by Peter David
But that’s precisely what I was doing. A broad grin upon the face of Apropos the Peacelord, greeting the revelers and well-wishers and celebrants. They clustered around Entipy (the horse, not the princess) and all they wanted to do was just get close enough to touch her, or me, or both of us.
I remembered being a squire back in the keeping of King Runcible, and I would witness the homecoming of knights who had been out and about fighting some damned war or another. This would be the sort of welcome they would receive, and jealousy had always stirred in my guts over it. I myself had never been the recipient of such mass accolades. The closest I’d come was when I’d received my knighthood, and that was done in the court of King Runcible rather than outside where the peasantry could participate. And besides, that one brief moment of acceptance had quickly been transformed into a nightmare, so that hardly seemed to count.
In this case, though, the nightmare had been everything leading up to this point. The slaughter, the songs of my beastly deeds, that surreal twilight-waking discussion with Mordant. But if that was nightmare, this was the joyful wakening to acclaim and adulation. I had to admit, there was something to be said for it.
The hand of worship has most seductive fingers, and they were beginning, ever so slightly, to wrap themselves about me.
The joyous caravan approached the wall of rock that surrounded the stronghold, and I wondered how in the world we were supposed to pass. I had been supposing that, upon closer inspection, there would be some sort of narrow canyon or fissure through which we would traverse. But there was nothing at all, not a damned thing. I almost leaned over and inquired of Slake how we were supposed to make our entrance, but fortunately caught myself at the last moment.
And then I heard what sounded like a massive scraping, and grinding, and for a moment I thought that the ground beneath my feet was beginning to quake. That was when I saw it, and I could scarce believe it. An entire section of the wall was sliding upward. As we drew closer still, I saw that the whole thing was being accomplished through a system of gears and pulleys so complicated that I could scarcely comprehend it. Yet so efficient was it that, despite the massive heft of the stone, it was being raised with ease by about half a dozen men whom I could see pulling taut chains on the far side. They made fast the chains then, and the processional passed under the rocky gateway.
I had some momentary trepidation about doing so. If the links broke or in some other way the moorings were released, that thing would come slamming down and there wouldn’t be enough left of me to pour over into a small urn. But no one else seemed the least bit concerned, and I figured that it would hardly do for their nominal leader to be faint of heart about something as simple as entering through the front door. So I scraped together what I laughingly referred to as my resolve and tried to look as relaxed and nonchalant as possible as we passed under what had to be several thousand pounds of certain death.
Once the last of us were through, the main gate was lowered slowly back into place, sealing the rest of the world out … and, unfortunately, sealing me in. “Unfortunate” because I was a great advocate of leaving myself a route out of town that could be taken as quickly as possible should matters head precipitously south. That was not an option here in Dreadnaught, although I found myself wondering just how in the world I had managed to conquer the previous occupants. What, had I somehow mastered the power of flight and soared over the walls as easily as the drabit? I might have ridden Mordant had he been some sort of full-sized flying beast, but the drabit wasn’t large enough to carry a baby much less a full-grown adult. So what in the world had I done?
The stronghold itself was nothing spectacular. Oh, the strategic positioning of it was unparalleled, and the construction was solid enough, I suppose. But the design of the place was not only uninspired, but positively dreary. There was no elegance, no grace, no majesty to it as there had been in the domicile of King Runcible. There were no intricate carvings in the walls, not much in the way of statuary to speak of. And what there was, was hideous. Grotesque dragons, and twisted gargoyles, and in one corner was, if I wasn’t mistaken, a Gorgon. The place reeked of dark doings and foulness and unpleasantries behind the walls. It didn’t strike me as quite as depraved as the domicile of the dreaded Warlord Shank—he with his furniture made from bones of his victims. But it certainly approached that level of perversity in its own way.
The procession drew to a halt outside the main archway that led into the castle, and at first I couldn’t quite determine why. But then I saw a woman emerging through the archway, the entirety of her attention fixed on me.
It may sound overstated to say that she nearly took my breath away, but I assure you, that was no exaggeration. She was quite simply the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
She was dressed in silks of the purest white, with cleavage cut low enough to be seductive but not so low as to be slattern. The gown clung to her, giving a healthy idea of the bounties of her body, with its generous hips and full breasts, and legs that seemed to end somewhere around her collarbone. Her hair was a waterfall of blonde cascading around her shapely shoulders, and her skin was quite pale, but with vibrant spots of red on her cheeks as if she were literally a blushing bride. Her eyes were blue and wide and luminous and full of … well, full of me, for clearly to her the rest of the world had dissolved away into irrelevance, and only I mattered.
In short, she was my kind of female.
I climbed down from Entipy (and how I delight in saying that, even now, I cannot begin to tell you) and, with my walking staff firmly in hand, made my way over to her with as much confidence and polish as my lame leg would allow. She took my hand in hers, held it to her cheek, and said loudly, addressing the crowd as much as she was me, “Welcome home, my conquering beloved.”
Well, this set off a hullabaloo as you can only imagine, with cheers and shouts and “Huzzahs!” ringing off the walls of the stronghold and filling the air with joy and celebration.
She put her arm around mine and led me toward the main hall of the stronghold itself. From within the aroma of a bounteous feast being prepared wafted out to me, and my nostrils flared with delight. There was beef, and poultry, and fresh-baked bread, and other scents that I could not even begin to identify. It had been an eternity since a banquet such as that had been presented me, and after all that I had been through, I felt as if I deserved it.
It was at that instant, for no reason I can relate, that I realized I hadn’t given Sharee, or her fate, a moment’s thought in days. But as quickly as that occurred to me, it passed. And for just an instant I wanted to glance behind me and see how the female prisoners, bound together and frightened over what was to become of them, were reacting to the welcoming festivities. But I did not. It wasn’t because I was afraid to. It was because, at that moment, I didn’t care one way or the other.
And thus did those same seductive fingers of the hand of worship increase their hold on me ever so slightly more.
Chapter 3
Bathing the Family Jewels
The interior of the stronghold was no more impressive than the exterior. It was immensely drafty, and many of the rooms seemed functional at best. But there were also copious decorations and riches spread about casually … so casually, in fact, that the place seemed to be furnished in Early Chaotic. Statues, busts, tapestries, trinkets, and the like were simply tossed about with neither rhyme nor reason. I could scarce comprehend it. If anyone had given any thought to the layout or adornment of the place, that thought had apparently been limited to “Let’s put things anywhere we want.” I nearly banged my leg against an elaborately festooned chair which was sitting out in the middle of a hallway, near no table or any other furniture.
The members of my escort party were peeling off in different directions, most of them in the company of attractive young women. The Lady Kate was pulling me firmly by the arm and guiding me in one particular direction, which was fortunate, for if I’d been left to my own devices I would likely have
wandered the place helplessly until doomsday. Her voice was low and throaty as she spoke, and tinged with excitement. Truly she was a vibrant and delicious creature. And intelligent; I could see that in her eyes. That made me nervous, of course. Much of the harm that had befallen me in my life had been at the hands of extremely intelligent women, and part of me had almost been hoping that the Lady Kate would be a mere step or two above dunce. Still, I had to admit that for the occasional tumble, I would take an empty-headed creature every time. But for someone who was ostensibly supposed to be of aid to me and serve by my side—or, preferably, just behind me—a woman with a few brains in her head could be a handy enough thing to have around. Just so long as she wasn’t so intelligent as to think about finding ways to cheat me or rob me or make my life a living hell, which is what had happened to me in previous encounters dating back to the very first woman I’d ever been with.
The sounds of laughter and celebration trailed off, and I asked hopefully, “Aren’t we going to be eating first? It smells delicious …”
“Eat?” she asked in that throaty voice of hers, as if I had suggested that we climb to the uppermost tower, flap our arms, and leap off in hopes of achieving flight. “Beloved, we must get you cleaned up first. You have the stink of battle and the road upon you. How can you possibly go before your court in such a manner?” Before I could agree, or disagree, or even get a word out, she continued, “I saw your caravan approaching and took the liberty of having a bath drawn for you. I trust I did correctly?”
I liked the sound of that. “You did correctly, Lady Kate.”
She stopped, took both my hands in hers, and smiled seductively. “Call me by the name.”
“What?” I suddenly felt nervous.
“The name. The name you always use when it’s just the two of us.”
My mouth had gone suddenly quite dry. Now I am not an especially romantic or, gods knew, cuddly individual. I was having trouble imagining that, short of becoming a stark raving lunatic, I had ever concocted any sort of elaborate term of endearment for her, or anyone. So, taking a stab at it, I thought of the blandest appellation I could come up with. “You did correctly, my love.”
A grin split her face, which seemed to light up from the smile, and she threw herself against me and kissed me heatedly. Understand, it was just a kiss, but the passion that burned within her lips was a thing alive. If I had been made of wood, I would have been ashes within seconds. Although, as chance would have it, thanks to the ardor of her lips against mine, there was one part of me that indeed seemed transformed into wood.
She didn’t appear to notice as she smiled seductively and turned away, continuing to pull my hand. I walked after her, albeit it with even more pronounced difficulty than I usually had.
Her enthusiasm, her pure joy in my presence, was palpable. She could not contain herself, practically bounding along in front of me. It was, in its way, charming, albeit slightly exhausting.
“I was so concerned while you were away, Apropos,” she chattered away. “Every day, not an hour went by that you were not foremost in my thoughts. Your absence seemed interminable. But I never doubted you would return, not for a moment. No one can best you or conquer you, beloved. You are invincible.”
“Yes, well … Lamalos thought the same thing about himself,” I ventured. “So I should have a care lest I make that same mistake.”
But she shook her head dismissively as she pulled me down another corridor, and then up a short flight of stairs. I was starting to wonder if she was just taking me in circles in order to either impress or confuse me. “You would never make such a mistake, Apropos. You are far more audacious than Lamalos ever was. That’s how you were able to conquer him; because he never suspected the audacity of our plan.”
“Yes, yes, the sheer audacity of it,” I echoed.
She brought me through a door, and immediately I could feel warmth radiating from within. There was an exceedingly large tub awaiting me, and the steam was rising up from it. Enormous towels were draped over a table nearby. There was no one else in the room. The sun was filtering through the single window that was set into the ceiling overhead.
“Your bath awaits you, my Peacelord,” she said, with a bow. She was moving toward another door on the far side of the room, never taking her eyes off me. “Your servants shall be along shortly to aid you in your bathing, to scrub your back and such.”
“That would be fine,” I told her, and she shut the large wooden door behind her.
There is nothing like a waiting tub to make every muscle in your body ache in anticipation of it. It seemed to me that I had been riding nearly forever. There was not an inch of me that was not covered with dirt or saddlesores, and although I still had no idea how I had come to this situation, I knew one thing beyond question: I was going to soak in that tub possibly forever.
There was one thing I could not wait to attend to, however. The woad had completely caked over after all the time wearing it, and much of it had already cracked away and fallen off. But some of it remained, and I could only imagine how ghastly it looked. I took one of the towels, wet it thoroughly, and cleansed my face. It took a few minutes, but soon all the blue clay was gone. Looking in a mirror that was lying on the table, I saw the roots of my beard were blue. Probably the simplest thing to do would be to have the facial hair shaved.
I stripped off the rest of my filthy clothing and left it on a pile in the floor, and then stepped into the hot bath. And “hot” it most definitely was. It was with great delicacy that I eased myself in, allowing myself to become used to the high temperature of the water. The water came halfway up my rib cage, and feeling lazy but secure, I reached up and scratched my chest.
That’s when I felt it. Felt it before I saw it.
At first I thought it was some sort of hardened lump beneath my skin, and for a panicked moment I thought I had a tumor which could have indicated the onset of the Plague, or perhaps the Rot, or some other disease that I wasn’t even familiar with. Wonderful! Wonderful! Just your luck, that you have everything, and now you’re dying!
But then my fingers began to explore the clearly defined edges of it, pushing apart the chest hair to investigate it more closely. The hard edged lump was situated in the middle of my chest, several inches south of my collarbone. But the angle of my head prevented me from seeing it clearly. A moment later, however, I came to a further realization.
The lump wasn’t skin. It was some other substance altogether.
Half out of the tub, I grabbed the hand mirror off the table and held it up so that it would reflect my chest. I gaped at it, barely able to comprehend what I was seeing.
It was the gem. The gem that glittered like fire. The gem that I kept stealing off Sharee after she had stolen it from Beliquose. The gem that I had kept in my single-minded possession even as I was dying in the midst of the Tragic Waste.
The gem that was lodged in my chest.
It was impossible. It was just impossible. There was no way in heaven or hell that the gem could just … just insert itself into my body. I pulled at it, figuring that somehow it had simply been ornamented upon me with some sort of adhesive. I was wrong. I pulled and yanked and a string of profanities escaped my lips as I realized the damned thing was attached. Attached. It had actually fused with my body somehow, my skin grafting itself around the edges of the gem and bonding with it. I could no more rip the thing off my chest than I could pull off one of my arms or pluck out an eye.
Obviously this was no natural phenomenon. This was some sort of sorcery, magiks of the blackest kind. I remembered how Sharee had told me that something was causing magiks to drain away, siphoning the source of sorcery in our world. Well, whatever was doing it, it obviously hadn’t affected whoever or whatever had done this to me.
Even though I knew it wasn’t going anywhere, I pulled and pulled at it, and still couldn’t even come close to getting it off me. It seemed no more inclined to release its hold upon me than it had been before.
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br /> Something was stirring at the window overhead. I looked up.
Mordant was there. He seemed to be chuckling.
“Get out of here!” I bellowed.
The drabit stared down at me, cocked his head for a moment, and then flapped his wings and took off. From outside the door, I heard the Lady Kate’s voice float to me, “Beloved … who are you shouting at? Is there someone in there with you?”
I tried to compose myself, to fight down the panic that was surging through me at the discovery of dark sorcery perpetrated upon my body. “No. No, my love, there’s no one in here,” I called, trying to make my voice sound not too strangled.
The door opened. Kate was standing in the doorframe, wrapped in a single towel.
“Well, well,” she purred. “We should do something about that, then.”
She dropped the towel while she was still halfway across the room. She had the sort of body that should be unclothed as often as possible.
My mind was a tangle of knots, and I had no idea in which direction to send it. Certainly she was alluring enough, but the discovery of this hunk of valuable rock in my chest was disconcerting, to put it mildly. And … what if this was a recent development? What if she hadn’t seen it before? What would her reaction be?
As it turned out, she was obviously aware of my curious attachment, for as she climbed into the tub with me she looked at it lovingly, and even traced the edges of it with her finger.
“You said the servants would be coming in to help me,” I said, my throat suddenly feeling as if there was an excess of blood in it.
“And am I not your humble servant?” she said teasingly. She glided through the water to me, placed her arms about my shoulders and then wrapped her legs around my hips. I barely knew what was happening, but my body was far, far ahead of my mind, already operating on instinct. And the instinct was good and true, and she gasped in my ear as I entered her. “Your servant,” she whispered, grinding against me, her fingers raking my back in her craving, and I surrendered to the moment.
