Gateway to HeVan

by Lucy Kelly

  News had arrived about her successor ¾ her only daughter was missing and presumed dead, her ship tossed into hyperspace by a jump gate malfunction. She suspected this accident was also no accident. Now, since she herself was facing death, she realized the betrayal went further than even she had realized.

  The Queens of HeVan had been blessed with a special gift. They shared a link with the planet HeVan itself, as well as with the people, keeping the world in balance. This power affected all aspects of life on HeVan. The Supreme Queen, known as the Nam-Nin, was the physical representation of Mother Earth for them all.

  Only the Queen knew the secret place from where the first Nam-Nin had joined with HeVan and received the power to link all living things together and keep the planet in harmonious balance. As Queen Ishnam lay back in her bed, she decided she wasn’t beaten yet. The power she held had been passed from mother to daughter in an unbroken line going back for millennia. The location of the place of Joining was passed along in the same way, lest it be forgotten.

  She thought back to a month ago. Merél, her friend and confidant for many years, came to her and told her the time to pass her powers was approaching.

  Merél was a powerful Seer of the present and past. On rare occasions, usually regarding things of great importance to their people, she would get a vision of the future. One such vision, she said, had prompted her to speak with the Queen.

  Ishnam knew now Merél had not really had a vision. Yet, Merél’s warning had caused the Queen to make the one decision which would give the planet hope and allow Ishnam to pass from this world with less fear for the future of her people.

  At the time, still believing in her friend, Queen Ishnam wasted no time. Her three Ankida had recently been killed in an explosion. Her grief was great; she thought her own end would come soon. Her only daughter, Tamiel, was scheduled to leave for an Interstellar Conference. She should already have left but delayed her departure due to a volcanic eruption in the northern region. So the Queen took advantage of the delay to take her daughter into her private chambers.

  Her power, which linked her to the planet, she passed on to her daughter that very day. The action she had taken and the one she would take now would, with the blessings of the Goddess, save her people. Since she’d received word her daughter’s ship had malfunctioned while traveling in hyperspace, she began putting her plans in motion.

  Queen Ishnam, known as the Nam-Nin to her people, was also dying. It was another betrayal.

  Rane’s Giant

  Tremble Island Book One

  by Lynn Ray Lewis

  As soon as Lord Ludwig left she crawled from behind the big chest, and slowly approached the prisoner. He had not moved since they brought him in and shackled him to the wall. Her hands began to warm as she slowly ran them from the top of his head to the tips of his toes so she could assess the damage done to his body.

  This man had taken a beating like none before him. His skull was a web of cracked bone, and three of his ribs were completely broken, with one sticking out from his flesh. His thickly muscled legs were striped by fresh rope marks, and his entire body was bruised with deep painful injuries. The stab wound in his gut worried her a bit, but not as much as the cracked skull.

  This warrior had not gone down easily.

  She had to sit astraddle his thick muscular thighs to reach his head with her hands. Goddess, but the man was huge. Her legs were spread so far apart she could feel the burning stretch in her own thighs. It was good he was unconscious because she could feel the thick bulge of his man’s organ nestled between her own sex.

  Rane placed her hands on his head over the worst of the webbed bones under his hair and skin. She began the tedious task of melding the bone back together, making sure to interlock every small shard of bone so none would be left to float around in his skull after she healed him. Any tiny sliver of bone could cause damage and pain later, so it was better to get the pesky things taken care of the first time and be done with it.

  She leaned over him for hours, concentrating on healing his skull, and pushing the gel that was causing pressure on his brain to seep out of the lesser openings where the skin was broken. Even if she had water to wash away the blood, she would not have done it yet. It would take another day, at least, to heal the rest of his injuries enough to remove him from this place, and place a pile of ashes in his spot.

  Rane was getting quite a collection of big men hiding in the cave near the river. As soon as she heard that the Lord had a new prisoner, she slipped into the dungeon through the secret rock in the wall, and observed the guards and the Lord or Simon come into the room to torture the men for information.

  When they left the men beaten and shackled at death’s door, she slipped through the wall and healed them enough to secrete them out of the room, and into the small tunnel leading into the forest.

  Today’s discovery of a new prisoner was merely happenstance. She had been hiding in the dungeon because this was the one place Simon rarely ventured into without his small gang of hangers-on. She again thanked the Goddess for the small size of her body as she hid behind the trunk of torture implements in the darkest corner. There had been no time to hide in the tunnel without being seen by the guards.

  That she was already here in this room when they brought him in was a blessing for the warrior had he but known it. The bleeding in his brain causing the swelling would have killed him after days of torturous pain. That is, if the stab wounds and the blood seeping from the place his rib stuck through his flesh had not caused him to bleed to death. Or the wound became infected with filth, and he died from the infection.

  Rane took her hands from the warriors head and waited for the wounds to bleed a little more before sealing the seeping wounds on the inside of his flesh. That way, when his captors came back they would see what it appeared to be. The huge man still incapacitated from his mortal wounds, complete with fresh blood still slowly causing him to bleed to death. They liked that. They took bets on how long a prisoner would still bleed, and even how much they would bleed before death. Almost to a man, Lord Ludwig’s men were as depraved as he and his sibling.

  It puzzled her as to why this warrior, and the past three like him, had not been killed outright on the battlefield as so many had been. Nor had they been subjected to the lord’s usual depravities. For some reason he seemed to fear these men, and when a small pile of ashes had been found where the prisoner had been chained, all he did was grunt and nod his head. He ordered his guards to sweep up every ash, and scatter the ashes into the wind over the fields.

  When the lord felt particularly like he needed entertainment, and there were no prisoners in the dungeon, he would have a villager brought into the hall on a trumped up charge, and allow his men to torture the poor soul. The villagers were raped and beaten for screaming during the process. One man had been strung up over the blackened beams overhead, and roasted over a vat of bubbling fat. His screams were said to still echo in the hall on cold nights.

  Sadly, by the time each villager was tossed out of the hall like a pile of garbage, if still alive, their mind was too broken for Rane to heal them. She might heal their bodies, but the mind was in the hands of the Goddess.

  Excerpt from the Queen’s World

  The Biosphere Book One

  By Taren Baker and CC Jones

  “It is time, my Queen,” the healer announced, placing the sheet back over the naked woman on the bed.

  “I will send scouts out to look for a replacement immediately.” Queen Malachai rubbed her hands up and down her body, a body still strong, still beautiful. However, it was past the age she needed it to be.

  Had it really been almost twenty years since she took this body? It had been only three hundred years since she had first taken over as overseer to her current biosphere world. Where did the time go?

  It seemed like yesterday to her that she had been assigned this primitive biosphere to oversee. Her world was one that held no real technology except that wh
ich she brought with her. Her strong hand easily ruled the people here. She liked the power she wielded and decided to proclaim herself Queen of her world. All those within were her subjects and she dictated life and death for them.

  The healer left the room allowing her time to put her royal robes back on. She pushed her heavy layer of dark red curls behind her back. This body was still in very good shape for being forty humanoid years of age. She had taken it over twenty years ago from a courtier that had been visiting the royal court during the Claiming.

  The Claiming happened every twenty years or so when the Queen would send scouts out to choose a body of a young, beautiful woman in her early twenties. The woman would be brought to the palace and await the transfer of the Queen’s mind. The previous owner’s mind would first be erased forever and then the Queen’s mind would be transferred into the new body. She would use the body as her vessel until it reached the mature age of forty.

  Once the body reached forty years of age, it was the time of the Claiming of a new vessel. A new body is picked for the Queen’s use and the old one is then jettisoned out of the biosphere world and into space using a small rocket. The old bodies are never returned to the previous owner’s family because the Queen did not want her subjects to confuse the old body for the Queen.

  This had happened once when she first took over the biosphere and she had to order her guards to destroy the body and any family members who had gotten in the way. It had been a messy ordeal. She much preferred to do things without all the hassle and send the useless body out of the biosphere world altogether.

  Queen Malachai, now wearing her royal blue robes, walked out into the hallway. Ralus, her trusted Head Guard of almost forty years, stood there waiting for her.

  “Is it the time of the Claiming?” Ralus asked.

  “Yes. I need for you to send several scouts out to start the search,” she replied without looking at him.

  The Queen rarely looked at him these days. Ralus knew that too but did not care. She had not favored him since she first recruited him when he was but eighteen years of age. Back then he was a handsome, young, and eager guard in training. Her body had desired his and she had given in to her desire for him just once, it had been enough for her. He was a poor lover and she did not have the patience to train him in the things that she liked. Though it had been once many years ago, the man’s affection for her had grown each and every day. She glanced back at him and cringed. He was no longer the young attractive male he had once been.

  Ralus was now a grey-haired middle-aged man with a broad chest, and watchful eyes. He had a scar, which ran down the side of his face that he had gotten while protecting the Queen from a resistance threat. It made his face almost unbearable to look upon. Despite his ugly appearance, he took pride in presenting himself with a uniform he kept in immaculate condition. He trained daily which kept him physically fit, even though he was in his fifties. But there was nothing attractive about him, nothing at all.

  “Have Ashton sent to my chambers.”

  “Ashton is somewhere on the grounds riding. Should I send another of your harem to service you?”

  “No, I want Ashton!” The Queen stomped her foot and glared up at Ralus.

  Ralus quickly reassured her. “I will personally search him out and bring him to you, my Queen.”

  Placated, she turned to continue her way to her chambers. “See that you do, and quickly, Ralus. I do not like to wait.”

  “Yes, my Queen.”

  JK Publishing, Inc.