Blades of the Demigod King

by James Derry

  Sygne scoffed. “No. That’s impossible. Why would you want to do that anyway?”

  The prince clammed up. She had offended him. The old woman scowled.

  Sygne stammered, trying to smooth over her faux pas. “But it’s not a bad question. We ask ourselves questions like that all the time here.”

  “That seems to be all you do,” Pawn said. “Ask questions. Think. Read. Think. Do math.” The prince rolled his eyes. “You exercise your brains like they are muscles.” He subconsciously flexed his biceps. “But what good does that do in the real world outside of your skulls?”

  Sygne quietly said, “I agree. All the thinking we do here means nothing if we don’t find ways to use it practically.” She tentatively held up her dioptra, as if it could illustrate her point. “We need to understand our world—and then change it for the better.”

  Pawn studied Sygne for a moment, and the tension went out of his arm muscles. The old woman touched his elbow and said, “Let’s move along, my prince.”

  “Yes… I…”

  “Why don’t you go that way?” the academic suggested to the prince. She was staring daggers at Sygne. “Toward the symposia? I’ll meet you there in two minutes.”

  “Change the world…” Pawn muttered. “It’s a good point.” He turned and strode toward a series of glowing marble edifices.

  Sygne confided to the academic. “He’s not what I expected at all.”

  The old woman’s face seemed to curdle, the lumps and folds of her pale face bunching together around a frown. “You’ve disappointed me, Sygne.”

  Jamal felt Sygne’s heart lurch.

  The old woman’s face began to change, the jowls winnowing away, the wrinkles flowing off the edges of her face until what was left was harder, more chiseled, barren. Her gray hair fell loose and darkened into tendrils of red hair.

  “Nyfinein! I…” Sygne stood quickly, her body jolting between fight-or-flight responses. Jamal felt his own flash of dread. For a while now, he’d been suffering through all of Sygne’s memories of her mother. Sometime after Sygne’s tenth birthday, the hinterland witch had begun visiting Sygne at least twice a year. Here was Nyfinein’s latest visit. Jamal was shocked to see that it had been the witch who had introduced Sygne to Pawn.

  Nyfinein said, “I told you I would be back in the summer to check on your progress. I’ve been here for two weeks. Already I’ve insinuated my way into the prince’s good graces. And yet every time I check up on you, you’re doing the same useless things. Reading books and fiddling with shapes?”

  Sygne swallowed hard. Jamal could feel the sandpaper roughness of her throat. “I have been learning more dynamic things. Do you know of fireworks? Pyrotechnics?”

  “It is not enough, child! Do you know I have children younger than you who are already leading entire squadrons of marauders? Have you heard of Osun the Red? He’s your half-brother. Or what of Hellion Rabdar? Last year he sacrificed a dozen virgins. And now he’s in the good graces of the horned god Belzettut.”

  Sygne protested, “There are no marauders or horned gods here.”

  “I know that! You don’t think I know that? There are people of great influence here. And yet, what have you done with them? Found ways to seduce them? Steal their secrets? Extort them? No! I just introduced you to a prince—a demigod prince at that—and what do you do? You laugh at him and lecture him on numbers and shapes? How do you expect anything useful to happen in that way?”

  “I don’t know. This is…”

  Jamal could feel Sygne wrestling with her feelings. Confusion and anger and fear.

  Nyfinein’s demeanor seemed to change in an instant, almost as fantastically as her face had changed. With both hands she cupped Sygne’s cheeks. “Don’t be upset my child. Be cheery. Remember how sad you used to be when you thought you were just an orphan? Well, now you know you have a mother. Isn’t that a happy thing?”

  Under the shade of her broad-brimmed hat, Nyfinein’s face was smooth—her skin pale and supple. She could have passed for Sygne’s sister. Only the hard, aged flintiness of her gray eyes, betrayed the savage lifetimes that the sorceress had passed through on her way to this moment.

  Her hands were slender and ladylike. But her skin peeled back in places to show scabs along the knuckles. Her fingernails were cracked down the centers, and flaked along the edges.

  “You should be happy to serve your mother. Don’t you want to make me happy?”

  “I want to try,” Sygne said.

  The witch pressed her ragged nails into Sygne’s face. “Good. You better try. Remember this, Sygne. There are worse things to be in this world than an orphan. You don’t want to find out what those things are.”

  “I…”

  “I will return to Albatherra in the winter, my child. In the meantime I have other offspring to visit. When I return here, I expect to see great things from you. I am a doting mother, you see. Hopeful and ambitious. But my love for my children does indeed have its limits. If you disappoint me one more time, you can expect to feel pain for it.”

  ***

  The witch’s shaded face grew darker and darker, until Jamal’s vision was swallowed in a billowing cloud of shadow. For a long while, he was surrounded by a thick darkness. Humid air settled down upon him, and he felt his body sinking into a heaviness. Gravity had returned, pressing his body down onto a hard surface. Groggily, Jamal realized that this dark realm was actually the waking world. To be exact, he was in he master suite of Balazul’s inn. The former romping grounds of the succubus.

  He pulled himself up into a seated position. It was night time. There was no light coming through the shuttered window of the room, just the chirruping sounds of crickets and the croaks of frogs from a nearby fountain.

  The Demigod King was long gone; Jamal knew that. But festive voices drifted into the room from the hallway. Probably Balazul and his friends, relieved that the demon had been vanquished. Jamal could have stayed where he was and basked in their gratitude, but he wasn’t feeling particularly victorious, or in the mood for praise. So he lumbered to the shuttered window and pried loose the bottom two planks that kept it closed. With a grunt he awkwardly boosted himself up and over the sill; then he toppled through the window and into the alleyway behind the inn.

  The ground was surprisingly soft here. He didn’t bother to straighten himself or sit up. He just lay where he had fallen. The enchantments of the succubus had dropped him into a deep slumber. It had probably been ninety days or more since he had slept so well, and yet his body still ached for more rest. And his mind yearned for a few moments of reflection. Jamal stared up at the stars shining down into his narrow, dusty alleyway, and he mulled over the events of the last two days. A lovely arrival in the Garden Reach with Sygne. Then an adventure with one of the Golden Empires’ most famous heroes. A sumptuous party. A horrible and totally avoidable falling-out. More glories with the Demigod King. And now a total crash. Jamal considered the fact that he might be getting too old for this heroism stuff.

  Forget being a monster slayer. Forget being a poet singer. Maybe it was time he considered a new career as a homeless vagabond. At the very least, it would be a more consistent, more predictable existence. It did feel nice to live in this alleyway. But then Jamal remembered that there were no vagrants in Albatherra. All of them were moved into sanatoriums. Or exfoliated by giant peacocks.

  The sound of crickets had grown louder, until it was nearly a high-pitched scream. Jamal’s skin began to twitch; then his nerve endings buzzed like something was tickling him. Had he fallen into a bed of fleas? Jamal snapped out of his depressed reverie and bounded to his feet. The sound of crickets seemed to coalesce, siphoning from multiple sources into one focal point. That focal point, just a few feet away in the gloomy alley, became a creaking, wavering approximation of a woman’s voice.

  “You again?” she asked. “Haven’t you done enough?”

  Jamal made to bare his sword, but he s
topped. He squinted into the gloom, where he thought he saw a swirling accumulation of shadow. “Are you… the succubus?”

  “You may call me Alollei,” the creature said. “And yes, you and your kingly friend evicted me from my home just a few hours ago. If you have come to try and slay me, know that it is not possible. If it were, I would have killed myself long ago.”

  Jamal backed away. “I mean you no harm.“

  “I meant you no harm as well,” the succubus said. “I never harm men. You have appetites, and I merely sate them.”

  “But you can speak? Why didn’t you talk to us before?”

  “I do not usually need to speak in order to get what I want from men. And to give them what they want.”

  “I see. And you said your name was Alollei?”

  “Yes. I was once a goddess of the Mizzuline, their deity of frustrated masculine appetites.” An awkward moment of silence stretched out between them, and the former goddess rose to her full height with her tentacles wriggling weightlessly against the dirt street. Alollei said, “You know, we Mizzuline deities chose very specific fields of deification.”

  “I’ve heard that,” Jamal said. He was wondering if Alollei was one of Pawn’s distant, divine aunts, but he decided it would be counter-productive to ask.

  Alollei continued. “Our followers were conquered by the Issulthraqi, and my large family of deities were forced from our realm. Some of the most popular, most powerful deities lived on, or were assimilated into the Issulthraqi’s Pantheon. I was not as lucky; I went from reveling in the Pleasure Dome of the Dream City to groveling for lonely men like you in fleabag inns like this one.”

  “I’m sorry. That does sound tragic.”

  Alollei drifted forward. She seemed to be lit by a dim glow that emanated from her center. Random corners of her five pronged mouth would move as she spoke, as if different sections of her mouth were in charge of forming certain syllables. “And now you prove that I am losing my power over these sad men. How are you able to resist me so easily?”

  “Easily?” Jamal asked. “There was nothing easy about it.”

  “You don’t find me attractive?”

  Jamal tried his best not to stare at Alollei’s starfish mouth. “I find you… Very striking. Believe me, it took all of my willpower to resist you.”

  Alollei slithered closer to Jamal, and the upper half of her body moved sinuously as she approached. “Why did you resist?”

  “Not every man is going to jump at the opportunity to hook up with a random sex-monster.”

  Alollei blinked at him.

  “Well,” Jamal said. “At least not me. At least not this time.”

  Alollei sniffed at his neck. “You have a complicated love life. Your scent tells me so. You should remember: In my godly days I did not just reign over the libidinal desires of men. Often I would appease other ambitions. Perhaps you can tell me what you want, and then I can help you.”

  “I don’t know what I want.”

  The former goddess squeezed her eyes into slits. As if she could see through Jamal a bit. “When I was close to you—in your mind—I saw a vision of a lovely, smart woman. Short hair, the color of wildfire. You want to see her. I could show you where she is.”

  “You could? I suppose I would like to see her. It’s been a full day since we had our argument. I’d like a chance to explain myself to her.”

  “When your friend was here, the one called King Pawn, I was able to touch his mind with some of my atoms.”

  “‘Atoms?’”

  “The floating bits of me. The components of my being.”

  “Oh,” Jamal said, not really understanding.

  “You should know: I also saw visions of your redheaded woman in his mind as well.”

  “I’m not surprised by that,” Jamal muttered.

  Alollei closed her eyes and concentrated. “A few of my atoms are still attached to King Pawn. If I reach out and look… Yes, I see him. His mind is strange. Splintered. And yet—” Her eyes popped open. “You must see this.”

  Jamal swallowed as she stretched out her arm to him. He felt like he could trust Alollei, but was that just an effect of her power over mortals?

  Alollei said, “Your friend is with King Pawn.”

  That was enough to get Jamal moving. He stepped close to Alollei, and she reached out for him, reached through him. Her fingers passed through his skull and intermingled with his brain until it was hard to tell which one of them was made of mist. Perhaps they were both simply clouds of floating ‘atoms’ bustling together. The specifics didn’t matter, the effect was that Alollei reached into Jamal’s mind and flooded it with a vision of Sygne being placed on a bed by an armored Albatherran soldier. Her arms and legs were limp, her head lolled against an extravagantly embroidered pillow. Jamal recognized the furnishings. Pawn’s forward headquarters.

  Alollei’s voice resonated against both the outsides and the insides of his eardrums. She said, “I’ve had a great deal of experience with unconscious mortals. And I can tell you that she has been drugged.”

  “Drugged and placed on a strange man’s bed. That is not a good circumstance.”

  “I have much experience with the beds of strange men. I agree with you.”

  “I need to go see her. Make sure she’s okay. But I’m not sure Pawn’s men will let me back into his encampment. I’m not sure we left on the best of terms. And if he’s kidnapped Sygne…”

  “Are you saying that you might have trouble convincing the guards to let you in?”

  “I’m saying I might have to sneak in.”

  Alollei’s strange mouth twisted into an unearthly shape that Jamal recognized as a smile. She said, “Persuading men or sneaking behind them. These are two things that I am very good at.”

  “Are you saying you want to help me?”

  Alollei bowed. “I live to please.”

  13 – Escape Plan

  Sygne was lured back to consciousness by the sweet tones of a dulcimer. Someone was playing a slow, crystalline melody. She sat up from soft, cool cushions. Silk sheets fell away from her shoulders. She was dressed in a beautiful gossamer gown.

  “Oh no,” she moaned. “This is not good.”

  The smell of caramelized figs hung in the air, and the fabric of her dress was so diaphanous it seemed to float off of her skin. Partially that was an effect of electrical attraction with her sheets.

  As she rose to her feet, Sygne was glad to see that she wasn’t feeling dizzy, although her shoulder throbbed where Abb Xyn had inserted his needle. She was in a large, sumptuous tent. She felt pretty sure that it was King Pawn’s. The walls of the tent were intricately decorated fabric. If she could find a pair of scissors or a scalpel she could cut her way outside. She glanced around the collection of cushions and fine mahogany furniture, but she couldn’t find her pocketbook anywhere.

  “Oh no. Definitely not good.”

  A gauzy curtain hung over the exit to the room; Sygne knew she would find Pawn if she brushed past that flimsy threshold and followed the sound of dulcimer music. She also knew that she was currently a captive. She wasn’t fooled by the ambience, the stylish dress, the soothing music, or the mouth-watering smells. Those were all parts of an elaborate effort to convince her that she was not currently being held against her will. Sygne suspected that the illusion might have been devised to work both ways. Her former beau wanted to convince himself that Sygne wanted to be here. Her best hope of escape might be to play into Pawn’s self-delusion.

  So she drew a grin across her face and passed into the next chamber of the tent. She was greeted by an armored female soldier. The spearwoman nodded, but she did not look Sygne in the eye. “Lady Eugenia.”

  Sygne simply nodded back. She didn’t protest the name or the title.

  The spearwoman shook a string of chimes hanging from the ceiling. The dulcimer stopped, and Sygne could hear someone fumbling around in the next room. After a few seconds
a voice called out, “Please send in our guest.”

  ‘Guest.’ Sygne took special notice of the word. Pawn was going all-in on the masquerade that she had been drugged and brought here against her will.

  A new sound emanated from the next section of the tent: the shushing noise of well-oiled cogs spinning. Sygne parted another layer of sumptuous material and walked into the same chamber where she and Jamal had celebrated, on just the previous night. Pawn was the only person in the chamber now, but he did not look up at her right away. He straddled a spinning potter’s wheel—that was what had been making the shushing noise. He was concentrating on refining the shape of a beautiful urn.

  The Demigod King wore elegant silk trousers (not the most practical garb for working with clay) and a gold threaded sash draped across one shoulder. The other side of his bulging chest was bare.

  He glanced up from his ceramics and said, “Oh. Sygne. I didn’t see you there.”

  Sygne mumbled, “Didn’t you just call me in?”

  Pawn didn’t seem to hear her, so she started a new topic of conversation. “That’s a beautiful bit of pottery there.”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you. You know I have many interests in many fields. I am more than just a warrior and a would-be tyrant, Sygne. I hope you remember that?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  Sygne’s heart jumped into her throat when she saw her pocketbook lying open on the chamber’s heavy wooden table. The book had been opened to a familiar pocket folio, the one that held her Firstspawn specimens. Did Pawn know that she had two parts of the Threefold Key?

  Pawn stood from his pottery wheel. He brushed a spattering of wet clay from the decorative loin cloth that hung over his trousers. He was still wearing his famous sword, the one part of his outfit that couldn’t be considered royal leisurewear.

  She wanted to confront him about her specimens. She wanted to ask him why he was wearing a sword to greet a guest. But she knew she had to stay calm. She had to do her best to keep Pawn’s mind off of the Firstspawn specimens. And if he didn’t know about them yet, she had to make sure he never found out. If Pawn was already investing so much effort into a plan to remold the citizens of Albatherra in the span of a hundred years, then what would he do with objects that had potential to remodeled the entire world within a matter of seconds?