The Black Queen (Book 6) (29 page)

She held out her hands. They were shaking. She was not calm. She probably wouldn’t be calm until they had a solution. “What I say cannot leave here. You must take an oath to keep this quiet. Do you swear?”

As a unit, they agreed. Somehow it didn’t make her calmer.

“Fifteen years ago, Rugad invaded Arianna’s mind. He left a construct there. A baby. I am guessing she thought it Sebastian.”

“How is that possible?” Drucilla asked. “How could she mistake the Black King for a Golem?”

“It made sense with the events going on around them,” Seger said.

“I thought constructs could only be formed in lesser minds,” said Annabella, another young Healer, again from Nye. She had come to Blue Isle with Drucilla to complete her training with the best Healers of the Fey. Rugad’s former Healers. Seger’s people.

“I thought constructs didn’t last,” Drucilla said. “I mean, not fifteen years.”

“There is a theory,” Lero said, “that the great Golem who outlived Rugark wasn’t really an independent creature, but Rugark himself who lived inside the golem after his own body died.”

Rugark was Rugad’s grandfather, known, until Rugad took the Throne, as one of the best of the Black Kings.

“Rugark,” Galerno, the Baker, said. He was sitting on the bed nearest Seger. He was twice as old as she was, perhaps the oldest in the room. His dark face was sprinkled lightly with flour, making the lines in his skin look as if they had been painted white.

“What about him?” Seger asked.

“He did not want his son to inherit the Black Throne,” said Galerno. “He died just after his family’s trip to the Eccrasian Mountains.”

“But, in those days, Rugad was too young to rule,” Lero said, as if remembering.

“And the Golem lived throughout the reign of Rugo, surviving five attempts to destroy it,” said Galerno.

“So you’re saying this has happened before, only to a Golem?” Seger asked.

Galerno shook his head. “I’m saying it could have happened. I’m saying that some among the Domestics, particularly Rugark’s Healer, believed she saw Rugark in the Golem’s eyes.”

“Why would that occur?” Drucilla asked.

“Wouldn’t destroying the Golem then have meant Blood against Blood?” Annabella asked.

Good questions all. Seger felt herself spinning. She sat on the edge of one of the cots.

Galerno gave her a sharp glance, then said, “No, a destroying a Golem wouldn’t mean Blood against Blood because a Golem can always be reformed. And if it’s not, whose to say what was destroyed was the real Rugark or only a distant part of him? Apparently the magick doesn’t believe that’s a crime that invites chaos.”

“Actually, we don’t know that,” Lero said. “Since the Golem disappeared shortly after Rugad became Black King.”

“What does this have to do with now?” Drucilla asked.

“I think your first question was better,” Seger said. “Why would a Black King create a construct of himself?”

“And why would it come out now?” Annabella asked.

“It grew up,” Lero said.

Annabella frowned. “We aren’t taught about constructs.”

“Not at your stage,” Seger said. She stood. Lero was right. Constructs grew the way that any living beings grew, and this one had been a baby when Arianna found it. She had kept it inside herself, and it had grown to a teenager, with all the memories of the former Black King. Rugad, the most ruthless man ever to lead the Fey.

“How can you be sure this is Rugad?” asked Sistance.

“I spoke to the Golem,” Seger said. “This is complicated, so let me talk for a moment.”

The others settled in, leaning forward, concentration evident on their faces. She sighed, knowing she could tell them what she had learned from Sebastian, but not what she learned from Arianna. In fact, she had come perilously close to breaking that confidence a few moments ago.

“Sebastian had been captured by Rugad. Rugad discovered that Sebastian had a strong Link to Arianna, and Rugad crossed that Link. The Golem followed, and, with Arianna’s help, got Rugad out of Arianna’s mind. Sebastian then waited until Rugad was trapped in the Link, trapped outside of any body, and Sebastian shattered, hoping that Rugad wouldn’t be able to find his way to his own body. But he did somehow.”

Seger paused. All of them were watching her closely.

“I treated Rugad after that shattering. It made him destroy the jar that had been holding his voice, which the Golem then captured. It also meant he got stabbed with shards from the Golem’s stones. He was infected with the Golem’s magick, and it made him vulnerable to attack. I removed the shards, and in fact, they became the basis for rebuilding Sebastian.”

“So the Golem could have left part of himself in her, knowing he was going to shatter,” Sistance said.

“He could have, if he had been a normal Golem and raised Fey. When I spoke to him today, he knew nothing about constructs.”

“Not possible,” said the oldest Healer, Uhse. “A golem is a construct. He would have known from his own creation.”

“His own creation was haphazard, done by accident when Gift was a baby trying to get home. Neither of them had awareness at the time. Gift’s frequent visit to the body of his Changeling caused bits of himself to be left behind, bits that eventually formed into Sebastian. He didn’t know that such a thing could be done deliberately.” Seger sighed. “I wish he did.”

They were all silent for a moment.

“Perhaps Sebastian left the construct by accident?” Lero asked after a moment.

Seger shook her head. “He didn’t have time. This is a deliberate creature. He does one thing at a time. He was thinking only of saving Arianna, and he did that. He wouldn’t have left a construct. It took too much thought, too much energy.”

“Was anyone else there? Anyone else that she shared her mind with?”

“The Enchanter,” Seger said. “Coulter. Another Islander.”

“But he’s been to their Place of Power. He would know how to make a construct.”

“After,” Seger said. “Besides, I saw the creature inside Arianna briefly. It spoke Fey, and it knew me quite well. It was Rugad.”

Galerno stood, crossing his arms over his chest. “We need a Shaman. This is not ground any of us knows how to explore.”

“If it’s a construct, we could remove it,” Uhce said.

“How?” Seger asked. “We can’t shatter Arianna.”

“But it’s not fully formed,” Uhce said. “It may not be completely integrated. We might be able to move it to the Golem.”

“If we can move it,” Drucilla said, “why don’t we simply take it out?”

She was young, Seger knew, and not very well trained, but very talented. Her work had always been with the true illnesses, the physical kind, not with the magickal kind.

“Because it isn’t something we can hold,” Seger said. “It’s something we have to capture. We lure it to Sebastian. That would be easier than trying to remove it ourselves. We don’t have the skill. But it might cross the Link to Sebastian, if we do this right.”

“Then what?” Drucilla asked.

“Then we shatter it,” Seger said.

“Destroying the Golem,” Drucilla said.

“Maybe,” Seger said. “It has survived three shatterings. I was thinking of shattering it to remove the voice.”

“No,” Comfort said. “If we leave the voice, the construct might not object to the move.”

“If we leave the voice, we run the risk of letting Sebastian become Rugad,” Seger said.

“It’s not as bad as having Arianna lose herself to him,” Uhce said.

Seger looked at her. Uhce shrugged. “If she loses herself to Rugad, we cannot prove it. There is no magickal diagnosis for this. She is the Black Queen, and she remains so. She would simply get rid of us, and bring in a new healing team, saying we were the problem. And really, she would be right.”

“How’s that?” Annabella asked.

“Rugad ruled us for most of his life. It is only recently that his rule has been questioned, that his abilities were seen as a problem rather than something good for the Fey. He has every right to rule us, just as she does.”

“But he’s dead,” Drucilla said.

“Is he?” Uhce said. “We do not know if a construct is real or not.”

“You just said it wasn’t,” Drucilla looked at Seger.

“I said we couldn’t hold it.” Seger’s heart was pounding hard again. She had worked with Rugad, and she had thought him a necessary evil. But in the end, she had disobeyed him by keeping the golem’s shards. She had thought Rugad wrong, and she had acted contrary to all her training. She had disobeyed a Black King. No one else knew that. Just her and Rugad.

“Then shouldn’t we let this alone?” Drucilla asked.

“If we left it alone, wouldn’t it be Blood against Blood?” Annabella asked.

“Rugad doesn’t have to kill Arianna,” Comfort said. “He just has to control her. And that should be hard. She’s a Shifter. He wasn’t.”

Seger ran a hand through her long hair. “He has made her Shift against her will. He’s only done this once, but that means this construct knows the magick.”

“It also means the construct might be close to total control. We have to act fast,” Uhce said.

“We have to explain this to Sebastian,” Seger said.

“What’s to explain?” Comfort asked. “He’s a Golem.”

“There is some debate as to whose Golem he is,” Seger said. “Gift formed him, but some say that Jewel—who is a Mystery—is the one who kept him alive.”

“A Golem controlled by a Mystery?” Annabella asked.

“Held by a Mystery,” Seger said. “There’s a difference.”

“What is it?” Drucilla asked.

Seger looked at her. “The difference is that a Golem held by a Mystery could be considered alive.”

“Alive? But it can reassemble after it shatters,” Drucilla said. “Living creatures don’t do that.”

“Yes,” Seger said. “But I don’t mean that it lives and breathes and eats. I mean that it has its own existence, and there is value in that existence. This has to be his choice.”

“Can he make it?” Comfort asked. “I mean, if he has Rugad’s voice, perhaps he is already owned by Rugad.”

“Perhaps,” Seger said. “And if that’s true, then logically the Golem would want the construct.”

“Logically,” Sistance said, “the Golem would want the construct to stay where it is.”

“This is a delicate procedure,” Comfort said. “Something that is nearly beyond a Healer’s skill. We need a Shaman, just like Galerno said.”

“There are no Shaman on Blue Isle. The nearest one is in Nye. It would take months to get him here.” Seger threaded her fingers together.

“We may not have months,” Sistance said.

“Would it hurt to try?” Drucilla asked. “And if we fail—”

“Then it knows that we are aware of its existence,” Seger said. “It might take control quicker.”

“If it can,” Comfort said.

“What about an Enchanter?” Lero asked. “Couldn’t an Enchanter cross a Link and remove the construct?”

“I believe Arianna’s Links are closed,” Seger said. She couldn’t say any more, not even about the faded Link, the one that hadn’t been used in a long time.

“Even if they weren’t, it would be a risk,” Comfort said. “The Enchanter would have to know what he’s doing.”

“And the only Enchanter of worth on Blue Isle,” Lero said, “is Coulter, who is not Fey-trained.”

“He is trained,” Seger said. “He made a point of learning. He might have other ideas on how to help Arianna.”

“Where is he?” Uhce asked.

“I believe in the Cliffs of Blood. We would have to send for him,” Seger said.

“Again, it would take time,” Comfort said, “time we may not have.”

Seger shook her head. “I wish we had another Visionary.”

“We have Infantry leaders,” said Annabella. The entire group looked at her as if she had made a mistake. She shrugged. “They have Vision.”

“But not enough,” Seger said. Somehow this discussion frustrated her more than she had expected. She had hoped, with the assembled age and history and healing knowledge in the room, that they would come up with a better solution.

“You look discouraged,” Lero said to her softly.

She looked at him, then sighed. “If she has integrated the construct so much that it can make her Shift without her wanting to, I’m not sure we can separate it. The voice is threaded throughout Sebastian’s stone. I’m afraid the construct has done the same with Arianna.”

“We could still separate it,” Uhce said. “It would take time and patience—”

“During all of which the construct would be trying to fight us. Don’t forget,” Seger said, “we’re not dealing with any construct. We’re dealing with Rugad.”

“So you believe,” Comfort said. “I still think it could be an accidental dropping from the Golem.”

Seger rose and rubbed her hands together. “You wouldn’t believe that if you had seen the way it looked out of her eyes. It was Rugad. I knew it the moment I heard her—the Golem’s story. It was Rugad, and it knows what he knew. Only once it consolidates, once it makes her flesh its own, it’ll be more powerful than it ever was.”