"Amarantha Françoise Dyuaaxchs?" It was only just barely a question.
I stopped walking, and looked at the black pants stuffed into black boots that stood in front of me. I shifted my heavy backpack, looked up from my book, and stared at the tall, red-headed person in front of me. She was blocking my way. "Yes?"
"Hello, Amy. I'm going to kill you."
The cool words hit me like an anvil to the stomach. I studied her eyes. Although I had never seen her before, I knew they should be a starry purple. Instead, they were amaranthine. If she were furious, they would be glowing coal-red, but it looked like she was angry enough with me to not listen for very long. Still, she might listen to reason. "Why not change my mind? I could reverse some of your troubles."
A dawn flickered in cold purple eyes, and the red dissipated slowly. In desperation, I had touched on one of her fondest hopes, but I did not want her employing mind control upon me. "Keep Baslon from being born," she ordered.
I relaxed significantly, settling back in my shoes, and became more brisk in my mode of speech. "Interesting possibilities. I'll see what I can do." I continued looking up at her, thinking that she should speak next. She continued gazing down at me, not playing my game. I got bored and shrugged, aware that I could not play down that weakness. Cherry would quite thoroughly utilize it in this conversation if she could. "Say 'hi' to Raloz for me. You won't be seeing him again for a while."
"What do you mean?" she demanded sharply. I was surprised that she was so emotional.
I began my lecture mode, saying exactly what I was thinking at any given time no matter how tenuously it was connected to the previous words. That speech and thinking pattern always made it seem like I knew more about my topic than I actually did, and frequently led to a feeling of competitive superiority which was not nice, but might make me feel easier in this instance, when I knew that Cherry could break my neck without touching me, utter one word to have me consumed by fire, or stop the electrical impulses in my brain with one of her own. I had designed her that way, but it made for very uncomfortable circumstances when I was face to face with her, considering all I had put her through in my books since her birth in 1453. "I mean that, but for Baslon kidnaping you for marriage, you would have traveled with your father for a while longer, until your mother called you on your twelfth birthday for your initiation and political training. She would have made the most advantageous marriage for you that she could, (you know your mother,) and you also know who that's most likely to be."
Cherry's face turned white. Or rather, a lighter shade of red. I mused over where in her ancestry she had gotten red skin to avoid musing on what her current thoughts must be. One of the worst parts in one of my books, a part that made my stomach turn, had been necessary to shape her character. Teran, under-prince of the vampires, had nearly raped her.
"Of course, you know what I'm getting at. But," I had another idea, "if instead of simply preventing Baslon's birth, I prevented his mother Arada from becoming queen (such an odd fluke) you'd have wound up the wife of a real vampire instead of one who had been born human. There would be no Teran in that case, and the king seemed fairly decent. Did he have a name?"
"Jixeirst. But . . ."
"Do you think Queen Vrenkley would give you a choice?"
"No . . ."
"The king might object, but he'd be under the same pressure Baslon is now; to produce an heir."
"But . . ."
"Also, you still might not meet Raloz. The king was a lot older than Baslon, and he wouldn't obsess like his son, and he wouldn't take any nonsense. Remember?"
"Yes, quite clearly. But . . ."
I ignored her and my potential danger. I had my teeth in the problem, and I wasn't going to stop until I had worried it to its logical conclusion or thought of another interesting piece of trivia to which I wished to find an answer. "There would have been fewer excuses for you to get away, and you'd have been suppressed and depressed and forced to put on a good show. You would probably have found out your accurate and mixed heritage at about the same time as in this life, but you'd have been ready to die then, which I think would be about thirty years earlier than this time. You'd have had a phantom tortured and imprisoned . . ."
She suddenly clutched her stomach. "What!"
"You're desperate, remember? If I were to erase everything I've written about you, that's what would have happened, whether you married Teran or his step-father. Jixeirst, eh? Make a note of that." I obeyed myself, mentally repeating Jixeirst . . . Jixeirst. I wondered why I had never named the previous king of the vampires. Then I wondered how the name was spelled. Cherry gave me such a sharp look that I hurried back to the subject. "The phantom would have told you, after a degree of coercion, that there were a number of methods of suicide available to you while you were under a century old, and you would have implemented one of them. Your choice would have been taken away from you after your death, and that would have been the story of your life."
"I could never imprison someone!" she exclaimed. Cherry considered that the worst possible punishment. She was a very moral person, actually. If she had not been so dead set upon killing herself, she would never have considered harming me as an option. We both followed the policy of the Christian's "Golden Rule," but it did seem to have its flaws when one's own desires were abnormal.
"You're also not much good at torture," I guessed, trying to remember if I had ever had her torture a person. She had been tortured, but she did not like the questions that had accompanied it, or the imprisonment.
"True," she acknowledged absently. I clutched in the relief to keep it from escaping. She made an exasperated noise, saying plaintively, "But . . ."
"Try compulsion on me," I suggested, wanting desperately for her to not do so. "Or ask Raloz. Or think it over. I'm sure you could think of a suitable revision."
"Yes, eventually," she said glumly.
I wondered why she should be so glum, then remembered the mess I had just made of her first two options. "Remember to think out the consequences. You've played chess, right?"
"Not often, and not well." She stared at me oddly.
"Well, think like yourself for a way to be happy, and then think like Kolano or Dylara to eliminate those which would turn out badly." Kolano was the phantom who had invented the game of chess as a gift for the king of Persia. She played well, and to me that meant logically systematic thinking. I did not know if Dylara played chess, but every century she had some diabolical plot laid out for Cherry in accordance with the terms of the bet. The plot was always very logically systematic. I still needed to work out the terms of that bet. Maybe Cherry knew.
"Why can't I read your mind?" she burst out.
"‘Cause I ramble," I answered before thinking of consequences. "I don't play chess well, either."
"Stop it," she ordered curtly.
I shrugged. "Can't. Besides, it's effective, so why should I want to? Vraiment, I imagine it's the reason I'm still alive. You'd have better retorts if you knew what I was talking about."
"Amy, I'm warning you. . . ." she began, then cut herself off.
I grinned at her and offered what I hoped would be some consolation before I left for home. It was after Russian class, and there were very few people who stayed around school then unless they also had a seventh period. "I'll stop writing about you. Say hi to Raloz for me. Bye!"
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