Catastrophe Jones

This is Issue #90 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!

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Coming back from the visions had always been somewhat painful; it was more so, now, without her lover to hold her. Her head and belly ached; she sat up eventually, and felt the world swim in front of her eyes. Before the nausea struck, she prepared her huqqa, trembling fingers dropping the sticky resin into the burn bowl, reaching for the longmatch case.

Gemma smoked bowl after bowl of aetheric resin to calm her nerves and erase the memory of the taste of blood from her tongue. The numbing feel of the aetheris clung to her, finally, and she drowned in the confined heat of her room. She kept the windows draped, the doors shut, and curled up within the tapestried bed in the center of the room, much as she once used to, with Lucida.

She wondered if the Queen mourned her loss, or if her anger was still too great.

“No matter,” she said aloud. “No matter, Lucibella. When the war comes, you will have need of me,” she whispered. “I know this to be true.”

She summoned her newest servant to her chambers as she lay in isolation within the Ilonan Palace, and said, “Bring me Legatus Faeles.”

The servant bowed and backed away slowly, knowing full well how to handle interactions with a deadly predator.

When the servant returned, she simply gestured to the door, staring at it fearfully. Ferox Faeles rolled her eyes and walked right in, shutting the door behind herself.

“Domina Plaga,” Ferox said, bowing low before the curtained bed. She remained bent until the curtains parted, and Gemma slipped from them, drawing a robe about herself. She rose, then, keeping her eyes low, until spoken to.

“Legatus,” Gemma said. “We had a deal.”

“That we did, Domina,” the Legatus answered, lifting her head. She rested her wide, dark eyes on Gemma, cool and collected. “But you are speaking as though it is the past. I wonder if you are planning on ending that deal?”

“That depends.”

“On?” Legatus Faeles didn’t look upset or worried; she stood tall and watched Gemma with an air of calm curiosity.

“Have you plans on attacking Aecus’s Legio?” Gemma’s eyes, sharp, rested on Ferox, unblinking.

“None at the present time, Domina mea. But such a thing could affect your plans for binding your new household with that of the royal line, could it not? The Summus and Legatus Aecus are beloved by the Guardian and the Queen. They would not be attacked unless they showed some measure of disloyalty,” Ferox raised one brow, curious as to Gemma’s line of questioning.

“That they are, but the Aecus line itself has been remade. With Exosus dead, Domina Venustus has renamed her house and submitted to the Guardian and Queen. But they did not come to the coronation. Likely the Summus and the Legatus are already gone to find out why. You will also find out why,” she said to Faeles.

“I, myself, Domina? Or may I delegate?”

“Are you too good to do my work, Legatus?” Gemma wondered, narrowing her eyes, staring Ferox down.

“Not at all, but you do have me working on a number of things. Much as I have tried, I am but one Legatus, and cannot be everywhere at once.” Ferox’s mannerisms were smooth, soothing; she obviously had either great respect for Gemma, or simply knew how to behave so.

Gemma wasn’t certain she cared, so long as Ferox stayed on the right side of her.

“Faeles,” Gemma said quietly. “I cannot always read your intentions, nor your fidelity.”

“Does this trouble you, Domina?”

“Trouble me? That is not the word I might have chosen. Irritates is closer to what I mean.” Gemma watched with some measure of satisfaction the way Ferox’s face shifted from one of calm to one of wariness.

“Have I offended you, Domina?” Faeles wondered, her brows knitting together. “If so, I ask your pardon, and for the chance to atone. I had thought I was as subservient as was required, but I can be taught to bow lower,” she offered.

“I do not want you to be subservient,” Gemma sighed, looking exasperated and put-upon. “I want your blade pointed only where I will it, not because of my orders, but because you know it to be right.”

“What is right is decided by the victors,” Faeles said. “The victor of a war writes history, Domina. My blade cuts what you decree because you have the sight. Tenebrae has always followed prophecy more closely than any other citystate within Intemeratus Posito. Had you been born in Tenebrae–”

“Oh but that’s the joke of it, Faeles. I was,” Gemma said, laughing dryly. “My mother and father went to a venefica before I was born, as was the custom. They asked for my future. Instead of telling them I would be a beautiful noble lady of some station, the witchwoman told them “Ea erit iube exercitus umbra.”

“You would command an army of shadow,” Faeles said, her eyes widening.

“Yes. The shadow army would be mine. My father paid her handsomely for something that would ruin me in my mother’s womb, cast me out.” Gemma relayed the information as though it were about some other, unbeloved child.

“He did not give it to her, of course,” Faeles said, assuming. “He loved you, already.”

“Faugh,” Gemma spat, rolling her eyes. “I did not take you for an addle-minded lovesick fool, Ferox.” She sounded half-disgusted as she looked at the Legatus. “She gave him what he asked for. He went back to her the next morning and said he’d dropped the bottle, and needed another. She gave it to him.”

The Legatus stared at Gemma, waiting for the tale to continue; she looked more than interested. “He threw it away? And then changed his mind?”

Gemma shook her head. “No. My father was not the sort of man to give anything to chance. He gave my mother both bottles-full. When she was wombsick, and asked for tea, he warmed it, and gave it to her with a smile.”

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This is Issue #89 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!

Happy Reading!

PREVIOUS

* * *
Nearly done. By the heavens, it was nearly done.

He stood a little taller, panting, staring at his opponent, who was, in equal measure, staring back at him.

It had been a long fight, and he was exhausted. He was buying time, he knew. He’d done that before. He’d done nothing but buy time, before, willing to kill, willing to bleed, willing to die.

His sword arm was leaden, and his pistols were empty of ammunition, dropped somewhere once they were worth no more than a club. His breath came in copper-tasting gasps, and his men lay all around him, dead for having followed him, dead for their faith in him.

Dead for a cause, for their country, for their Guardian and Queen.

He would not live to honor them to their families — that thought broke his heart. The whole world should know what they’d done, what they’d sacrificed.

Still, he fought with a smile on his face; everything he’d experienced, good or ill, after the Hunt, was purely a gift. He should’ve died then, but he didn’t.

He stared at the Ilonan before him, no, not Ilonan — Tenebrian — and bared his teeth in a grin. “Tu cedere?” Do you yield?

His opponent snarled with laughter, shaking his head. “Erit ego? Cede?” Do I? Yield? He lunged, and they met once more, blades clashing, bodies wrestling amidst the blood and fire of war. “Ego non te cede,” he growled. “Tenebria nunquam cedere!” I do not yield! Tenebrae will never yield!

“We shall see.” He fought with the calm determination he’d worn for years, the teeth-grinding insistence of pushing forward, ever forward. He fought, pressing his advantage until he saw the opening, sudden and plain, and went for it.

He did not see the second blade until it was too late.

It punched through his armor with sick ease and bit deep into his belly; the blow bent him double with the force of it. He coughed, and the world was fire. When he looked up, blood running from his mouth, his face was nothing but shock. His eyes stared wildly at the soldier who had killed him.

“Vivat Tenebrae,” whispered the soldier, caressing his cheek with a chuckle. Long live Tenebrae. “Tu luce facit nos umbra.” It is your light that makes our shadow.

He stared down at the blade in his flesh, looked at the dead surrounding him. So many bodies. So many friends. So many compatriots. So much regret. And yet he would not have changed a thing, knowing what he knew. “Non,” he insisted. “Impedimentae facit umbra.” No — it’s what gets in the way that casts the shadow.

“Nec refert,” the solder said, baring his teeth as he twisted the knife. “Aut via — tu morietur.” It doesn’t matter. Either way, you die.

Just then, he heard the bells. The palace bells rang, loud and clear and sudden. The jubilant cacophony made him smile, regardless of the knife lodged in his belly. “Ille…” His voice caught, broke with laughter.

His opponent jerked the blade higher, catching it on his ribs, and twisted it again.

It should have been agony. It should have been unbearable.

Instead, the bells made it a triumph, and because of that, there was neither fear, nor real pain.

He gasped, his eyes going wide, and he embraced his killer, using the last of his strength to hold him still. “Ille est sonus a clade tuae,” he rasped, laughing. That is the sound of your defeat. Shaking, weak hands held to the soldier’s arms for only a moment longer; he sagged against the Tenebrian soldier, his full weight leaned into the other man.

The soldier staggered, and pulled the knife free, cursing as he tripped over another body, and turned to run.

He fell with a sigh, slumping to the ground, his cheek hitting the floor, slicking through an ever-widening puddle of his own crimson heat. He smiled a victor’s smile, and sank down into the dark.

* * *

Her eyes shot wide in the dim room.

Her body was her own.

“Coryphaeus,” Gemma gasped, letting the pain and dizziness rush over her. She’d discovered long ago to let it come, to let it batter her — there was no use in fighting it, and it made it so much worse. “How many times will I watch you fail, little Legatus?” Since leaving Ilona with Acer, she had witnessed his death no less than a dozen times, most often by a soldier wearing the armor of Legio 999, and once by his own hand.

That one had left her shaken; she had not known a despair so wretched since her Lucida had let her be sent away. She had felt his anger and his fear and his hopeless resignation. Locked away in a room where he had endured brutality after brutality.

Locked away where he had been alone for far too long.

He was in his youth, then, but she knew it was him — regardless of his circumstances, there was a conviction to him, a surety that few others carried so tightly.

She had almost liked watching him die, again and again — he had thwarted the Prince, had raised a blade to him, had stolen the seer-girl from him, had lied, had been complicit in his death. He had brought Lucida much grief.

Even so, to feel the wrenching of his heart was not satisfying; it left her aching, empty.

She submitted to it again and again, however, sought out each vision, now, and thought she might even taste malagranata once more, so she could discern the threads of what made a true vision, and what was only possibility.

Before the Guardian had come, her visions had never been wrong — and each time she’d attempted to thwart them out of fear or jealousy, something far, far worse had occurred. With the arrival of the Westlander boy who’d been reborn in blood, the sight had changed.

Visions were now not certain, but instead were more like dream-prophecies of old, requiring much interpretation and study.

She was meant to find something in Coryphaeus’s death, but she could not understand what. He died fighting, each time in a long and vicious battle, but each death saw his heart salved by triumph, even though it was plain the Legio had won against him.

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