The Strange Path (37 page)

That damned nightmare again.
She slumped, shoulders and head down, eyes closed. After almost four hundred years, it still had the power to plague her. Over the centuries it came and went with irregular frequency, but the last decade had shown an alarming increase of nightmare nights. A week rarely went by that she didn’t wake in the throes of grief and fury, suffering the loss anew.

She drew in a shaky breath, calming herself. Fully awake, she rubbed sleep from her eyes, and climbed from bed. She slid her fingers through her hair, settling the worst of the snarls before donning her robe.

Moments later, she entered her private office. A silver tray on her desk held a porcelain cup and teapot. Steam drifted from the cup, the aroma of ginseng driving away the memories of blood. She pursed her lips, glancing back at the door.
I must have cried out loud again.
She hated when she did that. It had begun happening too often. She hadn’t called out during her nightmares since the late sixteen hundreds. This would make it the third time this week.

Disgruntled, she drifted to the window. Moist fog clung to the ground this morning but she easily saw the brick wall in the distance that marked her property line. The grass would soon need cutting, and new green looked to be budding on the trees. Spring awakening was just around the corner. Her eyes caressed the rose bushes. There’d once been a full garden on this side of the estate, but she’d had it removed. Too many memories. None she wished to lose, but all far too painful to endure even three hundred eighty years later. She’d never part with the roses, however. Those memories she wished to retain for the duration of her life.

She sighed again, the smell of the tea calling her, and sat at her desk. At a touch, her computer screen lit up. She accessed her email and Internet programs, and began to catch up with the morning’s news. While she waited for her messages to download, she sipped her tea and marveled at how far technology had advanced in the last seven hundred years. In the days of her youth, a courier took weeks to get messages from her family’s homestead to the palace. Now it was a matter of typing out a missive and hitting the send button. Instantaneous.

Sometimes, especially after the vivid reminder of her nightmares, she wondered how Elisibet would have fared in this day and age. It had taken centuries of struggle for her to hold onto four hundred thousand kilometers of territory. At the time, she’d been one of the most successful and ruthless leaders of their people, rivaled only by Tairo-no-Mitsuko in Japan. In her foolish moments, Margaurethe daydreamed that a contemporary Elisibet would be a more merciful ruler, less subject to violence as a tool of control. Those thoughts withered in the blistering light of Elisibet’s true nature. Her admittedly low level of compassion was reserved for an elite few—Margaurethe and Valmont, for the most part. Margaurethe’s nose wrinkled at the thought of him. She pushed him from her mind, and began to peruse her messages.

In the last century, she’d invested money in several technological advancements that had flourished. Many of her peers and elders floundered in the modern age, preferring to sequester themselves away from the rapid advancements. Elisibet had been a strong proponent of new things, and Margaurethe had honored her memory, taking the modest stipend from her parents, and turning it into a financial empire. An active board member in one software and two computer hardware companies, her stock portfolio showed a keen understanding of the market, and she held majority interests in two satellite communications companies. If she were to liquidate her earnings and holdings, she’d have three times more money than Elisibet had ever held in the royal treasury, even accounting for current day inflation.

She used the next hour and a half to go over the messages, answering those that required an immediate response, filing the informational ones, and deleting those of no consequence. This afternoon she’d attend to those from her family, and those missives requiring a more focused response. She spent another hour going over the daily newsfeeds, and stock exchange data. By the time she completed her morning routine she’d emptied the teapot, and the sun had burned off most of the fog.

A knock at the door took her unaware. She raised an eyebrow at the door, staring. Her staff never bothered her at this hour unless it was an emergency. Other than her personal assistant delivering tea, no one would ever approach until she left her private suite for the public rooms. She reached out with her mind, simultaneously picking up the phone. Amber and steel met her mental touch, an essence both familiar and alien, one she hadn’t felt in several hundred years.

“Yes,
Ki’an Gasan
?” a voice on the phone asked.

Margaurethe’s hand shook. “Nothing. Never mind.” She hung up on the speaker before he formulated a reply. “Reynhard, come in.”

The door eased open, and in walked a garish ghost. Reynhard Dorst’s formerly long brown hair had disappeared, leaving three strips of black that bristled four inches above his scalp. She watched him carefully close the door behind him, his dark eyes glittering with humor. He wore leather and silver, head to toe, and he threw the tail of his trench coat backward as he gave her a patented Dorst bow.

“
Ki’an Gasan
O’Toole, how wonderful it is to see you once again. You’ve been well, I trust?”

Suffering through the recurring nightmare had her on enough edge. She had no patience for his excessive cheer, and verbal dueling. “I haven’t seen you since—” Her face heated. Even now she couldn’t say it. “—since before the Purge. I thought you were dead.”

His expression became apologetic. Rising, he moved closer to her desk. “I do hear that quite often. I had hoped you, of all people, had more faith in my abilities.”

The last time Margaurethe had seen him, he’d spirited her away from the palace after Elisibet’s funeral. Had she stayed behind, she would have been killed by the mob that raged through the city hours later.

She made a production of shutting down the programs on her computer. “If you’re looking for a thank you for saving my life, you have it. Will there be anything else?”

He tsked. “Lies? I thought we were dear friends.”

“We’ve never been friends, Reynhard.” She glared at him. “Don’t ever mistake tolerance as friendship.”

“May I?” He gestured to a chair, then sat without invitation. “We both know you’d have preferred to remain in the palace that night. You wanted to die.”

The words, so close on the heels of the dream, stabbed her heart. She bared her teeth at him, reaching for the phone. “Get out. I’m calling my security.”

“Alas, I cannot leave until I’ve done my duty.” He attempted a mournful look, but the light of laughter in his gaze ruined the affect.

“And what duty is that?”

“You’ve been summoned to the Colonies,
Ki’an Gasan
. Someone there wishes to meet you.”

Summoned.
Despite Elisibet’s assassination and the Purge that followed, the
Agrun Nam
had upheld Margaurethe’s title of
Ki’an Gasan
, “beloved queen,” at least in name. The only ones allowed to summon her were the
Sañar
themselves.
Unless—

Margaurethe felt the blood drain from her face, suddenly cold in her robe and nightclothes. The sun sparkled brightly behind her, but her soul felt the icy mist of the early morning. She opened her mouth to speak, to ask, but her throat made no sound.

The joyful mockery fled Dorst’s expression. His smile was genuine, his eyes sympathetic. “Yes. I’ve finally found her.”

Whiskey started awake, her Sanguire eyes seeing every nuance of the dark bedroom. Cora muttered, still asleep, and shifted to pull her close again. Whiskey allowed it though the warmth of another person beside her did nothing to calm her rapidly beating heart. Whispering through her memory, she heard Margaurethe’s voice.
“There’s nothing to forgive.”

Alone despite the woman in her arms, Whiskey murmured, “I miss you,
minn’ast
.”

Glossary

Aga Maskim Sañar
- Judiciary of the High Court of the
Agrun Nam
; currently held by Bertrada Nijmege.

aga ninna
- fearsome crown, [“the crown” and “fearsome lady”].

Agrun Nam
- council [“inner sanctuary” and “fate, lot, responsibility”]; the ruling body of the European Sanguire.

amiga
- Spanish, friend [feminine].

Baruñal
- midwife to the
Ñíri Kurám
process.

caja
- Spanish, literally box; slang for a woman’s vagina.

chica
- Spanish, girl.

ensi’umma, ensi’ummai
- oracle, oracles.

gasan
- lady, mistress, queen.

gracias
- Spanish, thank you.

hola
- Spanish, hello.

Ki’an Gasan
– beloved lady mistress, [“beloved” and “lady, mistress, queen”]; title of Margaurethe O’Toole.

kizarus, kizarusi
- vessel [“large vessel” and “to tap” and “blood”], vessels; the Human chattal that feed the Sanguire.

lamma
- female spirit of good fortune; Fiona’s nickname for Whiskey.

lugal
- male leader of small household unit.

lúkal
- dear one.

m’cara
- beloved (Gaelic derivative); an affectation of Marguarthe O’Toole for Elisibet Vasilla.

Maskim Sañar
- Judiciary of the Low Court of the
Agrun Nam
.

mi corazón
- Spanish, literally my heart; term of endearment.

minn’ast
- beloved (Indo-European derivative); an affectation of Elisibet Vasilla for Margaurethe O’Toole.

mucha dinero
- Spanish, literally a lot of money.

Nam Lugal
- chief counselor of the
Agrun Nam
.

ninna
- fierce lady, female leader of small household unit.

Ninsumgal
- lady of all, sovereign, dragon, monster of composite power; official title of Elisibet Vasilla.

Ñíri Kurám
- the change, the turning, (“path” and “strange’”and “to take/to traverse”); the final step a youngling Sanguire takes to adulthood. It occurs naturally over decades, or can be hastened via chants and trances.

puru um
- idiot, hillbilly.

Saggina
- local magistrate of the European Sanguire; a political office that answers to the nearest embassy.

sañar/sanari
- councilor of the
Agrun Nam
.

Sañur Gasum
- eunuch assassin [“eunuch” and “i will” and “to slaughter”]; Reynhard Dorst’s title.

Sublugal Sañar
- military equivalent of the
Nam Lugal
, military leader; Valmont’s title.

Usumgal
- lord of all, sovereign, dragon, monster of composite power; official title of Maximal Vasilla, Elisibet’s father.

We Wacipi Wakan
- Lakota, [“blood” and “dancing” and “sacred”]; the leading council of the American Indian Sanguire.

zaz ne za tud
- literally, do you know who you are?

Publications from

Bella Books, Inc.

Women.Books. Even Better Together.

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