‘What? Muscles? The nuns taught us biology. The basics. I must admit, their idea of sex education was “don’t do it,” but I do understand the mechanics.’
‘But you’ve never, um…’
‘I’ve never “um.” No. Never been that bothered about it. I spend a lot of time reading.’
‘All work and no play, Krys. A girl’s gotta have a hobby.’
Krystal shrugged. ‘My hobby is magic, which also happens to be my passion and my work. I’m lucky like that.’
Whatever Trudy might have said in reply was stalled by Charlotte dropping lightly onto the cobbles beside them. ‘Hey! What’re you two doing out here? Did you see that big grey back there? Looked like he could lift half a ship over his head. That kind of development takes dedication, even for a grey.’
‘We saw him,’ Krystal replied. ‘Trudy was admiring his muscles.’ She inserted just a tiny pause before the last word, and Trudy elbowed her in the side.
‘I’m taking Krys around the city to show her the main parts,’ Trudy said. ‘She’s from Appleyard and didn’t exactly get out much.’
‘Oh!’ Charlotte’s scales began to shimmer as she shifted back to normal form. ‘Mind if I tag along? I don’t really know the city that well either. From the ground anyway.’
‘I guess you can.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Krystal added. ‘Hey, you don’t know who the girl in fifty-eight is, do you? We think she’s a green.’
Charlotte frowned for a second. ‘Fifty-eight… Nope. Of course, if I hadn’t got you out of bed last night, I wouldn’t know who was in fifty-nine either. Haven’t met many of the people on our floor. Or any other floor. Ran into a squad of indigos from the ground floor last night, but… Well, they’re indigos, you know?’
‘Not really. I’ve never met any indigos aside from two of the sisters.’
‘Indigos don’t often end up in an orphanage,’ Trudy said. ‘Still think you’ll probably turn out to be one, Krys. Which would make you way unusual, because indigos usually have some family willing to take them in.’
‘I don’t think I’m an indigo. So, Charley, you’re from Spinyard?’
‘Oh yeah. Born and raised.’ Charlotte seemed oblivious to the forced subject change, but Trudy spared Krystal a glance: it was clearly a sore subject, however, and it was possibly best to avoid it.
‘That’s up in the Great Spine, right?’ Krystal asked.
‘Uh-huh. It’s been there since before the Majesty War. It kind of got a special dispensation so the Skylords could continue to run it, but it’s not like their other Skylord cities and we send a representative to the council here.’ She paused as her stomach rumbled. ‘Guess I’m ready for a morning snack.’
‘That’s what you get for spending most of your morning in dracoform,’ Trudy said. ‘Okay, forget the ships, we’ll head up toward the palace. There’s always people selling food outside the wall, and now you both know where the docks are.’
‘I could stand to eat something,’ Krystal said.
‘You might not be saying that after you’ve had something from a Concord City street vendor…’
~~~
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Charlotte commented as she dropped the paper from her first sausage-in-a-bun into a street bin and prepared to start on her second.
‘I can tell you’re enjoying them,’ Krystal said, grinning.
‘We’ll see how you feel in an hour,’ Trudy suggested.
‘I can eat anything,’ Charlotte said around a mouthful of food.
‘If it stays in your mouth,’ Krystal said, but her eyes were on the tall, white, stone wall which was rising up before them.
By convention, Concord City itself had no city walls: it was the meeting place for all of Draconia and all could enter freely. Very symbolic. Perhaps one might also say there was symbolism in the fact that the Palace of the Council of Concordance, which sat in the centre of the city, had a thirty-foot crenelated wall around it. That wall had guard towers spaced along it, allowing the soldiers barracked within to defend the palace if needed, though the towers had only a token guard in them when the council was not sitting.
Symbolic of the division between the rich and powerful and the lowly population around them or not, the walls were impressive. Krystal’s guidebook had said that the walls were twelve feet thick and made of the white granite mined only in the Great Spine mountains. Even as tall as they were, the walls could not hide the spires of the palace behind them. The palace was made of the same stone but alchemically treated to make it gleam in the sunlight. They said that on a clear, sunny day, you could see the light shining off the palace in the mountains where the stone had been cut. Krystal rather doubted that.
‘Can we go in?’ Krystal asked.
‘Technically,’ Trudy replied. ‘The council’s not sitting, so the grounds are open to the public. You can even go on a tour of the palace if you go in at midday on Silverday, uh, which is today. But if you want to do the tour, you’re on your own.’
‘She’s not very fond of royals,’ Krystal said to Charlotte.
‘There’s that,’ Trudy said, ‘but I’ve also seen it three times. There’s only so many times you can look at white architecture before it gets boring. Once, actually. After the first time, it was just tedious.’
‘Not really interested anyway,’ Charlotte said. Then she dropped her second sausage paper into the bin. ‘I’ve seen it from the air. Can’t say I need to see it from the ground, or inside.’
‘I’m interested,’ Krystal said. ‘Well, sort of. It’s historic. But I can wait and do it on my own sometime. I’m going to be here for four years, maybe longer. I think I’ve got time.’
‘We’ll walk around to Westlook,’ Trudy stated. ‘That’s where all the shops, bars, and clubs are. Mostly they’re aimed at the tourists, but there are a few worth noticing.’
~~~
Most of the entertainment sector of Westlook did look as though the main aim was to attract visitors to the city in for a good time. Near the palace, that meant a lot of glitzy-looking bars and clubs, and a few large stores which primarily sold expensive clothes. As you got further out, the clothes got a bit cheaper, and so did the bars and clubs. Various tacky emporiums sold novelties and souvenirs a visitor might buy to take home with them, probably to give to friends and relatives who would then stuff them in a closet somewhere to never see the light of day again.
Trudy stopped at the end of a road which curved away from them toward the north and turned to face her two friends. ‘Okay, this is Silverlight Street and I’d normally say that you shouldn’t ever go near the place.’
‘Why?’ Krystal asked, looking down the street at what looked like bars and shops.
‘Because Silverlight Street is never a good place for a girl to walk down unless you work there,’ Charlotte said. ‘There’s a Silverlight Street in Spinyard.’
Krystal frowned. ‘I don’t… Oh!’ Looking more closely at some of the signs, she began to pick out words which suggested the function of the building more clearly than ‘bar’ or ‘shop.’
‘This is where the brothels and other forms of “adult” entertainment are,’ Trudy explained. ‘Don’t think there’s anything adult about it myself, but to each their own. Plenty of greys make a living here and they wouldn’t necessarily make a living anywhere else. However, this also happens to be where Cragscales’ place is.’
‘Cragscales?’
‘Uh-huh. Come on, you’ll love it.’
Wondering why she in particular was going to enjoy whatever shop Trudy was heading for, Krystal set off after her down Silverlight Street. There were clothing shops here, as well as the bars and clubs, but the mannequins in the windows tended to be wearing underwear or dresses which barely deserved the name. One shop they passed had no window display, but advertised itself as selling ‘mating aids,’ though Krystal’s understanding of the process suggested there was nothing much to aid: assuming dragons of the right age and temperament, mating was a large
ly inevitable process. She had this sudden image of some sort of shoe-horn-like device which might be useful if there was a large difference in size…
And forgot all about it when Trudy stopped in front of a shop which looked distinctly out of place. It had the same plastered-stone frontage as all the other buildings and was actually part of a terraced block of four shops which must have been built at the same time. However, this shop was painted black, rather than some garish colour, and the paint was peeling in places where everywhere else seemed to get a yearly refresher coat. There was no signage visible until Krystal looked more closely and spotted a small, brass plaque on the door. ‘Cragscales’ Magic Supplies,’ she read aloud.
‘All the serious magicians come here for whatever they need,’ Trudy said, stepping up to the door and pushing it open. There was the sound of a bell, though when Krystal looked up, she could see no sign of one. ‘Cragscales carries everything, and if he hasn’t got it, he can get it. And, most importantly for you, he has a fairly large supply of magic books up on the top floor.’
‘Top floor. Right.’ Krystal hurried inside and began searching for the stairs.
The building had five storeys and it seemed to be laid out with the more general materials at the bottom and the more advanced stuff further up. Wands, inks, parchments, and the more commonly found herbal and alchemical ingredients were on the ground floor. Staffs and the more dangerous materials were next. The staffs and wands were blanks, ready to be used in a ritual to attune them to the magician, but they came in all shapes and sizes: gnarled and natural-looking or carefully carved, inlaid, or plain. Some of the staffs even had powerstones mounted in them: enchanted crystals which could be used to store power for spells. On the next floor, the third, there were magic items of various sorts. Krystal could feel them all around her, sense the enchantment on them. She had no idea what most of them did, but assumed that most were simple utility items. Most, but probably not the ones secreted away in a locked cupboard behind enchanted glass.
Krystal found the stairs up to the fourth floor, which appeared to be as far as she could go up via any visible means. She let out a sigh as she caught sight of it. It was not all books. There were three cabinets mounted to the walls: one for staffs, one for wands, and a third for magic items of some sort. Krystal assumed that these were special examples of each kept out of the normal collections. The rest of the room was filled with a twisting, turning maze of bookshelves stocked with all kinds of magical instruction manuals, alchemical recipe books, herbal almanacs, and occult tomes. Near the stairs were basic volumes, the kind of thing you might find in any bookstore. As you worked your way through, things got more advanced and esoteric. Krystal wandered down an aisle and found herself looking at alchemy books which were way over her head, and she had to backtrack to pick up the general flow again.
She was beginning to find things that looked like they were old, thick, and probably full of knowledge which she would not yet understand when she heard the voice behind her.
‘Good day, young lady. Are you looking for anything in particular?’
Krystal turned to find a man standing in the aisle, at least a hand shorter than she was and stooped with it, hair of silver-grey and eyes that matched. His face was sort of craggy and not a little stern, with a nose like a hatchet, high cheekbones, and a long chin. He was an old grey, but there was a lot of bright intelligence behind eyes which seemed to take Krystal in with one look, right down to the core.
‘I was just seeing what you had,’ Krystal replied. ‘I don’t think I’m really up to these ones yet, but maybe someday.’
‘You’re from the magic school?’ He did not seem to have a high opinion of the school, but Krystal decided that she should ignore that.
‘Yes. Well, just starting this year.’
‘The student texts are–’
‘I saw, but I’m past a lot of those… and you have Grantham Goldstem’s Animal Transformations! I’ve never seen a complete copy. And is that a first edition of Insights into Transdomain Gateway Theory?’
The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘How, might I ask, would you recognise it as a first edition?’
‘The later printings were bound in brown leather. Only the first run was bound in that dark blue. However did you get a first edition? I thought they were all owned by royal collectors.’
‘Most of them are. Come with me.’
Krystal had to press her back to the shelves as he made to go past her. He seemed entirely oblivious as his arm brushed her breasts in passing, which seemed to fit with his personality. Krystal fell in behind him as he wound his way through the stacks, deeper into the shop. She was beginning to suspect that this was the proprietor, Cragscales himself, but he had not introduced himself so she was left with an assumption.
At the end of the maze, they came to a locked cabinet with iron bars bolted over the heavy oak. This was definitely a secure cabinet of some sort, but the man took a bunch of keys from his pocket and used one to unlock it, and Krystal was hit with a sense of enchantment as the doors swung open. No, not enchantment, but certainly magic. The cabinet was not full, but it held books which, if Krystal were any judge, had an innate magic about them. Magical books were, frequently, not something you messed with. She took a step back, even as her eyes searched for titles on the spines.
The man’s lips turned up slightly at the corners. ‘Not so keen to see the insides of these ones, young lady?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I want to look. I really want to look. I just don’t think it would be a good idea. I only recognise one title, Demonic Interactions, the original by Nicholas Nightsky, and I wouldn’t touch a copy of that without protection spells.’
The man nodded and closed the doors of the cabinet, locking it and then checking that it was firmly sealed. ‘When you think you’re ready to look in some of them, come and see me. I’m Silas Cragscales.’
‘Krystal Ward. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Silas Cragscales.’
Cragscales raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘Ward? You’re an orphan?’ Krystal nodded a response. ‘Interesting. You’ll call me Cragscales. Everyone does. I’ve no living relatives to confuse the matter.’
‘Then I’m Krys. You have a very interesting shop here, Cragscales.’
‘He does, and it figures you’d find him before I found you.’ Trudy was walking down the aisle with Charlotte trailing behind.
Cragscales raised his eyebrow again. ‘You know this reprobate, Krys?’
‘Trudy’s my roommate,’ Krystal replied. ‘I didn’t know she actually knew you.’
‘She’s been pestering me about magic since before she got her dracoform. Had a liking for it before she knew she could do it. Doesn’t attend her studies as well as she might…’
‘Well,’ Trudy said, ‘now all I have to do is study, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Plus, Krys is like a magical prodigy or something and she’s right there in the room with me if I need help.’
‘Hmm,’ Cragscales hummed. He turned his gaze back to Krystal. ‘Just keep an eye on her. If she’s not working hard enough, I suggest a cane.’ Trudy’s eyes widened and she started to splutter. ‘Or perhaps a whip. You can get either in the shop across the street.’
Trudy began making strangling noises and Krystal sort of felt she should throw her roomie a line, but it was also sort of too good an opportunity to miss… ‘I’m not sure I could handle a whip. I could probably manage a cane, or a riding crop.’
‘Krys!’ Trudy squeaked. ‘You were raised by nuns!’
Krystal looked at her for a second or two, frowning. ‘Trudy, you’ve never actually met a nun, have you?’
~~~
Krystal followed Trudy down the corridor to their room, and then stopped as Trudy let herself in. There was the door across the way, number fifty-eight, and there was the mysterious girl behind it. Or, possibly behind it since Krystal could not see through the wood.
‘You coming?’ Trudy asked.
‘Yeah. Just…’ Stepping over t
o the door opposite theirs, Krystal knocked. A few seconds later, she knocked again. She was just about to give up when the door opened a crack. There was a green eye visible through the crack. When there was no sound of a voice from within, Krystal said, ‘Hi. I’m Krystal. This is Trudy. Uh, we’re across the hall…’
‘Uh, hello.’ The voice was small and rather timid, but it was just about audible. The door opened a little more and a nose appeared, quite long for the face it was on, but narrow and quite cute.
‘And you are?’ Trudy prompted after a second.
‘I’m, uh, J-Jesse. J-Jesse Oakleaf. D-did you want something?’
‘Just to say hello,’ Krystal replied. ‘We’re going to be neighbours and everything.’
Jesse was silent for a second, and then she pulled in a deep breath and opened the door wider. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, we’re going to be n-neighbours. M-maybe you’d like to come in?’
The room was, more or less, identical to the one Krystal and Trudy shared. More or less identical, because Jesse’s room had plants in it. Pots sat on the windowsill, a couple of large pots sat on the floor, even the second bed had two trays on it, each holding pots with trailing plants which were spreading over the bare mattress. There were also cushions on the floor near the bed Jesse was presumably using; without the second bed to sit on, the cushions and the desk chair were the only places to sit.
‘You really are a green then?’ Trudy asked. Aside from the general look of the girl, the plants were something of a giveaway: green dragons had an affinity for plant life.
Jesse turned to look at Trudy and nodded. ‘Y-yes. I’m a green, from Tangleroots.’
Krystal raised an eyebrow. ‘You live in Tangleroots? I thought people just went in there to cut wood and hunt.’
‘I lived in Tangleroots. N-now I’m here. My family helped keep the forest safe and sound. I… They sent me here t-to learn more m-magic because I’ve got m-more t-talent than the r-rest.’ Long sentences seemed to make Jesse withdraw more into her timidity. As she spoke, her shoulders curled in more and she lowered her gaze away from her guests.
Misfit Magic (Misfits Book 1) Page 3
