by K. G. Wilkie
"What happened?" Alyss gasped. She fell to the floor, holding the woman's cold hand.
The man looked at her in surprise. Then he chuckled. "There's no need for the dramatics," he said. "Oh wait, I remember. They all told me the person staying here was from the Original. Don't worry kiddo." He awkwardly stretched his hand to pat two fingers on her shoulder around his large burden. She was just a golem. It's like one of the Mundane's robots, but it's animated by magic.
"Eh? What's a golem?" She tilted her head to the right.
"I'll show you," he said. "Name`s Murray, by the way. I guess your Mundanes would call me an IT department guy. I take care of all the technical magics for the palace. `Course, we don't really have many Mundane gizmos, but we make a lot of things like them ourselves." He called behind his shoulder. They were walking through some corridor of rooms that branched away from the line of Aeron`s apartment. There was a twist, then a turn, and a door was opened to reveal a narrow flight of stairs. "It`s only used by people without a transport spell clearance or the skill to do it themselves, so they didn't want the staircase to take up too much space," he said apologetically. One snap of his fingers and each step was shining with its own phosphorescence.
"Here we are," he said, proudly leading the way through a jumble of broken parts and wires. In the midst of all the metal clutter, were heads and arms that Alyss carefully tiptoed around. "I think," she started nervously, "I shouldn't be bothering you. Umm... I`ve got to go upstairs and, umm... take care of things, so... " She turned tail.
"Wait a second!" he called out, grabbing her by the back of her belt. She gave an urk sound at the uncomfortable feeling, hanging limply in his grasp. "Those are artificial robot parts you just saw. Like an android factory. Ish. Anyways, I'm not going to kill you or anything, okay?" She looked around nervously. He sighed, then dragged her by the belt to the far end of the darkened workroom. "I can't let you just walk around the place on your own, but I think you need to chill out a bit, so seeing my workroom should help you." There were stacks of body parts, sorted by the part. Every few moments a new group of parts would zoom out of the stacks and arrange themselves in midair, neatly draping themselves on an armor rack that then zoomed away through a side doorway, where even more mysterious smells and views came from.
She relaxed, believing the workroom to be what Murray said it was. He let go of her belt. Then the man laughed suddenly. "I bet the golem showed you Aeron's storage unit," he asked. She grudgingly agreed, the disgust in her tone making her opinions on the practice clear.
"It's not like that," Murray guffawed. "The rest of those are his collection of golem, sort of like a bunch of vacuum cleaners or laptops. Our prince is just a little over zealous in his collection, but who can really blame him? Besides, it makes him seem approachable. It's like an action figure collection," he laughed.
"What would you do with those things anyways?" she asked.
"What does Veronica do for you," he asked instead of answering. She flatly replied the golem had done nothing useful for her.
"Well," he hedged, scratching his head. "Umm, when they are in good working order, they clean," he said. "They can cook meals and stuff for you, though he has a staff of sentients for that so it's not really necessary. And, umm, stuff."
She leaned in. "What stuff though?" she asked.
"Well," he stalled. He waved his head from side to side. Leaning in, he dropped his voice to the quietest of whispers. "They do karaoke with him," he confided. She gasped in shock. He nodded very importantly. "Real genuine karaoke. I've heard scuttlebutt that it sounds absolutely terrible, so he makes sure to sing only with those who sound worse than him and wouldn't judge him for it."
She was impressed into silence for a moment, but that didn't last. "What kind of work do the golems do anyways that they can get broken at all? Wouldn't used-up magic just kind of, I don't know, disappear?"
"That wouldn't make sense at all," he said. "See, the way dragon technology works, you use all the basic rules of electronics. Then you power the contraption with magic. We used to pioneer new ways of doing batteries and stuff, but normal electricity was too much of a bother for us. You have to find a way to gather energy, to recharge it, and to dispose of the waste and broken chargers. It's just a headache."
"But," she hesitated, "dragons doing electrical stuff?"
He laughed. "Of course! Our kind has always been like that--magic book in one hand, science text in the other. Haven't you read any books about us?" he teased.
She shook her head no and explained that she'd always been more interested in the books about fairies. "Anyways, show me how some of this works," she said. "I want to progress on my journey of figuring out this strange place." He and handed her a soldering wand, and they set to work on repairing the maid golem's systems. Her speech drive had blown a circuit. But with the magic of, well, magic, it hadn't caused too much harm to the rest of the unit, and it was easy enough for them to redo the circuit and hook it back into the rest of the system.
The unit opened her eyes and blinked at them. "Hello, it is very nice to meet you again." Veronica stood and waved at them. Her movements had become fluid, and if it weren't for her still somewhat strange phrasing, she would have looked exactly like a humanoid. "I am rebooting my system and will be prepared to fully interact with the environment in forty-eight point two minutes. I will now be starting my reboot phase. Thank you for your patience," Veronica said.
The two mechanics looked at each other. "I think Veronica sounds a lot better now that we repaired that speech drive," Alyss said. He had to agree with her. They eventually decided to leave her there to complete her boot-up while they continued on a tour of the palace.
First, he took her through the various grounds. Then they stopped by in the public palace library. He told her he didn't have the clearance to bring her to Aeron's personal library, but she explained she wouldn't have wanted to borrow one of his books anyway; and they let her pick up a few books to read in her quarters. The staff there made it plain that they did not approve of this field trip, though, so they quickly moved on.
Eventually, he brought her back to the beginning to her chamber. "I can't take you out of here very often, not even every day, but I think occasional visits like this might help you not go insane with boredom." The old man shook her hand, and she hugged him back. He blushed when she let him go and cleared his throat. "If you need anything else, Veronica should be in good working order to take care of it for you again; but if that doesn't work, you can ask her to connect the comm directly to me and I'll get you what you need." Then he became stern and shook his finger at her. "Don't forget that you'll get all of us in trouble if you go wandering away from here, though, you hear? I know you might not like staying here, but it's for your own good. Have fun reading," he said as he went out the door.
CHAPTER SIX
Study in Starlight
In another part of the palace, a very different set of people were talking. She walked in the room with a twinkling night sky draped over her shoulder and snaking down across her stomach as her pallu, flames licking harmlessly at her heels from her train. She paused in the entrance to survey the space, then tapped her middle fingers to her thumbs to cause the stone study to burst into flower, with waterfalls cascading from the tops of the bookcases without dampening a single tome. "You realize you have the ability to go anywhere in this dimension. We could have easily met in a place far more aesthetically pleasing."
The king hadn't moved during her handiwork with his decorating, but now he uncurled from his position tucked up on his desk and stretched himself out enough that she could see he gave a shrug. "I like it here. It is my own office; it would be a shame if I didn't," Vovin said. "Don't fret though, I won't hold your efforts to spruce things up against you. It's kind of nice to see you taking an interest in something." He loped across the room to clear some trailing ivy vines away from his cabinet doors and took out a bottle of brimstone brew and two glasses. They clinked as h
e shuffled them around on his desk.
She sniffed. "I am not completely numbed to the world around me. I cared enough to pass the rule on to someone better equipped to deal with the everyday nonsense." Dark storm clouds started to creep around her top and obscure the stars. "I think it would be wise if you remembered that you have this position purely on my sufferance and do your best to pursue your obsession with needling others with a target who were under your rule." She frowned. "You know, I could have chosen someone else to replace me."
He laughed. "You know that you were sick and tired of the position for millennia before I started pestering you to let me take over. You should be happy someone who has vested in all of this nonsense took it on." They both thought back to that time.
The Fey had been ruling the Shadeworld ever since it had begun, and even before that point they had ruled back in the time when both the magical and Mundane worlds had been united as the single world called Earth. Over time as more and more magical beings escaped the vampire hunts and witch burnings and violence of the Mundane humans to set up new lives in the Shadeworld, the responsibilities of the ruler increased, but Titania had been doing the work for so long that eventually all matters political and even cultural were neglected by her as she started to take her naps that increasingly were lasting for a century or longer each time. Factions rose between the different species and battles broke out. Wars were waged. The different species set up their own monarchies and their own kingdoms. The new countries fought to have more wealth or to spread their lands. What little slivers of land were still being fought over were ravaged by the endless assault, and those who had fled the Original to find peace and freedom to live their lives without fear of their species drawing hatred and mobs found that their new refuge had become just as dangerous and tumultuous as the lands they had fled. By the time the dragons had taken fought to unify the many kingdoms under one rule, many countries and their leaders were more than happy to willingly relinquish some of their power in return for the safety and stability of the new kingdom. Many others were willing to be convinced to fall into line with promises of maintaining some power as voting members of the Royal Council. Peace had been achieved, and the kingdom was stable for centuries.
They both knew that no matter how much she complained, Titania had given up as a ruler and Vovin had saved her from more stress and boredom from her former position as much as saving the inhabitants of their world.
"I didn't come here to speak of my past anyways," Titania said. "You will remember that I was invited here to speak of a matter of great importance to all of us."
He nodded. It was important to establish that he was still the king and still had the authority and power here, but now that that was taken care of, they needed to take care of a more vital issue.
"We have matters of greater importance to discuss. You have heard of the whispers?" Vovin asked.
She nodded. "As you know, I had a premonition that something would be afoot here years ago. It's the reason I sent my daughter to the Original. But all of this is concerning. I had not realized that I would be in a place now where all my efforts to protect the child had ended with her being placed in more danger with less defenses." She sighed. "It almost makes me think I might have made a mistake," Titania said.
He rolled his eyes. "I think that's very clear now. She's vulnerable and untrained, and at the worst possible time." They both knew what was happening in the world. The Red Guard as Vovin's personal spies had sniffed out a good concept of the breadth and scope of the trouble, the queen had all of the Fey at her beck and call, and they used their eyes and ears to spy in places others couldn't infiltrate. Together, their knowledge covered almost everything happening in their world, but they knew that simply knowing about concerning events did not provide them a way to change the course that had been set.
"I'm worried," Vovin admitted. "We've put all the pieces in place to keep our people and our children safe, but there's no guarantee it will work out in the end. I've spent so many years dealing with so many different rebellions and squabbles, but this is bigger than what either of us have dealt with before."
She clasped his shoulder. "I am here. You will deal with this, as you have always done, and I will lend you a hand. This will be okay."
He nodded, knowing in his heart that he wasn't sure it really would be. The biggest piece of the puzzle was his sons doing what he expected of them, and it was hard to know exactly what was going through their minds.
"We can always talk to them, you know. They will certainly be able to help, in all of this; and of course their loyalty is unquestioned," Titania said.
He blanched at the thought. "Them? I don't think that's a very wise idea, my dear. One must think of strategy for now, and the future, you know. There won't be much of a future to be had if we include them," Vovin argued.
She shrugged at him. "Use all the tools you have available. There's her to consider; she'd surely help you, and of course you have an ace up your sleeve. I don't think the immediate problem is of much concern; I am here because I am worried about what comes after this storm has blown through. You realize that with all of this the one thing greater than any of these other problems will crop up and you will have to resort to some desperate measures," Titania said.
Vovin nodded. Why hadn't he thought of that? He was smarter than she was. But he knew why he hadn't mentioned that possibility before. He had been reserving that option, trying to let the boy lead a normal life, to let his son grow and figure out some of his problems on his own without the worry and fear of what came next that was always part of this responsibility. But she was right, the time had come to involve him as well. He just wondered what the boy was up to for now.
A knock at the door interrupted his musings. He approved the disruption, and his footman ushered in Alabastor and the vampires.
"My liege," Cillean said. They all bowed.
Vovin gestured for them to stand up. "Yes, yes, you've done the formalities. What is it?"
"My liege, there are problems in the Shadeworld," Cillean continued.
Vovin nodded. "Yes, I was aware of them. I was just speaking about them to--," he paused and looked over to see Titania had decided to go invisible before the visitors. He shrugged. "Well, to someone at any rate. Was that all you rushed past my secretaries to say?"
Daerick shook his head. "Your majesty, we've not come to speak of the trouble, as you surely know all that is happening in your kingdom. We came to request instead that you summon a council," he said.
Vovin examined the idea. Sure it would be a hassle to bring those delegates together. They always got excited by an unscheduled meeting, so they'd probably be all over the place during the talks and not actually address the problem before them.
But still, inviting the different representatives to gather had merit. He could observe them all in one room. He could watch who talked to whom and see from their actions and words which he suspected of being less than loyal and tangled up in these preposterous plots.
He nodded. "Yes, that may be just the thing to do at this point. Very well then." He snapped at his footman who promptly bowed and rushed out of the room. "We have summoned the Council. I can only hope my son was right in this and it will turn up the information we need of it."
They bowed and left the room.
A long train of different dignitaries dressed in their formal clothes slowly filed in. They made a great entrance into the meeting hall. Four times a year representatives from the different species of the Shadeworld regularly met here to discuss all the matters of state that were of the greatest importance to their people. Each of these primary meetings went smoothly as the delegates had time in between them to meet with each other and hash out their opinions and preferences so the primaries themselves were straight-forward presentations of the final plans.
Today, however, was different. Today they had been called here for a secondary meeting, which always turned messy. Secondary meetings could be called at any
time by the king to advise him on specific concerns of their world, but he had only summoned five in the last century. This format of meeting was new for most of the current delegates and no one quite knew how it would go down.
Before the meeting started, however, trestle tables were set up around the perimeter of the room to serve refreshments. All of the representatives of the various species circulated around to speak to each other.
"The meeting this time better be worth it," Richard mumbled under his breath. Still all the officials from the different peoples of their world were congregating around the room, the darkness of night barely affecting the glow of the gold sun clock on the wall, which reflected every scrap of light back a hundredfold. One of the long hands moved, and its light traveled the full room, a glowing shield meeting at the corners and cracks of the room to prevent any unwary or devious eavesdroppers from listening in.
The princes were sent to do a round of meet and greets as well, while the king had the luxury of observing the room and all those gathered there from his throne placed at the head of the meeting table. He managed to speak to many of the delegates who walked up to him to pay their respects or privately discuss a matter with him, but still he managed to keep an eye trained on his sons.
After all, this was also the first meeting between the princes in almost a month. Things were not expected to go smoothly between them.
"Aeron, my brother. How wonderful to see you," Richard said. His sneer belied the lie.
Aeron still clapped his shoulder in a gesture of warmth. "Well, you might not be happy, but I still am. Tell me, how are things going with your friends? Revolution treating you right?"
Richard sneered at him. "I don't know what you could possibly be speaking of. I've never even had a single revolutionary thought. If I had thought of starting some sort of uprising, though," he continued, "you can be sure I'd be doing a wonderful job of it," he said.
