From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [MG]  Who Knows What Evil?
Date: 14 Feb 93 01:09:44 GMT

[Admin]  Part of this happens just before the party at Karl's residence.

--------------

Amaan twitched, feeling the pull of a nervous tic at the corner of his
left eye.  The damned greasy useless son of the second wife of the
Shaheran may he live forever, oh, yess, and his greasy useless son with
him, in a cage hanging over the main square of Arkebah Low Town, the
so-called "ambassador plenipotentiary" to this misbegotten heap of ugly
snow-clotted buildings, had commanded HIM to appear and make obeiscence.

Well, the dung-flea whoreson camel-rapist still hadn't shown, and it was
long past the appointed hour.  Amaan glanced nervously at the curve of the
small window, and found himself slipping into the dream again.

The warm comfort of the dream - the place where he had been stored, like
a djinn in a bottle, but with an aching hole in his spirit like the empty
socket of a festered tooth pulled by the surgeon, where his magical power
had been.  His loss didn't matter there.  Anything he wanted had appeared
for him there, houris, dancing girls, courtiers and servants.  All the viands,
all the wines, any pleasure of body or spirit, and now all was gone.  Maybe
this, maybe the misery he felt now was some fantasy he had elaborated for
himself.  Well, then he could just end it by wishing...  No, it wasn't working,
as it hadn't the last fifty times.  He was still in this ugly room with the
brutish guard in his outlandish clothing.

So it wasn't the dream globe any more.  He cursed quietly.

Finally when he had dozed off, the guard nudged him.

"they're coming," he whispered.

Amaan stared dumbly.  Four eunuchs entered the room, their bulky forms
spared of the usual fatty softness by something which he almost felt
sure was magic - if his talent had still been there he would have known
exactly how it had been done.  He could have twisted it to control them,
turn them against the hulking, perfumed, silk-wrapped form that was now
entering the room.  He bowed, disgusted with his own weakness, grovelling
in the proper and required degree of obedient humility, promising himself
that he would someday revenge himself on this petty princeling.

The ambassador stroked his freshly oiled and perfumed beard.  So this was
the much-feared necromancer and thaumaturge, the terror of his fathers'
other sons.  A skinny, broken, whimpering nothing.  Well, he would still
be a useful pawn for the Shaheran.  "Arise, o Amaan, arise countryman."

The once-wizard stood, head still properly bowed in subservience.

"I am informed by one high in the Guild of Magicians, that you have been
charged with a small task.  Tell me of its nature."

"There is one who is now present in this city, whose name I dare not speak.
Such a one impedes the progress of certain factions who are friends to our most
holy ruler, may he live forever in grace.  They have expressed a desire for a
process to be put in motion that will result in a smooth pathway."

"And you are directed to use what means necessary to remove that obstacle."

"I am to see that the road is once again clear."

"Ah.  I understand.  And it should be done by local talent."

"If it could be laid at the feet of those factions who are not our friends,
it would not be amiss."

"Then it is indeed too sad.  The best agent for our uses seems to have been
drowned in a most unfortunate accident.  But his sister still lives."

"A woman?  It would be demeaning.  Very good.  Who is she?"

"Ah, a gambler and purveyor of intoxicants, and more.  Her name is Ale.
If she cannot herself perform the task, she can arrange to have it done."

"Is she trustworthy?"

"Of course not, but she does honor her agreements, as precisely as any
of the ifreeti.  So be certain to formulate your contract with care."

"How do I contact her?"

"She will be in contact with you.  Simply go to the House of Green Shutters
and lose three gold wheels at tarots.  Bet on the mark of the fallen tower."

"I am commanded to attend the ball at the home of the Ambassador, that
wooden-legged commoner named Karl.  The House of Green Shutters is nearby."

"Good.  May the One Who Rules bless you through the grace of the Shaheran."

Amaan bowed again, while the son of the Shaheran's second wife left the
room, then he began reconsidering how best to take advantage of this contract.
Perhaps the flea-of-swine ambassador could be killed as well?  He would have
to speak again with Thorn, discover what exactly should be gained.  If the
Archmage was pleased, Amaan might prevail upon him to be returned to the sphere
of dreaming again.  Or maybe he could take revenge ...

----

Amaan was asleep, drowsing in the heat of the small kitchen, the only decently
warm place in this filthy cold northern town.  He kicked, fitfully, his dreams
haunted by the image of an implacable horror, whispering to itself, talking
in many voices: isthisonewortheating? Nononono,ithasnopower  Ithasknowledge
Ithasgreatlearning  Itknowsthenamesofmanydemons Butithasnowill Oneapproaches!
Silence. Secrecy is paramount.  Retreat.  The voices stopped, he peered through
the murk and saw something large and faintly green and shapeless.

Then it turned into his mother, who paradoxically, looked just like Dariel,
and smiled lovingly, but he was a gingercake, shaped like Amaan, with a
frosting face and his mother bit off his head and chewed on it and ...

"AAAaag!"  He fell backwards, his chair overtoppled with a crash.  Painfully,
he staggered to his feet, setting the chair upright, then froze in place.

He was not alone in the room.  All the cooks, the scullery crew, were gone.
There was a delicate smell, like cinnamon and ginger, pleasant and cloying.
A part of his mind quietly identified it as mimosa, then subsided into a
pleased giggling.  The smell grew stronger, and a lassitude crept across his
body.  Abstractly, he knew he would obey the next person who spoke to him,
and this was right and proper.

A voice, silken and honey-drenched, edged with diamonds, spoke, and he
marvelled at how beautiful his mistress' voice seemed to him.

"You are Amaan.  You may call me Mistress Ale.  Do not speak until I permit
it, do not move at all until I tell you that you may."

>From the shadows, a figure became visible: first, a long thin ivory pipe with
a very small bowl, from which the scent of the mimosa trailed.  Eyes colored
like ice, jet black hair streaming down her back, she undulated forward, her
lithe form wrapped in a black leather and silk sheath that was somehow much
more revealing than true nudity would have been.  

Her skin was pale, like ice, and her lips the color of freshly spilled  blood.
He was in love.  He would do anything for her, even kill himself if she only
chose to speak to command it.

"Your old masters are playing a dangerous game, my pet.  They each think to set
me against the others.  Tell me, were you thinking of setting me against them?"

Amaan nodded.

"Good.  I would be sad if you weren't."  She moved over to his chair and
sat.  She drew a small pouch from somewhere on her person, and tossed it
into the fireplace - the flames began to burn green.  It emitted a strange
smoke, thick yet not burning, indeed, a restful scent, and Amaan felt his head
spinning, his body becoming somehow distant and at the same time every nerve
tingling uncontrollably.  "Come, sit here at my feet and tell me all about it."

He gasped, an ecstasy gripping him as he moved.  He carefully knelt, and
looking only at her perfect feet, recounted his experiences with Dariel, his
imprisonment and escape, the conspiracy to assassinate Archmage Delalle, and
the machinations of Thorn and his people.  Somehow, it was unimportant to him
that wracking pains tore across his body whenever he spoke of the Archmage of
Politics - the smoke made the sensations interesting, he began to crave more.
He repeated the details of Thorn's plans, described again how Delalle had
wrenched information from him.  The agonies were amazing.  He started again...

"Now, enough, pet.  I already know about Thorn and his people.  Tell me of
the Shaheran's plans, what of his agents?"

Amaan shuddered involuntarily as the sensations stopped, and recounted the
involvement of the Shaheran and his plenipotentiary, their intent to make
Generica into just another colony, the plans for the capture and replacement
of the Prince and Princess, the already-accomplished addiction of the wife
and sons of Melwiss the Wise to the ensorcelled narcotics provided by the
agents of the plenipotentiary.  He described the slave trade whereby they
had accustomed many sons and daughters of the merchants and nobles to the
proper use of the bodies of their subjects.

"Tell me more about this entity you captured in the desert."

Amaan recounted the capture, the way it had eventually broken free, his very
brief battle, and how it had torn his magic from him.  He told of being put
into the bottle, and taken out.  He told what he had learned, how he drew
the power of the being, how to construct the trapsphere.

"Very good, Amaan.  You have done well."  She held out a stylus and a glass
topped box, glowing faintly yet opaque.  "Now, write down the last syllable
of the creature's name on this surface."

He complied eagerly.  The stylus left a glowing line of light on the
surface, which faded when he had finished.

"Now the first syllable."  Again he wrote.  "Now the center parts."
He complied, and she took the stylus and the box from him.  She stood,
leaving him kneeling and staring at where her feet had been.  She did
something he could not see, and the green effulgence from the fire went
back to the color of normal flames.

"Now, pet, get into the chair."  He rose from the floor and sat.

"Amaan.  Your mistress commands you.  Forget that we have spoken.  Forget
that I was here.  Remember only that one came to you in the night, a woman
of dark countenance, and that you offered to pay her in gold for killing
three persons.  Unless we are alone, you will behave as though I were not
your mistress, until I command you otherwise.  Now, chew and swallow this."

She handed him a small capsule, bread soaked in honey wrapped around a
bitter pellet of herbs and essences, all dipped in wax to protect from
the stickiness.  He took it, and chewed, and swallowed.  A heat grew in his
stomach, spreading like alchemist's wine through his body, and the pleasant
glow grew more and more intense until he could bear it no longer and fell
unconscious.

He awoke to the scullery maids clattering pans.  He had been dreaming, he
was sure, but it had faded.  He smiled, secretive and evil, remembering
the night before and how he had bargained with the assassin woman to have
his enemies killed:  Thorn, Prince Hasched, and the thrice cursed creature
which had stolen his magic.  It was costly, but she had promised they would
die in an explosion of balefire, hot and sudden as the furnaces of hell,
more than adequate to destroy even one such as Dariel.