The Queen of Dreams (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 6)

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  "What do you know about your mother?" I asked.

  Brassy stared into her lap. "Not much. She'd gone ill in the head before I grew old enough to care for her. My father died when I was young, but left us with a considerable amount of money. It eventually ran out, but it kept Mum in a warm home with good food until I was old enough to work."

  Nasrine paced away, and Brassy furrowed her brow. When the beautiful inventor returned, she spoke quietly while rubbing the back of her neck.

  "That arm was never intended to be used as you are using it now," said Nasrine. "While I do not hide my disgust at Sake Dean Mohamed's thievery, I admire that he was able to give purpose to the arm. He was a skilled physician."

  Brassy looked at the glass arm, her lips twitching with worry. "What was it made for?"

  A light shone from Nasrine's face as she spoke, her admiration for her ancestor coming through. "Taqi was an ambitious man. He saw technology as a way to change the world, right the wrongs that have plagued it. The steam engine, which is enjoyed the world over, was considered a toy by him at first, though he later improved it when he saw how it could be used. But his true passion was not trivial engines, but life itself. He wanted to make a golem that would serve man, free him to focus on the higher purposes of existence."

  "A golem made of glass?" I asked.

  Nasrine cocked a smile. "He knew that people would not receive this idea well, so he wanted to make it beautiful so they would be unconsciously won over. Even to this day, I marvel at his cunning designs. Others have tried to imitate, but some secrets were lost when he died. That's why I didn't think it could be his until I looked closer. I've seen other glass arms before, but they do not work so elegantly."

  Brassy's worry had turned to revulsion, as if the glass arm had turned into a python.

  "This was meant for a creature made of glass and gears?" she asked.

  Nasrine, not recognizing Brassy's concern, or too enamored by her ancestor's invention, spoke quickly and with verve.

  "Yes, though alas, he could not give it that spark of life necessary to operate on its own. At times, it could perform simple deeds, but some flaw made him break it apart. A tragedy."

  In a quiet voice, Brassy said, "Sometimes it does things I don't expect. I always thought that I just wasn't paying attention."

  Seeing the distress in the former bawdy girl, I sat by her side and pulled her head against my shoulder. "Don't worry too much about it. I'm sure Nasrine's embellishing the tale. Remember, these are only stories to her. Taqi died over two hundred years ago."

  Nasrine started to rebuke my comment, but I glared at her until she snorted in disagreement and moved to the other side of the room to change into sleeping garments.

  Eventually, Brassy put aside her concerns, and we all retired in the massive bed. I slept well enough, though Brassy's occasional mumbling woke me from time to time.

  We spent the next three days oscillating between the main room and the bedroom. Nothing particularly worrisome happened, though occasionally I misplaced things, which I blamed on my roommates.

  Brassy and Santiago practiced more plays, reciting lines in the back of the main room. Nasrine and William spent their time sketching new designs to try when they returned to Philadelphia. I still hadn't decided which one of them should be invited into the Society.

  Ben and I spent our time discussing the noble families in Moscow. When we finally reached the city, we were going to have to find out which nobles were against Veles and his Otherlanders. I had an idea of who wouldn't be pleased by their new masters, but until we arrived to get the lay of the land, it was pure speculation.

  On the fourth day after we'd left the shield, a length of time indicating we were not returning to Philadelphia, or at least not by the way we had come, a bedraggled Morwen came stumbling into the main room.

  Her gaze was sunken, and dark rings circled her eyes. Her normally voluminous blond hair looked like a nest of vipers. In that brief instant, memories of her opening her mouth impossibly wide and swallowing me whole returned, reminding me that while she looked like a wholesome American woman, she was most assuredly not. Instead, she was a sorceress from another universe who had powers and motives that I could only guess at. And that the only reason she was helping us was because she was being paid.

  But that wasn't what worried me most about her return. In the first moments when she stepped into the room, I saw a glaze of color pass across her eyes like clouds across the moon. In her gaze I saw the molted yellow-brown flesh of the Yolgothi.

  Chapter Twelve

  I rushed to Morwen's side. The strange coloring in her eyes was gone, or maybe I'd imagined it. They'd returned to their normal bright green.

  Ben came up behind me. "Are you well? We were worried."

  Morwen shifted her gaze. "The impact with the shield drained me. I needed rest while we traveled."

  The others did not attend to the sorceress. The look-away glances explained their uneasiness. Except for Santiago, who studied Morwen intensely.

  "Where do we travel?" I asked hesitantly.

  Morwen stalked away from us. She looked thinner than last time.

  "Inverness, the realm of the hrevanti. I know you wanted to return to Philadelphia first, but the ways were blocked. Veles anticipated us," she said.

  This wasn't a surprise to Ben or me, but Nasrine made a noise of frustration. "I have much work to do. The shield device didn't work, but I think I know why. I just need to get back to Philadelphia. With Djata's help, I can fix it."

  The lack of mention was a cruel slap to William, who flinched. He crossed his arms and moved away from Nasrine, who hadn't noticed the impact of her words.

  Morwen turned her back on Nasrine to face Ben. Nasrine's lips twisted into a scowl.

  Morwen spoke softly, as if the effort taxed her. "Apologies, Ben, I will not be able to bring you close to the anwar e'e toche in Inverness. I'm still recovering, and it would be too dangerous for me to bring the hut so close. So I will spend my time recovering, preparing for the next journey."

  Ben bowed, touching Morwen's arm familiarly. "We will soldier on without you. Luckily, we have someone who knows the lay of the city."

  Santiago scowled. "It was a long time ago that I was there. I can't promise much."

  "You knew this was the part you had to play," said Ben. "Your part got a little larger."

  "You know it's not the journey that bothers me," said Santiago.

  Morwen handed a wooden scroll case to the hawk-faced mortician, a reluctant hitch in her gesture indicating some concern she had with the information inside.

  "This is for the Keepers," said Morwen tightly. "You remember how this works, don't you? Good. If you succeed, I will retrieve the information in a less intrusive manner."

  Santiago nodded soberly, like a prisoner who'd accepted his fate. "What about that other thing I asked about?"

  Morwen's face wrinkled with confusion before she nodded, pulled something small from an interior pocket, and handed it over. The colorful folded paper gave away the chocolate contents of the package. Santiago had requested some alchemical effect, or was it another dose of his curse-inhibiting potion?

  I cleared my throat to get Morwen's attention. "While you were recovering, the hut's interior changed. Will you be changing it back?"

  This seemed to surprise Morwen, who didn't appear pleased by the news. "That's unusual. But, no. I cannot spare the effort to rearrange things. I'll assume you found your rooms again."

  With Morwen's return settled, those of us that would go into Inverness prepared for the journey. Only Ben, Santiago, and I would leave the hut, while the others would wait.

  Santiago said it wouldn't matter what we wore, so we each chose our most comfortable clothing. I wore the black ensemble with the airman's jacket, displaying my weapons openly, while Ben looked the part of an industrious Philadelphia businessman in a tweed vest over a cream shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had no weapons that I could visibly d
etect.

  Santiago was a surprise in his lordly attire, complete with a silk-lined crimson cloak. His sharp, hawk-like features came into focus, as if this were his true self. He placed his hands on the two hilts at his hips, a restless energy lurking behind his brown eyes.

  He swept towards the door, his cloak rippling behind him, the earlier reluctance clearly banished by the prospect of the journey. "Let us be on our way. Morwen got us as close as she could without drawing notice of the Masters. We have a few days ahead of us before we reach the library."

  When we stepped outside, my surprise left my lips in a gasp. I'd expected a rural scene upon leaving the hut, as I'd enjoyed upon previous expeditions to Otherland, but what I found was a city like no other.

  If I'd imagined a city as far as the eye could see, upon which was stacked a second city, with high archways connecting the two, like the aqueducts of ancient Rome, and then filled it with more people than lived in the entire Americas, I wouldn't have come even halfway to what I saw before me.

  The jumble of sounds nearby left me reeling. Voices came from the street and above; a bridge passed over the hut. From somewhere far above, sunlight filtered down, but I couldn't see the sun. Faint blue patches of sky peeked at us through stone buildings lined with vines and other plants that flowed down their sides like green waterfalls.

  A wagon filled with oblong melons and pulled by a beast that looked like a cross between a bison and a zebra ambled past the hut. The driver looked approximately human, except his skin was mottled.

  Like buzzing wasps, a trio of vehicles made of steel and riding on puffy wheels zipped past the wagon, their riders' cloaks flapping in the wind. Their long, furry faces were unmistakably hrevanti.

  Way overhead, I heard cries from a gondola that traversed the sky on a wire. The captain was calling to an attendant on a dock that was at least a dozen meters above. I couldn't understand the language, but I sensed his aggravation. Other wires and gondolas slipped through the skies, carrying passengers and goods to the upper areas of the city.

  A whiff of strong cinnamon assaulted my nose, causing me to sneeze. I coughed and waved away the airs.

  "For some the dung of an Aderan beast can be a bit overwhelming," said Santiago with a hint of a smile on his lips.

  "Please don't say that people spice their foods with it," I said.

  "No, but the angulant factories use it to mask the chemical smell. The hrevanti are masters at repurposing their waste into useful things. They have a whole wing of the library devoted to such studies," said Santiago.

  "How many wings are there?" I asked.

  Santiago made a gesture with his hand. "A couple of hundred, that I know of."

  "A couple of hundred? How big is this library?" I asked.

  "I couldn't say for sure, but I would estimate it's at least as large as the land between Philadelphia and New York. Probably larger. The city, that is. But to differentiate between the city and the library is difficult. They are a symbiotic relationship. The city grew to support the library, but the library had to grow in size and knowledge so the city could continue to grow."

  Ben made a grumbling noise. "Come on, you two. There will be plenty of time for civics lessons. Let's get walking. We have much ground to cover. A few days at least."

  As we followed Santiago onto the street, I asked, "Why not take one of those gondolas to the library? Surely they have lines that go that direction."

  "The answer is more complex than I can easily explain, but I'll try," said Santiago. "It'll give us something to discuss along the way."

  So we set off in an unknown direction, or at least unknown to me since I had no bearing of which way was this realm's north. After a time, I realized the smells were much like the cities of Earth: breads, coal, cooking fires, body odor, dung, and others.

  Santiago stopped occasionally and spoke in the languages of the locals, who gave us directions without comment about our strange attire. This was why Santiago had told us to dress to our comfort—the city was so large there were no expectations.

  I watched him for signs of his curse. His interactions lacked the crispness of repetition, but he did not want for confidence, betraying a once-noble upbringing. Between the frequent stops for directions, he explained what he knew.

  The city of Inverness was laid out in a patchwork of wards, each one run by a Master. The Masters kept the peace and enforced the laws, much like a judge or magistrate, and they varied in their levels of corruption, just like any society.

  As Santiago explained, Inverness was a fluid, class-based society. The way to move up the ladders of prominence was through the generation and acquisition of knowledge for the library. Fail to add to the vast stores of knowledge and see your status drift downward.

  He had become a valuable guest his last time in Inverness because he'd sold knowledge about Earth, information they couldn't get otherwise. I wondered how much this knowledge factored into Veles' interest in our realm.

  But their structure explained why we couldn't take the gondolas. They were reserved for the higher classes within Inverness. Santiago pointed out the brooches worn that signified class; each design was based on the wearer's profession. Even the beggars we passed wore brooches on their filthy rags as they rattled cups in our direction. The first two beggars were hrevanti with brown, matted fur, while the third was a human with a scarred-over eye and fingers missing from the left hand. I braved the stench on the last to get a glimpse of his brooch: a brass cup suspended within a thick ring.

  The first night, we stopped at an inn, a three-story limestone building with a portico and flowers hanging from each window. The style reminded me of the architecture in Paris around Versailles. Santiago made us wait outside until he'd negotiated with the innkeeper, then he came outside.

  "We have room and dinner, though it cost more than I would have liked," he said, squeezing a meager coin pouch on his hip. "Since we are loslosta, which means either visitor or unranked, he was not keen on having us stay. Only when I explained we were headed to the library to trade knowledge did he agree, but only because his ranking will increase should our knowledge prove to be valuable."

  Santiago led us in through a side door. Our room was in what I thought was a basement, two floors down, until I looked out a window to realize there were levels of city below, dirtier than the one we traveled, with refuse left along the stone houses. The room barely fit the three of us. Ben offered to sleep on the floor, remarking about the restorative qualities of stiff sleeping arrangements, leaving two beds. Santiago appeared uneasy with the prospect of sharing the room, but we had little choice with the meager coinage.

  We ate in a lower dining room, seated in an out of the way corner, which I expected was done on purpose so the rest of the patrons were not bothered by our unranked selves. I'd experienced similar situations when traveling through Europe incognito with my son.

  The tables were mostly filled with variations of human, with a couple of hrevanti and one lone gentleman who might have been a storm-kin by his scaled face. Everyone was dressed in simple styles that wouldn't have looked strange in Philadelphia, except for an exceedingly well-dressed gentleman whose tailored striped suit seemed a higher class than the rest of the room.

  The meal consisted of a white meat wrapped in a yellowish leafy vegetable. The meat, which I told myself was chicken, had a rich flavor I associated with spiced beef, and left a pleasant burning sensation afterwards. The fermented drinks made my nose itch upon first sip, but seemed to mellow as I drained the mug, leaving foam adhered to the inside.

  Towards the end of our meal, the lower level door burst open, and the quiet atmosphere—the clicking of knives and three-pronged forks on platters, hushed conversation, occasional uncontrolled laughter that was quickly muffled—was dispelled by the entrance of two hrevanti and one frog-faced woman. They wore long leather jackets and had the arrogance of jackals.

  As soon as they approached the first table, the patrons lifted their brooches fo
r inspection. The frog-faced woman scanned them with a wand and then nodded when she was finished. The three of them moved from table to table.

  As they neared our section, Santiago whispered under his breath, "Just stay calm and don't do anything to provoke them."

  Santiago held out his hands and spoke in their language in what sounded to me to be a calm voice. He touched his chest during the explanation and nodded to us. I thought I heard him use the word loslosta at some point.

  The taller hrevanti leaned into my face. His breath smelled like cabbage, and I noticed his teeth and claws were filed down to civilized lengths.

  He stared into my eyes. I looked back at him, hiding my fear beneath a mask. Constable or not, I refused to be intimidated. When he pulled away, he made a comment to the other hrevanti, who chuckled.

  After a few questions, the frog-faced woman seemed content with Santiago's explanation and moved towards the next table. The people there already had their brooches out, and they glared at me as if I had made a serious social error.

  "You shouldn't have done that," said Santiago quietly.

  "I complied with your request," I said.

  "You're lucky they interpreted your staring as a sign you're feebleminded. Most Watchers consider loslosta fair game for shakedown. We were exceeding lucky the woman in charge was above that sort of thing," he said.

  My reply was cut short when the well-dressed man in the striped suit burst towards the door. The frog-faced woman's hand shot out lightning fast, throwing a leather ball that quickly expanded into a net that tangled the fleeing man's legs until he crashed into the wall.

  The hrevanti Watchers closed on him before he could get up, smacking him across the temple with blunt weapons. The man's eyes rolled into the back of his head and his limbs went limp.

  The frog-faced woman snatched the brooch—a trio of coins—from his lapel and after a scan from her wand, shoved the brooch into an inner pocket. The hrevanti hefted the unconscious man up by his arms and carried him out of the dining area.

  The tension in the room released as soon as the Watchers left, though I noticed a few more unsavory glances in my direction during the remainder of the meal.