Chapter Eleven
“Who will be the one to do my bidding, my beauties?” Colton asked of the eight women lying prone, spread-eagle in a semi-circle around him. “It is a very special task I have for you and if you are successful, you will share my bed the evening you return,” he exclaimed.
The women dared not raise their heads from the stone floor. Nor did they even move a muscle during this encounter with their Lord, but their hearts beat faster and their bodies responded passionately to the suggestion of lying with the Dark One. Each of the women was shrouded in a black sheath that covered her from head to toe. All that distinguished one from the next was the soles of their bare feet and the hair upon their heads.
“Adrianna? Shall it be you, my lovely one?” he walked to one of the women whose blonde hair stood out sharply against the black of her garment. “Will you possess the girl for me? Will you bed the boy, seduce him and bring him back here?”
Colton asked the question rhetorically. None of the eight would answer him. They knew he did not wish to hear their opinions. He would make the choice all by himself. He walked around each supplicant, but he spoke only to Adrianna.
“You are lovely, my dear. And you are ruthless, a wonderful trait which you alone have turned into an art. Is it your jealously that drives you? Or is it bitterness? Perhaps envy?”
Colton grew in stature as he spoke. His raven hair flew wildly about his shoulders and his crimson cape flapped relentlessly in the windless room. His large, almond shaped, black eyes were rimmed in a deep orange glow that radiated outward with each word. He floated a few inches off the burnished floor with his hands outstretched and his long fingers twitching and extending in expectation. Sparks crackled and flew from them each time his fingers uncurled.
In the past days, he had recreated castle Sedahar in a far different image than before. The room he now occupied was his finest work to date. The floor was polished to the point of reflection, carved from the whitest of white marble. He liked the contrast of black against white. It reminded him of the forces he contended with. The entire palace was riddled with contradictions.
He also wished to torment himself with the memory of his recent defeat, and what better way than to be constantly reminded of it visually, in the whiteness of the floors and the whiteness of the furniture, so stark against the black background. The agony of this recollection drove him forward with greater passion and the pain caused him pleasure for that reason. He relished each glimpse of the reflected sunlight as it caught his eye, and he imagined the brightness and sparkle of the Gem of Eternity. He pictured it shrouded in black, careening headlong into the void, its light extinguished for all eternity.
This room he now occupied had eight sides to it. The walls were solid black granite that were highly polished and rose to seemingly endless heights. An octagonal pattern was inlaid into the floor as well, spiraling round and round in concentric squared circles. From the center, a chandelier of ebony wood hung upon an endless black chain, illuminated by spheres of pure white crystal. As he spoke, it turned slowly, sending waves of prismatic light spinning across the black walls.
The eight women barely breathed while Colton hovered near them.
“Rise, my pretty one,” he said again to the one he called Adrianna. “Rise and join me now. I will tell you of your journey. You are the one, most definitely,” he said to her, but still she remained prostrate. “Do not fear me, my child. You need do only what I bid and you will be rewarded. Come now, the hour grows late,” he said, motioning with his hand as her body rose upward from the head, until she was perpendicular to the floor and eye to eye with Colton.
The look upon her face was one of reverence mixed with fear, but her master could also sense the arrogance and pride that made her so delectable. She knew that the other women envied her and would trade anything to have been chosen in her stead.
He let her drop to her feet, cushioning the fall somewhat so that she could remain standing. He released her to her own power and she gratefully stretched her long fingers.
“May I speak, my Lord?” she asked of him in the softest and most supplicant of voices.
“Speak.”
“I am honored, my Lord. I will do anything you ask. Anything. Please tell me my charge so that I may serve you as soon as possible.”
“Good, good. You understand well, Adrianna. You are just the one for this errand. You will not fail me.”
“Never, my Lord. I could not fail you,” she said, knowing the double meaning to that sentence. Failure meant death.
“Come. We shall retire to my chambers and I will tell you what you must do.”
He curled his index finger toward him and her body spurted forward, following behind him as he moved upon the air toward the opposite side of the chamber. Colton pointed to the wall and a small doorway opened allowing them to depart the room. The other women he would leave where they were, knowing that they would remain in the same positions that he left them in until he returned, in mortal fear of possibly displeasing him. He laughed to himself at the thought of that, considering briefly just how long he might allow them to remain there before relieving them of their duty.
Pride welled up in the young maiden he had singled out; pride and a feeling of limitless power. He would let her taste the power momentarily, tease her with it and then take it away from her, causing her to desire it like nothing else. After all, he was the master, the great manipulator, the Lord of Darkness. Who better knew how to exploit a human for his own purposes?
“My beauty? Are you happy now? Are you not filled with joy?” he asked, the words dripping from his tongue.
“It is like nothing I have ever felt before, master,” she said, barely able to speak. She was so filled with ecstasy, she could imagine nothing greater.
“I will allow you to covet this moment so that you will remember what you will receive when you return with the young man,” he soothed her. “You must go quickly. There is much to do before he arrives at her doorstep.”
“Where is it I am going, my Lord?” she asked.
“Close your eyes my beauty, and I will show you.”
Adrianna closed her eyes tightly and Colton entered her mind. As if he had taken her by the hand and physically led her to the spots he wished her to see, he manipulated her inner vision as if it were his own. She saw the small cottage in the forests of Lormarion beneath Seramour. She heard the old man speak to his daughter as if she were present in the tiny chamber. Adrianna watched as the young maid scoffed behind her father’s back, knowing that she would not heed his admonitions. She felt the lust rise in the girl’s loins at the thought of her lover. She felt more than she expected she could through Colton, and the feelings caused her to close her eyes and sigh in sympathy.
Suddenly she was no longer in the small house but rather in the forest itself, gazing at the ceiling of tree branches obscuring the sky. Her vision passed through the protection of the branches and entered the winding streets of Seramour. It seemed as if she was running down the passageways and alleys, following something, catching up with the back of a young elf’s cape. She felt the anger in the youthful elf before her and saw the crazed look in his eye. In an instant she was in front of the boy. He was yelling at an old woman who stood before him, his ire growing with each word. She watched as he took the woman’s life from her with an infuriated sweep of his arm. She felt his frenzy, his vulnerability, as he hurried to conceal his bloody deed.
“You have seen enough, my dear,” Colton said, as the vision abruptly ended.
Adrianna staggered momentarily as she adjusted to her original perspective.
“He is the one. You must possess his lover and persuade him to return to me here in Sedahar. He must come willingly. He has information that I desire, and I will be able to use him because he is so susceptible, so unprotected. The others in the accursed city are all, each and every one, loyal to their King and to the First. This one is different. His hatred drew my awareness to him like a Tsenso fly to cloudberry nectar. I felt his anger as it built and I watched him as he was possessed by it. In all of Seramour, he alone drew my attention, as if he had invited me into his home. He glimpsed the void and he did not shrink from the vision. He has given his soul to me already and he does not even know it. He will be very useful. I will find out what I need to from him. The secrets of Seramour will be mine. He will know why they seal themselves so tightly from the world beneath them, why no one has been allowed to enter or leave. They have never been so prudent before. What are they protecting? Good King Treestar would never deceive his people, and that weakness, that foolish honesty, will be his downfall. This renegade will know, and I must have him.”
Colton was so gleeful as he spoke that Adrianna could not help but smile in response, her body reacting to his emotions like a puppet mimicking its directors moves. She welled with pride as he talked to her, confided in her, allowed her to share his thoughts. She loved him so that it hurt to gaze upon his face, yet she could not help herself.
“I will do whatever I must, my Lord,” she said to him, bowing to his feet, prepared to sacrifice all that she had for him, all that she was.
His power drew her to him and enveloped her in its evil arms. She had long ago forgotten wherefrom she came, her previous life, her parents and sister and her friends. All that mattered now was Colton. Pleasing him was what she lived for, the only reason for her existence.
“Go, my beauty. Leave now. Return as soon as you can with the elf. Look upon me and I will show you the way.”
Adrianna gazed into the black eyes of her possessor, and her entire mind opened wide to him. He rummaged through her soul carelessly, making room for the information she now needed, discarding what remained of her memories. When he released her, she collapsed upon the floor, exhausted but strangely satisfied and now filled with his essence, his glory. She remembered less and less about herself with each encounter, but she grew more impassioned and more enamored of Colton every time he touched her.
The young woman dazedly walked to the great door that revealed itself before her, and then departed the chamber. She would need no nourishment, no succor, to assist her on her journey, even exhausted as she was. Colton had given her all that she required and she cared not for other wants. Her singular purpose in life was to satisfy him and she now had the means with which to do that. She would find the boy and bring him back to Sedahar, to Colton, and then she could rest.
Before she withdrew from the shadow of the door itself, she heard her master’s voice and her heartbeat quickened at the sound.
“Belaflor, my beauty, come to me,” he said sweetly to another of the eight still prostrate upon the cold floor. “I have need of your company and your warmth…”
Adrianna was so thoroughly entranced by Colton that this betrayal did not even bother her. Rather, she was happy that he would find joy with another. In fact, yesterday it was the men who satisfied his pleasures. Anything that would please him was sanctified and blessed. She left the shadows of castle Sedahar thinking only of the sweetness of his voice, the power of his body, his bewitching eyes, his magnetic potency and above all else, the anticipation of lying with him after she returned with her prey, the current object of his desire.