Aragon pulled himself up after her, and they looked around the forest clearing they had found themselves in. “I’m not sure we’re out of the woods yet—” he started to say.
At the same time, Kassa demanded: “Did you just do what I think you just did?”
“Do we have to discuss that now? Rescuing first.”
Nailed to a particularly sturdy tree was a sign, battered and mauled and spattered with gore. It read, CAVE CANEM. Beneath it was scrawled a translation: [‘ware the dog(s?)!]
“That three-headed dog you were talking about,” said Kassa. “Any more information?”
“Yes,” said Aragon, moving to stand back to back with her, his sword at the ready and his eyes alert. “I promised that I wouldn’t beat it up.”
Kassa drew her stainless-steel knife from its sheath. “Oh, we’ll try not to hurt it, shall we? Excellent plan.”
A hideously echoing sound filled the glade, resounding off every tree, rock and blade of grass. It sounded like the screams of a thousand villagers, the songs of a thousand off-key vultures.
“It’s yapping,” said Kassa incredulously. “That three-headed dog of yours is yapping!”
The beast leaped into her field of vision, shrieking and slavering for meat.
Kassa breathed out. “Put your sword away, Aragon.”
Aragon whirled around, staring at the curious three-headed beast. “What the hell is it?”
Kassa reached out her hand and the fearsome three-headed guard dog of the Underworld came to sniff her fingers in the hope of finding some doggy treat. A red collar around its neck displayed three metal tags, revealing that its name was, alternately, Rover, Spot and Fido. Kassa patted the nearest head awkwardly. “It’s a Pomeranian. They, I should say.”
“What does that mean?”
The dog, realising that no treats were to be forthcoming, began to yap in triplicate. “It means,” said Kassa. “Small, fluffy, looks like a feather duster and yaps a lot. Only in this case, three heads as well. I don’t think that’s a usual feature of the species, but you never know.”
Aragon finally relaxed, lowering his sword. “So its bark is worse than its bite?”
The smallest and most raggedy of the three fluffy Pomeranian heads stopped yapping for a moment, and stared up at Aragon with soulful brown eyes. Then it lunged towards his sword, neatly biting the blade in half.
“On the other hand,” said Kassa quickly. “Leg it!”
Pomegranate, Lord of Darkness, opened her mind to the Underworld. Something was terribly wrong. Newcomer though she was, the thick layers of yellow dust and the near-constant earthquakes did not seem right. This was too hard for her to figure out by herself. She reached out her thoughts to her sister Octavy, whose talent was an immunity to space. The upshot of her talent was an ability to talk and hear over any distance. “Help me, sister.”
She heard Octavy’s instant reply. “What’s wrong?”
“You tell me! Ask Sveta what’s wrong with the Underworld, will you?” Sveta, the youngest of Wordern’s daughters, had the ability to answer any question with uncanny accuracy.
A few moments passed, during which the worst ripple yet shook the Underworld to its very roots. “Hurry,” begged Pomegranate.
Octavy’s voice was clear in her ears. “She says it’s best for Clarity to tell you.”
Clarity, the second-youngest sister, never spoke, but was able to send perfect pictures into the minds of others.
An image filled Pomegranate’s mind. She gasped, seeing the lines of the golden, globulous liquid, the pollen floating from the golden flowers left behind. She saw the exact implications, and reeled back from them. “No! We will be destroyed!”
“It’s up to you,” Octavy sent to her. “You are immune to time, and this substance eats time. You can save the Underworld, at least.”
“But what about the rest of the cosmos?” Pomegranate demanded.
“Sveta says that it wears off eventually—the mortal world will probably survive it, but ‘eventually’ has no meaning in the Underworld. You are the one in danger. Be careful!”
Pomegranate gripped the arms of her throne in indecision. “What can I do?”
23: A Sparrow Falls
“You bounder!” yelled Lord Tangent, red in the face.
“Surely you can do better than that,” said the Emperor Aragon calmly. “I’ve been called far worse.”
“We cannot take you back,” Sparrow insisted. “It is impossible. You would be an anachronism.”
“And what are you?” the Emperor replied.
“You can’t argue with that,” Daggar muttered, elbowing Sparrow in the breastplate. “Give it to him.”
Sparrow was incredulous. “Are you serious?”
Daggar held out his hand to show her that he already had possession of the golden boat-shaped charm. He gave her an apologetic half-grin.
Sparrow’s hand flew inside her breastplate and checked her bodice. Her jade-green eyes narrowed. “How the grit did you do that without me noticing?”
“I’m a profit-scoundrel,” he said in a wounded voice. “I told you I was good.”
“If you two have quite finished,” said the Emperor Aragon. “Give me that ship or everybody in this room will die.”
Sparrow lunged at Daggar, but not in time to stop him tossing the gold trinket to the Emperor. Sparrow seized Daggar by his lapels and shook him. “You are really starting to get on my tailfeathers! How do you think we are going to get back now?”
Daggar grinned and took the opportunity to peck her on the cheek in a friendly manner. He avoided her mouth, in case she still had some of that sleep-venom painted on her lips. “Trust me,” he suggested.
Sparrow dropped him in disgust. “I would sooner trust a rattlesnake.”
Emperor Aragon examined the little piece of gold and then tossed it into the air. The ghostly golden galleon unfolded into its proper dimensions, its lower half submerged into the floor.
“See you in the next future,” said the Emperor, turning to make his way on to the ship. “With any luck it shall be rather more palatable to us all—”
A flying sheep hit him in the face. Singespitter, wings flapping ominously, had chosen to express his displeasure at being sealed up inside a dimensionally folded ship for several days by throwing his full weight at the first human-shaped person he saw. It was mere luck that the human in question happened to be the Imperator Aragon I.
The Emperor fell flat on his back, the weight of the sheep landing fully on his face. He did not move, which suggested he had been knocked out by the blow or had lost consciousness due to suffocation.
“Good sheep,” said Daggar, picking himself up off the floor and grinning around at the room in general. “Best sheep in the world.”
Sparrow turned and smacked him so hard on the back of his head that his eyeballs shuddered in their sockets.
“What was that for?” Daggar demanded when he recovered the means of speech.
“I will let you work that out for yourself!” Sparrow shoved a herald-serf out of the way and levered Finnley’s cage open with her sword.
Lord Tangent joined her, eagerly working to release his sister. “May I gather from that exchange that no one else has a claim on your heart?” he asked hopefully.
“Not so as you would notice,” replied Sparrow darkly.
As Lady Reony, Mistress Opia and Officer Finnley scrambled free, Lord Tangent took Sparrow’s hand in his and kissed her palm, lingeringly. “Then may I dare to hope that I might find a place in your affections?”
“I don’t think so,” said Sparrow, patting his cheek. “But thank you for the thought.” She glanced around. “Everybody on board? Daggar, grab the sheep.”
Daggar hefted the growling Singespitter off the fallen Emperor. He nudged the Emperor Aragon with his toe. “We will try and fix things,” he offered half-heartedly. “If it’s any consolation, which it probably isn’t.” He hoisted himself and the winged sheep up on to the deck
.
Lady Reony, after delivering a hefty kick to one of the herald-serfs who had imprisoned her, came over to wish them farewell. “Don’t worry about him,” she said, indicating the Emperor. “With luck, he won’t even remember this.” She reached up to Daggar, who was the closest to her, and drew him down for a farewell hug. “If you do get a chance to change things,” she whispered as she did so. “Don’t hesitate. We have nothing to lose.”
Vaguely surprised, Daggar grinned down at her. “You’re a smart cookie.”
“I descend from a long line of them,” she retorted. “Anyway, I’ve met you before. You’re supposed to be in your fifties.” She smiled slyly and winked at him. “Your son’s pretty cute, though.”
Daggar’s eyes widened. “My son? What do you know about my son?”
“Time to go, Daggar,” said Sparrow, appearing at his shoulder.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Reony, ducking under the banquet table and pulling out a package. “I found this squished behind the washstand in your room. You mustn’t forget it.”
“Oh,” said Sparrow, smiling uneasily as she received the packaged golden dress. “How could it have got behind there? Thank you.”
Lord Tangent came forward again. “I don’t suppose…”
“No,” snapped Sparrow. Then she reconsidered, leaned down over the railing and kissed him full on the mouth. His eyeballs rolled back into his head, and he hit the ground heavily, snoring as he collapsed beside the fallen Emperor.
“Back to the present?” suggested Daggar.
“Back to the present,” Sparrow agreed firmly. She moved to the ship’s wheel and looked down at the foggy amber crystal. “Back,” she willed firmly.
And the ship went…kwoop.
As the golden lights swirled around them, Sparrow felt the energy of time travel flood her veins. Daggar grabbed her suddenly, startling her. “We forgot to get a coin from the future! You know, for that purging thing.”
Sparrow leaned against the rail. “What is your leg armour made from, Daggar?”
He looked down in surprise at the sergeant-at-arms uniform he still wore. “Steel, why?”
“Your armour is from the future, mine from the past. It should be easy enough to find a present equivalent in Zibria.”
He relaxed. “You’re so smart.”
“I know.”
As the golden lights faded, the Splashdance materialised inside the Palace of Zibria…and into the Sultan’s trap.
Water cascaded from the ceiling, drenching the deck of the ship and all of its passengers. Mistress Opia spluttered, staring upwards. “Hobbs!”
The ex-Brewer gnome, poised on the ceiling beam from which an elegant sprinkler contraption had been fixed, shrugged apologetically. “The Sultan made me a better offer, Mistress. And wages. You never gave me wages.”
Her grandmotherly face thunderous, Mistress Opia clawed her way over the side of the ship and towards the smirking Sultan. “What do you think you are doing?”
“I knew you would come back,” he announced. “You just couldn’t resist it. I’ve been preparing for you, Brewmistress.”
“For the last time, I will not work for you!” she screeched.
“Oh, of course,” said the Sultan theatrically, waving an arm. “Mistress Opia is too grand for us mere mortals now she had made a pact with the other side!”
“What pact?” demanded Sparrow harshly, pushing herself forward.
“There was no pact,” said Mistress Opia dismissively. “The liquid gold was my invention.”
“Hah!” said the Sultan.
“Tell me what pact!” Sparrow snapped.
“It really is none of your business,” insisted Mistress Opia.
“None of my business!” cried Sparrow. “This feud between the two of you has nearly cost me my life, many times over!” She bent over, snatched up a handful of the dandelions that still grew underfoot. “It is not natural, this liquid gold! Is this natural?” Staring at the flowers closely for the first time, she noticed what she had never quite seen before. Tiny, almost microscopic little winged people crawled around on the petals, scattering pollen into the air. Sparrow screamed, and flung the flowers as far from her as she could. “The moonlight dimension!”
Mistress Opia was quite taken aback at her reaction, though the guilt was clear on her face.
The Sultan grinned evilly. “Did you know that our Sparrow here was a troll at heart, Brewmistress? We all know how trolls feel about the faery folk.”
Sparrow was revolted. “How could you make such an alliance?” she demanded of Mistress Opia. “Are you so starved for power? What was the pact? What did you offer them?” Suddenly, she swung around to stare instead at the smug face of the Sultan. “More to the point, what did you offer them?”
The Sultan laughed at the stunned look on Mistress Opia’s face. “You’re not the only one to make a deal with the OtherRealm, my dear Brewsmistress. Did you really think you were unique? They offered you fame and power and liquid gold and asked for nothing in return. Did you not wonder about that? They already had their price, from me.”
Daggar moved forward to stand beside Sparrow. “Her life? Was that the price? Is that why you made her drink the liquid gold?”
“Better,” sneered the Sultan happily. He leaned over and plucked one of the many golden dandelions from between the floor tiles. “You have been spreading these little beauties through every time zone you visited, my dear Sparrow. Did you never wonder where the pollen was going?”
Sparrow stared at the tiny yellow spores which even now drifted away from the flowers and upwards, towards the ceiling. “Where?”
The Sultan laughed. “The Underworld, of course.” He grinned merrily at Mistress Opia. “This substance of yours has finally given the OtherRealm a chance to infiltrate the one other place which is outside time itself. And my little mercenary helped you do it!”
Sparrow hit him, a good solid punch. She had been saving it up for some time. The Sultan fell hard, sprawling on the carpet. Sparrow glared at Mistress Opia. “You will purge me of the liquid gold, now!”
“I was not important,” Mistress Opia said sullenly, hardly seeming to hear her. She was gripping a nearby tapestry, using it to wipe water from her hands. “Not relevant. It was all him.” She looked up at Sparrow. “Do you know what they gave me? I could always turn almost everything into gold using Brewing skills. But they gave me the ability to do this.” She flicked her hands, and Sparrow’s armour exploded into gold dust.
Sparrow was blasted backwards through the air. Her body smashed heavily through the nearest window. The buzzing specks of gold held her immobile, the heel of one boot caught on the window edge. The rest of her body floated over a sheer drop down to the plaza below.
“No!” yelled Daggar, horrified, running to grab hold of her. He didn’t reach her in time.
Mistress Opia waved her hand dismissively, and the cloud of golden specks deserted Sparrow, flocking instead to the Brewmistress.
Sparrow fell.
24: How Not To Use Magic In the Underworld
Amorata, the brunette goddess of champagne flutes and erotic poetry, was having a lazy day in the sky dimension. She reclined on her hovering cloud-stitched doona and licked iced rose petals from her fingertips, humming a lustful little melody.
Somewhere, the sound of someone knocking on a non-existent door brought her back to earth with a jolt. She blinked, and the clouds wafted away to be replaced by a sturdy mahogany desk and an elegantly antique chair. In the same blink of the eye, the goddess clothed her body in a neatly tailored suit and perched tiny spectacles on the end of her perfect nose. Her wild chestnut hair wrapped itself up into a neat ensemble of pins, braids and tidy curls. “Come in,” she said in a low, breathy voice.
An office door which had not existed until this very second, opened. A woman in an equally neat business suit wafted into the room. “Amorata, I need to talk to you,” she said without ceremony, tossing a bunch of tulips d
own on to the immaculate desk.
“Ohhh,” complained the brunette goddess of passionate thoughts and wishful thinking. “It’s only you, Destiny.” She exhaled, and the office wafted away like a dream. In the sky dimension once more, she took her place upon her cloud-stitched doona, absently examining the tulips for flaws. “What do you want?”
Destiny had joined her in the sky, the business suit melting away to reveal ankle-length green hair which slid around her body like a sari. “It’s Milady.”
“It’s always Lady Luck,” said Amorata. “Vengeance, thy name is goddess.” She selected the most perfect tulip and bit into it, chewing hungrily. “Who is she after this time?”
“Kassa Daggersharp and Aragon Silversword,” said Destiny, guiltily remembering that she had been responsible for handing their fates over to her sister.
This news made the sultry Amorata sit up and take notice. “Well, I’m not having that,” she exclaimed. “I have plans for those two.”
Lord Skeylles the Fishy Judge, Sea-God and Master of the Underwater, was in his bath. He wallowed happily in the large basin of seawater, splashing around and making funny shapes from the foamy bubbles. Several half-grown cats loitered on the marble tiling which surrounded the bath, sniffing disdainfully at the soapy smell.
The great doors of his bone-tiled hall were flung open, and a sultry brunette in a scarlet evening gown pushed her way past his lobster-shaped butler. “We need to talk, Skeylles,” she announced, fanning herself with a handful of black ostrich feathers.
Skeylles sighed loudly and continued to soap his feet. “Really, Amorata. There Is A Time And Place For Everything.”
Amorata practically screeched to a halt as she reached the bath. She stared challengingly down at him. “Do you know what Lady Luck has gone and done this time?”
Skeylles raised a godly eyebrow. “Milady Is Always Sticking Her Pearly Fingernails Into Some Mortal Or Other. Just Ignore Her.”
Amorata perched gracefully on the edge of his bath and traced a heart in the bubbles. “Skeylles, she killed Kassa Daggersharp. She actually arranged her death. Recently. On dry land. Now do you understand?”
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