I wanted to stay the night with Xia but she did not know what prolonged exposure to her glamor might do to me while I slept. I did not care but Xia said no, for my own safety. I went up the stairs with the man who had led me there following closely behind. Xia spoke to me through him, the whole way. She assured me that she was still with me but it mattered not. I grew more melancholy with every step, my head lowering until my chin touched my chest. So distracted was I by the intensity of my feelings that I did not notice that the door to my room was not only unlocked but also ajar.

The room was dark, especially when compared to the bright electric lighting of Xia’s chamber. My chin resting on my chest as it was, I saw nothing but the polished wooden floor. I did not see the antique jian falling toward my neck. The once beautiful double-edged Chinese sword had succumbed to the ravages of time. It made contact with the back of my neck and the force alone allowed it to split my skin but when it hit the bones of my spine, the ill choice of my assailant became clear.

The jian blade was not only dull but brittle. I fell to the ground, stunned and temporarily paralyzed. I went to work healing myself right away as the battle began beside me. The man who was Xia had not been far behind me and he met the second swing of the sword with his dagger-ax. It was a long weapon, designed for use in much more open spaces than this. The sword lost length with every blow. When my healing neared completion and I started to rise, the man who was Xia shouted that I should stay down. It was said in her own native tongue so that I, but not my assailant, would understand.

I watched as the man who was Xia thrust the spearhead near our enemy’s head as a feint. Then the scythe-like cutting blade, angled optimally, beheaded my assailant, who still had not spoken a word. For a second I thought that it might be Dawn, since she no longer spoke, but the thought was dismissed just as quickly. This was clearly a man. His body collapsed with his stub neck near my face. I can still feel the hot, thick, blood gushing to the rhythm of the assailant’s last few heartbeats. It sprayed and covered my face, neck, and chest. I would have screamed but I did not want that fluid in my mouth.

Light filled my room as guards with lanterns, both mine and Xia’s, rushed in. The man who was Xia knelt between the bloody stump and myself. He offered me help standing, which I accepted. I followed the trail of bloody spatters to where the head had rolled under my platform bed. I sat. The man who was Xia reached under and pulled out the severed head of Paetus.

A nightcap drink sat on a small table near my bed. Needing it to calm my nerves, I went to grab it only to have Ed knock it from my grasp. He explained quickly, “It smells of poison. Before Paetus was Paetus he was a Greek. Ancient Greeks often executed by use of hemlock.”

“He was going to behead me and poison me?” I questioned. “Isn’t that rather butter upon bacon?”

Ed replied, “Perhaps he planned for just this type of situation where you bested him.”

My others began to speak over each other and I shouted, “Quiet!” My others and the men in the room went silent. I did not know if the next thought to cross my mind was my own or one of the others. Perhaps he intended to drink it himself after he killed you. “Strip him,” I ordered.

They did. There it was, just as I suspected. A strip of tattooed flesh against his. Dawn sent him to kill me.

No, argued Sally. Not possible.

She wants us dead. He had no choice but to do what she wants.

You heard Xia. Dawn cannot be whole again until she kills her mother and can become Incola.

Even if she did, she has no descendants to ride. She would still be stuck with her splinters.

I noticed that she used Xia’s name for them rather than mine. That was a little too close to home. I was stuck with my others.

Ed began to disrobe. I averted my eyes and asked him, “What are you doing?”

He answered without stopping his disrobing. “You need to know that Lady Dawn did not get to anyone else.” Soon all my men followed his example. I examined them and they each other.

The men who were Xia stood and watched. “Strip,” I told them.

The one who had saved me said, “I have already told you that we are not susceptible to gifts of touch. We are simply too old.”

My men drew their weapons. Some of them were still nude but pointed weapons at Xia’s men nonetheless threateningly. “Either you take off your clothes and prove my daughter has no influence over you or my men will kill you.”

“No, you can’t,” he exclaimed. “These bodies are my descendants. Killing them would create more splinters and since Xia has not had a descendant vessel born in many centuries, we and the new splinters would have nowhere to go except back to her mind. She would be insane instantly. The world would not survive.”

All around us, guns cocked. Calmly, I said, “Then I would advise you to disrobe quickly.”

They did, no trace of Dawn’s flesh anywhere except on Paetus. He had always been her creature, her submissive. I was only ever a placeholder. I looked at his head, face muscles now slack in death, and wondered how long his consciousness lingered. Had he ever ridden Dawn? Was he now trapped in her mind, a new captive for torture?

After they had dressed and began to drag Paetus out, I called, “Wait!” There was more Paetus could do for me.

 

When gloves had been made from the hands and forearms of Julian, Paetus had been the one to do the dirty work. Since his was the body from which gloves needed to be created, I was left to do it myself. When I was done, I allowed the men to take his body out to be burned. I would collect a sample of ash later. The man who was Xia took the arms and brain of Paetus to a local tanner.

Xia’s men took Dawn to another part of the complex, where my men, the only ones susceptible to her touch, were not allowed. She seemed content with the arrangement, as long as her tattooist was allowed to accompany her. He was happy to have such a canvas on which to practice. If he did something wrong, or when her whole body was covered, she simply made a clean spot for him to apply another tattoo. He burned all the discarded pieces.

I washed all traces of Paetus from my face and changed dresses. I could not go back into Xia’s presence wearing anything shy of my best. That was the only place I was interested in being. I descended the stairs unaccompanied and found the large, lacquered doors standing open. “Xia,” I called. When there was no response I entered. No Xia. Crossing to the bed, I saw bright lights shining from the crack in the wall behind it. I pushed ever so gently and it sprang back toward me.

I opened the door only enough to look inside. A room just as large as her bed chamber, just as well-lit, lay behind that door. Xia was there but she, shockingly, was not what caught my attention.

Aquariums were the televisions of the Victorian era and I had seen many in the parlors of our same social strata of my youth. They were called Ocean at Home at first when they held salt water but those were difficult to keep in balance and alive. Then they were supplanted by the Lake in a Glass because freshwater creatures were easier. So the sight of an aquarium in this beautiful luxurious foreign home would not have shocked me, had it not been for the enormity of size.

A round well, how deep impossible to tell, dominated the center of the room. Its glass walls stretched above my head. Xia walked around it, dragging her hand along the panes. Before she made a full circle, the beast appeared from the depths.

This beast looked like the octopuses in Xia’s art except it was colossal. Guessing, I would have to say it was over forty stone, the size of three big men, with tentacle arms each at least four meters long. The length of the arms were easy to estimate because several of them, white in color, came out from the lowest visible point on the monster, over the glass and reached for Xia.

“Xia!” I called, this time making myself heard.

She spun toward me and stepped out of reach of the beast. The tentacles, quickly turning red, sank back into the water. Xia held her hand out to me and I walked forward and took it. The octopus once again changed color from an angry red to a calm bluish green. “This magnificent creature is older than I, maybe older than humankind. She taught me to heal myself. She returns to me every time I wake from stasis.” The giant octopus turned so that its eye, the size of a dinner plate but with a horizontal slit like a goat, very nearly pressed against the glass.

She continued, pulling me toward the aquarium. “Its blood is the main ingredient.” Water sloshed as the beast hovered at the top. “We have its blood inside us.” The gargantuan octopus flashed a rainbow of colors in rapid succession and Xia laughed. “She is so excited to finally meet you. We wondered if you would ever come.”

Xia pulled us closer and a gigantic eye pressed close to the glass. “She can read your mind and communicate if you allow them to touch you.” Tentacles reached for me but I yanked away. Xia said, “There is nothing to fear. The suction cups can leave marks but it is not unpleasant.” She went to the tank and when the arms reached for her, she did not flinch. One wrapped around her torso, one around her leg, and another slipped in her sleeve to encircle her wrist to elbow. It lifted her off the ground.

A tentative touch on my wrist; I did not pull away. It began to explore my clothes. Xia called out from above me, “She is a very inquisitive creature. She has never seen clothes like yours.” An arm wrapped around my wrist. Suction cups attached.

The octopus could sense my fear and sent me waves of comfort. It did not communicate with words but rather through images, colors, and sensations. While I was distracted by attempting to decipher the octopus’ communication, two of its other tentacle arms continued to explore my clothes. I saw a flash of pain and then the octopus pulled all of its arms from me. Octopus do not make sound, but I could hear it howl in my mind just before it disconnected. I looked down to see that one tentacle held my weapon and another was covered in ash from the pouch Paetus gave me.

The weapon’s needles had activated, just as it had with me, piercing the octopus’ flesh. There had been two indications of pain. Could it be that the ash had hurt it as well? The tendrils under the octopus skin told me that the mixed blood in the cylinder traveled up its arm. When it was finally allowed to release the weapon, the octopus did. It clattered to the floor and shattered. A small amount of purple fluid was mixed among the shards of glass and wood. It must have nearly emptied itself into the octopus.

I had come to be with Xia, not this beast. I wanted to leave but my others stopped me. They were not interested in Xia but they were quite taken with the sea creature. We stood there while once again tentacles came out to touch our skin. I had been overruled. My others communicated with the octopus all at once.

Its name was Bai Ze. She had been waiting for us for so long. We spent hours there in her embrace while Bai Ze showed us her story. Each other got to hear the part that most interested or benefited them.

I am a woman of science, or at least I strive to fly above the superstition so common in my time but there is no other word but magic that describes it. Bai Ze is magic. Communing with her like this was healing, rejuvenating areas I had not known were deteriorated.

When it was over, I was exhausted. For the first time that I knew of, the others slept. I went back to my room so that I might join them in slumber.

 

I woke to find that Sally had taken the front. While the others and I slept, Sally had retrieved Dawn and brought her to Bai Ze. Xia had allowed it; there was no bloodshed in getting her out. Sally had hoped Bai Ze could heal Dawn, help her, make her whole again.

Then everything happened so fast. I will tell every action but know they all occurred in the shortest of time spans. As soon as she read Dawn’s most central core desire and knew her insanity to be incurable, Bai Ze released me but not before I saw the truth. Bai Ze tricked Sally. She wanted us to believe that she would never let Dawn kill us, but the reality was that she did not care about Dawn. She only wanted to kill any connection we had to the world. Bai Ze wanted to be the most important thing to us, the only thing that mattered. She knew that killing Dawn would kill Ambrose, Leon, and Julian. They were the last of the people I loved.

Bai Ze dragged Dawn into the water. Bubbles rose to the surface as Bai Ze squeezed the air from Dawn’s lungs. Each burst brought the sounds of Dawn’s screams. The struggle sloshed water over the top and then it splashed on the floor, soaking my feet, and filling the air with the smell of salty sea water.

I could have stopped it. I did not want to.

Dawn pulled at the tentacles holding her to no avail. Her nails were not sharp enough to hurt Bai Ze. Everywhere she grasped, grasped back. Suckers latched on to every available surface. Dawn’s face went slack and her struggling ceased. At first I thought she was dead but then realized that Bai Ze had flooded her mind with calming colors.

This whole time my others screamed at me. They all had varying opinions of the whys and hows but there could only be two sides. Either they thought Dawn should die or that she should not. It was no surprise that Sally, Mary Martha, and Ruth wanted to save Dawn just as Dierdre, Effie, and Marge wanted her dead. The only one that I wasn’t certain which side she’d choose was Jo. In the end she sided with those who wanted Dawn dead, not for the same reasons as they. Jo wanted freedom and we would not be free until Dawn was dead. I did not care how any of them felt. Dawn needed to die. There had never been any other way for this to end.

Sally jumped from our mind toward Dawn’s, to help her escape Bai Ze’s clutches. I felt the familiar rage that always accompanied Sally’s departure. Then there was an audible crack as Bai Ze broke Dawn’s neck. A fight started in my mind meadow. Dierdre blocked the path back because she feared Dawn and Eve’ would use it to invade. The struggle did not cease even when my eighth other crashed into our meadow like a meteor. Debris from the crater obstructed the path and I felt Sally slipping away.

“No!” I screamed and I dropped down from the front to the meadow with all my others. Earthquakes rocked the whole place. It was breaking apart. Tornadoes whipped rocks and plants around, stinging and cutting my skin. I smelled smoke and tasted ash. I tried to gain control as I had managed to do before. Everything went silent, but when I unclenched my eyes I found nothing had changed. It was only muted.

Then I felt a voice. Bai Ze spoke to me. She said, Release them. Be whole.

One by one, my others were pulled from the turbulent meadow that had always been their home. With them, parts of it disappeared until nothing was left. I found myself back at the front, standing before the aquarium. I tried to go back down, to find them, but there was nowhere to go, no one to find. I should have felt hollow, fragmented, lacking, but I didn’t. This new feeling could only mean that I was alone in my mind for the first time in my life.

“Ramillia,” I heard someone saying repeatedly.

Looking up, I found Xia staring at me from in front of the aquarium. “Ramillia, are you all right?” Xia continued, “I felt it happen.” She was shaking her head. “I did not know it was possible. Your splinters are with Bai Ze.”

“You lie!” I screamed. The rage at being alone grew. “You have them. Give them back to me!”

Xia had obviously never felt anything for her splinters. They were just parts of her. She did not understand why being without them upset me so. She never guessed that my blinding bloodlust would overpower her glamor.

Another said my name but it was not aloud. Ramillia, it’s me, Sally. I’m here. We’re all here. The weapon held your blood. Now that mixed blood flows through Bai Ze and she holds us. Sally spoke to me through the tentacle wrapped around my wrist, but not with words. Images and feelings flashed through me and I translated them.

My others, now each occupying her own individual arm, lifted Dawn, now limp, out of the water and laid her at my feet. Sally spoke one more time. Finish what we started and come back here. When the last is neutralized, we will come and you can join us with Bai Ze. Then she pushed feelings of confidence and peace before pulling the suckers off of my wrist.

Bai Ze and my others sank to the bottom of the well and swam out to sea. I could no longer see through my others. They no longer had eyes, except Bai Ze’s. They were hers now. They had no thought for me. I was alone. Bai Ze had everything.

This hit me hard. All that loss compounded and I snapped. Xia reached to console me and I killed her. I would like to say that it was justified or that I did it in a humane manner but the truth is I just killed her. I blinked and when I opened my eyes, everything within a two-meter sphere was covered in her blood, including me. A sound emanated from my throat that was somewhere between a scream and a moan. It was more wounded animal than human.

A few of my men rushed in to help. By then I was flinging myself around in uncontrolled anguish and loss. In my thrashing, I hit Andrew. It felt so good that I hit him again. Each strike was a momentary void of the pain. Sally was not there to take the pain. I was blinded by it. I preferred rage.

Andrew did not fight back but tried to soothe me. A few others tried to help. I broke the arm that tried to hold me. I tore off the hand that attempted to take Dawn’s body. It is easy to destroy a dozen men when they are holding back in concern of hurting you but you have none of the same concern for them. I kicked knees so they bent the wrong way. I caved in chests that got too close.

More of my men got to the entrance. I paced back to Andrew and yanked him up by his blond hair. “Tell them to run. Save your son. Everyone here is going to die.”

He must have heard the truth of my words because he yelled, “Run!” Then I broke his neck. Those who could run, did. I killed the ones who couldn’t. They closed the doors, locked me in. I could have broken the doors, followed my men but I did not. The rage subsided.