“Matriarch…”
Marcus traced the curvature of the Yokun’s robes and ended on her sharp reptilian eyes.
“That makes you the female leader of Mari’s House, right?”
“The former leader,” the Matriarch whispered. “I vowed to train the Pale Lady in the way of Whispers in preparation for her taking my place. Little did my Brothers and Sisters know how far resentment of the Old Ways went.”
Before Mari had crept forward to explain further, Marcus was already putting two and two together. Suddenly it was all making sense: the escaped slaves, the diversity of the people, the improvised molotovs—this wasn’t just a slave revolt. It was a full-blown rebellion.
“We escaped together,” Mari explained. “The Matriarch taught me everything about the Yokun—their culture, their military strength, and the ways in which they see this world. They think Thea, and everything and everyone in it, belongs to them by right. They’ll go so far as to enslave and indoctrinate their own people if it keeps them in line.”
“Kumaris,” the Matriarch breathed, her voice a raspy breath that spoke of ageless wisdom and boundless hate. “In your tongue, the word translates to something like ‘Unity.’”
“We both know who that sounds like,” Mari murmured.
Marcus, however, shook his head in disbelief. He gathered himself and steeled his senses as more clouds of dust were scattered from impacts high above them. Something was happening on the surface that was coming here. And quick.
“Mari,” he began. “Look, I know where this is going…”
“It is going the only way it can go, Marcus Graham—”
“Shut up!” Marcus roared as Mari flew to try and restrain him, forcing him to look into her eyes as his temper flared. “I’ve had it with people telling me what my destiny is in this place. The reason—the whole reason—that I came here was to tell you that there’s a way out for both of us, Mari.”
She blinked at the suggestion as the senior Matriarch merely looked on, utterly unimpressed. “What?”
“I have a contact underground,” Marcus explained. “Someone who can send us both home. That’s why I came here. To take us back!”
He’d expected—well—he didn’t really know what he’d expected. But it certainly wasn’t what he saw.
Mari held his eyes for a second, the pupils surrounded by lily pads that he loved so much beginning to shake as they realized his intention. Then she slowly shook her head and stood aside.
“Your man believes he can trust in the Ratmen of the Underkingdom,” the Matriarch whispered. “Still, he clings to a belief he should know is false.”
Marcus ignored her entirely. He meant what he said. He was sick of the grim blade of ‘Destiny’ and ‘Fate’—the twin envoys of bullshit—hanging over his head, ready to strike down any autonomy he had.
But in Mari’s eyes, and her shaking shoulders, he saw something else.
“Marc…” she began. “You saw all those people out there. Can you imagine what they’ve—what I’ve—been through? The Yokun Masters are merciless. Think about the most brutal type of slave owner you can imagine from ancient Greece, multiply it threefold, and then slap a God-complex on it. For the past two years, we’ve tried dismantling it from within. We used subterfuge, we used propaganda, and then we finally came to the point where force was necessary.”
The Matriarch caught Mari’s eyes for a moment, then shifted her narrowed slits to Marcus.
“Your woman was to be married to a Prince of the House of Blades,” she explained with a scowl. “She refused and suffered indignities as a result. The Patriarch of the House of Whispers then decreed she was to be forced into the arrangement.”
“Enough, Jin’an,” Mari said in all but a hushed murmur. “This isn’t just about me.”
“But it is you that your man cares about,” the Matriarch replied. “All you need is eyes to see that he would climb a mountain of bodies to reach you. And that is exactly what he has done.”
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Marcus grimaced at the accusation and couldn’t even face Mari as she looked at him to see that the Matriarch’s words were true.
“Our hands were forced,” the Matriarch went on. “I and the Pale Lady thus conspired to slay the Patriarch of Whispers. In so doing, we started a revolt that had been years in motion.”
“And let me guess,” Marcus scoffed. “It was you that had planned it all along.”
The Matriarch did not cower from the accusation. Even as more hammerings were heard above, and general shouts of alarm chased their way down the corridor outside the cushioned chamber, she looked upon Marcus with absolute control and unbroken serenity.
“You are a man of history, are you not, Marcus Graham? Surely you understand that revolution begins with a single thought of discontent. Such thoughts, given the proper circumstances, grow until they engulf entire populations. They become fuses that require only a single spark. Then, well, the results follow.”
Marcus saw Mari nodding solemnly out of the corner of his eye.
“Mari,” he said, trying to take her in his arms and talk some sense into her. “You know how slave revolts go. How many were successful across our own history? How many led to the complete and total subjugation of the revolting populace and did nothing more than make life miserable for those who remained in captivity?”
“And yet,” the reptilian Matriarch countered, “how many provided hope to generations who came after? The promise that no bearer of the whip could truly break the spirit of the indentured? Freedom, Marcus Graham, is a prize worth dying for.”
“Spoken like a true ideologue,” Marcus spat back. “Let me tell you—”
“Enough!” Mari shouted, her trembling finally giving way to hot-blooded frustration. “Enough…”
“Mari, I can’t—”
“You’re the only one who can!” she shouted back at him. “We all heard the tales of the Shar-Azrok of the underworld—the human who led the Ratmen to victory after victory against their enemies. The one who shook up the entire Yokun military-industrial complex by showing that their little proxy war wasn’t going to last nearly as long as they hoped. They became so distracted by your gains that we finally managed to make progress against them. Now, look at what we’ve got outside. We’ve got an army, ready to take the fight to those bastards.”
She came close to him, turning his face toward her so that he couldn’t avoid her now.
“All they need,” she said, “is a proper General.”
Marcus gulped down his rage and felt his bones rattle in his trench coat as he choked back the reply he wanted to make. Now he understood what Yeeva had meant when she’d told him her Pale Lady didn’t want to go home. It wasn’t metaphor, and it wasn’t an attempt to demoralize him—it was 100% true. She was genuine. Truth be told, he’d never seen her look this passionate about anything in his life…
“Mari,” he whispered, “We could just go home.”
“And do what, Marc?” she asked. “Gather around our laptops and tweet about public policy? Speak at conventions for privileged students and hope that our messages get through? Go up for pointless mud-slinging debates against morons like Barenz and the Unification Church? We’ve finally got a chance to matter here, Marc. These people waited for us to be reunited so we could lead them towards a better future. We’ve finally got a chance to do something for the betterment of a world that actually wants our help. How can you turn away from it?”
Before Marcus could respond, pain seized him once again. He dropped to his knees, looking at the flaring eruption of poisonous energy leaping from his palm. Once again, it seemed the Gloomraav was reacting to his anguish.
Mari…what have you done here…
“He…he needs your help, Jin’an,” Mari said as she turned away.
“You would ask me to aid this man who scoffs at our mission?”
“I’m not asking anything.”
The tension that pierced the room with that statement was palpable. Marcus could feel the chain of command loosening between these two. One—an elder Yokun, almost rotten with age. Two—a healthy human woman with a mind to match that of her senior. Both had clearly worked together to bring about this revolt. The question was, who truly held the reins now?
The Matriarch of Whispers breathed heavily as she nodded toward Marcus’s twitching hand. “Leave him with me, then,” she said. “And I will see to him.”
Mari stiffened at the response, her hands folding into fists as Marcus looked up at her with despairing eyes. When she turned to glance back at him, now it was she who couldn’t meet his eyes.
And all the while the rumbling above shook the entire base with more intensity—each drum becoming more than just the shaking of the pummeled patch of surface jungle they dwelled within. Now, Marcus could plainly hear more than just the sounds of rocks being cleaved in twain from above. Now, he could hear the distinct chorus of war drums beating in the night of Thea.
“They need me out there, Marc,” Mari said. “If you’re with us, then you’ll join us in the defense. If not…”
Marcus stared open-mouthed as she let the statement hang. She marched toward the door and threw it aside to see a group of warriors already waiting for her—the great minotaur Hilja first among them. It seemed they dared not disturb the serenity of their Matriarchs even when their very base was under duress.
“They come, Pale Lady,” Hilja said. “What do we do? Where do we go?”
And with a last glance at Marcus, Mari replied in a voice colder than her man had ever heard emanate from her throat:
“To war.”
***
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