The Kingdoms of Evil (43 page)

Zathara changed beats again.
Predictable, am I, boys and girls?
And she saw Bleeryarr's eyes widen and his mouth tense with admiration. His esteem---

Then there was a moment of free-falling panic when Bleeryarr's esteem did not flow into her. Zathara stumbled. Another touch. This time to her collar, where her cleavage began.

"Cute." Zathara said. She brushed the blade away, sliding it down the slope of her tightly-bound breasts. Bleeryarr's pupils dilated. Of course the failure of love-magic had nothing to do with her. They had just moved too far beyond the Love-wielder border for love-magic to work. "Again!"

The next parry sent a bolt of pain up to Zathara's elbow. Skrean swords were longer and correspondingly heavier than those used in The Nation of Love. They were bludgeoning weapons unsuitable for fancy blade-play. Zathara had no love-magic to help her lift the blade. And so her style had to be spare and direct.

At least in its basic forms. There was still room for dazzling, impressing, obfuscating. Zathara opened gaps in her guard only to block them. She brought her sword swinging in an arc that appeared to sweep in toward one target only to twist it down and attack another at the last moment. She shifted her stance into what looked like advance only to push off with her feet and retreated.

"Stop your tempest-blasted Love-wielder posturing and hit me!" Bleeryarr snarled.

"Posturing?" said Zathara, "that wasn't posturing." She backed a step away from him and gained enough space to do a different kind of dance step. "
This
is posturing."

His attention distracted, Bleeryarr was easy enough to hit.

"Splendid."

Zathara turned at the voice and slow applause to see Queen Tinesmurk rise from her log and walk forward. From her graying dreadlocks and rawhide clothing, Freetrick's mother might have been any scrounging beggar from the alleys of Pranyapura, but her large, dark eyes held the arrogance and overwhelming certainty of an aristocrat.
It is an expression I know well, boys and girls.

"Dark Lady Zathara's first touch." The Skrean queen-in-exile placed a hand on Zathara's shoulder. "You learn quickly," she said.

"I try, Malevolence."

Zathara hadn't known what to expect from Freetrick's mother, but she now found she liked the woman a great deal. Tinesmurk had the same decisive nature as her son, but where Freetrick had a tendency to lose confidence and back away from power, Tinesmurk wielded command so well your weren't aware she had given an order until you found yourself obeying.

"Yes. I think in the next few weeks you can learn to make an accounting of yourself." Tinesmurk turned to address Bleeryarr, "but for now the training is over. Commence again tomorrow at sunrise."

Bleeryarr bowed. "As you say, Malevolence."

Malevolence. The Skrean honorific reserved for the ruler of all the Kingdoms of Evil.

"Walk with me now, Zathara, daughter of Nashtang." Tinesmurk commanded.

Zathara handed her sword to Bleeryarr's ogre and bowed to the hinterland noble. Her escort from Pranyapura was only slightly taller than she was, but certainly well-built enough to be worthwhile, with the whippy muscles and narrow hips that seemed to characterize young Skrean men. His face was also classically Skrean in its prow-nosed, long-chinned way, close enough to Freetrick that the two men could be brothers rather than…
what would that be
… Bleeryarr was the son of Tinesmurk's half-brother, Sausyarr, the current the regional lord of the province north of them. That would make Bleeryarr Freetrick's first half-cousin.

Zathara smiled when she straightened and saw his eyes on her cleavage. They shared a look that said: "tonight." Like Betweeners, a Skrean didn't respect a woman until he was confident she could kill him. These mountains bred dangerous people.
Which is all to the good, boys and girls.
These lessons will prove useful indeed if my life continues to be so…exiting.

"I see you have been making yourself at home in the camp." Tinesmurk said as she led Zathara out of the practice clearing.

Zathara watched as ogres and men bowed in their passing. Slightly shorter than Zathara, the queen projected an aura that made her seem to tower over the crowd. "Oh yes, Malevolence. The accommodations are most satisfactory."

The camp was a semi permanent affair, a clearing made between the larger trees, with walls of woven sticks and mud surrounding the tents.

To Zathara, who had been brought up on stories of the chaotic hordes of the Kingdoms of Evil, it was a little surprising to see the obvious organization of the place. People and monsters moved between tents and cookfires and the sharpened stakes of the camp's fortification with speed and purpose. Only occasionally would an ogre snarl or a wendigo reach out to shove a neighbor. And then Tinesmurk or Bleeryarr would step in, black mist blooming off their skin, and send combatants on their way.

The queen raised her eyebrows and stared into the middle distance as she said. "My nephew is a satisfactory lover, I trust."

Zathara smiled at her. The truth was that Bleeryarr was at best mediocre. Few non-Love-wielder men were any better. "He is cruel and domineering, Malevolence." Everything Zathara had learned about Skrean customs assured her that Tinesmurk would esteem her for the compliment about her nephew's prowess.
Even outside the Nation of Love, it pays to remember these things, boys and girls.

The queen nodded as if complimenting Zathara on her choice of tobacco to accompany dessert. But then her long face grew more serious. "I do hope you enjoy yourself, my dear. I will not tell you take care to avoid pregnancy." Zathara nodded.
I am not an utter fool, Tinesmurk.
Even if she did sometimes regret the lack of prophylactic magic here on the southern Bulwarks. But Zathara had lived away from The Nation of Love long enough to know how to avoid …unforeseen complications.

"Simply take care, Zathara," Tinesmurk continued, "that you do not touch any of the wendigos."

She meant the people who were not Betweeners or necromancers. They made up the majority of the camp's human population. And yet people called these men monsters. Zathara had come to the conclusion that, to a Skrean, a 'monster' was a slave or peasant, and might or might not actually have horns and scales.

"Why?" Zathara asked, "Is there a taboo against sex with monsters?" Zathara remembered her first months in The RU.
And I have the feeling that cultural missteps in Skrea, would be even more disastrous.

Tinesmurk looked at her. "Do you know what wendigos are, girl?"

"I don't, Malevolence." Zathara answered. "They look human, but…"

"But indeed." Tinesmurk turned in place and looked up and eastward. It was late afternoon, the sky beyond the trees was mostly blue. Mostly blue but for the dark blotch that now threatened to swallow the sun. The Maelstrom.

"We are on the border here in the mountains." Tinesmurk said. "Necromancy works...she held out her hand before her and Zathara saw black vapor rising off the skin. Just like Freetrick the day they took him. "…but the power of the First God is not great here." Tinesmurk turned away from the Maelstrom and began walking again. "In Clouds-Gather we can make monstrosities limited only by our cruel imaginations, but out here, we must...economize."

The queen turned from the camp's main thoroughfare and approached a man sitting before a cook fire to their right. He had, Zathara saw, a leather pouch filled with squirming mice. Which he was tossing into the fire, giggling.

"Wendigos are field transformations," Tinesmurk said. "The Life-twisting required for them is small in both time and energy needed." She reached out and grasped the man's head in one hand. He immediately stiffened, his eyes glazing. "There are three areas in the brain," Tinesmurk placed her thumbs just in front of the man's ears, with one index finger against the slope above and behind the right ear, "and a particular bundle on the brainstem here." she moved one hand to the back of his neck. "Perturb the areas around the first three and enlarge the second, and you have a wendigo. Tell me, monster." She said to the man. "With what name were you born?"

"Engineer Gerhanis, Malevolence," he murmured. "Now I am Wrongcringe."

Tinesmurk's fingers scratched at the wendigo's hair. "And how long have you been Wrongcringe?"

"A few weeks, Malevolence."

"And, Wrongcringe?" Tinesmurk looked steadily at Zathara as she asked. "What is it you love to do more than anything."

He shivered, "…
hurt
things."

"Excellent." Tinesmurk released the monster and wiped her hands together. "You may return to your mice, Wrongcringe."

"Thank you, Malevolence." He grinned and giggled, and Zathara took an involuntary step backwards.

"Touch her and I'll kill you," said Tinesmurk. She turned from the twitching man and spoke to Zathara. "You see? Make the man enjoy the pain of others. Make him angry and hungry. Then set him loose on his former comrades."

Zathara suppressed a shudder.
The sooner I gain control of Skrea, boys and girls…
"Very economical."

"Economical indeed," Tinesmurk chuckled and continued to walk, leaving Wrongcringe to his mice.

"I see you have a good instinct for violence." The queen said, as if continuing an earlier conversation. "Yes. I see no reason why you cannot un-wed my son."

Zathara had been expecting that. She allowed herself to smile and bowed to the queen. "Thank you, Malevolence."

"Yes," said Tinesmurk again. "I agree with your father that making you first concubine will solve…" she made a dismissive gesture with one hand, "our little Sangboise problem as well as opening a window for relations with The Nation of Love."

Interesting,
thought Zathara.
I thought your political base was a conservative one.
"I will certainly ensure Skrea goes back to its old ways." She probed.

Tinesmurk's dark eyes flicked toward her and her long brows tightened. "That would be well. A return to our nation's illustrious history is certainly the goal of my supporters, yes."

Aha. Whereas your goal is the same as that of any other politician. A greater share of power and influence.
The problem with the current Skrean government wasn't that it was too heavily influenced by Sangboire. The problem was that it wasn't influenced by Tinesmurk.
Well, boys and girls, the queen's goals and mine match for the moment. She is a fine tool to get me into Skrea. And then I can get into Freetrick's bed all by myself.
Then she could take a hold on the, as it were, tiller of the Skrean state. For the glory of The Nation of Love. And the House seSuyamuan.

"I am glad to see you agree," Tinesmurk said. "But first I would appreciate some aid."

Zathara kept her expression blank. "Yes, Malevolence?"

But the queen did not elaborate. Instead, she said. "Do you think he still needs aid?"

"He, Malevolence?"

"My son." Tinesmurk turned a dry look on Zathara. "Are you confident you can pry him away from that little Leech they have affixed to him?"

"Oh," Zathara, another foreigner in Skrea, chose her words carefully, "have no fear on that account, Malevolence. Freetrick has lusted after her from the day we met." He would be easy enough to control.

Getting out from under Tinesmurk would be more difficult, especially since Skrean magic wouldn't work for Zathara. But Zathara was certain she would eventually solve that problem. It would certainly be easier when the ultimate fiend was in bed with her.

"I am pleased to hear it. I am most…" Tinesmurk's voice trailed off. And when she looked at Zathara, her hard narrow face betrayed the slightest shade of doubt. Then she was looking away again.

Tinesmurk's voice was controlled when she said. "You know my son well, I take it."

"Certainly, Malevolence," said Zathara. And some instinct made her say. "He...taught me to dance."