by Jean Johnson
A concealment spell. He’s sneaking up on the castle!
It made sense. Uncertainty held her still for a long moment, then Alys darted out of the shelter of the boathouse, loping as quickly and quietly as she could into the back of the blur in the air. She passed through the edge of the illusion and almost banged her forelegs against the edge of a metal disc. It was floating about a hand span off the surface of the dock, and it was carrying her uncle’s menagerie. Even the wyr-wracks had yet to take flight, still resting on a metal perching-tree affixed to the floating platform. And every last one of the beasts in her uncle’s menagerie held itself still in perfect obedience on that platform. Despite the blood of her murdered uncle Donnock dripping down from the smaller metal platform hovering over the center of the larger one, not a single one of the literally bloodthirsty beasts moved.
Kata . . . I’m not going to be able to hide myself among them until they break ranks! Not when the pookrahs stood in three rows of three. Only when they started moving would she be able to disguise herself among their milling forms. Until then, she was highly exposed, if Broger of Devries should glance her way.
Her uncle wasn’t checking anything behind him, though. She was safe . . . somewhat.
It wasn’t easy, keeping herself within the edge of the illusion without banging her forelegs on the platform, though the disc did glide smoothly forward. Keeping a wary eye on her uncle, she followed anxiously until they reached the cover of the jungle. Darting into the underbrush, Alys shifted into her owl shape. Her sharp eyes picked out the blur of her uncle’s invasion force easily enough. Alys followed it silently through the canopy edging the winding road that led up to the mountain pass and its walled palace. Part of her watching was made easier by the way the falling rain blurred and wavered as it passed into the illusioned zone, but the rain was beginning to ease, the storm fading as it moved on to the south and west.
The cliff-illusioned wall didn’t balk her uncle for more than a moment. The large blur simply paused briefly at the base, then lifted itself up and over. Alys flew over the wall as well, veering toward Wolfer’s tower, since she lacked the protective cover of the forest up here. Perching on the blue roof tiles, she watched as the large blur settled onto the cobblestones of the courtyard. After a moment, it broke up, swirling into pieces that moved off in different directions through the courtyard.
There was no sign of Wolfer or the others. She knew he had to have reached his brothers well ahead of her uncle; the disc had moved at the pace of a steady walk, whereas Wolfer had galloped away from the docks as fast as he could race. Unsure which of the smaller blurs to follow, Alys finally picked the smallest of the lot and soared over the ramparts, following as it disappeared into the southwestern gardens. The blur looked too small to contain her uncle; if she could get out of his sight, she could quite possibly contain whatever was underneath that illusion with some of the containment spells she’d learned as the primary caretaker of her uncle’s menagerie.
Sweeping down low, she skimmed the blur. There was only an instant in which to see what lay inside; venom-beetles and watersnakes. Not all of them, either. Her uncle had apparently broken up his forces into several groups. She swooped down over another blur that was making its way to the south and east, and found a trio of pookrahs. They were heading for the southern courtyard. As she swooped upward, she ran into another blur—a quartet of wyr-wracks. Literally ran into them. The sharp-beaked bird she collided with squawked and twisted, bringing its venomed claws up to attack her.
Alys reacted instinctively, hardening her feathers into thick, tough scales as she and the raptor dropped. Instinct also had her shifting shape out of avian form into a canine one. Pookrahs were jumpers, and her powerful hind legs cushioned the impact of her fall, while her long teeth slashed into the bird, breaking its rib cage.
The others shrieked and dove at her in retaliation. Whirling, Alys transformed her shape underneath her hard-scaled skin, casting a spell on the trio. The blur covering them rippled, tearing as the glamour struggled to keep up with the sudden vector-change. Thumping noises hit the white granite wall of the castle, and red blossomed from the impact. More thuds followed as the bodies of the raptors hit the cobblestones lining the edge of the yard, bits and pieces visible through the torn edges of their concealment spell.
A crack of lightning speared down out of the sky, striking something on the far side of the palace from her. Alys bit back a yelp, whirling to look around her. The other blurs were still making their way toward the far side of the compound. If she could get to them and—
All of the illusions vanished as lightning flared and boomed a second time on the far side of the window-rattled castle. As did whatever controlling spell her uncle had cast over the creatures. She found herself abruptly faced with nearly two dozen highly dangerous creatures, half of whom oriented on the scale-hided woman among them. Including that trio of pookrahs, whose muscles were bunching in preparation to leap on her as they turned to face her.
She flinched and cast the first spell she could think of: “Kai, lusai!”
They scrabbled to a halt, planting their haunches on the ground. A confused whine escaped one of the bitches, her ears flattening to her skull. It worked! The command to sit still worked—Alys bit back her exultation and quickly cast chaining spells on the trio. Then had to leap up into the air in owl-form to avoid the watersnakes slithering her way. The beetles lifted themselves into flight as well, but they were slow. She would have plenty of time to land on the walkway lining the roof of the palace wing, transform, and burn them out of the sky before they could reach her.
Except there was another quartet of wyr-wracks winging her way, now that they were free of whatever compulsion had concealed and compelled them here. A chattering drew her gaze downward in time to see a clutch of bone-monkeys scrambling to climb up the walls and get to her. Her uncle had certainly brought enough of his animal minions to plague a full score of mages, let alone herself, the seven Corvis brothers, and an outworlder woman with no magic whatsoever!
Though it’s not like I have a lot of defenses myself—oh, god, I’m in trouble! Landing, she twisted and slashed out her hand, throwing a wall of force into the beaks of the wyr-wracks, then twisting to sear the air with fire in the direction of the buzzing horde of venom-beetles. The front half of the lethal raptors hit the wall and dropped, dazed, but the back three swerved aside just in time.
“Basserfol!”
The magic-infused shout startled her into jumping, echoing across the compound with enhanced force. She jumped a second time, this time with a squeak, as bodies sprung into existence around her. Clad in blue, dozens of soldiers now lined the battlements edging the castle wings around her. Eyes wide, Alys watched as they brandished their weapons against the incoming beasts, some wielding spears, some swords, and even a few armed with crossbows. She barely remembered the trio of wyr-wracks and spun around to blast at them with the fire-spell, one of the few offensive spells she knew.
A spear thrust past her shoulder as the seared birds tumbled to the roof. Alys shrieked and shied away before realizing the spear had skewered one of the few fist-sized bugs to have escaped her first hastily aimed blast.
“Th-Thanks,” she stammered, startled and grateful, but the helmed soldier made no reply.
He whirled to slash his weapon across the crenels, sweeping one of the bone-monkeys from its perch. It shrieked as it fell, but another took its place. Alys flared her mage-fire at the creature, crisping it. If one of those monkeys touched her, it had the power to extract whatever bone lay underneath the flesh it touched, right through muscle, tendon and skin. The beastly, ash gray monkeys loved chewing on fresh bones. She shuddered and cast fire again.
“Alys!” The shout came from down below. A glance over the parapets showed Wolfer twisting and slashing with his sword at something writhing on the ground, off to the eastern edge of the courtyard. At that distance, Alys couldn’t tell what it was; venom-beetles, mekhadadaks,
and watersnakes weren’t the only small yet disproportionately nasty creatures her uncle had kept in his menagerie.
Another bone-monkey leaped up between the crenels, launching itself at her. It was skewered by the silent guardsman that had sprung to life beside her, just as Alys shot another blast of fire at it . . . right through the soldier’s arm. It didn’t affect the man at all, or his weapon. They were complex illusions, neither real flesh nor real weapons; they were guardian spells wedded to the stones of the palace and enchanted to protect friend from foe. As much as she wanted to join Wolfer, she knew she was safest where she was.
So long as the animals didn’t damage the source of the castle guards’ illusions, that was.
EIGHTEEN
I still don’t get it.”
“Who cares if you don’t get it, Ev,” Kelly shot back, throwing out more of the marble-sized glass balls. “Just keep activating them! And remind your brothers to make them so they’re verbally activated by anyone, like magicless me, next time.”
Sighing, Evanor activated the enchantments within each bead clattering onto the floor of the Great Hall. Elegantly clad bodies expanded into existence around them. “Why aren’t you activating all of them?”
“Because these are the enchanted courtiers that can do more than just smile, nod and say hello, how do you do, and good-bye,” Kelly told him. “I put them away in a specific order after the Mandarites left, so I’d be able to tell which types were which.”
“You mean the interactive ones?” the blond mage asked her as she checked through the box to make sure she had enough. “Kelly, there aren’t more than twenty of those, and very few of them were based on courtiers who were also warriors. What good will the rest of these do?”
“I don’t need them to be warriors! I just need them to take commands!”
“What commands?”
Lightning seared down out of the overcast sky beyond the tall, rectangular-paned windows lining the ordinal sides of the octagonal hall. Thunder cracked, rattling those panes. Evanor didn’t even twitch, used to his younger sibling’s antics, but Kelly jumped, shoulders hunching. She flinched again as a second strike boomed out there in the courtyard. Around them, the illusioned courtiers stood calmly chatting among themselves, undisturbed by the meteorological display.
“Sounds like the party has started,” Kelly muttered, shoving the chest to one side and grabbing an aged but still functional halberd from its brackets next to the archway leading to the northern wing.
Evanor opened his mouth to say something, but movement in the western corridor drew his attention. A ripple, a flutter, and whatever disguising charm had been used up until now dissolved. Leaving a loping trio of pookrahs headed their way. He couldn’t see any of them bearing a silver diamond on its sternum, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure, either. “Kelly!”
“I see them—Courtiers!” the redheaded woman snapped. “Embrace those dogs!”
“Embrace those—?” Shock held Evanor still for a critical moment, and then it was too late to question her oddball, outworlder command. The courtiers, projections of magical energy, swarmed the trio of chest-tall dogs, grabbing and hugging them. Teeth snapped into shoulders and claws scratched through garments . . . but no actual damage was delivered; the courtiers were only sophisticated illusions, after all. And with six to a beast, they were quickly immobilized. Confused, the pookrahs growled, then whined, unable to struggle hard enough to free themselves from so many unaffected, unpoisoned captors.
Kelly peered at sternums, making sure the wardogs weren’t their missing friend, then grimly stabbed the spear end of the halberd into each beast’s eye, and the brain that lay beyond. Mouth twisted in grim distaste, she stabbed twice, to make sure each pookrah was dead. Doing this was highly unpleasant, but Kelly had heard enough about the old, weekly invasions the eight brothers had suffered to know that killing them was the safest thing to do.
Evanor, more pragmatic about killing the beasts, since he and his brothers had been forced to do these sorts of things for nearly three years, kept his eye on the corridors leading to the central donjon hall. Writhing yellow brown slithered their way. “Kelly—watersnakes!”
Extracting her weapon from the last corpse, Kelly nodded. “Courtiers, set down the dogs and face the snakes!” Ignoring the thumps, she tightened her gut, watching those all-too-familiar serpents heading their way up the western corridor. Gauging the timing of it, she waited until Evanor drew an uneasy breath, then commanded, “Courtiers, stomp on those snakes! Stomp on anything that attacks you!”
“You . . . you . . . are insane!” Evanor’s expression had crumpled in disbelief. Grabbing his sister-in-law, he pressed a kiss to her forehead as the ornately clad bodies around them started jumping up and down. Blue ichor slimed the paving stones of the floor. She laughed and squeezed him back. No matter how many of the score of snakes tried to bite and inject their venom, it just didn’t work on their victims.
Evanor released Kelly long enough to let her slash down with her halberd, severing the head of a snake that had managed to get through the deadly gauntlet of slippered feet. Turning to check the other corridors, he squinted at an odd sight approaching from the eastern wing. It took him a moment to realize it was the wobbling surface of a water-sphere . . . and that within its depths were the lean, lunging bodies of volsnap eels.
“God, Uncle isn’t letting anything stay behind, this time!” He didn’t think their illusion-courtiers would be suited for this particular threat, but he could handle it. Thrusting out his palm, he chanted, “Essska plieth, á pliethna!”
The water of the globe shimmered as the force of his spell struck its surface. A moment later, the sphere exploded outward in a thick wall of steam, force-boiled. Volsnap bodies hit the floor just beyond the entrance to the donjon. They writhed and squirmed, desperately seeking water rather than targets, now.
Kelly scraped the blade of the halberd through some of the watersnake slime, and flicked it at the eel-like beasts. One of them snapped at the blue muck. A moment later, it stiffened, thrashed, and started shriveling as the watersnake venom absorbed the liquid in its body, rather like that florist’s gel stuff from her home world.
“Very clever,” a baritone voice observed. Kelly and Evanor snapped their gazes upward. “Using illusions to guard and protect yourselves.”
“Like you’re not?” Kelly demanded, unable to see exactly where that voice was coming from. “Hiding from us like a base-born coward. Or is your face just that shamefully ugly?”
Evanor reaffirmed his decision that his eldest brother’s outworlder wife was utterly insane. And yet, utterly brilliant, for Broger of Devries dropped the illusion cloaking him, pricked by her words into revealing himself. He stood on a metal platter the size one would use to display a whole roasted bull, with the bloodied corpse of his brother draped over its edges in front of his feet.
“I see a woman has come to the isle. How fortuitous; I always wanted to be a Prophecied Disaster.”
“Sorry, you missed that by a week,” Kelly quipped back, resting the butt of her halberd on the floor as she looked up at him. Her other hand rested itself on her hip. “You’re the so-called Count Broger of Devries, I presume?”
“Count Broger, not ‘so-called Count’!” he hissed back at her, his face reddening a little.
“No, ‘so-called’ would be correct,” Kelly retorted as calmly as she could manage. She was stalling for time, waiting for Saber and the others to catch up with her. Tucked into the back of the belt wrapped around her tunic was the mirror the brothers had given her midmorning. As subtly as she could, she slipped her left hand from her hip to the small of her back, getting ready to whip it out if need be. “You see, you were not invited here. You were not formally introduced into my court, you do not have any papers or presentations to authenticate your claim to being nobility, and until you can actually prove your title was gained legally . . . rather than, say, through murdering the gentleman who was supposed to be t
he interim Count of Corvis during the boys’ exile . . . I’m afraid I cannot acknowledge your status as a noble.”
Broger’s lip curled upward. “Why should I care whether or not some strawberry-haired strumpet acknowledges my rightful title?”
“Because you are an uninvited intruder,” Kelly returned. Her courtiers had ceased stomping, now that the watersnakes and volsnaps were dead. In the quiet, she could hear running footsteps in the distance. “Not only are you uninvited, you have committed acts of violence against the persons and property of Nightfall Isle, and I am of a mind to have you arrested, thrown into the dungeons, and punished accordingly for your many crimes.” She paused, then tipped her head slightly, fingers tensing around the handle of the hand mirror. “Unless, of course, you wish to apologize thoroughly, make reparations for any damage you and your beasts have caused, withdraw said beasts from our sovereign soil, and get the hell off my island.”
“Your island?” Broger snorted, lowering his floating platform a few more feet so that it hovered at the level of her knees.
“That’s right,” Saber asserted from behind, making his uncle-in-law whip around. “Her island. Or did you not hear that Nightfall has been disavowed by the Council and left to its own sovereignty? Broger of Devries, meet Kelly of Nightfall. Queen Kelly . . . my wife.”
“Jinga’s Piss!” Broger snarled, hands curling into fists. His middle-aged jowls wiggled as he shook one of those fists at his eldest nephew-in-law. “Why won’t you die! How dare you go from being an exiled Count to being a King? I am the one who should be King—and I’ll be King as soon as the lot of you are dead!”
“You don’t have enough power to be King.” That came from Rydan, standing in the shadowed mouth of the northern corridor, wind tugging at the chest-length strands of his midnight black hair, swirling around his body.
“You don’t even have enough to be on the Council,” Evanor agreed disparagingly.