Swords v. Cthulhu

The Matter of Aude Natania Barron

It did not take long for the thrill of Aude’s grand scheme to wear off. Once she passed through the high gates of Aachen, disguised as Turpin’s clerk — she had taken the name of Milo — relief quickly found itself replaced by a nagging concern that she would be recognized. Or even worse, that Turpin would betray her.

The bishop had done her a great service in going along with her ruse, but he never would have done so had she not persuaded him with a great and powerful secret. That, and the fact that the Heavenly Mother, the Queen of Heaven, had appeared to her in a dream and told her to keep her brother Olivier from harm. That seemed to carry weight with Turpin.

Aude had always felt a special kinship to the Mother of God, but now all else felt obliterated. Let the men have their Christ the King. She knew the Queen of Heaven spoke to her in ways none of them would ever understand. And now she had a purpose: to save her brother.

Roland was not far ahead of them; she could see the black curls at the nape of his neck, just below his golden helmet. Her betrothed. The man she would spend the rest of her life with, should he return from this bitter war with the Saracen king, Balan. The man she was expected to have children with, to raise a brighter generation, once peace was restored.

But Aude was not concerned that Roland might recognize her. They had spent such a small amount of time together, she was fairly certain he would not know the difference between her and the twenty thousand-odd men in their retinue. He had a habit of finding other things to look at when she was near him, anyway. Theirs was a union of rank and reputation and she was not blind to it, even if she played it so.

No, Roland would not be the challenge. Olivier was.

And Olivier was not only her challenge, but also her reason for leaving courtly life. It was all due to their king, Charlemagne, sending Olivier to fight a giant. A creature known as Fierabras, who was rumored to be the deformed son of Balan himself.

As she brooded over her brother’s doom, the bishop looked sidelong at her, his narrow gaze taking her in once more. If not for those sly, shifting eyes, he might have been a handsome man.

“You don’t look as nervous as I expected,” said Turpin, leaning over and speaking softly. “Perhaps there’s more of your brother in you than I imagined.”

“I am not afraid, not of the fighting,” she said, keeping her voice low. “The Queen of Heaven has guided my steps and kept me safe, even when I doubted.”

“You should consider trying it on, then, fear,” Turpin said, his smile turning the tip of his beard up just slightly.

“I only want to be close enough to Olivier to help him, when I learn how I may do so.”

“Yes, so you said. The Queen of Heaven will be fighting on your side — who can be against you? You, an ugly girl in a monk’s habit.”

She said nothing and continued forward on her unhappy donkey.

The travel was treacherous and long. Aude had never been in the company of so many men, nor been privy to their strange practices. In the evening they sat together under the stars and sang hymns and drank wine. As the night deepened, the hymns turned to songs of a more lascivious nature. Roland was most often the instigator of such ribaldry, much to Aude’s embarrassment. He also drank more than he should, making a fool of himself in front of the other men. When the sun rose, it appeared that the previous night’s madness was forgotten, and Roland, while puffy in the face and ragged of voice, was back to his stalwart self.

One such morning, after four days of traveling down through Burgundy, Roland and Olivier’s voices rose without warning outside Turpin’s tent. Aude awoke from a dream where the Queen of Heaven was showing her something in a pool, a kind of scepter or stick, but she could not see it clearly. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she looked for Turpin, but he was nowhere to be seen, having enjoyed himself overmuch the night before. Aude hid her face at the sound of the tent flap opening.

“Oh, it’s just the clerk,” said Roland, making to leave immediately.

“Wait. Perhaps he knows where Turpin’s gone off to,” Olivier said.

Aude had been prepared for such an occasion, and bowed her head so that the monk’s hood she wore obscured her face even further.

“Why is he flinching like that?” Roland asked Olivier, not quite quietly enough to be polite. “Show us your face, boy.”

“He’s disfigured, if I recall,” Olivier replied. “Twisted by God and cursed to walk scorned by man. But blessed to have been taken in by Bishop Turpin. No matter. Milo, is it?”

Aude nodded and muttered, “Yes, lord.”

“Do you know the whereabouts of your master?” Olivier pressed, poking his head further into the tent.

Aude shook her head. “No, sir.”

“Probably face down in some pretty tits —” Roland began.

Olivier cut him off. “If you see him, Milo, please let us know.”

Aude nodded her head vigorously and waited for them to leave. Roland owed so much to Olivier, and he never could see it. It made her wonder what it would be like when she was Roland’s wife.

She let out a long breath and tried to get a better look around the room for clues to the bishop’s whereabouts.

It was rare that Aude left the tent without Turpin, but when she glanced out the tent flap and noticed the soldiers tearing down and preparing for the next day’s march, she couldn’t help but take a look for herself. Immediately she was taken by just how dirty everything and everyone was. Having spent the majority of her life at court in Vienne, and until recently at Aachen, she was used to an existence that demanded a certain level of cleanliness. Clothing was spotless, faces were clean, manners were polished. Expressions were guarded and conversation was highly regulated.

But here, the men were not just dirty, but scarred and wounded. Their horses were scarred and wounded. They were loud, they spoke in Latin and all dialects of Frankish, and swore in even more tongues.

It was an exhilarating, terrifying world, especially without the guidance of Turpin.

“You’ll give yourself away if you gape at them,” came the bishop’s voice from behind Aude. He smelled of stale ale, and something fouler.

“Roland and my… and Olivier were looking for you,” Aude said under her breath. “They came in on me.”

“Beyond rude,” Turpin replied. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robe, then spat.

“If Olivier had seen me —”

“Your ruse would have been up. Smile, princess, and don’t look so dour. We’re due in Hispania in but a week’s time. And then you may enact whatever plan you’ve devised to dissuade your brother from fighting the giant. You do have a plan, do you not?”

Aude frowned and said nothing.

Turpin said, “Well, then go prepare the asses. We’ve a long road ahead. Use the time to think well upon your plan, so I can be free of my oath to you, you treacherous little mouse.”

The smooth green fields and woods of Burgundy grew steeper faster than Aude could believe. With the sea to the west, it had felt like an endless stretch of emerald, with breezy fields and farms. But within a day, mountains appeared to the south, great and jagged and dark against the horizon.

Turpin indicated that beyond those mountains was Hispania. But before they could reach it, they had to move through the treacherous mountains, not knowing when or where Balan’s forces would meet them.

Aude had imagined the meeting would be a great clashing of swords. She expected at any moment that out of the hills would pour a host of screaming pagans, eyes wide and faces covered with hideous markings. Such were the stories she had heard at court.

So it was with surprise that she heard there was not only a messenger from Balan within the camp, but that he was drinking with Roland and Olivier as they spoke of their plans for the next night. Turpin was hesitant to bring her along when he was summoned, but she insisted, pressing the point that she needed all the intelligence she could gather before confronting her brother.

It was stranger still when the messenger from Balan was not only a woman, but also his daughter, the princess Floripas. Aude imagined she would look much like the rest of the women she knew at court, but was shocked to see the tall, short-haired figure dressed fully in mail. The mail was narrower than a man’s armor, but it would have been difficult to deduce she was a woman by that alone. Only her face and the jewels at her ears gave her away.

The twelve peers greeted Floripas as if she were one of their own, embracing her and kissing her cheeks, even though she wore the colors of her pagan father and her surcoat was embroidered with idolatrous symbols.

“What news does Balan send us, then?” asked Roland, once they had all gathered in the king’s tent. Even though Charlemagne had not yet arrived — he was lagging two days behind his troops — it still felt a great sin to Aude to entertain a woman in his majesty’s quarters, and a pagan at that.

For the moment, Roland held the highest place around the table, and Olivier sat to his right, with Turpin on his left. Beside Olivier was Floripas, and Aude sat back behind the bishop, given simple gruel to eat from a wooden bowl. The other knights who joined them had better seats and a better supper, but it was just as well, because Aude still had a good ear to the conversation at the head of the table.

“My father, King Balan,” Floripas said, her voice tinged with only the slightest accent, “is well. But confident. He has a new regime around him, the one I wrote you about.”

“The yellow monks, you said,” Olivier replied. “The ones from the East.”

“I’m not convinced they are from the East,” Floripas said. “It seemed a little too convenient, especially considering father’s connection to Persia. But the more I’ve delved, the less I trust them. My father is enraptured by their words and promises, and Fierabras…”

“The giant,” Olivier said.

Aude felt her heart in her throat and she shoved down another mouthful of gruel. It had burned in the cauldron but the acrid taste distracted her from her fear.

Floripas frowned and shook her head. “My brother was a fosterling. He was raised in the house of my uncle Monar, a duke of some wealth and standing in the Cordova. I haven’t seen him directly, but we exchange letters, and I have heard the tales.”

“Olivier will best him, I have no doubt,” Turpin said, shoving a large chunk of venison into his mouth. It dribbled down one side of his face and into his bushy beard. “Giant or no.”

“Some things can be worse than giants,” said Floripas. “I shouldn’t be saying as much, and really it is only because of my love and affection for Gui…” She gazed down the table to where Sir Gui of Bourgogne, her paramour, sat with eyes burning with adoration. Theirs was a star-crossed love, indeed. “But the last correspondence I had with my brother Fierabras, he was frightened. He is but a boy, really, but he is intelligent, logical. He spoke of the yellow monks, of their strange hold on him, their rituals. Like you Christians, we are a god-fearing people, and the way he sounded…”

“Surely no monk could frighten a giant,” said Roland, his tone dismissive and unimpressed, as it so often was among those he deemed beneath him.

“But that’s the thing of it,” Floripas said. “My brother was not born a giant. He is cursed, and it is a dark, strange magic. I know the yellow monks are somehow involved. I am ordered to come to you here and throw down our challenge. The danger is greater than you or I can even understand.”

That night, Turpin was late again to the tent. Aude was waiting up for him, as she usually did, reading her psalter and doing her best to open herself to the Heavenly Mother’s understanding.

“Do you believe the Queen of Heaven can abandon us?” Aude asked Turpin, as he ruffled around in his bedroll for something. A bottle, most likely.

The bishop snorted. “That presumes that she gives a shit about us in the first place.”

Aude stared at him, unable to form any cohesive response. “I mean… when I left court. When I bribed you. I felt as if the Queen of Heaven had given me a gift, for once. She had not done so when Charlemagne took Vienne, nor when Roland took my brother. I expected the way to be… clearer.”

“You could talk to your brother, Aude,” Turpin said. He found his bottle, and sampling its contents, belched. “Isn’t that what you came here for? To get time with him alone? To convince him to let Roland do it instead?”

“I thought the Queen of Heaven would give me a sign. But being here, seeing all this… ”

“I warned you, Aude, did I not?”

“How is your lie worse than all these lies?” asked Aude.

“Because God has cursed me beyond those stinking men out there. He has found it fit to burden me with a need for blood, just as He has cursed me with my desires,” Turpin spat. Then he buried his head in his hands. “I can no more stop fighting than I can stop loving him, Aude. And since I cannot, I am yoked to this. This! You and your skulking have put me here in a position subservient to a woman. A woman so ugly she can pass for a scrawny boy — a woman so meek and mild, she can’t formulate a damned plan to speak with her damned brother after being given nothing but time for a fortnight!”

He had never shouted at her so, and Aude shrank back into the corner. When she had confronted Turpin about his affair with Maugris, the enchanter, he had been aloof and surprisingly even-tempered, only taking a little coaxing to allow her to accompany him to Balan’s lands. But now she could see what he had been hiding beneath all along.

Either the bishop did not remember the harsh words he’d paid her the night before, or he pretended the same, for the next morning it was as if nothing had transpired between them. After they had washed and prepared for the day, Turpin indicated that they were expected to ride along the perimeter and survey the sparring ring for the next day, when Olivier would fight against Fierabras.

Reluctantly, Aude saddled her donkey and took up behind Turpin. Roland was at the front, addressing everyone in his strong, high voice, while the rest of the peers took up their ranks. Floripas had left at some point in the night, and Aude tried not to think what might have caused Gui to smile so broadly in spite of the austere news and impending doom of their beloved Olivier. She blushed in spite of herself, though.

The scarlet tents of Balan’s army were visible even without much in the way of travel. They had taken up on the opposite bank of the Deva River, their neat tents more square than the rounder sort favored by Charlemagne and his paladins. Aude thought they looked like blood streaking across the foothills.

“You don’t speak much,” said a familiar voice behind her. It was her brother, Olivier, resplendent in his armor and smiling in the cool morning air.

Aude glanced up at him, just out of the corner of her cowl. “No, sir.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad that Turpin has someone to watch out for him. Though I daresay you probably didn’t get what you signed up for,” Olivier said with a laugh.

That laugh. It took her a great deal of resolve to focus on the task at hand and not reveal herself to him.

“You’re not afraid?” she asked him, keeping her voice as low as possible. “About tomorrow?”

Olivier glanced behind him, and then looked forward, his shoulders falling. Aude knew what that meant. He was indeed afraid, but he had no desire to admit such shameful thoughts.

“I will do what my king requests of me,” he said at last. “Good day to you, Milo. And thank you again for your service to Turpin. I hope I see you back at court when we are all better rested and once again in the world of sense.”

Turpin did not return the next night, and after two hours of unanswered prayers Aude rose to leave the tent and look at the stars. She was cold and afraid, and the words of Floripas lingered with her. She envisioned little yellow monks hoisting bloody spears, goading forward a giant that was not always a giant.

It was unusually still in the camp. Most nights the ribaldry was palpable in the air. But perhaps now that the paladins and warriors had reached their goal, they were simply preparing in ways she could not imagine. There would be a great battle of brawn on the morn, a champion on each side of the Deva River, and only one could be victorious.

The thought of her brother dying made her cut short her muttering prayers. She rifled through Turpin’s things nervously, hoping he wouldn’t return drunk and irate, and then she finally came across what she was looking for: a small box filled with clay bottles. Poison. Turpin claimed it was a coward’s weapon, and that he only used it to coat the mace he fought with. But Aude knew if she was going to kill someone, she couldn’t do it with steel.

She took a small vessel with a mushroom pressed into the clay and tucked it into the folds of her habit before stealing out into the night.

Aude walked silently through the shadows, toward Olivier’s tent. She wanted one last look at him before she committed to this madness. She pressed her eye to the gap in the flap of his tent… and gasped.

Her brother sprawled across the bare chest of a tall woman. It was a tableau she never could have imagined. But there Olivier was, naked to the skin, one hand still curled around the woman’s ample breast. His lashes were dark against his cheeks, and there was much more hair upon him than the last time Aude had seen him out of his armor. The dying embers of the brazier lit their skin every now and again, but they slept in the sated way of lovers… or so she supposed.

Part of her was glad that her brother was not the saint she imagined him to be. It had been a year since Charlemagne’s invasion of Vienne, and a long while since the siblings had had time to speak to each other of their loves and desires. Roland always needed Olivier more than she did, it seemed.

It was not without tears that Aude pulled herself away from her brother’s tent and began the slow progress in the dark toward the Saracen camp, knowing her only chance was to confront the giant. His tent would be easy to locate, since it was apparently the largest of all, and it would not take her long to ford the river and then blend in among their people. She kept as quiet as a ghost, and no sentry nor hound detected her presence as she approached.

Men moved about between the tents, singing and talking in a strange language she could not recognize. But she couldn’t spend all her time dawdling and wondering after their speech. The sun would be rising soon enough, and her brother’s fate was still in her hands.

Aude made steady progress, winding her way through the camp. Unlike the haphazard layout on the other side of the river, the Saracen camp had a precise grid plan, with each of their square structures placed in neat rows of nine. The result was long alleyways between the tents, which helped Aude considerably in navigating her way without drawing attention. Moving fast, she used the shadows to her advantage, crouching and glancing around corners before proceeding.

Fierabras’s tent was taller than the rest, but it was guarded at the front by two yellow-robed monks, their heads down. Aude doubted she could get past them without causing a commotion.

She felt around the side of the tent for any weaknesses in the canvas, and found a loose lace. Swallowing her fear, Aude pulled the fabric open just enough to see inside.

The tent was dimly lit, but empty. No giant. Not even giant-sized furniture or clothing or armor. The room was decorated in a foreign fashion, to be certain, but there was nothing gargantuan about it.

Relief flooded her body, and she almost collapsed in tears. It was all a ruse, and she would not have to endure the loss of her brother.

That hope evaporated, though, when she felt a hand clamp over her mouth and the pressure of a knife at her back.

“Be silent,” said a harsh whisper in her ear, in accented Latin, “and they won’t kill you.”

Aude didn’t have time to realize just how curious that statement was until she was pulled into another tent, two rows over, and turned around. She found herself staring at a young man, perhaps no older than her thirteen years. He would be handsome someday, perhaps, but he was mostly teeth and tousled hair. There was a familiar look to his face though, especially about the cheeks.

In the struggle, her hood had fallen off. She had cut her hair to her shoulders and tied it back, but not gone so far as to tonsure herself. While Turpin may have found her far from feminine, the look in the young boy’s eyes gave her reason to doubt she had convinced him.

“You’re not a monk,” he said, and he sounded disappointed. Then he grimaced. “You’re… you’re a girl.”

She got a better look at him and at last she could place his face. Floripas. This must be her brother, Fierabras. “Well, you’re no giant,” she said, summoning all her strength to get the words out. She was still shaking.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Fierabras said, folding his arms across his chest like a petulant child.

“Perhaps not,” said Aude. “Little does, these days.”

“They told me you’d be skulking around. The yellow monks. But… you’re not what you’re supposed to be. What, the Franks are so starved for clergy they’re allowing women in?”

“No, I came here disguised.”

“It’s not a very good disguise.”

“No, I suppose not. But I had a good accomplice. Mostly,” Aude said. “I escaped Aachen in order to keep an eye on my brother. You might know his name.”

Fierabras did not miss a mark. “You’re Aude of Vienne, then. Roland’s betrothed.”

He even said her name correctly, switching for a moment to Frankish.

She nodded.

The recognition of her status changed him utterly, and he took a deep breath, shaking his shaggy head. The more Aude looked upon him, the more tired he appeared. The dim light of the tent cast even deeper shadows on his face, perhaps, but there was a weariness there far beyond his years.

“And you’re Fierabras. The giant,” Aude said.

“Not right now, I’m not,” Fierabras said.

“What do you mean by that?”

He produced a wooden stool and she sat.

Fierabras sat on another stool and took her hands in his, and to her surprise Aude did not recoil. His fingers were warm, slightly callused. He wore two rings, both elegantly wrought and worked in gold. Tired though he was, he must be just as frightened as she.

“They worship a god… a strange god. These yellow priests, the ones that guard my father Balan. Their deity has no name, or else they tell us his name cannot be spoken. My father has been utterly bewitched by them.”

“But what has this got to do with you?” Aude asked. Her stomach felt slightly queasy, and she was having a hard time concentrating on his eyes without blushing.

“The yellow priests, they make me change in here. The great tent is a decoy, so if assassins come in the night they find it empty of the monster,” he said. “They keep me in here and make me use that.” He pointed to a leaden box by the door. “Once the sun rises, I cannot exit the tent until I am changed. There is a scepter in there, topped with an ancient paw from some beast of old. I do not know. They say I am the right age. The child of a king, and… virgin. And when I take the scepter, I change, become the monster. I am lost to rage and a dark fury, as if I can see into the eye of all creation and it’s just a black, roiling void of chaos.”

“And your father approves of this torture?”

“I assume so, but I do not know. I haven’t seen him in months. Floripas thinks he may be ill, or ailing, but the priests keep him from us. Do you know how many men I’ve killed?” Fierabras’s eyes filled with tears.

“I’m sorry. I want to help. I do not want my brother to number among your casualties.”

“What could you possibly do?” asked Fierabras.

“The Queen of Heaven came to me in a dream,” Aude said, feeling the story spill out of her before she could stop it. “I was so afraid when I heard that Olivier was going to fight you, but She spoke to me so loudly and so clearly — She told me I was to find a way to convince Turpin to take me, and I did. She said I would find the heart of the poison, and I thought that was quite literal, but now I see it’s you. You are at the heart of this poison.”

“I cannot abide by your gods,” Fierabras said.

“But where have yours led you? To these priests who corrupt your body and turn you murderous?”

The young man shook his head, letting go of Aude’s hands. “I want to be free of this.”

“I think I know how I can help,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I am trapped here.”

“Stand up.”

Fierabras did as she asked, and they stood eye to eye. Aude untied the rough monk’s habit she had worn for weeks, and let it fall to the ground. She revealed to Fierabras her naked body, thin and weak as it was, and not yet made into that of a woman. Turpin was right. She looked like a boy.

Outside, the sound of soldiers mustering could be heard. Aude noticed the light in the tent brightening ever so slightly. The sun would rise soon.

“My father was Bertrand de Vienne, a king. I never met him, but was raised by my uncle Girart at court. Charlemagne fought for seven years against Girart, until they were reconciled and joined together,” Aude said in a clear voice. The heat of her blushing turned her skin red, but in the gloom of the tent it was unlikely Fierabras could see. “I am a child of a king, and I am pure. I can take the scepter in the morning, and you can escape to our camp in the confusion, dressed as a monk. Find Bishop Turpin, and give him this.” She took the ring of betrothal from her finger and gave it to Fierabras, who accepted it with trembling hands.

“But what if they find you out?” asked Fierabras. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I am asking for the only chance I can find to save my brother, the path my Queen of Heaven has placed before me.”

Aude put her hands on either side of Fierabras’s face, and felt his tears stream over her fingers. Then he kissed her gently on the forehead and took off his own rings to give to her.

“I will meet you back at the Frankish camp when this is all over.”

“Aude… ”

From outside the tent they heard someone address the prince.

“Go, before they find both of us in here.”

Then he said, “I’m so sorry.”

Aude trembled as she watched Fierabras dress in the monk’s habit and then slip out the back, glancing one more time at her before vanishing.

Horns sounded in the distance. Olivier’s horn. There was just one more thing to do.

The scepter was smaller than she had imagined, barely the length of her forearm, and encased in a coffin-like leaden container. The rod was made of a dark metal, the sides rough, as if it had been scraped into being from a larger piece of ore. Upon the end was, as Fierabras had said, a shriveled hand. More like a claw.

A voice at the door commanded something in a language Aude didn’t understand, and in her fear she reached out and grasped the scepter. As she did, it grasped her back.

Aude had expected a sensation of growing, but it was far from that. The little talons of the scepter dug deep into her hand, piercing through skin and wiggling in between her bones. The pain traveled up her arms like liquid ice in her veins, stopping just short of her heart.

Then she was ripped in half. Part of her swelled and grew and filled with fury, she could sense that on the edge of her mind, almost as if her being had transformed into a second melody to the song of her soul. But there was no true consciousness there, just an awareness of its rage and fury. The giant.

Her mind, her self as she knew it, was pulled down into a separate plane of existence. This raw, black world smelled of loam and mold — the roiling chaos that Fierabras spoke of with such fear. If she concentrated hard enough, she could see through the mist a gathering of shadows, the one that was now her body and the approaching army of the Franks. And Olivier, too. His sword, Hauteclere, glittered brightest of all. For only a moment, though, before the blackness thickened.

Olivier had not been prepared for such a sight, in spite of Floripas’s warning. Upon seeing the giant, he wished that Roland had been selected for this task, and then hated himself for such a thought. Roland had the stomach for this sort of thing, for these hulking beasts and horrors out of Revelation.

A giant it was, surrounded by yellow-accoutered monks, all humming in a low chant. It rose close to twelve feet high, with sloping shoulders covered in boil-covered skin, pock-marked, and the color of curdled milk. From its mouth emitted an unholy stench; Olivier found his eyes watering through his visor. Sulfur, perhaps. This giant who was once Fierabras had but one eye, black and pupil-less, and Olivier could never tell where it was looking. He suspected that it got on better by scent than by sight, anyway, the way it sniffed the air with its huge muzzle, somewhat more like a pig’s snout than a man’s face. Coarse brown hair covered its body, across its oddly sunken chest and down its vast, muscle-corded arms. For all its mass, it still moved with surprising agility.

Olivier was not a born warrior; unlike Roland, who was at his happiest when he was hilt-deep in a Saracen. For Olivier, fighting required intense focus. Every step he had to think. And he had never been faced with such an adversary, let alone one ringed by nefarious, pagan priests. The more they chanted, the more difficult it was for Olivier to concentrate.

Olivier. She could sense him now. Even brighter than Hauteclere. Because she was hurting him — or the beast her body had become was — and he was hurting her. With every blow, the blackness in which she found herself shuddered, and for a moment she could see through.

It would pass. It would have to pass. She had to find the source of the rage, and save Olivier. She could already smell his blood.

Aude was fumbling through her mind in the roiling darkness when she sensed someone else. One of the yellow monks. He materialized before her like a candle in the shadowed void. Part of Aude knew that such brightness ought to be a relief, but though it was golden yellow, there was an off-ness to its hue that made her afraid. It was more frightening than the darkness.

“You are not the prince,” said the yellow monk, though the voice was in her head. “How dare you interrupt the ritual.”

“Where are we?” she asked.

“In the eye of the beast. A world within a world. How came you to this mystery?” he asked.

Aude knew the monk’s presence meant danger, but it also meant something else: an ebb and flow. She was not trapped as she had imagined. If they had both entered the eye of the giant, as he said, she could escape it. She could travel.

“I came here of my own volition,” she said. “I am here to save my brother.”

“Your brother is nothing but vermin to the Nameless,” said the yellow monk.

“But the Queen of Heaven has sent me, and given me purpose,” Aude said.

In that moment she conjured up the image of the Queen of Heaven as she had always imagined her. Not the mild mother to Christ, but the reigning and rightful queen, the bride of God Himself. Terrible and bright, her eyes kindled with holy fire and her hair streaming behind her, a great crown on her head made of the firmament. Part of Aude understood in that moment that She was greater than any mortal could comprehend, that She was older and more powerful and more terrifying. That all of Aude’s own prayers had gone deeper and farther than she had ever imagined.

The churning darkness around her seemed closer to that version of the Queen of Heaven, the one she was understanding now for the first time.

“I see,” said the yellow monk, and then he dissipated.

Where he stood was a patch of light. Aude, what was left of her, followed it. As she moved, it moved. One step, another. The strange yellow light illuminated little as it bobbed ahead. But it was better than being trapped in the dark.

There was blood in his eyes. Olivier lost track of time, of his many parries and blows, of how many times he had fallen. But the beast, this giant named Fierabras, did not relent. He could wound it, draw its blood, but only water came out of its wounds. And that fetid stench. And sorrow and blackness. There were others watching — Charlemagne himself had arrived, eager for the spectacle, and Roland besides, and Turpin and the other peers — but where?

Aude came upon two figures then, in this world between worlds. One had the form of a woman, but in her face shone a thousand eyes, and from her swollen belly grew a thousand legs; a baby goat suckled at her breast. The other was a king, ensconced in a pillar of yellow flame. Behind him there was more to behold, tendrils reaching out like the arms of a starfish, hungry and wanting.

“You have come into his domain, child,” the woman with a thousand eyes said.

Aude heard her voice and remembered it. The Heavenly Mother. Her Queen of Heaven.

“I followed your path,” Aude said, her voice no more than thought in the void.

The flaming king flickered and expanded, then retreated again to the same size as the woman. “You have interrupted.”

“I saved a boy who was afraid,” Aude said. “I am here to help my brother.”

Fear was no longer something she was capable of, her body still transformed and infused with rage. She held onto that rage, even through the dark void between her soul and her flesh. She could smell the blood, her brother’s blood.

“Death is coming on the wings of war,” said the crowned pillar of fire. “You may spare the life of your brother, but it does not come without a price.”

The monster’s blow came so fast — so unpredictable and wild — that Olivier did not have time to react. And he was too tired, even if he had wanted to make a show of it. How did Roland manage this, day in, day out, always pitted against the greatest and the grandest warriors?

Olivier felt certain that his name would not be remembered in any song, an unremarkable warrior beaten to a bloody pulp, while fat, jaundiced king Balan looked on and Charlemagne grunted in disgust into his beard.

He struck the ground and was lost.

Aude gasped to see the figure of her brother appear, floating before the yellow figure in the fire. The king had no face, but he was smiling.

“I will spare him, but you must give me a boon,” he said.

The Queen of Heaven agreed, though she said no words.

“I will do anything,” Aude said.

In this darkened realm, Aude saw the dripping blood on her brother’s brow, sensed the pain. But the rage did not go away. The beast on the other side of her mind was closing in to destroy this brilliant man, at all costs.

“You are bound to the man Roland,” said the burning king, as if discovering a great secret. “You are promised to him. Pledge your bond to me, and link your life to his, and I will give you power over the beast.”

“And I will take you, when the time comes,” said the Queen of Heaven. “And you will rise at my side, a suckling child among the thousand eyes.”

Aude hesitated. Roland was the greatest of all the peers, but he was forever in the path of death. Such a pact would tie her forever to his fate. And the heaven she imagined… Well, none of that was worth it if Olivier lay dead by her hand.

She would be consigned to a fate of madness, of eternal vigilance. Olivier would live.

“What must I do?” asked Aude.

The Queen of Heaven turned her eyes upward. “You need only to say the words. You know them. You have always known them.”

The vision of Olivier intensified, and Aude saw his eyes see her and know her. But he was looking up into the face of the giant, and that was madness.

The beast stopped mid-blow and Olivier fled back from the dream of doom. Above him the beast fell back, raising its shaggy head to the skies. It said something incomprehensible, and seemed to gasp and cry, and then: “I relent! I give myself to the Heavenly Mother, and bind myself and my betrothed to the Nameless. I relent.”

Then it fell.

Aude awoke to the familiar sound of Turpin clearing his throat. She reached up, and he grabbed her hand.

“I saw her. I saw the Queen of Heaven,” said Aude.

“You need to sleep.”

Aude was changed. There was another thing inside of her. A promise that burned like acid. That would be there until it was released when, upon the field at Roncevaux, Roland would be cleaved into two. She saw it. She knew it.

“Your brother would like to see you,” Turpin said.

“Does he know?”

“Yes, Fierabras told me. We managed to spirit away… the creature… you… your… whatever it was.” He was sweating more than usual. His voice sounded broken, afraid.

“Then he is safe. Good,” said Aude.

“Balan’s forces retreated as soon as the giant fell, but his son and daughter are among us now. Fierabras says he has been healed of the affliction, the yellow priests have vanished, and he has dedicated himself to the Mother of God and Christ Almighty.”

Her body was once again her own. Bruised and tattered, her skin felt boiled. But it was still hers. “The scepter?”

“Fierabras has kept it. He says it no longer works.”

“You knew?”

“I suspected. I have made my blood oaths too, Aude.”

Every breath burned, but it was her own pain. Her own lungs. The promise she had given still seared at her, but she suspected in time she would become accustomed to it.

Aude looked up at the ceiling, admiring the bright paint. Her old room. The room she had left as a meek child. Now she was not only a woman, but also a changed creature. Forever bound to Roland in a way he would not understand.

“Aude… what happened?”

“I told you. The Queen of Heaven saved me, and I saved my brother. And you saved me too. Go home. Take Maugris in your arms and tell him you love him, and forget about me.”

“Aude… ”

“Thank you, Turpin. I’d like to sleep now. For quite a while, I think.”

And she closed her eyes, opening them in her dreams to a thousand more.