by T J Trapp
Colin was standing there with a strange woman.
“Mother! I was not expecting you to be here!”
“And where did you think I would be?”
“I thought you would be at the riders’ headquarters, as we arranged. I thought you would be trying to keep the elves from entering the city.”
“And why are you here, and not out with the Guardsmen?”
“I brought Mother Pequa here to see her new residence.”
Queen Therin looked at the tall woman, puzzled.
The woman gave the room a disdainful look. “You call this pig sty your home? I would be ashamed to call it that!”
“Yes, Mother Pequa,” Colin said, looking uncomfortable.
“It is worse than I remember! Unfortunately, I see that it is the best in town. Nothing in this dump of a city has improved at all since the last time I was here. I suppose I will have to make do until something better is available.” She sniffed in disgust. “Everything is so primitive here. Even the hot water is not hot.”
“Who are you?” the Queen demanded angrily. “And what are you doing in my parlor? Get out of my Residence now, or I will call my guards.”
The woman laughed. “Poor little queen. There are no guards to call. You and your little piglets are the only ones awake in this whole place.” She smiled and shook her head, seemingly sadly. Then she scowled and strode in front of Therin, pointing her finger at the Queen. “This is now my home and you are the intruder,” she hissed. “I want you gone! Colin, my little whelp, separate her head from the rest of her body. But do it neatly. It will need to be displayed for all to see.”
“What?!” said Queen Therin. “Colin? Colin! What is going on?”
Colin didn’t answer; he looked at his mother with an expressionless face.
“Unkka?” said Ariana, looking at her uncle, her face crumpling.
Then Pequa ran her shoe across the heavy carpet. “No, maybe not here. I don’t want to make a mess in this room. It is crude enough without having the stench of pig blood sully my floor.” She looked at Colin and jerked her thumb towards Queen Therin. “Just strangle her in here, and then take her outside before you remove her head. Less blood in here that way.” She glanced at Ariana, still in her grandmother’s arms, and little Leon, who was peeking wide-eyed from behind his grandmother’s robes. “And the piglets. Choke the filthy orblings as well.”
“Colin!” the Queen spit out in anger. “She is an elf! You can resist her – you are wearing your ring!”
Pequa looked at Therin and snorted. “Little queen-sow – you think you can resist your betters? Hah! My devoted puppy, Colin, here, is not going to resist me. He must do whatever I want him to do. He is one of my clutchmen.”
“What?” exclaimed Therin. “Colin? My son, is that true?”
Colin nodded mutely.
“Although he is merely an odious cross-breed, I bonded him just like a true elf.” She flashed Therin a triumphant smile that quickly dissolved into a sneer. “He feels slimy, since the orb half of his brain only reluctantly follows my commands, but – he has no choice. Eventually he must give in and do whatever I want.
“Now,” she said haughtily, “you are not treating me properly, as you should treat one of the new masters of the city. I expect better from you and your piglets.”
Queen Therin turned away from the elf woman and yelled, “Guards! Guards! Come here!” Ari raised her voice in a wordless yell to add to the din.
“Your noise is a shameful sign of your disrespect, and more reason to kill you right now,” Pequa sneered. “You have no guards! All in your hovel here have been seized with sleep. Nor do you have soldiers. Your riders have either fled or fallen.”
“How did you get here? How did you get through our city gates?”
“Oh, you can thank my little pup, Colin, for helping us through the city gates!” Pequa chortled. “He made sure that all the riders at the gate had fake rings – of course they put up no resistance when they recognized that we were their masters. All of your filthy orb riders who have real rings are out on a scouting mission of some sort, but by the time they return, Freeland City will be ours.”
“You can’t do that!” Queen Therin bristled.
“Oh yes, I can,” Pequa replied evenly. “And I have. Colin, my little skarn, will distribute my edicts to the pigs of your city. Those who resist, he will behead. Once he has publicly beheaded enough pigs, the rest will obey and adore us.” She stroked Colin’s head and scratched his ears. “Show your mother-sow how much you adore me. Get down and lick my shoes clean.”
Colin obediently went down on his knees and started to lick the woman’s grimy shoes. He continued to do so over and over.
“Get out of my Residence,” shouted Queen Therin, “or I will kick you out myself!”
“You can’t,” said Pequa smugly. “I have already told you the guards have all been taken care of – and you too will be taken care of shortly. This is all your fault. You should have been smart enough to know that sending a man to do a woman’s job can only result in disaster.” She laughed.
“How dare you!” Queen Therin retorted.
“That is enough,” Pequa said to Colin, who was still licking her shoes. “I tire of this conversation. Strangle the old lady and the little piglets.”
Colin had an agonized look on his face. He backed away from Pequa’s shoes, mudstains around his mouth, and rolled on the floor in indecision and agony.
Pequa looked down at Colin in disgust. “You will be punished for this. I must admit, I did not realize how strong your family bonds are.” She kicked Colin and sent him sprawling. “I will finish them off myself. I will train you by letting you mount their heads on pikes and walk the heads all around town to show the people that your mother, Therin the Queen Pig, is no longer in control.”
Pequa started to twist the lines in the direction of Therin. The queen resisted and held the lines steady. Ari screamed and screamed. At first the queen felt that she could prevail over the elf. Then she felt her mind start to tire – she did not have as much experience or practice as the elf mother. She felt the lines start to slowly swirl around her and her mind started to become fuzzier and fuzzier.
“Uncle Colin! Uncle Colin, you must help Grandmother! Uncle, you must help,” Leon said, sobbing in panic.
The little boy’s voice penetrated the fog clouding Queen Therin’s mind – she heard the voice as if from a great distance and latched on to it. I must prevail for my grandchildren. They are the future of Theland. The twisting lines slowed slightly, and her mind became less foggy. However, the elf mother continued to maintain the relentless mental pressure, and the queen felt the lines starting to twist around her again.
Leon ran to Colin, who was laying on the floor thrashing. Leon grabbed his uncle and shook his shoulder, trying to stop his convulsions. “Uncle – Uncle, help Grandmother. Do it like the stories Daddy tells about how he helped Mamma.”
Colin grimaced. “I can’t. I can’t do anything to hurt Mother Pequa.” Then a sly expression came across Colin’s face, cutting through the pain. “But you can,” he said to Leon. “You can help Grandmother.” Somehow, Colin found the mental strength to focus; he used his medallion to reach out and start pulling dark energy.
“Here, nephew,” he grunted. “Grab my medallion. Remember how we have done this before, in the garden, where we practiced. I can concentrate the dark energy – I just can’t use it against Mother Pequa.”
“Yes, Uncle Colin, I remember how you showed me, out behind the Residence,” Leon said, trying to remember what Colin had shown him. Leon grabbed the medallion, hanging from its strap around Colin’s neck. The little boy could feel the flow of dark energy that Colin had created, but try as he might, he did not know how to send the energy to his grandmother. Help, he thought.
And then a little mind seemed to link with his and he sensed, rather than understood, the right thing to do. Leon tried again and felt a trickle of dark energy flow somew
here. It was only a trickle, but a trickle was better than none.
Queen Therin felt the lines starting to spin faster and faster. I’m losing control, she thought in alarm; then she felt the trickle of dark energy coming towards her. It was only a little trickle, and she wasn’t sure it was enough extra help, but it was there. Her mind cleared and she could feel Ari helping her feel the rightness of how to twist the lines for the maximum effect. The lines started twisting the other way. She continued to twist. Pequa’s expression changed from smug to concerned. Then, Pequa collapsed.
The Queen tried to twist harder to snap the lines around Pequa. Colin looked on with an agonized look; he jerked the medallion from his chest and threw it at Leon. Leon caught the medallion, and the dark energy flow stopped. When the dark energy flow stopped, the residual energy rebounded on Colin – he twisted on the floor wracked with additional agony.
Without the additional dark energy, Therin could no longer twist the lines around Pequa strongly enough to snap them. She drew a small dagger from a sheath on her leg and started to approach Pequa but Colin rolled over and blocked her path. He attempted to stand up, but his legs failed. Laying on the floor, he drew his sword and kept it up, pressing it against his mother’s belly.
“No, Mother! I cannot allow Pequa to be harmed – I must die before I fail her.” He closed his eyes, trembling, then continued, again watchful of the elf mother’s safety. “You don’t understand, Mother. It was all that I could do to resist her long enough to passively draw dark energy, and make it available for you to use.
“I am bonded to Mother Pequa for life. I am Pequa’s, and I cannot allow you to harm her. You will have to kill me before I will allow you to hurt her.” Tears came to his eyes.
“Colin, you are my son. I cannot – I will not – bring death to you!”
Ari looked at her uncle, lying on the floor, sword drawn, and whimpered.
“Mother, I beg you. Flee before she awakens! Leave her! Leave the Residence; leave the city – and take the children with you!” He grimaced with the effort of refraining from goring the Queen. “Next time she will not be so careless – she will prevail, and I will be carrying your head around town on a pike, and acting like I enjoy it.”
Leon was again behind his grandmother, clutching her robe, staring at his uncle. “Grandmother, I hope what I did was all right. Daddy told me to protect you, until he gets back, and I … I didn’t know how to do that, so I thought it would be all right to hold Uncle Colin’s medallion.”
“My child, what you did was a very good thing. You did protect me, and all of Theland. Your father will indeed be very proud of you.”
The Queen looked at her son, laying before her. “Colin,” she whispered. “Colin, what have you done?”
“I made a mistake, Mother,” he said bitterly. “I didn’t know she was an elf. She tricked me, and now I have become one of her bonded clutchmen. She knows my every thought and every movement. When she wants me to do something, I have to do it. Even if I try to resist, my body does it anyway – and then she punishes me for even thinking of resisting. It is getting harder and harder for me to exercise any free will. Soon I will do her bidding without a second thought.” He lowered his sword.
“Get out of here, Mother. Get out of here while you still can – while you are still the Queen. The elves have mounted an insurgence against our people and you won’t be able to beat them. They want to enslave all the people of Theland – most of the slaves will live, but those who do not become slaves will die. You, my Queen – you will die. They will not let you live.”
The Queen heaved a heavy sigh; then she stepped back away from her son. She placed her dagger back into its sheath.
“Farewell, my son. I cannot wish you ‘good journey.’”
The queen turned to leave and motioned for Leon to come with her.
“Uncle Colin, aren’t you coming with us?” Leon asked. “Away from the bad lady?”
The agonized look on Colin’s face was all the answer the little boy got. The Queen reached down and grabbed Leon’s arm as she left the room; Leon reluctantly followed his grandmother.
Ariana looked over her grandmother’s shoulder at Colin. “Bye-bye, Unkka, bye-bye,” she said, and waved goodbye.
Still kneeling on the stone floor, Colin watched them leave, and buried his face in his arms, crying.
39 – Attack
“You are very excited, my Great Wizard. I can sense it.”
“I guess I am – nervous, anyway,” Alec replied, then almost ran the car off the road as he avoided a rabbit. “Oops, not a good idea. Celeste will like it better if we arrive in one piece.”
“You know, dear Consort, this vehicle can drive itself. You do not need to risk our lives over a rodent – your wagon is not nervous or excited, and it will stay on the path by itself.”
“I know, but it relieves my stress to drive it myself. Just an old habit from my past. Lucky that one of the guys at the shop still had a car with a steering wheel that we could borrow.”
“Lucky at that – and more lucky if you slow down,” Erin said.
Alec ignored her advice.
“I wonder what Celeste needs,” Alec said. “I don’t know what is so critical that she thinks she needs to meet with us on short notice. Whatever it is, her message looked like she was upset. She has never sent a message like that.”
“It was a good thing that we could drop everything at the ranch and port directly to the shop,” Erin agreed. “She needs us. Did she say where to meet her?”
“Yes, after I told her we were on our way, she sent a second message to meet her at the café.”
Soon they were at the edge of the campus and drove to the little restaurant where they usually met Celeste. They got out of the car by the café’s front door and let the vehicle park itself. From long ingrained habit, Erin sensed around.
“I do not detect anyone with hostile intentions; it is all right to enter. On the other hand, I do not sense Celeste. We are a few minutes before our appointed time, and she is rarely early.”
“Greetings, Mr. Thelander,” the hostess said, as they entered the small restaurant, smiling in recognition. “We haven’t seen you for awhile. You been away?”
“Um, yes – we’ve been … out of town. Just got back this morning.”
“And will your … niece … be joining you today?”
“Yes,” Erin said quickly, before Alec could explain that Celeste was not, actually, their niece.
“Table for three, then,” the hostess said, and led them to a secluded corner near the back of the establishment. “This will be good for conversation. Not so noisy back here.”
A young man, a student probably, came around with tablet menus, and proffered glasses of water. After a couple of glasses of water, and no Celeste, they decided to order. Erin was proud that she had mastered the art of ordering from an electronic tablet and ordered pizza, tacos, donuts, and coffee.
“Still no Celeste,” Alec mused, as the wait staff brought out their food. “She’s running really late, even for her. Something must have happened.”
“Oh, she’ll be here,” Erin said. “Free food.” They ate at a leisurely pace, unlike their usual habit of eating quickly to get back to whatever task was at hand.
“Not as good as Cook used to prepare, but still, very satisfying,” Erin said, finishing the last piece of pizza, which she had intended to save for Celeste.
“More coffee, please,” she said to the young man, and took pleasure in slowly sipping her new favorite beverage. Alec drummed his fingers on the table, impatiently, then looked up as Erin suddenly raised her head.
Celeste has arrived, Erin thought to him. She is in the front of the restaurant, and she is very anxious and upset about something.
Alec nodded, and looked towards the front of the building.
There is another who has just arrived, Erin continued, after a moment’s pause. He might have followed her. She continued to sense. He could be a clutch
man. It is difficult to tell for certain, but there is certainly something sinister about him.
By now, Celeste had entered the small establishment, peering earnestly at the rows of tables, her hair disheveled and her hands buried under her loose sweatshirt. Alec waved to her and she quickly made her way to their table, clearly upset.
“Hello, my dear,” Erin said, gesturing to the empty chair beside her. Celeste quickly sat down, looking as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” she blurted out. “I just don’t know what to do! I’m sorry to make you come all this way, but I need some advice! And help!” Celeste looked beseechingly at Erin. “I just don’t know what to do,” she repeated.
Erin put her hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “There now, calm down, and tell us why you wanted to see us. We will see if we can help. If nothing else, we can certainly listen,” Erin said.
At Erin’s touch, Celeste visibly calmed. “Okay, thanks.”
“What’s going on?” asked Alec. “Tell us.”
“Look!” Celeste said, pulling her hands from under her sweatshirt. Her wrists were bound together by a pair of handcuffs. Erin gasped.
“I can’t get these off of me! It’s just awful,” Celeste moaned.
“What has happened to you!” Erin exclaimed.
“Stop. Let’s get these off,” Alec said. “Then you can tell us what has happened.”
Focus. Alec let the dark energy flow, and carefully changed the material in the metal clasp on one side, working gently so as to avoid burning Celeste. Then he released the dark energy; a wet spot appeared on the floor and the handcuff slid off one wrist. “Again,” Alec said, soothingly, and repeated the process; the manacle slipped off her other arm and fell to the floor.
“Thanks,” Celeste said, rubbing her wrists. “I didn’t know how to get free of those things.”
“Tell us what happened,” Erin asked.
“I got an urgent call on my cell from Uncle Al early this morning. All of his calls are marked ‘urgent,’ and usually the urgent ones are about getting together for dinner next month, so I just let him record a message for me and went back to sleep. When I heard it, it was pretty scary. I didn’t know what to do.”