Meanwhile...
**
Enitharmon, tomorrow is the meeting with Enitharmon, was the first thing that she thought.
Before slipping back into unconsciousness.
Only a moment seemed to pass before her eyes opened. She was surrounded by a living, viscous fluid which seemed to penetrate her mouth, and stomach and lungs. She panicked, and struggled wildly before sitting bolt upright, gasping for air. She coughed and vomited for what seemed like an aeon, breathing desperately, trying to empty herself of the foul tasting lavage.
When she finally gained her equilibrium and opened her eyes, a nightmarish scene greeted her. Gross, contorted body parts hung around her, and blood dripped incessantly from a sagging ceiling above her head. A dull, red glow filled the place, and the walls rippled as though they were made of liquid.
Feezuu relaxed. She was home.
As she pulled herself out of the ghoulish bath, she wondered how long she had been dead. She stood for a moment, naked and covered in fetid slime, before walking across the pulsing floor to a tall cabinet, carved from the femur of some terrible beast. Upon it was engraved a rune of death. She spoke a single word.
The door opened. The space beyond was empty.
Feezuu cursed silently. Her robe, gone. Her weapons also. And her belt. The fact that she was not surprised made her no less angry.
Taking a moment to reflect upon her own consciousness, she observed that her highest valences were diminished, and her psyche was empty of magic.
She seethed insanely before finally regaining her composure.
Mustering her will, the Cambion reached down and sank her hands into the floor at the base of the cabinet. Blood, warm and vital, embraced her forearms. She smiled grimly and groped for a moment before her fist closed around a handle. Tugging hard, she pulled a small iron case up through the liquid floor, dragging blood with it which splashed over her. The surface ebbed strangely for a while, before resuming its pseudo-solid state.
Feezuu opened the case, and gazed inside. She pulled a neatly folded robe out, woven from a material that was darker than black, and drew it around herself. At the bottom of the case were several scroll tubes, vials, and a single spellbook which contained her most useful dweomers. Also, there was a glass tube of curious design. Inside it, within tiny cells, motes flickered about restlessly. Larvae that had been morphed for easy transportation.
As she placed the contents within the hidden pockets of her robe, a shadow fell upon her from behind.
She turned to see her cohort, the slaad called Khrgz standing there. His vast, bluish form obscured the doorway. He was flanked by a group of eight of his lesser kin.
Feezuu snarled. "How dare you! Depart at once."
Khrgz smiled, displaying a maw full of sharp teeth. "You are weak, Feezuu," he said.
Not that weak, she thought. Her innate nature still counted for something.
A wave of Necromantic power emanated from her, desiccating three of the red slaadi, but failing to overcome Khrgz.
Another blue slaad materialized. And then two more reds.
As they closed upon her, the Cambion swore. Even if she summoned a demon, she could not stop them from ripping her to shreds. She quickly pulled a scroll from her robe, even as their claws rent her and their teeth sank into her. She spoke four words and vanished.
She aimed for the city of Jashat in the Thalassine, but instead arrived four hundred miles to the south in the deserts of Shûth. The Prime Plane was dull, but safe, she thought. She began to walk northwards across the arid erg.
She stopped before dusk on a platform of rock, in the lee of a tall pinnacle of desert stone, worn into strange shapes by the passage of wind and sand over countless years. She sat, and meditated.
When she emerged from her reverie, the stars had kindled in the sky and the moon was rising in the east. The air was windless. Taking her book from its velvet sheath, Feezuu pored over it, and the moonlight illuminated the dweomers on the pages. So few, so few. And even some of these were denied to her. Word would soon spread of her ousting from her stronghold, and no doubt a Death Slaad would seize its opportunity and take control. They resented her as much as she despised them.
She silently cursed whoever was responsible for her current predicament, and vowed revenge.
Feezuu cleared the area of debris, until a circle perhaps eight feet across was made on the rock shelf, sweeping it with a sprig of gorse pulled from a desert shrub. She carefully inscribed a diagram, and with a spell, anchored it. She began to pace around the periphery, incanting fiercely, until her voice reached a screaming climax.
Fire erupted in the diagram as an equine shape manifested itself. Its hooves and mane kindled, and smoke billowed from its nostrils. It thrashed wildly in an attempt to escape. The Cambion smiled.
"I am Feezuu," she said. "You will serve me. I will show you more death and madness than you dreamed was possible."
**
The next morning, riding the nightmare, she descended on a desert caravan. Before slaying the merchants, she learned that nearly nine months had passed. She loaded a bag full of gold, silks and spices, and continued northwards.
Nine months!
She wondered if Ainhorr had betrayed her after the embassy with the Celestials. Why were they due to parley, she wondered. The Balor had told her little, but had instructed her to prepare to translate to the Prime after the meeting.
Graz’zt had been angry. She shivered. Rurunoth had disappeared – the rumour was that he was slain or ensnared.
Nehael. It all had something to do with Nehael. She had been commanded to seduce a paladin. Something had gone wrong.
