The Wings of Ashtaroth

Chapter 11: Mercenaries: Section IV: Dashel

Dashel: The Palace: Qemassen

Dashel's tea-haze had turned his world into a waking dream. The vivid hues of the palace walls had transformed to the mad brightness of the Feast of Ashtet, and beneath his lotus-tinted veil, embroidered linens became living tapestries. The serpents, elephants, lions, and horses sewn in red and black and gold exploded to life as he lay motionless on a settee. He could barely lift a finger, but the animals chased each other around and around.

On the wall, a gold-rimmed mirror encircled by Leven and Pepet seethed in a ring, so that the twin serpent gods became one, consuming each other from the tail upwards.

Around, around, around. Like Thanos falling, his limbs turning over each other, a silly, broken tumbleweed caught on the breeze and shattered on the hard earth, arms and legs as brittle as sticks.

It was Dashel's fault Thanos had stayed in Qemassen. If Dashel hadn't pleaded with him, he would have returned to Lorar before the Feast of Ashtet.

The serpents writhed, and Dashel's stomach oozed with them.

Dashel twisted onto his right side, away from the marauding figures and facing the cup of lotus tea on the small table beside him. The blossom bobbed on the surface of what remained, delicate and calming, its pale petals all but glowing in the dim light.

It wasn't just lotus, but henbane as well. His sapenta was all gone, but he'd needed something to help him forget Thanos, and more recently, forget what had happened—what was still happening—to Aurelius.

So much for becoming a better man. What point was there when there was no longer anyone to be better for?

Dashel hadn't been allowed in the Eghri for the whipping. Samelqo had worried Dashel would cause a disturbance.

Only Aurelius's nurses were willing to talk to Dashel about the prince's condition. It was no good asking Hima or Bree; Hima was too busy to see Dashel, and the Feislanda princess wasn't allowed to. He had tried to visit Bree, but when he'd approached her door, he'd been stopped by a terrible, rending scream. The guards had come running, and Dashel had been shooed away like a child.

Up down, up down went the lotus on its watery bed. He squinted at the flower. Its tips were wilting, beginning to bruise.

His eyelids drooped and his vision darkened with sleep, hypnotized by the tea and the flower, but as he slipped away someone knocked at the door and jerked him awake. He stared at the door, vision blurred, waiting for whoever it was to enter. Wait, no. That wasn't how things worked in the palace. He had to give permission.

"Come in!" Dashel's eyelids were still droopy, as though pulled down by tiny weights, but he managed to raise his hand in a limp approximation of a wave, no matter that the guest hadn't entered.

The door opened, and Dashel's visitor was revealed, the man's features coalescing one by one before Dashel was able to slot each feature into place to determine who he was looking at: long, braided hair; sharp, birdlike eyes; a grin like a crocodile; and gilded teeth that glittered in the ambient, flickering firelight.

Qanmi. Not someone Dashel would have expected, and not someone Dashel was pleased to see. "Sese, what can I do for you?"

Dashel struggled to sit up, but promptly slumped down again. When he moved, it felt like he was flying. Even though Qanmi was standing, he'd become a minnow far below, while Dashel soared in the clouds.

Qanmi drifted into the room, staring at the windows, which Dashel had covered with dark sheets to black out most of the natural light.

"I drank too much last night," Dashel explained. "The sun was hurting my eyes."