E’Duwag’s jaw dropped open.
Cha’Rolette gave a superior sniff, then turned and levitated out of the room. The crowd was paralyzed. E’Duwag remained completely stationery, until the newly-repaired doors closed behind her. Only once she was gone did he react. A smile crossed his lips. A proud, satisfied, pleased look. He began to laugh. His eyes came alight with admiration.
SHE IS FINALLY READY, he announced excitedly. Begin the preparations. Begin gathering the rest of the family. Every member.
Now it is said, let it be done, let it be, the crowd repeated.
* * *
Trahzi awoke with a start. The maddening silence in her mind frightened her. It took her a second to remember where she was. Puppy Trahzi was in her arms. Gerald was holding her on one side, and Nikki on the other. Their comforting presence calmed her enough to put her head back down. Then she remembered what she had lost, and tears formed anew in her eyes.
When she awoke again, the midday sun was high in the sky. Something squeezed her hand and she looked down. Gerald had never let go. He was sitting next to her, reading his scrolls as he held her. Nikki sat behind her, brushing her long black hair, her legs now fully healed.
“What time is it?” she asked, disoriented.
“Thirteen hundred hours,” Gerald said, giving her a reassuring squeeze.
“What about the meetings?”
“I called Ilrica and told her she’d be mediating without us today.” Gerald rolled up his scroll as best he could with his cast on and turned to her. “Don’t worry, you won’t be alone.”
“Thank you,” Trahzi said, wiping away a tear. “But... won’t she be mad?”
“Oh, she was beyond irritated, but she’ll get over it.” Gerald grinned mischievously. “I told her it was payback for putting all those posters up.”
Trahzi managed to chuckle weakly.
They spent the next while talking, while Nikki brushed and braided Trahzi’s hair. The outside world seemed to have stopped. It was just them in their little room, and it felt warm and safe. Several hours passed before Trahzi felt comfortable enough for Gerald to let go of her hand and fix a late lunch for himself and Nikki. Even then, Trahzi insisted on sitting as close to him as possible, never taking her eyes off him as he took a couple of eggs from Cadbury’s nest and made up a little chocolate omelet.
“All better,” Nikki announced proudly as she sat back and showed off her creation. She had braided Trahzi’s hair into three French braids. One behind each ear, and one right on top. It kind of hung there, flopping over to one side like a melting horn.
Trahzi couldn’t help but giggle at herself in the mirror. She looked ridiculous.
“You like?” Nikki asked in anticipation.
“You did a great job, Nikki,” Gerald praised warmly, patting her head.
This made Nikki insanely happy.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” Gerald asked, handing Nikki a plate of eggs.
She slurped them up hungrily and gave a little shrug. “I don’t know.”
Gerald and Trahzi looked at each other thoughtfully. “There really wouldn’t be any reason to have hair-braiding as part of a weapon’s programming,” Trahzi whispered.
Gerald nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I think she’s remembering something she knew before the guild took her and wiped her mind. That’s a really good sign, actually.”
Trahzi got a little sad and looked at her own reflection in the mirror. “So, what will she do now? She has no future.”
Gerald set down his plate without eating it and gave Trahzi a warm hug. Trahzi closed her worried eyes and allowed herself to melt into his strong arms.
“She does have a future,” Gerald reassured soothingly. “She has the same future any of us have.”
“What is that?” Trahzi asked, her voice trembling.
Gerald gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Whatever we choose it to be.”
Trahzi buried her face into his chest. “I want to stay with you,” she whispered. “I want to stay like this forever.”
Gerald held her tightly, then couldn’t resist the urge to bat at her floppy top braid.
“Well,” he said, sitting up straight. “If you’re going to stay with me, you’ll have to come outside. It’s time to water the lotus.”
Gerald placed Puppy Trahzi in her bassinette and had Nikki switch on the nursemaid. Then, not wanting to rush anything, he stood by the door and waited patiently.
It took Trahzi quite a while to make it to the door. It seemed to frighten her more than anything else. She scooted towards it timidly, her steps becoming smaller and smaller.
Gerald patiently held out his hand, and allowed her to take it. She took strength from his kind brown eyes, and slid the final inches up alongside him.
There was a knock at the door, and Trahzi jumped with fright. Gerald squeezed her hand soothingly, and Nikki opened the door.
“Where the treb have you guys been all day!” Zurra shouted, but one firm look from Gerald quieted her down.
“Sorry,” she apologized, compressing to half her usual height.
Zurra stepped aside, and Trahzi looked out into the corridor.
“It looks so different,” Trahzi whispered timidly as she undid the braids from her hair.
Zurra looked at Gerald in confusion, but he gave her a little nod, indicating that he would explain later.
Trahzi inched up to the doorway. It was as if there was an invisible line there she was afraid to cross.
Gerald could feel her trembling. He gave her hand a squeeze, and she took strength from it, inching her toe across that line and into the hall.
“Well done,” he whispered to her.
“Good girl,” Nikki praised, patting Trahzi on the head.
It took them quite some time to make their way out into the palace gardens. Trahzi avoided everyone. She waited for staff and servants to clear a corridor before she’d be willing to cross it. For someone as powerful as she was, it was silly, but Gerald knew enough not to criticize or pressure her. In many ways, she was experiencing the world for the first time, and it was beyond daunting to her. In his heart, he praised her courage.
They reached the little plot and Gerald and Nikki went to work, watering, fertilizing, weed pulling, and clearing. Nikki found a neat little black spider. Gerald took a minute to admire it, then helped her move it elsewhere without hurting it. The soil here was insanely rich compared to Earth, and the plant life grew quickly. Gerald found out the hard way that if he didn’t pull the weeds at least twice a day they’d grow high enough to choke out the lotus he was trying to grow.
Gerald sat back, pleased at the flower’s progress.
“At this rate, it should be ready in about a week,” Gerald announced proudly.
“So, you need that to become a real priest?” Zurra asked, kicking her feet as she sat on a bench and sucked on a candy stick.
Gerald nodded. “Once you have a full blossom, you place it on the Oathstone at the center of every Soeckian temple.”
He excitedly ran over to the bench and moved Zurra off of it.
“Hey!”
Gerald knelt, pretending to place the flower before him. “I’ve seen it before. It is incredible. The heavens open up, and you can speak directly with the enlightened ones, declaring your intention to follow the path that leads to them. Then, the high priest creates a barrier around you, and you receive personal instruction straight from the enlightened ones themselves. They actually speak to you and tell you what to focus on to achieve Vashrya.”
Gerald raised up his hands, giddy as a schoolboy. “You take four vows, representing the four pillars that you see at the entrance to the inner sanctum. The vow of poverty, the vow of selflessness, the vow of honesty, and the vow of peace.”
“What, no vow of chastity?” Ilrica teased as she landed next to Trahzi, a plate of fudge in her hand. “I know they don’t take a vow of sobriety. The priest back on Chanterelle had the bigg
est personal wine cellar I’ve ever seen.”
Gerald ignored her.
Trahzi took a piece of fudge off the plate and munched on it. “I remember you talking about this. Those are also the pillars of Vashrya, right?”
“Yes, exactly,” Gerald said, jumping to his feet in excitement. “The pillars aren’t just the gate, they are also the foundation that makes it possible.”
Trahzi was intrigued by his words. “So, why is Vashrya so important for you?”
Gerald turned around, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Because life is filled with pain, and Vashrya frees you from pain.”
Trahzi reached for another piece, but Ilrica pulled the tray away and slapped her hand. “What are you doing? Stop eating my fudge. I thought you just ate souls.”
Trahzi raised an eyebrow. “I thought you only ate what you hunted.”
Ilrica stared at Trahzi for a second. Gerald knew enough about Bertulf culture to know that Trahzi’s criticism basically amounted to a challenge. For a second, he wondered if it was accidental, but then doubted it. Trahzi had become better and better at pushing Ilrica’s buttons as of late.
Ilrica widened her stance. “Are you challenging my status as a hunter?”
Trahzi didn’t back down. “Are you going to give me another piece?”
Some of the nearby guards readied their weapons, calling in what was happening to their superiors.
For a moment, Gerald wondered if they were going to fight, but then Ilrica laughed proudly and slapped Trahzi on the back. “Well done,” she praised, holding out the tray. “I like a girl who doesn’t back down!”
Gerald and Zurra breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m not a hunter anyway. I’m a spy, what do I care?” Ilrica boasted. She tried to laugh it off, but Gerald could see the little bit of sadness in her when she said it.
Trahzi happily took another morsel and savored it.
“Can you eat normal food?” Nikki asked. It kind of surprised everyone. They weren’t used to her stringing more than a couple of words together at a time.
Trahzi swallowed. “I don’t get any nutrition from it, but I enjoy the flavor quite a bit.”
“Kind of like bubble gum,” Gerald opined.
Ilrica’s translator brought up some pics of bubble gum.
Zurra frowned. “I hate bubble gum. People spit it out everywhere, they stick it to the bottom of chairs and desks, they let it cling to the bottoms of their shoes, they inflate it and let it pop all over their oily faces. It’s disrespectful.”
Gerald snickered. “Zuri, it’s just gum, not little baby Zurinites or anything.”
Zurra rolled her eyes. “I know that. But actions speak louder than a cat killed by curiosity.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, imagine you lived in a world where the aliens there ate candy that was shaped like little human babies...”
“I’ve been to a world like that,” Ilrica teased, tossing down another bite of fudge.
Zurra kicked herself to her feet. “It would probably get on your nerves after a while, wouldn’t it?”
Gerald nodded. “You’re right, it would.”
He held out his hand. “Sorry about that, Zuri.”
“No problem,” she said, shaking it.
“She can be pretty lucid when she needs to be,” Trahzi observed.
Zurra angrily waved her arms around. “Hey! I used to be a scholar, you know?”
“Oh yeah, I can totally see that.”
A pink ball rolled up towards them then unfolded itself into a palace guard.
“Ministers, you have a visitor at the front door.”
“We do? Who?”
“She claims she is part of your negotiating team. Her name is Cha’Rolette Ssykes.”
Thrilled, they all looked at each other.
Gerald nearly tripped over himself and the others running to the main gate. He was so excited he could barely say a word or hold a thought in his head. After all this time, worrying, wondering, wishing, not knowing—-she was here. Not only awake, but apparently healed if she had come this far to meet them.
Gerald rounded the corner and nearly jumped out of his skin waiting for the guards to lower the defense fields and open the ornate carved doors.
The light spilled in and there she was, standing there in her school uniform, her ta’atu styled into ringlets, wearing that same unmistakable air of confidence.
Gerald stepped up. “Duchess!”
Cha’Rolette smiled warmly.
Ilrica stepped forward and thrust out her hands. Cha’Rolette was thrown back, smashing into the courtyard fountain of Onnassia and snapping it in half.
“Ilrica, what are you doing?”
Cha’Rolette rose up out of the water and drew a pistol. She shot at Ilrica, who jumped out of the way, the shot tearing a deep chunk out of the parapet.
Before Ilrica touched the ground, a cluster of flash pellets hit the ground around her, clouding her vision and creating a wall of smoke. Then, a hail of poisoned needles tore through the cloud at her. She held out her hands, scattering the smoke and projectiles skyward, only to have a laser beam from a shoulder mount nearly decapitate her.
Ilrica ducked the beam just in time, swiping her claws to freeze time as the gatehouse was cut in half. The color bled out of the world, but she was not alone in this frozen place. Hundreds of bright silver orbs hung in the air, previously invisible to her. The nearest orb shocked her, and she was thrust back in the normal world.
“That’s a new trick,” Ilrica said, rubbing her arm.
“Are you crazy?” Trahzi asked. “Why are you attacking each other?”
Cha’Rolette lined up another shot.
Ilrica thrust up a finger and Cha’Rolette fell upwards into the air. Cha’Rolette fired a piton from a launcher on her wrist, anchoring herself to the ground with a wire to keep herself from falling into the sky, then launched a disk from her other gauntlet. It spun at Ilrica, who jumped out of the way, but the device changed direction at the last second and clamped onto Ilrica’s arm.
Ilrica threw her head back and screamed as electricity surged through her body from the device.
“What is happening?” Zurra asked as palace guards came out, forming a circle around her and the other ministers.
Ilrica’s control was interrupted and Cha’Rolette fell back down to the ground. Rolling to her feet and shouldering a rifle, she snapped off three quick shots aimed at Ilrica’s head. The first two bounced off of Ilrica’s personal defense field, but the third punched clean through. Just before it connected with her temple, Nikki jumped in the way, her arm unfolding into a shield and deflecting the shot into the distant horizon.
Nikki landed and looked at her own arm in horror. “Did I...?”
Ilrica smashed the device on her arm, then thrust out her hand. Cha’Rolette struggled under the weight, then was forced to the ground under the intense necass she created.
“What is happening?” Gerald asked as the guards formed a circle around Cha’Rolette. The entire fight had taken less than half a second. A blur of motion his human brain was only now beginning to process.
“That is not the Duchess,” Ilrica said, tapping her nose. She twisted her hand, ramping up the pressure even further.
Cha’Rolette was forced down, her face pinned to the ground, the stone cracking beneath her. One of the guards came up and tore some device from her belt. Her image melted away, revealing a fearsome young woman with blue skin and golden eyes.
“Lyssandra Bal,” Gerald said out loud.
“Why are you here?” Zurra yelled. “Why did you attack us?”
“You attacked me, you idiot,” Lyssandra grunted, snarling like a trapped animal. “I only wanted to present myself to Dyson.”
“So, why are you here?” Gerald asked, still completely lost.
“Release me and I’ll tell you.”
“Not a chance, blueberry,” Ilrica said, increasing the pres
sure a little further.
Lyssandra groaned as the air was forced out of her lungs, her bones cracking.
“She can’t answer us if she’s dead,” Gerald advised.
“That would be a real shame, wouldn’t it?” Ilrica said, twisting the screws a little tighter.
Nikki took a fearful step back. Something about watching Ilrica fight made her uneasy. Unconsciously, she reached down to her knees and rubbed them as if they hurt.
Lyssandra tried to breathe, but her muscles couldn’t overcome the weight crushing down on her. Her face became a sickly blue, her eyes rolling back into her head.
“Ilrica!” Gerald yelled.
Reluctantly, Ilrica throttled back just enough for Lyssandra to inhale. The proud general coughed and hacked, wheezing for air as she lay pinned on the ground.
“Ministers, we should get you inside. Her ship may be nearby,” one of the guards cautioned.
“If she were going to use her ship, she would have done so already,” Gerald posited. “Let’s hear what she has to say.”
Zurra nodded in concurrence and the guards reluctantly acquiesced. As Lyssandra caught her breath, the guards set up emergency fields around Gerald and the others.
Fighting against the intense weight, Lyssandra managed to pull herself up on her hands and knees. Her limbs shaking with effort, she forced herself up on one knee and bowed across it in the oath position. There was something noble about the way she held herself as she spoke.
“I am Lyssandra Bal, Second General of Ragnarok,” she said proudly.
“I have not forgotten it,” Gerald said, remembering their first encounter so long ago.
“My life and my soul belong to you, Gerald Dyson. I live only to serve you.”
Gerald blinked. “Say again?”
Lyssandra Bal managed to place her fist across her chest in salute, despite the intense pressure Ilrica was placing upon her. “I am bound by an unbreakable oath. As the last living daughter of the hill people, I swear myself to you, Gerald Dyson.”
“Are you serious?” Gerald asked
Lyssandra gritted her teeth. “Believe me, I do not like it either, but I have never been more serious. You are my... master.” It seemed like that last word made her want to throw up.
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