The Show Must Go On (2/2)

“Assuming I believe that... and that’s a big IF, then why would they want me gone? I made it clear I would be stepping down in a decade, at most,” Celia’s armor clattered as she folded its arms, cannon over gauntlet. “All they would have to do is wait.”

“And by that time, the citizens of Cylvania would be used to living in a Republic, with rulers who aren’t born to it. Cecelia Ragandor, your foes are the nobles who stand to lose the most power from your governmental shift. And what’s worse, they fear the one power you have over them that they cannot match.”

“Immortality?” Celia snorted. “It comes with its own problems.”

“No. Legitimacy. You, Cecelia Ragandor, are Cecilia Ragandor. The only legitimately recognized daughter of the last king.”

Thomasi took a long breath.

Fluffbear and Threadbare looked at each other, confused.

“Well you sly devil...” Anne said, sitting bolt upright and looking at the Phantom with admiration.

“Ah... dat be how it is,” Zuula said. “Dey got dere own heir, den?”

“If they don’t, then they’re missing a beat,” said the Phantom. “It’s probably what they’re using to sell the rebellion. The hidden heir, the true king, the one of prophecy to cast down the usurpers... makes for a very good story, don’t you think? It doesn’t even have to be true, just plausible. After all, Melos was a mad king, who’s to say he didn’t have a mad affair at some point?”

Threadbare watched Celia freeze, still and shocked.

“I never wanted any part of his name. Or his title,” she whispered, barely audible over the hum and clunk and chugging of her armor’s boiler and engine.

“You were not raised as nobility, my dear,” the Phantom said. “A title is not something you want; it is something you have and must deal with. It is both a responsibility and a privilege, and it can never truly be taken save by someone higher. And there is no one higher, not in your land.”

“I see,” said Threadbare. “Was there anything else to discuss, or can we go now?”

“What?” The Phantom stirred and glanced over to him.

“Well, you wanted to have a talk with us. We’ve had a good one, and I’m very grateful. But we have some enemies to fight now, and they’re in the middle of doing some things, if what I’ve heard from home is correct. So we should really go and help our friends stop them.”

“There is one more thing. An offer for you, Cecelia,” he said, turning his burning gaze on her once more. “Alliance. Aid. Support. Everything I, and by extension Belltollia, can give to help you quell this rebellion, deal with your foes, and even keep your Republic a Republic if you decline to take the throne.”

Celia leaned forward, putting her armor’s visor a foot from his face, as she glared at him. “What’s the catch?”

The Phantom put his teacup down, reached slowly into his cloak, and withdrew a small box. With a click it opened.

Revealing two golden rings.

Celia flinched.

Jean buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking.

“Oh my goodness!” squeaked Fluffbear. “A birthday present, yay!”

“No, it’s... oh my,” Thomasi said, stroking his goatee. “Oh wouldn’t that throw a wrinkle in things.”

Anne’s eyes widened... widened and narrowed, and Threadbare could not say what emotions surged within her skull, only that they were strong.

“Huh. HUH!” Zuula said. “Dis wasn’t just a kidnapping. Dis was a courtship!”

“I’m afraid I’m not sure what this means,” Threadbare said. “Would someone enlighten me, please?”

“It means he wants to marry me,” Celia said. Her voice was uneven, and her armor was still.

“A political marriage. You would become queen of Belltollia, and I would step out of the shadows to become its true king. We would throw our full support behind the republic, and with our resources, and a rented airship or two, we could easily supply you with whatever you needed to quash the rebellion and restore peace to your land.”

“And I would have to marry you,” Celia said, her voice quavering.

“Is that truly so much to ask?” The Phantom said, putting the box on the table and spreading his hands. “We need not even live together, though I would be pleased if we did. A noble’s marriage, one of duty. To save both our nations. For we have enemies too, and they are mighty and malign. It is a sacrifice, but is it a heavy one?”

“And it gives you a title. A title that would be recognized by other human nations,” Threadbare said.

The Phantom started, his cloak twitching, as he turned his gaze on Threadbare. “Yes...”

“Ye know about that then,” Anne asked him.

“Stormanorm told me,” Threadbare told her. “Legitimacy is his quest. But it looks like it’s Mister Phantom’s, too.”

“Just Phantom is fine.”

“Thank you. But that’s the truth, isn’t it? You would stand to gain quite a lot from this marriage.”

“I would. And so would our children.”

“Children!” Celia jumped straight up, denting the floor and spilling her tea.

“Adopted, all adopted. Or built. We can do that, so long as they resemble one or both of us.”

“I would be a mother? This is... I haven’t even thought of... I don’t know,” Celia said, her armor’s torso turning side to side, as she shook her head and the neckless suit did its best to mimic. “I don’t know.”

“I see,” said Threadbare. “Celia, is it all right if we say we’ll take this under consideration?”

“Wait,” said the Phantom. “If you’re going to do that, you’re welcome to. But I have one last thing to offer you. Come back with me to the stage, please.”

Celia didn’t respond for a second, and he raised a gloved hand, as he tucked the rings away. “Please. I mean you no harm. And I have saved the greatest gift for last.”

Finally, her armor stirred, as she turned to face him. “We m-might as well see e-everything. Yes.”

The curtain was open.

The theater was empty.

Empty, save for one glass bell jar, eight feet tall and four feet around.

And inside, hands folded in front of her, wearing a demure blue dress, eyes shut, deadly still, and her red hair neatly brushed and braided in the way that Threadbare remembered her grandfather doing for her, was Celia.

Not Celia as she was now, with her porcelain shell, and blistergrass hair. But a Celia as she would have been, for this body looked more mature than his little girl had been. Nineteen, twenty, perhaps a bit more, but it mattered not for Threadbare saw the reagent marks anointed on her brow and hands and knew what this was.

“A golem shell,” he said simply. “You’ve made her a flesh golem shell.”

Celia walked forward slowly, stepping off the stage and making her way to the bell jar. She spread the fingers of her armored gauntlet, and pressed it against the glass. And what she felt Threadbare could not say, though he knew he would be hearing about it later, squeezed tightly in her arms.

“You as you would have been, had your daemons not destroyed you,” the Phantom said. “Still a bit different but with some benefits. You would feel sensations on your skin, again. You would taste and smell, when you cared to eat and breathe. All this I can give you, if—”

He stopped. The sound of metal rattling against glass rose in that still theater.

And Threadbare realized that she was shaking. Her armored hand was clinking against the glass, over and over.

“Shut. Up.” Celia said, her voice raw with emotion.

In that moment of silence, in that long pause as his little girl collected himself, an unexpected voice whispered in his ear.

“We’ve got trouble. Someone just ran into the Bad Still and is attacking it. There’s a lot of screaming. Orders?” Cagna said.

Threadbare straightened up. “Someone’s attacking the—”

“You bring me here!” Celia roared, amplified voice filled with raw fury. “You try to bring me here like this and show me this? You rub my nose in everything I’ve lost? And expect me to what, to marry you? Like some fuc... fumping fairytale princess, some stupid fairy story with a happily ever after?”

Her gauntlet tightened on the bell jar, finding purchase on its smooth surface, and the grass sang shrill screams as metal scraped and cracks spread.

Cagna whispered again, louder this time and worried. “Shit! Some sort of gas... we’re falling back; this stuff is toxic!”

“Cecelia, please—” the Phantom said, walking forward, stretching out a hand. “If you want time to think it over, I understand. I just—” And then he stopped, turning his head, ears twitching.

“We’ve got trouble,” Threadbare said. “Jean, where is the exit?”

Jean pointed at the doors on the other side of the theater. “There, there is where we always went afterward!” she said, but her eyes never left Celia, and Threadbare could tell it hurt her to see his little girl in such a state.

“We need to go—” Threadbare started to shout, but he never finished.

With a crash and a slosh, Celia’s gauntleted fingers ripped through the bell jar, and liquid poured out, splashing across her, spraying the seats around it, as the shell inside slumped, no longer floating.

“There are never any happy endings!” Celia shouted, practically vibrating with rage. “You lying sneak!”

But it was the Phantom’s roar of rage that shook everyone, as his overwhelming presence filed the theater, held them still as he whirled to turn his burning eyes on the group.

“What have you done! What have you done!”

And again, for that flash of an instant, Threadbare was frozen by this man’s raw charisma.

The Phantom radiated raw anger, as his voice trembled. “I would have accepted it if you struck out at me, but you kill innocents, you slay my people! And for what!”

“It wasn’t... us...” Threadbare said, but the Phantom buried his face in his hand, even as a trapdoor opened beneath him, and the rabbity figure sunk into the darkness under the stage.

“Of course you realize,” came his last words, before the trapdoor snapped shut. “This means war.”