Archive-name: Bondage/angel2.txt
Archive-author: Michael Raleigh
Archive-title: Angel 2


This one is of the Dark Lord's twin sister.  It takes place
just before he leaves on the Elven campaign.  Sorry for
the delay folks.  Things have been real hectic with me.
No, Alex still isn't here.

Angel
******
Copyright 1989, Michael Raleigh.
******

"As you bind me with this symbol, so shall you be bound to me by
it," he says, tracing a pentagram on her wrist.  He releases her. 
Her name appears on the pact in her blood.

Vendan the Destroyer looks at the woman kneeling before him. 
Reaching out again, he touches her temple with a hand that is icy
fire.  "You are mine now, body and soul.  Farewell for a while,
Zara beht Llewella."  Then, the Demon-God vanishes, leaving behind
only a small scar, shaped like a pentagram and a blaze of white in
her coal black hair.  Exhausted in body and spirit, Zara sinks to
the cold stone floor and sleeps.

The oblivion of exhaustion faded into the realization that she was
awake.  The pentagram was still on her wrist but it was old now. 
She had worn it for many months.  She was relieved that it had only
been a dream, but wished she could rid herself of it.  The living
had been bad enough.

She opened her eyes and stifled a scream.

"Greetings, Zara."  The voice was deep and mellifluous, a
beautiful, soothing voice.  Coming as it did from the being that
stood in the center of the inlaid pentagram, it generated an
intense horror.  The creature was a foul glob of shapelessness,
forming and reforming; a hand here, an eye there, an internal organ
in other places.

"Master?" she whispered, unsure.

"I have come to claim that for which you contracted."

"Yes, Lord.  As you wish."  She stood and with an effort of will,
removed the sleeping robe.

"I have expended much energy to enter your plane.  I require
nourishment."

"Yes, master of my soul."  She pulled the bell-cord near her bed
and picked up a knife.  It had amused Ternec to assign his mistress
as his wife's maidservant.  Even after moving, she had kept Rosella
with her for just such an event.  Now the final score with her late
husband could be settled.  Rosella appeared, yawning, wondering why
she was wanted at such an hour.

Zara clamped one hand over the girl's mouth and held the knife at
her throat.  Forcing her to her knees before the thing in the ward,
Zara cut the servant's throat without a qualm.  The red geyser
burst over Vendan the Destroyer and he changed.

Absorbing the blood, he took form and solidified.  Zara set the
knife away from her and handed the girl's corpse to the being
before her.  She knelt in the presence of her god.

Her face averted, she never learned what he did with the body, but
soon she felt a touch on her temple.  The white streak he had
marked her with was still there.  She looked up at him.

"This shouldn't be too unpleasant for you," he commented.  "Or
perhaps I can make it even less so."  He began to change, the lines
of his face altering into a face she knew as well as her own.

"No!" she shrieked.  It was what she had wanted all these years. 
This was the reason she had been married to Lord Fremde so soon
after her fourteenth birthday.  This was the reason her brother had
been sent to school at the Vanadan monastery, where he developed
his hatred of priests.  Now the Destroyer's black eyes laughed at
her from behind the mask of her twin's face.  "Please, no.  Do not
grant me what I want with one hand and hold it out of my reach with
the other," she whispered.  "I prefer your form."

Vendan laughed.  "It was a test, most honored of my slaves.  I had
to know.  Stand."  He helped her to her feet and led her to her
bed.  His hands were icy cold.

He lowered her to the black sheets and kissed her.  The taste of
Rosella's blood was still fresh on his mouth.  "You are not
unattractive.  This could be pleasant for both of us."

Zara said nothing, but lay on the bed and readied herself.  She was
frightened, although she did not think he could be much worse than
Ternec.  She had not lied about her barrenness, but he had not
asked about her frigidity.  The touch of the icy hands drifted over
her body.  She shivered a bit.

"Are you cold?" he asked.

"No, my lord, you are," she said, noticing the line of goose-flesh
where he had touched her.  Was his realm hot or cold, she wondered.

"My realm is hot, Zara.  Hotter than the center of the sun.  It is
comfortable there with my low body temperature.  Relax, mother of
my heir.  You do not need to be frightened."

"I can not help but be frightened, Lord.  This is too great an
honor for a mortal woman.  I am not worthy to be loved by a god."

"No woman is.  I have chosen you as the best.  Now relax and be
silent."

Zara calmed herself with a mental exercise her first tutor had
taught her when she was five.  Vendan noticed the change and smiled
at her.

"Are you ready to accept me?" he asked, sliding one icy hand
between her legs.  "No, you are not," he said sadly.  The cold hand
penetrated deep into her, burning cold.  She gasped softly and
tried not to cry out.  "Now you are ready," he commented.

Zara screamed as the unlight faded from around him and she saw what
she would be accepting into her most private recesses.  She felt
the cold metal rend her as he entered, both of the overly large
shafts tearing into her softness.  The freezing cold of him burned
and would not numb.  She screamed, knowing that no help would come. 
She screamed from the pain and impossibility of it.  After a
tortured eternity, he finished and left a residue like molten lead
deep inside her.  She felt it burn its way up into her womb.

Her senses heightened by the Power and the nearness of her god, she
looked down at her belly and gasped.  Looking through the wall of
flesh, she watched in horror as the inhuman seed joined with her
all-too-fertile egg.  She sobbed one last time and was still.

"Lovely Zara, most accursed of women, you have watched the
conception.  Now carry my child to term and bear.  When your time
is come, I shall send midwives to you.  No one must know whose
child it is.  Tell them it is your brother's.  I will see you twice
more in your life: once after he is born, and I will be with you
when you die.  Farewell for a time, Zara."  Wrapping himself in the
unlight, Vendan vanished.

Zara rang the bell cord that led to her brother's chambers.  She
rang, too, for the eunuch in charge of the harem.  There had to be
a way to avoid her fate and she would find it.

The Dark Lord, startled to hear Zara's bell, debated going to her. 
She knew it was only for emergencies, and should have no cause to
use it.  Since she had used it, he reasoned, there must be an
emergency.  He stepped into his slippers as he passed them on the
way to the door.

Lem had arrived in the sorceress's chambers first and was examining
Zara.  At the Dark Lord's arrival, he lowered the hem of her robe
and prepared his report.  Zara was sobbing, a fact that
disconcerted the Dark Lord.  The last time he had seen his sister
cry was at their mother's funeral, when they were seventeen.  Tears
seemed inappropriate to the most powerful mage in his empire.

"Master, I think you had best see this for yourself.  I cannot
describe it," Lem said.

He lifted Zara's robe and spread her thighs gently, wiping away
what blood he could.  The double metal shafts had torn her, but as
the two men watched, the wounds began to close.  In a matter of
moments the rents were gone, and they watched in horror as the
normal opening began to close.

"But, Master," Zara shrieked, feeling what was happening, "I cannot
bear if I am closed."  There was silence for a moment as the two
men pondered her words.  Then, as if having received an answer, she
said, "Yes, Lord, I understand."  Becoming aware of her brother's
presence for the first time, she drew the sleeping robe around her.

"Zara, what is going on?  Why did you summon me?"  What is the
emergency?" the Dark Lord demanded.

"I've never seen anything like that.  What happened?"  Lem added.

Zara wiped away the last remaining tears on her face and looked at
them.  "I can only say this once.  I am pregnant.  Lem, can you do
something about that?"

"Yes, Lady, easily.  If I may go, I can return in half an hour with
the remedy.  How far are you?"

"About an hour.  This can still be changed."  The eunuch bowed and
left the twins alone.

"Who hurt you like that?" the Dark Lord asked.  The entire
conversation had baffled him, but he would learn what he needed to
know.

"The Destroyer," Zara answered quietly, turning her wrist to show
the scar.

"Vendan the Destroyer?  I thought you served him."

"Yes.  It was part of my bargain.  A part I had no choice but to
keep."  An ironic smile twisted her face.  "You look upon a woman
who has loved a god and lived to tell of it.  Rejoice with me in my
blessing."  The bitterness left her.  She looked very small and
very young.  "I'm frightened," she said quietly.

Forcibly reminded of their younger days, he sat down beside her and
stroked her hair.  "Are you certain it wasn't just a nightmare?" he
asked, not believing he was saying such a thing.

"A nightmare?  You saw the blood.  You watched him heal me and then
seal me up that no other may take me until I bear his son.  You ask
if it was a nightmare?  You have no idea of..." Her voice was
reaching a hysterical pitch when he cut her off.

"Quiet.  I know it was no nightmare.  Rest until Lem returns, and
then destroy the foul creature inside of you.  His remedy rarely
fails.  I'll have him give you a sleeping potion.  I expect you in
the throne room at the hour after the zenith as usual."

"Yes, my lord," she said.  He stood up and looked at her.  With the
white blaze concealed, she looked much as she had long ago when she
had loved him and no other.  He put the thought from his mind,
reminding himself that she was his advisor first, his sister
second.

"Sleep, Zara," he told her as he left.  He passed Lem on the steps
as he left her tower.  Stopping the eunuch, he commanded, "If you
fail this assignment, I'll have your nose join the other missing
parts of you.  If she dies, so do you.  If you succeed and mention
this to anyone, you lose your ears as well as your nose. 
Understood?"

"Yes, Master.  I will not fail.  The lady is overwrought, and I
have added a calmative to the abortifacient.  She will be fine."

"See that she is," he snapped, leaving Lem to his work.

Lem entered the tower cautiously; wizards always made him nervous. 
he steeled himself with the thought that right now, she was just a
woman and unlikely to blast him for trying to help her.

"Lady Zara?" he asked softly, holding the cup in one hand.

"Yes, Lem.  Step on in.  I promise you won't be hurt."

The eunuch entered the room carefully.  Zara was seated at the
desk, writing and waiting for him.  He clucked disapprovingly.

"You should be in bed.  After a shock like that one, you are
confined to bed for two days," he said sharply.  She smiled tiredly
at him and returned to bed.  "That's better.  Now drink this and it
should work.  I don't want you out of bed until Starday,
understand?"

Zara carefully hid a smile and said, "I understand.  You are the
healer."  She took the cup eagerly and drained it at a gulp. 
Suddenly, she gasped and reached for the chamberpot.  The potion
came back up as quickly as it had gone down.  She knew that Vendan
would not let her break her word.

Lem looked at her terrified.  "I'll try another recipe,"  he said
frantically, dashing for the door.

"It won't do any good.  Do you think your concoction can affect a
god?  He won't let me absorb it."  The eunuch's panicked look
startled Zara and she asked, "What is the matter?"

"If I fail, I lose my nose.  He said so."

"Lem, let me intercede for you there.  I know the situation better
than my brother.  We won't tell him that I couldn't keep it down. 
He leaves in three days for the battle.  By the time he returns, we
will have worked something out.  You won't lose your nose."  She
smiled comfortingly, and Lem half-wished that she was one of his
regular girls.  He bowed and left.

Zara rolled over and tried to sleep.  Slowly she drifted off, the
feel of the comfortable bed easing her path.  It began as it always
did.

"What is it, Mistress?" asks the slave.  She frees him from the
chains and has him lie on a worktable.  The flash of a silver
dagger and his blood drains into a golden bowl as she chants
softly.

The Protection of the Summoner is chanted as she draws the last
line of the pentagram and takes a sip of the blood.  Slowly she
begins to strip...


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