Fairy Tale

Part 2

"You have our leave to go," Tasmia said. Gratefully, but reluctantly, too, the guards withdrew, leaving her alone with her family.

"Cold comfort, indeed," she thought sourly.

"Tasmia ... the collar ... " Nah reminded her. Despite himself, he could not keep the briefest smattering of distaste from his voice. Tasmia lifted an eyebrow in wordless query and stared at her husband, waiting.

"Well, lover?" she asked. "Can I trust you?" Nah winced, but his stern look at the three children was enough to insure their silence. Even Kel; which surprised him.

Towering over Tasmia, Lar Gand leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "Did you ever?" he wanted to know. Tasmia's smile wavered and her eyes grew chill. The Earl Marshal Nah stamped his foot in irritation.

"Stop it!" came his sharp demand. "The two of you have better things to do than rip and tear at one another, for the Ancestor's sake! Enough! Vril Dox is the problem here." He faced Tasmia squarely, almost as if he were confronting an enemy and not an old friend. His frustration with all these hurtful games rose to the top of his mind like soured cream and he cursed. More loudly than he might otherwise have done.

"You know sprocking good and well that Lar won't hurt you, Tasmia. If that was all he wanted you'd have been dead years ago." There was no denying that. Reaching up, she tapped the faintly glowing mechanism in a certain place keyed to her touch, and only her touch, and it came away in two distinct pieces. Without a word, Jo took them from her hand, watching Lar close his eyes, and rub his bare neck in freedom, then draw in a deep breath; savoring the taste of the air. As if it were somehow different, fresher, more pleasant, now.

The Queen's small hands stroked her husband's cheek and she embraced him, laying her head on his broad chest. "Damn, I've missed you," she said softly. "Are you well? I worry about you so ... "

For long moments, Jo Nah watched his friend Lar Gand struggle. The battle he fought was written plainly on his face. "You were never very good at hiding, were you, Lar?" he thought. "You always did wear your thoughts and desires on your face as open as the pages of a book." Jo's instincts told him that his friend had lost this battle; as he had lost very few physical ones. Tasmia's Consort closed his eyes. But not before Nah glimpsed his crumbling defenses; his ultimate defeat.

And the bitter self contempt for his own weakness that would still be there when the Mon-L opened his eyes once more.

"Damn you, Tasmia," Nah thought, waging his own losing battle with pathos, "damn you to Sheol. The both of you!"

Like a rusty hinge, long unused and shrieking its protest, Lar Gand embraced his wife, slowly, uncertainly, as if he couldn't quite remember how it was done. He caressed her hair with an unsteady hand, sweeping it from off her brow.

"You work too hard," Lar said, his deep voice low and quiet. He ran his fingers lightly over the frown lines at the corners of her mouth and closed her eyes with a kiss, masking the weariness lurking in the depths of those dark, onyx pools from his sad sight.

She ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his eyes in turn because she knew that it always left him breathless. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. After forty years, it was still the same.

"I don't have you to laugh with me or to love me anymore," she said. "I haven't much but my work left." Her embrace tightened.

"Ancestors curse you, Lar Gand. Why can't you be as ugly and venal as I want you to be? Why do you have to be you? Strong and straight and beautiful." With a sigh, he stepped away from her, kissing her palm.

"You made me so," he said sadly. "Would you really have me any other way?"

"No," she said, shaking her head with equal sadness.

Jo Nah turned his face away from his two friends, feeling very much like an intruder. His gaze fell upon their children and he let it linger there, blotting out the sight of the tragedy unfolding at his back. He was a bit taken aback at the astonishment on Lyddea's face. Watching her parents, the youthful Princess gaped, as if she were lost in some twisted, alien landscape; lost and clueless for direction. Jo was tempted to smile.

"You don't remember them together do you, little girl?" he mused. "You were too young. Are the pain and recriminations all that you know of them, I wonder? Sad to think so, but it must be true." For an instant he felt pity for the girl. Until he saw the disgust and distaste in her eyes at her parents fleeting moment of happiness.

Like her father, Lyrissa was easy to read. Her smile was blatant, blazing forth for all the world to see. It was infectious and Nah almost followed suite before he brought himself up short. "Lyrissa, Lyrissa!" he cautioned, wishing that he dared speak the words aloud. "Guard your heart, little Princess! Guard your heart!" He peered at Lar and Tasmia from the corner of his eye. "It won't last. You know that. It never does."

It was Kel who surprised him. The Talokian Prince observed his parents with almost clinical detachment. The sharp intelligence in his deep blue eyes, banked and concealed like the embers of a smoldering fire most times, didn't miss a thing. Not the passion in the embrace nor the words not spoken. Nothing escaped his scrutiny.

But that wasn't what surprised Nah. The thought that there might be more to Kel than the frivolous, sarcastic face he turned to the world was not an entirely new one. And if he had never before been presented with such stark evidence of such a thing, still he had not dismissed it out of hand as so many did.

No, it was the amorphous seeds of memory stirring in those icy blue depths that compelled Jo. Could it be? Possibly. Kel was just past twenty. Old enough, Nah suspected, to recall his parents before ...

"Compassion? From Kel? Not very sprocking likely," he told himself, angry at his own bad judgment.

"Majesty?"

The guard who stepped into the room was nervous; cautious and uncertain enough to make Jo wonder how sharp her ears were. Tasmia stepped out of her Consort's arms, holding onto his hand until, with a squeeze, she released it, too. All business now, the Queen regarded the interrupting servant sternly and waited for her to speak.

"Highness," the guard informed her Queen, bowing low, "The Tyrant of Colu and his retinue have arrived in the main courtyard." Tasmia waved her dismissal and turned to Jo with a smile.

"Jo?"

With more than a touch of malice, the Earl Marshal Nah returned his monarch's smile, chuckling low in his throat.

"He'll be furious that you weren't there to greet him personally," he was duty bound to remind her. Still smiling, she directed him out the door with a merry gesture.

"He'll also know who's in charge of this little tête-à-tête, now won't he?" she grinned hugely. "Go! Go! After all, it would be unforgivably impolite to keep him waiting. And we can't have that."

Jo's mocking bow, low and sweeping, was good practice for greeting Vril Dox, he told himself. As he exited the royal presence at a slow, languid pace, in no apparent hurry to accomplish his commission, the only one who wasn't laughing was Lyddea, who merely looked confused.

"Ancestor's help us all," Jo thought, having quite lost his merriment. "She won't last an hour on the throne."

The banquet in "celebration" of Vril Dox, the Tyrant of Colu's, state visit to his fellow monarch, Queen Tasmia of Talok VIII, was in full swing and going splendidly. From all points of view, Jo Nah thought as he watched the sullen, fulminating Vril Dox turn away a nervous servant. "Tied up with Imperial affairs", Tasmia had begged his royal indulgence. The luckless Councilor who delivered the message had barely escaped the Coluan ruler's swift hand.

Having had the entire afternoon to brood upon the slight, Dox was in a fine fettle. "In fact," Jo thought to himself, only avoiding a smug grin by inches, "if I didn't know better, I'd say that His Intelligence Supreme, the Tyrant of Colu, was in a royal snit." He did chuckle at that. He couldn't help himself. He watched as Dox turned away all food and drink, brusquely. His grin widened.

"Having a food taster sample your fare at a public feast not your own is probably a good idea in his case, the Shades know," Jo reasoned, "but not very diplomatic, I suppose. So the Tyrant goes hungry. And far be it from Tasmia to provide such a simple accommodation as a taster. Why that would be an insult! It might imply that His Highness wasn't loved and venerated by one and all. Heaven forfend such a thing!" Jo watched the Coluan despot fume. "He really is kind of attractive hoist up there on the point of that petard," the grizzled Earl Marshal decided.

From his station just behind Tasmia's right elbow, Jo Nah surveyed the crowds of Courtiers and foreign dignitaries, reflexively. He smiled at the Lady Imra and felt her warm reassurance echo through his mind. Apparently no more than the usual mischief was afoot this evening. Whisper quiet, a sigh of relief escaped the Earl Marshal.

His eyes were drawn to the tall, golden haired young girl standing directly behind Vril Dox. She had, of course, not been introduced. Body Shields never were. They were invisible until they were needed. That's what she had to be, after all. Jo gusted a sad sigh.

"The waste," he mourned. "Ancestral Shadows ... the waste of it all."

She reminded him a bit of Lar. The same sapphire blue eyes and high cheekbones; the same air of detached skill and fixed determination he remembered from Lar's time as Tasmia's Body Shield. But then, he supposed that was something common to all Body Shields.

The cream of Daxamite youth, five hundred were chosen in each generation, trained by the Body Guild, and their services auctioned by contract to the highest bidder. Highly trained and motivated, they were just as their name suggested: shields for the bodies of others. It was their duty to impose their invulnerable bodies between their "employers" and all harm. Strictly regulated, cared for, and watched over by their Guild, they were not only a necessity for people such as Vril Dox, but a status symbol as well.

Upon them depended the economy of Daxam to a large extent. Since the Time of the Great Darkness, so long ago now, Daxam had been ostracized and mistrusted by the rest of a galaxy still smarting from the wounds the unknowing Daxamites had inflicted upon it in service to The Dark Lord. Legends said that for a time, there was serious talk of attempted genocide, even. Tongues and small wars raged on both sides until a compromise had been reached. The Body Guild. Body Shields were the sole Daxamites allowed off their heavy gravity world. They provided an invaluable service and so Daxam was allowed to go its own way, unmolested.

So long as they were willing to sacrifice their best young people to the cause of continued existence.

Jo looked again at the young girl. Oh yes! There it was. Just as he'd seen it in Lar's eyes so long ago ... that look of trapped resignation, deeply covered over by fierce, unyielding pride. In that, she might have been Lar's twin. Jo allowed himself to acknowledge the significance of her presence. He had found himself saddened to hear of Dev-Em's death. The buoyant, carefree Body Shield was a bright, laughing spirit who had left his mark in more ways than one. Jo glanced from the corner of his eye at Tasmia and then at Lar.

Oh, yes, more ways than one.

Tasmia had never cared for the idea of a Body Shield at all. "Slavery is illegal, Jo!" was the Princess Tasmia's withering reply to her doting, worried Earl Marshal's only suggestion that she employ one. And then came Vril Dox, courting her Mother's throne and her ... bringing along his Body Shield, Lar Gand. She rejected Vril Dox but somehow managed to convince her mother that she needed a Body Shield. One particular Body Shield. Vril Dox's Body Shield to be exact ...

And so the deed was done. The furious Vril Dox had made his frustrated way back to Colu sans his expected Princess ... and his Body Shield. Jo smiled at that memory. When Tasmia married Lar, to everyone's shock and utter amazement, the Body Guild had simply send a replacement, unasked. The Rules of the Guild demanded it, the Guildmaster said. Since the Rules of the Guild also strictly forbade intimacy between a Body Shield and their "client" Tasmia was in no position to deny them, Jo reflected. If the Guild was willing to look the other way ... then so was she.

Kal-L was a quiet young man, Jo recalled. Rarely speaking, he wore his earnestness and loyalty like a second skin. It was simply a part of who he was. In the beginning, Tasmia barely noticed him and that was only proper, of course. And if Lar felt any kinship for the young, indentured Daxamite, so much like himself, he was careful to keep it within circumspect bounds. And that was only proper, too. "We're all such proper sprocking bastiches," Jo thought and the acid of his memories began to eat its relentless way through the carefully erected barriers of his mind. And then ... and then ...

Jo Nah closed his eyes in pain and his hands writhed in agitation, opening and closing, opening and closing, reflexively ... Quickly, he crossed his arms over his chest, cradling his traitorous, speaking hands in his armpits to still them. His attempt at looking formidably alert was a good one, he thought.

"Could it really be that simple?" he wondered. "Could all this nass have started with Grev's death?"

Tasmia and Lar were both hard hit by the death of their eldest child; their son. Without seeming effort, Jo remembered the loud voices, the stinging, hasty recriminations ... the pain in Lar's eyes when Tasmia moved on with her life, busying herself with Imperial affairs ... and he couldn't seem to follow her. The torment as they grew further and further apart ...

Or was it Kal-El's death that proved the final catalyst? Jo could never make up his mind about that.

He'd suspected that Kal-El's replacement, the brash Dev-Em was doomed in any case. And he knew it. "Live fast, die gloriously, and leave a beautiful corpse," the Body Shield had once quipped to Jo. And so he had, by all accounts. Even before Tasmia tired of him and passed his contract on to Vril Dox (returning a favor ... or so she claimed ... ) the handwriting had been plain on the wall of Dev-Em's future. Indeed, he hadn't lasted long in Vril Dox's strenuous service. The Tyrant of Colu was not well liked. He had many enemies. Jo sighed. He'd rather liked the impulsive young Dev whose favorite beverage, like his own, was Silverale.

He looked again at the lovely girl guarding Vril Dox now and could not help but wonder how soon news of her death might be afloat on the galactic winds.

"The waste ... " he mourned again. "The waste ... "

Briefly his attention was drawn to a slim young man clad in dark blue with intelligent brown eyes and unruly nut brown hair, held in precarious place by a simple matching head band. Smiling inoffensively, the youth sat quietly, inconspicuously at the rear of The Tyrant's retinue, sipping his wine, letting the conversation and jocularity flow around him; for the most part unnoticed. Momentarily, Jo wondered what his function could be in Dox's company. Probably a clerk or some such thing, he decided and promptly forgot the young man when Lar's voice drew him back to himself.

"Please to the Ancestors," Jo prayed, fervent and fearful at once, "don't let them argue. Not in public."

"Why can't you underestimate me like everyone else, Tasmia, m'love?" her Consort joked.

"I can't afford to, lover," she answered him, stroking his hand. "You've led too many rebellions against me." Lar threw back his midnight dark head and laughed with great pleasure. Many of the guests smiled to see the grim and moody Consort, the Mon-L, laugh so heartily. No doubt at some witty jest of Her Majesty's. He kissed her hand.

"And I damn near won the last one, too," he chuckled, saluting her merrily with one risen eyebrow. She smiled and took his hand in hers, noting the pleasure her Courtiers and Councilors took in the sight. To her left Querl Dox gave no outward sign that he saw her crowd pleasing gesture and she almost frowned before she remembered what she was about. When she withdrew her hand it was slow, languorous, as if she were loath to do it. But her tone was acid.

"Peace!" she growled. "Leave it in peace, Lar!" He placed his hand over his cup and the wine steward moved away without filling the waiting vessel.

"You ask too little, Tasmia," he murmured, sweet voiced. "Why not eternal peace?"

After a moment, he summoned back the steward and waited impatiently as the startled man filled his cup. His lips touched the cold, golden metal. Careful of his unsteady hand, he set the heavy, ornate flagon down on the table to his side.

"Tell me wife and Keritalyn of mine ... " the venom in his soft voice was deep and abiding to Jo's ears, "did you ever love me? Even once?" With a gesture, Tasmia sent an unhappy steward scrambling away from her quick, threatening hand.

"No," she said.

Lar leaned back in his chair and smiled at a passing dancer, a pretty young girl who blushed pink with anticipation and fled behind her hands, giggling with pleasure at her luck.

"Good," he replied still smiling at the dancer. "This will be so much more pleasant that way."

Under his breath, the Earl Marshal Jo Nah cursed and cursed and cursed.

And, across the room, Vril Dox caught sight of the anger written on the aging Earl Marshal's face ... and smiled.

Silently, Jo Nah, Earl Marshal of the Talokian Imperium, watched as his Monarch closed the door behind her, pulled her thick cloak more snugly about her shoulders and moved off down the chill stone corridor, her bare feet scarcely noticing the cold of the stone beneath them. She paused, after a moment, and almost turned around... Nah could see her head turn, her hand reach out for the door ... But she paused, then lost her will. Frowning fiercely, she stalked off down the passageway, never looking back.

Jo gritted his teeth. "Tasmia," he thought, his scathing anger building and following the sight of her down the corridor like a baying hound, "how can anyone so smart be such a fool? And so cruel? Damn you!"

Without any thought of common courtesy or politeness, he flung open the door to Lar Gand's room, almost with a snarl and stormed in.

It was worse inside, of course.

Huddled in the middle of the large sumptuous bed, surrounded by the silken, disheveled bed sheets sat Lar Gand, Consort to Queen Tasmia Mallor. Naked but for the thin cover of the rumpled sheets the Mon-L was almost motionless. He rested his head despondently on his knees, hugging them as if in desperation to make himself somehow smaller. As if it might please him to disappear altogether.

"Ancestral Shadows, Lar!" Jo growled, "why don't you just throw yourself directly in the path of a frimping Nova Bomb the next time and be done with it? It'd be a lot quicker!"

Carefully, Jo seated himself on the edge of the large bed. With a quick hand he reached out and gathered a handful of the black and silver hair at the nape of his friend's neck and jerked the Consort's head back roughly, almost painfully. But the Daxamite made no sound of protest or resistance and that made the Earl Marshal even angrier.

"Sometimes I think you like pain," the smaller man hissed. "Is that it? Do you enjoy it? You must! Else why do you keep coming back for more?"

"It lets me know I'm alive, at least," admitted Lar. "Do you think castration would help? I'm open to suggestions ... "

Nah scowled and released him, pushing him none too gently away, as if tossing aside something unpleasant or unwanted. He did not miss the brief icy spark of anger in the Consort's blue eyes. But he did ignore it as best he could. It wasn't easy to push aside the hurt he saw so meticulously shielded in those sky born depths. His stomach clenched in painful rebellion. Nonetheless, he persisted.

"No," Jo returned, sharp voiced. "This hasn't got a frimping thing to do with sex and you know it. Sheol, man! How many times has she done this to you?" Cruelly, his voice rose in a very poor imitation of Tasmia's sultry contralto, "'I worry about you so!'" he mocked. "'I don't have you to laugh with me or love me anymore. I haven't much left but my work.' And all the while rutting with that Coluan pup every night! In your bed. It's enough to gag a maggot, isn't it?"

Not at all to his surprise, Jo's world exploded in sudden agony and he found himself levering himself painfully up from the hard stone floor where he'd landed. His nose dripping blood onto the intricate weave of the bright gold and crimson of the Pakistani rug covering the floor, Nah smiled. Without rancor he gazed up into the furious face of Lar Gand looming over him and wiped away the blood, leaving a rusty smear across his bearded cheek.

"Are you upset, Lar?" he sneered. "Are you angry, old man?" His friend's clenched and bared teeth proclaimed it. Jo nodded in agreement, a sharp gesture wielded like a bladed weapon. "Good!" he cried. "Then do something about it! Stay angry if you can. Hit something if you must. Hit me! But do something for the love of the Ancestors! Anything!"

The Daxamite lowered his fist, frowning. "And what do you suggest I do about it, old man?"

Jo sighed at this small sign of defeat. Stepping to the ornately carved clothes chest at the foot of the bed, Jo flung it open and tossed a scarlet and blue bodysuit embroidered in gold thread to the other man. "You could start by putting on some clothes," he pointed out to the still naked Consort with no small amount of sarcasm. "Staring at your ugly hide isn't doing a thing for my cranky disposition, I can tell you that." Hastily, the taller man snatched the clothing from midair and, flushing and embarrassed, turned his back on the Earl Marshal to dress.

"Shades curse you, you old fool, you shouldn't have done that," Nah chastised himself. "You were never a fair man and that proves it beyond a doubt. Don't burden him with your anger as well as his own." Silently he watched the other man dress himself. But what to do?

"You're an ass, Jo Nah," he told himself. "A Rimborian smuggler's boy out of the Rings who got lucky. You pay lip service to all this Talokian religious claptrap because you have to. But you never believed in it. Not for one instant. You never believed in their 'Keritalyn' did you? Destined soul mates? Two halves of the same whole, the same soul reunited? 'Rubbish!' you told yourself." He watched Lar Gand stomp on his boots, his face still aglow with his anger and his memory of Tasmia's passion; abandoned once more but still yet struggling and he sighed.

"But sometimes it does happen. Why, it even happened to you." For a brief moment he cherished the memory of long dark hair the color of midnight and eyes to match that came to comfort him in his still raw grief. Twenty years was not enough time to forget Tinya. Or to mourn. No, not by half.

He lay both hands on his friends broad shoulders and turned him slowly around so that he could look into his eyes.

"Lar ... Lar ... " he pleaded softly, "what in the name of the Ancestors am I going to do with you?" The other man swallowed hard. Unbidden, the Daxamite reached out and used his sleeve to wordlessly wipe away the drying blood on Nah's face.

"You could never find the words, could you, Lar?" he thought. So it appeared that he was going to have to. He tightened his grip on those tense shoulders.

"I love you like a brother, Lar Gand," he said quietly. "For forty years, I've fought with you, fought for you, and fought against you. I've eaten with you, slept beside you, suffered with you, and laughed with you. I was there the day your first child was born. And the day he died. When Tinya and Winema were killed I wept in your arms. You're a part of me. And I'm a part of you."

"The best part," Lar murmured, embracing him tightly. "I think ... I think I'd have gone mad these last ten years if not for you." His throat working in soundless pain, Jo Nah held on with all that he had left. When the embrace had worked its soothing magic on them both, they stepped back for a moment and, smiling, stared at one another. For a brief span they simply basked in one another's presence. Finally, Jo spoke, breaking the companionable silence.

"You realize, don't you," he said, his face all seriousness but his eyes twinkling and mocking in mirth, "what this situation calls for?" Lar nodded.

"Heavy drinking?" he inquired, hopefully.

"Absolutely!" Jo assured him.

From the table at his back the Daxamite retrieved a small brown glass bottle and handed it to the Earl Marshal who grabbed it gleefully.

"You didn't forget!" Jo cried.

"How could I?" returned a grinning Lar. "You'd have killed me if I did. Vintage Silverale. Direct from Rimbor. Courtesy of the best smugglers on the Rim."

"Shhhh!" Jo advised, sotto voce. "Not smugglers," he insisted. "That would be ... illegal. We'll just call them 'independent entrepreneurs', hmmm?"

"Of course," Lar murmured in sardonic reply. "How crass of me."

Jo did not concern himself with the passage of time. He had no idea know how long the two of them laughed and drank together. The day fled on swift wings and the rest of the world did not matter. They were disturbed only by the occasional interruption of servants sent to fetch more liquor. If it was a matter of worry to any that the Earl Marshal of the Talokian Empire was unavailable for most of an entire day, no one spoke of it.

The sun was rising, kissing the dawn with rosy lips when Nah guided his friend's unsteady steps toward his waiting bed and much needed sleep. His own course was none too straight he noted with disapproval. "For shame, old man," he smiled at himself. "What would Tinya think?" Unbidden, laughter rose to his lips at the thought.

"She'd have given me nassing hell is what!" he decided. "And then she'd have kissed me and put me to bed."

"To the bed!" Jo announced loudly, bleary eyes focusing on his intended target. His brown eyes narrowed and he gritted his teeth in determined concentration. "We can make it! Forward, I say!"

"Just as soon as the room stops spinning," agreed Lar. He glanced at Jo in doleful accusation. "Did you move the bed?" He shook his black and silver head. "We'll never make it that far," was his mournful opinion.

"Nonsense!" Jo cried pulling the Mon-L to his swaying feet. With less than lightning like reflexes the Earl Marshal reached out and caught the tottering Daxamite just in time to prevent him from falling over. And then lost his own balance. With an audible cry of distress the two men went crashing to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. Struggling valiantly, Nah managed to dislodge one knee from his midriff. After that breathing was a little bit easier. So was talking.

"Lar, you can take your hand off my ass any time now," he snarled.

"Just as soon as you get your elbow out of my eye," protested Lar. "You first."

It took them several unsuccessful tries, but they finally disentangled themselves and lurched to their collective feet. Carefully Jo sat Lar Gand on the side of the bed and lay his tall body back on the pillow, then leaned back, puffing a bit at the exertion. "Damn," he muttered darkly, "I don't remember you being so heavy." Woefully he glanced at his companions flat belly and slim hips. "And I can't even blame it on you," he observed querulously. "You're not getting fat. I'm just getting old."

Positioning himself, he grasped one of the Consort's boots and began to tug. With an almost audible "pop" the soft leather footwear came off and sent him spilling across the room like a ripe seed. "Ouch!" he observed to no one in particular, rubbing his sore head where it smarted from striking the opposite wall. Off came the other boot and soon Jo had the bed covers thrown back and the Mon-L gently tucked in, curled into the comfort of warm blankets. Lar hated the cold. Nah smirked in triumph, fell heavily into an ornate rapawood chair and pulled it closer to the bed.

"Never could hold your liquor, could you, Lar?"

Lar Gand was smiling in soft dream-like joy.

"Remember, Jo ...?" he murmured. "The Patriarch ... ?" Jo's smile answered Lar's own.

"I remember," he said.

It was not a memory that would leave him any time soon. Nor had it faded in the many intervening years. Clearly, Jo could still picture him with remarkable ease. The Patriarch of Braal. For over a thousand years the hereditary ruler of more than half a quadrant, the tall unyielding old man was like an aged, hoary hawk hunting the skies of his desert home. Until the Battle of the Venado Nebula. It was the first of Tasmia's many victories and it remained one of her most stunning. Outnumbered more than ten to one by the forces of the ancient Braalian Empire, the youthful Talokian upstart Mallor had nonetheless prevailed. When The Great King of Braal fled the field of battle, he left a few things behind, Tasmia had noted with surprising vitriol. Minor, apparently replaceable items ... such as his Queen, his eldest son, Rokk, his youngest daughter ...

And his father, the Patriarch of Braal, a proud, fierce old man, perishing of shame for his son's cowardice.

Jo could still recall that lavish spaceship, agleam with the shimmer of gold and silver and precious woods; the air redolent with the heavy scent of sacrificial incense. Stronger, though, than even that rose the bitter, acrid smell of biting fear and defeat. The personal quarters of The Great King lay far from any battlefield. But still there was death here.

They expected to die. It had shocked Jo when he sensed that. Like the fine sheen of sweat that clothed their bodies in unseen garments of desperation, the knowledge was there. Certainly, Jo was sure, had it been Tasmia and her retinue who lost that battle, their fate would have been plain. Resigned and frightened, the royal captives waited.

It was almost a relief Jo had realized, when the door irised open to reveal Tasmia and her Consort. All faces turned to them in expectation. Stillness settled like a blanket over the captured royal party. No one dared to stir, lest they draw attention to themselves and be the first to fall. Their eyes were the only things that moved, searching the face of Tasmia Mallor, seeking clues to their fate in the flicker of an eyelash, the sweep of a high boned cheek.

No one ever knew, later, quite how it happened. As he watched the thing unfurl like a tattered banner, Jo realized that no one had told him. No one had told the aged Patriarch the simplest thing about his son's enemy. He did not know.

Careful of his years and dignity, the old man in the gilded robes sitting in his jeweled chair rose to his feet. His white hair and fierce eyes shone in the dimness of the torch lit room. But, as The Patriarch of Braal sank slowly to one knee in obeisance, Nah did not think that the brief look of pain that crossed his sharp angular features had much to do with age or infirmity.

No.

It was not his body that hurt, now.

Jo's eyes widened. It was all he could do not to laugh. He had turned to Tasmia to make a joke, in fact. Until he saw the utter horror upon the faces of the Patriarch's household; the ones who did know the face of Tasmia Mallor, the victor of Venado and their captor.

For the Patriarch was kneeling before the wrong person. In all the excitement, the aftermath of battle and defeat, no one had chanced to tell the Patriarch that his captor, the victor who held the lives of what remained of his son's abandoned household in the palm of her hand, was a woman. And Tasmia and Lar had been standing side by side, Jo recalled.

The Patriarch was bowing before Lar Gand, the Mon-L, Tasmia's Consort. By Braalian standards, the much more commanding of the two. Almost unnoticed, Ewa, until lately Queen of Braal, fainted silently dead away and no one even dared to go to her aid in light of the fear that gripped them like a vise. Tasmia's wrath at such a thing would be terrible, they believed. Surely they were doomed. As the Patriarch himself kenned his mistake, Jo could swear that no one was breathing.

Still dressed in her armor, stained even yet with the grit and grime of battle, Tasmia Mallor smiled down at the proud old warrior. With one hand she reached out and entwined her fingers with those of her Consort. The other she extended to the Patriarch, tenderly helping him to his feet.

"Never mind, Grandfather," she'd said. "He, too, is Mallor."

Jo closed his eyes and, in his dreams, he watched Lar Gand smile in his sleep.

"I remember," the Earl Marshal whispered.

When he woke to the touch of a small, soft hand gently shaking his shoulder, he groaned, sore and stiff from sleeping in the hard chair's scant comfort.

"You're too old to be sleeping in chairs, Jo," said Tasmia with sad affection. "Your bed is calling to you, old man." For a long moment she stared at the man still sleeping on the bed before she turned red eyes back upon her Earl Marshal and friend.

"He doesn't need you to guard his sleep," she said. "He has ... " She grimaced, as if at a jest in questionable taste. "Who were you guarding him against, anyway?" she demanded. Jo held his silence, but his face hardened like the stone beneath their feet and he looked away.

There was almost no anger in Tasmia's soft cry of, "Damn you, Jo Nah. Damn you ..." Only a wistful agony that tore at Jo's heart before he thrust it away.

Glancing away from her pain, Jo drew a deep breath. Turning back once more he saw her brush a tousled strand of night dark hair off her husband's forehead. The morning sunlight, streaming through the window glinted off the gold of the heavy bracelet encircling her right wrist, symbol of her soul union with the sleeping man on the wide bed. Brief as a candle flame, and just as burning, she stroked the sleeper's cheek lightly before her fingers curled themselves into her palm and her hand fell away. On the bed, Lar Gand murmured sleepily and curled into the caress.

"Why can't you do that when he's awake?" Jo pleaded angrily. "When he knows it's you? Where he can see you?" For a moment Tasmia continued to stare at her soul mate. Then she looked up at Jo and her face was utterly still, dark eyes expressionless like chips of volcanic stone.

"Because then he'd win," she said.

And before Jo Nah could protest, could cry out or perhaps simply cry, she was gone in a swirl of silken cloth and damning pride.

Lyddea Mallor threw herself into a chair, scowling petulantly.

"Mama, I don't understand!"

Her mother gritted her teeth and swore under her breath. "Shades of Talok, girl! What don't you understand? It's plain as teats on a Goddess, child." Lyddie wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"It's all so boring!" she cried. "You promise this, Vril Dox promises that ... and what does it all have to do with me when I become Queen? It makes my head hurt. Why can't we just take what we want? All this talk, talk, talk ... " Tasmia sighed in irritation.

"Pay attention, Lyddie! This is important." Lyddie pouted, but waited for her impatient mother to explain it to her one more time. "We need Winath. For one thing, Winath feeds at least a quarter of the worlds in its quadrant. Well-fed people are happy people, Lyddie, remember that. They don't make revolution. And as long as we leave the Winathians alone to worship their Twin Deities and grow their crops ... they're content." With a frown to mirror her displeasure, the Talokian monarch noticed that her daughter wasn't really paying attention. Shadows take her!

"Not only that, Lyddie," Tasmia continued in a louder voice, demanding the young girl's attention, "but Winath is a border world, as well. And they're right in the path of the Khunds. The only other invasion route into the Empire open to the cursed Khunds is through the Gordanian Protectorate ... " A slender blue hand reached out, activating a breathtaking stellar map in 3-D that filled one corner of the large room with light and color. Planets whirled around bright suns. The galaxy spun in tranquil splendor as Tasmia pointed.

"... and then here, past Braal." Her smile grew predatory. "Not even the Khunds are that stupid. Invade an entire world peopled by warriors gifted with the ability to manipulate magnetism, one of the primal forces of the Universe? I think not. There's a reason that, for over a thousand years, the High King of Braal was once ruler of most of this galactic arm, Lyddie." She saw no need to mention her victory over, and eventual absorption of, The Braalian Empire. The current High King, Pol Krinn, was a loyal young man, and brave. Why, he had grown up in this very Palace before Tasmia dispatched him back to his home world to rule in her name.

"All right," conceded Lyddie, staring at the map in narrow eyed concentration, "I can see why Winath's important." Tasmia allowed herself a small flush of pleasure. Nodding, the future Queen of Talok VIII considered, then grinned in triumph, as though she had finished a hard job and done it well. "That's why you made the treaty with Vril Dox in the first place, isn't it, mother? Because you needed Winath!" Tasmia's return nod bespoke her pride in her daughter's accomplishment. "Exactly!" she replied. Lyddie practically beamed and returned to studying the map. Tasmia poured herself more wine and turned to face her youngest daughter once more.

"Technically, until you marry Querl, thus fulfilling the letter of the original agreement, Winath still belongs to The Tyrant of Colu: Vril Dox by name, Shades curse him! And he's come to demand one or the other. Querl's marriage to my heir or the return of Querl's dowry, Winath. He's trying to force my hand about the succession. And he's far from the only one." Lyddie stifled a yawn. Again, she had lost interest.

"Why not just let the Khunds have him?" she advised, sleepy and bored, now. "Without you to prop him up, they'd swallow his little Kingdom and not even notice it. You can always get it back later. Sans Vril Dox. Let The Tyranny and the Khunds go at one another. In the end, they'll weaken each another, then they'll be less trouble that way." Laughing, Tasmia saluted her daughter with her wine cup.

"That's good thinking, child!" she acknowledged. "There may be hope for you yet! Unfortunately, we can't let the Khunds have access to all that Coluan technology. Not even for the brief time it would take us to get the Shadows-bedamned place back from their grasp. No, we'll have to do it another way. Which means that to deal with Vril Dox, I've got to have Winath." Lyddie said nothing, only gazing at her mother intently, waiting to hear more.

"The only pest in the ointment being your father." Tasmia's lips thinned and her black eyes narrowed. But then she smiled. "But he's only a minor pest. I'll soon have what I want." Lyddea's lovely face composed itself into an awesomely ugly sneer that almost frightened Tasmia with its intensity.

"Father is so weak, I wouldn't be surprised," she exclaimed with rising derision.

Instantly, much faster than she could stop herself, the Queen of Talok VIII's slim hand lashed out and slapped her youngest child hard on the cheek. The girl would carry the mark of it for days. Shocked, her daughter reeled back and clutched her smarting, stinging cheek. Tasmia was almost sure the child was about to cry. Anger suffused her at the show of weakness. Devil-Shadows take her, Lyddie was her heir, how could she be so .. so ... Tasmia lowered her hand and clenched it into a fist at her side. Instinctively, she took several steps back, away from the still tempting target of her foolish daughter. It was only her voice she wielded as a weapon, now.

"Weak, Lyddie?" came her forceful hiss. Lyddea blinked rapidly and her color rose, but, wisely, she held her tongue. With a loud crash Tasmia Mallor flung the wine cup she grasped against the stone wall hard enough to bend the malleable gold of its construction into something twisted and ugly. Lyddea gasped at the flash of rage in her mother's black eyes.

"When you were four years old," began the galaxy's greatest conqueror, biting off her words like bullets from a gun, "I lost an important battle. By the time the Dark Circle was done with us there were only two ships of us left and I was unconscious, badly wounded. Most everyone else was dead. Your father held off half a Dominator BattleFleet for three days until we were relieved. With his hands." Tasmia stared at her daughter in wrathful incomprehension of her willful ignorance and the girl shrank even further from her.

"Weak, Lyddie?" she demanded.

Tasmia closed her eyes in resignation. How had it come to this, she wondered? Where had she failed her youngest daughter? How - How -

Lyddea was staring at her. Staring at her with eyes like the twin entrances to two deep caves. Nothing lived in those caves. Perhaps once, something had; but no longer. Now, there were just piles of picked bones back in there, some scribblings on the walls, and some gray ash on the floor where the fires had burned themselves out. The place needed to be aired out, too, Tasmia was sure. After all, she reflected with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, it must be hard to breath in an atmosphere that poisonous ...

For the first time in more years than she cared to admit to, Tasmia Mallor felt the stinging rush of threatening tears. Her eyes flew wide.

"Ancestors help me," she thought. "Did I - did I do that?" Anger rose up to deny it. No! She couldn't have. She loved her children. She did! Didn't she? Yes, yes! A thousand times yes.

"Then how did this happen if you didn't do it? Have you an answer for that, you great bitch?" came that strident accusing voice of self doubt she kept so silent most of the time. "Look at her! So full of greed and envy, she's likely to burst. And Kel!" The Talokian monarch shivered. "What a piece of work he is! Shadow Walker ... Quechyrhin, the Trickster, made flesh. With a mind like a Coluan and a form like mortal sin ... He's the one who should be Great Ruler. If he were a woman you'd have to kill him."

Very deliberately Tasmia forced herself not to think of Lyrissa.

Her youngest child, her daughter, was shocked, the Queen knew, at the suddenness of her mother's embrace. Tasmia's touch was fire and desperation. And the older woman had no idea at all what her child made of the bitter tears that fell like brief, scalding desert rain from her mother's eyes. And, like the rain, sank into the sands and was gone, leaving no trace of its passage. As if it had never been.

"Mama?" The girl in her arms hugged her tightly. "Mama, I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ..." sniffled a frightened Lyddie.

"Are you, Lyddie?" Tasmia wondered in the privacy of her thoughts. "Are you really? Or do you only see your throne slipping away?" Lyddie was waiting for her mother to smile and reassure her that it was only a flare of temper; nothing more. Nothing to come between them. Tasmia searched her eyes and knew that all she had to do was say the word and ... and ...

Lyddie would love her again?

Carefully, Tasmia Mallor, Queen of Talok VIII and Great Ruler of the Talokian Imperium, picked up her discarded, damaged wine goblet and set in on the serving table. It fell over, no longer capable of being what it once was, nor of being repaired. With a steady hand, she swept it into a nearby trash vent and reached calmly for another. The wine, Lacrima Asterae, the Star's Tears, flowed into the new, unmarred cup, reflecting blood red patterns on the cup's polished silver sides.

"Go home, Lyddea," she said.

Sobbing, the girl fled.

When the silence became too oppressive, she reached for more wine and considered the new cup from which she prepared to drink. Was it a strong enough one for the job? Only time would tell. That was the trouble with ... cups ... the most attractive of them were frequently flawed. She studied the reflection of her face in the gleaming metal until she could bear it no longer.

"Curse you," she said to the stranger staring back at her. You'll do what you have to, won't you, woman?" Yes, she would. Carefully, so as not to damage it, she set the cup down.

Then the young girl still living at the heart of Tasmia Mallor cried.

But, when she was done, it was the dry-eyed Great Ruler of Talok VIII who clapped her hands softly.

"Fetch the Mon-L," she crisply ordered the guard who answered her summons.

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dannell Lites, who died unceremoniously on 16 September, 2002, in Kansas City, MO. Other than characters, place names, etc., which are ©DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Warner Bros., WGBS or any other television/movie owner, or Wizard Magazine, all content is ©2002 Dannell Lites. Background set ©2002 by SleepyHead. Please do not use without her permission. Site url= http://dannfan.50megs.com/