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Chapter 13
Malachite Palace, Lysannum
The rest of the day of Jade's coronation was filled with traditional coronation day activities, such as Jade's First Court, where she heard matters of law that had been escalated to the highest court in the land, over which the monarch alone presided. Some were trivial disputes that had been raised mostly so that the disputants could say that the Queen had heard their case, but some others were genuinely knotty problems with no obvious solutions.
While Jade was holding court, Rodger stood to one side, not wearing his armour but only a suit of well-made court attire. He wasn't even getting his slave to sit on his cock or otherwise distracting her from her tasks. While Jade was confidently dealing with the matters at hand, Biblis appeared at Rodger's left elbow, though he was not surprised.
"Hello, Biblis," Rodger said without turning, having heard her arrive and catching a whiff of her distinctive chemical scent.
"Hello, Rodger," Biblis replied. "Would you like to discuss what happened last time we spoke?"
"You mean those things that I apparently did that upset you so much?"
"Yes," Biblis replied ruefully. "Those things indeed."
"Certainly."
"Could you come to my chambers, then, please. "
Rodger caught Jade's eye, and gestured that he was going with Biblis, to which Jade nodded and returned her attention to her legal matters.
On the way to Biblis' chambers, Biblis began to speak about their last meeting.
"After last time, I got in touch with some other mages to ask them about you," Biblis said. "Once I told them what happened, there was quite a bit of interest in you, actually. So much so, in fact, that there were quite a few bouts of certamen over who would have the right to come meet you."
"Certamen?" Rodger asked.
"A magical competition... non-lethal, of course, but often used by magi to sort out matters of precedence."
"Why would so many magi want to meet me... and why fight for the privilege?"
"I won't mince words here... there are many magi who want you as an apprentice, and each different school of magic wanted to send their best representative... so I understand that they fought for the privilege."
"Apprentice, hmmm?" Rodger mused. "Why would I want to be an apprentice?"
"I thought that you wanted to become a magus?" Biblis asked.
"Yes, I do."
"Well... to do that, you would need to be an apprentice."
"I'm too old to be an apprentice."
"Well... ordinarily you might be right... but exceptions have been made for the right people, and you certainly seem to be one of them."
"I meant that an apprentice is a spotty, subservient teenager at best... and I'm a bit too old and strong-willed to want to go back to doing that sort of thing."
"Oh... well... Why don't you speak to them, and make up your mind afterwards?"
"I must confess that I am intrigued," Rodger admitted.
"Well, you won't have long to wait," Biblis said, gesturing toward her door, at which they had nearly arrived.
As Rodger entered Biblis' spacious chamber, he immediately noticed a large number of strangers.
"Prince Rodger, let me introduce Magister Pyrophilus of the Alchemical Union," Biblis introduced Rodger to a somehow ageless-seeming man with long white hair and a long white beard, who smelled of chemicals and soot.
"This is magus Woodbark, of the Arcadian Scholars," Biblis introduced a lean and wiry scimitar-horned satyr with very brown skin and long brown hair, with a pair of glass lenses perched on his hooked nose.
"This is magus Stellulator of The Astronomers," Biblis introduced a somewhat ageless hunch-backed man with a bald head and a long grey beard and moustaches, who walked with the aid of a stick.
"May I introduce maga Poetica, of the Bardic School," Biblis introduced an attractive, busty older lady with iron-grey hair, who was carrying a harp case on her back.
"As we're going in alphabetical order of school name, the Brotherhood of Talengorth didn't send anyone, mainly because no-one here would have told them, and also because I really doubt that you'd want to be apprentice to a torturer. So, let me move on to Mistress Tesujiko of the Chess Masters," Biblis indicated an attractive mature woman of Sian ancestry, with inky black hair skewered to the top of her head in a seemingly casual but highly attractive manner, who was wearing a pale yellowish-brown kimono with a pattern of thin black grid lines, and a sash with as pattern of black and white squares.
"Here we have maga Phalama of the Disciples of the Ecstatic Union," Biblis introduced a very attractive faun wearing glasses, with silver hair and silvery silk clothing that was opaque but showed off her feminine curves.
"This is Magister Stygmat of the Sagacious Adepts," Biblis introduced a lean, bony old bald man who was wearing a toga-like robe, whose wrinkled skin showed tattoos of mystical symbols and diagrams wherever it was visible, even upon his face and scalp.
"This gentleman is magus Faberius of The Enlightened and Mystical Brotherhood of Enchanters," Biblis introduced a broad-shouldered and broad-faced dwarf wearing delicate-looking decorative plate armour beneath his grey-shot black beard and moustaches that reached down to his waist
"This lady is Magistra Dominette of The Magicians Guild," Biblis introduced an attractive lady who was wearing expensive clothing that wouldn't have been out of place on the streets of Arcandor, the city in which Rodger had been born.
"Here is maga Flomedica of The Merciful and Enlightened Order of Caedan," the lady Biblis introduced was dressed in the white uniform of a doctor of medicine.
"These are maga Dryancilla and her husband, magus Atramento of The Society of the Linked Rings," Biblis introduced a plainly-dressed couple. The golden-haired lady, Dryancilla, seemed young and attractive at first glance, but seemed to have vaguely elvish features and may have been older than she seemed, while Atramento was a muscular, curly-horned satyr with dark brown hair. The two were holding hands as a couple of young lovers might.
"This is magus Dracoros of The Zoologists," Biblis concluded the introductions with an imposing weather-beaten man in faded outdoor clothing with his sun-bleached dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Rodger greeted each of the thirteen magi as Biblis introduced them.
"There are some other magical lineages who didn't send representatives, mostly because they wouldn't be interested in you, or no representatives could be found," Biblis addressed Rodger. "I hope that you will listen to these magi and see whose interests most closely match your own."
Rodger listened to each of the magi as each spoke to him about their particular lineage's speciality. Magister Pyrophilus of the Alchemical Union obviously specialised in alchemy. Magus Woodbark of the Arcadian Scholars shared his lineage's interest in all things to do with the fae. Magus Stellulator of The Astronomers was interested in astronomy, and making his own telescopes, but he also spoke wistfully of one day being able to travel freely beyond Triagia and the worlds that stayed in close proximity to it, such as Etherion or Arcturion, a dream that was impossible at present.
That maga Poetica of the Bardic School was a poet and a musician didn't surprise Rodger at all. Mistress Tesujiko of the Chess Masters explained that despite their name, the Chess Masters focused upon strategy and planning, and used a number of games -- obviously including chess, but also including checkers, go and shogi amongst others -- as a means of training. The Chess Masters practised theurgy, which was using magic to influence the realm of spirits and the divine, and onieromancy, which was using magic to influence dreams.
Rodger thought that maga Phalama of the Disciples of the Ecstatic Union might be rather fun to know, given that the Disciples of the Ecstatic Union focused upon gathering sexual energy to enhance their magic, though they seemed more focused upon partying than improving their knowledge. Magister Stygmat of the Sagacious Adepts explained that his lineage focused upon both academic and magical studies, and the pursuit of arcane mysteries known as The Enigma.
Magus Faberius of The Enlightened and Mystical Brotherhood of Enchanters explained that he and his lineage focused upon making magical items, but unlike many other magi, they didn't just find or commission an item that they would enchant, but also made the item themselves, making them mage-smiths.
Magistra Dominette of The Magicians Guild told Rodger that her guild, that originated in Arcandor but had spread around the worlds, accepted members from any lineage, and protected its members from the encroachment of non-member magi. They also ran a school for apprentice magi in which an apprentice was an apprentice to the school, not just a single magus. This last revelation got Rodger thinking... even as Magister Stygmat tutted disapprovingly in the background.
Maga Flomedica of The Merciful and Enlightened Order of Caedan was a magical doctor, who was obliged by her order to spend part of each year travelling to provide aid to those who needed her services, and had sworn the Oath of Caedan to never cause harm to another.
Maga Dryancilla and magus Atramento of The Society of the Linked Rings told Rodger that their society taught that the arcane marriage of two ungifted but complementary people could allow the married couple to fill the gaps in each-other's gift so that they both became gifted with the ability to use magic. Magus Dracoros of The Zoologists explained that his lineage emphasised the study and imitation of animals mundane and magical, and that they started off being able to transform into one minor beast, and later gained the ability to transform into other, greater beasts, either upgrading an old shape or adding new shapes.
Once he had spoken to all the magi, Rodger thought about his options for a few minutes before he spoke to them. "Thank you all for coming here to see me today. It is a very difficult decision that you have asked me to make, to choose between you, when each of you have a unique perspective. I am an educated man, and my brothers and sisters and I had many teachers as we grew up in the Storm Palace in Arcandor, not consecutively but concurrently. We became accustomed to soliciting the opinions of several of our teachers and we came to realise that each teacher has both strengths and weaknesses, and that together their strengths are combined while each compensates for the weaknesses of their fellows. Given that background, as I told Biblis earlier, I feel that I'm too old to be an apprentice, beholden to a single master to learn from them alone. Instead, I feel that I am a scholar, and I could never be satisfied with a single teacher.
"So, I have a proposition for you all," Rodger continued. "Instead of my becoming an apprentice to one of you, I propose that I establish a Magical University of Lysannum, in which you would all become teachers, and I would be the first student..."
"I can't believe that you have the sheer temerity to suggest such a thing!" Magister Stygmat bellowed instantly, in a voice that seemed far larger than his shrivelled-looking frame. "Where do you get the gall to make suggestions to us, in opposition to centuries of tradition, when you're a mere pup in comparison to the collected centuries of experience here in this room?!" Stygmat placed the tip of his thumb behind his upper incisors and flicked it out again toward Rodger in an archaic gesture of insult.
"You dare bite the thumb at me, sir?!" Rodger roared back at Stygmat, turning to march directly toward him with an impressive scowl upon his face, his powerful fists rising in front of his chest. "All the more when your title 'Magister' can only have been obtained from attendance at an institution of the very type that I am proposing?"
"He's got you there, Stygmat," Magistra Dominette quipped snidely in the background. "I know as well as you that you can only get the title 'Magister' from a university."
Stygmat retreated a step in the face of the much larger Rodger who was approaching with the light of violence in his eyes. "Defendat me a corporis noxa cum scuto virium!" he snapped quickly, his hands making quick arcane gestures. "Do your worst, you overgrown, ignorant oaf!" he taunted Rodger then, with sudden confidence. "If you can strike me, I'll own I was wrong... but if you can't, you'll be my apprentice alone... and suffer the consequences for your temerity!"
"Rodger, No!" Biblis screamed at him from somewhere.
"Gladly!" Rodger growled, ignoring the court maga in his fury, as he drew back his fist to strike the old magus.
Rodger propelled his right fist toward Stygmat's chin with all of his considerable strength and speed, a blow that would have laid any mundane man out upon the floor, but his fist crashed against an invisible barrier a foot from the sneering magus' chin. However, Rodger's fury only grew, and he took another step toward the old magus and leaned into his blow, trying to push his fist through his magical shield. When the old magus laughed at his futile efforts, Rodger also pushed with his mind.
As Rodger pushed with all the might of his mind and muscle against Stygmat's invisible shield of force, a faint red light flickered in front of his fist, with a faint, barely audible buzz, as his fist seemed to vibrate against the shield. The red light became brighter and became orange, then yellow, then white, then took on a faint blue tinge that deepened as the faint buzz became louder and louder, until it sounded like a jackhammer, as Rodger's fist and arm seemed to blur as it vibrated back and forth against the shield, coming closer and closer to Stygmat... then Stygmat's shield collapsed with a flash of light and sound as if a bolt of lightning had struck within the room, leaving everyone dazzled.
The next thing that the temporarily blinded and deafened occupants of Biblis' chamber saw once their vision had recovered was Rodger holding Stygmat by the throat, his feet dangling half a foot from the floor as the scrawny old magus pulled fearfully at Rodger's arm, trying to avoid being hanged by the neck from Rodger's hand.
"You were saying, old man?" Rodger ground out between clenched teeth as he raised his left fist. "Do I need to break your face for you to acknowledge me as the chancellor of the Magical University of Lysannum, in which you now serve at my pleasure?"
"No...! No...!" Stygmat gurgled as he gasped for breath, his feet kicking spastically as they searched vainly for the floor. "I... was... wrong...!"
Rodger released the scrawny old magus, who fell to the floor and collapsed in a heap of skin and bones.
Within moments of hitting the floor, Stygmat sat up and began another spell, but before Rodger could make a move to stop him, the armoured dwarf Faberius had already stepped forward and grasped both of Stygmat's scrawny gesturing hands in one of his own large, powerful hands, stopping his spell.
"Leave off, Stygmat," Faberius said in his bass voice. "Rodger is prepared for spells now, and you won't be able to complete your Incantation of Lightning before he breaks your your concentration and your face... and even if I'm wrong, after what we all just saw him do to your shield, I wouldn't want to risk trying to zap him with one... who knows what the fuck he'd do with it. The way I see it, you tried certamen and you lost. Accept your defeat, and move on as best you can." Faberius released Stygmat's hands and stepped back.
Stygmat looked as if he was going to start another spell, and Rodger prepared himself to stop the old man.
"That wasn't certamen!" Stygmat protested. "It didn't follow the rules..."
"I'll testify to a tribunal that it was, if I have to," Faberius said, then looked around at the other magi watching the drama. "What do you all think? Certamen, or not?"
The majority of the watching magi nodded or said some variety of 'yes', though Pyrophilus, Stellulator, Flomedica and Dominette disagreed.
"There you go, Adept," Faberius said. "The majority of the witnesses say that it was certamen. If you don't abide by the results, the next tribunal will hear about it."
Stygmat slumped in defeat, lowering his poised hands. "Fine!" he spat with poor grace. "I'm the first to become a magister of the Magical University of Lysannum... but what about the rest of you?" Stygmat seemed to take a perverse pleasure in taunting the other magi to join him in his plight.
Dryancilla and Atramento looked at each-other. "We'll join up," Dryancilla said, and Atramento nodded as his wife spoke. "We don't agree that apprentices learn best with only one parens."
"Me too," Dominette said immediately afterwards. "You two beat me to it."
"Oh... I suppose I could be around for the better part of each year," Flomedica said. "I'm sure we could organise something around my peregrinations."
"Count me in... for now," Tesujiko said with a single sharp nod.
"If you don't mind the risk of my experiments blowing the place up from time to time, you can count me in," Pyrophilus said.
"Lysannum is a bit too small and quaint for my taste right now," Poetica said. "Maybe I'll come back when I get tired of the big cities."
"Build me an observatory for a really big telescope, and I'm in," Stellulator said.
Phalama shook her head. "I feel the same way as Poetica... Lysannum's too small for me. Now, if you were going to set up in Secarium, I might consider it."
"Sorry, it has to be Lysannum," Rodger said.
"I could be convinced to agree... if you'll fund a certain number of field trips for me and my students each year," Woodbark mused.
"How many field trips... and where to?" Rodger asked suspiciously.
"Oh... well... we can discuss that," Woodbark said.
"Fine," Rodger replied with a smile. "We can do that later, then."
"I don't know..." Dracoros mused. "Lysannum's a bit too flat and rural for me. I like being somewhere that's up high."
"Hmmm..." Rodger mused, raking through his memory of Tharnirion's geography. "There is The Arch, just upstream of Lysannum," he mentioned the huge, seemingly natural stone archway that bridged the river at the edge of the farmland that encircled the nation's capitol. "It stands more than a mile above the plain... and it would be far enough from Lysannum, but not too far."
"All right, I'm in, then... if that's where you set up," Dracoros replied.
"It's not for me," Faberius said. "I like being close to the ground, and that's a bit too high up for me."
"After all the fuss you made about certamen, you're saying 'No'?" Stygmat asked the muscular dwarf incredulously.
"That's right... I'm saying 'No,'" Faberius confirmed bluntly, though given the subtleties of the dwarf's expression, Rodger had a feeling that Faberius might be up to something sneaky.
"I wonder if Rodger knows that if a magus is challenged to certamen, refusal is an admission of defeat?" Stygmat said with a malicious grin.
"No... I didn't know that," Rodger said, looking carefully at Faberius, who seemed to smile faintly and twitch one eyelid a little lower on the side of his body closer to Rodger. "Right, then... Faberius, I challenge you to certamen, and you're to become a master at my university if you lose."
Faberius gaped in surprise at Rodger, then looked back and forth between him and the grinning Stygmat several times, before he raised his middle finger and gestured rudely at the old magus. "Fuck you, Stygmat, you bloody rules-lawyer," he spat bitterly toward the old man. "Rodger... you win, damn you."
As Rodger looked around the room at Poetica and Phalama, those two ladies each quickly cast a spell -- the same spell given their nearly identical words and gestures -- and both vanished within instants of one-another with dull 'whump's of displaced air.
"What was that all about?" Rodger asked no-one in particular.
"A magus can't be challenged to certamen in their absence," Faberius explained in sour tones. "Poetica and Phalama remembered that in time to get the fuck away from you before you could challenge them.... Unlike me, damn you."
Stygmat cackled maliciously at Faberius.
When the meeting broke up and the remaining magi began to depart, after Stygmat had left, Faberius looked at Rodger and smiled and winked. "You're a perceptive fellow," the dwarf grinned at Rodger. "Now Stygmat will think that he got the better of me, when I was going to say 'yes' all along. It's a pity that it scared off those two magae, though."
Rodger laughed. "I'll have to watch you carefully."
"I'd expect nothing less."
Later that afternoon, Jade attended her first Review of the Guards, in which she examined the nation's immaculately turned out troops, and took their oaths of loyalty, all while leading Rodger around by the leash that attached her slave collar to his wrist. Apparently, the sight of the Queen wearing a slave collar and clothing that left her bountiful feminine assets on display was disconcerting to many of the younger soldiers and some not so young. While none of them embarrassed themselves by breaking formation or speaking, many of the young men, and some of the young women, as well as a few of the older male and female soldiers and sailors, were obviously flushed and aroused by the Queen's erotic display.
Then there was the traditional evening appearance on the palace balcony, where the new Queen made her first address to the nation. Rodger took the opportunity to give Jade a diaphanous, sheer white gown that would highlight her body without concealing it, that he had obtained for the occasion, having been inspired by the costume that the Satyr ambassador's elven slave girl had been wearing. It was evident from Jade's reaction that she was both embarrassed and aroused by being made to wear such a shamelessly erotic outfit on such a public occasion.
When Jade and Rodger stepped back into the palace from the balcony after the queen's very long and busy day, she just collapsed against Rodger as soon as the door to the balcony had been closed, trusting him to catch her. She pulled off her crown and handed it carelessly to Xenia, who was standing nearby. Rodger picked her up and carried her as if she was a child toward their bedroom, followed by Xenia carrying her heavy crown.
"Rodger, the queen would like to know when you will be ready to impregnate me," Jade murmured tiredly as she rested her head against his shoulder, referring to herself as 'the queen' to make it clear that she was asking him in that capacity, not as his slave.
"Jadie," Rodger said affectionately, pausing while he gathered his thoughts. "I've said it before, pregnancy is dangerous, and I don't want to lose you."
"You won't lose me, love," Jade yawned. "You told me that you were worried for me before our wedding, but at my coronation, the Girdle of Alaya showed that I would have 'lots' of children, and the auguries showed that I'll live to the age of three hundred and seventy nine. They're not the results you expect of a woman who will die in child-bed."
"Do you really trust the tests and auguries?" Rodger asked. "They said that you'd reign for twenty-three years and live for three hundred and seventy-nine years. That doesn't exactly seem consistent."
Jade shrugged against her husband-master's chest. "They've been correct for every other monarch. Dad said that his showed that he'd have nine children, live for sixty-one years, and reign for forty-two years, and that was exactly right."
"I thought that you were an only child."
"I'm Dad's only legitimate child, but I have three half-brothers and four half-sisters on the wrong side of the sheets."
"I'm sorry... I've been treating you like a china doll, when you're one of the toughest women I've ever met."
"I know," Jade smiled wanly. "It's cute that you want to look after me, even though I'm a slave."
"So... the queen needs an heir?" Rodger asked.
"Mmm hmm," Jade nodded. "And the slave wants to be your brood-mare, master."
"All right, then, if the queen wants to stop taking birthbane, you may do so," Rodger said. "What about you, Xenia? Do you want to stop taking Birthbane too?"
"You're asking me?" the faun asked from behind Rodger and Jade.
"Yes, I'm asking," Rodger confirmed. "It's been a tiring day for me too, and I can't be bothered playing our usual games right now."
"Well... no. I'm not ready to be a mother just yet," Xenia replied. "Of course, that might change once I get to hold Jadie's babies."
As they approached the royal suite, Xenia trotted ahead and opened the door for Rodger and Jade, and when they had passed, she entered the room and closed it behind them. Rodger carried Jade through the sitting room to the bedroom, and lowered her to stand on the floor beside the bed before he began to remove his court clothes.
By the time Rodger was naked, Jade was standing in front of him, her arms over her breasts, her hands curled almost into fists at the bottom of her throat. Then she let her hands fall to her sides, and the sheer robe that she had been holding to the front of her body fell to the floor, leaving her completely naked.
"Rodger, please... fill me with your little babies!" Jade said in a little-girl voice.
"Gladly," Rodger replied, and took Jade in his arms, though they both knew that it couldn't really happen until the birthbane had left Jade's body.
Rodger kissed Jade's delicious lips as she raised her face to his, not urgently as had often been the case, but gently and lovingly, savouring the feel and taste of her mouth as he took her in his arms and stroked her body. Jade pressed her belly and breasts against Rodger's torso, swaying from side to side so that her beringed nipples dragged across his lightly-furred chest. Even though they were both tired and moving slowly, Jade felt her nipples tighten and her cunt begin to feel heavy as her body tingled with the caresses Rodger was giving her. She gasped when Rodger moved away from her mouth and began to kiss her neck, moving her collar to kiss her most sensitive spot. She moaned when his hands found her breasts and caressed them gently, then took her nipples between his fingers and gently rubbed, squeezed and tugged at them. His mouth moved down her shoulder and chest until it passed over her breast, leaving a trail of kisses as his hands stroked her sides and grasped the narrowest part of her waist. As he squeezed her waist, she reflected that his hands were almost big enough to completely encircle her there... he was only a few inches short of being able to do so. She held his head to her breasts as he lavished attention to her nipples, tugging on her rings with his lips, sucking on her nipples until they tingled, then sweeping his tongue across them.
As Jade's heavy-feeling cunt began to throb in time with the rapid beating of her heart, and she felt a cool breeze between her thighs as a draft wafted across the fluids that had oozed from her pussy, Rodger picked her up and gently lowered her onto the bed. She felt a cold patch on her belly too, where his cock had smeared his pre-cum. Then, as he climbed into the bed above her, she parted her legs to allow him to mount her. As his knees settled between hers and his hands rested on her chest so that he could continue to play with her breasts, he looked down between them as his fluid-slicked cock rubbed up and down across her pussy lips. When it was in the right spot, he pushed forward slowly, and he watched as he entered her. Before he was very far inside her, he raised his head and kissed her on the mouth again, sliding his tongue into her mouth and tasting her tongue again.
Rodger began to thrust slowly, out a little, in a little, making her ache to have all of him inside her, not just the tip of his cock, then after a number of shallow strokes, she moaned as he plunged his cock deep inside her... but he resumed his shallow strokes again, making quite a few of them before he thrust deeply into her and out again twice, making her moan with pleasure again.
Jade silently counted one, two, three, four, five, six shallow, teasing strokes before one, two, three deep, satisfying strokes... then five shallow strokes and four deep... four shallow and five deep... three shallow and six deep... she wrapped her legs around Rodger's backside and pulled him into her, tilting her hips back and forth in time with his thrusts. Two shallow and seven deep, and her moans of pleasure turned into gasps as her orgasm approached, then as he finished one shallow and eight deep thrusts, she cried out as her first orgasm crashed over her. Her arms tightened around Rodger's shoulders and her cunt clenched upon his cock as he continued to thrust into her... nine more deep thrusts, then a pause and eight more and one shallow... seven and two... six and three, and she came again, crying out into Rodger's mouth as his lips and tongue attended to hers. Five shallow and four deep... six and three... seven shallow and two deep, and she felt another orgasm building, but this time, Rodger was panting more harshly above her... by this time, she knew him well, and knew that his own orgasm was approaching. Eight shallow and one deep thrust into her cunt, then he almost stopped as his cock throbbed and he groaned in time with the spasms of his own orgasm as he ejaculated deep inside her. As his cock twitched and his pelvis rubbed against hers, Jade cried out again as she had yet another orgasm.
"Thank you, master," Jade whispered. "I love you."
"Thank you too, slave," Rodger whispered back. "I love you too."
After a long moment, Rodger rolled off Jade to his usual position in the centre of the bed, between his two slaves. Xenia snuggled up against him on one side, while Jade snuggled against his other side.
"You know... I forgot to ask... when I was holding court, I heard a clap of thunder that sounded awfully close," Jade murmured sleepily, her eyes half-closed. "Do you know what that was, master?"
"That was me... and I'm sorry if I interrupted the queen's court," Rodger explained. "Biblis brought some magi to see me so I could pick one to whom I would be an apprentice... but I asked them to all be teachers in a university here in Lysannum. There was a bit of a disagreement between me and one of the magi over that, and I did magic again and overcame his... rather noisily as you heard... and I ended up as chancellor of the university."
"Oh... all right," Jade murmured, her eyes closed now. Then she opened them again. "You did magic again? What was the first time?"
"I hardly noticed the first time. Biblis wanted to know about what happened when you gave me your virgin gift and what I might have received from it, and she cast a spell on me so she could see, and I pushed more of my memories of that day at her than she was prepared for. It seems that I scared her a lot when I did that."
"Oh... poor Biblis," Jade yawned.
"Did you want to know what she found?" Rodger asked.
Jade didn't reply.
"Goodnight, love," Rodger kissed her.
Rodger saw the corner of her mouth twitch into a brief smile in the moonlight coming through the window.
Etherion
The dark-clad messenger rode through the night upon his dark horse across the plains of Etherion, his way illuminated only by the moon and the stars that appeared and disappeared behind the high, thin clouds. It wasn't the first time that he had been called upon to deliver a message urgently and in secrecy, but he wrinkled his nose in disgust as the light wind blew the charnel-house stench from the wooden box that he was carrying behind his saddle to his nostrils.
He asked himself, why couldn't the people who had sent this box of foulness have at least sealed it? It was the right size and shape that it could have contained a human head... and it certainly smelled as if that was what it contained. Between himself and the gods, he had carried severed human heads before... but they had been fresher, or better packed, or both, and he hadn't been forced to smell them all the way from Domus Redux to... wherever this one was going. Still, he had been promised enough money for this journey that a bit of a stink along the way was the least of his worries.
Gods and men all knew that sometimes people had enemies... and when those enemies were rich and powerful enough, a person's head might end up in a box like this, to be taken to their enemy so that they could confirm and gloat over that person's demise. This one had come all the way from Triagia, probably at significant expense -- and time, given the smell -- so the messenger reflected that whoever's head was in the box had very powerful enemies indeed... a very powerful enemy with a very long arm.
The messenger crossed a river, and skirted around a village, careful to stay far enough away that his passage wouldn't attract attention from the farmers' dogs. He headed toward the weasting end of Pthaelensis Bay, toward the village near the neck of Vulture's Head where he expected to deliver his parcel. He reached the northern edge of the village and rode around a large copse of trees nearby until the moon emerged from behind the clouds and he was able to see the narrow trail into it that he had been looking for. He rode along the trail for a couple of minutes until he was blinded by the suddenly revealed light of a shuttered lantern aimed up at him.
"Who's there?" a harsh voice asked from behind the light.
"A messenger with a parcel for the Butcher," the messenger replied, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the bright light.
The light was lowered and adjusted so that it illuminated more of the surrounding area, revealing an ugly, hard-looking, muscular man with short grizzled hair and beard who wore a heavy leather butcher's apron, complete with bloodstains, and a big loose scabbard containing a couple of knives, a cleaver and a sharpening steel.
"I'm the Butcher," the brutal-looking man replied in his deep gravelled voice. "You're right on time," he nodded approvingly. "I like that in a messenger."
The messenger climbed down from his horse and reached up to untie the noisome box from the back of his saddle, and turned to offer it to the Butcher. "Who is this, may I ask?"
"Did you open the box?" the Butcher asked in concerned tones.
"Of course not... but I recognise the smell," the messenger replied. "This wouldn't be the first time that I've carried gruesome tokens such as this."
"Of course," the Butcher smiled, revealing strong yellowed teeth. "All you need to know is that it was someone that my mistress paid a lot of money to have put in that box. I'm sure that you can imagine why." The Butcher took the box by its leather handle with his scarred hand and turned it this way and that in the light of the lantern. "That's all in order," he said, hanging the foul-smelling varnished box from a hook on his broad belt. He reached into his tunic and pulled out a small pouch, which he tossed to the messenger.
The messenger caught the pouch and opened it, examining the contents briefly, pulling out one of the coins at random and biting it before dropping it back inside with a clink, closing the pouch and stashing it away in his own tunic.
"It was good to do business with you," the messenger said, before climbing back onto his horse, reining it around and riding away into the night.
A bit less than two hours later, the Butcher arrived at an old, abandoned mine, its entrance blocked by a heavy timber wall with a strong door. He dismounted his ugly but strong skewbald gelding and unlocked the door with a large warded key, led his horse inside, and locked the door behind him. He led his horse to an illuminated chamber where another, much more attractive, large and expensive glossy-coated dark bay stallion stood, munching oats from a manger. It was the work of a few minutes to unsaddle and unbridle his horse and put it in the makeshift stable, before making his way deeper into the old mine with the stinking box.
The Butcher soon came to another, more recently installed door, which he also unlocked with the key and entered, before locking it behind him. The room was illuminated by candles hanging around the walls and perched upon a crude iron candelabra hanging in the middle. The room also contained a large, crudely-made wooden table and a couple of long bench seats that all showed considerable wear, and around the walls of the roughly-carved cavern were a dozen tin troughs, much like bath tubs. A smaller tin washtub stood on the table, and a large, fat-looking man wearing an expensive hooded cloak sat on the bench behind it. He was wearing a scarf across his mouth and nose in obvious fastidiousness to the smell emanating from the contents of the large tin tubs.
"Did you deal with the messenger?" the big man asked in a deep-toned voice.
"I sent him on his way with his payment, milord," the Butcher replied as he approached the table.
"I'd have thought that you would have killed him and kept the money."
"There was no point. We spoke, and he believes that this is the head of an enemy of my mistress," the Butcher smiled grimly. "No-one here on Etherion knows me -- other than yourself, milord -- and his absence could be missed. I didn't even meet him anywhere near this place. There's nothing he can say that would compromise our work."
"You might be right, Reznik," the heavy, masked nobleman rumbled. "So, what have you brought?"
Reznik the Butcher put the box he carried into the smaller tin washtub sitting on the table, and used a thin-bladed filleting knife from the scabbard on his belt to slit the paper tape that held the box shut. He put the knife away and opened the box, releasing an even worse stench of rotting flesh.
The heavy-set nobleman backed away as he caught a whiff of the effluvia from the box, far stronger now that it was open.
Reznik reached into the box and carefully lifted out a human head by its ponytail of mid-brown, sun-bleached hair... obviously a woman's head by its shape, though it was in an advanced state of decomposition, writhing with hundreds or thousands of tiny oily-black maggots. He carefully placed the decomposing skull in the washtub, then just as carefully upended the wooden box and gently shook the maggots remaining in it into the washtub, checking and banging its bottom until every one of the tiny creatures had fallen from the box.
"Whose head is that?" the big nobleman asked.
"I've got no idea, milord," Reznik replied. "Some convenient peasant slut, I'd guess by the shape. However, she served her purpose to make the messengers think that it was her head that was the cargo, and not these maggots. Our suppliers could just as easily have put a few racks of spare-ribs in here... but the smell of decaying animal flesh isn't quite the same as that of human flesh to an expert's nose, and anyone who took a peek inside might wonder why someone would go to the effort of transporting rotting animal flesh. Heads, on the other hand..." Reznik grinned.
"Heads in boxes make people wonder who they pissed off," the heavy-set nobleman rumbled.
"Just so, milord," Reznik replied. "Maggots are just an unpleasant decoration, unless you start to wonder why they're black and not white, and few ever do."
"Hmmm... So... how many of these maggots do you expect to mature?"
"Left to their own devices, only one in a hundred are likely survive to pupate, but that's why you hired me as a maggot-handler, milord," Reznik replied. "I'd guess... there are fifteen-hundred to two thousand maggots here..."
"So, fifteen hundred total?" the big man asked.
"No, nothing like that many, milord," Reznik replied. "With a maggot handler, the mortality rate is still between nine in ten to four in five, so... I'd guess somewhere between a hundred and fifty and four hundred juveniles. Of course, without a handler, you can expect to lose seven in ten juveniles too, but I can reduce that to a mortality rate of one or two in ten, so between a hundred and twenty and three hundred and sixty adults."
"So... how long did you say?" the masked nobleman asked.
"Like I told you milord, it takes six weeks to grow a maggot to pupation, and three weeks to pupate," Reznik reminded the big nobleman. "These maggots are about a week or so old, so two months before we get juveniles. Then it takes five years for them to mature, or seven years to reach their full growth."
"That's still faster -- and less obvious -- than recruiting and training the children of vassals," the heavyset nobleman replied.
"Don't forget that they'll still need to be fed, milord," Reznik said. "We could still need up to twelve long ton of meat over the next five weeks, and then we'd have to feed the juveniles, though they can eat ordinary food. We've only got one ton of meat on-hand, so that's eleven ton more we'll need soon... that's twenty-two cows, a hundred and fifty sheep, eighty pigs, a hundred or so deer, or some combination of those... give or take."
"Right, then. You'd better get those maggots into the tubs of meat, and I'll get to work sending the livestock," the big nobleman rumbled as he pushed himself up heavily from the table and stood leaning on his fancy cane.
"Yes milord," Reznik tugged his forelock and bowed, then picked up the tin wash-tub full of maggots and moved toward one of the bath-tubs around the walls.
"I'll be away then. Be sure to send word if you need anything, or when they pupate. I'll obviously need to be here when they emerge from their pupas," the big man walked to the door, unlocked it with his own key and exited, swinging it shut behind him.
However, the door didn't latch, and swung open a little, and Reznik moved to close it, and heard the big nobleman grumbling quietly about Reznik's exorbitant fees.
"Don't forget, milord... the reason I charge so much is that most handlers of orc maggots are orcs, for obvious reasons," Reznik called. "What do you think your chances of smuggling an adult orc or two onto Etherion are?"
"I'm a man of my word, Reznik, you'll get your princely fees... as long as you do what you say you can do," the big masked nobleman turned back. "But if there are less than a hundred adult orcs in my service at the end of this, there will be a reckoning..."
* * *
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