Charissa lay in her bed, her naked body entwined in Sphal's long arms and legs. She ran her fingers through his soft hair, his head resting at the nape of her neck.
Their first assignation had been a hurried furtive affair, filled with the spice of the fear of discovery. But as the days had passed, it became clear to Charissa that Amantis intended to lock her up and forget her.
Garanth had been taken away. Amantis allowed her to visit him every day, a concession to ensure her compliance, that tenuous connection being the hostage he would sacrifice if she rebelled against him further.
Charissa ran her fingertips down Sphal's side, watching his warm soft flesh quiver tickelishly at her touch. The sun was well risen and he needed to be back at his post.
Sphal had spoken frequently of rescuing her and Garanth, sneaking them out of the city to some place where they could live together as a family. He didn't know how he would do it yet, but he spoke of their future together with a confidence that quelled her fears.
Suddenly her bedroom door burst open, slammed against the wall, and hung rattling on its hinges. Amantis stormed in, a reaver at his side and Apaidia smirking behind. Sphal bolted upright and cast around for his spear and found it out of reach in the far corner of the room. He rose and stood in defiant attention near the foot of the bed.
"How dare you?" Amantis asked of Sphal. "I trusted you."
Apaidia looked as if she could barely contain her glee. The other reaver's expression had gone from shock to poorly concealed amusement.
"You, dra, have much neglected your wife," Sphal said.
"And you thought it your place to attend to her?"
"You, yourself, entrusted her welfare into my care. Since it seems you no longer wish to see her, I will take her off of your hands."
Amantis stood trembling, his eyes narrowed and his mouth pressed into a thin line as his complexion purpled. "How dare you tell me what to do with my wife!" he roared. He spun, ripped the long knife from the reaver's belt and plunged it into Sphal's belly. With a viscous twist, he carved a horizontal slash across Sphal's abdomen, flinging a line of blood across the wall with a wet splat as the blade tore free.
Sphal clutched his belly and staggered back against the wall. His face blanched and he looked helplessly at Charissa as if she could save him.
Kneeling on the bed, clasping the linens to herself and watching her last hope bleed out on the bedroom floor, Charissa screamed. Amantis flung the knife down in disgust as if he'd expected something more dramatic in Sphal's death. Sphal slid to the floor, eyes closed, face clenched in pain.
"No!" Charissa shrieked, then filled her lungs and shrieked again as if by her cries she could scare away the future she now saw.
"Shut up!" Amantis shouted back.
Charissa continued to wail.
Amantis stepped up and smashed her in the face with the back of his hand. She fell to the bed, the side of her head numb. The world whirled around her darkening as it spun and still she sobbed. Amantis grabbed her arm and jerked her naked from the bed with a strangled shout. "I have had more than enough of you!"
"You two stay here," he commanded to the reaver and Apaidia. "Don't touch the body until I get back."
"But—" Apaidia started to object as Amantis dragged Charissa through the door and out into the hall.
Charissa snatched a glance over her shoulder. Sphal lay propped against the wall, a dismayed look in his glazed eyes, and then Amantis dragged her away.
Servants stopped in doorways with wide eyes and open mouths, or froze against the sides of the hallways as Amantis dragged her tripping through the house. Charissa tried to cover her nakedness with her one free hand, but her failure only increased her shame.
"This is entirely your fault," Amantis said. "You deny me, you insult me, make me a mockery among other men and now you violate your vow." He dragged her through the antechamber where petitioners waited to ask him for jobs or food, then through the great room. "I can see now that the Lord of the Mountain has seen your pride and your arrogance and has decided to judge you. Unfortunately for me, I seem to be his instrument for your humiliation." They burst into the kitchen surprising two cooks who paused in their chopping and stirring to stare as Amantis opened the cellar door and pushed Charissa inside.
Charissa's foot slipped on the damp smooth-worn steps and she fell sliding several steps on one leg and hip. Amantis closed the cellar door, plunging the stairs into darkness. Charissa lay on the stairs, sobbing; the scrapes on her ankle, thigh and hip started to burn. Sphal's pale face with his shocked and pleading expression flashed in her memory. He had seemed so confident and so strong! How could he fail her?
"Shut up!" Amantis hissed, surprising her since she thought he had shut her up there alone. "Too much light," he grumbled.
Charissa looked around and saw only a faint crack of light slipping under the door.
A fumbling hand found the top of her head, grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked her upward. "Come on."
Charissa stumbled and slid down the steps in a sideways crouch as Amantis dragged her forward by her hair. At the bottom of the stairs he flung her into the cellar room where she landed bruising her other hip.
Shivering on the cold damp stone, Charissa lay sobbing until she heard Amantis fumbling with his belt. Fearing he meant to rape her there in the dark, Charissa pushed herself upright, determined to fight and, if necessary, die before he touched her again. The heat of her indignation burned away her tears, but then the sound abruptly ceased. Tensed, waiting for his assault, she sat puzzled by the silence, before noticing a faint glow.
It began as a faint speck of gray light, moving slightly as it grew like a will-o-wisp approaching from a great distance. Differently colored lights joined it as it neared and soon the lower curves of Amantis' enraptured face glowed in the rippling, watery light.
Lord Above, save me! He's using that accursed stone, she thought. Every time he consulted it he committed some new atrocity. The thought of what it might have in store for her made her weak with fear.
The stone was smooth and irregularly shaped, like a common river stone, but it seemed to have no depth as if the stone were simply the hard edge of a hole punched through Amantis' hand and chest and the world itself, into the infinite blackness beyond. When he turned his hand to admire it, the stone didn't seem to rotate so much as change shape as if the objects the hole penetrated were warping around its edge.
Charissa turned away, disgusted by the lust on Amantis' face as he looked at it.
"The Lords Beyond have suggested the most appropriate and ironic punishment for you." Amantis grabbed her hair and dragged her to her feet.
"You mean the Lords of the Void, don't you? Except the fallen aren't lords of anything are they? They're prisoners."
Amantis slammed her head into the shelves. A wave of hot pain spread across her forehead where the edge of a shelf struck her. She tried to mock him with laughter, but it came out sounding mad.
"I am going to very much enjoy this." Amantis shoved her into one of the larger shelving sections and stomped her through until she fell out into the space on the other side.
Amantis climbed through behind her and grabbed her hair, dragging her through a narrow tunnel giving her no time to get back on her feet. "You could have had it all. You could have been the richest and most powerful woman in Nur." Charissa managed to get her feet under her, as Amantis yanked her forward. She stumbled and would have fallen, but a collision with the curving tunnel wall kept her upright, though she felt the hair in Amantis' hand start to tear loose from her scalp.
"I would have given you the city to rule while I gathered up all the koria between the two rivers and laid them at your feet. I would have–" A barely suppressed sob choked Amantis' voice. "I would have filled your belly with many strong sons who would have expanded our rule. Strong sons, not like the one you have weakened with your excessive mothering."
"It's a very fine thing to hear you talk of ruling others," Charissa taunted while walking in a crouched sideways gate. "Yet you cannot even rule yourself. You merely do the bidding of others." She laughed. "You are no better than the rawest recruit in your soreav."
"Keep talking, woman. You only make this easier."
The passage narrowed, twisting as it sloped rapidly downward. Amantis pulled too fast for her to keep up. Charissa fell, tearing free of his grasp. He glanced at the loose hairs in his hand, tossed them aside, and grabbed a new fistful as she rose. "I may not be his father, but I'll be a father to him," Amantis muttered as if echoing an internal dialog. "Who knows—" He glanced sharply at Charissa and smiled a crooked jerking smile. "If this works out, we may do this again in a year or so."
The tunnel opened out into a vast open black void. Stopping at a narrow rock ledge, Amantis held her head at chest height forcing her to stand in an awkward twisted crouch. He lifted his stone and bright light flared, illuminating the cavern. "Lords of the Beyond! Long have you sought for the path of return to the land of creation. Well, here she is!"
With a hard shove, he catapulted Charissa out into the lake. She fell into the cold shallow water and slid across the slime-covered stone floor. She started to rise but the whole stoma shook and she slid down deeper into the water.
The rock groaned overhead like the deep voice of a stone giant, speaking a language unheard since the founding of the world. Dust fell from the shadowed ceiling, hissing into the water. An invisible presence pushed through the dust leaving a vaguely man-shaped emptiness behind as it approached her. The shaking stopped and the dust settled, but Charissa sensed the presence hadn't left, that it still approached her. She cast a quick glance at the grinning Amantis, then heard something rush through the water toward her.
A wave of water rolled toward her and a pile of muck pushed up above the surface. Shaped somewhat like a man's head and shoulders, it had a ridge where a nose should be, between holes where a pair of eyes and a mouth would be. Charissa tried to flee, but the muddy thing slammed into her. She fell, hit the lake bed and slid toward shore. The slimy thing fell on her, crushing her beneath its weight. It writhed upon her, forcing her legs apart and she felt something cold penetrate. She opened her mouth to scream and the mud rushed in.
-=====|==
"What can you tell me about Charissa?" Karux asked their captive after he had awakened. Kaelis forced them to put him on a donkey by refusing to walk. Phylax, the local villager who had come with them to bear witness to the beastmen attacks, had offered to drag Kaelis to Har-Tor by the rope tied around his neck.
After a long silence, in which Kaelis merely sat atop the donkey staring off into the distance as he had all morning, he frowned at Karux walking alongside and said, "Who?"
"Charissa. Your oracle's wife."
Kaelis shook his head. "I thought her name was Apaidia—Corago's daughter. The oracle sort of inherited her, the house and the business when Corago died.
"What? How can you not know his wife?" Karux asked.
"Although, now that I think of it, I don't remember any sort of wedding ceremony."
"He married a northern girl before he went to Nur. Her name is Charissa."
Kaelis shrugged. "Rumor has it he does keep a woman locked up in his house. I always thought her a mad relation—a crazy aunt or barmy mother or something. Perhaps he does have a second wife."
"A second wife?"
"He can have whatever he wants." Kaelis smirked.
"He basically owns the city and the surrounding koria. Nobody works or even eats without his say so."
"What a degenerate," Phylax said.
Kaelis rounded on him. "How dare you speak of the oracle that way? He's the only one standing between mankind and death."
As an elder stands between a bride and groom, Karux thought, but said nothing.
Phylax just snapped back on the rope nearly pulling Kaelis off the donkey. Kaelis grabbed it, choking.