The Assassin Princess (Lamb & Castle Book 2)

by J M Sanford

  “What's that? Griffin? Device? I'm afraid you're not making any sense,” said the Archmage, still half-heartedly trying to shepherd the mighty red-gold coils of dragon out of his workspace, his attention divided between that and the Orb, as its piercing siren song turned to deranged jabbering. The water below the Orb began to bubble noisily, steam rolling up out over the edges of the well. “I must contain the excess magicks, and if you can't watch where you're stepping, I insist you leave!”

  “Don't tell me what to do!” shouted Archalthus, treading inky clawprints across the floor. What had the impudent little witch said…? Ah, yes: “Turn off the Orb at once!”

  Morel cast a puzzled glance at the large switch beside the Orb. “I rather thought it was. Should’ve marked the positions, really…”

  Strange sprite things twisted and writhed across the floorboards, born blazing bright one second; gone the next. Things long dead in jars still on their shelves stirred and lived and changed. This was nothing the Orb had done before… Archalthus lunged at the switch, meaning to kill it but only slamming the worldshifter into fully open position – the Orb howled, its crystal surface beginning to ripple and jump as a building storm raged in its depths. Lightning crackling within it, whipping at the boundary between worlds…

  ~

  … and as the node gave up all of its magic in one furious swan song, a blast of hot air caught Amelia on her broomstick, throwing her far up into the sky. She grappled with the broom. It still wanted to fly – oh so very much – but she'd lost what little control she had. It bucked like an unbroken stallion, going where it wanted and dragging Amelia along only because she refused to loosen her grip. Something wet and heavy slapped her sharply around the ear, making her yelp. She forced herself to open her eyes – she'd instinctively squeezed them tight shut when the blast of magic had hit – and it took her a minute to make sense of what she saw. Her broom was racing upwards through a rain of fish. Up and up she went, light as a feather on the overcharged broom, until she found herself amongst strange things spawned from storms and wildly surging magic, huge serpents half in and half out of the world, twisting and changing instant by instant, with ferocious spines and luminous eyes the size of cartwheels. Amelia passed among them, too small for them to see. Her heart thundered in her ears and her vision swam, but as she began to fall, she saw every sigil street in Ilgrevnia burning: rivers of flame blazing in the twilight. She saw the palace – still intact – but with something that looked like sea foam rushing out of the grand front doors and into the square, turning into a raging torrent down Main Street and cascading over the edge of the City. In its fury it vanished into spray and mist long before it reached the earth below. She saw the white griffin tossed about helplessly by the unnatural storm, fighting for purchase on wild and unpredictable winds that must soon dash it against some outcropping of the City. Amelia tore her eyes away from the white griffin's plight, refocusing on her broom. Its wild burst of energy over, she knew for sure now that it was failing, sinking. She crossed the boundaries of the disintegrating City, out over the empty moors, but she could feel the magic beginning to fade from the land. All Amelia could do was to angle the broom as level as she could and pray that she had enough magic in her own reserves to manage something more like a landing than a fall. She scanned the landscape of rough rocks and thorn bushes. Darkness was blossoming beneath Ilgrevnia like the maw of a leviathan rising from the depths of the ocean to swallow some hapless prey creature. Without magic to hold it together, chunks of Ilgrevnia's baserock began to fall away, disappearing into the darkness. For a moment she could have sworn she saw the figure of a giant fighting to cling to the ragged edges of the world, before it vanished. With the last dregs of magic she could summon, Amelia hauled the broom round, aiming for the glimmer of what she could only hope was a lake. Just as she was about to close her eyes and pray, she heard heavy wingbeats approaching. Archalthus! She willed the broom on faster, but the wingbeats drew closer, and a wyvern came barrelling in alongside her.

  As the wyvern matched pace with the broom, its rider yelled “Amelia! Let go!” It was Meg, clinging to the wyvern's makeshift harness, her fair hair streaming back in the wind.

  Amelia shook her head, clinging to the broom despite its uselessness.

  “Let go!” Meg shouted. “I'll catch you!”

  “No!” Amelia shouted back. The wyvern, big as it had grown, surely wasn't strong enough to take two riders.

  Meg urged the wyvern closer, close as she dared, holding it in position beneath the faltering broom. The twilight-grey grass raced past below them: too fast, too close. “Just trust me, you stupid girl! You can't land that thing in these conditions!”

  Meg was right: the broom had all but lost its buoyancy… Amelia threw it aside and tumbled towards the wyvern, grabbing desperately and getting a handful of feathers and Meg's skirts. Rudely pulled off balance, the wyvern shrieked and tilted sharply, almost pitching both women off. Meg tried her best to pull Amelia up behind her, but there was no time. As the dark placid surface of the lake rushed up to meet them, Amelia took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes tight shut.

  They struck the surface of the water with a crash that knocked the breath from their lungs, and immediately Amelia thrashed her way back into the air, claws scratching at her as the panicked wyvern did the same. Meg pulled her to shore, where the two of them lay in the mud. The wyvern managed to right himself and climb up to a rocky perch, where he shook out his feathers, spread out his wings in the air that had grown suddenly, unnaturally still, and sat there dripping, making noises of grumbling dissatisfaction.

  “I don't know,” Meg muttered, when she'd recovered enough breath to speak, “first I couldn't get you on a broom, then I couldn't get you off a broom.”

  Shocked to find herself alive and in one piece, Amelia began first to laugh hysterically, then to sob. She tried to stand, but found she hadn't the strength.

  Meg stroked her daughter's muddy hair. “Oh, Amelia, my poor girl. I was afraid I'd lost you for good. And then to see you flying that broom like that… You're a better witch than I realised.”

  Amelia looked up at the sky. Where the impossible rock of Ilgrevnia had floated, she could see nothing but open sky and the evening's first sprinkling of stars. She bit her lip, trying to smudge the tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand.

  “Cry if you need to, dear,” said Meg, her voice tear-choked despite her broad smile. “Let it all out. It’s over and we’re safe.”

  ~

  “Amelia!” The familiar and loved voice rang out across the empty moor. “Amelia!”

  Amelia sat up, still shaking and weak, to see two lanterns jouncing in the gloom. “Harold! We're over here!”

  Harold came running, slipping and stumbling across the muddy shore to Amelia, who threw her arms around his neck and hung on for dear life. “What happened?” he asked. “We saw you come down. Did you find your White King?”

  Amelia nodded, swallowing her tears. “He's a dragon!” she wailed. “And he's awful!”

  “But he’s gone now,” added Meg, grinning fiercely, “thanks to Amelia and Bessie.”

  Harold put his shoulders under Amelia's arm, helping her rise up on trembling legs. The second lantern belonged to Bessie's Black Paladin, who pulled Meg up from the mud. “I haven't seen such bravery in many years,” he said. “To fly a wyvern with such primitive harness, in such conditions… Madam, you are a jewel amongst women.”

  “Too right I am,” said Meg, attempting to wring out her sopping curls. “Harold, put that girl down!” she ordered, “She's soaked to the skin and covered in pondweed. As am I. Let's get back to the 'ship before we catch our deaths.”

  The Black Paladin lingered on the shore, gazing into the huge emptiness of the evening sky. “Is Ilgrevnia really destroyed? I see no remains…”

  “Well, I saw it blasted to smithereens,” said Meg, “and I was closer to the danger than you were. I shouldn’t think there’s any part left that
’s big enough to use as a paperweight.” She spoke with conviction, but Amelia didn’t believe her. The world had thought Ilgrevnia gone once before… “Ouch!” Meg shouted, reaching into the front of her dress and pulling out her miniaturised battlesnail, which had grown to the size of a horse chestnut and was obviously just as prickly. Meg scowled at her snail. With the spell upon her failing in the barren atmosphere, Tallulah was returning slowly but surely to her natural size, and had burst the delicate filigree cage Meg had put her in for carrying. “Right, that settles it: no more time for hanging around. We need to get out of here.”

  Slowly, drained but still alive, they began to walk.

  ~

  Where Ilgrevnia had been, nothing remained. Beneath it, tons of earth and rock had vanished, leaving a raw crater, a hundred feet deep. Amelia didn't like to look at it, not after her close escape, but she couldn't resist glancing over her shoulder from time to time, and shivering at the thought. Perhaps no-one would mourn for Ilgrevnia, but ten million tons of city had vanished into thin air and the world felt the sudden absence like a newly missing tooth. Here on the borders of the devastation the land felt colder and duller, and Amelia felt strangely subdued. Meg said that was because the node had burned out, and it was only natural a witch should be sensitive to such things. Though Harold and Greyfell had stayed behind, Sharvesh had retreated to a safe distance: the skyship, with its marvellous and hitherto overlooked luxuries of tea and dry blankets, would be miles away. Amelia shivered as night fell, her soaking wet skirts clinging cold and heavy to her legs, weighing her down. She'd seen Meg make the gesture for some spell or other, something so habitual that she hadn't even known she was doing it until it didn't work. Amelia suspected it had been some warming spell or other, but for now they would just have to shiver and keep moving. The four of them headed west, with Meg drawn by her well-honed sense for magic, knowing that would be where Sharvesh waited, beyond the reach of the destruction.

  The sky was black and shimmering with stars before Sharvesh came to meet the tiny light of their lanterns and set down to let the weary survivors aboard. Amelia could barely move her feet another step, but her mind raced with everything that had happened, and she couldn't sleep. Even beyond the crater, the emptiness – the wrongness – could be felt for miles around. Sharvesh flew low and cautious in the depleted air, as the Storm Chaser had with her soul reaching the point of exhaustion, and Amelia sagged against the railings, watching the crater slowly disappear into the night behind them. Even out of the realm of devastation, the winds that bore the skyship seemed unsettlingly listless in the aftermath. Captain Bryn – Amelia's very first Argean – murmured softly to his skyship, tending to her as gently as if she were an orphaned lamb or a child with a fever.

  Amelia was relieved to see Bessie safe and sound, and to find that Stupid had returned to his cage, apparently without putting up much of a fight. The fire sprite burned only dimly, much smaller than Amelia could remember ever having seen him before – no more than a little yellow candle flame without a wick. Sir Percival moved sluggishly too, his armour obviously weighing much heavier without a normal healthy supply of magic in the environment. Amelia wished she knew what she could do to make either one of them feel better, but feared that all there was for it was to take them to more magically imbued lands.

  ~

  Dawn broke bright and clear, and it appeared that the skyship had limped well clear of the burnt out node. They'd left behind the desolate rain-drenched hills, and Sharvesh flew high with the morning sun at her back, out over the green patchwork of fields. There had been no sign of Prince Archalthus in the aftermath of the destruction: no strange gentlemen still roaming; no abominable creatures. One last remaining golem stood in Sharvesh's cargo hold, a statue in gleaming black stone. Sir Percival surmised that this was because its connection with its twin had been severed. When at last Meg had opened the silver pocket watch she'd taken from the golem, the glass within it had remained dark, to the relief of all aboard. Meg sensed magical potential in the pocket watch still, but again the link to its others had been severed and there was no communication: Ilgrevnia and her master would never trouble this world again.

  By destroying the hidden throne room and ridding the world of the Dragon Prince, Amelia and Bessie had removed the burden of fear that generations of their families had either fled from or prepared against. Neither one of them would be Queen of the Dragon Lands, but the girls had futures of their own, unchained from weighty destinies. Sharvesh was travelling towards Iletia so that Bessie could resume her studies at the Antwin Academy, financed by Master Greyfell, who would resume his teaching post at the Academy, and the amiable Captain Bryn had insisted on taking Amelia and her companions safely back to civilisation too. The truce between White Side and Black Side was still an uneasy one, but in the end Meg had decided that a Flying City was the best place to find a mage powerful enough to safely reverse the reduction spell on her poor snail. White Side and Black Side would part ways and put the Queens’ Contest behind them. While everyone on board Sharvesh seemed to be busy planning what they would do with their futures, Amelia lingered over thoughts of what she should have done differently in Ilgrevnia. She'd seen no evidence that the griffins Scarlet and Sable had escaped the doomed City before the bells tolled, and she really hadn't meant to leave poor, innocent Rose behind to suffer the same fate as the cursed prince. Meg had been unsympathetic: “She wanted to marry a dragon – let her suffer the consequences.” Disgusted by this callous dismissal, Amelia had retreated below decks to sulk. She’d fetched the satchel the griffins had given her, and taken out the snow globe again. Inside the glass, the image of the palace stood in murky darkness, and if she peered very close, she could just make out the pinprick lights of its windows. The snow globe held the only consolation for Amelia's conscience: in the artificial world, trapped now beyond the reach of the mundane, somebody lived. Perhaps Scarlet and Rose had somehow made it safely there before Ilgrevnia’s destruction, but that would still mean they were stranded in the artificial world… Amelia conjured a light spell – an easy gesture now, easy as breathing – and opened one of the ancient books that Scarlet had sent for her. She’d tried to read both books before, but they were mostly written in some dead language that even Percival struggled to understand. Somebody (Scarlet, Amelia thought) had scribbled annotations in the margins, and the ink looked fresh, but the handwriting was atrocious and the writer presumed the reader’s full understanding of the main text. Why had Scarlet wanted them to have this?

  At the sound of footsteps, Amelia shoved the glass ball into her pocket, but the ancient book was too big to hide so easily. Amelia had refused to have dinner with the others, and now Meg stood in the doorway with a plate of cheese and an enormous jar of pickled onions under her arm. Meg at least was happier since they’d had a chance to stop off somewhere and replenish their provisions. “I brought you a little something. You must be hungry by now.”

  “No thank you,” said Amelia. She was hungry, but the mystery of the book gnawed at her more than hunger did.

  Meg noticed the book. “Ah. Just can’t resist sticking your nose in, can you?” she said. “Wherever can you have got that from, I wonder,” she added, wryly. “How about another magic lesson, then?”

  “Why bother?” asked Amelia, still determined to sulk, but she’d missed dinner and that only put a tempting edge to the rich sharp scent of the cheese. “If the prince is gone, what’s the point in me learning any more magic?”

  Meg raised her eyebrows. “What’s the point? You silly girl: the point is that you’ll never regret learning more magic. A good witch has the world at her fingertips.”

  Amelia eyed her mother shrewdly. Master Greyfell had been keeping Bessie busy with daily lessons on anything that happened to pass their way, from the polite way to barter in this part of the country, to how to bag a pigeon for supper from the deck of a skyship. Meg kept a watchful eye on Bessie, disconcerted by the quickness of the young girl’s
mind; worried that Amelia’s pace of learning was much slower, her enthusiasm for knowledge not so keen. The Queens’ Contest was over, and Amelia wondered why the truce between the former contestants should remain so strained and fragile. Before she’d even had the chance to celebrate, the fear had settled in her heart that Ilgrevnia might not have been destroyed, merely crippled and banished. Amelia and Bessie’s victory – if you could call it that – had done nothing more than buy them a brief reprieve…

  “Come on, Amelia: I’ll show you how to gossip with Missus Blackbird and Mister Starling. Don’t the girls in your fairy tales all know how to talk to woodland creatures?” Meg teased.

  Amelia went along with it. After Meg had given her an introduction to the secret language of birds, they practiced a simple spell for blocking an opponent’s magic. Amelia really didn’t see the point of that one – she could only block someone who was her equal or less in the first place – but she stayed up late that night practicing all the spells she could. Eventually, when everybody else had retired for the night, Amelia used her new cat’s eye spell to creep down to the galley in darkness.

  Sharvesh’s furniture wasn’t bolted in place like that in Meg’s snailcastletank, instead appearing to grow from her main structure like branches from a tree trunk. The skyship was elegant inside and out, but Amelia was in no mood to enjoy her surroundings – the satchel with the books had disappeared while she’d been at her magic lessons. She’d guessed that either Percival or Bessie’s Black Paladin must have taken it, and she was right: she found Master Greyfell asleep at the galley table with the books and some other papers from the satchel strewn out in front of him. Scowling, Amelia edged closer. She disliked the scarred and stern Black Paladin, and was glad she had no lessons with him. She couldn’t even concentrate when he watched her lessons with Meg, judging her performance – measuring her against Bessie, no doubt. She turned invisible, just in case, and slowly edged the book into her bag. Then Master Greyfell grumbled something in his sleep, and Amelia fled, still invisible.