Death Becomes Him

Caught in the cusp of eternity, a tug of war between father and son, my past revisited, my emotions pulled in opposite directions.

Revenge is often a catalyst to murder, but to witness such an event can be devastating, especially when appearances are so deceiving.

Gabriel was not the man I thought he was. But then again, neither was Aiden, he using me as the bait that would see to his uncle’s demise. Death at his hand, but not before he offered me to the man he was about to kill. And he wanted to watch.

Betrayal. Bitterness. Belief in those that had promised to help me. All these things melted together in a single thought, even as I felt him behind me, with me trying to crawl away. I wouldn’t have to crawl far before I felt the dead weight of Gabe lay across me.

Perhaps Gabe deserved to die, manipulating those around him to get what he wanted, torturing the innocent for power and worldly gains, with me, caught in a spider’s web of deception. Trust offered most to a man who had deserved it least.

I fainted, but I would soon awaken to find another journey was just beginning.

The Tahari, a land of heat and constant sands.

He had stolen me from beneath the protection of Ar in the night and I had no time or opportunity to say goodbye to anyone. Cain would never know what happened to me, nor would anyone else.

Our first stop was Toracinda and an inn, where I found the cost of a room far more then what I had. I was Aiden’s mercy, needing both his coin and his protection.

He has told me I ruined him for another woman. That he loved me. That he wanted me. But I know that Aiden’s love is poisonous.

And that it already hurts.

Insanity

I suppose it’s a type of hypnosis, one riddled with dreams and snippets of reality. But regardless of how it happened, it has happened.

I was able to see the stolen map that Lucian had created for me in its entirety. Perhaps it is some unknown link that connects me to it, but not only did I see the map, I now know in which direction to search. I know where the amulet is. What bothers me though, is this was Aiden’s doing.

There are unfathomable terrors in the unknown, beasts that lurk and hunt the weak, creating an illusion of havoc with every breath. Insanity is a quick escape, but even there the monster roams freely, ripping reality from the inside out, pulverizing rational thoughts into a stewed jambalaya of words.

Bars surrounded me, a prison of iron and steel, the moans of other’s pathetic lives filling my ears. I had no immediate recollection of how I had come to be here, but it was quickly apparent that this was no normal prison cell. I had been marked as one of the insane.

Slowly, my memory shifted into stabilization and I began to remember small clippings of the last few days. I had been on my way back home, from Gabriel’s house to my own when the madness over took me. The guards had found me thrashing and nearly naked in the back of the carriage, my eyes wild and unseeing.

How long my stay in the asylum was I couldn’t really say, for time means nothing in such a dank depressing place. I was given no change of clothing, with barely a ratted fur to keep me warm against the drafts of my underground cell.

I knew immediately it was Aiden when he came to me, hooded and cloaked in black, taunting me at my newest predicament. It was only when I relented and promised him anything that he had me released into his custody.

I had no choice but to trust him, a torment in itself.

The Coming

Castor is jealous, as he should be. No less then I would be in his situation.

I fear this will be the thread that snaps between us, forever pulling us apart into our separate corners.

The other world into which I venture terrifies me, but not near as much as this world troubles me. Sometimes I wish the end would just come quickly so I can be done with it, but then I think of Charm and my unborn son and admonish myself for such thoughts.

Leaving him is by far one of the most hardest things I have ever done, not knowing if I would return, or if I will ever see my daughter again. I’ve tried to brainwash it into my head that I have no choice, but I know that is untrue. We always have a choice, even if the options aren’t what we would like them to be.

In the end, Castor relented, but I could see the pain on his face, pain in the knowledge that he cannot help me, that instead, the man he most despises should be the answer to my quest, though I’m not sure that is true.

The lessons with Gabriel leave me tired and drained, mentally, emotionally and physically. This otherworldly existence is taking its toll on me, and yet, I am not ready to let it go.

There is a terrifying flip side to this though, a three sided coin where heads are no more reasonable then tails. Aiden comes to me when I am at my weakest, taking control and clouding my thoughts with his voice, an eclipse of sanity that shuffles me into the darkness. A darkness that will swallow me and from which I will never return.

He threatens me with stealing Magnus, but in my heart, I know this is not idle threat. He preys upon my fears forcing my own unwanted reaction. He is driving me towards something, though I know not where I shall find my ending.

Dark Choices

It had started out as a trip to the physician’s, Four and I going to Gabe’s office for an appointment of prenatal care, and one I wasn’t looking forward to, not wanting to run into the blonde shrew.

That is, until he showed up at my doorstep, saving us a trip.

Four went first, flushed with embarrassment by the time she had returned. I hoped my turn would not wreak redness upon my flesh. He gave me a general exam, even offering to bring a woman physician to me, should I want it.

Gabe is not like Cain in so many ways. He does not hold the tormented soul of the man I love, even though he has his face. Twins, they can be so unnerving.

We talked of my predicament, and I asked if he and Zarah would be sure to check in on my daughter and son, when.. if something happened to me. I still can’t shake the feeling that I have only begun this journey, even though I can almost see the ending from here.

Small talk ensued and I told him he and his companion should have more children. He told me that Zarah barely wanted Lir, which I find hard to believe, seeing how she dotes on both boys, and Charming. There are times when I see a different Gabriel and not the kind façade of a man who always offers to help me. But just as quickly, that side of him is gone, which leaves me to believe I have imagined it.

The exam stopped short of anything intimate, telling me that I was fine and that he would send Mevis to me. I probably wouldn’t be any more comfortable with her.

And then he said something that caught me completely off guard. That Argus sent his regards.

My mystery only seems to deepen and in the end, I am drawn to those who can help in my perilous journey that I fear will never be completed.

Gabe has become my new mentor. I pray that he can help me.

Unwilling

His question came as a shock, but there were more shocks to follow. He wanted to know if I was ready to go back into the ether again. And.. he was insisting I wear silks of a slave, informing me that when and if I proved to him that I have grown beyond him, all of these things were easy to give back to me.

Did he not understand by now that I would do anything for him? As the slave in silks, as the woman who ruled by his side, as the ghost that would meet him in the world of other.

There is no denying that I need what he offers. But now the tables have shifted and I have become the unwilling one. I have seen firsthand how easily lost one can become and not even realize it. I have felt the draw of darkness and I know how easily it can wrap its arms around me.

I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t, fearful of losing everything with an act of rashness.

In the end, is the decision really mine?

Four + Seven = One

Four is pregnant.

I cannot say how pleased I was to learn, though the child is Cain’s by way of ownership, it is not his by way of genetics. I think he planned it, she and another slave, so that .. if I do not make it through this, he will have a ready supply of milk for our son.

I was also surprised he had plans to free her. Seven, the slave who impregnated her has already been freed and is now learning a trade. He never ceases to surprise me.

Of course I have been forbidden to tell her this, hence, her constant moping.

We have not discussed entering the ether again, for which I am glad. One trip was more than enough; of course, this leaves me back at square one.

But better at square one then to be at the crossroads of a darkness I cannot control.

The Catalyst

He appeared to me a man without a heart, with naught but a bloody open wound where his heart should be. He is much stronger than he things, much stronger than me, but the place he took me to, a great library of sorts, compounded by a thousand closed doors.

He told me there were things worse than death, but I had not understood this, unable to comprehend without seeing. And what he showed me, filled me with terror.. as well as elation.

I seemed to be in two places at once, my body in some pragmatic presence, while my mind drifted freely in a world that was cast from fantasy.

He calls it the ether, a place of consciousness, a place that I had brought him to during our course of sex. He explained that I was a catalyst, while he was a conduit, two halves to the perfect whole. That I controlled the world, and that I would be responsible for taking us out and putting us back in our own bodies.

Dizziness bloomed and I grasped his arm to steady myself, an amulet led out of each door on the back of a scorpion, two snakes entwined, before the vision began to roil, fade, and at last disappear.

I was in the present, but I had not brought him back with me. I begged and I pleaded for him to return, lost in the emotional pitfall of what I had done. To him, to me. And for what? My will of life? Which was no more precious than his own. I twisted the lock on his collar, pulling it away and tossing it to the other side of the room. Only then was he mine again, beside me in this world, whole again.

I had promised myself never again. He had been right to deny me. I was not ready. I doubted I ever would be.

Stolen

The map Lucian made me is gone, most likely taken the night I met Eurethrus. My tale only becomes more confusing instead of less.

Cain is taking me to a man named Argus, a man, like me. He quickly told me things about my past, things that would have been easily known, but this impressed me nonetheless. He bid us to sit and for the first time I had been able to see his face, one heavy with scars and laced with mutilation.

He told me he could see the cloud of confusion, the bits and pieces and hardships.

I told him that I sought the key of the dead that would save me as I lay close to the doorway of the City of Dust. Did it really exist? Or was it merely the rich treasure of a feebled minded fable.

He told me such a power did .. does exist.

I told him of my lineage, repeated the story of the curse, of how no man would beget male heirs on my line. But I continued where I usually had stopped.

We attract a certain type of man, men who love us much more than they should, who sacrifice for us much more than we are worth. Their love does not die easily, if ever, but neither is it always.. nourishing. We act as a drug, an addicting sense of something they can never have enough of. Once a man truly tastes us, he is forever bound to us, only death breaking the hold.

He had moved towards a shelf, taking down a leather bound volume, showing me a picture of the amulet. It was in the shape of two intertwined serpents. One male one female.

He told me that the man who sought me out.. the men who sought out my mother and her mother before her and so on, were not just overly loyal addicts drawn to their sustenance. They are the other half of a locks to cosmic keys. That the key existed and would find it, but that I was looking in the wrong place.

I was afraid to touch the drawing, afraid that by some unwanted exploit of magic, it would crumble in my hand.

I was still staring at the union of entwined serpents when Cain spoke, telling Argus he could not and he immediately began pacing.

My line spoke of the Estrucans. Argus could not help me.. but Cain.. could. Another clue in my endless pursuit.

We were bid farewell, Cain relentless pulling on my arm, half dragging me through the catacombs, telling me he was a fool to have brought me here, that we would have to find another way.

I could feel his fright, the sudden surge of his emotions which seemed to be escaping into me. It was only when I tripped over a cobble that that I insisted he stop and tell me what was going on.

He told me that Estruscan and Armarnian Arcane are kith and kin to each other and the most carnal of the houses. That when he had told me there was more to my gift than the cards it was truth, but that I was afraid tap the power. He was right.

I have always shunned other knowledge, not wishing to delve into things I cannot control, things I do I understand. I have never been open to perceptions beyond what I know so well

But all that was about to be forever changed.

The Burning Arrow

The day had started out benignly enough, breakfast, my lazy trolling with a sheet wrapped around me, followed by a knock at the door.

It was a slave, a mere slip of a girl who held out a note. She said it was given to her by a man who insisted she deliver it immediately. Someone had information on the legend I was seeking and I was to meet him beneath the lamp at the corner of the Street of Coins, one ahn after dusk.

Though I was immediately intrigued, my consort was not. He had walked away from me into the other room, telling me it was not for him to decide when I had asked his opinion, but he would accompany me if wished to go.

I did.

It was then he pointed to the small bag on the counter, which held a collar. It was not something I had not expected, but what followed was even more so. He submitted to me. The collar.. was for him. Never before has a man .. or anyone said those words to me. I stood there, my mouth agape and my heart beating rapidly. I couldn’t even find enough words to complete a sentence. Finally, when I asked him why, he retorted with the questions.. would I humiliate him by denying him.

Even as a submitting slave he crawls under my skin, making me feel less than free myself. I think we also both knew that all he had to do was say the word and he would be free again.

Every time I think I understand him; he turns the tables. I don’t think he understands me as well as he thinks he does. I never wanted a slave. I wanted a partner.

As the day edged into dusk, we began our preparations. He dressed in his apparel of my protection, for which I was glad. Even now, I was starting to have second thoughts about carrying on the meeting, but my want of knowledge was a glass more full then my fear. Or perhaps I should say a glass more.. fool.

While my shadow stalked the darkness in my protection, another shadow made his way towards me. I could hear the tapping of a cane and see the hunched silhouette of a man. He looked .. harmless enough, but of course, appearances could be deceiving.

His name was Eurethrus, who told me he had caught wind of a woman in search of certain knowledge, an amulet.

I always wonder about the aged, if the serums didn’t take, or if they had refused them. Some I had heard had done this, not wishing the extending of life that was offered them. I can not imagine such a decision. I want to live, this proven by my will to find an evanescent amulet.

We moved to sit on a low wall, to ease the ache of his bones, my excitement palpable as he tale began, picking up from where my knowledge had left off.

Brachius, Auryn's sister, having fled with the amulet that would have saved his sister's life, met a series of mishaps. He could find no man who would challenge the judge of the dead, and each metal smith who tried to melt the treasure for its worth found that the amulet refused to liquefy, even though the heat had been plied twofold. Word quickly spread of the cursed and twisted snakes of gold and soon the brother found he was an outcast, a man who would be forced to live on the fringes of society, for none wanted anything to do with him. He traveled from city to city, the heavy ornament draped around his neck with a leather cord, so all could see his sin. The amulet turned black, the bright gleam of gold efficiently erased by the wrath of Aeacus. For years he traveled, begging acceptance and refuge from his crime, but he was not repentant. His flesh aged, and his muscles weakened, his body ravaged by time. But Brachius' true crime was that he had never felt remorse and greed still lurked within his heart.

He had paused, in much need of breath, almost ready to continue when I whispered the word.. stop. What followed was confusion, chaos and the slow realization that I had been hit in the shoulder with the bolt of a crossbow. A red stain shown by slivers of cloud covered moonlight and the dim ray of lamps.

My last picture of Eurethrus was the unreflected gaze in his eyes, and another bolt piercing his heart, as well as one of my shadow’s blades.

My protective dark one was upon me immediately, lifting me and carrying me to safety, which happened to be a nearby roof top. The rest of the tale would forever be left untold at his lips.

Blackness, blessed blackness came in quick layers. I begged him not to touch the arrow that still wavered in my shoulder, though my pleas went unheard as I felt the bold snap before it was pulled free. I screamed. Only then did I feel the shock of pain ripping across my belly. The baby.

I don’t remember how he got me home, only that I was there, caught in the claw of agony, terrified I was miscarrying my son. I prayed, harder than I ever had in my life, and then through the course of exhaustion, passed out.

I had been betrayed.

And what was worse, was he had caged me, he said, for my own protection.