Imperius Ch. 05

Daegon uncrossed his arms, and gave Saphir a steady glance before he strode out of the room.

Lilah watched him leave.

"Saphir," she said, as he selected a comb from the bureau, "why doesn't he wear imperial garb?"

Saphir began to brush her hair, "Mostly because Daegon isn't an imperial citizen," he replied. The soft bristles felt like a caress, and the hypnotic rhythm made Lilah almost immediately drowsy. She fought the urge to close her eyes like a happy kitten.

"He's a slave?" Lilah asked, baffled. She had seen him catch a Praetor by the wrist only that morning. Surely that required a position of authority.

"Daegon functions somewhat outside the system," said Saphir, his eyes on her hair. "He was a Gauthrien chieftain. He led the largest tribe in the southern wildlands."

Lilah was speechless for several moments. "How on earth did they ever catch him?"

"They didn't," said Saphir. "His tribe had been warring against a full imperial garrison for months, before he and the Praetor fought in one on one combat with the understanding that the winner would gain everything. No one knows for certain which of them offered the challenge, but the Praetor was the victor, and Daegon swore loyalty to him, exclusively." Saphir paused to adjust a lock of hair, and applied a clear liquid that smoothed her curls. "Thus, he's neither slave nor citizen."

This gave Lilah a hundred new questions she wanted to ask, but before she could articulate even one, the demonic contraption inside of her buzzed with an abrupt intensity that was nothing short of possessed. Lilah cried out and fell back onto the chaise, cursing Magnus internally.

When the pulsations stopped, Saphir stood over her with fabric in hand, ready to resume preparations as though nothing had happened."Time to get you dressed."

Lilah glanced at the pile of fabric warily.

Saphir smiled. "It's a crisp morning, so perhaps something more...covering, than usual."

"Thank you," Lilah said fervently.

As it happened, the amount of coverage Saphir gave her didn't do much to mitigate the sensuous suggestiveness of the costume. It was a dark, vivid blue that didn't bring out her eyes so much as it deepened them. Golden accents shimmered against the deep blue. While the dress covered her chest and arms, even rising high on her slender neck, the fabric sculpted her shape, soft and warm against her skin and stretching across every inch of her. Magnus' serpent sigil still hung from her throat, as ornate and heavy as ever.

At least it didn't bare her midriff.

"I'm sorry about the fabric, Saphir," Lilah said, as he adjusted her bodice.

"I don't care about the fabric," Saphir replied, the frustration gone from his voice. He fixed his ocean blue eyes on hers, "Just promise me that you will listen when I tell you to be careful."

"I will," Lilah vowed. She took his hand and looked into his eyes just as deeply, knowing that the last thing she wanted was to be a burden to him, when he'd been so kind to her.

When they exited the sky-ship, the camp that sprawled in front of them was quiet and blanketed in mist, dense and low to the ground. The sparse handfuls of guards patrolling the perimeter did so in silence, guns in hand. The coolness of the dawn seemed gentle. Most of the formerly raucous soldiers had succumbed to exhaustion as the night crept into dawn. Lilah tried to be grateful for the absence of leering eyes, but the stillness was strangely disquieting. To her, it felt eerily like trying to sneak past a sleeping dragon.

Of course, Saphir and Daegon seemed entirely immune to the sense of danger she felt. They walked on either side of her, untroubled and with purpose.

"Well, what have we here?"

A soldier was moving toward them with the practiced near-precision of an experienced drunk. He didn't slur, he didn't stumble, and the eyes he fixed on her were perfectly focused, but his voice had the just-shy-of-self-aware volume brought on by an excess of wine, and there was a swishing fluidity to his movements that was not quite grace.

There was another man trailing behind him who had not fared nearly so well under wine's influence. His eyes were bleary, and his skin bore a telltale green tinge. "Imperial property," he slurred, nearly tripping over his own uneven gate, "Take her if you want."

"No, not this one, my friend," replied the first soldier, looking Lilah over. "This is the Serpent's new pet, dressed up and kept under guard, of course. You never see him sharing one of his. Not like our liege, Cato." Then he fixed his eyes directly on Lilah's, ignoring Daegon's glare with a nonchalance Lilah doubted he would display sober. "Shame, though," he added. "I'd love to toss her over that table and fuck her 'till she can't say her own name."

Daegon's hand closed around the man's throat before anyone saw it move, and the soldier gagged in sudden agony as the giant lifted him off the ground by his neck.

"Let me— down—you barbarian—dog," the soldier wheezed.

But Daegon didn't seem to hear him. He simply watched the man struggle for air impassively. Lilah slowly began to feel alarmed.

"Daegon..." she said hesitantly, "You...can't kill him." She glanced at Saphir. "He can't kill him, can he?"

"What's going on here?" said a cold voice from behind Lilah.

It was the female Praetor, Ariadne. She was pale and luminous in the early morning light, her long, raven hair shining. She wore lithe black armor and around the collar, a lining of silvery grey fur. Her crimson praetor's cloak draped flat against her back, almost like an afterthought. Other Praetors emphasized the grandeur of such capes, but not her. Her own grandeur spoke for itself as she moved toward them with a cold, flawless dignity.

Two masked guards followed after her, not quite as intimidating as they would have been were it not for the panther that walked at her side as dutifully as any pet, though Lilah couldn't bring herself to think of the magnificent beast as anything so diminishing as a "pet." Its green-gold eyes looked right back at Lilah with unsettling intelligence.

Daegon was still squeezing the man's throat.

"Praetor!" said the second soldier, coming to a rough approximation of attention. "They're strangling him!"

Ariadne looked at him, then at Daegon. "Indeed," she said.

The was a pause, and Lilah resisted the urge to pull at Daegon's arm and urge him to stop. He didn't seem to be quite squeezing the life out of the soldier, just watching him struggle for it.

"Daegon," said Ariadne.

Daegon looked at her.

"Let him go," she said.

Daegon looked back the soldier for a moment, then let go.

The soldier dropped to the ground, hacking. When Lilah tried to check on him, Daegon grabbed her arm to hold her in place without looking at her.

"I want—to file—a complaint," the drunk gasped out.

"By all means," said Ariadne, watching him get back to his feet. "Once you've slept off your drunken stupor. In the meanwhile—,"

That was when Lilah felt the device vibrate inside of her, as suddenly as before. She felt a familiar gasping desperation take hold of her, and she might have dropped to her knees had Daegon and Saphir not both steadied her until the sensation subsided.

The drunkards and Ariadne were staring at her, and Lilah felt her face turning florid with humiliation.

Ariadne shook the moment off first, "Right," she said, looking back at the soldiers. "The party is over. Retire to your tent."

"Yes, Praetor," the second one said, when the first hesitated for an instant too long. The one closer to Lilah flicked a glance her way before he turned to go, but his anxious pallor sapped any menace it might otherwise have had.

Ariadne looked at Lilah, and moved closer in a fluid, circular pattern that one might use to approach a stray animal they didn't wish to frighten. "Are you alright?" she asked, something barely perceptible softening in her distant expression.

Lilah was taken aback by the question. "Yes...thank you." She remembered herself then, lowering her gaze in deference. "My lady."

"You needn't lower your eyes to me," said Ariadne, in that same disconcertingly inflectionless tone. When Lilah looked at her, she thought she saw something behind her eyes, a flicker of obscure feeling. "I take it you're off to accompany my colleague to breakfast with my esteemed uncle?"

Lilah half expected Saphir or Daegon to respond before she would need to, but that moment never came. "Yes, my lady," she said quietly.

She felt very strange, very uncertain. This woman was so like Magnus in some ways. Her eyes were such a similar shade of grey, yet where Magnus' eyes were deep and shadowy, shifting darker in certain lights and more pale in others, hers were opaque and unchanging, like misted glass.

"We're expected shortly, my lady," Saphir said then. Finally.

Ariadne regarded him for a moment, and Lilah remembered that Ariadne had addressed the Legate as "Uncle." An uncle she probably hadn't seen for years, before the Legate arrived in the camp.

And yet it was Magnus who breakfasted with the Legate in his tent.

"Of course," Ariadne said, expressionless as ever. "Carry on."

Then again, Lilah re-considered as the woman watched them pass with her pale, emotionless eyes, perhaps it wasn't such a mystery after all.

She made out Magnus and Legatus Hesiod before she'd come within twenty feet. The two of them sat in a small tent atop a dais near the center of the camp, giving them a dramatic view of the surrounding hillside and the forest to the west. The tent curtains had been drawn back, which surprised Lilah given that Imperials were forever complaining of the Illythian weather. Then she spied several large bowls in the tent, each filled with flames, so the occupants were able to lounge comfortably despite the chill.

"Kneel at his side when we join them," Saphir whispered in her ear as they drew near.

They walked up a slope onto the dais. When they came to the top, guards in the telltale copper masks and red black uniforms of the Imperial guard shifted to acknowledge their arrival.

They were the only ones to do so. Neither Magnus nor Hesiod turned to look when Saphir nudged her forward and she lowered to her knees by Magnus' side. He had removed his leather gloves and laid them neatly on the table, and he sat with his hands resting on either side of him, managing to look at once formidable and indolent. While he didn't look at her directly, he did bring his hand to her hair the moment she knelt beside him, stroking idly.

"You're welcome to it," Hesiod was saying, indicating the spread on the table. "My own chef prepared the food. I daresay you could do with a taste of home."

She was very near one of the fire bowls, and shards of green fire glass sparkled at her. She allowed herself to gaze into the glinting surface, occasionally forcing herself to lower her eyes in a deeper display of deference. Once, she dared to glance at the table and properly take in the food before them.

There was no possible way two men required so much food to themselves. An entire cluster of enormous purple grapes, scones with cream and a velvety lemon preserve, pomegranate seeds with a soft white cheese, a small mountain of bacon, lox with capers, two sorts of fruit Lilah had never seen before in her life. And a golden colored drink that looked both opaque and effervescent.

There was even a small arrangement of flowers in the center, star-shaped, purple blooms that looked absurdly exotic to Lilah.

Hesiod took a sip of the golden orange liquid, and sighed contentedly as he gazed at the view. "It's beautiful in its way, is it not?" asked Hesiod, looking toward the forested area to the west. "Terribly damp by our standards, of course but...beautiful."

He paused, playing his thumb against the glass in his hand. "I think I begin to understand more of the Illythian devotion to keeping it entirely their own. I sometimes wonder what might have been had we offered more. Tempted Illythian leaders with larger promises. We might have already counted them among our allies by now, instead of our most provoking enemies."

Magnus was watching him, and Lilah had the distinct sense that he was waiting for Hesiod to get around to something.

"But then," Hesiod said, "that is what we did for D'Azure, and look what that has led to." He looked at Magnus, "They're revolting."

"I surmised as much," said Magnus, taking a sip of his own drink.

"Yes, I'm sure you did. I know how it must have seemed. You think we're talking a victory here for granted, pulling one of our greatest military minds from the longest conflict we've known and replacing him with...me." He smiled good-humoredly, "A mere politician."

Magnus let out a short laugh. "Your advisors might be mere politicians—but you, my liege, are a different matter. I haven't doubted the usefulness of your diplomatic skills since I was fourteen, and you showed me that I was a fool for ever having done so. I don't doubt whether we'll need you, I doubt whether we can risk you."

Magnus leaned forward, raw frustration showing clearly in his face as though a mask had fallen away. "It is not safe here yet, Hesiod," he said, and Lilah to surprised to hear him forego the politician's title, though it seemed more a sign of familiarity than disrespect. "My esteemed colleagues would pretend that we have everything in hand. That this country is a gift we have all but presented to you, but it is nothing so tidy as that. Illythiel is a wild animal we've cornered. It's fiercer than ever now. Desperate. Sending you would be tantamount to extending a hand for it to bite off. They'll interpret it as a bid to save our own skin if you offer up an olive branch now, and it will give them a new wave of confidence. It would be cruel to them and dangerous to us."

His eyes were fixed on Hesiod, grey and hard as iron in their certainty, "Let me cage it first, tame it. Then whatever grand, generous gesture you want to offer them...It will mean something."

Hesiod continued to contemplate his drink, and nodded. "Yes, I'm sure that's wise." He sighed, and brought his attention to his food, inspecting one of the mysterious fruits, "But promise me this Magnus: There must be as little death among the Illythian leadership as possible. As bad as things are in D'Azure, they would ten times worse if we didn't have their own in enough positions of ostensible authority to pacify them."

"I promise," said Magnus.

"Good," said Hesiod, eating the fruit. "Now, as to this plan for an outpost near the highlands..."

Lilah, listening attentively to every word, nevertheless remembered she hadn't eaten the since the afternoon of the previous day. Magnus lazily plucked a stem grapes off of the platter and teased her with them without seeming to. He held the cluster near enough for her to appreciate every glistening sphere, without actually bringing it close enough to offer her. She stared at the ruby fruit, willing its approach, imagining the dutiful slave who had polished each individual grape while taking pains to leave the cluster intact.

He ate it himself. Lilah stifled her impulse to moan with disappointment.

He picked up a tiny pomegranate seed and fed it to her by hand. She complied miserably, torn between shame and need. The taste was vivid on her tongue, and did more to incite her hunger than to assuage it.

He fed her another, and she caught a glimpse of a smile on his lips as he did so, as though he were enjoying a small, private joke.

When he finally did offer her one of the grapes, it was such a blessed relief to have something of relative substance that she accepted it with eager gratitude. The grape burst on her tongue, flooding her senses with luxuriant nectar.

That was when the device inside of her erupted to life, pulsing fiercely.

Her sharp intake of breath was horridly audible in the morning stillness, and her hands reached helplessly towards her sex.

She could barely make out a soft chuckle from the other side of the table, but then there was a hand on her chin, softer than the hand she was used to. Hesiod lifted her eyes to his, and gazed at her as one might study a fine painting.

No, not a painting, she reminded herself. A pet. She felt a tear fall down her cheek, and realized with horror that her eyes were swimming with them. She felt so tired, so bone-weary of being studied and prodded and dressed. She had never wanted her family, her home, her own warm bed, more than in that moment. She realized that the mist around them was rising, deepening, accounting for the new chill.

"She's a gentle creature, Magnus," said Hesiod, running a thumb along the flesh of her cheek. "You'll have to be cautious not shatter her spirit."

Before Magnus could respond, a sound rioted through the encampment, thunderous and all too near. Magnus rose fluidly, and was the first to close the distance to the edge of the dais, his predatory gaze sharpening to a steel edge as he went.

The Legate, Saphir, Daegon, and the two guards did the same, and when Lilah followed suit, no one stopped her.

There, at the edge of the encampment, was the source.

An immense mechanical figure roared into sight, nearly two stories tall, the steel gleaming in the camp light as it swung its hammer through the weapons before it. Several catapults shattered to bits at the hammer blows, crushed beyond repair. The decisive crunch of wood and the snap of steel breaking sang a song reminiscent of victory to Lilah-the sound inextricably tied to a battle turning in Illythian favor.

"Take her," Magnus shouted to Daegon, moving toward the thing.

Then Daegon was at her side, guiding her in a different direction, away from the turmoil.

But something was wrong, Lilah could feel it before she understood it. The soldiers were largely still sleeping off the effects of the feast. The mist pouring from the Behemoth's wrists and knees and the destruction wrought obscured its path and yet something about its movements was off.

The machine was striking indiscriminately, uncontrolled and seemingly at random. Debris flew around them, wood and metal. Once a soldier's body landed beside them like a rag doll. Miraculously, Lilah heard him groan, but Daegon pulled her on before she could even think of trying to help him up.

And Lilah saw, barely a dozen meters from the behemoth, a slave caravan full of Illythian captives.

Lilah made to run that direction, but Daegon held fast to her arm.

"I might be able to stop it," she pleaded, turning back to him.

He said something she didn't understand in few guttural words, and pulled her behind him, only to hurl her away a moment after. She saw his face as he did, but it took her a moment to realize what was happening when the table flew at him, throwing him back into a tent beam.

The behemoth was still moving toward the cages, annihilating every construct in its way.

Lilah growled in frustration, and looked around. The soldier the Behemoth had thrown, lay on the ground with a gun beside him. She raced toward the weapon and swept it into her hands. The only way to stop the behemoth without a functional code would be to destroy each of the circular, glassy constructs on its knees, elbows, and shoulders.

Easier said than done, considering that the things weren't actually made of ordinary glass.

She shot at the Behemoth, aiming for the clouded surfaces. She heard a crack, but it hadn't shattered yet. She would have to come back to each one twice, but at least she could try to lead it away from the cages in the meanwhile.

After three shots, it turned.

She retreated as it began moving toward her, calling out every desist code she knew. "Inarae!" she said, still moving backwards. "Nautilus!"