SquidgeWorld Archive

Fairy Tale
By Dann-El

"Majesty?" The grating voice of her Earl Marshal, Tasmia Mallor noted, was not at all awestruck or even particularly respectful. With a sigh, she tried to ignore it.

"Tasmia," it persisted, even more disapproving than before if that was possible, "get up, lazybones. Your subjects await."

"Frimp, my subjects," she muttered tartly. But her dark eyes opened and she stirred in the sumptuous bed.

"Now, now," returned the stern voice of Jo Nah, "temper, temper, my liege lady. The Kingdom needs you, Your Grace." Groaning, the blue-skinned woman rose and the stoutly built man handed her a robe.

"The Kingdom," she reminded him sarcastically, "is a total mess. As if you didn't know."

"Yes," he acknowledged pointedly, "I *do* know the Kingdom's a frimping mess." He helped her slip one slender arm into the robe, brushing aside her long midnight dark hair. Even the first signs of silver lurking there in the dark mass could not dim its glory. "And whose fault is *that*, my Queen?" he demanded. She shot him a baleful glance.

"Not so loud, Jo," she growled, "I don't think the Khunds heard you in the next star system. Besides, you'll wake Querl." Loving eyes gazed at the mass of silky blond hair and soft green skin still sleeping soundly in the ornate bed. The Earl Marshal Jo Nah shook his head.

"Querl Dox, the Pride Of Colu," he reminded her, "is not a toy, Tasmia. Not a thing to amuse yourself with because you're lonely. You're playing with fire, my friend."

"I'm an old woman, Jo!" she snapped, peevish anger straining her patience. "Allow me this one pleasantry, my Lord Marshal."

"Of course," he returned caustically. "With anyone else but *him*." Tasmia's eyes narrowed in warning but the Marshal ignored them and plunged onward, heedless of the danger. Tasmia Mallor, Queen of Talok VIII, spun and faced her Marshal squarely.

"Jo, you're my friend and I love you, but ... tread carefully, old man!" she hissed. "Tread carefully."

"Why, Tasmia?" he chuckled, "Because I have the audacity to remind you that bedding your daughter's betrothed is dangerous? Not to mention tasteless. Frimp it all woman, you could have any man you wanted! Any man in the Kingdom for a bed-toy if it pleased you. And no one would say a thing. Why *him*?

"Because I want him," she declared. "And because he's about as different as can be from ... " She said no more for several moments. When she spoke again her voice was light, frivolous.

"Because he loves me. And besides, he's mine. I bought and paid for him, didn't I?"

"No," Jo told her with amusement, "his brother Vril paid *you* to take him off his royal hands. To be specific, he gave you the planet Winath as Querl's dowry. For your daughter Lyrissa, I might add. Not you. He's to be First Consort of the Princess ... NOT the Queen. And if you think Vril Dox doesn't know what's happening with his little brother, you're an idiot. He's on his way to Talok right now, according to your Durlan spy master Daggle. To demand Querl's wedding ... or the return of his dowry."

She sat down in the hoverchair floating nearby. "You know I can't do that, Jo," she grumbled. "I need Winath. It sits athwart the Khundish border, blocking the way of any invasion. If it weren't for Winath and Braal, we'd be hip-deep in Khund warriors tomorrow. I can't give it back, not even to The Tyrant of Colu." .

"Then think fast, my Queen," Nah replied grimly. Tasmia's eyes, the color of jet, sparkled and twinkled with devilish merriment.

"What makes you think I won't marry him myself?" she quipped, just to see her old friend sweat. Startled, Jo shook his salt and pepper head and stroked his short, trim ginger-colored beard.

"You can't!" he cried, outraged. "You're already a married woman! Or have you *forgotten*?" Emphatically, he pointed to the thick golden bracelet encircling her right wrist.

"I'll divorce him," she returned. "Should have done it years ago." It pleased Tasmia to see that for one moment at least, her Marshal was unsure, not certain if she meant the simple statement or not. Then he relaxed.

"No you won't," he predicted. He pointed at the golden bracelet adorning her slim wrist again. "Keritalyn, remember? He's not just your husband ... he's a part of your soul. That bracelet says so. That bracelet that you *willingly* donned, you'll recall. In fact you insisted on donning it. Mere marriage wasn't enough for you. Now you're stuck. You can't divorce part of yourself. And even if you *did* divorce him ... you'd risk losing Daxam as an ally. And you can't afford to do that right now." The tall man looked almost triumphant. But when he spoke again his voice was soft, laden with gentle compassion.

"And there are ... other reasons ... you'll never divorce Lar," he told her. Tasmia scowled.

"I haven't kept the great Daxamite bastard dungeoned up for the last ten years out of passion!" she snarled.

"Oh yes, you have," the Earl Marshal bit back the wry comment stinging the tip of his tongue. He wanted to say, "Oh yes, you have. That's *exactly* why you've imprisoned Lar. The wonder is that you can't see it." But he said nothing, of course. Jo only shook his graying, aggrieved head in consternation.

"I tried to warn you," he reminded her. "I begged you to reconsider. First, when you made him the Mon-L, your Consort. And especially when you declared him keritalyn. That's an unbreakable bond. Like the inertron bracelets that symbolize it. I told you you'd regret it. Lar is like my brother. I'd gladly die for him and you know it. But that doesn't make me blind to his faults." Jo Nah smiled hugely. "Or *yours*," he emphasized. Laughing, Tasmia patted his grizzled cheek.

"That's why I like having you around, Jo," Tasmia informed him. "You keep me honest." Her companion snorted hot derision.

"No, I don't," he declared. "That was Lar. And look where it got him." Tasmia bristled.

"I forbid you to say that name again!"

"I'll say it as many times as it takes to make you listen," Nah promised. "Lar. Lar Gand. Your *husband*! And, by royal decree your keritalyn ... your soulmate."

"He's a traitor!" she cried, dark eyes flashing rage. "A traitor and a pain in the fundament!"

"Absolutely, your Majesty," her Earl Marshal agreed without question. Her glance was full of mock suspicion when it fell upon him again.

"I was young and stupid," she averred, watching closely for Nah's reaction. "I made a mistake."

"Absolutely, your Grace," Nah returned in a voice dry as the desert winds of Talok VIII itself. "That's what comes of thinking with the wrong set of organs. You should have married Vril Dox all those years ago when you had the chance. Not sweet talked him out of his Body Shield. I can still recall your mother's look of absolute horror when she realized what you intended. To say that she was *appalled* is the understatement of the millennium. Poor Lyrissa the Elder was the soul of convention. She was all set for you to marry Vril Dox." Nah paused. "I'm convinced that it was the idea of you marrying a commoner ... and a *Daxamite*, at that, that finally killed her; NOT a heart attack. She was very fond of Vril Dox." Tasmia shuddered.

"Then *she* should have married him," Tasmia contended. "I'd rather couple with a pit viper, any day," the Queen of Talok VIII assured her Earl Marshal. "It's infinitely safer. And less repulsive. Thank the Ancestors Querl is *nothing * like him." Jo crossed his arms over his chest.

"If you say so," he muttered beneath his breath. "Speaking of 'The Pride of Colu' ... " Jo began in a louder voice.

"The 'Pride of Colu'," came a sardonic voice from the bed behind them, "is awake. And not at all fond of being spoken of as if he were an idiot or not present." The older man flushed scarlet and gritted his teeth. Damned impertinent puppy! Tasmia's bell-like laughter filled the large room and tinkled off the cold stone walls.

"Doesn't much need my protection, does he, Jo?" Tasmia said proudly. Leaning down, she kissed the young man laying in her bed, still tousled from her passion of the night before. "Morning, love," she greeted him, "Mind your manners, now. It's too early in the morning to fight with Jo This is going to be a wretched day. If I start biting and shouting now, I'll be horase before breakfast. Have mercy on an old woman." The cold green eyes softened and the smile became quite genuine. The youth drew his knees up and rested his arms upon them. Chuckling dark mirth, he traced the line of her cheek with one long elegant finger.

"Not so old as that," he told her. His eyes danced, reflecting the flames from the large room's fireplace. He watched her studying the flames closely, seeking answers in the shadows cast into the far coners of the large room. These days it wasn't hard to follow her thoughts.

"When you're gathered to your Ancestors, Tasmia, what will you do?" he chukled. "Will you look down and see who's sitting on your throne? Haunt the one who holds your Kingdom?" Unlike his query, her answer held nothing of lightness or frivolity.

"I can't wait that long," she said grimly. "I have to know before I'm gone that I've left things in the proper hands. I've built an Empire -- the whole of the United Planets, half the Dominion. I'm the greatest power in a thousand years. And after me comes Lydea." She was very careful not to take notice of the dark scowl of distaste that passed over the broad features of her Earl Marshal. She wasn't the only one to notice it. Nor was Nah the only one whose face cradled disapproval. The young Coluan prince looked at the stolid Earl Marshal with a smile at once compounded of anger and despair..

"How comforting it is," he observed with careful venom, "to know one's fate beforehand. And one's place. Win or lose, my future is assured. Queen against Consort, Bishops against Knights and I'm the only pawn." With a sigh, Tasmia took his face in her hands, looking deep into his bright green eyes.

"Mind me, my sweet, sweet boy. You were only ten when your brother bargained with me for you. Suddenly, there you were, all intelligent silence and gangly knees. How I waited until you were of age to take you from Lydea, I can't tell you. I must be a stronger woman than I thought. I love you, Querl. I didn't take you into my bed or my heart lightly." He looked away and she guided his gaze firmly back upon her. "But when I say we're done --- we're done."

"I'll fight for you," he promised her. "If you give me to Lydea she'll die childless. You may count upon it." Her embrace was warm and close.

"That's between you and Lyddie," Tasmia said. "Not my problem." The Earl Marshal shifted from angry foot to angry foot and cleared his throat nosily. Tasmia gritted her teeth.

"Go ahead and say it, Jo," she urged him, "before you burst."
"And what of Lyrissa?" he demanded. "She's the eldest. And the strongest. You can't just ignore her."

"No? Watch me," said Tasmia succinctly. The Earl Marshal stomped his booted foot in frustration and threw back his head.

"Why Tasmia," he cursed, "give me one frimping reason *why*! Because she loves her father?" The ringing slap that she discharged across her Earl Marshal's grizzled cheek would be some time in fading and the sound of it echoed off the cold stone walls for several moments before it dissipated.

"Damn you!" the Queen of Talok VIII cried. "Lyddie will be Queen because I *say* she will! And because she loves me. She's the only one of my children who does!" Jo Nah made no move to avoid the stinging slap from his Monarch. When it was done, he stood very, very still for several moments before he spoke.

"Tasmia," he said with soft sadness echoing in his strong voice, "Lyddie loves you all right. Lyddie loves you like a potter loves a tinker damn." He bowed deeply to Tasmia and then to Querl.

"My Queen ... your Grace ..." With a curt wave of dismissal, the angry monarch watched her stiff-backed Earl Marshal depart, his head held high.

"He's right, you know," Querl said. "Lydea loves your *crown*, not you. She'll do anything to get it." Slightly annoyed, he watched as Tasmia smiled at him indulgently, almost as if he were a small child who'd jut uttered somethig profoundly sweet. Tasmia sat next to him on the bed and he allowed himself to be pulled into her surprisingly strong embrace. The strength in that slight body never ceased to amaze him.

"They'll both do anything for my crown," she murmured. "Lydea AND Lyrissa. I raised them both to be strong. To fight for what they want." He smiled at her and pulled away to peer in her dark eyes, watching carefully for some sign. some clue in the curve of a sharp cheekbone, the sweep of an eyebrow.

"You have three children, you know," he reminded her gently. "Why is it, I wonder, that no one ever mentions Kel and the Kingdom in the same breath?" Tasmia's frown was a study in puzzled incomprehension.

"Kel? What does Kel have to do with the succession? Querl, Talok is a matriarchy. And the last time I checked, Kel was a man. He's not in line for the throne. I hope you're not trying to tell me that Kel loves me, too, and that I should consider him." The Coluan prince shook his head and tousled hair the color of sunshine set Tasmia's heart racing.

"No," he said, "Kel doesn't love you any more than Lydea does." He kissed her palm and watched her eyes darken with rising passion. "I know of only four people who have ever loved you, Tasmia. One of them is dead. You just slapped another of them for trying to tell you the truth ... " He closed his eyes in pain. "And one of them has been locked up in prison for ten years by your decree."

Tasmia's hands knotted themselves into fists at her side and her lips thinned in fury.

"And the fourth?" His lips touched her palm once more, brief and gossamer as the touch of a butterfly.

"The fourth," he whispered, "is sitting right in front of you." Her eyes shining, she ran lithe fingers through his long blond hair, then cradled his head on her breast.

"I'm an old woman, Querl Dox," she said, "I've conquered planets and star systems, birthed children and buried them. In my sixty years I've known heroes and Kings, bawds, temptors, accountants and little girls. But nowhere, nowhere have I ever found anyone to love save *you*."
"Liar!" he thought sadly, and was glad for the absence of Tasmia's Chief Councilor, the telepathic Titanian woman, the Lady Imra.

For several moments she held him very close, basking in the warmth of his youthful body. "Whoever said Coluans are cold and calculating never met this one," she told herself. The path before her was plain. But then, hadn't it always been so? She was simply reluctant to walk it, she knew. But walk it she must. One way or another. Sooner or later.

Sooner, she decided.

"Do what you must, woman," she castigated herself. "There's no other way to be a Queen, a strong ruler, and sixty seasons old all at the same time."

Moving crisply, her decision made, she rose and clapped her hands, once, impatiently. The guard bowed low as he entered her presense, leaving the door open behind him as custom demanded..

"Highness?"

"Summon back the Earl Marshal Nah," she instructed him, her voice curt. "I have a task for him."

***

Deadly silent, the shadows reached out and engulfed the tall woman's  opponent before she could avoid them. Blinded and afraid now, the shorter woman lashed out, instinct guiding her hand. But her blows fell on nothing. There was no one there to receive them. The taller of the two antagonists was gone. The Earl Marshal narrowed his eyes, but still they could not piece that darkness to see properly to the heart of this struggle. Nah smiled and conseidered the spreading darkness.

"That's her mother in her," he acknowledged.

From out of the shadows rose the sound of breaking bone and the smell of great fear. "Mercy, Princess!" cried a shrill voice, teetering on the edge of pleading, and Nah did not need the honorific to tell him that it was *not* the voice of the one he sought. A low voice, deep for a woman, answered and the shadows began to dispel themselves.

"Forgive me, Salu!" it said. "I hadn't meant to harm you. Sometimes I ... forget myself ... "

"And *that's* her father in her," Nah admitted. He stepped forward as aid was summoned for the luckless Lady Salu.

"Lyrissa?" he called softly.

***

In silent disapproval, the Earl Marshall watched the the tableau unfold before him. From out of the plane of the elliptic the tightly bunched ships probed cautiously, proceeding with slow deliberation around the girth of the great yellow sun to their rear. Well armed, they advanced with more confidence now, meeting no resistance.

Floating in space, free of the constraints of gravity, waiting against the star filled garment of the eternal, a lone man observed them closely. The faint blue radiance that surrounded him reflected off his sapphire eyes and perhaps it was only the blackness of space that made them seem chill and harsh.

Perhaps not.

Watching, Nah made no judgments, reached no conclusions.
Patient as any webbed spider, the man waited, watching the advancingships carefully. Smiling dispassionately, he saw the ships proceed beyond the illusionary safety of open space out into the confusion of the waiting asteroid belt. Their commander must be quite sure of himself.

Fool.

With a single abrupt gesture, swift and sure as a striking hawk, he brought his hand down, pointing emphatically in the direction of the advancing enemy ships.

From above, along the z-axis of the newly ordained battlefield, ships descended like a swarm of annoying insects, small and quick, stinging their larger targets, then darting agilely away. All the while driving the larger more numerous vessels further into the asteroid belt.

Again, the floating man observed clinically; waiting patiently once more.

Sound does not carry in the vacuum of space and so he was denied the pleasure of any great rush of noise to accompany the destruction of ship after ship and the men who manned them. But the pyrotechnic display of lights and color as ships and men perished was beautiful beyond belief mirrored against the stark blackness of space.. With a will he governed himself. Not now.

No, not now ... wait for it ... wait for it ...
Blue eyes sparkling in triumph, he gestured again and, from behind sheltering asteroids, cloaked ships rose and open fired upon the hapless intruders. The battle was quick, savage and very one sided.

Politely, the Earl Marshal Nah waited until the slaughter was done before he addressed the Prince of Talok as he divested himself of his clumsy VR gear.

"Kel," he said. "It's time to put away your toys. You're needed."

***

The vast inertron doors slid noiselessly open and the four guards escorting Jo Nah stepped cautiously through. Vigilant eyes probed the large room and although the plasma rifles the guards carried rested casually in the hands of their wielders, ready fingers never strayed far from the triggers.

Which was as it should be, of course.

Despite its size, Jo reflected, no one would ever mistake this place for anything but exactly what it was: a prison. Only the small holovid of a young Talokian girl sitting in one unobtrusive corner of the stark room gave any evidence of human occupancy.

"I wonder which it is," The Earl Marshall pondered the holovid for an instant, "the daughter ... or the wife ... ?" Likely he would never know. But then, there were a great many things about the man in this room like that. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the guards.

"Sir?" came the slow, reluctant response from the senior guardsman. "Are you *sure*?" Wordless Nah stared at the man and frowned. "He's - ah - in a really bad mood today, Sir," the armed man amended with a smile, a feeble attempt at unfelt jocularity that fell quite flat. Again Jo signaled dismissal and this time he was obeyed.

Silent, Jo Nah watched his friend Lar Gand, the Mon-L, Consort to Queen Tasmia Mallor of Talok VIII, chin himself one-handed on the high exercise bar. In the dim light of the huge room his pale skin and space dark hair, peppered now like the night sky with sparks of silver, shone like a star.

"48 ... 49 ... 50!"

Casually, the powerfully built man released the bar and fell lightly to the floor some ten feet below. With a towel, he wiped the sweat from his face and then his broad chest. He was careful not to touch the glowing collar around his neck. But still Jo did not miss the brief flash of pain that crossed his handsome features when his hand strayed near it. Nah waited patiently until he seated himself. When Lar spoke at last, it was not a question he asked in his deep, familiar voice, so Jo did not answer him.

"Vril Dox is coming," Lar said. "There's to be a Gathering ... "

End, Chapter One