Scene IV: Interlude I, The Old Git
The 27th Day of the 3rd Moon, 427 A.V.
The Palace of Neferaten, Shaenaten, Neferaten
Primus, being the miserable old git he was, had left Lilith alone in the palace yet again. Lilith was growing tired of her husband’s escapades, whether it was daytrips to kick pigeons at the local park, throwing cheese at children, or humping his way through the local taverns, it all annoyed her. This was exacerbated further by the dreadful news imparted by Kufia and Owuo, her priest and priestess.
The love between Primus and Lilith had cooled, especially on Lilith’s side, since the dispatch of their son, Theaten, to the Irkallan academy. Theaten, having reached his two hundredth birthday had been dispatched to Irkalla by his father in the hope that some level of education might be applied to quell Theaten’s constant and compulsive fiddling with ornaments, candles, crooked pictures, and anything else that bothered him, and gift Theaten with some rudimentary intelligence at the same time.
Primus had carefully planned his speech regarding the matter and presented it to Lilith with some confidence that the depth of his words would persuade her of the necessity of such schooling. To cut a long story short, Primus informed Lilith that Theaten was going to the academy to,
‘Knock some sense into him.’
It was a quest doomed to fail.
Lilith strongly objected on the grounds that overlooking Theaten’s strange proclivities, which included whipping unsuspecting free women and eating their tongues, he was, at heart, a sensitive ‘Lambkin.’ Her pleas were ignored by Primus who considered Lilith ‘an overbearing mother,’ and part of the problem.
Once Theaten was safely ensconced in Irkalla, Primus took to roaming Neferaten in search of a new, and short-lived mate. He was concerned that, should anything happen to him, The Deep and Irkalla would be managed solely by his beloved son, ‘Idiot Boy,’ in an unsustainable autocratic manner. Further, Primus had grown weary of Lilith and her constant moaning and gossiping.
Primus did not find Lilith’s lengthy and dull tribute acquisition ceremonies entertaining, nor did he appreciate her private sermons, or nagging as he called it, on the necessity of such a public ritual to maintain the façade of them being gods. Even though they were gods.
His interests had shifted to the wild clan of the Baers. At first, he claimed that his time spent with the Baers was to learn the ways of the lycan warrior. Lilith guessed this was not the case when she found a pair of tan, leather panties wedged in the inside pocket of Primus’s cloak. Lilith was not one for prying, but there was an unusual smell about his cloak that garnered her interests. On closer inspection the scent was not coming from the panties themselves, but from the white dry stains that crusted on the gusset. Lilith deduced from her ardent detective work, and keen eye, that Primus was having an affair with one of the Baers.
In most cases such a revelation would result in some kind of confrontation and a bit of a scene, possibly even Lilith ripping the Baer concerned into shreds, but being the better man, she chose to put the panties back and ignore it. This decision did not come from a kind heart, but from the knowledge that Lilith herself was also engaged in a clandestine affair.
The affair had started some seventeen years previously. Lilith wanted to engage the talents of a sorcerer and learn some of the new ways of divination that were developing in Irkalla, so that she could destroy her husband and overthrow the world as any self-respecting wife would wish to do. Primus was very tight-lipped when it came to Immortalis occultism, especially regarding methods that would result in his destruction.
Lilith found her lover Kyrie at a time when Primus was preoccupied with putting collars on local thesapien pets; dogs, cats and termites, and sliding their front leg through the collar so that he could watch them hop around. Since he was so busy, Lilith took the opportunity to steal his horse and ride the land, in disguise as a peasant, seeking a sorcerer or sorceress who would serve her. She found such a being in the guise of the turquoise and gold clad beauty, Kyrie, in the village of Tiye, and had no doubt about Kyrie’s powers.
The people of Tiye seemed to have grown somewhat disenchanted with the village witch, Kyrie, since it amused her to cast frog rain. Then toad rain, and the final straw was badger rain. It seemed that the badgers were less than impressed by the experience and got quite lairy with the locals resulting in several deaths. The Lord of Tiye at the time, Lord Halfwit, instructed his sheriffs to arrest Kyrie and the whole village gathered to build a pyre and a stake.
Kyrie did not appreciate being tied to the stake, nor did she care for the smoke and slightly warm sensation that drifted her way from the surrounding lit fire. The clouds came at her command, and a heavy rain fell. Followed by more badgers. These spells alone were not the clincher for Lilith, who was dressed as a beggar and leering from the crowd. The clincher came when the bodies of those mauled by the badgers dug themselves out of the graves carrying their severed limbs and took to sucking the eyeballs from the villagers.
Lilith left the other onlookers to squabble with the dead, retrieved Primus’s horse that was tied at the local inn and rode gallantly through the villagers, or what remained of them, and swept Kyrie away.
Kyrie was given the adjoining chamber to Lilith’s and began educating Lilith on matters of the occult. Lilith, ever grateful for the lessons, returned the favour by educating Kyrie on matters of linguistics. Namely, cunninglinguistics.
Lilith was tongue-deep in giving Kyrie the day’s lesson when her tribute knocked. Lilith saw no need for minions as she liked to engage her tributes in domestic tasks and fed on them slowly enough to always have a trained and active staff. The tribute ignored the indelicate view of Kyrie’s shaved cat, something Lilith insisted upon, and announced the arrival of Lilith and Primus’s priest and priestess Kufia and Owuo.
Kufia and Owuo had worked for Primus and Lilith after being recruited by Primus some twenty years previous. They had submitted their resumes as per the usual method of hellish recruitment, and during the interview Primus found them suitably duplicitous for the task. They also had a solid employment record having worked for the Djinn Ibliss for over fifty years, whilst moonlighting as soothsayers for the Togaduine Travelling Circus. Owuo also resembled Lilith with her swarthy skin and dark hair, but her pale blue and white eyes set her apart making her a novel entity for both rituals and tourists.
On entering Lilith’s chambers, Kufia, a shaman with kinship to Baron Samedi, presented Lilith with the news of the day, namely that Primus’s lover, Boaca Baer, was with child.
Lilith was disgruntled by the revelation.
Kyrie was disgruntled by the interruption.
Primus was disgruntled that Kufia was muckraking.
And Boaca Baer was disgruntled some seven moons later at giving birth to a blob of two-hundred and sixteen conjoined humanoid, demonic cephalopods.
She was even more disgruntled twelve years after that when Primus returned, after she had raised the Nicolai, and stole his monstrous son to Irkalla for an apprenticeship.
The whole matter put Lilith in a pithy mood and made her more determined than ever to get rid of her husband, however long it took, and she was not at all happy with the presence of Nicolas, only tolerating him because Theaten was overjoyed to have a little brother.
Of course, Theaten did not meet Nicolas until Nicolas was fully grown on account of Primus not wanting to frighten him by showing him young Nicolas; the grotesque cosmic splat.
Neither Primus nor Nicolas told Theaten about the Nicolai, not because they could not trust him but because games of hide and seek offered hours of amusement at Theaten’s expense.