The Dragon Queen

by J M Sanford

  Prince Archalthus, looking small and lost and shivering violently, had seen his shrieking bride fly overhead. “Stop them by any means!” he shouted when he saw the direction in which the wedding guests fled. “They must not reach the Orb!”

  Finished with the white dragons and free of their orders not to harm the wedding guests, the stone gentlemen set in pursuit like a pack of hounds unleashed. Meg hesitated long enough to throw a fireball into their midst before running on, powering through the deep snow surprisingly fast on short legs. Behind the two escaping griffins, Bryn was next fastest, ploughing through the snow like a tiger, kicking up great clouds of white powder, with the others in his wake, and Meg and Amelia hesitating every few yards to blast fire into the faces of the pursuers. Bessie clenched her fists. She had no conjuring rings! She was all but useless!

  “Less fireballs, more running!” Meg shouted above the howling wind, as her feathery hat took flight and sailed off. Her projectiles struck true each time, knocking a stone gentleman flat for precious seconds. “Go on!” she shouted to Amelia, “Before you hit one of us by mistake.”

  Harold was buckling on his sword belt, but Sir Percival leaned so heavily on the boy’s shoulder that it looked certain both of them would collapse at any moment, with the wretched fire sprite painting a target over their heads, and Bessie didn’t trust Amelia’s magic to hold out much longer.

  “Give me your sword,” Bessie demanded of Harold, offering him the flowery hilt of her knife in exchange, “Let me fight them!”

  But Harold shook his head. “You’ll hardly lift it. Go on with Bryn.”

  Bessie glanced the way Bryn had gone. Not far off, she recognised the unmistakeable glow of the Orb, as if some foreign moon had set down in the snow, and around it she could just about make out the curves of dark wood and pale swelling sails beginning to unfold as Sharvesh readied herself for their escape. Bessie had once heard that a hunting hound’s mouth was so sensitive and gentle it could hold a raw egg in its jaws without crushing the delicate burden, and Sharvesh was the same with the Orb as she gathered it up, making it part of herself. Even so, an ungodly loud crack rang out across the barren land as Sharvesh pulled the glass clear of the solidified puddle of amaranthine where it had sat.

  “Less fireballs…” Meg began at once to strike up something new. With her arms above her head, reaching to convene with the sky, she began to conjure up a fresh snowstorm with the focus and energy of a particularly passionate conductor leading an orchestra of wind, snow, and ice. The sky closed in, darkness descended. The figures of the stone gentlemen diminished to bright points of light in the blurry grey, their positions given away only by their heartlights. Somewhere not so far away, Rose still screamed for help, unseen.

  Cursing under her breath, Bessie turned and ran, following Bryn’s trail through the snow.

  34: FLIGHT

  Amelia darted through the snow like a hare in flight, dodging enemies. She’d abandoned her fireballs: blindingly bright white to her sensitive cat’s eyes, they went screaming off at odd angles in the planes of magic, none of her last five finding their target. They’d have to cross an arm of the fallen city to reach the Orb, and the chaotic landscape of ruined stone slowed everyone down. Amelia passed within a whisper of Harold engaged in the clash of battle with a golem swordsman; she heard the clattering of Perce’s armour without seeing him amongst the veils of snow. Only by her cat’s eye vision did she find what she must: Meg, crouched behind a half-fallen wall, breathing hard as she gathered strength to retake control of the storm and make the final push to where Bryn had unfolded his skyship.

  “Meg!” Amelia was breathless herself with fear and exertion as she huddled beside her mother, “The spell! I can’t – I can’t remember the words! Could you…”

  The look of despair and regret on Meg’s face was harder to bear than any stare of disapproval. Even in the midst of everything, she pulled Amelia into a tight hug. “My poor girl,” she whispered, “I never saw the spell.” Before Amelia’s plan, nobody else had thought of how to use the snow globe. Amelia, holding the mysterious spell book close to her chest, had acted alone, in secret.

  Out in the snow, amongst the black rocks, shadows prowled with stars glowing in their chests. Close, too close to their hiding place. The thud of Amelia’s heartbeat almost choked her as she whispered “If– If I could remember some of the words, maybe tell you how it starts –”

  Meg’s eyes were fixed on those stalking shadows when she answered, the first sparks of magical fire springing like fleas from between the fingers of her gloves. “Amelia, it isn’t like a folk song: you can’t hum a few bars and I’ll join in.” She leapt up, the blinding white fire of her magic roaring through the snow to strike an unwary golem down. “You know the spell. Trust me!” she shouted over her shoulder as she charged forward to blast more fire into the pack of stone men, driving them back the way they’d come.

  “But I don’t know it,” Amelia squeaked, unheard. “I really don’t…” But Meg had vanished, locatable only by the occasional painfully brilliant flash of fire in the haze.

  Amelia gathered up her shaking limbs and ran crouched low in the grey of the snowstorm, one treacherous thought streaking through her brain: if she used all of her magic in the fray, Meg would have to support her for the snow globe spell, if only in the same way Amelia had assisted Meg before, lending her strength for heavy spells.

  A shout, a clash of swords sounded, and Amelia ran towards the danger.

  Even blinded, the golems advanced fearlessly. What had Archalthus ordered, exactly? Stop them at any cost? Stop them by any means? Either way, Amelia could imagine that the surest way to stop the escaping wedding guests would be to kill them all. Again she looked around franticly for her scattered companions. Instead, Commander Breaker appeared through the whirling snow, sword in hand. He had sharp eyes (though not quite as good as Amelia’s, thanks to Meg’s cat’s eye spell), and Amelia watched the way he kept back, wary of the witches but sensing their fatigue, their growing weakness. It made her angry to see him waiting on the borders there, waiting like some carrion bird for them to falter and fall. She raised a hand, focusing all the heat of her anger, the anger of a cornered animal, and drove it into the hilt of his sword. He dropped it at once, swearing and calling Amelia all manner of awful things, as steam rose from where the sword had fallen. Silently, Amelia clenched her fist, sparks dancing around it, but in the next instant the Commander disappeared from view. The snow spiralled faster and faster, flying on the strange currents of magic. Rose’s screaming stopped. Amelia hoped it was only Meg’s silencing spell, casually flicked through the snowstorm, and not Bessie making good on her promise to cut the girl’s throat…

  At sight of another swordsman in the storm, a bright star in his chest, Amelia raised her hand again, until the dull red glow of the sword illuminated the snow around him.

  The golem didn’t even notice it as he advanced upon her. “Please return to the chapel so that the ceremony may recommence,” he urged, though his voice was flat as ever, utterly disinterested in whether she celebrated the royal marriage or died at the point of his sword. The smell of scorching stone had barely reached when her powers ran aground; she’d reached the limits of the fire she could pour into the sword, and she gave it up, vanishing instead.

  To her right, the hull of Sharvesh rose up out of the snow in a great curving wall of dark wood, swollen like a pregnant mare by the sphere of the Orb held within, masts high overhead masked by cloud, sails unable to unfurl safely in the savage winds of the storm. Meg needed to stop… but where was she? Starlights flashed here and there like distant lighthouses warning of the danger. Amongst the howling of the storm, Amelia could hear golems still protesting that it was most impolite of the guests to abandon the wedding, even worse to abduct the bride, and would they please return to their seats. Amelia sensed Meg’s position in the way the planes of magic warped around her. Doubly invisible, in the snow and under the cover of her spel
l, Amelia dodged the golems who were retreating and regrouping, until she found not Meg but the will-o-the-wisp light of Stupid hissing through the flurries of snow. Underneath his light, two figures stumbled together, one of them clanking loudly, leaning more heavily than ever on Harold, who had lost his sword and wielded the walking stick as the only weapon they had between them. Amelia dropped her spell before the two could pass her by, and Harold flinched at her sudden appearance. Percival was beyond even that. “There you are,” Harold panted, his breath billowing in great clouds. He clutched at Amelia’s hand, pulling her onwards. “Not far now,” he promised, whether to Percival, or Amelia, or himself, as they staggered on through shin-deep snow. The wind began to drop, the snow thinning in the air until glancing back Amelia could make out the small figure of Meg, who had climbed as close to the clouds as she could to wind down her snowstorm, handling it carefully so that nature didn’t rush back in a fury to take charge.

  Sharvesh was close, her dark flanks towering high over them. Bryn was already aboard, Bessie and Greyfell too. “Wait,” Amelia fumbled the snow globe out of her pocket. An awful thought had occurred to her. “It’ll take five minutes for the Orb to do its work,” – five long minutes in which they might all be annihilated by the out-of-control sun – “I just need to…” just need to remember the spell that I’ve only ever used once before. She closed her eyes. Once she had the first word, the rest of the first line would follow, and more and more, until it was done… or so she hoped. Raising the snow globe close to her lips, she spoke the spell low and hurried while her heart hammered at the inside her ribs. She was about halfway through when:

  “Meg!” shouted Percival.

  Amelia’s eyes flew open, and she saw the star approach Meg from behind, the silhouette of a man with sword drawn, climbing towards her. “No!” Amelia screamed, letting loose a disc of fire that scythed along the currents of magic, striking the swordsman dead, his stone head flying into the air and landing some distance away.

  Distracted from the tail end of her storm, Meg shielded her eyes to see Amelia, and gave the thumbs up.

  Amelia shook. “Enough, enough!” she cried, beckoning Meg to join them. “Please let’s get away from here.” But this was not so simple: the pile of rocks Meg had climbed in order to bargain with the elements was high, the storm had drained much of her strength, and even as the witch scrambled down the steep slope, it became apparent that a rift in the earth cut her off from the others and from the waiting skyship. To go back the way she’d come would be to run the gauntlet of swordsmen. More cautious now, she began to climb down into the rift, unable to see how deep it ran or how she could get across.

  Amelia stumbled to the edge, close as she dared, the snow globe still in her hands. A steep drop beckoned, dizzying into darkness.

  “Your spell,” called Harold as he came up after her. “It’ll reach far enough, or no?”

  Amelia couldn’t take her eyes off her mother, on the other side of that rift. The distance was not so great: the Orb’s magic would encompass Meg easily. They’d seen the Orb move an entire Flying City, a mile across. Far more likely that it would bring an injured but furious dragon into the old world than that it would leave Meg behind. But fresh waves of doubt assailed Amelia. She’d been too hasty, again. What had she been thinking, trying to set the enormous worldshifting Orb in motion before they were all safely aboard Sharvesh? Five minutes was nothing. Archmage Morel had been right about her: she was just a stupid girl playing around with things she didn’t understand. “I… I don’t…”

  “It’ll reach,” Meg called across the rift. “You know it will.”

  “But what if it doesn’t?” Amelia shouted back. Even if it did, what would protect Meg while she was transported with tons of broken rock and frozen earth and shattered glass? What if –

  “Then come back for me!” shouted Meg.

  “But, the sun! Morel said –”

  “All the more reason to do it quickly! I can look after myself!”

  “Amelia,” said Percival, “you have a good clear voice when you chose to use it. For the sake of all of us, don’t be shy now.”

  Harold grasped Amelia’s free hand. “Like Sir Percival says, take the time you need to say it right. You can do it.”

  Amelia took a deep breath and looked down at the snow globe. She began her spell again, but this time she didn’t close her eyes, she didn’t whisper to the snow globe. With a last glance at Harold, she spoke the spell loud and clear.

  And when it was over, Meg burst into a round of applause, laughing. “My girl’s a proper witch!”

  “Climb aboard,” the call drifted down through the snowy air from the high deck of the skyship, “We’re going up.” And slowly, almost imperceptibly, Sharvesh began to lift, the snow creaking beneath her as her weight shifted. Did Bryn hope that by gaining enough height before the Orb’s power took hold, that he would leave behind those on the ground? The dragons, the golems… Meg?

  “No! Wait!” Amelia shouted, but between the timbers of the skyship the light of the Orb was brightening to a painful degree, the bone-rattling hum that had been on the borders of hearing now increasing in pitch and intensity. Meanwhile, the captain could barely get his skyship off the ground. Sharvesh had lifted a scant few inches off the snow, and the rope ladder dangled over the side: Amelia, Harold and Percival would make it aboard in time, but Meg, cut off from the others by the deep rift in the rocks and –

  “Have you seen Elizabeth?” called Greyfell overboard, jolting Amelia’s thoughts from one panic to another.

  “Stop the lift: we’re not all here!” Harold shouted back up to Greyfell. “I’ll go find your Bess!” He glanced towards Meg, stranded on her pile of rocks, and his face set into a look of determination. “Amelia, you help Sir Percival aboard, and we’ll get Bryn to fly over there in just a minute,” he promised. For just a moment he looked torn, but “You’ve got the stick and your fireballs if you need.” And he ran off into the snow.

  A minute. How many minutes had it taken the last time Sharvesh had traversed the space between worlds? Carelessly she’d said five, but she hadn’t really been counting the first time. Please don’t go far, Amelia begged silently as she stared into the falling snow where he’d disappeared. I can’t lose you again, I just can’t…

  “Ladies first,” said Sir Percival, snapping her out of it.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Amelia told him. He could barely stand on his own two feet. She bit her lip. “You climb, I’ll push.”

  Easier said than done. Percival hardly had the strength to bend his gauntleted fingers and grip the wooden rungs, Amelia’s own grip was unsure with cold hands and wet slippery wood, and she couldn’t work out how to employ enough leverage on the twisting rope ladder to push the cumbersome armour-clad knight upwards. The walking stick they’d been left to defend themselves with only made matters worse, and they’d made it no more than a few rungs up the side when a crack of splintering wood rang out above their heads. Amelia cringed, trying to shelter herself while looking up to see that the black griffin had launched himself overboard, his great wings beating the snow-filled air as he headed straight for Meg. Amelia had to pause and get her breath back before resuming her slow and strenuous task. She tried to think of a spell that would make it any easier, but couldn’t, and doubted she had the magic left in her for it anyway. Where had Greyfell disappeared to? He was a man and thought himself an honourable one at that, so he ought to have stayed and fought instead of running straight for Sharvesh. If nothing else, he might have helped her with Percival. Rung by rung, they fought for their own ascent.

  At the cacophonous shouting of a great crow, Amelia paused to see what was the matter. “Keep off!” Meg’s words drifted faintly across the distance as she waved Sable away. “I’ve no intention of dangling from your claws like a stunned bunny.”

  “Meg, don’t be so stupid,” Amelia whispered. This was a fine time for Meg, of all people, to start worrying about her digni
ty. Amelia’s skin crawled and she clenched her jaw on the awful tooth-tingling feeling that she recognised as too much magic, a warning sign of the impending worldshift. Sharvesh was still lifting inexorably out of her snowy barrow in spite of missing passengers, and had gained a few feet, but still laboured for every inch of height as she teetered drunkenly in the wind, unable to gain purchase on the planes of magic. All that time hidden in Bryn’s coat pocket, she hadn’t had any chance to get used to the strange magic.

  Across the rift, the black griffin alighted, wings spread wide for balance as he scrambled for a grip on the icy rocks.

  “Amelia, what are you doing?” shouted Harold, grasping the bottom of the swaying ladder to hold it steady. Amelia and Percival had stopped before the top, she from fearful watching of Meg’s efforts to clamber onto the griffin’s back, and he from exhaustion. “Amelia! Move! Now!” The renewed urgency in Harold’s voice made Amelia tear her eyes away from Meg and the griffin, and look down. A red-coated figure was sprinting through the snow towards Harold and the ladder where Amelia clung. Commander Breaker had abandoned his sword and bared his fierce teeth instead. Harold didn’t climb fast enough: the Commander leapt, clawing at Harold, meaning to climb over him. Amelia screamed, almost falling from the side of the skyship as the rope ladder shook. “No!” Both men fell to the ground, still locked in combat, and Amelia couldn’t risk a fireball. Even without her spells going astray, she couldn’t have risked it. They were too close. She could only watch in frozen horror, her cat’s eyes seeing with terrible clarity – Breaker snapping and snarling at Harold like a mad dog; Harold fighting in vain to push him away.