Chapter Two

Analith regarded her sadly for a moment. "Would it truly be so terrible? You can credit the cold-hearted jackal Anubis as your father, why not me as your mother. Can you not feel the pull?"

Bitterness and repugnance crept through every fiber of Ardith's being as she realized why she kept feeling that strange sense of awareness and kinship. She was indeed akin somehow to this self-professed demon. It didn't bear thinking about. Without volition, a question tore from deep inside her. "Why did you leave me… why didn't you love me?"

"Not love you? I loved you… more than you will ever know. Anubis wrenched you from my arms while I lay weak from childbirth. He took from me the chance to know you, to watch you grow. He stole that from both of us."

Ardith could hear the tears in Analith's voice and felt her anguish keenly. Even so, she did not relent. All the pain of a loveless, barren childhood filled her voice with venom. "If you loved me, why didn't you come after me? You just let him take me!"

"I didn't let him do anything. The Anakarre are at their weakest following childbirth. It is not as easy for us as the humans find it. It takes weeks to recover from the blood loss and the pain. Many never do. It was days before I could even move, much less stand. By the time I had regained the strength to go after you, he held you fast within the temple walls. I could not reach you, though I tried. Your loss came near to killing me."

An odd keening, almost a howl pierced the air. Analith visibly shook off the shadows of the past, gathering her wits about her. As she reached out a hand toward Ardith she looked ready to run. "We're wasting time, the jackal hunts. Do you want your freedom, or do you wish to spend eternity in grey oblivion?"

Ardith stared blankly at her mother's slender hand. The hesitation was only momentary. She could not face another moment in the suffocating void. She took the proffered hand.

As their fingers touched, the world spun out of control. The sense of kinship Ardith had been feeling intensified, and her relationship to Analith became sure knowledge. So did the truth of her words. It did nothing to dissipate the bitterness and anger, the sense of never belonging anywhere. There was no healing balm for the scars left by the years spent alone, despised by the priests who raised her. There had never been any softness or warmth in her life, no sweet or tender moments. As the void spun around her, she wondered cynically what her mother wanted from her.

As the dizzying whirl finally slowed to a halt, an odd sense of disorientation overtook Ardith. The ever present grey had thinned and vanished, giving her vision depth and distance again. It was oddly disquieting. She was surrounded by a riot of brightly warring colors, so vivid they made her eyes sting. She stood in the center of a large open chamber. Moonlight lanced in through high narrow windows, tearing away the darkness. Large soft pillows were strewn around the room, and lengths of the purest silk were scattered everywhere. A delicate fountain graced the center of the chamber, shining silver in the moonlight; and steam rose lazily from a pool behind it. Off to one side stood a table, laden with food and drink beyond imagination. Small birds hung in gilded cages in the corners, and hints of gold and gems twinkled from most surfaces. It was a sybaritic paradise, sensual and opulent. A room made for hedonistic pleasure. She could barely take it all in, it was so lush. Nothing in her memory compared.

Looking down, Ardith realized she still wore the robes of the dead. They were dusty and tattered, as if they had rotted away while she lingered unknowing, trapped in the void. Her skin seemed dull and lusterless, and her hands looked as if she were a hundred years old… dry and wrinkled as parchment. She had a million questions in her mind, but suddenly she wanted to be clean above all else. The questions could wait. She turned to face Analith who had obviously anticipated her desire. After lighting the torches, she clapped her hands imperiously, summoning two lithe young slave girls. She directed them to ready the bath and fetch clean robes.

While the two scurried industriously about, Ardith watched them covertly. Both were well formed and naked to the waist but for the golden torcs around their necks. Their breasts were full and firm, anointed with fragrant golden oil. Their smooth skin shone in the torchlight, giving the illusion of silk dusted with gold. When they came to lead her to the shallow pool near the fountain, a dark and spicy scent lingered in her nostrils, filling her with a forgotten warmth. The rising heat was so compelling that it took all the restraint she owned not to touch their silken skin, but she did what she must. She had sworn long ago, after being forced into submission as a pleasure slave never to know the joys of the flesh again. It was a vow she meant to keep.

Deep in thought, she stood stone still as they gently stripped the dusty robes from her. They paused momentarily when they tried to remove the amulet she always wore. There was no break or catch in the smooth golden chain. A gold inlaid jackal's head, it was the only gift she had from her father. She knew from experience that it could not be removed, it had been in place since she was an infant. It had grown with her, never harming her, but she could never get rid of it. The priests said it was the mark of her father's favor, it made her feel like property, a branded slave.

At a gesture from her mother, the two let it be. Ardith moved without resistance as they guided her to stand knee-deep into the steaming water of the pool. Standing on the edge of the pool allowed them to pour basins of sweet scented water over her, soaking her from head to toe. It coursed in tantalizing runnels, leaving trails of fire across her heated skin. The sensation the streams of water raised inside her was incredible. It filled her with a whisper of guilty pleasure, the kind she had been punished for as a child. Only the control she had learned at the hands of the priests allowed her to remain motionless as they began to bathe her in earnest. The soap was cool and slick against her sensitive skin. Their hands, as they lathered every inch of her body, were supple; the movements both sure and caressing.

Trained for pleasure, they were emboldened by her stillness. They became more brazen; delving slowly, enticingly, into all the tender places that cried out for attention. They stood close, one behind her and one in front. The one in front met Ardith's eyes, holding her gaze prisoner as she caressed her breasts. Thumbs circled lazily over taut nipples, teasing her, trying to elicit a response. Ardith felt the warm breasts of the girl behind her against her back as a slick hand slipped between her thighs. Warm fingers slid back and forth tantalizingly, never entering her. Each stroke merely grazed the edges, slipping teasingly forward to massage the aching button protruding there. It was enough to start a conflagration. Struggling to show no sign of her arousal, Ardith was aware of her mother watching from the edge of the fountain.

It was a relief when the girls finally rinsed the soap from her body. The shock of the icy water was just what she needed to maintain control. Unable to bear anymore of their stroking, she motioned them away when they would have dried and dressed her. Their gentle ministrations had left her with an ache she would be hard pressed to relieve or forget. The robe they had laid out for her was of the sheerest green silk, and the feel of it against her body did nothing to quench the fire that raged within her. She ran a slim hand down her body consideringly, perhaps…

"Very good child, very very good. Your control is admirable; you've learned that lesson well. Perhaps too well." Analith looked her over critically. "Much better, you cleaned up nicely. Underneath the grime of the crypt, you truly look like one of us."

Ardith felt uncomfortable under her mother's scrutiny, a little like a prime cut of meat. The tension that still thrummed through her wasn't helping matters either. It made her decidedly edgy. "What do my looks have to do with anything?"

"Esthetics are everything; seduction the very key to our survival. Without beauty, the game is much more difficult to play."

"What game?"

"Life is a game, a deadly dance. If you make a wrong step you die. We are not immortal; those who know how can kill us quite easily. Through seduction, we take what we will and nobody suffers unnecessarily. Even the prey finds ecstasy in death."

With every word Analith spoke Ardith became more apprehensive. The mere thought of seducing another person to their death should have been an anathema, and yet it called to something deep inside of her. It awakened a yearning that was both harrowing and somehow arousing. Hidden in the hollows of her soul was a craving for power and a lust for blood. It had always lain dormant, stifled by the Jackal's priests, but at her mother's words a longing began to stir. "You're talking about taking human life, about murder."

"I'm talking about staying alive, clinging to life with everything you've got. Only your father's blood has kept you alive this long, without it you would have died long ago. " She reached out a long, taloned finger toward the jackal amulet. "Your father's Mark has kept you alive, just as it kept me from you all those years. It would have hidden you still, had not Osiris pierced the veil of shadows. It is past time the Mark was abolished." Without another word, she touched the amulet lightly with one blood red nail. She bared her teeth, showing the points of gleaming white fangs. From deep in her throat a high-pitched whine emerged, swelling to form a single piercing sound.

As the sound swelled to a scream, Ardith felt the amulet begin to burn. Every instinct she possessed told her to turn and run, and yet she stayed. The heat was almost too much to bear, searing her tender flesh. The keening reached a painful climax, and the amulet shattered with a loud, resounding crack as the scattered pieces fell.

A door opened somewhere in Ardith's mind. The flood of sensory information was so overwhelming it drove her to her knees. Smells were stronger, more informative; she could smell the sweet blood of the little slave that cleared away her discarded robes, the scent of her own arousal. It filled her with a yearning she could not identify. Sound, taste, sight, everything mingled in a confusing maelstrom of sensation. It was as if the amulet had sealed away a part of her, keeping her under control. Now, all restraint was gone. Mingled with the myriad of information, Ardith could feel her earlier lust rise again. It was far more intense a need than any she had ever known, and with it came a rising hunger. The two combined left her shaking, too weak to resist the pressure of her mother's guiding hands.

Two naked slaves, male and female, clad only in chains of thin gold knelt among the pillows. She could smell the fear rising from them, and the lust. The mixture was more powerful than any aphrodisiac. A small part of her mind protested as Analith steered her irresistibly toward them. It was far too late for her to heed. As she lay down between them hunger and lust rose like a wave, nearly blotting out the rest of the world. Sensation and need became her only focus. The last thing Ardith heard as the two slaves removed her robe was Analith's voice. "Your self-discipline may be both a blessing and a curse. It will keep you from cutting things too short, but it may also keep you from playing at all. You must learn to let go."

M.C. Sak (c) 1999