A story submission

[Priestess]

For your reading pleasure.



             The Instrument He Forged



    Tongue thick in his throat and eyes bulging, he crawls across the floor towards the pool of silken skirts around my ankles. Rich black silk, a gift he had given me on one of his earlier visits, woven with just the hint of red in the fabric which granted them the appearance of dark wet blood. "A fitting gift for you", he had said at the time, my back streaked with blood from his lash and his breath ragged from his pleasure. I lean back in the delicately carved chair, dragging up the heavy silk of my skirts as he claws at the carpet. He tries to scream, his swollen tongue muting the sound into a low desperate moan as he begs me for help, for life.

     Raising my voice slightly, knowing his guards stand in the hallway outside my door waiting and listening for the sounds of my pain and his pleasure, I smile at him as I let out a long ragged scream. Long accustomed to making these sounds for him, my perfectly practiced cry echoes across the dimly lit chamber. The walls are padded with faded silks; old whores trying to conceal the ravages of time behind the obscuring veil of darkness. They drink the cries and screams of patron and whore alike, these walls, with a hunger born of centuries of dark nourishment. I see his eyes widen, blood filling them now, and I know his time is short. The poison is everything the guild had promised.  Awareness of his own impending death is there for me to read, shimmering in obsidian dark eyes, as I watch him, silent except for the expected cries of pain that bring no undue attention in this dark establishment.

     His hands spasm now, fingers curling and releasing in the final moments of his life and I know the time for my revenge will never be more perfect. I lean forward, pitching my voice just loud enough for him to hear it. Purring the words, I let him hear the pleasure it has brought me to see him before me like this, positions reversed in the ultimate reflection of our ongoing relationship.

     "I suppose you are wondering: why? You have so many enemies, My Lord, most so trivial that you have dismissed them. Even poor men have memories and obsidian though, and your enemies have joined together in this cause. Enough obsidian to buy my freedom from this place, to buy my passage from this cesspit of a city. This is for Eola, whose wife you raped and had silenced. For Dargan, whose daughter happened to cross your path in the marketplace shortly before you took her as another of your 'toys'. You always were too hard on your toys, dear Lord Oash. This is for Bertrand, for Arkon, for Zas, for Fraen, and for so many more. Alas, I think you will have stopped breathing before I could name them all."
     
     I slip from my chair, skirts pooling around me like drying blood, lifting his head to cradle it in my lap as I look down into his rapidly fading eyes. I can see Drov entering him, and I watch, mesmerized, fingers brushing through the wispy locks of his sandy colored hair, holding him close in his final fleeting moments.

     "I really did care for you, in my own way, my Lord. Our games pleased me as much as they did you. You made me what I am, found me in the alleys and crafted me into your perfect vessel of pain. Still, a whore is a whore. Isn't that what you always told me? Whores are bought and someone topped your price, "I whisper softly in his last moment.

     I can see when Drov takes him; smell the heavy acrid scent of blood and urine as his body spasms once more before relaxing with a soft gurgle. I sit on the floor, his head in my lap, for long moments just looking into the face of the man who made me. The man who broke me and reshaped me into his ideal and unknowingly forged the instrument of his own death in the process. I almost wish I had thanked him, but I doubt he would have been appreciative. I can hear the guards outside, talking quietly to each other. They won't grow concerned for hours yet as our games have always been long and elaborate. I slip the silver signet ring from his finger, palm the pouch of coins he always keeps in his belt and gently lower him to the floor.

     I slip the coins into a pocket in my belt, adding the ring to the stash sewn into the secret lining in the bottom of my sturdy knapsack, and pick up a thick, black sandcloth cloak that lays waiting in the closet. Pausing as I gather my meager belongings, I look around the room a last time. My eyes linger as they pause on my benefactor and I think, in a way, I will miss him. The pain he brought me so regularly is a familiar companion if nothing else, but the deed is done now, my fate is sealed. To remain is to face certain death, and having watched Drov's embrace once this night, I find I am not as uncaring about when it finds me as I once was. A unit of T'zai Byn mercenaries will be awaiting me at Merchant's gate, and a new life lies ready for me outside the window. As the first faint rays of Suk-krath appear over the tenement walls, washing away the dark shadows of night that drape themselves with oppressing affection on the alleys, I slip out the window and down to the ground below.


Priestess

The story gave me an idea tho for another story about the guy the guy had paid to take her out if she took him out. Then it could continue on in different perspectives from different people. Each ending with the death of the previous character, who will die next time.

[Callisto]

Very nice - very Zalanthan.

[Gawynn]

You've made some nice improvements, Priestess.
*smile*

Gawynn

[Delirium]

Very dark, gritty, and Zalanthan. I like it.

[creeper386]

Scary, very nice.


Creeper