It was an elder woman, bent with age and with silver hair tied back into a frayed bun. She put her hands over her mouth and nose, hesitating at the entrance and looking at the dried blood and old viscera with horror. She was clearly not a member of the cult or a newly added.
Mal’Bal set down his creation with a sigh and the puppet leaned itself against a pole. It looked to be staring at Wahala but she couldn’t tell. To her, the scenario might have been the strangest one she’d even been in. There was the powerful Lich-Lord, her tied and injured, an old Lenovan woman, and a broken puppet made of gold—all staring at each other.
“Berula, you shall care for my puppet and for this woman. You’ll do so with all your skill. If I’m not satisfied with your work, I shall delicately peel off your skin and staple it back inside-out, leaving you alive in your agony.”
Mal’Bal spoke the words slowly, placing emphasis on their weight. The trembling woman nodded vigorously.
“Y—yes.” she spoke, not daring to say more than one word.
Mal’Bal crouched behind Wahala and undid her knots. Wahala’s heart leapt like a frightened rabbit and her pained muscles clenched once more. Was this it? Was it finally the end? But Mal’Bal had assigned the old woman to care for her—yet, that could mean care for her corpse…
Mal’Bal took off the ropes binding her legs and pulled Wahala to her feet. Grabbing her by the nape with a giant golden fist, he forced her forward out of the tent. Stumbling and with blood rushing through her pinched veins, Wahala hissed in discomfort. Sun hit her eyes and she blinked, staring at the ground so as to not walk about blind.
“You bring back slaves?” she asked.
“We’ve captured most of Kazma’s fugitives.” Mal’Bal replied. “Those who haven’t ritualized and joined the cult have been pressed into servitude cooking food, cleaning tents, healing, and doing other jobs.”
Wahala laughed, feeling delirious. “You grow soft. I thought you reveled in the killing of those weaker than you.”
Mal’Bal chuckled, a worrisome noise. She was sure he would have flown into a fit of rage.
“Wahala, today will be a wonderful day.”
Wahala wrapped her arms around herself, battling the fear in her chest and mind. She uncrossed her arms and straightened her back. No, she was Queen Priestess—she wouldn’t cower. Let her go to her death with dignity.
Mal’Bal noticed her change and he let out a soft laugh. He led her to a large clearing in the middle of the multitudes of tents making up the army’s camp. All about them, thousands of cloaked figures stood row upon row, silently watching. Intermingled were thousands more in civilian clothes, bleeding from cut limbs. New recruits. Around them was another group numbered in the thousands. They were bound and broken, shivering in their misery. Slaves. Mal’Bal finally had a formidable force large enough to threaten even the king of Lenova himself.
The only noise heard in all the camp came from the crunching footsteps of Mal’Bal and Wahala. She could see in the middle of the clearing two thick wooden poles jutting out of the ground. They each held two ropes. She knew what they were for: to bind her hands and feet, stretching her out between them. When they drew near, Mal’Bal changed his grip, using his massive strength to toss her through the air. She smashed into the dirt, fighting with all she had to not cry out. Let the people see she wasn’t a coward or a weakling. She was a Queen, their true Queen.
Mal’Bal picked her up, tearing off her robe and exposing her skin to cold crisp air. Only her womanhood stayed covered by leather and bandages. The Lich-Lord tied her to the ropes. As each limb was secured, she became a human “X”, strained to her bodily limit. Finally, Mal’Bal raised his arms to the air, walking circles around her and facing the crowd.
“Behold!” he shouted, his deep voice booming across the land. Without his own clothes, his exposed golden body glinted in all its splendor. “The heretic that would usurp me!”
The crowd stirred.
“My assistant and supporter! A backstabber and a fool!” Mal’Bal pointed an accusing finger to Wahala’s face. She straightened her chin and locked her jaw, unblinking.
“She entered forbidden rooms within our holy temple and there she ritualized, calling herself Queen Priestess!”
Mal’Bal spat the words yet Wahala couldn’t help but let out a small smile. She watched as many of the original cult members stiffened and their eyes widened. Instead of having to gain support in secret, telling others of her rank by whisper, Mal’Bal had done her work for her, loudly for all to hear.
“There are no more Queens! The old ways are dead! Her actions weaken us and corrode my work!” Mal’Bal stopped his pacing. “And now she must be punished!”
There was silence. Mal’Bal made a motion with his hands and six cult members walked forward, a large barrel carried between them. By the way they strained, the object must have been heavy. The panic within Wahala shook and buckled, trying to break free. What was Mal’Bal going to do to her?
The barrel was dropped beside Mal’Bal. Wahala could hear something sloshing inside. Smoke and heatwaves shimmered from the edges of the lid. Her panic worsened. A seventh cult member walked forward, presenting a long and terrifying whip with multiple strands, covered in barbs and glass. So there would be pain after all. Her toes curled.
Mal’Bal pulled the whip across his hands, dragging it along his palm. The whip’s sharp edges grated against gold. Loudly, he spoke necromantic words to the object. In surprise, to Wahala’s ears they didn’t sound foreign as before—but clear, and in her language.
“Sheath of magic, cover this weapon. Make it unburnable.”
Had her status of Queen Priestess granted her the ability to hear the necromantic words in an understandable form? If so, it was a power kept secret from even the temple’s forbidden books.
Mal’Bal pulled the lid off the barrel and a thick cloud swirled away into the air. Within the container Wahala could see melted silver. Its glossy, near-white surface bubbled like a slow beast surfacing a swamp. Mal’Bal dipped the whip into the fluid and held it there. Wahala’s legs gave out and she sagged into the ropes. Mal’Bal grinned, the mask of calm finally gone. His eyes widened and the pulsing veins on his face grew. His breathing intensified with unbridled excitement and spittle flecked his lips.
“The Lenovans say twenty-five lashes is a terrifying punishment. But we’re different from them, are we not Wahala? We revel in pain. We love it. Let’s not worry about numbers, shall we?” The crowds shuddered and leaned back. “Leaders suffer for their people, Wahala. They agonize over them. You accepted your false calling—so remember, you wanted this.”
Mal’Bal pulled the whip from the barrel. It dripped sizzling silver onto the dirt, where it boiled and danced across the sand, turning it into glass. Wahala’s muscles betrayed her and they shook without control. This was not like the sacrifice she’d made of her knees. The pain had been brutal but quick, the wounds mended within minutes—same with her heart replacement. This… this would last.
Mal’Bal circled her once more, faking a lash, trying to get her to cry or flinch. Diving into her willpower and mastering it with only the ferocity of her mind, she didn’t make a sound, nor did she recoil. With no warning, as he passed behind her, Mal’Bal struck.
The whip cut across her back, carving in and sending melted silver across her skin. It burrowed though tissue and muscle, into her bones. She heaved, her face opening to the air and her eyes rolling. Her hands grabbed at the ropes and her fingers spasmed wildly. She nearly swallowed her tongue. If all the pain she’d ever felt combined as one, it would still not live up to the one lash. The bite was so strong she didn’t have the power to make a noise. She didn’t have the means to show her weakness. Her bowels loosened and she didn’t care.
Mal’Bal circled to her front, facing her. Her knees tried knocking together but were stretched too far apart. He looked at her with contempt, madness playing across his face.
“Already you shake, Wahala.�
�� he teased, “We haven’t even started yet.” Wahala dropped her head. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t survive one more lash, much less however many more Mal’Bal saw fit to give her. Her life was at his mercy—and the man had none.
“Say thank you to me.” Mal’Bal whispered, his voice sing-song.
Wahala giggled, her teeth chattering. The silver droplets stung deep within her and the smell of burning flesh lingered in the air.
“I bring you sensation.” Mal’Bal spoke, “I bring you feeling. Once you’ve passed into the void, you’ll have nothing. I scar the memory of sense into you. Say thank you to me.”
Wahala worked up the mental fortitude and shot her head up. She laughed in Mal’Bal’s face, her eyes as wide as his.
“Thank you! Thank you so much, oh Lord!” The words came out ringing with spite and pride. She was the Queen Priestess, rightful ruler of the cult!
Mal’Bal scowled and lashed across her front. Wahala gasped and danced in her ropes. Yet she didn’t scream. Mal’Bal whipped her again and again and again.
“Say thank you to me! Show me your gratitude! I am your leader! Yours!”
Slash. Slash. Slash.
“Thank you Lich-Lord! False master! Defiler of truth!” She screeched the words, masking agony for irony and confidence.
Mal’Bal grew restless and dipped his whip into the liquid once more. He whipped her with a down-stroke and Wahala went deep into herself, burying her consciousness far below layers of mental barriers. They broke one by one with each lash. She knew she should be dead from the pain or the shock, but something in her kept ticking—kept feeding her the smallest of energy. The power of the Queen Priestess. But… perhaps she wanted to die. The emptiness would taste so fresh…
“She’s not your leader! Look upon her weakness! Look upon her cowering form! What has she done for you? Nothing! What is her name to you? Nothing! Where are her supporters? Why don’t they speak out?”
Wahala found Salastine’s face in the crowd. His eyes brimmed with fury and his fists clenched and unclenched. He looked about ready to step forward and attack Mal’Bal, but he didn’t. No one did.
Slash. Burning. She was burning alive. Slash.
“Say thank you to me for your pain! Say thank you to me for being your guiding savior!”
“Thank you, oh grand falseness! Thank you!”
Slash.
Wahala, it was an honor to be in the Queen Priestess’s presence. Her regal stance, the way her masterful eyes roamed her people, and the necromantic power she wielded… She was a fair leader. Stern, but traditional. Ungiving to weakness.
All that had been, all that could be: halted and defiled by Mal’Bal. He was no member of the cult. He was a Star-Child. The whip was dipped once more and Mal’Bal went insane, hitting her over and over mercilessly, his face a mask of fury and uncontrolled emotion. He missed multiple times, striking dirt, no longer aiming. He was the one screaming while Wahala stayed silent, her body now only wiggling. There was no more pain. All had faded into a dull drone of movement. Silver, tickled with light, rained around her. Her wounds didn’t bleed. They were closed off by the melted metal.
Finally, with a howl, Mal’Bal tipped over the barrel, pouring silver across his legs and dirt. Throwing the whip with disgust and kicking the container away, Mal’Bal rushed forward and grabbed Wahala’s head between his hands. He shook her face and screamed, his only organic body-part red with anger.
“I AM YOUR GOD AND YOU’VE BETRAYED ME!”
He motioned for a scythe and a terrified cult member slunk forward, cowering beneath his mad leader and giving him his weapon. Mal’Bal took the scythe and decapitated the man with one blurred stroke, kicking the body to the side. The crowds shrunk back, jaws hanging open. The Lich-Lord faced Wahala once more, blood dripping from his face. His tongue darted out and licked at it.
“DEATH IS MINE TO GIVE! YOU DON’T GET THE PLEASURE OF AN END! ALL IS MINE! MINE! I AM LEADER, YOU’LL BE BUT MY PERSONAL SLAVE, A REMINDER OF HERESY!”
The curved blade slashed across her ribs, opening her chest. Wahala gasped faintly. Tossing the scythe to the ground, Mal’Bal plunged his hand within her. Maybe the crowds were screaming. Maybe it was Mal’Bal. Maybe she had finally caved and it was her. Mal’Bal tugged and pulled and there grew a terrible pressure from within herself. The wet squelching noises shook her form and the tart scent of carnage stank the air. Mal’Bal stepped away, holding her golden heart in a crimson grip. Were the crowds fighting among themselves?
Wahala was hollow, empty, cold. Her heart still beat, magically transferring life to her even out of her body. But life or not, her spirit and mentality couldn’t hold itself together. Pieces crumbled and broke, falling away into dark puddles of incomprehensibility.
“Less than gold.” Mal’Bal wheezed to himself, one hand holding her heart and the other rubbing his scalp. He walked back and forth in front of her, looking at the ground with bulging eyes. “Less than gold. She’s less than gold. Just a butterfly. Less. Lower. Silver. Prove it.”
He dropped her heart into the spilled pile of liquid silver. With his foot, he rolled the magical organ around, coating it in the new metal. Rage shrieked out from many. Others though—they cheered. The people were raising weapons to each other, arguing. Salastine had half-stepped into the clearing, face red. The man struggled with himself, then was gone. Wahala smiled. Good—Salastine had to keep his beliefs a secret. He could continue without her, perhaps choosing another as Queen.
Robed figured were pulling back hoods, swinging weapons. Were they infighting? One tried throwing a rock at Mal’Bal and was disemboweled for it. The movements became blurs of color. Wahala was going now, she was sailing into a storm of frozen shadow. She was so cold.
Mal’Bal lifted her now-silver heart. “A SYMBOL! LESS THAN GOLD! LESS THAN ME! BENEATH ME!”
Then he was approaching, his face filling the entire expanse of the world itself. His eyes danced and spun around her, expanding and contracting. He was putting her heart back into her chest and speaking strange words of necromancy. Words of binding and adjustment. Of healing. His punishment was worse than death. It was the taking away of her martyrdom. Mal’Bal’s head poured sweat from the strain of using so much dark magic. Her chest was closing and her skin tugging, pulling itself back together. Mal’Bal looked about ready to pass out himself.
Wahala grinned, last bits of breath leaving her lungs. The void had opened its mouth and she was falling through it. “Thank you, oh leader. Thank you for the pain. I will remember it.”
Wahala opened her eyes, once more greeted by the smell of rot. The gore tent. She couldn’t move. It wasn’t that she was bound, it was that her mind didn’t seem to be working properly. The thoughts didn’t travel to the muscles. A face faded into view: the slave Berula.
“You awaken!” she croaked, her voice wobbly with age. “After a month I thought you gone forever! Don’t move. You still have weeks upon weeks to heal of such wounds as these.”
Wahala’s lips twitched. She tried speaking but only small gasps escaped her. She finally formed words. “A…month?”
“Rest.” the old woman spoke. “Rest now.”
Berula disappeared and reappeared with a small bowl of paste. When the elder’s fingers touched Wahala’s skin to apply the medicine, Wahala fell back into the fogs of darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
Salt
—Circa 5,612 E.E. (Economic Era-The 17th Era): Lady Tribalyn of House Phure takes a pleasure ride on her personal boat. Although the SeaLake looks calm and her men are confident, the tides turn as a massive storm overtakes the water and threatens to pull the boat down. Strange beasts surface, armor-plated and with tentacled eyes, jaws large enough to swallow the boat. Gripping onto the boat’s railing and shrieking for help, Lady Tribalyn spots a lone man rowing across the waves with a merry whistle. The unknown stranger winks at her with no fear in his eyes. Taking a spear and blowing into a conch-horn, the sailor draws the la
ke-beasts away from Lady Tribalyn’s boat. She is unable to see much in the darkness, but as lightning flashes across the sky, casting purple hues across the wild water, she briefly makes out the sailor spinning a spear and twisting a curved blade. One of the beasts rolls dead in the waves and another is sinking with a screech, impaled in the mouth. Lady Tribalyn’s boat is pushed away from the scene and she never sees the man again.—
Finn opened his eyes to a log ceiling and the scent of fresh bread. He was tired and his body complained of weakness, but his arm and his ribs held no pain. He sat up and examined himself. He was wearing a soft tan shirt and thick warm leggings. His travel clothes were draped over a nearby chair. His pouch of gems, broken goggles, and Lady Tuliah’s elixir were untouched. Faces stared at him from through a window near his bed. They were people he didn’t recognize. They scowled, eyes narrowed with suspicion, then were gone, replaced by dim sunlight behind gray clouds.
“First to rise, you are. That be a testament to yer health.”
The accented voice came from the end of the room, where from an open door, a strange man entered bearing a tray of food. It was from the tray that the smell of bread came from. He presented Finn a loaf and a bowl of chunky stew brimming with caramelized vegetables, potatoes, and melted cheese.
The man had long, black curly hair pulled back into a ponytail. From his ears dangled yellow hoops and a scar ran from his stubbled, tan chin to his scalp. He wore a strange dark-blue overcoat, its popped-up collar casting his lower face in shadow. Upon putting the tray in Finn’s lap, he presented a gloved hand for shaking. Finn could make out a bracer glinting beneath his coat sleeve. Star-Child.
“I be called Salt, for a salty ol’ dog am I.”
“Finn.”
“Fin? Like a fish fin? Perchance you’re a sailor?” The man’s voice sounded hopeful.
Finn shook his head. “No. Just Finn for Finn’s sake.”
Salt sighed. “Damn, that sullies my trousers, Finn-for-Finn’s-sake. I’ve yet to meet another ocean-prowling, scally-scrubbing, swell-swaddling mother-of-none among all these ground-trotters.”
SunRider: Book 1 (The SunRider Saga) Page 27