Navarin, Thunder and Shade

by William Stafford

  That bitch! She wanted me dead! Where was the gratitude?

  “Come in, Master Frent,” she twisted her thinning lips into a smile. “Let us see what I might do for you.”

  ***

  Gonda was in an agitated state when Broad found her but a flicker of relief briefly illuminated her features when she saw who it was in her doorway. She stepped back in an unspoken invitation for him to enter. He was dismayed to see she was wearing her old, tattered clothing again and Tiggy, perched on the bed, was wrapped up like a parcel in his travelling clothes. The little boy held out his arms for Broad to pick him up.

  “You’re leaving,” Broad deduced.

  “Don’t try to stop me!” her eyes flashed a warning. Broad backed off.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. You’ll be missed.”

  “Will I?”

  “Um, yes,” the youth’s face reddened and he averted his gaze. “The Duke’s wife wants you for something-or-other.”

  “Does she now?” Gonda laughed bitterly. “I can’t imagine what. No, actually I can. You’ll have to pass on my most abject apologies.”

  “And Tiggy... The Duke...”

  “What? The Duke what?”

  “The Duke wants me to take Tiggy to the highest spot of the palace.”

  Gonda’s eyes narrowed. “What for?”

  “Beats me,” said Broad. “Something about thunder.”

  Gonda’s expression darkened. “Put him down. I mean it.”

  Broad set the child back on the bed.

  “You’re not taking him anywhere.”

  “I wasn’t-”

  “So you believe it too? All that bollocks about Tiggy being a malgrim?”

  “No - I-”

  “You do! I can see it in your face!” She picked up the boy and hugged him, pressing kisses on his neck. “He’s just a little boy. Any fool can see that! Well, apart from one, obviously.”

  Broad was crushed by her insult. “Look,” he said, “They’ll be coming for you - both of you - at any minute. Come with me. We’ll leave by the eastern gate.”

  “The eastern - Why? There’s nothing to the east but mountains.”

  “I think the western gate will be busy.”

  “So, you’re coming with us?”

  There followed another awkward moment in which Broad could not look her in the eye. “I’ll see you get on your way but I have to come back. There’s something I need to do. But then I’ll catch you up, I swear.”

  “What’s so important? Tell me.”

  “Oh,” he shrugged those broad shoulders. “Just saving the Principality. No big deal.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “Lots,” he admitted. He stuck his head out into the corridor to check that it was clear and then beckoned her to follow. They stole along until they came to the relative security of a servants’ stairwell.

  “Tell me!” Gonda urged in a whisper. Tiggy’s head rested on her shoulder, looking back the way they had come.

  “I would if I could,” said Broad. “But I don’t know what most of it means.”

  “Tell me what you can,” she insisted as they picked their way down the narrow, coiling steps.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” said Broad. “Have you ever heard of a place called Tullen Spee?”

  ***

  They descended to the canals deep below the palace cellars. From there they could sneak out from under the building and emerge beyond the boundaries of the estate.

  They could have, that is, had it not been for Carith Drombo blocking their way. She stepped from the shadows with a wild glint in her eyes. Broad blinked at her; there was something vaguely mannish about her stance and a certain square quality to her jaw that had not been there before.

  “How did you know we’d be here?” Gonda gasped. She looked at Broad with an injured and accusing look. “You betrayed us!”

  “Relax,” laughed Carith. “He’s not smart enough for treachery. You forget, my sweet, it is turnip season. A little bowl of navarin can tell the tutored eye everything it needs to know.”

  “You look like whatsisname,” Broad glanced the Duke’s wife up and down. “The master of fireworks.”

  Gonda clung to his arm. “She has forked him!”

  “Well and truly,” Carith grinned in the gloom. “And now, you silly goose girl, come with me so I may fork you.” She brandished the utensil in question, its prongs dripping with the blood of Frent. “The fireworks master won’t sustain me for long but you shall keep me going for a decade at least.”

  “What’s all this?” Broad frowned, motioning to Gonda to stand behind him. Tiggy let out a whimper.

  “Out of the way, meathead,” Carith snarled, “or I shall prick you like a sausage on a griddle.”

  “Never!” the youth jutted his chin. “If you want Gonda, you’ll have to go through me.”

  “Very well,” Carith smirked and thrust her fork into his chest. Gonda cried out. Tiggy screamed. The foundations of the palace rumbled like - like thunder. Carith’s eyes darted in all directions, checking they were not about to be flattened by falling stones. She wrenched her fork from the meathead’s chest. Broad, wide-eyed with shock, toppled sideways into the canal. The turbid water closed over him hungrily.

  “No!” Gonda sobbed. Tiggy reached out his hands but Broad did not resurface. Carith threatened her with her fork.

  “One prick down,” she sneered, “one more to go.”

  She motioned to Gonda to climb back up the stairs. “I know it was you,” she said. “You put the idea in Milassa’s head. About screwing the fireworks man.”

  “Not really,” said Gonda with a sneer. “I said any man would do the trick.”

  “You shall pay the price for your treachery,” said Carith and there was something of Frent in the lowering of her eyebrows.

  Over the goose girl’s shoulder, the eyes of the strange little boy watched the lady with the fork as intently as a cat watches a fish in a tank. Carith found his gaze disquieting.

  Malgrim or not, the child would have to go.

  Twenty-Five

  Lughor and the Duke watched the last of the Grimswyck refugees trickle in through the western gate. The Duke signalled the closure of the iron grilles, realising how flimsy they seemed, designed as they were for ornamentation rather than security. The Principality had been a place of peace for many generations. Just my luck, Marmellion groaned inwardly, for this to happen, for all hell to be let loose during my reign.

  “Look, Your Grace,” Lughor’s long arm pointed to the horizon. Beyond the palace grounds, beyond the plain of Potlar and the screen of trees that shielded regal eyes from the prosaic reality of the town, plumes of smoke were snaking into the sunset.

  “Grimswyck,” the Duke said flatly. “That means we are next.” He turned to his bodyguard whom he guessed might be an expert in these matters. “How long?”

  “Not very.” Lughor was blunt. “An army of once-deads needs no rest. It’s not in their vocabulary. They have no vocabulary, come to that.”

  “We are fish in a barrel then - soon to be dead ones,” the Duke’s lip trembled and his voice caught in his throat.

  “There is still time to flee,” said Lughor. “Via the eastern gate and into the mountains. It would buy you some time. Then perhaps Argolef could be persuaded to fight on your behalf.”

  The Duke laughed bitterly. “You forget these lands used to form part of the Eastern Realm. From the eastern mountains down to Tullen Spee. Argolef - well, his predecessors who went by that name - they have been smarting ever since the Principality was established as neutral ground between three squabbling realms. He won’t fight without making outrageous demands and so I’d lose my dukedom into the bargain. No; this land is mine t
o govern and so I shall not flee. I shall stand and defend it.”

  “Noble words,” Lughor nodded.

  “And, as my bodyguard, I give you this charge: If I am cut down, I must be cut up. I don’t want to become one of those unholy things. You must do this for me; I command it.”

  Lughor looked at the pale face of the man he had quickly come to admire, a man who, up until recently, Lughor had intended to kill. I am a soldier, he reminded himself, and at last I have someone to serve.

  “It will be my pleasure, Your Grace - I mean, I could have phrased that better. No harm shall come to you while there is life in my body. Here.”

  He reached around his neck and unhooked the tiny pendant.

  “That’s pretty,” said the Duke.

  “It’s goldinium,” said Lughor and saw the Duke’s face light up. “It renders the wearer impervious. Apparently.”

  “But - won’t you need it?”

  Lughor smiled. “I have the strength and rage of two hundred men.”

  He fastened the thong around His Grace’s neck.

  “This is exceedingly kind,” said the Duke. Already he was thinking how he could make an anniversary present of the trinket to his darling wife.

  ***

  Deep in the murky depths of the palace sewage canals, Broad Shoulders drifted like a sunken log. He was unconscious and trails of blood billowing behind him added to the darkness of the water. Death could not be far away.

  On his finger, the clasp of the ring worked loose. Shade forced himself through and quickly apprised himself of their predicament. He wasn’t absolutely certain but he had an inkling that if Broad perished so would he.

  And I’m not ready to be snuffed out just yet.

  He coiled around and around the drowning youth’s head to form a protective cloud then he extended his arms like oars to propel them both to the surface. There, he unfurled so the lad might breathe, fetching Broad a healthy smack to the chops to bring him around. Broad’s eyes opened. Startled, he gasped. And bobbed under the water again but this time he had enough presence of mind to flap and splash about and make his way to the edge.

  Broad hauled himself out of the canal and lay on his side, choking and spluttering and groaning.

  “A simple thank you would suffice,” said Shade, taking shape over him.

  “I stink like shit,” Broad moaned.

  “Yes, you do,” said Shade. “How do you account for that?”

  Broad sat upright. “Gonda!”

  “That’s hardly fair; it can’t all be hers.”

  “No! I mean, I must save her!” He tried to stand but the pain in his chest surprised the breath out of him. He bent over, wincing. “The Duke’s wife! She forked me!”

  “Yes; you should have probably get that looked at.”

  “No time!” Broad stood tall, grimacing through the discomfort. “Must - find - Gonda!”

  Disoriented, he turned around on the spot, looking for the stairs.

  “This way,” sighed Shade, drifting to the exit. “And you can say your thank-yous later.”

  ***

  “It looks like rain,” said Argolef the Seventh of the Eastern Realm as he gazed across the plain of Potlar to Marmellion’s palace.

  Smedlock held his hand out, testing the weather. “That’s because it is,” he chuckled. “Although, before this night is out, it will have turned to blood.”

  Argolef looked askance. The filthy wizard had a penchant for the melodramatic he did not much care for.

  The king and the wizard were on a mound to survey the scene. Behind them the screen of trees concealed what remained of Grimswyck and below, the plain was a boiling expanse of bodies - Argolef almost called them ‘souls’ but the once-dead have no souls. They were moving - lurching, not marching - inexorably toward the palace. The steady tramping and dragging of their feet sounded a constant percussion, accompanied by the clinking of the armour of the long-buried troops and the moans and snarls of the more recent recruits bringing up the rear.

  “Er, Smell - I mean, Smedlock,” Argolef twisted a long blue moustache around his finger. “What will the endgame be?”

  “Why, victory! For us! Of course!”

  “No, no, I mean, once we have won, of course. Will the once-deads continue to fight or will they go back to being dead again?”

  Smedlock grinned. “I have something up my sleeve, Majesty.”

  “Goodo,” said Argolef, silently betting himself it wasn’t a cake of soap.

  Smedlock looked across the sea of bobbing heads and smirked to himself. There is an endgame, you blue-haired fool. Once Glaur has fallen, I shall lead - well, I shall follow because you don’t want to get in front of them - my army of once-deads over the mountains and on through the Eastern Realm. And then - onward and onward - until the whole world is mine!

  His shoulders were still shaking with barely-contained mirth when Argolef the Seventh tapped him on one of them.

  “I say!” he said, pointing out across the plain. “Who the bloody hell is that?”

  ***

  Gonda was heartbroken to think that Broad, the sweetest, kindest young man she had ever encountered was dead. Her grief stupefied her somewhat and so she put up little in the way of struggle as Carith Drombo led her down to the altar room. The corpse of Frent the fireworks master still lay on the stone, a gossamer husk. Carith brushed it aside and shoved the goose girl toward the slab. It was only when she felt Tiggy being wrested from her arms that Gonda realised fully her predicament. I must put aside the shock of Broad’s loss, she upbraided herself, and deal with the moment.

  “Tiggy!” she cried. The boy squirmed and reached out. Carith pulled him away and sat him on a chair. She bound him to it with a length of chain.

  She was playing with fire, she knew. It would not pay to upset a malgrim, especially at such close quarters. “This will keep you safe,” she cooed. Smiling at the odd little child, she stroked his hair and offered him a biscuit. Tiggy accepted it and stared blankly. “There’s a good boy,” said Carith. She turned her back on him and winked at Gonda. “Nothing to it: child-minding. He’s as good as goldinium. Now, where were we? Oh, yes!” She waved her fork. “The renewal.”

  “You look like a bloke,” said Gonda. “And you’re getting older by the minute.”

  “Then we have no time to lose,” Carith smiled Frent’s smile, her chin considerably squarer and her hair noticeably greyer than before.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” announced Broad from the foot of the stairs. “Get her, Shade!”

  He pointed his fist at the witch, the ring open. Shade streamed from it like a jet of air.

  “My pleasure!” he grinned, but then found himself dispersing as he hit an invisible wall. He pulled himself together, shaking his head as though he had bumped it.

  “Fools!” Carith spat. “No soul-taker can harm me. My soul was lost over a hundred years ago.” She laughed as though it was a good thing to have happened.

  “Shade?” Broad panicked. “Is this true?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. This creature has not been human for a very long time.”

  “Ugh,” said Broad, disgusted.

  Carith cackled. “You say ‘ugh!’ to me when you’re the one covered in muck? That’s rich! I see I must have missed your heart; I won’t be so slapdash again.”

  She thrust the fork at the youth but Broad sprang back and avoided the prongs. Unfortunately, his heel struck the lowermost step and, wrong-footed, he fell on his arse. Carith, laughing, stalked toward him, fork at the ready, like a farmer looking forward to pitching hay with perverse pleasure.

  “Tiggy!” Gonda pleaded. “Do something!”

  But Tiggy did not respond. He sat still, absently sucking his biscuit.

  “Tiggy, please! If you can! If yo
u are anything like they say you are, please! Stop the wicked witch! Save your friend! Save Broad!”

  Still Tiggy did not respond.

  And then the room began to shake. Mortar drifted down as dust from between the overhead stones. The floor cracked and the altar tilted. Gonda sprang from it and rushed to Tiggy’s chair. Carith swung the fork wildly. A deep rumbling vibrated through their feet. A portion of the ceiling crashed onto the altar, smashing it.

  “No!” Carith wailed. “Do you know how hard they are to come by?” She lashed out in all directions but Gonda moved too quickly. She kept Carith distracted, ducking and dodging, while Broad scrambled to his feet, darted to Tiggy’s chair, undid the chain and snatched up the boy. The room tilted and the witch was flung from wall to wall. The deep rumble was in their bellies now, setting every nerve, every cell on edge.

  A cube of stone dropped from the ceiling. Its corner pierced the floor an inch from the witch’s toe.

  “Come on!” urged Broad, reaching his free hand out to Gonda. “Sorry about the smell,” he pulled an adorable face.

  As they fled up the stairs, the rumbling stopped and the stones settled. Gonda grinned at Tiggy, breathless with exertion and wonder. “You did it, Tiggy! You saved us!”

  Tiggy stared blankly and then offered her his soggy biscuit.

  “Um, actually,” said Shade, floating above their heads. “Tiggy did bugger all.”

  “What?” said Gonda. “But that sound - like thunder - shaking the room-”

  “Nope,” said Shade. “Tiggy had nothing to do with it.”

  “But-”

  “But nothing. He’s not the malgrim, my dear girl. You are.”

  Twenty-Six

  “It’s impossible!” wailed the Duke. “Any man I send out to fight - if he gets cut down only ends up fighting for the other side.”

  “Not I,” said Lughor. He saluted and strode through the gates. “I’ll cut a path the best I can. Send that youth along behind me so he can get close enough to the wizard to let his shadowy friend loose.”