Writers of the Future, Volume 28 by L. Ron Hubbard Read Free Book Online

queen or incriminate Haigh, so he shut the tiny hole of his mouth as much as possible.
    “I wish you to remove all the contents of every. . . cavity. Now.”
    “But . . .”
    “But ? ” She took another step forward. “Do you have any idea what that cretin stole from me ? ” Not waiting for a response, she continued, “When I gave birth to my second child, he was perfect and wonderful, destined to serve my daughter in a ranking position when it came time to rule. But my son sickened quickly with disease, his body becoming a frail husk, him unable to even turn his own head to suckle and swallow.
    “Haigh promised he could save him.”
    Lan glanced over at Jaddi, but she wasn’t looking at him, her eyes instead upon the floor and the thin line of her mouth turned down as when she was upset. His breathing was steady, from having a woven body and a throat that could never constrict, but his mind was racing despite the dull ever-present ache.
    “And did he ? ” asked Lan, when it became obvious that was what Yula wished.
    She stepped back a pace and her voice dropped some of its fierceness. “He took my son from his body, coercing my child into a trinket. A filthy bauble, not even fit for my child to play with, let alone live in. And then had the gall to tell me he could put my son into another’s body, if a boy of his age was brought to him.
    “Naturally, I refused. How could I, though I am a queen, ever force that pain on another mother ? So, instead I banished him, thinking he’d given me the correct trinket he’d placed my son into. I treasured it, sang to it, as if it held my son’s soul, only to find it was empty when we finally found a boy who had a body, but no soul to use it.”
    “And you think I have it now ? ”
    “When my guards arrived, they found him already dead and most everything ruined, so I can only assume he anticipated that I would discover his betrayal and hid my son in you.”
    Jaddi gave a strangled cry from behind Yula. “You don’t mean . . . he couldn’t have!” She covered her mouth, swallowing whatever else she was thinking and Lan saw her shoulders shake. He wanted to comfort her, though he didn’t know how he could as he knew what Yula said to be a dreaded truth he’d not wanted to admit to before. It was easier to think Haigh had left them unwillingly than of his own accord.
    Yula glanced from Jaddi to Lan, then back again. “So, I guess that makes a sort of sense. I’d probably not have let him off as easy as he let himself.”
    Lan glowered at the side of the queen’s head, hating how she could dismiss his death as the act of a coward. “You think he was scared of what you would do to him ? ”
    “I know he was,” said Yula, casting a dangerous eye at him. “He was my Apothecary long before he’d brought a bunch of crappy intertwined baskets to life.”
    He bowed his head, a part of him whispering that Haigh really had no other reason but fear to do as he’d done. Lan shook the thought away, refusing to dwell upon it. “Fine, you can have your son back.”
    Behind Yula, Jaddi passed Lan a horrified expression through her tears. “Don’t . . . Lan. He—”
    One of the guards moved to drag Jaddi from the room. She gasped, but the frightened look in her eyes didn’t speak of pain.
    “Stop . . . just leave her alone. Just leave us all alone.” The guard stopped and glanced to Yula, who nodded tightly. Lan asked, “So what was he in ? ”
    “We don’t know,” said Yula, “But I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it.”
    Lan doubted that, not if she’d been singing to an empty bauble for over fifteen years before this, but he began to unlatch a lid (chest, leftmost column, first). Jaddi suddenly became calm in the guard’s grasp, watching with a closed expression.
    He put the vials of butterfly innards upon the workbench and began on the next latch as Yula stared in shock. Then basket, after basket he unlatched and opened and placed its contents next to