by Coral Walker
“Why worry? Good luck to Mapolos. Shouldn’t I be pleased if he were as capable as me? Two is better than one, mother!”
The Queen’s silence perturbed him. “Mother!” he called again and leaned forward to grasp her hands. “Why do you look so sad? Mapolos is your son too. If Shusha can treat him, I’d be much obliged if I were you.”
Leaping to his feet, he rushed to the door and called into the empty hall. “Tea, with Savi leaves. The Queen needs it.”
Soon he hastened back with the tea, aromatically scented, and watched tenderly as the Queen took a sip. With much relief, he saw the colour return to her pale face.
“I have seen her, Mother,” he said in a placid tone.
“Who?”
“Prince Zeleanda, of course.”
The queen frowned slightly but said nothing.
“I know it is all nonsense of no worth. But there are moments I couldn’t help wishing it were all true. She is a real woman, mother, just like you. You should see her.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about her. If the rumours are true, then we would be husband and wife. How extraordinary! They say we have three children. Two of them are quite different from the other one, so we must have adopted them. But if at least one of them is our own, it proves one thing, mother, can’t you see?”
“It’s not a sin for a Baran to marry a Rionean. God’s punishment of a miserable death for the baby and its mother is nothing but groundless supposition. A Baran can marry a Rionean and have a family together, if…if the air is right. Yes, it must be the air. If the tales of bygone times are right, Barans and Rioneans used to live in harmony many years ago. What if —”
“There isn’t a what-if, my son,” in a firm voice the Queen interrupted him. “Your father is deteriorating fast. I was told that he doesn’t have many days left. The coronation is set. In two days, you will be the King. My son, your path has been laid ahead of you. Just step onto it.”
+++
The Queen’s voice resonated in his head long after she had left. The path she said he should step onto was now twisted and tangled in his troubled thoughts like webs, disconcerting him. He yearned to brush the confusion away, to unburden his mind of all the worries, and focus it solely on Zelda, on her shimmering green eyes and her warm curvaceous body. In an attempt to lead his mind into pleasant daydreams, he imagined himself lying side by side with her and waited impatiently for the feelings to surface — the feelings of a husband towards his wife. He was profoundly vexed that his mind and memory, both too frail and untrustworthy, failed him. The reveries, how evanescent they were—one moment he thought he had it, the next it burst like a bubble.
He tossed and turned and sighed noisily to the dark walls. Something by the pillow slipped into his hand. Without a thought, he took it and felt it with his fingertips. It was the ring with a targar and bokwa that had mysteriously appeared in his pocket at the engagement party.
He felt the middle finger of his left hand and the faint mark above the knuckle — it could be the ring he had worn before.
To prove or disapprove it, he slid the ring quickly on and was surprised that it fitted his finger well, at the exact place where the mark was.
A curious sensation permeated his body, soothing his restive mind. Feeling oddly contented, he let drowsiness overtake him. On the verge of sleep, again he thought of Zelda’s eyes. No longer did they elude him. With the purest green he’d ever seen, they gazed back at him.
That night, he slept soundly and had many dreams — clear and lucid dreams.
9
Model
When Nina came to see him in the early evening, Peter was putting on the last tag. He covered the model hastily with a piece of cloth and turned to greet her.
To his surprise, Ms Upright was with her, looking like an elf with her small frame next to Nina’s tall one, but with the air of a queen.
He was tempted to bow in mockery, as if it were indeed the Queen that he was greeting, but suppressed it. She was no longer the “little Upright” that he used to know.
“The King is dying. Lord Shusha demands that the treatment takes place as soon as possible,” she said stiffly, looking through him.
“Peter, you said something about the wheel. Something that can make Brianna do the healing without forcing her. What is it?”
His face beamed. The wheel, the wheel, it had taken him the whole day to make the model, and his mind was still engrossed by it.
With a dramatic flourish, he swept back to the table where the model was and took hold of the corner of the cloth. Then he hesitated, imagining a pair of reproachful eyes saying that what he was doing was all wrong. However, his hands lifted the cloth, and there before them was the model.
The room was steeped in absolute silence.
“May I?” asked Nina, who, along with Ms Upright, had stationed herself by the side of the model. Without waiting for his consent, she flicked a small switch on the circular stand.
With a quiet hum, a horizontal bar with a doll tied to one end and a chair to the other, rose steadily. A central pole served as its axis, and was also capable of rising and falling. The moment the bar reached a certain height, it started to revolve clockwise about the axial pole. At the same time, above the stand of the model, a disc started spinning anticlockwise. On the opposite sides of the disc, two dolls were placed facing each other. Small white tags were attached to all the dolls.
“Brianna … Bo … Mapolos …” Nina read, squinting. “What’s this black tube with a flared opening?” she asked, pointing.
“It’s an air extractor. It sucks up the air from around Brianna and releases it over the patient.”
“Clever!” exclaimed Nina, and her eyes gleamed. “Did you see it?” She turned to Ms Upright, whose face was as blank as a fish.
“The empty chair, opposite Brianna on the horizontal bar, holds someone hurt or ill, doesn’t it … the victim, who is suffering enough to induce Brianna to release a large amount of her healing dust. The spinning at different levels and in opposite directions is to divert Brianna from the real patient — the Prince — or else her natural revulsion for him would be triggered. And then, of course, without her knowing it and contrary to her intention, her healing dust doesn’t go to the victim, but is sucked up by the air extractor and delivered to the Prince — her invisible patient.”
“However, there are two problems,” without a break, Nina continued, assuming a pompous tone. Somehow she had retrieved the silver pen from her pocket and was now holding it in front of her.
“Firstly,” she looked at the pen like it was the subject she was talking about, “Brianna has developed some superior senses, so spinning around may be insufficient to disorient her thoroughly.”
“Of course, we…we need to find out …” Peter muttered, terrified all of a sudden by where this was leading.
She glanced at him thoughtfully as if she, too, felt the weight of the matter.
“What’s the second problem?” asked Ms Upright, breaking the silence.
“Secondly,” murmured Nina and swallowed hard, “the victim, the unfortunate one who must suffer grievously to lure the maximum amount of healing dust from Brianna. Who could it be?”
Her querying eyes sought their way to Peter’s.
Ruffled, Peter looked away. He had known those questions would surface at some point, but had disregarded them to worry about later. His wandering eyes fell onto the monitor screen — Brianna’s bed was empty except for a crumpled sheet.
“Brianna’s gone,” he gasped.
Ms Upright’s face tensed up. “It was your request, doctor, to unlock the door.”
“There are guards everywhere. She can’t go very far,” said Nina.
Quickly he walked over and tapped on the touch screen. Being engrossed with the model, he had hardly looked at the monitor. It was unlikely she would go for a walk now, since in half an hour they would have their regular stroll together. She always enjoyed her walks with him.
“I think,” he gulped, “she is about to transform.”
10
Net
She ran, stopping here and there to take gasps of air and to allow her heart to slow down. She doubted if it would, as she felt it now, beating wildly. It frightened her profoundly, and she had the weird feeling that it was still gaining speed, and now she could feel a pain in her chest, spasmodic but severe, like the muscles being torn, like her chest was about to burst …
Some distance away, like shadows, the blue-faced guards were following her.
Out of the heavy metal door, out of the shaded path between buildings, she ran and ran. When she was stopped, quite unexpectedly, by the abyss in front, she was annoyed.
She must stop — it was a cliff.
She struggled in her mind, feeling her sense fracturing and crumbling away like a sand castle in the incoming tide, while at the same time, aware of the emergence of a new understanding, irrational and elusive, but full of magic and promise.
A breeze blew her from behind as if to carry her. Her hair flew and brushed against her face, and her skirt flared, dangling over the abyss. She raised her heels off the ground and spread her arms, like greeting an old friend. No longer did she feel her burdensome body, nor the burning sensation of her skin, or her tears, or her throbbing heart. She was there, all there, permeable, light, inconsequential, a breath of the wind, a particle of the air …
“Miss, you are too close to the cliff,” someone shouted behind her.
Startled by the sound, her body jerked up, and her neck stretched like a bird’s.
The mist-filled abyss ahead extended like a path to home.
She sensed the furtive footsteps, the outstretched arms, and before the tip of a finger made contact with her shoulder, she tilted forward and dropped. The space below was an unstoppable river, her river.
There was an instant of panic, not from the precipitous fall, but from the surreal feeling of utter change, as if she were being turned inside out. There wasn’t any pain associated with it, but the physical sensation, the impact on her body and mind, plunged her into inexplicable turmoil, out of which came the serenity, the liberty, the power, and the spreading of her wings.
Yes, her wings, two heavenly, outspread wings. She was no longer herself, the girl Brianna, but a bird, a corporeal, heart-beating bird.
The joy, the source of which she couldn’t quite understand, but which she seemed to have long been anticipating, was finally hers. The simple feeling of it made her heart sing.
She flapped her wings and climbed up, thrusting through the mist.
She saw the land, in the distance, green and expansive, the land she was rooted in and belonged to. The sense of it made her tingle with delight, as if her every cell, that had been dormant for so long, had awoken with the realisation, the thrill of homecoming, the tremor of rebirth.
It was hers, the sky, the land, the breeze, the river.
HERS! HERS!
The net appeared without warning, interrupting her, and sharply brought her back to her old senses —the danger, the fear, the commotion along the cliff top, the gathering blue-faced guards with bows in their hands, and the grey-uniformed officers with tranquillizer guns …
In desperation, she flapped her wings rapidly, thrusting and shoving onto the net. It held her back. She heard the twangs of the arrows being fired. They whizzed past her through the net, into the vast space beyond, her space.
She honked in irritation and glided down towards the crowd, who dodged and ducked in chaos as she swept past. Peter was among them, gazing up at her with anxiety etched in the furrows of his forehead.
She quivered, for a fleeting moment, Brianna again.
But the tall woman was with him, body bent in an S shape, one hand above her head with something glittering in its grip — the sharp needle of a syringe.
Beating hard with her wings she ascended, but it was too little and too late. The sharp sensation of a sting in her chest shocked her, and the numbness that immediately spread from it was terrifying. She flapped laboriously, trying to overcome the numbness, but the wings, ponderous and weakened, were not responding.
She was plunging down.
Before her eyes, the net closed in like a giant claw, and the next instant she was caught. The numbness overtook her breast, her torso and her limbs, and left her heart once more deprived of joy. In the fleeting chasm of light and dark, she saw the face of Teilo grinning in the hands of Lord Shusha.
+++
The people along the cliff top were in a state of commotion, and their gasps of surprise were clearly audible in the misty air.
“Where is she?”
“She dropped into the net, somewhere. I couldn’t quite see it through this damned fog.”
“She must be heavy, just look how she shook the net!”
“Of course. She was huge when she spread her wings.”
“Did you catch the moment she turned into a bird?”
“Not quite. It was too quick. I only managed to get a glimpse when she came out of the mist.”
Peter managed to propel his way to the front of the crowd and without delay went straight to the iron railings that marked the top of the ladder. He swayed as he placed his foot on the first rung.
“Are you all right, sir?” a young officer was staring at him.
He gave a faint smile and started descending. The wind was whistling around his ears, and he was a little light-headed. After all, he hadn’t slept much for over two days.
He saw her half way down, looming out of the swirling mist, a sixteen-year-old wisp of a girl again, frail and delicate. Against the backdrop of her white dress, the dart stuck conspicuously out of her chest, and its blood-red tuft was fluttering like a victorious flag.
Letting go of the rung, he stepped onto the net. The net wobbled worryingly under his weight, forcing him to his knees. The sight of the ground at an unnerving distance below caught him off-guard. Dazzled and vertiginous, he struggled to suppress his nerves and control his limbs.
As soon as he sat evenly on his knees by her shoulder, he reached for her open hand and flinched as he touched it — it was as cold as ice. He cursed as his fingers fumbled for a pulse and cursed again when he failed to locate it. Inching closer, he lowered his ear to her chest and listened.
The heartbeat was weak and unsteady, but audible.
Sighing with relief, he stripped off his jacket and covered her with it. The sight of the tuft-crowned syringe perturbed him. Out of the mist, he saw Nina staggering on her bare feet. A shining tranquillizer gun was in her hand.
“You shot her!” he boomed.
She halted at once, bewildered at the fury in his tone.
“Are you blaming me?” she sounded genuinely surprised, and her eyes widened swiftly and then narrowed. “If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would. Besides, it was an order — if she evolved into some beast, then I should shoot her down.”
“Whose order?”
“Mine.” A tall, portly man emerged from behind her.
Kevin Renshell!
Peter straightened his back, puzzled. He hadn’t expected to see his old friend in such a fraught situation as this.
Kevin looked radiant and hearty — one could tell even through the greyish mist. A broad smile widened his face as he came closer with confident strides, shaking the net with his shiny black boots.
How Peter hated to see the net wobbling like that. It made him sick in his stomach as he struggled to stand on his feet. Kevin stretched out his arms before reaching him, took him by the shoulders and hugged him warmly.
“Are you alright, Peter? You look pale,” he sounded concerned.
Peter shrugged, partly to get rid of Kevin’s hands that were still on his shoulders, p
artly to gesture that he was fine.
Two officers brought along a striking orange-coloured rescue basket. After placing it alongside Brianna, they lifted her into it and strapped her in place.
“Sorry, Kevin, I need to go with her,” Peter said apologetically and was about to follow the men.
Kevin grasped his arm. “No, Peter, you are tired, and you need rest. I can take care of her — she will be fine with me.”
Peter stared at him, eyes squinting from the shaft of light that had just broken through the mist and shone brilliantly from behind Kevin’s head. He didn’t quite get it — he had always been the one who took care of Brianna.
“I’m afraid there’s been a change in the arrangements, Peter, and from now on I’ll be in charge of the base. The association felt the operation had been moving too slowly — they want a quick fix; they want to see the stones.”
“I’ll catch up with them. Do you think you’ll be alright? You still look pale,” he emphasised.
Kevin turned and walked in the direction of the ladder. The orange basket was lying near it, while the officers were standing with their arms above their heads, negotiating the ropes that were hanging down from the cliff top.
“Just to let you know. The treatment is taking place in precisely twenty-four hours,” Kevin shouted back.
There was a gust of wind that rolled in with it a thick cloud of mist. For a moment, Peter was surrounded.
11
Spin
He swiped his card. There was a faint beep. The small light flashed orange before flicking back to red, rejecting his card. Straining his eyes, he peeked through the small circular window — nothing but a solid dusky blue. It was one of the rooms with controllable observation windows, and its one-way observation system was turned off.
“Dr Pentland, is there any problem?”
A red-lipped girl in a white shirt and bottle-green skirt was behind him. He had never seen her before. One of the fresh-faced assistants brought here by Kevin to replace the old ones, he assumed.