"I shall order you flogged later, worry not," Bloodbyrn said. "Now," her voice took on a businesslike detachment "I am sure my lord will wish to be informed of the current tactical situation in Clouds-Gather."
"What? What are you talking about?" His cheek and ear were still throbbing. Whatever else his education might have prepared him for, he had no idea how to deal with an abusive spouse.
"Clouds-Gather, my lord. Your castle. In the Necropolis. At the center of the Bleaklands," Bloodbyrn's voice grew more strained as Freetrick's expression of absolute ignorance remained in place. "In Skrea."
Freetrick blinked. "You're taking me into Skrea."
"Of course we are taking you into Skrea, my lord, for you are its king."
Freetrick took a breath to protest, but Bloodbyrn cut him off. "We have made no mistake, my lord."
She leaned forward again. "And I, personally, did not come all this way to...would you stare so at a Dark Lady, my lord ?"
Her hand caught his cheek, and Freetrick was sure he saw drops of blood fly through the air on the follow-through.
"Oh do not whimper so," she said, disgusted. "Tempest above, but you are a spineless thing. And do not squint at me, or I shall discipline you again."
"I can't see, you bitch," Freetrick snarled before he could catch himself. He shut his eyes against the next blow and jerked inside his cocoon of warm monster when he felt instead the pressure of one of Bloodbyrn's hands caressing the gash she had made. "Do not show your teeth to me, my lord," Bloodbyrn murmured, "for we are soon to be un-wed. Now, why is it you cannot see?"
Freetrick struggled to regain his ability to speak.
"Hhhem." Mr. Skree's throat clearing noise would have made a mummy sound vivacious. "Excuse this pitiably beseeching worm, Malevolence. If it pleases the mightiest of villains, this woeful excrescence has dared to formulate a theory as to the nature of his Master and Tormentor's current inconvenience, as well as a humble suggestion as to the most opportune and efficacious method of resolving this difficulty."
There was an accordion-like wheeze as Mr. Skree inhaled, "Though it may be suggested only under the direst of penalties that the mighty corpus of the Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend is anything but perfection made flesh, it is the humble opinion of this lowly servant that a congenital inclination of the eyes prevents the Scourge of Virtue from exercising his full powers of perception over great distances."
"Oh I see," said Bloodbyrn, "Thank you Mr. Skree."
"What?" Freetrick was still grappling with 'the mighty corpus of the Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend.' "What did he just say?"
Bloodbyrn ignored him, "We can certainly have spectacles made at the Castle."
"Just so, Dark Lady."
"Well, my lord," Bloodbyrn turned to face him again, "you shall simply have to remain patient until we arrive at Castle Clouds-Gather."
"What are you talking…" Freetrick stopped as his mind finally finished sifting through Mr. Skree's nested clauses. "Yes. I'm nearsighted. I got the problem fixed, word-magically, back in school."
"And of course the un-holy body of the Ultimate Fiend is anathema to the works of the Do-Gooder gods." Bloodbyrn sounded bored.
Freetrick remembered the black distillate of evil vaporizing from his pores and jerked in his monster cocoon. Wait, no. That was a good thing. He could burn a hole in this thing, dissolve the carriage, and escape! Wait, no. He couldn't help excreting the corrosive ooze. Bloodbyrn would think he was trying to escape even if he wasn't. Wait, no. None of that was actually happening.
"Wait," said Freetrick. "No. Why aren't I leaking evil black goo all over the place?"
Bloodbyrn raised her eyebrows, then looked down in the direction of Freetrick's crotch. She leaned back from him slightly.
"Allow this hollow vessel to disentangle the dark and twisted utterances of the Black Oracle, lest the Dark Lady find her entirely justified fear and trepidation focus on incorrect assumptions and thus distract her from the true dangers of the nuptial bed of the Soon-to-be-Ultimate Fiend."
"Thanks, Mr. Skree," muttered Freetrick.
"He Who would Snuff all Light and Happiness refers only to the necromancer's mist, which, in the natural course of his assumption to his dark power, began to waft from the enchanted skin of the Lord of Monsters after his assumption to his true and terrible form. Of course," Was that the hint of a smile in that pickled voice? "It reacted badly in conjunction with the foul Do-Gooder word-magic."
"Ohhh." Non-compatible magical systems would explain why no Rationalist spells would work around him. He really was anathema to the RU, its god, and all His works. Wonderful.
Freetrick wondered what the normal reaction was to this sort of thing. Well, obviously not exactly this sort of thing. Trading insults with an heiress on the way to the Kingdoms of Evil while being slowly digested by animate furniture was, he was sure, not common for college students. But in general.
Denial was always a good option, but Freetrick hadn't had much luck with that so far. Then there was panic. Yes. Check. He'd done that too. What was left? Acceptance? How about manipulation?
Freetrick looked across at Bloodbyrn. He had the distinct impression that if he planned to try manipulating his kidnappers, he'd better plan pretty striking well. He would only get one chance.
"So…" Freetrick tried, "where, uh, exactly are we headed? Castle…what was it?"
"Castle Clouds-Gather," said Bloodbyrn, "in the center of the Skrean Bleaklands."
"The what?"
"The Bleaklands, they stretch from Sangboire in the east---"
"Where?"
"Mr. Skree!" Bloodbyrn called.
"Ah…Perhaps the Soul of Darkness would appreciate a lesson in the geography of the nations that have so recently fallen into the Soon-to-be-fiend's clutches," Mr. Skree said.
Freetrick winced. They would be half way across the mountains by the time the monster was done with paragraph one. "Actually…" he began, but his
voice was drowned out by Mr. Skree's wheezing in-breath.
"Those domains of infinite villainy the world rightly fears as the Kingdoms of Evil squat upon the central plain of the continent like a toad upon the corpse of a unicorn," he began, and the lesson went downhill from there.
Freetrick had to concentrate hard to pull information out of the disquieting similes and labyrinthine clauses. Rationalist maps more or less stopped east of the Bulwarks, but according to Mr. Skree, there was a huge expanse of land there, much wider than the area between the mountains and the coast.
First, there was Skrea, the nation of the god of death, which occupied and possibly created the vast desert east of the Bulwarks, the Bleaklands. In the north, the Bleaklands gave way to the cold, hilly prairie of the Allmans, and in the south the !Quatl had built a huge wall along the border. Freetrick knew about the horse-riding barbarians and the industrious pyramid-builders, of course, but, "Sang-what and who-now?"
"Sangboire of the God of Blood and St'tdrakh of the God of Fear, oh He Whose very Name is a Curse in a Dozen Languages," Mr. Skree answered. "With Skrea of the First God, the God of Death, these three form the Kingdoms of Evil, that mighty force against whom none on the continent may stand."
Death, blood, and fear. Delightful.
"Skrea rules the Kingdoms of Evil, my lord," Bloodbyrn
said. "Be assured that the fear-barons of St'tdrakh and we Sangboise are but my lord's humble subjects."
Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, apparently.
"Which is why," Bloodbyrn continued, "I may confidently pledge to you the combined forces of the god of Blood and our faction among the necromancers when we resist your half-brother's attack."
"My whose attack?"
Bloodbyrn sighed and rubbed her fingers over the bridge of her nose. "My lord's half-brother. Dark Prince Feerix of the Sharpened Thumb."
"This guy," said Freetrick, "Feerix. He's my
brother
?"
"My lord's half-brother," said Bloodbyrn.
"...to excuse the correction," whispered Mr. Skree. "Spawn of the Ignoble Lady Batclaw, now murdered, and of the previous Ultimate Fiend Wrothborg, may the blood never dry from his hands."
"A brother," said Freetrick, "a family." He was surprised how much the idea affected him. He had grown up in a succession of exclusive boarding schools, and never seen much difference between the resident teachers, who after all gave him care and attention every day, and the distant voices on the magic mirror that the other students called their parents.
Yes, he had wondered what kind of people his parents had been, and how they might have died, but the thoughts had been abstract, un-specific, and mostly confined to times when he was being punished by his guardians. Now, Freetrick realized the question he should have been asking himself all those years in school: where had his tuition come from?
Freetrick imagined payments arriving at the desk of the bursar in the form of pirate's chests filled with bloody golden coins. Or letters written in blood on a parchment of human skin arriving at the desk of his high school principal: "
How's our boy doing? Tell him the monsters are all doing well, and Mr. Skree misses him. Bloodbyrn sends her love, and says she could give you a vicious slap to the face. See you at the Black Rite of Winter Solstice!"
"My lord?" Bloodbyrn said, in a tone of voice that jerked Freetrick violently back into reality.
"Sorry. I was just thinking," he said. "If I really am who you think I am, which I'm not admitting, then that would mean…I'm not an orphan."
"Not until last month, Cruel One." Said Mr. Skree.
"Oh. Right." That was actually probably for the best. While it was nice to know he had not actually been fatherless his whole life, it was probably a good thing he hadn't grown up with the Ultimate Fiend of the Kingdoms of Evil for a daddy. That raised other questions, though. "What about the rest of my family?"
"My lord," began Bloodbyrn, but Mr. Skree cleared his throat and she fell silent. Freetrick was fairly sure she ranked above him in the Skrean hierarchy, but it would have taken an even stronger will than hers to hold ground against that noise. 'Sepulchral' would only begin a very long and unsettling description
.
"The Despot Feerborg has no family of the First Degree apart from his half brother, the dark lord and prince Feerix, he of the Sharpened Thumb," said the vampire, "but of the Second to Seventh Degrees there are twice thirteen less one."
Freetrick calculated. That would make twenty five…
family
members. Huh. Was it too much to hope for that some of his kin might be sane and decent people? It was hard to imagine anyone who wouldn't be a step up from his current company.
Another thought occurred to him. "So if my father was the king of Evil, who took me to The Rationalist Union? My mother?" Mr. Skree remained silent. "Well?" asked Freetrick, "Who was she?"
"She is as one dead; we do not speak of her, my lord," said Bloodbyrn.
Freetrick turned to face her, "Do you mean you disapproved—" She rattled her skirts at him and Freetrick thought of snakes.
"—I mean!" He blurted, "I'm
not
speaking of her. Um." He swallowed. "What about my brother?"
"Half-brother." Bloodbyrn settled back into her seat. "Dark Prince Feerix is the only other surviving first-degree relation of my lord of the proper generation to assume the Skull Throne."
"Well if he wants it, he can just striking take it," said Freetrick.
"He will, my lord, but only after he kills you." Bloodbyrn looked quizzically at Freetrick's gape of shock. "How else can you decide succession than by allowing the royal family to kill each other until only one remains?"