Conspiracy City (46.1)

50th of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E

Tambwe Dominance, City of Rangda — 8th Division Base, HQ

“Let them in.”

At the Colonel’s exasperated command, the machine gunners guarding entry into the headquarters stood aside. Kajari and Chadgura stepped away from the interior doorway and held their rifles with their bayonets and barrels staring at the ceiling. Outside, the guards inspected the arriving car while its occupants cross the threshold into the HQ.

Parinita Maharani recognized the escort, but she was more surprised at the woman.

“Please identify yourselves.” Madiha said. It was a formality. She knew both of them too.

Haughtily, the woman with the ringlets and skirt suit crossed her arms and grumbled.

“Chakrani Walters, representative of the Adjar Civil Council.” She said.

Madiha nodded her head. “Padmaja, have her sign in, please.”

“Yes ma’am.”

From a corner, Feng Padmaja quietly and meekly procured a ring-bound book and presented a page and a pen to Chakrani. Normally the junior staffer was chirpy and energetic, but the gravity in the room seemed to have tripled for her, and she moved very slowly and deliberately. Chakrani stared at her with disdain as she approached, and begrudgingly signed the book before shoving the pen brusquely back into Padmaja’s hands. Stunned by the outburst, Padmaja stowed the pen between the locks of hair at the edge of one of her covered double buns, and walked sadly and stiffly back to her table.

“Can we talk now?” Chakrani asked. Her tone was turning downright bratty.

Madiha quietly nodded her head toward the man at Chakrani’s side.

“Identify yourself.” She demanded.

“I don’t feel like it.” He said.

“I will not ask again.”

Parinita averted her gaze. She felt the tension in the room constricting her chest.

Despite their previous liaison, Chakrani did not seem touched in any way by Madiha’s visible injuries. She seemed quite ready to treat Madiha as just somebody that had to be spoken to. Her posture was intimidating — Parinita thought Chakrani looked like a cat poised to lunge. Her crossed arms shook very slightly with pent-up energy. Her tapping feet hit the ground sharply and with a quick rhythm. Her gaze was cutting as her eyes slowly looked over the room, settling on every face she found. Her smoldering stare shook Bhishma and Padmaja.

She was such a contrast to Madiha; opposites truly did attract sometimes.

Madiha’s face was void of emotion. Parinita met her eyes from across the room, trying her best to silently communicate her support in this obviously painful situation. In response the Colonel’s expression and stance were neutral. Her voice, when she first spoke, sounded tired and vulnerable. But when she questioned the arrivals, she took a sterner tone. While Chakrani had come before them with fire in her chest, Madiha just seemed hollow.

“Just do it already.” Chakrani said, elbowing her escort.

At her side, the young curly-haired man in the disheveled uniform stared at the wall.

“Private Jota, mobility support.” He said. His tone was dismissive.

“I need your full name and unit. You can sign it in.” Madiha calmly ordered.

Padmaja stood up from the floor and approached cautiously with the ring-bound book.

Jota spat on the floor in front of her. “Nah. Find it out yourself, Colonel.”

Padmaja shrank away.

“Kajari, remove him.” Madiha said.

From the doorway, Corporal Kajari approached with her rifle in her hands.

Jota, visibly taller than her, half-turned and raised his hands.

“You don’t want to do that.” He said dangerously.

Kajari turned the bayonet on his neck and left a scratch.

“You can leave by yourself or in a bag, your choice.” Kajari said.

Chadgura stepped forward as well.

Jota sighed deeply. He turned carefully and left the room, rubbing his neck.

All throughout Chakrani stared with a mix of horror and rage.

“You’re on a power trip, Colonel! He is my official escort!” She shouted.

Madiha was unmoved.

“Anyone who enters this building and shows even a shred of antagonism,” She said, her tone suddenly dangerous and deliberate, “is a threat to myself, to my staff, and to the security of highly sensitive materials in this base. I am not playing a game here.”

Parinita shuddered a little at the response, but she knew Madiha was right.

Especially in the condition she was in, and after recent events.

One’s outlook on security changes when one is nearly beaten to death in a “safe place.”

“I’m absolutely sick to death of you! Your actions from the moment you received a command have been nothing short of savage!” Chakrani shouted. “I’m filing a complaint!”

“Is this the Adjar Government-In-Exile talking still, or just you?” Madiha asked.

At the sound of the Colonel’s words, Chakrani stood suddenly quiet and still, and seemed cowed with shame. Chakrani then quickly composed herself, standing straight and to full height, taking a deep breath and clearly making an effort to calm her voice. Her hands were still shaking and Parinita thought she could see some moistness in her eyes.

“Colonel Nakar, let us cut the acrimony short — I’ll talk, and you’ll listen. Alright?”

“That is amenable. You have the floor, Councilor.”

Parinita wondered what was going in Madiha’s mind and heart at the moment too. She knew Madiha was skilled in compartmentalizing her emotions and pushing through difficult situations. She had already been put on this spot with Chakrani before in Bada Aso, and she was under greater pressure then and did not buckle. But she must have felt something, to be seeing Chakrani again, and in this kind of position and situation.

Though the thought felt childish and self-centered, Parinita wondered if Madiha felt strengthened by their affection, by their moonlit and dawnlit oaths. She wondered if the image of Parinita at her side helped to support her and drown away Chakrani’s voice.

Chakrani’s inner war was visible and plain. Madiha’s seemed completely suppressed.

Nevertheless, Chakrani took the role of Councilwoman Walters and delivered a speech so thorough that it seemed as though read out of paper on an invisible podium. Judging by her own expressions before, this dry, official language did not seem to be her words.

“Colonel Nakar, the Council of the occupied Adjar Dominance is deeply concerned about your continued independent usage of arms, armor and personnel taken from the Adjar Battlegroup Ox without any attempt at communication or information-sharing with either the Tambwe Civil Council or the Adjar Government-In-Exile here in Rangda.”

Madiha interrupted briefly. “My isolation was not wholly of my own design.”

“Information given to the Adjar Government-In-Exile says otherwise.”

Her continued insistence on referring to this “Adjar Government-In-Exile” was confusing. Parinita had not once heard of such an entity existing within Rangda, and she did her best to keep up with the political goings-on despite their limited resources. She knew the Adjar Council had evacuated to Tambwe; Madiha had ordered the move and executed it just hours after first meeting with them in Bada Aso. It made sense that they would end up in Rangda, as it was Tambwe’s most important city that was also relatively farthest from the fighting at the time. However, the concept of a continuing Adjar government baffled her.

“Let me guess: Mansa put you people up to this today.” Madiha calmly said.

“Councilman Mansa helped us organize here and informed us that you have been acting independently, including recently detaining prisoners and withholding information.”

Chakrani was starting to verge on anger again. She had a frustrated expression.

Madiha drummed her good fingers on her desk throughout Chakrani’s explanations. She spoke up in a stronger tone of voice afterward. “I am acting independently because the Adjar Dominance does not exist, and you have no authority over anything anymore.”

“I beg to differ.” Chakrani replied. “Currently we are working with local authorities to help relocate 50,000 refugees from the Adjar Dominance. We are getting them houses and food and union jobs instead of sending them to the desert. What have you done lately?”

That was it then, Parinita knew; Chakrani’s loyalty came in exchange for Mansa’s help in integrating some of her people back into normal lives. There were millions of Adjar refugees, but any number of people resettled and happy was a good number. However, most refugees were heading farther out to Solstice because Dbagbo and Tambwe were already embroiled in combat themselves. Parinita did not dare say it out loud, but in her rush to accept Tambwe’s help for these people, Chakrani was likely only endangering them.

Madiha stared at her without expression and then delivered her own quick speech.

“What we have done is destroy multiple elite corps of the invading army, delay their assault on Tambwe and their march into North Solstice by weeks instead of days, so that you can come here and berate us in the stead of your nonexistent government instead of being dragged into a camp and shot by Nocht as a ‘terrorist leader.'” She said.

On the receiving end, Chakrani grew more furious with every word spoken.

“You can be as dismissive as you like once you’re back under the stead of the government to which you belong! Listen to me before you open your trap again Colonel: rehousing refugees is not our only project. We’re aware that this country is tenuous too. So we have plans to raise a force of people from Adjar to help protect our new home in Tambwe and rebuild Ox’s strength. We need you to cooperate for everyone’s good.” Chakrani said.

“Ox has been disbanded and I do not need it to return. It is useless to everyone.”

Chakrani charged headlong into her next point, ignoring Madiha’s response.

“We’re talking past each other then so I’ll get to my main point. We’ve given to believe you have a prisoner from Nocht in your hands and are restricting access to them. You can ignore our other requests if you like; but we demand to be able to speak to them. They are not under your jurisdiction. We wish to see what information they can give us about the occupation, so we might adequately prepare for our resistance. Can you spare at least that?”

“No.” Madiha said immediately. “I have already gotten as much relevant information as can be expected from the foreigners. They are under the protection of the KVW now.”

“You can easily correct your wide overreach of your authority by simply letting us talk to the prisoner, or by sharing any information you got from them.” Chakrani said. Her tone of voice and the construction of her words sounded threatening, as if she was ready to indict them.

Parinita turned her head from the scene, and stepped closer to the desk with the original Generalplan Suden files. She should have realized that was their objective all along.

“None of it is easy or simple. Further harassment of our guests is not productive and could be downright dangerous. So no, you will not be allowed to speak with them.”

“Your unwillingness to submit to lawful authority is what’s dangerous here!”

“Lawful authority? You mean Mansa’s crooked council, and the eternally lame duck council that are using you as their puppet to retain some form of political relevance?”

“Whether you like it or not, Tambwe and Adjar have legitimate governments that–”

Madiha raised her good hand, and stood up from her desk, stopping the Councilwoman.

“I am not here for Tambwe or for Adjar, Chakrani. I am here for the Socialist Dominances of Solstice. I am here for the Ayvartan people. I am here for what will be a long war. It is disturbing to me how you stridently you fail to see the bigger picture here.”

Chakrani’s face turned chalk-white and her expression contorted with disgust.

She shouted back louder than any voice heard during the entire discussion.

“Don’t you fucking dare say my name again! I will not suffer you for a second longer you animal! Everything you do, everything you touch– You cannot save a single thing, you miserable wraith! Mark my words! I hope I never see your despicable face again, Colonel, but you will hear from Adjar again. We will do whatever it takes to save our nation.”

She turned sharply around and stomped her way out of the building, pushing Kajari and Chadgura away from the door as she went. Everyone inside and outside the building seemed to have heard the outburst, and there were heads turning everywhere. Even the Hobgoblin turned its turret as if judging her. Chakrani Walters, as quickly and suddenly as she came, returned to the car with Jota and the pair sped off back out of the base.

Parinita breathed a loud sigh of relief. Everyone else was silent and still for a moment.

“She really does not like the Colonel.” Padmaja meekly said, cutting the silence.

“She has reason not to.” Madiha said, her head sinking against her desk.

Parinita shook her head. She supposed that was the answer to her previous fears.

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MAJINI (45.1)

Warning: this scene contains violence and death, including violence to a child, as well as depictions of fire and burning and disturbing imagery.

30th of the Lilac’s Bloom, 2007 D.C.E

Ayvartan Empire, Adjar Dominance — City of Bada Aso

“Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

Desperate panting and crying broke the silence of the midnight streets.

Hurtling through empty alleys and desolate roads, a small girl fled from phantoms.

All of her instincts screamed for her to run and hide.

Her every step was dogged by a creeping, malevolent cold and shadow.

In hurting, she had experience far beyond her years. She had a keen sense of danger.

She sought glimpses of the enemy over her shoulder, above her head, and in every clay brick wall surrounding her in the tight streets of Bada Aso’s old quarter. She could see nothing. There was almost no light. With the moon clouded over, the only illumination came from beams between cracks in old doors and dim candlelight from bedroom windows.

Despite what her eyes told her, she felt the creature’s evil presence everywhere.

Like eyes watching her, the burden of a gaze, the bearing of a hateful judgment.

Closer and closer it came and she felt the weight shaking her legs and bowing her back.

Through the nondescript streets Madiha Nakar dashed, her location and bearing unknown, clutching her satchel against her chest. Though she felt chills across her skin she knew the night to be warm and moist and without breeze. Her white beret would have flown from her head otherwise. It was the creature that made it cold. A lanky figure, all arms, covered in a tattered cloak, its face covered by an eerie mask. It wasn’t human — it wasn’t anything.

Taking a blind corner she found a trash bin in an alley leading to the old plaza. Mustering all of her strength, she seized it by one of its handles and pushed it, spilling the contents behind her in a crashing of bottles, a rustling of old paper. She resumed her flight; moments later she heard, briefly, the crunching of glass and the stirring of paper once more.

It was still there.

A spectre made half-substantial, or perhaps, flesh trapped between worlds.

Majini.

Madiha charged out of the alley and ran toward the center of the old plaza. A wide, empty green field housing the skeletal remains of a stone temple, it was said the plaza had been the site of the first brick laid on the first building made by the ancient Adjar culture. Now it was utterly forgotten — there was not even a plaque to commemorate the deteriorating rock. Madiha rushed behind a crude waist-high rock wall and crouched.

She was surrounded by ranks of rocky pillars in varying states of decay.

More importantly, there was an old torch affixed to one of the stones.

Holding her breath and fighting back her tears, she laid down her satchel.

From it she withdrew the revolver Daksha had given her.

Five rounds; she hadn’t looked in some time, but she just knew.

A cold and airless breeze blew her way, stirring nothing but the fire inside her.

She felt the ghastly presence draw nearer, clutching at her heart.

Scratching on the grass; sifting dust as the creature stepped over the old rock.

Shuffling of fabric as beast shifted its hideous, emaciated form under its cloak.

Sucking noise as the monster sniffed into what long-decayed organ passed for its nostrils.

Closer, and closer, she felt the creature’s weight in the surroundings.

Her shivering worsened, the cold was stifling, she wanted to scream.

Madiha leaped to her feet and swiped her hand at the torch.

In an instant the fire inside her lit the dead fire in the wax and rags.

Amid the old temple the shadows retreated, leaving only one in their midst.

Stunned by the torch, the Majini retched, raising its arms and drawing back, its upper body bending away from the flame directly overhead while its lower body remained abominably rooted into place. Ashes from the sudden fire fell on the creature’s cloak and burned through it leaving tiny red rings that bled finger-width columns of black gas.

Unleashing a primal, soundless roar, the creature righted its ragged sock-like body and hurled itself toward Madiha, arms thrashing around it as if attached to a spinning wheel.

She felt the scream not by any perceivable noise but by a shuddering in her chest.

Reeling, Madiha retaliated with a shot that grazed the Majini’s barely extant shoulder.

She missed; she never missed.

Leaping over the wall it swiped, one of its arms grabbing her by the neck and scooping her off the floor with primal strength. Madiha thought her head would pop off her body, and she felt an intense pain; almost reflexively, within the next instant, she used what she knew of her abilities to push herself and remain balanced in the creature’s grip, preventing her body from swinging opposite her neck. Another hand then quickly seized her waist and belly.

Like the unhinging jaws of a snake, the creature’s black, emaciated hands extended and expanded and looped around her as if custom-fit to throttle her neck and body specifically.

From under the cloak one final arm extended behind the monster’s back.

It seized her satchel, and withdrew a letter.

Its neck snapped, and its face descended to her own.

In the middle of its mask was a smaller, fist-sized depiction of a silver face.

She saw the eyes on this tiny face moving. The larger eyes on the mask did not.

She saw its nostrils flare and felt a force pulling on her.

Her arms hung limp, still holding the gun. Did it understand the danger of it?

Did it just not fear?

It surveyed her, stretching its neck to look her up and down.

She felt colder than ever, a chill penetrating through her skin wherever it touched.

Her mind was growing hazy and numb.

Bending its limbs and head in unnatural ways, the Majini raised the letter over its shoulder.

Guttural noises issued from its neck as if it was trying to read the name.

Madiha remembered the address and directions.

She heard Daksha’s voice in her head. Deliver this to Lena. It is vital for us.

Would she ever make good on that promise?

She was just a child? What could she do?

As the Majini tightened its grip, she felt as if her soul was leaking from her mouth.

Cold and alone in this abandoned place; would she die here?

It simply could not be.

More than anything she didn’t want to fail; she wasn’t just some stupid kid.

She wanted to be a Zaidi. She wanted to be a socialist. She wanted them to win.

She felt the fire spark inside her.

Madiha unleashed her own soundless, primal cry.

Thinking fast she exerted her mind’s secrets and pushed on the Majini’s hands and both of them tore to pieces that flew in every direction, as if blown from within by a grenade. The Majini’s twisted form instantly righted itself and lifted its arms and its head to the heavens, screeching, now with sound, recognizing the agony that had been inflicted upon it.

Madiha landed clumsily on the floor and drew on the fire rather than the pushing.

Red lines flashed briefly from under her clothes, and sparks flew out of her fingertips.

From the palm of her hand a long red dart flew into the center of the Majini’s cloak.

Soon as it touched the monster its entire thrashing body caught fire.

From its remaining limb, Madiha snatched the letter, grabbed her satchel, and took off.

Behind her the burning creature wailed and screamed with mortal agony.

Madiha vanished into the night, running for her life without ever looking back.

She vanished into the concealing gloom of the underworld, but she knew deep inside her quivering little heart that her war with these living shadows was only beginning.

Throughout her quest to free the Ayvartans from tyranny, they would dog her every step.

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The Coming Storm (44.1)

48th of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E

Under a sky lit by fireworks and stars, a surging ocean sent a boat careening past the harbor of the Shining Port and smashing through the stone barriers around Tambwe’s upper waters. Pieces of the old fisher washed up along the meter-thin, sandy stretches of beach beneath the cliffs north of Rangda. Puzzled and alarmed by the vessel, Rangdan law enforcement quickly put together a rescue group. Careful to avoid the same fate as the unknowing fisher, Rangdan boats searched carefully along the rocky depths and hidden shallows, while climbing teams dropped down from the cliffs and onto the beaches to comb the debris.

While the rescuers would have rather been drinking and partying under the falling colors of the pyrotechnics displays, they did not openly complain about fulfilling their duties. Rangda was a coastal town, and these people could be fisherfolk and traders that keep the city supplied. Electric torches in hand, the rescuers searched along the beaches, examining the chunks of the boat that had washed up, and keeping an eye out for signs of life. They found pieces of the prow collecting all along the rocks, and identified the boat from one.

It was a Higwean fishing boat, named the Banteng. Judging by all the pieces, it was around ten meters long and not particularly seaworthy. Any expert eye would have found it inconceivable that such a vessel could sail so far from home. Curiously, no net was found, though the boat had its equipment set up for fishing. Having seen this kind of crash occur to larger vessels, the rescuers thought the boat must have been hurled against the rocks by the violent tides and smashed to pieces. There was a slim chance someone survived.

Despite this, for several hours the operation continued.

Though they searched out at sea and beneath the cliffs, all they found was the wreckage. No bodies were found, no personal effects, no signs that the boat had any particular direction. It was as if a ghost fisher had sailed endless days from the Higwe islands just to crash in this lonely strip of rock. Standard procedure dictated the rescue operation would continue where possible until dawn, allowing the sun to shed light on the situation.

Rescuers, however, were more than willing to let this become nothing but a mystery.

To the rescuers, at least for a few hours after dawn, it would remain so.

At the Shining Port, however, a sleepy morning patrolman from the port security found a connected mystery in the form of a pair of unidentified people climbing the port seawall onto one of the warehouse blocks. Spotting them from afar, he at first assumed nothing about the boat crash or security risks, and instead thought they must be port workers or fishers who fell into the water on accident. He ambled over to offer help; then, close enough to get a better look, he saw black leather waterproof cases strapped to their backs.

“Stop!” he shouted, “what are you doing with those? Stop right now!”

He waved his electric torch, the only piece of equipment he was given.

One of the two arrivals then produced a weapon.

At the sight, the port patrolman felt he had died right there in spirit. His whole body tensed, and he took no further step to close the fifty meter gap between him and them.

However, the mysterious man with the waterproof cases put down his gun.

He raised his hands.

He said something in a language the patrolman did not know and kicked the firearm.

It rolled some distance between them.

Confused, the patrolman followed his first instinct and picked up the weapon.

He looked up from the ground as he bent to take the gun.

Neither of the two mysterious port climbers made a move.

Both of them looked rather young.

What were they up to? It was impossible for the patrolman to imagine.

He had heard stories, years ago, of migrants from other nations who tried to take boats illegally into Ayvarta. They were often fleeing the consequences of political actions taken abroad. But these people took boats here. They ended up on the ports and in the beaches. They did not climb sea walls onto the ports. And they did not carry weapons and goods with them! Of course, all of that happened in peacetime, however.

“Easy now,” he said, raising his voice and pointing his newfound zwitcherer pistol at its former owners. He swept his hands toward himself, urging them to follow. They did not appear to share a language with him at all, and so he used his body language to try to communicate. Thankfully, the two strangers, hands up, began to walk as instructed.

Soon he got them to a phone, and called the police. And for a translator. When asked what language he needed to interpret, the patrolman did not know. He had never met an elf or one of the northern barbarians or a hanwan or anything like that; he had no frame of reference. He practically begged the policemen on the line to just take this burden off him.

After he hung up, the wheels of Ayvartan law, lulled to sleep by their distance from battle and by the levity of the last week, began to spin with a sudden, terrifying realization.

By noon, the fate of the Banteng begged more questions than it answered.

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The Calm Before (43.1)

48th of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E, Night

Tambwe Dominance — Rangda City, Ocean Road

Colored streaks and bursts filled the night sky with fleeting color.

Amid the sky several payloads blew apart with a sharp crack and a dazzling display.

Hurtling heavenswards from racks set up around the city, propelled by fizzing, crackling trails, the pyrotechnics munitions exploded into grand displays of fire and light that remained in the air for several seconds before dissipating into smoke and dust.

Patterns burst into being far above the crowds, and special rockets continued to pop again and again in colorful chains of sub-munitions. To the black and blue the whimsical blasts added bright blooming flowers of green, red and yellow, spiraling orange lines, and purple concentric detonations. This sustained barrage indicated the start of the festivities.

To the civilians it was a beautiful and captivating technical display.

For some onlookers however, it was eerily reminiscent of a coming death.

Beneath the flashing skies on Ocean Road, Parinita and Madiha clung together in fear, bowing their heads and closing their eyes as they felt the air and sky growing livid with lights and smoke and a deathly cacophony. They huddled near a lamp post then dashed into an alley for safety. Madiha’s mind hyperfocused on the sounds, the whistling, the crack of the shell as it burst. As if in a war zone, the pair took cover behind a phone booth.

In their minds those pyrotechnics were hurtling earthward to kill.

Madiha envisioned for a brief second the middle of the road going up in flames.

She averted her eyes from a bright orange flash.

Parinita, gasping for breath, looked out onto the road.

There was recognition in her eyes.

“Madiha, I think–”

Around them the cheerful crowds walking down the open road and across the dimly-lit streets started to clap and whistle and celebrate the fireworks displays.

Madiha raised her head. She met Parinita’s sympathetic eyes.

“I think it’s over,” Parinita whispered, “they’re…they’re just fireworks displays.”

She was unnerved too — Madiha could see it in her face and voice.

“My heart skipped a few beats there.” Parinita said.

“Mine almost stopped. I expected a real barrage.” Madiha replied.

Her skin continued to shiver with every blast she heard, but she tried to keep her reflexes under control. Despite this she and Parinita still winced whenever the sky flashed. It did not seem to bother the festival-goers marching down Ocean Road; on the contrary, it delighted them. They had never heard a comparable whistling and blasting. To them, it was exclusively associated with the joy and levity of an exciting fireworks display on a cool evening.

Madiha tried to get the roaring of artillery guns out of her head.

She had a long night ahead and did not want any of it spoiled.

Everything but the fireworks was splendid. Gracing the festival evening were clear skies, fresh, sweet-smelling air, and a vast, vivacious display of humanity before them.

Arm in arm with Parinita, Madiha traveled down Ocean Road, looking over the colorful storefronts, the grand floats and the street decor. All of the preparation had paid off, and Ocean Road was dressed in her best attire, same as everyone walking over it. Hand-sewn banners stretched over the streets, and a variety of signs and posters and drapes were fitted to trees and buildings and posts to draw the attention of the many passersby.

Civilian and business automotive traffic was temporarily halted for the festival. In the middle of the road there was instead a fleet of slowly moving vehicle floats, heavily decorated, that served as rolling stages for singers, dancers, firebreathers and magicians, or other acts. Some also carried religious displays for local, regional and common deities.

All of them were built on old M.A.W trucks, heavily modified to support their purpose. Firebreathers had racks for their rings, magicians had their curtains and mirrors and smoke, dancers and singers had audio equipment built-in. On the religious floats there hung vast bouquets of symbolic flowers, and canopies over the truck beds protected statues of the deities that looked on at worshipers following in their wake, signing and dancing.

Every vehicle was meticulously engineered, and the makeshift parade was stunning.

On either side of the road there were long lines of kiosks and open storefronts taking over the streets with goods and games and (approved, appropriate) forms of gambling, and all manner of food and drink. It was the latter that seemed to draw the most attention. Most curiously, exotic fruits and nuts and other produce from across the continent were on sale, or sometimes simply on offer by local farm unions as a way to attract potential new members to collective farms. While they tasted, the kiosk manager lectured.

For those who wanted a little less socialism in their food, there were traditional street foods on sale for a few shells each, items like pav, potato fritters, and valleyappam, fermented coconut and rice pancakes for dipping in a cup of soup. For the sweet tooth, halva, a semolina dessert, and kulfi, a type of ice cream, were available by the scoop or in big cups.

Other storefronts attracted crowds by hosting games. People watched professional chess and mankala games from known regional players, participated in skill tests like knife throwing and fish catching and shooting galleries, and competed in simple games for prizes. Most clubs and stores had some kind of attraction to catch the crowd’s eye.

Around all of these sites the streets were packed with people.

Some crowds grew so thick one had to navigate around them, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Wherever Madiha turned she saw cheer and levity, whether spying on lone attendants, big groups of friends or small intimate couples. Everyone who was not attired in a fresh uniform was dressed formally, in colorful drapes and robes and skirts, in sharp modern suits and tight form-fitting dresses or in dazzling traditional coats.

There was an infectious energy in the air. Even Madiha, who was prone to be gloomy, felt the life sparking all around her, and kept her lips turned up in a small smile as she escorted her date to the humble Ocean Theater for a special show for the festival night.

“Had I known it would be this amazing just outside, I would not have sprung for those tickets.” Parinita said, giggling at the spectacle unfolding all around her.

Madiha smiled. “It’s lovely, but I’m still keen for some quiet time together.”

Parinita covered her mouth to stifle a charmed little laugh, her face reddening.

Ocean Theater was like a regal elder, tall and broad, a rectangular building of bleached and pitted cement with a complicated facade, perhaps a leftover from the city’s earlier incarnations. There was a small plaza in front of it, that made it stand out more from the two stucco and masonry buildings between which it was wedged. There was a small crowd gathering at the foot of the steps into the theater. All of them were dressed for an event. Madiha and Parinita looked quite at home among the crisp attire of the trendy socialites.

For once, Madiha was very satisfied with her appearance. She thought she looked quite handsome, a tall, slick, modern woman, perhaps a bit roguish, in the way she recalled Daksha being like in the past. Daksha’s suit did not fit altogether perfectly, but the slightly short coat sleeves and the somewhat tight dress pants and shirt buttons seemed to lay over Madiha’s skin in a way Parinita found pleasing. She told Madiha that it had a casual, lived-in, natural sort of look that was very dashing. Madiha was unfamiliar with fashions, and so did everything to please her date. Atop her head lay Daksha’s old fedora, the only perfect fit. Apart from her shoulders, most of her slim, toned physique did not quite shine through the suit, but that was fine with her. She looked slender and sleek in form.

She had made many preparations for the date. She had showered twice, scrubbing every slender curve of her brown body, and combed her shoulder-length dark hair while wet. It would need a trim back to its usual neck-length bob soon, but for now, it looked just enough between orderly and messy and between long and short, to fit the rest of her look.

After all the trouble she went through, she wondered now how her date made comeliness seem so effortless. Parinita was absolutely gorgeous. Had she been projected on the screen all evening instead of a film, Madiha would have cherished every second of film.

Her hair was wavy and bouncy and long, and its off-orange, off-pink strawberry color was as attractive as ever. Over the bridge of her delicate nose there was a stripe of yellow pigment, while her eyes were painted a light flushing red and her lips a soft pink. She had a lovely shape. Though all of them had come out of Bada Aso a little bonier than before, Parinita managed to retain much of her pleasant figure, and any new slenderness was well worn.

Her attire was exquisite too. A filmy, blaring red and gold drape fell over a form-fitting light purple dress that accentuated her body, with one bare shoulder and arm exposing soft, light bronze skin. She wore traditional cloth shoes and long, diaphanous leggings that peered through the slit on the right side of her long skirt. Around her slender neck there was a necklace of wooden beads, tied over itself again and again. Her look was a mix of traditional and modern that fit her stunningly well. Madiha was blessed to be with her.

Hand in hand, they were quite the eyecatching couple even among this crowd.

Standing behind the pack, the pair waited with the others for the theater to open, and then slowly ascended the stairs as the gate keepers beckoned the guests into the theater. Over a red carpet and into an archway door the couple calmly trod, pausing in front of a gold rope hung before the entryway to bar access. They were stopped by a gatekeeper in a traditional sherwani coat, purple with gold strips framing the buttons and tracing the length of the sleeves, who checked their ticket and smiled at them, tearing off half of it for them.

“Enjoy the picture. You’re in room two on the third floor.” He said.

Madiha and Parinita smiled and nodded their heads in response. Then the gatekeeper undid the golden rope and allowed them entry, setting it back in its place behind them.

From the door the couple entered a spacious and comforting lobby. Beyond a pair of red curtains on the far end of the room was the main theater space on the ground floor, reserved for plays, concerts and ballet. There was a bar-style counter behind which a cabinet of drinks was kept, and on the opposite end of the lobby there was also a counter serving snacks. Staircases and elevators were set into the walls on either side of the red curtain.

“Madiha, could you pick up some food before we go? I can get the drinks while you’re at it. It’s a ninety minute film, after all.” Parinita said, pulling gently on Madiha’s arm.

“Certainly.” Madiha said, bowing her head deferentially to her date.

For the first time that night, the women parted arms and went separate ways.

Madiha navigated the throngs of people. There were many small islands, little groups of film-goers discussing pictures near the posters on columns and walls, or clusters of four or five drama enthusiasts waiting for the main stage to be open to them, all dressed exquisitely for the night. Making her way through, Madiha arrived at the snack counter. There was a glass display case with baked goods, kept warm on electric racks, and a line of candy boxes, branded with the state company or candy factory that produced them. Behind the young man tending the counter, a deep-frying machine in the back bubbled with oil. A very large popping corn cart set into a corner continuously crackled and snapped.

Nobody around seemed very interested in the snacks, so Madiha was first and last in line when she arrived at the counter. She gave everything a quick glance, and then decided to bet on the staples she knew to be closely associated with the film experience.

“I’ll have popping corn, in the large bag, and two Jomba Sugar Company caramel boxes, and an ‘Inspiration’ chocolate bar.” Madiha said, raising her arm as if pledging an oath.

Behind the counter the young, sharply dressed attendant nodded in acknowledgment.

“That will be thirty shells, comrade.” He said.

Madiha blinked her eyes. She looked down at the candies, and back at him.

“Oh. Thirty shells? So it is not, um, free?” Madiha asked.

“No, sorry. None of these are essential foodstuffs, so they’re charged for.”

He scratched his head awkwardly as if put on the spot by her confusion.

“I can offer you a complimentary small bag of popping corn.” He then whispered.

Madiha shook her head, feeling embarrassed herself. “No, no! I’ll pay, it is fine.”

She fumbled in her coat pockets, and before the attendant’s eyes withdrew the massive wad of paper bills that constituted Daksha’s book royalties. She fumbled through the small fortune in her hands, quite unused to money. Every bill she had was either in the 100 shell denomination or the 500 shell denomination, and she could not for the life of her even conceive of what would happen if she gave such large bills to the man. Would she receive the difference back? Would the remainder disappear into oblivion?

While the attendant bagged her goods and set them on the counter, Madiha worked up the courage to drop a 500 shell paper on the counter, and push it hastily toward him.

“Ma’am, this is–”

“Just keep it! Thank you!”

Madiha quickly seized her popping corn and candies and fled the counter.

At the door to the elevator, she rejoined Parinita, who had in her hands a pair of bottles labeled ‘Dream’, common soft drinks with an apple-like taste. Parinita was in good cheer, and Madiha tried not to let any residual awkwardness show. She handed Parinita a box of caramels and the chocolate, which she graciously took. When the elevator came down, they stood to the side of the operator, a young woman in a bright coat, like the other workers.

“Third floor, please.” Parinita said.

Nodding, the elevator operator turned to a button panel and got the gears moving.

Shaking, the elevator box slowly rose to the top of the building.

In front of them the elevator doors opened.

Smiling, the operator extended a hand.

Madiha went for a hand-shake, but found herself interrupted.

“It is customary to tip the operator.” Parinita said, squeezing Madiha’s hand.

Madiha screamed internally.

Though they had not even sat down for the film yet, Parinita was already having an incredible time. Just walking beside Madiha, all dressed up, hand in hand and arm in arm, under the festival skies and across the festival streets, was so much more than she ever thought she would have. It was as if all of her impossible, childish little fantasies that she nursed over the thirty days she had known the Colonel were finally coming true.

There was still a pang of embarrassment, a nagging thought that everything was too unreal, too crazy. Parinita rarely ever acted on her impulses. She was supposed to be analytical, rational, reliable; but Madiha had tugged at her heart in a way she couldn’t explain rationally, in a way she couldn’t quite analyze. In the midst of an unreal situation, in the midst of unreal feelings and memories and sensations, Madiha kept her alive.

Not only physically, but in spirit, emotionally, in every way that mattered.

Seeing Madiha existing, casually, out in the world, seemed to confirm everything she had thought she was foolish for feeling. That gravity that drew her to the tall, gloomy, soft-hearted woman with the fiery, tormented eyes, became three times as strong that night. She felt silly thinking of love at first sight, but she could describe it no other way. Perhaps it was their shared destiny that forced them together, but Parinita wanted to think it was her own heart, her own desires and lusts, that had naturally grown this strong.

Her impulsive kiss the day before felt like the seal to a pact, but she wanted it to be a pact of her own creation, impulsive and mad as it was. She could only hope that it stuck.

But they were having so much fun, she thought, that they had to be meant to be.

Ocean Theater’s film rooms were much smaller than the main stage. Each film showroom sat thirty people in three rows lying a meter or two above a small stage, perhaps originally intended for lectures or speeches, over which the film canvas was stretched.

At the back of the room, a booth had been built for the film projector.

Parinita led Madiha to what she considered the best seats in the room, just below the projector and with nobody behind or around them. They took seat on stiff wooden frames with stuffed cushions and backrests. Madiha laid back and sighed audibly.

“I have so much money, and yet I’m in a tighter spot than ever.” She moaned.

“Well, you’re doing a good deed by spreading it around.” Parinita giggled.

Madiha mumbled a little, looking with disgust at her own coat pocket.

“I don’t think I’m doing the world much of a service here.”

“Don’t worry, somebody is bound to have change for 100 shell bills!”

At the elevator, Madiha quite literally threw money at the operator and then promptly ran away, unable to simply tell the person to keep the change, or to accompany her to the cash box to break the bills. Parinita had walked out laughing heartily until she caught back up to her date, and nobody else seemed keen to understand the situation.

“Maybe you can shrug it off, but I’ll be replaying that moment in my head for months to come.” Madiha said. Parinita gave her a sympathetic look and rubbed her shoulder. For someone who was so clever and tough for certain things, Madiha was surprisingly soft and vulnerable in so many others. She was rather naive in certain respects. It was cute.

“You can let me pay instead, I still have some money.” Parinita said.

“We shouldn’t have to pay anything.” Madiha grumbled.

“Someday, Madiha; but we’re not quite there yet I’m afraid.”

“I blame Nocht for this too.”

Parinita smiled and turned her gaze back to the film canvas.

There were perhaps eight or nine other people in this particular show.

Their tickets did not say what the film was. They were generic papers generated by a machine that only had a room number and entry fee listed. When purchasing them, Parinita had picked the movie she wanted to view, and she let Madiha know in the morning that it was a special, secret picture. Her imagination could fill in the rest.

She grinned to herself, and relaxed on her seat, laying her hand over Madiha’s.

Madiha glanced at her, and held her gaze. She seemed puzzled.

Parinita could hardly wait to see Madiha’s cute face respond to her devious ruse.

“So, Madiha, ready to see how brave you are?” Parinita sweetly said.

“Hmm?”

“I picked a special film for us to see together. I wonder who will cling to whom?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Oh ho ho!”

Around them the lights in the room dimmed, and the door was shut.

It became almost pitch black in the room, until the projector came on.

Before the picture began, an animated short explained certain safety measures that the audience should take, and exhorted them to pick up snacks, to be careful walking down the aisles while the room was dark, and to keep quiet during the picture. After this, the room grew very still as a melancholy tune brought to their attention the fact that their projector was equipped for sound. The tune brought in the title screen for the picture.

“Rampage of the Opaque Man?” Madiha said to herself.

Parinita covered her mouth with the back of her hand, delicately stifling a laugh.

“What kind of film is this? I expected lighter fare.” Madiha asked.

“I refuse to spoil it! You’ll soon see.”

Parinita giggled internally. This would be so much fun!

Like most Ayvartan horror films, the picture was black and white, by choice more than technical limitations, and appeared rather gloomy. Madiha and Parinita watched, hand in hand, as the film began to tell the story of Doctor Sanjay Gujarat, an outgoing and kind man whom they followed as he slowly became consumed with an obsession to cure the ravages of death itself using newly-synthesized chemicals and terrible drugs.

Though he might have been mistaken for a hero at first, it was an illusion that soon wore off. After several uncomfortable scenes with his friends, his family and even a lady love, whom he neglected, screamed at, and behaved erratically toward, all because of their concern and skepticism, the doctor was marked to the audience as quite the villain himself.

His true motives were soon revealed: he wanted eternal life for himself!

“I can understand his motivation.” Madiha said, self-seriously.

Parinita raised a finger to her smiling lips, urging her to keep quiet.

On screen, the doctor deteriorated before their eyes. He ate less, and bathed not at all, and sores appeared on his face, and his hair fell, and it seemed as if months of slow rot were overcoming him before their eyes. It was quite a graphic, sickening display.

Feeling her date’s hand, Parinita could tell that Madiha was on edge. The film score was brooding and tense, and lingering shots, panning across unappealing rooms, vile surfaces, and even a cadaver, made one anxious for what was to come. She heard Madiha gulp down, and saw her crunching very deliberately on popcorn and candy to relieve her stress.

As Doctor Gujarat stabilized his mixture through the horrifying addition of human blood, the film score intensified, punctuating the moment with cutting strings that could be felt like a pinprick at the base of the spine. The Doctor raised the potion to his lips, and a long shot focused on his throat, grotesquely bulging with each gulp of the putrid drink.

At once, he vanished from the screen in a trick of light and a well-placed film cut.

Madiha blinked, and Parinita thought she saw the horror dawning on her face.

Doctor Gujarat had become invisible.

More susceptible than even Parinita had thought, Madiha seemed puzzled at first, but as objects in the lab began to shatter by themselves, as a disembodied, croaking laugh echoed across the darkened halls, and as men and women became victims of an unseen assailant, the horrible possibilities of the invisible man seemed to grip her heart with a cold fear. Unblinking, Madiha stared, frozen, neglecting her snacks. She bit the tip of her thumb.

As the film crept with evil intent toward its conclusion, Parinita readied for the climax of her own plot. Sarsala, Dr. Gujarat’s lady love, traced back the man’s rampage to the place where everything began. She snuck with a held breath into his ruined laboratory, floors glistening with glass shards and thick pools of chemicals, electric wall torches sparking from the violence inflicted by the doctor as he reached his monstrous apotheosis.

Behind them the projector’s sound speakers cut out. There were minutes of dead silence in the film, and in the theater as well. It felt as if the heavy breathing of the audience was amplified, and became the new score for the film. Miss Sarsala, an innocent in her sari and long, monochromatic dress, walked step by step toward the table where the doctor had imbibed his draught of hell. Her eyes teared up at the remnants of her lover’s work.

Parinita felt a quiver through Madiha’s hand with each of those steps.

Suddenly, a sweeping shot and an unexpected string!

Dr. Gujarat charges into the scene, and for once he is partially visible, rendered opaque in a flash of light and sparks, his fleeting form twisted and monstrous and inhuman.

Blood and violent death filled the theater screen, causing a profound shock.

Madiha jerked up, a scream caught in her throat.

She swung her arms around Parinita in a frightened reflex, and drew her face close.

Parinita beamed, her strategy bearing fruit, and she stroked Madiha’s hair.

Until the end of the film, they remained cheek to cheek in this fashion.

It had worked! Madiha really did have a cute side buried under that soldierly spirit.

After the picture, they walked back out of the theater, arm in arm. There was a weak quiver across Madiha’s skin, felt across their connection, even as they departed and headed back up Ocean Road. It was much darker out now than when they entered the Theater, and the throngs had spread out farther, so there were less people in any given place. There were less fireworks going off — but Madiha nearly jumped at each one.

“Madiha, are you ok?” Parinita asked, becoming less amused and more concerned.

“I’m fine,” Madiha said, unconvincingly, “the film just tapped into a childhood fear.”

“Of invisible men?”

“Things watching me.”

Parinita’s heart sank with guilt. “I see. I wish I had known before.”

“Be honest with me: are invisible men possible?”

“Of course not! They’re just fantasy.” Parinita replied, patting Madiha’s back.

“And yet, dragons are real. I even left one at home!” Madiha said.

Parinita smiled. “That is completely different from invisible men!”

Madiha seemed quite unsettled by the idea despite this ironclad argument.

“An invisible man has too many tactical advantages. I never even considered it.”

“I guess I should’ve bought different tickets.” Parinita said.

Madiha’s eyes drew momentarily wider, and then her usual gloomy expression settled back in. She shook her head, and rubbed her forehead and her temples with one hand.

“I apologize.” She said. Perhaps she realized her own vulnerability then.

Seeing her date prostrated in this way, Parinita felt alarmed. Had she ruined the night?

“No! Don’t! It’s my fault, I didn’t think it’d scare you this much.”

Parinita thought Madiha was being rather cute; but she was aware she had gone too far, if Madiha was this shaken up by a film. She only expected her to jump a few times, preferably into Parinita’s warm, welcoming arms. It was a crass scheme on her part, she realized.

Madiha raised her hands. “It’s alright. It’s not you at all. I should be more–”

“Stop that, it’s not your fault. Come on, let’s lighten up.” Parinita replied.

She pushed herself up to Madiha’s flank, pressing her face against her.

It was a desperate attempt to inject some levity, but it seemed to work.

“Next time, we should see a romantic movie.” Madiha said, sighing.

“Oh, it was perfectly romantic for me.” Parinita said, clinging more tightly to her.

Madiha sighed ever more deeply. “We should just stick together in a room then.”

Parinited winked at her. “Consider it a date.”

Read The Previous Part || Read The Next Part

Salva’s Taboo Exchanges IX

This chapter contains bigoted words used in a fit of self-loathing by a character, against herself; it also contains violence, and familial abuse and manipulation.

37th of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E

Kingdom of Lubon, Royal Territory of Pallas — Palazzo Di Vittoria

After an agonizingly tense dinner with the queen and her maiden, Salvatrice retreated to a room set aside far in advance. It was a room that she had perhaps been meant to stay in several times, but those visits never came to pass. Decorated pastel pink, it was larger than her apartment at the academy, containing a bedroom, a living room, and a small study.

In place of the kitchen there was a massive wardrobe.

Salvatrice ran her fingers across the hundreds of outfits in her size that hung from the long racks across the musty wooden room. There were plaques with her name emblazoned on them everywhere. Their presence disturbed her. ‘Salvatrice’s shoes;’ Salvatrice’s hats.’ It was eerie, like staring at a not-quite-right reflection in the mirror; or another world.

Was there a Salvatrice somewhere who had been enjoying these goods?

There were dresses, beautiful, ornate, gilded and silver in the same fashion as her mother’s clothing. They made her fine silks look humble. There were all manner of sporting outfits befitting an active young woman. A rider’s uniform with a crop; a duelist’s coat and pants, paired with a crystalline blue sabre; a modern tennis uniform with a skirt. There were fur coats, so many that it almost seemed like a zoo had been depopulated to furnish them.

Hats, seemingly hundreds, in every conceivable style and every acceptable color.

Enough shoes to equip every fashionable girl at the Academy, lined the walls.

Salvatrice picked up one of the uniforms and pressed it against her chest. It seemed surprisingly well tailored to her slender and petite shape, as well as her height and the length of her limbs. She reasoned that she could put on any of these and it would fit.

She also reasoned that the spying she suffered was more intrusive than she thought.

Behind her, Byanca Geta panned across the room in silent awe, staring at all the coats and the various hats, the numerous shawls and fox-tail scarves and other accessories.

She picked up the sword and examined it briefly. “Do you know how to use this?”

“I took lessons as a teenager. But that was some time ago.” Salvatrice replied.

“Ms. Mariel told me the Queen practices every night. I guess she wanted to share her hobby with you; maybe you can spar with her some time.” Byanca amicably said.

This remark Salvatrice ignored. She examined the furs along the rack instead.

“Salva, how many paychecks do I have to save to get a place like this?” Byanca asked.

Salvatrice shook her head. She was too absorbed in the room to take offense at her bodyguard’s familiarity. “Infinite paychecks. You can’t buy something like this. It’s something that can only be granted or stolen. It’s a privilege of power.” She said bitterly.

She spread her fingers and allowed a beautiful mink shawl to fall to the floor. It was despicable, to think that through all her sufferings the Queen was collecting all of these expensive things in this room. What was the purpose of it? Did stocking Salvatrice’s future room provide enough stimulation to replace Salvatrice’s actual presence in it? Did she consider herself a great providing mother for stuffing an unused closet full of silk?

Salvatrice stormed out of the wardrobe in disgust, slamming the door behind her.

Byanca then opened the door again, letting herself out, and slammed it behind her.

Every room was lavishly furnished. It felt like a crime to sit in the plush living room seats, gathered around a television set the size of a bed and with just as much wood around its screen, along with a radio set and jukebox loaded with a massive stack of shellac records. There was a pearl coffee table upon which a jade tea set had been left. Salvatrice absent-mindedly touched the pot, and recoiled; it was still hot, and there was warm tea inside.

“For all the trouble they went through, they didn’t leave any biscuits.” Byanca said.

Salvatrice shot her a dirty look, and Byanca sank into her couch in response.

“What are we going to do now?” asked the Centurion.

“I do not know.” Salvatrice said. “I was not planning to stay more than a few days.”

“But it feels like we’re trapped, doesn’t it? There’s an oppressive atmosphere.”

The princess deeply shared her Centurion’s feelings. She thought she felt them much more acutely. These walls felt as if built to keep her trapped. This was not a cage for Byanca.

From the first brick these walls had been made to contain Princess Salvatrice Vittoria, the future Queen Vittoria II. However much Byanca must have felt her freedom curtailed by the etiquette, the stuffy atmosphere, the imbalance of power between the royals and herself, a lowly soldier in the Palazzo; Salvatrice felt those bonds strangling her with tenfold strength. Byanca was beneath their notice; but all their covetous eyes were on Salvatrice.

In this palace her wings were destined to be clipped.

But she was also keenly aware of her mother’s designs.

For the moment, they guaranteed some measure of freedom.

“She will release us. She needs me outside the walls to complete her plot.”

“Plot?” Byanca asked.

Salvatrice felt her breathing momentarily quicken.

Just thinking about the near future gave her terrible anxiety.

“I’ve become bait, to lure out the leader of the so-called anarchists.” She said.

Byanca opened her eyes wide and sat up straighter.

“THAT’S what you two talked about?”

Salvatrice bowed her head, her shaking fingers tightly gripping her skirt. “My sister was exiled to a nunnery for participating in a plot to kill my mother and usurp her. That is the reason why I’m the First Princess now. Her co-conspirator can no longer get to my mother, now that my sister’s intentions are in the open. But he can get to me.”

She could see her bodyguard’s heart sinking. Her torment was plain on her face.

“I thought I was prepared to hear something unpleasant, but this is too much.”

Salvatrice almost felt comforted by Byanca’s sympathy. Were it not for the string of torments she suffered the past day she would have felt tender enough for an embrace.

“Salva, this is too dangerous. You must protest this! Not only does it put you in peril, it could turn the academy itself into a battleground! These people have bombed buildings before, they’ve driven trucks through gates, they’ve shot up police stations midday. They will not bat an eyelash at gunning down the academy to get to you. Your mother has gone mad!”

In her despair, this was an angle that Salvatrice had not considered. She had been focused inward; on the danger to herself, now that her mother relaxed her security and revealed her intentions. Everyone suspected she would be a target, and she believed it now; but her surroundings would be just as much a target on any attack targeted at her.

She envisioned a car bomb going off at the Academy gate, the same as on that night at the Previte estate, pursuing its vengeance regardless of who might become involved.

How many innocent young women would die alongside her then? Women like the late Lady Mina, gunned down mere meters away fom her? She felt a wave of helplessness, like a cascade rushing down her shoulders and weighing her down on the couch.

She licked her lips absentmindedly, having no words to offer.

“Princess, let’s go after the Queen right now! We can’t just give up!”0

Byanca stood up to punctuate her insistence.

Salvatrice, however, felt only weariness.

“Please stop being so loud.” Salvatrice moaned. “Turn on the radio.”

The Centurion stared as the princess gave a dismissive wave of the hand.

Defeated, Byanca bowed her head and ambled stiffly to the radio, turning the knob. From the speakers blared crackling noise and a chaotic mixture of voices, changing with every millimeter turn of the frequency switch. Once Byanca let go of the knob the wailing settled into the calm, baritone voice of a popular opera singer.

She returned to her chair and took a sip of tea. Under the heart-wrenching melodies of betrayal and bitter destiny that characterized this opera, Byanca drank in silence, alone. Salvatrice did not touch her tea. Cozzi was such a horrible thing to have to listen to; Salvatrice almost wanted to throw her cup of tea at the radio in the hopes of a short-circuit. But she felt so weak and beaten that she did not manage to do anything.

In his handsome voice, the male lead sang of the two sisters, both beautiful and wealthy. Though his courtship should have been directed at the eldest, his eyes wandered to the youngest, and there was all manner of acrimony as lust destroyed them.

A despicable tale of women swooning and dying, and rapacious, pathetic men.

Not the type of man nor the type of woman Salvatrice would ever want to be.

“Could you change the frequency? Put it on Cybelle.” She said.

Nodding her head, Byanca put down her cup, stood, and twisted the knob again.

For a second the voices mixed again before settling on the awkward speech of an older woman, slowly enunciating the winning numbers for a small lottery. After this, she began to discuss the local weather for the week. Though far less dramatic, Cybelle was a reliable news station with round-the-clock programming. It was a sweet background nothingness. But the sting of Cozzi’s warring sisters lingered in her mind. It made her think.

Salvatrice wondered whether, trapped in that nunnery, her sister hated her.

She wondered whether things could have been different had Clarissa succeeded.

Had her sister taken power, what would have become of Salvatrice Vittoria? They were only half-related by blood, each created by vastly different fathers. They had little contact over the intervening years. Certainly no familiarity bound them to each other. Would she have gotten rid of Salvatrice? Would she have hid her like an embarassment, in the way her mother did? Would she have set her free after taking her mother’s head?

Shaking her head, Salvatrice brought herself out of her thoughts in time for the news.

“At the top of the hour, we’ve got an update on a breaking story from earlier in the day. Agents of the Queen’s Coorte 17th Legion have reportedly carried out a wave of highly successful arrests aimed at suspected terrorists around the Palladi region.”

Byanca raised her head from the tea. Salvatrice felt her body tense.

“This operation became possible after a Coorte agent captured an insurgent after a shooting at the Pallas Academy where one student was killed and several injured. The 17th Legion took the man into custody and extracted information which then led to several more arrests in and around the Palladi region. The 17th Legion has also confirmed that they have captured the ringleader responsible for planning the attack on the Previte estate, the grenade attacks in Ikrea and the shooting at the Academy, along with numerous cohorts.”

Though a more credulous person would have felt relief, Salvatrice immediately thought that something had to be wrong here. She turned to Byanca, silently demanding an explanation.

“It’s impossible; a minion like him wouldn’t have known any important anarchists.” Byanca said. “I interrogated him myself. He was in hysterics. Nothing from him is credible.”

Salvatrice turned again to the radio as the news-woman continued to speak.

“The 17th Legion has published a list of names of those arrested. Should you have any further information on these men, you are advised to visit the legionary office immediately.”

Calmly the woman began to read the names on the air.

Byanca’s eyes drew wide and her jaw hung, her lips spread. Her fingers shook.

Each name seemed to knock her words further down the throat.

Only once the full list had been read did Byanca find the strength to speak again.

“Those are all people connected to my investigation.” She said, her voice quivering.

“Why would they be arrested?” Salvatrice demanded.

“I don’t know! They’re all pub crawlers and poets and beatniks. Some of them might write bawdy lyrics about the Queen but none of them have the spine to throw a bomb!”

“So then you’re telling me that everyone who testified that they were friends with the shooter has been falsely rounded up as an anarchist?” Salvatrice shouted back.

Byanca clenched her fists. She bowed her head in disgust.

“Not just those who testified. There are names on there that I just got from people, but never managed to interview. It’s practically everyone who had any tenuous link.”

Salvatrice covered her mouth with her hand, not knowing what to think or feel.

Over their silence the broadcast continued in a cheery tone.

“17th Legion Legatus Marcel has gone on record as saying that owing to the swift capture of the perpetrators, enhanced security around the Palladi region will be relaxed. To quote him: ‘citizens of Lubon should sleep soundly and walk proudly, knowing their land is now safe.'”

That was it; the final piece slid into place. She was bait and this was the lure shaking in the water. Now that the anarchists had been “caught” everyone could rest easily.

Especially the real anarchists, who would soon catch on to the fabricated blunder.

Innocents sacrificed to enable the princess’ own sacrifice. God save the Queen.

Her heart burning with rage, Salvatrice thrust to a stand and stormed away from the couch and into the hated wardrobe, so fast Byanca nearly tripped with surprise trying to follow her. Inside the wardrobe she ripped the duelist’s uniform from the racks and drew the saber from its sheathe. She swung it once, testing its weight and her own strength.

Laying eyes on the weapon, Byanca held out a shaking hand in defense.

“Princesss, please calm down.” She pleaded.

Over her shoulder, Salvatrice laid a fiery gaze on the Centurion.

“Help me out of this dress.” She ordered.

Perhaps it was a ballroom on certain nights, with a chandelier like a blossom of glass hanging over the dancers. Certainly the piano was still in the corner, and could have been played. On the wooden floor the tapping steps struck with quick sounds that then echoed across the high ceiling and broad walls. Tonight, however, Queen Vittoria was not dancing.

Instead her steps took her closer and father from an invisible opponent, a shadow, that she fought with an ornate saber. Quick lunges and careless sweeps sliced the air. A subtle rush of noise accompanied each swing. In her dueling uniform the Queen had an entirely different air from the tantalizing, extravagant clothing she often wore.

She was covered up to her neck in a purple jacket, and dark pants. Her hair was collected in a simple ponytail. As she swung and stepped, practicing her stances, the Queen looked almost rugged. Alone in this grand stage, the Queen seemed to be in her own far-off world. There were no guards, no servants, just the fairy queen, and the swirling air around her.

Salvatrice spied her from afar as she traversed the long connecting hallway.

She was almost a mirror to her mother then, dressed in a duelist’s jacket and pants herself. Her own hair, shorter than her mother’s, was instead clipped behind her head.

Nevertheless, she thought they must have looked keenly alike. Perhaps everything in that wardrobe was meant to make her more a picture of her mother, in all her forms.

Even when dressed in a more masculine fashion.

Bloodthirst as ancient as the uniform and blade directed the Princess then.

Saber in hand, Salvatrice made to walk into the room, when a hand seized her shoulder.

Behind her, Lillith Mariel appeared suddenly and seemingly without a door.

At her side there were only paintings and stone.

Salvatrice did not see her coming.

She had perhaps been waiting in ambush in a niche, like a counter-assassin.

“Your mother does not wish to be disturbed.” She said sternly. “I will not ask why you take a weapon to her presence if you surrender it to me and turn back around now.”

Salvatrice glanced side-long at the maid with a snarl on her face.

She did not stop walking, and she had no intention to surrender anything.

“Byanca, get her out of my way.” She commanded.

From farther down the hall, the dutiful servant dashed into action.

In a moment, the Centurion approached and quickly seized the older maid by the arms, ripping her from Salvatrice’s presence and pulling her kicking and cursing back into the long hall behind them. The Princess strode confidently into the ballroom, her saber swaying casually in the air as she walked, her steps light, imperious, entering the Queen’s stage.

Behind her the maid and Centurion struggled in each other’s arms.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Mariel, but please stay out of this!” Byanca gently said, trying to hold down the Queen’s maid. Though the woman periodically thrashed, the Centurion seemed to have her well in hand, maneuvering behind and then taking her by the shoulders.

“You’re the one who will be sorry.” Lillith replied.

Though Byanca was well younger, Lillith was a woman not yet old in spirit.

Byanca seemed to take note of the woman’s zeal far too late.

She threw herself back suddenly, butting Byanca’s nose with the back of her head. In shock, the Centurion released the maid, who followed the assault with a sweep of her feet that knocked Byanca to the floor. Spinning around, the maid started down the hall, but Byanca had presence enough to leap after her shoes, seizing her and bringing her to the floor too.

Salvatrice ignored the scuffle and approached the center of the room.

Ringed by the gilded lines on the floor and by the chandelier above, the Princess stopped, and unsheathed her sword. The sliding of metal finally caught the Queen’s attention.

As if awakening to reality, the Queen half-turned to meet the new arrival.

She stared incredulously at her daughter.

There was one instant of panic on her face before her composure returned.

“Surprised?” Salvatrice said, a savage grin on her face.

“I arranged for the lessons, so I’m not completely surprised.” Vittoria said.

Perhaps for a moment she had thought this an assassination, but she no longer seemed to fear. Salvatrice was perplexed; did she not consider her a threat? What was going through her head now? Salvatrice had a weapon in hand, and they were all alone in here.

“Before I departed, I thought I’d show you the fruit of that labor.” She said.

Vittoria shook her head. “I am not in the habit of sparring at my age.”

“Do you fear twisting something tender, mother?” Salvatrice cockily replied.

“Yes. But something of yours rather, not mine.” The Queen calmly said.

Her demeanor was infuriating. Salvatrice wanted the panic in her eyes back.

“So you’ll deign to strike this misbehaving child then?” Salvatrice shouted.

“I will not strike you, Salvatrice.” Vittoria said, ignoring the outburst.

Salvatrice held up her blade and sized up her opponent. Her mother had her children young. Salvatrice was only a few years older than Clarissa, and only just pushed into her twenties. Vittoria was hardly of age when she first bore a child. Even though she saw both her children come of age, the Queen had not yet reached her fifties. She was sprightly and healthy and youthful not just for a woman her age but for a woman in general.

Still, that was only the skin. There was more to the body than that.

Salvatrice was less than half her age, and though her own constitution was poor, she was decently rested, and she felt the adrenaline and anger course through her veins. It might have been the fire of youth, but she thought she had an advantage on her mother.

She might not best the Queen but she could hurt her; and she so terribly desired to inflict pain on her mother at that moment. All she wanted was to lay sword on the Queen, whatever she hit, whatever it took. Whether it cut a cheek or sliced an eye, whether it grazed or killed. Salvatrice was seeing so red that any outcome would feel just.

Soon as Vittoria began to raise her sword, Salvatrice lunged forward.

Hoping to disarm her mother while her blade was still low and off-balance, she struck down upon the body of the opposing weapon with all of her strength. She felt her blow deflect off the flat of the Queen’s saber, hastily turned and held firm against the attack.

After the contact the blades suddenly separated, and the Queen stepped back and fully formed her guard. Salvatrice brought up her own blade to defend as well.

For the Queen to have avoided dropping that sword, she must have had a monstrous wrist. Salvatrice already felt an aching across her arms and back after only one swing.

“I take up the saber to relieve stress. There is no point in this for me.” Vittoria said.

“It is a relief for me!” shouted the Princess. “Hitting you is a great relief!”

Salvatrice stepped forward and swung her arms in a fury, striking her mother’s raised blade over and over. She felt as if striking glass, as if battering down an effigy. She pounded her saber against her mother’s guard, driving the Queen back step by step.

Mindlessly Salvatrice beat at the blade until her arms were raw from the savage outburst. Looking up she found her mother’s calm visage behind the blade and grit her teeth.

“I hate you!” Salvatrice shouted at her. She swung her sword again, smashing the blade like a metal bar against the iron wall before her. “I hate you!” She shouted, dividing the words among blows, repeated again and again, while her arms shook and her face glistened. She tasted fluid salt seeping down her lips from her brow, from her eyes.

With a mad grimace, the raging Princess switched from a battering downward swing to a sudden sideways sweep. Blood drew from the Queen’s hand as she was surprised by the new attack. Her blade fell to the ground, and she staggered back, holding her injured hand. Now there was not only red in Salvatrice’s eyes, but in the air and on the floor.

Gasping for breath, trapped in the throes of sadness and hate, Salvatrice threw her own blade to the floor and charged her mother with her arms out and brought her to the ground. They grappled beside the fallen swords, Vittoria pushing her away but never shoving, nor kicking, or putting up much fight. Salvatrice quickly gained an advantage.

With a closed fist she struck her mother in the eye and pinned her face-up on the floor.

Laying over the Queen, Salvatrice dug her fingers into her mother’s neck and squeezed.

“What do you think of me now?” She shouted. “What do you think of your half-elf androgyne freak child? Are you happy now to be getting rid of me once and for all?”

The Queen’s stony expression resisted admirably the physical pain she must have felt.

Tears drew from the Princess’ eyes as she savaged her mother.

“What do you hide behind that mask of yours? Tell me you hate me already!”

Salvatrice lifted her mother’s head and thrust her down against the hard floor.

Vittoria briefly winced. Her own eyes reddened, and voicelessly, she wept.

But her expression did not change. Beyond the merest and most basically necessary expressions of pain, the Queen had no emotion for Salvatrice, no dramatic reaction to her attack. She merely lay, weeping, coughing and choking, as though prepared to die.

Staring deep into those moist, bleak green eyes Salvatrice felt her grip slacken.

Failing to draw any reciprocal reaction, the fire in her breast burnt out.

Her curled fingers shook and shrank back from the marks left on the Queen’s flesh.

Salvatrice stood from the floor, stunned, shaking. Without the rage driving her, she was bereft of mind and memory. For a moment she almost wondered where she was, but it all hit her again in the next instant. She felt a fear that shuddered in her chest like a crawling worm, sinking deeper in. She doubled over suddenly, sick to her stomach.

She had failed again; she had done nothing that mattered.

In front of her, Queen Vittoria stood. Her eyes were still stained red, bloodshot and tearful, but the empty expression on her lips remained. Fluid dribbled from her nose, and she coughed periodically, struggling to regain her breath after Salvatrice’s attack.

“I do not hate you.” Vittoria slowly said, as her voice returned.

Her voice was so imperious that Salvatrice was again left speechless in her presence.

“You are the child I chose, Salvatrice.” She continued. Her words sounded almost heartfelt. “I could never hate you. Even if you hate me; even if you kill me.”

Salvatrice’s lip quivered. She reached for words, and found, hearing her mother’s voice, another brief burst of violence inside her. “Shut up! How could I ever believe that? I was treating as nothing but an embarrassment to you! You kept Clarissa and discarded me!”

Vittoria shook her head. “Clarissa was but an imposition of this place! I am your Mother, more than I am anyone else’s Mother! Your birth sex does not and has never mattered to me. Your blood does not and has never mattered to me. From the moment you were born, you were my treasure. In unfavorable circumstances I did everything for your better–”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Salvatrice shouted. Her own voice was losing its power. “You say all these things to get into my head! I know you mean none of them! You’re just using me!”

“We are both being used to further this Crown.” Vittoria said. “Because without it, I cannot survive, and neither can you. I am doing all of this so we can survive. You might not understand my methods, but you must believe my motive.” She took a step.

Extending her bloody hand, Vittoria caressed Salvatrice’s cheek.

Upon it she left a spatter of red upon the light brown flesh.

“You are my beautiful daughter, the most beautiful, wonderful, special child that any mother in this land could have. Everything I have done, I have done for you.”

Salvatrice drew back, her expression blank save for a nervous twitch along her cheek. She was shaking, though her back was ramrod straight. Where the blood had spattered her jaw shuddered and ached. Her mind was in chaos, and she knew not what to do.

In front of her, Vittoria knelt down and picked up Salvatrice’s saber.

“I respect you, Salvatrice, more than you know. It is because I respect you, because I believe in you, that I am pushing you to take charge of our current predicaments. However, if your ambitions have grown this much, I am willing to step aside. Here, my daughter.”

She pointed the blade between her breasts and pushed the handle toward Salvatrice.

“Under this crown, everything you hold dear will be in jeopardy. If you believe you can resist it better than I, and that you can shoulder this cursed Kingdom, slay me and take it. Nobody will retaliate against you. I will make your designs reality if you desire them. But be forewarned: the moment I draw my last breath, so will you. Salvatrice Vittoria will die and this crown will take her place. No matter how much I struggled against it, I am nothing but this crown in the end. It will always win. Over you and over me. I pray that the legends about your third sex are true: that you possess the will of a woman with the endurance of a man.”

Again she pushed forward, blade against breast, the handle out to the Princess.

“You will not be punished for ambition as Clarissa was. If you hate me, then kill me.”

Vittoria took another step, and once more Salvatrice drew back from her, horrified.

“Whether today or within decades, you are going to carry this weight.” She said. “Because I love you, because I respect you; I will honor whatever you decide, my daughter.”

Weight; the word echoed within all of Salvatrice’s being, tearing her apart from inside.

Salvatrice reached for the handle, seized it– and threw the sword down on the ground.

There was a sudden and agonizing lapse in her murderous desires, and just as sudden an all-encompassing fear of the gravity surrounding her mother’s presence. As if witnessing a walking ghost, Salvatrice turned from the Queen and fled blindly back down the hall, past the brawling Centurion and maid, past a pair of confused guards, past torches and doorways and stone and banners, not knowing where she was headed, running without end.

Into the labyrinth of the palace, and her own mind, she fled screaming.

38th of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E

Kingdom of Lubon, Royal Territory of Pallas — Palazzo Di Vittoria

“How is the tea?”

“It is fair, dear mother.”

“Only fair? It appears Lillith will never enter your heart as she did mine.”

“Oh ho ho! I have no designs to that extent. I’ve a royal already.”

“Of course. I would not tolerate my dear maid stolen from me.”

“I would never steal from my own mother. It would mean falling quite low.”

Byanca stared quietly at the trio with a skeptical expression.

Salvatrice drank her black tea in delicate sips with a demure expression. Her depature dress was a bit more extravagant than those of the past two days, with pink lace that nearly matched the color of her hair, and an open back. She had been surprised to find it among her things in the morning. Byanca supposed Canelle packed it a bit too well. A pity she could not have worn it to the dinner instead, the better to match her mother’s fashion.

She looked quite flashy. Her face was fully made up, with a brush of light gold pigment on her lips, and red shadow over her eyes. Her light figure was well represented.

Across the table, Vittoria was, in turn, rather modestly dressed. Her long sleeves and shaped skirt showed no skin save for her neck and some collarbone. Scrunchy lace and frills decorated the end of a fluffy shawl. A lacy white choker matched the bandage around her black eye and over her injured hand. It covered the marks Salvatrice had left on her neck.

Like her daughter, she was nicely made-up and appeared in decent spirits. A small smile played over her lips as she and her maid made polite chatter. Byanca could have confused her for a gentle, doting older mother, had she not had so much prior cause for skepticism.

There was quite a spread on the table. Tea, biscuits, grapes, honey cheeses, in beautifully garnished plates. The Centurion tasted the food and was nearly moved to tears. Byanca turned to Lillith with a special regret, in light of how delicious the honey cheese turned out.

There were visible marks on the maid’s exposed neck and shoulders, and a scratch across her cheek, all where Byanca had beaten and banged and otherwise manhandled her. It had been all she could do to keep the woman trapped in melee and a way from the royals. That maid had proven too tough an opponent the night before. Had she decided to fight instead of trying to run, Byanca was sure she would have been beaten to a pulp by her.

Lillith seemed to notice the attention, and shook her head with a smile on her face.

“You look tense, Centurion. Drink your tea and take in the lightness of things.”

Byanca couldn’t understand how after everything that happened the night before, they could gather in the morning for tea as if they were a family. She was sure, though perhaps it had all been a dream, that Salvatrice had tried to kill the Queen last night. She remembered returning to Salvatrice’s room and finding it locked, after she had run away. Only God knew; perhaps the Queen had just tripped and hurt herself. Maybe Salvatrice wasn’t screaming her lungs off all night. Who knew; who knew? Byanca sighed helplessly and sipped her tea.

At around noon, the Princess and her Centurion had gathered their things and were once more ready to depart the grand Palazzo. At the outer gates, back into the city, the Queen herself rode out on a sleek white horse to bid her daughter adieu. From inside the car, Salvatrice waved her goodbyes to her mother, and their driver took them into the city and out into the country once more. Back to the familiar setting of the Messianic Academy.

Salvatrice stared glumly out the windows, holding her head up by one hand. Though the landscape scrolled by them as beautiful as it always was, she seemed as if she were staring through it or past it, into a world for her eyes only. She was not taking in the sights.

Byanca sat back in the car, feeling restless from the silence.

“Got anything in mind, Princess?” She asked.

Salvatrice shook her head. “I’m going to take care of some things first, to clear my head. Then we will take care of all of this. I’m going to need your help more than ever.”

The Centurion nodded her head, satisfied with the response.

In fact, she felt a bit happy that the Princess was going to rely on her.

But she could not keep her mind off the past night’s events. She had to speak.

“Salva, about your mother–”

“That never happened.” Salvatrice replied.

Byanca nodded her head again. At least it was some kind of acknowledgment.

“Do you really hate her?” She asked.

Without turning her head, Salvatrice spoke in a dull tone of voice.

“I hate her. But right now, I need her. I will find a solution.”

For the rest of the journey, the Princess was silent, staring out the window.

However, Byanca felt no tension from her. She was either determined, or resigned.

Last Chapter |~| Next Chapter

Rumbling Hearts (42.1)

47th of the Aster’s Gloom 2030 D.C.E

Tambwe Dominance — Rangda City, 8th Division Garrison HQ

As the sun rose to keep its noon-time appointments, the door to the temporary Regimental Headquarters slammed suddenly open. Logia Minardo wandered nonchalantly inside, singing a little tune to herself. Despite her visible pregnancy, she was as sprightly as a teenage girl, swinging her hips, tossing her shoulder-length hair, taking little dancing steps into the building. From her fingers swung a cloth bag that she used as a prop in her act.

Her feet thudded on the floor as she neared her desk, adding percussion to her voice.

Coming out of a quick spin, she set down her bag and snapped her fingers with a flourish.

Behind the main desk, Colonel Madiha Nakar and her pet dragon glared the Staff Sergeant’s way, both taking the same guarded posture and wearing exactly the same sour expression toward her. Neither of them seemed amused with Minardo’s antics. Kali was even growling. Fully uniformed, even wearing her officer’s cap, Madiha looked likewise unapproachable.

Minardo smiled and waved her hand at the pair. She spoke in a flighty tone of voice.

“Oh my, I don’t know if it’s pet influencing owner or owner influencing pet anymore.”

Madiha’s sour expression grew concertedly sour. Kali then mimicked her.

In the Colonel’s mind, a reservoir of good will toward Minardo was rapidly emptying.

“I am wondering why you failed to pick me up this morning, and why you are here so late in the day with that nonchalant expression on your face. Furthermore, I’m curious to see if you know the answers to those questions with regards to my assistant.” Madiha said.

Across the room, the staff sergeant quizzically panned her head around. Her gaze settled on each desk and table in the room, and it dawned on her what Madiha had known for hours now. Parinita had failed to show up for work; she hadn’t even taken a minute to tell Madiha where she was going, despite them living in the same building. It was the shock of a lonely morning and a lonely walk from her lodgings to the base, that had Madiha quite on edge.

That, and her building disdain for Minardo’s roguish sense of humor.

“Oh no! Perhaps she was kidnapped.” Minardo said, putting on a face of mock fright.

“Don’t joke about that.” Madiha said brusquely.

Minardo raised her hands defensively. “I’m sorry. I don’t think anything bad could have happened to her. She might have gone to the shops to get an outfit to wear to the festival.”

“She didn’t have any money. None of us do.” Madiha said.

“There are more ways to acquire goods than through money.” Minardo said.

She blew a little kiss at Madiha, who discovered then that what she hated more than Minardo’s roguish sense of humor was her coquettish sense of humor.

“Don’t joke about that, either!” Madiha snapped loudly, pushing herself to an irate stand, and Kali joined in with tinny growls, stretching up on the desk as if ready to pounce.

Minardo shrugged. “My, my, this is a tough crowd.” She then sighed heavily. “Anyway, I lent her some money, okay? I’m sure she is only out on the town. It is fine, Colonel.”

“And where did you get this money you lent her from? Are you suddenly a bank?”

“I just had it tucked away, and I decided to be kind. What do you want from me?”

Madiha grumbled. She irrationally bitter that Parinita had turned to Minardo for funds.

Even though she knew that she wouldn’t have been able to help at all in that arena.

“Fine. I’ll accept that. Go busy yourself for now.” Madiha ordered.

Minardo nodded her head and turned around to her desk.

Aside from Madiha and now Minardo, the room was empty. The Colonel dismissed Bhishma early; without Parinita around she had no idea what work she could even have Bhishma do. Padmaja had come fluttering in early in the morning, and took a few radio calls, and organized every desk. Then, having run out of things to do, Madiha had her go on errands.

For a few hours after, the Colonel was alone in the office.

Despite this, Minardo’s presence was not exactly welcomed.

Ever since they met, Madiha felt like her image of the Staff Sergeant was deteriorating.

She knew that she was on edge, and that her condition was heightening her low-key disdain for Minardo’s flighty but harmless antics. The Staff Sergeant was useful and could be more useful in the future; but in the present, Madiha wanted to be angry at her, and indulged that anger more openly than she had in the past. Her emotions bubbled beneath her skin.

If the Staff Sergeant sensed any danger, she hid that intuition well.

Minardo sat behind her desk, and for a moment she pretended to do some work. At a glance she seemed to busy herself, picking up papers, tapping them against the desktop, setting them down, and going over them. However, all of those papers were taken from a stack of blank requisition sheets, so there was nothing to read. And Minardo was constantly glancing over at Madiha’s desk. Despite meeting the Colonel’s disapproving gaze several times this way, Minardo did not cease her little facade until the Colonel called her out.

“What do you want, Minardo?” Madiha asked, exasperated.

“I am wondering if you have any hobbies, Colonel.”

Madiha frowned back, irritated and glum.

“I–”

Suddenly Minardo interrupted. “No military stuff!”

She felt like replying with ‘go to hell’ but restrained herself.

Madiha gave a throaway answer. “Kali.” She said.

At her side, the dragon’s eyes drew wide open and it kneaded its legs happily.

“I happen to have an affinity for puzzles.” Minardo replied.

“What’s your point? Do you want to show me a puzzle?”

Minardo smiled and stood up from her desk. “Since we have nothing better to do.”

She withdrew a box from her bag, and set it down on Madiha’s desk.

“I was thinking,” she continued, “we could take up a little challenge.”

It was a chess board from Solstice Toys & Games, updated to match the sensibilities of the time. Pawns were laborers, Knights were revolutionaries, bishops Commissars, and so on. At the very top of the hierarchy of pieces was the Premier, or Central Committee Head; in this edition the piece was a small, ivory Lena Ulyanova. It was a rather cute board all told.

“Chess?” Madiha asked. Her demeanor softened just a little.

“I prefer crossword puzzles to keep my mind sharp, but this works for two.”

Kali drew close to the chess set, sniffed the box, and recoiled, snarling.

“Does it smell like me?” Minardo asked, leaning close to the dragon.

Kali blew a puff of white smoke into Minardo’s face.

Drawing back again from the desk, Minardo sighed audibly.

“Anyway, would you like to have a match, Colonel?” Minardo asked.

Madiha knew that the excuse of ‘I have work to do’ had all dried up. She had hardly the capacity to work in this office, and other than yelling at various suppliers to hurry up with her orders, she had little administrative work to do. And what little she could do, she needed Parinita to record and organize. Doing anything without her secretary would have led to confusion later, as both wondered what parts of the work were done or not.

So in those circumstances, the idea of besting Minardo sounded palatable.

“I wanted to go over the table of organization, but fine. We can play one game.”

Nodding her head contentedly, Minardo pulled up the top of the game box, and set up the board atop Madiha’s empty desk, putting all the pieces in their places. “Black or white?”

“Black.” Madiha replied.

Minardo flipped the board, and put her hand on a pawn.

“That means I go first.” She said, winking.

Madiha acknolwedged, and watched as Minardo made a simple opening move.

Out of the front ranks, a white pawn moved.

Figuring there was no better move at the time, Madiha mirrored her opponent.

She thought she could already see a game unfolding here.

Pawns drew out, and then knights started moving. Madiha thought it would become a pitched battle, and her mind was racing to plot out the moves that she would make. She viewed the knights as tanks, able to move around obstacles. Pawns were small but vicious infantry who could hold key positions. And then there was the Queen, most powerful of all.

She viewed it as the war of mobility that had been swirling in her mind for days now.

Her imagination got the better of her.

Despite this exertion of brainpower, Minardo was soon laughing in Madiha’s face.

Though in her head many moves had been made, in reality, only pawns had set out.

Two moves worth of pawns from both sides. White, black, white, black–

Win.

A white Queen came creeping out of her phalanx for a surprise victory.

“I can’t believe this! You fell for the fool’s mate! Are you eight years old?”

Minardo continued to laugh while Madiha surveyed the board in confusion.

She could imagine all she wanted, but she had never actually played chess.

As such, her play was apparently incredibly weak.

“I feel so cruel to have won this way! But I couldn’t resist trying it.” Minardo boasted.

Madiha rubbed her chin, quietly staring at the board.

Her sour expression returned.

Kali swiped its tail at the board, scattering the pieces on the desktop.

“Hey!” Minardo said, frowning childishly. “Don’t break my set!”

Feeling rather sour, Madiha did notthing to restrain her rampant companion.

She turned her head away instead.

“You need to be a better sport than this, Colonel!” Minardo said, picking up her pieces.

Madiha grumbled.

“Were it not for the restrictions of this game I would’ve beaten you.” She said.

Minardo blinked. Now it was her turn to put on a sour face.

“It is quite ugly of you to act so petulantly!” She said. “Chess is a simulation of war, Colonel!”

Perhaps her actions had offended the Staff Sergeant, but Madiha found it hard to care at the time. She crossed her arms and averted her eyes, but continued to talk in a haughty tone, feeling somewhat empowered by her sudden ability to needle Minardo on this topic. In fact she resolved to push the issue further and see where her Staff Sergeant would snap again.

“You can gloat about your skills in a game all you want. Chess is nowhere near the reality of war. Combat does not move on grids or follow turns. Had we both been on a real battlefield I would have had you in ropes in a captive’s tent easily, Staff Sergeant.” Madiha said.

Again this attitude seemed to put her opponent quite off-balance.

“Those are loser’s words indeed!” Minardo said, raising her voice.

It was poor sport; Madiha was still disassatisfied with the game and with Minardo.

Even prodding her was not cathartic enough for the Colonel’s frustrations.

She would not dismiss or discipline Minardo. She felt that would hurt her too much.

Instead she resolved just to try to ignore her.

“Well, whatever; you’ve had your fun, now leave me be.” Madiha said.

Unfortunately her Staff Sergant never seemed to relent on any issue.

“Not so soon! I have a game you could try then, if you’re so high and mighty!”

Minardo stood up in a hurry, and withdrew a file folder from her bag.

She slapped it down onto the table.

It was a red folder with the insignia of the Solstice Officer’s School.

Madiha’s eyes darted down to the folder. It immediately captured her attention.

“Well, Colonel, if chess is too simple for you, how about a wargame? You’ve taken part in these exercises before, correct? Then, you should have no complaints in this arena.”

“What do you hope to accomplish with this?” Madiha asked.

Minardo smirked. That mischevious glint returned to her eyes.

“I am merely curious about the legend of this so-called ‘hero of the border’.”

Madiha bristled. She did not particularly like that epithet and the burden it carried when spoken. However, she also felt a building anger at how easily Minardo took the name in vain, at how conceited she was behaving. Though Madiha tried to present a friendly and approachable face, she was the Colonel, and Minardo was showing her too little respect.

Had she done such a thing to Kimani, she would have been slapped across the face.

Madiha stood up as quickly as Minardo had, a determined look on her face.

“Fine! You shall see that legend first-hand.” She said.

They sealed the challenge with a hand-shake, and cleared the desk.

Thankfully this was the compact version of the wargame, playable even in a barracks.

Atop the Colonel’s desktop they unfurled a long map, and began to deploy chits that represented various army units. It was a map of Vassaile, an area between the Frank Kingdom and the Nocht Federation, and the game was set in during the Unification War. It was a scenario that Madiha knew well; she knew every battle of these modern wars quite well, but this scenario was rather common in officer training across the world.

Played according to the rules of the Nochtish Kriegsspiel games, adapted for Ayvartan use, the scenario pitted the Frank 66th Army (Bluefor) against the Nochtish 11th Army (Redfor). In the battle of Vassaile, the 66th Army had crossed the border to Nocht in force, launching an offensive against Federation forces. Historically, the Nocht Federation retreated from Vassaile in disarray. It was the job of Bluefor to assail Nocht, and to achieve a victory better than history — the complete destruction of the 11th army. Meanwhile, Redfor had to attempt to keep the Nochtish lines straight while escaping from destruction. It was a scenario that helped prove the leadership qualities of the commanders on both sides.

Classically, it was a scenario that, when played well, had no victory for either side.

Redfor classically held on at the edges of Vassaile and prevented the Frank forces from entering too deep into Nocht; Bluefor classically took all of its objectives, but without destroying Redfor or managing to invade the Nochtish heartland past Vassaile.

“I’m calling Bluefor.” Minardo said, stamping her hand on a chit representing the 1st Chasseurs Division, light cavalry. Around her hand were dozens more Frank units. The Franks were noted for having the larger starting army, though Nocht had more reinforcements and reserves. Thus it was known Franz had an offensive advantage.

“Then I’m Redfor.” Madiha calmly replied.

It unsettled her slightly. In officer school she had played Bluefor and won the ahistorical victory, destroying the 11th Army completely through encirclement around Vassaile. She had not opted then to penetrate too deep into Nocht. Destroying the 11th Army was enough.

Likely, if Minardo brought this game here and called Bluefor, she intended to do the same.

“We’ve both played this game before, so let us settle things honorably.” Minardo said.

Madiha thought it certainly fit her roguish character to say such a thing.

She definitely intended to play Madiha’s game. That result was no secret among wargamers.

“I won’t kick up a storm; but you had best umpire it properly.” Madiha replied.

There was no use fighting it. Using good results from previous players was common.

Kali leaned over the map, flicking her tongue at the chits.

“No, settle down.” Madiha said. She wanted to see this game through.

Kali looked at her, and then curled in a corner of the table.

“This set is not my property, so let’s not ruin it.” Minardo said.

“Kali will behave.”

Madiha and Minardo shook hands over the table.

Thus the game began.

It was the 17th of the Lilac’s Bloom, and the Franks made the first move.

Minardo rattled off her orders.

“1st Division Chasseurs à cheval will move along the curve of Paix and Moltke on the Nochtish border, initiating hostilities against the 5th Grenadier Division. 5th Division Vernon Royal Hussars will ascend the Crux and Cateblanche line and attack the 10th Grenadier Division alongside the 1st Independent Scout Car battalion–”

Madiha acknowledged each move. These were standard openers. Madiha had performed all of them herself during her ahistorical winning game. 5th Grenadier and 10th Grenadier had historically arrived quite late, but early enough to be counted as standing units in the game. Unlike much of the Nochtish army at the time they lacked even minimal entrenchment along the border, and thus made prime targets for Franz’ few mobile units of the period.

As was standard, Nocht retreated both divisions, as they would be unable to stand and face the Chassuers and the Hussars in their early game condition. Even weak old horse cavalry was enough to burst these rushed Grenadier divisions. This created holes in the line that the standard Divisione D’Infanterie could then move through to attack Nocht entrenchments behind their lines. Madiha was forced into the standard early game retreat.

Beginning officers unused to the game would often muck about the border for several game periods, making for the impressive military fisticuffs that characterized the battle as it actually played out. But those with experience in the game always played it ahistorically, preserving their forces to try to game the system where they could do so later on.

Madiha began her retreat. Using a pointer, she pushed back her chits from the bulging Paix-Moltke curve at the Frank border, abandoning the Nochtish entrenchments and losing their defensive bonuses, but escaping what would have otherwise been an easy Frank trap and a sweeping early victory. This was all still standard; nobody had innovated at all yet.

She presumed that Minardo would not innovate; she waited for tell-tale signs of her own play, and soon found the first indication that Minardo was playing her old game to the letter. The 17th Royal Durst Pikers challenged the retreating Nochtish 19th Grenadier Division, an otherwise unassuming division that happened to hold Nocht’s only heavy mortars in the sector. Its destruction would greatly hamper defensive play for Redfor in the coming turns.

It was a move Madiha could not prevent, and she picked up the chit and discarded it.

All the while, Minardo laughed haughtily and grinned to herself.

“It’s interesting isn’t it?” She said, in a mock sweet voice.

Madiha could not disagree. She felt it was rather exhilirating to see this board again.

This was a bloodless battlefield where she had total control. Units could live or die only as necessary to achieve a victory. There was no complications, only pure strategy.

Madiha felt something close to elation, to entertainment, to purpose.

Her heart raced, and her skin brimmed with energy.

She felt the time had come for her first innovation.

“I will bypass the free entrenchment opportunity at the Lehner line. 11th Army will continue to retreat west. Let the umpire know I surrender the objective at Erfring.”

“Oh ho ho. So– You give up some points to me just like that?”

“Yes. You can have it.”

Minardo gleefully pushed her chits forward, and Madiha, though she kept a stony outward face was smiling inside. Someone who only read a list of Madiha’s winning moves or a summary of the scenario she played at the academy, would see this as a winning situation. In reality, it meant the entire nature of the scenario that Madiha played back then was fundamentally changed. Minardo’s memorized moves would no longer apply to the game.

Giving up the Lehner line forced Nocht dangerously close to a technical defeat.

After all, being kicked out of the battlefield almost entirely was a loss, in every sense.

Historically, Nocht had held on at the edge of Vassaile.

For Nocht to move too far past this line meant a total defeat regardless of objectives.

However, the way Madiha intended to play, this would not matter.

The 11th Army continued to retreat and finally took up its new positions in a strained, u-shaped curve straddling a forest and a large rural boom town called Schmelzdorf.

It lay behind the half-way point of a tactical map that began far on the right, near Franz.

Retreat beyond the forest would mean a loss for the 11th Army, opening Nocht to invasion.

It was the kind of bait no reckless player would let go.

Pressing her offensive advantage, Minardo launched several attacks with her 66th army.

She continued to move closer and closer on the map, bloodthirsty with victory after tactical victory. Madiha removed various chits, and shored up the line with reinforcements that had begun moving at the start of the game and only now reached the line, in time to plug it. Now Minardo was dubiously innovating. She was attacking much more than Madiha had been.

Perhaps she realized the game had changed; and this was her own original play now.

Regardless, Madiha had achieved her result, and now launched her coup.

“I’m calling for a rail movement.” She declared.

She indicated the length of the movement and the rail lines she would use.

Minardo nodded, and looked over the proposal.

Her eyes drew wide.

“You realize your rail point is behind my lines.”

Now it was Madiha’s turn to put on a fake sweet smile and a mock sweet voice.

“Did you cut the line? I did not seen any engineers moving.”

Minardo grumbled. “You’ll have to roll to move through enemy lines.”

So far, dice had not come into play, because most of the moves were easily agreeable.

Madiha picked up a pair of red arbitration dice, and cast them without looking.

Whatever the outcome did not matter to her.

She began to push chits through the rail line and behind Minardo’s group.

Then she repeated the movement, rolling the dice again.

And she repeated it again.

Finally, it dawned upon Minardo the shape that the battlefield was taking.

It was a cauldron.

Drawn into the sunken curve of the 11th Army’s long, tormented line, the 66th army fit inside the belly of the u-shape line as if it was always meant to go there. And now, 6 Divisions of Madiha’s Nochtish forces, having suffered some attrition from trying to rail through enemy lines but ultimately successful in doing so, were beginning to form a lid.

For the first time in the match, Madiha began to call her own attacks.

Attacks that hit by surprise from behind the battered, overstretched 66th Army, that had moved so quickly, so aggressively, against a constantly retreating army, that they were completely tired out. Madiha had baited them in, and now owned their strategic depth. Her “mobile” forces were cut off from supply behind the Frank lines, and their days were ultimately numbered in such a situation, but she did not care, because she was now winning.

Her play would end the game before the units engaged in deep battle ran out of supply.

Ignoring any strong units lagging behind Minardo’s advance, she struck her weak rear.

Seeing the events, Minardo started to stare at the board in the same way that Madiha had stared at the chess board before. Incredulous, rubbing her chin, twisting some of her hair around her index finger, she scanned every chit for some possibility. It was not only Madiha’s play that had stumped her. She had made some blunders too. For example, her cavalry and rudimentary early Unification War era cars were stuck in the center of the 66th Army, unable to move freely. Her front line was all Infantry, and her rear mostly artillery.

In several strokes, Madiha’s weak but cunning penetration units inflicted heavy damage. Minardo’s artillery blew up in her face. Her engineers division was slaughtered. Supply points were captured. To add insult to injury, a battered Grenadier Division parked itself on the Erfring objective, technically taking it back from the Franks. It was absolute mayhem.

Minardo picked up the folder and flipped through the rules.

“Oh good, you’ve got the manual out. If you have a second, Staff Sergeant: I don’t know the rules for capturing a Headquarters behind its own line. Please find them.” Madiha said.

Smiling as coyly as Minardo once did, Madiha brimmed with energy.

Minardo put down the folder, and sighing heavily she also put down her pointer stick.

She cast it atop the center of the map.

This was a sign of surrender.

“Alright, fine! Fine. It looks like I was wrong, Colonel. I apologize.”

Madiha stared at her, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“I’m being genuine!” Minardo whined. “I am sorry. I got carried away.”

Madiha stretched out a hand, still smiling, high on the adrenaline of her dream war.

They shook. Minardo’s lips curled up a little.

“My, my, Colonel; you have such a beautiful smile. I’d love to see it more often.”

“I would smile more if you didn’t mortify me so much.”

“I said I was sorry! I was just trying to be friendly.”

“Trying to be friendly by bullying me?” Madiha said.

“My professional curiosity got the best of me. I told you I’m an awful gossip.”

“I’d advise you to stop gathering information on me.” Madiha replied.

“Will do!” Minardo said. “What say we let bygones be bygones?”

She withdrew her hand and saluted Madiha.

“Staff Sergeant Logia Minardo, at your service, ma’am! Pleased to serve under you!”

“You even manage to make that tick me off a bit.” Madiha said, grinning a little.

“Oh no, is your opinion of me irrevocably damaged?”

“It will need time to recover.”

Minardo’s whole body seemed to wilt, comically glum.

Ignoring her, Madiha poked the end of the map, and it rolled a little bit closed.

“Did you really memorize all of my play in this game?” She idly asked.

Minardo rubbed her index fingers together, putting on a bashful face.

“Ah, well. Once upon a time, I was shooting for an officer’s commission, and this game came up as a way. I had it in mind to impress someone; but they saw through the ruse.”

“Did you think it would work now?” Madiha asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Truth be told, I was hoping to be humiliated again.” Minardo said.

Sensing the game was over, Kali reared up to claw at the map, and knock it off.

“No!” Madiha said, raising her index finger. “Bad.”

Kali stared bitterly at Minardo and curled into a ball at the far edge of the desk.

Shaking her head, Madiha turned back to her Staff Sergeant. “Anything else?”

Minardo crossed her arms. “Just remember, we’ve only hit a draw right now. Someday soon, Colonel, I’ll make it 2-1! I’d advise you to polish up your Mancala skills!”

As quickly as it went, her wry, foxy little smile reappeared.

Madiha heaved a long sigh.

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