by S E Meliers
Conquests and Crowns
SE Meliers
Copyright 2010 by E Miles
Smashwords Edition
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Chapter One
Shade
In the shadowy recessed cellars of the dingiest streets of Lyendar, men were made ridiculously wealthy through the sale of sin. This particular basement specialised in anodynes, a drug that was becoming increasingly popular amongst the jaded nobility. Someone had tried to add glamour to the graceless location by draping tawdry curtains, cheaply and garishly dyed, across the rough brickwork, and stringing semi-sheer netting to separate chambers within the cavernous space. The chambers were scattered with pillows and rugs that wore a film of dirt and fluids of unidentifiable origin, many circling the elaborate curves of a central waterpipe, others catering for the more carnally inclined.
The habitual users were cadaverous in appearance; the anodynes ate at the internal organs of the smoker, slowly consuming the addicted from the inside out, and affected the mind so that a subtle madness and an obsession took hold resulting in the addict neglecting simple bodily needs in favour of the narcotic smoke. The scent of rot, stale sweat and bad teeth sank into the fabric of the space, a foul tasting odour that was not disguised by the too sweet stench of the narcotic smoke, or the incense that the den master burnt in copious amounts.
Most of the nobility indulged their habits in the privacy of their luxurious homes, however despite the repugnance of this particular den, or perhaps because of it, it was becoming more commonly frequented; degeneracy was currently in vogue due to the Lord of Lyendar’s varied and insatiable appetites. It was not fashionable to indulge to the extent of decline, such as some of the patrons here, but indulgence was something the aristocracy excelled in.
The den master was enterprising, and had installed a bar in one corner of his premise, with women, clad in sheer swathes of what was supposed to be exotic material but was only a cheap simulacrum, serving the beverages to those who could afford the prices. The women were also for sale; addicts of the smoke, or indentured to the den master by addicted kin. Alcoves where the curtains were opaque could be hired for those wishing to partake of the women, though voyeurism was catered for as well. The spirits and ale were cheap and watered down, but the wine was surprisingly good.
Shade’s drinking companion, Lord Honesty of Lyendar, was well past sober, and indifferent to the beverage that kept him intoxicated, therefore Shade decided not waste any more of the wine on him, ordering spirits from the vacant eyed whore who served them. Between them they had already fattened the den master’s purse considerably that evening, and the service they received as a result was prompt and attentive. Honesty eyed Shade’s companion, Song, speculatively, though Shade doubted that at this level of intoxication he could maintain an erection if he even managed to get one in the first place.
Song was at her finest, a waste considering Honesty’s chosen venue, so the futile speculation was understandable. Her pale skin was luminous against the night darkness of her dress, her breasts lifted by the bondage of her bodice almost to exposure above the scooped neckline, the skirts caught up at each hip by a satin bow to expose the lace underskirts, modestly layered but tauntingly hinting at the flesh beneath. She reclined gracefully against the pillows so the skirts rode up exposing the delicate bone of her ankle and her slipper clad foot. Shade wrapped his fingers about her ankle, stroking the smooth flesh and Honesty’s envious desire.
‘So, you want me to find her great grandmother’s ring?’ Shade regarded the Lord of Lyendar with pique. He and Honesty had been friends and companions in debauchery for many years, the Lord gracious with the hospitality of his city, and Honesty had employed Shade’s services previously in matters of crime or dispute regarding the property or deeds of deceased, however this was just... insultingly trivial.
‘Will not spread her legs ‘less I get it for her,’ Honesty was disobliged. He was, after all, the handsome young Lord of Lyendar, considered to be a very eligible bachelor, and the fish that most Lyendarian maidens hoped to hook.
‘Would that not imply a proposal of marriage?’ Shade pointed out.
‘Hmph,’ Honesty snorted. ‘I am not so guileless as to be snared by such a ruse. She will have her ring, when I have had my way, and in such a manner that there will be no question of marriage.’
‘If I find it for you, that is,’ Shade corrected. ‘Why go to such lengths for a manipulative hussy when there are so many out there only too happy to shed their virtue to the Lord of Lyendar?’
Honesty laughed, dryly. ‘I suppose that is just it,’ he shrugged. ‘She resists, evades, and now sets a challenge. What one cannot have, one always wants to taste. Will you do it?’
Shade considered the request as the whore returned with their drinks, absently watching her sway, more precarious than seductive, as she set their beverages within reach and retreated, the frayed curtains falling shut behind her to offer a semblance of privacy to their alcove. He did not want to do this favour, it was a humiliating task to undertake, but Honesty was his host, and he had not yet had his fill of Lyendar. He sighed. ‘Very well. I will make enquiries.’
‘Thank you,’ Honesty smiled, handsome and charming despite his inebriation. ‘You are a wonderful, loyal friend,’ he added benevolently. ‘And I need to - ’ he staggered to his feet, ‘empty out some of this alcohol…’ he staggered away into the shadows.
‘No doubt he will urinate somewhere totally inappropriate; but whilst we have a moment of peace…’ Shade leaned over Song to sample the flesh presented so enticingly above the scalloped edge of her gown. His hand slid up from her ankle to knead her calf muscle. ‘I suggest we put the Lord of Lyendar in a carriage for home, my love. I am in the mood for murder tonight,’ he buried his face between her breasts and breathed in the clean scent of her skin. ‘Perhaps a prostitute filmed with disease and dirty deeds, perhaps a pampered priestess with creamy skin and a blackened heart; let us see where the evening takes us.’
His hand skimmed over her knee, up her thigh, grazing through the curls at her mons. She wore no underwear, he realised with a flash of heat to his groin. ‘A daring fashion choice,’ he grinned nibbling at the base of her neck as he adjusted her skirts to allow him better access. His fingers slipped between her legs, drifting over her entrance before stroking up to her clitoris. A pulse flickered against his lips, and her pale skin warmed and grew rosy. Her flesh beneath his fingers grew slick, and a muscle in her thigh trembled. Her eyes drifted closed, and she caught her bottom lip between pearly teeth, worrying it as his dancing fingers drew her pleasure.
The semi-sheer curtains gave a murkiness to detail beyond their alcove, but figures could be made out beyond, conversations rising and falling. There was a sense of fragile privacy balanced against the threat of exposure that made his blood pound, his primal instincts kick in, and heightened his pleasure as he pushed entry into her body. ‘By the Shadows of Beyond, you will be the death of me,’ he moaned in appreciation. Her curvaceous body undulated against him as she welcomed him in, her ankles wrapping over his hips and pulling him tighter to her. He kept his hand between them, stoking her pleasure as he took his own.
It would not be long until their privacy was interrupted by Honesty’s return, or the whore who had served them came to see if they wanted more to drink, and t
his knowledge gave him a sense of urgency, whilst the risk taker in him revelled in the potentials. Song ended the confliction, her body tightening around him as she came, head thrown back in rictus; a silent declaration of pleasure that spurred his own. As he spasmed the last of his seed into her, their temporary seclusion came to an end.
‘My Lords,’ the whore parted the curtain and hesitated uncertainly when she observed their poses. ‘Is there anything you need?’ she asked automatically, already half withdrawn from the alcove.
‘No,’ he grunted into Song’s hair. ‘I am completely sated for the time being, thank you.’
Cedar
The moon was high in the night sky when the Prophet woke Cedar.
He had chosen to while away the evening by the large central fire, sharing the capricious smoke and the communal storytelling, so, like many of the caravan’s host, he now slept toes to the fire, wrapped warm in his blankets and the succour of camaraderie. The night was never silent with the caravan: a musical array of snores, soft moans, the shifting of livestock, the creak of wagon wood, the snap of tent canvas, and the crackle of the flames mingling with the songs of night birds and insects, and the distant hiss of ocean waves.
To a man like Cedar, this night music was as ingrained as breathing. He could identify each sound, and therefore any unfamiliar sound resulted in his rousing.
He did not wake until the Prophet placed a hand across his mouth, and it was only her familiar scent – cinnamon and lavender – that stopped him from burying his dagger in her neck. If she was alarmed by his reaction, she did not show it. ‘I need your help,’ she leaned to his ear and whispered. Her long white hair was body warm where it fell over his chest. ‘Will you come with me?’ He nodded his head and she withdrew: a lithe moonbeam amongst the night shadows navigating night-prone obstacles with uncanny ease.
He untangled himself from his blankets, and pulled his shirt on over his head, grabbed his boots and his belt, strung with his meagre worldly possessions, but did not don them until he had tiptoed past the sleeping bodies that circled the slow fire. He nodded to the night guard, who watched curiously, but offered no comment. If it were any other man and woman from the caravan sneaking off into the night, it would be for a romantic liaison and subject to lewd ribaldry. This was the Prophet, however, and she was both above ignoble speculations and more inclined to have arcane reasons for nocturnal assignations.
He followed the unearthly glow of her prematurely white hair in the moonlight, through the sand-dunes to the edge of the beach. Here, where the wash of wave muted all other noise, and distance from the caravan made speaking safe, she waited for him to catch up.
Her eyes were colourless crystal in the night, though he knew them to be of palest blue. ‘Thank you, Cedar,’ she said, simply, and started walking along the edge of dune and beach. She carried a bag worn across her body like the mothers in the caravan wore their young. Every few steps she paused to collect kindling from the sand, but she did not add it to the bag, rather carried it in her arms. He began his own collection of driftwood and the snarly discards of the dune scrub, so by the time they came to a stop, they had a respectable amount of wood between them.
She looked at the beach, ocean, sky and dunes. ‘Here, I think,’ she said to herself. ‘Yes, here.’
Together they dug a slight pit into the sand and circled it with stone, into which she built carefully a criss-crossing stack of kindling and dried seaweed. He set off to collect more wood from the surrounding area, piling it neatly at her side, before kneeling to apply flint and strike to her arrangement. ‘Thank you,’ she said again as he coaxed the fire to light, however the simple repetition caught his ear. He examined her across the flames. Nothing was ever coincidental with the Prophet.
Her attention however was, by design or on purpose, with the bag she carried. From this bag she drew two blankets, a man’s shirt and trousers, a water skin, a dagger and sheath, a small beaten pot, and a piece of cloth tied with string to form a ball that he knew contained the dried ingredients of soup.
‘If I had known the bag to be heavy, I would have carried it for you,’ Cedar was disgruntled.
She smiled, ‘That is a kind thought, but unnecessary. It was not heavier than I could manage, and will be lighter on the return.’ She turned her head to the ocean. ‘Ah, the tide turns. Here I do need your help, Cedar my friend.’
‘What do you need me to do?’ he placed his large workman’s hands over his knees, and sat back on his haunches.
‘Can you take a walk where the tide leaves the sand, away from this point towards Amori. Walk no further than it takes for this fire to disappear from sight. There, you will find a man in the surf. Can you please bring him back here, to me?’
‘Is he dead?’ he asked as he stood and adjusted his pants on his hips.
‘Not so much that he will not live,’ she replied with a smile. ‘You had best be off – if you tarry too long, the ocean may take him back.’
‘As you wish,’ he nodded and strode away in the required direction.
He walked where the water and sand sucked at his feet and tried to pull him into the ocean’s embrace. The water was cold, although the evening was a mild one. He wondered at the mysteries of the ocean – what made it warm some days and cold another, move in and out. Another world, he thought, beneath the sea, that man could not breach or ever hope to truly understand.
On the far distant cliffs, he could see the city of Amori, a darker shadow on the night sky, set in contrast by bursts of flames. It was unusual enough to slow his feet. Yes, he could see the wheeling dark shadows of dragons in flight, and the flare of blue, red and yellow dragon flame. ‘Something is amiss in Amori tonight,’ he murmured to himself. He did not think that it was coincidence that the Prophet brought him to the beach to collect a drowned man on the same evening the skies of Amori burnt with dragon flame. Nothing was ever coincidental with the Prophet.
He hoped that the Prophet meant to steer the caravan clear of Amori’s quandaries, and not into it. You never knew, with the Prophet, and he would hate to see the caravan’s good folk and small ones in danger.
Glancing behind, the Prophet’s fire winked out of sight.
He stopped and looked around, not seeing any man. No. There in the shallows, a shape lifted itself from the water, struggled forward, before falling back into the waves.
Cedar waded in deeper than he wished to go, and seized the man by his shoulders. The man, almost as large as Cedar himself, tried to shake himself free: ‘Friend or foe?’ he gasped as Cedar persisted and half carried the man to shore.
‘Friendlier than the ocean,’ Cedar replied. ‘Friendlier than your foes? That is up to her that waits.’ He strung the man’s arm across his shoulders and half carried him a few steps.
The man resisted. ‘Why should I accompany you?’ he protested.
‘I have fire, for starters,’ Cedar suggested. ‘Food, blankets. I doubt she means you harm. She would not have prepared such a welcome for you, else.’
‘Who is she?’ the man gave up resistance and aided instead. Cedar could feel the man’s exhaustion in the trembling of muscles and the unsteadiness of step. He carried most of the man’s weight as well as providing balance – and could understand why the Prophet had asked for his aid in this venture, the man was larger than most and the Prophet would not have managed alone.
‘She is the Prophet,’ Cedar shrugged. ‘She sees what is to come, and guides us.’ The Prophet’s fire was growing larger on the horizon, and he could make out her figure, the fire turning white hair gold, standing and watching their progress as if her sight could penetrate the night dark. He would not be surprised if she could; there was much about the Prophet that was other; omniscient creatures the caravans called them, a term picked up from the EAeryians.
‘A Prophet? Are you of the Shoethal Monads, then?’ The man drew back.
‘No,’ Cedar sighed. ‘The Monads do not monopolise all the Prophets in the world. Some, like my
Prophet, remain free, working for a better world.’
The man laughed wryly. ‘Until this morning, I thought we lived in that better world,’ he said, but allowed Cedar to help him onwards.
Cedar was sweating and panting, his legs chaffed by his sodden pants, when at last he dropped the man at the Prophet’s feet. ‘He is a talkative dead man,’ he grumbled.
‘Thank you, Cedar,’ the Prophet smiled and handed him a blanket. ‘You might like to hang your trousers by the fire to dry.’
He accepted the blanket, using it to shield his modesty as he kicked off his trousers, then rolled it at his hips to hold it in place. Whilst he arranged his clothing by the fire, the Prophet and the drowned man examined each other. ‘With no discourtesy intended, I have had a long day and longer night – who are you?’ the man asked at length. Cedar could see in the firelight that the man’s hair was as golden as the sun, and curled. His voice was educated, and the sodden rags of shirt and trousers were of finely woven linen. His feet were bare, toes long and strangely elegant, although crusted with sand.
‘A friend, Lord Charity.’ The Prophet dropped a second blanket over the man’s shoulders. ‘Of sorts. You may call me Calico. It is as good a name as any.’
‘Not that I am lacking in gratitude, but how is it that you are my friend?’ Charity could hardly speak through chattering teeth as his body shook to regain warmth lost to the chill ocean.
The Prophet looked off towards the south, sadness on her exotic face. ‘There is a great game afoot, my poor Lord Charity,’ she said, returning the gaze of those pale blue eyes to the golden lord. ‘We all must choose sides; and I have chosen to support the side that you are on.’
‘The side that I am on, but not my side?’ Charity was not a stupid man and picked up the distinction.
She smiled, approving. ‘You are a player of the game, but not its driving force, my lord; a role, I think, that will be unusual and possibly uncomfortable for you.’ She handed him the shirt and trousers she had brought. ‘You will wish to change out of your wet clothing, before you catch a chill. They are not as fine of thread as you are used to, I am afraid, but fine threads would not serve you well with what is to come.’ She turned away to meet Cedar’s gaze. ‘Whilst you change, my good friend, Cedar, will make you some soup to chase away those chills.’
