The Kingdoms of Evil (58 page)

The hand Freetrick put on her shoulder shocked him almost as much as it seemed to shock her. Bloodbyrn jerked it away with a snarl. "The vulnerability I am displaying is merely a ruse to motivate you to reveal privileged information to aid me in your destruction," she mumbled into her hands, "and not at all a… loss of emotional…" She sniffed again, "control." Her eyes came up to glare at him over her hands. "Idiot."

Freetrick opened his mouth, closed it, and kicked his brain into action. What was Bloodbyrn actually upset about? Okay, he hadn't had sex with her. In front of witnesses. After a zombie battle. But how could she be
this
angry about
that
?

Strike it out, she was glaring at him. Freetrick shuffled frantically through possible responses. "Bloodbyrn," he said. "Look. Uh, some things are sexy. And some things are…horrifying. And you don't—you don't striking mix them!"

She blinked. "Do not be ridiculous, of course we do."

Aha. Of
course
they did. "Fine," said Freetrick, "maybe unholy-undead-blood-smeared…striking…
weird
sado-masochism does it for you guys in Skrea, but not for me, okay?"

"Does not 'do it?'" Bloodbyrn shook her head, "merciless one grant me strength, my lord, do not descend into your impenetrable Rationalist patois, but instead endeavor to utilize the clearest and most cogent modes of expression of which you are capable."

"True words, Bloodbyrn!" Freetrick hissed, "I didn't like the sex! It wasn't sexy! It was weird! It didn't
arouse
me. It's wasn't…nice for me, okay?"

"Nice?
Nice?
Oh…oh" At first Freetrick thought Bloodbyrn was sobbing, but then as she lifted her face and he saw the grin, he leaned back. "Tempest above me. My lord and master has a
tenderness fetish
. That is…" And the ice-razors snapped back into place with a nearly audible clang, "unbelievable." Very delicately, a knife-edged fingernail scooped the tears from the corner of each eye. There was not a smudge to her makeup.

"I'm sorry—"

"I do not care for my lord's apologies at this time! I wish to say…ugh!" She threw her hands up toward the blood mist over them, "how is it possible that my lord's behavior
consistently
surpasses my least expectations. Even as I revise them downwards, you find new ways to disappoint me! No, do not interrupt me again, Feerborg."

Freetrick closed his mouth.

"Well I give not half a lizard's carcass for your perverse tastes," she said. "We
shall
consume our relationship. Today."

Today
? Freetrick's horror briefly overtopped his manners. "True words no! Uh…" he backed away from Bloodbyrn, "I mean…I have work to do, Bloodbyrn."

"What work?" she demanded.

"I have interviews with the dark lords." It was even true.

"Again this nonsense? Please do me the favor of allowing me to express the many ways in which my lord's choice of actions causes me distress."

She then looked up at Freetrick, who spread his hands, "Go ahead."

Bloodbyrn gestured and the blood rained out of the air around them. It left a hot coppery stink in the air. "My lord," she said, voice once again composed, "were circumstances otherwise I would embrace the desire of the Despot of Skrea to engage in some therapeutic sadism," she said, "but I must insist that now is in no way the time for such frivolities. We—you and I, my lord, have much to discuss. Much to do. Much," she glanced at remains of the blood mist on the floor around them, "to be
witnessed
doing. So, we shall take the next secret doorway on the left—" she indicated a portrait on the corridor wall. One of the yellow eyes glaring from its cut-out sockets winked saucily. "—and thence make our ways to my private chambers, where I keep a collection of certain tools, unguents, and visual aids with which I can, I am sure, aid my lord in overcoming his difficulties."

Freetrick was getting good at talking with Bloodbyrn. Usually, he could guess what she was about to say as she started talking, and by the time her sentence was over, he could put together a pretty good response. Plus he barely shuddered at all with revulsion as the last part of her statement processed.

"You know, what, Bloodbyrn?" Freetrick looked down and met his wife's eyes. "I'm the king of Skrea. I have work to do. So we're going to have to put all of this…" he flapped his hands, "relationship stuff on hold while I work on stopping this country from striking exploding and killing us all."

"My lord, time, is short!" Bloodbyrn grasped his arm. "And we must attempt again to couple at once!" she glanced around, cast a distrustful glance at the yellow-eyed portrait, and shrugged. "Here. If my chambers are inconveniently located, I know of a well-secured room in this corridor. We must only clear out the goblins, and then—"

"Bloodbyrn, later!" he yanked his arm away from her, "I have work to do. Work at being the king."

"Oh, nonsense, my lord." Bloodbyrn gestured as if swatting away a particularly annoying bee. "My lord's work is here, with me, and nothing is of greater importance."

"No," said Freetrick, "it isn't. The interviews—"

"Interviews? Foolishness!"

Freetrick gritted his teeth, fighting hard to keep his voice level. "It's my job, Bloodbyrn."

"Pardon me, but my lord seems to be laboring under a great misapprehension about the nature of his duties as Despot of Skrea. He sits upon the throne. He orders people killed or mutated. My lord's duties and obligations pertain to the Vile Halls, the Dark Synod, the Villainous Council, and…and…" chromed bracelets sparkled as she threw up her hands, "and
participating
in the community of the aristocracy of your kingdom! And I might add incidentally ensuring the succession with your First Concubine, although" she whispered at him, "my lord's preferences and, more to the point, I think, his capabilities in
that
direction are already well-established."

"No. Bloodbyrn, I am not here to play stupid aristocratic games." He overrode her response, "strike it out, if none of
you
are going to do
your
striking jobs, everything has to rest on me. Somebody has to
run
this striking country!"

Bloodbyrn's face drew back, eyes going blank for a moment. "Ah?" Then, to Freetrick's utter bafflement, her red-coated lips twisted in bemusement. "What, does my lord think being a dark lord of Evil involves pushing paper around a desk all day?"

Well, his desk was made of human scapulae, but Freetrick got the thrust of Bloodbyrn's argument. "Bloodbyrn, I don't know how the other kings of Skrea did things, but I can't
imagine
that they spent all their time dueling and intriguing."

"They most certainly did so." She stepped back, "we most certainly do so."

"So who runs Skrea?"

"Why, us of course," Bloodbyrn's brows drew back down, "my lord makes absolutely no sense."

Freetrick felt like screaming. Were they speaking different languages? He held his hands out as if to grasp Bloodbyrn and force her to understand what he was trying to say.

"Bloodbyrn, if the aristocracy does nothing but waste time, who does the work of the government? Who…like, orders the bread? Who sets the tax rates? Who makes sure the castle doesn't fall down around us?"

Aubergine highlights slid across her dark curls as Bloodbyrn shook her head, "all that? That is not ruling. Those matters are not those with which a dark aristocrat concerns himself. My lord speaks of tedious minutiae."

"Tedious?" said Freetrick, "Bloodbyrn, we'd be dead in a week if those sorts of things weren't constantly being…" his voice slowed as finally,
finally
, the missing cog snapped into place and the crankshaft in his mind began to turn "taken…care…of!" He smacked himself on the forehead, "True
Words
how could I have been so stupid? Somebody
is
running Skrea, it just isn't the people I thought it was…burning libraries, those interviews! I have to cancel them!"

"Yes, exactly my…" Bloodbyrn began, "where is my lord going?"

He turned around. "Thanks for your help, Bloodbyrn, but I
really
have to—"

The little heel hooked around his ankle, overbalanced him, and then she was somehow on top of chest, pressing down as Freetrick's ass thumped hard against the floor of the corridor.

"No. Enough of this. As my lord himself said, he has work to do. I am in accordance, but he is only mistaken about its nature." She leaned down over her knee, still pressing the now supine Freetrick's chest against the floor. "Your duty, Feerborg, is to induce conception of your first child with me. After that, you may do as you will and be damned for it, but I will take you here on this cold floor to ensure I get what is mine." Bloodbyrn's knife flicked out. She squinted at his armor and bared her teeth. "Now hold still."

In the few seconds it took for Freetrick's spinning brain to interpret exactly what Bloodbyrn intended, she had smeared a bloody handprint across the armor that covered his chest and body. There was a moment of intense cold, then a vibration like teeth grinding together and Freetrick's armor cracked down the middle like an eggshell.

"Yes! Excellent!" Red drops pattered down as Bloodbyrn lifted her bleeding hand over her head. Her teeth still bared, her eyes still gleaming orange, the Ultimate Fiend's not-quite-yet First Concubine flicked the hand and Freetrick's blood-stained undergarments ripped themselves off him. "Remain still." The hand came down again as Bloodbyrn kneeled to straddle Freetrick's now horribly vulnerable torso. Nimble fingers and thumb scribbled lines and whorls of crimson on Freetrick's shivering skin. "This need only take moments."

At the time, Freetrick felt as if he understood everything in one flash of clarity. Only later did he have the time and energy to think about it and thank his Rationalist education for the magic of syllogisms. What Freetrick thought was this:

Major premise:
Bloodbyrn
really
wants to have sex with me, although she obviously doesn't particularly
like
me.

Minor premise:
Girls who really want to have sex with men they don't like generally have ulterior motives.

a. Considering Bloodbyrn's father, her political affiliations and mine, the nature of Sangboise blood-magic, and the fact that she apparently has to draw all over me with blood every time she tries…

Freetrick's fingers, enclosed in un-bloodied and therefore still very much armored gauntlets, closed over her slender wrist and wrenched it across his chest. Heat and cold flashed and the blood lines clotted, then blackened.

With all of his strength, Freetrick yanked Bloodbyrn sideways by her arm. Then he got his other hand and his feet planted, and surged upward.

Brittle armor clattered against the ground as the Ultimate Fiend rose to tower above his not-quite First Concubine. Black mist crashed in the air around him and his eyes flashed lightning.

"Bloodbyrn!" Violent, electrical harmonics surged under Freetrick's voice. His left hand still gripped her right, but now he pushed her arm back, squashed it up against her heaving chest. "I will not be manipulated by you again. Now you listen to
me…
"

"Yes?" she said, "and what will my lord order me to
do
?" She was breathing fast, teeth still bared, lips wet, eyes wide and exulting.

Freetrick jerked back from her, his fingers spasming away from hers. Burn and strike out striking Sangboise blood-magic! What the struck-out hell had he been about to do?

"Bloodbyrn," said Freetrick again, as her face fell, "no."

"Why not?" her cry was half agony, half anger.

Freetrick gritted his teeth, "No more games, Bloodbyrn. I know what you're trying to do."

"You understand nothing!" She exploded, "That ceremony was imperative,
imperative!
Agh!" She fumed, "My lord, I confess I am at the end of my wits in my endeavors to solve this problem. I must prod you, I must threaten every time your action was called for. In every instance, when I issue my command, you balk, you answer back, you ask why?" Bloodbyrn glared up at him with eyes like soldering torches. "Is that what our relationship is to be? Will you
ever
simply obey me?"

"Oh, Bloodbyrn…" Her voice was so wracked with emotion that it took Freetrick a moment to actually process what she said. "Wait. No!" he spoiled princess actually looked surprised. "No, I won't simply
obey
you, Bloodbyrn. That's not how this works. If this were a Rationalist marriage…"
I never would have gotten involved
, he mentally continued, but strove to make his point, "…we would be partners. We would
discuss
things, we'd work
together.
"