Red Queen

by Jolie Jaquinta

  Chapter 25

  Past Lives

  A soft chime sounded in Devonshire's study as Winter arrived via the household teleport. “I'll be with you in a minute”, she growled. The place was a maze made up of books, equipment, crates, boxes, and wax tablets stacked on every available horizontal surface. Murky liquid smoldered over burners in some corners, leftover food moldered on cheap crockery in other corners. Half empty cups of a variety of fluids were tucked into easily forgotten places.

  Winter threaded his way aimlessly through the mess. He stopped to feed some caged rats the crusts from a pie plate. No self-heating self-cooling dinner plates for these guys. He read the labels on the spines of a few books, pulled down one or two, but quickly put them back. They were way too technical for him. Following the sound of muttering he came to where his mother was working.

  She sat in an overstuffed chair, a book propped open for reference on the edge of a table nearby. A few crystals floated around her head. From one emanated a complex changing pattern of magical forces. From another, a visual glamor of a smoky shifting shape. He could never make head or tail from the magical patterns that were ubiquitous to the new magic. But one was emanating a clear visual picture. Something large and imposing glowered over another small but defiant figure. As he leaned closer he disturbed a small stack of boxes that slid to the side with a crash. Devonshire looked up suddenly, “Oh! It's you!” she said, surprised. With quick moves she darkened all the crystals and sent them into a pocket. She pulled herself out of the chair to hug him. The book she had been reading fell off the edge of the table behind her into the cushions. “How did it go?”

  “OK, I guess”, he said, awkwardly returning the hug. Physical touching was just not done under the water, and even less so for him. Also, they were about the same height and he didn't know quite where to put his hand. “Linguistics was... hard. Natural Sciences...” he shook his head. “I don't even know the basics of magic.” Patterns, patterns, and more patterns. ”Rhetoric was kind of fun.” Then he brightened. “History was good! Penelope might even come visit me!”

  Devonshire raised her eyebrow. “You have the hots for her too? Seems half the school does.”

  “What? No!” protested Winter. She always thought this way. “She's... way too old for me.”

  “Give it a hundred years”, said Devonshire, laughing. “It won't seem like much then.”

  “I'll be dead in a hundred years”, said Winter, flatly. “So will she. Orcs have even shorter lifespans than humans.” She just didn't get it.

  “It's just an expression”, said Devonshire, sadly. “And you aren't 100% human. We just don't know.”

  “Mother. I'm not going to turn thirteen, split my skin, and emerge an elfin child”, he said stubbornly. “This is who I am.” Or maybe it wasn't that she didn't get it, she just preferred to live in denial.

  Devonshire looked deeply into his eyes. “I carried you and gave birth to you. I still think there's some of me in there.” Winter snorted. After a while she continued, “Did you get to ask the questions I wanted?”

  “She said you should ask her yourself”, said Winter, sharply. Devonshire looked sour. Winter relented. He knew this was important. It was just one of the things that kept her so busy. His life as a hostage saved tens of thousands. Her life slaved to her work was for more. “She also said that the Underground folk are mostly what you would call 'spirits'. They don't have souls so the question is moot.”

  “What happens when they die?” asked Devonshire.

  “They die”, said Winter, echoing Penelope.

  “I don't think it's as simple as that”, said Devonshire. “It just doesn't make sense for all of these spirits and Souls to come, poof, out of nowhere, and to go, poof, back into nowhere. The obvious conclusion is that spirits must reincarnate and that's part of the natural order.”

  Winter looked at the cage of rats. “If that's the case, couldn't you prove it by doing past life analysis?”

  Devonshire sighed. “It's not easy. Especially if your subject is a rat or a cat.”

  “But you've told me when Angelika did it to you, most of your past lives were elves, but some weren't. Surely you could tell the difference between a rat and a cat?” He edged forward. “How about me? You actually knew me in my past life.” He'd been a god in his past life. There would be plenty to learn from that.

  Devonshire looked at Winter very hard. “The barriers between the memories of different lives are laid down pretty strongly in a Soul. It takes a lot to break through them. You have to be subtle in order not to leave the door open so they can leak back in.” She shook her head. “That's the very last thing I'd like to see happen to you. Your father was extremely strong willed. You don't know the price I've paid in order to ensure he has had as little influence on you as possible.”

  “You mean you killed him”, said Winter, coldly.

  “That was before I knew you existed”, said Devonshire, levelly. “And we've been through this before. He had no memory and no followers. Wandering confused around the ruins of what had been his civilization. Not a healthy situation for a battle god. I gave him the chance to end his existence fighting.”

  He had heard the story plenty of times before. But always from Devonshire's side. No one else really wanted to talk about it. Not to him. Her interpretation was... convenient. But there was only one way to hear the other side, and she held the keys to that.

  Winter and Devonshire both stared at the walls for a while. “Sometimes I think I hear him in my dreams”, said Winter, quietly. “Isn't that how Angelika talked to Lilly?”

  Devonshire looked up, alarmed. “Yes. She left her soul to Lilly when she died and just enough information on how to break through her past life barrier. It was a while before we caught the leak.” She shook her head. “It is an example I don't want to see a repeat of. We have our lives to live, our decisions to make, and our price to pay. That's the foundation of our morality. All this talk of living forever and mingling of past lives undermines that.”

  “Maybe I should talk with Lilly”, said Winter. “It sounds like we have common experiences. She could help.”

  Devonshire gave him a warning look. “Don't even think of asking her to break through your barrier.” Winter looked annoyed. Was he that transparent? “And I think you've flirted enough with the ladies this vacation. You should leave courting Lilly until you are older. She's a bit of an odd fish.”

  “Mother”, said Winter, disapprovingly. “I spend my life dealing with odd fish.”

  Devonshire laughed. Winter smiled. “Look. I know we only have a short amount of time together. And I hate to say this, but something's come up.” Winter let out a long sigh. “We've just been hit in the face with another atrocity.”

  “Is that what you were looking at?” he asked, nodding toward the book. “What is it?”

  “Demons”, said Devonshire. “It's bad enough the gods keep mana-slaves. They barter them to Demons to do their dirty work. They then warp them and distort them and torture them into abominations.” She pulled up one of the crystals and brought from it the shadowy shifting shape he had briefly seen. “Imagine all of your past lives pulled out of their shells as one being. One creature, vastly powerful.”

  Winter looked at the shifting image with morbid fascination. It struggled and shifted as the scene change in time and perspective. “It is fighting someone! I thought so. Who is it? Did they live?”

  “This is a memory taken from Sir Valkyr”, said Devonshire. “That's the Queen. She held it off single handed for nearly an hour.”

  Winters eyes grew very wide and he pressed closer to the glamour. “The Queen? An hour!” He had only met the Queen briefly, and thought she was nice enough. But he stared at the image more intently. To have the courage to stand up to something that overwhelming, by yourself, for an hour! Now he had an inkling why people followed her so devoutly.

  Devonshire dismissed the image, and laughed. “Now you can play court to her as much
as you would like. I couldn't arrange a better marriage! I suspect she'd eat you for lunch. But it would be a good challenge.”

  He rolled his eyes. Her with the needling again. But, still, he had to admit she was pretty awesome. “Can I have a copy of that?”

  “What? To creep out your Undersea friends?”

  “To study. Battle techniques and stuff like that.” She didn't seem to be buying it. “How about I help you? I could find books for you. Or,” he said, indicating the rest of the room, “clean some of this up.”

  “I can't believe my child is offering to clean up my toys!” She laughed. “No. I need to read a lot quickly, study this some more, and talk to a few people. I've already talked to Greywind. He's agreed to look after you.”

  “Greywind?” said Winter, brightening. “Great! He promised to show me his secret lairs in the sewers.”

  “I swear you two are the same mental age”, said Devonshire.

  Winter bridled. “Is that supposed to be an insult?”

  “Yes”, said Devonshire. “But not to you.”