Batman V Superman - Highlight

All the while this was going on, she was musing over a crucial decision: should she, or should she not, act upon the promise the black-clad one had made?

That he had the power to which he laid claim, she never doubted. Two years before anyone else in Ys saw what needed to be done, she had closed a bargain concerning her virginity which she had scrupulously kept- at first partly from fear, but lately out of simple habit.

And what she had purchased by the bargain had enabled her to recognize the single nature of their unaccountable visitor.

A single nature! Surely that must imply its possessor could neither lie nor deceive! In which case she might employ her talents now to produce results compared to which her previous achievements were dross. Her whole life since the age of eleven had been on the edge of a precipice-and there were creatures at the bottom of the chasm which she had eluded only by the most exact pre-planning. Accordingly, the notion of exercising her powers at least once in full foreknowledge of success attracted her. An uncharacteristic yielding to vanity had made her call Ub-Shebbab to the Hall of State; he was the meekest and mildest of the beings she had conjured up, yet her skin prickled when she thought of what might have...

No, that happened only to fools and bunglers. And she was neither. She reached her decision and dismissed her maids. Them gone, she put on a gown which had not been displayed during her bath, worked all over in gold wire with a single sentence in a forgotten language; then she opened a brass chest and took out gifts she had exacted from various suitors before information about her inflexible rule was noised abroad.

There was a twig from Yorbeth, bearing a leaf transparent as glass and a brown, blotched fruit which tinkled like a bell; there was a vial of rainwater caught at the foot of the rainbow overarching Barbizond, that had a trifle of Sardhin's essence in it; there was a block of pumice from the volcano where Fegrim slumbered; there was a jar of grey dust from the hill where Laprivan was shut away; there was a hair from the head of Farchgrind, an inch of candle that had revealed the secret thoughts of Wolpec but had been allowed to burn one instant longer than was safe, and a drawing of two birds and a crocodile made by a possessed child.

Also there was a book.

Following with care the instructions it contained, she danced around her boudoir keening, crawled twice backwards across the floor with a knife between her teeth, and at last cut her forearm and let three drops of her blood fall on the carpet. When she looked for them the stains had vanished.

Nothing else happened in the room. She had expected that; humming, she called her maids back to change her gown for something more conventional and went down to the dining-hall where supper was to be served.

Already as she approached it she could hear the clatter of dishes, the clamor of conversation. That boded a great company. She hurried the last few steps and threw open the door.

Every place at her great table-and there were thirty-six-was taken; the servants had pressed into use benches from the kitchen, too, and the sideboards and the serving-tables were alike packed with a hungry horde. For all the scullions and maids could do, the food, brought on trolleys because there was more of it than a man could lift, disappeared within instants of being set down, and still the howl went up for more. The bread had gone, the meat, the wine; now it was boiled turnips and hedge-greens, broth of bones and barley, and beer much too new to serve by ordinary.

Yet that was not all. Behind, between, among those who ate went others looting. The fine brocade drapes had been torn down to clothe naked bodies, leather-backed chairs stripped to afford protection to sore feet, tapestries turned to cloaks and ponchos. One wild-eyed woman, lacking anything else, had smeared herself with gravy to break up the maggot pallidity of her skin.

Meleagra stood in the doorway for a long heartbeat of time before the chief steward caught sight of her and came running to beg her help.

"Mistress, what shall we do? They are in every room -five hundred of them at the least count! And all, all have claimed the right to what you have, for they say they are your ancestors and this is their home too!"

"My ancestors?" whispered Meleagra. Her eyes, drawn as by a magnet, went to him who had taken her seat at the head of the table, and a silence overcame the entire company.

The one at whom she gazed was a cross-eyed, ill-favored fellow in a dirty doublet, unshaven and with black around his nails. He gave her a smile that displayed gapped yellow teeth, and spoke in a soft voice with a peasant's accent.

"Ah, Meleagra, sure and you set a fine table! This meal which you account an everyday affair matches the grandest feasts we held in times gone by!"

"Who-who are you?" Meleagra choked out.

"You know me not?" The fellow cocked an eyebrow traversed by a scar. "Why, Damien, of course, who built the house and founded the family's fortune in the earliest age of Ys.