Obsidian Ridge - Jess Lebow [99]
"That's sick."
"Love always is." Xeries returned the veil over his wife's face. "Always is."
+++++
The long, dark hallway wound deep into the Obsidian Ridge. Along the floor, four sentries patrolled. Long, lithe, dangerous killing machines, like all of Xeries's other creations, they were on a mission. In their heads, they could hear their orders repeated, then repeated again, Find-find the-the intruder-intruder.
From above, a figure watched their movements. It paced them, waiting for the right moment.
The sentries reached the end of a hallway. They sniffed the air. They pawed at the walls. They examined everything.
The figure dropped to the passage floor behind them, silent-a cat, smaller than its prey, yet no less dangerous.
The sentries turned to head back down the hallway just as the figure pounced. It had claws on one hand, just as they did. Its body was covered in black, just as was theirs.
But the figure was not one of them.
It was smarter. It was faster. It was more ferocious. And it came for them now, tearing into their flesh like a ravenous dragon.
Xeries had bred his minions personally, experimenting with them for hundreds of years. He had tortured and mangled their bodies and souls until he had developed the perfect killing machine-strong, obedient, and afraid of nothing.
That is, afraid of nothing until now. The figure climbed back into the ceiling, the sentries dead on the floor.
++++?
Xeries raised his hands, and his wife's body lifted from the floor. Gently, carefully, he levitated her onto the stone table, just below her final resting spot. She was not quite ready to pass from this world to the next. She would never fully die. Not at least until Xeries did, and if all went as he had planned, that would never happen.
Eventually, though, she would reach a state of limited consciousness, just like all the rest of his wives. For now though, she would hang on. They all had clung to that last ray of hope, that last bit of life. There was not enough of her life-force left for Xeries to claim. His immortality required more than she could give. But he remained bound to her, as his wife, until she gave up on her survival instinct, until she no longer wished to live.
It was then that he could put her to rest in her place up high on The wall. When that happened, he could wed Princess Mariko and continue his immortal life. But until then, while his wife was between life and unlife, he would age, just like all the rest of humanity. He would bleed, just like the rest of humanity.
Xeries hated this time, this waiting while he was mortal again. He disliked the vulnerability.
A vision came to him as he finished lifting his wife from the floor. Connected to his creatures through telepathy, Xeries watched his sentries torn to shreds by the man who had accompanied the princess into the citadel.
"This was not part of the arrangement." He glared at Mariko. "Who is this disease you have introduced to my home? Who is this man that stalks my halls?"
Mafiko sat on the floor, the mimmio cradled in her lap.
"He's just one of the king's soldiers." She smiled. "They're all just like him."
Xeries growled. "I told your king there would be consequences, yet he has defied me." Reaching into a pocket on his robes, he pulled out a small pile of dried, brittle bones. Dropping them on the floor, he spoke the words to a spell, one he had not used often, but he had committed it to memory all the same.
"What are you doing?" asked Mariko through her furry translator.
"I am delivering on my threat," said Xeries, his echoing voice giving away his glee. "I'm drying the land. Turning your home into a desert."
He smiled big, a mouth full of crooked teeth showing. "Let's see your father defy me now."
Xeries left the room, waving the doors closed behind him. He crossed to the dais and sat down in his throne. It felt empty here without a wife. It had been a long time since he had replaced one.
This last one had been very strong, had lasted a long time. He would remember her fondly. Lifting a goblet from the table, he brought