neetha Napew - Spellsinger

baubles. He waited and was ready when the triangular emerald green skull jerked

around and huge multifaceted eyes dotted with false black pupils glared down at

him.

Kesylict debated whether it might not be prudent to retire and wait a while

longer before attending his Empress. However, cowardice could cause him to go

the way of the chamberlain. That former servitor was now only an empty husk that

had been neatly scraped clean by the voracious Empress.

"Why do you cower in the doorway, Kesylict? Yes, I recognize you." Her voice was

thick and raspy, like sandpapered oil. Useless wings twitched beneath a long

flowing cape of pure silk inlaid with ten thousand amethysts and morions shaped

by the empire's finest gem-cutters and polishers, and attached to the cape by a

dozen royal seamstresses.

"Pardon, Your Majesty," said the hopeful Kesylict, "but I do not cower. I only

hesitate because while I have hoped to talk with you for the past several hours,

your mood recently has not been conducive to conversation." He gestured at the

corpse-shell of the chamberlain. "Mutual conversation is difficult when one of

the participants is forced to function minus his head."

That glowering, fixed skeleton shape could not twist her mouth parts into a

smile, and such an expression would have been foreign to her anyway.

Nonetheless, Kesylict felt some of the tension depart the room.

"A sense of humor when one's own possible demise is at stake is a finer

recommendation of courage than the most dry and somber brilliance, my Kesylict."

She tossed the empty shell of the chamberlain into a far corner, where it

shattered like an old dish. A couple of legs fell away and rolled up against a

far door. The corner was rounded, as were all in the room. The inhabitants of

the Greendowns disliked sharp angles.

She turned away from the window. "Anyway, I am full, and tired. But there is

more than that." Both knife-edged arms crossed in front of the green thorax, and

the decorated head rested on the crux they formed, producing a frozen image of

an insectoid odalisque.

"I am worried."

"Worried, Your Majesty?" Kesylict scuttled into the chamber, though taking care

to try and remain unobtrusively out of her reach. One could not escape the

lightning-swift grasp of the mantis unless one remained beyond its range. So

Kesylict approached no closer than protocol demanded. None could tell when the

mercurial desires of the Empress might change from a request for advice to a

craving for dessert.

"What could possibly be enough to worry Your Majesty? The preparations?" He

waved toward the far window. Outside and below were the busy streets of Cugluch,

capital of the Empire of the Chosen, their most powerful city. Teeming thousands

of dedicated citizens dutifully slaved for the glory of their Empress and their

society. Their own lives were filled with the shared glory of their race, and

each lowly worker was ready to share in the coming conquests. Preparations were

proceeding with the usual efficiency.

"We ready ourselves better than ever before in the history of the Empire, and

this time we cannot fail, Majesty."

"There has been no trouble with the stores?"

"None, Majesty." Kesylict sounded genuinely concerned. Though fearful for his

personal safety, he was nevertheless a loyal and devoted servant of his Empress,

and she did indeed seem worried.

"The training and mobilization also proceeds smoothly. Every day more grubs shed

their larval skin and develop arms and the desire to bear weapons. Never has our

army been as powerful, never has the desire of its troops been greater. Not one

but three great armies stand ready and anxious for the ultimate assault on the

lands to the west. Victory is within our grasp. Or so generals Mordeesha and

Evaloc have been saying for over a year now. The whole Empire pulses with desire

and readiness for battle.

"Yet by wisdom we wait, grow stronger still, so that we can now overwhelm the

hated soft ones with but a third of our strength."

She sighed, a low hiss. "Still, we have many thousands of years of failure

behind us to show the folly of brave words. I will not give the order to move

unless I am certain of success, Kesylict." Her head twitched to one side and she

used an arm to clean a bulging eye.

"No trouble then with the Manifestation?"

"Why, no, Majesty." Kesylict was appalled at the thought. For all his talk of

strength and desire, he knew that the Empress and general staff were pinning

their ultimate hopes on the Manifestation.

"What could be wrong with it?"

She shook a cautionary claw at him. "Where magic is involved, anything is

possible. This development is so different it frightens even Eejakrat, who is

responsible for it. The greatest care must be exercised to insure its safety and

surroundings."

"So it has been, Majesty. Any unauthorized who have come within a hundred

zequets of it have been killed, their bodies buried without even the meat being

consumed. Greater security has never been exercised in the whole history of the

Empire." He peered hard at her.

"Even still, my Majesty worries?"

"Even still." She made as if to rise from her squat. Kesylict took a nervous

step backward. She gestured casually, slowly, with an armored arm.

"Be at ease, my valued servant. I am sated physically. It is my mind that

hungers for surcease, and your counsel that I require. Not your meat."

"Gladly will I offer my poor advice to Your Majesty."

"This is not for you alone, Kesylict. Summon High General Mordeesha and the

sorcerer Eejakrat. I have need of their thoughts as well."

"It will be done, Your Majesty." The Minister turned, his cushioned shoes

scraping on the extruded stone floor. He was grateful for the respite but at the

same time concerned for the health of his Empress.

Everything was going so well. What could possibly have happened to upset her to

the point where she was worried about the outcome of the Great Enterprise?

Later, squatting with the others, Kesylict felt by far the most vulnerable, to

both physical abuse and criticism.

To his left rested the heavily armored and aged beetle shape of High General

Mordeesha. Battle armor drooped from his soft under-body. Insignia of rank and

the less symmetrical wounds of war were cut into his thick dorsal wing covers.

Sharp curving horns made of metal protruded from the helmet that fit over his

own horny skull. Sweeping metal flanges shielded his eyes.

From his neck hung tiny skulls and teeth taken from the corpses of those the

General had personally vanquished. They clanked hollowly against his metal

thorax plate as he shifted his position.

Nearby was the Grand Sorcerer Eejakrat, a thin, delicate insect-specter. Pure

white enamel decorated his wing cases and chitin. Strings of long white and

silver beads dangled fringelike from both sides of his maxilla. An artificial

white and silver crest ran from his forehead down between the dark compound eyes

to disappear in the middle of his back. It included his insignia of office, of

wisdom and knowledge, and marked him as the manipulator of magic most exalted.

Alongside the General, whose great physical skills could crush him easily, and

Eejakrat, whose arcane abilities could turn him back into a grub, the Minister

felt very inadequate indeed. Yet he squatted in the audience chamber amid the

glittering gems and thousand shafts of light they threw back from the dozens of