Doppelganger

by Logan Jacobs

  “You were watching the whole thing, and you still thought you had a reason to worry? I am downright insulted, Ilandere.” I smiled so that she would know I was just teasing.

  “Ohh, well, you did great,” she said as a pretty blush came to her cheeks. “You are so strong, and your uhhh, I mean, both of your bodies worked so well together.”

  “Thanks Ilandere,” I laughed. “I have a job for you. Round up as many of these horses as you can since their old owners won’t be needing them anymore. Keep them calm and herd them together if you can. Willobee, get down from there. You and Lizzy collect any armor, weapons, and valuables from the bodies that looks useful.”

  Lizzy lifted Willobee down, and my team set to work. I assisted with both horse-catching and body-searching, depending on who looked like they needed my help most at the moment.

  Meanwhile, I rode back around the huddled knot of stunned vestals over to the high priestess.

  From horseback, conscious that I was severely blood-splattered, I said, “Bring Meline to me now.”

  “Yes, my lord,” replied old Mother Georgina. She gestured with her hand, and the four vestals surrounding the litter raised it back up onto their shoulders and began to make their way to the front of the group. “Thank you for saving my vestals. I… misjudged you.”

  “Then you believe I am Qaar’endoth now?” I asked, more curiously than anything else, since I was not quite sure whether I believed it myself.

  The high priestess smiled wryly. “Well, I do not know about that,” she replied. “And if I were to acknowledge a mere mortal as a god, it would be a grave offense to Nillibet. I hope you understand why I cannot risk it, my lord. But I do believe that you are a valiant warrior, an honorable man, and that you deserve all the help we can lend you. Little as it may be, under the circumstances.”

  I nodded. That was satisfactory.

  The veiled vestals lowered the litter before me. A dark hand banded with gold rings and bracelets parted the curtain, and the oracle emerged.

  She was clad in pale pink like the vestals, but she was neither veiled nor wimpled, and the style of her flowing gown left her shoulders and arms bare. She was a very lithe and graceful woman, long-necked and feline-featured, with skin the color of chocolate and masses and masses of black hair coiled upon her head in the most elaborate arrangement of braids that I had ever seen. Yet the most striking thing about her appearance was the fact that her large almond-shaped eyes had no pigment whatsoever in them.

  She reached out her hand, and one of the litter-bearers took it and supported her, like a gentleman about to lead a lady in a dance.

  “Hello, Meline,” I said. “I am Vander. Perhaps I am Qaar’endoth as well. You may know the truth of that better than I.”

  “Hello, Vander,” the dark beauty replied as she turned toward the sound of my voice. “Thank you for saving my sisters. I know you came here for my counsel. What is it you would like to know?”

  “I need to know how to defeat Thorvinius and his followers,” I answered. “They murdered my people.”

  “And will murder many more, if you do not stop them,” she added gravely.

  “Indeed,” I said. “Father Ludo did think that I was the one meant to stop them. He told me of a prophecy by Aurelana. She said--”

  “The faithful will perish, save for the strongest of them all, and that one will be the vessel of Qaar’endoth,” Meline began to recite. “And the vessel shall be multiplied with each proof of fealty. And from the alliance of the faithless shall come the age of Qaar’endoth.”

  “Yes,” I whispered. I did not ask her how she had learned of Aurelana’s prophecy. Perhaps oracles had psychic ways of communing with each other as well as with the gods. Perhaps she had obtained the information through more mundane means, such as a letter sent by bird or messenger. And then read aloud to her, for I supposed that one thing a blind woman could not do was read. “What does it mean?”

  “I am not sure,” she admitted. “The will of the gods is always obscure. But there is a haze of divinity about you. It is true that you are a vessel for something. What proofs may be required of you, I could not say. And as for the alliance… well… who are your companions? Are they from your temple?”

  “No. They are not from any temple,” I answered.

  “Well, then, it may be that that part of the prophecy refers to them,” Meline suggested. “But ‘faithless’ could also mean that they will betray you. Or that others will, whom you have not even met yet, but who will prove vital to your quest.”

  “I see,” I said. The oracle was gracious and regal and mesmerizing to look upon, but nothing she had said so far in that melodious voice of hers was actually of any real help.

  Meline seemed to sense my disappointment. “I am sorry, but I cannot interpret another oracle’s prophecy for you, Vander. Most likely she could not have explained it any further herself. We know only what little we are permitted to know.”

  “Well, I, ah, appreciate your time, Meline,” I said heavily. “And I wish you all a safe journey to your sisters’ temple, wherever that is.”

  I had just begun to turn away to see where my “faithless” companions had gone when the oracle spoke again.

  “There is one thing that I can tell you, Vander the Qaar’endothi,” she said. I gazed into her sightless white eyes, two pearls in the night. “Your quest will fail.”

  “What?” This was going from bad to worse. I was getting ready to demand what the fuck Meline thought she knew about me or my quest, anyway.

  Then she continued, “Unless you go to the village of Ferndale and banish that which ails its people. Unless you guard them from new mistakes by sunlight and from old mistakes by moonlight.”

  “What’s wrong with Ferndale?” I asked.

  “Ferndale?” Meline repeated quizzically. “What is Ferndale?”

  “But you just said--” I began.

  The regal oracle hiccupped. “Oh. My. Pardon me. What did I say?”

  “Your quest will fail. Unless you go to the village of Ferndale and banish that which ails its people. Unless you guard them from new mistakes by sunlight and from old mistakes by moonlight,” I repeated her own words to her.

  The oracle let go of the vestal who was supporting her and clasped her hands in front of her with girlish excitement. “A prophecy!” she exclaimed as she brought her hand to her chest. “Thank the Fairlands. It’s been ages since I’ve had one. You are most welcome, Vander the Qaar’endothi.” She smiled radiantly.

  I barely had time to say, “Thank you,” and hope that she heard me before the strange woman slipped back into her litter and pulled the curtain shut.

  “Vander, I think we have everything you are likely to want,” Lizzy said, and I turned to see that the beautiful wolf-woman had walked up to me while I finished talking to the oracle.

  Lizzy now had a leather pauldron fastened over my sleeveless surcoat and studded leather bracers laced up her forearms as well as a dagger strapped to each bare thigh. She had also adorned her neck with a bird skull pendant that one of Frank’s crew must have been wearing. Willobee waddled a little ways behind the ferocious-looking she-wolf draped in what was, on him, a chainmail gown and sounding excessively jingly. The two of them carried piles of the would-be bandits’ belongings over and dumped them in the carriage, transforming it into an armory on wheels.

  “Have any of you ever heard of the village of Ferndale?” I called out to the group of vestals.

  One of them stepped forward shyly. “Yes,” she began, “that is where I was born, but, I have no family left there and I have not received any word from the village for seventeen years.”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “It is three days’ ride northeast of here,” she said as she pointed. “There are two forks in the road, and you must take the right each time. You will cross a stone bridge. And you will see four windmills. In the summer, it is surrounded by fields of purple wildflowers. But they will not be blooming now.�
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  I thanked the vestal from Ferndale.

  Then Ilandere trotted up surrounded by ten adoring horses, and I turned to Mother Georgina, “These are for you and your vestals. Do any of them know how to handle horses? You should unload some of your things from those poor mules and transfer them to these horses. Then you can move faster. If any of you know how to ride, you can also use them for scouting purposes, or for some of you to escape if you meet with more trouble.”

  I had considered keeping a pair of the bandits’ horses to pull our carriage, but Luna and Chrysanthemum’s harnesses would not fit them, and besides I could not bring myself to leave the loyal ponies behind. I would find other steeds for myselves later when the time for battle with Thorvinius drew nearer.

  “Thank you. Nillibet knows what you have done for us.” The high priestess looked back toward the crowd of pink-clad vestals, and some of the girls came forward to take the horses’ reins.

  “Watch out,” I warned them. “When we leave, they will probably try to follow Ilandere.”

  “Treat them very kindly,” Ilandere told the vestals with a giggle. “They are sweet horses.”

  They had not seemed like very sweet horses when they were trying to run me and Lizzy down and when one had trampled its own rider, but it was true enough that they did seem like completely different creatures in the beautiful centaur’s presence, and I hoped they would retain some of that docility when only the vestals were left to mind them.

  “Well, then,” I said, “we shall take our leave of you, Mother Georgina.”

  The elderly high priestess curtsied. She and I almost, almost overcame the odds and parted on very friendly terms.

  And then one of the vestals who had been serving as a litter-bearer for Meline the oracle and observing the proceedings intently from behind her pink face veil stepped forward. She curtsied to me and dropped the face veil.

  I literally gasped under my breath. She was stunningly beautiful, in an entirely different way than either Lizzy or Ilandere. Her eyes were dark-fringed hazel, and her thick brows dramatically arched. Her nose was perfectly straight and as elegantly shaped as her sharp cheekbones. Her mouth was full and pillowy. Her skin was caramel-colored, and the tresses that peeked out from beneath her head covering were a glossy chestnut brown.

  A smirk twitched the corner of her sensuous mouth when she detected my reaction to the sight of her face. “My lord, may I ask you a… doctrinal question?” she requested in a voice like molten velvet.

  “Sister Florenia...” the high priestess said warningly.

  “Nillibet, as you know, condemns all carnal relations between man and woman,” the breathtaking vision in pink continued. “So, what is Qaar’endoth’s decree on this matter? Would the Unvanquished One approve, for instance, of a god copulating with one of his followers?”

  “I… ah… cannot see why he would object,” I managed to croak.

  “How profoundly enlightening,” the beauteous Florenia announced serenely. “In that case. Having recognized the sacrilegious perversity of my former order’s misguided teachings, I do hereby forswear the false goddess Nillibet and devote myself henceforth to my lord, Qaar’endoth, in the humble hope of attaining his grace.”

  “Florenia!” Mother Georgina squawked. “By all the Fairlands, girl, think of your eternal soul! Think of your poor mother and father to whom you are more precious than all the duchies of Ambria, who committed you into my care in the desperate hope that you could be redeemed under the guidance of Nillibet!”

  “Ah, yes, my honorable parents, who dragged me here and discarded me like a dollop of overproofed dough… my thoughts dwell upon them often,” Florenia replied without raising her voice by even a fraction of an octave. “As for my soul, well, Mother, this particular point of doctrinal dispute has long tormented me, and the clarity that I prayed for has eluded me. And today I have finally received the divine answer that I yearned for.” She looked at both of me. “…Twice over.”

  “Sister Florenia, has all your time here taught you absolutely nothing?” the high priestess wailed.

  “You do your temple a grave injustice, Mother,” Florenia replied. “During the precious months that I have passed in solemn dedication to Nillibet, her faithful servants have thoroughly initiated me in the mysteries of how to perfect the texture of a custard, neatly layer the flimsiest of phyllo dough, and whisk soufflés into the very pinnacle of fluffiness.”

  Mother Georgina appeared to be aging another decade before my very eyes.

  Lizzy elbowed me and whispered, “I don’t understand half her fancy jabber, but this one I think I like, Vander.”

  That settled it. “Well, come on then, Florenia,” I said as I held out my arm to her. “Qaar’endoth is a very busy god. I fear there may not be much time for baking from here on out.”

  As I escorted the dazzling vestal to the carriage, Willobee inquired a little petulantly, “Just out of idle curiosity, Master, how is it you can barely string together a sentence, and yet all these beauties everywhere we go are forever glomming onto you like barnacles?”

  “It is because he is so kind and loyal,” Ilandere answered immediately.

  “It’s on account of I’ve never witnessed any other man who was half such a bloody terror with every damn weapon that’s ever been invented,” Lizzy explained admiringly. “Also, his big cock is just about what I would call a sublime experience.”

  “Well, for a god he is not half bad-looking, you know,” Florenia informed the gnome solemnly.

  One of my bodies piled into the carriage with Willobee and the two lovely women while the other swung up onto the driver’s seat close behind Ilandere, and with that we were off. If Luna and Chrysanthemum noticed the increased load, they did not remark upon it.

  The last I heard from the order of Nillibet as we rattled down the road was Mother Georgina screeching, “Daughter of Nillibet, I beg you to reconsider! Your motives are not puuuuurreeee….”

  Chapter Six

  My warrior she-wolf introduced herself to the vestal as “Lizzy” instead of “Elizabeth,” so I knew that she really did like Florenia. Florenia for her part seemed impressively unconcerned by Lizzy’s wolf features, violent tendencies, and proudly announced familiarity with my cock.

  “The centaur you saw outside is named Ilandere,” I said since Ilandere could not fit inside the carriage to introduce herself. As it was, there was room enough inside for Lizzy, Florenia, Willobee, and one of me as well as all our gear, but if we acquired any more companions, we were going to need to add another conveyance as well.

  “I am Willobee of Clan Benniwumporgan,” the gnome informed Florenia as he twirled the ostrich plume in his cap. “And my snow-white steeds that you also saw outside are named Damask and Diamond.”

  “They’re named what?” I repeated.

  “Damask and Diamond,” Willobee replied matter-of-factly. “After a few of the finer things in life,” he elaborated. “Because I am the sort of gnome who appreciates the finer things in life.” He gazed upon Florenia’s fine-featured face appreciatively. In a certain way, I guessed that he was being completely honest when he said that. The gnome’s instantaneous obsession with every woman I befriended did not even seem to be sexual in nature. He just coveted all pretty things the way that he coveted gems whether or not they belonged to him.

  “But Willobee,” I objected, “you told me and Lizzy that their names are Luna and Chrysanthemum. And that is what we have been calling them all this time.”

  Willobee winced. Then he said airily, “Yes, yes. Those are their nicknames. A couple of their nicknames, anyway. They are very famous and sophisticated ponies, and over the course of their illustrious carriage-drawing careers, they have earned almost as many names, titles, and epithets as I, in the course of my own lucrative career, have collected marvelous treasures, invitations to feasts, and debts of gratitude.”

  “Then you are… what? A treasure-hunter?” I guessed. He had been suspiciously vague every ti
me Lizzy or I pressed him on the matter of what exactly he used to do for a living before he pledged his services to me. “A mendicant? A bard? A grave-robber?”

  “Oh, Fairlands!” Willobee exclaimed. “Good Master, I beg of you not to impugn your faithful servant in this way.”

  “I am not trying to insult you, Willobee,” I assured him. “I like you, and I like having you with me. I just do not understand who you really are, and I wish you would stop telling falsehoods all the time. Even about things like the names of your ponies.”

  Willobee’s tufted ears twitched back like a scolded dog’s and his eyelids came down to hood his glowing eyes. “I try to please you, but I don’t always know what you would consider a falsehood, Master,” the gnome sighed. “There is in the world what a person saw with his eyes. There is what he heard with his ears. There is what he smelled with his nose and tasted with his tongue. And then there is what another person present at the same event saw and heard and smelled and tasted. And then there is what a person’s friend reported having seen and heard and smelled and tasted. And then there is what a person remembers having seen and heard and smelled and tasted the day after, which is another thing entirely from what he remembers a year and a day after. And some of these people doing the seeing were half dazzled by sunshine, and some of these people doing the hearing were half deaf from dreadful tuneless music. And the person who writes it all down a century later? Well, which clan is he from, anyway? And moreover the person who tells it to you all poetically and fanciful might be getting at a deeper layer of truthiness than the one that handed you hard facts. Or, he might just be making his own part in it out to be more blameless than it was. So with all of these interpretations woven together that makes it awful tricksome to pick out just one single thread that is truer than the rest. It all gets snarled no matter what you do.”

  We were all silent for a moment.

  Then Florenia piped up, “I believe I understand the gnome’s meaning.”

  “I believe I surely don’t,” Lizzy muttered.