Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [38]
Keph turned and saw the instrument that kept the clash of the beat: a large metal ring being tapped, beaten, and stroked with a metal rod. There were two of them. No, three, all pounding into his spinning head. Keph clutched his ears and staggered against a wall. His stomach heaved once and a stream of vomit splashed across a floor of rough stone.
The cultists grabbed him and pulled him away before he could even stop gagging. He kept heaving as he stumbled. The cultists barely seemed to notice. They rushed him along, pulling at his arms and hands, at his shirt and sleeves. Fabric tore-his right arm was bare. Someone laughed hoarsely. Hands seized his arms and dragged him painfully onward. Keph staggered to his feet before the cold, raw stone of the floor could shred his trousers and the skin beneath.
"Stop!" he gasped again. "Please st-"
The candle went out. The clashing music stopped. A heartbeat later, the hands that held him vanished, and Keph was left to stand on his own in the darkness. The air was cold on his sweat-slicked skin. The panting of his breath came back to him in soft echoes.
"Where moonlight and sunlight have never fallen, we give praise to Shar."
Bolan's voice! Keph turned, trying to face its source, but echoes and a slow chant of response from the hidden cultists made it impossible.
"Mistress of the Night," Bolan prayed, "we fear your beauty. Forgive us the need to shield ourselves from it."
There was a clink of metal and the dim light of an uncovered brazier shone out. In the darkness, it was like a brilliant star. More braziers followed, uncovered by cultists, a magnificent constellation. Even so, they struggled against the darkness and as Keph's eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that the braziers only made the shadows deeper by contrast. Wherever the cult had brought him, it was vast. He couldn't see any walls or a ceiling. Beyond the light of the braziers, there was simply nothing. He choked and fell to his knees, driven down by the overwhelming power of the total, primal darkness.
Between two braziers and before an altar draped in black velvet stood Bolan. Something had changed in the strange, stunted man. His porcelain smooth face seemed to glow in the dim light, while robes of black trimmed with purple hid his bulky body. An aura of faith suffused him, lending him just a little of Shar's glory.
At his side, however, stood a woman of Calimshan who didn't borrow Shar's glory so much as radiate a dark power of her own. Black hair flowed loosely against dusky pale skin and black clothes embroidered in shimmering, deep purple thread.
"Her name is Variance," Jarull had said. "Power flows off her like a shadow. I trust her more than Bolan."
Variance was watching him. Keph tore his gaze away from her.
Bolan didn't seem to notice anything. The priest spread his arms wide and said, "A man comes before Shar. He has drunk the Elixir of the Void from the Cup of Night. Can we accept him?"
"Shar welcomes all into her embrace," murmured the cultists.
Keph stared at them. Maybe it was just the echoes, but there seemed to be far more people standing in the shadows than just those who had led him in.
"Let all be welcome," said Bolan, "if they grieve or mourn or hate. Let all be welcome if they desire vengeance or know bitterness."
"Shar welcomes all."
Bolan held out his hands to Keph. "Shar welcomes you into her embrace. Do you embrace Shar and welcome her?"
Keph nodded slowly-then emphatically.
"The Lady of Loss gives you voice," Bolan said kindly. "Speak."
"I embrace Shar," Keph croaked.
He could taste vomit and wine and whatever bitter substance had been mixed with the wine. The numbness on his lips had spread up his face and across his scalp.
"Stand and approach her altar."
Keph pushed himself to his feet and staggered toward Bolan, Variance, and the velvet-draped altar. The distance was misleading. What looked like it should have taken only a few steps to cross seemed to take many. Bolan