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  He admired the instruments on display as he walked in. The luthier himself, a man named Yonaph, had emerged from the back when he’d heard the tinkling of the bell over the door. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of Rak; he glanced at the trailing guards then back at the priest. “High Priest, I wasn’t expecting you. Are you here for a new lute?”

  Rak shook his head. “I seek information. I will pay, of course.”

  “I don’t know what information I might have that would be of any use to you,” Yonaph began.

  “You live here in the city. You hear what people say. Are saying. About me. I want to know what rumors are flying.” Rak set several gold nomi on the counter.

  Yonaph licked his lips, glanced at the guards again then shrugged. “They say people are disappearing in the night, like before. They say these people are being sacrificed in dark rites, by you and the other priests. They say you’re evil, that your god is evil, that you intend the ruin of the kingdom. You plan to kill the good king and install your puppet prince on the throne, and anyone who resists will be fed to your evil creatures.”

  “I see.” Rak cast his gaze over the lutes as he thought. From what he’d seen of the city, the rumors were so widespread that he doubted their origin could be traced at this point, except that the story was awfully coherent. “Are there wilder rumors also, variations, or are most people saying the same things?”

  “Most are saying the same, High Priest. I even know where it’s coming from. There’s a street preacher who is speaking against you, name of Naxt.”

  “Naxt. Where can he be found?”

  “In the main market, most days, under the statue of Xrehnys.”

  “Thank you, Yonaph, you’ve been most helpful.” Rak left the nomi on the counter, turned, and strode out. A street preacher, under the sign of Xrehnys, the god of time and fate, the god of seers, speaking against the dark servants? Even though Xrehnys was House of Day, He wasn’t known for taking sides. He took the longer view, or so it was said.

  Initially, Rak headed for the main market, but he reconsidered before he was even halfway there. Between his attire, his hair, his wings, and the guards trailing him, he stood out in a crowd. It wasn’t confrontation he wanted, it was information. He bypassed the market and headed back to the palace. A dark blue mastigi slipped out of the hood of his cloak and took wing. The guards were accustomed to this, so they didn’t react.

  Trelo gained altitude quickly. Years of practice enabled Rak to walk even as he kept track of the mastigi’s location. He paused at a corner as Trelo flitted across the market. Finding the sigil of Xrehnys was as easy as scanning the walls. There, he noted the triangle of the god—past, present, future. Scythe, hourglass, all-seeing eye. Trelo landed on the apex of the triangle. Below him stood a man dressed in the regalia of his god.

  He listened through Trelo’s ears as he passed through the palace gates. The priest, if he was, in fact, a priest, was indeed speaking against the dark servants in general and against Rak in particular. He speaks well, Rak decided as he entered the palace and headed for his suite. He wanted to reach the safety of the suite so he could devote more of his attention to what Trelo was sharing with him.

  * * * *

  Jisten scowled at Rak’s back. The Loftoni had swept right through the gates and into the palace without so much as a glance at him. Or at anything else. He seemed completely self-absorbed, his attention turned inward. At least the assigned guards were still trailing him. Orste signaled all’s well as he passed by in Rak’s wake.

  He turned his attention back to Kordri. “Shift the guards on patrol to the city to help the Watch, it might help, and the Lythadi won’t be a threat for months, perhaps much longer.”

  “Yes, sir. Did you see the plans to fortify the Neck?” His lieutenant was a strong, loyal man, and Jisten appreciated his discretion as much as he appreciated the man’s right arm.

  “I did. In a rare show of unity, the council has already approved them.” Jisten smiled. Once the fortifications were complete, the Lythadi would no longer find the Koilathan countryside to be easy pickings. “Anything else?”

  “There’s an equine cough in the city. Unfortunately, it’s spread to our stables,” Kordri reported. “Bharis has isolated the symptomatic beasts and is trying to treat them.”

  He’d heard about the cough in the city. It was spreading like wildfire, they said, and was turning out to be rather lethal. “Does S’Rak know?”

  Kordri shrugged. He and Rak were barely civil to one another.

  I should insist that Rak service him. That would thaw his frosty manner. Casually, Jisten suggested, “We should go ask him then.”

  “I suspect the high priest would be happier not seeing me, sir, and I have to send out those orders to shift assignments like you wanted.”

  Jisten sighed, nodded, said, “Dismissed,” and headed into the palace in Rak’s wake, alone. As Jisten had assumed, Rak was in the parlor of the suite, sitting at one of the two desks. He wondered what the priest was doing, however, for his eyes were closed, and he appeared to be concentrating on something. That wasn’t acceptable to Jisten, the mark on his arm tingled unpleasantly until he said, firmly, “S’Rak. I need to speak to you.”

  Rak frowned slightly as his eyes opened. He focused first on Jisten then briefly on his pair of guards before turning his gaze back on Jisten. “Is this to be a private conversation?”

  “Have you heard about the cough in the stables?”

  “In the palace stables? No. I have heard about the near epidemic in the city.” Rak glanced out the window, in the direction of the stables. “I am sure Bharis will call for me if the horses are seriously ill, but I will send him a message just in case he is overwhelmed and has forgotten to notify me.” He briefly wrote something on a scrap of paper then offered it to one of the many mastigi that had taken wing at the utterance of the word message. The red, orange, and yellow lizard grabbed the rolled paper with all four of its little feet and zoomed off. “Now, if you do not mind, I am very busy.”

  Jisten scowled as he glanced at the desk’s top. It was neatly organized and devoid of unanswered correspondence. “Busy with what?”

  “Nothing that concerns you, Captain.”

  Rak’s curt dismissal burned across the mark on Jisten’s arm. He clenched his teeth and pictured pinning Rak to the desk and taking him right there in front of the other guards. Rak had already turned his back on him as if he were of no account as if he could be dismissed so easily. He grabbed Rak’s shoulder. “Everything you do concerns me, especially when you’re clearly not doing anything.”

  Rak twisted out from under his hand as he exited the chair and spun away from the desk. It was an elegant, graceful motion despite the controlled violence of it. Rak glared at him and spat, in carefully enunciated Okyran, “My business is my own. My thoughts are my own. My body may be yours, but my soul belongs to Zotien.” Before Jisten could think of a response, the high priest was halfway across the room. Rak strode into the chapel and closed the door. Dark fire sheeted down the door in clear warning to stay away.

  * * * *

  Paezin padded through the ornate gardens of the palace. He was a shadow within the shadows, invisible to both the nobles he observed and the guards who should observe him. He sought prey for his master’s work but not just anyone would do. A mistake had been made with the last, for her husband had been known to be on the enemy’s side, and thus, her murder made precious little sense. Why would S’Rak turn on an ally? In short, he wouldn’t.

  A particularly nasal laugh turned his head, and he turned his attention upon the source: a middle-aged woman dressed in the height of fashion, her expression cruel and calculating beneath the veneer of civility she showed to others. Her face was not displeasing though he suspected artifice being used to replace what age had faded. She wasn’t excessively heavy, at least, appearing slender enough beneath the ornate gown that her conquest might be enjoyable.

  He drifted closer, no more than
a whisper of wind, as insubstantial as he was invisible. The magic that enshrouded him came from his Goddess; it wasn’t true invisibility like some of the dark brethren could maintain. Rather, he was half-stepped out of the physical plane, a half-step away from the spiritual plane which would kill him. Here was the realm of pure chaos, between one plane and the next, and here he hid, able to observe and even act, in a limited fashion, without being seen or heard or stepped upon.

  He followed the lady now, marking her in his mind as his prey. She was perfect. Lady Soansa, they called her, fawning over her. Her husband was Lord Deviol, the newly named chancellor of Koilatha. She was vociferously outspoken against the dark ones, her husband was known to oppose them in the council. And even better, this Deviol was one of the two noble witnesses to the dark one’s collaring by the late Lord Virien. It was known that Deviol had carnal knowledge of the high priest because he had boasted of it, how Lord Keron and himself had used the sex slave after he’d begged them for relief. Nobody would look for any other suspect than the high priest.

  He stalked her across the gardens and back. When she retired at last to the palace, he followed her down the garishly decorated corridors. Is this cretin never alone? Even now, Soansa was in a knot of giggling women, maids and lesser noblewomen, who orbited her like she was the primary star of her little universe. But at last, she retired to her bedchamber, alone in her perfumed sleeping gown. Paezin materialized out of the shadows, clamped a medicated cloth over her nose and lips then caught her as she slumped unconscious. He hoisted her over a shoulder and slipped back into chaos, taking the woman with him.

  * * * *

  Bharis unrolled the message the mastigi had brought him. It was, as expected, a note from S’Rak asking about the illness in the stable. He quickly wrote out his reply, outlining the steps already taken and expressing a desire for the priest to assist them once night had fallen. He rolled the reply and offered it to the waiting lizard. “For S’Rak,” he said. The lizard took wing, grabbed the message, and flit back out the open window.

  “How did we ever get by before those lizards came here?” Bharis asked, rhetorically. The mastigi were not only useful as messengers, but they ate bugs.

  He stood from his desk and walked out of his office. Time to make another sweep of the barns, listening for the telltale cough of another sick horse. They were sweeping hourly now, and with every sweep, more horses were being sent to the isolation barn. At this rate, there’d be more sick horses than healthy ones by the time S’Rak came to assist. Bharis prayed that curing this illness would be within the priest’s powers. He didn’t know what they’d do otherwise.

  Several of his boys fell in beside him. Dahser told him, “Sir, we’ve had to open a second barn for th’ sick ones.”

  “I know. Hopefully, this will all be over by tomorrow.” Bharis indicated another sick horse. Nall split off to remove it to the isolation barn. They continued the sweep. More horses were identified and removed by the boys, who’d return to the group once they’d delivered their charge to the second isolation barn.

  “When th’ priest comes, we’re gonna work t’gether to keep them guards off ‘im,” Dahser commented. “Don’t want them interferin’ with th’ priest.”

  “That’s a good plan,” Bharis agreed, thinking that S’Rak would have an easier time working if the guards weren’t there to annoy him. His boys would be with the priest continuously, so it wouldn’t be as if they were leaving him alone to commit another murder, not that he believed for a moment that S’Rak had actually killed Lady Kazia.

  Chapter Six: Neren

  Rak stretched as awareness returned. The close, familiar confines of the chapel once more surrounded him. By fully enmeshing his senses with that of Trelo’s, he had learned all he needed to know about the so-called street preacher who spoke so eloquently against him. He had even followed the other priest back to his temple—he was indeed a servant of Xrehnys, which really begged the question of why the God of Fate was bestirring His servants to speak against a servant of a God who was not His enemy. In fact, Rak owed some allegiance to Xrehnys, as did all seers.

  He wasn’t sure how to approach this. Part of him thought that the easiest solution would be to walk into the temple of Xrehnys and ask. On the other hand, if he ignored the preacher as irrelevant and drew no attention to the man, the people might eventually grow bored with the vitriol and drift away, especially since there was nothing to link Rak to these accusations other than prejudice. If he confronted the preacher, he could be seen as taking the matter seriously, lending authority and even veracity to the preacher’s claims.

  He mentally weighed his options as he left the chapel and headed for his bedroom. He wanted a bath and a change of clothing before he headed for the stables and the night’s work. The guards usually stopped at his bedroom door but not this time. They followed him into the bedroom, and by the time Rak realized this, they had closed and barred the door.

  He started to turn, already formulating what he was going to say to the unwelcomely intrusive men. A cold voice stopped him.

  “Hello, pet.”

  He knew that voice. Shuddering, he turned toward it. “Impossible,” he whispered. “You cannot be.”

  Neren smirked. He pointed to the floor before his feet. “Kneel.”

  Rak found himself obeying without any conscious intention of doing so. He stripped as he approached the man so that by the time he knelt at Neren’s feet, he was naked. He recalled the first time he’d met Neren as if it had been yesterday, rather than months ago.

  Rak’s eyes didn’t want to focus, his head was pounding, and the taste in his mouth was unbearable. He was on his back, and his wings, furled beneath him, were cramping. He tried to roll over and discovered that he couldn’t. He was bound to a pleasure rack. His strapped legs were spread wide, leaving his groin fully exposed. His wings were not only furled, but also bound by straps, and his arms were ratcheted back out of the way, forcing his back into an upward curve. His head was held so that he could not turn his face away from the man who stood between his legs.

  He reached for Scorth, for his Valer, and for his God but found nothing. He tried, and failed, to summon Morth and then a firemane. Desperate, he tried to call a common mouse to him. Nothing.

  It was the clerk from the records hall, but he didn’t look like a thin, easily cowed functionary now. The man smiled at him coldly and addressed him in the master-to-slave form of Zafirin. “So, you’re awake, pet? Good. I wouldn’t want you to sleep through this. My name is Neren, but you will call me Master.”

  Neren slid a golden ring over Rak’s shaft and then squeezed the scrotum through, seating the ring at the base of Rak’s package. He touched it and whispered a word. The ring sank into Rak’s skin, anchoring itself with a finger-wide band of flesh along the top line of the shaft.

  Rak whimpered at the discomfort of feeling his skin parting for the ring and resealing.

  Neren repeated the spell on the underside, further anchoring the ring to the back of Rak’s scrotum.

  The next ring only went around Rak’s shaft, sealed by another finger-wide band of skin along the top line. Neren tugged on the fine chains connecting the two rings along the sides. Since Rak was flaccid, there was plenty of give in the chains, but Neren was still rewarded with Rak’s yelp of pain. Neren anchored more rings into Rak’s penis, carefully aligning the rings with the faint scars on Rak’s shaft that marked where the original ring harness had been. There were five rings, each smaller than the last, and then, Neren added one more but to Rak’s sac, not his shaft. Both balls were squeezed through this ring, and it was pushed up until it was right next to the base penis ring. A moment’s work and it, too, was anchored in Rak’s flesh. Neren checked his work carefully, examining each ring for position or flaw. Satisfied, he stimulated Rak’s anus, forcing an erection.

  Rak moaned as the rings squeezed his expanding shaft. The slack in the chains was taken up, growing taut as he reached full arousal. He had n
ever been sure if the sensation of the rings was one of pleasure or one of pain. But their presence made sexual activity much more intense, focusing his mind down there.

  Neren touched him, stroking the engorged shaft with a finger. “There’s a good pet,” he said as Rak’s body reacted to him. He opened a box and showed the contents to Rak. It was a highly realistic stone phallus.

  Rak stared at the pattern of ropy veins the sculptor had faithfully replicated and dreaded what he knew was coming.

  “You are getting a rare honor, pet,” said Neren. “This was made from a casting of His Mightiness, King Narvain. You may thank me for allowing you to service his royal phallus.”

  Rak shuddered and closed his eyes, making no reply. A moment later, he screamed as the braided horsehair whip struck his manhood. “Thank you, Master,” he said, in the submissive slave-to-master mode of Zafirin once he’d caught his breath. Since Neren had thus far only spoken to him in Zafirin, it was easy for Rak to slide back into the familiar patterns of what had once been the only language he’d known.

  Satisfied, Neren pushed the stone phallus into Rak until the stone scrotum was seated against Rak’s body. Then, he worked it, thrusting it in and out strongly. “There’s a good slave,” Neren purred. “You missed having your Master in you, didn’t you? His Mightiness made this just for you, pet.”

  Rak moaned helplessly under the onslaught, his hips working in counterpoint. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t a real penis; the magics forced on him in his youth caused him to respond to the stimulation. He gasped as he sensed a change. The marble no longer felt hard and unyielding. It felt warm and alive.