Brass Automaton

26 - The Brass Queen

Ceridwen's spontaneous laughter broke Snow from her memory.

"See, you won over me many times, Queen White." Ceridwen heaped as much scorn as she could on the honorific. "You destroyed my pride, my power. I hid because I couldn't stand seeing you still so beautiful and myself so ugly. Then Jarvis found me again and offered me one last chance to kill you. What I didn't know was that it would cost me my body. My body was replaced with this one." She waved her brass hand to encompass her metallic form. "It's repulsive but unstoppable."

Ceridwen leaned forward in a puff of steam her hands ready to grab the warrior queen.

"We shall see about that," Snow said and swung her spear.

The tip of the spear scraped Ceridwen's chest, but she lurched forward and gave Snow a forceful push. Snow fell against the wall, dropping her spear. Dizzy, she reached for her weapon, but Ceridwen had grabbed her ankles and dragged her across the room.

When the brass queen released her, Snow jumped to her feet and lurched at Ceridwen with a battle cry. The brass queen swung her fists at Snow's face, but Snow dodged them and swiftly grabbed the raised hand plucking out pipes that released clouds of steam, and the impotent hand dropped to the dusty floor detached, its clockwork parts moving without purpose.

Ceridwen cried out and clawed at Snow's face with her other hand, but the true Oossah Queen was too fast. Snow seized the moment, grabbing the other hand and performing the same dismantling, leaving it to loll beside the automaton's body.

Snow pushed past the brass queen, kicked off her brass shin, and slid on the smooth floor toward her dropped spear. Once in hand, Snow turned back to the advancing monster.

"Jarvis, do something!" Ceridwen screamed.

The cowering warlock hid behind his throne and observed the battle from a safe distance. He stood tall, pointing his staff toward Snow. He cast a spell, murmuring incoherent words through clasped lips. The staff belched fireballs that Snow narrowly escaped. Spotting the glass fragments that Jarvis held in his other hand, Snow devised a plan. Ceridwen was slowed, and the brass queen fought against the steam clouds still billowing from her disabled limbs.

Snow turned her attention toward Jarvis. Her eyes, aflame with anger and pain, frightened him. She was determined to end them both. As he prepared another chant, Snow stepped quickly as her huntsman husband had taught her and sliced through the staff in its middle. Its magick broken, an ordinary piece of wood remained in Jarvis's hand.

"Your days of dominance are over traitor," Snow announced. The tip of her spear pierced his chest. Thrusting the body forward, she drove him into the portal, twisting the handle to force the clockwork spear to retract from his body as it dropped freely through the event horizon.

The mirrored shard fell from his flying hands and floated in the space between the vortex and Snow's reality. Attracted by the forces of time, the weak magick drove itself into the body of the warlock who had created it, absorbing his remaining power. Jarvis gasped one last time as the sharp shards pierced his body and his face.

Snow watched them shatter as Jarvis' body did the same, dispersing into time, never to exist again. The portal collapsed on itself, time looping around itself until the gateway was permanently closed. Snow stared at the rubble, her only escape.

"You wench! You've trapped us both here!" Ceridwen screamed.

Snow turned around to face her. "Then neither of us will leave, and Oossah will finally find peace."

Ceridwen charged at Snow, jumping high, propelled by her brass legs.

Snow readied her spear, awaiting the drop.

The brass queen landed mere inches from Snow, the impact knocked the warrior queen off balance. A brass leg shot through the raised dust and kicked Snow in the stomach. Snow bent over, and Ceridwen caught her in the chin with her knee. Snow stumbled backward and missed seeing the reattached hands swing at her with incredible force. The impact threw her head back, and she spat blood. Ceridwen repeated the swing and stuck Snow in the face again.

Ceridwen smiled at the tiny puddle of blood from Snow. "You are not the fairest of them all. I am! I am! I AM!"

Raising her body to smash against Snow, Ceridwen laughed, a choking cry of grating metal. Snow blinked through the running blood from her forehead and saw a chance to swing with full force.

The tip of her spear caught an exposed section of Ceridwen's neck. Not of her brass carapace, but of soft flesh. Snow's spear continued forward, forced by the brass queen's lunge. Ceridwen's yellow eyes went wide open as she stared at Snow's face. The spear made a clean cut removing Ceridwen's head from her body. A body that slumped down in an eruption of uncontrolled steam.

The brass head rolled on the floor preserving Ceridwen's final expression of stunned disbelief.

Snow remained with her spear at the ready, a few inches above the beheaded brass queen. It was just a soulless skeleton of brass now, unable to hurt anyone anymore.

Whether the corrupted magick had been destroyed throughout time, Snow didn't know. She limped toward the heavy door and urged it open with the help of her spear.

* * *

Snow White looked around in disbelief. Oossah Keep was busy with preparations of some sort. It was loud, and there was fanfare somewhere in the distance.

"My Queen, have you been training again?" a familiar voice asked. "Look at your beautiful face, all bruised and bloodied."

Snow turned around to meet Daisy. She was dressed in an elegant dress and her fiery hair longer than she ever remembered it being. "Daisy?"

"Well who else my Queen?" Daisy smiled and took Snow's hand in hers, leading her away from the main entrance to the keep.

"I shall send for someone to clean the destruction from your target practice." Daisy reached for the spear still in Snow's hand and twisted the handle, the spear contracting into a loose bundle of brass.

"Isn't that Jarvis's chambers?" Snow asked when they neared the former advisor's chamber.

Daisy stopped and looked at Snow, a concerned frown on her face. "Who is Jarvis, my Queen?"

"He's-" Snow began to say, but a realization washed over her. There was no Jarvis.

"And Ceridwen?" Snow asked.

Daisy grasped Snow's head in her hands and examined the gash on her forehead. "Are you quite all right, Snow White?"

Snow smiled, flinching at the pain. "I think I am."

"Come then, Good King John is waiting for you. I've been telling off children again for calling him Good John the Cripple, but they find it fitting, and King John doesn't seem to mind it. He thinks the name would sit well on the books."

"Cripple?" Snow asked carefully as they walked down the spiral staircase.

Daisy nodded and tutted. "From the hunting accident a few years back. Did you bang your head that hard?"

Snow shook her head. "No, just checking that all is as it should be, I suppose."

Nothing good comes without a price, Snow thought. Then her heart hammered with worry in her chest. "And Reese, is Reese here?"

Daisy stopped and grasped Snow's hand. "It's today, isn't it, the anniversary of her death?"

Snow turned away from her Sister at arms.

"My apologies Queen White. I question you too much without realizing how you must feel on this day."

Snow allowed the tears to run down her cheeks this time. "It's all right Daisy. Lead me to my husband now."

Indeed, no victory came without a bitter price. The kingdom was safe, but Snow's soul had yet to heal. Seeing John smirk and shake his crowned head at the sight of her, she knew it would take time, but time was all they had now.