Realm Book Three - Illuminated Death Read online

  Table of Contents

  Also By K.A. M’Lady

  Dedication:

  In the Other World, they say there is no rest for the wayward and wicked. From the iniquitous of the Shadow Lands, the depraved and wandering vagabonds come like thieves in the night to graze amidst the poor, plighted man—his woes an abundant bounty for the evil and the damned.

  Prologue

  The Viewing

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  K. A. M’Lady

  Published by Mojocastle Press, LLC

  Haymarket, Virginia

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Realm Book Three - Illuminated Death

  ISBN: 978-1-60180-136-4

  Copyright @ 2010 K. A. M’Lady

  Cover Art Copyright @ 2010 Vanessa Hawthorne

  All rights reserved.

  Excluding legitimate review sites and review publications, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Copying, scanning, uploading, selling and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission from the publisher is illegal, punishable by law and will be prosecuted.

  Available online at:

  http://www.mojocastle.com/

  Also By K.A. M’Lady

  Get Lucky

  Song of the Wolf

  Realm Book One: To Tell of Darkness

  Realm Book Two: Shadow Slave

  Faith Savage, Demon Huntress Series

  Ramshackle Castle: Bent Poetry and Other Altered Verse

  Dedication:

  For all who walk in the Light ~ may its eternal flame always guide you.

  In the Other World, they say there is no rest for the wayward and wicked. From the iniquitous of the Shadow Lands, the depraved and wandering vagabonds come like thieves in the night to graze amidst the poor, plighted man—his woes an abundant bounty for the evil and the damned.

  They say that sinners cast long shadows amidst the feeble human masses. From the Darkness they bemoan the good their coming journey, begrudge the living, defame the Light. They say that from the shadows, tainted disciples can be seen like some great beacon, condemned souls a black illumination like corporeal ghosts with rotting flesh.

  But have you ever wondered where the vile stain of repentant sins go when those worth saving see the Light? Can the condemned be forgiven? Or does Darkness rule their life?

  My name is Rihker Tennai—In the Other World they say that to understand death you must first come to know the dying, feel the ease of a soul’s surrender—walk a mile through their strife. Then, once you reach the Darkness—pray. Pray that in the end you cross over into the Light.

  Lucky for me, my Darkness glows eternal…

  Prologue

  Death, some say, is an evil mistress. Darkness her pawn, Shadow her shield and Light her sword. Corruption is her harbinger—a vile taint that soils the soul. Steals the dying’s final breath. But there are those that say that redemption and forgiveness can be granted with the simplest of requests. Deathbed prayers. A dying battle’s lullaby, sung to the tune of life’s all-important last rites.

  Some days I’m not so certain that most are deserving. Only the Prophets know who are worthy. And why.

  At time’s beginning, there were those who were gifted with the power of Light, and those who chose the path of Darkness. It is a balance the known world has suffered for a millennia. Personally, I’ve always wondered what happens when that balance shifts. When Light becomes etched in Darkness? When the spoils from eons of wars and the plethora of suffering and heartache becomes more than the meager can bear?

  What happens when the Darkness spreads its dexterous fingers? Seeking far beyond its reach into the gilded land of Light?

  There are those who agree with the Prophesy: Born from the union of Darkness and Light, from the Lord of the Dark Ways of the old gods of the Midnight Light and a daughter to the People of the Forest—a child will be conceived. The Chosen.

  Prophesized and passed down through the ages, written and recorded in the blood of the Elders, marked forever in the Table of the Way—Justice will come for the Children of Light.

  A half-breed, or Halfling, created by the touch of the Dark Lord of the Moon, and a daughter of the children of the Fey. A woman who will shelter the Other World in her mercy and eliminate the long suffering reach of Darkness. Her powers will Tell of the Light and quiet the beast that stalks the Darkness, dealing his death to the masses. She will possess the power to tame the Death Stalkers. Maintain the ability to listen to and hear those creatures long standing of the woodland and give them their voice. She will ease the suffering of the dying wanderers. In the shadows of the Darkness, you will find the growing embers of her Light.

  Some say that I, Rihker Tennai—Pixie, Human, Half-breed and now Changeling, am that child. That I am the Chosen. That today marks the day that the Prophesy has been fulfilled. I’m not so sure that this is so. I do know that what comes next and who survives, only the Prophets know.

  Am I this Halfling? This Chosen? In my Realm, anything is possible.

  There are those who are the Watchers of the Way. And for now, they are waiting. Waiting, and watching like all the rest of us to see what the future holds.

  All that I know for certain is this: Death is an evil mistress—she comes for each of us, eventually. But before her rides Justice. To the Children of the Light I am Deneau, I am that Justice, my punishment swift and my judgment final. In the end you will find me in the shadows—setting the Darkness ablaze with my glorious Light.

  The Viewing

  they laid them to rest by

  an old sapling oak; winter

  weathered in her boughs, silent winds

  and whispered prayers chimed

  in three, last thoughts and last rites

  squandered, but the tears remain,

  the tears remain – someday, maybe

  hope will grow like spring grasses

  and the light will return to the land

  for all thine children to see

  K.A. M’Lady

  Chapter One

  Not that I bid you spare her the pain;

  Let death be felt and the proof remain:

  Brand, burn up, bite into its grace –

  From The Laboratory by Robert Browning

  The dust hadn’t even settled on the roadway as we left the Hill of the Clans, and I was already planning tortuous murder. Visions of maimed, bloody corpses ran rampant through my head. Angst filled my body. The molten heat of diffused fury settled by degrees, but not by my will. No, my mind overflowed with tumultuous waves of hatred and anger. Spumes of it, like an ocean riptide filled with sand the color of crimson, quaked in my veins, each thought churn
ing into the next. Scraping against flesh and bone. One hatred ache causing another, despite my desperate need to get a grip on my thoughts. Maybe it was pointless. Death and pain filled me, and I was drowning in its blood-red wake. Although after the last few nights I’d had, it only seemed fair that somebody died. Didn’t it?

  I had sworn to myself as I lay shivering and naked in that field of overgrown thatch and early Autumn grasses, the first hint of sunlight skimming across the field, each tuft dewing with a moist, glimmering shine, that by the power of the Prophet and all that I held holy, it sure as shit wasn’t going to be me.

  By the time Gimlit finally found me, wrapped me in the warmth of a blanket, scooped me up and got me to the Jeep so that he could drive us into the oncoming dawn, I felt like total and utter shit. My ire and shock numbed me. I had grown cold and sedate with my overloaded emotions.

  Apparently, about twelve hours had passed since Gimlit had found me in the field about eighty yards from the tree at the Hill of the Clans. He and Jade had been wandering around, searching for me. They were just as surprised about my naked, bloody form as I was.

  “Where’s Mercy?” I asked Gimlit.

  “She is back at the house, tucked away in the crypt for the day. Healing,” he said, his voice low, worried as he took in the sight of me.

  “And the Changeling, Prism?”

  “She is there as well.”

  “I found the book, Gim,” I whispered, my voice as tired as my body was wounded.

  He looked at me with a bright, hopeful expression, and then the light faded from his eyes, knowing that all had not been restored to the Land and the Children of the Light.

  “The Goblins have taken it,” I told him. “Modgav has taken it,” I said, anger filling my gut once again.

  “It is as I thought,” he replied. “But I am afraid we have bigger problems.”

  “Bigger? What could possibly be bigger than that?” I asked, knowing as he set me in the front seat of the Jeep, bundled in a blanket, naked, sore, angry and cold, that I truly didn’t want to know.

  “Your police have left a message that your remaining Necromancer is missing.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I said with feeling, hanging my head. How the hell am I going to fix this, when I can’t even fix myself?

  “That is not all of it.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Whatever it was I knew it was seriously going to be the biggest, most massive piece of shit on toast that I’d had to deal with yet, and that it just really needed to be chucked and not even dealt with. Maybe I could just run away and hide somewhere.

  “All right,” I said, not bothering to look at anyone, “just give it to me straight.”

  “Jade can no longer sense his brothers, and Jirvel has sent you a personal invitation,” he told me, not wanting to look at me either.

  “A personal invitation to what?” I asked, finally looking at him askance.

  “I’m afraid, Mistress, it is a Halloween Party. However, this invitation comes with special instructions, and I quote, “If she ever wishes to see any of her people alive again—tell her to come alone.”

  Great. Just what I needed. The White Bloodsucking Bitch of the West was having a Monster Bash—with us as their main course.

  Anger is often a fire to set you ablaze, but hatred freezes a heart and turns limbs to rods of ice while your mind freezes over in the cacophony of voices that sing with total destruction.

  In my stricken haze, I watched the sky become a misty shade of glazed sherbet before it turned the horizon a brilliant burnt orange mist limned in fading black twilight, trying so desperately to chase away the darkness. I felt that same desperation resting in the pit of my stomach, a solid ache waiting for the right moment to make me retch. The encroaching dawn did much to fight off the splash of blackness that covered the skyline, but it did little against the stain I felt upon my soul.

  Silence surrounded us, becoming just another weight bearing down on me as we settled in, each of us trying to gather our bearings, trying to make sense of what had transpired in the Land of Light.

  Jet sat in the back seat, no more than a dark silhouette waiting for me to make some response to the night’s events. I was grateful that she had come back for me with Gimlit, though how she had escaped the clutches of Jirvel’s midnight madness, I couldn’t begin to fathom.

  So many questions to be answered. Too many answers marked for death.

  I could feel the pulse of her eagerness vibrate along my flesh. Sensed the utter urgency with which she yearned to speak. It was a sensation, at the moment, I could certainly do without. Uncertainty and unanswered questions lingered like a thick crimson haze, stirring the fine hairs along my skin, but I wasn’t ready to speak. Far too much had happened, most of it bad. Some of it I didn’t even recall.

  For starters, I had no recollection of how I had managed to escape the Goblin King, Modgav. One minute we were tearing each other to shreds—me with teeth and claws, my body the burning haze of the red she-wolf, Modgav with his sword, thrashing and slicing in a mad fury, each of us struggling to hold on to the Book of the Way. Hatred and death so thick in the air you could feel it clinging to your flesh—a wound bore too long that festers and rots.

  Somehow Jade, Gimlit, Mercy and I had managed to escape the wrath of my Queen. We’d disposed of her violence and the vile spread of Darkness that had begun to consume the Land of Light. For now, its inhabitants were free, but there were still so many other unanswered questions. Possession of the Book being at the forefront of my mind. Who would lead them, these wayward Fey? Keep their lives filled with Light—at the forefront of theirs.

  At the moment, I couldn’t worry myself about who would rule their Kingdom. They had people in place that would see that the Kingdom would not fall. Right now, I knew that if the Book of the Way was not returned to us, the Land of Light wouldn’t even be a blip on the map, and who their ruler was would no longer matter.

  How could I have been so foolish to think that I had the power to possess it? That I could keep Modgav from taking it from me, when I was nothing more than a half-breed in wolf’s clothing?

  The Book of the Way, my people’s ancient source of power… All of our knowledge in one precious relic now in the hands of the Goblins. Why had this happened? How did it happen?

  How the hell could I have let any of this transpire? How could I let him take it from me? And how had it gotten in the hands of the Goblins in the first place? Who had betrayed us—the Children of Light?

  So many questions. My soul ached with them. The burden was immeasurable. I would have screamed if I thought it would do any good.

  I knew without stating it aloud that this was now no longer just a problem for the Pixie. Or the children of the Fey, for that matter. This was so bad it was certain to affect everyone who chose to walk in the Light, and it would affect all who wished to keep the Darkness at bay. Anyone with a sane thought in their head would have to know that for the Goblins to hold the kind of power that the Book of the Way possessed—it could once again spell disaster for all of us. Disaster like it did so long ago in the Goblin wars of old.

  My sigh was audible, worry and fear a coil of snakes in the pit of my belly. My body ached, not just from battle wounds, but from the load of anxiety for the unseen road ahead. My fight and flight in the Land of Light had just opened so many cans of worms. It was a virtual Pandora’s Box of disaster that even I didn’t feel up to resolving. This was no job; this was total Armageddon in the making. Countless Others were going to die, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  “Worrisome she is, this child of Light?” Cackling broke the silence of the semi-darkened Jeep and startled all of us from our quiet contemplations. If I’d had enough fuel left inside of me, I might have jumped. But even I was too tired to be that shaken. Either way, this was so not what I needed right now. Could my life not go to shit without the ever-present wisdom of my Wandering Wanderling Maebe to linger over me like the haze of a
plague? She and her brou-ha-ha of wicked witchy madness could go back to Abaddon or wherever it was she’d come from, for all I cared. Still, somehow she always managed to sprout up out of the darkness when I needed her least. If I had the strength to groan aloud, I would have.

  “By the Prophets, woman!” Gimlit shouted as if just noticing the additional passenger in his vehicle. “Stop popping in like that. You’ll drive us all to our death.” For an Ogre with Zen who was normally so calm and never one to be startled, it was Gimlit’s outburst that actually made me jump. The night must have been sheer hell on him. My poor Gim.

  “Worry you not, Goblin. Worry you not. Your steady hand shall see you through,” Maebe advised with a reassuring pat to Gimlit’s shoulder. “What? No wise comments for your betters?” Maebe’s wrinkled face turned towards mine in question, the cackling of her voice scraping over my skin like claws on a chalkboard. I think if she had a brow to raise or eyes to squint at me from the semi-darkness, she would have. I guess when your eyes have been burned out, you use what you have, hence the annoying voice. Either way, I just wasn’t in the mood.

  I could hear the growl forming low in Jet’s throat even before I smelled the fear that rose off her body. It was strange, these new senses I was acquiring as a wolf. I could literally taste Jet’s hatred, the wash of angst rolling over her flesh.

  “Easy, cat.” I tried to sound soothing. “The witch means us no harm. Do you, Maebe?”

  The snort that followed was little reassurance.

  With a sigh, I asked, “What do you want, Witch?” knowing drawing out the inevitable was going to be of little use. “As you can see, it’s been a very long night and I’m just not up for you and your hou-ha witchy bullshit. If you’ve something of importance to tell me, just cut to the chase before I lose my patience and decide to set the cat free.”

  “Ah, woebegone is she who shall be leader of all?” Maebe clucked and snickered, ignoring my threat completely. “A half-breed no more, though mated to the earth?” she continued. “Changed like a Changeling, but still a Pixie with no wings?”