Chapter Six: Zarkon and Althea
The end had started as it had begun – brought forth by the lust of a Drule king. Lust, for a Drule, came in many shades. They had over fifty words to discuss this particular emotion as it crossed the Drule male's minds as many times a day. There were many flavors of this delicious feeling. It could be over anything – food, sex, power and even vengeance. At its most intense, a state of ecstasy could be felt, that was as satisfying as it was dangerous. This type of lust had one name for it felt the same regardless of its cause. It was the bloodlust, and nothing in heaven or hell, could stop a Drule who was possessed by it save death itself. It was a feared thing which most Drules hoped to never experience. Thankfully, few did. There was no place to put it. Zarkon, the Demon King, had experienced true bloodlust only twice. Once when he first laid eyes of Althea Carris, and then, once again when he ended her life. Both times, it had been the most exquisite thing he had ever experienced. And yes, just as the sages warned, it had devastated his soul.
One could pour through the court records and interview witnesses but when it came down to it her death was brought on over a small thing, her arrogance. She, a harem slave, had born the King his only son. He, in order to silence the court, had wished her to become his wife. Warmasters, generally did not take a wife, for it invoked certain parts of the Law that did not fit their temperament. It would mean dismissing their harems which came with its own difficulties. They preferred their overflowing harems brimming with sons that would become future warmaster themselves or die trying.
Zarkon had not been raised in the tradition of his colleagues. He was the bastard child of a warmaster's daughter – supposedly fathered by a Wyvern prince. Many doubted the girl's tale after she had returned home with the small boy in tow. He had grown up barely tolerated in his grandfather's harem, and when he came of age, he was consigned to a school designed for lowmen – the lowliest in the army's ranks. It was disgraceful and the insult festered within him. This feeling of being denied what should have been his, by birthright, would lead to the death of his king.
Zarkon had earned his harem, not through the position of caste, but through blood and lazon. Many had thought his harem was cursed by the witch that adored him and that is why it lacked for children, but in truth, it was his complicated genetics. Miscarriages ruled the day in his harem. It fit well into the witch's plans, her being a full blooded Wyvern, as she had hoped to produce the king's heirs. Yet, even with her magic potions, she fared no better in his bed. Then Althea came and all hopes of that were ended. Within the month, she had taken with their first child and gave birth nine months later to a beautiful daughter. In truth, the Great King wanted a Queen and not a bought pleasure slave, another warmaster's daughter to whom he would owe allegiance, or a spoil of war to produce his children. With the help of the witch, he had procured the woman he had seen in his dreams.
For many years, Althea had been but a dream to him. The king had prayed to the dark gods of his father's people to bring the mother of his heir to him for he had never seen a human before. Instead, they sent the Wyvern witch who warmed his bed. It was the witch who finally relented and found the woman. And lo, after some witchcraft was performed, she stood in front of his throne. A computer malfunction brought the small transport to the wrong coordinates. That was all it took to bring the woman child to him.
Althea had been fierce. His men were covered with deep scratches and bruises when they threw her to the ground. She had demanded that he free her and the people that were with her. Her family could pay ransom. They came from a rich merchant family from Arus. She had been dressed in a flowing gown that showed off her assets to her advantage. Perhaps, he lewdly thought, she used the veiled promise of her body to encourage her deals. The blond hair, he noted, once in a neat bun, was in disarray. They formed gold cascading tendrils framing that perfect face. She licked her lips which were painted blood red. He felt the lust that had only one name rise inside of him.
All the king could think of was taking her to his bed and devouring her. It was as if he was drowning in desire. He had more beautiful women in his harem, but they mattered no more. He knew, from the moments he laid eyes on her, what she was, an object of cursed beauty. He shuddered at the thought as he had never been infected with that peculiar infatuation that his people were so prone to. His heart raced wildly and he thought he would die as he sat on his throne. He had thought he was stronger than this, invincible. He swallowed. He had seen her in his dreams. She would be the mother of his heir. In fact, much to the horror of the Court, the first Drule word he spoke to her was lotor. He said it like it was a soft prayer. It was the first Drule word she had ever heard.
He walked down from his high throne and scooped her up. She screamed and fought but it was to no avail. He carried her to his private chambers and set her down. In what little of the human tongue he knew he begged her bed. His soul was devastated when she had refused his entreaties. Could she not see that they were fated by the gods? He came to her with the greatest affection and she called him a vile monster. He touched her and she backed away in fear. He would never harm her. He ached for her. He did what any self respecting Drule warmaster would do if a woman refused to willingly take them as a lover. He blackmailed her. He brought her back to his court where her shipmates were still being displayed. He begged her bed in public and with the next refusal he slit the throat of her crewmember with a knife. He stood there splattered with blood but she did not flinch. He was at a lost at what to do. He could have forced her to accept his affections but he knew that she was more than just recreation. He grabbed another man which brought out a more intense reaction in her. Zarkon heard her cry out for him to stop. Tearfully, she agreed to go with him. He dragged her back to his chambers. He was still slick with blood when he claimed his prize.
Zarkon shocked the court by installing her in his quarters as she was a human. She had kept her promise. She slept in his bed every night. He gave her jewels, silks and words of love but mostly they were met with was an icy stare. Even, after she had borne him his children, she never softened for long. Her rejection galled him. He became a cruel lover even though he desperately wanted her to love him. He still did small things to curry her favor – he was much kinder to those who begged his mercy. Then, only then, would she give him a loving look or a small touch that would just serve to fuel his passion. On the rare occasion that she gave him her affection eagerly it was only to beg a huge favor. It was then that he was in rapture and could deny her nothing. His Court, shocked at the way she shamed their monarch, hated her. The spoke rumors and whispers against her. But it did not matter, he believed that however she felt about him she would keep her word. She would stay with him. She was Arussian and they did not lie.
Later on, after the birth of Lotor, he had demanded the she become his queen. He did not want to elevate Lotor to Crown Prince while his mother was a slave. It was inappropriate. He could not just free her without a wedding vow – she would leave him. A thought he could not bear. Still, he pretended that she was a wife and no longer a slave. As customary, he dismissed his harem and granted the girls to his unmarried officers. He publicly vowed that he would touch no other. He made all of his subjects call her Queen Althea even though she had shamed him by refusing to marry him. In all this he despaired. There was nothing he could do as the law forbade a master to force a sacred religious vow on a slave. It would anger the gods themselves.
Althea enjoyed refusing his pleas to make her his queen. She did not know why her refusal hurt him so, most Drule warlords would have been happy with a slave refusing to be elevated, but he was forlorn in her rejection. She had heard the servants repeat the same word that the Great King had said when he first laid eyes on her. At first, she had feared this horrible warlord. Althea had not always been a good person. She had watched in horror as he had slain her shipmate in front of her when she refused his advances, and he was about to kill Hiro, her lover, before she relented. He sent the unfortunate man, along with the other survivors, off to his lazon mines. Althea never saw them again and the few times she asked about them she was met with stony glares.
She was prideful, the daughter of a noble family, and was lost in her own fear of being violated by the monster. By the time she had regretted that decision one of them lay dead. She watched the king has he slay her navigator, realizing that any hopes of getting home had died with the young man. Not once, did a flicker of anything but pure enjoyment cross his face as the man screamed out for his, or was it her, mercy. She would never forgive him for that. As the years progressed, and the Great King became more and more entangled with his obsession over her; she stopped fearing him. It was this arrogance that led to her fall.
At first, Althea was terrified of Zarkon and her situation. She was a shrewd and clever thing. She was quite aware of the harem politics that her arrival triggered. One did not have to speak Drule to read the jealousy in the other women's faces. If it was not for the his amazing ability of Garoth, the harem master, to keep the girls in line she was sure she would have been maimed or killed by the other women who resented the King's growing affection for her. Soon it became an almost exclusive arrangement. Only when he was very angry at her did he go down into those chambers. Soon, the King asked for no other in his bed. Garoth was almost relieved when the King installed her into his private rooms. Althea had enchanted the Great King which meant that Garoth no longer had to peruse the pleasure markets to find the exotic beauties the King had craved. He had other clients to attend with a less extensive list of desires.
As for Althea she liked the silks, the gold, the jewels and the power. The power she had over his servants, and more important, the Great King. At times, the arrangement pleased her.
He frequently came to woo her with soft words. Usually she answered him not at all or with words of steel. They just served to arouse him. Rarely, did she not find him lurking somewhere in her bedroom hoping that she would let him take her without a look of disgust or a protest. She came up with her own cruel game sure he would not strike her. Did Leanarra not resemble her mother more than his father? How could he, Zarkon the Demon King, have fathered such beautiful child on her? Perhaps, she would hint, she had taken a lover to her bed. Perhaps, she would muse, a beautiful High Drule had fathered her daughter, and not the lowly soldier who had risen not by nobility but by blood. She would goad him with her acid tongue but they meant little. He would just take her again. It took many years to bring about another but another child, a son, was growing in her womb. This time, the witch told him, it was the child he had been seeking.
Arussians were not liars by nature but they could fabricate doubt when needed. She never outright stated that she had been with another since he had taken her. These words, made to hurt him most of all, would make him roar back with laughter. He knew they were his. As lovely as she was, and for truth he had never seen a woman so perfect, only a fool would go after his woman in secret. Or for that matter, he would continue, no one would dare take what his. He was, after all, Zarkon, the Demon King. His sword had taken a whole army. His men were fueled by his ardor for battle. He had even bedded the Ice Queen and brought her to pleasure; even though she hated him for it. Her womb, he would throw back, could not deny him its finest jewels. She was his, he would murmur, as he slid his claws down her body and himself unto her. She belonged totally to him. The children were his too. He needed no test to prove otherwise. Anyone, who was foolish to try to take what was his, he would menacingly whisper, would surely die under his own hand.
They were well into the second decade of their game and it should have continued for many more. The King would have been content to live his life in this exquisite misery, and as time went on, Althea enjoyed her place by his side. The week King Dharlock of the Tenth Kingdom had come to visit had seemed to Althea no different than any other. Zarkon had annoyed her over some trivial thing, and she refused his bed when he came for reconciliation. She was not going to be so forgiving this time. She wanted to make the Demon King grovel on his knees and beg her bed. Something no servant had ever seen but in moments of weakness he had. It was only then that she came willingly and would love him back. It was then that he would be in ecstasy. But it was a thing he would rarely do as he could barely face himself in the morning. It was always the same after these nights of passion. The next morning, he would awake and find her in the crumpled sheets. He would move to take her again, still basking in the memory of the night, and she would push him away and tell him how his body had disgusted her. She had only given in to get whatever he had promised her the night before.
He was many things but a rapist he was not. She would always find a reason to quarrel with him. Even though they shared the same bed, he had never really forced her. Usually, if she protested, he let her be. Other times, he could not control himself. She knew that particular look and would relent. She would just lie there motionless until he had finished. She would turn her face away so she did not have to look at him. If he was upset by this, he kept it to himself.
She would beg him to take his harem back as his passion for her was relentless. The very thought angered him terribly. He would threaten her. At the most, he would respond by taking her rougher than need be only if to make her cry out and feel something as he moved in her. But usually the only sounds she made were her taunts. Althea was quite capable of taking the abuse she handed out. He had to give her that. She barely flinched as he pounded into her. Most harem girls would have been begging for mercy.
Dharlock had come during one of their more terrible fights. As usual, the woman of the court had been spreading lies about her. She wanted to make a big splash in the media to counter the blows. She wanted her king to build her a grand art museum in Sarrinoth: one to rival the imperial one on Neraku. It would be named after her. They would even hear about it as far away as Arus. The expense would be enormous. It would be the cost of a large campaign. He balked at it. He had no interest in art. He had better things to spend his treasury on. She refused to even to speak to him.
That night, she had locked him out of their rooms. Usually this amused him as he easily could have broken down the doors if he wanted. The carpenters had started to keep a room of extra ones to be installed. Sometimes he would go away and sleep in a guest suite until her mood softened. It had always been a part of their game.
He called her to come out. They had important guests. There were things that needed to be discussed, urgent matters that required her input. But she knew it was all a trick. Behind that door he would be standing there with a gift that would allow him to pleasure himself on her. She would not sell out for a trinket, she wanted that museum. She could wait. She had more patience than him. The thought of making him empty out his coffers to appease her amused the Ice Queen.
Seven nights he came and seven nights she refused his gentle persuasions to join them. Leanarra, he told her, had entertained his guest with music, song and recitation. She would be so proud to see her little girl all grown up.
On the eighth night, he summoned her to court with his official seal. She could not refuse a state request. She knew he would send his guards if she ignored him. They did not like her. They would be rough and that would just give her husband joy to watch her submission. He was probably seeing off his important guests and wanted to show off his beautiful wife. He loved it when the other Drules looked at her lustfully and their wives glared at her with hate in their eyes. It aroused him to no end that other kings, and even the Emperor himself, had wanted to bed his most precious possession. Well, at least, she thought, she may get what she wanted tonight as she made her way into the Great Hall. She was expecting a grand reception. It was just him and another man. They had met before. She was well aware of who his guest was. The man had no lust for her in his eyes. It was all for Leanarra. She cried in protest but her king had ignored her. If she had married him she could have stopped this. He would have had no right without her consent. She begged Zarkon to stop this but he refused. For once, he enjoyed having the upper hand. She watched Leanarra, led onto a transport by her father's troops and a man old enough to be her father and then some.
"Perhaps, had I been sharing a bed with you this week then I would have had much less time to spend with Dharlok. You know how distracting I find you. But alas, you were cold to my advances. He made a very convincing argument why our two kingdoms should be joined in an alliance. He has great affection for our daughter." Zarkon coolly said. He had not appreciated his treatment this week. He adored Leanarra He knew in the end that this was a good move for both him and her for she was too fragile to handle a harsh man. These were not decisions that a human's input was required for. Althea would never truly understand their way of life. It had almost been better that he she had ignored him this week. The gods must have fated it because if she had begged him not to, had been willing in his bed, he would have relented. He always did.
"I saw his affection that both his eyes and his manhood were offering. She is just a girl. She is not ready for his bed. You are all monsters." She smashed her tiny fists into her chest.
He promised not to touch her until her 18th year. It is the traditional of the Tenth Kingdom for him to bring her back to his court until then. He will decide if they are compatible. But, I think they already are. Leanarra seemed to like him. He spoke to her with soft words. He will show her his affections, and she, unlike you might learn to appreciate the love of a Drule king. As for me, at least until they are wed, have one more vote on the council and one less enemy to consider." Zarkon said with an odd smile.
"He worries you?" Althea asked with concern. She had never seen Zarkon worry about anyone attacking him. "He shouldn't. You have said yourself he comes from a kingdom ruled by magistrates. He is not a true warmaster as you are." He smiled. It was rare that she ever gave him a compliment.
"He is far worse than a warmaster. He is a Magistrate. He knows the Law. All Drules are ruled by the Law." Zarkon seemed lost in his own thoughts. He wondered if he had made the right decision. His instincts tended to guide him right.
"You sent my Leanarra off to live with that old man. I will not forgive you. Just like me, she will live a life without love."
This started their cold war. It would last a year. She refused to bed him. Still, he came to sleep next to her and tell awful lies. He told her that one day Leanarra would give birth and he would make one of her sons Crown Prince. Her children, after all, would be ¾ Drule unlike the puny son she bore him. The court would forgive his transgression. He would declare her son unfit and send him to the desert. It was a cruel game and had he really knew Althea, he would have stopped. She was not a woman to sit back idly and watch a child die. She was not one of those weak, submissive women favored by the warmasters – she was an Arussian noblewoman by birth and would fight to the death to save her own blood. The paranoia for her son's life was only increased by the tea that Haggar brought her. It had been hoped it would calm her nerves. Instead, it fueled her nightmares where she would see Zarkon take her child's life.
Zarkon had just wanted reconciliation. He did not know that this game he played with Althea would go this far. He was angry. He used words because he could not bring himself to use fists. It would have been kinder. Althea, again and again, refused to grant him what was his due and the tensions between them only increased.
Had she spoke to him in kindness: he would have told her that he looked forward to raising their son. It would be his greatest honor, more gratifying than all of his victories combined, to train their son to sword. Already, he had been impressed with the boy's intelligence and dexterity. He had already commissioned the finest armory to construct the child's first swords. He would be small, but he could hold his own with the right discipline and training. He wanted to have a part in the vision he had – the one he knew in his heart to be true. The one he would have whispered to her on the nights had she trusted him. They, he would have told her, had created a beautiful son.
But no, she had never once come to him as a wife or a lover. She had refused his bed for a whole cycle since Leanarra left. She was Althea. If anything, it was her arrogance that doomed them all.
In truth, Althea's rage was all for naught. Leanarra, if anything, was a Drule through and through or maybe she was a more compromising version of Althea. She had quickly learned that she would be able to take advantage of this lust crazed man that had begged her hand. Already, he gave her anything he wanted. He spent most of his free time with her only seeking quick respites in his harem. She was satisfied when the servants told her that he went in and left quickly. He was only going in there to relieve his lust. He had fathered few children with these women, and they could be dealt with accordingly when the time came. Leanarra was more than satisfied at the arrangement. She was actually developing quite a fondness for the man. It had been an excellent match.
What went on between Althea and Haggar no one would ever know. This was something never revealed to either Zarkon or Lotor for either would have struck the witch down. Until both king's dying days they had assumed another had fallen under Althea's spell as many men had lusted for her. Several warmasters had called Zarkon to the Arena to try to take his woman but they all lay dead. They had assumed this was only one more afraid to face Zarkon's wrath. Leanarra never knew that the dashing warmaster that had conspired to take her and her son away to Arus was really Haggar in disguise. The mysterious stranger who had wheedled his way into Zarkon's court would rescue her if she would agree to beg his bed. The love did not interest her but the ship did. She had promised the love he sought after their escape to which he willingly agreed. She did not think it odd that the warmaster would go outside the law for her. Zarkon had been right about that one thing – Althea did not understand the Law. Few humans did. Had she, she would have seen that this was all some cruel hoax meant to destroy her. A warmaster would never just steal another's woman, he would have fought for her in the Arena. There was no honor in stealing from another of their kind.
One never took anything from a warmaster as the punishment was death. Althea had failed to learn that lesson in court though the scenario had played out before. Like a thief in the middle of the night, Althea tried to steal what was Zarkon's. He was fueled with the monstrous anger of his kind, the one that was supposed to be contained through discipline at all costs. Perhaps it was fueled by her total rejection of him, but whatever the cause she had unleashed it.
Zarkon was consumed with the bloodlust much to the horror of his companions. He felt his heart quicken to the bursting point when it could no longer get the oxygen it needed. They should have killed him where he stood, for the Law demanded it, but their hatred of their Queen was too much to bear. They let his bloodlust run unchecked and the hunters egged him on. He was in ecstasy as he felt her throat give way and then she lay lifeless in his arms. In his one moment of clarity he had sent the boy away. Lotor howled as he was carried off into the night sensing the wild commotion around him and his mother's growing fear. Lotor would not stop until a man closed his mouth with his hand. Lotor passed the witch who had a great smile on her face. He was only seven years old. He had only just learned to store memories and this one was muddied with his own emotions.
Lotor would think of that night often as he grew older. He had understood his father's actions, they were more Wyvern than Drule but that mattered not, to do any other thing might have lost him his Crown. She had humiliated him for the last time. The woman had driven him to this madness. He may have done the same thing if his wife had ever betrayed him. His wife knew better, for he was a far worse monster than his father ever was. He would not have even put up with the refusal of his bed. He would not have feared the gods' anger since they served him and not the other way around. Instead, he was troubled about what Althea had done.
Her very death changed all he was ever going to be of that he was sure. It was then that he was brought to court. He was surrounded by his father's warriors. Cruelty was a way of life. And like anything else, that you experience day in and day out, it became normal. So normal, that one hardly took notice to it anymore. Not when it happened to someone else or when it happened to you. He learned early on that only the strong survived.
With great joy, he was sent off to school. But there too, he could get no relief in the halls of the ancient academy. More cruelties came and this time at the hands of strangers. It was Borak who had held his hand and wiped his tears through these years but Lotor wondered if it had been because of the man's strong sense of duty. Charak taught him the sword, and the discipline of pain, but there was no one to teach him the discipline of the soul. He had no father anymore. He and Zarkon barely spoke after her death.
Then he came to Arus. Though he knew humans were capable of great cruelty, even more so than his people if their history as taught by his masters were true, it was not so in King Alfor's court. He had yet to see a servant cringe in terror or be executed for a minor infraction. He had not seen officers beaten too a bloody pulp for failure in battle, but then, he had not seen evidence of them being at war. Instead of a mood of terror, happiness echoed through these halls. Happiness, he learned, was rather an infectious mood. He let it pass through him and filed it back in his head. He would take it out and examine it in moments of meditation. He had not once felt anyone, including himself, experience this emotion. He was saddened at that since it was a common one and it gave the humans great pleasure to feel it. It made their auras shine. He was even more delighted that one day, when he and Allura were looking at clouds in the fields, he had experienced for the first time. It washed over him and bathed his wounds. For that particular moment, he was glad that human blood ran through his veins.