She heard footsteps, and sighed to herself. As she had feared, he had not taken her warning to heart. Other possibilities, other doors, closed shut, and as always, only one path remained to be walked.
She turned to see the Prince standing at the entrance to the hourglass chamber, looking around in amazement at the grandeur of the room.
She had been at the top of a ladder that was leaning against the giant hourglass, inspecting the glass surface for any imperfections. "This is a dangerous place," she called out to him, as she descended. "You should not have come back." Stubborn fool!
"I don't have the luxury," he growled back, as she reached the floor. "I must see the Empress!"
Kaileena sniffed. "Impossible!"
He walked up to her. "My mission… it's very urgent! I must see her."
"You don't understand," she replied. She gestured at the top half of the magnificent hourglass. "When the last grain falls from this hourglass, the Empress will create the Sands of Time. No business of yours could be more important than that."
"I have come to stop the Empress from creating the Sands!" he said urgently.
How ironic, she thought to herself. So you think to stop the creation of the Sands by killing me… but that will only further the cause you seek to defeat. Fool!
But this presented a way out for her… all she had to do was tell him that the Empress' death would cause the Sands to be created…
No, it was too late for that, she could see it in the grim, hard determination in his eyes. He already knew that the Empress' agents had tried to kill him… he would never believe that he could end this any other way except with her death. Why bother even trying? Both their paths had already been set… the Timeline would not be deined.
"Then your's is a fool's errand," she replied instead. "The creation of the Sands was foretold in the Timeline. It cannot be stopped."
"I just saved your life. Twice. All I'm asking for is some information. Tell me where the Sands will be created."
Something was very… persuasive about him. He seemed so earnest, so determined. Looking into his eyes, she could see the fires of his life burning brightly. What was it like to be as such, to know what you wanted, to fight against the world, if need be, to succeed?
Despite herself, she found herself replying. "In there," she said, gesturing toward the locked throne room, "but the room has been sealed. You cannot enter."
"There must be a way."
His single-minded determination was amazing to watch. And terrifying, she had to remind herself… for her death lay at the end of his road. "Hah," she responded, prodding him to see how strong his will was. "You'd have to undo the very fortifications of this castle. An impossible task."
"When a man is faced with his own death, he finds the impossible less of a barrier," he replied grimly. "Tell me how."
Faced with his own death? Very intriguing. She'd have to find out more… assuming he survived, of course. For at his predictable question, a devious idea had entered Kaileena's mind. Why not use his strength against him? Send him against the impossible task of opening the doors, and let that task kill him for her.
"Very well," she responded, schooling her face into a blank expression.
She went into great depth about the castle's fortifications, and the tasks he would have to perform to open the door to the throne room. While he stood there, attentively gathering the details, she studied him closely. He was not in the least bit perturbed by the information she'd revealed, or the impossible tasks ahead of him.
Watching him calmly absorb all this information, her heart fell. The Timeline had chosen a most appropriate device… the man was so confident, so assured… so unstoppable! She could have told him to walk along the bottom of the sea from here to India, and he wouldn't have blinked an eye.
Dejected now, she finished, "It won't make a difference, though."
"What do you mean?"
Bitterness seeped into her mind, colored her voice. "Succeed or fail… the outcome is the same. You will not stop the Sands from being created."
"Thanks for the… advice," he replied, uncertainly.
Nervously, she paced the hallway in the central hall, sword in hand. When she'd seen one of the two massive locks on the throne room door come undone, she knew with a sinking heart that he was halfway to success. She was fighting the Timeline, but without success… just as she knew would happen!
So she had come here, where she knew he would have to return, before attempting the second of his tasks… to stop him. To confront him. To kill him!
So preoccupied was she, that she didn't even notice he had arrived until she had nearly strided right into him.
"Oh… it's you!" she gasped. She'd built up her courage to do this, here and now, but she lost her nerve seeing him in person.
"You seem surprised to see me," he responded, a wry smile on his lips.
She recovered her balance quickly. "Surprised only that you insist on prolonging the inevitable," she responded dryly.
"Why did you help me?"
"I…don't know," she replied, uncertainly, confused at the unexpected question. "I guess half because you remind me of the Empress… or who I wish she could be."
"What do you mean?"
"Like you, she knows her own fate. She has seen it in the Timeline. But while you fight it, she has submitted. She accepts it." It was a bitter pill to swallow, but it was true. She had walled herself up here in this Castle, waiting for the end that the Timeline had foretold. Oh, she had made efforts, certainly, to fight her fate, but it was all passive, so defensive. If she had been more like him, she would have left her island jail a long time ago, to hunt down and kill this Prince herself, damn what the Timeline may say! But no, she had locked herself up and stewed in agonizing rage, waiting for his arrival.
That long-remembered, impotent anger lighted on her mind. "To some, knowledge is power, but I say it is a poison. Knowing the date and manner of her own death torments her. The closer it draws, the greater her pain." It was a cancer within, consuming more and more of her body and mind.
"And you wish she would fight her fate, like me?"
"Maybe it would give her something to live for." She fed her self-pity, and the misery consoled her.
"You said that was only half the reason. What's the other half?"
"I have known my whole life that what is written in the Timeline cannot be changed. Yet something inside me wants you to succeed."
"And do you think I will?"
"No. But I admire you for trying."
"Thank you… your name? I haven't even asked your name… I've been so…"
"It's… Kaileena. You should go… the hourglass is more than half empty. You haven't much time."
Neither do I.
Ever since she had seen the massive door to her throne room open, Kaileena had known the Prince would soon appear, even though she hoped some final misfortune would befall the Prince and forestall what would soon happen. But Fate was not with her; it had never been. Hearing footsteps, Kaileena peered around a curtain to see the Prince approach the massive hourglass. She waited for a moment, as he stood there, studying the hourglass and the rapidly decreasing sands in the top, before emerging to stand silently by him. So few grains left… so little time left.
"Time is running low. You ready?"
She was about to reply, when a sudden wave of dizziness struck her. She closed her eyes, feeling a strange sense of… otherness… pervade her. Her mind swirled in strange currents, but as quickly as it had come, the dizzy spell faded. Perhaps it was the Timeline, calling to her… it had a strange quality to it, associated with it and yet not the same…
She blinked, and followed him up the winding staircase to the throne room. "I've been thinking, Kaileena," the Prince said, slowly, hesitantly. "There is little for you on this island, and there will be less still once I've stood by your mistress."
He stopped, and she found herself next to him.
"Come with me to Babylon," the Prince said, simply, yet with a quiet sense of urgency. Something in his clear blue eyes looked at her, something so alien and… frightful… that her breath would no longer come to her. "You have a chance to begin a new life, free from the evil of this place!"
Free. Free of this place. For a moment, for one brief, shining moment, she could imagine herself standing by the prow of a ship, glancing back as the forlorn, dark Castle of Time receded into the distance. At first it was to have been her stalwart defense against fate, but it had gradually become her tomb as she had sunk further and further into her dark torment.
But that vision was swept away, just as all the others always were. And all she could see was blood.
"I am sorry, Prince," she whispered, casting her eyes away from his searching ones, "but I cannot take you up on your offer." She continued up the stairs, and walked alone into her throne room, while the Prince watched her.
He followed, as she knew he would. Must. All the threads had been sewn, all the actors were in place, and the time had finally come, as it had all been foretold.
And Kaileena had made her choice. A choice she should have made a long time ago. A choice that the Prince himself, of all people, had helped her make.
He looked around in confusion, at the giant, empty room. "Where is the Empress?" he asked, puzzled. "Where are the Sands?"
Instead of replying, Kaileena pressed a nearby lever down.
With a tremendous roar, a giant steel door descended to close the giant doorway, leaving the two of them alone in the voluminous throne room.
"What are you doing?!" yelled the Prince, incredulous. "You've trapped us in here!"
"I am sorry, Prince," she said, making her way to the giant throne and the two swords which lay there, "but one only one of us can cheat fate today."
Gently, she picked up both swords, feeling their heft, their well-worn hilts. She spun to face him, the blades flashing in the light.
His face was dumbstruck, his voice stunned. "You… are the Empress?"
"I told you to leave," she said coldly, angrily, walking toward him, "and yet you kept coming back. I began to wonder. If you can change your fate, perhaps I can change mine!"
"I had hoped the Dahaka would kill you. I had hoped Shadee would keep you from the island. Or the towers would finish you off. I even cursed the sword I gave you! And yet you did not die!"
Kaileena charged, but the Prince blocked her blows and kicked her away, sending her sliding away on the floor.
"Why have you done this?!" he demanded, shock still written on his face, as she rose to her feet.
"I've already told you! I have foreseen the future… to die at your hands. But like you, I've decided to change it!"
Kaileena gasped in surprise as the Prince suddenly… blurred… in front of her. And suddenly, it seemed like a thousand bees were stinging her. She tried desperately to block what blows she could, but for each one she managed to deflect, many, many more drank blood.
In anguished panic, she whispered a few words and levitated off the ground, trying to escape from the whirlwind of steel that the Prince had become. But still he was all around her, his blade moving impossibly fast to streak her body with bloody gashes.
And finally she fought her way free of him, into the clearer air above the floor. Gasping in pain, she quickly worked her magic to summon the first creatures she could grab from the nearby rooms, and then hurriedly set about trying to heal herself.
Kaileena's vision was marred by the blood that dripped like sweat from her brow. Through the painful, red haze, she could see the Prince's wavering image a few yards ahead of her, swords raised on guard.
She stood there, her weary arms barely able to lift her swords, trying to collect her energy for one last attempt. She had forgotten what it was like to not feel pain, so much had the wounds inflicted by the Prince pervaded her being. That was her entire existence, she could remember no other. Just the roaring humming in her ears, and the pain that coursed through her body like her blood.
Darkness began to tint the edges of her red-tinted vision. The black doom that she had tried to fight was clawing its way inside, settling into the well-worn paths that her dreams, her nightmares had carved out over the long millennia in preparation for this day, this hour, this moment, this eternity.
Through the dull roar in her ears, she heard, as if from a long distance away, the Prince say, a calm, cold pity in his voice, "I mean you no harm, Kaileena. But I must finish this."
The words were like fire to her, burning her inside. Screaming with hate, with anger, with defiance, at the Prince, at fate, at the world… everything!… she flew towards him, deadly blades arcing white-hot in the dark gloom.
Her arms rang; her teeth shook, as the Prince's blade, one he had picked up from her defeated minions, blocked the Empress' would-be deadly blow. And then the Empress' very own gift, the cursed sword she had given him in hopes that it would lead to his demise, returned to its Mistress with a bloody song.
Her momentum carried her past him, the cursed blade slicing her deeply and true. The roaring was suddenly gone from her ears, to be replaced by a cold silence, broken only by the stumbling sound of her wavering feet, the pitter patter of blood falling like rain to the stones below.
She stumbled on, fighting to stay up, but the pain was now her entire world, and the other one was starting to fade away, to blur into the distance like a dream. Why had the Fates chosen him over me?! she cried in her burning mind, clutching herself and the pain exploding within her. Who had chosen this end, and why? Why did he deserve it, and not I? For what black, cruel reason had this been decided?
Shaking, she staggered around to face him, but he was not facing her. "You… are a fool… Prince!" she gasped to his back, her hoarse voice trembling. The feeling left her left arm, and the blade dropped from her numb fingers, to clatter noisily on the cold floor. "No matter what you do…" she coughed, blood splurting out, "…you shall fail!" She sank to her knees, her broken body failing her, but somehow managed to at least stay upright, using her remaining blade as a crutch. Unbidden, tears came to her… tears she had never wept before. "Just… as I… have tried," she whispered, each word an agony, as the Prince's back blurred before her eyes. "And just… as I… have… failed…" she murmured, falling into the darkness, into the dream, into the nightmare, into the terror…
From a long way away, from the farthest star in the eternal blackness of her fading universe, the Empress heard a faint whisper, words to accompany her into the nothingness…
"I am sorry, Kaileena."