After she had exhausted the written works that dealt with the history of the temple and what the adherents believed, Silveredge spent a great deal of time looking at the carvings of the story of the Raven Queen on the walls near Vhalan's cloister. It seemed that the rest of the brothers and sisters had been told to be accepting of her presence and supportive of her spiritual quest, but to leave her in peace. If someone spoke to her before they were spoken to, it was either Svaentok or Aric, who took pains to make sure that she ate and bathed appropriately. What had started as mere questioning became voracious study, and the two found themselves reminding Silveredge that she had to take care of herself so that she could continue learning at the vicious pace she set for herself.
This day, the Shadar-Kai traced her fingers on the final panel, in which the Raven Queen accepted seven Eladrin females into her presence in Letherna. The panel was without decoration or detail, which made it seem anti-climactic in comparison to the previous scenes. Upon crossing the threshold of the palace, it seemed that the Eladrin turned into different creatures- but Silveredge was not quite sure what creatures the lengthening of the shadows, the more slender forms and the shorter ears were supposed to indicate.
"What do you marvel at, lamb?"
The alluring tenor could belong to no other but Vhalan. While he had made it clear that he believed living creatures to be inferior to him, he always sounded strangely calm- even pleasant- when he addressed them. Silveredge turned to her right and saw the vampire leaning in the opening to his room with his arms crossed. She noted briefly that he had not decided to put on a shirt this day, which was very strange for him. His skin was extremely pale, but crisscrossed with scars worthy of a warrior much older than he himself appeared. He was a lean sort of muscular, a fact that his normal clothing hid well. Silveredge found herself surprised at how athletic he seemed- as he had been described to her as an artist of sorts, she had not pictured him doing anything overly strenuous.
"The writings never mention this part," she replied simply, putting her hands in her lap and looking down at them. "They always stop at either the claiming of fate or the march across the Shadowfell."
Vhalan shrugged lightly, looking down at Silveredge with something that vaguely approximated actual affection. "Different teachings will claim different things about the Queen. Some say that she is a goddess wrongfully stripped of domains that should be hers- either by right because she defeated Nerull, or by merit because she has for centuries carefully maintained a healthy neutral outlook while other gods and goddesses unwisely veer off to the extremes of lock-step lawfulness or filthy chaos, or an unattainable, unrealistic good or a craven evil. Others believe that she is not truly neutral, but instead avaricious and evil- that she will stop at nothing to reclaim Nerull's full glory. Still others even worship Nerull, trying to give the dead god enough power to return and crush his treacherous consort under his heel. Those are usually the ones who despise female magic workers- they say if it were not for her witchery, Nerull would never have fallen in love with her, and would still be alive."
"That's- strange," Silveredge replied, biting her lips. "What woman would want a god to send a plague upon her, and all her people, so that they may live with him in captivity for years and years?"
"They probably explain that madness away as most women-haters do- by saying that females are all born irrational and do things without thinking out the consequences sensibly," Vhalan laughed. "So many ignorant sermons started that way, as I recall... and frankly, there will always be clutches of people who think that they alone are the centre of power, righteousness and wisdom, and who deny all others the right to survive, let alone to flourish. You should have learned that lesson the moment your feet touched these shores, Shadow Child."
"People insist on calling me that," Silveredge sighed. "But I don't think it's quite true. The Shadow Children- at least from what I have read- are rare, given to divination, and only able to be traced through the female. If I were to be a true Shadow Child, then my mother or grandmother would have to be, and if they were, then they would have had to know that my father-"
The distant sound of chains stopped the words in her mouth, and she looked up slightly to see if Vhalan had decided to take up arms against her.
"Who is to say one of them did not know? They may have withheld their hand from you- for good reason. Some fates, little lamb, are much worse than others."
Silveredge got up and looked all around her, but could not find him. Concerned, she peeked her head into his room, which was just barely lit by half the candles that were available. Taking a few steps forward, she carefully searched the well-dressed room around her for signs of his presence. She found instead half-covered paintings, slightly dusty carvings and paints and tools scattered all over the bare stone floor.
"Your virtuous heart, now at liberty, consumes you. Why should you be so concerned for a creature that can do you nothing but harm?" Vhalan's voice grew close behind her, but when she turned, she did not see him. As her eyes flitted from the comfortable-looking divan to the tousled, empty bed on a slightly raised area just beyond it, she caught sight of a few carvings and paintings and began edging toward them as Vhalan continued to speak to her. "How beautiful you are- how simple your desires. Unmarred, like your lovely face. Do you marvel that I can still create works of art? Do you hope that I will be- well enough- to finish detailing that last pane? The scent of your fear for my health and sanity is different than any other aroma I've smelled before. It is unique to you- and absolutely bewitching."
When Silveredge made it past one of the work tables, the empty chair, and the half-completed carving of what seemed to be a woman of some sort, she saw a heavy-looking weapon that she had no name for. It seemed like a ball full of spikes stuck at the end of a thick, dull short sword, and a curious seal was carved into the hilt.
"My lord had told me once that he was a cleric- when he was alive. Is this the print of your god?"
"Saint Cuthbert," Vhalan replied bitterly. "He is not my god."
And like a curious child, the Shadar-Kai reached out her slender periwinkle blue fingers to touch the item. "Then, what does this mean?"
The spiked chain whipped by Silveredge's ear so quickly that she caught her breath in terror- she had not heard it at all. Wrapping around the base of the weapon, the chain lifted it off the side table and flung it against the opposite wall.
"What does it mean?" Vhalan growled, suddenly completely enraged. "It means fear. And denial. And intolerance. And abandonment." With each pronouncement, the spiked chain attempted to take hold of some part of Silveredge- her arm, her neck, her ankle, her waist- as she stumbled away from the table and through the room in an utter panic. Above her, somewhere near the entrance of the catacombs, Niku began barking his concern down the hallways.
Before the Shadar-Kai knew it, she was dodging the all-too-visible vampire, ducking between and behind his things, trying to keep something solid between herself and the merciless spiked chain that left cuts so finely made that they only burned full minutes after they were received.
"Surely my lord will accept my humblest apologies?" she managed breathlessly after turning sideways to hide between a short bookcase and the wall. "I didn't know I was offending- and my lord is most honorable- will he fight me, though I am unarmed?"
"You are a weapon," Vhalan panted, "Magic clings to you- use it, if you dare." With some teasing throws of the chain and then a concentrated effort to catch her barely exposed ankle, he caused Silveredge to skitter backward, accidentally pushing the half-full bookcase to the floor. She, however, kept her balance and flitted to the other side of the room. "Those beautiful feet- dancer's feet- I'll crush them. Every delicate, succulent little bone."
The snapping of wood beams, together with surprised screams, indicated that Niku had found enough strength to crack the crate that Quilafae had insisted he stay in. He thundered up from the deeper caverns, his sharp barks echoing in the normally quiet catacombs. Silveredge was distracted by this racket just long enough to have Vhalan's chain embrace one of her ankles, and in that instant, she was no longer in his room. For that one second, she was instead at the end of the blackened beach, at the bottom of a jagged peak that thrust its proud head into the threatening clouds. Just beyond her, she knew, was the dark, roaring ocean, but above the sound of the tide was the sound of chains.
"Vhalan!"
Svaentok's holler brought Silveredge back to herself, and her eyes widened in surprise as she caught sight of Betzal, his wings fully spread, flapping at Vhalan as he had done before. She quickly got to her feet, but as soon as she did, Betzal dove for the door, leaving Vhalan free to recollect his chain and try to divine where she would move next. Down the hall, Niku growled fiercely as Svaentok tried to catch him- Silveredge could imagine his ears flat against his head as he charged forward. Other hollers and screams quickly turned the somber place into a cacophony of sound- people telling each other in terrified tones that something must be terribly wrong in Brother Vhalan's cloister. While everyone seemed to realize that this was an emergency, there was a subset of yelling that indicated that Niku, in his furious search for Silveredge, was doing a costly bit of damage himself.
Vhalan accurately predicted Silveredge's double dodge around the divan, and managed to wrap a good length of his chain around her upraised arms. Instantly, she saw a solid obsidian throne room, lit by flames that somehow burned black and threw off very little light or heat at all. Past the six columns and atop the center dais stood a dark haired woman, clothed in a gorgeous dark velvet and feather detailed gown whose train flooded the floor around her. She had been deeply contemplating a frosty crystal orb she held in her left hand, but when she noticed Silveredge, she extended that hand upward, allowing an impressively huge, black-feathered bird to fly to her and take the orb up into one foot's gnarled, clawed toes, which were the size of a giant's fingers. Leafless branches, jutting from trees that somehow sprung up through the highly polished obsidian floor, sported thousands of more natural sized birds that silently beheld their mistress's new visitor.
But Silveredge did not wonder at the finely carved columns, the black flame, the many birds or even the gigantic cauldron that stood unattended behind the dais. What Silveredge noticed immediately were all the chains. They seemed to sprout from the woman's very body, circle her waist and arms, and run throughout the place. They circled around the cauldron, ran like water down the path to the dais, climbed up the walls and wound like living vines up the columns.
"Welcome," the woman said, using her light, yet commanding alto tone much like Aric used his own worn voice. Silveredge had a feeling that the female before her could probably shout the entire solid stone place down, if she so wished. "You have not long here, so watch carefully-"
And reaching around herself to produce a gleaming silver, wickedly barbed chain, the woman smiled a knowing smile at her wondering visitor. Around her, the many perched birds stretched their wings as though inviting the supplicant closer. Though the sight was daunting, Silveredge found herself moving forward toward the woman. When she reached the dais, she began to kneel, but the woman touched a freezing cold hand to her arm to stop her, then slid it down to the light blue hand to turn it upward.
"Come," the woman finished with a motherly tone, laying the silvery chain in Silveredge's hand. "Isn't it lovely? It's a few years in the making- and it's not finished."
"Will my lady finish it?" Silveredge wondered, hearing her own child-like belief in her voice.
"No," the woman replied, her eyes shining with a gentle wisdom. "You will, for it is yours. Mine is to cross the proper threads at the proper times, to weave them tightly, to unravel them mercilessly, and to guide you to the gates when your final day arrives." And as Silveredge's mother had done so many years before, the woman wound her first finger in the long silver hair, bent Silveredge's head toward herself and kissed her forehead. When Silveredge looked up in surprise at the gesture, the woman focused her completely black eyes on her. "But you'll have to wait a little while longer for that. Now, open your eyes."
And suddenly, Silveredge tore a gasp out of the air, opening her eyes to find herself lying on her back with her wrists bound together by Vhalan's chain. She rolled over instantly to find Vhalan in a heated verbal debate with Aric, who he finally shoved back into a chair in disgust. Aric's desire to defend her struck her spirit instantly, as though he had turned to her and spoken about it. Taking advantage of the slack chain, Silveredge returned to her back, rolled slightly up on her spine to spring to her feet, then turned to hop on top of one of Vhalan's tables. Moving quickly, she leaped from the edge of that table to two others, turned, then landed on the floor beyond him, wrenching the chain out of his grip entirely. She instantly whipped it across the floor toward her, then looked up to Aric, who smiled weakly.
"You see?" he breathed, looking over at Vhalan, who had crossed his arms. "It is as I told you. This is the sign; this is your long-awaited student."
"And so it is that the Queen at last honors her word," Vhalan marveled. "Very well; let us assume that she is my student- this will take time. Lamb, I tell you this- as much as Aric tried to spare you, you are indeed part of a contract penned in blood many years ago. Ask him for the history; I do not care to retell it. What I will tell you is this- you will either learn to use the weapon in your hands, or you will be my thrall."
No comments:
Post a Comment