The eyelids lowered and rose again in a single slow-motion blink. “Three languages,” said the clockwork man in a deep, reproachful voice.
I tilted my head to look at the Lordling. “Wow.”
“He can walk, talk and protect you from harm,” said Lord Rynehart, clapping his hands merrily.
“So what’s the job?”
“The old Jarl of Axgaard was a great friend of mine,” said Rynehart, assuming as many clients do that I was actually interested in his motives. “We both had bad luck with heirs, unfortunately.”
Bad luck? Lord Rynehart had made the crucial error of marrying a woman famously known as the Accident-Prone Wench of the Languid Isles. Her tendency towards accidental self-destruction was passed on to her three children, who were all killed in freak accidents: one was squished by a spontaneously-appearing city, one was trampled in a stampede of frightened hedgehogs and one accidentally fell down six flights of poisoned stairs.
Jarl Erik’s children had met more violent fates, but that was due to the fact that parents in Axgaard provide their children with edged weapons before potty-training them. No wonder Jarl Erik, who had sired children on an entire harem of women, only had one son left to inherit his city. “I may not approve of Erik’s heir,” Lord Rynehart continued, his voice droning on. “But I must provide a suitable gift. All you have to do is present it to the new Jarl at the coronation ceremony.”
Hmm. That meant a trek across dangerous mountains and treacherously boring swampland to reach the most violently crazy city that this little Empire has to offer, accompanied by a devastatingly gorgeous man built entirely out of metal. “I’m in,” I said aloud. “But there’s one thing you have to do before we set off.”
“What’s that?” asked the Lordling eagerly.
I ran my eyes up the length of the tall, handsome metal man. As far as I could see, everything was in perfect proportion. “He needs pants.”
–§–§–§–§–§–
As I escorted the clockwork man (now fully clothed) out of the city, it occurred to me that he didn’t have a name. “Can I give you one?” I asked. “Or is that up to your new master?”
“There are no specific traditions,” Mr Clockwork said politely. “If my new master wishes a different name for me than the one you choose, I will not mind.”
“I should call you Touchstone,” I laughed. “You know, from the ballad? Hero of the world and saviour of women everywhere.”
He didn’t get the joke. There are some things even living clockwork can’t replicate. We headed in silence towards the big pointy mountains.
My name is Delta Void, DV for short, and I do stuff for a living. You know, stuff. People need a job done, I do it. It works for me because I’m not suited to just one career path, I’m suited to about a hundred and thirty. I have a highly original physiology (shared only by my nearest and most dearly loathed relatives) that allows me to switch personae at will. I can be a fierce warrior one minute and a highly skilled witch the next.
Well, I lost the highly skilled witch a few years ago, but I still have a permanently vague witch who looks cute in velvet. Sometimes I’m a huntress, sometimes I’m a seamstress. I was an elephant trainer once, but that’s another story.
Escorting a metal man to a party should have been child’s play.
Mountains bore me, which is a problem because I live in Skullcap, a tiny seaport city surrounded by huge, dangerous mountains on all sides that aren’t ocean. The only way to get to the rest of Mocklore from Skullcap is by climbing up rocks at steep angles using ropes and pointy implements—that’s when I get bored. I have easier routes for getting through the mountains, but I’m not allowed to use them in mixed company, so Mr Clockwork and I were going the long way.
I had switched to Herna the Huntress, my meanest and toughest persona. She eats rocks for breakfast, which is why I never let her eat breakfast. She grunted and girl-powered her way up the mountain no problem, and Mr Clockwork matched her pace well. I was quite enjoying being Herna, right up to the point when she put her hand on a stinging nettle, screamed, and fell three feet.
For some reason, I changed back into DV on the way down, and received the full pain of the fall personally. “Ow, ah! Godsdamnit!” My knee was skinned, but that wasn’t the worst of it. I really hate nettle-burns.
Still making pouty pain noises, I looked around. Rock everywhere, above, below and on all sides. No vegetation in sight except that one bloody nettle my girl had put her hand on. Whatever happened to that tidy bit of folklore that says where there’s a nettle, a dock leaf grows nearby to soothe the sting? “Oh, yes,” I muttered. “Always a freaking dock leaf around when you need one.”
Mr Clockwork shimmied down his rope and placed his cold metal palm against mine. “Try this.”
The burning pain vanished instantly. I was impressed, even more so when he knelt and did the same to my bleeding knee. “Right, that’s it. I’m calling you Doc. Dock leaf, get it?”
He stood up, his gorgeous golden body facing mine, and he stared into my eyes. His eyes were very, very blue. “It is my pleasure to serve,” he said in a melty voice.
I backed up, so quickly that I almost went over the cliff. “Are you flirting with me?”
“It is my pleasure to serve,” he repeated, sounding a little put out. “I have been trained in all the arts of seduction.”
“Yuck!” I didn’t have a persona to deal with this. I don’t think anyone has ever dealt with a situation like this before. “Why would a Jarl of Axgaard require a flirting robot as a coronation present?”
“I am not only programmed to flirt,” said my friend Doc, still sounding peeved.
“Please don’t say ‘arts of seduction’ again.”
“I am programmed to fall in love.”
“With who?”
“That has not been revealed to me.”
“When is this miraculous event due to take place?”
Doc considered. “That has also not been revealed to me. It could be any time.”
“Right.” That made up my mind. “We’re taking the short-cut. I’m really not getting paid enough to be romanced by a collection of nuts and bolts. This way.”
I led him around the rocks a little way, then stepped off the cliff and stood on what seemed to be empty air. “Come on. This is the path.”
Doc was resolute. “I have been programmed with geological information covering the entire Mocklore continent, and there is no path there.”
“Yes, there is.” I bounced up and down on my bit of empty air, to prove it to him. “See? If there weren’t a path, I wouldn’t be standing on anything. I would have fallen to my doom two minutes ago.”
“I am aware of this,” said Doc, sounding agitated. “Please return to the cliff where it is safe.”
“Look,” I sighed. “This is the Rat Run, a network of secret routes. Only criminals and their favourite family members know about them. Once you know about the paths, you can use them safely. Just because it’s not programmed into your bronze-age brain doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“Please return to the cliff,” repeated Doc.
I grabbed his hands. “Close your eyes and obey me. Step forward.”
He stepped. For one moment I thought his disbelief would carry us both screaming down the long drop, but his shiny feet stood firm. “Good,” I said in relief. “Now another step.”
I led him blind until we were in the tunnels. The path was still invisible, but now you could see rock under our feet and that kept Doc happy. “We should be through the tunnel and out on the far side of the Skullcaps within half an hour,” I told him.
“This is not correct,” Doc said primly. “It must by my calculations take at least a day and a half to cross through the centre of the Skullcap Mountains.”
This was going to be a long trip. “Would you stop arguing if I told you the Rat Run is magic?”
“I do not believe in magic,” said Doc.
I heroically prevent
ed myself from beating my own brains out on the tunnel wall. “Doc, you’re made of magic. Clockwork is a magic substance that runs rampant in the wild areas of these very mountains. People trap it, tame it and turn it into amusing objects like fob-watches and argumentative robots. You are entirely made from magic.”
I know about these things, since I have an uncle who has been clockwork-crazed all his life.
“I do not believe in magic,” Doc repeated.
“Fine,” I muttered. “You know, things would be a lot easier if you just said ‘Yes, Delta’ every time I say something you don’t understand.”
“Yes, Delta,” repeated Doc.
“That’s better.”
The tunnel opened out into a huge cavern. Moisture dripped from the ceiling, pooling in a silver lake in the centre. I squinted at the two outward tunnels, trying to remember which one we should take. Doc was busy staring at the lake. A glass coffin with a girl inside was floating on the surface. I had been trying to ignore it.
“Is that a princess?” he asked.
“Oh, I doubt it. Mocklore is pretty short on princesses these days. It’s probably a damsel in distress. I think it’s the left tunnel. Shall we go?”
Doc stood his ground. “Damsels in distress must be rescued,” he said stubbornly. “It is a rule. She must be awoken with a kiss.”
Resigning myself to more wasted time, I sat down on a handy rock. “Go on, then. If you must.”
Doc waded out into the shiny water and grabbed hold of the glass coffin. Moisture from the ceiling dripped on to his golden muscles. Doc opened the lid of the coffin and dumped it in the water, then reached in and kissed the girl.
From where I was standing, it was a hell of a kiss. Her arms came up and around his neck, pulling him in for the full workout. She was wore a white lacy dress, which is standard when rescued from glass coffins. As they came up for air, which was very gallant of Doc since he didn’t need any, I noticed that the damsel’s hair was what epic poets call ‘raven black’.
Doc lifted her effortlessly out of the coffin and started carrying her across the water. When she saw me, the silly bint started screaming. “You! You locked me in the coffin! Aaaahhh!” Luckily for my eardrums, she then fainted. Gracefully, of course.
“Did you lock her in the glass coffin?” Doc asked, the damsel still all swoony in his arms.
“Of course not,” I said defensively. He gave me a funny look, like he didn’t believe me. “I have an evil twin sister who looks a lot like me, she probably did it.” And who could blame her?
“Yes, Delta,” said Doc. I think he was being sarcastic.
“Fine, don’t believe me.” I stood up, brushing cave-crud from my backside. “Let’s go. And don’t think I’m helping you carry that cute little armful.”
“I need no assistance,” said Doc, holding his damsel protectively. Anyone would think he was worried I might do her harm. Well, if she started screaming again, I just might.
–§–§–§–§–§–
By the time the cute armful deigned to reopen her pretty lavender eyes (tinted glass, I bet you) we were well and truly outside. It was a nice sunny afternoon. The first thing she saw was me. “Oh,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I thought I saw the horrible witch who locked me in that coffin. But you’re not like her at all.”
“That’s all right, love,” I said soothingly. “Just a nasty nightmare.”
I had figured it would be prudent to switch personae so my ordinary face didn’t set the damsel screaming again. My first impulse was to choose Sadonna, my vague and dreamy witch who looks good in velvet and sniffs out magic like a hog hunts truffles, but I wanted my mind clear for the journey so I selected Mandra instead, a simple soul who cares genuinely about the wellbeing of others. I don’t usually wear her, because creepy!
I don’t remember much of the rest of that day. Mandra was being so sweet and helpful it made me sick, so I pretty much tuned out. When I woke up the next morning, back in DV’s body and my own sarcastic self, I was horrified to discover that we (i.e. Mandra and Doc) had volunteered to go half a day’s travel out of our way to return the damsel to her true love.
The damsel’s name was Lirabel. She was so busy going on and on about the virtues about her darling Tybalt, from whom she had been separated by a nasty witch, that she seemed to have forgotten I had the same facial features as that ‘witch’. Nothing like a short attention span to simplify life.
I tried to talk Doc into abandoning her in a handy bit of swamp, but he refused. I couldn’t argue, since my short cut had saved us so much time. Plus returning Lirabel to darling Tybalt would get rid of her, so I went along with their plan.
Darling Tybalt lived in a hut in a thick foresty part of the Midden Plains (yes, I know plains don’t usually have forests, but trust me when I tell you that Mocklore isn’t like most places). He was chopping wood when we arrived, his back to the path so he couldn’t see us coming. I had expected some young fop, especially since Lirabel had told me in great detail how he was practically a prince, fourth in line for the Zibrian throne because his grandfather had been cousin to the current Sultan’s grandmother—anyway, I was expecting a sort of male equivalent to Lirabel, a pouty youth in satin shirts who wrote bad poetry.
He wasn’t like that at all. He was whistling as he chopped the wood, a merry-looking blond bloke in his mid-thirties. An ordinary, likeable sort with some seriously firm muscle in the upper-arm department.
“Tybalt!” screeched Lirabel, running towards him.
He turned, dropped the axe and looked horrified. I couldn’t blame him, really. Lirabel threw herself into his arms, kissing him wildly. Over her grasping arms, his eyes met mine and he mouthed ‘help!’
I mouthed, ‘What?’
‘Get her off me,’ he mouthed, with some desperate hand signals as Lirabel moved in for the kill.
I took pity on him. “Lirabel, don’t you want to say goodbye to Doc? He did save your life…”
Lirabel broke off from darling Tybalt and spun around to lavish her attentions on the Knight in Shining Clockwork. “Oh, of course, darling Docky.” She kissed him on both cheeks, then on the metal mouth. “My hero, so brave and courageous, saving my life and reuniting me with my betrothed. I’ll miss you terribly!”
Darling Tybalt looked sick. “What the hell did you bring her here for?” he demanded in a hushed whisper.
“I don’t recall being given much of a choice. Don’t fancy her, then?”
“That’s not even funny,” he growled. “You know I’ve been trying to get rid of her. The wench doesn’t listen. You said you were going to talk to her.”
This was intriguing. He seemed to know me. Either I was suffering from major amnesia (which does happen from time to time) or the evil twin sister had struck again. I decided to go along with it until I figured out which it was. “Talking to that girl is a losing battle,” I said casually.
Darling Tybalt gave me a look that could kill. “I have to be at Axgaard in time for the coronation, and I do not have time to drag Miss Whiny along in my wake!”
“But that’s where we’re going.”
Lirabel, breaking away from her clockwork hero at last, overheard that last bit. “Tybalt, sweetie, are you going to Axgaard too?” Doc must have told her about our destination, the fool.
“Well, I have an invitation,” Tybalt said darkly.
“But that’s just marvellous!” she exclaimed. “I don’t have to say goodbye to dear old Docky and Mandra after all. We can go together!”
As she enfolded Docky in another hug, I glared at Tybalt. He glared back. “This is your fault!” we both hissed in unison.
–§–§–§–§–§–
We reached the far end of the Middens by nightfall, but it was too late to get to Axgaard unless we wanted to arrive at the castle well after midnight. Doc, Tybalt and I set up camp while Lirabel talked at us. You wouldn’t believe how much that girl could talk. Every time an empty little thought entered that empty l
ittle brain of hers, she felt the need to share it with the rest of us—at length—in her piping little voice. I was ready to throttle her with my rucksack. Judging by Tybalt’s white knuckles, he felt the same.
Later, as we munched roast something-or-other around the fire, Doc made a suggestion. “I believe it is customary to tell stories around a campfire. Do you have a story, Delta?”
“I thought her name was Mandra?” said Lirabel in a loud whisper. “Or is that when she’s wearing the nice-person face?”
I let that go. “I’m not much of a storyteller, Doc. I always get the punch-line wrong. Why don’t you ask our new friend?” I looked at Tybalt.
He scowled. “I don’t tell stories.”
“Oh, you do!” exclaimed Lirabel, taking over the conversation yet again. “Of course you do, you told me that wonderful one about the Ballad of Touchstone, the hero who saved all those girls from that nasty old god!” Without waiting for him to chime in, she started relaying the famous story. Badly. Really, really badly.
“It was back when we all still had lots of horrid gods running around, before the Emperor decimalised them, and there was this really mean god called, um…”
“Panthas the Heartless,” Tybalt muttered, looking embarrassed.
“He kidnapped five women and put them all on this huge big rock, and lots of heroes got killed trying to rescue them because Panthy always saw them coming, being a god!” Lirabel said in a big rush.
I rolled my eyes. How she could butcher a story that any six-year-old knew off by heart was beyond me. “Why did they do that, Lirabel?”
“I can’t remember,” she said, biting her lip. “Oh, yes. They were famous women—the daughter of the Sultan of Zibria, the last Sultan, not the new Sultan, your cousin, isn’t he sweetie?” She simpered at Tybalt, who put his head in his hands. “Anyway, her and one of the Jarl of Axgaard’s wives and her little girl.”
“Jarls don’t have wives,” I corrected. “They have an official harem of wenches.”
“Whatever,” said Lirabel. “There was the Chief Profit-scoundrel who was a woman then—that’s odd—and some pirate’s wife.”
Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles) Page 102