Chapter 8 – Part 14

“And tell me,” hissed the slithering thing. “Tell me exactly, tell me precisely, tell me and tell me why I should do as you say?”

The rakshasa rajah wrinkled his nose, disgusted with the slime that dripped to the cavern floor. “Aside from the fact that I could kill you and cook you until you were edible?” it sneered. Behind him, the three zakya attendants lifted their pikes and licked their fangs in anticipation. “What’s your alternative, staying here and worshipping this tomb?”

The slithering thing uncoiled itself, showing its great length and snapping its many miniscule claws that lined its sides. “Not a tomb. The Great One only sleeps. The fiends will arise.” It drew out the last syllable in a loving way as it rubbed the top of the calcified corpse lovingly. It had been a Balor magician, many millennia ago.

The rajah gritted his teeth. “There was a time the fiends were united, would you cast aside plots worked for so easily?”

The slithering thing turned twice, and focused three red eyes on the tiger-thing. “Your plots have done what? Stirred up lesser races into killing themselves for a few score years? Have you expanded our boundaries?” The fiend’s voice lowered several octaves as it went into a mocking laugh. “You can’t even keep Ashtakala free from intruders.”

“We’ll find those responsible for –”

“Who cares?” boomed the slithering thing. The zakyas readied for an attack, but the slithering thing did not try to breach the rajah’s personal barriers. “You’ll find where the petty races are hiding? Kill a few to get our respect back? Who cares? The larger picture escapes you! You get lost in the little races, and you have become little yourself! The intruders would not have even gotten in without the dragon’s feint!”

The rajah forced himself to regain his composure. “We have no lost sight of the greater issues.”

The slithering thing turned itself upside down in mockery. “Then why are you looking for my subservience? Not three centuries ago you said you didn’t need me.” It leered. “I know what the others have told you. You’re losing this fragile unity. Accept that. We were never meant to be unified.”

The rajah was silent, and then after a long pause he spoke. “Too many think like you, preferring to worship old glories, rather than look ahead. If we don’t keep prodding the little races in their war, they may end it from weariness. And if that happens, the dragons will be far less busy.”

“That you think the dragons care about the little ones shows how out of touch you are,” the slithering thing snorted. “The rakshasa grip slipped long ago. That Ashtakala was violated only proves to us all what we knew. Catch the intruders if you like, if they are indeed still alive. It will have proven nothing except that you act too late.” The slithering thing turned to caress the calcified corpse. “We have nothing further to discuss.”

The rajah considered killing this thing, he could, if he had to. But he might lose one of the zakyas, and he would need every one. Already the rajahs we infighting, no one trusting another since the discovery that one of them had found the place where the coutal’s ghost had been and kept it to himself.

In the past few months, the fragile unity of the fiends had been shattered, thanks to whoever assisted the intruders who escaped on the Crimson Ship. That burned the rajah’s heart. Centuries of planning, ruined!

But what burned more was the knowledge that this lesser one was also correct, in a fashion. Catching the intruders now, if they were indeed alive, would prove nothing. First he had to rebuild his own standing.

And aside from needing all of his zakya, he may one day need this one.

“We will have what to discuss in the future,” the rajah promised. “For now, I leave you.”

He snarled as he teleported away with his retinue, but the slithering thing, if it even noticed, did not care.