“Sorry,” said Ferdee, not sounding particularly contrite. “Your opponent already claimed his own sword. Pick something else.”
Aragon couldn’t believe this. “But I won!” he protested.
“You both entertained us,” said Ferdee, speaking slowly as if to a child. He waggled his sunglasses cheerfully. “You each pick a prize!”
Scowling, Aragon flicked the sword that he was carrying. “I’ll take this, then.” At least he would be armed.
“Cool!” exclaimed Ferdee. “See you later, crocogator!”
Aragon vanished. What nobody noticed was that the sacred bauble of Chiantrio, still dutifully following him at the Lady Emperor’s request, vanished also.
Reed picked himself up, gripping the hilt of the prime sword firmly. And then he was also vanished back to the mundane world.
Not long after, a golden carriage appeared on the stage. While the Lordling, the mummers, the dancing bears and the mountain goats pranced around on stage, a small jester with spectacles and a humorous hat spoke very earnestly to Ferdee Firebrand and his mother for a long while, taking notes as he did so.
Aragon knew better than to keep to the path. He made his way through the purple undergrowth, keeping his eyes and ears open for anything. All he heard was a very quiet hum, surrounded by silence.
When he emerged from the trees, what he saw was Kassa. She stood hip-deep in the icy pool, her back to him, splashing slowly and silently around in the waterfall and humming a little song of no consequence. Her dress lay discarded in the pool, and she was only wearing the knots of silk which were her dancing costume. The wet silk was nearly transparent, but her long, tangled blood-coloured hair provided a semblance of modesty.
For a moment, Aragon thought her hair was white, but then he realised it was a trick of the light, a reflection of the ice-encrusted water.
Then he realised that her hair really was white. The woman turned around, and it wasn’t Kassa after all. Her skin was as white as her hair, and she grimaced tenderly at him with small, sharp white teeth.
Aragon gripped his new sword, and the blue flames flared menacingly along the blade. The white woman looked at him in horror, and made a little yipping noise.
Freezing cold water drenched Aragon from above, extinguishing his sword. He looked up just in time to see hundreds of tiny icesprites leaping on top of him. They swarmed, binding him neatly with cords made from braided snow.
The icesprites’ two prisoners were put in the same cell, a circular room made from bricks of ice. There were no windows, just a low crawling tunnel for a door. “Interesting,” said Kassa, trying not to shiver obviously. “We just keep running into each other.”
Aragon didn’t want to talk about it.
The tunnel slid open and a little sprite poked her head in. “Do you have any money?” she asked. “Things to barter?”
“Some,” said Kassa cagily.
The sprite glanced at Aragon. “You?”
“Probably,” he said, glaring at the far wall.
“Right,” said the sprite, and closed the tunnel again.
“Silversword,” said Kassa after a while.
“What?” he replied harshly.
“I don’t mean to be personal, but what is that thing behind your head?”
Aragon turned his head sharply, and the sacred bauble skipped around behind his ear so he couldn’t see it.
Kassa lunged forward and grabbed hold of it. “This.” The bauble wriggled and squeaked in protest.
“Oh, that,” said Aragon in disgust. “The sacred bauble of Chiantrio. It’s just a trinket. Cooper must have had it.”
He had said too much.
Kassa was very quiet, turning the bauble over in her fingers. “I didn’t think you had met,” she said after a moment. “How do you know Reed Cooper?”
“Oh, we’ve met,” said Aragon darkly. He chose not to say any more. He might need to get Kassa to trust him again, and that would never happen if she knew his employer was the Lady Emperor. “Keep it,” he grunted.
Kassa looked down at the little bauble in her hand. “Thank you,” she said in surprise. For no reason that she could think of, she put it in her bodice for safekeeping. The bauble burbled happily and went to sleep.
Daggar was dying. It occurred to him that if he killed Zelora there might be more fresh air for him and he would live a few minutes or hours more. It also occurred to him that Zelora would be better at killing, and so it was probably best not to put the idea into her head.
They had been trapped for hours now. Days? Every now and then they had heard a shifting of stone within the mountain, which meant that someone had control of the Brayne. There was still a glimmer of hope that they would be rescued before suffocating to death.
But the glimmer of hope shrunk into a glint and then vanished entirely. They were going to die.
Daggar wondered if this was better or worse than being terminated by the Profithood. Worse, he decided, because at least if the Profithood killed him he would be dying at the hands of his friends and comrades.
On the other hand, he was dying in the presence of a beautiful (if slightly homicidal) woman. There were worse ways to go, he mused in one of his more philosophical moments.
In between these snippets of being philosophical, Daggar had long bouts of mad panic. Zelora had had to knock him unconscious a few times to stop him shrieking hysterically in her ear. He still had the headaches.
Zelora seemed to be taking their impending death rather well. Perhaps she was accustomed to the concept.
Daggar was finally moving beyond both panic and philosophy. A strange feeling had come over him. He had a suspicion that it might be guilt. This bothered him for a while, as he had never experienced guilt before. That particular emotion was a liability for a profit-scoundrel. And yet he was pretty sure that what he wanted to do most was apologise.
“I’m sorry,” he tried.
Zelora was caught off guard. “What did you say?”
“I was apologising. I think this might be my fault.”
“Why?” she said suspiciously.
“I haven’t worked that out yet. Maybe I helped Kassa trust Aragon long enough for him to rescue her, and I’m pretty sure that they’re responsible for this imminent death of ours.”
“Interesting,” she said approvingly. “Without the artificial charm, you sound more like a real person.”
“It doesn’t happen very often.”
Zelora might have been smiling in the darkness, but Daggar couldn’t picture how that might look. He imagined her scowling in a friendly fashion instead. “I don’t suppose you could pretend that you were not an executive mercenary in the Hidden Army for a minute?” he suggested hopefully.
“Why would I want to do that?”
“I was thinking about kissing you, and I don’t want you to chop my head off.”
Zelora Footcrusher was silent for a moment. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” she said finally.
Daggar retreated into glum silence. His momentary twinge of guilt had wandered away, and he decided it was time to start blaming Kassa again.
“On the other hand,” said Zelora thoughtfully, “I could change my mind. Why don’t you apologise again?”
“Oh, I’m past that stage,” Daggar assured her. “I’m blaming Kassa now. It’s her silver. I’m just in it for the greed. And to save my neck,” he added, remembering. Then he started trying to work out how long it was before the next full moon, when the Profithood would come looking for him. He had a nasty suspicion that it wasn’t very far away.
Zelora was silent for a while, and when she spoke again it was in an entirely different tone of voice. “What silver?”
It was then that there was a scraping noise from above, and the ceiling began to fall in on them.
After a few very chilly hours, Kassa and Aragon were led out of their igloo prison into the main square of a bustling icesprite market. They were fastened together by a chain which
burned frostily into their wrists. All the icesprites gathered around to point and jeer and throw rotten ice cubes at the pair. Several of them were carrying large silver axes.
After some time a woman appeared before them. She was swathed in white frosted fur and her white hair was frozen into intricate icicles. She was obviously the icesprite leader because all of the icesprites chittered and curtseyed as she approached. She too was carrying a large silver axe.
To be frank, Aragon and Kassa both expected execution.
“I am told that you carry foreign money,” the ice queen said, her voice crackling with cold. “And other valuable items.”
“Possibly,” said Kassa cautiously.
“You had better,” crackled the ice queen.
“We do,” said Aragon quickly. He was good at spotting avenues of survival, and right now it seemed like their survival depended on having money and items of value to barter.
“Well, then,” said the ice queen dangerously. She swept a frosted arm around at the bustling market behind them. “Go shopping.”
“Pardon?” said Kassa in a little voice.
“I said,” said the ice queen in a voice of calculated menace, “Go shopping.”
So they did.
The ceiling fell far enough to wallop Daggar lightly on the head before retreating upwards again at great speed. The walls were closing in now, but there was light from above.
“Sorry,” a grumpy voice called down. “Was you wantin’ to be rescued?”
Zelora Footcrusher stood up, and a dangerous expression took control of her face.
Daggar was suddenly glad that he hadn’t been able to see her smile in the darkness. The concept was terrifying.
“Bronkx,” said Zelora in a low voice which projected for miles. “If you do not get us out right now, you will have to find replacements for all of your body parts.”
“Right you are, Deputy Leader Footcrusher, sir, miss,” called the gnome humbly. A rope came spiralling down, and thus they were rescued.
“And now,” said Zelora, once they were safely on top of the mountain (although Daggar did not feel very safe), “Tell me about this silver.”
The K Division caves were a mess. Bathrooms were in kitchens, kitchens were in bedrooms, and most of the plumbing was all in the same tree, three mountains away.
No one wanted to risk living in the caves while the rescue and redecoration efforts continued, so they were all camping in tents on the surface. Because they were the Hidden Army, the tents were camouflaged to the point of invisibility. As evening fell they all sat invisibly around the invisible campfires, then tripped over each other’s invisible tent-ropes and retired under collapsed (but invisible) canvas.
Daggar walked Zelora to her tent, which was disguised so well that nobody had even been able to trip over it. Until he opened his mouth, he had no idea what it was about to get him into. “Let me guess. For a man to enter a female executive mercenary’s tent, the punishment is diabolical.”
“Something like that,” said Zelora contentedly.
Daggar tried not to think about what that punishment could be.
“Unless he is invited,” Zelora continued.
Daggar was worried now. Was she really considering what he thought she might be considering?
Zelora hesitated by the flap of her tent, and then she half-smiled. It was not as scary as he had thought it would be. Apart from the slight fangs and and the red glint in her eyes, she was really quite…what was he thinking?
“Consider yourself invited,” said Zelora Footcrusher.
Now Daggar was scared. And tempted. And worried. “You’re only interested in the Splashdance silver,” he accused.
Zelora’s smile curled into a friendly snarl. “And what are you interested in, Daggar Profit-scoundrel? My army? Protection from all those little people who may wish to kill you?”
Daggar’s brain kept ordering his feet to run away. The trouble was, another bit of his body kept telling his feet to stay just where they were. Or maybe to walk a little further forward… “That too,” he admitted.
“Well then,” she murmured with the contented purr of a vicious animal. “Perhaps we can come to some mutual agreement.”
Daggar’s feet promptly betrayed his brain. By the time he reached Zelora, he was convinced that this was a brilliant idea. The tent flap swung closed behind them both.
10
Killing Time
On her way to her bed-chamber, the Lady Emperor had discovered the Imperial portrait parlour. She swept through the long hall in her lacy negligée and feathery dressing gown, critically examining the painted faces of Emperors long gone. She paused for quite a while in front of the portrait of Timregis.
The picture had been painted while Timregis was still reasonably young and unbloated, although his tendency to behave like a fruitcake had already manifested. His Imperial Majesty had posed in a suit of armour made entirely from sugarloaf, with a jewel-encrusted bucket of water perched haphazardly on his head. The inevitable had occurred, and the preliminary sketches had later been released as a very popular book of humorous hieroglyphs.
“You were insane, untalented and generally despised,” the Lady Emperor said thoughtfully. “Your only talent was an unfaltering imagination. And you lasted longer than any of them.”
The Emperor Timregis did not respond. Under the circumstances, Talle would have been quite disturbed if he had.
She moved on, past the long line of Emperors who had come between Timregis’ reign and her own. Some of them had not been around long enough to have an official portrait painted, but some Palace bureaucrat had later arranged for the gaps to be filled in by an enterprising child with a set of crayons and an unlimited supply of goatskin parchment.
There were dozens of them. “Stupid, stupid men!” exclaimed Talle frustratedly. “You must have had some talent to make your way to the top in the first place, but not one of you managed to hold on to the seat of power. Well, I’ll show you. I’m going to be around for a long time, so you just watch me at work. I’ll show Mocklore what it means to have a strong leader again—what it means to have a woman in charge!”
The portraits of past Emperors stared impassively back at her.
Too incensed to go to bed now, Talle kicked off her furry slippers and went downstairs to see how Griffin the urchin was getting on with the propaganda drive.
The swampweeds were restless tonight. They rolled across the watery mud, grunting and grummoxing. Their mournful gurgles filled the air around the rocky path which rose out of the swamp.
The firebrands obviously had a perverse sense of humour. They had set Reed Cooper down in the middle of the only swamp in the Skullcaps. Having narrowly escaped the meaty mouths of the swampweeds and the gnashing gums of the riverwumps, Reed was now trudging muddily up a steep, rocky path.
He had lost the sacred bauble, but still had the prime sword of Bigbeard Daggersharp. And he still had his eyepatch, to remind himself that he was a pirate. There was nothing wrong with the eye underneath, but that wasn’t the point. Pirates wore eyepatches, and Reed Cooper was nothing if not a pirate.
The first thing he noticed as he reached the top of the steep path was a large patch of nothing. Curious, Reed peered carefully at the space before him. The carefully concealed scent of charred meat studiously avoided his nostrils. Something was going on.
And then he saw them. Flickers of people making camp and cooking breakfast and bumping into each other. People who were very good at not being noticed.
Reed caught the sleeve of a flicker of a man who passed him. He almost expected his hand to pass through the man, but his fingers latched on to solid fabric. “Who are you?” the young pirate demanded.
Still flickering, the hidden man regarded him with horror. “You can see me?” he gasped.
“Of course I can see you,” said Reed, irritated.
The man ran for it, plate armour clanking silently as he dived into a tent which seemed to be both a natural
part of the scenery and not there at all.
Reed wrenched open the tent flap. “Who are you?” he demanded again.
“You can see my tent?” squealed the little man hysterically.
“Yes,” snapped Reed. “Look, I need food, water. Who are you people?” Abruptly, the penny dropped. “Are you supposed to be the Hidden Army?”
A sudden sensation made Reed stand up straight and turn around slowly. Nobody was there. And then suddenly they were all standing there, a group of twenty or so, all armoured, all displeased with his presence.
The woman in the middle appeared to be some sort of commander. She regarded Reed disdainfully. “I am Footcrusher. What are you? Not another pirate!”
Reed sensed that this would be the moment to dazzle them with his true identity. “My name is Reed Cooper, of the pirate ship Dread Redhead,” he announced haughtily. “I was second in command to the fearsome Pirate King, Vicious Bigbeard Daggersharp.” He paused to allow them to gasp in awe. They didn’t.
“Well, well, well,” said the scruffy man beside the woman who called herself Footcrusher. “Reed Cooper.” He smiled in a very nasty way. “You’d be the one what murdered my uncle Bigbeard.”
After considering the options, the Hidden Army decided to throw him off a cliff. Reed Cooper protested, naturally. But the last thing the Hidden Army wanted was an Imperial spy in their midst.
Besides, it was Zelora’s idea, and no one liked to argue with her.
“So,” she murmured to Daggar as everyone milled around, trying to decide which cliff to throw Reed Cooper off. “You are related to the Daggersharp pirates.”
“Most of them. Are you impressed?”
“Did you intend me to be impressed?”
Daggar grinned distantly. “I was under the impression that I’d already impressed you.”
Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles) Page 10