Select

by Patricia Reding

Kader tilted his head, as he eyed a weapon hanging from the young man’s side. “Adish, come dow’ an’ check out—Broden ’ere—fer more weapons. An’ bring me ’is sword.”

  “Sword!” Lucy whispered, glancing at Broden’s side. That’s when she saw it—the weapon she’d cleaned earlier, the weapon that had been sitting on the table just inside the cabin where she’d stood moments ago, the weapon she’d left out, intending to return it to its hiding place first thing in the morning.

  Oh, great Ehyeh, he’s got the great sword.

  “Everyone else remain where ya are. It won’ take me but a moment tuh slit the child’s throat if necess’ry. Jus’ keep ’at in mind.”

  But for the crackling fire slowly consuming a nearby cabin, punctuated by the intermittent sounds of Nina’s crying, the compound stood utterly silent.

  “Keep yer ’ands up,” Kader ordered.

  Someone approached Broden from behind. Seconds later, hands molested him, searching for hidden weapons, and then removed from the scabbard at his side, the great sword.

  “Put yer ’ands behin’ yer back.”

  Broden obeyed.

  “Band ’im.”

  A moment later, someone clamped a cold band about the young man’s wrist.

  “The child’ll accompany us outta camp. When we’re at a safe distance, we’ll release ’er,” Kader called out to no one in particular.

  “That wasn’t the agreement.”

  “Ya’re ’ardly in a position tuh negotiate,” Kader said, throwing Broden’s words back at him. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Tell the others tuh stan’ down. We’ll loose the child when we’ve retreated a safe distance. If anyone follows,” he paused for effect, “you die.” He held Broden’s gaze. “Right after the child, ’at is.” He grinned. “I’ll let cha watch,” he whispered. “Blindfol’ him, Adish,” he ordered before turning away.

  As Adish placed a blind over his eyes, Broden repeated Kader’s instructions to the compound residents. Then someone grabbed his arm and pulled him forward.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The wrought iron fence stretched across the lawns at the front of the palace, wrapping at the corners and extending around to enclose the main grounds and outbuildings. Masterly crafted, it sported scrolls and whirls reminiscent of branches, the ends of which were tipped with copper leaves that had aged to a soft verdigris. The center of the front gate boasted a large sideways oval in the center of which craftsmen of old had used their skill to articulate through design, the concept of the Select as strong and sure, in the form of an eagle in flight. Wide enough for two carriages to ride through side-by-side, the gate swung open with a grating screech at the touch of the latest to visit the grounds.

  Basha and Therese rode up the drive toward the main building, their horses leaving clouds of dust in their wake.

  Silent, the Oathtaker reminisced over past sights and sounds she’d witnessed on the grounds. In former days, guards escorted carriages from the gates to the front of the white marble palace that glistened, both in the sunlight and moonlight. But now, there were no guards, and little of the white marble remained exposed, as ivy crept up the palace exterior, nearly smothering the building in a shroud of green.

  The women continued until they came to a wide staircase that rose up to the front door. There they stopped, the surrounding silence startling them. In prior days, flags at the top of the palace flapped in the breeze, but what little of those flags remained, now hung faded and shredded.

  They dismounted, tied their reins to a nearby station, and then continued up the steps.

  No guards led the way. No torches flanked the pathway. No lights shone through the windows. No servants shuffled through the yards or tended to the gardens or to potted plants that once they kept clipped into topiaries decorating the landing and the front entrance to the palace.

  They stopped and leaned against the balustrade that bordered the landing. Stretching out before them, the yards and gardens were overgrown and untended. Aside from the occasional surviving plant intended to have been there, weeds and grass had invaded, grown, and eventually choked out the once beautiful and immaculately tended grounds. They turned back to face the palace.

  A fountain in the center of the landing that had invited guests of old with its sprinkling cool water, sat empty, silent, and still. Around its inside edges, a ring of mildew had dried and turned from green to brown.

  “It’s like visiting a graveyard,” Therese whispered.

  Basha nodded, then made her way to the front entrance where she stood silently for a moment, recollecting how the palace staff of old, with precision, opened the door for guests at exactly the right moment so that they might enter without missing a step. She grasped the handle, then turned it. Hinges squeaked as the door fell open.

  She stepped inside, holding her hand out to caution Therese to wait. After glancing about, and seeing no one, she motioned for her charge to enter.

  The women looked around the foyer. A grand staircase flanked each side. Behind the staircases and down the halls to either side, sat private reception rooms, meeting rooms, and offices, as well as the formal dining area once used for family dinners and official affairs. The floor above included numerous chambers for members of the first family, their Oathtakers, and frequent palace guests.

  A plush rug muted the sounds of their steps as they started down the spacious hallway to the right. Cobwebs hung around the fixtures hanging from the ceiling, as well as on the sconces and artwork on the walls. The candles of the fixtures had burned down to stubs and now were clothed in dust.

  The place was utterly silent.

  It’s as though it quit breathing, the Oathtaker thought. Her eyes scanned the walls where various paintings hung, depicting leaders of the Select from days gone by.

  “Excuse me?” came a voice from behind.

  Basha jumped in front of her charge, then turned to the sound of the voice while simultaneously pulling out her Oathtaker’s blade, Honora, from its carefully hidden sheath. She assumed an attack stance.

  An old man, leaning on a cane, stood at the end of the hallway.

  The Oathtaker froze. Her eyes narrowed. “Bernard?” she whispered.

  He bowed. “At your service. And you are?”

  “Bernard!” Therese exclaimed. “Don’t you recognize us?”

  He shook his head. “Excuse me?”

  “I said, ‘don’t you recognize us?’”

  “I’m sorry, miss. I don’t see so well these days.”

  Bernard had served as a doorman at the palace for decades. Basha recollected how when she’d last seen him, he was well into the fall of his life. Now, winter had set in. He stood even more stooped over than before, his build was even more slight than in the past, and apparently, his eyesight was even less acute.

  “Bernard, it’s me—Therese.”

  “Therese?”

  “You know, Rowena’s sister, Therese.”

  He cocked his head right to left, then back again, looking the visitor over. “Therese.” He shook his head as though in disbelief. “I’d heard you lived after all.”

  “That’s right. The family thought I’d been assassinated. Remember? That day we all went on a picnic near the cliff above the Mando River?”

  “I remember.” It seemed, perhaps, that the one thing advanced age had not changed, was Bernard’s memory.

  “What are you doing here?” Basha asked him.

  He glanced her way, a question in his eyes.

  “It’s me, Basha.”

  “Oh, Basha. Yes, of course! Sorry. The hearing’s not so good anymore.” He brushed his hand over his ear.

  “Bernard, what are you doing here?” Therese repeated Basha’s inquiry a bit louder.

  He moved his cane forward, took a step, then repeated the procedure as he neared the women. “Waiting for the family to return, of course.”

  “Oh, Bernard,” Basha cried, “let’s find you a seat.”

  “I’m fine. I’m
fine,” he insisted as he took another slow step.

  The women approached him, then each took one of his elbows. They directed him back in the way from which he’d come, to the formal dining room.

  Basha grabbed a chair, noticing the table set with clean plates, shining silver, and sparkling crystal.

  “Sit here,” she said.

  He sat. He took a deep breath. “So, how many will there be for dinner? I’ve a lot of preparations to make.”

  The women pulled chairs out and sat next to him.

  “Bernard, did you do this?” Therese asked, motioning toward the table.

  “Oh, yes! Yes, of course. The table is always ready . . .”

  “I’m sorry, the family is not coming home—at least not yet. Hopefully it will . . . soon.”

  “Oh, well . . .”

  “Basha and I are just stopping in to . . . Well, to have a look.” Therese paused. “How long has the place been empty?”

  “Empty? Oh, yes, empty. Yes. Well, let’s see. I guess it wasn’t long after Lilith left that Janine and Sally moved on.”

  “Sally and Janine have been gone all these years?” Basha asked. “I thought they’d have stayed here. Where did they go?”

  “Go? Oh, you mean Sally and Janine. Where did they go?” He pursed his lips. “Where did they go?” he muttered. “Hmmmm, I’m not sure.” He hesitated. “I thought I heard them say something about . . . Well, about Chiran . . . But, you know, the hearing,” he motioned again with a hand to his ear, “it’s . . . not so good.”

  “Chiran!”

  “Well, maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure I heard them correctly.”

  “But you think that’s where they may have gone.”

  “Maybe. Maybe.” The doorman glanced at the table. “So no one is coming for dinner again tonight?” The sparkle that had lit his eyes when he first recognized the visitors, wavered.

  “No, Bernard,” Therese said as she stroked his forearm, “I’m sorry. No one will be here for dinner this evening. Well, no one except for Basha and me.”

  “Ahhh! I’d best get busy then.” He stood.

  Together, the women gently eased him back into his chair.

  “We’ll stay for dinner, Bernard, under two conditions,” Therese said.

  “Conditions?”

  “Yes. First, Basha and I will see to dinner, and second, you will join us.”

  The man smiled as he glanced from one of the women to the other. “You’re making dinner? Sorry, the hearing . . . It’s not so good.” One more time, he gestured at his ear.

  “That’s right,” Therese said, raising her voice. “Does that sound good?”

  “I’d like that. Yes, I’d like that.”

  After they prepared a light meal—having found little in the way of food reserves in the palace kitchens—the women discussed with Bernard what had happened at the palace since they’d last been there. For Therese, that was when an assassin tried to kill her one day. An arrow that someone shot caused her to slip at the edge of a cliff. She fell to the roaring river below. When she regained consciousness, some people, who it turned out were Lucy’s friends, attended to her welfare. They cautioned her against returning to the palace, as it seemed someone there actively sought her demise. Therese took the warnings to heart. A few years later, she met Mara, who was traveling with the newborn twins, Reigna and Eden. Later, Mara reunited Therese with Basha.

  For her part, Basha had been spirited away from the palace one day when Mara traveled there magically to rescue Dixon. Lilith held him hostage there, torturing him in an effort to get him to reveal the whereabouts of Rowena’s newborn child. It was that child—or rather children, Reigna and Eden—who Basha and Therese had helped to protect at Lucy’s compound during the intervening years. Basha had visited the palace only once since then, and that was when she and Mara traveled there magically to recover the great scepter for the twins, its rightful holders.

  Bernard filled his visitors in on events at the palace over the years. Once news had come that Lilith had tried to kill Rowena’s newborn daughters and that in the process, she’d roamed the countryside, killing thousands of other infants, no one at the palace wanted anything further to do with her. They didn’t celebrate her death, neither could they find anything to celebrate about her life. Thus, no one had entered her room in all the intervening years.

  As to the others living at the palace when Lilith died, Bernard had little information to impart. Sally and Janine left shortly after Lilith’s death. He’d neither seen nor heard a word from either of them since. Meanwhile, he remained at the palace, waiting for the day when the first family might return to their ancestral home. As the years passed, one by one, the guards, the grounds keepers, the wait staff, the other doormen, the kitchen personnel, and the gardeners, moved on. Only Bernard remained.

  Basha and Therese tried to convince him that he too should depart, but he refused. The truth, he told them, was that he had nowhere else to go, no family to attend to, and no personal estate to which he could return. He’d known but one home for decades, and he had no intention of leaving it now.

  Accepting his refusal, the women promised they’d send someone to the palace to help him. He’d long since reached the time when others should have seen to his needs. The women reasoned that the first family owed it to him to care for him, given his many years of service. Moreover, they hoped the family would return before long to keep him company.

  With the dinner hour behind them, Basha and Therese started their survey of the palace, beginning at its uppermost reaches. They soon discovered that some of the long departed staff had helped themselves to paintings, crystal lamps, silver service sets, and more.

  On the second floor, where family members previously kept their private quarters while in attendance, the women thoroughly searched each room. Little had changed. When they got to Sally and Janine’s rooms, they found no clues as to the women’s whereabouts or details of any plans they may have made.

  Finally, while making their way to Lilith’s chambers, Therese stopped suddenly. Basha, who walked ahead, turned back.

  In the midst of the paintings that lined the hallway, a bare spot on the wall stood out shockingly.

  “My mother’s portrait is missing.”

  “Yes. Mara and I noticed it when we came here to retrieve the scepter. I think Lilith removed it.”

  “Why?”

  “I suspect she believed Mae betrayed her when she bore Rowena.”

  “I wonder where she put it.”

  “I don’t know. But if we find it, we’ll return it to its rightful place.”

  Therese turned away and then followed her Oathtaker down the hallway.

  They approached Lilith’s former rooms. “When Mara and I were last here, we were . . . you know . . . visited by that horrible—”

  “Don’t say it,” Therese interrupted. “It gives me the creeps.”

  “Lilith had locked the door and I couldn’t get in, even with my attendant magic. I could move the tumblers, but that was all. Fortunately, Mara broke some kind of magic restraint that Lilith had used.” Basha grabbed the doorknob.

  “Well, give it a try.”

  The Oathtaker turned the handle. “It’s not locked!” she whispered. She opened the door slowly, and stepped inside, cautioning Therese not to enter as yet.

  She created a flare in the palm of her hand, then used it to light the candles sitting on a nearby table. Once done, she turned it out before ushering her charge inside.

  As the candlelight grew, the particulars of Lilith’s room became evident. Walls of deep carmine red seemed to ooze like blood as the light flickered on them and danced over a jumble of items littering the floor, the tabletops, the dressing table, and the bed.

  The two stood, contemplating the bedlam before them. Hairpieces hung from candelabras and lamps. Clothing, piled in corners and strewn about, served as nesting for mice. Bottles and jars of creams and powders and perfumes and pastes jostled for position on t
he tabletops.

  “Nothing has changed in all these years,” Basha said as she picked up a shard of glass from a broken bottle, the contents of which had long since spilled, and then dissipated. Piles of books sat open, their pages torn. Hats and shoes and gloves and hairpins and jewelry were scattered and strewn about.

  “This was how Mara figured out where Lilith had hidden the scepter,” she said, as she stepped toward a trunk in the middle of the room.

  Therese approached. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, that—thing—told us that Lilith had ‘packed up’ her old ways. Mara and I had seen some trunks like this one in the underground rooms when we’d arrived. She surmised that Lilith had put the scepter in one of them, or in the storage room where she kept them.”

  “Dear Good One,” Therese said, “can you smell that?” She rubbed her nose with her fingers, trying to rid her nostrils of the scent.

  Basha chuckled. “Yes, I can. I guess even the passing time couldn’t blot out what Lilith used as fragrance.”

  “It does smell like Lilith!”

  “Yes. See here?” The Oathtaker lifted a jar, its label still legible. She handed it to her charge. “Essence of Rose. It was Lilith’s preferred scent, though—if you ask me—it’s too high and sweet. It gives me a headache.”

  Therese laughed. “Me too.” She opened the jar and sniffed at the contents. “Whew!”

  “Right. But she fooled a lot of people for a long time with that stuff. She knew that if she was doing Ehyeh’s will, she’d exude a scent confirming His favor with her. But she didn’t have His favor, so she covered up her lack of scent with that.”

  Therese put the jar back on the dressing table. “So, where’s her mirror?”

  “Oh, that . . . demon spoke to us from it. Do you remember it? The big one?”

  Therese nodded. “I do.”

  “Mara threw a crystal at it when he tried to burn us up. The mirror broke and the entire thing went up in flames and disappeared. Every last shard of glass—gone.”

  “What are these?” Therese asked as she neared a stack of books. “There are some interesting titles here.”