The Queen’s Clade
I awoke on a fine spring morning. Of course, at the time I did not understand that it was a fine spring morning. I understood little, but I have since learned much. I can still recall my awakening in a way, only it is hard now to put those memories into thought. There are images that it is almost possible to articulate, but they are too primal I think: the products of a mind that was not quite made. There are other images too, even less distinct, but these are from before, from when I slept. The word primal, a word that Aggie taught me, does not adequately describe them. They are disturbing and best not dwelled on.
It was spring again now, three years since my awakening, but the day was grey and blustery as Aggie and I walked along the colonnade on our way to the royal chamber. That morning we had been tasked with transporting the nectar and had been given a team of four sleepers for the heavy work. Aggie proclaimed to hate sleeper duty, but actually these occasions allowed her to indulge one of her favourite passions: her hatred.
‘Oh Praxie,’ she thought, ‘the stench of them! I swear I’ll cut off my nose and yours if we’re ever tasked to the farm. Imagine actually having to drain one of these disgusting bags of meat.’
Aggie did make it appear repellent, but actually I was privately fascinated by the idea of working on the farm or better still at the refinery. I saw little of these parts of the clade, but I knew something of what happened there. I knew this was where our consignment was made, but I wanted to know more, always.
In my first year, before I was paired with Aggie, I had studied with other newly-awakened metics under Iris, who at that time was still one of the Queen’s closest counsellors. She had taught us about life in the clade and even something of the world outside.
First, we learned of the meaning and beauty of our awakening. Iris impressed upon us that our place was one of privilege, that we had been brought into the clade to awaken as metics, a position that entailed certain responsibilities and duties. We were different from the freed. They of course had responsibilities too, and we were taught to be mindful of the safety and security they provided for us, but we were not the same. We shared the bloodline of the Queen, but ours was a direct lineage. The Queen had made us and given us the gift of independent thought; the freed made their own and theirs was a collective mind, complex in its structure but simple enough to control.
Then there were the sleepers. I was frightened by them at first: their drooling and growling, their garish flesh pulsating with raw nectar. But my fear had lessened and gradually evolved into a fascination the more I learned about them. They bore a certain resemblance to us, but they were of a different kind entirely. We were taught to think of them as a step between beasts and ourselves, although in truth they seemed less than beasts in some respects. They breathed, ate and excreted like beasts, they even mated like beasts when in their natural environment, although steps had been taken to prevent this from occurring among those we kept, but there was little of the beauty and elegance of say the lynx or the fox to them. They were frightened, broken things. To learn that we had come from them, and that we depended on them, was unsettling at first, but then... well... fascinating.
Aggie terrorised the ones before us now, bared her teeth and hissed at them. They were not capable of thought, communicating with each other only through touch and gesture, and so had necessarily been taught their duties purely by physical commands. Discipline was therefore important, but the pleasure Aggie took in asserting her mastery of them served no purpose that I could divine. She simply enjoyed the cruelty, another of her passions when it came to sleepers. To them she must have been terrifying, but Aggie was in fact kind, funny, perhaps not as clever as I had once thought, but a wonderful friend and companion nevertheless. We shared everything, or nearly everything. I kept some of my thoughts private from her, but Aggie I am quite sure kept nothing from me. She was proud of who she was and her role in the clade. I could not imagine her being inclined to private thoughts or doubts. In this I envied her.
When we were halfway to the chamber Aggie was called away, so I continued alone to deliver our consignment and in truth we made much quicker, and quieter, progress this way. The team were well trained and performed their duties more efficiently without Aggie’s attentions. I was surprised but delighted to be greeted by Iris when we arrived as she was not often to be found in the royal chamber these days. She retained all of her privileges, but was no longer responsible for the education of new metics. Another reason I hoped one day to be tasked with work at the farm or the refinery was the opportunity to learn from her again. It was after all her interest in the sleepers that had inspired my own.
‘Eupraxia. How lovely to see you.’
‘And you Iris. I wish I saw you more often.’ For a moment I almost regretted such plain thought, but really there was little harm in it. Despite her relative fall from grace she was still of the royal family and entitled to our love. Aggie’s opinion was somewhat less charitable, but even if she were here now she would not dare to express it openly. Aside from the sleepers, who were carrying out their work dutifully, Iris and I were alone in the chamber and so enjoyed a few thoughts together. She made me aware of some new developments in the refining process in a most animating way. Even so, I could not help but feel a little sad for her, so focussed on one aspect of our lives with a mind surpassed by none, excepting the Queen. I could have gladly spent all day with my first mentor, but we were interrupted even before the sleepers had finished their work by a broadcast from Ianthe across the clade.
‘All metics must return to their chambers. All sleepers must be returned to their pens. No other movements are permitted without my command or the command of the Queen.’
The idea spread through our chamber like wildfire, jumping from one mind to the next, building to a roar. No one seemed to know where it had started, but at the same time none doubted it: one of us was slain. I had never known such a thing; none in my chamber had. We knew that it was possible, that this was how we died, but not here, not in the safety of the clade.
We did not die like the sleepers and the beasts. This was the second lesson we learned when we were new. We did not become sick; our lives were not so fragile as when we had slept. Our flesh did not awaken with us, yet we could remain whole for hundreds of years. Iris had shown us the skeleton of a sleeper once, a little child. Everything else it had once been had turned to dust less than a year after its heart stopped beating.
The roar was suddenly extinguished, its absence bringing me back from thoughts of bones and dust. All were quiet; Ianthe had entered the chamber. Her thoughts were plain and direct.
‘I see that it is known. I will tell you that it is Selene. A slaying is a terrible thing. She will be mourned, but first the circumstances must be known. Each shall come with me in turn to share your thoughts from today. Until you are called, keep your mind to yourself. After you are called you will go to your rest.’
She left us in silence; none would dare disobey. My thoughts turned to Selene. She was older than me but not by much, her awakening having been only two or three years before mine, and now she was no more. Her mind would be quiet forever; her body would wither away before the year’s end, just like the little sleeper child. Occasionally, Aggie and I had been placed on duty with Selene and her partner Xos, tasked with preparing the awakening chambers. This essentially meant cleaning but with a great number of rituals, the strict observance of which Selene and Xos were to instruct us in. Xos was aloof and severe, but Selene was kinder and warmer though I think she had grown impatient with Aggie who, without sleepers to torment, had quickly become distracted.
Only then did it occur to me that I had not seen Aggie since she had been called away that morning. I sought her out by sight alone and we sat together while we waited to be called. As instructed we kept our thoughts to ourselves, but we played games with our hands and Aggie made faces to amuse me. She always knew how to make me feel safe and happy. Or at least, just by being herself, she always had that effect on me. Hers was the next name called, so I spent the next few hours alone with my thoughts which again and again would turn to death and to Selene. How long might she have lived? How had her end come so soon?
‘Eupraxia.’ My turn had come. I followed Ianthe along the colonnade, the same way I had gone that morning only this time past the royal chamber and into the chamber of the Queen. It was Ianthe who would question me, but the Queen was there. I could sense her. I could smell her noble scent. I had been permitted to look on her only once before, when we had completed our training with Iris and been honoured with the Queen’s thoughts. I could recall that moment in vivid detail. She was magnificent. Bone-white. Utterly still. Devoid of all vitality and pure beyond all others. Her thoughts had been few. Honour me. Know thyself. Take your place.
The questioning began and I had the curious impression that Ianthe was communicating with the Queen at the same time as me, but of course it was impossible to know. At times Ianthe’s questions came in that way she sometimes used: thoughts without words, a direct retrieval of my memories without my interpretation, without the possibility of misunderstanding or pretence. There seemed to be little of interest to her about my day, although I thought I detected a note of displeasure at the time I had spent with Iris.
I was dismissed before long and made my own way back. I found Aggie already at rest in our nook in the chamber wall and snuggled up against her. This was the third lesson we had learned from Iris. We are stronger together. Be not alone, for the solitary mind is a terrible thing.