by Jordan Baker
"You could not have done better," she said. "Who else would celebrate your victories? Who else could share your glory in true appreciation of your power? You would destroy a lesser woman."
"I may destroy you yet," he said.
"You may try."
"Do not tempt me," Cerric growled but Calexis laughed.
"That is what I do best, husband. Do you not enjoy my temptation? Which do you prefer, to resist or to embrace it? Tell me and I will make the challenge even sweeter."
"Your thoughts are predictable," Cerric said.
"So what if they are?" she replied with a sly grin. "I make no secret of it."
"No," he said. "You are very blatant about such things."
"Is that not what you want, to know what lies in the hearts and minds of everyone? Isn't that what this magic you are creating is about? I see how you control your mages, your priests, and I have seen them busily working away, doing your bidding, placing these crystals about the city. It is obvious what you are about."
"What of it?"
"It bothers you, doesn't it," she said.
"What does?"
"That you cannot see into my mind."
"It is inconvenient, but amusing."
"It excites you."
"Does it?"
"It intrigues you that I might challenge you."
"It amuses me that you think you could, Calexis, and soon it will not matter," Cerric said. "You still haven't answered my question."
"What was that?"
"Where is Dakar?"
"I do not know," she said, taking a sip from the goblet. "I would imagine that he is studying his books or some such nonsense, whatever it is that mages do."
Cerric turned and walked from the room, leaving Calexis standing alone with her wine. Once he was gone, she drank down the rest of it and she began to shake. The guards had not warned her of his return, and she had not been expecting him. It was only thanks to her keen senses that she had heard his distinctive footsteps and scented his approach.
"He is gone," she said and a cloaked figure emerged from the shadows behind the drapes at the window.
"You play a dangerous game, Calexis," Draxis said.
"As do you," she said. "When did you decide to stop calling me mother?"
"When you left me to die on the battlefield," he replied, his tone cool and circumspect.
"I wanted to look for you, Draxis, but you have seen how Cerric is now."
"I have seen his power," he said. "I have seen how he casts aside those who he has no further use for. You are a hair away from being treated as such and a fool if you think otherwise."
"Do not presume to tell me such things, Draxis," she hissed and stepped from the place she had stood, leaving cracked footprints in the thick, stone floor. "Had I been any lesser than I am, he would have killed me right there."
Draxis saw the cracks in the stone and was amazed at the force that she had withstood and he wondered if she was always so strong, or if she had discovered a way to become stronger, as he had. He hefted the giant axe over his shoulder and walked back toward the window.
"I plan to win this tournament," he said. "Cerric will give me back my command, and then you will see my true power."
"I am glad to see that you are alive," she said, her tone softening for a moment. "That is enough for me."
Draxis pushed the drapes aside but he paused for a moment. He thought he might say something more to her but decided otherwise and he stepped up to the ledge of the window.
"Good bye, mother," he said and leapt out into the night sky.
Calexis walked over to the window and looked out at the night and the glow of torchlight from the city below but she saw no sign of him. Draxis had already gone. She worried about him, that he appeared to be focused on impressing Cerric, on winning back his favor, for despite her own efforts to rekindle the his interest, she knew that the god-king's favor was entirely according to his whims, which were becoming more abrupt and violent with every passing day.
Calexis slid her hand down her leg and felt the dagger strapped to her leg and felt the warmth of its power, still humming from the lives she had already taken that day, and she decided to spend some more time in the city, looking for more warriors who might pleasure her for a time and give her their strength once she was satisfied. She was not sure which thought excited her more, the knowledge that they would give her pleasure and then die by her hand, or the flood of power that would flow into her when she killed them. Calexis was beginning to understand why the god that lived within Cerric had such an unquenchable thirst for power, for it was a purpose in and of itself.
****
Cerric walked down the long, stone stairway, cursing his dark mood. He considered returning to Calexis and either bedding her or killing her, he could not decide which, or perhaps returning to the temple to test the power of the crystal, to be sure that the magic would work as he planned, but he knew there was little else he could do without Dakar, whose countless studies into ancient and forbidden magics had proven useful. Cerric damned the mage for disappearing, a fact that was increasingly irritating to him, for it was something that should not have even been possible given the magic that connected them.
Cerric shrugged, setting aside his ire. Either the magic of the crystals would work or it would not, and he reassured himself with the fact that his earlier test with the soldiers on the battlefield had been successful enough. They were bound to him every bit as much as the mages, except that, unlike the mages, who had powerful energies bound up in the essence of their being, as soon as the spell was cast, the soldiers were essentially dead, and the stink of their rotting flesh was beginning to wear on him. Some of them no longer even had skin on their bones in places, and of the legions that had returned with him from Kandara, he had sent the worst of them out of the city, to make sure that the common folk and the visiting competitors in the tournament would remain unaware of the true nature of the magic he had used.
His faithful had reported that there were rumors aplenty about the legions of soldiers whose white eyes glowed in the darkness and how they could continue fighting even when injured, but Cerric had spread some rumors of his own, that the legions of soldiers had been blessed by the priesthood with powerful magic that made them stronger, seemingly invincible. The lies they had spread fed into the promise of the powerful rewards that would be given to those who fought well in the tournament and the reports that had come back after the matches were very promising. Soon he would have an army led by elite fighters, more than powerful enough to take on the elves and any other creatures that might stand in his way.
Cerric was fairly certain that, this time, the magic would not entirely kill those who fell under its spell, but without the original copy of the book to focus the magic, there was now the possibility that his control over them might not be as complete. He cursed Dakar for leaving him and cursed himself for not maintaining a closer watch on the mages who lived under his magic. He heard the familiar echoes of voices in the back of his mind, cursing him for his arrogance, and he banished them back to the dark corners of this thoughts where they belonged.
He continued down the stairway to the long hall at the bottom and he opened the door to the chamber where he spent his evenings of late and, when he unblocked the door and entered, he was greeted by a sight that surprised him. The raised platform where his captive usually lay was empty, and only the streaks of dried blood remained and broken chains littered the floor.
Cerric immediately called his power as a dark, heavy weight crashed into him, knocking him across the room. Claws and snapping teeth cut at him as he tumbled across the floor with the creature. Cerric felt power infuse his entire being, and his flesh became like iron and his strength as great as a dragon. He grabbed the creature by the neck and flung it away from him. With a balance natural to such beasts, it landed on its feet and skidded to a halt, sniffing the room, and a tongue that was now forked flicked out of its mouth, tasting the air.
"I will kill you," Elric growled, his voice guttural behind rows of pointed teeth.
"You may try," Cerric said. "Do you think you are as strong as a dragon?"
"I care not," Elric roared and leapt toward him.
Cerric swung his fist at the Kandaran but the creature moved faster than he had expected, his sharp teeth grabbing his arm and his powerful neck and torso pulling back in one movement, yanking him off his feet. Cerric landed hard but managed to keep his balance and used his momentum to throw the creature the same way, slamming him into the floor. Elric gasped from the impact and his jaw unclamped, involuntarily releasing the arm of his captor. With unnatural speed and crushing power, Cerric brought down his fist, but Elric rolled out of the way. The floor shook from the force of the blow, and Cerric barely managed to block a handful of claws that swiped at his face. He knocked the creature's attack away and leveled another punch, his fist connecting with Elric's chest. The Kandaran took the full force of it and flew backwards, smashing against the wall. With blinding speed, Cerric closed the distance between them and grabbed the gasping reptilian by the throat, holding him up against the wall.
"Would you like me to hit you again?" he asked.
Winded, and barely able to breathe, Elric could not respond, but Cerric could feel the hot anger emanating from him and he saw him change a little more, turning more reptilian before his eyes. He smiled, having suspected that such emotions might fuel the Kandaran's transformation. It was good that Elric was now showing some resistance, instead of the dejected complaining to which he had succumbed on so many of these past nights they spent together, and Cerric wondered if it might have been a mistake to be so arbitrary in his torture. The application of pain had produced some results, but the raw emotion emanating from Elric was palpable and it reminded Cerric of his fight with the boy's father. The same anger had rippled through the air around the dragon, and it appeared that emotion might be a core element for such creatures. As disgusting as such emotional thinking was to him, Cerric considered how he might anger his captive further.
"I received a report from Duke Mirdel in Kandara," he told him. "He informs me that the Kandaran people are most pleasing to his soldiers, though he was forced to discipline a legion of Darga for playing a little too rough with your people and feeding on them afterward. Terrible creatures, these Darga. Beasts they are, so similar to the Kandaran lords. I have suggested to Mirdel that he might try breeding them with your precious Kandarans. Your people are so docile and obedient, it occurred to me that mixing the bloodlines might temper the violent nature of the Darga. It will be interesting to see what comes of such a thing. At worst they will make for stronger slaves, to labor in the mines, but if the breeding is successful, the Kandaran people would become a truly powerful race to command, don't you think?"
"You are a monster," Eric rasped, still gasping for air from behind Cerric's grip.
"Go ahead and hate me, Elric," Cerric said. "You are angry, and perhaps you are right to be angry. I do not know if it is true, but the Darga have asked that I punish the people of Kandara for the thousand years they have lived on lands they have stolen, land that once belonged to the Darga."
"Lies," Elric growled. "The land was not stolen. The Kandaran people have done nothing wrong."
"That is not what the Darga tell me," Cerric said and he released the Kandaran and turned away from him, walking away slowly as he caught his breath, and tempting him to attack.
"The Darga lie," Elric said. "They are liars! They are filthy creatures."
Cerric glanced over his shoulder as the Kandaran stepped forward, stalking toward him.
"You would call them such?" he tutted. "You are just like them, a vile, filthy lizard, pretending to be something else. Why don't you accept what you are? Are you a beast?"
"No!" Elric said and he leapt forward. "I am not a beast!"
"I say you are!" Cerric yelled as he caught the Kandaran and slammed him to the floor, using nearly as much force as he had when he had fought the boy's father, a true dragon, though weaker than the ones in the ancient memories of the god.
Cerric could tell that Elric was barely able to breathe, the wind knocked almost completely out of him. He grabbed the creature by the shoulder and dragged him across the room and, with one hand, he picked him up and slammed him onto the platform. With a wave of his hand, the broken iron chains wrapped around Elric, stretching to match his enlarged size and closing once again, locking him in place.
"And now you will torture me again?" he said, his voice hoarse as tears streamed from the corners of his empty eye sockets.
"No," Cerric told him. "I think I will spend this evening torturing your people instead. It isn't quite the same, visiting other places through the mind and body of another, but I need only a pair of hands and some sharp implements, and Mirdel has amassed quite the collection. How many of them will suffer, Elric? All because you are weak."
"They have done nothing," Elric growled, his voice wracked with desperation. "What is it you want from me?"
"I want you to challenge me, Elric," Cerric said. "Surely you are stronger than your feeble, old father. Show me the pride of the Akandra. Show me the true power of the dragon lords of Kandara."
"I will not become a beast," Elric said.
"Then your people, those who it is your duty to protect, will suffer, and needlessly so," Cerric said. "It is sad how low your kind has fallen. Did you know that dragons were once powerful enough to challenge the gods."
"I will hear no more of your lies," Elric said.
"You are powerful, Elric Akandra, but you lie to yourself, embracing weakness as though it is something noble." Cerric sighed through a smile that he knew the Kandaran could not see. "The truth is very simple. If you can kill me, then your people will be saved. I will leave you to think on that."
"Why do you do such things?" Elric asked.
"Why?" Cerric laughed. "I do them because I can."
He walked from the room and back up the stairs from the dungeon to the palace. A group of guards stood ready, alerted by the commotion but dutifully obeying his orders that he not be disturbed and they snapped to attention at his approach.
"Is all well, highness?" asked the commander, one of the dead soldiers who had fared better in the war than most, the only signs of his conversion being the pallor of his face and the grayish white color of his eyes.
"Well enough," Cerric said. "I expect that our guest will rail and scream a little more than usual this night as the truth of his monstrous nature begins to emerge. Pay the creature no mind, but look in on the room to ensure that he does not escape his chains again."
"Humblest apologies, King Cerric," the man said, mortified that the prisoner had gotten free. "We will keep a close watch."
"It is no matter," Cerric said. "The creature is blind and cannot go very far without attracting attention, but if he gets loose again, he is likely to cause a great deal of damage. Whatever happens, he is not to be killed, but you must do your best to keep him at bay until I return."
"As you command, your highness."
"As you were, then," Cerric said and he continued up into the palace.
He walked out into the main entrance hall and surveyed the damage that had occurred when the mage, Zachary had attacked. His soldiers had cleared most of the rubble, and workers from the city, who had been told that the mess had been caused by a spell gone wrong, were busily restoring the vast chamber to an approximation of what it once was, with a few artistic
changes that pleased Cerric, primarily being the removal of the carvings and motifs of the gods that once had standing in the city, primary among them being the goddess of the sea, Mara, after whom the city was named.
The part of him that was Kenra had memories of the goddess, who was his sister, and he wondered what had become of her. Unlike the other gods, he suspected that she had not left the world but had stayed, though it seemed that she had disappeared almost completely. There was almost no trace of her power in the world, but he knew that it could simply be the obscuring effect of the sea itself, which made it harder to sense energy and was also her elemental domain. The other gods were more obvious and when Cerric had visited the temple he had felt the lingering power of the one he hated most, Stroma, and he wondered how much influence the god might still possess in the world. Mara could wait, the god-king decided, but if Stroma was moving against him, he might have to put his plans in motion a little sooner than he had intended.
Cerric reached out with his power across the numerous lines that bound the mages to him and he compelled them to direct more of their energy into the crystal at the temple. He felt a faint flicker of power from Dakar and knew that even though he was somewhere to the east, just beyond the reach of his consciousness, and Cerric wondered if Dakar might be up to something. Even if he could not reach him fully with his thoughts, he could still take his energy and he knew that the mage would most certainly feel the pull of his power. At the very least, Dakar would still be of some use to him, and he pulled a greater measure of it from him and every other mage that might be with him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Stroma and Ehlena walked across the bluish green grass that grew from the edge of the rocky coast on the windswept island. They made their way inland, wending among numerous ancient pillars and columns that appeared in their path, so many of them fallen and crumbling, and they were surprised at how quiet everything was, almost eerily so.
"Do you remember this place?" Stroma asked, still wondering how many memories of the goddess Ehlena had retained.
