Kitabı oku: «Rhianon-3. Palace in Heaven»

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Translator Natalia Lilienthal

ISBN 978-5-0056-9027-2 (т. 3)

ISBN 978-5-0056-8618-3

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Lucifer’s Host

Dark Spit is a fitting name for a mountain range that stands out as a black stripe against a plague-stricken land. In fact, it wasn’t even a plague, but a disease spread by the fallen. They themselves only suffered from their own festering burns, and the suffering lasted as long as the world stood, but for those who caught the epidemic, it was death. It was horribly painful death. He had nothing to fear, neither disease nor death, and, of course, having wings, he should not have set foot on contaminated soil at all, but he was not worried about himself. A mortal girl came to mind…

Would he be able to pick her up and carry her to his tower without the risk of her becoming infected and dying? What if the miasmas of an unnatural witch’s disease caught up with her even in the heights? How strong could the fumes emanate from the ground, on which his living festering brethren crawled in immense agony?

Madael easily reached the top of his tower. From the outside it looked as if it were going to the very heavens. But once upon a time his path had been higher. Now a black cloud always hid the embossed parapet of the roof. Why, though? People can’t see this tower anyway. The way here is through the Black Spit on one side and through Dead Valley on the other. No mortal could survive to set foot on this land. And he was in no hurry to show everyone his place of seclusion. Still, disguise became an obligation to him. He did not encourage the game of hide-and-seek, unlike his former comrades-in-arms. He needed no hiding places or disguises. But duty is duty. After a defeat, it must be done.

The first defeat was his only defeat, but it had taken almost everything. Or so it seemed. Madael remembered the golden creature sleeping in his tent. To think he might never have seen it. Even that thought alone was somehow excruciating. He imagined that this girl would be gone, that he would take a handful of golden hair in his hand and with one swift stroke of his sword cut off her head from her body. That was what he was supposed to do, but even thinking about it was unbearable. He had experienced something similar only when the heavenly fire touched his body, or rather the ethereal substance that had once been his body and soul at the same time. All that had changed now, but the fire that had once burned him continued to corrode his body with poison to this day. Of course, the visible burns were gone, but the memory of them lived on. Many thought it irregular. The commander of the terrifying army retained his pristine angelic countenance. But the price for that was also high.

“Leave me a sword so that I may punish sinners, and leave me my face so that all may know from whom the punishment comes,” was his only plea, but even that was not completely fulfilled. The favor of the Almighty is mere words, he may have removed the wormy scars from his beloved’s face, but he has not cleansed the wounds from his soul. From the wounds he himself told him to inflict. Now Madael felt a black abyss opening up inside him, even more scorched and pus-ridden than the bodies of his brothers in arms. Outwardly he remained bright, inwardly he was rotting alive. And the sense of a sucking black emptiness inside him only increased from age to age.

“Leave me a sword to punish sinners…”

This request the god fulfilled to the fullest. Now every battlefield awaited him. No battle was ever fought without his participation and his judgment. And not just any battle. He executed his judgment on behalf of the god not only on the battlefield, and he himself did not know why he was doing so. It was like a dream. He performed his duty with obedience, though the old fear of being burned again in case of disobedience had long since passed. The sounds of battle reached his ears wherever he was, and he immediately rushed to where the fighting was taking place. The clang of swords became a call to him. In battle he would enter into the excitement. Did he enjoy killing? Perhaps he couldn’t say exactly why he thrust his sword over the heads of his opponents again and again when victory was already decided. Maybe it was only on the battlefield that he felt confident, because it was as if the echo of that first heavenly battle was all around him again. Sometimes he would close his eyes and see it all again, and then his sword would become truly merciless. It was strange, throwing him into battle all over again, to feel again the echo of that first war and first defeat. He never tired of feeling it and reliving it over and over again. Each battle was a reflection of that one. The only difference was that beneath his feet was now solid ground, not the fragile edge of the clouds. He could not fall any lower than he already was. Perhaps that was why he was always the victor here. First among the fallen…

Madael circled around his tower before crouching on the edge of the parapet. The building had no entrances or exits, no doors, casements, or embrasures, just a single arched window at an inaccessible height for stairs. That’s all he needed. This location was convenient for those who possessed wings.

The tent he had spread out each time near the battlefield was comfortable, but again and again it was here that he flew in. This place beckoned to him like home. In fact, it was to be his home now. The interior of the tower conveyed all that was in his heart. It was purple and black. Only at first the place might seem luxurious, but a closer look would reveal charred bodies crawling over polished parquet, sharp claws clinging to the golden railings of endless dark staircases, and black silhouettes hiding behind purple draperies. There were the pitiful remnants of his cohort commanders. Now they brightened their time by waiting here for him. Sometimes he’d come to interrupt their terrible feast of corpses and golden utensils, and sometimes he’d just watch them and try to remember how beautiful and dignified they’d once been. Now it was hard even to imagine their former faces against the surrounding blackness. All of them, molecules of his host, had become as black as his soul. He was the only one who remained light, and so he seemed some kind of alien particle among them. The black things flinched when he approached them and crawled back into the shadows. They were afraid of him, even though he was the only one here with the outward appearance of innocence and vulnerability. Well, appearances can be deceiving, and the wisp of slimy bodies beneath his feet now only disgusted Madael. He stepped over the slimy bodies and walked on. He could barely tell them apart now. His favorites, his associates, those he respected and counted on, all merged into one horrifying and stinking black lump, barely outlined by the movements of the disfigured bodies. They were so beautiful once, so seductive, though they had no bodies then. Not only did the fire burn them, it continued to hurt them to this day. Its former chosen ones wriggled and squirmed in agony on the mucus-filled marble floor. Their very bodies were now secreting this disgusting stinking liquid. Burned to ashes, they continued to ooze pus. Beneath the black crust there were no more faces, only ghastly glistening eyes. And these were his former angels, the most beautiful in heaven… Madael caught himself that now he was no longer trying to imagine their former faces, for he had recently seen something that was far more beautiful.

“You found her, didn’t you? And you took her?” The black creature that crawled out from behind the drapery always remained lonely. That angel had long since ceased to be himself. And Madael had already ceased to feel disgust at the slippery trail on the floor that left the oblong torso, elongated like the ridge of the Dark Spit itself. Violet eyes gleamed at him from the dark mess that had once been his face. Sometimes their former color returned to them. Madael stepped aside a little, he could see that the others were studiously avoiding his former confidant and seemed ready to follow suit himself.

“Yes, I have,” he answered. “I no longer require your services. You no longer have to kidnap blond girls to find one chosen one. I’ll cut her throat myself if I have to. It is my privilege to judge mortals.”

“But…” The creature under his feet lunged backward, arching as if to take the form of a black dragon again. Madael forestalled his attempt with a forbidding gesture with his hands.

“No disobedience,” he hissed, his tone calm but firm, even more affecting than his anger. “I am still your master. And no one dares disobey me…” He hissed calmly but firmly.

He deliberately didn’t finish it; he hissed softly, and the creature at his feet instantly darted backward, quick as black lightning.

“Run my errands,” he said softly. “Crawl, eat the bodies of fallen warriors, and make sure the next battle doesn’t start before Menuel has amassed enough strength.”

“Do you need a breather?”

Even if there were cunning overtones in his subordinate’s ingratiating voice, Madael condescendingly ignored them.

“I need a night to think,” he said as he left.

She was awakened by the sound of a harp. Strangely, the wistful sound filtered through the purple curtains of the tent. They were supposed to isolate the sound, but now they let it through easily. Or maybe it was the music in the tent itself. Rhianon reluctantly opened her eyes. She wanted to sleep and dream of his snow-white wings, but the sound was tearing her from her blissful rest. It was such a clear reminder of what was left behind. Her lost kingdom, the cruelty of the Regent, the unwanted marriage, and… unhappy minstrel under the window. The remnants of sleep immediately slipped from her. Rhianon rose and sat down on the bed. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, seeping through every curtain of the tent and was so dreary, as if it were not a harp at all but a lament.

“Who is there?” She asked, but there was no answer. Then Rhianon looked around carefully. She did not sense the presence of invisible servants or anyone else. But someone must be here, or music could be coming from the heavenly realm itself. She was curious and uncomfortable at the same time. The sound sent shivers down her spine.

Rhianon suddenly remembered the minstrel Arno. It seemed that at that reception where the faeries had come to avenge themselves, his harp had made the same strained, pitiful sounds. Now they had become almost pangs. She suddenly envisioned a very different picture, a boulder by the sea, a lady, redheaded as autumn, sitting and waiting for someone, while something dark crept up on her.

It was coitus with the fallen. Rhianon shuddered. It didn’t seem so beautiful to her. She imagined a woman’s body writhing on the ground, covered in a hideous rotting mass with wings blackened with burns. And the woman screamed. No, that is not what she wanted. Rhianon turned around in horror. She was horrified and turned back, as if she could not bear to think of Arno, as if he were somehow part of the nightmare, as a leper carried a contagion with him.

“Get out!” She whispered to the invisible musician, and surprisingly, he obeyed her.

When she awoke the next time, Madael was leaning over her, winged, amazingly beautiful, his skin glowing under his unbuttoned collar. At the sight of such beauty, all fears receded at once. There was nothing black and nothing frightening about him. It was only light and emptiness. Could it be that the celestial fire had scorched all the senses from his gut, leaving only an outer glowing shell? Rhianon felt deeply hurt. Why could he not simply fall in love with her, as any man would if he were in his place now? Everyone who saw her fell madly in love with her. That was her peculiarity. She was used to it by now, but it might not have affected him. She suddenly felt like hitting him, hurting him, saying something insulting. But Madael spoke first. He spoke a few phrases in a hissing language she did not understand, and Rhianon frowned.

“Do you understand anything?” The next remark was already spoken as usual.

She only shook her head.

“What did you say?”

“Oh, it is nothing.” He shrugged, and his wings fluttered in time with them. It was as if the wings were alive behind his back, and yet they felt the vibrations of the body to which they were attached.

“I had an unwanted guest… I thought so,” she remembered the music coming through the tent. The sounds poured like a torrent of water, enticing and merciless. They made her fear and weep.

“He won’t come again,” Madael lowered himself quietly onto the bed, and the tone of his voice made it clear that this was a promise. Rhianon felt a pleasant shiver as long fingers ran over her shoulder. In her sleep, her shirt slid down and it was exposed. Rhianon looked almost bewildered at the unbuttoned lace collar and the transparent batiste. It hid almost nothing, but she suddenly wanted to take it off as well. It was as if Madael’s tempting gesture told her that a beautiful body didn’t need garments. She obeyed and took off her shirt. She expected him to be embarrassed, but his transparent gaze remained calm. His hands rested on her skinny shoulders. She did not have to bandage her breasts; they were so small that they could not be seen under the camisole. And Rhianon was easily mistaken for a boy. Of course, since she didn’t have to undress in front of the others. Even now the warrior who had captivated her demanded nothing of her, but she wanted to do it herself. She gently touched his hands guiding them down. A moment more, and cold, velvety hands rested on her breasts. Rhianon shuddered. The desire became unbearable. He was still looking into her eyes, but he didn’t dare kiss her, and then she reached for his lips herself.

“Tell me about you,” she asked, already catching his breath. How is it that you are made so beautiful that no one can resist you?

It was almost an encouragement. She was seducing the devil. But he obviously wasn’t used to flirting.

“I didn’t choose how to be,” he answered in sudden seriousness. “I just got it, and with it the pain of knowing I was alone because there was no worthy match for me. Now there are you. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot be your friend, because you see me as a supreme being.”

“Then be my god,” and she nestled herself against his lips. The time for talking was over, at least for an hour or so. She kissed him gently at first, then harder. How many moments passed before he realized he had to respond? Her lips, soft as rose petals, were suddenly unexpectedly commanding. This is what it’s like to make love to an angel, hands that kill mortals, light as if they were mowing rye, gently caressing you, lips that can breathe out flame, breathing into your mouth the scent of lilies. Rhianon had never imagined anything more beautiful. It was worth living and dying for. Even the feeling of being made not of flesh but of marble only excited her. Her hands slid over the smooth, cold skin. She still couldn’t feel her nipples on the smooth chest. She had hoped there would be at least some smooth, golden bumps, but she found none. However, when her hand slid lower, Rhianon was not disappointed. Only a slight startle struck her, something hard and aroused beneath his belly that bore little resemblance to what humans had. It was more like a piece of marble, cold and sharp, the kind of male organ only a statue could have, not a man. She was afraid it would hurt, but Madael whispered something soothing in her ear. As before, the words sounded in his heavenly accent, but Rhianon guessed they meant something affectionate. He quickly tucked strands of unruly hair behind her ears, threw off the rest of her clothing, and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

“Does it please you to be a prisoner now?” Madael tipped her lightly onto her back and leaned over her himself. Powerful arms braided with gold bracelets rested on either side of her shoulders. Strands of long blond hair hung down to touch her face.

“Oh, yes,” Rhianon felt something hard press against her stomach and involuntarily moved her knees apart.

He stared at her for a moment, as if painfully aware of all the human frailty of his captive. Her slender, almost lean body, her golden curls spread across the pillow, her small breasts and fragile arms. She tried to put her arms around his neck. He was so close and at the same time seemed out of reach with his wings spread over the bed. They hid them like a canopy, all the threads of which glowed with a ghostly, unearthly light. Rhianon wished it were him who lay below. She wished she could see his head on the pillows and press his fluttering wings to the bed. But perhaps they could try it out later. After all, now was only the first time.

When she felt the first powerful thrust, she cried out, but there was no pain. Strangely, it felt as if a piece of marble or the edge of a sword had jammed into her, but there was only pleasant warmth all over her body. She leaned toward him, as if she could feel the intoxicating sensations of pleasure. In a moment they were already moving together, registering each other’s rhythm. He was careful at first. Then the thrusts became stronger. It was as if he wanted to win another battle. She was already his captive, but it was as if he had forgotten that, as if he wanted to prove once more that he had truly captivated her. In that moment, when they reached the peak of pleasure, it really was. For a moment their bodies became one, her human and his angelic. Rhianon closed her eyelids, feeling the beads of sweat forming on her forehead and the last of her sweet urges subsiding in her womb. His hands caressed her shoulders, touched her elbows, and intertwined as if toying with her fingers.

“Now I feel truly victorious,” Madael lay down beside her and hugged her tightly.

It’s your defeat, not your victory, you must have sworn you’d never know, she wanted to tell him, but instead she just clung to his shoulder and asked softly:

“Would you fall again for me?”

“Yes,” he answered quickly and without hesitation, his thin, inhuman fingers gripping her even tighter, as if he would never let go.

“Why?” She was probably more preoccupied with the question than he was. Madael only smiled faintly, ran his fingers gently along the line of her spine, touched her neck and stroked her cheek. He must have been learning to love for the first time, but these touches made it possible to melt.

“Because you’re worth it,” he finally answered. “And I don’t need your soul at all. What you can give me, along with your body, is already worth everything.”

He kept his promise and resolved to give her everything he had. And that was a lot. As Rhianon learned, all the treasures of the world came from the fallen. There were gems, metals, especially gold. Everything that causes war and greed the greatest warrior brought with him. To humans it was evil, alluring and destructive. If she had been smart she would have given it all up, but, God, how nice it was to have it.

Rhianon weighed the gold necklace in the palm of her hand, which from a distance might have appeared to be a lace thread with pearls woven into it, so expertly made. She could tell at once that it was not the work of mortal jewelers. And neither was the chest of precious trinkets that now stood before her on the table. There were rings, rings with large stones, bracelets, chains, medallions, tiaras, and crowns. Rubies, sapphires, and diamonds shimmered on delicately twisted gold plates. You could see the colors and the variety of gems, but gold was the main ingredient of everything.

“It does look like you,” she remarked, watching the light reflecting off the gold rim of the necklace in her hands. “It’s like you. When you look at it, it seems to be the only light that shines out of it and that there is no other light source.”

“This is the source,” he reminded her. “A red-hot sunbeam that can make anything you want.”

“You made yourself a piece of jewelry with it?”

“Yes, a long time ago…” He hesitated, as if remembering something. “No one up there had the right to wear jewelry. There was nothing to distinguish us. And we didn’t need decorations. We decorated the heavens ourselves. I was the first to be conceited. I wanted something to distinguish me from the others. And now I will adorn you.”

He dipped his fingers into her locks and suddenly Rhianon felt the weight of the pearls in her locks. The pearls were wound tightly around each strand, as if they formed a net, while at the same time the hair was left loose on her shoulders.

“You did well,” Rhianon ignored the fact that there were now living pearl snakes in her curls and gazed at his hands entwined with gold plates. “It suits you very well.”

He looked down for a moment at his gold-patterned fingernails and fingers. The gold tubercles stood out sharply against his skin, growing into it at the same time.

“You didn’t even ask if I could take it off.”

“Couldn’t you?” She put aside the oval gold-rimmed mirror in which she was already examining herself. It seemed to her, for some reason, that there was someone living inside the tiny glass and laughing watching her, so that at the right moment to correct a broken curl or to erase a mimic wrinkle in her reflection and then these changes would happen in reality. Trying to catch the alien creature in the mirror Rhianon did not immediately grasp the essence of his words.

“I think I can,” he glanced at the bracelets as if assessing them.

He looked at the bracelets as if he were evaluating them. “You need them,” she didn’t know how to say it. It was as if the jewelry was a mystery to him. They merged with his body, but lived as if they were separate from it.

“I must not take them off,” Madael said. Rhianon realized that the subject was exhausted. He let out a long sigh as if he were trying to say something more and couldn’t. But she had already turned her gaze to the box full of exquisite wares of large pearls. She appeared here suddenly. Rhianon had never seen anything like it until a moment ago.

“It’s not gold anymore,” she observed.

“It is tribute from the sea creatures,” he said with obvious disdain. “They always bring back pearls and coral. It is so similar to their tears. They’re always bloody and white.”

“You mean you collect tribute…” she marveled, though what was so objectionable about that, he being their Lord, and didn’t she know before that someone was taxing all magical creatures and putting a terrible fear in them, too. It was not surprising. Of course, he had summoned them and seduced them. Watching him, it was impossible not to be seduced, but now Rhianon partly understood their anger and rage. She involuntarily sided with them. “But they had fought with you.”

“And they had lost. If they had not been cowardly enough, it would have been different. Especially your pet faeries were a failure. Their weapons were nothing but taunts and jokes, and anyone could handle them by force without difficulty. The others were stronger, but we had a weak rearguard. And it was too arrogant leader…”

“Oh, you blame yourself, too?”

“I should have thought more of the battle itself, rather than boiling with hatred and lust for revenge. Anger only takes strength, not strength, even if it’s righteous.”

“Revenge?” She asked incredulously.

“Remember when I stood up for my rights?”

She remembered all that could be read about the rebellion of Dennitsa from the scriptures. Most of it was just incoherent scraps that gave little insight into the whole shattering picture of the celestial struggle, and there were certainly no clear descriptions of its causes and characteristics. How had he risen, accompanied by what forces, why, why, what was he displeased about? All this remained a mystery. Gradually, however, she was learning something for herself. Perhaps the knowledge was passed down to her from him. Often she looked into his eyes and saw in them fragments of his grandiose past.

“You were hurt,” she remarked, not a question but a statement, and she wasn’t referring to the punishment that had befallen him after the battle, but to what had happened before.

“It always hurts to find out what’s wrong before you’ve done it,” he said. “It’s different now. I took the first step into the abyss and the pain is gone. People can die and torment each other around me, and I don’t care. I pass without looking back at their trickery and torment, because I myself have become the worst.”

“No,” she protested so vehemently, as if she were among his legion of angels herself. “You’re not the worst, and you never will be. You’re better than everyone and everything I’ve ever seen.”

“People tend to worship only those who do favors for them.”

She shook her head.

“God’s perfect creation had only rebelled against him because it couldn’t stand the fact that everything around it was imperfect. There is no evil in that.”

“Then there won’t be any, either, if you rebel against me one day. It’s just that the wheel of inevitability will turn again. Then I will suffer the same thing I once did.”

She frowned.

“Is that what you want?”

Madael shrugged only a little.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“What do you mean, we can’t step on it?” Manfred yelled like a madman, not a bit embarrassed to see all the advisers huddled in the corners of the hall listening to him. Just a moment and the golden goblet flew into the ambassador’s head. Manfred missed just a little. The young man, who had survived only because of his youthful agility, dared not speak any further, and Leroy took the floor. He rushed here as soon as he heard about the emergencies in the fields near the intended rally. At first the peasants were afraid to report it for fear of trampling their crops. But then they had to confess.

“The frost that covered the fields wasn’t the only reason,” the young man began in an uncertain tone.

“Not the only reason?” Manfred clenched his fists so white his knuckles and Leroy was not unreasonably afraid that the next heavy object the monarch encountered would strike him. The king was now so enraged that one could have no doubt that if necessary he would remove the heavy crown from his head and use it as an instrument of punishment, and yet Leroy took the liberty to continue.

“The thin ice is too slippery for our horses and lancers. And it can’t even be melted by visible warming and fires. Sometimes there seems to be something under the ice…” he paused to explain in words what he’d recently seen himself. It seemed to defy any explanation. Neither the sounds, nor the voices, nor the movements of the tiny bodies beneath the ice could be described in words, much less convinced that this was not nonsense, but Manfred seemed to understand and nodded.

“Go on!”

Courageously the young man took a step forward. His hands were trembling and he clasped them in front of him. Even on the battlefield, in the midst of the carnage, he did not feel as helpless as he did here. On the contrary, there he was in his place. Physical strength was all that mattered in battle, but here a single word from the king was enough to make him lose his head. Leroy had already imagined the execution order and the executioner’s axe. He decided to be honest before he died. There was nothing left to lose anyway.

“The local villagers swore they saw someone in the fields, some who were more courageous, who had been near the battlefield, swore they had observed corpses cowering or some creatures near the corpses. Of course, we executed the witnesses as looters, but the rumors didn’t stop. They say someone is knocking on peasants’ houses at night, trampling and burning crops, even eating corpses in cemeteries and battlefields. We didn’t believe it, of course, but at night when we decided to go out again we did see…” he swallowed hard, not knowing how to describe it. “It was a whole field of these creatures. There were black creatures. And they really do eat corpses.”

“Did they threaten you?” Manfred tensed.

“It was not in words,” the young man admitted honestly. He really couldn’t hear the words, only the clucking and writhing, like all his companions in general. “It wasn’t the speech either, but their looks, their movements. It was hard not to understand their intentions. They wait for us, every time we are about to approach the mountain range. They won’t let us into Menuel’s territory.”

“Can’t you fight them because of the ice?” One of the counselors grinned, but Manfred signaled him to be quiet.

“Where is the warrior who helped you to win the first victory?” He asked. “Where has he gone? Why is he not with you now, though he was at your side in the first battle? They say he never leaves those he fights for. He brings victory.”

Leroy didn’t know what to answer and nervously studied the floor with his gaze. The king was close to the truth. The first time it really was. But then they began to be haunted by bad luck. It was after the incomparable warrior disappeared.

“No one knows where he is,” the young man finally muttered, already sensing that another outburst of royal wrath was about to follow. “He disappeared just after he helped us gain the upper hand. He’s elusive. He comes and goes as he pleases. And it is impossible to find him again.”

“It is not impossible,” Manfred bellowed, and then another of his cries echoed sharply through the hall. The walls of the palace seemed to tremble. “Douglas!”

There was no need for such a cry. The young warlock, dressed as a raven in black, strode out from behind the throng.

He wanted to bow politely, but then realized that was unnecessary. Manfred was quite out of breath. He beckoned his extraordinary pet to him.

“Think of something.”

Douglas shuddered; never before had the king made such a request of him in front of witnesses. After all, everyone would have subtly realized that it was a matter of forbidden techniques, or rather of witchcraft. But now no rules of court etiquette mattered. Douglas only straightened the black lace sting that suddenly tightened around his throat like a noose, and nodded courteously. There was nothing he could do.