A Rule of Queens

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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.”

“And yet, even the great fall,” Bokbu prodded.

Gwen nodded, seeing he understood.

“And what happened?” another chieftain asked.

As she reflected on their fall, Gwendolyn wondered the same thing.

“The Empire,” she said. “The same as you.”

They all fell into a gloomy silence.

“What if we were to join you?” Atme said, breaking the silence. “What if we were to attack them with you?”

Bokbu shook his heads.

“The city of Volusia is well-fortified, well-manned. And they outnumber us a thousand to one.”

“Surely, there must be something that could bring down the Empire?” Brandt asked.

The elders looked at each other cautiously, then after a long pause, Bokbu said:

“The Giants, perhaps.”

“The Giants?” Gwen asked, intrigued.

Bokbu nodded.

“There are rumors of their existence. In the far reaches of the Empire.”

Aberthol spoke up:

“The Land of the Giants,” he said. “A land with creatures so tall, their feet could crush a thousand men. The Land of the Giants is a land of myth. A convenient myth. It was disproved in our fathers’ fathers’ time.”

“Whether you are right or wrong, no one knows,” Bokbu said. “But one thing we do know is that the Giants, at one time, existed. And that they are fickle. You might as well try to tame a wild beast. They might just as easily kill you as the Empire. They do not seek justice; they do not seek to take sides. They only seek bloodshed. Even if they still existed, even if you found them, you would more likely end up dead by visiting them than by invading Volusia.”

A long silence fell over them all as Gwen studied the flames, pondering it all.

“Is there no other place?” Gwendolyn asked, as all eyes turned to her. “Once our people heal, is there no other place in the Empire we can go where we can be safe? Where we can start again?”

The elders exchanged a long look, and finally, they nodded to each other.

Bokbu raised his staff, reached out, and began to draw in the dirt. Gwendolyn was surprised at how skilled he was, as she watched an intricate map unfold before her, and all her people crowded around. She watched as the contours of the Empire took shape, and was in awe at how vast and complex it was.

“Do you recognize it?” he asked her as he finally finished.

Gwendolyn examined it, all the different regions and provinces, dozens and dozens of them. She looked at the odd shape of the Empire lands, it center rectangular, and in each of its four corners, a long, curved peninsula jutting out in opposite directions. They each looked like a bull’s horn. The four horns of the Empire, her father used to say. Now she understood.

“I do,” she said. “I once spent an entire moon in the house of the scholars, studying ancient maps of the Ring and of the Empire. The four corners are the four horns for the four directions and those two spikes are of the North and the South. In the center is the Great Waste.”

Bokbu looked back at her, wide-eyed, impressed.

“You are the only outsider who has ever known this,” he said. “Your learning must be great indeed.”

He paused.

“Yes, the very shape of the Empire belies its nature. Horns. Spikes. Waste. They are vast lands, with many regions in between. Not to mention the islands, which I’ve not even drawn here. There is much that is uncharted and unknown. Much is rumor. Some wishful thinking passed down from those who were enslaved too long. We no longer know what’s true. Maps are living things, and mapmakers lie as much as kings. All maps are politics. And all maps are power.”

There came a long silence, nothing save the crackling of the fire, as Gwen pondered his words.

“Before the time of Antochin,” Bokbu finally continued, “before the time of my father’s and your father, there was a time when the Ring and the Empire were one. Before the Great Divide. Before the Canyon. Your men of armor, of steel, legend has it, split from each other. Half left for the Ring and half stayed behind. If it is true, then somewhere, in the midst of these Empire lands, the kingdom of the Second Ring lives.”

Gwendolyn paused, her mind racing.

“The Second Ring?” she asked, under her breath, growing with excitement. It was all coming back to her, all her reading. It was hazy, and she could not quite remember all of it; she had thought it was a children’s fable.

“More myth than fact,” Aberthol chimed in, his old voice cutting into the air as he stepped forward to look at the map. “Between the four horns and the two spikes,” he began to recite, “between the ancient shores and the Twin Lakes, north of the Altbu—”

“—and south of the Reche,” Bokbu finished, “the Second Ring resides.”

Aberthol and the chief locked eyes with each other, each recognizing the old writings by heart.

“A myth from centuries past,” Aberthol said. “You trade old wives’ tales and myths here. That is your currency.”

“Some call it myth,” Bokbu said. “And some, fact.”

Aberthol shook his head doggedly.

“The chances of an alternate Ring are remote,” Aberthol said. “To stake the hopes of our people on such a venture would be to stake our future on death.”

Gwen studied Bokbu and she could see the seriousness on his face, and she felt he truly believed that the Second Ring existed. He studied the map he had drawn, his face grave.

“Years ago,” Bokbu finally continued, his voice grave, “when I was a young boy, I saw a sword of steel, and a breastplate, brought into this village. It was found, my father said, in the desert, on a dying man. A man who looked like your people, with pale skin. A man who wore a suit of steel, who had armor with the same markings as yours. He died before he could tell us where he was from, and we hid the armor on fear of death.”

Bokbu sighed.

“I believe the Second Ring exists,” he added. “If you can find it, if you can reach it, perhaps you can find a home, a true home, in the Empire.”

“Another place to hide from the Empire?” Kendrick said, derisively.

“If the Second Ring exists,” Bokbu said, “it is so well-hidden that they are not hiding. They are living. It is a remote chance, my lady,” he concluded, “but a chance nonetheless.”

Before Gwen could process it all, a shrill voice suddenly cut through the night. At first it was a shriek, and then it morphed into a long cry, and then a sustained chanting.

Gwen turned as all the men fell silent and sat back and watched, as there stepped forward a woman with long black hair falling down to her waist, palms up by her side, and a red silk scarf wrapped about her neck. She leaned back, raised her hands to the heavens, and chanted a solemn song. She chanted louder and louder, and as she did, the flames on all the bonfires leapt higher.

“Spirits of the flames!” she chanted. “Visit us. Let us pay our respects. Tell us what you have to tell us. Let us see what we cannot!”

Gwendolyn flinched and jumped back as the fire before her began to spark and grow brighter. She looked and was shocked to see shapes swirling within it. She felt her hairs stand on end.

The seer’s chanting slowed, then stopped, as she came over and stood over Gwendolyn. Gwen felt fear as the seer’s glowing yellow eyes stared back at her.

“Ask me what you will,” the seer said, her voice inhumanly dark.

Gwen sat there, trembling inside, wanting to ask, wanting to know, but afraid to. What if it was not the answer she sought?

Finally, she summoned the courage.

“Thorgrin,” Gwendolyn said, barely getting out the words. “Guwayne. Tell me. Do they live?”

There was a long silence, as the seer turned her back on her and faced the fire. She reached down and threw two fistfuls of dirt into the flames. The fire sparked and shot up, and the seer, her back to Gwendolyn, began muttering dark words Gwen did not understand.

Finally, she turned to her, her glowing yellow eyes fixed on hers. Gwen could not look away if she wanted to.

“Your baby will not return as you know him,” she pronounced darkly. “And your husband, as we speak, is entering the Land of the Dead.”

“NO!” Gwendolyn wailed, her cry rising above the incessant crackling of the flames.

She stood in outrage, felt her heart beating too fast, felt her whole body go weak. The world began to spin, and the last thing she saw was Steffen and Kendrick behind her, getting ready to catch her, and she fell into their arms and her world went black.