by Logan Jacobs
“Pretentious fuck,” I snorted under my breath. Then my horse and I continued on our way through the dusty library.
As we walked, it felt like the shadows cast by the bookshelves intensified. It wasn’t that they got longer or darker. They just… intensified. And I started to hear, or at least think that I heard, a very, very faint, rhythmic wheezing sound, like labored breathing.
I glanced over at Theo to see his reaction to these environmental signals that were so subtle I wasn’t sure whether I was just imagining them. He was continuing to put one hoof in front of the other and stare stiffly ahead, but the whites of his eyes were showing, and his lips were pulled back from his gums. So, he felt it too and was in a state of barely repressed panic.
I took another few steps, one, two, three, while I focused on my surroundings with all of my senses. I think it was ultimately my sixth sense that pointed me to the left. I grabbed a thick book at face level, pulled it from the shelf, and found myself staring through the gap straight at a mouth full of sharp yellow spindly teeth.
I reacted instinctively. I grabbed ahold of the heavy wooden bookshelf, which was probably about eight feet high, and enlarged it to about twelve feet high, which was as big as I could make it. That made it too heavy for me to push over on my own.
“Push!” I yelled to Theo as I rammed my shoulder into the bookshelf. He reared up and slammed his front hooves down onto it at the same time.
Hundreds of books and scrolls, many of them probably older than the whole damn kingdom, went flying as the now even more massive bookshelf creaked in protest like some kind of ancient tree being sawed down and finally tipped over and crashed down into the aisle to our left.
The bookshelf had grown so tall that it knocked into the neighboring bookshelf, which proceeded to tip left as well, thus striking the next bookshelf, which then struck the next, and so on and so forth. There were about ten more shelves that toppled over within the space of a few seconds, all with resounding crashes. If Theo and my whereabouts hadn’t been known before, they were now. Throughout how much of the palace, I didn’t know. That probably depended on how good the demons’ communication network with each other was. I didn’t know if they had some kind of supernatural connection to Gorander or to each other or not that enabled them to pass messages.
But Theo and I had an even more immediate concern than the gathering horde that might be on its way to the library. Namely, the demons that were already there in the room with us. I heard an angry hissing when the first shelf fell, then I could see the misshapen white heads and limbs and dark red robes of three or four demons protruding from the spaces between the shelves and the pile of texts. A few were still moving, but others weren’t, and wriggling black maggots spilled out across the already chaotic heap. It occurred to me that they looked a bit like the words of evil books come to life and escaped from the pages.
The closest demons had either been instantly crushed to, I don’t know whether death was the right word for them exactly, but at least into an incapacitated state, or they had been trapped by the bookshelf and couldn’t get out at least for the few minutes that it would take for it to shrink back down to its rightful size. But from all corners of the library, I could now see about a dozen more of them gliding toward us through the fallen shelves, their drowned grub faces glowing white in the shadows.
And I didn’t have a weapon. Vera had taken my sword from me.
“Stay close to me,” I warned Theo.
“Wasn’t going anywhere,” he replied. He was really too large and impressive a creature for any sound that emerged from his throat to be described as a squeak, but if that hadn’t been the case, I probably would have described his tone of voice in that moment as a squeak.
I pulled the belt from my pants and whipped the buckle end at the face of the first demon to reach us. It hissed angrily almost like a cat as the buckle struck it in the face, with no apparent effect. Their skin seemed sort of soggy like dough, and I didn’t know if minor cuts affected them, although significant enough rents in their skin evidently allowed enough of the maggots that seemed to animate them to spill out that they became inert.
Another demon came at me from behind, I sort of sensed it rather than heard it, which I think may have had something to do with my heightened awareness from the lingering effects of Walks with Spirits’ brew, and I spun and kicked it. The demons were so dried out and withered that they seemed to weigh a lot less than humans of the same size would have, and the creature flew backward over a bookshelf to land in a pile of books crawling with tiny gleaming black larvae.
Then I lashed out at the first one again with my belt. This time, it seemed to be expecting the move, and latched onto my belt with its mummified white hands. I yanked it toward me, dropped the belt, and grabbed onto its bald head as its red hood fell off. The texture of the demon’s head was a lot like the appearance suggested, and it sort of squelched in an extremely unpleasant manner in my hands. I twisted it with all my might, and the head popped off and the ragged neck stump spurted maggots at me. I cried out and hastily spat out the few that had hurtled into my mouth.
I looked but didn’t immediately see where my belt had fallen. It must have been underneath either one of the demon’s corpses, some of the books that had shifted in one of the small avalanches caused by each of our movements, or the growing sea of glistening black maggots. So instead, I grabbed the heaviest book that I saw, which was clasped shut with a metal lock, and enlarged it even more to weigh about ten pounds.
Then I swung it with all my might and bludgeoned the next demon in the head with it. It crashed down. I don’t know if it was dead exactly, because it seemed necessary to open their skin in order to destroy them, but as soon as the demon fell, Theo reared up with a whinny and then he crashed down with his full weight and frenziedly battered its ribcage with his hooves. That tore its chest open, and the black swarm spilled out, which Theo continued to stomp on as if he thought he could pulverize it, even though we could have stayed in that library for a year and still not had enough time to eradicate every last maggot.
He didn’t stop until I had bludgeoned another demon to make it fall before his hooves, and then he moved on to that second one. In that manner, we worked our way through several more of our attackers. Not every blow that I struck was effective. An oversized book was an extremely clumsy weapon to wield, with no good place to grip it from, but even when I didn’t have a good chance to strike, I was able to use it as a shield from the demon’s jagged needle teeth and prevent myself from receiving any more bites.
Eventually, only two demons remained in the room, that I could see anyway, and I didn’t think there were any more hidden in the shadows between the towering shelves because then they probably would have emerged by then to reinforce their brethren. I could see one of them sneaking up behind Theo with the apparent intention to sink his jaws into my horse’s glossy black neck. I hurled a book at him as I yelled to Theo to watch out. The book whacked the demon in the forehead and bought Theo the extra moment he needed to turn, perceive the threat, and trample the threat to the floor.
Meanwhile, the last demon standing swooped down on me. I grabbed the nearest book, rammed a corner into his open mouth, and then enlarged it until his pure black eyes bulged out of his head and I heard the crack of his jaw dislocating. I think he would have been screaming, except that the book wedging his mouth open prevented any vocalization from being formed.
I punched him in the face, a face that was even more grotesquely distorted than before due to the book that was embedded in it. Then, as I watched him fall, I noticed the gold glint of my belt buckle right next to him. As I used up books as weapons, I had inadvertently cleared enough of them away to reveal where my belt had landed. I grabbed it, enlarged it, and used the edge of the buckle to saw through the demon’s throat and let the inky stream of maggots spill out.
“Come on, let’s get out of here before more of them show up,” I said as I swung up onto Theo’s bac
k. I could run pretty fast, but not compared to my Friesian. “If we keep on the move, hopefully we can evade most of them until we find an exit.”
Theo didn’t have to be told twice. He started galloping through the quiet, dusty aisles formed by the shelves full of countless books until we saw the opposite door leading out of the library.
“Nice kicking back there, by the way,” I remarked. Combat wasn’t Theo’s specialty, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and he had more than risen to the occasion.
“If you’d kept better track of your sword, then maybe I wouldn’t have to do your dirty work for you,” Theo sniffed in reply. I took the snideness as a good sign that he was still feeling at least somewhat like his usual self, in spite of our rather unpleasant circumstances.
Then he barreled out into a new hallway. Everything in it was made of white marble veined with the palest silver.
About twenty feet away, a figure stood in the middle of the hallway facing us. It was a woman, a terrifyingly beautiful woman wrapped in a green silk robe. Her thick, glossy, raven’s wing black hair cascaded to her waist. Mysterious runes swirled across her dark skin. Her black eyes were cold, and a smile that could only be described as vicious curved her luscious lips.
“Hello again, darling,” Vera said. “Don’t tell me you planned to waltz off without saying goodbye?”
Her words reminded me suddenly and unexpectedly of Lucinda Fairfax, who’d said something very similar that morning in her family stable back in Richcreek. But the two beautiful women couldn’t have been more different. One a spoiled, prissy redhead who’d never really had to do any more than stomp her little foot or bat her lashes in order to get her way, and whose ambition didn’t stretch much beyond being the prettiest and wealthiest woman in her town-- and the other a lonely, brooding child, accepted as neither one race nor the other and ostracized as a freak for her magic besides, who’d grown up into the human equivalent of a hurricane who yearned to bend the laws of nature with her powers, and was willing to murder or worse in order to do it. And Vera now, unlike Lucinda on that memorable morning, probably had other, less pleasant plans on her mind than just jumping my bones and fucking my brains out. Although if I were a gambling man, I’d bet that that thought had indeed crossed her mind. But unfortunately it probably wasn’t foremost.
“Vera, you and I said our goodbyes a long time ago,” I told her, and we both knew I didn’t mean in that room downstairs half an hour ago.
“A nice goodbye that was,” she said. “You cut my arm off, as I recall.”
“You’ve done a real fine job with it,” I said. “I can’t even hardly tell.” I couldn’t tell whatsoever that either arm had ever been injured, as a matter of fact, but I knew that if I implied there was some slight lingering imperfection, it would irk Vera to no end.
“I’ve glamored over the scar,” she replied as her catlike black eyes narrowed. “But that doesn’t mean you didn’t leave one, Hal. Maybe the scar runs deep into my soul?”
“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, I’d say that’s a bit hypocritical of you,” I said. “And also, guilt isn’t really in my repertoire of emotions. Yours either, come to think of it.”
“I don’t want your guilt, what use would I have for that?” she asked. “I just want you to clearly remember all the offenses for which I am about to exact my vengeance.”
“Ahem,” Theo said. “I request to remind the fair lady that I, Emperor Theodosius the First, have done nothing to offend her and therefore do not merit inclusion in the aforementioned vengeance.”
“Ah, Theo, you know that I hold a great affection for you,” Vera sighed, “but alas, you have repeatedly aided and abetted my enemy over the course of the past few years.”
“Under coercion,” Theo said. “Have you not noticed the spurs he’s wearing? Evidence of my condition of abject slavery--”
“Theo, are you trying to tell me that everything you have done in Hal’s service has been against your will?” Vera inquired.
“… Every action I have taken in Hal’s service that has displeased you, my lady,” Theo answered craftily.
“So, given the means and the opportunity, you would naturally prefer to serve myself, and by extension, Lord Gorander?” Vera asked sweetly as she crossed her arms beneath her perfect breasts.
Theo shifted nervously and took a few inadvertent steps sideways.
“Well, I’m not particularly well acquainted with this sorcerous overlord of yours, you know,” he hedged.
“A closer acquaintance could certainly be arranged,” Vera said with amusement.
Theo’s head whipped around to peer at the hallway behind us. I think he intended for the movement to be subtle but his size meant that all of his movements were pretty much the opposite of subtle.
“Why, my dear equine friend, I hope you don’t think you can outrun me,” Vera purred.
“I know for a fact that I can,” Theo asserted.
“You’re so literal-minded,” Vera sighed.
Then she fixed her gaze at a point some twenty feet behind us, made a series of almost insect-like clicking and hissing noises with her tongue, and flung out her hand as if she were miming throwing a ball. I heard a loud whoosh like a flag billowing out in the wind, and a second later I could feel the heat behind us. My intention was not to give Vera the satisfaction of turning around and just keep my most unimpressed stare trained on her, but I didn’t have a choice in the matter, because the thousand-pound horse under me immediately wheeled around so that we both found ourselves staring into the blazing wall of fire that my temperamental ex-lover had just conjured up.
The brilliant flames stretched from floor to ceiling and left no possible gap for a body to slip through. Which didn’t even make any sense, because marble, as far as I knew, wasn’t flammable, and every inch of this hall appeared to be made of it. But I didn’t know whether this particular variety of sorcerous flame could be sustained without earthly fuel, or whether the flame was just an illusion, although the sensation of heat in addition to the visual did decrease that likelihood, or whether the flame was quite real, and the marble was an illusion, and the hall was actually made of kindling. I may have been something of a gambling man, but not enough of one to want to put Vera’s barrier to the test.
Theo turned back around, but now I could feel his muscles trembling slightly beneath me. He always tried to maintain his composure and behave rationally, but horses were nervous creatures by nature, and Theo’s superior intellect couldn’t quite overcome that.
“You could surrender, Hal,” Vera said softly. “It doesn’t have to be like this. If you can prove yourself useful to Lord Gorander, and earn our trust, then you and Theo can both reside here with every conceivable luxury in the world at your disposal. You won’t have to keep dueling desperados and axing people’s unwanted relatives just to ensure your next meal.”
“Funny thing to offer me,” I said. “The exact lifestyle that I was already born into and didn’t care for, that made me decide that dueling desperados and axing people’s unwanted relatives seemed like a more appealing destiny.”
“The sorcerers at your father’s court were pathetically weak in comparison to the two of us,” Vera replied. “We can give you so much more than the kings of the past and present ever dreamed of. I can give you more. I can give you--”
“Immortality courtesy of newt testicles, I know,” I interrupted. “I reckon that’s the first quest you’d want to send me off on, if you had me in your service.”
“You wouldn’t have to be my servant, Hal,” she said as she took a few steps closer to us.
Theo reflexively backed away, then the intensified heat reminded him of why that wasn’t a good idea, and he gave a disgruntled snort under his breath.
Vera seemed to recognize his discomfort and halted, still a good fifteen feet away. Every step closer she had taken heightened the tantalizing details of her face and figure, though. She was just as excruciatingly beautiful
as I remembered her in my dreams. The interplay of sharpness and softness. Her chiseled, angular face, with those plush lips. Her hard, lean, muscled body, with the ripe curves. The pitch blackness of her hair, and the wavy, rumpled texture. The runic tattoos, in certain light conditions so stark against her skin, and in others almost unnoticeable, only a shade darker and redder than her complexion.
“What exactly would I be, then?” I asked.
“My mate,” she said. “But not just that. My equal in power. Lord Gorander is not to be underestimated. I have never encountered a sorcerer of his stature before. The choice is to join him, or be conquered by him. But you and I have our own gifts, and we could rule by his side. As a triumvirate.”
“Nah, I’m more of a lone rider type,” I said.
“No matter how many times we part ways, Hal, destiny always seems to bring us back together,” Vera said as she stared intently at my face.
“Yeah, destiny is kind of a bitch that way,” I agreed.
“It must be for a reason,” Vera insisted as she ignored my interpretation of her observation. “This reason. So that we can build an empire together. An eternal empire. So that we can be gods together. We are meant to be.”
“You know, Vera, historically speaking, things never turn out so good for humans who start to think of themselves as gods,” I said.
“You’re not ambitious enough, Hal, that’s your problem,” Vera said after a pause.
“Actually, it’s my strength,” I said. “It’s what’s kept me alive and free all these years.”
“Maybe so, but I’m afraid that ends now,” Vera sighed as she flexed her hands. “Unless you can bring yourself to appreciate the bigger picture.”