by L. Penelope
The new acting director of the Intelligence Service had believed that Zann Biddell would be more malleable to questioning now that he was officially under arrest—albeit for another crime. Of course these were the same agents who hadn’t managed to gather enough evidence to arrest him for his actual offenses, so she wasn’t hopeful.
Two Intelligence Agents appeared and led her and Camm to a stairwell in the corner. They descended into a dimly lit concrete box leading to an equally dim hallway lined with doors. One of the agents opened a door in the middle of the hall and ushered them through with a short bow.
Inside, a bare bulb in the ceiling created harsh shadows. A small metal table and chair were pushed against a wall directly under a window looking on to another room. With the exception of a few chairs scattered around the space, it was otherwise devoid of furniture.
A secretary sat at the table, headphones affixed to her ears, scribbling on a pad in shorthand as she stared through the window into the other room. Jasminda stepped up behind her, peered through the tinted glass, and froze.
“Is that him?”
Camm came to her side. “Zann Biddell in the flesh.”
“And he can’t see us?”
“No, this is a transparent mirror, Your Majesty,” one of the agents said. “Inside of the interrogation room, it looks like a regular mirror. He can only see himself.”
And himself wasn’t much to look at. There was nothing visually that marked him as evil. He was small and plain, with a forgettable face. His head was shaved, with nothing of the oddly pale stubble that would mark him as half-foreign. She’d never been face-to-face with Biddell and found him disappointing in person. Wouldn’t it be easier if his villainy were painted across his skin or marked with something terrifying like horns or red, blazing eyes?
An interrogator was in the room with him, seated with his back to the mirror. Biddell looked unperturbed, hands bound with metal cuffs and placed on the table in front of him. He had been held already for two days while his paperwork was sorted, but he didn’t look worried in the least.
“Is there a way for us to hear what’s being said?” Jasminda asked.
The agent nodded and moved to a speaker on the wall she hadn’t noticed before. He turned the dial and Biddell’s silvery voice filled the room.
“I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, Agent Verall. But I will repeat it as often as I must until it penetrates. I had nothing to do with the smoke bombing, or any of the other attacks.” His gaze was wide open, unblinking. But Jasminda’s Song clearly sensed the lie.
Hundreds of years ago, that would have been enough to convict a murderer in the halls of justice. But now, since Earthsong had been absent from Elsira in any real way for generations, she could know the truth and not be able to do anything about it. Not via the legal system at any rate.
“But you admit,” the agent was saying, “that you do not find the attacks to be tragedies.”
Biddell raised his shackled hands as if to motion with them, forgetting he could not, and sighed. “Whoever is responsible for the unrest is a patriot, I’ll grant you. They are doing what must be done to save our land and our way of life.”
Jasminda felt like a hot knife was being run underneath her skin, attempting to flay it from her flesh. She fisted her hands and breathed deeply, forcing herself to stay where she was and keep listening.
“I will not apologize for being a separationist. No good can come of trying to blend oil and water together. They will never mix. Elsira is our land, as it should be. Let the grols practice their witchcraft somewhere else.”
“You realize that statements such as this along with your recent editorials in the same vein are quite damning.” Agent Verall’s voice was even, conversational. No hint of the anger racing through Jasminda’s veins.
“Having an opinion is not a crime in this land. Unless the new queen has managed to change our laws.” Biddell shifted in his chair, rattling at the chains on his ankles and wrists. “She is innovative, I’ll grant her that, but I am confident that there is no evidence of the crimes you accuse me of.”
“I’m sure you’ve made certain of that,” Verall said, wryly. Biddell chuckled and the bastard interrogator laughed with him.
“I’ve heard enough,” Jasminda said, fury heating her. “How do I get in there?”
“Your Majesty?” The agent next to her looked aghast. Camm’s lips were pursed; he shook his head silently.
“I would like to question the prisoner.” She spoke slowly and clearly.
“I’m—I’m sorry, Your Majesty, that would be highly irregular, it’s—”
“Do I need to go above your head for this, Agent?”
The man paled and looked to the transparent mirror and then back to his queen. “Of course not. Please follow me.”
Camm trailed her silently as she followed the flustered agent down the hall and around the corner. Two more suited men, pistols holstered at their sides, stood on either side of the door to the room that must hold Biddell. They recognized the queen and straightened, then sketched perfunctory bows. She stood before the door, icily staring until one of them opened it.
Agent Verall looked up, startled, and Jasminda met Zann Biddell’s gaze in the mirror. He hid his surprise well with a mask of implacability, but Jasminda felt the truth with her Song. The last person he’d expected was the new queen.
“I’d like to speak with Master Biddell, and then I’d like you to organize his transfer to the palace dungeon.” She did not look at Verall directly, but caught him blinking at her as he rose slowly.
When he went to speak, she raised a hand. “Now, please.”
The room cleared quickly. She gave a final look to her assistant as the door closed and found him frowning at her.
Shaking off Camm’s concern, she paced to the chair Verall had vacated, removing her gloves. This was a dreary room, bare bulb and cinder blocks, gray on gray, lifeless. If there was a psychological advantage they were trying to achieve, she wondered if that might be done better through other means.
She sat and faced the figure who had caused so much destruction. He was feeling smug, though his face was expressionless. The only outward hint he gave of any emotion was a small narrowing of his eyes.
“Your Majesty,” he finally said, inclining his head slightly.
“Master Biddell. Honestly, I’d expected more. You are a remarkably average man to have created such terror in our land.”
“I’m a simple fisherman. The only ones who should fear me are the fish.” He sat back trying to give an air of casual aplomb.
Jasminda clasped her hands before her. “You talk a lot about witchcraft and its dangers. Do you really believe that Earthsong is not real?”
Biddell looked rueful. “Magic exists. I know this. But I also know that with such power comes inevitable tyranny. Hasn’t the True Father shown us this? Hasn’t the Goddess?”
“What of compassion?” Jasminda tilted her head, diving deep into his emotions, trying to determine if there was any shred of pathos within him. “Many of the Lagrimari who managed to keep their Songs have emptied out hospitals around the country, healing those who allowed it. Boosting the paltry harvest as much as they could. Helping the land. You conveniently forget the benefits of Earthsong.”
“I forget nothing. Not the stories of the veterans of the Breach Wars. The terror in their eyes and voices as they recount the horrors of hailstorms and mudslides killing their friends, ripping our country apart.” His light-colored eyes held only the merest hint of gold. His gaze was flinty and never left her face.
“You should also recall that an Earthsinger can sense lies. Can feel emotion. So tell me again how you had nothing to do with the smoke attack this week on the apartment building, the temple bombing, the hospital fire last month, or the hotel sabotage? Please, tell me these lies to my face.”
His jaw tightened and he looked away for the first time. Not with anything close to guilt but with ang
er. Scorching flames rose higher within Jasminda, his anger only stoked her own.
“Tell me how you and the Dominionists or the Reapers or whatever you want to call yourselves are not responsible for nearly a hundred dead since the fall of the Mantle. Do you know how many Elsirans are among that number? Do you care?”
His jaw worked from side to side. A hint of something close to remorse was a tiny ember within. “There is always collateral damage in wartime. The veterans I spoke to told me that as well.”
“But you yourself have never served. Didn’t choose to join the army and help defend the land, did you?”
He looked away, unsettled. Ashamed.
“Oh, forgive me, I forgot. You tried to, didn’t you? But were deemed unfit for service. What was the cause again? I reviewed your files but I think it’s slipped right out of my head.” His anger built, adding more fuel to her own inner fire. He did not answer.
“Seizures, was that it? An affliction you’ve suffered from since childhood. You know, I read once that Udlanders have unique nutritional requirements due to generations living in such harsh climates in the icy north. Their bodies have adapted amazingly, but when they travel and are denied specific nutrients only found in their land, their bodies have a very severe reaction.” She tapped her lips. “A pity your mother never told you that.”
And just like that, he snapped. Rage filled his eyes and he stood up sharply, sliding his chair back with the force of his motion. It clattered as it fell. They were about the same height, and she had nothing to fear from him physically even without his shackles. The fact that the mother who had abandoned him as a baby was a foreigner, an Udlander no less, pejoratively called Icemen and thought to be little more than barbarians, was something Biddell kept well-hidden. To the outside world he was an Elsiran patriot, a nationalist, and a leader.
The door to the room opened but she waved off the armed agents. Once it closed again, she clasped her hands on the table calmly. “My mother is a sore spot for me as well. It’s unfortunate, is it not, to grow up without one.”
He looked like a bull, breathing through his nose, face red, sweat dotting his forehead and upper lip. Slowly, he calmed himself. She sensed him reel in his murderous impulse toward her. She could only imagine the names he was calling her in his mind, the many ways he dreamt of ending her life, but his lips didn’t open.
He righted his chair, and pulled it back to the table, then took his seat. His breathing was still somewhat labored but he was once again composed. “The loss of a mother is a tragedy,” was all he said.
“Certainly.”
“And no, Your Majesty, I never had the privilege to serve my country in the military. I found other ways.” His emotions shifted so abruptly that her breath caught. The rage not just muted, but gone, tucked away out of reach and replaced again by insolence. “You know we do have something in common, you and I. We both came from humble beginnings, but whereas I have found my way amongst the common man, you have moved on to much loftier circles. Appointed queen, even before you married the king. Had you not married, would you have ruled together?”
She wasn’t sure what he was leading to, and spoke carefully. “Yes. It was an unusual occurrence, but the Goddess had the right to name Her successors. She named us both, independent of our marriage.”
“King Jaqros of course comes from the line of rulers. An Alliaseen has sat upon the throne since the days when the Queen Who Sleeps was originally awake.” A strange smile played upon his lips. “But an ul-Sarifor? Am I saying that correctly?” He was not, but she didn’t bother to correct him. “What was the precedent? The reasoning?”
She breathed in deeply. “I know you do not follow the Goddess Awoken, but She does everything for a reason.”
“I’m sure She does. And the reason to elevate an ignorant child to the highest leadership in our land? An inexperienced, Borderland bumpkin full of witchcraft and foreign blood? It makes me wonder how five hundred years of sleep has affected the poor Goddess’s mind. I fear incompetence at best, treachery at worst.”
Jasminda’s jaw clenched. “Treachery?”
He spread his hands as far apart as he could. “She is the sister of the True Father, is She not? I’ve heard whisperings. Their shared blood must be tainted, else how could one be so evil and the other retain goodness? No, I think that She awakened and saw a land vastly changed and sought to destroy it. How better to do that than install an unfit, unqualified leader? A reckless, foolish girl with no idea what she’s doing who is already leading us into ruin. Drought, embargo, hunger, lawlessness, protests—all under your watch. All of which you have done nothing to help or prevent. Tell me, why do you think She made you queen? Because of all of your experience and mastery?” His laugh was cruel, it edged into the doubts within her heart, watering the poisonous seeds almost lovingly. They drank it up.
She lifted her chin. She had often wondered the same thing, asked Oola more than once, but gotten nothing but vague platitudes in response. Yes, she was a child of two lands, and yes, she represented the unification bodily, but was that the reason she was queen? Was that enough?
Some of her feelings must have bled through into her expression, for Zann Biddell was suddenly brimming with smug joy. This made her hands fist. She needed only a trickle of power to keep tabs on Biddell’s emotions, but she filled herself with more and more, relishing the feeling of it rushing within her, powering her.
The self-satisfied expression on his face made her ill. He made her ill. This murderous xenophobe with the silver tongue who had brought so many over to his cause. He must be stopped and it was clear that even in the face of his lies being exposed, he would not confess.
She suspected he had allies within the Intelligence Service, Elsirans who believed as he did and bowed to her face but worked in secret behind her back. The former director himself had poisoned her, after all. It would be foolish to assume that the man’s disappearance had cleared out the supporters of his ideology from the organization.
She pulled Earthsong to her, far more than she needed, but enough to fill her Song. The self-important, smarmy, son of a hog needed to be stopped. His reign of terror, provoking people to violence and hatred and fear, could not continue. Maybe he should feel what real witchcraft could do. Maybe he should feel a bit of what he was inspiring in others.
Oola was able to manipulate the emotions of others, to send Her thoughts to Singers and Silent alike, along with specific desires. Daryvn looked down on the practice, called it unethical puppetry, but Oola didn’t seem to care. Jasminda was a bit past caring herself, especially with this cretinous excuse for a human in front of her.
She narrowed her eyes, wondering exactly what it would take to wipe that grin from his lips. She couldn’t hurt him with her Song, couldn’t open wounds on his skin or steal the breath from his lungs. Life energy didn’t work like that. But she could share her own pain.
She thought of life growing up in her valley and pushed away the joy at the memories of her childhood, when her whole family was together, Mama and Papa, the twins always underfoot, Varten peppering them with constant questions about everything under the sun and how it all worked. Roshon quieter, rarely smiling and far more serious, but never far from his brother. She tucked those memories into a corner of her mind and focused on the others.
Traveling to town for supplies. The cutting looks and remarks. She had been just a child when a runaway horse had trampled another girl about her own age. Jasminda had run over to help, healing broken bones and internal injuries, or at least making them better, since her Song had been too weak back then to completely fix someone. The shrieks of the girl’s mother shouting about witchcraft echoed in her mind. The hurt and shame as she withstood the tongue lashing before her father rushed over to take her away. These were the feelings she pushed to Zann Biddel.
The ache of loneliness and grief, the deep sadness at watching her brothers make friends easily as long as she stayed away. The sorrow etched into her mother
and father as they witnessed injustices they were powerless to stop. Folk crossing the street to avoid her. Leaving a store when she entered. Accusing her of stealing. Cleaning whatever she’d touched. The fear and disgust wafting from them as she tried to live her life.
She magnified the emotions, years and years of abuse in one concentrated burst, and funneled them all to Biddell at once. Her gaze was inward so she didn’t witness his lips flatten. Didn’t see him shudder at the potent force driving into him.
His body began to shake, but she didn’t stop. She was charged full of anger; reliving the old pain broke the callus she’d formed around the feelings. They all poured out. Tears streamed down Zann Biddell’s cheeks. He made sounds of distress. His eyes rolled up in his head. He began to seize and shudder. He fell from his chair onto the ground.
Focused as she was on driving hurt after hurt into him, she barely noticed his distress. It was only when the door crashed open that it truly registered. Agents rushed in to tend to the quaking man on the floor, foam and blood frothing around his mouth. Still, her eyes were open but her mind remained elsewhere.
A pinch above her elbow drew her back to the present. She whipped her head around to find Camm standing next to her, face long and grave. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. It appears Master Biddell is experiencing a seizure. We should leave while the physician attends to him.”
She blinked her eyes and focused on the room again. A doctor in a white coat kneeled next to the prisoner who had stopped seizing. Jasminda breathed in deeply, releasing her hold on Earthsong. The ocean of energy receded as if it had not been a torrent within her moments earlier.
“Yes, you’re right.” She stood, grabbing her gloves from the table and placing them on shaking hands. No one was paying attention to her, they all watched the man on the floor. None suspected what she had done, how could they? It wasn’t visible and not even most Lagrimari knew what was truly possible with a powerful Song.
Her breathing stuttered as they retreated down the hallway and up the stairs. Agent Verall met them on the main level. “The prisoner will be transported to the dungeon once the physician gives the go-ahead, Your Majesty.”