The Black Pearl of Pharazion

by Cobalt Jade (cobaltjade@aol.com)




Chapter 25: Shattered


I chased the Queen up the hall like an avenging demon, the stolen sword raised in my hand. Around us, soldiers and rebels clashed in confusion, shouting discordant orders. But they were engaged in their own battles and did not stop me...though quite a few noticed me, nude and denuded as I was, the golden nipple rings knocking against my chest. If more than one turned to stare who could blame them.

On either side the slave statues began to writhe and struggle in their niches; the slave chandeliers gave voice, begging to be let down, as they felt the tide of battle turning.  Shezrine's epicenter of magical power had been her crystals, and now they were smashed her magic was fading in an ever-widening radius. Alabaster statues blushed slowly to pink, then stepped stiffly from their plinths, hands traveling over their flesh in amazement. Untransformed slaves popped out of bas reliefs on the walls, columns holding up the ceilings, and spurting fountains full of coins...even, in some cases, from the floor, where they'd been compressed into the marble in novel designs. Though naked, they lost no time in taking up arms against their former masters. Some of them, I'm sad to say, only got in the way and perished like blossoms swept from a tree; yet more ran in confusion, seeking a way out of the palace. But none of them aided the Queen.

My feet slapped against the porphyry and chalcedony floors. The brass phallus pumped in and out with every stride, still firmly secured by its two tiny locks, and my clit throbbed as its decoration swung. But the sexual sensations were only fuel for my pursuit. Instead of debilitating me, they gave me power.

A light, rapid clicking told me Shezrine was headed up the stairs. I turned to follow. I saw a gauntlet lying on the landing, and further up a breastplate with two empty cups; she was discarding her armor to gain herself speed. I saw the flash of her leg as she reached the top step. Behind her came her helmet with a raucous clang.

So that's where you head, I thought. I leapt the obstacle and took the steps two at a time. Even though her magic was gone she still had numbers on her side, and I knew fighting yet raged in the city. The battle was far from over. 

Down the upper hall I saw a panel swinging gently: the secret door to her private chambers. The young girl embedded in the panel tore herself free with a sucking sound as the magic faded, and the golden key Shezrine had flung to the floor grew to human size in an eyeblink, stretched her dimpled limbs and smiled; the two lost princesses of Lansong embraced. But I was running past them and up the secret stair, my quarry panting several yards before me.

I burst into the audience chamber where Shezrine had seduced me forty days before. Her statuefied captives were coming to life, the subtle tones of marble fading to pink and tan and ivory as they exclaimed their freedom. The lamp sconces hopped down from the wall, the furniture slaves untangled themselves, stretching like dancers, all of them, men and women, incomparably lovely; Shezrine would not have preserved them if they were not. The sight of all that luscious naked flesh might have tempted me to dally, if I hadn't been on the hunt. But an open door beckoned, and I ran for it as the former slaves found their tongues and began to ask me what had happened.

Shezrine's bedchamber, and the bed where she'd taken her pleasures with me. To the side of it the Aylinn, Karina and Marnessa statues knelt with their heads low, holding the glass disk high with their shapely buttocks, but now the process reversed itself. The glossy tones of healthy flesh infused their stiff forms like fabric dipped in dye; the slave harnesses they wore darkened to black. Their solidified hair became separate strands, spilling over the carpet like silk. They struggled in surprise as consciousness came back to them, mainly from the cold weight of the glass on their cheeks.

I kicked the tabletop over and their heads came up, living and breathing once more. Even in my haste I found their expressions most amusing.

"Jozhande!" Karina gasped. "What has..."

"It's a long story." I said, cutting the cuffs that bound their wrists and ankles with the tip of my sword. As I watched their exaggerated endowments began to deflate, leaving them their old selves, though I admit they still made a pretty picture in the leather.

Aylinn cursed. "What that bitch has done to us!"

"You must find the rebels," I told them. "Aylinn, the stymphad wing needs you to lead, they can't fight otherwise. And Karina, you must go too, with haste, to each of the beasts...they ring the palace at a distance of eight blocks. Touch each one and command them to life."

"I'll take her there," Marnessa said, quick-witted. "I know all the secret ways out of the palace." I was thankful for this as both Aylinn and Karina looked very bewildered. I suppose Marnessa was used to the sensations, as she'd been transformed--and untransformed--before.

"But what happened to you!" Karina protested.

I smiled grimly. I wondered, indeed, what I looked like to them: smooth as polished mahogany and shining with sweat, the gold that pierced me glimmering with every motion. "A gift from the Queen," I said shortly. "Where did she go?"

"There--" Marnessa pointed, at another door swung open, and I ran. 

"Go to the rebels!" I called behind me. "Quickly! Before the tide turns again!"

I wondered what the rebels would think of them when they showed up in their harnesses, the Queen's brand still vivid on their cheeks. But there wasn't any way for them to avoid it. Swiftly I pursued my quarry.

The stairs led to a narrow attic at the top of the palace. Shezrine had gotten ahead of me by a good margin, but I saw her footprints in the dust, the triangular front of her boot, the round dot of its spiked heel. The attic hall made a turn, and opened out to a flat area on the roof. There was nowhere else to go. Shezrine was trapped.

Torches ringed the terrace and the former Witch-Queen was staring out in horror at her city, noting how sections of it were burning. She clutched her remaining crystal in her fist as if it was a charm, but it did not help her. Since she had shed her armor she was nearly nude save for her high black boots, nipple rings, and a cloth-of-gold loinguard.

She heard me come out. "So" she said. "The errant slave has returned to her mistress."

"Slave no more," I said. I raised my sword. "Come meet your just desserts, Shezrine. The blood spilled by the crystals is calling for you."

Her lips quirked into a ghastly smile. "I think not." She gestured. A magical sword flamed into existence in her hand, a dull platinum color that shimmered with a deep-purple glow. "I have some magic left, Amazon. I will get back what is mine, and destroy your rebels, too."

A screech sounded from below us. A stymphad flew swiftly up and away from us, Aylinn mounted on its back.

"That does not matter," Shezrine said, more to convince herself than sway me. "I will knock them all from the sky."

"How will you accomplish that, Shezrine?" I taunted. I advanced on her, my sword held low and ready for action. She would not escape this time if I could help it. "Show me your power, Witch-Queen."

She roared and charged at me with her sword; both blades clashed. I hadn't taken her for a fighter but I could see I'd been wrong.

"Fooled you didn't I?" she sneered. "Thinking I was weak and lazy, that I lived only for pleasure--*hah!!*" The metals kissed again. "I developed my skills over many years, from the weaponmasters of my father!"

"And what will you do if you defeat me?" I said. "Use your crystals? They have deserted you."

She said nothing, only countered me grimly, driving me towards the edge.

She was good. I danced back. I didn't know if my workaday blade would stand up against her magical one. I had the sinking feeling it wouldn't, even if my skill was greater than hers. If she won, she could conceivably rally her troops or seek help from one of her captive cities. Their combined forces could crush the rebels even without magic.

She noticed me falter. "If you beg me, I will let you be my slave again," she purred. "My proud black bitch, on a leash by my side." She thrust, I parried, countering. She tottered slightly on her spiked heels, a distinct footgear disadvantage when fighting. 

"I don't think so," I said coolly.

"Ah, but you want to be." She raised her weapon high above her head and bought it down, a flashy move I was easily able to dodge. "You already bear my marks, my rings and my brand. Even should I be gone, everyone who looks at you will know what they mean!"

I laughed. "Why should I care what fools think?" I swiped her, but she protected her side. 

"You were born to be a slave, and you know it," Shezrine hissed. "Submit to me and I will forgive this rebellion. Accept your true station in life. You know you want to!"

Did I? I faltered, confused. Memories of pleasure and pain, discipline and abandon, came back to haunt me. "You warped my mind with your spells," I said. 

"I did not," she said. "The test, the temptation, the collaring...all that was your doing, Jozhande Tanimury...your will, not mine. I only used my magic at the branding, to take away your past. All the rest came from your desire." She gave a triumphant cry, bringing her sword down on mine. The blade cut through clean as if it was butter. I danced back, gasping. "You underestimate me," she said, smiling.

"And you, me." I kicked her with my bare foot and she slipped on her high heels, falling backwards. I brought the pommel of my sword down hard on her wrist. She squealed and let go of her magical blade. Once it left her grip, it smoked into thin air. 

I raised what remained of sword, only ten inches of it, but the edge was still sharp. "You hair will serve to bind you, Shezrine," I said, reaching for her long white locks. "I'll be most creative about it."

Before I could stop her she clutched her crystal. Propelled by magic, she leapt twenty feet behind her, turning a somersault in the air and landing on her feet. 

"No, Amazon," she glinted. "I will have the last laugh. If you will not be my slave, you will join my crystal...in stasis, for eternity!" The shard blazed white between her fingers. I realized she was drawing all its evil energy into herself, making her veins glow like liquid silver beneath her pale skin. She began to intone an arcane language: "Useeas, ki'atul, amonpor, geb unn..."

I stumbled back as she raised her arms, pointing her palms toward me. A bright light flashed from their centers. Without thinking I raised my arms to my face, the steel cuffs she had welded to me pressed tightly together. The white-hot beam of light reflected off them, as I knew it would, and bounced back on its creator.

"AAAiiieeee!" She screamed, a look of incredible horror on her face as the light enveloped her. She burned like a star fallen to earth, so bright I could scarce look at her. White-hot, blue-white, then violet-white; I saw her writhe as her scream grew shriller, so shrill it nearly made blood run from my ears. The light exploded.

I looked up. The white glow was fading, revealing what remained of the Queen. She was no longer flesh but clear hollow crystal, limbs outflung, mouth stretched in a silent scream, her eyes wide and blank and caught forever in the same magic she had thought to turn on *me.* Ironically, she could have been frozen in the most pleasurable of orgasms, but no living flesh could have maintained such a contorted pose. I raised what remained of my sword and dealt the crystal queen a swift, hard, blow.

She shattered before me in millions of tiny shards. The hair-thin wafers blew away like spun sugar, to skirl about on the terrace or fall over the edge. Shezrine's reign was over.

The cuffs around my wrists and ankles, and my neck, loosened and fell to the ground with a clang. I rubbed the chafed areas, bringing them back to life. 

A glimmer of silver caught my eye. I knelt before the little pile of transparent dust the wind was swiftly erasing and extracted two silver nipple rings, all that remained of the Witch-Queen of Obn Dhregni. I clenched them in my fist.

I was free. But would I ever be free of the memories of this place?

#

The battle raged until dawn. With the help of the guardian beasts of the city and Aylinn's stymphad force Shezrine's allies were routed and defeated. By noon of the next day Deneir had taken the throne. In a ceremony he received the old crown of the city, rescued from Shezrine's vault, and declared himself king. He awarded those who had shown heroism, among them Shadow, Aylinn, Karina, and myself.

With a heavy heart I accepted the medals and accolades. Though they were given sincerely enough, those closest to Deneir would never forget what the Queen had done to me, and I would never forget what I had let her do to myself. My hairless skull told me that, even as it was hidden under a colorful plaited headdress, with my eyebrows painted in; and three sets of rings told me that, hidden under the clothes I hadn't worn in forty days, the last ring piercing the dark, slippery gem that had given me my name: The Black Pearl. I could have removed them, but Obn Dhregni had taught me many pleasures along with the pain; they would serve to remind me of what I had almost let happen through my foolishness and pride. A badge of both shame and honor, but I have kept them to this day.

No one in the audience saw that, however, as I marched down from the throne, medals heavy on my leather jerkin, my cape flaring behind me. I spared only a small glance for the ring in the floor where I had been chained as a slave, for others to stare at and marvel.

I retook my place in the audience as Deneir stood for his speech. He was a strong man, just, open, and affable, as different from Shadow as night is from day, with a quick easy warmth. He was gold-skinned like many of the people of this land, with dark hair and eyes, not so different from the Duke, really. He laid down his plans for the city's recovery. All slaves were now free, and he would send his men out to ransom the ones who had been sold from the city.  Nobles were to swear oaths of loyalty to the new king, and those that would not were to be exiled. Bontatris would be returned to its rightful rulers. Then came practical plans: feeding the city, rebuilding it, helping the ex-slaves find places in the new order. Shezrine had been lax with her city, neglecting its welfare for many years, so he had a lot of work in front of him.

After the ceremony came a banquet. Karina and Shadow kept close. She had handled herself well in the fighting; the Qu'Az star was bright on her forehead. I felt a bittersweet sadness. There was nothing stopping their marriage, yet looking at Shadow, I could see the pain in his face. Deneir glanced at Karina several times, long speculative looks. The new king was a handsome man. If Shadow discarded her, she could do right by Deneir; as Mistress of the Beasts, she had a status now equal to his.

I went over to her, as we hadn't had a chance to talk since I had freed her in the Queen's bedchamber. She started when she saw me as if we shared a shameful secret. With the true king restored, and the rebels slapping backs and congratulating themselves, who could speak of the games we had suffered?

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

She cast her eyes down. "We all should be sorry. For...for being idiotic, I guess." She flipped a lock of hair behind her ear. Though her flesh had reverted to normal her hair remained long. I remembered that she, too, would always carry the brand of the Queen. Her mouth quirked. "Not many of us could claim a second life as a footstool...it's better to see the humor of it, I suppose, than to dwell on the horror." She took another sip from her glass.

"What do you remember?"

"I remember feeling...incredibly horny, yet frozen and helpless, and heavy and solid all over...I could only see the carpet, yet I kept hoping, praying, someone or something would touch me, so I could find release...but no one ever did, only the boots of the Queen." She shrugged. "It must have been the same for you."

Not quite, but I didn't say it. The brass phallus had long been removed by an excellent locksmith I bribed to secrecy. "All the slaves here have a similar story...we two are hardly unique."

"I hope so," she said, finishing her drink. "And I don't intend to let it get me down. I have a wedding to plan." She flashed me a grin.

I didn't have the heart to tell her it would never come to pass.

A ruckus came from the courtyard outside, where Deneir had set up a tribunal to hear the grievances of the common folk. We went over to balcony to see what the problem was. Already the line stretched far into the palace grounds: shopkeepers and tradesmen questioning the city's new policies, merchants offering trade, ex-slaves demanding restitution. It was the last queue that captured everyone's attention.

Thirty or forty white-haired adults in their mid to late twenties, with anthracite eyes, were pressing their case. Their shabby clothing marked them as ex-slaves, yet I saw Shezrine's features in their faces.

"She was my half-sister!" the man at the lead of the line shouted. "Therefore, I have every right to rule!"

"I more than you!" a slim woman countered. "I was born first!"

"I have more magic than either of you!" a third shouted, forming a very weak fireball that sputtered and fizzed out.

"All of you, quiet!" Deneir's guards bellowed.

I sighed. Here was trouble. Shezrine's long-lost half-siblings, consigned by her father to slavery, had lost no time in staking their claims to the throne. They wouldn't succeed, of course, but I couldn't blame them for trying.

"Deneir has his work cut out for him," Karina said wryly.

#

Though the battle was over, the city still needed to be set in order. In the smoke of a conquered city, with rebuilding and economic revitalization to attend to, the sensual world of the concupiscerium seemed very far away. I did all I could to help Deneir and the rebels. My hair began to grow again, though oddly not below my neck, and daily exercise soon made me as fit and sleek as I once was.

But every evening, after breaking up fights and directing refugees, when I returned to my room, alone, the memories would take me over. Lost in dark dreams I would writhe on the covers, fingers plucking at my body-rings, moaning in passion, unable to forget. Again I would make love with the Queen, her collar snug around my neck. "You will always be a slave, Jozhande Tanimury," she would say, driving me again to the edge of ecstasy. "As well as a master. In Tontaxir's eyes there is no difference between aggressor and victim. You have played the game of flesh as well as I."

After ten days of this I knew I had to leave. Deneir would do fine without me.

I said my farewells to Aylinn and Lassimla, J'Wabra, Marnessa, Karina. The Duke had gone in shame from the city, an exile for his treachery. Deneir rewarded me richly. The coin would keep me going for a very long time, wherever I wished to go. 

Lastly I sought out Shadow.

I found him in one of the refugee centers where the ex-slaves were sent on their way to whatever land they had come from. Huge wagons rumbled by me headed for Altaragona, Bontatris, and the city-states to the east; a flying ship had been chartered to take others across the Rift. They chattered animatedly as if departing on vacation, many of them dressed in the clothes of the nobles who once owned them. I was dressed for travel and leading my horse, so when Shadow saw me he set down his clipboard and walked quickly over.

"You're leaving us," he said.

I nodded. "I think I've done all I can here."

There was an awkward pause. After Shezrine's defeat, we'd both been too busy to talk much about the strange experiences we'd been through, and truth to tell, I'd been avoiding it, afraid of what I might hear. Or say.

"I'll be leaving soon, too," he said. I didn't press. We both knew he'd be abandoning both Deneir and Karina. "But you? Deneir would be happy to have you as a captain--or general--in his ranks."

I shook my head. "Too much has happened to me," I said. "Everyone knows the story of the Queen's dark-skinned slave. It would compromise my ability to lead and inspire." The silver glyph on my buttock told me that. The surgeons here told me it couldn't be removed; it would always be there, reminding me of my slavehood.

"But this is Obn Dhregni--"

"This *was* Obn Dhregni," I corrected. "Deneir has returned to a city foreign to him, though he is of the blood to rule it. He and his followers are a bit more--prudish, shall we say?--than the citizens of this city; to them, the revelries it offers are shameful ones. What Deneir will do with its reputation is anyone's guess. "

Shadow smiled ruefully. "My brother has picked an...interesting...place to rule."

"If he can be nonjudgmental, he will succeed," I said. "However...that is asking too much of his men."

Shadow nodded. "I understand. I...need time to accept it as well." He gestured at the ex-slaves in the wagons. "What do I know of slaves, or slavery, except it repulses me...yet years ago, they say, the folk of this city submitted to it gladly, for the pleasure it brings. Karina has changed because of it. There's a new element in her now, one I can't share, nor do I want to...I have no place here, perhaps I never did."

He had spoken the truth. I looked at him objectively now: quiet, self-contained, still a very handsome man. I remembered the night in the cave and our escapade with Marnessa with fondness. But not longing. That particular erotic tie was broken. Too much had happened to me in Obn Dhregni. I needed time to get over it, to find my bearings again. With light-hearted love of the anonymous kind, with renewed relationships with older friends, before I could pick up the relationship with Shadow...which I wanted with a passion that surprised me. But I couldn't. Not right now.

There would be time. After all, we'd both barely scratched the surface of each other.

I embraced him, reveling in the feel of his hard, hard body, the familiar smell of grass in the rain, a hint of animal musk. I kissed him, meaningfully but not deeply, a farewell. "Goodbye, Shadow," I said. "We'll meet again, I'm sure."

"Should the gods allow it," he said. But the way his hands lingered spoke of a personal desire.

"Gods can be bribed," I replied. "Did Tontaxir not teach us that?" I kissed him again, quickly, than mounted my horse. "Good hunting, wolf-man."

And I pressed my heels to his side and cantered off, through the city gates, older and wiser than when I had gone in...The Black Pearl of Pharazion.

