Aimelle's Tale Pt. 3

I offered the astounding <a href="[link]" a gift story, and she requested a tale about her character Aimelle. Aimelle is a Caithari, a race of humanoid mantis-like insectoids ruled by a strict matriarchy and capable of great magical feats. I ran a little wild with such a wide-open setting. Mook drew up this picture of Aimelle going all squishy to accompany the third and final part of the tale.

Aimelle and the Caithari are, of course, Mookyvet's character and concept.

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Continued from part two

Aimelle's Tale, Part 3

"What now, then?" Aimelle said. "What am I going to do?"

Beldar hefted his weapon. "As I said, we all choose our own destiny, Aimelle. There are two paths before you: that of the Queen, and that of the Matxino. You know what your Queen would ask of you, and you may have my weapon if that is what you wish to do. Or you can follow me back to our base, and the long, uncertain path of the Matxino."

He held the long, deadly arm out toward Aimelle. She reached up, grasped it…and pulled herself upright.

"Show me the truth," she said. "Show me what it is the Queen would have me die rather than know."

Day 210

"What am I bid for this handsome male? Only his second molt, honored guests and Senators! Strong and chemically neutered, captured from a rebel-sympathizing village in the Eltxo not two weeks ago!"

The auctioneer, a male in the dress uniform of a high-ranking Erresuma guard officer, capered around the subterranean stage, pointing out the finer attributes of the chained captive beside him.

"You see, the rebellion has in many ways been a boon for the priestesses and the Senators whose support they enjoy," said Beldar. He stood off to the side with many other vaguely interested buyers, whispering to Aimelle, while Kilker hovered protectively nearby. "Prisoners, chemically altered and bound by chaomancy and ordomancy, are the Royal City's best source of manual labor. These slaves work in industry and in the fields. You recall our raids on the Labezomorro? That was to free these unfortunates, not to kill them, but their taskmasters have a standing order to kill them if there is even the slightest loosening of control.

In disguise, and with Aimelle's chaomancy glamor to buttress it, they were undetected. An alert priestess could easily detect and dispel any such illusion--especially since the creation and maintenance of a specific disguise was a branch of ordomancy in which Aimelle was not well versed. But the priestesses that moved freely through the assemblage seemed utterly at ease. They couldn't conceive of anyone being there without permission or with rebellious intent.

As Kilker and Bedlar had led Aimelle to their secret entrance into the vast subterranean forum--which lay beneath the Queen's Temple and the adjacent Royal Palace and Senate Hall--they had detailed what they knew of what went on down there.

"The underground forum's an open secret," Kilker had said. "Surely you knew of it?"

"They told the Vestals that there was an underground complex where the Holy of Holies, artifacts of Queen Caithar herself, were kept. And that there were shelters for the Augur and priestesses in case of war."

"You don't know the half of it," had been Kilker's reply.

As the auctioneer sold the "handsome male" to a Senator, another Cathari was rudely shoved to the platform in chains. Aimelle could see a long line of others waiting for the auction block, some still bearing the wounds of combat or the smudged ash over brood mark that identified them as Matxino rebels. The auction would clearly be going on for hours.

"Why don't you come in here and attack?" Aimelle whispered, using her chaomancy to reduce the words to unintelligible mumbling for anyone other than Beldar or Kilker. "Try to free them like you did the slave farmers of Labezomorro."

"That's what we should be doing," Kilker growled, watching the auction with unbridled rancor. "Storm the underground forum, wipe the satisfied smirks of those mandibles, shed a little upper-class hemolymph, maybe even assassinate the Queen."

Beldar glared at his comrade-in-arms. "We Matxino don't have the strength in the Royal City that we do elsewhere," he said. "We're building up slowly, conducting reconnaissance. But a frontal assault with the numbers we have would be suicide. All those priestesses, each with ordomancy, chaomancy, or aeromancy at their command? The entrenched Erresuma guardsmen in the armored firing pits you haven't even noticed yet? The elite Royal Guard unit of the Ikerlari inquisitors? Too many question marks."

"Let's not tarry here, then," Aimelle said. "I...can't stand to see them like this, up there..."

"What, is the Vestal going to claim ignorance of all this?" Kilker hissed.

"Is that any different than pretending to shoot a bound and unarmed prisoner in front of me?" Aimelle whispered back.

"I did what I had to do," Kilker sniffed. "And I openly admit it as such, unlike you and your willful ignorance."

"Kilker, please," said Beldar. "You know as well as I do that the Vestals are the most public face of the priestesses. It makes sense to have them know as little as possible about the rotten structure they're helping to prop up. That's why they're cloistered and controlled so."

Aimelle had never considered that, but her life as a Vestal had involved none of the things she'd once been allowed as a mere initiate, like uncensored network access or a television with channels other than Royal TV 1.

"This way," Beldar said. "There's still more you need to see."

They passed an observation lounge, where priestesses and Senators--protected by heavy bulletproof perspex--looked down on a gunnery range built into what looked like an old quarry. The Ikerlari Royal Guard were conducting a live fire exercise...with living targets. The dignitaries above watched with detatched interest, sipping cocktails.

"Live rounds into a target just aren't the same as live rounds into a living being," Beldar said bitterly.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Aimelle murmured. "A-are those rebels?"

"No, the Matxino have at least some training. They could seek cover, set an ambush, even try to take an inquisitor's weapon," spat Kilker. "Those are criminals and other embarrassments. Mentally ill and such."

"What justification could they possibly find in the Liturgy for that?" Aimelle gasped. "We're sworn to protect our fellow Caithari!"

"Look there on the wall: Surah 19:37. 'The god-Queen and her priestesses tirelessly work to strengthen the Caithari from within and without.' Thos eundesirables are clearly weakening the Caithari, so they can be destroyed without consequence."

Sure enough, the surah that Kilker recided was on the wall near the observation lounge, prominently displayed in a gilt frame.

"It's just...an utter perversion...no, a desecration of what the Liturgy is supposed to mean!" Aimelle said. "They've twisted our most sacred text to serve their need for live target practice."

"There's one more thing you have to see," Beldar said, tugging on one of Aimelle's upper arms and leading her toward the center of the underground forum.

A large dais had been set up at the base of a thick pillar which presumably led to the palaces and temples at ground level. Boxed in with perspex much like the observation lounge had been, it was occupied by a small phalanx of inquisitors and the Augur, Txi'Meleta. Her amplified voice could be heard exhorting the assemblage of senators, priestesses, and guards to greater deeds in the service of their queen.

"Present yourselves unto her, o chosen of the god-Queen, that she might bless your noble work!" The Augur cried.

"Have you ever seen your god-Queen?" Kilker asked.

"I've seen her official portrait," Aimelle said. "But never in person." The official word from the Royal Palace was that the Queen was secluded in official mourning since the untimely disappearance of her daughter Princess Cora.

"Well, you're about to."

A figure was carried onto the stage in a litter borne by Ikerlari. Aimelle gasped at the sight. Far from the regal image present on every wall and on currency, the Queen was hooked to life-support machinery that cleaned and recirculated her hemolymph. Her setae was white and stringy with noticeable bald spots, while her carapace was mottled, discolored, and soft in places. The only action she could muster was a weak wave with one hand.

"That's your god-Queen," Kilker hissed. "That's the inheritor of Queen Caithar's throne. An elderly, inbred, senile figurehead that the Augur and the Haruspex and the senior priestesses trot out whenever they need a blessing. They've been ruling as they pleased since the Queen's great-grandmother was on the throne."

Day 252

"And you're sure of this?"

The Ikerlari inquisitor bowed deeply before Augur Txi'Meleta and her counterpart, Haruspex Txi'Txarra. He had reported to the Praetor of the Senate, but the Praetor knew where the real power lay, and she had escorted him to the Queen's Tample and recused herself. "As sure as I have ever been of anything, Augur. The latest Matxino rebel attack on the Labezomorro was led by a priestess who wore the ash of the rebellion across her brood mark."

"What was the report from our troops once the rebels left the field?" Txi'Meleta asked.

"500 Erresuma dead, over 1000 slaves unaccounted for, and three months' rations disappeared," said the Haruspex, reading it on a temple computer. "Estimates only, at this time, but the worst loss we have suffered in that sector since Matxin was broken on the wheel."

"Tell me more, inquisitor," the Augur demanded.

"It was like there was…something wrong in our heads," said the Ikerlari. "We saw each other as Matxino, then we panicked when we realized we'd been killing each other. And then the feeling…like we were covered with squirming qyth-rats…"

"Is that all?"

"A storm blew up, something powerful. We were fighting in the rain, in a quagmire of mud, against opponents who knew the terrain and were light on their feet. And I saw her at their head, chanting and waving her arms like the priestesses do when they're invoking the god-Queen's aid. First female rebel I've seen in five years as an Ikerlari."

The Augur nodded to her personal guards, who moved in to escort the inquisitor away. "Leave us."

"We can't have word of this spreading," the Haruspex said quietly. "We've taught the troops to revere us as gods, as conduits to the Queen. It could cause a panic in the ranks."

"Agreed." Augur Txi-Meleta typed out an order on the temple computer. "The survivors are to thoroughly debriefed by ordomancy and chaomancy and then executed. A simulated transport crash should suffice."

The Haruspex countersigned the order with the Queen's seal. "It does not solve our overarching problem. You assured me that the Vestal Txi'Aimelle would be hunted down if she were still alive."

"And we had assumed that she perished in the conflagration at the Vestal quarters," the Augur snapped. "Do not speak to me of Aimelle, and certainly not with an honorific she no longer deserves."

"Then propose a solution," Haruspex Txi'Txarra said, her antennae aflutter. "We are agreed that the situation is intolerable."

With the bereaved Queen as a figurehead and the Praetor and her Senate a powerless debating society, the real power among the Caithari lay in a duumvirate between the the Augur and the Haruspex. The former sat atop the priestly hierarchy, while the latter officially issued predictions that guided economic policy, and both exercised control over different factions of the military. The arrangement had existed informally for centuries, but had been strengthened by the "disappearance" of the Queen's beloved heir Princess Cora.

The Augur stroked her mandibles, clacking her second pair of arms and its claws thoughtfully. "Pull up her record."

The Haruspex did so, and the Augur looked it over.

"Let me see," Augur Txi'Meleta said. "Less than a year as a Vestal, yes, I knew that. Magickal potential off the charts, of course, that's why I retained her to whip up that thunderstorm for me. Ah, yes! She never completed her ordomancy training, and the marks were well below average for what she did attain."

"Meaning what, exactly?" the Haruspex huffed.

"The former Vestal was a prodigy with chaomancy and aeromancy, which both leave a very strong residual aura for days after major use," the Augur said. "Vestals are taught to use ordomancy to conceal this aura, lest it be used to track them in a combat situation."

"But without complete training, and with a lower level of mastery…of course," said Haruspex Txi'Txtarra. "Why didn't you think of it sooner?"

"Because I am not accustomed to facing Vestals in open battle!" snapped the Auger. Calming herself, she walked to the military radio set that connected the Queen's temple to various military units.

"Ikerlari inquisition office, 15th Queen's Own division," a male voice said. "How may we serve the Queen this day, Augur?"

"I am sending my best ordomancers to track a chaomancy aura from the site of yesterday's battle," said Txi'Meleta. "Follow that trail wherever it leads them. Follow it with overwhelming force."

Day 293

"Sir…we are overrun."

The handset dropped from Beldar's hand, audibly clattering to the floor and disrupting the staff meeting he had been chairing.

"They've found us," he said, head bowed. "I don't know how, but there's a legion of inquisitors accompanied by priestesses at the sewer entrance. You know what must be done."

Matxino officers jumped into action, barking orders into radios and dashing off in every direction at a run. Those who stayed began feeding documents into a small furnace, filling the air with acrid smoke.

"What can I do?" Aimelle cried. "Put me where I'm needed. Use me to save lives."

"I can't," Beldar said. "You're too valuable an asset. Kilker is leading an evacuation out the rear tunnel entrance; go and join him."

"But I can-"

"Go!" Beldar roared.

Trembling, Aimelle followed an aide to Kilker, who was directing a frenzied evacuation at the lowest part of the rebel base.

"As soon as the scouting party reports an all-clear, we'll begin moving as many people as we can out of the sewers and out of the city," he said. "We can't survive a direct confrontation yet, but with luck, and time…"

An explosion from above rocked the area. "So Beldar and the others will follow?" Aimelle said.

"Hardly. They're buying us escape time with their lives." Kilker staggered as a second shock wave hit, this time from below. "What?" he cried. "That's impossible! We-"

A nearby radio crackled. "Matxino scouting patrol, Zorri reporting. There are inquisitors at the rear entrance, and priestesses! We're pinned down here, and cut off from our designated escape route! We need orders!"

"Hold out as long as you can!" cried Kilker, snatching up the radio. "Do you copy?"

Static was his only answer.

"Damn!" Kilker screamed, flinging the radio at a wall. "They'll…they'll be here any minute."

Voices and the sound of combat could indeed be heard at the end of the large drainage pipe at the other end of the room.

"We'll do what we can here," Kilker continued. "And then fall back toward the command post. It's all we can do."

The would-be evacuees began hastily assembling a barricade and passing out assault rifles and ammunition while Aimelle sought out Kilker as he bucked on a gun belt. "I hope that one's real this time," she said.

"No blanks and no stage magic."

"Let me help you here. A priestess could turn the tide, you know that."

"You're one of our most valuable assets, and there are sure to be a lot of wounded. I can't-"

"I'm not asking," Aimelle said.

Kilker said nothing, only nodded slightly.

When the first Ikerlari assault troops moved into the tunnel, they faced a gale force wind that blinded them with droplets of sewage and a tympanum-splitting roar. They felt the tiny paws of a million qyth-rats under their carapaces, causing some to all but scratch themselves to death. They panicked, shooting wildly at each other, decimating the ranks before the Matxino rebels let off so much as a shot. The few stragglers that made it within range of the rebel weapons were mowed down.

It was horrible and beautiful at the same time, and the rebels watched Aimelle, her long dark setae whipping around her face, channel her powers in a fury that they'd never seen before. The tube was choked with dead and dying inquisitors.

And then…

The wind began to die down, despite Aimelle's redoubled focus and chanting. The fresh waves of Ikerlari who appeared, stepping gingerly over the bodies of their comrades, felt no phantom qyth-rats despite Aimelle pouring her entire being into the hallucination.

The second wave was backed by a group of priestesses.

Slowly at first but with growing intensity, the wind began to blow the other way. The obstacles protecting the entrenched Matxino began to splinter apart; their weapons began to jam or come apart at the seams.

"No…" Aimelle whispered. "No!"

The inquisitors were close enough to fire their own weapons now; with the rebels largely deprived of cover, deprived of weapons, and now facing a roaring gale of their own…the results were catastrophic. Half the defenders fell wounded or dead in the first volley.

"NOO!" Aimelle screamed, still pressing with all her magickal might against the priestesses who outnumbered her ten to one.

"Get down!" Kilker yelled. He grabbed Aimelle and pulled her toward the base entrance, shouting for the others to fall back and bar the doors. Not even the impact of a round under his upper right armpit could stop him; Kilker clamped the wound shut with the claws on his second pair of arms and hauled Aimelle in after him.

Day 294

The battle raged on past midnight, with the rebels dwindling in number as they fell back from position to position. No matter how strongly they barred the doors, the priestesses on either side would bring them crashing down before long.

A steady stream of wounded were sent back from the front line; with the hospital overrun, most wound up in Beldar's former office. As soon as he could, Kilker limped back there with Aimelle in tow to tend to the wounded. There weren't many; most of the wounds were so severe that the Matxino rebels succumbed within moments of their arrival.

Beldar was among the wounded; Aimelle rushed to his side as soon as she arrived, but he'd suffered a catastrophic wound to the abdoment--all the ordomancy she could muster wasn't enough to stabilize him.

"So it seems we are destined to end our acquaintance where we began it…in my office," Beldar wheezed. "How…appropriate."

"I'm…I'm sorry," Aimelle sobbed. "I can't…I can't…"

"It's all right…it's all right. I knew where this would likely end from the moment I went over to the rebels. I only ask that you regret nothing, Aimelle. It's better…to strive for…good and fail…than it is…never…to…strive…at…all…"

The last words came out as a weak rasp, and the light went out of Beldar's compound eyes despite Aimelle's frenzied ministrations. The medic who had been tending to him moved brusquely on, leaving the former Vestal to weep over the body.

"Send out the word to all remaining troops," Kilker said, sitting down heavily, hand still clapped to his side. "They're to fight until overwhelmed. Destroy all records. Deny the enemy anything you can."

"What am I going to do now?" Aimelle said. "This…this was all I had left."

"That's an excellent question." The mercenary human from Decima Island, Xue Zheng, entered the office flanked by three of his fellows. "It would seem that our business arrangement is on the verge of expiring."

Kilker regarded them, lit by the flickering overhead lamp as the rebels' central power started to fail, and with the echoes of heavy combat not far off. "It would seem so," he said.

"You know what has to be done, if there is to be any chance of preserving what you have done here," said Xue dispassionately. "It makes no difference to me, but if Brankovic were here she would urge you to do what is neccessary.

"Medic, bring me the contingency from behind the commander's desk," Kilker said. It was handed to him a moment later. He cradled it for a moment, gently swirling the liquid inside it, before handing it to a very surprised Aimelle.

"What?" she said. "The…the contingency? The emergency vial Beldar talked about? Xue said it was a fate worse than death."

"I said it was a fate you Caithari would consider worse than death," Xue corrected. "And you'll find out for sure in a few moments if you dally any further."

"I can't accept this," Aimelle said. "Not with what's happened…"

"We've been saving it for Beldar, but now that he's…no longer with us…you're the logical choice, Txi'Aimelle." It was the first time Kilker had ever used the honorific suffix with Aimelle's name.

"W-what? No! You should use it," Aimelle cried. "You're the leader now that Beldar's…gone. You need to rebuild and lead!"

"Did you really think that this was all there was of the Matxino?" Kilker laughed weakly. "It's only one cell. An important one, yes, perhaps even the primary one…but there are others. It's a harsh blow but the Matxino will survive and new leaders will come forward. There are a hundred who could step forward to lead, but only one Matxino priestess."

An audible blast form above shook the redoubt, and fragments of concrete rained down on the rebels and their human contacts. "Your men won't last much longer against that onslaught," growled Xue Zheng. "You need to decide what you're going to do, and fast."

"You need to escape because you're the only one of the priestesses we've been able to bring to the light…you're the only one with the power to challenge the priestesses and the Augur on their own terms," coughed Kilker. Hemolymph was visible on his mandibles, indicating that the wound was much worse than it looked.

"I'll use my magicks, use a little chaos cantrip to confuse them," Aimelle said. "Then you can use Beldar's escape and we can both go."

"The Ikerlari will see through any disguising glamour you can put up now that they're alerted to your presence. The priestesses can counter any magicks you can bring to bear. Please, Aimelle…"

The outside world seemed to slow and spin around her, and Aimelle's face and brood mark glowed with pounding hemolymph like never before. She reached a trembling hand toward the vial.

"Smash the top off," Xue Zheng said curtly. "It will be activated upon exposure to air and you'll only have a few seconds of potency to drink the whole thing. Then our own very human brand of 'magic' will take over. It will not be pleasant."

Aimelle nodded, her antennae and wings fluttering with apprehension. She smashed the top off with a quick blow against the concrete wall and pressed the vial to her mandibles, wincing as the sharp glass drew hemolymph that dribbled down her chin. A moment passed, and Aimelle let out a sharp cry, dropping the vial to the ground. It shattered into a thousand fragments, which was more or less how the former Vestal felt. Every sense, every sensation, churned as if glass had been ground into it on the microscopic level.

Xue Zheng watched the process with an impatient and detached eye, but Kilker's compound eyes were watery as he watched Aimelle in the painful throes of what would be her escape from torture and certain death at the hands of the Ikerlari inquisitors.

Day 295

The cameras of Royal Television 1 and a live network simulcast covered the final mopping up of the Matxino rebels from their former command post. The bodies of dead rebels were laid out for the cameras along with their weapons; the bodies of Beldar and Zorri, who were known to many rebels and royalists alike, received special attention.

What few rebel survivors remained were led off in chains by the Ikerlari inquisitors to the Queen's Temple; news anchors on the scene remarked that the rank-and-file were certain to be executed in a public ceremony after they had been interrogated, and there was talk among the interviewed soldiers that their bodies were to be displayed in and around the innermost part of the Holy District as an abject lesson in the cost of blasphemy against the god-Queen. The Matxino officers, Kilker among them, were last seen entering the Inquisitorium.

Commentators were particularly interested in the humans that had been captured in the rebel base. They held it up as proof of the long-simmering rumor that the human traders on Decima Island in the Royal City's harbor had been aiding the rebels. Erresuma guardsmen poked and prodded and mocked them until two official statements were released, one from Brankovic on Decima and another from Augur Txi'Meleta.

Brankovic reiterated her support for the Queen and condemned the humans that had been captured, calling them malcontents acting without official sanction. Txi'Meleta decreed that, despite the law requiring humans outside of Decima to be put to death, the Queen herself had ordered that the prisoners be expelled from the city instead. Mercy, the Augur said, was uncalled for in this case but the Queen believed that it was a prudent move to avoid a deterioration in relations.

As a result, Royal Television 1 was able to cover the human prisoners being led in chains from the Holy District to Decima Island, and embarked on a ship at its quay. There were five humans, four males and one female, led by the former vice-captain of the trading station, Xue Zheng, who Brankovic had publicly repudiated.

If the Royal Television 1 reporters--or the public watching at home--had been more familiar with humans, they might have asked why the female human at the end of the line was the only one without shoes. They might have wondered why her clothes were so ill-fitting, her long dark hair so unkempt, when the four others all wore expensive tailored outfits with perfectly coiffed locks even after their violent capture. It may also have seemed odd to anyone familiar with humans how the female kept stumbling and changing her posture and often tried to walk on her toes, as if she had forgotten the basic, instinctive biomechanics of how humans moved.

But from the Augur on down, no Caithari knew or cared enough about humans to notice, and none saw anything but a typical hideous human being led to the docks. None noticed the tears in her eyes as the ship pulled away, in stark contrast to the stony faces of the others, and none noticed the look of quiet determination growing on her face.

The Augur did look over her shoulder at the departing boat, noticing that the clouds of a thunderstorm that had been brewing all afternoon seemed to be parting before it. But she quickly shrugged and returned with her retinue to the Holy District. After all, everyone knew that humans couldn't work the same kind of magicks that Caithari could.

THE END