The Sorcerers of Infinity/17

seventeenth chapter
J-Game

Syrregain’s plans were coming along better than he had ever expected or hoped they would. He was not making his presence well known, but his eminence as Prince Regent of Elvinia had more than shocked the local townspeople into respecting him.

Such was the way he got into the Grand Hadrana inn. Without any help from Dacak’s guards or Threann’s Arpuns. He barged in when they had arrived from Arpuni, literally shoulder his way through the door and drawing that accursed sword. They fled in fear, and those who did not were killed. No—they were more than killed: they were absolutely mutilated.

Now, he was lying on his bed, idly staring at the ceiling. He was still angry from the other day, when the messenger had returned to warn him of the incompetent soldier’s failure. There was an experienced mage with his troop—one would have thought they would at least come back only badly shaken. As a flickering thought, Syrregain’s eyes glanced at the massive longsword leaning seemingly unobtrusively against the wall.

He hated that sword. Syrregain felt it slowly expanding, taking control of his body and mind until he was so tightly wound around its little finger. It spoke in hardly whispers, sweet and tempting. Its voice was devoid of malice, and Syrregain’s inner mind knew better.

His body did not. That sword was like a deadly poison, far more dangerous than the even the most violent of venoms. And so the sword never left his side. It wanted to be there. It had to be there. And it would stay there until Syrregain’s whole body would become an empty shell with the sword’s spirit. Syrregain knew this, and so did the sword. The worst part was that Syrregain could do nothing.

“Your Majesty,” a voice interrupted him.

“What?!” he demanded, snapping from his train of thought and sitting up in bed.

“That Arpuni woman senses that a God is in Van Mara,” the messenger told him. “Shall I send for her?”

“You know the answer to that, you clot,” Syrregain said acidly. “Anytime she says something about the Gods, you bring her here.”

“At once sir. But are you sure about it? The woman is obviously insane.”

“What did I tell you?” Syrregain demanded in a furious voice. “If that woman so much as breathes a sentence that has ‘God’ in it, you bring her here. Now get her so it can only be a first time!”

The messenger was shaking. “Yes, your Majesty,” he responded, and he turned on his heel to fetch Duchess Threann of Threann Khann.

A while later he returned, leading the Arpuni woman by the arm. Actually, she was leading him, and he was trailing badly along. Duchess Threann was wearing her crown imperiously, high on her head pushing her long blue-black hair back. Her brazen face was adorned with freshly-painted markings. Threann walked with her head high and her back straight, making sure that her violet-indigo dress came trailing dramatically behind her.

“What?” she asked indignantly when she entered the room.

“You’re dismissed,” he said to the messenger. It took him a second to comprehend the message given to his harried brain, but that was all Syrregain needed. He leveled a finger at him, and fired a narrow arc of energy. The messenger was thrown against the back wall; there was an obvious crack the precise moment he was hit.

“What did you want, Syrregain?” Threann asked him.

“That idiot over there,” said Syrregain, motioning to the messenger; “said you found the presence of the Goddess Matti here. Where is she?”

“Ah, Matti,” Threann said, smiling coldly. “The whorish little sister of the Gods who fraternizes with mortal creatures.” She paused, as giving him a while to stare at her blunt derision. “She is here. In fact, she is in the Van Mara Citadel right now with that witch and her brother.”

“Witch?”

“You know, that singer from the other night when we arrived.” She looked at him smugly. “Come now, Syrregain, don’t tell me you missed the actual presence of her? I could tell from a mile away that the woman practices sorcery.”

“You’re a Diviner,” he responded acidly, taking his sword. “And if you haven’t noticed, you dolt, I’m not.”