by Regina Watts
Oh, the durrow have never gotten along with anybody…surely you know that.
“Has something to do with their habit of slavery,” suggested the wadjita, her surprisingly soft lips lifting from me to permit her breathy speech. “And genocide.”
Just so. No doubt your extermination of my fellows meant you were among the most well-regarded of slaves from the outset, and this has something to do with your clouded judgment. But, just look at them. They subjugate men of all races; they enact a haphazard form of eugenics with their attempts at breeding. All the while, they wage war on everyone around them. They give no space for spirit-thieves, wadjiti people, berich dwarves, or any other species that wishes to peacefully live near or even among the durrow.
“So you’re a selfless revolutionary?” I couldn’t keep the derision out of my voice and stared with hateful skepticism at the wadjita operating upon me, her enthusiasm unfeigned but my body’s reaction motivated far more by spite than by any sense of pleasure. I’d heard it said spirit-thieves had no sex organs. If I couldn’t kill the one before me, the next best thing was to remind it that its perception of reality was wretched and incomplete. All the same, I could barely focus on what I was there to do to the wadjita when the spirit-thief was making such ridiculous propositions. “The durrow founded this city,” I continued. “I may not agree with the culture, but it’s their culture.”
“They kill with impunity, slaves and visitors alike. No one is safe here; everyone is an assumed or suspected criminal. Rest assured, you’ll find in time that even your pretty mistress has a very cruel streak.”
While she spoke these words, the wadjita’s slender fingers curled around me. I stared into the face of the hideous squid-monster without regard to her, saying as I did, “You’re hardly exempt from such accusations, demon. How many good men and women have spirit-thieves killed long before their time, only to have a new skin to wear about?”
It’s only in our nature…perhaps that’s why Kyrie and I get along so well.
“That’s right!” The wadjita laughed, her eyes glittering bright like gold coins within the smooth scales of her face. “Wadjiti shed our skins…spirit-thieves make themselves new ones. It’s only natural we should together be interested in overthrowing the durrow stranglehold over both our people.”
While I caught the wadjita by her dark hair and pulled her upright, she hissed and reached up toward the clench of my fist. “Are Indra and Odile involved in this?”
“We were going to try to work their skills into this arrangement, seeing how much time they spend going back and forth from the Palace of Roserpine to trade in slaves and pay the occasional fine…but then they brought you around, and my friend here assured me that you were really who we were after.”
“And your friend’s name?”
Al-listux, answered the demon, that terribly cool voice trailing into my mind yet again. It is only a name to ease communication between myself and mortals. Among my people we are one.
I sneered. “And how is it that you came to deal with this demon, Kyrie?”
“Al-listux is hardly a demon! Every being wishes only to live, Paladin…Al-listux and I both want the same thing. To live and to thrive without being trapped under the thumb of Roserpine’s race.”
Come now, human…you must know that if you turn this bargain down, you will never see the sun again. Never be a free man again. This is an opportunity to save yourself before your servitude has even properly begun.
The wadjita was pawing at me still—I pushed her away, off toward the spirit-thief that caught her in its arms. “It cannot be the will of Weltyr for me to change my circumstances in such a way as that. When the time comes for me to regain my freedom, I will accomplish the task in a way that brings no harm to the woman who has done no harm to me.”
No harm yet, anyway. While the pouting wadjita pushed her disarrayed hair from her face, then turned to cling to the squid-faced monster as though it were her lover, I barely restrained my disgust. The spirit-thief embraced her in return, saying, You must be truly hypnotized by these durrow if you would turn away from Kyrie’s embrace.
“Not to mention foolish…even non-durrow females are worth more amid their race than you, Paladin. I could have you killed for rejecting me—could kill you myself and pay a small fee to your mistress to get out of it without legal judgment.”
“Then do it, or let me be. I’ll have no part in your sordid plans, however they might benefit me.” While, before me, the squid-demon’s hands began to explore the wadjita’s body, I repressed a shudder of horror. How I longed for Strife! “So you must be part of this string of assassins making threats upon my lady’s life.”
“More than one faction in this dreadful city would like to see your mistress overthrown, slave.” Moaning while the demon’s hands cupped her breasts through her leather bustier, the wadjita thrashed her tail against the floor and stared at me through heavily lidded eyes. “Surely the organization with which we are employed cannot take responsibility for all of them, but yes, one or two, perhaps we have sent one or two missionaries to the cause…oh, Al-listux…”
The demon pushed away the leather and bared the plump mounds tipped by dark green nipples. As its slimy fingers trailed around them, tugged and teased, I admit a certain throb overcame me at the sight. Particularly as the wadjita, inarguably lovely, ran her hands over her body and slowly drew the shimmering tassels of her bejeweled gold belt away from the smooth white scales of her pelvis. Beneath I glimpsed a pink slit shimmering with anticipation, an opening in those serpentine scales that somehow repulsed me as much as thrilled me. While she moaned to touch it, the spirit-thief watched with an expression that remained, to me, completely unreadable.
Think harder on this matter, Burningsoul, before you make a choice…your freedom is not the only thing at stake here. Your very life will be endangered if you insist on remaining with the durrow and taking up the mantle of Valeria’s protector—a role for which you will never be repaid or rewarded.
“Not by the durrow, perhaps,” I agreed.
That is just it. The longer you are down here, the longer you will be separated from your culture—from your temple and your god. Who is to say you will not someday be stripped of all your powers? And that is the best case…that assumes you will survive.
While the tentacles of the spirit-thief’s mouth trailed over Kyrie’s cheek, grazed her ear, curled about her neck, she moaned and thrashed and touched herself before my hungry eye. I ached, remembering the early wakening with my mistress and her talented caresses. She had not permitted me to reach completion and now I throbbed with desire to use the very slit the wadjita fingered, one long digit working in and out of her shining lips while the spirit-thief gradually lowered to its knees.
Worst case, human, you will be killed when we send someone to destroy your mistress…or you will simply be killed by one of my kind in exchange for what was done to my brood.
“Sounds like you would be happiest if it were you who did such a thing.”
I can hardly deny that I would take great pleasure in seeing to your death…but we all must make sacrifices now and again in the name of a greater cause, and working with you would be a small sacrifice compared to the victory that would come to us if we might but overturn the power structure of Roserpine’s Palace.
“And why, exactly, would her death be any kind of victory? For all you know the next priestess of Roserpine will be even more cruelly disposed toward other races of the Nightlands.”
Because some durrow of the palace are sympathetic to our plight…some know how much there is to be gained by cooperation, or can be convinced to see it.
Gently pushing the wadjita’s hand away, the spirit-thief leaned toward the shining pink that gleamed amid white-yellow scales. The purplish tendrils of its mouth lifted and the wadjita moaned with anticipation, her hands upon her breasts and sometimes sliding up into her hair while her partner teased her. Al-listux’s tentacles trailed over the plump labia
of the snake-woman’s genitals, these petals parting like a flower beneath the ultra-light touch. Two tentacles eased between, one sliding into her soaking channel and the other slipping back and forth against her sensitive nub of nerves. She moaned and shuddered, the sound producing another sharp throb through me. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could resist her—not when the pleasure she received seemed to afflict her so acutely. She reminded me of the elf-slave Valeria had bade me to use in front of her, and the memory made me eager to see my mistress again; to protect her from this heinous conspiracy against her life.
Come now, human, look at how splendid Kyrie is…surely just as splendid as your mistress, or any other durrow. She has committed her body to me out of fondness, but I would happily lend her to you for your use if only you might do this favor for me. We would give you so much! Your pick of the women in the city…why, if you prefer durrow, rest assured you will have every durrow slave-girl you like.
“Did you not just say that slavery was foremost among the durrows’ sins? Yet you would turn around and engage in the same practices!”
I would enact justice, and balance the scales that have been too long tipped. The durrow deserve punishment for the years that they have subjugated other races, mine included. Some generations of slavery should set them straight…perhaps then, when it is time for them to be free, they will be prepared to interact civilly with people of other species.
The wadjita, meanwhile, gripped a shelf of weapons behind her and panted wildly as the tentacles of the spirit-thief worked in and out of her body. Her tail thrashed and she moaned, eyes finding mine as she begged her master, “Oh, yes, yes, Al-listux, Al-listux! Yes, use me—ah, how dexterous your tentacles are, my liege…oh, yes, yes, ah—”
Another tentacle joined the one that penetrated the trembling wadjita. While these two tendrils pumped in and out of a channel spread wide by others, her bare stomach contorted with the gasps that panted from her fanged mouth. Aching, I ran a hand over myself through my tunic and soon enough, no longer able to resist, made my way over. While I slid my arms around her body, the wadjita moaned with desire and wove her fingers around the back of my neck. I kissed her fiercely, not without pleasure, and found her forked tongue eager to slide against mine. The spirit-thief removed its tentacles from her and towered to its full height while I pushed her against the shelves, my hands working quickly over her body.
Face it, Paladin…the Nightlands are a completely different world from the surface. As the wadjita’s hands hastily pushed away my tunic and ran along my length, the spirit-thief stepped away to watch through watery alien eyes. We are cut-throat because we must be…because the beings of the surface have banished all our kinds down here, and forced us to structure our lives out of desperation. They withhold the plenty of aboveground nations so we all must take what we can get—but the durrow have taken too much, and order must be restored.
I groaned, half-listening at best while my throbbing member plunged into the wadjita’s welcoming embrace. She screamed with absolute pleasure, her tail slapping wildly against the floor, then curling around my body while I took her as hard and deep as I could. It was no substitute for Strife, but the satisfaction of stabbing the wicked creature time and time again was truly immeasurable. She gasped in astonishment while running her fingers through my short hair and down the back of my neck. Gritting my teeth, I worked her all the deeper and told them both, “Whatever the durrow have taken or done, I hold no quarrel with anything but their slavery, and their heresy. Neither one of those things will be eased by Valeria’s death.”
But your power will be immeasurable. And you need not even kill her with your own hands, if that will prove too trying an experience. I could give you something to help you—a poison to slip in her wine, a wand to paralyze her lungs. The choices are limitless.
“And if I fail? If I’m found out and captured?” The spirit-thief said nothing and I pushed the wadjita’s body back all the tighter against the wall, the slap of my flesh against hers echoing through the room even louder than the rattle of wood against brick. “I can’t imagine your organization, whatever it is, would be able to assist me then.”
Don’t be so sure, advised the spirit-thief. We have many connections all throughout the city, and the Palace itself. There is no shortage of those who could be sent to retrieve you in exchange for a job well done.
Though I was very skeptical on that point, I could not argue with the demon that much more. Swiftly the pleasure closed in on my consciousness and I, breath almost held for the sweetness of it, worked my hips fast and hard against the wadjita’s body. She screamed with ecstasy, arms and tail intermittently curling around me, then releasing to permit her shudders of delight. All the while that slit squeezed, dripping wet and almost as greedy as Valeria’s. My cock ached for release and I hastened the speed with which I buried myself in her, each penetration another stab of pleasure that rattled through us both. Her scaled brow furrowed, her yellow eyes plastered upon mine, the wadjita came first with a high-pitched cry and a series of rapid squeezes around my tool.
The rhythm of her pleasure was so fluttering that it drew me over my own edge. Groaning, I jerked myself swiftly out before I spilled. A gasp tore from my lips as the seed of ecstasy splattered across her stomach and over the scales at the base of her tail. Each burst was thinner than the last, each note of pleasure lighter than the one that came before; soon these echoes of bliss vanished and left only the faint sense of displeasure, of sticky disappointment, of horror and disdain for the being that tried to seduce me into its hateful service.
“I won’t do it,” I told the squid-demon, wiping myself off and fixing the fabric of my clothes to once more protect myself. “Find someone else—and do it knowing that I’ll kill them myself rather than see them do the least harm to Valeria.”
So be it, consented the spirit-thief with a wave of its gnarled hand. Just remember, Paladin…I gave you a chance. When you come to your senses, find a way to see us again—if you can—and perhaps we will be merciful toward you. Perhaps we will give you another chance.
Another chance to ruin my life, maybe. Another chance to betray a woman who had done me no wrong.
Never—I could never dream of such a thing. Senses restored, my fury was borne anew. Moving quickly, I snatched up the mace displayed upon the shelf and raised it high, ready to bludgeon the hateful demon’s soft head with it. Kyrie cried aloud and grabbed a dagger, ready to defend herself against me, but as my eyes fell upon the spirit-thief, I instead stumbled back a step.
Valeria stood before me: proud, naked, glorious.
Her—its—voice was a perfect emulation. “Is this body all that you want, Paladin? We can give it to you. Whatever would please you would be yours. You might kill Valeria for us and have her still.”
Though I knew the image before me was not real, I nonetheless lowered my mace. “So the interloper in the ranks of the palace is a spirit-thief.”
“Whatever gives you that idea?”
Shaking off the vile illusion, I looked the replica up and down. “I’ve heard it said that the spirit-thieves all share one great mind, and that when one spirit-thief looks upon a man, his image is forever stolen by the entire species. From then on any spirit thief can, at will, appear as that same stolen image. But that’s all it is—an image. It’s a difference I wouldn’t expect a thing like you to understand.”
“How small-minded,” hissed Kyrie, attempting a slice at my left arm and instead having the dagger knocked from even her strong grip. As she cried out in pain, gripping a fist that must have bruised beneath her scales, I returned my attention to the spirit-thief in its captive form.
“I don’t love Valeria for her body. Beautiful though she is, all durrow are beautiful—all elves I have ever seen. It is her mind, shrewd and ceaseless, and the mystery of her interest in me: these things are what draw me to her, far beyond anything concerning matters of the flesh.”
I wouldn’t be so sure of that…
While the image before me smiled far more cruelly, its flesh pulsed. Before my eyes, the gray-blue of Valeria’s flesh transfigured cell by cell until the spirit-thief stood before me in its true form. I remained at the ready even as it extended an arm to Kyrie, who slithered into its embrace and allowed her hand to be held for the demon’s investigation. The scene before me, rather than recalling a pair of lovers, reminded me of the priests and their pets up in Skythorn.
“Surely there are other ways to achieve your goals. If it’s equality you want, the task should be accomplished socially rather than with violence.”
Show me in history where slavery has ever reached a peaceful resolution, Paladin, and I will make you the very governor of El’ryh when we have claimed it…
While one hideous tentacle slithered over the snake-woman’s hand. As its saliva soothed her pain, the demon’s eyes lifted toward me. However, if you find yourself so ensorcelled that you cannot bear to take Valeria’s life—even if we give you the means to do so painlessly—there is perhaps one more way for us to come to an agreement.
“And that is?”
The ring.
Images of that brilliant indigo gem rushed through my mind. Loathe though I was to betray my mistress even in this way, I listened on—if only because I was unequipped to successfully skirmish with the beast in such close quarters.
Without the gem she bears, Valeria is worth no more than any other durrow in the Nightlands. The durrow believe that when the gem falls into new hands, it is the will of Roserpine that a new Materna be recognized upon the palace priestesses. If you can acquire the ring and bring it to me, the attempts on Valeria’s life will come to an end. You and she will be permitted to exist in peace.