Thicker Than Blood
Chapter 9
Fortune's Fools
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Tend to the wolf within your fences. The pack ranging outside may not exist.
- Children of Dune, Frank Herbert
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Timeless
Looking back on the disaster, you have to ask yourself if they didn't see it coming. Of course we have the advantage of hindsight, but they must have had some clue, some idea of what was to come. Enough people certainly knew about it, but these were, unfortunately, the ones only interested in self-preservation.
Even if they had known, could they have stopped it?
No. They had, to quote one of the survivors, grown too dependent on a dangerous force. But certainly more would have lived through it. This later catastrophe may have been prevented altogether.
Wistful thinking, love. Even I know that what happened on Elosia was inevitable. It had been building up over the millennia. Something had to give somewhere.
Yes, you're right, but I can't help but wish it had given somewhere else. Your experiment was there, as well as the Laviods'. Surely you wish the same.
Of course I do, however useless it is. If wishes were fishes we'd live in the sea. But I have thought about this over the years, and I don't think I'd change anything that happened. They wouldn't have been able to do what they did if life had been easier on them.
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12,002 BC
Janus sat still through the other children's screams, didn't move when the fire spread to the ornate wall hangings, even sat through it when this woman's hair caught fire. But when he saw the look on Zeal's face he bolted out of his chair and fled the dining hall as fast as he could. Schala glared fiercely at him when he ran past her, but was too busy putting out the flames to stop him, and even she knew Zeal would not be forgiving to anyone who interrupted anything about the Mammon Machine, even if it were her own son.
Janus was not the only one who had suspicions about Zeal now. The queen was becoming stranger by the day, but Schala and most of the kingdom still refused to see it. Or -- and Janus refused to entertain this chilling possibility -- they were under Zeal's power and just as awed by this mysterious Lavos thing as she was. The only ones who seemed openly suspicious were the Gurus, but they were completely loyal to their queen, and too old and stupid to be of any help.
Janus still had the nightmares about finding Schala dead, killed by the Zeal with the deep voice. The monster's voice. He watched them together, whenever he had the chance, but Zeal was motherly and seemed at times to be in awe of her daughter. Janus watched everyone actually, or at least everyone important. He hadn't forgotten his trip to Terra Continent, and the signs of rebellion he'd detected from Siris. He still had dreams about the black wind drowning the man in its fury. Someone was helping the Earthbound. But who would want to challenge the Kingdom of Zeal? It ate at him, knowing there was a possible threat to Schala but not being able to do anything to protect her.
Janus had ruled out the Gurus, for the obvious reasons. He'd shadowed them to be sure, following them for weeks at a time, but none ever did anything but Guru stuff, and anyway, what did any of them have to gain from siding with the Earthbound in a rebellion?
Janus was passing by the Royal Guard's quarters when a voice broke into his troubled thoughts. It was Dalton, captain of the guard. He stood alone in a room, sweating and glaring at his reflection in a mirror. Sweat soaked his velvet uniform, and his brown shoulder-length hair was disheveled. Janus stood to the side of the door, watching with purple eyes narrowed in suspicion. Dalton was one of the few still open to question. He was too hard to track -- Zeal was dependent on him as she was Schala, and he had shifts in the middle of the night spent guarding the palace.
"I have done what you asked of me," he snarled at his reflection. "When will you keep your promise and--" Dalton broke off, flinching and jerking his head to the side. He was silent for a while, then he whirled back to the mirror, dark blue eyes wide. "No, you can't! You wouldn't! You promised me Schala! How would--" He broke off again, as if listening to someone, and after a while lowered his head in defeat. "Yes, I understand. It will be done as you say." There was another long pause and then Dalton sagged, all the tension leaving his body. He stood there, leaning heavily on the desk and looking at himself in the mirror with a strange mix of disgust and resolution, then he took the cork out of a large glass bottle and drained most of it in one swallow, then moved slowly toward the door. Janus was already gone when he got there and closed it.
The young prince found himself a niche between a marble pillar and some heavy blue velvet curtains hanging from the roof. It stood in front of one of the large, perpetually open windows in the palace, looking out over the expanse of Zeal's kingdom. Dalton, Janus thought with disgust. He should have known. Though the man's motive wasn't clear, the fact that he was dealing with the Earthbound was. He had the perfect opportunity and concealment -- his midnight shifts. And the talking to himself out loud part was probably his half on a conversation with an Earthbound -- that telepathic little girl, Ivy. Janus had to keep his sister safe. But would she believe him if he told her?
You promised me Schala!
Not if Janus had anything to do with it.
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Ivy shoved the last bundle of ropes under her bed, and let the ragged vine blanket fall to cover it. She was tempted to give her daggers one last going over, but it was nervous habit of hers and she didn't like giving in to nervous habits, so instead she pulled a book down from the sturdy wooden shelf that took up one of her walls. Ivy settled herself in her bed, tucked her stuffed bird toy Thrustavies in beside her, inspected the candle on her bedside table for signs of failing and leaving her in the dark, then began to read. The book was an old one, and mostly nonsense fairy stories, but it served her purpose and distracted her mind.
Everything that could be ready was, and she had only to wait for the next hunt to put her plan in motion. She knew exactly the trees that would serve in her trap and exactly the way to do the ropes so she could be in position to pull them tight and wound him at once. Bloodreaver wouldn't let her alone long enough to set the trap in advance, so the hunt would have to distract him long enough for her to get ready. And if not, she had a reliable back-up plan -- climb up a tree and call Siris.
She'd written a note to them if she died instead of Bloodreaver, outlining a back-up plan for Lavos in case the one she'd already given them failed, but she was pretty confident she'd kill the Bloodreaver. Her visions had not informed her otherwise, and she did not have the queasy feeling in her stomach that meant something bad was going to happen. If they were to succeed against Lavos she had no idea. For that far in the future, the visions showed only darkness.
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Zeal was royally pissed, but Schala managed to calm her burning fury to a mere simmer -- and keep Prince Janus' name away from being the fire's cause, saying a candle must have accidentally been knocked over. Bullshit, Dalton thought, and kept a wary eye on Janus, who stuck to Schala like glue. Being tied between two trees naked but for Queen Zeal's bedsheets holding him there was not something a man soon forgot.
"Dalton!" Zeal's imperious voice rang out clearly in the fire damaged hall they were working to repair. He turned obediently, saluted. "See that this is finished today. I have more important things to do." The captain of the Royal Guard saluted again like the good little dog he was.
Zeal was a bitch. There was just no other way to put it. She didn't deserve most of the things some people said behind her back -- she hadn't always been a bitch, and few remembered her before the death of her second husband. Even fewer knew the truth behind the cause of his death, but Dalton did. His visions had told him to go get her, and he and the Gurus had found her that night in the snow on the summit of Mt. Woe, sobbing her heart out and clutching the bloodied Dreamstone dagger that'd belonged to her first and much beloved husband. The Gurus had rushed to be sure of her health -- she'd been seven months pregnant with Janus. Dalton had taken one calculating look at the signs of battle, then walked to the edge of the cliff. Tieron's body, hundreds of feet below, lay crumpled and broken on the rocks. A few of the mystic gargoyles that lived on the mountain were quietly, unobtrusively, eating him.
One of many unwanted pieces of knowledge Dalton possessed.
His soldiers cracked a few jokes at the expense of he and Zeal when she left. He tolerated it for a moment then ordered them to work.
Dalton knew of the rumors about he and his queen, though they weren't true, and he did nothing to quash them. Let the people have their gossip, it was nothing to him. When Zeal, after the birth of her son, had first been possessed by Lavos Dalton's visions had forced him into supporting her decisions. And his visions never took 'no' for an answer. Much like his queen. The Gurus had fussed and fumed over the order to shut up the Sun Stone and elemental weapons, but Zeal quickly suckered them into cooperation with her dream of Lavos. She did not trust them as she did he and Schala, because they still remained openly skeptical. She had no idea that they were the only ones loyal to her. Dalton had his own plans.
A gentle, soft voice intruded upon his thoughts. "Dalton?"
He jumped a mile.
"S-Schala?" With a supreme amount of will, he forced himself to scowl at her. She smiled despite this. Prince Janus' glaring purple eyes proved a good distraction from her.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Mother's holding a meeting later, after dinner, in the Mammon's hall. She wants you there, okay?" Dalton swallowed, forced himself to nod, and they walked away, Janus sticking out his tongue and flicking him off as they vanished through the doorway.
He hated it when people walked up on him when he was thinking traitorous things. Especially her. It made him feel even more guilty for what he had to do.
Dalton had sold his soul to a devil, and the devil was hungry for more.
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