Vhamnya's Tale: Rise of a Dark Queen - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

From the maid and her fellows Vhamnya learned of her body, of the drunkenness of lust, and of the poison of pleasure. She learned the secrets of her loins: the coquettish game between her surface and depths and the woundful ecstasy of yielding. She learned of lips, tongues, the suckling of breasts, the slap of buttocks and thighs, all this, and above all of skin, the thing that connected and covered all, the membrane that both led to and fed the heart's desires.

She learned she had been right: the experience changed her. Mandr had been right as well: it came naturally. She was still herself but more. She loved her body's lust. She found it beautiful to sate her partners' needs and find a spark between their souls as they lay knotted limb to limb, the spark which might, given time and nurture, grow to love . If she might somehow take it all back and cast it out of herself, she would not.

Yet it also changed her sight of the worship held down in the lower hall. Now she no longer guessed at the Chosen's pleasure as they wrought violation. She knew it. So her fear changed as well. Now it was no longer that of losing herself, but the fear that she might come like them to enjoy their dark rites.

Amid all this, never did they allow her contact with a man's sex or seed. Vhamnya did not understand. When she asked, they answered they wished to keep her virgin, and that she found ridiculous. Of all the things wherewith they seduced her, whereto they subjected her, they forbade this one thing. She forbore the sight of her Chosen sisters being filled and convulsed by rutting manhoods, and it made her angry. They were not safekeeping her virginity; they were perverting it, keeping it intact by the narrowest sliver.

"Why are you doing this?" she demanded.

"To ready you, my dear princess," answered Mandr.

She glared. "For what?"

"To initiate you as one of our members, as one of the Chosen. Then you will receive your Dark Father's blessing."

Vhamnya sighed. "What must I do?"

"For your initiation you must do one thing," he explained: "You must find someone. You must seduce them. You must convince them to betray everything they hold dear. Then you must bring them here, bind them to the black stone in the lower hall, and you must sacrifice them to Graz'zt. On that night the Dark Prince will appear and hallow you."

Vhamnya stilled. "I must betray them?" she wondered.

Mandr nodded.

Vhamnya shook her head.

"Does this surprise you?" Mandr's brow cocked. "Our victims in the dungeon were not brought in slavery, but came here in free will. Now whether they like or rue their choice, well..." He shrugged.

"And I came here of my free will," demanded Vhamnya: "Am I a victim? Am I a prisoner?"

"Do you feel like a prisoner?" he asked back.

Keenly she eyed him. "And if I decide I've had enough?" she posed. "If I decide to go back to the Darkeave, back to my mother and brother and dwell among the wolves and orcs, would you hinder me?"

He returned her gaze. "You may find that going back, that leaving what you have entangled yourself in, may not be so easy as you would hope," he answered. "Others have put their forecast on you. Neither you nor I can do much about it."

Vhamnya had no idea what Mandr meant, and he merely raised his hands. In the end she sought shelter among the house's lighter shadows. She tried comfort among the other maidens, but their kisses and caresses no longer soothed. Their tongues and suckling lips left her wanting something else. When she looked into their hearts, she found no love, despite the spark she sometimes sensed before they smothered it.

Vhamnya took to wandering Azpat's streets, disguised as they had taught her, whenever she could sneak away. She never again dared the city's temple, but it became her game to see how near she could come before the stones scorched her feet.

So she stood across the streetyard during a festival when all the townsfolk gathered. The priests led out their choir, and Vhamnya listened to them sing. Above them all rose one voice, high and pure. The tone like the words they carried made Vhamnya's breast flutter. Over the choristers her eyes ran until she found the singer.

A youth stood out and above his fellows: raven-dark hair and skin like snow, so fair he almost seemed a woman. His eyes were shut, but when they opened, they were wide and dark, like a wolf's, and bright with tears from his song's beauty. Vhamnya stared. She could not have come unfrozen if she had wanted, though something warm built within. Never before had she felt thus. She feared he might vanish, or that she might never see him again, and she would lose this feeling forever.

She could not let that happen. She moved forward among the crowd, disguised as a Tandarran merchant's daughter, which let her be tall and dusky with a wrapped scarf to hide her hair. Only her eyes had needed change. As the singer's eyes opened again, she let her glamor fray a little, so that something of her darker self shone through. "See me," spelled her mind's voice.

The youth's eyes froze. For a beat his song wavered. Then his neighbor elbowed him, and his voice strengthened. The song went on, and others followed, but his eyes stayed on her. Vhamnya found herself and the boy staring at each other.

A timeless while later, the choir ended. The crowd broke up and sought other revels. The priests went inside, but the boy lingered on. His gaze stayed on Vhamnya until his elder urged him inside. Vhamnya watched him vanish through the door. Then she faded into an alley, where she crouched thoughtfully.

Later, she found a way to the temple's rear. Across a courtyard stood an iron gate. From a rooftop Vhamnya watched the priests and acolytes about the temple's work. She waited until she saw the beautiful boy come out to the open, and then waited longer until he wandered apart. Then she let him see her again. His eyes strayed to her until the other priests chided him.

Just at evenfall, the boy came back out. He brought a sack of rubbish out to the courtyard. Then he wandered to the gate and looked outward. Vhamnya climbed smoothly down from the roof. She stepped out on the street, where he could see her, and came near. Then she let her glamor fade.

The boy stood; hand forgotten on the gate's bar. He looked on Vhamnya as she truly was, the first to see her since the Chosen.

"You shouldn't be here," he whispered breathlessly.

Vhamnya lifted a hand. "Please don't tell," she pleaded.

He swallowed and slowly nodded. "Who are you?"

Vhamnya learned his name was Pihtr. He was a novice to the temple, whither his family had yielded him for his singing. He liked the songwork, but wondered of life beyond the walls, of women and other pleasures forbidden. They would each put their hands on the gate's bar and let their fingers entwine. Thereafterward, they would meet after dusk in the rear courtyard.

Vhamnya at first did not tell him of the evil men and the house whose whispers she hated, but slowly her lips leaked the tale. She told him of her mother's madness, and of the priests who had been kind, so long ago. He looked on her with wide eyes, and she knew he had never before heard of such things. "This is wrong," he said.

Vhamny stared at Pihtr. She contemplated a world where children did not grow and live as she had, a world where folk, not just a few priests, were kind. She shuddered as she imagined. "Take me away from here," she pleaded.

Pihtr leaned his face through the iron bars. Vhamnya bent downward until their lips touched. They kissed through the gate.

"I will," he promised.

At once they began ready-making to flee Azpat. They stole what they dared to buy boatfare eastward to Kyrashayr. Vhamnya found a barge skipper and bargained sweetly for a berth, where they would hide belowdecks while the boat slipped upriver. Then she stole back to the temple, where she clutched Pihtr's hands through the gate and told him their leave's day, the boat's name, and also the hour.

Vhamnya snuck out of the house a couple hours before sunset. She made way to the riverside, reached the boat, and went aboard. Then she crouched and headed belowdecks, where she had already stowed her few belongings in the bow-berth she had bought for her and Pihtr. She unrolled a blanket. Then her longs hands trembled as she laid it out. Here she and Pihtr would spend the passage upriver, sharing the same cramped bed. And here she would yield herself to him, open her dark thighs to his manliness, let him pierce, fill, and pour himself into her, and rid herself of the bothersome scrap of flesh within her loins, so prized by the Chosen for their blood-rite. Then to them she would be useless, and she would be free, beholden only to her love. At the thought she caressed herself and shuddered.

She foredreamed of reaching Kyrashayr. Once there, the Darkeave lay in easy reach. Vhamnya could guide them inside. She knew it lay within her power to find the orcs, whence she would take her mother and brother Steygr. Then they could build a house deep within the woods, like what she and her mother had dwelt in before. They would make love every night, bear and raise beautiful gray-skinned children, and no one would harm them again. Will-lessly a sob rose in her throat, which she had to stifle and harden her mind to the tasks at hand.

At sunset Vhamnya waited. The boat lay quiet; the crew away to supper before they left on the inbound tide. She sat on the bowsprit, where she watched the whole upper deck, including the gangplank and wharf they lay beside. Her fingers tapped the gunwhales, despite herself. She tasted her own excitement, like blood in her mouth, while she willed her dream to happen.

Along the wharf came Pihtr, dressed in a wayfaring cloak; novice's robes lost. Just as dusk settled, he strode up the gangplank.

As he set foot aboard, Vhamnya jumped up, unable to withhold herself. Pihtr spotted her. He smiled and waved his hand.

From the shadows the Chosen stepped out of corners like a ruffle of darkness. They closed around Pihtr. Vhamnya watched Mandr come behind him and grasped his neck. He cried out before he was choked off.

"No!" shouted Vhamnya.

She rushed forward to where the Chosen stood between. They pushed back and grabbed her arms when she strove against. Vhamnya stepped backward as fear and wrath darkened her heart. She raised her hands and gathered gloomy might, the kind that can break minds, burst hearts, and drag away mortal men's souls. Then she unleashed it with all her hate.

Yet the Chosen had come ready with ward-spelled periapts, which quelled her magic and left them unscathed. Too late, Vhamnya glanced around herself at the encroaching warlocks. She saw no way out, nor any ruth on their hooded faces. "Why are you doing this?!" she railed.

Mandr joined the tightening ring as others carried Pihtr bound and senseless off the barge. "You have a debt, Princess," he told her. "Before you go, you must pay the reckoning."

Her eyes seared, though inside her heart quailed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think you already know, and frankly I couldn't have planned it better myself," he answered while the Chosen's hands closed on her. "Now it's time you come home."

Continued in Chapter 9

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