Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles)

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  The little man flinched at her words. I’m your, I’m your, I’m…” He got control of himself and took a big breath, puffing himself up importantly. “I’m your biographer,” he said finally, pride oozing from him.

  Daggar dissolved into a fit of laughter. Kassa stared at the trespasser with a flinty gaze. “Throw him overboard,” she said crisply.

  “Aye, captain,” said Aragon absently, not moving from where he stood.

  The little bespectacled man resembled a small furry animal caught in the headlights of a horseless carriage. “Don’t do that, miladyship, I’m a jester, you see,” he gabbled wildly, making noisy gestures with his hands as he spoke. “A jester. But ever since I was small, even smaller than I am now, I wanted to be an epic minstrel. I write poetry, you see. But you need heroes for that, and all the great living legends already have their own epic minstrels to sing of their mighty, yea, and terrible deeds.” He took a deep breath.

  “My father never had an epic minstrel,” said Kassa thoughtfully.

  “With respect, miladyship,” said the little jester-poet. “Vicious Bigbeard Daggersharp had a bit of a reputation for eating epic minstrels, without salt even!”

  “Rubbish,” rebuked Kassa. “My father never ate anything unsalted.” She frowned. “So what’s your story?”

  “My name’s Tippett,” said the little jester-poet belatedly. “Tippett. I worked for the Lordling of Skullcap, you see, because he was hunting pirates and I thought that would make a good epic. We’ve been following you for weeks!” he added brightly. “But Lord Rorey wasn’t very heroic, and you all just sounded so interesting, that I decided to find you instead.” He smiled, hopefully.

  “So, little poet,” said Kassa, her voice taking on a whole new dimension of dangerous tones. “You want to write my ballad. Just the one ballad, I presume.”

  “Actually, I was hoping for a trilogy,” squeaked Tippett.

  “Yes,” said Kassa definitely. “Just the one ballad. Very well, you can stay with us and write my biography in verse, although I cannot guarantee heroics from any of us. There is one condition to this benevolence on my part.”

  Tippett swallowed, expecting something dire. “Mi-miladyship?”

  She swung around, stabbing a finger in the direction of Aragon Silversword, who was deliberately not paying attention. “On no account, under any circumstances whatsoever, will you ever quote him!”

  “So,” said Griffin the PR urchin, making himself comfortable. “You trust Aragon Silversword implicitly, do you?”

  “What of it?” said Talle angrily. Her once-perfect fingernails were now quite bitten and ragged, and she was rummaging through one of the old harem jewellery caskets in the hope of finding some fake nails to disguise her shame from the world.

  “Mind if I ask why?”

  Talle dumped the casket upside down, sending various strands of paste jewellery skidding crazily cross the floor. “Why what?” she demanded, scooping up a small bag and fidgeting with the knotted cord that held it closed.

  “Why, when you are so canny about all the necessary details to keep your seat of power, do you insist on trusting someone who would as soon stab you in the back as look at you?”

  The bag came undone, scattering pearly false fingernails over Talle’s silken lap. She pawed through them greedily, picking out those of the right size. “Aragon Silversword will not let me down!”

  “Sloppy thinking, your Ladyship,” said Griffin chidingly. “You have to account for every possibility in this game, and I think it’s time you started planning for the eventuality that he will let you down.”

  Lady Talle’s eyes glittered venomously. “I want that silver, Griffin. I don’t just need it to secure my position, I want it. I covet it as I have coveted nothing else before…except the Empire itself.”

  “Why do you want it so much?” Griffin countered. “So Aragon Silversword can prove his worth to you? So you can rub Kassa Daggersharp’s face in your gain? Or just because you have a fascination for shiny things?”

  “All of the above,” snarled the Lady Emperor. “What are you, a therapist?”

  “Only on weekends,” said the versatile urchin.

  The silver box lay smashed open on the cave floor. Inside the box, sinister things were beginning to happen. The occasional silvery tinkle or bright sparkle of light emanated from its murky depths.

  The first goblin to find it started the panic. Before long, all of them knew about the terrible thing that had happened. With a burning desire to make themselves scarce, they all began to pack their little goblin possessions into little goblin suitcases with little goblin monogrammed initials on the top. Escape was foremost on their little goblin minds.

  The evacuations had begun.

  17

  Glimmer

  The ghost-ship no longer glowed. It had completely faded into the background. Kassa and her crew were camping in the shadow of the Skullcaps, on a hill which would hopefully be free from portable caves. Below them they had a good view of the sea and the beach and the invisible camp of the Hidden Army.

  Aragon took the first watch but Daggar, still hanging on to his barrow of silver, chose to stay awake rather than trust Aragon to guard his precious cargo. He stayed awake through Tippett’s watch as well, and was only just beginning to yawn when Kassa awoke, a few hours past midnight.

  Daggar had been feeling uneasy about Kassa since the silver caves. She was behaving very strangely all of a sudden, even for a daughter of Vicious Bigbeard Daggersharp. Perhaps that was it—Daggar had never in his life seen any similarity between Bigbeard and his daughter, who had always been the white sheep of the family. Until now.

  “Kassa?” he said carefully.

  “Hmm?”

  “Why am I here?”

  She regarded him with her single cold, unblinking golden eye. “Don’t you think it’s a little late at night to be asking philosophical questions?”

  He growled to himself approvingly. This was more like the old Kassa. “Yer know what I mean. Why’d you get me involved in this at all? Running around playing pirates isn’t my thing, and it’s not like I’m useful to you.”

  Kassa laughed, not a familiar laugh but something much more sinister than was strictly necessary. “I know that, Daggar. Cute but useless. You always have been. But Bigbeard seemed to want you to help.”

  “I knew he never liked me,” Daggar grumbled. There was a long silence, and he wondered why he was being so hesitant. Why should he be scared of her? This was his cousin, his baby cousin. When they had been children, he had pulled her hair and hidden her favourite knives. “Kassa,” he said finally. “With all due respect, while yer always been selfish…” he paused.

  “This is true,” she agreed reasonably.

  Emboldened by this result, he continued. “Scheming, manipulative, stubborn…”

  “What’s your point?”

  He took a deep breath. “Well, you never been completely ruthless before. And now, ever since you put on that eyepatch, you been actin’ different. What you did to Silversword…” He shook his head. “Yeah, he deserved it, but it wasn’t like you at all. Yer beginnin’ to resemble the scary side of the family.”

  Kassa looked at him sharply, but she was thinking about what he had said, turning the words over in her mind. “Ruthless,” she said, very quietly, musing on something. She stood up abruptly, ripping off the black leather eyepatch. “I will not be manipulated!” she screamed to the full moon.

  Aragon Silversword turned in his sleep, muttering something which did not sound particularly respectful. Kassa snapped something equally impolite in his direction and then stared back at the eyepatch, turning it over in her hands. “I’ve been provided with the crew, the ship, the eyepatch and the attitude to become a good little Pirate Queen. That seems rather convenient, don’t you think?”

  Daggar didn’t say anything. Content that Kassa was now halfway sane and that he could trust her slightly more than the rest of her so-called crew, he had
finally fallen asleep, one hand still protectively gripping the handle of his silver-laden wheelbarrow.

  Kassa stayed awake, watching the stars and muttering to herself. This little scenario had been stage-managed by her father from the start. Since when had she wanted to be a pirate, anyway? She had outgrown all that years ago. The ‘Dread Redhead’ was not someone she wanted to be any more than she had wanted to be a witch. “I just wanted to sing and dance,” she said aloud.

  And then there was Aragon. She had no idea why she kept trying to bind him to her, giving him chance after chance to betray her and spit in her eye. She had always liked perverse challenges, but this was getting ridiculous.

  The stars seemed to be moving. One fell, trailing a silver ribbon behind it as it streamed across the sky. Kassa realised to her surprise that it was getting larger, closer. It was coming straight towards her. But before she could jump to her feet and sound the alarm, she realised that it was not a star at all.

  It was Summer Songstrel the guardian sprite, perched companionably on what might have been a piece of stellar matter, but resembled a bright silver rocking chair. “Here we are again!” she announced in a bright, cheery voice.

  Kassa felt tired. This sprite was going to be part of the tug-of-war to decide her future, and she wanted none of it. “What do you want now?”

  “Well, humph!” said the sprite good-naturedly. “What’s got up your nose? If you’re interested, Dame Kind sent me down here. She’s the fairy sprite-mother, you know. Apparently she had a hunch that something nasty was about to happen, so I’m on standby. I don’t know why, but we don’t argue with the Dame.” She stared closely at Kassa. “You look pale. Are you eating properly?”

  “Probably not,” said Kassa, but the sprite wasn’t listening.

  “Hmm,” she said thoughtfully, peering at Daggar, and then at Aragon and Tippett, who were asleep on the ground. None of them had trusted the ghost-ship to stay solid while they slept. “All these lovely young men you have. Can I snuggle up with one?”

  “Take your pick,” said Kassa, not really caring.

  Summer Songstrel made herself comfortable. “I don’t suppose you want to have a long girly chat about your future, your love-life and the horrors of parental expectations, do you?”

  “Not really,” said Kassa.

  “Fair enough. G’night.”

  In the early hours of the strange light before sunrise, Aragon awoke. A small blonde cuddly creature had tucked herself into the crook of his arm and was sleeping soundly with her head on his chest. She looked vaguely familar.

  He became aware of Kassa looking at him from where she was standing over the campfire, burning breakfast. “I should have known you would never really love me,” she said mockingly. “After all, why would you have any interest in a mortal woman when the alternative is so much more interesting.”

  The blonde bundle awoke and smiled sleepily at Aragon. He didn’t smile back. “Excuse me madam,” he said crisply. “Have we been introduced?”

  “I’m Summer,” she said with a cute yawn that entirely swallowed her dimpled face.

  “Well, this is winter,” he replied frostily. “Please remove yourself.”

  “Snooty,” she noted delightedly. “I like it.”

  “Stop torturing the man, Summer,” said Kassa from beside the fire. “I don’t suppose you can cook?”

  “I’m a sprite,” sniffed Summer Songstrel. “I can do anything in the whole wide everything. I choose not to cook.”

  That sounded vaguely familiar, but Kassa chose not to acknowledge it. She stirred the bacon half-heartedly, charring it evenly all over.

  When the others awoke, they all spurned the cremated bacon in favour of Tippett’s food supplies, which consisted of bread, fruit and dried sausages in apparently amusing shapes.

  “Where do we go from here?” asked Daggar gloomily, biting down on a tough piece of jerky shaped like a giant cockroach in a top hat.

  The jester-poet whipped a spare scroll out hopefully, his pencil at the ready and his eyes fixed on Kassa for her response. Kassa was sitting on a rock and eating his last apple. “I don’t know,” she said, not sounding as if she was very interested in the subject.

  “Well, you’re all a bunch of gloomy gobstoppers, aren’t you?” said Summer brightly.

  Everyone wished she would go away.

  Daggar yelped suddenly. “What are you doing?” he said wildly, as Aragon rummaged through the barrow of silver.

  “Relax,” said Aragon sharply. “I’m not stealing anything—yet. I thought I saw a silver spy-glass in here before.”

  “Feeling your age, Silversword?” asked Kassa sweetly. “The eyesight is usually the first to go…”

  “What do yer mean, yet?” said Daggar suspiciously.

  Aragon ignored them both. “Something appears to be happening down on the beach. It’s too far away to see properly.”

  Everyone else immediately turned and peered down at the beach below them. Something was going on. Large brown stains were spreading outwards. It was as if rivers of mud were bursting free and flooding the sand.

  “Goblins,” said Kassa suddenly. “It’s the goblins. Thousands of them, evacuating the underground caves. I don’t know where they think they’re going…”

  “From,” insisted Daggar, already beginning to gather his things together. “The important thing to ask is what are they running from? Because if they know something we don’t, we should start running too. Just in case.” He hauled himself and his barrow up into the ghost-ship. “Well? Let’s go!”

  The rest of the crew, not as well acquainted with the art of running away as Daggar, did not move an inch. Their eyes remained fixed upon the scene below. The light was changing, and the ocean was sparkling in the early greyness of the near-morning. A moment later, they realised why it was sparkling.

  The dawn was coming, and something else too. Golden rosy light was spreading across the sky and the calm sea as the sun edged above the horizon. The caves beneath the beach exploded. Tiny bursts of light—silver and pink and blue and gold—shot out in spurts of magical energy. The magic streamed out with random precision, at least five minutes ahead of the sunrise.

  “Glints,” said Kassa Daggersharp in a voice of foreboding. Everyone shuddered, aware of what that meant. “Not again,” Kassa whispered. “Oh no, not again.”

  The speed of morning was faster than the fragments of magic which had not seen the light of day in over a decade. The sunrise collided into the explosions of light and intensified into a column of magic which spiralled outwards in random patterns.

  Magic burst around them all, screeching and glittering and glimmering for all it was worth. The goblins were nowhere to be seen—they were obviously good at hiding. But other creatures, helpless creatures were caught up in the magic explosion. Beetles and birds and stray sheep were part of the whirlwind now and as they were tangled into the twists of wild magic, they changed into strange things, horrible things, incomprehensible things.

  “Did we do that?” said Kassa hoarsely.

  “Just walk away,” Aragon told her calmly. “No one can prove anything.”

  They did not panic, for the simple reason that the scene below them was entrancingly hypnotic. All they could do was watch. Tippett was scribbling notes frantically, his eyes glued to the colourful chaos below.

  Summer Songstrel stood on the deck of the ghost-ship, her blonde hair tousled and a tight frown on her cherubic face. “It was the sprites who cleaned up the remnants of the Glimmer,” she said darkly. “We couldn’t save the Skullcaps, but we stopped the plague of magic spreading further than it had to. We caught all the glints and they were put in a safe place.”

  “A pirate’s treasure trove,” said Kassa quietly. “Safe as houses.”

  The light was blindingly silver, too bright to look at directly. It spread out behind them, over the Skullcaps. “It’s bigger than last time,” said Summer Songstrel ominously.

  “I wish you h
adn’t said that,” said Daggar. “Kassa!” he added urgently.

  Kassa glanced at him. “Are you sure you want to be in the ghost-ship right now, Daggar? This is another Glimmer—it chews up magic and spits it out in another shape.”

  “I know,” he growled. “I remember the last one. What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know about you lot,” said Summer Songstrel, “but I have a job to do.” She produced a shiny silver mop and bucket out of nowhere, and flew off in the direction of the cataclysm.

  The royal Anglorachnid carriage had spent the previous day trundling through the northern grunge of Upper Mocklore. This was a part of the Empire which most Mocklorns would not go anywhere near, it being regarded suspiciously as ‘Foreign Parts’. The rickety road skirted around Axgaard, a city where the hairiest and loudest of warriors resided, spending most of their time head-butting each other and building ships with wheels. The day that they perfected these skills would be a bad day for Mocklore.

  The hundred Spider-Knights still trailed behind the carriage, muttering about the grisly weather. It was snowing again and everything was covered with a layer of greyish sludge.

  The royal party stopped for the night in a strange little tavern beyond Axgaard. The innkeeper had been warned (and paid) in advance, and came forward to welcome them with a red carpet, which he wore as a cloak. He bowed so low that his nose nearly touched the soggy ground. “Greetings to you, most noble of guests!” he fawned, providing hot wine and cold fingerbowls for the King and Queen of Anglorachnis, who spent most of their visit looking faintly startled.

  Morning came, and with it a spectacular dawn. It was not just pink and gold, but purple, green, red, indigo and silver as well. Sparks bounced off the colours of the sky. Reed Cooper watched it from the tavern window. He had seen sunrises before—no pirate could really avoid them—but this was something very different. Hours later, after the King and Queen had breakfasted and made various vague compliments to their host, the sky was still multi-coloured, and the sun was nowhere in sight.