The Heart of the World

3. The Strange Queen

Chapter 3

The Strange Queen

Sabíana, the beautiful queen of that faraway kingdom that Khaidu had already forgotten the name of, paced back and forth in the small yurt. A caged animal in everything but appearance. Every three or four rounds, she stopped by the flap, seeming to assess the possibility of leaving the yurt and testing Khaidu’s binding.

Khaidu ignored her. She was too busy pushing her thumbs into the full muscle of her thighs. She couldn’t even feel the bone that usually jutted out through sickly-thin skin.

“Now that you know I am not just an eagle,” said Sabíana, “free me from that hold you placed on me!”

Khaidu shook her head, agog at the feel of her body, whole.

“I order you to release me!”

Khaidu laughed. “Command all you like. Won’t do you any good. I have no idea how to undo the binding. I’ve never read the story where the eagle comes to life as a person and asks to be released. Have you?”

“It’s not enough that I saved you from that brute who attacked you?”

“You’re bound to me,” said Khaidu, smiling at the thought. “You had no choice in the matter.”

Sabíana narrowed her eyes, her words frosty, “Even if you did know how to, you still wouldn’t release me. Am I right?”

“Look at me!” Khaidu wiggled her toes and nearly exploded in laughter. “I am whole again.”

Sabíana stopped pacing.

“Child, don’t you realize…”

“What?”

The lady’s fury seemed to soften—a change from red to pink in her cheeks. She looked at Khaidu with pity.

“No, you couldn’t possibly know. You’re not Vasylli. I can walk the nether-region of dream and weave images around me. I can also invite others into the images. In Vasyllia, I did it to soften the despair of those who lost everything. It’s…well, almost second nature by now, really.”

Khaidu’s heart fell. She should have known it was too good to be true.

“You mean that this body…it’s an illusion?” Khaidu asked, not even recognizing her own voice. “But how? Is it somehow connected to your transformation?”

Sabíana’s eyes were full of remembered pain. “No. It’s an old gift that was given to me.”

“So… I’ll wake up as a cripple again. But at least…Even one night…” Khaidu felt the self-pity creeping in on cat-like feet. It enraged her. “What could you possibly understand about it? You who are so perfect.”

Sabíana flushed violently.

“I do understand…” Sabíana tried to continue, but it was visibly difficult. “I was on my way to die.”

Khaidu was astounded by the strangeness of her. Everything about the lady spoke of wealth and health and beauty and comfort and joy. What business had she to speak of dying before her time? She was not a slithering half-broken thing.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Khaidu said.

“What are you, some Gumiren runt, that you speak to the Darina of the Three Lands thus?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, yes. I am Gumira. Didn’t you know? And we are nowhere near your Three Lands.”

That shocked the lady.

“Have I come so far then? Where is this place?”

“In the heart of the Steppelands, lady. My name is Khaidu. I am daughter to Mamai jani-Beg.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Mamai’s is the lost horse-clan of the Gumiren. She leads all the ones who did not follow the Dark Father into the West. I think you’ve met our cousins who did follow him.”

Realization softened the lady’s eyes. She sank to the bare ground, her skirts like ripples of water around her. She sat there, thinking, for a long time.

“I am just as broken in body as you are, Khaidu,” she said, and even the pitch of her voice was lower, as if burdened by the weight of the truth. “You at least have strong arms. I cannot even move a finger. What you see is not me, no more than your wholeness is real. In Vasyllia, I am an animated corpse.”

Khaidu felt herself going red and hot with shame. She did not answer.

Pain crossed the lady’s face as vividly as though someone had painted it with a brush. “I chose to take the form of the eagle. I could not bear the pain anymore.”

Khaidu intuited something, and it made her angry. “Wait… Are you saying that you left your body behind willingly? That the eagle form is a new set of clothes for your spirit?”

Sabíana nodded.

“You coward!”

Sabíana snapped out of her thoughts, surprise obvious in her face.

“Would you not do the same, if you had the chance?”

Khaidu’s nails bit into her palms, and her jaw ached with the clenching. “If? We mere mortals do not have the chance. We must live in our broken bodies. We must submit to taunts and kicks and jabs. But you! You ruled a nation. You had the responsibility of thousands under your care. A little discomfort, and you lose all patience and become a bird. Flee the golden cage. What about your people? What about the sacred duty of a queen? You are disgusting!”

“i***t,” whispered Sabíana, her face white with fury. “You have no idea what I suffered.”

Khaidu was so angry that she was unable to continue speaking. She turned over, wrapped herself in her furs, and wiggled her toes again until they cramped. Even such a cramp was pleasant compared to the usual deadness. The lady said no more, and Khaidu soon fell asleep.

When she woke, she was her broken self again.