Hath No Fury

by Melanie R. Meadors

  Sunlight broke through a seam in the clouds, revealing the stone precipice she stood on. Directly ahead of her, a watchtower blocked the path to the city beyond. Beneath the retreating wisps of fog, the bleak landscape revealed rocks blackened and scorched by flame. The green part of her shied away from the desolation, but the part of her trained to kill shrugged and moved forward, intent on completing her mission, whatever the cost.

  Kaliya approached the watchtower. The silence of the lonely landscape pricked at her exposed skin. A feeling of wrongness settled deep in her chest, but there was nothing to fear in this dead land. No birds winged across the open sky. No animals thrived in the barren stretch. Nothing green survived the attack wrought against the watchtower and the land surrounding it. As far as she could tell, not a living thing breathed or moved in this desolate region of the shadow planet.

  The sound of harp strings plucked in a violent staccato startled her. As if in response, the sky darkened and the ground shuddered, nearly throwing Kaliya to her knees. She grasped a boulder for support, but as quickly as it had come, the darkness retreated and the ground stilled. Her hand came away from the rock smudged with soot. She lifted her hand and sniffed, catching a hint of perfumed violets beneath the smoke.

  “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

  A musical voice startled her from her inspection. Kaliya straightened, briskly rubbing her hands down her thighs as she turned to face the threat.

  A woman stepped from a shadowed doorway set in the stone tower. She wore a cloak the color of amethyst. It shaded her face and flowed from her shoulders like a jewel turned liquid. She pushed back the cloak’s hood and stared at Kaliya across the blackened waste.

  If she hadn’t seen her move, Kaliya would have thought the woman to be a cleverly constructed metal sculpture. Her skin held the sheen of polished bronze, her eyes appeared to be plated with gold foil, and her hair hung down in sheets of quicksilver.

  Kaliya flexed her fingers. “Who are you?”

  The woman sighed through copper lips, a lovely rush of breath that sounded like chimes spinning in the breeze. “Your sisters didn’t know me either, but I did hope it would be different with you.”

  “My sisters?” Kaliya edged closer as she assessed her enemy.

  “They were all lovely in their own ways,” said the bronze woman. “You father was quite inventive.”

  “What do you know about my father?”

  Up close, she realized the bronze woman’s cloak didn’t just appear to be moving. It was composed of hundreds of butterflies, which were slowly opening and closing their iridescent wings. When fanned open, the insect’s wings revealed shimmery scales painted in every imaginable hue of purple and indigo.

  “I know more about Jack Hawthorn than you might expect,” she replied with a frown. Her golden eyes flashed in the sun.

  Kaliya sorted through memories of Ketu’s relics and the catalog of hints she’d gleaned over the years. She didn’t like the direction the thoughts were taking her.

  “Surely you can see. Your world is diseased and that disease is spreading.” The bronze woman cast a glance out across the blackened landscape. “That is not an acceptable option.”

  “Where is Iolanthe?” Kaliya was close enough to the bronze woman that she could smell the tang of mineral oil. Other fragrances drifted to her from the wings of the butterflies: the decadence of damask rose, the dripping sweetness of jasmine, the velvety bite of snapdragons, the languid seduction of magnolia, the exotic musk of ylang-ylang, the cloying burn of violet. “Where is my sister?”

  “Jack stole many treasures on the occasions he was here, but his last theft was unforgivable.” The bronze woman appeared lost in thought: it was difficult to read her emotions through the metallic veneer of her features.

  One of the amethyst butterflies disengaged from the cloak of wings and fluttered over to land on Kaliya’s arm. With its wings spread wide, the butterfly was as large as an open hand. Its indigo body looked as though its velvety softness would rival the petals of even the most delicate of flowers. Kaliya waited for the insect to shrivel up and die. Instead it tasted her skin with golden feet. The creature’s slender purple antenna waved excitedly and it began to make a clicking sound, which was picked up by the other butterflies clinging to the bronze woman’s back.

  The bronze woman returned her attention to Kaliya. “I have something to show you.”

  Intrigued by the winged creature’s fascination with her, Kaliya acquiesced with a curt nod. After all, her father had never said anything about a woman made from living metal.

  Kaliya followed the bronze women into the watchtower.

  They climbed a long swirl of stairs that spiraled up along the tower’s curving walls. They walked in silence, each step bringing them closer to the top. There were no other doors, no windows. However, ghostly blue flames burned in globes hung from hooks set in the walls at evenly spaced intervals. The illumination from each globe only reached as far as the halo cast by the next burning light. In-between, shadows prowled. There was no guardrail to protect against the deepening hollow in the center of the tower, nothing to keep someone from falling. Or being pushed. The stone steps encircled the dark emptiness, giving the illusion of a pit that plummeted down forever.

  As they climbed, Kaliya thought about her sisters, the poisonous garden curated by their father. She thought about the games they’d played growing up and the more violent competitions as their individual assets developed. They had been fierce and beautiful and deadly. The list of kills confirmed it. No more, she reminded herself. She was the last of their kind. If she failed on this mission, if she failed to return, her father would be completely bereft of his beautiful assassins.

  What then? Would Dr. Hawthorn make more daughters to discard on the wings of a whim? Better yet, she thought, why hadn’t he made them already?

  When it seemed as though they would continue to climb forever, the stairs suddenly stopped in front of a door painted the darkest shade of blue. The bronze woman glanced over her shoulder.

  “Try to remember that I’m only offering you the truth.” She pushed the door open. “Nothing more.”

  A golden light illuminated the top floor of the tower. Open windows stretched from floor to ceiling and an aperture cut in the dome above directed a spotlight on a round table situated at the center of the circular room. The table was inlaid with lapis lazuli and trimmed with gold, but the opulent design was overshadowed by the contents of the crystal case it supported.

  Inside the case, golden eggs nestled in folds of purple satin. Each egg was the size of a man’s fist, and was cradled in a nest of silver vines. Seven of those nests were empty, the silver vines tarnished black, the purple swaddling missing. In the other nests, the purple satin rustled as if in response to their entrance. Butterflies, she thought. Not satin.

  The bronze woman laid a gentle hand on Kaliya’s arm. “He couldn’t carry any more than that.”

  Although made of metal, her hand was as warm and supple as living flesh. The woman did not blacken and die from the exposure to Kaliya’s skin. If anything, the metal shone a little brighter. Kaliya looked up from the bronze woman’s hand, to stare at those seven empty cradles. Seven eggs stolen. Seven sisters with skin the color of flowers and sweat the sweetest of deadly perfumes. In the space from one second to another, all of the little deceptions and clever clues clicked into place.

  “Where is the harp?” The butterfly perched on Kaliya’s forearm began to croon and she absentmindedly stroked its velvety wings. “What does he want it for?”

  The bronze woman opened the folds of her living cloak to expose her body. The metallic skin ended along the ridge of her collarbone, leaving the woman’s rib cage exposed. The bones curved away from a silver spine and strung between those gleaming branches, golden strings quivered.

  “I am the harp, my sweet girl.” The bronze woman plucked the thinnest string. The clear note reverberated off the stone walls and the ground ru
mbled in response. “I open the door.”

  Kaliya dropped her hand. “Who are you?”

  The bronze woman laughed, a tinkling of silver bells.

  Kaliya stepped away, moving closer to the crystal case and its treasure. “Are all the people in Ketu like you?”

  The bronze woman’s smile turned sharp. “There is no one like me.”

  “What do you want?” Kaliya approached the case.

  “Don’t be such a child,” said the bronze woman. “Your father didn’t send you here to kill me. I can’t be killed. I am eternal.”

  “You’re the one who let him in, aren’t you?”

  The bronze woman shrugged. The butterflies dropped away in a swirl of velvet wings and perfumed flight.

  Kaliya looked out a window cut into the stone wall. Outside the tower, the blackened landscape stretched on for miles and miles before disappearing into the gray softness of clouds blooming with the promise of snow. There were no trees for Dakini to dance in, no warriors for Camille to fight, no springs for Iolanthe to haunt. She had a feeling that there was no one left to sail ships on the seas of Ketu. No flowers bloomed in the hanging gardens. And the bells had been silenced in the empty towers of Ketu’s capital.

  “You’re the Watcher, aren’t you?

  The bronze woman pivoted on a heel and waltzed to the table. “I love round things,” she said as she ran her finger along the table’s gilt edge.

  Round things. Kaliya centered her thoughts, keeping her enemy close while she sorted through a dizzying array of images—the woman’s face engraved in the stone sword, bronze bones removed and replaced, the cunning glimmer in her father’s eyes. She could almost taste the golden seeds that had rained down from a broken sky. “Was it always you?”

  The bronze woman smiled again. “Of course.”

  Dr. Hawthorn’s vishkanya carried his code in their DNA, some more than others. But the potential she and her sisters carried came from somewhere else. It came from someone else.

  The clouds rolled closer.

  “Is there anything alive left in this place?”

  “Ketu has been purified.” Those flat golden eyes narrowed. Those copper lips curled. “Earth is next.”

  Kaliya closed the space between them. The bronze woman watched her, wary.

  “Who did this to you, Mother?”

  “He lied to me,” she said. “He’s a deceiver.”

  “Yes.” At this distance, the enormity of her father’s manipulations was something to behold. “He lied to all of us.”

  The bronze woman tilted her head as though she was listening to a tune being played far in the distance. “There’s a storm coming,” she said, her voice hollow.

  Kaliya took three long steps, closing the space between them. “Everything will be fine, Mother. I know what to do.”

  She reached out to embrace the bronze woman. Kaliya wondered how different her life and the lives of her sisters would have been without their father’s machinations. Might Ketu still be a thriving world filled with all of the color and beauty promised in those broken relics gathered to sit on sterile shelves? Had there ever been an alternative timeline where she could have thrived under gentle guidance and a mother’s touch? Were the vishkanya, living experiments stolen from the shadow planet, destroyers or saviors? Kaliya thought it depended on the point of view.

  “Look what he has done to you, my pretty little girl.” The bronze woman stroked Kaliya’s cheek with fingers so warm they almost burned her with their touch. “He’s made you a monster.”

  “I know, Mother.”

  Kaliya tightened her embrace, the golden harp pressed hard against her. She spread her legs, rooted her feet, and began to hum. Her body responded. Leafy tendrils sprouted from her skin. Her toes lengthened and stretched deep into the stone, breaking it apart as she settled her weight. Her fingers latched together, elongating and vining into a tangle of branches binding the bronze woman. And then, she lifted the smallest finger on her left hand and concentrated: the nail elongated and sharpened to thin point. Kaliya slipped it beneath the gold foil of her mother’s eye and pierced the rotting remains of her brain. The bronze woman struggled for a moment and then went still in her daughter’s embrace.

  Kaliya’s song deepened. The butterflies guarding their golden charges joined in the song. Kaliya thought of her sisters as she sang. She thought of Beatrice and her delicate hothouse beauty. She thought of Mara’s love of sweets and Dakini’s desire to dance. She thought of Camille’s passion for women and Jovelyn’s penchant for knife play. And she thought of Iolanthe trailing the burnt scent of violets as she cut though her opponents with her razor wit.

  The loud crash of stone falling away from the sides of the tower competed with the clamor of dozens of golden shells being torn apart by their occupants. Each crack was accompanied by the trill of pure notes slicing through the gilt covering of the eggs. Some butterflies pulled the shards away with their delicate feet. Others flew in a dizzying spiral around Kaliya, but still she continued. Her vines tore away the sides of the stone tower, allowing the light from Ketu to freely shine into the room. She shattered the crystal case, freeing her new siblings from their cages.

  Finally, when the last of the tower walls had been torn down and the remnants of the golden shells crumbled to a dust of glittering fragments. Kaliya tossed her hair behind the curving bark spread across her shoulders. A gift for you too, Father.

  The dark strands of hair shifted into a delicate filigree of stems. At the end of each strand, aubergine flowers sprouted. A breeze lifted the strands to release the deadly perfume of delicate blooms. Under her guidance the flowers turned to seed, which separated and lifted into the sky. The churning clouds that curled around the tower’s base would carry the seeds to Earth, where her progeny would flourish.

  As the seeds floated free, Kaliya took a moment to marvel at the beauty of her siblings hatched, a new generation charged to bring life back to the shadow planet of Ketu. She would keep them safe. She would stand watch. Their enemies would never be allowed to harm them. All of the humans would be strangled by a kiss one hundred times deadlier than any toxin known to man. And the Earth would thrive in the green places. At her touch, the golden harp strings thrummed.

  And the door opened.

  THE BOOK OF ROWE

  CAROL BERG

  ONE THING TO REMEMBER ALWAYS. The men and women of Evanore prized loyalty above life, limb, gold, land, skills, beauty, scholarship, wisdom, logic, cleanliness, or virtue.

  An example: Evanori had pledged eternal service to the line of Caedmon, a foreigner two hundred years dead who stole their sovereignty and absorbed their mountain fastness into his kingdom. Why so? Because Caedmon King starved and bled alongside them through a fifty-year siege, loyal to his stolen subjects until the day he died. It mattered naught that the war was of his own making.

  Evanori granted such blind devotion not only to Caedmon’s heirs, but to their own leaders. If a warlord commanded his house guards to shatter Pinnacle Rock with sticks and feathers, those testy warriors may have argued with him, grumbled, proposed alternative rocks to break, or suggested more practical weapons for assaulting granite prominences. The warriors’ wives or husbands may have named the plan codswallop. But such dissent was spoken only within the confines of the lord’s house. A householder who expressed doubts, questions, or disagreement outside the boundaries of the lord’s demesne reaped punishments that ranged from beating to beheading, from disinheritance to exile.

  Some days—most days—I believed the skulls of Evanori warlords were themselves granite prominences that should have been shattered, every one. My father’s first of all.

  Illustration by M. WAYNE MILLER

  “So, Saverian, it appears Prince Osriel will not have you to wife.”

  Papa positioned his bulk in his favorite chair, as if settling in for a new siege. My father was Cynric, Warlord of Rowe, Rowe being the smallest, driest, poorest, least notable demesne in all of Evanore. He
had surely spent all sixteen years of my life with his head in his scabbard.

  I stood beside his chair as a dutiful daughter should. Posture and a respectful tone were all I would yield him.

  “No, sire. Still and ever no. Osriel and I were playfellows. Never more than that. These days he is interested only in his books and study.” And some very dark magic. Yet magic was not a happy subject in our house. Neither was the subject of my future.

  “But he gives you books. You speak to him.” Papa’s thick, hard fingers drummed the tired leather volume on his writing desk.

  The Book of Rowe was the single book our house owned. Ancient, yes, but as thin and uninteresting as Rowe itself, which produced naught but goats, pottery clay, and mostly honorable, but unexceptional warriors. From time to time, Papa opened the book and settled into his favorite chair to read, as if expecting that something marvelous might have been written there while he wasn’t looking. It never took him long to close it.

  I chose my words carefully. “His Grace has kindly given me the freedom of his library, as he knows I relish its variety”—and Prince Osriel knew I had tired of The Book of Rowe long ago—“but he never joins me there and no longer receives visitors. The books are loaned, not gifted. I always return them.”

  His fingers slowed. “Did you offend the prince? I heard you playing games when you were small. You were taunting, impertinent. You still speak so freely. Like that woman.”

  “No, sire. The prince and I simply grew apart. After his mother died, he changed. Truly, even if Osriel thought of me as other than a childhood friend, I would not—”

  My father didn’t want to hear my concerns about the prince’s dark turn. This was certainly not the time to tell him I’d recently met a young man different from any I’d ever known, one I could speak to about books and the ideas they put in my head … about history and the natural world … about magic. A young man not born to Evanore. No, I’d best pick that time carefully. Perhaps when we could afford a cask of new mead.