Vhamnya's Tale: Rise of a Dark Queen - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Vhamnya's training started with spellcraft, which she already knew, but the Chosen provided theory she had earlier only guessed. Along with summoning beasts and spirits, they taught her the arts of illusion, to make men see what existed only in their minds, and of charms, to bend them to her will. These she learned as if she had been born with them.

The Chosen also taught her other lessons that had little to do with magic. Thy trained her voice, her walk, and even her manner of looking into men's eyes. All this they did to greaten her natural gifts. Men could not look on her without loving her, but the Chosen taught her to look as what they loved. More so, they taught her to speak and act like a noblewoman, or like a townswife or merchant, or even a lowly wench as might suit her needs. Soon came the day when, aided by her newfound skills, Vhamnya could walk through Azpat's streets, and no one noticed her. Her glamor made her skin as light or dark as she wished, and her eyes brown, green, or gray. She could move almost invisibly.

They also taught her something of her father, though they teased her, as if with a riddle. "Who is Graz'zt?" she asked.

"He is the Dark Prince of demons," Mandr told her. "Ruler of the Triple Realm, the City that rules All Three, and the Silver Palace.  Lamias and succubae heed his call. He loves seduction, but also challenge. He speaks to those who desire, be it pleasure, greatness, or vengeance. He offers many things to any who but seek."

"What does He want of me?" asked Vhamnya.

"You please Him most of all. He takes special pride in you as His child. He wants to see you master His mysteries. Ultimately, He wishes you to preside over His Will and Works on earth."

"But what does that mean?" she asked.

In answer Mandr laughed. "You will learn."

For the first time since her youngest years Vhamnya watched over the orgies with which they marked their homage to the Dark Prince. They were as cruel as she remembered, as bloody. Unlike then, the sight of victims' flesh yielding to the Chosens' pleasures left her sickly hot. A burning rose, despite her better sentiments, from deep within her belly, like what she had felt among the orcs when they ravished each other. She hung her head, fearing what threatened to possess her.

So she returned to her room one night, just before dawn after the rites ended; listless to the tortures she had witnessed and weary from her loins' heat. A maid followed her in and bore a wash-bowl. Vhamnya sat on the bedside and rued her feverish thoughts while the girl knelt at her feet.  Only after she had sat a long while did Vhamnya notice her.

The maid was staring, mouth open, upward into the dark maiden's face. Vhamnya's eyes sharpened. "What?"

"Forgive me," stuttered the maid, who was fair with freckles and brown curls hanging to her shoulders. She swallowed, and then uttered those words Vhamnya had heard so often: "It's just that you're so beautiful."

The dark maiden glared icily. "Is that all you folk ever see?"

The maid shook her head. "I also see you are sad." He eyes gazed deep and wide. "If I could ease your sorrow, I would."

Vhamnya's mouth gaped. She felt herself standing on a choiceful ledge, a step toward what she could not see. Slowly she knelt down before the serving maid. Her trembling hands cupped the other girl's face.

The maid's fingers curled around hers. "I know what they do here," she whispered. "I know the things they make you do and watch." She shuddered and blinked. "And I know what it means to dwell with fear."

Vhamnya felt tears pooling in her eyes. "I let myself come into this darkness," she admitted. "Is there nowhere we can hide?"

"Only in what we may take for ourselves," answered the maid.  Her hands squeezed Vhamnya's.

Vhamnya leaned forward, and the girl's lips met hers. They pressed together softly, breathlessly. Vhamnya kissed harder. For the first time in so long she had forgotten, the hot lustful hunger vanished. In its stead bloomed joy, so strong it made her whimper.

She felt only the girl's full lips, her tongue's licks. She did not feel her arms round the maid's shoulders, only the soft skin beneath her fingers and the hair-wisps curling down. She did not feel the maid's hand on her breast, only the swooning pleasure that bent her body. Only slowly did she realize the fingers kneading her plushness, teasing her hardening nipple.

Awareness returned, even as she continued the caress, for she did not want to stop. Vhamnya let her thoughts stretch and touch the other maid's mind, seeking answer.

What she found made pull back. "You're one of them!" she accused.

The maid stared at her; hands on Vhamnya's arms. "I am here to serve you," she spoke softly.

Vhamnya's body quailed from the pleasure that had only now transcended her. Fear replaced it, of loss of mastery, loss of herself to she knew not what. She stood and tripped backward onto the bed.

"Please," said the other girl, the Chosen. Her hand reached forth to the dark maiden. "Just let me show you!"

Vhamnya's wrath centered in her own hand, which swept outward full of dark might. The girl dropped to the floor, quivering and screaming.

Vhamnya fled the room, and then the house, out to the city. She wandered the streets and empty hours until the sun rose. As the town came alive, carters moving their wares, tradesmen opening their shops, she went among them and beheld the city unfold. Below a window she watched a young man climb down from his lover's window. Before a door she watched a husband kiss his wife when he left for work. Vhamnya fled to the river and hid under a bridge. There she clutched her knees to her aching breast and rocked back and forth. Her body warred with her mind. How, she wondered, could she want this thing she had feared for so long? What would she lose by yielding?

She avoided the Chosen when she returned to the house and went straight to her room. She drowned her inner thoughts by sticking her nose in a book, but even that held tales of romance and poems of lovers' trysts. When a knock sounded the door, she sighingly put it aside.

The door opened, and Mandr entered. "We shall have dinner tonight," he announced.

"I'm not hungry," she told him.

"I think you will be," he replied, eyeing her. "This is a break from our work and studies, a respite of pleasantry," he explained. "I can see how these months have weighed on you. Put them aside for tonight. There will be music and dance. Have some fun."

At length Vhamnya agreed. Dark arm on Mandr's sleeve, she walked downstairs to the house's banquet room. There he sat her on a cushion beside him and house's high priestess. As foresaid, musicians were tuning their instruments. They began a song before the first course appeared.

While they ate, a pair of dancers, man and woman, entered. They glided to the hall's center, amid the tables.  There to the drum's beat they circled each other; arms flowing, bodies bending. Then, to Vhamnya's surprise, the man drew the scarf from the woman's breast, baring her tight softness. Likewise, the woman ripped the shirt from his chest, showing the iron hardness of his thews. She did not stop there, but tore his flimsy breeches. Vhamnya found herself staring at his bulging manhood before they whirled away and continued their disrobement to the music, right before her picked up the woman.

Face hot, Vhamnya fled the table while the dancer's legs embraced the man's head. She ran from the banquet hall, down the stairs without knowing where she went. She found herself standing at the doorway of the lower hall, the hall where the darkness was let to lie. She startled back, unwilling to set foot here in this whisper-haunted place. She huddled on the steps.

A footstep behind jerked Vhamnya around, where she beheld a shape holding a light. She straightened in challenge. Down the stairs came Mandr; candle in hand. He stopped just above, where his head rose almost equals to hers.

"Why?" he asked.

Vhamnya blinked. "What do you mean?" she stuttered.

"Why do you run?"

"Because..." she sighed: "I don't like the way it makes me feel."

Mandr strode by her, down to the hall's floor. There he turned, lifted high the light, and gazed at her. "You don't like it?" he repeated. "Is that true?"

"I..." she hesitated. "I don't like what it does to me, what it feeds." She scowled. "If I yield, I don't know what it may waken," she answered, "nor what I may become."

Mandr frowned, and then nodded. "You came to us to learn the truth of what you are, right?" He stepped backward, further into the hall.

Slowly Vhamnya nodded. She stepped forward to follow, setting foot on the hall's floor.

"As I thought." He learned forward and stared gazed closely at her. "If you wish, you could do as you will, and not give into you desires," he conceded. "There are folk who do as this, and deny themselves the pleasures this world and their bodies offer." He nodded again, but then his eyes fixed on her: "But is that really you?"

Vhamnya said nothing.

"Let me tell you of this thing you fear," he followed: "It is a thing as natural as breath. Will it change you? I suppose yes, but It is a change from child to adult," he confided. "Now I've had some time to watch you, and from what I've seen," he licked his lips, "that change has already happened. The thing you fear is nigh a lesser thing. You can only learn from it to learn of yourself.

"I will say only one more thing," he added: "In learning this, you will please your Dark Father as well. The choice is yours."

Then he stepped around her and went back up the stairs, taking the light with him. Vhamnya stood alone in the dark hall. Her sight cast through the deep shadows, out to the empty corners, out to where the hidden altar lurked. She sat on the steps and did not move.

Much later, she stole back upstairs, back around the banquet hall, where music, laughter, and quite moans still sounded, back up to the house's private rooms. There she waited unseen, cloaked in a glamor of air, until the revel broke up. She waited until she saw the maid, the one with the freckles who had come to her just this morn and had offered her love. The tall dark maiden waited while she went into her room. Then Vhamnya set her hand on the door as it shut.

The maid turned around; eyes wide. She neither moved nor spoke when she saw Vhamnya stooping in the doorway. A tiny hint of fear gleamed in eyebrows.

Vhamnya showed an empty hand. "I'm sorry," she said.

The other's brown curls shook. "Why?" she asked.

"I can't explain," said the dark girl, "other than that all the pain I've seen in my life seems to come from this thing."

"It need not be that way," said the other maid.

"Are you sure?"

"Does it matter?" The maid shrugged and held out her hand. "But let's try something else. You need not hurt me, but if you do, I accept it."

Vhamnya studied her. "You do?"

The other maid nodded. "I hurt you earlier, didn't I?"

"But you did not mean it?" finished Vhamnya. Thoughtlessly she stepped forward.

"Even so." The maid took a step; hand outstretched. "And if we face each other fearlessly, accepting whatever hurt may come, then how can we truly hurt one another?"

Vhamnya shuddered ever so slightly. Slowly her hand reached out until it touched the maid's. Together they clasped. Eying each other, they stepped close, until their arms wrapped around each other. Vhamnya laid her head atop the maid's. She let go of her fear, letting the morning's joy return.

Somewhere in the shadows, just beyond her sight, something grinned.

Continued in Chapter 8

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