Chapter 6 #2
As they reach the place where he stands, Kerik presses to the wall of the passage, and the faerie guards walk straight past him.
As he watches their backs vanishing down the passage, he wraps his arms around himself in delight. How has he done this? He knows not. But this is true real magic. This is power.
Newly emboldened, Kerik strolls along the passageways, unconcerned about getting lost and finding his way back to Perl’s chamber. Now it matters not at all where he goes or how long he wanders. He can do as he pleases and if he gets lost, he can simply wander until he finds his way.
How wondrous it would be to use magic like this in the Rose Palace. To stroll unseen through those halls. To spy on handsome men. To take a lover and cast the same spell over him, then receive suck in the Hall of Twelve while Selim conducted his business.
Kerik chuckles to himself at the thought.
But he need not stop at base pleasures. What great power magic like this would be in war. He could command an invisible army. Such a thing would be feared from Ismagaar to The Cradle. Selim would give him anything he wanted in return for such a thing.
He wanders for a long time, thinking these delightful thoughts.
Finally he finds some wider corridors where he must be nearing the Ice Hall.
He sees many beautiful sights. A great fountain of water that changes colour, rainbowing from red through to yellow to green, purple, then back to red.
A long hallway full of silver statues, finer and more detailed than any statues he has ever seen.
The wealth of this court is beyond his dreams.
He climbs turrets, ascending long flights of spiralling white stairs.
At the top of one he finds the only window he has seen.
It is glazed and narrow, the glass so thick the world outside looks misty and unreal, but he can make out a snowy covered land in a greyish light that could be dawn or dusk.
There are mountains and the sea in the distance.
The same view he saw from the strange invisible chamber where they waited to gain entry to the hall.
And across that sea is Ismagaar, beyond that the empire and home.
It is odd to think of that, when he is in this mysterious place.
He finds gardens, of a sort, Vylenor does not truly seem to have an indoors and an outdoors.
But there are vast chambers filled with plants that seem to extend on and on.
When he wanders into one and looks up, all he can see is white, but the space does not truly seem to be open to the sky.
In the same way there does not seem to be day or night here.
Perl had said something about that. Time moves differently, the days are not marked by the sun’s turning.
The light is magical, controlled by faerie will.
Kerik finds that is impossible to think too hard about.
It makes his mind feel strangely heavy and his belly quiver.
He does not see many faeries, but when he does, none of them see him.
He passes a fine chamber with soft furs covering the floor and thick plump cushions scattered about.
There are only three faeries in the room although there are discarded cups and garments littering the floor that suggest the room has had many more occupants recently.
The faeries in the room are half naked, spilling from their fine gowns. One with red hair has her breasts on show as she lies back on a heap of cushions, a second faerie kissing and fondling her as she strokes the white hair of the third, whose face is buried between her spread thighs.
Kerik pauses a moment to watch. He has seen women making love to other women before.
Such acts are against the Book of the Rules, but at Azurian Pleasure Nights such things would be permitted, to the delight of those watching, although a similar spectacle involving men making love to men would never be so public.
But such rules do not apply to faeries. They couple as they please. Excepting the rule that fae must not fuck different creatures of another sex. Perhaps that is because they believe the stories Perl told him and fear creating more corrupted things like the Bellator.
Kerik is shaken from his thoughts by a familiar voice.
He turns around to see Prince Vane, walking towards him in his outfit of silken scraps and golden chains.
He has Seridil and two other thralls, all on leashes of more glittering gold chain.
Kerik slides inside the doorway of the orgy room to give them space to pass.
As Vane reaches the same doorway where Kerik stands, he pauses and calls out in a mocking tone, “Get your tongue out of that bitch’s cunt and get to bed, Princess Diamanda.”
The white haired fae turns around. “Fuck off, Vane," she shouts back.
Vane strolls off, chuckling. Kerik follows. Vane and his thralls turn off the wide corridor into one of the passageways and then through a doorway — that Vane opens with a wave of his hand — and into a rich parlour.
Kerik follows them.
In the parlour, Vane sprawls on a wide fur-draped settle of red silk, richly embroidered with gold thread and adorned with silken tassels.
It is easily as fine as anything in the Rose Palace.
The entire chamber is just as rich, decorated in red and gold.
There are patterned rugs on the stone floor and furniture of carved marble.
A fire dances in a small grate, its flames cherry-red.
Kerik has seen many hearths as he has explored Vylenor, with fire of many colours, although they seem to be magical, simply for decoration, affecting the light and heat around them not at all.
Vane orders two of his thralls to kneel before him. Meanwhile Seridil busies himself, lighting some incense on a corner table before fetching Vane a drink in a tall crystal goblet.
Kerik leans against the wall, watching. Vane takes the drink — a pale pink liquid — from Seridil without a word.
Then with little more than an idle hand gesture he bids his kneeling thralls recline on the fur rug, each with their face opposite the other’s cock.
Seridil bends and removes the hip cloths from each thrall then uses the fabric to bind their wrists behind them.
Vane claps his hands. The two thralls shuffle closer and begin to pleasure each other with their mouths, each sucking the other’s cock.
Kerik twitches. What a grand life Vane leads that he is able to command such pleasurable spectacles so idly in these fine rooms.
Kerik wonders if he too could have such a life.
If he used magic to raise his own army to take Fanost back from the Azurian Empire.
He’d become the ruler of his own domain.
With such power he need not beg the Rose Court to acknowledge him, he could take them.
He could take anything he wanted. He could be more than the Duke of Fanost. He could be a Great Wizard Emperor.
Greater than Selim. Greater than any Emperor there had ever been.
He could rule his own empire with power like this at his command.
He’d no longer be bound by the Book of the Rules. He could have an army of thralls. Not three, at least three dozen. He will have a favoured for his own bed and others that he will command just like this, to pleasure each other for spectacle as he relaxes.
Vane has Seridil sit beside him on the settle.
He swings his legs up into Seridil’s lap.
Seridil begins unlacing Vane’s gold boots as Vane lies back, sipping his drink.
Seridil takes off each boot and then removes Vane’s stockings and begins to stroke and caress Vane’s bare feet. Vane purrs with delight.
And looks right at Kerik.
Kerik holds his breath. Vane cannot see him.
But Vane keeps looking at him as he says, “Are you enjoying yourself, thrall?”
Kerik does not move.
“I can see you,” Vane says. “It’s a reasonable piece of magic.
Silence for Secrets. I’m sure it worked well when you were strolling the halls of Vylenor, but I have strong wards in my own chambers, including ones that negate the magic of other fae.
I would be a fool not to, I’m sure you’d agree.
So don’t be shy. If the magic you’re using comes from your Master Perlash-zeren-ai, I can assure you, it stopped working the moment you followed us in here.
Kerik stares back at Vane. Vane knew he was here the moment he entered the chamber. And yet he took time to relax and get comfortable before addressing him. Kerik does the only thing he can. He bolts for the chamber door.
Vane makes an amused sound like a bark, waves and the chamber door slams shut just as Kerik reaches it. Kerik tugs at the door’s handle, but it does not move.
“Oh, don’t be so silly, thrall,” Vane says.
“You’re not leaving now. Why don’t you come here, have a drink with me.
And you two were not commanded to stop,” he snaps his last words down at the thralls on the floor, who are both watching Vane, but when Vane commands them, they return their mouths to each other’s roused spit-wet cocks.
Vane looks back at Kerik. “I told you to come here. I suggest you do so,” he says.
Sullenly, realising he has little choice in the matter, Kerik walks over to the settle. He stands facing Vane, the two thralls on the rug between them, only inches from Kerik’s bare feet.
“Don’t mind them,” Vane says, “step over them. Come and sit.” He pulls his bare legs from Seridil’s lap. “Seridil, get up you lazy wretch and make room for Perlash’s fascinating mortal thrall. Get it a drink.”
Seridil flashes Kerik a sour look as he stands, going over to the same cabinet he fetched Vane’s drink from.
Gingerly, Kerik steps over the other two thralls and sits down. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Silence,” Vane snaps. “You speak only if I ask you a question. Come on, that is the most basic of rules. Did he tell you anything at all before he brought you here?”