The Fallen Kings [M]

[Kuzuru]

It was long before Gilgamesh made an appearance that Zanzibar had grown bored. Not a single gladiator that day had piqued even the smallest iota of interest from him. Chaff, he called them, every last one of them had been nothing more than sacks of meat waiting to be threshed. Though the worst of it was not the fact that he had wasted an entire day watching sub-par gladiators, but rather that the crowd seemed to love these pathetic displays of barbarity. As the blonde-haired combatant entered the arena Zanazibar shifted about in his seat. The demon raised a pair of jewel-encrusted binoculars up to his eyes and scanned the new arrival. Zanzibar lowered the specs. He removed an earplug from his ear and winced at the deafening roar of the crowd.

“Levem,” he shouted, addressing his servant, “that is the one you were telling me about is it not?”

Levem, who had taken the form of a black house cat with a set of green horns, stretched and yawned. It had been sleeping soundly despite the crowd’s rancorous jeering. It sat up in the chair and looked at the gladiator in question.

“Yes sir,” it said, “he appears to be a prime and quite a tenacious one at that.”

Zanzibar grunted and glassed the king again.

“Levem, please go and find out who owns him,” he said.

“Yes sir,” Levem responded, “shall I put in a purchase order for him?”

Zanzibar said nothing for a moment. He turned his binoculars towards the opposition. There was no mistaking the massive frame of Allanon. Zanzibar smiled and replaced his earplug.

“No, not yet,” he answered, “I want to see just how tenacious our golden friend is.”

“Yes sir.”

With that the shapeshifter sprouted a set of leathery wings and took flight. Zanzibar watched as his familiar zig-zagged above the crowd before disappearing behind a plume of smog. It was with a soft grin that the patron turned his gaze back to the combatants.

“Come on then,” Zanzibar muttered, “let’s see some magic.”