LE LION VERT, 2022
Thea and I pushed past him into the room. The decorations were various shades of violet and emerald greens. The window opened to a starry night. There were large sconces around the room, enormous candles as big as a grown man’s arm with bright flames.
Long black hair crumpled in a heap on the floor. I followed the hair to an upside-down head with wide brown eyes. Her shoulders were off the bed, and her heavy breasts were fallen towards her neck by gravity.
Her neck looked distorted, almost collapsed. Thea inspected the girl, turning her chin from side to side. No bruising showed on her dark skin, but the shadows told the story of someone violently strangled. I ran my fingers through my hair, grazing my palms over my small budding horns.
“You animal,” I said. “She died? She died! You mean you murdered her, you imbecile!”
“Boz, it was an accident!”
“An accident,” I said, bearing down on him as he shrunk into his chair. “An accident? You just slipped on the rug and accidentally strangled her to death!”
“I don’t know!” Philipe lifted out of his seat. “She started clawing me; I thought she was, you know, into the rough stuff.”
“The rough stuff,” I said and boxed him in the ears. “The rough stuff, you brute. You’re not supposed to collapse their windpipe!”
Thea leaned over Maeva. She brushed her hand over her forehead and closed her dead eyes. “Does your power make people more aggressive?”
I turned to Thea. “No, actually, the opposite. Even a sadist would become passionate and almost loving. Of course, it makes it a bit more enthusiastic, but the aggression is more like hunger, not violence.”
“Then why did she scratch him? Philipe, were you choking her before she scratched you?”
“No, Mademoiselle Umbra, I swear I wasn’t. I was, you know, on top of the bint.”
“I believe you.” Thea lifted the girl’s hands and looked under her nails. I believed him, though I didn’t want to. Something else caused this or at least helped it happen.
“Can someone interfere with your magic?” Thea clasped her hands in front of her stomach, a placid but curious look on her face. She was disturbingly calm. I was not.
“You mean like a sorcerer?” I asked. I thought of Fany Devereaux and the meeting we had downstairs. Had she watched us go up the stairs, did she suspect what we were doing and want to cause some mischief? “I suppose it’s possible; I didn’t feel anything; I can’t remember the moments leading up to when the door flung open.”
“You were, distracted?” asked Thea.
I stumbled backwards and collapsed on the ottoman behind me. I was distracted. I was so practised at suppressing my powers that I had to focus on making them happen. Had I lost my focus? Had I caused this? It all made terrible sense. With the influence of my power gone, the girl had decided she didn’t want to continue. Philipe was an insensible brute, and I was even more of a brute for helping him. I had caused this.
I looked over at the dead girl. Her eyes had fallen open. They stared at me. She was accusing me. I, who had found her lovely and wished her no ill, still caused her death. I remembered my experience of the sacrifice at the funeral, of that strange and meticulous little man. I had felt he was a sacrifice of part of myself, a sort of payment for entry into the decadent world of wealth and beauty I had been so desirous of becoming a part of.
Was this girl, Maeva, another such sacrifice? How many more things would I destroy for my petty ambitions? In our world, it is hazardous to feel remorse or regret. Innocent is just another word for ignorant.
“You did this, Boz.” Philipe stood and pointed an accusing finger at me. “You said you’d help me; you made a bargain.”
“Sit down,” said Thea. She was calm and even in her words, but they were so plain they were menacing.
Philipe sat down. He was still shaking from fear and anger. “Oh fuck, she’s gonna have my balls.”
“She’s a Circlette, though,” said Thea, “by morning, everything will be as it was when the Inn was brought to this dimension.”
“But I promised her one hour,” said Philipe, “in fifteen minutes, that little Dwarf harridan is gonna waddle in here with a gelding knife if Maeva doesn’t finish her shift. It’s only three-thirty in the morning; sunrise isn’t till six. Oh fuck, Boz, you gotta help me, please.”
I looked up at him, my lips tight and brow furrowed. “You fool, what do you want me to do, make her corpse horny for you? I’m a Satyr, not a Necromancer.”
Philipe started at that. He turned to Thea. “But she is; she’s a Serpentine; they’re into all that torture and death and bringing people back to life so they can torture them some more.”
Philipe and I looked at Thea. There was a dark shadow around her small form. It wasn’t really there, it was more of an aura. Something ominous, the essence of darkness. “Mademoiselle Umbra, can you help me, please?”
Mademoiselle Umbra indeed, I thought. He hadn’t been so polite when he met her. I’m sure she’d also heard his comment about her being ugly. So why should she help him?
“In exchange for what?” she asked.
“I’ve money,” he said, “and my father, the Count, is rich as well; name your price.”
“You think you can buy necromancy,” she said, “like a common boil hex?”
Thea’s reply struck Philipe dumb. But there was still hope in his eyes. He looked at me and then back to her. He lowered his head. “Then what price?” For a moment, it was as if the room had become smaller. Or everything became closer. Thea was near the bed, maybe two or three meters away, and suddenly she was right before Philipe, and the room was its average size again.
“If I bring her back until the first rays of the rising sun, then you will pay my wage by the Law of Three.” She extended her hand to him. It was like the tail of a serpent, almost shimmering. This was a Devil’s Pact, a bargain of bargains.
“And I don’t lose my balls?”
“I can’t agree to that; I can only guarantee she will seem alive until the sun rises.”
Philipe thought about it. When he decided, he stood and shook her hand. “Deal.”
The Law of Three states that any precious thing requires three sacrifices, something physical like labour, something loved, and finally, something secret. It’s a dangerous bargain because it’s left up to interpretation.
How much labour? What thing is loved? What constitutes a secret? There are rules; each item must be within the debtor’s power to give. The bargain gave her the right to swoop in and demand payment at any point for the rest of his life. If he built a house, she could take it. If he fell in love, she could demand he sacrifice his beloved to an Elder God; if he knew something secret, she could demand he reveals it. However, if she failed to deliver on the terms, the price would rebound on her, and she would owe Philipe.
With that, Philipe collapsed into his seat. He let out a long groan. “This night is fucked.”
I stood and pulled Thea aside, far enough from Philipe that he could not hear us. “I do apologise for this Thea, and thank you for helping my friend.”
“I’m not helping him,” she said, “I intend to make him pay in full. Now I have to see if I remember what I read about necromancy.”
“Read. You mean you haven’t done this before?” I asked.
“No — not on a human. But I’ve read about it, and I’m sure it’s doable.”
I was convinced my eyebrows would claw their way to the moon for how high on my forehead they jumped. “Aren’t you taking a rather large risk? Philipe is surely dull, but I’d never want to owe him. Not like that.”
“Yeah, but it’ll work. I’m sure. Eh. Mostly sure.”
Necromancy is the field of magic concerning the dead. It is a broad study covering everything from using dead things in rituals to reanimating someone mostly dead. For a few hours after death, you are mostly dead. Not entirely dead. You can be brought back.
Souls tend to stick around after death. Many people are afraid to go into the light. They are right to be, as the light is really the Moon. Our Moon isn’t a real moon in the astronomical sense; it is an Elder God, known as Endymion.
Endymion is a Psychophagotic Deity, an eater of souls. Souls are attracted to him as they journey beyond the dark glass, like moths to a bright flame. The souls are digested over millennia. Some people escape the moon with great difficulty and can be reincarnated, or that’s the myth anyway.
Sorcerers believe there is a great city inside the stomach of Endymion, where all the souls live as they slowly fade into nothing, becoming food for the Moon.
Nightjars or Whippoorwills are said to be from the Moon, and they chatter in celebration every time a soul is captured by Endymion. Everyone at a sorcerer’s death listens for the call of the Nightjar.
Maeva was a Circelette or a soul slave whose existence had been curved into a circle for all time and bound to the Green Lion. There was no danger that she would pass beyond the dark glass or get captured by the Moon. The Moon and Sun in this dimension were just simulations. There wasn’t even an earth or solar system.
Philipe and I followed Thea’s instructions and laid Maeva on the fur rug. I couldn’t place the creature who had supplied the fur, but it was soft and dense. Its colour was light brown with flecks of black.
Once we had aligned Maeva, we stepped back, and Thea slashed her hand with a switchblade stiletto she had fished from her pocket. She bent down over the corpse and drew strange and ancient symbols on Maeva’s forehead, chest and stomach. She hummed to herself as she did it, and with each symbol complete, it would glow a deep violet.
Around us were the sounds of buzzing insects. They were right behind my ear, close and maddening. With each symbol, the buzzing became louder. It wasn’t just one insect; some sounded like mosquitos, some like flies, and some like wasps. The sounds moved around us like a whirlwind.
“AYLOY DERAHG, DURALGOS URL SUMAGKT,” said Thea in a voice that reverberated in my teeth and made my skin crawl like I was covered with tiny feet. Philipe kept slapping at his ears or his arm whenever he felt some insect was there. There weren’t any insects; only you could hear and feel them.
The buzzing became overwhelming. The sensation of being bit increased, and I looked down to see little bites forming on my skin. I looked at Philipe; they were forming on his skin too. At first, two or three, then more.
“SUMAGKT KELDORON NYATHOTH DURALGOS,” said Thea. Her chanting intensified. “DURALGOS — DURALGOS.” I could see blood tears in her eyes. The blood was streaming in all directions as if she were crying into the wind. Her grey eyes darkened like charcoal. There was a maelstrom in them, spinning in infinity, and in that maelstrom were yet more swirling maws. The more I looked, the more I felt like I was being pulled into them. Not physically; it was as if my soul was being pulled into them.
The candles dimmed. Thea broke my stare and spun around the room. Weaving through the air like a snake, or a ballet dancer, or something I couldn’t describe. The movements were wrong. Her arms seemed to appear in different shapes and configurations, like a demonic Siamese dancer. She was searching for something in the room, perhaps Maeva’s soul, I couldn’t say.
A light appeared in the room. It had become like a hallway of shadow, and at the end of it was Maeva. She was backing away, pressing herself against the door. Maeva was crying, shaking her head. She spoke a strange language; I assumed it was Drowish. It was soft and Slavic but urgent. She was pleading; I could see it on her face. I could hear it in her tone.
Thea staggered forward, her arms out like a babushka asking to hold her grandchild. She was chanting again, but this time it sounded like the same language as Maeva. The voice coming from Thea was childlike, rhyming. I could almost understand it, but not quite.
zednala Maevinka
pod deefo vuh zdralinka
pumeena — devoika
goodna nezcholoika
Maeva laced her fingers together and held them out between her and Thea. The Drow’s pleading got louder, more clear, “Molya ze, ewstravi may damurrah.” The words sounded so familiar, like baby Bulgarian. Was damurrah like da umre, which means to die? Maybe she was begging Thea to let her die? Something Thea couldn’t grant. Not because of her bargain with Philipe, but because Maeva’s soul wasn’t her own, and never would be. Barring a miracle of transcendent power from beyond our universe, she would find no salvation, least of all from us.
All of the lights came back up, the scene was gone in an instant. Thea stood over Maeva with her hand held high above her head. It held what looked like a large swirling ball of purple mist. Thea slammed her hand down on Maeva’s chest. Maeva’s body rushed up from the floor to meet the ball of mist, and Philipe and I were thrown off our feet into the wall. We both crumpled to the floor in a heap. Maeva’s body soon followed and landed with a thud.
Maeva came to life. She looked at each of us in turn. She came back to Philipe and glared at him. Her hand reached for her throat. Philipe stood up and held out his hands. “Hold on, just — hold on.”
Maeva stood and with her very athletic legs made two strides and kicked him so hard in the balls that he lifted off the ground and slammed back into it face first. He grabbed his genitals and assumed a fetal position.
Now I would never suggest that her kick was the greatest kick of all time. Certainly, there have been better ones. Diego Maradona’s goal against Hungary in the 1982 World Cup was certainly superior. But I can say that had Senor Maradona seen Maeva’s elegant delivery of a rather well-deserved penalty shot to Philipe’s scrotum; he would have been impressed. She delivered two more that evening, and while they didn’t approach the breathless quality of her first, they were applause-worthy nonetheless.
My ears pricked. There was a shuffling sound outside the door. Philipe curled in a fetal position and kept gripping his genitals. Maeva was standing proud, with her hands on her hips appreciating the damage. I looked to Thea. She heard the noise too and mouthed the name Hildag, that of the dwarf matron. I shook my head, I didn’t know. I didn’t hear any clinking armour.
Maybe the noise of Philipe getting a dose of comeuppance had drowned them out? Alas as a Circlette, Maeva couldn’t do anything more to him. She was a soul slave, and he was an aristocratic patron. She had already gone much further than the rules would normally allow, but I was sure Thea nor I intended to say anything about it.
Thea tiptoed to the door. She was so light even I had trouble hearing her footfalls. If I had done it, my hooves would have given my approach away to whoever was listening on the other side of the door. She thrust her hand at the door and blew it off its hinges and into the hall.
I ran into the hall and pulled the door back. I hoped it wasn’t Hildag, and I hadn’t expected Thea to blast the door off. Instead, there was a lush red head of hair. The hair of Fany Devereaux. Thea stepped around from behind me.
“Merde.”
Thea knelt beside her and checked her pulse. “She’s not dead, but she’s gonna have a headache when she wakes up.”
“How long was she invading our privacy?” I asked.
Philipe managed to recover and dress. He ran out the door and looked down at Fany, still unconscious.
“Who’s the bint?”
“Mademoiselle Deveraux. She seems to have been eavesdropping.”
“She dead?”
Fany Deveraux took a deep breath. Her eyes snapped open. She looked at me, then at Thea. Her brows furrowed and her plump lips thinned.
“You fucking snake, how did you — you can’t cast offensive spells in the Green Lion!”
I extended my hand to help Mademoiselle Deveraux up but she slapped it out of the way.
“Don’t touch me, animal.”
“I didn’t attack you, I just opened the door — really hard,” said Thea.
Fany stood up. She lost her balance and fell against the wall. I resolved that Fany had reached the extent of my good manners, so I didn’t rush to aid her. Animal indeed. She slid past us and made it down the hall, wobbling a few times.
“That’s gonna come back to bite me.” Thea slipped between the wall and me and followed after Fany.
“Well Master Boz,” said Philipe. He clapped me on the shoulder as the clink of armour and the soft footfalls of those voluptuous little legs of Hildag made it up the stairs and stopped in front of us.
“Master Philipe, your hour is up.”
Philipe gave a mock bow, “Your wench is returned to you.”
Hildag looked at the blasted door. She looked up at Maeva.
“What happened to the — what happened to your —?”
Hildag turned to Philipe. Her eyes narrowed. “What did you do to my wench?”
“Nothing, we just had a really fun time.”
Maeva, for her part, kept her head down. I think she was afraid that Philipe would mention her kicking him. It was a complex situation. If Hildag found out she’d assaulted a patron, even in self-defence, she’d be punished. Strictly speaking, killing someone’s slave was a crime. But not one that anyone would care much about; it’s a bit like breaking someone’s window during a particularly strenuous game of cricket. You’d be expected to replace the slave.
However, Maeva had been brought back to life, something Philipe had paid for with his bargain. The complicating factor was that Maeva wasn’t owned by a sorcerer. She wasn’t owned by Hildag. She was owned by the Green Lion.
“A fun time Master Philipe, I see that and who is going to pay for this fun time?” Hildag swept her hand over the scene, which included a strangled slave and a shattered door.
“Everything will reset in the morning anyway.” Philipe shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, I didn’t realise.” Hildag’s eyes caught flame. It was green and smelled like lime juice. She twisted her fist in the air, and Philipe collapsed to his knees.
“Hear me, boy,” she said; her voice was now deep and masculine, and sounded like she had smoked a thousand cigars, drank fifty gallons of whiskey, and belted the Marseillaise for eleven hours straight. “We belong to Tulzscha, the dancing flame; you will pay a penalty or be forever banned.” She released her fist, and Philipe gasped for air.
“What penalty?” he asked.
Hildag smiled politely and her eyes returned to normal. “I’ll take 3 écu for the door, and 1 Louis for the ‘fun’ you took from Maeva.” An écu was a silver coin probably worth about 10 dollars. A Golden Louis was something like 40 francs, or about 800 dollars. Sorcerers still used gold and silver coins, so the numbers don’t explain the value. I don’t mean to suggest the coins were minted in the 1600s. In that case, a Golden Louis would be 17,000 dollars.
“1 Louis, you’re fucking mental!”
Hildag’s eyes started to glow.
“I’ll give you 5 écu and a quarter Louis.”
The Dwarf thought about it for a moment and agreed.