by J M Sanford
She saw Bryn well before she reached her destination, the tall figure sitting hunched on a high wall, cat-like profile and huge ears silhouetted plainly against the glow of many streetlights blooming in the night sky.
Bessie hurried closer, less concerned with absolute silence now that she was outside the walls of the Academy. “Bryn, come down from there!” she hissed. She’d barely raised her voice above a breath, but his head whipped round suddenly.
Her Argean friend grinned that enormous white-fanged grin, pleased as ever to see her. “Miss Bessie!” He bounded down from the high wall, taking the long leaps effortlessly while Bessie could only look on in hopeless envy. He stopped himself just short of wrapping her up in a big furry hug. “I’m so glad to see you again, my good friend,” he said. “You’re growing tall and true, as I knew you would.”
Bessie raised her eyebrows. She’d always been small for her age, and even the decent meals provided to students of the Academy hadn’t been enough to help her in that regard. “You’re looking very well too, Bryn. I trust business is good for you?”
“Very good, very good,” Bryn nodded enthusiastically. “I’m glad to find Iletia a fine and thriving City, so that I will be quite happy to stay here as long as I can be of service to you.”
They walked down into a narrow covered alleyway, out of sight. So late in the evening, there weren’t many people about, and nobody who would interfere with the private business of an Argean. The few madmen who would even think of doing so were busy in taverns at such an hour.
“Thank you. I promise it won’t be long before I need to hire Sharvesh again.” She only hoped she’d be able to keep her promise.
“Ah!” This obviously reminded Bryn of the real purpose of their meeting. “I have the items you requested.” With a flourish, he pulled a crystal ball from an inner pocket of his coat. Even in the shadows it glowed faintly from within, bright flecks and flaws in the stone catching its light and magnifying it.
“Thank you,” said Bessie, taking it from him carefully. She always felt anxious handling expensive items, and it had taken more than three months of her Academy allowance to even rent the crystal ball for the night. “Did you get the call spell, too?”
He hadn’t been happy about that, but he’d found a way to get hold of it anyway. He handed her the ceramic tablet, and she refrained from asking him how he’d been able to acquire it. Bad enough she was asking him to stop in Iletia, possibly indefinitely, when his livelihood depended on travel… But, as long as she had Sharvesh at her disposal, she had a Warship, and that at least was a start.
The echoes of the alleyway seemed to chatter and gossip, and Bessie moved swiftly on, looking for somewhere quieter. Still, much as she wanted to find a place where she wouldn’t be disturbed or overheard, the busy City offered few such places, and she didn’t like carrying the expensive crystal ball around so late at night, either. She’d worn gloves to cover her conjuring rings, and kept to good neighbourhoods, where the streets were well-lit and the people walked sedately. She forced herself to walk like a young lady of leisure too, idle and carefree.
Eventually they came to a subway where the paving stones were clean and unbroken, and the lamps bright – a safe but secluded place. She sat down on the steps, where she judged she was more or less out of sight, but could still see the feet and legs of people walking by through a grille. Raising the crystal ball, she stared at her reflection: her face childish but serious, her dark eyes in shadow. Then, with Bryn keeping watch, she spoke the call spell. Presently the faint glow within the crystal ball brightened and a new face appeared within to replace her own image, distorted by the curve of the ball’s surface. The man in the crystal looked to be in his fifties or sixties, although everyone knew that an Archmage might be much older than he appeared. Despite his wrinkles and white hair, his features were strong, and his eyes piercingly blue even in the crystal ball’s haze.
“Good evening, Archmage,” said Bessie, with a smile and a deferential bow of her head. “I seek an audience with you. I am Elizabeth Castle of the Antwin Academy.” She thought she’d better get the Antwin name in quickly, if she was to have any credibility at all.
“Yes. A third year student, I see.” The man smirked. “Unless the pins have changed since I was of an age to dally with Academy girls. Of course, it wasn’t the Antwin Academy in those days.”
Self-consciously, Bessie put her hand to the amethyst pin at her collar. She’d only received it a few weeks ago. “Quite right, Archmage: I’m a third year,” she admitted, quietly. She’d almost forgotten she was out after curfew, and guiltily she checked the street above her for any sign of legs that might belong to any of her Masters. They weren’t far from the Academy: from the top of the stairs she’d been able to see the rickety old clock tower.
“And you’ve acquired my personal call spell from somewhere, despite your tender years and the fact that I haven’t heard the name ‘Castle’ before. Most irregular. New money, are you, Miss Castle? The daughter of an upstart house in the grand City of Iletia?”
Bessie already knew Archmages didn’t put a lot of stock in material wealth. She’d have to interest him on some other level. She suspected somehow she already had, otherwise he would have ended the conversation by now. It surprised her that he’d apparently never heard of the Castles, though. He must not be that old after all…
“No, Archmage, the Castles are an old family. Very old, and fallen on hard times. You’re aware of the legendary contest to find the Dragon Queen, I assume?”
The Archmage snorted in derision. “You may assume that much safely enough, my dear. By any chance are you the girl claiming to be of the Black Queen’s bloodline? Your representative has already contacted me twice in his efforts to recruit your Black Mage.”
“Yes, and I apologise for disturbing you a third time, but the challenge is greater now than ever. The White Queen has the crown and is seeking her King even as we speak, accompanied by a powerful witch.”
She’d hoped that would be enough of a break with dull tradition to interest him, and she was right. His face loomed larger within the crystal as he leaned forward in his seat. “A witch, you say?” His blue eyes narrowed in a look of disapproval, but she thought she saw the glitter of intrigue in them too. Mages and witches had been bitter rivals since time immemorial: men and women practising mostly very different schools of magic. The idea of a witch taking the place of the White Queen’s Mage was scandalous, or so Bessie gathered from Greyfell’s comments on the matter.
“I fought her once or twice,” said Bessie, nonchalant as she could. “I’m not ashamed to say she has me quite outclassed.”
“If she’s taken the role of White Mage, then of course she does, young lady: your studies at the Antwin Academy cover magic only tangentially, and the most mundane kind, at that. Poisons and potions and silly little charms… Hardly magic at all.”
Bessie could have kicked herself. Her skills in magic might be hard-earned, but they were nothing compared to those of even a low-ranking mage. She bowed her head, biting her lip in a shameless show of contrition. “That’s very true, Archmage,” she said, not looking up. “I’m in no position to judge truly powerful magic users.”
“Don’t blubber now,” said the Archmage impatiently. “I hate girls who cry. Tell me honestly – is the White Mage really a woman? I can’t believe the Dragon Lords would ever stand for such a thing.”
“And yet, the White Queen has the crown,” she reminded him. She’d scarcely been able to think of anything else for weeks. “I’ve done my best to play by the rules, but I need a Mage, a Commander, and a Paladin.” Damn Greyfell and his love of rules. She looked up at a pair of legs going past the grille, but by the dandyish colours of the striped trousers she knew they didn’t belong to Master Greyfell, nor did they have his gait. A couple of ladies of the night passed the other way in high heeled boots and frilled skirts that showed a daring amount of calf.
“The answer is still no, you
ng lady. I have more important things to tend to, far beyond your capacity to understand. Nonetheless… I like your spirit. Does the White Queen know the whereabouts of the throne room yet? Do you?”
Bessie shook her head. She and Greyfell had tracked the White Queen’s path all around the countryside before they’d finally come to the fabled jade temple that housed the Dragon Queen’s crown. Throughout the journey she’d realised more and more that the White Queen had blundered along with blind luck on her side. “The legends say that the Dragon Lords hid the throne room so that only the rightful queen would ever be able to find it.”
“Then perhaps you are not the rightful queen.”
Bessie was rapidly losing her patience. “Perhaps legends exaggerate for the sake of a better story,” she snapped.
The Archmage laughed. “Oh my dear, you’ll have to learn to keep a better grip on your temper than that. But, you know, the legends do exaggerate on one or two points. As many theories as there have been on the location of the throne room, all intelligent arguments point towards Ildorria.”
Ildorria. Bessie knew the name at once. Many of the original Flying Cities had been lost over the millennia. Many had crashed, but Ildorria had simply vanished without a trace. Once again she wished she had Greyfell with her – he knew the history of the Flying Cities better than anyone. Had Ildorria’s sudden unexplained disappearance been contemporary with the beginning of the Queens’ Contest, hundreds of years ago? Bessie tensed as she heard the tap of smart footsteps on the street above, and craned her neck to look. No, those boots were far too fancy to belong to Master Greyfell, and too noisy. The man’s footsteps rang out like the iron shoes of a carthorse as he walked past the grille. She did her best to ignore the noise, returning her attention to the crystal ball. “I must reach the throne room before the White Queen, Archmage, and take the crown back from her. What can you tell me about Ildorria?”
Bessie missed whatever else the Archmage had to say, as the carthorse footsteps rang out loudly at the top of the stairs, and then came to a halt. “Hello there, missy,” said a voice from above: amused, possibly a little drunk. “Out late, aren’t you?”
Bessie swore under her breath. The man stood in the shadows between streetlamps so that it was hard to see his face clearly, but was that a guardsman’s uniform he wore? And a short sword of the style guardsmen carried, too. She pulled her cloak tight to hide her own uniform. She couldn’t risk being taken back to the Academy in disgrace, nor even being reported as out after curfew. “I was unavoidably delayed at a soiree,” she said, affecting the prim and proper tone she judged best for dealing with guardsmen. “This kind gentleman is escorting me home to my family.”
“An Argean gentleman?” The guardsman was not such a fool – most Argeans outside of their homeland were dockhands or skysailors.
“Yes. Yes. An Argean diplomat visiting Iletia.” All nations had diplomats, and the City Guard usually erred on the side of deference when dealing with diplomats’ indiscretions. Her attention slid off her story, though, as she struggled to think where she’d seen the guardsman before. Bessie rarely forgot a face. And at a second look, his uniform was definitely not that of the Iletian City Guard…
The guardsman grinned broadly, showing inhuman sharp teeth, and turned to Bryn. “Well, excuse my intrusion on your evening, sir. I never met an Argean with a taste for human fluff before.”
At Bessie’s side, Bryn growled softly, and she laid a hand on his arm to stay him, feeling the short fur bristling under her palm. She remembered where she’d seen the man before: at the jade temple. She didn’t think he’d seen her then, and he might not yet know her as the candidate Black Queen, but he was one of Prince Archalthus’ men, and Archalthus had wanted the White Queen dead. That didn’t bode well for Bessie. It couldn’t be simple coincidence, running into this guardsman in Iletia, so far from the jade temple and so close to home.
The guardsman came down the steps, still grinning, and Bessie didn’t like the look of him any better in a good light. She held her ground, wondering what he was, with those sharp teeth and that line of stitches across his throat. She’d noticed his teeth before at the jade temple, but she didn’t recall seeing the stitches before. The more she looked at him, the less human he appeared to be…
“Can we help you in your investigations, officer?” she asked, trying hard to inject just the right amount of haughtiness and impatience into the question. She didn’t know how long she could keep up with this stupid game, but she was glad to have Bryn with her. Even though Bryn didn’t have the heart for fighting, a bristling Argean would make any potential attacker think twice, and he certainly seemed to be keeping the guardsman at arm’s length for the time being.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” asked the guardsman. “A crystal ball? That’s an expensive thing to be carrying around after dark. All sorts abroad at this time of night.”
“Quite true.” Bessie passed the crystal ball back to Bryn. “Do you feel the need to escort us safely on our way?” A passer-by might give her a distraction she could use, but whether a random stranger on the street would come down for or against a City Guardsman would be a coin toss. She’d been so anxious about sneaking out and past Greyfell’s window that she hadn’t even thought to equip herself with anything more than the small knife she always carried, but at least she had her conjuring rings. If she kept her head and thought fast, she might still get away with it. One thought gave her courage: if Archalthus had sent his men after her, then she must still have some place in the Queen’s Contest. Bessie Castle could be crowned Black Queen yet…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Sanford is a jack of all trades and an incurable tomboy. She lives with her partner on the edge of Dartmoor, where she enjoys exploring places other people seldom go, splashing in puddles, and occasionally poking dead things with a stick.