The Secrets of Jin-Shei (33 page)

Nhia opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out, not even a whisper. Lihui saw the shock of that wash over her features, and smiled, setting the skull down on a delicately lacquered chest of drawers that served as a bedside table.

“Don’t try to talk, Nhia,” he said gently. “You can’t. I took your voice, for now. You will not need it for a while. All you need to do is listen to me, and to do what I need you to do. There is nothing wrong with your senses, in fact they are stronger than they have ever been, and we will sharpen even that.” He reached out, lifted her head and pillowed it on his arm, reached for the skull vessel with his other hand. “Drink, Nhia. This will bring you to the edge of flight. This is a draught of immortality, waters from the Fountains of Cahan.”

The words were lancing—she had thought he had spoken in metaphors before, when he had mentioned the Fountains, but now she had a clear sense that he spoke of a thing that was as real and solid as his gentle but inexorable touch.

“Drink,” he said firmly, lifting the edge of the skull against her lips.

She felt liquid lap against her mouth, tried turning her head away in feeble defiance, but Lihui let her head fall back, just a little, tightening the muscles in her neck. Nhia gasped; her lips parted, the liquid from the skull vessel flooded her mouth, she swallowed convulsively. Lihui set her down, very gently.

“Good. It will take a few minutes. Just relax.”

Colors swirled in her vision as she lay back against the pillow, and then she rose above them, through them, every edge in the room suddenly diamond-etched, sharp enough to cut. She heard rustles of small living creatures in distant dark corners of the room, saw the warp and weft of the weave in the canopy of silk stretched above the bed she lay in, felt the smoothness of silk caress her body—she was aware, suddenly, that she was not wearing her own clothes but a pale robe, twin to the one Lihui was garbed in, fastened at the shoulder with a metal clasp. The taste in her mouth was metallic, an unholy mixture of terror, raw panic, and the chemical soup that had been in the skull potion. The very air sang in her ears, every nerve ending in her body quivering with sensation.

Lihui glanced at her, seemed satisfied with what he saw, nodded. Nhia heard him start murmuring something, in a voice she hardly recognized, in a language she did not know, his back to her now, his arms raised as if in invocation, his long dark hair lifting and quivering at the ends as though in response to some unfelt breeze. His voice rose in a crescendo of power; Nhia heard herself screaming, but knew that she made no sound in the firelit room. Lihui touched the clasp that held his robe; it fell open and he discarded it, leaving it in a crumpled heap of silk on the floor, as he turned and strode back toward the bed. He was nude, his lithe, muscular body painted by light and shadows from the fire, his hair caressing his naked shoulders, his eyes a glow of triumph.

“It was good,” he said conversationally, in his normal voice, “that you were physically marked. A beauty of flesh coupled with that beauty of spirit, and you would have been any man’s prize. But with this …” His hand came down lightly on Nhia’s withered leg, his fingers caressing the length of it until they reached the twisted foot. “It took a Sage and a sorcerer to see the inner beauty. And you have remained pure for me.”

Nhia whimpered, soundlessly, closing her eyes.

“You will feel,” Lihui said, leaning over to whisper into her ear. “You will give. You will give …
everything.
”

She felt him touch the clasp on her own robe and the fabric slipped free; Lihui swept it from her in a single motion, leaving her lying naked and exposed on the silken sheets. Then his hands came to rest on her shoulders, still gentle, still frighteningly kind.

“And you are a beauty, after all,” he breathed, his thumbs slipping from her collarbone to sweep over her breasts. His touch was fire; Nhia writhed, turning her head away. “Ah, more to come,” Lihui said. “Don’t use it all up now. I want it all. You have known no man before me, I think. Good. Good. The essence is made stronger. The first time, then, for the body; the rest, for the spirit. Feel it, Nhia.
Feel
it all.”

His hands slipped further down, caressing her breast, her waist, coming to rest on her hips. She felt the bed shudder, then her legs being pushed apart by his knees as his hands came down, further down, fingertips a featherlight touch on her thighs as far down as her knees and then back up on the inside of her thigh, gently, so gently …

“It may hurt, a little,” he said, almost apologetically, as his hands came together and brushed up and down between her legs. Nhia’s body arched, twisted, but there was no escape from his touch, from his gentle voice,
from his presence. She would not open her eyes, keeping them tightly closed, squeezing out hot tears between eyelids pressed together—she would not look, she would not, she would not give him even that much. But he was right in that he was taking everything, and her traitor’s body with its preternaturally aroused senses writhed in both anguish and vivid shocks of pleasure that were hateful to her but which she could not barricade her mind against as he opened her with his long fingers and then, his hipbones hard against her own, he entered her with a grinding thrust and groan of his own pleasure. Nhia’s hands were clenched into tight fists, her arms straining from her shoulders, her breath catching in painful sobs as a rending pain jack-knifed her body under Lihui’s on the bed … and then it was over. He was lying on top of her, supported on his elbows, a hand pushing Nhia’s hair away from her face, his voice a miracle of softness and wonder, whispering beside her ear.

“And now,” he said, impossibly, the meaning of his words a searing agony that made Nhia’s eyes fly open in yet more anguish, only to meet the quiet triumph in his eyes, “we begin.”

He pulled out of her and sat up, murmuring more invocations.

What more do you want?
Nhia screamed at him, in her mind, still only in her mind

Incredibly, he answered her there.
Your body is only a gateway to your soul, my dear. For the rest, we will have to go back to that place where you fly free. But never forget that I hold the power to bring you down. You die at my word, Nhia. Do not forget that.

She felt him inside her then, not inside her body, a greater violation still, inside the heart and mind and spirit of her; he laid his gentle hand on it all, and it was the touch of iron.

Fly,
he commanded.

And oh, she did—she was back in the sky that had terrified and exalted her so that first time she had experienced it, and this time it was even greater and bluer and more wonderful than she remembered, and beyond the blue there were stars, she could see them glittering, count them in their multitudes, her eagle’s wings spreading to catch the wind as she climbed up toward them.

Yes,
she heard in her mind, an exultant shout, not her own.
Yes!

She opened her eyes then, at last, and looked. She saw a creature of fire rearing over her, his eyes glowing embers of burning red coals, his hair
flames about his face. She saw a spirit that had been old when the world was young, its centuries heavy on it, needing sustenance to survive, to endure. She saw the thing that bound her to this monster, a thread of light, streaming into his open mouth; he was drinking her, all of her, taking the essence of a pure spirit and filling up the fiery vessel that was himself, glowing ever brighter as he drained her, sucked her dry.

Even as it came the vision blurred and faded. Nhia’s eagle self became a ghostly echo, and slowly faded from the sky full of stars, or they faded from around her, growing distant and pale and insubstantial. In the earthly anchor of her body, she saw Lihui poised over her, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, his hands on her shoulders, and then even that vanished, slowly, from the outer edges in, as the potion in the skull seemed to lose effect and the cutting edges of things blurred back into just distant, fuzzy outlines and then dimmed into a uniform grayness which deepened into black. And then she knew no more.

When Nhia swam back to consciousness, she appeared to be alone in the alchemist’s room. The fire on one of the two hearths had gone out completely, and the other was just a glow of embers; only the weak light from a couple of guttering candles pierced the gloom. She had been unbound, though, and lay curled up on her side, like a child, covered lightly with a sheet. A strand of her loose hair fell across a naked shoulder showing from under the sheet, and Nhia, bringing her bleary eyes to focus on it, saw that there was white in it, a white streak that snaked through the black tresses. She ached all over, as though she had been beaten senseless. A groan escaped her, and she wondered, vaguely, why the sound should have significance to her, before dredging from her memory the spell of silence that Lihui had cast upon her the night before.

And that brought back everything.

The groan turned into a soft whimper, and she curled herself around her middle, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and burying her face in the crook of her elbow.

“There’s no time for crying,” another voice said, right beside her. A familiar voice.

Nhia lifted her eyes, bewildered beyond measure, to meet those of the woman who stood beside the bed—dressed in fine embroidered silk, the rings of marriage on both her thumbs, her hair coiled into a married
woman’s complicated formal coiffure, her eyes older by far than those which Nhia remembered—but still, without a doubt, Khailin, missing without trace for so long.

“He is at Court,” Khailin said. “There is a little time before he returns. I cleaned you up, but I have no idea what he did with your clothes. It will have to be my dress. Hurry.” Her eyes softened a little as she read the hurt and puzzlement on Nhia’s face, brightened with tears. “So help me, Nhia, I did not know. The first inkling I gathered of his intentions was when he sent out the path for you to follow the day before yesterday. I tried to stop him, but I don’t think I succeeded very well, and then yesterday, when he called you again and you came, there was nothing I could do, once he had you down here. I cannot stand against him, not yet. Not when he is in his full power. And he stretched out every ounce of it to get you here.”

“What … where … ?”

“No time,” Khailin said. She held out a gown. “I think this one should fit well enough. Hurry. If you want to live, you have to be gone by the time he returns.”

Nhia took the gown with an instinctive gesture, sitting up, staring wide-eyed at Khailin. They were of an age, with only five months between them, but Khailin looked like she had aged ten years in the short time she had been gone. There were even fine lines around her eyes, or at least the illusion of them. She looked tired, but she was still Khailin, defiant, undefeated. Now she met Nhia’s eyes steadily for a long moment, and then reached behind her to gather up a porcelain cup with faintly steaming liquid in it.

“When you’re dressed, drink that. Don’t worry,” she said with a brittle laugh as Nhia shied away from the cup, “it is none of his poisons. It’s just green tea. I wish I could give you something to eat, too, but there is no time, no time, and I don’t want anyone in the kitchens thinking you’re awake yet. Hurry. I must get you out of this house. On you, I think, he has laid no ban.”

“Ban?” Nhia repeated. She was feeling very stupid and fuzzy this morning, it seemed.

“There are no locks and keys in this place,” Khailin said bitterly, “but he does not need them. I cannot step outside this house, he has made sure of that, and no message of mine can get past his spells either. Until he is sure of me. Until he knows that I will say nothing that will endanger him.
Which means I’ll probably live out the rest of my days here if I can’t find a way to reverse the fiat. But not you. I will not let him have you. For the love of Cahan, Nhia, hurry.”

Nhia swung her legs out of bed, wincing as every small movement brought waves of pain and nausea washing over her. A dry retch shook her shoulders, as if she were trying to throw up some old poison, but there was nothing there—she was empty, drained, not even the dregs of spirit left in her. She dressed in numb silence and then limped over to the workbench where Khailin had gone. Nhia arrived just as Khailin finished sealing a tiny glass vial; the glass was thick and green, the contents of the vial only dimly glimpsed through it, and the seal had a loop through which a cord or fine chain could be threaded. Khailin thrust the amulet into Nhia’s hand.

“His essence,” Khailin said. “A few threads of cloth soaked with his sweat, a cherry pit he spat out, coated with his saliva, a drop of his semen, a scrap of parchment smeared with a trace of his blood. I would have added tears too, the five fluids, it would have made it much more powerful, but I have never seen that man cry. It will do as it is. Keep that with you always, it should work as an antidote to his sorceries. And it will let you know him again, if he comes in a different guise.”

“Khailin, I don’t understand,” Nhia wailed at last. “Where is this place? How did I get here?
What did he do to me?
” And then, staring at the way her friend and
jin-shei
sister had been changed, “And what did he do to
you?
What are you doing here?”

“Where this place is, I don’t know either,” Khailin said. “I’m pretty sure it isn’t in the Linh-an you and I live in. How you got here, I don’t know, other than
he
brought you, and all I can do to reverse that is take your mind back to where it was before he caught you. What he did to you, however, may make that difficult.” She stared at Nhia, and there was pity in her gaze, and sorrow, and even guilt. “I’m sorry I ever thought of you and him in the same breath,” she whispered. “I don’t know if you can ever get back what he took from you—what he needed to make him strong and young again. But I will not let him destroy you like he did others. Go, and live, and seek yourself again. As for what he did to me, he did nothing I did not invite him to do.” She laughed again, a mirthless, bitter laugh, lifting her hands and holding them out for Nhia’s inspection, her rings glinting in the candlelight. “I married him.”