Swans Over the Moon Page 6

  “Honestly, I see no harm in this. The girl will, in time, be Queen. By rule of law, she will marry a fit young man and assume her role as Queen and comforter to the next Judicar. What is the harm in her being recognized as the future wife of he who will hold the throne, whomever that might be?”

  Heterodymus said nothing, but produced a scroll from the folds of his garments. He handed it to the Judicar, who cautiously slipped the ribbon from around its circumference, then unrolled it before a candle, letting the flame illuminate the thin parchment behind the dark ink of the words:

  “Requisition of all knights to the southern borders of Schiaparelli crater, minimal militia guard to replace knights patrolling Sinus Roris – Euler corridor. All engagements with Scaramouche, bandits, and Euler personnel are to be avoided. Effective immediately. No authority shall supersede this order unless I personally approve it.

  Selene Pelevin

  Heir Apparent.”

  Chapter 11

  A tall, thick-chested guard entered the throne room, striding past Heterodymus as if the counselor did not exist. The guard looked straight ahead, his gaze falling on the wall above and behind the Judicar's throne, careful not to look the ruler in the eye. He proclaimed: “M'lord, an ambassador from the north declares his desire to enter your royal presence.”

  The Judicar sat up straight on his throne. “His request shall be granted,” then, after a split second of hesitation: “Guard, stay with us.”

  “Yes, M'lord,” the guard's sight remained fixed on the wall behind the throne until he wheeled toward the pillars at the front of the room. “Pre-sent the ambassador!” he barked to the guards in the hallway.

  A dark figure wove a winding path through the pillars. Its fine features were hidden in shadow, but the silhouette was un-mistakable. A sound of whispers and rustling leaves hissed from the gaunt figure, though only the outline of its immense nose and the voice's location beneath the impossibly tall top hat indicated where a mouth might exist.

  The Scaramouche Ambassador stepped out from the shadows, obviously shy of the low light flickering from torches along the walls. Its face, underneath the mask, was a flat black blank, as of a human wearing a black cloth sack over its head, without eye, nose, or mouth holes. The proboscopic mask was made of aged ivory and painted with vine-like indigo symbols around the eye holes and along the snout – a detail the Judicar had missed in his melee engagements, the only interaction he had previously had with them being at a sword's length or more in the churning dust. The figure wore a black tuxedo over black tights and knee-length black leather boots. He – had the guard not said “he”? - carried in his . . . hand . . . a large leather bag, the type that would contain a doctor's instruments as he made house calls. No clatter of metal came from the bag, however. As his eyes carved over the figure, the Judicar realized that this was the first time he had seen a Scaramouche outside of combat. They were, indeed, beautiful, if terrible, the sheer calmness of their demeanor their most disturbing trait.

  Giddiness entered the Judicar's head as the ambassador spoke, an uninvited feeling as of slight drunkenness.

  “Father of Cimbri,” the ambassador started. The Judicar had not anticipated such a feeling of pain at the mention of her name. “I come to bring ill tidings from my people who you, in your ignorance, call the Scaramouche.”

  The guard tensed, putting both hands on his as-yet upright pole-arm. The Judicar shifted in his chair, ready to spring, if necessary.

  “We have maintained peace for many years, fully aware that your pre-destined forays into our lands would take some of our numbers from us. Until recently, it was considered an honor for those of our kind to sacrifice themselves on behalf of, and for the preservation of, the larger population. This was done regularly, on each of your military excursions in years past, as a token of the individual's willingness to give all for the common good, and to maintain peace and prosperity within our lands.”

  “But now these sacrifices bring us shame. For rather than being satisfied with fulfilling their ritual obligations to the state, your knights exact taxes where, before, the very idea of taxation was anathema. Rather than a mere ceremonial raid, your knights have ransacked our villages, slain our women and children indiscriminately and without provocation. Your interference with the black lotus trade is unprecedented and irrevocably catastrophic to the fabric of our society. Were it not for our trade with Euler, we should surely be completely destitute. We hold a delicate position in the Sinus Roris, as it is, our lives precariously hanging over the edge of a precipice every day.”

  “Now my people are slipping into the abyss, and they cry out for vengeance on most quarters, though a few – very few – pacifists remain. But all, regardless of their ethical position, suffer for lack of sustenance. In their desperation, they have turned on one another with violence, a thing that has never happened in our society before. Never. It tears at the very seams of our identity, our sociality, and all that we teach our sons and daughters, whom we love.”

  “And thus, for love, for the sake of our children and our love for them, we, at this moment, formally declare war on the Procellarian nation.”

  The Judicar looked up at him, the hint of a smirk on his face. But the ambassador spoke before he could give a reply.

  “A light shows in your face. Hope, I presume, that you will easily do away with this annoyance. Hope not, Judicar Parmour Pelevin. For our ceremonial encounters in the past have been just that. We have thrown a shroud over the true might of our arms for some time. At our leader's command, a sea of black will lap against the walls of Procellarium. Our forces will climb the bodies of your dead like ladders, to surge over your defenses and through your bedroom windows and fill your streets with sorrow. We will infect your vision with a new view of chaos. Your light will become extinguished. I take my lead.”

  The ambassador strode toward the exit, then stopped, turned, and reached into his bag. “Oh, and a friend of mine asked me to deliver this. A gift from a friend of my people.”

  The guard instantly lowered his pole-arm and moved into attack position, but the Judicar held up his hand, staying what would have been a swift execution.

  From the bag, the Scaramouche ambassador gently lifted a round object that crackled dryly as he threw it to the ground at the Judicar's feet. It took several moments for the Judicar to recognize the mummified head of his Deputy of Commerce, which had earlier rolled from the royal carriage on the Judicar's and Heterodymus' departer – no, evacuation – from Euler.

  Heterodymus, stifling his gag reflex, reached down and carefully removed a note, which was attached to the head by a long pin through its desiccated, worm-like tongue. He rolled the note open as the ambassador departed down the hallway to be escorted back to the northern borders.

  Sinistrum read:

  “The joke is on you, Judy. The Baron and Lady are merrily rotting and things have become so topsy-turvy here that now I, the mountbank, am in charge. Imagine that! A fool ruling a country. But you should understand that quite well. Oh, but we are having a grand time of it. Even the merchants have joined in on the shenanigans. Have I mentioned that things here are really upside down? We're celebrating here in the tower, but the common folk have gone dour. They're all serious – deadly serious. They want so badly to see your head in the same state as your deputy here that they've decided to press your borders with Euler. Let them have their fun, says I! It's been nice knowing you.”

  “Hugs and kisses and tons of well wishes,”

  “The Jongleur Euler”

  After a pause, Dexter spoke. “This does not bode well. Ill tidings, indeed.”

  The Judicar sat in a deep distress, fighting to maintain his composure. In short order, the impossibility of his position restored his boldness. Determination reanimated within him, clarity and decisiveness reclaimed his mind.

  “Countermand Selene's order, immediately. Send out our swiftest messengers with this command: All knights and militia that have headed south wil
l immediately change course and return here. Furthermore, send all the knights and militia in the city to hold off the Scaramouche to the north and the mobs of Euler to the east. Then command Selene to visit me here in my throne room.”

  A tittering, childlike laugh sounded from among the pillars. A mocking voice called out, “Oh, but father. You are too late on both accounts, the army,” Selene spun around a pillar into view, her lithe form echoing the curves of the pillars, “and me!” The Tarans chuckled overhead, holding their hands to their mouths to keep their laughter from bursting out across the chamber. Their ice blue eyes peeped out over their hands and down at the Judicar with a malodorous glee.

  Chapter 12

  Up and up they climbed above the highest of the palatial buildings, up even above the lip of the crater in which the city rested, a spiral stairway ascending the highest hollow to a point unreachable by all save the royal geese that slept a thousand feet below in a shadowy corner of the Judicar's lush garden, barely visible with the naked eye. At the top of the stairs was a door, and, hanging on a wall near the door, several pairs of blackened goggles that they donned – the Judicar, his daughter, his counselor.

  Sunlight haloed the door with a corona as it opened on to a circular gazebo, a dazzling white latticework cupola laced through with vines and leaves of all shades of green. Three doorways opened out on to balconies that looked out over the lunar landscape, providing the most spectacular view of, or on, the moon. The blue planet hung suspended close overhead. The Judicar thought that if he could jump high enough, he could grasp hold and be taken around the globe of the moon, hanging from the blue-green orb as if from a balloon. He longed for that, or any other, means of escape.

  The shadow of the blue planet partially eclipsed the sun, casting an ever-growing shadow over the white sands. To the north and east, campfires burned from the city gates all the way back to the curve of the horizon. To the southeast, a tiny whiff of horse-hoof-driven dust heralded the imminent arrival of the Judicar's re-assigned knights and militia. It was clear from this aerie that the Procellarian forces would be snuffed from existence in a matter of minutes, should they be so foolhardy as to charge the combined Scaramouche-Euler army. The horrisonant clatter of rioters wafted up from the city streets below. Small fires erupted from windows and doorways in every quarter. Even the smaller buildings of the palatial compound had begun to take flame. The faint stench of smoke could be smelled even at this dizzying height.

  “So,” Dexter spoke in his falsetto baby voice. “You've done it,” Sinistrum scratched out the conclusion to the enigmatic sentence.

  The Judicar turned to his counselors. He cocked his eyes sideways in puzzlement. If the trio could only see beyond the jet black of each others' protective goggles, they would have noted the confusion in his gaze. “Done what?” he demanded.

  Selene looked out over the encroaching armies. Her smile grew with each new campfire, each puff of smoke and flame below, each progressing mile of darkness cast down by the waxing eclipse.

  Heterodymus' voices blended as one, both twins speaking in exact mimesis of the other in word, tone, fluctuation, as if their brains had finally fused into one though-entity, young and old meeting at maturity optimist and pessimist compromising at pragmatism, left and right turning to center.

  “Light is dawning on me even as the darkness falls. Her sister's unfit ends used to her own. Their cessation of life and power further her own ambitions to rule and live as Queen of Procellarium, her father cast down from the throne not only by enemies from without, but by his own hand. An intrigue between Scaramouche and Euler, and the quiet urging of rebellion against the old order of the Judicar to bring in the new order of The Queen of the Moon. This world, M'lord, can never be the same. I fear that this is the end of your rule.”

  The Judicar turned to his smiling daughter. “Is this accusation true? This secret combination of darkness and treachery?”

  She giggled teasingly. “Almost. I will tell the rest in a moment, but, yes, Heterodymus is right about many things. Not the least of which is the removal of the old regime to create room in which to usher in the new. Therefore, I see no need for the old counselors. I have my own twins.”

  The Tarans, who had kept still to this point, swooped down, a bundle of scarves swinging between them. They caught Heterodymus in a tangle of white lace, a silk and satin web, which they dragged, laughing, into the air and cast into the city streets below. Heterodymus' billowing flailings and shrieks were lost as he plummeted to the screaming farrago below, a city enveloped in blankets of black smoke and flame that singed the net before the counselors even hit the ground.

  The Judicar fell to his knees and looked up again at the Tarans, who innocently played with the train of Selene's dress, as if their infant minds were incapable of comprehending the act of murder they had just committed.

  “And I suppose they shall kill me next,” he said in resignation.

  A pained expression crossed her face. She clicked her tongue while shaking her head, as if simultaneously chiding and feeling pity for an ignorant child.

  “No, no, Daddy. How could I let that happen? It would be . . . improper for me not to complete the chain of events I set into motion those many, many years ago, when I was but a child.”

  The Judicar blinked behind his goggles, as if trying to force a vision from the past into being before his eyes. His confusion only grew.

  “I . . . I try to remember you as a child, but I have no recollection of you being other than what you appear to be right now. You have always appeared thus, for as long as my memory serves me. How many years.”

  “Oh, surely I can't be expected to remember the exact number of years,” she said. “But I do remember when this,” she indicated the surrounding maelstrom with a sweep of the hand, “was all initiated. Back when I realized that you were too weak to rule effectively, despite your best efforts. Back when I tried to accelerate your growth into the responsibility of ruler-ship, a responsibility that I now see you cannot uphold. Back when I pushed that pillar as the gong sounded in the royal gardens, late, late at night.”

  “You?” He stood up, dumbfounded. “Y . . .you!” A hint of fight swelled up within him, pushing up through the sadness that threatened to crush his heart. He fled from that scene in his mind's eye's past to root himself in the present, where he could make a stand on more stable temporal ground. It was an amazing emotional feat, a victory, of sorts, and he felt his strength and will begin to return.

  “And what now is stopping me, Selene, from casting you to the ground from this place?”

  She reached into the folds of her dress and drew out two small scrolls. “Only a pair of agreements. One between me and the leaders of the Scaramouche that I will establish friendly, peaceful relations with them and help them to rebuild their shattered infrastructure. And another between me and Euler that I will not only allow free interchange and trade, but that the Knights of Procellarium will protect all trade routes between Euler, the Scaramouche, and our glorious nation. Agreements not with Procellarium, mind you, but with me personally. Kill me and they will surely destroy this nation that you love.”

  He looked out over the almost completely black surface of the moon, a tiny wedge of light about to disappear on the northeastern horizon.

  “Then the die is cast.”

  “Not quite,” Selene admitted, her honesty catching him off guard. “I suppose you could kill me out of spite or revenge, but it will do you little good. The poisons I have slowly been administering to you over several years in your drinks are almost ready to take their final hold. You might live long enough to see Procellarium fall into total anarchy and the opposing armies overrun what remains of the city; the spread of slaughter and rapine through the populace. Or,” she held out a vial of black liquid, “you can die honorably, at your own hand, assured that I will maintain order in the kingdom. A lasting order that shall not ossify and become arthritic with outdated tradition, as the old order has.”


  He considered for a moment, then took the vial with a trembling hand. He looked at her, wishing he could see her eyes through her goggles, to read her true expression. Then, as quickly as he could, he quaffed the vial's contents. The strength of the contents knocked him immediately to the floor, the world swirling about in a vortex of color and texture, as if everything were filled with and exuded all the colors of the rainbow at once.

  The shadow of the blue planet fell completely over their world. Selene removed her goggles as the sun, behind the hills, could not now blind her. She wanted him to see her face as he lay dying. She watched him push himself up to his hands and knees, then she carefully removed his goggles.

  Through the chromatic whirlwind he saw her face – saw it more clearly than he ever had before, as if his past views of her had been through a distorting glass that had now been removed. Her countenance shone, an iridescent aura enveloping her white hair, casting lambent rainbows into the churning prism-vortex.

  A glimmer of revelation sparkled in his eyes, then a full-fledged sun broke over his clouded mind. “I know now,” he wheezed his last, failing breaths. “You are not alive, you are dead.”

  She laughed, an honest laugh, not malicious, like the sounding of a million tiny silver cymbals.

  “Oh, father, how silly you are! Did mother not tell you of her pregnancy before the fall? I am not dead. How can that die, which was never born?”

  Selene, Queen Selene Pelevin, reached down to close her father's eyelids with ghostly hands. The vortex dissipated, along with her beautiful face, the face of one never born, never alive, never dead, everlastingly never, into the void.