battle with the City in the Sky. A thousand details claimed her attention. Food had to be arranged for her growing army. The skystone mines on the slopes of Omizantrim required constant administration. The imprisoned Watchers proved a nagging dilemma. Groundlings had to be drilled in the use of the Hissers' skyraft.
Then there was diplomacy. The Wirixers weren't happy at the presence of the Vridzish. However, they understood which Quincunx city would next feel the might of Synalon's men and magic. With Bilsinx and Kara-Est occupied, and Brev and Thailot having thrown themselves at the City's mercy, the Sky City could take all the time it needed to build its forces for the conquest of Wirix. The mages of the lake city were mighty, but they doubted their ability to master magics such as Synalon commanded. And if Kara-Est's aerial defenses couldn't preserve her from military defeat, Wirix's strictly landborne defenses meant little more than walls of sand. The Hissers might seem unworthy allies but they and Moriana offered the only hope of survival for Wirix.
Nonetheless, the Wirixers were glad when Khirshagk and his retinue turned down their offer to visit their city on its island in the midst of the great Lake Wir.
The city girded itself for war.
It would be a war unique in the City's long history. For the first time since the Human Conquest, the City itself would be the principal object of attack. In the many small squares and parks dotted about the Sky City, the citizens gathered in little knots and gazed at the northeast horizon until masked Monitors drove them on with curses and cudgels. Though they had grown cautious about speaking their thoughts aloud, most wondered whether the victory of either side in the impending conflict might be a loss for them.
Rann drilled his forces hard. From Terror's back he led the bird riders back and forth across the sky in exercises designed to bring them to perfect fighting pitch. Even his own elite Sky Guards grumbled at the severity with which he drove.
He drove himself harder still. He had had to work out the details of the occupation of Kara-Est mostly on his own. Fortunately, Chief Deputy Tonsho had been taken alive. She dreaded physical pain above all things, which meant Rann himself was the perfect threat to keep her in line. Just thinking what exquisite agony the deputy must be going through, knowing herself at his mercy, brought a smile of pleasure to Prince Rann's thin lips. But such smiles were rare and shortlived. Tonsho was a woman of character as well as ability. Sooner or later she would overcome her cowardice and wreak harm on her city's oppressors. But not soon, he judged, and that was all that counted. For the time, a military governor and a strong garrison sufficed to insure her cooperation.
Such cooperation was vital now. Kara-Est had to start functioning again as a seaport and trade center as soon as possible. Moreover, there were matters that would take all of Tonsho's diplomatic skills to straighten out. Since the City was not yet in a position to go to war with such powers as Tolviroth Acerte, the Empire and Jorea, there were reparations to be made for damage to neutral shipping, and the rights of non-combatant citizens had to be guarded. There were problems such as that posed by the ship's captain, half Jorean and half North Keep Dwarf whose vessel had been deposited intact in the Central Plaza of Kara-Est as a prankish parting gesture of the air elemental Synalon had summoned. The outlandish halfbreed demanded recompense far beyond the value of his vessel. In the meantime something had to be done about the ship sitting in the middle of the city. Rann was pleased to have someone, anyone, tend to such matters for him.
Synalon sulked because she felt the Dark Ones should have prevented the Vridzish from allying with Moriana. Several of the queen's advisors pointed out that the Fallen Ones might have fallen into apostasy toward the Elder Gods since the Dark Ones' patronage hadn't benefited them before. Those advisors were not perspicacious enough to realize the fallibility of the Dark Ones wasn't something Synalon wished to be reminded of just now. She had ordered them all exiled through the Skywell to the earth a thousand feet below.
In the meantime Synalon contributed almost nothing to preparing for the conflict with her sister. In a way, Rann found that a blessing, since she was prone to fantastic whims. But it did leave more of a burden on his slender shoulders. Particularly when it became apparent that organized subversion had increased in the Sky City.
Sometimes, however, the queen herself took an interest in the affairs of her City…
Flesh parted to the caress of a blade. The naked young man bucked and screamed.
'There, my love,' said Synalon, patting sweat from his forehead with a moist rag. 'Tell me what I wish to hear. Who are the traitors?' She smiled tenderly and caressed his cheek. 'The pain can stop any time. Then you can love me. Tell me, have you ever seen anyone more beautiful than I?'
The Sky Guard lieutenant looked up at her with the eyes of a snared rabbit. They were lovely eyes, really, she thought, the deep dark blue of a winter sky at sunset. Her captive was a handsome youth, taller than normal among the short, wiry Sky Citizens, leanly muscular under tanned skin, his hair glossy brown with blond highlights from spending time in the wind and sun on an eagle's back. His cheeks and eyes were sunken from the terror of confinement following his arrest, but to Synalon's taste that merely accented the aristocratic quality of the facial bone structure.
Her breath came shallow and fast, as if after lusty exertion. The aroma of her own excitement was hot musk in her nostrils. She wore a pearl gray silk smock that came halfway down her sleek, silvery thighs. It was opened midway down the front. Heavy, well-shaped breasts with skin like fresh cream hung mostly in view, crested by burgundy nipples taut as a drum with arousal. The young man showed little inclination to look at them.
From below came mutterings, scraping noises, an occasional high, sharp cry. The vast aeries of the City, honeycombed below the level of the street and the very Palace itself, buzzed around the clock with avian activity. The almost subliminal sound transmitted itself through the stone flooring of the dungeon and Synalon's bare feet to tickle its way up the inside of her thighs. She enjoyed the melange of sensations, the sounds of martial preparation and breathing with the jagged catch of panic in its rhythm, the erratic orange light of torches set at the bases of arches which formed the groined ceiling of the torture chamber, and the smell of sweat and blood and her own hunger.
The captive sucked in his breath as Synalon trailed fingers along the tight skin of his belly to toy with his limp penis.
'There, there, I wouldn't hurt that,' she said. He quivered as she bent to kiss it. 'Not until the last – if you don't tell me what I want to know…'
He looked resolutely toward the far wall. Synalon frowned and slashed. Another scarlet line appeared across his chest. He howled in pain.
She worked on his body with passion and artistry. True to her promise, she left his genitals alone. She would break this young buck, and then she would enjoy him. And she would make him enjoy her, despite his agony.
It was rumored in the open air markets and the bird riders' barracks that Queen Synalon could bring a corpse to orgasm. The rumors were not far wrong.
'Damn Rann,' she hissed. The pink tip of her tongue peeked out of the corner of her mouth as she studiously flayed a strip of skin from the bulge of the lieutenant's left bicep. The young man ground his teeth on the leather strap she'd fastened in his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue. His buttocks slapped convulsively against the stone slab to which he was fastened. The bonds were leather, lined with velvet padding; no chains or manacles for Synalon. They might damage the subject by accident. Synalon regarded randomness the bane of artistry.
Reconsidering, she wondered whether she ought to curse her cousin. All bird riders were tough and well- trained, but the Guard was a fanatical elite, handpicked and then honed and polished like the finest North Keep blades. Synalon knew that only philosophical principle would cause a Guard officer to betray the throne. The young fool had decided Moriana would make a better ruler for the City than she. And what a Guard decided on principle, he would adhere to with all the fortitude Rann was so expert at inculcating. No, she shouldn't curse Rann. She loved a challenge.
The secret police who had arrested this young man had evidence which led them to believe he knew the identities of the leaders in the conspiracy against her. That was why she chose to interrogate him herself; also, she needed surcease from the screaming frustration of beseeching the Dark Ones to tell her; why?
By layers she stripped away resistance. The apparent carelessness of cuts she had first made was belied by the way she played on them to create a pattern of pain, of blood and tanned skin. And finally, sobbing uncontrollably, the captive was ready to tell everything the silvery, seductive voice coaxed him to reveal. Then the change began.
At first Synalon blinked, thinking it a trick of the light or of sweat dripping in her eyes. Itwas no illusion. The skin blackened before her eyes.
She drew back with a startled exclamation. Did the young man have some loathsome disease that had just entered a climactic stage? Her fingers traced glowing patterns in the air in front of her. She chanted a spell of
