“It wasn’t a clean death. There’s something off—have you been on the brink of death before?” she asked.
“I was…on the brink of death back at the Academy once, when I hit my head hard…” Glenn answered honestly, against his better judgment.
The Queen’s gaze never broke. He’d been told the injury was severe, but thanks to Dr. Cthulhy’s prompt treatment, he’d recovered without incident.
“Is that all? Hmm? It really is a strange feeling. You’ve been more than half-dead once, you know?”
Glenn looked at the Queen quizzically.
“Well, whatever, it doesn’t matter.” She dismissed it.
But it mattered to Glenn. He wanted to know more, but the Queen seemed to have lost interest, coldly waving the topic aside with her left hand.
“Now then, Glenn. You say you don’t know why you were summoned?”
“Yes…”
The Queen seemed friendly, but her eyes were like darts. She wasn’t just a Goddess in title. “Well, that makes sense. The reason I killed you is very simple. Your meddling thwarted my plans.”
“Meddling?”
“That dragon, of course!” Elle roared.
At this, the Underworld fairies all scattered as if from fear.
“All residents of the Underworld—all living beings that have died—are under my rule. They are my subjects. They are my army. That dragon has been accumulating power for hundreds of hears…When she died, my world was supposed to get stronger,” she went on.
“Dragon—you mean Miss Skadi?”
“Hmm? Oh, is that her name? Well, whatever. Her name doesn’t matter. The point is that I spent a long time winning over the Goddesses of Fate. I even intervened in the living world. Everything was going according to plan. The dragon would be stricken with disease, lose her will to live, and then die. And then you came along!”
Elle roared again, baring eight sharp fangs. She might look human, but the way she was threatening him was more akin to a beast or monster, right now. Her human surface hid something completely different underneath. He supposed she was a goddess, after all.
“You talked her into it!”
“What?”
“It was you! You talked her into it! Into living! Thanks to you, that dragon is living a long, carefree life. Who knows how long it will take before there’s another opportunity for her to die?! The Goddesses of Fate can no longer easily affect a dragon’s powerful vitality. I bet they won’t even listen to me, no matter how many times I order them to change her fate…” Elle complained, stamping her feet on the throne.
Glenn thought she looked about the same age as him—but this behavior just made her seem like a spoiled child.
“The dragon would have been under my rule and strengthened my army,” the Queen said angrily. “Such a precious opportunity—and you thwarted it all, Glenn Litbeit!”
“Huh?”
Glenn looked at Cottingley and Molly beside him, confused by this illogical ire. The fairy commander was just as dumbfounded as him at Elle’s words. Molly spread out her arms and shrugged, despite the head in her arms, not knowing what to do.
“Well…that’s fine. It’s all over, anyway.” Elle readjusted her position on the throne, baring her teeth. “To me, Lord of the Underworld, doctors who cure every little illness are a nuisance. To be honest, I would love to drag every single doctor in the world into the Underworld right now.”
“But you can’t do that, right? Queen Elle’s field is death, but there are other gods that control fate and life,” Molly pointed out.
“Unfortunately, that is correct. In the end you’re the only one I’ve been able to take revenge on, Glenn.”
He was in awe of her utterly selfish reasoning. It was true that doctors protected the health of their patients. From her point of view, the entire point of the profession was to keep death at bay as long as possible. However, blaming him for treating Skadi and then using that as justification for killing him…then calling it revenge… It was absurd. Although he did find this behavior typical of a god.
Glenn wanted to scream back at her in anger, but he restrained himself. He was facing a god who was capable of calmly and stoically executing this sort of nonsense, and he had no confidence that she would listen to his cries. He had to remain calm.
He decided to go through her points and tackle each difference in ideology one at a time. That was how he’d talked Skadi into taking treatment she didn’t want at first.
“Can I…ask you something?”
“I will permit it. What is it?” Elle allowed.
Molly narrowed her eyes, but Glenn ignored her.
“I was not the only doctor who treated Skadi. Everyone in the town, assistants, my mentor…there were many people involved. Why did you single me out?”
“Hmph. It’s simple,” Elle said, waving her hands. “You were the one who gave the dragon the will to live again and changed her fate. Only the willpower of the living can change fate—weak-willed living things might as well be corpses. You convinced that dragon to live.”
“Will?”
“Correct. As Queen of the Underworld, the will to live just gets in the way of everything. Creatures with the will to live just don’t go down as easily. They take forever to die. I despise it,” she elucidated.
Glenn finally understood some of what she was saying. She was a god, and her reasoning was beyond that of living beings. Just as her title suggested, she embodied the phenomenon of death. Even speaking the same language didn’t guarantee mutual understanding. Convincing her would be very different from convincing a dragon.
“Long ago, there was a species called the phoenix. They evolved into beings with the uncanny ability of engulfing their cells in fire and coming back to life,” the queen told them.
“The phoenix…” Glenn remembered it as the species thought to be Illy’s ancestors.
“They just messed up all the laws of nature. We did everything we could think of to keep them from coming back to life, including pushing them to cross-breed with harpies to dilute their blood so they’d leave no descendants. Making the phoenixes go extinct was quite the feat,” she bragged.
“Er…” Glenn had nothing to say to that.
“You’re the same, doctor. Life is the opposite of death. I’d love to get all doctors into the Underworld, but there are just too many. If only I could destroy medicine altogether…” The Lord of the Underworld’s tone was nonchalant, even as she said these unimaginable things. “So, long story short…I started with bringing you, the biggest offender, to the Underworld. You’re lucky to get off that lightly after offending a god so.”
Glenn was starting to feel dizzy.
Her resentment was ultimately unjustified, but nothing was more onerous than the unjustified resentment of someone with real power.
Is this…
He couldn’t find the words.
Is this someone who can be convinced with reasoning and pleas?
Even Cottingley had grown pale at what the goddess said. He was sure she wouldn’t even entertain a request to be sent back to the living realm. Glenn felt nothing but despair pressing down on him in the cold throne room.
“What…will happen to me after this?” he mustered.
“Hmm? Why nothing at all,” Elena answered lazily. “As soon as you dropped into the Underworld, my objective was fulfilled. Now you are free to live as you wish down here. There isn’t much, but you’ll have all you need. However, you’ll never have a life like you did in the living world.”
Glenn wanted to go back to the world of the living. It was as if Elle had read his mind and pierced through his thoughts.
“Queen Elle? Shall I prepare a room for him in the castle?” Molly suggested.
“Ugh…that’s fine. If we don’t provide such courtesy for a doctor, it will set a poor precedent, I suppose.”
Glenn now understood. Killing him had been as an act of revenge—but now that it was over and done with, Elle no longer had any interest in him. All she cared about was that he was in the Underworld. She was essentially telling him he could never see Sapphee again, and he was never going to accept that.
It looks like I’ll be here for a while…
Apparently, even Molly wouldn’t make any requests on his behalf here. All she did was bow politely, not showing any emotion.
“Anyway, I’m sure you’re tired from your trip here. Get some rest. Show him, Molly,” Elle ordered.
“Okay. C’mon, Glenn. You’ve met the Queen. I’m sure you’re not happy but…well, you’re dead now, so just let it go, ’kay? If you have something to say, I’ll hear you out later, ’kay?” Molly gave him a wink.
It was her sign to him to leave it alone for now and not to say anything. Even the assertive Cottingley was silent, having realized the Queen wouldn’t listen to any of them. He was probably thinking they should step back for now and come up with a new plan to get home.
Glenn knew that. He knew that, but—
“Excuse me, may I just ask you one more question?”
“Glenn,” Molly warned in a stern voice. She was trying to convey to him that anything further would only anger the Queen.
“Sure. Ask me anything,” the Lord of the Underworld said generously.
“Okay then, just one—”
“Mmmhmm.”
“May I ask where the smell in this room is coming from?”
“Er.” Queen Elle opened her exposed left eye wide.
“It’s being concealed with perfume but—this is the smell of a festering wound. Dying tissue. If it isn’t treated right away, it might be too late. Is someone injured?”
First-generation Molly had said she wanted Glenn to cure the Queen…and there was a faint smell of injury in the throne room. It was the foul, rotting odor of necrotic flesh.
“I did give you permission to ask me anything, so I will not call your question rude,” the Queen started.
“Your Highness, is the injured person perhaps—”
“But I will say that your question does not please me. Molly, take the doctor away. I wish to rest,”
With that, Elle left the throne room. This was no time to request to be brought back to life. The Queen had gone into the back room without even a glance in Glenn’s direction.
“Ahhh, now you’ve done it, Glenn. You stepped on the biggest land mine,” Molly said breezily.
“I can’t ignore someone who is injured,” Glenn replied, continuing to stare at the back room that Elle had disappeared into.