A Rule of Queens (Book #13 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (6 page)

Volusia turned to him, her eyes aglow with
history and destiny.

“They said the spear would only be wielded once.
By the Chosen One. They said my mother would live a thousand centuries, that the
throne of Volusia would be hers forever. And do you know what happened? I wielded
the spear myself—and I used it to kill my mother.”

She took a deep breath.

“What does that tell you, Lord Commander?”

He looked at her, confused, and shook his head,
puzzled.

“We can either live in the shadow of other
people’s legends,” Volusia said, “or we can create our own.”

She leaned in close, scowling, glaring back at
him in fury.

“When I have crushed the entire Empire,” she
said, “when everyone in this universe bends their knee to me, when there is not
a single living person left that doesn’t know and scream and cry my name, you
will know then that I am the one and only true leader—and that I am the one and
only true god. I am the Chosen One. Because I have chosen myself.”

Gwendolyn walked through the village, accompanied
by her brothers Kendrick and Godfrey, and by Sandara, Aberthol, Brandt and
Atme, with hundreds of her people trailing her, as they all were welcomed here.
They were led by Bokbu, the village chief, and Gwen walked beside him, filled with
gratitude as she toured his village. His people had taken them in, had provided
them safe harbor, and the chief had done so at his own risk, against some of his
own people’s will. He had saved them all, had pulled them all back from the
dead. Gwen did not know what they would have done otherwise. They would
probably all be dead at sea.

Gwen also felt a rush of gratitude for Sandara,
who had vouched for them with her people, and who’d had the wisdom to bring
them all here. Gwen looked about, taking in the scene as all the villagers
swarmed them, watching them arrive like things of curiosity, and she felt like
an animal on display. Gwen saw all the small, quaint, modeling clay cottages,
and she saw a proud people, a nation of warriors with kind eyes, watching them.
Clearly, they’d never seen anything like Gwen and her people. Though curious,
they were also guarded. Gwen could not blame them. A lifetime of slavery had
molded them to be cautious.

Gwen noticed all the bonfires being erected
everywhere, and she wondered.

“Why all the fires?” she asked.

“You arrive at an auspicious day,” Bokbu said. “It
is our festival of the dead. A holy night for us, it arrives but once a sun
cycle. We burn fires to honor the gods of the dead, and it is said that on this
night, the gods visit us, and speak to us of what is to come.”

“It is also said that our savior will arrive on
this day,” chimed in a voice.

Gwendolyn looked over to see an older man,
perhaps in his seventies, tall, thin with a somber look to him, walk up beside
them, carrying a long, yellow staff and wearing a yellow cloak.

“May I introduce you to Kalo,” Bokbu said. “Our
oracle.”

Gwen nodded, and he nodded back,
expressionless.

“Your village is beautiful,” Gwendolyn remarked.
“I can see the love of family here.”

The chief smiled.

“You are young for a queen, but wise, gracious.
It is true what they say about you from across the sea. I wish that you and
your people could stay right here, in the village, with us; but you understand,
we must hide you from the prying eyes of the Empire. You will be staying close,
though; that will be your home, there.”

Gwendolyn followed his gaze and looked up and
saw a distant mountain, filled with holes.

“The caves,” he said. “You will be safe there.
The Empire will not look for you there, and you can burn your fires and cook
your food and recover until you’re well.”

“And then?” Kendrick asked, joining them.

Bokbu looked over at him, but before he could
respond, he suddenly came to a stop as before him there appeared a tall, muscular
villager holding a spear, flanked by a dozen muscular men. It was the same man
from the ship, the one that protested their arrival—and he did not look happy.

“You endanger all of our people by allowing the
strangers here,” he said darkly. “You must send them back to where they came
from. It is not our job to take in every last race that washes up here.”

Bokbu shook his head as he faced him.

“Your fathers are ashamed of you,” he said. “The
laws of our hospitality extend to all.”

“And is it the burden of a slave to extend
hospitality?” he retorted. “When we cannot even find it ourselves?”

“How we are treated has no bearing on how we
treat others,” the chief retorted. “And we shall not turn away those who need
us.”

The villager sneered back, glaring at Gwendolyn,
Kendrick, the others, then back to the chief.

“We do not want them here,” he said, seething.
“The caves are not far away enough, and every day they are here, we are a day
closer to death.”

“And what good is this life you cling to if it
is not spent justly?” the chief asked.

The man stared him down for a long time, the
finally turned and stormed off, his men following him.

Gwendolyn watched them go, wondering.

“Do not mind him,” the chief said, as he
continued walking and Gwen and the others fell in beside him.

“I do not wish to be a burden on you,” Gwendolyn
said. “We can leave.”

The chief shook his head.

“You will not leave,” he said. “Not until you
are rested and ready. There are other places you can go in the Empire, if you
choose. Places that are also well hidden. But they are far from here, and
dangerous to reach, and you must recover and decide and stay here with us. I
insist on it. In fact, for this night only, I wish for you to join us, to join
our festivities in the village. It is already nightfall—the Empire will not see
you—and this is an important day for us. I would be honored to have you as our
guests.”

Gwendolyn noticed dusk was falling, saw all the
bonfires being lit, the villagers dressed in their finest, gathering around; she
heard a drumbeat start to rise up, soft, steady, then chanting. She saw
children running around, grabbing treats that looked like candies. She saw men
passing around coconuts filled with some sort of liquid, and she could smell
the meat in the air from the large animals roasting on the fires.

Gwen liked the idea of her people having a
chance to rest and recover and have a good meal before they ascended to the
isolation of the caves.

She turned to the chief.

“I’d like that,” she said. “I would like that very
much.”

*

Sandara walked by Kendrick’s side, overcome
with emotion to be back home again. She was happy to be home, to be back with
her people on familiar land; yet she also felt restrained, felt like a slave
again. Being here brought back memories of why she had left, why she had
volunteered to be in service to the Empire and cross the seas with them as a
healer. At least it had gotten her out of this place.

Sandara felt so relieved that she had been able
to help save Gwendolyn’s people, to bring them all here before they died at
sea. As she walked beside Kendrick, more than anything, she wanted to hold his
hand, to proudly display her man to her people. But she could not. There were
too many eyes on them, and she knew her village would never condone a union
between the races.

Kendrick, as if reading her thoughts, reached
up and slipped an arm around her waist, and Sandara quickly brushed it away.
Kendrick looked at her, hurt.

“Not here,” she replied softly, feeling guilty.

Kendrick frowned, baffled.

“We have spoken of this,” she said. “I told you
my people are rigid. I must respect their laws.”

“Are you ashamed of me then?” Kendrick asked.

Sandara shook her head.

“No, my lord. On the contrary. There is no one
I am more proud of. And no one I love more. But I cannot be with you. Not here.
Not in this place. You must understand.”

Kendrick’s expression darkened, and she felt
awful for it.

“Yet this is where we are,” he said. “There is
no other place for us. Shall we not be together then?”

She spoke, her heart breaking at her own words:
“You will stay in the caves of your people,” she said. “I shall stay here, in
the village. With my people. It is my role. I love you, but we cannot be
together. Not in this place.”

Kendrick looked away, hurt, and Sandara wanted
to explain further when suddenly a voice interrupted.

“Sandara!?” called out the voice.

Sandara turned, shocked to recognize the
familiar voice, the voice of her only brother. Her heart leapt as she saw him, pushing
out from the crowd, walking toward her.

Darius.

He looked much bigger and stronger and older
than when she had left him, filled with a confidence she had not seen before. She
left him as a boy, and now, while young, he appeared to be a man. With his long,
unruly hair hanging down, tied behind his back, still never cut, his face as
proud as ever, he looked exactly like their father. She could see the warrior
in his eyes.

Sandara was overwhelmed with joy to see him, to
see that he was alive, had not died or been broken like all the other slaves, his
proud spirit still leading the way. She rushed forward and embraced him, as he
embraced her back. It felt so good to see him again.

“I feared you were dead,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Just across the sea,” she said. “I left you a
boy—and you have become a man.”

He smiled back proudly. In this small
oppressive village, in this awful place in the world, Darius had been her one
source of solace, and she his. They had both suffered together, especially
since the disappearance of their father.

Kendrick approached and Sandara saw him and stood
there, frozen, unsure how to introduce him as she saw Darius looking at him.
She knew she had to make some sort of introduction.

Kendrick beat her to it. He stepped forward,
reaching out a hand.

“I am Kendrick,” he said.

“And I am Darius,” he replied, shaking hands.

“Kendrick, this is my brother,” Sandara said,
nervous, stumbling. “Darius, this is…well…this is…”

Flustered, Sandara paused, unsure what to say.
Darius held out a hand.

“You don’t have to explain to me, my sister,”
he said. “I’m not like the others. I understand.”

Sandara could see in Darius’s eyes that he
did
understand, and that he did not judge her. Sandara loved him for it.

They all turned and walked together, falling in
with the others as they toured the village.

“You have chosen quite a tumultuous time to
return,” Darius said, tension in his voice. “Much has happened here. Much
is
happening.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, nervous.

 “We have much catching up to do, my sister.
Kendrick, you shall join us too. Come, the fires have begun.”

Godfrey sat in the village before the raging
bonfire in the starry night, nearby his sister Gwendolyn, his brother Kendrick,
Steffen, Brandt, Atme, Aberthol, and nearly all the people he remembered from
the Ring. Seated beside him were Akorth and Fulton, and as he saw them it
reminded him that more than ever he desperately needed a drink.

Godfrey stared into the flames, wondering how
he had ended up here, trying to process everything that had happened, everything
feeling like a blur in a long series of blurs. First there was the death of his
father; then the death of his brother, Gareth; then the invasion of the
McClouds; then invasion of the Ring; then the Upper Isles; then the long
journey across the sea…. It felt like one tragedy, one journey, after the next.
His life had devolved to nothing but war and chaos and exile. It felt good to
finally stop moving. And he sensed that it was all just beginning.

“What I wouldn’t do for a pint right now,” Akorth
said.

“Surely they must have something to drink
around here,” Fulton said.

Godfrey rubbed his aching head, wondering the
same thing. If ever he needed a drink, it was now. This last voyage across the
sea was the worst he could remember, so many days without food or ale, so often
on the brink of starvation…. He had been sure, too many times, that he had
died. He closed his eyes and tried to shut out the awful pictures, his memories
of his fellow Ring members turning to stone and falling over the rail.

It had been an endless voyage, a voyage through
hell and back, and Godfrey was surprised that it had not led to any sort of
epiphany or enlightenment for him. It had not led him to change his ways. It
had merely led him to want to drink more, to want to blot it all out. Was there
something wrong with him? he wondered. Did it make him less profound than the
others? He hoped not.

Now here they were, in the Empire no less,
surrounded by a hostile army that wanted them dead. How long, he wondered, before
they were discovered? Before Romulus’s million men hunted them down? Godfrey
had a sinking feeling that their days were numbered.

“I see a sight for sore eyes,” Akorth said.

Godfrey looked up.

“There,” Fulton said, elbowing him in the ribs.

Godfrey looked over and saw the villagers passing
around a bowl filled with a clear liquid. Each took it carefully in his palms,
took a sip, and passed it on.

“That doesn’t exactly look like the Queen’s ale,”
Akorth commented.

“And do you want to wait for a better vintage
to come around?” Fulton replied.

Fulton
leaned forward and took the bowl before Akorth
could grab it, and took a long drink himself, the liquid pouring down his
cheeks. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and groaned in delight.

“That burns,” he said. “You’re right. Sure isn’t
the Queen’s ale. It’s a hell of a lot stronger.”

Akorth snatched it, took a long drink, and then
nodded in agreement. He began coughing as he handed it to Godfrey.

“My God,” Akorth said. “It’s like drinking
fire.”

Godfrey leaned over and smelled it, and he
recoiled.

“What is it?” he asked one of the villagers, a
tough-looking warrior with broad shoulders wearing no shirt, sitting next to
him, looking serious and wearing a necklace of black stones.

“We call it the heart of the cactus,” he said. “It
is a drink for men. Are you a man?”

“I doubt it,” Godfrey said. “Depends who you
ask. But I’ll be whatever I have to be to drown out my sorrows.”

Godfrey raised the bowl to his lips and drank,
and he felt the liquid going down his throat like fire, burning his belly. He
coughed, too, and the villagers laughed as the next one took the bowl from him.

“Not a man,” they observed.

“So my father used to say,” Godfrey agreed,
laughing with them.

Godfrey felt good as the drink went to his head,
and as the villager who insulted him began to drink from the bowl, Godfrey
reached out and snatched it from his hands.

“Wait a minute,” Godfrey said.

Godfrey drank, this time in several long gulps,
taking it without coughing.

The villagers all looked at him in surprise.
Godfrey turned to them in satisfaction, a smile returning to his face.

“I may not be a man,” he said, “and you might
be better with your weapons. But don’t challenge me to drink.”

They all laughed, the villagers passed the
bowl, and Godfrey sat back on his elbows in the dirt, already feeling
lightheaded, feeling good for the first time. It was a strong drink, and he
felt dizzy, never having had anything like it before.

 “I see you’ve turned over a new leaf,” came a
woman’s disapproving voice.

Godfrey turned and looked up to see Illepra
standing over him, hands on her hips, looking down, frowning.

“You know, I spent the afternoon healing our
people,” she said, disapprovingly. “Many still suffer the effects of
starvation. And what have you done to help? Here you are, sitting by the fire
and drinking.”

Godfrey felt his stomach turning; she always
seemed to find the worst in him.

“I see many of my people sitting here drinking,”
he replied, “and god bless them for it. What’s the harm in that?”

“They’re not
all
drinking,” Illepra
said. “At least not as much as you.”

“And what is it to you?” Godfrey retorted.

“With half our people sick, do you think now is
the time to drink and laugh the night away?”

“What better time?” he retorted.

She frowned.

“Wrong,” she said. “It is time for repentance.
A time for fasting and prayer.”

Godfrey shook his head.

“My prayers to the gods have always gone
unanswered,” he replied. “As for fasting—we did enough of that aboard ship. Now
is the time to eat.”

He reached over, grabbing a chicken bone being
passed around, and took a big bite, chewing defiantly in her face. The grease ran
down his chin, but he did not wipe it and did not look away as she stared down
at him in icy disapproval.

Illepra looked down on him with scorn, and
slowly shook her head.

“You were a man once. Even if briefly. Back in
King’s Court. More than a man—you were a hero. You stayed behind and protected
Gwendolyn in the city. You helped save her life. You kept back the McClouds. I
thought you had…become someone else.

“But here you are. Making jokes and drinking
the night away. Like the boy you’ve always been.”

Godfrey was upset now, his buzz and sense of
relaxation quickly fading.

“And what would you have me do?” he retorted,
annoyed. “Get up from my spot here and run off into the horizon and defeat the
Empire alone?”

Akorth and Fulton laughed, and the villagers laughed
with him.

Illepra reddened and shook her head.

“You haven’t changed,” she said. “You’ve crossed
half the world and you still haven’t changed.”

“I am who I am,” Godfrey said. “An ocean voyage
won’t change that.”

Her eyes narrowed in rebuke.

“I loved you once,” she said. “Now, I feel
nothing for you. Nothing at all. You are a disappointment to me.”

She turned and stormed off, and the men laughed
and grunted around Godfrey.

“I see women are no different even on the other
side of the sea,” one villager said, and they all broke out into laughter.

But Godfrey was not laughing. She had hurt him.
And he was starting to realize, even in his drunken haze, that perhaps Illepra
meant something to him after all.

Godfrey reached over, snatched the bowl, and
took another long swig.

“Here’s to heroes!” he said. “God knows I’m not
one of them.”

*

Gwendolyn sat before the bonfire, joined by
Kendrick, Brandt, Atme, Aberthol, and a dozen knights of the Silver; alongside
them sat Bokbu, along with the dozen elders and dozens of villagers. The elders
were engaged in a long discussion with Gwen, and as she stared into the flames,
she tried to be polite and listen, Krohn laying his head in her lap as she fed
him small pieces of meat. The elders had been going on for hours, seemingly
thrilled with the chance to talk to an outsider, venting about their problems
with the Empire, their village, their people.

Gwendolyn tried to concentrate. But a part of
her was distracted, thinking of nothing but Thor and Guwayne, hoping and
praying for their safety, for their return to her. On this night of the fires,
she prayed with all their heart for them to come back to her, for her to have
another chance. She prayed for a message, a sign, anything to let her know that
they were safe.

“My lady?”

Gwen turned to see Bokbu staring back at her.

“Your thoughts on the matter?” he asked.

Gwen snapped out of it.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Can you ask me again?”

Bokbu cleared his throat, clearly compassionate
and understanding.

“I had been explaining the ways of my people.
Of our life here. You had asked me what a day is like. A day begins in the
fields and ends when the sun falls. The taskmasters of the Empire take us as
slaves, as they do every other city in the Empire not of their race. They work
us until we die.”

“Haven’t you tried to escape?” Kendrick asked.

Bokbu turned to him.

“Escape where exactly?” he asked. “We are
slaves in the service of Volusia, the great northern city by the sea. There is
no free province of the Empire, nowhere to run to within hundreds of miles of
here. We have Volusia to one side, the ocean on the other, and the vast desert behind
us.”

“And what lies on the other side of the desert?”
Gwen asked.

“The entire rest of the Empire,” another
chieftain chimed in. “Endless lands. More provinces and regions than you can
dream of. All under the thumb of the Empire. Even if we managed to cross the
great desert, we know little of what lies beyond.”

“Except slavery and death,” another chimed in.

“Has anyone ever tried to cross it?” Gwen
asked.

Bokbu turned to her somberly.

“Every day some of our people try to flee. Most
are killed quickly, an arrow or spear in the back as they try to run. Those who
escape, disappear. Sometimes the Empire brings them back days later, corpses
for us to see, to hang from the highest tree. Other times, they bring back mere
bones, eaten by some animal. Other times, they never bring them back at all.”

“Have any survived?” Gwen asked.

Bokbu shook his head.

“The Great Waste is merciless,” he said.
“Surely they were taken by the desert.”

“But maybe some survived?” Kendrick pressed.

Bokbu shrugged.

“Perhaps. Perhaps only to make it to another
region and become enslaved elsewhere. Slaves have it worse than us in other
Empire regions. They are killed randomly and routinely every day, just for the
amusement of the taskmasters. Here, at least, we’re not torn apart from our
families and sold off for fun. We’re not shipped from city to city and town to
town; here, at least, we have a home. They allow us to live as long as we labor.”

“It is not much of a life,” another chieftain
added. “It is a life of bondage. But it is a life nonetheless.”

“Can you not raise arms and fight back?” Kendrick
asked.

Bokbu shook his head.

“There have been other times, other generations,
in other cities, that have tried. They have never won. We are outmanned, out
armed. The Empire have superior armor, weaponry, animals, enforced walls,
organization…and most of all, they have steel. We have none. It is outlawed
here.”

“And if a slave rises up and loses, the entire
village is killed.”

“They outnumber us vastly,” another chieftain
chimed in. “What are we to do? Are a few hundred of us, with our wooden
weapons, to attack a hundred thousand of them, while they wear steel armor?”

Gwendolyn contemplated their predicament. She
understood, and she felt compassion for them. They had given up on who they
were, on their proud warrior spirit, to try to protect their families. She
could not blame them. She wondered if she would have done the same in their
position. If her father would have.

“Subjugation is a terrible thing,” she said. “When
one man thinks he is greater than another, because of his race or his weapons or
his power or his numbers or his riches—or whatever reason—then he can become
cruel for no reason.”

Bokbu turned to her.

“You have experienced it yourself,” he said. “Or
you would not be here.”

Gwendolyn nodded, looking into the flames.

“Romulus and his million men invaded our
homeland and burned it to the ground,” she said. “There are but a few hundred
of us now, all that remains of what was once the most glorious nation. At its
center, a city of such prosperity that it put any other to shame. It was a land
overflowing with abundance of every sort, with a Canyon that protected us from
all sorts of evil. We were invincible. For generations, we were invincible.”