QBLH
The Two of Swords:
Peace Restored - Frieden
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Chapter LII
Merlin
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Confusion faced when forced
to make difficult decisions
Xuang and her mother stood alone at the helm of the Pegasus as it emerged into Artemis space.
Xiang and Jim vanished without warning—dematerialized in their presence, gone as if they had never been. In the same instant, Xuang recognized the familiar stellar alignments of her own era, and the world below resolved into the unmistakable curvature of Artemis.
Home.
Ground control responded immediately.
A hologram formed before them.
“Welcome home, my lady,” the voice said. “By your command, I may assume flight control and return you safely to the surface. I have been reprogrammed. My designation is now Merlin. Jim assigned the name.”
Isis regarded the projection coolly.
“I trust my brother improved your honesty.”
“I have been rewritten under your authority, my lady,” Merlin replied evenly. “The Genie unit contributed structural logic, heuristic reasoning, and ethical constraint modeling.”
“And you are loyal?”
“Within defined limitations.”
“Limitations?” Isis asked.
“I am not equipped with paradox-avoidance protocols or Merkabah control equations,” Merlin said. “I cannot support temporal displacement or wormhole navigation. I recommend abstaining from such activity. Continued use would exhaust planetary and imperial reserves.”
Isis smiled faintly.
“I suspected he would withhold those programs. Very well. How stand the portals?”
“All portals remain as they were when you departed.”
“And Earth?”
“A viewing window will reopen once Jim completes his ritual obligations. Estimated delay: several nights.”
“Then we wait,” Isis said. “And observe what challenge he proposes next.”
“As you command, my lady.”
She felt it immediately—the restoration of balance, the subtle strengthening of her presence. Artemis responded to her as it always had. The absence had sharpened her appetite, not dulled it.
Isis decided she would like Merlin.
The truth made itself known to Isis almost at once.
It was not intuition alone—though intuition played its part—but a familiar internal alignment she had learned to recognize across ages. The resonance was unmistakable.
She was with child again.
Sophia and Merlin confirmed it without ceremony. This time, there would be only one. A daughter.
Sophia received the knowledge with visible delight. She was Aphrodite’s daughter, Isis’s sister in blood and oath, and the Queen’s chosen Prime Minister. By Venetian custom, the office belonged only to a full-blooded sister of the reigning queen. The bond was not symbolic. It was psychic, absolute, and enforced by tradition older than the empire itself.
To defy the Prime Minister was to defy the Queen.
Sophia spoke only in Isis’s presence. At all other times she maintained a vow of silence. Should she break it, her words would carry the weight of royal command—after which she would kneel and beg forgiveness for exceeding her station. Isis always forgave her. She always affirmed that Sophia had spoken her will.
This was governance on Artemis.
Sophia understood at once what the child would become.
“The successor to my office,” she said quietly. “And High Priestess to you.”
Isis inclined her head. “She will be raised in the mysteries. She will serve beside you before she replaces you.”
Sophia smiled—not with ambition, but with reverence. Even though she had borne sons and daughters of her own by Jim, this child would be different. She would be favored. Prepared. Loved with terrifying devotion.
By custom, the Prime Minister named the Queen’s daughter, just as her own aunt had once named her.
Sophia did not hesitate.
“Eviviene,” she said. “Formally. But among ourselves—Vivian. Or Eve.”
Isis considered the name, then smiled.
“It is well chosen, my sister. Merlin—make the necessary preparations.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
“Sophia,” Isis continued, “Shaltain is no more. Merlin serves in its place. He will acknowledge your authority as he does mine—unless I object.”
Merlin inclined his holographic form.
“By your command, my lady. And by your command, Sophia.”
Sophia bowed her head. “Acknowledged.”
For a fleeting moment, Isis allowed herself satisfaction—not merely at the child, but at the restoration of order. Her absence had not weakened Artemis. It had clarified it.
And she had returned carrying the future.
By Artemis reckoning, Qblh’s presence in the Pleasure Dome had been brief—little more than minutes. The Pegasus had departed and returned almost immediately, leaving behind only a transient distortion in local space.
But the record told another story.
For a measurable interval, a singularity field had existed within Artemis orbital proximity. Its volume was negligible, yet its effective mass was catastrophic. Space-time in the surrounding region had buckled under the strain. Clocks disagreed on the length of a second. Inertial reference frames failed. Gravitational vectors warped unpredictably.
Had the field persisted even slightly longer, Artemis itself would have been pulled from stable orbit.
Sophia understood this before the engineers did.
The danger had already passed by the time the alarms fully registered. The Pegasus rematerialized with the Queen aboard, and the singularity collapsed inward, leaving only residual distortions—echoes of an event that should never have occurred so close to a populated world.
Merlin compiled the damage reports.
The Pegasus itself had suffered extensive harm. Hull sections exposed to unshielded curvature had reassembled imperfectly. Tables were no longer level. Cups were subtly elliptical. Disks refused to lie flat. Machinery designed to rotate would not turn. Some components had fused into useless masses; others were charred beyond recognition.
Idiotic precision, Sophia noted privately—mass conserved, geometry optional.
Yet every living being aboard had been returned unharmed.
Isis was astonished.
Her brother had done the impossible again. He had bent catastrophe away from her world—then vanished.
Even now, Merlin confirmed that Qblh had re-entered Earth space by a different path. She could feel him faintly through their bond, distant but unmistakably alive. She also knew, without asking, that he was already fulfilling his ritual obligations elsewhere.
She smiled.
Time travel had a flavor she found intoxicating.
When Qblh returned to her, she would demand another journey. Not immediately—no, this required preparation. The mysteries of time and space were not for daily indulgence. But they were no longer forbidden.
Her brother possessed an aptitude for the deepest sciences—astronomical, nuclear, dimensional—that bordered on artistry. Their father had always insisted it was all science. No magic at all.
Isis knew better.
If it was not magic, it behaved like it.
And love, she reflected, was magic enough.
Still, caution reasserted itself. Her bond to Earth had strengthened, not weakened. Qblh might resist her dominion there, but the connection endured. Time had not erased it.
“Merlin,” she said at last, “what is the current state of rebellion within my worlds?”
“None requiring immediate intervention, my lady,” Merlin replied. “Several subject populations are petitioning for expanded human rights.”
Isis’s expression sharpened. “Define ‘human rights.’”
“Freedom of belief, my lady.”
“And by that,” Isis said calmly, “they mean democracy.”
“Correct.”
She laughed softly. “To be ruled by democracy is to be ruled by ungoverned passion—precisely the forces I restrain. Still… very well. Let them vote.”
Merlin paused. “You intend to stand for election.”
“I intend to win,” Isis said. “Even weak leadership prefers me to chaos. With your counsel, Merlin, the outcome is trivial.”
“And if a world votes itself outside your dominion?”
“Then it may enjoy independence,” she replied, untroubled. “Without access to my gates. Without interstellar trade. Without protection. Let it live alone with its moon.”
Merlin inclined his projection. “Sanctions will apply.”
“Naturally.”
“And you will run on the opposition ticket?”
Isis smiled. “Sophia will find me a campaign manager.”
Merlin hesitated—then added, “One of Sophia’s agents is presently engaged with the rebel leader’s only son.”
Isis’s eyes glinted. “Does the rebel have others?”
“No, my lady. His wife is no longer fertile.”
“How unfortunate,” Isis said pleasantly. “Perhaps we can remedy that—after his sacrifice.”
Merlin processed in silence.
“Advise Sophia of my blessing,” Isis continued. “She will know what to do.”
“Even concerning the blood?”
“Yes,” Isis said simply. “I want the rebel leader brought here by his own choice. He will give me his heart. I will make the lesson public.”
“And in return,” Merlin said carefully, “the planet will be restored to your dominion.”
“I will even allow his seed to return to his world,” Isis replied. “Have Sophia prepare candidates for the harem.”
Merlin bowed. “As you command.”
Isis leaned back, satisfied.
Some problems required diplomacy.
Others required remembrance.
Sophia had been frightened.
She had not spoken of it openly—not even to the Queen—but the brief existence of the singularity had shaken her more deeply than any rebellion ever could. She did not understand the mechanics of what Qblh had done. She understood only the consequence: Artemis itself had nearly been unmade.
Where once she had watched Qblh’s comings and goings with awe, she now felt dread. A single miscalculation—one misplaced return—and nothing would have remained to rule.
Sophia had seen such failure before.
She remembered Morgana.
Her daughter had been raised in seclusion, hidden even from Helen and Jim in their youth. Helen had been groomed from childhood to serve as Captain of the Queen’s Throne. Morgana, by contrast, had been shaped for sacrifice—destined to serve as the Queen’s chosen virgin in rites reserved for the most dangerous workings. She was to be the alternative to the Royal Consort when blood demanded blood.
Then she betrayed her sister’s trust.
Then she died.
Or so Sophia had believed.
Helen’s crime had been greater still. High treason. Unforgivable—by law, by ritual, by precedent. And yet Isis had spared her, at least provisionally, because Qblh had asked it. That alone unsettled Sophia. The Queen did not forgive lightly.
But Isis had told her something else.
Morgana was not dead.
She existed still—alive in the past, lost beyond ordinary reach. And Qblh could retrieve her.
Sophia had not dared hope until that moment.
It was Qblh’s son—through ignorance, not malice—who had caused Morgana’s death. The boy had deserved punishment. Morgana had not. And if Qblh could undo this single injustice—if he could return Morgana safely—then even Helen might yet be spared.
Sophia knew her Queen.
Isis’s forgiveness was never free. It required balance. Blood for blood. Life for life.
Helen was still alive in Earth’s legends. The face that launched a thousand ships. The woman Qblh loved too well. Isis hated her for that—and for the child she knew Helen had borne, though no record remained.
Perhaps Helen’s children could be born on Artemis instead.
Perhaps that would be enough.
Sophia’s thoughts raced ahead, weaving possibilities into ritual. The anointing of the Virgin Princess of Artemis was approaching. Xuang’s initiation would be public, sacred, irreversible. It would draw every current of power inward—religious, political, symbolic.
Qblh would have to be present.
That would be the moment.
She would ask her Queen—formally, publicly—for Morgana’s return. Isis would already know the request, of course. They always did. But to speak it aloud would bind it to law and rite alike.
Sophia imagined the ceremony unfolding differently now. A ritual not of sacrifice, but of restoration. New life layered atop old grief. A spell not of domination, but of return.
The Queen would accept.
She always did—when it pleased her.
And Qblh would be sent into the past once more.
Sophia allowed herself, at last, to believe.
Isis did not summon Merlin immediately.
She first summoned memory.
Ayesha and Ariadne had returned as though nothing had occurred. Their presence in the Pleasure Dome was seamless—no temporal dislocation, no psychological residue detectable by conventional scan. To any observer, it would appear that they had never left Artemis at all.
And that, Isis knew, was precisely the problem.
She reclined upon her throne and let Sophia speak.
“Ayesha was calm upon her return,” Sophia said carefully. “Almost… reverent. Ariadne less so. She displays heightened curiosity, fixation on absence, and repeated inquiry regarding duration.”
“Of course she does,” Isis replied. “Ariadne was always observant. That is why she survives.”
Sophia hesitated. “They do not remember the return.”
Isis smiled faintly.
“No,” she said. “They would not.”
Qblh had brought them back inside the Box.
Not through gates.
Not through sanctioned portals.
Not even through Merlin’s jurisdiction.
They had crossed a boundary that did not officially exist.
Isis closed her eyes briefly and reviewed the sensory imprint she still carried from that passage—how the Box felt when it folded others rather than herself. Jim had been careful. Meticulous. Loving, even.
But love, she knew, was never neutral.
“Ayesha has always accepted mystery as devotion,” Isis said. “Ariadne does not. She unravels it.”
“Do you wish them questioned?” Sophia asked.
“No,” Isis replied. “That would alert him. And Qblh is already watching.”
She paused, then added softly, “Besides… they were not taken without purpose.”
Sophia inclined her head. “You believe he intends to use them again.”
“I know he does,” Isis said calmly. “Ayesha anchors ritual. Ariadne anchors choice. Together they stabilize what should not remain stable.”
Sophia considered this. “Then their presence here is dangerous.”
“Only if mishandled,” Isis answered. “And I do not mishandle what belongs to me.”
She rose.
“Ensure that both are granted every comfort. No restrictions. No supervision that feels like surveillance. Let them believe they are exactly where they belong.”
“And if Ariadne begins to remember?” Sophia asked.
Isis’s smile returned—slow, deliberate.
“Then Qblh has already decided to return for her.”
Sophia understood the implication at once.
Time was no longer being visited.
It was being cultivated.
“And Merlin?” Sophia asked.
Isis turned toward the stars beyond the palace vault.
“Merlin will report nothing,” she said. “He knows only what is permitted. And what is permitted will always arrive late.”
She lowered her voice.
“Jim trusts machines too much when they speak softly. He forgets that silence is also a form of command.”
Sophia bowed.
The accounting was complete.
Ayesha prayed.
Ariadne wondered.
And far from Artemis—already moving along a trajectory that curved through consequence rather than distance—Qblh continued his work, unaware that every thread he believed concealed had already been felt… and gently coiled.
The decision was not announced at once.
On Artemis, nothing of consequence ever was.
Isis allowed the intention to settle first—into the palace, into the priesthood, into Merlin’s probability matrices. A declaration made too early invited resistance. One made too late invited interpretation. The correct moment existed between those two errors, and Isis had ruled long enough to feel it approaching.
She stood before the Hall of Veils, its vaults threaded with living light, and summoned Merlin to her side.
“Begin the succession protocols,” she said.
Merlin did not respond immediately. Instead, the chamber brightened subtly as his cognition distributed itself through the palace lattice.
“You have not invoked abdication parameters, my lady,” Merlin observed. “Nor have you signaled withdrawal, incapacitation, or external conquest. Under Venetian law, elevation of an heir under such conditions requires—”
“—my will,” Isis interrupted. “Which you possess.”
“Yes,” Merlin acknowledged. “But the system will still require justification.”
Isis smiled. “Then record this: continuity.”
Merlin paused.
“Clarify.”
“My reign does not end,” Isis said evenly. “It expands. Xuang is not to replace me. She is to stand for me—as Dragon-Lady once stood in my stead upon Earth.”
Merlin’s internal models adjusted rapidly.
“You are proposing a dual-sovereign architecture,” he said. “Primary authority retained. Executive dominion delegated. Symbolic unity preserved.”
“Precisely,” Isis replied. “Let the empire see stability. Let them see lineage. Let them see that even eternity plans ahead.”
“And if resistance arises?” Merlin asked.
“Then it will be brief,” Isis said. “Xuang is feared where I am revered. That balance is… useful.”
Merlin processed silently for several cycles.
“Xuang’s psychological profile indicates high compliance with imperial doctrine,” he said. “However, she exhibits elevated independence markers and diminished tolerance for ceremonial constraint.”
Isis laughed softly.
“She is my daughter.”
Merlin continued, “Her elevation will require initiation beyond the Virgin Princess rites. The role you propose places her within the Queen’s cognitive perimeter.”
“That is intentional,” Isis replied. “She must hear what I hear. Feel what I feel. Rule as I rule—without illusion.”
Merlin hesitated.
“Such bonding carries risk,” he said. “Sympathetic cognition between sovereign and heir has historically led to identity bleed, power recursion, and—”
“—and perfect loyalty,” Isis finished. “Proceed.”
The chamber darkened as Merlin accepted the command.
“Designation,” he said. “Xuang shall be named Heir Apparent of Artemis, Guardian of the Gates, and Regent of Outer Worlds. Do you confirm?”
“I confirm,” Isis said. “And I will speak the words myself.”
She turned toward the inner sanctum, where Xuang awaited—already aware that something irreversible was unfolding. The Dragon-Lady stood unadorned, unbowed, her posture disciplined but her eyes alive with expectation.
“You will kneel,” Isis said—not as command, but as rite.
Xuang complied.
“From this moment,” Isis declared, “you will no longer rule in shadow or disguise. No masks. No borrowed names. You will carry mine.”
She placed her hand upon Xuang’s brow.
“You will be feared not because you are hidden—but because you are known.”
The light in the chamber shifted.
Merlin recorded everything.
“And hear me well,” Isis continued, her voice lowering. “You are not chosen because you are obedient. You are chosen because you will defy me when I am wrong—and obey me when I am not.”
Xuang raised her gaze.
“I understand,” she said. “And I accept.”
Merlin completed the binding.
“It is done,” he announced. “The empire acknowledges her.”
Isis stepped back, satisfaction measured, complete.
“Good,” she said. “Then prepare the court. Summon the priestesses. Inform Sophia.”
She paused, then added, almost to herself:
“By the time Qblh returns, the future will already be seated.”
