The Jade Queen

by Jack Conner

  Eliza saw why momentarily.

  Prince Jeselri lay dead on the floor in a pool of blood. A jade spear jutted from his great chest, and his head had been crudely severed.

  The change in Queen Iasolla was instant and terrible.

  She let out a great animal howl of pain -- the pain curdled Eliza’s blood, made her hairs stand on end, and her toes curl up in her shoes -- and rushed to the body. Uncaring of her quicksilver dress or neatly manicured hands, Iasolla wrapped the body in her arms and pressed it to her breast. Great sobs shook her. The air shimmered around her. The floor vibrated. Eliza, Wilhelm, Lars and the troopers stepped back. Knots twisted Eliza’s stomach. Part of it was shared anguish -- she could taste the Queen’s pain -- and part of it was fear of what the Queen’s reaction would be.

  Iasolla wept and pulled her hair and beat her breast. She took up Jeselri’s head and kissed his full, bloody lips again and again. The blood on his lips passed to hers. She held the head to her and screamed her agony. Again she howled, and Eliza felt shivers course through her. Her eardrums shook.

  Finally the Queen rose and turned to them. Her face was a mask of tragedy, of great loss and great anger. Tears coursed from her red-rimmed eyes.

  She said one word: “Who?”

  There was silence, then one of the technicians stepped forward. “I d-don’t know his name, but the heat, it m-melted his make-up, and I saw scars -- ”

  “James,” Lars snapped. “Damn him!”

  Hatred blazed in Iasolla’s eyes. “Find him! Find him -- and I will break him. I will destroy him. Atom by atom, bone by bone -- his screaming shall be the music of the gods!”

  Lord Wilhelm snapped quick orders to his men, and most of them rushed off to scour the jade halls for Lynchmort James. Eliza prayed he had found a good place to hide.

  Mustering her courage, she dared say, “This sabotage, what does it mean? Will it delay the Ascendance?”

  Queen Iasolla’s eyes glared. “No. Nothing will delay that now. Come! Come, and I will make a new world.”

  After removing the spear, she lovingly sat Prince Jeselri’s head on his chest, cradled it in his arms so that he looked more dignified, and placed a last, lingering kiss on his dead lips. Then she rose, wiped her eyes, and stalked off toward the Control Room. Eliza had never seen it, had only heard about it, and she couldn’t resist a gasp as she stepped into the cathedral-like chamber with the high, curving green jade walls tapering up the central hole or tube above. The great mound-like console loomed in the center, nearly glowing with awful portent. More technicians gathered about it, but they seemed to be checking and verifying their work, not performing new labors. They cringed back and bowed at Iasolla’s arrival, but they did not flee as the others had.

  Without a word to them, she made a circuit around the pedestal, a blooming jade monolith of intricate and sensual design, and nodded her satisfaction. At once, she waved her hand, and openings that Eliza had not even noticed before revealed themselves. Had they been closed? Brilliant crystals of red and turquoise and purple and more glittered in the niches. Queen Iasolla waved her hands again, and more openings appeared.

  She stepped back and gave a fierce, half-mad smile. “Now it begins.”

  The air shimmered around the mound, and as she waved her arms like a conductor the crystals rose from their crevices and flew like diamond hummingbirds through the air, alighting in the new holes that had opened. Iasolla deposited them one by one, but quickly. She seemed to deposit them in a certain order, and at times she had to pause, as if to remember where one went or in which order. Despite these momentary delays, the process continued on with horrible, evil swiftness. Eliza felt more unsteady by the moment.

  She looked at Lord Wilhelm, wondering if he had any concerns, but he only looked expectant, like a new father waiting on his wife to deliver his pride and joy, one hand in his pocket ready to pass out cigars.

  Lars Gunnerson, however, appeared troubled. Eliza recalled that he had been the one to help Queen Iasolla with the restoration of this machinery for the past several days, and he was as intimately familiar with it as anyone in the Society. Something about the Queen’s process evidently disturbed him, and he opened his mouth several times, then frowned and thought better of it. Eliza didn’t blame him -- the Queen’s mood was lethal -- but she wished he would speak up. If nothing else it might delay the inevitable.

  Eliza racked her brain for some plan of action.

  Lord Wilhelm’s gun, she thought. Not his side arm, but the strange Atlantan weapon he carried on his ankle. She would go for it, never mind the four troopers that still guarded him, never mind Lars or Wilhelm himself, or the wrath of Queen Iasolla. Eliza would wrench the gun free and blow the Queen to hell. If in the next instant Lord Wilhelm’s troops riddled her with bullets, that was the price she had to pay.

  She started to move forward, toward Lord Wilhelm --

  A trooper brushed by her, knocking her aside.

  “Excuse me!” she said. “What do you -- ”

  She saw the jade sword at his hip. Even as he neared Queen Iasolla, he drew the sword and hacked it down at her exposed neck.

  Chapter 29

  It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

  The troopers combed the halls, meaning they weren’t present in the Control Room. Simple then to touch up his make-up, using his hook as a mirror, imperfect as it was, shove the glove back on and enter the vast chamber with its high, curving ceiling. Lynch’s heart trembled when he saw Eliza up on the dais. She looked like she was about to do something stupid. He’d come just in time.

  Queen Iasolla continued her procedure, and he tried not to get distracted by the pretty show she put on, the sparkling crystals flying through the air, depositing themselves in gleaming jade niches. The console had begun to hum, and the air shimmered around it, increasing in intensity second by second.

  Lynch plowed forward. He put his head down as he reached the dais and clattered up the steps. Just as Eliza made her move, whatever it was, he brushed her aside and marched for the Queen. His hand flew to the sword. In one swift motion he drew it, raised it, and brought it down for the killing stroke. He placed all his muscle behind the blow. The Queen’s neck was very slender, very white, very elegant. It would part like butter beneath the blade. He knew this was his last moment on earth, and he wanted to go out with a saying on his lips that would sum up his life and philosophies.

  Instead he shouted, “Die, you goddamn b -- ”

  Jade flashed. Something cold struck him, and jade arms and legs moved before him. Something struck him again, and his back slammed up against something hard and cold. His arms were stilled. Somewhere he heard Eliza cry out.

  The sword clattered from his nerveless fingers.

  Queen Iasolla barely turned to look at him. “I will deal with you later,” she said, without emotion. Whatever rage she must have felt had been redirected into her procedure. “Once I finish the sequence.”

  The world blurred. Lynch blinked and shook his head, and the world began to clear. He found himself looking up into a beautiful jade face.

  It gazed down at him blankly, completely and utterly still. It was, he realized, one of the jade statues of warrior women. It was no statue at all but some sort of automaton, and it had come alive to protect its queen. They must be psychically linked to her somehow.

  Another held him from behind. There were three others in addition to the one that struck him and the one that held him. Though he could not see them all, he remembered that they stood at each of the five corners of the console. He wondered if just these five functioned as automatons or if all the statues in the whole complex worked similarly. He decided it must just be these five; the one in the hallway had not come to Jeselri’s defense. On the other hand, perhaps that was because Lynch had destroyed the nexus, which had evidently powered that region of the jade halls, automatons included.

  The Society troopers roughly took custody of Lynch. Lars Gunnerson punched him hard
across the jaw, then the gut, then the jaw again. Lynch’s world misted, wavered, held.

  “I should kill you,” Lars Gunnerson said.

  Lynch spat blood at him. “Then get a move on. I heard what the Queen plans, and I could skip that if it’s all the same.”

  Gunnerson punched him in the gut again. “I hope she lets me get in a few twistings of the knife before you’re through. I’ve earned that much.”

  “So you have,” Lord Wilhelm concurred. “Your sister . . .”

  One trooper tried to snap cuffs on Lynch but found it daunting. “The cuffs just slip off his hook,” the trooper complained, and Lynch laughed.

  “Idiot,” Wilhelm said, and seized the handcuffs and key. He dragged Lynch over to the console, forced him into a squatting position, snapped one cuff around his right wrist and the other around a green pipe that snaked about the mound, one of many. Steam occasionally hissed from one. A gout of the stuff blew into Lynch’s face, burning him, and he struggled to escape. Somewhere Gunnerson chuckled.

  “You’ll regret this,” Lynch told Wilhelm, who stood over him. “Just kill me now.”

  “I’m sure you’ll pray for death many times over before Her Highness is done with you,” Wilhelm said. “She may never be done. You did not see her face when she found your . . . handiwork.”

  Lynch turned to Eliza. She looked ashen and twisted her hands nervously. Offering her a cocky smile, he said, “You’re looking lovely, lass. What’s your name?”

  Lord Wilhelm kicked him in the upper thigh, hard. “Silent!”

  Lynch grimaced and rubbed where Wilhelm had struck. “You’re quite hostile, you know. I’ve read that people who -- ”

  Lord Wilhelm drew back his boot for another kick, and Lynch hastily closed his mouth. Wilhelm snorted and lowered his foot, returning his attention once more to Queen Iasolla, who was focused intently on completing the sequence. Crystals hummed through the air, twinkling in sapphires and blues and deep crimsons. The pedestal had started to shake, and the air thrummed almost violently. Lynch could no longer hear the clanking and grinding of the clockwork in the background, though he knew it must still continue.

  He looked again at Eliza and found her eyeing Lord Wilhelm’s ankle. What was so fascinating about it? Meanwhile Wilhelm gazed on the Queen with keenest pleasure, eagerly awaiting the outcome.

  When that sequence was completed --

  Lynch mashed his eye shut, took a breath. Well, hell. He had done what he could for the world. He’d done his best. He would just have to hope for swift death, possibly self-induced, and pray that the Society proved to be benevolent rulers of the world. All unlikely, he knew.

  When he opened his eye, he found himself looking at Lars Gunnerson, who frowned and muttered to himself. He looked very agitated, afraid even. Lynch thought of a volcano ready to explode. First Gunnerson trembled, then paced up and down and shot furious glares at Queen Iasolla’s back. Lynch was half surprised the automatons didn’t seize him for his murderous looks alone.

  At last Gunnerson could take it no longer. “No!” he shouted. “No, this is madness!”

  “You have second thoughts now?” Lord Wilhelm snapped.

  Gunnerson groaned in frustration. “It’s not second thoughts! She’s going to kill everyone.”

  “What are you saying, man?”

  “At first I wasn’t sure, but now I am. That junction James destroyed, it threw everything off. Unless it’s repaired or circumvented, the sequence cannot be completed as planned. The machinery is not operational. The controlling mechanism is defunct.”

  Queen Iasolla continued her procedure, her face rigidly set, only her eyes blazing hate -- all-consuming, horrifying hate.

  Lord Wilhelm studied Gunnerson intently. “What are you saying?”

  “Without the controlling mechanism, the machine cannot be aimed or calibrated. It cannot target specific populations, and it will not merely wipe the minds of all those it reaches, it will stop their minds altogether.”

  Lord Wilhelm stared at him. “Are you saying . . . ?”

  “She means to kill everyone on the face of the earth!”

  There followed a long silence, save the hum of machinery.

  Lynch shared a look with Eliza, and her eyes were wide, her face pale.

  At last Lord Wilhelm found his resolve and spun to Queen Iasolla. “Is this true? Do you mean to kill . . . everyone?”

  For a moment Lynch didn’t think she would answer, so engrossed was she in completing her sequence. But then, over her shoulder she said, “Everyone within the Sentry Ring that protects the city will be safe. All others shall meet their fate.”

  He opened and closed his mouth. “But -- but -- ”

  “They killed my son!” she roared. “They all deserve to die!”

  “But -- but -- no, it was this man! This vile, squirming cripple. Kill him! Torture him! Go ahead, castrate him right now! I’ll hold him down for you! But for the love of God, don’t destroy the world!”

  “Destroy it? I will purify it. Erase it of the gibbering monkeys that would dare harm the perfection that was Jeselri. My beloved. This city shall be the eye of the storm and all others shall perish. I will awaken the other Atlantans -- those in tombs like Jeselri’s, here in the underground -- and we will begin again. We will repopulate the earth with gods!”

  “But Germany! The Third Reich! It will live a thousand years!”

  She scoffed. “Atlantis lasted more than a thousand years, and it will last still more. Your Third Reich will wither in flames like the rest of humanity -- only I will make its agony longer.”

  “What?”

  Her eyes gleamed with savagery. “Did you never uncover who our slaves were -- who rose against us and slaughtered us?”

  He stumbled back.

  She laughed madly. “It was those wretches who would one day be called the Hun.”

  “The Hun!”

  “Like you! And now you will all die horribly for what you did to my people.”

  He bent down and grabbed at his gun, but not the gun he wore at his hip but one strapped to a concealed ankle holster. It was brass, with a flared muzzle like a bell.

  Before he could fire, Queen Iasolla nodded to one of the jade automatons. It rammed a spear through him. The bloody tip emerged half a meter out his back, and as the warrior woman lifted him off the floor, blood burst from his lips. He writhed gruesomely.

  “So the Hun shall end,” Queen Iasolla said.

  The automaton lowered the spear and Lord Wilhelm slipped off the end of it to flop before Lynch, blood slicking the ground around him. Wilhelm gazed up at the ceiling, his mouth working but nothing coming out. Then the light left his eyes, and he sagged, lifeless.

  The troopers had been rooted in shock, but now they drew their guns and fired on the Queen. The air merely shimmered around her as the bullets neared. She inclined her head, and the other four jade automatons sprang into life. Quick as cats, they skewered the troopers with their long lances and hoisted them off the ground. The troopers screamed and fired their guns into the jade faces of the automatons that impaled them, and though jade fragments flew, the automatons did not waver. Queen Iasolla waved her arm and all four troopers burst into flame. Skewered on the lances, they writhed and screamed as fire consumed them. Lynch smelled burning human fat and hair, and his gorge rose. At last they quit screaming.

  The automatons shook the blackened, smoking corpses off their spears, then resumed their still, silent watches as if they had never moved at all.

  Trembling, Eliza knelt over Lord Wilhelm, checking his pulse.

  “He’s dead,” Lynch told her gently.

  Her checking on Wilhelm had just been a cover. Surreptitiously, she found the handcuff keys and passed them to him, shielding the movement with her body. He flashed her a smile and whispered, “That’s my girl.” He didn’t bother telling her that he had planned to do the same thing.

  Her gaze moved meaningfully to the brass gun Lord Wilhelm had carried, a
nd Lynch studied it, realized it must be some sort of Atlantan weapon. Something that would be effective against the Queen. He nodded. Even as she rose back up, he placed the handcuff key in his mouth and hunched over so that his mouth was pressed against the lock. He shoved the key in and turned his head. The lock clicked.

  “And what of you, Herr Gunnerson?” the Queen was saying. Still she did not turn her head. “Do you side with your commander and his men -- or with me?”

  Lars Gunnerson eyed the corpses, then the narrow, shapely back of Queen Iasolla. “I side with you, of course. It only took me by surprise, that’s all. I would see the world burn and help you erect a paradise in its ashes.”

  She smiled. “Well said.”

  Eliza scooped up the jade sword Lynch had dropped earlier. She did it casually, but it was still a threatening gesture.

  “I feel you eyeing my back with that,” Iasolla said.

  The nearest jade automaton creaked to life.

  Eliza stammered, “I . . . I never . . . ”

  Queen Iasolla paused. The crystals -- and there were just a few of them left -- hovered tantalizingly in the air. Sensually she moved toward Eliza and ran a finger along her cheek.

  “Use it if you think you can,” Queen Iasolla purred.

  “I -- I -- ”

  “My son desired you. I desire you also. We can make love as the world falls.”

  She turned back to her floating jewels, and the process resumed. The air shook violently now, and the thrum was almost deafening. Lynch’s teeth vibrated, and his bones.

  Queen Iasolla directed one crystal into a niche, then another, and another. At last only one hung in the air, glittering and awful. It sparkled of sapphire. When it found its niche, the world would end.

  Eliza raised her sword, prepared to spring --

  Lynch was faster.

  He hoisted himself to his feet and ran at Queen Iasolla. A jade automaton thrust its spear at him, but he shot it with the brass gun and it flew backward, shattering into a thousand fragments that sprayed shrapnel over the console. He ran on. Another automaton stabbed at him, but he blew this one to bits as well. No others stood between him and the Queen.