by Lorna Reid
‘So, your first time in the city? Where are you going to go?’ Airrell asked.
‘We’re supposed to stay here,’ said Russell.
Airrell laughed, choking on the sandwich and spraying bits of tomato over the cushions. Isa looked horrified. ‘Nah, I’ll give you a tour – even better than the Oracle’s.’ He stood up and brushed off his sleeveless blue shirt.
‘No, they’re supposed to stay here, bead for brains,’ warned Isa.
‘Well.’ He adjusted the blue gemstone studded in one ear and smoothed down his dark trousers. ‘You can run to father and tell him how I’ve disappointed him yet again, while I take our new friends sightseeing.’
‘Air!’
‘Look, you won’t be disobeying one of those precious army orders.’ He waved his hands and grinned. ‘It’s my choice. And theirs. They can stay and be boring if they like, but there’s a whole big city out there.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Danny said. Katrina agreed but Isa ignored them.
‘You’re banned from roaming for a fortnight, Air, after the guards pulled you out of the Poison Tree tavern last week.’
‘Details,’ Air snorted, waving her concerns away, to her mounting frustration. ‘Anyway … it’s Aquattrox day.’ He danced a swift-footed jig and punched the air.
‘You’re banned. You threw a hot pie over the rail at a referee two matches ago.’
‘The magic barrier caught it, no big deal. Anyway, after that call? Are you insane?! It nearly cost the Blades their spot in the finals today.’
Isa rolled her eyes, but smiled. ‘Fine, whatever. I’m going with you. Someone has to keep you out of trouble.’ She slipped her jacket off and pulled a sleeveless jerkin from a hook by the door; it was exactly the same as the rest of her uniform but better suited to a bright day.
‘Let’s go, or we’ll be here all day,’ urged Air.
*
Russell tried to ignore his conscience tapping its foot at the back of his head as they tramped down to a small stable yard. Bits of straw drifted across the ground in the feeble breeze, catching on some old boots lined beneath a bench that rested in the shade of an outbuilding.
‘This is our private stable yard,’ explained Isa. ‘There are others around the Honorax, but they’re mostly for the working horses or the mounted guards.’
Air unlocked a small gate, set into the side wall, and they filed out past a pair of bored-looking guards.
‘You’re so lucky to have horses,’ Poppy said, momentarily surprised when the gate blended seamlessly with the brick once they were clear.
‘Am I?’ Air snorted. ‘My room is above that lot, and they spend all night kicking their doors, snoring, and farting. Keep me up half the night.’
‘That’s because you usually sleep in until midday,’ said Isa. ‘And it’s your night-time wanderings that keep you up half the night. Father’s sick of the City Guard dragging you home.’
‘I have fun. Jealous?’ Air grinned, stuffing a handful of crisps into his mouth, and sauntered ahead with Katrina and Poppy.
‘He makes me so angry. He could do so much more.’ Isa shook her head and Russell wished he knew what to say. ‘Our mother …’ She shook her head and stopped. ‘She just … wanted more for him.’ For a moment, sadness lingered before she gathered her more strict, military air around her and smothered it.
‘He wasn’t interested in the army?’ Russell ventured, watching the light that stretched down between the buildings play over her rich skin, catching the silver stars on her jerkin collar.
‘Are you serious?’ She smiled. At that moment, Air took a run, leapt and grabbed a pole bearing a shop sign and pulled himself up onto a rigid canopy where he was able to help himself to several pies cooling on an upper windowsill.
‘I see what you mean.’ Russell grinned as Air dropped down and shared the pies with Katrina and Poppy, soaking up their admiration, shock, and giggles with a huge grin.
‘I wanted to protect people. It’s why I joined. I spent a few years with the Rangers first.’
‘Have you been in many battles?’
‘There aren’t real battles anymore,’ she smiled, pinching his elbow and picking up pace as angry shouts filtered down the alleyway. ‘The Allies have kept peace for years now. The Darklanders are trapped and powerless, and the Mage Wars are a thankfully distant memory.’ There was a crash behind them as a door swung open and smashed into something and, with a glance, Isa dragged Russell into a run. The others had already sprinted away.
They plunged across a crowded junction after Air and the others, and dodged down several winding alleyways, eventually ending up in a quiet cobbled courtyard.
The place was surrounded by bookshops and the occasional food or trinket store, and it was dominated by a number of large leafy trees, around which people were reading, eating, or sleeping while lounging on blankets. Russell’s breath caught from more than just the exertion. ‘This is my kind of place.’
‘You bead, Air. I can’t be seen to be doing this stuff. I’m a damned arms captain and I’m running away from a pie vendor,’ Isa said, punching her brother’s arm.
Air screeched loudly and contorted, drawing stares. ‘Brutality, army cruelty, someone help!’
Isa looked horrified at the attention he was attracting and tried to put her hand over his mouth, which just made it worse. Russell noticed several shop owners emerging to see what the fuss was about.
‘Shut up, idiot, everybody’s looking!’ she urged.
Air slid dramatically down the doorframe of a nearby shop while Isa tried desperately to haul him upright.
‘Bastard.’
‘Tell me you’re having fun.’
‘No. Get up, or I’ll flush that illegal supply of Rust Wine you think you’ve hidden in the stables.’
Katrina shared a look with Russell, obviously wondering, like him, if it was just a name or something more disgustingly literal. Air popped up onto his feet and pulled a bag of boiled sweets from his pocket before feeding a cluster into his mouth and then offering the rest around.
‘How did you know about that?’ he asked.
‘Because I saw you selling it to two traders last month.’ Isa shook her head and pinched her brow as Air grinned. ‘How are we related?’ she muttered. She turned away from her brother and walked beside Russell as they skirted the leafy central area and exited out into a small street with tall buildings either side.
The shop fronts all looked pristine and the odds and ends in many of them drew everyone like moths. In some were colourful herbs and powders, dried sticks, and what looked like shrivelled dead creatures hanging from beams above sacks of grains and vegetables. In others, polished furniture, marble slabs and flagstones, old, decrepit books, and weapons. There was even, to Russell’s embarrassment, several shops openly selling adult leather goods and mysterious paraphernalia. Somehow he knew the whips and straps had nothing to do with either riding or law enforcement.
Everyone seems more liberal here, he thought, considering the open nature of many of the pieces of art he had seen thus far, both as far as sex and sexuality went. It didn’t stop his face from burning, however.
Air and the others lingered the longest near those shops, and he shuffled awkwardly while they gawped, hurrying to turn his full attention back to Isa.
‘You know my dad at all?’
‘Everyone knows Jack Sherwood.’ She smiled. ‘You’ve big boots to fill. He was part of Company Thirteen. They were legends.’ Poppy began listening; Danny, meanwhile, was pressed against the glass of a nearby shop, oblivious. ‘I’ve fought under him before, clearing out a nasty drainer network in Vransk. Great tactical mind. He’s … intense. He can be a bit of a perfectionist at times.’
‘Tell me about it. He won’t be happy I’m here.’
‘He’ll get over it. At first my father hated the idea of me joining the forces. He’ll realise that you have to make your own path. Your parents can only steer you to a point, and then they have
to let go. It’s up to you to keep to the right course.’
Russell caught her smile and felt his cheeks flush. She was right. Perhaps if I talk to Dad sensibly about it all, it will be fine. It’s unreasonable of him to expect to keep me from all this now that it has come out, he thought.
‘Get away from that glass, Air, you’ll get it all smeared. You don’t do real-life discipline, let alone anything else.’ Air pulled a face at Isa and moved off, along with a reluctant Danny.
‘So, where are we headed?’ asked Poppy, glancing up at a café balcony where someone was arguing about a lunch bill.
‘The Rainbow Bridges would be a lovely idea,’ said Isa. ‘People come from all over the Lands to see them. There’s one to represent every strand of magic, and each of them link a different section of the city to the grand park in the centre.’
‘Yeah, every magic but shadow,’ said Air, balling up his paper bag and posting it into someone’s letterbox. Russell was appalled.
‘They were built way back, when there was more prejudice,’ she said, looking sad.
‘City’s done nothing to right it, have they?’ It was perhaps the most mature thing Russell had heard Airrell say. ‘Anyway, boring. We could go to the Shrivelled Fig. Behind the bar they’ve got an actual dragon’s penis pickled in a jar. If you can drink the whole jar of vinegar that it’s in, then you get free drinks for the rest of the day.’
Russell felt his stomach roll and his tongue shrivel – it was an odd pairing of sensations. Poppy and the others screwed up their faces.
‘No. We’re not spending the day in a skanky tavern, Air,’ said Isa.
‘Joking. Anyway, bead, I have a plan.’
‘Ancients help us,’ she retorted.
‘Where has the Oracle gone? We could follow her,’ asked Danny.
Poppy shared Russell’s ‘here we go’ look.
‘It’s privileged information. No one knows but for a—’ Isa began.
‘Crystal Falls, then straight to the Aquattrox stadium before a tour of the Grand Edwards’ Gardens and the Acclaroplex,’ rhymed off Air. ‘Nothing I don’t know.’
His sister looked outraged, but Danny fell back into thought as they walked. Something told Russell they hadn’t heard the end of it. He looked around for Katrina and noticed she had fallen behind and was poking at some mirrors stacked on a table outside what looked like an antiques shop. He wandered back.
‘These look really old. Look at that one.’ Katrina pointed to a mirror half-obscured by the others with an intricate metal frame, the strands of which seemed to wisp over the glass. ‘Wonder if they’re magic?’
‘If you’re a good enough Mirror Mage, maybe they don’t have to be.’ Russell looked at the ‘Back in Five Minutes’ sign stuck to the door. ‘Shame … would be interesting to see what else is in there.’
‘My hands are itching,’ Katrina said. As she reached behind the stack to take a better look at the mirror at the back, her sleeve caught one that was jutting out. Before Russell could intervene, the front two mirrors crashed off the table and shattered, sending silver shards skittering over the cobbles.
Katrina gasped and fell back against him. Russell barely caught her as she sank to the ground, trembling. Her eyes flickered, looking through and beyond him, and her breathing was ragged.
‘Fuck, are you okay? Katrina?’
He heard Poppy and the others rush toward them, their shouts of concern turning to a confused buzz. She was shaking and gripped his hand hard until the blood in his fingers had all but retreated. Suddenly, Isa was there, soothing, talking, sitting her up and telling her to take and hold a breath. Russell found himself watching her instead, mesmerised.
Katrina breathed deeply and took a drink from Poppy’s proffered bottle.
‘Did you see your own reflection?’ joked Danny.
‘Piss off, Danny,’ snapped Poppy, ‘now’s not the time.’
His face fell and he muttered an apology to his shoes.
‘Did you break a magic mirror, is that what happened?’ Poppy asked.
Katrina took a breath and shook her head. Her lips were drawn in and trembling, and to Russell’s horror she began to cry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her cry. She wasn’t much of a crier.
‘She … They killed her.’
‘Wait, who killed whom?’ Isa said, brows knotting with concern.
‘We have to warn her.’ Katrina pushed everyone’s hands away and staggered up. ‘We need to see the Oracle.’ Isa held her hands out to stop Katrina, who swayed on her feet. ‘It was like I was back in the chamber, only I saw it. They’re going to kill the Oracle. I was watching her in the mirror and then it exploded – the glass went everywhere.’ Katrina looked down at her feet, at the glass all over the road.
‘She said things could trigger the memories, the visions,’ whispered Russell. ‘But—’
‘I know what I saw. I saw her die.’
‘In her chambers?’ Isa asked. ‘When?’
Katrina rubbed her head. ‘Yes. I think it was night-time.’
‘Then we warn her now.’
‘Looks like we’re going to the Aquattrox game after all,’ said Air. ‘Let’s get out of here before the owner of this shop comes back.’
‘I’ll be returning with payment,’ said Isa, scowling. ‘Let’s go.’
Chapter 11
◊
RUSSELL SCURRIED AFTER THE pair, who led them down a network of roads and passages, leaving interesting sounds, smells, and shops in their wake. Russell longed to amble and explore, but Katrina’s vision gnawed at him. He told himself it wasn’t true. The Oracle couldn’t die, not with all the protection around her. It must be a mistake.
‘Do you believe all this?’ he breathed to Poppy when Katrina had fallen in with Danny, just ahead of them. She shrugged.
‘You were with her. People don’t just react like that.’
‘What if what she saw is true?’
‘Then Thom will fix it. They’ll just keep an army around her and it won’t happen.’ It sounded so matter of fact, but from the look in Poppy’s eyes, he could tell she didn’t completely believe what she had said, either.
‘Why are we here?’
They’d stopped outside a small cloth shop, in front of a rack of vibrant rolls of fabric, and Isa looked suspicious. Her brother shrugged and nodded up at the vast, smooth stone structure that loomed behind the entire street.
‘You know a better way in?’ He grinned.
She folded her arms. ‘Yes. Through the front gate.’
‘Good luck with that. Tickets have been sold out for ages. Only way in is to sneak.’ He weaved his arms in and out of one another like duelling snakes.
‘I refuse to sneak in like some nasty little ticket dodger. I’ll simply tell the guards—’
‘What?’ Air snorted. ‘That you really, really want to see the game, because that’s what they’ll think.’
‘I’m an arms captain on an urgent—’
‘Yeah, well, they didn’t believe me last month when I turned up for a night match and told them I was a medic, here to tend to someone who’d taken ill.’
Danny snorted out a laugh and Isa rolled her eyes at her brother.
‘Look, we’ve missed enough as it is. It must be half-time by now, so there’ll be plenty of cover.’ Without waiting for further argument, Air barged inside the shop with Danny and Katrina following closely behind.
‘I’m in bloody uniform!’ muttered Isa, batting away stray folds of cloth in her path from the crowded racks and shelves as she strode after him to the counter at the far end.
Russell hurried to keep up, feeling his heart flutter. They had absconded into a strange world, and now he was potentially going to be in more trouble.
‘Cheer up,’ Poppy said, poking him in the ribs. ‘At least when you’re grounded forever, you’ll have some fun stuff to look back on.’
‘Being arrested for sneaking into a sport game doesn’t sound fun.’
‘Nah, you won’t get arrested,’ reassured Air. ‘They might drown you in one of the Delphan pens.’
Russell’s eyes widened, despite having no idea what the boy was talking about.
‘He’s joking,’ said Isa, patting his arm and punching her brother’s.
‘What’s a Delphan? You mean a dolphin?’ Poppy asked.
‘No, these are slightly different – their more aggressive, hardy cousins,’ explained Isa. ‘They’re more powerful and agile than dolphins. Very intelligent. The players ride them.’
‘Ride them?’ Danny and Katrina burst over one another.
‘You mean this sport’s on water, not some tedious football thing?’ said Russell.
‘Yes. And why are we waiting?’ She nudged Air. ‘We have something important to do, remember?’ Air pulled a face at her and then began ringing the bell in a continuous, obnoxious pattern until a small man with light brown skin and thinning black hair scuttled from the back room, shoving his glasses up his nose. When he saw Air, his face fell and he slid the tape measure from around his neck.
‘Not you again.’ He yanked the bell away from the boy and cradled it. ‘I’ve told you about abusing my facilities.’
‘Pavit! Long time, no see.’
‘Not long enough. Look, Mr Airrell, I told you last time: no more.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll be closed down. You were too loud going into the last match and you’ll draw attention to my premises. I’ll definitely be closed down.’ He opened a drawer, dropped in the bell, closed it, reopened it, put in some papers, and then closed it again.
‘You can do me a favour?’
‘That’s what you said the last time. I’ll be closed down.’ Pavit reopened the drawer, reshuffled his papers, and then closed it again.
‘Here …’ Air dropped a handful of coins onto the counter. ‘An apology.’
‘A poor one. Especially considering the items you had me smuggle in from Slake for you last month. You’ll get me investigated. And closed down.’ He eyed Isa’s uniform and peered at Russell and the others as though they might detonate into a puff of arrest warrants on the spot.