destiny's queen 8

 

Chapter 8

 

“Sardio SubDoxus, you’re under arrest,” said the big blond patrician, who was overdressed in purple-trimmed tunic with silver braid and beads. His companion was dark, and was dressed in primrose with green key-pattern on it and white leather fringing.

“You’ll never take me without a fight, you bastards,” said Sardio, going for his sword.

“Oh, very well,” said Harkon, who laid him out with a straight left to the jaw.

“Not sure that was what he meant,” said Ralthur.

“Oh, well, if he’s difficult, I’ll claim he broke my manicured fingernails,” said Harkon.

 

Sardio came round on a comfortable enough bunk with both patricians staring at him.

He tried to get up, but found himself manacled.

“Clodax Dren believes you’re nothing but a hothead. Julus Helio thinks you play the part of a hothead, and are actually a part of the rebellious underground.  I’ve heard it said that you are a tool of Julus Helio who stirs other people up with intent of getting them arrested. Now, which one is it?” asked Harkon.

“None of them,” growled Sardio. “I might have said some injudicious things when I was drunk. I can’t think why anyone thinks I would be disloyal.”

“Maybe because your brother was made to take the place of one Sulius Doxus, as his vassal, for military service, and he died?” said Ralthur.

“It is the duty of all citizens to die for the empire,” said Sardio.

“But your brother was put through cruel hazing rituals because his birth was subpatrician and so he was a target for them to ‘keep him in his place,’ was he not?” said Harkon. “And he took his own life to avoid the cruelty.”

“They called them ‘challenges’ to take his place beside them,” said Ralthur. “They tried to cover up the evidence, but truth will out. Did the authorities ever tell you what was done to him?”

“No, but he wrote home,” spat Sardio. “I hate you patricians with all my heart, satisfied? I hate Thanus who permitted his worshippers to do such filthy things in his name.”

“Your brother called out to Alethos to take his soul when he could bear it no longer, and Alethos answered, and called on his worshippers for vengeance,” said Harkon. “But we had to test you in case you were not sufficiently passionate, or, indeed, if you were indifferent and were a tool of Julus Helio. But Alethos permits us to  sense truth. Which is why the Internal Crimson Executive uses torture, because Thanus cannot gift truthsense.”

Sardio started shuddering.

“You... you are not loyal to the empire?” he stuttered.

“We’re here to undermine it and bring it down from within,” said Harkon. “But we need agents.  And as you are considered harmless, we want to recruit you to go back home and continue working against the empire, but with our aid and direction, to make it more efficient.”

“I... I have acted as a drunkard, deeply hurt by my brother’s death but able to do no more than drink myself to oblivion and watch for opportunities,” said Sardio. “I... and you are not going to hand me on to Osedax the Cruel?”

“He will get his justice, in due course,” said Ralthur. “We want you to run a cell of dissidents ready to sabotage and cause trouble, and then melt away.”

“I can do that,” said Sardio.

 

 

Fadabius and Aquilix became well known and feared figures. They had a list provided by some shadowy figure, and worked down it with grim determination. Most people on the list disappeared.

This was because few of the people on their list had an equivocal status like Sardio; either they were on the suspect list of Clodax Dren, or they were people he considered loyal. And those on the suspect list disappeared to be trained, assuming their loyalties truly were in opposition of the empire, and moved through trógling cut tunnels and storm drains to various safe houses. Those who were loyal to the empire were either released, having ‘proved themselves,’ or, if they knew too much about rebels, were quietly incarcerated.

 

oOoOo

 

“I bring my foster-daughter for your blessing, O mighty Solos,” said Thyella, presenting Chionea.

“Poor Thyella, having to adopt some foundling because she can’t get a man,” sneered Zeandine.

“And whose child is this lovely babe, my granddaughter?” asked Solos, lifting Chionea to give her his blessing.

“Fate herself entrusted her to my care,” said Thyella. “She is the daughter of my brother, Ombros, and one he believed to be a spirit of ice.”

“And why is this spirit of ice not caring for her child?” asked Solos.

“Because she is dead, and was dead when she seduced Ombros,” said Thyella, steadily. “Because Selen wore the semblance of the ice spirit to steal my brother’s seed to make a child who could be forced to bring winter to Mesolimnos. And as my brother would not acknowledge or pledge care for his child when Fate approached him, she came instead to me; and her tool and lover released the child for me to remove, and cured the chaos taint on her.”

“Remarkable!” said Solos, who had no intention of censuring Ombros for his sexual incontinence, since it would be the height of hypocrisy.

“I was tricked by Selen?” demanded Ombros.

“All is well, though, your daughter is not tainted,” said Thyella.

“Never mind that! I was tricked by Selen!” roared Ombros.

“Ombros! Let it go, and plan revenge....” Thyella was talking to herself, as Ombros disappeared with a crack of lightning and the stench of ozone. Thyella wept.

“Come, child, why do you weep?” asked Solos.

“It is foretold that if Ombros goes to fight without thinking it through, that he will die,” cried Thyella. “Oh! Harkon! Come to me!”

 

oOoOo

 

 

Harkon stiffened as he duelled Dróg, giving the trógling some pointers. He stepped back, and hastily saluted.

“Sorry, Dróg, something came up, and my wife needs me,” he said. “You, Ralthur, and Crondion can hold the fort.” With that, he vanished with a crack.

“Do you ever get used to that?” Dróg asked Ralthur.

“You get resigned to it,” said Ralthur. “I think that’s another piece of prophecy settling into place; Harkon is about to inherit godhood and we may have a brief problem with Lycoids until Volk gets them under control.”

“I’m glad I’m nothing to do with prophecy,” said Dróg.

 

oOoOo

 

The lunarsphere was not like the Sunsphere, which aped, in many ways, what it was like on the planet, the mighty sun throne and its surrounding throne room rolling across the sky like a majestic ship on the sea. The lunarsphere was cold, unwelcoming, where Ombros felt out of his depth, and where his magic did not work well. He felt weak, and his lightning did not work properly.

“What do you want, you impotent little god?” sneered Selen. “Did you think I find your barbaric body attractive? I needed your wind powers, that was all.”

“You bitch!” howled Ombros.

“Woof,” said Selen. “Now deal with the son of the bitch; Lycos! See him off! And rip his powers to become the Stormwolf, as our prophesies say will be yours if you prevail!”

Lycos did not have as much power as his grandsire, the Wolf of Chaos, but he was powerful, and on his parents’ home territory.  Ombros wielded his sword of lightning and cut and burned Lycos terribly, but the ravening wolf mauled him, biting off his sword arm and sinking his fangs deep into the neck of the god of storms. Ombros slipped back and fell from the lunarsphere, barely able to slow his descent to the unforgiving earth below.

 

Harkon appeared beside Thyella, and she seized his hand to pursue her brother.

“Wait,” said Harkon. “We will collect Vulk, Polia, and Sjurgi; Sjurgi can take us to the lunarsphere if need be, and understands Selen’s mind. And if this is the time, we will not succeed without Vulk, who is ordained to slay Lycos.”

“I... yes,” said Thyella, who was more prepared to hear reason than her brother.

They went via Mesolimnos, where Vulk, Polia, Svargia, and Sjurgi were finishing getting ready.

 

They arrived in time to see Ombros fall, and followed him, to cushion his descent as much as possible. Thyella took her brother’s hand, sobbing, where he lay, broken, on a mountainside.

“Sister! You were right,” coughed Ombros, his words gurgling in his ravaged throat. “You and your hero, wrest my powers from me as your last gift to me, to keep them from the wolf, who follows to become the Stormwolf, which is foretold in their prophecies. And let your child be my full successor!”

“The wolf comes,” said Sjurgi. “I stand for my brother with his pack.”

Ombros poured forth his power into his sister and brother-in-law, desperate for them to absorb all.

“My spirit... gives power to your child... and bind the remnants of it to aid you,” said Ombros, to Harkon. “I... you have made my sister happy; I give you my blessing and love, my brother.”

Tears ran down Harkon’s face as he bound the spirit of his dead brother-in-law to him, knowing that to keep his powers from the use of Selen and her pantheon was as important as fighting Lycos.

“Harkon...” said Thyella.

“Let us aid in avenging him,” said Harkon, coming to his feet in one fluid move, as the former god’s body flickered and dissipated into the air which had ruled him.

Thyella nodded, and they went to stand beside Vulk. Their friend had a good grasp on the throat of Lycos, but Lycos was casting vicious spells, opening diseased wounds. Polia was casting healing as Sjurgi fought the foul diseased moon-wolf. Harkon went to his sister’s side, and Thyella took up the other side, smiting at the wolf, magical weapons causing some damage, but not as much as might be expected; and then other lycoids joined him, summoned by their god.

“Keep them off him,” directed Polia. Vulk’s friends did as bidden, slaying the disease-carrying beasts with grim determination, as Vulk gradually, but surely, overcame the already wounded god, ripping out his throat and absorbing his strength through the blood of his foe. The fight took place on the spirit plane, too as Lycos resisted Vulk. Vulk snarled and used the spell sharpblade on his own teeth to bite into the spirit of his foe, tearing and rending the chaos within, as he absorbed the power from the weakening kormajaia of the great moon wolf.

And finally it was over; and all that was left was to fight lycoids, too fanatical to persuade to the ways of Alethos or Vulk himself. It was a short battle, and Vulk sat back on his haunches and howled, summoning the surviving Lycoid glyph-ranks to him in the godbeing, for Vulk, by choice, part of the realms of Alethos; and Alethos stood with him as well as his other friends, to let the great gift ripple through them, removing all chaos and turning them from werewolves into shifters. Those who shunned him might still take up with the Selenite gods, but would no longer turn into brute beasts when the moon was full, to run about passing on diseases, not least, lycanthropy itself, but other diseases like distemper and rabies.

“I’ll have to contact every wolf to rid them of their taints,” said Vulk, shifting back to his human form, a rangy plainsman.

“The wolves we spoke to before will spread the word in the north,” said Harkon. “Go to the plains, and make yourself known to the plainsmen, and enlist their aid to find plains wolves.”

“Yes, a good idea,” agreed Vulk.

“We must report to my august grandsire,” said Thyella. “And you must take on the duties of my brother, dear Harkon.”

“I suppose so,” said Harkon. “But what about my duties in Selenopolis?”

“I will take on your semblance, my brother, and go to aid Ralthur Kron,” said Sjurgi. “I can bear to look on the city again, and view it as a conqueror not a grateful disciple. But I must take leave of Firri, the child you sent to me, whom I am fostering.”

“Yes, you must explain that you have duties,” said Harkon. “And she will be safe enough in the temple of Alethos.”

 

oOoOo

 

“Beloved Grandsire, father, mother, I fear I must break bad tidings,” said Thyella, kneeling shakily before the sun throne. “The moonwolf slew my brother; but we took his dying wishes, that a son of mine will hold his powers, and that my husband shall do his duties whilst our son waits to be born, and grows up.”

“HUSBAND?” squealed Zeandine. “But you’re the celestial virgin!”

“I WAS the celestial virgin,” said Thyella. “Do keep up.”

“With a heavy heart, I can but bless your endeavours to provide a young god to take the duties, but never the place, of Ombros,” said Solos. “This must be hidden from his worshippers so they do not despair.”

“I will never lie if asked outright, mighty Solos; I am still a son of Alethos,” said Harkon.

“Oh, they won’t,” said Solos, waving a hand.  “I don’t want to disparage my grandson, but his worshippers are not, on the whole, terribly... how shall we put it? Deep thinkers. So long as they see you as the thunderer, or Skyhorse, or Skybull, however they frame their belief in your form.”

“Indeed, mighty one, and as such, a god is, as I understand it, generally formed into the general conception of his form by all but the most powerful of his followers.”

Solos gave an austere smile.

“My light falls upon a few travesties of the appearance of Alethos,” he said.

“Truly,” said Harkon, who had seen his beloved god depicted both as a muscle-bound oaf, and as a skeletal figure with the sword of severance.

 

oOoOo

 

Firri frowned.

“I am old enough to help,” she said. “If I wear the costume and insignia of a slave of House Drex, I will be inviolate to most, and I can overhear things as children do.”

Sjurgi wavered.

“Very well,” she said.

She appeared with Firri in Ralthur’s office.

“I’m going to take on Harkon’s appearance,” she said. “Firri did not want to be left behind.”

Ralthur blushed.

“I... I am very happy to see you,” he said. “I will do my best to protect the child; she can stay within...”

“She will run errands as a valued slave, and use her eyes and ears,” said Sjurgi. “I will not disrespect her.”

Ralthur sighed.

“You see yourself in her.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“No, lady, it is not.”

“And you will forget that I am anyone but your partner, Aquilix.”

“I can handle it,” said Ralthur. 

He reflected to himself that if she was wearing Harkon’s form, and with a beard, he was at least less likely to want to draw her into his arms and kiss her, and protect her, as he had wanted to do to Thea Drex since he had first seen her.