by P. K. Lentz
Since he was not busy at the moment, he started tapping a quick pattern with the fingers of his manacled hands on each of the two walls—left and behind—where he decided Qilliara's box might be located relative to his own.
“Qilliara?” he whispered. He knew he needed not speak loudly; if she was conscious, she would hear.
But will she answer?
For now, no reply came, but Blaik sensed it was too early. The convoy rattled on while at short, regular intervals, he tapped and whispered, hearing no reply.
Until at last, it came.
“Well done, drifter.” The rusted metal walls that muffled her voice did not disguise Qilliara's true meaning.
“I apologize, I do,” Blaik returned. “But in my defense... You know, forget it. We're alive. And your hands are behind your back so you can pull something out of your—”
“Yes, I gathered.”
“I did that. You're welcome. Now come on, bust us out!”
“Why would I do that? Are they not taking us to the Witch-Queen?”
Now it was with his forehead that Blaik rapped gently on the prison wall. “Well, yes, but...”
He stopped and sighed, knowing there was no point. He should have guessed. To her, one mode of transportation was as good as any another.
“Fine,” he concluded. “At least promise me that when we get there, you won't leave me a prisoner.”
“I can't promise that,” Qilliara answered matter-of-factly. Predictably.
“No offense,” Blaik observed, “but it's becoming clear to me why your friends are all dead.”
No reply.
He ventured further, “I want to be your friend, Qil. Friends keep friends alive.”
Still no reply. Her silence persisted for some large portion of a turn, while plains sped past Blaik's little window and he sweated and struggled to find the position which hurt the least in the upright box which was not wide enough for sitting.
He considered the choice which might lie ahead if he truly was to receive the rare and dubious honor of an audience with Jaxitza. It was said that the Witch-Queen was a beautiful woman kept forever young by the same powers which entitled her to rule. Hers was a reign which stretched back far enough that no collective memory existed of any other state. Before Blaik's time, people said, Jaxitza had been seen more often outside her towers by people who afterward lived to tell about it. These days, she was only ever in her palace.
Having ruled for so long, and not being well-known for an open-minded disposition, Jaxitza seemed unlikely to prove receptive to claims that Blaik had been Qilliara's unwitting pawn. The Ark-Bishipp had already expressed his doubt, and many more of Her Majestrix's servants could attest to the fact that Williym Blaik had been on the wrong side of her law for quite some time.
But here was the choice to be made: to plead spontaneous reformation in the hope of leniency, or remain on the side of an ally who was, at best, indifferent about his aid.
Perhaps it was an easy choice. If Qilliara had made one thing clear, it was that he was on his own. How could she not expect him to do and say whatever was needed to save his own skin? It sounded like in her world outside the Wall, screwing somebody over didn't necessarily mean you weren't on their side.
At least, it didn't mean you were against them.
It was decided, then. Even if his heart was on Qilliara's side, the walking meat which was his body would be on whatever side it needed to be in order to walk away. Blaik considered informing Qilliara of his plans, but since she had not yet shown him the same courtesy, he didn't bother.
She should understand. She probably would not, but she should.
Instead, when he eventually addressed her after a long and physically uncomfortable, sweat-soaked silence, Blaik said, earnestly, “I hope we get to have a decent meal together sometime, Qil. I really do.”
Again, she had no reply. Maybe he had offended her, but what seemed more likely was that answering him just bore no relevance to her mission at present, if it ever had.
Blaik didn't begrudge her. Her brutal honesty was easier to put up with than would be, say, a tendency to tell someone whatever they wanted to hear to make them...
Realization. That observation could well explain the demise of nearly every partnership in his life. If he troubled himself to think about it.
Not only could he not begrudge Qilliara for putting her mission above all, he could scarcely even blame the Witch-Queen if she decided to put the heretic Williym Blaik to a quick end. It would the right verdict for her.
Such understanding, of course, did not dilute his resolve to convince her to reach a wrong verdict.
To that end, Blaik took suggestions from the five iron bars in his window as to what each saw as the best argument for sparing him. Their input was valuable, in spite of some needless bickering between three of the five.
Then, in the space past his rusted advisers, a corner of what had to be their destination came into view.
He had never been to Witch City. The kind of people Blaik tended to meet spoke of it as a terrible place not to be caught dead in. What they possibly meant was that people like them, and Blaik, should not be caught alive there, lest they shortly become dead. But other humans to whom Blaik had spoken in passing over the years, people who were not even really acquaintances of his and would not have agreed to be if given the chance, talked of Witch City as a sort of paradise.
Glimpsing it now in the distance as the vehicle rounded a bend, Blaik understood the latter descriptions.
The first thing which struck him about Witch City—after the three pointed towers in its center which were surely those of Jaxitza's palace—was how green it was. Mixed in among the brown and red and white buildings, and wreathing the entire sprawling mass of the city, were trees bursting with color, not only shades of green but of pink and yellow and others besides. From nothing more than the brief, far-off view through the tiny port, Her Majestrix's capital looked cleaner and much larger even than Rim Town, which was by far the most civilized of all the places Blaik had been run out of and dared not return to.
The convoy rumbled on past leaf-bearing trees and dwellings with as many as five stories, a sight that caused Blaik to have the terrifying thought that Jaxitza might make him go to the top of one of her awful towers. Given that most buildings Blaik knew were likely to collapse when someone was, say, thrown against its wall, it was beyond him how a five-story building could remain standing, much less a tower.
But a skeptical heretic would need to have faith in Her Majestrix that she knew how to build things that didn't fall down.
The people inhabiting the streets of Witch City seemed cleaner and more civilized, too. They were a mix of human and Warpy, including children in numbers Blaik had rarely seen, and they walked to wherever it was they were going rather than shambling at the head of a dusty cloud. Their faces showed little trace of fear or mistrust, and when they laughed, it did not sound ominous.
The passage of a Priest convoy did not cause them to shrink or flee; on the contrary, many waved friendly greetings.
“All right,” Blaik said after taking it in, “there's a possibility Jaxitza might be good for the world.”
Qilliara's muffled reply came back: “She definitely is.”
“How far will we let them take us?”
Blaik used we and us hopefully, rather than the more accurate you and you.
“All the way.”
That he had expected that answer did not make it any less disappointing. “You're mad,” he said.
“You're following me.”
Shops and homes lining the street yielded to petite, evenly spaced trees amidst which the convoy rolled to a halt. Some words were exchanged, and then the vehicles rumbled on, passing by what Blaik saw was a gatehouse connected a tall wall of smooth brick. When the convoy turned a bend, Blaik saw structures of the same material extending out of sight at the top of his window.
It was the base of the Witch-Queen's tower complex.
He had spent his life avoiding this sight, and now here he was willingly. Almost.
Qilliara was right: if one of them was mad, it was Williym Blaik.
The light suddenly changed, and Blaik's metal box fell into near total darkness as the convoy once more slowed and halted. The rumbling noises echoed briefly before cutting out.
The convoy had driven inside the tower-base, Blaik realized. The structure certainly was large enough, even if it did seem impossible that the towers would not eventually come crumbling down and bury everything underneath when something too heavy was set in the wrong spot up top.
Blaik's ears next told him that the contingent of Priests was disembarking. When voices and the clatter of arms came from just beyond his metal wall, Blaik braced himself in time for the box to jerk to life, tilting and rolling backward. It roughly descended to the ground with a thud, then was righted to be shoved along on squeaking wheels.
“She still out?” someone asked.
“Looks it,” came the answer.
Not seeing Qilliara's box ahead of his, Blaik listened for a second set of wheels behind, but failed to hear one. Would the Priests truly wheel such a deadly cargo to within striking distance of their Queen?
Then again, however deadly Qilliara had proven on the world's fringes, here at the very heart of Her Majestrix's power, the Witch-Queen could be the deadlier of the two.
After a short distance, Blaik's box stopped in a circular chamber from which it seemed there must be no exit, for Priests continued to pack in until they stood armored shoulder to pole-ax. At last Blaik got a glimpse of Qilliara's prison, confirming that she too was present in the room.
The box lurched into motion again, and it took Blaik a moment to understand that this time it was not the box itself but the chamber. Rising.
As if by witchery, which almost certainly it was, they were ascending a tower without use of ladder or stair.
While the chamber rose, the Priests stood silently. Past their helmeted, variously sized heads and shoulder-plates, Blaik spied movement in the window of Qilliara's metal box. Her fingers emerged and dropped a small sphere out between the bars.
Blaik saw no possibility that this item might be harmless.
“Oi!” a Priest called, also witnessing. Moving toward the box, he bent down to pick up the item—and then was gone from sight as a bright flash filled Blaik's window and a booming vibration shook the box's metal walls. The box itself tumbled backward, but did not strike the chamber floor; rather it twisted and rolled as it collided with one or more Priests who'd been standing behind. It came to rest in position that gave Blaik a view of the armored back of a fallen Priest.
There was frantic shouting, the smell of smoke, and then the familiar rapid cracking of twin razers. Blaik's mind raced with an odd question. Did he want out of the box?
Right now, definitely not. But even when the bodies had settled, he sensed there was a case to be made for staying put...
One of the iron bars began to make that case before Blaik shushed it.
Somewhere outside the chamber, a siren whined to life.
The battle was brief. When the last crack had sounded and the chamber fell silent, Blaik's box was hoisted and flipped so that he lay on his back. Through the window he saw the face of the victor. Her red-black hair was barely mussed, violet eyes unconcerned.
“No!” Blaik said quickly. In case of survivors, he spoke in a conspiratorial whisper,. “If you free me, they'll know I'm with you. Which I am,” he quickly added. “But... I don't know. If you win, come back and get me.”
Well before he finished, Qilliara had turned away and disappeared from view.
With a sharp metallic sound, the moving room lurched and then it moved no more. Outside, the siren droned on.
“No, wait...” Blaik called. “I changed my mind. That's a bad plan. Let me out, let me out. I'm with you. Qil? Qil?”
“No time,” she said. “Doors will open in 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5—”
Her countdown terminated abruptly in a sharp crash. There was some harsh yelling, and then more razer-fire. Blaik clambered about in the box and twisted his head looking for an angle that would let him see Qilliara, but it was hopeless.
What he did see was a strange white substance, not quite liquid or solid, flying by in fast-moving streams. Then Qilliara did come into view—shoved backward by one or more of these streams. Wherever the white substance hit her, it clung, entangling her arms, which no longer could aim her razers but instead struggled in vain to shed the sticky white strands which stretched but refused to break.
Forced steadily back, growing ever more entangled, Qilliara reached the chamber's curved wall and was pinned to it. One arm, and then the other, and the razers in them, became affixed to the wall and could not be removed, though it was clear she tried.
The streams ceased, and Priests rushed forward, two of them wielding thick poles which ended not in axes but rather blunt metal bulbs from which cables extended back down the shafts. They jabbed the ends of these poles into immobilized Qilliara's torso, and she shuddered inside her white shroud while bright light flashed and a buzzing like a swarm of bees filled the chamber.
Repeatedly they jabbed her, and Qilliara writhed helplessly, without a sound, unable to bring her razers to bear. Five, six, eight times—Blaik lost count—they jabbed her, before a voice issued from out of sight.
“Enough! We wish our prize unharmed! You would be the one to damage it?”
The voice had an oddly melodic edge and was no less strong for a distinct feminine quality. The voice, the words which it spoke, and the chill it gave Blaik left him all but certain.
He had just heard the voice of the Witch-Queen.
* * *
Eight
Nice move staying inside me, the metal box observed. Not that I'll save you for long.
Blaik lay quietly, keeping his head away from the bars, which meant he saw and heard only enough to ascertain that some number of Priests were engaged in cutting Qilliara down from the chamber wall whilst keeping her immobilized.
“If you can hear me, Qil,” Blaik whispered, “I'm still with you. But we need separate plans for now.”
The Witch-Queen did not speak again, but over the voices of the others who did, a strange, intermittent chittering became audible. It had been present all along, but seemed louder in the calm at battle's end.
A yellowish Warpy face filled Blaik's window. Its sharp-toothed mouth reported, “He's alive.”
Bolts were popped on the box, and light streamed in as its door flew open. Armored Priest arms reached in and grabbed Blaik, dragging him up and out by shoulder and waist.
The first thing he saw, after his captors' faces, were the sources of the chittering sound. They all but filled the large, open doorway of the round chamber.
The two white spiders were each larger than a human bent on all fours, and the uppermost hinges of their stick-like legs would tower over most standing men. Their enormous, crimson eyes were segmented spheres. The nightmarish prongs of their mouths moved unceasingly, dripping milky strands of the same substance which had entangled Qilliara. The mounded backs of their abdomens were covered with stiff, bristling fur.
“Aaagh!” Blaik screamed, unable to keep from recoiling.
The spiders hung back beyond the open door, tended by a pair of unarmed humans. The Priests treated them as a sight of little note.
“I mean—I love spiders,” Blaik swiftly recanted. “Bigger the better. I-I would be one if... y'know, if I could.”
The Priests half-dragged Blaik across the tangle of armored bodies littering the chamber floor, toward the open door—and the spiders.
Just as they reached the threshold, when Blaik began digging his heels into the bodies in a vain attempt to halt the advance, the two white spiders parted, led away by their human handlers. Behind them stood—
A mound of legs and bristling white fur. A third spider, but this one, Blaik quickly realized, was dead. Unmoving, it was cov
ered with black smears, one red eye of its inert head oozing the same fluid onto the floor.
Beside it, with hands and cheek laid tenderly upon the spider's fur, knelt a human figure. Its long, full hair was silvery-blue in color, and it wore an ornate gown of flowing white. From the back of the gown, at a spot near the center of the figure's back, protruded a bundle of thick cords and tubes, most sheathed in bright metal, that extended in a gentle, slack-filled curve to the high ceiling of the next room.
Blaik's eyes went to the figure's face, which was almost colorless except for lips of dull red twisted in a mourning frown. Its eyes were shut in an expression of the same as its pale, lace-cuffed hand caressed the dead bug's hide.
It spoke, and the melodious voice issuing from its red lips was the one which Blaik had decided belonged to the Witch-Queen.
“She has killed you, our lovely, lovely friend. Shhh. 'Twas not in vain, not in vain. Your silky, sticky webs captured her! She is ours!”
Blaik's legs suddenly worked harder to find purchase among the corpses and prevent his forced march out of the small 'ascension chamber' and toward the imminent meeting with Her Majestrix. But his efforts, of which the Priests escorting him took no notice, failed to delay his arrival before the dead spider and its exalted mourner, who ceased whispering sweetly into the fur and stood upright inside her full, flowing gown. The collection of cables attaching Her Majestrix to the ceiling moved easily with her.
She looked down upon Blaik, who was pushed to his knees by the Priests, and her red lips formed a smile. Now that they stood open, Blaik saw that her eyes, pupils and all, were as white as her gown. Owing to this, it was hard to determine precisely what was the object of her gaze. Blaik had only assumed it was he, but within a few beats realized his mistake. To his left, web-bound Qilliara was borne out of the chamber, feet-first, laying on a slab of metal the corners of which were held by four Priests.
Qilliara's violet eyes were open and did not hold worry, exactly, but neither did they display that nonchalant, contemptuous air with which she had faced each threat thus far. Or perhaps that was Blaik's own interpretation. The rest of her face was partly covered by the white spider-strands.
