Chapter Seventy-Six. The Mural.
Seventy-Six
The Mural.
I step forward though I’m not ordered to do so, and just as I breach the threshold, I look back at my guard.
He shakes his head. “No, missus. I am not allowed in there…” He lowers his voice. “Do be careful.”
Under the brim of his cap, he seems honestly concerned about me, and he stays where he is as the guards in red shut me in alone.
As the golden doors are locked, I turn back around, and get my breath caught anew.
The ceremonial hall is twice as long as the colonnade I walked down and easily four times as wide.
With a ceiling that surely must touch the sky, and twin rows of towering columns to support the yawning expanse above, the space is everything I pictured a royal court to be.
Yet that’s not what captures my attention.
On either side of the columns that delineate the aisle down the center, there is a mounted army of statues standing at the ready, the uniformed warriors fully weaponed and astride horses that stand hands taller than myself.
“The warrior queen…” I whisper as I walk over to one.
The detail of the carving is astonishing, down to the buckles on the boots and the stirrups, the mane of the horse, the fierce facial expression of the soldier … it’s all so life-like, I could swear they’re breathing.
I wander down the lineup. There must be … a thousand of them. Set nose to tail, with four deep on each side, they face downward toward an ornate raised platform, and as I reemerge in the processional aisle, I focus on what’s ahead.
The bejeweled throne sits up high on the dais, gleaming gold and sparkling with gems, and I cannot comprehend any of it.
My eyes have never seen anything like this; even the whispered stories and exaggerated gossip from Prosperitus don’t come anywhere close to the reality of the royal court I’m in, the statues I’m surrounded by …
the magnificent seat of authority down there.
The amount of wealth needed to build and sustain this is beyond my grasp, and so too is the power required to hold on to it all—
Something trickles into my consciousness, and my eyes go past the throne, to the semi-circular walling behind it.
The bowed expanse is painted with some kind of mural, and even as my instincts prickle, I know I’m not here to look at the art, or get lost in the majesty. I need to get to Merc and free us both.
Perhaps that’s how the soldier dies? In the course of the rescue?
“Hello?” I call out.
When I get no reply except the echoing of my own voice, I limp down for the throne, and think of the crown Mr. Lewis gave me. Assuming they’ve gone through my pack, they must have found the box—and maybe my journey is finished? If they turned that circlet of black crystals in to the queen?
As I pass by the stone warriors, I note once again how their faces are all different, just like the female statues in the hall.
And it’s as I continue along, looking at each passing row of fighters, that I have the unmistakable sense that I’m being watched.
Glancing up, I look to the ceiling, and then down to the floor …
and finally to the side. Through the forest of static men and horses, I see a set of doors. And another. And another.
Ah, so this is what’s on the other side of all those guarded portals that I counted as we came down the colonnade.
I keep going, putting my hand in my pocket, palming the crystal knife, and telling myself that of course I feel as though I’m being monitored. There are thousands of “eyes” upon me.
Except I know it’s something else.
When I eventually reach the dais, I stand before the throne and trace the gemstones with my eyes as my mind spins with all manner of what-nexts—
Until my attention is abruptly caught by something else.
“What even is this,” I murmur. “This cannot be…”
Frowning, I go around behind the throne and inspect a mural that was painted on the curved wall. At first, there’s almost too much to take in, but as I pace back and forth along the images … I realize that a story is depicted, and the narrative starts on the left.
I go over to where it all begins. There’s a gleaming white metropolis, set close to a brilliant blue ocean, and surrounded by verdant fields full of flowers.
The next frame is of what must be this hall, and there are people lined up with their arms outstretched …
toward a woman in royal regalia who sits upon—
“That throne,” I say aloud as I glance back at the ornate chair.
The Queen bears a heavy red and gold crown on her head, and she is addressing her citizenry, one arm outstretched with a bejeweled staff, the other settled in her lap, bearing an orb.
She is young and very beautiful, with deeply colored skin and black hair, both of which are set off by her red robes, and the jewels that hang from her neck and her wrists.
She’s smiling serenely, as if she knows well her position and wields her authority with grace and fairness, as a mother would watch over her family.
But the next compartment of images is dire. There’s darkness in this hall, everything empty, the Queen and her people gone.
“A tragedy.” I keep my voice at a whisper as I reach up and run my fingers over this part of the painted scene. “Never to be the same again.”
Except it doesn’t detail anything about what happened.
I continue along, and see the Queen taking to her quarters, and crops that fail, and some kind of massacre happening in a wooded glen.
Though the city’s life seems to continue, none of it is the same.
Time passes, as suggested by a pinwheel of seasons, the spring, summer, fall, and winter all represented with the Queen’s closed door in a palace suggesting she stays hidden.
And then the next panel is curious. We’re once again in this great hall, with an army of statues as they appear now, the only difference being that there is a single figure standing down by the throne—
I stumble back.
There’s a squeak as I hit the dais and bump the back legs of the heavy throne, knocking it out of its precise alignment on the podium. Dimly, I rub my shoulder from the impact and cannot take my eyes off the painting before me.
Surely this cannot be true. And yet my eyes do not lie.
There is the great hall, and the whole of the stone army, and the vacant throne. The figure, though, tucked away in the back … behind the throne … the one that is facing away from the viewer because the person is looking at the mural …
Is a red-cloaked woman with long, colorless hair.
I put my hand up to the crown of my head, and bring some of the waves that fall past my shoulders forward. And then I glance down at the felt skirt that I have fastened around my neck.
The depiction of me. As I appear right now.
Numbly, I look to the final image that has been painted.
The Queen is once again seated on her throne, with her citizenry rejoicing, the statues removed from the hall, the sun shining outside on crops that thrive.
I look back at the depiction of the red-cloaked figure, then I rush over to the left and start the sequence all over again, lingering at the dark moment and then comparing it with the final square in the sequence.
Something changes between the two compositions, and not just with the disappearance of the Queen and her people and the appearance of the army of statues. I don’t know what, though.
I have to go through the narrative a number of times before I spot the difference between the first painting of the Queen and the one where the red-cloaked figure is standing … right where I am standing, now.
Stumbling around, I circle in front of the throne, and look up to the high back of the golden chair, following the curlicues in the metal, and the winking, twinkling faces of the gems—
To the gaping hole at the apex of the top.
My eyes shoot back to the mural, and I see that what rests upon the Queen’s head is not a crown with a massive ruby, but rather a golden crown … in front of a ruby set into the flourished top of the throne she sits on.
A noise catches my attention.
Abruptly, I crane my head back so that I can look up, way up.
Above the mural, nearly at the top of the wall where it meets the ceiling, there’s an oculus. The aperture is covered with a mesh curtain, and the subtle undulations in the metal links give it away.
“You, up there,” I call out. “I see you.”
The curtain stills. But whoever is behind it remains. I can see their outline as a shadow on the far side of the mesh.
A strange calmness goes through me. “You are the Queen … who sees no one.”
When there’s no reply, I put my hands up, as if I can stop her from disappearing. “I need to talk to you! I come with an urgent appeal! Please, hear me, I have your crown—”
The shape turns as if to depart, their profile striking a bold carve-out behind the mesh.
“Wait!” I yell desperately. “Wait…”
I look at the throne. Then the mural.
“I know what you’re missing,” I hear myself holler.
Pointing to the empty setting among all the gems, I cast my eyes back up at the Queen and talk fast. “I know where your ruby is! And I can return it to you!”