Fire Angels

Chapter 25 Part 2 Wedding Day

Her memory was improving. When she awoke the next morning to see him standing at the end of her bed, she remembered all his talk about wedding days. She tried to run away. She hated this Stalker. She didn't want to be in any kind of marriage with him.

The room was full of invisible hands which stopped her and arrayed her in a red dress which was cut low at the front, though it did cover her breasts. It was slit in several places in the skirt however, so that her legs were displayed. As she struggled with the invisible hands feeling desperate and trapped, five creatures like humans, but with fangs, seated majestically on thrones, looked out from the mirror laughing. It was the stone beasts in bodies of flesh. She longed for the calm of past days.

Outside in the hallway stood Zorzar and five of the cruel-faced men in black she had seen whipping the slaves outside. She tried to run back into the room when she saw them, but Stalker caught her and pushed her along before him and the men formed into a guard on either side.

She had a very bad feeling, which turned to terror when she saw that they had come to the hall of pillars. She threw herself against the nearest man and tried to break through the cordon of them, but all that happened was that they caught her, several people stood hard on her bare feet and Zorzar twisted her arm painfully behind her back. She was not sure why she was so afraid, but she could see her fear gave them great pleasure and she promised herself that she would try not to show it any more.

They took her to a pair of thrones on a dais at the end of the room of pillars and seated her forcefully in one of them. A little way off through the pillars she could see the other dais, the one with the altar on it. She saw that it was empty and the sight made her feel obscurely comforted.

Escape was still in her mind, but the black-clad guards had arrayed themselves all around the dais and it would not be easy. So she bided her time. Stalker sat down beside her. Like her, he wore a red robe, though his covered more of his body. He took her hand. She snatched it away, giving him another chance for laughter.

He pinched her cheek.

"Why so cross? A woman should be happy on her wedding day."

He paused as if expecting the obvious retort, so she did not make it.

He went on, "You need not be so afraid. I will not hurt you today of all days."

He looked very sincere as he said this, but she could not bring herself to believe him. She tried to seem calm, though the fear sat like blackness in her mind and would not let itself be forgotten.

Behind them the arched windows let in a hard grey light. There was a statue crouched beside her throne - a huge statue of a giant toad. Its grotesquely long thin legs were almost level with its face and the long splayed fingers on its skinny arms rested on the ground before it. Its mouth was a huge full lipped grin. Its eyes glowed red. With a grinding sound its head turned and it leered at her. She looked away quickly.

"For your pleasure, my dear Queen, I have arranged some entertainment," said Stalker. "Bring them in," he shouted.

The stone beast gave a rumbling growl and the huge iron doors at the other end of the room swung open.

A large group of people scuttled in like a swarm of fugitive beetles.

"More of your subjects, my Queen," said Stalker with such a revolting look of satisfaction that she felt like hitting him.

The newcomers wore bright peasant costumes of red and blue, all embroidered with leaves and circles and flowers. That was all that was cheerful about them. They were walking skeletons; their skins grey and covered in sores, their hair shaved. She remembered the people laboring in that quarry the previous night. Where these the same ones? Had they been up all night only to be brought here? She felt certain something horrible was going to happen. She thought that the people did too.