The Light-Field (35 page)

‘No offence, Your Majesty, but I am not the one masking my identity?' Anselm repressed an urge to smile. ‘Why do you find it so difficult to understand that I mean you no harm?'

The queen removed the masked helmet and dropped it, but not even her furious expression could taint her timeless beauty. ‘You stole the heir to the throne of Phemoria! My daughter!'

‘
Our
daughter,' he said before freely admitting: ‘Yes, I did.'

‘You admit it?' She seemed surprised he had the guts.

‘I do,' he confirmed again.

Taren chanced a glance across to Lucian, who was looking a mite concerned about what was going on directly above the queen. ‘Trouble?' she whispered.

Lucian frowned. ‘They're not happy,' he advised. Still, Yasper was on alert to help out if there was trouble.

‘But today I have brought our daughter back to you, as a sign of my goodwill,' Anselm announced to the great shock of the queen and all her attendees.

‘You don't want to try my patience, Anselm,' the Qusay-Sabah Clarona was saying, when Taren came forward to stand beside her father.

‘He's not lying. Here I am,' Taren announced, and the queen didn't know what to say or think.

‘And I am just supposed to take your word for this?' The queen took a seat in her throne, looking Taren over very closely.

‘Surely you can look into my face and —' Taren began to ascend the stairs to the address platform, but the queen held a hand up to prevent it.

‘Stay where you are,' she ordered, ‘or I shall set my guard on you.'

This was not the warm reception Taren had received last time around, when the queen had genetic proof of her kinship. ‘Do you not see a family resemblance in me, to someone you once —'

‘Satomi,' the queen uttered, looking straight past Taren.

Of course,
Taren considered that her mother had etheric world sight too; she had to have to be Queen of Phemoria! Taren looked back to Lucian, who joined her.

‘It's Satomi,' he murmured in her ear. ‘She's saying something to the queen … I can't understand it …' He returned his gaze to the spot above the queen's head, ‘but it's really getting them riled.' He referred to the seething mass protecting the crown, when suddenly all the doors in the chamber slammed closed in protest.

‘Stick with me, let's do this.' Taren made a move toward her mother, which was the cue for the rest of the team to move into action. ‘That's right, my dearest foremothers, we've come to claim my mother back!' Taren raised her voice in challenge, and with a wave of her arm all the doors in the room flung open once more. As the Valoureans made a move to defend their queen, Yasper rose into the air to urge caution. Ringbalin took up Taren and Lucian's flank to prevent anyone reaching them, and Jazmay, Mythric and Leal surrounded Anselm — the goal was to do this without anyone getting hurt.

‘They're massing,' Lucian said to Taren, referring to the thought form, getting ready to attack them. Once the angry mass began its dive toward them, Lucian let Taren know with a squeeze of his hand in hers. She shifted them, with a thought, to behind her mother's throne.

Yasper watched for their reappearance and looked to where Lucian was directing him. He began waving his arms about to draw the attention of the thought form. ‘Hey ladies, I'm all yours.' He held his arms open wide and in a second he found himself in the middle of an all in brawl he couldn't see.

With a thought, Taren removed the crown from her mother's head and cast it across the room. A case made of osmium appeared and it locked around the crown, encasing it within.

Yasper's peril ended. With a final wail, he came to a stop in midair and breathed a sigh of relief.

The Valoureans advanced and Mythric focused his intention on making them run on the spot, but when they started casting weapons at him he froze them altogether. Ringbalin caught the viceroy pulling a blade, which she intended to use on Taren. When he grabbed hold of her, Jalila turned the weapon on him, but found she was too filled with goodwill to use it. ‘We are the answer to your greatest wish, Viceroy Lamus. All will be well with your people now, you'll see.' He took the blade from her hand.

Her frustration at wanting to kill and hug him at once conflicted and brought tears to her eyes. ‘Why should you care what happens to my people?'

‘We are all one,' he told her. Although she was perplexed by his answer, she could feel his good intention and without question, believed it.

‘Is this a siege?' she asked, casting her eyes around the room at the frozen Valoureans and her stupefied queen, who was shaking and weeping uncontrollably.

‘It is a liberation,' he commented, as President Anselm approached the mother of his child.

‘Clarona?' He knelt before the crumbling woman. ‘We have both been horribly deceived, for the longest time,' he said.

‘Yes,' she managed to agree, and forced a smile. ‘Thank you … for … coming … I couldn't —' The queen collapsed forward and Anselm caught her.

‘That didn't happen before,' Lucian recalled. ‘She was weak, but she did stay conscious long enough to take the heat off us.'

‘That's not good.' Taren came round to join her father.

‘Help us?' Ringbalin beseeched Jalila Lamus.

‘There is a chamber through here,' the viceroy lead off toward a door at the rear of the throne room. ‘I will send for the queen's physician.'

 

Once the queen was comfortably resting, their party returned to the throne room to await the doctor's prognosis, where the glaring eyes of fifty Valoureans bored holes through them.

‘What was I saying about being ambushed?' Anselm posed to his daughter.

‘We're the ambush,' she bantered. ‘This is just a minor hiccup.'

‘Can't you make them close their eyes?' Yasper asked Mythric, about the evil-eyed Valoureans.

‘No, they tend to lose balance and tip over if you do that,' he replied, and Yasper grinned.

‘Valourean tipping,' he joked and Mythric shook his head.

‘I wouldn't go there if you don't want to be beaten up by women twice in one day.' He took a seat on the stairs and Yasper approached Anselm.

‘Mr President, sir? I know you've got a lot on your mind right now, but I was wondering if I could ask you about something?'

‘You may.' Anselm looked to Taren to see if she knew what this was about.

‘This is Yasper Ronan,
Chief
Ronan's son,' she jogged his memory, having spoken about Yasper's situation to her father earlier.

‘Ah,' Anselm looked back to the soldier, ‘I know what this might be about … aren't you the one who tried to seduce my daughter —'

‘Dad!' Taren cut in; even in the most serious moment, he had to tease her.

‘This would be about your sibling then.' He invited Yasper to sit on the throne beside him.

‘Boy or a girl?' Yasper asked as he sat.

‘Boy,' Anselm replied.

‘A brother.' He smiled, pleased. ‘Dead or alive?'

‘Alive,' Anselm was pleased to advise.

Yasper burst into a huge smile, clearly excited. ‘Do you know where I might find him?'

Anselm nodded. ‘Last I heard he'd been assigned by the inter-system gateway network to try to open the old gateway through to Maladaan's neighbouring star system.'

‘Telmo Dacre!' Taren deduced, shocked and excited by the announcement.

Anselm nodded.

‘But you said you didn't know who Telmo was?' She remembered the very conversation, and her father shrugged.

‘I had a secret to keep, just like Ronan did,' he justified. ‘Now Ronan wants the truth known, I am free to tell it.'

‘You know my little brother?' Yasper was out of the throne and in Taren's face.

‘From the other time line,' she explained.

‘Whoa!' Yasper was overjoyed. ‘What does he do? What's he like?'

‘Well he —' She spotted the royal physician entering the throne room with Jalila Lamus, and all eyes turned her way.

‘She is awake,' the viceroy announced, whereupon everyone breathed a sigh of relief. ‘The Qusay-Sabah Clarona is asking to see Jabez.'

Anselm was very surprised that she would summon him by his first name. There had only been one short day that she had called him by that name — the day Taren was conceived. She had never called him Jabez since, as days later she was crowned Queen of Phemoria and cast into madness.

The president accompanied the viceroy back into the queen's private chamber, and Taren crossed her fingers that the Grigori were right about their love for one another.

Lucian gave Taren a hug and a kiss on the head for support. ‘Hopefully we can cross two items off your list this day.'

‘Here's hoping.'

‘Hey, boss.' Mythric came forward. ‘I was thinking we should get Amie down here to wipe the minds of these Valoureans and send them on their way. There were a few things mentioned during this meeting that might be better forgotten for now.'

‘Good call.' Taren was about to suggest she assume wilful control of the Valoureans from Mythric, when Zeven suddenly appeared with Amie.

‘Aurora said you needed Amie.' He let her go, and she was staggering. ‘So what's happening? Whoa!' He turned and stared at all the glaring Valoureans. ‘They looked really pissed.'

‘That's why we need, Amie.' Taren looked to her, and Amie's eyes boggled at the small army she had to bemuse.

‘What do you want me to implant?'

‘Let them believe that the meeting between their queen and Anselm went swimmingly well, and they are all dismissed for lunch.'

‘I'll get to it.' She moved to the beginning of the line to alter the first guard's memory of events and send her on her way.

 

A few hours passed before Jalila Lamus returned to advise that the queen was now asking to see her daughter and Spyridon Vidor.

‘Me?' Mythric was startled, but then figured it was his ghostly partner that the queen really wanted to see. He raised himself to accompany Taren to where the ruler was recuperating.

When they entered, the queen was no longer infirm, but sitting in the lounging chamber with Anselm, smiling broadly for the first time in forty-five long years. ‘Your father tells me that Taren is the name you are now known by.' She rose to stand. ‘And he also tells me that it was you who masterminded my release from the Phemoray.'

‘Yes,' Taren confirmed on both counts. ‘But we are not rid of the Phemoray yet, they are only contained.'

‘I know,' her mother concurred, clearly proud of her daughter's knowledge and foresight. ‘I am touched that either of you would take such a huge risk to free me … they would have come after you next. I was already helping them track you down.' She began to tremble with trepidation at the thought. Taren had already converted the queen's spy, Ayliscia Portus, to AMIE's cause, so she need not have worried. ‘You might have ended up like poor Satomi.' Clarona looked
in Mythric's direction, and tears were in his eyes. ‘I never understood why she fled Phemoria, until that crown was placed on my head.'

‘She wanted to protect you. She spent decades in hiding in the hope of finding a means to do it,' Mythric assured her. ‘It took Taren to figure out the curse of Phemoray.'

‘I know Satomi feels she abandoned me, but I am glad she escaped this cursed realm, if only for a little while.' Clarona shed a tear. ‘Mother went quite mad after her secret pregnancy. She was taunted by ghastly spirits that she claimed fathered her unwanted son.'

‘Your mother was not mad — Khalid was an abomination,' Mythric said with spite. ‘I didn't realise how powerful he was until it was too late. If I'd known then what I knew after that night, Satomi would still —'

‘Shhh!' the Phemorian queen urged and, as she approached Mythric, he fell on one knee before her. ‘Satomi has nothing but praise for you, Spyridon.' She placed a hand on his head in comfort. ‘Now that the veil of insanity has been lifted from my eyes and I have my free will back, it is my wish that you return my beloved sister's body to Phemoria where it belongs.' The queen was in tears again, and Anselm came over to steady her.

‘You don't have to try to right everything you did in forty years in just a few hours.' He suggested escorting her back to a seat, but she turned to Taren, who was close by.

‘My daughter, my heroine.' Clarona brushed a hand across her cheek and then embraced her. ‘You will make a formidable queen.'

‘No, Mother.' Taren wiggled free and grabbed her mother's hands in her own. ‘No more monarchical rule; Phemoria needs a government like Sermetica, where those of royal birth earn their right to rule, if they feel that is their vocation.'

Clarona was completely shocked by Taren's words. ‘Why did you do this, if not to secure your inheritance?'

‘I did it so that the people I might have been responsible for will have a better future, with or without me,' Taren replied and Clarona had to sit down.

‘Why do I suddenly feel like the child here?' she observed.

‘I know exactly what you mean.' Anselm sat down opposite Clarona. ‘But, you know, Taren has whipped me back into line fairly well and my planet has truly prospered for it. All I had to do was face the fear that my all predecessors were afraid to face. And now I wonder what we have all been so afraid of. What those on Maladaan are still living in fear of!'

‘It hardly makes sense that Maladaan would hold their fear so well, when it was Sermetica that the Phemorians harmed with their psychic uprising,' Clarona reasoned.

‘They are just doing whatever they can to ensure a psychic revolution never occurs there,' Anselm supposed.

‘But they are using my invention to aid them, and that's not on!' Taren let them both know that she wanted support on addressing that little issue.