The Apocalypse Script (31 page)

The fact that Ben was from the
ranks of the Ardoon and had no living relatives greatly diminished
the possibility that he would be assassinated. That in turn reduced
the probability that Lilian and her future children would be
marked. Ridley had thus provided her a better script than she had
requested.

Yet she now realized that she
would need to modify her plan and place a much higher priority on
Ben’s survival during the tumultuous days to come. Yesterday
obtaining the throne was conditional upon her marriage to him - a
condition she had met. Today, keeping that throne was conditional
upon him remaining alive.

And
happy
, she reminded herself.
That
was a problem. He
was already angry with her and had on several occasions called
their marriage a sham, which it surely had been. She had
regrettably even said so herself and had
bribed
him to come to Steepleguard
because then it had not mattered if he remained in the marriage, so
long as she became queen before his departure.

Now it did matter.

Now she needed him to take the union seriously.

It wasn’t that she had not planned
to make him happy. To her relief, she had grown very fond of the
former Ardoon. Perhaps she didn’t love him, not yet, but she could
not remember ever loving any man other than her father. Ben seemed
fond of her, too, when he was not angry with her, and he did not
seem the type of man who would be disloyal.

Her problem was that loyalty and
fondness had been
elective
yesterday. Today they were bare minimums. She had
spent most of the meal contemplating how she could prove to Ben
that she no longer viewed their marriage as a sham, but none of the
schemes she cooked up seem viable. He would see through
them.

She had been riddled with angst up
to the moment that Fiela had tipped over a glass of wine and
squealed loudly as it dripped onto her skirt. It was an
ear-piercing sound and Ben was visibly startled. While others at
the table chuckled, his face took on a hard expression and his eyes
seemed to focus on something distant. He clasped his hands together
in front of him, the knuckles growing white.

The other guests sensed the
tension and the table went silent. Fiela, who had been dabbing at
the wine, lifted her head saw what the others at the table were
pretending not to see. Alarmed, she had immediately risen from her
chair and moved to Ben’s side, whispering something in his ear and
running a hand over his.

To everyone’s relief, Ben had
politely excused himself before allowing Fiela to lead him into a
corridor while making it seem as if he were leading her. Lilian
could see into the corridor and watched as the Peth reached up and
caressed Ben’s neck and kissed him on the shoulder and said
something to him and then repeated it. Lilian had not needed to
hear the words to know they formed an apology.

At first, the fallen princess was
befuddled. Ben’s reaction to a spilled glass of wine made no sense.
But then she remembered, from her investigations, that the man had
a ‘problem’ with sudden movements and loud noises. His health
records stated that he suffered from a form of PTSD, caused by
wartime trauma. Something to do with a bomb that had killed a
friend of his in Afghanistan. The former Marine’s records stated
that unexpectedly loud noises, in particular, could cause Ben to
lash out in anger – sometimes, physically. It wasn’t the spilled
wine that had set him off. It has been Fiela’s scream.

In the corridor, the girl had
buried her face in the man’s chest and had put her arms around him.
There was a short conversation and the two had absconded. In that
instant, Lilian realized the solution to her marital problems was,
of all things,
Fiela
.

The Peth, her sister and
guardian,
did
love Ben. There was no doubt about it. It was apparent in the
way the girl talked about him and how she sought to be always in
his company. Fiela had even prohibited Ridley’s fetches from
preparing Ben’s breakfast or tending to him during the meal, thus
condemning the poor man to a predictable morning ration of
over-cooked eggs and toast.

Fiela considered Ben a kindred
spirit. Both had fought in wars and both struggled with certain
psychological side effects, to include nightmares. Earlier that
afternoon the two had swapped stories about their experiences and
while the discussion was mostly somber, there were a few laughs,
too, which she assumed brought the two closer together,
emotionally.

Equally important, unlike Lilian
or Ben, Fiela treated the three’s marriage as absolutely genuine.
Fiela actually
believed
in it. She had played no part in the ruse used to
get Ben to sign the marriage contract and so was spared the
accusations he hurled at Lilian. Fiela was an innocent, and Ben
seemed to realize that.

Did Ben love the serretu? Perhaps.
He was, at least, enamored with her, and seemed to be amused at her
silliness. Unfortunately, the two had yet to engage in a sexual
relationship, which was absurd. Fiela was beautiful and Ben was
handsome. They shared the same bed and they were joined together by
Nisirtu law, yet all they ever did was talk and touch one another,
and not in the way Lilian wanted.

Lilian had worried about this even
before the meeting with Barnum and the idea had begun to form in
her head that Fiela was simply not trying hard enough. It surely
wasn’t her husband’s fault. Ben had been thrown into a strange
world with strange rituals and the Ardoon did not typically have
second wives. Though Lilian had told him in no uncertain words that
she and Fiela were both available to him, his mind had yet to
adjust to this new reality.

Fiela would have to take command
of the situation. The serretu would have to convince Ben that she
wanted him, which she surely did, and that he was derelict in his
role as mutu if he failed to consummate the marriage with both
women.

Yes, Lilian would need to speak to
the girl about that.

It was also important that she
impress upon Fiela that, though they were sisters, there could be
no blurring of lines with regard to station. Lilian’s future was
tied to Ben’s and if Ben’s continued presence depended on Fiela,
Lilian would need Fiela’s unquestioning obedience and loyalty. It
was, in a way, a circle of dependence.

Yes, so long as her husband felt
an emotional obligation to his serretu, and she to him, he wasn’t
likely to dismiss the marriage
altogether
. Lilian would need to
ensure that the bond between Fiela and Ben held firm until she
could establish her own, and she needed the Peth to understand that
she was a subject first and a sister second.

As soon as he could escape the
dinner, Ben went to his study to resume his inspection of the
tablets. He was still upset by the revelation that if he abandoned
the faux marriage Lilian and probably dozens of other people would
be killed. Worse, the fact that he
was
upset reinforced the depressing
fact that he now accepted that the Nisirtu did, in fact, control
the world and were bent on destroying it.

He decided that research would be
his escape. He was grateful that he could rely on the unchanging,
emotionless tablets to be there for him when he needed a
distraction. Not that the tablets were exactly his friends. Indeed,
they seemed to delight in vexing him, at keeping their secrets
secret while teasing him with insights that flashed into and out of
mind too rapidly to register.

Sometimes the etchings would fill
his head with images and thoughts so utterly alien that he could
not have conceived them on his own. Images of places and beings and
events that ranged from heavenly to hellish. He knew of drugs that
could allegedly cause such thoughts, drugs he had taken himself
when he first got back from the war. Prescription drugs that warned
of
unusual dreams
as a potential side effect.

But how could merely staring at
slab of stone do that?

Sometimes the inscriptions tricked
him into seeing movement, as if the lines and swirls and spirals
were not carved into the stone but were instead colored threads
placed upon it that were being slowly pulled by a phantom
finger.

He was holding a tablet in his hand, mesmerized by
the illusion of the movement, when Ridley appeared in the
doorway.

“
Good evening, nephew.”

“
Ridley,” said the researcher,
startled. Collecting his wits, he said, “If you’re here to ask if
there’s been a breakthrough, the answer is ‘no.’ I haven’t had much
of an opportunity to study the tablets today.”

Entering the room, the other man
said, “No, no, I’m not worried about that. I’m sure you’ll achieve
a breakthrough, eventually.”

Ben grunted. “
You
should have brought me into the
fold earlier. There is no way I’ll master these before your planned
apocalypse.”

“
Don’t push
yourself too hard. I fully expect you to continue your
studies
after
this era is complete. Anyway, your subconscious is already
working on the tablets. Let it do the hard work. You’ll find it
will be far more effective than your conscious mind.”

Ben shook his head. “Hoping that I
will have an epiphany while I’m asleep is a strategy I tried in
college with little success.”

The scribe chuckled as he put his
hands behind his back and moved toward the researcher. “Oh, it’s
not like that, exactly. Are you familiar with Jungian
archetypes?”

“
I know the phrase, and that Jung
was a contemporary of Freud and almost as famous, though the two
had significantly different views on psychology. From what I
remember, Freud was fixated on sex and Jung was fixated on
metaphysics.”

“
Ha! Well, I’m sure many would
agree with you. Anyway, Jung postulated that there are nebulous
forms and images common to all humans. These are the basic building
blocks of thought that every man and woman use to form their
reality. Things, people, and places that they know exist before
they can even speak.

“
Gods, for example. There are no
cultures I’m aware of that are without gods. Belief in a god or
gods in instinctive to man and may be rationalized away as a person
gets older, but fresh from the womb, a man believes in gods.
Devils, too.” The old man gave him a quizzical look. “Tell me,
nephew, do you believe in gods? Or devils?”

Ben sighed, turned a palm up.
“What does that have to do with deciphering the
tablets?”

The Great Sage stared at him for a
moment before saying, “I propose that the Empyrean Glossa is an
archetype. It is a language buried in the subconscious. Hardwired
into our brains, even. That’s why I’m suggesting that you let your
subconscious do the work.”

Perplexed, the researcher said, “Lilian gave me the
impression that deciphering these tablets was an emergency.”

“
No, Ben. The emergency was
getting you to Steepleguard before the collapse so that you could
study them. I never told Lilian that I expected you to decipher the
tablets before the world was reborn.”

“
Huh.” Ben tried to remember his
conversation with Lilian in Denver. Playing it over in his mind, he
thought Ridley might be right. Not that it really
mattered.

“
Take some time off,” suggested
the scribe. “Tour your new home, meet the guests and get to know
your wives. Fiela was looking for you a few minutes ago. She wanted
to apologize to you again for what happened at dinner. She said she
had upset you. You do seem a little agitated, in fact.”

“
Not because of anything Fiela
did. Not really. It’s hard to get angry with a person who is trying
so hard to make you happy, even when she’s being a pain in the
butt.”

Ridley laughed. “Yes, she can be
that.” In a more serious tone, he added, “Ben, there’s something
you need to know about my niece.”

Staring levelly at the scribe, the
researcher said, “Ridley, Lilian is causing me enough grief. Please
don’t tell me that there are sinister strings attached to Fiela.
Unlike some others,” he said, looking pointedly at the other man,
“Fiela has never lied to me, at least not on anything of
consequence.
Has she?
”

“
No, Ben, no. Nothing like that.”
The scribe walked to a chair opposite the researcher and slowly
seated himself. “Fiela does not lie, not often, and when she does,
she is very bad at it. It’s not in her nature.”

Relieved, Ben said, “What is it, then?”

“
You know that she has
nightmares.”

“
Of course. It’s PTSD. Ten years
of fighting would do that to her, especially considering that she
began fighting as a child.”

Twiddling his fingers on an
adjacent table, Ridley said, “I agree that it is PTSD. Not from the
war, though. Not entirely.”

“
What, then?”

Glancing at the door, Ridley said,
“I told you that I saved both Lilian and Fiela from the mark placed
on King Sargon; that they were to be executed but that I negotiated
to have them released and placed under my guardianship.”