Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 06:23:00 +0000
From: Michael Offutt <kavrik@hotmail.com>
Subject: Chapter 29-The Orb of Winter-Gay Science Fiction

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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."