Chapter 34 Pleasure Is Not Pleasure
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Pleasure Is Not Pleasure
Almost three weeks after Levan entombed Halant in the crypt, he returned to find the necromancer deep in prayer.
The kingpin spent the walk down to the crypt trying to contact Harrow, whom he had not heard from since the Highcloak had unmistakably foretold a prophecy.
The King’s Prophet’s silence was disquieting.
Never before had Harrow ignored Levan’s calls, and not only did it crack wider the cavernous loneliness inside Levan, but it also made him fear that something sinister was afoot.
He came to the crypt entrance, withdrew the hourglass from his cloak pocket, tapped it, and uttered “tempavicissan.” The door revealed itself and then swung open.
Levan had been expecting a wall of stale reek to hit him, but Lindelan had done a thorough job of ensuring the necromancer stayed clean and fresh—regular waste bucket disposal, new tunics and trousers, buckets of soap oil and water.
The citrus sent a bar of remembered pain slamming into his phantom hand.
A low, intense mutter echoed around the domed ceiling, emanating from one of the side chambers where the loot was stored.
Halant sat cross-legged over one of the seven-pointed stars, eyes closed.
Coarse black curls sprung away from the scalp in a riotous tangle, the hollows of his cheeks more severe than ever.
Emerald-rimmed glasses rested on a chain balancing on his bony chest, and his cinnabar wand and violet cloak were discarded in a heap.
Before him on the tiled ground were a smattering of hand-painted stones, arranged in a circle to represent the Sixteen.
Levan allowed him to finish the Saintly Prayer before he spoke.
“Is this not sacrilege to the faith of your own making?” he asked, trying to ignore the pang behind his breastbone. Saints stones always reminded him of his mother.
“What can I say? I was raised to worship the Sixteen. Old habits die hard.”
“The patron saint of necromancy was called Halandai. You were named for them?”
“No, my parents called me Patyri. I chose Halant when I got to Nomaden.”
Levan leaned against the arched entrance to the chamber so he could see both the necromancer and his dead parents.
Even after all these years, it was difficult not to be reminded of the last night he had seen his mother alive.
Difficult not to think of her corpse slumped next to the brother he had loved so much.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Levan,” his brother had pleaded.
But Levan had just…stared. Said nothing.
It was shock and grief and the feeling of no, no, this isn’t happening, perhaps if I stay very still I will awake from this nightmare.
It had not worked, of course, and eventually he could not bear to look at his mother’s dead body for another second.
He had screwed his eyes up tight, letting the tears flow and the sobs hitch in his chest, and when he opened his eyes again, his brother was gone.
The next few hours had been a blur of night-black and bloodred and paling skin, fraught murmurs and frantic bodies, Segal and Perant and his father disappearing to the house of the nearest known necromancer—Saffron’s mother.
“Still no luck,” he said, gesturing to his parents’ bodies.
Halant raked slender fingers through his snarl of curls. Already deep-set, his eyes looked particularly exhausted, deprived of daylight, deprived of life. “It’s getting harder. Further away. My well isn’t replenishing the way it should.”
“Aren’t we feeding you well enough? Providing you with the finest—and coldest—bodies the pleasurehouses have to offer?”
“I told you the cold thing was a joke.”
“You asked for scarred, wounded, interesting to look at. Lindelan tells me those are not so easy to find, in a world where most scars can be healed.”
“Perhaps that’s the appeal—the rarity of it.” Halant still sat cross-legged, his tall back hunched over like a shepherd’s crook. “You strike me as the kind of man who understands that sometimes a delicious meal and a random fuck are not enough to fill the gaping hole.”
Levan raised a brow. “So what is?”
“Teny Tolvas.”
“Teny…?”
“The love of my life. We’ve been together since we were teenagers—they were one of the mages to break me out of Tarsan prison.
Nobody in this world knows me better, loves me more deeply.
” The necromancer’s voice clotted with emotion.
“In a world of mages who see me only for what I can do, Teny sees me for who I am. Pleasure is not pleasure without them.”
Levan knew precisely what Halant meant. He had never been one for the cheaper pleasures—he needed them to be hard won, layered, deep. The love of another mage, the respect of his peers, the aching gratification of a marathon.
Though he did not especially want to indulge the necromancer’s fancies—it could easily be a ploy—he wanted Halant to be successful. Needed him to be.
“I’ll send someone to Nomaden to retrieve Tolvas.”
Halant’s eyes flared, a hopeful twinkle, but it quickly died. “Only if you’ll let them go afterward. I won’t put Teny in danger just because they know something they shouldn’t. You can keep your promises of Irisi. Teny is the most important thing.”
“You have my word. If you resurrect my parents, both you and Teny Tolvas will walk free. I am willing to make another binding oath to cement that promise.”
Halant nodded once, stoic, emotional.
Resolute.