BOOK TWO
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jon-Jon couldn’t take much more. His time spent practicing with the athessia was serving him well, a surprising fact considering how many of his comrades he’d seen driven quickly witless by the Queen’s diamond. What he didn’t know was that the Queen was taking it easy on him, knowing that if she pushed him too hard his mind would go, and then she wouldn’t get any answers. He also didn’t know that he was behaving differently than the others. He wasn’t fighting, he was hiding.
The funny thing about the North Star, the Queen had learned, was that 99 percent of the time it worked perfectly. She made her will known, the person bent to it, end of story. But when it didn’t work, when a person defended his or herself, the situation took on a life of its own, each one unique and unpredictable. Some floundered, of course, arriving in the open field only to lose the battle instantly to the more experienced Queen, but many had an amazing understanding of the world inside the Star. They materialized as metal giants made of clockwork and swords, or they shot fire balls from their fingertips or lightning with their screams. Some adversaries changed the rules of the world entirely, making gravity behave strangely causing them to attack each other from every possible angle, or turning the air to water making them fight riding leviathans, but none could best the Purple Queen, not in the end.
Jon-Jon, though, he kept disappearing. He would arrive in the fighting field and instantly burrow into the dirt, winding up in an underground maze of tunnels. Sometimes the paths would take him to a door, and if he opened it, he found himself immersed in something – a memory or a song, a wish or an idea, somehow manifested, usually one after another in quick succession, always connected and always perfectly understood. Half the time these experiences originated from the Queen’s head; half the time they were from his own. Whenever he made it to one of these, he found himself back in the real world a moment later enduring real torture administered by a real Captain of the Guard until the Queen’s Star lit up again and they both ended up back in the dream world. The repetition was taking its toll. It was getting harder and harder to tell reality from the realm of the diamond, both of which became scarier every time he re-entered them. Jon-Jon zigzagged through the passageways, passing door after door. He could hear the Queen searching for him, her heavy steps echoing off the catacomb walls. His non-physical dream world body had started resembling his bruised, battered real-world body, and thanks to his dream limping the Queen would catch up to him soon. In desperation, he did something he’d never done before.
“Dear gods,” he prayed. “Help me, please. Show me the way!” He turned a corner, and the tunnel ended with a large door. He pried it open and ran through.
He came out on the castle battlements in daytime. Before him stood the old King, the Queen’s father, a man Jon-Jon knew only from portraits, and a little girl, the young Princess, with bloodshot eyes whispering something to herself. People filled the yard below them to the brim; a gallows sat in the middle of them all, the noose around a terrified woman’s neck. The King stared down with a righteous pitilessness. A herald climbed the scaffolding, and even though the crowd went silent, from this distance Jon-Jon could barely hear his words.
“Queen Antiope, you have been found guilty of treason. The punishment, death by hanging!” The crowd roared. It seemed forever before they quieted again. “Do you have any last words?” Whatever the Queen said could not be heard from this vantage point. Instead the Princess’s whispers filled Jon-Jon’s ears.
“Please save her. Please save her. Please, gods, save her. I swear I’ll be good. I swear I’ll be better. Just rescue her. Protect her. Please…” Her prayers ceased when the noose tightened.
Jon-Jon thought about comforting the girl but before he could a massive tree burst out of the ground in front of him, followed by another, then another until a forest surrounded him. Through the foliage came the Princess, older now, filthy, drenched with sweat and sobbing. She fell to her knees beside a river and brought the water to her mouth desperately, barely leaving room to breathe between gulps.
When she was satisfied, she turned her head to Jon-Jon and yelled, “Stop!” The trees between them split into bars. The Princess, almost unrecognizable for the grime on her face, sat in a jail cell, holding a baby swaddled in dirty silk, listening to a friendly, roundish woman speaking to her from outside the bars.
“Think of it dear, in all the great stories, the hero suffers. No one ever told great tales of ‘The Girl for Whom Everything Went Right.’ The gods have a plan for you. What I offer is better than rotting away in here. Better for your baby, for sure.” The woman’s kindly face lit up with a smile. “You don’t really have a choice anyway,” she finished. The jail cell expanded outward, forming the vaulted ceilings of a House of Oracle, one of very few of its kind left today, a place where one sought answers through a divine medium - an eternal flame that speaks directly to one’s mind or, if one prefers, a human intermediary can translate the flame’s message. The Princess, now clean and in acolyte dress, sat near the alter and stared contemplatively into the sacred fire. The kindly woman stood nearby.
“How can you do it?” the girl asked. “How can you take people’s money and give them nothing in return?”
“The give it freely in exchange for hope or peace of mind.”
“They pay to fool themselves.”
“A cynical attitude.” The woman sat down next to the girl, who promptly stood. “We take on a lot of young people here, as you know. An adjustment period is natural, but usually our wards-”
“You mean your servants.”
“Our new friends come to realize that we care about them and their welfare, and when they’re ready, we welcome them into our family. You, though, you grow more angry by the day, more withdrawn. What can I do to help you?”
“I’ll make a deal with you. If you can convince me that you actually believe the lies you sell, I’ll give it another shot.”
“Of course I believe. I believe that the gods, the universe, whatever you want to call it, I believe there is a power that looks out for us, keeps us in check, prevents us from becoming victims of hubris, it punishes us and it helps us when we need it. Even if that power comes from within ourselves, it’s there.” The Princess laughed contemptfully.
“Nothing keeps people in check except maybe fear, and not even that most times! Nothing helps us, not when we really need it. And absolutely no great power punishes people. Not the ones that deserve it, anyway.”
“Who deserves it?”
“This whole kingdom does.”
“For what dear?”
“For sacrificing innocent girls to dragons, for one thing!” The plump woman grew concerned at this answer. “Among other deeds,” the Princess backtracked. “If anyone’s being punished it’s me, and I’ve never done anything wrong.”
“Perhaps it’s for something you’ve yet to do.”
The building around them evaporated, and an open air market sprang up through the stones on the floor, each of which flipped over to reveal underbellies of dirt and grass. The Princess listened to an old woman peddle witchy wares.
“…she’s tellin’ me about ya.” She said as she opened a folded cloth; within it lay a necklace. “You’re not supposed to be here, she says. She wants to be with ya. Me items recognize their owners before they get boughten. S’true.”
“And it can kill a person, if I just think about them? From any distance?” the Princess asked in a hushed manner, staring at the thing intently.
“She is me most valuable trinket, and me most dangerous. I wouldn’t have even showed her to ya had she not called out for ya from me case.”
“Surely that’s worth a discount.”
The old woman smiled a rotten-toothed smile, then turned to smoke as the table in front of her grew a blanket and pillow and a Princess who was sobbing so hard she couldn’t breathe. Her bedroom door opened; another young girl popped her head in.
“I guess you heard. The King…dead…I can’t believe it.” The girl waited for a response, but the Princess just curled into a tighter ball on her bed, so she left.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated muffledly. “I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.”
Jon-Jon reached out to console her when he heard, “Mommy?” from the far corner of the room. The toddler Prince stood in a makeshift playpen. His mother came over to him and picked him up, hugging him desperately, and he hugged back.
Suddenly, the toddler looked the unwelcome witness right in the eye and said with the voice of the full grown man, “Entertaining stuff?” Jon-Jon jumped back, lost his balance and fell right through the ground. As he soared through blackness, he heard the Prince’s voice again, “You have to take matters into your own hands.” Jon-Jon closed his eyes and felt himself land on padding and blankets. When he opened his eyes, he was lying in a bed, surrounded by people he didn’t know. He became frightened, then the Prince stepped through the crowd and placed a hand on him. “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s over. It’s over, calm down. You’re safe,” he told him. Jon-Jon looked around, and recognized the royal bedroom. A fire burned cozily in the hearth; his mother knelt beside him.
“Hello, Pickle.”
“You’re better?!” he exclaimed, taking his mother’s hand in his.
“We were able to fix everyone in the dungeon,” the Prince let him know.
“The dungeon! Prince, there’s something you need to know. I never got a chance to get the message to you.”
“The dragon, we know. It doesn’t matter now. We’ve taken the castle back and the Queen is behind bars. She’s not going to hurt anyone ever again.” Behind the Prince, Jon-Jon noticed an area of the room that was inexplicably shadowy, but somehow that seemed totally normal. He saw something move, but couldn’t make it out, something shaped strangely, like many snakes moving as one.
“Is that what he looks like now?” it asked in a sad, feminine voice. Jon-Jon nodded. “He needs a shave,” Jon-Jon looked into his mother’s eyes and smiled.
The Queen returned to the real world. Jon-Jon had lost consciousness. “Should I wake him?” asked the captain.
“No, it’s fine, I got what I needed. He never got a chance to tell them. Things can proceed as planned.” She looked at Jon-Jon and felt a twinge of motherly compassion. It surprised her to find that she was crying. “Go ahead and put him out of his misery.” And then she said something she’d never said before. “Do it kindly.”
The funny thing about the North Star, the Queen had learned, was that 99 percent of the time it worked perfectly. She made her will known, the person bent to it, end of story. But when it didn’t work, when a person defended his or herself, the situation took on a life of its own, each one unique and unpredictable. Some floundered, of course, arriving in the open field only to lose the battle instantly to the more experienced Queen, but many had an amazing understanding of the world inside the Star. They materialized as metal giants made of clockwork and swords, or they shot fire balls from their fingertips or lightning with their screams. Some adversaries changed the rules of the world entirely, making gravity behave strangely causing them to attack each other from every possible angle, or turning the air to water making them fight riding leviathans, but none could best the Purple Queen, not in the end.
Jon-Jon, though, he kept disappearing. He would arrive in the fighting field and instantly burrow into the dirt, winding up in an underground maze of tunnels. Sometimes the paths would take him to a door, and if he opened it, he found himself immersed in something – a memory or a song, a wish or an idea, somehow manifested, usually one after another in quick succession, always connected and always perfectly understood. Half the time these experiences originated from the Queen’s head; half the time they were from his own. Whenever he made it to one of these, he found himself back in the real world a moment later enduring real torture administered by a real Captain of the Guard until the Queen’s Star lit up again and they both ended up back in the dream world. The repetition was taking its toll. It was getting harder and harder to tell reality from the realm of the diamond, both of which became scarier every time he re-entered them. Jon-Jon zigzagged through the passageways, passing door after door. He could hear the Queen searching for him, her heavy steps echoing off the catacomb walls. His non-physical dream world body had started resembling his bruised, battered real-world body, and thanks to his dream limping the Queen would catch up to him soon. In desperation, he did something he’d never done before.
“Dear gods,” he prayed. “Help me, please. Show me the way!” He turned a corner, and the tunnel ended with a large door. He pried it open and ran through.
He came out on the castle battlements in daytime. Before him stood the old King, the Queen’s father, a man Jon-Jon knew only from portraits, and a little girl, the young Princess, with bloodshot eyes whispering something to herself. People filled the yard below them to the brim; a gallows sat in the middle of them all, the noose around a terrified woman’s neck. The King stared down with a righteous pitilessness. A herald climbed the scaffolding, and even though the crowd went silent, from this distance Jon-Jon could barely hear his words.
“Queen Antiope, you have been found guilty of treason. The punishment, death by hanging!” The crowd roared. It seemed forever before they quieted again. “Do you have any last words?” Whatever the Queen said could not be heard from this vantage point. Instead the Princess’s whispers filled Jon-Jon’s ears.
“Please save her. Please save her. Please, gods, save her. I swear I’ll be good. I swear I’ll be better. Just rescue her. Protect her. Please…” Her prayers ceased when the noose tightened.
Jon-Jon thought about comforting the girl but before he could a massive tree burst out of the ground in front of him, followed by another, then another until a forest surrounded him. Through the foliage came the Princess, older now, filthy, drenched with sweat and sobbing. She fell to her knees beside a river and brought the water to her mouth desperately, barely leaving room to breathe between gulps.
When she was satisfied, she turned her head to Jon-Jon and yelled, “Stop!” The trees between them split into bars. The Princess, almost unrecognizable for the grime on her face, sat in a jail cell, holding a baby swaddled in dirty silk, listening to a friendly, roundish woman speaking to her from outside the bars.
“Think of it dear, in all the great stories, the hero suffers. No one ever told great tales of ‘The Girl for Whom Everything Went Right.’ The gods have a plan for you. What I offer is better than rotting away in here. Better for your baby, for sure.” The woman’s kindly face lit up with a smile. “You don’t really have a choice anyway,” she finished. The jail cell expanded outward, forming the vaulted ceilings of a House of Oracle, one of very few of its kind left today, a place where one sought answers through a divine medium - an eternal flame that speaks directly to one’s mind or, if one prefers, a human intermediary can translate the flame’s message. The Princess, now clean and in acolyte dress, sat near the alter and stared contemplatively into the sacred fire. The kindly woman stood nearby.
“How can you do it?” the girl asked. “How can you take people’s money and give them nothing in return?”
“The give it freely in exchange for hope or peace of mind.”
“They pay to fool themselves.”
“A cynical attitude.” The woman sat down next to the girl, who promptly stood. “We take on a lot of young people here, as you know. An adjustment period is natural, but usually our wards-”
“You mean your servants.”
“Our new friends come to realize that we care about them and their welfare, and when they’re ready, we welcome them into our family. You, though, you grow more angry by the day, more withdrawn. What can I do to help you?”
“I’ll make a deal with you. If you can convince me that you actually believe the lies you sell, I’ll give it another shot.”
“Of course I believe. I believe that the gods, the universe, whatever you want to call it, I believe there is a power that looks out for us, keeps us in check, prevents us from becoming victims of hubris, it punishes us and it helps us when we need it. Even if that power comes from within ourselves, it’s there.” The Princess laughed contemptfully.
“Nothing keeps people in check except maybe fear, and not even that most times! Nothing helps us, not when we really need it. And absolutely no great power punishes people. Not the ones that deserve it, anyway.”
“Who deserves it?”
“This whole kingdom does.”
“For what dear?”
“For sacrificing innocent girls to dragons, for one thing!” The plump woman grew concerned at this answer. “Among other deeds,” the Princess backtracked. “If anyone’s being punished it’s me, and I’ve never done anything wrong.”
“Perhaps it’s for something you’ve yet to do.”
The building around them evaporated, and an open air market sprang up through the stones on the floor, each of which flipped over to reveal underbellies of dirt and grass. The Princess listened to an old woman peddle witchy wares.
“…she’s tellin’ me about ya.” She said as she opened a folded cloth; within it lay a necklace. “You’re not supposed to be here, she says. She wants to be with ya. Me items recognize their owners before they get boughten. S’true.”
“And it can kill a person, if I just think about them? From any distance?” the Princess asked in a hushed manner, staring at the thing intently.
“She is me most valuable trinket, and me most dangerous. I wouldn’t have even showed her to ya had she not called out for ya from me case.”
“Surely that’s worth a discount.”
The old woman smiled a rotten-toothed smile, then turned to smoke as the table in front of her grew a blanket and pillow and a Princess who was sobbing so hard she couldn’t breathe. Her bedroom door opened; another young girl popped her head in.
“I guess you heard. The King…dead…I can’t believe it.” The girl waited for a response, but the Princess just curled into a tighter ball on her bed, so she left.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated muffledly. “I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.”
Jon-Jon reached out to console her when he heard, “Mommy?” from the far corner of the room. The toddler Prince stood in a makeshift playpen. His mother came over to him and picked him up, hugging him desperately, and he hugged back.
Suddenly, the toddler looked the unwelcome witness right in the eye and said with the voice of the full grown man, “Entertaining stuff?” Jon-Jon jumped back, lost his balance and fell right through the ground. As he soared through blackness, he heard the Prince’s voice again, “You have to take matters into your own hands.” Jon-Jon closed his eyes and felt himself land on padding and blankets. When he opened his eyes, he was lying in a bed, surrounded by people he didn’t know. He became frightened, then the Prince stepped through the crowd and placed a hand on him. “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s over. It’s over, calm down. You’re safe,” he told him. Jon-Jon looked around, and recognized the royal bedroom. A fire burned cozily in the hearth; his mother knelt beside him.
“Hello, Pickle.”
“You’re better?!” he exclaimed, taking his mother’s hand in his.
“We were able to fix everyone in the dungeon,” the Prince let him know.
“The dungeon! Prince, there’s something you need to know. I never got a chance to get the message to you.”
“The dragon, we know. It doesn’t matter now. We’ve taken the castle back and the Queen is behind bars. She’s not going to hurt anyone ever again.” Behind the Prince, Jon-Jon noticed an area of the room that was inexplicably shadowy, but somehow that seemed totally normal. He saw something move, but couldn’t make it out, something shaped strangely, like many snakes moving as one.
“Is that what he looks like now?” it asked in a sad, feminine voice. Jon-Jon nodded. “He needs a shave,” Jon-Jon looked into his mother’s eyes and smiled.
The Queen returned to the real world. Jon-Jon had lost consciousness. “Should I wake him?” asked the captain.
“No, it’s fine, I got what I needed. He never got a chance to tell them. Things can proceed as planned.” She looked at Jon-Jon and felt a twinge of motherly compassion. It surprised her to find that she was crying. “Go ahead and put him out of his misery.” And then she said something she’d never said before. “Do it kindly.”
Click here for Chapter Seventeen...