Sorcery of a Queen

by Brian Naslund

  “No, it’s powered by dragon oil,” Jolan said. “That’s why this whole place—”

  “It was a joke, boy,” Willem said. “You gotta learn how to keep a sense of humor in bad situations. Rule one of being a warden.”

  “But I’m not a warden.”

  “It applies to most vocations.”

  They moved down the chamber, toward the stern of the ship, where there was a ladder leading above deck.

  “Gods,” Sten said. “Not more climbing.”

  “This one’ll be quick,” Willem said. “And if you fall off and shit yourself, got plenty of places to take care of it.”

  They climbed up in the same order that they’d climbed the cord, with Iko opening the hatch and disappearing into the shadows. Shoshone was right behind her. Jolan’s arms felt gooey and weak, but he managed to get up the ladder without much trouble.

  The night air was cool on his skin. He took a long breath of fresh air, savoring the refreshment, before he noticed that the widows had already killed four Balarians. Jolan hadn’t even heard them fall to the ground.

  “Gods, but you two are gifted when it comes to quiet killing,” Willem said, looking at the corpses, which Iko was dumping back down the hatch with perfunctory industry.

  “Stop admiring and help me with this one,” Iko said, motioning to a man’s ankles.

  When the bodies were hidden, Shoshone led them up a short stair near the port side of the deck, which led to a raised cabin with large windows. Probably the pilot’s cabin. There was a metal door with a complicated lock. Shoshone produced a round gray disk from behind her breastplate, but hesitated before opening the door. They could hear voices coming from inside. There were at least two talking to each other.

  “Navigator Septimus, explain to me again why you’re not wearing the proper uniform,” came a gravelly and brusque voice.

  “You say ‘navigator’ like you outrank me, Quinn. You don’t. And Mun ain’t waking up anytime soon to ream me out for a nonregulation uniform. I watched him add a spoon of liquid sticky to his tea.”

  “You’re dodging the question because you don’t have a good answer.”

  “Sure I do. The breastplate clocks on these new uniforms are stupidly heavy and wearing it all day while I’m hunched over the horizon orb is murder on my lower back.”

  “I have the same breastplate you do, and my back’s fine.”

  “But I took that injury during training when we hit a nasty pocket of turbulence while moving at full speed. It’s in my service record, and I’ve applied for a dispensation.”

  “And been denied three times.”

  “The fourth will be approved. And in the meantime, while we’re running a skeleton crew in the middle of the night and General Mun asked me to draw up fresh air-current projections for tomorrow’s patrol, I am leaving the breastplate off. Why did they even move the clocks to our breastplates? It’s completely impractical. You can’t see the bloody timepiece without a mirror, and even then you have to work out the reversal of the hands.”

  “I don’t know, Septimus. But I do know that a resupply skyship flew all the way out here to give them to us and see them worn, so they must be important. Orders are orders.”

  “Whatever. I am not following this one. Lower-back pain is the recipe for an unhappy retirement. I won’t risk it.”

  “Fine. But soon as I get promoted, I’m writing you up for a violation.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  Shoshone signaled to Iko that there were two men inside, then she slipped the gray disk into the mechanism. There was a hiss of steam, a series of clicks, and the door opened.

  One man wore a red breastplate with a clock in the middle, the other simply a long red coat. Both were scrutinizing a set of charts on a table in the middle of the room.

  “What is the meaning of this?” said Quinn, the man wearing his armor.

  Shoshone was across the room a moment later. She tripped him and put a knife to his throat.

  “Which one of you flies this thing?”

  Quinn’s eyes were wide with fear. “Neither. We’re both navigators.”

  “Who, then?”

  “General Mun. He’s in his quarters.” The man pointed to a door with a thin, shaking finger.

  Iko and Sten restrained the navigators while Shoshone moved to the door and opened it. Dragon-oil lantern light poured from the room, but Shoshone froze at the doorway.

  “Black skies.”

  Jolan peered into the room. General Mun was hanging from the ceiling by a noose.

  Shoshone tightened her grip on the cleaver and went inside.

  Jolan studied the hanging man. His face was contorted. Tongue swollen. There was a tapping noise that Jolan took a moment to identify. A trickle of piss was dripping off the captain’s boot and forming a puddle on the floor.

  He had seen that happen before. Back in Deepdale.

  Shoshone had moved to the middle of the room, eyes darting from left to right. Jolan saw her focus on a circular, open window toward the back of the cabin.

  “Assassin,” she whispered in Papyrian.

  There was a blur of movement from the shadows. A man attacked her.

  Jolan had never heard steel ring out in such quick succession. Four lightning-fast, stinging pings of metal on metal. The man skipped back, then lunged toward the window. But Shoshone intercepted him again with a flurry of her own attacks. The man parried them all and they parted, circling each other in the small room. Before they could face off again, Oromir rushed up behind the man and kicked him in the back of the knee, dropping him.

  Oromir raised his sword, preparing to cut the man’s head off.

  “Stop!” Jolan cried.

  Oromir’s stilled his sword. “You move, you die,” he hissed at the man, then turned slightly to Jolan. “What is it?”

  “Just hold on for a second,” Jolan said, coming into the room so he could get a better look at the man.

  Some of his features were unfamiliar. He had a chin shaped like a man’s rear end and a massive mole on his forehead. But Jolan would have recognized those cold, gray eyes anywhere. Especially when they were staring at him.

  “Hello, Jolan,” said Garret. “Been a while.”

  31

  ASHLYN

  Ghost Moth Island, the Proving Ground

  The hood prevented Ashlyn from getting a look at the Proving Ground when they were taken through it, but she smelled dragon oil and grease and mold. Some passages and rooms were furnace hot, others were blasted by powerful drafts of cold air that Ashlyn registered as frigid, despite the chill never biting beneath the surface of her skin.

  Simeon and his men led them down a long series of narrow steps. They stopped frequently while metal doors were opened and then closed behind them. Ashlyn guessed that they’d descended at least four levels beneath the surface. Maybe five.

  When they finally took her hood off, Goll, Vash, and Wendell were gone. It was just her and Felgor in a dark, domed room with stone floors and rusted iron walls. The space was dominated by cages of various sizes. Several hung from the sprawling system of copper pipes that ran along the ceiling like rafters—the same kind of cages they stuffed criminals in at crossroads. The biggest cage was placed in the middle of the room. It was a larger, vaulted design that was bolted to the floor. Ashlyn noticed the circular spot beneath the cage was made from metal, not stone. The metal was seamed with rivets and covered in black bloodstains.

  “Give the queen the royal chambers,” Simeon said, motioning to the big cage. “Felgor gets a chicken coop.”

  His men separated them and stuffed them into their respective cages. Locked them with Balarian seals.

  Simeon propped a stool up in front of Ashlyn’s cage and sat. The wooden legs strained from the weight, but held.

  “Get us some light, Howell,” he said, motioning to the pirate who carried the dragon-bone spear and shield.

  “Aye, boss.”

  The man bent down in the dark
and fiddled with some machinery, grunting out a few curses while he did it. There was a metallic click, then a spark. A flame spread around the perimeter of the room, illuminating the chamber with the orange glow of burning dragon oil. The piney scent filled Ashlyn’s nose. She twisted in her cage, scanned the parts of the room that had been hidden in darkness.

  Her pulse quickened.

  There were rows and rows of stone pedestals. Each one held a different construct, but they all involved the fusion of dragon bones to metal. The first few were just fragmented fibulas and femurs with iron screws driven through in random, jagged angles. The next were more orderly—slabs of gray steel fused carefully along a framework of ribs to create a rounded, almost hull-like shape. There were also piles of spare parts. Wires, gears, pistons, and cranks. Rusted tools. Stacks of rotting paper with equations and notes scrawled in a hurried hand.

  Set on a nearby pedestal, there was an unfinished helmet made from Ghost Moth parts that was clearly meant to complete Simeon’s set of armor. She wondered for a moment why he wasn’t wearing it, but the answer was obvious. The scales and bones had been cut and crafted, but all the wires hung loose and disconnected. Unfinished.

  Ashlyn scanned the room again, more systematically, but didn’t see any unrefined dragon threads.

  Simeon spat on the floor. “Cabbage. Food.”

  The earless pirates scurried out of the room on hurried feet. Simeon focused his attention on Ashlyn.

  “What are you doing on this island?” he asked.

  “Looking for this room.”

  “Yeah? Guess your expedition’s a wild success, then.”

  She shrugged. “Nothing’s perfect.”

  “I’d think you’d be a bit more emotional, given your circumstances.”

  “What can I say? I’m a coldhearted bitch.”

  Simeon laughed. He motioned to the room of metal and bones. “What do you want with all this shit?”

  “I need a way to destroy the Balarian Empire.”

  “Ha. Good luck with that.”

  She took a closer look at Simeon’s armor. The general design was all Osyrus—a complicated fusion of dragon parts and clockwork machinery that activated and whirred with his movements. But the left rib guard had been modified. There was an intricate and complicated series of fused bones there, rather than scales. Ashlyn could see a line of blue fungus packed between the seams of the updated areas.

  Ad hoc repairs. Kasamir’s work.

  “I can’t imagine the empire’s a friend of yours, and they’re conquering the realm of Terra one country at a time,” Ashlyn said. “If you were to help me—”

  “Pass,” Simeon interrupted. “Don’t waste your breath trying to talk your way out of the cage. It ain’t happening.”

  Cabbage returned with a wooden bucket that had blackened chicken inside of it. He handed it to Simeon, who grunted, then pulled a wing apart and took a massive bite.

  He turned to Howell. “Who do we know with a reliable line into Himeja for a ransom?” he asked around the mouthful of meat. Grease dripped down his chin.

  Howell tapped his gold teeth with a dirty finger. “Lionel’s pretty tight with a palace sentry. He can probably get the thing sorted.”

  “Where’s Lionel at present?”

  “Reaving. But he’s due back the day after tomorrow, assuming they dodge the storms.”

  “Good. Good.” He turned back to Ashlyn. “So there it is, Queen. You’ll spend a few days in that cage that you worked so hard to find, and then we’ll get you shipped off. I expect you’ll be safe and sound in Himeja within the moon’s turn.”

  He turned to Felgor. “You, on the other hand, aren’t gonna have such a pleasant stay.”

  Felgor was picking fungal remnants off his clothes. He pretended not to hear Simeon.

  Simeon threw the chicken wing at him.

  “Hey, thanks. I was hungry too.” Felgor picked it up with a smile and started gnawing on the meaty remnants.

  Simeon glared at him. Tore apart another piece of chicken and bit into it.

  “Keep smiling while you can, Felgor. Got a feeling your sense of humor will depart in a hurry when the torture starts. Only question is the method. What do you think, Howell?”

  “The fingernail thing?”

  “Naw. We always do the fingernails first. It’s become mundane.”

  “Mundane,” Howell said. “That’s a good thing?”

  “No, Howell. It is not a good thing.” He blew a snot rocket onto the floor. “Felgor is a special guest, let’s give him special treatment. What’s that one that Stump does? Some setup with a tub that he picked up out in Graziland?”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s a good one. You throw him in one o’ them big vats, fill it with water up to his neck. Cover his face with honey so the flies get at him. Then you let him shit himself all day. Whole thing turns into a putrid mess of maggots before long. Truly awful stuff.”

  “Hm. Seems like a good option. But slow, yeah?”

  “Few weeks at least to get a really good situation going.”

  “Pass.”

  Simeon glared at Felgor, who was no longer smiling.

  “What to do?” Simeon pondered. “What to do?”

  “How ’bout the rat box? We haven’t done that in a while.”

  “With the steel bucket and the flame?”

  “Yeah. The last rodent clawed straight into that Ghalamarian merchant’s stomach and came out his mouth, remember?”

  “Yeah. I liked that one. Do we have any rats?”

  “Never a shortage of rats, boss. The boys could drum one up in no time.”

  “We need a good one, though. Your average rat’ll just let himself heat up and die. Smells terrible and isn’t any fun. That’s why we don’t do it much. And I don’t wanna wait for them to find an industrious rodent.” Simeon tapped his lips with two thick fingers. “No. I’ve got it. We’ll do the saw.”

  “It’s a mess to clean up,” Cabbage said, frowning with the concern of a man who knew that job would land on his shoulders.

  “But worth it.” Simeon threw another bone at Felgor, who let it thump off his chest and sit in the bottom of the cage. “You know how the saw goes, Felgor? That’s the one where I truss you upside down, then wait for all the blood to rush to your head. That’s important, because if we do that, once I start sawing through your ass and balls, it’ll hurt plenty, but you won’t bleed out right away. Last time I got all the way through the guy’s stomach before he finally gave out. Gods, but he screamed a lot.”

  “Exploded his own vocal cords, as I recall,” Howell murmured.

  Felgor had gone pale and sweaty. “Hang on now, Simeon, let’s talk this through before you go splitting me in half. I’m a thief, you’re a pirate. We’re in the same general line of work! I can join your crew. Probably be a top earner.”

  “I got plenty o’ good earners in my crew already. Don’t need another one.”

  He threw another chicken bone at Felgor, but the scales of his left glove sputtered and twitched as he released. The bone missed the cage by a wide margin. He cursed.

  Ashlyn studied the armor. In addition to the left glove being damaged, the wiring that connected everything was corroded from years of exposure to salty air and water. The armor was powerful, but it was falling apart.

  “But you do need someone to fix that glove,” Ashlyn said.

  Simeon glared at her while he chewed. “The alchemist will fix it.”

  Ashlyn assumed that he was talking about Kasamir.

  “That’s not likely.”

  “The fuck do you know about my business with the alchemist?”

  “Not much. But we killed him on our way in here.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “How’d that happen, exactly?”

  “I blew up his giant and the explosion cut him in half.”

  Simeon’s faced darkened. “If that’s a true story, you’ve just brought a mountain of pain down on your head. Because this armor—and all the tinkeri
ng machines out of the Proving Ground—are more valuable than any queen’s ransom. If you killed the only man who can fix them, might be I’m of a mind to put you in that previously discussed bathtub situation.”

  “I told you that I can fix the armor.”

  “Nobody can fix that shit besides the alchemist. Plenty o’ my idiot crew have tried. At best, they lost thumbs. More than a few have gotten their whole fucking heads blasted off on crossbow backfires. These machines ain’t gentle when they buck on you.”

  “I’ll risk my thumbs, and my life. But not if you kill my friend.”

  “You’re lying to save his hide.”

  “Maybe,” Ashlyn said. “But what do you have to lose? Kill him now, I’ve got no reason to help you. Leave him alive, and I’ve got a strong incentive to succeed.”

  Simeon hesitated.

  “You don’t even need to let me out of the cage. Just throw the glove in. Give me some of those tools from over there.” She pointed to the desk. “If I don’t have the glove repaired by tomorrow, cut Felgor in half then.”

  There was another long moment of narrowed eyes and silent scrutiny. Eventually, Simeon looked down at his damaged gauntlet. Started twisting the clamps near his wrist. There was a hiss of pressure as the clamps released, and the dragon scales went slack around his hand. When he removed the glove, Ashlyn caught sight of a bone barb that punctured his flesh. The barb popped free from Simeon’s wrist as he pulled the glove away, revealing a black mark that spread across his flesh like cracks in a mirror. So, the armor was connected to his body.

  Simeon threw the gauntlet into the cage.

  “Give her the tools,” he said to Howell.

  “You sure about this, boss?” Howell asked. “Glove don’t seem that beat up to me.”

  “No, I’m lukewarm and figured I’d float the order and wait for your approval.” He glared at Howell. “Do it.”

  The gold-toothed pirate grumbled, but passed a good mixture of dragon parts, lodestones, and work tools through the bars of the cage in a series of trips to and from the desk.

  “I need those papers, too.”

  “Which ones?”

  “All of them.”

  Simeon snorted. “Fine. Spend the night reading through that pile of rot if you want. But come dawn tomorrow, if that glove ain’t repaired, Felgor gets divided.”