Chapter 13: In His Highness\’ Service (2)

Eole was a most pleasant companion during the flight to Telluria; or rather she pretended to be one.

“You cannot believe how happy I am to find someone who can speak my tongue, Your Highness,” she said with a wide smile, her hand holding her steaming teacup. “I thought myself trapped in a foreign land filled with barbarians.”

“Knowing the Kish language is a very rare skill,” Simon said. Of course, his Overlord Class simply helped him automatically understand and speak it in turn. “Only a handful of our citizens have any interest in the Beastmen Tribe.”

“The Beastmen? Is that what your people call us, Your Highness?” Eola sounded saddened. “We call ourselves the Shifter Tribe. A far less demeaning term.”

“I’m…I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Now Simon felt embarrassed. Of course the beastmen wouldn’t refer to themselves as beasts. “I hope I did not come across as insensitive.”

“No harm done. You have shown me more kindness than any of your kindred so far. I will not push my luck.” Eole glanced at the rest of the airship salon, which was deserted. “I am thankful you agreed to let us talk in private. I do not feel comfortable in public spaces, considering the way humans look at me…”

It was difficult to blame her, considering her beauty… and Simon had his own reason to set up this private meeting. This was something of a test of her personality, and while she played the part of the pleasant foreigner happy to interact with someone who could understand her, Simon had spent enough time in a court full of flatterers to smell deceit in the air. He wanted to see the real her, and how far she was willing to go. Leonard and Meredith–who he had been introduced to again when they were about to depart for Telluria–were waiting in the next room over to intervene should anything happen.

“I understand,” he said before springing the bait. “Still, its quite the shame. I’ve heard the Kish were amazing singers.”

“Your Highness is well-educated. We have a strong musical tradition, which I inherited—alongside my Crestone—as my clan’s songstress.” She smiled demurely. “Would Your Highness like to hear me sing??”

“Of course.” Time to see her true self. “I am all ears.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

Eole closed her eyes, gathered her breath, and then sang like no other.

Her voice was like ringing crystals, echoing with a subtle vibration that slowly rose in strength and intensity—notes followed in a slow crescendo that gently carried away the senses towards ecstasy. Listening to Eole was a bliss for the ears, and for a moment, Simon felt truly content.

Unfortunately, he sensed something else layered within the song, a faint caress he could feel grasping at his very soul. A vibration seeking to harmonize with his thoughts and reshape, only to hit the iron wall of the Overlord’s power.

Charm Ailment negated by Indomitable Crown.

Clever girl. Simon pretended to be entranced by Eole’s song until she finished her performance, at which point she dropped her mask of friendliness and revealed her true nature.

“Undo the seal that binds me, manling,” Eole ordered him.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Simon replied, startling her. “Not with that attitude at least.”

Eole glaring back defiantly. Gone were the courtesy and easy smiles, replaced with coldness. “It was worth a try.”

“It was pointless and would have gotten you executed on the spot.” Leonard had predicted she would try something like that the moment he learned she had twelve levels in the Singer Class and suggested gagging her during the flight. Simon would never allow her to be alone unsupervised after confirming that she was willing and able to mind-control others. “I told you: cooperate with me, tell me what I want to know, and you will earn your freedom.”

“Cooperate?” Eole sneered. “Your army enslaved my people; enslaved me. I have seen what your empire does. You burn fields, put chains on necks, make the world a desert, and call it peace. There is no cooperation with the likes of you.”

“I am not responsible for my nation’s actions.”

“But you still contribute to them. Your soul is tainted by evil.”

“Like you have a foot to stand on. Didn’t the Kish enslave their fellow beastmen to build their own empire?”

Eole recoiled as if slapped. That had hit a nerve. “I… that…” She gulped in shame and embarrassment. “That was in the past…”

“Truly?” Simon squinted at her. “You know, I’ve asked a teacher of mine why the Kish were so rare or why they failed to re-establish their empire in the last four hundred years.”

Eole turned away rather than meet his gaze.

“He told me that after the Kish Empire collapsed during the Year of the Doom, other beastmen hunted your kind to near-extinction so you wouldn’t force them back into servitude. In fact, they killed so many of you he was surprised to learn the imperial army had caught a living Kish.” Simon squinted at her. “According to the report, it was the same beastmen you were trying to spur into rebellion who surrendered you to the imperial army.”

“I never used my songs to enslave others,” Eole replied coldly before straightening up in her chair. “My ancestors deserved the Doom, but they are dead and buried. Their empire has crumbled, while yours continues to stand on the backs of my people. I will tell you nothing.”

By the Light, this was going to be difficult. “You realize that I could just force you to answer my questions, right? A single word of mine will cause your slave crest to flare up and inflict tremendous pain on you.”

She held his gaze. “Why haven’t you uttered that word yet, then?”

Now it was Simon’s turn to flinch. She had called his bluff.

“Because I don’t want to… because I don’t torture people,” Simon told himself that, but then again, he thought he would never kill people either and he still executed unarmed prisoners for level-ups. Still, torturing a prisoner of war for information felt like a bridge too far. “And because it’s not that important in the grand scheme of things.”

That took Eole aback. “Not important?”

“I’m not really interested in your people’s treasure, if it even exists,” Simon confessed. “My late father was interested in your old capital for some reason; he called it a ‘Demonbarrow.’ I simply wondered if all those things were related somehow.”

Eole bit her lip, her expression thoughtful.

“They are?” Simon guessed.

“I know of no secret treasure buried in our old capital,” Eole said. Or if she did, she wouldn’t tell him so. “But there is a tale that the first Kish Emperor defeated a great demon in the early days of our people; a vicious hag who would devour Kish children to keep her youth. The emperor lulled her out of her hideout with a song, entranced her with a dance, and then lured her under the sun whose rays burned her to cinders.”

Simon nodded. “Continue…”

“The great Kish Emperor feared that the demon might one day rise again from her ashes, so he scattered them across the valley of his home, buried them beneath the earth, and ordered his people to raise a city on top of them; a land of prosperity whose people’s songs would keep the evil asleep.”

“You speak of your old capital?” Simon quickly put two and two together. “Is that why it is called a Demonbarrow? Because an archfiend was buried beneath its foundations?”

“Your wicked father must have sought the evil power our people’s songs pacified,” Eole replied with disdain. “If so, he died a fool. The Doom woke the foulness beneath our city, and it consumed everything. You will find only death there.”

“I see…” Simon was tempted to believe her. It would fit Balzam Magnos’ ambitions to seek traces of demonic power wherever he could find them. He must have hoped to ransack the old capital for fiendish artifacts or sorcery to use in his conquests. “Thank you for indulging my curiosity.”

“If you are thankful, then release me,” Eole immediately insisted.

“To go where?” Simon replied. “You were arrested for sedition, and the only reason why you haven’t been executed is because you are my property. Your freedom will end with your life under an executioner’s axe if you stay in Endymion, and the beastm—shifters of Telluria do not want you.”

“I… I will go home. To a place your people have not yet despoiled and beyond your reach.” Eole glared at him. “I will not tell you where it is, manling.”

“Whatever.” Simon didn’t particularly care. He was just being a little curious. “I am not entirely sure you have told me the truth, but I am as good as my word, Eole. I shall remove your slave brand once I have confirmed your story.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Words are winds, and only songs have meanings,” Eole replied. Simon guessed it had to be some sort of Kish proverb. “Remember your promise.”

Since interrogating Eole went so well, the first thing Simon did upon arriving in Telluria was to give his other new recruit a job interview in the carriage to the Academy. Unfortunately, everything he had heard about the man made Simon wary of him.

“I’ve heard you have a wife and child at home?” Simon asked Lorimor.

“I do, Your Highness. My son Benjamin celebrated his first naming day two months back.” The man smiled wistfully, which chilled Simon to the bone. “Would you permit me to send them letters? Those I wrote in prison were never delivered.”

“They were delivered, you just never received any replies.” Which Simon couldn’t exactly blame Lorimor’s wife for, according to what he read on the man. “If you care so much for your son, why did you do it?”

“Do what, Your Highness?”

“Try to sacrifice your child to a fiend.”

Simon would have expected Lorimor to wince or tremble at such an accusation, or to at least react with outrage. Instead, the hints of instability Simon had picked upon earlier blossomed like poisonous flowers.

“I did not try to sacrifice a life, I was saving one,” he insisted, his eyes gleaming with madness. “My muse had lost interest in her current vessel, you understand, Your Highness? It was old and spent, Your Highness, old and spent. Her beauty couldn’t shine through the wrinkles and rot. She was in pain, Your Highness, but even an unworthy vessel is better than none, because the Dark… the Dark is hungry, your Highness. It keeps the soul from passing on and reincarnating, gnawing at it with vicious teeth.”

There was something deeply unsettling about the feverish zeal in his gaze, his look of contentment, and the way his fingers trembled in adoration for whatever creature had seduced him. Few worshipers of the Light showed half as much sincerity.

“She had chosen him, Your Highness,” he said without raising his voice. “Chosen my Benjamin to become her new vessel, to share her soul with his flesh. How could I have refused after she showed me so many wonderful secrets? She would have given my son the wisdom of the ages. How could I have refused?”

Simon shifted in his seat and glanced at his retainers. While Eole seemed merely uncomfortable in Lorimor’s presence and Firewand showed no emotion, Meredith stared at the man with undiluted disgust. As for Leonard, he kept his hand on his sword’s grip, ready to cut Lorimor down the second he threatened his charge.