A Princess of The Linear Jungle by Paul di Filippo

of further briefs from the Princess, they had all been wondering what was in store for them, when several ratmen approached the humans and culled Merritt out of the pack. Scoria and Pivot tried barging along as her protectors, but found themselves on the wrong end of a few spears.
    Led to the Princess’s hut, Merritt came upon the mystery woman seated on the only article of furniture yet found in the village: a bamboo throne cushioned with a feather-stuffed, leaf-latticed pillow.
    The Princess’s resonant voice was all honey, but Merritt could detect the steel beneath. The inside of the hut was warm and close, and filled with a potent, indefinable spicy scent.
    “Sit at my feet, dear, and tell me your name.”
    Merritt complied.
    “Yes, that fits you perfectly. I had a dim sense of your name, which, after all, is but the most trivial part of your essence. But there could beno mistaking your glowing spirit, calling out to mine, mate to mate. I first saw it shining afar. A little flame, burning in my inner vision ever since you were born. Then, as you passed my domain some months ago, riding upon the waters, I sensed your closeness, your affinity. That was when I determined to bring you here, to end my long isolation.”
    “You—you brought us here? How?”
    “By allowing myself to be seen and photographed. Why should I appear only now, after all these centuries of secrecy, if not to lure you here?”
    “But how could you know anything about Arturo and his plans? Do you visit other Boroughs? How could you ever pass unnoticed, looking as you do?”
    The Princess laughed like a crystalline rill tumbling down the wall of the bowl they inhabited. “Not in the flesh, dear Merritt. But I apprehend many things nonetheless, both near and far. As you will, when you assume my mantle.”
    Here the Princess of Vayavirunga seemed briefly to collapse a little bit into herself, as if allowing herself to register the full weight and despair of a burden long denied by sheer force of will. But then she resumed her magnificent manner.
    “I am weary now. Leave me, and we shall talk more later.”
    When Merritt returned to her fellows, they all surged around her in relief, even Cady. Arturo quizzed her about what had passed, and she tried to recount everything.
    Ransome said, “What could she mean about centuries of secrecy? Is she implying that there’s been a succession of Princesses who have all kept hidden? She’s the latest, and you’re to follow?”
    “That must be the case,” said Scoria.
    But Merrit was not so sure.
    Subsequent conversations with the Princess had touched upon many of the enigmas of the Jungle Blocks, but often without satisfactory or definitive results.
    On the origin of Vayavirunga: “A piece of the sky fell down, detaching from where the Pompatics dwell. When it landed, all was changed.” Or: “There was an accident in Fogtown, the central Borough. Scientists were responsible. What they made escaped, and ate down and outward.” Or: “The Citybeast wept, and its tears transformed whatever they touched.”
    On the origin of the hybrids: “They are the former human citizens of these Boroughs, transmuted.” Or: “I myself spliced them and taught them to breed true, so that I might have followers to keep me company and serve me.” Or: “They were seeds inherent upon the falling sky piece, that piece, which took root here and flourished.”
    On why the Pompatics ignored the dead hybrids: “I have removed the entry for their species from the lookup table.”
    On the Subway and the Discontinuity: “The Linear City automatically reroutes around damage.”
    On her personal origin: “I rode down on the sky fragment’s back.” Or: “I was an infant castaway when the ship that carried my parent son the River crashed here in flinders, during a storm. The hybrids raised me.” Or: “I came here like yourself, on another expedition, when there was no Princess, and invented my role.” Or: “I was sent