About seventy years had passed and I had taken control of six territories including the Kingdom of Rhiann, of which Macura had formerly been a province.
The Kingdom had been an unexpected bonus, for the King had seen his neighbours fall and had personally ceded his entire Kingdom to me in order to prevent further bloodshed. I had not actually planned on invading him, but who was I to turn down such a magnificent gift? It was probably the result of his demon outlook that the strong ruled over the weak by right. I was so pleased that I allowed him to continue ruling his land upon my behalf, although it was now but a province of Ha'Khun, and he sent me regular tributes.
Ashley and I were locked in the throne room. I had left strict instructions to my staff that an important meeting was in progress and we were not to be disturbed under any circumstances save dire emergency.
"What about 'STUDER'?" he asked.
"Certainly not," I replied irritably. "No surnames or foreign languages, and that word is both."
"Nuts," Ashley replied, and picked the letters back off the board.
Just because you're losing, he thought, before suddenly realising that his mind shield had slipped for a moment.
"WHOLE SEXY VIBRANT GIMP", I said, studying the board. "Dunno what that says to you, but what it's sayin' to me ain't good."
I was about to suggest an alternative word for my friend when I noticed something flicker out of the corner of my eye. The letters fell from Ashley's open hand and skittered across the board as I turned around.
A cowled figure stood before us in the centre of the throne room.
"That's impressive," I said. "But wouldn't a Warp-Aci have been easier?"
"Those are for girls," he replied and threw back his hood to reveal grey fur, vulpine features and feathered headwings.
"You are Jakob, are you not?" he continued. "My name is Daryil."
The name was familiar, but I couldn't place it. As I stared back at the fox, he gave a thin smile and there was a strange light in his eyes.
"You don't recognise the name? That's a pity, but perhaps this will jog your memory."
As he spoke, he gently tugged at the sleeve of his robe until his wrist was entirely visible, lines of power glowing upon the curves of his clan marking.
My clan marking. Daryil Clan.
"Oh my Gods," I whispered, and fell to my knees.
"I have been watching you on and off for centuries," he said. "and your father before you. Alas he has fled to SAIA and is now beyond my reach. You, however, are here outside where I could easily track you down."
My hackles began to rise as he spoke.
"Oh come now... get up, get up. I must say I am most impressed by your achievements. It's quite a nice empire that you have here."
Shakily, I rose to my feet, staring back at my Clan leader in fear.
"If I may ask, how many souls would you say you have eaten over the years?"
"Nuh... none," I replied shakily.
"Tut, tut," he said. "You won't make it past three thousand if you don't vary your diet. But that doesn't matter right now. All that matters to me is that Azrael is gone and now there is no-one to stand in the way anymore."
His casual reference to Page's death stung me, but the fear choked it back.
I had no idea what he was talking about, but it couldn't be good. Most likely he had decided to relieve me of the burden of leadership, taking my hard-won territory for himself. Whatever it was, he'd evidently been planning it for a long, long time.
"What do you want?" I said in a frightened voice - not exactly the voice you'd usually associate with Johan Cross, but he only smiled.
"Originally I had come to bring you back to the fold, to make you a true member of Daryil Clan once more, but I think I prefer it here. Ultimately it's up to you. I have, as I said, been watching you for a long while, and I believe that the time has come for me to make a proposal to you."
There was a strange, almost pathetic smile upon his face, and as he spoke he stepped closer and closer until suddenly he threw his arms around me, causing my wings and headwings to fluff out in alarm.
"Oh Jakob," he cried - Oh shit, I thought - "I want you. Say you'll be mine."
Ashley's eyes were trying very hard to leave their sockets. Mine were too, and it wasn't just because my leader was squeezing me rather hard.
I had been extremely tense, psyching myself up for a battle against my own Clan leader - a battle which I knew I could not win and would quite likely have seen him eat my very soul - but which nonetheless had to be tried.
Although I couldn't hope to win, I might at least have distracted him long enough to allow Ashley and just maybe myself as well to escape to SAIA. If I could avoid paying the ultimate price in the meantime.
I knew precious little about our clan, but Daryil had a reputation as a wily, crafty old fox. That he might have fallen in love with me was not a thought that had even vaguely occurred to my mind.
I struggled slightly and the besotted vulpine released me. He stood there holding a flower with an expectant expression on his face. "I love you," he said simply.
"Uh, look," I said, unsure what to say. After all, how do you phrase something like this to a powerful Creature who can crush you like a bug?
"I'm flattered," I continued. "Really I am, but I... I don't think I can go through with it."
My leader's face fell, and then turned to anger. Whoops.
"You!" he snarled, facing Ashley. "Of course, I should have realised! Another handsome young spotted feline. You're a substitute for Azrael and you took my rightful place by Yak's side! Well it ends now, pretty-boy!"
Daryil's fingers began to glow for a moment as Ashley shrank back, but then his expression suddenly changed again.
"No... that isn't the answer..." he mumbled, "he'd never forgive me."
The powerful leader of my Clan looked like he was about to cry.
This guy's out of his gourd, I thought wildly. How the hell did this madman found our noble clan? Or is that why we split from them? Because Daryil Clan proper are a bunch of utter fruitcakes?
"Him... me...?" said Ashley, looking at me with a very strange expression. "Are you suggesting what I think you're..."
"Um, look," I said. "Noble leader, I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. I'd be honoured to join you and I'd love to take you to be my lawful... um, something, but the simple fact is I don't swing that way."
Ashley looked relieved. Daryil just stared.
"But... so... what about you and Azrael, then?"
"No, absolutely not. No way. Never ever. Nuh-uh."
In the back of my mind I was sure I could hear Page laughing fit to bust.
"But,"
"NO!!! I've tried it of course, but women interest me more." Now Ashley was staring again.
"What?" I said, exasperated. "You don't spend four hundred years stuck in an academy full of shapeshifters who are permanently twenty-something without some experimentation."
Ashley's face said it all - Too much information!
"But you're supposed to!" wailed Daryil. "It's a Clan trait!"
"What?" I yelped. Now it was my turn to stare, but I recovered quickly.
"That's ridiculous! Petter married a she-wolf and had kids. I had kids with a vixen, eventually leading to Niall."
Daryil's ears pricked up at the mention of my great-great-grandson.
"You touch him and we'll have to pick a new clan leader," I snarled.
"Duly noted. I see your confusion about the clan trait, though." he said. "It's not all-or-nothing, it's a population control device. Once you've had enough children to ensure the clan's survival, you're supposed to switch polarity. It prevents the clan growing too large and exceeding the resources available to it."
"But you founded the clan. Why should it affect you too?"
"You forget - I was the one who recoded our clan DNA to enable this feature. I had to try it on someone. Who better than me?"
"You... reprogrammed yourself... to fancy other men?" I spluttered.
"Yes, hon." He was still looking at me wistfully, and it was starting to make me feel rather uncomfortable.
"It was supposed to be passed down from generation to generation. I guess it must have mutated when your family broke away from the Clan. Either that or you haven't had enough children yet."
"I see," I said, with a touch of sarcasm. "And what other weird and wonderful 'features' have you engineered into our unsuspecting Clan's bloodline?"
"Well, the wolf-heads on your wing-tentacles, obviously." He grinned, proudly. "Complete with real, working eyes! Took me a while to figure that one out, although I must admit I copied the idea from Cyra Clan.
"Then there's the affinity for teleportation. It's not built-in, but I've made a number of changes to the brain structures to allow more rapid development of teleportation, without any of that messing around summoning Warp-Acis.
"And finally, there's the best bit. Have you ever seen someone die?" He paused for a moment.
"Yes, I can see it from your expression. As 'Cubi, we can manipulate souls, so I figured - why shouldn't we be able to see them, too? Of course it only really works when the soul has become separated from the body - usually following death - and retrofitting it to the visual cortex was difficult to do without disrupting the existing visual subsystems."
Well, I thought, our glorious leader may be a basket-case, but he certainly knows his metabiology.
"So in other words, if I close my eyes when someone's just died, I can see their shade."
"Yes," he said, and gave a lovelorn sigh.
"Would you mind explaining the theory behind that?" I asked. "If you know that much about Azrael, you'll know that I'm still interested in anything that might help me to raise the dead,"
"Very well," he said. "On one condition..."
"No!" I yelped, backing away from him.
"No, no... You say you're more of a ladies' man, well I won't press you. All I ask is that if ever you do change your mind, I get first dibs, okay?"
"Erm, alright," I said, praying feverently that it wouldn't ever happen.
Daryil and I spent three hours in my study, discussing our clan and exchanging notes on 'Cubi metabiology and resurrection. Finally he departed, and upon that same day every year since, a single rose has been delivered to my palace.
The ordeal over, I turned back to the scrabble game and let out a roar of fury.
Ashley, the cheating bastard, had added at least two more words to the board while I was out of the room.