From Agony and Ecstasy
Ai-kan Fen Jul was not inclined to kneel before anyone. Warrior, mage, warlord, emperor, he had swept across half the continent in just five years. Some fought the encroachment of his armies. Others welcomed the order he brought, unifying dozens of petty, squabbling groups barely big enough to be called countries, never mind kingdoms. The emperor had defeated hundreds of would-be champions in personal combat, whether by sword or by spell, and his keen mind crafted strict but just laws, which he enforced for ranks both high and low. He bowed to no one.
No one, except the Sybil.
There were many women more beautiful than her in the world. Her face was plain, her eyes a muddy hazel, her waist-length hair an ordinary shade of brown. Her lips were thin, her nose hooked, her figure slim, somewhat short, and not as curvaceous as was fashionable.
Indeed, the Sybil could have vanished into any crowd, been overlooked for many reason, save for the most important of all. The Sybil was a Seer, a divine mouthpiece of the Gods. Ai-kan, leader of the growing nation of Ai-ar, had been consulting her since the second year of his path for conquest, seeking her counsel after a rough series of setbacks.
Her tent was the only place where his bodyguards did not accompany him. The only place where he did not wear his blades. And the only place where he did not use his spells, save at her command.
Here, in the heart of the Sybil’s quarters, the only guards allowed were the sybekoi, warrior-women with shaved heads and kohl-painted eyes. The only weapons he ever touched were ones meant for discipline, not death…and the only spells used, aside from silencing runes he himself applied to the walls of her tent, were the chains of obedience she had gradually woven around him, body and mind.
“If I am to give you what you want,” the Sybil had murmured to him at their very first meeting, “you must first let me give you what you need…”
He needed. Ai-kan hadn’t know just how much he truly needed what she gave him, but he did need it just as much as he needed her prophecies.
His boiled leather armor had been set aside for this visit to her tent. If he visited her while in armor, and he often did, he would get sound governing advice from her, for she was as sharp in her wit as any of his blades, and knew how to handle people. But he would not get a prophecy.
For this visit, he donned the brocaded linen robe she had given him after he had convinced her to leave her citadel and join him on his campaigns. Dyed in shades of blue and purple, it matched the purple-dyed sandals on his feet, his only other covering. Freshly bathed, his face shaved and his hair pulled back in a braid, he dismissed his guards and approached her tent. Whatever his men thought when he went to see her did not matter to Ai-kan. Whatever happened between him and the Sybil was strictly between the two of them.
The sybekoi guarding the entrance to her quarters came to attention when they spotted his approach. They also crossed their halberds in front of him, stout oak shafts supporting expensive iron blades. Iron was rare and costly, and the process to craft it a closely guarded secret, but he had outfitted half of his army with short iron swords by now. Mainly because the sybekoi already possessed them, and had shown his men during his initial visit to her citadel that the new metal, while heavy, was far superior to the bronze blades most everyone else owned.
Stopping, he waited while one murmured through the tent wall, announcing his presence. A reply came back, and the halberds uncrossed. Ai-kan slipped between the oiled canvas folds of the entrance. Beyond, the front tent of her private compound was nothing more than a receiving area. Rugs and furs covered the ground, scattered with cushions and low tables, gifts from those who had received her blessings and foresight as a Seer of the Gods.
More sybekoi served here, two women who may have been dressed in soft linen robes and jewelry, but whose muscles and bare heads warned all visitors that they were not the typical, soft, pampered girls normally picked to serve guests with refreshments. One glance at him and they went back to the game they were playing on one of the low tables. They knew that he knew his way to her inner quarters. Approaching without weapons as he did, they did not need to escort him into her presence.
The Sybil did not, she had reassured him early on, give prophecies in the same way to others as she did to him. Rather, they were tailored to a particular person’s needs. The little grass courtyard beyond the first tent was often used for such moments with other visitors, if the front chamber did not suffice.
A statue of Talwah, Goddess of Compassion and Need, stood on a wheeled base surrounded by a pair of benches and various plants in pots, including a pair of small trees. Together, they formed a portable garden, a peaceful refuge from the rougher world of his war camp. They were a pain to transport, but Ai-kan valued the Sybil’s presence more than the trouble of hauling bushes and benches from place to place. Given that the Sybil sometimes gave foresight readings for his warriors as well for himself, they didn’t complain too much about having to move her garden each time they settled in a new camp.