The guards looked at each other knowingly as I passed them. The urge to set them on fire was a hard one to resist, but I managed it, barely. Queen Karina was worse than I thought, not in bed, but as a human being. Actually, she was damn good in bed, the only problem was that I hated her guts.
I did not understand politics very well it turns out. I thought I had a decent grasp on it, and I thought wrong, because Queen Karina turned out to be the key to holding the alliance together, and she knew it. Every time I needed to make the various countries play nice and continue to support the front, she asked for the same payment in return.
Honestly, I wondered how her husband had not noticed this, because at this point everyone in noble society was aware that I had basically become Karina’s plaything. In fact, I had a meeting with him tomorrow regarding troop deployments, a meeting that would no doubt fall apart if I didn’t show up to the Queen’s room tonight.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Karina smiled coyly.
“You can drop the act you know,” I scowled. “I am the only other person here, and you were the one who ‘requested’ I come here.”
Karina laughed and pulled me towards the bed where I spent another night focusing on not blowing the entire castle up around me out of sheer rage.
The next morning, the meeting with the King was not much better. A nice person might describe Karina as ravenous, I would call her a slut, but the result was the same. I had barely got any sleep that night, and was barely awake.
The King, a polite person even if we did not particularly get along, was kind enough to pour me a cup of tea, made from an herb whose name I could never quite remember, but was popular with nobles as it helped them wake up in the morning.
“I have arranged transport for you and the weapons for this afternoon.” The King’s words surprised me, I had expected to have to argue to get them sent today. “My wife was recently imploring me to take better care of our troops on the front, and she usually gets her way.”
“I understand,” I nodded sympathetically, the bitch got her way far too often if you asked me. “I know that you do not particularly like sending your resources north, but it is greatly appreciated.”
I gave a seated half bow as a way to show my thanks and the conversation continued for a little while longer before it was time for me to leave. On the way out, I thought that some of the guards looked familiar… Well, considering how often I had been forced to come here, that was not surprising.
The trip north was an uneventful one, so I took the opportunity to catch up on my sleep. It was either that or stew in anger over my situation. I wanted to have fun in this world, not be blackmailed into servicing someone I hated! And for that matter, it was not fair that she was pretty and good in bed as well, that just made the whole situation more shameful and degrading.
I woke up to screams and fighting, I was bleary for a second then opened the door to my carriage and stumbled out. I must be more tired than I realized… But wait… Why?
“Mantis Demons!” A guard screamed, before he was cut in half by the barbed claws and gobbled up by the monsters.
“Watch out for the scythes!” I shouted as I threw one of them off the cliff with a blast of air, we must have entered the mountains while I was asleep. “And don’t forget their jaws! Those rows of teeth are poisoned!”
What the hell were they doing this far south? The front line should be impermeable! My head pounded, I had barely gotten any rest, but I growled and pushed through.
There were a large number of Mantis Demons, so named because they reminded one of the insect, and the caravan guards were not well equipped to deal with them. To make matters worse, they were accompanied by Crawlers. If Mantis Demons reminded someone of the mantis insect, Crawlers reminded one of centipedes, only they were about the same size as a carriage with a team of six horses and armored more heavily than a knight was.
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And I even saw a Titan, a giant, humanoid demon that looked like it was carved from rock. That definitely should not be here, I thought. Mantis and Crawlers were at least fast, but Titans lumbered around slowly and were extremely easy to spot because of their massive size.
A nearby Crawler tried to bite me, but I created a shield just in time. I was far too distracted, I cursed Karina from the depths of my heart for putting me in this situation with a headache and only a couple hours of sleep.
The Crawler was not discouraged by the shield, but instead began to wrap itself around me in an attempt to crush me. Against others, that might work, but not against me. I shifted my shield to form spikes and sharp edges and the Crawler came apart in pieces around me. Then, I broke my shield down into blades and sent it flying through the enemies nearby.
I really needed to teach my students how to do this kind of thing, but there was never time. And for fucks sake my head pounded! I nearly lost my balance for a second, but managed to right myself.
I continued to fight, but the demons just kept coming. To make matters worse, I was now convinced that something was wrong with me. The world was spinning, and I could barely fire off my magic. The guards around me noticed something was wrong as well and their morale collapsed, many ran off screaming only to be devoured by Crawlers coming around behind the caravan.
I didn’t remember falling, but I was on my hands and knees puking. This… Someone planned this… I was not sick, I was poisoned… Someone must have let the demons through the lines… In my hazy mind, one face rose to the top.
The King had poured my drink himself. He must have found out about his wife’s affair with me and decided to kill me for it! Kill me instead of his blackmailing whore of a wife!
The soldiers were all dead, and I was surrounded by demons, but I would be damned if I died without a fight. No, if I am going, I will take you all with me!
I screamed at the top of my lungs and drew all the power I could inside me and compressed it down. As the demons approached I smiled blearly at them, “I will see all of you in hell!”
Next thing I knew I was standing on a small stone floor, surrounded by absolute darkness. This place looked familiar to me…
“So I see you have passed on,” a dry voice behind me drawled. Oh fuck me, I knew where this was!
“Why the hell am I here Gorn?” I snarled, there was no way I would be stuck for eternity with him of all people! Our one meeting two years had been a confusing waste of time until I had poured my magic into the orb, and all that had done was take the confusion away and leave it as a waste of my time.
“Don’t look at me like that!” He held his hands up as if to say, don’t blame me! But I did, and if he wasn’t dead I would kill him right now. “It was not my choice to come here, or bring you here.”
“You made that orb!” I countered, the orb brought those who touched it here in spirit, so he had to know where he would end up.
“Yes, because I thought that this might happen.” Gorn sighed, “We cannot truly die in this world, because it isn’t our own.”
“Explain, because I just blew myself up along with probably a good chunk of a mountain range, and that would make me dead.” I crossed my arms and glared at him.
“Your body is dead, but you are not.” Gorn replied, “Souls flow from the spirit, to the world, to the aether and back to the spirit. It is more complicated than that, but I don’t think you care.”
“You are right, I don’t.”
“A soul must go through the aether to the spirit, but it must go through the aether of the world it was born into.” Gorn, gestured to the darkness around them. “To us, the aether of this world is an impenetrable darkness. Our bodies may perish, but our souls cannot continue on.”
“So I am stuck here, with you, for eternity.” What did I do to end up in this hell?
“Perhaps. That I don’t know.”
“Well I sincerely hope it is a no, or I will be a gibbering madwoman by the time the next hero comes around!” I shriek, losing my temper.
“How is that different from how you are now?” Gorn muttered.
“Oh fuck you.”