God Rising: The Cult of Ainz
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
Chapter 158: Unfurling a Tapestry of Horror
AN: Another chapter down, I'll do maybe two more today, but the pace will slow some soon, however I still shall not be surprised if I have finished this near the start of the New Year, though which side of it, I still cannot say.
...Kami Miyako...
Enlaith was very good at her work. She rocked her slender body back and forth on top of the human guest that rented the room to which she was assigned. His hands roamed over her and she gave out the moans of pleasure that she and others like her had practiced to the point of perfecting. His face was flushed as he neared his release, he might have felt like a god in that moment, but she thought he looked downright goofy. Were it not for the slender collar around her neck, and the lead attached to it which he suddenly grabbed to pull her down into an embrace, she would have found it almost a mockery. He released the lead, grabbed her mutilated half ears, and twisted them. It didn't hurt as much as he probably thought it did. But she knew better than to let him know that, she let out a little wail of pain that was cut off when he forced his lips to hers in a kiss that she returned with artificial urgency as she felt his body achieve the release he sought.
When it was over, she knew well what to do. In the past, what she did was to massage egos or temper anger or delay further obligations. But now, now she had another purpose altogether. What she did was talk. She rolled off of him and lay at his side. "You were amazing, you did that like it was your last day in this world." She 'sounded' exhausted, like he'd worn her out completely, she let her head hit the pillow, and then traced her delicate fingers over his bare chest, she practically felt his ego swelling. 'I swear, how can anyone be gullible enough to buy these lines?' She wondered.
He was a fit, strong looking man with a number of scars on his flesh. He walked like a soldier, and quickly revealed that was what he was.
"It might be. Or at least my last chance for it." He said resignedly, "I managed to get a few days off before going, but my unit is moving out, we're going to go stop General Baraja."
"Oh?" Enlaith said, anxiously and sat up, she drew her knees to her chest, this was a dangerous moment, his eyes met hers, if he saw hope, who knew how he might react. Some who she'd had were almost... Pitying, toward her, others, brutes who took out their hatred of the Black Paladin's freeing elves, on her, as if the elf assigned to their room was somehow at fault.
"You know of her... I suppose?" He asked as he stretched out and put his hands under his head.
She gave a small nod, no point in denying it, it wasn't believable.
"She goes against the natural order, you know." He said patiently, as if talking to a slow child. "The gods chose humanity, they set us over you, so serving us is what you are meant for."
Enlaith seethed within, whispered out a meek, "Yes sir." She wanted more information though, so rather than stop there as she formerly had, she pushed, "When... you and your hundred thousand go and fight Neia, are you... going to come back after she's beaten, you felt... so good I'd like to see you again."
He smiled proudly as the submissive little elf praised his skills and acknowledged her place, "I wish it were a hundred thousand, there are only forty-five thousand though, but that'll be good enough. After I've killed her, I'll shear her hair and distribute a locke of it to every breaker academy to hang above the entrances." His voice was casual and calm, and he idly reached up and stroked Enlaith's breasts. She started to breath faster, as if he were exciting her.
She began to writhe sensuously, cutting off his ability to engage in 'higher thought' as his own desires were rekindled. "Surely you don't have time to idle with me, she must be far away." She let her hand trail over the length of his torso, down where she knew he wanted it.
"It's no trouble, we got enough horses and wagons that we'll cover twice or three times the distance, we even had our wagons enchanted to make them lighter, before she gets halfway here from Wheaton, we'll catch the bitch off guard and kill her, then... maybe I'll come back here, I could buy you, you know. Maybe bring you to my estate as a concubine..." He made the promise idly, it was, he thought, an appealing carrot to dangle in front of her, everyone knew private concubines lived better lives than even those who worked at expensive inns.
He sighed as all words vanished and they began again. Enlaith mentally filed away every piece of information she was able to glean from him, that afternoon one of her 'regulars' would visit, and pass that information along to another handler, and in the end... she moaned in real excitement as she rocked back and forth atop the man beneath her, excitement born from knowing that she was delivering him to his death. She wondered if it was fair to count him on her list of kills, since he was going to die against the Black Paladin. She was lost in her own vengeful and exciting thoughts as she weighed how to count him, and ultimately concluded just as he finished a second time that... yes, she could, his life, belonged in her tally.
"Amazing." She said with a genuine smile that hid her own savage glee as she put her hand over his chest and felt the heart beat within. As he grinned cockily up to his plaything, she thought with great satisfaction, 'So few beats left, and then... nothing.' She giggled in a kind of empty headed way that always made foolish males happy and let him hand over even more information about his unit, equipment, and more. Between herself and the other elves in their little underground network, the higher ups would know everything short of the average boot size per unit. 'And all because they don't know what their tongues are really for.' She barely restrained another laugh, and kept making mental notes.
...Raymond's Home...
Nua awoke, stretching out her limbs and enjoying a tranquil hour in the darkness, she liked it there, she knew humans couldn't see as well as she could in the dark, so even though she knew she was safe, it still felt good. She winced and touched a sore spot. Solution hit like a brick made of adamantite. "Getting out of the way is the best way for the weak to block. Your speed is your best armor." She'd said indifferently, demonstrating how true it was by way of 'hands on' demonstration. The merciless maid with the sadistic eyes was anything but friendly, but she was thorough and patient.
As a result, Nua learned much, but... she knew very well that she didn't have the instincts of a killer. She stood up from her mat and went upstairs, unsurprisingly she found the children awake and working on their reading. They were smiling a lot now. She walked past the children and ruffled Boreas's hair playfully as she set about the task of preparing a meal for Raymond. She barely noticed when he pressed his hair back down so it was neat again and looked at her with childish annoyance. She smirked as she set herself to her usual routine. Solution might be strong, powerful, deadly, and a disturbingly good maid, but one thing Nua knew how to do was ensure that Raymond not only 'had' a good meal ready for him, but that he actually 'ate' it rather than let it sit.
The work was brisk to the point that she barely gave it a thought, and soon a tray was prepared and off she went up the stairs with the little dish, a small plate of eggs and a little bacon, with a cup of juice and a small pot of tea and two cups. She did not eat with him, but at his insistence, as she would not leave till he had eaten, she at least prepared a cup to have tea for herself while she lingered.
She went to his private office and, true to form, there he was, his face haggard and long, looking more like a human in his eighties than a man of his forties. No trace of sympathy stirred within her breast for the soldiers the Black Paladin had robbed of life, yet she understood why it was so for him, and for him, she felt a swelling sadness. Dominic had raged about the deaths and ordered twenty elves hanged. It was one to mark every thousand, for no other purpose than the hope that word would reach the heretic and wound her.
Raymond though, a part of him broke at the weight of it all, so many in one moment was unheard of for his country. Yet out of his heartache and the age that had suddenly attacked him, came a renewed vigor to bring an end to everything and he worked insanely long hours going through every report, every document, every piece of intelligence he came across and putting it together in such a way that it was most useful to the Sorcerer King's armies.
She set the tray in front of him, he barely noticed, or didn't at all. She touched his shoulder, "Raymond... please." She said softly, bending down and whispering it into his ear.
"Eat something." She whispered further.
He didn't look up from what he was reading, and scrawled a notation on a document next to it. She stamped her foot in frustration, then lightly slapped him across the face. "Stop!" She snapped. "You can't keep doing this to yourself!"
He looked up at her in surprise. His expression went blank, "Just stop it! You won't end the war a day earlier by skipping meals! You won't save my people or save me or anyone else by forgetting to take care of yourself! You're not one of those monsters that doesn't need to sleep, you're not an undead! You need food, you need to drink, you need to sleep!" Her vision went blurry as emotion got to her.
"I... I know that." He whispered, "But..." He let out a sigh and put the document aside, whatever he was going to say, he didn't say it. Instead he slid the tray closer to himself and said simply, "Thank you." To her ears, he sounded like a broken slave grateful for some pathetic small kindness like fresh straw to sleep on.
Nua poured the tea with graceful ease, first his, then her own, and sat down opposite Raymond. He ate quietly, the usual conversations that had once been a kind of highlight for her day were all but gone. Now it was silence, and not the amicable sort between companions, but like standing over an open grave.
She decided to try to start one herself, "Is the tea to your liking?" She asked as he took a sip.
"Yes, it is marvelous as always." He said in a voice more dulled than a spoon.
"Liar. You don't even taste it, do you?" She replied as she looked at him with downcast eyes.
"I guess not, things have lost their savor lately, it isn't you." Raymond replied.
"What is it then? I understand about the thousands Neia killed, but all total there have been many more than that lost in the war so far, so why is this so hard on you, please..." She spontaneously reached out across the desk and touched his hand, "Raymond?"
He looked down, the way her little hand touched his. 'I owe her an answer...' He thought resolutely, and looked at her face again. "I realized something then."
"What?" She asked in a tender voice.
Raymond spoke slowly, as if every word had the weight of a mountain to it, and it was hard to push it past his lips, but little by little, he spoke them nonetheless. "That my country truly has no future, for six hundred years, we've called ourselves the defenders of humanity, we've helped all the surrounding human nations at one time or another, one way or another, we were even once allied with the elves themselves. And now we're going to cease to exist. When this war ends, I'm probably going to hang for my part in this country's ways, and you know what, I can live with that. At least right up to the moment the rope snaps taut. But my kingdom is simply going to cease to exist as if we never were, and that hits hard. Maybe it does deserve to disappear after what we let ourselves become, but... still, it is a hard thing to see a home burn."
Nua didn't know what to say to that. 'OK, what do I say to that? At least I always knew I had a country out there, a place that, if I got away from here, I could go back to.' She thought and scrambled for something to say. She came up with nothing.
She drank slowly as he finished his food, tea, and thanked her. "Forgive me, Nua, but I'd... like to be alone, I have to finish this document and get it to Solution, this one..." he gestured to it, "contains the phony report of Thousand Mile Astrologer that will prompt Dominic to pull forces from Feron to stop a nonexistent army from coming up from the South behind Fortress Alaf. It should make it easy for Aalon to take Feron in a few days, with minimal losses. Oh, and... could you have this run over to the counting house and put into my storage box today?" He added as he took out another document from his desk drawer and slid it over to her.
She took it up and answered, "Of course but, what is it, Raymond?" She asked gingerly.
He gave a smile that was crooked and quivering, but genuine and even happy, in a twisted sort of way as he answered. "It's my will. I can't legally, under current Slane Theocracy law, leave anything to an elf, since under our laws you're livestock. But as long as I don't identify you by name, after the war is over, it should be no problem. It leaves almost everything to, 'The girl who brought me breakfast every morning.' There are a few other things there set aside for life long servants here, but the sale of this estate, even if there is nothing left on it but the land, will be enormously valuable. Not to mention the various works of art or other objects. You'll be able to distribute enough money for every former slave and human inhabitant of this house to live comfortably for several human lifetimes if they're sensible with it. There are also a few things set aside for Zesshi, but the lion's share... goes to you. I don't expect you to forgive us for what we've done, but at least you can rest easy thereafter."
She looked down at the document. She wiped her eyes fiercely, roughly with her sleeve. "Why?" She asked abruptly.
"Why what?" He responded as he picked up the document he'd been working on before.
"Why are you so sure you're going to die, why do you sound like you want to? Why do you think you deserve it? You're one of the good ones, I'm sure you are now, maybe it was hard to accept in the past but... but you've proven it, how can a just ruler, a just god, hang you?" She demanded furtively.
"Because I wasn't always this." He said flatly, "I spent a lifetime believing different things, doing different things, being something close to the human being that haunted your nightmares, no I wasn't a patron of brothels, true I didn't beat elves for the fun of it, but I ignored what we were becoming as a people. I supported human supremacy and worked for the eradication or subjugation of other races, including yours, I might add. I can't overturn that, not by a few months of kindness and decency! I could save ten thousand slaves, a hundred thousand, a million, and it would never change the past. And because of that, I don't have a future!" He said with a sharp, judgemental voice as he pronounced his own guilt.
Nua's mouth closed slowly and she rubbed her eyes clean of tears again, "But... I don't want you to die. Other than... well I guess I can call Aalon 'good' now... ah, you're one of the only humans I've ever met who was decent, who wasn't a monster, I don't want you to... go." She whimpered out in a childlike plea.
Raymond flashed a wry, tender smile. "Neia and Skana were right, you are a gentle one. Just... after all this is over, light a candle for me or something."
Nua took up the tray and walked out of his office, she barely noticed performing her tasks for the rest of the day.
...Dominic's Home Office...
"This doesn't make a damn bit of sense." Dominic said angrily and slammed his fist on his desk.
"What doesn't, master?" Yarvin asked with infinite patience as he laid a tray down at the desk.
"These reports." He slapped a hand down on the document to his left. "I send out the prison divisions to stop an army, only to find that no army is anywhere in the vicinity and there's no indication that they ever were. I send out the caster brigade to deal with an incoming monster, only to find no monster. I send out workers to repair damage to a bridge running over the river that passes close to here, only to find the bridge is intact and the laborers are wasting their time. But all of these reports come from Meidhall..."
Yarvin looked long and hard at his master. "Master, may I speak freely?" He asked gravely.
Dominic looked up at the elf slave that had served his house for generations. In all the time he'd known Yarvin, that question had never passed his lips. "Yes." He answered honestly, searching his face with an attentive gaze.
"Master, if she cannot be wrong, then she can only be lying. Perhaps she is deceived by some dread magic, but you have spoken of the Sorcerer King and his minions often, and never mentioned grand illusions being among their skills, I believe you should test the Lady Meidhall to see if she is as loyal as you believe. If she is, then there is no problem, if she is not..." Yarvin let the sentence hang and opened his hands as if the answer were obvious, and it was.
Dominic slumped, sullen more than angry now. Yarvin reached out and touched the Cardinal's shoulder, "Master, please, eat something, you can't continue to work these hours endlessly, the chosen of humanity need you at your best, and it wounds me deeply to see you seeming so frail in these difficult times."
Dominic gave a tired look at his food and then up to his family's slave. "You're right, Yarvin, thank you. You know, I don't think I ever could have come this far without you."
"Master is too kind, shall I send a she to your bed tonight?" Yarvin asked in a serene, crisp voice as Dominic began to eat.
"Yes, I think so, I have some stress to ease." Dominic replied.
"As you wish, master." Yarvin replied, and waited patiently in front of the desk until the food and drink were completely consumed, before taking the tray and its now empty dishes and removing both them and himself from the room to see to his remaining tasks, and to select one of the females to send to Dominic's bed that night.
...E-Rantel...
Berenice looked down at her body and touched it. Her hand passed through smoothly, but the illusion was otherwise 'perfect'. "So this is what I'd look like if I were a man, huh?" She asked Entoma in a voice that was, in a word, 'deep'. The little bug on her throat itched a little at first, but now she didn't notice it at all.
"Something like that." Entoma said as she stroked her chin thoughtfully. "You'd probably be taller but... it's best if the illusion is as close to what you're used to moving around as possible, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but... you make a very ugly man."
Berenice laughed, it was booming and loud, so strange that it was now 'her' voice for the present. "I won't argue the point." She said with a vigorous nod, "I definitely agree, but we can say for sure nobody would possibly recognize me now."
"No, definitely not." Entoma agreed, "Now, where would you like to go?" She asked as she clapped her hands together enthusiastically.
"Where should I go?" Berenice asked doubtfully, "I only ever heard of this city as either a nightmare or an impossibility, obviously I know it is neither, but that leaves me knowing nothing at all."
"Well, would you like to try the food, or would you like to visit some of the shops? Or try some of the local entertainment? Living chess has become a popular spectator sport, and there are athletic competitions, or perhaps you'd like to see the public buildings or the gardens?" Entoma ticked off the options on one hand, overwhelming Berenice with the degree of possibilities available to her.
"Ah, well I don't have any money for shopping so, I guess that is out, and I wouldn't know what to buy anyway." She said with a shrug.
Entoma laughed like a silver bell and drew a small pouched, "A gift from His Majesty, a little pocket money to be spent at your discretion, a token of 'goodwill' for your good behavior." She tossed it to Berenice, who opened it to find a mix of gold and silver coins.
"I will... be sure to thank him properly later." She said, stunned at the hospitality of her... 'captor/host'.
"That wouldn't be a bad idea." Entoma nodded sagely, "But now, where would you like to go?"
"Well, I suppose I'd like to shop a bit, the room I've been given is luxurious but... I assume I'll be there for awhile, so I'd like to personalize it a little." Berenice said thoughtfully as she strapped the coin purse to her side.
"I... don't have to worry about it being stolen, do I?" She asked uncertainly, "I'd be ashamed beyond measure if the gift of the Sorcerer King were stolen from me."
Entoma shook her head vigorously, "Absolutely not, a city ruled by His Majesty is the safest place in the world for any honest person."
Berenice found it hard to accept but was unwilling to argue. So she simply gestured down the road and requested, "Then please, lead the way."
Entoma obliged, while a dumbfounded Berenice began to look more closely at the surroundings, a death knight crossed the street in front of her a great lumbering behemoth twice to three times the height of a normal man, it exuded dread from its wilted skin like a warm cherry pie exuding the scent of delicious sweetness. Yet to her astonishment, nobody seemed to give a damn that this legendary monster was walking somewhere.
Berenice was so dumbfounded in fact, that she did not even have it in her to ask about what she just saw. She simply followed as if she were a child following a parent with no idea where she was actually being taken.
A soul eater ran past, this one pulling a cart, an even more impossible sight than the death knight, and it was a donkey or a horse as far as practical matters were concerned. She gawked at that, and stopped to watch it pass behind her. Just like the death knight, nobody seemed to notice. "What's the matter?" Entoma asked.
"I've heard of this, but seeing it? That's another matter." Berenice remarked, still scarcely believing the male voice she was stuck using, was for the moment 'hers'.
"Common feeling for newcomers." Entoma said with a sage inclination of her head, "But come along now. There are things available in E-Rantel that are like nothing else you've ever seen, they still haven't spread beyond here and Carne, except for a few shipments that have begun to make it into Argland to be used by their wealthy."
Berenice obeyed her guide and guard, and soon found herself in a large open air shopping district. For a solid minute, all she could do was stand and just... gawk.
...Wheaton...
Wesda had never thought much about the gods, despite his upbringing. "The gods don't need me much, and they don't seem to do much either, but people, people seem to do a whole lot." That was what he'd always said, anyway. But when he rode out the gate of the Golden Fortress, it wasn't people he was praising. He rode like the demon emperor was on his heels, and the truth was, it might as well have been. He rode his horse till it would ride no more, then he ran to the entrance of the city of Wheaton and demanded a horse be given to him.
"Who are you to demand a horse?" The guard asked, sneering at his clearly lower rank, then going silent as he saw that on the face of the common soldier, was fear and trembling.
"I'm a soldier from the Golden Fortress, and I tell you I have got to get to the high command of the city 'now' or all is lost!" he pleaded and grabbed the shoulders of the sergeant in front of him.
The sergeant nodded urgently, and drew a horse from the common stable and slapped it on the rump as soon as Wesda had mounted it.
Wesda rode through the city as fast as he could, he paid no mind to the safety of the people in the thoroughfare, more than one person in fine clothing dove out of the way, shocked at his breach of public etiquette, only for him to keep going, leaving them shouting curses and waving a fist at him as he left them behind.
He got to the manor that held the city government and blew past the guards so fast that they feared him an assassin. They chased after him as he jumped off the horse and ran through the double doors. He ran down the halls, through more doors, past dismayed and confused citizens who could not understand why this young man who was covered in road dust and sweat so thick it had mixed with the dust to turn him brown as a dark elf, was doing what he was doing.
The guards at his back were dismayed that any one of their number could move so quick in armor, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that they caught up to him just as he burst through the entrance of the main hall and shouted, "Neia is coming!" He got the words out just as the two pursuers managed to jump and tackle him to the ground with a great clang and clash of metal on metal.
They heard his words at once and got off of him, but so too had the administrators, nobles, and the few attending military leaders.
"What was that?" An officer said with doubt thick in his voice.
"Neia is all the way over in the Roble Holy Kingdom, she can't possibly be here! Don't spout such nonsense!" He snorted and stroked the breast of his fine dress uniform.
The two pursuers helped him rise and he gave them brief nods of thank you, "I don't know where she was, sir, but I know where she 'is' I saw her myself. Her army is 'here' she is besieging the Golden Fortress." Wesda said urgently.
"If that is true, how do you come to be here?" The officer asked as if he were a lawyer finding a sharp question to 'catch' a witness in a lie.
"The Black Paladin let me go, she 'wanted' you to know that she was here!" Wesda shouted, hoping that a loud voice had greater penetrating power through what he increasingly saw as a very thick head.
It wasn't his voice that got through, it was the fear on his face. The officers and leaders of the city looked at one another quietly and one phrase ran through all their minds in various forms. 'He's serious.'
"Raise the alarm! Call the guards to the walls! Send word to the settlements to bring horses and supplies, do it!" A junior officer shouted, taking an impromptu command when his senior commander stood frozen and pale white.
As if snapped out of a trance, people began to move wildly about the tasks to carry out the order. "You, soldier, come with me and tell me everything you can about what you saw."
Wesda could only fall into step behind the junior that had acted as a senior. "Yessir... Captain..."
"Graff." He said, and Wesda took another look at the man beside him. He wasn't extremely large, if anything he was relatively short, but his uniform was tight and unlike the rest, he wore a breastplate and sword despite the informal setting he'd been in. He had a thin brown mustache and piercing blue eyes.
"I want to know what she's got and how long we have before she gets here, every piece of information you can think of, no matter how trivial." Captain Graff said with a voice as calm as the waters of a pond on a windless day. He exuded confidence, and Wesda began to relax.
Wesda began to detail everything he knew, and he was still telling him all he saw and answering questions after they'd left the building and were in the midst of the street when they heard the screaming begin.
They whirled to look behind them in dismay as they saw what, to Wesda, was a familiar face. This one however, was broken. "Neia is coming! Neia is coming! Neia is coming! Run for your lives!"
"Oh, that clever bitch." Graff said with anger and admiration in his voice.
"What, sir?" Wesda asked as the broken soldier rode on without stopping, heedless of all attempts to stop him.
Graff gestured around, "The soldiers running to positions were a curiosity to the citizens, drills aren't uncommon, but now she sends this one to tell everybody. The city will panic. They might have ignored you, but combined with obvious military actions, they will consider it true and... ugh. If we're lucky, it will only be a riot."
"I... I see." Wesda said sadly, "That means it's over. She killed all my friends, 'cept him. Not much of him left now though. The Golden Fortress has fallen."
Graff did not go pale, but a faint twitch of his eye would give away his concern to the most observant, he ran through what he knew of the place, a few thousand soldiers, nothing enormous, but it shouldn't have fallen that fast. It was meant to hold out for weeks, not hours.
But the situation was now well beyond his control, the civilians were starting to panic, people were fleeing through the streets. The soldier who came in in a panic had lost himself, and as if Neia's voice were his, he shouted her final words to him. "The end of hope..."
Graff held himself together and began barking orders to soldiers, senior, junior, it didn't matter, [Command Presence] he whispered, and activated his own martial art. The civilians were a problem, but a mere inconvenience, he had to take control of the defence of the city and do it fast.
That, fortunately, was what he was best at.
Wesda, not knowing what else to do, remained with him as they gathered units and gave orders, slowly order began to take shape, but the streets began to empty, and he had no idea why, but he had a very unpleasant thought, 'I... don't think the reason why is going to turn out to be good for us.'