The interior was interesting. This room had the intricate latticework all along the ceiling, too, and had many things hanging from it. In addition to what I was pretty sure was Johpunnt’s living quarters—the largest house-thing I’d seen so far—large, bottomless metal cages hung from the lattice, too. How often they were used these days was up for debate, but what they existed for wasn’t. They were on a pulley system, and it didn’t take genius to guess that they were used to capture prisoners.
The walls were covered in tapestries, and, based on my musical clue, focused on them. All of them were orangey with some yellow, black, and red in there. Didn’t want to verify, but was pretty sure that these were made out of the fur, wool, and hides of the planet’s residents, hopefully collected after said residents had died of old age, though I wasn’t willing to bet on it. Those cages might have multiple uses.
The tapestries told a story, as tapestries everywhere were apparently meant to do. A world that looked perfect, and a sun exploding in the distance. What looked a lot like what I thought a meteor spaceship would look like sailing through the heavens. Several meteor spaceships landing on a fiery red planet. Lots of sheep, some cows and bulls, opossums, and rabbits staggering out of the crashed spaceships, along with a few other animals, all smaller rodents. Said animals on their knees, appealing to a sun that was bright yellow; this tapestry had what looked like that food replicator off to the side. Horrible monsters that looked a lot like the sandworms from Dune only bright orange and with a lot more teeth attacking and the animals fighting back. The four races that were still here crying over the bodies of the smaller rodents. Another few tapestries showing various lamentations or sandworm attacks, and in many of them the food replicator was represented.
Then the story changed. The next tapestry showed a sheep standing on top of a sandworm, clearly victorious. He had a splash of bright orange wool on his chest. Then a tapestry showing the animals shoving the sandworm’s body into the food replicator. The next tapestries showed either a sheep, a bull, or a rabbit leading—and each of them had a swath of bright orange somewhere on them, usually on the back or sternum, but one of the rabbits had a bright orange cottontail. No possums led, or if they did, they didn’t score a tapestry. In many of these they were feeding sandworms to the replicator in what looked like a religious ceremony. Then we had the digging and building tapestries. Followed by the making machines that worked tapestries, and the creation of telescopes and more advanced weapons.
Finally, we came to the tapestries that dealt with things outside the solar system. There were a couple showing the system leaving the galaxy. Then one that showed the system as we’d seen it in the earlier pictures—with intact planets and moons. And then a tapestry devoted to each of the other planets’ destruction. The last tapestry wasn’t finished, and while it was shown in black, it was clear that the planet being destroyed was the blue one.
There was also a throne, but no one was sitting on it. The throne sat on a dais raised a good twenty feet in the air, and light shone down from above to bathe the throne in sunlight. Presumably this was where the sun and the person who sat in that throne did their reflection thing.
Someone was on the dais, but they were in shadow, clearly for the effect. “Who comes from the stars to visit me?” The speaker seemed to feel he was commanding, but his voice was nasal and nowhere near as deep as Telzor’s.
“Mad Lord Johpunnt,” Telzor said respectfully, “may the sun continue to love your reflection, I present Kitty, the Warrior Queen.”
“Gaze upon your lord and ruler,” Johpunnt said. “And tremble.”
CHAPTER 103
MY MUSIC CHANGED TO “Black Sheep” by Saliva as the Mad Lord stepped dramatically into the light.
Well, he was successful because I was trembling. But from trying to keep the Inner Hyena inside, not from fear. This was the hardest Inner Hyena test yet, even though I’d looked at the tapestries, and Jamie and Algar both had warned me.
It wasn’t a bull on the dais. It was a sheep. Not much of a sheep, either. Roanach was more impressive. But this sheep was different from the others—most of his wool was black, other than the wool on his head, which was the same color as the Orange Scourge.
Additionally, and unlike the other sheep, who hadn’t done much with their look, his wool was combed out and stylishly done, or at least I presumed he thought it was stylish. The wool on his body was quite fluffy, at least what there was of it—had a feeling he was dealing with whatever sheep called early male pattern baldness. On his head, what there was of it was sort of swoopy, as if he was trying to go for a Young Elvis look but only achieving a Not Enough Pomade look.
To top it all off, he had really wimpy horns. It was if they’d stopped growing when he was a lamb or something. Roanach didn’t have the greatest horns, but he was King of the Rack in comparison to Johpunnt.
“The Warrior Queen has arrived,” Mad Lord Johpunnt said imperiously. “The prophecies will now come true.”
“What prophecies are those?” I asked. Compared him to the tapestry pictures of the other leaders. Either they’d been far better specimens or the artists had made sure they looked impressive. Gave it even odds for either.
Mad Lord Johpunnt looked directly at me for the first time. If I’d thought the rest of the people on this world had crazy eyes, that was only because I hadn’t seen his. He was the definition of eyes staring into the crazy void. Jamie had actually undersold this dude.
“The prophecies say,” Johpunnt said in a tone that said he was preparing a really great evil cackle, “that when the Warrior Queen comes, I shall kill her and then we will rule the universe.” On cue, he cackled. I’d heard better. “So,” he added in a totally normal tone, “prepare to die. Oh, and Telzor, be sure that everyone with her dies, too. Oh, I’m sorry. That will include you, as well.”
“My Mad Lord?” Telzor asked, sounding a little surprised.
“You lost to her. Pathetically. You failed me. So, you get to die, too, along with those two pathetic traitors who chose to befriend her instead of just killing her where she stood.”
Telzor’s shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. “As you command.”
Heard a whimper behind me. Reached back and stroked Clorence and Roanach’s heads. “That’s it?” I asked, as Buchanan and White both shifted into fighting stances, hefting Telzor’s swords like they’d trained with them. “No chitchat about our different planets, no interest in why I’m here, no explanation of your rightful place among galactic leaders, just nice to meet you, so long?”
“Yes,” Johpunnt said. “You exist only to be defeated by my warriors so that we can ascend to the next levels. And I care nothing for the galaxy. We are about to rule the universe.”