The Withered Land: Dragons and Marauders

Dragons and Marauders, Part Twenty-Seven

"I am called Kolag Y'phree, I am the Militia-Governor and Regent-Mayoral Commandant of this city," he said imperiously, ignoring the alien mutant's remarks. "Within this jurisdiction, mine is the authority to either administer to your needs or to contain and restrain your ambitions as I see fit. The actions and decisions of the Grand Vizier, with whom you have established communications and ... interactive relations ... are subject to my approval. Here, in this city, I am the Law."

"I do not care," the Ka'esh-Wogani'e said, tilting its oblong, ungainly head and moving its facial muscles through a sickening imitation of a human smile.

The Warlord blinked his watering eyes several times to clear them. It was hard looking at the creature. It's image randomly dimmed and then brightened again as the observer watched and it vibrated at differing intervals and then reversed itself, like flipping the reflection in a scarred and dirty mirror, without it actually committing to any physical motion. Ka'esh-Wogani'e's physical presence was more like a partially completed manifestation as opposed to a real organic materialization. He was there. And then he was not. And then something that closely resembled him was there, instead. And it all happened within the space of nanoseconds.

"Well, I suggest you do your best to muster up some kind of concern since you are in my city without invitation and without approved proper documentation," Kolag Y'phree snarled. "That makes you an outlaw and a criminal, possibly a seditionist, and as such, an enemy of the state. And that makes you subject to my interpretation of proper justice."

"A threat? How novel. Rules and order as so important to you and your kind. You perceive me to be a danger to your city. It upsets you, doesn't it, to look at me, to acknowledge my presence in your carefully ordered utilitarian world," the artificially-evolved Homo Obscuratum Irae said. "I cannot say I would be any different were I in your place, but, of course, I'm not in your place. I'm not like you at all. So, all things being equal, which they're not, I have to say that your rules and regulations mean nothing to me. And you do not possess anything like the level of power you'd need to hurt me. So, we're back to where we were only a moment ago..."

"And that being?"

"I do not care."

Kolag Y'phree quickly turned to stare down on Karliandras Dru'ell, his anger barely in check, and he whispered to her, "I gave you a city, a kingdom, a cause to which to dedicate your energy and will. After all this time and after the many things we have done together, experienced together, fought for together, you would keep something of this magnitude, something so loathsome and yet so very important, hidden from me? Woman, what has possessed you? Do you understand the risk to which you have exposed us?"

Karliandras Dru'ell did not answer. She trembled and silently stared at the Ka'esh-Wogani'e with wide, tearful eyes.

"Why are you here?" the Warlord demanded of the creature with growing irritation and vehemence.

"The Overhelm, those to whom you refer as 'Void Gods', want something that your kind possess and I am their instrument in obtaining that thing," the creature said slyly. "And what the Void Gods want, they get."

"Is that so? Well, in this land, whatever it is you wish to obtain, you can only do so with my permission."

"Nonsense," the Ka'esh-Wogani'e hissed. "The woman will help me, as she has always helped me. Because she knows the truth of what will happen if I am denied my objective. She knows the awful price that will be paid."

"You are dealing with me now, not her. So why don't you tell ME what this great price is we will pay for denying you your prize?"