3.4
Jewel stared at the thing before her.
It had been brought chained and shackled. Heavy iron holding arms behind its back and hobbling its legs. An effort to restrain which Jewel had never seen needed even with strong men and Jaksa the Red was still having to murmur the silent words of sorcery.
All to keep the thing restrained and in place.
And all of that was definitely necessary, because despite the iron and constant bindings of sorcerous intent anchored in its very flesh, the thing still managed to writhe, struggle and attempt to pull free.
Jewel, for herself, could only stare.
She’d noticed it as it was being brought down the hallway. The feel of the thing was foreign and unignorable.
Men and Women left a scent always.
They rotted when dead.
Even while alive, their bodies hummed and buzzed with the world.
The thing that stood there, writhing, barely contained in front of the bemused Elizabeth Bathory, the High King of Cantor, Jewel and the closest, most trusted martial lords of Viznove did not smell.
It sucked at the air, it spoke (very poorly), but its exhales were shorter than they should be, rushed and muddled with the straining meat that wanted to keep drawing in air.
The thing stared at them all.
Sliding its gaze from left to right, body shifting with strained taut muscles even as the Wizard of Blood riddled it with sorcery.
Jewel knew that unprotected men stronger than her Father could not even blink under the bonds that were constantly being applied to this thing that, for most appearances, was a very thin slip of a girl.
Pale red hair, mostly pale skin.
A bit gaunt in the face, improperly fed by all appearances.
If this was one of Jewel’s subjects that looked so malnourished, the wyrm would have offered her porridge and warm milk on sight in hopes of filling out the hollowness of her cheeks.
But this thing was no woman.
It had no scent, and it was not breathing. It sucked air but Jewel had seen breathing; the trees and grain breathed ever so slowly.
But all that the aberration before her did was suck air.
A stone had more odor than this thing. A tree had more life to it.
And the longer it stood there before them, the more Jewel could feel that it was not merely air it was drawing in.
It left a weakening and languid quality to the winds that it pulled past its teeth.
The very fire of the world was doused low and left guttering after it passed that thing’s lips.
It sucked air, took in the humming life within and then gave nothing back.
The High King spoke to the Countess Bathory.
“And you have been making these since you were five?”
Jewel wished she was surprised to find out that among her many horrible qualities, her liege made such monstrosities.
The Countess was smiling in a way that meant nothing good for anyone. But it was Jaksa the Red that answered.
“Not as such, the first one occurred when the Countess was twelve. Five footmen and thirteen ladies perished before it was slain. At the time I did not know the signs that preceded the condition. And it had hidden itself amongst the usual subjects.”
King Mathias was leaning closer to the thing over the one table left in the feasting hall with a keen interest, but still well away from the monstrosity. For its part, it was looking back at him, lips fluttering over words that Jewel was certain only she could hear (maybe Jaksa as well).
Neverending words.
“Morepleasepleasepleasemoremoresohungrysocoldmoremore”
On and on it whispered, begged, cried.
Oh so softly, in every breath. In every glance there was only one thing about it.
Hunger.
Finally the thing found the strength or coordination needed to press and squeeze its throat to utter sound greater than a whisper. To raise its voice into audibility for those without dragon ears.
“Mhoar”
The High King Mathias had a bright glint to his eyes.
“So they can be slain then? Some of the restless dead I’m told cannot.”
Jaksa the Red, Blood Wizard of the Countess of Viznove nodded.
“If you know the manner of it? Yes. The heart is the key. Strikes to the stomach, head, eyes, lungs and in one case even full decapitation have not fully stilled the afflicted. But a strike through the heart will slay them as surely as any living creature.”
Mathias considered the thing and nodded.
“I presume they are all as feral and beastly as this one?”
The Countess laughed and shook her head.
“Hardly, my poor soft hearted Jaksa tried to rehabilitate them, at first.”
For the first time since she met the two of them, the Blood Wizard made even a hint of disagreement with his Liege. It was barely a shift of discomfort and the start of a furrowed brow. But it was dissent, which seemed to make Bathory smile all the wider.
“Oh I apologize Jaksa, He is still trying to cure them. Their sense can be restored quite easily after a fashion. They just need to be fed. But it is better that you don’t.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Jewel did not want to be here, she did not want to be seeing this thing. She did not want to hear the Countess talk about what they were, how they acted or for anyone to be so keenly interested as the High King was.
She wanted desperately to lay Wyrmflame upon the terrible thing that sucked the vigor out of the air itself.
“Better if I don’t, my Vassal?”
The Countess nodded. Jewel could tell she didn't even acknowledge whatever this horrible monstrosity before them even was. No Consequence at all.
“The cost is prohibitive, it takes three or four men to bring them entirely out of the fugue and after they have no loyalty, love or passion to drive them but one.”
She frowned a little, as if in annoyance.
“They have no means of control of any kind you can impose on them even when fully restored to their ability of speech and thought.”
The thing suddenly lunged — Jaksa’s bindings had faltered for only a moment, the hobbles being far less of an impediment than Jewel though they should be.
With its legs bound together, it simply used both as a single limb to hurl itself through the air.
It landed on its stomach and face, but was already twisting to get its feet to the floor again. Not even righting itself, using its head as just another limb to push up and prime for another bound.
All of that after leaping halfway to the high table which contained its audience of nobility.
However, the lapse in concentration from the Wizard was gone.
Jaksa muttered furiously into the sorcery and the thing was dragged by its own flesh back to the place it had just lept from. Wrenching it upright and mostly still as it had been.
But even under his renewed and vigilant effort to hold it fast by its own limbs, it still could writhe slightly.
Jewel only realized she had reared up and prepared to annihilate it after she was relaxing her neck and swallowing her own wyrmflame back down her gullet.
In fact, that very well might be the real reason she was here.
The Countess seemed not to care at all about the matter, continuing as if there had not even been an interruption.
“They care for but one thing, they act only for it, they think only of it, they respond not to love, wealth, station, honor or family except as a means to satisfy their one desire.”
The countess looked at the thing with an expression that almost was fond.
“Mothers so afflicted have torn the throats from their children once they got them alone. This is after shedding honest seeming tears over their supposed love of them in heartfelt reunions.”
Jewel was aghast, but worst of all was the look on the High King’s face. She expected to find horror or maybe rage there. Even dismay as she could smell wafting off of her Father.
But what she saw and smelled was so much worse.
He did not look horrified.
He only smelled slightly of fear.
His eyes were eager, shining in a way that Jewel was all too familiar. The Countess continued.
“I am of course my liege’s loyal servant. But I must counsel that there is no manner in which I have found to enforce obedience in them. When fed they merely grow more patient but they always will betray you. I assure you if I had found means to command them you would already be quite aware of that fact.”
Mathias the Second, High King of the Realm Cantor Reborn cracked a grin that Jewel did not like at all.
“Oh, of that I am sure Elizabeth, but still I think there is use to be had in such things even as they are. My close consul Count Thurzó tells me the sorcery which eventually produces such as these is one that can be taught?”
Thurzo talked but Jewel could not focus on these words.
The High King wanted this thing, he wanted more of these things. A voice she had believed to lie had said many years ago that the High King would covet Jewel for what she could do.
She’d thought Bathory was a liar and a monster.
But seeing the man now with an abomination that just tried to slay him. A monster that was barely restrained from attacking him even now and yet still he wanted it. To use it as a weapon to wield.
Thurzó was her friend, they had shared letters for years.
He was much like the Wizards in his concern and deep curiosity to the very nature of Wyrms and the world at large. He was thoughtful and considerate and spoke so highly of the king and how he had openly vouched for her position as a recognized lady and countess to be with him.
But there he was speaking up for the High King and discussing this madness with the Countess on the nature of the ritual that would make more of these things.
This was not what she had been hoping for when she had seen that light of camaraderie with the High King at their table in Rochford.
Her neck wanted to crane back, her wings wanted to flare out and encompass all the room.
But she locked down her reaction. He was the Liege of her Liege.
The Liege of her friend Thurzó. Yes, she had fought in a war against him when his will had been unjust but...
Jewel suddenly felt cold.
Not like winter’s bite. At least not the ineffectual gumming that such things had for her Wyrm self. But cold the way little Gem felt it.
A rush of stinging pain and ineffable sapping of something vital.
Like her flame was being doused.
Bathory had rebelled against the High King and claimed it was for justice.
It was possible to do that.
And if her liege could turn against the High King?
Could Jewel do the same?
The hungry terrible thing, which was but one of apparent hundreds held beneath the Keep of Kaeketteh slowly turned its grasping, swallowing eyes to Jewel.
A gaze so empty it could never be filled.