A Poisoned Land (Book 1: Faith, Lies and Blue Eyes)

by Craig P Roberts

  “I’ve been praying all the time. We don’t need to do anything. We just need to have faith in the Mother. Just do it. I promise you, She will help us if you just believe and trust in Her.”

  Baskie shook his head. “Look, we’ve got help coming. Or at least, I’ve got help coming. She,” he said, pointing to the throne room, “is only keeping me here until King Romarus comes to help me.”

  “Who? And help you do what?”

  “It’s a long story and I doubt you would understand most of it. My father.” He paused. “I mean, the one that brought life to me, has been killed.” Baskie’s voice shook and he swallowed hard. A breath seemed to steady him. “King Romarus is going to help me take up my throne and rule my kingdom.”

  Owin could tell Baskie was going to a lot of effort to use proper words for once. “I’m sorry about your…you know…”

  “Father.”

  “Yes.” Owin reached out a hand, resting it on his friend’s shoulder. “But didn’t you say you ran away from your home? You keep saying you’re free and that—”

  “I don’t have a choice,” he snapped, knocking Owin’s hand away. Baskie bit down hard in frustration.

  You said everybody has the choice to do anything, he almost said, but held his tongue. “Okay, but what has this got to do with me?”

  “King Romarus is coming for me. She will release me to him but if you haven’t fulfilled…” Baskie nodded at Owin’s crotch.

  “If I’ve not lain with that fake then I’ll be stuck here.” A flickering candle caught Owin’s gaze. His eyes blurred and locked onto the flame as thoughts wandered through his head. They sat in silence until Owin broke it, declaring, “The Mother is testing me and I must not lie with her!”

  Baskie rubbed his own face. “Don’t just dismiss it. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in here? And then eventually when you do break—”

  “The Mother will give me strength. I won’t break. And if She sees it that I must spend the rest of my life here, then so be it. It’ll save me from the abyss and I’ll have everlasting life with the goddesses after I—”

  “You will break, Owin. And then when it comes time to leave you’ll have to wander that desert out there alone and never get home and never find…” He stalled as if it were difficult to say the next few words: “the Hidden Womb. And who’s to say she actually lets people go free anyway?”

  Baskie had nothing of use to say, so Owin sat quietly, praying. Mother show me the way out of here. Find it in your heart to give strength to my friend.

  His prayer was interrupted. “If you do not desire her, then surely going with her is the test from the Mother,” Baskie explained, throwing his hands up in the air with palms open.

  Owin wasn’t convinced by Baskie’s attempt at supposedly praising the Mother with his arms as if he suddenly believed. But his words had some sense to them. “It’s true that it’s not her I desire. It’s the others I want and they are—”

  “—testing you,” Baskie jumped in. “It’s them that you want to be inside. So, surely if you lie with that beast, then walk away without so much as a look at those other women…sorry…fakes,” he corrected himself, “then you will have passed the Mother’s test.”

  Why is he using the correct words all of a sudden? Owin stared at the candle on the far side of the small room again. Mother give me guidance, he prayed. He felt a stirring in his groin.

  They heard a noise from the throne room. Cheering echoed through the tunnels of Grietum’s Hive. Two of Grietum’s rats came to the door and escorted them to the throne room.

  Louis was standing in front of Grietum’s throne, while two of the beast’s daughters rubbed oil over his body. This was the first time Owin had seen Louis stand. He stood tall—likely a head higher than Owin. The two daughters lifted him by the hips. Effortlessly, they held his body in the air from under his rear.

  “Say the words,” Grietum shrieked with a menacing smile on her face.

  “I, Louis, blue of sight, give my seed to you, willingly.”

  Grietum lay back on her throne, removed the brown cloak that covered her back and unraveled a piece of material to reveal her bosom. It wasn’t as disgusting as Owin had expected. There was something inside him that made him desire her: a deep instinct, rather than the same arousal he felt from the other fakes in the room. Louis was lowered to the ground and stepped up onto the dais. When he was in arms’ reach, Grietum’s large blue hand slapped and grabbed at his pale rear.

  Louis seemed to be overcome with the same urge that Owin felt when Grietum revealed her whole body. He put one leg onto the throne and hopped over with the other, straddling her. This was the first time that Owin witnessed this act, having only ever had it described to him in great detail by the Mister. He watched Louis guiding his cock into the hole and was immediately shocked by the noises coming from Grietum. She moaned and praised and gritted her teeth.

  This stirred something in him. Judging by the noises Louis made—as his slim, lean body wound back and forth—he was clearly enthralled by it too. The blue queen slapped and squeezed Louis’s rear. She held his face, pulling it close to hers to press her lips against his. After only a few minutes, Louis’s thrusts slowed. His eyes screwed up tightly. He let out a groan which echoed off the dripping metal walls. Grietum held his face between two large palms, ordering, “Say the words, Blue.”

  Breathless, Louis spoke. “Thank you for taking my seed, Your Greatness.”

  After those words, Grietum grabbed the boy’s hips. She lifted him up and down furiously. “Fuck, stop, it hurts.” Louis clenched his jaw as he was forced in and out of her. His face twisted in pain.

  Owin could imagine what that must have felt like after having just shot. He’ll not be able to go much longer.

  He didn’t have to. Grietum let out a lingering shriek that hung in the air for minutes after she had stopped. Her big blue hands held onto Louis’s rear tightly. She held him in place for a while, then lifted him effortlessly, throwing him onto the hive floor. The skin on her bloated stomach moved from the inside. It was as if something gently stirred within her.

  “My daughters, he is yours,” Grietum exclaimed. “The hunt for Blue Louis is over!”

  Cheers and chants filled the room. A rush of naked bodies ran to claim Owin’s exposed friend from Arland as he lay on the floor recovering from what should have been a disgusting experience but in some ways, looked enjoyable. The crowd of Grietum’s daughters fought to get closer and he was lost in the throng.

  Baskie grabbed Owin’s arm. “We should go back to the room. I doubt she’ll be interested in you right now and this crowd…” He drifted off. Owin saw he was unnerved by the chaos. They left the throne room to the sounds of giggles from fakes. The distinctive laugh of Louis—who was now experiencing his wildest dream—echoed behind them. Mother, forgive him for his weakness, Owin thought, as he walked back to the soft warm room.

  He lay on the bed hoping for a restful sleep. Before drifting off, he realized he had received a message from the Mother in his time of weakness. She made me desire that great blue blob even though it was against everything my mind was telling me. If I desire her, then I mustn’t lie with her. She is false and even if I have to stay here for the rest of my life, I will.

  And Beverine stayed. She remained in body, close, to protect all mortals within Her shield. And let Her light brighten your path, even in the darkest of hours.

  New Scripture, The Shield 2.3 The Maran

  Londenia

  A Cage for a queen

  She had spent five days incarcerated in King Anthony’s cabin on the Fair Blue Maiden. Londenia heard of all the hatred he spoke of to his guards who came in and out of his sleeping quarters come workspace. She was locked in a cage—made not to hold a pet but to hold a mortal—in the corner of the cabin. There was a chamber pot she also used as a chair to sit on throughout the day. They would remove it at night to allow her to curl up on the floor. What disgusted her most was that her
own body odour was becoming so pungent that it overpowered the smell of the chamber pot. She felt un-mortal, like an animal.

  The King of the Dead Cities had one redeeming feature in her eyes, and that was that he did not lay a hand on her. There was a sense that King Anthony truly believed in his cause and felt it was a noble one, no matter how evil and twisted it truly was.

  The cabin, that had become her prison, was above deck and sat at the highest point on the ship, negating the masts. It had a large porthole facing the stern and one facing the bow. From her cage, she had clear sight of the front-facing window but struggled to see out of the rear one.

  King Anthony was unlike any other king. He had no horde with him and he never once raised his voice. He is so softly spoken that I sometimes struggle to hear what he is saying. He spent his days writing letters, meeting with members of his guard and reading scroll after scroll. Most of his time was spent staring at a shining, square panel that he held in his hand. He grasped the engraved brass edges and glared into it as if it was the most interesting book he had ever read.

  Londenia remembered Tal Marith’s words back in the temple of Hal Tal: “It is said that the gods left great knowledge within those long dead cities, and great power. Devices containing unexplained sorcery—tools that you could not imagine in your wildest of dreams.” He must have taken this piece of sorcery when he entered one of the Dead Cities, Londenia thought.

  In the dark of night, she would wake from her restless sleep to see him still at his writing desk, his pale face lit by the glow from the square panel. The light bounced off the strange cleft on his chin that reminded her of an arse, as well as off his pointed teeth until, without warning on the fourth night, the light went out. She couldn’t see his face in the darkness because her eyes hadn’t time to adjust, but she heard the crashes as he let his anger out on everything around him. As objects crashed around her, she was thankful she was in a cage, protected by the bars. At no point in his fury did the king raise his voice. Her eyes grew used to the dark. King Anthony spat venomous whispers of curse words, coupled with frustrated spit. His face twisted in anger on top of his strained veiny neck as emotions boiled inside him.

  It was a clear morning. She sat on the floor of her cage, chewing at some dried meat they had handed to her for breakfast. The meat was salty and they hadn’t brought her water yet, but she ate regardless as they only gave food twice a day. King Anthony sat on his bed in the opposite corner of the cabin. He ate the same kind of meat that she held in her hand, but his was served on a plate, along with bread, and what looked like some kind of chunky soup in a wooden cup, sitting on the floor at his feet.

  When he had finished eating, he took out a small metal file from a drawer in the writing desk. Sitting on his chair, with his feet casually up, resting on his desktop, he leaned back and gently filed his front incisors. The sound made Londenia grit her own teeth. After he finished with a tooth, he pressed a finger against the point, checking its sharpness and pointedness, then moved on to the next one.

  The caged queen had forgotten what her own voice sounded like and wondered if it still even worked after days of not being used. Celóndas was in her thoughts, as was the old healer from the Wetlands, Sandunion. She hoped their blue eyes would persuade King Anthony to spare their lives. Minister Eeliro’s last plea played in her head frequently too, along with how it ended with cold metal being pushed through his throat. The veil of black robes that engulfed Pauline and Queen Tanya haunted her most of all; the sounds like that of cutting meat on the dinner table, heard from behind the shroud.

  From the little information she had gathered from short conversations overheard between King Anthony and his men, it seemed her guards were unharmed. They were being held in the lower decks and there was talk of reprogramming when they reached the Dead Cities. She was not exactly sure what was meant by ‘reprogram’ but it was surely better than a bleeding death.

  What kept her spirits high was the hope that Romarus was walking free and safe, and her father’s army was marching to save what was left of the kingdoms. Perhaps one day, when the good kingdoms have been saved, he will come to rescue us all—him and Romarus.

  Through the front-facing porthole, under the red early-morning sky, she saw a thin line of land in the distance. Over the course of an hour the line became cliffs and hills. Further inland was a cluster of strange shapes. It was as if some giant child had stacked her toy bricks on a tiny miniature world. The miniature world was gradually becoming a larger, real one and those bricks were transforming into what she assumed was one of the Dead Cities. Its structures towered high, looking massive, even from leagues away.

  She was the first to be loaded into the long wooden boats after the ship dropped anchor. Londenia sat in the same seat she had arrived in, back when the situation only seemed dark instead of the pitch-black as it was now. The hatch to the lower decks swung up. She waited with bated breath to see who from her party had not been ‘bled’.

  With every familiar face of guards that popped up from the steps below, her heart sang. All ten were accounted for. When she saw the friendly face of Celóndas, emotion overwhelmed her and she burst into tears. The healer saw and pushed past all who stood in her way, crying out, “Londi! Have they hurt you?” Celóndas jumped into the boat, making it swing on its ropes more than Londenia would have liked.

  The embrace of another mortal made Londenia forget the dizzying height she was swinging from. “I am shaken,” she croaked, “but no, I have not been harmed.” Londenia grabbed Celóndas by the shoulders and pushed her to arm’s length to properly inspect her face. “Have they harmed you?” she asked.

  They leaned against each other, forehead to forehead. Celóndas answered, “Londi, I am a middle-aged woman. I don’t think they would have done anything if I had paid them.” They shared an emotional tear-filled laugh together.

  She is a beautiful woman and must look thirty years at most, Londenia thought. “Don’t you put yourself down! You have kept your youth and beauty and you have the soul of a youngster.” She smiled through a tear. “I am sure even our dashing young Romarus would have gladly accepted you into his bed if he had got half the chance.” They laughed again. She didn’t know why they were joking with each other, or even what point either of them was trying to make, but it felt a relief to communicate and use her voice again to connect with somebody.

  “And have you seen Sandunion?” Celóndas asked, forcing a hopeful smile.

  “I assumed she was being kept with you.” As Londenia finished her sentence, she saw over her friend’s shoulder a broken looking old woman, staggering towards the boat. She looked as if the life had been drained from her.

  “Ten Gods! Sandunion, you need water.” Celóndas shouted and rushed to help her elderly fellow healer into the boat, and then sat next to her, behind Londenia. “She needs water,” she shouted, swinging her arms, pointing as if their captors were a bunch of children under her command.

  Celo only cares for others, that is her strength, and in some ways, it is her weakness, Londenia realized.

  One of the pointed-toothed guards leaned over into the wooden boat and was within spitting distance of Celóndas’s face. “You want water for the old bitch?” He looked down to the bay. “Then push her over the edge for a swim.”

  “Stop this,” a soft, ice-cold voice uttered from the deck of the ship. “Her eyes are blue, so give her water if she requires it.” King Anthony stood like a shadow, towering above the people boarding the row boats.

  The guard pushed a skin of water into Celóndas’s chest. Her eyes narrowed. “Thank you,” she said through a smile that showed on her mouth only, not her eyes, and quickly faded. As Sandunion drank, Queen Se’Rel of the Bay joined them on the boat and sat next to Londenia.

  “How could you have helped that monster?” Londenia muttered to Se’Rel, not daring to make eye contact with the so-called queen.

  “I am as much a prisoner here as you are. He threatened the lives of my ch
ildren. What would you have done in my place? Ah yes! I forget, you have no children.” The Bay Queen’s spiteful words were quickly followed by pathetic sobbing.

  She was right. Londenia was young, much younger than Queen Se’Rel, but this didn’t mean that she wasn’t capable of making hard choices. Londenia had made plenty over the past few moon-turns. But the old queen’s desperate cries made her feel the impossible situation that Se’Rel must have been placed in.

  “Are they safe now, my lady?” Londenia tried to warm the tone of her voice.

  “The last I saw, my eldest boy was tied to a cross in our cells and my two daughters, only eleven years and twelve years, were left in the charge of King Anthony’s minister. I dare not think what has become of them. I only hope that I may return one day to chop off that bastard’s cock.” It was strange to hear such vengeful and venomous words from an older lady who seemed otherwise warm, caring and a baker of cakes.

  A mother scorned is a vicious creature, Londenia remembered her mother saying from long ago.

  “I assume they are of blue-sight and their father was of blue-sight?” asked Londenia, hoping her question might bring reassurance.

  “They are,” said Queen Se’Rel, “and yes, their father was of blue birth also. He was a good friend to our King Hardol.” A whimper slipped out as she said her king’s name. Although a queen never lays with her king, they tended to have relationships based on the deepest of friendships. Londenia could sympathize with the Bay Queen’s loss.

  Londenia tried to reassure her, saying, “Then I am certain they will not have harmed them. King Anthony may be evil but from what I have observed in my time with him, he has a single goal and that is not to harm any blue-sighted mortals he sees as innocent.”

  Queen Se’Rel shook her head as if she was being told some silly little tale by her eleven-year-old daughter. “My child…”