‘Now I’m done,’ he said. The only thing he was missing was his goggles, and if luck was with her, they were sitting on Cassandra’s head where he’d left them.
Totelun followed Naus out into the corridor, to the door across the hall. Naus was up against it, his ear to the wood, listening. Had he heard something?
Totelun did the same.
-and the missing boy? he heard through the wood. No, not through the wood. The voice was like no sound he’d heard before, he could actually feel it. Like he was standing too close to a bonfire, with the heat washing over him like a physical wave. The same thing was happening with that voice. It was inside his mind. He looked to Naus, who had heard it also, frowning in concentration.
‘Rest assured, my Queen, he has been found,’ said a second voice.
‘That’s Harling,’ Totelun whispered, when Naus started.
‘And they can’t mean you,’ Naus agreed. His expression was strange, his words seemed to come from far away.
If Totelun remembered the layout of the palace and hadn’t got completely turned around during their sneaking, then this must be the door to one of the sets of balconies on the second floor.
Above the throne room.
The Medousa and Harling were talking in the throne room.
Unharmed I hope. That voice again, like a wall of sound in his mind.
‘That’s the Goddess,’ said Totelun. Noctiluca. Naus nodded again, slowly and absently. His jowls had slackened. He was worrying Totelun now.
Harling spoke again. ‘I had to use a Xantusi to flush him out.’
I told you I wanted him intact! This time the voice inside Totelun’s head was bellowed and angry, driving into his brain like noise made physical. He winced. He dreaded to think what it would be like up close and direct. He felt blood at his lip; his nose was bleeding. He glanced at Naus. The old man’s nostrils ran red with blood, but he had hardly noticed. Totelun watched the drips trickle into his beard.
‘He is alive and well, my Goddess,’ said Harling. ‘But he proved difficult to find.’
‘Anthrom,’ breathed Naus. When Totelun frowned at him, he added, ‘the Prince Elect.’ He whispered it, like the thought had come from far off. The same far off place as his focus had gone too.
Bring him to me!
‘At once, my Queen.’
The room beyond the door fell silent for a moment, Totelun heard the door close and guessed Harling had left. He wasn’t concentrating on the room or the conversation anymore, he was watching Naus’ slack face in horror.
I feel you, said the Medousa. The voice in Totelun’s mind was soft. Inquisitive. Curious.
Who was she talking to now? He wasn’t aware of anyone else in the room beyond.
Who are you? she asked. Who’s there?
Was she talking to them?
When he looked again, Totelun saw Naus was trembling. His arms and hands shook. ‘The Goddess, the Medousa,’ whispered Naus. His voice still had that strange quality. ‘She’s real.’
‘Of course, she’s real,’ Totelun whispered back. ‘Aurelia told you-’
‘I never quite believed it. But I can hear her.’
Do not be afraid. Come to me, said the Medousa.
Totelun felt it like a command, felt his own hands begin to shake.
Naus put his unsteady hand on the door handle. ‘One look can’t hurt, can it?’
‘Are you insane!’ said Totelun, grabbing Naus’ hand before it could twist. ‘She’ll see or hear you immediately.’
‘I have been trying to see her for centuries,’ said Naus. He began to frown, his hands yanking against Totelun’s. ‘I need to see her. I must gaze upon the Goddess. Let me go.’ Naus tried again to move the handle, but Totelun resisted him.
‘Stop that. What’s got into you?’ Totelun said, panicking. ‘Aurelia said she could destroy minds, that her voice could tear you apart. She is too powerful. That one look might be all you get.’
‘But I want to see her face, I need to! I need to know who she is!’ Naus’ eyes were wild, his teeth clamped in a grimace of effort as he spoke.
‘No. Naus! Stop it. Don't gamble our escape now!’ said Totelun, silently fighting him. ‘You want to go barging into the same room as a powerful thralled sorceress?’
‘We’ll be quiet.’
‘It won’t matter.’ It was like the song of the Trelki, Totelun realised. He remembered his father’s slack face, watching him lurching out of the bushes right into the trap laid by a fearsome and subtle predator. The magic, the voice that Aurelia had warned them of, it was like that song. And he had been able to resist. ‘You’re being affected by something. And I’m not.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Naus. ‘I can be in and out in a second. Just a peek.’
‘We need a better plan than that!’ Totelun hissed the last word. He gently but forcefully prized Naus’ hand from the handle. ‘There’ll be another time.’ But as he let go, Naus lunged wildly for the handle.
Totelun punched him. His knuckles crunched into Naus’ cheekbone, knocking the old man away from the door. It had been pure instinct, he had to get through to Naus somehow. Had to break through the hold of the voice.
‘What the?’ Naus came up, hand on his cheek. He pupils swam, but towards focus, not away. The effect was fading. Totelun breathed a sigh of relief.
Until he heard a voice from behind them. Naus and Totelun both turned to look, the spell finally broken.
It was a thralled guardsman. He was yelling. ‘They’re here!’
Part Two
Chapter Nine
Anthrom
Anthrom felt a drop of dread ice down his back at the thought of the next few moments, sure they would be his last.
High Cleric Harling led a small solemn group toward the throne room; two androgynous thralled Cepheans, their Medusi following behind like strange magical ghosts lighting the halls, and Anthrom in the rear, furtively stroking his doublet straight and fretting. What has befallen Verismuss and Thaddeus, Overlords, even Aurelia and Cassandra? Where was everyone? The Clerics had taken over, and it was his turn to see the Medousa. He imagined his sisters had gone before him. I have to assume they’re dead. Is it me next?
Until ten minutes ago, he’d been convalescing in the palace infirmary. In the next bed over, slept a hooded man thralled to a tentacle that ran out through an open window and up into the sky. The Celestial’s thrall. The first time he’d seen this, through a haze of pain-relieving opiates, he’d fainted right back into unconsciousness.
From the presence of one monster, into the sanctum of another, he thought.
Harling stopped him before the throne’s room’s wide doors.
‘A word of warning, Prince Anthrom,’ he said, almost sneering. ‘If you want to keep your head attached to your shoulders, be respectful. Honesty is your friend. If she catches you in a lie, you will wish for sweet death, the only release from the torture you will endure. Do not cross her, do not hide things from her, or this,’ he stroked the back of a clawed old finger over Anthrom’s bandaged shoulder where the Xantusi had taken a chunk out of him, ‘will be only the beginning.’
Where he knew he should heed the words, Harling’s tone was all he could hear. Anthrom had always hated Harling, ever since the Order had thought Cassandra was dead and Harling had suggested Anthrom be the next Nectris house Cephean. He could not forgive that. But he had a new loathing for the man after the use of the Xantusi creature. He was a sycophant priest cowering at the heels of a sorceress. He was nothing. Certainly not equal to a Prince. And how dare a mere Cleric threaten a Prince? Prisoner or not, he had certain rights and status and should be treated accordingly.
Harling frowned, dismissing Anthrom’s matching look of derision.
He opened the double doors wide and led Anthrom inside. The cavernous space was dark and close despite the high ceilings. He barely noticed the lit torches lining the path to the throne, so much like his own throne room underground, or the ranks of Clerics an
d young acolytes seated in the balconies. They were silent, like row upon row of the dead watching from beyond the grave. As Harling stepped aside, Anthrom drank in the scene.
Aurelia’s throne had a terrifying new occupant; tall, gaunt, skeletal, her skin a dusty grey alabaster. Long spiky limbs with jutting bones and talons on the ends of her spindle fingers. A dress of sheer dark grey material covered her thin frame, hid her legs and feet.
The Medousa, a dark queen fit to sit that throne.
Anthrom walked transfixed, as if he was under a spell. He studied her face; her eyes were cavernous holes from which an even more dangerous creature might emerge, her nose a thin wedge of cartilage. Her lower jaw was missing, and below her nose, her mouth seemed to just open into a maw that Anthrom felt himself falling headlong into, down her exposed throat. He could see spines that stuck from her back like those of a tined lizard. Her skin too was like the leathery scales of a reptile.
But however impressive and mind-altering her appearance, even she was eclipsed by the creature that hung above. Anthrom’s eyes were drawn up from her back via the cluster of hardened bone and scar tissue that gave her a hump-backed appearance despite her height. This conflux of bone connected to a tube that thickened as it rose higher and higher, snaking up until it met the monstrous Medusi she was thralled to.
Except for a Celestial, it was the biggest Medusi specimen he had ever seen, bigger than any described in his many favourite books. It shone from within, a blue light so vibrant as to almost glitter; its tentacles hung down behind the Medousa, threads of blue water, rain dripping down glass. It lit the Medousa’s pale skin, so as to make her appear an apparition in cerulean blue and dominated the large auditorium, floating above them in awe-inspiring glory.
Anthrom imagined if say, a raven soaring through the night, were to circle the palace, if it could draw it’s dark eye from the disturbing sight of the tentacles that wrapped the remains of the tower and the largest portion of the central palace, it would see the equally eerie blue light emanating from the glass dome atop the throne room, like a beacon at the centre of the city. A lighthouse calling to all the Medusi across the realm.
If he’d once been terrified of Stauros, or Verismuss, or even the Chironex that had attacked him, it was nothing to this sight. He was petrified, eventually coming to a halt a few feet from the base of the steps that led to the throne, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. He felt his limbs shivering despite the warm of the open flames.
Ahead of him a line a four people knelt at the foot of the steps. He felt like dropping to his knees to join them in fervent worship of the Goddess.
Harling clasped him by the injured shoulder and pushed him to the side. ‘Watch and learn,’ he whispered.
Now we have the appropriate witnesses, the words slammed into his mind, we can continue. It was the Medousa speaking directly inside his head. He felt a tickle in his nose, then reached up to find his fingers come away bloody.
One of the rebels turned their head and looked at Anthrom. She had tears rolling down her cheeks, blood at her nose.
Each of you is charged with insurrection. There was no rasp to the words, like they came from a throat without a jaw, without a tongue. Instead, they were perfectly formed and though incredibly powerful, her voice was warm, almost soothing, like a hand was caressing his mind. A hand like a vice. There is a new order in Theris city. There is a new Empire on the rise. My Empire.
Each time she stopped, Anthrom found himself breathing hard, like his lungs were on lockdown.
Like everyone in this city, you have a choice. She scowled down at the four rebels, blade-like fingers gripping the throne rests. You can join me, or you can oppose me. You have chosen to fight, but I am a benevolent Goddess. I want to give you a second chance. A chance to make a new choice.
The Order couldn’t have Aurelia or Cassandra if they were making this display of a group of nothing rebels. Am I the witness? he thought. Was this all a show for him? If so, he got it. There was no further need for this. The Medousa was powerful beyond belief, and in charge. No argument from Anthrom.
But you must know what your choice means. She was playing with them. You have heard the Cleric’s teachings. To be thralled is to return to our original form. The two joined as one. Back to the womb of life, and I am your mother, your guide.
If you choose to join me today, you choose also to be thralled. You choose to become your greatest selves. But if you still choose to oppose me, she paused for a long moment, you will be destroyed. You will remain a mere human, un-elevated.
And you will die that way.
Two Clerics stepped forward at a gesture. Between them, a Common or possibly Wild Medusi was clamped into a floating apparatus, its thralling tentacle separated from the stinging kind, and held in place by one of the attendants using a tube with a handle. They stopped behind the first rebel.
The Medousa rose slowly and descended the stone steps in deafening silence. She stopped in front of the first rebel in line, crouched on her long legs, and gently took his face in one grey hand. Anthrom almost forgot the razor-sharp fingertips in the tenderness of the gesture. The young man was sweating, shaking in terror.
What do you choose? Anthrom heard the question as if asked to him alone. He hoped they would not choose to fight. However much he did not want to witness a man he’d never met get thralled, it paled next to watching him be destroyed. He had no doubt she would do it herself.
‘I will join you,’ the man stuttered.
Good choice.
He seemed to jump as the Cleric held the tube to the top of his spine. Inside, was the sharp spear-like point of the thralling tentacle. The Medousa continued to hold his head and look straight into his eyes as the Medusi jerked and stabbed into him. He eyes rolled back in his head, but she held him firm. Now you are mine, she said, but again Anthrom heard it as if it were said to him. Everything she said was broadcast to all in the local vicinity, an audience whenever their Goddess desired.
What would he have chosen in the man’s place? It didn’t matter. He resolved he would never be there. He was a witness. He was Prince Anthrom Nectris, and though it was clear the Medousa wanted to teach him a lesson, it was also clear he was important to her. With his sisters missing, he was the last remaining royal. Could he count on his status meaning something to her, giving her legitimacy? Could he perhaps manipulate this situation to his advantage?
Maybe all was not lost, after all?
The Medousa and her two Clerics moved on to the next rebel, who though sobbing, made the same choice. Then the third in line. Each time they left a thrall behind.
Finally, she bent to the fourth, the young woman who had looked at Anthrom when he’d first entered.
What do you choose?
Through tears, the woman whimpered, ‘I will never join this. This is wrong. We are not meant to be slaves to Medusi. You are no Goddess of mine.’ She petered out, sobbing. Anthrom felt genuine respect for the woman, standing up for her beliefs. But he feared the result.
The Goddess stood and backed away from the last rebel. She seemed to be looking at Anthrom. I said you had a choice. And I respect the choice you have made. But this is what happens to those who oppose me. She reached out a clawed hand to the woman and then slowly closed it.
The woman began to scream. Anthrom felt the wave of power that swept the room. The woman’s hands reached up to her head, gripping her temples. She shrieked in pain again and again. Blood was running out of her ears and nose, splattering the stone floor. Anthrom tried to look away as her tears also turned to blood, but Harling roughly twisted his head back to watch.
His own teeth were gritted, feeling the energy coming off the Medousa.
‘That voice you hear is nothing compared to this,’ said Harling next to him. ‘She fills your head with magic, so much that it cannot be contained.’
The woman’s shriek had become like a wild beast, throbbing and pulsing in waves, filling the room. Her head vibrated violently and the
n there was an audible crack, and she slumped on the stone steps, dead. Anthrom could see her skull was caved in.
Clear this place, intoned the Medousa as she swept back to her throne.
Clerics all around him began to file out, vacating the balconies and pews. Acolytes rushed forward to help the three thralls stumble away, and others to clear the dead woman from the steps. Harling held Anthrom firm by his injured shoulder.
After just a few minutes the throne room was largely empty, just the Medousa, Harling, Anthrom, and a tell-tale bloodstain.
Prince Anthrom Nectris, she sent, then at a wince from Anthrom added, there, is that better? The voice in his head became quieter, still undeniable and direct, but dimmer somehow. An indoor voice amongst friends, but he wasn’t fooled. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
She beckoned him forward. I’m sorry you had to witness that, she said, when he stood before her. Any new ruler will face opposition, but I find object lessons make the best deterrents. I’d prefer people became thralled willingly as our creed teaches. Are you alright? She indicated his shoulder.
‘I’m fine,’ he choked, his mouth drier than he’d expected. He still seemed strangely out of breath.
I understand you needed to be flushed from the walls like a fox before the hunt; you were such an expert at remaining concealed. An admirable skill.
Anthrom didn’t know what to say. He shivered.
Well, again my apologies, you were not meant to be harmed. She crossed her legs and leaned forward. Now, let me get a look at you, she said, peering at him. Her eyes were dark pits. So old, ancient even. He could almost feel her intelligence, her experience as the words penetrated his head. You are so young. Fourteen?
‘Fifteen now.’
Fifteen, but handsome. That scar will become something to be proud of. I can see you are shrewd and cunning, Anthrom. Qualities, I assure you. And ambitious. These are things I look for in people.
All true, thought Anthrom, but flattery won’t work on me. I saw what just happened. I can still smell the iron in the air. He was glad she couldn’t read minds as easily as she could project into them. It seemed she was happy to leave the lesson to explain itself. ‘Thank you, Goddess,’ he said aloud. Respectful, as Harling had wisely advised.
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 13
