by Nick Webb
I could pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about. That would be a lie.
There is no escape.
The first time my father pressed Paladin into my hands, we stood on the Stanhope’s observation deck in low orbit over the planet whose name I cannot remember. My father asked me to play a game with him.
“Make the stars dance, Fallan.”
And I did.
Explosions rocked the clouds layered over the planet far below. Bright like the holiday fireworks I remembered from my early childhood on Earth.
He’d stoked my hair and called me a good girl.
I spent years telling myself Paladin was a toy and lights were merely a pretty display. In the Hall of Justice on Lakhish Alpha, my defenses and justifications crumble.
I lift my chin and meet Merin’s hard gaze. “I can open the window as you ask or I can bring this building down around us. It matters not. Which would you prefer?”
She chuckles. “I prefer to live, my child.”
“If you’ve known all along what I can do with Paladin, why didn’t you kill me the way you killed my mother?”
“We did not kill your mother,” she said softly.
“Then who did?” If she expects me to use Paladin, I want some answers.
“Your steward, Kendall. He was allied with the Tengay and in opposition to your father’s goals. He tried to kill you as well, if you recall. Happily, he failed.”
Happily?
What is wrong with this woman? Linked to Paladin, I am a human weapon capable of taking out every living thing on this planet without breaking a sweat.
Why isn’t she afraid of me?
My mother was.
She feared what I might become, which is why she risked everything—civil war and death and allied herself with terrorists—to save me.
As if in answer to my unspoken question, Merin reaches into the voluminous folds of her skirt and extracts a knotted cloth. It is stained with dark splotches of dried blood. Three coins fall out and clatter to the floor—the same three coins I’d tossed into the market stall as payment for the return of Paladin.
“In our culture, the gift of three white coins is the request of a student for a teacher.”
“You know that’s not what I meant when I threw the coins into the market stall.”
“Your ignorance of our customs changes nothing.” She passes her hand over Paladin’s head and the glow dims.
I gasp. “How is that possible? I thought you said it only attuned to one person.”
She smiles and it is a slow, crafty thing that takes residence on her face. “Yes, I did.”
“Then why—”
“Why does the device you call Paladin respond to me?”
I nod.
She strokes the small figure with a fondness I recognize. “It took me weeks to puzzle the meaning of your relationship with the weapon. First, you should know that the device you refer to as Paladin is mine. We are bonded in a very real sense.”
My gut twists with a sharp, ugly pang of jealousy.
“And yet you think he is yours, do you not?”
I can’t take my eyes from the softly glowing figure. The connection between us throbs in my gut like hunger.
Merin continues, unconcerned with my growing frustration and sounding utterly sure of herself. “You are not wrong. This Paladin belongs to you as certainly as he belongs to me. Yet how can this be?”
I don’t know what to say, so I remain silent.
“You, my dear, are not entirely a person, are you?”
If it is possible for the universe to flip upside down and back again, that is what happens in the space between one breath and the next.
“Yet you managed to bond with the device. It is quite remarkable.” Merin straightens her back and directs her terrible gaze at me. “There are those among us who think that because of your abilities, you pose a terrible danger. They might be right, however, I think their conclusions are hasty and ill advised. I would prefer that you live and become my student.” She gestures at the three white coins on the floor. “The choice is yours. What say you?”
I know what she is asking. With the aid of Paladin, I can use the coins and transform the metal they contain into small projectiles and kill Merin, Finn and Alden. If I do so, there remains the possibility Merin has enough skill and power left that she could also tap into the power of Paladin and stop me. He belongs to both of us, but only one of us of can command him completely at any time. Only one of us would survive the battle.
I stand and cross the room, gathering the three white coins on my way.
I kneel before Merin, bow my head, and open my palms.
Q&A with Sabrina Locke
This is a great big world you’ve introduced us to. Scary and intriguing at the same time. Did you know what you were getting into when you started the story?
I never think I’m going to create a big world, but that’s generally what happens every time I open a blank screen and start making stuff up. The story grew from the premise of a young woman determined to get back something she’d lost. I wrote it without an outline or, as some people refer to the process, into the dark. Occasionally, I’d pause to take notes. It was only then that I realized there was nothing small about the story scope.
Is there a common thread that runs through all of your writing?
My knee-jerk response is to say, “Why no, of course not.” But that’s probably because I’m too close. I do think there’s a consistent voice in my work that’s a bit dark and gritty. I also find myself writing often about loss and redemption. In my own reading and movie/TV watching, I love stories about characters in extreme situations.
Any works in progress?
I’m currently working on a novel titled, The Breaking. It’s a fantasy/Otherworld novel that will be released in late spring or early summer. On the drawing board are plans for a series of novels based on Fallan, Alden and Finn from The First to Fall.
How can readers find out more about you?
Not easily at the moment. However, as soon as The Breaking is released, I’ll be setting up a website along with the usual social media contacts.
The Ivory Tower
by Elle Casey
“PLEASE REMAIN STILL, Princess.” The fitter, a man of slight build and coiffed hair, looked up at the girl standing on the raised platform before him with a scolding expression. He was very adept at speaking out of the left half of his mouth while the right half held pins at the ready.
The girl exhaled, expelling a sigh of resignation tainted with bitterness. “I wish you would stop calling me Princess. Call me Zelle. That’s my name.”
The fitter shrugged, holding a new, tighter seam together at her waist with the fingers of one hand as he slid a needle into the material with the other. “I call you what you are.”
The girl looked down at the man responsible for dressing her in the finest clothing she would ever see in her lifetime. “Did you know that back on Earth, when our father’s father’s fathers populated that planet, princesses were given that title only when they were born into a royal family? A royal family that had been in existence for hundreds, if not thousands, of years?”
His answer was toneless, delivered with a distracted air as he maneuvered another pinch of material, readying it for the next pin. “I know our race’s history as well as you do.”
The girl put her nose slightly in the air. “Then you know it really isn’t right to call me Princess. I wasn’t born into any special family, I was just born without a Y chromosome.”
Having used the last of his pins, the fitter was now free to smile in satisfaction. “And that’s what makes you so special that we consider you royalty.” The prim little man stood, wrapping his arms tightly around his ribcage, giving the impression he wished to comfort himself. “You can take the gown off now, Mistress.” He gave her a perfunctory smile, his use of the title Mistress a sign that he had heard what she’d said and wasn’t e
ntirely immune to her distress.
The girl bowed out of respect for his small gesture. It probably didn’t mean much to him, perhaps it was even a joke, but to her it meant everything. She was tired of being treated like a princess, coddled like a precious gem of Jupiter, all because she’d been born without that Y chromosome. She had always been taught it was a special stroke of luck, but she could only see how it had played out in her life: as a curse.
“Shall I disrobe now, or wait until you’ve left the room?” She was teasing, hoping to get a rise out of him.
He shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.”
She should have known better than to try to get a rise out of a man who had nothing between his legs. Being a eunuch, the fitter was no threat to her cherished virginity, so of course he didn’t care if she stripped naked right there or out in the hallway or in the main hall. The only thing he cared about was making sure she was ready for the big day: her eighteenth birthday, when all the fun would begin. When she would be led into her future, like a lamb to the slaughter.
* * *
The fitter left without a word as Zelle slid out of the ceremonial dress and back into her uniform, a shapeless shift of bland color and no discernible style—unless one counted potatoes gathered in a sack as having a style. She thought about the days ahead as the heavy material slid over her soft, pale skin. Three days hence would mark her eighteenth birthday and the day that she would be officially presented to the world. The people would see her one time and perhaps never again as she embarked on her life of servitude.
She left the fitting area and entered the adjoining space, the room she had lived in for the past year. The walls were devoid of color or decor, the bed dressed with simple linens and a single pillow. She had been allowed one thing to keep her company: a bird. It was kept in a golden cage in the corner of her room, just next to a window.
She walked over to see him, mindful of the fact that she wasn’t to let him out. “Hello, Bird.” His name had been chosen with great care; she never knew when her pets would be replaced, so it was best not to get too attached. “How are you today? Did you see the fitter in there? I do believe his hair has gotten higher since the last time he was here. Soon it will make him nearly as tall as I am.”
She smiled sadly as she put a finger into the cage. Bird moved along his perch to allow his head to be reached. Zelle stroked the soft feathers, enjoying the feeling of camaraderie when he turned his head around to make it easier for her to do a proper job of scratching his itches.
“I know how you feel,” she whispered. “Stuck in this cage. Being able to see out the window but never being able to leave.”
Bird lifted his head up and walked away from her down his perch, turning his attention to his feet.
“One day, you will be free,” she said quietly, so that the listeners would not hear. “I will let you go from this cage and you will be able to fly anywhere you want to go. Across the lands and the seas and over to your homeland, if you wish.”
She played with the catch on the door, imagining what it would be like, to let a caged creature go to follow whatever destiny he chose for himself. “I wish I could go with you,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “I wish I could grow wings and fly out of here, across the land and the sea. I don’t believe what they’ve been teaching me. I don’t believe that I’m lucky to be one of The Four, the mothers of the human race. I don’t want this duty. I don’t consider it an honor. It’s a curse. And this ivory tower is my cage.” She rubbed her hand up one side of Bird’s home, sighing as she battled the tears back. “You and I are not so different, are we? We both sing, we both walk the perch, we both dream of being free. But neither of us is going anywhere. The bars are too strong and no one is brave enough to open the door.”
She walked away and sat down at her small table. There, her tablets and books waited for her to open them and absorb their contents. Her schooling would soon be over as she transitioned into motherhood. When she was younger and forced to endure eight hours of study per day, she never thought that she would miss her tutors or the endless stream of facts that fed her brain morning, noon, and night, but she had been wrong. Now that she only had two days of school remaining, she saw the truth of it; she was going to miss all of it dearly. Clarity and appreciation had come when she’d realized learning was her only connection to the outside world. She had lived on the periphery of that world up until now, but soon, the door would close forever and she’d lose any connection to it, save for the scientists who would surely become her only friends. And her children. Assuming they would let them stay.
Her hand caressed the cover of the text that she had been taught was over four hundred years old. Moby Dick: the story of man’s futile search for truth beneath a surface he could never penetrate with his puny, human mind. Zelle knew this conundrum well. Truth had always eluded her. No one dared tell her everything, and even the things she was privy to were suspect; one man’s torture was often another man’s pleasure.
She wondered, as she often did, about the three other girls who were living in their own ivory towers, who were either going through the same motions she was right now or who would be very soon. She was not allowed to know their names, but she did know that they were all born in the same year as she had been. She had been the first, and the others had followed, their births a cruel trick of nature that mankind had not been able to replicate. The other three princesses, humans unlucky enough to be born female, would follow in her footsteps, as reluctantly taken as they might be.
Were they anxious? Did they feel like they were suffocating under the pressure and expectations? Did they wonder what life was like outside of the tower? Zelle had no way of knowing for sure, but she couldn’t imagine anyone being content with this life, with being a slave to an entire race.
Zelle had heard through one of her more enlightened tutors, many years ago, that the male children of her people were brought up to believe that the girls of the ivory towers, the princesses of New Earth, were heroes, that they lived in the lap of luxury wanting for nothing and that they were happy to fulfill their duty of repopulating the world, with keeping the human race alive. But what they could never understand was that the girls in the ivory towers were denied the one thing anybody wanted: freedom. The freedom to make a choice about anything that mattered.
Zelle pushed the book away. What was the point in reading that story again? She already knew how it ended, and she already knew what it told her. She was doomed. She would never know why she had been born a girl, or why so few had been born after her, or why since that year, only boys had appeared until all the mothers died away.
She looked at the timepiece that always remained in her front pocket. Two minutes remained until her next lesson. She was not permitted a mirror, but she was allowed a brush. This she ran through her long hair, doing her best to look presentable. She braided it together in one long plait that reached to her waist.
Arno was her favorite tutor. He taught her about history, and he wasn’t too much older than she was. He was also one of the few men allowed around her who wasn’t a eunuch. She wasn’t sure why that was permitted. She had asked him once, but he had avoided the question, leading her to assume that he was connected to someone important. Asking about that connection would have surely resulted in a one-way ticket out of her life for Arno, so she never let her curiosity get the better of her. Not on that subject, anyway.
She left her room, her slippers making slight tapping sounds along the marble floors. She wondered what she and Arno would discuss at their next lesson. Would she learn about the political landscape as it existed before the people of Earth destroyed their planet? Would they discuss the natural resources available to them on various planets in the nearby galaxies?
Arno seemed to know everything. He was a fount of knowledge, and she could never get enough of listening to him speak. The only thing he would not discuss with her was life outside the tower. It was a forbidden subject with all of
her tutors, and while Arno didn’t always follow all the rules, he did follow that one.
She continued down the hall, taking a left turn and then a right, passing doors she’d never been given access to as she went. She wondered if she would be given a special key that would unlock every door on her eighteenth birthday. And then she wondered if she’d use it. Some secrets, she suspected, might be better left undiscovered.
* * *
Zelle sat across the table from Arno. It was required that two chairs separate them at all times, and because the learning area was monitored, they were always careful to follow the rules. Zelle wondered if the rules chafed Arno as much as they did her, but she’d never built up the courage to ask.
After placing a stack of old books on the table, he rested his hands in his lap. His tailored suit-coat wrinkled at the inner shoulders, the only fault in his carefully constructed appearance. “Do you have a preference today?” He blinked his eyes slowly as he waited for her response.
She bit her lip, wondering if she dared answer the question truthfully. She did have a preference, but it wasn’t permitted.
Arno tipped his head to the side. “You have something on your mind.” His dark brown eyes never wavered. He stared at her so intently, it was as if he were trying to read her thoughts.
Zelle almost laughed aloud at her folly. As intelligent and intuitive as Arno was, reading minds was not something he could do. It was not something anyone could do, much as the scientists were trying. Her mind was the only place Zelle had ever been able to run free, so she fervently hoped they would never succeed with their experiments.
She nodded at her tutor. “Yes. I do have something on my mind.” She wondered now if it were worth the risk to share her thoughts with Arno. She didn’t want to place him in danger, but time was running out. She was beginning to feel a crushing sensation on her chest at night as she lay in bed, as if a large heavy weight were pushing down on her. She was almost to the point of struggling to breathe when she thought about her predicament too much.