Dominick's Heart

Part II

Gasconi was not a man accustomed to abasing himself. But he considered any audience granted him by...Her Grace...to be an exception. He knelt at the foot of the stone dais, feigning humility as she entered the small audience chamber and seated herself upon the elevated, cushioned seat. Of course, she knew that the humility was an act; she had the singular ability to see straight through all of his guises, all of his feints. And that was the reason that he was willing to play the game with her in the first place.

"Oh, do rise, Gasconi," she said in a voice overlaid with sickening cordiality. "While I do find your submissive posturing to be most entertaining, it only whets my appetite for the genuine article on days such as this."

Clearing his throat, he stood, and although he berated himself soundly, he could not quite bring himself to stand eye to eye with her. He averted his gaze by pretending to be distracted by her idly playing with the marble statuette of a black dragon on the table beside her. The entire chamber was decorated in a subtle draconic theme: figurines of blacks and blues, tapestries with hidden reds, rugs bordered in whites. Never let it be said that the lady didn't have a sense of humor.

"You have located the item?" She tried to squelch the hungry look in her almond shaped eyes, but he caught it nonetheless.

He played it cool, hoping that his nonchalant act would seem to her to be a veneer overlaying nervousness, or perhaps fear. He struggled to keep his mind free of his agenda, knowing that she could pluck it from his thoughts like a cat plucking a mouse from a hole, or...well, like a dragon snatching a hapless sheep from a country hillside. "Aye," he nodded. "I should be able to procure it by the end of the week."

She checked herself as she began to slide forward in her seat. The hungry look was back, and this time she didn't squelch it. It chilled him to the bone.

"Very well, then." She was not in a talkative mood today, he sighed in relief as she slid from the chair with an almost reptilian grace and stalked from the chamber. A shudder wracked his body as he tried to imagine - or rather, not to imagine - what could possibly worry her to the point of unsociability.

Sliding into the darkened chamber - no more than a black velvet-lined dressing room, really, hidden in the depths of her private apartments, ensorcelled against intrusion by a powerful geas which would render the trespasser utterly insane - she sank to her bare knees and bowed her head low. The close walks of the chamber pressed in upon her, and she was filled, as always, with a sudden panic; she felt trapped, buried in this tiny, fragile skin, this miniscule chamber. But she focused upon the task at hand, and so was once again fully in control of her faculties by the time the cold came. It opened upon the chamber all at once, the weatherless cold of the Void Beyond, in a death-wish kiss which strained her endurance to the break-point. Closing her eyes, she allowed His dark majesty to break over her like a wave of grave air and the screams of the damned.

My plans unfold as was foreseen?

"Yes, Lord," she answered in a shuddering whisper. Even now, she could not bear to be within even a portion of His presence without feeling fear, and yet desiring nothing more but to worship at His feet, so great was His evil. "My agent shall have the stone by the time of the alignment."

She felt the nod of cold approval. With it, you shall draw forth the Corrupter. You will lead him to the Chamber of the Spheres, where he shall ensure that the Radiance is corrupted once again. Entropy shall rise again. The words echoed in her mind with the furious rasp of bone on bone.

And then, suddenly, the presence was gone.

Gasconi kept the curtains of his gondola drawn on the journey from the mansion to his own, more modest townhouse. He was nearly home by the time he allowed himself to relax enough for his suppressed thoughts to surface once again. His gondolier must have thought he was mad, chuckling to himself in the depths of the curtained boat. But he could not help it, thinking of the Princess's earnestness, her thinly disguised hunger for the gem.

"For my lady," he cackled, "you have been outbid."

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII