Oathbreaker ch 9.22 - A Game of Bones (Patreon)

The Whist was a hell of silence, but the demons of Enkarsura had brought noise to it. As we flew over the wreckage of the battleground where the Prince of Ingres had fallen, everywhere I could make out dretches crawling over the hills made from the fallen, like thousands of dogs sniffing for any scrap of meat they could find, and winged forms strafing the skies like vultures. It was difficult to pick out the fresher dead from the ancient bones that had long littered the steppes. Rot set in fast in this place.

Though there were still skirmishes against remnants of the Bedlam’s followers who refused to accept loss, our victory had been definitive. But something was amiss. I did not see it at first, for even great changes in the Kenosian Plane could occur unnoticed thanks to the strange muting quality of its air. Admittedly, I hadn’t been looking at it.

Nilmarin, less lost in her own thoughts than I, saw it first and directed my attention. “There! Look there, sister!”

She pointed excitedly, cracking her fleshy wings loud to get my attention. Out over the fields beyond the wall of giant ribs and skulls that marked the boundary between the Drossian marches and the wider steppeland, an army approached. A pale army, so well matched in color to that landscape of ash grays, sallow yellows, and deathly whites that it all but blended with it.  It was a massive force, so wide it made an arc several score miles long, with black banners that hung limp due to a lack of wind and ivory pikes like forests on the march.

“Seems we’ll get to see your Ivorine after all!” I called to Nilmarin. There was no wind on the Steppe, so we had to flap hard to keep ourselves aloft and raise our voices to be heard over. Even though she flew near close enough to brush my wings with her own, Nilmarin’s voice sounded like it came from far away, as did mine to her.

My sister scribe seemed torn between wonder and concern. I felt little more than weary resignation at the prospect of more warfare. It made sense that the Ivorine would test the strength of their new neighbor, and why not do it now, with the Margravine’s forces depleted and blood drunk?

Abyssal armies are rarely organized. The Red Bloom was an uncommonly charismatic general who garnered fanatical devotion from her closest followers, but many of the Enkarsurites were simply scavengers and opportunists called to a greater power for soul plunder and entertainment. Of those demons who’d survived the Battle of Bedlam, nearly half had already scattered back into the wilds, and more would follow if a new war began and they did not feel inclined to it. Much of our side had been made of planar corsairs, and many of those were lost when the fleet was used as a sacrificial diversion. The Margravine’s position was not enviable, should she choose to take issue with that approaching army.

From the rumors I’d heard of the ongoing war in the Empyrean, the Gatebreaker had found himself in very similar circumstances: the greater demons divvied up into factions, turning what had been paradisiacal gardens into their own kingdoms, new hells in what had been heavens. It left our distant brethren divided in those faraway battles.

Nothing has changed, I thought. This feels just like before. The Heavens are far away, and down here we still eat each other and wallow. And Abysm expands, because so much is falling down from above. Was that all it ever amounted to?

I brooded like that often, lately. Nilmarin called them my “philosophical fits.”

Nilmarin and I increased our pace, and soon cleared the killings grounds and approached the Skull of Balam. It was the largest of the titanic visages scattered about the abyssal marchlands, a great gray hill embedded into the side of a monolithic cliff. A valley made of towering fangs led to the yawning gap in the lower jaw, like the cavernous gate of a castle.

It was a castle, that skull, the jutting fangs hollowed out like the dens of carpenter bees to function as towers and forecastles, the interior of the skull and the cliffs made into a labyrinth of winding corridors and passageways that had once been the lair of the Beast of Bedlam. The cliffs continued to rise beyond the skull, forming steps that could have dwarfed mountains. Those were the Gates of Ingres, one of the premier passageways from the outer Hells into the Abyss beyond.

Nilmarin and I did not bother with the main gate, instead flying to one of the empty eye sockets of the great horned skull. Our sister succubi gave us curt acknowledgement, their attention focused towards the plains. They were perched on outcrops and turrets of the fortress like particularly fetching gargoyles, each of them clad in armor of chitin and bone with spears in their hands, their eyes shining from within masked helms made from skulls. Not unlike the ones Nilmarin and I wore, only altogether more martial.

Those were the Woesisters, a martial sect of the Red Bloom’s following and in many ways the counterparts to the kandaric scribes. The Sisters of Woe and the Sisters of Omen formed two parts of the three-legged seat that held up our dark lady, with the Sisters of the Bloom — the handmaidens, harem, and confidants of the Succubus Queen — making up the third.

Nilmarin and I were Omensisters; clerks, scribes, and archivists, and our order was the largest. We tended not to meddle with the Woesworn, for they were feared even among Abgrûdai and fought with the unpredictable, explosive savagery of wasps.

One of them halted us beyond the eye socket even as we settled on the rough gray floor. She was small, bordering on slight, with delicate looking arms covered in ritual scars and bright, mad eyes behind her demon-skull mask. Her barbed wings were folded in unthreateningly, but flexed when we approached the inner doors.

“Pernicious,” the small demon hissed. Though she seemed the slightest of those present, she all but reeked of power. Her small teeth were filed to points and stained with fresh blood. “Shouldn’t you be picking through the mud?”

Nilmarin shifted to stand behind me. Several other Woesisters were watching us.

“I am a senior sister, Pale-At-Heart. I may attend the court as I will.” I kept my own manner calm without being falsely pleasant or impatient — the Woesisters were unpredictable. “We heard the Ivorine sent ambassadors.”

“That they did,” Pale-At-Heart said. Though she looked like a pretty young woman beneath all her bones and hides, she stooped like an old crone and used her spear like a walking stick. Its head was crafted from several teeth, and she hadn’t cleaned the gore from it. “The Ivorine are addressing the Red Bloom as we speak.”

I nodded and moved to go past her. The succubus’s spear suddenly flashed into motion, forming a bar in my path.

“You’re impertinent, Pernicious.” Pale-At-Heart’s demeanor was pleasant, conversational, though the other Woesisters had all moved subtly. “No one has forgotten that you deserted us during the war above. The Red Bloom might have forgiven you, but few others have.”

I searched that masked face for threat, but didn’t find it. This was a warning. A friendly one, as far as a Fury of Enkarsura was capable of being friendly.

Nilmarin, only sensing the air of hostility from the guards, tugged at my robe. In fact, she hadn’t let go of it since we’d entered the cavern. Foolishly, she tried to defend me. “She didn’t desert! A mortal vermin summoned her with her true name. Everyone knows the story.”

Pale-At-Heart ignored the younger demon. The bright pinpricks of light inside the eye-sockets of her mask watched me unblinking.

“I know,” I told her.

“The captain likes you,” she told me, “but she doesn’t trust you. None of us do. Remember that, Pernicious.”

“We are Abgrûdai,” I said, and this time I smiled. “None of us trust anyone.”

She shook her head. “Maybe once, but things changed above. You should understand, Pernicious.”

She moved the spear to let us pass. We were in the tunnel beyond before Nilmarin spoke.

“What did she mean?” The young succubus asked. “What happened in the Heavens?”

I just shook my head. We navigated the spiraling tunnels within the skull until we reached the innermost chamber, the brain cavity of the great god-demon, Balam, and the present seat of the Margravine’s court. The cavernous chamber, white and yellow with walls covered in strange, whirling depressions, was full of demons. The Red Bloom sat upon a pedestal brought in by the dretches, a red-winged statue erected atop a sculptor’s plinth. About her were the Bloomsisters, with Woesister guards scattered about the chamber.

I noted Eshierrie standing at her lady’s right hand, but not all present were succubi. On the Margravine’s left stood the malignant minister himself, Nulpeko, who’d greeted the Almoner when he brought me to the court. The edges of the room were lined with cacodemons, dretches, and some chorn, the rank and file of demonkind. A disquiet audience, all told.

The captains and lieutenants of the corsairs were also present, or at least those who’d survived the devastation of their fleet. They stood in their own clique not far from the entrance, a troop of ghosts in Dross-blackened armor. With them stood a man of unremarkable height, his head shaven near to the scalp, his lean build clad in oil-black chainmail. He and many of the lieutenants near him had gaping black smudges for eyes, like an artist had taken a candle to the parchment of their being and burnt them out.

They were veterans of the war for the Silver City, mortals who also beheld its burning. Many of them had held the torches. Their leader nodded to us as we moved past.

“Ladies,” he said with a small bow and a rakish grin, as though we were maiden courtiers. Nilmarin giggled.

“He survived,” she muttered to me. Her gaze kept going back to the reaver. “I was worried he was lost with the fleet.”

“Careful of that one,” I said as we set down with the others. “I watched his ilk murder seraphim during the war. They hunted them like foxes and tortured them until they were too weak to move. Those men are more wicked than any dozen demons.”

I could tell that just interested the neophyte more, and I gave up. The Ivorine ambassadors had arrived ahead of their army, and were addressing the dark personage atop the plinth. We settled in with the rest of the scribes, a gaggle of whispering, gossiping succubi in ember-red robes and skull masks gathered together outside the circle formed by the handmaidens.

The Bloomsisters, who separated us from the Margravine, were not an orderly lot, each lounging and simpering in their own unique fashion. My fellow Omens, on the other hand, were more uniform in our robes and profane bodymarkings, though I would not call us chaste nuns. Even the clerks showed plenty of flesh and suggestively sinuous tail, while the Sisters of Woe wore their armor of corpse-trophies more as a statement than protection.

We all made for a striking island about our scarlet queen, a display of intimidating provocation, a congregation of alluring death. Yet it held an irony, for no amount of sultry smiles and bared leg could have moved the creatures who stood center stage in that chamber.

The creatures of the Ivorine were tall and pale. Skeletal, yet no bones that would belong to anything once mortal. Their heads were those of mules and apes, not unlike many of the dretch demons watching from the outermost circle, but it was only a near similarity. They wore cloaks of stretched skin held together by thin ribs, which shivered occasionally with an agonized life. Their fingers were long and too many, their eyes empty sockets that seemed a void even to my generous understanding of intelligence.

Yet they were capable of communication, evidenced by the one who stood foremost and spoke with the Margravine. Its voice was dry wind over barren ravines, a hollow whisper with a brittle edge, yet it had a firm grasp on Kandaric. “As your sentries have no doubt informed you, Queen of Enkarsura, our armies approach this place and shall arrive soon. We have awakened fifty legions, enough to flood these shores and drive further, even on to the walls of your citadel.”

An angry murmur rippled across the demons, originating and persisting in the handmaidens closest to the Margravine. Abgrûdai do not suffer threats peacefully, and to hear them cast in the face of the Red Bloom was unforgivable to her devotees. The Ivorine weathered it stoically. I wasn’t even sure they could feel fear.

The Red Bloom waited until the rumbling had fallen silent before speaking herself. “Your masters in the Ivorine Council are diving into the same folly countless generals before you have, the same mistakes the Zosite learned from while fashioning their Iron Hell. You do not conquer the Abyss. It is a greedy lover. It welcomes you with open arms, and never lets you go.”

Her posture was relaxed, her voice its usual music, a sharp contrast to the weapon propped against her seat.

Perhaps it was that weapon as much as her words that made the Ivorine devil incline its head. “We are aware of the risks, Margravine, but do not misunderstand us. For long ages have we allowed the Beast of Bedlam to dwell here in this garden of bones, and though we have been bitter neighbors, we did not disturb the rest of so great a force on his behalf. It is not Abysm with which we take quarrel, Queen of Succubi, but with you.”

The Red Bloom arched a flawless eyebrow. “With me, you say?”

She seemed amused, but if amusement was possible in the visage of that dry creature, it did not show. The Ivorine lifted a hand and pointed at the spear by her side, drawing all eyes to it where it lay propped against the plinth.

The Black Spear was a relic of the Heavens, a weapon more ancient than the stars themselves. Perhaps even older than the Red Bloom herself. The dread spear was a black so deep it absorbed light, and even sound, and it acted as a locus of dread in the cavern so potent that only the Red Bloom’s presence overshadowed it. Even many of the handmaidens, always desperate to feel even the slightest caress from their mistress, shunned it.

It seemed like it would freeze to the touch, yet somehow I knew it would burn. And sever.

“That weapon should not be,” the Ivorine ambassador said. “All the power of our realm shall be called forth to see it destroyed, if we must.”

The chamber broke into more consternation. The scribes were the most energized by this revelation, and many of those nearest us started putting their heads together to hold half a hundred impromptu councils.

Nilmarin leaned towards me and whispered, “All this fuss, for a mere javelin?”

“That is no mere weapon,” I told her. “That is one of the Perennial Arms, weapons crafted by the Lord of the Silver City.”

“Made by God?” Nilmarin’s eyes widened in awe.

I wasn’t so sure. If Zebulga was to be believed, and some of my own research and theories were accurate, then the one many beings across the cosmos perceived as God — the Creator, the Odfather, the Star King — was merely a particularly powerful remnant of a time before time, and not even the oldest. If He truly was all powerful and all knowing, the omnipotent and inedible origin of all things, then how could we drive Him from His own throne? Why was His creation breaking apart at the seams and slowly being replaced by something new?

Perhaps everything that is was made by Him, either conjured or refurbished from what came before, but it hardly seemed to matter anymore. No one and nothing had replaced Him and waved some cosmic hand to obliviate all evil and heal all ills.

Where did the eager little Adversary go? I sometimes wondered. Once I’d been so fervent about my part in the great conflict between good and evil, reveled in my allegiance to that latter side. Now elemental evil had flipped that axis, for wasn’t evil simply the losing side in the grand scheme of things, the half that was vilified by those in power? The Lord of the Silver City and His angels had once decided what evil was and where it lived, and I’d never forgiven them for allowing me to be born there.

I’d once believed we could rewrite the script, should we win. Then we did win, and Hell still looked like Hell to me. Perhaps the old owl had the last laugh, after all.

The conversation went on for some time, while I paid it half a mind. I’d gotten lost in my musings more and more often of late, things I could not speak about to any of the others. They wouldn’t understand. Perhaps the Red Bloom might, for I sensed a similar introspection about her, but she was as far above me as the sun is above the earth. She’d allowed me to cry on her shoulder once, because I’d been the wayward daughter, but I knew there would not be a second allowance.

The Ivorine wanted to destroy the Perennial Arm, because it had the power to end the lives of immortals. This had been proven with the Beast of Bedlam, whose ruin still lay in the fields outside, and who would never reincarnate. Nilmarin plied me with questions, and I answered my understudy as I could. The Ivorine were ancient demons, perhaps even more ancient than we Abgrûdai, and like the Hieroloths of the deeper Abyss they were inscrutable.

One thing, however, was clear — they feared the Margravine’s weapon, and wanted it gone. It was a relic of the tyranny of the Silver City during its height, when one being in all the cosmos held the power of creation and oblivion in its talons.

Trouble was, there were many in the Hells who would agree. The Margravine had needed a great weapon to lay low a foe as mighty as the Bedlam, but that came with consequences. Soon word would spread of her benighted treasure, and she would have all demons clamoring at her gates. If the Zosite took issue, and the greater Abyssals, then she would be alone in a sea of enemies.

What is your plan, my lady? I wondered. Surely she had one, had thought through the ramifications of this act. While I’d fallen into a long depression about existential matters since my previous outing in the mortal world, I could still take pleasure in seeing a well laid scheme play out.

The delegation went back and forth with the Queen of Enkarsura. The Ivorine did not debate much, but seemed thrown off by the Red Bloom’s games, as though they did not comprehend irony or allusion. Perhaps they didn’t. All the while, the approaching army — an army that could have been apocalypse to any single world — drew closer.

“Stalling,” I muttered under my breath, drawing a glance from Nilmarin. “She’s stalling.”

Finally the Margravine said, almost exasperated, “And why should I give this thing to the Ivorine? What shall be different with this weapon in your hands? You shall find yourself in the same predicament as I.”

It was a good point. The ambassador barely hesitated in its rejoinder.

“We have the means to destroy it.”

This brought about a silence. Even the Red Bloom narrowed her eyes, the barest hint of surprise.

“And how can I be assured of this?” She asked the delegate. “Shall I merely take your word?”

“We cannot use the weapon,” the Ivorine said. “Only one of your kind may wield it true, Onsolain.”

The rage from the handmaidens was palpable then. They considered their lady’s angelic heritage a reminder of wrongs done to her. To their eyes — to our eyes — she was Abgrûdai.

The Red Bloom herself seemed unaffected. Almost philosophically she said, “One of the followers of Zos could wield it, should they share my… origins. It’s even possible they hold one or two others in their hidden arsenals. The Iron God took much from our Father before committing to His course.”

This seemed to weigh on the Ivorine. It was silent a while, and I thought it might be conversing with its companions. It said, “You are sure of this?”

“I knew Zos,” the Red Bloom said with a touch of contempt. “He was a habitual martyr, and had an ego wider than the skies of the Empyrean. He would have kept such weapons and held them back, if only to destroy Himself if the burden of His duty grew too much.”

And I understood. Nilmarin did not, judging by her perplexed look. I kept my suspicions to myself, thinking I might be wrong. There could be angles within angles.

“As for my bauble…” The Margravine laid her fingers lightly on the god-slaying spear, tilting it back and forth like it were a thing of no consequence. “I suppose I could be convinced to give it up, though it has sentimental value to me. What is the Ivorine willing to trade?”

“Trade?” The creature made a hissing sound. “Why would we need to trade? We have the strength to take.”

The Red Bloom’s face took on a cast of iron then, and I felt a shadow of the dread ancient mortals must have felt when the first Onsolain appeared to them and said Be Afraid.

But her voice remained light. “You have brought an impressive force, but let me be plain with you, ambassador; I could defeat the army out there if I wished. I could do so alone. And once I destroy it, I will then fly into the depths of the Kenosian Steppes, find your libraries, and destroy them. I will tear them up brick and mortar.”

She leaned forward, letting those words sink in. I almost thought I could perceive new patterns in her wings, like burning eyes lost deep within the crevices between the feathers, spaces that seemed to sink into a void. It was not the Demon, Berisembri, who spoke then, but what had once been the very Wrath of God.

Her voice became low and dark. “I am no petty seraphim turned demonette, ambassador. If you insist on drudging up my past, then recall that I was an archangel, equal to the Perennial Sword himself. My maker once sent me to crack apart the skin of a world and let its blood free. I stood on its moon and watched its surface burn. I did not need this spear to do it.”

She leaned back and became casual again. “But I weary of war. I wish only to spend time with my concubines and enjoy the spoils of my many victories. So I shall propose a game.”

“A game?” The Ivorine asked.

“One of the oldest,” the Margravine said. “I believe it is even known in your land? Gods and devils have played it to determine the fates of souls and kingdoms many times in the past. It seems an apt way to settle our little dispute.”

She brought a fist to her lips, as though preparing to blow a kiss. When she opened her red fingers, they were full of a mismatched collection of small bones. Knuckle bones.

“I considered a Flense,” she said with a pretty frown. “But I do not believe that is a tradition within your tribe.”

I could not tell the Ivorine’s reaction. He was a blank book, but after a minute of thought he said, “The terms?”

“One of mine and one of yours play a gauntlet of rounds,” the Margravine said. “The first to win three takes the game. Should my side win, then I will give you the spear.”

The Ivorine must have been as confused as everyone else who hadn’t realized what I had. “You would win only to lose?”

“Allow me to finish, good ambassador. Should I win, the Ivorine will officially acknowledge me as Lord Protector of the Gates of Ingres, and allow me to appoint both a steward to oversee these fields and a dignitary to travel back to your masters and act as my representative. No more shall we growl at one another over our fences, with no contact but the occasional skirmish. Orkael will eventually expand over both of us should we stand apart. The Iron Hell is always growing.”

Given what she’d said about the secret weapons the Iron Tribunal might be keeping, that statement seemed to land with weight. It’s as I thought, I mused. She could not keep the spear, now that it was known she held it. She’d maneuvered the Ivorine into a position to solve the problem for her, and even turned them against Orkael.

Very clever. But she couldn’t simply hand it over and appear weak.

“And should you win,” the Red Bloom continued, “then I will still give you the spear, and we shall depart from this place. I am true to my word. I will even make an oath on it.”

An oath would not bind her. She was Abgrûdai, not Onsolain.

Wasn’t she?

Either way, the Ivorine believed as they did and seemed to take it seriously. The ambassador agreed. “Then shall I play against you, Succubus Queen?”

“No,” the Red Bloom said with a faint smile. “One of my sister succubi shall play against you. One of my scribes, I think. They are clever and enjoy such games.”

Mutters rippled through the Omensisters. Excitement. Dread. To succeed here would be to honor our lady and elevate our order in the esteem of the Red Bloom and all who followed her. To fail would bring shame absolute.

A demoness standing not far to my right lifted her chin and started forward. Taller than any human, with wings like those of a vulture and decorated with clinking pieces of fluted bone like little wind chimes, her crimson robes included a cowl fashioned to hang off her curling horns. She was one of the elder scribes, well respected in our ranks, the expected choice. The others shuffled back and folded their wings in, giving her room.

I acted on impulse and with brutal decisiveness. Perhaps what Pale-At-Heart had said before compelled me, or Nilmarin’s hopeful yellow gaze on the side of my face. The large viper that was my tail, camouflaged by the press of winged forms around me, lashed out and bit the scribe on her calf. She stumbled. I swept forward in that moment of hesitation, and by the time anyone might have voiced a protest I stood before the delegation and it was too late.

I bowed before the Margravine. “I would represent us in this contest, if it please Your Glory.”

The Red Bloom’s lips quirked in amusement. “Very well.”

If anyone had noticed my move — and some surely had — they did not make an issue of it. Eshirrie, resplendent at the queen’s right hand, quirked an eyebrow at me. The succubus I’d usurped seethed. Nilmarin looked delighted.

The leader of the Ivorine delegation towered over me, its elongated skull a blank. I did not think bluffs and tricks of charisma would work here, and their kind had power over dead remains. The Red Bloom had chosen a game the necromantically potent Kenosians would be advantaged in.

She was like me in many ways, especially in this — always stacking the odds against herself and taking long bets for large reward. Or had I gotten that from her?

I bowed to the towering creature. “I would be honored to challenge you, Speaker of the Ivorine.”

We knelt in the center of the chamber, with scores of demons crowding around us to watch. There was some debate over what variation of knucklebones should be played. The Bloomsisters argued about it to the point I thought they would get violent with each other. They wanted the simplest form of the game, where one drops the bones and then tosses one, picking up a handful and catching the thrown piece before it fell. It was a game of dexterity, and one a quick-fingered succubus would be apt at.

The Ivorine wished to make the game more mathematical and complex in nature, and marked the bones with strange sigils to facilitate. The Bloomsisters protested, thinking they meant to cheat with their runes. I surprised everyone by agreeing to the Ivorine version, because I knew the script and wanted to impress.

It was half a game of chance and half of sums. I not only needed to hope for certain runes, representing certain equations, to land for me, but also to determine my chances before I threw. Once the first roll was made with the full set, I could choose how many I picked back up to get the results I wanted, though I had only five tosses per round. I could not decide what numbers were in play, but I could play the odds.

The mind on the other side of me was ancient and calculating. It was said the Lords of the Ivorine Council were archivists of the dead, so something told me these sorts of sums were childs play for it.

We played our first round. The chamber was full of mutters. The Red Bloom remained relaxed on her plinth, though many of her handmaidens had drifted forward to watch. I caught sight of Nilmarin, looking a touch worried now. Eshirrie gave me a baleful look that told me there would be hells to pay if I failed.

Many of them no doubt wanted me to fail. Though the Red Bloom loved us and we all loved her, no demon could truly love its peer. We all took pleasure in watching one another stumble.

The Ivorine won the first round. The numbers came up complex and I miscalculated my odds, used too few bones. We each used a pile of eleven, each piece with multiple sides representing different numbers, and they were not all matched. There were hisses of anger from the other demons. The ambassador remained silent, as did the two other Ivorine fiends behind him.

I was nervous. If I failed, I would not even get the chance to suffer the Margravine’s disappointment. My fellow succubi would tear me to pieces. Many were calling out to me, throwing insults, making threats.

My second go was better. The Ivorine got a bad throw and I took advantage of it, playing bold and managing to draw closer to the round’s mark. There was a number we needed to get close to in five throws without exceeding it. Meeting the number was instant victory. Go over, and the round was lost. Three rounds lost, and that was the game.

The Ivorine got to its fifth hand and rolled low. I got too bold and took too many bones, ended up going over the number and losing the second round. Vitriol from the others. One succubus threw a curse so vile at me it could have been used in a Flense, and I felt the flesh peel on the nape of my neck.

I ignored the pain and the blood running down my back. We moved to the third round. As the loser of the last, I rolled my bones first, letting them tumble into a scatter on the floor between my opponent and I. I hissed. A bad toss. The number was too high.

The Ivorine also rolled high, putting us at equilibrium. I nearly rolled past the target number on the second hand, terrible luck. But then my opponent rolled higher, went over the number, and I took round three and my first victory.

There was little celebration. I was still behind, but now the excitement of the Abgrûdai was rising and the interior of Balam’s Skull filled with their fell voices. Had the old titan still been alive, we would be giving him quite the migraine.

The fourth round took longer. We both rolled low on our first had, and then the ambassador started getting tricky. He used the minimum number of dice he could each time, which was a conservative, risky maneuver that lessened the chances he’d overfly but also raised my chances of coming up with the higher score. I wanted to take advantage, but the risk of immediate loss was high.

I played his own game, rolling only one bone each throw until we both got to four and had only one throw left each. I was ahead, but if I rolled more than a couple pieces on the last hand I would almost definitely go over.

The Ivorine rolled two pieces, and came up with a higher number than me. Just three below the target. I would have to bullseye to win.

The other demons shouted at me, made their own recommendations interspersed with threats, with disembowelment among the least colorful punishments should I not comply with one backseat strategy or another. A Woesister screamed into my left ear from inches away. My forked tongue flicked from my lips, tasted the charged air.

I tuned it all out, kept all my focus on the game. I selected two pieces, hesitated, put one back in the pile and took another. I held them up in clasped hands, the pose almost one of prayer. The Red Bloom watched in silence, a scarlet statue in the background, the very altar to which I offered my supplication.

I threw. I hit the target number exactly. The watching monsters went berserk. Scattered pockets of violence had broken out, but that was always the case when you got this many demonic egos in a room together. The Ivorine inclined its head.

“What is your name, Abgrûdai?” It asked in its strange whisper.

“I am called by many names,” I told it without minding the screaming demons. “I am called Omen Scribe and Heart-thief. The inhabitants of Rot Voraag knew me as Lady Wurmwing, the Venal One, and the Bad Dream. I am Bather In Blood. I am She Who Beheld The Burning. I am Pernicious, Drossborn, and Facestealer. I am Tormentsister.”

We demons wrap ourselves in titles and epithets, in false names and stories. Once I took pride in this, but I understand its purpose now. Behind all those names, I was the wretch who’d tried to steal Ekasne’s lover and gotten her killed. I was the parasite who hollowed out Kaida and broke Narahn’s heart. I was the devil who’d tempted Arlee into abandoning her faith. I was a lost soul abandoned by the gods, a mealworm born from compost.

The souls I’d touched cursed me, and with good reason.

“I am the demon, Shyora.”

The Ivorine inclined its head. “We shall remember you, Shyora.”

We played the final round. Each of us had two victories, and this one would decide the game. The ambassador went first and rolled well, not too high or too low. I let my pieces dribble from my hands like they were the last droplets of my life blood. Too high.

The Ivorine rolled. I rolled. A hush fell over the room, more disturbing in its way than the cacophonous bloodthirst from before. All the will of Hell seemed to bend on that little collection of dry knucklebones.

I reached my final hand and was too far from the mark. A fair set, but too low for comfort. The Ivorine’s numbers were good. He could risk a high roll that would win him the game. My fingers felt so stiff I thought they might break.

He lifted his final hand, the one that would decide the game, in a nine-fingered fist. He loosened his many-jointed fingers and let the pieces drop. The odds were well in his favor.

Did he cheat? Replace one of those bones with one from his own body? They could have used their Kenosian sorcery in any number of ways. This had been a poor game to play against the Lords of Necromancy.

But no, there were too many eyes here watching for that. My own hateful kin, who were always watching for some offense, and the Ivorine delegation with their skull faces and malignant calculations. I’d wanted to cheat as well, but hadn’t dared, had no way to do so that would go unnoticed.

The Red Bloom looked on from a distance, relaxed in repose, a red shadow waiting for me to entertain her.

I wanted to win.

The realization shocked me. For a long time now, I’d not cared about much of anything.

The opposing pieces fell, one after another. They seemed to land too heavy, too loud. I read the runes even as each piece settled into place. My heart, a dead and silent lump inside my chest, beat once.

He’d overshot the mark. I won.

I had won.

The Red Bloom smiled.