The WorldMight

by Cyril L. C. Bussiere

  The laundry girls were also hard at work. The guests in for the festival had obviously increased their workload. Extra lines had been put up, almost doubling the size of the drying area. Hob could see a few new faces among the girls busily bent over their washboards. Some of the girls hurried between the laundry lines, plucking dry clothes from them and hoisting them away in large baskets, while others wrung wet clothes before stretching them onto the lines. The ground around the area had all but turned into soup and the girls’ feet were covered with mud, the bottom of their white dresses speckled with earthy droplets up to their knees.

  “Mud-covered fee,” Hob thought.

  Suddenly, all he could think about was losing himself under those white dresses and rolling in the mud. A tavern song slowly unfolded in his head as he eyed a large-chested girl bent over her bucket, pressing a balled-up sheet up and down her washboard.

  “Do the pig, do the pig. A man’s gotta dig

  The wench in the mud she’s calling ya a pig

  Do the pig, boy man, you gotta do the pig

  The girl in the mud, she wants it in the fig.”

  As he watched the girl’s chest quiver in rhythm with every push and pull, an expanding tightness rose in his chest; something angry and hungry.

  “Do the pig, do the pig,” the song went on in his head.

  The tightness spread to his groin and the bothers of the morning evaporated as his vision tunneled and the world fell out of focus around the bouncing chest.

  “She wants it in the fig.”

  A grimace fixed itself on his face. The world turned silent and slow. The rhyme echoed madly the desire drumming inside of him.

  “In the mud, she wants…”

  Everything around him contracted into the movement of that chest and the promise it held. Hob’s hands slowly closed and opened; claws ripe for the tearing.

  “Do the pig.” An order one does not refuse.

  Suddenly the necessity of breathing brought him back to the world. Air rushed into his lungs and released some of the tension in his chest and he realized that, unbeknown to him, his every muscle had contracted to the point of pain. The world settled itself around him with its frenzy of sounds and movements. He looked around guiltily. Nobody seemed to have noticed him. He let out a deep breath and rearranged the tension in his pants.

  “Cythra damns it!” he muttered.

  He was already late for breakfast. The laundry girls were obviously too busy to entertain him right now. He had wasted his morning on that useless instrument. Oh, yeah, and he did not get to partake in the meeting last night.

  “Hethens! Can this day get any more frustrating?”

  A pint of Horlan’s finest and a mud-ride was all he needed. But that was not going to happen at the moment. Hob forced himself to turn away from the laundry girls. He picked up his cittern and headed toward the keep’s rear entrance.

  The main keep, a four-story stone cube, was more or less in the center of the castle. Built ages ago by the Angry King, long before Hob’s family’s ascension to power, it had since undergone important renovations that turned it from a sober windowless block into a rather pleasant stronghold. Windows had been carved out of the walls, providing both light and aeration to what must have been a damp and claustrophobic space. Balconies were added to what would eventually become the living spaces. With each generation since the Last War new flourishes had been carved into the building. In the past fifty years, especially under the influence of King Rhegard, a feverishly pious man, large engraved murals depicting passages from the Book of Hethens had replaced simpler embellishments on virtually all the outer walls of the keep. Sculptures in the likeness of kings past or various representations of Hethens had also been added in alcoves carved out of the corners of the keep and on its roof.

  Hob knew the frescoes and sculptures by heart. As a child he had been forced to spend what he felt was an unnatural amount of time listening to stories from the Book of Hethens, both during private tutoring sessions with ‘His Highness’ Baccus and at the temple. In those days, he would regularly catch himself wishing he were born the son of a commoner for, he often saw, while on his way to the temple, boys his age chasing each other or playing games in the streets. Ironically, it was also during that time that he first wished he were already king. Surely, as king he would not have to waste time mindlessly reciting entire passages from old crusty books or sit for hours at a time wishing he were somewhere else.

  “Kings can do what they want! I’m going to be the king, why do I have to?” he often grumbled to his mother.

  “Because kings need to learn, my sweet child,” his mother replied patiently. “They need to learn to be king.”

  A younger Hob did not see what those stories had to do with being a king, and he still did not to this day. Kings needed to know about leading armies, managing resources, and countless other things. In his mind, old, meaningless stories had no place in a king’s curriculum.

  As he walked through the inner ward, soapy supple breasts still on his mind and a remnant of tension in his pants, he did not see the familiar fresco on the keep’s northern wall. Spread over two stories, it told in coarse lines the tale of a fight between Hethens and Cythra over the Undoing of the world. Just like the rest of the Book of Hethens, that story did not make much sense to Hob. But despite his overt dislike for the sacred book and the teachings it contained, years of relentless repetition had forcefully burned most of its passages in his memory. And so it was without him realizing it, that, as he passed the mural, the old verses rose in the back of his mind as naturally as a festival song fills a child’s head around season passing time.

  “Life seeded itself and spread,

  It grew fast in the stillness of the Earth

  And vast in the silent depth of the Heavens.

  In everything was the Breath of Hethens

  And its rhythm guided all.

  Out of the movement of the cycles

  From the emptiness that joins the Coming of things and their Going

  Arose Cythra the Disrupter.

  One hand a blue flame held in stillness

  And one hand of red shifting ice,

  Cythra rolled Heavens onto the Earth

  And spread Earth onto the Heavens.

  The Gems were lost into mud and Life tumbled into Chaos.

  Hethens saw the doings of Cythra

  And He came to Her.

  His Breath to Her flame,

  And His flame to Her ice,

  They fought in all things

  And all things became their fight.

  Of their comings and goings

  The Balance was born.

  Rhythm within rhythm

  Stillness in motion and motion in stillness.

  Hethens into Cythra breathed himself

  And from the Undoing came the Doing.”

  The old, annoyingly familiar words pulled Hob out his tense reverie and directed his attention to the mural.

  There, Hethens was pictured as a warrior clad in armor. In the first of four vignettes, his hands were interlocked with those of Cythra who was pictured as a naked, long-haired female. Between their palms rested two orbs supposedly representing the earth and the heavens and flames and ice chips erupted from their joined fingers. In the second vignette, Cythra’s hair rose menacingly around her body, some strands wrapped around Hethens arms. In the third vignette, thin lines ran from Hethens’s mouth and spread over Cythra’s figure, breaking her hold on him. In the last vignette, Cythra was on her knees, head down, her face hidden by her hair, while Hethens, arms raised above his head, freed the orbs.

  To Hob, the only point of interest in that fresco was Cythra’s nakedness. Her breasts and hair had for a long time been more intriguing and, with time, more arousing than he cared to admit. But his fascination with Cythra’s nudity had vanished shortly before he first lay with Lexia, one of the laundry girls, a couple of years prior. At that moment, however, the fresco was a painful reminder of what h
e could not have and the sight of the roughly sculpted lines of Cythra’s figure only managed to darken his mood.

  Hob approached keep’s service entrance, and he unconsciously slowed down, straightened up his posture and graced his face with a smile. Scores of servants streamed in and out of the keep. They were so busy with the festival’s preparations that none of them noticed him.

  Aeron and Jhom, two rugged middle-aged men whom Hob had found bothering the laundry girls on more than one occasion, were on guard duty in front of the entrance. Hob did not like them. They were irreverent, ill-mannered drunks who spent most of their time in the unsavory establishments of Lower Higrpit, the poorest and most dangerous burrow of Syndjya. Given the time of the day their shift could not have started long ago and yet their uniforms of red leather mail and dark blue pants and shirt already looked as if they had been worn a few days.

  “Damn it,” Hob thought. “Those stinking rats again.”

  They would smell of old ale and pit stink, for sure. Hob pitied the retainers who had to be around them whole days at a time.

  Aeron and Jhom saw him walking their way and snapped to attention.

  “Prince Hobgard,” they saluted him formally, left fist to the chest, bent at the waist and spears at the ready.

  At the sound of the guards’ salute, the servants about the entrance turned to face him, bent at the waist as well, and echoed the guards. Hob let out a tired, ‘Morning’ and hurried into the main keep. He walked the length of the main service hallway, a wide, ten feet tall tunnel that ran in the center of the main keep, from its northern end to its mid-section. Every twenty feet a door or opening led off the hallway to smaller corridors which debouched into large kitchens, storage rooms, and the servants dining areas and day quarters. The walls of the service hallway were bare stone except for the torches burning every few yards. The atmosphere was damp and smelled of spices, meat, burnt pine resin, and a nondescript, pervasive human smell that Hob rather disliked.

  He made his way among the servants and their shifting shadows until he reached the end of the hallway. To his left, two guards were sitting on stools on either side of a door, spears in hand and as he drew near them, they stood up.

  “Who goes there?” one of them called out.

  The voice was young and nervous.

  “Higar,” Hob thought.

  He did not bother answering and a few steps later he entered the shivering light of the torch set on the wall opposite the door.

  “Prince Hobgard!” Higar and another fellow saluted him immediately. “Apologies, my lord. We didn’t see it was you.”

  “It’s fine,” Hob replied.

  He recognized the second guard as Lawt. Both he and Higar were new recruits. The weapon master had trained them and it was on his recommendation that they had been assigned to keep’s watch duty two months prior. They probably were not the finest recruits. Those tended to be assigned to the outer perimeter to keep watch of who approached and entered the castle. But Hob liked them. They were eager to please and took their duty seriously. They might not have been the brightest of the bunch, but they were dedicated and their demeanor was pleasant. Plus, Hob appreciated the fact that he was not assaulted by a foul stench as he walked past them. If not for their lack of skills, he would not have minded having them around as his elites once he became king.

  The elites were the king’s personal guards. They were quiet, ominous men, who were rarely seen in the open but were nonetheless always about. Hob knew that those hand-picked to become part of the elites had to undergo a special training under Nikos Borrun, the weapon master, and His Highness Baccus, although he did not understand of what use the old temple runner could be to the elites. At that very instant, Hob knew that the elites were around, hidden in the shadows, aware of the whereabouts of the royal family and always close to the king. Somehow, Hob felt that Higar and Lawt did not spook him enough to fill that role.

  Without slowing down, Hob went for the door and Higar scrambled to open it for him.

  “Hethens’s Breath on your day, my lord,” the young guard said as Hob walked past him.

  “And on yours,” Hob said.

  Higar closed the door behind him and Hob was alone on the red velvet carpet of the Corridor of Beasts. The air in the corridor was uncomfortably warm due to its sharing a wall with the hearth of the grand foyer. Torches hissed quietly on the walls and after the ruckus of the service hallway the sound was disquieting. Beside the torches, dozens of paintings adorned the walls of the corridor, all the way up to the stone ceiling twelve feet above. Their mere presence sent an unsettling pang rummage in Hob’s chest.

  Every single painting featured a hideous creature. Some were deformed animals or people, with skin stretched out of shape by bulging muscles and oversized claws and fangs, some with limbs out of place and all with hungry eyes slit at disturbing angles. Others did not resemble anything Hob had ever seen in his life; bulbous masses with tiny legs, covered with beady, teeth-filled eyes or skinless, skeletal arrangements of bony blades with foul organs exposed.

  These horrors were rendered in various styles, some finger-etched out of thickly applied paint, others finely rendered in disquieting details, others yet seemed to be the product of paint angrily thrown at the canvas.

  Strange foreign writings accompanied most of the beasts, ancient letters bizarrely curved or myriads of eerily slanted lines that could only have been applied with a blade. No one knew what the writings meant and in their mystery they carried a menacing aura that somehow made them stand as a warning in Hob’s mind.

  Hob had never liked the Corridor of Beasts. The paintings frightened him as a boy and now that he was a man the sight of the monstrosities staring at him from their ornate frames still sent shivers down his spin.

  Why his grandfather had put such a terrible collection together remained a mystery to him. His best guess was that the late King Rhegard was afflicted by a morbid fascination for the disturbing. Surely, there must have been better things to bring back from his travels abroad.

  Why his father did not throw those away upon his coronation ten years ago was equally a mystery to Hob. Raising a pyre to burn those abominations would probably be one of the first things he would do on the day he ascended to the throne.

  Hob did his best to ignore the paintings. He walked the length of the corridor as fast as he could without making himself feel like he was running in fear. He burst into the grand foyer under the eastern staircase and stopped by the newel. The air in the foyer was cooler, a welcomed feeling that Hob let wash over him for a few seconds before he headed straight to the door on the other side of the hall.

  Cittern still in hand, he walked down the common quarters’ hallway, past the colorful blazons of Alymphia’s provinces. Hob did not care to look at them. They would only remind him of the trusteds and the meeting he had not been a part of. That would definitely put him in worse a mood and he could not afford that. He was about to enter the dining room. There, his family, the trusteds and their high dignitaries were most likely already assembled and he had to play the part of the prince, composed, relaxed, and in control.

  He stopped by the meeting room to leave his cittern behind the throne and then followed the hallway down to the dining room door. He stood in front it feeling guilty for being late. Now his anger at his dad only made him feel small and petty. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He nervously poked at his forehead with two fingers, his lips thin lines forced onto each other in concentration. He tried to blank his mind as best as he could for a few seconds. Then he exhaled slowly and walked into the dining room.

  Chapter Four

  Syndjya, Capital City of Alymphia.

  Year Hundred and Fifty of the New Age

  Fall Passing Festival, Three days prior.

  They had gathered early that evening as they always did in the days preceding a season’s passing festival. They had much to discuss, yet again, and the decisions they were going to make that night would change li
fe in Alymphia forever. King Hedgard was anxious to hear from his trusteds. He sat at the head of the Table of Breath, in the Lord’s Tower. His five trusteds, each representing one of Alymphia’s five provinces, sat in silence around the stone table, waiting for him to address them. The atmosphere was heavy with expectation. The five torches set around the council room projected their shadows in arcs across the table, their flames shivering in the evening air flowing through the four openings in the wall.

  King Hedgard shifted in his seat. He had never been comfortable in the large chair; it was too big for his taste, too richly ornamented. And although it had been ten years since he became king, presiding at the head of tables rather than being amongst men still made him uncomfortable; a discomfort he would never share with those assembled that night. He leaned to the left, elbow on the armrest, and rested his head against three fingers.

  “Here we are,” he thought. “Hethens be good and guide us tonight.”

  He looked in silence at the men around the table, his lords, his trusteds. Each man sat in front of stacks of paper of various heights, the Words of their province.

  Sitting directly to the king’s left was Lord Hevens, the trusted of Syn-dya, the central province of Alymphia and home of Syndjya, the capital city. His closest advisor, along with his beloved Silifia and Baccus, Gart Hevens was also his closest friend. They had grown up together in Syndjya, him the heir to the throne and Gart the son of the previous trusted of Syn-dya.