“That’s better,” Cass said in a low voice. “Now, we’d better find out what all these soldiers are doing here.”
At that moment, there were shouted orders and the soldiers stamped out their cigarillos, immediately organized themselves into neat lines and stood to attention. There was a clattering of hooves and some way away from Cass and Dacha a mounted guard trotted into the square, flanking the unmistakable figures of Queen Vegna, Nym and behind her, Zirt. Cass and Dacha shrank back instinctively even though they knew they were too far away to be seen.
Vegna, dressed in furs and jewels and riding a white stallion, came forwards to address her troops. “Comrades, sons of Veraklia, my mighty army!” There were shouts and cries of approval. “Treasure this moment. You will be able to tell your children and grandchildren that it was you who made Veraklia great again! Our enemies – those land-grabbing, bloodthirsty Bundish, and those greedy Minarian fish – thought they could crush us, that we were defeated forever. But we have risen again, like a butterfly from its chrysalis! And what a beautiful sight you are!” There was more cheering. “So now, my friends, it begins. First we will take Minaris, something that I believe never will have occurred to that oh-soclever Fish King,” she mocked, to more laughter and cheering. “Then when Minaris and its riches are ours, we will take Metrete back.”
As the soldiers cheered, Cass felt numb with shock at Vegna’s words. They were headed for Minaris not Metrete. Nym had bluffed her and everyone else too. Idaliz, Sir Drex, Masha, Riven… They thought the army was headed to Metrete but it wasn’t. They were going to invade Minaris and Lycus would have no idea. Cass’s head swam with it all. What was more, she could see signs of enchantment on the soldiers’ faces. Clearly Nym was leaving nothing to chance. Dacha, pale with shock, signalled for them to go, and while the soldiers were still cheering and applauding Vegna, they slipped out of the square.
“I don’t believe it!” Dacha replied.
“We must get back to Minaris and warn Lycus as quickly as possible,” Cass whispered frantically to Dacha once they were alone on the path back to the lake. “They have no idea what’s coming.”
“Do you think we should steal some horses?” Dacha said.
“Who from?” Cass asked. “The army will have taken every decent horse already. And we’d better not steal horses from them, it’s too risky. How far is it to the border?”
“About seventy miles – if we walk or skate thirty miles a day we can make it in a couple of days.”
“That’s what we’ll have to do then,” Cass said. “Quicker if we can. We have to be faster than them.”
Dacha nodded. “We’ll be quicker on the ice, so I think we should skate for as long as we can. It’s still very cold at night so the ice should be strong then.”
However, luck was not with them. The temperature rose rapidly, melting the last of the snow and the lake ice, making skating impossible. So they had to march through the sodden woods, slipping and sliding in the mud. They hardly slept, pushing themselves on until they were, by Dacha’s reckoning, only a mile outside Balzen and the border.
Freezing, exhausted and starving, they sat down on a wet log to share the last crumbs of the biscuits.
“I think we had better take the risk and go and see Masha’s contact, the seamstress,” Dacha announced.
“Do you think it’s fair to involve her?” Cass asked.
Dacha sighed. “I don’t know, but she is our only hope of getting back to Minaris.”
Cass thought for a moment. In her heart she knew it was hopeless and that they would never get across the border but she felt she couldn’t say this to Dacha. She couldn’t admit defeat quite yet.
“You’re right,” she said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as she could. “We have to try.”
The town of Balzen had the sad, neglected air that Cass and Dacha had become used to. Many of the buildings were boarded up and there were few people on the streets. But as Cass had predicted there were a large number of soldiers around. Cass and Dacha tried to look as inconspicuous as possible but they were still aware of being eyed curiously by the uniformed men. They crossed the main square and went down one of the alleys, following Masha’s instructions, until they found the small shop, with the sign of a needle hanging above it.
The bell rang as they opened the door. The shop was clean and bright inside, but there were only a few rolls of cheap material on the shelves.
“Hello?” Dacha called tentatively while Cass looked around. There was a clipping from a news sheet that had been pinned up, which caught Cass’s attention. Balzen heroine demonstrates new invention – “The Parachute” takes off! And there were some pen-and-ink drawings of a woman dangling below what looked like a huge balloon. Local seamstress Eva Traven demonstrates her amazing…
“What in the Longest World is that?” Dacha said, looking over her shoulder.
He was interrupted by a voice saying, “Hello, can I help you?” They turned around to find a woman of about thirty-five eyeing them curiously. She was typically Veraklian-looking with red hair, fine freckled skin and large green eyes. “Can I help you?” she repeated.
“Are you Dorcas?” Cass asked.
The woman nodded warily and Dacha said, “We are friends of Masha.”
Dorcas raised her eyebrows. “You had better come through to the back then,” she said and ushered them out of the shop.
She took them into a small parlour where there was a modest fire burning. There was a tailor’s dummy, which was wearing a bright red silk dress of such lavishness that it almost took Cass’s breath away. It looked so out of place in the simple room it was like coming face to face with a wild animal.
“It’s for the queen,” Dorcas explained. She produced a bottle and three small glasses.
“Apple brandy,” she said with a smile as she poured the amber liquid. “I know it’s early but you two look in need of it. And I always am these days.” Cass took a sip and nearly spat it out it was so strong. But she could feel it warming her so she persisted.
“So who are you? Or is it safer that I don’t know?” Dorcas asked.
“Perhaps better not to tell you anything,” Cass said.
“Very well. Let me know how I can help you instead,” Dorcas replied.
“We urgently need to get to Minaris,” Dacha said. “Masha thought you might know someone who could take us? I have silvers.”
Dorcas sighed. “I wish I did,” she replied. “But I’m afraid it’s not possible. Up to about three months ago there was some trading still, mostly black-market stuff, but a couple of official wagons went through with silks such as this.” She gestured to the dummy. “Now it’s totally impossible. The gates are shut and guarded twenty-four hours a day and the valley itself is patrolled constantly.” Seeing the disappointment on their faces, she added, “Really, there is no way of getting through.”
Cass took a deep breath. “What about going over Razat Falls?” she asked.
“In a barrel?” Dorcas asked, raising her eyebrows. “It’s incredibly dangerous.”
“I know,” Cass replied. “But we’re desperate.”
She shook her head. “It’s too early in the season. The pool at the bottom is probably still frozen and it won’t have enough water in it. You would die for sure.”
“Is there no other way?” Dacha asked her.
“You could go back across the lake and make your way over to Fricken and see if you could get over there. It would only take you ten days or so. Perhaps there might be fewer soldiers over that side of the lake. Or you could wait a few weeks here and then you can risk the barrel if you want.”
“We don’t have a few weeks,” Dacha replied, with a sigh. “We have to get to Minaris before the army and they will be there in a couple of days.”
Dorcas paused, looking at Cass and Dacha’s disappointed faces. “I’m sorry to give you such bad news. Can I get either of you anything to eat? I don’t have much but you are welcome to share it.”
Dorcas looked at her quizzically. “You mean my sister’s invention? The parachute?”
“Yes,” Cass replied. “Couldn’t I use that to jump off the cliffs and into Minaris?”
“Only if you were completely insane!” Dorcas laughed and then when she saw Cass was serious she said, “Really, that would be just as risky as a barrel.”
“Cass, of course you cannot do such a thing,” Dacha said. “Perhaps we should think about heading over to Fricken or even back up to Enzit…”
Cass ignored him, saying insistently to Dorcas, “Please could I speak to your sister?”
A look of grief passed across her face. “No,” the seamstress replied. “She died, a year ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cass responded.
Dorcas sighed and thought for a moment. “I’ll get the parachute down if you want and you can see for yourself how flimsy it is.”
She disappeared off and Dacha said to Cass, “You cannot be serious? You could die!”
“I know, Dacha,” she replied. “But unless I get across the border, Zirt will catch me and kill me so I’ll wind up dead anyway. I would rather die trying to do something useful.”
Dorcas came back into the room before Dacha could reply, carrying a canvas kit bag. She undid it, tipping out the contents on to the floor. It looked like an enormous puddle of pale-coloured silk. “This is it,” Dorcas said, spreading the parachute out.
“How does it work?” Cass asked.
“A little like a balloon,” Dorcas answered. “As you jump the air inflates the parachute and slows you down.”
“Where did your sister jump with it?”
“She jumped off some of the lower cliffs over by the border. I have to admit that her dream was to do what you are proposing. But then she became ill and so…” Dorcas petered out.
She was silent for a minute, thinking. “If you are serious, then I will take you up to the cliffs and I can show you the safest place that she had found to jump from. But first let us eat something.”
Dorcas produced some stale bread and salted fish, which they ate accompanied by more apple brandy.
“So how did your sister come to invent such a thing?” Dacha asked Dorcas.
“Our father was a kite-maker,” she replied. “He had the Veraklian obsession with the sky that Eva inherited. Even as a young child, she would spend hours throwing her dolls out of the highest trees in the orchard, trying to make them fly. And then when she was older she was jumping herself. She loved the feeling of having nothing beneath her, she said. It’s as if you are out of time, in another dimension, even if it’s just for a few seconds. Now, if you’ve both had enough to eat, let’s go up to the cliffs.”
Dorcas led them out of the back of her house and up a series of narrow paths, avoiding the roads. They carried the heavy kit bag containing the parachute between them and passed no one except an old lady, who stared at them curiously but wished them a good afternoon. On the outskirts of the town, the road, signposted for the border, snaked off to the right. But they took a path that turned left. It wound its way up through some woods, and then almost unexpectedly brought them out on a high plateau.
It felt like you were on the top of everything, Cass thought as the icy winds buffeted her. The Razat Falls were about half a mile to their left but the noise of the cascading water reached them, and down to the right the land abruptly fell away to the border.
“What an amazing place! I’ve never seen a view like it, even from the mountaintops in the north,” Dacha was shouting to Dorcas over the wind.
“I know,” Dorcas replied. “You can see why we call it the End of the World.”
Dacha gave a start and shouted at Cass, “Did you hear that, Cass, this place is known as the End of the World!”
“I’m not surprised,” she replied, busy considering the jump. “I’m just going to have a look over the edge.”
“But don’t you remember what the fortune teller said in Oskbar?” Dacha shouted after her.
“Oh yes!” Cass replied and then laughed, saying, “Lucky I’m the one jumping then, not you!” She walked tentatively towards the edge of the cliffs, which were some distance away. With each step she felt more terrified but she forced herself onwards until she was only about a metre from the edge. The Minarian Plains were spread out beneath her like a picnic blanket, a thousand metres below. Cass felt a great tug of longing to be down there combined with an immense wave of shivery fear and nausea at the thought of jumping. Her legs felt strange and wobbly.
No, she thought, I’m mad to think I can do this. I cannot. We will have to think of another plan.
She turned back to join the others. They had walked towards the woods but were facing Cass, deep in conversation about something.
Cass saw the horse and rider before they did. He galloped out of the woods, slicing the air with his sword as if he were in battle. Even from such a distance, Cass knew it was Zirt. He charged at Dacha and Dorcas.
The fortune teller’s words to Dacha came back to Cass like a slap round her face. At the world’s end, you are in great danger…
“No!” Cass bellowed as she pulled her sword out and hurtled over to them.
Dorcas and Dacha heard Zirt just in time. Dorcas screamed and sprinted back to the woods, dropping the kit bag. But Dacha flung himself out of the horse’s path and then jumped to his feet, drawing his sword, ready to face Zirt.
At the world’s end, you are in great danger.
And Cass ran like she had never run before in her life.
At the world’s end, you are in great danger.
Afterwards, Cass would remember what happened next as both very fast and very slow. Zirt wheeled his horse around and reached Dacha in a few seconds. They fought, their blades slamming against each other. Cass was nearly there and was planning what she should do – a quick blow under Zirt’s ribs, perhaps…
But then, somehow, Zirt knocked Dacha’s sword clean out of his hands. Shocked, Dacha paused just for a heartbeat and in that hesitation, Zirt plunged his sword into Dacha’s chest and his body crumpled to the ground. Cass knew from the way he fell that he had been killed instantly.
She felt as if the world had fallen away beneath her. “No, no, no!” she cried.
Zirt grinned at her.
That smile lit such a fury in Cass that she felt as if she would burst into flames. “Why did you do that?” she yelled at him. “It’s me you want, not him!”
Zirt burst out laughing. “Oh, kitten, I’m sorry. Have I upset you?”
“I should have killed you in the Islands when I had the chance!” she screamed.
“But you didn’t,” Zirt replied, getting off his horse. “And now I’m going to kill you, Cassandra.”
“I don’t mind if you do,” she replied truthfully. But she was desperate for revenge too and so began to fight him with a cold, calculated rage that occupied every muscle, every sinew of her body. She cared nothing for her own safety; she only had one simple thought in her head, which was to kill Zirt. And so she took every risk, every gamble and it paid off. She caught him slightly off guard on a parry and swiped his sword away. She paused.
“Are you sure you have the courage to do it, kitten?” Zirt mocked.
Cass looked into his blue eyes, as she had all those months ago in the Islands. “Absolutely,” she said and plunged her sword deep into his flesh.
Once she knew he too was dead, Cass could not help but fling herself on Dacha’s body. At the world’s end, you are in great danger, the fortune teller had warned Dacha. She had heard the words as well as him so why hadn’t she reacted, why had she been so preoccupied and made a joke out of it? Why hadn’t they left straight away? Or better still, why had she not agreed to stay with Sir Drex, as Dacha had wanted! It was all her fault, her own pig-headed fault.
> “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to the corpse. But it was no use, she couldn’t bring Dacha back to life, she couldn’t turn back time. Oh, why didn’t Zirt kill me instead? She sobbed, so consumed by guilt and sadness that she felt her feelings would crush her down into the earth.
Cass didn’t know how long she lay there with him but a voice said, “You must come with me before more soldiers arrive. You’ve killed a very important man.” Cass looked up through a blur of tears to see Dorcas standing above her.
“I can’t leave him,” Cass cried, still clutching at Dacha’s body.
“You must,” Dorcas replied firmly. “He’s dead, Cass, he’s gone. As I said, others will soon come, so before they do help me get his body into the woods and then we can hide it and bury it later.”
Together they carried his body as carefully as they could. Dorcas found a couple of fallen trees close together and they hid the body beneath them. “Now, will you come back to the village with me?” she asked.
To do what? Cass thought. To hide like an animal until she was inevitably found and killed by Nym or her soldiers. She couldn’t run forever and she would only endanger kind people like Dorcas who helped her.
She shook her head. “I’m going to jump. I’ll try and if it doesn’t work so be it.”
Dorcas wavered, wanting to object, but then seeing Cass’s determination she thought better of it and gave a small nod in response. After Cass had taken one last look at Dacha, they walked back out into the open. The parachute bag was near Zirt’s body where Dorcas had dropped it.
“Come, let us get it on you,” Dorcas said. Cass stood still in silent shock at what had happened and what she was about to do. Dorcas took the harness out of the bag and tied it on her like a corset over her clothes. She then clipped the parachute on and gave Cass some instructions.
“I’ll make sure the parachute stays on the ground until you reach the edge,” she announced as she tipped the mound of silk from the bag and spread it out behind Cass. “You can steer a little by pulling down on either side, but mostly you just have to let the wind take you. Luckily it’s coming from the right direction. Is that all right?”
The Conspiracy of Magic Page 13