by Alex Bledsoe
She closed her eyes and seemed about to pass out. She recovered before anyone else noticed.
“She lived because of the spell I’d placed on her, literally. I’d engraved the mark on the flesh of her back. But as she grew, the mark spread, and faded, and I knew that what I’d done would not last. I had to find her again, to repair and replace my initial work, if she was to live.”
She looked at me. “Then Mr. LaCrosse came along and did what my magic could not do.”
For a long moment no one else spoke. Then Clancy walked up and peered into the tank. “Was Izzy really born from this?” he asked, the tank giving his words a metallic echo.
“She was,” Opulora said. “I’m sorry such a hard and unyielding womb nurtured her, but there was no other choice. I assure you, though, she was conceived in love, by her mother and father.”
“I’m her mother,” Beatrice said. “Let’s not forget that, okay?”
“Wait,” I said. Suddenly I knew what was wrong.
I turned to Gerald. “When we were here before, you mentioned that you’d hired sword jockeys to look for something. I thought it was Isadora, but you didn’t know about her then. So what was it?”
Gerald started to speak, then thought better of it.
“So you did know about Isadora all along?” I pressed.
“No,” he said. “I did not.”
“Then what did you hire sword jockeys to find?”
“He believed,” Opulora said, “that perhaps his son had merely been kidnapped and another child’s body substituted in his place. He thought he could find the perpetrators.” She shook her head sadly.
“No,” he said with sudden venom. “That’s what I told you, to put you off the scent. I really wanted to find out where you came from, and why you took over my kingdom. And I did.”
He faced the rest of us, a leer of smug satisfaction. “She was born the daughter of a whore in Calamus. That’s how she met Sylvia: she was a servant, a disgusting little scullery maid, but she was the same age as Sylvia, and they became friends. Then, when she came into womanhood, she was sold to a sorcerer, not as an apprentice, but as a concubine.”
Opulora’s haughtiness faltered. “I had no choice in the matter, Your Majesty. I was a child. I was property.”
He ignored her. “She used the power all women have over men to learn the sorcerer’s secrets, then she sealed him away in a cave, neither living nor dead. Isn’t that true, Opulora?”
“Your Majesty, my past is irrelevant. I have served you faithfully—”
“So you say,” he continued, clearly building toward something. “But you were run out of Sorwind, weren’t you? For doing something so vile, it can still scarcely be believed. Tatterhead was no freak of nature, was he? He was your pet project. You created him from pieces of dead bodies, imbued him with life just as you did this unborn girl, then when he turned out to be less than what you thought, you cast him out. Am I wrong?”
“That,” she said, “was many years ago. And later I sought him out, reclaimed him, and tried to civilize him. To correct my mistake. And the skills I learned creating Tatterhead were the same ones that allowed me to save your daughter.”
“But Tatterhead can’t be civilized, can he? He’s not human. Any more than that girl floating in there!” In that instant he became, without a doubt, Crazy Jerry. His voice now shrill, he continued, “Whatever she is, she’s a monster just as much as Tatterhead ever was.” He pointed an accusing through the open door. “She bears the face of my late queen, and that sort of sacrilege will not stand. She, and you, are both guilty of treason and I intend to see you both hang for it.” He turned and glared at the rest of us. “Along with all your accomplices. Hector, arrest them all!”
That put Hector in an uncomfortable position, since he was outnumbered, and at least two of us, Ajax and me, were pros like him. “Uhm, Your Majesty, maybe we should—”
“Then you hang, too!” Gerald said. “All of you! I charge you all with treason, and I find you all guilty!”
“Gerald,” Ellis said calmly as he stepped forward, “please. There’s no need for this. It’s an unusual situation, to be sure, but it’s nothing we can’t work out. Two kings should be able to handle anything, shouldn’t we?” He smiled and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Gerald stared for another moment; then the light of madness slowly faded. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and blew it slowly out. “You’re right,” he said with a chuckle. “A pair of kings are indeed a rare resource, and—”
The sly bastard. Once he had us off guard, he snatched a metal beaker stand from the table and ran back into the main room, right past us all. I grabbed for him, but felt only the brush of his expensive and stylish clothes as he passed.
“Stop him!” Opulora yelled. But before any of us could, he threw the beaker stand hard at the tank holding Isadora. It shattered, and the thick liquid gushed forth, carrying the girl’s limp body with it.
Chapter
TWENTY-SEVEN
Whatever the fluid inside the tank had been, it was slippery and tripped Gerald as he tried to run. Hector and I quickly secured the king, while Liz, Opulora, and Beatrice rushed to pick up Isadora where she had sloshed against a table.
“Kill her!” Gerald cried as we tried to hold him back.
“She’s a monster! Kill her!” I didn’t know which woman he meant, the sorceress or his own miraculous daughter.
Beatrice picked up Isadora, who was as limp as she’d been on our ride here. Liz pushed the vials, beakers, and racks off the table. The noise was deafening, and echoed from the distant ceiling. “Lay her down here,” Liz said.
“Carefully!” Opulora added.
Gerald began to shake, then convulse. It took all my strength, and probably most of Hector’s, to hold the writhing monarch between us, especially with the floor now slippery beneath our boots. “Guards!” the king cried at the top of his voice. “Guards!”
Then Owen Glendower, the last person I’d expect this from, stepped up and slapped Gerald so hard, I worried that he’d broken the king’s neck. The rich shepherd’s face was red with anger, and his voice trembled as he said, “I don’t care who you are, or what kingdom you rule, how dare you attack my granddaughter? If this is how you behave, then I thank whatever gods you care to invoke that she came to us and didn’t stay with you.” He turned, and sobbed when he saw the the girl’s lifeless head loll to one side.
Opulora darted around the room, gathering things from other tables. “She’s drowning,” I said to myself; she’d missed the diagnostic forest for the trees, and no one else seemed to notice, either. I yelled, “Hey! She’s drowning! Ajax, take over for me here!”
When he did, I rushed to the table, sliding the last couple of feet, and grabbed Isadora. The formal gown, soaked with the gummy fluid, made her weigh as much as me. I tossed her legs over my shoulder so that she hung facedown, and shook her until thick liquid dripped from her mouth and nose. When it stopped, I put her back down and said, “Liz!”
Liz knew what to do. She began bending Izzy’s legs, pushing them up so that it forced her lungs to contract and expand. I pinched her nose shut and blew hard into her mouth. It was something I’d learned from a moon priestess on a seaside battlefield, where injured men were as likely to drown from falling face-first into the surf as they were from their sword wounds. Unfortunately, it only worked on one man out of five, and I’d never tried it on a woman before.
With a gargling cough, Izzy spit a mouthful of liquid directly into my mouth, which made me choke and fall back. My boots slid on the wet floor and I landed on my butt. Izzy gagged and sputtered some more, then winced and said raggedly, “Guys, I really need to pee.”
After a stunned moment of silence, we all—except Gerald, of course—began to laugh. Hard. The kind of uncontrollable laughter that comes when you’ve narrowly avoided disaster. Losing this girl had become such a terror to us all that our relief overwhelmed us.
Beatrice helped the girl s
it up on the edge of the table. “It’s okay, honey, I’m right here. You’ll be all right.” She hugged her daughter fiercely, unconcerned with the slimy liquid soaked into the gown.
Jack grabbed Isadora’s arm with his good hand. “Will she?” he asked, his voice high and trembling, hope battling with fear.
“I need to do one more thing,” Opulora said. She gently shouldered Beatrice aside and took Isadora’s chin firmly in her hand. She shoved one of the glowing glass balls into the girl’s mouth. Isadora gagged again, but the ball seemed to dissolve into her tongue. She spit, scrunched up her face, and said, “Man, not to be crude, that tastes like sheep ass.”
Jack laughed. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“I kiss you with that mouth, smart guy. I’m a farm girl, remember?”
Opulora said, with visible relief, “She’s fine. For good.”
Gerald made a noise halfway between a shriek and a growl, twisted away from his minders, and snatched a dagger from Hector’s belt. I tried to grab him, but from my position on the floor, my fingertips only brushed his leg.
He flung himself at Isadora; the wet slicing sound as he drove the knife into her was clear in the silent chamber.
Isadora said, softly, “Umph!”
Jack screamed, “No!” Beatrice just screamed.
Isadora and Gerald, with similar looks of confusion and surprise, both looked down at the blade protruding from her belly. Then Isadora slid off the table and fell to her knees on the floor.
Hector and I pulled Gerald back, and Ajax put his sword to the king’s throat. No one questioned his etiquette.
Jack helped Isadora stand. The blood was vivid, and seemingly everywhere. The king had cut something vital.
“He stabbed me,” Isadora said in disbelief, and clutched the table edge for support.
“Here, let me,” Jack said, and reached for the knife.
“Don’t pull it out!” Opulora cried. “She’ll bleed even more. Get her back on the table, carefully.”
As Jack, using his good arm, helped Beatrice lift the girl, Gerald began to shake, then convulse. “Guards!” he cried at the top of his voice. “Guards!” But as before, no one answered his call.
Jack glared at Gerald with all the hatred he could muster in his young, sheltered life. Even Harry had lost his professional distance, and no longer took notes.
I didn’t even remember getting to my feet, but I had my boot knife at Opulora’s throat. “Save her,” I said, my voice faint and tight. When I looked at the girl’s drawn face on the table, I saw in my mind the tiny scrunched-up countenance of the baby she’d once been: the baby who’d trusted me implicitly to keep her safe.
Opulora looked genuinely scared, but not necessarily of me. She said, “I can’t—”
“No sentence I want to hear right now begins with those words,” I said.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll save her. You’re right—this is all because of me, anyway.”
I put away my knife.
Opulora bent over Izzy and pushed the goopy hair from her face. “Try not to hold your breath,” she said gently.
“Let me stick a knife in you and see how well you breathe,” Izzy shot back.
“If she dies—,” Jack said, his voice shaking.
“If she dies, it’s the will of all the gods in the sky!” Gerald shrieked.
“She won’t die,” Opulora said calmly. She closed her eyes, and the lids fluttered as she whispered something. She put both hands flat on Isadora’s stomach, the blade sandwiched between them. The gooey tank fluid, now stained red, oozed out between her fingers. “Pull out the dagger,” she said sepulchrally.
I reached for the hilt.
“No,” she said, her eyes still shut. “It has to be him.”
“Who?” Jack demanded.
“You. It has to be the hand of love to give life.”
Jack grabbed the hilt with his left hand and took a deep breath. But when Izzy hissed in agony, he couldn’t do it. More blood seeped around Opulora’s hands, the heavy red kind you only bleed when you’re dying.
“Oh, come on, you big baby,” Isadora said through her teeth. “Grow a pair, will you?”
Jack smiled wryly, took a deep breath, and with one slow, smooth motion, withdrew the blade.
Isadora doubled up and grunted, the sound somehow conveying more pain than even the loudest scream. Opulora pressed down with all her strength, and more blood squirted up between her fingers. Again she whispered something I didn’t catch. Then she pulled her bloody hands away.
Through the rend made in the gown, Isadora’s skin was soaked with blood as well. But the injury was entirely gone.
The girl collapsed back on the table, gasping. Jack dropped the dagger to the floor.
Gerald also went limp except for the great gulps of air that racked his body. Suddenly he wrenched free of Ajax and Hector and bolted for the back of the room, where I saw another door, this one without a crystal lock. He slid into the wall on greasy boots, then opened it and dashed through.
I reacted without thinking, because hell, thinking hadn’t done me much good so far. I ran after him, calling back, “Wait here, all of you!”
Chapter
TWENTY-EIGHT
The door opened into a spiral stairwell. I heard Gerald above me, his slippery boots loud and wet on the stone. I raced to catch up, my own footing uncertain.
The steps were worn and crumbled with age, and cobwebs clung to the walls. Dust stirred by Gerald’s passing filled the air and made my eyes water. My legs and back protested this exertion, and I dearly wished I’d thought to grab Hector’s sword.
“Gerald?” I yelled up. “You can run, but you’ll just get caught tired. Gerald?”
I listened, and thought I heard distant footsteps.
“This is stupid, Your Majesty. You’re the king, you can’t just hide somewhere! If you can hear me, wait a minute before you do anything. I just want to talk to you, not drag you back.”
Hinges creaked somewhere above, followed by a loud slam. I climbed as hard as I could, and found that the stairs went straight up to the ceiling, where a wooden hatch had been flung aside. Moonlight streamed through the opening. I paused long enough to catch my breath, then went through.
I emerged onto a tower roof. It was about thirty feet across and completely flat, with no battlements or railings. The only way up or down were the stairs I’d just climbed. Above me the sky was clear, and a bright moon lit the area. The night wind blew steadily, just hard enough to constantly remind you that you were far above the ground with slippery feet. And it was cold—my clothes had soaked up enough tank juice so that the breeze made my teeth chatter.
Gerald stood at the edge of the roof, looking down at the courtyard a hundred feet below. A strong gust would send him right over the edge.
I said, “Your Majesty, why don’t you back up a few steps? Heights make me nervous, and your boots must be as slick as mine.”
He looked over his shoulder at me. I couldn’t make out his face. He said calmly, “I should’ve done this the day my wife and son died, and let Mahnoma start over with a clean slate. It couldn’t be much worse than it is now.”
“Don’t be hasty,” I said. I swear I felt the tower sway beneath me, and I had the urge to drop to all fours, maybe flat on my stomach. “I’ve seen kingdoms where that’s happened. Everything usually gets burned down, and that ‘clean slate’ costs a lot of lives. You’ve got some chaos, sure, but nothing a strong royal hand can’t straighten out.”
“How can I face them? How can ‘Crazy Jerry’ command any respect now? I just tried to kill a defenseless girl.”
“Yeah, you did,” I agreed. “But at least she’s okay. Thanks to the very sorceress you imprisoned, I should point out. You’re really not a very good judge of people.”
“That’s truth,” he said with a cold, self-mocking laugh. “I can be lied to with impunity. I can be manipulated and flattered. And I know it, which is the w
orst part. I can just . . . never see it coming.”
I eased toward him. I couldn’t make a grab for him unless I got him away from the edge. “Tell me something. What made you think your wife was unfaithful?”
He sobbed once, then choked it down. “You really want to know?”
Another step closer. I hoped Opulora was right about my skill in getting people to talk. “I think it’s important that you know.”
“He made her laugh. Ellis did. She never laughed for me. She never found my jokes funny. She never laughed with delight when I came into the room, the way she did with him.” Then he genuinely began to cry. “I wanted to humiliate her, for the way she made me feel. I wanted to humiliate him, for helping her do it. I imagined the two of them laughing at how easy it was to make me jealous. See, I knew they weren’t really having an affair, they were just pretending to, to make a fool of me! Or at least, that’s what I told myself.”
I was within arms’ reach now, but that was also close enough to either miss, or send us both over the edge. I said, “Gerald, do you know what it means to see the spider in your cup?”
Tears and snot glimmered in the moonlight, and his face was contorted with emotional agony. “The what?”
“The spider in your cup,” I said more distinctly.
“Yes, I know that the poison supposedly doesn’t work unless you see the spider. But that’s just a tale, isn’t it? Poison doesn’t really work that way.”
Now that I had his attention, I discreetly slid back and spoke just softly enough that he had to lean toward me to hear. “It did with you, Gerald. You drank and saw the spider, right there in the mirror. The spider is you.”
He began to cry again. He wasn’t one of those dignified criers, either. His whole face and body contorted with sorrow and self-pity.
“But it’s not the end of the world,” I continued, and felt a twinge through the scar over my heart. “Something similar happened to me once, a long time ago. I ignored it and denied it, too, until it almost chewed me up inside. But eventually I worked through it.”