Self Inflicted Abomination Page 2
most of his household before being dismembered and burnt. Witnesses reported that he continued to scream profanities and threats long after he had burned beyond recognition. Kasus had never heard of anyone wealthy enough to afford starstone attempting to follow Daxue’s example.
The second scroll contained the meagre notes Kasus had been able to collect about the practices of the ancient druids and their peculiar habit of giving over their bodies to animal spirits. This lent them considerable power, a bestial strength, keen senses, resistance to curses, and an ability to transform into the creature whose spirit they harbour. The animal spirits dominated the minds of their druids, changing their personalities, and taking complete control for days at a time. The druids became infamous for eating raw meat, digging and living in burrows, raping both people and animals, and soiling their clothing. This is not the kind of legacy that attracts new recruits or inspires the resurrection of their brotherhood centuries later. With a simple wooden stylus, he added the note – ‘Complete curse protection confirmed.’ He took a deep breath, and contemplated those four destiny altering words.
These three scrolls contained the keys to his master plan, his path to power. He was not sufficiently rich or high born to train as an artiphicer or unifier. Magic was the province of the wealthy and well connected, or in the case of necromancy, the insane. A house slave from a free city estate could not hope to gather the resources to become any of these, let alone access the ley-nexus locations needed to gather arcane energy. His would have to be a less orthodox route. After rolling up and hiding his scrolls he tried to sleep, but the trepidation kept him awake. The morning would bring such risk, would he really dare to do such a thing?
Festival day was a rare and special thing, a holiday for the majority of slaves. The kitchen slaves still worked, preparing the feasts, but they had scraps from the lord’s tables all year round as compensation. Unable to sleep until late, it was well past mid-morning when Kasus gathered up his dirty sack of precious things and headed downstairs. The main courtyard had feasting tables lining its borders and several spits. There seemed to be an unusual number of soldiers lounging around. They were dressed in copper coloured breastplates and red linen. They seemed polished, and ready to impress. The soldiers had been growing in number lately, as conflict with the Trade Sea Alliance to the south became inevitable. The free cities needed more land that is arable, and Allsummer Valley seemed ripe for conquest. Their enemy was busy dealing with other foes and could not spare a large force to challenge them. The lords had also been summoning large and mighty demons, along with numerous smaller ones. The free cities could not match the alliance in terms of soldiers, cannon, and machines of war, but the demons compensated for this, even if they did occasionally eat soldiers from their own side.
Two groups of soldiers kept a demon each on stout lengths of chain. These were twice the height of their handlers, and rusty brown in colour. The pride of Jakot’s personal guard, these monsters stood on three knob-jointed legs, seemingly too thin for the tumid mass of blubbery body they needed to support. Each had a toothed mouth-like orifice running vertically down the centre of their bodies. From inside this a trio of undersized shrunken heads protruded, these were pop eyed and sporting a rubbery, flaccid proboscis instead of mouthparts and nose. Coiled deeper inside, a mass of whip-like tentacles sat, some barbed, others clawed, all slimy.
Kasus felt awkwardly nervous.
Are all these soldiers here to stop me?
Perhaps my plan has been discovered; has Jakot decided to stop me at all costs?
They didn’t seem to be interested in him however. He skirted the edges of the courtyard, heading for the kitchens. Lorus the bully came marching from the main gate looking excited and self-important. Kasus hid in the shade of a trellis, if Lorus decided to steal his sack or dump out its contents for public viewing, the plan would fail, and he may well get another flogging. Lorus whispered something to the guard captain, and he began to shout. Kasus hid himself, knees trembling slightly.
The soldiers lined up in some kind of honour guard, two lines on either side of the main gate, standing at attention. At the far end, nearest the door to the main hall, the two demons stood, prodded into position by their handlers. There they all remained, stiff and impressive, sunlight glinting on polished breastplates. A few slaves and craftsmen had gathered, curious to see what the event was. Kasus overheard some gossip about a foreign ship arriving and rumours that Lord Jakot had personally made a trip to the docks to bid them welcome.
Movement at the main gate had the soldiers renew their level of rigid attention to the point of muscular tetanus. First six soldiers marched stiffly through, followed by Jakot’s oldest son and heir. Another six soldiers followed by the lord himself and his strange guests.
Dressed in embroidered silks and gold chains styled like armour, Jakot was clearly trying to look impressive, but his audience only had eyes for his guests. The kohlinite ambassador slithered along beside Jakot, its green tail longer than five humans placed head to foot. It towered over the humans, despite the fact that most of its body lay flat on the ground. It had no legs; it moved as a snake would, its belly scales pulsing as its enormous form zigzagged forward. Arms however, it had in abundance, four reptilian arms with three clawed fingers each. Most of these seemed to be gesturing to emphasize whatever it was explaining to Jakot. Its upper body, between these arms, was clothed in a silken toga-like garment, criss-crossed with ornate belts carrying bottles, daggers and pouches. Kasus had never seen a kohlinite and was fascinated by its massive broad head. It wasn’t the six black eyes, like obsidian plates that interested him, nor the ram-like horns. The wide fanged mouth seemed quite ordinary compared with the rest of it, and the strange lumps and ridges were worth a glance, but he wasn’t staring at those. He was gawping at the two projections, one from its chin, and the other from the top of its giant skull. They looked quite like scorpion stingers, but he knew from long circulated rumours that these were in fact its reproductive organs.
Imagine having your genitals dangling from your face!
It was said that when two kohlinites mate, they both lay eggs afterward. Kohlinite eggs were reputed to be the size of serving platters, glossy, but as black as a mineshaft at midnight. A long leash hung carelessly from the ambassador’s clawed hand. A small humanoid with a spiky angular face trailed along behind the ambassador, led by its collar. It wore clothes of rare silks and elegant boots, but its demeanour was one of complete misery. Kasus had heard of the gweifolk of course, they had lived all over the mainland before the arrival of the first humans. There are rumours of free gweifolk living in mountain valleys, but the majority now live in the Kohlinite Empire as slaves. Kasus had once heard that over one hundred thousand gweifolk had died building the imperial palace at Kohl.
Every human in the courtyard was staring at the ambassador, and most were thinking about the oddness of kohlinite genitals. The ambassador was an awe inspiring and frightening sight, somehow managing to look more forbidding than the pair of demons in his honour guard. It continued to be the focus of slack jawed goggling until the first khymira in the ambassadors entourage appeared.
There were two mantid khymira following along as part of the ambassador’s bodyguard. Khymira were terrible things, blended together from animals and creatures, including humans. The mantid species are enemies of the kohlinites from far to the east. They are huge insect people, carnivorous, aggressive, and numerous. The tips of their longest limbs closely resemble scythes, and they can cut down human armies much as a farmer topples wheat. Kohlinite alchemists consider them ideal subjects for khymira creation. The captured mantid’s are often blended with kohlinite criminals to make hideous mantid khymira. They have the lower body and serpent tail of the kohlinite, and the scythe bladed upper limbs and insect head of the Mantid. Like all khymira, they feel no pain and take wounds that should be fatal without flinching. The ambassador’s khymira bodyguards were intended to impress and intimidate. They did not fail in t
his. Kasus was too frightened to move, but many of the younger onlookers fled, bawling for their mothers.
Behind these two horrors came a kohlinite soldier, dressed simply in chainmail with a ridged breastplate. It carried an axe bladed halberd and seemed a little unremarkable after the shock of seeing the other three. It was only when the ambassador had slithered into the main hall and the soldier was closer, that Kasus noticed its lower right hand was missing. Attached to its forearm was a steel cup, from which an especially ugly and hooked blade extended. Kasus wondered if the beast had lost its limb in battle, or if it had been taken as some kind of punishment. Kohlinites did not have a reputation for meek civility.
As the last of the serpent bodied visitors slid its way into the main hall, the courtyard seemed to come out of a trance. The guard captain shouted some orders, and the troops dispersed. The demons were led shuffling to their pen, and preparations for the feasting slowly resumed. Corporal Arsen, who had administered a flogging to Kasus the day before, marched past him without a glance. After a quick check to make sure Lorus was