The High King of the Lotus Empire summoned his chief advisor. “I am bored,” he said.
“I am sorry to hear that, your Majesty,” said the chief advisor. “Let me summon the cooks.”
“I have eaten the dawn-fruits that appear once in ten years in the shadowed valleys of the tallest mountains. I have tasted the dried tongues of singing fish, and steaks cut from a living unicorn and seasoned with its tears; I have eaten the breasts of virgins sautéed in wizard’s blood. What else is there for me to try?”
“Perhaps the alchemists can help?” said the chief advisor, paling a little.
“I have bathed in the sensual smokes of the purple swamp flowers; I have eaten dried dragondung and seen its fiery and twisted visions. My finest brewer-magicians have created for my personal use a liqueur made by passing sunlight through honey, and I have even tried the bitter white anle brewed from the corpses of drowned nymphs washed ashore on the Silver Isle.
“I have heard musicians from the courts of La’al who could conjure tears from the dead and singers from Incarless whose voices bring down thunder. I have had my slaves subjected to the most complex tortures; and still, I am bored. Find me something new.”
“Perhaps, Sire, a woman? You have received new tribute for the harem…”
“Oh, pah, women. There is only so much one can do, and only so many parts to do it with. But you may choose me one,” the King said. “I give you permission to enter the harem. Here is my seal. And let her be interesting, or I will have you both hanged from my bedroom window by your entrails.”
The chief advisor bowed his way out.
He returned shortly after, ushering before him a woman who, anywhere but the King’s palace, would have been considered sublime. Here she was no more than ordinary.
“Your Majesty is troubled,” she said.
“My Majesty is merely bored. I desire entertainment. Something fresh. Something I have not already experienced a thousand times.”
The woman stood with her hands folded, and he waited to see her tremble, but she did not.
“I think, perhaps,” she said, “that I am not capable of providing what your Majesty desires.”
“Then why should I not have you executed?” he said.
“That is your Majesty’s prerogative,” she said. “But if you will permit, I think I may know the source of your Majesty’s ennui, and perhaps might be able to suggest a cure.”
The King waved a hand at her to continue.
“I believe,” she said, “that your Majesty suffers because your mind is not like that of other men. You are the King. Your mind is of course finer, keener, more exquisitely tuned. How can the pleasures of ordinary mortals fulfil your desires?”
“Well,” said the King. “For a woman, you are remarkably intelligent. Advisor, I am surprised that such a thought never occurred to you.”
The Advisor bowed. “I am desolated that I was too foolish to recognise so obvious an explanation,” he said.
“But what is the cure?” said the King, eagerly.
“Why,” said the woman, “your Majesty being of a higher nature should be experiencing the pleasures of the higher beings. Of angels and djinni. But to do this it is necessary to enhance the senses of this human body in which your Majesty is confined. If I may be permitted to speak with your alchemists, your armourers, your magicians, I believe we may be able to do something for you.”
So the King gave her permission. And for many days the alchemists and armourers and magicians toiled to create a Suit of Enhancement; watched over always by the King’s guards so that no hidden blade or subtle poison be placed within it, for there had been, for some reason, many many attempts to assassinate the King.
And it seemed to many that this was yet another of the King’s pleasures upon which much material and time and money was spent, while trade languished and crops failed and the populace starved. But eventually the Suit of Enhancement was finished. It was very fine, of bronze and brass, jewels and silk; it was rather like a great bed, of immense comfort and luxury, yet shaped so as to bring to the King the singing of angels and permit him to sample the narcotics that the djinni drew from the very air. The King’s guards tried it out upon a prisoner, who wept when he was removed from it, but was otherwise unharmed.
The King did not even bother having the prisoner executed, for the expression of delight on his face while he was within the suit had convinced the King that the pleasure it gave was great indeed, and that the prisoner had wept only because he was a foolish mortal. The King, having a finer mind, would be unscathed.
He stepped into its embrace.
The first exquisite notes of angelic voices crept into his ears.
Some time later, he was aware of his chief advisor, asking him if he wished to do something or other. The King waved him away. At some other point, a prisoner was brought before him, and the King waved him away.
~
“I should advise you keep him fed,” the woman said, “and make sure that it is known he is still alive; otherwise neighbouring rulers might be inclined to take advantage.”
“Thank you,” said the chief advisor. “Are you sure you won’t stay?”
“We ladies of the harem would like to get back to our homes, since he will never notice we’ve gone. There will be no more tribute.”
“No indeed,” said the chief advisor.
The ladies of the harem returned home, the chief advisor took over running the country, and the King lay in his bed of delights, listening to the voices of angels, and tasting the narcotics of the djinni.
The King's Pleasure by Gaie Sebold was read by Marc Forde at the Liars League Rebels & Tyrants event at The Wheatsheaf on Tuesday 14 July, 2009
Gaie Sebold has a day job. She has published short stories and poetry, has two novels with an agent, is finishing a third, is a member of T-Party Writers, and posts flash fiction on Plot Medics. She gardens, waves swords around, and hasn’t had enough sleep since 1992.
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