Sister Sable (The Mad Queen Book 1)

by T. Mountebank

  He shook his head and cursed himself. He had all but forgotten the girl. After a year, the constant fear she would be found had subsided, then the years seemed to prove she was really gone. He had relaxed. His King would not be forced to marry a nun. The obligation to the Cloitare would die and buried beside it would be the insane fabricated Revelations of the Prophets. He found himself remembering the night he could have ended it. He should have killed her. To have made certain, he should have killed her when he had the chance. He set his jaw forward. It was too late for should-haves; he needed to make certain she died now.

  11:10 a.m.

  The intelligence chief was signing papers. It was a monotonous job others disliked but Catherine Girard quite enjoyed as it allowed her to think. And wait. She was supposed to be having lunch with her deputy chief, but that was cancelled when the Guard Dog made contact from Alena. He was in the neighboring country trailing an Erentrude scientist that planned to pass off secret soil reports to his Alenan handler.

  Catherine was not so much waiting to hear that the reports had been wiped from the scientist’s portable drive and replaced with another version, as to read the Guard Dog’s confirmation that the traitor would not be returning home to the motherland.

  It was the sort of task the Guard Dog excelled at. He was her own special agent, one whose existence was known only to herself, the King, Berringer, and Laudin.

  The soil report was done by the King of Erentrude’s own Ministry of Science and showed that Alena’s border contained several rare elements in rich deposits of monazite ore. Neither the King nor Laudin wanted the Alenans to know the extent of the metals. Alena was torn between those wanting to rejoin the mother country for its wealth and opportunities and those who would toil away their lives mired in all the misery poverty could serve merely to call themselves free. Girard hated them both. But, by the King’s will, the breakaway nation would be reunited with its motherland, and that would be easier without the Alenans knowing the promise of wealth that lay in their boundaries.

  The scientist was a defector from Erentrude’s Ministry of Science, but far from an idealist, Catherine knew he was instead a disastrous combination of bored, disenchanted, and broke.

  And the Guard Dog, she mused, was going to rip his throat out.

  Catherine stopped signing papers and opened a document on the widescreen that dominated her desk. She shouldn’t have kept the message, but she had, and she read it again: One day, kitty, I am going to leave you on the floor calling my name. My real name.

  She had a whole folder of them. He was the secret she carried.

  Opening another, she had just pulled the band from her blond hair to let it settle over her shoulders when her secretary’s voice announced an unexpected visitor. “General Berringer is here. Shall I show him in?”

  “Of course.”

  He had closed the door himself before Girard could exit the provocative folder.

  “The Cloitare have found the Bound Bride. She’s in a train wreck in Alena, someplace called Eudokia. I’m told she is presently alive but injured.”

  Girard took the news with the delighted half smile of a proper psychopath. “And I assume you have all your soldiers racing there with great haste?”

  “I have a jet with eight soldiers and six Cloitare seeking clearance to enter Alena’s airspace and land.”

  Girard was correct in guessing the General hoped she knew a way to have this request denied.

  “Alena?” Catherine nodded. “So, essentially a gesture of courtesy. I assume you have already cleared this with their military and merely require Laudin to call for official handshakes?”

  Berringer’s focus left Catherine’s blue eyes to stray across the carved desk, over the glass doors of the bookcase behind her, and then up to the gold molding near the decorative plastered ceiling. It was a hell of a lot different to his office. “I thought perhaps I would get your advice first.”

  The smile on Catherine’s face widened.

  Berringer pointed to the coffee service on the low table in the sitting space before Catherine’s desk. “May I?”

  Gesturing with an open hand, she exuded glee, “Please.” The likes of Berringer did not come to Girard for advice—the King did, Laudin did, but staunch self-reliant generals did not. This unusual request had her keenly interested. Girard had so many questions, but to ask would imply direction, such as Does the King know? Catherine suspected he did not.

  The General couldn’t sit. Delicate cup in hand, he stood between the chairs. “This northern territory she’s in is quite poor but being developed. It has a larger influx of people than work, which would leave most willing to do anything for money. A very threatening place it would be,” Berringer declared.

  Girard smiled and inclined her head with agreement.

  “If everything goes smoothly, it will be at least eight hours before my team gets the Cloitare on the ground.” Before drinking, he looked over the rim of the cup at the King’s intelligence chief. “That’s a lot of time for something to go wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Girard’s amusement had settled across her face to a manageable level. “You are expecting trouble of some particular description?”

  Berringer found no enjoyment in the exchange. His words were measured and careful. “It’s a dangerous place. Some of the most unfortunate have been killed for less than food. I thought with your people, as they are,” he could barely endure her people, “you might have someone on the ground that could find her. To ensure security, as it were.”

  Girard sat forward and ceased to smile, “Yes.” Then pulling back, she was more circumspect, “Perhaps. I will see what precautions I can arrange before your soldiers arrive.”

  11:30 a.m.

  Girard pulled her multi-SIM phone into her lap and looked for contact from the Guard Dog. He was silent. Their communication was secured by an encryption program they shared, but even so, Catherine felt at extreme risk. She paused with a sense of trepidation before typing: Contact me immediately with news of your success. I need you at the train wreck in Eudokia. You will find an injured woman, her picture is attached. There has never been a greater threat. Do this and I promise you anything you can name. Even me, if you still desire.

  1 hour earlier

  There were seven of them piled into the four-seat compartment. She had dropped with the liar and the conscript across the aisle when the carriage tipped to its side. Near the bottom, under baggage and debris, someone was wheezing, someone else was moaning. A broken arm kinked across her chest, and across her waist, the soldier was struggling back to consciousness.

  She lay in the heap aware but not moving. She acknowledged the threat within her, Master Aidan, deepest respects, and then recognized the presence of the mothers with a mental bow.

  As she had done nearly seven years before, she flashed brilliant obliterating silence, a silence of the mind designed to severe the ties that bind.

  But one remained: Master Aidan.

  In the silence that should have been void, she was held by one tether. Breath stilled, heart slowed, in the skip between beats, she flashed annihilating silence once again.

  When she returned, he remained.

  She snapped back to the here and now with anger, both annoyed to be impaired and vexed to be found, but more than ever, she was intent on remaining free. Above her, balancing his weight on the sides of two seats, the soldier met her eyes apologetically. She followed his attention to her hip and the skinning knife buried in the flesh and bone.

  “Mine,” he admitted.

  The half curl of her lips spoke forgiveness for the unintended. “Take it,” she said.

  “Maybe …”

  “Take it,” she said with flat force.

  She had seen it repeatedly in the kinder more emotive people of the world, when forced to confront something awful, they would go to a place that was hard and remote, very near to the place that made them nervous of the Cloitare. The soldier was steadfast resolved when he yanked
out the blade, but then he broke. His hands shook as he pulled off his shirt to press it to her hip.

  To console him, she said, “It didn’t hurt.”

  “You’re in shock.” Then from below, they heard another moan. “Hang on buddy,” the soldier encouraged.

  Thinking she looked frail and delicate, he gently pulled her small body up to the side of the seats, but beneath her heavy jacket, he felt dense muscles in his grip.

  Slumping in a tilt that threatened to pitch her back into the pit, he stopped her fall and then laid her flat while she whispered, “I’ll just take a moment here.”

  He reached into the hollow of the seats to haul the boy with the mortal hatchet wound off the pile, then tossing two duffel bags aside, he shifted the dead woman with the broken arm.

  While he dug to the bottom, she took her phone from a pocket and sent a message to the name tagged Enzo: I’m in the train wreck in Alena. Too hurt to help myself and I’m in serious trouble. About to lose my freedom. Please come rescue my ass.

  Spinning weak from the effort, she scrolled through her contacts hoping someone else capable was near, but they were all farther than Enzo. She tried to concentrate on a plan of escape, but Master Aidan’s steady presence unnerved her. He was calling to her, a soft thrum in her thoughts that held her attention, frustrating every attempt to think clear. She needed to lose him and then put vast space between her and Alena. She would go to Sierra, hide and recover with someone she trusted, but as she focused her mind to act, there was an unexpected mental embrace, an affectionate hug across the distance, and with it came the memory of Aidan’s protection.

  The years on her own no longer felt free but like one long exhausting trial that seemed too grueling to continue. Aidan was offering deep, placid comfort, showing her a place to sink with ease, to go under into warmth. She was fighting not to yield to it, wanting to collapse with gratitude and rest within the depths. His singular devotion pulled at her. She told herself, Just for a moment. Just to remember what it was like to be held in safety. Slipping into careless security, she exhaled, letting the breath tremble through her throat as an appreciative moan.

  A firm hand squeezed her arm. “You with me?”

  Shock and alarm brought her back. Mad, stupid, ridiculous, she rebuked herself. He was the Master of Travel and he was in her mind, influencing her will. She needed to burn him off, to pull up such energy it would explode like a star. She could see the action she wanted to take. She believed she could do it. But her body was slowing. Her arm was tired, shaking to hold the phone; it had become incredibly heavy. She opened three new messages thinking the fates that had always protected her would offer some last reprieve, but there was nothing. Nothing she read gave her the slightest hope. All the while, Aidan was softly beckoning, whispering Come, gently tugging with the promise of dark, serene quiet, something close to sleep but deeper, someplace she remembered as home. She thought she would lay her mind softly on the edge near him, but only for a moment, not long at all, just near enough to borrow his strength while she considered what to do.

  Enzo replied: On my way. Are you Ok?

  But she did not answer.

  11:30 a.m.

  No one dared speak to him. He sat perfectly motionless, eyes closed as if in sleep, thin lines of time tracing out from the closed lids, age that had just begun to drag at his cheeks. The black robes of the order laid across his shoulders, his lap, his legs, completely still across his chest and abdomen, showing no sign that he lived. Master Aidan, Master and Mentor to the Bound Bride, Queen Mother, Mother of All, known only to the Cloitare as Mawan, Destroyer of Time.

  He had once himself possessed a string of magnificent titles, but that was all long ago, and now he was merely master and mentor to something altogether more deviant, willful, and destructive than he intended.

  He was forgotten but he was still the Creator, the Architect, the One. He would bring his life’s work into line.

  When she surfaced, he was there, the same unwavering authority she had once grabbed to keep from falling. He was the only Master of the Mind the Cloitare knew, her mentor, the guide she had trusted to save her when the darkness threatened to overwhelm, but she had been too long gone so that when he reached for her, she recoiled. He gently called her back, pulling her into an embrace like when she was a child. He felt her slacken and rest, then shock and mayhem, she fought to be released, but he hushed her still again, and then again and again.

  And then he held her, remembering back to the second beginning.

  He was the Master and Mentor, a specter who had materialized from the Revelations of the Prophets, elaborately decorated parchments that were revered but it seemed not strictly believed. Edited versions of the manuscript were common throughout the Errian continent, found in the homes of the faithful and zealously pressed on the skeptical. Few, if any, had not known to expect him.

  His arrival had been promised for four centuries, exalted as the harbinger of providence, but standing in the palace outside the Cloitare’s double doors, he found himself unwelcome by the nuns. They felt he was many centuries too early. They suspected he was a fraud. But he had known how to open the doors, and once admitted into the convent, he had proved himself with devastating effect. The Cloitare had fallen cowed—angry, resentful, and suspicious as well—but eventually subservient to the destiny they preached.

  His recognition as the awaited Master and Mentor was an exciting and glorious thing for the young of the Cloitare, but he had upset the aspirations of the mothers. The most revered among them found themselves subordinate to the Mentor and Mawan. It rankled, until they saw the continent of Erria respond.

  The Master and Mentor went before the people and told them what they wanted to hear. “My presence before you means the Mother of All is among you.”

  From the balcony of the Cloitare Basilica, he had addressed the plaza, “The time has come for the King of the Clementyne Dynasty to unite with the Cloitare and accept the Bound Bride as his queen.”

  It mattered not the least that the Cloitare doctrines forbid electricity; he was heard without assistance to the very corners of the square. “A new era begins when the Queen Mother gathers her children and unites her family, and you, her sons and daughters, are destined to be the most favored of all people.”

  “Hear me.” His voice demanded reverence and commanded with dread. It held the congregants transfixed. “Hear me and know what you hear is the truth. Whatever else may come to pass in the time which starts again now, one thing above all others will remain true: the Queen Mother will be the mother of heroes. The Mother of All will bring lasting peace.”

  Looking over the assembled faithful, he knew his final words would chill. “The Cloitare are from the people, and the future queen is a babe against the breast in your midst. I call upon the mothers to find her.”

  All over Erria, people were spontaneously hushed as mothers in black robes parted the crowds, gliding the sidewalks, their close scrutiny of infants creating fear among parents, their conversation with toddlers bringing people to tears. A great many children were stalked home and their families persuaded to give to the Cloitare and the future.

  Through the heart of each city and into its slums, the nuns pursued the Mawan, the Destroyer, the Dark Mother of Time. She would be devouring and deadly in her solicitous protection, but the nuns held her secret. The Revelations of the Prophets as the world knew it did not mention her by name. To the public she was strictly the Bound Bride, Queen Mother, Mother of All.

  18 years earlier

  The time to start again, to correct the excesses grown from the past, to raze the ground for the future had become obvious, but Master Aidan had set it himself and for little more reason than he found the present king suitable, the world abhorrent, and himself dangerously indifferent. He did not believe an infant was born that heralded his coming. He was seeking a vessel he could fill. He was the Creator, the first to be prophesied, he did not need a genuine destroyer: he would make on
e. The mothers need simply find him a suitable child.

  Years passed.

  King Remius left his teens and entered his early twenties. Nevertheless, every child brought before Aidan failed to stir within him the slightest interest. He was torn. He knew he would make the Mawan, but he also desired some engagement, some hint of significance to be in the child’s eyes. He began to despair that disappointment would attend his every creation. It was unreasonable, yet he longed to be surprised.

  Aidan sincerely did not believe it was possible, so he viewed the two quarrelling mothers with skepticism.

  “She is near the old railroad houses,” Mother Isabelle told him. “I am certain of it, but I cannot find her.”

  “Because there is nothing to find.” Mother Vesna bit each patronizing word.

  “Yes, exactly.” Isabelle was curt, and then with respect to Aidan, “It is nothing that I find.”

  Vesna threw the first insult, “Your sight lacks the power to penetrate.”

  And Isabelle returned, “You are blinded by the dark.”

  Aidan impassively watched the pupils in each of the mother’s eyes flare wide. If they had been a decade older than thirty, it might not have happened, but they still held the passion of youth. He expected a rush of blood to color their cheeks, but before their skin could warm, both regained control.

  They were in the windowless rooms of the convent’s ground floor where the oil lamps gave scant light, but even so, the mothers’ eyes were constricted as if in full sun.

  Isabelle turned solid orbs of blue on Aidan, saying, “I beg you to go and see for yourself,” while Vesna spoke over her, insisting, “This is a matter for the mothers to resolve.”

  But Isabelle carried on, “The shade begins just beyond the downtown business district, near the boarded up ruins of the inner city. Look for the shadow that shifts like smoke. You will notice it has settled darkest among the rotting houses by the old rails.”