The Kingdoms of Evil

by Daniel Bensen

  "No, no!" Cried Bloodbyrn, "I am helpless as your powerful hands seize and spread my quivering legs!"

  There was a pause.

  Bloodbyrn opened one eye and hissed, voice pitched not to carry beyond the curtains, "Do not simply stand there like an obelisk, my lord, spread my legs with you powerful hands!"

  A hand, pleasantly warm, though rather limp, closed over one knee. Bloodbyrn waited, but the appendage simply lay there like an exhausted squid. Bloodbyrn sighed. "Just read your lines, my lord."

  "Ah ha, my dear." He complied. King Feerborg squinted at the cue card, held before his pince-nez by a gremlin. The little monster hung from a wire attached to the Ultimate Fiend's hat, and did nothing to improve the ambiance of the fiendish boudoir.

  "I feel ridiculous." Lord Feerborg was not entirely devoid of the powers of observation, it would seem.

  "Oh, oh your frigid fingers! Strong and cold as the high mountain crags!" Bloodbyrn recited, then continued sotto voce. "You would feel less so if you had spent more time studying your lines, my lord."

  "I am far more powerful than any mere mountain, my dear," said King Feerborg. "Yes, that would have been the two hours you kept me locked in a room?"

  "Of course!" she whispered in response. "I needed time to enjoy my bachelorette party. It was very touching. Oh, for the Maelstrom's sake, my lord, at least loom over me threateningly, your outline through the curtain cannot appear very convincing to our observers outside."

  Her lord drew himself up over her in what he probably imagined was a threatening pose. Bloodbyrn had done her best with his wardrobe, but one can only add so many skull helmets and alligator shoulder-pads. Nevertheless, she released what she thought was a suitably convincing squeal.

  "Ah, your screams are sweet music to my ears," her lord read aloud obediently as the gremlin dropped the next cue card before his eyes.

  Bloodbyrn threw her head back and cried, with some real emotion this time, "No, please, merciful gods, save me!"

  "Mercy is for the weak, my dear, and I, as you can plainly see, am anything but."

  The act continued for some time, but as titillating as the lines were, delivery is responsible for the majority of the impact of any spoken phrase, and in that area, as in so many others, her lord failed.

  Bloodbyrn did her best to compensate for her Soon-to-be-master's failings of melodrama, but she was exhausted by the end of the program. "You tyrant!" she spoke the cue. "Oh…no, oh yes!"

  There was a shuffling of cards and then her lord read, "At last you soften in my clutches. Like the ripe, uh, plums grown in the soft lands across the mountains, your tender flesh hangs ripe for me to pluck."

  Bloodbyrn entertained a brief fantasy about a dark lord who would understand and act upon that symbolism. But alas her breasts remained un-seized. "Put your hands on me, Tempest take you!"

  Her Lord Feerborg raised his head to bring her barely-concealed bosom into view, then flinched as if struck.

  Bloodbyrn sighed. Perhaps she had overdone the aversion training.

  After a moment though, and a glance at the manacles that firmly bound her hands, her lord bent down awkwardly and put on hand on her chest. It lay there, another unappealing aquatic creature. He cleared his throat. "But what is this? Clothing upon the flesh of my woman?"

  "No! Curse my weakness! I will never give in to you, foul despot. What you want you must…take by force." For ages Bloodbyrn had assiduously practiced this line for before her mirror, and was quite proud of the timbre and verve of her delivery.

  Unfortunately, her lord chose that moment to read his cue card, and all Bloodbyrn was able to say was "I will never" before Freetrick stepped on her lines.

  "Onion! Uh.." Freetrick squinted at the card. "…oh. Sorry. Minion! My dagger! That I may ease two fiendish hungers at…once. Ew!"

  With a practiced flick of the wrist, the Dark Prince Feerix parted the curtains that surrounded the bed. Behind him, she could see the assembled government of the Kingdoms of Evil.

  "Oh, my lord, oh dark and terrible master!" cried the Despot's half-brother with panache. Bloodbyrn could almost wish him atop her rather than Feerborg, if it were not for the firm lessons of experience.

  "Take you this dagger from mine hand!" Feerix continued. "Take it, that you may part the livid flesh of the innocent upon whom you stand ready to unleash your ravishment!"

  Then in a lower tone of voice, "if you have any trouble, feel free to ask for advice, oh powerful and manly half-brother mine. Even a demonstration—"

  "Shut up Feerix!" Her lord hissed, and Bloodbyrn found herself agreeing. Indeed, there were worse men to seduce than Feerborg. If only she could find a member of the male gender who could be at once powerful and commanding and not a blithering idiot.

  Thinking of which…Bloodbyrn rolled her head over to her lord Feerborg. "Go on, my lord."

  "Now, uh," King Feerborg stammered as he leaned forward and the little gremlin holding his cue card shifted, "careful my dear, don't struggle. We wouldn't want the blade to slip. Oh, I certainly am menacing."

  Bloodbyrn, manacled to the enormous round four-poster bed rolled her eyes. "There is no need to be so sarcastic, my lord."

  Freetrick glanced at the curtains. "They can't hear the sarcasm."

  "I can," she whispered, "and I would appreciate it, my lord, if you took this ceremony seriously."

  "Seriously?" The hand over her knee slid upward. Unconsciously? "I don't even know why I'm cooperating with you. Probably just because the ridiculousness is overpowering my anger. You striking kidnapped me!" His voice dropped to a growl. "Again."

  "Keep your voice down, my lord. Oh how I tremble under your lustful fingers!" Reasonable persons never need to raise their voices when in argument, and Bloodbyrn did not do so even now. "Well, my lord, I must admit I am someone chagrined at that necessity myself. Had you told me about your plans to kidnap me, I would not have been forced to act."

  It was traditional in Skrean un-weddings for the bride and groom to attempt to kidnap or kill each other. The aim of these practices was to assure all participants and audience members that the power balance in the relationship would be suitably wicked.

  "I didn't have any plans to kidnap you! And um…soon you shall feel more than that!"

  Sensing some impatience from the other side of the shear curtains, Bloodbyrn let out a moan of despair and ecstasy, then whispered, "So I gathered. Having no confidence whatever in my lord's abilities in the direction of romantic tactics, I was forced to make arrangements for a pre-emptive strike." Persons wishing to accomplish anything worthwhile in this life are those who take matters into their own hands, "If you would not kidnap me, then needs must I kidnap you."

  But King Feerborg only looked at her with that deplorable expression of helpless imbecility, like a baby lizard that had been struck on the head. "I am sure that I mentioned this at some point."

  "No, I'm striking sure you didn't."

  "Is that indeed so? Well then, I suppose the tactical advantage was mine. Now be a dear and read your cue card."

  "Uh," Her lord's eyes darted up to the gremlin on its string. "My most venomous flower, my dripping ichor of delight, my poisoned…little pie? For the love of all Truth! Tonight is the night you finally fall to me."

  "The knife! My lord."

  "Do I really have to…?"

  Rather than resort to the crudity of verbal communication, Bloodbyrn allowed her emotions to express themselves in the medium of facial expression. The effect was gratifying.

  "Fine!" said King Feerborg. Bloodbyrn sighed as she felt the cloth part over her chest and belly, then between her legs. Other dark lords might have taken more time about it, but at this extremity, Bloodbyrn was happy enough with simple compliance.

  Now, with her naked body under him, she might finally determine whether a man's blood flowed through her lord's veins. Bloodbyrn arched her back, keeping her legs pressed together in a way she knew made a very nice tapered line down from the curves of
her hips. She parted her lips and looked upward through half-lidded eyes, her voice a satin sheet gliding over edged obsidian. "Oh my lord, what will you do with me now?"

  Her lord was not looking, however, but reading his cue card. "A black blade on your white skin, my dear. And if the blade were to slip, how a drop of red would complete the picture. How it would…whet my appetite. Yuck?"

  Bloodbyrn allowed herself no outward expression disappointment. "Well?"

  "Well what?" Feerborg still did not look at her. But were those little bolts of lightning flickering across his eyes? Was there perhaps the slightest of tremors in his voice?

  "Well," Bloodbyrn murmured in honeyed tones, "why have you not…cut into me, my lord?"

  The lightning bolts disappeared. "Oh for the love of—no!" He hissed.

  "My lord Feerborg!" The emotion in Bloodbyrn's voice was powerful enough to overcome her lord's modesty. He looked away from his cue card. "This is a tradition that goes back nearly a thousand years. If you do not use that knife to draw blood from my skin right this very instant, it will go hard on you. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Fine," said King Feerborg sulkily. Bloodbyrn felt a pitiful little jab on her upper thigh. "There."

  "The First Blood," Bloodbyrn cried, "is drawn! Now," she whispered, "lick it off."

  "But—" but this time her lord needed no further encouragement. Even as he protested, he was bending over, bringing his mouth to her flesh.

  And then. Was that a tensing of his muscles? Was that a tightening of the fingers, a more fervent pressing against her thigh? Was the Despot's blood heating?

  Bloodbyrn placed her hand under his chin and moved his head up, over her navel and then up the median line of her belly. As she drew his head forward, he was forced to lean over her and, fortunately shifting his weight onto his elbows and off her chest and thigh. Soon, if rather clumsily, King Feerborg had moved over her, eyes crackling in a way Bloodbyrn found not entirely comfortable.

  Bloodbyrn opened her mouth to instruct her lord as to the next action expected of him, but suddenly he was leaning over her, his own mouth opening. His canines glistened in the red light.

  Bloodbyrn closed her eyes and held her breath, but the expected attack on her jugular failed to occur. Instead, her breath rushed from her as she felt her lord's lips descend over hers.

  The Ultimate Fiend was kissing her!

  For a moment, Bloodbyrn tried to fight back against the disgusting, degenerate sign of Do-Gooder affection, but then his hand moved under her. Somehow the clasps of his gauntlets, vambraces, and couters had come undone, and the skin of his hands and forearms slid across her shoulder blades and neck as he reached around her, embracing her, cupping the base of her skull in a powerful, spread fingers. There were a series of clacks, the weight and pinch of more armor falling, and then her lord's naked upper body was pressed against hers.

  And the kiss continued. Lord of Blood help her but it felt good. Good. Like the forbidden touch of softness under the hands, the gentle caress that no Dark Lady must ever receive, or receiving, enjoy. And yet she could not help but enjoy it, could not do anything, in fact, but melt into her lord's arms, and kiss him back.

  "Excellent, excellent!" The voice of Bloodbyrn's father jabbed like a knife into her hindbrain. Bloodbyrn jerked, squeaked, and tried to shove her lord off of her. He did not want to go and Lord of Blood help her, she did not want him to go.

  Dark aristocracy, however, was much less concerned with self-gratification that the lower classes would assume. Bloodbyrn was well-schooled in self-discipline. Or, more accurately, self-denial. She pushed harder on her lord's broad chest.

  Feerborg made some sort of noise against her mouth, reproducible perhaps as "mfphguh!" and jerked away. The gremlin on his head, who had of course witnessed the whole thing, raised a tiny eyebrow at her and smirked. She and Feerborg were no longer locked in embarrassing intimacy when her father, the Duke DeMacabre, parted the curtains.

  "All right, everybody. Intermission!"

  The Ultimate Fiend looked at her, eyes wide and once-again wholly black. No doubt he was frustrated, poor thing, but such is the nature of existence, that what one wants most is the thing that is most often denied one. For her part, Bloodbyrn could admit to just a touch of annoyance at the interruption, mostly inspired by her curiosity as to what her lord would have done next. However, as the thespians say, the dark and un-holy ritual must go on.

  With four crisp clicks of metal, the manacles snapped off Bloodbyrn's ankles and wrists. Smiling at the Ultimate Fiend, who had by this time stopped protesting, she shrugged out of her gown and rose naked from the bed.

  Round, soft, girt with curtains, and equipped with the best in modern shackles and manacles, the nuptial bed stood upon an altar plinth of onyx in the center of the Ceremonial Seraglio of the Ultimate Fiend. Being mostly reserved for dark rituals, the room was rather smaller than the Seraglio proper, and of course that larger pleasure chamber lacked the audience seating necessary in this one.

  The audience discomfited Bloodbyrn not at all; what sort of Sangboise lady would she be if she were unused to having her Little Deaths observed, commented upon, and graded for style? Dark aristocrats and un-holy men regarded her with suitable expressions of lust and malice as Bloodbyrn parted the curtains and descended from the bed. She passed between the cauldrons of boiling blood and bowed, formally, to her father.

  "A most admirable performance, my daughter," Duke Milielan DeMacabre said for the benefit of their audience, "I foresee fury, terror, and offspring of surpassing evil arising from your union."

  "I am entirely in concurrence," answered Bloodbyrn as she looked about the chamber. Shadows skittered across the walls as bats, specially imported from the Murderwood of sSt'tdrakh, fluttered around the glowing crystals. Foul-smelling water, condensing from the steam rising from the seething blood cauldrons, dripped down the chains of the machinery in the ceiling. Everything seemed to be in order.

  Her father stood ready to play his part, even Prince Feerix looked less mutinous than usual, hair freshly spiked and sneering rather less than was his usual wont. His un-holiness Aman DeSammdie the Bloodless had taken the central place in the triskaidekagram opposite the bed, swinging his knife-tipped censor and chanting in Liturgical Sangboise. Facing him, at the west-ward pointing apex of the sigil, Hafdern Teirgog the Deathless muttered maledictions in Deep Necronomics and clutched a live mouse strung around his neck. Bloodbyrn was unable to appreciate this example of religious syncretism, however, due to the insistent demands of her Soon-to-be-master and lover.

  "My lord," she said, turning to the location where Ferrborg struggled in the arms of several of DeSammdie's catamites, "I must entreat you to staunch your obstreperous exertions and reconcile yourself to the agenda of the ritual of which we are a part." That was a very good sentence, and Bloodbyrn made mental note to use it again should the circumstances call for it. Knowing her lord Feerborg, they probably would. "The purpose of this intermission is to raise the sexual tension of the partners, which I am happy to see has been accomplished. Additionally, however, time must now be taken to prepare for the next phase of the ceremony, a process in which I trust you will fully cooperate; let yourself be undressed, anointed, drained of blood, and so forth."

  Bloodbyrn turned to her father and spoke over King Feerborg's rising protestations, "Father, shall we not retire and refresh ourselves, you and I, while the un-holy men continue their preparations?"

  Father nodded, grinning his usual public mask. "Whatever you wish, my daughter." He turned to King Feerborg, now surrounded by acolytes with forceps, athames, and sangrail chalices. "Do simply attempt to remain patient, my lord! We shan't be a moment."

  "Wait!" shouted her Soon-to-be-husband, "you can't leave me with these people! What are those knives for?"

  "My lord," soothed Bloodbyrn, "you are larger than me, so even though you are required to give more blood, it should discomfort you less." This excellent advice produced rather oppo
site the expected reaction to the one she had expected, but Bloodbyrn did not have the leisure at the moment to pursue the matter further before her father stepped in.

  "Just visualize my daughter," DeMacabre said. "Imagine the second act, hmm? Plan the thrusts and counter-thrusts—"

  "Let us go, father," Bloodbyrn motioned for a catamite to follow her with an athame and sangrail.

  She strode toward the door, where there stood the various monsters that one had to employ in Skrea. ssSkreekirkaakh, her companion on her journey across the Bulwarks and one of the more tolerable monstrosities for her acquaintance, gave her a solemn nod from his place on the ceiling, where he clung in usual style. Her ogres did not seem to register her passage, but the captain of the king's guard, Skystarke, watched her and her father's progress with furious and distrustful yellow eyes. Even as she watched the creature's lip pulled back to the lower edge of the nostrils, and a faint hate-filled hiss could be heard to issue from between its crooked fangs. Bloodbyrn did not generally make it a habit to inquire into the personal dispositions of her minions, but as Queen, she would have to deal with this one, should it prove loyal to the King.

  Bloodbyrn walked with her father from the Ceremonial Seraglio into the smaller adjoining chamber, of whose purpose Bloodbyrn was not precisely cognizant. However, given the small cot, the manacles, the drainage grate on the floor, and the observation holes in the wall, she felt sure she could hazard a guess.

  Bloodbyrn sat on the bed, the catamite scuttling past him to present her with the ceremonial athame and sangrail.

  "Do not hand the chalice to me, imbecile," she snapped at the servant in Sangboise, "Hold it while I bleed into it."

  She made the incision on her inner thigh, near, but much more professionally made than the cut placed there by her lord. Had he known the symbolism, or had he chosen by chance the most erotic of the 39 Blessures Majores?

  "You do not hesitate, daughter." DeMacabre commented as the life fluid began to drip into the chalice in the catamite's hands, "you do not wonder what vein or artery you should part for this, the final cut of your un-subjugated life?"