“Forgive me, m’lord, but we are.” Involuntarily he winced at the stabbing pain in his head.
The voice, when it whispered again, was low and soft; the seneschal could barely make out the words over the waves of nauseating thrum in his head and the crying of the gulls.
In sixteen centuries you have only dared defy me once; remember what you wrought.
“Twice,” the seneschal corrected. He clutched his brow in agony, shaking his head like a boar shaking off the hunting dogs beset upon its neck. He glanced woozily in the direction of the dark hold where Faron waited, frightened, in his transplanted pool of gleaming green water. He had been secreted aboard in the middle of the night, carried in soft blankets, while the fires were burning down and the sea winds tugged at the moorings. The terror in the child’s eyes haunted at him again, and feelings of protective rage rose inside his breast. “And what I wrought is a lifeline for you; remember that.”
The threat in the reply was unmistakable.
You remember it as well.
“Yer Honor? Sea-shakes got hold o’ ya already? We haven’t even cast off yet.”
The seneschal struck violently at the air behind him, knocking the man flat with a gesture.
“Leave me in peace.”
The sailor, long accustomed to the strong arm of command, rose quickly from the deck and slipped away. When the sailor had gone, the seneschal focused his attention again on the voice in his mind, the demon that shared his soul.
“I will not be questioned by you in this,” he said in a low voice, fighting the grip behind his eyes.
You are taking us away from our place of power, where our dominion rests, unchallenged. Why?
The seneschal stood a little straighter.
“A debt is owed me, a debt I had written off a lifetime ago and a world away.”
So if you decried this debt a lifetime ago, why pursue it now?
The seneschal ran his fingers angrily through his hair, as if seeking to gouge the nagging voice from his scalp.
“Primarily,” he spat, “because I choose to. And I do not wish to answer to you about it.”
The dark fire of F’dor spirit that clung to his essence burned blacker within him, making him nauseous.
I can see we have a misunderstanding of roles here.
“Yes,” the seneschal agreed, “though I am certain we have differing opinions on who is transgressing on the terms under which we have agreed to associate with one another.”
The voice of the demon was silent for a moment, leaving only the sound of the wind and the sea, the cry of the gulls, and the distant noise of the port growing busy as morning came. When it spoke there was a crackling sound in its tone, like a fire, the flames calm but seething underneath in the coals.
I have allowed you far more autonomy, far more independence, than most with our arrangement would have.
The seneschal exhaled sharply.
“Perhaps that is because I took you on voluntarily, if you recall,” he said. “You have benefited greatly from my strength, from retaining my independence. If you wanted a passive host whose life essence you could suck out, use as a parasitic moss uses a tree, surely there were thousands of sickly, pathetic rabble after the Seren War ended that you could have taken on; a flower-seller, perhaps; a fishwife, an infant? You chose me because I offered you a host healthy of body and mind, a soldier, a leader of men, with power of my own that you could share, but it was never part of the bargain that you would possess that power outright. If you had wanted a servile lackey, you should have chosen a host within your ability to subdue, with strength less than your own, one you could conquer, could make your own unwillingly, could hollow out and feed off of until you moved on to someone better. You would never have been able to take me on then, never would have conquered me against my will.” He paused, feeling the ebb and flow of the demon’s spirit coursing through his veins. “You cannot do it now.”
The sea wind gusted again, snapping the mains’l violently, then settling into a calm breeze again. The seneschal felt the heat within him dim as the demon considered his words.
You have not done poorly in this bargain yourself, the voice said when finally it spoke again. You wanted life unending. You have had it.
“Yes,” the seneschal acknowledged, “yes, I have. And so have you. I might point out that when I came to you your host was dying, alone, unable to drag the sorry remains of his crumbling body out of the water that was filling the dungeon in which you were held captive. I saved your sorry life, have brought untold glory to you, the power of elemental wind to mix with your fire—”
In return for immortality.
“Yes. A fair trade. And all in all, it has been a beneficial, in fact, inspired pairing.” The seneschal clutched the railing, prepared for another onslaught of demonic rage. “Except on those occasions when you forget that I have the final decision as to where we go, what we undertake. You, sadly, have no choice but to come along. Unless you wish to leave now.”
The demon chuckled; it was a harsh, rasping sound that scratched against the seneschal’s ears. You always were foolhardy. Think which of us will have the worse of the bargain if I should decide to do that.
“My wager is on you,” the seneschal said as the sun crested the horizon, splashing the ocean with golden light. “After sixteen centuries of unquestioned dominion, feeding your hunger for fire and ruin, I think it would be amusing to see how you fare as a cabin boy or a whore strolling the docks. Look around you; is there anyone in particular that you crave to move on to? Perhaps there is a tavern wench you might like to have as your host? Then perhaps you too can know the feeling of being fornicated over and over again, as I do when you try to assert yourself.”
The voice of the demon cackled.
It might be interesting to take you up on that. Were we to part company in the next beat of your heart, I would not die; I would be weaker, ’tis true, but when one is immortal, a setback in merely a delay, not an ending. It would almost be worth the loss of stature and power to take up residence in another, any other, just to watch your body shrivel to dust and blow away in the wind before my eyes. The fire returned, soaking into the internal edges of the seneschal’s consciousness. You do know that is what would happen, do you not? Without my essence you would not only be a dead man, but one who owes Time a dear debt he has no means to repay.
“Go then,” the seneschal snarled. “Cast yourself out. Better still, allow me to do it for you.”
Your rashness will be your undoing, if not now, then later, the demon said solemnly.
Again the voice fell silent, and the seneschal gripped the deck railing. The demon was the embodiment of chaos, of destructive impetuosity. He prepared himself for battle, or being tossed into the sea, or into oblivion.
You are in pursuit of a woman, once again.
The seneschal clenched his teeth, seeking to bar the F’dor spirit from the inner reaches of his mind, but it was like trying to hold back the sea; the hot fingers in his brain probed mercilessly, unyieldingly, violating what little space was left to him. He could feel it searching the hidden realms within his head, finally coming upon the thoughts he had sheltered from it, grasping them, digging them out like a root from the dirt.
Have you learned nothing? the demon chided angrily. Do you not recall what happened the last time you let your lust get the better of us?
“Yes,” the seneschal said bitterly. “I recall it well, and would change nothing about it, given the chance. It gave both you and me a night of unmitigated joy in the glorious suffering of an Ancient Seren, and the boon of a bloodline in the child that was born of that night.”