Gloriana's Masque

by Eleanor Burns

  “You are ashamed of their gratitude, Sir? They might still live in terror, or be dead but for you. You and your Shorn Ones were the first of the Emperor’s men to rebel. You arrested the High Priest of Miquiztlitecuhtli yourself.”

  “True, though I served him and the Emperor long enough before that.”

  “As did we all, for a time,” she replied, reassuringly. “They seemed for a long while to be our only hope.”

  “Hmm. I somehow doubt that you were ever taken in by them,” he declared, astutely, “but I shan’t press you to be honest on that point, if it pleases you to share in my blame. In any case, the life of a holy penitent agrees with me far more than the life of a pampered courtier … or at least it did, until yesterday. You’ll be pleased to hear, though, that those meditation techniques you taught me have been effective. I’ve started to have visions regularly, mostly vague, but some of them astonishingly clear and vivid. Last evening, I was sitting on top of Chimalli Hill, watching the sun set over the city, when I went into my trance. That was when I saw it: a beam of light, like a fine thread of glittering ychcatl, reaching out into the east further than I could see. Somehow, I knew that the light was coming from that old temple in the ruins of Yolquetza: that place that’s always crawling with tzitzimitleh.”

  “And which, you’ll note, is on the way between here and Atlah,” pointed out Amoxtli, with a grim, if triumphant air. Xochitla still did not share his certainty, although it gave her no pleasure to doubt her two friends. Much as she respected Necalli, he was only a novice mystic, and his instincts were still those of a soldier, while Amoxtli’s were still those of a spy. So what if there are strangers in the land? she thought. As if we of all people have any business to judge the motives of uninvited visitors, and unlike us at least they don’t seem to have come in full battle array. Yet from her friends’ concern, it might as well have been a whole fleet of Men of the East rather than one paltry boatload.

  “What are you both so afraid of?” she asked, gently but directly. The two men exchanged troubled looks, then Amoxtli answered her.

  “That they might steal the Blessing from us?” he said, framing it as a question against the probability that she would treat it sceptically, and he was not disappointed in this prediction.

  “‘Steal it from us,’ Amoxtli?” she repeated, with pitying incredulity. “It isn’t a quill of gold dust or a sack of kakahuatl beans, you know. You can’t just pick up the Blessing and sail away with it. I’m certain there’s no way they can simply take it from us now that we have it.” Still, she could not say why she was so certain of that, other than pure, overpowering intuition. “In any case, let us suppose your easterners have come here to, shall we say, share in the Blessing. Is it for us to deny or judge them? If they have the courage to approach the holy sites, let them take the same risk I took, and the teotl will decide their fate. It is not our place to second-guess divinity.”

  “And if they do worse than that?” asked Necalli, severely. “If they plunder the Holy of Holies, or if their rites offend the teotl, what then? The tzitzimitleh ignore us for now. Will they continue to do so if we permit aliens to commit sacrilege?” Xochitla found that she had no answer to that, though it was a troubling notion. The legends claimed that the tzitzimitleh had the power, when fully unleashed, to destroy all life, although that was only supposed to happen at the due time. Then again, was it only her hope that she would not live to see the End of the Sun that made her sceptical? Surely one near-cataclysm per life is enough horror for anyone, but who am I to decide? Could that wretched prophecy have something in it after all? Hoping, in spite of her own faith, for a slightly more sceptical and considerably less apocalyptic viewpoint, she turned to Amoxtli again.

  “And is that what you think?” she asked, pointedly. “Sacrilege? Does that even fit with your notion of the teotl as an inanimate ‘force of nature?’”

  “I don’t know what they are,” he admitted, “but I do know not to go messing with them, whereas these Men of the East don’t seem to. A small party of them couldn’t have come here to invade or pillage, so it can only be the Blessing that they’re after. If they start poking around where they shouldn’t … who’s to say things can’t get any worse than they were before you and your sisters took that walk of death? Do you want their sacrifices to have been in vain?”

  “Of course not.” Heavens forbid, after what became of Chicoztli, Nenetl, and Zamalotl, may they find rest. “But what are you suggesting we do about it, and for what do you need my help?”

  “I can still muster a few loyal men,” declared Necalli, resolutely. Like the good old soldier he was, his spirits markedly improved when the conversation was focused on action rather than debate. “Sir Tlacelel and his men will gladly accompany us. They’re bored out of their wits with guard duty and street patrols, anyway. A good old-fashioned manhunt will come as a breath of fresh air to them. Pochtecatl Amoxtli knows all the roads, and the secret ways as well, and he can track as well as any man from here to Mictlamtlach. That accounts for any physical risks we might encounter from these eastern barbarians. As for the spiritual risks, since we may have to venture into the holy sites ourselves … I would trust in no-one but you, Xochitla, to see us safely through them. May we count on you?”

  Flattered though she was, Xochitla’s heart quickened and her stomach contracted at the thought of walking along those derelict, haunted avenues again. Could I do that? On the other hand, if we find these strangers quickly enough, then maybe neither they nor I will even have to. That was a far more appealing thought, although she knew that the harder option might still lie before her. And if the alternative might be to render it pointless that we ever went there at all, and my poor sisters had to die like that for nothing … if not worse? She breathed deeply, closed her eyes, and forced a hasty but passable meditative calm upon herself before replying.

  “You may count on me, Sir. Nevertheless, I do believe it may not be necessary to kill these strangers. Your men ought to be adept at taking live capt– …” she began, but tailed off in embarrassment. The only reason the Shorn Ones were adept at taking live captives in the field was because the more luckless souls they had been able to capture for the priests of Miquiztlitecuhtli to sacrifice, the more promotions and prize money they had earned. While this was obviously not a pleasant memory for Necalli, he just smiled weakly and waved his hand dismissively.

  “Yes, that should be easy enough … if you think it worthwhile,” he declared, evidently unconvinced, but happy to let her have her way if it eased matters.

  “They may not be evil men,” she explained. “Perhaps if we bring them back here, we can make them understand things better, in time. The Blessing may even come to them without them having to seek it in such places of danger. After all, it came to everyone in the Alliance: not just to me and my sisters, though we were the only ones who went into Teohuayotli to pray. Who is to say how it really works?”

  “That’s fair enough. I’ve no wish to hunt them to their deaths if they merely turn out to be idiots. If they should turn out to be hostile, on the other hand … My men will be fully armed, and I suggest you arm yourself as well, Pochtecatl,” he urged Amoxtli. “I’ll send word for you both when my team are assembled. It won’t take more than a few hours, so I suggest you get some rest. You look as if you could use it, lad, and we’ll need you on form. And I expect you’ll need to appoint a deputy in your absence,” he added, to Xochitla. “I’ll leave you to it, but expect to hear from me before sunset … and thank you, High Priestess. Your presence will inspire my men more than I can say. I know the Blessing protects us from the tzitzimitleh, but still … A Shorn One does not fear death, but to become that which cannot die, but lingers on forever in the shadow of Miquiztlitecuhtli, a puppet to his evil will, is something only a madman would not fear. Blessing or no, we will all draw confidence from being accompanied by the woman who once faced them down and defeated them,” he concluded, with a respectful bow, and departed.

&
nbsp; The most senior ex-general of the former Alliance, and I’m a hero even to him, thought Xochitla, feeling miserably inadequate to the task before her. As if the tzitzimitleh could be ‘defeated’ … Their ‘food supply’ had been reduced, but they were still out there, patiently waiting for fate to turn in their favour again. Could these strangers do that? If there was any risk of it, then Necalli was right, and it had to be averted, but she still wished that her presence had not been necessary, nor Amoxtli’s. Having only just been relieved of the fear that he had come to some harm on the road, now she was faced with the task of leading him into the place she dreaded most of all, where she had seen Chicoztli mouthing futile cries for help just before the invisible forces tore her eyes out and dragged her into their darkness. She was seventeen … Much good the Blessing did her parents, she thought, while shedding bitter tears. Amoxtli must have noticed, as he rose from his mat and took her gently in his arms. He stank of sweat and dust, but that did not deter her from returning the embrace, and drawing him even closer. They will not take you too, I swear it.

  “I’m not keen on this either,” he whispered, soothingly. “The thing is, though … Maybe you can remember the times before it all went to pot, but I was raised in the Theocracy. All that bloodshed, bullying, prejudice, and superstition just seemed normal to me. Stupid, yes, but normal. I never even imagined things could be like they are now … That you and I could be together whenever we wanted, without fear of being stoned to death,” he clarified, tightening his hold and kissing her several times before resuming. “I won’t risk losing that … losing you on account of some foreign interlopers sticking their noses where they’ve got no business.”

  “I understand,” she replied, comprehensibly although slightly muffled by emotion, and having her face pressed hard against the crook of his neck. “Just … if there’s any fighting to be done, please leave it to Necalli and his men. Promise me.”

  “I promise. Far be it from me to deprive the Shorn Ones of their sport. The teotl know, they get little enough of it these days.”

  “Good.” Much as I’d like to avoid spilling even these strangers’ blood, if it’s a choice between you and them, I’m afraid they don’t even get a look in.

  CHAPTER 11 – THE ELUSIVE DR. KYTTSEN

  Maradith’s night had been long and arduous, all but consumed in trying to copy down as much of the Queen's journal as she could faithfully recall. She was confident that she had started out well, but at about four thirty in the morning and just over twenty pages into it, fatigue hit home and her mental images became hopelessly hazy. Realising she now had little chance of copying anything legible, she decided she would do better to take what opportunity she could to get some sleep, and hopefully the information would still be in her brain and easier to recall in the morning.

  The sun was fully risen and bright when she arose, or rather was rudely awakened by having her shoulder agitated. She opened her bleary eyes to see a vaguely Kasimir-shaped blur standing over her bed, which soon resolved into the man himself, although the change was no improvement. Once in focus, he was deathly pale, with heavy bags under red-rimmed eyes, hair shooting out at all angles, and he had clearly not taken the time to wash nor change: he had simply pulled his long silver-braided jacket over the mead-soaked silks in which she had bundled him into bed last evening. In spite of his washed-out look, his expression was alert and intense, and his voice, although somewhat sandpapery and accompanied by a bitter miasma of stale coffee, was also full of purpose and urgency:

  “Delator? This is important. Can you hear me? Maradith, I need–”

  “Yessir,” she mumbled, dragging herself upright. “I’m sorry I couldn’t copy it all down, but I’ll have another crack at it as soon–”

  “Never mind that now. I need to see that priestess. Can you bring her here?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” replied Maradith, vaguely surprised. While she had known that they would be obliged to share information with Saskia, she had not supposed Kasimir would be in any hurry to do so. “She told me where she was staying. Said she’d be waiting to hear from us. Err, were the documents alright, then?” she asked, hopefully. “No problems reading them? It was a tough job.”

  “They were … illuminating, Delator, and mostly legible. Less so as it went on, admittedly. The last couple of pages were completely indecipherable,” he remarked, not very tactfully, although it only confirmed what Maradith herself had feared. “You’re quite the artist, though. Some of those diagrams … very interesting stuff, though not what I’d been expecting. I need more answers, so fetch me that priestess. Quickly would be best. Our illustrious hostess has scheduled the first round of negotiations for this evening, and if possible I’d like to take the trouble to look and feel less like a bonnacon’s breakfast before then. However, this business is more important, so bring her in here even if you find me in my bath … which is entirely possible,” he remarked, as the sound of a pitcher of water being poured drifted across the corridor from Kasimir’s room. “I’d better get to it before it’s stone-cold. The priestess, please, as soon as you’re ready,” he concluded, and exited her room.

  Even with no leisure to eat nor wash, it took Maradith barely two minutes to dress and groom herself to a far more presentable degree than Kasimir, and as she left the palace and strode purposefully down the streets of Kadar Ydril, none would have suspected how tired she actually felt. The bracing mountain air soon revived her, however, and she quickly located Saskia’s home. Slightly to her credit, Maradith thought, the hierarch had disdained her predecessor’s luxurious apartments in the palace in favour of a modest hut on the outskirts of the town. It was built in traditional Alvere style with a foundation of coarse pebbles, walls of wicker intertwined with living plants, a roof of living turf, and with no cut stone, concrete, nor metalwork to be seen. Maradith was curious to see how comfortable the interior was, but was denied the opportunity as Saskia, having seen her approaching through a window, rushed out to meet her. The priestess’s hungry, impatient look immediately informed Maradith that she would have no trouble whatsoever in carrying out her mission, and indeed her only trial proved to be in keeping up with Saskia as they hurried back to the palace. Me finding him in his bath is one thing, but I think I’d prefer that she didn’t, she thought, quickening her marching pace.

  Fortunately, Kasimir seemed to have hurried his ablutions. By the time they reached his quarters, the wooden tub was standing in the corner, emitting neither steam nor heat, while Kasimir himself, looking a little fresher and damper, not to mention a lot happier in a fresh linen shirt and trousers, was seated at the table, poring over the copied documents. As soon as she saw them, Saskia’s hungry look became positively predatory, and she started forwards, only for Kasimir to suddenly gather all the papers up in such a way that their contents were completely hidden from her, much to her vexation. Ah, not in such a hurry to show them after all¸ thought Maradith, with respect. She had grown so protective of Kasimir, vulnerable as he often seemed, that it was a bit of a struggle for her to bear in mind that the Senate had not chosen him for this mission because they valued naiveté. He knows it’s a game, and how it’s played, though I don’t expect she’ll be a good sport about it.

  “What’s the meaning of this, you backstabbing Lucinian sot?” asked Saskia, ably fulfilling Maradith’s prediction. “We agreed to share Maradith’s information. If you’re planning on cheating me out of–”

  “You can have the information,” interrupted Kasimir, levelly, “if you tell me one thing: who was she?”

  “What in the Abysm are you drivelling– ?”

  “Don’t dissimulate with … I mean, don’t waste both our time,” said Kasimir, looking a little disturbed at himself. “I’d expected the Queen to have some flair for engineering and alchemy, based on those weapons she gave the Brythons, but when I saw the scientific and esoteric knowledge she expresses in this journal … There is no way in all creation that she had her education in this bac
kwater state, so what was her name before she began stealing titles from legendary Alvere monarchs?”

  “I thought you Lucinians were meant to be all-seeing when it came to your own citizens,” replied Saskia, with a sneer. “Very well, her secrecy is nothing to me. Before she started calling herself ‘Gloriana,’ she was a prying nonentity by the name of Virana Kyttsen. May I have those papers now, or were you planning to drool all over them first?” she asked, cruelly if vividly describing Kasimir’s open-mouthed stare of astonishment, which Maradith was at a loss to account for. Virana Kyttsen? A missing person, or a wanted criminal, maybe? I’ve surely never heard of her, and I thought I knew RepSec’s wanted lists off by heart.

  “Is she someone I ought to have heard of, Lord Citizen?” she asked, and knew at once from Kasimir’s incredulous, exasperated expression that she most definitely ought to have done. After a few seconds of silent, appalled mouthing, the secretary managed to force a few words out.

  “Someone you ought … ? You mean you’ve never … ? ‘Nonentity?’” he repeated, hurling an acidic glance at Saskia as he did so. “Tell me, Delator: how often have you used a Mauritz-Kyttsen Telegraph in your time?”

  “Err, often enough,” answered Maradith, feeling both ignorant and unjustly persecuted at the same time, but no let-up seemed to be in sight.

  “Right,” he continued, ruthlessly, “and then there’s the fact that the standardised code for telegraph messages is called VK-Binary, and not just because they liked the way those two letters looked together. Oh, and if memory serves, during Dr. Kyttsen’s time at the Lyceum her studies were funded by the military, for whom she accordingly developed a handy little sidearm known as the Kyttsen Revolver. Now, do correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that model is issued to delators,” he concluded, on a sarcastic high, and slumped back into his chair, looking tired and dejected.