by Kami Bryant
“Where will we go?” asked Em lifting her head off his chest and looking into his bright blue eyes.
“To another world. A different world far from here. She is going to remove all the clockwork that Mormorant put into your heart and then we are getting out of here.”
“Mormorant told me that I chose for him to do that to me.”
“He is a liar. Why would you want that? Why would you want to forget about me? About us?”
“I didn’t want the pain anymore,” said Emberlyn softly.
“What do you mean? Pain?”
“Of losing you and my mother,” whispered Em. “That’s what he told me.”
“But you didn’t lose me. He exiled me. He is a liar and you shouldn’t listen to anything he says. He is gathering an army of ogres. He is going to destroy Mirovia and probably Traetan too. Do you really think he plans on letting you live? He wants to rule!” shouted Beau, again struggling with the scarf on his left wrist. “If you don’t untie this, I am going to tear it,” he said.
Em still quietly sat beside Beau. “What if it is too much to face?” asked Em.
“What?”
“The loss of my mother. My pain. What if it is too much for me to bear? Did I love her very much?” she asked turning back to Beau.
“Yes, you did. You are remembering me, and you love me. Why wouldn’t you want to remember the love you had for your mother?”
Emberlyn stood up from the bed and walked across the room. She sat at her vanity and started brushing her hair with the heavy gold backed hairbrush. “I am going to have them take you to the woods and drop you off there. You should find Juniper and leave this place together.”
“Em, what are you talking about?” asked Beau and he tore the scarf that tied his left wrist and stood up naked from the bed. “What do you mean? I am not going anywhere without you! All of this was for you, so we could be together. Juniper corrupted and infected herself with this awful power that almost completely destroyed her, for you! So that we could leave Traetan and find you!” shouted Beau.
Em slid around on the vanity stool. “She did that for you, not me,” answered Em calmly. “She loves you and would do anything for you and what you wanted was to get out of Traetan, so she found a way to open a portal for you because that is what you wanted.”
Beau sat back on the bed. “Em, I don’t even know what brought this on. Have you had any memories of your mother?”
“No,” answered Em. “Put some pants on. Unless you want to be naked when I call for the guards to collect you.”
“Emberlyn!” And Beau walked across the room and grabbed Em’s shoulders, looking at her reflection in the mirror of the vanity. “Turn around and talk to me,” he said shaking her shoulders. “You are acting stupid.”
Em’s eyes grew wide and her mouth tightened. ‘Fuck’, thought Beau. “Em, I didn’t mean that.”
Emberlyn rose from her chair imperiously with her head held high. “You think I am stupid,” she growled as she somehow looked down her nose at Beau, even though he was eight inches taller than she was. “How dare you! I am your queen!”
Beau dropped to his knees before Em and wrapped his arms around her ass, putting his head against her stomach. “I love you so much,” he whispered. “Please, just calm down and let’s talk about this.”
“Put your pants on, Mr. Beauregard. I am about to call the guards.”
“But, Em….” began Beau. Em wrapped her hands in his hair and yanked him away from her. She glared down at him and slapped him across his face. Beau ducked his face from her like a scolded child.
“NOW!!!”
And with that Beau had no choice but to look around for his pants, while a pair of guards rushed into the queen’s bed chambers, alerted by her scream.
Beau stood on the skiff with the two glamoured guards, his hands tied with rope held in front of him.
“What was it like to ride the queen?” laughed one of the guards. Two guards stood at either side of Beau, while the third guard piloted the skiff.
“Sounded like it was getting kind of wild in there,” laughed the second guard. “Looked like it too.”
“Shut the FUCK UP, you nasty snot-colored ogre!” growled Beau.
“I am not snot-colored,” answered the guard, offended. “I am a beautiful forest green.”
“We will just take you up here to this clearing,” said the guard piloting the skiff. “And then we will drop you off.”
“Did Mormorant tell you to take me far enough away that the queen wouldn’t know that you had killed me? And then you will go back and let her know that you let me go and I was so happy to be free, I just skipped away into the forest?”
“Yeah, something like that,” said the first guard. “I like that, ‘just skipped away into the forest’.”
“Guess, the cat’s out of the bag,” giggled the second guard.
“I am not a stupid ogre, like you three are,” said Beau. “Or a naïve queen with a hot temper,” he mumbled.
“Well then, let’s just get to this then,” said the pilot and he brought the skiff in for a landing. “Do you want a head start?” he asked Beau.
“Fuck this,” said Beau jumping off the skiff and freeing himself from the ropes that bound his wrists. “I am seriously not in the mood for this bullshit.” And with that Beau retrieved the small knife that Em has been using to cut cheese that he had stowed in his boot. He threw the small blade at the ankle of the closest guard and the blade flew, piercing the ogre’s flesh. The guard went down screaming. The other two guards aimed their protorifles at Beau who stood his ground.
“You are outnumbered boy, and unarmed,” said the guard that had been piloting the skiff, and seemed to be the smartest of the three.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” shouted the wounded guard hopping around on one foot, trying to grab the knife and pull it out of his calf.
Beau still stood silently. “What? Do you expect someone to come rushing to your rescue, pretty boy?” asked the second guard pointing the protorifle at Beau’s head.
“Maybe,” said Beau shrugging his shoulders.
“There is no one here,” said the second guard chuckling. “Can we just beat him to death and rip off his arms and eat him?” he asked the other guard.
“No. Mormorant said to make it look as if one of his friends turned on him after we left. He didn’t want to upset the queen unnecessarily.”
“Oh,” said the guard and shot at Beau’s head. Beau easily dodged the blast and then pointed behind the guard.
“There she is, coming to rescue me,” said Beau. The two guards quickly turned around and saw Juniper hovering a foot off the ground, less than three feet from them. The guards started laughing. Juniper reached a six jointed-fingered white hand to the hood of her cloak and pulled it away from her head and dropped the cloak behind her. And then her small stature grew. First her large black wings spread out from her back and then one black tentacle grew out of her and then another, and another, and another. The black shadowy tentacles grew and spread out into huge black furry legs.
The first guard, the smartest one, dropped his protorifle and ran. The second armed guard shot his plasma protorifle at Juniper. The third guard screamed and fell to the ground yanking the knife out of his calf. Beau retrieved the fallen protorifle and shot the guard that he had thrown the knife at, in the head.
The guard that had ran, was easily plucked up by one furry black leg and lifted to Juniper’s mouth and dripping mandibles. Another furry black leg grabbed the protorifle from the shooting guard and tossed it, a third furry black leg wrapped around the guard’s midsection and drew him into Juniper’s huge maw.
Beau jumped on the skiff shaking his head and said, “Stop, fucking around! I hate it when you play with your food.”
Juniper finally swallowed the second guard and then began to shrink in size.
“We have to go,” said Beau. “Could you please pilot this thing for me?” asked Beau as he looked around for the protori
fle that Juniper had thrown. “Damn it, why did you have to throw it so far?” he asked as he put the other two guards’ protorifles on the deck of the skiff.
“Where are we going?” asked Juniper.
“To storm the castle, grab Em, you pull the clockwork out of her, then open a portal, and we get the fuck out of here!” shouted Beau.
Juniper floated across the ground to the skiff. “Okay,” she said. “I think we are going to need some help.”
“Traetan?” asked Beau.
“Yes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Emberlyn sat in an overstuffed chair in her chambers, staring at the wall when she heard a quiet knock at her door.
“Go away!” she shouted.
“Your majesty,” said Mormorant from the other side of the door.
“Go AWAY!!!” she repeated.
“Your majesty, we must speak. You have been locked in there for a week. I am concerned.”
“GO AWAY!!!! GO AWAY!!! GO AWAY!!!!”
The door slowly opened and Mormorant stuck his head into the queen’s chambers.
“Are you fucking deaf?!!!” screamed the queen.
“Your majesty, I must speak to you!” answered Mormorant walking into her rooms.
“My fucking GOD! What is wrong with you? GO AWAY!”
“Your majesty, there is a small group of monsters gathering on the castle grounds.”
“What do you care? Aren’t you a monster also? Friends of yours?”
“No, they are most certainly not friends of mine. There is a dragon and a phoenix out there. They are extremely dangerous, and they seem to be following your pet, Mr. Kitchingham.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sakes,” said Emberlyn filling her goblet with wine and throwing the empty wine bottle at the wall. “What the fuck do they want?”
“Well, if I could guess, I believe that they want war, your majesty. I know that you are rather fond of him, but I am getting extremely tired and I intend to rip him limb from limb. I thought maybe you would like to know.”
“How kind of you to let me know.”
“After we dispatch with the group on the grounds, I finish killing the rest of the humans, and finish conquering this place and Traetan, I would be willing to let you stay here.”
“Again, how kind of you,” said Emberlyn. The queen motioned for the automaton cleaning up the shattered glass of the broken wine bottle, to open another bottle of wine and fill her goblet.
“I have so enjoyed my time with you and I felt that I would just let you know that I am willing to let you live.”
“How very fucking generous you are,” snorted Em. “Didn’t you kill my mother, torture my boyfriend, banish him to a realm of monsters and put an enchantment on me? And now you feel like being magnanimous and letting me live?” Emberlyn began laughing uncontrollably until tears were streaming down her face.
“Well, okay then,” said Mormorant backing away from the hysterical Em. “Well, good talk. I am glad that we are in accord,” he said and exited her rooms as she continued laughing until she was screaming.
“How lucky I am!” said Emberlyn throwing her goblet at her vanity mirror. The automaton rushed to clean up the broken shards of glass. A dragon, she muttered. He gathered an army of monsters including a phoenix and a dragon for me. What the fuck am I doing? Emberlyn wrapped her arms around her face and sobbed. “Fucking coward!” she screamed at herself. “Fucking coward.”
Emberlyn fell on to the thick rug on the floor of her chambers as she screamed and cried. After calming from her hysterics, she noticed the tiny black and red stone on its leather cord underneath her vanity and that just made her cry harder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Beau and Juniper led their army from Traetan to Mirovia and gathered at the grounds of the castle. Little Gorggatrud, who barely came up to Beau’s knees, strapped on her metal hand claws, her tekko-kagi claws.
Little Groggatrud wore a heavy, starched white shirt with layered ruffle cuffs, a brown corset, brown velvet overskirt and suede pants and boots. Her bright curly orange-brown hair stood at least two feet in the air which added a lot of height to her tiny frame. She hissed her sharp-edged teeth at Beau and took off running as soon as they had reached the castle grounds.
“Wait Groggatrud!” shouted Beau. A black shadow tentacle sprouted from Juniper, wrapped around the tiny woman’s ankle then drug her back over to the group.
“Let me DOWN!!!” she hissed as the black shadowy tentacle held her straight in the air at Beau’s eye level.
“Wait. We have to plan and strategize before just rushing into battle,” said Beau.
“I want to rip their throats out and drink their blood!” screamed Groggatrud.
‘Dang it, this group of Traetan mercenaries weren’t going to be easy to lead’ thought Beau. “Listen, please,” started Beau to the group.
“Are they all ogres?” asked Layla. “I hate the taste of ogre. Aren’t there any humans left?”
“Layla, just use the move that you were telling me about, to make them kill each other,” answered Beau.
“Ugh, so boring!” whined the vampire.
Zhiski tossed her chakram blades up in the air and caught them without cutting herself which was impressive in Beau’s opinion.
Zurvylan the Fierce, tossed her six-horned head and growled, “I will roast them and eat them. What is there to discuss?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sakes,” said Beau. “We have to get to Emberlyn. Mormorant has her.”
“What care we for your woman?” asked Zhiski as she twirled her chakram. “You promised us a great and bloody battle. So, let’s get on with it,” and she pointed at the warship in the sky that was aiming their protocannons at the group of Traetan monsters.
“Zurvylan!” shouted Beau. “Take out the warship and then eat as many ogres as you like!” And with that the dragon flapped her red and gold wings and rose toward the warship. Dispatched hover speeders sped toward the group, the glamoured guards shooting their protorifles. Juniper dropped Groggatrud and the tiny woman took off running into the battle. Zhiski threw a chakram at a hover speeder, decapitating its rider. “Okay,” said Beau. “Kill all the ogres!! Juniper and I will find Emberlyn.”
Beau ran to a hover speeder and shot his own plasma protorifle at the rider, ducking the ogre’s blast. He jumped on the hover speeder and yanked the rider off it and took off flying. He could see Juniper jumping onto a skiff, swallowing everyone on it and then piloting the skiff after him toward the castle.
Driving the hover speeder with one hand and shooting his plasma protorifle at the ogres with his other, Beau flew the hover speeder through the castle gates and landed, screeching metal on the throne room marble floor. Then he jumped off the hover speeder and took off running up the spiral staircase to the upper level of the castle.
“Em!!!” screamed Beau. “Where are you??!!”
“She is in her chambers,” answered Juniper who hovered off the floor behind him.
“Of course, she is,” said Beau screeching to a halt, slipping on the marble floor, falling on his ass, jumping up and running in the other direction. He reached the queen’s chambers and flew through the door. He could hear Emberlyn sobbing in pain. He quickly rushed to where she was huddled in a tight ball on the floor.
“Come on, Em. Time to go,” and Beau picked up the sobbing queen and threw her over his shoulder. “Okay, Juniper let’s do this now,” started Beau turning behind him to Juniper, who was no longer hovering off the floor at his back. “Juniper?” called Beau. “Fuck,” he said and ran down the stairs to his waiting hover speeder, threw Emberlyn on the seat and took off back to the battlefield.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Juniper floated before Mormorant in his true form. She pulled away her cloak and let it fall behind her.
“No!!!” screamed Beau from the battlefield. “No, Juniper!!!”
Juniper motioned to Emberlyn who stood behind Beau. She motioned behind her, and pieces of clock
work pushed their way out of her chest and floated toward Juniper. Emberlyn fell to the ground screaming as all her memories washed over her.
“What has happened to you, little dragonfly fairy?” asked Mormorant as the pieces of clockwork from his spell landed in a pile at his feet.
“We met your daughter in Traetan.”
“Dhuklai?” asked Mormorant.
“Yes. We met her, and she asked us to retrieve an Arachnite egg from a dragon. She wanted to impress you, because she was ashamed that she was half human. She could never have enough power as you do, so she came up with this crazy plan to swallow an Arachnite egg and become a hybrid symbiotic. A new entity completely. But, she was afraid of what would happen, so she chickened out at the last minute and gave it to me.”
“That isn’t possible,” said Mormorant, slowly backing away from Juniper in terror.
“I kept it for a year before I became brave enough to swallow it.”
“No!” screamed a shocked Mormorant as four long black tentacles started growing out of Juniper. Her black wings spreading out. The four black tentacles sprouted hair and became spider-like legs. The ogres on the battlefield started backing away from the Traetan army.
“I loved Beau so much that I wanted to find a way to open a portal from Traetan. I swallowed the Arachnite egg and sought out Dhuklai and then I ate her. I sought out the mage council of Traetan and I ate them too.”
“No, wait,” said Mormorant as the four legs reached out to him, wrapping around his feet, legs, and torso. “We can come up with some kind of compromise. We can rule this land together. Or we can rule Traetan and Mirovia, and any land you want.”
“JUNIPER!!!” She could hear Beau screaming as he tried to make his way up to her from where she stood on the deck of the warship. “STOP!!!” he shouted, and Juniper ignored him. Her jaw unhinged and dropped lower and lower till it hit the deck of the ship. Then the legs wrapped around Mormorant drew him in to her maw as her mandibles snapped. The tentacles reached out and captured the guards standing on the deck of the warship and she swallowed them too. Then the tentacles reached out to all the ogres screaming and racing away on the battlefield.