Mendera Temple
Chapter 15 – Descent of Mexin 7
“He screamed and was still screaming as she pushed her head into his body to bite into his liver and drink his hot blood.”
∞
Kittara normally obeyed the rules of Menderan society, you never simply moved your reality inside someone’s house, it simply wasn’t done. A friend might give you permission, or a lover might consider it romantic, but as a general rule you asked for permission from Chlo, or in very rare cases it had been known for people to still knock on the front door. Kittara started to examine a nice looking palm on the corner of the street, to give her time to talk to Chlo.
“Is she still vetting all calls and visitors Chlo ?”
“I’m afraid she is.”
It was the new woman in Mo’s life, a Maran called Ocean, though her name translated to Puddle in Ventellan, which greatly amused Kittara. She quite liked the girl; she seemed to run his business affairs and his house very efficiently. The problem was just plain jealousy. Ocean seemed to see it as her duty to obstruct Kittara from seeing Mo and she was getting fed up with playing twenty questions every time she wanted to see him. It irked her, they had been good friends far too long for those sorts of tricks.
“Where is he ?”
“In his garden Kittara, left hand side.”
That settled it, the garden may have been walled, but to Kittara it was outside his house. She moved her reality into his garden and found herself looking at the flora of old Ixir, the tropics of long dead Ixir to be precise. It wasn’t a surprise to Kittara, she’d visited the garden often, but others were surprised by the non Menderan nature of the plants. Kittara knew it was a tribute to his thirty two years with Peli, a constant reminder of the beauty of the tropical island he’d once owned and of their life together on it. After all they’d been through, for her to die in a shuttle accident in Moglas city, it had turned Mo into a recluse for several years. That was over forty nine millions years ago though and Mo had formed a great number of attachments since then, nearly all with women who worked for him, as did Ocean his current live in lover.
Kittara noticed he’d had Chlo stretch the reality of the garden a bit more since her last visit, the pool was a few feet further from the house and the palm grove where Mo had his breakfast table was now surrounded by yet more palms. She approached him and he appeared to have dropped off to sleep after breakfast. Kittara didn’t begrudge him a lazy day, he was by now incredibly old for a slum runner. She knelt next to his chair and stroked his cheek.
“Mo, wake up, it’s important.”
A few insects buzzed past, the sun shone down through the UV filter Chlo was using to stop the plants from scorching, but Mo just kept sleeping. Kittara leant over him and gently touched her lips against his and was rewarded by a passionate kiss in return and a hand on her left breast. She returned the kiss for quite some time before disentangling herself.
“I suppose I deserved that for arriving unannounced.” She laughed.
Mo looked up and just grinned back at her.
“Ocean can be a bit fierce,” he said, “but she’s worth her weight in gold, almost runs by business empire on her own.”
She had Chlo provide a chair and sat next to him, picking at the bits of his breakfast he hadn’t eaten.
“The descent is today Mo,” she said, “they’ll all soon be coming to Mendera. You have an invite to attend the descent if you wish.”
“Stand in a shield bubble millions of miles from the nearest decent drink, while a super massive star explodes ! No thank you, I’ll stay with my plants and whatever breakfast you’ve left me.”
The garden was idyllic, the distant tinkling of wind chimes, the warm breeze just ruffling the palm fronds around them. Kittara had Chlo provide more drinks and some of her favourite fruit.
“As you don’t seem in a hurry, I’m inviting myself to breakfast.” She said.
“What was important ?”
Kittara looked at him and carried on eating.
“First thing you said Kittara, that something was important ?”
“They’ll all be coming to Mendera Mo, all the deities and it’s very important that nothing unpleasant happen while they’re here.”
Mo looked at her and she saw understanding dawn on him.
“Ahhh, you think I might still be running a resistance movement, but this time on Mendera. I can assure you I’m not.”
Sikush had wanted to send Alyz to see Mo, but Kittara had asked for the assignment. He’d once betrayed the empire and she’d told him the second time would be his last. Kittara gave no outward signs of threat, she just sipped her drink and kept her voice quite low.
“You do still have connections with organised crime Mo, don’t bother denying it.”
“When Ixir went the Laudry Foundation went with it. There was a vacuum Kittara and everything illicit hates a vacuum. So yes, I move the odd consignment of contraband about, maybe even help some illegals move to a new planet. But no weapons and definitely no illegal drugs.”
Kittara knew he was telling her most of the truth, she had known him long enough to tell if he was lying in any major way. Mo was probably selling weapons to non-empire worlds, but Sikush would happily turn a blind eye to that.
“So I can tell Sikush that Mo’s Emporiums are something he doesn’t have to worry about ?”
“Kittara I well remember you sitting on my chest with a knife to my throat and warning me what would happen if I betrayed the empire again. I have no intention of repeating that experience.”
Kittara put her hand on his arm and gave him another long kiss, the sort of kiss Ocean would have definitely disapproved of.
“Thank you Mo, are you sure you won’t come to the descent ?”
“A cleric told me there’ll be another in a few hundred million years, I’ll catch that one.”
Kittara stood up and moved her reality to the shield bubble where Sikush would be monitoring the descent of Mexin 7. When she’d gone Mo pressed a button under his breakfast table and after a few minutes Ocean walked into the garden and sat in the chair Kittara had vacated.
“You’ve had a visitor,” she said, “I can smell the scent all women in The Damned wear.”
“It was Kittara, she came to deliver a friendly warning.”
Ocean leant back in the chair and let him continue.
“We’re out of the weapons trade for a while, it will save any potential problems with Sikush. Fulfil any current orders, but accept no new ones.”
Ocean crossed her legs, revealing her thighs just long enough to ensure she had Mo’s full attention.
“That will be very expensive,” she said, “and we will have to move operatives to other areas of the organisation.”
Mo held her hand and watched the palms being moved by the morning breeze.
“We can afford it,” he said, “there is a wise proverb that you can only wear one pair of shoes at a time, now isn’t the time to be greedy. After all, the dead can’t wear any shoes at all.”
~ ~
Sevril-Narge the great bug goddess decided the rifts had aged just enough, the crust of the worlds that linked worlds felt done to a perfection and anyway, she sensed the other deities waking up. She tensed herself and thrust upward, sending an entire hillside flying off as rubble and sending herself several hundred feet into the air. The rift felt cool after being in the crust below for so long, but she enjoyed being back in the open air again. Sevril settled back onto the drab grey soil and looked herself over, it had been a long time since she’d looked at her own body.
Most of the creatures who knew of her existence would have described Sevril as evil, the creatures she created as putrid caricatures of natural existence. Sevril though considered that in her infinite life she had seen just about everything life could do and she hated it, all life, right down to the very last microbe. Her delight would be to wipe lesser life forms out entirely and leave just the creatures who mattered, but the Multiverse would never allow her to do that. Sevril was clever though, very clever and the concept of having an infinite life and yet still dimly remembering her own creation, gave her no problems at all.
She looked at her tail and shook off the loose soil, then she rubbed her front claws over her four muscular legs, before using them to clean her horns. There were picture of Sevril on worlds she’d never visited, drawn by strange creatures during times of extreme visions. In all the pictures Sevril was depicted as the ultimate evil, the darkest in a very dark Multiverse.
“Presents,” she muttered, “I can’t go to Mendera without gifts.”
The deity moved herself to the rift she had created, the rift where the sheer number of her new Dracc staggered her. Her Dracc creators had been busy over the millions of years and the Dracc were so numerous that they seemed to fill the rift entirely. Sevril had to tread on several hundred of the creatures and destroy them, just to get close to her chaos creatures, her Dracc creation machines.
“Cease your work,” She said to the creature, “I have other tasks for you.”
There was no response, the chaos creature just carried on assembling the back legs of another Dracc. Sevril touched the creature and sensed no individual awareness, tasked with a mundane repetitive role for so long, the creature had gone mad and its essence had long since departed. Perhaps the extra arms she’d given it had caused distress ? Sevril reached out and almost destroyed it, but it still carried out the construction process perfectly, so Sevril left it alone and approached the second of her chaos creatures.
“Do you still sense my presence ?” She asked.
This one was the female, the brighter of the two and Sevril remembered having trouble getting the conditioning to take. The creature stopped assembling a Dracc and looked at Sevril, there was an intellect in the eyes and something more, hate, yes pure hate had sustained her for all those millions of years.
“I hear you.”
The conditioning had gone, she knew who she was and realised she was imprisoned, carrying out the same task over and over because it was locked into her very DNA.
“I need gifts, important gifts, will you produce them for me ?”
The hate was in the eyes, this one wanted to escape, but only after killing her. The creature raised one of her five arms and wiped her brow for the first time in many millions of years.
“I will create whatever you require, with all my skills and to the highest quality. But your Dracc fill this rift, there are already too many. I ask that once your gifts are ready that you give me the release of death.”
Sevril used her tail to destroy many of the Dracc, she needed space to wait while her gifts for Mendera were created.
“You have my word. Create what I require and I’ll end your life.”
Sevril lowered herself so that her head was on a level with the female chaos creature and she began describing exactly what she desired the creature to create.
~ ~
Sikush had invited Estrid to watch the descent, after all it was a rare thing for even a deity, the explosion of a super massive star. Mexin 7 was in the same bubble universe as Mendera and it was about to explode in a spectacular way, so spectacular that several unofficially colonised planets were in danger. Some from the Ixir enclave had set up a mining operation on one planet in the Mexin galaxy and several religious cults had started colonies within a few lights years of the star that was about to ruin their neighbourhood in a massive way. The empire could have removed the unofficial residents of those planets, but that wasn’t the Menderan way of doing things. Minraver was there too, for something requiring over seven reality locks, both of the eternals needed to be present, though as always, Chlo was controlling events.
“Are we ready Chlo ?” asked Sikush.
“Twelve locks of the entire solar system, we’re ready.”
Chlo could have prevented the explosion, simply rejuvenated the ageing star, or stripped it of all its energy and turned it into a harmless giant cinder. But even Sikush was careful about controlling events too much, it affected stellar nurseries, the natural rhythm of the galaxy.
“I think it’s about to explode.” Said Monazin-Conosin.
Monazin had invited himself to the descent after being found by Delmus and Luri. Many considered Monazin to be so laid back that he was in danger of taking root, but Sikush considered him to be a civilising influence on the more volatile deities.
Mexin 7, the largest star in the Menderan bubble universe exploded. They were all stood in a shield bubble that provided gravity, air for those that needed it and a platform from where they could watch the cosmic fireworks in safety. They were a very long distance from the Mexin galaxy, yet one moment space was the usual darkness full of twinkling lights and the next it was all blinding light and intense X-ray emissions. This wasn’t an explosion that would produce a blast lasting a few seconds; Sikush knew this blinding light would carry on for two or three days.
“How does it look Chlo ?” He asked.
“The outcome is fairly bad, there is severe risk to two inhabited planets and the debris shell is likely to cause disruption to craft landing on Mendera itself.”
The final decision was entirely in the hands of Sikush. There were two deities there, Chlo and another eternal to ask for advice, but in this case their advice wasn’t required.
“Restore a lock Chlo,” he said, “about two minutes before the descent.”
No noise, no rushing of wind, no tearing sounds as reality was ripped apart. With two eternals present and Chlo’s expertise the restoration of an earlier reality was seamless. One second there was the blinding light of the largest explosion ever seen in the Menderan universe and the next they were looking at a peaceful view of the galaxy, seemingly tranquil, the planets moving around Mexin 7 as they had done for billions of years.
“How do the anomalies look Chlo.” Asked Sikush
They didn’t have long before the star had its second attempt at exploding, but it was important to know about any temporal anomalies. The multiverse thrived on paradoxes, it just ignored most, but there were limits.
“There are gravity waves heading out,” said Chlo, “but nothing to worry about, we caught the radiation front before it could spread.”
Kittara fidgeted and sat on the floor of the shield bubble, Sikush turned and smiled at her and then everything was dazzled by blinding light once more.
“How about this time ?” Asked Sikush.
“Massive disruption to navigation around Mendera, there may even be a need to evacuate the moons.”
Again there was no need to consult. Sikush merely received a nod from Minraver.
“Restore a lock again Chlo.”
Once more space around the transparent shield bubble looked calm and tranquil.
“How many times will you let the same time event run ?” Asked Estrid.
“One went to twelve restorations,” answered Sikush, “but there were a few dangerous anomalies. I’d like to keep this one to less than six restorations.”
Chlo finished working out the anomalies from the second attempt.
“Gravity waves were stronger that time, but not a cause for concern. There is an X-ray front that escaped the restored area and is likely to cause problems with imperial communications.”
The star exploded again and this time the light seemed less intense, though nothing could be seen apart from the dazzling illumination of the explosion filling space around them.
“That felt different.” Said Minraver.
“What happened Chlo ?” Asked Sikush.
“The initial expelled shell fell back into the exploding star. It’s very rare, but it does sometimes happen,” said Chlo, “the outcome is just about perfect. No danger to any inhabited planet and just a slight X-ray flare, which can be screened.”
“So we all think this one is a keeper ?” Asked Sikush.
He looked around, there were several nodding heads, everyone seemed pleased with the outcome.
“We’ll go with this one Chlo,” he said, “you can release all the locks and allow routine shuttle traffic into the Mexin galaxy again.”
Chlo moved the entire shield bubble to the palace garden on Mendera, it was the easiest way to move everyone together, considering two of them were deities and unused to moving through reality as a group. The bubble was dispersed and they made their way onto Sikush’s favourite veranda.
“You once promised to tell me of my origins.” Said Luri.
Luri was still the commander of the forces of Annill and on Mendera without imperial leave. In other empires on different worlds Luri would have been in serious trouble, but Sikush merely smiled at her.
“Has Monazin been making rash promises again ?” He asked.
“Indeed I have and we deities have long memories and we always keep our promises.”
No one was surprised when Monazin took Luri to a quiet part of the garden to talk to her, but they were slightly surprised that Estrid went too and that the three of them talked for so long.
~ ~
Sumahn-Nerish was the first of the deities to arrive, appearing outside the eastern gates of Mendera city and walking slowly towards the Temple of the Flame. It was the traditional pilgrim route, it showed respect for the holy city and the people loved it. There had been rumours that the deities would visit the city, but no one knew a date for sure. A thousand years either way was nothing to the immortals, but it was several lifetimes to many of the merchants on Mendera. The sentinels started to scream, but this scream was one of pure joy, a joy that infected most of the population. They poured out of their homes, schools and temples to line the pilgrim’s way and wave. If possible they wanted to touch the living deity, but with so many lining the road there were only a few who ever felt the hard reptilian skin of Sumahn-Nerish. In the palace garden Sikush heard the sentinels.
“The deities have come to Mendera.” He said.
“Sevril arrives in the south.” Said Chlo.
By the Well of Souls a hole opened in the ground and Sevril-Narge climbed out of it. It was an act of pure theatre, but it worked very well and the shout went up throughout the city.
‘The Gods, the Gods are come to Mendera !’
Sevril brought creatures with her, not Dracc but delicate creatures that danced around her as she walked slowly north and towards the temple. The creatures were the last creation of her chaos invoker, as were the small gifts they gave out to the crowd. Sevril’s skin glinted green in the sun and her yellow eyes smiled at the crowds. They loved her and she basked in their adoration.
“Tomma is here,” said Chlo, “he arrives from the west.”
‘The Gods, the Gods are come to Mendera !’
The announcement was being sent out by every news channel on every empire world and within minutes every world that had any dealing with the empire knew too. It wasn’t a once in a lifetime event, it was an impossible legendary event and it was actually happening.
“We should be ready to greet our guests.” Said Sikush.
He walked; the protocols demanded it, even if he had written them himself. Minraver walked by his side, causing more screams from the sentinels. Behind him walked Kittara and Alyz, with the two deities Estrid and Monazin following along behind. Luri had no official part to play, she wasn’t even officially there, so she walked beside Estrid. Across the palace grounds they walked and through the rarely used main gates of the imperial palace. The crowds had already gathered, wanting to see their emperor, eager to see a face they knew and trusted during such a momentous occasion. The cheers went up, everyone was trying to get a chance to see Sikush. Chlo brought in several hundred of The Damned to line the way, purely so that their progress wasn’t impeded by the jubilant crowd.
‘For the emperor and the Gods.’ They cried.
No one had seen anything like it, including Herusher who had lived during a previous switch and often boasted of having seen everything the multiverse could concoct.
“The last is here,” said Chlo, “Tenneth-Sisanath arrives in the North.”
Over the lake by the council club Tenneth flew, landing on the road beside the council club itself. She’d nearly killed Nurigen during the throws of her awakening and had destroyed whole worlds, yet now fully awake she was a different deity entirely. Fully awake Tenneth was fairly neutral in her attitude to Sikush and the other deities, she had come for the same reason the others had come; a fear of missing out on something. More crowds left the merchants area to watch her take the long slow walk towards the temple where the crawling chaos lay trapped. The clerics of course were going crazy, many crying in the streets and shouting praises to the six great living deities who now walked the streets of Mendera. The only person not happy about events was Kittara, she knew the clerics were going to be fucking insufferable for a very long time.
~ ~
Sventa pulled herself through the grey and appeared on the mountain, where the City of the Lost God had been. There was still a little bit of decayed stonework from the Dome where the ancient Kings had once held court. In the distance she could see the new city, with its shining white domes and minarets. At first the people from Ixir had avoided the city and built their houses out on the plain, but now their new ruling class inhabited the city and anyone living outside the walls was considered rift trash. They had longer arms now and their skin had a pinkish tinge, but Sventa still recognised them as the Ixirians who’d been evacuated by Sikush. Now they filled the 1st rift in their teeming billions and it was fortunate that they lacked the skill to use the rift gate in the ruined village and couldn’t arrive in Mendera unannounced.
She swooped down over the plain, enjoying the fear she caused in the farming communities. Kittara usually only let her hunt one or two, but today Kittara was busy, so she was hunting alone. There were so many of them, she could take a hundred a day and not dent their numbers. The demons on the other side of the mountains seemed happy to let the Ixir rabble spread over the entire 1st rift. Sventa almost considered it her duty to thin them out a bit. She rarely took children, they tasted better as adults and like any hunter, she never took breeding females. Nothing pleased her better than a young male warrior and one was aiming his bow at her as she dropped lower over the fields.
“Perfect, just perfect.” She muttered.
Their bows had knocked a few pieces out of her wings; they were constantly improving the design, mainly to defend themselves against her. Sventa easily dodged the three foot long barbed arrow and grabbed the warrior in her talons. On a previous hunting trip the family of her meal had mobbed her, forced her to drop her prize, so now she climbed high above the plain and headed for a desolate region she knew. Her meal was still alive, but like most of her prey, once a thousand feet up he went quiet and ceased struggling.
“Good, keep still,” she hissed, “or I’ll go back for the rest of your family.”
Sventa noticed another hamlet in a valley that had been empty on her previous hunting trip. They spread out and bred so quickly, like vermin. Sikush seemed to have a soft spot for them, yet he never forbade her from hunting them, as long as it wasn’t to excess. ‘The Devourer,’ the Ixir vermin called her and the name made her chuckle. Past the mining village and there was an area where a green mineral stopped anything from growing. Down she dropped and put her captive on the ground so that she could remove her gown before getting bloody. He was up and away, her meal had more fight than she’d given him credit for. Sventa flapped her wings and easily caught up with him, using her tail to knock him off his feet. She pulled him onto his back and saw him look at her naked body, caught between fear and lust for her. Laughing she ripped off his jacket and tore open his abdomen with her talons. He screamed and was still screaming as she pushed her head into his body to bite into his liver and drink his hot blood.
~ ~
The last time the deities had called on Sikush, it had been in a very different holy city on a very different world. Then Chlo hadn’t been found and it was a very long time ago. Just measured in switches, it was a number too long to comprehend. Yet the protocols and etiquette had been engraved onto thin metal plates that were kept in the temple. Sikush knew them by heart, as did Chlo and several of The Damned. Once it was known that the six great living deities would visit Mendera, those metal pages had become a very popular read. Sikush arrived on the temple steps, in front of the doors that very rarely opened. The others found their own places around him, strangely Estrid kept herself to the back of the group. Across the new Merc Square the deities walked. Sevril was still accompanied by her strange creatures, who carried on handing out toys to the children. Tomma was the favourite though, he’d visited the city a few times and the locals thought of him as their own. As he entered the square a great cheer went up and even Sevril gave him a friendly nod. Sumahn, who rarely left Annill, looked the least comfortable of the deities, as he entered the square and trod softly towards the temple steps. It was important for them to approach the steps together, so they slowed their pace until Tenneth finally walked into the square.
“They all look quite different.” Said Kittara.
“They were created with slight differences,” said Sikush, “but time seems to have accentuated those differences.”
The length of the horns, the green hue of the skin, even just the plain bulk of their huge bodies, they all did look quite different as they approached the temple. The crowds followed them, many throwing Ashunt blooms at the feet of the deities and still trying to touch one of the living gods. The clerics started to try and clear the crowds as the deities approached closer to the temple, but it was impossible. The pressure of the crowd, the hysteria of many of the clerics themselves. It was a cheering friendly chaos of deities, clerics, merchants, children and other assorted creatures that finally arrived at the foot of the temple steps. Even a visiting family of Kivar had joined in the impromptu celebration.
“Quiet !” Shouted Sikush.
“Let all those who have business here approach.” He said.
The crowd became almost quiet, but some of the children carried on throwing blooms and calling out. Monazin moved from behind Sikush and walked down the steps to stand next to Sevril, the arrival of the gods was almost complete. Sikush turned and looked at Estrid, the human face of Estrin-Okanan, the most powerful of all the deities. She hung back, almost clinging to the temple doors. Eventually Sikush approached her and held her hand.
“You must join the others.” He whispered.
“Why ? To fulfil pointless protocols and meaningless rituals ?”
“Yes they are pointless Estrid, but they provide order and without order there is chaos.”
Estrid looked into his eyes, no longer a young woman’s eyes, they looked unimaginable old and tired.
“There will be war,” she said, “again there will be war. I’m not sure if I can stop them this time.”
“I know, this time I will stop it.”
“You promise ?”
“You have my word Estrid.”
She was once more a young woman hugging him and stretching to kiss his cheek.
“This time when I’m asleep and you hide me somewhere. Don’t wake me up again !”
“I will try old friend, but I can’t promise.”
Sikush walked back to the top of the steps and Estrid took her place directly in front of him, but she ignored etiquette and kept her human form. Once again he called for silence and as the crowd calmed down he began the words that none but the eternals and the deities remembered.
“Who has come here seeking answers ?” He shouted.
“We have.” Answered the six deities.
“Does anyone wish entry to the Temple of the Flame ?”
This time it was for Estrid alone to answer for all of them.
“None of us wish entry, let it remain sealed for eternity.”
It was purely protocol, all the deities knew that a population of hundreds of thousands of clerics lived out their lives behind the temple walls. Sikush had to call for silence once more, as the crowd once again began cheering.
“I declare a three day holiday,” he called, “let those who can, join in the great festival.”
The crowd went wild and Sikush was telling Chlo to start restricting shuttle traffic. It was one thing to invite the entire empire to the celebrations, but it was quite another to allow the five trillion or so to actually arrive.
~ ~
Luri had quietly walked away once the cheering started. She wasn’t really supposed to be in Mendera and the recent talk with the deities had unsettled her. She walked some way along the pilgrim route around the temple, before moving her reality to her rooms in the barracks. Luri still owned the house she’d inherited from Ojetin, but when she was on Mendera it was the barracks she thought of as home. Everything was as she’d left it and she thanked Chlo for keeping everything clean and in perfect condition. There were two bags in her cupboards, one for her shoulder and another to carry. She’d feel like a pack animal by the time she’d been to Delmus’ room, but they both needed fresh clothes.
“Can you put all my weapons in store and give me six clean uniforms Chlo and the same for Delmus ?”
The weapons vanished from the racks and she packed away the uniforms, with careful washing they would last for a year or more. There was a box of jewellery in a drawer and some sexually stimulating unguents, it all went in the bag. Luri moved herself to Delmus’ room and picked up a few items he’d asked her to take and then she put his precious RM9 over her shoulder. Chlo had warned him that the rifts would destroy it in a few decades, but she now knew the Dracc would attack fairly soon. It was all very heavy, but for one of The Damned the weight was nothing.
“Chlo, can you give me another RM9, I quite fancy trying one myself.”
“I knew being around Delmus would affect you.”
Another huge weapon of legendary lethality arrived at her feet and she put it over her other shoulder. Luri then moved her reality to the deep desert so that she could use the rift manipulator. It was hot, very hot, so hot that the humidity often reached zero. Luri took the small gold box from out of her jacket and created a purple spinning portal, which she stepped into.
“Home sweet home.” She muttered.
There had been some changes to Annill over the years; she and Nurigen had been busy. As she walked up the ramp to the city gates she passed two turrets containing clockwork devices. Nurigen had become very good at clockwork and it resisted the rift rot better than most technology. The devices could fire two pound metal arrows at quite a rate of fire and there were other devices, many hidden from prying eyes.
“Sir !” Shouted the soldier who opened the gate for her.
“Any problems while I was gone ?”
“No sir.”
Just inside the gate was a new building for the officers of the watch, another of her changes to Annill. Several soldiers came out to help her carry the load she was carrying, but she refused their help. Annill was in front of her and gone was the wooden city, everything was now built in stone and brick. The Annill Rest had burned down long ago, which was one of the reasons for building a new city that was less combustible, the fires had become far too regular. Another soldier asked to help her, so Luri took to the air and flew over the city and towards the new inner keep, where she had her home in Annill. Officially Delmus had his own rooms in the barracks, but in reality they shared the fairly opulent rooms Luri occupied.
“Delmus ?”
There was no answer, so she put the bags and weapons on the floor and started to open all the windows. It was a hot day for Annill and it felt as though her home needed a good airing. As she started to unpack the bags Delmus arrived, obviously someone had told him of her arrival back in the city.
“You got one for yourself.” Said Delmus.
He was handling her brand new RM9 and checking out his old, battered and much loved version of the same weapon.
“I thought it would be useful against the Dracc.” She said.
Delmus saw the unguent and smiled, opening the jar and rubbing a little of the content on his own neck and then on hers.
“You’re incorrigible.” She said.
Delmus started to remove her uniform, but Luri wasn’t discouraging him. It had only been a short separation, but they were used to sleeping in the same bed every night.
“So the Dracc are coming soon ?” He asked.
“Estrid says within three months.”
Delmus carried her into the bedroom while she pretended to struggle.
“You know I think better when I’m horizontal.” He told her.
Her uniform was off now and the unguent was affecting them both, multiplying their already high sex drive by a factor of ten. Delmus began to fondle her breasts.
“So you’ve been talking to deities ?” He asked.
“Yes, Estrid and Monazin, for quite some time.”
Delmus began licking her nipples, which drove her crazy.
“Did you find out about your origins ?”
Her desire was fast going out of control as Luri reached for his dick and began to open her legs.
“Yes, it appears my mother was Denae one of the last great demon queens of the City of the Lost God.”
Delmus was moving down her body, parting the hair between her legs and licking gently at the bundle of nerves he uncovered.
“Keep doing that, just there, that’s it.”
“Did you find out who your father is ?”
His tongue was going in deep now and she was getting wetter all the time.
“My father was, or is, Tomma-Goran.”
His head looked up over her bush.
“You’re kidding ?”
“No, it appears they had a huge fling and I was the result.”
Delmus was parting her legs and aiming his enormous erection at her wet bush.
“Estrid told me something else,” she said, “it appears I’m going to be a deity one day.”
Delmus looked into her eyes as he entered her.
“A Deity ! Fuck me Luri !”
She wrapped her legs around his back and obliged.
~ ~
© Ed Cowling – August 2014
