“Where are you all?” I asked the three of them.
“The north,” Mowa said, finally turning towards me. “They have taken us there. It’s the place where you are most likely to find us. But be careful, we might try to harm you.”
“We do not really want you to be like us,” Binni said, “with horns and tails and wings. Please stay as you are.”
I couldn’t help myself and I hugged Binni, even though I was aware that she was just a creation of my mind.
Mowa suddenly let out a cough. He looked at me with one of those faces he had when he was going to do something that he thought was cool.
“You like that guy, don’t you?” he said.
Okay, that was not a cool thing to ask at all. Mowa was asking about Lanak .
I shrugged.
“He thinks he’s the leader,” I said, “but he keeps messing up. I am not sure if I like him. And why are you asking me that, may I ask?”
Mowa coughed. He looked away in a sly manner.
“I don’t know,” he said, “I just felt like it. You know, the two of us remain together doing weird stuff and people, including your mother—“ he shot my mother a look, “—keep getting the wrong impression that there is something cooking between the two of us, so I just wanted to make it clear to you that you shouldn’t start having hopes revolving around me. If you like the Lanak guy, stick to him.”
Mowa had said those exact words a few months back when a new guy had come to the neighbourhood. Mowa had thought I had liked the new guy, even though I had not. The guy had moved away in a few weeks, apparently not liking our town much.
My mind really was creating all the conversation based on what I already had heard in the past, wasn’t it?
I needed to get out of this dream.
There was blackness.
I forced my eyelids open. I was sleeping right next to Lanak. I had one of my legs atop him. In my sleep I had rolled up close to him. Danor was awake and I could see the shine of the moon on his eyes well. The sand demons were standing at a distance keeping guard on us.
Embarrassed, I quickly removed my leg from above Lanak. I sat up. Judging by the location of the moon, I had been asleep for at least a few hours.
“Did you find the dragon?” I asked the sand demons, more to get out of my embarrassment than anything.
“No,” one of them replied, “there was no sign of any dragon. But we did see a group of travellers. They were carrying something in a big chest.”
Big chest?
“Could the chest hold the statue that is missing from the stone in the centre of the pond?”
“Very possible,” the sand demon replied. “The chest was of the right size.”
“How many travellers were there?”
“About twenty. But I felt two of them presided over the others. A man and a woman who looked very much like each other. The other people might have been slaves.”
“Where were they headed?” I asked.
“The south. There are worse places in the subcontinent. The lands that lie south of the desert are one of them.”
I nodded. I looked at Lanak. He looked to be in a peaceful sleep despite the ugly wound he had on the cheek. My heart pained to know that in a mere three days he would be a demon. But maybe there might be some way to stop that from happening? I prayed a way would show itself.
I shook Lanak awake. He didn’t seem very keen to wake up. But when I told him about the chest that the travellers were carrying, all drowsiness left him.
“Let’s go immediately,” Lanak said.
***
Chapter 15: Lanak Tanor
“What will we say to them, sir?” Danor asked me. “Give us the statue?”
The party of travellers were only a short distance from us. Danor had raised an important question. A party of travellers who could take an object of magical powers that was related to the succubi would not be very easy to deal it. But we had to get the statue at all cost, if they indeed were carrying it.
“That’s precisely what we shall say,” I said. “No way around.”
Lana landed the craft in front of the party of travellers, who were taken with surprise. The blackness of the night had so far shielded us from observation by them.
I pushed the lid open and went out followed by the other two. The sand demons, who had travelled in the form of sand sticking to the surface of the Sphere also took humanoid forms.
“Who are you?” one man carrying a torch said. He had a big sword at his waist.
I raised my arms.
“We mean no harm,” I said. “We just want to know what you are carrying in the chest.”
From one of the two camels, a woman jumped down. She was wearing a large dress-like black attire and she wore a turban.
“And what if I said we won’t tell you what we are carrying?” she asked me.
Her voice…
It brought back one of my oldest memories. That of Daria, my cousin. The voice of the lady was so similar to Daria, whose voice I could never forget thanks to all her rudeness that she had shown towards me together with her parents and her brother.
The light from one of the torches fell on her face, illuminating it.
My heart skipped a beat.
Yes, the face was aged. But it was in fact Daria! She had managed to come to the Second World. I had thought she had died in her thirties, along with her brother. In the real world, the two of them had chosen the wrong path. Taking to drugs and finally ending up looting banks. I had once even heard them of killing some minister. As far as I knew Daria and her brother had been killed in a police shootout.
Had they escaped against all odds?
Just then another person leapt down from the other camel. This person was obese and was a man. The light of the flickering torches fell on his face and my heart skipped yet another beat.
It was Darren, Daria’s brother!
I struggled to say anything.
Darren walked closer.
“Who do you think you are to stop us and ask what we carry?”
“You might possess a fancy flying machine, but we possess things of power,” said Daria. “Now you make way before we show you what we have. Believe me, you don’t want to see what we have, so piss off.” Daria still sounded as rude as she was back in the old days. The last time I had seen her was some hundred and twenty years ago. Some people really didn’t change, did they?
“We won’t say twice,” Lana said, seeing that I had gone quiet. “Show us what you are carrying.”
“We won’t either,” Darren said, the threat in his voice obvious. One thing I had learnt back in my own life was that if Daria and Darren said that they could harm you, they aren’t lying. But maybe, just maybe, if I told them about what mission we needed to accomplish, they would listen? Hundred and twenty years were definitely enough to make one wise, right?
“How did you survive the shootout?” I asked.
The brother and the sister went silent and looked at each other. I reckoned not many knew about their real life.
“Who are you?” Daria said.
“Who could it be?” I said. I took a step forward, allowing the light from the nearest torch to fall clearly on me.
Silence.
Then finally Daria stepped forward.
“But it couldn’t be you,” she said
“Oh, but it is,” I said.
Daria nodded. She seemed to come to herself from the initial shock of seeing me.
“I see you made it to this world,” Darren said in his loud manner. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how times pass? I am having one heck of a déjà vu feeling right now, though, I must tell.”
“You wanted to know about the shootout, right?” Daira said. “It was easy. Bribes go a long way and shootouts can be staged. We figured we could make more money without being in the news than being in the news. Mom and Dad weren’t particularly proud of us, but hey, they were living off our money. I wish though if they had survived till the Second
World rolled out.”
“Now tell us, why are you after what we carry?” Darren said. “Being our cousin, we might allow you to take a peek at it for the sake of old times, if you say why you are after it.”
“It can help save lives,” I said.
Darren made an expression like I was trying to be big.
“Ah, of course, always the good guy, right?” Darren said. “Anyway, we don’t turn from our promises.” He clapped his hands. Two of the servants brought the chest and placed it in front of me. It was Darren who opened the chest.
There was a statue inside. One with horns.
“It would fit well in the rock, sir,” Danor said from behind me.
“Because we took it from the rock, of course,” Daria said. “I reckon you went to the oasis as well?”
I nodded.
“You didn’t face any difficulties in retrieving this?” I said. The last vessel had been so strictly guarded. It would be foolish to think this one wouldn’t be.
“Nah,” Darren said. “It was easy. But then what’s easy for us is tough for noobs like you. You have always been a noob, haven’t you, Lanak ?”
I didn’t reply.
“I guess you had to face demons?” I said. “Is that what you mean by easy?”
“This time it was actually easy,” Daria said observing me with a curious eye, “our slaves swam up to it and brought it. No hindrances. We plan to sell it and make money, loads of it. Things like these are worth a lot in the southern tip of our lovely subcontinent.”
I knew that Daria wasn’t lying. Yet, I found it hard to swallow that getting the statue had been that easy.
“Can you give it to us instead?” I asked the siblings. They both broke into laughter.
“Oh, of course, we will give it to you,” they said, “heck we will sell it to you. We would even give you a discount of a few gold coins.”
“But we shall not go below five hundred thousand gold coins,” Darren added in a business-like voice without laughing.
Of course, I had nowhere close to that kind of money.
I didn’t say anything and they probably understood that I didn’t have the money. Daria clapped her hands. The servants came and they took away the chest.
“It’s been nice meeting you,” Daria said, “we had hoped to never see the scumbag that you are, but either ways, thanks for conjuring old memories in our minds of the times when we had fun with you.”
Daria went back and climbed onto her camel.
Darren came to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. He eyed the wound on my cheek and then looked at Lana.
“She kissed you, eh?” Darren whispered to me, and then he chuckled like he had made the greatest joke in the universe. He too walked back and got onto his camel.
“Goodbye scum-face,” Daria said, “we hope to never cross paths with you again. Now what are you waiting for, rats?” she said to her slaves, “Get moving, we need to get to the festival on time. We need to sell our wares after all.”
And the servants and the two siblings on the camels began to move past us. I remained standing on the spot. Lana came over to me.
“You knew them right? From the real world?”
I nodded.
“I grew up with them,” I said, “their mother was the cousin of my mother. She had to take me with her after my parents died as she was my closet relative then.”
“Why did you let them make fun of you?” Lana said.
I didn’t reply. Maybe because they had always made fun of me, maybe?
“Yes, sir, they were treating you like the people in my village used to treat me,” Danor said, “I thought you would have stood up to them.”
Those words definitely hurt. I felt like I had gone down in my own perspective of myself.
“And you can definitely not let them go without taking the statue,” Lana added. “We need it! It is the vessel we are after.”
I sighed. I turned at the party of my cousins that had gone only a short distance away from us. This was my chance to stand up to them. I wouldn’t let it go. I couldn’t let it go.
“Let’s get that statue,” I said, “they won’t be giving it to us, so let’s take it.”
The chest was being carried by two of the slaves. The camels were moving on either side of the chest and there were slaves both behind the chest and in front of it. Further, some of the slaves were moving in a protective circle around the siblings with the chest in the centre.
“Lana, can you go to them and get the chest?” I said. “Meanwhile I will be flying the Sphere above them. Don’t even look back once you get the chest. Shoot right up towards the Sphere. They are carrying other things besides the chest, things that can harm us. They weren’t kidding when they said so earlier, believe me.”
Lana nodded.
“I will do that,” she said.
Then I turned at the sand demons.
“You will protect Lana,” I said, “Stay near her when she dives for the chest, all right?”
The nodded earnestly.
I gritted my teeth, even though my cheek pained because of that.
“Let’s do this.”
***
Chapter 16: The Wizard
“This is where they had been fishing, I reckon, when they first heard the echo,” the mayor said.
I nodded, observing the stream. The moon high up in the sky casted light that reflected in the waters of the stream, giving it a rather magical effect. There were insects singing as well. Oh, what a nice time for the completion of my plans! The mayor and I had come alone. I had made sure that nobody had seen me and him come towards these parts. Everyone believed that I was still in the guest house. The mayor’s idiot son was away. The pieces were finally falling in place. I could barely contain my excitement.
Why hadn’t I conceived a plan such as this before? All were mere puppets in my hands as of the moment. Lanak the succubi tamer, the idiot son, the mayor, the entire town! All mere puppets. All carrying out things so that I could profit out of them.
Then I turned at the mayor.
He had been reluctant to come to the stream so late at night, but I had convinced him. I had developed a good mouth over the years, one that could easily pass for the mouth of a man who was, let’s say, more innocent than me. There was some fear on his face as a result of the night, but I could see that he still completely trusted me. He probably thought if anything went wrong, I would readily give up my life to protect him. I had after all travelled the great distances so that the town could be saved.
As if that was true.
I contemplated even as I felt the hilt of the dagger hidden beneath my robes whether I should let the mayor know of my true nature before I put him to the forever sleep. I decided I would. I swam in an ocean of lies. A truth on a few occasions wouldn’t be that bad, would it? After all one needed to taste all flavours of life.
“You know,” I said, “I called you here to tell you something, something that is very important, believe me. More important than ever anything I have ever told you.”
“And what is it?” the mayor asked with a look of concern.
“The truth,” I said. I clutched my forehead, pretending like it was something that was causing me mental agony. I looked up at the mayor again. His trust in me had not faltered one bit. Wise man, he was. But wise men often made mistakes.
“The truth?” he asked me.
“About the echoes,” I said, “there are no such things as that. I created the myth. The eerie sounds I created with a quick spell of mine. As for the succubus that was sighted near the town earlier, she had been bewitched by me. She had been a free succubus, not one enslaved by the succubi queen. Bewitching a succubus is very hard, I must tell you, but I succeeded. Too bad Lanak killed her, but at least that proved that he still retained some of his tamer powers.”
The Mayor visibly shivered. He took a step backwards. His trust in me was finally breaking. I decided to continue revealing the truths to him.
“But worry not, there is a real threat of the Succubi Queen. Once Lanak is able to defeat her, the many succubi that are currently under the queen’s control will come under him. I already own his trust, so following the queen’s downfall it would be child’s play for me to take over the control of the succubi from Lanak. I am positive that Lanak would be able to defeat the queen for he used to be the best succubi tamer in my part of the world and his fame was spread wide. Even if he fails, well, then thanks to your good son I will become the next mayor.”
“What did you do to my son?” the mayor asked. He was finally glaring at me.
“Oh, I never did anything to him,” I said, “he did everything himself. He was the one who came to me asking for a way to gain the ability to see stats. One thing led to another and he signed a blood agreement which would make me the mayor of this town after your passing. And today is the day when I become the next mayor.”
I pulled out the knife from under the robes. I showed it to the mayor.
“Do not be afraid,” I said, the sword shining bright in the moonlight. It was a bronze dagger, one of the highest quality. “It’ll be a quick death. Where should I strike you?”
The mayor turned and ran. I laughed. I had longer legs than him, how could be possibly think he could escape me? A few leaps and I managed to grab his clothes and stop him. Yet, he still struggled. This had always fascinated me. People always struggled in the final moments before I killed them. I had yet to meet someone who would readily accept death.
The mayor tried to hit me with his elbows. I decided I had had enough with the play. I slit his throat, nice and easy. He slumped to the ground, trying to mumble words and failing, blood gushing out of his neck. In two minutes he was dead. I bent and closed his eyes.
I smiled. I had much to thank the idiot son. The kind of man he was, he was sure to overuse the powder. Before long he would be the same as a frail old man and would meet his death somewhere while crying out to be able to see his stats.
I clapped my hands.
Xero appeared from behind a tree. He was my faithful mahout. A trustworthy man, I had saved him when he was a child and from then on he regarded me like a god.
Chains of a Succubus Page 17