Authors: Greg Curtis
“Sometimes when the divine descend to the world they stay too long. They walk the world in mortal form for too many years. They take husbands or wives, they raise families and even grow old. And sometimes they lose a part of themselves in that time.”
“I know that,” Terellion snapped angrily at the sage.
And he did know it. Everyone knew that. Gods descended sometimes. They chose to experience a mortal life. And when they did they often forgot who they were. Many had done it before. Many more would. It was why they'd been able to spread the story of the Goddess Artemis descending. She periodically returned to the world to hunt.
“But when the end finally comes for them, and they have done all that they can in the world in the mortal guise and they want to return, sometimes they can't remember how. The tablet shows them the way to regain themselves. It is a reminder to them of the way home. Their way back to their true home. But it's only for them. No mortal could ever follow that path.”
Terellion suddenly felt very sick. Cold washed over him. He felt deathly ill and he needed to sit down. For a time he couldn't even breathe as the pain of failure washed over him. There would be no immortality for him. All hope was lost. He was going to grow older and die in this decaying hulk of failing flesh he wore.
It was too much. After so long and so much hard work. After all he'd sacrificed, and all he'd risked. To have this happen – it was so unfair! It was beyond wrong.
For the longest time he just stood there staring at the sage, but not really seeing him. Not really seeing anything except his coming death. A death that was approaching fast. And following it, an eternity of suffering in the underworlds. There would be no Elysium for him. No happiness. He was doomed. Doomed to Tartarus and Xin's ministrations. And no doubt the demon king would laugh at him as he tortured him for eternity. The only thing he could do he realised, was to try and push that dark day of his death as far away into the future as he could. And punish those who had done this to him. He would start with the demon king.
Xin needed to suffer!
“So”, Terellion began slowly, rage dripping from every word, “we have a deal with the lying king of demons that is completely worthless. He can never provide us with what he promised. He always knew he couldn't. And in return for his lies we have fed him half of the five kingdoms, and now he wants the rest.”
“We also can't break the binding because to do it without killing ourselves, everybody would have to agree and Xin would never agree. He wants his food. And he will do anything he can to get it.”
“And as if that's not enough we have a vengeful High Priestess determined to kill us all, and who is apparently capable of it. She's already killed half of us.”
When he stated it out loud Terellion felt as though he was almost announcing his own death. And he was. Because this was a death sentence they had all been given. And there was nothing any of them could do about it. Yet.
But there was still one thing he could do, and that was to hurt the lying demon that had betrayed them. His treachery would not go unanswered. He would be punished. It wasn't enough, but it was something. He could starve Xin.
“Bring our people home.” Terellion bellowed his orders at the soldiers, knowing they would be obeyed. They were not lying demons. “
All
the wizards.
All
the soldiers. From every town and city. Every temple. I want all of them here in Lion's Crest in the next month. Sooner if possible. We will defend ourselves against the High Priestess as best we can. And Xin's thralls can die!”
“We will abandon all the temples. Xin's thralls and his beasts can remain in them. They can die there defending them.”
In doing so they would purchase the rest of them a little time. Time in which to regroup, to shore up their defences and hopefully make themselves a secure base. If they were lucky they could build themselves a secure enough position that they could endure for a few years. Maybe even enough years to see out the rest of his life.
“And I will close down the gate. No more chimera will come through, and no more life will flow through to Xin. He will starve. And his thralls in the other lands will lose contact with him. They will be left alone to die at the hands of their own chimera.”
“But -.”
“I'll maintain the binding because I have to. But I will close the damned gate! The demon king can rot in his underworld for this treachery! He can rot in Tartarus for eternity!”
It wasn't enough of course. He wanted the demon king to burn for his lies. For his betrayal. But some things were beyond even his power. And that was one of them.
Xin's betrayal was worse than any other he could ever have imagined. And the bitterness at having been tricked by the demon king was more vile than any he had ever known. And coming so soon after his recent success too! He now had at least two of the furies showing signs of carrying child. Only an hour before he had been filled with excitement at the thought of seeing what would come out of them. At seeing his children come out of them in time. Now he simply didn't care. Everything had turned to ashes.
But he also knew what the demon king would do the instant he realised his ruse had been uncovered and he was going to be starved again. Desperation would rule him and he would immediately order his thralls to unleash their beasts on his soldiers in the city. They would capture the remaining Circle wizards and when Xin had them under his control he would force them to open the gate. That wasn't going to happen.
Terellion couldn't control the chimera. But he could control their demon bonded masters. And that had to happen before he closed the gate.
“You! Gather the soldiers!” He bellowed at the guards by the door. “And then bring me the demon worshipping priests from the temple! All of them!”
“Then bring me any others in the city! Send out riders throughout the rest of the realm to hunt down the rest. Bring them all to me or kill them if they resist!”
It was time to take the thralls and through them the beast army away from Xin. It was also time to stop hiding his gift. By the time this day was over he would be known for what he was, but every one of Xin's thralls would belong to him, body and soul. And through them he would have his army.
The guards ran off to do as he ordered, and Terellion watched them go. This was a bad day, but there would be people held to account for their crimes. He promised himself that they would be punished as no others had ever been punished before. And while the thralls couldn't be killed as he needed them to control the chimera there were other ways to make certain they suffered. Suffered as they could never have imagined. They would learn to hate Xin as they had never hated anyone before. And there was one who needed to suffer most of all.
“And bring me Varrious!” Terellion screamed it to an empty room, his guards already having departed. There was no one left to hear him. But when there was he would make sure they heard him. And he would make sure they brought that worthless dog before him. And when they did the question was what was he going to do with him? Obviously he had to know what Varrious knew of his master's plans. But after that? The man would have only one purpose – to suffer.
A rustling drew Terellion's attention away from the empty doorway and the soldiers somewhere beyond it and he turned to see his fury and her demon serving master standing there. Of course they were there. He'd forgotten that he'd brought them upstairs from the dungeon. That he'd been wanting the seductress to hear the good news first hand. To know how soon she was going to be bedded.
But that dream was dead now. So was his private breeding pen downstairs. Everything he had hoped for and dreamed of was now dust.
Seeing her standing there looking a little confused was wrong. No doubt she'd been thinking very little, save that it would soon be time for him to take her. But if she had understood anything at all of what she'd just heard she now knew that time had passed. She had to be disappointed. And for some reason that bothered him. Even with everything else that had just gone wrong, it bothered him that she should be upset by the thought that he wouldn't be bedding her any time soon.
He could not allow that.
Terellion strode over to her, wrapped his arms around her buttocks – the only part of her body where her wings did not connect – and pulled her to him. He didn't care about her vipers. He didn't care about the gasps coming from the thrall watching her or the attendants stationed along the far walls. He didn't even care about the look of fear that had come over the fury's master as he desperately tried to keep her calm. He only cared that she did not ever imagine that she wasn't going to be bedded by him.
“My dear, you have nothing to worry about. Even if this failed there is another way. My agents will find me some living essence. And when they do, the moment they do, you will know a conquest such as women have only ever dreamed of! You will be mounted. Many, many times. And you will have my child in your belly. Even if I do nothing else in my life, you will be bedded. I vow that to all the gods and demons.”
And then he kissed her to seal his vow. This creature would not escape him. Nor would her sisters if Tyche granted him the slightest fortune. He would have them all and it would be glorious!
Chapter Forty Three
The demon king's thrall's dungeon was surprisingly pleasant Terellion thought. It had a little natural light coming from slots in the stone above. Some fresh air flowed through it the same way. The walls weren't dripping with water or covered in mould. Even the iron bars on the cages it had as cells were in good condition, without any sign of rust. It was as though these thralls had taken care with it. Even in designing it. But then it had started out life as part of a temple he supposed. Storerooms maybe. They had just converted them to their needs. And most of their needs seemed to be as pens for the furies. Every cell was filled with them.
Why? The other chimera, save of course for the manticores and cerberi were freer. Some could even wander the city – with a demon following master beside them. The harpies had their own open air cages on the roofs of many buildings throughout the city. Even the cerberi had their own pens in the grounds beside the temple. Why were the furies locked away down here? It was almost as if the thralls were frightened of them. And maybe they were despite the charms they had been given.
This dungeon would now serve his needs though. It would have to since the dungeon beneath his own castle was in a state of disrepair, half converted into a private brothel he would now no longer need. Though he was still in two minds as to what to do about that. Should he have the work continue? Or should he turn it back into the dungeon it had been? He had a feeling he was going to need all the dungeons he could get shortly. But to turn it back into a dungeon would be to admit that he no longer had any hope. And he did have hope. Not a lot. But still there was living essence out there. Somewhere. And if he could find some. If he could become young and vibrant again through it – even if only for a short time – he would want a place to bed the furies.
For the moment though he had only one new prisoner who needed to be locked away. All the others had either died or been brought to heel by him. This one though had been neither. For some reason his magic had no effect on Varrious.
“How can you resist me?”
Terellion was curious as he kept pushing his will against Varrious' and finding only a solid wall through which his will could not break. But he was more than just curious – he was angry. The man was in some way completely resistant to his magic, and that could not be borne. No one should be able to resist him! Least of all this foul traitor.
“My master prepared me for you.”
The miserable thrall laughed at him. Though why he was laughing Terellion didn't know. Not when he was chained and guarded. Not when they were in the dungeon and there was torture equipment all around. He should know better.
“Somehow I doubt that. He might have prepared you for White Tail – but not me. After all, if he had known about me, five hundred of your fellow thralls wouldn't even now be completely under my spell.”
And they were. It had been a long and tiring day since the discovery of the betrayal, but he had taken away the demon king's thralls and his army already. At least all of them that had been in the city. And the rest would follow. Of course it had been a crude thing. He hadn't had the time to think about subtlety or trying to keep others from finding out what he could do. He had just broken them all, and now their loyalty was his.
“They were only vassals. Thralls of no matter.” The demon king's first thrall stared at his fingers suddenly, as if the dirt under the nails was somehow more important than him. It was a calculated insult.
“And you?”
“The same.”
Did he really just say that? Terellion wondered for a moment if he'd heard him correctly. And then he thought the man might be trying to fool him. To present himself as being less important and therefore less knowledgeable than he was in the hope that the torture would be shorter. That Terellion would kill him more quickly. But he wouldn't. Even if Varrious knew nothing at all, his torture would continue through to the end. The man should have known better. If he knew anything at all about Terellion as he should, he should have known that he had no mercy. Mercy was for the weak. The man had no hope. Chaining him up in his own dungeon under the temple should have been Varrious' first clue that he was doomed. He had no allies. No fellow thralls to help him. No one to run to. He had no safety. The second should have been that his current guards had not long before been his own guards. Terellion had made them his servants.
“Your loyalty to your master I suppose is commendable. But I will break you. You know that. If you won't simply give yourself to me, I'll do it the traditional way. Maybe it'll be more fun.” Terellion smiled at him as he said it, and was rewarded with at least a little fear. But only a little. Not nearly enough.
“Loyalty!” Varrious spat in the floor in disgust. “You think I have any loyalty to Xin? That any of us do? How stupid are you?”
“We obey because we have no choice. Xin owns us. We know only what he wants us to know. We do only what he tells us to do. So all of this –” he gestured around the room “– is completely useless. Like your manhood!”
Terellion's anger suddenly raged out of control when the man threw in that last barb. He shouldn't have said it. It was one thing to laugh secretly at him behind his back. But to openly mock him? That was something else entirely.
“Chain him up!”
Instantly the guards connected his manacled hands up to the chains, and then started winching him into the air. The thralls' dungeon was well equipped for an interrogation. And as they did so they finally got a reaction from Varrious. He started cursing them – for their stupidity of all things. He started struggling too, fighting against the restraints, but soon gave up. They were far too strong and he was far too weak. Soon he even stopped cursing his former guards. It was at about the same time his feet started hanging in the air, six inches above the stone floor. The pain of the iron manacles digging into his wrists was probably already bad, and it would grow far worse in time.
“Still feeling so confidant? So brave?” Terellion mocked him.
“What? And you think this is my first time in a dungeon? My first time being tortured?”
Varrious could be just as mocking. Even hanging in chains waiting to be tortured. It seemed odd to Terellion. If the man had been imprisoned and tortured before, why was he still alive? Terellion certainly had no plans of letting him live. Only of making him scream until the end.
“All right then. Since I can't tell you what you want to know, I'll tell you what you never wanted to hear:”
“We are like you. Fools who made a deal with Xin. Dark deals. I know your stupid sages say we do it for power or some such nonsense. But we don't. No one's that stupid. No one except you that is.”
“Usually it's desperation. It was for me. I was in a dungeon much like this one. Being tortured for theft. Soon to be dead. And so I made the deal. I learned the incantations and the blood runes from the others. I took his mark on me. I gave the demon king my soul and he granted me my freedom. Or so I thought. I gained freedom from my prison but with it a new master.”
“That was fifteen years ago. Since then never has a day gone by since then that I haven't felt Xin's commands laid on me. Never has a day gone by where I haven't obeyed them – no matter how terrible. I have no choice. To disobey is to suffer torment far worse than anything you can do to me.”
“It's pathetic really. I took his mark to escape torture and death. And every day since then I've suffered far worse from the one who “saved” me. But you'll discover that for yourself soon enough.”
“He'll discover it first! I closed the gate. And as for his mark?” Terellion raised his hand to show the blackened skin where it had been. He had had it burnt off, as had every wizard in the city. As would each and every wizard when they arrived in Lion's Crest. “Erased forever.”
“And you think it's that easy?” Varrious spat at him. “You'll find out. I'd guess you've warded yourselves as well. But no ward will protect you forever. Not from Xin. And your treachery has angered him. Make no mistake. For a demon there is no greater crime than breaking a deal. He will hunt you down as no other. And you will spend your last in Tartarus.”
“My treachery?!” That angered Terellion. Even more than everything else. In fact it set his blood boiling. “He betrayed us! He gave us nothing but lies!”
If he hadn't been yelling before he was then. Yelling so loud that it hurt and that the spittle fairly flew out of his mouth. There was simply no other way to express the rage he felt for the demon king for his deception.
“He gave you exactly what you asked for. To the last letter. You wanted the six great answers and you got them. It's not his fault that you were too stupid to realise they were never meant for mortals. That is your failure! You were blinded by your arrogance and your hunger for what you could never have. Your foul perversions. And you truly imagined you could make a deal with the king of demons and not have to pay the price? Pathetic! The village idiot would know better!”
“I do know better!” Terellion thundered at him. “My armies are coming home. My soldiers will defend me. My wizards too. And if any of Xin's people get in the way they will be slaughtered! If he leaves them alone on the other hand, they will leave his people alone. Think you can tell your master that?”
“With the gate shut and no altars nearby, I can tell him nothing. But it won't matter. There is absolutely nothing you can do any more that will matter to Xin. You've broken your deal with him. He will make no other with you. Not even one of a cease fire. Xin will do as Xin will do. And no one in this realm or Tartarus will stop him.”
“If Xin commands it our armies and his thralls will attack. All of us. There will be no quarter given. And he will not care that the last of the Circle will die. He will survive your deaths – he is too strong to be killed by the binding – and you are never to be trusted. Never to be listened to.”
Varrious sounded calm, almost resigned to his fate. Even though what he was saying was madness. If nothing else the demon king would want to act to preserve his thralls and his armies. They were the source of his food. And Xin was always and ever about food. Still, Terellion thought, he would warn his wizards to be wary. Just in case the demon king was truly crazed.
“Your wards will fail, sooner or later. And when they do he will have you and you will suffer a worse fate than anything you can imagine. Worse than anything even you have done. And there is nothing I can tell you that will save you. Nothing that can protect you from him. Nothing that can even bring you mercy from his wrath. You are doomed.”
“You first!” Terellion screamed at him. He had heard enough. He was in no mood for any more of the prisoner's bluster and bile. Especially when he was speaking gibberish. More so if he wasn't. Because if he wasn't then there was absolutely nothing that the man could do for him. “Guards, start with the feet! The burning pokers I think. I want to hear screaming! I want to hear his screaming all the way back in my castle!”
“And Varrious.” He stared directly into the man's eyes while the guards dropped the brands into the braziers to heat them up. “You have no idea at all how imaginative I can be!”