Hands of Fate - Part 3

Hands of Fate - Part 3

The Only Inn stood alone on the flattened summit of Mount Orion. Too high for all but the bravest or most foolhardy mortals to reach, it was the province of powers and was stocked to match.

Its kitchens were managed by a minor hearth goddess of the Theolalic tradition; its cellars contained casks, bottles and amphora gathered over multiple millennia; its beds were lined with spider silk sheets and stuffed with the fantastical feathers of sun, moon and star birds; upon the walls behind the bar were carved the recipes for every drink ever concocted; and the barman himself was an artificial construct created by the long gone Sobekel people.

"Khor thirsty," boomed Khor as he strode towards the bar. The aids and attendants to the assembled powers broke before him. "Khor buy best ale in biggest mug."

"You could drink," said a breathy voice by his ear, "or we could enjoy ourselves."

The voice belonged to the Crone-come-Witch Queen, a First Witch of fearsome potency. Khor turned and leered at her newly invigorated body. Her lips were the colour of dogwood berries and just as poisonous. Her large pert breasts strained against her formerly formless black robe. Forced to contain her newly voluptuous body, it didn't quite do the job.

The Witch Queen idly waved a hand and her robe disappeared into mist, leaving her completely naked. She was spectacular, every inch of her arsenic white skin smooth and unblemished. Her long midnight hair fell to the small of her back and a small patch of hair of the exact same colour guarded her sex. Her nipples were large, sharp and hard, and the same shade of dark red as her lips.

"I will not have this body for long and it would be a shame not to make the most of it," she said in a black cat's purr.

Khor growled. His cock grew hard and thunked against his stomach. The bolt of lightning through the tip shot sparks.

"Now this does look tasty, yes," said the Witch Queen and slowly dropped to her knees. She took the meaty member in both hands and felt the heft of its weight. "When I was a girl... Well, it is strange the things you miss."

She lent forward and licked the head.

Khor, King of Storm, stared down at the Witch Queen with hungry eyes and grunted in pleasure. Even as her tongue navigated his girth and length, he reached forward and rested his large meaty hands on her skull.

The Witch Queen took the hint, made a ring of her lips and forced the huge head between her jaws. Her tongue worshipped around the cock invading her mouth.

To Khor that was good but not good enough.

"Khor fuck puny woman," he said and fucked his hips forward. The Witch Queen struggled for a moment, gasping, but managed to swallow his assault. Her throat bulged at the intrusion.

Khor clenched his ass, withdrew his cock until the head pulled against her lips from the inside, and then slammed back in. He moved with all the force of a raging storm and great swathes of his cock disappeared into the Witch Queen's clutching gullet. Her cheeks bulged and the hot wetness of her throat clenched down. The Witch Queen gave back just as good. She battered forward with her head and forced the cock deeper still. Drool fell from her mouth and chin. In the brief moments the cock left her mouth, it shone with spittle.

"Quite the fuck minx, isn't she?" said a husky voice by Khor's ear. It belonged to Nyxanda -- demoness, first daughter of darkness and a child of the eschatonic seed. "When she was young, she whored herself before my mother's court. Cocks, cunts, tentacles, things you can't imagine, anything for power. She nursed on my clit more times than I can count."

Nyxanda set her sharp teeth against Khor's earlobe and bit down hard. Blood swelled around her fangs and Khor slammed himself almost balls deep in the Witch Queen's gasping throat. Nyxanda unlatched her jaw and licked her blood smeared lips.

The power of storms raging through him, Khor set up a hard rhythm as he punish-fucked the Witch Queen's throat.

As he did, Nyxanda stepped around Khor. Metal clattered against wood as she unlatched her golden bikini top and thong panties. They fell away from her body to reveal her demonic form in all her glory. Her skin was pale purple and her released breasts, huge, taught and round. Her hips flared wide and her legs were long and toned. Even barefoot she walked on the balls of her feet, as if wearing the highest of heels. Her long sinuous tail swished behind her. Her sex was bare of hair but not bare of hypnotic, entrancing power.

She knelt behind the Witch Queen and reached around the woman's body. Her hands found the witch's hanging breasts and squeezed them tight. Her fingers deformed the flesh, biting deep, and the Witch Queen groaned around the cock filling her throat.

"Paint the bitch," hissed Nyxanda. She let the witch's breasts drop and took hold of her head. She held it tightly between her hands, pointed dead forward.

Khor clenched his jaw, pulled his rock hard cock from the Witch Queen's throat and exploded. His lightning tattoos blazed blinding white, the lightning bolt through his cockhead spat sparks and a stream of cum plastered the Witch Queen's face. Nyxanda held the witch in place, so she couldn't even move away.

And the cum just kept on coming. Blast after blast left Khor's twitching balls and shot from his volcano like cock. Cum dripped from the Witch Queen's face, every inch covered and sodden with sticky white goo. It filled her eyes and covered her nose, It pooled in her open mouth and dripped in gooey strands over her lips and down her chin.

Finally Khor stood panting as the last few drops fell from the head of his cock.

"Yes," hissed Nyxanda. She leaned forward and drew her forked tongue up the side of the Witch Queen's face.

For her part, the Witch Queen was out of it, eyes dazed and mind fuck drunk. She didn't resist as Nyxanda dragged her to one of the small tables in the room and dropped her onto it.

"Now fuck her," said Nyxanda. She pulled the Witch Queen onto her back and spread her legs. With two purple fingers, Nyxanda spread the witch's alabaster cunt to show the pink inside.

Khor, King of Storms, gave his cock a few pumps in his meaty fist and grabbed the Witch Queen's legs. He threw them up over his shoulders, positioned his cock so the head split her cunt and pushed inside.

The Witch Queen moaned as the pleasure cut through the fog clouding her mind.

"Fuck me!" she murmured. Then louder, "Fuck me!"

Khor slammed in and out of her clutching cunt. Her body writhed and bucked under him. Each thrust sent her tits bucking and bouncing.

"Khor fuck puny witch," he muttered as his great powerful hips worked.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" she cried.

"Less talking, more licking," hissed Nyxanda and dropped her dripping cunt onto the Witch Queen's cum plastered face. She rolled her hips until she found the witch's tongue and then groaned with pleasure. "Mmm. This takes me back."

Khor, Nyxanda and the Witch Queen weren't the only powers indulging in the physical pleasures.

Without Lybie, the Queen of Summer had turned to more masculine pleasures and rode her male initiate like a horse-mistress of the Anomandie steppe breaking a young stallion. His young pretty body bucked under her as she fucked up and down. Her great breasts shook with her effort and the chain between her nipples chimed like bells. He sweated, panted and groaned.

Such debaucheries were like nothing compared to Delirium. She'd enticed a half dozen people, men and women both, into a confused orgy of tangled flesh and groaning bodies right on the inn floor. A pretty blonde girl wearing the black robes of the Dread College turned darker and darker as a hulking demon choke fucked her. A pretty red-headed musician squealed as her own flute entered her pussy while she beat off men with both hands. A storm thrall grovelled under the makeshift whip wielded by a pissed off attendant of the Queen of Summer.

And in the middle of it all was Delirium, his both male and female body covered with sweat, cum, spit and grime. She squealed as one of Malleus' attendants, an overly tall gangly man in his mid twenties, forced his long curved cock up Delirium's ass. It was the safest hole when it came to Delirium, for his pussy appeared and disappeared at random intervals to be replaced by a throbbing cock. When the cock was there, an ebony maid who belonged to the inn took full mouth slobbering licks.

Not all powers partook in the erotic games, of course. Malleus seemed content to enjoy his blood red wine in peace. The Old Emperor sat like a corpse in his chair, face grave dust. Euphony perched alone at the bar and played a haunting melody with both her skeletal hands as she watched the festivities.

Khor grunted as he neared his second orgasm. With the Witch Queen's legs thrown up over his shoulders, his strokes were long, hard and incredibly powerful. With each thrust, his hips met her ass.

The Witch Queen came and came on the cock spearing her body. Her body jerked, her cunt clenched as if trying to crush Khor's cock as it stretched her to her limit and she screamed bloody murder into the cunt mashed to her face.

That cunt belonged to Nyxanda and the demoness came almost as much. Her purple thighs clenched around the Witch Queen's head and ripples of pleasure pulsed up and down her demonic body.

With one final bellow, Khor rooted himself and orgasmed. Boiling white cum blasted into the Witch Queen's body until no room remained and frothy white foam forced its way out. The three participants collapsed into a sweaty pile.

---

It took some time but the game eventually resumed.

All eight players gathered around the table.

Delirium was the first to return of those who had left. She slipped out of the pile of sweating heaving bodies and skipped to the table. Between one step and the next, his clothes returned. She now wore a stylised version of jesters motley.

Euphony sat with her harp in one skeletal hand. She plucked strings seemingly at random but somehow produced an eerie melody, as if a dance of ghosts.

The Old Emperor mouldered quietly. He was still as the grave in his dusty moth-eaten robes. No longer king of wolves, no longer commander of the dark things in caves, this game had cost him dearly, or would have if not for his secret. From behind milky eyes, Mor, the world's greatest thief, planned.

Nyxanda preened as if the prized peacock of the Lemurian Archon. The sex had proved an invigorating intoxicant to her and her purple skin shone. She hadn't bothered redonning her meagre clothing and her large breasts stood high, proud, bare and loose.

Khor was likewise changed by their sex, but instead of enlivened, he wore a sleepy smile on his wild face. The lightning tattoos that covered his body slumbered, merely an electric blue colour rather than blazing.

Even the Crone-come-Witch Queen looked quietly pleased with herself. She had put back on her clothes but the robe was different now. It showed the cleavage of her restored breasts and a slit ran from the side of one leg to her hips.

The Queen of Summer still looked mildly miffed at the fate of her initiate, Lybie, but had recovered easily enough. Her male initiate had taken Lybie's place between the Queen's legs. Judging from the occasional moan that came from the Queen's lips, he was doing well enough.

Malleus, Chancellor of the Dread College, took the deck in his pale hands and scanned the players.

"Fate," he said. "The game of power and prophecy. According to my research, it was first played by the gods of the Sobekel Dominion long before mankind's birth. Their cards were different of course but from studying surviving artifacts, it is undeniably the same game."

He started dealing cards, three to each player. Once done, he turned to Delirium and raised an eyebrow.

Delirium smiled at her cards and rubbed his fingers together. A strange glinting thing appeared and he placed it upon the table. "I bet an impossible idea from a mad-man's mind." A valuable prize indeed. She discarded Ruin and received a replacement.

From Euphony's harp issued a trill unto bird's song. A lesser musician scampered up from behind and laid a rosewood case on the table. Euphony flicked the shining brass catches with her skeletal fingers and opened the lid. Inside, on a cushion of velvet, lay a set of wooden pipes.

"The pipes of Pag," she said and her harp spoke with her, resonating notes. She stroked the worn horn tubes with the back of a bone finger. "I won these twenty years ago in a contest of art at the Fields of Pyantha." She flipped the lid closed with a tap of her finger and pushed the case forward. "And now I offer them up to the winner of this hand."

She discarded a card and drew its replacement. The assembled players gazed into the Underworld and saw the Straits of Epon. The skilled brushwork of the card's painter depicted the location perfectly -- a jagged slash of water which broke Epon in two, marking a feud of powers in ages past.

The Old Emperor let loose a dry cough and withdrew an ancient wooden mask carved to show a snarling beast from his once-fine robe. He burnt two cards and drew their replacements.

The first daughter of darkness, and now naked, demoness Nyxanda brought her hands together. Purple light flickered between her palms and she produced a ghostly silver coin. "Stolen from the Tree Periander."

"Souls?" said Delirium. She rolled her head so it lay on her shoulder. "What would I do with a soul? I am Delirium. The mad, the desperate and the young throw themselves upon me. If I want a soul, all I need do is reach out and..." He plucked a ghostly silver coin from the air. "Take it." Her eyes flashed with spiralling colours.

"Be that as it may," said Malleus, face pinched, "I judge it worthy. The souls drawn to Periander are potent indeed."

Khor jabbed a finger. Winds swirled and when they retreated, a golden horn sat on the table. "Khor mighty," he said. "Khor steal the Horn of Winter from the Palace of Frost." Hoarfrost grew around the mouth of the horn and wisping cold drifted out. He discarded a card, the Clash of Armies, and drew a replacement. His lips moved as he considered it.

The Witch Queen sat back in her chair and fanned herself with a crimson folding fan. After a few idle seconds, she tapped it closed and placed it on the table. "The Crimson Butterfly Fan, stolen a hundred years ago from the safe keeping of the Grey Monks of Lesser Int. There is a powerful demon bound to it." She smiled at Nyxanda. "Perhaps it is a relative."

Nyxanda smiled back and showed her fangs. Her tail cracked.

"I suppose it once again comes to me," said the Queen of Summer and squirmed in her seat as her initiate performed a particularly pleasurable piece of tongue work. "The theme of the hand seems to be treasures won, and far be it from me to break from such a tradition, even one so relatively new." She raised a finger and one of her initiates hurried forward holding a large chest. The initiate set it on the floor, turned a large bronze-work key and stood back.

The Queen of Summer reached in and withdrew a ram's skull, the white bone seemingly turned to stone in places.

"The skull of the Beast Bigbrey." She let her hand hover over the horns. "A measure of that monster's fearsome power yet remains." She closed her eyes and a smile lit up her gold-olive face. "Even after I ate his heart."

Malleus accepted the bet with a slight dipping of his head and dealt the World. He did it fast, with practised motions, slap, slap, slap.

The Mountain came first, showing the snow capped peak of Mount Avar. The stone crest merged seamlessly into a giant metal spike that pierced the clouds.

Second down was the Lovers, returning from the earlier hand. It showed the Queen of Summer entwined with her missing twin brother, their bodies so close they almost seemed one.

Last was the Betrayal. The card showed a darkened room filled with darker still figures. Each held a dagger behind their back.

That was an ominous hand. The players looked at each other through questioning eyes and the faint pressure of power gathered in the room.

Only Delirium seemed unaffected. She laughed. "Oh woe is me, the cards speak our doom it seems." His smile almost split her face. "I bet a True Insight wrestled from the heart of insanity."

For long seconds the only sound in the inn was Euphony plucking a musical heartbeat from her harp. It thrummed out, twang, twang, twang.

After the third such note, Euphony spoke. "In the Red Sea of Isai Minor, their dwell sirens of potent prophecy. To hear their music is to go mad but I braved and bested them. Within a cage of notes and walls of verse, I have captured their song. I offer up this prize."

Wordlessly, the Old Emperor produced a blood soaked battle standard, the cloth torn and ragged, the figure head split and broken.

As he had in every hand so far, he discarded the Thief and drew his replacement.

Nyxanda folded and burnt her cards. The prophecy already writ in the World was not one she would risk.

Khor, King of Storm, stabbed his finger again and a spear of ice joined the Horn of Winter on the table. Cold rose from the permafrost blade. In a voice of brooding storms, he said, "Khor tear puny stick from Winter's own hands."

The Witch Queen joined Nyxanda in burning her cards, her eyes like iron nails.

That just left the Queen of Summer. She smiled and again reached into the chest by her side and pulled out a ruby that flickered with internal flames. "I found it in the Beast Bigbrey's stomach, and while I do not know its providence, there is power to it."

Malleus flicked the top card from the deck and placed it down as Ethos. The Pantheon. It showed a gathering of gods and while few actual gods were gathered in the Only Inn that day, the meaning was clear enough. Fate wasn't a game of chance. It was a game of prophecy and this prophecy was clear for all to see.

Delirium laughed the laugh of the broken and clapped her hands. From their union dropped his third prize. An Unimaginable Thing thudded to the table.

Euphony folded and burnt her cards. She wouldn't risk being trapped or pulled into this hand, not even through the tenuous connection of a discarded card in the Underworld. The Old Emperor did the same and even Khor smacked down his cards with an audible grunt.

As the Queen of Summer made to follow their example, Delirium spoke.

"If you fold now, you will never know what I offer next."

The Queen of Summer paused with her cards half way to the Underworld and turned her gaze on Delirium. Her blue eyes were impossibly deep. "An Impossible Idea, True Insight, and an Unimaginable Thing, valuable prizes true and dearly won I'm sure, but what do they mean to me? There are uses I could put them, without question. From your Unimaginable Thing I could fashion a new species to rival any in my garden. But worth the risk of this unfolding destiny, I think no."

"Queeny, Queeny, Queeny," sang Delirium. "I have gone far and seen many things. I have delved broken minds and thoughts twisted by the most powerful intoxicants. I have travelled to realms only reached by true tragedy or purest love. I have walked the spaces that exist between grains of sand and skipped pebbles across seas into which our world would sink without a ripple."

His impossible eyes swirled with the colours of madness cast with the shades of insanity. She leaned forward and smiled.

"I have braved the Impossible Infinities themselves and returned. I have your brother."

The Queen of Summer remained utterly silent for a moment. Then she slowly rose and unveiled her power.

The legs of every chair, table and stool exploded as her will hit the room like a gigantic fist. Even the Fate table dropped, scattering cards and wagers as it shattered under her incredible power. Bottles exploded. Kegs broke apart and vomited potent alcohols. Lesser mortals gasped and writhed on the ground under the weight of her majesty, not even able to breathe.

Delirium laughed at the display and leaped backwards out of his seat just before it fell. She hit the ground with a hand and flipped to his feet.

"Give him to me," spoke the Queen of Summer, and the words were no mere words. She spoke prophecy, prophecy as strong as the roots of iron trees and the memory of earth. Winds stirred up by her power battered the room, sending her hair flying in every direction. "You will give him to me!"

Even the other powers gathered in the room might have fallen before such a pronouncement and indeed, many did sway at the force of the words, but Delirium was insanity incarnate. She laughed, and the words of fate rolled off him like water from an oilskin.

Delirium flicked her hands out and the varies wines, ales, ciders, spirits and stranger things rose at his command. Sprites of wine and gremlins of whisky capered about the bar. Bogarts of musky beer and trolls made from bubbling ciders stomped forward.

The Queen of Summer took a step towards the host and slashed out. Under her burning gaze, the conjurations flashed-boiled to vapour.

"Give him to me!"

Delirium laughed once more and vaulted backwards again in a spinning series of back flips.

The Queen of Summer kept advancing, driving the contorting, spinning, dodging fool towards the far wall.

When Delirium had nowhere left to go, she leaped into the air as if to flip but didn't come down. His body spun in a tight ball, faster and faster. Light blasted from her glowing body. And the he was gone, vanished.

The Queen screamed and ripped open space with her bare fingers. Blinding light blazed and then she was gone too, following Delirium down madness wrought paths even powers feared to tread.

"Well," said Malleus, "I for one can't speak to the entertainment." He frowned as he observed the devastation and twisted a silver ring on his long pale finger. "I would declare this hand forfeit for all concerned but the wagers seem to be missing."

The assembled powers jerked their eyes back to the table. Everything was gone. No Horn of Winter or spear of ice, no partially petrified ram's skull, no soul coin stolen from the Tree Periande, no anything.

Khor tried to summon his prizes from the first hand but they would not come. No bottled madness or golden apple. Even his own treasures, such as the pickled thunder, were lost to him. He threw back his head and roared.

The Witch Queen opened and closed her hands in shock. Already her youth was fading. Veins rose on the back of her hands as her skin turned papery. Her hair lost its lustre and fell from her head, leaving only spun cobwebs. Her back bent and her teeth rotted in her mouth, leaving bloody gums.

The Crone said in a murdered whisper, "I am no longer king of wolves. I am no longer polemarch of ravens."

"Who?" roared Khor. "Khor smash thief. Khor break bones and eat marrow."

"I can't help notice that we are missing three companions rather than the expected two," said Malleus, the words containing a certain dry sardonicism available only to those who had lost little, "and while I would never normally question the logic of evacuation when powers war, the timing in this case is somewhat suspicious. I draw your attention to the ruined chair where once sat the Old Emperor."

Khor cast about and didn't find the ancient man. He roared again and the storm circling outside answered in full. "Khor will find puny Emperor and Khor will kill!"

He thundered towards the entranceway, pulled the door so hard it flew off its hinges and leaped into the sky outside.

"With a thief in every pot," whispered Mor as he slipped into shadow, "good old Mor has stolen the lot." The prophecy in the words was weak but undeniably there.

In a few centuries, Mor might join the games of powers in truth, but until then, he planned to ply his craft for everything he could. He shed the Old Emperor's form, began the treacherous descent down Mount Orion and fled into the night.

The end...?

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