by L. K. Rigel
“Reverse engineered,” Saskia said. “The opposite of the soul ceremony.”
“That’s it.”
Monstrous. Insane. That explained the strange feeling she had with that “Edmund” in the bog. Unnatural. The Empani had taken the soul. “But Nin, where did the Empani put it?”
“In the fetus it carried, unseen by you. You didn’t see its real shape; you couldn’t know.”
Another contraction, the largest so far, took hold of Mal, overwhelming. She dearly wanted to give in. This was primal, the urge to let labor have its way. But that wasn’t going to happen, not before she got that soul back.
“Are you sick?” Saskia looked around for her bag.
“I need to put some cold water on my face.” Mal went to her bathroom and ran the water. She wanted to hit something, break something. Destroy. Something. Destroy that Empani in the bog. Mad bog, how fitting a name. How dare it steal the soul of another being!
She opened the cabinet for a fresh towel and remembered her bundling cloth, tucked away in the mantle in the closet.
“Saskia! I want you!”
She draped the bundling cloth over her neck and put her mantle over that. She was big, but the cloak just closed over her stomach. For luck, she squeezed the stone Asherah in the pocket. She unlocked the secure drawer under her bed where she kept the coarse lace from the Horus tent. So different from the bundling, yet they functioned the same. Nin would have good times testing them.
Saskia hurried in, looked around, and went to the bathroom. “Mal, is it your water?” She actually seemed to care. She dropped the my lady when others weren’t around. When she came back to the bedroom, Mal wrapped the lace around Saskia’s neck.
“What – oh. Here we go again.”
“Let’s go for a ride in the stinger.”
“You’re on the verge of giving birth.”
“Then we had better hurry.”
In the outer room, Counselor lifted the lid to the chocolate pot and wrinkled her nose. Nin rambled on about Father Jesse’s shortcomings as a hybrid. Mal and Saskia slipped out, almost unnoticed.
You are not leaving me with her . . . are you?
It must have been a rhetorical question.
The Queen Bee
Edmund followed Jannes to a wildling settlement at the edge of a great lake a few hours inland. As he jumped down from the stinger, two old men greeted Jannes. Edmund recognized one of them.
“I’m glad to see you here.” He extended his hand to Gerhold. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” The others watched and relaxed when the blade master accepted the handshake.
“These people are loyal to Damini,” Jannes said. “This is Gopala.” Jannes introduced a man close to Edmund’s age. “Leader of the Imperial Guard.”
“What remains of the guard.” Gopala smiled. He was taller, younger, and more convivial than Jannes, but otherwise the two could be brothers. “But we are well-disciplined and ready to defend Damini’s daughter.”
“You’re Pala, Mallory’s friend.”
“I am.”
Gerhold leaned close to Edmund and indicated Jannes and Gopala. “The only difference between those two is one rarely smiles, and the other rarely doesn’t. You wouldn’t know they had been apart since Gopala was a two-year-old babe.”
They sat down at a fire. The other old man had graying braids decorated with carved ornaments. He worked a piece of quartz with a small knife, and Edmund knew instantly who he was.
“You are Palada, also known as Jarlvidar, father of Gopala.”
The man nodded. “And husband of Verdandi, mother of Gopala.
It was a test. The wrong response wouldn’t ruin everything, but the right one would earn respect. Edmund had no idea what was expected, so he went with his instinct. “I am honored to know her name.”
That seemed to please. Gopala motioned to some women who handed out coffee and sweet cakes, and Edmund turned back to Gerhold. “How is it that you are here?”
“I was reborn when I saw the pomegranate mark on the phoenix blade handle. I knew Jarlvidar had to be alive somewhere in the world, and perhaps others. As soon as the princess was safely out of Allel, I took a fast boat for the northern hemisphere. It was easy finding a transport to Logan, and easier still to buy a horse. Riding the horse, not so much fun. I got old in all those years.”
Jannes smiled.
“You’re getting old, too, Jannes,” Gerhold said. “You’d better find yourself a wife soon.”
Jannes stared at his coffee and said nothing.
Tonight everything had changed. Everything. There was no longer any reason to deny Counselor love if she’d been lucky enough to find it.
“Jannes has found someone,” Edmund said. “Unless I’m mistaken.”
“Matches are made, according to our will or not,” Gerhold said. “It seems there’s a flaw in Red City’s scheme. Asherah’s will be done, our princess and King Edmund here have bonded like mated peregrines.”
The men laughed like – well, like lascivious old soldiers. Jannes looked at Edmund and shrugged as if to say what can I do?
“Though everyone seems to know it but themselves.”
Jarlvidar smiled slightly. “I thought that was Red City’s scheme. Where is the flaw?”
“Neither has bonded to Red City!”
Both old men chuckled, and Gerhold said, “People will always try to foil the gods.”
“Sometimes, my friend, they succeed for a while.”
“Great gods. What is that?” Gerhold was on his feet.
Thankfully, the subject of Edmund and Mallory evaporated as a dazzling array of colored lights floated toward them in the night sky. The array moved with unnatural speed. It was the Queen Bee, and it made no sound. Edmund pointed a compad at his stinger, and its lights flashed.
The phantasmagorical beast of the air slowed and hovered above them.
A floodlight from the great ship illuminated the ground below it, and a lift descended from its bowels carrying Harold. The men around the fire inhaled sharply at the vision standing on the lift beside the king: Kairo, statuesque and lovely, with her hand lovingly on his shoulder.
Kairo was still with Harold. The Concords were already dead.
“No time for graces,” Harold said as he stepped off the lift. “An hour ago, the Queen Bee’s radar device detected an airship on a trajectory toward Allel. We’ve been chasing it since, undetected.”
“Garrick,” Edmund said.
“If his plan is to invade Allel, he’s going in with a contingent small enough to fit in the one ship.”
Jannes and Edmund were in back their stingers and off the ground in minutes. They caught visual on the Eaglet north of Allel.
“Split off,” Edmund called out to Jannes. “I’m forward.” He killed his stinger’s lights and flew dark while Jannes stayed back. Garrick had landed in the middle of the vineyards, and Garrick guards poured out of the Eaglet into the field. “Damn him to oblivion.” They had destroyed a good number of vines.
Lights came on in the farmhouse.
Edmund flew back to the ridge. Jannes had landed and turned on the stinger’s wing lights. Edmund set down in the meadow where the horses had grazed the day of his picnic with Mallory. In the black night, the ridge had a different kind of beauty, with a canopy of stars arching over the gorge to the north and the ocean to the west.
For the Queen Bee’s benefit, he and Jannes kept their wing lights on. The big airship pulled in above them and hovered, lowering Gopala and his men. And they were all men, reflecting the Imperial camp’s odd social dynamic.
The Queen Bee retracted its lift and shut down its exterior lights, then began to glide toward the citadel. With the sounds of a mêlée floating up from the vineyard, Gopala’s men sorted themselves into formation and fell in behind Edmund.
A man’s scream rose above the distant shouts. “I wonder where Garrick could be.” Gopala flashed a smile while twirling an arrow through his fingers.
“Let’s go get him then.” Edmund led them all down the hill.
Garrick had landed the Eaglet in the center of the vineyard, and the vineyard crew had taken offense at the crushed vines. They’d turned on field lights powered by Tesla batteries. The lights themselves had shocked the Garrickers, made them doubt Allel’s supposed weakness.
The field crew fought with farm implements and their bare hands. They weren’t quite losing, but they could use some help.
“In the name of King Edmund, you will cease and surrender!” Gopala raised his loaded longbow. His men followed suit.
One of the Garrickers shrieked. “It’s Pala’s ghost!” He fell to his knees. The others stopped, dumb, staring at the circle of armed guards as if a new special species had surrounded them.
It was too easy.
“Arrest them.” Jannes lowered his crossbow. “And search the airship.”
“Don’t kill me.” The shrieker blubbered.
Gopala flashed that smile again. “Don’t you know me, Gannon?”
“Pala’s ghost.”
“Oh, I am alive, I assure you. Answer my questions, and you won’t die either. Where is Garrick? What’s the plan, man?”
“He’s going to the lighthouse, to the tunnel. He’s going to destroy Allel, he said, kill the women.”
“What women? What are you talking about?”
“The women in the tunnel. Kill them, he said, and it will ruin Allel.”
“Who, Gannon? What women in the tunnel?”
“Mallory that was our brood queen, and one I never heard of. Tesla.”
Edmund didn’t wait to hear more but sprinted toward the vineyard stables. He threw a bit and bridle on the likeliest horse and charged off toward the Lighthouse Inn, leaving the others to follow his lead. His heart was imploding in his chest, and his blood pounded in his ears.
In the secured room at the inn’s stable, the door to the tunnel was open and the guard lay dead on the ground, his blood still seeping into the dirt floor. Edmund raced down the tunnel, a myriad of scenarios playing in his mind.
Was Garrick planning to blow up the Tesla turbines as he had the Golden Wasp? Thank Asherah Mallory was safe with Counselor, but as he passed the byway to the Empani nest, a cold sense of dread and longing overtook him.
“Edmund!” Mallory’s terrified voice rang in his head.
Not now. He pushed on, trying to block out the Empani’s call. At the turbine branch, he sent Jannes with a group of Imperials to check the turbines; he and Gopala headed on to the sub-basement with the rest of the men.
Steve and Dix and their crew were engaged in hand-to-hand brawls all over the sub-basement. Edmund nearly stumbled when a fallen man grabbed his ankle. Jack.
“Garrick. He’s going for our brood queen.” Blood gushed from slash wounds on his arms and face. He pointed toward the tunnel and passed out.
Edmund recalled the Empani’s cry at the passage to the nest. With sickening dread, despite all rational thought, the idea took hold in his mind that the real Mallory was calling to him, that she was in horrible danger inside the mad bog. He retraced his steps to the passage.
-o0o-
Mal felt a wave of nausea wash over her as Saskia set the stinger down outside the Empani nest. Now all they had to do was find an Empani. The Empani. “The waterfall. It likes the waterfall.”
“Ouch.” Saskia crossed her eyes as Mal’s fingers dug into her shoulder.
“Sorry.” Mal inhaled as deeply as she could and sent calming waves through her body.
“It was information, not a complaint. Do you want me to get you something for the pain?” Like a good KP, Saskia had her bag at the ready.
“Not yet.”
“It was a mistake to come here, Mal. I don’t think you have any time left.”
“It’s because I have no time left that I had to come. Let’s get to the waterfall. Can’t you hear it?” Saskia was right. She was losing her battle with the future prince. He was coming into the world, soul or no soul.
“Here it is – great gods.”
In front of the waterfall’s pond, a tall gray figure was watching them. It had elongated hands. Mal remembered the fingers grasping for the Empani cloth as Edmund pulled her from the bog and the time long ago on Corcovado. She broke away from Saskia and ran to the Empani. “Where is the soul? Give it back! Give it back!”
As if yelling would make it so. Look at its face! It had no feelings, no compassion. Another contraction took hold of her, sudden, relentless. The more she fought, the more it hurt. She desperately wanted to give in to her training, let the pain go away.
The Empani started to walk away.
“No! Stay – where is the prince’s soul?” She knew how to make it stay. She struggled to throw off her mantle and ripped the bundling cloth from her neck.
The instant the cloth lost contact with her body, the Empani transformed to Edmund’s shape, became Edmund.
“It is impossible, Mallory.” His voice was so kind, so gentle.
“You aren’t sorry.” It was everything she treasured in Edmund, everything she needed from him now. It was good, noble – even loving. But Mal was sure she saw a hint of triumph behind those loving eyes.
Where was Saskia? The pain was too much. She let go and gave in. “No!” Too late, too late. She was in the mad bog with an Empani, in labor. What had she been thinking?
The Edmund transformed to the shape of Saskia just as the real Saskia said, “I’m here, Mal.”
Against Mal’s will, her cervix completely dilated; as she delivered the prince, one of the Saskias caught the infant, the human Saskia with the Horus cloth wrapped around her arm. The Empani Saskia spread the mantle over the ground. Mal collapsed on the mantle while the human Saskia pulled scissors from her bag and cut the cord, wrapped the Horus cloth around the lower half of the newborn’s body and put him on Mal’s chest.
Horrified, Mal watched him nuzzle against her breast, but his head was too weak to accomplish anything. She cradled him in her arm, made eye contact, and gasped.
Asherah, help me; I’m falling in love.
She heard the goddess’ laughter splash over the waterfall. Or was it her own laughter? Nothing existed in the world for her now but this infant.
“Ah!” Saskia’s cry was a mix of pain and vulnerability. The Empani had changed shape again, to someone Mal didn’t recognize, a girl about thirteen years old.
The girl smiled. “Saskia! It’s so good to see you again. Why are you crying?”
“I’ve wanted ...” Great wracking sobs shook Saskia’s body. “For so long, I’ve wished I could see you one more time.”
“I’ve missed you so much.” The girl stroked Saskia’s face with infinite kindness.
A sound of grunting and running came from just beyond the trees, as if a beast were headed toward them. Garrick crashed into the clearing, stopped dead by the sight of Mal on the ground.
His gaze fixed on the firebird on her shoulder. An inhuman howl ripped out of him.
Mal reflexively shielded the infant. She would die before she let him near it. She didn’t care anything about a soul or no soul.
The girl stepped in front of her, and Garrick stared stupidly.
“Counselor?”
The girl bent down to Garrick’s shin and pulled the dragon dagger from its sheath.
“Do it.” He spread his arms, tears in his eyes. “I want you to.”
In one flashing thrust, the girl plunged the blade into Garrick’s heart. He stumbled backward, the ruby-eyed dragon sticking out of his chest.
“Garrick,” the girl said gently. “Everything will be all right now.”
He collapsed to his knees, and she kissed him on the mouth. When she pulled away, there was a glow on his face, a look of contentment.
“Everything is all right now.” She showed him the blade. Blood gushed out of his chest as he slumped to the ground, dead.
Saskia laughed hysterically.
The Counselor Empan
i dropped the dagger. It looked tired. Worn out, in fact.
It was wrong, this curse, even if it had been laid on by a god. The prince had been born with no soul, and Mal was certain it was this Empani’s fault. And yet, if she were enslaved that way, wouldn’t she do what she could to break free?
Service is only service if freely undertaken.
Mal handed the infant to Saskia. The bundling cloth was still in her hands. Her link to her past, to her mother. Nin would want to examine it, find out how it was the same and how it was different from the other Empani cloths. The Empani might be dangerous if they weren’t bound to human will. So many reasons to keep the bundling.
And one reason to let it go. Mal held the cloth out to the Empani. “You need this more than I do.”
The instant the Empani touched the bundling, it reverted to the tall, gray humanoid form. It was hairless and it seemed sexless. Its facial features expressed no personality. It was kind of horrible.
“Thank you, Princess, for the cloth of the Sighted Ones. The Empani will not forget.” It spoke, but its mouth didn’t move.
“Then give my son his soul!” My son.
“That is impossible.”
“Where is it? Where is his soul?”
“The soul has been born. He is Empani. And human. He is with the Sighted Ones.”
The Empani gained strength as it spoke. Wings sprouted from its back, large and magnificent, shimmering metallic pastel, like the colors of one of Asherah’s dresses. Like the lights she’d often seen in this area.
Angelic, but terrifying.
“Great gods.” Nin and Counselor came through the trees on the west. The Nights were with them, and Mal felt a surge of love for the hapless ladies. She’d never given them credit for bravery or self-sacrifice, yet they’d put themselves at risk in this way.
No one spoke. They were bedazzled by the Empani rising into the air. It flew away.
Edmund entered the clearing from the north and took in the scene: Counselor and Nin there already, Garrick dead. Edmund had come to save her, and he was too late. He confirmed that she and the baby were safe, suffering the blow to his ego with good grace. For that, she loved him more than ever.