M McNally - The Sable City

The servants of Blue Akroya were a contentious lot, and their cut-throat rivalry for the Dragon’s favor often became literal. They were the only people Nesha-tari had ever known in her life, not counting prey, and they were her most dangerous enemies. There was not one among them who Nesha-tari could even tenuously consider a friend.

Though Nesha-tari knew it was ridiculous for her to think of any of the people she was now leaving in that way either, she felt something like melancholy as Souterm receded in her sight. Amatesu and Uriako Shikashe had been her companions for months, and the shukenja had told the others their terrible story to demonstrate that they were not so different than was Nesha-tari herself. Little better, and perhaps even worse. The Jobian Kendall Heggenauer, despite his initial revulsion, had put himself between Nesha-tari and Balan, even as the Devil Lord was exposing her for what she truly was. Despite seeing her true form the party had stayed with her, and taken her with them when they escaped Vod’Adia.

That, to Nesha-tari, seemed to be the sort of thing that friends would do, though she had never had any personal experience with the phenomenon. She was half Lamia and half human, but only the first had ever been of any value to her, or to the Blue Master to whom her mother had sold her, long ago.

Nesha-tari was leaving what might have been a different kind of life had things been much different, but somewhere within her she knew that it was a kind of life she could only consider at a time like this, while she was not Hungry. She thought about it for those moments all the same, and she did not leave the stern railing until the city of Souterm had disappeared around a bend of the river, the waters carrying her back toward home and the thing that she could not help being.

*

Black Danavod returned to Vod’Adia with the setting sun, skimming low over swamp and hill on her great wings. She dropped into the valley on the southern side, away from the Camp Town. The Great Dragon shivered as she broke through the cloudy veil, for even a creature of her colossal power was not immune to the sheer magnitude of the magic that had once been worked in the dark city, the Cataclysm that for a time had severed the place from this world and ringed it in occluding fog.

As she passed through the veil, Danavod thought she could almost sense that it was slightly weaker than it had been this morning, though that may have been her imagination. It was probably too early to feel it, though she knew it was happening.

Danavod beat her wings and pulled up her snout as she came in low over the city, swerving around towers. She did not roar this time as she was not in the mood. She pulled up sharply before the palace, rising high above it on a level with the pointed roofs of the nine subsidiary towers, then settling back toward the familiar courtyard within one connecting wing.

Balan awaited her there, ringed by several of his little spiky minions who all winked away before Danavod settled to a landing on her hind legs, leaving the Devil Lord alone. Danavod folded her wings and planted her forelegs, sitting cat-like in the courtyard directly before Balan, who bowed.

“Your Humongousness,” he called. Danavod’s head loomed high above him at the end of her long neck.

“Balan,” Danavod’s disembodied voice purred out in the gathering gloom.

“I hear the monkeys got away. Rough, that.”

“Nesha-tari told me the Circle Wizard did nothing at the Node,” Danavod said. “Yet he was allowed to reach that place.”

“Well, I don’t know that allowed is really the word…” Balan said.

“Did you arrange for the Wizard to come unto the Node, Balan?”

The devil winced and scratched the back of his neck.

“Yes I did.”

Danavod flicked out a single claw, a casual gesture that laid the devil’s abdomen open almost to his spine. Balan screamed and collapsed on his seat. Spiney devils began to pop into existence all around, while larger Bearded ones pounded out from the halls giving into the courtyard.

“Shall I kill all your minions as well, Balan?” Danavod called.

“Out!” Balan shouted. “Everybody out!”

The devils sulked and growled but withdrew, either on foot or by simply disappearing. Their lord groaned and flopped onto his back on the flagstones, clutching his leprous innards to his belly with both hands. Danavod leaned forward so her massive head hung in the air directly above him. Red blood was forming a pool around Balan, and two black horns had sprung out of his forehead, as he was distinctly not in full control of himself at the moment. The devil’s blood looked and smelled just like that of the humans. Danavod had always thought that implied that the two species were related.

“Madame, you have no idea how much that hurts,” Balan hissed through his fanged teeth.

“You are a Prince of Hell, Balan. You will survive that wound. Though I expect those pants are a loss.”

Balan groaned and opened his burning red eyes.

“What has happened at the Node?” Danavod growled. The devil sighed up at her.

“Honestly, we don’t know. One of Nesha-tari’s minions blundered through the thing, and came back only a minute later. We examined the gate afterwards, though as near as we could tell it remained unchanged. But then the monkeys got out of the city.”

“They teleported.”

“Yes, twice. A heads-up that they could do that would have been nice, by the way. Anyhow, as soon as they were gone…the world stopped spinning.”

Lying on his back, Balan gave a shrug that made him grunt and clutch his hands more tightly against his belly. Most of his entrails had oozed back into his body, though he was still awash in gore.

“What do you mean?” Danavod demanded.

“Well, not the world, but this city at any rate. Vod’Adia has been turning since the Witch King Kanderamath cast his spells, your Massiveness. I am told gyring is the technical term. Not at a speed where it was perceptible for the one month in a century that it appears here, but moving all the same. When the monkeys scurried out past your frogs and whatnot, Vod’Adia ceased to turn. And here it sits.”

Balan raised his hoof just enough to tap it against the flagstones a couple times, shooting up two sparks.

“It is your fault, Balan,” Danavod growled even as her voice spoke. “Had you done as you were told, stopped the Wizard and turned back Akroya’s servant, none of this would have occurred.”

Balan’s diabolic features twisted in an ugly sneer, and Danavod realized with some surprise that the creature was as angry as it was afraid. Balan raised one trembling hand to point at the horns now jutting from his forehead. The gray flesh of his abdomen was already knitting itself neatly back together.

“Madame, please. Did you not see the horns? How about the cloven hoof and the tail? I am a devil, Madame, and I don’t do nothing for nobody, ’less I got a contract, see? We are like a union that way.”

Danavod extended the claws of her right foreleg again, and Balan cringed back against the ground. She held the claws in the air above the devil, extending only the scimitar-nail of one digit until it almost touched his forehead.

“Do it, if you are going to,” Balan spat. “That is the only way I will get home now.”

“What do you mean?”

The devil lord let out a rough exhalation. “With Vod’Adia stationary, there is no longer any connection to the Outer Planes. I can’t go back to Hell, nor can any of my devils, short of having our bodies slain in this world. Same with the demons from the Abyss, and the various and sundry ne’er-do-wells from Ghenna and Tarterus. We are all stuck until we are killed here, and that mode of travel is not much to anyone’s liking.”