Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

  That were worse than all else, and it were with definite sureness that Agnethea knew that if she were in fact not dead and dying that she would, for the rest o' her days, do all she could to avoid water any deeper than what you might find in a wash basin.

  And she had loved to swim in the waters of Arcadia, from time to time, as and when the mood had struck.

  "And who would you be," Agnethea demanded softly, insides aching from the retching of a moment ago, "to spend both coin and time to rescue a creature from Arcadia? Have you not heard by now? Me and mine were, in a way, responsible for all that has befallen Stack 17. We are …"

  "Monsters, aye." The young woman finished Agnethea's sentence. "That is what is being reported. Some few survivors not spirited away by a mysterious ship rising out of the Stack or them as were seen scooting away on an unmarked combat craft had much to say about what they saw. Implausible battles with unstoppable enemies, unthinking and unbelievable cruelty and viciousness. And also, spirited hope and surprising tenderness. The world knows not what to think, save that they all hope and pray that the four Arcadians, from this moment on, do nothing but keep to themselves."

  "Oh aye." Agnethea nodded, digging back into the warmth of this bed which were so comfortable the Golem believed she were inventing an all-new sin. "I can well see how the people of The Outside would wish summat exactly like that. More's the pity."

  "You have no intention of living a quiet life?"

  Agnethea shook her head. "Matters nowt wot it is I wish, young woman, for myself or any of t'others neither. This Outside, it is more whimsical and mercurial than dead King Blake. 'ere I were to build myself a house on a cliff and do nowt more than sit and watch the weather, before too long, I guarantee the entire assembled army of someone or other would roll up to me and demand summat outrageous, whereupon I would be forced to defend myself."

  "You make it sound as if the Universe is against you."

  "Not against us, young lady, hardly that. 'tis just that we all of us played an integral part in one man's story, and from that participation, we now are marked, you see. For good or ill, should interesting things be happening in our vicinity, we shall find ourselves mixed up in it. Our feelings on the matter do not matter." Agnethea wondered if perhaps she should struggle to a seated position, to look into the eyes of the young girl who'd gone to considerable effort to rescue her from an eternity at the bottom o' the ocean then thought better of it.

  She were more than content, for the time being, to rest. She felt she'd earned it. And besides all that, the moment she knew who'd saved her would become the moment that her life grew complicated once more.

  Better still for a few more sweeps o' the clock o' nowt but sweet warmth.

  "Ah yes, the mighty King Nickels." The young woman sounded amused. "We heard all about that, and about Arcadia. The Golem Mirabelle made several very interesting broadcast announcements that've got the world in an uproar."

  That dragged Agnethea to a sitting position. "Damn and blast that Golem! How difficult is it, truly, to remain 'neath the radar in this world? What did she say, and to whom? Ah. I see. Well met, Constance Hawthorne. I suppose thanks are in order."

  "Think nothing of it." Constance beamed prettily at the Pirate Queen Agnethea, so excited to see the woman alive and awake and fairly bursting at the seams with the secret she kept to herself for now that it was honestly kind of embarrassing. "It was the least I could do."

  Sensing there were a story there but still more interested in what Mirabelle had gotten herself up to -for the time being, at any rate- Agnethea pushed for answers. "What did my kinswoman tell the world?"

  It could be anything. Anything at all, and that were the worst part o' it. Had she spilled secrets about the other Arcadians? Revealing unto those who should remain ignorant of what they now were? Had she made threats 'gainst The Outside?

  Panic seized her throat as the worst possible revelation made itself obvious.

  Oh Gods, wot if she'd spoken of Book! What if she'd announced it's power, or the knowledge contained within? King Nickels would go completely mental!

  "There'll be time enough for all that, Pirate Queen Agnethea." Constance moved to the woman's bedside. "Have no fear about that."

  "No hope for being a Pirate Queen now, young Connie." Agnethea puffed out a sigh of pure despair. "For I intended upon using the prize of Stack 17 to make those dreams come true. Wi'out it, I am nowt but a displaced Arcadian wi' no bright prospects."

  "Well, as to that." Constance placed one hand on Agnethea's pale skin, pleased to feel that her once ice-cold, clammy skin were warm as ever. "Tell me true, Agnethea deRois. Were you serious about your dreams of sailing the stars, pillaging and thieving and having grand adventures?"

  It took Agnethea a few minutes to recall what it was the young woman was talking about. That interlude so high in the sky, surrounded by wealthy socialites all celebrating Constance's sweet sixteen seemed a million miles and a million years away from where she were right then. As she lay in the bed, resurrecting those thoughts, only paying half-attention to the beautiful girl sitting there, on edge, waiting for an answer, Agnethea decided that yes, she had been serious.

  "Aye." Agnethea nodded, seeing a swirl of effervescent delight spin through young Constance. "In all the world, nowt that has crossed my lips has been e'er more serious than that. On the Inside, 'neath Clockwork Dome, none as lived ever dreamed of such a thing as this wild, wild Outside. Things like planets and solar systems and Galaxies? Fantasy. Not to be believed. And well, hearing tales from King Nickels about this unruly Outside, it did strike me that I should like to live a life similar to his, if only to put him to shame in some way. Why do you ask?"

  Constance licked her lips, then looked rather unsubtly to one large window, which were covered by a broad, light-blocking cover of corrugated metal. "If ... if your offer still stands, I should like to follow you into the stars, Pirate Queen. I've thought of little else since your bold departure from my party, to the point where nothing else in my life seems of interest."

  Agnethea ran a hand through her hair, wondering if perhaps she'd made a mistake. The invitation she'd made ... it'd flitted from her lips wi'out her thinkin' on't too much, and had honestly been made more to aggravate the young girl's overbearing, domineering mother.

  "What about your mother, dear child? I know little of the outside world and how things work 'tween parent and child here, but I can't imagine someone like your old mum letting you hare off with someone like me."

  "Oh." Connie hopped off the chair and went to the metal-covered window, peeked through one of the slats. "As to that? Nothing to worry about there, milady. Mother's out of the picture."

  Burning with sudden curiosity to see what occupied Young Constance's attention on t'other side of the window, Agnethea propped herself up higher on one elbow, all in the hopes that she'd spy whatever could be spied. She frowned when Connie skipped away, letting the metal window blind clatter ‘gainst glass. "Do tell."

  "Well," Connie smiled mischievously, "once you'd left in such colorful manner, leaving me with a head full of dreams about pirating and pillaging across the stars, my Mother turned into this unbelievable bitchmonster. Tried forcing me into an arranged marriage, attempted to convince me to sign conservatorship of my fortune to her, then, when that failed, she tried to legally separate me from my wealth. Were it not for my Father's keen insight into how my mother is, I've no doubt in me that she would've succeeded. But, more's the pity for her, because the wording was quite clear on the matter."

  Wealth to a Golem of Agnethea's ancient status was completely and utterly abstract. She knew that here on the Outside, the more money you had, the more power you also owned, and that with money, you could purchase all manner of things with it when power alone wasn’t good enough. As Queen of Ickford, she'd either demanded people give her what she wanted or she simply took it herself. From the tone in Connie's proud voice, it was apparent that her 'fortune' was -howsoever it was calcul
ated- 'a very big deal'.

  "I cannot imagine your mother enjoyed meeting with failures of such profundity." Agnethea psychically urged the child to open the metal window cover. Curiosity gnawed at her insides like a starving Shaggy Man. "What happened then?"

  Connie moved back to the window, too eager for words. “I think she’s with her sister? No. That’s not right. She was with her older sister, but Maize kicked her out when she caught mumsy stealing the family silver. I do think right now she’s bother some cousin or other.”

  “This doesn’t bother you at all?” Agnethea marveled at the resilience of the young. “Your mother, out there, on her own? Foraging for herself, seeking out whatever comfort she can? What if she falls in wi’ the wrong crowd, Young Constance, and falls down and down until she’s no longer the woman as raised you?”

  Connie shrugged as only a teenager could. “I was raised by a consecutive order of nannies, milady, and when my Father was around, we spent all our time together. Mother was … never really in the picture, you see. Arranged marriage and all. Father honestly couldn’t stand her all that much. I think,” she peeked through the slats again, belly quivering in excitement, “I think that whatever she gets is whatever is coming to her.”

  Welladay. Agnethea was taken aback by the coldness in Young Constance’s voice as equally as she was now determined to see that the girl joined her in some kind of foolhardy adventure across the Universe; the child did truly seem to possess at least the heart of a villain, which were all that you really needed. The rest came wi’ time and practice, and of course, stealing everything as weren’t nailed down.

  “Child, if you don’t open that window covering and let me see wot ‘as got your attention so firmly grabbed, I shall throw this entire bed through’t. I warrant your property manager or whoever would have words to say, regardless of your standing.”

  Connie smiled, and gestured for the Pirate Queen to come stand beside her. The taller woman looked around in search of clothing, and when none presented itself, shrewdly used the blanket she were swaddled up in as a kind of draping dress. When the Arcadian was standing properly beside her, Young Constance pressed a button cunningly disguised as a piece of the wall and turned to stare at Agnethea the moment the metallic blind was drawn upwards into it’s compartment.

  It took awhile for what she were seeing to register as what it actually were, and by the time she’d taken all of it in, to properly appreciate the majesty of what were on t’other side of the glass, Agnethea found she could scarcely speak wi’out sounding the fool, so she merely stood there, waiting for Young Constance to do all the talking.

  “Amazing, right?” Constance pointed at the ship that was just then having the finishing touches put on it. “I got the design out of one of dad’s old Exodite books. A history book of some kind, that covered the ancient history of this world. It was really boring in a lot of parts, but the moment I came across a section on pirates … this ship just jumped out at me. According to the dusty old tome, there was a pirate named Blackbeard, and he sailed the oceans of this world, tormenting the rich and making fools of a thing called Queen’s Navy. His ship was called the ‘Queen Anne’s Revenge’. My design team had to take some liberties with the structure of this one, though, because even with all the latest in gravnetic shield design and generation, actual boatness isn’t terribly spaceworthy. Or something. What do you think?”

  What did she think? What did she think?

  Agnethea deRois could scarcely breathe, let alone think. She were staring at an actual pirate ship! Oh, aye, as the young girl had pointed out, there were some things as had been changed to allow for the craft to be truly spaceworthy; by way of example, there were no places for oars nor rudders, nor was there a bowsprit, but all else were as close to a ship as possible.

  “I do know o’ the man you speak, Young Constance.” This time, when she did speak, her voice were all breathless and fluttery wi’ excitement bordering on passion. “We too had books as made mention o’ the Outside, and in my time ‘neath The Dome, I did collect as many of those books as I could find, to preserve the history o’ what’d come before. You have done a wonderful th… nay. You’ve done summat as is nearly impossible to imagine, let alone see. But … ‘tis a space ship, no? Not a thing as plies the inky waters o’ poisoned Earth? So how is it that men and all who would pilot her wi’ us operate abovedeck? I am led to believe that the thing known as ‘space’ is inhospitable to people.”

  As for herself, Agnethea doubted ‘space’ would do much more than dry her skin out.

  Connie gestured to various points along the profile of their brand new pirate ship. “As I said, milady, gravnetic shielding. A kind of … invisible wall. Created by machines. Impenetrable, for the most part, and quite flexible, if understood properly. Any man, woman or Offworlder that throws their lot in wi’ us will be quite safe.”

  “Your ship is wonderful.” Agnethea could say no more on’t else tears began to trickle down her ageless face. She could barely handle the beauty of this modern day pirate ship and she’d not e’en seen the inside.

  “You misunderstand, milady.” Connie’s smile were simple, yet heartbreaking. “This ship hain’t mine but yours and yours alone. I built her for you. You are the Pirate Queen, and I shall be your second-in-command, just as you offered ages ago. The two of us, we’ll raid and pillage and plunder our black hearts out.”

  “Won’t be easy.” Agnethea responded boldly, honestly. “Won’t be easy, won’t always be fun, won’t always be an adventure. Never been a pirate before, but I been plenty o’ things, Young Constance, and wot I did learn from those times is that there’re people out there who’ll take exception to our presence. They’ll try to stop us, or take what’s ours. Moreover, piratin’ is cert to draw enemies ‘pon our heads. I do believe that most people generally do not like havin’ their things removed from their grasp. People may die. People will die. Mayhap e’en you, young lady. Is that the sort o’ life you want?”

  Connie had spent a long time thinking about that during construction of the ship. Actually, she’d spent considerable time working through the pros and cons of a piratical existence from the very second Agnethea had made her offer. Oh, she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that the Arcadian had been serious during her party-crash, not at all, but … that flippant offer had turned her on her head.

  “I think,” Young Constance said slowly, eyeing the ship, watching the engineers add the final touches here and there, shimmying up ropes and sliding down guidewires with skill that came from practice, “I think that the Universe is growing very small, Pirate Queen. When Domes fall and Arcadians roam the land and the past rises up out of the darkness to greet the future, there’s simply no telling who’s going to live, or for how long. I think that when I consider the future I was supposed to have, being the trophy wife for some awful boy and pumping out children every five years, I would rather already be dead than turn into something like my Mother. I think that I would rather be a pirate for days that are numbered than to live a life until I turn gray and dry with joylessness. I think I’d rather be a pirate, if it’s all the same to you, milady.”

  Agnethea stood there in silence for some time, absorbing the honest and earnest words that’d flown from Young Constance’s lips like arrows direct into her heart. She would of course not tell the youngster that when Kings roam the Universe in search of their foes, the Universe itself was doomed to end sooner rather than late, and only partially because Connie’s sentiments already echoed that not-too-distant occasion.

  Besides which, in the fullness of time, it were more than likely that Young Constance –and indeed, everyone aboard the ship- would come to learn the truth, that King Nickels were going to destroy the Universe.

  Until then?

  “Well, then, young lady.” Agnethea smiled warmly at her second-in-command. “’tis down to you to name this here vessel, hey? What shall it be?”

  “Oh, I’ve been giving that some thought, all in the hop
es that you’d allow me the chance.” Constance cleared her throat. “We shall call her ‘Queen Agnethea’s Resurrection’.”

  Another arrow, right to the heart. “Bless me.” Agnethea said, voice quavering. “I do think you’ve got the right of it, hey? Now, come, show me th’insides. And whilst we’re at it, explain to me in very plain words exactly how long it took for you to dig me up out o’ th’ ocean, Young Constance, as there’s simply no way you built this wondrous thing o’ernight.”

  Stage One Cleared

  Fucking Time Travel, AKA Someone Really Is Fucking With Me Right Now

  He woke up inside himself, as if rising from one dream into another, though he knew this was no dream. This was him, being sent from the Unreality backwards through a hypothetical bridge in space/time into the past of a Dream once had by the Engines of Creation.

  Feeling groggy and out of sorts from being translated from the Unreal Universe back through the incongruous link to the Proto-Reality had left him feeling all kinds of out of sorts and gross enough for an entire football team's worth of celebratory hangovers, so Garth just stood there, eyes screwed tightly shut, allowing the world resolve into high definition around him.

  The first thing to notice was the quietude. Wherever he was, it was somewhere people weren’t, which was both nice and disconcerting; in the original timeline –when he’d first encountered the Lords of the Dream and Eddie and Drake- all their time had been spent either at the beach, one of a dozen different fast food joints around town or in their converted dorm room in an equally converted dormitory.

  None of those places could list ‘quiet’ amongst their properties. Even on the slowest Sunday of the year following the biggest party of the decade, the dorm had been a beehive of activity.

  This was nowhere like that.

  “Nothing to worry about.” Garth said softly to himself, unwilling to dispel the blanket of silence around him; maybe the Dream was taking a few minutes to properly boot itself up, or maybe Aäl was taking time to set the stage, or maybe the remaining Lords of the Dream were doing something weird like calibrating their end of things.