by Victor Milán
It was late night in her apartment high in the Imperial heart. She sat at the small writing desk beneath the open window. The large courtyard, really a village unto itself, was alive with orange lantern glow and the sounds of music, laughter, and conversation. She knew some occupants of the Palace proper found that to be a disturbance and an affront. But it all reassured her, somehow. It gives me the comforting illusion I’m not isolated and all alone here in this eerie old aerie.
Even though I am.
She had written to Fanny asking after her absent friends. She had gotten the reply this morning. She’d put off opening it until now. In part, because she felt obligated to stay by her father’s side as much as possible as he continued to struggle, politically as well as personally, with Montse’s abduction. In part, in the hope of restoring her spirit after another day of behind-hand sniggering and condescending looks at Court.
Belatedly, it occurred to her the news from the Firefly Palace might not exactly raise her morale. But she reminded herself of the warm feeling even surrogate contact with her best friend gave her.
We all think it’s outrageous that anyone doubts either your courage or your contributions to the war against the Crusade. We all knew you had a strong, fierce spirit, waiting to be set free. It still saddens us that you had to undergo such awful things to get a chance to show it.
We’ve even heard accounts, which only Fina really credits, that you fought and defeated a dinosaur knight in single combat, mounted on your dear Meravellosa. For my part, I hope that’s not true. I know it was war, and war’s a risky business—to sound even more obtuse than I am. But that would have been desperate indeed.
Melodía had to pause to blink back tears. It was true—all of it. Of course, the dinosaur knight in question had been desperately unwilling to fight—above all, against her. He had been her father, her mentor, her lover, and eventually her betrayer when she sought shelter from her cruel exile at the Garden of Beauty and Truth in Providence. But he had suffered punishment enough to suit even her no-longer-very-forgiving nature after his secret master, Raguel, betrayed him—publicly breaking him to the Grey Angel’s control and degrading him before compelling his body to commit horrid crimes even as his mind rebelled.
Bogardus had managed, at the cost of enormous pain, to open his visor to the cast of Melodía’s last javelin—and had received absolution and mercy in the form of death at her hand. But before that his remotely operated husk and the sackbut they rode had tried with purpose and skill to kill her. She had come closer to death then than even when she faced Count Guillaume’s pet Horror pack, who had hunted down and dismembered the peace delegation she led from the Garden, and murdered her maidservant and friend Pilar before her eyes.
Your example has actually inspired Lupe and Llurdis to enter training to be dinosaur knights.” Melodía shook her head at that. Jaume and her baby sister Montse both adored dinosaurs; she felt nothing but disdain for the great, ungainly, smelly beasts. Give her a fine horse any day—and there were none finer than her mare Meravellosa. As for becoming a dinosaur knight, Melodía would rather strap on three-quarter armor and push a pike in the line—as her father had done in his youth in Alemania.
Josefina Serena badly wants to train as one as well, but her father remains obdurate against it. Prince Harry dotes on her, and that might be the poor child’s problem. His love scarcely lets her breathe.
And speaking of Fina Serenita returns me to your questions: we have found tantalizing hints about Falk’s conduct here, but as yet nothing concrete. Abi has taken to the task like a hound to a fresh trail, predictably. And less predictably, Josefina Serena is proving as avid and not that much less effective as her assistant. Although I suppose the poor girl has always craved stimulation.
I’ve spoken to some of our allies on the Palace serving staff, who remain in shock and mourning for Claudia’s dreadful murder. There is no question she died a heroic death trying to protect our beloved Montse. The Prince himself eulogized her courageous sacrifice at her funeral, though I suspect his desire to express his rage against the wicked Trebs for violating his hospitality in such a remarkably comprehensive manner played a part in his doing so. But we knew she was a heroine, did we not?
In any event, they report that a rather ill-favored northerner named Bergdahl found employment on the Palace staff soon after Falk’s dramatic arrival at court here. He left when Falk did, and reports from some of the veterans who speak so glowingly of your own actions claim he was Falk’s personal servant. He is not fondly remembered by the staff here. His temper matched his visage, it seems; and he had to be reproved repeatedly for attempting to make free with the female serving-maids. More alarmingly, Fina—of all people—has unearthed whispers from the dock district that he’s suspected of murdering a prostitute who worked the streets there.
(It may be that we all have grievously underestimated our Little Serene One. I personally blame her propensity for falling into fits of disconsolate weeping at the drop of a hat, or at that selfsame hat’s neglecting to drop. But I’m probably trying to deflect blame from my own shallowness.)
I find it disquieting to learn that the vile Duke von Hornberg’s mother has appeared on the scene there in La Majestad. We all warn you to guard yourself well against that one. Abigail Thélème’s father in particular has sent warnings against her—both her cunning and what he terms, ‘rumored dark connections.’ As to what that latter bit means, I feel it might be impious, even by my scandalously unobservant standards, to speculate. But I think there’s no question as to what Abi’s father issuing that warning means.
That reined Melodía in hard. Abi’s father, Roger, was an Imperial Elector and ruler of Sansamour, an archduchy whose semiautonomous status was widely held to be euphemistic cover for functional independence from the Francés crown. Archduke Roger was the Empire’s most notorious intriguer. Widely known as “Roger the Spider,” he was even said to be able to beat the Trebs, reputed master intriguers of all Aphrodite Terra, at their own game. Although the clumsy brutality of their kidnapping of her baby sister made Melodía wonder if that reputation was based on anything but air.
But what can he mean about “darker connections”? Melodía wondered. It was whispered that Archduke Roger treated with the Fae—an act of treason against the Creators Themselves, and the only religious crime punishable by death, according to their Books of the Law. She did not want to think about what that might imply.
And speaking of such things, Fina—again—tells us that the whole Sea Dragon base here in La Merced is agog at reports from their comrades in Laventura. They claim it was magic that stopped the Count Jaume and his Companions from rescuing your sister on the waterfront there, and that nothing else could account for what the officers and marines who helped them witnessed. We don’t know what to make of that—other than that your dear one told the truth about why he and his men failed, improbable as that may seem.
She put the letter on the table before her and drew a deep breath of the mountain night air, which seemed to be flowing down the face of the peak like a cool and invisible companion to El Salto, bringing the scents of sage and sun-warmed stone. The stories vindicating her role in the war, and Jaume’s conduct in Laventura, had arrived at La Majestad as well, through equally unimpeachable messengers. To Melodía’s sick frustration, it did no good. All anyone wanted to remember was the way everyone laughed at Jaume’s story of magical intervention causing him to fail to rescue the Emperor’s daughter.
Her tormentor’s hand was in that, of course. Or his mother’s. The warning from Archduke Roger chilled her blood. What chance do I have against that kind of malice and skill? I don’t know anything about intrigue. I proved that in La Merced—and Providence.
Outside in the yard, a woman’s voice sang a lament about her lover abandoning her. But it ended with a laugh at once bitter and joyous, and a verse about how she was better off free of the useless blot. It hit Melodía with a jolt to realize it was a song penned by Rob K
orrigan himself. She wondered how he was doing as Baron. She suspected he wouldn’t be happy.
It was better than thinking how her lover, Jaume, whom she had spurned after the others laughed at him, asked the Emperor’s permission to withdraw from court for a time. Felipe had granted it; he had a forgiving nature for those who didn’t do him intentional harm and, deep down, always trusted his nephew and Champion to be telling the truth of why he hadn’t brought back Montse.
But I doubted him. And I wouldn’t look him in the eye before he turned and walked out of the audience chamber. Is he better off without me, too?
She took a sip of her still vaguely warm yerba buena tea to sooth her nerves and picked up Fanny’s letter once more.
And what can we call improbable now that we know Grey Angel truly walked the world and took the field against the Empire—and was defeated? Many of the Life-to-Come zanies lament your father’s victory there, but, as for me, I can’t regret my life and the lives of everyone I cherish being saved, even if it took an act of defiance against the gods. And for his part, our new Pope, Leo Victor, has issued an encyclical to the effect that Raguel’s Crusade (even now, I can hardly believe I’m writing such a fantastic phrase!) was meant as a trial of our Empire’s continued right to survive and your father’s right to lead it, and that apparently defeating a Grey Angel Crusade, far from an act of unimaginable blasphemy, displayed their worthiness and thus secured the Creators’ divine favor. Which even I find more than a trifle dubious. But the alternative would be to excommunicate not just the Emperor but the entire Empire, so I suppose we should all simply heave a sigh of relief that his Holiness was able to concoct something even that plausible.
I run long, my dear friend. Apologies! I am pouring out my sorrow, all our sorrow, that we are still forbidden to join you there in that creepy old crack in the wall above La Majestad and that you have to face the calumnies of the Unspeakable Hornbergs and their minions alone. We only hope your father will repent and let us come to be with you.
I also am trying, I suppose, to make up for the paucity of real news of import. We all wish for nothing more than to find the evidence that will at last allow you to name and shame your attacker, hero of the moment though he be.
“Please know that we will never stop until we find something which can help you. And that we love you, and miss you. And that I love you and miss you, and long to be with you again, my Princess and friend.
Signed,
Frances Mary Martin, Princess of Anglaterra
And she appended three little hand-drawn heart symbols, in her characteristic overly romantic and even childlike way.
And that at last cracked Melodía’s reserve. Tears flooded her cheeks, so hard and fast she barely twitched the paper aside in time to keep it from getting spotted. Because she loved and missed her friends, Fanny in particular, now more than ever. And because she had underestimated them all, as she had Pilar—and because she remembered too keenly how she had killed Pilar with her own unthinking folly.
What disaster will I bring upon their loving, helpful, innocent heads? And she recalled Karyl, paralyzed by the scorpion sting of depression on the retreat before the irresistible Grey Angel Horde, talking to her in his tent about how his own actions seemed only to bring false triumph and the deaths of loved ones. And she wept like a broken child.
Chapter 24
Montador, Montadora—To honor knights we give them the title of Montador or Montadora, meaning a man or woman who rides in battle, on horse or dinosaur. Usually we call them Mor or Mora for short.
—A PRIMER TO PARADISE FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF YOUNG MINDS
Karyl spun.
Where behind him had been a blank wall a patch of dazzling blue-white light grew larger and larger. Its irregularity reminded him of lichen on a rock. He put up his right hand with fingers barely spread and peered between them to cut the glare.
The room filled with a sulfurous reek like a gas bubble bursting from a fumarole.
On the far side of the door from the terrible glow, Selena had drawn her longsword and held it ready in hands so taut they looked as if the bones would rip through the skin. Karyl felt terribly aware of the futility of the arming-sword whose hilt he was clutching with his left hand.
“No,” he called sharply, as a shape began to warp and flow and resolve within the blaze. “You can’t hurt it with that. Stand back!”
He saw her brow lower mutinously. But she stepped back, though she kept the sword up before her.
The seethe of not quite form within the radiance began to take fleeting shapes: A burning tree. A blade. A seven-pointed star. A featureless human-like head with bizarre heavy horns curling from either side.
And very suddenly, it became the face of a beautiful woman, her thin inhuman features molded intimately in fire. Hair danced about the face like silver flames. The eyes were canted narrow ovals of intolerable brilliance. It was almost as tall, he reckoned, as he was.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want?”
He keenly felt the absence of his staff-sword. He wore a sword when he traveled in official capacity, for the plain reason that a warrior-noble of his station—not to mention reputation—was expected to. To do otherwise would excite suspicion. Which he currently saw no reason to care about on its own merits, but the sword’s absence was liable to put people on their guard or, at the least, make them difficult to deal with.
But then, while he knew that weapon could deal with otherworldly menaces, he wasn’t sure it could deal with this one.
The figure opened its mouth. Its tongue was another blinding flame. “Why, Karyl,” it said, “is that any way to greet your benefactor?”
“That’s not what I’m seeing before me,” he said.
“Oh, but it is.”
The blue-fire face, which had appeared flat and flush with the wall, dissolved once more into a featureless glare and poured itself into the center of the room. In a flash it turned into a floor-to-dome flame pillar.
The fire went out. In its place stood what looked like a woman.
But not quite. The eyes remained white fire. The skin was unnaturally pale, ears and chin pointed. She was thin and nearly as tall as Raguel, over two meters, which made her look attenuated. Wisps of light, constantly moving and changing color, surrounded her. Her body, sporadically revealed beneath, was also like that of a human woman, and nude.
“You still haven’t identified yourself,” Karyl said.
“Haven’t I? Who else would I be but Uma, the Faerie Queen?”
The name shot through Karyl like an ice-cold blade. I’ve heard the name before. But was it ever from human lips?
Selena took a step toward the apparition, though her whole body was visibly trembling so hard it seemed likely at any second to shake itself apart like a wooden toy knight.
“Tighten your dog’s leash, Karyl,” the creature who called herself Uma said. “You do not want me to.”
“Selena,” he said, using the tone not of a liege to a vassal knight but of master to pupil. Which he was; despite misgivings, for his last attempt had turned out poorly for his student, he had begun teaching her his own skill at arms. “Stand down. Now.”
She shook herself one last time—like a wet dog for a fact—then stepped back from the blazing apparition and lowered her longsword.
Uma took a step toward Karyl. “You fear me?”
“With every fiber of my being.”
“And yet you don’t draw your own sword.”
“It wouldn’t do me any good.”
She laughed. “You do have wisdom, for one so shortly lived and puny. And recently so helplessly dependent. Am I right?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t want to.
“And now you need me more than ever, Karyl Vladevich, and I you. You look shocked. Does it surprise you that I know your patronymic?”
“You’re a magical being who shouldn’t even exist. I’ve no idea what you can and can’t do. I’m lost here.”
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“You are! You don’t know how lost. You’re the one who shouldn’t be. It’s only I and my kind who belong on this world! We who existed before your precious Creators perverted our planet, our home, to make it an abode for their”—her voice rose in a contemptuous wave—“meat toys.”
“I don’t know anything about this. Take it up with the Creators, if you have a grievance with them.”
“Oh, we have, Karyl dear. We have. Haven’t you ever heard of the Demon War?”
“Of course. And of course I believed it to be a mere legend, to give a gloss of divine approval to entirely mundane political murder on a major scale. It feels as if it’s becoming trite to say I disbelieved this or that, but there it is.”
“And you also thought it ended? No. We suffered defeat, yes. But it was a mere setback in our struggle to reclaim our world. But we will win. We shall! However long it takes, we will have what is rightfully ours again.”
“I’m hearing blasphemy,” Selena croaked.
“We’re all having a trying day, Mora,” Karyl said. He glanced back over his shoulder. Laurent had his sandaled feet up on the seat cushion of the brummagem throne, both arms wrapped around his knees and the fingers of one hand in his mouth. His eyes were circles of nothing but terror.
He turned back to the glowing presence and wished he had the luxury of giving in to his own terror. Whose very origin he feared to contemplate.
“Your plan would necessarily seem to entail the destruction of all humankind,” he said. “Myself included. Why should I help you?”
She smiled. “Because I am your only chance to keep the humans from being wiped out immediately. And because you love me.”
He opened his mouth. Yet somehow he could not deny it. Any more than he could deny the vein-bursting fear she inspired in him.
Uma spread her arms. “I leave you now to contemplate what I have said. Someday you shall embrace me as your mother and your lover. But now I shall make you wait.”
She blazed into white light so intense he had to look away.
