The Lady's Champion

by M F Sullivan

  She didn’t know how to answer that, other than to say, “If I don’t remember all this, it will be just as much a failure as if I’d actually failed. I will never forget you, Lavinia. And I hope that, someday soon, I’ll see you again.”

  Once more she bent to kiss the girl, now upon the cheek, before she turned to clap Theodore on his shoulder, and, at speed of thought, hasten to the death-filled chapel where lay her imperfect former body. She could not linger and see the start of weeping—it was hard enough to view her own trauma. The scene was a vile mess of blood and water, mixed to ooze across the floor, around the altar, beneath Dominia’s body, the Lamb’s, and Cicero’s.

  Cicero’s body.

  But not his soul.

  She should have recognized something was off when Farhad and Basil were both gone from the empty chapel. How was she so stupid? Why—

  Because she had wanted to believe the Hierophant was finished, of course. She was so ready to believe him dead that she, this near-goddess, this Void-substance, this Valkyrie imbued with powers from beyond time and space—she had not considered the moment of her own death. Dominia failed to consider that, after her pulse stopped, her soul now resided, unbounded, in the Ergosphere.

  She had nobody but herself to blame, but she had to give it to him—the Hierophant was one hell of an actor. “Sorry it was so short,” her omniscient fucking eye!

  The savage barking of what seemed to be a pack of dogs filled the air of the Void as soon as Dominia emerged within it. Farhad, Allah smile upon him, noticed her arrival from the distance where he stood beside a great blurred battle poised unnervingly close to that thrumming portal’s edge. Waving both hands and shouting, the man dashed to meet Dominia halfway and was visibly shocked when she simply blinked in front of him. Nearer the confusing fray, she saw what even her eyes had failed to resolve from that distance.

  Three heads? Basil had quite a soul. And just look at those fangs.

  “The dog, Mahdi.” Farhad glanced over at the Hierophant, who fought a fruitless battle against the massive hound barring his way to the next iteration of reality. “He was very calm after your death— I waited with him just as your Lady ordered of me. But then he became very hostile, growling at nothing, and disappeared into the Void. I broke a stained-glass window to let the moonlight in so I could follow him, and—well…he is different now.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “It is the strangest thing— I feel as if I have always been here, observing this battle for eternity. It was as I watched it unfold just now, it seemed…preexistent.”

  “That’s life for you.”

  As the General strode to the battle, one great head lifted, and a trio of tails wagged in happy harmony. In a blink, Basil was that prancing border collie again, of standard size and excess affection for the battered Hierophant whose face he mercilessly licked.

  “I’ve had enough of your games, you wretched little—”

  “Good boy,” said Dominia, catching the Holy Father’s bloodied hand. “And good try, Cicero. You almost got me.”

  “I usually do.” The Hierophant’s disembodied soul gritted its teeth and leveled its dark eyes with Dominia’s. “Will you destroy me now, with no body to which I can return? Where will I go? Shattered in pieces across the low frequencies?”

  “No.” She studied his bloodied hand, held in hers. With a glance to that buzzing portal and the happy dog who watched, Dominia smiled. “Go back, Farhad.”

  “But, Mahdi—”

  “I have him from here. You’ll be needed on Earth very soon. Don’t stray from the chapel until Lavinia finds you, but…do make yourself scarce there until you know it’s her who’s coming in. Never know.”

  “Very well.” With a glance over the scene before him, the pilot gathered this was the end of their struggle, and nodded. “It was an honor to serve you, General.”

  “And it was an honor to serve with you, Farhad. Thank you for everything.”

  While the man disappeared to the Earth where he was destined to spend the rest of his life as a spiritual teacher, Dominia returned her attention to her Father. “You asked if I would kill you. The answer is as it was on Earth: I must.”

  But as she did, his soul slipped back to its last escaped death, and the moment that Lady Dominia lost him into the portal. He was hurled back through its mouth into her arms, where she waited to plunge her fingers through his heart; and he slipped back through the iteration prior to that and into that escape, to the Lady who had missed her chance to crush his skull; and again, and again.

  On, and on.

  The Hierophant died a death for every iteration he had lived and ruined.

  At last, his soul lay curled at the feet of the inciting Dominia: that very first Lady who discovered the True Name of the sacred protein and had waited an infinite number of attempts for this moment to find the Holy Father helpless before her.

  “Please,” he begged, real tears in the shut eyes shielded behind his hands. “No more! My daughter, my child—Dominia.”

  “I won’t.” Completely alone with him, without even the buzzing portal to interrupt the moment, the General knelt at the Hierophant’s side and lay a soothing hand upon his arm. He flinched and cried out like an abused old man, though his soul, pure in its fine white suit, was young and undamaged as ever. As his breathing and his body’s tension calmed, Dominia wrapped Cicero in her arms to hold him like a child. His breathing paused, then broke into aching, wet laughter that then fell apart into agonized tears.

  “Is this all I have to look forward to! An eternity, dead? Nothing? My brother! Oh, where? I knew he would not be here.”

  “Of course not.” While her Father wept into her shoulder, she held him, patted his back, and said, “He’s in the same place where there’s peace for you. Where there’s God.”

  “My girl! My girl, my girl, I have spent eternity spitting in His face, mocking Him!”

  “Like a toddler misbehaving to obtain His father’s attention.”

  “Yes! And look! He has sent me nothing—no miracle, no punishment! Not even a great flood or a burning bush.”

  “No,” said Dominia. “He’s sent you me.”

  As the space of the Void around them folded and refolded so shapes emerged from the air and ground, the Hierophant’s tears began to still. “You need to change, Cicero. And when we know you have, I’m sure you’ll find Elijah again.”

  Those shapes formed buildings and stalls and the many busy people populating the market square of the Kingdom—all of whom, in accordance with that cultural immune system the magician had once described, turned their heads at the coming of the man who had sent a great many of its refugees fleeing in the first place.

  “What is this place,” marveled the False Protomartyr in the direction of the holy azure sky. “Dominia—is this heaven, my girl? Oh, the Kingdom! I see—I see, the Kingdom.” The General, smiling into the faces of so many the Hierophant had murdered by his own hand, released her hold on Cicero. The first Cicero. The only Cicero. The real Cicero, who looked in unsteady recognition from face to human face.

  “Yeah, it’s the Kingdom—but heaven? Just who do you think I am?” Dominia laughed at his assumption, relating more than ever to the magician. “It’s not heaven. Or maybe. I don’t know. It’s just someplace that can take care of itself…and where there are people who are going to want a word with you. I think I see my parents over there—why don’t you apologize to them first?”

  With the most cathartic wave “goodbye” she’d ever given, Dominia passed into a crowd that, step by step, closed around Cicero. As she squeezed into a more open area, the distant voice of Tobias Akachi boomed, “Well now, my friend! About time you have gotten here. If you’ve come to stay with us, you’ll have to work. I have heard the hotel is in need of a doorman…the last one just went off to be an Engineer out east, and they’ve been looking for someone to help these refugees you’ve sent move all their bags upstairs!”

  “How will they decid
e who gets him alone first?” The magician’s appearance behind a lamppost near the edge of the market did not even startle Dominia.

  “I don’t know…flip for it, I guess?”

  “With a billion-sided coin?” Laughing, Valentinian took her hand as she came near. “I’m proud of you, kiddo. Very, very proud of you.”

  “No thanks to you,” she said with a playful smile. “But, thank you.”

  “Hey! You were right the first time, I didn’t do anything. It was all you. I’m mostly here to mooch favors off you, with one more still to go.”

  Trying not to look too annoyed, especially as he took off at a quick pace in the direction of the hotel, the General said, “You have no idea how tired I am.”

  “I’m sure you’re exhausted! This has been a long time in the making and it’s been a lot of struggle for you. But I promise it will be worth it.”

  “Cassandra?”

  With a smile over his shoulder, the magician doubled his hasty pace, and Dominia was forced to jog to keep up. She asked, “What about Lazarus?” surprised as she was that she hadn’t seen him yet. He had technically died only an hour before, a loss less tragic to Dominia now that she understood eternity; but that surely counted him among the Kingdom’s refugees. And as to the location of Elijah—she was not sure, but she sensed he was not here, either. Those men were too tired to settle down in eternity until they learned to enjoy consciousness again. That much was clear.

  The magician did not respond to her question, except to say, “You’ll see Lazarus soon. I promise.”

  The speed with which they walked, perhaps, was why it seemed they found themselves so quickly at the hotel. Outside was quite a sight: the E4 perched like a gargoyle atop the building’s high roof. Dominia laughed.

  “Tenchi,” she said. The magician waved a hand.

  “Oh, yeah. He’ll have to park that thing elsewhere before he starts his shift… Tenchi!” In the lobby, the chubby man spoke to someone unseen behind the sitting area’s elaborate hedges. Instantly at attention, the sailor spun and brightened to see Dominia.

  “Ah! Mephitoli-sama! Miss Mephitoli, hello! I’m so happy to see you, did you know I’m moving here for a little while?”

  “I get the feeling you’re going to end up staying here forever,” she said with a laugh. As she bent to embrace him, he shook his head and looked at the magician.

  “He can’t stay forever yet,” confirmed Valentinian. “He’s got duties! Like parking the E4 where it’s not going to be ticketed,” he added indelicately. At the sailor’s nervous look, the magician chuckled. “And eventually flying that ship to come and bring you back here, Dominia.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you! How else are we going to get you back to the Kingdom at the end of your life, if not with an interdimensional amphibiship? Most other worlds aren’t as crazy as the one you’re from, they’re boring. You’ll need outside help. Luckily, all worlds have unexplained phenomena of one kind or another.”

  “Are you trying to say my true death will come to me in the form of Tenchi Ichigawa, flying a UFO?”

  “It’s not a UFO, it’s identified! Can you imagine a safer way to leave the Earth behind?” While the General laughed, she couldn’t help but roll this through her head, along with a word spoken sometime before. Transmigration. She was dead already, after all. And she wasn’t ready to settle down in the Kingdom, either. Reading her thoughts in the text of space-time, Valentinian smiled. “We need assistants like him to ease you in. I can be somewhat startling when I just show up on my own…but I’m glad you’re not afraid of death, or of living again.”

  “I want to live again. I want—” She couldn’t vocalize the hope and looked helplessly at him, mute before the sailor. Valentinian patted her hand.

  “I know what you want. Hey, Tenchi”—he turned to the sailor and, strolling to the overflowing mail outbox, collected a messenger bag from behind the desk. This, he stuffed full of envelopes—“while you’re in town, I’ve got a job for you.”

  After the shorter Ichigawa cousin made his peace with Dominia, waved goodbye, and hit the road to deliver the mail (“You’ll figure it out” was Valentinian’s lazy answer when the man asked how to read addresses in the infinite city), the magician led the General up to the sitting area. “Brace yourself, now,” he said.

  She tried, but it was still quite shocking to round that hedge and find the mortal form of Gethsemane, who, in a dreadlocked, human body, waited in that risen sitting area looking as beautiful as she did enormously pregnant.

  “Hello,” said shocked Dominia, and, “I thought you couldn’t come to the Kingdom,” and, “What’s happened to you?”

  “My spirit has been grounded by another. I could not come here without being reduced back to the nymph were it not for the magician and the seed he transplanted within me. Sometime after you left, when we met him in the road, he whisked me away through time to a strange place—a table. I cannot remember much—”

  “It’s never good to remember surgery,” said the agreeable magician.

  Gethsemane remained the center of Dominia’s attention. As the former martyr neared, the woman took her humanized hand and allowed the transfixed General to feel the aquatic kick of infantile feet beneath her taut belly. “It’s your baby.”

  Shocked, Dominia looked over at Valentinian, who buffed his nails against his shirt and said, “Oh, the marvels of modern medicine.”

  “But that’s not possible.”

  “But I’m possible?’ While she laughed in surprise, he smiled. “It’s completely possible with a donor egg, a little spiral of your DNA”—she remembered that bundled up thread he had pulled from her on her last visit here, and was all the more astonished—“and, of course, a surrogate mother…or bearer, if you will. I love a good pun.”

  “And the Father?”

  “So, I know I said you’d see Lazarus soon,” said Valentinian, fingers tented. “But I wasn’t very specific.”

  Tracing her gaze again toward Gethsemane’s great stomach, Dominia asked in shock, “This child is Lazarus’s? Is it you?”

  “More like, this child is Lazarus, or—Lazarus augmented, slightly. There’d be no point in transmigration if everybody was the exact same every time. And I had to give him your DNA if he’s going to be born of you! I just know you don’t want to go through all the—” He nodded at Gethsemane’s hugely pregnant state, and the General felt a wave of true appreciation for the magician’s unspoken understanding. “You know.”

  “Not for me.”

  “Exactly. But I still have to make sure he resembles you a little bit, so there’s never any controversy. Although…I’m fairly confident my plan will ensure there won’t be a problem.”

  “I hope to God this is the last time in any of my lives that people talk around subjects instead of just telling me the truth.”

  “Well, I just don’t want this to be controversial. I mean, I know that you’re not much of the motherly type, but…”

  “You want me to take care of the—Lazarus.” At last, she understood what he’d been driving at. After absorbing this revelation, she said, “But only one body can pass through to a new iteration, a new world. That’s why you can’t just come through and you have to go through the pains of having me make you a new body each time, right?”

  “Isn’t it nice that, here, you’re not a martyr at all? And that you happen to have a perfectly fertile womb, just like every other woman here? So convenient!”

  At the force of her annoyed look and her beginning accusation, “You just said—” the magician clasped his pleading hands. “Gethsemane has been doing this for the past two weeks, and you won’t even be conscious of it! It won’t even seem like half a minute to you. She’s lived nine months in two weeks for you, Dominia, all so you don’t have to, because I know you’re not the being-pregnant type.”

  “I’m a martyr when I’m not in the Kingdom! Martyrs don’t give birth. The baby will die.”

  “There
are no martyrs where you’re going. You’re going to be human, just like everybody else.” Taken aback by that, Dominia found no way to respond, and allowed the magician to continue his gentle goading. “I know you’re not thrilled by this prospect, but trust me—you’re not only doing me a favor, but you’re doing yourself a favor, too.”

  “You just want me to establish a family line for you in the new world,” observed Dominia, and the magician spread his hands.

  “Is that so wrong? I’m not asking to take the portal out from under you, even though it means I’ll only be able to interact with that world through the intercession of animals and petty miracles and synchronicities.”

  “Until a consciousness, which at the peak of development matches yours, comes into existence in a few generations.”

  “Yes, but that’s because I want to make up for the past. I want to right wrongs. And I want to give you the best possible life.”

  “And you think that me, being a mother, is the best possible life?”

  “I think that it’s the life you need to live, karmically, after all the things that happened in this world. And you might even enjoy it! Hell, think of it like this—you’ve never been with a man, right? It’s a virgin birth! And Miki’s body, which you’re still technically borrowing, was immaculately conceived before it was transformed into a woman, so…”

  If she rubbed her forehead any harder she’d smash her own brain in. Annoyed and somehow helpless, Dominia looked over at the desk to find it tragically empty of Miki Soto, and her heart broke—not only because she was undefended but because she thought she would never see her best friend again. “Fine,” consented the worn-down General. The magician sighed in relief.

  “I promise—you’ll fall in love at first sight.”

  When she looked back, Gethsemane was gone from her periphery; but before she could comment on the absence, the magician blew that familiar dust into her face. Within mere heartbeats, General Dominia di Mephitoli fell asleep forever.