Surfacing Ch. 20

He blinked many times, beginning to quiver, and I drew Gavin back with me. Watching his face, I knew Yuncis now recalled those horrid, dissolving moments I'd shared with him as Soul Drinker and Gavin both sucked the life force from them, slow enough that the Hellhounds knew they wouldn't have the strength for that final burst of faith and hatred which would spew plague all over their enemies.

Combined with whatever Innathi had showed him before, this made the memory worse, intimate beyond what I had suggested before about killing someone with one's own hands. He knew now I had been lying about everything before, about being able to see or serve his mistresses even from within this dagger that had killed him. This place was not the Greylands, but a dead-end prison where his kind would never find him. His warrior brother wasn't here, and he would eventually cease to be.

I stepped back as the Hellhound began to bay and howl, the misery and helpless despair relived too keenly, sharp and piercing to the point I felt I might vomit again. I didn't want to share this with him. Not again.

"You're crushing my hand," Gavin whispered harshly.

"Huh?..."

Was that real? Was I really doing that, hurting Gavin physically somehow, or was it something I thought I was doing to his mind? I didn't see how it could be something I did to his body because I knew Gavin would not whine about a strong handshake even if it did hurt; he was well inured to pain in general and I knew he regenerated damage quickly. Was it as it had been before, then, when we were linked with Nyx and he had a nosebleed when we finally separated? I had better be careful.

Innathi chuckled behind us before coming to the fore, side-stepping and sauntering to stand between us and Yuncis Divigna once again. This time she had brought the Inquisitor scrambling on his knees with her, still holding his ear with her thumbnail digging in, and reached out with her free, gloved hand to touch the Hellhound's cheek.

"Oh, you and I shall have an eternity in this moment," she cooed. "So few remember being drawn into Soul Drinker as clearly as you do. But for now..."

She shooed him away, and the Hellhound disappeared in a rushing spray of blue sand. In a graceful spin, she threw High Inquisitor Kegyek in Yuncis's place and looked at us.

"Now the next. Be swift."

The Inquisitor was a shorter man of more refinement when compared directly to the Hellhound, but I remembered - just before Soul Drinker lodged in his throat - how fully dressed he appeared a combination between a fighter, a politician, and a Witch Hunter. Now he kneeled naked, dark-haired and pale, with attractive green eyes and far fewer scars than Yuncis. While the Hellhound began observant and quiet, as soon as Kegyek blinked, his face filled with hostility and it was obvious to me what he was thinking. Witchcraft, seduction, and heresy using black magic to tear him away from his god.

He wasn't too far from the truth in this case. He would never go to Musanlo and I wondered what his response would be when he fully realized that.

"So you have come for the demon slut in our dungeon," he hissed in a voice that for a moment I thought would have been more appropriate on a gnome, but that could've been just listening to Yuncis and his deep base for a while. "You will never get her out of there. You will join her and we will find out what you have planned against our God."

Gavin either knew something I did not or he had taken a cue from Innathi, but either way he surprised me when he stepped forward, still holding my hand, and gripped Kegyek's throat in his larger hand. He dug his black-tipped fingers in on either side of the windpipe to close off his air and strangle his voice. It worked exceedingly well; the Inquisitor's eyes bugged out and I saw his pale face flush with pain.

Again I wondered, if I was not really here, how was it that we could touch the ghosts? I might think it was Gavin's doing, his being able to see ghosts all his life, yet I remembered how it felt when Kurn's pierced dick had rubbed along my thigh. Hot, hard, and far too real, when Innathi had convinced me that I wanted to fuck anyone. Perhaps this was especially so for those who did not yet believe they were dead; it was easy to convince them that they felt horny, felt pain, or couldn't breathe.

"The undercroft," Gavin said, his icy black eyes piercing the other's like fresh green leaves suffering a dark winter. "There is an ancient guardian spirit down there. Have you ever seen him?"

I gave Gavin an odd look even though he wasn't focused on me. That was not one of the questions that Talov had for the Inquisitor. They were more interested in secret passages the Guild might have missed if they were new, and the exact locations of weapons and spell components within the temple that may have survived the battle and the looting. However, I did not interfere yet.

The necromancer eased his grip and Kegyek gasped while clutching at Gavin's bony wrist. "Spirit...? Haunting...?"

"Perhaps he is haunting, in that he is unable to leave the temple and cross over to Musanlo's realm," Gavin said. "But he holds his vow even past death. Have you ever seen him?"

The Man's eyes slid to the side, just barely. "N - No. Ghosts are lost souls barred from entering paradise, trapped to wander the land where they transgressed against our Holy Father."

Gavin snorted softly and squeezed the other Man's throat again. "That hardly covers every circumstance where one may see a spirit. I think that you have indeed seen him but you ignore him like he has sins which are contagious."

I watched as the Inquisitor tried bending one of my death mage's fingers back, to break the grip on his throat, but though he was not a weak man in life, he could not budge the necromancer's hold. I sensed anger coming from Gavin, as could Innathi, and we both stayed quiet wondering what this messenger might show us.

"Are there others?" he asked bluntly. "Wandering the temple or out in Manalar."

"We would have exorcised them," the Inquisitor almost squeaked.

"No one in your generation could manage that," the grey mage said bitterly. "I wager the best would be a ward or a magical barrier. You would not let your young scholars study in the realm of transforming or exiling souls."

"Of course not!" His squeak turned into a shriek. "That is... black magic! That is playing God!"

The naked Inquisitor struggled harder against Gavin's hold to no avail. He paused when Gavin bared his black teeth, stunned as if he was now staring down the maw of a Hellish devil.

"Where have you seen others?" Gavin repeated, making me wonder why he was so sure the Inquisitor had seen others? Was he going down the wrong path on a presumption?

Kegyek shook his head and pulled more, and I saw Gavin's fingernails begin to tear at the skin just as they would if we were standing among the living. My dark scholar did not care in the least. Innathi said nothing but when I glanced back quickly at her, she seemed to be listening to something as she looked up at the Sky.

"I haven't, I haven't!" the Inquisitor wheezed.

"You have," Gavin said. He still had not taken his eyes away from the other. "The ancient guardian told me that you could see him. You would not listen. Of course, I understand this, for if you had told Archbishop Keros of your ability to judge how close to death one of your victims was, you would be admitting to practicing dark magic. Yet you have always been able to do this, correct? This has made you one of the finest interrogators in temple history."

The Inquisitor grunted and continued shake his head, Gavin's nails raking him further as red blood stained each of their pale skins. I noticed that my grey mage's other hand had begun to squeeze my own rather hard as well, though I was not to the point where I would complain. Gavin repeated his question over and over, and eventually I noticed why a Man such as this one, who had once been in charge of all the Witch Hunters, would actually squirm like this while talking about ghosts with a tall, lanky heretic.

There was just the slightest bit of blue light at the tips of Gavin's fingers. It made me wonder if Inquisitor Kegyek could feel the cool touch of the Greylands through the hand around his throat? Not the blackening fire of the Nine Hells, or the bright warmth of his God, but the chill of the grave seeping into his soul.

By comparison, if I were to believe one of my earliest dreams about Soul Drinker, then Kegyek may have felt something more like acid or poison when the cursed dagger drew out his life force. Same with the Hellhound; either of them might believe that they had been attacked, but neither of them seemed to connect the feeling with actual death. With Yuncis, it had not been until he was reminded how he died. Soul Drinker was not unlike a spider dissolving a fly's guts with its venom before sucking out the insides. It seemed to suit the former queen of the Drow, even if the Spider Queen had not been part of our worship back then.

Perhaps no one, or at least no Human, could mistake the touch of the Greylands when they felt it. Ironic that the Inquisitor was so afraid of its touch when embracing it might be the only way he would stand in the warmth of his God once more.

*Jealous... Jealous...! He may not leave... ours, he is ours...!*

I looked behind me at Innathi again and she stared at me now. She smirked. That had not been her voice but probably either the dagger or all of those inside watching us. All the invisible souls, some still fairly whole and others in shreds and pieces, aware of Gavin's presence now just as they had always been aware of mine, but perhaps most particularly now they were aware of his blue light.

"Release me and I will tell you!" Kegyek finally cried.

"Release him, Gavin," I agreed, still looking up and listening around me.

"His distress is a draw, you know," Innathi chuckled.

When Gavin seemed instead tempted to squeeze harder, I reached with my free hand to touch his bloody one around Kegyek's throat. "Let him answer your question."

Gavin nodded without speaking and took his hand away from the Inquisitor. He straightened up and I pulled him a step back, looking up at him and seeing how his eyes had gone completely black. The hollow echoes around us were far more noisy now, as if we had disturbed the surface of a calm pool with a piece of meat only to see flesh-eating fish churning the water to a froth in their eagerness to get at the floating bits.

"I saw more ghosts all over the undercroft and the dungeons," the Inquisitor answered, now shaking as Yuncis had been after the queen had touched him. "Sometimes they seem drawn to the garden outside, or the butcher market, or on the south side of the city library, always the south side."

"The library?" I asked, glancing at Gavin in disbelief. Surely all the ghosts of Manalar were not bookworms like my grey scholar?

Gavin nodded without asking for more clarification on those odd choices. "Now tell me where you cache more weapons and spell components for your defenses. Places that would go unnoticed even if an enemy ransacked your city."

Well. At least he had not forgotten the Guild's requests. Kegyek was more willing to answer these questions so long as Gavin did not touch him again. The hollow noises around us did not seem to calm with the separation, however, and Gavin and I were more easily distracted as wisps of wind and sand seem to tug insistently at our cloaks. I looked again to Innathi as she began to pace a little bit, one gloved hand resting on her whip. She still looked up at the Sky, and I got the feeling that she was monitoring some sort of gate.

"That will be enough," the desert queen said when we had gotten a decent bit of information to bring back to Mourn and the others. "Perhaps you had best leave now and forget about summoning Kurn."

"Why, your grace?" I asked though I had more than enough nerves built up to guess from listening to the distant howls behind, above, and all around us.

Gavin had released the Inquisitor but it didn't lessen the sounds. Innathi strode forward to reclaim the green-eyed Man for herself as she had the Hellhound. She didn't answer my question until she had slapped him extremely hard across the face, not only tossing his head to the side but causing him to tilt and fall. As soon as his body landed on the warm stone, he vanished in another gust of wind and sand. Only then did the desert queen turn around to face us, looking between us with a hard stare.

"They wonder if they might leave with the Deathwalker," she said with amazing straightforwardness. "It is not possible, and it would drive both of you mad if they tried. An attempt at mass possession."

The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I believed her. That was a very real risk, but yet wouldn't Innathi also be very happy for me to simply give up on Kurn and not challenge her anymore for control of him? It would be so very easy to give up and leave now. Yet I still had the cum-stained rag wrapped around the hilt of Soul Drinker and the first thing that came to my mind after her warning was his erection with the blue jeweled ring piercing the head. It was a sapphire, she had said, in honor of the color of my eyes.

Unlike most of my kills with the red-rune dagger, stabbing Kurn had been physically pleasurable as well as mentally so, the natural consequence and the final confrontation coming from his persistent stalking and my violation of him in the canyon. Final, at least, among the living. I remembered stabbing him again here atop this pyramid using my Red Sister dagger and only wishing him gone so that I could protect Jael and discover what Innathi was hiding.

Now I wished him back.

"He is among them," Gavin said quietly. "You did not destroy him."

"You do not have much time," our hostess warned and if she was irritated that we were not acting immediately on her suggestion she did not show it. "You forget, Sirana, you owe me your service. You must leave, my warrior."

"Gavin?" I began with and halted as I looked up and down his new robes.

Made to be a very muted grey in the waking world, the cloth seemed brighter now as if it had been dipped in some compound which slowly stripped all color from the natural material as it dried. I could not say it was as white as Innathi's silk dress or our hair, but it was beginning to lean that way. His eyes remained solid black.

"Gavin," I said again.

"If you would try, do it now," he said. "Her grace cannot let you come to harm and she can and will exert control over those that would descend upon us."

Innathi paced some more, moving in a wide circle around us, her whip now trailing behind her almost like a very thin version of Mourn's tail. A curved ran down its length as she gave it a flick, but it was not hard enough to snap the air. "You push your own safety, Deathwalker, relying on me."

Gavin chose not to respond aloud but he adjusted his grip on my hand as his pitch black eyes scanned the Stars above us. The unspoken gesture said quite a bit. The ancient queen was probably right that we were not safe indefinitely as long as Gavin stood with me, but as long as he held onto me it also stood to reason that if Innathi would protect me for a little longer, Gavin would benefit from the protection while I made the attempt.

Gavin and I had discussed how we might draw Kurn forward from the mass, particularly when I explained how I had briefly wrested control of him from Innathi before. Neither Mourn nor Isboern were cheerful with the explanation but admitted it made sense even from the view of a simple spell component, and Krithannia, Talov, and my Sister all chuckled. I didn't bring up Kerse or the talisman he had made to control me as a possible reason for my impulse to gather up Kurn's semen at all, and though Mourn could have made a connection just from my memory of it, he did not seem to see a need to bring it up either.

Nonetheless Gavin had told Innathi when we first got here that we might summon Kurn through his lust, and that was exactly what I had to do.

Right. So do it now.

I had stroked him off once before and it was easy to imagine doing so again, right now atop this monument. This time I imagined doing so with the sapphire piercing twinkling at me as the deep red member swelled and shook under my ministrations, as clear, slippery fluid seeped from the hole in the tip.

*Ku's ummat...*

*You want to fuck me, Ma'ab? Do you?*

For a moment I felt the distinct mass of a heavy, turgid erection in my hand, but then it disappeared. I turned my head to look at Innathi through my lashes, as my eyes were mostly closed. She tilted her head innocently as I narrowed my eyes, as if she was not still resisting my command of her big, new toy.

I wondered about her claim on him, and her desire to get the big Man rutting on me. Perhaps it had been that fresh glut of new souls after decades of being placed unused on Brom's shelf, and perhaps it had been the chaotic nature of those souls affecting the queen as she welcomed them into her realm, but I still hadn't liked being made vulnerable to my opponent whom I just killed, no matter what pleasure Innathi might have thought I would get from it.

*Were you told that I was your reward for being such a good boy for your new mistress? Were you, Kurn?*

Again I can clearly see myself pulling his erection in my mind's eye, jerking it like the breeding bull he was. I imagined him on his knees in the Canyon, his crinkled pucker already violated and his cock getting ready to spurt all over his own skin as I lodged the hilt of his own dagger further up his backside. I heard a ghostly moan in response.

*As I have told another brutish freak before, I am no one's reward. Especially not yours. You are mine. Come here, ku's ummat. Now.*

Again I felt the weight of a Human cock in my gloved hand, and the transition from memory back to communion with the Elsewhere was almost seamless. I stared at a broad chest, pale and sparsely covered with black hair, and I had to lift my chin to confirm a familiar, dark-eyed, masculine face framed by short, black hair. Kurn had almost no expression and I wasn't even sure he saw or recognized me, but his hands were fisted and his erection strained for release as pre-cum leaked out and around the golden ring decorating his pole.

"Welcome back," I said with a very slow jerk.

His body quivered but again his expression didn't really change. He stared down at me with intense eyes, like an animal awaiting some action, the self-awareness wasn't really there. Did he remember anything, or was his mind dead?

Behind me, Innathi chuckled. "For a while, every soul here can be injured and violated again and again for as long as they believe it is happening. The memory of the training seems to last, one after the other, but each time you kill them, or make them believe you have killed them, some small piece is missing every time they come back. Your Deathwalker has his mindless servants, and in this way I have mine."

I frowned, keeping my eyes on the Ma'ab before me. "Kreshel."

Gavin made a small, uncomfortable grunt at the same moment I saw something in my head. It was a reversed view of Kurn's erection, with his own hand stroking him off instead of mine. It was someplace dark and there was a thin line of light—firelight, I thought—as he peered into a foreign chamber full of paintings of various battles and dark-eyed figures posing in the glory of uniform, blood, and death.

The image became clearer as I coaxed parallel pleasure from him, flicking the sapphire ring now and then, and I realized a younger Kurn spied on his father and a woman I didn't recognize. I only heard "governess" in my ears but it did not come from the couple; in fact, I heard no words, foreign or not, only high-pitched barks of effort coming from the female and the mashed up heavy breathing of a struggle.