QueensQuest

by Suz deMello

  “Are you related?” I again looked into Hode’s gray eyes.

  “His uncle. My brother, the king, charged me with his protection.”

  “That was most unfair. I have the impression that Storne takes orders from no one.” I could not hide my smile. I had chosen a great prince among men,

  “Kaldir has reason to fear Storne,” Maia said.

  “Aya, and my lord was angered at the duplications,” Hode said. “We all were disturbed by the sacrilege.”

  “Their ways are not ours,” I said, “but we must tolerate them while we are their guests. To do anything else is dishonors their hospitality.”

  Hode darted me a resentful glance.

  “Whatever you feel, hide it.” My voice was deliberately sharp. “It is unwise to openly challenge the Children of Light in the middle of their greatest stronghold, as Storne has done.”

  “I trow we would have heard…something, if violence had taken place.” Maia poured water for Hode, offered it with a smile.

  I thinned my lips. “Go forth,” I told Maia. “Do not return without him. And tell the others to prepare to leave this place. We’ll go as soon as Storne is found.”

  * * * * *

  I sat tensely at banquet that night. With Kaldir by my side, I watched thinly veiled dancers undulating before us and picked at my food. Tonight the meal was a spicy stew of pigeon dressed with freshly squeezed lemon juice to brighten the flavors.

  “The viands are not to your liking?” Kaldir asked.

  I hesitated. Without Maia tasting my meals before I ate, I felt insecure. Her digestive system could manage any poison but in her absence her I was vulnerable and knew it. So I ate sparingly. “I am not hungry here. It is the heat, I believe.” I smiled apologetically.

  A dancer swayed before me, plucking a veil from over her shaved mound. I remained unaffected. With Storne absent, possibly lost or killed, I had no appetite, sexual or otherwise.

  “I will order you cooler foods.” Kaldir gestured to a servant and spoke to him in a low tone.

  In a few minutes, a sallet arrived. My taster hovered, fork at the ready. I glanced at her. She was the redhead, Frayn’s cousin, the woman who had pleasured me so skillfully three nights before. I smiled at her as she stabbed her fork into a plump tommatoe. Its seeds and juice squirted, drenching her chin. Kaldir reached his napkin toward her, deftly catching the liquid before it spoiled her pale pink robes. I noticed she did not object to his touch, winking at him with a knowing expression on her face while she chewed the tommatoe with gusto. I wondered if they had trysted, and found I did not care.

  I tipped my head to one side and regarded her. Her eyes remained clear, her demeanor normal as she set the dish before me. I leisurely sipped wine, waiting a moment or two before taking a clean fork and eating a few bites of the sallet. The greens were cold and crisp, the dressing pleasingly sour, as though it also contained lemons.

  Despite the taster’s apparent health, I did not eat heartily of the sallet, for many poisons were slow to act and I did not trust anyone but Maia to safeguard me. I toyed with the food, sipped a little wine, made excuses to Kaldir and retired to my pyramide, ordering Rall and Parron to prepare to leave Lightside upon Maia and Storne’s return.

  * * * * *

  I awakened, feeling ill, in a place I did not recognize. I was supine on a hard slab, my arms spread and pinioned. As I came to consciousness, I was aware of nausea in my belly and pain in my outstretched arms, both from the pressure on my shoulders and pinpricks, as it were, in my elbows and wrists.

  I blinked, beholding darkness above in the point of a pyramide. An inspection of myself and my surroundings revealed that the needlelike jabs in my arms were caused by small tubes inserted in my blood vessels. I could see my life fluids pumping slowly away through the tiny clear cannulae.

  Raising my head, I beheld other beds, with others whose blood was likewise being siphoned. The light admitted by narrow slits in the pyramide was not enough for me to see if any were Storne or Maia.

  I attempted to shift, stretch and move, but discovered I could not. My ankles were imprisoned.

  I was trapped.

  Rage rushed through me, a violent red tide. I opened my mouth and roared in frustration. The needles popped out of my arms, expelled by the force of my anger. My bonds likewise released, tearing apart, falling shredded to the stone floor.

  I was Queen of Shadow and had powers that these Children of Light knew not. Indeed, I surprised myself.

  I rose. A white-clad figure rushed to my side, pressing a palm to my chest to restrain me. I struck away the hand and planted a fist in the center of the woman’s face, hitting her nose. Blood spurted and she fell back with a cry.

  “Shut up!” I swung my legs to the side and leaped to my feet.

  She jerked away, probably planning to seek help, but I grabbed her arm and swung her around, hard and fast. She fell over my leg and went down. Her head smacked the hard stone bed. I heard her skull crack and was glad.

  I hoped her cries had not alerted other guards. I clambered over her and ran from bed to bed, seeking Storne. Most beds were empty, while a few were occupied. One man looked like a younger, less weathered version of Kaldir.

  Fluids were also being sucked from him and collected in myriad glassy beakers. They were nearly full. This Kaldir-clone looked pale, and when I touched his hand it was cold and limp.

  Terror twisted my belly as I realized that I had been the subject of the Lightsiders’ unholy experiments. I pressed a hand to my stomach and prayed that the new lives within me had survived this horror. For two there were, I sensed. Twins. Two new lives that were my responsibility. I breathed a comforted sigh as I sensed their presence, their life force.

  I returned to my bed and kicked over the vessels holding my blood. I would not leave a single cell with which the Children of Light could clone me.

  Bottles smashed with loud reports. I was barefoot, and so trod away backward and carefully before resuming my search for Storne.

  “Audryn.” His shout came from three rows away. I ran to his side. He was imprisoned as I had been, and I began to pluck out the cannulae and untie his bonds.

  “We have to leave,” I told him. “Get up.”

  He swung his legs over the bedside and sat, head lowered for a moment before he shook his hair out of his face and looked at me. He was pale but otherwise seemed healthy. “What is this place?”

  “It’s part of their cloning process, I believe. They were drawing out our blood to copy us.”

  Bellowing, he jumped to his feet and began doing what I had done—kicking and breaking the glass containers that held his cells while shouting curses in a language I didn’t understand.

  I backed away slowly, hoping never to be the focus of his wrath. He didn’t stop until the rest of the room was destroyed. In the midst of the chaos, with other victims rising slowly from what would have been their deathbeds, he finally came to stand before me and asked, “Where is Maia?”

  Fear welled up, and I tried not to cry. “I don’t know.”

  He saw it, of course. He saw everything about me. Drawing me close into his warm embrace, he felt wonderfully comforting and strong. “We’ll get through this. We’ll get through this, I promise.” His soft murmur fluttered the hair near my ears, starting a sensual quiver that shuddered through me. I hugged back, comforted by his nearness and solidity.

  We were separated only by thin robes, and his response to me was clear, big and hard. I pressed against him, his cock near my quim, seeking to slide his hardness toward my notch. I rubbed my face against his, delighting in the rough stubble gently abrading my cheek.

  We kissed, the caress of our lips tender, the act a seeking of comfort from the other whilst in peril. “We cannot tarry,” I whispered.

  “I know…but I never wish to let you go.”

  I pulled away with reluctance. “We must find Maia and leave. Where are our people, do you think?”

  “If I know my men, t
hey are searching for us or losing their lives in the process. Each has taken a death-oath to my protection that was extended to you on my order.” His lips thinned. “We must leave, to be sure, but not before we have destroyed this terrible place.”

  “Can I help?”

  We turned. A slender man had approached us. The Kaldir clone. Shaky on his feet, he rubbed sores on his arms. Evidently the cannulae had been embedded for quite a long time.

  “You would aid us, Lightsider?” I asked. “Why?”

  “My own people tried to kill me.” His dark eyes were somber. “I owe them nothing.”

  “What is this place?” Storne wanted to know. “What’s on the lower floors of this pyramide?”

  “This is the cloning center,” he said. “Blood is drawn from the subjects here, and below, the replicants are grown.”

  We did not need to hear more.

  Chapter Sixteen

  On the floor below, clear, lozenge-shaped tanks, like upright sarcophagi, lined a great stone room. They glowed with eerie pulsating lights, some pinkish. Others, with larger clones, gleamed a darker red. Others were purple or green. Many tubes and wires ran from them to a central engine, which hummed and growled as it kept the unnatural creatures alive. Other arcane equipment that I did not understand filled the empty spaces. White-robed figures moved among them. Scientists, I believed.

  I advanced to examine the nearest of the tanks. It shone a bizarre and sickening shade of rose. Within it, a naked woman stood.

  She had flowing fair hair, nascent breasts and wore my face.

  I shrieked and punched the tank with a fist. The clear material of which it was composed gave slightly but didn’t break. I struck it again, and a crack appeared. Another hit from knuckles now bloody, and fluid oozed from the widening fractures. I grabbed a narrow blade from a nearby table and shoved it into the break. Twisting it opened the rupture into a gaping hole that gushed a thick liquid, like amniotic fluid.

  The creature within opened her mouth—my mouth—and shrieked, clawing at her throat as she died. I gasped and shuddered as if I had been struck. One of the scientists grabbed me, screaming as he attempted to pull me away. Younger and stronger, I shoved him so hard he fell to the floor, hitting his head.

  He did not thereafter move and I ignored him.

  Though I was not a fighter, a sick fury fueled my blows. Destroying the second clone was easier and by the fifth it had become almost boring. I felt myself changing, becoming harder, tougher, angrier. On the other side of the chamber, Storne used a hammer-like tool he’d found to smash sarcophagi. Several of the copies resembled him. The Kaldir-clone joined in with glee. I noticed that the cloning tanks containing males glistened purple and green.

  Finally, every replicant was dead. The stone floor was slimy with the foul brew in which they were spawned. I do not know how many we killed, but I regretted none.

  But in the farthest reaches of the room, a last pink sarcophagus stood, open and empty of its clone.

  I stood and stared at it, trying to comprehend the implications. The Golden Throne screamed my name, my scepter longed for my grasp. I hoped to sit in my place and rule before the interloper could displace me.

  ’Twas time to return to Remarck and reassume power.

  But where was Maia?

  I hardened my heart and stiffened my back. I said to Storne, “With or without Maia, we must leave, and now.”

  His jaw firmed. “Yes, but…” He glanced at the Kaldir clone, and asked, “Is this the only pyramide where cloning takes place?”

  He blinked. Still frail, he’d nevertheless worked as hard as he was able to destroy the cloning room. Even so, I could not trust him but listened when he said, “Yes, but other pyramides house more experiments. This is part of a complex. Come see.”

  He led us up the same broad stone stairs we’d descended to reach the cloning room. I followed him through the smaller chamber where we’d been imprisoned. The fetid air had not improved by the addition of so many bodily fluids from the beakers we’d smashed. Even though the pyramide’s interior was protected from the heat by thick stone walls, the spilled blood had congealed and started to stink. Ghostly figures still wandered the room: the almost-dead, pale and drained. It was a strange and chilling sight, all the more frightening because I had almost joined their ghastly ranks.

  Kaldir’s double walked across the cloning room to a wider slit in the pyramide’s side. We followed him outside, though I feared floods of bright sunlight after the pleasant dimness of the interior.

  But outside it was unexpectedly gray and cool. When I glanced upward, I could see that all three moons had, in an unusual conjunction, obscured the sun. The shadows they created felt welcoming, as though I were in a more familiar environment.

  I sucked a deep, cool breath into my lungs, feeling it expand my body, and looked around. We stood perhaps twenty feet above the ground on the lower side of a pyramide that was wedged beside the city wall, in the midst of a cluster of the triangular structures.

  “We need a better view.” Hitching his dirty robes above the knees, Storne climbed not down but up, toward the pyramide’s tip, so he could assess the situation.

  I looked at Kaldir’s double. He swayed, looking a little forlorn. “Will you not come with us?” I asked.

  “I don’t think I can climb yet.”

  “Get something to eat, then.” I yanked at the ruby that Prince Kaldir had given me, breaking the chain, and handed it to the clone. “You have the gratitude of the Queen of Shadow. Rest from your travail and walk in the sight of whatever god in which you believe.”

  Then I followed Storne, blessing the gray sky that eased my exertions. I could hear shouts and cries of delight below us as the Children of Light enjoyed what was, to me, a normal coolness. A pleasant breeze swept from the marshlands to the east, bringing a gentle humidity to the air.

  That there was a triple eclipse was fortunate, for it seemed as though the odd conjunction of the three moons in front of the sun was an occasion for rejoicing in New Medina. Any guard that had been set on our prison was distracted by the celebrations. Below me, I could see piles of soft fabric in the street, where people had shed their robes. Naked men and women stretched their freed arms gratefully in the freshening breeze, touching and caressing each other with wonderment on their faces.

  I briefly wondered what Kaldir had told his people about the sudden disappearance of the Queen of Shadow, who had been lately an honored guest in his realm. No doubt he had lied. My jaw tightened. He would pay, as would anyone else who had conspired with him to abduct me and Storne.

  Storne had reached the pyramide’s top. I joined him and peered over its tip to oversee the city. I allowed my gaze to trail along the city walls, noting the location of the great stone archways and the heavily guarded city gates. I saw the souqs that had amused me, and in the distance, I espied colorful tiled buildings, their glitter and gleam muted by shadow. In the other direction, outside the city, rose still more structures. One pyramide among them attracted my attention, for its tip still glowed despite the dimmed illumination caused by the eclipse. And that glow was an odd blue-purple color, most unnatural.

  I nudged Storne in the side with an elbow.

  He scrutinized it. “What could it be?”

  “It must be some sort of secret,” I said. “Else Kaldir would have shown me such an unusual sight.”

  “Yes, the two of you seemed to have formed a bond.” A wry note had entered his voice.

  “Seemed is the appropriate word,” I said stiffly. “Friends don’t poison friends’ food or sap their blood for hellish experiments. Come on.”

  My bare feet were already sore, so I climbed down with care. Nevertheless, I used the broad cracks between the pyramide’s stone blocks and was on the ground swiftly. Storne followed. Once on the ground, I wrapped my scarf to conceal my hair and face and motioned for him to do the same. The longer my enemies believed us to be imprisoned, the better.

  I paralleled
the city walls, moving toward the gate closest to the violet-tipped pyramide. I kept to the alleys and the shadows, my natural domain. But as I walked, I became aware of a follower. Despite Storne’s presence by my side, I felt vulnerable without my guards. Our weapons—his hammer, which he’d stuck in his belt, and the thin blade I’d taken from the cloning lab—were not adequate.

  “We’re being shadowed,” Storne whispered into my ear.

  “I know.” I turned away from my intended route and into a broader street, hoping that any assailant would not dare to attack us on a busy thoroughfare. Quickening my step, I headed in the direction of the open-air market I had seen from the top of the cloning pyramide. There, we could lose ourselves in the crowds, and perhaps I could steal a better knife.

  A crone, bent and withered by age, grabbed my arm. Her slight form was shrouded in grubby white veils. “A coin, kind lady,” she rasped, while a voice sounded inside my mind. Keep walking. Don’t look around.

  Storne reached for her throat before I intervened. “It’s all right—it’s Maia,” I whispered.

  He gave me one startled glance but complied. “What happened?” I asked her.

  “I have been searching for you for two days.” Her clawlike fingers dug into my arm. “Kaldir has expelled everyone else, the DarkDwellers and our people, from his lands.”

  I drew in a shocked breath, for this was tantamount to a declaration of war.

  Storne hadn’t taken his gaze off her. “Where are they?” he demanded.

  “Rall and Parron are riding to Windrush to fetch reinforcements. The rest of our people are in an armed encampment some miles outside the city, on the edge of the WestMarch. The DarkDwellers have left for their lands, vowing to return with an army. They have sworn to raze New Medina to the ground.”

  “As well they should.” Storne’s tone was grim. “Where are their armories and smithies?”

  “I have my suspicions.” She nodded in the direction of the violet-tipped pyramide.