Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “More like he gave in to me. I demanded he court me on my terms and not in the K’Tran way.”

  Shestna laughed. “So four of your former lovers now circle around you.”

  “Five lovers and one rapist,” she corrected, and shrugged. “What’s a goddess to do? What more news do you have?”

  “The Rosaas are eternally grateful to you for locating their missing ship and returning the heir to the Ancient House of Meathe. They are assembling a team to come retrieve the ship and the men. Many charges will be brought. Also, a reward is being offered to you for your information and cooperation.”

  “Oh? I’m afraid to know how much.”

  “Possession of the Captain’s property on K’Tran. Apparently he very quietly purchased an estate with a large house not far from On’R city.”

  “Really?” she questioned with measurable skepticism.

  “While it is unusual for a female to own land, the Rosaas recognize that you are no ordinary female. Deed to the land will transfer to you when the Rosaas have Osan,” Shestna told her.

  “Do they care if he’s alive or dead?”

  “You won’t have to do anything with regard to his capture. That is what the Rosaas forces are for. They will take charge of fighting their own to reduce human casualties and damage to Earth lands.”

  Tyler thrust herself out of the window seat to pace her room. She’d not dared to expect so much. Not only did she have another army but they were coming expressly to deal with the K’Tran.

  “Shit. If they take the ship, we have no ship to take to Taverages,” she realized.

  “Yes you do. The ship my father sends will carry you to Taverages. He agrees we will help free it.”

  Tyler burst into tears. “I had to fight so hard for everything in the other timeline. Every little thing I wanted to do was a monumental battle. This is all too easy.”

  “Things are easy because Earnol cannot interfere,” he told her. “He still has no idea you exist. Julian superimposed Roc’s face over yours in the footage he took to his father and has been intercepting reports of activities here. Baener suspected, and I very privately informed him about you. He’s been helping with the subterfuge.”

  “He’s a good man. I would trust him,” she admitted. “It’s all coming together so much better than I’d hoped. I’ll talk to Jerome and Landra and we’ll pick out a good day to do this.”

  A knock on the door and Roc peeked in. “Dinner is ready.”

  “I must be going anyway,” Shestna said.

  “You’re welcome at our table,” Roc said.

  “I have no doubt. There is a session of Council and I am maintaining a perfect attendance record.”

  Tyler snorted. “That must irk Earnol no end.”

  Shestna smiled. “Hence the reason I do it. He could not touch you even if he knew of you, Femina. He need only cross me once and I will take his life.”

  He was gone.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” Tyler said to Roc.

  The door closed and she looked at the three inch tall carving in her hand. She was going to own a House on K’Tran. She had only to pick the date on which it would happen. She was going to get Roc and Star off Earth and safely onto one more friendly toward offworlders. She might not be successful in freeing Taverages, but she could at least give them a permanent home.

  Distracted with all these thoughts and possibilities, she went down to the meal. Soon as she’d eaten, she went back to her room to read another of her journals. She had a feeling some of her answers were there. She just had to find them. But this one wasn’t a journal of her own experiences, thoughts and emotions. This journal was the Mondragoon Mankell had given her and into which she had continued to put her own philosophical ponderings.

  If she was going to live on K’Tran, she needed to brush up on a few things.

  Her distraction held all the next day, sticking when she found another science project in the fridge and set to cleaning out the entire thing.

  “Leave her be,” Landra Ahr told Roc when she mentioned Tyler’s single-minded cleaning obsession.

  “Her cravings and the tremor are difficult today,” he informed her. “Cleaning gives her something to put it all into.”

  “You have her under constant surveillance?” Roc asked.

  “I do. I know the differences in her readings. Last night she was just preoccupied with planning. Today it is the Rovan addiction speaking to her. I suggest you order pizza for supper and do not disrupt her until she is done.”

  But she was finished in time for Gable to cook dinner, and sat on the patio to be out of the way while she rested from her intense exertion.

  “You are well?” Landra asked, making a rare daytime appearance on the back deck.

  “I am now.”

  “And earlier?”

  She drew a long breath, sighed it out twice as long. “Earlier I contemplated cutting my right hand off.” She karate chopped her arm at the point where the future Tyler’s was missing. “I think tomorrow I’ll clean the stove.”

  Without a word, Landra Ahr went personally to find Jerome working on the Torino. “Take Tyler to your bed tonight. Do not let her sleep alone until further notice.”

  “Wanna tell me why?”

  “Remember who visited after the Rovan night? Remember what I told you about her right arm? The event is imminent.”

  Jerome remembered. Lips pursed to a tight, unhappy line, he attacked the bolt with the ratchet to tighten it.

  “Gotcha.”

  That was that. Landra Ahr returned to what he was doing.

  When Tyler said her goodnights, Jerome went with her. He steered her toward his room instead.

  “Come on. I’ll give you an orgasm you’ll never forget,” he bribed her, and delivered on the promise.

  She almost gave him her virginity.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Epiphany

  “Any mortalswho call themselves god cannot maintain a Just Cause,” Tyler muttered under her breath as she was sitting on the kitchen floor scrubbing a cupboard door.

  She heard Zamren’s voice saying it during her first stay on Sanctuary, heard his subtle intonations and emphasis. She had fully understood what he meant at the time. She remembered understanding what he meant. This time, she couldn’t wrap her head around it beyond the surface and obvious. She could feel there was much more to it just beyond her mental fingertips, bugging her more each day until that one sentence had become a mind-consuming obsession.

  “What was that?” Jerome asked, passing through to the elevator.

  Tyler on a cleaning binge was common enough by now. Talking to herself was new.

  “Nothing,” she muttered, rinsing the green pad and continuing to scrub.

  The statement churned through her head over and over, its secret hanging right there in front of her. She could almost reach out with a hand and touch it.

  Jerome paused in the open elevator door and turned back with a thought. “I snagged Clash of the Titans from the video store. Come watch it with us.”

  She paused, trance-like state broken at last, and looked up to see she’d finished seven cupboard doors in two hours. A movie sounded good.

  “Sure. Want me to make popcorn?”

  “That’d be great. We’ll wait for you to bring it before we start. No butter on Roc’s.”

  Hopping to her feet, she stretched her back and dumped the bowl of filthy water into the sink. The scrubbie, her second, had served beyond the call of duty and she tossed it into the trash. Washing her hands of greasy grime and absently getting out the pot and bag of popcorn, she repeated the statement several more times.

  “Who do you think you’re making popcorn for?” Gable asked, looking over her shoulder at the huge soup pot with oil heating and tiny saucepan of melting margarine.

  “Everyone.”

  He held up a stick of margarine. “The same eating machine who thought a slopping heaping spoon of sugar made a single serving?” he asked,
and picked up a knife to slice the stick in with the rest.

  She remembered the lesson she’d taught Jerome about a cube of sugar, winning a thousand bucks from him in the process.

  “Are you okay, sis? You’ve been awfully distracted today.”

  “I’m fine. I’m just distracted today.”

  He glared over at her, seeing that same faraway look in her eyes she’d had since morning. She’d not been herself since the whole Rovan thing and it worried him sometimes. He stopped her, taking both her hands to make her stop and turn to him.

  “No. Tyler,” he gave her hands a jerking shake, jarring her out of her trance and back to lucidity. “This is me. Your brother from another mother who watches Star Wars movies with you and sees part of you that you never show anyone else. I’m asking you, so don’t bullshit me. Are you okay?” he said with harsher meaning than he’d intended.

  In the moment for the moment, pulled out of autopilot, she saw him. “I’m fine, Gable. I can let my mind work on its puzzle because I know I’m safe here. I don’t have to be on my guard every fucking second.”

  That stopped him in his tracks. “Okay then.”

  They both turned back to their tasks.

  Putting meaning to every word, she whispered, “Any mortals who call themselves god cannot maintain a Just Cause.”

  Sighing with frustration and dissatisfaction, she poured the kernels into the hot oil.

  “You keep saying that. What does it mean?” he asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. It’s driving me nuts.”

  “Well, you’re gonna burn your face off if you don’t put a lid on that pan before it starts popping.”

  “Shit.” The lid appeared in her hand.

  He took over shaking the pan back and forth while she brought small bowls and other seasonings to the serving cart. Sprinkle cheddar cheese, parmesan, salt, garlic salt with parsley. She managed to stay focused long enough to save Roc a bowl with no margarine. Popped corn into a paper bag, she poured half the margarine over it and Gable shook and poured it back into the pot. He placed a wire scoop inside for dipping up servings. The rest of the margarine went into a small jug for pouring more onto individual bowls as needed. Beverages on the second shelf, he wheeled it into the living room.

  “This was some hip special effects back in the day,” Jerome said, putting the tape into the vcr.

  “So you keep saying,” Starbird made a face at him.

  Eyes watching the scenes but mind not engaged in the movie, Tyler continued to turn her puzzle around and around. Zeus, King of the Gods, with numerous goddesses in front of him and rows and rows of little clay figures on the wall behind.

  All living who called themselves god. All living…

  She knew there had been a team on Earth, preparing for her. They were here with the station before the AASTT and Congress ever existed.

  All living who call themselves god…So were they not quite powerful enough to be actual gods and were hoping to have Widenings to become the gods of Earth? A colony of Eminent Doyen?

  The Roman gods and the Greek gods were the same entities, just with different names. Zeus of Greece was also Jupiter of Rome. Hades of Greece was Pluto of Rome. So she had to go farther back than the Roman period to that of Ancient Greece. Several hundred more years.

  Round it off for simplicity to 1000 BC to today’s 1993, twenty five hundred to three thousand years they’d been on Earth. Earnol had said they were all dead. But what if they weren’t? What if there were still some around in hiding? Thomas had been brought in to be Apogee when another died, whoever the previous Apogee had been. Many had died when Imnytep invaded. Nails had been one of them, she knew it.

  Stories of the exploits of the Greek and Roman gods; the trials of Hercules; Atlas holding up the world. Atlas had been one of the Titans. Kronos was the king of the Titans. His children were Zeus, Hades…

  Zeus’ notorious womanizing and getting women pregnant. Hercules had been a demi-god, half human and half god. Mortal but with spectacular strength. There would be many opportunities for horny Sistarian men to dip their wicks into the native populations. How many hundreds of half-Sistarian/half-human babies were born during those first few hundred years?

  If the Sistarians lived all those hundreds of years, as Earnol was already himself over 2000 years old, how many more hundreds would they have created? Noah was so many hundreds of years old. His wife was so many hundreds, his sons…Had they been Sistarians too? Born here or come with the others? Was Moses one?

  Christ had lived in the first century A.D. For him to have been born of the Christian god, Taff, then the Greek/Roman gods would have to have had their fight with Imnytep within a few decades before Christ’s birth. Maybe only a couple years.

  Imnytep had tried to invade Voran four thousand years ago and had been repelled. Not killed, just repelled. A man not unlike Adamantine, with the power of one of the Universe Crystals he somehow managed to find and take, marauding through the galaxy attacking here and there. For what purpose? He hadn’t really tried to conquer in order to rule, like Adamantine did.

  Why had he come here? There had been no crystal on Earth at the time, the Taverages Staff having come only a few hundred years ago. Taff. Where the hell had she gotten that name? She couldn’t remember having heard it before. How did she know who he was?

  The head of an angry goddess fell from the shoulders of her immense statue inside her temple.

  “Foolish mortal!”

  Tyler saw. For the first time in her life, she understood perfectly.

  The Greek gods had been real people and they were all from Sistair. The station inside that moon had been their space ship. An entire society inside a fifty story space station, with smaller ships for short distance travel, and farming levels for growing crops from home as needed during travel. They had come to Earth intentionally, for a specific purpose.

  They lived here for over a thousand years, waiting for this purpose that never happened. Then Imnytep showed up and killed the ones on the planet and so scared the people on the ship that they retreated as far back in the solar system as they could in order to go undetected.

  The stories of the gods were some real exploits and a great deal of embellishment. They all had lived on Earth but not just around the Mediterranean. Some went to the Scandinavian countries: Odin and Thor and Loki. Taff had been part of one contingent or another.

  “For whatever reason, Taff had the Sanctuary ring. He went there and he lived because he had not yet called himself a god. He’d not fallen for the worship of the people and believed it. The others had, and had been punished for it with death upon their arrival,” she said under her breath.

  Why had so many Eminent Doyen congregated in one place? They were waiting for something. What were they waiting for? Pause. Silence. Knowing was one thing. Comprehending quite another.

  “They let people worship them. They called themselves gods. They were not gods. I am. They can only be the pentagon. When they called themselves gods and started to demand worship, their Cause—waiting for me—was no longer valid. They could no longer be part of my pentagon. They fled to Sanctuary when Imnytep invaded. They died,” she realized. “Is it really that simple?”

  Her heart pounded with knowledge finally hitting home. All through her previous life, men had insisted she accept that she was the Immaculate. How many temples had been built for her? How many had fallen? She remembered for the first time the temple on Ercoli that had been so hard to find and then had been destroyed by someone who knew it was there. She remembered lighting candles in niches, over and over. She had been dreaming of them ever since coming back.

  Here, in this place, no one was demanding she be a goddess. Shestna still knew about it, though. Encito had known all along of the concept of the Immaculate. He’d been watching for whoever it was to be, had included his son because he himself was too old to do anything about it except be a benefactor. That was why he’d given her the house. To pro
tect her as Immaculate.

  Mankell had known also, which meant the Rosaas had known. Had there been nursery teams of Voranians and K’Tran? Teams not fully maintained, with only a man or two who knew anymore?

  Dorn. She remembered Dorn touching her soul the way Jerome did. How Nails had in her previous life and how he had tried to on the steps of Rosary Cathedral. With a pounding rush, she remembered everything about her previous life. All the things with Jerome at the end. She remembered the Mother, everything about preparing the cave atop a temple on the planet she’d created, planning for the endgame.

  It had started here on Earth with Jerome and Kevin. It would end in that cave…with them.

  “Is that how I will gather my final team? Piecemeal from across the galaxy rather than pre-formed?”

  Jerome had been watching her, listening to her mumble. With that last question, her eyes met his.

  “Sanctuary,” she said. No emotion. No chaos.

  “Shit,” Jerome hissed.

  “She’s done it,” Landra Ahr said, having been recording her energy readings for the last two days.

  “Done what?” Gable asked, not about to pretend he understood anything she’d rambled about.

  “Found her Kingdom Key."

  Truth and Consequences

  Black lightningripped across the clear pink sky, tearing apart the atmosphere in all directions from the Point of Entry. An Entry not often seen on Sanctuary, and everyone within visual range stopped to see it. Jiogaard could not recall seeing this particular effect more than eight times in his considerably long life. One of his Residents was coming with Profound Knowledge. He wondered who it might be, not anticipating anyone for a long time to come. Twenty thousand days at least.

  He was at the platform, waiting along with Rengaard and Yoshgaard before the lightning reversed itself. It gathered back at the Point of Entry and shot down to the circle. A sizzling crack that cut itself off with her appearance. Jiogaard found himself looking up at the last of his Residents he expected to see. It had been only twenty-some days since she’d Widened the Breach under the influence of the Rovan. She was decades early. Again.