“Agreed,” Daggar nodded.
As they stepped towards the tunnel which was still pouring forth hundreds of goblins, an open trapdoor appeared beneath their feet and they both fell through.
They landed on a thick layer of dirt. Above them, the trapdoor swung shut with a clang of finality. A stone panel swung around to cover it. “On the other hand,” said Daggar calmly. “We could try and rescue Kassa.”
Aragon stood up and brushed himself off. “In the absence of a better plan…”
It wasn’t that Kassa objected to falling from great heights. She was becoming quite resigned to such things. In this case, it was the soft landing that she objected to.
“Rgrunch!” said the large, hairy creature who had caught her in its arms. “Woman! Mine!”
“Of course,” said Kassa dismally as she was carried off. “Trolls.”
As everyone knows, trolls are a unique species. They are large, hairy, strong, usually violent and the creators of the most simplified legal system in existence. They have a very large vocabulary which they rarely use, preferring to simplify the world into five major categories: food, sex, hitting, games and shiny things. Anything else is deemed irrelevant. Their games consist mainly of putting trapdoors in inconvenient places and opening them at inconvenient times. Inconvenient, that is, for the victims.
“I know what you are thinking,” said Aragon as they made their way along the rocky tunnel.
“Oh, do you?” challenged Daggar.
“You are thinking that one is such an easy number to divide by, and if I was dead, you could have all of the silver yourself.”
“Ey,” said Daggar guiltily. “Is that what I was thinking?”
“You’re a profit-scoundrel.”
“I’m also a coward.”
“True. You won’t actually get up the courage to try to kill me. But if it came to saving my life or not saving my life…”
“I would hide behind a rock until the question went away,” admitted Daggar shamelessly.
“I expected no less.” Aragon stopped walking. His eyes rotated upwards. “Trolls,” he said. A ladder was fixed to the side of a vertical tunnel. It was decorated with modern trollish script which consisted of five crude pictograms, repeated over and over. Aragon gestured generously towards the ladder. “After you,” he suggested.
Lady Talle floated gently on a flower-strewn ivory boat shaped like a swan. Her occasional explorations of the Imperial Palace had led her to discover an ornamental garden on the roof of the Library Tower. The swan-boats bobbed gently along on the surface of an exquisite boating pool decorated with water lilies and designer frogs. “Now,” murmured the Lady Emperor, “Do you think I should go for the lace napkins or the pearl and magenta serviettes?”
Reed Cooper was poling the boat back and forth, a bored expression firmly fixed to his face. “It’s a garden party isn’t it?” he drawled. “Let them use leaves.”
“That’s hardly helpful,” snapped Talle. A moment later, her eyes brightened. “Unless…pearl and magenta serviettes shaped like leaves! Perfect.” She scribbled a few notes on the parchments which were piled up in front of her.
Reed barely restrained himself from grunting unintelligibly.
Talle glanced up sharply. “If you have a problem, Cooper, I suggest you vocalise it. I detest negative vibrations when I am planning parties.”
“I didn’t expect this,” complained Reed. “You promised that if I gave you Bigbeard’s sword, we would rule Mocklore together…”
Mentioning the sword was a mistake. Talle’s blue eyes narrowed dangerously. “I do not recall promising you anything,” she said icily. “I have no need of a consort, Reed.”
“Then what use am I?” he burst out. “Why bother with me at all? You already have a champion—even if you haven’t seen him for weeks. You’ve got that bloody urchin running around arranging your social calendar. What exactly do you need me for?”
“So that’s it,” said Talle softly. “You want a title.”
“I want a role!” insisted Reed. “Otherwise, I might…” He hesitated at the warning expression on her face, but continued on bravely. He was a pirate, after all. “Otherwise I might take my services elsewhere.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t recommend that,” said Talle mildly. “I doubt you would get very far. You’re very right, Cooper. You do deserve a role in my administration. I intend to make Griffin my prime minister eventually and when Aragon Silversword returns with the silver, he shall be honoured as my Imperial Champion. But you…how does Ambassador sound?”
Reed froze. “Ambassador?”
“You would have to wear purple, of course, but that isn’t a great sacrifice. And you would have to travel a great deal…perhaps even outside Mocklore on occasion.”
Reed’s throat was dry. “Will there be danger and excitement?” he managed to ask.
Talle’s smile was indescribable. “Oh I should think so. Yes, I believe I can almost guarantee it.”
“I hate trolls,” muttered Daggar, staring upwards. “I hate trolls, I hate trolls!”
“You wait until you meet one,” said Aragon cheerfully.
A huge, hairy paw reached down from behind them and picked up Daggar as if he were a spare gauntlet. Daggar screamed and gibbered as he was hauled into the arms of the monstrous creature.
Aragon watched with interest from a safe distance. “I think it’s a female of the species,” he commented.
Daggar’s face froze in terror. “What’s it going to do to me?” he demanded hoarsely.
“Use your imagination.”
“Mmmmman!” growled the troll triumphantly, gazing into Daggar’s terror-stricken face. She then turned towards Aragon. “Mmmmman!”
But Aragon had taken the opportunity to vanish.
The female troll had draped Daggar over her large shoulders and was striding through the tunnels at a bumpy pace. Daggar spoke rapidly, desperately trying to talk his way out of this. “You can’t possibly find me attractive! I’m not nearly as hairy as you, I’m practically bald all over. And I’m too small. Really, don’t you think it’s time you settled down with a nice manly eight-foot troll and started raising monoliths? These inter-species relationships never really work out, you know… Oooof!”
This last bit was because the troll had dumped Daggar on the ground as if he was a sack of particularly thick-skinned potatoes.
It is traditional among trollish courtship rituals to impress a new mate with one’s cave. The female troll waved a paw indignantly around. “Look,” she growled.
“Oh,” said Daggar, glancing around. His eye was caught by a puddle of silver coins in the corner. “Aren’t they pretty?”
“Shiny things,” said the troll proudly. Very few trolls had such an impressive hoard in their cave, but the pickings were good around here.
“Very nice,” agreed Daggar. His eyes gleamed. “I don’t suppose you know where there are any more shiny things, do you? Lots and lots, perhaps all buried somewhere?”
“Urgh!” agreed the troll, nodding furiously. “Close,” she confided. “Big shiny hoard. But no go there.” She shook her head with equal fervour.
“Why not?” asked Daggar.
“Yukky goblins,” said the troll disgustedly. “Too many to eat. Too many to hit. Get everywhere. Pull hair. Hurts. Goblins yukky.”
“Ey,” said Daggar, looking disappointed. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where it is, then?”
The troll had been thinking too hard. She wasn’t used to such brain activity. Her massive brow furrowed. “There,” she grunted, pointing vaguely down one of the tunnels that led away from her cave.
“Cheers,” said Daggar, hurrying away.
After a moment, a plaintive call came from the direction of the troll. “Mate…”
“Not today, thank you!” Daggar called behind him.
He followed the twisting tunnel upwards, noting that the scuff marks from the troll’s feet were old and dusted over. As the tunnel
forked, he met Aragon coming the other way. “You again,” he said bitterly.
“You escaped,” said Aragon with polite interest. “Well done.” He indicated the one path neither of them had tried. “This way?”
Daggar nodded grimly and they both turned down that tunnel. It opened out into a wide cave that had recently been redecorated with twigs, old leaves, straw, and general muck. A large pile of webby refuse clung to one corner of the cave. It was moving.
“Watch it,” commanded Aragon sharply, drawing his slender, icy sword and moving cagily around the twitching heap.
Daggar stood behind Aragon, his eyes warily on the bundle. It looked like a kind of nest. The kind of nest a troll might make for a new mate? “Um, Aragon,” he started to say.
Kassa exploded out of the bundle, dripping with gunk and scattering dead leaves in every direction. “They—put—me,” she said indignantly, shaking with rage, “In—a—nest.”
Daggar swallowed a snort of laughter.
“Are you ready to leave?” Aragon asked politely.
“A—nest,” Kassa spluttered.
They helped her out of the bundle, picking twigs off her and wiping most of the gunk off the black leather and scarlet silk of her outfit.
“Right,” said Aragon when she looked vaguely clean. “Which way shall we go?”
“I don’t care,” said Kassa, her eyes wild. “I want to go home to my tavern and drink something with bubbles in it.”
“What’s through this door?” asked Daggar. He had been looking at the door for some time. It was a real door, made out of wood with a hinge, a doorknob and everything. An odd thing to find in a cave. Now he pushed on it, peering through the crack as the door opened.
There was a very long pause. And then he closed the door behind him.
Neither Aragon or Kassa noticed him leaving. Kassa was still sputtering, and Aragon was watching her with quiet amusement. She caught a particular gleam in his grey eyes and rounded on him. “Are you laughing at me?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” he assured her.
She spat a mouthful of nestling grunge at him and stalked off down one of the tunnels.
Aragon chose a different tunnel.
Kassa was so infuriated that she walked straight into the ambush of goblins before noticing that she was surrounded. Hundreds of the little creatures pounced upon her, scratching and shrieking and smelling like dirt. “Oursilveroursilveroursilver!” they chorused wildly.
Kassa lost her temper completely. “That is enough!” she screamed, and her anger surged out of her in white-hot decibels.
The goblins fell to the ground, quivering and stunned.
Her face blazing, Kassa gestured at one goblin. “You! Up!”
The little goblin stood up shakily, his eyes glazing over. Kassa hummed a few notes and then gestured with her fingers. The hum wrapped itself around the goblin, pinning its arms to its sides. “Take me to the silver,” she snapped, in no mood for arguments.
The bound goblin gazed pitifully up at her and then waddled off down the tunnel. Kassa followed, her eyes still burning with fury. Every now and then, she directed a sharp hum at the goblin’s back, making him jump and whimper. “Your silver,” she muttered in a grating voice. “It is my silver, my silver!”
And then she looked up, and her jaw dropped out of her mouth.
The huge cave before her was lined with silver. Silver dripped everywhere. Jewellery of all kinds: necklaces, chains, rings, bangles and baubles. There were silver clocks, silver platters, silver candelabras. And coins, of course. The old bags were close to rotting away, and silver coins spilt everywhere in puddles and piles.
And there in the midst of it all, Aragon Silversword was kneeling in awe.
“You beat me to it,” said Kassa. Her voice echoed, seeming unnaturally loud in this temple of wealth.
Aragon’s shoulders twitched, but he did not turn around. “Indeed I did,” he said evenly.
Kassa moved past him, drinking in the sight of the glorious, glittering wealth. “Be careful,” she cautioned absently. “Some of it might be cursed.”
Aragon froze, stung by her casual tone. His eyes darted to his hand which gripped a glittering silver medallion, the chain looped innocently around his fingers. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
She turned as she spoke. “Well, don’t touch anything until…” Her eyes widened as she saw her warning had come too late. “Oh.”
Aragon opened his hand, dropping the medallion as if it were red hot. The chain snaked its way over his fingers as it fell.
There was a very long pause.
“How do you feel?” asked Kassa gently.
“Fine,” he said aloud, his voice reflecting and rebounding loudly off every silver plate in the cave.
“Good,” she said uncomfortably.
Aragon looked up, and met her gaze. “Good,” he repeated.
He was still staring. “Why are you looking at me like that?” whispered Kassa, not feeling in control of the situation.
“I never noticed your eyes before,” said Aragon quietly, getting to his feet. “How very gold they are. Like some sleek jungle creature.”
“Are you all right?” Kassa thought that this time the question really needed to be asked, and in a desperately worried tone of voice.
Aragon smiled, and in the silver light it looked almost sincere. “Of course, my lady.” He had called her that before, usually in mockery, but there was a different inflection now. A hand reached out and lightly touched her cheek. “My own sweet, beautiful lady.”
Kassa’s eyes glazed over in alarm. She looked down at the discarded medallion, which certainly looked as if it had a malignant curse upon it. Then she looked back up into the eyes of a lovelorn Aragon Silversword.
14
Tender Moments Hurt the Ones You Love
The coldest man in the Mocklore Empire looked at Kassa with an earnest smile which would have melted a rock. It made her feel slightly sick. “Sit down for a moment,” she said warily. “Maybe it will pass.”
Aragon sat obediently on the cave floor. There was a long pause. He looked up at her expectantly.
Kassa produced a tiny, brown bottle from a hidden pocket. She had found it in the troll nest and recognised the symbol on the label, a troll skull with three daggers, an axe and a meat cleaver stuck into it, and red smoke pouring out of the eye holes. That could only mean troll brandy, a liquid which had melted more than a few human stomach linings in its time. It was a rarity this far south, and worth a small fortune. “Drink it,” she commanded.
“As my lady requests,” replied Aragon Silversword obediently. He took the bottle between his fingers and poured the thin trickle of liquid down his throat. He stood up and declared, “And now, my dearest, let me confess…” before his eyeballs rolled back into his head and he fell over backwards into a pile of silver toothpicks.
Kassa smiled.
There was a rummaging sound, and then Daggar emerged from behind a small mountain of cake forks. At least she assumed it was Daggar. She didn’t know anyone else who would choose to wear an ankle-length robe of silver chain mail, a pair of silver boots, half a hundred silver armbands, four silver torcs, a large silver helm studded with silver, and a shiny silver umbrella hooked over one arm just because he could.
“What do you look like?” she demanded.
“I don’t think I have ever been this happy,” said Daggar in a stunned voice. “I’m even wearing silver underwear. Silver underwear!”
“I didn’t want to know that.”
He moved past her as if in a dream, absently stepping over the prone body of Aragon Silversword. “Wealth as far as the eye could see. I could buy an island. I could buy an island. An Empire! I could buy this Empire!”
“Have you looked up the recent statistics on local Emperors and assassinations?” asked Kassa dryly.
He looked a bit more subdued. “I didn’t say I would, just that I could.” He glanced down at the floor. “You’v
e knocked him out again, I see. Does this imply a serious stage in your relationship?”
Kassa just glared.
Daggar moved slowly, like a mountain with very small feet. Very carefully, he plucked a slender silver plume from the top of a heap, and added it to his ensemble. Then, realising the abundance of buttonholes available with chain mail, he started adding plume after plume until he resembled a mechanical vulture. “I have a headache,” he announced.
Kassa looked up at him, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “If you were anyone else, I would think that you had been cursed by the silver as well. Take off the helm.”
Daggar started to protest, but Kassa raised an eyebrow at him and he grudgingly removed the helm. Coin after coin after coin spilled out, trickling into a large pile at his feet. He looked guilty.
Kassa just shook her head slowly, from side to side.
“I’ve always wondered how much silver a man could carry,” he explained sheepishly. “And I always figured it would be twice as much for me.”
This was the tavern where the Blackguards went. In old times, it had been a grim place with oppressive wallpaper and cheap beer that tasted of grit. The guards went there to sit and drink and commiserate with each other about what a rotten job it was, or to argue whether standing duty in the rain was actually better than protecting the body of the Emperor, who was mad as a tailor.
But not any more. There was only one real Blackguard left, and he tried to distance himself from the false ones as much as possible. The Sulky Pit had adapted to its new clientele, becoming Drinkies, an elegant wine bar which sold champagne cocktails, flat foreign beers, fizzy foreign water and small bits of protein on biscuits.
The Blackguards were relaxing.
“Did you see how I apprehended that cheese-thief?” said Nigellius. “I completely forgot my lines!”
“But it’s dead easy, Nige,” said Tarquin Suburbus. “They’ll accept any old rubbish.”
“I know, I know,” said Nigellius, choking with laughter on a fishy biscuit. “But I couldn’t think of anything, I swear! Even the old, ‘Roight, mate, you’re nicked’ didn’t even enter my head! Complete blank. In the end, I just thumped him around the head and dragged him off to the dungeon.”
Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles) Page 14
