Children of Swan: The Land of Taron, Vol 2: (A Space Fantasy Adventure)

by Coral Walker

  He more or less understood it now. Electricity was the power behind the equipment, and the blue moon stone was the magic behind it. It was ridiculous to think that they had had those stones at their fingertips all the time but had never thought it had any use other than lighting a room or illuminating a party.

  A party.

  The term reminded him of Cici’s engagement, and at the thought of it he frowned. The engagement was coming nearer, but Cici was getting edgy and unpredictable. She wasn’t happy, he knew it, no matter what he had tried.

  No, in fact, he hadn’t tried. There were so many things occupying him — the court, the New Temple of Justice, the women in the western tower, and the final treatment of Mapolos. He hadn’t tried but had assumed that she would be fine as long as he allowed her to do whatever she wanted. He had even turned a blind eye to her silly episode with the pitiful soul of Ornardo and the body of the pale-skinned lad, Jack. Having no clue of who she was and how Ornardo had been killed — she didn’t even know what kind of fire she was playing with.

  It had been an implied agreement between them for years that as long as she kept feeding Mapolos with her blood, he would give her a large measure of freedom. He knew how much she hated it. Feeding Prince Mapolos with her blood, however you looked at it, wasn’t a pleasant thing — he had done it many years himself before her birth — but it was the only way to keep Mapolos alive. The treatment, the final treatment, would end all that. If only he could make her understand what all his work meant for her.

  For THEM!

  Of course Cici was upset, what with the death of Ornardo followed by the disappearance of Prince Marcus right before their engagement was due to take place. Never had he seen Cici and Prince Marcus as a good match. Hesitant and weak-willed, the worst characteristics you would have in a prince. But he was in the Queen’s favour and the only one fit and eligible to inherit the King’s crown, at least for the time being.

  He had seen it coming, and he had seen it with clarity.

  The way that Marcus had looked at Zelda, the Rion Princess — a fine woman she was. How their swords just missed each other, and how they wrestled while gazing into each other’s eyes.

  You don’t need three days to fight a woman. It had all been a MASQUERADE!

  The disappearance of Prince Marcus and Princess Zelda was a cause for celebration, as far as he was concerned. It left Mapolos as the only prince who could inherit the crown. But the court with all its dull-witted lords and obtuse peers hadn’t seen sense but had insisted that physical ability and good health were essential prerequisites for a king. With the Queen’s consent, they had sifted through all the blood-related relatives for possible heirs, forcing him to start the plan earlier before Bo was even ready.

  The Queen! The Queen. If desire itself had attractive force, she would have been his a long time ago. But she kept her distance as if there were a wall between them, and the precipitous deterioration of the ailing King was only strengthening the wall.

  She was never warm towards Mapolos, as if she had sensed the impurity of his blood. She had never expressed what she felt in words but had simply isolated herself in a cage of guilt and would, at the King’s deathbed, do anything to protect the bloodline of the King.

  What a short-sighted woman! A king is a king, as long as he can sit firmly on the throne.

  She would be surprised, after the final treatment, when she saw what it had done to Mapolos. Would that change her mind? Would she ever again look at him the way she used to?

  +++

  “Do you see this?” Pentland asked his finger pointing.

  In the centre of the screen was a white ball with many feathery appendages extending like tentacles.

  “Is it the pearl?” He frowned — its size didn’t match his expectations.

  “Yes, it’s growing rapidly inside her.”

  “You will take it out, won’t you?”

  Pentland gasped, and raised his eyebrows again. “That would certainly kill her.” One finger shifting to one of the longest tentacles he continued, “Some of the appendages have extended as far as to her liver and lungs, almost reaching her heart.”

  He tensed his face. He was certain now that he shouldn’t have trusted Brianna with this yellow-headed man. “Dr Peter Pentland is one of our best men in medicine.” Kevin Renshell had told him as if this Dr Pentland were a real bargain.

  There was no need for the best man in medicine. What was needed here was a butcher!

  “Let’s think about it this way,” Pentland opened his hands, palms up, like a bird opening its wings, “The pearl is alive, inside her body. It’s no longer a solid thing you can simply remove. It’s now part of her body. Removing it will not just kill the girl but also destroy the pearl.”

  Without the healing power of the pearl, the final treatment was certain to be a failure.

  “We can go with plan B.” Peter’s eyes brightened, and he started waving his hands. “Let Brianna evolve. If the miracle — I mean the healing power of Tyanna’s — is true, once Brianna absorbs the full power of the pearl and becomes fully evolved, she will have the same powerful healing power as Tyanna used to have. Then we can use her healing power to ensure the safe outcome of Prince Mapolos’ treatment.”

  It was unthinkable to allow her to gain the full power of the pearl. It made his heart ache to even think about it.

  “It’s the only way,” Pentland emphasised.

  He threw him a hard glance. He hated this man’s tone, his balanced speech, his good sense and his silly yellow hair. He was arching his brows again.

  A sudden drowsiness came over him. He had endured endless long nights. Perhaps too many.

  “Are you alright, my Lord?” Ms Upright’s hand was stroking his arm.

  He turned his head. His voice softened, “You stay here and keep your eyes peeled.”

  “Like I always do, my Lord.” She smiled sweetly, her eyes sparkling with expectation, the same expectation she had in her eyes when he had first set eyes on her.

  There was desire in her eyes, and she was drawn to him like a bee to nectar. He could see the sheen of expectation like a light in her otherwise plain eyes. When he saw it, he knew she could be trusted.

  He trudged along the long corridor, passed the soldiers standing upright as statues and heard his footsteps echoing between the walls. His mind wandered back to Cici. In two days it would be her engagement party; she had been so quiet about it, as if it were just a game.

  Yes, it was a game, a game to delude doubtful minds. And then, perhaps, it would be high time to let her know who she was.

  +++

  Her pulse was dangerously slow. He drew back his fingers from the tendons of her wrist, put away the antique silver stopwatch and fumbled in his pocket for a torch.

  Nina tapped his arm with a torch in her hand. Without turning his head, he took it, switched it on and shone its bright light into Brianna’s eyes.

  No response.

  “So you see, Dr Pentland, from a clinical point of view, we should be worried. She’s still deteriorating, and it isn’t an exaggeration to say she’s dying.” Dr Nina Caplin clicked the top of the silver ballpoint pen with her thumb as she spoke.

  “They were saying that she’s a kind of ...” she paused to rummage for a suitable term and continued, “half-creature, half-person ... something called a tartar ... woman, it doesn’t make sense. What do you think, Dr Pentland?”

  “Peter?”

  Peter looked up. His light-coloured eyes met Nina’s dark ones. A ready smile brightened her long face, so swiftly it might have been turned on by a switch.

  He should never have agreed to have an assistant of such a ridiculous height, he thought regretfully. Her eyes behind the thick lens gleamed with something.

  What had she just been talking about?

  It came suddenly to him — Brianna, half-creature, half-person.

  He nodded, gazing back at the figure lying so still. “It’s called a targar-woman, a half
-targar, half-woman. She is on her way to becoming one.”

  “So she’s going to be a kind of creature,” she said with a glint of excitement and pressed her thumb harder. The clicking sound became more distinct.

  If that ball pen were ever taken away from her, Peter found himself thinking more than once, this tall woman with square shoulders might simply drop dead.

  “A targar-woman is kind of fairy, so the folks here believe,” he explained, hoping the clicks would stop.

  Her thumb paused as she gave a small giggle. “A fairy!” she exclaimed and glanced down hoping to catch him grinning. When she looked away again, the clicks resumed. “So you, a scientist, believe this kind of fairy stuff.”

  She took his silence as a yes and continued, “If all those fairy beliefs are true, then we might find something incredible in that girl. Maybe we should do some tests on her now before it’s too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “I mean she might die. We need to collect valuable samples and examine her thoroughly to see any genetic changes taking place. It might lead to some extraordinary discoveries. Perhaps it will help with the breeding of Lord Shusha’s half-person, half-bokwa babies.”

  “Leave her!” Peter boomed.

  The clicks stopped dead.

  He sighed with relief — the clicks were driving him mad — and resumed in a neutral tone, “I mean she needs to rest and then she will pull through.”

  “So you think she’s able to pull through by herself?” There was considerable doubt in her tone as she folded her arms. “She’s hardly alive; it’s like she’s giving up.”

  He sank into the chair next to the bed and shook his head. The image of her standing by the cliff with her arms spread wide flashed back to him.

  Was she doing it again? Only this time, he wasn’t sure whether she would trust him again.

  +++

  He crumpled the paper in his hands, un-crumpled it and crumpled it again. He felt like he needed to talk but wasn’t sure where to start.

  The room was empty again. Nina had gone back to her office and would return in half an hour for another routine check. He still had some time.

  “Brianna,” he finally started. His lone voice sounded thin and detached.

  “I am Peter Pentland. Remember me?” He paused giving time for his words to sink in and pondered a little more to decide what to say first — her broken knee or those family meals he had attended.

  He went with the meals. With an acute sense of intimacy, he recalled the hot steam, the plentiful dishes, the wonderful tastes, the gleaming cutlery, the loving looks of the young couple and the flushed cheeks of their children. He had distinct memories of the food and could list all the dishes and desserts that Zelda had cooked. He went on and on to list them all. When he got to the chocolate mousse cake, his gaze fastened on Brianna’s pale face. It had been her favourite cake. She would gobble down two slices with rich cream and fresh strawberries without a blink.

  She stayed unresponsive, even to the chocolate mousse cake.

  “I’ve seen Bo.” The sudden change of topic alarmed him as if one half of his mind had made a rushed decision without the full approval of the other.

  “He ...” his voice broke, and he paused to regain control, “is alright.”

  He thought of Bo’s small body naked in the empty cylinder and remembered the red skin he had taken on when he had last seen him. He needed his Mum and, perhaps, his sister. He had observed the close bond between Brianna and Bo that had become stronger year by year. In some cases, they were best playmates, and in others, Brianna was more like a little mother to Bo.

  “Bo needs you. He wants you, Brianna.”

  He stooped forward and whispered in her ear, “He is here, in this building with you.”

  17

  Punch

  Dilea didn’t return in the morning, nor the next day. A tall, long-faced woman took her place and fed him with tasteless lumpy gruel. No matter how often Ornardo asked about Dilea, the woman stubbornly shook her melon-shaped head, refusing to give an answer.

  Cici finally came, tired, eyes dark-ringed but nevertheless glistening with a spark of excitement. Her face darkened as Ornardo mentioned the missing maid. “The maids in this house never stay very long,” she said grumpily.

  “She looked like she was pregnant,” said Ornardo.

  “Well, that’s what folks have been saying,” Cici said, “that she was pregnant and had to run away to give birth, and then was too ashamed to come back. She’s not the first one to run away. It has happened with other maids.”

  The bitterness in her tone was real, but she dismissed it stoically and assumed a light tone and cheerful air. “Guess what I’ve got,” she asked, her face brightening.

  Ornardo didn’t answer.

  She went on as though the spark of excitement in her head had now flared up, “I’ve found it, the thing that can get rid of him — Jack.” She lowered her voice abruptly as she mentioned the name as if she were worried of being overheard.

  The remark and its sinister import shocked him like a plunge into cold water. In disbelief, Jack strained his impaired senses. Through the undersized frame of his vision, he gaped at her rosy lips opening and closing and listened to her words as she spoke confidently of expelling him from his own body.

  She held out a hand, and in her open palm was a clear glass box. Sitting motionlessly in it was a dark, multi-legged bug with a segmented and armoured body. Even though it was not much larger than a cockroach, with its jagged tail and oversized pincers that had edges notched like a saw, it exuded an air of menace.

  “Ginata, the Soul Eater,” Cici declaimed in a proud tone. “Once inside you, she will find his soul and devour it. Then you will be free of him and have the body all for yourself. Ginata was so hard to find ...” She went on to elaborate how she had spent two nights searching in the bone yards and cemeteries.

  “How can you be so sure she will choose to devour him, and not me?” asked Ornardo.

  Her eyes clouded as her lips pursed slightly. “Ginata has her own mind and selects her own victim. But don’t you worry, Ornardo. It has always been the case that the weaker one is devoured and the stronger one survives.”

  She paused all of a sudden, threw him a curious glance and then giggled nervously, “You are still the stronger one, aren’t you?”

  Not expecting an answer, she continued. “You must be. All those potions he was given. Of course, his soul was significantly weakened, or you wouldn’t be able to take his body. How headstrong he was, refusing to leave his body. If he had, he would be comfortable in a bottle, saving him from the plight of being devoured by Ginata.”

  Again she paused briefly, seeming to give in to some thought, and then resumed just as quickly, “All the same, he was the weaker one then and should still be the weaker one now. It has been too short a period for him to regain his strength. We need to let Ginata get on with it, the sooner, the better.”

  Jack laughed nervously as fear crept in. There wasn’t much left of him, but fear was certainly one feeling that remained. He had succumbed to it many times, and more than once had acted like a coward. The arena flashed back into his mind with its dusty, bloodstained ground, and shimmering rails with cold shackles. He had been frightened, hadn’t he? — Terrified of the fighting, still he had wanted to live.

  Could he do it again?

  To his astonishment, he heard Ornardo speaking, “I am afraid, Cici, I am afraid. I don’t feel I am strong at all, and I don’t want to die just yet.” The voice cracked as if he too were stricken with fear.

  Tears welled up in Cici’s eyes. She stooped over and nestled her face in the hollow between his chin and the pillow.

  “Untie me, take me to the garden. I want to see the sunshine again. Perhaps then I can make up my mind,” Ornardo whispered.

  She raised her head and asked, “Are you sure he’s not going to trouble you?”

  “He’s alright with that. We have both been trapped
in this room for too long.”

  +++

  He limped more than he needed to. Ornardo was mindful of his childish display of vexation but took no offence.

  The day was bright, the vegetation was lush, the breeze was refreshing, and Ornardo seemed to be in a jolly mood. Bits and pieces of his good mood escaped and tinged Jack’s mind. Stubbornly, Jack dismissed them all — if he were to die, he must die clean, with no desire, no temptation and no hope.

  But the flame of Ornardo’s gaiety was unquenchable. Cici and Ornardo giggled as they chatted about the days when they were no taller than the hedge in the garden. The whole garden had been a massive maze for them then, and often they had spent half a day trying to find each other. This brought back Jack’s memories of the day he and Brianna had lost Bo in a late evening game of hide-and-seek and left him to sleep the night in the laundry basket under a heap of clothes.

  Lying down on the grassy slope facing the castle, Ornardo looked up. For a split second, Jack was transported back home by the crystal blue sky. When the mind woke again, the sky was no longer that colour but had progressed to a light, bluish-purple.

  “It’s blue only for a brief moment at noon time. As the day gets later it will eventually turn orange-red,” Ornardo whispered in his mind voice.

  — Stay with your girl. You don’t need to talk to me.

  Jack retorted.

  Ornardo chortled at just the right moment as Cici ended her babbling about how they once swapped clothes — Ornardo had hers, and she had his. Undiscovered, he had spent the day in the castle disguised as her while she roamed in the wilderness.

  “Jack, did you see that?” Ornardo’s mind voice spoke to him again.

  — Can’t you just stay with her?

  Nevertheless, he looked through the eye frame.

  “It’s the tower we went to last night.”