Gene Wolfe - An Evil Guest

“We do not. I’ll explain in a moment. We do not, but we will unless you do precisely as I instruct you. I will or somebody else will. You’ll be just as dead either way, Queen Cassiopeia. Can I call you Cassie? I’d like that.”

“No. Who’s Brian Pickens?”

“Who was, not who is.” The dark voice giggled. “He’s no longer with us. What a shame!”

“Are you a man or a woman?”

“I never saw you onstage. I regret it. One of us did. You danced a hornpipe in a grass skirt, with flowers on your tits. The very exemplar of royal dignity. As for me, I saw you in Kololahi. Your beachwear was amusing, I concede. It ought to have had a little skirt to hide your thighs.”

“I thought you were a man,” Cassie said, “until you laughed.”

“Would a man frighten you less? Then I’ll be a woman for you. The Sisters of the Secret Sea. How cozy! Have you recalled poor Brian?”

If I can just keep her talking , Cassie told herself, someone may come . Aloud she said, “I’m afraid not.”

“He was a paralegal, tall and gangly, with a big nose. I killed him.” The dark voice giggled again. “He had the apartment over yours, and — ”

“Oh, Lord! Yes, I remember.”

“Well you should, Cassie dear, since he died for you. His apartment is ours now. Should you return to your old home, you’ll find us above you. It won’t be pleasant.”

Cassie sighed. “It’s bound to be more pleasant than this. Who are you?”

“A member of a fighting faith. Can’t you guess our god?”

“You said something about a secret sea. So yes, I think I can.” Her thoughts whirling, Cassie tried a ploy that might, she hoped, release a flood of words. “It’s Hanga. It’s the Shark God.”

“Hardly, and you know better. An actress, with no more vocal control than that? Perhaps I may tread the boards myself someday. I couldn’t be worse. You know our god. Are you going to follow my instructions? To the letter?”

“It depends on what they are.”

“Not really. It depends on what will happen if you disobey. I thought I had made that clear. It also depends on the reward you shall have for obedience. First, your life will be spared. Second, you shall rule your little kingdom as its sole monarch, with no pernicious interfering husband. If you like men, you may have a hundred. Or a thousand. If you prefer women, the same. You will be subject, of course, to divinity. As we all are. You’ll find him a kindly master, though one whose precepts must be obeyed to the letter.”

“It’s that dirty Squid God.”

Something hard struck Cassie’s head, leaving her dizzy, in pain, and half stunned.

“You didn’t cry out.” The dark voice was approving and amused. “That’s very well. I would have had to shoot.”

“Early training.” Cassie felt her own warm blood running from between her finger. “My stepfather punished me again if I yelled.”

“A man after my own heart.”

“Yeah. He was. What did you swat me with?”

“The barrel of my gun. The barrel from which the bullet that will take your life shall come, unless you obey. Listen!”

“All right. I am.”

“High King Willy will return tomorrow. You’ll explain that you wish to swim in the sea, something your people do every day. He’ll agree, and have you carried down this mountain. You’ll return to the sea daily, or almost daily. In the sea, you’ll be instructed further, and tested.”

“Hot dog,” Cassie muttered.

“When your instruction is complete, you’ll speak to your husband of the bestial lust you and he hold so dear. You wish to couple with him in the sea, to couple alone amid the waves. By ‘couple’ I intend the satisfaction of his most dearly held desire, regardless of the form it may take. You’ll do it — there — however filthy it may be.”

“Let him suck my toes?” Cassie tried to sound serious.

It was ignored. “You’ll hint, oh, most enticingly, of the many delights you offer. He’ll come with you, and at the moment of climax he’ll be taken. Leaving you, glorious High Queen Cassiopeia, the black throne. Do you understand what I said?”

“Better than you do, maybe. Did you give that poor paralegal a fighting chance? I’ll bet you didn’t.”

“Nor will we give you a fighting chance,” the dark voice told her. “You’ll die like the stupid cow you are. A cow in a slaughterhouse.”

“Got it. Have you yourself, personally, ever had normal sex? I think you’re a woman. Not a woman like me, but a woman. So have you ever done it with somebody you loved? Somebody who loved you?”

“Pah! Fah!” The dark voice might have been that of an angry cat. “Juvenile posturing! Breeding! Do you think I want to learn what billions already know? My steel dildo is in your face. One moment more, and its ejaculation will blind an eye if it does not pulp your brain.”

Cassie glimpsed a faint gleam on the oiled barrel and grabbed for it.

The pistol fired at once, its weakened flash burning her left cheek. The sound of the shot was lost amid the crash and rattle of broken glass.

The pistol fired again as they wrestled for it. Then its owner had it and fired a third time, not at Cassie but toward a door that had flown open. A woman so large she filled the doorway screamed.

The terrace door, which ought to have been closed and bolted, was neither. For an instant, a slender figure was silhouetted there against tropical stars.

There was another shot, not muffled in the least and followed by three more in quick succession. Then silence. Cassie found her robe on a chair not far from the king-size bed.

The lights came on. “You are hurt! O dearest queen, where do you bleed?”

“I don’t think I do.” Cassie paused, waiting for some indication of a wound. “My face is burned, maybe.”

The maid spun like a bull in the ring and was gone before her flying hair had fallen to her back.

Cassie tied her belt and walked out onto the terrace. There was no one there, but an angry voice sounded from the terrace below. From the balustrade she saw an enormous man bent above a much smaller figure sprawled on the flagstone.

“Hiapo?” Blood trickled into her left eye. She wiped it away.

He looked up. “I here, O Queen.”

There was a faint groan, not Hiapo’s.

“Stay there until I get there.”

A wide stairway, far from steep, led from her terrace to the one below. Afterward, she could not recall taking those steps, only speaking to Hiapo across the sprawled figure. “You shot her.”

“I must, O Queen. She shoot at me.”

“Did she hit you? You’d be hard to miss. Move your left hand.”

He did, and she touched the place where it had been. Much more blood, warm and sticky.

“Give me your gun.” She held out her hand.

He hesitated, then obeyed.

She pushed down the safety, dropping the hammer. “I don’t sleep with mine. I guess that’s a mistake. Go find the doctor, Hiapo. Dr. Schoonveld. Send him to me when he’s through with you.”

Hiapo pointed toward the sprawled figure. “This one, O Queen, may overpower you.”

“While I’m standing here with a gun in my hand? I doubt it. Where’s her gun, by the way?”

Hiapo found it and presented it to Cassie, who dropped it into a pocket of her robe.

After that she was alone with the sprawled figure, which moaned from time to time, though not in a dark voice, and once struggled to rise. Cassie tried to craft an adequate remark now that they were alone again, with roles reversed. I need a writer , she thought, and remembered one named Moe Zuckerman. Moe could have given her the perfect line, but he was not there.

“Your Majesty?” Dr. Schoonveld was leaning over the balustrade.