by Frank Morin
He imagined the queen, rolled up in chains, lying in a giant pie plate, surrounded by apples and cinnamon. The upper crust was tucked around her like a blanket, and the entire construct was falling into the heart of a volcano.
The queen shook his chin, rattling him. “None of that foolishness, boy. You remind me of my wicked grandson.”
She was talking about Evander. Connor felt a surge of triumph that he had at least managed to annoy her. That was more than his granite-hardened fist had done.
So he said, “The pie eaten in company of friends is most delicious, but the privy is best cleaned alone to avoid unnecessary splashing.”
She shook him violently, lifting him off the ground so that his legs snapped back and forth and he had to max-tap granite to prevent his neck from snapping.
“You risk annoying me, boy.” Her mind struck his again, harder, and that smothering blanket began to descend once more.
Connor had no idea if his mind would ever awaken again. He needed something more to break her hold, but nothing he tried had done more than waste a few seconds of her time. No, he could not fight her off with serpentinite or chert or granite.
He needed porphyry.
As his thoughts began to dull under the force of her will, Connor threw his consciousness into the shadowed corner of his mind where Mariora had helped him bury his memories of porphyry. She had warned him against seeking those memories, but porphyry insanity was preferable to mindless enslavement.
Connor found those memories and smashed their container apart. They erupted out and flooded his mind. He groaned with the need for porphyry, his muscles clenching, and his stomach cramping, as if he had not eaten for a week.
The queen gasped and slammed him against the wall again, so hard she would have shattered his skull if he had not already been max-tapping granite. The impact crumbled the wall, opening a gap between it and the next empty room.
But the queen’s influence evaporated, leaving his mind awake.
As he struggled back to his feet, she snapped, “You fool. I thought I destroyed all knowledge of the animal rage. You have no idea how dangerous and unstable it is.”
“I can handle it,” Connor said, but his teeth were chattering with cold, and he felt an odd itchy feeling around his elbows and his little toes. What was that all about?
“Don’t lie to me, child,” Queen Dreokt ordered imperiously. “I was the first-ever Petralist to establish affinity through porphyry to the higher magnitudes of magic. It is simply too unstable, even though I was tuned to the correct frequency. You couldn’t hope to survive extended exposure to it.” Her expression darkened and she added in a voice as cold as death, “With that corruption in your system, you are unworthy.”
Her right hand clenched into a fist.
If only he had porphyry. He didn’t understand her rambling, but he would gladly transform and do battle with her as a rampager, even though he might never recover his humanity again. But he lacked porphyry, and she was about to kill him. He had to make some kind of last stand.
Connor tapped slate, which already rested in his boot. The gateway opened instantly. He was not near the ground, but he was standing in the shattered remnants of the stone wall and as his earth senses expanded and rippled out along it he found what he had hoped.
Just like the Carraig, that palace was built with pillars of power-grade granite that extended down into the earth beneath. Since he was already tapping granite, Connor’s earth senses plunged down to those pillars and found earth waiting for him, a giant already quivering with anger. Earth gripped Connor, pouring strength into him, washing away the aches and the worst of the fear. He’d never felt Earth manifest to clearly to his mind, but it felt right and he didn’t dare waste time wondering about it.
Eart was not enough, so Connor tapped both marble and soapstone. Water and Fire swept into his mind. Fire gripped his right hand, and white-hot flames appeared there. Water took his left, snatching liquid from the pools remaining from Ivor’s failed attempt a moment ago and wrapping it around his left hand.
Queen Dreokt raised one eyebrow, but made no other move to block him.
Connor gladly took that bit of extra time to throw open the gateway to air. She laughed in his mind and flew circles around him. Wind rushed into the room from the cavernous chamber next door.
All together, Connor shouted the thought to his elemental companions and they linked arms, encircling him in their center. Fire and water, earth and air, all whipped their element around Connor in intertwined ropes.
Connor invited serpentinite to the party.
And he felt her take noticeable form for the first time. Like a beautiful young woman with thick locks of multi-colored hair cascading around her, past her waist. She threw her head back and sang, a hauntingly powerful sound and in his mind, placed her hands over his.
He had never walked with all five metamorphic stones before, but in that moment, they felt united, like long-beloved companions, not the squabbling children who couldn’t play in the same sandbox. It was a marvelous moment, one he wished he could savor.
Instead he laughed with the wonder of it. He grasped that vibrant sound as it burst from his lips, amplified it, and bound it to the other elements circling him like a spherical shield. His mental companions nodded approval.
The queen might kill him now, but he was not about to make it easy for her.
Instead of ripping out his life, the queen gave him a thoughtful look, tapping her chin with one finger. “I see. You’re a boy who only needs the right motivation. Perhaps I won’t have to destroy your bloodline after all. No one understands what Petralist powers mean anymore, but perhaps once you are worthy we can begin reeducating everyone.”
Connor didn’t care why she was hesitating, didn’t bother trying to come up with a reply to her lunatic statements. He flew at her, striking with every ounce of all of those elements combined.
At Altkalen, the whirling mix of four elements together had proven insurmountable to some of the strongest Petralists in the Obrioner army, had saved Connor’s life, and enabled him to capture them.
The queen flicked out a hand, and the elements vanished out of Connor’s mind, leaving him shockingly alone. His elemental assault deflected away, whipped around the room, and struck Connor in the back before he could stop them. The blow eclipsed the worst curse-punch he’d ever felt, and it drove Connor face first into the floor so hard that it cracked. The air whooshed out of him, and the queen snatched it to join the whirling elements circling over his head.
She tapped the side of her head with a wand of white-hot fire, her expression contemplative. She nodded once. “Yes. Definite potential. With the right motivation, you may be ready to serve me in the near future.”
Connor leaped to his feet, but the words died on his lips. Her mind swatted his, scattering his thoughts again.
“Your first lesson is silence in the presence of your betters. How can you learn anything useful if you won’t listen?”
Her eyes blazed with whirling elements and her entire body glowed with chert intensity, the golden light blinding his eyes and his mind. She spoke, her voice magnified somehow with serpentinite, with layers of sound woven around each other in mind-twisting patterns he could not hope to unravel. Her voice boomed in his mind like a thunderclap.”
You will return to Granadure, my servant. Learn Kilian’s plans and fears and walk in the counsel of my errant child. Enjoy the winter months in peace, convinced that all will be well. Then, at the first signs of spring thaws, you will murder every Builder and return to submit to me and embrace your destiny.
The words echoed through his mind over and over again, an avalanche of sound that squashed all other thought. Then the words wrapped his mind like serpents, slithering in deeper until they buried themselves deep into his mind.
Connor stood before the queen, trembling uncontrollably, unable to think, unable to process what was happening. A distant flicker of horror screamed from one dark corne
r, but evaporated a second later.
Queen Dreokt smiled at him then, and he felt unimaginable joy. His glorious queen approved of him!
She motioned him closer and kissed his forehead. The touch of her lips was like a lightning bolt across his mind. It slammed him off his feet and he struck the floor with brutal force.
As if from a great distance, he heard Queen Dreokt speaking to Ivor, but the words seemed to rush away before he could process them. He struggled to remember who he was or why he was so afraid. The queen approved, right? So what could he possibly be worried about?
Queen Dreokt swept out of the room a moment later, but paused in the doorway. “Leave my city at once. As a show of mercy, Alyth will lead you back to the speedcaravan. Should you attempt any additional treasonous actions, I will snuff out her life in front of your eyes.” Then she gave them a warm smile. “Safe journey, boys.”
Queen Dreokt wrapped the woven elements around herself, sat down on them like a floating chair, and whisked out of the room with as much grace as Verena on her best day in the Swift.
Her presence vanished from Connor’s mind so abruptly, it left him feeling like a hollow shell. His thoughts faded and blackness settled over him.
A hand shaking him urgently awakened him some time later. He groaned, gripping his head in both hands. It hurt worse than any headache he’d ever felt. His body ached, as if a mountain had fallen on him while he slept.
“Connor, get up. Quick!”
He blinked open his eyes, groaning again when the lids felt like they were coated with sandpaper. It took a second for him to recognize the person leaning anxiously over him.
“Aifric!”
His worries and pains fled as he lunged up off the floor to hug her. She’d died. Hadn’t she? The memory was sort of fuzzy.
She shook her head, her expression mournful. “Aifric is dead, Connor. Queen Dreokt killed her.”
“But. . .” He recognized Mariora’s voice.
“She snuffed out that part of our mind like a candle.”
“How is it possible that any part of you is alive?” Connor asked.
“That’s a great question. None of us have ever died before, and usually death is the result of catastrophic failure of the body, which would have killed us all.” Her voice changed to Student Eighteen. “She struck the active portion of our mind, but did not investigate further.”
Her voice changed again, to the self-confident swagger of Rith. “She’s never dealt with anyone like us before.”
Her voice changed again, becoming measured and studious, and Connor realize he had not met this aspect of her. “It is my supposition that perhaps the discovery of mind splitting and personality manipulation, discoveries which post-dated her extensive slumber, remain, for all the queen’s mighty powers, unknown to her.”
“That might give us an advantage,” Student Eighteen said, reaching for one of her daggers. Her voice changed back to Mariora, and her movement changed to rubbing her chin. “But when she knows, she’ll kill us all, body and mind together.”
Connor’s initial burst of joy at seeing at least part of her still alive was tempered now by wonder as he listened to her various personalities conferring. She had never done anything like that before, and he wondered if the trauma of one part of herself dying might have triggered it.
As the many people who were Aifric began conferring rapidly about potential uses for the advantage that a mind-split person might have against the queen, Connor interrupted. “So can you bring Aifric back?”
Student Eighteen said, “It’s not clear. This is new territory. Perhaps it might be possible if another of the kill instructors was ascended sufficiently with chert to help us manage it.” She switched back to Mariora. “In the meantime, we’ll hold a memorial service for her.”
Connor couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that idea. He glanced around and frowned. The small room where he sat on the floor looked like a battlefield. One wall was broken, a part of the floor was cracked, and bits of broken furniture and stone littered the corners. Vague memories flitted around the corners of his conscious mind, but it hurt too much to think.
Then he spotted Ivor lying unmoving on his back. Fearful, Connor scurried over to him on hands and knees. Ivor’s face was pale, his breathing shallow, his eyes closed, and his hands clutching the floor so hard his granite-hardened fingers had sunk into the stone.
Connor shook him. “Ivor? Can you hear me?”
Ivor gasped in a deep breath and sat up in one convulsive move. He shouted a wordless cry, his hands snapping out in front of him, one barely missing Connor’s face.
“Whoa! It’s me. Ivor, wake up!”
Connor shook him again, and Ivor sagged, groaning and holding his head. “Oh, I’ve never had such a headache.”
“Tell me about it.”
Mariora grunted. “Stop complaining. You didn’t get part of yourself killed.”
Ivor glanced at her in surprise. “Aifric?”
“She’s dead. The rest of use are still here. For now.”
Connor wanted to ask her more about that, but his head was really pounding. “What happened?”
Ivor looked toward the door, and Connor noticed Alyth for the first time, standing patiently there, waiting for them. The sight of her triggered a rush of memories and he gasped.
“Queen Dreokt!”
Ivor lunged to his feet, looking around, as if eager to confront the dread queen again. “Where’d she go?”
“What do you remember?” Mariora asked as she and Connor also rose. “Things are a bit fuzzy for me after she killed Aifric. Death has that effect, I guess.”
“I remember Alyth’s mind is broken,” Connor said slowly, trying to put the pieces back together. “The queen came and she was going to kill us.”
“Why didn’t she?” Ivor asked, also frowning. His eyes kept returning to Alyth and his expression grief-stricken. Connor couldn’t imagine how he’d handle it if Verena was the one whose mind was destroyed.
“I hate that woman,” Ivor stated.
“I sort of remember something about her warning us to leave right away,” Connor said. The words were like a distant dream.
Mariora nodded. “She did. She said Alyth will lead us out and not to linger.”
“Why wouldn’t she kill us, or wipe our minds?” Ivor wondered.
“She’s insane. I’m just glad she’s so crazy. Let’s get out of here and get back to Kilian. Maybe he can help us figure out how to face her next time.”
Mariora looked like she wanted to say more, and Connor didn’t blame her. He felt a nagging worry that he was forgetting something important, but the harder he tried to remember it, the less real it felt. Maybe once they got some fresh air it would return to them.
Ivor walked over to where Alyth stood near the door waiting for them.
“If you will please follow me,” she said, gesturing toward the open doorway.
Ivor shook his head and took her hand in his. “I know you don’t understand me, but know that I think we could have made a happy life together.” He leaned forward and kissed her left cheek. “And know that I will avenge you.”
She gave him a dazzling smile, and for a second Connor hoped maybe Ivor had connected with some part of her that still clung to the depths of her soul. “I’m glad your stay here was pleasant. Now if you will follow me,” she said in that same empty tone, dashing Connor’s hopes.
“We can’t leave yet,” Mariora said. “I’m supposed to be dead, remember? The queen doesn’t know we survived, but there’s no way we’ll make it back to the speedcaravan without someone noticing.”
“We’ll carry you,” Ivor said.
She grimaced. “I’ve been carried over someone’s shoulder before. It’s not very comfortable, and we have a long way to walk.”
“I think we can do better than that,” Connor said.
She lay down again and pretended to be dead. She was very good at it. Connor rushed into the adjoining room and
commandeered a couple of sheets and the side rails from a bed that one of the catatonic people waiting for their turn at reeducation was lying on. He and Ivor fashioned a stretcher and moved Mariora to it, then allowed Alyth to lead them out. Tapping a little granite, they easily carried the comatose Mariora back through the palace.
Connor tried not to think about Aifric’s death. Seeing her lying there, knowing she was still breathing made her death seem less real, like the nightmarish memories of his confrontation with the queen. His friend Aifric was gone. No doubt the truth of her loss would hit him hard soon. He hoped he’d make it to the speedcaravan first.
Connor could scarce believe the queen would actually let them go. He sort of remembered her ordering them to leave, as if so unconcerned about any threat they might pose that she could fetch them whenever she chose. The thought irritated and terrified him in equal measure. She was so much more powerful than he’d imagined, even with all they’d heard about her. Still, what if she’d just been playing more mind games with them, extending that false hope just to snatch it away at the last minute? So he walked in fear, at every turn expecting to see her floating toward them on that throne of mixed elements, murder in her eyes.
He was even more shocked when they found Shona waiting for them near the top of the staircase leading down into the central palace. She was resplendent in a beautiful gown of blue and gold, with a ridiculous orange eoin feather sticking out of a wide-brimmed hat perched on her head.
She rushed up to them and exclaimed, “You idiots! Hurry, we need to talk.”
22
Doing the Right Thing Should be Easy. Right?
“Shona, what are you doing here?” Connor demanded.
“Never mind that.” She turned to Alyth and said, “Remain here. These guests need food. I will take care of it.”