Vankara (Book 1)

by S. J. West

  “Her last name sounds familiar to me,” I said as Gabriel and I ascended the wooden steps to the Queen’s compartment. “Why do I think I’ve heard it before?”

  “She’s Thaddeus Irondale’s daughter and only child. I think the poor man really wanted a boy so he made Inara as close to one as you can get. When he became Chief Prime Minister, Inara was just a child. She and Emma were basically raised together. They’re more like sisters really.”

  “Why did she call me a miracle worker?”

  “We told her you were a healer and the Queen’s best chance for survival.”

  “So you’re not going to tell her the truth?”

  “No, the Queen doesn’t think it would be a good idea. Emma isn’t sure how well Inara would accept our planned deception. She isn’t one to give her friendship easily and she could very well start to act out of character around the Queen if she knows the truth. It might cause people to start asking unwanted questions. Emma doesn’t think telling Inara is worth the risk.”

  “But she’s the Queen’s best friend,” I argued. “It doesn’t seem right not to tell her.”

  “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do in order to protect those you care about most,” Gabriel told me.

  Once we reached the interior of the Queen’s compartment, Gabriel pushed a gold button near the door frame and the stairs automatically folded in on themselves to form a seamless door, sealing us off from the outside.

  Just as the airship got underway, a faint moan came from the direction of the Queen’s private chamber. Gabriel quickly excused himself and went into her room. Seconds later he came back out and motioned for me to come in.

  A solitary candle was lit on the nightstand beside the canopy bed in the room. The Queen lay sleeping underneath a maroon velvet comforter trimmed in gold rope with her head and shoulders propped up in almost a sitting position by a pile of plump pillows. She wore a simple white nightgown with delicately gathered lace at the collar and wrists. She was a hollow form of the Queen I remembered standing proudly on the balcony of the palace the day of her coronation. Her cheeks were sunken in and there were dark circles shadowing her eyes. It looked like she hadn’t eaten or drank one drop of water in days. A fine sheen of fever induced sweat glistened across her pale brow. Her long dark hair was braided and laid limply over her chest.

  Gabriel walked to the side of the bed and bent down to touch the Queen on the shoulder.

  “Emma,” he said, speaking in a slightly louder voice than normal to draw her attention. “Emma, Sarah is here.”

  The mention of my name seemed to help drag the Queen out of her plague induced sleep.

  Her long sooty lashes fluttered before revealing sparkling violet eyes. She looked directly at me in the ensuing silence. I had no idea what she was thinking. Perhaps seeing me in the flesh made her doubt the plan she and Gabriel had concocted, but if those were her thoughts she didn’t let them show.

  She lifted an emaciated hand towards me, a silent beckon for me to come closer to her. I walked to the side of the bed where Gabriel still stood and looked down at my dying Queen.

  She patted a spot on the mattress beside her.

  “Sit for a moment, please” she requested in a raspy voice.

  I sat down and waited to see what would happen next.

  “I assume you’ve made your goodbyes and are ready to leave?”

  “There were no good byes to make,” I told her. “The plague took my parents from me. I’m ready to serve you as you see fit.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” the Queen said. “But I am glad you are willing to help us now.”

  The Queen looked up at Gabriel.

  “Give me some time alone with, Sarah,” she requested.

  He bowed to her at the waist. “As you wish.”

  After Gabriel left, the Queen said, “Gabriel was concerned you wouldn’t agree to come with us. I’m pleased to see his fears were unfounded. He’s always spoken very highly of you,” the Queen continued. “He’s kept track of you over the years to ensure your well being. Did you know that?”

  I shook my head not finding it hard to believe Gabriel had tried to protect me even from a distance.

  “I know he cares a great deal for you,” she continued with all sincerity. “He has a lot of faith in you or he wouldn’t have suggested you take my place when I die.”

  “Thank you for having faith in me also, Your Majesty.”

  “I think we can dispense with the formalities, Sarah,” she chided gently. “Please, call me Emma.”

  “Yes, Your Maj…Emma.”

  “I wish I had the strength to tell you everything you need to know but the fact is I simply don’t.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “So, I’m going to tell you what I consider to be the most important things. First off, my daughter,” the Queen had to stop for a moment to compose herself. Her hand fluttered to her chest pressing gently. I could well imagine the heartache she felt in having to leave her only child behind in such an uncertain world.

  Death was absolute. There was no coming back from it for one last kiss, one last hug. I knew that truth well, having experienced the death of my own family.

  “She may be young,” the Queen continued, “but she is head strong and stubborn to a fault. Don’t let her get away with anything just because she’s heir to the throne. There are far too many people around her now who indulge her every whim. You cannot be one of them. It will be your responsibility to raise her to be a good person and a great leader. When the time comes, she will be Queen of Vankara and she needs to be prepared for those responsibilities. So teach her right from wrong just like you would your own child. This above all else is the most important task you will have. Do you understand what I’m asking you to do?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I promise you I will do my best.”

  “Now, the next thing you need to know is the history of my relationship with a man named John Fallon. We’re on our way to the outpost where he’s been stationed the past seven years. He used to be my personal bodyguard before my father caught us in bed together when I was young and foolish.”

  I felt my eyes widened involuntarily at the news of the Queen’s promiscuousness which brought a faint smile to her thin face.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she scolded, her eyes sparkling with laughter. “It may be hard to believe, but I was quite the temptress in my younger years. Though my tryst with John is something I deeply regret now. My father over reacted at the time and exiled John to the Iron Wall Outpost. I can’t tell you how much I’ve regretted what I did. It cost me an excellent advisor and friend.”

  “Why didn’t you bring him back to Iron City when you became Queen?”

  “I tried but he wasn’t interested in coming back. He said he couldn’t trust me and that he didn’t trust himself around me. I tried to apologize but he can be a stubborn, selfish oaf when he wants to be. So, I left him where he was. I didn’t want to cause him further humiliation just to satisfy my desire to have him back by my side.”

  “Why are we going to see him now?”

  “You’ll need him. He and Gabriel will be your strongest allies and counselors. Gabriel knows how to work the political scene in Iron City, and John has more common sense than anyone I know. He’s also a skilled strategist, so if there is ever a war he will advise you in what needs to be done.”

  The topic of war brought me up short. I hadn’t even considered that to be a possibility. Well over a hundred years had passed since Vankara was involved in a war. It seemed like an unfounded concern.

  “You’re not expecting us to go to war, are you?”

  Queen Emma sighed deeply. “You can never tell what’s going to happen, Sarah. Especially now with a third plague killing so many people around the world. I want to help prepare you for any eventuality, no matter how distasteful it might be. Almost every other country has its eyes on Vankara. Since we’re the only ones with an automaton work force, they’re all jealous of us and
how well we have been able to weather the loss of people due to the plagues.” She took a deep breath. “Now, you need to know a few things about ruling a country…”

  The Queen and I talked for what had to be almost half an hour before she became too tired to go on. She mostly spoke about the policies which were supposed to be voted on in the next session of parliament which was to start in only a few days. I listened as intently as I could but some of it just didn’t make a great deal of sense to me. Apparently my confusion was plainly written on my face.

  “Don’t worry too much about the specifics. I just want you to at least have a small understanding of what’s going on in case someone asks you a question. You’ll have time to get used to things. Gabriel and I have already decided to tell people my sickness caused a lapse in my memory so everyone will just assume you have temporarily forgotten certain details. No one except Gabriel, and now you, knows I have the plague.”

  Queen Emma closed her eyes for a moment. I could tell she was losing what little strength she had saved up to speak with me. I thought I heard a faint wheeze to her breathing but wasn’t completely sure.

  “Maybe you should rest for a while,” I suggested.

  She nodded, barely able to lift her eyelids to look at me. “I think you’re right. I need to save some of my strength for my talk with John. If I know him at all, I’m sure he won’t make things easy for me. Why don’t you go out and enjoy the scenery with Gabriel? He could use someone to talk to. All I’ve done this trip is sleep.” She closed her eyes again, almost instantly falling back into what I hoped was a peaceful slumber.

  I stepped out of her room and quietly shut the door behind me. Gabriel was standing at the bank of windows along the wall where the outer door was. He turned towards me at the sound of my entering the room with an unasked question on his face.

  “She’s sleeping,” I told him, coming to stand beside him.

  “Good.” He gave a small, satisfied nod and directed his gaze out the windows once more. “She needs all the rest she can get.”

  We were silent for a moment, the imminent death of our Queen troubling both our minds as we watched the Outland’s desert terrain pass underneath us.

  “How much longer do you think she has?” I asked.

  “Not long,” he sighed. “We’ll know the time is close when she starts to have trouble breathing.”

  As I looked out the windows, something caught my eye in the far distance. I could just make out a thin unbroken line on the horizon. It was the Iron Wall.

  There were vankarans who thought the wall should be taken down. They felt it was a primitive reminder of a less than civilized time in our history. But neither the vankaran government nor the fae seemed ready to bring down the physical barrier which had divided us from one another for well over two hundred years. Each side seemed content to continue to live like the other didn’t exist.

  I looked back at Gabriel. I could tell by the familiar knitting of his eyebrows he was worrying over something.

  “Do you think this John Fallon will give us much trouble?” I asked. “The Queen seems to think he might not be willing to help.”

  “It’s hard to say what John’s reaction will be,” Gabriel admitted. “I haven’t seen him since Emma’s father sent him out here to this God forsaken hell hole.”

  “Do you think he’ll at least listen to what she has to say?”

  Gabriel turned his head towards me with a grim closed-lip grin on his face. “He won’t have a choice.”

  The airship landed just outside the outpost near the Iron Wall an hour later. From years of neglect, the outpost was rusty in spots and looked more like an abandoned building than a station for the Queen’s guard. It was too bad the mages from the College of Magical Sciences didn’t cast the same spell on the outpost that was on the wall itself.

  When the wall was erected, both sides wanted to ensure it would stand solid over time and each charged their most talented mages to come up with a spell which would make the wall impervious to nature’s elements and man’s tampering. The same spell was cast on the palace in Iron City to keep it looking as new and shiny as the day it was built. From what I was told, the spell cost each mage involved all of their power, taking away their magic forever. It was a shame. So many things were made of iron and had to constantly be repaired in Vankara. It was fortunate there was a plentiful supply of the metal in our country.

  The wall only had one opening and it was here in the desert terrain of the Outlands, a place no vankaran or fae was likely to travel to unless it was for a purpose. Barren of water and vegetation, the Outlands wasn’t fit to sustain very many people. Everything, including food and water, had to be shipped in from outlying villages. Only those people who shunned civilization, or who civilization shunned, lived this far out.

  Even from a distance, the small village surrounding the outpost didn’t look in any better shape than the outpost itself.

  Gabriel checked on Queen Emma to make sure she was still sleeping before we set out on our mission to find John Fallon. As we made our way down the steps from the Queen’s compartment, I saw Inara already waiting on us at the foot of the stairs. She tugged her leather gloves off and tucked them over the cinched in black belt around her waist.

  “How long do you think you’ll be?” She asked Gabriel.

  “I’m not sure,” Gabriel answered as he held his hand out to me to help me down the last step onto the pale desert sand. Even though it was winter, the temperature here in the Outlands was more like spring. I was glad I decided to leave my cloak back in the ship.

  “Is Emma awake?” Inara asked.

  “No, she’s sleeping. If she wakes up before we return, let her know we’ll be back as soon as we can with Fallon.”

  The commander let her arms drop to her side and headed up the stairs to watch over the Queen while we were gone.

  “Come, Sarah.” Gabriel said, forcing me to return my attention back to the task at hand. “We need to find John as quickly as we can.”

  Chapter 4

  The small town built around the outpost was a perfect illustration of the term slatternly. The combined smells of human waste and liberal amounts of alcohol hung in the air like a fog permanently encasing the squalid little hovel in a haze of uncleanliness. There were ten rickety wooden buildings comprising the town, five on each side of the solitary sand strewn street running through the middle of the village to the outpost. Each one leaned towards the east and all looked on the verge of collapsing if a strong gust blew within an inch of their boards. I assumed it was only the two foot dunes of sand surrounding the bottoms of each ramshackle dwelling which kept their walls standing in an upright position.

  Why this John Fallon chose to live in such wretched conditions when he could have been living at the palace was beyond my reasoning. I literally held onto my breath as we walked down the street towards the old outpost. Only until my lungs burned for more air did I dare pollute them with the noxious fumes of the Outlands one and only settlement.

  At mid-day, the outpost and town looked completely deserted with no one on the street but Gabriel and me. As we passed the only two-story building in the village, a husky female voice called out to us from the balcony on the second floor.

  “Heya love,” the woman crooned.

  She was dressed in a thin, almost transparent white silky robe. Her makeup was so heavily laden on her skin I was having a hard time telling how old she was, which was probably the point.

  “Would ya like to come up for a little visit, sweetie?” Her eyelids lowered coquettishly for a moment, a seductive smile spreading her ruby stained lips as her eyelids lifted to find Gabriel once again. “I won’t charge ya much since yer new in town an’ travellin’ with the Queen an’ all. Plus, most everyone’s takin’ their midday nap and I’m itchin’ for some company right about now.”

  “Thank you for the kind offer madam but we are on urgent business for Her Majesty,” Gabriel replied, ever the gentleman.

&
nbsp; “What kinda business?” The woman asked, genuine curiosity taking root as we came to a stop directly beneath her. She leaned her elbows on the railing and looked down at us displaying an ample amount of bosom in the process.

  “We’re here to discuss an important matter with Captain John Fallon,” Gabriel informed her.

  “Oh are ya now?” She smiled and gave us a conspiratorial wink. “Then ya need to come inside, love, ‘cause he’s been here the better part of the day. I think he’s still down in the parlor playin’ with the girls.”

  “I see.” Gabriel turned to me with a troubled look on his face. “Maybe you should go back to the ship, Sarah. This isn’t the sort of establishment a lady should be seen in. Plus, I have no idea what all ‘playin’ with the girls’ might entail in such a place.”

  I considered Gabriel’s chivalrous offer and felt a great temptation to go running back to the cleanliness of the Queen’s quarters but thought better of it.

  “No, if I’m going to be a leader of people, I should know how all the people of Vankara live,” I told him. “Not just the clean, presentable ones.”

  Gabriel hesitated for a fraction of a second but seemed to think better of arguing with me and just nodded his head in acquiescence.

  Gabriel and I cautiously made our way up a set of crooked wooden steps to the porch of the brothel. There was a scattering of six rocking chairs along the porch, two of which were positioned on either side of the front door. The establishment had been painted white at one time but years of wear and desert sand had eaten the paint away in spots and peeled it back in others. I could see what once must have been white lacey curtains hanging just inside the windows. From years of abuse, they were stained yellow with ragged edges as proof of ill use and neglect.

  As soon as Gabriel opened the front door, I was assaulted by the stench of tobacco smoke mixed with alcohol and cheap perfume. Sadly enough, it was a slight improvement to the outdoor aromas. The cackle of females could be heard coming from a room to the right of the small foyer as soon as we entered.