The Worldwound Gambit

by Robin D. Laws

  Tiberio summons an indignant bray. "By no means! This body is adequately conditioned, and therefore taken in Mendev. But Baatyr's barely breathes. Should I deign to take it apart, I'll be performing him a service."

  Aprian chews at his lip. Underestimating the strength to put into the gesture, he draws blood. A red stream dribbles unnoticed down his chin. "Something is skewed in you," he finally says.

  "I yearn for destruction, yet we are consigned to menial duty!"

  "No," says Aprian. "It is not that."

  Tiberio increases the intensity of his shrieking. "We should be leading legions! Raiding towns! Not lodged in our commander's bowels!" His throat hurts.

  "Carrion!" says Baatyr. "You know not the importance of what we guard."

  "Bah!" burbles Tiberio. "What is more important than havoc?"

  "No task is more vital than ours," Baatyr presses. "If Xaggalm did not tell you of it, it is because you are unworthy."

  With a casual movement, Aprian snakes out his arm, wrapping Baatyr in a headlock, choking off his windpipe. Confused by the effect on his borrowed form, Baatyr gasps and struggles, then finally relents. Aprian releases him. He clutches his neck.

  "If our master has not explained," says Aprian, "it is not for us to do so. Yet you helpfully remind us, Baatyr, to return to our post."

  With a choking sound, Baatyr signals his acquiescence.

  "Walk alongside me, Tiberio," says Aprian, forcing his way back to the group's point position.

  Tiberio follows. When he passes Baatyr, his rival's face twists with hatred and issues a garbled threat.

  Gelatinous droplets form on the ceiling above. They land, smoking, on Tiberio's armor. He tries not to flinch.

  "Tell me, Tiberio," says Aprian, "how you procured this form."

  "It was in a village the mortals call Dubrov."

  "I know it not."

  "An insignificant place, populated by peasants and nobodies." Tiberio can't help picturing the place. He imagines a wheat field, late afternoon sun shining through feathered heads of grain. He recalls the fragrance of fresh-mown hay. Hears the delighted shrieks of the village children rushing between cottages. Wishes he was back there now, hitching a plow or thatching a roof.

  "And this body, it was a farmer there?"

  "Yes."

  "The scars it bears, these were not acquired through a life of petty toil. When did you claim it?"

  "A few weeks back."

  "Then this body has had another life."

  "It could be so," says Tiberio.

  "A life of war. Did you not plumb its memories?"

  Tiberio does not want to talk about this. "Who cares for mortal thoughts?"

  "You do not find them delicious? Their fragilities? Their doubts, their fears, their regrets?"

  "To kill them is delicious. To reject their pleas for mercy. The rending of muscle, the breaking of bone. The looks on their faces as life drains from them, as they understand that they're dying."

  "So the mortal, Tiberio—he is a mystery to you."

  "To put it that way suggests that I care."

  "And how did you come upon this place, then?"

  Aprian is testing him, but Tiberio can't see how. Wanting him to tell a story, perhaps, so he can sift it for mistakes.

  "There was a mortal cultist there," says Tiberio.

  "What was his name?"

  "Why would I register such an irrelevancy? He was a fletcher, I think."

  "And Yath pervaded his dreams," says Aprian.

  "He saw this Tiberio, this hulking brute, as an impediment to his plans. So he accused him of witchcraft and congress with a succubus. His idiot fellows believed the fletcher's deception. The fletcher took him to be hanged, but then diverted him to a hidden altar. He summoned me, and I claimed him, and that was that."

  "He used the seven invocations?"

  "The mechanics of demonology do not interest me."

  "And this Tiberio, how did he resist you?"

  "Pitifully. I took him easily."

  "He must have left a foothold for you, then."

  "It was guilt. He regrets his past."

  "What he did when he was a warrior?"

  "He grew sick of killing. Can you imagine that?"

  "Yes, mortals are laughable," says Aprian.

  "I hate them."

  "As do we all," says Aprian. "And so you turned this body back to its purpose. To slay."

  "Yes," says Tiberio.

  "And who did you first slaughter?"

  "Dobreliel."

  "Dobreliel?"

  "The fletcher."

  "You recall his name after all."

  "Yes, now that I think back on it, he told me his name over and over as he begged for his life. Said that Yath would know it. That he was destined to be Yath's chancellor on earth."

  "So you slew him for his effrontery?"

  "For commanding me. As if by summoning me, I became his chattel."

  Aprian manages a half-formed snigger. "They all do that."

  "So I sent him to his destiny."

  A coating of saliva appears around Aprian's mouth. "Tell me how."

  "I throttled him."

  Aprian appears to deflate. "That is all?"

  "Dead is dead," says Tiberio.

  "You did not torture him? What kind of demon are you?"

  "One who acts quickly when anger seizes him."

  "Did you spawn in the Arid Fields of Tiglah, Tiberio?"

  Tiberio tries to remember if he's ever heard Calliard talk of this. His mind remains a blank. "What if I did?" He says it indignantly.

  "An ascetic, then, are we?"

  "Describe me as you wish. I want only for the world to crumble."

  They reach the guardhouse. Aprian slaps him on the back. He calls to the others. "We have another Arid One!"

  Baatyr lobs a gob of spit at him. "Let this dampen your desiccated spirit," he mutters.

  Aprian seats himself on a bench. "Your kind is no fun at all, Tiberio."

  Tiberio recalls one of Gad's mottoes: use what they want to believe. "Fun? You think I'm here for fun?"

  "You yourself said you delight in the pleading, in the tearing of flesh."

  "Indeed."

  "Then you must not deny yourself the torture, first."

  "I care only for what hastens Yath's victory."

  Aprian leaps up, enraptured. "The screams of the helpless fuel him, Arid One. You must not shirk from them."

  "What Xaggalm decrees, I shall accomplish." Tiberio's head spins. He wants to run away from them. He steadies himself against the wall. Under his touch, it undulates. Caressing him.

  Aprian draws uncomfortably close. "We'll tutor you, Tiberio."

  Matesh cracks his gnarled knuckles. "We can snatch a few strays from the main hall," he says. "For practice."

  "Xaggalm says no distractions," says Tiberio.

  "Xaggalm told us to stay sharp," says Matesh. "We must guard the orb, but he can't expect us to wither down here."

  "Which do you enjoy more, Tiberio?" Aprian asks. "Men, or women?"

  "What's the difference?"

  "It is a matter of preference. The women are physically weaker. A mighty terror of violation drives them, and that can be powerful in the extreme."

  "Yes," hisses Matesh. "We'll start with a woman."

  "Yet there is another school," says Aprian, "one that I subscribe to. It holds that a man, who believes himself to be strong, suffers greater degradation when he breaks. Women expect to be destroyed, but to certain men it comes as a shock. The profundity of that moment ...it must be savored, extended ..."

  "We can take one of each," says Matesh.

  Ap
rian surrenders to contemplation. "They'll be dulled and blunted, these cultists and receivers of the call. They've already endured much. Fresh subjects would be better, but where to find them?"

  "Don't stir yourselves for me," Tiberio says.

  "Entrust yourself to us, Tiberio," says Aprian. "We'll guide your hands. Expertly."

  Hendregan stands before the wall of staring demon faces. The others huddle behind him. "Wait till I have them fully rapt," he says. "Then go quickly. And whatever you do, don't look at them."

  He takes another step. He opens wide his eyes. A crazed fire leaps behind them. "Oh, my sweet things," he whispers. "We too are brothers. In madness, if not in flame. Meet my gaze, sweet brothers."

  He holds aloft the tips of his fingers. With a puff of devoured air, they ignite. Slowly he weaves them in the air, drawing the attention of the staring demon eyes. As if threading a loom, he gathers their gazes. Their eyes meet his. Reflected gouts of flame whirl in them.

  A last few of the demon heads crane their stone necks to see behind them. One by one, he draws their attention.

  He has them all now.

  "We have much to talk about, my sweet brothers. Tidings to bring you from the lake of magma, where still more of our brothers abide."

  Whether they are blinking, purulent, bloodshot, stony, rheumy, drilling, he has them.

  "Go," he hisses to the others.

  Jerisa leads Vitta and Calliard past the wall and into the dark beyond it.

  Hendregan speaks without speaking, sings without singing. He communicates only with the conflagration in his irises, with the charcoal behind his pupils. The song is mad and jagged, a flutter of images, and it transports them to the moment they crave. To the burning chaos at the end of the world.

  "Sit up straight," Isilda instructs Gad.

  His spine is already erect, but he has one leg folded in behind the other. A subtle blocking move to keep her at bay. She stands six paces away from him, facing him head-on. Her already revealing neckline has, as if by its own accord, peeled itself back another step. She angles her body to confront him with a glimpse of ivory breasts, then adjusts herself to deprive him of it.

  "We've moved entirely from the realm of the tedious, then," Gad says.

  "I said straighten yourself."

  "I'm plenty straight," he says, "but before we go further I have a suggestion."

  A twitch of annoyance shivers across her perfect clavicles. "You have already been granted your boon," she intones.

  "Not a request, not a favor," Gad says. "A suggestion."

  The priestess crosses her arms. The gesture deepens her cleavage but for once the effect appears uncalculated.

  "When we are conducting business," Gad says, "it goes without saying that you are my mistress, and I your vassal. But when we set aside matters of conquest and worship for sensual diversions, perhaps a ...an equality of action and reaction might prove mutually pleasurable."

  "It," she says, "would not. Now straighten yourself, that I might proceed as planned."

  "Yes, my priestess."

  She nearly smiles.

  He straightens his legs.

  She straddles him, slowly lowering herself onto his lap. She places icy hands on the back of his neck.

  "You were wrong," she says, "but I can guess what you were thinking."

  He turns on his flashingest grin. "And what was that?"

  "It is not unheard of," Isilda says, "for persons who exercise authority elsewhere to prefer the opposite in the trysting chamber. While this reasoning may be generally sound, you must understand this, Gad, because I will only explain it once. I am not such a person."

  "Understood. In both cases, absolute authority."

  Her eyes flutter shut. "Yes."

  "In that case, I await your next command."

  She adjusts her position, pressing against him.

  Gad responds with a tight intake of breath.

  She pushes her swannish neck toward his lips.

  He grazes it with a kiss.

  She slaps him.

  "I find that discouraging," he says, feeling the sting reverberate.

  "You have been instructed," she says.

  "I have?"

  "Take no action without permission."

  "Thank you," he says, "for making it clearer."

  "Very well then." She leans back into him, arranging herself as before: her neck near his lips.

  He waits.

  "When I tell you," she says, "you will kiss me six times on the neck. You will begin at the base of the neck and work your way up. The last kiss you will situate just below the line of my jaw. Space them evenly."

  "When you tell me?"

  "Yes, when I tell you," she says, through a ragged breath.

  "On this side of your neck, I take it?"

  "I don't like sarcasm."

  He waits.

  "Now," she says.

  He follows her instructions.

  "Yes," she says.

  "Yes?" he asks.

  "Do it again."

  "Now?"

  "Yes, now."

  Six kisses, evenly spaced, starting at the base of the neck and ending below the jawline.

  She shudders.

  After a few moments, he says, "Awaiting further instructions."

  "Shut up."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Clamping her fingers over his cheeks, she presses her mouth against his. She thrusts her tongue in. Her front teeth click against his. She alters her center of gravity, as if to knock the chair over. Gad counters the move to maintain their balance.

  "No," she says.

  "No?"

  "No."

  He shifts his weight back. Braces for the inevitable fall. The chair drops backward, its feet scraping hideously against the stonelike floor. It breaks.

  The pain of the impact punches through him. It radiates from his shoulders and down his back. Her dress has opened itself completely. She resumes her assault. The force of her kisses pushes the back of his head against the shattered chair back. She grabs his hands. Plants them on her breasts. Isilda throws her head back. A keening sound rises from deep within her.

  The room shifts and buckles as the pain reaches Gad's neck and flows up into his scalp.

  In his peripheral vision he sees a pink-white shape emerging from a pinpoint hole in the ceiling. At first he can't make it out, except to perceive it as a shifting blob of matter. It billows itself into the shape of a fat, ribbed worm. For an impossibly long time its emergence continues.

  In the meantime, she claws her fingers into the back of his left hand, directing him in a series of mauling caresses, first of her left breast and then of her right.

  By the time it has fully separated itself from the hole in the ceiling, the worm is as long as Gad's forearm. It dangles for a painfully extended instant, then drops to the floor with an audible plop. Only a ring of interlocking teeth distinguishes its head from its posterior. The worm oozes toward a corner of the room, where a hairline crack in the tower awaits it.

  Another slap crashes across his face.

  "Don't look at that, idiot!" Isilda cries. "Look at me!"

  Gad raises his head and pretends to be seeing only her as she tears at the laces of his tunic. Only when the worm has completely oozed itself into the fissure in the wall does he stop dividing his concentration between it and the priestess.

  Soon she has him against the wall, next to the curtained archway. His shirt lies at his feet. Her sharp teeth sink repeatedly into his hirsute chest.

  Her bedchamber, Gad reckons, waits on the other side of the curtain. He weighs his risks and advantages. All else being equal, he decides, he'd sooner not give up the full goods.

  Reason
one: it's his only power over her.

  Reason two: it's going to hurt.

  Reason three: that worm thing.

  Reason four: oh, yes—he despises her.

  How to fob her off without scotching the plan?

  He can't mention the worm thing. You can never keep power by seeming weak.

  He can't say he's not aroused. Contrary evidence is too close at hand.

  Taking the upper hand with her would cool her ardor, but by too much. He has to leave her wanting more. Not wanting his head on a plate.

  He's boxed himself in. There's no choice but to follow it through to its squalid conclusion.

  She's seizing chest hairs between her teeth and methodically yanking them out. She stops. "You're thinking," she says.

  "Pardon?"

  "I can hear you thinking."

  "What was I thinking?"

  "I don't know, but stop it." She pushes him through the curtains and into the gloomy bedchamber. The tower's green glow is stronger here. An iron four-poster dominates the room's cramped confines. Colorless tallow candles, mounted on high, wrought spikes crafted to resemble spear-hafts, cast fitful light across the room. Silk garments lie in bright-hued heaps on the marblelike floor. A jumble of wardrobes and side tables lines the wall.

  Gad plants himself. "You want me to put up a wee bit of a fight now, don't you?"

  She scratches his pectoral muscle. "Your fight," she says, "has already been put up."

  In the room they've just left, the outer door rattles in its hinges. A fist bangs insistently on it.

  A flush, barely detectable in the green-tinged candlelight, steals into her cheeks.

  She mutters what Gad takes to be a profanity. "Make a sound and I'll slice you to ribbons," she tells him. She points to a battered oaken wardrobe. It sits cornerwise, near the archway. "There. Now." She shoves him toward it.

  He steps quickly into the wardrobe.

  She closes its doors over him. "Your silence will be absolute," she says.

  Inside the wardrobe, darkness reigns.

  He hears her slippers shushing across the floor. Then the whispering of the curtains as she parts and steps through them.