The Empress' New Clothes

by Jaid Black

  “And we’ll have a solid five minutes to land the conveyance?”

  “Uh huh. Definitely.”

  Geris chewed that over for a moment. After a pregnant pause, she nodded her head succinctly and grinned. “Then Pika’s Place, here we come!”

  * * * * *

  The warrior guardsman entered the black crystal warring arts planning chamber and approached the raised table inside of it with heavy steps. He was going to have to confess to the High King that he had allowed the High Queen to escape the palace yet again. On top of that, the Queen of Ti Q’won had gone with her, which wouldn’t exactly put him in King Dak’s good graces either.

  Around the raised table sat the High King, his three brothers, and five hunting commanders. They were drinking matpow together and discussing their plans to capture the rebel leader Ty. “I believe Jera will lead us right to him,” Rem stated, his features grim. “’Tis just a matter of time.”

  “Aye,” Kil concurred, “the nefarious she-bitch won’t be able to stay away from her lover’s vesha hides o’er long.”

  The warrior guardsman was about to make his presence known, when Commander Cam K’al Ra came tearing into the planning chamber, alerting his superiors and comrades to Jera’s whereabouts. “She has left again!” he roared as he neared the raised table. “One of the hunters from my squadron has followed her to Kogar, an area of wild terrain outside of Sand City where there is naught but gulch beasts and other assorted predators.”

  “Home at last,” Rem murmured.

  “Is she alone?” Zor bellowed, rising to stand.

  “Nay.” Cam grinned. “She is accompanied by an insurrectionist fitting Ty’s description.”

  Kil pounded his fist on the table. “By the goddess, ‘tis about time.”

  “Aye.” Dak stood up, attaching his zykif to the strap of leather around his waist. “Let us go.”

  “Your Majesty, I would that I could speak with you.” The warrior guardsman waited until he had the chamber’s full attention before tamping down his nervousness and confessing the truth. He turned to Zor and nodded grimly. “’Tis the High Queen,” he said quietly, “she and Queen Geris have fled.”

  * * * * *

  “I’m going to kill her for a certainty.” From the luxury of his high-speed conveyance, Zor and his brothers watched the recorded holographic memory of the devious escape of Kyra and Geris from the Palace of the Dunes. Apparently his wily nee’ka hadn’t considered the possibility of roaming holo-cams when she’d put together her asinine plot to leave the palace perimeters without him finding out about it. “The wench’s arse will bear the print of my hand for nigh unto a Yessat year,” he gritted out.

  “As will Geris’s.” Dak clenched and unclenched his fist, the knuckles of his hand deathly white. “For the love of the sands, I wondered what had happened to that pair of leathers!”

  “Why are they sporting those bizarre black slashes beneath their eyes?” Kil asked curiously, slightly bemused by his sisters-within-the-law’s escapade.

  “I’ve no notion,” Zor bit out, his gaze smoldering. “Mayhap ‘tis some primitive first-dimension custom. Mayhap all wenches there thinking to outwit their Sacred Mates don those bizarre black lines.”

  “They can’t possibly think anyone will believe them to be warriors,” Rem intoned. He shook his head, stunned by the women’s audacity. “They are both engorged of sweet juice.”

  “They are both engorged of idiocy!” Zor bellowed. He slashed his hand through the air. “Apparently Kyra needs be set to hatching again. ‘Tis the only time she doesn’t think to bedevil me, when she’s freshly delivered of a pani sac and too tired to mischief-make.”

  “Geris hatched my son but a sennight ago,” Dak muttered. “Apparently hatching ‘twill not work with my nee’ka.”

  “Where are we going?”Rem barked from the backseat next to Kil. “Where think you they went?”

  Kil clapped Rem on the back. His lips curled up into a half-smile. “Pika’s.”

  “Pika’s?”

  “Aye.”

  Zor switched the communicator’s channel, thereby turning off the recorded memory and opening up an unused frequency. “They left over two Yessat hours past,” he announced. “If they have returned to Kyra’s conveyance yet, ‘twill be my pleasure to give them the fright of their lives.”

  Kil raised an eyebrow. “Kyra does not know that you can turn on the communicator within her conveyance?”

  “Kyra doesn’t even know that there is a communicator within her conveyance.”

  Kil and Rem looked to each other and grinned. “Then by all means signal her,” Kil encouraged him, trying to keep the laughter from his tone. “See if your nee’kas are in the Q’ana Tal conveyance.”

  * * * * *

  Laughing uproariously at a joke Geris had just told, Kyra handed her best friend a lit mooka, then took another swallow from the bottle of moonshine matpow. Death and Glok had assured them both that their sweet juice wouldn’t be affected by the drink, for it took no more than “a pissing”, as Death had so nicely put it, to work the contents of it out of the system.

  Moonshine. Gotta love it.

  A little tipsy after just having left Pika’s Place, the women were having the time of their lives, floating aimlessly about the outskirts of Sand City, drinking their moonshine and smoking their mookas.

  “Oh Ger!” Kyra grinned as she passed the bottle back to her. “That’s hilarious!”

  “I know. That Hod dude was a trip.” Geris shook her head, smiling bemusedly. “By the way, how many hours do we have left?”

  “A little over two and a half.” Kyra accepted the bottle of moonshine back from Geris and snorted incredulously. “Not that I’m worried. I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve decided that I don’t care what my husband says.”

  “Me neither.” Geris took a puff from her mooka, then puckered her lips into a frown. “It’s time I laid down the law. This girlfriend does whatever in the hell she wants.” She followed that pronouncement up with a series of snaps and a neck swivel. “I—eeeeekkk!” Geris’s hand flew to her heart as the image of a scowling, furious, enraged Dak appeared before her sotted eyes.

  “I know what you mean,” Kyra mused, oblivious to her best friend’s warning screech. She was too tipsy to register it as significant. “Zor’s just going to have to accept the fact that what I say goes.” She harrumphed. “I think that—shiiiiiit!” Kyra’s eyes bulged noticeably out of their sockets as she stared at the holographic projection before her. Her jaw dropped open.

  Zor was pissed.

  Both women looked to each other, then to their husbands, then back to each other as they pointed at the other one. “It was her idea!” they simultaneously yelped.

  “Kyra!” Zor bellowed. “You will turn your conveyance around anon and go back to the palace to await my return.”

  “You’ve the same instructions,” Dak bit out to Geris, the tic in his cheek lethal. He followed that announcement up with a mimicking series of snaps and a neck swivel. “Now.”

  Kyra glared at the images of Kil and Rem who she could clearly see sitting behind Zor and Dak. Both warriors had hands clamped over their mouths, snickering behind them. “Zor, be reasonable. I—oh my god!”

  “Kyra?”Zor shouted, concern overriding his anger for the moment. “Pani, what is it? What has happened?” When he heard a loud boom and saw both women scream, he bellowed, “Kyra! What is happening?”

  Kyra turned back to her husband’s holographic image. Her silver-blue eyes were wide with fright. “Help us! We’re being shot at!”

  “Oh my god!” Geris screamed. “Our conveyance is going down!”

  * * * * *

  The hearts rate of every Q’an Tal brother sped up rapidly when the frequency went dead. Kil, Rem, and Dak immediately removed their zykifs, preparing to fire back once the Q’ana Tal conveyance and its pursuers were within their sights.

  Zor accelerated the high-speed conveyance up to hyper-mode, sho
oting off and leaving a trail of gastrolight spark in its wake. His stern features grim with worry, he quietly issued his command. “Each of you look to your side of the conveyance. Tell me when you spot Kyra and Geris.”

  All was deadly calm for a full nuba-minute until Rem bellowed out the women’s location.

  “Rem has the right of it. There they are!” Kil pointed toward an area of tall forest where the Q’ana Tal conveyance was rapidly descending to. “Geris was right! They are going down!”

  “For the love of the goddess,” Dak murmured. “Nay. Tell me they are not going down in—”

  “I fear ‘tis so,” Zor choked out. “They are crashing into…”

  “Kogar.”

  Chapter 34

  “Are you okay?” Kyra helped Geris to her feet. Both of them were lucky to be alive so far as she could tell. The conveyance had thrown them at least twenty or thirty yards when it crashed. “Are you hurt?”

  “No—I’m fine.” Geris’s eyes went wide with alarm. “But Kyra, where are we? This place looks like the Trystonni version of Jurassic Park.”

  Kyra took Geris by the hand and squeezed it. She did a thorough scan of their whereabouts and didn’t care for what she was seeing. The place was spooky. It gave her the creeps. “More like the Haunted Forest,” she muttered.

  Tall, gnarled trees as dark as black sackcloth surrounded them for as far as the eye could see. Black, mud-like sand churned sluggishly beneath their feet. Even the winds in this nightmare world seemed to moan.

  The women knew it was still daytime on Tryston, but the forested terrain they were lost in was devoid of light. The only reason they could see anything at all was because of an eerie blue sap that oozed down the twisted bark of the trees, casting off a dimmed bluish glow in the process.

  A humanoid scream echoed throughout the forest. It was quickly drowned out by the sounds of hissing, a bizarre cackling noise, and a loud crunch. The screaming stopped.

  Geris clamped both of her hands over her mouth and whimpered softly.

  “Why did it stop?” Kyra whispered hysterically. “Oh god Ger, why did the screaming stop?”

  Geris shook her head, indicating that she either didn’t know or that she didn’t care to examine the reason behind the sudden quiet. Most likely a little—or a lot—of both.

  Swallowing nervously, Kyra slowly glanced upward. She caught her breath and clamped a hand over her mouth before she cried out. Nudging Geris in the ribs, she told her with wild eyes to take a look.

  Winged beasts of prey loomed menacingly overhead. Their powerful reptilian bodies were thickly armored with a blue-black metallic substance. If the creatures were standing erect, Kyra didn’t doubt for a moment that they would be over eight feet in height. Twelve-inch razor-sharp nails protruded from each of the beasts’ digits. Like humans, they possessed two hands and five finger-like projectiles on each one. The musculature of the creatures was ominously thick and lithe.

  Kyra could only be grateful that the monsters had apparently not picked up their scents…yet. “Ger,” she whispered, her body quivering with fright. “We need to start walking, sweetheart. Okay?”

  “Y-Yeah.” Her eyes darted back and forth restlessly. “But which way do we go?”

  Kyra shook her head. “I don’t know.” She took a deep breath and peered at Geris. In the midst of the black forest, it was impossible to estimate which way lay Sand City and which way would take them further into the bowels of hell. “Rock, paper, scissors?” she choked out.

  “Y-Yeah.” Geris inclined her head, nodding absently. “Fine. If I win,” she whispered, “we head to the west, if you win, we go east.”

  “Fine. Two out of three?”

  “Yeah.”

  Seconds later, the women headed due west. They both doubted the direction would matter, as they could still make out no evidence of light from either way. If they got out of here, both women realized it would either be because they’d been rescued or because they happen-chanced onto a path that would lead them into a clearing.

  A half an hour later, Kyra and Geris rounded a narrow path that led to an even thicker patch of gnarled black trees. The oozing blue sap was denser, illuminating the barely traversed section of the forest to a greater degree.

  A flash of red caught Kyra’s eye. Her head snapped in the direction she’d seen the flicker of color and motion, but she could no longer discern signs of any life other than black trees and glowing blue sap. Swallowing roughly, she shook her head and continued on.

  “I feel like we’ve been walking forever,” Geris muttered, “only we aren’t getting any closer to being out of this hellhole.”

  Another flash of red flitted past. Kyra inhaled sharply and clutched Geris’s hand. “Did you see that?” she whispered, eyes wide.

  “See what?”

  “That flicker of red.” Kyra squeezed her hand tighter. “I feel like we’re being watched by something.” She took a steadying breath. “By something hunting us perhaps.”

  “Oh sweet Jesus, please don’t say that, girl.” Geris removed her hand from Kyra’s long enough to lace their fingers together and clamp down as tight as humanly possible.

  Another flash of red sped by.

  “Did you see it that time?” Kyra asked tensely. Eyes wide with terror, her head darted back and forth in a futile effort to locate it.

  “Y-Yes.” Geris waited for Kyra to look at her before she bore her gaze into hers and gulped nervously. “And d-did you hear that hissing and c-cackling sound it made?”

  The winds picked up, moaning like an old man rattling out his last breath of life before succumbing to death. Kyra’s free hand flew to her heart. “Y-Yes. I—I heard it. It was just like before when…”

  “The screaming stopped,” Geris murmured, finishing her thought for her.

  “We need to make a run for it, Ger.” Kyra felt surreal, her body oddly disjointed from her soul. “Let’s start running. Let’s just run and—oh my god.”

  “Sweet Jesus.” Geris gripped Kyra’s hand harshly even as her other one flew to her mouth, concealing it to keep from crying out.

  A body. A very mangled, beheaded body lay at the foot of a twisted black tree, blue ooze absorbing into the murdered man’s remains. It was clear now that the sap was some sort of gel-based scavenger, feeding off of what a predator had left behind.

  “Ger,” Kyra cried out softly, “we need to get out of here.”

  Geris shook her head up and down, agreeing. “Let’s bypass that poor man’s body and—”

  A high-pitched bleeping sound caused both women to stop talking, and—at least momentarily—breathing. Kyra knew that sound. Although she wasn’t exactly a warring arts aficionado, she recognized the shrill bleep of a zykif being turned to engaged mode from her brief fling with Glok’s weapon in Pika’s when she’d run from Zor. Somehow she wasn’t overly surprised when she turned around and saw…

  “Jera.”

  * * * * *

  “There’s no sign of them.” Rem walked to where his brothers stood and nodded implacably. His features were harsh. “This is definitely the Q’ana Tal conveyance, yet are they nowhere within its vicinity.”

  “Where could they be?” Dak mumbled, scratching his head in agitation and more than a little worry.

  “I don’t know,” Zor rumbled in an undertone, his deep voice quieter than a fading echo. “Though the possibilities don’t bear thinking about.”

  Kil shook his head, sighing. Nay, the possibilities that came to mind didn’t bear dwelling upon for a certainty.

  And yet no warrior present could keep the horrific thoughts from pounding relentlessly through their minds. Mayhap rebels had taken the women. Or mayhap gulch beasts had dined on them. Or, the goddess forbid, heeka-beasts. At least a gulch beast would swoop down and take out his prey mercifully. A heeka-beast had no mercy. She enjoyed the killing, enjoyed tearing her prey apart before feeding upon their brains, then leaving them to the gulch sap to dine on.

  Zor took
a deep breath and refused to succumb to grief just yet. He would continue to hope that Kyra still lived. He assured himself that he would know had she passed onto the goddess’ realm. As her Sacred Mate, he would know. “Let us split into groups of two. Kil and Rem, go east and circle back. Dak and I will head west and circle back.”

  “What of north and south?” Rem asked.

  “Kyra wouldn’t bother,” Zor informed him. “The trees are too dense. They have gone either east or west for a certainty.”

  “Then let us be off.”

  * * * * *

  “Jera, what are you doing? Are you crazy?”

  Kyra held up both palms in the universal sign of surrender before putting the question to her plotting sister-in-law. “I can’t imagine Rem would be pleased with you if you killed Geris and me. In fact, I’d say he’d probably have you thrown into the nearest dungeon.” The thought that Rem would most likely never know at whose hands they’d died registered in her mind, but she refused to dwell upon it.

  Jera gave a pompous snort. “Think you I concern myself with Rem’s wants? Nay, when my beloved Ty takes over Sand City I shall be Empress and High Queen, and you”—she waved the zykif menacingly—“will already be dead and dined upon and unable therefore to bear witness.” She grinned evilly. “Mores the pity.”

  “Who is this Ty?” Geris asked, anger overriding any concern for their dilemma, at least for the moment. “And why would you betray your own Sacred Mate for him?”

  “Ty is the leader of the insurrectionists,” Jera replied proudly, “and he is my true Sacred Mate.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Kyra muttered more to herself than anyone else, though both Jera and Geris had heard her.