Treachery of Kings

by Neal Barrett Jr

  Finn squeezed his eyes shut again, took a deep breath. When he let it out, it turned to frost. It was cold, chilling cold, still and cold as a midwinter's eve.

  “What am I thinking? Haul it up here, haul it up where? Where is here supposed to be?”

  Logic, reason, ordinary common sense. That was the only way to approach this thing. It was all a sorcerer's trick, of course, none of it was real. An illusion could seem real, though. That was the point. That's what a trick, a fake, a fancy was all about.

  Somehow, Obern Oberbyght had woven a spell around him, made him imagine he was a gnat, a speck, a mite inside a vast, enormous, inconceivable bell. A Millennial Bell, no less. One of those famous, thousand-year, every Wednesday and Friday sorts of bells.

  Finn laughed aloud at the thought, but the sound that came out was empty, hollow and dead, a sound that left him full of fright.

  And why not? It was all an illusion. Why should a sound be real when everything else is a sham?

  Finn came to his feet, taking it slow and easy, watching every step. What if the magic didn't work unless you were flat on your back? What if you just stepped off into nothing at all?

  He shook that thought aside. Magic had its rules, like everything else. Why go to all this trouble if you didn't do it right?

  “There's a greater, more frightening question than that,” he said aloud. “What am I doing in here? Why did that fat-faced trickster put me here at all?”

  Such a question should have raised the hackles on his neck, set every hair a'tingle, shivered his flesh and all of that. Here, though, on this unearthly plane, those were the ordinary, everyday conditions of life. Aches, shakes, chafing of the skin, distress of every sort, and every breath like a bite of polar ice.

  “If I were in the magic trade, what I would do is summer, with some nice trees about, and a comfy place to sit. I surely wouldn't do a place like this.”

  He learned, after one or two tries, that looking at the awesome heights above made him terribly sick. Looking down wasn't bad, and that is how he learned there was one way out of the bell.

  He had walked nearly halfway around, staying well away from the golden, frost-covered surface of the thing, when he spotted the hole. Not so much a hole as a dip, a cant, a crawlway in the surface of what was really no surface at all, but a piece of imaginary ground, somewhat more solid than the rest of the illusion thereabouts.

  He didn't hesitate more than a second and a half. Wherever this hollow, this crawly-hole went, it would take him somewhere else, out of the alarming presence of the bell, and, with any luck at all, out of the illusion as well.

  He went headfirst into the hole, sliding on his back, pulling himself along. In an instant he was clear, and peering out the other side…

  “Bones and Stones,” Finn gasped, drawing in a breath, “I've gone mad, wiggy, off the deep end. At the very least, I've completely lost my wits!”

  Still, though he was shaken, stunned, stupefied at the sight, he could scarcely contain his elation at the wonder, the marvel taking place before his eyes.

  The Millennial Bell was a vague and distant blur on the far horizon now, a golden mountain lost in purple deception, hidden in a lavender veil. The sky was not a sky at all, but a lucent, ever-moving machine, a clutter, a mass, a tangle of such complexity that he had to look away before his mind rebelled.

  Yet, when he dared to look at the thing again, he saw within this churning, whirling miracle, a simplicity beyond belief, a pure and irreducible sense of order, as if this great device might mirror the intricate works of the cosmos itself.

  It struck him, then, that works was indeed the word for this perfection, for here, in their ultimate incarnation, were the cogs, gears, ratchets, pins, springs and wheels— wheels within wheels within wheels—of Mechanics itself, the foundation of the art.

  Here was the concept of clocks, grinders, binders, of simple devices such as gut trimmers, lint cutters and pie machines.

  And, if he could allow himself the praise, the esteem— and indeed he could—his invention of the lizard was a prime example, in a most sophisticated form.

  With this thought came a vision within a visionary world. For a dazzling moment, he saw himself as a single mote of dust, a being on a tiny world in the midst of the vast, incredible workings of Julia Jessica Slagg. He laughed with joy as he saw a mirror of what he had created himself, in a manner he had only dreamed of before. And, for a moment, he listened to the clatter and the rattle and the hammer and the tick, sounds that came together like the hum and the thrum of a bright silver heart

  That small moment, scarcely a blink, vanished abruptly as a sudden motion startled him out of his thoughts. As he peered at the marvel overhead, he sensed there was something different in this great convolution, something he hadn't seen before.

  A shadow, at first indistinct, had appeared on the far horizon of the cosmic machine. As it neared, it took a more definite form, a bar of darkness stretching from right to left.

  Closer, Finn discerned its motion as a shudder, a jolt, a hesitation as it reached one position, then moved on to the next.

  Jerk, pause…

  Move on again…

  Ordered and steady with a pace of its own…

  One, two…

  One, two…

  And then Finn knew…

  … knew this enormous illusion was clipping off snippets of time, its shadowy hand measuring out the unthinkable minutes, counting impossible years, here in a place that knew no time, that wasn't even there…

  It's a spell, a trick, a great hallucination, what do I care? I'm still in Obern Oberbyght's tower with a bunch of dusty tomes. All this nonsense is only in my head…

  The hand, the shadow, moved again, one, two…one, two… and now this motion was more than a quiver, more than a jerk, now it moved with a creak and a groan, with a deep and ponderous moan.

  And, as it thundered to a stop, paused, trembled and rumbled on again, Finn felt the great, illusory machine shake as well. Under his boots, the imaginary ground began to shudder and a veil of fanciful dust began to drift down from above.

  The deadly shaft moved one eternal moment then the next, its mindless cogs and gears marking off another afternoon, ticking off another thousand years.

  This is why Oberbyght saved me from the wrath of Maddigern… this is why I'm here. I pray no one ever does me any favors again!

  He remembered the last time the Millennial Bell had awakened the napping dead. Stones had crumbled and floors had cracked in the palace far below. Here, in the very shadow of the thing, he'd be shaken to thornberry jelly. Nothing would remain but a puddle on the floor.

  Finn thought of Letitia Louise. He thought of her touch, of her iridescent eyes. He thought it was quite unfair to perish in an illusion, in the midst of a sorcerer's spell.

  “If the end has to be,” he said aloud, “it seems only right it should happen somewhere that exists, somewhere that's real. I feel that's really the proper thing to do… “

  FIFTY-TWO

  LETITIA LOUISE COULD HEAR HER OWN HEART pounding against her chest. She prayed the Badgies couldn't hear it too, for they were scarcely inches away, just outside the narrow passageway. She could hear their gruff voices, muttering to one another as they searched the darkened hall.

  She thought it was strange how one folk's language differed so much from the next. The Mycer tongue was full of whispers, murmurs, gentle sibilations. If a Badgie ever said hello—which few would ever do—it always sounded like a curse. Humans were somewhere in between. Hard and then soft. Irritating one moment, quite endearing the next. Finn was certainly capable of both.

  “Finn, dear Finn, may the Fates let me find you again!”

  “Don't mumble back there, all right? Stone carries sound everywhere, didn't anyone ever tell you that?”

  Letitia felt the color rise to her face. She bit off a nasty reply, words full of brambles, thorns and sharp little tacks. This was not the time for that. Still, if one was
collecting unpleasant, totally annoying sounds… after the Badgies, the King's daughter would be a good place to start.

  If looks were all that counted, Letitia could not deny DeFloraine-Marie was easily the most breathtaking female she'd ever seen, at least as far as humans valued that sort of thing. She had never failed to notice the women who caught Finn's eye, and they all seemed to have those full, sensuous lips, lazy, roving eyes, impossibly long legs, and other features Letitia didn't care to list. The trouble was, this female appeared to have them all.

  Of course, Finn had chosen her, a Mycer with pointy ears and downy skin, instead of a human female. She needed to remind herself of that. So why, she wondered, didn't that seem to help?

  Maybe because I can smell that scent of hers, way back here. And I know it didn't all come from a jar!

  “I just thought I'd mention,” said Julia Jessica Slagg, “in passing, no offense, you have stepped on my tail twice. You might watch where you're going, and forget about our friend up there.”

  “I am not thinking about anything at all,” Letitia said. “Besides, you have no idea what's going on in my head. You're not as good as you think you are.”

  “Well, ofcourse. I am only a humble mechanical device.”

  “Don't start, Julia. I'm not in the mood for this.”

  “My snout is sealed.”

  “I should live to see the day.”

  “May it be the Fates’ will. Do I have the right deities this time? I get these mythical figures Newlies and humans revere mixed up sometimes. Is it the Fates I'm thinking of? Or is that the Three Blind Lice? I can never be sure.”

  “Julia?”

  “Right here. Scampering aside, just in the nick of time.”

  “Can you—sense Finn at all? Do you think he's anywhere near?”

  “I had enough trouble sniffing out his trail in the hall. There is nothing in here. Certainly nothing remotely akin to Finn.”

  “Then what are we doing here, Julia? I mean, we've avoided the Badgies, but we don't know where she's taking us, or why.”

  Julia sensed the edge of desperation in Letitia's voice, the tension, the strain, the tone that said she was hanging on as best she could. Julia knew she needed all the help she could get, instead of the seven acid comments and the half dozen jibes that had just come to mind. Out of great consideration, she said nothing at all.

  LETITIA SAW NO DIFFERENCE IN THIS PARTICULAR section of the narrow, twisting crawlway, and the one they'd passed only moments before, but DeFloraine-Marie seemed to feel it was the right place to be.

  “I cannot stop and wait for you every five minutes. You're going to have to keep up,” the King's daughter told Letitia in that haughty, insufferable manner that seemed to be her ordinary, everyday voice.

  Maybe they went to Princess School, Letitia thought. You couldn't be that obnoxious without a little help.

  “I don't see I'm any farther back than I'm supposed to be,” Letitia said. “You're our leader. I can't very well get ahead of you.

  “And, while we're at it, do you think you could tell me where we're going? Could I ask why you're helping us at all? I'm sure it's not concern over me. I know better than that.”

  DeFloraine-Marie laughed, stretching her exquisite neck, tossing her perfect golden locks about in a manner Letitia was sure she'd practiced in a mirror a hundred times.

  “Letitia Louise—such a charming name, common among the Mycer folk, I assume? If you imagine I have base designs of any sort on your male, you can put that notion to rest. If I cared, the poor dear would be stunned, paralyzed, struck completely dumb by now.

  “I don't want him, I want him out of here. Out of this palace, out of Heldessia, out of my sight.”

  Letitia frowned. “Why? What has Finn done to harm you?”

  DeFloraine-Marie dismissed her with a scornful glance. “That's none of your concern. There are things— matters of importance to me. His presence is a nuisance. I want all you out of here, isn't that enough for you?”

  “Yes. I suppose it is. As you say, your reasons are none of my concern.”

  “How thoughtful of you to say so, dear. What you think means so much to me.”

  And there was that vain, arrogant smile, that cold, unfeeling glance that marred the princess’ beauty and turned her perfect features into something ugly and profane.

  “You clearly know this enormous structure better than I,” Julia said, fixing DeFloraine-Marie with her bright ruby eyes. “However, I know Master Finn, and that overblown magician never brought him this way.”

  “Tell your disgusting machine to stay away from me,” the princess said, backing off a step or so. “If that thing gets near me, I'll step on its dreadful head.”

  “I wouldn't” Letitia said.

  “If she doesn't bite me, I won't bite her,” Julia said, flicking her silver tongue. “Please pass that along if you will.”

  DeFloraine-Marie wrinkled her nose, as if she found something most unpleasant in the air.

  “No, Oberbyght didn't bring him this way, your creature's right about that. Even that pompous oaf doesn't know about this passageway.

  “When I was a child, my cousins and I found every hollow and hidey-hole in the palace. Some of them I can't even squeeze through now. We peeked on everyone.

  Including Oberbyght. If they'd ever caught us, if they'd ever known we were there… “

  For just an instant, Letitia saw the princess’ features soften, the mask of contempt give way to reveal the child that lay hidden somewhere behind the woman that child had become.

  “Anyway, you don't care about that. You want to know where dear, dear Finn is, right? The seer took him to his place in the south tower. You can't get near him if you go that way. There are all kinds of horrid spells and magic locks and doors. My way will take us past all that. If I recall—and I'm quite good at recalling whatever I like—we'll end up at a spot where we can get a look inside the tower room.”

  “Get a look?” Julia twitched her golden tail. “A look won't do us much good, as I see it. What do we have to do, break down a wall?”

  DeFloraine-Marie looked past Julia as if she wasn't there. “Do I have to do everything? I'm getting you there. Don't you have a—a weapon or anything?”

  “No. I've been bound up for some time. You're not aware of that?”

  DeFloraine-Marie rolled her eyes. “Well, you or your monster will have to think of something. I expect you'll have to kill Oberbyght before he'll let Finn go. I'd happily do it myself, but I don't carry weapons of any sort. That's not what I do.”

  Letitia knew this was so. DeFloraine-Marie wasn't wearing enough to hide anything at all. Letitia wondered if she dressed that way all the time. A cloudy wisp of lace, a sparkle of gems here and there didn't seem the right outfit for sneaking about in drafty passageways. The palace was such a dank and dreary place, it was a wonder the princess didn't have a chronic runny nose.

  “I would suggest,” Julia said, “that we move along quickly in whatever direction you feel would be best.”

  Her silver snout was rigid, her golden scales aquiver, signs that told Letitia the lizard sensed the need for action of the most immediate kind.

  “She means now. She means we don't have time to stand around.”

  “Oh? And why would that be?” DeFloraine-Marie flicked a mote off her bare and perfect shoulder. She was clearly bored with this venture, ready for something new.

  “We are pursued,” Julia said. “Badgies, and not too far behind.”

  “Nonsense. No one knows about these inner corridors but me. I assure you there's nobody here.”

  “If Julia says they're here—”

  “ Julia —and I cannot believe I am calling a machine by a name—that thing may smell Badgies, I'm certain the halls are full of them now. And yes, we will move on, as I was about to suggest myself.”

  “Good,” Letitia said. “We are in your hands, m'lady. I'm sure you won't lead us astray.”

  DeFloraine-Marie
left Letitia with a withering glance and stomped off ahead.

  “She didn't care for that,” Julia said.

  “Exactly what I had in mind, then. She is truly the most annoying, irritating—”

  Letitia stopped, nearly stumbled as a tremor, a quake, a deep and distant rumble shook the narrow walls. Dust rained down from above. A herd of beetles scurried across the floor and disappeared.

  “When the bugs go, it's time for me to go too,” Julia said. “That's never a very good sign.”

  “What was that?” Letitia braced her hands against the wall. “I think something exploded somewhere.”

  “Don't stand there,” whispered the princess. “Do I have to tell you every time?”

  She stared at Letitia, her face the color of ash. Soot smudged her nose, and a spiderweb fluttered in her hair. Letitia noted with disgust that the soot set off her pale complexion, and the spiderweb looked nice.

  “You heard that, I suppose. Is the place falling apart or what?”

  The princess didn't answer. She turned quickly and raced down the corridor, past fallen stones, past ancient brick and timbered walls. Shafts of errant candlelight from royal bedrooms, ballrooms, kitchens and halls pierced the holes and cracks in the walls.

  Once, Letitia heard peals of laughter. Once, she heard a woman cry.

  No wonder the princess is jaded beyond her years, Letitia thought. As a child, she must have seen everything from here.

  “They're coming, Letitia. I don't care what m'lady says, we've got Badgies on our tail.”

  “I know. Even I can hear that. Wait,” Letitia said, hurrying to catch up with DeFloraine-Marie. “They're there, and they're not far behind us, all right?”

  The princess showed Letitia a gentle, lofty smile. “We don't have to do a thing. We're there.”

  “What? I don't see a thing, we're where?”

  “The peephole's gone, but I'm quite sure. I told you I remember anything I really want to. Obern Oberbyght's chambers are right here. Behind this wall.”