“No! Take me back!” I demanded, tugging to get away from his grip on my arm. But he only tightened his fingers, his nails which were more like claws, cutting into my bare skin.
“None of that, now! The Captain of the Guard himself is waiting just outside my ship to escort you through the palace. If you fight or struggle, he’s apt to handle you too roughly. I have observed that these huge Tangellans don’t always know their own strength,” he added maliciously. “If you try to get away he might pull your arm out of your socket by accident, just trying to stop you from running off.”
His words sent a chill through my body and I stopped struggling. Gumpas smirked at me again and hit the button which raised the ship’s door. Sure enough, outside there were ten-foot-tall alien warriors waiting to take me away.
One of them stepped forward—his skin color was bottle green, swirled with black to make it a much darker, more ominous shade.
“I am Zernex, Captain of the Royal Guard of His Majesty Shadout the Twenty-second and one half. Have you brought the second La-ti-zal?” he barked.
“Yes, here she is.” Gumpas rubbed his hands together with a sand-papery sound. “I will release her to you as soon as you transfer the credits to my account.”
The dark green captain—who was wearing bronze armor, by the way—took out a small device and pressed his thumb to it.
“Done,” he said and glared at Gumpas. “She had better be a genuine La-ti-zal. If not, the Emperor has commanded me to hunt you down myself and strike your worthless head from your shoulders.”
Gumpas’s bright yellow eyes went wide and he swallowed hard. But nonetheless, he nodded affably.
“Yes, yes—of course she is a true La-ti-zal. I was assured so by the Commercians whom I bought her from in the first place.”
“Do not think to deflect the blame,” Captain Zernex growled. “If you have sold us any defective products, we will find you and separate your head from the rest of your ridiculous looking body!”
He gave Gumpas a scathing look and then nodded down at me.
“Come—you will accompany me to the Throne Room where the Emperor sits upon the Throne of Night. The other La-ti-zal is already waiting but she claims she cannot help the Emperor until her counterpart arrives.”
“Her…her counterpart?” I stammered. I had to crane my neck to see his face—to see any of them, really. They were all at least ten feet tall and extremely muscular and all of them had different skin colors, just like the female Tangellans had. Only all the colors looked like they had been mixed with pitch-black—navy blue, fiery orange, blood red—all swirled with darkness.
“You—the other La-ti-zal,” the Captain rumbled, frowning down at me. “Come—and let us hope you can please His Majesty. He is in a foul mood today.”
Considering he was so big and there were three other guards of equal size surrounding me now, there was nothing else I could do but obey orders. Feeling like a little kid in the middle of a bunch of stern adults, I went with them.
The halls of this palace were much darker than the female palace on the other side of the planet. They were made of some heavy, somber stone and the high ceilings had no skylights—only dim, flickering glows that lit the way with sullen reluctance.
At last we came to a vast set of double doors made of some dull, black wood. The Captain pounded on them twice and they began to swing open, disclosing an enormous throne room, about the size of the one in the female palace where Vik’tor and I had “performed” for the Empress.
But the size of the throne room was where the similarities ended. Instead of colorful stones this room was paved in harsh black rock. Also, there was no golden path leading to the black throne where the Emperor sat, towering above everyone on his dais, and no sign of any pool of cleansing waters. Therewas, however, a double line of guards blocking the way to the throne. All of them were ten feet tall and all of them were wearing the same sculpted bronze armor as the guards surrounding me.
“Who comes to disturb his Majesty?” one of them growled.
“It is I, Zernex,” the Captain of the Guards said. “I come bringing the other La-ti-zal that his Majesty ordered me to procure for him.” He nodded down at me. “She may not look like much, but the merchant, Gumpas, swears she has the secret and sacred powers.”
Well, thanks a lot. I would have been offended if I wasn’t freaked out about having to display “secret and sacred powers” before a monarch who I had been told was already in a bad mood.
“In that case, approach the throne,” the guard at the door said.
He stepped aside and, as though his movement was a signal, all the other guards stepped aside too—some going to one side and some to the other until they formed a kind of living pathway to the black throne.
“Come,” Captain Zernex told me. “We may now approach the Throne of Night.”
This sounded ominous to me, but I was surrounded so I had no choice but to follow him as he led me through the rows of Tangellan guards towards the black stone dais where the Emperor was sitting on his throne.
I kept my eyes down at the rough black stones at my feet, not wanting to make eye contact with Shadout the Twenty-second and one half until I absolutely had to. Not that I probably would have—I was surrounded by the guards who were all as tall as trees. But when we reached the foot of the dais, the Captain of the Guard put a hand on my shoulder and murmured, “Stop.”
I stopped and stood where I was, keeping my head down until a deep voice from the dais spoke.
“So—this is the other La-ti-zal. At last we have what we need to fulfill the prophecy.”
The prophecy?My head jerked up and I saw his face—the same darkly handsome face that had appeared in the Rainbow Empress’s magic mirror. I saw his black hair and eyes, his deep purple skin, and those lips which looked sensual and cruel at the same time. He was wearing a black toga-like garment that left one broad shoulder bare and high black boots that came up to his knees.