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Lorm/Shaav/Nerassh'tan	     tuff@ellis.uchicago.edu	  [ F I C T I O N ]


                . . . A n d  S o  D o  D e m o n s  C o m e . . .

			        - geoff tuffli -

	The Dragon Empress kneeled on the floor, exhausted, sweat
pouring down her face. Her face was smudged with dirt and dried blood,
staining the pure white kutari with a stylized golden dragon
emblazoned upon the front, its serpantine tail wrapping sinuously
around the long-sleeved tunic. Two of the Imperial Guard exchanged a
worried glance, quickly stopped my their charge.
	"Stop it," Meia Dubogula, Tarnil of the Ohs Empire, growled.
	"Stop what, Tarnil?" the Captain of the Guard asked politely.
	"That damned worry that you have scrawled so blantantly
upon your faces!" she snarled, looking up, her hand tightening around
the hilt of her sword, its notched steel glaring in the harsh light of
the throne room.
	Her face grimacing into an expression of pain, Meia hauled
herself to her feet, her knuckles white from gripping the hilt of her
blade. One of the guards moved to help her, but his companion held him
back, shaking his head slightly, his lips formed into a silent "No".
Meia wiped her brow, her features caught briefly in a forlorn, lost
look, more suitable to a little girl than to that of arguably the most
powerful individual in the world.
	Outside, dimly, the sounds of battle wafted through the gilded
halls and corridors of the Imperial Palace, as the creatures of
madness sent by the Inielese, how she cursed that name now, even more
than she did when she assumed the throne at her sister's death, roared
and gibbered, assaulted the very palace itself, the center of all her
supposed power.
	Meia laughed bitterly, the sound echoing in the vastness of
the hall within which she stood. Power, indeed, she thought. Power
over what? A ragged band of soldiers whose fearful gazes flinched at
the sounds of the carnage outside, at every scream, at every piercing
wail?
	The woman motioned irritably to a terrified servant, who
rushed over with a finely-hammered steel breastplate, a dragon worked
into its face in solid gold. Biting her lip to suppress a cry of pain,
she slid the armor on, her mailed fist knocking the servant aside when
the terrified shaking of his hands fumbled too long at the straps.
	From one corner of the room, a noble of her own House, his
fine clothes now ripped and torn, a stained sword slung naked at his
side, nodded gravely once to a sentry who had entered the vast
chamber. The man placed his hand on the sentry's shoulder and spoke
briefly with her, the empty phrases that were designed to be
encouraging only serving to further emphasize the peril within which
they all lay, but nonetheless giving something to focus on. He turned
and began to walk over to the Empress.
	Meia closed her eyes, listening as the alien cadence of his
approaching footsteps and the eerie shrieking outside merged into a
song that she felt drawn to in its deathly embrace. The footsteps grew
closer, then stopped. Eyes still shut against the pain of her failure,
she heard the rustle of cloth as the man bowed.
	"Tarnil. We have news," he said, his voice still proud even in
defeat.
	"Call me by my name, Moreaik," she whispered.
	His eyes softened slightly. "Meia," he said gently, "Meia
then."
	Meia opened her eyes and looked into his. Her gaze was dead,
abandoned of any hope. Moreaik felt a cold shiver run through his body
as he gazed back into those dead eyes.
	"We have lost, haven't we?" Meia asked, her body taut with
something akin to rage and despair and utter hopelessness that reached
to the bottom of her soul.
	Moreaik sighed. Finally, he nodded once. "Yes, Meia. There is
no hope."
	"Say it to me so that I cannot escape the truth anymore. Say
it!"
	The man's expression turned grim. "We have lost," he said
tightly, his features turning proud even in defeat. "But we are of the
House of the Dragon, are we not? We shall fight, even though the end
means our deaths."
	"We shall fight, and we shall die."
	Moreaik straightened. "If necessary, we shall die. Death is as
nothing, it is the Deceiver."
	Meia laughed shortly, an empty sound devoid of humor. "So
brave, my dear cousin, so brave," she mocked him softly. "Will you
fall back so easily upon quotes from the Book of Names? 'Death is as
nothing, it is the Deceiver', indeed! Death IS everything, my cousin."
Meia shook her head. "I had thought to make them pay, these Inielese
dogs, for the humiliation we suffered at their dirtied, polluted
hands."
	Moreaik drew himself up, his face proud. "And so they shall!"
	Meia's lips quirked into a slight smile. "They have won this
battle, my cousin. They shall keep their pitiful swamps and jungles.
Now we must think of the Empire."
	The man's nostrils flared. "We can not give in to their
presumtuous demands!" he said through clenched teeth.
	The Dragon Empress raised her voice. "You! Come here!" she
called out to a warrior standing near her. The woman bowed and moved
quickly over to her. Meia sneered slightly as the woman stumbled,
flushing.
	"Cut the straps of my breastplate," she ordered.
	The woman's eyes widened. "Do it now!" Meia barked. The woman
lifted her sword from its sheath and pushed the blade carefully
underneath the belt strap. She jerked up and back, and in one slick
motion the strap lay split. Again, the woman raised her sword, and cut
the strap on her Empress' shoulders.
	The breastplate clanged to the floor as Meia drew herself
proudly up. "Witness!" she cried hoarsely. "Witness how I serve the
Empire!" The members of the Imperial Guard remaining quickly formed
themselves into ranks beside and behind her, leaving a wide space
empty about her a dozen paces wide.
	Meia Dubogula turned to face the half-statue of Taeis
Dubogula, founder of the Empire as it was placed above the huge gilded
double doors. Slowly the tired woman raised her sword in a salute, her
wrist shaking slightly from exhaustion. "I do this for the Empire,"
she said aloud, speaking as to one long dead.
	Closing her eyes, she reversed her sword and placed the tip to
her own throat. Swallowing once, her heart fluttering madly like a
caged bird, she opened her tear-choked eyes and, still staring at the
image of Taeis Dubogula, she jerked the sword once through her throat.
For a moment she stood there, imprinted against time, blade poking
through the back of her neck, her body swaying back and forth, her
eyes clouded and empty, her mouth caught in an ugly grimace.
	Then the moment was over, and she fell, her body slumping on
the floor of the throne room, her blood spilling out upon the fine
marble stones of the vast room. Silence but for the howls of glee
outside reigned supreme in the void left by the death of a Tarnil, and
for a moment, no one in the room moved.
	Moreaik pursed his lips, then tossed his head to two of the
guards. "Pick up the body." Without waiting for their reply, he
marched firmly to the doors of the throne room. He nodded once to the
soldiers standing guard there, and slowly, the doors were opened.
Behind him, the two guards dragged the body forward.
	As the doors opened, a stooped creature, its grey hide fluted
with grooves and a blueish fuzz more like a flies than any normal
creature's reared up on its hind legs, its lidless yellow eyes staring
out in deathly silence to Moreaik. A dozen huge wolf-hounds with
bruning eyes and faces choked with madness paced restlessly behind the
creature.
	With a disgusted look at the demon, Moreaik motioned to the
guards who had carried the body of the Tarnil with them. They tossed
the body in a pile in front of the creature, the Tarnil's limbs
flaying wildly about like a marionette's. The creature looked slowly
down at the form, then looked back up at Moreaik.
	"We accept your terms. We will cease our...predations..upon
Iniel." He spat on the ground, glaring at the thing, Moreaik's face
showing louder than words the distaste for the words he uttered.
	The thing watched him, unblinkingly for a long moment, glanced
once at the corpse, then vanished. The wolf-hounds behind howled as
one, then were simply gone.
	Moreaik looked once at the body of his cousin and sneered
contemptuously. "For the Empire," he quoted her final words. "For the
Empire." He turned, shaking his head in disgust, and marched back into
the throne room.