Chapter Twenty-three
Kristoff
“This proves nothing—nothing!” Morbain declared, his voice ringing in the small corridor. “Eucilla is the True Incarnation and you cannot prove otherwise!”
I stared at him in weary disbelief and Charlotte shook her head.
“Did you see what happened in there?” she whispered, looking up at me.
I bent down, the better to hear her words.
“Yes, I saw,” I murmured. “You were beyond brave, my Lady. You have the courage of a warrior.”
“Only because I trusted you,” she said softly, looking into my eyes. “You told me nothing would hurt me and I believed you.” She frowned. “Although I wish you would have given me a little warning about what was waiting for me. I was pee-your-pants-scared in there!”
I had to stifle a laugh. Her way of talking tickled what some would have said was my nonexistent sense of humor at times.
But there was nothing humorous about what was taking place now.
“She caused the Fire Drake to burn Eucilla,” Morbain was shouting, pointing at Charlotte. “She confused the beast with her off-worlder scent and caused it to behave wrongly.”
“That’s so like you, always twisting the truth, Morbain,” I said, glaring at him. “Charlotte saved Eucilla from certain death not once but twice when she put out the fire on her head and stopped the fire drake from killing her!”
“She did no such thing! She is an imposter and should be disqualified at once!” Morbain bugled, his eyes bulging with rage. “Head Councilor Tannus, I demand satisfaction!”
The Head Councilor frowned and I wondered again if he was in Morbain’s pocket. I wished I could have Charlotte touch him—even for an instant—to use her La-ti-zal powers of Knowing. It would be good to know if the male had been paid off or if he was just being stubborn because he didn’t want another strong Empress to ascend the Golden Throne. He had never liked my old mistress, Sundalla the 999th because he had been unable to control her. Though the Goddess knew, he certainly tried.
“Head Councilor Tannus,” I said to him. “I think it’s very clear what happened in the chamber of the Second Trial. Two candidates walked in and only one walked out unscathed. Look at my Lady Charlotte—there isn’t a scratch or a burn on her. While Morbain’s candidate…well…” I gestured at the still-smoking Eucilla who was pouting, with her ash-covered arms crossed over her chest. No words were needed to convey the obvious—or so I thought.
At last the Head Councilor made a decision.
“It is the ruling of this Council that the first two Trials are inconclusive,” he said, glaring at Charlotte and myself. “And so we will continue with the Third Trial, if both candidates agree.”
Words of outrage rose to my lips but Charlotte tugged at my arm and shook her head.
“Don’t,” she whispered when I bent my head to hear her. “Don’t bother. I’m not afraid to go through another Trial.”
“I do not fear for your safety, my Lady,” I told her softly. “But for your honor. Morbain seeks to discredit you.”
“Let him try.” She lifted her chin and looked at the Head Councilor. “Councilor Tannus, I don’t mind doing the Third Trial but I want Eucilla to have some medical attention first,” she said calmly. “She has second degree burns on the back of her neck and her scalp. They need to be treated or they’re only going to get worse. Also, she got a bite on her finger from one of the baby dragons. That needs to be disinfected and bandaged too.”
For the first time, the Head Councilor looked surprised and I saw some of the other Councilors murmuring among themselves in apparent shock. I wasn’t surprised, though—Charlotte was first and foremost a healer. I had seen back on her home planet of Earth how seriously she took her profession. That she demanded medical attention, even for the imposter who sought to take her rightful place on the Golden Throne, was just part of her nature.
“Well,” the Head Councilor began. “I suppose we could wait while the other candidate goes to the medical wing of the palace…”
“No!” It was Eucilla, her red eyes narrowed, her lovely mouth twisted down into a pouting frown. “She’s just trying to get rid of me! I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m trying to get you treatment before those burns start suppurating,” Charlotte said sharply. “You must be in pain, Eucilla. Let the doctors or healers or whatever they call them here treat you!”
“I’m not leaving!” The other female’s eyes flashed. “I am the True Incarnation. And I’m staying here to prove it!”
Head Councilor Tannus shrugged.
“Very well. Then let us proceed with the Third Trial—the Trial of Fruit and Stone.”
He led us down the corridor to the third and final door on the left-hand wall. Without ceremony, he threw it open, revealing a room only a sixth the size of the last chamber. In the center of the room grew a single tree with long, flowing branches, crowded with glittering fruit.
“Behold, the Tree of Wisdom,” he said, motioning to its spreading branches, some of which hung so low their fruit was only inches from the mossy ground. “On it grows the Royal fruit—the oppols of gold.” He indicated the bright, glossy golden-skinned fruit. “Only the True Incarnation of the Goddess-Empress can pluck and eat this delicacy. All others—”
He didn’t get to finish because Eucilla had already rushed into the room and was grabbing for the fruit.
“I am the True Incarnation,” I heard her muttering to herself. “I am—I can do this! This is easy!”
It didn’t look easy, however. Though the fruit had looked so accessible when the Councilor first opened the door, now it seemed to hop away from her seeking hands, going from branch to branch just as she was about to pluck it.
With a cry of pure rage, Eucilla grabbed one low-hanging branch and shook it, wrestling it as though it was a living opponent. After a moment, she stood up, shaking herself free of the curling leaves and holding out one of the large, gleaming oppols.
“I got one!” she shrieked. “I got one! I’m the True Incarnation! I am—me! Not her—me!”
Then she opened her mouth and took a massive bite out of the fist-sized fruit in her hand.
Or tried to, anyway.
There was an audible crunching sound, but not of fruit being bitten into. It was the sound of bones breaking—of teeth breaking, I thought.
Eucilla gave a muffled shriek and pulled the oppol away from her mouth. There was a bloody stump where one of her front teeth had been. As for the fruit, it was completely unmarked except for a smear of blood on its glittering golden side.
“As I was about to say,” the Head Councilor said waspishly. “Only the True Incarnation of the Goddess-Empress can pluck and eat the fruit because to all others it has the consistency of stone.”
“It’s not stone!” Morbain exclaimed. Grabbing the Royal fruit from Eucilla’s hand, he wiped the blood off and held it out. “This fruit is clearly unripe. That’s why it hurt Eucilla’s mouth. No other reason!”
“Charlotte, you know what you must do” I murmured to her and she looked up at me with understanding.
“All right,” she whispered back. “But it seems kind of mean—like rubbing salt in her wounds.”
“You have to,” I told her. “There must be no doubt that you are the one and only True Incarnation.”
She sighed and nodded, then stepped quietly into the room. She walked over to the Tree of Wisdom but before she could even reach for an oppol, one fell neatly into her palm. The commotion at the door had stopped and even Morbain had fallen silent as the onlookers realized what was happening.
“Come, my Lady,” I said to Charlotte, raising my voice so that it carried. “Take a bite of the Royal fruit.”
Charlotte brought it to her mouth and took a large bite. There was another crunching sound—this one the sound of teeth sinking through the crisp flesh of a ripe fruit—and she held the oppol up so that everyone could see the bite she’d taken from it.
It was easy enough to see—the inside of the fruit was a gleaming sapphire blue which showed up against the golden skin perfectly. As was the small dribble of blue juice that ran down her chin before she wiped it away.
“You see?” Morbain bugled. “Now that fruit is ripe. Eucilla, my love, take a bite of that one.”
“Give me that!” Eucilla snatched the fruit from Charlotte’s hand and sank her teeth into it.
There was a third crunching sound and I could tell by her howl of pain that it was her teeth that had given way, not the fruit.
Eucilla flung the oppol away from her but not before I saw that her other front tooth was now just a jagged, bloody stump as well. She ran to Morbain, tears streaming down her dirty cheeks.
I looked at Morbain wearily as the girl wailed in his arms.
“Now will you admit that Eucilla is not the True Incarnation?”
“Never.” He glared at me and then looked at the Head Councilor. “I invoke my right as one of Royal blood to demand the Fourth Trial!”
Charlotte
There was an audible gasp in the room and all the members of the Council of Wisdom looked shocked.
What in the hell was the Fourth Trial, I wondered. Was I going to have to walk over live coals or scale the side of an active volcano or swim through a lake of man-eating sharks or what?
Whatever it was, I trusted that it wouldn’t hurt me. I knew that because only Kristoff’s face remained serene even as everyone around us had gone pale with terror.
“Very well.” The Head Councilor had a grim look on his face but he nodded anyway. “Follow me,” he told us.
I had thought he would lead us out of the narrow corridor where the doors to the first three Trials were located. Instead, he turned and led us deeper into it. Soon, I saw why.
In a shadowy alcove at the very end of the dim passage, was a fourth door. This one, though, wasn’t made of gold or even trimmed in gold in any way. This one was dead black and there was an elaborate-looking locking mechanism on the golden knob, which was twice as big as the knobs on the other doors.
The Head Councilor stopped in front of the black door with the oversized knob and then began doing something weird with the thick gold chain he wore around his neck. Pretty soon he had detached part of it which looked like a kind of medallion. He twisted and turned it at strange angles and soon he was holding something vaguely key-shaped.
“Within this room is something so deadly that only I, as Head of the Council of Wisdom, or the Empress herself may open it,” he announced, holding the medallion-key up.
“Why?” I asked. “Does the Empress get a key too?”
“No, of course not.” He gave me a disdainful look. “When the True Incarnation is at last brought to light and Invested as the Goddess-Empress, her touch on the knob will be enough to open it.”
Stooping down, the Head Councilor fitted the medallion-key into the locking mechanism of the huge knob. Then he twisted it and threw it open with a flourish, revealing what was beyond a doubt, the prettiest room I’d yet seen in the palace.
It was like an indoor arboretum with a high, vaulted glass ceiling through which pinkish light filtered down onto an idyllic tropical garden. A lush carpet of blue-green grass led from the doorway all the way to a pretty little golden bench with curving legs and a curlicue-back. There was a narrow path of golden gravel leading to the bench, winding its way between flowering shrubs and spreading bushes with their broad, turquoise leaves.
Tall trees shaded the path and in their branches, I could see bright, jewel-like creatures that looked a little like chipmunks or squirrels only their fur was brilliant blue and emerald green and ruby red instead of dull brown or gray. There was even a little blue brook, babbling its way across the landscape.
All-in-all, it looked like the perfect place to sit and read a book.
“Oh,” I whispered to Kristoff. “It’s gorgeous! What’s so bad about it?”
“Behold,” the Head Councilor intoned dramatically, before Kristoff could answer me. “I give you…The Garden of Death.”
Well, I guess that answered that question.
“The Garden of Death?” I asked, looking at it doubtfully. “Um, how exactly is it deadly?”
“It’s not—to the True Incarnation,” the Head Councilor said, staring at me significantly. “To the Empress, this place can be a refuge—a place of much needed solitude in which no one can bother her.”
“Why?” I asked blandly. “Is there some kind of electrical field over the entrance that fries anyone who tries to go in except her?”
“A shrewd guess, my Lady.” This time it was the youngest Councilor—the one with the brown skin and eyes—who answered. “There is, indeed a barrier between this room and the next, but only to contain that which lies within.”
“And what ‘lies within’?” I asked, feeling like the phrase—and indeed, this whole scene—was entirely too dramatic. “I mean, what’s inside that’s so dangerous?”
“Poison.” Morbain’s eyes gleamed in the dim light. “Every surface within that garden is infused with the deadliest poison in the known galaxy. The very air within is a poisonous fume that would sear the lungs of anyone but the Empress—or one that she is touching skin-to-skin.”
“If the air leaked out into the rest of the palace, it could kill everyone in the whole place,” Kristoff explained quietly. “That’s why there is an invisible barrier held in place here…and here.” He nodded at the top corners of the door and I saw two little black boxes with blinking red lights on them—presumably generating some kind of field to contain the deadly air of the garden.
“Of course,” he continued. “It doesn’t stop anyone from going into the room—it just keeps the poisonous air inside from getting out and spreading. And it also stops any projectile weapons—any shot from a blaster or any other kind of firearm cannot get through. That way the Empress can sit with the door open without fear of any kind of assassination, should she so choose.”
“Go back a minute,” I said, looking at Morbain who was still giving me a challenging look, as though he was waiting for me to run screaming at the idea of an entire garden filled with poison. “What did you mean it would poison anyone except the Empress and someone touching her? How does that work?”
“The Empress may convey her immunity to the Garden of Death through skin-to-skin contact,” the Head Councilor said. “In this way the Garden may serve as a safe room for her and her loved ones in case of an attack. As long as she continues to touch them, they will not come to harm. However if she lets them go—even for an instant…”
“Oh, okay. I get it,” I said.
It had seemed strange at first to have a room full of deadly poisons in the middle of a busy, crowded palace—like a terrorist attack waiting to happen. But I could see how it would be helpful for the Empress to have a safe place for herself and her loved ones to retreat in case the palace was attacked. Then I had another thought.
“What about the chipmunk-looking things though? How are they still alive in there?”
“The terlings, you mean?” the younger Councilor asked, motioning to the jewel-colored animals scampering in the branches of the trees.
“Sure, I guess. Are they immune to all the poison in the, uh, Garden of Death?”
“Naturally so.” He nodded. “The terlings, my Lady, are the most vicious, bad-tempered rodents in this or any other world. They will leave the Empress alone but if they feel that their territory is being invaded they will spring to action and attack anyone else.”
Wow—attack chipmunks. This place just kept getting better and better.
“Thank you for your explanation,” I said politely, keeping my thoughts to myself.
“And these are not even the most dangerous creatures that live in the Garden of Death,” one of the other Councilors said eagerly. “There are also the Heart-bursts—snake-like creatures who have the most poisonous bite in the known galaxy. Their venom kills almost instantly�
��causing the heart to swell and explode within the chest.”
“And again, I’m guessing they don’t attack the Empress—just everybody else?” I asked. I was sensing a theme here.
“He nodded. Mostly they stay hidden in the trees and bushes.”
“Is there an antivenin?” I asked, the doctor part of my brain getting interested. I had never heard of a snake whose venom made someone’s heart swell up and burst in their chest cavity.
“There is, but it’s hardly ever effective. If the patient—”
“So only the True Incarnation can go in without getting killed?” Eucilla interrupted. She spoke with some difficulty, her words mushy due to her two missing front teeth.
I wished she would just give up and go seek some medical attention. It was painful to watch her standing there with her skin and dress all gray from ash and soot, her teeth broken, and her hair half burned off. She had been so lovely and now she looked like a broken toy a child had been careless with—a Barbie doll thrown in the fireplace to melt. But despite everything we had been through, she still had the gleam of determination in her eyes.
I thought I had never seen anyone before who was so willfully self-deluded.
“Yes, exactly my dear,” Morbain said, still giving me a challenging look. “Which is why no one but the True Incarnation would dare to enter. A regular person—an imposter—would scarcely last five seconds within those walls. The plants would cut them like knives, the touch of the water in the stream would be as acid, eating away at their flesh, and the very air would sear their lungs until they fell down and died in agony.”
This last description was clearly aimed right at me. He was letting me know why I didn’t dare to go into the forbidden garden. Trying to scare me out of trying so that I would concede the victory to Eucilla.
But after dealing with living inanimate objects that whizzed at my head, fruit that turned to stone in the wrong hands, and facing down a freaking fire-breathing dragon, I just couldn’t find it in me to be very frightened of the pretty little garden.
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