Destiny's Queen

 

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.