chance at last?
When he was alone, he hastened to fix the mantle of shards around him, tucking it up firmly between his thighs so as to make it draw blood before his first step, instead of walking with infinite care to avoid its wounds, as most did. Then he took up the platter, held it high, and made a silent prayer to the all-seeing goddess.
Oh, holy Shar, forgive my presumption, but I would serve you as the dark night wind, the barbed black blade, your scourge and trusted hand, not merely as a temple puppet at Klalaera's whims.
"Shar," he breathed aloud, in case anyone was spying from behind panels and thought he'd been quailing or daydreaming instead of praying. He raised and lowered the platter in salute and set off briskly through the dimly torchlit halls of the temple. The smooth, black marble was cold under his bare feet, and his limbs tingled where threads of blood trickled down.
He walked straight and tall, never looking back at the naked novices crawling along in his wake, licking up his blood where it fell, and gave no sign he'd heard grunts and sobs and muffled screams behind the doors he passed, as the ambitious clergy of the House made their own pain sacrifices to Holy Shar.
He heard the rumble of the lone drum long before he reached the I
Dread Brother Darlakhan. Oh, yes. A measure of power at last. He was on his way to greatness.
Darlakhan rounded the last pillar and strode to the archway where the two priestesses crossed their razor-sharp black blades before him, then drew them back across his chest with the most delicate of strokes as he held the platter high out of the way. They turned toward him this night, and Darlakhan stopped, trembling, to receive their ultimate accolade: they let him watch as they shook his blood from the points of their swords into cupped palms, and brought it to their mouths.
He whispered, "As Shar wills," to them, making of his tone a thanks, then strode on down the last passage to the I
He was surprised to find the Portal itself unguarded. A black curtain adorned with the Dark Disk hung in the customarily empty Portal Arch. Darlakhan slowed for a moment, wondering what to do, then decided he must follow the procedure all acolytes were trained in, as if nothing was occurring out of the ordinary.
He paused at the Portal, swept his elbows out to make the shards slash at him one last time...and to keep them out of the way as he knelt...and went to his knees, extending the platter at the full stretch of his arms and touching his forehead to the cold marble of the threshold.
Swift hands snatched the platter away, and others beheaded him with a single keen stroke.
A long, sleek arm snatched up the blood-gargling head by its hair. An oiled body stretched and thrust Darlakhan's head into a brazier, ignoring the flames that raced back down oiled flesh. "The last," that someone murmured, pain making the voice tight.
"Then know peace, Dread Sister," someone else said, touching her with the black Quenching Rod that drank all fire. The drum rolled one last time and fell silent, a long-nailed hand made a gesture, and black flames roared up out of a dozen braziers with a collective crackle and snarl.
Each brazier in the circle held a blackening, severed head. Each tongue of dark flame rose up in a twisting, flowing column to feed a dark sphere overhead.
The Sacred Chamber of Shar, the most holy room in the House of Holy Night, was crowded indeed. All of the cruel and powerful upper priestesses of Shar were gathered here in their black and purple, beneath the sphere of roiling shadows. All of them streamed blood from open wounds, all of their eyes were bright with excitement, and all of their attention was now fixed on the sphere that loomed so large above their heads, as tall as six mea