Forbidden Ansidia

Chapters VII, VIII, IX, X

VII - Morning

Malta didn’t know what she had meant when she said those things to the Magister, and nobody asked her. She was put in a room lit by a fireplace that connected to two other rooms, one containing a bed and the other a pewter washbasin. These were her quarters, her home. It was late and Malta could hear the Prince’s boots clacking down the hall and on the stairs, but she didn’t want to think about him. So she sank into the soft down of her bed without undressing and slept until morning.

The clouds dried up into soft, post-storm balls of lint, shining grey-white with the sun. Activity began in the Castle very early; Lirium always rose with the dawn, but on this occasion she had not slept at all. Dressed in a black corset over lacy white skirts, she slipped a note beneath Malta’s door. It held nothing personal, only the girl’s schedule for the day, with a postscript that read “Speak to my son—he will answer any of your questions.” Lirium lifted a wrist to knock, but stopped, and used the hand to tighten her bun instead. If the girl needed sleep she could have it. Lirium didn’t want to have to deal with her presence just yet, not when there was so much to be done.

In fact, the arrival of the note was not missed by Malta’s wakeful eye. She had already dressed and brushed down her hair, and was pondering the sharp edge of her comb when she heard movement at the door.

The schedule reminded her of delicate things a highborn child would be told to do: sewing with Lady Helma at ten, tea at noon, pastry-making with the cook, then a tour across the palace grounds until supper. “I’m not a child,” Malta muttered, flicking the note away with thumb and finger.

She left her room and descended the stairs. There were many flights down—after the second, she caught sight of the Prince coming up the next one, so she turned quickly into an adjacent corridor. Lady Helma was in front of her. She took hold of Malta’s shoulder and raised her silk-gloved hand in greeting. “You are the new one!” said the abnormally tall woman. “The stranger. I’ve got everything set up for us in the embroidery room.”

“You weren’t there last night,” said Malta, looking steadily upward. Helma was fat as well as tall. Malta was glad she was not the type to give crushing hugs.

“I?” Helma gave a barrel laugh. “I am not one of the Queen’s most favored. She only invites certain families to her annual feasts. I was as surprised as anyone when she called it so early. Although I must say I don’t regret being safe in the cellar once the thundering began.” She laughed again, as if warding off the remnants of terror.

“The Magisters…what are they exactly?”

Lady Helma shook her head. Locks of fine black hair swayed from her frilly cap. “Nobody is sure, except perhaps the Queen and her son. They keep more secrets than a bat has brethren. All we know is that they are guardians sent to us from the All-Potent One, sworn to keep peace between Zara and Lir and the other faraway lands. They come here each year so the Queen can renew the decree.” She shrugged. “And it works, as far as I’m concerned. No wars have occurred since they came a hundred years ago, and minor tussles never get the chance to escalate.”

Malta frowned at this. “Why? What do they do?”

“The Magisters take good care of our people,” was Helma’s ambiguous reply. “No one gets hurt, as long as they’re careful.”

“But the Magisters themselves are never careful,” Nac said softly into Malta’s ear. She sprang backward into him. The crown of her head cracked his nose and he screeched like a mule. “What do you mean?” Malta asked, turning, as if nothing had happened.

His hand cupped protectively over his face, Nac stared down with angry eyes, in which the orange seemed momentarily more vivid. “I mean they step where they need to without care, and villages are crushed like flowers beneath their feet.”

Malta blinked back her surprise, bit back an exclamation. She kept her face neutral. “And you let this happen?”

“It can’t be stopped.” His voice sounded cool, but he was shooting meaningful Get her out of here looks at Lady Helma. Her head was lowered respectfully before the Prince, seeing nothing.

“You are an unworthy leader,” Malta spat at him. “You and the Queen both deserve to be overthrown if you cannot spare some thought for the people below you.” She looked him up and down: he was shorter than her, with a shock of black hair in his eyes, the ends tickling the bridge of his reddened nose. She crossed her arms. “I am sick at the sight of you.”

Turning to storm off, she was stopped by the beefy arm of Lady Helma in her path. “You must come with me,” Helma said. Her voice was strained.

Malta felt like biting down on this woman’s soft, hair-studded flesh. But she controlled herself. “After I sew,” she said, though her back was to the Prince, “I would like you to take me to the villages you speak of. In your wagon. I want to learn more about how this kingdom is run.”

“It’s called a steam-buggy,” Nac protested, but the two women were already striding away.

VIII - Blessing

A winding string of smoke tickled the sky just over the horizon. Midday produced no further light than dusk in the kingdom of Lir, as purplish clouds blotted color out of the sun. It shone weakly, like a dying candle. Nac steered the buggy south while Malta opened a small door in the back and watched the pistons thrust up and down beside each other. Steam issued out an opening behind them, clothing the stone-studded dirt road in a layer of white.

“This place is nothing really but smoke and cloud,” Malta remarked, twisting back around. Nac smirked and kept his eyes ahead. “Rain too, and bats and so much wildness,” she added.

“Is it different where you come from?” He didn’t sound interested, only mocking. He knew she couldn’t remember.

“It must be. There were no Magisters where I come from.”

Nac wondered if this was speculation, or an actual memory that she had. Then they crested a tall slope, and the nearest village was upon them.

The buggy fell quiet as Nac idled down a narrow street between rows of wooden houses. At least a quarter of them had their roofs smashed in, foot-shaped holes gaping blackly to the sky as evidence of the Magisters’ arrival. Planks of splintered wood lay to either side of the road among piles of loose brick and mortar. A four-way intersection featured a scattering of black stones, which seemed to have once formed a statue. Malta looked to the right and saw a long stretch of destroyed homes—not one had been left standing on that street.

It came to her that this village looked like it’d been caught in a war zone.

People were gathered around a bonfire in the next intersection. They were clearly the newly homeless. No one carried more than what they could hold as possessions. Children huddled together as if comforted by their own innocence. They warmed their hands quite close to the fire, unconcerned that a harsh wind was rising and tossing licks of flame in random directions.

“Long live the Queen,” Malta called to them as Nac drove slowly by. She held out a cupped hand as if offering money, or the return of what they had lost. The villagers looked to her with the eyes of domesticated animals: empty of desire or ambition. No matter what Malta could possibly give, they had no interest in taking it.

“Don’t say that,” Nac snapped, and he wrenched the wheel hard. Steam burst out in the villagers’ faces as the buggy picked up speed, heading off the main road and back down the slope.

“Are you afraid of them?” Malta knew she would never get rid of the imprint that village had left on her soul. “Do you fear they will overthrow your family one day?”

“Of course not. I just pity them, is all. They shouldn’t be made to feel like servants at a time like this.”

She listened to the feather-soft chord in his voice and knew its fakeness. But she chose not to argue. “What was the name of that village?”

“Queen’s Blessing,” said the Prince after a hesitation. His cheeks went ruddy in the half-light. Malta couldn’t help but laugh at him. Even so, she was thinking about the farm she had been found on. There were no other places she had seen where there were any domestic animals. Here in the kingdom of Lir, they tamed people.

Malta had planned on making Nac show her all the surrounding villages. Now, she didn’t think she needed to see any more.

They returned over the Royal Bridge that crossed the river, the same one Malta crossed the day before. The Prince’s brow furrowed suddenly, and he searched the barren fields all around them. “Worried about an ambush,” Malta derided him.

“That’s ridiculous. Don’t you hear them? The warning bells.”

She heard nothing but driving wind and steam engine. She focused her ears, and then the sound came. Funeral-deep, yet somehow sweet clanging of a dozen Castle bells, tolling a new threat.

“The Magisters can’t be coming back,” said Nac, trying to reassure himself. He forced more speed into the buggy, so that the pistons worked faster than a child racing lightning, and Malta had to duck in her seat as they hastened back to the Castle.

IX - Message

The farmer gazed unwaveringly at a spot in the air that hung above a cluster of rabbitbush. Drops of rain pummeled his scalp and ran to the tips of his greying hair, but he didn’t notice. Today he was wearing a red flannel shirt. Under the rain, it flowed like blood over the contours of his chest.

Today he’d left the dog at home, barking up a racket with the chickens. That had turned out to be a good decision. Otherwise they might both be dead.

Common sense in the farmer’s mind told him that the portal wouldn’t reopen in the same spot it had before. They never did. The location was entirely random, and it was more likely to come back into existence on the other side of the plains. Still, he stood there and waited, and watched.

Three wild horses galloped in his direction—the dangerous mutant kind. Two of them ran on six legs and saw with only one eye. The third, limping at the rear, was completely hairless and had too-short front legs. That one was no threat and would die quickly by his shotgun. The others, though…their instinct was to tear humans limb from limb.

He didn’t move. If the portal reappeared with that thing inside it, he was sure it would catch him faster than the stallions could turn their ugly heads. The first time, he had frozen to the spot where he stood, muscles tense, completely silent. He had watched while the air expanded until a hole appeared, growing larger. Something black and golden struggled on the other side. It peered out with milky white eyes ringed in red. It reached out a sharp silver claw, as if testing the farmer’s world. “Corlan,” it breathed, and tried to squeeze through, but the portal was too small. The thing retreated. Minutes later, the portal closed. And the farmer remained blessedly alive.

Yet something supernatural kept him from running.  He felt as if he were stuck within a portal himself, urging his body fruitlessly into motion.

The three horses slowed, teeth dribbling with sickly foam. The lame one hung back while the other two circled their prey. They were checking for traps; this unmoving human seemed too much like bait. He was stricken with panic and certainty that he would not live much longer. One of the stallions stepped right in front of his face, drooling on his cheeks and fixing him with its wet, hostile eyes. Then its head ducked down and rammed his chest. He jerked back from the blow but did not fall. Instead he sunk into something like soft down, though there was only air, holding him upright.

Enraged, the second horse bit his left arm from behind. Pain screeched like a thousand frightened bats in his head. Blood streamed freely out, tickling his arm hairs, and it burned from a dozen teeth marks. He saw the air begin to bulge above the rabbitbush. Still he couldn’t stop screaming.

“Corlan!” The voice came before the hole had fully opened. In the space of a stretched-out moment, all three stallions crumpled sideways. Their great bodies thumped the ground. Their dark eyes drained of violence and life. Their torsos did not twitch when the flies settled down, or the grass seeds that had been rocketed up by their fall.

It was a beast of black folded skin and golden spikes jutting from its spine. It reached out a leathery arm—further—further—until the tip of its claw hovered a finger-width from his face. And then, once again, it was stuck.

“Corlan…” It repeated the word. Abruptly, the farmer realized it was telling him something, trying to give him a message. He took a nervous step back.

The downy-feeling was gone. He could move!

At first his feet stumbled, but he regained his balance out of necessity and ran. The beast cried pure murder after him. It sounded pained, desperate. “Send her!” That turned the farmer’s head for a second: it spoke his language. A being originally from his world? Impossible.

He ran without pause until he’d left the plains, where another storm now was brewing. His house and his wife were on the horizon.

“Donvin?” she said as he broke through the door. She only used his full name to show her concern. “Where’s your gun?”

Don had dropped it, involuntarily, after the first portal closed. He sagged against the wall and opened his arms to embrace her. “I saw something right frightful, Leth.”

She moved closer, and then chuckled, the lines in her face easing a moment. “Your shirt’s all mussed up.” Don looked. Such irony—the blood from his wound had dried thick, and sealed over the tear in his crimson shirt. She didn’t notice there was a tear at all.

His wife reached a hand out. He warded her off. “Don’t you bother. I’ll fix it.”

X - Decision

“They’ve disappeared,” Queen Lirium told her son in a shuddering breath. Nac couldn’t help but stare back. He was concerned by the news, but still more unsettled by this uncharacteristic…fear that seemed to have harbored in his mother. She was half sitting, half standing at the head of the dining table. A spread of detailed maps, showing Lir and Zara and the surrounding unclaimed countryside, shifted under her hand. Though her hair was pulled back tight as ever, her face was losing its ability to hold up the strain. It was tensed to the breaking point.

“Who’s disappeared?” asked Malta. “Are you talking about Lady Jele and Lord Arblon? If so, they’ve merely stolen away to the stables for a bit of—”

“SILENCE!”

The anger in the Queen’s voice stilled both their hearts. But Malta wasn’t about to back down. When the blood started flowing again it rushed straight to her face, giving her glare the fire it needed to rival Lirium’s. “I won’t obey the orders of an incompetent leader. If you can’t take care of your own people, you should not rule them.”

Lirium looked stricken. She felt overwhelmed by the news of the Magisters vanishing, and now a challenge to her authority. The moment soon passed. The Queen stood up fully, reaching the height of her son and towering over the girl. “Ignorant child. You know nothing of this land’s history and why it is ruled this way. None but I have the mental capacity to do my job. Once I am dead…” Her eyes took on a faraway gleam—“it may all fall apart. Now, if the guardians can’t be found, my leadership will become useless anyway.”

Her head settled softly into her chest, and she inhaled heavily. Tears were a weakness that Lirium never even came close to. At a time like this, however, she lost her connection to the world and took solace within her own breath. The fishnet lace on her shoulders condensed into black, like a spider web bunched up in a child’s hand, as she huddled forward.

“Then the people will be free to form a new government,” Malta pressed her. “One that isn’t based on the obedience of some monsters. This is better for your country, I can see it.”

The Queen ignored her. Prince Nac looked between the two of them: his mother, taut and austere and agedly beautiful, her black hair slicked back so stiffly it stayed in place through her dry sobs. Malta standing several feet away with cornflower-blonde hair loose about her shoulders. Exerting an easy authority, and fixing the back of Lirium’s head with a hard gaze. It pained him to watch the transition.

“Perhaps they just went somewhere else, Mother, somewhere we can’t detect them.” He lowered a cautious finger to her face. “This has been a strange year, after all, hasn’t it? Something is certainly untoward in our kingdom—”

A heavy crash reverberated in the dining hall. Voices and shouts rose in the air as suddenly as if a bomb had gone off among them. Seconds later, a gunshot blasted from what sounded like the main foyer. “Do not fire!” a man screamed in fury. It worked like a cue to start shooting.

Nac was at the door and he peered out the glass window. He could still see nothing, but the shooting continued and feet were thudding down the corridor. Malta joined him, hands on hips. “You’re being attacked,” she said. You.

He turned on her. “This is your fault, stranger!” His face was a beast snarling in response to a scratch. “You brought this all upon us. I see it now…you’ve been sent by an evil spirit to punish this place. We had a perfect balance, and you wanted to destroy it. You took the guardians away.”

He clutched her throat. She made a sound like an overturned duck and flailed, scoring his hairless arms over and over with her nails. Nac refused to flinch—even as he choked Malta, his eyes roved up and down her body. Then a bitter-soaked voice cut between them. “Stop.”

Queen Lirium moved in a swish of velvet skirt and stateliness. She was herself again. “This will solve nothing,” she told her son, gently lifting his hand off Malta once again. “The girl is a part of this. She could be the only key to our survival.”

Doors burst open at the end of the corridor. Men in muddy boots carried shotguns over the threshold: villagers. They ran determinedly, in double file, toward the bolted door of the dining hall. “Where are the guards? The servants?” Nac cried out shrilly. His mother merely shook her head, and indicated with one elbow toward a cabinet in the back.

“Get weapons. We must fight.”

Malta started toward the arms cabinet with Nac, who attempted halfheartedly to push her away. Despite this, she reached it first and loaded herself with an odd-looking gun and two daggers. At that moment a door clattered and she whirled around, ready to defend herself—but it was the opposite door, the one that led to the Sanctum, that had opened and was now crowded with nobles.

“What is happening?” panted a young woman in 5 layers of sheer satin dress. She stopped to fix her curly hair, but was buoyed into the room by others. They all blurted the same question, demanding to know the situation and threatening to set their servants on the men. It was clear no one had ever experienced something like this before. The Magisters always took care of such outbreaks before they occurred.

In answer, the Queen turned her head and addressed Malta. “Please take my good friends to a safe place outside the castle, but leave their servants and all other attendants you meet. We need as much firepower as we can get. Then,” Lirium paused as if still smoothing out the plan in her head, “go to the Zara plains. There are people there that know you. Find answers, and do not return without a way to get the Magisters back to us.”

Everyone’s complaints were stifled by a blanket of silence. The Magisters? Missing? They’d lived all their lives with the guardians’ comforting, if disturbing, presence. No one knew what to say, how to feel. Terror was the first thing that came to mind.

Malta chose not to argue with Queen Lirium. She had so much more to say to the haughty, coldhearted woman. But nevertheless, she was a leader, and she already had plenty on her hands. The door to the corridor shook under a heavy blow; the window stayed put, but shots from the other side splintered parts of the sturdy wood. Someone took her hand and tugged pleadingly. Malta turned to see thickset Lady Helma, and her decision was made. “Let’s get out of here,” she said loudly over the panicked whispers and sobs. She dashed through them into the Sanctum, where a hundred liveried servants waited—with a pointed nod from Malta, they passed her into the dining hall and helped themselves to weapons, prepared if not exactly qualified to defend their Queen. There were some indignant cries from the crowd of nobles. How could this teenage stranger direct their servants? But the fact that the great, peace-upholding Magisters were no more made them lightheaded and uncertain. As Malta hastened toward a side wing of the castle, her long hair flying like a lantern in the night, they could think only to follow.

The rebels slammed on the door a second time, driving in more starburst patterns of splinters. Prince Nac, situated two feet away, waited for the right moment. He glanced behind him to see that the helpless nobles—and Malta—had been replaced by dozens of their escorts, now armed and aiming at the corridor. The girl hated him and his mother, yet she had obeyed the Queen’s orders, even if it was out of necessity rather than respect. A vision of her fierce, glaring face seemed to linger in the cracked window before him. “She’s more than I’ll ever be,” he murmured to himself.

Lirium and everyone else were spread out in the rear of the dining hall. She called her son to attention with a sharp command. Steeling himself, Nac wrenched open the door. He scurried back toward his mother as the rebels threw their weight out for a third ramming, and instead stumbled over each other in the doorway. The servants took their initiative and opened fire—the room became a hell trap of deafening bangs and war cries. Nac kept going toward his mother, arms outstretched in panic, as the rebels regained their composure.

“Move!” Lirium screeched, lifting her huge six-barreled gun in his direction. Nac dove to the side as a nugget of pain splattered into his thigh, then another. He hadn’t been fast enough. He rolled against the wall and lay there in an expanding pool of blood, watching the man Lirium was aiming at fall from the force of four other bullets.

Malta wouldn’t have done that to me, was his final conscious thought.

Would she?

---

They rested like hillocks before the archway. Each had a boulder for a head, with eyes like pools of rainwater, clear and fluid. They shimmered eerily, the only moving parts in a desert of motionless stone.

--Forbidden Ansidia, Chapter VI

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