by Ewing, Al
The Queen’s blank brass mask seemed to smile. “Thank you, Captain. I can speak for myself, you know.”
“Yes, your Majesty.” Tura blushed red at her outburst. “My most sincere apologies, your Majesty.”
“As I said, the Zor will depart once preparations have been made. I suggest you all board the ship, find your domicells and get some rest – apart from your Security Officer.” The Queen sounded distinctly amused. “Her I would speak with alone.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” Tura nodded, trying to hide her relief as she and the crew hurried away. A new Security Officer, then – for the best, considering. Maya had been a little too full of herself for the position, and now she’d dug her own grave. Mouthing off to the Red Queen like that; it was unthinkable.
Who on earth did Maya think she was?
Beneath her brass mask, the Queen smirked.
NOT MUCH OF a move. You’re putting a lot of faith in your Knight...
I’m promoting my pawn. Anyway, he’s a Silver. That bloodline’s served the Queen since before you were born – when the Queen they served was just a mad old hag in a jar, ruling over her tiny little island. They can take care of themselves.
Still, quite a risk. I have Knights of my own, you know.
I know. And you should know how I play the game by now – I only put my faith in a sure thing, remember?
Oh, I’m well aware. Only that which has been tried and tested need apply. I seem to remember you were against stagnation once...
I’ll take it over change for change’s sake. You always did like rocking boats and rattling cages.
A little chaos in the morning gets the blood running. And you know I hate doing the same thing twice. My move, I believe.
Knight takes knight?
If I didn’t know better... I’d say you were reading my mind.
AT THE TOP of the elevating field, Ull found himself in what looked like a maze of mirrored surfaces. Some of these, he knew, would be real-time displays presenting a doctored image – several would be light-reflecting fields set to move and shift when out of his line of sight. A very few would even be permeable; those would be the ones to watch out for.
Where the assassins would be hidden.
Apha Four Six. Calm readiness. The superior man stills his mind in preparation for action.
He stepped forward.
The first of them lunged out of the mirrored surface to his left – a similarly black-clad figure, wearing his face, or a very subtly distorted version. It was only to be expected, Ull thought, as he grabbed the attacker’s wrists, twisting it to snap the fragile bones and then heaving him through the empty air to crash into the mirrored surface opposite, impaling him on the shattered glass. The Red King’s Vengers were his elite forces – capable of adapting themselves to match their opponent exactly if need be, both physically and in skill. And who better to use in an environment like this, where a dozen different reflections of Ull gazed back at him with every step he took?
One of the reflections on his left caught his eye – he turned and struck in one quick, liquid movement, then stopped his palm a split-second before it hit home; it was one of the display screens, showing an image of a Venger rather than the real thing. Doubtless it was booby-trapped, and he had very nearly fallen for it. He was just chiding himself on so nearly falling for such an obvious snare – Epsilon two eight, self-reproach – when the real Vengers dropped from above.
Stupid! Why hadn’t he looked up? One arm was around his throat, cutting off his air, one grinning parody of his own features leering in his peripheral vision as another landed in front of him. Both were armed with nano-sharp carbon-steel blades. He could smell the poison coating the metal.
Delta five six, he thought. Acceptance of the inevitable. The superior man flows with all moments.
Even the last.
THERE. KNIGHT TAKES knight.
We’ll see if it does take. My move, I think.
“I DID THINK about killing you,” the Queen smiled from behind her serene mask. “Snapping your neck with my own two hands. Not for the reasons you might be expecting, but... anyway, it would be a weight off my mind if I took your place. But I just can’t risk it.”
The Security Officer bristled. “With all due respect, your Majesty, you don’t scare me.”
“Really?” The Red Queen cocked her head. “Why do you suppose that is? Out of all of my subjects, why is it that you – and you alone – have no fear of the power I wield?” She paused for a moment. “Do you like this society, Maya of Zor under Tura? Do you think it worth preserving?”
“Yes, I do,” the Security Officer responded fiercely. “With one caveat. I would see you gone from it.”
The treason hung in the air.
“Either you’re a very stupid and headstrong girl,” the Queen murmured, “or you already know what I’m going to show you. I can’t quite remember which it is, I’m afraid.”
The Security Officer said nothing. The Queen shrugged, and – making sure nobody was there to see – she reached up to detach the mask and lift it away.
Maya looked into her own eyes.
After a long pause, the mask was replaced. “You understand now, at any rate,” the Queen smiled.
The Security Officer swallowed hard and nodded. “How –”
“At the co-ordinates you are to investigate, there is a temporal wormhole that will take you to the prehistory of Habitat One – of Earth. The rest of your crew also has a role to play there – except the Captain, of course. But then, you’ll learn for yourself that there are always sacrifices...”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. You’ve studied your history – I made sure of that. You have a clear understanding of the turning points that created our civilisation; you’ll know when the time comes how to guide it into being, and you’ll have thousands of millenia with nobody to stop you doing just that.”
“But the Red King –” the Security Officer sputtered, fear showing on her face for the first time. “How can I possibly learn to fight him?”
“The Red King won’t learn the game until you know it inside out, and by that time, you’ll need the challenge like air in your lungs. And he won’t know the secret until it’s too late.”
“The secret?”
“The wormhole; the one that’s about to bring you to the beginning of everything – riding with the Shaper, the Weeper, the Sacrificial Lamb and the Keeper of the Stone. It doesn’t take you back in time.”
Maya blinked at the Queen’s expressionless mask, uncomprehending.
“It takes you forward.”
WHAT ARE YOU, the Drama Queen? People have postulated that time is a circle since time started. It’s no big secret – it’s a theory you happened to prove correct. And what’s the difference between backwards and forwards anyway?
There is no backwards. First law of time – you can never go back. The illusion of going backwards in time is caused by going so far forwards that you loop around.
I’m more interested in sideways, myself. Right, my move –
Hardly. That was just chit-chat about strategy. My move is Knight takes Knight.
You’re joking. Two of my most elite Vengers had the drop on – oh, damn, he’s killed them.
What can I say? He’s a Silver.
Damn it...
He’s quick.
ULL WAS VERY quick.
He grabbed the hand holding the blade, twisting the fingers just so; the Venger gave a yelp of pain, his borrowed face shifting, and the poisoned dagger fell from his grip. Ull caught it by the blade, his skinsuit already analysing the poison chemical and dosing him with the antidote – then his arm flashed up, and the blade flew out from between his fingers, burying itself in the head of the man opposite. He toppled backwards with a low groan, his features blurring to blank, lifeless clay; but his own knife was already in the air.
Ull caught it in his shoulder – Delta five eight, stoicism in the face of pain – and felt
a wave of dizziness wash over him for a second as the newly-created antidote went to war with the deadly poison; his skinpatch gave him a brief additional burst of hosa to help him focus, and he tugged down on the hand in his grip, slicing the Venger’s thumb on the blade.
Evidently, the Red King hadn’t thought to make his Vengers immune to their own poison; the man slumped to the floor, dead in seconds. Ull carefully pulled the knife out of him, checking that the flesh underneath the skinsuit was mending itself. His organobotics were functioning at peak efficiency; as a Silver, his immortal body was in far better shape than the common herd. A perk of the job, not that the job needed additional perks.
The honour of serving the Red Queen was enough.
He threaded his way through the maze, feeling the subtle pull of the tracker as it guided him to his quarry.
He was close.
WAIT, YOU DIDN’T give them antidote? Really?
They’ve never stabbed themselves before. Also, you’ve never sent one of your Silvers to kill them before – oh, the hell with it.
You’re not resigning the game?
Never. It’s my move, and I’m going to pull out the big gun. I’m going to stop this precocious little creep in his tracks.
Oh? How do you propose to do that?
I’m going to tell him the truth.
EXITING THE MAZE, Ull found himself in a great, vaulted chamber of gold and rubies, the walls quietly reconfiguring themselves to best effect even as he looked at them. In the centre of the room was some sort of barrier of red cloth, hanging from rings attached to some kind of circular rail. Ull had never seen the like before.
Alpha four seven again, he thought. Be prepared for anything.
He took a slow step forwards, the poison knife in his grip. Suddenly, from beyond the ring of hanging cloth, there came a terrible, booming voice:
“I AM OZ – THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE!”
A great gout of coloured smoke shot upwards from the centre of the ring, and despite himself, Ull took a step back – then the cloth barrier parted.
Behind it, sitting on a golden throne, dressed in a black robe, was a well-toned, red-skinned man with a neatly-trimmed tuft of black hair on his chin – Zeta seven three, thought Ull – and a pair of horns growing from his temples. “I call that my Pluto voice,” the Red King grinned, waggling his eyebrows. “The cute thing is, I’m actually a very bad man. But I’m a very good wizard.”
Ull stared at the barrier of cloth as it parted further, revealing two shimmering containment fields on either side of the throne, each holding an identical glowing blue stone. The Red King noticed him staring, and rolled his eyes.
“They’re called curtains. Cur-tanz. Philistine. Which reminds me, you owe me one priceless work of art, created by royalty, depicting a world only accessible in the dreams of madmen, artists and savants. I’ll take a cheque.” He leaned back on his throne, then turned to look at the identical chunks of xokronite, as if noticing them for the first time. “Oh, you’re looking at those! Yeah, for this bit I ideally need two identical guards, one who only tells lies and one who only tells the truth, but, hey, I can play both those parts myself. Anyway, you get one question, and...” He frowned. “Oh, come on, kid, say something. This is good material I’m wasting on you.”
“You...” Ull paused, drawing a deep breath. “You’re the Red King.”
“Funny story about that –” the King began, and then his hand moved, so suddenly it seemed to blur, and he snatched the thrown knife out of the air less than an inch from his throat. “Hey!” He scowled, tossing the poison blade to one side. “Not while I’m talking, okay? And by the way, we have rules about that. I’m being nice to you as it is.”
Ull blinked, unable to believe what he’d seen. “You are the Red King...”
“Yes! God! Where was I?” He sighed, cracking his knuckles. “Yeah, the whole Red King and Red Queen business. Now, you’re not going to get half of this, because you’re a philistine who doesn’t even know about Judy Garland, but that was originally a joke I made, way, way back when I first realised what was going on. This is about eighty millennia into the powered era, back when she was Britannia and I was just Lomax. We had a lot more accidents back then – colonising space is going to do that – and I hadn’t invented hosa yet, so basically nobody remembers that far back. Except us.” He smiled. “Anyway, the joke was that she was the Red Queen and I was the Red King, and it stuck.”
“A... joke?” Ull was confused – Zeta nine one, confusion. Most of the words had little or no meaning for him. Where was Judygar Land?
“A gag, a bit. I make them sometimes, especially when I’m monologuing. Anyway, the joke fits because the Red Queen – Britannia – has spent her entire immortal existence working behind the scenes, pushing dominos, pulling strings and generally running her gorgeous hiney off... all to stay in the same place.”
Ull just stared.
“The universe is the way it is because Maya Zor-Tura spent her whole life making it that way, because at this critical moment in history – when a temporal wormhole to so far into the future that it’s all the way around past GO opens up, collect two hundred dollars – she sent her younger self through it to do just that.”
He grinned again, leaning forward. “Except she can’t do it on her own. She also needs to send a lump of xokronite – the magic mineral that steals power from the Big Bang and makes all this possible – through the hole as well. And not one of the ones we synthesised, either, because their atomic structures are ever-so-slightly different, so they might not behave exactly the same. It’s got to be the original piece, the capital-S Stone, infinitely old and getting older with every circle around the timeline. Maybe that’s what makes it the way it is...” He shrugged. “Anyway, I stole it. And you’ve been sent to steal it right back. Lucky for you... I’ve got it right here.” He tapped one of the containment fields, then indicated the other. “Or is it over here? Want to take a guess? Could be lucky.”
Ull gritted his teeth. Epsilon one two. Anger. The superior man channels his anger towards his goals. “Give it to me,” he said slowly, taking a menacing step forward.
“Ah-ah-ah!” The Red King grinned, seemingly amused at the Silver’s temerity in threatening him. “What did I say? You get a question.”
Ull took another step forward, fists clenching, readying himself to spring forward. The throat, he thought. The weak point.
Then he stopped in his tracks.
The Red King was looking him right in the eyes, and his eyes were so, so old...
“Go ahead, kid,” he said, unsmiling. “Make my day.”
Ull took a faltering step back. “I...”
“Yellowbelly. Ask your damn question.”
Ull swallowed hard. “Why... why are you the Red King?”
The Red King looking at him for a moment, then relaxed, cracking into a smile. “You’re not quite as dumb as you look, are you, kid? Your great-great-ever-so-many-greats-grandpa would be proud of you. I remember he broke my jaw once – that was back when I could die.” He stared at the ceiling for a moment, marshalling his thoughts. “The other half of the joke. I’m the Red King because I think Maya’s wrong. I want us to wake up out of this. I want this whole universe to go out” – he snapped his fingers – “just like a candle.”
“You’d kill the universe?” Ull said, horrified.
“I’d change it.” The King looked irritated, as if Ull had missed the point completely. “Do you know what the world would be like without Maya Zor-Tura? Without the Stone? No, of course you don’t. You’re not a dreamer – I can tell by looking at you.” He furrowed his brow for a moment. “You’ve never heard of Omega energy either, have you?”
Ull shook his head. “What is it?”
“A form of galvanic force. Only one person ever really got a handle on it, and he didn’t know what he had – mostly because Maya – sorry, the Red Queen – was right there to keep him from asking the right questions. Just like she was th
ere to murder anyone who was likely to get too close to it. She’d made sure her younger self knew all the history – or prehistory, I suppose, seeing as we count it from when we got the Stone off that poor bastard Steele.” He grinned savagely, enjoying Ull’s total incomprehension. “She’d worked it out. Steam technology drains resources, but Omega energy – Electricity, they call it in the dreamworld – would decimate them completely.”
“I don’t –”
“You don’t understand. Okay. In simple terms, a world without Maya or the Stone is a world of Omega energy. Instead of the Pax Britannia, they have the Pax Omega – for as long as it lasts.”
“As long as it lasts?” Ull was just about able to grasp the concept of things being finite, but he still needed a little help.
“Sure. Omega technology is a hungry little bastard – it runs rampant and eats every mineral resource on the planet inside a couple of centuries, maximum. We’re talking everything from petrochemical deposits to good old-fashioned coal to rare elements like indium, helium – even gold. Humanity gets everything it ever wanted – or the rich few do at least – and the population explodes just in time for everybody to lose it again. Take a look at the dreampunk artists around the mid-to-late twenty-first century – you won’t sleep for a week. Horrific stuff. Ninety-five per cent of the world just starves to death.” The King shivered, shaking his head. He looked genuinely disturbed. “Nobody gets out unscathed.”
Ull sounded incredulous. “I don’t know what’s worse – that this might exist, or that you want it to.”
The Red King sighed. “Okay – one, it’s not a binary choice. There are a lot of variables to play with. What happens if Maya goes back with a different Stone, for instance? One that isn’t quite so ancient and magical? That might change things slightly – maybe just enough to knock this endless merry-go-round off kilter. Maybe stop the universe stagnating in an endless, eternal loop, forever and ever. Who knows? I’m willing to roll the dice – she’s not.”