Shards of a Broken Sword

by W. R. Gingell

  There was a brief pause while Zen pushed up his glasses and Dai chuckled.

  “Yes. Our cousin ate all the preserves. I hope they give him stomach cramps. But there’s a nice pie in the cooler if Rafiq would like that.”

  “Pie!” said a small voice immediately. Rafiq looked up and found that the diminutive girl in the bookcase was watching him intently. She’d gone back to her book when the conversation had turned to Rafiq, but the mention of pie had once more awoken her interest in the conversation. “Pie for me!” she crowed.

  “Pie for Rafiq,” corrected Zen, obediently closing his book and leaving the room.

  “Pie for me!” insisted the child irritably. She abandoned her book to climb out of the bookcase backwards, and Rafiq, who instinctively moved closer when her tiny legs flailed for the next shelf, was just in time to catch her before she fell.

  “It’s all right, she bounces,” said Dai languidly.

  “Dragon!” said the child happily, wrapping her arms around Rafiq’s neck. “Dragon for me!”

  Kako grinned. “I thought you wanted pie?”

  “Pie for me, too!”

  “This is Miyoko,” Kako said, by way of introduction. “Oh, and that’s Suki. Akira isn’t here at the moment. Zen is the one fetching the pie, and Dai is the one on the couch.”

  A pair of big brown eyes lit with excitement. “Fire!”

  “No fire!” said Kako immediately. “Dai, did you give Mee matches again?”

  “Suki took them off her days ago and I’ve been locking the door to my workroom.”

  “Don’t need matches,” Miyoko explained. “Dragons go whoof!” She puffed her cheeks out and huffed a short, slightly damp breath into Rafiq’s face, by which he understood that she wished him to breathe fire. An interesting idea—could he transform enough to be able to breathe fire without needing to change all the way?—but since Zen was just staggering into the room with a tray piled high with food while Kako peeled Miyoko’s arms from his neck, he didn’t attempt it.

  “Help yourself,” Kako told him, nodding at the tray. “And quickly, too, or there’ll be none left for you.”

  Rafiq did so hungrily; but he wasn’t so eager for food that he didn’t notice her pulling Dai aside to murmur in her ear. He accepted the pie Zen offered him before Miyoko could snatch it away with her tiny, grubby fingers, and watched them both out of the corner of his eye. Did something change hands? He thought so. So Kako wasn’t here merely to see her family: she’d come with a purpose. Was that purpose behind why she still wandered the Enchanted Keep with himself and the prince? It was useless to attempt to hear what Kako and Dai were saying: Zen was determined to know about Rafiq’s dragon form and how he changed, and Miyoko was just as determined to have Rafiq’s attention all to herself. Suki tried to keep them both in some semblance of politeness, and in so doing added another layer of noise to the babble. By the time both children had been more or less quieted by their elder sister, Kako and Dai were descending upon the supper tray to snatch up the remaining crumbs that hadn’t already been consumed with great dispatch by the younger two and even the lady-like Suki.

  Rafiq continued to watch them thoughtfully as he ate, prompting Dai to wink at him salaciously.

  Kako didn’t react to his steady regard, but when he’d finished eating she said: “We’d best be going back now, Rafiq.”

  There was a general chorus of protest.

  “But you just got here!”

  “Pies and fruit nectar, that’s all we are to you!”

  “Kakooooo!”

  “But Akira will be here soon, Kako!”

  “I know,” said Kako, answering the most comprehensible of the wails. “But I got to see Akira last night. And why else would I come to see you all but for the food and drink?”

  To Rafiq’s surprise, her siblings seemed to take this in good part. Zen and Miyoko crowded close to hug her around the waist and the leg respectively, and Suki sighingly kissed her cheek.

  Dai gave her a sideways smile and threw herself onto a couch, blowing Kako a kiss. “Will you be back tomorrow?”

  “I think so,” said Kako. She and Dai exchanged a glance, and she added: “I’ll want to see how you and Zen are going with that project.”

  Zen looked startled. “We’ve got a project?”

  Dai roused herself enough to clip his ear with one hand. “Of course we do, you stupid squib!”

  “Oh, that project,” Zen said, his eyes sliding away from Rafiq. “All right: ‘night Kako.”

  Kako ushered Rafiq on ahead of her, stopping only to detach Miyoko from her leg, and they walked the passage that wasn’t really there in silence, all the way back to the Enchanted Keep.

  The next morning the colour was still gone from the tiles. Rafiq, who woke with a smile on his lips and many questions bubbling in his mind, cast his eye over the tiles and snuffed a small laugh.

  “Oh, are the tiles still white?” said Kako sympathetically, from her wardrobe.

  “Plague take it!” Akish said angrily. “Why aren’t the colours back?”

  “I expect the Keep is trying a bit of negative reinforcement,” Kako said, her eyes bright. She uncurled from the wardrobe with the unconscious grace of a she-dragon and stretched on the tips of her toes. “It really doesn’t like having to repeat itself. I wouldn’t use any more magic while you’re here, if I were you.”

  That was moderately interesting, thought Rafiq, edging slightly sideways to make room for Kako to sit down beside him. He could have sat up, but it looked like Akish was settling to have a temper tantrum, and Rafiq didn’t feel that a tantrum merited his full attention when he could recline comfortably for the duration.

  “There’s always the Door Out,” said Kako, with the sighing weariness of one who knows she will not be attended to. Rafiq smiled up at the ceiling.

  “We will not abandon the quest!” Prince Akish said immediately. “Rafiq, what do you see?”

  The Burden of his Thrall fell immediately, suffocatingly vicelike. Rafiq said, as casually as he could manage: “I see the silver ceiling and the reflected patterns from the floor.”

  “The patterns?” Prince Akish stared at him, then up at the ceiling with fierce exultation. “Rafiq, find me a mirror!”

  Rafiq rolled languidly to his feet, conscious of a galling annoyance at himself. He had hoped to be able to keep his own counsel better. He brought back one of the side mirrors from the dressing-table a few tiles away and passed it to Akish, meeting Kako’s eyes as he did so. She did her one-shouldered shrug and smiled slightly, which made him feel better.

  “Now we progress!” said Prince Akish exultantly, and led the way across the tiles. It was astonishingly quick once they knew the way: a bare twenty yards, and straight as an arrow to that one window. The prince hauled at the window himself, for once too eager to order Rafiq to do it, and leaned out into the open air to scout out the next Circle.

  “It’s a garden,” he said. “Not much to be seen from here, I’m afraid. Proceed, lizard.”

  ***

  Somewhere far away from the Enchanted Keep, Dai, sister of Kako, turned a shard of sword between her fingers.

  “What is it?” asked Zen. He was gazing at it with intense attention, as if he could force it to give up its secrets by the force of his will alone.

  “It’s part of a sword.”

  “I know that. I meant, what’s it for?”

  “Then you should have asked that,” said Dai. “I don’t know what it’s for. Neither does Kako, but she must be trying to find out, because she wants a passable copy to replace the original. Can you do it?”

  “Probably,” said Zen. “Think it belongs to the prince, or Rafiq?”

  “Weeeeeeell–”

  “What, Kako didn’t tell you?”

  “Oh, she told me. Says she picked the prince’s pocket. But this magic– it’s good magic. I mean, really good: lovely, benevolent stuff, and is it ever strong! What’s Akish of Illisr doing with something this nice?”


  “Something nasty, belike,” said Zen. “Oh! Dai! Why’s your necklace doing that?”

  “What? Oh!”

  “That’s your Fae necklace, isn’t it? What’s it doing, trying to get away from the shard?”

  “I think so,” said Dai, feeling for the pendant doubtfully. It had pulled itself as far away from the shard as it could get, and now it tugged at the chain around her neck from somewhere over her shoulder. “Do you know, I’m almost certain we have a book about this. Wait here. Don’t touch it.”

  Zen waited after she left the room, his hands shoved into his pockets and jiggling on his feet. It looked as though he was physically restraining himself from touching the shard. Dai returned moments later and shot him a suspicious look, but his impatience convincing her that he’d done as he was told, she wiggled the book at him.

  “I was right. We do have a book about it. Here, hold the shard.”

  “All right!” He held it while Dai grew a spiky, tight-knit spell in the palm of one hand, and stood without flinching as she hurled it at the shard between his fingers. Magic hit shard, and the room lit with a flash of searing white light as the spell exploded into extinction.

  “Oooooh,” said Zen, his eyes bright and dazzled.

  Dai grinned: a brilliant, triumphant grin. “Ah,” she said. “So that’s what it does! I think Kako is going to like this.”

  The Third Circle is ended

  The Fourth Circle

  Rafiq dropped into the courtyard below. There were flagstones beneath his feet, cracked and ancient with weeds, and the garden in the centre of the courtyard was encroaching upon the stone border. Where once there must have been a full three yards between garden and courtyard wall, the trees now brushed against the wall. Rafiq turned to help Kako through the window and set her down gently on the flagstones, considerably puzzled. The view from the other windows had shown them to be several stories high in the Keep, and there had certainly been no sign of a courtyard garden from any of them.

  Prince Akish dropped from the window behind them and looked around critically. “At least we can see the sky again! I began to fear we’d never get out of that accursed place.”

  Kako, looking very wary, lightly touched the courtyard wall. “I wouldn’t relax just yet, your highness. This feels more perilous than the proper inside of the Keep.”

  “That’s because it’s Faery,” said Prince Akish dismissively.

  Kako’s eyebrows twitched together. “You’ve been in Faery before?”

  “Of course. We’re allied with Faery.”

  “You allied with them? Why would you ally yourself with them?”

  “Watch your impertinent mouth, wench,” said Prince Akish. “The Fae are providing us with arms and spells in return for temporary land grants and safe passage for their exiles through our lands.”

  Kako muttered something that sounded like “Exiles!” with a bitter kind of mockery. “Yes, the Fae approached Shinpo about accepting some of their exiles as well. We began to allow a few through a tear between here and there because it seemed they were under attack by another group of Fae known as the Guardians. Unfortunately, those exiles turned out to be High Fae who took control of the towns in which they were settled and subjugated the local population into slaves. We still haven’t managed to rescue all of our people, and I hear that Llassar is almost entirely over-run with Fae. A human there is no more than a dog.”

  “Shinpo, like Llassar, is weakly and prone to invasion,” said the prince. “Illisr has not agreed to house exiles out of the goodness of its heart, it has accepted exchange for exchange. We’ve not weakened ourselves, we’ve taken advantage of the situation. Faery is indebted to us.”

  Rafiq, who knew something of how Faery paid its debts, exchanged a look with Kako. She was breathing fast and short, her eyes dark, and it occurred to him that this was the most openly genuine feeling he’d ever seen from her except when in the presence of her family. Almost every other word, smile or response had been carefully calculated to draw the desired reaction from Prince Akish or Rafiq himself. To what end, Rafiq still hadn’t determined.

  “Take to the air, Rafiq,” said Prince Akish. “I’d like to know what we’re working with.”

  “Coming?” Rafiq asked Kako. He had the distinct pleasure of seeing her completely taken aback, her eyes fearful of what he was about to say, before he added: “I can take passengers if you’re not afraid to fall off.”

  Kako gave a tiny choke of laughter and said: “All right, then.”

  “You’d better get on my back now,” said Rafiq. “It’s going to get a bit crowded when my wings come out.”

  From the air the walled garden below looked distinctly small. Rafiq, circling lazily in the bright summer sun with the tiny weight that was Kako on his back, felt chilled despite the sun. There was no sign of the Enchanted Keep at all: the garden made its own solitary square against an unending plain of rolling green. The sky itself felt alien, the breeze shifting in an infinitesimally different manner than Rafiq was used to.

  “It is Faery,” said Kako in his ear, her voice stifled with unease. It was unusually easy to hear her: the rush of wind that should have been sweeping past Rafiq’s ears at the speed of his flight didn’t make a sound here. The unnerving silence made his scales ache in unease. To take his mind off his disquiet, he said: -You’re familiar with Faery?-

  “Not exactly,” said Kako. “But the princess likes me to stay current with my studies in magic, and a knowledge of Fae magic and Faery is useful.”

  -Do your brother and sisters practise?-

  “You’ve been with Prince Akish a long time, haven’t you?” asked Kako, after a small pause. That was interesting. She was willing to put her own secrets in his keeping, but not those of her family. Rafiq was inclined to think that her reticence meant at least one of her siblings practised magic.

  -Almost as long as I remember- he said, willing to humour her. After all, it was due to him that they were now in the Fourth Circle. -Why?-

  “Well, you’re inured, aren’t you? You’ve given up.”

  Rafiq was conscious of an unpleasant twisting in his stomach. -I haven’t given up!-

  “Of course you have,” said Kako. “You wriggle around things and make as much of a nuisance of yourself as possible because you know you’ll never escape. It’s the only way you have of fighting back.”

  It wasn’t true, thought Rafiq, dipping into the wind. It wasn’t true. He still thought of escape and freedom sometimes. But when the old king had handed him over to Akish, the very first set of Commands the young prince gave Rafiq were ones that his father the king had passed on to him. Rafiq wasn’t to injure or bring about the injury of Prince Akish. He was never to murder, or bring about the murder of Prince Akish. He was never to collude with those conspiring to bring about the murder or injury of Prince Akish.

  The list of Commands was both extensive and comprehensive, and Rafiq had never found a loophole in them.

  He said: -I haven’t given up- again, and circled lower for landing.

  “Well?” demanded Prince Akish when they landed and Rafiq was once again human.

  “We’re stranded,” said Rafiq shortly. “Nothing around us but walls and grass.”

  “It’s definitely Faery,” Kako said. “Not this bit we’re in, but out there. It’s like a little mushroom of the human world has sprouted up in Faery.”

  “What happened to the Keep?”

  “I think we’re still technically in it,” said Kako. “This room is just a bit leafier than a regular one.”

  Prince Akish said: “I found a door in the wall further on, but it’s the Door Out. The rest is merely garden– and not so much of it, either. It’s barely fifty yards across.”

  “Anything edible?” asked Kako casually.

  Rafiq found it hard not to grin. Was she trying to get Akish to eat potentially dangerous Faery food?

  “Some fruit: a few nuts. Nothing that doesn’t look human. Better yet, the
re’s a spring in the centre of the garden: we won’t lack for food or drink while we’re here.”

  “That’s all right,” said Kako; “But if there’s only one door, how do we get on?”

  “Over the wall, I suspect,” said Prince Akish.

  “The wall?” Rafiq repeated, startled. “You’re going to go into Faery?”

  “We’re going to go into Faery,” corrected Akish. “You don’t think I’m going to leave you safe and warm here in the garden while I wander Faery alone, do you?”

  Kako sighed. This made the prince look sharply at her.

  “What is it, wench?”

  “Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Speak!”

  “Oh well, if you want to get stuck in Faery, that’s your business,” said Kako. “But if you’re going over the wall, I’m staying here, thank you very much.”

  “Come now, it’s not so perilous!” protested the prince.

  “Well, it depends who you are,” Kako said. “But what it all really comes down to is that over the wall is the same thing as a Door Out, except you’ll be out in Faery instead of out in the human world.”

  Rafiq gazed at her long and hard. Kako wanted them out of the Keep, he was certain. That being the case, why was she trying so hard to stop the Prince from climbing over the wall and into Faery? If what she said was true, once Prince Akish and Rafiq were lost in Faery, they wouldn’t be able to come back.

  Kako’s eyes flicked up to meet his and slid away again. “In any case, you wouldn’t be able to get back to the human world. Your highness. But then, you seem to be quite comfortable with the Fae, so it’s entirely up to you.”

  Prince Akish scowled down at her. “Very well: we’ll separate and explore the garden. Reconvene at the spring in the centre in half an hour.”

  Kako immediately vanished into the shrubbery, which made Rafiq wonder more than ever what she was up to. The prince was making a direct line for the footpath that ran around the outside of the garden, so Rafiq followed Kako into the foliage, where he soon lost her among the leaves with such a thoroughness that he suspected she was using magic to avoid him. Since he didn’t choose to lose her, he spent some time trying to seek out and follow her magic. This was less successful than he’d hoped: Kako seemed to have a considerable enough talent at magic to be able to hide the fact that it was considerable, and Rafiq couldn’t even catch a trace of it. He spent a little time making a grid of the small garden, but when even that didn’t turn up more than a brief flicker of pink scarf he took a slightly circuitous route to the spring at the centre of the garden. He’d seen it from the air earlier, and the gentle trickling sound it made meant it was easy to find through the foliage. The sound of running water also made him realise how thirsty he’d become after his short burst of dragon-ness, and by the time he did find the spring, Rafiq was parched enough to kneel by the water and scoop up frustratingly small sips of water in his cupped palm.