The Smiling Stallion Inn
Page 31
“You always say that,” the gringok muttered.
“What?” Doomba cried, turning on his Servant.
“Nothing, nothing, forget it, sire!” the gringok said, crouching down.
“How can I forget it?” Doomba asked. The gringok screamed as Doomba clutched him around the throat and shook him without moving his hands. The mask fell on the floor, its eyeless façade staring up at Doomba. “Bring me a mirror,” he commanded, letting go of the gringok.
The entity scrambled away in a hurry and went in search of what Doomba desired.
When the gringok held up the mirror, Doomba growled as he looked at his true reflection without the mask. “This is a shell of a man, and I rattle around in his ribcage,” he said, swinging his arm and shattering the glass. The gringok cowered beside the mask. “I should have a new body, one that doesn’t appear so aged and grotesque,” he said to himself, staring off into the distance. “A new, strong body, one that doesn’t have wrinkles and scars, but can bear my weight, and lift me off of my throne.” He picked up his mask. “A fine specimen of a man who can…the tiger,” he said to himself.
“The tiger?” the gringok asked.
“The tiger of light. He moves in the dark, but he’s not of the dark. His light shines brighter than anything around him. He hides his light now, even from himself, but he can’t hide it for long. He holds his lantern up to the dark and says come get me.” Doomba growled, putting the mask back over his face. “I’ll find him. I’ll twist him to my purpose. I’ll make him fit to inhabit.” He looked at the gringok. “Do you know how I got to be like this?”
The gringok shook his head. “No, sire.”
“There is another world where they have Romans, citizens of a great empire that started in the city of Rome and stretched out to cover a large portion of their world.” He turned to stare off into the distance once more. “This mask is similar to one of the Roman statues. Anyway, I was once part of such a great empire, the Corrican empire, and then…I was so very close to becoming emperor of the Corricans,” Doomba said. “The Romans had a man, Julius Caesar, who was also close to becoming their emperor until he was stabbed to death by former friends, but I was even closer. I had the entire empire, the people and the Council of Elders, begging me to take my rightful place, until it was all destroyed.” Doomba growled. “I could have been the Caesar of my world, instead of this demon.”
The gringok quickly shook his head again. “No, sire, you’re not a demon; you’re not.”
“I am!” Doomba roared, slamming a fist down on the armrest of his throne. “I’m a demon! I was brought forward from the demon world to inhabit this body after Corrica was destroyed. I was Memba on the island of Corrica as a human, but now I’m Doomba. Memba had no choice when he left the island of Corrica, destroyed as it was by fire and ash. But when he arrived in Arria, he was given a chance, a choice, and he took it, converting this body to demon form. We are both one and the same for how many long years we’ve inhabited each other.”
Doomba growled again. “Nearly three thousand long years since…we are ready to move on. It’s time.” He looked up toward the ceiling and growled. “Come to us, tiger, come to us, and we’ll be ready for you, ready to move on! We shall twist fate and bend the world to our will!” He roared, and the gringok ran away. “It’s time,” Doomba said. “Time to cast aside my old self, and welcome the new.”
He smiled behind his mask of redoubtable glory.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Courtney Bowen
Courtney Bowen lives in Texas. She fell in love with fantasy fiction at a young age and started writing it as a preteen. She wrote her first version of the Arria series in junior high and high school. She redid the first novel, Knights of Arria, several times in college and thus extended it across several books. She has also written a handful of short stories in Arria’s universe and a sci-fi short story as well as two poetry and lyrics books.
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