Fathoms of Forgiveness (Sacred Breath, Book 2) (16 page)

Visola felt awful. It had just been a little bit of harmless flirting. At least, her flirting was usually harmless. She briefly wondered if it signified unrest in the Clan of Zalcan’s camp that they were killing their own men; then she realized that this type of thing would only inspire more discipline in the troops. They had plenty of manpower to spare. Considering the way she had left Adlivun, after knocking her princess unconscious, she was not one to pass judgment on this.

She did not want to turn around to see the beast that had shot the bullet because she knew exactly what she would see. It would be him, but he would be changed in some awful way. His viciousness and spite would appear in his transformed face as great ugliness and scarring. It would be a creature of untold horror; something that children could not look at without bursting into tears. She could feel his eyes boring into the back of her skull. His violating gaze was forcing itself between the strands of her hair and into the skin of her scalp, beyond hair follicles, blood and thick cranium, and into the most tender part of her brain. There, it sprouted razor-blade blossoms which it promptly juggled with inside her head, slicing and dicing away at her grey matter.

Turn around,
her frayed cerebellum told her. She refused. She could see his reflection in the fearful faces of the men in front of her. She could see the way that he petrified everyone, and she did not need to see the revolting person that was causing this.
Turn around,
her unprincipled curiosity implored her. She had seen glimpses of him from afar in the battles of the 1950s, but she had not faced him directly.  
There is a monstrous phenomenon behind you,
her imagination told her. Her self-degradation had to add,
and you’re married to it, sucker.
She had never been a wimp, and she knew that she needed to turn around eventually.
I need a divorce,
the progressive part of her declared. She took a moment to make her face absolutely, utterly expressionless.
Maybe I should think about baseball,
a desperate part of her suggested.
I like baseball,
an honest part of her argued.

Unify yourself!
the wisest division of her psyche commanded all the other squabbling subdivisions forcefully.
Be strong, and be calm, and be emotionless. Everything will be okay. You should turn around.
So, knowing that it was the wisest part of herself which advised this, Visola obeyed it.
I am bulletproof,
declared the brave bits. There were quite a few of those.
Only because my clothes are made of Kevlar,
explained the derisive portion. She ignored this last comment, and was able to make herself tranquil and strong before she finally turned around.

Some good all that mental preparation had been. She saw him and knew that she should not have come. Aazuria had been right to lock her up. She silently wished that this was all a nightmare; at any moment she would surely wake up comfortable and protected on the luxurious floor of her prison cell. She held her breath. At any moment now. Really, any moment. Hard floor? Vertical bars? Okay, so never mind—this was real, devastatingly real.

Meeting the scrutiny of his steel-grey eyes made her feel sweltering hot and bitterly cold at the same time. It was a thousandfold more difficult to tolerate the intensity of his gaze when it was penetrating her skull from the front instead of the rear. She felt like her eyes did not offer as much protection as the dense bones of her skull had. He was already piercing beyond her eyeballs to knead her memories with his knuckles, and to dissect her thoughts with his fingernails. She tried to get past the pain in her skull to objectively observe her enemy. His jet-black hair was pulled back into its classic ponytail at the nape of his neck. Had he not changed his hairstyle in all this time? Had he not grown hideous with all the horrible deeds he had done?

It did not seem possible, but he looked exactly the same. Except for his eyes; those vicious grey-blue eyes would have terrified any lesser woman to tears. Visola could not help seeing the blatant resemblance to her daughter in his face. Although Alcyone’s coloring was closer to Visola’s own, there was still
so much
of Vachlan in her. Seeing this; seeing the glimpses of Alcyone in this man who was little more than a stranger, drew her spirit to him involuntarily. Visola realized that she had to face the terrible truth.

She was not strong enough to face the father of her child.

What woman ever was? For all that he was, and all that he had done, all she saw when she looked at him was her Vachlan. Not only did she feel exactly the same towards him as she always had, but seeing Alcyone reflected in him made her love him a little more. She hated herself for being so demented. She made a mental note to kill herself later to end this incurable dementia.

She noticed that Vachlan’s deathly-grey eyes were scanning every square inch of her body. He was probably searching for prominent adverse changes that could have occurred in the last couple centuries, and he was probably disappointed to find none. Her hairstyle had not changed at all either. She still wore it in her signature wildfire-cut. (This meant that when it got so long that it became bothersome, she grabbed a handful and chopped off five to ten inches with whatever sharp item was at hand.) Visola watched as his eyes lingered on her hair and her face. Then he did the unthinkable. He smiled.

She knew she was in great peril. She would feel safer with a knife nestled between her ribs.

“
How’s my ferocious little Glacier Gladiator?
” he asked her fondly.
“I see you met the welcoming party.”

She knew it. She had known it! He always began with a charming witticism to throw his opponent off their game. Luckily she had mentally prepared for this banter, and her retort was at the tip of her fingers. What was it again? What had she decided on? Something about a booty call and an alligator. Oh, she would call him such affectionate names that he would be completely confused and disoriented! If only she could remember exactly what she had planned.

“Release my sister,”
she found herself demanding.

“Visola! Beloved wife, no greeting for me after all this time? Why should I let Sionna go?”

“I am here, like you requested. It is fair.”

“Since when do I care about what is fair? Since when do you care?”

Visola licked her lips, although it was a futile motion underwater. Her lips were obviously already moistened, but the pressure of her tongue caressing them made her feel as though she were preparing for something. She was.

Visola pulled her small tanto-knife from its concealed sheath at her side. She would never surrender
all
of her weapons
.
She spoke with one hand, and mouthed the words as she positioned the blade.
“If I do not have evidence of Sionna’s safety within ten seconds, I will commit hara-kiri and deprive you of all the fun you could have with torturing me. Do you really want to be a widower? It would mean that when you were bedding dozens of strange women you wouldn’t be doing anything wrong, and that might take some of the thrill out of it.”

“Your wit, darling! How I’ve missed it.”
Vachlan’s small smile widened even as Visola placed the dagger against her lower abdomen. He had always appreciated that she was capable of humor in the bleakest of situations.
“Come now. You are too much of a wimp to disembowel yourself, Visola,”
he told her impatiently.
“You know that I hold all the cards. I have no reason to give up your sister. Quit being dramatic. Killing yourself, or at least threatening to do so, won’t buy her freedom.”

“No, but it will save me from having to look at your ugly face,”
she said with a smug smile. Sionna was off the table. He would not return her sister to her. She had ventured all this way for nothing. Sionna was lost.

More importantly, he had insulted her honor by calling her a wimp, and he had also called her dramatic; no one got away with speaking to her like that. She needed to find a way to punish him that would result in instant gratification for her. Now that she was here, surrounded by the enemy, Vachlan was smiling because he was about to do Sedna-knows-what with her—whatever he had planned would surely be disgraceful. It seemed that he did not remember the one crucial element about her personality: challenging her, or saying that she was not capable of doing something was her easiest, most effective source of motivation for doing that same thing. He really did not believe she was serious!

She was. She would much rather die by her own hands instantly now than slowly by his. It was time to make a stylish statement. Pushing her armor down out of the way, Visola gritted her teeth and sliced the dagger across her stomach, from left-to-right. With her free hand, she reached down into her stomach and yanked out a handful of her own guts. Searing pain shot through her body, and for a moment it felt like she had taken some new designer drug. If she had been on land she might have fallen, but the water kept her buoyant. The satisfaction was intense. She fought to stay conscious against the dizzy, blinding pain. She wanted to laugh, but she knew this would contort the muscles in her abdomen and that would not be fun.

Why did she feel more secure with her guts in her hand? It had something to do with power, she imagined, but she was in too much agony to think coherently. Everyone around her was too shocked to take any kind of action. It was not every day that a pretty girl flashed you with her internal organs; this was way better than pay-per-view!

A kernel of wisdom came to Visola and reminded her that this might not kill her. Usually when one was performing seppuku, a good buddy would be around to finish the job with a beheading. She decided to improvise. She generated a few last internal thoughts about the people whom she loved; she sent an apology to her sister for being unable to save her, and an apology to Aazuria for disobeying her. She sent love to her daughter and her grandsons. Feeling satisfied with these absolving thoughts, she slammed her dagger between her ribs instead, aiming for a major artery. Suicide was a thing which had to be done right, and she was very serious about this. There was a gurgle in her throat, and she felt the consistency of a different liquid congesting her lungs. She knew that if anyone deserved to drown in their own blood, she certainly did. This was final.

She did feel safer with a knife nestled between her ribs.

None of the dozens of men who were witness to her action could deny that this was honorable. Perhaps they would tell stories about it later to their wives and children. This thought made Visola smile. Gone, but not forgotten, thanks to her dramatic gesture.
I spent too much time around Queen Amabie,
Visola thought to herself.
Seppuku isn’t supposed to be reflexive. Well, I think she’d be proud of me.

The look in Vachlan’s eyes was extremely rewarding. At least she would die knowing that she could still surprise him. She could still deprive him of that which he wished to possess. She could beat him by exerting what little control was hers in this situation, by destroying that which he wished to destroy. Visola had preserved the sanctity of her self in being the one to cause its end.

She lifted her hand from the hilt of the knife, and dropped her intestines with the other hand. She used her last bit of energy to form the only facetious, glib quip which came to mind:

“
Happy Anniversary, Submarine Cowboy.”

She realized as she signed the words that she should have given her final phrase a few more seconds more of careful thought. It could have been so much more humorous, and so much more sardonic, if only she possessed a few more seconds of life in which to deliberate. Maybe she could have even included some alliteration or assonance. Visola was usually so clever and original with her usage of condescending pet names, but the pressure of the situation had placed a serious damper on her creativity, and she could not help feeling the slightest twinge of disappointment.

Although looking at Vachlan (who was moving toward her with a frown on his handsome face) definitely made her welcome and embrace her fast-impending death, the incomplete feeling of not having chosen the perfectly patronizing pet-name gave her the slightest yearning for life. Oh, the mortifying and ludicrous monikers she could have mustered if only her aim was a little less true and her strike a little less steadfast!

Nevertheless, Vachlan seemed deeply unhappy with her state of rapid expiration. This was reward enough for her. As her world darkened, she dimly wondered if anyone had ever successfully denied her husband his kicks like this before.

New Holland, 1797

The solid gold chess pieces were heavy enough to play with underwater; they did not float around like the cheap pieces of wood that children often recovered from shipwrecks. There were few greater joys for a sea-dwelling child than to explore a shipwreck with their playmates, searching for treasure. Occasionally, they would even come across skeletons or decaying bodies, and they would run screaming from the ship in horror. Shipwrecks were hands-down the best places to tell ghost-stories.

At this moment, the
Tizheruk
was anchored in the harbor, floating above the water, and she was not yet wrecked. Hopefully she would not be wrecked anytime soon, for there was a long journey home. To the delegation from Adlivun, a shipwreck would be inconvenient and annoying, but not particularly dangerous. They could just board one of the other boats in the fleet or swim the rest of the way.

Slim fingers picked up a queen and hovered over the board. After a moment’s hesitation, the queen violently descended, knocking over a rook. “There. I know what you were planning,” Visola said, giving her opponent a look of superiority. “Now what’s this about a new advisor?”

“It is none of your concern, child.”

“Yes, it is. Uncle Sigarr has always been your advisor, Father Kyrosed. He served your father before you. I know you two had a disagreement before we left Adlivun…”

“Sigarr is old and senile,” Kyrosed said, stretching back in his chair as he studied the chessboard. The two were killing time while Aazuria entertained the Yawkyawk leaders in another part of the ship. “Contrary to what your uncle thinks, the world has changed since the Magna Carta was signed, and he refuses to change along with it.”

Visola frowned at these untrue accusations. Kyrosed was a hypocrite. The document he mentioned was one meant to limit the power of kings, and he did not seem to acknowledge that this might be necessary underwater as much as it was on land. “Are you going to demote my uncle?”

“Demote?” Kyrosed laughed. “No. I have already ordered him into exile.”

Visola paused. She did not know why she was surprised by this. She looked down at her hands, which sat in her lap, and clenched them into fists. She thought to herself that she had not even gotten a chance to say goodbye. Realizing that her thoughts had been in Russian, she quickly rephrased the same thoughts in English. Her fingernails dug painfully into her closed palm. “Who shall take his place? Who else is qualified? Uncle Sigarr was irreplaceable.”

“A new advisor will be joining us soon, someone with respectable European lineage. He is arriving on a ship from Calcutta. I think you will find him to be a brilliant warrior. He has fascinating ideas, and he is going to help us assimilate the Yawkyawk people.”

“King Kyrosed, the Yawkyawk are never going to agree to be assimilated,” Visola said.

“That is why we are going to convince them, Colonel Ramaris.”

“Princess Aazuria has been telling you that it would be impossible for years; these people love this southern continent. New Holland is their home. We cannot displace them to
Alyeska
so easily.”

“Why are you listening to my daughter’s humanitarian drivel?” he asked. He moved a bishop three spaces diagonally. “You and I both know that we need to inflate our numbers and grow our empire. We will instill fear in the Yawkyawk. We will generate a mass migration.”

She looked down at the chessboard, trying to conceal her frustration. “Since Queen Undina died… since you returned from Russia, you have been a changed man, King Kyrosed.”

“With good reason. I met people there of great insight, and they foresee great changes in the future of the world. This young man who will join us; he is a visionary who will not only fill your uncle’s shoes, but innovate entirely new kinds of footwear.”

“Wonderful,” Visola said. She moved a pawn one space forward. “Just keep him away from my feet. I like my shoes.”

“I will introduce you two when he gets here. He’s quite remarkable. Those British…”

“Of course!” Visola said with a groan. “Is this some new obsession of yours, Father Kyrosed? First you insist that all of Adlivun has to speak English, and then you import strange men to fill important positions…”

“The English have conquered the land.”

“They certainly have not,” Visola said, rolling her eyes. “They do not have
Alyeska
. They may have claimed part of New Holland, and begun shipping prisoners here, but there is still so much…”

“You are so young, child,” King Kyrosed said with a small smile. “They will soon have all of this land and much more.”

“They do not have any influence over us, or any other part of the submerged world. It stands to reason that they never will.”

“No, but they present an excellent model for the way we should govern ourselves and our neighbors in our world. Adlivun could be the underwater counterpart of Britain if we position ourselves correctly.”

He moved his queen five spaces horizontally. Visola sighed, preparing herself for another one of the King’s speeches. She watched the chessboard while he ranted, and tried to drown him out.

“Yonaguni is like France. Like us, they are an undersea superpower. We will never own them, and it would be foolish to try. More can be gained from mutual respect than from squabbling with the Ningyo.”

Visola tried to conceal a small smile. What he meant to say was that the Japanese could destroy them. Although Queen Amabie was older than the Arctic leader, she could easily take King Kyrosed in a fight. Visola would bet money on it and enjoy watching. Why had he moved his queen there? Her knight could take it. Was he trying to draw her knight away from that section of the board? Or had he genuinely overlooked something?

“What about Bimini?” she asked as she cautiously moved her rook instead. She took his knight. “What is your analogy for them?”

“They are like Russia, maybe,” Kyrosed said, as he moved his bishop. “We could take Bimini if we wanted to.”

“We could
not
take Bimini,” Visola said. “Must we speak in English, King Kyrosed? Even here in private? It gives me a headache to constantly have to think about the conjugations.”

“Yes, Colonel Ramaris,” the king answered as he looked at her sternly. “We have to get used to it. Also, you must remember to call me Father Kyrosed in front of the Yawkyawk. It makes me seem kinder.”

She looked down at the chessboard in disgust. She already had a father. “So what did you offer to pay this man?”

“He and I had a connection. I offered him anything he wanted.”

“And what did he want?” she asked him.

“Oh, just the usual. Gold, mostly,” Kyrosed said. He looked at Visola knowingly. “He also has a thing for redheads.”

“Excellent.” She laughed and stretched her arms. “Because there are no redheads from here to Europe. What are you really paying him with?”

“He is not only interested in material payment. He and I share a common vision for underwater world domination. He is a very rare man.” Kyrosed moved his knight before winking at Visola. “Also, he likes his redheads feisty.”

“Good Sedna!” Visola said, nearly tipping over the chessboard. “I am one of your chief military officials. If my father knew that you said things like this, he would be very displeased. How can you treat me like currency?”

“If you would agree to lie down with me, then I might treat you with a bit more favoritism,” Kyrosed said, moving his queen. “Check.”

“You’re disgusting,” Visola said, before looking down at the chessboard. She was so disturbed by the mental image of sleeping with this man whom she so despised that she did not take enough time to choose where to move her king. She moved it one space backwards in retreat.

“You should consider being with me, Visola. We could have great fun together. I hear I am extremely skilled with my tongue.” Kyrosed leaned forward and smiled at her lustfully. “Check.”

“King Kyrosed!” Visola rose to her feet, slamming her hand on the table and making the pieces all jump. “We have had this conversation countless times. If you mention it again, I’m going to take my sister and go to Yonaguni,” Visola told him. “Queen Amabie would treat me much better than this.”

“Bullshit. You would never leave Aazuria. You have been her protector since you two were children, and you are far too attached.”

“But do I love her more than I hate you?” Visola said with a sneer.

“That is no way to speak to your king, Colonel Ramaris. You’re in check, by the way,” Kyrosed said with a smile. “You forget that I know you. You hate learning new languages and your Japanese is poor.”

“I would manage.”

“I have contacts in Japan. I would send them to kill you if you ever left Adlivun.”

“Who?” Visola demanded.

“For one, Kishibe.”

“I have heard of him. He is a ruffian with a drinking problem. He could never kill me.”

“Kishibe is a great warrior. If he can’t manage to kill you, there’s always the more vulnerable Sionna.”

“Don’t you dare bring my sister into any of this! If anything ever happens to her, and I even suspect you are responsible, I will castrate you!”

“Curb your insolent tongue, child! Show some respect to your superiors, and move your damned king out of check!”

Visola clamped her mouth shut, seething with anger. She looked down to the chessboard, her eyes blurry with emotion. It suddenly occurred to her that Kyrosed was provoking her so he could win the game. That would be just like him. She sat down again, and tried to decide what to do with her king. She noticed that she could still take his queen with her knight, and she did so.

“Excellent move,” Kyrosed said. He moved his bishop to take her knight. “Be calm, Visola. When we return to Adlivun I will raise your salary. You and Sionna and your father will be very wealthy.”

“What about Uncle Sigarr? Will you end his exile and let him return?”

“No.”

Visola sighed. She ran a hand through her hair before moving her rook. She had been bored in her quarters, and had petitioned the king for a game of chess, but now she regretted it. Loneliness was better than the maddening intensity of his company.

“You know, my new advisor mentioned to me that he fancies having twin redheads. Together,” Kyrosed told her, as he moved his bishop again. “Check.”

Visola swallowed her angry retort. She looked down at the chessboard, considering whether to fight or surrender. She moved her rook. “This goes against tradition, King Kyrosed. The Ramaris and Vellamo families have been close for millennia. My ancestors have died for your house, and yours have died for mine. You should not treat my Uncle this way.” 

“The world is changing rapidly, and so must we. Checkmate.”

Visola was glad that the never-ending game was finally over. She rose and marched to the door, yearning to be away from Kyrosed’s aura of slime.