Taja Jade Raktus, Shadow Jedi Knight of OSJ, was practicing her combat technique when suddenly, there was a sharp pain in her right shoulder. Looking down, the point of a dagger protruded from wound and she screamed loudly.
Now, being 1 month pregnant, this was tramatic for her. She turned around to face her assailant as the dagger was ripped out of her shoulder.
It was none other than Empress Yoko Doment.
"Well, hello, Alicia dear. My, how youve grown. Glad to see you after all these years. Been searching a long time, you know."
"Mother. How did you find me?"
"It wasnt easy, you see, but I did it. Again. And now, you must die. But in time."
"Why? Why, Mama."
"Because you are your sisters were a mistake. I didnt want any 4 of you, yet I accpeted them all. All but you. I knew someday that you will take my place as Empress, and I refused to let that happen, which is why you must die. That, and for carrying an abomination you call a child."
"Leave my baby out of this."
"No, thanks. Id rather both of you die."
"You know, when Raktus finds out what has happened to us, he will kill you. That is, if you are not put to death first."
"I dont care what happens to me, just so long as you and that....thing....you are carrying is dead. Thats all that matters."
Muttering an angry cry, Jade swings hard with her left fist, decking her mother hard enough to break her jawbone.
Yoko gets up fights back, swinging her saber at Jade, who quickly blocks by igniting her own double black blades. She swings upwards, opening a cut on her mothers arm.
Just as her mother strikes the killing blow, she sits bolt upright in her bed, sweaty hair clinging to her forehead.
"Oh, my God. Mama is coming for me. Shes gonna kill us both. I have to leave before she finds me here. But in the morning."
She lays down and goes back to sleep.
Jade dreamed....
She was sixteen. It's a summer evening, and the stars overhead shine dimly through the smoke of countless chimneys. The city below reeks, but her father sees that the palace is swept and cleaned and garnished with incense. In the courtyard, grooms tend to the horses after the last messengers of the day have arrived, and the cooks and scullery boys start to gather the ingredients of tomorrow's meals for slow cooking.
She walks along an upper hallway to the family chapel, where the archbishop waits for her and her confession. She does not like Archishop Monfreid, and never has. From the moment she began to form impressions of people, she thought of him as a hole where a soul should be. His march to power has not changed that. As she studied rhetoric and poetry, she learned of mystics who regard themselves as vessels through which devine light pours. Monfreid is like that, except that within him there is no light. He sees himself as nothing, but he also sees the world as nothing but himself. She suspects that his vision of heaven is himself, endlessly repeated.
Though most ignore it, the archbishop is more secretive than any other clergyman. He will not come out during the day, and quotes strange mixtures of passages from the Empire about evil under the sun. He meets with others only at night, and almost always in darkness. Jade has tried to warn her father that their confessor is up to no good, but her father remains awestruck by having an important cleric pay attention to him. Perhaps there is something more sinister at work, too; she suspects many things but cannot yet prove them.
She enters the chapel. The decorations have changed. The altar cloth is now pure black. The stained glass windows are purely red, and they seem to be wet, as if some force held liquid in place. The walls shine with reflections of scenes Jade does not recognize, though her older self knows that they are moments of faith and doubt from later years. The Archbishop does not wait in the confessional booth. Instead, he stands as if for a sermon. When she enters, he motions for her to shut the door.
"Child." he says in that grating tone, "what are the great laws?"
"To love my father, the Emperor, with all my heart, and to love my neighbor as myself." she speaks with reverence toward the laws, even though she despises the Archbishop's use of 'child'. She is not a child. and she will show him a woman's understanding.
The candles begin to flicker out as he lectures her. "What is the duty of the child to its parents?"
"To honor them, that their days may be long in the land that the Empire has given them."
A red glow kindles somewhere near the ceiling. She can see that the redness in the windows is in fact flowing, steaming off as it leaves the frames. Monfreid drones on. "And what is the duty of the bride?"
"To foresake her home and cleave her bridegroom, to become one flesh."
"That is correct." The red glow is now clearly coming from a hole in the ceiling, a single light in the darkness. The chapel smells of musty upturned earth. The Archbishop seems to loom larger in front of her. "You have forsaken your parents. I have drawn you out of that world. I am your father, and yet you do not cleave to me, nor do you respect me. What are the wages of sin?"
She is lying in a coffin. Things scrabble all around her. She feels her flesh crackle, and smells corruption within her. "Death."
"That is correct. The wages of sin are death. You are in disobedience of the God's holy plan."
She only barely manages to draw breath and whisper, "How do I know?"
"You have never seen the Gods, and you never will. You see their chosen ministers on Dameo, of whom I am one. I tell you what the Gods wills are, and you obey. If I were to stray from the path, the Gods would judge me and you would know. But as you see, they have crowned my work with success." The coffin opens, and she finds herself standing in the basement of the great cathedral in Dameo City. The moon passes by an open window....and again....and again, faster and faster. Trophies accumulate. Defeated enemies come in to prostrate themselves at the Archbishop's feet. He grows fatter and meaner. "The Gods reward my payment of the ultimate price."
She struggles to answer, but cannot now find air.
"You see? Your own body knows your sin. Come, let me show you what should have been." Again, she steps from the coffin But now she steps to his side. The tribute comes for her as well as him. She feels the power of enemies chosen for destruction coursing in her veins, proving her fresh power. As her master's power grows, she grows with it. In time, she strides across the New City as its dark queen, reaping an endless harvest of blood and sorrow as she serves her master in his quest to punish all sin and create the New SummerWind on Dameo.
She feels herself within that other self, but it is a lie. SHe tries to tear off the mask, but cannot. Gradually, she forces herself out through the lie's pores, one drop at a time. In the end, after countless years of effort, she draws herself up out of a black puddle and watches the lie's barren husk collaspe. "I reject you."
Everything---people and building alike---ooze and crumble as did her lie. Soon, she and her master stand on a featureless plain, ankle-deep in dust. "Do you? Tell me, daughter of my blood, what is it you reject?"
"You. Your schemes. Everything about you. Whatever you are, I am not. Whatever you do, I will stop you." She is so young, she knows in the dream, and has no idea what she's promising. But she knows, in the dream, that she will spend nine hundred years trying to live up to those words.
"Tell me of your schemes."
"I....you....the throne....the ships....the colony...." Her thoughts mash together. None achieves complete expression. She stammers in frustration and anger.
"You see? You rebel not against me, but against your image of me. You do not see that you are my child in truth, the image of my soul. You do my will as I do the God's wills. You are just like me." He smiles at her. "Everything you have ever done serves me. Everything you are serves me. When the great trial comes, you will stand confirmed as my worhy heir." In violation of the great curse, Monfreid suddenly appears reflected in all mirrors that had sprung up unnoticed. The source of the reflections reaches out to touch her, his hands tracing the lines of her horrified face. In the mirrors, his hands leave behind a faint impression, which takes on clarity and definition: it is his own image.
Jade woke with a scream. The words 'child in truth' echoed out from under the bed. She jumped up and ran into the bathroom, pressing blood-sweaty hands against the mirror, which, of course, showed nothing. Blood dripped down into the sink, forming letter after letter as it swirled away. "Child in truth." Gradually, she emerged more fully into wakefullness, and the manifestations settled down.
The Radi, she realized, had been goading itself into activity, and she took calm slow measures to subdue it again. She could feel the press of daylight outside. Fearful of attack, she calmed herself and conducted a lengthy probe of her psyche.
In the end, she found no trace of manipulation. But though she lay almost stupefied with the agony of daytime wakefulness, she could sleep not again that day.
Two Days Later . . . .
Jade had entered Angelique's room more than an hour before, and obsevered quietly as part of the shadows. She hoped to use the pilot for the rest of her search, and needed to see how the woman dealt with adversity. Persy's servant told her and the master of the house about Angelique's show of resistance and crumbling; Jade found it a little disappointing, but then there were uses for very malleable people as well as more stubborn ones.
Angelique woke from a tearful slumber shortly after midnight. Her aura radiated fear leavened with encouraging traces of anger. Jade watched as the pilot took careful stock of her possessions, spreading around everything pointed (keys, nail file, a small knife, jeweler's screwdriver) into seperate pockets for possible use as a weapon. Then Angelique made a second pass to check for loose pocket flaps and anything else that might make a convenient grabbing point, turning her collar in, tucking in pants. Jade recognized the movements of experience, and wondered just where the pilot had done her dirty fighting. Once she was secure in herself, Angelique examined the room carefully. She didnt touch the door or windows, but felt around them and examined them from various angles, looking for security measures and any exploitable weakness. All of this passed in what was, for a mortal, remarkable quiet.
After marking two complete passes through her room, and spot checks several more times at key points, Angelique sat down on the bed to wait for whatever came next. Jade continued to watch as Angelique pursued a variety of tasks which kept her lightly occupied but not too heavily distracted: buffing and trimming nails, putting her hair up in a close braid, unraveling the bedspread's hem and checking for concealed layers. Jade saw the anger in Angelique's aura glow, crowding out other emotions, and watched as fatigue dimmed it all. When the moment seemed right, Jade drew herself out of the shadows.
Angelique didnt speak. She clutched her scissors and knife and charged. Jade put her hands out, each one seizing one of Angelique's and forcing the woman down to her knees with simple twists. "I will speak with you."
The woman continued to struggle, Jade noticed with a certain admiration. "I will speak with you," she said again.
"Youre going to kill me. Get it over with."
"When I decide you should die, you will die promptly. In the meantime, will you listen?"
"You want my soul, and its not yours. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will . . ."
"Stop that." Jade spoke with the tone of command, and the curse dried up in Angelique's mouth. Nothing she tried to repeat for casting curses could take form. Other words were fine, only the curses to cast were denied her.
Word Count: 2094
"Dominatio Per Malum: Power Through Evil!"
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