The queen rose from her ornate, thronelike chair and gestured for Baba to rise, embracing her, and kissing her on both cheeks. As always, the queen’s long, silvery-white hair was piled in a tower of complicated braids, emphasizing her long neck and high cheekbones. Her pale, almost translucent skin made her look fragile and delicate, an illusion reinforced by her willowy figure and fine, long-fingered hands. A gauzy gown of pale pink silk matched the roses that grew all around, and a tiara of pink diamonds glittered in the light of the moons. She was almost too beautiful to look at, and capable of both remarkable generosity and mind-blowing cruelty.
“My darling Baba!” the queen cried in a voice that sounded like music. “It has been far too long, my dear. Come, you must sit and have tea with us.”
Baba put on her best court smile. She got along well with the queen, for the most part; it wasn’t so long ago, in the long lives of the royals, that Baba was a small child, visiting with her mentor, playing with dolls underneath the table at the queen’s feet, and the queen still had a tendency to think of her as a beloved younger second cousin, very much removed. That didn’t mean Baba was foolish enough to think she was safe from reprisal if the queen decided to hold her responsible for the bad news she brought.
“I would love to have tea some other time, Your Majesty, but I’m afraid I have urgent tidings that cannot wait. I beg an audience, if you please.” Baba kept her eyes slightly lowered, trying to see the queen’s face without staring rudely.
“Pish tosh, my dear,” the queen said dismissively. “Any news you have to share can be told in front of the rest of this company. There is nothing you can say that my beloved consort and the most trusted members of our court cannot be witness to.” She waved one languid hand at Baba. “So, what is this oh-so-important information that cannot wait until I finish my tea?”
Crap. Well, she’d just have to spill the beans and hope for the best. Presumably the members of the queen’s inner circle had gotten good at ducking over the centuries.
“Highness, I have had a number of run-ins with a mysterious woman wearing a glamour and wielding powers unlike those available to most Humans. And then today, the White Rider, the Red Rider, and the Black Rider were all attacked by creatures they swear could only have come from the Otherworld. We assume they were acting under the command of this woman, who calls herself Maya.”
There were gasps from the assembled company, although the queen’s expression didn’t change. The Riders were considered to be utterly dependable and beyond reproach in their service to the Babas, and by extension, the kingdom as well, since Babas guarded both worlds.
“That seems highly unlikely,” the queen said, a slight chill in her voice. “How could she have such creatures in the Human lands?”
Baba braced herself and looked directly at the queen. “We believe that she has somehow discovered a new, unauthorized door somewhere in the area. It is the only explanation for the presence of so many magical creatures, many of whom she is using to torment the local citizens, as well as directing them in attacks against the Riders and against my own person.”
There were more exclamations from the courtiers around the table, but Baba kept her attention on the only person whose reaction truly mattered.
The queen’s regal face grew even sterner, if that was possible. A few of the surrounding people started to edge away from the space.
“That would be an extremely undesirable situation, were it to prove to be true,” she said. Frost crept out from underneath her pointed silver shoes and turned the grass below her feet to dust. The closest rosebush faded from a healthy pink to a lackluster gray, its petals dropping one by one to litter the ground. “Are you certain these beings are not crossing through another gateway? Yours, perhaps?” The queen narrowed her eyes at Baba, who tried not to flinch.
“They could not be coming through my trailer . . . er, hut, that is, Your Majesty,” Baba said in as firm a tone as she dared use. “Either Chudo-Yudo or I have been there at all times. And the nearest other known doorways are many leagues from the area where the incidents occurred, in the Human places known as Ontario and New York City. It is unlikely in the extreme that the guardians of those doors would have allowed so many to pass from this world into that one without permission, and even if they had done so, how would the creatures have gotten so far without someone noticing?”
The queen pursed her perfectly shaped lips, tapping them lightly with a dainty filigreed fan. “If you are right, dearest Baba, I shall be quite displeased. There is a reason why all the passageways in and out of our world are guarded and those who are allowed to pass through them are few. The balance between the Otherworld and the Human lands is precarious enough as it is; such wanton use of an illicit doorway could destroy that balance irrevocably. As a Baba, it is part of your job to make sure that doesn’t happen.”