by Jon Jacks
In the palace, it was immediately obvious that the starvation suffered by Greforel’s general populace hadn’t been shared by the courtiers and generals based here. Tables were graced by overflowing fruitbowls, by platters of nuts and spiced cloves. Desri’s officers fleetingly glanced at these bowls of obvious excess with an ironic distaste, for the moment fighting their hunger. When they arrived at the great hall that stood before the throne room, however, a long table had been set out for a dinner that the fleeing generals had left untouched, the great sides of beef and hog, the cauldrons of simmering stew, too enticing to resist.
Crandren saw and understood the hunger of his men.
‘Stay here,’ he said to his closest friend, Defreg. ‘We’ll only be a door away.’
Defreg looked doubtful, a look that said he was going to refuse Cranden’s offer.
Then he looked at the food laid out before them, smelt the delicious aromas.
He gave Cranden a hearty parting slap on his shoulder.
‘If the queen resorts to her trickery,’ he growled, ‘you only have to shout!’
*
The queen is waiting for them when they enter the throne room.
She sits on her throne, a regal cloak of white and silver draped around her. Her blazing curtain of flame-red hair completely hides her sadly drooping head.
‘What took you so long?’ she grumbles, her voice harsh, croaking.
She sits up proudly, regally raising her head and throwing back her fire-like hair.
The face is withered, ancient.
Both Desri and Cranden gasp in complete surprise.
‘You’re surprised,’ the queen chuckles wickedly. ‘I was beautiful: until your arrival here, of course.’
She playful waves a hand in front of her face, as if replicating the ripples of rapidly passing time.
‘Now, at last, time has caught up with me.’
‘But… we saw you on the battlements: you seemed as young as ever.’
It seemed an odd point to be making at a time like this, Desri realised – yet she was curious, wondering if the queen’s legendary beauty and youth were indeed down to a judicious use of magic. If so, if the queen could utilise magic, then they had to be especially wary. Even now, when they seemed so close to victory over her.
‘Ah, but was it me, though?’ the queen replied mysteriously. ‘You see, some are destined to be lesser queens, who serve for me in battle: it’s not such a bad fate, really, to live a life of luxury before going out in a blaze of glory.’
Seeing the surprise on their faces, she gives a harsh, mischievous chuckle.
‘You think me cruel? You’d be surprised how few are actually killed. You’ve worked out how these battles work by now, I’m sure? In the chaos, everyone naturally believes their queen is fighting for them. None dare attack her. Any royal fatality is generally only very unfortunately accidental.’
‘Why are you so careless of life? So murderous?’
‘Oh, you’re so like me!’ the queen laughs. ‘Or, at least, how I was, when I first came to the throne. Seeing all the changes I must make to make life fairer. Only the changes I made always had their own, unforeseen repercussions; for there are always evil, cunning men – or even the many more who are just simply incompetent or lazy – who will take advantage of any new rules and twist them to their own use.’
‘Then why let them retain their power? These corrupt lords and official?’
‘How did you control an army of beasts but by forming an hierarchy?’
‘Our men aren’t corrupt!’ Cranden snarls angrily.
‘Oh no, not yet, of course: not while they fight for a consolidating ideal of freedom. But give them a few years, when you have no common enemy to bring together – then you will find them fighting for their fair share, for fear they aren’t appreciated, or that those gaining more power will step all over them.’
‘You’re saying there’s no solution?’ Desri frowns scornfully. ‘That this is the best way the empire can be run?’
The queen steps down from the throne, with a gracious wave of a hand inviting Desri to take her place.
‘I suppose you want to try it out for size, comfort…?’
‘I don’t want to be like you!’
‘That’s exactly what I said,’ the queen pronounces with mock theatricality. ‘When I was standing where you are now a thousand years ago!’
‘A thousand years ago?’
Having read the history books along with Desri, Cranden recognised the significance of the date.
‘You’re Impersia?’ Desri asks uncertainly, disbelievingly. ‘But your rebellion failed.’
‘Oh, when you’re queen, you’ll find you can always rewrite history,’ the queen declares with an airily dismissive wave of a hand. ‘A hundred years from now, some historian wishing to make a name for himself will ponder how your own rebellion failed to unseat the queen. He’ll realise it was all nothing more than some silly myth that grew out of a rampage of wild buisoars accidentally released into the palace – ohh, and there they are now!’
She draws their attention to the raucous scuffling and snorting coming from the great hall next door. Elegantly making her way towards the great doors, she flings them open.
Within the great hall, beasts clothed in oversized human clothes are rampaging everywhere, knocking over tables, chairs, and furiously fighting each other.
*
Chapter 34
100 Seconds Later
‘What magic is this? What have you done to my men?’
Cranden is furious. His eyes are locked on the queen, as if he would kill her at a moment’s notice.
The officers he and Desri had left in the great hall only minutes ago are behaving worse than the lowest ranks, throwing themselves at each other with a definite intention to harm badly, perhaps even kill, their chosen opponent. Most of their clothes, even their armour, is shredded or smashed. They growl, snort, not talk or cry.
‘There’s no magic, I’m afraid,’ the queen calmly replies to Cranden’s accusation. ‘They’ve simply reverted to their true nature; the natures of the beasts they really are, not the men you falsely suppose them to be.’
‘We’ve talked with them! Eaten with them,’ Cranden insists irately. ‘They were men, until you used your trickery on them!’
‘Really? And these, these really are the actions of men, are they?’
The queen nonchalantly draws his attention to a beast defecating on the floor, another barging so forcefully into a table it cracks and completely shatters, the food on its top spilling everywhere.
‘And what of you Cranden,’ the queen continues, ‘why do you continue to believe that Desri cannot love you because you are a beast? Do you really think all those memories of the women you’ve bedded are hidden to someone so accomplished at using the Knowing?’
Desri and Cranden exchange glances full of guilt and apology.
‘I’m sorry, Cranden! I didn’t mean to–’
‘They’re not memories! They’re dreams I can’t control–’
‘They’re memories,’ the queen insists starkly. ‘You simply fail to recognise them as such!’
She turns to Desri, glowering at her every bit as unforgivably as she had at Cranden.
‘And you, while you were inside his head, why didn’t you ever consider searching for memories of his parents?’
‘That…that would be too private.’ Desri squirms with shame and embarrassment, aware of her hypocrisy. ‘It wasn’t of my concern…’ she adds defensively.
‘It’s very much your concern! Do it now girl! Know his parents.’
*
‘I…I don’t understand.’
Desri has never felt so confused.
Yes, as expected, Cranden has firm memories of Jaben and Mavern, even of his sister Clearen. Yet, bizarrely, there are weaker memories of other parents, a large number of them, varying in strength, in detail.
‘It’s impossible for him to have had s
o many parents!’
‘They’re simply people in my dreams again,’ Cranden insists adamantly. ‘I…I can’t control them; they get mixed up with my memories.’
‘No; they’re the memories of many men who are no longer with us, Cranden – all fighting for prominence,’ the queen explains with a peculiar, unexpected tenderness. ‘That’s what causes your confusion – and, now, theirs too.’
She looks towards the beasts nosily destroying the great hall.
‘What did you do to them?’ Desri asks.
‘Me?’ The queen appears surprised by the accusation. ‘You provided their feast, my dear!’
‘Me?’
‘Why, with your successful attacks on my men, of course! Even our foolish General Barane was hurriedly prepared for dinner.’
‘Human meat? You fed them human meat?’
Cranden’s expressions and voice move swiftly through the emotions of horror, disgust, fury.
‘What do you think they eat after the battles out in the Blue-table Pass? It’s their eating of so many of these brave men – the absorption of their human intuition, thoughts, emotions – that gives their meat its value to us–’
‘That’s why you send all these men out to these false battles?’ Desri is aghast. ‘You betray their loyalty? Sacrificing them merely to enhance the Knowing?’
‘Ensure, not enhance, the Knowing! What is our world without the Knowing? Nothing, really. So these men are defending the world as they Know it; it would cease to exist without their sacrifice.’
‘And me?’ Cranden asks fearfully. ‘How does all this explain me? Why am I not confused by all these conflicting thoughts of different men flowing through me? Why do I think – dream, talk, live – as if I really am this Cranden?’
‘You, I’m afraid, are an unfortunate – yet thankfully relatively rare – creation. If a beast feeds mostly on one particular man – particularly a man with a strongly held vison to return – then he will take on the sensibilities of that man; to the extent that he really believes he is that man. For what are our thoughts, but us?’
Cranden’s head hangs miserably low.
‘I am a beast!’
‘No, Cranden!’ Desri reaches out to him, strokes his arms tenderly. Looks up into his eyes with astonishing directness and honesty. ‘The man inside, that’s you! That’s Cranden!’
Not far from them, there’s a snort, an angry growl. Turning, they see a beast glaring at Cranden, its paws striking the ground as it readies itself to charge.
Cranden recognises the shreds of the blue cloak hanging off its great humped back.
‘Defreg?’
He tries to approach the pawing beast as calmly and unthreateningly as he can manage.
Still, the unnerved, belligerent beast throws itself into a hurtling charge towards him.
Desri’s perfectly, Knowingly aimed arrow sinks cleanly and deeply into the beast’s dark eye.
The beast slews to a tumultuous halt, the chairs around it scattered, shattered, its tremendous momentum continuing to carry it forward even as it dies.
‘Desri!’ Far from being thankful, Cranden is outraged. ‘You’ve killed Defreg! I could have talked to–’
‘It wasn’t Defreg anymore, Cranden,’ Desri interrupts him sternly. ‘He was going to kill you.’
The queen’s smile is one of satisfaction.
‘Yes, I think you are ready,’ she says, stilling all the raging beasts into a quiet stupor with nothing more than a glance.
*
Chapter 35
10 Seconds Later
As the queen had curiously insisted, Desri is tightly holding onto her extended hands.
The Knowing requires no such physical connection.
Know this: you are the queen!
No! I cannot rule as you do! You sacrifice lives: you create misery for thousands! You act like you are a god!
A queen is god when her decisions – her whims, her mistakes, let alone any wilful, malicious intent – result in the misery you talk of. And there is little alternative to this, for thousands to a queen are few, whereas she has to rule in favour of the many, of millions. Those few believe you are not thinking of them – and they are right, for if you did think of them, if you contemplate the misery you have resigned them to, then you will never make any rightful decision again.
Then I cannot be queen, for I could never do this!
How stable is an empire without it’s rightful ruler? How unstable does it become when others claim that they have more right to the throne than the present usurper?
I’m not your child: I have no right to be queen!
Hah, unfortunately biology rarely chooses its rulers well! And so you are chosen while you are in your mother’s womb. Then everything required to give you the strength of will to become queen is provided throughout your life.
Then I have been destined to take on a role I do not want!
A thousand years ago, I stood where you are now saying exactly the same thing. A thousand years on, you will be where I am now, telling a new queen-to-be what I was told then: all this has been written into your very bones.
If you believe your own rule is so essential, why don’t you just live on and on?
At some point in their lives, everyone grows tired of life: a new inspiration is required. Our emblem isn’t the All Knowing Swan, as people believe, but the phoenix: and so Know this, in this way we do live forever.
*
Chapter 36
1 Second Later
Desri is no longer holding the queen’s hands.
The queen has vanished.
Only her royal robes and crown remain, lying in a pile at Desri’s feet.
‘She…she just seemed to flow into you: like you absorbed her!’
Cranden stares down at the robes, his eyes full of bewilderment.
‘She explained: explained that I had to be queen.’
Desri wonders what she is supposed to do next.
Cranden bows down before her, picks up the robe, the crown.
Coming behind Desri, he reverently and carefully places the crown on her head. Then he respectfully slips the royal robes around her shoulders, taking the risk at this moment to bring his cheek lovingly close to hers.
‘My queen,’ he whispers.
Desri turns slightly towards him, looks up at him, tenderly touches his cheek – and whispers in return:
‘My prince.’
End
If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Died Blondes
Coming Soon
The Truth About Fairies
