Abney Park's The Wrath Of Fate (30 page)

My face flashed hot and red, and I could feel my pulse in my cheeks. How many of our crew died that day because of this selfishness of Lilith’s? This might have been twelve years ago for her, so she could refer to it matter-of-factly, but this betrayal was only a few months past for me. I bit my tongue. If I lost my temper now I would never hear her story, and (setting aside any religious beliefs you might have) this is arguably the most important story ever told.

Lilith went on, “I also took your Chronofax, and I must admit that has proved far more valuable than I would have guessed at the time. When it went missing, we lost a great tool,” and then a look of worry flashed across her face.

“Anyway, Tanner helped me take the plans from Calgori’s cabinets,” she went on. “And remove the parts from your ship, all while assuring me it would do no damage. I think he was reassuring himself, mostly, as I hardly cared about your damned ship and crew. You ignored me.”

“Lilith, I had to ignore you. I
couldn’t
give you the kind of attention you wanted…” I said, but she went on to prevent that topic from coming up.

“I spent a year reassembling the Chrononautilus, and I made a small craft that was just big enough to take me up out of harm’s way, and into what I assumed was a brighter, richer future. My goals were small then, I just wanted back to the life I saw in your time, making music with all those people fawning over me. I wanted what you had; to be the center of attention. But when I arrived in ‘the future’ I found a world of concrete, and filth, and angry machines driven by an angry population. It was nothing like I remembered it.

“I nearly died that night, falling thousands of feet into a lake as my balloon was severed the moment I traveled. Victor found me, and pulled me from the water. He saved my life!”

She went on, “He was young, rich, beautiful, and tortured by the greed of his parents. They spent their life tearing down nature to build this ugly new world, and he was tormented with the guilt of it.

“He was in graduate school, learning all he could about the natural world; environmental science, farming, political science. He vowed to undo the destruction of his family, and was arming himself with every discipline necessary to do it. When he learned of the Chrononautilus, he immediately saw its potential. So together we laid a plan to use it to restore the balance to the world. We planned and studied, and all the while we fell deeply in love.”

By now we had wandered most of the castle, and found ourselves again on the beach. The sky was now deep-crimson at the horizon, and purple high above, as the sun had recently set over the castle and jungle. The sand was firm under our feet where the waves had wet it.

Lilith spoke with a longing for these days of her life gone by. “Our first travel took us back to the great Depression. The land was held in famine, and disease. Victor had an education decades more advanced then this era, and he used it to fix these problems. After he did, political success was easy.”

“Complete political domination was also guaranteed, thanks to you,” Lilith added with a poisoned smile.

“Me? What the hell did I have to do with this?” I said skeptically and a little insulted. “And why would the people of the world let you do these things? Why would they let him change the laws? Why would they let him unify the nations of the world? Surely they saw how well that worked for the British Empire! And for Nazis, taking towns full of people off to be killed. Didn’t anyone remember the Holocaust? How did nobody see this coming?”

She continued with a wicked grin, “But those things never happened. Not from their perspective. With all your heroics, you were changing history, and the world was becoming dependent on you, and naive. Anytime something truly bad was going to happen, you snuffed it out. By the time Victor started his campaigns for World Emperor, there was really no historical warnings for the people of the world. Having one ruler just sounded like a convenient simplification to them,” and she laughed.

I was stunned. Mankind had no way of seeing this coming, and it was my fault.

Then Lilith continued more slowly. Something was troubling her memories. “But Victor was obsessed, and he took many more trips then I. This caused him to age three times as fast as me, since he would spend so many years away accomplishing his plans.” Her eyes were moist, now, and she went on slower, “Then one day he returned…” And she inhaled sharply. “With her!” In her eyes I saw fear. “At first it was a shock, and it felt like betrayal, but he said it was not. She was for
us,
not him, he said. I did not fully believe him, but I was curious, so I pretended I did.”

“We were young, Flora and I, and obsessed with our own beauty. This new love was exciting, and it was taboo, and indulgent, and wonderful! And horrible, and hateful, all at the same time. But I had his attention again – this was something new I could do to get him excited about me again,” she said this as tears started to swell in her eyes.

“He brought her here to this palace on the beach, and here she stays lavished in luxury. We work, him more than me, I will admit. I age while I work by his side, but all the while she sleeps here on this beach forever young and beautiful when we return.”

“At first she was our indulgence together. While she indulged herself in our opulent success, and we indulged ourselves in this taboo love.”

Now her eyes went wild. “But it all went wrong! Have you seen? Have you seen how she looks at him!? She loves him, and he her!” She was growing wrathful, now, as we stood on the beach. Her eyes burned with anger, fear, jealousy, lust, love and hate. Tears and fire. It was a toxic mix of fuels, and it surged dangerously in her.

“He asked me if we wanted to leave her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it!” she said exasperatedly, desperate, like an addict talking about an addiction. “He asked me if I wanted to leave him with her, just us girls together and he alone, but I loved him and couldn’t! I am also not sure she appealed enough to me without him there to hold my interest – part of the thrill was the attention I was getting from him for this. I want her love, and his, but I did not want them to love each other! So I asked him to leave her, but leave her to only me. He agreed, and he agreed to not tell her, for she would never, ever forgive me if she knew I took him away from her.” She was panicking now with this mix of guilt and anger and jealousy. “And so he tells me he pretends for her benefit, but I think he is pretending for
my
benefit!”

Then her eyes went wide, and screamed angrily,
“Look at them
!” She was looking up toward the palace. There through the sheer curtains of the royal bedroom, fluttering in a sultry midday breeze were the flawless figures of a man and woman embraced. The woman’s back arched gracefully, and she threw back her long hair as he kissed her chest. Lilith screamed, “They lie! I knew!!” And she ran toward the palace.

I realized I hadn’t seen Calgori all afternoon, and I quickly scanned the beach for him, but couldn’t see him. Lilith was at a lower entrance to the castle now, and I knew nothing good could come of her storming in with her wrath, so I dashed after her.

Up the beach I ran, vaguely aware of the sound of propellers. I entered the castle, and in the dark I stumbled upon stairs. It was hot and the air felt stagnant and moist, but filled with urgency.

At the top of the stairs there were two imperial guards, with their massive tanned arms, uniform tattoos, and dark red turbans. “No guests in the Harem,” one said in an impossibly deep voice. I swear I could hear strange, inhuman yelling coming from the grounds outside the castle, and the guards must have heard it too as they seemed distracted, but they stayed at their posts. As their attention was on this sound, Lilith passed the guard to the royal chambers slowly and methodically. Only I saw that just past him she slipped a lithe hand into his belt and removed his massive knife. She disappeared into the room.

I then heard a young woman scream, and a man wailed, “My love…!” but he was cut off before he could say more. The guards turned and we ran down the halls together into the chamber.

In a room of white silk, three bodies floated like
Ophelia,
facedown in a river of blood.

I would eventually write these lyrics:

The Emperor’s Wives

In a deep dark forest kingdom

Under Banyan covered skies,

Lived a king with untold riches;

Jewels, gold, and two fair wives.

Every night he indulged his fantasies,

enjoyed his wives, and went to sleep.

As he slept his wives kept secrets,

holding hands under the sheets.

Each dark day in his ancient palace,

The Emperor sat on his throne of gold.

while his young wives explored bright gardens,

eyes met eyes and hands did hold.

One bright day in the dead of summer

a pretty young wife saw a look of love

on her lover’s face towards their husband

fires burned jealous; she’d lost her love.

One hot night in the dead of summer

the Emperor’s wife stole a magi’s blade

crept into her lover’s chamber,

and as they slept her lovers she slayed.

THE WRATH OF FATE

We stood in this palatial room of white, in astonished horror, the guards and I. These deaths changed so much about the world that we were briefly immobilized, with no clue what our next move should be.

When I realized that this new turn of events wouldn’t likely change my incarceration without a little personal liberation, I began to back slowly away from the circle of guards. Just at that moment, the door of the room filled with armed soldiers. They wore the black and silver of the Imperial Navy. The last man who entered was powerfully calm. He had a white beard and huge bushy black eyebrows, and he wore the uniform of a Grand Admiral.

Walking straight to the nearest guard, he growled, “Due to the
unforeseen
death of the Emperor.” Had he said
unforeseen
ironically? “I am assuming command. You are hereby relieved of duty. You will be taken to trial, and then punished for the death of the Emperor Victor Joseph the Third.” The soldiers placed the Imperial Guards and me in restraints.

“I’ve survived the Change Cage once already,” I said boldly, while thinking,
Why am I talking!? Shut up!

“I find Cages inefficient means of removing filth from the population,” he snarled back. “You will be tried, found guilty, and executed. Before dawn.”