The Kingdoms of Evil (90 page)

Freetrick said, "That's the problem."

"Right!" Istain slashed the air with a hand. "You can't afford to give in to your darker desires right now."

Freetrick looked at his friend suspiciously. Darker desires? "Why exactly do you care?"

"I don't know!" Istain scowled, then winced again, as if he had just bitten his tongue.

Freetrick sighed. "Anything I do with Feerix is going to send a message. I need to show we can't go around thinking that people are just...what...useful places to get energy from. Too many people have died already."

Bloodbyrn would not look at him.

"No, that's wrong." Freetrick took a step toward her. "I mean
I've killed
too many people already." He turned to look at the other assembled humans and monsters. "In my new Skrea, that won't happen any more. We won't have to kill just to stay competitive. Feerix must live."

"Yes," said Istain, "that's the right choice." Then, as if he hadn't just spoken, "Okay. Fine. But what are we gonna
do
with him?" He glanced at the blood tree. "Assuming we can even strike out the spell without killing him."

"I guess I can have him thrown in the dungeons," said Freetrick.

"Yes," said Bloodbyrn, "because imprisoning your enemy worked so well the last time my lord tried it."

"I can't let him go free." Freetrick paced back and forth across the floor, careful not to step on any of the blood runes around the tree. "He'll try to kill me again."

"You beat him this time," Istain pointed out.

At what cost?
Freetrick looked at Bloodbyrn, who was staring straight ahead. Her father's body had been removed, where to, Freetrick had been afraid to ask. He shook his head and answered the question. "I surprised him this time. But in a fair fight…no. He's just too good…at..." Freetrick stopped pacing, as the thought bloomed, "…at… at necromancy. Wrothgrinn." He spun toward the life-twister, who was again poking at the wings of a disgruntled-looking Mr. Skree.

Wrothgrinn withdrew his finger. "Yes, my lord?"

"Monsters can't do necromancy, can they?"

"Oh…" Bloodbyrn breathed. "Oh my lord, that is…
evil
."

Freetrick looked at her, and a smile spread across his face. "Wrothgrinn, I have another project for you. Think of it as a…return to your traditional roots."

The life-twister bowed deeply. "It will be my pleasure, my lord to make the prince into something as horrendous outside as in."

"Just make him…still functional. All right?" Freetrick looked from Wrothgrinn to Bloodbyrn. She was still staring at him. And staring, if not a good thing, was at least better than that awful blank non-look.

If there was one thing he had learned about dealing with the Sangboise princess, it was that he had to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. "All right!" Freetrick clapped his gauntlets together. "I think that's everything I wanted to talk about. Wrothgrinn, you have your plans to make. Istain, Grimp, I want you to figure out how to get Feerix out of that tree. Skystarke, Kaimeera, make sure Istain and Grimp have all the materials they need. And keep the prayer cycle going. Now Bloodbyrn," he said to his un-wife, "come with me to my rooms."

Bloodbyrn looked away. The emotion had left her face again. "Must I, my lord?"

"Yes," said Freetrick, "I have a kitty to give you."

***

Bloodbyrn expressed no emotion. Not as her lord took her to his apartments. Not when he presented Princess Fluff to her. Not when he looked at her, and she could not force herself to smile, and he looked away.

"It's a good thing the Kaimeera found her, huh?" He said.

Bloodbyrn did not respond. She would have remained composed in any case, of course, but now it was easier. Now Bloodbyrn truly felt nothing.

"It did a good job," said Feerborg. "It's owned cats before. Or parts of it have."

Interesting. So this was what her father had endured all these years. His persona had masked not agony as she had supposed, but rather the lack of any emotion. How interesting.

"Yes. That is likely why I did not hear you. You apologize to me with such regularity that the phrase has lost all meaning for me."

"Well, I'm---" his mouth pinched. "Alright."

"My lord has nothing for which to apologize," Bloodbyrn placed the cat on the floor. "The choice was mine." Yes, she had chosen. Father or lover. She had lost the first, and now found she could not stand the sight of the other.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" said Feerborg, "Take revenge on Feerix? Because I said before---"

"No, my lord," sighed Bloodbyrn, "the punishment my lord has devised for his half-brother is most suitably fiendish. Indeed, there is nothing more he has left to do on my account. So may I go now?"

"Tempest above, Bloodbyrn just let me…" her lord stared miniature lightning bolts at the wall behind her, then, it seemed, made a rare effort to compose himself. "I wanted to thank you. For saving my life."

Feerborg hissed anguish between his teeth. Bloodbyrn could not bring herself to care.
"Do you know what he said to me?"

"No." Nor had she any wish to know. "My lord," Bloodbyrn said, "I would again ask you---"

"He said," her lord interrupted, "that I have to protect you. Maybe this is what he was talking about."

Bloodbyrn thought back on the things she had said in her last conversation with her father. Was this how it felt to be out of prison? Maybe it was the lack of confining walls that made her feel so small, so helpless and empty.

"My lord, you have many matters to attend to. As do I."

"What are you going to do Bloodbyrn?"

"I shall accompany my father's body back to our home," she said. "There I shall conduct certain rites." And then? And then.

"Bloodbyrn." Feerborg held out his hands to her, "I don't want to---"

"Malevolence!" A servant banged through the doors of the Fiend's office. "You gave orders that any new arrivals of food from beyond our borders should be brought to your attention."

Feerborg looked past Bloodbyrn at the messenger, tiny sparks flashing his annoyance across his black eyes. By her blood, she hoped this was something important. Something that would divert his attention so she could leave. Not that Bloodbyrn knew where she would go.

"I thought I said you had to tell me when you brought in new prisoners."

"Just so, Malevolence," said the servant. "A Do-Gooder has entered the Castle. We shall relegate her to the larder---"

"Don't." Freetrick held up a hand. "Do that."

"My lord, I shall go." Bloodbyrn said.

"Just a minute." Freetrick turned back to the goblin. "Just tell me who the prisoner is and where she comes from."

Bloodbyrn sighed. It was most likely another assassin. No doubt her lord would not deal with her correctly. He never killed people who attacked him. Which would make it difficult to convince him to kill her, when the time came. If she wanted to emulate her mother, she would have to nearly kill the man before he would strike back.

"Oh, she has a nearly Skrean name, Fiend," said the goblin, "Rath-harlot or something similar. No. Zath-ra"

"Wait.
Zathara
?" Demanded Freetrick. "Tall girl, long hair…uh very curvy?"

"Zathara?" said Freetrick, "
Zathara?
Bring her to me immediately! Wait!"

"Yes?" said the goblin.

"Is she okay?" Demanded Freetrick. "Is she hurt?
How did she get here
?"

"Malevolence." The door opened and Mr. Skree's head snaked into the room like a breath of bad news. "If pleasure were counted among the emotions that could be sustained in the murk under the spreading influence of the Keeper of Doom, great it would rise in the withered ventricles of the organ that acts in place of this servant's heart, for it falls to this undeserving wreckage the great and mortal honor of announcing…" the chamberlain cleared his desiccated throat.

Freetrick closed his eyes. "My
mother
?"

"Just a
minute
Bloodbyrn." He turned back to the servant. "My
mother
is here?"

The monster's mouth opened, but Bloodbyrn's cold voice cut over the response. "My lord, I should be released from your bondage at this time. Immediately!"

"H-What?" A surge of anger rose and then died as Freetrick looked at her, and remembered. He gained a mother, she lost a father.

Freetrick swallowed what he had been about to say, but before he could begin again, Bloodbyrn interrupted him. "I should be freed, my lord, to accompany my father's remains back to my ancestral home."

"Bloodbyrn…" I don't want you to go, he did not say. How could he say no to a request like that?

"And there to be at peace, my lord."

Freetrick imagined her there, in a chateau in a swamp in Sangboire. Moss-covered stone walls closing around her again. The red flash of her lacy dress like a spot of blood against the mildewed gray of ancient furniture and rotting books. The red flash of her blood on those stones? Or would Bloodbyrn commit suicide the way her mother had, by attacking her father? Except DeMacabre had been a mere duke, and Freetrick was Ultimate Fiend. If Bloodbyrn wanted to make him kill her, she would have to come at the head of an army. Yes, of course she would.

"Tempest above!" Freetrick ran a hand through his hair. "What the hell am I supposed to do with---"

"Fiend!" Skystarke burst into the office, followed closely by Istain and the Kaimeera. "Fiend! News from beyond the walls of Castle Clouds-
Ga-
thah!"

"I know!" said Freetrick, "I know about my…" he glanced at Bloodbyrn and his heart clenched, "
friend
. I know about my striking
mother
coming back---"

"Yes yes, Zathara and the scary lady. Who do you think we were just talking to?" said Istain. "Free, this is bigger news."

"Free," said Istain. "The
army
?"

"And when the dark stars have aligned themselves properly for the rising of the black bile of instruction as to the intentions of the most Maleficent Monarch of Mourning, it shall rain, cacophonous, into the ears of this humble excrescence…"

"No."

"What?" Bloodbyrn turned back to face Freetrick, one hand pushing open the door away from his study. "My lord---"

"Bloodbyrn," said Freetrick. "We have defeated our enemies. We've survived how many assassination attempts. We have…finally begun to
fix
the Kingdoms of Evil. Bloodbyrn, we've won. Stay with me."

She lowered her eyes. "I cannot." And she turned to walk out of the room.

Lightning flashed in Freetrick's eyes. "That wasn't a request." Freetrick stood, and reached out with his necromancy.

Bloodbyrn spun, mouth opened in rage, which turned to surprise as she kept spinning, rising off the ground, trailing streamers of black mist.

"Take her apartments. Write the runes of binding on her door." Freetrick's voice rumbled into the whirling cloud of necromancy. "The Duchess DeMacabre will not escape." He lowered his hand, and Bloodbyrn, cocooned in his spell, thudded into Skystarke's waiting arms. "Not even into death."