War of the World Makers

by Reilly Michaels

  Loathing and distrust of the Mongolian was now stronger in her than ever. She decided to never give him the responses he desired. She understood, however, that she must keep her knowledge of his true identity a secret. "My humility and wisdom are sufficient, Temujin Gur, and I will thank you not to make me your yarrow stick circus in the future," Freddie said, staring him straight in the eye. "I have no desire to entertain such cows and foolish bulls."

  Gur smiled, genuinely amused, and an image of Freddie's face popped into his black and bottomless left eye. Still amused, he waved his hand before it and the face floated free, looking like a white marble of Freddie's head. It hung in the air with an expression of surprise. Gur blew and the head burst into white dust. He returned his gaze to the real Freddie and smiled more broadly than ever. "Rebellious princess, yes, and I expect nothing less. In my own way, I love you."

  She pretended his ridiculous comment and showy magic affected her not at all. “Is it true Peter is an idiot? Does he really play with toy soldiers?”

  “He is an imbecile and a pretentious brat.”

  "Why did Elizabeth first consider me to be wife to this future imbecile Emperor?"

  "King Frederick of Prussia recommended you. He believes you to be an intelligent and cultured young woman. For a human of your age, he is correct. As a World Maker though, you are pathetically ignorant."

  Once said, her fingers began to prick, for the first time in the presence of Gur. "Your fingers prick because I allow it, and they will continue to prick until I disallow it. You are my puppet princess, and I do as I like with you."

  "To Hell with you! I am—"

  Temujin Gur let out a screech like a great bird of prey, a mythical Roc, a shrill screech so loud and piercing it exploded every bit of glass in her room. His peaceful expression never changed. The force of it socked Freddie's insides like a blow from a boxer. She bent over and wretched, vomiting her small amount of breakfast onto the floor.

  Next, Gur said, “Do you know this?” Freddie coughed, unable to speak, and looked up to see a pale object in Gur's hand. “I carved this trumpet from the tibia of a young Cossack girl, and I use it to call the thirteen thunder gods.” He lifted it to his mouth and blew into it, and a deafening roar resounded in her ears, deeper and more lasting than the shriek, and her vision blurred. Once done, she leaned forward and vomited once more.

  "Damn your black soul, stop it!" Freddie yelled and coughed.

  "As you wish, princess," Gur said calmly, pulling a short leather riding whip from within his tunic. "In my day, a young woman like you rode with the best of the men, drew a bow and fought like a tiger. She was made of iron or she died. But I will forge your iron and you will thank me every day until your death in Saravastra at the hands of that accursed Paganini."

  Freddie knew Gur watched her closely, but she gave no sign his remark affected her. She said to him, "I know that is a lie, and I will perish when I choose, and a Mongol dog like you will have no say in it."

  Gur laughed. "Now, extend your arms, princess. Please, for this dog of a Mongol? My task is to further mature your powers, and I look forward to enjoying it."

  Freddie hesitated a moment because she saw it coming. Rolling up her sleeves and holding out her arms, she looked up at the benign face of Gur and said:

  “Do your best, son of a horse.”

  Gur's whip whooshed down on her arms with incredible force and speed. The first blow knocked her to her knees and she cried out. The next blows fell in blurs, heavy and fast as fifty pound hailstones. Gur whipped her ferociously, more than a dozen times across her forearms and upper arms, and even more across her shoulders, shredding her robe and soaking it with her blood. She screamed in rage and spit at him. In response, Gur cracked her across the face with a blow so hard it gashed her lips and knocked her flat to the floor. Blinded with the intense pain, she ground her teeth and water poured from her eyes. Purple welts bloomed on her arms and shoulders, her blood dripping to the floor while her face throbbed as if beaten with an iron pipe.

  "Defy me! Are you too weak? DEFY ME, PRINCESS VON ANHALT!"

  As she struggled to stand, he moved around her in circles, savagely slashing, driving her back down. She wept with the searing pain. Against all odds, she rose to a kneeling position to face the Mongol, and he swung one last blow, his hardest one that struck her full on her breasts with a force strong enough to kill a lion. Thrown backwards, she laid there on the floor, gazing up at the ceiling, gasping and moaning. Even the struggle with the Wizard Goddess had not produced such torment.

  Never felt pain like this ... not like this.

  Gur slid the whip back into his tunic. “Whatever does not kill you, makes you stronger. Now, you are verging on iron, on the bear within!”

  After his words died in her ears, Freddie heard a muffled shout outside the door. A woman's voice. Babette! She must have heard all the noise. Suddenly, she screamed also, as if terrified, and all went silent. "Darling Babette ..." Freddie blubbered out.

  Gur smacked his lips and smiled, then said, "Your castle nanny will return to wipe your royal hole soon enough. But now, you must heal yourself more quickly than your physical ability will permit, and I do not have an hour to wait. I struck you with enough force to kill a village of peasants. NOW STAND! TEMUJIN GUR COMMANDS!"

  Her body lurched up from the floor, snapping to attention before Gur. Truly, she had become a puppet, and one shaking in pain, suffering like a heretic broken on the wheel by Papal torturers.

  I must end this monster's life. I must. God, the pain!

  "SING YOUR AGONY TO MEMORY, CZARINA OF ALL THE RUSSIAS!"

  Immediately, the word hearth within Freddie began to heat to aria. But how? How could the Mongolian grip her soul in such a way as to force the magic into air? More importantly though, how could she sing with a mouth full of blood? No choice. She spit it out, big gobs of it, just as she had in her savage fight with Eréndira, in preparation for the aria. She began to sing with a trembling voice, bravely though and strong enough:

  En nome de Ahrimannnn,

  restaurar o meu corpo.

  todos curar feridas,

  toda a dor de memoriaaaa

  esquecidos pola madrugadaaaaa.

  (In the name of Ahriman, / restore my body. / All injury heal, / all pain to memory forgotten by dawn.)

  Upon completion of the very last syllable of the aria, she felt a healing wave cascade from her head to her feet, as if someone had drenched her from above with a pail of soothing warm water. Her pain tremors eased and the welts faded to normal flesh. The blood dried and fell as red dust to the floor, and her body returned to normal within seconds. Even so, she stared at Gur with a molten hatred in her eyes. She knew she should disguise her emotions, not give the Mongolian the satisfaction of knowing he affected her so profoundly. But alas, she could not. The hatred that remained behind following that beating was real, and impossible to escape.

  Something else too. A truth surged into her head.

  Do I owe this to Gur? To the violence and pain of the beating?

  Whatever the cause, she realized she suddenly possessed more will over the aria magic. As she understood the math of Eratosthenes, or other tongues like French, so now also the magic language of aria. It awaited, in her memory—not enough yet, not complete, though hundreds of the words presented themselves as Galician, all awaiting her needs and imagination, as well as the hearth of aria. She had used the language already, yes, sung well in Saravastra, against her blood enemy Eréndira, though that had been her older self, not the woman she was now.

  Temujin Gur observed her, smiling warmly. "Of course, you want me dead, but do you feel different? I know you do, even if you lie. So please be less predictable."

  Before Freddie could answer Gur, an inner voice interrupted her thoughts. A woman’s voice. One never heard before.

  Princesa von Anhalt!

  Freddie did not speak or move, just coldly stared at Gur.

  Son eu, María de Poz
zuoli. Os oídos do seu poder están abertos (It is I, Maria of Pozzuoli. The ears of your power are open).

  The voice sounded strong and kind. Freddie became a statue, staring at Gur, betraying nothing. Could anything surprise her at this point? She did not think so. With the maturing of her power, Maria's voice had arrived. It felt natural, though so unnatural.

  Gur continued. "Your next test is in a few moments, so take your power to heart, future Czarina," he said, his voice lower in tone than usual—a tone of earth shrugging with a prediction of eruption. Freddie imagined his grinning head bursting open, rockets of lava arcing forth and burning Bärenthoren to a char.

  Maria of Pozzuoli spoke again. Non teña medo. O asistente non me pode escoitar (Do not fear. The wizard cannot hear me).

  "I do not," Freddie answered with her thoughts. "Will you help me end this cur's life?"

  Non é o seu tempo (It is not his time).

  Gur continued. “I can rip out your heart or, if you prefer, set you on fire. Your choice,” he said with a voice calm as a dead fly.

  “What?”

  “Heartless or burned to a crisp?”

  Freddie sneered at him. "Perhaps Hell would suit you better. Does not the Great Khan await your coming?"

  “Fire, then!” the Mongol yelled triumphantly.

  Coraxe. A morte está preto! (Courage. Death is close!).

  Gur thrust his arms before him and two black yarrow sticks darted from his red sleeves. They stopped in the air only a few feet away and began to spin, like the giant yarrow at the banquet, only these glowed red, crackling the air like lightning. “Forgive me, Princess, but I love this drama. I call the fiery serpent—"

  He never finished his sentence. Freddie sprung upon him with incredible speed, just as she had with Eréndira, her arms gripping the startled black warlock in a bear hug. "If I burn, then you also, Mongolian!"

  Gur shrieked at Freddie in Chinese, “怪物!” (Monster!), as loud as his bird of prey shriek, his face enraged for the first time, but Freddie held on though her hearing was lost and her head shrill with torment. She pushed out with her legs and smashed Gur with great force into the stone wall behind him, causing him to grunt in pain. The Mongol writhed like a hundred boa constrictors rolled into one and Freddie's arm muscles burned with the strain of bear-hugging him.

  Mother Yarrow give me strength!

  More tears flowed from her, blinding her while Gur's head grew to three times its normal size. With a mouth of inscribed teeth, now red with rage and smoking like embers, he opened wide and snapped down onto Freddie's head, biting down savagely with a loud crunch.

  She never saw it coming.

  The most terrible scream she has ever known burst from her. Gur shook her by the head, back and forth like a mad tiger shakes its prey, her body helplessly slapped about in the air. He then tossed her with a vicious swing. She flew across her bedchamber to knock over the Alexander statue, and as she tumbled to the ground, Alexander's spear pierced her right shoulder, lancing through the bone to air. She screamed again and thrashed in agony, impaled like a harpooned fish, but the monster-headed Gur did not stop to admire his work. He continued with the fire spell, shouting at her:

  "BRAT OF AGES! CZARINA OF FOOLS! LET THIS BLACK FIRE NOW ROAST YOU HARD TO A MISERABLE RULE!"

  From his spinning red yarrows exploded two tornadoes of black flame, deadly supernatural flame without external light or soothing warmth, only black hot pain—the true flame of Hell itself. It struck her with a hurricane-force wind and blew her like paper across the room, still impaled by the statue. An indescribably horrible burning sensation spread from her head to her feet. Her skin smoked and blackened. Her heart cooked and her eyes boiled to dark blue water.

  This is the end Mother Yarrow. I must go.

  * Оверман *

  MARGARET OF ANJOU SIPPED HER TEA AND VIEWED worlds beyond imagining, far beyond those of any ordinary queen. While a house prisoner in the Duchess of Suffolk's castle in 1474, just outside London, the former queen of England delighted in helping Zolo and Master Paganini as a Mother Yarrow. It not only allowed her to atone for past crimes (many of which were terrible), but it also provided a glorious freedom and power far beyond the limitations of real flesh. She’d traversed the sands of other planets, fought new battles with tremendous powers as her "will to magic" and connection with the Tao became realizable through the implanted yarrows of Master Paganini. No struggles for personal gain as in the old days, only struggles for something bigger, enough that she felt redeemed in the eyes of God. Best of all, she lived many years as a Mother Yarrow without ageing more than a few minutes, or less, in Suffolk's castle.

  If the English knew my secret they would kill me out of spite and envy.

  In truth though, if she told them, all would believe her mad.

  With Zolo's eyes, she watched him go about his business in that Prussian castle three centuries in the future. So dark and haunted, those Prussian castles. She was often tempted to turn his eyes as she wished, though in truth, she could not. A good thing too. Friends had always accused her of wanting too much control. Master Paganini, the creator of her Mother Yarrow identity and her physical embodiment within Zolo, limited her to responding at certain critical times, to influencing events or Zolo's wishes only when serving a greater purpose. Such was the will and wisdom of the ancient World Maker Paganini, and she respected him, even feared him. Of course, Margaret might argue a point from time to time, but she never pushed too far. She would never risk not being a Mother Yarrow, despite the darkness that lurked at the rim of her consciousness like a stalking demon.

  Everything good comes with a price.

  Despite her powers, she could not fathom its source. She never actually saw it. Only a vague bulk of shadow, moving, watching. She knew when it lurked, for she felt it, like one senses a danger or a wicked thing drawing close in the night. The magic words, A morte está preto, came to her. She preferred death at the hands of her English enemies, the Yorkists, than to a death at the will of this lingering dark thing, for she knew instinctively that such a death would be worse than death. What unknown and hellish dimension it might use to torture her soul, she would not even try to imagine.

  During times of such thoughts she turned to Zolo's life for distraction.

  With her help, Zolo placed a watcher spell on Princess Johanna's wretched servant, Gleb, the one tasked with the death of Prince Christian. The watcher spell took the form of an invisible and soundless creature of magic, an observador paciente (patient observer), formed like a cell of a human body (one of the secrets of life known to Margaret of Anjou since becoming a Mother Yarrow), composed of magical parts working together. If one could see an observador paciente it would resemble a small transparent ball with moving and squiggly parts.

  Zolo's observador paciente hovered in the air above Gleb every moment. It watched and would alarm Zolo, and Margaret, if Gleb took steps to end the life of Prince Christian. And that's exactly what it did, early that morning following his time with Freddie in the dungeon of Bärenthoren.

  While at work on his aching hands and knees polishing the Great Hall in preparation for a dinner buffet on behalf of Empress Elizabeth, Zolo heard a soft bell-like chime in his head, as did Maria. With two inner eyes, they saw the murderous Gleb in a dark corner of the castle kitchen. The butler stooge dropped a white poison from a vial onto the melting butter of Prince Christian's toast and spread it with a silver knife.

  Margaret heard Zolo say, Nai Yarrow, facer este doce veleno como a vida (Mother Yarrow, make this poison sweet as life). And in less time than it takes to say "Prussia," she did. The poison turned to the sugar of apples in Prince Christian's butter, so not only was he not poisoned, he enjoyed his toast more than usual. Zolo and Margaret watched over the shoulder of a bowing Gleb, via the observador paciente, as Prince Christian said to Gleb, "My God, mister Gleb, this is wonderful toast! How did you do it?"

  Gleb rose up from bowing, and said to Prince Christian,
"My Prince, I did nothing, simply buttered it, as usual. But I am overjoyed you like it."

  They both saw the look on Gleb's face as he turned to leave the magnificent bedchamber of Prince Christian: a look of evil, a vengeful sneering evil. Margaret of Anjou wondered at that sneer. Do the evil sneer because they are evil? Or does an act of evil, once done, force the sneer? Though such a sneer had been witnessed many times by her (especially when observing that cretin farmer Princess Johanna), it still bothered her, in the way a stocking burr might irritate her to pluck it out.

  Before considering the matter further, Zolo said to Margaret, Deixalo atopar a dor (Let him find pain), and before their eyes, Gleb tripped on his own feet in the hallway. He stumbled forward and smashed his head into an expensive china vase standing in a wall alcove.

  Margaret and Zolo smiled to see Gleb's agony, and fear at breaking the vase. The cost of it would come out of his pay for years unless he could figure a way to hide it. Zolo's eyes then closed to Gleb. The observador paciente would continue the watch, and Margaret would take a nap in the Duchess of Suffolk’s castle with the smile still on her face.

  * Оверман *

  DESPITE THE SMALL VICTORY OVER GLEB, Zolo felt a rush of shame, for he was willingly playing a game with people he cared for. If up to him, he would foil every attempt on Prince Christian's life for Freddie's sake. But would she ever allow or tolerate his death without a threat of derailing the future? Damn the Empress of Byzantium for her poisonous mouth! Regardless, it all seemed like a waste of time, and his role, one of the fool—a role he created for himself. He could only hope the Princess von Anhalt would finally accept her destiny without overmuch misery or rebellion, and of course, without ever learning of the lie forced on him by Master Paganini.

  At least, for now, he respected Freddie's wish that he protect her father.

  On to other matters.