LXVIII. A Hungry Lady
It is the ghost-thin lady, and this is the first time you have seen her properly as more than a lurking figure in the background. The lady with her white jade armour and two curved blades at her slender hips and the scar along her jaw, a clay vessel hanging from her belt.
She is pale. Very pale. Her skin is the cold dead whiteness of snow, her hair is like marble, and her eyes are solid white. No irises, no pupils. Her lips are blue. If you cut her, she would likely bleed milk.
She is tall. Very tall. You are tall for a Cheraki woman, and the Cheraki are taller than the Cahzori. She is head and shoulders above you. She only does not need to stoop because the door grew to fit her through.
She is thin. Very thin. For all her height, you would wager that you could count every rib, maybe even fit your hands around her waist. It is not a beautiful thinness. It is the thinness of a famine victim. The only definition on her is her muscles, and those are like corded ropes under her skin.
And then she smiles at you. The typical thing would be to say that this shows off her inner beauty. Unfortunately, what it shows off is a set of teeth that only a leopard could love. And even then, the leopard would be of the opinion that those are simply too many teeth.
"You are the dragon-child," she says. Her voice is breathy, almost rusty, like she does not use it much.
"And you are?" you ask.
"Ukt Ghulah." Your grasp of the Cahzori dialect is not particularly great, especially with an accent as thick as hers. But you are fairly sure that 'ukt' is sister, or possibly 'sibling'. You're bad at grammatical gender and remembering the conjugations. Either way, that means this is probably not her true name. "You shouldn't be here, smoke-spinner."
There is something about how she says it that tells you this is just an opening.
"I am only on a midnight walk. Nothing wrong with that."
The half-light of the half-moon shines in through the high windows. "The fox could not trap your mind."
"Whatever could you—"
She laughs, and her laugh is the laugh of a hyena. "Do not play the fool. You can see my smile. Tell me, is it beautiful?"
You know this trap. "So-so," you say, resting your hand on your pinned up hair just in case this southern monster is different from the northern ones you know.
With a shrug, Ukt Ghulah smiles at you again. "You are learned in our ways."
"Maybe." You pause and consider. No, she is taller, thinner, more monstrous than she was when you saw her before. "I will say — you are showing me a truer face than you did before."
She nods in acknowledgement. "Both faces are true, but this face is a different one than the one I wear as their daylight guard."
"A burden of the sun?"
"No. Of my nature."
"I would be interested to know," you say politely.
"Well, then, dragon-child, let me tell you a story. Or show it to you. I am not Silk-and-Eye. Words are not my currency. It will tell you what I want from you."
You feel her presence wash over you in a wave of wyldflowers; blanketing your eyes, clogging your ears. You struggle to see through them, and as a result rather than being fully captured you half-see the world she wants you to. Through your left eye, the corridor you saw before; through your right you see an open desert where scattered scrubby bushes grow from dry, cracked land.
A spirit of pure fire wanders in from the lands of chaos, a being untouched by order, at the head of a fearsome horde. The world is crumbling before her; stars fall from the sky, stone floats away, lush lands burn. But this world is not made for beings such as her. Her fire no longer burns clean and clear; she is a creature of smoke and fumes. And she incinerates those who stand in her way, she takes some of their deaths into her.
Some of their base nature. Some of their material nature.
Now she is no longer smoke and fire, no longer a vaporous being. Now she is a creature of flesh - and not in the way of the lesser beings who chose to become this way. She was jailed like this for her hunger to burn the world of shape, and this hunger still lingers with her.
She is a flesh-eater. She is a corpse-gnawer. Once formless, once graceful; now graceless, now formed.
A wild beast roams the southern wastes. Wretched, because she knows what she lost. And always hungry.
Hunters come for her. She gnaws their bones (so many bones, stacked high. They just make her hungrier).
And there is one hunter; a dragon-child, with armour of the bones of the mountains. Her teeth cannot break this white hardness. He scars her jaw. He sends her fleeing. He teaches her to fear. For a cycle of the moon she and her fearful servants try to tempt him, to corrupt him, to distract him so she can crush his head between her jaws.
This is what she learns; it is his discipline, his devotion to a cause, the fact that he gives his will to another that lets him stand strong against her nature. And that is when she falls in love with him, for he has found will within shape.
She flees, but follows him at a distance for the rest of her life. She learns how to take a shape that is mostly human from the fire witches, she learns the blade from the cataphracts (because before she only fights as a beast or as a formless flame), she finds anchorites and desert monks and studies their philosophy.
When death finds the dragon-child, she does not bring it, but she is there to eat his body so he will always be part of her, and take his armour and blade of white jade in his honour.
And she kills the one who killed him. Because that one did grave offence, to slay her foe-lover-master-teacher in that way.
This is her life. She is a beast, controlled by her will, by her honour, by her discipline. A wandering swordswoman who seeks out a master so that she can control the monster within. Her presence often brings tragedy, but that is not her intent; the thorns of love that that dragon-blooded swordsman left in her prick her still.
"Then why serve these foxes?"
Her face twists in a sneer. "They got me drunk," she says.
Of course, Ukt Ghulah wants you to believe she is the fallen spirit of mad wyldfires. Maybe she is. Maybe she isn't. But it is a story she wants to tell about herself, a once-pure being fallen to corruption and foulness, who finds purpose again in discipline and duty.
So yes, fox trickster spirits could get such a being drunk easily, because her nature is one torn between bestial indulgence and fragile honour. And if there is one thing that fox spirits like doing, it is tempting the virtuous and tricking the temperate.
"You must hate them."
"Yes."
"So you are looking to escape this life as an enforcer for a fae trap."
"Yes." Her eyes narrow.
"Could you not free yourself?"
"It was not time. And you are a dragon-child. You can teach me the wickedness of the ways I have fallen into. I have done it before. So I will no longer be bound to the wine they give me and the bones of their victims."
Ha. Yes. Such a tricksy little mind. Smarter than your Blue. "So you will swear to serve me."
"No."
"No?"
"We are allies in this. I may seek out a new master. See what other dragon-children are here. If your story does not satisfy me." She licks her thin lips. "Our accord; I take one, you take the other. You take what treasures do not melt away; I eat them."
That draws a chuckle from you, and you wrench yourself free of her mind-veiling, drawing a flinch from her. "You have not seen the current state of Cahzor," you tell her. "There will be no worthier dragonchild to serve here. But I am not someone who would stop an honourable warrior who seeks a better master than I even if it is a fool's errand," you blatantly lie. "Just judge me fairly, Ukt Ghulah."
She huffs, as if you have just passed a test. "Which do you want? Silk-and-Eye is weaker, but he celebrates with his kin. He will be in the bathhouse the foxes keep for themselves. Dae is a solitary one, with more power, but he does not like company in his warren. Not where he keeps his trophies. And the bones. He is king under the city, and I believe he has as much contempt for the other foxes as I have."
"He is a man-eater?"
"Yes."
"A Northern one?"
"He is not from here. I do not know where he entered Shape."
You purse your lips. "How many kin does Silk-and-Eye have?"
"Many wisps; a pack of fox-hobs. He is their prince."
Neither option sounds wonderful. A trickster fox surrounded by his kin would be… well, he might go down in a fair fight, but trying to get that fair fight will be a bitch and a half. And a lone, arrogant man-eater in his warren? A killer.
You'll need to put some work into this and get more information from this taciturn lady. Definitely not something for tonight, you think under Luna's half-averted face.
Then again, you could always betray her. Though that might end up with you fighting
her instead.
This is a major decision point which will have irrevocable consequences.
Who do you take?
[ ] Redtail Dae. The proud, solitary man-eater who lurks under the city in the lowest warren among his treasures. To wander into the den of such a creature and trick or defeat them would not be easy, but you have done it before.
[ ] Silk-and-Eye. The smiling, playful prince of foxes who revels with his kin in decadence. It will take all your wit and whim to confront him and eke out a victory, but this wouldn't be the first trickster you've played for a fool.
[ ] Betray Her. It's not your problem, but this fool has just given you material on her. Pretend that you're not interested, and then the first chance you get, take it to the other two. And try not to get stabbed by her.