Ariano actually began to look sheepish. “I was in love, so I might have been convinced to go without any explanation at all, but he did tell me generalities. Lothrian believed he knew of a way to destroy Torium.” Her eyes grew distant with the memory, and her voice a bit wistful. “He claimed to have discovered the existence of a doomsday device there. He had it in his head that we'd go there, kill them all, steal their piece, have a fuck on their kitchen table, and blow the place to the moon.”
Maklin scoffed. “A doomsday device in Torium? House Yorn would know of such a thing, if it existed.”
Ariano rolled her eyes. “What do you want? I've told you the whole of it.”
“Fine, then what sort of device was it?”
“I don't know!” she shouted. “I'm not even sure Lothrian knew. He might have just expected to know it when he saw it.”
Cruentus growled, a great, rumbling sound that made the pebbles on the ground dance. “There are rumors of a doomsday device, but Lothrian did not speak of this to me, nor I to him. He came by this from somewhere else.”
Ariano shrugged. “Then I have no idea. I always assumed it was information you gave him.”
Maklin shook his head and waved a hand in dismissal. “Elgar take you and your tale, where did you put the piece you took?”
“It’s in the damned black pit of Torium with Lothrian’s corpse, fool! Did you miss the first part of the conversation or are you just going senile?”
“Hearing it and believing it are two different things.”
Cruentus chuckled at the this, and Maklin whirled around to confront him. “This is all your fault to begin with! Why did you give them the piece?”
Cruentus snorted flame again, and lay back down, eyes closed. “I feared for my life, of course. I was accosted by a powerful Meite. Waste not, bend a knee, or whatever you people say.” He made a sound that Sadrik was fairly certain was a giggle.
“Wretched wyrm! Lothrian was powerful, yes, but I doubt he could have done much more than bloody you before you tore him to pieces. You did it for pure mischief!”
Cruentus didn't bother to open his eyes, but his chuckling rumbled the ground. “Just so, Meite. Just so.”
Maklin sputtered and stammered in incoherent fury for several long moments, at last choking out “Are you mad or have you gone senile?”
“Oh, neither.” Cruentus opened his eyes again. They seemed distant, foggy, unfocused. “You weren’t there the last time it was whole, as I recall, so you can’t appreciate the glory of it all. You humans may be small, but you have the hearts of dragons. The carnage was truly like nothing I have ever seen.”
“So you’ll just toss this bomb out into the world again? Too old to go and do your own destruction, is that it?”
“I am clearly at best a gifted amateur at bloodshed compared to your people. If I hadn’t been able to fly, I’d have surely drowned in the rivers of it you spill.” He shook his head in wonder, then glared at Maklin. “And don’t speak to me as if you aren’t old, Meite. At least my body doesn’t fail me like yours.”
“Clearly your mind does, though!”
Cruentus snorted, not bothering to raise his head this time, sending Maklin scurrying backward again. “In a hundred years, I’ll still be old, and you’ll be dead.” He craned his neck forward and blew a puff of smoke in Maklin’s face. “I reckon my wit is still intact.”
Maranath's bark of laugher caught everyone off guard. “It seems about the sort of conversation a pack of old fools would have.”
Cruentus nodded his agreement, then turned back to Maklin. “Now, shut up, old man, and let her finish. Perhaps she might have something useful to tell you. Or I, assuming you don’t annoy me enough to keep it to myself.”
Maklin glared at Cruentus, but said nothing, instead turning back to Ariano.
Ariano seemed dismayed to find all eyes once again on her. “There’s little more to tell. Obviously, we never accomplished what we intended.”
Cruentus scowled. “Ah, but the why of that is the heart of the tale, is it not? What lies within that black pit, that one elder Meite lies dead, and another fled?”
Ariano seemed to shrink a bit, her own eyes growing dark and distant. “Why don’t you go there yourself and find out? Or aren’t you powerful enough?” she snapped.
“Powerful, yes, but not nearly so stupid as you. I did not get to be so old by meddling with doomsday devices! I prefer to leave that to fools like you. Go on.”
A nervous tick began throbbing just below Ariano's left eye, and her throat worked as if she were swallowing something ugly. “Monsters. I don’t know what to call them. Everywhere. Too many for us. Perhaps too many even for you.”
Cruentus’s eyes grew wide in amazement. “What did they look like?”
“It’s a difficult thing to describe with words. They don’t have quite the impact the visual would have.”
“Then paint me a picture, Ariano Talus!”
Ariano's laugh had little humor. “I already did, but it would hardly benefit you. It's in Nihlos.”
Cruentus growled, a deep, bass thrum that made Sadrik's head spin. “You must promise to bring it to me before you die. And that could happen very soon, at any moment, practically. So you must not delay!”
“If I don’t die trying to sort it out.”
Cruentus snorted flame, his eyes seeming worried now, though it was difficult to tell with a dragon. “Then finish the tale.”
She was pale again, her skin seeming more thin and wrinkled, her eyes far away. “There were more than we ever imagined. They came and came, and we kept killing them, but there were too many. Finally, Lothrian told me to run.”
Cruentus grunted. “And you left him to die?”
“He claimed he would have a better chance alone.”
“Did he?”
“Of course not. It was a lie, we both knew that.”
“And what was the truth?”
Ariano cast her eyes down again. “That he could give me a chance to escape, and I wasn't strong enough to offer him the same.”
Maranath laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “One would have rather died with their friends.”
Maklin nodded. “But one must not waste.”
Ariano clenched her teeth again. “Yes, so I ran. I heard him screaming toward the end, but they had been screaming much longer. They paid dearly to bring him down.”
“And then Tasinal came,” Maklin observed. “That great mess and coverup, outlawing Meites. Why am I not surprised it was all your fault?”
“It wasn't all mine,” she snapped. “It was far and away more Lothrian's.” She scowled at the dragon and added in a sarcastic tone, “I wonder how Tasinal might ever have even known what was going on?”
Cruentus snickered. “I wonder.”
Maranath turned to Cruentus, a shocked look on his face. “You know how to reach Tasinal?”
Cruentus sighed and rolled his shoulders in an approximation of a shrug. “No. I’ve rarely seen him since then. He comes, on occasion, usually with questions about some obscure point of history, but he is always distracted. He has some grand project, but he won’t speak of it.”
Maranath seemed not at all surprised. “It would have been good to have his counsel, but nevertheless, we must do what we can, and there is no time to spare”
Cruentus's eyes narrowed in annoyance. “So soon? You’ve only just arrived. Why not rest a while before setting out?”
Maranath threw up his hands and barked a laugh. “You’ve just said it yourself. We have short lives, and they’re almost used up. Our time is precious.”
Cruentus turned his head to the sky and snorted a jet of flame. “Aye, the heart of a dragon in the body of an ant. Is it any wonder you wither with the passage of years? Your bodies are too frail to contain such spirits.”
Maranath chuckled. “Without a time limit, the game grows stale, does it not? I presume that’s why you spend so much time sleeping. Me, I can hardly afford the luxury
. I’ll rest when I’m dead.”
“I would hear your tale, if you survive,” Cruentus declared.
“If we survive, you’ll have it.” He gestured to the others to follow him as he turned to leave.
Maklin gave Cruentus a final glare. “I should have known you were bluffing. You don’t have anything useful to add, after all.”
“I have given you much, Meite!”
Maklin chuckled, his still-sour tone at odds with his sudden humor. “I’m still upset with you, though!”
Cruentus closed his eyes. “This, too, will pass.”
Maranath did not look forward to another day of flight. Short distances were simple enough, but long hauls were taxing, the sort of business that left one in the mood for a large meal and a strong drink as opposed to fighting. Of the two, Maranath strongly suspected fighting was the more likely end of the day. “We need all the help we can get. Ariano, you will return to Nihlos and fetch Prandil. Sadrik, you will accompany her. Maklin and I will go on to Torium and do what we can until you get there.”
Ariano scowled. “Why me?” she groused. “Have I not been at your side throughout this?”
Maranath snorted. “You’ve been dragging me about by the nose, blindfolded, and feeding me a steady diet of bullshit! It’s the least you can do to make up for it.”
Ariano lowered her eyes to the ground, looking at least a bit contrite. “It’s not as if Prandil and I are on good terms, you know.”
“He’ll be over it by now, surely. And even so, you’ll have Sadrik to help you convince him of the seriousness of the situation.”
Sadrik rolled his eyes at this notion. “Assuming she actually tells him the problem and doesn’t tell him he just has to ‘trust her’.”
Ariano whipped her head toward Sadrik and shouted, “You shut your mouth, whelp, or I’ll shut it for you! You’re not nearly strong enough to talk shit to me!”
Sadrik raised one eyebrow, his expression cool and unruffled. “You think so?”
“You can’t even fly!”
Maklin waved his hand between the two of them, distracting them from their argument. “Done, then. The troublemaker does the scutwork, and the boy keeps an eye on her to keep her out of mischief.”
Ariano glared at Maranath again. “Ah, the truth we all knew from the start. And it assumes I don’t drop him like a stone from a high place during the flight.”
Sadrik felt a deep surge of rage at her threat, and decided to follow with one of his own. “I feel certain I could set you well aflame before I hit the ground, grandmother! You’d leave a lovely trail on your way down, I should think.”
Ariano offered him a thin smile. “At least you have the proper attitude.”
Maranath chuckled briefly, and gestured, shooing them off. “Enough! We are out of time!”
Chapter 9
Coronation
As the sun reached its zenith, Sadrik found himself a mass of conflicting emotions. Terror, of course, was the strongest, due to being dangled high above Nihlos, his entire life hanging on Ariano's whim. Elation, at the sight of all Nihlos spread below him like a jewel, was a close second. Finally, hunger gnawed at him, reminding him that despite it being past lunch time, lunch had not in fact occurred, an oversight that he should like to rectify as soon as possible.
Lunch ought to have occurred already, of course, and had in fact been offered by Prandil's reluctant replacement, Thrun, during their brief visit. Really, though, it would have been bad form to prevail upon the boy prior to murdering the lot of his tormentors, or at least that was Sadrik's assumption regarding Ariano's plan. She had, unusually, been quiet about her intentions. Likely because she's trying to reconcile her outrage at the rebels with her elation that Prandil and Narelki are now both no longer among the living. Presumably, it means she won.
Sadrik's ruminations were cut short as Ariano banked sharply and dropped like a stone, hurtling downward toward the palace. He turned all of his focus to believing he would survive a meteoric impact, but she slowed at the last moment and drifted onto the palace steps like a leaf on the wind. The two men standing guard blanched at her breach of etiquette, and began to study their own shoes with great intensity as the pair or sorcerers approached.
Ariano made no effort at her usual pose. “The empress,” she demanded. “Where is she?”
Her withering glare quickly melted any reticence the guard might have. “Reception room,” he said quietly.
Ariano patted him on the cheek and offered him her saccharine smile. “Good boy, and smart. You'll likely see the sun rise with that attitude!” She let her false cheer melt away as she turned to Sadrik and growled, “That's more than some here can say.”
Sadrik cast the guards an apologetic look, then turned to follow Ariano as she scurried off. “A bit harsh, don't you think?”
“Do you intend to survive the day, whelp?” she snarled over her shoulder.
Sadrik bit back a nasty retort. She was certainly the stronger. If he tested her, she likely wouldn't kill him, just draw a bit of blood, perhaps throwing in a little extra pain for being stupid. But this is madness!
Ariano ignored more guards outside the reception room, and they likewise took one look at her and found themselves utterly fascinated with the carpet.
The entrance to the reception room was quite lovely, and clearly expensive, a huge, carved door of rich, dark wood. It exploded inward in a hail of flinders as Ariano approached. From within, Kariana, seated in an ornate chair, smiled at them like a cat. Caelwen, at her side, did not smile at all.
Kariana was at no loss for words. She waved as the two entered to stand before her. “Ariano, I wasn’t expecting you. How nice of you to drop in!”
Sadrik couldn't help but snicker. “Quite literally, actually.”
Ariano shot him a brief glare, as if to say ‘Stop spoiling my entrance!’, then turned back to Kariana. “Would you care to explain yourself before we kill you and the rest of the rebels, or would you just have us use our best judgment for your epitaph?”
Kariana's smile fell from her face, and she rose and spoke with an almost regal air. “This is no rebellion. It is the new order of things, all done legally.”
Ariano snorted. “I've heard the story. The elders had no right to judge you! If you would seek sanctuary in our law, you must be judged by Meites!”
Kariana raised an eyebrow and paused a moment, then offered a vicious smile. “And how do you judge me, then?”
Ariano's jaw began to work, and her lips pursed. Ah, clearly we did not expect this tack, eh?
“Why did you kill Prandil?” she asked at last.
Kariana chuckled softly, a cruel laugh that Sadrik found almost chilling. “You said you knew the story.”
“I want to hear it from your lips, and look into your eyes when you speak it.”
Kariana locked gazes with the old sorceress and answered in a low, almost growling voice, “I wanted him to teach me. He fucked me, he mocked me, and then dismissed me like a whore. He said I was a fine fuck doll, but I’d never be anything more, so I stabbed the bastard in the eye.” She flashed Ariano a vicious grin and added, “That is how it’s done, right?”
Ariano's change was as immediate as it was shocking. The rage that seemed to fill her fled, unable to resist her new emotional state. Her laughter burst forth, harsh and blaring, and for long enough that Sadrik might have thought it feigned, save for the tears that had begun to stream down her face. At last, when she had gained better control of herself, she snickered, “You are not the first bedmate of his to stab him, though it looks as if you're the last.” She could not contain another wild cackle, then grew serious again, almost wistful. “He made a mistake, but not the one you think. I should tell you, but it would break your heart.”
Kariana eyed her warily. “Tell me what?”
By now, Ariano was peering at Kariana as one might observe a prized specimen under a magnifying glass. “Yes, I can see his reasoning. You've come a long way since you
were cringing from me in the courtroom. We have underestimated you. Did you plan it this way? The catastrophic protocols?”
Kariana, still wary of a trap, grunted and said, “It was plan B.”
“You had help, surely. You've shown courage, but not the sort of cunning to do this alone. Narelki? Or that Prosin whore?”
Kariana smirked. “Both, actually. And you. Without Sadrina’s death, Prandil’s wouldn’t have been a tipping point.”
Ariano turned to Sadrik as if Kariana were not present. “Clever girl. Resourceful. It would seem Narelki and Prandil both saw it, and they are not the only ones.”
“That is ridiculous,” Sadrik spat.
“Saw what?” Kariana asked, growing more annoyed now.
Ariano turned back to her, her mood cool rather than volcanic or manic. “Never you mind. You'll find out if and when I choose, assuming I don't change my mind. You remind me of someone I’m very fond of, you know?”
Kariana hesitated a moment, considering. “If we've decided mayhem is off the table, what now?”
Ariano flashed a wicked grin, her gray eyebrows almost popping off the top of her head. It's hardly surprising that they think us mad. Perhaps we are.
“I made no such promise!” Ariano called out. She paused a moment and rubbed at her chin, then shrugged as if in surrender. “But it seems it is.” She snapped her fingers under Kariana's nose. “I need to lay hands on the Southlander leader. I have plans for him.”
Just like that, she's gone from traitor and victim back to servant. No wonder they hate us.
Sadrik shook his head vehemently. “Maranath was quite clear. He's off limits!”
Ariano cast him a withering glare. “Maranath is not here. We'll intercept that piece, and get back to living our lives.”
Sadrik prepared to offer an argument that would likely result in his severe injury, but fortunately Caelwen was foolish enough to interrupt him and draw Ariano's ire. “You're too late. They left days ago.”
Sadrik put a palm to his face and shook his head. “One guess where they were headed.”
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