WARNING: This story and all others included in "Dreams of Reality" are copyrighted to FuryKyriel, 1997. Any unauthorized publication of this material will be prosecuted.
How It All Began
Confrontation
(Part Three of Three)
You have got to be insane, Kyriel, I thought as I checked out of Dirss and started toward the Red Mountains. This woman is much too powerful for you to take on by yourself; and besides, do you know what will happen if she takes you over and uses you against Dirss? The arguments relay-raced through my brain as I crossed behind a hill and took to the air, but I didn't slacken my pace. I couldn't. First, there was my sense of guilt over not finding Gorg before he left the city. I might have prevented his terrible death if only I had convinced him to let me come along. Then there was my fear for Dirss and all the people in and around the city who had helped me adjust to the dreamworld. There was the sense of adventure, too, without which I never would have found my way into R2. And finally, there was the growing hunger within me, the rage for justice against a slaveholder and murderer.
I didn't have the Sultana's power of hypnotism, of course, and that was my major concern; I couldn't be sure that I'd be immune to her spell. But I did have one related ability -- one of the few that was accessible only in my Fury form -- and it might be enough to protect me. Besides, I was a supernatural, and that should give me an advantage against any purely human attacks--assuming she was human.
It wasn't much to go on. All in all, there were far too many if's and maybe's in my equation, but I knew I couldn't back down. The Fury wouldn't let me.
I reached the foothills by nightfall, and the first human settlements shortly after. This was the Sultana's raiding territory, and it was time for me to start my lookout for her soldiers. Wrapping myself in shadows, I descended to about one hundred yards above ground level and coasted over the well-trodden roads. Several hours passed before I stumbled across my first group of raiders, five soldiers dressed in purple and gold, traveling by horseback. Their movements were much more natural than Gorg's had been, but even from this distance I could see the violet flame in their eyes.
I passed over them and continued on to a tavern about thirty minute's ride down the road. A solitary watchman stood guard in a stand of trees twenty yards from the door, probably on lookout for the very raiders I'd just passed. But I couldn't let him interfere with my plan. Reluctantly, I drifted down behind him and rapped his skull with my sword hilt. He went down without protest. Then I bound and gagged him and hid him deep in the tree stand. And, finally, I stepped out of the trees and walked the rest of the way to the bar.
It was a much rowdier place than any in Dirss, with air choked by tobacco smoke and floors that were permanently wet and reeked of beer. Laughing, bushy-bearded men boasted and toasted with equally loud women who looked only a hormone or two away from beards, themselves. Above their heads, mute heads of animals parodied the Sultana's spell with their flat, blank eyes. Racks of entwined deer antlers served as a rustic chandelier.
My own entrance didn't cause much of a stir, only a few leers from the men and a few snickers from the women. I stepped up to the bar as though I hadn't noticed and ordered a triple shot of the house's strongest whiskey. That brought a few mild stares, especially when I tossed it back without so much as a blink. Supernatural immunities did give one a certain advantage.
Still pretending to a confidence I didn't really feel, I ordered and downed another triple, then wandered off to a corner where a group of rowdies was cheering on two armwrestlers. As I watched, the larger of the two hammered his opponent's knuckles into the table, then rewarded himself with a handy stein of beer. An extraordinarily hairy, gap-toothed man, he finished his drink in one gulp, then rose from his seat with fists lifted in victory. The crowd chanted "Melks, Melks," while he favored the room with his striped grin and his opponent checked his hand to see if anything was broken.
"Who's next?" the winner growled happily, and before long another poor sucker was rubbing his knuckles.
At Melks' next challenge I stepped forward. There was a general round of laughter and a whispered agreement that I must not hold my liquor as well as I seemed. "Don't worry, sweetheart," the champion purred as he closed his huge hand around mine. "I'll try not to hurt you too bad."
"Ooh," I shuddered sexily. "I love it when little boys try to act tough. Ready when you are, sweetheart."
Melks had had just enough alcohol to develop a temper. Snorting, he threw all his weight into a push designed to drive my hand through the tabletop. I, however, didn't budge.
A look of doggy amazement crossed the man's face. Grunting, he shoved again, and again I held him at bay. It was at this point that I realized I was beginning to enjoy myself.
After a third mighty effort on Melks' part, I feigned a yawn, then blinked innocently at my red-faced opponent. "Didn't I tell you I was ready to begin? Well, if you won't start, then I will." And with one decisive move, I slammed his fist to the table. Boards rattled.
Melks jumped up so quickly he almost knocked the table into my lap. "She's a witch!" he cried, wringing the injured hand. "She bewitched me!" His sword was out in an instant, and the crowd backed away as one to give us room.
I ducked easily under Melk's first swing and scrambled out from behind the table, drawing my own sword as I went. His next blow was an easy parry, and then it was my turn to attack, using my size to advantage as I darted in low enough to draw a line of fire across his belly. I could have killed him then if I'd wanted to, but my purpose was only to keep the fight going until the raiders arrived.
It didn't take them long. Melks was wearing two more wounds and I'd acquired a scratch across my forehead when the crowd went suddenly silent. My opponent dropped his sword in a flash, and I turned to see two of the Sultana's men in the doorway, their faces expressionless, their dead eyes focused squarely on me.
"You fight well, for a beginner," the one in the lead said, his voice slightly more inflected than Gorg's had been.
"Thank you," I answered, preening, then allowed a bit of admiration to creep into my voice. "Are you a soldier?"
"That's right," the raider murmured, and tried a smile that didn't quite fit. "Let us buy you a drink."
Horrified, the locals backed away as I walked cheerfully into the trap. The bartender served us with shaking hands, then turned his back and began to furiously polish already-clean glasses. Others continued to stare in fearful fascination, perhaps glad they weren't the target of the raiders' attention.
"I saw you through the window as you were arm wrestling," the raider chief told me, gesturing with his head toward the corner of the room. Obediently, I looked that way while he slipped a drop of clear liquid into my drink. "Your strength is quite impressive."
"It's a gift," I nodded agreeably, then downed the drugged shot as I had the others. After a moment I shook my head briskly, then turned back to the soldier with a look of faint confusion. He lifted his chin slightly and, following his cue, I let my head drop to the bartop.
Within seconds, the two soldiers had me by the arms and were dragging me out the door, where the other three waited. Through slitted eyelids, I saw a few of the boldest barflies come to the door to watch, but no one offered me any help. That was to be expected, of course. In short order my arms were bound behind me and my ankles tied. Then I was slung over the shoulders of the nearest horse as the lead raider climbed up behind me, and we were off toward the Sultana's stronghold.
We rode on, slowly but without stopping, until the first light of dawn broke in the east. Then the lead raider halted his band and I was unslung from the horse. Thankfully, my muscles hadn't cramped from the long lack of movement, but it was still a relief to have a shift in position. Three of the soldiers tied me to a tree and began lightly slapping my cheeks, which I took as a signal to "wake up." I moaned and slowly shook my head, then opened my eyes and feigned shock at my situation. Seemingly satisfied that I was unhurt, the raiders turned away as I began slinging curses and struggling within my bonds as if I actually thought I could escape.
In fact, I was so well tied that I couldn't have broken free even if I'd wanted to, not without shifting form; and that was a bit of a shock. I'd known my human body was more limited than my Fury body, but this was the first time I'd come up so forcefully against those limitations. Suddenly it wasn't as hard to act frightened. But as much as I complained, as much as I begged, the five raiders paid me no attention at all. They sat silently in a circle, eating their breakfast without offering me even a mouthful, then lay down on the bare earth for a few hours of sleep. It was eerie to see how in synch they were, beginning and ending their meals at exactly the same moment, lying down to sleep and rising as if they were all in tune with the same alarm clock. And nothing I said or did affected them in the slightest.
And so we continued on through the rest of that day and half of the next, stopping only for meals and another rest on the second morning. I was never given anything to eat, only a few swallows of water at the evening meal, and I thanked God and the Guardians for my new body's independence from food.
The Sultana's stronghold lay in a wide, pleasant valley near the summit of a low-lying mountain. We reached its outskirts early in the afternoon, passing through lushly planted fields where peasants worked in the same eerie synch as the raiders around me. Not a one of them paused in their labor as we passed by.
At the far edge of the valley, halfway up the mountain wall, perched the castle itself. It was a tall and surprisingly graceful structure that seemed to be hewn out of the stone around it. Even when we were directly beneath it, I couldn't make out individual stones or joints in the solemn gray stone. It must have been constructed through magic, I realized; but thankfully, an aura of ancientness clung to every spire and corner of the place. If I'd thought the Sultana herself had the power to build all this, I would have been very afraid. But her main contribution to the castle, it seemed, was the addition of amethyst tilework beneath the parapets, a gaudy touch that somehow failed to lessen the grandeur of the place as a whole.
The raiders took me up along a narrow, winding trail to the castle gates, open as though in expectation of our arrival. A pair of blank-faced guards stood watch at the entrance but made no move as we passed them by. Once into the courtyard, the raiders dismounted and tethered their horses, the pulled me down and cut my ankle bonds. I pretended to have trouble standing, as if my legs had cramped, but before long I found it was easier to walk than allow myself to be dragged.
Inside, the castle was richly decorated with tiled floors, wall hangings, and stained glass windows. Thankfully, the Sultana's remodeling had stopped short of redoing them all in purple. It had once been a beautiful place, I realized sadly, and wondered what had happened to its architect.
On and on the raiders led me, until we finally came upon a long, wide hallway ending in a pair of enormous double doors. Before them stood an equally enormous pair of guards--true Giants, at least ten feet tall with white-blond hair and eyes the color of a hazy summer sky. How the Sultana had acquired them, I couldn't imagine.
On either side of them sat identical reproductions of The Thinker, each life-sized and carved in more detail than Rodin could ever have hoped for. At least, that was my first impression. Then I saw the reason for the detail: the statues were alive. Each man's skin had been carefully exfoliated, right down to the eyelashes, and their heads were covered by crudely fashioned lumps of clay designed to look like sculpture. Their skin had been painted the color of granite, and the artist had been quite meticulous. He or she had even included the minor imperfections that would have been present in real stone and had delicately shaded the folds of the statues' eyelids to make them appear carved rather than simply closed. And so the two men sat, perfectly still, perfectly mindless, their breathing barely more perceptible than Gorg's had been right before he died.
For a half second I was awed at the Sultana's achievement. Then I was horrified, and finally I was furious. I felt the dark egg swell within me, begging for the chance to explode and put an end this abomination, but I stilled it for the moment. It wasn't time yet.
My captors came to a stop before the closed doors, giving me a long, painful look at the ironically named Thinkers. Then each of the Giants took hold of a bronze ring bolted to the door behind him and swung it wide before us.
It was hard to know what to notice first about the Sultana's throne room. In form, it was a huge rectangle, a runner of purple carpeting leading up to the creature that sat atop the dais. To either side of the carpet ran black marble pillars, and in between the pillars were two dozen more statues, each frozen into the form of a famous R1 sculpture. There were gods and goddesses, beautiful maidens, famous warriors -- all as helpless and mindless as the stone they mimicked.
Yet beneath the dais was an even worse atrocity. There were as many men here as there were statues along the walls; but these were not painted, only naked and oiled. They lounged on bright purple cushions in various positions of false ease, iron collars around their necks, thick links chaining them like pets to the dais above. Eyes rolled up to straining whites, they moved in languid, preprogrammed patterns, never quite turning their faces from the beast above them.
The Fury was huge within me now, barely constrained, but I forced myself to face the cause of this perversion. By this point any residual fear of her had vanished; my rage alone felt strong enough to protect me from her spell.
The Sultana was a short woman, barely taller than me, but middleaged and tending toward fat. As I had expected, she was dressed all in purple, with flowing silk robes and a ridiculous turban from which curled a few carefully chosen strands of ebony hair. Her skin was fair, her face plain, but that was beside the point; it was her eyes which drew my full attention. The color of ripe plums, they seemed to suck up all the light in the room and spit it back in razor-sharp shards. They were her power, I thought, and pushed aside a Fury-fueled vision of crushing them under my thumbs. It wasn't time to act yet. I had to get closer.
Unknowingly, the raiders obliged me, leading me to the very foot of the dais, where the Sultana gloated down on me like a spider from its web. "Do you know who I am?" she asked.
"A fat cow in a silly hat," I sneered. I wasn't going to even pretend to be intimidated by this monster.
The Sultana's lip curled. "You're very brave, girl, but I don't believe in trading insults when strength will do just as well. I am the Sultana, Queen of the Red Mountains, and I have the power to rip your mind to shreds and refashion it as I please. You've seen my work already. Soon you'll be a part of it. But first--" she turned to the raider chieftain. "Why have you brought this child to me? What value can a skinny little thing like this have?"
"She will make a powerful soldier, Mistress. Her strength and reflexes are three times that of anyone in your army."
Any other queen would have doubted, but this one knew her subjects never lied to her. "Is that a fact?" the Sultana purred, eyeing me with fresh speculation. "And where did you get such power, child? Are you a dual?"
I didn't need to adopt a poker face; the rage was camouflage enough for any other emotion. "Dual what?" I snapped. "And it's none of your business where I got my power."
"Oh, but you're wrong." The Sultana smiled slightly. Suddenly her eyes leaped at me, seemed to catch me by the soul and drag me toward her while everything else in the room went dark. Violet auroras rippled through my brain as I plunged into the icy depths of her pupils.
The attack had come so quickly, so unexpectedly, that I hadn't had time to prepare a defense. And now I was half-drowned before I could even fight back. Desperately I reached for the Fury, counting on the transformation to give me strength to resist those eyes. I could feel the power swelling within me, pressing against the insides of my skin until I thought it must seep through my pores like smoke. But I couldn't complete the change; the Sultana's hold was too strong. All I could do was grab onto as much of the power as I could and pray that it was enough.
The Sultana, meanwhile, already sensed that something was wrong; obviously, no one else had resisted her even for this long. Somewhere far in the distance I heard her snarl, and then another brilliant spear of violet, clear and directed as a laser beam, shot down the pathway between our eyes. My head rock backwards with the force of it, and for a second my mind went horrifyingly blank. Then I felt something flex behind my eyes, the Fury lashing out with the one weapon it possessed which was even remotely similar to the Sultana's. If I had been fully transformed, it would have manifested as the power to paralyze with a glance, somewhat like the legendary Medusa. At this point, I could only hope it was strong enough to break the Sultana's grip.
Snarling back at her, I threw all my force into my own gaze, using the supernatural sparks in my irises as mirrors to focus it back along that violet pathway. And slowly the Sultana's force receded, breaking up under the onslaught of an opposing line of emerald. Halfway between us it halted, spitting static electricity at the point where it met its opposite color. I felt my hair begin to stand on end. Still, I could see nothing but violet and green, but from somewhere nearby I heard the Sultana's voice, outraged and petulant as a child: "You can't do this!"
"Oh yes I can," I growled, and the Fury expanded another inch within. "As a matter of fact, I can do a lot more."
The line of violet winked out and I stumbled forward at the unexpected release. Exulting, I reached deep inside, ready now to bring out the foaming, impatient Fury. But before I'd completed the call, a white-hot pain bloomed between my shoulder blades, passing on through my body and out the center of my chest. Stunned, I let go my internal hold and gaped down at my chest. A sword tip had materialized between my breasts.
"I never lose," I heard the Sultana say as my knees buckled. Then I remembered the raiders standing behind me. I hadn't won the staredown after all; the Sultana had simply diverted her power to her slaves, instructing them telepathically to kill me. As the realization dawned, I felt a knee against my back and the sword was withdrawn with a wet jerk. Then I fell onto my face, my arms still tied behind me, a pool of blood pulsing out around me in time with the beating of my heart.
A moment later the pulsing stopped.
"What a shame," the Sultana sighed, making her way down the dais in a swish of silks. "Whatever she was, that girl would have made one hell of a warrior if she could only have been domesticated."
What a shame, I thought, that the Sultana believed I was really dead.
The Fury ignited like a struck match, burning away the pain, healing the wounds, restoring the lost vitality. The bonds around my arms popped like string as my wings sprang out, stretching wide enough to brush the pillars on either side of us. Both the raiders and the Sultana were knocked off their feet at the force of the eruption. Then, up from the floor I rose, towering nearly eight feet tall, vengeance in mind and a flaming dagger in my hand. I could see myself reflected in the Sultana's terrified eyes, twin images of perfect horror. Black fire rippled across my body and obscured my face, but the dagger shone red as blood, with a diamond tip. Around my head the writhing flames took on the appearance of snakes, scarlet eyed and ebony fanged. I could feel them coiling across my scalp, their movements sensual as a massage. They were a part of me and under my control, and yet they were separate, too.
The Sultana, an endless animal moan bubbling from her throat, scrambled backwards up the steps of the dais, too terrified to take her eyes off of me. She'd forgotten all about her slaves. The raiders lay like abandoned toys and her harem froze in mid-move.
"Mind stealer," I spat as I stepped up onto the dais. My voice hissed and roared like a forest fire.
"Rapist." I climbed another step.
"Slave driver." The Sultana was backed up against her throne now, nowhere left to run.
"Murderer." I reached the top of the dais and glared at the cowering mass beneath me.
"Please," the Sultana whimpered, raising a hand in pitiful defense.
I didn't answer. My right hand shot out, easily enclosing her throat, but I didn't squeeze hard enough to strangle. Instead, I lifted the dagger high in my left hand, feeling the bloody power behind it, almost seeing the line of fire which ran from the diamond tip through the Sultana's heart and on to regions beyond. This was a weapon designed to kill not flesh, but spirit. When I struck her, my dagger would spear her soul like a fish and punch it wriggling into hell. My muscles bunched in preparation for the blow.
"Please," the Sultana whimpered again, and I paused. "You don't have to kill me. Just let me wake myself up. Let me wake up, please." Her eyes were awash in unshed tears.
I thought back to my first day in the forest, when I'd wondered how I could ever bear to kill a human being. I thought of the crickets I'd carried out the house, the drowning insects I'd rescued from swimming pools. And, silently, I nodded.
The Sultana's face relaxed. Then her eyes squeezed shut, releasing the trapped tears, and her body began slowly to grow transparent. The neck beneath my fingers turned to smoke, which blew away as if on a breeze. And for one moment, before the last of her disappeared, I heard the Sultana whisper a final message: "Fool." My fist closed tight again, but it was too late. She was gone.
A moment later I heard a series of thuds, and, turning, I saw that the "statues" had fallen off their pedestals. The raiders and harem members were beginning to stir, too. Hastily I sucked the Fury back inside and ran down the steps to see how I could help.
Several hours later, I sat alone on top of the highest turret within the Sultana's castle. Men and women still worked beneath me, former slaves now looting their mistress's possessions. It was money well deserved, and much needed. Understandably, not a one of them cared to stay in the stronghold, despite its abundant food supply. They had homes to repair or rebuild, families to return to, professions to reclaim.
The former statues were in the worst shape. After living so long in a state just short of suspended animation, they were pitifully weak and in terrible health. Worse yet, the color I'd thought was paint actually turned out to be tattooing. Unless these people found and could afford the work of a wizard, they'd wear the Sultana's brand for the rest of their lives. I made sure they received the best of the booty and promised to return if I ever found someone who could help them.
As for myself, I took only enough gold and silver to meet my needs for the next month. It didn't seem right to do more, not when there were so many others who deserved compensation for their suffering, and especially not when I had failed at what I now perceived to be my most basic purpose. It was true that the Sultana was no longer a threat to this world, but she was still alive in R1; and even without the power of hypnosis, anyone with a nature like hers was bound to do damage. Who knew what sort of empire she'd built there already? Who knew how many people she'd hurt or even killed? And I could have spared them further harm. It was a terrible burden.
Back at the church in Dirss, I'd imagined my prayers for help in R1 had gone unanswered, and that my vocation in R2 was a sort of consolation prize. Now, though, I realized I was wrong. My work here was meant to heal injustice in R1 as well as in R2. Unfortunately, I hadn't seen the truth in time to deal justice to the Sultana.
The hunger writhed within me, strong enough to make my hands tremble. I'd have to kill something tonight, or the pain would become unbearable. But that was nothing compared to the agony of knowing I'd held a monster's life in my hands, and let it go to maul again.
architectural friezes courtesy of Randy D. Ralph at the Icon Bazaar
Get your own Free Home Page