“Hold still, damn you.”
“Oh Ancients, get it out!”
The captain’s skin writhed and broke in places, spewing blood and gore. “Here, see these lumps? Press the skin toward the wound.”
Another scream. The camera orb whirred in demented delight.
“I’ve never seen this before. Should we cut him open?”
“I’m gonna be sick.”
“Bugshot.” The man in charge standing over the grisly affair had little hope on his face. “Haven’t seen this since the Treaty.”
The man kneeling next to the captain pulled out a long, fanged worm from his bloody body. Halmon was weeping. “Do you think the King knew they were planning this?”
“Why would he? They must have hid it from our cameras. Halmon was supposed to be his champion.”
“Don’t—” Halmon’s face was drained of color. “Don’t talk about me like I’m already dead.”
“Sorry, Halmon.” The man folded his arms over his chest. “They’ve got into your liver by now. We’ve got to burn your body or we’ll have a plague on our hands.”
The dying captain screamed. Ariadne winced. Much as she hated the man, it was an unfairly cruel fate. Someone poured vinegar on his open wounds to try to kill the bugs and he screamed again. Thunder cracked closer. She pulled the long coat around herself as the soldiers filed out. After she was sure all cameras were gone, she slipped inside. “I’ll take care of him,” she said to the doctor, angling her voice low. “Go get some rest.”
“There’s nothing left to take care of.” The doctor was too bleary to get a good look at her face. “I’ve sent for one of our hovercams so he can say goodbye.” The captain wailed. “Should be here any minute. As soon as that’s done, take him to the pyres.” He trudged out. The wild-eyed captain looked on her, lips parted and moaning. Something wriggled at the corner of his mouth. His chest was torn open through the honorary blue shirt and centipedes ate hungrily at the edges of his flesh. Ariadne imagined for a moment that those bugs had long been laying eggs on his corrupted heart and they were just hatching now.
“Lady Ariadne,” he gasped. “Go, you should not see this.”
She knelt beside him, swallowing the bile that rose at the sight of his body, mangled by illegal biological warfare. The voices, for once, were silent. Her hand closed around the knife strapped to her calf. “It’s better this way,” she assured him, and then she slit his throat. At least he wouldn’t suffer, and in death she had to harbor toward him no more ill will.
But the camera would be in any minute. She smeared herself in his blood, any blood that was not stained with insectile slime. Covered his body in her robe. Twisted her hair up above her head and sliced it off with the tainted knife. A lucky thing she had dyed her hair as red as his. No, not luck. Fate.
Fight.
She stole his belt and precious sword, a family heirloom, the weapon of the courageous. She would not be using the gun, but kept it anyway, and wrapped her face with a muddy veil. The hovercam came in. Just in time she managed a slouch, arm wrapped around herself, doing her best to look pained. “Go away,” she snarled, mimicking the captain’s voice. She was no good at deception, but she had to try. The war rested on it. She grabbed the camera and shoved it out of the tent. “I’ll fight your ... your champion. And I’ll damn well win.” She coughed and glared at the camera. “I said get out.”
The camera hesitated, twitched and locked something into place, then turned and zoomed serenely away.
She found a bottle of oil on the table and tossed it onto the body, then pulled out her lighter and dropped it. He burned.
But it wasn’t the enemy she cared to fool. It was her own people. They must believe Captain Halmon had gone down to the battlefield, and so she stood and limped, groaning like the cowardly captain had done. Someone grasped her arm. She shoved him off. A cold gust of wind tickled the area of her neck that had previously been protected by her long hair. A camera found her, and then two, and then a small army of them were following her, enemy and ally cameras alike. The blood obscured enough of her face, the veil protected from close-ups, and her lean body strode in the bloody blue clothes with more confidence than she felt. She only looked ahead, her hand on the Halmon family sword. Men fell into step behind her, going to watch the duel that would likely end her life.
It began to rain.
Fight.
The champion stood on the opposite bank of the valley, half-concealed by the rain and illuminated intermittently by lightning. The mass of muscle on top of muscle had never lost in a duel, and he held his big two-handed sword with such ease he seemed to be laughing at her. This man was the reason why the enemy had come so far into Ephemeron territory.
“Halmon is dead!” someone screamed. She heard the wild roar of the King’s voice, and a flurry of a thousand other panicked voices and wet, heavy footsteps as they ran down the hill to stop her. She did not turn around. Her voices were content, quiet, listening and watching, and so she was content.
The enemy blew a horn, and the cameras focused in as the duel began. There was no time to think. He ran toward her, and she ran. They would collide with each other, but he swung and she ducked, sliding through the mud under his blade. As she leapt up she kicked at his calf, nearly making him stumble. No, he was too sturdy for that. He righted himself too quickly, and he was going to kill her in the next instant, except...
Dodge right. Block right. Step back. Block. Swipe. Duck.
They had never spoken with such clarity in her life. Her body was not her own, far beyond the capacity of her training. She was a demon, moving like water around her enemy’s sword.
Block. Step back. Swing up.
And then a momentary silence, falling away like notes in an empty church. That was enough. The enemy’s sword found her body and snipped into the skin of her hip. The steel came up and swung toward her neck, and she imagined her own head rolling disgracefully into a pool of blood and sopping mud where the bugshot could find her eye sockets.
She ducked, nearly forgetting to move without the voices’ prompting. The blade did not find her neck. It found her right eye. Warm liquid boiled onto her face. She scrambled up, dodged another blow, nearly lost her footing in the mud as he advanced on her.
Don’t leave me now. Please.
Now she was blocking wildly, leaning on her training with every ounce of energy. His blows rattled her lithe frame. She barely had time to reposition her sword before the next blow came, again and again in an endless downpour of beatings.
He did not laugh, the enemy’s champion, though he had every right to. His smile was sure, self-confident, but not hubristic. He was going to win, and he knew it.
Blinded by her own blood, she stumbled to the ground, and his sword rose to strike the final blow.
She closed her eyes and let out a shout. Her death would not be noble. Her death would be short and bloody, and her father would be glad.
Thunder in the distance, and then closer. Lightning broke like a snapping camera. The long tentacle of electricity grabbed the closest outstretched thing: the champion’s sword. It zipped down his arm and cut off a scream, decimating it to silence as his body jerked, once, twice, arrested in space.
All she saw was an opportunity. Live, her body, not the voices, urged. Live! Her hand found the hilt of Halmon’s gun before she had time to think – an instinctual reaction of survival. The human spirit chooses shame and life over honor and death. The gun went off, thunder cracked, and the bullet pierced the champion’s heart. Long ago, the man had decided how he would die: with honor, body succumbing to cancer, to glorious fanfare, surrounded by loved ones.
She did not give that to him.
He staggered back, pain in every muscle, and toppled ungainly into the mud.
Rain and blood roared in her ears, screaming triumph at her shameful victory. A hand touched the cut on her hip, trembling as it tried to hold the blood in place, and she closed her eyes to ease the strain of the b
roken membrane. For a blessed moment, there was silence, and all was right in the world.
And then, chaos.
They raced down the slope, representatives of both sides, followed by zipping hovercams. Mud splashed around their heels, some kicking up dead maggots from last night’s bugshot. Soldiers screamed and swarmed on her, lifted her into the air. “You did it, Halmon! Ancients, this morning you weren’t well enough to walk. You won!”
“Foul play!” the enemies screamed. “Dishonor! Cheat!”
Her people protected her from them, though they shouldn’t have. She swayed against someone’s shoulder, blinded by her own blood mingling with the rain.
And then she heard them.
They did not speak, but they mingled, cooing soft approval. A happy counterpoint to the din around her, the smattering of outraged gunshots that went off, the cameras whirring by her head, the abuse flung across enemy lines. The sides began to fight again, starts and stops in passionate uncertainty, but the duel was the Ancients’ period that ended the book. Ariadne slipped into unconsciousness as the voices lullabied her toward that fitting death.
~~~~~
The final gun was fired only that morning, and the document wasn’t yet finalized, but signatures in blood had been written and were nearly dried. The king was never happy, but he was positively sour now. He scowled at the victory banners that hung limply in the thick fog, and though the people of Ephemeron were given to gossip, they were quiet now.
“I am bound by honor.” The fog was so thick between him and Ephemeron’s people that it looked as though he was speaking to no one at all. The thousand cameras whirred outside the ring of the balcony’s light, but their digital eyes were not for him. They watched the curtain that partitioned the balcony behind him. “Ephemeron has been victorious. We are a strong people. But we are only as strong as our king.”
He glared at the digital eyes. He did not care that it was rude to acknowledge they were there. He never had grown used to them. “I present the victor of Birmingham and your new king, Ariadne.”
The people crowded together, huddled against the cold and straining to see the stately royal woman come to the balcony. Out she came, slowly, dragging the endless train of wool behind her and balancing the crown of broken glass that stretched halfway to the sky in sharp jagged edges. There was silence in her mind.
These were never meant to be her people. It was difficult to ignore the simmering glare of the old king as she spoke. “With the strength of our ancestors and the fortitude of your courage, we will take Akron and be a greater nation than any that has come before us.”
It was not enough to send the people spiraling into a frenzy of applause. Ariadne had won for them, but the whispers of dishonor grew like a great mangled monster, and the barred doors were beginning to split as it heaved at the gates.
We are here. We will guide you.
But you abandoned me. They had taken her halfway, miraculously, through the fight and then left her to die. Ariadne still ached from the wound. She was lucky splattered bugshot from the field had not infected her belly. I trusted you. For the first time in her life she doubted them. And now any fool could contest her rule because she’d been forced to use a gun. The crack of disgrace had shattered more than the Akron champion’s ribs.
Trust. A high favor to ask. Trust. Trust.
The voices faded as Ariadne received a smattering of uncertain applause. They were replaced by one voice. A male, young and clear. The one who had liked redheads. Trust, Ariadne.
She was curious enough to obey.
“And we are guided now by those seated beyond.” She raised her hand to the sky, giving praise to the clouds. “Call them what you will. Gods or Ancients or ancestors. They guide my hand and my eyes.” Trust, Ariadne. “Trust in me, people of Ephemeron. With the voices of the Ancients I will guide our nation to greatness.”
There were murmurs of confusion. Was she mad? No man had spoken of gods with any seriousness since the End. Hundreds of years had passed and hope in deus ex had long since died out.
But there was more applause than before. Perhaps her madness had brought dishonor to Ephemeron, but perhaps it would save them all. Ariadne turned back through the balcony without giving them the chance to question her.
Her throne stretched, too tall for any man, to sweep across the ceiling and half of the room. Sometime in the End lightning had struck the sand and melded this endless throne. Above it swung the First Man’s sword from a hemp rope, tip hanging toward the King’s head. Ariadne sat beneath it and took the mixed power and threat to her like a blanket.
The red-faced father, now a sad fat man whose orders no one followed, approached her. He is poison. “What do you think you’re doing? Foolish girl. Are you trying to start a riot out there?”
“Leave my house.”
He grew redder. “Excuse me? This is my house.”
“Not any longer.”
“You were my champion against my will. You have brought shame on my head and on my house.” He took a menacing step forward. “Don’t tell me what I can’t—”
Her eyes glimmered as they shifted to her guard. Captain Renoulf and several others grasped the old man’s arms, wrestling them behind his back.
“What? You can’t be serious! I am your King!” He struggled. They fought him down and dragged him out.
Captain Renoulf returned. “Was that necessary?”
The light glimmered on her crown of broken glass, spraying dancing squares across her shoulders.
“Out with the old and in with the new.”
That night she dreamed the voices came to her. They were unformed creatures that clung like shadows to the walls. “Ariadne.” It was the young man with the clear voice. He lay down beside her, wrapped his arm around her and kissed her neck, taking shape. She turned to look at him but could not see him. He was warm and soft, and she shivered.
“Who are you?” It was a question she had asked as a child, before she learned that others could not hear them.
He kissed her on the mouth. It was the first time she had kissed anyone. “Come to us where the sky meets the sea.” She saw an image flash behind her eyes, an island off the west coast called Catalina. A great beast stood against the sunset horizon on the precipice of the island, and a broken bridge sprawled like a twisted spine beneath the surface of the water. “Come to us where the beasts from before the End still roam.”
“How will I get there?”
“Trust.” He kissed her brow, and she sat straight up in bed.
The pair of hovercams that had stayed the night clicked awake. She ignored them, as was right. Yes, the technology was used despite the dishonor, only so the other side would not have a steeper advantage in battle. But Ariadne thought perhaps, in the beginning, there had been someone like her to receive the Ancients' commands; some said the Ancients had directed them to turn from the old technologies that had destroyed their world. It was why it was ignoble to look directly into a camera, which could steal a man’s face and replicate it hundreds of miles away. It was why it was dishonorable to kill a man with a gun instead of a sword.
The King slipped out of her bed, bare feet on the floor, and went to the wardrobe to find pants and a woolen shirt. The voices were silent but she knew now how to follow them.
“Captain Renoulf.” She kicked him awake in his sleeping quarters. “Get up. Pack the caravans. Food and water and supplies.”
“What–?”
“Your King commands you.” She strode to the great hall and mounted her throne.
“Where are we going?” Renoulf followed, pulling up loose pants.
“West.” She stretched tall, severed the rope that tied the First Man’s sword to the ceiling, and leapt down. “To where the sky meets the sea.”
~~~~~
They said she was mad. The King knew their whispers. All but the very old, the very young, and the very sick had packed up their belongings, like one of those ancient caravans, and began an endless
trek from sea to sea. Catalina, so the stories said, was the birthplace of life. After the End someone whose name had long been lost rode across the twisted bridge on the back of a bull.
That did not matter now to those who had been uprooted by the King’s command. Halfway across the continent, the King watched her screens with one good eye and one mangled one, tugging at her dyed-black hair with a frown on her face. The hovercams’ incessant eyes whirred quietly in the corner and around the camp clustered at the base of a great oak that had been cracked in half with lightning.
“Why do we go?” A pale, round woman stirred a pot as steam condensed on her face. “She has given no reason. Nothing to flee and no treasure to seek. Will she lead us to glory on the battlefield? We have met no opposing armies or evidence of their existence.”
Captain Renoulf’s rough fingertips twitched against each other. “I don’t know. She hasn’t said.”
“Not even to you? To anybody?”
He shook his head. He must not have seen the camera crouching under an arching root, for he said, “I don’t understand. When Theol was King, she was always quiet. Stubborn, but not ... mad. Not like this. Not mad like running into a battle woefully underprepared.”
“Or dragging her people across the country on a death march?”
The voices tingled at the back of the King’s mind, not saying anything with words, but she knew what they meant. Fool. She stood, a train of cameras following her like a long, floating dress, and grasped the hilt of her gun, the weapon of the dishonorable. “Renoulf.”
The captain scrambled to his feet with a bow. “Majesty.”
“Do you doubt my reign?”
He paled, realizing what had happened. The man should have known better than to voice his thoughts where cameras watched. “No, Majesty. I was merely voicing a concern.”
“Do you doubt the Ancients?”
Renoulf did not answer.
Ariadne shot him.
The round woman screamed. Others popped their heads out of their tents, and the camera orbs kicked into overdrive. Let my enemies see that. Let them know I am stronger than their honor. “Hear me now,” she said, raising her voice so that all her people, sprawled across the golden valley, could hear. She climbed the split oak and straddled its charred insides. “I have heard the voices of our gods, our Ancient Ones. They guide my every action and will bring prosperity to my people. They say I must go west, to where the sea meets the sky, to Catalina, and there they promise us a land of eternal honor.”