“Return me my diamond,” I said. “And return yourself to me as well.”
Ranik turned and began to hobble away from me as fast as he could. Did he actually think he could still get away or was this merely because he was desperate?
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll take the diamond from you and I shall take you from yourself.”
Ranik had already promised to me that he would allow me to use his body. A promise made to a succubus was like a blood promise. The promise stayed even if the person who made it tried to break it. I went after Ranik. I slapped his back hard. He tumbled and fell face first to the ground.
“Kill me and the diamond would be gone,” Ranik grunted. He was squirming like a worm on the ground, yet he was trying to assert himself as the one who was in control of the situation. I couldn’t help but let out a laugh.
“I thought you were wise,” I said, “but no, you are an idiot.”
I grabbed his hair. So much of it was greying.
“You belong to me,” I said. I let my black energy flow into him. I had given him the power to see stats and it was easy to find the diamond that he had absorbed within him. In a moment, the diamond had materialised in my other hand. I let the power of seeing stats stay with him. It was part of the deal and if I took it away, Ranik would cease to be mine.
I looked at the diamond. It had degraded just a tad because of being absorbed by Ranik. After a hard pull at his hair, which resulted in him grunting with pain, I let go of him. I hoped the degradation of the diamond would not succeed in ruining my ritual.
I stood up.
Ranik began to sob.
I held the diamond in my hand and I closed my eyes. I was going to turn the body of Ranik vacant. His soul could go wherever it wanted to taking the power of seeing stats with itself. I concentrated hard. The diamond began to glow. Ranik cried out in pain. It was a painful process, but he would stop caring once he was out of his body.
“Please don’t do this!” Ranik pleaded.
“I will, because I can,” I answered with my eyes still closed. “You should have thought better before.”
And then the job was done even as Ranik’s cries ceased. I had pulled out his soul from his body. A strong wind blew taking the soul with itself. I opened my eyes. Ranik’s listless eyes were still open. I bent down and closed them. Then I grabbed his body by the clothes and slung it over my shoulder. He had become considerably heavy now, but he would not rot, for Ranik hadn’t really died.
***
Chapter 29: Lanak Tanor
The black clouds in the distance were not welcoming at all. Quite a few times I had also seen the flash of lightning. The dragon had hoped for a good weather, but the sea down below was dancing and a strong wind blew against us. But there was not a speck of land in sight till the eye could see.
“I don’t think it will be very wise to keep going,” Lana said.
“But we have to,” the dragon replied, his voice grim. “There wouldn’t not be any point in landing on the sea surface, even though I could do with some resting of my wings. Look at how high the waves are. We must go into the storm head-on, there is no other way round it.”
“How far is the maelstrom?” I asked.
“About fifty kilometres from here from what I know,” the dragon replied. “But it could be farther than that.”
As we approached the dark clouds, the dragon considerably lowered his height in order to avoid the lightning bolts, which cracked every now and then sending a shudder down our spines every time. Soon, we were hit by very fine drops of rain. The rain drops kept getting bigger and bigger until we were in the midst of a full blown storm. Lana, Danor and I grabbed hard onto the dragon’s back. We held onto his scales since his back was too broad for us.
The rain pelted against the skin of the dragon. I for one could barely keep my eyes open, even as my face was splashed by the rain water. I had one hand grabbing the dragon, while the other arm I had around Lana’s waist. Danor similarly had his arm around me.
“This is fun, isn’t it, sir?” I heard Danor say from behind.
“Fun?” I asked, wondering if I had mistaken him. My body hair was standing and a shiver caught hold of me. Danor could possibly not think we were in a fun situation by any means.
“Look at the colours all around you,” Danor said.
I turned around, wondering if the rain hitting his head had made him go crazy. Danor had his eyes wide open staring at the clouds and the sea and the lightning. He was ignoring the wind and the rain absolutely.
I tried to look at our surroundings better, putting a hand on my forehead to protect my eyes. Why, the colours really were mesmerizing! Purple, blue and pink the clouds were. Down below the sea was quite black, reflecting the light from the thunder bolts in a very dazzling fashion. I guess, despite everything, it was fun after all.
Barely had that thought crossed my head, when just metres away from the dragon’s body lightning cracked. The dragon made a sudden manoeuvre to protect himself such that our grasp on him slipped. I was able to regain my grasp and so could Lana, but I didn’t feel Danor’s arm around my waist anymore and I looked behind.
He was not there.
“Danor has fallen!” I yelled.
“What?” the dragon cried, apparently not having heard me clearly over all the noises involved in the storm.
“Danor’s fallen,” I cried again.
“I’ll get him,” Lana said. The next moment, she had already jumped down. I looked at the sea below to see any signs of Danor, but in the blackness of the sea I could see nothing. But then as Lana moved determinedly towards a particular spot in the sea, I peered harder and spotted what looked like a person’s head on the sea surface.
As Lana grabbed Danor, a large head that could rival the size of the dragon’s head emerged on the sea surface mere metres away from Lana and Danor. It seemed to be a gargantuan shark. Its mouth was wide open, its razor sharp teeth glinting.
It lunged towards Lana and Danor, but Lana was able to pull Danor away from the monster at the nick of time. The dragon flew lower and Lana was able to land on his back together with Danor. Danor sat behind me, his face very pale.
“Well, do you think it is fun now?” I asked him.
Danor flashed his teeth in an exhausted manner. He nodded.
“Heck, it was fun,” he said.
“It wasn’t,” Lana said, shooting him a glare, “you were nearly eaten by that thing!”
“Shit!” said the dragon.
The dragon abruptly flapped his wings hard to gain height. I looked at the sea surface. Apparently the monster shark had tried to use advantage of the dragon being low in height to sink its teeth into his belly. I watched as the shark disappeared under the blackness of the sea and breathed a sigh of relief.
Just then an arrow of some sort came flying from nowhere and hit the dragon just inches away from one of my foot. The dragon cried out in pain.
“What is that thing?” Danor cried.
It took me a moment to make sense of the arrow-like thing that had hit the dragon.
It was a fish. An extremely slender fish, the stomach of which was becoming fat quickly. Its elongated mouth had sunk deep into the dragon, even the dragon’s tough hide protecting him little.
“That thing is sucking his blood!” Lana said. She immediately grabbed the fish by its tail and pulled it out, blood oozing out of the dragon in the process. The snout of the fish was completely red. It began to move frantically in Lana’s hand, attempting to bite her. She let go. As the fish fell back towards the sea, something wonderful happened to its fins. They spread out almost becoming wings. The fish flapped the wing-like fins hard such that it descended slowly down to the sea.
The three of us exchanged looks. I was sure, even my old friend Zurk, excellent as he was at fishing had never seen a fish like that in his life.
Just then, yet another arrow-like fish flew mere inches away from my head. It harmlessly flew over the dragon’s back and
then went down towards the sea again.
“More are coming!” Danor said. I saw a bunch of black dots shooting fast towards us from below.
I had to do something to save the dragon. I pointed my palms towards the oncoming blood sucking fish and yelled, “Blast!” The strong blast of air hit the blood suckers and they fell back to the sea.
“Thank you!” the dragon said to me as he increased his speed, because who knew the blood suckers might shoot for him again.
“I see something there,” Lana said, pointing a finger straight ahead. I peered hard. There was what looked like a white dot and the waves of the sea seemed to move around it.
“I have a feeling it is the maelstrom we seek,” the dragon said. As the white dot came closer, I realised it indeed was the maelstrom, but there was a very glass like quality to the water inside it. As we went even closer it, it further dawned upon me that there was no real water inside the maelstrom. Instead, there were strange concentric rings, which showed glimpses of different places. I struggled to make sense of it. At the very centre of the maelstrom, there seemed to be hot magma.
The wind was blowing very hard around the maelstrom and the dragon was really fighting to keep his balance and not fall into the maelstrom.
“Now, we’ll need to be very careful,” the dragon said. We want to go directly to the centre of the maelstrom so that we reach the centre of the earth.
“Wouldn’t we die if we do so?” Danor asked. “It’s all magma down there.”
“No, nobody will die,” the dragon said. “Because you will enter with me, you will become immune to the heat and the magma and they would not be able to destroy you. But hold on tight, because if you fall off and enter one of the other portals you’ll end up in a different place altogether.”
So the concentric rings were actually portals that could take us to different places in the Second World?
“Here we go!” the dragon cried and he leapt into the maelstrom. The winds inside the maelstrom were fierce. I had to give all my strength to stick onto the dragon’s back. The dragon meanwhile flapped his wings very hard, inching closer to the centre of the maelstrom and trying his best to resist the other portals from pulling him into them instead.
We reached near the centre. The dragon was tiring, and just then, one of his wings accidentally struck a different portal, one that was showing clear skies. Immediately we were pulled into it.
“No!” the dragon cried.
The next moment we found ourselves in the sky. My head whirled as I struggled to believe that we had been so close to reaching the third vessel and yet had failed.
“Look below,” Danor said from behind. We were flying a good distance atop a volcano. Surrounding the volcano on the ground were hundreds of people who had arranged themselves in the pattern of a star, surrounded by concentric circles, with the volcano being at the centre of the star.
From the people on the ground, a strange green aura streamed up and formed into a ball just over the mouth of the volcano. There seemed to be a woman inside the ball of green aura. It took me a moment to realise that all the people had horns. The ladies even had wings.
“We are in Mount Succubus,” the dragon said, dejected. “All is lost; look they are performing the ritual.”
“They are coming for us!” Lana suddenly said, pointing at fifty succubi who were flying towards us. I had been too busy observing the succubi on the ground and had missed the succubi who were in the air at a higher level than us.
The succubi began to attack the dragon. Some of them were carrying spears and they thrust the spears into his back. Although most of the times they were not able to pierce his thick skin, some of the succubi were able to draw blood. Lana, Danor and I did our best to maintain our balance, even as the dragon flew this way and that, lashing his tail in an attempt to thwart the succubi.
“What do we do?” Lana asked me. Like the dragon she too sounded devoid of hope. We had failed to reach the final vessel, and because of it the succubi queen might be able to complete the ritual. But I wasn’t able to answer Lana, for the next moment three succubi came along from nowhere and grabbed me and pulled me away. As I was taken away, I watched as the other succubi did the same with Lana and Danor, taking them away from the dragon’s back. Two of the succubi held my arms while the third one held one of my legs.
“Kill him or bite him?” one succubus asked the other two.
I spat at her face. She flinched, not expecting me to do so, and for a momen, she let go of my arm. The other two held on to me, but I pointed my hand at them and shouted,
“Hit!”
The air blast hit them, throwing them away and freeing me from them. Alas, I had absolutely forgotten in my desperation to free myself from the succubi that I was thousands of feet above the ground. I fell straight towards the mouth of the volcano. I cried out. Was this going to be the end of me? The way I was falling I was sure, I would pass pretty close to the queen hovering in the ball of green aura above the mouth of the volcano. At least I would be able to say ‘Hi’ to her.
I fell towards the ball of green, the wind roaring at my ears. But when I hit the ball of green, I stopped falling very abruptly. There was something about the magical ball of green which prevented me from falling into the mouth of the smoking volcano. I saw tha floating at a lower level to me and the succubi queen in the ball of green was Ranik. Below him was a bright diamond.
I was face to face with the succubi queen now. I had set out on a quest to bring her downfall.
Yet, I was shocked to see that there were tears on her face.
She snarled at me.
“Who are you?” she asked. Then she narrowed her eyes ever so slightly as though she knew. “You are the one who destroyed two of the vessels, aren’t you?”
I did not answer. I had a feeling that if I said ‘yes’ to her question, it would be the last word I ever speak. One thing I was acutely aware of at that moment was that the queen was not using her charming powers on me. Her beauty was striking, yet it didn’t make me lose myself in a trance.
“You have destroyed me,” the queen continued, since I was not answering, “I should have put guards to protect the vessel, but I thought that the vessels could protect themselves. The mummy knew a hundred tricks to deceive and the fire succubus could incarcerate anyone at her wish, yet you succeeded. When I try now to transfer my soul into the third vessel, I fail. The diamond degraded and the vacant body of the human is of no use to me now.”
The queen looked into my eyes.
“In a few hours my heart would stop beating and I do not know what happens from there on. Why did you have to try and stop me? I do not recall any instance when I caused any harm to you.”
I had an answer to this. I pointed at the thousands of succubi and demons lined up in the star pattern below.
“They used to have lives of their own,” I said, “You turned them into mindless demons. You think it’s fair that they should slave away what remains of their lives for you? Many of them are very old souls even though they might look young and beautiful. Their families and friends have all aged and died. They do not have anywhere to return to. You took away their lives from them.”
I said this looking hard at the queen. She bathed her eyelids. Fresh tears welled in her eyes.
“But what about me?” she asked. “Suffering is all I have known, in this world and the real one. In the real world I faced constant abuse, in this world all I know is fear. I thought my sister would stick by my side, but even she left me.”
I felt a tinge of pity for the queen. The magma in the volcano was bubbling and I knew an eruption was underway.
“I can set you free,” I said, “free of whatever ails you.”
The queen frowned, but I could see a small ray of hope in her swollen eyes.
“How?”
“I am a succubi tamer,” I said, “I can tame you.”
“Tame me?” the queen said, her frown taking the form of a glare, the ray of hope in
her eyes turning into a dagger, “And take all my powers from me? Make me a mortal?”
“It’s your choice,” I said, maintaining a steady stare at her.
She took a step forward. Was she going to do something to me? Bite me perhaps? A chill ran down my spine, but I held my ground. There was nothing else I could do. If I took a couple of steps backward I would fall out of the magical sphere to a certain death in the magma boiling inside the volcano.
The queen was visibly gritting her teeth as though she was in an internal turmoil.
“Come near me,” she said. With some hesitation I went closer to her such that only a couple of feet separated the two of us.
“F-free me from what ails me,” the queen said. With shivering hands that barely seemed to be in control of her she grabbed my arms, “tame me if you must.”
I nodded. I was about to grasp her horns when she shook her head. A flicker of a smile played at her lips.
“I am the succubi queen,” she said, “my horns are not my weakness.”
She suddenly leaned in close and pressed her lips against mine, pulling me into a deep kiss.
Initially, panic took hold of me, but seeing that the queen was not trying to bite me, I reckoned this had something to do with the taming and I kissed her back.
The queen dissolved, so did everything else. A new world materialised. I found myself standing in front of a big castle, which was surrounded by what looked like a pool of fire on all sides. A single metallic bridge safely led from where I was to the castle, such that the fire couldn’t harm whoever was crossing the bridge.
A window flung open at a room near the top of the castle. I saw a woman inside, an old one, who strikingly resembled the succubi queen if you removed all the wrinkles. She tried to wave at me, but someone pulled her inside violently and the window closed on its own.
I gulped.
None of the other succubi I had ever tamed had a castle inside their minds. Who knew what lay inside the castle? The black magic would try its best to stay in the queen’s mind. I would have to destroy it, wherever it was hiding.
Chains of a Succubus Page 25
