by J M Sanford
“I have never counted those men as my friends, Meg,” Percival grumbled. “They are mere acquaintances of my foolish youth, and ones I'd hoped never to speak to again, at that.”
Amelia's curiosity prickled, but she couldn't very well ask for more details, not with how unhappy Percival sounded. “What is this?” she asked instead, pointing to the indecipherable map.
Meg explained: a line chart showed the node where each Flying City hovered, the leylines it might travel along, and where it was due to move in the coming month. Here, the City they currently stood in. There, the City of Ilamira, where they'd run into trouble with Prince Archalthus’ golems. The City planners were clever men, who moved the Flying Cities like pieces on a chessboard, so that they could carry goods and traders all around the civilised world. The maker of this line chart, though, must be more cunning than most: it showed several Cities missing from any official maps. Cities long supposed to be dead and lost inhabited a section of the network to the northeast, where respectable merchants had no reason to go. As Percival explained, even rogue Flying Cities needed some sort of route planning if they were to avoid disastrous clashes, and Cities considered lost by respectable society still moved with purpose on their own business. Exactly what business the lost Cities had out there, the knight couldn't or wouldn't say.
Even with Meg and Percival's help, Amelia couldn't make head nor tail of the jumbled mess of Cities and their linkages, but Meg quickly interpreted the information she needed. In just a day or two, they could board a City whose trading circuit would skirt the edges of cattle country, and intersect with the rambling voyage of the lost City of Ilgrevnia.
“I can't disembark from this City soon enough,” said Percival. “I see twins in the crowd everywhere I go.”
Amelia knew what he meant: she too kept catching glimpses of two identical figures, sometimes dark, sometimes fair, but always perfectly in step. She always turned away hastily and scurried into the safe anonymity of the crowd, afraid she might recognise the dull black eyes of the golems sent for her. The dragon prince's golems were tireless, made of stone, and they would scour the globe until they found her, whether it be tomorrow or eighty years from now.
5: ONE LAST DAY OF SUMMER
It had taken some pleading on Amelia’s part, but Meg had agreed to let Harold have a copper penny a month to send a letter back home to his family, and in every Flying City they reached, he visited the post office to see if they had anything for him. This time, Amelia begged respite from her lessons so that she could go along, despite her fear of golems. Before they went out, she donned her dowdy brown cloak and covered her bright hair with the hood, tucking her long braids carefully out of sight, then made sure that her conjuring rings were all in order. She knew Harold would give his life to protect her, but she didn't intend for it to come to that.
Earlier that morning, thick cloud had spilled down the streets, cloaking the City in clinging dampness. Amelia had stood at the window, watching the lowlying clouds swirl and wash around yellow stone houses with red tiled roofs, blocks rising out of the billowing white like an artificial archipelago. The few figures of those who had to venture outside scurried out of nothingness, and then disappeared moments later, their sounds strangely muffled. Now the City had risen out of the cloud cover, and while towns and villages below soaked in rain, the denizens of the City enjoyed autumn sunshine. Making the most of the last of the year's good weather, Harold and Amelia took some time to explore the shops of Main Street before they came to the post office. They emerged a few minutes later with Harold clutching a brown paper parcel and grinning. After three or four angry letters from his mother, chastising him for taking off without warning, the rebukes had turned to care packages, although his brother hadn't yet forgiven him for the loss of the bicycle.
A road ran along the top of the City Walls, wide and clear, built for promenading. It was quieter than the shopping district, and Harold and Amelia both migrated towards it. On their left, they could look down on the town below the Flying City. Amelia noticed that the town on the ground formed a rough crescent shape bordering the node that supplied the area’s magic, and wondered why. She thought her spells seemed to work a smidge better in the Flying Cities they’d visited, so perhaps the magic was too strong right there at the source, and a simple light spell would be blinding, or a spell to light a cosy fire might spark a raging inferno. She really ought to ask Meg about that… and then a more likely reason struck her: what if a Flying City fell? Who would have the nerve or the faith to live day to day with all that rock suspended above their heads? With a shudder, she hastily turned her attention to the view on her right, where clumps of ramshackle houses crowded in the shade of the enormous Walls, growing like mushrooms. Amelia could see plumes of steam rising from cooking pots, washing hanging limp in windless shade, ragged people climbing ladders and steep stairs as they went about their daily business. She couldn't imagine living in a place like that, and didn't understand what drew her to watch. At her side, Harold began to tear the paper off his care package, handing her the letter within. Harold found reading hard going, but Amelia would be more than happy to read the letter to him once they found a sunny place to sit.
As they reached the rear of the City, steps led down from the promenade onto green terraces: an extravagant park built into the space-conscious City girdled by sky; a luxurious place of well-kept lawns and shady trees, with an unparalleled view. Amelia's heart lurched as Harold bolted across the cropped grass to lean on the parapets that overhung a fearsome drop. When he shouted for her to come and see, she followed reluctantly. Gripping the stone barrier so tightly her knuckles turned white, she peeped over to see another grassy terrace some way below them, with people milling about. Some of them had restless hawks on their arms, and…
“Look!” Harold pointed.
Ah, she should have guessed: a wyvern crouched close to the edge, stretching its leathery brown wings to catch the sun. As Amelia watched, a slim figure approached the beast, stroking its neck. Was it a woman? A young boy? Hard to tell, with the way they were wrapped up against the wind. The anonymous figure slung one leg over the wyvern, taking up a riding position lying close against its back. Somebody a safe distance from the unguarded edge was taking bets.
“I didn't know you could ride them,” said Amelia, wondering why on earth anybody would want to.
Then, with a shout from the crowd, the wyvern started forward, launching out into the free blue sky. A moment later, a second shout signalled the release of a dozen hawks. The hawks shot after the wyvern and the feathery lure trailing from its tail. But this was no straight line race: the wyvern twisted and looped at its rider's command, evading the hawks. Harold watched in awe and envy; Amelia watched with a sense of terrible dread that the rider would be flung from their saddle at any moment. The chase was intense; a battle of aerial skills fought and won in a matter of minutes, as one of the hawks snatched the lure from the wyvern's tail and returned to its waiting master.
Afterwards, Harold and Amelia retreated from the edge to sit on the grass in the sun, eating the biscuits Harold's mother had sent, while Amelia read the accompanying letter: “Dearest Harold, I hope this letter finds you safe and well. We are all well here, but your cousin at Windy Hill was very upset to hear of you running off like you did. She wanted to know if you might be home in time for Summer’s Farewell Day, for it won't be the same without you.” Amelia paused. She might never have attended Springhaven’s celebrations herself, but she knew the festivals well enough as part of the calendar; she’d watched the fireworks from the window of her tower every year, and lain awake long into the night as she listened to the music drifting in and out on the sea breeze. Summer’s Farewell must be a month behind them, and she wondered how long this parcel had been waiting for Harold, although the biscuits seemed no worse off for having come through the arcane transportation methods of the Flying Cities' postal service.
“You don't reckon it'll be a bad winter this yea
r?” asked Harold, who’d stopped crunching his biscuit at mention of the end of summer festival. “They'll do all right 'til I get home?”
It had never before occurred to Amelia to feel guilty over dragging Harold away from his chores and duties back home in Springhaven. She missed her father terribly, but on Meg's instruction, she'd had no communication with him, for his safety and for theirs. Before Harold had become Amelia’s Paladin, not so long ago, he’d been nothing more than a butcher’s boy from a small town, so his personal business was of little consequence to anyone but himself and his family. Who knew who (or what) might intercept the White Queen’s correspondence.
“Maybe I will marry the White King,” Amelia muttered. “If I like him enough.” After all, he might be handsome and kind – she wouldn't know for sure until she found him. It would put an end to their journeying, and Harold could return to his family, safe and sound. Father could be sent for, perhaps, if he was prepared to leave the tower. And Amelia could certainly accustom herself to the lavish lifestyle of royalty… Meg would disapprove, of course, but Meg had already had her chance at the White King and ran away. That thought gave Amelia pause – how old was the White King? Might she find him entombed in glass like the princess in the fairy tale, awaiting true love's first kiss? Or was there a lineage of potential Kings, like the potential Queens, waiting through the long generations? She remembered the perfectly maintained gardens of the jade temple, serene and perfect in the moonlight, and that reassured her: similar provisions would have been made to preserve her King in readiness, surely.
“Well… d'you reckon I might be the White King?” Harold asked.
“Don't be silly, of course you're not!” Amelia didn't think of Harold's feelings until the words were out. “You're my Paladin,” she reminded him. “You can't be King too… can you?”
Harold shrugged. “A King's got to start from someplace.”
“Ye-es… generally kings get their start by being princes,” said Amelia, but she couldn't help thinking that the only prince they'd discovered so far had been the dreadful Prince Archalthus. Given a choice, she'd pick Harold any day. He might not be as handsome as Archalthus, but the butcher’s boy with his chestnut brown hair and warm brown eyes was handsome enough, and he had a kind heart and strong arms… “I'll ask Meg when we get back,” Amelia promised him. “But my feet hurt from all that walking around and besides, we shan't get many more nice days like this for a while. Shall I tell a story?”
Harold shrugged again, still stinging from her careless comment. “If it pleases you.”
Undeterred, Amelia began:
Many hundreds of years ago, an elven maid out exploring wandered into the realms of man. There she met a young mortal, a botanist who shared her love of the natural world and was eager to learn more of its secrets from her. They were both young and perfect, like flowers newly opened, and soon the young man begged the elf to forsake her own kind and marry him. But the elf feared what would become of them in the future, as her lover succumbed to the forces of time and she did not. Nature allots each of her creations a different span: a man might live to eighty; an elf to eight hundred. The elf would surely lose her lover to old age while she herself was still young, and it would break her heart to be widowed so. As they lay beneath the stars one night, she told him of her fears.
'There is a way,' he said. 'Beyond the mountains there stands a lone tree amongst a field of blood red flowers. It is said that the fruit of the tree induces a sleep as deep as death, preserving weak human flesh from the ravages of time. Nothing but the oil of the blood red flowers possesses the ability to wake the sleeper. With you to care for me and administer the cure, I could sleep for nine years, and live the tenth with you, my love.'
So elf and man journeyed together beyond the mountains, until they came to a field of red blossoms dancing under the summer sun, and a twisted tree standing amongst them. From its branches hung dark fruits, their skins furred and silvering. The elf plucked a fruit from the tree, but then hesitated. The danger was great, but the prize was all she’d dreamed of since the first day she'd met the young botanist. Her lover feared that the legends had only been half true, but out of love for his elven maid, not to mention his own pride, he kept his fears secret. The elf begged the mortal man to wait just a little longer before he took the poison; to spend just one more day with her, just in case. One more day turned into two, then three. Together the two of them built a modest home above the red field, and each morning the elf begged for one more day to spend together: it being such a beautiful summer, it would be a shame to miss it. One morning she woke to find her lover gone from the house. With dread in her heart, she ran out into the field and to the lone tree, where she knew she would find him. There, in the shade of its twisted branches and dark whispering leaves, stood a stone statue of a man, a half-eaten stone fruit raised halfway to his mouth. The elf cried out in horror, recognising the statue's face as that of her beloved. A letter lay at his feet, explaining how he'd feared his youth and his life would be worn away one 'last day' at a time, and that he would be an old man before she knew it. The final line of the letter begged her to wait nine years before any effort to resurrect him.
One year turned, and then another, until the elf could bear life without her love no longer. She distilled a vial of the oil from the blood red flowers, and touched it to his stone lips, whispering a prayer as she did so. To her joy, life blossomed from stone, and she embraced him, finding him warm and unhurt. He'd bid her wait nine years before waking him from his enchanted sleep, but he smiled and held her all the closer when he learned it had been only two. The victorious lovers married at once. Together they travelled again, and the elf showed her new husband the enchanted forests of her childhood home. At the end of the year, they returned to the house above the red field, and he took another fruit from the tree.
For nine years the elf lived in peaceful solitude: studying, praying and spending time in nature, living as her people had lived since the dawn of time. She looked often on the statue of her husband and smiled, reassured that he would be returned to her eventually, albeit never soon enough. Early on the morning of the appointed day, she ran out to wake her husband from his long sleep, having distilled a vial of the oil of the blood red flowers in readiness. So the strange pair lived another year together, and during this time, they debated the best way for them to raise a family. Surely it could be managed, somehow, with care and trust and love. They made plans for when they would next meet again, beneath the twisted tree. When he had taken the fruit and stood there in stone, she looked on him one last time before setting off on a journey of exploration. She travelled far and wide, keeping journals of all the exotic plants she found, so that her husband might benefit in some way from the time he spent in his enchanted sleep. Nine years later, the elf returned home, traversing the mountain path that she and her husband had traversed before they'd married. Just over one last ridge, and she'd be home…
Her heart lurched at the sight that awaited her: the field of blood red flowers, gone! Nothing but charred ground where waves and waves of blossoms had once rippled in the sunshine, and in the centre of it all, the lone tree stood fire-blackened and dead. Dropping her pack, the elf ran to the remains of the tree, hoping against hope that good fortune had won out over bad and she might find her beloved somehow alive and unhurt. But there, beside the tree, stood the statue where she'd left it: unfeeling, unthinking stone, scorched by fire but cold now. Nowhere else in her travels had the elf ever seen the blood red flowers. She fell at the statue's feet and wept, her heart broken.
The statue stands there still, young forever, quite indifferent to love's suffering.
Amelia fell silent. She’d begun the story without a thought as to how it ended, and it had not only failed to lift Harold's spirits, but it had sunk hers. It was a maudlin kind of story, like so many she knew – a mean and spiteful narrative trick played on two people led by their hearts. She was only glad Meg hadn't been around to hear it.
Surely there existed stories other than ones about 'horribly doomed love affairs', as Meg had put it, but Amelia couldn't think of any offhand.
“I reckon they should've both stuck to their own kind,” said Harold, picking at the grass. “That way nothing bad would've happened.”
Amelia would've liked to say she didn't know what had brought that horrible story to mind in the first place, but she had an inkling. Meg had journeyed to Springhaven for the sake of her granddaughters – she hadn't expected to find Amelia still practically a child herself. A girl left behind like the statue in the story, waiting for such a time as she was wanted again. There and then, Amelia vowed to herself that she'd never again wait for anyone else's permission to live her life. She was the White Queen and she had her Mage, her Paladin, her Commander and her Warship. She would find her White King, and if she liked him enough, she’d marry him. It would be a simple decision, and hers alone.
6: PLAGUE BRINGERS
If the would-be White Queen thought her plan was a simple one, then it was only because she’d temporarily forgotten about the rival Black Queen. Bessie stood at the bow of Sharvesh, face to the bitter wind, eyes alight with triumph. The attack at the Academy, now that she'd survived it, had only served to speed her on her way with Greyfell at her side once more. The first step of her own plan was to find the White Queen – simple enough, as the White Queen would have no choice but to find the hidden throne room, and in a skyship as fast as Sharvesh, Bessie could reach it ahead of her. The second step would be for Bessie to seize the crown – even simpler, as the White Queen was a drip and no match for an Antwin girl. Then Bessie would find her Black King, marry him, and… well, if she didn't like him then she could always hire another former Antwin girl to get rid of him. Oh, and somewhere along the way she’d have to find a Mage, but now that they were on the move again, Bessie knew she’d overcome that obstacle like any other.
