“Jeez.” Suri’s mouth quirked. “Look at you, Mister Popularity.”
“Mr ‘Has no fur, no tail, and looks like an alien’, more like it.” I stretched my hands. “Hold onto my gear for me?”
“Am I your slave now?” Suri arched both eyebrows. “Starting to get ideas, Your Grace?”
“Please, Your Grace?” I flashed her a toothy grin.
Suri made a show of sighing and rolling her eyes, then snatched my pack off me.
Solai stood patiently as her handmaidens brought a glowing, finely made torque to her and fitted it around her neck. To my surprise, one of them came to me with a similar item—an open-faced collar made of gold, crawling with traceries of magic. Curious, I scanned it with my HUD.
Royal Guardian Torque
850 Magical Armor
+50% Fire Resistance
+50% Air Resistance
+50% Resistance to Piercing and Slashing Damage
Grants Immunity to Fear, Nausea, Blindness.
Special: Soul-Bound (Priest-Queen Solai).
My eyes popped when I saw those stats. This little thing gave 850 armor? I wouldn’t even be able to scratch someone wearing this thing with a normal attack.
“The rules of the match are as follows,” Solai said, accepting her weapon from a servant—a bluesteel spear with a tapered, leaf-shaped blade. “The goal is to knock your opponent to ground and keep them at spear-point for a count of five seconds. If the fight drags on, the first to fall below half health will lose the match. Shall we make it the best of three?”
“Hell yeah.” I bounced on my toes a few times, then called the Spear of Destiny to my hand and quickly spun it over the backs of my knuckles before catching it. “Can we use Combat Abilities? Or normal strikes only?”
“Normal strikes only, I think.” She squinted at me. “It would be unfair to you if I was to wield my full powers as the Chosen of the Sun.”
I laughed. “Right. Any formalities before entering the ring?”
“Yes. We fight beneath Lua’s Golden Moon tonight. Say a soft prayer to your ancestors in your mind, and bow on entry.” Solai gave me a thoroughly sultry look as she rolled her spear over her knuckles, passed it over to the back of her other hand, then spun it around behind her and threw it like a javelin into the center of the arena.
The Meewfolk around us yowled and cheered as their queen sauntered in after her weapon. She put her delicate hands together and bowed from the sternum, stepped into the ring, then slapped her thighs and slid out into a wide, low-slung stance. The fur of her back and tail fluffed out, her eyes widened, and she pulled her lips back to bare her teeth in a demonic, skull-like grimace, her ears pinning flat against her skull. When Solai’s health meter came into focus, the ring filled up five times. Two black skulls appeared beside her name to either side. I couldn’t remember ever seeing an NPC with two black skulls before. That meant she was at least Level 60, and probably higher.
I chuckled nervously. “Hahaha. I’m in danger.”
“Don’t let her scare you, Hector! You can do it!” Rin cried, bouncing up and down beside Suri.
I puffed my lips out and shook my head, rolled my shoulders, and stepped up. I bowed on the threshold of the arena in the Korean style, then teleported up into the air and dropped, landing acrobatically in front of the Priest-Queen. She stared at me, unblinking, and did not break eye contact as she reached for her spear and pulled it free. I began to counter-circle her as she tipped the curved blade on an angle toward the sand, and began to slowly pace, a low, dangerous growl trickling from her open mouth.
“Commence!” The ringmaster rang a small gong.
The Priest-Queen lunged at me, obscenely fast. I was barely able to see her move, ducking on pure instinct as the butt of her spear came for my head, then parrying as she swirled her polearm around the blade of mine and nearly flipped the weapon out of my hands. I hung onto it, circling and jabbing, but she effortlessly caught every strike—and then knocked one away with a fierce scream, breaking into my guard. There was a panicked moment where I lost track of her, and before I oriented, she swept my feet out from under me. Gasps went up as I sprawled out in a cloud of sand. Solai moved to pin me, but I rolled away and flipped up to my feet before she could hook the blade against my throat.
“You’re faster than I thought you’d be, paragon!” Solai’s face was an insane mask: ears back, teeth bared, her pupils nothing more than mad slits in a sea of frosty blue. “I always thought humans would be slow!”
“Depends on the human,” I shot back. “Let’s dance.”
Within a minute of back and forth—jabs, parries, metal knocking against metal—I knew without a doubt that Solai had top Master ranks in Spearfighting. She read my body and mind with every step and thrust, rush and swipe. She came in sharply, stabbing high and low, and as I stepped out she hooked the end of her polearm around the back of my knee and dropped me a second time. I couldn’t get up fast enough—she blocked my roll with the spear blade, pinning me to the sand by the skin of my neck.
“Five, four, three, two, one!” Her terrifying mask relaxed, and she laughed with delight at the end of the countdown as the crowd howled encouragement. “Hmmm... what shall I do with you tonight? Nice clothing, absolutely... something to compliment that beautiful smooth skin of yours.”
I clambered up to my feet, rubbing at the small bloody wound on the side of my throat. “Two more rounds.”
“Indeed.” Solai flew at me again, as graceful as the ribbon of silk around her waist, and smashed the blade of her spear against mine. Pound for pound, she was much faster and more skilled than I was, but we were almost the same strength. The queen’s muscles bunched as I bore against her and pushed, keeping her spear locked against mine. She flexed her claws into the sand to stop from sliding, and that’s when I broke the standoff—shoving against her, then rolling up under her recovering strike and bowling her off her feet. She yelped as I took her down at the knees, then hissed playfully as I rolled onto her and held the point of my spear at her cheek.
“Maybe we could go for a swim? That’d be a fun date.” I grinned down at her.
“The nerve of you, human.” Her eyes narrowed. “Assuming I do not like to swim because I am feline? I dived for pearls and spearhunted fish for most of my life.”
“... Four! Five! Come on, Hector!” Suri called from the sidelines, bouncing up and down as hard as Rin.
I removed the blade and Solai bounded back to her feet. We began to circle, our weapons almost touching as we searched for the first flinch, the next moment of weakness. When her spear dipped slightly, I tested her guard—once, twice, then darted in. She caught my weapon with a twirl, launching it up and over her shoulder. I felt time slow as she spun past me in a blur of white and red, then cracked me over the back of the neck with the haft.
“Shit!” I tried to save my balance, but I was off-kilter—and a great chorus of delighted laughter rose up as Solai smacked me over the ass with her blade, then cut my feet from under me and sent me down to my face. I pushed up on my hands, sputtering, only to feel the bluesteel tip of her weapon dig into the back of my head.
“Her Highness, Priest-Queen Solai, has won this duel!” The servant rang the gong again as the crowd yowled enthusiastically in support of their queen.
“Pfffbt, pfft.” I spat sand out of my mouth and turned around to sit upright. “God dammit. That’s the first straight-up spear fight I’ve ever lost.”
Solai planted the end of her weapon into the ground, and offered me a hand. She was back to being pretty and kittenish, and squinted happily as she pulled me to my feet. “There is no shame in this loss, Paragon. You are many levels lower than I, and I had to defeat every woman ahead of me in rank to become queen of my people. There are not many who can say they brought me to my back even once. You are quick and strong.”
“And you are seriously talented,” I said. “Can you teach me how to fight like that?”
“Hmmmm.” Solai’s eyes
hooded, and she made a show of thinking, strutting around her spear like a poledancer, then leaning in to rub her cheek against the haft. “Perhaps. But not for free, Paragon. You will have to do me some... personal favors. But perhaps we can talk about that after our date tonight?”
“Uhh... sure.” I winced as I looked over at Suri, but my loyal and steadfast girlfriend was, at that very moment, changing money with Gar. I wasn’t sure when he’d appeared, or who had bet on who, but Suri had won.
“I shall arrange for your companions to enjoy a night they will remember.” Solai left her spear planted in the middle of the arena and sauntered past me, winding her tail over my bare back on her way to speak with Suri. “Wine, women—or men—and song: you need only ask. You have the hospitality of the royal court, in thanks for your assistance. But this one, Hector, is mine for the night. Yes?”
“He signed up for it,” Suri replied, flashing me a look of dark amusement. “Try not to break him.”
“Thanks.” I glared at her, rubbing the back of my head. “Glad to know I can count on you.”
“Always.” Suri winked. “What’s the plan for him tonight, your Majesty?”
“Ohh... a little of this, a little of that.” Solai returned to me, rubbing her clawed hands up over my arm before wrapping her fingers around my bicep. “I think it would be lovely to have you attend me during tonight’s opera.”
“Tonight’s... opera?” I repeated numbly, stiffening as two of the queen’s servants came up behind me.
“Yes, yes! The musicians are ready outside. We start the opera at moonrise, and play and sing until moonset.” Solai let go of me, and turned to face her staff. “I shall dress for the performance. Maiaa, Lani, see this man is cleaned and attired decently for the opera. Kali, Prrana, Ah’ah: you three shall each serve as the personal attendants of the Paragon’s companions. Make sure they are given anything they desire.”
The five servants bowed deeply. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I, uh-” before I could protest, Maiaa and Lani seized me by the arms, and led me out of the arena toward a different wing of the temple. I turned my head to look piteously at Suri. She grinned and saluted. Karalti was out in the jungle, sleeping soundly. I was on my own.
“Her Highness is going to actually let me go after this, right?” I asked one of the giggling maids, as they steered me into a costume room.
“Of course! You have not committed any crime!” The handmaiden to my right craned her head toward me as the pair of them tugged me to sit down on a low, plush stool. “Now you just sit here while we fit jewelry, yes?”
Chapter 43
Solai’s handmaidens twittered over me for a solid hour before escorting me—bejeweled, saronged, painted with henna and kohl—to what was to be one of the defining moments of my life: my very first Meewfolk opera.
Imagine, if you can, the sound of a tomcat yowling while standing on top of a fence. Now, make that fifteen very large, very enthusiastic tomcats, all yodeling in harmony like the world’s most agonizing acapella group. Then add an orchestra made up of giant xylophones, gongs, steel drums, wooden drums, flutes, and two-stringed violins: an ensemble called a marr’tao. Everyone is yowling, banging, plunking, meowing and fiddling. Every now and then, someone lets out a high-pitched ‘REEEEAOW’, and your eardrums pop.
For six. Fucking. Hours.
“Look! Look! They’re fighting the demon that killed Princess Kataiya!” Solai clung to my arm with a little gasp, her whiskers vibrating with excitement—or from the 5-point Richter scale vibrations from the marr’tao, I wasn’t sure.
The actors jumped and danced around one another, wailing as they posed with spears and claws in a much less terrifying version of what I’d faced with Solai in the arena. Nails down a blackboard didn’t cut it. I could feel my hitpoints oozing away with my sanity.
“Karalti. I can’t feel my face,” I moaned—aloud, because no one could possibly hear my whimpering over the noise.
“Are you okay? Are you being tortured?” Karalti, aghast, patched in telepathically. “What’s happening?”
“I pray to all the gods in all the worlds in the whole fucking multiverse that whatever is happening is the final scene of this play,” I replied, numbly taking another drink of whatever beverage the temple servants had given me. It was white, vaguely coconutty, and probably laced with hallucinogens.
“Ooh, do you like that? That’s la’gun, yes? It is a drink to relax with at the end of the night.” Solai beamed at me, offering me a plate. “Have another honeyed dormouse. I raise these myself especially for opera nights.”
I picked up one of the nugget-sized things and ate it with a distant, thousand-yard stare. I was pretty sure it was good, but my HUD was flashing with four different intoxication debuffs and I wasn’t feeling a whole hell of a lot between being drunk, high, tripping, and tweaked. Solai probably could have fed me something out of her litter box and I’d have eaten the damn thing like a chocolate truffle.
At long last, the two heroes—or heroines, I wasn’t sure—leaped from the corpse of the red-masked demon and went to rescue the swooning princess. Solai sighed happily as joyous sing-song meowing filled the air, and the chorus wrapped up into what I prayed was the final song.
“Is it over?” I croaked.
“Almost.” The Priest-Queen draped herself over my half-naked body, her hands curled on my chest, her tail twitching contentedly over our thighs. Between the coconut alcohol, the mushrooms and the hundred other things I’d eaten, drunk or snorted to get through the night, the lean, athletic lines of her body and the slick warmth of her fur felt disturbingly good. I lay an arm around her, absently petting the small of her back.
“So.” I jumped when Solai put her mouth close my ear, her voice a purring whisper that somehow carried over the music. “Is it true that human males do not have barbs?”
“Wha...?” I stirred up out of my intoxicated trance for a moment. “Barbs? Where?”
“You know.” She expertly undulated her body against mine in a way that suddenly reminded me that human men were, in fact, down to fuck on any night or day of the year. I sucked in a sharp, surprised breath.
“Uhh… no.” Slurring, I tried to struggle upright to regain some control of the situation, but Solai had me pinned to the sofa by my hips. “No. No barbs.”
She giggled, then turned to her nearest handmaiden. “Please take my lovely companion here to my chambers. I will follow shhuuurrrr-”
Solai’s voice trailed off into a warm fuzzy blur. I was vaguely aware of being carried away on a litter, taken somewhere dark and quiet. I opened my eyes to see a slim Meewfolk woman helping me out of the jewelry I’d worn to the opera. I closed my eyes, falling into a swirl of color, and when I opened them again it was to the sight of Solai straddling me, her hand resting on my chest, claws spread. Everything beyond that was a pleasant, shadowy whirl into unconsciousness.
I woke in the morning with a start—mostly because of the pain. Groaning, I rolled over, clutching at my shoulders. They were gritty with dry blood. I cracked my eyes open, and immediately closed them again as the distant drumming inside my skull swelled into a booming chorus. I was almost certain that the drummers from the opera had taken up residence in my sinuses, playing the backs of my eyeballs with hammers and malicious, whiskered grins.
“Oh god.” I patted over my arms and chest. My skin was covered in welts and long, stinging cuts. Wincing, I looked back over my shoulder. Solai was asleep on the other side of the bed, her legs drawn up, her hands tucked in, her tail draped like a fan over her eyes.
“Did I...?” I rubbed my hand over my face, watching the swirling patterns on the insides of my eyelids. “Oh god. I did.”
Solai had wrung me out like a dishrag. My HP bar was throbbing. My Hydration meter was throbbing. A bunch of other things were throbbing as I wobbled to my feet, staggered over to a nearby vanity, and splashed clean water over my face. Then, against my better judgement, I drank some of it to bring my
Hydration out of the red zone.
“Dude. She’s a priestess.” I peered at myself in the polished bronze mirror. “What the fuck are we going to do now?”
I froze in place as the air of the room subtly warped behind me, pulling in toward a central point. My head jerked up, as a lean, tall, dark-robed figure appeared behind me in the mirror. They were robed and veiled, but I could make out the shape of a muzzle, and the outline of triangular, upright ears beneath the ornate headdress they wore.
My reckoning had come. I had just defiled the holy virgin Priest-Queen of Meewhome, and now I was going to be flayed into little strips by the feline incarnation of Death Himself. I flattened back against the vanity. “Hi. You must be the Avatar.”
“You are correct.” The Avatar’s voice was deeper than I expected: masculine, not feminine. “I see you have enjoyed your time with us.”
I glanced at Solai. She was snoozing happily, curled into a smug ball on her bed. “She absolutely wanted this, okay? Please don’t murder me.”
“Of course she wanted it, and she obtained what she desired. She is the Priest-Queen.” The Avatar had the calm, measured voice of a monk or a priest. Disciplined. Quiet. Blessedly non-judgmental as I discreetly searched for something to cover myself with. “The ancestors have informed me as to who you are, and why you wish to see me.”
“And?” I found a washcloth to clamp over the front of my hips.
“And I consent to an audience.” The shimmering figure bowed from the neck. “You are the Paragon of the Sixth Great Cycle. The last Cycle, I fear. I have waited my entire life to meet you and your companions. Ready yourselves, and assemble in the Lotus Plaza of the temple. I will bring you to my sanctum when I sense you are ready.”
Spear of Destiny Page 39