“For me it is,” Raegith laughed.
“I see the Pit hasn’t robbed you of any vigor. I can’t put you before the Empress in such a state, however. I’ll have one of the servant girls come attend to you…”
“Why call one of them?” Raegith asked. He turned around and leaned over the Infernal, bracing his hands against the side of the tub on either side of her and leaning his face in close. “You’re the one caused this ‘state.’ Too afraid to see this through yourself?”
“You would… oh, I see,” Beretta said, looking down to where his cock rested on her abdomen. She looked up and smiled at him. “You flatter me, Twileen and Saban, but I’m afraid I cannot help you with this.”
“Because the Empress has forbidden it?” Raegith asked, drawing even closer to her.
“Certainly not,” she replied. “I am Infernal. If I put you inside me you would melt.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” Raegith whispered into her ear as he bent down to kiss her neck.
“It’s not a figure of speech,” she whispered back.
“I didn’t think… oh?” Raegith yanked his head back up and looked at her still smiling face. “Oh shit, really? You mean you…?”
“My internal temperature is intense enough to smelt precious metals,” she stated without changing her informative tone. “I’ll allow your imagination to explore what it might do to your flesh. ‘Melt’ was simply the best way for me to describe it.”
“Okay, well, thanks for the warning,” Raegith said, his erection losing all potency and succumbing to gravity.
“Oh look, I did manage to assist you,” she said, gleefully.
“Yeah… whaddaya know,” Raegith mumbled disappointedly.
After Raegith had been scrubbed clean, he was toweled off and a soft robe placed around him then Beretta led him back through the halls and to a dining room with an enormous table. He sat down at one end of the table and soon food and drink were brought out to him. There were no vegetables or fruit, but plenty of meats and mushroom-type things, which were better than the gruel he had been swallowing for months. Once he was finished with his meal, he was taken to a room and fitted with black and purple robes that felt like light cream against his skin. His skin was dusted with a soft, fragrant powder and his hair was combed out.
“You’ve got me feeling a bit like a woman with all of this grooming and robe-wearing and such,” Raegith said, as Beretta cleaned out and filed off his fingernails.
“The powder is to keep you from stinking like you did before,” Beretta said. “You cannot go before the Mistress coming straight from the Pit. She doesn’t like filth or grime of any sort and she abhors unpleasant odor.”
“I hope I get to keep this,” Raegith responded, squirming in the delicate fabric. “When I go back to the Pit, I can give this to Helkree and get back into real clothing.”
“You might reconsider mentioning the Stone Worshipper around the Mistress,” Beretta said, “if you want leave this place with all of your parts intact.”
“Hey, do you have some sheers? A razor, even?” Raegith asked.
“Certainly. Why?”
“I don’t think this long, girly hair suits me anymore.”
When Raegith was finally presentable, Beretta took him back through the hall and into the main entry room, where two guards waited to escort him. Beretta fixed his robes in front, nodded and then kissed his cheek. Raegith felt like he was being licked by a candle when her lips brushed his skin and was once again grateful she did not allow him to go any further with his romantic notions. The guards took him to the middle of the entry room, to the stairs, and they all began to climb. They passed antechambers and locked doors on landings, but they continued to climb the stairs until Raegith began to break a sweat. Finally they reached the very top of the stairs and the penthouse doors. One of the guards rapped the heavy iron knocker against the banded metal door. After merely a moment, a dark-skinned Rathgar girl opened the door and looked Raegith over.
The girl spoke to the guards in a hushed tone and the guard that knocked responded in kind, pushing him through the door and turning their backs to it as the girl ushered him in and closed the door. The Rathgar girl looked as smooth and refined as the Empress, with delicate features and a petite, yet curvy frame. She was younger than the Empress, though she looked neither immature nor childish. She wore similar robes as he and had long, light pink hair that hung about her shoulders. She led him through the elegant entrance to the penthouse at the top of the keep and into an open room with giant windows and paintings and statues of Rathgar warriors and fairy-like creatures. In the center of the room were two, felted couches facing each other with a familiar object between them.
In the center of the room was a pit with three rising legs holding up an emberstone, just like he had seen in Fibbitch’s safehouse. This one apparatus was much larger than the one in the tiny bunker better suited for the small forms of Gimlets. The pit it stood in was also much more elaborate, with markings and glyphs everywhere and circling the rim.
The girl motioned for him to take a seat on the right couch and then walked to one of the walls that held a cabinet lined with crystal bottles and glasses. She placed two glasses on a tray, filled them from a bottle of pinkish-gold liquid and returned to the side of the couch. Raegith thought that she might offer him one of the glasses, but she just stood and waited patiently.
A door to the rear of the room swung open and the Empress entered the room. The girl swiftly reached down and yanked on his robe so that he jumped to his feet. When the girl bowed her head to the Empress, Raegith mimicked her movements, though he could not keep the scowl from his face. Here was the woman who caused his two best friends to die gruesome deaths and then threw him into a prison where he was forced to fight or be beaten to death. He had let his guard down with Beretta and let the whims of his body overrule any resentment he might have felt for the retainer, but he would not do so here. The past few months were not the fault of Beretta or Greela or even Gomar; they were all the doing of Empress Kalystra of Black Talon.
Just as she did the first night of Raegith’s arrival, the Empress wore a strappy and revealing costume under a sheer gown of purple. Her body was young and supple and the way she carried herself seemed as if she were trying her best to display as much of it to him as possible. To Raegith, she seemed less tantalizing than decadent and naïve. He could not look at her with anything but disdain, though he angrily felt his body reacting in the same way as it had to Beretta earlier. He was simply unable to look upon a woman without wanting her, but his desires for the ruler before him were much darker than what he held for any other.
She nodded to the chamber maid, who handed him one of the sparkling glasses before walking to the Empress and handing the other one to her. She then gently placed her right fist against her chest and backed out of the room, closing the doors behind her to leave the two in private. Raegith waited for the Empress to take the first drink before tasting his own. It was at once both sweet and harsh, having a bubbly, fruity taste with a strong alcoholic burn. He couldn’t help but cough a bit as it stung his throat on the way down to his stomach. The Empress smiled and gave a single, tight-lip laugh through her nose. She took another sip and leaned back into the plush couch, extending her legs along it.
“Did you see how Tamyth saluted me before leaving the room?” she asked Raegith. “That is the proper gesture for greeting and being dismissed by someone of higher standing, like an Empress.”
“I haven’t gotten to etiquette lessons in the Pit yet,” Raegith replied.
The Empress did not reply right away. She simply stared at him in thought for a few moments as he stared right back at her, refusing to break eye contact first.
“Your hair… you’ve changed it.” She gave him a strange look, as if she was neither pleased nor disappointed with the strip of green that ran down the middle of his shaved head. “The Warrior’s Stripe? It’s a Rathgar style… but I suppose it befits your new,
barbaric persona among the inmates.”
She then took a long drink from her glass and shivered a bit as it glided down her throat. “Raegith, by the time the sky lights again I will have decided if you will be of any specific use to me or if you will have an appointment at the Ledge of Tumbling Thoughts. Until then, let us dispense with decorum and pretense. My name is Kalystra.”
“I have no use for games,” Raegith said. “I stopped playing nice with anyone when you killed my friends and flung me down with the brutes and bullies. Now you want to scrub me down and dress me up so you can play queen over the Northerner? If you’re conflicted over killing me, I’ll make it simple: do it now or put me back in the Pit.”
“You do not talk to your Empress that way,” Kalystra said through her teeth. “I rule all here in the Greimere and you will show me the respect I am due.”
“You can do things to me, but you don’t rule over me, Empress.”
“It’s Kalystra!” The Empress downed her drink and called for Tamyth to bring her more. As Raegith looked on, confused, the Empress drank another glass of the liquid and then snatched the bottle from her servant and dismissed her. “Drink all of that and then I will pour you some more.”
“What do you want from me, Emp…” Raegith began.
“Drink!” The Empress screamed at him, dismissing Tamyth again when the girl burst in the door at the commotion.
Raegith shrugged and then downed the burning liquid.
The Empress downed more of the liquid and just stared at Raegith, breathing heavily. She seemed extremely nervous for some reason and Raegith looked around to see if something was amiss. Then the Empress got to her feet, stumbling a little bit, probably from the drink. She steadied herself and approached Raegith, taking off her sheer robe as she crossed the space between their couches.
“Disrobe,” she commanded.
“No.”
“What? Why not?” she asked. It sounded more like a whimper than a command, but she righted herself directly after. “I told you to disrobe. You will do… that, or I will have the guards come in and do it for you!”
“Well, let’s get them in here, then,” Raegith said with a smile, delighted with the stress he was giving the Empress. Helkree had complemented him before on his uncanny ability to piss people off quickly.
“Why can’t you just do what you’re told?” Kalystra hissed, standing over him. She looked down at his lap. “I can see that you want to, you’re just being stubborn!”
“I don’t think you see very much, Empress.” Raegith stood up and turned toward the door. He passed by her, careful not to make contact and reached for the handles. “I’ll have the guards see me back to my cell. I prefer the company of criminals to nobles.”
“Stop!” Kalystra rushed past him and slammed into the door, keeping him from exiting. Her face was contorted with pain and confusion and her eyes were watery. She beat on his chest with her hands until he backed up and then she turned and locked the doors, calling for Tamyth to stop trying to enter. Then she turned around to face Raegith.
“Why are you doing this to me?” The Empress leaned back against the doors and almost fell. Raegith forgot himself and instinctively reached out to catch her. “Are you happy now? Look what you’ve reduced me to. I’m supposed to be an Empress and I can’t even get you to fuck me.”
“What in the Fates is going on?” Raegith asked. He reached down and swung her up into his arms, carrying her to the couch and setting her down. “You got yourself drunk in order to try and seduce me? Was there a point to this?”
“I just wanted to, that’s all,” she replied, sniffling. “You’re all anyone is talking about since the last Gulag. You’ve managed to win over the very people who should hate you and your open rebellion is spreading to other inmates already. It’s clear you have some sort of power to do that, but I have power over you. For some reason I thought I could… I don’t have that kind of power.”
“You think that I have some kind of power over your people?” Raegith laughed. “And you thought you could sex it out of me?”
“No, of course that’s not what I thought!” Kalystra said. “I don’t know what I thought. I just know that I wanted to do something to you. I wanted to show that I have power, too! I thought that after so long in the Pit, you might reciprocate a little bit. I thought you might not be so disgusted with me if I cleaned you up, made you comfortable and gave you wine.”
“You killed Zakk and Ebriz and sentenced me to prison!” Raegith exclaimed. “You thought a bath would clear you of that? How could I feel anything but hatred towards you?”
“I could have killed you as well!” Kalystra countered. “I probably should have. In fact, I know I should have; Greela has assured me of it.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“I don’t want to!” Kalystra said, breaking down. It took a few moments for her to stop crying and Raegith simply stood, uncomfortably as she gathered herself. “I don’t want to kill you, Raegith. I did not want to kill any of you. I just did not know what to do and when your friends attacked… I was not prepared for this. I was fourteen when my father died and I became Empress. Three years of ruling the nation and I still don’t know what to do.”
Raegith found he could not stop from sitting down and placing an arm on her shuddering shoulders. She flinched at first, but then looked up through the distressed strands of her black hair. She looked so young and fragile at that moment that Raegith’s anger was seeping away from him like water from a compressed sponge.
“I did not spare you to have a toy to torture,” Kalystra said, looking down at the floor. “I spared you because two deaths were enough. Your friends… they were the first deaths I’ve seen since my father died, but he was old and it was much less gruesome. I don’t like death, Raegith. When I found out I would be ruler during the next war, I cried for days.”
“Is that why you’ve kept Gomar from killing me in the Pit?”
“No,” she replied. “Greela petitioned me for days to execute you, but I had other hopes. You are the son of the Golden-haired Prince… well, king now, I suppose. I thought that you might gain an appreciation for us in the Pit. I thought that if I could force you to act as we do, to live like we do, it would make you part of the Greimere. I thought that if I could do that, then it would show I was worthy of guiding us through this war. Tonight, I guess I thought it might be enough if I could simply bed the son of the Northern king.”
Kalystra stood up and breathed in deeply. When she presented her face to him, it was sober and calm.
“I was mistaken. You are stronger than I gave you credit for. If you wish to leave, I will arrange it; I will arrange it tonight, even. I can have men take you all the way to the Hell Cliffs, so that you can return to your lands and be rid of this wretched place and its people.”
“You think I would return to my own land?” Raegith laughed. “Kalystra, you should know more than anyone else how impossible that would be for me. The king, my own father, sent me here to die by your hand. If you want to send me home, send me back to the Pit, for I have no other home more warm and welcoming than in there.”
“You… you cannot be serious? You wish to return to the Pit? I understand you cannot return to whatever life you had before you came here, but…”
“Empress, you don’t understand at all,” Raegith interjected. “You don’t understand that for me, there was no life before this. I once believed that I could have a life in Rellizbix; that I had a place between the sun and the grass that I could one day call mine. I was lied to. There was never a place in Rellizbix for one like me. Rellizbix does not abide mistakes like me or my friends. I could never earn in Rellizbix what I have here. Send me back and let me live in the Pit, with my friends.”
“Your friends? In the Pit?” Kalystra cackled. “You mean the whore, the brute and the religious nut? Those are your friends now?”
“Yes.” Raegith tried to push past her, but she persisted.
“Wait, stop.” She barred him once more. “You only have three more Gulags left. I have already begun the initial steps of our war. Your fellow inmates will be pulled out a few at a time to be placed among the outgoing horde until there are none left but you and the females and then all of the females will be released.”
“And why not send any of the females?” Raegith asked. “Many of them look capable of at least support positions, if not actual combat. Helkree is one of the fiercest warriors I’ve seen. Surely you could avoid such devastating loses by doing so and I know the Greimere armies of ancient had women among them.”
“How can you not know that?” Kalystra asked. “It is because of you that we keep this tradition. Part of the treaty signed so many centuries ago was that the Greimere would cease its barbaric tactics. We must abide by the same method of combat as your own army. The fighting methods of ancient are lost to all but historians and a few of the more reverent fringe groups.”
“You’re going to send your entire army into Rellizbix to fight on unfamiliar terrain against a professional and highly trained army and fight by the rules they created for you?” Raegith was abhorred by the reality of the situation. “You’ll be slaughtered. They know exactly how to beat you.”
“Of course they do!” Kalystra exclaimed. “It solidifies our commitment to the treaty and ensures we are allowed the maximum amount of survivors. We obey the rules and they beat us quickly, allowing more of our forces to return. Should we change and draw out the battles needlessly, the Rellizbix army would be forced to defend itself more thoroughly and we would lose more men.”
“Have you never thought of actually trying to win? Have you not wondered about taking a serious fight to the north?”
“That is only a dream, Raegith. We could never truly win against Rellizbix. It is not our fate to be victorious. We must only do what we can to survive and take advantage of the generosity of our oppressors.”
Chapter 21
Raegith was taken back to the Pit. Kalystra offered to put him in the keep and to make him a servant. She promised him an easy life with her, but he refused. He would not spend another moment of his life following the orders of a ruler. He returned to his home and was stripped of his gentle robes and given the harsh rags of a prisoner. He found his cell cold and empty when he reached it that night, but it was familiar. He fell asleep easily that night, worrying only for the men who would soon be out of the prison and in his homeland, at the mercy of those who sent him to die.
Beyond the Hell Cliffs Page 24
