SG1-15 The Power Behind the Throne by Steven Savile Read Free Book Online Page B

could look so much like the beast, and ever more so the longer they spent in each other’s company.
    Iblis looked at the juggler.
    “You are a tedious man, Fool,” Keen rasped. “What can you do that is more interesting? Watching you throw your clubs in the air is sending me to sleep. We have to make things more exciting. I know, you’re going to juggle, Fool, but you are going to do it like your life depends on it. Between barks from Senisia here, you drop a club you lose a finger, understand? If you make it you walk away with your fingers and fifty Raqs for your trouble. Now, pick up your clubs.”
    Iblis watched the poor man gather his clubs with everyone staring at him, willing him to fail. A few fingers would put Keen in the right kind of mood to be amenable to the idea the Goa’uld was going to plant in his mind later.
    Corvus Keen’s hand snaked out and tugged at the wolfhound’s ear, causing the dog to bark angrily as it looked around for the source of the unexpected attack.
    The first club sailed into the air, followed along its arc by the second. The juggler caught the first in his left hand even as the he tossed the third with his right. It was a simple pattern but there was no need for anything elaborate, the threat of lost fingers added spice enough to the game as it was. The clubs flew hand over hand for six passes. He almost dropped one twice but recovered. Keen stared intently at the man. The sores around his lips and chin glistened with saliva.
    The fool managed two more passes before he dropped the first club. He crumbled inward after that, whimpering and pleading for the dog to bark even as he fumbled another club and then another.
    He dropped five clubs before the dog barked again.
    “You owe me a hand, Fool,” Keen said, picking at the dirt beneath his fingernail disinterestedly. “But I am in a good mood,” Keen smiled gregariously. “I think I shall spare you.”
    Relief swept over the juggler’s face.
    It was short lived.
    “I am a man of my word. I will just take the fingers; three from your right hand, two from your left, I think. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind and take both of your hands.”
    Two of Keen’s loyal Raven Guard dragged the juggler away kicking and screaming every step of the way. The court was silent for a moment, not shocked by the decree so much as savoring it. Of course, every one of them knew that but for the grace of Keen there they themselves went.
    Iblis smiled at the cruelty of it. It was such a petty thing, this human condition, but there was much amusement to be had watching them play at being gods.
    “Perhaps I might have a little of your time? In private,” Iblis bent low and whispered into Corvus Keen’s ear. The fat man nodded, and pushed his hefty bulk up out of the bird throne.
    “Talk as we walk, my friend,” Keen wheezed after barely three steps. His belly spilled out over the top of his bursting trousers.
    Kelkus fell into step behind them, the shadow’s shadow. The three swept through the corridors of Corvus Keen’s Raven Tower, and up the three hundred and twenty-one winding steps to the privacy of the roof top aviary where Keen kept his birds.
    Iblis took perverse delight in making the fat man huff and puff and struggle up the winding stair.
    “Kelkus, make sure we are not overheard. My words are for the Great Keen alone. It would not do for pricked ears and wagging tongues to be party to our conversation.”
    “As you wish, my lord — ” Iblis cut him off with a stare. It would not do for Kelkus to call him God before Keen. The corpulent tyrant’s ego wouldn’t stand for it. Kelkus bobbed his head and shuffled off, shooing the birds up into flight as he walked among them. Before he reached the tower door the air was a swirl with cawing ravens and cackling crows. There were so many more species up here in the aviary, but Keen’s Raven Master kept them caged.
    Iblis looked down upon the city.
    There was a curious beauty