Price of a Kingdom
by Shadowlurker13
(rated M for: language, action-type violence, sensuality, frightening images including one extended gore scene - I'll warn you when; adult subject matter including a frank discussion of suicide; drug use including incidental smoking; and almost constant cultural partial female nudity, usually just implied but occasionally portrayed - think ancient Minoan/Atlantian, where everybody's running around in some type of kilt? Like that, only slacks 'cause it's hard to swim in a kilt: this is per the author's representation in the book. There, that should cover everything! XD)
Chapter 1 – Trident Wedding
If the running contest for the Crown of Amber had been a baseball game, Random Barimen's current batting average would be hovering down around the bottom… which was where he was right now, in a very technical sense, having been bamboozled into helping a family member at his own expense, an occurrence he had thought himself long past encountering. He'd been pranked plenty by his many older brothers growing up, sometimes quite nastily, but this particular turn of events took the cake. He couldn't have been herded back to the Undersea Kingdom (Queendom?) more efficiently if he'd been put through livestock stanchions of the kind used to calmly lead the unsuspecting beasts to the slaughterhouse!
At least his life hadn't been demanded of him, which was only fair to his way of thinking: he couldn't be blamed for the princess' post-partum depression and subsequent suicide (although he had recognized the early signs when he'd sent her home knocked-up – and from the example of his own mother, no less). A woman prone to that was simply prone to that regardless of any extenuating circumstances; it was a clinical problem. And as far as he could tell, the resultant bastard son he hadn't wanted had had a fairly decent court upbringing (was there even such a thing, though?) – just like the boy's aunt Llewella, really – and had jumped at the chance of freedom via the Reversed Pattern the moment it was offered, just like his old man…
How Random hated thinking of himself as old! Of course this mildly vain sentiment had nothing to do with the logical reality that the prince had been physically mature for over five centuries now. It was more likely psychological baggage to do with his own father, one of the few things his brothers truly shared (although never with each other.)
Princess Morganthe had been an obvious flighty mess, but she had almost been fun enough for him to put up with the more irritating bits for a while: young, worldly, and built like the Venus de Milo with her ivory arms nicely intact. All he had to do was look at her a certain way and he could watch her just melt. Fun. The last thing he expected when he stole away into Shadow with her was that the infamous Barimen infertility he had thought was a sure thing at this point would betray him with an unexpected batch of damnably healthy sperm…
So here he was, trapped in Rebma, famed City in the Bay (with its equally famous stably pressurized and super-oxygenated waters), just a few miles off the coast of Amber and about a mile down, on the night of his wedding – yes, wedding, a state he hadn't planned on willingly entering into for at least another seven-thousand years or so, once he figured he was old enough to actually enjoy puttering around with little stress-reducing hobbies like his eldest half-brother Prince Benedict. That had been Queen Moire's price for letting him keep his head and other body parts he'd be sore to lose: living in proverbial domestic bliss with a girl with absolutely no social prospects – in order to raise them in the future – for an entire year, down here in the perpetual magically artificially-maintained twilight of the submerged city, that kept the cold darkness and the dangerous deep-sea creatures of the true Midnight Zone at bay.
And in this no humiliation had been spared the prince (again to his way of thinking.) He had been forcibly garbed in the traditional spandex-thin unisex Rebman fishscale trousers, his own clothing burned right in front of him in one of the large mineral fireplaces in the Mirror Palace. The thigh-tight-calf-loose pearlescent pants created a look that was hardly flattering on his relatively skinny five-and-a-half-foot frame, especially when compared with the locals, who for the most part all looked like they were competing for Chippendales Merman of the Month!
But the piéce de resistànce was his intended bride. Oh, she was alright to look at, he guessed, if no exemplar of ancient Roman statuary: she was about on par with his own scale, just less muscular and a couple inches shorter, with her straight long dark-brown hair gently floating beneath her translucent ceremonial veil, weighted in place by a bridal shell crown, above her equally translucent ceremonial gown. Her coloring was a rarity for a Rebman, basically a recessive gene. As was her blindness. From birth, apparently. Morganthe had obviously told her mother of what pleasure she had taken in seeing the youngest prince of Oberon, of what power his sky-blue eyes had exercised over her – and so the queen had determined to thwart his considerable vanity by ensuring that his intended wife could never properly see him. It was a capital joke, one that would've had him quietly snickering into his sleeve if it had happened to any of his brothers – or his vapid, hedonistic sister Flora, for that matter; the thought almost made him smirk in spite of himself.
It would serve the bitch right for once, he mused as he dignifiedly strode down the broad watermelon-tourmaline aisle of the Temple of the Mother of Lir (whose devotional idol carvings looked suspiciously like a narwhal-horned hippocampus), on past the packed calcified pews, up to the bubbling altar where two of his sisters – Deirdre and Llewella – the high priestess and his doom awaited him.
He didn't find out until some time after the ceremony that it was not traditional to bind a bride's eyes in Rebma: for Vialle this was normal, expected even, nearly half her face hidden by a thick leaf of fresh kelp. When he gave her the mandatory quick kiss on the lips before heading out of the sanctuary, the girl looked more stunned than anything else – and it took him a couple seconds to realize that it was because she hadn't seen it coming!
Oh, this is going to be fun, he thought, making a show of gallantly winding her arm about his own, literally helping her to the exit.
At least the wedding feast was good, and catered by the queen no less (which was really the least she could do, having railroaded him into this mess): giant furry deep-sea crabs, mussels big enough to individually feed a family of ten, and 'baby' calamari that would've looked suspiciously adult-sized to a 'Lander', as Rebmans colloquially dubbed all topsiders (usually with a note of condescending distain), served alongside a variety of seaweeds prepared down-home-style.
Give them that much, the prince thought with a rueful touch of admiration as he broke open yet another charred crustaceous leg, the distinctive scent of the sweet meat inside immediately assaulting his nose: the natives could boil up a mean crab – and by 'boil' this included hunting and subduing the bad-tempered dangerous beasts, and ignoring their fast-dying shrieks as they were passed quickly through a stream of superheated boiling gas from a deep-sea thermal vent oven that ran in excess of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, cooking them instantly! The Abyssal Plain cuisine of Rebma was a wonder unto itself; even Amber would be hard-pressed to duplicate it with magic. Perhaps in one of the Shadows…
The company at the banquet left a little something to be desired, however. Random had the distinct impression that many of his 'guests' (most of Moire's court) would have rather that he had been char-boiled in like fashion as the crabs, and served as the main course instead! The only recourse at hand was drink, the local brew a bizarre concoction made of fermented agar and a few other things that the prince couldn't have identified with a gun to his head; the formula was a well-kept secret, producing a dark-amber liqueur that went down like thick Jell-O shots. He had been feeling his nicotine withdrawal for some hours now; at least the alcohol was helping to deaden it some. Even the presence of one of these two substances wasn't bad for such an exotic shadow. The travesty of a celebration dragged on a grueling four hours; once the groom could no longer stuff himself, he sat back in his scallop-shell bedecked coral-carved chair, with one slippered foot arrogantly resting against the table, sipping his fiery slime, listening to speech after trite formulaic speech (including a rather teasing one from his sister Llewella), making the requisite show of kissing his wife when it was deemed necessary. He couldn't get over the strangeness of her blindfold; the item and its resultant visual effect put him in mind of a Greek sibyl, or something far more kinky! Her cool lips were small, her nose was small – heck, practically everything about the girl screamed delicate and fragile: it made him feel like the proverbial bull in the china shop! They were a cruelly farcical match at best.
'Be kind to her, stay the full year,' his half-brother Corwin's voice came back to taunt him, reminding him that he was putting up with this treatment of his person for a reason. There were harder ways to obtain a regency in Amber, Random knew, but this one wasn't exactly going to be a walk in the park, either, especially the 'kind' bit…
At least he was granted some modicum of privacy for their absurd honeymoon: Llewella was putting them up in her villa due north of the Mirror Palace in the ritzier part of the city – although it made him feel less like a guest and more like a refugee (his elder half-sister Deirdre was one, for all practical purposes at the moment, albeit for more political reasons involving Amber, namely her own crazy blood-brother Prince Eric. What was it about blood-kin that naturally made Barimens more reckless towards each other? He had long since stopped trying to unriddle it.)
"Oh, longer and closer familiarity merely produces greater contempt in our case, I think," Deirdre answered him, her voice clear and close-sounding through the aqueous medium, as she swam across the lower sitting room, her own long dark hair trailing behind her pale bare back as she floated down to rest on a striking vermilion sponge-cushion settee. "With the amount of power involved it is almost a forgone conclusion, alas."
"Then why should we involve more innocents in it? Come on, this is a bad marriage for the bride and you know it. Can't you work your act for Moire, do the whole pleading-weepy-princess bit? What am I even supposed to do with a twenty-five-year-old girl?"
"What do you normally do with a twenty-five-year-old girl?" she replied laconically.
"Ask if she has a younger sister!" the prince hissed through his teeth. "By twenty-five they all start thinking too much and-"
Random was caught unawares by a sudden sharp smack to the back of his head!
"Hey! What the hell was that for?!" he angrily wheeled on his green-haired half-Rebman sister standing behind him; she was looking none too pleased herself.
"You have had that coming all night," she pointed a finger at him in accusation, "be glad that little reprimand came from me and not one of the queen's bodyguards! Every other person here has breasts," she swam by him – topless as Deirdre – joining her sister on the couch, "so grow up already and stop openly ogling them all! One would think you had never been to a topless beach before – or Rebma, for that matter!"
"The south of France? Our crass, uncultured little brother?" Deirdre chimed in. "A topless bar is far more likely!" she laughed.
"No, you're right of course, the bar," Llewella replied, observing him archly just to be annoying.
"Don't you two have anything better to be doing than baiting a convicted brother?" Random irritatedly addressed them, his arms crossed over his own bare chest. Really he'd been stalling going upstairs for quite some time, where his new bride Vialle was doubtless waiting for him. His sisters were obviously not going to allow him any peace down here.
"It's more fun than baiting bears," Deirdre rejoindered wryly, "and don't tread upon the term so lightly: it's the only personal 'conviction' you've ever had!"
"Aw, come on!" he whined. "And what did I ever do to you, Llew? You didn't even grow up with the rest of us!"
"You were born, that's what," the princess chuckled quietly. "That's been enough to irritate most of us over the long years. Now, if you're looking for real sympathy, you're far more likely to find it in your guest suite," she nodded toward the curved marble staircase encouragingly. "Seriously though, be gentle with her, Random; I think she's still physically a virgin."
The sudden genuine concern in Llewella's sea-green eyes brought him up short, his pithy retort of moments prior dying in his mouth. He quietly sighed. Damn.
"Good luck – I mean it," she added with just a whisper of her old trademark secretive smile. "Do yourself a favor and make the most of this; it's a marriage, not a stint in Rebma's dungeon."
He silently scoffed but nodded, sauntering toward the smooth banister, on up the stairs to his 'destiny'; a small school of cobalt-and-canary dories parted about him, headed down to the lower floor, clicking and making tones at each other. Of all the potentially strange aspects of living in the Undersea Kingdom, this one – obvious as it might initially seem – always caught the prince offguard. Even in spite of the extra physical resistance involved in getting around down here, both the cultural style of living and the abovewater-like gravity in tandem served to overwhelm a stranger into such a feeling of subconscious 'normalcy' after a while, that suddenly being confronted with fish or other marine organisms could come as a genuine shock to the system! Not all 'Landers' could successfully transition to life in Rebma; changing the element one breathed alone could be too much for some to psychologically handle.
It was common practice, though, especially in the upper classes who could afford to breed harmless tropical fish and supplant their diets in the safety of their mineral-heated demesnes, to have a number of them wandering an abode at will to help cut down on indoor 'pollution' – organic detritus that was constantly raining down on the city from the upper ocean in spite of Moire's best efforts, and getting blown through sideways twice a day with the changing tide. It was not unlike the combined logic of owning a lizard to eat one's apartment cockroaches and a mechanical air purifier. The only tricky bit was managing to keep them indoors; a small percentage invariably escaped. Despite the hassle of their upkeep, the results were marked: with healthy schools of transplant fish, visibility could reach farther than a well-lit indoor swimming pool, the clarity gradually fading into a lovely shade of cerulean. Without it, everything started turning a murky kelp green in fifteen long strides or less, artificially simulating nearsightedness. And it had a funky smell, too.
Llewella's villa was impeccably clean inside…
Down the warm U-vaulted hall, past mineral torches and frescos composed of millions of little tiles, up another shorter demiflight of stairs, past strategically-grown bioluminescent corals, to the nautilus door that led into the guest flat.
Llewella had really outdone herself for this: beautiful collections of rare shells, most smooth and pearlescent, festooned the room in rich caches where normally temporary anemone arrangements would be placed; a silver bowl of fresh live oysters stood at the ready upon a sinuous silver stand beside the soft king-sized sponge-bed along with a pair of shell-crackers, the tiny animals likely happily oblivious to the fact that any moment they might become a midnight snack, with more liqueur and glass freshwater flasks on the far side; a roaring, bubbling mineral fire raging on the hearth; and a bas relief carving of Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' graced the wall above the bed. The furnishings were all notably tactile – and Vialle was currently studying the 'painting', kneeling upon the mattress, facing away from him… but she turned upon hearing his entrance, her breath audibly quickening a little, making just a few tiny hyperventilation bubbles escape her parted lips.
She was already naked for him save for the blindfold, and suddenly blushing practically to her knees.
"Is it you, my lord?" she whispered, turning toward the disturbance in the water, nervous excitement clear in her trembling voice.
But Random was not excited; in fact he'd been dreading this, the moment that his imprisonment here would become legally binding – in Amber.
"Hello? Is someone there?" she queried the room, suddenly unsure of herself, carefully getting up off the bed on the lefthand side.
Random nearly snuck back out of the room, the foreignness of her disability on top of everything else suddenly too much to handle. The prince briefly thought of trying to bribe one of the villa's servants to take his place, but quickly decided against it - Llewella would figure it out sooner rather than later – and so stood his ground, closing and latching the door, slowly walking in toward her.
"Yes – I am here," he finally remembered to verbally confirm; it came out sounding terse, but he saw a little of the tension go back out of her frame with a sad half-smile.
"You are not accustomed to dealing with deformed persons, your highness; it has likely never been required of you. Allow me to put your mind at ease," she gracefully held out her right hand in the general direction of his voice, genuinely smiling when she felt him take it. "What is wrong with my eyes is not contagious – the healers have confirmed that much – and you will find that the rest of my body is healthy, and will respond as you would desire."
Random was almost taken aback when the girl proceeded to reverently kiss his fingertips, delicately taking each into her soft warm mouth in turn. If she had been anyone else – other than his wife, that is – had they been anywhere else in Shadow, the prince knew that he would've been all too ready to oblige this eager and inexperienced youth, probably tackling her to the mattress right then and there for a good old-fashioned initiation into the pleasures of the flesh, possibly even securing parts of her to the bedframe to go with that blindfold of hers.
But Vialle felt him flinch, and immediately relinquished his hand, crestfallen, quietly sitting down on the side of the bed, ashamed of her behavior. "You find me repulsive, my lord," she uttered the statement-of-fact quietly. "It is alright; it is not the first time – just the most recent." The girl was doing her best to be stoic, but her voice broke on her at the end like she was trying not to cry in front of him, and Random suddenly felt like an eel for having a kneejerk reaction to her like that.
"Oh, it isn't like that – come here, doll," he sat down right beside her, taking her unresisting lithe torso in his arms, resting her face into his shoulder, feeling the cool slipperiness of the kelp binding. "I know this is trite and stupid, but it's not you, kiddo, it's me, it's this whole situation," he stroked her smooth drifting hair. "You're actually fairly pretty, you know that, babe? If I wasn't being forced to have sex with you for honorable reasons, I would've been pretty turned on back there. You've got potential."
The prince felt Vialle smile against his skin – but she pulled out of his embrace. "You are kind to me, my lord," she momentarily groped for his right hand, found it, patted it, "but you need not lie to me. I am your wife regardless of what I think or feel." She gave a sudden laugh. "I can hardly expect you to make love to a perfect stranger! If I was too forward, please forgive me; I shall strive to behave more honorably toward your person in the future. Are you hungry at all, your highness? I smell oysters, but I couldn't possibly eat another-"
Random cut off her nervous, self-conscious, self-deprecating rambling with a kiss – a real one – just to shut her up, unable to take any more of those proverbial burning coals atop his head for the moment, only pulling out of it once she was good and breathless.
"Stop berating yourself; you're alright, babe," he leaned his forehead against hers, stroking her flushed cheek with the backs of his fingers. "I'm going to work to not hurt you; that's something I'm historically not good at, especially when it comes to women. And if that means I have to tell you sweet little lies on rare occasion to keep doing it, I'm going to – and it's not your problem or responsibility to worry about. That's about the most honest I care to be with anyone under any circumstances. And you can stop calling me 'lord' while you're at it – hell, I'm not lord of anything down here, least of all you!" he got up and crossed the room, pouring himself just one more shot – then poured her one, too, returning to the bed with them. "I'm not going to pretend I own you, not when you didn't have a say in this matter, either," he folded the small glass carefully into her right hand. And had to smirk. "Here's looking at you, kid," he quoted old Bogie at her – he couldn't resist – clinking his glass against hers, quickly upending it… and was genuinely surprised to see her follow suit almost exactly at the same moment, out of the corner of his eye!
"…how did you anticipate me just there?" he dubiously put to her, mildly intrigued.
Vialle's lips slowly twisted into a small, devious little smile the prince instantly found attractive in spite of himself.
"I felt the sudden change in the water current when you quickly lifted your arm. Your action was an educated guess," she put her own shot glass down on the floor. "As long as you're up, could you please bring me one of those water flasks also, if it isn't too much trouble?"
"Oh – right, sure. Hey, I'd better have one, too, huh?" he sauntered back over, grabbing them – suddenly feeling just how much he had drunk that night, remembering how breathing through a liquid could trick the body into not realizing that it was actually physically thirsty. He fairly crashed onto the mattress this time before handing off the spare; thrusting the thin gold strawlike opening into his mouth, he sucked on it hard to pull the pull the pressure-valve stopper aside and proceeded to chug it down all at once, lying back in the middle of the bed in relief with a sigh when it was empty, tossing it aside on the floor, surprising his wife by catching her left arm and pulling her over with a yelp, half-floating, crash-landing into him!
"Hi," he noted as she giggled a little, flushing again, "look, I… I know that you had wanted some fun tonight, but… the alcohol's catching up to me, and I'm dead exhausted, babe," he intoxicatedly stroked her side, her rear, giving it a light pat. "Talk to me more tomorrow once I've… slept some of this off." He didn't even have to feign the yawn; that one was real. Way too many giant crab legs…
He heard her sigh, but it sounded more amused than dejected now. "Very well," she chastely pecked him once on the cheek and moved to lie down on the other side – but he wouldn't let go of her arm.
"Hey, don't go, babe… let ol' Randy be your pillow," he tiredly slurred, slowly drawing her against him, draping his arm around her, resting her head on his lightly muscled chest.
Once she was sure he was down for the count, Vialle carefully reached up and lightly traced the contours of his face, his bone structure, and grinned at what she discovered there: he was handsome as rumored, but in an almost boyish sort of way, belying his age.
"Goodnight, Husband," she whispered to him, snuggled up in his somnolent embrace, and went to sleep.