'The Princess Moriana Etuul's written petition claims it is your duty as humans to resist Zr'gsz aggression. What aggression? And if it be the duty of your people to fight mine to the death, why did she come of her own accord to Thendrun seeking our aid in reclaiming her throne?'
A babble of voices washed about the podium. He raised his hand, stilling them.
'The Princess Moriana tells you we treacherously seized the City in the Sky from her, our ally. Examine the record. Who first built that fabled City – and who seized it by treachery from its rightful owners? We assisted her in unseating Synalon – but for our own ends. Is this wrong? Who among you would not resort to subterfuge to avenge the murder of your kinfolk and reclaim from thieves the house you built? We only took back what was ours.
'I come before you in the name of my People, bearing the willow-wand of peace. For your own sakes as well as ours, I ask you not to grasp instead the firebrand of war!'
He bent forward, voice dropping to a sonorous whisper that penetrated to the farthest reaches of the room.
'Weigh well your decision, men of the Empire. Much hangs in the balance.' He straightened and strode from the podium amid a barrage of cries.
Moriana vaulted over the rail and scattered Assemblymen in all directions as she moved forward. Head back, eyes ablaze, she walked down the aisle to the podium Zak'zar had just vacated. Squilla faced her, gavel raised as if to repel her attack on orderly procedure. Their eyes met; he fled before her.
She needed no gavel to bring the hall to silence, any more than Zr'gsz had. With hair streaming about her head like liquid fire, she launched into an impassioned speech.
The door to the Assembly Hall crashed open. Moriana paused, one fist raised in emphasis of a point. An old man stalked into the room. He walked ramrod straight in spite of the burden of years. Gray hair hung lank about his haggard face. The lips Moriana remembered so well were now twisted from emotions too great to be expressed. He was clad in scarlet and his eyes shone with fanatical light. 'Sir Tharvus!' she exclaimed.
The only survivor of the three Notable Knights who had ridden her banner at Chanobit Creek stopped and flung out his arm to point at her.
'Do not heed this witch!' he shouted. 'Her wiles lured my brothers and thousands of our countrymen to their deaths. 'On peril of your souls, don't listen to her!'
'So what happens now?' Fost asked. A smile pushed up the ends of Cheidro's moustache.
'Why, what always happens when there's an impasse in a matter close to His Effulgence's heart.' 'What's that?'
'He throws a party.' 'This is more like it!' crowed Erimenes. Fost stirred from his fog. 'What is?'
A tall, lithe girl, nude except for diagonal stripes of blue and gold, walked by on the arm of an officer in a purple plumed helmet. 'This is!'A sweep of Erimenes's vaporous arm indicated everything.
At long last the travellers were face to face with the seamy, steamy decadence of High Medurim. The Golden Dome was every bit the voluptuary's vision of heaven popular repute made it out to be. Niches lined the wall, dark and inviting. Already Fost dimly made out writhing tangles of pale limbs in alcoves across the circular chamber. In the center, a round pit was filled with lustrous furs in careless profusion. Tables bowed under the weight of delicacies. Serving maids circulated everywhere to keep the wine and high spirits flowing. Many wore no more than kohl and inviting smiles.
In the middle of the pit reared a dais. On it lay a throne and on the throne sat the Emperor. He wore a ludicrous tent-like garment patterned in white and black diamonds.
Here and there Fost saw forms or faces he recognized. Magister Banshau sat with his chubby legs dangling over the edge of the pit, his garb standing out even in this profusion of color. He held a wine jug in one hand and the shapely thigh of a young noblewoman in the other. He looked mightily pleased with the world. Over by the far wall stood the dignified Foedan of Kolnith. His doublet was askew, his hair rumpled and he gazed on the crowd with bleary-eyed gravity while a short, plump redhead poured brandy into a snifter the size of his head.
At the center of an eddy of gay costumes rode Zak'zar, laughing like a rakehell at something the two young women he had his arms about said, a striking, chilling figure in a robe of woven midnight.
'Great Ultimate!' Erimenes shouted in Fost's ear. 'Look at that, will you?'
Moving through the crush with lithe grace was a strange and beautiful figure. Her body was that of a voluptuous woman but it was clad in soft, short, creamy fur. A long, sensitive tail swung behind her. Her face combined the best characteristics of human and feline. Her ears were pointed and set high on her head, poking out from the midst of a lustrous cascade of blue-black hair. And at her back was folded a pair of wings. 'I'll be damned,' said Fost with feeling.
'So you like Ch'rri?' A slender blonde woman in a short tunic, her hair cut boyishly short, dropped onto the bench at Fost's side. 'She's quite a sight, isn't she? If you have a taste for the exotic' 'Uh, Ch-chu-chri?' Fost couldn't manage the throaty purr.
'Ch'rri,' the blonde woman repeated, laughing at Fost's doleful look. 'She's the only one of her kind, poor thing. Another Wirixer experiment. Or work of art, perhaps. One of their genetic wizards wanted to see what a winged cat woman looked like, and she was the result.' She frowned. 'She's a terribly lonely thing. But she does know some interesting ways to make up for it.'
'What are you waiting for?' demanded Erimenes. 'Introduce yourself! You're the hero of the hour, Fost. You'll sweep her off her feet'
'I think that sums it up well, spirit,' boomed a voice. Fost turned to look at the group approaching. 'Wild tales of your exploits are flying all over the city. We'd be honored to hear the truth from your own lips.'
The speaker was a rangy man in a flame-colored robe. His head was shaved and a gold earring swung from one earlobe. A tawny-haired woman, taller than Fost and with a patch over one eye, walked to one side. On the other was a shy, towheaded youth.
'I'm Sirsirai. This is Osni, and Jerru.' He nodded to each of his companions in turn. Something in the way they moved clicked in Fost's brain. 'You're fighting masters,' he said, almost accusingly.
The one-eyed woman bobbed her head in agreement.
Erimenes cleared his throat, then said, 'What you've heard about Fost is true. All of it – and none of his marvelous adventures would have happened without me…'
Across the room, Moriana smiled and nodded mechanically and fended off still another smiling face. She was a celebrity. That she had balked at wearing frilly, fleecy finery in favor of her russet and beige tunic and trousers seemed to draw rather than repel the revellers. 'Why don't you relax?' said Ziore. 'Enjoy yourself.'
'You're as bad as Erimenes,' she accused, then softened her tone. 'I'm sorry. That was unfair. But I've no appetite for this sort of thing.'
'That might be a pity,' Ziore said, her voice holding a tone of longing.
On his dais, Teom sat fondling his chin and regarding various gorgeously painted and costumed courtiers, male and female, who had arranged themselves in front of his throne to vie for his attention. Deciding, he flicked his little finger. A slender woman in a feathered skullcap and sky blue tights widened her eyes in happy anticipation and scampered to the dais in response to his summons. His knees spread. She knelt between them, took hold of the tent-like robe and hiked it up about his Imperial waist. Beneath it Teom wore trunks and a codpiece of epic proportions that laced up the front. Licking her lips, the woman undid the laces… And fell back as something sprang at her.
All sound ceased as every head turned to see a giant wooden phallus crowned with a painted jester's head bobbing at the end of the spring which had launched it from Teom's crotch.
It was the signal for the orgy to begin in earnest. Flinging his pink-trimmed orange blouse off, Magister Banshau teetered with his splayed toes gripping the edge of the pit. Then with a happy mating-walrus bellow, he launched himself into the sea of naked bodies below. A crowd stood watching as Zak'zar took a
dvantage of a physiological peculiarity of his race to pleasure simultaneously two naked and ecstasy-flushed young women who lay back to back on a buffet table.
Tapers were touched to cones of incense. Thick musky smoke rolled into the air, scents and sandalwood and amasinj mingled with the tangy sweet aroma of a Golden Barbarian narcotic herb. Ch'rri the cat woman grabbed a passing serving boy, shoved him down on a stool and climbed astride him, folding her wings protectively about them so that no one quite saw what happened. Ortil Onsulomulo, his golden body naked except for a woman's green scarf wrapped around his neck, dancing in a jig while a clutch of noblewomen of middle years giggled and grabbed at a certain portion of his anatomy. Erimenes pointed out to Osni that Onsulomulo either disproved a certain racial canard pertaining to dwarves or proved the one about Joreans.
'And so there I was,' explained Fost, warming to his audience, 'in the dark, and that little bastard Rann came at me with his scimitar.' He broke off when he saw the expressions of his listeners. 'What's wrong?' 'You crossed blades with Rann?' asked Jerru. 'Twice. Once in the foothills of the Ramparts and again in Athalau.' Osni's one eye went round as she asked, 'And you lived?' 'As far as I know.' Fost started feeling defensive. 'It seems the rumors don't do you justice, friend,' declared Sirsirai.
'What do you mean?'
'Prince Rann Etuul,' said Osni, 'is without question one of the top blademasters alive today. To think you faced him twice, and lived
…'
The room started to spin around Fost. He spilled his goblet of wine, then realized he had been steadily draining it, only to have it automatically refilled. He had no idea how much he'd drunk. 'Excuse me,' he said thickly. 'I've got to get some fresh air.'
He put Erimenes's satchel on the bench before stumbling away.
'Never mind him,' said Erimenes. 'He tends to be long-winded, like any hero.' The genie smiled slyly. 'Why don't you take off your clothes and forget all this idle chatter?'
Fost made his way out into the gardens. He breathed deeply and tried to quell the revolt in his stomach.
A finger was laid across his lips. He started, turned, saw it was Empress Temalla. She was nude. She took his hand and led him off through the shrubbery maze.
He followed numbly, fascinated by the way her buttocks moved when she walked. She pulled him into a secluded cubicle and pushed him down into the cool grass. The broad leaves of the shrubbery rustled inches away. Her body shone softly silver in the moonlight as she swung herself astride him and shuffled forward on her knees. The smells of crushed grass and her musk were heady in his nostrils. He took a deep breath and a double handful of her behind and lost himself in the pleasures she offered so freely.
Moriana sat on the floor with her knees drawn up and her back to a wall. Not even Ziore could pierce the armor of her loneliness. She felt drained, defeated. Sir Tharvus's appearance in the Assembly Hall the day before had destroyed her hopes of fielding an Imperial army against the Hissers. The Empire would react only when the lizard men came swarming across the River Marchant. Then it would be too late.
She sensed someone over her and looked up into the liquid brown eyes of Emperor Teom. He extended a hand to her. After a slight hesitation, she took it and let him lift her to her feet and lead her out of the Golden Dome. They passed within arm's length of Ensign Cheidro, engaged passionately with an auburn-haired youth. He never looked up.
As the evening wore on and various participants wore themselves out, some mischance brought Erimenes and Ziore face to face with their jars laying side by side on a table.
'What are you staring at, you vapid bitch?' Erimenes asked with that special tact he reserved for his fellow Athalar.
'The man who blighted my life! Whose obscene philosophy deluded me into denying myself all worldly pleasure in favor of a life of serene meditation.' Her face twisted in anguish. 'Meditation! I'd trade a lifetime of it for one hour of passion!'
'What do you know of passion? Ice water would run in your veins, had you veins!' 'Bastard!' 'Bitch!' 'Asshole!'
Heads began to turn. Grinning a cat's grin, Ch'rri appeared carrying a bronze waterpipe in a ringed stand. Her tail was held upright, its tip twitching mischievously. She set down her burden next to the two jugs. 'What game do you play now, darling Ch'rri?' a male voice asked.
She held up a vial filled with yellow crystals. Delighted gasps rose from the onlookers.
'Tusoweo,' a man breathed. 'Enough to make a statue of Felarod jump off its pedestal and start buggering tom-cats!'
The short-haired blonde who had sat by Fost earlier ran up with a clear glass bottle containing aromatic oils. Ch'rri pulled the cork, emptied the bottle and smiled wickedly.
Ch'rri shook a pinch of the yellow crystalline tusoweo into the waterpipe's bowl. Holding a smouldering incense cone to it, she puffed it alight. A thick yellow cloud welled up. Her slit pupils dilated.
'- your mother!' Erimenes was saying with malicious precision. 'And your father. Wha -?' Ch'rri picked up his jug and popped home the basalt plug. He disappeared with a dismal squawk of rage. She pulled out the plug again and poured the spirit into the oil bottle.
'Now, you just wait a minute,' he protested as he spilled like smoke into the new bottle.' Just because this is an orgy doesn't mean you can take indecent liberties with my person! What are you doing? Great Ultimate, you can't pour that hag in here with me!'
Having plugged and reopened Ziore's jar, the blonde was doing just that. Hissing and spitting like cats, the two genies whirled in a dizzying vortex inside the glass jar, each trying to keep his or her substance discrete from the other's.
Ch'rri drew in a deep lungful of the yellow aphrodisiac smoke. Leaning forward, she puffed it into the bottle and hurriedly corked it.
Coughing sounds emerged. For a moment, the spirits were obscured by the thick vapor. Then it was absorbed, and the pink shade and the blue glowed with a new intensity.
'I say, woman, don't jostle me like that,' said Erimenes. 'I… my word, I felt it. I felt it!' 'And do you feel this?' Ziore asked in an unspeakably lewd slur.
His response was a wordless wail of ineffable lust.
The bottled genies began to spin again. This time they quickly blended into a purple vortex. 'Ohh!' cried one and 'Ahh!' moaned the other.
The mutant cat woman's experiment, combining the most powerful aphrodisiac known to sorcery with two highly telepathic spirits, produced spectacular results. A lust so pure and fierce it was almost tangible pulsed from the jar and expanded like the wavefront of an exploding star. Every being it touched went into immediate sexual frenzy. The occupants of the dome yowled as one and went for each other. Out in the streets of High Medurim, pandemonium reigned. Dogs madly humped cats, cats screwed rats. Married couples who hadn't touched each other in years broke bedsteads all over the city. Lonely night watchmen pounding their beats were seized with unaccountable yearnings to pound something else.
Time passed, to the accompaniment of groans and moans and glad cries.
In darkness, a traitor's hand opened a hidden door. Masked and muffled figures slipped into the Palace. Steel glinted.
The door of Emperor Teom's bedchamber burst open. Three men lunged into the room. Stark naked, sitting astride the Emperor and gasping in the throes of passion, Moriana still reacted to the danger. She threw herself clear of Teom, rolling toward the sword-carrying trio, seizing the furs on the bed as she hit the floor. Continuing her roll, she came to her feet and threw the fur pelt into the assassins' faces. It caught two of them by surprise, and they flailed at it as if it were a living attacker. The third sidestepped and lunged at her.
She grabbed at a tall wrought-iron lampstand and swung. Bones crunched. The man dropped. Oil spilled over him, then the ghastly odor of burning flesh filled the air.
A second assassin struggled free of the fur and ran at her, sword high. She tossed the lampstand in his face, then wrested the sword from his hand. She disembowelled him with his own weapon. The third would-be mu
rderer still struggled on his knees. A single blow split his skull.
Through the handful of seconds of the savage, silent battle, Teom had sat huddled in his bed, watching, quivering, his face waxy. He silently rose and beat out the flames devouring the first assassin while Moriana shouted for help.
Fost lay face to face with Temalla while she sleepily twined fingers in his hair. Through a mellow fog of intoxication, satiation and exhaustion, Fost heard a flurry of cries coming from the north wing of the Palace.
'Istu take it, where're the others?' he heard someone nearby whisper. A soft drumming of feet came and a masked swordsman ran by their little alcove in the shrubs.
Without thinking, Fost launched himself in a flying tackle. Over they went, the assassin's hooded head crashing into a bush. Desperately, Fost tried to pin the man's sword hand while driving a fist repeatedly into his assailant's body. The man grunted and kicked. His knee caught Fost in the groin. It was a light blow but still set off bright explosions of pain.
It also sobered him. He groped at the man's belt, found the dagger, used it. The assassin squealed through his mask, then lay still.
The dead man's sword in his hand. Fost ran to the Golden Dome knowing he couldn't find his way out of this labyrinth in any other direction. He burst through an open archway and sagged against the door frame as a wave of lust hit him like a blow. His flaccid organ stirred and thrust out straight ahead of him like the bow of a ship.
Ch'rri was on hands and knees in front of him, wings poised above her back, purring like a bass fiddle as a man in black took her from behind. The man's head was covered by a hood. Though the initial irresistible psychic impulse the spirits had sent out had long passed, the sexual energy still crackled in the air.
Fost wrenched himself away, unlike the assassins in the Dome who had been intent on murdering the celebrants. As Fost ran for the north wing, a suspicion formed in his mind. He had seen the two jugs laying side by side and apparently empty on the table and beside them a squat glass bottle in which a purple whirlwind spun and motes of light danced intolerably bright.
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