Chapter Text
He is known as The Immortan. His reach is vast, though his lands are small. They say that he stood upon the battlements of his Citadel on the very day that the Cataclysm cleaved the land into the wastes that they have become, and watched as the Drakes scoured the green and the blue from the world before taking their Power with them into the void. They say that the Immortan, himself, made a deal with those Drakes, sold his very Soul, for the Power he wields, to hold his lands and his War Boys and his Wives.
And so, the Wretched gather at the base of his towers and beg for his scraps, hoping against hope for one more day, one more morning, one more moment. The Immortan is their Salvation. Without Him, there is no blue water to quench their thirst, no green food for their bellies, no gold Power to sate the gnawing of their souls. Beyond the circle of lands that the War Boys hold “safe”, the Wretched have learned that the Wastes suck away every Mote of Power for any unlucky enough to stay too long. And so, they cling to their Immortan, and beg and grovel and hope that he will look down upon them mercifully this day and open the gates to bring them another day, another morning, just another moment of life.
Little do they know that it is from the Wretched, themselves, that the Immortan sucks away that golden Power, pitiful dregs of it that it may be that he can gather from them. Little do they know that all living things make their own Life, shed it like motes of dust, though these poor wretches have so little to spare. Little do they know how very diminutive their precious Immortan’s knowledge is about the sorceries that he casts from the skin-bound book that he stole before the Drakes scoured the lands. Little do they know how very few spells that their precious Immortan actually can cast from that cursed tome.
And so, he casts his few spells, sucks away their tiny motes of shed life, draining their miserable existence into even deeper levels of want and despair, only to cast it back out over them again, in a pale illusion of generosity. From his own War Boys, he subtly drains all but their recklessness, their rage, their ferocity, and feeds what he has taken from them back in a thin miasma of frenetic restlessness. From his stonemasons and his greenthumbs and his cooks, he sucks away all the hope and wonder and ambition, all the interest in life’s little joys until there is just the Work. Nothing but the Work. And no curiosity to look for anything beyond the Work.
And little by little, his lands sicken more and more under the drain of his rapacious spells.
Only a few remain untouched. His Sons, for they must someday stand in his stead, and so must learn to wield his spells and his Power as he does, and so cannot be muddled by those very spells. His Imperators, for they must remain clear-headed enough to direct his reckless War Boys. And his Wives, because their anger and their pain IS a source of his power.
Besides, he has very, very different spells for them.
His Wives are the bulk of his Power, and always have been. He only has five, at the moment. Five Favored, that is. There are dozens of Milking Mothers yet, and he draws upon them and their despair, still, too, for despair is a potent power. But the anger and the rage and the hope that comes before the despair are much more powerful, still, and so, there are only the Five. Well, the Five, and Furiosa.
Angharad, the Splendid. The Beautiful. The Bear. Capable the calm. The free spirit. The Fox. Toast the Knowing. The feisty one. The Wolf. The Dag. The angry one. The Swan. Cheedo the Fragile. The sweet one. The Heron. His beautiful, lovely shapeshifters. His Wives. And Furiosa, the Selkie. His Once-Wife, now wrathful Imperator.
All carefully collected, traded, stolen, or bought at great expense just for him. Ensorcelled to the Immortan’s hand and no other’s, but not tamed. Oh, never tamed, his Wives. That would shatter the bulk of their Power! Relegate them to the Milking Rooms! No, never tamed, his beauties.
First comes the Sleep, long and deep, to keep them under his hand until he has completed the rest of the sorceries he needs in order to bind them to him. Next from the Grimoire of Skin, is the Unbinding, the spell that breaks the tie between them and the Source of their Shifting. Be it Curse or Gift or Word or Blood or Tradition, he has yet to find any were-creature or shifter whose Source has been strong enough to resist the Unbinding. And once Unbound, the Immortan can gather up their Shifting and Bind it into whatever Source he wishes; he always Binds it into Skin.
There have been those, however, that he has not had to go through so much to bind to him. His angry Dag, the Swanmaiden, and Furiosa the Selkie. There have been several swans and selkie, and even a fox and a wolf clan maiden over the years, that have saved him considerable power and trouble by coming to him with their shifting already tied to Skin. He had needed only to place the Sleep and take their skins and then hide them with the rest. Usually, though, there is the Sleep, and the Unbinding, and the Binding. And then he must remove her skin and conceal it before he awakens his new Bride.
With a kiss, of course.
Oh how sweet those first moments are, when his new Wife finds that she cannot shift, cannot touch her Power, cannot escape. When he explains that only HE can bring back her skin to her, and only HIS hand can return her shifting to her… and he will. Someday. If she pleases him.
How sweet that first bright burst of despair and anguish is. That rage. That fire. It is like a drug, and he gets so drunk upon it, and even more when he explains that his death will not bring her skin back or end the spell, but will, instead, doom her forever to a life as a mortal human woman. But, yes, if she pleases him, he will bring forth her skin someday and let her shift. For a little while. To amuse him. For it is his skin to control now, as she is his Wife now, no matter what her life before may have been. Search all she wishes for her skin, her Power, she will not find it, for it is the Immortan’s now.
Would it not make them all gnash their teeth with frustration to know that their skins are there in the very domed oasis that he keeps them? Hanging upon a glittering, golden Tree of Power is every Skin of every Wife that he has ever had from the first days after the Cataclysm, right up to his fragile little Heron, Cheedo, all carefully preserved. Hidden by the most powerful spell he can wield, a Glamorie that conceals the Tree and it’s precious burdens from everyone but him, all the skins hang, patiently waiting. It amuses the Immortan to leave these skins so very near to their desperate owners, with those women so none the wiser. If only they knew, if only, if only.
But, just in case fickle Fate curses him with one who actually CAN pierce the illusion of his most powerful Glamorie, a safeguard, and a gift in one for his most perfect son, the one not yet born. The son who must one day wield this power for himself. For each skin hangs, concealed, waiting, dozens upon dozens of them, and far too many of them for the Immortan to alter all of the spells on in his advancing years, to key them to the son who is not yet born… and so, the spells that keep them upon the tree, the spells that keep the Shapes locked within the Skins, must merely have a male hand to free them. No woman may remove these skins. No Wife may simply don her own Skin unaided and expect to find the Power within. It must be a male hand to tug upon the shining cord that connects each Wearer to each Skin, and Call it down from the branches, and hand it forth to the Wife. It must be a male hand to grant the woman the Boon of the Use of the skin, and to set the terms of each Use. And so, Immortan’s Son That Is Yet To Be will be able to wield this power, and the only spell the Immortan will need to key to him will be the Glamorie. A quaint conceit, if he does think so himself.
Now, if only he could at last get him that Perfect Son, for his previous sons have been… lacking in one way or another. There is good promise of Him within Angharad’s swollen belly, finally. Time will yet tell. For now, the Immortan will continue to send out his War Boys to raid for the spoils and the magic and the mortals he needs to keep his place in this broken Waste secure. And he will visit with his Wives, and let them entertain him.
There are other bellies to fill, in the quest for his Perfect Son, after all.