Empress of Forever

by Max Gladstone

  Viv’s ears rang, but she heard running feet, the grind of heavy machines, speeder-whine. Soldiers ringed them at the crater’s lip, weapons drawn, aimed, wary. Tails twitched. Even the artillery pieces and the gunships overhead seemed to edge back as Zanj’s glare raked them.

  The scarred corner of Zanj’s mouth curled up in something that was not at all a smile. Her eyes glinted. “That’s it. We’re done playing.”

  She drew the Star. The seeming she’d worn melted away, and she bloomed with silver edges, her teeth long and curved and glittering, revealed, hungry, furious.

  She bent herself to kill.

  The gunships veered away. The artillery powered down.

  The soldiers fell—not dead, but to their knees.

  Zanj blinked.

  The ranks of kneeling soldiers rippled, and one armored Pasquaran emerged, with that slow, even puppet walk. She removed her helmet—and at the sight of the scarred, glass-eyed face beneath, Zanj’s mouth opened, soundless, as if ready to answer, though she could not speak. Her burning eyes widened: in confusion, yes, but recognition, too. “Avoun?”

  “She’s here,” said the voice that wore the mask of the woman’s face. One of her fingers tapped her temple, a little too hard. “Still inside the skull, though you’ve confused her horribly. She’s General Avoun, now, of course, not the child whose life you saved so many years ago. A good soldier. You might have killed her, if not for me.”

  “Let her go.” A growl rose in Zanj’s chest. “Let them all go.”

  “Why?” A gentle, teasing voice, comfortable, slight and sly. “You’ve caused no end of trouble, running about, disturbing people who only want to live their lives, do their jobs, get laid, and sleep. If you’d announced yourself, we could have avoided all this mess. But here we are.” She gestured to the arrayed weaponry, to the crater. “I’ll have to paper over the excitement, and make them forget. All in a day’s work.”

  “I’ll kill you,” Zanj said. “What you’ve done to my people, to my world—”

  “Don’t be so hasty,” the voice replied. “You don’t understand. But you will.”

  Zanj’s grip tightened on the Star.

  The voice laughed, but the laugh was only sound. It did not reach the lines of Avoun’s face or the blank planes of her eyes. “Let’s not fight, Zanj. There’s no percentage in it. You could kill this little one, sure, and her friends, maybe thousands of your own people before they overwhelmed you. But you don’t want that, and neither do I. You’ve known Avoun since she was a pup. You’ve saved all of their lives at one time or another. I’m just trying to watch out for you, and for our children.” She lowered her arms. “Come to the throne. Let’s talk face-to-face. I’ll not touch you or your friends on the way. No tricks. Just a conversation.”

  The silver edges blurred Zanj’s features, obscured her scars. Viv could read her only by rough signs, by set of mouth, by shape of eyes, by the coiling and uncoiling of her tail—but she knew Zanj well enough by now to trace some meaning even there.

  Zanj held her weapon braced for war. But to Viv she looked cautious—almost, impossibly, afraid.

  “Fight them,” the voice said, “or don’t. Either way you’ll end up face-to-face with me. But if you fight, you’ll have to kill our dear Avoun first. She’s loyal, you understand. She’d defend me to the death, of her own will. It would break her heart if you were the one to kill her. But who knows. She might think it was an honor to die at your hand. She always wanted to grow up to be like you.”

  Viv waited. The soldiers knelt, their guns down, but not far away.

  Zanj lowered the Star. “Let’s talk.”

  The general’s mouth approached a smile. “Good,” she said. “Come on up, Sister. I’m waiting.”

  64

  TEN MILES WAS a long way to rise.

  Avoun led them into the Zanjspire with a full guard, guns bristling, swords sharp, but all, for now, sheathed. Within, the spire was a jungle stretched vertical, aflutter with jewel-bright birds, draped with roots and spreading branches, platforms hung at sculpted intervals for work or rest. Pasquarans climbed through the boughs, or lounged, or ascended stairs and vines, up and up toward the light of the false sun. Bark and root and branch and vine darted with gold, leaves dripped dew, flowers swelled with pollen that glimmered when the light struck sidelong: information, output, for the bees to gather while Zanj’s people tended, grafted, pruned. Everywhere was green, and none of the gathered Pasquarans looked at them, or at the soldiers. Their eyes tracked past.

  Viv shuddered, despite the heat.

  “Zanj,” she said. “She called you sister.” No response. “What did she mean?”

  Still nothing.

  Their escort reached a clearing at the spire’s heart, stepped onto a spiral of black, flat stones, and they began to rise.

  The forest blurred, vines and sunning snakes and flowers blending to rainbows, though Viv felt only a slight gathering of weight into her feet. Her breath came shallow, ozone tinged, and when she tried to raise her hand the air felt thick. Out past the branches, through the spire’s transparent walls, the rings upon rings of Pasquarai Station turned.

  Viv’s heart split in two.

  The first half focused on causes and consequence. What the hell was going on here? None of this technology felt Imperial. Not enough crystals, not enough light. Zanj had recognized Avoun, even after three thousand years’ imprisonment. And while the soldiers arrayed around them marched in eerie unison, the other Pasquarans seemed to be working, playing, uncontrolled, or at least less obviously controlled. A mother chased children through the canopy; two older women played a board game that looked like chess. They flitted past, so brief they were more dreams than people. After a running firefight outside their tower, there were no news reports, no screens for punters to gape at wreckage. They let the station guide their minds away from conflict. How much had they looked away from here? And for how long?

  Her mind’s second half reviewed her friends: Hong, evaluating, calm; Gray, unsure. Xiara squeezed Viv’s hand. Her features were tight, her lips pressed together, a cat at bay. “They’re all part of it,” she said. “The station. The system.”

  “Can you stop it?”

  She shook her head. “I could break those ships that chased us. I could stop this lift. But when I try to break what’s controlling them, I slip off. It’s sealed. They’re too … themselves.”

  “They’re not,” Zanj said. Zanj watched the world, Avoun, the Pasquarans they passed, as she might have watched the stump of a recently amputated hand. “They’ve been made into something else.”

  Viv was used to this split-heart feeling. Most of the time the calculative half bubbled out, seizing control. The interpersonal details, your own emotional well-being or your friends’, could wait until after you figured out how to solve the problem at hand.

  It felt new, and weird, and un-American, for the friend stuff to take priority over galactic conquest. But then, doing things the other way had led to galactic conquest in the first place, which was the whole problem. So. “We’re right here with you,” she told Zanj, wishing, as she’d spent a lot of time wishing in recent weeks, that she’d sunk more skill points into this sort of thing.

  “Thank you,” Zanj said. “This could get bad.”

  The canopy approached: broad, flat leaves, branches intertwined to frame a roof. She braced for impact, but the canopy writhed away to let them pass, and writhed back beneath their feet as they slowed and stopped. The tension that held them relaxed, and Viv yipped as she fell to the floor of leaves—but she did not pass through. The leaves bore her weight with no more give than a thick-pile carpet.

  They stood before the immense transparent curve of an eye in the Zanjspire’s face, with the false sun overhead and Pasquarai Station below. High branches flourished with flowers and fruit; glowing grapes hung from thick vines. A dais rose to the level of the eye’s pupil, and on that dais there stood a throne, and beside that throne stood a f
igure limned with gold and sky.

  “Hello there,” Zanj said.

  But not the Zanj by Viv’s side, who was growling now, who had dropped into a crouch, who had drawn the Star.

  Another Zanj stood on the dais beside the throne.

  Like Zanj, but unlike: wearing a tunic and trousers of luxurious green, she stood unbowed, gold eyes glistening without a trace of suspicion or anger from a face that had never felt the Empress’s melting touch. She jumped from the dais to the floor and walked toward them, her eyes on Zanj, her smile broad and sincere, a smile that had never been betrayed. The rush of enthusiasm carried her within arm’s reach of Zanj. She only stopped when her chest clunked against the tip of the Star.

  “Sister,” she said. “Please. Let’s not be crude.”

  Viv looked from Zanj to Zanj. There were differences, in dress, in scar, in bearing. She would never mistake one of these women for the other. But they were the same. Watching them both at once felt like trying to have a conversation while a nearby speaker played back a second’s-delayed echo of her words.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Zanj said, “but let them go, or I’ll core you like a star. I’ll skin you and I’ll make a necklace of your tail.”

  “Zanj,” the Queen said, her arms still wide, her expression open and overflowing with a generosity of which Viv had never imagined Zanj capable, a voice that did not seem to recognize that her own double was holding the greatest weapon in the galaxy a few inches from her heart. “You must recognize me.”

  “Who are you?” Zanj bared her teeth, and her hackles rose. Her grimace twisted her scar. “What is this?”

  “Don’t you remember?” The Queen reached for Zanj, imploring, though the Star parted them. “We had to fight the Empress, but we couldn’t bear to abandon Pasquarai. So we split. Two copies, Sister. One to make war, one to save the peace.” The eagerness in those eyes, the joy parting to sorrow, the hand reaching now for her scarred face. “How much did She hurt you? Zanj, I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Liar!” Zanj roared, and pushed the Queen back; she flew, somersaulted, landed on her feet. “I don’t know who you are, or how you’ve done it. You’ve trapped my people in your web, but you won’t trap me.”

  The Queen shook her head. “There’s no trap here, Zanj. Just … management. I take care of them, like we always meant to do.”

  “By controlling them?”

  “They’ve been at peace for three thousand years, ever since I brought them here, where they would be safe. Do you really think they could survive under siege all this time, out there beyond the wall? They’re happy and soft as children here, protected from the Empress and the Bleed, from all that might harm them in the galaxy. They do what they want, and I make sure nothing goes too wrong. And they cheer me for it. They cheer us.”

  “I never split,” Zanj snarled. “I have always been myself. I needed all my strength to fight the Empress, and when I rose against her she broke me, scarred me, and locked me in the heart of a star to burn. The whole time, I dreamed of revenge, and of coming home.”

  “You were here, in me. You were here all along.”

  “I would have remembered.”

  The Queen’s voice was calm, compassionate. “I can only imagine how much you suffered at her hands. Of course you wanted revenge. Of course you dreamed of coming home. You forgot what you had to forget, to survive.”

  “I forgot nothing. What you’ve done here is against everything we stood for. We took these people to the stars. We led them. We did not crush them.”

  “They would be dead by now, if not for us.” The Queen advanced, hands out. “Surely you can see that.”

  “If you take one more step, I will kill you.”

  The Queen kept still. “What proof can I offer, that you will accept?”

  Zanj’s nostrils flared. The air around her shimmered with restrained violence. Viv wanted to touch her. The wound the Queen had given Zanj was hidden, but Viv could smell the blood. Zanj’s hands tightened on the Star. Nobody who was not Zanj moved. Hong, and Gray, and Xiara, and Viv waited to help. If they could help.

  Zanj cast the Star to the leaves between them. It did not clatter—it fell and lay flat, with a thud like a boulder fallen into loam. “Even the Empress could not lift the Star against my will. Pick it up.”

  The Queen stepped forward. Knelt. “It’s been so long since I saw this,” she said. She wrapped her fingers around the Star, savoring the touch. Then she stood, as if the weapon weighed nothing at all. She tossed it from hand to hand. Spun it.

  Viv could not bear to watch Zanj’s face.

  The Queen set the Star back down and withdrew one step, two. Zanj mirrored each step, drawing closer, her gait clumsy. She sank to her knees beside the Star, and lifted it as easily as the Queen, wondering. Her eyes were so very dry.

  The Queen spoke again, her voice still Zanj’s, with the hard edges worn by centuries of rule. “I spent three thousand years wondering if you had died. If she broke your mind and bent you against us, if you would arrive someday warped into my dark mirror, to destroy your people and all we’ve built. You must have been so afraid for Pasquarai. But here we are: whole, thriving, safe.” She reached out her hand. “You suffered alone for so long. But you need not suffer any more. Join me. Let our forked paths combine. I’ll remember the depth of your suffering, and you’ll have these three thousand years of rule, of peace, of Pasquarai. You need not bear those scars forever.”

  Zanj stared up at the Queen, and Zanj stared down at her broken mirror, kneeling. The Queen offered her hand, palm up. Viv could not breathe or speak. Zanj did not look back to Viv for advice, or reassurance. That was good. Viv did not know what she would say.

  Zanj’s gaze dropped to the staff she held.

  The Queen reached down.

  Then Zanj stood, and spun, and batted the Queen through the window.

  65

  THE QUEEN SLID to a stop in midair. Shattered glass rained onto the distant station, and high-altitude winds tore into the throne room, ripping flowers from their stems and filling the chamber with a whirl of leaves and projectile fruit. Viv tackled Xiara to save her from a flying melon; Hong dove for cover, and Gray shifted himself into cover for Hong to dive behind. Zanj stood unmoved in the chaos, her eyes aflame, the crown a black bar on her forehead.

  And the Queen, opposite, above her world, spoke. Her voice cut clear through the roil of wind and crashing glass. “So, she turned you after all.” Dismayed. As if she’d worked out the disappointing answer to a puzzle. “My dear self. I hoped we’d be better than this. But I suppose no one’s immune to time and pain.” Her shoulders slumped. She grew facets of her own, gold against Zanj’s silver but no less glistening, no less sharp. And in her hand, after a confusion of warped space, she held a bar of nuclear fire fierce as sunlight made solid. “You are my own heart. Somewhere, deep down, I hope you understand that, because I love you, I cannot let you break what we have built here.”

  With a snarl, Zanj marched to the broken window, and shouted up: “Listen to yourself.” Around, to the couriers in cover, back to Viv and the rest: “I don’t sound like that, do I? All smarm and duty and long damn words?” Back to the Queen, back to alt-Zanj in the sky: “You don’t talk like me. You rule to make your friends afraid. Three thousand years of pain didn’t break me. Three thousand years of power would never turn me into you.”

  “I remember being you,” the Queen replied, strong, sad, radiant in the sky. “A wanderer for centuries, a fighter beyond hope of victory. You did not guide, nor did you build. It took me so long to learn that art. Friends became enemies on the way; I hurt myself again and again, and those closest to me. I discovered fault lines in our people where I’d seen unity before. When your heart’s in the stars, when your soul’s on the front lines of a distant war, you don’t realize what you have left undone behind. Home is a dream, and only dreams survive on dreams alone. The real world takes real work. I broke our people to reforge them, to save
them. I will not let you break them again.”

  “To save them? They used to sail the stars. You’ve locked them up, built walls around them, and called that safe.”

  Viv recognized that tone of voice and remembered another throne room, Zanj hanging from emerald bonds, remembered staring into her own face and learning, with all the surety of a fist to the gut, what she was capable of. Not even what she might have done—what she had done, in a life just shades different from her own, and what that meant for who she thought she was. She had felt so hollow then, her self a porcelain shell cleverly painted and worked to seem solid, but which, when cracked, held nothing. If she could become the Empress, what was she, beneath her stories of herself?

  “They are safe,” the Queen said.

  Viv saw Zanj get it: the simple chalkboard diagram of Viv and the Empress, and Zanj, standing before the Queen. Viv had tutored kids for pocket money in college, and she’d always been bad at this part: watching thoughts assemble like congregating clouds as the air grew heavy with the right answer, waiting through all that for the student to reach her own conclusions, rather than just saying rain.

  Zanj glared at her golden unscarred self in the sky.

  And she sprang.

  The first five, six, ten exchanges took place at a speed Viv couldn’t follow, save by crashes of thunder when the Star crossed the golden staff. When their weapons met, Zanj and the Queen held still for fractions of a second, each reflected off the other’s shining form, glinting off the curve of the other’s teeth. Fire and fury and silver and gold. Who was lightning, and who the thunderclap?

  The others all stared. Of course they could see fast enough to watch. Viv felt a pang of envy, before Gray set his hand on hers, and her skin burned as a needle too fine to feel as sharp slid in, and lava spread through her veins and time passed very slowly all of a sudden. Now, in the eons between her heartbeats, she could see the still-blurred mess of Zanj at war with Zanj.