by C. K. Rieke
“Veranor?” she asked puzzled. “What’s he like? Well . . . I suppose he’s like you’d imagine him; tall, strong, stern, vicious. He’s smart, and manipulative . . .” Her head chin sunk down to her chest. “He trained me . . . in a way I now find repulsive. He used a magic to keep me under his control. I fear he’s always going to be in my head.”
“Don’t think that girl, you’re strong, stronger than you know.”
“He forced my only memories of my family from me—” Both of her hands shot up to the sides of her head then, and a searing pain shot into her mind at the thought of her family. “Argh!” she groaned.
Roren sat up and reached out to touch Lilaci’s shoulder, which she shrugged off. He withdrew his hand. “He really did a number on you, didn’t he?”
“I’m going to kill him and all those damned black magic mages. Every last one of them— someday,” she said as she lowered her hands.
“Whatever I can do to help,” he said. “Once we find her, we will find a safe place for her again— somewhere to hide that’s safe, and then I’ll help you get your revenge, if you wish it of me.”
She looked up into his deep blue eyes. “Thank you Roren.”
He laid back down again and looked up to the infinite stars in the sky. “We’re going to change the Arr for the better.”
“The Order teach you to have illusions of grandeur?” Roren seems to have a pure heart. The Order of Drakon must have been a completely different place to grow up than in Sorock. Where I learned how to kill and hunt, they seemed to have taught him about loyalty and virtue. The ones who taught me showed me truth came through oppression and strength. Roren honestly believes these lands can transform into a better place.
“No,” he laughed. “They didn’t teach me to have any illusions. They taught me how to fight though, that’s one thing you and I have in common. Even if we came from two different worlds.”
“That is true.”
The following morning a Lilaci awoke to a thick, gray fog that’d rolled in throughout the night. She looked over to see the smoldering coals of the fire, and she saw Roren still soundly asleep. I would’ve noticed the fog normally as it rolled it. It truly is a gift to fall asleep with a belly full of food. Roren— you seem almost as passionate about Kera as I. Maybe you will grow to be a valuable ally. I hate to admit it, but any help I have against the armies of Voru and the gods is welcome. I only hope we will be enough.
She stood up, then reached down to her toes to stretch out her back. She reached up to the skies with a yawn, but her mouth was left open as she looked at the parting of the fog before her. Standing there, she stared to the east. “Roren.”
He shrugged slightly but didn’t get up.
“Roren!”
He rolled over slowly. “What is it? I was just having a dream . . .”
“Look,” she said.
He looked up at her, and then saw what it was she was looking at. He got to his feet and went to stand next to her. “If Fewn is taking her anywhere in this part of the sands, it has to be there,” he said.
“I hope so,” I know that’s the only place I’d take her.
Before the two of them, perfectly framed between the gap in the fog stood the highest mountain either of them had ever seen. Atop the mountain was vaguely visible, but it was a carving of a massive— yet headless— dragon with its great wings spread out wide.
“Lilaci, that’s where they’re going. That’s where we’ll find Kera.”
“Let’s not waste time then. She needs us.”
Chapter Eleven
In his chambers, he sat on a square wooden chair in the corner of the room. Specks of dust wafted through the soft sunlight of a stained-glass window at his back. In his callused hand, he held a letter warmly lit by the light. He sat back in his chair rubbing his chin, then cheek, and finally washed his hand over the top of his head as he looked up at the ceiling. He tossed the letter onto his dark wooden desk and put both hands behind his head and sighed.
It had been nearly a week since his meeting with Queen Serinaas and the gods, and Commander Veranor had been left to his own accord, waiting for word from Gorlen, the Witch Queen. She’d disappeared into the city. He cared not to know what her intentions and passions were among the people of Voru. He wanted to please his gods and rise to become one of the elite of their civilization and reap the rewards as such, but he wanted to stay as far away from the Witch Queen as he could. He knew her truest desire— she relished in the pain and slow agony of those beneath her.
“So, Gorlen,” he said softly to himself, “now you want me to come find you. And what a place you want to meet, eh?”
He rolled open a square drawer on the left side of the desk and rummaged through neatly stacked paper and papyrus, reaching to the back of the drawer. He produced a brown-colored bottle and popped a cork from the top. An aroma of honey, oak and wax wafted into the air, and Veranor took the bottle to his lips and drank one big gulp. He pulled the bottle back, and then took two more large gulps, the last one seemed hard to swallow. He threw the bottle back into the drawer.
Standing up from the chair, he lifted his shoulders back and puffed out his chest. He went over to the corner of the musty room and he grabbed his sword, neatly tucked into its scabbard. He put the belt around his waist and shifted it so the hilt of the sword was just where he liked it on his left hip. Then he grabbed the dagger with its leather hilt and slipped it in at the small of his back.
He looked up into a hazy mirror placed just to the right of a window in the corner of the room and peered at his face for a few moments.
“For the will of the gods,” he said to himself. His face was stern and cold. “Do it for yourself, you will walk away from all of this more powerful and wealthy than any other before you. She may be a witch, but she’s one of your gods.” He took a deep breath, and opened the door with a sharp creek, and walked out into the warmth of the midday sun, and into the busy crowds on the city streets.
He walked powerfully, and with great poise and confidence through the streets, any who saw him approaching were quick to make a path for the Commander of the Scaethers. His tunic’s cape tails floated along the dusty cobblestones as he made his way not towards the capital, but away from it. On either side of him merchants were yelling and laughing. Children ran by, scuttling in groups of abandoned orphans, searching for food or some generous, pious vendor.
The great pyramid loomed high above the city behind him, as Veranor ducked into a thin alleyway to his left, shooting into its cool shadow. Trash was piled high on either side, and at the far side of the alley, a group of young men stood at attention as the stranger walk casually towards them. Two of them stood at the front and quickly drew short daggers, pointing them out towards Veranor. He continued his long strides towards them.
The four men began to laugh, as the two in front flashed their daggers in the air, trying to intimidate the commander.
“Slow down old man,” one of the young men laughed. “Where you in a hurry to?”
“Yeah,” another said with a smirk, as he hopped down from a crate he was perched upon. “We just need a little help is all.”
“Give us what you have,” the other one at the front yelled. Veranor didn’t stop or say a word.
“Old man, just give us—” one of the young men said, then his expression went flush, and his eyes went wide. He appeared to have seen Veranor’s red sash at his waist as a gust of wind rustled up his tunic’s light cloth. The young man grabbed at his friend’s shoulder at the front, trying to pull him back, but his friend continued to hold the dagger out at the man.
“Hey, put it down,” the frantic young man at the back beckoned, as he pulled at his friend at the front. “Forget it, let's get out of here.”
“No, look at the leather on that sword he’s got,” the boy at the front said. “That’s worth a few orecks, maybe more.”
“Hey, he’s one of them, let's get out of here,” the young man at the back said, a
s he and the boy next to him darted out of the alley and towards the busy streets again.
The young man at the front looked over at the other boy next to him, also holding out a dagger. “Nah, we got this, more to keep for ourselves. Come on old man, do yourself a favor and just hand over what you got. No need to make this bloody.” Veranor didn’t stop, and he was a mere ten paces away at that point.
The boy next to the aggressive young man grew nervous quickly, and after taking a step back and lowering his dagger, ran out of the alleyway, and was soon gone.
“Cowards,” the last boy remaining said. “Now stop where you are, and hand over the sword. I’ll cut you, I swear to the gods I’ll cut you.”
As Veranor walked up the young man, the kid thrust his dagger at the commander— it was as sloppy of an attack as he’d ever seen. It was like putting a knife into a young Lu-Polini’s— kids with the pale skin and widow’s peak— hand for the first time. Veranor grabbed the kid’s wrist, he could feel the bones tense under the strength of his grasp, and the kid squealed in pain. Veranor cupped the kid’s hand, holding the blade firmly inside his grasp, and lifted it slowly up towards the boy’s neck.
“Hey, wait, no!” he cried. “I— I didn’t mean it, I wasn’t going to do nothing, honest! Stop, please stop!”
“You called your comrades cowards,” Veranor said in a cold voice. “Cowardice and wisdom are not the same. Look who is the only one here on the brink of the deep blackness.” He slid the tip of the dagger into the side of the boy’s throat. His cries turned to screams, blood-curdling screams. “Your friends knew when to run, only a fool would face a Scaether one on one. Insect.”
He threw the boy’s lifeless body to the sand and threw the dagger on top of him. Veranor spat on the corpse, and continued his walk, yet he carried a pleasurable smirk across his face. It had been so long since he’d killed, he’d missed it.
Another couple of streets down in the same alleyway he approached a decrepit shack two stories high, with chunks of wall missing on the lower level, but the top level appeared to be in pristine condition, it could even appear newly built. As Veranor reached down to the door latch and popped it open, he caught the unmistakable scent of torture, and pain. It was difficult to describe, it was filled with sweat and fear— a desperation most men would never know, the longing for death, but the agony of life in pain.
He entered the lower room, and he could already hear the moans of misery in the room above. Veranor reveled in power and victory. He held nothing higher in regard than the death of his enemies, and the adrenaline of the win, but he held no esteem for prolonged torture. No, that was a tool of the malevolent, and the evil.
At the far corner of the room, he climbed a stair, and popped open the latch. He took one last deep breath and entered the room. It was windowless, and the air was thick, like a clear fog. Along the four walls were men— and women— in varying states of death. Some strapped to devices he’d never seen. Few of them had the strength to look up at him, and begin to cry to beg him to help, or simply to kill them. At the center of the room was a lavishly decorated bed of fresh down and silk sheets. Veranor’s entrance seemed to stir Gorlen from her delicate sleep atop the bed. She yawned and turned over to look into his eyes.
Gorlen was half-naked underneath the sheets, and her flowing blond hair flowed down onto the silk-laden pillow as her light blue eyes pierced into Veranor. Her clean, tan shoulder was exposed and reflected the candle’s glow from the corners of the room.
“Commander Veranor, welcome,” she said, not rising from her bed just yet. “You must’ve received my invitation.”
Veranor had to glance back around the room to remind himself where he was. He’d realized in his few meetings with the gods, it was easy to get fixated on them, and forget everything else. It was like a spell or enchantment they wore like a jewel. “I did.”
“Well,” she said with a pause. “What do you think?” She looked around the room at the tortured soles barely clinging on to life. She smiled in pride like they were her trophies.
Veranor paused, not knowing quite how to respond. “Thank you for your summons, how may I serve you?”
She slipped a bare leg out from under the pillowy, soft blanket, and then the other. Covering herself with her arm, she reached over and collected a white, gleaming silk robe from a tall thin rack protruding from the side of a wardrobe cabinet of black stone with thin white streaks darting through it. She wrapped the white robe around herself and stood slowly. She walked over to a man who was strung up with sharp, curved hooks in his back, and he was blindfolded. She grabbed the blindfold delicately and then ripped it harshly off his head.
Shaking in terror, the man’s eyes darted around frantically, looking at Veranor briefly for mercy, then he looked into the Witch Queen’s eyes. His head sunk, and he shut his eyes forcefully. “Please, no more . . . No more,” he cried.
“This man,” she said, twirling the blindfold with her finger. “He’s a heretic. He was spreading lies about us, their gods. He lied about me. I listened myself as he spread his hatred to those few with the nerve to listen.”
Veranor shifted slightly in his unease. The man obviously was going to die slowly at her hand. And she hadn’t even used her favorite torture yet, poison.
“That’s what I’ve been doing since we last saw each other, Commander. I’ve been roaming with the people, my people to see what they do, what they are like, and how they worship us.”
“No one recognized you?” Veranor asked.
“I wouldn’t walk among the sheep in a wolf’s clothing,” she said with a wry smile. “I made myself to look as they look. I moped like they mope, I complained like them, and I stunk like they stink. It was a sort of fun actually— no— more like a game. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“A wolf indeed,” Veranor said. “Your reputation is quite solid as a hunter.”
She had a seemingly humble look on her at that comment, as if she liked the compliment, but it was beneath her to take pride in the words of one of the sheep.
“You care to end it?” Gorlen reached to the back of the wardrobe cupboard and produced a dagger of silver blade and black, stone handle. She flipped it in her hand and held the handle out to Veranor. The man hanging from the hooks, and bleeding slowly onto the floor, looked up at him with the eyes of a man who had reached his limit.
Veranor took the blade firmly in his hand and inspected it. It was a dagger of the gods, that much was certain. No human hands could produce such a weapon of stone and a metal he’d never seen.
“He’s going to die,” she said pleasurably. “It can be now or later, you know which I prefer. I like them to feel the long, slow pain of regret.”
“I—” the hanging man coughed. “I— don’t regret anything.”
Her eyes flared with a burning hot rage, and her blond hair flew back from her shoulders to behind her head, and Veranor heard a hissing sound come from her. “You’ll regret everything. I’ll burn your lying tongue from your mouth. I burn your children’s eyes from their heads and take their hands and feet as trophies.”
“You can kill me,” he spat, in a raspy, weak voice. “But it will just further the sheep’s hatred of you. Someday it will be you begging for forgiveness. Someday it will be you . . .”
A green smoke began to flow out from underneath the knee-length robes of the Witch Queen and Veranor quickly shot back towards the door behind him. A moaning and roar came from the over two-dozen other voices in the room as the smoke crept up towards the hanging man. The room had gone from a dull haze of stagnant terror to room of frantic groans and stirring. It was like something out of a nightmare; bloody coughing, screams of horror, and blood poured to the wooden floorboards in pools.
Veranor reached behind him and grabbed the latch to the door yet waited. He didn’t want to flee unless absolutely necessary. He couldn’t appear weak in front of her. Instead he turned and watched as the smoke rose up, drifting in the thick air like a long sna
ke upright, ready to strike.
“Say that one more time,” she dared the hanging man, as he stared back into her cold, blue eyes. “Tell all of these dead souls in here one more time that I’ll ever beg for anything from the likes of you mortals.” After she said that, she let her fingers fly out at him, and the green smoke entered into the man’s mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. His eyes bulged instantly, and he back to shake, not from fear this time, but from the pain. He convulsed, and he started to foam at the mouth. Veranor looked down at the dagger in his hand, he looked up at the hanging man dying in agony, and then he looked up at Gorlen, who stared at the man with a wicked hatred, and pleasure.
“Long . . .” The hanging man coughed. “Live . . .” He coughed again, and everyone in the room seemed to be hanging on his words. He took a deep gulp, and then yelled out in a voice that shook the room. “Long live the Dragon’s Breath!”
The Witch Queen let out a screeching roar, that of an old woman wailing. As she screamed on in her fury and rage, Veranor moved swiftly, and feeling the weight of the dagger properly in his hand, he took quick steps. The dagger found its mark and blood poured to the floor. The eyes of the hanging man gave a look of gratitude. Veranor couldn’t help but find respect for the man who’d braved all to defy a god, and as he pulled the dagger from the man’s neck the green smoke dissipated and the man’s body fell limp on the chains.
Gorlen’s eyes shot over at Veranor in a wild rage. “What did you do? His soul was mine to torment!”
“I couldn’t let his lies speak to you like that,” Veranor said in a strong tone. “I can’t let his lies permeate your air anymore.”
She eyed him curiously, and her head perched to the side. Her hand and fingers extended out towards him as she appeared to glide towards him, without moving her legs. He looked down at the bloody dagger in his hand and held it out to her. She grabbed the blade with her bare hand and looking at the blood as it ran down the blade, she turned her back to him, and to what seemed to him as she was licking the blade. Once she turned back around, the blade was as clean as it had been when she handed it to him.