by Pirateaba
“The one buried by snow? Good job.”
“Hey Lyonette? Lyonette, get a shovel and—”
“Shut up, Erin. What good is a sign going to do? For that matter, mind telling all the victims of the Goblin Lord’s army that they shouldn’t kill Goblins? I’m sure that’ll go down wonderfully.”
What was she doing? Ryoka remembered the last fight she’d had with Erin. It hadn’t gone well. But there was a feeling in the air now. Erin glared at Ryoka.
“The sign stays.”
“Why? So we can all get killed when some actually dangerous Goblins come around?”
“I’m sure that when the evil Goblins are marching around and being…uh, evil, no one’s going to worry about my sign. It stays because I don’t believe all Goblins are evil.”
“Right. Some of them are ‘just’ bandits. Name one Goblin—”
“Rags.”
“—One Goblin who hasn’t tried to hurt or kill you at some point.”
Erin hesitated.
“There was this big Hobgoblin that Rags brought one time.”
“Right after the Goblin Lord’s army tried to kill me and—”
Ryoka broke off, saw Mrsha sitting on a table and playing with a wooden spinning top.
“—And did other things which I’m sure I remember. What’s your excuse there?”
Erin stared at Mrsha and shook her head.
“None. They’re bad and if they die that’s…that’s how it has to be. But Rags was different.”
“How?”
The innkeeper poked at the spotless table, speaking quietly and then meeting Ryoka’s eyes.
“Rags was small. She only wanted to survive. She did bad things, but she wasn’t a monster. She deserved a chance. Just a chance.”
“Sounds like she took that chance to do more ‘bad things’.”
“Maybe. But she’s gone. You didn’t see how Relc treated her, Ryoka! He kicked her and tried to hurt her!”
“For good reason, it sounds like.”
“Oh come on. All Goblins are bad? That’s racism—”
“No, that’s practicality in a world where making a mistake gets you killed, Erin.”
“This is about the slime, isn’t it?”
“Yes! It nearly got me! What happens if it crawls out of its pot and finds you asleep? Or Mrsha?”
The Gnoll cub’s ears pricked up. Erin looked at Mrsha, horrorstruck, and then at Ryoka. She wavered, and then got up. She came back with the bumping pot and took off the lid. The slime slowly oozed over the sides. It would have been fascinating, magical to watch if it didn’t make Ryoka so wary.
Erin stared at the clear blob, slightly tainted by a bit of the vomit it had absorbed from Ryoka. Apparently slimes weren’t picky about what they picked up. Ryoka stared at it with deep distrust.
“Fine.”
She pushed the slime out of the pot. It seemed reluctant to go this time. It swirled around on the table. Now Ryoka could see a single part of it that wasn’t fluid. It was a bobbing stone, a shimmering little blue gem hovering around the slime’s center.
Erin sighed.
“They don’t feel pain. And they’re really stupid. But I still feel bad.”
She reached into the slime. It immediately began flowing up her arm. Erin ignored that and quickly plucked the gem out of the slime. It tried to resist, clinging to the stone, but Erin was too quick and strong. The instant the gem left the slime’s body completely it collapsed. Water sloshed over the table, drenching Ryoka and Erin’s lower halves.
“What the hell?”
Ryoka stared at the remains of the slime as Lyonette rushed out of the kitchen with a towel. Erin showed her the shining gem. It still had bits of water stuck to it.
“Slime core. It’s this crystal, see? A mana crystal that’s got…slime stuff all over it. It can’t do much this small, though. It needs to be at least the size of an apple before it’ll move around. But the slime stuff is still part of the slime. They’re like a microbe-thing, I think. A fungus, maybe.”
“Amoebas that reproduce and join together when exposed to mana?”
“Yup.”
Erin put the stone on the table and didn’t quite meet Ryoka’s eyes. She spoke to Ryoka’s right ear instead.
“I’ll make a very small healing slime. I’ll keep it safe, and if it seems violent or dangerous in any way I’ll destroy it.”
Ryoka sat back. She was hungry again. But she didn’t feel like having breakfast twice.
“Well, well. Aren’t we hypocritical. Killing stuff’s bad, m’kay? Except when you want to experiment. Then it’s fine to make life and destroy it.”
Erin’s head snapped up. She and Ryoka locked gazes and Lyonette desperately tried to get in the way with her body while mopping up the mess.
A howl punctured the silence. It came from a Gnoll’s voice and from outside. Ryoka and Erin leapt to their feet. They ran outside and Ryoka saw Mrsha. She was running and a leathery, brown-green creature was attacking her.
It was a bird, a scaled beast. A pterodactyl in almost all respects. It was twice Mrsha’s size and it was swooping at Mrsha as the Gnoll child howled and tried to run for the inn. But the bird wouldn’t let it. The dino-bird—the Razorbeak grasped at Mrsha’s fur and flapped its wings as Mrsha struggled and bit and clawed at it. It was trying to lift Mrsha and carry her away!
Images of giant eagles hunting goats and dropping them from huge heights filled Ryoka’s mind. She snarled and ran at the bird. The Razorbeak flew away from Mrsha and Ryoka crouched over the Gnoll protectively. She raised her hand.
“Ivolethe? Where the hell are you?”
The Frost Faerie was usually about. But not today. Ryoka concentrated, spoke a word.
“[Flare]!”
She threw an orb of searing bright red light at the bird, which squawked and dove away. The light was harmless, but it made the Razorbeak hesitate. Unfortunately, the bird seemed to sense the magic was just light and dove at Ryoka instead. It clawed at Ryoka as she swore and tried to fend it off while reaching for her belt knife.
“Ryoka! Duck!”
Someone shouted. Ryoka ducked. She heard a whirring noise, and a thunk. The Razorbeak attacking her suddenly went limp and fell on Ryoka. She shoved it away and staggered back with Mrsha. Ryoka had a dagger in her hands, but there was no need to use it.
The Razorbeak was dead. A kitchen knife stuck out of the bird’s chest. Sharp as a razor, it had gone through the bird’s body, ending it in moments.
“Are you okay?”
Erin was standing in the doorway, a frying pan and another knife in her hands. Ryoka stared at her as Mrsha clung to her chest, sobbing. Slowly, she brought Mrsha inside and when the Gnoll was being hugged by Lyonette and Drassi, she looked at Erin.
All the fear went one way. All the fury too. Ryoka didn’t thank Erin for saving her or Mrsha. She looked at Erin and flicked the mana stone on the table. Then she nodded to the Razorbeak’s corpse lying just outside.
“For someone who doesn’t like killing, you’re awfully good at it.”
Erin’s face went white. Ryoka waited.
“Ryoka, Erin, please.”
Lyonette had heard it all of course. Ryoka turned her head and Erin punched her stomach. Ryoka swore and hit Erin in the shoulder before dodging back from Erin’s next swing.
Erin kicked her. Ryoka threw the magical chessboard at Erin and missed. She punched Erin twice before the other girl tackled her and they rolled around on the ground, hitting each other. The fight ended when Mrsha leapt into the fray, biting indiscriminately and Lyonette hit both girls with a bucket of water and then the bucket.
—-
A bad mood. The Queen of the Antinium felt like that didn’t describe her current feeling. A bad mood was just a chemical imbalance, a result of emotion and circumstance. In lesser creatures it might become an issue if not corrected, but the Antinium were perhaps the most biologically advanced creatures in the world. They could suppress mer
e bodily imperfections.
But only if they wanted to. The Queen did not want to in this moment. She was furious. Beyond furious. She was betrayed.
Klbkch had told her. Her faithful Revalantor had learned from Xrn—he had told her—
The Grand Queen was not attempting to create more Queens.
That news had broken the Queen of the Free Antinium. It had shattered all her ideals, all the faith she’d put in the Antinium on Izril. They were no longer trying to create more Queens? Why? How could they? Did they think six Queens were all they needed? Had they given up hope? Why?
Was it that they wanted to be the sole rulers of the Antinium?
No. The reasons didn’t matter. The outcome was the same. The Queen shifted. In her private chambers, she did something she rarely did. She moved.
The Soldiers who guarded her shifted as their Queen slowly rose. She had huge, massive legs and she used them to swivel her gargantuan body around and then fall onto her side. Slowly, awkwardly, the Queen pushed herself across the ground, lifting her body with effort. But she did move, and because she was huge, even a grudging step carried her far.
There was a way out of her quarters. It carried her down a tunnel where no other Antinium ever went, even Klbkch. He probably had bad memories of such places, but it was there the Queen dragged herself. Her voice echoed through the dirt hallway, filled with rage and anger she could barely remember feeling. She hadn’t felt like this in years.
“Traitors. Cowards. Fools!”
She whispered to herself, dragging her immense body past primitive rooms she had built. They were all airtight, one of the few places in the Hive that were sealed by proper doors. They had to be; mixing the enzymes, chemicals, and other reagents necessary for the Antinium to change and grow required facilities beyond what most [Alchemists] made use of.
She stopped in front of one of the rooms and rested a palp from one of her feelers on the entrance. The Queen of the Free Antinium knew what was within without having to look.
Corpses. Half-rotted bodies of malformed Antinium, mixtures, formed concoctions of enzymes, chemical triggers made from combinations of magic and alchemy, designed to trigger sequences in bodies as they grew. And sacs, embryos. Gelatinous containers like those that Workers and Soldiers emerged from, but far different.
Experiments. Forbidden of course and practically doomed to failure because the Queen of the Free Antinium lacked the resources the other Queens kept to themselves. Without them, she could not create specialized Antinium. But she had tried, oh yes. She had rediscovered the Rite of Anastasis through her experimentations, saved her beloved Klbkch’s life with it. And Ksmvr had been created here.
Still, it was the countless failures that paused the Queen’s body as she recalled the years of death that had gone on here. That did not stop her from turning to the carefully arranged collection of bottles and objects on the far wall, however.
“My work. It must be done. We cannot let the Antinium die here. Six queens? We should be legion. We should have names. I thought—they are failures, all of them. We should never have become so small.”
The Queen reached for a bottle of saltpeter. She hesitated, turned to an extract used in creating new Antinium. She would need eggs. The Queens of the Antinium produced eggs as a matter of course; it was one of the reasons why they grew so large, so they could sustain the populations of their hives. There were Birthers too—Antinium designed for one purpose. But the Queen of the Free Antinium used only her eggs for these experiments. It was…just.
She had no idea where she could begin. How could you create a Queen out of the base material? What were the formulas her predecessors had used? The Queen of the Free Antinium wished she could remember anything of it, but she had never once been privy to the process. Not before it was too late.
She had not been made for this. Once upon a time she had been young, a new Queen, barely more than a child created to venture to a new world. Over three hundred Queens had been sent, the majority of the living Antinium, to flee. To build and reproduce and prepare for their enemy’s return. They had left a rearguard to fight for years, decades if need be. But the sleeping god would one day overrun Rhir, and so the Antinium had left. To win, retreat. To survive, flee.
But never to hide. The Antinium had sent warrior-queens, geniuses who fused and melded Antinium shapes into new forms. They had sent their Centenium, the ageless champions of old.
And they had all died. The Queen of the Free Antinium tasted despair on her mandibles. They had drowned at sea, died battling krakens and monsters from the depths. The Antinium had underestimated the sea. And what was left was unworthy.
Eight fools who were not qualified, not trained. A handful of uncertain Queens trying to rebuild the majesty they had been born of. And of that number, six remained.
“Six, and it seems only I recall what our purpose is.”
The Queen’s body shuddered. Traitors, all. How could they? If only she could speak with them. But she was an outcast, wasn’t she? What irony. At least it would help her now. She selected the gel that was the beginning of life for Antinium eggs and smeared it gently into a stone basin.
“It was said that we sacrificed a million lives for the first Centenium. I will sacrifice my Hive and my body if I must. But we shall have Queens again. We shall have champions. Klbkchhezeim—you shall not keep faith in vain.”
The Queen sighed. She was too tired. Too old, too weary of keeping her Hive intact. Too alone. That was why she sat in her rooms, eating, managing her Hive, leaving the rest of the world to Klbkch, who had ever been more qualified than her to lead their people.
But now she felt like she was waking up. She could not trust the Grand Queen, or the other Queens. They had lost the way. Perhaps some remembered. Perhaps Xrn was wrong. But until then—the Queen’s feelers shook. But it had started. She reached for another reagent, selecting carefully, hesitating, memorizing her attempts for the inevitable next time.
She began to create.
—-
It really was her fault. Ryoka knew that. But there was truth in what she’d told Erin. She knew that too.
She wasn’t good at friends. Perhaps that was why it was easier for Ryoka to apologize to Erin after they’d both cooled down and ask for forgiveness. Sincerely. Because Ryoka was terrified of losing a friend, one of the few she had.
Not that an apology could heal things over so quickly. It was only the start. However, Lyonette had a hand in the next bit of reconciliation. Because both girls were filthy from the slime and fighting, she suggested they take a bath in one of Liscor’s public bathhouses.
It was a first for Ryoka to experience that. Normally she paid a lot of money for water to be hauled up to a bathtub or showered with water, again in bucket form.
But Drakes were a bit more civilized than Humans, or smarter. Liscor had a set of very high-quality bathhouses that reminded Ryoka of the Romans. They even had private bathing spots you could rent for a small fee.
It was an excellent service and Ryoka purchased that for the two girls today. The water in the pool they’d rented was hot and wonderful after the cold winter air. Ryoka exhaled slowly as she got into it—completely nude.
Unlike a Japanese onsen which she was familiar with, the Drake bathhouses didn’t require people to wash themselves before getting in. That sounded awful and disgusting to both Ryoka and Erin until the purification spells had been pointed out to them. Gnolls loved to bathe and they couldn’t exactly take off their fur before entering.
“I think its weird how Gnolls and Drakes bathe alone. Isn’t that a problem?”
“Dunno.”
Erin spoke shortly as she tested the hot water with a toe. She was more embarrassed about being naked than Ryoka, despite the baths being gender-specific. She shrugged as Ryoka heard the sounds of Drakes chattering away outside of their bath. Erin cocked her head, and sniffed the scented waters before continuing.
“Gnolls are touchy-feely and Drakes aren’
t always like that. It makes sense to give them their own room, and Selys says she went to the bathhouse with Krshia the other day, so it’s not like there’s a big rule against it.”
“I guess.”
The two girls fell silent. Ryoka submerged herself deeper, feeling the heat and enjoying it. The little monster in her brain was gone. Shame and guilt didn’t get rid of it, but a splash of healing potion and Mrsha’s betrayed glance had banished the specters in Ryoka’s head at once. She was left tired, remorseful.
“How’s the water?”
Erin asked as if she didn’t know. Ryoka hesitated, closed her mouth on the smart-ass response.
“Hot.”
The other girl entered the water slowly, yelping a bit at the heat. She submerged herself quicker after getting both legs in. For a while, the two drifted, and said more in looks and silence than they did in words. Ryoka was sure Erin could see the emotions in her eyes. One thing Erin could do was read people when she put her mind to it. Ryoka wondered if that was a chess skill.
“Did you—did you ever go to things like anger management class?”
It wasn’t the start of the conversation, but it was the important bit. Ryoka sighed as she and Erin sat together on the underwater ledge.
“Of course. My dad insisted after the second time I got arrested.”
“And? Did it…?”
“Nope. Didn’t help. I got therapy, pills, the whole nine yards. I hated and resisted all of it. Especially because the therapist was working on my dad’s orders, not to help me. And the pills…”
“Didn’t work?”
“Oh, they did. They turned me into someone else. I refused to ever take them again.”
“Bet your dad didn’t like that. Did he try to make you take them?”
“Yeah. It stopped when I started sneaking them into his drinks. Ever seen a bunch of rich assholes—sorry, I mean, businesspeople—go totally insane from drinking a bottle of wine spiked with Xanax? Sight to see.”
“I get it. And I know you’re right about dangers and stuff. It’s just that when you said all that—”
“I was wrong.”
“No, you were right. Rags is a problem. I don’t know where she is. That big Hobgoblin looked sort of scary and Toren—”