Destiny's Queen 25 final chapter

 done!  I am glad to have finished, I'll probably go back through and tweak, improve and so on when I feel better.  I've had a suggestion for the name of the trilogy 'war of the blood moon'

 

Chapter 25

 

Selen charged across the bridge with her minions, and pulled up short. She was beautiful, with deep red hair, and pale skin, and eyes normally as beautiful and as dark as the night sky... until the red light shone in them, as it did now.

“What?” she said, shocked. “Who... why? Where is Rogaz?”

“Rogaz is about to be healed, you nasty bitch,” said Rynn. “That’s why we’re here.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Selen.

“You’re a bit ahead of yourself, you know,” said Rynn. “But I’m sure we can live with it. Now, are you going to come forward so your playmates get to join in, or shall we collectively kill you and go after them?”

Selen was horrified.

“Withdraw!” she shouted. She did not fear this trógling, but she did fear Thyella; and Thyella aided by Errilaz and Sjurgi... “And Errilaz!  My sweet sister, what are you doing with these ruffians? And Thea Drex, surely they have nothing with which to tempt you that I cannot fulfil?”

“You disrespected my kin, you red bitch,” said Errilaz.

“And mine; and made my life a lie,” said Sjurgi.

“And you had my brother killed,” said Thyella.

“You maimed all my kin,” said Hraazaz.

“You wronged my kin above all,” said Rynn. “We are for the blue moon, for the fair, cold starlight. You are an abomination.”

“I just don’t like you,” said Mykota. “I stand for my mother.”

“We do not withdraw; we will destroy you!” cried Hippona, pushing forward past Selen.

“Yes, attack them!” said Selen, waving on her minions. She stayed on the bridge herself.

Rynn stepped forward as the largely reluctant lunar pantheon squared off against their chosen foes and Mykota guarded the egg in which Rogaz lay.

Selen’s face suddenly became one savage smirk.

“Brave little trógling,” she sneered. “You really think you can stand against a greater goddess? Your fellows have abandoned you for their own petty rivalries; and I shall defeat you.”

“My fellows trust me to be able to hold you until our leader gets here,” said Rynn. “I will die, but I will do so in a good cause. My life is unimportant, and if you kill me, I am assured immortality in song as a righteous Alethosi. You have no power over me. Now, are you going to fight, or do we just continue to throw sharpened insults and epigrams at each other?”

It was bravado, but Rynn was sure she would die here, and was not going to let Selen know how she grieved to be torn from Phaedros.

Selen was already armed for combat, and swung her scimitar at Rynn, whose parry succeeded, but jarred the valiant trógling’s arms for the force of the blow. Selen sneered.

“Submit and I will be merciful... DAZE!”  she reeled back, feeling the death of her twin. She screamed in primal grief, and then in anger. “My brother! You have been distracting me to kill my brother! You will all die!” And she turned her anger on Rynn.

“Endure, little sister, Kaz is coming,” assured Alethos. Rynn could barely acknowledge, but she set her stubborn jaw, and held, too preoccupied to see how her fellows were doing. Selen might be out of date with her fighting style, but her strength as a goddess made up for it.

 

Thanus was giving Sjurgi more of a fight than she might have expected, on what was essentially home territory. But he had learned no more craft, and Sjurgi was patiently battering him down. Thyella and Hippona were exchanging filthy insults as well as blows. Errilaz had given up any pretence at style and had wrestled Librax to the ground where she was strangling and pummelling him by turns whilst he insulted her and her father.

Hraazaz was the one who finished her opponent first, Klerus trying desperately to avoid a fight, but being held relentlessly by the high toróg heroine.

Klerus really had very little chance and Hraazaz wrenched his knowledge from him; and having reduced him in power, bound him forcibly to her as a spirit, to aid her. Kaz would likely disapprove, but  Hraazaz did not care. She came quickly to aid Rynn.

“You have no idea how much I despise you toróg,” sneered Selen.

“It certainly isn’t as much as we despise you,” said Hraazaz, cheerfully. “Kaz, my sister!” she added, as Kaz arrived.

“Nice job, Rynn, now shift,” said Kaz.  Rynn retreated, thankfully. “Hraazaz, set up the ceremony.”

“On it, Daykaz,” said Haazaz.

“You are the Daykaz? How amusing,” said Selen.

“Daze died of laughing,” said Kaz. “Stand by to cocoon us both and make the power transfer, Hraazaz.”

“Make it so,” said Hraazaz. “Mycota, your aid.”

“What is this?” asked Selen, startled, as a cocoon of crystal formed around her and Daykaz. It glowed red, where the one about Rogaz glowed blue.

“This is what I was born for,” said Kaz. “Your life is almost incidental, save that you are an inconvenience. One of us will emerge from this crystal egg alive, and the smart money is on it being me. It’s just you and me, Selen.”

Selen was not happy; but she had been battering down the other trógling.

How hard could it be?

 

Outside the cocoon, Hraazaz spun lines of power between the red egg and the blue, and stood between them, ready to channel power. Rynn stood, equally determined, knife ready to take her own blood to place on the cocoon to add to Kaz if things looked bad, or to absorb Kaz’s powers into herself to be a mother for the trógling in the last resort. Something Rynn hoped would not happen, but she had promised Kaz.

 

The almost feral grin on the face of the trógling in front of her alerted Selen to the idea that this might not be the pushover she was anticipating. 

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want to complete my bargain with Rogaz, to heal the blue moon and break the trógling curse, and lead my people in freedom,” said Kaz. “Then I want a cool glass of lemon and honey cake.”

She stood her ground; and Selen prepared to fight for her life, the sudden imperturbability of this being more frightening than any boast of prowess, or taunts. Kaz fought like a machine, as her drill had taught her, countering the slow, formal strokes of the goddess. Kaz did not gloat; it was not in her nature. Selen must be killed, and her spirit absorbed, and that is what Kaz did. She drove Selen back to the wall of the crystal sphere in which they found themselves, waited for the opening, and took the goddess on the upstroke of her sword, bifurcating Selen’s body.

The spirit could not escape the crystal, and Kaz leaped on it, confining it, peeling it away to channel out the greater part to Rogaz.

Hraazaz gave a yell of triumph as the tenuous line between the crystal spheres suddenly glowed, and pulses of power emerged from the red cocoon to travel along it, to pass into the blue sphere, which started glowing brighter.  Hraazaz resumed chanting, and watched. It seemed to take an age, but in reality took just minutes, the glow of the husk of the red crystal dimming as that of the blue crystal brightened. At last, grey and spent, the once-red crystal orb cracked open, and Kaz stumbled out, the corpse of the once beautiful Selen a dried out husk.

Kaz’s friends embraced her, as did Mykota, who had never met her.

“The idiot has used too much moonstone in throwing it at people,” said Kaz. “We need to bring it all around the blue moon, but there will only be one fair face, and the blue moon must have phases like the red. And human women will still be tied to it, and on the thirtieth day of the month must have courses still, whilst the dark side of the moon shows a dim, blood-red disk in the sky. I’m sorry; I was more interested in breaking the birth curse on the toróg, and separating my people. But the power of the shed blood from women will help maintain the moon, despite how much has been reft from it.”

“You did what you came to do, and did it well,” said Hraazaz. “I think we need to open the blue crystal...”

“Tonight is the bleeding moon,” said Kaz, “When both moons are dark.  The crystal will open at moonrise tomorrow, a sliver as it normally is, but as Rogaz assimilates her power it will increase over the month so that it will shine bright and fair and full for three days ere it must wane,”

 

oOoOo

 

Rogaz’s rebirth from her crystal egg was triumphant. She was healed, but still weak.

“It is done!” she cried. “I may not be as whole as I was before, but I am not maimed, and my people will no longer be cursed! All my people who conceive on the coming full moon will conceive high toróg, and twins too! Daykaz, I am in your debt.”

“It was a joint effort of many of us,” said Kaz. “I look forward to a close friendship between gods who previously were rivals.”

 

oOoOo

 

“We’ve come a long way,” said Harkon. The original group of friends and their families and partners gathered in the temple to Alethos in Mesolimnos after a month had passed.

“And we will meet less often, now, for we all have our own jobs,” said Kaz. “But I want to make a pledge that our children will grow up spending time together, so there will be no rivalries forming in the future, and so any quarrels are caught early, and sorted out.”

“Hear hear,” said Tor. “We can take turns to host them meeting. They will be familiar with every realm.”

“And to conclude,” said Harkon, “Remember the Knights of the Clear Starlight, or whatever the anti-Selenite sunlings and windlings called themselves?”

“Technically, you’re a windling,” said Thyella.

“Temporarily,” said Harkon, bouncing his son on his knee. “And I did stop them spouting awful poetry. But I wanted to share what that fatuous idiot Erripion Windblown, Thundermaster of Ombros – er, of me, for now, I suppose, said?”

“I hope it wasn’t a privileged discussion like prayer,” said Kaz, disapprovingly.

“Eh? No, he was talking to me as me, Harkon, in the market; had no idea of my identity as Ombros,” said Harkon. “He said that if he had had any idea how bright the full blue moon would be, they would never have called themselves ‘Knights of the Clear Starlight,’ because it was as bright as a slightly cloudy day.  I said, ‘Yes, isn’t it wonderful?’ and he gave me a sour look. I think some of them half wish we hadn’t worked so hard towards it – but I toast the ladies of the moon-healing.”

“I am pleased that the stars may be bright when the moon is not,” said Thyella. “One of my lesser titles is Lady of the Stars.  I think it was a compromise which works for everyone.”

“And now, we just get on with life,” said Protasion. “No more danger, discomfort, sitting up all night poring over obscure documents, just an ordinary life.”

“And here’s to that,” said Kaz, kissing Iphianira on the top of her head.

“One thing I wanted to ask,” said Hraazaz, “Your spell, oathzone, the one you invented after convincing me it already existed; are we close enough for me to give to my priests as a glyph-spell,  to use to settle mercantile disputes? My people are rather more likely to come to fights than human merchants.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Kaz.  “The more misunderstandings that can be settled without coming to blows, or under oath of a limited combat, the better. But I’ll wait for Merkedes to ask for it, before I offer it to the human god of traders; after all, he never offered aid to us.”

“To peace; but never at any price,” said Lelyn.

 

The subduing of pockets of devout Selenites busy searching for their goddess would take many years, but the former Selenite Empire broke up into city states, and negotiated treaties with each other. Many accepted the idea of outlawing slavery, and keeping the games for professional gladiators, testing themselves, and for the execution of criminals. The world had changed; but the everyday lives of ordinary people went on in much the same way. Save for trógling, who formed free communities, and who were more likely to be born as single or twin births, not litters, and be healthier than before. Many had joint communities with wolfingas, and the intelligent wolves, and trógling wolf-cavalry were sought after. Because while there are people, there will be wars; and while there are wars, Alethos collects souls.  

 

The End                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

 

Destiny's Queen 24

 

Chapter 24

 

“Daze! I can feel my power building up properly this month. We have had too many setbacks, we need to do something positive.”

“And what had you thought of, m’dear? Note, I will follow you if it’s reasonable, but with you blaming me for your failures, I’m chary.”

“Your failures, you mean; you and your cunning plans. But I intend, on the night of the solstice, when the sun is weakest, and when I will also coincidentally be at full power, to kill Rogaz and absorb the blue moon to me.”

“Ambitious,” said Daze.

“Well, are you with me, or not?” snapped Selen.

“Oh, I’m with you, my dear,” said Daze.  “I lost some of my enlightened recently, though, and it hurt to lose them, as well as losing the power from their... worship.” Daze did not share the ways he had of gaining power from those he had in thrall.

“And I’ve lost my own priests and priestesses to rebels. Thanus has lost control of my soldiery and they are all misbehaving, and it’s all wrong.”

“One day, my dear, we will have Alethos at our mercy,” said Daze. “And his wife, whoever she is. She has a trógling slave, I think.”

“At least I can be certain by the timing it is not my former Heroine,” said Selen. “I think it may be the one-time celestial virgin.”

“Oooh, she would be fun to break,” murmured Daze.

Selen glared at him.

But she knew he had proclivities which went too far for her tastes, and it was better that he have them satisfied with others.

 

oOoOo

 

“The Red Moon knows something is up, I’m sure of it,” said Kaz. “She’s busy preparing for something, I can feel it in my bones.”

“I’ll warn Rogaz,” said Hraazaz. “We’ll be waiting for you to handle Daze, and join us.”

“I’ll be there,” said Kaz.

“I know,” said Hraazaz.

“Selen is the more powerful of the two, and if need be, you may have to keep her occupied,” said Kaz. “You know what you are doing?”

“Latrika and I are putting Rogaz into a crystal sphere such as she uses for raising darklings to be high toróg,” said Hraazaz, patiently. “I’ve had it done myself, and did the modified form with Alcmene. Whilst we fight Selen we trickle off Selen’s power into Rogaz in her sphere, and completely destroy the red moon to add to the blue moon. And you will prevent Daze from interfering and twisting the form of the egg.”

“We can do it,” said Kaz.

The women involved, for it was a women’s task, embraced warmly. Kaz gulped; and took herself to Daze’s mound to begin her quest.

 

oOoOo

 

“Are you ready, Daze? Soon it will be moonrise, and we can finish off the blue moon once and for all. I’ll need you to confuse her as I tear her apart, as we are without much of Thanus.”

“I still think you should just have made him into a bound spirit..”

“He can regenerate a body, eventually,” said Selen. “It may not be as good or as strong as before but it will do.”

 

oOoOo

 

Hraazaz drew out the moon runes and started chanting in the rolling, ritual tongue of the High Toróg, after clothing her goddess in wreaths of the white star flower, one wreath made by trógling female children, one by darkling female children, and one by the six sub-adult high toróg young females whom Rogaz had found and ordered to aid the endeavour. Mycota drew on her husband’s powers with rock to aid Hraazaz, and the rest sang and danced to Hraazaz’s command. This pinched the lunarsphere to make a narrow bridge to the red moon across which to draw power.

“I hope Kaz is doing well,” muttered Rynn.

“Kaz will do fine,” said Lelyn.

 

oOoOo

 

Kaz stood on the hill where she had stood before, looking at the unwelcoming entrance between the vicious hedges.

“Nobody tending them,” Kaz muttered. “Nobody tending the hedges, nobody weeding between the flagstones, nobody cleaning off chalk-marks; because chalkmarks didn’t remain long anyway. Because nothing I do will alter the maze because it’s not real.  It’s all an illusion. Now I just have to find the thread of magic and unravel it.”

The image of the maze shimmered slightly, and she could almost see through it.

Kaz searched for the shape of the magical construction, to see where a thread might be found, to unravel its form.

“He didn’t!” she muttered to herself, in disbelief. “He did, too! Alethos, love! One end is at the start of the maze! Still, it must be one of his earliest constructs, and perhaps less sophisticated... I can reel it up into a ball of pure magic as I move forward.”

“Steady, love, don’t suppose there are no traps in it.”

“No, I won’t assume. You’re right.  If I couch my findings as a prayer, though, I can let you know what I am doing in case Rynn has to take over.”

“Understood. I love you.”

“I love you. I am winding it up now. It feels harsh to touch but not jagged.”

 

oOoOo

 

Daze shifted, uncomfortably. He could feel something which felt like an itch deep inside his head.

“Daze! Pay attention!” snapped Selen. “What is your part?”

“Confuse and bemuse Rogaz,” said Daze, obediently.

“And had you thought how to do that?” demanded Selen.

“Eh? Oh, place her thoughts into a confused fugue state, and form a bridge between pleasure and pain, so she dies in sexual rapture as you rip her apart.”

“That’s what you did to make people go willingly to bloodsuckers,” said Selen.

“Aima was my daughter too,” said Daze. “Hey! What’s going on?” he screamed a long, agonised scream, and fell back on the cushions beside his sister, a look of horror on his face.

“Daze! Stop it! This is not the time for joking!” cried Selen, slapping him. Daze whimpered.

 

oOoOo

 

“A sharp wrench should bring the lot down,” said Kaz. “I wonder if any of his creature are tied in it, if you will need to go and collect them,” she added.

“Hush, do not worry, I wait on the place of souls,” said Alethos.

“One good yank.... yes! Yes, it all falls apart!”  Kaz felt, rather than heard, the primal scream of Daze, as she unravelled a spell thousands of years old.

“That had to smart,” murmured Alethos.

 

Kaz found herself on a featureless domed hill, save for what appeared to be some separate slabs at the top. Kaz was not fond of windwalking, but Thyella had shown her how; and she examined the slabs from above. There were eight of them, but arranged three by three, with one missing.

“I think I have to move them around until the pattern is correct; I suppose then the space will be... I don’t know, over a way in?” said Kaz.

“Be careful,” said Alethos. “There may be a right way to do this, can you see what the pattern is? I think I can through your eyes.”

“It looks like the red moon glyph and the chaos glyph,” said Kaz. “I suspect I need to get the puzzle moved so that the last move completes both, in the central square, and anything else... I don’t know, but I don’t like the thought of what might happen.”

Alethos left her to ponder, reflecting that on the whole, gods did not like puzzles, and were no good at them. Perhaps the reasons prophecies made them nervous, being often couched in riddling language.  The whole nature of Daze frightened deities, even without his insalubrious pastimes. If Kaz could make puzzling more wholesome, it would lead to mortals not being afraid to ask difficult questions, and solving problems for themselves, not merely asking the gods. One day, mortals might no longer need them. But that was a long way in the future, and not worth worrying the others over.

 

Kaz hardened her nails and dug out eight pieces of rock on a smaller scale, scratching the designs into them, and spent some time pushing them around to see if she could find the way in which to avoid completing one glyph but not the other; and finally she grunted in satisfaction, and went to move the full-size stones, quickly and surely.

And with a startled cry, she was sucked into a roiling mass of imagery.

 

oOoOo

 

Selen was beyond irritated. Just when she needed her brother to back her up, he decided to have some kind of fit, or existential crisis, or something equally unhelpful.

“Get yourself together, Daze!” she shrieked at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“My hill! Someone destroyed all my pretty maze!” said Daze. “They took away my maze and my haze, and all that was crazed, right under my gaze, I am ablaze!”

Selen shook him.

“Never mind your stupid rhymes! Snap out of it and help me! Rogaz has some idea that she should expect an attack, she has altered the moonway to make a narrow bridge!”

“Maybe attacking her is a bad idea,” said Daze, who had a headache.

“No, it isn’t! Now do your part!” demanded Selen.

She started off across the bridge, and Daze took the opportunity to escape to see what was happening inside his own domain within the hill, which was also partly within his own brain.

 

oOoOo

 

“Looks like the red bitch is on to us,” said Rynn, pointing at the bridge.

“I wonder...” said Thyella. “It looks to me as if she is attacking; she has the spirit of Thanus as well as Klerus, Librax, and Hippona.”

“Hippona is a warrior,” said Hraazaz. “If I am to be the new goddess of toróg merchants, then Klerus is mine.”

“I’ll finish Thanus,” said Sjurgi.

“I’ll handle Hippona,” said Thyella. “She mocks my late brother as Skyhorse in giving her skills to the red one.”

“Leaves me with Librax,” said Rynn.

“He’s mine,” snarled Errilaz. “Mine for the many subtle jibes about primitive toróg, beast-breasted, horse-faced, and so on. Kaz should be here to face Selen, however, with you as her aide!”

“Then, I guess if Kaz isn’t going to make it, I’ll keep Selen occupied whilst you ladies kill your targets as it has to be a trógling,” said Rynn. I hope I survive to get back to Phaedros; if not, at least I will be safe with Alethos, she thought.

 

oOoOo

 

Kaz was trying to make sense of the uncoordinated mess that was Daze’s mindscape, the maze within wavering after the removal of the maze without. Here was the centre of his being, and a glyph she did not know, which shimmered and changed; his own glyph of illusion, she thought. Was this the magical mirror to be destroyed? No, it was but a glyph; the mirror was not here. But there would be illusions.

And then, he was there. Daze himself, wearing his guise of a handsome man. He gazed on Kaz in disgust.

“A trógling,” he sneered. “So, your mistress dispelled the illusion and made you move the pieces tp be the one sucked in. Clever of her, but she got too clever; I can only be harmed from within, and now I know to keep her out. I have won! I have defeated the so-called Daykaz! She has no chance now, because the time has come and gone, but you, I will make you suffer forever, and let her know what she has subjected you to.”

“You’re so sure, aren’t you, you nasty little man?” said Kaz.

“I misread something,” said Daze, airily. “I thought that Death’s daughter would be the Daykaz, but looking again, it could be Death’s beloved, and you must be her servant.”

“I admit, it’s been to our advantage that you are so stupid,” said Kaz.

“Stupid? You, a dirty, stupid little trógling dare call me stupid?”

“Well, as you haven’t got much correct so far, what else am I to call you?” said Kaz. All the time she kept him talking, she was making sense of the patterns in this apparently chaotic mess. “I could say you were inane, asinine, puerile, idiotic, foolish, and as thick as slurry.”

“How dare you!” Daze screeched. “You’re the stupid one! You’re a trógling! You’re nothing! Nothing! A parasite!”

Kaz laughed.

“Rattled, are you?” said Kaz. “This is the second time we have met, Daze, and I won that time, too.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Last time we met, you used me as a model to make trógling, and cursed me that I would live forever and desire Death,” said Kaz.

“Well, I hope you do long for death, because I will keep you alive for eternity, suffering!” cried Daze. “And I will let your mistress know!”

“You are a fool,” said Kaz, laughing. “My only mistress is Moraia, Fate; mother to my beloved Alethos. Your curse is my blessing.”

Daze stared, his mouth hanging open foolishly.

“You are Death’s beloved?” he asked, incredulously. “A trógling?”

“And mother of the trógling,” said Kaz, and suddenly, her voice was hard and sharp. “And I have come for those poor souls you have stolen and preyed on for so long. If you give them all up freely, I will let you live.”

She did not expect him to do so; so she was not disappointed when he attacked her.  His attack took the form of a hideous monster with tentacles, ready to rend her limb from limb; and Kaz looked at the truth which was but an addition to Daze’s form, and laughed until it disappeared.

As this place was Daze’s construct, and appeared physical, albeit distorted, Kaz attacked back, with her swords, having been working hard on using one in each hand, which seemed to confuse Daze.

“No, you cannot use iron!  I made trógling to be little, and weak, and pathetic!”

“But to survive, we have to have a will of adamant,” said Kaz. “I have been tested in fire, and I am forged and tempered to be Fate’s weapon against you and against your sister. I understand your riddles and your illusions and how you use them to build a world about yourself which is hollow and insubstantial.” She brushed aside a roaring, fire-breathing monster which he threw at her, ignoring what she knew to be unreal, even as she ignored the long claws Daze grew to attack her. It was a little more effort to walk through the thorny tentrils which grew around her legs, having once cut her feet on what she now knew as illusory hedges, but she pushed those aside with her mind as well, advancing on him.

Daze fled. His illusion of physical beauty fell apart, revealing him with his grotesque, fish-belly white skin, with a scarlet gash of a mouth, and a liver-coloured mark over his forehead, eyelid and onto the cheek on one side. Kaz suddenly realised that he had once been as beautiful as he could appear, but the depravity of his nature had manifested through his skin, pallid for his fear of the sun, his body soft from his innate laziness; his mouth marred by aiding Aima suck blood, and the mask over one eye a warning of his double nature. And worst of all, the face settled in lines of cruelty.

Kaz pursued him relentlessly, absently assembling his chaotic surroundings into logical structures, a solid pathway; and seized one of his illusion glyphs to shape his own unreality into a construct facing him. She did not make a monster or anything hideous and imaginary; what she imagined into being was Alethos, grim and stern, with his sword upheld.

And Daze believed in it.

He fell under the sword which existed only in his own imagination.

And then it was a matter of finishing him, and ripping apart the shifting, confusing place to discover it was no more than a pocket universe in a vast, spherical space; the inside of the hill, where thousands of trógling and a few humans were chained in eternal torment, under a throne on a dais with a mirror over it. Spirits attacked her.

“This ends now,” growled Kaz, throwing her vial at the mirror. The glass vial shattered, and the acid steamed as it burned into the polished bronze of the mirror. The devices of torture dissolved with the mirror’s surface. The spirits wavered, and fled

“Alethos! I make this thy temple by right of conquest!” cried Kaz. “Come to me, and receive these battered souls into gentle death, within the halls thou hast prepared for my people!”

Alethos appeared.

“I will lead them; things started a little early in the lunarsphere,” he said. “Rynn is facing off against Selen.”

“Oh, crap,” said Kaz.

 

Destiny's Queen 23

 

Chapter 23

 

Hraazaz duly went into labour on the first day of Winterscome, in the dark of the Red Moon, and in the rays of the Blue Moon. Alethos and Tor turned up.

“Had to bring him, did you?” said Kaz, to her husband.

“Fatherhood supportive role,” said Alethos, gravely.

“I am not a coward,” said Tor.

“No, and you can bravely stroke her hair, hold her hands, and let her swear at you,” said Kaz.

“Damn, you’re offensive,” said Tor, doing as he was bid.

“I love her that way,” said Alethos.

“She’s always been like that,” said Hraazaz. “I like her that way, too.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like her that way,” said Tor. “Just mentioning it.”

The baby was born with a minimum of fuss.

“This is what was normal before the Red Moon,” said Hraazaz, feeding her son. “I’m calling him Kazor, to honour the first person who was my friend without wanting anything.”

 

oOoOo

 

“I hoped I’d be more blasé for this one,” said Kaz, to Alethos.

“I don’t think it’s possible to be blasé about being Fate’s pawn, my love,” said Alethos. “I am sure you will make a great job of it, but I also know that doesn’t help you right now.”

“At least this time we are in the same time, and you know who I am,” said Kaz. “It was extremely scary not having your presence more or less constantly with me.”

“And you completed that very well,” said Alethos. “No reason to think you won’t... no, that isn’t comforting, is it?”

“Last time I was risking my life and soul,” said Kaz, soberly. “And this time, the captive trógling of all time depend on me to rescue them. I learned a lot, unravelling the Trickster’s magic; he delights in the suffering of others, and derives sustenance from it. This I could almost taste.”

“Well, then, you will succeed because others depend on you,” said Alethos. “Because you always complete your duty.”

Kaz sighed.

“I always do my best.”

“Your best is spectacular.  Remember, he still doesn’t really know how capable you are; he still has this preconceived idea about trógling.”

“It’s an advantage,” agreed Kaz. “I need to be distracted.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Alethos.

“Your best is very agreeable,” purred Kaz.

 

oOoOo

 

Skulos had actually proven very co-operative.

“I don’t want to kill people,” he said to Pythas. “I hate blood and I hate killing. You probably despise me for that as a Glyph lord of a death god.”

“On the contrary, if that’s how you feel, I honour your honesty and bravery in confessing it. I suppose there’s an obvious question; why are you an assassin and boasting of being the best?”

“Because of Him,” said Skulos.  “Because though part of me has been revelling in being the best, part of me was dying inside. Because as I make a kill, that part of me inside wakes up and I want to vomit, and that makes him laugh, and... and I think it gives him power. I know another assassin, named Hallia, who was abused by her stepfather and raped over and over from the age of eight; and when she became Enlightened, He turned her into a killer who seduces men to find out about her mark and to get close to the one who is to be killed, and I wouldn’t mind betting that her awareness is of what has been done to her body. He trained her himself,” he added.

“I’ll pass this on to have her brought here, and unriddled,” said Pythas.

“She’ll probably kill herself,” said Skulos.

“That’s her choice, and it can be made easy if she wants to; but I’ll want her to worship another god, almost any other god, so she has protection.”

“I’m fine with Alethos; everyone dies, and I owe him something for making too much work for him,” shrugged Skulos.  “I don’t much care if I live or die, now, at least I’m free, and I don’t have to kill anyone any more.”

“Feel up to being a spy?” asked Pythas.

“I can do that,” said Skulos.

 

Pythas had Myopsos brought to him from the work coffle.

“So, what is it that the Trickster made you do that you hate?”

Myopsos collapsed into sobs.

“I hate arguments and raised voices,” he said. “And I hate crowds and talking to people. And... and I hate having to be chained to nineteen other people who hate me and shout at me.”

“Now you got that off your chest, I’ll arrange for you to be my orderly for the rest of your sentence,” said Pythas. “I shout on the parade ground, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

Myopsos knelt and kissed his feet.

 

oOoOo

 

Sjurgi brought in Hallia. She was a spy as well as an assassin, and there was information on her gleaned from Clodax Dren.

Kaz travelled in to question the woman, who was beautiful, a figure full enough to please most men, but with underlying muscle.

Kaz felt sick. What she was about to do would destroy the ego of the woman in front of her, as it had done for Skulos and Myopsos; but there was worse damage for this one to feel.  But it had to be done.  And this one had been... trained... by Daze, personally.

“What riddle brought you enlightenment?” asked Kaz.

“If memory brings pain, what displaces it?” said Hallia. The question seemed to prompt those riddled by Daze.

“And your answer?”

“Forgetfulness,” said Hallia.

“It doesn’t, does it?” said Kaz. “Every time the memories come back sharper than before. When memory brings pain, examining the pain and replacing it with new experience displaces it.”

Hallia stared, as Kaz was also quietly disassembling the bonds of the riddle. Then she started screaming and reached with her nails to scratch at her face and bosom.

Kaz caught her hands, and bore them down.

“Talk to me about it and get the pain into the open, like lancing a boil or a whitlow,” she said, using her charisma. “Let it all out. Scream, cry all you want, but bring up that poison and let us flush it away. I am here. Sjurgi is here. We hear your pain, we live it with you, and if, when all that festers is out in the open, you still want to mutilate yourself, or kill yourself, that is your business. So long as you pray to any other god but the Trickster, or he will take your soul and do it all over again.”

It took many hours for Hallia to sob out her story; about her stepfather’s ‘little games,’ and their ‘special little secret.’ About how her mother would not believe her when she sobbed out what had happened, and whipped her for lying. And how she had run away, and met a riddler, who brought her to what she fondly believed was a way of believing, and how Daze himself had appeared to her, and told her that she must confront her fears to overcome them. He had place a spell on her so that she could not tell the difference between pleasure and pain, enhancing both, and tortured her whilst he violated her, and made her beg for more.

“Crap!” said Kaz. “Alethos! I need help here; I don’t know how to untinker a spell like that.”

“Nor do I,” said Alethos, turning up. “What a sick bastard the Trickster is!  I’ll go see if I can find anyone who can help; maybe Latrika and Phrodine together.”

“What about Zeandine? She doesn’t like us much but she is a carnal goddess...” said Kaz. Alethos snorted.

“She wouldn’t know what to do with a brain if she had one herself,” he said.

“Miaow,” said Kaz. “But, alas, accurate,”

 

Latrika and Phrodine turned up.

“You’ll have to do it, Daykaz,” said Latrika. “You’re the only one who understands how to undo the spells of that sick, crazy god. You need to quest into Hallia’s own mind and find where he has set up a maze with a short cut across from the part that feels pain to the part that feels pleasure.”

Kaz gulped.

“Must I?” she asked.

“Kaz,” said Alethos, “I sense that this will help you free the trógling; I think when you fight him, you will be unravelling the maze of his own mind where he stores them.”

The chime reiterated this, and Kaz sighed.

“Take her if I fail and kill her; she is half swooning and does not know to abjure him and embrace you as a god,” said Kaz.

“I abjure Daze!” said Hallia, firmly. “I give my worship to the Daykaz, whom he fears.”

Latrika fed both a potion to help relax them; it was not like entering the spirit plane to battle spirits, nor the god plane for worship, but akin. And Kaz let her spirit slip out of her body, tethered securely as it was, and plunge into the seething, roiling consciousness which was Hallia, disjointed images of the woman’s childhood terror and pain, the torture of reliving that every time she slept with someone in doing her job, and the pleasure beyond pleasure allied with exquisite torture of Daze’s training. Kaz came to know that the god of trickery chose mortals to subject to this, those damaged enough to have triggers he could use, words and phrases to reduce them to abject, terrified obedience. These he could treat as he did not dare treat his sister. These he savoured to sate lusts even Selen did not know about. And he drained power from them even as they did not know whether to scream in agony or seek release in pleasure.

Kaz found the bridge; and slowly, slowly she dismantled it. If she went too fast she might destroy the ability of Hallia to feel either pain or pleasure; and whilst it was dangerous to be unable to feel pain, it was wrong to deprive her of pleasure, which covered more than sexual pleasure.

At long last it was done, the goddesses tending the whimpering Hallia.  Kaz’s spirit returned to her body as if shot from a bow, and she half woke before toppling sideways in a swoon. She did not hear the triumphant chime.

“Sleep, Hallia, without dreams,” said Latrika. “Spend a week with Sjurgi, learning what she has been through, and help her help others. And then, and only then, you shall decide whether you want to take the path to onward to death, and in that, you will receive help. If you want to live, and fight Daze and his works, you will receive aid in that, too.”

 

oOoOo

 

Kaz awoke in bed with Alethos.

She clung to him and sobbed.

“I will have to do that over and over,” she gasped in horror. “Those he has damaged whom he has.”

“And every time you do so, you will learn more about him, to dismantle the construct he has made to imprison people,” said Alethos. “And you will remember this woman, and those others, when the cowardly little bastard begs for your mercy.”

There was a sudden chime.

“That,” said Kaz, waspishly, “Was altogether too chirpy a sound to endear me to your mother.”

“You’ll forgive her,” said Alethos.

“Yes, I know, but not yet,” said Kaz.

“Skulos told Pythas that he does not think that there are many riddlers out there at any one time,” said Alethos. “We may have those bound closest to Daze.”

“If not, I should think the riddling will fall apart naturally when he is dead, and if we put it about that help is available to rebuild lives, I think we should have the rest,” said Kaz. “He’s the pettiest, meanest creature I have ever known, and I’ve known a few mean greater toróg, and inadequate darklings who like to pass on their own misery.”

“Yes; he’s imaginative with it,” said Alethos, grimly. “I don’t think I have ever come across anyone I find so utterly loathsome. Even during the hottest days of my struggle with Tor, even despising him for using undead – which I admit to misunderstanding, though I still don’t like it – I never despised him or loathed him with the same visceral revulsion I feel for the Trickster.”

 “I’m not alone in that, then,” said Kaz.

Alethos made a sound of disgust.

“Gods don’t usually vomit, but he brought me close,” he said. “The whole idea of making that poor woman go through what she fears over and over is bad enough; confusing her with what is pleasure and what is pain is just adding iniquity to the already appalling. I want to go and rip him apart, but I know I cannot do so, or all fails.  But you, my right hand, you can do it for me.”

“I will,” said Kaz, soberly. “And I will be pitiless.”

 

oOoOo

 

Erytheon touched his wife’s gong as she went to sound it, muffling it.

“No, dear,” he said. “Leave her be this once.”

Moraia pouted.

“It’s my job...”

“To encourage. Not to irritate.”

“Well, in that case, you had better distract me.”

“Of course, divine one,” said Erytheon.