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Chapter Twenty-Nine
"Are you done?" Calisto said to Kahket.
At his feet the remains of two Israfil of Zanda burned into a pile of ashes. Scorch marks on two walls showed where he had ended them with a single utterance of dark necromantic fire. The death knight stepped over those smoldering piles and walked toward the Dreaded Irtemara. She pressed her back against the door, never taking her eyes off of Ser Blackmoor. Yes, she feared him, but Zandine had told her to deal with the situation regarding the captured Valion knight as soon as possible. "Do it without angering the Night's Daughter," were Zandine's exact words. The reason: Zandine feared the power of his queen, Taleta, and knew it was only a matter of time before she was freed from her imprisonment in hell's lowest layer and would walk again as flesh and blood among the mortals of this world.
"Quite," Kahket said. "You didn't have to destroy my clerics."
"You sent them to arrest me. I don't like being arrested," Calisto said, eyes ablaze under his damaged helm. His stench washed over her, and Kahket turned her head to avoid the brunt of it. Then the death knight backed off and looked out over the training yard outside his office on the southern end of the Keep of Anghul.
"We are at an impasse, Calisto. I want you to order Skellhaundar to turn the prisoner over to me," Kahket said. "But it's obvious I can't force you. So if you do this, I'll be in your debt."
"Skellhaundar doesn't want to part with his toy," Calisto said. "And I can't order him to do anything. We share equal rank, but if you were smart, you'd fear him more than you fear me. The Night's Daughter loves him, and we both know how well either of us would fare if she came after me or you. I think there'd be more left of the israfil to be honest. Did you really think their aging ability would work on me?" He asked with a laugh. "I'm dead! Time no longer touches me. This is how it's been for centuries."
Kahket clenched her jaw and stared at the ash piles once more and then resolved to never look at them again.
"Then order him to share the information he gets with me," Kahket said. "Do this, and I'll share what information I have with you. I know where the Keep of Silverhawk is. That must be worth something."
"It's worth a lot. Do you have White Wolf Beryl Loftcrag still alive, or did your new pet kill him for that information?" Calisto asked. "I haven't heard you mention the White Wolf in some time. Our `prisoner' wants verification he's been unharmed."
Kahket swallowed and stared at Calisto for several long seconds.
"You stupid bitch," Calisto said. "You killed him."
"No," she replied, "But there's not much left of him to show the knight that served as his champion. Loftcrag lives still, but what remains can turn the stomach of even a hardened warrior. Dr. Vampyr has somehow kept his brain and eyes alive, along with a nervous system of some kind. He wanted to experiment with it...transplanting a mind into some kind of automaton under his complete control. But he isn't sure if it will work. I gave him my permission as Loftcrag obviously outlived his usefulness, and I believe that every dark cloud has a silver lining."
"How delightful for you and how bad for us," Calisto said.
Kahket shrugged. "I'm sure Dr. Vampyr could get the item we seek from the Crimson Guard's mind. All you need to do is turn him over to us, and I'll make it happen."
Calisto shook his head. "Do you think we're that stupid? With the knight dead, the red-headed whore slips through our fingers. We need to use this knight as bait. But I can see why you'd want that to happen. Without this woman, the Queen of Demons never gets freed. Without her, Zandine remains all-powerful.' I think those conditions don't bode well for us in the long run. So the answer is still, no.'"
"Prophecy is meant to be organic. You can't force it," Kahket said. "Events will fall into place of their own accord, or they were never meant to happen."
"Ha!" Calisto said. "Do you even stop to listen to the bullshit that comes pouring out of your mouth? Prophecy and the future is never set. The choices we make today impact all the things that follow. And what does a lamia of hell know anything about `organic' things? You backstabbed your way up from the lowest of demons in the pit of maggots to where you are now, bootlicking, and plying your acumen against those who were less worthy. Let's not even say that word anymore. You know that nothing is left to chance; your destiny is what you make of it."
Kahket flicked her hair over the left shoulder. "You see a lot, general. It's too bad you don't see me," she said, parting her dress a bit to reveal the rounded lumps of her breasts and expose her distended belly. In just days now, I'll give birth. After that, I'll be looking for another lover."
Calisto glanced at her and said, "You have nothing that I want in that form. But what of your husband? I think it would be bad to court the bride of the god of chaos."
"Zandine and I are polyamorous. He's concentrating his powers on finding something; in the meantime I do his bidding. He says it's an important artifact of the First Age, but that's all that he's told me. The rest of his time is spent on Vas of Kleef, courting our armies on the world of eternal cold. When the Orb of Winter lies in our possession, he intends to bring the Ogavran Kor across the vastness of space to help him march on Citadel Raven, where the body of the god of war is said to lie in state, waiting for the War to End All Wars."
"Don't kid yourself," Calisto said. "Zandine fears Thomas. The godling could kill your husband with either one of his two greatswords: Raven' and Serpent.' Your husband, even in the protection of the Librarium Apocalypto knows that Thomas could come for him any day. As formidable as Zanda is, without my Timeron knights here to protect this city he'd grind all your soldiers and israfil under the feet of his soldiers. They'd burn the Librarium Apocalypto to the ground and Thomas himself would kill Zandine in armed combat. No one but Taleta is his equal. The one mistake that Zanda made was having its border so close to the western reaches of the Valion empire. It's a good thing you've got tall mountains. It's allowed you and your kind to survive like cockroaches breeding in a garbage dump. If Zandine spends time in Vas of Kleef, it's because he's afraid to spend time here. He needs you to weaken the vast armies of the White Wolf before he even gets within two-thousand miles of Thomas. Once that happens the god of war, wolves, and winter will wake up, and he won't be in a mood to parlay."
Kahket clenched her jaw and stared out at the training yard where hundreds of Timeron knights practiced swordplay and cape dancing. The half-naked sweaty and athletic men put to shame Zanda's own elite guards: the Blades Acuuarum. This frustrated Kahket of course. But the Blades Acuuarum was an order with a history that barely extended fifty years. In contrast, the Timeron knights and their enemies, the Valion knights, had been around since the First Age. That was a span of thousands upon thousands of years, and every one of them was spent cultivating warriors of the highest quality, which included a selective breeding program. Kahket had even heard rumors that Noremost could field the largest army in the world. These rumors claimed that Timeron knights on the Maberon Plateau numbered in the millions, and all of them were under the control of the Night's Daughter in the city of Dek Lek Thukar.
"There is magic that can reproduce the appearance of Beryl Loftcrag," she said.
"Hmm?" Calisto asked, turning his head from the training yard. "What magic?"
"Dr. Vampyr removed the cleric's skin. I think his face is in a jar on one of the doctor's shelves. A skilled flesh crafter of Chagidiel could transplant this on someone else...someone with a body similar in proportion to Beryl Loftcrag. It shouldn't be hard as the man was fat and old. Your prisoner doesn't need to see or talk to him for long. He just needs to be convinced that we still have him, and that he's alive. I'm saying I can make this possible. If I furnish Skellhaundar this `proof of life' for the Valion knight, it may be enough to get him to spill the secret we both desire and start answering questions. And once you have the secret, I want your word that you'll share it with me. You have my promise that I'll give you the location of the Keep of Silverhawk. It's best if we work together on this. By then, Typhon will be under my control and will join me on my march to the borders of the Valion empire with a vast war-ready host."
"Why would you agree to this? Won't your husband be displeased?" Calisto asked.
"With the support of my Timeron brethren, we accomplish both our goals. I know my husband is afraid of the Queen of Demons, but I'm not entirely blinded by ambition. I foresee the inevitability of her rule and want to be ahead of the rising tide. I want to be well-positioned when she yanks the chain of my husband to fall in line. I'm sure that helping you can go a long way toward showing me where that position might be?"
"Does your husband know what a lying cunt you are?" Calisto asked, fingering her delicate chin.
"Of course he does. He's the god of illusion, chaos, and lies. If he didn't expect his wife to follow his tenants, he wouldn't be very good at his job now would he?" Kahket asked. "Do we have a deal? If so, I'll get to work on this immediately. I know just the flesh crafter too. He's very discreet. It's a Nykoran of some reputation named Horigum Khaine, and his shop is on the Street of Perversions. He'll know exactly how to put a new face on a slave."
Calisto considered her words for a moment, and then said, "We have a deal."
Kahket grinned wickedly and said, "I'll be seeing you soon, general."
Then the Dreaded Irtemara left the room to return to the shores of Zanda City. As she walked down to the docks and the boat that would take her across the bay, Kahket hoped that Dr. Vampyr had done nothing with Beryl Loftcrag's face. Otherwise, all her plans were poised to fall apart like a house of cards, and her husband would not take this kind of failure lightly.
The complete novel is now available to read at http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html under the label "The Orb of Winter" if you care to read ahead.
Are there any artists out there willing to draw some pics for my story? If so, please email me. There is an "Orb of Winter" map now in both the NEWS section of my website and in the FORUMS of my website.
If you go to my website directly from this posting, you will want to begin with "CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE."