Queen of Mars - Book III in the Masters of Mars Trilogy (21 page)

As we moved through we heard him
beginning to chat with the irate driver, and charge him twice what
he had us.

N
eedless to say we
found our spot and began to interact with the populace of this, the
real heart of Opportunity. For an indoor city it was. While Darwin
set up our wares and pretended to be a peddler, I leashed Hector
and we walked through this indoor wonderland which, now that we
were within it, was three times as huge as I had thought. The
ceiling was lost in the glare of lamps and electric lights strung
from poles, and I saw birds swooping and turning as if they were
under any other sky. There were thirty aisles, and I found a
directory, a huge flat chalk board, set up like an un-permanent
grid, with markings for the day in each lot, which was represented
by a small square. The grid itself was well organized into sections
by type of wares – foodstuffs along the back of the building,
weaponry clustered together, as well as clothing, trinkets (our own
section), soaps, and entertainment such as jugglers, mimes,
magicians and the like.

Overtaken with the marvelousness of the
place, I found myself rattling the coins in my tunic and observing
wares closely. I found a hat I had to have, and a folding pocket
knife with eight different tools that Darwin would love. There was
even a shop that sold sweetmeats for dogs, and I indulged
Hector.

I was so taken with the loud, carnival
atmosphere of the place that I barely noticed two cloaked figures
who passed close by and then walked on. I was admiring the talents
of a conjurer, who was producing Jakra cards out of thin air, one
after the other from his empty paw.

But then I heard a hissed whisper in my ear:
“You’ve found me, wretch. But you won’t live out the hour.”

I turned, adrenaline coursing through me like
an electric charge, and there before me, her death’s head face, now
completely naked of fur, not inches from my own and grinning with
madness, was Frane.

She moved even closer, sniffing, her eyes
impossibly wide.

“You are not with kit. I can tell. Which
means when you die there will be no heir.”

I drew back – I could smell the mocra on her
breath, a sour, sickly smell.

Behind Frane was my mother, standing staring
through the two of us as if we were not there.

Even as I reached for my own sword, her cloak
parted and in her left hand was a long, evil looking blade, tipped
with crimson.

“I killed your father with this, and now
you!” she screamed, and raised the blade high.

My own sword was out, and there were shouts
around us as patrons realized what was happening and shrank away
from us.

I saw my mother melt into the crowd, which
pulled her with its momentum.

Screeching like a carrion bird in its dive,
Frane leaped at me, hacking downward.

I parried her thrust, feeling the strength in
her, and then gave her a blow of my own, which she blocked.

She pushed my sword back with her own, her
skeletal face suffused with glee. Her two front teeth, the gums
receded from mocra, looked like fangs in her mouth. Her white
parchment skin, now devoid of fur, looked alien, too thin,
monstrous.

“Let’s see if the kit can fight!” Frane
cried, and now the battle was joined in earnest, with blow and
thrust and parry in increasing number. She drove me back toward the
crowd, which parted for us. The conjurer was transfixed, a card in
his hand, and when we were forced into his lot he dropped what
looked to be a hundred cards and ran. Beside him was a table
holding his wares, cheap magic tricks for kits, and I was forced up
onto it, spilling his goods. Frane below me chopped and heaved at
me, screaming obscenities all the while.

The table collapsed and for a moment I was on
the ground. I saw Frane’s blade thrust down at me and rolled aside,
jumping to my feet.

We continued, down the length of one aisle
and then over into another. Tables and wagons were damaged, goods
flew into the air as Frane and I traded blows and positions. At
first she had the advantage, then I did, then she did again. I
thought I had her but my sword cut through only the front of her
tunic and then she was at me again. Back and forth we traded blows,
the crowd parting in chaos before our progress.

Suddenly I found the tip of her blade locked
not an inch from my throat, and her strength was driving it toward
me – I knew that it was poisoned, and if pricked I would meet my
end.

With all of my strength I pushed back, and
now the blade was forced toward her own skinny neck. Her eyes
widened in a moment with fear, and then she snarled.

Darwin appeared, thrusting his way through
the crowd, and now his blade was advancing on her too.

She saw him and suddenly all the tension was
loosed in our joined battle, and she pulled her blade back and ran
off into the crowd.

“Darwin, don’t let her get away!”

Darwin was after her, but she was like a
wraith, jumping over tables and pushing screaming patrons aside,
until she was out a side door.

We raced after, pushing through the strips of
plastic.

“Soon we will all die!” she screamed at us,
her voice swallowed by the wind.

Suddenly we found ourselves in a whirling
dust storm, the air filled with a keening wail. We could not see
two feet in front of us.

We pushed our way through this but it was
hopeless.

Frane had disappeared.

With a sudden thought I turned and ran back
into the mall. Pandemonium had given way to the aftermath of
battle, with patrons milling and shopkeepers taking stock and
checking damage. Into this swirl I flung myself, searching
desperately, looking at faces, moving on.

I slowly traced my way back to where the
melee had started, and there she was, standing just where she had
been left, the lost look painted onto her face.

“Mother!” I shouted, but there was no
recollection, only the blank, lost stare of the addict suddenly
without drug or purpose.

I pulled her to me and hugged her, but again
there was no response. I might have been anyone.

“I’ll take care of you, mother,” I whispered
fiercely into her ear.

There was no response, and then a single
word, uttered with a kind of awe and need, as if a god had been
summoned, escaped her lips.

“Mocra,” she said.

“I
know who you
are,” a kind woman in the crowd said, and before I could answer she
said, “Come with me.”

Darwin rejoined me, after finding Hector
crouched in fear underneath our wagon, and we followed the woman
out of the mall into the dusty streets of Opportunity. “Stay
close!” she advised, which was good because the storm had not
abated. But she seemed to know the way, and brought us to a small
building with many floors.

Inside, the sound of the dust storm was
muffled, but still we heard silt washing against the side of the
building like water waves. She brought us up a rickety staircase
which swayed under our weight, and past one floor and then on to
the third. There were three doors and she put a key into the lock
of the middle one and drew us in. It was a small, spare room with a
bed and sink and s single chair.

“It’s not a rich man’s place but it’s all I
have and you’re welcome to it, your majesty.” She bowed, and was
gone, pushing the key into Darwin’s hand and keeping her eyes
down.

“I won’t forget this kindness,” I vowed, and
Darwin said, “But where will you go?”

“I will stay with friends. If you need
anything, ask for Anna in the shop next door.”

“No matter.” She shook her head and then she
was gone, closing the door after her.

And then our vigil began.

A
fter a day, my
mother began to sweat profusely, and see things that weren’t there.
She squirmed on the bed like a sick kit, her paws thrashing.
Hector, sorely frightened of this activity, stayed in the far
corner of the room, cowering.

At one point my mother spoke to me by name
but it was only a phantom that she saw, another daughter Clara,
perhaps when I was little. “Good girl!” she cooed, and clasped
herself as if embracing someone. “So good at your lessons, and I
love the way you play the tambon!”

At this point I began to cry, because she did
not know me.

The second day she began to scream, an almost
constant keening wail that left her hoarse. Her body was racked
with intermittent trembling which degenerated into shaking fits and
which required both Darwin and I to hold her down, lest she hurt
herself. Her legs kicked madly and her arms flailed, and she
screamed at demons only she could see.

“Mocra! Mocra!” she screeched, as if
beseeching a lover. The skin had retreated around her eyes, and her
lips were pulled back over her teeth, making her look
grotesque.

By the third day Darwin and I were exhausted,
spelling one another to short naps which were inevitably broken by
my mother’s hoarse wails. The good woman Anna appeared with food
and drink, which we snatched at like fugitives. Though my mother
had lost her voice she had not lost her energy – until, finally,
thankfully, she fell into a rough slumber at the end of the
day.

“If it follows, the worst of it is over,”
Darwin said, then announced, “I will leave you now and go after
Frane.”

“Don’t!” I protested. “When my mother is well
we will go together.”

“And in the meantime, the trail will grow
cold. Stay. I’ll be back within the week.”

I could not hold him, and his words rang
true, so he went. The dust storm had retreated, leaving only the
normal choking conditions outside. At the door to the room I
embraced my husband, and bade him well.

“I’ll be careful,” Darwin said, and
then he was gone.

F
or another two days
my mother’s condition alternated between stretches of unsettled
sleep and bouts of madness. She flailed at me when I tried to give
her food or water, and only when she was asleep was I able to steal
close and pat her fevered brow with a cool cloth.

And then, after five days, she suddenly
opened her eyes and knew me.

“Clara?” she rasped tentatively, and held my
paw in her own.

“Yes, mother.”

“Are you real? Is it really you, or am I
dreaming?”

And then she fell into a sound and restful
sleep, which lasted into the middle of the next day.

When she awoke she took food, which did not
stay down but it was a good sign. Her thirst returned, and she
drank glass after glass of water, always needing more. Her sleep
pattern became more measured, which meant that I was now able to
sleep myself. I began to worry about Darwin, and my worry became
alarm when a report reached the town, and therefore Anna, who was a
great gossip, that a caravan had been attacked not three days out
of Opportunity. I met her in the shop next door she had mentioned,
which turned out to be a saloon.

“Killed ‘em all, they did – whoever did it,
that is. Slit their throats. Two old gents and a younger one.”

She looked at me and soothed, “There, there,
don’t you worry. That husband of yours can take care of himself, he
can. He’ll be just fine, your majesty.”

“He should have been back by now.”

Anna motioned the bartender, a great friend
of hers, who drew two fresh ales and put them before us. It was a
modest establishment, a makeshift bar lined with plain stools and a
mirror behind it, a floor covered in red dust let in when the two
huge swinging doors were opened and closed, which they often were.
It was the middle of the day and the bar sparsely attended.

“He’ll be back before you know it. And
anyway, your Darwin was heading east, weren’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And this caravan it was heading south it
was, toward Spirit.”

“What’s in Spirit?” I asked.

She laughed. “Less than here, your majesty.
They ain’t even got a trading mall, and nary a saloon to be seen.
It’s a way stop, a crossroads of sorts. There ain’t nothing else
for a hundred miles in any direction.”

“Nothing at all?”

She shook her head, and then emptied her
glass. “Not unless you count the Old Ruins, as we calls ‘em.”

“What are they?”

She shrugged. “Not much. Things left by the
Old Ones. Covered with more dust than this town. Not even worth
charging money to see, they is. The only thing of any value is the
station there, like the ones everybody’s been talking about.”

“An oxygenation station?”

“Right! And the biggest one of them all.
There’s been talk about the Science Guild coming in here soon to
get it up to speed again. Makin’ air, as they say. But for now it’s
just dust and sand and broken machines, and a couple of soldiers
guarding it.”

She motioned the bartender but I stayed her
hand, and pushed my own untouched ale over to her.

“I must get back to my mother,” I said.

She grinned, and took the offered potable.
“Thank you, your majesty! And cheers to you and your husband’s safe
return!”

She drank half of her ale down, and I took my
leave of her, thoughts roiling in my head.

I thought of Frane’s last words to Darwin and
I, as she ran off into the dust storm.

Soon we will all die.

I
t was the next day
when the remains of the unfortunate caravan were returned to
Opportunity and brought into the mall for display. With relief I
saw that Darwin had not been among the victims, who were both older
and younger than my husband. One of them had, indeed met his fate
with a cut throat, but the other two were strangely unmarked. It
was only upon closer examination that it was discovered that each
had been pricked with a single, non-life-threatening thrust.

“Poison?” the doctor theorized, and then I
knew it was Frane who had killed them.