Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

Paragon. You will have to do me some... personal favors. But perhaps we can talk about that after our date tonight?”

“Uhh... sure.” I winced as I looked over at Suri, but my loyal and steadfast girlfriend was, at that very moment, changing money with Gar. I wasn’t sure when he’d appeared, or who had bet on who, but Suri had won.

“I shall arrange for your companions to enjoy a night they will remember.” Solai left her spear planted in the middle of the arena and sauntered past me, winding her tail over my bare back on her way to speak with Suri. “Wine, women—or men—and song: you need only ask. You have the hospitality of the royal court, in thanks for your assistance. But this one, Hector, is mine for the night. Yes?”

“He signed up for it,” Suri replied, flashing me a look of dark amusement. “Try not to break him.”

“Thanks.” I glared at her, rubbing the back of my head. “Glad to know I can count on you.”

“Always.” Suri winked. “What’s the plan for him tonight, your Majesty?”

“Ohh... a little of this, a little of that.” Solai returned to me, rubbing her clawed hands up over my arm before wrapping her fingers around my bicep. “I think it would be lovely to have you attend me during tonight’s opera.”

“Tonight’s... opera?” I repeated numbly, stiffening as two of the queen’s servants came up behind me.

“Yes, yes! The musicians are ready outside. We start the opera at moonrise, and play and sing until moonset.” Solai let go of me, and turned to face her staff. “I shall dress for the performance. Maiaa, Lani, see this man is cleaned and attired decently for the opera. Kali, Prrana, Ah’ah: you three shall each serve as the personal attendants of the Paragon’s companions. Make sure they are given anything they desire.”

The five servants bowed deeply. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“I, uh-” before I could protest, Maiaa and Lani seized me by the arms, and led me out of the arena toward a different wing of the temple. I turned my head to look piteously at Suri. She grinned and saluted. Karalti was out in the jungle, sleeping soundly. I was on my own.

“Her Highness is going to actually let me go after this, right?” I asked one of the giggling maids, as they steered me into a costume room.

“Of course! You have not committed any crime!” The handmaiden to my right craned her head toward me as the pair of them tugged me to sit down on a low, plush stool. “Now you just sit here while we fit jewelry, yes?”

Chapter 43

Solai’s handmaidens twittered over me for a solid hour before escorting me—bejeweled, saronged, painted with henna and kohl—to what was to be one of the defining moments of my life: my very first Meewfolk opera.

Imagine, if you can, the sound of a tomcat yowling while standing on top of a fence. Now, make that fifteen very large, very enthusiastic tomcats, all yodeling in harmony like the world’s most agonizing acapella group. Then add an orchestra made up of giant xylophones, gongs, steel drums, wooden drums, flutes, and two-stringed violins: an ensemble called a marr’tao. Everyone is yowling, banging, plunking, meowing and fiddling. Every now and then, someone lets out a high-pitched ‘REEEEAOW’, and your eardrums pop.

For six. Fucking. Hours.

“Look! Look! They’re fighting the demon that killed Princess Kataiya!” Solai clung to my arm with a little gasp, her whiskers vibrating with excitement—or from the 5-point Richter scale vibrations from the marr’tao, I wasn’t sure.

The actors jumped and danced around one another, wailing as they posed with spears and claws in a much less terrifying version of what I’d faced with Solai in the arena. Nails down a blackboard didn’t cut it. I could feel my hitpoints oozing away with my sanity.

“Karalti. I can’t feel my face,” I moaned—aloud, because no one could possibly hear my whimpering over the noise.

“Are you okay? Are you being tortured?” Karalti, aghast, patched in telepathically. “What’s happening?”

“I pray to all the gods in all the worlds in the whole fucking multiverse that whatever is happening is the final scene of this play,” I replied, numbly taking another drink of whatever beverage the temple servants had given me. It was white, vaguely coconutty, and probably laced with hallucinogens.

“Ooh, do you like that? That’s la’gun, yes? It is a drink to relax with at the end of the night.” Solai beamed at me, offering me a plate. “Have another honeyed dormouse. I raise these myself especially for opera nights.”

I picked up one of the nugget-sized things and ate it with a distant, thousand-yard stare. I was pretty sure it was good, but my HUD was flashing with four different intoxication debuffs and I wasn’t feeling a whole hell of a lot between being drunk, high, tripping, and tweaked. Solai probably could have fed me something out of her litter box and I’d have eaten the damn thing like a chocolate truffle.

At long last, the two heroes—or heroines, I wasn’t sure—leaped from the corpse of the red-masked demon and went to rescue the swooning princess. Solai sighed happily as joyous sing-song meowing filled the air, and the chorus wrapped up into what I prayed was the final song.

“Is it over?” I croaked.

“Almost.” The Priest-Queen draped herself over my half-naked body, her hands curled on my chest, her tail twitching contentedly over our thighs. Between the coconut alcohol, the mushrooms and the hundred other things I’d eaten, drunk or snorted to get through the night, the lean, athletic lines of her body and the slick warmth of her fur felt disturbingly good. I lay an arm around her, absently petting the small of her back.

“So.” I jumped when Solai put her mouth close my ear, her voice a purring whisper that somehow carried over the music. “Is