The Golden Queen

Chapter 21

Everynne backed away, feeling faint. Xim leapt into the air, landed before her at ten yards, and advanced with battle arms fully extended.

Everynne recalled dully that her gloves were weapons with metal inserts in the knuckles. She raised her hands and shouted.

Suddenly Gallen jumped in front of her, arms crossed at the wrists. He fell down on his knees and shouted, “Lord Xim, I beg you to show mercy to our Golden, as Lord Veriasse showed mercy to your queen. Do not kill her, but mar her only.”

Everynne did not know if the dronon understood Gallen. He did not have a translator. Everynne repeated his words, shouting so that the microphone roared her plea.

Lord Xim leapt over Gallen, advanced on her. His mouthfingers tapped over his voice drum. “I will not spare a Tharrin. You have lost your right to live.”

For one second, Everynne stared up into Xim’s faceted clusters of eyes. Each eye reflected a small image of her, fists raised, defiant.

Xim lifted his battle arms for the killing blow, and she suddenly realized that he thought she would make it easy, he thought she would submit to his punishment as if she were a dronon queen.

She screamed and leapt, smashed his right eye cluster with a fist. Xim twisted, caught her with his sensor whips, and smashed her to the ground. There was a great rushing in her ears, and the world twisted violently. In the distance, she could hear Orick shouting her name.

Gallen leapt up from his kneeling position, spun. He had not understood Xim’s reply to his plea for mercy, so he had remained kneeling.

Now Xim had Everynne on the ground. He raised a battle arm and clubbed her. The blow struck home with a sickening thud, and Orick roared in grief, jumped on the dronon and grabbed Xim’s rear leg, biting into it and pulling back.

The dronon vanquisher leapt, trying to flee the unexpected attack, and part of his carapace came away in Orick’s mouth. Gallen could suddenly see Everynne’s body, crimson blood washing over her golden clothing. Her hand trembled violently.

Orick roared and charged in for a second attack, but Xim backed away, raised his battle arms and chopped a slicing blow that ripped through Orick’s right shoulder.

Orick yelped in pain, spun away from the battle, and Xim buzzed his wings and jumped into the air. He flew a lazy pattern while Orick madly danced in circles, blood and hair spattering across the grass. The dronon’s intent was clear. Orick was already mortally wounded. He did not need to engage in battle until the bear weakened further.

Maggie shouted at Gallen, “Do something! Save them!”

Gallen watched it all, and knew that by dronon law he could do nothing. If he tried to protect Everynne, he would only be destroyed, and he had promised Veriasse that he would clone Everynne, come at some time in the future and challenge the Lords of the Swarm again.

He shook his head at Maggie, shouted, “We can’t,” and saw the horror in her eyes. He recalled Primary Jagget’s predictions. Now that the dronon had formed gate keys, they would march through the Maze of Worlds. The Lords of the Swarm would conquer every realm. There would be no future. He had to act.

Everynne twisted on the floor, struggled for something in her pocket. Gallen stood, amazed that with such a wound she could still be alive. He watched her pull out the small vial of Hope. It rolled from her hand.

If I were the greatest warrior in the world, what would I do? Gallen wondered. And he stood, closed his eyes, and tried to clear his mind. He waited, but nothing came.

Maggie shouted at him, raised her hands over her head, crossing her wrists. “Gallen, I am Golden!”

He studied her face, wondering at the possibility. Could she challenge the dronon? And even if she won, what could she do. Maggie had suffered tremendously by wearing a Guide. The knowledge that it so ruthlessly imparted had ripped at the very fabric of her sanity, yet it was nothing compared to the wisdom of the omni-mind. To wear the mantle of Semarritte would destroy her. Even if it did not crush her as the Guide would have, it would tear away her identity.

All of Maggie’s hopes, all her thoughts and dreams would be like words written on a sandy beach, waiting to be erased by the onrushing tide.

“Are you sure?” Gallen shouted. No matter what happened, he was consigning her to destruction. Yet she alone had worked under the dominion of the Lords of the Swarm. She knew the price that whole worlds would pay if she failed.

“Please!” Maggie cried.

Gallen turned. Lord Xim was flying low over the arena, circling back to finish Orick.

Gallen raised his hands, crossed his wrists. “This world is ours! All worlds are ours! A Great Queen comes among you. Prostrate yourselves in adoration, or prepare to do battle!”

The room fell silent, and ten thousand vanquishers looked to Gallen. Lord Xim flew low over Orick, dropped in front of Gallen. The dronon began clicking his mouthfingers, and Gallen went to Veriasse’s corpse, pulled out the translator from his ear, plugged it into his own.

“You claim this woman is also Golden?” Lord Xim asked.

“Yes,” Gallen said. “She is a Golden from the world Tihrglas. All who know her adore her. I am Gallen O’Day, Lord Protector of that world, and her Lord Escort.”

He looked at Maggie, standing there with her long red hair streaming out, her clear blue eyes. He’d seen the longing in men’s faces as they watched her work in the inn back home. Nothing he said was a lie.

Yet Gallen feared that his plan would not work. The dronon lived by their rigid order, their code of honor. He only hoped that his actions and words fit within that order.

Xim seemed agitated by Gallen’s claim. His head swiveled from side to side, and he walked in a circle, dragging his injured leg. “You bring two Goldens and two Lord Escorts?” he asked, confused.

“Yes,” Gallen said. “We humans are soft. We did not think that one pair would be enough.”

Xim stopped in his tracks, raised his head questioningly, whip sensors waving. He tilted, so that his rear eye cluster faced his Golden Queen. “You must rule on this,” he begged.

The Golden Queen raised her head, studied Maggie and Gallen. “She is not a Tharrin,” the queen said, “and therefore cannot be a Golden among the humans.”

“Do you accept challenges only from the greatest hives in your realm?” Gallen asked. “Do only the Goldens who come from your greatest families deserve the privilege of battling for the Right of Succession? Maggie and I come from a small world, a Backward world. We don’t have any fancy lineage. We had never even heard of the Tharrin until a week ago, but on my world, Maggie is as Golden as they come.”

The Golden Queen’s whip sensors stopped waving as she considered his argument. “The omni-mind contains no useful information about your world or your culture,” she said after a long moment. “I cannot corroborate your claims. Still, if you seek to battle Xim, you will find only your own death. You may battle.”

Xim stalked over to Maggie, his whip-sensors waving. He pulled at her clothing, searched her scalp. Gallen didn’t know if Maggie had any scars. He’d never seen her undressed. Gallen held his breath. Xim’s prodding revealed a few moles on her back, nothing more. Throughout the search, Maggie simply glared at the lord, as if she wished only to bash in some more of his eyes.

When he finished, Xim raised his wings and shook them angrily. “Our offspring shall eat your carcasses! We shall rule your land! Your hive shall submit!”

Gallen could not remember what challenge Veriasse had called out next, so he was forced to innovate.

“Bullshit!” Gallen raised his fists. “I’m going to knock out your brains and use your hollow skull for a planter!”

Xim stood silently, apparently perplexed by this nonstandard verbal affront. All around the arena, dronon vanquishers began making thrumming noises.

Xim launched into the air, circled high above the arena. Gallen watched him, considered how best to handle the creature. Veriasse had opted for low dodges, a kicking attack. Gallen’s mantle flashed images before his eyes, showing the dronon’s weak spots.

Gallen wondered what Xim would do if Gallen opted to go over the top. Xim swerved, dove toward Gallen, a frontal assault with his battle arms extended. Xim swept low to the ground, as if afraid Gallen would dive from his reach. Gallen rushed forward, vaulted into the air and twisted, kicking at the vanquisher’s face with all his might, hoping that he could avoid its serrated arms.

Xim was traveling at tremendous speed, and Gallen’s assault took him by surprise. His face smashed into the steel-toed boot with more force than Gallen could ever have mustered.

Gallen felt a sensor whip snap off at the impact, and Xim’s head slammed into the ground. Gallen tumbled through the air, fell on his back. His mantle got knocked off his head, was tangled in the claws on Xim’s rear leg.

Somehow in the impact, one of Xim’s battle arms had grazed Gallen’s leg, slicing it open. It bled profusely, but Gallen didn’t have time to bandage it. Gallen scrambled to his feet as Lord Xim rushed toward him, but Xim suddenly buzzed his wings, flew high in the air, and tossed Gallen’s mantle over the crowd.

Only seconds before, Gallen had felt confident, controlled. Killing a dronon in unarmed combat had seemed not only possible but easy. From moment to moment, the mantle had sent him images of the weak points on a dronon’s carapace, but suddenly he felt emptiness, a yawning void.

Gallen got up, struggling to recall where he should strike on a dronon, remember the films of Lord Xim’s previous fights.

His leg felt numb from the blow it had taken, and he shook it, tried to keep limber.

He recalled that Xim was supposed to be a consummate tactician. In his first fight with Veriasse, the dronon had sliced the old man open with a wing, using an appendage that could not serve as a weapon against other dronon.

Now, Xim was fighting a battle of attrition. He had removed both Gallen’s and Veriasse’s mantles, played against their weaknesses.

Gallen stood, sweat streaming down his face. He had plenty of weaknesses. If I were the greatest warrior in the world, he wondered, what would I do now?

He cleared his mind, let the old peace settle over him. He was breathing hard, and his tongue felt dry. The dronon vanquishers were humming loud, and Xim’s wings buzzed above the crowd.

God, I love a fight, he thought. All his senses were alive, and he reveled in the energy that flowed into him.

He watched Xim buzz around the room, and he realized that Xim fought a battle of attrition because with a fully armored dronon opponent that was the only kind of battle there was. Strike at an eye cluster in this pass, rip off a wing on the next.

Xim circled the great dome, gaining speed. Gallen realized that it was a ruse. The dronon knew of Gallen’s bleeding leg, and he was waiting for the loss of blood to weaken the human.

Gallen couldn’t afford to fight this kind of battle. He was already losing.

Gallen closed his eyes, focused, and all of the sounds went away. He tried to ignore the numbness in his leg. Faintly, he tasted the sweet scent of flowers, and energy coursed through him. Maggie had retrieved the bottle of Hope, removed the stopper.

Gallen opened his eyes and looked up. Xim was diving toward him from the top of the dome-sweeping in with the sun behind him.

And suddenly Gallen understood why Veriasse had lost. He’d performed countless tests, trying to discover how much pressure it took to shatter a dronon’s exoskeleton. But he’d performed the tests by striking the skeleton of a stationary body. He’d never calculated how much force a dronon added to a blow when its body slammed into a fist at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour.

Gallen couldn’t afford to fight a battle of attrition. He stood his ground. At the last moment, he feinted a left dodge.

Xim swerved to intercept, swung a battle arm, and Gallen veered back right, simultaneously dodging a blow and striking at the dronon’s head, putting all his force into the blow. His fist connected with a loud smack, and instantly pain flared up his arm, into his shoulder. Xim’s momentum threw Gallen back, and human and dronon rolled together in a tumult. Gallen’s arm was loose in its socket.

He rolled to his belly, climbed up, blinded by pain. He reeled in a circle, dazed, looking for Xim. Gallen suddenly spotted the dronon lord a dozen meters off, crawling away.

He raced toward the dronon. Xim swung around to meet his attack, and Gallen leapt into the air before the dronon could raise his battle arms. Gallen’s kick landed in Xim’s face, and Gallen fell backward.

He looked up. Xim wobbled feebly, raised on his hind legs, extending his battle arms in the air. There was dirt and grass all over Xim’s face, rubbed into his broken eye clusters. A thin grayish ooze dripped from a crack in Xim’s skull.

Gallen panted, scrabbled backward to get out of Xim’s reach. The dronon dropped his battle arms, rested a second.

Gallen stood up. His shoulder was dislocated, and the bones made a sickly rasping noise as they grated together. His leg was spurting blood.

Xim raised back up on his hind legs, prepared to meet Gallen’s attack. Gallen staggered forward and stopped just out of Xim’s striking range. He stood for a long moment, looking into the dronon’s eyes. Xim waved his single remaining feeler in the air. His head leaked a gray-white fluid; an eye cluster was gone; one of his rear legs was ripped. Gallen had seen a hundred men back down from a fight, and though he didn’t know what might be going on in the monster’s mind, he decided to give it one last chance.

“Beg for mercy,” Gallen said, “and I’ll spare your life.”

“Fight me!” the dronon clicked.

“If you insist.” Gallen leapt in, feinting a strike. Xim swung his battle arms, and Gallen danced back. The creature’s reaction time was slow, terribly slow.

Xim raised his battle arms again. They were wobbling, and Gallen fell back, panting.

Xim stood on his hind legs for a moment, and his battle arms waved feebly. He tired and dropped his arms. The white ooze was running thickly from his skull, and Gallen knew then that the creature was dying.

All around him, dronon vanquishers began thrumming, and the translator in Gallen’s ear whispered, “Kill him. Finish it.”

Gallen shouted at them, “You’re a morbid mob.” And he turned, advanced on the Golden. The small white royal larvae skittered away from beneath her legs.

She raised her battle arms, crossed them in surrender, and put her head to the ground. Behind him, Gallen heard clattering, glanced back. Xim toppled to the grass.

Gallen went to the Golden Queen. She kept her battle arms crossed in token of surrender.

“Under the rules for conquest, you may choose only to maim me,” the Golden said. “If you so choose, I will not fight you.”

Gallen stopped in front of her. She raised her head to look up at him. “Why should I spare you?” Gallen asked. “So you can continue to breed? So your children can challenge me?”

Her mouthfingers clicked over her voice drum. “I have already given birth to many Lord Escorts. My children will hunt you down. You cannot escape your fate.”

Gallen stared at her distantly. He stepped forward and removed Semarritte’s mantle from her head. She really did have a nice golden color.

He slammed a fist into her face.

He discovered that his wrists must have been stronger than Veriasse’s, for instead of merely gouging her, his blow cracked her head open.

All around him, the dronon raised their battle arms and clattered them together, crying, “Behold the Golden! Behold the Lords of the Swarm!”

Gallen raised his hands for silence, looked out over the assembly. The room fell quiet. “You tell them, Maggie. You’re the queen now.”

Maggie glared at the dronon and shouted, “All of you: get off our worlds!”

Gallen turned away from the carnage, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his left hand. Around the arena, the dronons’ carapaces scraped and rattled as they evacuated the dome.

Maggie hunched over Orick. The bear was badly cut, and he breathed shallowly. Blood soaked much of his fur from groin to chin. Yet her mantle whispered to her that the nanodocs in her pack might still save him, so she forced the seven pills down his throat and waited.

Everynne was lying in a pool of blood, too, but she already had nanodocs working on her. The tiny machines were closing her wounds, had slowed the bleeding. There was nothing more that Maggie could do.

Gallen came and threw Semarritte’s mantle down at Maggie’s feet, then sat and petted Orick’s snout. Maggie picked up the mantle, held it under her arm. All around them the room rustled as dronon fled the premises, and within five minutes, they sat alone on the grass. The sun was setting out on the horizon, and shadows lengthened. From here, she could not see the vast sea of molten glass on the omni-mind’s surface, only the other domes nearby. Overhead the stars shone more fiercely than any she had ever seen.

Gallen went to Veriasse’s pack, got some water, and gave drinks first to Everynne, then to Orick. He bandaged his own leg, and had Maggie pop his shoulder back into its socket. Then he sat beside Maggie and held her hand for a long time, neither of them speaking, except once when Gallen said, “Oh, my, look at that!”

She looked up just in time to see a falling star. A moment later, dronon ships began streaming away in a solid convoy.

After an hour, both Everynne and Orick were still breathing deeply. The nanodocs had closed their wounds, and Maggie’s mantle whispered to her that it was a good sign. Both of them would probably survive.

Maggie sat still for a long time, then began crying. Gallen held her for awhile, and said, “I’m really tired. Do you think it gets cold here at night? Should we get some blankets for these two? Build a fire?”

“Och, you’re kidding me, aren’t you Gallen?” Maggie said. “You know this place has to have heaters in it. I’m sure it won’t get cold.”

“Heaters?” Gallen asked. “What’s a heater?”

Maggie slapped him, thinking he must surely be joking, but then she looked deeper into his eyes, and she wasn’t sure. Could he have learned so much in the past week and still never have heard of a heater?

He laughed at her confusion. “So, are you going to put that mantle on, or aren’t you?”

“I don’t know, come to think of it,” Maggie said. “There’s no one here making me wear it. To tell the truth, I sort of like learning slow. I could put it on and learn everything there is to know at once, but it seems to me that that would be sort of like eating all the desserts you would ever want in your life all in one day-if you take my meaning.”

“Aye,” Gallen said. “It does sound nasty.”

“Besides,” Maggie said, “it belongs to Everynne.”

“That it does.” Gallen sighed. “Even if she doesn’t want it.”

He got up, walked away in the darkness, and Maggie thought he’d gone to get his bedroll, but a moment later she heard him digging in the dirt.

Gallen had a wavy-bladed dagger, and he used it to scrape a long, shallow hole in the ground. Then he put Veriasse in, covered him with clumps of grass and a bit of dirt. Maggie went and stood beside Gallen. He gazed down at the grave for a long time and asked, “Do you think there’s a heaven?”

Maggie sighed. “It’s damned possible.”

Gallen said, “If there’s a heaven, I think Veriasse will find himself guarding the gates. You know, keeping out the rabble.”

“Aye, he’d like that job,” Maggie agreed.

Gallen walked over to a good spot of grass, then lay on his back, his hands folded behind his head, and stared up at the stars through the dome. The last of the dronon ships had left.

Gallen looked like some country boy back in Tihrglas.

“Gallen,” Maggie said, “what are you going to do when you get home?” She didn’t ask him to include her in his plans. She didn’t intend to go back, and even though they’d spoken of finding a world together, she didn’t know what he might be thinking now. She wanted him to come with her voluntarily.

“I’ve been thinking. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone fishing, and I’ve got a craving for salmon. I think that first I’ll go fishing in Forrest’s Creek. Then I’m going to travel for a bit, see the world.”

“And when you’re done?”

“Well, I don’t know. Tihrglas is sort of a quiet place. I could grow old there, sit in a rocker …” He looked up into her eyes. “But I don’t think I could be happy for more than a day or two, lazing about like that. Besides, there’s this woman I know, and life would be … dreary without her.”

Maggie smiled, lay down beside him, felt the warmth of his chest against her breasts. He took her face in his hand, kissed her long and deeply. When he finished, he whispered, “You’ve got no family left back in Clere, but I’ve got my mother to take care of. I need to go home, say good-bye, hire someone to watch after her at the very least. And I’ll need to make trips home from time to time, to be sure she’s okay.”

“Of course, you couldn’t leave her there forever alone,” Maggie said. “You can just tell her that you’re working, guarding ships for some merchant. Then you can stop back and see her once in awhile.”

Gallen nodded, closed his eyes. Maggie lay with him for a long time, and he fell asleep. Part of her was angry with him for sleeping, but the more sensible part said, “Ah, poor boy, he needs his sleep. It’s been a long week, and he’s exhausted.”

Yet Maggie could not rest. She checked on Orick and Everynne. Both were resting peacefully, and she washed them off a bit, then sat on the grass, looked at the silver mantle. It had thousands of tiny silver disks woven together in the chain mail. They were smaller than the disks she had seen on any other mantle, and she realized that they were made using a higher technology.

At long last, she could stand the temptation no more, and she put on the mantle, felt the cool weight of the chains running down the length of her back, over her shoulders, and between her breasts.

For an endless moment, she waited, expecting the mantle to take her, ravage her with light as the Guide had. Yet at the same time, she waited in stark terror.

She tried to clear her mind, wipe away that fear, but the knowledge never came. Nothing happened.

At last, when she was ready to throw the mantle away in disgust, a woman came to her in a vision. She had long dark hair and skin as smooth as cream. Every line of her form was perfect. Maggie did not have to beg her name.

“Your brain waves do not match mine,” Semarritte said. “I can bond with you, and you will gain some use of the omni-mind, but like the dronon before you, your ability to control the device will be impaired. Still, I am loath to take you, if you fear me so. What do you want of me?”

“I want a home,” Maggie said. “You know everything about ten thousand worlds. I thought, perhaps I could learn of them.”

Semarritte reached out a finger, touched Maggie between the eyes. She felt a strange dizziness, and Semarritte pulled her finger away. Her demeanor changed. She looked at Maggie with a new understanding. “You would not be satisfied if I taught you all that I know about every world. You will only be happy if you go to each world and learn about it for yourself.”

“That’s right,” Maggie said.

“So you are not searching for a world for yourself. You are searching for a world where you can be happy with your love, Gallen. I am not sure that such a world exists.”

“But where should I start?”

“Tremonthin.” Semarritte laughed softly. “There you can learn much, and Gallen will find his abilities sorely tested.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said, and she removed the mantle. Almost immediately, the vision seemed odd to her, like a dream that is forgotten upon waking, and she wondered if she had imagined it. She went to sleep beside Gallen, and he threw his arm over her protectively.