by Paul Kidd
It had been a long, frustrating evening of close-written work. Miliana reached fingers under the frames of her spectacles and wearily rubbed her eyes. Stifling a yawn, she leaned back in her chair and absently scratched the warm, soft feathers of the giant bird.
"Ooooort ooor! Ooooort ooor!"
Proud, pleased, and pampered, Tekoriikii began a song-a melody that started like the nighttime murmur of priceless, winsome hummingbirds, then changed into something reminiscent of a live narwhal being fed backward through a sausage machine. The awful row set bats starting up out of the eaves, caused nearby flowers to wilt, and set guard dogs howling for miles around. Feeling her hair loosen at the roots, Miliana gave a squawk of panic and frantically clamped the bird's beak shut with her hands. Tekoriikii's throat pouch bulged, and his eyes almost burst out of his head.
"Miliaaaa-naaaaaa! Miliana, what's that noise?"
The imperious summons cut through solid stone to stick right into Miliana's heart. Tekoriikii flattened himself against a wall, his chest panting and his eyes mad with fear-the usual reaction to one's first encounter with Lady Ulia's voice. Miliana sped to the door and frantically ran her eyes across the room.
The door pounded to a hammering fist.
"Miliana! Miliana! Open up this door and speak to me at once!"
Tekoriikii began to flap madly about the room, rebounding off the ceiling, cupboards, walls and floors in panic as Ulia's voice pealed through the air. Miliana stuffed her toadskin scrolls inside her pointy hat; then helplessly tried to latch her hands onto the bird.
"Tekorii-kii-kii! Tekorii-kii-kii!"
"Miliana! Miliana, what's that sound?"
The princess managed to grab Tekoriikii's yellow feet and anchor him to the floor. Her clothing whipped backward in the breeze of frantic wings.
"It's-it's just me looking for clothes!"
"Clothes? What do you mean clothes?"
"I can't open the door!" Miliana hurtled her arms around Tekoriikii and wrestled his writhing bulk to the ground. "I–I'm unsuitably dressed!"
"Not dressed? Sooth, girl! I am your stepmother, not your sweetheart!" Ulia's fist pounded at the door until the tower foundations began to quake. "Now open this door!"
Miliana stuffed the firebird under the covers of her bed and pathetically tried to smooth the blankets down. It was a little like hiding a landshark in a china teacup. Backing frantically toward the door, the girl tried to motion Tekoriikii to stay hidden, then whirled about and ripped open the door locks.
"Ulia! Stepmother, what a surprise to find you up at this late hour."
"And when can I be expected to sleep?" Ulia sniffed in indignation. "The palace has over thirty guests. Thirty!" Pulling up her hems to reveal ankles like oak trunks, Lady Ulia Mannicci stepped across the threshold. "This festival shall be the death of me yet. Now, what was all this chaos and cacophony I heard from the corridor just now?"
Miliana twittered her fingers in the air with a devil-may-care wave.
"A sneeze… it was just a sneeze."
"A sneeze?" Ulia swelled like a mushroom after a summer rain. "What made you sneeze?"
"Um…" Not dust! Dust would make Ulia send for the cleaners. Miliana desperately tried to wrench inspiration out of thin air. "It was… feathers!"
Eyes narrowing in sharp suspicion, Ulia swept about the room. Miliana tried to guard the way into her bathroom, feeling a sweat of fear break out all along her spine.
Disorder attracted Lady Ulia like honey drew flies. She spied Miliana's disheveled bed, and before the girl could even squeak, her stepmother had whipped away the covers. There, sitting on the mattress for all the world to see, was a giant peacock/rooster/phoenix creature with giddy golden eyes.
Tekoriikii had frozen in pure fright, rooted to the spot by his first face-to-face encounter with Sumbria's most notorious secret weapon. Lady Ulia turned her back, waved an imperious hand over the paralyzed bird, and glared her stepdaughter straight in the eye.
"Well? I trust there is an explanation for the presence of this…this…thing?"
Tekoriikii went from mere paralysis into a boneless state of limp, abject terror. Miliana picked up his neck and felt it hang like boiled spaghetti in her hands.
Her thoughts came very, very slowly-dragged through a thick curtain of dismay.
"It's… a… costume."
Lady Ulia slowly raised an eyebrow.
"Yes?"
"For the ball tomorrow night." Miliana's lie finally found its feet. She shook out the comatose Tekoriikii like an old blanket across her bed. "I thought I'd wear it for the masque."
"But my dear, I though you'd wear your little fairy costume. I did so like the wings." Lady Ulia picked up Tekoriikii's head. "What an amazingly stupid face! You operate it as a sort of puppet, I suppose?" Miliana's stepmother hoisted up Tekoriikii's tail. "Do you put your hand up here?"
"No!" Miliana lunged forward in alarm. "No… it's… the glue's still drying."
"Oh, of course. Please don't mind me, child. The evening has me so very, very tired." Ulia rolled her eyes and sighed. "Thirty guests. Did I tell you? We have thirty guests!"
"Have we really?"
"Yes-now what did I come in here for?" Lady Ulia bustled herself out into the palace corridors. "Now do get some sleep, child. The ball is tomorrow night. There's the Sun Gem to receive, elven ambassadors to welcome, and I still have no idea where I shall show this silly painting from Lomatra…"
The great lady cruised off into the darkness in a confused babble of her own woes, and Miliana gratefully slammed the door shut behind her. Miliana wearily wiped sweat back from her eyes and prayed that Ulia had been mollified for yet another day.
From beneath Miliana's pillow, a muffled voice nervously explored the air.
"Glub glub?"
"Yes, she's gone." Miliana peeled herself away from the wall. "You can come out now."
Tekoriikii had hidden himself by the simple ruse of stuffing his head under the eiderdown. Inch by inch the creature cautiously emerged; his beak now looked a distinctly ashen shade of gray.
He had been lucky; a close encounter with Ulia could age some creatures by twenty years.
A light tap came at the sealed shutters of Miliana's window. The girl ignored the noise and made her way over to the bed, where she tried to prop up the bird and bring the life back into his limbs.
"Well it's your own fault, you know. All princesses are guarded by monsters. This one's just a bit louder and more powerful than most." Miliana removed her spell scrolls from inside her hat, which now had a pungent smell of sun-dried toads. "Come on-cheer up, eat your biscuits, and we'll go and have some fun."
A sharper rap came at Miliana's window. She briefly scowled, removed her spectacles, and polished the lenses on Tekoriikii's tail.
There it came again! Sharp and brief, like a night bird smacking into the shutters, or a branch flicking at the walls. Miliana heard the sound for a fourth time, rose, and opened her shutters to scowl out into the night.
A stone smacked her right on the brow. With a curse that would have made a drill sergeant blush, the girl fell back from the window half blinded in pain. Like the well-brought-up young lady that she was, Miliana furiously snatched the rock and pitched it straight back down into the dark. A rich, meaty thump followed by a piteous wail of pain rose from the courtyard below.
Lorenzo staggered out into the lamplight, looking up at Miliana with accusing, wounded eyes.
"What did you do that for?"
The girl leaned from her balcony, wondering if she should let down her hair; Lorenzo could then climb into reach so she could strangle him. Miliana rubbed ill-humoredly at her smarting forehead and glared down at the young man.
"Did you throw rocks at my damned window?"
"I wanted to quietly attract your attention." Lorenzo drew stares from three passing gardeners, a night watchman and a maid. "I want you to come out with me, in secret!"
Miliana glared at the staring servants thro
ugh spectacles that shone blank as ice.
"He's the jester for tomorrow night. He's just practicing his routines." A maid looked at a gardener, seeming timid and unsure. Miliana sent them scuttling for cover with a roar. "Haven't you people got work to do? Or does Lady Ulia have to come on another inspection tour?"
The courtyard cleared with unbelievable speed and Lorenzo was left alone amidst a cloud of dust left by fleeing servants. He looked about himself in awe, then stared happily up at Miliana's face.
"I'm planning a fact-finding tour of the city. Will you come? We could take our feathery friend…"
"Shut up!" Miliana pegged her shutters open one by one. "Just climb up the jasmine creepers before somebody sees you!"
Shouldering an untidy parcel-his sketch pads, books and pens-Lorenzo made a creditable show of swarming up into the princess's balcony. He sprang into Miliana's rooms without the slightest hint of terror or embarrassment.
"Isn't it the most incredible night? The moon looks utterly entrancing. I've been doing that anatomy work I discussed with you, and so I suddenly just had to see you." Lorenzo tipped his cap to the girl and lit the room with an innocent, boyish smile. "Hello old bird! How do you do?"
Tekoriikii warbled, lowered his lashes, and fluffed up his plumes, obviously feeling his old self once more.
Lorenzo unshipped one of his books and spread it out across Miliana's tabletop.
"I've found him, by the way, in Groonpeck's Field Guide to Terrifying Denizens of the Air, with special appendices for Acheron, the Elemental Planes, and the Abyss." Lorenzo swept open the volume and proudly pointed to the page. "He's a firebird!"
Miliana, Lorenzo, and the bird all craned to stare at the book; it contained a picture of a handsome orange bird with a great overabundance of tail plumes. Even Miliana couldn't fault the likeness. She polished her spectacles, leaned over the book, then lowered her frames down her nose to regard the bird across the wire rims.
"Is that what you are? A firebird?"
"Gronk nonk!" Tekoriikii flapped his wings, then lifted his beak up in pride. "Kadoodle gronk nonk!"
"He says yes." Miliana bent down to examine the book with a frown creasing her speckled brow. "It has firebirds listed as 'sacred, untouchable, and extremely dangerous; avoid at all cost.' "
"Well… Groonpeck was never the greatest of scholars." Lorenzo closed up the dusty old tome with a bang. "Anyway-there we are! Let's take him out and show our firebird the city-state of Sumbria."
"How?" Miliana recoiled in surprise. "Everyone will see him. I don't want Ulia to find him and serve him up for tomorrow's evening meal!"
"Just tell people he's a pet. Have you seen some of the things people are dragging about on leashes out there?" Lorenzo briskly slung his pack across his back. "Anyway, no one will even know we're out. We're going to sneak over the walls."
"And just why have you decided on this little expedition?"
"Well, I have to let my chemicals brew. Tomorrow I've been asked to demonstrate my new light lathe for the kind gentleman who patronized the project." Lorenzo swaggered in pride. "The mixing tanks don't explode anymore. The fault was in having metal storage tanks; the acids slowly burned right through. I've just had two glass ones blown, and it's all holding just perfectly. I think the results might surprise you."
Miliana rolled her eyes toward the apex of her hat with a sigh. "Pray, please don't do anything to ruin the ball tomorrow, or Lady Ulia will use your tanned hide as a hearth rug!"
"Lady Ulia?" Lorenzo let his mind search through the neglected cupboards of his short-term memory. "Oh yes-your mother… A most fascinating woman. I've been trying to determine her bone structure for my comparative anatomy project, but I'm not strictly sure that she actually has any bones."
"She doesn't need them; her arteries are stiff enough to hold her up." Miliana met Tekoriikii's eyes, and the firebird nodded in eager agreement. "You still haven't told me why we're going out into the city in secret."
"It's traditional." Lorenzo innocently spread open his arms. "We're supposed to go in mufti."
"What's mufti?"
"I think it's a type of cart." Lorenzo looked to Tekoriikii, who only shrugged his wings. "Since you're not allowed out of the palace, I thought we'd secretly drop a rope from the rooftop and go see the street festival. You seemed scornful that I knew so little about the masses-so I think it's high time we ceased bickering and met the masses face-to-face!"
The argument had a certain moral supremacy about it that forestalled any objections Miliana might have made. Sniffing at the nighttime breeze, Tekoriikii waddled over to Miliana's meager wardrobe and fetched her a decent cloak.
"Thank you, Tekoriikii."
"Gnub gnub!"
Miliana slapped her pointy hat on her head and led the way to her windowsill. Aided by Lorenzo, she edged out onto the railing of her balcony, then made her way along the guttering of her tower. Inch by inch, Lorenzo and the princess edged their way around the tower roof until they found themselves standing high above the streets. With her hair stirring softly in the wind, Miliana looked down from her perch and stared at the cobblestones some sixty feet below.
"Right-there's the bottom of an old gargoyle here. You can use it to attach the rope."
"Rope?" Lorenzo clung to the wall stones like a great gape-eyed gecko. "I thought you had the…"
"Oh, lovely." Miliana rested her head against the ice-cold tower wall and wearily closed her eyes.
A quiet rustle of wings announced the arrival of Tekoriikii, who seemed more than just a little pleased to finally have company out on the rooftops. The bird settled on the gutter between Miliana and Lorenzo, gripping on with talons that almost pierced clean through the stone. He looked at his new friends and gave a great, happy flurry of his wings-a buffet that almost dislodged Lorenzo. The man squeaked like a field mouse and closed his eyes, trying to somehow force his flesh clean through the tower wall.
Standing unconcernedly on her tiny ledge, Miliana leaned an elbow against the tower and signaled to the firebird.
"Tekoriikii, could you go and fetch us a rope? You know-long and thin?" Miliana made measuring motions with her hands, then pointed a finger at the cobblestones. "We need to get down. Down there onto the streets. You know-down?"
Tekoriikii followed her finger, offered a smug little warble, then lofted up from his perch. His great yellow talons seized Lorenzo by the tunic, and the man found himself hanging in midair.
The bird's silly short wings could not possibly bear Lorenzo's weight; instead, the linked creatures smoothly fell to the ground at an agreeable turn of speed. Lorenzo landed with a thump, and Tekoriikii rose awkwardly from the alley and flapped noisily back up for Miliana.
The princess cleared her throat and felt sweat break out across her brow.
"Um… yes… now, Tekoriikii, this may not actually be our best possible plan…
"Tekoriikii?"
The bird latched on to her bodice, jerking her off the ledge and almost making her lose her last three meals. Miliana plunged sickeningly down to the street, lost inside a happy whir of Tekoriikii's wings. She landed with a thump straight upon Lorenzo's head, toppled over in the street, and ended hard upon her rear.
She clambered to her feet and resentfully rubbed her smarting backside, glaring at the beaming, happy bird.
"So how do we get back up again, beak face? Did you think of that?"
"Glub glub!"
"Oh wonderful."
Lorenzo was briskly dusted off by Miliana and the bird. With Tekoriikii proudly strutting at the fore, the trio made their way into the city streets and left the hill of palaces far behind.
Once away from the grim, blank battlements of Sumbria's stately homes, the city seemed to come cautiously to life. A few sausage booths spread light into the spaces between jumbled terra-cotta roofs; the first pedestrians appeared, all happily sipping ale, bickering wildly, or picking each other's pockets in the light of the silver moon. Breathing in the sharp s
mells of dust, frying onions, and summer ale, Miliana closed her eyes and walked on into a sensation that lifted her spirits like silk into the breeze.
Lady Ulia had been left far behind, along with palaces, pointy hats, and rules. Miliana heard the bustle of a street crowd open out before her, turned a corner, and wandered out into the heart of a dream.
In a portable puppet booth, a puppet with a great hooked nose was being noisily consumed by a crocodile.
Jugglers and charlatans performed prodigies for the passing swarms, while magicians filled the air with illusions, images, and spells. Despite the late hour, the city's central plaza flocked with untold hundreds of citizens and visitors, all here to take advantage of the festival stalls.
There were soldiers from a dozen households relaxing in wine gardens, wandering elves and dwarves, barbarians and dancing bears-even some bewildered elephant-headed men trading chunks of amber for alcohol and steel. At the plaza's central fountains, a group of swaggering young blades posed before the crowds, drinking and arguing and hooting calls at the passing girls. All in all, it was a scene that whisked Miliana's breath away.
In all the chaos of the multiracial crowds, a young man, a skinny woman, and a giant strutting bird raised little interest. Miliana stood entranced before a little puppet show, watching marionettes clash wooden swords in competition for their lady fair; behind her, Tekoriikii's long neck jerked this way and that as he goggled in fascination at the crowds.
A lightning flash of his beak, and a silver necklace left the neck of a passing courtesan. The bird avidly swallowed his prize, cramming it into his crop for later regurgitation. Tekoriikii's innocent gaze met Miliana's as she grabbed him by the wing and dragged him on toward yet another fascinating display.
Lorenzo surveyed the city crowds as an artist contemplating his latest canvas. He applauded with Miliana as a magician brought a rain of roses showering down into his hair. The Lomatran threw open his arms and delightedly dragged all the scents of the festival into his eager lungs.