Written 2006
Revised May 11, 2021
THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, CHAPTER 1, Part 2
A story of Necromantra
By Aladdin
Edited by Christopher Leeson
“Do
you wish to die?” the Tradesman asked. I wondered why they never
betrayed a hint of emotion. Did they consider it a disgrace to show
emotion to an “inferior” race? Did they have no emotion to show?
I
had been brought before three Tradesmen. All were of the same build and
dressed alike. Was their whole race radically conformist, or were these
Tradesmen of similar rank and wearing the uniform of that rank?
These
outfits looked utilitarian, canvas-colored and provided with many
pockets. The creatures’ legs were strangely jointed – reminiscent of
bovine beasts. Though bipedal and upright, they only superficially
resembled men in general outline. Their helmets had large glass
eye-slots that concealed their faces. Was it more than a mask, I
wondered; was it also a kind of breathing device? If this were so, their
problem with the atmosphere of this part of the Godwheel could
represent a possibly exploitable weakness. That was something to think
about.
As their name suggests, Trade was their business. Though
they showed no emotion, was their overriding drive greed and
acquisitiveness? I knew that they exchanged precious commodities, and
that these commodities were not always material. At this time and this
place, I was one such commodity. By reputation, the Tradesmen were
scrupulous in fulfilling their contract. Similarly, they demanded that
all those that they dealt with should honor their commitments in
scrupulous detail. Also by reputation, what the Tradesmen demanded, they
usually got.
It was also said that they were either
telepathically linked to those around them, that each individual was an
element in a hive mind. If an outsider met one Tradesman, he was, in a
sense, meeting with many Tradesmen at the same time – possibly with
every other Tradesman in existence. Pretty clearly, that would rule out
playing one Tradesman against another.
I couldn’t help looking
about, though there was very little to see in the nearly featureless
room. One chair for each Tradesman and little more. Ill at east, I
didn’t want to be here, but I hadn’t been given any choice. I could
expect no sympathy from them, for I had killed a Tradesman. This was an
almost unprecedented offense and they had every right to kill me in
retaliation. Oddly, though, I didn’t feel like cringing. Instead, I felt
strangely detached. Why should I worry? After all, being executed would
spare me the tedium of working myself up into a suicidal mindset.
To
make any sense of this situation, I had to see it through the mindset
of the Tradesmen themselves. Under their contractual law, I had been
born their slave. My mother had promised to give them her next child in
exchange for a desperate favor that she had needed to receive
immediately. Yes, my mother is very strange, but that is a long story to
tell. They had asked in exchange her next-born child. That was me. But
how did they know that she would ever have a child? She absolutely had
not wanted one. Did their race have prophetic powers? Or had they
manipulated my mother after their meeting to see to it that my
conception occurred? I had to stay on guard. Whenever these aliens
wanted something, it didn’t take them long to get it. Bully for them.
But the rules I was subjected to didn’t leave me in a very good
situation.
I couldn’t help but smile. I knew that if my mother
had known the circumstances she had put me in, she would have been
amused. She would probably be hoping for my death. I didn’t think that
anyone in the universe hated me than my mother did. I couldn’t blame
her.
“You do not answer me,” said the Tradesman.
I blinked
myself alert, having been lost in thought. The voices of these aliens,
by the way, had a filtered quality, as if the sounds they projected were
digitally created. “I have forgotten the question,” I murmured.
He repeated his interrogative. “Do you wish to die?”
“Yes, sir, I do wish to die,” I told him – her – it.
That reply didn’t seem to faze him. “So often human beings appear to value their lives casually,” he said. “Why is this so?”
I didn’t mind telling him. “Not every human likes living. I, for one, am not very good at it.”
“Understood.
We know that you are afflicted by an evil spirit that has been
possessing you. Our analysis tells us that you would rather die than
have it again usurp the guidance of your life. Still, you will not have
to face that eventuality, so long as you maintain an attitude of strict
obedience. We have a purpose for you, but realizing that purpose calls
for your fealty to the agreement we are about to offer you.”
“The demon you mention has kept me its slave for two years. What do you offer me, except a change of masters?” I asked him.
“Under
our law, you are property – a slave, as your people would say. Despite
your race’s zeal for enslaving one another, your majority considers
slavery debasing. But humans also say that anything has its price. So,
consider, what do you desire so much that you would willingly yield up
your body and soul?”
He could have hardly been more blunt about
the nature of the Satanic bargain he had in mind. “Nothing,” I said. “I
would not choose to be another’s property for any price.”
“We
believe that statement to be fallacious,” the Tradesman replied. “We
have calculated that we are able to make an offer with a very high
probability of being acceptable by you.”
“You are miscalculating,” I said.
“We shall see. Come.”
The
three Tradesmen rose as a group. I guessed that they expected me to
follow them. I was led into a chamber that resembled the magic room
where I had been kept in since my abduction to the Godwheel. While
there, human wizards had worked on me. I didn’t know why the Tradesmen
employed humans for sorcery, unless their kind were unable to work magic
themselves, or else regarded sorcery to be demeaning work. After all,
any medieval prince would have bridled at the thought of supporting
himself by selling turnips.
This particular chamber seemed to be
centered around what looked like a glass coffin. The Tradesmen pointed
at this artifact, directing me to peer through its transparent lid. I
did, and what I saw therein made my limbs quake. I turned away.
“You bastards!” I shouted.
“This is the one you killed,” said one of the Tradesmen. “Has it occurred to you that she could be brought back to life?”
“Back to life?” I muttered.
“The young female may be revived if we strike a bargain. If not, death will become her permanent condition.”
I looked at him accusingly. “Revived? She’s dead because I sucked the life-force from her body. How can she be revived?”
“You
already know that such things are possible. Did not your foe Boneyard
know the art of resurrecting his own slain minions and did so many
times. He did this by use of a rare spell. Have you never wondered where
the necromancer acquired a spell so mighty?”
Yes, all of us knights had wondered. Now that I was being asked a leading question, I made a guess. “From – the Tradesmen?”
“He
paid a very high price,” the being informed me, “but he never regretted
the bargain. Your master, Archimage, on the contrary, refused our
price. Now he and all his works have perished.”
“Yes, but Boneyard survived his brother by only a few months,” I reminded him.
The Tradesman made no reply. Instead, he said,
“We
have preserved her in a preservation capsule,” said the Tradesman. “We
brought her body to this place because it so clearly gave us a
negotiation advantage. We know that some humans will unselfishly
surrender what is most precious to them in order to save a loved one.
Are you a human of that stamp?”
No, I was not.
I was, in
fact, the worse of humans! Even before I had been demon-possessed, I had
lived – existed – only because I was absolutely selfish.
“I am the wrong person to be offered such a proposition,” I told the alien. “
“Our
analysis disagrees. We shall ask again. Will you accept bondage in body
and spirit in exchange for the restoration of Princess Arielle to life?
We restored, she will be permitted to return in safety to her own
people.”
I shook my head, not in negation but in amazement. I had
not believed that these aliens had anything in their bag of tricks to
move me. But now, and with apparent ease, they had backed me into a
corner. I searched my mind for a reason to refuse.
First, I asked
myself, would it not be kinder to leave Arielle where she was? All her
pains and troubles had been met and left behind. If she were to return
to life, would she not have to resume a life of trouble and sorrow?
Would she not have to undergo the trauma of death all over again?
But,
in all the universe, if there was only one mistake that I would do
almost anything to reverse, it would have been this mistake.
“What must I surrender?” I heard myself asking.
“Swear
fealty. Submit to total obedience. And swear, too, to become the
dedicated servant of any other party who becomes your purchaser. You
will pledge to live your life to doing as you are told, and will do
nothing else. Do so and no doubt Arielle’s people will rejoice at having
their heiress restored. She will not be stigmatized. No one needs to
know that she had ever died at all. After all, there was no witness to
that death except yourself.”
“The monster called Lord Pumpkin seized power in Ulik,” I protested. “He will simply kill her again, and with pleasure.”
“This
is inaccurate,” said the negotiator. “The pitiless one has vanished.
Other ambitious men are now contesting for control of Ulik. Blood flows
freely.”
I could see my reflection in the goggles of the alien’s mask when I asked, “Why would you trust me to keep such a bargain?”
“We
knew that the Soul-Rider who was guiding you would never keep its
bargains,” the Tradesman replied. “We enhanced your value a
thousand-fold by removing it. We are now addressing the knight Thanasi.
Documentation tells us that he was ever a man of his word.”
I
might have laughed at such a complement, if I felt like laughing at all.
I had let a thousand men die to keep myself alive. Before this moment, I
would have considered myself utterly shameless.
But if my
debasement was so complete, why was it that I could not take my eyes
away from Arielle’s face, the teenage girl who was still sleeping the
sleep of death.
For me, this was a Poesque moment. I was being
offered the chance to reduce the check list of my crimes. The temptation
was almost irresistible. I had loved Arielle, but she was so much more
than my legal step-daughter. If she had never lived, I would not be
alive at this moment. She had chanced upon me in the wild, a stranger in
need of help, and she had given me that help.
That I had paid her back so badly made the debt owed to her a thousand times heavier to bear.
Her
mistake had allowed me to continue my life of crime. Except for the
error she made in rescuing me, I could not have murdered her father,
could not have thrown away the lives of so many of her countrymen.
Looked at in that way, it was her compassion that had brought on every
evil thing that had happened since then.
“Will you make the trade?” the masked being again asked.
Outwardly, it would seem as though I was being given a choice.
But it was no choice at all.
The
Tradesmen knew the game of life so much better than I did. The aliens
had won the match even before the first piece on the board had been
moved.
It had never been a contest that involved my winning or losing. My challenge had always been to deal with my eventual loss.
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2, PART 1
