Book 6: Chapter 16 - The End of the Promise (RAW)

A wise thief wishes the rich merchant prosperity.

- Unknown.

In this vaulted hall of mirrored pools and flowing fountains, every syllable I uttered landed with the certainty of a mountainfall; each pronouncement rang out like fresh‑forged prophecy from upon high. The final word had barely left my lips before the court fractured. Robed dignitaries scattered in a riot of color—silks snapping behind them, jewels clinking—an exodus as frantic as rats abandoning a holed galley.

Power needs no fanfare; its presence alone is declaration enough.

Encased in invincible Adamantium, I fixed my gaze on the men who held their blades at Eleonora’s throat. Their weapons quivered. They glanced at Sultana Aelayah, only to see their own fear reflected in her eyes—one silent heartbeat, and their resolve shattered. They fled after the peacocks already in flight, boots slipping across blue marble in their haste.

Laughter spilled from me—high, sharp, and unrestrained— ricocheting off stone and mingling with the crystalline song of fountains. Beside me, Larynda’s features remained carved from iron, yet her knuckles whitened around her stave, bracing against the storm I summoned with my voice.

“Ah, Aelayah,” I called across the hush that followed the stampede, each word echoing through spray‑cooled air, “you should have waited a little longer. This move of yours was disastrously premature.”

She bared her teeth, beautiful white pearls set in a mask of fury, having played every card in her gilded deck. Women, I mused, too often bet on intrigue and allure; when faced with raw violence, even the proudest flower is forced to bend. The flash of panic lighting her eyes tasted sweet, and sweeter still the iron discipline with which she forced it down, arranging calm upon her features like a mask cut from marble.

“Go, Elenora. Find your daughter, and good fortune to you both,” I ordered, not taking my eyes off the traitorous snake on the throne.

“I will not forget this,” the blonde woman answered, giving Aelayah one last hate-filled look before she fled.

“Well then, Aelayah the First,” I intoned, letting each word fall with the weight of a falling hammer, “have you forgotten who seated you on that throne? Without me, you and the Salahaem would be curs yapping at the heels of the other Greater Holder Houses, destined to wither into dust. Now…” I leaned forward, voice dropping to a deadly hush, “...before my patience deserts me, answer. How will you reap the whirlwind you have sown? And know this: only the fact that you are of weaker sex stays my hand for the moment.”

“Gil…” Larynda’s warning hiss curled at my ear.

Aelayah’s laugh floated back, brittle yet defiantly melodic. “You believe I need only strike at you?” She reclined, resting her chin upon slender fingers, eyes bright with dangerous amusement. 

Damn her, for all this, she was still ravishing. The daring cut of her clothes did not invite lust so much as trumpet power, broadcasting that she alone set the rules here. It was to flaunt her power and challenge censure.

“What game do you play?” I demanded, dread coiling tight in my gut.

Aelayah delivered her demands as if she were ordering breakfast. “I want you gone, Gilgamesh. Gone from this city. We do not need the likes of you anymore. You will bring only death and destruction. I have seen it. I will spare Al-Lazar that fate.”

Her smile gained a razor’s edge. “The little inn. Those people. My eyes and ears report you are… uncommonly fond of them. That you have done much for them.” She let the words drift like poison in the air. “And that pet donkey of yours—Patches, is it?—you dote on the wretched beast. Why, I have heard that… you positively feel something close to love. As close to love as you can feel with that black thing that you call a heart.” Contempt dripped from every syllable. “I have seen you, Gilgamesh, seen the real you, when you ‘blessed’ me.”

“Aelayah…” My reply rasped through clenched teeth. “You toy with a fire too great for your control. You will burn for this.”

She tilted her head, unconcerned. “If misfortune were to befall them, would that not be… tragic? Though I am sure, a man such as you is no stranger to loss and tragedy.” Her voice became almost conversational. “Even now, my men await the signal—regardless of what happens here.”

Anger roared inside me. Why restrain it? In the next breath, I triggered Improved Dash, crossing the marble in an instant. My shadow seemed to swallow her throne, yet only a tremor at her lips betrayed her fear.

“Orders stand even if I fall,” she whispered, refusing to flinch.

“Gilgamesh, please! Stop!” Larynda pleaded. “Naira, Laman—everyone at the Begonia’s Shade—they’ll be hurt! Let’s leave now. She only wants us to go away, gone, so she can keep playing at queen.”

The young mage’s words did not reach my heart and I never took my eyes off Aelayah. “You misjudge me, Sultana. I owe those people little. I dare you…” My laughter cracked the tense air.

Then, turning to Larynda, I added coldly, “But, what pray tell… what stays her hand once we depart? What curbs the spite of this harlot with the memory of a gnat? The powerful are never forget that which owed to them, but swift to forget what they owe.”

Aelayah’s next words slid out soft as a kiss. “If you care not for them, perhaps you will for the life I carry.” She drew a weapon, and now a small knife glinted as she pointed it toward her own belly.

“What—?” The ground seemed to tilt.

“Did you believe your repeated violations would leave no mark?” she hissed, venom trembling in her throat. “You underestimate yourself, Gilgamesh. A woman never forgets.”

Larynda stared at me, horror widening her eyes.

“Lies,” I snarled, shaking my head. “Desperate fabrications. I would never dishonor a woman so, vile though she be.”

Yet doubt tugged in my mind—those times, the Salahaem’s demands. I felt the certainty I wore like armor crack. Perhaps the woman had a point.

“Ha!” Aelayah’s laugh was shards of broken glass. “Now it is you who misunderstands hatred, First Tamkar of Al-Lazar. The memory of you rutting like a beast still fouls my dreams, even now. I would burn the world—and myself—just to wound you. Just to spite you.”

Her blade hovered, a single silver promise suspended between life and damnation, while the fountains sang a mocking serenade around us.

“Do it,” I said, my lips curling in a smile. “You know nothing of hate.”

“We know it well enough!” Aelayah shot back.

“Gilgamesh!” Larynda cried, running up to me and pulling my arm. “Let’s just go… I hate this place. This place is making you bad. Please. Let’s just go… or I won’t help you anymore.”

I looked down at my ward, saw the determination in her eyes. She wanted out of this den of corruption and greed. Truly, I could not blame her for this. Al-Lazar had made villains of us despite our just and righteous cause.

“You will continue to help me with my quest, Larynda. And let this time be the last you blackmail me so. I have given you so much, never asking for anything in return. Never giving conditions that must be met,” I demanded in turn, my heart growing weary with defeat. Her words were more powerful than a dagger to my back.

Powerful because her words were the only thing that could stay my hand.

“It seems you have the advantage of me, Aelayah,” I said, almost spitting with frustrated rage. “I will leave you. Leave you with a victory hard won. But should anything happen to those I leave behind, I will return with the Cataclysm.”

My unborn child, I cared not one whit for, only that Larynda was begging me to leave. I divorced it from my mind. But, I saw only the benefit and prestige it would gain the Sultana. To be the mother of the son of the hero, if it was indeed a boy, would cement her authority across all segments of Al-Lazarian society. Everything, it was turning out, was working to Aelayah’s favor and it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I saw the faintest relief in her eyes, if not in her expression. The woman was a well practiced and consummate actress, as all successful whores are. And after relief came the look of victory.

The Sultana’s expression was almost placid. Regal. “Good, at least you are not half the fool I first took you for. I release you from your oaths to me, Gilgamesh the Unscarred. On behalf of the Sultanate of Al-Lazar, we thank you for your service. We will celebrate this day in your honor.”

“I would have simply left this place as I have simply more important things to do…”

Aelayah covered her mouth delicately to cover a small laugh. “Oh, really? Please do go on.”

Anger had turned to basic spite, and I looked deep into my magic. I listened to the call of them all, their songs and pleas. Listened deep and listened hard, before I found a spell answer that could answer me, or rather, whisper. A peaceful voice that promised an eternity of oblivion. In my newer spell, I found promise with a sliver of justice. 

I ignored her request to expound further on my business. She had no right to know of my great quest for eternity. “My will includes Elenora. She maybe perhaps be a blood-sucking monster, but she pales in comparison to you…”

With some satisfaction, I saw Aelayah stiffen.

“Very well,” she muttered unconvincingly.

I was not fooled.

“What was that, Aelayah? Repeat those words. And know that I will suffer neither deceit in spirit nor the letter of our deal. Do not think this is something that you can weasel away with using a ploy or plot.

I started the slow call to Death in my mind. Not the final end, but the end of the miracle of mortality. Unlike my other magics, Whisper of the Grave was slow in coming. Terribly slow and ponderous… like Death itself.

She gritted her teeth and turned away. Looking through me, and not at me, she finally answered. “I accept, Gilgamesh. I have no choice, of course. You bargain much for such a creature, and I know what you do it? Are you so smitten by that thing of the night?”

I fired back with an answer that would annoy most women who were proud of their beauty. “Her beauty of gold far outshines your own. Were she the Sultana and not you, Al-Lazar would be a brighter place.”

Death came closer, another step as it drew upon my reserves of Mana.

“I see you have learned to braid insult with poor poetry. If your skill with the blade were any less, I would gladly heap more scorn upon you. But alas, the time for jest and light banter has long since passed between us,” Aelayah said, hands tightening on her throne as she rose to stand tall in the now‑empty hall.

Tomorrow, or the day after next, I saw that many would be punished for their cowardice. Let that serve the great Sultana as a reminder that her power had the shakiest of foundations. A constant source of worry.

“And Gilgamesh, what of the desert tribes that have unleashed? What will you do about them?” she asked archly.

“They are your problem now. I will give you this, I will not tell them to raze this city to the ground. I do not think your walls could withstand a Guardian Worm’s attack for too long, otherwise,” was my quick response. “This grace I will leave you.”

She looked as if she was about to make another one of her retorts, but Death whispered into my ear, and I let it manifest. Spectres of the slain, those who had died by my hand, surrounded me, filling the hall with their vague shapes that mocked what they had once been in life.

I could see a different kind of fear as Aelayah looked around the hall, her eyes daring this way and that at the restless souls of the dead.

Among their number, I sought a particular soul, for such a manifestation as this could not be maintained for long. What was his name? I needed one such soul who held negative emotions against Aelayah. Without his name, the magic whispered to me, it would be difficult to create a binding built on hate. Memories of a different time, a remembrance of a scene of betrayal, flooded my mind.

His name was Yousef, once her Seneschal. It was perfect justice: in my stead, he would haunt her, a living reminder of the words and promises exchanged today should Aelayah’s memory ever betray her. He would make her days miserable and her nights a terror.

So I willed as I dismissed all the other shades save for him, and Youself was more than willing to obey.

“Come, Larynda, we must be away from this city. Aelayah, you will grant us a week of grace and make no announcements. I will not allow you to cost me face so cheaply. I, Gilgamesh, shall keep my word, and that Shade will ensure you keep yours,” I said with cold finality, then turned on my heel and strode from the hall.