by Patty Jansen
The vines crept up his torso, scrunching his jacket between wooden coils and his ribcage.
“Let me out of here, witch!”
Johanna finally lowered the staff. All the vines detached themselves and hung limp, as if the magic had just fled.
She climbed on the platform. Father watched her with wide eyes.
Alexandre’s face was red splotched with white. His eyes bulged. His breathing was fast. He whispered, “You common whore.”
Johanna spat in his face.
“You thought we were all killed?” she said in a low voice. “You thought you could scare the people of Saardam into supporting you? Well, you can, for a short time maybe, but if you really knew the people of this town, you’d know that they won’t support tyrants.”
He laughed in a breathless, wheezing fashion. “I . . . am . . . not . . . the enemy.”
“You’ve done an excellent job so far behaving like you are.”
“All . . . the . . . lowlands will fall . . . to . . . eastern magic.”
“Rubbish,” Father said. “They’re traders. They come to sell things.”
“We . . . can only . . . face them if we have . . . magic.”
“We seem to have plenty of that ourselves.”
“That . . . evil church—”
“I will hear nothing more of the church!” Johanna spat at him again. “None of your reasons justify the killing of thousands and the burning of entire cities. Not just us, but Aroden and all the villages along the river. This was never about the church. It was about power. You wanted Saardam so that you could negotiate with these eastern traders for this machine of theirs. You are just a power-hungry, greedy, sad excuse for a prince. You sowed fear into the hearts of all and then destroyed what people built in your name.”
“I didn’t . . .” His gasps came very fast now. Despite the fact that Johanna had detached the staff from the vines, the ones that held him were still tightening their grip.
“You didn’t betray the very people you recruited? You didn’t conjure fire dragons that destroyed the Guentherite abbot’s summer residence?”
“They were . . . rebellious.”
“That justified the deaths of many men?”
The vines constricted his chest so much that he couldn’t speak. His face grew ever darker in colour. Spit dribbled from his mouth where his tongue had swelled so much that it stuck out between his teeth.
He lived—just—but if she couldn’t stop the will of the vines to kill this man, then nothing could. She turned around because she didn’t want to see this. Already, her stomach churned with revulsion.
Father was free, Master Willems had been reunited with Greetje, the other prisoners were free, and that was all that mattered. The men who had supported Alexandre had fled to the harbour and were using one of the Nieland ships to flee. She presumed Octavio was on it.
As she walked down the steps of the former platform that had become an intertwined tangle of trees, there was an awful gasp and gurgle from behind her. Turning around, she already couldn’t see Alexandre anymore, but she assumed that he had become one with the trees.
The people in the square now all gathered to watch the harbour. While Alexandre’s men fled, the strange eastern ship had come closer. It was a dark, square, menacing-looking thing, with smoke belching from the chimney. It was too far away to see any people on deck, but it was about to come into the harbour, and the Nieland ship was about to go out.
Both vessels halted.
A great tide of people started making their way to the harbourside, where they could see. Johanna and Roald were swept up to the front of that surge.
Had they deposed of a tyrant only to be faced with a worse opponent?
But the two ships had settled into a standoff and nothing happened. The people dispersed. Johanna asked some of her young men to keep watch and come to warn her as soon as something changed.
She and Roald walked home over the markets, where an entangled bit of bush marked Alexandre’s last position. At least the growth appeared to have slowed.
At home, Father was in the kitchen, eating with trembling, sore-riddled hands. Johanna hugged him and cried on his shoulder. He was so thin. But his eyes shone with happiness.
“We’re free now. You’re the queen.”
Never mind that she had no idea how long that would last.
Nellie came into the kitchen, and Greetje, as well as Johan and Martine Delacoeur. They had a celebration of sorts. Johan talked about fixing up the palace, but that would need removal of Celine’s ghost. Johanna was too tired to even think of that.
She followed Roald to bed. There was no romping around and giggling tonight. She fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
* * *
It was still dark when someone knocked on the door.
“Mistress?” It was Nellie.
Johanna stuck her feet out of the warmth of the bed. Oh, it was so cold! She tiptoed to the door and opened it a crack. Nellie stood in the hallway with a candle.
“There is a young man in the kitchen for you.”
Johanna quickly got dressed and felt her way down the stairs. The lights were on in the kitchen, and Koby was kneading dough. By the heavens, was this the time she normally got up?
At the table opposite Koby sat a young men whom Johanna recognised as one from the church.
“Has anything happened?”
“I’m afraid it has. You best come quickly.”
Johanna followed him into the darkness, which wasn’t quite as dark as she expected. The sky had a distinct blue tinge on the eastern horizon.
They walked in silence to the harbour. There was no longer a need to be afraid of guards or bears, but the dark realisation grew in Johanna’s mind that this might be a temporary solution.
Even before they had come to the quay, Johanna already noticed the orange glow that lit the buildings on the quay that was not morning light.
Something was on fire in the mouth of the harbour, sending smoke billowing over the water. The orange light glinted off the metal side of the eastern ship.
A couple of men stood on the quay watching the spectacle.
“What happened?” Johanna asked.
“We can’t be sure, mistress. The one man who saw it is rambling about dragons, and none of it makes any sense. We sent him home. Maybe he’ll be clearer tomorrow.”
Dragons. In the proper use of the word, they were creatures from the far east. Not lizards, which could also be called dragons, but large winged creatures that spewed fire.
Johanna eyed the foreign ship and its menacing shape. The burning object that had to be the remains of the Nieland vessel was slowly sinking under the surface.
“Am I mistaken or are they coming this way?”
“You’re not mistaken, mistress. They’re coming into port.”
A Word of Thanks
THANK YOU very much for reading Fire Wizard. The story is not finished here! In the next book, The Dragon Prince, the eastern traders come to Saardam. Baron Uti isn't the only leader who wants their magic and strange machines, nor the only one prepared to go to war to get what he wants. Find out where to get The Dragon Prince here.
As author of this book, I would appreciate it very much if you could return to the place where you purchased this book and leave a review. Reviews are important to me, because they help readers decide if the book is for them.
Also be sure to put your name on my mailing list, which I use exclusively to notify subscribers of new fiction. All other chat about my writing or world-building and interaction with readers happens on my blog Must Use Bigger Elephants, which you are welcome to follow.
About the Author
* * *
PATTY JANSEN lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest and was published in their 27th anthology. She has also sold fiction to
genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Redstone SF and Aurealis.
Her novels (available at ebook venues) include Shifting Reality (hard SF), The Far Horizon (middle grade SF), Charlotte’s Army (military SF) and Fire & Ice, Dust & Rain and Blood & Tears (Icefire Trilogy) (dark fantasy).
Patty is on Twitter (@pattyjansen), Facebook, LinkedIn, goodreads, LibraryThing, google+ and blogs at: http://pattyjansen.com/.
More by This Author
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In the Earth-Gamra space-opera universe
The Shattered World Within (novella)
RETURN OF THE AGHYRIANS
Watcher’s Web
Trader’s Honour
Soldier’s Duty
Heir’s Revenge
The Return of the Aghyrians Omnibus
The Far Horizon (For younger readers)
AMBASSADOR
Seeing Red
Raising Hell
Changing Fate
Coming Home
In the For Queen and Country universe
Whispering Willows (short story)
FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY
Innocence Lost
Willow Witch
The Idiot King
Fire Wizard
For Queen and Country Omnibus (Books 1-3)
In the ISF-Allion universe
His Name in Lights (novella)
Charlotte’s Army (novella)
The Rebelliousness of Trassi Udang (short story)
Shifting Reality (novel)
Epic, Post-apocalyptic Fantasy
ICEFIRE TRILOGY
Fire & Ice
Dust & Rain
Blood & Tears
The Icefire Trilogy Omnibus
Short story collection
Out Of Here
Shorter works
Looking For DADDY (absurd horror novella)
This Peaceful State of War (Writers of the Future winning novella)
Visit the author’s website at http://pattyjansen.com and register for a newsletter to keep up-to-date with new releases.