Azrael, Wilson and myself slowly picked ourselves up as the three weasel guards watched us nervously. I could see in their minds that they were startled by our human appearances. "The charm," I said to Azrael, reverting back to human form myself. Azrael followed suit, but the guards did not lower their weapons.
"At ease, men," Page said, but to no avail. "I order you to lower your weapons!" he said. Finally, one of them stepped forward. He was the captain of the palace guards, who I had appointed myself not five years ago.
"I was ordered to arrest you for treason, sir." he said.
"Treason?!?" shouted Azrael, "I am your lawful ruler! What is the meaning of this outrage?" as he spoke, my wing-tentacles rose, the heads growling at the captain in a threatening manner.
"You are no longer our Lord," he said, swallowing. "Our just and true ruler is Lady Siad, who came to power after you fled this world, leaving us without guidance."
"How long have we been gone?" I asked him, but he looked away and didn't reply.
"Three days," I said, reading the weasel's mind. "She didn't wait long, did she? Now tell me, captain, what happened to those whom we left in charge during our absence?"
He didn't reply, but became even more nervous. "Dead," I replied for him, in a tone of disgust. "Captain, I see in your mind that you were against this coup and only acted under your oath as a castle guard. This oath was made to me. If I were to release you from this oath, would you join us against the usurper?"
He shook his head, and I could see that he was beside himself with fear. I couldn't really blame him - if we returned to power, he was sure he would face death for his part in the treason.. but if his new mistress found out about the offer I had made, he wouldn't even get a trial. He was caught between a rock and a hard place, as the saying goes.
"Very well," I said. "Take us to your Lady, and know that should we return to power, I shall take your misgivings about the coup into consideration."
"Thankyou Mi'Lord," he said uncomfortably, and lead us into the main chamber, where a brunette lapine figure was seated upon Page's ceremonial throne. With a sudden shock, I recognised her - she was the same hare succubus that had tried to steal Chelsea's soul all those years ago.
"You were a fool to have spared me, Jakob," she said. "I shall not give you the same mercy now."
"Is there some grievance between you?" said Azrael.
"Silence, Page!" she replied. "You too were a fool to have come back through the Gate, breaking the exile which I had given to you. You need never have known of the loss of your kingdom if you had only stayed where I had put you.
"As for Jakob.. Hah! I was there when his clan drove mine from our city. Our leader was nearly killed in the struggle. Only she and a handful of others survived that night. We swore there and then that we would never rest until his clan has been made extinct by our hand!"
"If you say so," I said. "My family is an offshoot of our clan and I have no knowledge of their deeds, evil or otherwise. Heck, my father didn't even know what they were called until he went to SAIA."
"Then you shall die unknowing," she replied and moved towards me.
"Couldn't we settle this like 'cubi?" I asked. "How about a nice game of Dreamwar?" She didn't grace that suggestion with a reply.
I really wasn't sure what to do. I had never physically fought another 'cubi before.. it was something that Fa'Lina's Academy tried hard to prevent, given that it was established to help preserve our race.
I tightened my mental shield and focused upon her, but she had done the same. It would take just one slip from either of us and it would all be over.
Azrael lunged at her, his claws extended and his skin hardened and sharpened. I had never seen him angry enough to do that before, but I kept my cool - otherwise he might have done the succubus' work for her. She was less fortunate, but she pushed him aside quickly and closed the gap in her mind before I had a chance to exploit it.
Page was not so easily rebuffed though and redoubled his efforts. The guards were not able to defend their Lady as the pair of them were entangled. I joined the fray as well and between us we soon had a chunk of the hare's ear. She yelled at her guards to aid her, but I knew she didn't want Page dead yet. More likely she intended to steal his soul if she could, since it would greatly increase her power, as would mine - but absorbing the both of us at once might be too much for her to handle and was potentially fatal.
Between the two of us we managed to pin the succubus to the ground. My tentacles closed around her neck - just one quick movement and she would be very dead. The problem, ethical complications aside, was her guards who stood behind us, halberds at the ready. All in all, it was a stalemate.
Suddenly the captain broke the silence. "Let her speak," he said. I didn't have much choice so reluctantly I unwound my tentacles from her throat.
"About time," she said. "Now perform your duty and execute the traitor."
The weasel paused, his mind impossible to fathom. His eyes kept glancing from the succubus to Azrael, and then to me.
"I said execute the traitor!" she commanded, furious at his hesitation. "Do it at once, or you shall die too!"
"Yes, Mi'lady," he said, raising the halberd. I closed my eyes. A moment later there was a sickening sound, followed by retching from Wilson who was hiding in the corner.
A few moments later I opened them, and promptly saw the succubus. I closed them again very quickly after that but could not stop myself from following Wilson's example.
"Remove her," said Azrael in an unsteady voice and clapped his hand on my shoulder. "Come on, my friend.." he said. "Let's get you and Wilson cleaned up."
Despite the appalling start, Azrael's plan for a new Furrae free of prejudice and hatred worked out reasonably well. We set up a number of movements which spread far beyond Ha'Khun, and although their message rarely gained traction in the mainstream, the truths behind it were sufficiently self-evident for it to have survived even until today, nearly five hundred years later.
Wilson acted as our spiritual adviser until he reached the end of a full life. I have often wondered what happened to his soul, whether dying in the wrong dimension caused him any administrative problems when he went upstairs.
Azrael and I had many happy years running the city together, inventing new things and engaging on yet more expeditions to the human realm. We did eventually enrol as students at Essex University, with Azrael studying electronics and mechanical engineering as my own degree.
One of the more remarkable things we did in later years involved a financial scam which Azrael had devised.
When we had built the first machine that allowed us to leave Furrae, our method of financing had been rather crude. We had initially used gold or diamonds, but these caused too many questions, since we had no address in that dimension, and that made getting credit or a bank account rather awkward.
Eventually Azrael had hit on a beautiful scam during an era when banks were offering credit cards like sweeties with only minimal checking. I thought it was immoral myself, but finally agreed after Az convinced me that it was the credit card companies' own fault for not instituting proper identity checks and they only had their own greed to blame.
This was typical of Azrael - it was his idea of a good practical joke. I think that Wilson would have approved as well, as it was just the sort of low-level subversion which he thrived upon.
Using the proceeds of some gold to set up an initial account, we bought a flat, which we did via an agency so no-one ever saw us. Not that it would have mattered, since I could change my appearance at will anyway.
Then we took out a series of lineage ads in various newspapers, offering some kind of service to help people find work abroad - "Just send in your CV and references!"
Using this information, which was sent to a P.O. box address and then redirected to the flat, we were able to take out scores of credit cards from nearly every bank in other people's names, which were then sent to the flat.
We used each card to make a single, huge withdrawal from the bank's cash machines and then discarded it. It took them several months to realise what was going on, and by the time the police entered the flat, they found it empty as we had long since fled. Empty, that is, except for the floor which was covered in thousands upon thousands of unopened credit cards, far more than Azrael and I could ever have used.
That wouldn't work now of course, since this incident prompted the credit card companies to actually start cross-checking the identity of their customers, but for the pair of us it had been a windfall. The money we had withdrawn had all been put into completely separate savings and current accounts, which I still use today for my occasional shopping trips into the human realm.
All told, we ran the city together for almost a hundred years until disaster finally struck, a disaster that would plunge me into the depths of insanity for the next three centuries.