Oathbreaker ch. 9.18 - The Viper, Leashed (Patreon)

“I will have you accompany me during my audience with my sister,” the Almoner said as I attended him in his quarters in the hours before our arrival at the city of the Red Bloom. He kept a study inside the helm castle, an opulent room dominated by shelves of bone-white niches and a lone obsidian table. The niches were full of brass candles, the table as much altar as desk.

This was how I knew him to not be Abgrûdai. I felt nauseous standing in a room lined with so much metal.

“Your sister?” I asked with an innocent blink, though I knew all angels saw one another as siblings. I’d recovered much of my memory already, but pretended at being the bewildered spawn. It was advantageous to hide in the greater evil’s shadow.

“We have been long estranged,” the Almoner said as he placed a chest on the table. “But she requires allies in these times of new opportunity, and I bear many gifts.”

Does that include me? I wondered.

Here in this more intimate setting, more of the abyssal angel’s features were visible. His great wings, as it turned out, had been fake, the product of the cloak he wore, likely stripped from some other flight-blessed fiend. His real wings were limp, atrophied appendages of brittle bone and wrinkled skin that he tended to fold about his midriff.  He was a tall creature and lean, his almost liquid musculature struggling to contain a skeleton that threatened to burst free, as though the outer glove of skin was too small to fit the bones beneath. His eyes were twin points of sullen amber fire, with a third eye of tarnished gold set between his brows like a glaring jewel.

Little of his features could be seen otherwise with that mask of darkness that clung to him, even without his concealing robes. Gaseous shadows rippled from the Almoner to form reaching tentacles and grasping fingers that scattered away before finding purchase on anything. The only consistent shapes that shroud of darkness maintained were the silhouette of antler-like horns atop his head. They seemed to bend into the shape of runes, but every time I tried to read them the shape changed subtly and confused my efforts.

The Almoner paused a moment, as though contemplating, then gestured to the chest. “I have a gift for you today, my face-stealer.”

With those words, he opened the chest and revealed a garment dyed in shades of deep carmine and violet. It was a dress, thin as a whisper and light as air, or so it seemed by the way the demon delicately pinched it between his claws. It looked like the finest silk, but anything woven tended to come easily unraveled in Abysm. It must have been enchanted, or made of something that only resembled mere fabric.

“It is na’morhai bloodsilk,” the Almoner told me as though reading my thoughts. “Woven by their broodmaidens. Even the greatest of mortal emperors would blush at such a luxury.”

I did not have to pretend to be flattered. Succubi are vain creatures, and I do not count myself an exception. Taking the dress, I let the material unfurl against my chest to study how it might look. The deep carmine substance was near transparent and reminiscent of membrane, with fine violet veins webbing through it. It was a thing of elementally sinful luxury, and would leave nothing to the imagination.

That drew my attention to my unclad body. I resembled an androgynous gray manikin, and no shape that would be complemented by bloodsilk. My tail remained a spindly length of spinal cord, my limbs bone-thin and too long. I had no hair, not even eyelashes, and I’d not regained my ability to alter my form at will. The changes were still random and sporadic.

The Almoner seemed less concerned by my appearance. “Put on the dress. Ah, and don’t forget this.”

He handed me another item, one clearly meant to match my new costume. It was a collar made of some kind of chitin, hard as iron and black as my heart, with a long leather cord dangling from it.

I hesitated only a moment. I’d long since come to the understanding that I was the Almoner’s pet, and that he intended to present me to the Red Bloom as such. What I wasn’t sure of was whether I should allow it. How willing was I to be returned to the fold like a chastened daughter lost in the woods, only to be found with scraped knees and red eyes?

And if it turned out that this charming devil was actually an enemy of the Red Bloom, did I wish to be tied to his schemes?

The alternative was to slip away and present myself to the Margravine alone. I knew the Lady of the Red Bloom, and I knew that if I tried to approach her as a feral stray, she would allow her handmaidens to divvy up my bones. I’d deserted our occupation of the Silver City to vacation in the mortal coil, only to be slain and returned to the Dross while she worked to consolidate her power over however many years had passed since the siege. She might very well be wroth with me.

The only thing I could be certain of was that a significant amount of time had passed since my death in the mortal world and revival on the Tithe of Pelops. I wasn’t caught up on recent events, and knowledge was power, especially in a city ruled by the Red Bloom. Every scrap of information and leverage would be necessary, and being owned by a greater evil could very well be a necessary indignity.

I was in far more danger here than I ever was in Rot Voraag. There, I’d taken risks for entertainment and desire. Here, reunited with my own kind, I would need to claw and suffer just to survive.

I put on the bloodsilk dress, then allowed the Almoner to snap the collar around my neck. It closed tight enough to stall my breath, and I shivered with pleasure at the mild pain. His claws lingered at my shoulder, sharp enough to part skin with the softest brush. The tarnished music of the Fallen’s voice could have cut down saints and compelled the most virtuous maidens to invite him through their windows.

“Have you recalled your name?” He whispered into my ear.

The Almoner had asked that question during each of our conversations since I’d regained the ability to speak. Names were power to our kind. If he knew who I was, knew my story, then he would also know the narrative of my suffering. It was why we wrapped ourselves in epithets. The Gatebreaker had tried to teach us to take pride in our sin, to share our names with one another and act as family, but old habits died hard.

Inspiration struck and I said, “Tormentsister. I was called that, during my previous time in the mortal world.”

“A dread name, that.” The Almoner nodded in approval. “That is good. Do not fret the dress, my dear. You will fill it out as you regain more of yourself.”

The living material clung tight to my skin, so it appeared tailored to my flat and featureless frame and proved my earlier doubts wrong. I had to admit, it made the overall effect of me less bland, added color and a certain regality.

“Yes,” the Almoner purred as he admired his work. “You will fit well into the court. I have high hopes for you, my little face-stealer.

And so I became a pawn once more in the intrigues of Hell.

The Tithe docked in a harbor nestled within the upper tiers of the city. Enkarsura was built like a tiered pyramid, each cylindrical section smaller than the one below and fashioned, in the usual fashion of the Zosite, as a prison. The city was a massive and elaborate bird-cage in design and function, a labyrinth of bars upon which the roads and neighborhoods were suspended.

But now the very spirits that Orkael had intended to entrap were free, and had turned their prison into a trophy of conquest and seat of strength. It wasn’t just demons who walked the elevated streets of that abyssal port, but mortals as well, both living and the dead, along with beings of every kind from a thousand worlds and dimensions.

It was very like Rot Voraag, in some ways, whose name I’d remembered in the long days before our arrival. Gaps remained in my memory.

But the Exalted’s wasteland kingdom may as well have been a tin hat next to the Margravine’s bloodstained crown. Enkarsura wasn’t simply a place of height, but also layered depth. The looming walls that rose from the bloodied waters of the Drossian formed a lattice, a frame of rising neighborhoods connected by a dizzying array of switchback stairwells and lifts.

Yet that was only the outer frame of the great aviary, which was hollow, so the shrinking layers within that complex could be perceived thanks to the ghostly light that spilled forth from deep within. Red waterfalls fed by the ever-falling blood rain churned down from on high, sending out plumes of misting cloud that orbited the city in tune with nonsensical winds, so it maintained its own sanguine atmosphere.

Above it all rose that spike of red crystal, the Carnelian Palace. It had seemed small compared to the rest of the great dome from a distance, but now it loomed overhead like a sharp ray of bloody light frozen against the sky.

There were other ships docked in the port, including a war ark that could have cast its shadow over whole countrysides. The noise and bustle of cargo and ships made a great clamour around the Tithe, all of it given a brooding ambience by the drumbeat of red rain. The Tithe’s crew unloaded its cargo, adding the screech of iron and the howls of the demonspawn to the harbor’s noise.

I shadowed the Almoner as he spoke with the harbormaster, a demon tall as a small tree who hid its chittering form beneath a tattered cloak. The shroud’s window revealed a circular mouth lined in dozens of sharp teeth, and insectile legs folded together like the wringing hands of a desperate merchant. The two spoke in a buzzing, whispering language for nearly half an hour while the barge was unloaded. That tongue wasn’t kandaric, and without my praetodemon I could not translate their words. But I still recognized the language for what it was, and the creature who spoke it.

The harbormaster ignored my glares until the Almoner returned. He was once more clad in his regal cape with its ridged collar and animate wings, stray wisps of his shadowy form occasionally escaping the shroud.

Without bothering to hide my caustic feelings I asked, “Why does the Margravine allow the Hieroloth to engage in commerce in her realm?”

“As I said before,” the Almoner told me with an air of reprimand. “Times are changing. The star of the Abgrûdai is ascendant, but aimless destruction cannot replace order. Old rivalries are being set aside, the axis of power realigning to where the spirits of Sin reign. Our side won, little face-stealer. We upended the rule of the God of Onsolem and began a new age of the cosmos. To linger in petty disputes would be to allow that victory to ring hollow. Or so is the opinion of the Margravine and her adherents.”

He said the holy name of the Silver City without showing the pain it must have caused him, then stepped past me as he finished. “The last harbormaster was a handmaiden of the Red Bloom, but she kept taking bribes and was replaced. Hieroloth have eidetic memories and are not motivated by pleasure or wealth. They make excellent mercantilists.”

The Hieroloth were a primeval tribe of demons who dwelt in the Abyss before the Abgrûdai spread across it. We warred with them incessantly, and while we’d driven them into the deepest and most unknown depths, that conflict had never truly abated. Once they’d dominated the lower Hells, and the ire between us had long matched our hatred toward the infernal angels of Orkael.

The Gatebreaker had ended the stalemate. That deed had been what made more of us heed him, in the beginning.

So to see some of those chittering creatures in the harbor put my hackles up. That became literal when my hatred cause my flesh to briefly boil. Course, needle-like tufts of hair grew down my scalp and spine, forming a beastly fringe, and my teeth grew tougher and sharper as I bared them. My nails turned to curled claws, and my new dress stretched as bony limbs took on lean muscle.

In a voice that had deepened into a snarl I said, “The Drossian Sea belongs to us. This is our territory.”

“Enough,” the Almoner said before the fire of my anger could reach inferno. His voice crashed down on me like a void wind, cold as the glaciers of Hell and deep as stygian seas. I cringed and bowed my head beneath that ageless, hollow voice, a piteous mewl escaping my throat.

When he was certain of my submission he said, “I have no use for a raving animal. Was I wrong about you?”

The disappointment and warning in his voice filled me with fear. If he discarded me, I would be adrift with my mind and powers fractured, prey to every other demon who might cross my path.

So, with immense effort, I subdued my own rage and regained at least the facade of composure. The Almoner nodded in mute approval, though his glare retained a facet of cold judgement.

Just then, a piercing shriek tore over the harbor. Many of the damned souls and planar corsairs within my sight cringed beneath that predator’s scream. Clawed wings slashed at the air as a form descended from the direction of the palace, circling the quay once before alighting on the edge of the Tithe of Pelops on dainty feet.

The succubus folded her amber wings against her shoulders, the claws clasping at her collarbone so it formed a regal cloak. She was hard muscled and copper haired, her only garment a long sash of burgundy silk ribboned about her bronzed skin from neck to right calf. Jewelry of painted bone decorated her wrists and ankles and dangled from her red horns. She’d left enough skin bare to display an intricate tattoo of a scaled wyrm that encircled her whole body in inks dark as dry blood.

“My, oh my!” The demoness spoke in a voice sweet enough to make fruit curdle on the vine. “Is that the Almoner of the Tithe of Pelops, washed in by the Dross like some piece of stray flotsam? I would think these eyes deceive me, if the prophet I took them from did not insist he saw through all lies.”

I noted then that her eyes were a dead, foggy blue, ill matched to her reds and oranges.

The Almoner bowed his hooded head. “Lady Eshirrie. Did your mistress send you to greet me?”

The demon, Eshirrie, lowered her chin and spoke in a more serious voice. “You are lucky she is presently preoccupied, and has yet to hear that you have darkened her doorstep. The Margravine has not forgotten the insult you dealt her, Almoner.”

The Almoner remained outwardly composed, though I perceived a slight hesitation in his reply. It was the same dangerous pause as when I’d displeased him earlier. “My sister and I were quarreling when the first stars were being smithed. Do not presume to speak on the discontent of your betters, little demon.”

The dark fury hidden beneath those words had caused me to wither before, but to my shock, this copper trollop flashed bloodstained teeth in a mocking smile at the older demon. “Poor, fallen seraph. Do you miss your halo? Do you lament the loss of your wings? Does it gall you to look up at me?” She ran her fingers down one bare leg and tilted her head so her mane of fiery hair fell down one shoulder. “This is our city, and we have not forgotten what you once were. You are the castoff of castoffs, a beggar who drudges through the muck for scraps while thinking you impress us with your airs. You might be Fallen, Almoner, but we are risen.”

“And yet I cannot help but notice that the court has returned to the Hells,” the Almoner said with dark mockery. “Do not forget that you are risen only thanks to the patronage of my siblings, Abgrûdai. This war was ours long before you stained souls crawled out of the Dross.”

His words startled something from the fog of my wounded memory. You were latecomers to the darkness, little spirit. There were gods and monsters before you.

“The Gatebreaker and the Red Bloom have named themselves Abgrûdai and forsworn their ties to the God-Tyrant,” Eshirrie shot back at the Almoner. “Their names are exalted in this realm, while yours is barely a passing breeze!”

Much more of this, and the argument might become a Flense. While the two traded barbs, I noticed a willowy shape standing in the shadow of the Tithe’s hull. She was also a succubus, but had as much in common with the winged courtesan perched above as I did with the Almoner. She was a chitinous skeleton of haunting gray and abyssal violet, with small, oil-black eyes and a sucking gash for a mouth. A hollow pit yawned at the center of her stomach where the navel should be. She met my stare and tilted her head in a curious gesture.

At the same moment I noticed the second demon, Eshirrie noticed me. She dismissed the Almoner from her attention and leapt down from the hull, alighting at my side with two flaps of her wings. She began to circle me like a curious wolf.

“And what is this?” Eshirrie asked. She drew close to my neck and sniffed. “I see you’ve collared it. Is this a gift for our lady?”

“One of many,” the Almoner said lightly. I’d listened to his monologuing long enough by this point to detect the faintest resentment in that admission, but Eshirrie didn’t seem to notice.

It took an effort of will not to snap the nose from the succubus as she invaded my space. She saw the repressed anger in my eyes and drew back, laughing in delight. “It has self control, yet it’s still half ichor and stinks of the Dross! Do we know this one, Liieshi?”

The other succubus did not reply, but watched me intently. Eshirrie shook her head and spoke to me directly. “Do I know you, my leashed viper?”

The Almoner’s will weighed on me heavy as iron chains. He had wormed his way into my mind during the weeks of disorientation and vulnerability on the Tithe, the unseen fingers of his words and thoughts kneading into my own clay-soft psyche. He was the reason I felt off-guard and confused, why even the name of the one being I’d ever devoted myself to escaped my tongue.

This was always the risk with being destroyed on the higher planes and forced to reincarnate from scratch. Many greater demons fished newborn and reviving spawn from Abysm’s mud to serve as minions, and the Almoner was no different from them.

A mere scavenger playing at being a dark lord. And I, lost and longing for comfort, was taken in by it.

I’d once been greater than this. I had once been feared. Had I not seen the unholy beauty of my sister-succubi and watched them throw open disrespect at this fallen seraph, I might not have remembered until it was too late.

But the Almoner, for all his efforts, had not compelled me to give up my true name. Though he had power over me, I was not bound.

A small rebellion, then. A risk, but I saw an opportunity to gain an ally. So in a quiet voice with only the hint of a beastly hiss I said, “I know you, Lady Eshirrie. I watched you break the lance of Saint Garaman on the Elysian Fields, before you broke him.”

Eshirrie’s stolen eyes narrowed. “So you Beheld. Where were you before this mud-drudger found you, little sister?”

“She does not remember,” the Almoner interrupted. He gave my leash a tug and I nearly fell returning to his side. “Now, if you are done pecking, I must speak with the Margravine.”

Before Eshirrie could speak, Liieshi’s susurrous whisper cut through the rain. “Enough, sister. Our lady will see you, Almoner, though she knows what you mean to offer her does not come wrapped in cages and collars.”

We did not linger to take in the city’s sights once the handmaidens of the Red Bloom departed. The Almoner led me from the harbor to the gates of the Margravine’s palace, the leather cord of my collar wrapped loosely about his wrist. I did not give him another reason to tighten it, and carefully hid my resentment behind a downturned head and demure silence. I was not the only demon led about the city on a leash, and I knew that violent vengeance hid in the heart of each and every one of those kept spirits.

My strength was slowly returning to me, but as the crimson light of the Carnelian Palace spilled over the streets as though reaching to take me into its heart, I wondered if it would matter. I might have been a terror to the mortals of Rot Voraag, but here I was but one monster in a kingdom of monsters, and nowhere near the worst.

Eshirrie and her fellow Sisters of the Red Bloom all wielded the same profane knowledge as I, the same weapons, the same tricks. Within those crystal walls, lounging on her throne of calcified blood, sat one of the greatest of all evils.

My queen, my teacher, my mother in every way that mattered, whom I had deserted with the vain, idiot intention to supplant. I had been de-winged and shamed, pulled from the mud by this black sheep and dragged here on a leash, and now I had to face her as a failure and hope to survive the intrigues of the most wicked court of sin in all Creation.

And yet, for all of that, my whole being yearned to see her, she who had taught us to be graceful in our sin and beautiful in our damnation. She who had once been of Heaven but descended to Hell as the first of the Fallen and the greatest.

The First of the Succubi.