Authors: Angela Verdenius
“What I tell you,” The Overlord said, “is for our ears only.”
“We’re behind curtains,” she replied. “Anyone can hear.”
“No one will hear,” Phemar replied wetly, lifting his hand.
The sound of raucous laughter and screams faded and it was though the occupants of the chamber were in a cocoon. Maybe they were. Rani wouldn’t be surprised at anything in this cursed place.
“I control the Inner Sanctum of the Outlaw Sector,” The Overlord stated. “My word is law. Those who dwell here and close by are those wanted so badly by the law and other outlaws and space pirates that they daren’t go further afield. I protect them. I provide their entertainment. I control them.”
“Control them?” Rani regarded him steadily.
“Control them,” he affirmed. “If I don’t rule here, what do you think would happen?”
“They’d do their own thing.”
“They’d run wild. They will slaughter all in their paths, they will fight for supremacy. Those who dwell in the Inner Sanctum have no mercy for anyone. It’s my rule that keeps a semblance of civility here.” The Overlord stroked the gold head of the sceptre he drew onto his lap. “It is not an easy job.”
“But one you have taken on,” Rani said bluntly. “How noble.”
Obviously it wasn’t a good thing to say, because Fredrico stopped eating and Veknor set his goblet down on the table. Tension was palpable from them both.
The Overlord’s breath hissed in as he looked at Rani. “Do not think me a fool, warrior.”
“I don’t.ed.I don”
“Do not think you have seen everything there is to see in the Outlaw Sector.”
“I’ve seen much,” she returned, even as a little voice inside her head warned her that it would be wiser to stay silent.
“You haven’t seen it all. You haven’t seen all there is to see in my fortress.”
“I’ve seen demons, shadows that move of their own accord and,” she slid her gaze to Phemar, “a walking, talking, rotting corpse.”
Phemar’s laugh bubbled out moistly and a little spatter of blood from the depths of his hood landed on the table by a haunch of half raw meat.
Rani inwardly shuddered.
“You’ve seen much but you still haven’t seen what we call entertainment in my fortress.” The Overlord’s milk-white hand gripped the sceptre tighter. “You can guess at the scum who dwell in my fortress, the scum you will walk-by-side with, but you don’t know them. It is time you have a peek.”
The curtain on the other side swished open at the same instant the light went out in the little dining chamber. Startled, Rani looked around and found herself looking down into a nightmare scene.
They weren’t in a small dining chamber, but up on a dais. Steep, wide stairs went down to a huge, shadowy chamber below. Long tables were set in the middle, groaning under huge platters of food. Around the walls were huge sofas and chairs. Hounds scrambled for food, barking and snapping at each other. People sat eating sedately, talking quietly. Laughter rose here and there. It would have looked almost normal, except for other things.
On the sofas people openly copulated. Twos, threes, groups. Orgies. Grunts, screams and groans. Some struggled, some laughed. The sound of crying and someone begging, only Rani wasn’t sure if it was for mercy or more.
High above the tables, suspended from chains by their feet, hung four bodies. Two were gutted, their intestines lying in heaps upon the food on one table. Hounds jumped up, sending the plates scattering as they fought over the intestines, ripping the flesh before running off in yipping pairs as someone threw something at them.
Two of the bodies were alive. She saw their faces as they turned slowly, the huge fires set in the walls halfway down the huge chamber picking out their features. One was crying, begging for mercy as he swung naked. His skin had been cut in so many places that his body was red with blood and it dripped from his fingertips to land in the food below him on the table.
The people sitting under him laughed, disregarding the blood and continuing to eat.
Rani felt her gorge rise but swallowed it down as she looked around, the nightmare images imprinting on her brain.
The fourth person was a woman. Her breasts had been cut off, but she was still alive, and Rani saw why when she glimpsed the black flesh as she swung above the table. Someone had cauterized the wounds when they’d cut the breasts off. The woman’s face was red from the blood rushing to her head, her eyes bugled, but she was alive. From her mouth issued little whimpers.
Okay, they were nightmare images, but she’d seen similar in the Outlaw Sector. You couldn’t fight as a mercenary for warring lords without seeing savagery.
But what added to the nightmare were the shadows that flitted through the room and high up on the ceiling. A monstrous body rose, barely discernable to the eye but very real to Rani. It’s gilfwi. Itrth was so huge, it’s body so monstrous, that from the thighs down it disappeared into the floor, and from the chest up it disappeared into the ceiling. Huge muscles bulged obscenely, and several twitched as though something was trying to break out. A dull roaring came from overhead and she knew it originated from the monstrous form.
There was an argument brewing in the corner, the flash of a knife, and someone’s head spun out suddenly into the middle of the floor. A hound darted between people and picked it up by the hair, dragging the object quickly along the stone floor, leaving a pathway of blood in its wake.
What happened to the body, Rani had no idea.
A woman crawled out from beneath a pile of people, her clothes torn and her body bleeding. A man dragged her back into the groping, writhing, screaming mass of copulating people.
The bodies swung overhead, the hounds fought for blood and bone, uninhibited copulation was against the walls, and amongst it all, sipping their wine and discussing everyday affairs, sat other people.
The dining chamber of The Overlord’s fortress.
Welcome to Hell.
Rani had seen a lot of horrors, and many matched what she saw now, but never had she seen so many perversions all in one hit. She’d seen tortured bodies of the dead, she’d fought in wars and killed, she’d seen sexual degradation and rape, but never to this extent, and certainly not the half-seen, monstrous shadows that flickered along the walls where shadows shouldn’t be, the half-formed shapes that slid between the chaos.
And most hideous of all were those eating so politely amongst it.
Her stomach roiled, the water she’d swallowed threatening to erupt from her throat. The overload to her senses was almost too much. Her heart pounded in her ears. She wanted to shut her eyes, turn away, run, anything but watch the horrors below her.
Then she felt the cold hand on her shoulder, and glancing sideways she saw that it was milk white. The Overlord’s throne was behind her, his voice in her ear as he spoke softly.
“This is my world, Rani. These are the people I control. You think this is bad? This is only a peek at the atrocities that are committed here every day, a normal day in my fortress. Can you imagine if they spilled into the Lawful Sector? Can you imagine them doing to the Lawful what they do to each other? If they can do this here, what else might they do to the Lawful? The innocent?”
Moistening her dry lips, Rani forced herself to answer. “Are you saying there are no innocents here?” She looked across at the woman swaying on the end of the chain.
“She is no innocent. She killed and ate her children.”
“Then wouldn’t it be better to kill her in turn?”
“She has become part of the entertainment. Her torture and punishment are a reminder to all my people of what I am capable of.” The Overlord remained where he was. “Not one person in this fortress or in the Inner Sanctum is innocent, warrior. You would do well to remember that. These people have no mercy. They will kill, maim, torture, rape, some are cannibals, they do things you haven’t dreamed of. And I control them.”
“You allow them to continue.”
“I stop them from killing each other then spreading to the Lawful Sector.” His hand disappeared and he moved his throne back to the table.
The curtain fell, cuttey n fell,ing off the display of atrocities, and the sound faded as the shields moved back in place.
Heart thumping a sick tattoo, Rani turned and looked at Fredrico. No one here was innocent. What had this man done to be able to face what was down below and still manage to eat?
He returned her gaze but his eyes were now shadowed.
“So, warrior.” The Overlord reclaimed her attention. “Now perhaps you understand why it is so important that I retain a hold on the Inner Sanctum.”
Trying to force the images from her mind but knowing they were burned there for eternity, Rani forced her gaze to The Overlord. He didn’t look so odd now, but dangerous. His pink eyes held a malevolent glint she hadn’t noticed before and the thin mouth was a cruel slash.
One should never discount the enemy. An old lesson she should never forget.
“Why is it so important for you to stop the overtaking of the Lawful Sector?” Her voice was strong and steady even as she shook inside.
“There must always be a balance. Good and evil. The good feeds the evil, keeps us alive. If the good is destroyed, then evil will turn on itself and destroy itself. Evil is never satisfied to just rule. It devours, destroys, and finally makes itself null and void.”
“Evil cancels out evil. So what do you get out of this?”
“Power.” The Overlord stroked the head of the sceptre and now Rani could see that it was in the shape of a gold carrion eater. “I have ultimate power in the Outlaw Sector. But I have my job, too, warrior. We all have a job to do.”
“You have a job?” Rani gave a twist of her lips. “And who is your boss?”
His pupils slitted. “I have controlled this Sector for a time you couldn’t even fathom. I am the only guardian of the balance of good and evil.”
Guardian of good and evil. A twisted, vicious guardian who could see the necessity of keeping control of the most malignant of outlaws.
How ironic was it that the only one standing between a complete war between the Lawful and Outlaw Sectors was one alien being and a handful of his servants?
And she was one of his to command. One of his servants.
God save me.
No, too late. A catch in her throat, she looked at Fredrico and was surprised to find a softening in his eyes. The ruthless light was gone for mere seconds only, but it was enough for her to see a flicker of the man he once had been.
Veknor simply gave her a slow once-over with his dark eyes while tracing circles on the table with the base of his goblet.
Try to keep it together, Rani. You lose it in front of these bastards and you’re lost. You have to stand strong.
She transferred her gaze to The Overlord. “What am I supposed to do? And why me?”
“I had another chosen but she foiled Death every time. She, too, flirted with insanity, but it was not to be.” The Overlord touched his fingertips together. “But you were perfect. Phemar was on the lookout for someone strong, someone who would do the honourable thing, who would be ruled by honour in a different way. Someone who would do what is right.”
“So I was chosen because I’m a good girl?” She strongly doubted that.
“You were chosen because two warriors were being chased and > < chasedthey ran into a cave. Forces are everywhere, Rani, and those forces look for opportunities. Phemar was notified and we knew that your escape from the hunters wasn’t even a thin possibility. Both you and your sister warrior were going to die. But we needed you whole, not hacked to pieces, and the time had to be just right. It was also something we weren’t sure could be done.” The Overlord took a sip of wine and replaced the goblet on the table. “The chance came when your throat was cut.”
“If you’re going to say you saved my life, I’m not that grateful.”
His lipless mouth curved into a smile. “Oh, we needed you frozen right then. Right at that moment. Right when your spirit was just poised to leave your body. That made you vulnerable to dark forces. So you were frozen and kept in hibernation until need of you had Fredrico fetch you and bring you...” He gestured around. “Home.”
Rani had to give the space pirate his due, he could keep a stoic expression.
She frowned, thinking she had to ask about something, about someone important, but she couldn’t quite think who.
“Phemar had heard rumblings of The Darknen. He is restless, he wants a take-over of the Inner Sanctum and from there the Outlaw Sector. He seeks to rule the Outlaw Sector, and from there spread to the Lawful Sector.” The Overlord delicately traced the head of the sceptre. “And that, my dear warrior, is where you come in.”
“Me?” She was bewildered. “What can I do against a - a dark mystic or whatever? If you can’t fight him, how can I possibly do it?”
“Because you tread two paths.” His pupils slitted. “You tread the spirit world and the living. You are marked by a dark mystic. You have powers untapped. Only you, Rani, can hope to face The Darknen and come out alive. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“You’re not like a normal living being,” Phemar reminded her, his robes swishing against the floor as he shifted.
That was so comforting. Rani wanted to wipe her forehead, lean her head in her hands. Swear. Wake up from the nightmare unfolding before her. But it was not to be, because it was all so horribly real.
So she simply asked The Overlord, “Others must have tried before this Darknen?”
“Some have, but they weren’t from dark forces.” The Overlord fingered his lipless mouth. “They were easily dealt with.”
“Phemar commands some dark forces. Surely it would be easier for him to fight this Darknen person.”
The Overlord looked at her but didn’t answer.
Oh, so there were other things here he wasn’t talking about. It shouldn’t have surprised her. Evil always had secrets.
“Trouble comes.” The Overlord looked at the far wall, his pupils dilating rapidly. “And when it does, we will be ready.”
They all looked at her then and she stared back.
God above, maybe she was still riding high in her little web of insanity.