The Kingdoms of Evil (60 page)

The border of the Kingdoms of Evil hit Istain Scander like a lead pipe to the back of the head.

"Burning libraries!" He gasped. Then he set his jaw against the pain and asked the question he had been waiting to ask for the last 60 hours. "Madene…are you still there?"

His mouth and lips moved, "Stop gritting your teeth, Istain."

"Burning libraries." It felt like an orca was chewing on his skull. Istain's little glider wobbled as he fought the urge of vomit, then wobbled more as he lost the fight.

"Stink it out, Istain!" Madene said through his mouth. "Gross! It got on my hand!" She let go of the handle-bar in front of him and wiped his hand on his tunic. "What's wrong with you all of a sudden?"

"We just passed into Skrea," Istain mumbled. He took the hand back and put it on the handle bar, so they wouldn't go spiraling to their deaths. "I guess this must be some effect of…ow…
gibberish.
" Chomp went the orca. "Some effect of Skrean magic on…you know,
you.
"

"Really?" Madene raised his eyebrows, "No. That's not right, because I don't feel anything."

Istain gulped down his rising gorge, "And you clearly haven't gone away." There, the pain was finally lessening. Istain's vision cleared and his stomach settled, leaving behind the familiar gray fog of depression. "No offense, but I was hoping you would get the hell out of my brain."

Istain almost vomited again as his mouth shut, his diaphragm convulsed, and Madene snorted through his nose. "The High Maiden wouldn't have done this to me if she thought I would disappear at the border."

Likely not. People that power mad don't hold onto their positions unless they're also smart. There was a brief flicker of fury, but it dissolved, and Istain only felt tired. "Why haven't you disappeared?" Istain said bitterly to the air in front of him.

Through the utter misery of the last several days, Istain had only been able to drag himself forward with the vague hope that Madene might disappear from his mind as he crossed out of the Virgin Mother's magical domain. Then,
maybe
, he would be able to turn around and go back to help Selene. It wasn't much of a hope, but it had been something. Now Istain wondered whether he shouldn't just lean forward, fly into the desert below, and be done with it.

"Istain," Madene's invasive personality forced his mouth to say, "I know you're going through a lot, but so am I. Let's not whine about it, okay?"

"Ha, Yeah." Istain laughed bitterly, "You're actually going through exactly the same things as me. That's sort of the problem." He stared down at the gray rocks and dust rolling by far below. If he drove himself into those rocks, he would take Madene's copy out with him, and he might at least have some chance of foiling the High Maiden's plans in Skrea. If only he didn't have Selene to worry about.

Selene…

Madene took a deep breath with his lungs. "Istain, you're not helping the situation. Just accept it, okay? I don't like it, either, but
I've
accepted it."

Said the squatter to the rightful owner of the house, when he came back from vacation to find this hairy vagrant peeing on his couch.
The unfairness of it would have taken Istain's breath away if Madene wasn't already using it to speak with.

"We have a mission in Skrea," Madene continued, "a mission to stop the war that's coming."

Anger flickered through the clouds of despair. "Oh yes," said Istain, "because the High Psychotic Maiden Kadene is all about stopping wars and helping people. Yeah, she's just a big fuzzy softy under that layer of ice-cold, rock-hard
crazy
." True Words, he wished he had that bitch's neck between his hands. Istain's knuckles whitened on the handlebar of the glider as he imagined vertebrae cracking.

"Why…" he breathed at the voice between his ears, "the
fuck
did you help her do this to us?"

"I told you before, Istain," she answered, "Selene was just using you. She was a---"

"Traitor, yes," Istain caught the word as it passed through his mouth and held onto control, "you told me that. Because obviously there's no
other
reason a girl would want anything to do with me---"

"Calm down Istain! You're making our heart race."

Our heart? Istain wanted to scream,
our
heart?! But Madene held onto control of their throat and mouth like a violent psychosis.

"True words, Istain," Madene said through his mouth, "I am sick of you."

"You're sick of me?
You're
sick of
me?
" Somewhere under the thick clouds of his depression, lightning flared. "Strike you out, Madene. You are an
invader
in my gibbering
mind
! You say you have the same problems as me? Well can you feel the…striking
visceral
agony every time I think about Selene. Do you feel that too, Madene, huh? Do you feel my
heart
squeeze shut when I imagine what
your
struck-out gibbering bitch of a High Maiden is—"

Then came one of those horrible moments when Madene interrupted him and his mouth tried to say two words at the same time. Spit went up Istain's nose and he bit his tongue hard. And all he could do about it was shut up and let Madene have her say, because she
never
backed down.

Back on the ground, Istain had actually passed out once when an argument with his own vocal chords had caused him to hyperventilate. If the same thing happened while he was piloting the hang-glider…well wouldn't that just be hilarious.

"I could have been inducted as a full Warrior Maiden, Istain. Did you know that?" Madene used his mouth to say. "But you took me away from that." Her voice broke, and Istain was shocked and disgusted to find his eyes prickling with her tears. "If you'd been thinking with your head instead of your gonads, you would known Selene for the traitor she was. Then the High Maiden wouldn't have had to do this to me to control you. See it now?"

For a moment Istain was too shocked to speak. She had been preparing to turn traitor! That whole thing in the tent…Madene had
helped
the High Maiden do what she had done to him and Selene. "You stupid gibbering selfish bitch." Istain breathed.

"Don't you dare judge me!" she cried out of his mouth. "You don't know
anything
!"

"I know what you and your
gibbering
High Maiden did to Selene!" Istain couldn't even tell whose emotions he was feeling any more. But at least it was something aside from the terrible, crushing blankness of the last few days. Now, at last, Istain could get angry over the disaster that Madene had made of his life.

"Stink it, Istain, you---"

He took one hand off the handlebar and slapped himself hard across the cheek.

"
Shut up
, Madene! Do you know what they
do
to Warrior Maidens who screw up? Because of you, Selene's either been raped by one of Kadene's thugs, doomed to be a
slave
for the rest of her life…or gibbering
dead
. And I'm,
I'm…
gibber." Istain found he could not continue. Well, fine. Now Madene had her chance to defend herself and her commander. Then he would kill her. He would fly into the ground and erase the poisonous little bitch from his gray matter.

"
You don't get to be sorry!"
His voice echoed off the ground far below them. "You don't striking get to apologize for what you did to her. What
you
did, Madene! You destroyed her striking life!"

"I didn't, Istain," she said, squeezing shut his eyes. "I didn't."

"Don't you dare—" then his tongue went numb. Fine. Let her wrestle with him until they both striking suffocated. Istain squeezed his mouth shut until spots swam in front of his eyes and his hands started to tingle. She was pounding his hand against his chest. He gasped out a breath, and she turned it into words.

"Istain…Istain, I'm sorry." Madene said, "I made this decision about my life, but I didn't realize...I didn't know you and Selene really…I'll make it up to you. I don’t know how, but…"

Tear down the High Maiden? Save Selene? But how? What could he do? He was a nobody, a college student. A college student currently tapped by the government to fly into an enemy nation and do high-level negotiations with its dictator. The dictator, his best friend. His best friend, with a horde of gibbering monsters at his fingertips. And a border with Virgin Soil. And the High gibbering Maiden Kadene sitting right on that border.

Oh. Oh,
yes
.

Madene tried to speak through his clenched teeth. Then as his jaw muscles relaxed, "Istain, I'm sorry." She said again.