Queen's Gambit

by Karen Chance

  “Was in you,” I said, a hand to my mouth.

  “And the other children they’d left behind,” she agreed. “He began to follow their pattern of cannibalism, trying to drown out the fey in him with godly energy. Ten years ago, he took the device the gods once used in their experiments and turned it on me. And not just me. He has stripped any being he could find with godly blood of their power, ripping out the parts of us that we inherited from our divine parents and welding them onto his soul instead. He is a patchwork now, a corrupt, despicable creature who believes he is a god reborn.

  “And while it has corrupted his own soul, and whatever goodness may once have lain within him, it has made him powerful. So much so that his own wife barely escaped with their child. He would have ripped the two of them apart, too, but she eluded him. I give her respect for that, but she was with him . . . too long . . .”

  Nimue gasped, and her voice trailed off. She was fading. It did not take an expert on fey anatomy to see that. Her hands were shaking, her eyes were becoming dim, and her skin was sallow.

  She would not last much longer.

  But she was determined to have her say before she did, and I was grateful for it. I had so many questions, but chief among them was the obvious. “What does Efridis want with me?”

  That won me what I was coming to know as her annoyed look. “What did I just say? She wants your power, girl, the same thing Aeslinn wanted from me.”

  “Yes, but why? And why did you call me god-killer? I have killed no gods.”

  She cackled at that, although it obviously hurt her. “Have killed . . . no gods . . . yet.”

  She slid down to the floor, where she could lean back against the rock instead of sitting on it. It seemed to buy her some respite, although for how long, I didn’t know. She looked up at me and smiled slightly.

  “Made a mistake with you, yes, I did. Should have taken you on the river. Knew it then, but I’ve become cautious. Not so powerful anymore. Wanted to see . . .”

  “See what?”

  “What you could do. If it was really you.” She shifted position slightly. “I received my answer, didn’t I?”

  Perhaps, but I was not receiving mine.

  “Nimue—”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Time is short. So many years, so many centuries, and it comes down to this.” She looked about. “Fitting. I was born in a cave like this. And loved exploring them when I was a girl.”

  “You found the capsule in the cave,” I said, leading her gently, because her mind had started to wander.

  “Find it? I put it there. One of my old toys. Used it in my explorations. They call them vimāna where you come from. The gods made them for us, their children. We had bodies, you see, and could not travel as they did . . .”

  “And you’ve been using this one again recently?”

  She had been staring off into the distance, but the question focused her. “After Aeslinn’s attack, I remembered it. It was made for me. Has my name on it, you know, in the old tongue. Aeslinn’s people found and copied it, but it escaped them, returning to where I’d left it. I use it now to get around. What would your lot call it? My wheelchair.” She laughed.

  “Then the seahorse . . .”

  “Was an illusion. My people are good with them. Especially in water.”

  So, what I had seen had been both an illusion and real. She had been there in her strange vehicle, but I had seen only what she wanted me to see. Finally, I understood something.

  It made me bold.

  “Why does it work for me?”

  She arched an eyebrow, her expression droll. “Why do you think?”

  “I do not know. It would not work for Ray—”

  “You do know.” She looked at me impatiently. “Come, come, girl. I’m not going to spoon feed it to you.”

  I thought this was exactly the time she should be spoon feeding it to me, while she still could. But it would be impolite to say so. “I’m not a girl,” I said instead. “I am more than five hundred years old—”

  “And I am more than five thousand. And you do know.”

  I glanced at Efridis, who had yet to move. “You said something about godly experiments. I . . . am one of those?”

  “No. You are an accident. Your mother was the experiment.” She sighed and slumped a little more against the rock, to the point that she was almost lying down. “Quarrelsome, backbiting, thieving—we were not sired by the better sort of gods.” Her lips curled. “No, not by half. They were constantly fighting each other, and doing experiments to make armies out of whatever they found, to help give them an advantage.”

  “Whatever they found?”

  “Whoever, would be more polite. But that’s not how they thought, any more than it was how I did, once. People were commodities, tools, nothing more if they were not mine. Only my people were real; only my people mattered. Classic fallacy. We’re all connected. But that isn’t what you asked.”

  I shook my head.

  “The armies didn’t work out so well, and not merely due to flaws in the making. But also because they ended up fighting other armies, with nothing to show for it in the end but corpse-strewn battlefields. Eventually, someone asked the obvious question: why were they making armies when what they needed was an assassin? A single being with skills so great, and camouflage so perfect, that he or she could go after the real prey: their rival gods.”

  “God-killer,” I whispered, and Nimue smiled.

  “And so we come to it. It didn’t work, not entirely. But they’d learned a great deal from their experiments, and they came close enough for Artemis to pull the trigger on her own plan—too early. But she had no choice. She had no doubt who they would have sent their assassins after, once they perfected them.

  “Thus, she moved against her fellow gods, kicked them out, slammed a metaphysical door behind them. And, afterwards, destroyed their dangerous new prototypes—all but one.”

  “My mother.” I repeated what Nimue had said, but it seemed unreal, a foreign word on my tongue. I had never had a mother.

  “She hid out here for a time,” Nimue said. “Blending in with the common sort of fey. Then escaped to Earth. No one knew what had happened to her, much less that she’d had a child. Not until—”

  “I battled Efridis,” I said, and suddenly understood.

  Nimue nodded. “Efridis was always very good with things of the mind. I do not know what she saw in you, that piqued her curiosity. But at some point, she realized that Earth had perfected what Faerie had begun, and given her the weapon she needed to move against her husband.”

  “She means to . . . join with me, as I was joined to Dory?” I asked, shivering a little, because the very idea was repellent.

  “If that is what you call your other half, yes. But make no mistake, you will have no say in this union, any more than our stolen power gives us a say over what Aeslinn does with it. She would make herself into a god-killer, using your power, and destroy him. But once she has a taste . . .” Nimue shook her head. “It would truly be like the gods had returned. They couldn’t handle that much power, and neither will she. It corrupted them, ah—”

  For a second, I thought that she had broken off once more because she was tired. But then I saw Efridis beside her. I jumped slightly, because Efridis was still across the room—for an instant. Before the illusion that had allowed her to sneak up on us faded.

  And only this one remained, holding a knife.

  It was covered in blood—Nimue’s. The gods bleed red, I thought blankly, staring at it. And then Nimue laughed, a retching sound, but strangely joyous, too.

  “You don’t swim, do you?” she asked her cousin.

  “What?” Efridis looked confused.

  I suppose that wasn’t the reaction she’d expected.

  “No, I don’t suppose you do,” Nimue chuckled. “Not ladylike, when you were growing up. And Aeslinn’s lands are so cold. Pity.”

  “There’s no water here for you to manipulated old wi
tch, even assuming you had the strength,” Efridis snarled.

  “No water,” Nimue laughed again. “No water—did you hear what she said?”

  I just stared at her. Efridis did, too, for a moment. And then she slammed the blade home again.

  “So hard to hold form these days,” Nimue whispered. “So very hard. So much easier to just . . . let go.” She looked at me, and for a moment, her eyes were clear and brilliant once more, like a storm-tossed sea. “Remember what I told you.”

  And then, just that fast, she was gone. Only, no, that wasn’t the right word. Because her body faded away but something remained. Something powerful.

  So, this is what happens when a god dies, I thought, as the cave began to shake, as the rocks fell, and as the waters rushed in. Not some of them, all of them, what felt like all the water in the world. It came crashing through every doorway, spirting from every fissure, torrenting down from the ceiling—

  Daughter of the oceans, and the oceans had come to mourn.

  And more than that.

  The ceiling abruptly fell in, causing waves to sweep up the walls, like the surf crashing onto a beach in a hurricane. It crushed Efridis under rocks and tides that went on and on, and certainly would have crushed me and Ray, too. But the little capsule suddenly appeared in my face; I supposed that it had had no more trouble getting through a door that had exploded around it.

  I hauled Ray’s body on board, how I didn’t know. But the waves were rising all around us, and there was no more time. I threw myself in after him, grabbing one of the seats and pulling with everything that I had. And as soon as I was onboard, I thought: Out!

  We went out.

  I did not know how the craft knew the way, as I could not help it. Perhaps it had some sort of memory, or perhaps some lingering piece of Nimue was guiding us. But we nonetheless went on the most frightening ride of my life, through a succession of interlocking caves, all of which were coming down on top of us.

  Huge stalactites plummeted to the floor, which now looked more like an ocean. The waves they threw up crashed over top of our roof, threatening to swamp us. The little craft dodged this way and that, partly to avoid the rain of limestone, and partly from the battering it was taking. Ray and I were slung around the cabin, were almost tossed out of the missing shutter, and were sitting in at least a foot of water that sloshed around us.

  But suddenly, we were out.

  The tiny craft burst out of the side of a hill, one of the mountains that bordered the river. We skimmed across the waves, which were almost as wild as the ones inside. It looked like the formerly peaceful river had been taken over by a flood. It washed over the banks, slammed against the trees, sprayed us in the face. And it was all done in dead silence, except for the rushing of the water.

  The chittering things in the trees did not chitter; the birds did not call. It felt like the whole world was suddenly stunned and in mourning: the caves its eyes, the river its tears. Its creatures held their breath at the passing of a goddess and nothing seemed to be functioning right.

  That included our little capsule.

  It had been sagging lower and lower amidst the waves, until the cabin was flooded. I pulled Ray clear and swam to the shallows, not even realizing until I was halfway there that my legs were kicking. I could have cried at the realization, and then I did, because the whole world was weeping. Why shouldn’t I?

  I watched the last of her, the childhood toy she’d used to outwit them all for so long, slowly sink beneath the waves. It seemed fitting, that it go back to the waters. I watched until it was totally out of sight, bidding her farewell in the only way I knew how.

  Then I turned my attention to the shore.

  * * *

  It was a long, hard swim against a raging current, as there were no areas of safe, dry land nearby. The tall trees hedged the river, and I would not go in there without a guide. Not even now.

  It was fortunate that Ray did not need to breathe, or I would have drowned him a dozen times over. I barely managed to keep my own head above the choppy waves, and every time I looked back, it seemed that I found his face underwater yet again. But one of those times, his eyes were open.

  I sucked in a breath, and a mouthful of river water along with it, then spat it out, coughing and hacking. He did not seem to notice or respond, but the eyes—that was a good sign, wasn’t it? I decided to take it as such, and redoubled my efforts.

  Finally, after what felt like an hour but was probably much less, a patch of sand appeared up ahead. I swam toward it as best I could one handed, but didn’t believe that it was real until my wobbly legs touched solid ground. I dragged Ray and I onto the little beach, and then just lay there, gasping and panting and laughing in uncontrollable spirts of giggles at the sky, I wasn’t sure why.

  The air was beautiful, the sun was beautiful, the world was beautiful, and we were alive! Somehow. I giggled again.

  I should have been exhausted after our experience, and I was. But euphoria also buzzed in my veins, so much so that I could hardly lie still. I wiggled my toes against the sand, and felt the waves lap at them. I did not even try to process all that I had learned; it was too soon. And my mind was in no mood for it, no mood at all. Instead, I had a sense of expectancy running through me that I did not recognize. I finally realized that I was waiting for the next act of this strange play that I seemed to have stumbled into.

  And judging by the spear that suddenly appeared in my face, it had arrived.

  “Gah!” Ray yelled, suddenly coming alive and launching himself off the sand. I managed to catch him by the hem of what remained of his tunic before he did anyone an injury, but it was a close thing.

  “What are you doing? What’s the matter with you?” he spluttered, turning to look at me, his face coated with sand.

  I just nodded at the individual holding the spear. He had pale skin and gray eyes, and a shock of black hair that rather reminded me of Ray’s. It was cut shorter, however, or was mostly bundled under the soft knitted cap he wore. His clothes marked him as a peasant: a tunic made from what looked like brown wool, tight, lightweight hose in scarlet, and a pair of old brown boots that sagged around his ankles.

  They looked like he needed to grow into them, which was probably the case as he appeared to be about twelve years old. That explained why the spear was shaking so profoundly. And why an old man—or an old fey, I supposed—came running out of the woods a moment later.

  He had a spear, too, and his did not shake, despite the age spots on his hands. There were also wrinkles on the weathered old face, and gray hair protruding like a scarecrow’s from under a wide brimmed straw hat. He looked about eighty, although what that meant here, I had no idea.

  There was a spluttering of words in a tongue that I didn’t understand, and which, apparently, Ray didn’t, either. The old man was gesturing at my tunic, or perhaps at the blood on it, I wasn’t sure. It had been in water for much of the last day, but it still had a large stain on the side and several smaller ones that I had added to it.

  The discolorations were brown now, the water having washed the red out, but I didn’t think it fooled him. And I had no way to explain, or any clue as to whether I should. If they were vassals of the Svarestri, wearing a blood stained, obviously stolen tunic might mark me as an enemy.

  Perhaps I should have stayed naked, after all.

  “Okay, so what?” Ray asked. “We just sit here like idiots?”

  I glanced at him. “As opposed to?”

  He waved a hand. “Take care of them.”

  I just looked at him.

  “Not like that! I mean . . . we knock them out or something.”

  “And then what?”

  “What?”

  The old creature said something else. It did not sound friendly. “I don’t think he likes us talking,” I told Ray.

  “And I give a shit because?”

  “We are lost,” I reminded him. “Perhaps they can help us find a portal.”

  �
�Yeah, or perhaps they can ransom us to the damned Svarestri and then we’re really—”

  But Ray never got a chance to finish his sentence. Because we had finally said a word that the old man knew. He scrunched up his face and spat on the sand, while thrusting the spear at us menacingly. “Svarestri!”

  Ray and I looked at each other.

  Then Ray did something that validated Dory’s belief in him. He horked up a huge wad of spit, blood and phlegm, and spat it on the ground with enough force to make a divot in the sand. “Svarestri!”

  The old man blinked, and regarded us narrowly for a moment. “Svarestri?”

  Ray spat again. “Fuck the Svarestri!”

  The old man thought some more, and eyed the large stain on my tunic again.

  “Fuck the Svarestri,” he finally agreed, pronouncing the words carefully, as if he liked the sound of them. “Fuck the Svarestri!”

  He looked at me.

  “Fuck the Svarestri,” I agreed, and for the first time, he smiled.

  He put his spear over his shoulder and clapped me on the shoulder. Then he decided it deserved more and grinned at me with a mouthful of gray and broken teeth. It appeared that we had made a friend.

  “Fuck the Svarestri,” he repeated, and led the way into the forest, beckoning us to follow.

  Ray and I looked at each other again. “What the hell,” Ray said.

  I nodded.

  We followed the old man and boy into the trees.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Dory, Hong Kong

  My new team raided my stash, and then took off through the streets, Ranbir in the lead with the activated charm in his hand. The hologram-type map glowed redly in the darkness, and it was dark. Magic and electricity don’t play well together, so the street lights were out, and not a single lamp or lighted sign could be seen anywhere.

  To make matters worse, there were plenty of reminders of the recent battle to get in our way and slow down progress. It had taken a week for anybody to notice that magic was going haywire in parts of the city, and not much clean-up had happened by then. And nothing had been done since.