by W. C. Conner
“What else?” the demon said, then chuckled deep in its throat. “I’d hold the baby for ransom. It would be a way to blackmail her for power, perhaps even for her throne. As for you, I’d let you live. Nothing complicated about that.”
By now, Wil was totally bewildered and starting to doubt both his sanity as well as that of his captor. “Forgive my ignorance, but how would you be able to blackmail her with my daughter?” he asked in exasperation.
The demon now looked at Wil as if he wasn’t too bright. “How not? She’s Styxis’s daughter too, after all.”
In a flash of remembrance, Wil saw again the last fleeting vision he’d had of Styxis through Caron’s mind when she threw back her arms and head as if welcoming the bolt of blue-white magical energy rushing at her just before she disappeared in the confrontation outside the gates of Blackstone. His stomach felt sick at the realization of what it had meant.
The demon read his expression and laughed. “You didn’t know, did you?” it shouted. “You got your pleasure from her and she got what she wanted from you and you didn’t even know it.” It dissolved at that point into fits of horrid, phlegm-filled laughter.
As it collected itself and wiped the spittle from its chin, it turned its crafty eyes back toward Wil. “My lust for her body is almost as great as my lust for her throne. I have forever wanted to father a child upon that harridan,” the demon growled, “but there was no way to get close enough since she cannot be physically touched by any living creature except in pain and agony.”
Again it narrowed its eyes as it looked at Wil. “I know why she wants you so badly, wizard. You are the first being she has ever encountered that possessed the power to pleasure her physically with your touch.”
As the demon talked, Wil’s mind fled back to their first encounter with Styxis at the turning to Wrensfalls, the encounter in which she had bewitched him with her name and her beauty. He felt his manhood stirring as he remembered the sensations she had aroused, then shook his head slightly to rid himself of the vision.
“What she and I have shared is for us alone,” Wil said, his jaw set firmly. “I have come to your world to rid our world of her presence forever.”
“Well then, wizard, it appears you and I have converging goals,” the demon responded. “I want her throne and her body, and you want her gone.” Once again, he broke into phlegm-filled laughter.
Wil looked at the demon speculatively as it spat a large glob of gelatinous mucus onto the cavern floor. It appeared this demon fancied itself a rival to Styxis’s power and influence in this forsaken world. The avatar knew the power of Styxis, but it had no sense of how powerful Gulak was.
As long as his line was already in the water, he decided to do some more fishing. “How came you to the knowledge that I was the baby’s father?” he asked.
“The slut has bragged far and wide that the most powerful wizard on the other side of the boundary planted the seed in her himself,” Gulak replied. It leered at the avatar and laughed deep in its throat. “You must tell me if she is as soft and supple and wild as I have always imagined she would be. I have lain awake many nights while at her fortress, unable to sleep for want of that glorious whore.”
“You visited her fortress?”
“I used to be a favorite of hers. She and I were business partners many years ago and I was in and out of there several times a year.”
“Why are you no longer dealing with her? Did she cheat you?”
The demon gave Wil’s avatar a sly look. “She used to entertain me in her room. She and I would pleasure ourselves for each other, but one time she tricked me into touching her. In the moment of that excruciating pain, she learned that, though I lusted for her body, I lusted for her throne even more. She expected that I lusted for her body because all her subjects do, but when she learned of my desire to replace her upon the throne of this world, she went into a fury.
“She thought me dead when they dragged my body from the room, but I had protected my core with the little magic I command. It was months before I recovered. Since then, I have been plotting and planning how I could topple her, and then one of my spies told me of your coming. It’s quite simple, really. If the wizard was powerful enough to conceive the baby, it would be child’s play for him to locate the baby.”
The avatar cocked an eyebrow as if in admiration of Gulak’s plan. It isn’t the baby he really wants as a hostage, he realized. It is me, but he knows he doesn’t have the magical potential to challenge me, so intends to use my unknown daughter to control me. Very well, two can play this game. He has no idea where this baby is, but believes I can find it for him. I have no idea where I am, but he does.
He smiled as if arriving at the same conclusion as the demon. “I will help you on one condition only, Lord Gulak,” he said.
The demon smiled, sensing that it had won. “Name the condition.”
“The baby will be mine.”
The demon frowned. “It is only a girl,” it said. “What use could you have for it? Would you sell it?”
“She is my daughter,” Wil said quietly. “She would never be for sale. You do not sell that which you love.”
The demon gave Wil a sly smile. “So, you like the young ones, then,” he said. “I prefer them older; they know how to pleasure a man in a way the young ones don’t.”
Wil realized the creature leering at him had no way to know of love as anything other than carnal pleasure.
The demon gave him a sideways, calculating look. “You have your reasons for wanting the baby, wizard. I understand that sort of need, but I won’t give it to you. I will need it to bargain with.”
“What if I can give you what you want without using the baby?”
The demon got up and walked over to stand in front of the avatar. As it approached, Wil sensed an aura emanating from the demon that was a crude probe and evaluation of his potential. He looked carefully into Wil’s eyes as if trying to determine if he was deceiving him, then returned to its makeshift throne. “You don’t have the power to do that,” it stated.
“It was my power that banished her from our world, Lord Gulak,” the avatar reminded him. “It was my power that gave her the baby you think to use to pry her from her throne. Consider carefully before you dismiss the power I wield.”
Gulak’s eyes narrowed as it occurred to him he might be playing with a fire he was unable to control. “Show me something that I may believe you. If you could put me atop both the slut’s throne and her body without pain, I will give you the brat willingly, but I don’t believe you have the ability.”
The avatar looked smugly at the demon. “Prepare to enjoy a foretaste of what awaits you, Gulak.”
Gulak’s tongue slid out to run around its mouth lustfully as the vision of Styxis pleasuring him blossomed throughout his body. The demon was trembling as the avatar withdrew the vision.
“You can make that happen?” it said, breathing heavily.
“That is just a fraction of what I can do,” the avatar replied honestly.
“Make even a part of that come to pass and the brat is yours.”
46
Styxis sat at ease on her throne made of bones and watched as the doors at the far end of the hall swung slowly open. A faint sheen of moisture coating her taut upper lip was the only hint of her tension. The winged creature strode through the doorway followed by Caron who lagged three to four steps behind him. Stopping just inside the doorway, he turned to allow Caron to pass him and she slowed as she drew even with him.
She awaits you, came his thought. A dip of his head gave her encouragement.
Squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath as she had before emerging from the hut just a few hours earlier, she resumed the deliberate pace she and the creature had used as they approached the doors. She walked directly to the base of the dais upon which Styxis sat and stopped. Without any sign of respect, Caron raised her dark, dark eyes to stare boldly into those of the demoness who looked avidly into them, much
as Wil always had.
Styxis did not speak for several long moments after her eyes at last broke from Caron’s to look her boldly up and down. The last time Caron had seen such a look was the night a drunken young visitor to her father’s court had undressed her with his eyes during a state dinner before trying to attack her later in the evening. Her well-timed knee to the source of his inspiration had stopped him short and caused him to lose his very large dinner in the process. She smiled as she remembered Mitchal’s expert training in the maneuver. At the thought of Mitchal, she recalled where she was and focused again on Styxis.
Caron had forgotten how unnaturally and sensually beautiful Styxis was and, for just a moment, she experienced the flare of warmth in her loins that she had felt at the time of the demoness’ intrusion into her mind at the turning to Wrensfalls.
“Where is the wizard, elf witch?” Styxis asked suddenly. “He was with you when you crossed through the boundary.”
“My name is Caron, not ‘elf witch’, and I truly do not know where Wil is,” Caron said, purposely omitting the use of Styxis’s name as a sign of disrespect. Styxis ignored it, however, for she was impressed only by power; not by titles.
“It appears that we were drugged in the hut where your creatures found me. When I awoke, I found your guards and our driver dead, hacked apart by whoever it was that drugged us.”
Styxis watched Caron’s eyes while she talked just as Wil had said she would. Apparently, she was satisfied with what she saw, for she moved on without challenging Caron. Looking to the creature that had borne Caron to the fortress, she summoned him with a bend of the little finger on her right hand. He came and knelt at her feet. “Tell me, my beautiful toy,” she said smoothly, “where did my wizard disappear to?”
The thought came to Caron’s mind as easily as it did to Styxis’s. My brothers search for your wizard, my beloved one, the creature replied, but I have heard nothing from them.
“Stand,” Styxis commanded. As he regained his feet, she said, “Turn slowly one time that I may enjoy the sight of you before you leave us.”
Her eyes shifted from the muscles of the retreating creature to return to Caron’s eyes. “You are a seer,” she said abruptly. “Find him.”
Caron bowed her head to hide her anger. “I will search, but if I find him, it will be for me, not for you.” She looked up with her mouth set in a thin line of defiance, her eyes already unfocused as she reached out to seek Wil. When there was absolutely no response to her probe, she held her arms out to her sides and turned slowly as if focusing her powers in all of the directions of the compass. Her brow drew down as she finished and faced Styxis once again.
“I can find no sense of him anywhere,” she said. “It is as if he has departed from your world.”
“There is only one way for that to happen,” Styxis replied, “and I would know immediately for I have watchers at both sides of the boundary.”
She thought a moment as she stared at Caron, shifting her gaze from her eyes periodically to boldly roam her body. “Gulak,” she said finally as if responding to a question. “He is the only one with enough courage or stupidity to challenge me.” She brightened as she talked. “Of course it’s him! He lives in that disgusting, dark cave deep in the mountains. There is something in them that confounds both mine and my seers’ abilities to penetrate their walls.” She smiled wickedly. “So he thinks he can steal my wizard from me. We’ll see about that.”
Her eyes slid back to Caron. “What is it my wizard sees in you, elf witch?” she said, changing directions so quickly that Caron didn’t realize that Styxis’s attention had shifted back to her. “Take your clothes off so that I may see for myself.”
Caron’s hands moved across her chest and abdomen in a reflexive posture of modesty. “I will not remove my clothes,” she declared quietly.
Styxis laughed unpleasantly. “Leave them on then, witch,” she said. “I find imagining what you are like under all those layers perhaps more stimulating than actually seeing what you are like... for the time being, at least. Once he is found, though, I will have my pleasure of you before you are disposed of. In fact, the method of your disposal will be the best part of my pleasure.” As she spoke, her eyes wavered briefly, then returned to Caron’s face.
Why did her eyes flinch just then? Caron thought. It was almost as if she was afraid of me. I wonder… She cocked her head and looked at the demoness curiously. “It seems you are frightened of me,” she blurted before having taken the time to consider the possible consequences.
“Oh, I don’t fear you, witch,” Styxis replied, smiling. “I desire you, and I need you to determine the truth of the wizard’s words once he is brought to me. After that I will have no need of you. In fact, you will then become an impediment, for the wizard must worship me and me alone. There is no place for you in my world.” Her eyes shifted almost imperceptibly once again as she talked.
“You do fear me,” Caron said. “You fear my hold on the wizard. You fear that I am more of a woman than you.” Styxis shot a glance filled with venom toward Caron. “You have feared me since we met before the gates of the Blackstone in my world when the power that I wielded bested you.”
“You are wrong, witch. It was I who bested you. It was your daughter that died, not mine. My daughter was created in that moment when your magic brought the spark of the wizard’s life within you to my womb.”
Caron paled at Styxis’s words. “You lie,” she said coldly.
“Do I?” Styxis said. “Listen well, witch. As I stood looking at you, I knew that his life grew within you and I knew that his bolt of magic would carry a part of that spark within it because it was being directed at me through you.
“You gave me what I could never have otherwise, for no man has ever been able to touch me to give me a child.”
“It was Wil’s bolt that killed my baby?” Caron exclaimed in disbelief.
“Oh no, witch,” Styxis said. “Make no mistake about that. It was my bolt that killed your baby. You were to die that day and the wizard was to be mine, but I changed my target from you to your baby for I saw the opportunity to have what I had accepted would never happen, and I would never allow the wizard to have another daughter as a rival to mine.”
“But, if I were dead, my baby would have died with me and you would have had everything you wanted,” Caron said.
“You had to stay alive long enough for the spark to settle within me,” Styxis replied. “Besides, this wizard wields far more power than you can imagine. It would have been possible for him to salvage the life of your daughter from your body even after you were dead.
“I am taking no chances, witch. My daughter is the key to getting and holding the one thing in life that I have never had.” She smiled coldly as she concluded. “Her presence will hold him here where he will be the first creature ever to touch me and fondle me and pleasure me as he did you. Does that bother you?”
Caron closed her eyes and bit at her lip as she turned her face away from the gloating Styxis, but she did so to hide the triumph in her eyes. Wil had been right. He had foreseen the redirected attack and saved both her and her daughter.
Had he also foreseen a daughter gotten on the demon? She considered it and rejected it. He couldn’t have known. He would have shared that with her when they were together in the Forest. That was an unforeseeable consequence of the use of his magic.
Aimee’s beautiful three year old face appeared in her mind and she opened tear-filled eyes to confront Styxis.
“Where is your daughter?” she asked softly, her voice trembling.
“It hardly matters to you, but she is where you would never find her, witch,” Styxis replied coldly, “even were you to live long enough to try.”
She turned away from Caron, her face reflecting the satisfaction she felt knowing she was destroying her rival.
“Find her a pleasant room to stay in until we track down the wizard and bring him here,” she said as three reasonably human appe
aring guards stepped forward to escort Caron from the room. Caron walked with her head down, surrounded by the three guards.
Just as the doors to the chamber were opened, a voice sounded thinly within her mind. I am coming, Caron.
Without missing a step or looking up, Caron smiled and responded. Where have you been?
Around, came the reply. And I have gained an ally.
Gulak? Caron sent.
How did you know that? Wil asked.
Styxis guessed at it.
You are with her, then?
I am, but where are you?
We have one stop to make yet, but after that we will be on our way to you.
Styxis has winged creatures searching for you. They appear like seekers from a distance though they are considerably smaller, but they don’t look anything like them close up.
Gulak is being very cautious although I don’t know why. Perhaps he knows of these winged creatures, but unless there are a great many of them, I doubt they could do much. I am surrounded by quite a large army of troll-like creatures.
Just the same, please be careful, Wil.
Caron, there is something you must know, Wil began.
Your daughter with Styxis? she sent gently.
You know that, too, then?
Oh yes. She and I had a very interesting chat. She hesitated a moment before continuing. Wil, I know you aren’t really you, but no matter what happens now, thank you for everything.
On behalf of Wil, you are most sincerely welcome, but he couldn’t have done it without your help. Speaking of which, I need your seeing. I need you to find Styxis’s daughter and show her to me as you have shown me things before. Gulak has agreed that if I help him, the girl is to be mine.