by Devin Madson
“I… I don’t know if I can. Shit, where’s She?”
“She?” said Kocho. “Oh, Kaysa? She’s been in her room since the exchange. I thought maybe we’d lost you because I couldn’t hear you anywhere, but Saki said you were here. She tried moving you while you were asleep, but though she could take you out of there she couldn’t root you back in your own body again. The master is fascinated.”
“Well, he can be fascinated about someone else’s bloody problem,” I snapped, every word sounding like a snippy Empress Hana. “Get me back into my body.”
Kocho looked to Saki, and for a silent moment they seemed to communicate without the words the rest of us needed. Then Kocho grimaced. “Saki doesn’t think she can.”
“What do you mean she doesn’t think she can? She put me here, she can get me back out.”
“No, she didn’t. She didn’t touch you at all. The master thinks a transfer must have happened at the moment of death, like you shifted into the corpse but because he brought Her Majesty back to life her soul didn’t leave, or maybe did only to come back, or… who knows. This is all very strange and I don’t know what to say. I’ll go get Kaysa. She might be able to pull you back like she would from a corpse.”
He hurried out, leaving me to sit in silence with Empress Hana. The empress had far more presence within me than She had ever had—her voice louder, her thoughts stronger, her body stretched tight as though we sat shoulder to shoulder within a single skin.
I wanted to get up and follow Kocho, but the effort of standing seemed beyond me. Everything ached. Not the ache of an injury that would heal, not the daily aches a hot bath could mend, the sort of aches that cut deep into every joint and made me feel older than my years.
Don’t forget, this body is younger than yours, Miss Marius.
I couldn’t tell if she reminded me so I would not be rude, or so I might know I had been lucky, for I could discern no intention above the jumble of thought-noise. And a jumble it was, strands of thoughts and words seeming to tangle in amongst mine, far more distracting than Hers had ever been. She had just been an annoying presence, a taunting voice that never left me alone.
Saki’s clear purple eyes watched me—watched us as I navigated the new sensations. She owned the same fire the Witchdoctor had imbued into Kocho, needing answers to questions that brought only more questions, the seeking of knowledge as keen a drug as any amount of Stiff.
What is this Stiff you keep thinking about?
The thought of trying to explain the drink to the Dragon Empress left me as speechless as the staring girl. Yet saliva dampened my tongue at the thought of it, and I clenched and unclenched hands that were not mine only to find every joint ached, even in her fingers, the knuckles stiff like they had been broken in a punch.
The more Saki stared the more aware I became of time passing. Kocho had not returned. My room was not far. Even had Kaysa been with the Witchdoctor, surely Kocho would have run and—
I stood, shocked by how weak my legs felt. They shook like those of a newborn animal standing for the first time, and I would have fallen but for Saki’s grip upon my wheat-coloured sleeve. The empress had retreated from the blinding bolts of pain ripping through her knees, but I forced them to stand, to straighten, and at last deeming me able to hold my own weight, Saki let go.
The pain ebbed but did not dissipate, and my first step off the sleeping mat made me question the wisdom of a second. But Kocho still had not returned. Panic quickened my breath far more surely than the pain settling in my joints.
“Why does it hurt so much just to walk?” I said through gritted teeth.
From the swirling thoughts in my head Empress Hana said, It has never been this bad before, even at its worst. Normally I can function through it and the worst bouts have only ever laid me up for an afternoon.
“But what is it?”
I don’t know. People call it the Imperial Disease, but Torvash says that no human medical condition can be attributed to a distant, angry god and that sometimes things just go wrong on their own. And sometimes those malfunctions cannot be fixed. My body is attacking itself, he says, and his knowledge is not sufficient to change that, only to postpone the day I inevitably destroy myself.
She spoke with matter-of-fact resignation as I forced our legs toward the door, Saki hovering. It hurt like walking through fire, but at least I had found my balance. Empress Hana was shorter, her legs thinner, her feet smaller, and her body less top-heavy without the weighty breasts I was used to, but so long as I concentrated on each step I could account for the changes without wobbling. Much.
We reached the door at a slow shuffle. Kocho had shut it tight to keep the heat from escaping, and as the hand that wasn’t mine slid it open, cool air from the passage hit me like a fist to the face.
“This is ridiculous,” I snarled as I reeled back, joints stiffening. “There must be something the god-man can do.”
He has a very good sedative. And some things to dull the pain.
“Then let’s bloody well go get some.”
Don’t you want to look for your body first?
There was no sign of Kocho in the dark passage. When had it become night?
Miss Marius, I am not as stupid as you seem to think me. You cannot put me off by thinking about the time. Your body. Go find it so you can leave me to die in peace.
Fear simmered, but hoping she would not see it, I said, “You aren’t allowed to die yet, Your Majesty.”
That, Miss Marius, is not your decision to make.
Saki joined me in the passage, holding a lantern aloft and walking alongside as I shuffled toward answers.
My room was dark and cold and empty. No Kaysa. No Kocho. No Lechati. And despite her silence I was grateful for Saki’s presence. She stood solid and sure, her lantern beating back a night made all the more strange by the body in which I walked.
Trying not to panic, I doubled back, gaining speed as our joints warmed up. In the central hall where the great tree held court, rain snuck in around its canopy, looking like drops of molten gold in the arc of Saki’s lantern. I had not thought it possible, but the clinging stink of its rotting blossoms reeked worse than ever, and even more iridescent purple blooms were turning to brown sludge upon the steps. I started down carefully, clutching the stair rail with fingers that felt swollen.
“Is there any part of your body that isn’t broken?” I began loud but ended in a whisper as the first words echoed around the tree-choked space. “Does your hair hurt too?”
Is your mind always this sarcastic and unnecessarily cruel?
“Cruel?”
The empress didn’t answer, but her thoughts filled with displeasure and… hurt? Frustration? They were vague shapes of feelings rather than clear outlines, but I’d never felt either from Her.
At the bottom of the stairs Saki went ahead across the stepping stones to light the way. All around us the shallow pool plinked and rippled with the falling rain, drowning the blossoms that had made this their grave.
As we reached the far side, echoing voices rose to mingle with the rain. I sped toward the workroom.
“He is doing what?” came the Witchdoctor’s voice, pouring through the door on a tide of lantern light. “How does he know where we are?”
“Someone must have followed us,” returned Kocho. He sounded more agitated than I had ever heard him and I hurried on, step after aching step, straining to catch the sound of Kaysa’s—of my own voice. “I don’t know what he wants,” Kocho went on. “But he has more people with swords than we do.”
“Where is Saki?”
“Upstairs with the empress and the Deathwalker. I should get back to them, I said I would—”
I stepped into their light. “Where’s Kaysa?”
“Saki,” the Witchdoctor said, and in the brightness I could only hear his tread approach. “Lechati is searching for a way through their blockade so you can reach the Door. It seems the hieromonk is not satisfied with his trade and has com
e to renegotiate it.”
“At night,” Kocho said. “With torches. And men with swords.”
“If Lechati finds a way out then take Deathwalker Three with you,” the Witchdoctor went on, and as I adjusted to the bright light I found three pairs of eyes watching me. Kocho bit his lip and did not meet my gaze. I didn’t need to be able to read his mind to know what troubled him.
“She’s gone, isn’t She?”
The old man nodded. Silence followed, filled with nothing but the endless rain. The lingering hope that had powered me here drowned in panic, and crushed beneath the weight of all Empress Hana’s pains, I slid to the floor and stared, numb, at the play of dust in the lantern light. She was gone. I was gone. My body, the only one I had ever known, strong, healthy, capable—gone. I had known since the moment Kocho left the room in search of Her, had known and yet been unwilling to admit, unwilling to accept that after all these years She had won, had stolen my flesh, leaving me nothing but a passenger in this broken shell.
Footsteps melded with the storm and Lechati returned at a run. “They appear to have us completely surrounded,” the young man said, out of breath. “But there might be a way to sneak out through the moon gate and into the garden, though if Her Majesty isn’t capable of walking it might be—”
“I’m not leaving without my body,” I said. “She cannot have gone far. I can feel it.”
And I could, like a rock of certainty that no amount of panic or pain could wear away.
As though I had not spoken, Lechati went on: “It will add significantly to the difficulty of escape and the length of our journey if she must be carried.”
“No one is carrying me because I am not going,” I said, slamming my fist into his foot for emphasis.
The young man hissed and gripped his toes, hopping to keep his balance as he spilled swear words in his native tongue.
Miss Marius! You are in my body now and as it seems I may be stuck with you for some time, do remember that people do not see an uncouth whore when they look at me, but an Empress of Kisia. You must behave accordingly.
“Bullshit!” I snapped. “I’ll do whatever I like while I’m in charge.”
A thrust of anger blindsided me and I could not stop her saying aloud, “Miss Marius would like to apologise for her disrespectful behaviour, but as her issues leave her unable to apologise, I shall voice her contrition on her behalf. However, though I do not condone her way of speaking, I must second the insistence that we are not going anywhere until we find Miss Marius’s body. To continue like this much longer would make me wish for death more than my illness has ever done. Get her out of my head.”
This last she addressed to the Witchdoctor. As impassive as ever, he replied, “I have attempted to restore Deathwalker Three to her body by all means open to me, without success. Saki is unable to help. There is a possibility that even Deathwalker Three’s second soul would not be able to revert the shift that occurred when you died.”
“So I need to almost die again to get rid of her?” the empress said, wincing as she got us to our feet.
“No,” the Witchdoctor said. “You did not almost die. You did die. But if my hypothesis regarding the mechanics of a Deathwalker is correct then it is another person who would have to be near death for the transfer to be repeated, and it would not be Miss Marius who was moved on, rather yourself.”
“Me?”
“Yes, because she is the Deathwalker. She can move the second soul in and out of your body, you cannot. It is merely my current theory, however, and something I look forward to testing further. To that end I request that you go with Lechati and Saki to the Door.”
“No.”
His sculpted brows rose. “No?”
“No. You are speaking in possibilities and suppositions. You are also speaking of an eventuality where I am forced from my body into the skin of yet another unsuspecting person. This is not a desirable outcome. We will find Miss Marius’s body.”
“You seem to think this is up for discussion,” he said, his tone almost bored despite Lechati hopping foot to foot, turning all the time to look along the shadowy passage. He kept parting his lips only to say nothing as his master took on the force of Empress Hana in full imperial manner. “You cannot stay.”
“You’re right, it is not up for discussion,” she agreed, and I revelled in the triumph that lit her soul. “I cannot stay. I am leaving in search of Miss Marius’s body and no one is going to stop me.”
More running steps split the silence and the Witchdoctor looked to the newcomers—a pair of Kisian servants I had seen about the house. “They are in the Wisteria Court, Master,” one said.
“There’s another group in the garden,” the other added.
Their words dredged up memories—a stone courtyard thick with rain and fallen petals. Beneath the steepled roof of twisting vines I ran, every splashing step so loud someone was sure to hear me, to shout, to give chase.
The crutches are a pain, but if Cassandra can use them, so can I.
“She went out through the Wisteria Court!” I cried. “Kaysa.”
One of the servants had been speaking. She paused to glare at me, before going on, “He is asking for you, Master.”
“Then I will go,” the Witchdoctor said. “Lechati, take Saki and—”
“But, Master, they have us surrounded. There’s no way out.”
Anyone else might have sworn, but Torvash merely narrowed his eyes and said, “Very well. Lechati, Kocho, stay here with Saki and Deathwalker Three. I shall speak to the hieromonk and return, although if this house has been compromised, we ought to move on regardless of the outcome. I will not have my studies interrupted by the importuning of men bloated by their own ill-perceived sense of power.”
Before anyone could object, the Witchdoctor strode away along the passage with no diminution of assurance. Did he really think talking to the hieromonk would be enough? If the man had lost half—more than half—his army at Mei’lian he would be in no mood to be refused anything.
“What does the bastard want?” I said, turning on the two servants.
“We don’t know,” one said, lifting her chin. “We did not stop to ask him. Kocho, I am worried. You said nothing of this sort of thing. I could be cooking for a lord or a merchant and—”
“And have been burned alive by conquering Levanti,” the old man said. “The master knows what he’s doing. Now stay here with Saki and Lechati.” He too set off along the passage, his gait nowhere near as even and confident as the Witchdoctor’s had been.
“If he knows what he is doing then why do you need to run off?” the woman called after him, but Kocho just waved his hand irritably as he vanished into the deep shadows.
I snatched the lantern from Saki’s slackened grip and, ignoring Lechati’s outcry, followed Kocho. If Kaysa had gone out through the court, I would too, and no foul slug of a hieromonk was going to stop me.
What are you doing? You don’t even have a weapon.
“So? You wanted to die, didn’t you? Stop complaining and let me get on with it.”
Her aching knees and tired muscles stole all hope of speed, but though every step hurt I forced myself on. She was right, I needed a weapon. Something. Anything. I had walked around and around this house and found nothing but the foreign-looking things in that gallery. I would have preferred something simpler with a sharp point, but clearly the world had stopped caring what I wanted.
“Nearly there, nearly there,” I chanted through every stiff step, switching the lantern from aching hand to aching hand to better bear its weight. “Nearly there.”
The gallery looked out upon the Wisteria Court, yet by slipping in from the workroom I could avoid its open doors—open doors through which Kaysa had run with my body.
“We already made a deal,” the Witchdoctor said outside as I shuffled into the empty gallery.
Rain stole the reply, but leaving the lantern in the middle of the floor, I crept to the shuttered windows. Out in the co
urtyard stood a forest of men. They grew from the flooded stones, each holding a spitting pitch torch. Except for the hieromonk. The surrounding firelight flickered upon his linen mask, making his face appear more alive than usual, but it was no improvement.
“I will take them both back,” he said with the confidence of a dozen armed soldiers at his back.
“And return what? Your son?”
“No. You give me the empress and the whore and I don’t burn down this house and kill everyone inside, yourself included.”
The Witchdoctor managed to look even more bored. “I am a god,” he said. “I do not die.”
“Perhaps not, but all your… friends will. And all your papers, all your books and your notes. Very flammable.”
The rain fell unheeded around them and everyone held their breath. Here were two men who would not back down, who were used to getting their way.
“Shit,” I hissed, stepping back from the window. “Time to go.” I turned to the wall of old weapons, but the two sickle blades were gone. And just as I could remember striding out through the Wisteria Court in my own skin, I could remember taking them from the wall, and the joyous feeling of their weight in my hands.
“She took them.”
How do you know?
“I… remember doing it, even though I wasn’t there. I remember leaving too, and…” I tried to look further but felt only the sensation of rain and wind biting my face as I exulted in my new-found freedom. “She’s riding. North, I think, but I can’t be sure. Fuck, she could be going anywhere, could already be miles away.”
Then we had better get out of here.
I grabbed a finely etched club from the sad remnants of a once fine collection. It hadn’t looked heavy, but it dropped straight to the floor, dragging my hand with it. It took two hands to lift, and cradling it like a child, I returned to the window.
Remarkably, the two men were still talking, though the hieromonk’s guards had edged closer, their weapons glinting menace in the torchlight.
“What do you mean you don’t have them anymore?” the hieromonk snarled over the plink and plop of heavy drops falling around him.