CHAPTER 4
She'd only heard him described by servants or by his daughters. The limited pieces of information seemed to paint a portrait of a man larger than life; a true king who was as ruthless, ambitious, cunning, and strong as he was an attentive, if not somewhat overindulgent father. His commanding physical presence and skilled swordsmanship had made him a legend long before his time. This was a man whom nothing could conquer.
What lay before her now in the hushed, heavy air of the royal suite hardly seemed legendary. This "king of kings" was a pitiful, shrunken figure covered nearly to the chin with a deep purple comforter, whose labored breathing was a constant reminder of the precious few minutes ticking down to the last grain of sand in the hourglass. Pale skin stretched over a heavily boned face, which, in its youth, might have been ruddy and glowing with health. A greying handlebar mustache sagged over blue-tinted, thick lips. Eyes which were once bright, calculating and lively barely seemed to register any of their surroundings behind flickering, restless lids. He seemed in a constant state of half-consciousness; caught between the realm of nightmares and the painful waking reality of his life slipping away.
This was no king, Celena thought, as she and Eries neared the sickbed. This was a shadow of a once great hero, a conqueror now conquered by that which no one could escape from.
She watched, pale eyes taking in the way the little doctor's balding head bowed down over Aston's chest as he held a stethoscope over his heart to check his pulse. The expression on his dark, round face said more than any words could; the drawn lips, furrowed heavy brows, the resignation in the eyes. Aston's time was near.
She shuddered, absentmindedly raising her hand to her right cheek and grazed her fingertips along the smooth skin as she again wondered where all of these sudden, intrusive thoughts were coming from. The feeling of otherness rose up again within the darkened back corners of her mind, far past her ability to deny its existence. Try as she might to play the denial game, to convince herself that neither the girl imprisoned in the dungeons beneath her nor the faces in her dreams were anyone she knew, a small bit of her consciousness protested otherwise; a niggling mental itch that she couldn't scratch. And the longer she sat there, the longer she thought on it, the more incessantly demanding it became.
Eries, meanwhile, was also engaged in her own form of denial...the denial most everyone feels when they see a loved one wasting away before their eyes, refusing to accept the fact that they will not live forever. She cast her anxious glance at the doctor, hoping...praying that he wasn't going to tell her what she already knew deep in her heart.
Teschen sighed and shook his head as he pulled away and took the stethoscope plugs out of his ears, his brown eyes falling on Eries with a sympathetic expression.
"I'm truly sorry, Your Highness,"he said softly, speaking slowly as he tried to deliver his grim prognosis as gently as he could. He could see the hidden tears behind the princess's eyes and regretted that he had to be the one to tell her something that he knew was going to devastate her. "His pulse is even weaker than it was last night. I doubt he'll last the week."
Eries nodded and squeezed her eyes shut to force herself to handle the situation maturely and not give into the childish temptation to start crying and blaming others for things they couldn't control. She tightened her grip on the bony hands beneath her own, powerfully aware of how frail they seemed now. She could remember those same hands lifting her up when she was a child, so huge and strong they had been then.
My family is getting smaller and smaller, she thought, opening her eyes to look down on the once familiar face, now contorted with the effort of drawing breath. Mother. Then Marlene. Now Father. Soon it will only be Millerna and I. What are we going to do? Father, who am I going to go to for guidance? Who will Asturia look to when you're gone? Millerna isn't ready yet!
Her eyes drank in every line, every wrinkle, trying memorize all of his features and hold onto them before she lost them forever.
The king stirred then, his small, faded eyes fluttering open long enough to focus muzzily on her. He strained a moment, as though he could not place her face and then a weak smile of recognition twitched across his lips. She felt his hands move beneath his blanket as he tried to return her touch.
"Eries..." he whispered, his voice tinged with the death-rattle, as raspy as a carpet of dry autumn leaves...and just as frail. "My daughter."
"Father?"she replied softly, reaching up with her right hand to stroke the feeble, sagging skin of his cheek. "Yes, it's me. Can you see me?"
"Yes," Aston wheezed. She could tell it was taking every last ounce of strength he had just to talk. "Millerna...where is...she?"
"She cannot be here now. She is with her counselors."
He was a moment processing this. Then he nodded, a barely discernible rock of the head as he remembered.
"Aahh...She is working hard...then?"
Eries smiled in spite of herself.
"Yes, father. Very hard. She's grown so much."
Aston chuckled, a terrible sound of dry heaves more akin to the gurgling chokes of a dying dog. He inhaled sharply before he spoke again. The skin of his cheek felt cold now.
"My kingdom...is...safe hands...I have...no regrets."
Eries flinched at those words, the dread of what he was going to say next a tangible, physical pain lancing through her chest. She felt a grimace pass over her face as though she'd been struck.
Father, don't say it! she begged silently, the little girl inside of her selfishly and desperately willing him to remain, to see him smile one more day, to hold one more time, to talk with and share inside jokes. To reminisce about the simpler, happier times of childhood.
Please don't say it!
"Take care...of her...See that she becomes...good queen...tell her...that I love her."
Father...don't!
"As...I love you. Goodbye...Eries...I go now...to your mother..."
With his last heartbeat, a smile spread over his face, warm, content, and fully at peace. There was no more he could ask for now. His beloved Therese was waiting for him. She would greet him with open arms, and he would once again gaze upon the beautiful, kind face he had not seen in thirty years. His strong Eries was beside him now, and he knew that Asturia would once again become a powerful and magnificent kingdom under Millerna and Dryden's rule. He could rest with no fear.
Closing his eyes, he lay back on his pillow and was still.
"Father...?"
Her voice came out in a flimsy, choked sob. She waited for him to open his eyes again...to start speaking again, even as she felt the erratic rising and falling of his chest stopping and his heart grow silent.
"Father..?"
A warm, pudgy brown hand covered her own to draw it away from her father's face. Looking up through watery eyes, she saw Dr. Teschen stepping forward, his expression stern yet compassionate. He gave it a quick squeeze to show his sympathy before letting go to bring the cover up over the king's head to signal that he had now passed on.
"Time of death is nine o'clock, White Moon, Day Twenty Five. My deepest condolences, Your Highness. I'll make sure the proper people are notified."
Eries hardly heard anything he was saying. The numb cocoon of shock had wrapped itself tightly about her senses, leaving the room suddenly too hot and the air too hard to breathe.
My father is dead. My father is dead!
It's always the woman who loses! And I'm always that woman! Why is it always me who has to lose everything? And Millerna? What am I going to tell Millerna?
"Your Highness?"
Teschen's voice echoed in her head, a distant beacon on the darkened, fog wrapped seas of her emotion. She pulled out her thoughts, shaking her head lightly and taking a deep breath to still the tears that wanted to fall, along with the crushing sense of powerlessness and loss. There would be time for that later, but now she had to force herself to gain control and perform her necessary duties. Dr. Teschen was waiting for her orders...and the kingdom would soon be waiting for the next step. It was time for her sister and her husband to ascend and take the throne. And she...well, although she was not in line for the throne, she was, for all intents and purposes now the head of the Aston family.
Nodding, she exhaled sharply and spoke, rallying what little strength was left to her.
"Send word to Millerna. Get everything in order. I want the body sent to the Jichia temple for the final rites. Have an appointment made for me to speak with the head priest to arrange the funeral and make an official announcement to the kingdom. If you need me, I'll be in my apartments."
In the midst of this sudden fit of action Celena stood alone and temporarily forgotten; she stared bemusedly at the shrouded figure on the bed, for she had never actually seen anyone die...and wondered distantly why she felt nothing. Death meant separation and sadness. Yet try as she might no emotion came, not even the tiniest scrap of sympathy. A hollowness settled in her stomach, leeching out any compassionate emotion she might have had.
Eries brushed swiftly past her, clearly too occupied with her own mental planning to remember her charge. The girl stared after her, narrowing her eyes a bit at her retreating form before turning her head back to look at Dr. Teschen in awkward silence. He was also occupied; packing up his instruments with slow, reserved movements.
...
Eries could not concentrate.
Quill pens and parchment paper lay scattered over the top of her desk, letter of state waiting to be written to tell the kingdom and allied nations the news of her father's passing. It was certainly a task easily left to someone else, but she felt compelled to be the one to do it; This was a personal as well as a national matter, and the greater part of the world was in turmoil as it was. A statement directly from her as Asturia's second princess would let others know that there were indeed real people who lived within the palace walls, and that they suffered as much as the common man and it would give them something to identify and sympathize with. This was no time for crisp, haughty addresses from a bureaucratic institution. Outreach was crucial now. Yet the longer and harder she stared at those blank sheets of paper, the more difficult it was to think of what she wanted to say, of what words she wanted to use.
But she always knew what to say. She always knew what to do. She'd made it her business to be so for twenty three years, becoming the moral and emotional center of her family in the absence of their mother; guiding, protecting, and supporting her way through many a storm. She was a leader, a doer. Who would have taken care of Millerna if not her? Who would have comforted her father and Millerna when Marlene had died if not her? She had groomed herself to be able to handle any situation with patience, strength, and a level head. Only now it was turning out that some situations struck far too close to home for patience, strength or a level head to be the oars to steer her through this particular storm. Not even her elder sister's death had left her feeling so starkly vulnerable and utterly helpless. But then again, when Marlene had died, her father had been younger and healthier, Millerna had needed her, and she hadn't had someone else's mentally volatile sibling thrust into her life.
She really thought she'd be able to handle this. Now it was becoming clear how incredibly mistaken she was. Cracks had undoubtedly begun to appear in her aforementioned pillar, and she was running out of strength.
And when Millerna finally appeared in her doorway later that afternoon with tears shimmering in her large eyes and wearing a lost, fearful expression, Eries knew she couldn't do it alone anymore.
...
Later that night, while the rest of the household sank into deep, grief-heavy slumber, Celena tossed and turned on twisted bedsheets as another series of dreams ravaged her already profoundly damaged psyche. Blipvert images exploded across Celena's inner eye, vivid colors and snatches of sound spinning madly before her in a dizzying merry-go-round of the senses. She felt as though she were plummeting through an endless expanse of someone else's memories with nothing to stop her, nothing to catch her. Faces disappeared as quickly as they came into focus, only to be lost again before she could recognize them. Half-caught words echoed in her ears, the voices unfamiliar.
Is this a dream? What's happening to me?
Then the spinning began to slow and finally come to a shuddering stop. The blur at the edge of her vision began to clear, revealing a large, somewhat rocky field, stretching out under a dark, threatening sky. Thunder rumbled in the distance and lightning licked at the clouds on the horizon.
Where am I?
A large shape suddenly dropped out of the sky, shaking the ground slightly as its heavy weight slammed to earth. It was white, humanoid in shape and with a long cape flowing out behind it.
A guymelef?
The giant reached behind to its back to draw out a long sword, settling into an attack stance as though in wait. The head turned side to side as its occupant quested about for an opponent.
Why am I seeing this?
Sixteen more humanoid shapes fell from sky, all of them dark blue except for one, which was blood-red. It took Celena a moment to realize that what she was looking at was a squadron of some kind, with the red guymelef as the leader.
What is going on? I don't know this!
The blue guymelefs quickly moved to surround the white one, leaving it cornered. Its only way out would be to fight the one in red. It seemed more than prepared to do so as she saw its helm turn to focus solely on its primary opponent.
She heard a voice then, a low voice, silky with self-assurance drifting out from the red guymelef. A niggling feeling in the back of her mind put forward the suggestion that she should know this voice from somewhere, but she told that part of her mind that it was in no uncertain terms insane.
Okay people, the dragon hunt ends today! Attack!
Three of the blue guymelefs immediately hurled themselves at the white armor, swords drawn and raised to strike, but their enemy was quicker still. In one broad slash, the white guymelef's blade had completely sliced them in half, a strange silver liquid gushing from the inside of the machines like blood. Raising its fist as it ran, the white guymelef slammed it down on the helm of another blue. This time, real blood came gushing from the helm as both it and the soldier inside were crushed.
Celena gasped in disgust and felt herself recoil. She had never seen a real battle before, and grisly scene before her made her sick to her stomach.
But then, if that were so, why did this all feel so uncomfortably familiar, as though she almost knew what was going to happen next?
No...Why..? Why is this happening? STOP IT! I don't want to see it!
But she was a helpless prisoner in her own mind, unable to escape. The white figure charged onwards in an unrelenting, feral bloodlust, its dark cape flaring out like the wings of a bat from hell as the lightning flickered about it in a phantasmagoric dance. Its sword effortlessly and mercilessly ripped apart another half dozen blue guymelefs, sending them flying to the ground where they exploded in balls of brilliant orange.
Pain shot through Celena as she watched, both mesmerized and terrified. Desperation gripped her, making her want, for some unknown reason, to run out in front of the guymelef and scream at it to stop killing the soldiers. Their dying shrieks made it almost unbearable, as though it were her own family that was being slaughtered in front of her. And yet, she didn't know them. It was only a dream–a nightmare. This couldn't be real! It wasn't real!
The voice she'd heard earlier spoke again.
Damn, he's fast! Stealth Cloaks!
To Celena's bewilderment, the remaining blue guymelefs shimmered and disappeared, melting into the landscape behind them. Now invisible, there was no possible way the white guymelef could find them.
Or so she thought. To her abject horror, the white guymelef's sword came slashing down precisely where the blue guymelefs stood, seeking them out as easily is if they were wearing brightly painted signs. One by one, they toppled over, broken and defeated to the now blood-soaked grass.
The air then became chillingly still, the only sound the rolling, immutable thunder. The white armor slowly turned to face the red, now the only enemy left. Yet the red guymelef simply stood there, making no move to attack or defend itself. It seemed rooted to the ground with fear, unable to act without the others, whose mangled corpses now littered the valley.
What is he?
WHAT IS HE?
No! Stay away from me! Stay away! No! NO!
Celena jolted awake to the sound of her own blood-curdling screams, thrashing wildly about in the tangled sheets until she sat upright, her whole body quivering violently. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps as she stared at her white hands with unfocused eyes, feeling a sudden rush of confusion when she failed to recognize them.
Her hands... Hadn't those hands been covered in red-plated black leather? She felt sure they had been just now.
No, that wasn't right It couldn't be right...
But these aren't my hands! My hands don't look like this! This isn't-
Celena fiercely shook her head back and forth with an anguished moan. None of it was right. The room wasn't right, the smell, the lighting, the way it was decorated for a little girl. The walls weren't white plaster. They were supposed to be stone with gas lamps inside glass sconces. And where was the keypad next to the door that programmed the locks?
Not right. Not right. Not RIGHT!
Her temples throbbed abominably and clapping her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut against the images that were now seared into her skull However much she tried to will them away, the dying faces of the soldiers kept flashing vividly before her. Oh, gods, the screaming! Why wouldn't they stop screaming?
Breathing heavily, she buried her face in her hands, cold sweat beading down her spine and flushing her skin, reflecting from the dying embers in the fireplace in a feverish glow.
Gatti. Gatti would know what to do. He always knew what to do, what to say, to make her feel better. How many nights like this had he sat up with her, soothing her while the nightmares faded away?
Gatti. She must find him.
White fingers fumbled as she groped for the blanket's ends to tear it away, one hand still clutching at her throbbing head. She half stumbled her way out of bed and towards her door, wincing as the pain came over her in rocking waves. Gatti's quarters weren't far, just down the hall. She'd get him to take her to the infirmary and hopefully to something that would silence the echoing cries of so many battles ringing in her ears.
Celena groped for the door handle and wrenched it open, tottering precariously as she was assailed again by another rushing torrent of sublime, sharp blades of pain-memory that threatened to cleave her down to the core. Pausing briefly to brace herself with one hand against the wall, she slid and staggered half blind and nearly half mad down the dimly lit hallway. The murky, muted amber glow of the gas lamps created more shadows than they kept at bay, a physical metaphor for the very same mental hallways and mazes she was currently flailing through with equal blindness. The only thing that kept her feet moving was the red thread of Gatti pulling her through the labyrinth past the Minotaur towards the light of identity and end of her suffering. If she could only find him and the others, she reasoned, the universe would be set back on its rightful course of world domination under the twisted and misguided direction of the Emperor.
The Emperor? her mind flung back at her. She knew no Emperor. The closest she had ever come to a crowned head had been King Aston this afternoon as she had watched him die with Eries.
A wizened, ancient face stubbornly thrust its way to the forefront of her consciousness; small eyes heavily lidded with centuries of accumulated occult knowledge, the long bony nose and white skin that had probably not seen the sun since well before her own birth, all crowned with flowing white hair and beard like a prophet of times long past. He had certainly spoken like one; deep and withered voice croaking out veiled mystical portents of the future to come; the future he had wished to build.
The Emperor.
Yes. The Emperor. And she was on a mission for him. She was in charge of hunting down the artifact of the extinct Dragon Clan, and Gatti served under her. She was in the Vionne, the floating fortress that was like a city unto itself.
Yes, she was on the Vionne. And she was looking for her men.
Gatti. Chesta. Miguel. Guimel. Viole. Dalet.
Why was their quarters so far away? Hadn't they only been down the hall from hers? She didn't remember a sweeping, white marble staircase with glinting golden foil, nor the heavy brocade tapestries depicting what looked like mythological stories. The Vionne didn't have any such luxurious appointments. Practicality had ruled over decoration; cold steel in place of gold, rough stone in place of draperies.
Celena gripped the balustrade, feeling how cool and smooth it was to her fevered touch, suddenly groaning as her mind again lurched and spun its way in a mad caper and took her stomach along with it this time. She clenched her teeth and rode out the storm of hazy colors dancing behind her eyes and the creeping inner darkness that furiously howled against the crumbling wall of self as though it were upset with her inability to recognize and give it a voice.
Give it a name.
Dizzily she made her way down, her nightgown completely soaked by now, unsure of how long she could hold out until she found her trusted second in command. What light that did burn from the lamps high above her made the shadows on the stairway seem to shift and undulate under her already unsteady feet, making for very slow progress.
Finally she made it to the bottom, where she stood in a daze, not knowing of where to go next. How could Gatti be so far? Was he always so far? Was she even in the Vionne at all?
Her head snapped sharply to the right as she thought she caught a faint flash of the blue armor her men wore disappearing down another long hallway thick with a heavy and oppressive darkness that seemed all too eager to swallow anything that came near.
She squinted, bleary eyes trying to focus on a flat and lifeless tableau of greys, blues, and blacks that all seemed to melt into each other with no distinction; an alien world of endless night. She pushed herself free from the balustrade and wandered towards that darkness, letting herself be swallowed and consumed as she continued her search. He was here, she felt certain. Gatti was here. And Guimel and the others. Not too far now.
Her footsteps grew slower as she fought against the weight of exhaustion, sheer will driving her to take one more step; one more foot in front of the other. As she passed more gas lamps, their dim light reflected in her wide, staring eyes that were clouded with waking memories and nightmares from two opposite extremes whose duality were very literally ripping her apart...sometimes glinting blue, sometimes sparking red.
Still she kept moving against the pain and the rising fear that she would never reach that which she was looking for. She went down yet another staircase, this time one of coarse stone that descended in a narrow passage. She had to tread more carefully here, the steepness of the steps and their rough texture scraped against the delicate skin of her feet and there was no balustrade to brace herself against. One wrong move could send her tumbling and possibly meeting an unpleasant end.
The silence and the stairs seemed to stretch into a small eternity. The air slowly grew damp and cooler the farther she went, carrying with it a slightly earthy scent. A distant part of her mentally frowned and wondered how that could be; the Vionne had always had a biting scent of metal, oil and rust.
She shivered as the cool air made contact with her damp nightgown, wrapping thin arms around herself to retain what little body heat she could. Her head still pounded, although the intensity of the pain and the sickening whirling of blurred images had receded like a black thunderhead; horrible and frightening, but with the promise of peace in its wake.
Celena reached the final step, toes hesitantly questing for firm earth beneath before gently stepping down.
She let out a small gasp of shock as the low lamp light revealed where she was, hurtling her mercilessly and abruptly out of the potent, chilling depths of her dreamworld and into the stark, solid present. Whoever or whatever had drawn her here dissolved as surely as the sun blazes through a morning mist to be forgotten once again, leaving the poor young girl confused and disoriented. She blinked long and hard, clearing away the fog to stare around her with new eyes.
A long, narrow block of cells stretched to either side, thick black bars effectively proclaiming this to be the dungeons of the palace.
How...how did I end up here? Celena thought in wonderingly, skittering backwards a few steps until her back grazed the wall behind her. She realized that she was alone down here; there were no guards, no footmen. No one aside from herself and the phantoms she had been chasing. What...happened?
Frantically, her hands skimmed the harsh stone to either side of her to search for a door, or a stairwell...anything which might lead her out and back into her own bed where she belonged. Eries would be furious when she-
A small movement caught Celena's eye. She stopped her unsuccessful search for the exit to look just off to her right into one of the cells.
In her initial panic and confusion, she had assumed she was alone. Now that she was standing still and taking a closer survey of her surroundings, she found that it wasn't so at all. For almost directly before her something...someone sat on a small cot, the near dark having prevented Celena from seeing it at first glance.
The wan light reduced all detail down to a few spare brush strokes of an outline seemingly sculpted out of the shadows, a photograph in reverse. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Celena could see reddish highlights sparking in long, dark hair that was tied back into a tail, immediately marking the person inside the cell as female.
It was the voice, however, which confirmed it, floating out from the figure into the charged stillness with a single question:
"Who are you?"