by Marc Secchia
She knew she had failed the Queen. Whisper gasped, “Xola. No!”
The dracowasps rose into the air, buzzing furiously.
Reflex launched her second dart. One wasp exploded, but the other two whizzed away.
“Choose, Whisper.” Sanfuri’s low, pained laugh sounded from somewhere in the darkness, as the tunnel roof creaked ominously and Ignothax made his swaggering retreat. “Chase me, and lose the King. What will you do?”
King or Queen? Microseconds defined the space in which decisions were made and lives were lost. She could not touch Sanfuri or Ignothax. She knew too little. But she knew how to run, and the King of Arbor needed her. Before the tunnel collapsed right over the Warlock’s head, she was already refocussing. Whirling. Sensing the drive emanating from … her tail? What? Her talons snapped out, digging into the blasted soil beneath her hind paws.
No Whisper would shirk her duty. She would rather die than fail again.
* * * *
“Go, Whisper!”
Rhyme’s scream cut briefly across the roar of collapsing rock as the Warlock’s forces destroyed the tunnel. Rock avalanched briefly; long before the noise stopped, Whisper was three hundred feet down-trail and accelerating to her fullest speed. Two blue dots darted ahead of her. She knew how fast dracowasps could be. They were renowned speedsters amongst the Dragonkind, but would even enhanced wasps possess the strength to outrun a Whisper over a fifteen-mile course?
There was only one way to tell.
Who cared if she lived at the behest of others? Evil was evil. She was born to stand against it. She would kill herself to save the King, if needed; aghast at her selfishness, heart-Sundered for the King’s plight, she would fight to her very last breath. And if she must swim to Illuxor thereafter – well, Whispers were only reborn, weren’t they? Or was this life indeed her own?
She had no answers.
She was a Whisper. The first imperative of her life was to run. Now, she mined her knowledge and expertise in the art of running. Her posture changed. Leaning forward at a more aggressive angle. Charging ahead on her talon tips, her head, body and arms taking on an increasingly streamlined posture. She felt her body change. The skin-shorts began to transform, extending rapidly up her torso and down her legs with a prickling sensation, now growing slicker and glossier as they covered her fur with a skin-material that seemed to glide through the windstorm of her increasing velocity. Her ears lowered into a backward-pointing orientation. The skin covered even the stump of her tail, leaving a chill sensation burning on the hypersensitive tip.
Twenty miles per hour, said her mind. Twenty-five.
More! She needed more! The dracowasps flitted ahead of her, also gaining speed as a breeze perversely picked up from behind. Whisper flashed through the short tunnel constructed by Rhyme’s Element Enchanters and leaped gaily off the cliff-edge, trusting herself to the gravity inversion. She sprinted sideways, then almost before she knew it, shifted upright again, running along the ledge-trail now so familiar to her. Landmarks began to flash by. Her lungs expanded painfully, forcing oxygen into her starving bloodstream. She startled as the skinfold developed in front of her mouth again, but the air suddenly seemed purer and more intoxicating, as if the oxygen content had been increased or filtered by a means she did not understand. Pure, molten metal trickled into her muscle, a reenergising inferno. Her leg speed picked up further. Now, she was scything through the energy reserves of her body. Heat built, radiating off her as the self-generated breeze flowed over her body.
There was pleasure in running. Beauty in the beating footsteps, in the glory of using her body as it ought best to be used. She whispered for fierce joy and she wondered, she imagined that the canyons whispered back, Faster. Faster, o Whisper.
Forty-five miles per hour. She would cross the fifteen miles in a mere twenty minutes at this rate, but the dracowasps were quicker still. They were already out of sight, arrowing for Arbor with a monomaniacal purpose she understood all too well.
Never had she run like this. Her lungs felt blistered. Her arms pumped in perfect synchronisation with her body. She could not feel her paws touch the ground any longer. She saw nothing but the goal and the blur of landscape and features that would lead her to it. She knew nothing but the terrible need to make Warlock Sanfuri eat his words, to ensure that no more people suffered from his depredations and schemes birthed over two decades before. His focus and drive frightened her more than the blood-oath. She knew compassion. Cruel ambition ruled his heart.
Ignoring her body’s protests, Whisper dashed on. She was the breeze whispering around stele and rushing through canyons. She was the voice of her world, Whispering a song against the evil that stalked her canyons’ skin and delved bloody holes in her hide. She was vengeance. She was the utterance of Xola’s distress and captivity, and that voice would never be silenced, she vowed. Whatever happened with the King, she would return for Xola. If needed, she would have Rhyme or Shivura place an oath on her to find the Grey Queen, or die trying.
There was rather too much dying these days, wasn’t there?
Whisper ripped past a cohort of Arborite soldiers heading for the bridge, moving far too fast to stop or even attempt an explanation. Her smooth red skin-suit was an inflamed blur. Her lungs laboured for air. Even Whispers were not meant to sprint like this for extended periods of time, her memories told her, throwing up complaints about overheating, lactic acid build-up and ligament failure, and the possibility that her heart might just burst in her chest.
I am dauntless!
Well, that was better than some of her recent realisations. Whisper gazed ahead, her eyes blurring for reasons unrelated to the hissing of wind across her face. Arbor!
Where were those dracowasps? How far ahead?
* * * *
The city still smoked, but the main ledge road had become busy now with the clean-up operation, with soldiers and citizens working shoulder-to-shoulder as they cleared rubble, put out fires and set toppled plant pots to rights.
Whisper blasted through without so much as a by-your-leave, running so rapidly that she found she had to anticipate trouble – at one point, she was forced to make a fifty-foot leap over a cart and then had to bound again to avoid somebody’s toddler, wandering about in the road waving a dinky axe and shouting, “Kill Dragon! Kill Dragon!”
Totally the right idea, Whisper approved.
The Palace building loomed ahead. Mentally, she mapped a route to the King’s quarters. If only she could have run up the wall and jumped through a window, but that route would have been sealed by Inshari. Should have been sealed …
That way, she would reach the King faster.
Shaking the dust off her paws, Whisper blazed through the Palace gardens. She misjudged hurdling a hedge and neatly decapitated a priceless miniature estuki tree in passing. The magic burned so brightly within her now, it was hard to concentrate on anything but the goal. Leaping and scrambling seventeen feet to the top of a wall a mad scrabble of paws, she continued on, pell-mell, trampolining right past the first story of the Palace building. She ran up the stone cut Palace wall using all-fours, then charged across a thicket of instabu blossoms before leaping up several paw-holds to the King’s balcony. Soldiers guarded every window and door, alert to perhaps anything but a Whisper leaping so far and fast, she hurtled over the guardrail and glanced off a stolid soldier’s shoulder. She slammed against the window, startling everyone inside. Yessimy. Inshari. The Recorders.
Whisper hammered on the window. “Yessimy! Get away from the King!”
Everyone froze.
Impressions crashed into her mind. The young Water Enchantress’ hesitation. Yessimy’s right hand clasped against her bosom. Cupped. She sat right beside the King.
“Break the window!” Whisper ordered.
The soldier just gaped at her.
So many emotions writ upon Yessimy’s face, Whisper could scarcely enumerate them all. Even through the thick panels of glass and the inner meshwo
rk protection against exactly the dracowasps or other pests and vectors of regicide that existed in this world, she saw the jolt of fear, the maternal instinct, the love, aye, love that had brought her once more to the King’s side this day. Sanfuri had probably told her that the dracowasps were the antidote to a presumed poison. Only she knew that they would kill the King outright.
Love would play murderer.
Yessimy loved the King. She always had. That was the reason, the vector Sanfuri had found to introduce corruption into the royal household.
Devious, brilliant and unstoppable. Maybe.
Whisper shouted, between pants, “Yessimy, whatever you do, don’t release those dracowasps! Let’s just talk, alright? Samtax, get me in there, now!”
The young soldier kneed her aside and swung hard with his axe. Glass rained down. A second blow severed the mesh, allowing Whisper access. She pushed inside, calling softly to Yessimy not to release the dracowasps, but one of the Recorders across the room began to screech, “She’s the traitor! Yessimy! Traitor!”
The woman’s face blanched. Her hands fluttered violently.
Whisper could barely speak through the tightness in her chest. Yessimy’s face! Flames seemed to be burning her from the inside as her physiological needs turned desperately to radiating the inner heat which had built up. Still, she managed to gasp, “Yessimy. I know … you love the King. Please. You’ve been … keeping him alive. But the dracowasps will certainly kill him. Sanfuri sent them.”
Yessimy’s jaw worked. Sweat beaded her rotund face, and her pulse throbbed too rapidly in her throat. “I … I never …”
“Come. Inshari, easy there. Yessimy’s no traitor,” Whisper said. “Just … come away from the King now, Yessimy. We’ll deal with Sanfuri’s tricks. He duped you, see? It was all a Warlock’s trick.”
“But I …” Yessimy stood, swaying. Tears welled from her eyes. “Oh, Whisper. How can I live after this?”
“Yessimy. Calm down. Don’t do anything –”
With a soft wail, the old cook clapped her hand to her mouth. Whisper wheezed in horror. The dracowasps … Yessimy tried to swallow, but choked. Her eyes bulged, frantic with need, but she kept one hand tight across her mouth, trapping the wasps inside. She seemed to be trying to make some form of apology. Then a strange, mechanical clicking sound emerged from the region of her heart. Her knees folded. With a strangely peaceful sigh, Yessimy collapsed, dead before she touched the ground.
Her head dropped backward, and a dracowasp crawled out of her slack mouth, its wings crumpled, but serviceable.
“No!” Inshari hurled ice across the bed, catching Whisper mid-leap with a blow to the lower ribs that winded her.
Bzzz …
Whisper cartwheeled onto the bed, landing on the prone King’s stomach. She had meant to protect him. Her eyes flicked. A flash of blue. Whirring over her, flying drunkenly, the dracowasp angled for the Arborite King’s unprotected throat.
Air seared her lungs. Too slow! She jerked over onto her side, and before she knew it, flung an arm upward and triggered her dagger with the other paw. Snick.
Whisper stared at the wasp, wriggling a death-dance against the flechette wristlet, neatly pierced through by the dagger blade that now protruded out of the other side of her wrist. The dagger’s point touched the King’s neck, but had not broken the skin.
She muttered, “Uh … I hope dracowasp blood isn’t toxic?”
Her gaze fell upon Yessimy. The woman’s head was encased in a misshapen glob of ice, the second dracowasp caught just emerging from her lips. Trapped. An irruption of the serenity that otherwise marked her features.
Inshari said, “Better not let that melt. Arm up, Whisper.”
“What?”
“Up! You, Recorder!” snapped the Enchantress. “Where’s the Mage-Healer? Get him here double-quick. Any more traitors?”
“No.” Whisper exhaled, “Not that we know of.”
Lifting Whisper’s aching arm with her hand, Inshari encased her limb in ice from the elbow to the tips of her talons, pressing the ice inward to slow any potential poisoning, effectively a frozen tourniquet. The girl said, “Rough. Should work – now, stick out your tongue, Whisper. I’m sure the Princess will thank me for finishing the job properly.”
Then, and only then, she felt the freedom to laugh.
Chapter 26: Pestiferous Whispers
RHYME LEANED OVER Whisper’s pillow. “About time you opened your eyes. The whole ‘scary-me-I’m-paralysed’ routine is so last-canyon.”
“How’s your father?”
The Princess laughed, “That’s your first question? I should –”
“He’s awake.”
Whisper startled at the unfamiliar voice, burry with weakness and disuse. Oh. She was on the King’s bed? “I … uh, apologise … King Rhuzime?”
“Aye, Whisper. Awake, thanks to you.”
Whisper turned her aching head carefully. Her muscles still felt as stiff as old planks, and at that point, her head was the only part of her she felt she could contemplate moving. Blue eyes watched her from the other half of the bed, crinkled up into a friendly smile.
The King said, “I hear you’re trouble enough to pull my life out of the proverbial Mirror. ‘Pestiferous’ seems to be a favourite word around here.”
What did a nauseous Whisper make of a King’s jesting with her? “Uh … not so much, o King. What’s –” her voice rose into a squeak “– what’s Mage Shivura doing inside your back?”
The Mage looked rather worse than the King. His face was one large bruise. Together with the Mage-Healer, he bent over the King’s back, doing something that from the other side of the bed appeared to involve wires, long sharp instruments and grimly pursed lips – altogether rather alarming.
“Removing a rather distasteful piece of equipment,” said the Mage, not averting his swollen eyes from his task for a second. “It’s quite unlike any other method of assassination I’ve ever seen before. He’s actually organically grown a highly effective nerve-impulse modifier right on the spinal column.” Evidently regretting his enthusiasm, the Mage added, “Sorry, Your Majesty. Professional … uh, jealousy. Dracowasp venom is insufficient to kill a grown Human, so this little chap was set here, I believe, to compel and control the King if needed. It may have malfunctioned, or the ring might have helped minimise its effects. Perhaps the Sundering prevented him from holding the kingdom to ransom as he had intended and he was forced thereafter to move more quickly. That means –”
“Yessimy?”
“She died, Whisper,” said the Mage. “The dracowasp venom appears to trigger the other half of this piece of Warlock filth, which is a spring-clamp positioned to seal the coronary artery.”
Whisper flinched painfully. “Poor Yessimy.”
“The King’s clamp has been removed already,” said the Mage-Healer.
The air of her lungs whispered over her lips, setting off a tingling sensation. Life was so miraculous. The King’s careful movements, the sparkle of life rising within him, was an intoxicating incitement to the bubbling wellspring of her heart. Certainty lived in that song. She had done well. A deep knowledge of completion underpinned the sharper pangs of grief. So many had died, and for what purpose? That Warlock Sanfuri might gain a Talisman. Nothing more.
How could a simple blue horn be so important?
For several moments, Whisper watched them working. She checked her arm, which was cleanly bandaged from midway along her forearm to her wrist. Her hind paws felt blistered.
“There.” Shivura gave a low hiss of satisfaction as he drew something carefully away from the monarch’s spine. “One monarch saved by a pestiferous but admittedly fabulous Whisper.” He grinned at her, a thoroughly discomfiting twist of his lips. “That’s the only compliment you’ll ever hear from me, Whisper. Remember, you’re still my favourite research subject, even if you were paralysed by the dracowasp you pinned to your arm. But your brain’s now regarded as too valuable for my pickl
ing jar, more’s the pity. King’s orders.”
He had the ill grace to roll his eyes.
Oh, she had risen above being pickled? Did that mean she should be grateful? Hardly!
“Aye, we do not pickle national treasures,” Rhyme cut in, rather acidly.
Whisper said, “O Mage, how did –”
“Looks like it grew in place.” Shivura shook his head. “I’ve a few theories that I’m developing, but I’ll admit this level of Warlock technology is outside of my realm of experience. Perhaps Yessimy really was a heroine. Looks like her care, keeping the ring working, saved our King’s life. Ammox was the real traitor, that fungazoid-filth!”
The Mage-Healer said, “Stand aside, Shivura, before your trembling hands destroy the good work you’ve done so far. I’ll close up here.”
Whisper rested her aching head against the pillow. One King, alive. A kingdom restored. If that was the ambit of her pestiferousness, then let it be. She was content.
Rhyme said, “No urge to give the King his message from Sanfuri, Whisper?”
“Actually, there is,” she admitted. “I just don’t want to –”
King Rhuzime said, “I will hear this message. Then, I want to seek your thoughts about this young Grey upstart. Is he worthy of my Rhyme?”
“Dad, I’m in the room!”
“Run along now, my gemstone-precious.” The King waggled his hand. “Go take charge of a kingdom or something. Oh, I hear you’ve already been doing that – rather well. Done your poor old Dad out of a job, you have.”
“Dad!”
“Alright. I might be persuaded to take it back – if you’re a very good girl. Once I recover.”
Whisper giggled, even though it hurt. She considered the pain turning the inside of her skull into its personal playpen. What if she delivered the message – would the magic immediately hurry to the Warlock’s second imperative? She needed to find Xola before the Warlock … bled her dry. She did not have time to try to work out a viable route to Illuxor.