Viper swept the banqueting room with elldyr from her left hand. The swath of magic blew apart two of the contraptions Dee had built, then knocked him over a third. Without the imminent threat of the sage’s instruments, Viper lowered herself to the ground facing the dividing wall.
The spheres of obsidian and gold rolled through the Banqueting House, past Viper’s feet. Her eyes never left Elizabeth and Dee. Viper didn’t notice that the wood boards inside the square had been turned to white ash.
“Call a truce, Elizabeth.” Viper’s eyes raged black and the flames of her elldyr turned the hall a royal purple. With the garen about to set its stakes in her heart, she forgot her promise to Mouse.
Elizabeth put her hand against Dee, keeping him back. Her aeir held every ounce of vigor in its magic that her physical body lacked. She stepped forward. Balding head high with defiance, drooping breasts exposed when she put her hands on her squared hips, Elizabeth and her life-magic had never appeared more majestic.
“I hath a truce, albeit not with thee,” she retorted. “My legacy shall be legend. Après moi, le deluge.”
Viper understood the French words, “After me, the flood,” but she realized Elizabeth’s implication too late.
A haze of blue elldyr wrapped around Viper’s torso and squeezed so tightly that she couldn’t breathe. The waves of magic clashed in bright white flashes where it touched Viper’s flames of purple until her elldyr fire was drowned. With her arms clamped to her sides, Viper couldn’t defend herself. She tried to run away. Her feet scrambled over the strewn pearls.
Viper landed face first on the ground. Dark black oozed from her nose. The sensation of floating startled the immortal. Her eyes fluttered open. Annys and her magic held Viper upside down so close to the hem of Annys’ wide satin gown that the fabric brushed Viper’s face.
Annys raised the defeated Viper higher. The mouth of Viper’s enemy crept upwards in a triumphant smile. To Viper, Annys’ mouth bore an ugly frown.
Annys lifted her arms and Viper simultaneously moved as if swaying on a boat until she was hovering over the sulfur ashes of the trap that Elizabeth had carved on the floor with the Parhelion. Her enemy’s blue elldyr creft surrounded the square and watery glyphs replaced the sulphuric flames around the perimeter of the trap. The floor sank through a widening hole in the middle of the enchanted area, like grains of sand in an hour glass. Viper’s body lowered towards the hole, now wider than her shoulders. She craned her neck, trying to see where she was going. Unending blackness welcomed her.
The staring face of a proud Queen Elizabeth, and the sound of Annys’ conquering laugh stayed with Viper even after the prison sealed itself behind her.
Epilogue: Her Last Letter
March 23rd, 1603
My very dear Viper,
You will have no occasion to accuse me of fraud after you read this letter. The heinous act performed upon you in my Banqueting House does not make me guilty if my mind carries no guilt. If it were not impossible that one should forget her own heart, I fear you suspect that I had drunk of the waters of Lethe and dwelled in its oblivion.
I did what I had to do for my people, and for that, I carry no shame. I bargained with Annys that she would win me the war against the Spanish and their o’er powering Armada in exchange for your life and for two divining spheres, one of gold and one of obsidian, belonging to my sage. Thus, I sought out my Master Dee when I received word of your arrival.
I thought, by use of the Parhelion, Dee and I could control Annys’ movements and, once done, I would free you from John Dee’s entrapment. I did not account for my temper, nor for Annys’ double-cross that she would bind you with her own magic!
What curse hath I placed upon you?
See how, with all our strife, we still collide as passing stars in the sky? You are Prometheus to my Crown and I am unworthy to govern such a Kingdom as you hath given me. There is a tender womanly heart breaking in me. I would say nothing of men cut in pieces in my name, if the cries of pregnant women strangled with the wails of their infants did not stir me. Likewise I would sooner pass over in silence your sallow murders on my land than write a word of Annys’ triumphant horrors in water. What rhubarb concoction could purge away the melancholic horrors which her tyrannies engender?
I hath one further confession. After the death of my Sweet Robin, my councillors thought me of sight too dim, of hearing too deaf, and of spirit too improvident. They were, at least in the matter of Atticus, correct in their observations.
Master Dee and his henchman, the Medium named Edward Kelley, attempted a capture of Annys when you disappeared. They did not aforehand ask of my consent. Too late did I discover their wrongful intent.
They work for a man named Atticus of the Salvatores Hominum, whom I welcomed in my Court, for a time. I assure you, in good faith, that I had no knowledge of their plan before the night you were imprisoned at the hands of Annys. Atticus would capture the Daoine Tor, so much does he hate the seelie wicht. He would not explain the history of his vehemence unto me before he vanished from my sight. With Annys I made an error. In inviting Atticus into my confidence, I made a grave mistake.
Abundans cautela non nocet. Abundant caution does no harm.
Trust only yourself. For hours hath I stood at the reflective windows of my palace ascrying for you, all to no avail. I did not dare use a bowl of water, for Dee and Kelley were not successful in their entrapment of Annys, and she yet roams the waters of England.
I am dying without you, my seelie wicht.
My Ladies hath made me comforted upon cushions on the floor. My lonely bones cannot stir themselves to dally with the quill any longer. The burning, which now holds me entirely in its grasp, forces my hand.
I wish that we should meet again in loving amity, either in the gardens of my palaces or in the whimsical gardens of your creation.
I am the last of my bloodline, a queen forever alone, like her Viper.
Donec obviam interim. Until we meet again.
I remain most truly and faithfully yours,
Elizabeth
The Queen's Viper Page 40