by George Hatt
“You don’t believe any of this shit, do you?” the snake-headed staff said to Mithrandrates. “You are more of a simpleton than I thought!”
“They were kind enough to give you a choice,” the hippogriff said and took to the air. “It is the most precious treasure of all.”
The tiny man looked up at Mithrandrates and shook his head solemnly, then sighed as if he knew Mithrandrates’ most intimate, shameful secret and was disappointed. “No horse, no wife, no mustache,” he said.
“My Emperor!” Lady Madeline said, shaking him awake. “The sun is up, and you are still asleep!”
Mithrandrates stretched and reached under his pillow. He felt something cold and round in the palm of his hand. No need to frighten the girl, he thought. But I am definitely being fucked with. He yawned and left the coin where it was.
“I must have needed the rest,” the Emperor said and put his arm around Lady Madeline. “The pell will just have to strike itself today. Unless, of course, I can find a human deserving of my sword before I break my fast.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mithrandrates
Primus Bergammon welcomed the Emperor into his lavish apartments in the Five-Sided Temple with unaffected warmth and hospitality.
“Come, Mithrandrates, sit! Sit!” the Primus said, scuttling toward a gold-trimmed table with its decanter of wine and two ornate cups. “Let me pour you some refreshment. This is the best the Temple has to offer.”
Mithrandrates raised an eyebrow. “Am I a dog? Or a peasant? I see you find no need to address me by my title. And yes, perhaps a draught of wine will cool my anger. It will not, however, blunt my vengeance.”
The Primus served Mithrandrates a glass of the wine and poured some for himself. He sat on a plush couch across from the Emperor and took a sip. “In here, you are a candidate for admission into the College of the Illuminated, not an emperor. And I am your sponsor, not the Primus of the Temple of Mahurin. I assume you have many questions, and I shall answer them as truthfully and fully as is prudent at this stage of your initiation.”
Mithrandrates took a sip of his wine and leaned back in his couch. “Indeed. My first question is, what makes you think I seek admission into your secret society? Which, by the way, I did not realize existed until just now.”
“That is an easy question,” the older man said. “First, I and the greater parts of both of our guard details are still alive. Second, the coin you received is missing from your apartments. I suspect it is on your person and you that intend to place it in my hand with the Illuminated Eye facing up, indicating your intention to continue with your initiation.”
Mithrandrates clenched his jaw and tried to conceal the stinging humiliation he felt at having been kidnapped from his own chambers and drugged. “If the charges I can levy against you were read before the crowds, you and half the Temple Guards could be flayed alive in front of your own churches without so much as a show trial.”
The Emperor reached under his mantle and withdrew the coin. He placed it into Bergammon’s waiting hand with the eye facing up. “I am deeply curious to learn why you would take such a risk to recruit me into your society.”
The Primus took the coin and placed it into a hidden pouch in his flowing white robes. “You are also curious to discover who has infiltrated your backfield. If that is the only reason you are interested in joining us, so be it. In point of fact, it matters not a whit what brings a candidate to us. His initial conceptions and expectations will be absolutely wrong, anyway. What matters is the knowledge the candidate gains, and the powers he discovers within himself, when he diligently follows the course of instruction we give him.”
“But to your first question,” the Primus continued. “The Grand Council of the Illuminated took unprecedented risks to begin your initiation without your consent because the Empire is entering a time of grave turmoil. Indeed, all of Fentress will suffer a new era fraught with catastrophes as the Chaos Moon approaches. Whoever still thrives beyond the Sunless Sea will need to take their own precautions as they see fit. It is beyond our power and purview to interfere in their affairs—yet. But as for us, we must unify the Empire, the Temple and the College of the Illuminated under a single banner if we are to weather the coming upheaval.”
Mithrandrates scoffed. “In other words, it’s easier to recruit me than to eliminate me.”
“No, actually,” the Primus said. “Both options require years of planning, but in the end it’s easier to kill an emperor than to convert him. However, our order sees the potential for great power within you, and not just the temporal power you already wield. Within you, we believe, is a great store of vir, the very essence of existence. The essence of magic, Emperor Mithrandrates. It would be a terrible waste to kill you off like some common autocrat when you have the potential to be so much more.”
“But magic is gone from this world,” Mithrandrates said, doubt creeping into his mind but not his voice. “What feeble power the Empire and the Temple of Mahurin retained after the Cataclysm was turned against the sorcerers and their towers…” He trailed off and stroked his beard.
“Shall I finish your thought for you?”
Mithrandrates sighed. “No. Just because the sorcerers’ power was broken here doesn’t mean it was destroyed across the Sunless Sea. And a secret society that can snatch an emperor out of his own bed can harbor secrets beyond the dreams of the common folk.”
“We can’t suppress the power of magic when the Chaos Moon approaches Fentress—the vir becomes too strong and untamed,” Bergammon said. “So we must ensure that, at the very least, vir is controlled by those who have been properly trained in its use—illuminated, if you will—for it is certain that the power of vir will manifest in those who have no business fooling with it. And that’s not half of the tribulations we will face in the coming years. One only needs to reread the more lurid and bloody chapters of the ‘Annals of the Empire’ to realize what havoc the Chaos Moon wreaks upon our world.”
“This business about the return of the Chaos Moon was not merely a hallucination, then?” Mithrandrates asked. “What else did I see in my torpor that was indeed real?”
“At this point in your studies, do not worry about interpreting your dreams,” Bergammon said. The primus rose and took a leather-bound journal from one of the tables in the sumptuous room. “Focus instead on recording them as faithfully as you can.”
The Primus handed Mithrandrates the journal. “Write down every dream as soon as you wake up. As you advance in your studies, you will begin writing down coincidences you notice and strange thoughts that come to you unbidden. Show this to no one other than your tutor in the magical arts—not even me. Most of what you write will be gibberish, but a tiny kernel will contain true insight that will help you advance in your knowledge and power.”
“Who is to be my tutor in this arcane knowledge?”
“A trusted confidant of yours,” Bergammon said. “The Order will provide you with study material, and your tutor will test your knowledge and help guide you through the techniques that candidates are required to master before they advance to higher and higher grades in the Order.”
Mithrandrates rose to take his leave. “I am mildly flattered that you see so much potential in me. It is a shame—a not insignificant part of me wants your head on a pike.”
The Primus rose as well. “Good. Further proof that our faith in you is not misplaced. You would be a fool not to suspect us of some degree of chicanery. And a good many men in your position have indeed been fools.”
When the Emperor returned to his quarters, he found a small, thin book on the table in his study. He smiled and shook his head when he read the first page: “All affirmations are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.”
He tossed the book down onto the table. “This is asinine,” he mu
ttered to himself.
“It is the key to enlightenment,” Lady Madeline said, walking into the study. “You will spend your entire journey rising in the ranks of our Order unlocking more and more of that axiom’s truth, and thereby becoming a more powerful mage. Your lessons begin today, my Emperor.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Barryn
Barryn knocked hesitantly at the door to Lady Sanguina’s chambers, wondering what infraction he had committed to earn a summons to the savage woman’s den. She was not called the Mistress of Pain for nothing, and Barryn had quickly identified the thread of sadism running through the tapestry of her being.
She enjoyed punishing her paying clients. How much more does she brutalize anyone else who fall into her grasp?
“Knock louder!” came the harsh, commanding voice from within. “Like a man, not a timid girl.”
Anger and embarrassment rose up his spine and caught in his chest, and Barryn hammered the door with the meaty part of his fist.
“You may enter,” the voice replied alluringly, almost sweetly.
Barryn followed the command—for command it was, cloaked in the silky veil of invitation.
Not since he entered the service of the House of Portia had he seen so many cushions, tapestries, and rugs. Incense and some other smoky, herbal aroma hung thickly in the air. Candles and lamps throughout the den cast a ruddy light on the golds, reds and deep blues that predominated.
Lady Sanguina lounged on a couch in the middle of the room, surrounded by the tiny hearts of flame from the candles yielding their energy to her. A simple, light blue robe cinched at the waist with a gold cloth belt contrasted with her red skin and black hair. The cloth fought valiantly to keep her breasts contained, yet looked to be on the losing side of the match.
She smiled and took a puff from a tall hookah standing next to her. “You were expecting a dungeon, perhaps? A hellish chamber for an infernal creature like me?”
“No, Lady Sanguina, that isn’t what I thought—”
“Of course it is,” she said. “Otherwise, I need to work harder on my persona. That is what the clients expect from me. That is what the girls expect from me.”
Arousal and vague fear swirled in Barryn. Her breasts—Those red, devilish tits! What would I even do with them? he thought—rose and fell with the Lady’s breaths. But she had masterfully cultivated an air of dread that chilled his excitement. In the midst of the brewing tussle in his mind, curiosity gave both arousal and dread a miss, and Barryn asked the obvious question.
“Then why am I here?”
Lady Sanguina smiled and walked toward him. She stopped just short of Barryn and lightly brushed her breasts on his chest as she leaned in to whisper in his ear.
“Because I am claiming you as mine, and you must see me as I really am,” she said, then leaned back to look in his eyes. “For I will teach you to do to me what I do to my clients, but that requires we have absolute knowledge of each other. And absolute trust.”
Barryn’s heart was pounding. “But I’ve never…”
The Lady smiled sweetly and condescendingly. “I know. I know. And the conversations Lady Tethys and I had regarding your potential…usefulness…as a training aid for the new girls would make you blush harder than you already are. You were especially valuable just after your arm was sliced open. Do you know how hard it is to get a man to perform in bed when he’s injured? How about an injured virgin?”
She laughed mercilessly. “But I could have taught a nun to seduce you. And then she could go on to give a statue an erection, then fuck it into pea gravel.”
She stepped away from the heathen boy. “But I am a selfish bitch. I want you all to myself. It is the curse of the M’Tarr, you see. My people take what they want. When they want it. Regardless of the cost. I am a child of the Shoraz-Athar and the very embodiment of M’Tarr ethics, such as they are.”
Barryn felt he was regaining his voice, and he remembered his druidic breathing exercises. Now that the moisture was returning to his mouth, he realized that it had been dry as a ball of flax.
“But why me?”
“I grow tried of your questions, young Barryn,” Lady Sanguina said. “You ask questions, and thereby soak up knowledge like a sponge without giving any in return. I would hear you speak. Tell me a saga of your clan. Then I might answer your question.”
The red woman returned to her plush couch. “Begin.”
Arousal began to overwhelm his fear, and Barryn reached within to retrieve his most challenging skaldic poem, King Aradric’s Raid Across the Shoraz-Athar. Barryn had felt the very soul of the Caeldrynn coursing through him when he finally mastered the song’s meter and complex alliteration.
But it was the lay’s subject matter that Barryn hoped would impress, and sting, Lady Sanguina. King Aradric’s Raid was the story of how one of the greatest High Kings, Aradric of Clan Riverstar, fought the M’Tarr raiders of a bygone age and chased them back into their windy mountain crags. Before he could think better of it, he gave voice to the words in his hoard:
Lo! In the days before wicked castle dweller | did despoil and pillage the Rivered Lands
When glittering gold fell and flowed from royal cup | and was the joy of Thirty Thanes
The bearers of sword and shield
Red demons of ice and fire’s fury in man’s form | did from the mountain coldness fly…
It was too late—the song was begun, and Barryn could not stop lest he anger the divinities and ancestors from whom his poetic skill flowed. Lady Sanguina’s eyes flared, and she became erect and rigid in her seat. Barryn couldn’t think, couldn’t react. He had opened his word hoard, and the stanzas continued to fly out unbidden and uncontrolled.
Then the lady closed her eyes and leaned her head back slightly. She was swaying with the rhythm of the poem, and then her eyes opened and her back straightened. Shoulders thrown back, eyes unfocused, the demon-woman began to sing a wordless accompaniment to the poem that rose and fell, flashed hot and fast then slowed and chilled Barryn to his core.
For half an hour they continued thus, and the boy felt 10 years older and hundreds of years wiser. The sagas always made him see the legendary deeds and fabled lands of the Caeldrynn’s ancient past, whether he was a rapt listener or the one reciting them. But Lady Sanguina’s etherial voice carried the smell of the cold wind rolling off the mountains of the Shoraz-Athar, and he could feel the spattering blood and frosty grass of the battlefield.
Steel bit into flesh as the M’Tarr scimitars and Caeldrynn axes flashed and flailed beneath the far-off leaden winter sky. Heroes and cowards on both sides fell in battle, and the M’Tarr broke off and flew to the foothills beneath the Shoraz-Athar. The woman’s singing and Barryn’s poetry brought the tale to vivid life nearly a thousand years after the fallen dead littered that icy battlefield, the frontier of the Clan’s greatest holdings in Mergova. The Age of the High Kings returned for a time in the fancy whorehouse in the land of the Castle Dwellers—land that was once the roving-grounds of Clan Riverstar—as their voices danced together with the incense smoke wafting in the candlelight.
The wordless song lingered minutes after Barryn finished the poem, and Lady Sanguina took his hand.
“I was not always a whore, though I thoroughly enjoy the trade,” she said when her song was through. “Among my people, I am known as one of the finest Blood Singers alive. The history of the M’Tarr is woven in the songs I know, just as the lore of the Caeldrynn lives on in the poetry you have.”
She pressed her bosom to the young heathen’s chest and let her hair fall over his shoulder. His whole body yearned for her, even as his mind reeled.
“Now to your question,” Lady Sanguina whispered in his ear. “You and I are bards, young Barryn, and our circumstances cannot take that away from us. You are a fellow weaver of tales—that is why I desire you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Barryn
It was the winter solstice—celebrated by the Cael
drynn as the high holy day Albana Arduaan, the Gate of Winter—and Barryn was observing it in his cage on the floor of Lady Sanguina’s dungeon.
The “training sessions” he had endured over the past several weeks had taken him through a trackless morass of humiliation and embarrassment to locations in his psyche he had never willingly explored alone. His journey, prodded by Lady Sanguina’s lash, had taken him from the pits of despair to the brink of ecstasy.
She had taught Barryn a safe word, salaamashaz, that he was to use if she pushed him too far. It was the M’Tarr appeal for truce, and she was bound to abide by it once uttered.
“But, my little pet, I am bound by it only once per year, as is the custom of the M’Tarr,” she had told him after he had mastered the word’s pronunciation. “So if you need to use it, little one, make it count.”
He had not used it, at first from fear that he would have greater need for it later on as the abuse intensified. But as the floggings, the bondage, the humiliation, and the allure increased over the weeks, so did his desire to turn them on his tormentor. Barryn wanted to discover how far he could go with Lady Sanguina into these strange realms.
Soon, bitch, it will be my turn to hold the lash. And when I am done, I will fuck you until you moan.
Barryn rubbed his eyes and shook his head. Blessed gods, where did that come from? I am learning much from My Lady. Too much. Monster like her…Gods and heroes, when will she teach me to fuck? Now I’m talking like the Castle Dwellers. Breathe. Feel the Light. Coldness of the stone. Purification. The elements are here, and I draw my power from Them. The Gods are aloft and await me at the end of my journey. I am Barryn of Clan Riverstar. They can’t take that from me. My Lady can’t take that from me. She’s never shown me this much of her body. I want her to take everything from me. Please let me touch your tits. Power of the stone, I feel its strength. The Sun is above me, the Moons await in the night. Power and wisdom from the Ancestors and Heroes of old…
