2230 07-38B Chthonic Tarot–Medlar & Hellcoin Deck back of cards (Poker)
2230 07-38B Chthonic Tarot–Medlar & Hellcoin Deck back of cards (Tarot)
CAUTION: Contains themes of gambling marijuana opium spirits and wine some readers may find objectionable
RULES OF THE CARD GAME THE CHARACTERS ARE PLAYING AVAILABLE HERE.
PREVIOUSLY: In the afterglow shared with the other members of their party, Queen Channah admits she wants Húanglóng to help train her jawari, and Húanglóng acknowledges he welcomes the chance to use them. But she would prefer him to train them at her castle under her supervision, and he would prefer to use them around his castle back home. They agree to decide the issue by betting on a game of Tarot. When Penny is upset to find her services anted up into the pot, Channah dares her to raise the stakes and fight for herself. NOW:
Chastity came back into the room looking anxious as she tried to carry stacks of cards cradled awkwardly in her hands and arms without spilling them. By this time, the demons and cambions and qahramanat were chatting gaily, fully-dressed again, and seated—Tiferet behind her easel and the rest of them around the makeshift table—while Penny served them.
“Good work, sweetmeat!” Channah complemented her. “You—both of you—put your dresses back on, then sort out a full deck as best you can and bring it to us when you’re ready.”
“Yes, Domina,” Chas curtsied briefly, smothering her own look of hurt at the suggestion she couldn’t sort a pack of cards, before allowing the cards to tumble onto one of the remaining, unused divans. “Would you like big cards or small ones, Domina?”
“I really can’t fix that,” Húanglóng admitted.
“I know,” Channah rolled her eyes. “Ninnies and prudes. That’s what I get for being such an indulgent Domina.” Then, to Chas: “We’ll want the small ones, dumpling. For playing. Penny, hurry up, finish serving, and help her!” she replied, managing to make her servant feel even worse while answering her question.
Esmeray, looking embarrassed, rose quietly as she could from the demons’ gossip about matters and actors ranging across hell and earth just as Penny reached her sister, who whispered in frustration: “These cards are mad! Would you have known what size–?”
Penny shook her head, setting her hand on Chastity’s shoulder reassuringly. “No, but I don’t know about cards. Do they all have to be the same size? What else are they even meant for? Besides sinning, I mean?” Then, first setting her eyes on the cards themselves, a look of wonder crossed her face. “But they are beautifully printed….” That was such an understatement, she corrected: “If they were even printed….”
In fact, they had more colors and details than any printing the girls had ever seen on any printed material. As far as Penny knew, printing was done with a single color: black, on white. These appeared to be hand-painted and even gilded, each one a treasure in itself. But at the same time, the symbols on the cards showed such perfection and utter uniformity in shape and appearance it was hard to imagine the discipline that would have been required by artisans to produce such consistency.
Esmeray surprised them by joining them, looking upset: “I agree with Húanglóng. You’re both stupid. The cards have to be the same size for shuffling and for keeping others from guessing your cards.” Seeing their expressions, she shrugged. “What? I’ve been serving the demons directly most of my life. If I allow you two stupid whores to frustrate them, they’ll take it out on all of us, sooner or later. Especially since I’m meant to be your trainer, aren’t I? Start thinking about how you make me look!” The girls exchanged an amazed look, for the first time considering that as a human and a qahramanah, Esmeray might share more in common with them, than with the demons. Then, as Esmeray noticed what Chas and Penny were doing—Chas sorting by deck and Penny by size—exasperation was joined by confusion: “At a minimum we need to use the same approach! They need to be sorted by deck and size! How can the same decks contain different-sized cards?”
“What do you mean, ‘deck’?” Penny frowned.
This time, both Esmeray and Chastity looked at her in amazement. “You’re not putting on an act, are you?” Esmeray wondered. “You really haven’t played cards before, have you?” She held up two cards, back facing Penny. “Decks. You can tell by what’s on the back of the cards. All the cards in a deck have to match so others can’t tell what cards you’re holding. So, first, we need to separate by decks into the antipope cards and—whatever these are…” she stuck her tongue out in disgust.
“Antipope?!” Penny’s eyes widened, and she looked like she wanted to drop the cards before they scalded her hands. Even Chas looked startled, to recognize what she meant.
“Let’s discuss basic symbology,” she mocked, holding up one card. “I’m from a Muslim culture where even the Christians aren’t Catholics, and even I recognize it. Triple crown and crossed keys? Pope. Pentagram and goat’s head? Not pope. That’s one set, and it’s the antipope. Put it over here, in different piles by what size they are.” Then, as the girls began following her example, she held up a card from a different deck. “Serican coin and weird flower/sea monster/thing—” Penny didn’t understand the odd emphasis on the word ‘thing,’ but Chas, familiar with the slang term, did.
Chas was surprised by something else. “Saracen money?”
“Not ‘Saracen.’ Which is ignorant and insulting, by the way,” Esmeray pointed out. “‘Serican.’ Eastern. Chinese.”
“I don’t think ‘Serican’ is any more accurate than ‘Saracen,’” Penny began, before seeing Esmeray’s expression and immediately shutting her mouth, finally beginning to realize that as was so often the case, her thoughts were neither welcome nor, in the eyes of her audience, relevant.
“It is her putrid thing!” Esmeray announced in triumph, then clarified: “What is it called, the corrupt fruit? Medlar! Her symbol, the broken-hearted medlar.”
“That’s what it is!” Penny sounded relieved to have an identification, and thus a proper place, for it in her mind.
“Well… kind-of,” Chastity and Esmeray snickered. And Chastity elbowed her good-naturedly. “Virgin.”
“Pseudo-virgin at best, I think,” Esmeray corrected meanly. And then, seeing Penny’s confused expression, holding the card in front of her face and pointing to the sea-monster-rotten-fruit, clarified about the image: “It’s what your sister had her face buried in half an hour ago. Don’t you think?”
Penny turned pink. Apparently she did think.
“Finally, the candle flickers to light,” Esmeray shook her head. “Having met Eleanor and Frances, I can only agree with Her Majesty that you two are ill-prepared for your assigned profession.” And seeing their confusion, she elaborated: “Those two are unshockable and compliant as slaves should be,” she spat. “If you consider yourselves ill-used, wait until you’ve worked with them.” Then she turned her attention back to the cards: “They’re endless. Why does she have so many? Penny—keep sorting by size and deck with me. Chas—start with the smallest cards… the medlar-coin cards, I think, we look to have more of them—and start sorting them by suit.”
“What are ‘suits’?” Penny asked curiously, prompting Esmeray and Chas to look at one another in astonishment.
Their qahramanah explained: “Every card has a shape on it.” She pointed to something that looked not entirely dissimilar from the rotten medlar, without the tendrils or the tear down the middle. “These red shapes are hearts. All the hearts go in one pile. Then the dark-green diamonds go in another pile. And so on.”
Seeing Chas throw different suits in the same pile, Esmeray frowned at her. “What are you doing? I thought you knew something about cards.”
“Getting rid of the extras, Mistress?” she answered uncertainly.
“What ‘extras’?!”
“Diamonds, hearts, clubs, spades. There are four suits, although the colors are wrong. And they’re all scratched.” And then she indicated the pile with the cards that didn’t have one of those four symbols. “Extras!”
“Those aren’t ‘extras,’” she explained, exasperated. “This isn’t France or England. It’s Hell. The deck has nine suits here. The four you’re familiar with, the Triumphs—” she held up a card with a crown that looked suspiciously like a tiara with the same tendrils as the rotten medlar “—and the other regular suits: coins, swords, chalices, and wands. And they’re not scratches; they’re trigrams.”
“Why did they add all these suits?”
“These are actually the old suits. Mamluk decks—Egyptian Mamluks, who are Turkish Muslims,” she added, confusing Chas, but with a trace of loyalty, “introduced you Christian savages to cards, as the Muslim world has introduced you to every form of civilization. These are our suits.”
“Actually, they’re our suits,” a new voice added with contempt, as Hong, accompanied by another stunningly gorgeous Chinese girl, about Esmeray’s age or a bit younger, equally composed and meticulously dressed but with visibly less confidence than Hong, surprised them, slipping in between Penny and Chas and immediately helping to sort cards. Behind the two newcomers, they saw Fang hugging and greeting the other demons. Both girls shifted, obviously affected by the seductive, elegant perfection of Fang’s qahramanat.
“Excuse me?!” Esmeray bristled.
Ignoring her for a moment, Hong introduced her companion: “This is my apprentice, Huifen.” With a no-nonsense look at the two English girls, she clarified: “You will address her as you would address Esmeray and I, and treat her with the same respect.”
“Yes, Mistress,” the girls answered nervously.
“My Domina heard about the wager and insisted we come immediately so she can add Huifen to the bet.” Finally turning her attention back to Esmeray, she smiled patronizingly and explained: “It is the great chain of knowledge. As with all civilization, printing and cards were invented in China. The Anxi and Tianzhu barbarians learned about cards from us, but were too stupid to understand the correct names of the suits, which are Chinese currency. Ignorant of proper money, they confused the strings with clubs, the myriads with cups, and the tens of myriads with wands. I suppose we should be grateful they were at least able to recognize the coins!”
Huifen laughed dutifully and convincingly, revealing her excellent training at the same time as her perfect teeth. Her Arabic was as fluent as all of the other jawari: “One out of four. Not bad for barbarians, I suppose.”
“The Anxi and Tianzhu barbarians then threw the table-scraps remaining after they had tried to digest civilization to the Huanqian animal hides—” her nod towards Esmeray, outraging her, made it clear she was referring to Turks “—who degraded them further, before the gwailou savages—” with a gesture towards the girls, accepting half of Esmeray’s terminology for them “—picked up in amazement the dung deposited in front of them, all that remained of the great civilization, deposited behind the Huanqian.”
Hong looked inordinately pleased with herself for managing to offend everyone at the table besides herself and Huifen by making it clear the Turks and Europeans were regarded as not just barbarians, but second- and third-tier barbarians, respectively.
“If they’re so degraded, why do your masters use them?” Penny asked—almost, but not quite, pulling off a pretended innocent confusion.
Esmeray confessed, smothering a grin rather badly, but better than Chastity: “Princess, I confess I’m not just shocked, but—for the first time yet—find myself actually delighted by your impertinence.”
Penny blushed and bowed her head, focusing intently on the cards, as Hong gave her a glance making it clear Hong was not delighted—if not, quite, entirely unimpressed. “Doubtless that’s why they added the trigrams in. They’re Taoist. Chinese. To make the suits recognizable to civilized people again.” Hong attempted to keep Penny in her place, but spoiled that when she accidentally met Esmeray’s eyes and the two of them exchanged the slightest twitch of amusement. “I too am astonished to hear such insolence from the limp rag doll of a third-rate barbarian tribe,” Hong confessed. “Perhaps I should allow for a bit more from her than I’ve been expecting. What’s gotten into her today?”
“I think she’s stinging. Her Majesty has just now challenged her to prove it at cards if she has any scrap of courage or…” Esmeray frowned.
“‘Yang?’” Huifen suggested, with a judgmental glance at the girls.
“I suppose.”
“Perhaps she does,” Hong conceded. “But the real test will be whether she can show her little horn—if she has one—in front of them.” None of the humans doubted whom she meant.
“We’ll see. Here—do you have a full set of the hearts yet?” Esmeray asked Chas, after enjoying Penny’s withering for only a second or two.
“I should think so,” Huifen answered.
“Why would there be more hearts?” Chas asked, baffled.
“Because they’re Channah’s suit. Well—the suit of the Court of Lust. Of course,” Esmeray frowned as if it were the most-obvious thing ever.
“Her suit?” Chas asked, quickly recognizing a second problem “But why—and even if it were—you need all the suits to play cards, don’t you?”
Hong and Esmeray exchanged an odd look. “Maybe,” Esmeray allowed, and then held her finger up to Penny the instant her mouth began to open. “No! We’re not starting that again!”
“The cards aren’t even numbered,” Chas admitted reluctantly.
“They certainly are. Right by the suits.” Huifen, seated closest to her, pointed.
“That’s not a number. It’s the symbol for Mercury,” Penny protested, then frowned. “Or quicksilver. And I don’t even recognize this—pinwheel—”
“That’s Mara,” Hong and Esmeray answered as one. With a slight bow, Hong deferred to Esmeray, who after all was the girls’ trainer, and Esmeray continued: “They’re all numbers. Mara is nought. Mercury is Cinque. Star is Set. And so on.”
“That doesn’t make any sense—” Penny began, only to be stopped again when Esmeray held up her finger for silence and snapped: “Accept!” before finding, and showing them, the complete set of 14 Hearts.
“Nought… Cinque…” Chas mumbled, as Huifen read them all out in order.
“I’ll just sort the Triumphs, shall I?” Esmeray smirked. “I presume you don’t know those numbers either?”
“No, Mistress,” Chas looked miserable.
“Think of them as Roman numerals. I is 1 and S is 6.”
“This one—the ‘Fool’—doesn’t even have a number. Just a dash,” Penny burst out, pointing to the Fool, before anybody could stop her.
“No, it doesn’t,” Esmeray smiled narrowly. “It’s a wild card. But treat it as a 22.”
Penny, who did not like feeling stupid, struggled to keep her composure. “A ‘wild’ card, Domina?”
“A card that, depending on the game, is given special powers.”
“We should probably teach them the basic rules so they don’t slow down the game,” Hong suggested, demonstrating as she spoke: “It’s a trick-taking game. The starter plays a card and everyone else has to follow suit—this example it’s spades. And the highest-ranked spade played, wins the trick. If a player doesn’t have a spade, but they have a triumph, they have to play it; and the highest trump wins the suit.”
“What if they don’t have a spade or a trump?”
“Then they have to play a card from another suit—even though it can’t possibly win,” Esmeray demonstrated by setting a wand on top of Hong’s spade. “It’s called a throwaway. At the end of the deal, everyone counts up their points. One point per trick plus the value of the cards in their hands. Face cards and Bouts—the Fool, the I, and the XXI of Triumphs—are worth points. Nothing else. The starter and the deal move left.”
Chas frowned. “But surely the starter is the dealer?”
“Not in Perdition. Because only humans can deal.”
“WHAT did you call it?!” Penny asked, shocked.
“I think you heard me,” Hong laughed. “But it’s just a name, silly. Don’t start wringing your hands. But the real fun of the game are—”
At that moment, there was another surge of noise near the door that distracted them all, as Kadidia and Judas entered, with retainers of their own crowding in behind them.
Channah, laughing, told Haruka, who was hovering in the doorway: “Find your fellow gwailou and go secure yourselves in the honeycomb. I’m going to seal the door again in five minutes, not a second longer! And if any of you are still in the Lodge, you’ll regret it!”
“Yes, Domina!” Haruka shouted and bowed, before bolting from the room, already calling at the top of her lungs for the housecleaner.
Judas was clapping, looking pleased. “I love it darling! We’re to have all of Tlalitlen Ichtaka for our Lodge?”
Channah shrugged. “Why not? I certainly don’t want anyone else to come barging in here!” Then she looked over at Esmeray, making an expression of mock-embarrassment: “I don’t quite know how to say this, Esmeray dear, but I’m not quite sure I intended to invite this many people! I hate to ask, but… you’re a bit of a nun, aren’t you?”
Esmeray looked at her quizzically. “I’m not… sure… I’d describe myself that way, Your Majesty. I—”
Channah and most of the other demons laughed—not to wound, to be sure; but not quite respectfully, either. Esmeray, feeling the insult, stiffened and reddened slightly, as Channah clarified: “I’m sorry dear, what I was trying to ask is—you don’t have any… lovers in the room, do you?”
Managing to keep her face almost blank, and continue conversing in a neutral, if slightly flat, tone, she answered: “I prefer my own company, Your Majesty.”
“The girl has obviously never been entertained by me,” Judas rolled his eyes, provoking another wave of laughter among the succubae.
“You’re a lucky beast, aren’t you?” Húanglóng roared genially, grinning at Judas. “I’ve thought it before, I can assure you.”
“Undoubtedly, Your Majesty,” Judas bowed toward the Dragon King, “For which I am eternally grateful. But in what respect…”
Húanglóng laughed loudly. “It’s all I can think about, and you take it for granted: you’re outnumbered by a factor of what, 7-to-1, by females of your kind! I love the camaraderie my Dragon brothers and I enjoy very much, but in matters of love…”
Their byplay was fortuitous, because it distracted everyone from Esmeray’s reaction to Judas’s boastful remark, which would not have flattered him. Penny, observed only by Hong and Chas, reached her hand out towards Esmeray, hesitated, and then with utmost gentleness, patted her reassuringly like he was trying to soothe a baby having a nightmare without waking her up. Even so, she tensed and glanced up sharply before nodding and relaxing again. Penny’s hand was withdrawn before Channah, smiling, turned back towards them and continued addressing her: “If you want to wait with the servants in the Honeycomb, you may. But if you want to stay, it will have to be as part of a team. So you’ll need to at least kiss someone—really kiss them—you could imagine settling into a long-term partnership or co-habitation with—”
Whereupon Esmeray, promptly but without hurrying, surprised Channah, the girls, everyone else, and quite possibly herself, by taking Chas and Penny by the hair and tugging them close enough to her to force her tongue inside each one’s mouth, just for a moment, and touch her lips to theirs, before pulling away, letting go of their hair, and looking at Channah with a combination of defiance and embarrassment while the girls stared at her in astonishment, exactly where she had left them. While the demons laughed and made inappropriate—and to anyone who knew Esmeray, inapplicable—aren’t-they-mushy noises, Esmeray shrugged briefly and explained: “Is that sufficient? If I must choose my society to participate, they’re quite harmless.”
Channah applauded her with an intrigued, impressed look, and with sparkling, questioning eyes that promised future mischief to anyone who knew Channah. “You could imagine a life with them?”
“If they’re respectful and make themselves useful, certainly.”
“But… what of affection? Of sex?”
She thought carefully for a moment, before answering, with cold glances at each shocked, open-mouthed girl: “Because of what they still have between their legs, I would enjoy their misery at being forced to accept their things are nothing but leftover, useless meat that will never defile a woman again.”
The room exploded with applause and whoops of acclimation. “Bravo!” “Hear hear!”
When Channah could speak, she allowed: “Then in answer to your question, that’s enough… for now.” Then, her eyes narrowing dangerously: “And you could refrain from, say, killing your little ginger girl in a fit of… passion?”
A sharp color rose to Esmeray’s cheeks even as her eyebrows rose in startlement. Stumbling a bit, she managed: “Yes, of course, Your Majesty. She—they—mean nothing to me. They—we—are yours.” Penny, wide-eyed and suspicious, watched the interchange, her eyes darting back and forth between them, knowing she was missing something, but not quite sure what it was. With or without understanding, it was unsettling.
“Hong my dear, Chastity is an experienced card player,” something in her tone managing to suggest the exact contrary of her own words. “But I’m not sure Penny even knows what a card is. Can you please make certain she knows how to shuffle before we start?
“I will, Domina,” Hong bowed her head in acknowledgement; and then raised her eyes to make sure Channah had already moved her attention onto the humans who had arrived with Kadidia, instructing them to make sure everyone had plenty of wine and food. Only when she was sure Channah was done with her did she speak quietly to Esmeray. “I think we’d better assemble two decks, don’t you?”
“At least?” she answered uncertainly, pointing and counting heads around the table under her breath.
“As I was saying,” Hong resumed, commanding the girls’ attention, “the real fun comes in the rule changes and the stakes. Here, look at this.” She took some medium-sized cards no one was soting, straightened them up, and split them into two approximately-equal piles, taking each pile in one hand held by her thumb and her ring finger with her index fingers pushing down on the middle of each pile. “See how I’m holding these?”
“Yes, Mistress,” Penny nodded.
“Shuffling is mixing up the cards so nobody knows what order they’re in. You have to keep them face down like this at all times so no one—not you, not anyone else in the Lodge—can see any of the card faces while you shuffle them. I shuffle like this.” She demonstrated. “Do you see?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“I’m going to show you again,” she told her. “Watch again.”
Huifen laughed, pressing her fingertips to her mouth as if she were trying to keep them closed.
“You try,” she handed the cards to Penny, who took them awkwardly and began trying to manage them with her hands.
She raised an inquisitive eyebrow to Huifen, who explained: “Penny’s going to be in trouble if they play Pretty Please.”
Hong smiled slyly, reaching forward to help Penny adjust her hands on the cards. She felt Penny tense at her touch, and shift uncomfortably, aware of Hong’s gaze. Only after a long moment did she finally dare to flutter up her azure eyes to meet Hong’s gaze. “Huifen thinks you’re staring at my legs.” Penny turned pink, as if the flap on a bullseye lantern had been pulled aside, and both women laughed at her discomfiture. “That could get you in trouble in the game. Best keep your eyes on the cards, jariya.” But she didn’t adjust her dress or uncross her legs, leaving the high slit on her cheongsam open as it lay, revealing the long, graceful curve of her thigh and even the beginning of her hips, that had gotten little Penny into trouble.
As Penny practiced shuffling, trying to keep her eyes on what she was doing, Channah clapped her hands over hear head, all of them feeling a ripple of—something—passing them, and called loudly: “The door is shut and the Lodge is WHAT?!”
Grinning like fools, all the demons clapped their hands, triggering a much stronger wave that almost had the force of a gust of wind, roaring: “Convened by the fiends!”
“Then let’s throw down!” Channah completed the little ritual as the room erupted with applause.
Several people hollered: “Let the cards fall as they may!”
Húanglóng snorted: “And all you losers get ready to pay!” earning a round of groans and boos as Channah began loudly counting off the players:
“Húanglóng and I have to play, because we already have a bet—it’s the whole reason for this game! And obviously, Fang, Judas, and Kadidia must play, since I accidentally sort-of invited them to do so. Needless to say, my cherished ladies must have seats because they brought Húanglóng and started this whole party! Which means, since it would be rude to leave an odd demon out, it practically goes without saying Tifaret shall make our eighth!”
The demons all burst out laughing, and Hong—also in on the joke, whatever it was—smirked, meeting her companions’ confused eyes before landing her gaze on Penny’s worried one. Hong laughed, briefly, quietly, and just a bit nastily, nodding at Penny to confirm what she suspected.
“Oh dear, that won’t work at all, will it?” Channah lamented, looking concerned. “Tifaret, dear… is there any chance you have any lovers at the table?” The demons and Hong all laughed again. “Soooo…. Let’s see. Kadidia, Judas, and Fang were all thoughtful enough to bring their lovers with them. And my daaaaahling Húanglóng has had the cheek to challenge me for my jawari, so he doesn’t get any teammates.”
Everyone roared as Húanglóng admitted, his voice distorted by a tube in his lips which extended from a gold bulb carved with pornographic images of serpents fornicating with humanoids that caused even Chas’s jaw to drop, let alone Penny’s: “She has a point. And I am confident I will be taking most of your lovers home with me—” everyone razzed him back at the challenge “—so you can play cards with them now, and tonight I’ll play with them however I please.”
The game hadn’t even started yet and it was obvious from the frequency of their drinks and that the newcomers were all making heroic progress catching up with their host’s honeymoon party. Nor did anyone from the honeymoon party seem to be slowing down except Esmeray and Penny. Everyone else was, if anything, speeding up.
“Oh you have to lose, you bastard!” Channah planted a sloppy kiss on him before continuing: “Ooh light one for me, honey? Rivqah and M—”
“Jacob!” Rivqah shouted, leaning close to the King, piling what looked like stems and leaves into a gold bowl that the Dragon King seemed to set alight with a touch of his fingers, before attaching it to a lid with a similar tube to create a bulbed device similar to the King’s.
“Big George!” Miriam shouted at the same time.
Tifaret tried and failed to look offended as she stood up and began walking around toward Channah.
“My dear, you do look a bit familiar. Have we fucked?” Channah asked, as Tifaret bent over her, holding her head a bit impertinently, and made out with her for a moment.
“You and every other player, dahling,” Tifaret drawled, sitting down immediately behind Channah and reaching around her to stroke her nipples through her dress, diverting one hand to hijack the gold dragon bong meant for Channah.
“Jacob!” Rivqah called, snapping her finger peremptorily and gesturing behind her as she nodded at Tifaret. “Mind Tifaret closely, get over here, and follow her excellent example!”
“George!” Miriam cried, pronouncing it “Jo-warj!”, raising her arm and pointing behind her. “You heard her!”
Everyone not already seated at the table began moving behind their players except the suddenly-isolated Esmeray and her jawari. “Shit!” Chas cursed under her breath, realizing what Penny and Esmeray had already figured out.
Purring from Tifaret’s attentions, Channah mock-gasped: “Look there! We have an empty seat! And a good thing, too, because we need a dealer, don’t we?”
“So forgetful lovahgirl,” Tifaret nuzzled the back of her neck.
Penny drew a deep breath, set her jaw, and rose, heading grimly toward the table, her nostrils twitching as she caught the faint tendrils of the incense rising from the gold bulbs being passed around the table. It was at once floral, faintly sweet, smoky, and rancid. The others, as they caught sight of her approaching before being called, whooped and clapped.
Judas mocked: “She’s as cocky as a rooster! And here you led me to believe she was meek and mild and knew her place!”
“I’m sure it’s the wine,” Channah suggested. “You’re not the only human here, Princess. What makes you think that seat is for you?”
Penny paused behind the empty spot, Fang to her left and Kadidia to her right, without answering or even looking at Channah, and the entire table erupted again. Hong briefly and quietly placed her hand on Penny’s back, surprising her, imitating the gesture she had seen Penny give Esmeray before.
“Oh, of course it’s your place, sweetie—stop pouting and sit!” Channah gestured for her to sit. “You should be honored! Your qahramanah could have kissed anyone here and I’m sure they would have let her, but she chose you!”
“I am grateful,” Penny responded honestly. “And I’m sorry, qahramanah—”
“I knew what I was doing,” Esmeray answered her quietly, sitting down on one of the benches behind Penny. “You’re my jawari. I’m your qahramanah. Who else was I going to pick?”
“And Chas honey, I could pretend I was about to offer you a choice—” Channah paused until the ripple of laughter quieted back down “—but first of all, somebody has to add some cheer to that… pocket of dourness—” she gestured at Esmeray and Penny “and second, you brought Penny kicking and screaming into this game, so you kind of owe it to her to stick with her and help her,” Channah pointed out, as Penny regarded her sister in accusing agreement and Chas looked stricken.
“I’m sorry, Penny. It seemed like such a fun idea!” Chastity apologized.
“It always does,” Miriam agreed.
“I really thought you’d enjoy it…” Chas continued.
“We’ve all been there!” Judas shook his head ruefully, provoking more laughter.
Literature Section “07-38B Dicing with Demons: Convened by the Fiends”—more material available at TheRemainderman.com—Part 38 of Chapter Seven, “Channah’s Slavegirls: Pawns of the Court of Lust”—4970 words—Accompanying Images: 2230-2232, 2234-2236—Published 2025-09-15—©2025 The Remainderman. This is a work of fiction, not a book of suggestions. It’s filled with fantasies, stupid choices, evil, harm, danger, death, mythical creatures, idiots, and criminals. Don’t try, believe, or imitate them or any of it.
