Empire of Avarice (78 page)

There was a flight of narrow steps a short distance off,
and he groped his way down blindly in the dark. Then he reached the stone
floored ground and walked forward to where faint light was showing at the end,
and he slowly unfastened the latch and pulled the door open. Beyond was a
narrow, filthy and overgrown back lane, hemmed in by tall buildings.

Nobody ever bothered with this route, since the house
was in a rich district and everyone came and went by the front doors. A back
lane was old and now forgotten, except by a few who used it for various
reasons, and usually these were secret.

Demtro allowed the latch to drop as he pushed the door
shut and made his way carefully down the lane to where it emerged onto the
street. Snow was falling and coated the ground, and he huddled into his
threadbare coat, crushing a faded cap onto his head and walked off, head down,
just another anonymous citizen making his way home as fast as he could.

He turned left at the end of the street and made his way
along an artisans’ road, ignoring the shop windows and the wares still on
display, although many were now bringing their goods back into the premises. Cobblers,
coopers, furniture makers, hosiers, jewellers. There were more but Demtro kept
on going, avoiding the worst of the slippery looking street cobbles and turning
right into a narrow street. Two people looked furtively at him as he passed but
Demtro pushed through, not making eye contact. One looked like he was selling
the leaf. Not a good sign.

 At the end there stood a maze of streets and alleyways.
The streets were winding and the buildings leaned out drunkenly, their beams
bent into incredible shapes with age. Here were taverns, butchers shops and
tanners, and then there were other places the respectable avoided.

Demtro looked at the peeling sign of the Half Moons
tavern, and slid round the side, looking for someone. Sure enough, a man was
crouched in the gutters, smoking something, swathed in a mound of clothes.

Demtro leaned against a tethering post that still had
equine faeces piled close by, and cleared his throat. The shape moved, a face
covered in stubble, dirt and whose nose was red and running, looked up through
bloodshot eyes. “Oh,” he said finally, “it’s you.”

“Now, now, Zonis, is that the way to greet your old
friend?”

Zonis hawked up a thick globule of phlegm and spat it
across the narrow street. “Thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“As if,” Demtro said, looking down the street. Nobody
was close. “I have a job for you.”

Zonis laughed, his voice scratchy and deep. He coughed
and bent double, caught in a paroxysm of coughs. Finally it ceased and he
leaned back, breathing in deeply. “Just like that, eh? Look at me, I’m one of
Niake’s forgotten people. Nobody cares a bit about people like me. Those who
have money just carry on like there is nothing wrong, while we suffer. Bastards,
you can all go to the black pit of oblivion!”

“That’s the spirit,” Demtro smiled. “Good to see you’re
as enthusiastic as ever. That’s why I value you, you know, Zonis.”

“You’re a heartless user of people, Demtro. I bet you’ve
been humping rich sweet smelling women these past few years and getting rich on
selling your useless superficial wares to those who believe an image is all
important.” Zonis’ voice was getting stronger. “False people need images, real
people don’t!”

Demtro laughed but his eyes remained serious. “Oh, how
very droll, Zonis. I see you’re just as analytical as usual. What’s that you’re
smoking, anyway? Its not the leaf, is it?”

Zonis examined the clay pipe he held in his filthy hand.
“You must be joking! How the gods could I afford that? In any event, if it were
the leaf, I’d be lying here wetting myself in a stupor with my brains oozing
out of my ears. No, this is just some pain killing substitute from the West. Cheap,
readily available, and I enjoy it. Just about the only thing in my life I do,
these days.”

“Such are the mighty fallen,” Demtro sighed in mock
pity. “To think you were one of the empire’s great military hopes ten years
ago. Look at you now.”

“Shut up Demtro,” Zonis snapped, “your sneering attitude
has no place here. If you’ve just come to gloat at me, then you can get lost. Go
sneer at some other poor soul lost to society.”

“Oh, I’ve come to give you a job, brother,” Demtro said,
looking up and down the street again. “Something that may give you a purpose in
life, and maybe to give you some self-respect instead of feeling sorry for
yourself.”

Zonis swore violently. “You know how to put the boot in,
don’t you?”

“I should know my own elder brother, shouldn’t I? Father
would turn in his grave if he saw you.”

“Don’t you speak of father, you insect! Who was it who
buried him? You were gallivanting in Kastan City while I had to take care of
his affairs, and to sort out his debts. This is part of the reason I’m here
today, and what did you do to help? Nothing!”

Demtro waved Zonis’ words aside irritably. “Do you want
my money and help or not? Or are you going to go over ancient history and try
to feel even more sorry for yourself? Be a man and get off your rump!”

“How dare you!” Zonis staggered to his feet, glowering. “You
think you can buy anyone with anything? You can’t buy the past, and that’s
something you will have to learn. You can’t pay to change what you didn’t do at
the time you were needed.”

“Alright, alright, enough of this, Zonis. I have a job
for someone who loves taking huge risks, facing danger and possibly death. I
thought of you, since that’s what you did before your fall from grace.”

“It was the blazing Duras who were responsible for
this!” Zonis shouted, spittle spraying from his lips, “as you well know! They
didn’t want successful generals winning battles, they wanted fawning sycophants
who lost whole damned regions!”

“Then show them, and everyone else, that Zonis Kalfas is
still around and a man to reckon with. Get rid of that mind numbing rubbish and
smarten yourself up. My house is the first along Aconia Street, with the white
painted support beams.”

“I need this mind numbing rubbish, as you call it,”
Zonis waved the pipe, “since my lungs are infected with the coughing disease. I
won’t have more than a year left!”

Demtro’s face went still. “Oh, Zonis, I’m sorry to hear
that – are you serious?”

Zonis nodded.

Demtro’s head went down. His elder brother was going to
die. He sighed and looked up. “Very well. You then can at least live your
remaining time in my house. And maybe do this job for yourself if not for me,
and for the Empire.”

“For Kastania?” Zonis sneered. “What has it done for me?
The Duras sacked me, the Koros have changed nothing.”

“Lombert Soul.”

“What of him?” Zonis demanded, sucking on the pipe. He
coughed as the smoke reached his lungs, but the pain that was flaring up again
was lessened. It didn’t go away, but it made the discomfort bearable.

“It’s a mission to find his camp. Moves are afoot to
destroy him.”

“I’d be careful what you say around here, little
brother, he’s gaining quite a following in this district. They see him as
someone to end people’s sufferings under the Koros.”

“Who will change this cess-pit? Nobody cares about this
district, and Lombert Soul certainly won’t should he take Niake. There’s no
money to do anything here, nor in any of the poor quarters of every city in
Kastania.”

Zonis grunted. At least that was true. “I think Lombert
Soul is an opportunist, and has little chance of succeeding. Word is that he’s
getting financial backing from someone high up in society.”

“My thoughts exactly, Zonis. Come on home and meet
someone I want you to work with. We’ll stop by a clothier I know and kit you
out properly. If you are going to die, I want you to dress properly for the
gods.”

Zonis grimaced. “Don’t make fun of it – I have no wish
to waste away to nothing. I’d prefer to die with a sword in my hand. I trained
for that all my childhood, as you well know!”

“Then maybe you will, if you take this mission. I need
someone to liaise with my agent, and a fighting man is perfect for the job. What
say you?”

The ill-dressed man thought for a moment, then shrugged.
“Sure, why not? I was getting tired of the leaf sellers muscling in on this
patch anyway. Someone ought to take them out.”

“Perhaps you could?” Demtro grinned, and took Zonis’
arm, leading him away from the narrow street. He so badly wanted to help his
brother, now he knew there was so little time left for him.

The pounding on the door was becoming insistent. Thetos
Olskan was beginning to surface from a very deep sleep, groaning as
consciousness began to impinge on a particularly lurid dream. He shook his head
slowly, hoping the noise would go away, but it wouldn’t. There was also an
urgent sounding voice accompanying it, and he muttered to himself that he would
perform some dark deed upon whoever it was.

His dream broke but the lurid sensation persisted, and
he realised he was being ridden very enthusiastically by Metila. Memories of
the preceding evening came to him, hazy and indistinct, but he recalled taking
a very big drink prepared for him by the Bragalese woman, and it was after
finishing it that things began to happen. He’d been drunk many times in his
life, and some of the sensations he’d felt was similar to that, but there were
other things – the pounding of blood in his head, the distortion of his vision,
the clarity of hearing, the feeling of rising lust unbidden that had
overwhelmed all other feelings, and the feeling of strength racing through his
veins.

Metila had clearly dosed him with something and it had
consumed him all night. He felt awful, beat up, drained. Yet the object of
Metila’s attention was still aroused and showed no sign of fading. What in the
name of the gods?

The banging on the door came again. “Governor! Governor!
Please open up – there’s an emergency! We need you, urgently!”

“Oh for Kastan’s sake,” Thetos groaned and pushed his
arms underneath his torso, fighting his lethargy and weakness, and managed to
half sit up. Metila snarled and pushed him back onto the bed. She continued
writhing atop him, uttering animalistic noises of pleasure. Thetos sucked in
deep lungfuls of breath. This was not good – he was damned if he was going to
allow this woman to dictate when she pleasured herself against him. He was
governor, he said what went and when.

He roared in frustration and rolled over onto his side, throwing
Metila off who landed on the floor with a cry of dismay. The scent of her
excitement filled the room, an almost overpowering smell of pheromones. Thetos
got to his feet and glared down at her. “What did you do to me, witch?”

Metila crouched on the floor, utterly naked, her mouth
fixed in a rictus of fury. “You took potion of love, last many watches.”

“How am I meant to carry out my duties as governor with
this like it is?” he demanded, pointing to his engorged organ. “It’s hardly
acceptable, is it?”

Metila shrieked with laughter. Thetos backhanded her,
knocking her to the floor. “Next time just do one to last the evening, not all
night and the day afterwards! I want to be awake to enjoy it, not lying there
like a corpse!”

Metila snarled, licking the blood off her lips. “You
fall asleep after three times, I want six, seven, ten times!”

“You want a damned good whipping, witch!”

“You give me? I enjoy!” Metila rolled her hips whilst on
all fours. “You know how to make me feel good!”

“May the gods have mercy on my health,” Thetos grumbled,
tugging on a pair of hose, fighting it over his loins, swearing continuously. “Look,
I can hardly get these bloody things on! What was in that drink? Iron ore?”

Metila slid onto the bed, opening her mouth. “Want
attention from me?”

Thetos kicked a lump of clothing up into the air,
seeking for his jacket. Somehow it had been torn off his body the previous
evening. “No – if you did that it’d usually mean I could get these hose on
afterwards! I doubt a bucket of freezing cold water would dampen this down at
the moment!”

“You could try snow outside,” Metila suggested, rubbing
herself against the bed post lewdly.

“Get dressed, witch! I’m going to let those people in
and see what in the fires of the underworld is going on!” He slipped on his
jacket, expertly doing up the buttons one-handed, as he’d learned to do these
past few years.

Slamming the bed chamber door shut behind him, he
stamped through his day chamber towards the door that was still being
assaulted. He was aware of pains beginning all over his body and realised
Metila had scratched him all over his arms, legs and body during the night. Cursing,
he flung open the door and was confronted by three men, all armed and dressed
for battle.

“What is going on?” he demanded.

“Governor – we’ve got a full-scale insurrection in the
city!”

“What? How?” Thetos roared, then turned about. He didn’t
want to stand there with his excitement fully evident. He went to his desk and
sat down gingerly behind it. The three men followed him in and stood before his
desk. Thetos relaxed slightly; at least here there was no way they could see
his discomfort. “Tell me all.”

The guard commander put his helm under his arm and stood
stiffly to attention. “Sir. Last night a riot broke out in the eastern quarter
and spread rapidly through the city until the entire place was up in arms. Our
guard contained the fighting until this morning when we had to give ground. Our
men are tired and are facing a mob who wish to burn this place to the ground. They
want the Duras back to run Turslenka.”

“Are they insane?” Thetos asked sharply. “And who
exactly are those demanding this?”

“A range of people, mostly the lower classes. There’s a
few ringleaders armed but most of the rioters are carrying clubs and stones. The
usual type of rioters, sir.”

Thetos growled, then looked round as Metila came out of
the bedroom, dressed, but her hair was still wild and unkempt. She walked
slowly to his side and gave the three men a look of utter contempt. “Klee, you
whore, and nothing else, you understand?” Thetos demanded.

“You say, I get. You man, you master.”

“Don’t ever forget that, woman.” Thetos saw the
expressions on the three men and grimaced. “So, we must end this insurrection. Any
ideas as to who began it and how?”

“Sir – it would seem the Duras are behind this,
spreading propaganda against the emperor and you. They blame the shortages here
on your misrule and the emperor’s war in Bragal.” The officer saw the
thunderous expression on Thetos’ face and hurriedly continued. “That’s what
they are saying, sir! Of course it’s all lies.”

“Of course,” Thetos growled. He saw Metila leave the
room and caught a glance of a group of heavily armoured guards outside his
door. Things were serious. “Get my battle armour,” he said.

“Sir?” the second man asked, surprised. “Full battle
armour?”

“Yes! Bring it here at once! I shall face the crowd
myself.” Thetos didn’t say that his full armour had a metal skirt that went
down to his thighs and therefore would hide his swollen manhood. It was damned
painful which added to his bad temper. Damn that witch!

There was something else he needed. “Bring my hook case
over,” he barked, pointing at the glass-topped wooden display case resting atop
a side table. “I need an appropriate hook.”

One of the officers struggled over with it and planted
it on the table top. Thetos opened the glass lid and peered down at the
gleaming hooks and attachments resting there. There were five, all arranged in
order of size and wickedness of hook.

“Hmmm, let’s see.” Thetos glanced at the first. “Ceremonial.
No way. Too small.” He looked at the second, one with a blunt tip. “Social
gatherings. Too decorative. Not the right one for this situation.” The third
was bigger and had a very sharp point. “Battle hook. Hmmmm……”

The fourth and fifth were much bigger. Thetos smiled. “First
Date Hook. Always good to impress the ladies, don’t you think?” he asked the
standing trio, indicating the fourth hook. “Size matters.” He picked up the
fifth and biggest one of all, a monster. “One to face rioters. I could hang a
herd beast on this bastard. A rioter or two would be child’s play.” He clicked
the cylindrical base into position set in his left forearm and twisted it a
quarter turn. There came a click and he flexed his arm, getting used to the weight.
“Ahhhh. Yes.”

The door opened and Metila came in, a tray in her hands,
a steaming cup resting in the centre and a plate of mixed cheeses and eggs next
to it. She handed it to Thetos and picked up the display case, grunting with
effort, and took it back to its place by the window. One of the three men, the
youngest, tried to help but stopped when he got a look that could have
shrivelled him to the spot. He stood still, abashed.

Thetos chuckled, putting his breakfast tray on the
table. “Don’t ever try to help her,” he advised, spearing a chunk of cheese
with his hook and popping it into his mouth. “She’s Bragalese. Very
independent-minded. Just like her people. Why do you think it’s taken so long
to subdue them? Bandits, thieves and whores, the lot of them.”

“Sir, that’s racist!” the middle officer objected.

“So what?” Thetos snapped, chewing on the cheese. “You
want to go serve there?”

“Uh, no sir.”

“Then shut up bleating about them. If you’re lucky your
throat will be slit by the first eight year old you come across. If not you’ll
suffer years of abuse, hatred and fear of being murdered in the night. Don’t
give me any bleeding heart manure about the poor Bragalese.”

The officer went red and stood stock still, his hands
clasped behind his back. Metila sneered at him. “He won’t last one day in my
country. Too weak. No – what you call them?” she flexed her hands beneath her
crotch.

“Balls,” Thetos said, picking up his mug of steaming
klee.

“Yes. Balls. You have no balls. Only men with balls
survive in my country.”

The officer gave Metila the benefit of an unfriendly
look.

Thetos decided to stop the superior attitude of what was
clearly a newly appointed officer, probably from a middle-class Kastanian
family. He knew the type, thought themselves as morally correct and looked down
on the lower classes and patronised everyone except their superiors. “Metila,
show him how a Bragalese woman treats an enemy.”

In a flash Metila sprang over the table, screaming in
fury, a knife in her hand, and took the officer by the throat, knocking him to
the floor. The man, stunned, lay there, Metila straddling his stomach, her
thighs clamped hard against his ribs, the knife to his throat. The two others
were still standing by the table, mouths open in shock.

Thetos smiled. “You understand now?”

“Sir,” the senior officer said, his face white.

“If this was Bragal, your lieutenant would have his
throat open, and you two would be dying. That is what we had to face in Bragal
every day. That’s why we wiped out whole villages. Kill them. Kill them all. Either
that or we would die. You’re too comfortable here, so that’s why I’m going to
get you three pretty boys to stand alongside me on the steps of this building
facing the crowd. This is a child’s party compared to what I faced, saw and
dealt with in Bragal.”

“Sir!”

“Metila, off that boy. He’s learned what it is to face a
Bragalese woman.”

Metila slowly got up, her face displaying loathing for
the fearful young officer. Her eyes bored into his and he shook, his bladder
emptying. She saw it. A sneer replaced her look of contempt. “You lucky you
work for him,” she nodded at Thetos. “If not, I kill you. You herd beast.”

“Enough, slut!” Thetos barked.

Metila smiled, sliding her knife back into its sheath on
her belt. “Later I pleasure you. Now you kill those fools outside. Show them
you strong. I watch.”

Thetos slapped his hand down on the table. “I’ll decide
whether to kill them or not! You shut up.”

Metila turned around and swayed off to the bedroom, her
rump rolling. The two standing officers watched her, unable to say anything. The
junior officer was helped up, still shaking in fear. Thetos watched him with
growing impatience. “Is this how you are facing a tough situation, like out
there? I’ve warred in Bragal under Astiras Koros and learned the hard way how
to deal with insurrection. You enter a Bragal village and you’re approached by
a group of villagers waving sticks and carrying stones, you kill them. You’re
approached by women screaming at you, you kill them. You’re approached by
children – you kill them.”

The three young Kastanian officers went white with
shock. “B-But sir….children?”

“They’re the worst, Captain. Because you don’t think
they’re capable, when they drive knives into the groins of my men it’s doubly
shocking. After I lost twenty men to women and children, I learned to strike
first.” He looked at the junior officer again, shame written all over the young
man’s face. “You no doubt were one of the people who shouted out against our
war of extermination against the ‘poor, helpless, defenceless Bragalese’, mm?”

The officer said nothing. He was feeling extremely
uncomfortable, the wet patch in his hose turning cold. He remained standing
however, at attention as he’d been taught in officer classes.

Thetos smiled without humour. “While you were living
your comfortable lives on your family estates I was in the thick of it, dealing
with the murdering lot of them. They slaughtered any Kastanian they came
across, and none of us in the army heard a squeak of protest from you bleeding
heart brigades, but when we fought back, then up you lot got on your hind legs
and howled about the outrages we inflicted on the freedom loving helpless
Bragalese.” His voice grew hard and bitter. “Did you not think that if you had
your way and they got independence, that they would then cross the border, burn
to the ground all Kastanian villages in Frasia and Makenia, move in, build new
villages made entirely up of Bragalese, and spread further and further north
until they dominated both regions, then demanded they join Bragal and expected
weak naïve brainless fools to take up their cause elsewhere?”