I swallowed the pill and waited. I just hoped that being in storage for so long hadn’t affected the pill. My heart leapt in joy as I was seized by a queer sensation and I began to float, as though gravity had no influence on me. I went out of the window and I ascended to the sky as fast as possible. I couldn’t risk any soldier of the king seeing me.
I took off at my fastest speed in the direction in which the dragon and the Sphere had been seen. I had a second device with me as well. It was a ring, called the Space Ring. It was another device unknown to Arunazi. When used on a person the Ring would give them the illusion that they were moving while in truth they would remain stationary. The person on whom the ring is used would also not be able to see the true world outside the zone of the ring’s influence. And the only outsider who could see the person on whom the ring is used was the one who controlled the ring. Everyone else would see empty space instead of the person on whom the ring is used. I just hoped the ring would work, for I had made it a long time ago and had barely used it on anything or anybody.
Rings had always been my speciality. Of the ten rings that were hugging the fingers of King Arunzaki, eight were mine. There had been one more ring that I had given him, one that could bring back the dead, as long as the person was wearing it when during the time of their death. King Arunzaki had already used up the Ring once when he had been assassinated by someone who hated him. Once back from the dead, King Arunzaki had made sure that the assassin faced a terrible end. But Arunzaki could never use any more of such rings, it was the nature of the game world which prevented the rings to work on a particular person more than once.
I flew fast, as fast as I could. It took me five hours, but I finally reached the dragon. Seeing the dragon with my naked eyes I felt relieved. The dragon was going to bring me freedom.
But for that, I would have to make the dragon captive for a while…
I pointed the Space Ring towards the dragon and the Sphere. In a minute the ring had worked its magic. I watched as the dragon beat his wings, unaware of the fact that he wasn’t going forward. I smiled to myself and I took off in the direction of my house again. Eventually, the dragon would realise what was going on. And then I would come to him and give him a way out of the problem if he agreed to help me.
***
Chapter 22: Lanak Tanor
“Isn’t the night feeling a bit too long, sir?” Danor said. He had woken up from his sleep a while ago, and I had just taken the controls of the Sphere from Lana who said she was tired and had now gone to sleep.
“It does feel long,” I agreed. I could barely remember the sunset of the previous day. I wished if we had a clock. The Sand demons had told us many times that the South was a dangerous place which was ruled by a tyrant king. It was filled with strange mysteries that had befuddled even the sand demons who themselves where oddities.
I kept flying the Sphere. I hoped the sun would eventually rise and it was just that our minds were playing a trick on us. All the while, I could feel a throbbing pain take over my cheek and the other parts of my body that had been bitten by the succubus. An hour passed, then two and then three. The night remained. I was beginning to feel panic rise within me. This was getting strange now. I found it hard to believe that my mind was merely making me feel like a great amount of time had passed.
I had to talk with the dragon. My hunch said something was not all right here. I had always regretted the times when I had ignored my hunch.
I opened the lid and went out. I waved at the dragon who was flying at a distance from the Sphere. In the moonlight I could clearly see that the dragon seemed to be getting tired, flapping his wings slowly.
I waved at him.
“Night’s a bit too long, eh?” I said.
“Yes, it does feel so,” the dragon answered. “My wings are beginning to ache.”
“Think we should land and rest a while?”
“That would be a good idea—”
“No, do not do that!” It was one of the sand demons’ head that had suddenly appeared on the surface of the Sphere in front of me. “We are in the territory of the tyrant king. You do not want to land, believe me.”
“I think it will be okay,” I reassured the demon, “look below. It seems like a deserted place. Quite a few trees down there. I don’t think the king would know.”
“It is your wish, of course, but do take caution,” the demon head said and then it merged with the rest of the sand covering the Sphere. I began to make the Sphere descend. The dragon too dived down. The ground seemed to come closer.
And that was it.
We kept descending for a good half-an-hour, but nothing happened. We never reached the land. The ground would feel like it was coming closer, but we never actually could get to it, however much we tried. Normally we could land in a couple of minutes.
“Why is this happening?” I asked the dragon. There was a shiver in my voice and I failed to hide my panic. I was sweating now.
“We are in some kind of a spell’s influence,” the dragon said and even he sounded afraid.
“It is the land of the tyrant king,” the sand demons said. “They had set up some kind of a trap for us.”
I touched my cheek. I didn’t think the spell would have any influence on the bite of the succubus. If three days passed I would still turn into a demon.
There was nothing we could do. I stopped exerting my mind to keep the Sphere flying and the dragon stopped flapping his wings. We felt like we were falling, but we never reached the ground. Even Danor came out of the Sphere. He leapt from the Sphere. I could bet that he had fallen to a certain death, but a moment later I saw him hovering beside the Sphere. After what felt like a few hours, Lana woke up from her sleep.
She had quite a start when we told her of what was happening to us. She refused to believe us at all. Only when I took her out of the Sphere and I pointed out at the dragon, who was flying despite not flapping his wings at all did she accept the reality that we were in deep trouble. Perhaps the only kind of trouble that we couldn’t overcome.
“But wouldn’t they be watching us then?” she said.
“The king?” I asked.
“Maybe, whoever casted the spell on us,” Lana said.
“Does it matter?” Danor asked curiously.
“We could plead them to free us,” Lana said, hope in her eyes.
We tried that. For a brief moment, it actually gave me hope that we could be out of the spell, as the lot of us began to shout and beg to whoever had cast the spell to let us go.
Nothing happened.
In an hour we were all exhausted from the shouting. If this went on, we would be dead of hunger and thirst soon, even before I turned into a demon.
“I think we are stuck in a long forgotten trap,” one of the demons said. “They just made it a long while ago and they forgot all about it.”
For a while, this seemed to be the truth. I had never felt so devoid of hope in my entire life. And then, out of the blue, something happened that changed everything.
I was lying on top of the Sphere, gazing at the stars in the night sky, which had been our company for at least a good fifty hours. I felt thirsty and my stomach groaned. Mean while, the pain on my cheek was getting intense. I wondered if I might catch a fever soon because of it. Danor and Lana were floating in the sky beside the dragon. The entire while we had a sensation as though we were falling.
I would have been so glad if we had indeed been falling. Alas, that was not the case.
Suddenly a message popped up in my vision. It had come so suddenly that I sat bold upright. I read the message.
Gorain: Mantri, you might have discovered by now that something strange is going on. I did it. I had to, I am sorry. I want your dragon. He is the only chance I have got to gain freedom. If you and your dragon agree to help me, I will set you free.
There was a reply button at the end of the message and I clicked on it. I just needed to think to type up the message.
I am n
ot Mantri. There is no one here called Mantri. Set us free. It’s important that we get to the sea. Lives depend on it. We beg you.
I told about the message to the others meanwhile.
“It’s addressed to someone called Mantri,” I said. “Maybe they mistook us for someone else?”
Then, a second message appeared.
Gorain: Doesn’t matter who you are. But you and your dragon must promise that you shall help me. Otherwise I would not set you free.
“They want our help,” I said to the others.
“Tell them we are in no position of helping,” Lana said. There was anger on her face.
We cannot help you. We need help ourselves.
Gorain: In that case, I shall not free you. Goodbye.
The reply button disappeared. I was struck by eternal fear.
“I can’t reply to him anymore,” I said.
Danor slapped a hand to his forehead.
“We should have said that we’d help them,” he said.
And then the message appeared again. This person Gorain seemed to think better about not freeing us. He seemed desperate for sure. Perhaps he was as desperate as us.
Gorain: I am giving you a final chance. Agree to help.
“What should I say?” I asked the others.
“Go ahead, tell him we’ll help him,” Lana said with a grimace. “Once I get my hands on him I’d beat the pulp out of him.”
I nodded. Lana and Danor moved over to the Sphere. The dragon became more alert as well.
“Catch them the moment we are the free,” I said to everyone. And then I sent the message.
We’ll help you.
Gorain: Okay, thank you. Remember your promise.
There was a bright flash of light all around us. Very soon we found ourselves at a different time altogether. The sun in the distance was sinking and about a dozen metres in front of us was a man with a goatee. He was hovering in the air.
The dragon went for him the moment he had set us free. The man pointed a ring he was wearing at the dragon, but then his eyes suddenly went wide and he began to rub the ring. But too late the dragon had already got him in his claws.
“Why did you cast your spell on us?” the dragon roared in the ears of the man, so that the man almost seemed to faint.
“It- it was not a spell,” the man said, “please help me. I meant no harm.”
Lana flew to him and slapped him on the face. With the powers she had, it must have been a painful slap, for the man’s cheek went red, with the imprint of Lana’s hand very visible on it.
“Do you have any idea what your spell has cost us?”
The man began to sob and Lana seemed to rethink her action.
“Stop that,” she said to him, but in a more tender manner. She almost sounded guilty.
“Why did you need our help for anyway?” I asked the man.
“To kill our king, he’s a tyrant! The atrocities he commits are beyond one’s imaginations,” the man continued to sob, sniffing once in a while, “I- I have been a slave to him for many years. I- I am an inventor, but I cannot invent anything that could harm him. I need your help! The king kills people like they are pests.”
I began to wonder if we had indeed behaved wrongly with the man. He seemed an innocent fellow. He looked like a sad mess presently.
“Your name is Gorain, isn’t it?” I asked.
Gorain nodded.
“Why did you address me as Mantri at first?”
“Mantri was the one who took the Sphere from me,” Gorain said.
I was astounded.
“This belongs to you?” I asked, pointing at the craft upon which I was standing.
Gorain nodded.
“It is one of my inventions,” he said, “I made it many years ago, but then it was a mere seedling and I could hold it in my hands. Using a sly bet, a wizard called Mantri was able to take it from me and this is the first time that I am seeing the Sphere in a long while.”
Was he referring to the same wizard who had come to our village? The wizard had never told how he had acquired the craft that could transport me fast from one place to another.
“You must understand that we cannot really help you,” I said. Gorain didn’t reply. His face just fell. He looked up at the dragon, his eyes devoid of hope.
“Can you kill me then?” he asked, “My life in the Second World has been a joke. I should have died peacefully in the real world. Go on, bite off my head. I’d better die a quick death here, then be abused by the king until I cannot move no more.”
Those words hurt. The dragon looked from me to Gorain. He didn’t seem very certain if he should carry out the request.
“Okay,” I said, “tell us then, what do we need to do?”
Gorain’s eyes lit up.
“Kill the king, show everyone that he is not invincible,” he said. “Doing so would lift the curse. For a while there might be chaos in our kingdom, but eventually I believe that peace shall come.”
“Fine, we’ll do as you wish. Truth be told, I think we are indebted to you for creating this wonderful craft that has been so invaluable for us,” I said. “Lead us to where the king lives.”
***
Chapter 23: King Arunzaki
This was blasphemy. Utter blasphemy.
I watched through the telescope as the dragon and the spherical craft headed towards the capital. Gorain was inside the spherical craft. A servant I had kept in charge of the telescope had seen him fly to the craft and the dragon.
Oh, how he had said to me only a few hours ago that he was creating some device that should be able to capture the dragon. He had never told me he could fly. I wondered how many secret devices he possessed that he had never told me about. Me, the almighty Arunzaki.
“But sir, what if he is indeed bringing the dragon to you?” one of my ministers said. I laughed and shook my head.
“Gorain only ever tests a device after asking my permission,” I said, “besides, his wife said she had seen him, or thought seeing him, standing at the window sill and then disappearing in an instant as though he had flown out of the window. This was at the dead of night. She had searched the entire house for him and had failed to find him. No, he wants to get bring my downfall. For a while his wife has informed that he remained quiet for great lengths of time, brooding. He hasn’t even made love to her for months. No, all this time he had been seeking a way to destroy me. And now he has found it.”
Anger boiled inside of me. I could see the minister shivering near me. I stood up, the minister almost leapt in is fright.
“Get the shooters of the great arrows,” I ordered the minister, “If I cannot have the dragon as a pet, then I will at least have its carcass on display together with the corpse of Gorain, so that everyone can see what happens when someone dares to defy me. We are going to shoot that reptile out of the sky!”
I observed with my telescope as my orders were being followed. Throughout the capital city the cylindrical devices that could shoot the great arrows were stationed at strategic locations. The great arrows had been invented by Gorain himself. Too bad they were going to be the means of his destruction. He was a good inventor, alas he was starting to rot. It was best to dispose a rotten apple than to let it spoil the other apples.
***
Chapter 24: Lanak Tanor
“He’s going to fire the great arrows at us the moment we enter the capital,” Gorain said.
“I wonder, how did he see us?” I asked. To think about it, there was no possible way for them to have seen us earlier either.
“He has a powerful telescope,” Gorain explained. “He can see over a wide area using it. I invented it myself.”
“At least we have the night as our ally,” I said. The moon however wasn’t quite our ally.
“He’s going to try to shoot us down,” Gorain said, looking out through the windshield. “The Sphere is strong and the arrows can do no harm to it, but it is the dragon for whom I am worried.”
“How high can one of those arrows come?” Danor asked.
“Very,” Gorain replied. “But they do have their limits.”
I thought over it. It was actually good that we had met Gorain early on, even though our first meeting had been on the rough side, Gorain’s red cheek being a testimony to it.
“You say the king has a powerful telescope,” I said, “is it possible that he might have seen you come to us.”
“I am pretty sure that he saw me, why else would he ready the devices to fire the giant arrows? I came here telling myself that I would never return to the capital again to serve the king.”
“He wanted the dragon though to keep as pet,” I said. “It’s you that he wants to kill. If the dragon agrees to be the king’s pet the king would readily keep him as one without killing him.”
Gorain looked at me confusedly as though he was not getting what I meant.
I smiled.
“You are the one the king is really angry with. If we hand you over to the king, he would become our friend.”
Gorain’s brows shot up.
“What are you saying?”
I laughed.
I reckoned I had frightened him too much.
“Don’t worry, we won’t actually do something like that… would we?” I turned at Lana.
Lana frowned in a disapproving manner at me.
“If all you want to do is fool the king you can directly tell that to Gorain. You are scaring him, look he’s got a shiver.”
Chains of a Succubus Page 21