The Wings of Ashtaroth

Bonus Chapter III: Meriatu

Meriatu: Lera: Indas

Luqiferus Murinus Darcia was the handsomest idiot on the southern shore.

As Meri hung back from the throne everyone was supposed to pretend they didn't know was a throne, listening to that bore of a Lora general—Aelifus Murinus Manchiris—drone on and on about the relative depth and texture of the gravel in his training yards and why he needed a truly preposterous increase in funds to purchase more of it—she amused herself by mentally tracing the lines of Luqiferus's face and trying to decide if he'd be a good kisser.

Not that she wanted to kiss him. At forty-something, he was half her age for one thing, and then there was the aforementioned idiocy. Idiocy in a man was almost as unattractive as nose hair—something Meri's husband had learned the hard way.

Standing in the shadows beyond the steps leading up to Luqiferus's throne that supposedly wasn't one, she strained her neck, assessing Aelifus's face from the side.

He had quite a lot of nose hairs.

Perhaps Meri should try and count them.

"—Iti's last measurement suggests an ideal ratio of half a qontol to seven dreybals of granite, with a maximum depth of fifty-seven point eight djetla—"

Just how he could rattle off such numbers with no papyrus to keep track of it all was a wonder. Nearly as much of one, in fact, as the miracle that anyone in the room was still awake half an hour into his speech.

Some people were still awake anyway. Luqiferus's vizier, the albino Qarnaaman Felix eq-Afqad, was leaning at such a terrific angle against the pillar nearest the throne that Meri was growing concerned he might collapse and roll down the steps to land at her feet. If he did, maybe he'd break something and Luqiferus would finally have to appoint someone who could be bothered to do his job.

On the throne, Luqiferus—cropped yellow hair glimmering beneath the rays piercing the throne room's skylight—lifted a muscular finger (Meri assumed it was muscular because every part of Luqiferus's body was muscular) and leaned forward with such a delightfully stupid expression on his face—lips puckered in a sort of oh—that Meri at last decided once and for all:

no, Luqiferus was probably not a good kisser.

Finally noticing the governor's ichthyoid expression, Aelifus stopped speaking in the middle of an exceptionally arresting decimal point.

Truly a tragedy for pedants everywhere.

"Stop." Luqiferus turned to Felix, brow furrowed with an expression that on anyone else would have suggested the profound contemplation of life's mysteries but which on Luqiferus usually communicated that he was about to ask for a salad. "What's a cuntwall?"

Meri snorted, just managing to cover her mouth with the long, drooping sleeve of what had once been her husband Hemet's ceremonial robe.

Aelifus turned toward her and glared, nose hairs all but quivering as his nostrils flared. He looked something like a cross between an owl and a bleached-white mushroom. Meri could only hope for his sake that when he turned back to face Luqiferus he'd quieted his expression somewhat.

Beside her, the Loran Qristos—sometime court musician, sometime scribe—gave her a nudge with his lute. "Careful. The word is the old Aelf's in a terrible mood today. If you don't play nice he might request a private audience. The heq-Ashqen's wife probably has a lot to contribute on the topic of gravel density."

Damn Qristos. Meri had to stifle another snort.

"Qontol, Heron," Aelifus clarified, with about as much deference as a hippopotamus gave to the leg he was about to munch on. It was followed by the exasperation of the same hippopotamus when he realized the leg was made of wood: "it's a measurement. Using numbers."