L. Blackest Betrayal
You think about this difficult decision for a bit, but swiftly get bored. It's a hard decision, with potentially a monumental impact on your life, and you just don't feel like it when you're sore and aching. There are more interesting things around, like watching the little wrinkles on Zed's brow as he reads at the table and the way the movements of his eyes pull and push on his laugh lines.
Well, the decision for what to do with Zed can wait for later. There are more important things to think about, like what to do with Zed. For you have been entertaining carnal ambitions upon that floppy-haired, swimmer's-build, poetic god since you saw him, and the fact that you don't trust him doesn't affect your intentions at all.
After all, if you only slept with people you trusted, you might as well become a nun. That'd result in you getting about the same amount of action.
"I think we had a productive day today," you say lightly, nudging your spoon around your empty bowl. "Two elements of an ancient ward taken down in just a day."
Zed smiles at you, and on a face so well accustomed to pensiveness and dark thoughts, it adds a levity and brightness that you haven't seen before. His eyebrows rise, pulling his cheeks into little dimples, and those dark starry eyes are creased with merriment. "It was. You did exceptionally well. I could not have believed so much could be done in so little time."
Since he's being so nice and smiling for you, you call your blood to the fore and favour him with one of your best. One of your former husbands observed that you could be covered in mud after riding in the hills all day, but when you smiled like that it was like you were a lady at court. "It's lovely to hear you say that," you say, letting a little note of huskiness creep into your voice. "You're too kind."
The statement implies an answer, and he obliges. "Not at all. Would you prefer I lie to make you feel worse?"
"Well, that'd be just awful." Your foot so accidentally brushes against his. "No one likes feeling bad, do they? Not when they can feel good."
He looks you in the eye and goes off script. "The man who rides a tiger should ask why he got on in the first place." He'd been doing well at not dropping aphorisms and metaphors!
"My my," you say, leaning forwards. "Am I your tiger?" Questions about riding remain, for the moment, wholly unspoken. Even if they linger in the air.
"A maneater, certainly," Zed says. "Which is why I will be keeping my distance, at least for now. One may be able to escape from a dragon's jaws, but it is better to not put that to the test."
"Oh, come on," you say, controlling your irritation at how he's a clever little dick who's too smart by half. "I don't bite."
"I," he pauses,perhaps for dramatic effect, "find that hard to believe. I have spent a long time in Cahzor, sorceress, and I know your type. And perhaps I mischaracterise you and for that I apologise, but dragon-children are driven by their passions which leads them on intemperate paths. For the moment, you are my ally, and I would rather keep our interactions on those terms rather than bring in the complication of a more physical relationship."
You could say more - and you want to - but you have your pride and in no way want to come across as desperate. You wanted a closer hold on him through a - ahem - closer hold on him, but clearly he has other plans. It's not that he's not interested in the female form, because you can follow the lingering gazes and he is watching you. It's just that he isn't playing along.
Well. Harumph, you say (albeit in the silence of your head, because you don't want that
bastard to see he's irked you). Harumph. If he doesn't have the good taste to reciprocate your advances, when you just wanted a handsome man to comfort you, well… he didn't deserve you anyway!
There is a voice in your head that sounds a lot like Sei. It is pointing out all kinds of nasty things vis a vis taking things poorly and such like. It's wrong, of course. No, what this has shown is that you were right to suspect him, because he's trying to keep you at arm's length despite his obvious attraction to you.
You can't even sulk in your room, drinking wine along with your pet cat. Because you don't have a room, or really any wine left. What you can do is check your mild frostbite, re-do your bandages, and then draw on your training in Graceful Willow to focus yourself around the vegetation in this divine realm. It helps take the edge off the pain, and will - as long as you keep it up - help the speed of the healing.
Then there's nothing more for you to do other than sleep. Look at you, so sleepy. So tired. Just a hurt woman who could be in the bed of a certain man but isn't who's trying to get her rest. Dum de dum.
It's dark and quiet here. And so in the unnaturally still air, you can feel the movements of the air and hear the little steps of a soft-footed man trying to sneak past you. You don't open your eyes, or respond. And - ah, there's the sound of the sanctum portal. Opening one eye a crack, you catch the iris-silhouette of Zed leaving this place and the door closes behind him.
"Daring of him," Sei observes. "He must really want to be somewhere." The white shape in the gloom washes one of his ears with a paw. "Don't worry. It's not that you're an undesirable old hag. He just wanted to creep out in the middle of the night without having to extract himself from whatever sweaty embrace you had him locked in."
"Mmm."
"Honestly, sneaking off like this is just showing us both that he's a cad. A gentleman wouldn't steal your trick of sneaking off like this."
"Do you mind?" you mutter, packing some of your bags under the cover so it'll look like you're still sleeping here if he happens to return before you can get back to bed.
"No, of course not." Sei's smile gleams like the crescent moon for a moment. "That's why I'm providing this commentary free of charge. So you decided to ruffle through his baggage to see if there's anything compromising."
"I don't trust him."
"And it's not that you're in a snit because he wouldn't lie with you."
"Sei," you say, pinching the bridge of your nose. "You yourself spent a considerable amount of effort pointing out why I should suspect this god. Why are you acting like this is some… some flippant act of a spurned suitor?"
Sei doesn't answer. Because of course he can't. He's just saying this because he's trying to get on your nerves through spurious and inaccurate observations.
Recovering your lantern, you light it and then adjust the shutters so only one side is open. You should be able to close them quickly enough if you have to. The ambience of this place is different here without Zed. Maybe it's the scratching noises coming from behind the chained-up door, reminding you that you're not alone here. Or maybe it's just the slight change in the atmosphere from the master of this sanctum not being present. A powerful spirit bleeds something of its nature into a place like this, and in a very real sense it beats to his heartbeat. Without him here, it feels more… watchful. Wary.
You're almost silent in your stockings on the stone, shushing your way through the stepped books and paper. You're not wandering all at random, oh no. The same trick you used in Zia's library only a few weeks ago also works here. This might be a divine place, but dust still gathers. There are no lesser house-gods to clean. And even a god won't be constantly referencing these books. The patterns of dust will point you to what Zed considers interesting and useful.
His footprints are your path. Carefully you place your smaller feet within his larger footsteps. And here you find a place he clearly paced up and down for a bit, checking several books in the stacked piles. There's fingerprints on the dusty covers. You ease the first one out of its place, letting it fall open where it will.
This one is a map of a city. It's annotated in archaic Earthtongue, older even than calcified High Realm, but you can just about read it because at this point it's so archaic that your understanding of Old Realm allows you to make out the gist. "The… something of the setting sun," you read. The characters in the word you don't recognise have a possessive in them, so it's a word constructed from… wait, that looks a bit like an archaic word for 'high priest'. So it's something like 'the high priest-dom of the setting sun'. Urgh. Sun-cultists.
Pursing your lips, you trace the path of the river through the broad river valley. No, for a moment you thought this could be Cahzor, but there's no dam and no statues, and the city here is surrounded by forests on the slopes of the valley. Which means it's either Cahzor, or the map is so ancient that there's unlikely to be anything useful on it.
You put it aside, and continue your search for ancient knowledge. Or new knowledge. Juicy deets on what Zed's deal is. You'll settle for any of the above.
The next book has clearly seen heavy usage because the binding is cracked and the pages thumbed, but it's not useful. Pursing your lips, you trace your fingers over the characters. You don't know them. More than that, you don't think you've ever seen them before. And that's not right. You can't speak Woodtongue but you can still recognise the writing system used by Eastern savages for their barbarian tongues. This isn't Woodtongue, or any other script you know.
Next one. Another unfamiliar language. And worse, it's a different and
also unfamiliar script.
"Maybe he has a thing for cryptography and ciphers," you remark to Sei.
"Or the Elemi," your familiar says.
"No. They're written in demon skin, in the same hand," you say confidently. Your gesture takes in the wall of books done in a similar style of hand bound leather. "He has been writing for a long, long time."
"Or demon scribes are writing for him," Sei points out.
"Also possible," you concede, pulling a map out from where it's tucked. It is really a beautiful work, and for a moment you wonder where in this place he found such pretty colours in this dump.
But only for a moment. Because while you thought it was a map of the world, as you look at it in more detail, things don't line up. The writing is some degenerate form of Low Realm, but you think you can sound out some of the names. "Me-ru-vi-a." A peculiar alternate name for the Realm, but you could see why some language might name it for the Imperial Mountain. But why does it mark the Scavenger Lands as the 'U-E-S' - and why does it depict An Teng as ruling the South West as far down as the Hook and north beyond Buk Moi? In fact, now that you look more closely, none of the borders are how things should be.
There is also no Cahzor on this map. On the other hand, there's also no suspiciously circular lake at its location, so it's probably that he couldn't be bothered to draw this dried-up dustbowl on the map.
"Why is nothing written in modern… modern Firetongue?" you exclaim irritably. It's an expression of discontent, but putting it into words helps shape your problem. The few things you can understand are incredibly ancient, or use unfamiliar languages. And that in itself is strange, because you might not be some hoity-toity Heptagram-educated scholar, but you're widely read and a polyglot. It could just be that Zed is a very old god, as he implies - but then you'd expect there to be more of the old things in things like archaic Earthtongue and Old Realm.
There is no response from Sei. He's vanished again, gone off to wherever he goes when he's not being an asshole to you.
Moonlight lances down through the ceiling as you follow the footsteps into a new room. There's no wandering here, no diversions - Zed knew where he was going, and that was to a big solid hardwood cabinet that had to have come from elsewhere in the ruins. You examine it in the lanternlight, and it really is very nicely done. It's well constructed, and the lock and hinges are both concealed behind protective metal shields that stop someone from just cutting away those weak spots.
"Well, well, well. I wonder what's in here," you murmur. "Something you like to look at, Zed. Something that you look at when you ignore all the other books in here. Something you felt you had to lock up."
Unfortunately, you can't do a gods-damned thing. Normally, you'd be able to at least try to pick this lock, but your hands are a mess right now. You can hold books with the bandages on, but picking locks requires finesse and delicacy and small, precise movements. In your irritation, you try the handle, and the door swings open.
"Oh."
"The question," Sei says from atop the cabinet, dipping his head back down into the light, "is whether he just forgot to lock it, whether he lost the key so left it unlocked, or whether it's a trap to lure you in?"
You had been considering all three possibilities, yes. Something twitches inside the cabinet, and you flinch back, holding your lantern up as a shield. There is something in the air. Something in the corners of the room outside the thin wedge of light from the lantern. Something tensely oppressive in the air. And the scurrying in the corners is never where the light is.
If only you could say that it was just nerves. But it isn't. You shine your lantern into the cabinet, and now you can see the mad array of phantasmal flowers growing here. But these flowers are not the random assortment of flowers that marks chaos. This bouquet is one made up of many little clusters. Brassy-leaved vines of gold with bright green flowers. Sky-blue desert blossoms. Viciously-barbed roses in red and white. Beautifully elegant blooms in dark shades. The grey heather and gorse you've seen outside. Fragments of a strange and perverse order.
"So it is them," Sei hisses, tail lashing in agitation.
"Hell," you whisper, taking the nearest book.
The Broken-Winged Crane, 043, you read. You feel sick. You know of this book, even though you are not a demonologist. The cursed tome of infernalists, offering power at the price of slavery to the vile demon kings. It is said that merely reading it can open a gate to Hell that seeks to snatch up the reader. You wouldn't know, because you've never even seen a copy of it before. The Immaculate Order seeks to destroy copies wherever they're found. Certain infernalists of your acquaintance have mentioned that every copy is different in some way.
And next to it? The Broken-Winged Crane 044. You skim over the spines of the books in this cabinet. 045, 046, 047 heading one way - and the other way is 042 and 041.
They are all in the same hand. Zed has written all these books on demon skin. This is the act of a collector. Maybe the Elemi collected them first, but he's been copying them out.
"I do not like this," Sei says, voice low and serious. "I can taste them on the air." His eyes flicker from side to side, tracing the writhing shadows. "There are so many copies of that evil book here that the Things That Dwell In Corners have woken."
"I don't like this either," you say, putting the book back. Your skin crawls and you wish you could clean it off. "Sei. We need to go."
"Getting out of here? Good idea!"
"I wish we could," you say, closing the cabinet behind you and retracing your steps back. "But I need to check the chained up door."
"Why?"
"Because this has narrowed things down for me," you say, the lantern dancing in your hand. "Either there's not really a demon lord in there because Zed is already corrupted and that means there's a powerful demon out there. Which means I'll also need to watch out for them."
"Not good," Sei agreed. "Or?"
"Or Zed was the demon lord all along, and he's found a way of fooling the language of flowers. In which case it probably means the god he's replaced is trapped there. And I'll be damned if I'm leaving here without
something nice."
Of course, you don't get nice things. The world has it in for you. What have you done to deserve the cruelty and viciousness it throws in your path? You don't know. But the cruelty of the gods and nature itself means that the door to the outside world is open when you get back.
"Betrayal is a seed; the mind is fertile soil," Zed says, leaning against the chained-up door. His umbrella is in one hand, a little pocket book in the others. "Welcome, my rose."
Your hand was already resting on one of the short swords at your hip, so you don't twitch. But every muscle goes so tight it hurts. Your chest feels like someone is standing on it. And Sei, of course, has vanished. "Zed," you say politely. "Are you going to say that you're disappointed in me?"
"Of course not," he says. "Why would I be disappointed in a viper for doing what is in her nature?"
You swallow, wetting your lips. "What is your nature, then?"
He shrugs lazily, and taps his umbrella on the ground twice. You can taste the shift in the air - and if the shadows around the cabinet had moved in an uncanny way, now everything outside your lantern's beam of light is squirming. You don't need to call on your arcane sight to know that the air is thick with grey gorse and brambles and ever-shifting thistles.
Zed is watching you, and his lips curl up in a quiet, pleased smile. "But you'd worked that out already."
"I wasn't quite sure. I wasn't sure whether you were the demon lord, or had merely been corrupted by your captive."
He inclines his head to you. "Always possible, I suppose. But no. Jarida Dal was a tool of my imprisonment, and inverting the terms of our relationship was quite satisfying." He rests his umbrella on his shoulder, spinning it. "And I suppose we need to talk about the terms of our relationship going forwards, too."
"You still need me," you point out, gripping the hilt of your blade.
"No, you are mistaken. I don't."
A hand clenches around your stomach. "You're in no position to renegotiate. I'm the only one who can free you."
"You are bluffing with no tiles in your hand." The stars twirl in his dark eyes. "You've shown me that I can whittle down the spellwall by throwing serfs at it. It might not get me free tomorrow, but I have nothing but time.
"But of course, I don't have to wait that long. Because there are men outside, and they will be amenable to my offers. I can be a wise benevolent god or the demon lord who offers them the power they deserve. It doesn't really matter. So you see, Rena, your position isn't what you think it is.
The world lurches. "Th-that's not my name!"
He flips the book open. "You know, there was some uncertainty among the future historians. Your presence here is recorded in most of the histories, but your role here is greatly disputed. However, Gai Oram Palapsi, writing in 'Thie Incunft thes Coneten' - that'd be 'The Arrival of the Comet', translated back into late Second Age Airtongue - writes as follows…"
"Are… are you seriously expecting me to believe that you're from the future?" you bluster.
"No, no, of course not." His brows furrow. "To travel through time in such a way is impossible. But music sung this world into being, Rena. I was there. I heard the start of the melody - and it is in the nature of music that the start implies the end. One need only listen in the right way, and one can make out the as-yet unwritten chords that describe the future histories of this time."
"This is nonsense," you say, more hotly than perhaps you intended. "The future is not written!"
"It is… and written here." He glances down at the book. "Gai Oram Palapsi will write a history of the end of Cahzor mid-way through the third age, and he will remember you. Is that not something you can take satisfaction in? That half an age from now, you will appear in a minor role in a history book, as a foolish sorceress who fled the north for her crimes, who was then deceived by a demon lord and released him from his imprisonment. Some of the other histories misunderstood your role here, but I have found Gai Oram Palapsi to be very accurate. He even correctly recorded the season of your arrival. Is it not good that you are remembered?"
"Why would I think that is good?" you demand.
"Because you will be remembered half an age from now. It is more than nearly every human has ever lived."
"And I suppose you will now ask if I want to change that future?" you ask sourly. "That if I swear myself to you, you will make sure they remember me as - ha - a dark empress? That I might be damned, but at least I will be remembered as more than a foolish woman?"
"No." Zed taps his forehead with the book. "Rena, haven't you been listening? It has already been written. It will happen. And I will not promise you anything. You can't change history."
It's not even the betrayal that makes you most furious - though it certainly gnaws at you, to be used like this. It is the superior manner of this cryptic demon lord who thinks that he can chain you to… to what? A history not-yet-written? That's bullshit! Even if this book will be written, historians lie! Historians are mistaken! Historians twist things based on what makes a better story! You wrote a history of early Cherak once to flatter the Kuhon family because you needed their support in the council, and you completely twisted the role of Ferem Kuhon Holo to make him look more than a vacillating weasel of a man! And people bought it!
"Are you so sure?" you ask.
"Of course you reject your fate," Zed says, shaking his head. "Your crimes tell me that this is a thing you do. But you can't change this. Nor anything else that will happen now that I am freed."
"If it is written, I suppose you're just going to let me go, then," you try, clinging to your self-preservation in the face of your anger. Though you have virpurative words for him, you bite back what you really want to say. "I'll just take my jade and be on my way! Given I can't actually stop you."
"Do you really think that will work?" Zed asks, tilting his head in an amused manner.
"It might!"
"No. It won't."
You close your eyes in apparent resignation. Your lips move as you whisper Sei's true name. When you open them again, they are alight with the peacock's feather-patterns. "Oh, Zed," you say, "I know you've just been playing with me. I'm no longer useful to you right now, but I could be useful to make… things happen in the future. Wouldn't it be better for you to let me go with my payment, rather than-"
"Rena. Stop that. You're embarrassing yourself."
His eyes are reflecting the light of the peacock feathers, but his mind has not been captured. Stupid strong-willed asshole. You screw your eyes shut, blinking away tears. That utter bastard. You can't even fight him properly because your hands are still hurting from what you did for him. This is embarrassing. More than that, it's humiliating.
Then in a smooth motion, you draw your blade, holding it in a serpent's reverse grip. "Well, if you're going to kill me, try!" you growl, your guard dancing in front of him.
It isn't much of a fight. You wish it was one. But he's faster than you, and stronger, and for all that an umbrella is a fucking stupid weapon, it doesn't stop him from wielding it like a club. He cracks it against your elbow and your sword goes flying, he winds you with a palm strike, and in a smooth motion he has the handle hooked around your knee and you go down.
With a crack, the handle impacts against the side of your temple.
"Shh, shh," Zed murmurs, holding your head close to his mouth as your world greys out. "It is not your time to die yet. There are deeds for you yet, dragon-child. They are written."
You want to tell him to go fuck himself with his own umbrella, but you're somewhat hampered in this by your winded state. You make a valiant effort of it, though.
And in the black waters of unconsciousness - kin to Lethe - you cannot help but dream. Dream, detached from time.
What does Rena dream of?
[ ] … the winds off the northern hills, the ringing of the prayer chimes...
[ ] … fresh salty sea air, the spray of freezing water...
[ ] … loam and the smell of pine needles, the barking of hounds…
[ ] … the weight of the ancient stone above you, so curiously patterned...
[ ] … brightness and light, a ball so long ago now...
