An'Nyese


 * Bluesnakeye.jpg

The Betrayal
A cool night breeze blew in from the windows, ruffling the bright blue sheers that covered it. She slept soundly, nestled in a mass of pillows and sleep tussled curls. The next morning was a big day for the seventeen year old girl. She had come of age to be allowed out of the main sactuary, and was to be assigned a true temple to begin her service. Excitement had nearly stolen her slumber for her, but her day of preparation had exhausted her enough to allow that blissful darkness.

In the shadows of the room, something shifted. It had stood, still in the corner of her room the moment that same shadow had extinguished the lights. It debated, it prayed, it worried over the sleeping girl until it had come to a decision. Nearer it crept to where the girl slept. A trembling hand reached out, to pull the sheer curtain of her bed aside and gently stroke down the girls arm. "An'nyese... wake up."

Her thick lashes fluttered, warring between grunting the intrusion away to sink back into sleep and waking. That stroking hand and soft voice, however, was persistant and soon she groggily sat up. Bleary eyes took in the haunted blues that stared at her and her lips melted into a bright smile. "Tahj," she mumbled, voice thick with sleep, "you know you arn't supposed to be in here after dark." Her chiding was only a front. The man had snuck into her room several times over the past two years, from when he stopped being her caretaker, assigned to raise her from an infant, 'Brother Tahj', and became her lover.

His lips broke into a ghost of a grin, his stroking hand touselling her wild curls, but he did not speak. When she peeled back her sheets to offer a place for him to lay, he shook his head. "We need to speak An'nyese. Come with me to the stream." With that, he held out a robe for her that matched his own. Her brow lifted, but her smile remained, unable to deny her love anything, even if she desperately wanted to curl up warm in her bed beside him. Rising to her feet, she pulled on the robe and pulled the hood over her head as he did, and they wandered out of the sanctuary and into the night.

Soon, they found themselves at the foot of the bubbling stream, the fires that lit the outside of the temple off in the distance. Giddy with this nighttime excursion, Ny twirled in the dew laden grass, and began to sink down onto the shore. Swiftly, Tahj caught her arm and kept her standing. His eyes held a note of sorrow, a twitching of shame. "You won't be getting assigned to a temple, Ny," he whispered, a glitter of tears staining the corners of his eye. "I have to tell them."

Confusion lit the girls eyes as she stared at that mournful face and she took a step back from him. "What do you mean?" Panic began to grow, a deep fear pulsing through her veins. "You let me live, all these years, knowing my secret. Why... why would you tell them now?" By now, the ugly truth was dawning fully on her, and with her terror, she felt the energy in her blood begin to churn. "I thought you loved me!"

He took a step foreward to try to console her, to touch her arm to explain, but she took another backward, her bare feet within the icy waters. "Ny, I had a dream last night. Anahita will damn me if I do not tell them and let the Sisters send you back to her. We'll both be damned! Don't you see? We might be spared if..." He was cut off by the strange look in her eye. Her trembling had ceased, and she stared, not at him, but through him. Her head cocked to the side. She breathed in a slow, easy rhythm. Silence engulfed the night. For a few long moments, there was only the sound of the bubbling stream. He began to think he had gotten through to her. Until...

"No," she spoke softly, though her words held no warmth. An icyness settled around her, he could almost feel it rolling off her skin. As he looked at her, she seemed to change. No longer did he see the warm, happy child he had raised, nor the loving, trusting woman that had become his lover. She was an ocean of calm fury, of whispered scorn. She was a silent frosty tigress. "You misunderstood your dream. If Anahita wanted me, she would have had me. My destiny is not to be sacrificed." She smiled, but it was a cold, terrible thing. "One thing in your dream, however, was true. You are damned, Tahj."

His lips parted to speak, but she lifted her hands. In front of her, a column of water rose from the stream and wrapped around him. The serpentine coils of liquid dragged him into the river with her, standing him before the tigress. "Your betrayal, Tahj, has damned you." The last scrap of her feeling came out in the slightly wounded sound of her voice. Fingertips plucked out the long, curved blade of the bone dagger he had given her, that she kept tucked into that ebony mass of curls.

Fear whipped through him at the sight of the glinting steel, at the display of her power that she should not have had so much steady control over. "Can you handle my blood on your hands, An'nyese? I want to tell them out of my love for you! No one will ever love you as much as I do! Can't you see that?" he pleaded for her understanding. But all he recieved was a firm shake of her head. "I do not intend to love again." Her words were ice, seething snakelike through her strange calm. Without another breath, the blade flashed against his throat and the waters began to swirl with crimson.

Slowly, the water around them began to solidify, building a freezing dam around them until they stood in a bowl-shape, filled with unfrozen water. Her finger lifted and his blood began to roll upward from his neck, then swirl around the pair in terrible red tendrils. Down they spiraled until every ounce of his life floated through the still water. Only then did the column that held his body slink back into the reddened pool and his lifeless corpse sink down, engulfed by the hungry red water.

She too, fell to her knees. Slowly, the robe was peeled away, as were her underclothes and tossed onto the shore. And there she sat, in the night, soaking herself in the blood of her one great love, and her one great betrayer. "No Tahj, I will never love or trust again." =Following Seht's Orders (Journey to the Temple)=



The journey had been tedious. He silently cursed his equally silent passenger as he prodded the weary camels to pick up their pace. Had they followed the direct route the long desert trek would have only had him out in the sandstorms and scorching heat for five days. As it was, his quiet passenger had insisted in the beginning they avoid all cities, towns, merchant roads. She wanted no living soul to see their passing, and the five day march rolled into a gruelling three week journey.

He glanced back at the gilded carriage that housed the woman, who's face he hadn't even seen. Just a voice in the darkness, hidden by layers of colorful sheer fabric that draped over the glassless windows. As he watched the carriage bump over the dunes in the hazy half-light of the oncoming twilight, he mourned another nights loss of a warm brothel bed. His mind danced with colored pillows and tinkling bells, of low voices and silky legs.

The only thing that held him from making a bee line to the nearest town was the promise of payment. All knew that the Temples held vast riches, donations given by the wealthy for this blessing or that. To take a single Sister from one temple to another seemed an easy task to feel the weight of a heavy sachel in his pocket. However, as the days rolled on, he began to feel that itch. Alone in the desert, with only himself, the camels, and that mysterious woman. It was enough to make him wonder if damning himself by defiling one of the Sisters was worth it. Afterall, he'd never been much of a religious man. There was no real fear of the old God in him. His ponderings were intrupted by a disgruntled sound from the camel, and he glanced up to see night had fallen, but in the distance he saw the oasis. The large tree's bloomed up from the dunes and the rocky temple loomed dark on the horizon. A sense of relief swept over him. "Nearly there," he called out over his shoulder to the passenger, "Just another two hours or so." He began to give the camel another sharp prod to speed the brute up when a voice called out from the carriage. "Stop and make camp here, we will proceed at mornings first light."

Bewildered at the demand, he turned fully in his seat and gazed, slack jawed at the carriage. "But, Sister, we are nearly there. We can make it before the moon fully rises!" In the silence that followed his plea, he heard the sound of a pocket full of coins dancing away. His burning loins would have to wait another day to find reprieve. Sighing, he stopped the camel with a slight tug on the reigns and made quick work of setting up his own campsite. With a fire quickly started for protection from the night creatures, he bundled up on the front seat of the carriage to keep himself well away from the ground crawlers. Sleep came quickly, knowing the sooner he slumbered, the quicker day would come.

Something awoke him from his slumber. A familiar rattling that tugged on the very edges of his dreams and yet faded when his eyes opened. Through his bleary vision, he guessed he'd only been out for a couple of hours. It took him a moment to realize something was amiss. His blurred vision cleared when he noted the fire was out, not a single burning coal left flickering or smoking. Curious he sat up from his bedding to get a closer look, and in the brilliance of the moonlight, she stepped in his line of vision.

She was all curves and sinewy muscle. Her light caramel flesh glistened with a sheen of sweat, glittered like she were dusted in salt crystals, he could almost smell them on her. She was a canvas of exotic ink. He could make out the design of a black snake curling around her muscled thigh, a pattern of flames rising up between her breasts, her arms covered in henna-styled patterns. Waves of silky black hair rolled down her back, glinting silver in the starlight. But with all she lay exposed to him, his dark, hungry gaze settled onto those vibrant blue eyes that seemed to take in the meager light and reflect it into an almost unnatural glow.

Her full lips curved into an inviting smile, and one finger rose to becon him down from his perch, ever silent save for the soothing sound of the tinkling silver bells at her wrists. His aching loins could not help but obey her silent command and down he scrambled, tearing away his clothing as he stumbled through the sand to get to her. He stopped, just shy of taking her in his arms, panting with the sudden excitement and her beconing hand found its way instantly into his hair, drawing him close. He breathed her in, the pleasant scent of exotic herbs and spices filled his lungs.

"You have served Seht well, are you ready for your payment, darling?" she purred, her voice low and thick with lust. His vigorous nodding and panting breaths froze a moment later as sheer horror and pain screamed through him. His eyes swung down from the vision before him, to the wicked, curved bone dagger embedded into his chest. "May Seht keep you," she whispered seductively into his ear before she leaned hard into him, pressing her white-hot flesh against his and twisted the blade. As she pushed him away, the last sound he heard was the tinkling of those silver bells.