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Chapter Forty-Four: Siren Song
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2021-10-04 21:18:36Time passed and the light never changed in the room. Ilyria and Suluu slept, they woke, they made love, they slept again. In her dreams, she joined her mother at the dining table in the mansion of her childhood. Daria Agrio was young and beautiful. Her hair shimmered with jewels and her robe was woven of a silk so delicate her nipples appeared rosily through the thin fabric. At her side appeared a series of suitors. As each left, he kissed Daria’s pale cheek, picked up the small gold scissors on the table before her and snipped off a lock of hair bearing a jewel or a thread of silk from her robe. Her mother appeared not to notice. In the dream, Ilyria was seated at the far end of the table, unable to move or speak. She watched helplessly as Daria was stripped of her fine robe and all her jewels, her beautiful hair shorn, and still the suitors appeared. One of the suitors finally noticed Ilyria and walked toward her, his smile stretching across his mouth, wider and wider until it see
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The box, hovered above the dazed siren, giving off a low hum. And within the safety of that hum, Ilyria could no longer hear the siren’s voices. It seemed neither could the Mogul. He scratched his head and looked at her, then looked away. Mortified, Ilyria realized she was naked again. She stretched out her hand. “Please may I have some clothes?” The Mogul quickly shed his tunic but kept his pants. His bare chest was thin and sparsely covered with grey hairs, his face thin to the point of emaciation. His skin hung loosely and was tinged with yellow. Ilyria realized with alarm that he looked old and sick. Looking at him now, she realized that he must be the same age her father would have been. Subjected to months of this ordeal, he had suffered. Could he still save Idixat? Was this the man who would restore true justice to her home? Meanwhile the hum had disoriented the sirens who, though they had formed a circle around Mogul and Ilyria, seemed unable
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The monster reached out a nightmarish tendril, twisted and hard and riddled with fungus. The tendril scratched Ilyria under the chin as an overly familiar uncle might and she gagged on the smell of rotten animal flesh. “You don’t look like him at all,” said The Shackled One, “Lucky for you. We hated him for what he did to us.” “Us? There is more than one of you?” “Us,” said The Shackled One, and dark spikes shot out from its body, impaling the Princess and Zlo. A spike missed the Mogul only because Loulou had pushed him out of the way. They stood open-mouthed with dread and fear as the Princess and Zlo twisted and writhed on the spikes, howling in agony, their blood dripping to the ground beneath them. Thassa ran to the frozen pair and pulled them away. Think, Ilyria, what does it want? came Madame Skia’s question. Ilyria tried not to hear the howls of the Princess and her son. She looked around for Madame Skia the darkness was so com
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