THE QUEEN OF TIME
2570 A.D.!
A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE
By Jerome B. Bigge
Chapter Forty
"I am Queen Joyce," the horror sitting there on the "throne" said to me. At least I think that's what she said to me, but at the time I had a bit of difficulty understanding due to my own "nerves" and the fact that Joyce, like many of her people, does not have the same sort of vocal cords that ordinary humans have. I could see a bit, although there was only my own lamp for light.
"Queen Lorraine of Trelandar," I answered, nodding in turn.
"The ruler of the outside world," she spoke, regarding me.
"It is obvious that you are `not' what we thought," I said.
"Your intentions towards us do not to seem `peaceful'," she pointed out. No doubt she was well aware of the forces that I'd brought with me, the weapons, the fighting dogs and dire wolves. I suppose that if someone had marched an army up to the gates of Trella I might feel much the same way just now about the "issue".
"A matter of `misunderstandings'," I spoke, sweating a bit! Joyce and her companions, what I could see of them, like some- thing out of a 20th Century horror movie. Scaly, hideous things!
"I am going to look into your mind, see if your lips `lie'," the creature on the throne spoke, two others now dragging me up to her as she squatted there, a scaly horror as big as a Garth!! I felt myself "held", her horrid clawed hands clasping my head, those eyes so much like a reptile's, but "intelligent" now burn- ing into mine. I felt or sensed a "whispering" in my mind, then suddenly my mind was linked with hers! I saw as she saw, felt as she felt, and saw myself as she saw me, sensed her thoughts, felt the "distrust" that she felt towards all of my kind, perhaps with good reason! Her mind, like Raspa's, almost totally "alien" too! Visions swam through my mind, both of my life and of hers, scenes of an underground world like none I'd ever known, the epic battle that Hope and I had waged crossing these same ruins back in 2365!
"You are the fighter of legend," she spoke, releasing me. I suspected that she knew too just "what" I was, that I was not of this time, but of another now only legend and myth in this era...
"I am a woman `good' with a sword," I smiled back at her.
"We have few `friends' above," she spoke, regarding me.
"One may stand before you," I said, looking into her eyes.
"You are not like the `others'," she spoke, regarding me.
"Even the Priestesses are not `infallible'," I answered now.
"I will give orders that your people may `go' where they wish," she answered, squatting there on her throne before me now.
"I didn't think we'd ever see you again," Jon said to me as I emerged into the daylight, the light almost blinding for a mo- ment until my eyes could adjust to the difference in the light.
"I have found a `friend'," I said, beckoning to Joyce.
"I suppose I should have expected it," Jon now observed.
"There is but one like her," Amethysta added with a smile.
"It must be `painful' seeing her like that," I said to Bob as the sun now sank low in the west over the Pacific, Keri and her Scribes having wasted no time in taking up Queen Joyce on her offer to explore the fantastic underground ruins of 21st Century Los Angeles. Carol sitting there watching everyone, with my own people in turn keeping an eye on her, it being "common knowledge" now despite my best efforts to conceal it that the old Dularnian Warlady was both "forgetful" and sometimes rather "confused" too!
"She may not remember what she had for breakfast this morn- ing, but she still can remember standing with me in the hot sands of your arena and facing the best Darlanis could throw at us," he answered, his eyes glistening as they met mine. "We may be both `old' and `ready to greet Lys' as you'd say, but I've lived for fifty seven years with her, and Carol's always `been there' for me every time," he continued on, seeing me nod back in reply now.
"You will `greet Lys' together," I said, recalling what Ma- ris Marn had told me. I suspected too that neither of them would have wished to live without the other. They were, I mused, the most "together" couple I'd ever met, much more so I thought than Jon and I were, despite our best attempts to do otherwise here...
"Maybe we can `settle down' a bit now and not worry so about what the Dularnians and all the rest are doing now," Jon said to me as we sat around the fire. The flickering light from the flames casting moving shadows here among the ruins. His cloak about my shoulders as we sat together side by side, both of us perhaps well aware too of how the world had changed in the last five years from when we'd first found love in each other's arms.
"`Raise' our children properly," I smiled, well aware that I had "neglected" my duties as a mother somewhat recently here now. Bob and Carol now sitting opposite us, whispering to each other. Queen Joyce like some nightmare brought to life there beside us. Amethysta too like some "Viking" out of the old Norse legends.
"She was a mighty `attractive' woman once," Jon said to me.
"Who was `what'..?" I asked, puzzled by his words here now.
"Carol Simmons," Jon answered, regarding the couple there.
"Thirty gold crowns in a fair market," I smiled back at him. Even in the "prime" of her life Carol had never been "beautiful". Attractively "figured", but I wouldn't have called her beautiful. Darlanis had once "appraised" her there in Trella back in 2567. I'd seen her enough times in bikinis back in the 20th Century to have a pretty good idea of what she'd looked like back then too.
"A woman who knew that she was one," Jon said to me then.
"You could buy better slave girls in Trella," I retorted.
"Perhaps we should change the `subject'," Jon suggested.
"What's the fuss about?" I muttered, Jon shaking me awake!
"The Simmons!" my husband spoke, Carol clutching at Bob!
"Lorraine! You Have To Do Something!" she cried to me!
"Heart..." Bob hissed through gritted teeth at me then.
"I'm here, I'll always be with you," Carol wept softly.
"Here, lay him back," I spoke, his old wife holding him.
"If we were in Trella..." Carol spoke softly to me then.
"June!" I cried, "Get the medical kit!" Looking for her! "Where's my doctor?" I snapped, someone now shaking her awake...
"Perhaps I can `help'," Queen Joyce spoke then to us two.
"She has `powers'," I said to Carol, seeing her nod back. My Physician stumbling over to us, still half asleep as yet now.
"He is very old, near end of his life," Joyce said to us. Amethysta kneeling at my side, her eyes meeting mine as I nodded.
"Do whatever you can," I said, aware that he would live. That Bob and Carol would die together on Catalina Island in 2033. Such was "history", part of what had been. What couldn't be ever "changed" despite the best efforts of anyone of this time. Carol was old, gray, her face wrinkled, but I think Bob did not see her as I might have had. Perhaps to him she was still the provoca- tive sexy delight he had first seen washing herself back in 1975. Still the same woman he'd married, lived with back in the 20th Century before I'd come on the scene. Put a "strain" on their marriage by my merely being about. By my own "need" for someone to understand how I felt. I had been to Bob something "new", a different sort of woman. We had been friends, and I think "more" in a way that Carol sensed even if her husband didn't understand! I saw Queen Joyce laying her clawed hands on him, saw the blaze in her eyes, felt or rather "sensed" the forces at play here now! The stars gleaming down from the sky, Jupiter high in the heavens as the flickering light from the dying fires lit up this "scene". My Physician regarding me, watching Joyce, a puzzled look on her face as she squatted there beside Carol, watching, waiting, now.
"What has been, will be," I said to Carol, wanting to take her into my arms, hold her, but knowing it was impossible now. I had once scarred this woman's face, even sought her life in re- venge for what she'd done, not because of the war that had exist- ed then between Trelandar and Dularn, but for "personal reasons"! Carol having embarrassed me by the simple fact of proving to all those around me that I wasn't as "invincible" as I'd thought now! That despite the fact that I was Warlady of the Empire of Cali- fornia, I could be made the "fool" by an exotic dancer from the 20th Century, a provocative sexy brownette skilled with the bow!! By a woman who had been "appraised" by Darlanis herself as worth maybe little more than thirty good gold crowns in a fair market! Now this same woman, old, aged, due to die in only a few months, wept silently at my side, and I could do NOTHING to help her now!
"We will be together forever," Carol spoke softly to me. I think she was aware of the fact that neither of them had more than a few months left to live, that this last visit to the 26th Century was a "gift" First Priestess Tais had given them both...
"I have done what I could," Queen Joyce said, regarding Car- ol as the now gray haired old Dularnian Warlady nodded in reply.
"You have my thanks," Carol answered, her eyes glistening.
"Let me `touch' you," Joyce said, reaching out to Carol.
"Why not?" Carol smiled, allowing Joyce to do so here.
"Your memories are unlike most," Joyce spoke to her.
"I've lived a rather unusual life," Carol answered.
"She is not like most women," Bob added just then.
"I believe that is `true'," Queen Joyce admitted.
"Their relationship is like few others," I spoke up.
"It gives me pleasure to share her memories," Joyce said.
"Thank you," Carol breathed softly, weeping a bit more now.
"There is no `death'," Joyce said, regarding the old woman.
"Such has been known for thousands of years," I ventured.
"She has `lived' like few others ever have," Joyce said.
"I have lived a life few women have have," Carol spoke.
"She was a woman like few others have been," I said then.
"We die, but yet we live on in memory," Joyce said to me.