Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

“I am licensed, sir, to provide my services to the public as they may be required.”

“Within discretion. Are you aware that you went far beyond the bounds of discretion?”

“I was asked to fulfill a need. The Marquis Mirl Meldelleran requested—”

“You will not name him. Speak of him only as your client. You should know that your client, who committed a foul act with the aid of your skills, has taken himself at our request this very day into exile in Suvrael.”

Ghambivole Zwoll shivered. Suvrael? That terrible place, the sun-blasted, demon-haunted desert continent far to the south? Death would be a more desirable punishment than exile to Suvrael.

In a hoarse croak Ghambivole Zwoll said, “My client asked me to fulfill a need, your grace. I did not think it was my responsibility to—”

“You did not think. You did not think.”

“No, your grace. I did not think.”

There was no possibility of success in disputing the matter with the Prince of Muldemar. Ghambivole Zwoll bowed his head and waited to hear his sentence.

The prince said sternly, “You will forget that you ever had dealings with that client. You will forget his very name. You will forget the purpose for which he came to you. You will forget everything connected with him and with the task you carried out on his behalf. Your client has ceased to exist on Castle Mount. If you keep records, Vroon, you will expunge from them all indication of the so-called service you performed for him. Is that understood?”

Seeing that he evidently was going to be allowed to live, Ghambivole Zwoll bowed his head and said in a husky whisper, “I understand and obey, your grace.”

“Good.”

Was that all? So it seemed. The Vroon gave inward thanks to the half-forgotten gods of his forefathers’ ancestral world.

But then the prince, turning, took a long glance around the cluttered shop. His gaze came to rest on the handsome flask on Ghambivole Zwoll’s desk, the flask containing the new and potent elixir that the Vroon had prepared for the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran.

“What is that?”

“A potion, your grace.”

“Another love potion, is it?”

“Merely a potion, sir.” Then, in agony, when the prince gave him a terrible glare: “Yes. One could call it a love potion.”

“For the same client as before? So that he might compound the damage he has already done?”

“I must reply that I am bound by the laws of confidentiality, sir, not to reveal—”

The Prince of Muldemar responded with a somber laugh. “Yes. Yes! Of course. What a law-abiding thing you are, wizard! Very well. Pick up the flask and drink the stuff yourself.”

“Sir?”

“Drink it!”

Aghast, Ghambivole Zwoll cried, “Sir, I must object!”

The prince nodded to one of the footmen. From the corner of his eye Ghambivole Zwoll saw the ugly glint of a saber’s blade coming once more into view.

“Sir?” he murmured. “Sir?”

“Drink it, or you’ll join your former client in Suvrael, and you’ll count yourself lucky that your fate is no worse.”

“Yes. Yes. I understand and obey.”

There could be no refusing the prince’s command. Ghambivole Zwoll reached for the flask and shakily lifted it to his beak.

Dimly the Vroon watched the Prince of Muldemar and his two footmen leaving the shop, a moment later, slamming the door behind them. It was all he could do to cling to consciousness. His head was spinning. A bright crimson haze whirled about him. He was scarcely able to think coherently.

Then through the fog that engulfed his brain he saw the shop door open again, and the huge Skandar woman Hendaya Zanzan entered to begin her evening’s work of tidying and sweeping. Ghambivole Zwoll stared at her in awe and wonder. Instantly a sudden all-consuming passion overwhelmed him. She was radiant; she was glorious; she glowed before him like a dazzling flame. He had never seen anyone more beautiful.

He ran to her, reached up, clasped his tentacles tightly around her enormous calf. His heart pounded with a great surge of desperate love. His vision blurred as tears of joy dimmed his blazing yellow eyes.

“Oh, beloved—beloved—!”

GREG KEYES, who also writes under the names Gregory Keyes and J. Gregory Keyes, was born in Meridian, Mississippi, to a large, diverse, storytelling family. He received degrees in anthropology from Mississippi State and the University of Georgia before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of The Waterborn , The Black-god , the Age of Unreason tetralogy, and the Star Wars: New Jedi Order novels Edge of Victory I: Conquest , Edge of Victory II: Rebirth , and The Final Prophecy . In 2003, he began his fantasy quartet called the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, which began with The Briar King and continued with The Charnel Prince , The Blood Knight , and The Born Queen . He lives with his family in Savannah, Georgia, where he is also the head coach of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s fencing club.

Fool Wolf woke slicked in blood and surrounded by corpses. Again.

The first time he’d been sixteen, and there had only been one casualty—a woman he had kissed, stroked, made love to, planned to have children with. He’d watched as the same hands and lips and body that once brought her pleasure took her to heights of sustained agony with such skill that she remained alive to experience it long after her heart should have stopped. When her eyes finally went hollow, he had heard his voice croon in disappointment.

There were many, many more bodies this time, all as ruined as hers had been. They looked small, as if he were high above them, gazing down.

She twisted in him, not quiescent yet, and he felt her stroke his flesh from the inside, smelled snake and lightning smoke.

Beautiful, she purred.

Trying not to retch, he pushed himself up to standing on limbs trembling with fatigue.

Chugaachik made sure he recalled every detail of that first death, but since then he sometimes had the good fortune to not remember the details of what he did under her influence.

Not this time, Chugaachik whispered mockingly.

“You should have freed her,” Inah pouted from the cell across from his, her usually jade eyes more like obsidian in the torchlight, the lithe curves of her body no more than shadow.

He rested his forehead against the heavy bars.

“You know better than that.”

“Do I? She’s saved us in the past.”

“She saved me . If she ever got my hands on you, she would rape and eviscerate you—not in that order.”

She has godblood, the spirit caged in his bones murmured. She could survive our games for a long while, my sweet. She might even enjoy them. Remember, she is something of a sister to me.

Inah couldn’t hear her, of course.

“I can take care of myself,” she said.

Fool Wolf grated out a harsh chuckle. “You still don’t understand? If I ever unleash her again, the only thing you can do is run.”

Yes, why not? A chase is always fun.

“I do understand,” she replied. “I would have escaped her—the river was right there. In the river, even she couldn’t harm me. Not using your body.”

“That might have worked,” he admitted. “But then she would have just turned on random people.”

Never random. I have my tastes, as well you know.

“So?” said Inah.

Good girl.

“Then you really don’t understand,” he replied, summoning his will to push Chugaachik down, away, to silence her if for only a little while.