Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2016 17:53:37 -0600
From: Michael Offutt <kavrik@hotmail.com>
Subject: Chapter 10-The Orb of Winter-Gay Science Fiction

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				   *****

				Chapter Ten

   The council room of the Dreaded Irtemara in the Basilica of Zanda now
resembled something more to Kahket's liking.
   Artisans from the Gift (a district in the Holy City known for its fine
shops, painters, and metal-workers) had recently finished redoing it to her
specifications. Now ambassadors presenting before the ruling council would
be greeted with many bas-relief decorations, painted plaster, and exposed
brick. The great doors to the hall bore two paintings: the one on the right
was of a bull lammasu, the one on the left depicted a lion and bull
hunt. Once inside, visitors would see several murals. The one she favored
most was a religious scenes depicting herself attended to hand and foot by
divine servants. Directly opposite was another of the fierce god of chaos
and illusion, Zandine, surrounded in a blazing violet nimbus that was a
symbol of his power. Zandine himself sat astride a giant bronze bull and
laid waste to his enemies with a host of minotaurs, demons, and men at his
command.
   "And so we come to the final business of the day," Calisto Blackmoor
said out loud, recalling Kahket's attention to the manners of state. "Send
in Prince Vampyr," he ordered.
   A pair of Timeron knights standing at attention on either side of the
entry saluted Calisto. Kahket thought both men to be of high quality, an
opinion reflected in the platinum spurs they wore. The presence of that
rare metal meant these young, muscular soldiers belonged to Calisto's
personal guard—a rank of great distinction second only to the rank of
"Darkglory."
   Kahket, of course, said nothing. She spoke only when needed.
   I am a queen after all, she thought.
   Her fingers gently stroked the brush she'd used only moments earlier to
comb her lustrous ebony hair. She tapped on the rosewood handle and
considered the giant undead knight with visible disgust. Glowing red
pupils, little more than pinpoints really, drowned in a sea of unholy blue
light.
   Calisto's eyes, she thought. If you can call them that. They are so
unlike the eyes of living men. So cold, so dead, and so hideous to
behold. But the necromantic power that went into making this monster, now
that IS something. Someday, Calisto, I will kill you by draining all the
necromantic power out of you myself, Kahket mused. I will no longer have to
feed from necromancers beyond that day. I will be truly immortal.
   A general of the Queen of Demons, Calisto's Timeron knight armor should
have been spectacular.
   I love a man in plate, she thought while staring at his platinum guards
near the entrance of the room. They wear such beautiful cloaks, such
gorgeous boots.
   But Ser Blackmoor's full plate regalia managed to be both magnificent
and repulsive at the same time. Maggots crawled over his breastplate and
fell from his gauntlets. He had a smell about him that stunk of the
grave. After each meeting Kahket had her servants destroy the chair in
which he sat. The boots on his gargantuan feet left a trail of putrid goo
behind wherever he walked, and between his legs hung the most dreadful
codpiece...no more than a hammered bowl with indentations for nuts the
diameter of small oranges. Dense mats of lice-riddled fur sprung forth
around the edges, as if he rammed it on after sodomizing some boy to
death. Calisto's shield leaned against a chair, battered and scratched from
years (if not centuries) of use. Across his back a huge claymore with a
four-foot blade lay strapped to his spine with leather cords. She'd seen
him use it to behead thirty prisoners in a single day, and the pommel
looked stained in old blood. In contrast, his attendant guard were
meticulously cleaned and well-groomed, their weapons and armor spotless.
   Calisto, why are you such a slob? Is being undead so challenging? Is
there no necromancer that could help you with the body rot? She asked
herself.
   The Timeron knights opened the doors, "Your guest has arrived, Dreaded
Irtemara."
   "Please," a soprano voice said, "Call me Dr. Vampyr...after my maker who
trained me."
   Kahket looked with renewed interest. A prince of hell similar in power
to her own Ravidan (whom she dearly missed), Vampyr's entreaty to come and
serve at her side was an offer she could not refuse.
   But a new Ravidan the Anatomica of Chagidiel was not.
   Here appeared an absurdly tall and waspishly thin man, and he sauntered
down the center carpet toward their table with the gait of a baboon. His
overly long and narrow face squatted atop a neck so thin, she wondered at
how it did not snap from the weight of it. If Calisto was ugly, this man
was horrifying. Gangly in every sense of the word, his long arms threatened
to drag upon the carpet, and his limbs had been pierced through with black
nails. The lower part of his face showed bone, teeth and gums exposed
because the lips and surrounding tissue had been cut away. He possessed no
eyelids and no nose, so the stare he gave her unsettled her more than the
many cuts that had been stitched closed across his chest. He wore a
blood-stained white lab coat, parted in the middle, and dirty leather
trousers tucked into black galoshes. On his hands she spotted black rubber
gloves.
   "Dreaded Irtemara," Vampyr breathed heavily, bowing at the
waist. "General. It is so pleasing to be at last in your presence."
   "You are of the first hierarchy?" Kahket asked.
   "I am, your highness," Vampyr said with a peculiar lisp and a grand
genuflection. "I am new to this world, unleashed by the Anatomica of
Chagidiel who now rules Than Jarat across the sea...in the Kingdom of
Tar-Meneldur, I believe."
   "The Anatomica has been busy," Calisto said. "Your title is doctor; it
belonged to your maker?"
   "Yes," the demon said. "I honor the man who brought me into this world:
a surgeon of great vision who went by the name Talisac. The Anatomica let
me rip his soul apart. The memories of his sexual misdeeds are like candy
in my mind. Do not be afraid, for yes I am more powerful than you both. But
nothing surpasses the might of a true god, and I know your husband is close
and would send me back to Hell were I to raise a hand against you, Dreaded
Irtemara. If you will have me and my services, I will gladly work for
Zandine in the Librarium Apocalypto. I am skilled as a torturer and crafter
of flesh, and I enjoy the taste of men. I will obey you utterly."
   "Good," Kahket said. "I have need of your services."
   "You have but to say the words, oh lovely one. Might I say, I can smell
your child from here. The godling is restless in his mother's womb. When
you are ready, might I assist you as a doula? I love the taste of
afterbirth, and yours promises to be a special delicacy." Vampyr finished
by smacking his lips.
   Kahket thrummed her fingers on the expensive silk that covered her
belly. "I'll think about it. Tell me, Vampyr, can you make someone talk? I
have a prisoner in the dungeon. His name is Beryl Loftcrag, and he's a
high-ranking priest in the church of Thomas."
   "Ah," Vampyr said, "The god of war, wolves, and winter. I hate him
already. What has this cleric done that he should require my expertise?"
   "It's what he hasn't done," Calisto interrupted. "He withholds
information from us regarding the location of the Orb of Winter. We want to
know where it's being kept."
   "Ah," Vampyr said, "May I ask what exactly the Orb of Winter is and why
you need to acquire it?"
   Kahket cleared her throat. "General, if I may?"
   The death knight nodded for her to inform the Anatomica of Chagidiel of
all she knew.
   "In the First Age of man, it is said the world had four suns and not
three. One of the suns was destroyed by Arioch for he and the other gods
needed its energy to chain Taleta in the lowest level of the nine hells."
Kahket noticed when she said the name "Arioch" that the Anatomica of
Chagidiel winced. "Something wrong?" she asked.
   "It's just...we do not say his name," Vampyr answered as politely as he
could.
   "With the lack of sunlight, the world plunged into an Ice Age. Even the
great River Magan froze solid. The gods turned to Thomas and asked him to
rein in winter. He consented and gathered up all the excess cold in the
world and bound it within a sphere of glass, even bequeathing the control
of winter unto the orb itself. Because of his sacrifice the seasons
returned to normal, and Thomas is now the god of winter in name only. But
anyone that finds the orb will have all of that divine power at their
disposal. In my hands, the people of Zanda could finally triumph over our
enemies. Any land that dared to oppose our laws and submit to the yoke of a
Zandan overseer would have no growing season, their harbors would choke
with ice, and their soldiers would freeze to death. It is of vital
importance that we find it, for the Valion knight armies thwart our
colonial expansion at every turn."
   "I see," Vampyr said. "I shall get to work at once." The doctor produced
a scalpel that gleamed in the light. "Do I have your permission to do
anything I desire to the priest if it renders the information you seek?"
   "You do," Calisto said.
   "Ah, and it means nothing if in these ministrations there is nothing
left of him worth salvaging?" Vampyr asked.
   Kahket smiled. "Get us the information, doctor. What befalls this priest
is of no care to us. But we will have the secrets about the Orb of Winter,
one way or another."
   Vampyr bowed. "Then I take my leave of you," he said. He whirled on his
heels and the knights opened the door for him.
   Kahket gripped the arm rests of her velvet chair to push herself up when
a shadow pulled itself from the wall and swept across the
floor. "Mistress," the darkness said to her, "I have word from the minotaur
Tomoluk." The patch of black straightened into a two-dimensional thing and
managed to form two eyes and a mouth. However, what caught her eye were its
foot long fingers, each ending in wicked-looking nails. These rested on
small hands that grew from the end of six-foot long arms.
   She turned her head to look directly into this patch of animated
darkness. "I'm listening."
   "He has killed the Black Dragon Assassin known as Hunter, and he will
soon bring the Crimson Guard to us. All is going as planned. We will have
priest and champion of the entire Loftcrag house. Does this please you?"
   "It does. Go and tell Dr. Vampyr these details. It may come in useful to
him during his interrogation of our prisoner. Also bring me Cirumoghel, the
Nevrenachtur Lord. I want him to assist with Ser Ephram Skye's capture once
he's on our side of the wall. I take nothing to chance."
   "Mistress," the shadow demon said, "I'm afraid of the Anatomica of
Chagidiel. He's a very powerful demon and could destroy me without so much
as a second thought."
   Kahket's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Do as I command. No harm will come
to you as even the Anatomica of Chagidiel fears the wrath of my husband."
   "You are so correct, mistress," the shadow demon said. "None is as
mighty as Zandine."
   Calisto snorted and a few maggots pelted the floor. Kahket looked at the
undead Timeron knight with a sneer of contempt. "You wish to add
something?" she asked the death knight.
   "Not anything that you don't already know. There is none mightier than
Taleta, Queen of all Demons," Calisto said.
   Kahket couldn't help but notice how the general polished his goddess's
holy symbol with the tail end of his moldy cape. "The last time I checked,
Taleta was a prisoner in hell as she has been for millennia," Kahket said.
   "Times will change," Calisto stated. "The age of her freedom is at
hand. Careful with your blasphemies, Dread Irtemara, or she may not welcome
you to her side when at last she walks the land."
   "Are you finished?" Kahket asked him.
   "Quite," Calisto replied. He gathered up his belongings and headed for
the door. "If you need me, I'll be at the Arena of the Flayed Man helping
Skellhaundar Romax pick our next Timeron knight. Giving some young men the
spurs they've earned can be a real pleasure."
   When the arrogant death knight left with his personal guard, Kahket
withdrew a jeweled dagger from a belt at her waist and slammed it into the
oak table they used for their meetings. This made several of the servants
in the room jump in surprise.
   "Something vexes thee?" the shadow demon asked.
   "No," she replied, tightening her grip. "If you have nothing left to
report, then you have your orders. I suggest you get busy."
   The shadow demon left immediately.
   There will come a day, Calisto, when you won't be able to speak to me
like that, Kahket thought. There will be a day when I end you and the
necromancy that powers your body in death. On that day, I'll remind you
that Zandine is the most powerful of the gods and shortly afterward, your
bones will be but dust beneath my feet.

				   *****

Thanks so much for reading.

As usual, there's more on my website at
http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html under the label
"The Orb of Winter" if you care to read ahead. I'm putting up quite a few
whole chapters as an Easter present.

Please let me know if you like the story and why.