by P. K. Lentz
It was she who was the true focus of the Witch-Queen's pearly gaze. As that cargo passed Blaik, Jaxitza flew to its side with a speed and abruptness which struck Blaik as unnatural. Her lace-cuffed hands, fingers spread, came to rest on the webbing.
“Caution, Majestrix,” a pale-faced, black clad official warned. A different one that the Ark-Bishipp who had captured them, for Blaik had seen him among the tangled corpses. “She still has her weapons.”
Indeed, the razers were encased along with Qilliara's hands inside the webbing. It mildly surprised Blaik that she did not now continue firing, even lacking the ability to aim, so dogged had been her persistence on the journey here. It was unfathomable that she would admit defeat.
“We are careful, yes,” the Witch-Queen intoned, avoiding standing in the path of the nearest, barely visible razer.
She lowered her pale face to Qilliara's enshrouded breast and inhaled, long and deep. Her hands roamed the smooth, irregular surface.
“So sweet this prize of ours!” she exclaimed. “So dangerous! So unexpected! We simply cannot wait to be inside of her!”
Whilst she spoke, Blaik found himself noticing the cut of the Witch-Queen's neck, a certain flatness of her gown at the breast, a broadness of shoulder. He heard her voice afresh, now informed by these details, and he understood, or thought he did.
The Witch-Queen was … male?
“Majestrix,” the official addressed her... him...
Her, Blaik decided. This was Jaxitza's world, and in it she was whatever she wished to be.
“Majestrix, allow them to safely remove the weapons,” the official implored. “Your safety is paramount.”
“Of course, Trynnt.” With another jerky, unnatural movement, the Witch-Queen backed away from her prize. “We merely are hard pressed to contain our excitement.”
Priests filled the gap holding metal canisters to which small tubes were affixed. They aimed the tubes at the webbing around Qilliara's razers.
“Ah...” Blaik suddenly found himself interjecting. Evidently, some part of his mind had formulated a plan of which it had not yet fully informed him. That happened now and again.
The Witch-Queen's white eyes, and those of the black-clad official Trynnt, and others besides, went to Blaik.
“Careful,” he said. “With her weapons. They... ah, well, only she can touch them. I made the mistake. It causes pain. Some of your people learned that, but they might all be... dead now.”
The Witch-Queen glided around Qilliara's slab and over the body of a fallen Priest. That was when Blaik noticed yet another strangeness about Her Majestrix.
She had no feet.
Her flowing, elaborate gown hung from an upper body which included arms and a torso, but from underneath the gown's lacy hem, nothing extended to touch the ground. With a start, he realized that the collection of tubes and armored cables extending from Jaxitza's back did not move with her. It moved her. Exactly where her body ended below the navel, Blaik could not tell, and did not particularly wish to learn. Like some legless toy dangling at the end of a long stick, she moved about her tower by means of the flexible metal arm that extended from her back.
She came to stand... hover... just in front of Blaik, her long gown trailing on the floor. She looked down on him with her white stare and hint of a smile on her red lips, and Blaik looked back dumbly, his mouth and brain rendered momentarily non-functional by the unsettling revelation.
“And you are?” she asked, not impolitely.
Blaik cranked the brass dials of his mind hard in one direction and then the other in an effort to make something happen. Some gas was released in an appropriate direction, producing sounds.
“Who am I?” he equivocated. “Williym Bl...arg...stok. Williym Blargstok.”
“Blargstok, hmm?” Jaxitza repeated. “You were in a naughty-box. What makes you wish to be helpful to us, Blargstok?”
“Williym... Your Majestrix,” Blaik said. “Please call me Williym. I wish to be helpful because I am your servant.” He lowered himself even further, putting the palms of his manacled hands flat on the cold floor. “I facil-i... facilita... I helped with the capture of this bad, bad, violent... heretic. At no small risk.”
The Witch-Queen's smile grew, while the expression of the official Trynnt at her side, his face two heads lower than hers, remained skeptical.
“Did you!” Jaxitza exclaimed. “If so, then we are in your debt and you must be rewarded accordingly. You have brought us a prize of value beyond measure!”
Her brightness faded, her lip curling in sudden distaste.
“But our reports spoke of two heretics, male and female. Need I worry that you may be lying? That you are in fact a member of this... what is the name? This new association of heretics.”
Trynnt answered, with sharp eyes on Blaik, “The Blue Fire Army, Majestrix.”
“Yes, that,” the Witch-Queen said. “You are not one of those distasteful people, Williym, are you?”
“No!” Blaik denied with what he hoped was the right level of vehemence. “I know nothing of all that. I was taken hostage by this awful woman who forced me to act as her guide. First chance I got, I handed her over to Your Majestrix's forces.”
While Blaik addressed the ruler of his world, off to one side the Priests with the canisters continued to work on Qilliara's slab, which had been set on the floor.
“Admirable!” the Witch-Queen remarked. “How, precisely, were you able to incapacitate one possessed of such exquisite power?” She exulted in the final two words.
As it was wont to do, Blaik's mouth pressed on in accordance with a plan which he felt confident existed in a broad sense, even if the details remained fuzzy.
“She is part machine, Your Majestrix,” he explained. “And the machine part is damaged. If one but waits, she eventually... falls asleep and remains so for a short while. I call it crashing, since the first time it happened, her head crashed into a table, and the second time, she crashed down from a ladder.”
“Hmm.” The Witch-Queen's face grew thoughtful. Beside her, Trynnt's developed a sneer.
With a start, Blaik realized his mistake. He spun dials wildly in the hope of correcting. If they had noticed. Maybe they—
“If this occurred twice, loyal Williym, why did you not act the first time?”
“I...” Blaik began. “None of your servants were near, and I-I... didn't know how much time I had. I was scared she might awaken before I could deliver her. But the next time, I made sure I was ready.”
This answer seemed to please Jaxitza, who resumed smiling The aide beside her somewhat reluctantly dispensed with his sneer.
Suddenly there was a crack and a flash of blue fire from the direction of Qilliara's slab. Blaik dove and twisted and looked over in time to see a Priest slump backward with a hole blown in his skeletal head.
The Witch-Queen flew up and away, fully betraying now her lack of a lower body, as loyal Trynnt pushed past the flowing skirts of her gown to put himself between his lady and danger.
But there was no further danger, Blaik saw: Qilliara remained shrouded upon the slab. The Priests working to extract her razers had evidently dissolved too much webbing, allowing her wrist enough freedom to permit her to her aim and fire one shot, which had not been wasted.
Now other Priests jabbed the hand and arm with the glowing bulb-poles, causing it to shiver and twitch. Her fingers opened, and the razer slipped from her hand. A quick Priest lunged to grab it—and bellowed in pain, dropping it.
Trynnt stood at ease. Blaik picked himself up from the floor. The Witch-Queen descended, clapping daintily.
“Marvelous!” she squealed. “We are so pleased! Whatever is taking the Surgints so long to get here?” Jaxitza swept in closer to Blaik, setting a pale hand on his cheek. “Dear Williym,” she said, “what else have you learned about our beautiful specimen? You must tell us all.”
“Her name is Qilliara.”
The Witch-Queen pursed her red lips. “Ki
ll-yaara? Hardly fitting, but then that scarcely matters. Jaxitza, now that is a fitting name for such splendor!”
“She claims to have come here from beyond the White Wall, a place called universe.”
“Well, she would have to, of course...!” the Witch-Queen answered. “In six thousand score turns, we have not found her like in our world.” Hand flying to mouth, Jaxitza gasped. “Once we inhabit her, might we be able to penetrate the Wall? I had not even considered it! Oh, what a turn this has become!”
“I-Inhabit?” Blaik ventured.
“Oh!” Jaxitza said. “Forgive us! Do you not yet understand what you have delivered to your Queen?” She clapped girlishly again, then stilled the pale hands, pressing them palm-to-palm in front of her lips. “Dear Williym, why you have brought us our new body!”
* * *
Nine
“Please, Majestrix, allow me to execute this man,” begged the black-clad aide Trynnt. “I have a bad feeling about him.”
“Oh, so do I,” the Witch-Queen concurred. “He did give us a false name. But if we executed everyone we had a bad feeling about, who would be left? Not you—or him, or that other one. And you all have served me well. No...” she concluded. “When the Surgints are finished preparing our new home, I suppose they can remove his feet or something. That will suffice.”
“Your Majestrix!” Blaik felt compelled to interject. “I seek no reward, but perhaps you might let me keep all my parts. And my freedom, if it pleases you. I am your servant.”
Her Majestrix was turning away well before Blaik finished his plea. From an opening at one end of the expansive chamber, which was crescent-shaped and decorated with sculptures, if that's what they were, formed of variously colored stones and metals, there entered a cadre of humans dressed in light blue. Judging by Jaxitza's display of excitement, these were her Surgints. Blaik flexed his feet, the ankles of which suddenly tingled.
“Over here, she is here!” the Witch-Queen called out. Then, to the Priests near Qilliara, “Bring her to them, bring her!”
The four hoisted the slab and bore Qilliara toward the Surgints, who likewise raced along pushing two items: a gurney and a largish machine comprised of spoked wheels, coiled tubes, and an articulated brass arm. Blaik was just able to perceive what hung at the end of the arm.
A drill.
“Your Majestrix, I know more about your prize,” Blaik said swiftly. “I know why she came to your City.”
The Witch-Queen spun. “Why is that? Quickly.”
“She wished to steal your most prized possession.”
“My... crown?”
Blaik deemed it best to agree. “Yes! I see that you don't wear it, so it must be safely hidden. That is for the best.”
“Hidden?” A mildly puzzled look. “Why, one could say that. But it is our curse to wear it every moment. These human forms are so frail. It is challenging to find one durable enough for our use. We have made do with the one which you see for, why it must be twenty thousand turns now. No longer! Now that we have found her, at last we shall be free!”
Rising from the ground, she swept away toward the center of the chamber, to the extent a crescent-shaped room could have one, where the Priests and Surgints had met.
Before following his Queen, Trynnt aimed a dark look at Blaik and gave a signal to the Priests flanking him, which presumably meant they were to keep close watch. Hopefully it did not mean kill him.
“So...” Blaik said to his guards. “Typically, does Her Wondrous Majestrix follow through on having parts cut off, or...”
“Quiet,” one said, brusquely but with little rancor.
The Surgints and Priests transferred Qilliara, still wrapped up tight, to from slab to gurney, while an excited Witch-Queen ran fingers through what was visible of her prize's red-black hair and purred indistinct superlatives.
It's time to act, Blaik! Now or never!
The tiny voice came from behind. Blaik twisted his head to learn its source and found it to be a familiar black object lying on the floor among the fallen Priests who filled the ascension chamber and spilled out over its threshold. The Queen's soldiers and servants had begun removing the bodies. Soon, the fracker would be discovered and confiscated.
Since the most mundane objects of this world had spoken to Blaik for much of his life, it came as no surprise that a sophisticated alien one should be able to, as well. Blaik had gathered long ago that the people around him inhabited a world more silent than his own and tended to laugh at him when he suggested otherwise.
They were probably right to laugh. But Blaik liked his world better than theirs.
What are you waiting for? Appropriately, the exotic fracker's accent sounded a bit elitist.
Too far away, Blaik informed the weapon silently. They'd have me before I reached you.
Something else, then! You have skills. Use them.
Looking around from his position on his knees with wrists manacled in front of him, flanked by two hammer-armed Priests, Blaik weighed options. The large, open room crawled with Priests, a number of whom wielded mini-cannons. But... perhaps they would not be so quick to use them in close proximity to their Queen, her aides, and her beloved white spiders, the surviving pair of which yet lingered to one side in the care of the handlers.
By the end of his survey, Blaik's mind had the makings of a plan. Its first step involved seizing at least one of Qil's razers, which waited on the ground where they had fallen while someone fetched tongs and a small chest to enable their safe collection. The latter items had just arrived; if the chest had a lock, then it was essential Blaik move before the razers were placed inside. But it was questionable whether he could reach them in time.
He did hold a potential advantage in that the ones who stood to prevent him were unwilling to touch the things themselves.
Further away, Qilliara lay face-down on the gurney. Worryingly, the Surgints were in the process of positioning her head under the brass arm with its thick drill. One of the same liquid-filled canisters used earlier to extract the razers were employed now by the Surgints to expose the base of Qillliara's skull.
Blaik would need that canister to free her, so he was pleased to see the Surgints set it on the floor when they were done.
Less pleasing was the sound of the drill whirring to life.
What are you waiting for?
Blaik was unsure what posed the question; perhaps still the fracker. A great many of the voices he heard sounded alike.
Between Qil getting her skull drilled and me getting mine hammered, Blaik answered, I choose her. I pick the wrong moment, and it's both.
Fine. So when's the right moment?
I'll know it when I see it. It's one of my skills. Now, go away!
While the drill spun at the end of its articulated arm, the Witch-Queen turned on hers to give her back to one of the Surgints, who pushed aside a cascade of silver-blue hair to expose a bulky metal knob-like object where Jaxitza's neck met her skull. Delicately, the Surgint began to twist the knob until a portion of it came away in his hand. To the circular socket which remained embedded in her white flesh, he made to attach a thick tube.
Meanwhile, two of his colleagues steadily lowered the drill-arm.
Not to interrupt your gawking...
Blaik dragged his eyes from the unfolding—whatever it was, and looked behind.
...but someone has found me.
That someone was a Priest who, having chanced picking up the fracker from among the bodies and finding it safe to hold, presently carried it toward his comrades, who had freshly completed the task of storing the razers.
The pitch of the drill's whine changed, growing deeper as it made contact with Qilliara's head. The Surgints pulled on it, driving it in. Qilliara made no sound.
“Add this one,” the fracker-finder called out to the razer-retrievers as he made his way to them on a path that took him directly past...
It was among Blaik's skills to know the right moment when he saw it.
Bursting to his feet, he ran just a few steps to collide with the Priest holding the fracker, at the same time seizing the weapon in his manacled hands. Unready for the assault, the Priest stumbled, allowing the object to slip from his grasp. He was similarly unready for the blast of invisible force which next drove his head so hard into the floor that both cracked.
Whirling, Blaik fired at the next nearest threat, his two guards, who flew head over heels, hammers spinning. When others ran to intervene from the direction of the ascension chamber, Blaik tested an uncertain idea by wrapping his manacle chain around the front of the fracker before discharging it.
The chain links flew to pieces, and the Priests in the line of fire fell in a tangle against a hulking spider-corpse, which in turn slid into a wall.
Blaik ran toward the razers. Much as he wished to turn the fracker next on Her Mad Majestrix and the Surgints' drill, the cannon-armed Priests posed a more immediate threat to him. As he ran, he used his right arm's freshly restored range of motion to take out two of those before they could bring their barrels to bear.
Directly ahead, the razer-retrievers did as Blaik hoped, setting down chest and iron tongs to ready their pole-axes. Thus did the chest remain safely in place and undamaged when Blaik fracked the Priests halfway across the room.
The Witch-Queen shrieked, “No, no, no! Stop him! Stop him!”
Blaik dove and rolled, tucking the fracker into the deep pocket of his duster as he came up beside the chest, flipped open the lid and grabbed the two razers by handles which were 'coded' to permit his touch.
Springing up, he held them outstretched.
Stop grinning, came a muffled voice from his pocket.
“Can't help it,” Blaik replied aloud.
At least two separate targets now demanded his attention, but since he possessed exactly that many weapons, there was no need to choose. Breaking into a fresh run, Blaik leveled one razer at the remaining giant spiders, the other at Jaxitza and her Surgints.
