Lower Earth Rising Collection, Books 1-3: A Dystopian Contemporary Fantasy

by Eden Wolfe

  “Still sealed?”

  “As always.”

  Maeva stopped.

  “I can’t help fearing that one day some zealous messenger will tamper with them – " her voice trailed off.

  That thought sent her heart racing. She slowed its beating, watching from the inside as the blood moved slower out, the calm rolling over her like clouds.

  “Maeva, that is prevented at all costs. I only put the most trustworthy guards on it. I use a particular genetic line that focuses on completion of tasks. The content of what they deliver is of no interest to them.”

  Maeva sighed.

  “I’ll come to court at the regular time.”

  Irene bowed her head. “Yes, Queen.”

  Maeva took in the sight of the Commandante in the afternoon light that shone yellow through the opening in the fortress wall. Irene's uniform was impeccable, the lines of it sharp across her broad and tall figure. A natural Ganese, her dark eyes, dark skin, and thick lips were a contrast to the Queen's olive complexion.

  Irene turned and walked tall in the direction of the main fortress building. The Queen went to her bedroom and shut the wooden door behind her, latching the iron lock.

  In front of her window, on her small bureau, sat four packages.

  She lowered herself into the velvet chair – all velvet was property of the Queen but for the swatches gifted to the museum – and let her back rest against the dark wood.

  Each package was slightly different, but all were triple wrapped. That was the protocol.

  She started with the thickest. Batrasa was always the most thorough. Batrasa feared for her position, despite her hard veneer. She made up for it by providing even the most mundane of details on Ariane’s progress. Maeva scanned the pages.

  Excellent collective thought. As expected. Previous close attachment with Archer seems to be cooling. That’s promising.

  She took her time, reviewing each page, imagining Ariane’s daily life. It was all so far removed from her own experience. Secluded, protected. Cared for, even loved. Yet even then, the power of her code was undeniable. The Queen recognized her own arrogance in Ariane’s attitude. It was a protective measure. But it presented risk as well.

  Her collective thought is far superior to that of the others. It could fare well for periods of intense change. The people will follow her into confinement and quarantine, rationing, reduction of freedoms. Yes, that could serve very well. She always showed the most promise of them all.

  Maeva looked out the window. How much had changed since she first came into power, and yet the uncertainty of their land remained. The Mist couldn’t be blamed for all of it. They would soon have to redirect some of their research back into climate studies.

  But not yet. The work in human genetics was coming along so well.

  Maeva opened the bottom drawer of her bureau and dropped the report into it. She would file it later, after court.

  She opened the next package, the report significantly shorter. It was produced on the wild grass paper that was typical of the West Strangelands.

  Maeva read the first line and pursed her lips.

  It was as she expected, though she hoped every time for a better result.

  This one will never do. Her qualities are too far perverted from anything a Queen would need to be. The West Strangelands was never a good choice. The Sisters raising her are too severe, their ways too subversive. I should have known. But I trusted Sahna. How could I not? Where would I have been without her? Her training made me who I am.

  Maeva remembered Sahna’s face, her young face, from the days when Maeva was herself just a child. How she’d loved Sahna’s face. Her deep-set eyes alit with rebellion. But the rebel had lived only in her eyes. That’s what Maeva loved in her. Sahna could conform and rebel all at once.

  And then she’d gone too far.

  Maeva shook Sahna from her mind.

  No point in dwelling on it. The world is what it is, and there are rules for a reason. She forced me to discipline her.

  Her rational mind understood, but the memory of blood – rushing blood, Sahna’s blood, blood running over Sahna’s body onto Maeva’s hands, her arms, her chest -

  Stop it, Maeva. Focus.

  She closed the Strangelands report and dropped it in the drawer.

  Her hands hovered over the last two reports. She wanted good news, which took her to the Geb account. But her heart was gripped by the other one.

  Business first, Maeva. Then you can have your moment of weakness.

  She set aside the small package and opened the Geb report.

  Progress as planned. A hardened character but she is adaptable. Cool strength in the face of an attack. I wish she didn’t insist on training against animals, but I suppose it’s not unreasonable. Independent and authoritative, as expected. No surprises in this report.

  Maeva preferred it that way. She dropped the package in the drawer.

  There was only one left. It was thin and unimposing. Nothing like the others.

  And yet she still demanded the report be produced. Maeva owed her that much and more.

  Get it over with. You know what you’ll see there. Just make sure she’s doing alright.

  She quickly tore open the report from Cork Town. This time it included a photo.

  Maeva’s heart filled at the sight of her. The fire-red hair, the face of a creature. In the photo, she could make out the form of Lucius behind her. Her lips were slightly agape and her eyes sparkled.

  I don’t remember the last time I saw her smile.

  Maeva’s fingers caressed the photo and then she set it to the side. Hers was always the shortest report. This one was no longer than a few paragraphs.

  So soft. So kind. How the world would have been different if she hadn’t become this twisted version of her. My first-born, my beautiful -

  She didn’t let herself think about it anymore. She had to stop the thoughts.

  Otherwise, the voices came.

  And they would pull her, take her back.

  Back to Rainfields.

  She felt the rumblings inside her, the movement of blood to that deep place which was always a sign of what was to come.

  Not now. Not now. I have court. I can’t deal with this now!

  She stood quickly, throwing everything off the bureau. She had to do something. Anything to distract her thinking. Anything to quiet them. She picked up her chair and threw it across the room. Faster than most could see, it flew like a bomb, crashing into the bedpost. Wood smashed into splinters at the force of it.

  But it worked. The voices calmed.

  They were getting worse. Something was happening; something in their world wasn’t right. The voices knew, they always knew. They ran scenarios against all which came before, but had no words and spoke in tongues. Maeva knew enough to hear their warning, though she wasn't yet ready to make her final selection. The day would come when she would have to cull.

  She reset her hair into a tight bun, inhaled, and opened the door.

  Before she’d reached the court, she could hear the bustle inside. Irene was waiting for her.

  “Maeva, you look – "

  "Is the court ready?"

  "Several hundred came directly from the briefing."

  The Queen rubbed her temples. "I have such little patience. This obligation has grown tiresome."

  "It's only once a quarter, my Queen. You know what it does for them."

  The Queen closed her eyes and rallied her patience. These court sessions pulled her away from the matters of management, genetics, and menaces to society, and brought her squarely down to squabbles, petty retaliation, and minor territorial disputes.

  Irene pushed open the heavy carved wooden doors and the din in the room settled as the ceremonial clack of the hinges signaled the Queen's entry.

  Each of the four hundred seats was filled and not one more word was spoken until the Queen had stepped forward, surveyed the bleachers and walked tall and slow to the basic ch
air in the middle of the room. She looked to the ceiling and brought her eyes down to a rough-looking woman in the third row towards the right of the room. Sounds continued to rumble inside her, the voices brewing.

  "You," the Queen whispered to the woman. "What is your name and complaint?"

  The woman didn't budge. This was normal, the first of the day was usually slow to begin.

  The woman’s companion elbowed her in the ribs. "Speak, damn it," she loudly whispered.

  "She will speak when ready," the Queen mustered a smile. "The day's justice will take as long as it takes, and no one needs to feel rushed in the process."

  "Thank you, Your Majesty," the other woman said. She was stout and simple, but with a gleam in her eyes that the Queen recognized as her own. "It is my first time to court," the woman said, "and I am in awes of you, My Queen."

  "Your compliments are gratefully accepted," the Queen said, no hint of her impatience.

  "My Queen, I am Doris of the eighth line from the Western Territories. I have come to request the use of Royal lands beside my home, not for ownership, but so that the cows can graze. There is still some fertile land on the very edges of the region."

  "Kind woman, this is court, not the Agriculture Ministry -"

  "Yes, yes, Your Majesty. Oh my goodness, did I cut you off? Please continue, Your Majesty, excuse me."

  "No, no, go on."

  She was nervous now, "The Agriculture Ministry has told me I cannot, and yet I see no justice in their decision since the lands are untouched and yourself, the Queen, have not been in many, many years to this place, so I fear that without demanding more than my lot, I ask for this permission and to overturn on the grounds of justice the decision of the Ministry of Agriculture." She let out the rest of her breath and straightened her back before giving an awkward courtesy, "If it so pleases Your Majesty."

  "Kind woman, I see it is your first time to court, for you have been far too pleasant and deferential. Your complaint is justified; you have no need to plead with such servitude. Where do you live?"

  "My Queen, you haven’t come in so long. It can hardly matter to you. The place is otherwise barren. I speak of the lands on the edge of Rainfields…"

  The woman said more, continued making her argument, but the Queen was lost to the present. Lost. Pulled back into a memory at that very moment.

  She couldn't stop it.

  In her memory she was standing on the cliff's edge, knowing the danger, but denying it. In the distance, she saw a mirage of her mother as she had been all those years ago. The coming storm was a backdrop; dark clouds swirled above her head.

  Maeva stood, knowing all the years that had passed; knowing that this vision could not be. It was only a glimmer of her mother, Idia, just moments before her death.

  Her suicide.

  Maeva had stood staring at the mirage, too close to the cliff’s edge. She felt the danger of her position, and with the Queen Child inside her, so close to birth. Her first child. The Future Queen.

  Ariane.

  Clouds were so low Maeva felt she was half inside them. She didn’t will it to happen, she was sure she didn’t but she stepped forward, stepped toward the image of her mother, mother’s arms beckoning, mother’s arms commanding, the reflection of the memory.

  She turned her head and saw the moment her mother flew in front of her, over the cliff’s edge. The ghost before her beckoning, the ghost beside her flying. Falling. Dying. Her black cloaks flapped, all of time slowed to a near standstill, Maeva watched her mother’s hair flying in the wind.

  Her mother’s ghost, alter ego of a ghost, called her forward.

  When she turned her head again, her mother was back on the top of the cliff, alive, two feet planted. She smiled at Maeva.

  And jumped.

  Maeva looked at the rocks below. She knew they were sharp, dangerous, deadly. She knew it in her mind, but the water crashing around them called to her.

  And the voices inside squealed with delight.

  The landing place of Queens.

  Her mother stood at her side in the waking dream, and she whispered.

  “It is but a trial. There is no true death for a Queen.” She grabbed at her own throat. “Even now, I feel my own blood running through your veins. It’s better that way, for I cannot stand this anymore.”

  Then her mother threw her head back, screaming with torture, ripping at her skin as she flew through the air.

  Then she was back again on the cliff. The mirage locked her eye to eye. Summoning her forward. Inviting her steps.

  She didn’t intend to go. And then she was falling.

  Falling, her own hair flying now, pulled across her face as she plummeted, nothing to grab hold of. She felt her robes tossing around her, the ground coming toward her and she prepared for the hard landing against rock and coral.

  She hardened herself, knowing it would be the greatest trial of her abilities yet.

  She did not fear for herself. She would mend herself. She would find a way.

  But her fetus.

  It had not yet learned the ways of regeneration.

  Maeva would survive, but the child -

  My child! Listen to me! Stay strong, my child!

  Her brain raced for scenarios, any way to avoid the inevitable.

  A split second before she crashed against the rock floor, she prepared her body for impact. She had to take drastic measures.

  She landed and everything inside her broke, shattered, slices of bone shred her veins. She began her healing immediately, but she knew the child’s condition.

  The heartbeat inside her had stopped.

  She's dead. She’s dead. Mother, what have you done to me!

  She couldn’t accept it. She wouldn’t. Not now, not this perfected version of her own code. No.

  She would heal it.

  Her own body regenerated; freshly reborn cells drove to her center, to her womb, rushing blood and oxygen and intention.

  She started with the heart, healing the Queen Child's heart, to feel the beating lifeblood. She found the broken cells and injected new DNA into the dead spaces.

  New life. She pushed with her blood and muscle to revive.

  The rest will come, the heart must be first.

  Then Archer's arms were then around her, he was panting from the descent as the skies opened up and poured rain down on them. He watched as she healed and shouted through the pounding rain.

  "My Queen! My Queen! Why? Why did you jump? Maeva, what have you done?"

  She looked at him, through him. She had to heal it. She was the Queen Mother now. And she would not repeat the sins of her own mother. She would not. She felt the walls of the child's skin and forced her way in, sending the cells and blood, pushing inside her in waves of electrical thrill.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Until the beat resumed.

  Beating rain smashed into the Queen's face. She couldn't see Archer in front of her. He was blended with the wind and cloud. She saw only her baby's face from inside. It was red. So red. Red blood. Red death. Red life reborn.

  The perfect sequence was no longer perfect.

  There would be consequences for her weakness.

  Shame grabbed the Queen by the throat and she fought against her own emotion to breathe. She looked up at the sky and let the hail pierce her eyes.

  Blinking, she scanned the room, several hundred faces watching her every breath. This Queen of such composure, heaving heavily, eyes stinging from the memory of the hail.

  She turned and ran from the room.

  "The Queen is displeased by your request," Irene's voice became quieter as Maeva ran deeper into the fortress courtyard. "I will note all requests and bring them to her later."

  Slamming into door frames, indifferent to the eyes that watched her moving past, the Queen found her way to her chambers, delicately closing the door, lest she create a worse scene than she had already do
ne.

  Rainfields. The death house of royals, a living noose that pulled them in and never let them find their way home.

  Irene arrived moments later, stepping carefully into the Queen's quarters. Her eyes scanned the room, landing on the broken chair and cracked bedpost. She waited before speaking.

  “The reports have upset you.”

  “Something is coming.”

  Irene waited.

  “Irene, it’s coming, and we won’t be ready.”

  “We are doing everything we can to prepare –"

  “Listen to me!” Maeva rushed at Irene, coming eye to eye with her, nearly reaching the same height as the Ganese warrior woman. “No generation has ever known who their true enemy would be. It was never as they thought. Prepare? There is no preparation sufficient for this. Soon. Whatever it is will happen soon, and we will need a leader who is fit for the occasion.”

  Irene nodded slowly. Maeva counted on her understanding. So few others in Lower Earth would understand the decision she had to make.

  “The coronation will not be long away now.”

  “Are you ready for that, Maeva?”

  Maeva looked at Irene. Their eyes spoke between them. She had never intended to have to make such a decision, but her intentions were as irrelevant as the world before the Mist.

  They stood for a moment in silence together.

  “Let me be alone now.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Let no one enter.”

  “As you wish, my Queen.”

  “Irene…" Maeva lifted her eyes to look on her Commandante, her most trusted aide. “Send me Archer.”

  9

  Archer

  An owl called from the trees over his head. Archer looked for it, but it was well hidden in the tall branches of the acacias. He breathed in the smell of the forest at dusk. The air was cool in his nostrils and a shiver came down his arms. He watched the little bumps rise on his skin. At just over sixty years old, Archer had outlived most of his contemporaries. His skin was still taut. His muscles still capable. Healthy.

  His own reflection didn’t give his age away.

  In that way, he had so much in common with Maeva.