“I-I don’t hears her no more,” it whimpered. “I don’t gots her eye no more. Lost it. Please don’t tell her!”
“I hatess your misstress,” Talon hissed, drawing back her arm. She would make the thing scream for hours before silencing it.
The gorc looked relieved. “Me too! I hates her nasty rat guts. I do! Threw her eye down the poop hole! I-I’ll serve yer Ewwie, though. I’ll do whatever Ewwie wants!”
“You hatess her?” Talon asked, lowering her arm slowly.
“She makes me do things I don’t want to. Eat things I don’t want to. A-and hurts me if I don’t do what she wants. Makes me use my witchy-witch magics all the time.”
“Witchy?” Talon cocked her head.
“I’cn make things do what I wants sometimes. With my brains,” it said, pointing to its head. “Hurts if I gots to use it too much. Makin’ you stay gone was real hurty.”
“You made me sstay away?” That bombardment of feelings had been caused by this loathsome creature? It must have powerful magic.
“Didn’t work too good though, ‘cause you’s here,” it said and smiled shakily. “I-I’m Durza. What’s the name you was given?”
“Talon, gorc,” she said.
“Th-that’s a good one. Better than Durza fer sure ‘nuff.” It edged towards another doorway. “You hungry, Talon?”
Talon licked her lips. “You look like food.”
Durza laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t taste no good! I got lots better foods here. L-let me shows you.”
Talon let it back away. If it tried to escape, she would enjoy chasing it down.
The gorc edged around a small table and backed through the doorway Talon had chased her through earlier. “This way, Talon. The foods is this way.”
Talon followed it, hoping the gorc had set some sort of trap. But it simply led her past the area with the large table and back into the clean room with all the countertops. Durza opened a door and went down some creaking steps into a basement area. The scent of food was strongest in here. Drool escaped Talon’s lips and dripped off her chin as she descended the steps. The steps opened up into a room long and wide with earthen walls, lit by glowing orbs.
“The peoples in this place keeped lots and lots of foods here,” Durza said, showing Talon shelves upon shelves laden with glass jars similar to the ones Talon had found in other houses. The entire town’s food surplus must have been stored in this place. The gorc walked to the back and opened another door to a room that was cold. Talon could sense the magic within. Great sides of beef hung from hooks in the ceiling, mixed with whole pigs and chickens and ducks.
“Meat!” Talon said gleefully and pulled a pig down from one of the hooks. She dragged it out of the cold room, but was disappointed to find that it was frozen solid.
“It’ll thaw,” Durza said. “Try this.”
The gorc grabbed a jar off the shelf and pried at its metal lid with some sort of instrument. There was a pop and the lid came off. A pleasant meaty aroma wafted out.
Talon pulled the jar from the gorc’s hands, irritated that this gorc had known how to open the bottles when she had not. She reached in. The meat she pulled out was red, but looked cooked. The humans had somehow formed it into tubes. She tore into a piece to find that it was extremely salty, unpleasantly so, which piqued her interest. After she swallowed, a heat built up in her mouth and continued down her throat. She reached in her mouth with her fingers expecting to find flames, but there was nothing there.”
“I likess thiss,” she decided and shoved more into her mouth, enjoying the way her tongue burned and tingled.
“Them’s sausenges,” the gorc declared. “They gots lots of bottles of ‘em here. They also gots soft-soft beds and even a hole you’cn poop in. Right down here, in the corner.”
“Poop?” Talon asked.
“In the hole in the corner. It goes way down deep. It barely even stinks none.”
Talon narrowed her eyes at the gorc. She could pump its body full of poison and stuff it in the cold room to eat later. After it screamed for a long time, of course.
“Y-you’cn say here with me if yous like,” Durza offered, blinking worriedly. “Just don’t hurt me’n I’ll use my witchy-witch magic to keep otherns out.”
“Sstay with you?” Talon cocked her head. Could it be useful enough to keep it alive?
“Sure!” It said with a cautious smile. “We’cn play games and stuff and eat the humans food until the mistress is killed by them wizards. Then we’cn both go wherever we wants to.”
Talon blinked. Was it possible that the moonrat mother could be killed? She had seen the power of the wizards that the mistress and Ewwie faced. They had destroyed the academy place and melted the bodies of a dozen of Ewwie’s pets outside the cave. If they could kill the moonrat mother, she could return to Ewwie. He would forgive her she was sure. He might hurt her for a while first, but that would be fun and then he would forgive her.
Yes, that would be good. This creature would be an entertainment in the meantime. It could keep the moonrat mother from discovering her and if she tired of it, she could kill it and eat it.
“I will letss you live,” she decided, giving Durza what she thought was a charming smile. For now.
Chapter Fifteen
“You wouldn’t . . . make any changes to them, my dear. Would you?” Elise asked and Ewzad could see the fear in her eyes.
As her belly had grown, Elise had become more and more confident in her abilities and her handling of the citizenry. The babies inside her were the only things she feared for. He ceased the magical energies and willed his fingers to stop their writhing. He gave her swollen belly one last caress, enjoying the way her belly button pressed out against the shiny fabric of her wedding dress.
“No-no, my dear. Of course not. Never. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind,” he cooed as he rose to his feet. But of course it had. At the very least he had been tempted to make slight alterations to make sure they grew strong. But the other Envakfeers told him that babies in the womb were already quite unstable. Any slight change could have a disastrous result. “My talents are not for children, no.”
Fortunately, both children seemed quite strong enough without his help. The Vriil bloodline was known to produce sickly young, but the Muldroomons were strong. The dark voice had known what he was doing when he picked the two of them to raise the heir.
The only thing Ewzad could do was surround them both with elemental and spirit magic energies in hopes that their tiny forms might somehow absorb it. One of the Envakfeers claimed that their son had grown to become a powerful wizard with such treatment. The others thought he was a fool, declaring that such talents came from lineage only.
“I was merely checking on them, yes?” he said. “They are strong. Oh so strong, dearest Elise.”
She gave him a nod and held out her arm. “Are you ready?”
She looked so beautiful, standing in her satin dress of purest white, studded with pearls and sparkling jewels, her shining crown on her brow. The royal seamstress had refused to alter it for Elise’s condition at first, offended by the idea of modifying the traditional royal wedding dress. But after Elise had strangled the woman, her replacement had done a marvelous job.
“Oh yes,” Ewzad purred. He took her arm in his and nodded to Hamford and Arcon. They signaled the royal guards and Elise and Ewzad walked towards the throne room.
They could hear the trumpets’ fanfare echo down the proud hallways of the palace. Ewzad giggled in anticipation. He had been looking toward this moment since childhood. He had been ten years old when he fell in love with Elise.
He remembered the day well. His father had left him in Dremald at the palace to spend some time “getting to know the royalty”. In reality, Ewzad knew he had been left behind so that his father could spend more time focused on his sister, Jolie. She had reached marriageable age and they were tired of Ewzad getting in the way while they attended ridiculous balls and tedious social engageme
nts. Father didn’t care for him. He had regretted marrying Ewzad’s mother after his first wife had died. Ewzad’s mother had told him so, and even though Jolie was kind to him, he knew her kindness was a facade.
So he had sat alone while the other noble children had chortled and flitted about brainlessly. The days were filled with tedium. But then Elise had come to sit with him. She had been his same age and unlike the other children of the nobility, she didn’t look down upon him just because he was a Vriil. She laughed while he mocked the others. It was her laugh more than her beauty that had won his heart that day.
Ewzad looked at his queen as they approached the great doors of the throne room and smiled. He was so excited he had to force his legs to keep their shape. It wouldn’t be very kingly if he fell and slithered across the floor to his wedding, now would it? No, this was to be his greatest day; his finest hour. All his plans had been set for this moment. Ewzad Vrill, King of Dremaldria, and Elise, the queen at his side.
They walked into the throne room to thunderous applause. The enormous light orbs near the ceiling had been increased to twice their usual brightness and great marble pillars had been decorated with shimmering streamers as per tradition, half of them plastered with Muldroomon’s red and white sigil, the others with House Vriil’s gold and black. The royal guard’s armor had even been painted to match.
The entire event had been put together in a week’s time. It had been difficult to arrange everything on such short notice. Usually there were months of feasting and revelry in preparation for a royal wedding. But circumstances had precluded tradition. Elise’s pregnancy had become public knowledge, and as word spread, she began to worry that if the twins were born out of wedlock, they would be considered illegitimate and non-heirs to the throne.
In addition, word of the academy’s destruction had spread throughout the city. The truth of the situation with the Mage School had been leaking out, something Ewzad was sure was being perpetrated by Mage School spies. The peasants, who had already been unruly, were now rebellious. Several of Ewzad’s men had been attacked, some of them killed. Elise was convinced that many of the nobles were stirring them up. The leadership of the Dremald garrison had fractured as well. The slow stream of desertion had turned into a flood.
Ewzad had dismissed her concerns in the beginning. He had wanted to wait for the Mage School’s destruction before announcing their marriage. But then a plan had formed in his mind. If all went well, the populace would be subdued, the nobles taken under heel, and Ewzad would be free to leave Dremald and attack the Mage School at his leisure.
They approached the steps to the throne where the Minister of Religion was waiting for them. Ewzad glanced at the crowd. The ranks of the assembled nobles and dignitaries were thinner than Ewzad would have liked, but Elise had filled the gaps with merchants and supporters. Ewzad noted with amusement that many of those assembled wore gemstones glued to the back of their fingers. It was an affectation spreading among those who had chosen his side. Some had even begun having gemstones surgically embedded in their flesh with metal studs, all in an attempt to look more like him.
The Minister of Religion stood in full regalia, a jeweled scepter in one hand, while in the other he held a cushion with a crown nestled on top. His position was a long held and sacred tradition in Dremaldria. As their country did not have an official religion, his robes were decorated with a plethora of symbols representing all of the gods worshipped by Dremaldria’s various peoples.
Elise and Ewzad stood before him and bowed their heads as he began the ceremony. It was long and boring, full of intonations and symbolic gestures. Ewzad more than once considered forcing the man to get to the end. But Elise had foreseen his impatience and made him promise beforehand that he would put up with the tedium.
Somehow he made it through to the end, though part of him wanted to kill the man. The minister had Ewzad and Elise raise their hands clasped together and his scepter spit out a ring of light that settled around them. Then he lifted the king’s crown from its velvet cushion and settled it on Ewzad’s brow.
It was done. They were wed. Ewzad was king.
The assembled group applauded once more. Music played and Ewzad danced the traditional Dremaldrian wedding waltz with his new bride. Then Elise raised her hands and called for silence.
Ewzad amplified her voice so that when Elise spoke, all the assembled heard her speak with queenly authority, “Let us walk out to the people! Let us show them their new King!”
Elise and Ewzad exited through the main palace doors, the nobles streaming out behind them. The royal guard had been prepared in advance and lined the road, creating a clear path towards the gates to the inner city. The guards had been busy on the other side of the gates as well. A large area of the central square had been cleared and a platform raised.
The inner city was home to the noble and wealthy, but anything said or done here would make its way out to the peasants in the rest of Dremald by the end of the day. The citizenry surrounding the square had mixed reactions on seeing Ewzad and Elise walk from the palace gates. There were cheers for Elise, but almost as many jeers for Ewzad and there were many others who merely stood in silence unnerved by the appearance of four figures, bound and hooded, being held at the base of the platform.
Once Elise and Ewzad had climbed the stairs to the top of the platform, Elise raised Ewzad’s hand into the air and shouted, “My people! My beloved people of Dremaldria, I introduce you to my husband, your king! King Ewzad Vriil!”
Ewzad amplified and extended the reach of her voice so that even those outside the inner city walls could hear. Then he cleared his throat and spoke.
“People of Dremaldria! Yes-yes, my people! I come to you this day newly crowned and wed to your sweet-sweet queen, to bring you news. To tell you the truth, yes!” Ewzad grinned with excitement, barely able to keep his body under control. “I have grave-grave news to tell you this day!
“Yes, as many of you have heard, the Battle Academy has fallen! But there is more. They defeated the greater part of the army surrounding them! Yes-yes, those brave souls fought well. But they were betrayed! Yes, their very walls were destroyed! Not a trace of that proud Dremaldrian institution remains! Who betrayed them, you may ask? Yes-yes, I can tell you! They were betrayed by magic!”
There was a rumbling in the crowd at this. Ewzad’s men had been sewing rumors for weeks that the wizards were responsible for the academy’s destruction. Now it was time to grow those seeds.
“Yes! They were betrayed by wizards!” he shouted. “I know, I know it is hard to believe that our own protectors, our own Mage School would do this. I wouldn’t have believed it myself, no-no I wouldn’t, if not for new evidence! My men have uncovered new truths about poor King Andre’s death. The men who snuck into our great palace and murdered my dear friend were not just from one foreign kingdom as we had thought, but from many! Yes-yes, what’s more, they had magic help!
“Magic got them in past our people undetected. Yes, magic got them past our great-great guards! For years, long unknown to the people here, the wizards of the Mage School have been trying to take command of Dremald! Yes, our beloved King Andre and sweet Queen Elise, they did not want to trouble you with this disturbing fact, no, but the High Council has been petitioning to have one of their number serve as the ruler’s advisor for years!”
That much was true and no great secret. The Mage School representatives brought it up every time they came to court.
“When the Mage School could not gain power through the correct methods, they contacted other countries. Other kings! Yes, our neighbors in Razbeck, our friends in Alberri, even our cousins in Khalpany, they all conspired with the Mage School to kill King Andre that night and would have slain dear Queen Elise too if I hadn’t stopped them!”
The crowd roared, a few of them in agreement, but most of them in protest. The Mage School was trusted by the majority of Dremaldrians, whether their methods were liked or not. But Ewzad was ready to b
ring the proof that would convince them.
Ewzad caressed Elise’s cheek. “Our sweet queen had her suspicions. Yes, so she sent to the academy for aid right away. The wizards knew the academy would help us, yes-yes they did! And so the High Council unleashed a horde of monsters to surround our dear friends. But the warriors would not let themselves be stopped, no-no they wouldn’t. They gathered their strength and fought the beasts back and when the warriors had the battle won, the wizards panicked. The Mage School knew they could not let them escape. So they ignited the spells that strengthened the academy’s walls, incinerating them all!
“And all along, they kept us here, paralyzed with fear! Unable to help, yes!” He stepped forward, ignoring the building outrage in the crowd, and pointed to the men bound at the base of the platform. “The queen and I only wish now that we had known, so that our proud garrison could have come to their aid. But the wizards had help. Yes-yes, many of our own people, yes, true sons and daughters of Dremald spread malicious rumors, trying to keep us from the truth!”
He gestured and the royal guards pulled the hoods from the bound men. They were the heads of the highest noble houses. The men stood in filthy finery, gagged and bruised. The crowd rumbled in confusion.
“Yes! Terrible, isn’t it?” Ewzad shouted. “Yes-yes it is! Those foul wizards enlisted many of our own proud nobles, yes! They worked against us!”
Elise looked at him questioningly. Some of these men were her strongest opposition among the nobles. They were the ones working up the rabble, but Ewzad hadn’t told her about this part of his plan. It was his surprise to her.
The crowd began to cry out, many of them demanding to hear from the men.
“You wish to hear from them? I will allow them to speak in their defense, yes! But before I do, let me tell you, yes, that this conspiracy is more foul than you know. These men conspired to murder Queen Elise this very morning. They had her cornered with magic at the ready when my men captured them!”
The Bowl of Souls: Book 05 - Mother of the Moonrat Page 20
