The Queen of Tentacles (Part 4)

 

It was nearly evening when the salvage team reached the decaying village. The beasts were swaying under the weight of the bundles, but the leader had given orders that they were not to be unloaded. One of the workers had found a leaky bucket, and was giving them some of the rainwater that had come from a big rain barrel behind one of the huts. The poor beasts were starving as well, but there was no food for them here.  A tuneless fanfare came blurbling out  from the vicinity of the largest building. They had heard this before. Lacking a trumpeter, the leader himself provided the fanfare. He loved the sound of his own voice, no matter what that voice was attempting to do.

The members of the salvage team gathered in  the road, and waited for him to reappear. He had immediately left the group when they arrived, and now emerged from behind the building. He had changed his clothes. Again.    

The Cephalopodians knew the drill. All fell to their knees, as the leader strutted out before them. There was a round rock which had once been a millstone, lying flat, half buried in the muck. The leader stepped up onto it, cleared his throat, and shouted.

"I have never been more pleased to leave a place in all of my life. I cannot get out of this nasty village fast enough. However. The time has come for you to get your reward."

Even with their heads down, the Cephalopodians looked happier. It had been a hard day. The leader was useless for doing anything other than shouting, eating, and prancing around showing off his fancy clothes. They had done all of the work. But now, the only part of the mission they had been interested in was at hand. 

He had promised them one gold piece each, and a gold piece meant a lot in the wild lands. The workers were overjoyed that they had earned the equivalent of five year's salary in one day.

The leader took a gold piece from his jangling pouch, which hung heavily on his belt beneath his fur cape. There was another fur that had been hastily prepared, and stuffed in a bag somewhere on one of the beasts. The workers didn't want to think about that one. They watched through the corners of their downcast eyes, as the leader strolled over to one of the exhausted animals and rummaged in its overstuffed pack. He quickly found what he was looking for. A metal saw. Taking the gold piece in one tentacle, he held it firmly, and proceeded to saw it into five pieces. Then he walked over to the workers and dropped a sliver of gold in front of each of them. All except one. He strutted back to the mill stone, and awaited the expected outpouring of effusive praise.

No one spoke. The illustrator's face had turned as pale as seafoam. The other worker's faces were reddening with anger.

"Well?" said the leader. "What is this ungrateful attitude among my loyal subjects? Or not so loyal subjects, maybe?  You know, the disloyal deserve nothing.Especially for the substandard work they did  today. It seems to me that's only fair."   And with that, he hopped down, snatched up the fragments of the gold piece, and stuffed them back into his pouch. Angry grumbling rose up. But another sound was heard. The sound of marching. Royal Guards appeared from out of the mist. They reached the leader, and encircled him, facing the workers. The grumbling ceased.

"Wonderful! " exclaimed the leader. Your King is very pleased that you have all seen things his way, and admitted to your substandard work. You are fortunate to have such an amazing King, who doesn't have you flogged, and your King knows you know it. So remember this great day. You did horrible work for the greatest King the Cephalopodian people have ever had. I am making Ocea ...." He stopped. Someone had stood up, and was looking him right in the eye. It was the illustrator. "You promised all of us a gold piece." She said. "I wrote the contract. You signed it. One gold piece each. Me included." She put her tentacles on her hips, defiantly.

The leader glared at her. " What contract? I don't remember any contract. I didn't sign a contract. You're lying."

The illustrator took a small roll of parchment from beneath her dirty shirt, and unrolled it in front of the leader. His signature was on it. He snatched it out of her tentacle, and without even looking at it, ripped it to pieces, and threw it into the air. The night wind was coming up over the marshes. Little shreds of parchment blew into the swamp, and vanished. " See? " He sneered."I knew there wasn't a contract. And you were never promised anything. Only males deserve pay. Your work was the worst of all. A child could have done better. Guards. Take this creature out of my sight. I don't care what you do with her, just get her out of here." A twisted grin spread slowly over his face. The guards started to move, but the salvage team did too. As one creature they stood, and stepped in front of the illustrator.

The guards stopped. They were there to ensure that their liege and his scavenged property would get to the palace safely. Slaughtering peasants wasn't on the list. They had been called up to serve from those dying swampy villages. These were their people. Some might even be distant relatives. They hesitated. The leader started to shout.

"You're just lucky I have my coronation and wedding banquet to get to, because if I didn't, I would enjoy seeing my personal army exterminate you all, beginning with you." He pointed several tentacles at the illustrator. The workers stood firm. Their mouths were set in grim lines, and several had balled their tentacles up into the Cephalopodian equivalent of fists. They were close to the beasts, who's bulging packs held shovels, picks, saws and hammers. The leader's memory rapidly improved.
"Guards. Get this junk onto the boat." he snarled. Then, still glaring, he turned, and stomped towards the sea.

  Some of the guards looked embarrassed, but they started moving the beasts down the road after the leader. Soon they were out of sight. One of the workers turned to another, and said quietly, "Our beasts. He's taking those too?" "Well of course." replied the other. "They'll never ask for pay, and they won't complain when he has the guards lead them into the water to drown." The illustrator turned away. She started to walk shakily towards the village road which led back to the mountain. "Hey!" one of her friends called out. "Where are you going? We just got away from there. We can go home!" "I need some solitude." she replied, and kept walking up the road. He shrugged at her retreating back. The five remaining workers started walking towards the rotting huts. The village had never been abandoned. It just looked that way.

The wind was getting stronger now. It was cold, and her tattered clothing offered very little protection, but she had to keep going. She was returning to the site where the ship had crashed. Not everything had been taken away, there were things still up there that  the leader had considered to be useless and unimportant. "Besides illustrators." she thought sourly.

These were the things she needed to find. She had a little bunch of rushlights and a striker in her pack, if she needed light, but her dark vision was excellent. She gathered her remaining strength, and started to run.

The last rays of the sun were beginning to fade by the time she reached the crash site. She stopped, took some deep breaths to try to clear her head, stood still, and listened. Silence surrounded her. Then a faint picture began to form in her mind. A thin black tube. This is what she would look for. She dug through a scorched pile of leaves, tossed some branches out of the way, and there it was. A short flexible tube.  It was connected to a little jar which was nearly identical to the ones  the glassworkers made. Instinctively, she knew that if there was any liquid in it, she was not to spill it. She extracted it from the leaves, and brought it over to the little pile of rocks she had surreptitiously built earlier in the day, before the team had begun their descent.

Working from the top down, she removed some of the rocks, revealing the broken cylinder. She had taken it out of one of the bundles whilst the leader had been changing his clothes, and hidden it  here.  No one had seen her do it. She realised that she had risked her life for this. The leader would have killed her on the spot, had he known. There was some liquid remaining in the jar. Carefully, she placed the end of the flexible tube into the cylinder, and tilted some of the liquid into it from the jar. Nothing happened. She remained quiet, and waited. There!  A dim glow appeared at the bottom of the cylinder. She upended the jar, and the rest of the liquid dribbled into the cylinder.  Slowly, the thought came. 

" Thank you. I need your help. Please find the dragon. You must find her quickly. I am very weak. I cannot think far. I cannot hear my people, or our music anymore. There is not much time."

And that was all. 

" I will do this." She thought, hoping the little creature was receiving the message.  Gently she replaced the rocks, then piled some of the branches and leaves around it for good measure. The rock pile blended in perfectly. It looked like a natural formation. She felt better, and sent more thoughts of comfort and safety, which seemed to her to be the right thing to do.

The illustrator turned, and jogged through the brush toward the path. In her clumsy haste, she tripped over a root, rolled into a ditch, and to her surprise, discovered something else that hadn't been found earlier. It was a large leather satchel, full of packets which smelled like food. The bag had been thrown clear of the ship on impact, and had ended up in the ditch behind some trees, covered by shadows and blasted leaves. The illustrator was exhausted and weak from hunger.

She grabbed a packet out of the bag, tore it open, and ate it so fast that she barely tasted it. Then she ripped open another one. And another. She had nothing to wash it down with, but that didn't matter. It was food. Her strength and mental clarity were returning, She felt energised. And the sensation was building. Too much energy. "What did I do?" She thought, as her body started to tingle. A whisper echoed in her mind. "Dragon". There was no time to waste. She wasn't tired now, in fact, she felt that if she didn't do something physical, she would explode. She raced down the mountain path, faster than she had ever run before, and was surprised at how quickly she reached the village. Little rushlights were burning behind the windows now, but she didn't stop to speak to anyone. She kept running. All the way to the sea.

The boat would be reaching the palace island soon. It was a  heavy, slow moving tub, full of holes. The guards needed to constantly bail sea water out of it, but it would get there eventually. If today wasn't the day it decided to give up, and sink in the middle of the channel.

All Cephalopodians knew about the palace. The peasants would never see it, unless they became guards or servants. But everyone knew where it was. The villagers had crude, saucerlike boats woven from marsh grass, which they used to check their fishing traps. The channel to the palace island was narrow, but the water was deep. The little shore boats weren't seaworthy, and were useless in deep water. The illustrator charged past them without giving them a second glance. She wasn't thinking about little boats. She was thinking about dragons, and a tiny creature who's life was fading away.

She leaped into the sea and began swimming.

"Great Mother of the Deep, what did I eat?" thought the illustrator, as she darted through the water. If she kept moving at that speed, she would overtake the boat. She was getting closer, fast. She didn't want anyone aboard to see her, so she did what any octopus would do. She dove beneath the surface of the waves, and moved even faster. She passed the boat with nary a ripple to show her progress. It was far behind her when she reached the shore. Trembling and dripping, she clambered onto the sand.

The illustrator saw a guard house, and a  hard packed surface, round and dark. A starship was there. It looked similar to the one which had crashed, only larger. Stealthily, she snuck through the shadows, and hid behind the ship.

Was it big enough for a dragon? She wondered.

"Why do you seek a dragon?" The thought was stern. It startled her, and she nearly fell down.

But this was something familiar.

"Because I was told to." she thought back.

"By whom?"

"By one who speaks to me, the way you do. They need help. They asked me to find a dragon. They said they haven't much time,  cannot think far, and can no longer hear the music. The poor creature is badly hurt, and very weak.   Not King came to my village, and recruited a team to go up into the mountains and salvage some materials. We found a wreck, a ship like this one. Two creatures  were there.

The next thought felt considerably kinder.

"Two creatures?"

"Yes. The pilot of the ship was injured, but alive. That one  looked like a beast, but  there was someone else, in a glass tube. The pilot was holding the tube as best it could. This is how I knew the tube was important, and then I saw a faint flash of light at the bottom. I drew a picture of it.  Not King said he was hungry, and demanded that I go and get something  for him to eat. He told me that he would care for the pilot. It didn't take long to bring back his food, but when I returned, the pilot was dead. I drew a picture of that, too. This was my job on the team. I'm an illustrator. Most of  people in the villages can neither read nor write, never mind draw. But I can do all of  these things. So I was to chronicle the mission.  None of us have ever seen anyone like these creatures before, but somehow, I knew the tiny light in the tube was an intelligent being.  I saved it from Not King. He intended to take it, but I got it out of the bundle he'd put it in when no one was looking, and hid it up on the mountain in some rocks. Not King is evil. I won't let him have this poor being. It spoke to me in my mind. I gave it some of the water it wanted, but I think it's dying. Its light is fading. I don't want it to die. I care about it. Please. Can you help me find the dragon? "  

" I can. Where are the drawings you made?" 

"Not King kept them."

 "Where is  Not King now, do you know?"

"In the big boat. He has  many guards. They're bringing back the treasure my team recovered. Tonight is his wedding and coronation banquet, but I'm certain he'll discover that the broken tube is missing. He'll send the guards back tomorrow to find it, and punish my people. And I will have failed the being of light. I can't fail. It's in danger! I must succeed." 

Tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed onto the hard packed surface. She was shaking, and exhausted again. She didn't have the strength to wipe them away. 

"You have not failed. You may enter this ship but do not make your presence known. "

A door on the side of the ship which was not in view of the guard house slid open silently.   She tumbled inside, gasping as the door slid closed.  

 "What is your name?"

"Yillia"

"Rest,Yillia. The dragon is my friend. She is being told."

A feeling of peace washed over her, and then, she heard music. Music which sounded like the rising and falling of waves.

The Queen bustled about in her wardrobe, tossing ornate silk gowns onto the bed in the guestroom.

"My Queen..."

"Amathea. Please call me Amathea, dragon dear, you are a trusted friend, and you may call me by name."

I still felt a little awkward using her first name, but we were getting to know each other really well, and I was more intimately involved in her affairs now than a mere business associate would be. So, I used her name. Besides. She has a pretty name. I like it.

"Amathea, These clothes are beautiful, do you really wish  for me to wear one of your gowns?"

"You cannot attend the Good Bye and Good Riddance banquet wearing a flight suit." she replied, with a huff.

"I know, but I do have a dress, I brought it with me, I wore it last time...."
"Yes. You did. Which means you cannot wear it again this time. Because you also wore it the first time, and people remembered that the last time."

She was still rummaging through the wardrobe, when I got the word from Glob.

"Silver. Someone is here. A Cephalopodian."

"A Cephalopodian? "

"She was on the salvage team which discovered the Ursan ship."

"How did she end up on our ship?"

"She swam here, apparently."

Hmmmm. Swam?

"Is she ok?"

"Yes."

" Good. Glob, that Ursan pilot was supposed to be coming here to negotiate with the Queen. What happened to the ship?"

"It crashed into the mountain. This explains why the transmission was cut off so abruptly."

"Where's the pilot?"

"Dead"

"Was there a Jellian?"

"Yes. It survived, but it is seriously injured. This Cephalopodian, Yillia, rescued it from someone she refers to as  Not King. I believe this is the Duke. He is planning to announce his wedding and subsequent coronation at the banquet tonight. "

"No Glob, that is not going to happen. For one thing, the Queen hates him. She's not going to marry him, she is going to send him and his goons into exile on a planet in the Arcturus system, and..."

"Silver."

"What."

"The Ursa have been informed that their pilot is dead, but the co pilot is alive, mortally wounded and hidden. We now have a time stamped record of our transmission,  which will prove our innocence.   There's a lot more to this, it's convoluted. I will know more when we retrieve the co pilot, and I can communicate directly with it, but now there's enough information about this  for an official investigation to be launched. No one will be going to Arcturus, or anywhere else until the matter is resolved. This includes us."

"Glob! We had nothing to do with any of it! I came here to do a reading, hang out with  the Queen, and eat good food!"

" Silver. We'll be alright. The time stamp will exonerate us. I have contacted the Collective, and the Otherhood has been in touch with the Ursan Merchant Guild.  Their representatives are on their way, and will be here very quickly.  But Silver. The Queen is in grave danger. The Cephalopodian mumbled something in her sleep about "Wedding and deading."

" Well if he tries to wed her, She won't be the one who ends up dead."

"Even so. Be careful. I cannot hear the other Jellian. Yillia is worried that it's dying. She cares about it. It spoke to her and told her to find you."

I felt as if my life were slowly sliding into the ocean. Maybe not so slowly. But there had to be a way out of this. A Seven of Swords sort of way. Without any stabbing.

" Glob. Keep the ship sealed. Don't let anyone in except for me, I'm coming back. How long do you think the other Jellian can last if it goes into hide mode?

"I don't know. We go into hide mode instinctively to conserve our life force if we're seriously injured. Yillia found some nutrient and fed it, but it won't survive the night if we can't get back to it."

"We'll get there. What about...Yillia?"

"Yes. She's sleeping."

"Good. She'll be safe with us. I'm glad she's there with you.   And you trust her?"

"I do.   She apparently has a tenuous connection to the collective through the wounded co pilot. I think it is because she is of pure heart. If she were corrupt, this would not be possible.  But beware of the Guard, Silver. More of them have defected. The Duke has most of them now. The Queen has very few left of her own."

"So what. She has us."

"Silver. Your overconfidence never fails to impress me."

"Glob. The Duke is a creep. And sometimes it seems like  the creeps win, but they don't win for long. It's not over."

"I know. And Silver..."

"What!"

"The banquet hall is large, is it not?"

"Yes, It's enormous. Why?"

"Big enough for a dragon?"

Ohhh. Thank you, Glob. That was a valid point.  In human form, I tend to think more like a human.  A human uses their wits first,  and then their magic, if they have any. A dragon uses their wits, their magic, and their unparalled ability to kick butt all at the same time. And another thing. Our ship is fast, the mainland is close, and the Duke can't be in two places at once.

I needed a plan, and Amathea had to be in on it. Because the Duke wasn't merely plotting a coup. He was going into the assassination business.

(To be continued)