War of the World Makers

by Reilly Michaels

  Did Maria put these words in my mouth, or are they a result of my foolishness?

  As if in response to her question, the yarrow sword appeared in her hand as before: gleaming steel of moon, a straight and powerful broadsword much too heavy for even ten men to wield, though easy enough for her. Its essence lit the walls of her bedroom with a ghostly glow and she believed she heard it whisper to her. Perhaps illusion? Was Mother Yarrow in the sword as well? She could not be sure. She opened her hand and the sword vanished to a thin line of vapor.

  Freddie laid back on her bed to contemplate. Surprisingly, she felt not a bit of fatigue, her body fully recovered from the stale air of the dungeon. She was not invulnerable, she could see that. The ghosts of so many dead must have weakened her, caused her to cough, and even World Makers needed fresh air. And she considered another who was not invulnerable, recalled his jackal face once more:

  Baron Eichmann.

  The world belongs to the bold, yes, and justice cannot wait a moment longer.

  Upon completing this thought, she changed into her riding clothes: close-fitting white pants tucked into tall, black-leather boots with silver buckles; a dark gray waistcoat with gold buttons and black velvet collar worn over a white cotton shirt with frilled cuffs, and a flowing red scarf added for color. In the way of heroes, and acting on impulse, she placed a black mask on her face, one from an old costume ball at the castle. Next, she grabbed a small bag of gold coins hidden in a secret bedpost niche. She left her bedchamber and entered the secret maze of passageways in the castle, and after two wrong turns, found her way down to ground level and out of the main building to the castle stables.

  She chose two young black stallions and rode them bareback at full gallop beneath the stars to Baron Eichmann's estate, switching from one to the other to maintain the speed. For an hour of ride, she felt exhilarated and wild, lifting her face to the night and whooping her joy.

  In the woods beside his fields, she slowed the panting horses and tied them to an oak. Once done, she ran as fast as her stallions and soon reached the base of his castle wall. She jumped to the uppermost parapet in one bound, over and down to the courtyard, still at a run, never slowing.

  Musket-wielding guards stationed before the Baron's palatial residence only had a few stunned moments to react before she cut them down with her fists, their armor helmets crushed. The Baron's heavy oaken door then caved inward as Freddie struck it with her open hands, bursting it off the hinges and flattening it with a loud, echoing crash. After bounding up a staircase and down a hall, she erupted into his grand bedchamber like a masked avenging angel, shouting at him:

  "TIME TO RISE, OH MONSTER!"

  In full sight of the shrieking Baroness, Freddie yanked the fat, sleep-dazed Baron out of bed and hoisted him high into the air, dangling him like a child as he protested and yelled. She slapped him across the face twice and tossed him through the air like a sack of dead rats. He hit the far wall with a loud grunt, so hard it almost knocked him cold. She calmly walked over to him, and reaching down, yanked him gasping to his feet by the hair. With her free hand she withdrew the small sack of gold coins from her coat pocket and shook them to the floor. Still clutching his head by the hair, she forced it down to stare at the coins.

  "There is your payment for all your serfs. You will release them tomorrow and allow them to make their way to Bärenthoren Castle, unharmed. Do you understand? And not a word of this to anyone!"

  "Yes, yes, in God's name, no more!" he whimpered. Two of Eichmann's butlers ran in to grab Freddie but her right hand shot out and caught the first one in the chest, sending him flying back against the other. They smashed into the wall behind them, helpless with broken ribs and dazed heads. "Anything, masked demoness, anything!" he gurgled and yelled.

  Freddie released him and he slid down to a heap. She pivoted on her heel and walked over to Baroness Eichmann who was catching her breath, eyes wide with fear. Freddie backhanded her with a slap so hard it knocked her senseless. Would she ever recover? It mattered not. Vile and hateful creatures such as Baroness Eichmann deserved not a shred of mercy. She and her horrid husband were fortunate to be left alive. Only raw power could ever hope to tame nobles like them into rightness of action, thus preventing them from victimizing even more helpless people.

  That was a fact in Prussia, in Europe, and indeed, all over the world.

  Much later, upon her return to Bärenthoren, Freddie entered the secret passageways and walked to her room, changed her clothes and got into bed. She was finally tired and fell asleep feeling good and righteous, though in her dreams later that night she saw a hideous black thing. At first, it appeared like a giant shadow in her room, staring at her statue of Alexander the Great.

  Then it turned to stare at her.

  The features were indistinct, though the bee-furry head of it could not be disguised, much less ever forgotten. Large as the skulls of ten men, it quivered like a bell struck by a hammer, though without sound, and the eyes, six of them big as banquet dishes, looked like enormous black opals twinkling in their depths with tiny glimmers of red light, as if reflecting a distant torch.

  As she watched, an image of her face replaced the red light in those eyes.

  A dim white speck of her terrified face.

  Оверман

  8

  Babette Feeds Them Apples - Temujin Raises Welts - The Sun Angel of Anhalt

  BABETTE BEGAN THE NEXT MORNING WITH HER CUSTOMARY tune she whistled night and noon. Nothing complex like a Paganini violin Caprice, just simple and lovely. Freddie never knew the source, or even cared for it, until now. Babette had just knocked and entered the bed chamber, dancing and whistling and swaying happily, carrying her silver tray of porcelain plates and cups that contained eggs, toast and tomato juice. Freddie sat up in bed, smiling at Babette, happy to see her. The freshness and care radiating from the woman stood in contrast to the horror and selfishness of the world, and it reminded Freddie that good people still existed, and that she should be grateful. Nevertheless, she must speak to Babette of dark matters, and her nanny would not care for it.

  “Any more demons lurking about, my lapooshka?” Babette asked with love on her face, smiling at Freddie as she laid her breakfast on her lap. “Today is beautiful, so sunny, and you know the sun is a soap that washes away demon dirt!”

  Freddie laughed and accepted the truth of this. As Babette opened the curtains to let the sun fall in one big column over the room, and turned again, smiling just as warmly, the lingering demonic image of the bee thing in Freddie's dream became almost bearable.

  “Babette, please, come sit by my side,” Freddie said, holding her hand out.

  “Yes, princess. Your eyes are troubled.”

  Babette sat down and stared into Freddie’s eyes, her hand reaching out to hold Freddie’s hand. Being a perceptive woman, she saw that Freddie wished to ask her something, and said, “I know you are bothered, my lapooshka, so tell me. You have never hidden anything from your Babette.”

  “It’s hard ...”

  “Is it about the banquet for Empress Elizabeth? I wasn’t there, but Gods in heaven, I’m glad I missed it! The servants won’t stop talking about it in hushed whispers, as if they expect a sword from the sky to swing down and cut off their heads ... and that horrible Mongolian magician, the blood on the floors, the smells. They thought they would be killed, and you, I heard you—”

  “Babette, this is not about the banquet. It is about my father,” Freddie said, her face now darkening. “Do you know of anyone who might wish him harm, other than my mother?”

  “Princess Johanna? Wish him harm? ... Does she? I don’t—”

  “Never mind my mother. This is very important, Babette.”

  “I know of no one, princess, no one, I swear,” Babette said and signed herself with the cross, her face alarmed. “Why do you think he might come to harm? He is a good man, loved by all I know. He makes the nobles angry with his contraptions, I think, but I can’t imagi
ne any would wish him harm because of that. What in Beelzebub’s name is the matter?”

  “I cannot tell you, I am sorry. I just believe ... I mean, I am worried for him.”

  ‘And now, I’m worried also. I will keep watch, ask around—”

  “No, please say nothing.”

  “As you wish, my lapooshka, as you wish.” Babette stroked Freddie’s hand, her eyes looking teary. She hated it when Freddie became upset, and was pleased she could now deliver a bit of distracting news. “By the way, princess, I heard a strange tale. A courier riding from town said he saw dozens of serfs on the road to Bärenthoren Anhalt. They are at least two hours away. I asked Gleb to keep it quiet, and that I would tell you. None of your family knows. Gleb thinks they could be woggers.”

  “Ummm, the serfs? I will look into it. They must have heard we are a sanctuary. I am sure they are not woggers.”

  “Prince Christian will be very displeased if he learns of them. What will you do?”

  “There are empty huts, on the fringe of the castle estate, to the west. Send Eiffel and Freud, under my orders, to ride out to meet them and escort them with respect to those quarters for now. I will see to the rest later.”

  "Might a few of them be woggers?"

  "No, Babette, none of them are woggers, only refugees from Eichmann."

  "I will make certain they are fed apples and cheese, and bread tonight," Babette said.

  Freddie felt overcome by Babette's thoughtfulness. So shines a good woman in a weary world. "You know, Babette, if the end of days arrived tomorrow, the Lord would take you to Heaven first."

  Babette smiled and kissed Freddie on the forehead, and left the bedchamber. Upon her leaving, Freddie picked at her breakfast, brooding on her father once more. She could not help it. Awake a full two hours before Babette entered the room, she had bounced between two walls: one belonging to her father's possible death, the other to the black dream of that monstrous thing. What in Hell was it? A sum of her fears? Eréndira's father? Master Paganini's master, Ahriman, from the dark between the stars? She could not say. But even with Zolo's doubts and possibilities, she believed her mother would be responsible for her father's end.

  I know the witch is planning it.

  She considered becoming the cause of her mother's death first, to save her father. How could she not, despite her Czarina destiny? Her mind strayed to Hamlet, the play by William Shakespeare. She’d read several Shakespeare's plays by age eleven, and Hamlet's words came to her clear as a musket shot at dawn:

  Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.

  To take arms, yes, and end the troubles!

  Just as she’d taken arms against that Baron Eichmann, as she will take arms against the monster Godfellow and his Overman cadre. Why then was it wrong to end the life of a thing so despicable and plotting as Princess Johanna, the tyrant of the castle? Because she plays a role in her ascendance to Czarina of all the Russias—as Zolo said, and so many depended on her coming rule, and that must mean, so many innocents. Being a Czarina she could issue orders to her armies and save many tens of thousands of serfs from brutality and death, as well as do her part to fulfill the dreams of Voltaire and Diderot, squash the influence of the Church, and rid Europe of as many tyrants as possible.

  My God! To think that a world of future good depends on the life of such petty evil.

  Well she knew that the nagging nature of the argument within herself would not be settled any time soon. She would still balance the thought of ending Johanna's life with Zolo's warning, and her coming destiny as a Czarina.

  Pushing aside her tray of cold breakfast, she stood up from the bed, still wearing her robe of last night. She entered her “potty closet,” as she called it, on the far side of her bedchamber, and washed her face with water standing in a small pail beside her gold-trimmed porcelain basin. As she wiped her face with an Anhalt cotton cloth, bearing the family coat of arms, she felt an odd tingle in her eyes. She removed the cloth from her face and saw a dark shadow move across the wall like a giant black bat.

  What now?

  She then felt as if she were rising into the air, and turning downward, around and up again. Still, her feet remained solid. She saw them on the floor of her bedchamber, unmoving, just a glimpse before all went blurry with motion.

  She began to spin.

  The floor and walls of her room vanished. She screamed in terror. All balance and sense of place lost to her, and she kept screaming, the sound of her voice filling her head like a deafening gush of roaring hot water. End over end, end over end she tumbled, until finally she slowed and stopped, her head dizzy, her lungs breathing heavily.

  My God, no more! Mother Yarrow Maria!

  Freddie sensed she floated in space. The air about her, dark and flickering with firelight. Where was she? In what other world? Moments after that question, the darkness evaporated and the light changed, as though a thousand candles of sickly yellow were all lit at once. Her body felt squeezed in a vise, her hands tight at her sides, her heart knocking against the invisible walls that closed in on her. She was a prisoner in a box, her powers withered to dead leaves. Even Mother Yarrow seemed deaf to her. And her hearth of aria, where was it now?

  Frustration mounted in Freddie until she screamed again. This scream, not one of fear, rather one of primal rage, exploding from her mouth with a GRROWWRRRRRR-like sound. She heard it echo, thrumming back and forth as if between the walls of an enormous room—the sound of it like a dragon's bellow, more cruel and frightening that any creature born of Earth.

  The echo died.

  She heard the shrieks begin.

  Two or three, then more, many more. The shrieks of women. A hundred of them at least, their terror pouring out and trembling the very air—the kind of shrieks that only a nightmarish threat of death may produce, but suddenly cut short by a blast of a giant trumpet:

  TAN-TAHHH-RAHHHHHHHH. TAN-TAHHH-RAHHHHHHHH.

  The trumpet blast followed by a voice:

  "BE SILENT AS A DEAD MOUSE, ALL OF YOU!"

  The origin of it unmistakable: Empress Elizabeth.

  For a second time, Freddie attended the same banquet, but as a prisoner within a magical box of some kind, floating above the tables. A long box perhaps? ... Yes. The only answer.

  I am here, within the giant yarrow of Temujin Gur.

  In response to her thought, words intruded, just as they had at the banquet, words spoken with a voice of deep lava yet to burn hapless cities to ash. The voice of a Mongolian black warlock:

  You are honored to be the entertainment, Princess von Anhalt.

  Freddie then felt herself drop. She fell downward until her entire body smacked full and hard against a cold, stone-like surface. The wind was knocked out of her, her breasts mashed and aching, the right side of her face flaring with pain. She groaned and opened her eyes, trying to focus, and soon realized she was laying on the stone-tile floor of her bedchamber, her right eye level with the floor that stretched before her like a dark, flat plain.

  As she lay there recovering, her breath returning to normal and the shock fading from her limbs, she heard a trickling sound on the other side of the room, near her door.

  Was it water? A leak from the room above her?

  Freddie stood up, a bit wobbly, her head still loopy with being a yarrow stick. She examined her arms and felt her hands. All was well, any remaining pain quickly dissolving due to her magical strength, and the fact of this restored a bit of confidence to her, though only a small bit. How could she not feel shaken at the idea that Temujin Gur was capable of such a feat? Of wrenching her from time and space and making her a prisoner, good for nothing but scaring the souls out of foolish noblewomen?

  Or was it all a trick?

  No answer possible, not yet. The noise grew louder.

  One mystery at a time then.

  Freddie walked over towards the sourc
e of the watery fall, near the door, and glanced around, seeing nothing until her eyes fixed on the door itself. Three rivulets of steaming hot blood oozed from seams in the polished oak, beginning at the top of the door and continuing down to the base; and the blood, having allowed gravity to introduce it to the floor, pooled to a yarrow-like symbol: a dragon biting its tail to form a circle, and within the circle, a pagoda-like temple. Once complete, the blood symbol began to glow a bright umber, and like a bladder filling with air, the glow expanded to become one large ball of umber light drifting upwards, its center softly streaking as if with tiny meteor trails. It reminded Freddie in an eerie way of Eréndira's bizarre eyes, and that in turn reminded her of those brave beings of Master Paganini who suffered death by Extinction Event.

  The fall of heroes into the Cenozic Ocean.

  Before she could consider anything else, the light burst in a soundless explosion and sprayed the room with a burnt orange hue. It faded in a moment, but left something behind, standing between Freddie and the door: the kindly Chinese-looking face, beaming with care, soft brown eyes twinkling like a Christmas St. Nicholas.

  The playful Buddha himself, and wearing the same red tunic and clothing.

  Temujin Gur.

  Freddie watched the big silver beetle on his right cheek crawl in circles like a tiny dog preparing to nap. Human-sized lips, four of them, fluttered about his ears, all whispering at once. Freddie could not make out the words. They sounded raspy, alien, vaguely like the Vermeer girl, or the speech of the Fracas machines. Gur waved a hand and they swallowed each other until one was left. It stopped to grin at Freddie before darting into Gur's left ear and vanishing.

  "Thank you for entertaining the banquet, Princess von Anhalt," Gur said, his mood light and breezy, his voice a rumble of distant ash cloud. "A lesson in humility, and not the first one you will receive today. As your powers grow, so must your humility, and thus will your wisdom grow also until you are truly a fitting bride for that useless whelp Peter, as well as a saintly guardian of the dismal and doomed Russian empire." He said this and laughed. Freddie saw his symbol-etched teeth, as before.