The next half hour was an improvement over the previous one only because they weren't on a train any more. The muddy, cold, coal-dust-stinking, noisy military garrison was at least unlikely to explode or run screaming off its rails and kill them all. And Istain could stretch his legs without putting his foot in Lucan's crotch.
But the company was still the same. The Proctors spent most of their time signing things and telling Istain to shut up. And this close to Virgin Soil, Madene was getting weird.
"I can hear them," she said as they squelched across the yard next to the gate that capped the Rationalist end of the bridge across the river to Virgin Soil. In front of them, a pair of what looked like enormous wooden shish kebabs were slowly sinking into the mud.
"Hearing voices again?" Istain said to her, then gestured at the two palanquins. "They can't seriously be expecting us to ride in those things."
"Istain, I hear…" Madene's eyes flashed silver and she jerked as if goosed. "Someone's coming for us." In her surprise, she forgot to sound sullen. "I can hear them: their running feet. They're fast."
"That would be the Silver Guard, all right. The Warrior Maiden border patrol," Clanat said, "the High Maiden sent them to...well, to carry us. It's quite an honor."
"Is it?" Istain said, "because me, I'd feel kind of dishonored, being forced to squat in a box for six hours while some goon drags me across however much mud there is between here and wherever it is we're---"
The border patrol came into sight over the crest of the bridge, and Istain quickly re-arranged his priorities. "Wow."
"Not exactly, goons, are they?" murmured Clanat.
Istain shook his head. The four girls were a little willowy, but what they had, they showed off. "So I guess you can't wear much clothing when you're carrying people very fast across Virgin Soil, huh?"
"Happier with the trip now, are you?" Madene asked in a tone that could have etched steel.
Istain shook his head. "Hell yeah! I mean, how nice of the High Maiden. What enlightened international relations."
"Typical," Madene snorted.
"I hope it's typical, Madene. When I stop appreciating a nice ass in leather shorts, please just burn my body and put me in an urn."
"Those are Warrior Maidens from the Silver Guard itself," Madene hissed as they followed the two Proctors toward their transportation, "They are not Rationalist girls."
"What, you mean, like you?"
One of the benefits of having long legs was that Istain could outpace Madene's cloud of surliness.
"Hi ladies!" Istain cried as he strode forward, "now who wants to carry me?"
Istain's good mood lasted until he actually got into his palanquin. After that, it took less than five minutes for his mind to turn from thoughts of taut and silky-smooth thighs back to his own discomfort. Curses directed at Warrior Maiden carpenters. Or cabinet-makers, or whatever it was you called the people who made palanquins. Istain tried to pop the crick out of his neck, but succeed only in getting a splinter from the ceiling in his ear.
"You know," said Istain, "there are probably some people whose knees I wouldn't mind jammed into my groin."
"Oh really?" growled Captain-Assistant Clanat, his fellow passenger, "that's interesting, because I can't think of anyone whose knees I would want stuck in my ears. It looks like we're both out of luck."
"I'd move," said Istain, "but then I'd be castrated and you'd have a squished brain. Hey ladies," he called out the window, "I don't suppose I could sit on the roof, huh?"
"No," called a dulcet voice from behind Istain's back, "but you can sit on me, boy-ah."
The bearer behind Clanat laughed and said something in breathy Maidenspeak.
"Just suggest a position!" said the first voice.
The green countryside flashed by as Istain tried to get his higher mental functions to re-boot.
"Don't get your hopes up rookie," said the Proctor, "I know about these things, and Warrior Maidens are all talk."
"Maybe the ones who talk to you." Came the shouted response from outside.
"How can they hear us in here?" Istain tried to look around, but his head hit the palanquin's wall. "And how can we hear them?"
"You should look outside, boh-ya." called the lead palanquin bearer.
Istain hunched over to peer through the slatted window. He saw grass, more grass, the wall of the palanquin, and then at the limit of his flexibility, he saw the legs of the bearer in the front of the palanquin.
"Burning libraries! She isn't even touching the ground!"
"Thanks!" Came the reply.
And from behind the other bearer said, "In Maidenspeak, say you...uh...'blind silver.'"
"'Blind silver'?" said the first bearer, "who taught you to curse, my gramma?" Then she repeated the jibe in her own language, which started an unintelligible exchange that might have been an argument or a joke or lesbian flirting for all Istain knew. He wished he could understand Maidenspeak.
"Oh yeah, it's real exciting," said the Proctor from between Istain's knees, "a pair of real live Warrior Maidens. Pure. Right, girls?"
"As the new-fallen snow!" Called the one from the front.
"Wow," said Istain, "you know I always thought, well I mean from Madene I assumed, I mean, what about pure in thought and deed?"
There was a laugh from the front while the one in the back answered, "Hey, are pure on my thoughts. Are..." she asked a question in Maidenspeak.
"Our thoughts are pure," translated Selene. "They're distilled, boh-ya."
"Somebody shoot me," said the Proctor.
"I like you. What's your name, boh-ya?"
"Istain." said Istain.
"I'm Selene," said the lead Maiden, "and that's Tara behind. We're both glad to meet you, but I'm more glad."
"How are you? Please to meet you!" That was Tara, the wingman. Or maybe it was palanquin-pole-woman.
"Oh I'm great. Selene has given me a much nicer reason to look forward to getting out of this box."
"Yes? What is that?"
"Well I've got all this blood that wants to get to my crotch and I'd love to unfold and give it a chance."
"If you need any help unfolding anything, Istain—"
"All right," Clanat rapped on the wall behind Istain's ear with a knuckle, "enough! You kids can flirt all you want when we're out of this thing, but girls, I need to talk to your new boyfriend here for a minute."
There was a chorus of agreement, then giggles, like little tinkly bells. Istain sighed, then gasped as Clanat's knee jerked.
"Listen up, Fellow-Enlistedman Scander," Clanat fixed Istain with glare that drove thoughts of Selene's rolling hips most of the way out of his mind. "You and I have some talking to do. About your friend Feerborg."
Istain made a face at him. "Strike it out, it's Freetrick! Why the hell do you keep calling him Feerborg?"
"As a reminder that he's the king of an enemy nation. And the emperor of a collection of enemy nations." Said the Proctor, "Even if you've known him since you were toddlers."
"And if you know that much," said Istain, "then why don't you know that Freetrick has never had anything to do with Skrea. Since when has being knocked unconscious and kidnapped by the bad guys been an enemy action?"
"Fellow-Enlistedman Scander—"
"I mean, true words, why are you being so antagonistic about him? He's not going to fight us, he's one of us! I mean, if anything, he's the RU's lever in…oh."
Clanat grinned at him. "Understand now?"
Istain's brain stumbled, "Look, this doesn't have to be so…I mean, three days ago Freetrick was trying to get a girlfriend and not fail his exams. He's not a…a spy for Truth's sake. Freetrick's just a regular guy, alright?"
"Who said I was thinking about using him as a spy, Fellow-Enlistedman Scander?" The Proctor raised an eyebrow. "In exchange for promises about divvying up spoils, the High Maidens have agreed to take us all the way to their border with the Kingdoms of Evil. North, then east, then south again. From ther
e you'll get to the Skrean capitol, and be our man on the inside when the time comes to negotiate the surrender-without-terms." He continued, plowing like a locomotive through Istain's shocked silence. "You might wonder why I brought Sergeant-Lecturer Lucan on this little jaunt." Clanat nodded toward the window, and by extension the palanquin that carried Lucan and Madene. "He's here because it was his think-tank that determined the most efficient way to traverse the desert of central Skrea. It's by air,"
Istain blinked. "You want me to fly to Skrea?"
"Don't be stupid, of course not," said Clanat. "You'll be hang-gliding. Warrior Maidens will get you up into the air, and then you'll use thermals to keep you there."
"Right," said Istain, "cause I know all about gliding."
"Don't worry, you'll learn. But it has to be you, because nobody else will be able to tell the flying monsters that you're best buddies with their evil god-king. Get it?" Ahem," the military academician shifted back into formal gear with an almost audible clunk, "it is, however, both my opinion and that of my colleagues and learned superiors, that you, Fellow-Enlistedman Scander, are the only person who can successfully penetrate the Skrean border without fatal mishap."
Istain squinted at him for a moment before the meaning of that sunk in. "You can train me to hang-glide, but you can't train anyone else to be buddies with the evil god-king and not get ripped apart by monsters, my right? And if the monsters don't listen?"
Clanat shrugged. "If that doesn't work, you'll shoot them. We're giving you a rifle and a repeating pistol. Both state of the art, and extremely expensive. We'd appreciate it if you brought them back to us in functional condition." He gave Istain a flat stare. "Got all that?"
"Are you out of your gibbering mind?" Istain said "I mean, gliders? Shooting monsters? Striking...striking war against the striking Kingdoms of Evil? I thought...I mean," Istain looked helplessly at the set expression of the Proctor---his boss, Truth help him!---and grasped at straws. "Isn't war with Skrea supposed to be against the Covenant?"
Clanat raised an eyebrow. "The Covenant? Really?"
Istain threw up his hands. "Well I thought we were supposed to leave them alone and just sort of...look at them? Because "only in the darkness can you see light?" Or something? Anyway, to see what Evil looks like so we can be Good. I'm pretty sure we covered this in high school."
"Do you honestly believe that our entire body of government policy is based on not being like the guys next door?"
"M-uh-uh," Istain shrugged. "I don't know anything about the way the government works. You should be talking to Freetrick."
The Proctor smiled. "That, rookie, is the funniest thing you've said all day."
***
"Sweet True words. This is Skrea?"
Hot, sulfurous wind slipped over Freetrick's newly white hair as he looked over the edge of his balcony at the serrated buildings below. Brooding towers and cyclopean monoliths and clustered along canals of what looked like glowing magma, stretching into hazy darkness.
"That is the Necropolis, the city which abases itself at the feet of Castle Clouds-Gather, if the Menacer of Children would refrain from castrating his servant for the correction," Mr. Skree clung like a huge and pale lizard to the sheer wall next to Freetrick, "And beyond the city, the Bleaklands, of which his Viciousness has a particularly sinister view."
The Bleaklands? Freetrick ran hands through his hair. The newly bleached skin of his scalp was itching and sweating in the warm, electrically charged air. Even thought it was…night? "Why is it so dark?" Freetrick asked, " Shouldn't it be like 10 or 11 in the morning?"
"My lord," said Bloodbyrn, "of course the sunlight cannot penetrate the mantel of the Maelstrom."
"The Maelstrom?" Freetrick had always thought the Maelstrom, the Storm of Skrea, was a metaphor, or wildly-inflated propaganda from one side of the war or the other. But now, squinting up through his new glasses, Freetrick could see the lowering thunderheads.
"Lo, the peoples of the world despair," Mr. Skree's voice creaked like the hinges on an iron maiden. "About the hub of the thirteen-pinnacled tower of Castle Clouds-Gather, the storm-wheel of the Maelstrom spins, grinding torment unending upon the souls of all those who toil beneath its vast shadow. For Clouds-Gatherer is at the heart of the Shadow of the Ultimate Fiend. And the Maelstrom is the shadow of---"
"It is a large storm cloud, my lord," Bloodbyrn said. "Is that not evident to all of our senses? Now, I should like to proceed with my program, if I may. Mr. Skree I believe my first task for you is to bring forth a sacrifice for the demonstration."
"Very good, lady," said Mr. Skree. "Your cruel whim shall soon bear its bitter fruit at the hands of your servant."
Freetrick took a step back, ignoring the wet-leather slap as Mr. Skree dove into the perpetual night beyond the balcony. Overhead, spurts of lightning cast monstrous shadows onto the clouds. Watching, Freetrick realized he could actually see the enormous, impossible weather pattern moving above them in slow, concentric circles. And at the center of those circles…
As the association clicked into place, lightning flicked across the eye of the storm. Once, twice, and then an arc of blinding light stretched across the black hole in the clouds. For a moment, Freetrick saw an immense, slitted pupil. The eye seemed to swing toward him, filled with actinic rage. It blinked—
Freetrick gasped and looked away.
Bloodbyrn was smirking at him. "Behold the power of my lord's heritage."
"Yeah, it's…great," stammered Freetrick. He jerked a thumb at the lowering storm. "Is the weather always this…evil?"
"It is," said Bloodbyrn. "The Maelstrom has been the eternal mark of Skrea since the days of Skreon the Worst." A land of perpetual darkness? It was ridiculous, impossible, and yet here he was, looking at the dark, striking sterile desert with his own transformed eyes.
Freetrick shuddered. "Is it like that over the entire country?"
"Like what, my lord?" Bloodbyrn said.
"I mean," said Freetrick, "are there any plants or animals or anything in the Kingdoms of Evil, or is it just desert everywhere?"
"Oh, by no means." Bloodbyrn walked across the balcony and gestured at one part of the invisible horizon. "There exists vegetation in abundance in the swamps of Sangboire, my own nation. And oh, how horrible those swamps are, my lord, with their slime and their snakes, their delightful malarial vapors, their humidity, which so tenderly strangles one." She sighed, "Which is far indeed from the parching air of this volcanic shaft you Skreans call home."
Volcano? But of course the Castle would be built on top of a volcano. That explained the sulfurous stench. "Wait," he said, "if everything in the Kingdoms of Evil is either barren wasteland or toxic swamp, how do the people here feed themselves?"
"People? Does my lord perhaps refer to the human residents of Castle Clouds-Gather" Bloodbyrn looked puzzled. "For, trouble yourself not, my lord, we feast most splendidly upon the meat of the monsters."
Freetrick gaped. "The..."
"Monsters, yes."
"Monsters like Mr. Skree?"
Bloodbyrn raised an eyebrow. "My lord's tastes are most deviant. Though perhaps with sufficient tenderization..."
"No no!" Freetrick held up his hands, "I mean, what kind of monsters?"
"Oh, any kind at all," Bloodbyrn assured him, "and if there are none that fit my lord's preferences, he can always call upon the Life-twisters to manufacture more."
That didn't make sense. "But then, what do the monsters eat?"
"Humorous question, my lord. Each other, my lord," said Bloodbyrn. "Ah, I see Mr. Skree has finally arrived."
An enormous bat-like shadow fell over them and Mr. Skree's wings belled outward as he braked in the air.
"Shall we begin the demonstration?" Bloodbyrn held out her hand and a small object plopped into it. "If my lord has sufficiently exercised his jocularity for the nonce?"
Freetrick looked back at Bloodbyrn, who was holding out something that wriggled, pebbly black and or
ange. Freetrick made out a disturbingly human grin on a squashed-in lizard face.
Bloodbyrn held the lizard out to Freetrick. "Observe now the subject of our demonstration."
She clearly expected him to do something, but Freetrick was convinced he wanted nothing at all to do with any practice that involved creatures as ugly as that one. "Yuck."
"Oh, My lord should not bestir his squeamishness in such fashion; likely this lizard cannot even speak."
Before Freetrick could express his feelings on the matter more completely, Bloodbyrn grabbed his shoulder and yanked. She swung both of them around until the red light from the open door was to their backs. "Now, my lord will maintain that position."
"Whatsoever the shadow of the Lord of Shadows touches…" she bent and placed the lizard on the ground in front of Freetrick's iron-clad boots. It hissed, then curled up on the warm stones. "Now hold yourself still, my lord, and attend."
"Attend what?"
Bloodbyrn shook her head. "My lord is Skrean, his is the power over death. However, I am Sangboise. I pray not to the First God, but to the God of Blood, and the powers I receive thereby are my lord's...to command."
A wicked little smile curved Bloodbyrn's black-painted lips. "My lord will be pleased to observe."
"Uh," said Freetrick, but before he could formulate a sentence, Bloodbyrn flicked a pale wrist and a knife appeared in her hand.
"Is my lord interested? I doubt my lord has seen so fine an athame." Bloodbyrn swept her hand out toward Freetrick and flicked the instrument up between thumb and forefinger. Freetrick found himself staring, cross-eyed, at a little dagger. It was carved from a black, glass-like stone, as long and broad as his thumb, with a curved slicing edge and a sharp stabbing point. The handle held in Bloodbyrn's steel-clad fingers glinted silver in light from his office.
"I suppose the Rationalists do not carry them? Athames are most useful implements in the working of the blood-magic of Sangboire." She twirled the athame in her right hand, looking at the back of her left hand with disturbing calculation. "Now, an incision at the...well, the head of the cephalic vein would be the traditional place to begin a demonstration, but" she rotated her hand to its palm faced upwards, "I believe the thenar venous plexus would be more appropriate. Accessible, but erotic. Does my lord disagree?"
The Kingdoms of Evil Page 10
