by Jack Conner
“Photos always show our defects first and our plusses second,” said the makeup artist, a heavyset woman with red hair. “It’s important to cover up enough of the former to show off the latter.”
Avery sighed. He would gain no traction here. King or not, he was not a makeup expert. In fact, he was not an expert on much of anything. He could sew up an incision or remove an organ, but the intricacies of politics, although fascinating, were well out of his usual bailiwick, and he was afraid it was starting to show.
“Ani, I need to talk with you.” To the others, he said, “Can you give us a moment?”
The large woman sighed. “If we must.” Pouting importantly, she gathered her helpers and swept from the room.
“I don’t like this, Papa,” Ani said, and there was a quaver in her voice.
Avery knelt beside her and patted her arm, trying not to disarrange her wedding dress, which was gorgeous, he had to admit, if ridiculous to see on Ani. She should be a flower girl, not a bride.
“I know, honey. I don’t either. But it’s what must happen for you to open the Door.”
“I just don’t understand. How am I the Chosen One? Empress Issia was trying to explain her religion to me, but there’s so much I don’t understand. Did the Sleeper choose me?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. He—it—is the one who left the prophecies. I’ve never believed in anything ... mystical before, and I’m loath to start now.” He thought of her touching the Codex and making it hum, and forced himself to smile. “Let’s just focus on the task ahead of us. Have you memorized your vows?”
She nodded, then made a face. “They’re in Ysstran.”
“We are in the Ysstral Empire.”
“I guess.” She grabbed his hands. “Papa, I don’t wanna stay here. It rains all the time.”
“I suppose if you’re raised here it’s normal, but for us Ghenisans it’s rather gloomy, isn’t it?”
She nodded silently.
“I propose,” he said, “that after the wedding, or at least after enough time has gone by, a few months, perhaps, that you and I return to Ghenisa, rebuild it, then, very politely, step down from the throne.”
“Aunt Lay says not to give it up.”
“Aunt Lay isn’t your father.”
“But you two ... you’re together again?” She seemed to want to believe it.
Avery was tempted to make a face much like Ani had just made. “I suppose,” he said.
“Then I would be queen-in-waiting, and you would be king-regent, and she would be the Goddess of Ghenisa. The Goddess-Queen of Ghenisa.”
Avery shuddered. Is that what you want? Or is that what she’s been filling your head with? “That’s looking a bit too far into the future. Again, concentrate on your vows.” Mentally he tried to block out the image of Layanna as the god-queen of Ghenisa. “Ani,” he said, hesitant.
“Yes, Papa?”
“You don’t ... believe in Layanna, do you? I mean, as a god?”
“She is a god, Papa.”
He tasted something sour in the back of his throat. “There are no such things, Ani. Layanna is merely an extradimensional being, you know that.”
“Maybe they’re the same thing.”
Indeed. “Maybe they’re not.”
She just looked at him, and he realized they would have to have this conversation later, after he’d thought his argument through a bit more. With a sigh, he said, “I’ll come and get you when it’s time for the ceremony.”
“You’re going to give me away, right?”
“Who else?”
She didn’t answer, and he wondered if she was still trying to make sense of the fact that her Uncle Id was dead. Surely she wouldn’t have expected him to give her away, though. She’d only known him for a brief time. Troubled, Avery bid her goodbye and went to seek out Layanna, and even as he approached her suite of rooms near the top floor the sound of singing engulfed him. The song was repetitive and eerie—religious chanting. Layanna was in the middle of her own type of ceremony.
Instead of the usual guards, her priests were stationed outside the door, and they opened the door for him without being asked. He glanced to his guards, and they took station in the hall, still jabbing their lances ridiculously in the air; their arms must be tired. Incense burned in holders up and down the corridor.
Darkness shrouded Layanna’s suite, and Avery picked his way through it to the largest room, where the chanting originated. He arrived to see blue-robed priests on their knees in a circle, bowing and praying to a Layanna swollen with her other-self. Strange lights glowed through her amoebic sac, and her tentacles waved about her, weightless and half-phantasmal. One was reaching out to gently lift a naked priest—he knelt just before her, in the middle of the circle, the only one unclothed—and draw him inside her sac. He went, eyes closed and still praying. By the slow way he spoke and the flickering of his eyelids, Avery supposed him to be drugged.
She pulled him inside her sac wall, which wobbled a bit when he passed through—it wasn’t completely porous—and instantly the man began to dissolve, reduced to clouds of blood in moments by her acidic juices, blood which her organelles quickly gobbled up. In the center of the sac, the human form of Layanna floated, blond hair streaming out behind her, her face serene. The priests chanted louder as the last of the victim’s blood vanished, and Avery had to fight the nausea that welled up inside him. How can I sleep with ... this?
Layanna withdrew her other-self into her with a slurp, becoming fully human once more. With her other-self gone, reality shifted, and Avery found himself popping his ears and blinking. The priests rose. One handed Layanna a robe, as she was naked. Sated and glowing with life, she seemed to notice Avery for the first time. As her priests dispersed, she threw her robe on and approached. He couldn’t help but notice that her cheeks looked flushed. Like a vampire after a kill, he thought, not for the first time.
Did the Empress-Regent know Layanna was doing this? It was, after all, technically murder. Surely the monarch wouldn’t allow such a crime willingly beneath her roof. Then again, they all needed Layanna. Even murder might be tolerated to stop the R’loth.
“Good morning, Francis,” Layanna said, squeezing his hand. She didn’t seem at all self-conscious about the fact that he’d just caught her eating someone.
“Good morning.” Just pretend this is normal. “I wanted to check on you. Be sure you were ready for the ceremony.”
“Oh, I’m ready.”
“Excellent.”
She kissed his cheek, and he had to fight the urge to cringe. “Let me get dressed and I’ll meet you in the chapel.”
He nodded and started to leave. At the last second, he hung back. “Layanna ...”
“Yes?”
“You didn’t tell Ani we were going to get married, did you, and that you’d become Queen of Ghenisa?”
“Of course not.”
He studied her. As far as he could tell, she was speaking the truth.
“Why?”
He shook his head. Smiled. “Nothing. I think Ani’s just glad that we’re back together.”
She kissed him again, on the lips this time. “So am I.”
With that they separated. Avery returned to his own suite to don his tuxedo. He hadn’t worn one of these in years. A handmaiden helped him, and Janx tied his bowtie for him.
“You look right spiffy, Doc.”
“So do you.”
Janx preened. He too wore a tuxedo, but he filled his out much better. With his broad shoulders and square jaw, he cut a splendid figure, and he had even shaved for the occasion, both his head and his cheeks. Only his nose patch looked incongruous, but even it was handsome, leather on the inside and black silk on the outside.
“I’m not one to brag,” Janx said, and Avery had to laugh. So did Janx. Both knew Janx was the one to brag.
When the handmaiden had gone, the big man said, “How you doin’ with all this?”
“The wedding? Fine, I guess.
How are you?”
Janx gave him a look. “Doc, you can level with me. This shit is not what any of us bargained for. I know all little girls dream of marrying a prince, but I bet this ain’t what Ani signed up for, either.”
“No. I suppose not. Still, it can’t be helped.”
“And Layanna? How are you doing with that?” When Avery hesitated, Janx said, “That’s what I thought. Listen, Doc, you can’t string that bitch along. Do it and you’ll only dash her hopes later, and you don’t wanna see that cat with her hopes dashed.”
“I know you’re right, Janx. Gods help me, I do. But if I don’t pretend to go along with it, she won’t help us, and then where will we be?”
Janx stared at him a moment, then grinned. “Takin’ one for the team, eh, Doc?”
Again, Avery had to laugh. “I guess.”
Janx clapped him on the shoulder, and Avery staggered. “Just watch yourself, Doc. An’ don’t get her hopes higher’n you have to.”
Like being the god-queen of Ghenisa? “Of course not.”
* * *
The ceremony began smoothly enough. Avery escorted Ani up the aisle to loud music, and the gaily-costumed nobles turned to watch her pass, commenting on her beautiful dress and poise. She may not have been particularly womanly, but she was adorable, or at least Avery thought so. Jered waited at the end of the aisle, while beyond him stood a priest of the Three Sisters, he who would perform the ceremony. At the wings stood a very different clergyman, a being of the Order of the Sleeper, who would verify their marriage before the other priests of the Necropolis. He (and Avery had been informed that it was indeed a he, although the doctor could not be sure) resembled nothing so much as a five-foot-high tubeworm crossed with some strain of upside-down orchid which moved almost weightlessly on its petal-like limbs, a species of pre-human Avery had never heard of before. Apparently the entirety of their race resided within the Necropolis.
Rain drummed against the windows, and somewhere a rare bolt of lightning struck, throwing bright white onto all the gathered faces. Avery deposited Ani beside her bridesmaids, Layanna and Hildra, then took his seat next to Janx.
“You tripped on the rug,” Janx said.
Avery let out a breath. “I know.”
“We are all gathered here today to witness the union between these two noble youths and the rebirth of the alliance between their peoples,” began the priest of the Three Sisters. He spoke Ysstran, and Avery had to fight to concentrate on his words. There was so much else to think about, and his brain was in turmoil as it was. The noble gathering around him amazed him. To think he had joined such company! Of course, it also pointed out the fallacy of such a system to him. He hadn’t changed, after all, only his circumstances. Thus none of these others were any more or less worthy of their stations than Avery had been before Sheridan’s awful deed.
The priest droned on, but Avery hardly paid attention. Up front, Ani and Jered were trying not to look at each other. Ani had flushed a bright red, still noticeable beneath all that makeup. Layanna seemed proud, while Hildra, fidgeting in her dress, looked like she was craving a cigarette. She stood out bizarrely in this company, and in that get-up, a lacy sleeveless affair. In it, all her scars and tattoos showed vividly, and her stump just underscored how alien she was. From time to time she would glare at Janx and Avery, as if promising punishment for making her do this. Likely she wished Hildebrand could be here, but he had been forbidden to attend the wedding and remained in Ani’s suite.
Janx was just turning to Avery, likely about to crack some joke at Hildra’s expense, when the chapel door burst open.
Avery leapt to his feet along with half those gathered and spun to see a most unusual sight. A score of guards backed into the room, all facing the other way. Some bore the venom whips the Empress-Regent had secured in advance of Layanna’s coming, just in case, and they cracked these noisily as if in warning, spraying droplets with every lash. Others carried spears dipped in the poison of the jelly that made the whips so deadly to Collossum, or brandished swords coated with the same substance. The soldiers backed into the room, fear and anger in their faces, and at last Avery saw what they were trying to ward off.
Uthua, tall and broad-shouldered and terrible, strode into the chapel, wearing his most regal clothes and smiling faintly. The great fish-man surveyed the gathering, and his smile became a smirk.
“Who are you?” demanded the Empress-Regent, livid, having risen from her seat just across the aisle from Avery. “What are you doing here?”
The air shimmered around Uthua, and the whip-wielders cracked their weapons again, not actually striking him, but making their point clear. His demonstration of power ably advertised whom or what he was, at least to the well-informed.
“He just barged in, my lady!” one soldier said. “Just crashed through the main doors! No one could stop him! We came as soon as we heard.”
Avery knew then that they had been held in reserve in case of mischief from Layanna.
“I’m Uthua,” said the Mnuthra, speaking Ysstran with a strong Octunggen accent, likely on purpose. “Why wasn’t I invited to this wedding? I love weddings. Oh, look who it is! Why, if it isn’t little Anissa!”
Avery was reminded that Ani and Uthua had both resided in the Collossum Temple at the same time as each other. Until now it had never occurred to him that they might have met. Then again, Uthua and Sheridan would have had business with each other, and Sheridan had been Ani’s guardian.
Ani shrank back behind Layanna, and Uthua’s gaze fell on the goddess.
“Well, well,” he said.
He marched forward, the guards frantically backpedaling, some going up the aisle, some knocking over chairs as they fanned out, some slipping into the wings, going behind Uthua’s back. Guests scattered. Uthua walked forward, crested head high.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Layanna said. “I’ve survived you twice. I’ll survive you again.”
“Is that a fact.”
Avery planted himself in the middle of the aisle, right in Uthua’s path. The great Collossum paused, black eyes fixing on Avery.
“She survived because of you, little man,” Uthua said. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
“You will not have my daughter,” Avery said. If only I had my god-killing knife. Where the hell is it? “That’s why you’ve come, isn’t it?”
“Why would I want her? She’s not even empress yet. Maybe in a little while.” Smiling, Uthua took a seat near the front row. “By all means, continue.”
Empress-Regent Issia stepped forward. “I will not have you here, creature. This gathering is for invited guests only.”
Uthua shrugged his broad shoulders. “A god invites himself.”
Reality shimmered around Layanna, buckling outward so that Avery felt a thrum in his ears. She was flexing her extradimensional muscles.
“We can compel you to leave,” she said. “Me, and them.” She indicated the soldiers bearing the whips and lances.
Slowly, Uthua nodded. “Perhaps. That would rather ruin the ceremony though, wouldn’t it? Please, continue. I will be no bother. Also, I’ve instructed those in the Octunggen delegation to deliver gifts. I think you’ll find them rather extravagant. Rather insulting that you didn’t invite the Octunggen, really.”
He crossed his muscular arms across his chest and sat there patiently. All in the chamber stared at him. Avery, closer than anyone else, was in a position to notice Uthua’s utter nonchalance. The Collossum could have been sunning himself on a beach somewhere. For a long time, no one else in the room moved, save to look at Uthua, and each other, then to their empress, as if asking her what to do. At last she drew Avery and Layanna aside.
“Shall we move against him?” Issia said.
“He won’t go without bloodshed,” Layanna said, “and it’s entirely possible some of that shed will be mine. He’s much stronger than I am.”
“The violence could endanger Ani and Jered,” Avery said. “I think
it might be better to have our forces stand by as a deterrent rather than employ them directly.”
“I have more troops,” Issia said. “And more weapons of the same kind.”
Layanna’s brows drew together, but she said nothing.
Avery nodded. “That’s doubtlessly why the Collossum only sent one representative. They don’t want to provoke you. They only want one of their number here, in the thick of things, to be ready.”
“In case of what?”
Avery only shook his head, but he remembered Sheridan’s talk of the barbaric, feral ngvandi riding flying fish.
“We’ll see soon enough,” Layanna said.
“Fine,” said Issia. “It will be done.”
She gave quiet orders, and the soldiers realigned themselves. Uthua remained where he was. “Please retake your seats,” the Empress-Regent bade her guests. “We’ll resume the ceremony without delay.”
It was done, although none would sit within five seats of Uthua in any direction; the displaced stood in the back or sides of the room, glaring and looking out of sorts. The ceremony continued, the priest droning on about unification and strength in joining and visibly trying not to let his gaze wander to Uthua. Ani and Jered actively tried to look at each other now lest their own eyes fix on the Collossum, and they had gone from red-faced and excited to pale and shaken. Avery felt beads of cold sweat stand out on his forehead and was horribly aware of Uthua two rows behind and a few seats to his left. Well within tentacle range.
At last the priest finished, saying, “Jered Etedrist Syllanus, Lord of the Ysstral Empire, I ask you now before the Three Graces, as well as these noble guests, do you swear to take this young woman as your wife, your partner, your co-ruler until the end of your days, to be faithful and true, with love and support, for as long as you both draw breath?”
“I so swear,” Jered said.
“And you, Anissa May Vorys Avery, Lady of Ghenisa, I ask you now before those same exalted Graces, as well as these noble guests, do you swear to take this young man as your husband, your partner, your co-ruler until the end of your days, to be faithful and true, with love and support, for as long as you both draw breath?”