“There are too many of them!” Lock’s voice was a hoarse shout of despair. “They’re everywhere.”
With a feeling of desperation, Xairn realized he was right. Even if the entire lot of silent, deadly soldiers dropped dead that moment, their bodies would still block the way to his father. Why is he doing this? he thought, looking through the seething mass of bodies to the open doors of the throne room. He wants me here—he lured me back himself. This must be some kind of a test.
“How right you are my ssson,” the voice of the AllFather hissed in his head. “The question is, can you passs it? Can you find your way to the foot of my throne before your darling mother isss no more?”
Xairn cursed aloud in his harsh native tongue. His father’s mocking laughter echoed in his head in reply. Clearly the AllFather was enjoying himself immensely. Suddenly Xairn’s eyes grew hot and he felt something swell within him—some power beyond the physical realm. He opened his mouth, uncertain of what might come out.
“Listen to me, soldiers of the Scourge,” he shouted and his words rang with the power that was building up inside him. “Cease fighting and listen.”
As one, the vat grown soldiers stopped fighting and stood motionless, their empty, soulless eyes fixed on Xairn.
“This is not your fight,” he told them, still speaking with the resonance of power. “You are little more than animated corpses—bodies grown from ancient DNA harvested long ago. You are kept alive and breathing by the cruel will of the AllFather, forced to fight in order to serve his whims.”
The ranks of the vat grown swayed toward him and Xairn could feel their silent agreement. They might not have much intelligence but they knew enough to know they led a miserable existence. They never knew kindness or comfort or love—only the endless grind of a daily existence devoid of anything but pain and monotony.
“Go,” he told them, his voice ringing through the metal corridor. “Go from here and do not return.”
“Nicely done, my ssson,” The AllFather laughed in his head. “And most humane—letting them live instead of killing them. It must be the human DNA in you, making you so weak. You could easily have had them turn on each other, you know.”
“I know that but I choose not to. And I’m not done yet,” he sent back grimly. Looking at the silent hordes which were already beginning to disperse, he raised his voice once more. “Go to the flesh tanks, the vats where you were grown,” he told them. “Rip them apart! Make certain that no more like you can ever be made again!”
He heard the hiss of anger in his head but the vat grown soldiers were already on the move and Xairn didn’t think that even the AllFather would be able to stop them all before the damage was done.
Baird let out a breath as the soldiers shuffled away, leaving their dead and dying behind without a backward glance. “Very impressive, Xairn, but how do we know they won’t come back again?”
“They won’t.” Xairn nodded in the direction of the throne room. “There might be more guarding my father, though. If so, leave them to me.”
Deep shook his head as they began to advance again, stepping over the fallen bodies. “How in the seven hells did you do that, anyway?”
“I don’t know.” Xairn shook his head. “It is a power that has been growing inside me. Being with Lauren seems to have…unleashed it somehow.”
Sylvan smiled. “Then she must be an amazing female, Brother.”
“She is,” Xairn said seriously. “As soon as I’m done here, I’m going back to her.”
“As we all will return victorious to our females,” Baird grinned. “Come, brothers, the true fight awaits.”
They charged forward into the throne room but as they passed the threshold of the immense double doors, they were immediately enveloped in a cloud of dread. Xairn had lived with it so long that it barely affected him but he could see the unease on the faces of his companions. The feeling of horror and panic was part of the AllFather’s personal aura—he carried it with him everywhere but it was strongest here, near his seat of power.
“Steady,” he heard Baird tell the others. “You’re not going crazy—this is just the way it feels in here. Ignore it.”
“You ignore my warningsss at your own peril, warrior.” The AllFather’s hissing voice filled the vast, echoing room.
Xairn looked up the vast set of broad black steps leading to the green etched throne and saw his father standing at the top. The AllFather was flanked on both sides by his personal guard—eight foot tall monstrosities of the flesh tanks which stayed with him at all times. Xairn tried to look around them, to see if the cage containing his mother was sitting at the foot of the throne, as it had been in his dream. But there was no seeing anything past their bulk.
“Where is she?” he said, looking up at the skeletal figure in the billowing black cloak. “What have you done to her?”
“Nothing that ssshe did not richly dessserve for giving me sssuch a weak and cowardly ssson.” The AllFather’s eyes blazed crimson and Xairn felt his own eyes growing hot in return.
“If you hurt her—”
“Come and see for yourself.” The AllFather looked at his head guard. “Alpha, you and the othersss engage the Kindred in combat. Allow only my ssson to passs.”
The huge guard seemed to be thinking hard. “But Master…that will leave you unprotected.”
“I need no protection from my ssson,” the AllFather snapped. “The human DNA he carriesss makes him weak. He hasss neither the sssavagery nor the ssstrength to overcome me. Now go!”
Nodding obediently, the Alpha guard and the other three vat grown soldiers that made up the AllFather’s personal bodyguard, came lumbering down the steps.
“Get ready, brothers,” Baird said in a low voice. “They’re coming for us.”
Concentrating, Xairn called the power to him again. “Stop!” he commanded the Alpha guard but the huge soldier kept coming. From the top of the steps, the AllFather laughed.
“Nice try my ssson, but these are no ordinary guardsss. I had each of them grown ssspecially, as you know and I am ssshielding their mindsss with my own. You cannot use your fledgling powersss on them any more than you can ussse them on me.”
“I wasn’t going to use my powers on you.” Xairn held up the cryo-knife, showing the deadly pale blue blade. “I’d rather use this.”
For a moment the crimson eyes of the AllFather widened, then he threw back his skull-like head and laughed. “Do you really expect me to believe you’d try to kill me? I’m your father, Xairn.”
“Yes, you’re my father.” As he spoke, Xairn began to climb the stairs. “Also my torturer, my jailer, and my most constant oppressor. You made my life a misery from the day of my birth.”
“And yet you ssstill come running back the moment I call,” the AllFather taunted.
“I came back for her—for my mother.” Xairn could hear the sounds of battle as the AllFather’s guards clashed with the Kindred warriors but he had eyes only for the foot of the throne. There stood the cage, just as it had in his dream. Also as it had been in his dream, the cage was covered by a black cloth. “And to stop you from ever getting to Lauren,” he added, meeting his father’s burning gaze.
“What makes you think I have any interessst in your little female?” the AllFather hissed.
“You’re still trying to fulfill the prophecy,” Xairn said, still climbing as he spoke. He was nearly to the top step now, nearly to the cage… “You even took girls who looked like her, but they couldn’t fulfill your purpose.”
“On the contrary, my errant ssson, they fulfilled my purpose nicely—sssince my purpose was only to make you think I wasss ssstill interested in Lauren.”
Xairn frowned. “If you don’t want Lauren, then who do you want?”
“You.” The AllFather’s eyes suddenly went pitch black, the red bleeding out of his irises to be replaced by a dark void. “You, my ssson! It is you that I want.”
Xairn was taken aback by the wave of pure evil he
felt pouring from his father’s empty eyes. “But…why?”
“You ssshall sssee. But by then it will be too late.”
The AllFather began to laugh and the vast, dark room seemed to swim around Xairn. The green etched throne, glowing with poisonous runes, the black covered cage, the AllFather himself laughing coldly, were suddenly a strange swirl of color and confusion.
Suddenly Xairn felt as though a cold fist was gripping his heart. “No!” he tried to cry out but the word came out as a whisper. He heard Baird and Deep both shouting his name from the foot of the broad staircase but he couldn’t see them—couldn’t see anything but his father’s strange, black-on-black eyes.
And then the draining sensation began.
“I knew ssshe would bring you to the peak of your power,” the AllFather hissed, his arms outstretched as he absorbed Xairn’s life force. “I knew ssshe would caussse you to mature and come into your own. And now your power will be mine—I will live forever when I have drained you, my ssson.”
Xairn tried to answer but he was weak, so very weak… He could feel his will to live, to fight, draining away with every passing second. His fading strength seemed to delight his father.
“You’re ssstronger than I ever dared to dream you would be,” he hissed. “Even with that ridiculousss human DNA grafted to your own, you ssstill have powersss beyond measure. But now the human part of you will be your downfall.”
“What?” Xairn whispered. He was on his knees now, the cryo-knife dangling uselessly from one limp hand. “What…what do you mean?”
“It holdsss you back but ssstill you cherish it.” The AllFather laughed. “Still you cannot let it go.”
Suddenly, Xairn realized his father was right. The human DNA was holding him back—restraining him from using his power completely. In order to defeat the AllFather he would have to release it, would have to allow his Scourge DNA to come to the forefront and supplant it.
But if I do that, I’ll never be able to be with Lauren again. It’s all that keeps my Scourge impulses in check—the only reason I’m able to be with her without hurting her, he thought desperately. Better to keep it, hang on to what little humanity I have, than revert to my former self and come back to her a ravening, lustful monster.
Then he lifted his head and saw that the black cloth covering the cage had blown partially away. A small, feminine hand was clutching one of the bars of the cage and from its depths, he thought he saw a familiar pair of green eyes.
Mother! Determination suddenly surged through him. He hadn’t come here to die, to allow his father to suck him dry and leave a lifeless husk behind. He was here to save her—the female whose face he had only seen in dreams. The one who had given birth to him and had him torn from her arms. The mother he had always longed to know was just a few feet away, being held in the AllFather’s cruel iron cage. He must not let her die!
Summoning all the natural Scourge rage that lay within him, just below the surface of his psyche, Xairn stopped the power flowing out of him. Then, with a strength born of desperation, he snapped the fragile chain of human DNA within himself, allowing the floodgates of his true identity to surge forward.
Immediately his eyes burned and he was flooded with power. With it came cruelty, possessiveness, and a lust he knew he would never be able to control. A monster, he thought as the Scourge impulses rushed through his body like a wildfire, devouring all that was good. I am truly a monster now. He looked down at his hand, holding the cryo-knife. No longer was his skin a smooth, even tan. It had reverted to its natural color of pale, pearlescent gray. Xairn knew without looking that his eyes had gone back to their normal red-on-black as well. He was Scourge again—through and through. There were other things to worry about at the present, however. Such as what to do to his father.
“Xairn?” The AllFather was looking at him uncertainly. “My ssson? How have you changed?”
“I told you before that I am your son no longer.” Xairn heard the coldness in his own voice as he got to his feet. He raised the cryo-knife. “You have only yourself to blame for that.”
“Ssstop!” The AllFather’s voice crackled with authority and Xairn felt him put out a tendril of power, but it had no effect on him. Instinctively, he grabbed the power, reaching out with a part of himself he had never known he possessed until now. The part was like a greedy, hungry hand. It pushed out from the center of his chest and grasped for life—any life—to feed its monstrous appetite. Once it latched on to the power coming from the AllFather, it began to grow, to suck in his energy and life force.
“How do you like it, Father?” Xairn asked coldly, as he felt the force inside him begin to grow, even as his father’s power diminished. “How does it feel to be the one who is drained?”
“No!” The AllFather’s eyes were red-on-black again but instead of crimson, his irises were a pale, rusty red. They looked faded somehow and his already pale skin began to grow ashen.
Because of me, Xairn thought coldly. Because I’m draining him, killing him. The thought didn’t cause any pain or remorse. The more power he drew from his father, the less he felt. The less he cared. And the more he wanted.
“Ssstop!” the AllFather wheezed, sinking to his knees. “It was a test, don’t you sssee? Only a test, my ssson. And you have passed it. You are fit to rule with me, by my ssside. Please…no…” He fell over, onto his side, his mouth open in soundless screams but still Xairn drained him. Still the hungry hand grasped for more…
“My son, stop!”
At first Xairn thought it was some trick his father was playing but the voice he heard now was soft and feminine and there was no hissing in its tone.
“Stop,” the voice cried again. “Do not take any more of his essence into yourself. Inhaling his evil will taint your soul!”
Looking up, he saw a feminine face pressed to the bars of the cage. It was the same face he remembered seeing over and over again in the visions his father had shown him. The sight of it—of her—nearly stopped his heart. It had begun to feel like a fist of solid ice in his chest but now it throbbed painfully inside him, as if to say that it wasn’t quite frozen yet.
“Mother?” he asked, stepping around the fallen body of the AllFather. “Is it you? Really you?”
“Oh Xairn. My baby.” She pressed her face to the bars of the cage and reached out to him with both arms.
Xairn came to her slowly, walking on legs that felt like dry sticks. Mother…my mother… Strangely, she looked exactly as he had seen her in the visions. Her long brownish-black hair wasn’t streaked with grey and her face was unlined—untouched by age.
“Mother,” he whispered again, falling to his knees beside her and taking her outstretched hands. “How…why…I thought you were dead. Why did I never see you? Where did he keep you?”
“Your father held me in stasis—never aging, never changing. He has a stasis tube in one of the emergency life pods—that was where he kept me.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “He wanted my pain to remain fresh—the pain of losing you. Oh Xairn, my baby, to me it was only yesterday that you were torn from my arms. And now you’re a fully grown male. I can hardly believe it.”
“Mother…” Suddenly he could stand to see her caged no longer. “Hold on,” he said, looking for the lock. “I’ll get you out of here. I’ve come to take you home.”
“Oh Xairn…” She let out a half sob as he found the locking mechanism and plunged the cryo-knife into it. The lock froze and shattered into a thousand pieces. Headless of the shrapnel, Xairn dragged open the door to the cage. “Come out.”
“My son. How I have longed to hold you just once more.” Stiffly, she made her way out of the cramped confines and fell into his arms. Xairn pulled her close at once, crushing her to him, pressing his face to her hair and breathing her in.
“Mother,” he whispered. “All my life I have longed for you.”
“I’m sorry. So sorry.” She sobbed against him and Xairn tried to hold her more gently. She felt fr
agile in his arms, as though she might break into a thousand pieces like the lock had.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm the painful throbbing of his heart. Not frozen now—his mother’s love had melted it completely. “It’s all right now,” he whispered. “I’ll take you someplace safe. You’ll never have to worry about anything again. I’ll provide for you, care for you—”
“No, my son.” Her voice sounded strange in his ears and he pulled back to look at her.
“Why not?”
“I won’t live that long. Look.” She indicated her face and Xairn saw to his horror that her formerly smooth skin was now lined with wrinkles. As he watched, more lines encroached, etching themselves into her lovely features, turning her old and haggard. Streaks of silver grew in her hair and her hands grew withered and gnarled.
“Gods!” he exclaimed, panicked. “What’s wrong? What’s happening to you?”
“The cage I was placed in was a stasis holder.” Her voice sounded scratchy and high, the voice of an old woman. “When I came out of it, my artificial youth was compromised. The years are catching up to me now—three years for every one I was in stasis. It is a deadly process—one I’m not strong enough to withstand, I fear.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Xairn’s felt hot tears spring to his eyes. “Why didn’t you stay in the cage? I never should have broken the lock!”
“I wanted you to.” She raised a withered hand and brushed his cheek. “I wanted to hold you in my arms one more time before I died. I love you, my darling. Love you so much. Please forgive my absence from your life.”
“You couldn’t help it,” Xairn whispered, his voice breaking as the tears came faster. “I could never…never blame you.”