Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles)

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  “Almost there,” muttered the Brewmistress, her grandmotherly face creasing up into a raisin-like smile.

  Mistress Opia was the matriarch of the Brewer’s Pavilion, an unsightly structure which sat in the middle of the city of Dreadnought, monarch of the merchant’s sector.

  The Brewers of Dreadnought were legendary. They did not brew beer. Such a mundane task was beyond them; in any case, their predecessors had long ago perfected the ultimate beer recipe, selling the secret exclusively to various individuals for a wide variety of prices.

  They all had their pet projects these days. Elder Grackling, who had been old and doddering since the age of seventeen, divided his time between trying to remember his long-lost warlock skills, and researching the theories behind portable rainclouds. Hobbs the gnome, whose highest ambition was to enter the Profithood, daily embarked on new schemes to make his fortune by means of various suspicious substances. The Soothsayer spent most working hours gazing into unsightly and unhealthy dimensions; that is, when she wasn’t prophesying doom or making the tea. Even the adolescent apprentice, hired solely to do the sweeping and fetching, was secretly trying to animate a girlfriend he had built himself out of various spare odds and ends.

  Mistress Opia herself, who had long ago discovered the secret of turning almost anything into gold, was now involved in the greatest brewing experiment of them all: turning gold into time.

  “Liquid gold,” she murmured to herself, gazing at the golden, globulous mass. “My, my.”

  It was almost ready for consumption—almost, but not quite. And then hers would be the greatest scientific reputation in history. She would be remembered as the Brewmistress who extracted and manipulated time. It was good. More than that—it was glorious.

  She popped the liquid gold away, and went to lunch.

  In Dreadnought, profit-scoundrels ruled the streets. By far the nastiest of these was Thumbs Skimmer. He was short, ugly, tough as nails and had personality problems which could maim at thirty paces. For some reason, he had the idea that he was the suave kind of gentleman crook who looked good in velvet doublets. At this exact moment, he caught up with the woman he had been trailing for several blocks, and slammed a meaty hand down on her arm, not able to quite reach her shoulder. “Oi,” he snarled with the charm of a week-dead corpse. “What do you think you are doing, my fine lady-o?”

  The woman turned. Thumbs couldn’t help shuddering. There was something…something sinister about her. She wore a purple priestess robe which covered her almost entirely, but she didn’t look like any priestess he had ever encountered. She should have been attractive enough, with that long tawny hair and those jade green eyes. But she wasn’t pretty. A thin scar ran down her cheekbone, and she wore a chilling expression on her otherwise perfect face. “What did you say?” she rasped. The accent was strange, almost unrecognisable.

  Thumbs puffed himself up, clenching his little fists around reassuring handfuls of his grubby velvet doublet. “Now look here,” he accused sternly. “You’re no scoundrel!”

  “I am so pleased you think so,” said the green-eyed woman.

  “I mean you’re no professional scoundrel!” insisted Thumbs, losing his temper and forgetting to be either apprehensive or urbanely sophisticated. “You got no right to thieve around here!”

  “Thieve?” she repeated, barely concealing her distaste. “What are you talking about?”

  “You stole that sword from Smith the smith’s smithy in Smithy Street just now!” yelled Thumbs, shaking a fist. “I saw you. And you’re not a local profit-scoundrel! Leonardes is gonna want to have words with you!”

  “This sword?” said the woman, regarding the steel weapon in her right hand and professing surprise. “I stole this sword?” In a flash of movement she had sliced the blade through the air with a nasty snicking sound and shoved Thumbs up against a handy brick wall. Her purple sleeves billowed in a sudden breeze along the alley. “Listen to me, you little man. I do not care about your human rules and regulations. I am in this city for one reason only, and then I will be gone.”

  Thumbs was terrified. “Who—who are you?” he managed to croak.

  The woman tilted her head, ruffling her tawny blonde hair with a free hand. “You ask dangerous questions,” she said. “Are you so tired of living?” Her eyes gleamed greenly in the shadows of the alley, and she lowered her sword. “My name is Sparrow.”

  As she released him and stalked off in the direction of the Brewer’s Pavilion, Thumbs felt his knees dissolve under him with relief. She hadn’t killed him. That was a good sign. “Hang on a minute,” he said aloud. “What did she mean, human rules and regulations?”

  Mistress Opia was pouring a steaming cup of lemonade for the Soothsayer. “Don’t you see? Gold is the most malleable substance in the cosmos—why shouldn’t it be used to control time?”

  “Humph,” said the Soothsayer, a garishly old woman wrapped in white rags and daubed with arcane symbols. “Beware the Eyes of Marshmallows,” she added, stirring her hot lemonade with a biscuit.

  Mistress Opia’s lips thinned slightly. Biscuits were for eating, not for dunking in drinks. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean,” said the Soothsayer with surprising clarity, “Don’t meddle in what you don’t understand.”

  “But I do understand it,” insisted Mistress Opia, putting the teapot down with some force. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last half hour. I will be able to control time. Do you have any idea how valuable that will be? This goes beyond alchemical brewing. There is nothing I could not do!”

  “Liquid gold,” muttered the Soothsayer disparagingly. “Can’t see any future in it. Now, black, black goes with everything…”

  Getting into the Brewer’s Pavilion was not the difficult part. Sparrow just walked through the canvas door and asked to see someone in charge. At first she got an adolescent apprentice who smiled in a hopeful sort of way and tried to look down her breastplate. “Not you,” she said harshly. “Someone more senior.”

  Someone ‘more senior’ turned out to be Elder Grackling, who peered at her through crooked spectacles and talked about the weather for a shaky few minutes.

  “Not you,” snapped Sparrow. “Someone who is not completely useless.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the ragged soothsayer in the corner start to haul her way out of a battered old rocking chair, but Mistress Opia came out of the darkroom just in time to avert that particular catastrophe.

  Mistress Opia looked competent in a sturdy, matronly way. She was small, round and had a faintly distracted smile as if she had sniffed the chemicals once too often. She wore a starched white laboratory coat with flowers embroidered on the pockets, but nevertheless appeared what she was doing. “Can I help you?”

  Sparrow pulled out a leather pouch, dropping it on the counter. “This is troll thunderdust,” she announced.

  The Brewmistress took a cautious step backwards. “We’ve never needed a regular supplier for this particular substance,” she said casually. “There isn’t much call for it around here, you know.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hobbs the gnome rubbing his hands together as he considered the possibilities of the retail value of thunderdust.

  “You surprise me,” said Sparrow. “Perhaps you would be more interested in a supplier of copha-dust, yes?” She pulled a second pouch out and tossed it on the counter.

  Mistress Opia’s eyes widened. “Now, that we can use!” Copha-dust was one of those valuable substances that had been inadvertently discovered by trolls banging rocks together. “We’ll take as much as you can supply,” she added, trying not to sound too eager. Copha-dust was as rare as hen’s teeth—rarer, in fact, since the latest crop of Skullcap mutations had affected the local poultry farms in a very disturbing manner.

  “Good,” said Sparrow. “I also hear that you have an interest in the study of Time. Is that so?”

  Mistress Opia was taken aback. Her eyes betrayed her, sliding automa
tically to the secret substances cupboard before she wrenched them back to focus on her customer. “Possibly…”

  Unsmiling, Sparrow produced a third leather pouch. She pulled out a small gelatin capsule which contained a sinister orange-green powder. “When released into the air, this powder gives the impression of stopping time. It freezes people within a limited area for up to an hour. Unless you take the antidote beforehand,” she added as an afterthought.

  Mistress Opia relaxed. It was a simple conjuring trick, nothing to threaten her own delicate research. “I don’t think we’re interested,” she said politely. “But as for the copha-dust…” She broke off in mid-sentence.

  Sparrow checked the capsule she had just cracked between her teeth. The orange powder had already dissipated into the immediate atmosphere. Mistress Opia, the old man, the gnome, the apprentice and the Soothsayer were all frozen rigid. Sparrow nodded in satisfaction.

  She moved swiftly now, heading towards the cupboard to which Mistress Opia had indicated with her eyes. A few swift flicks opened the sophisticated lock.

  The vial was warm to the touch. Sparrow took it down carefully, examining it from every angle. The golden liquid bubbled globulously. “Liquid gold,” rasped Sparrow approvingly, in her native tongue. “How appropriate.”

  She wrapped the vial in leather, concealing it on her person. Then she turned to make her exit.

  A uniformed Blackguard who had popped in to fetch some things for his mother barred her escape route. He stared at the frozen figures of Mistress Opia and her associates with a vague sort of horror. “I’m pretty sure this is a crime, you know,” he accused.

  Sparrow darted in his direction, bypassed his standard-issue cutlass and grabbed him by the tunic collar. Her kiss took him entirely by surprise. His eyes glazed over and closed. She released her hold on his tunic and was out into the street and away before the Blackguard’s unconscious body even hit the ground.

  In a nearby alley, she crooked her finger at a little bobbing bird and called it to her. It hopped on to her finger, extra friendly because of the copha-dust. For some reason, sparrows had a thing for chocolate. Sparrow scribbled a quick message on a scrap of parchment and tied it securely to the bird’s leg. Under normal circumstances, using an ordinary bird to send a message across the breadth of the Empire would be a foolish endeavour, but Sparrow had come prepared. She slipped a tiny pellet out of her sleeve and stuck it firmly on to the bird’s foot, where it began to glow.

  The sparrow suddenly found itself compelled to fly north, and followed its inclinations. The homing pellets were another of those inadvertent troll-discoveries. It was amazing what came out when two rocks were smashed together in the Troll Triangle, and Sparrow had an unlimited supply of such products. Her sleep-inducing lipstick was another favourite.

  And now there was no putting it off any longer. She unwrapped the vial, staring at the writhing, metallic contents. She closed her eyes, remembering her instructions, and poured a tiny measure of the liquid into her own mouth, swallowing quickly. It worked by willpower, and she had plenty of that. “Back,” she whispered fiercely, willing the potion to work as she had been told it would. “Back, a week ago.”

  Her body was on fire for a split second, fast and slow. Suddenly the landscape was different, hardly at all, but in the right places. She expelled a breath, leaning tiredly against the alley wall. So, this was a week ago. After stretching her tired muscles, which felt as if she had been running for that week, she produced another scrap of parchment and wrote the other note. The one which her employer had dictated to her from the one he had himself already received, telling him of the liquid gold’s existence. Time travel was already making her head hurt. She signed her professional name, Sparrow, with a flourish, and licked some more copha-dust on to her finger to coax another of her namesakes into carrying the message.

  Sparrow watched the little bird fly, then tucked herself back into the folds of her priestess robe. Time to travel north herself. She had to make for that temple where, in a week’s time, her armour would be waiting for her. The Brewers would have a fine time following a trail which had been laid before they were robbed.

  The Sultan would be grateful. The Sultan had better be grateful.

  The new Captain of the Dreadnought Blackguards, a bluff red-faced man with a handlebar moustache, strode efficiently through the Brewer’s Pavilion. He paused by the side of the Blackguard who had been the first on the scene. “Ah,” he said. “Young Hickory, isn’t it?”

  “McHagrty, sir,” corrected the officer, standing to attention. His eyes were still slightly dazed, but he didn’t appear to have sustained any permanent injuries.

  “That’s right,” said the Captain. “Timmy McHagrty. Remember you well.”

  “That was my father, sir,” said young McHagrty, saluting.

  “Oh,” said the Captain. “Let me see. Angus?”

  “My brother, sir,” said young McHagrty.

  The Captain frowned, counting off on his finger. “Let me see. Tam McHagrty, Haymish McHagrty, Owen McHagrty, Roddy McHagrty, Sean McHagrty, Prissilla McHagrty…”

  “Brothers, sir.”

  “What, all of them?”

  “Yes, sir. Except for Prissilla, sir. She’s my sister, sir.”

  The Captain gave him a long, slow look. “Finnley?” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Yes, sir,” said Finnley McHagrty with a small smile of encouragement.

  “Right,” said the Captain, with a firm nod. “Knew I’d get it in the end. Now, then, let’s see about this crime.” He turned to the staff of the Brewer’s Pavilion, all looking rather uncomfortable after their enforced paralysis. “Right. Can any of you describe what was stolen?”

  Mistress Opia stepped forward, patting her tidy hair. “The thief stole a small vial containing of a yellow liquid which has the power to alter civilisation as we know it. I wouldn’t worry yourself too much about getting involved. No one crosses a Brewer and gets away with it for long.” She smiled her most grandmotherly smile.

  “Glad to hear it, madam,” said the Captain amiably. “Taking the law into your own hands, eh? Very sensible attitude. Saves time all round. Just to be on the safe side, take young Officer McHagrty with you.” He glanced at the young Blackguard. “All right with you, boy?”

  Officer Finnley McHagrty thought quickly. What if it wasn’t all right? Could he get away with saying his grandmother was ill, or he had a dentist’s appointment? “Glad to be of help, sir,” his mouth said automatically. Bugger. It was spaghetti night at his Ma’s tonight and he’d be in dead trouble for skipping it.

  When the Captain had marched off in the direction of the nearest tavern, Mistress Opia looked the young Blackguard up and down. “You look like a good, strong lad who can carry things. Think you’re up to aiding and abetting a spot of good old fashioned vigilante action, boy?”

  “As long as someone else does the paperwork,” said Officer McHagrty, saluting smartly.

  2: Death by Trinket

  There was no warning, no dire portent of doom. Kassa Daggersharp did not wake up thinking, “Ah me, my last day of mortal life.” As a matter of fact, she woke up with a sheep in her bed, but that was hardly her fault.

  It was early. The sunrise had been fairly lacklustre and the morning light was dull, so Kassa was still asleep. Her wild blood-coloured hair spread out on the battered pillow, and her face was half covered by a patchwork bedspread.

  Her wide golden eyes flew open. She stared blankly at the ceiling of her cabin. Something was wrong. The ship was moving. She could tell by the way the light from her porthole was making patterns of motion against her wall. The ship shouldn’t be moving at all, not first thing in the morning. Not until she, its captain, was awake and fully dressed and in charge of the situation. Someone was undermining her authority…

  Something licked her face.

  There was a sheep in her bed.

  Kassa screamed in outrage, pushing the woolly creature awa
y from her. It baaed pitifully and regarded her with a soulful expression. She hit it between the eyes with her pillow.

  Tippett was the first to respond to her scream. Ink-stained and breathless, the little jester-poet burst through her cabin door with his quill at the ready. He was her biographer, and didn’t want to miss anything. “What is it?” he squeaked.

  Daggar was next, a seedy profit-scoundrel with an unshaven face and wild eyes. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?” he babbled, already strapping on the life-belt he kept at the ready for occasions such as this. “Do we abandon ship?”

  Aragon Silversword appeared at the door to Kassa’s cabin, an almost-smile hovering over his mouth as he surveyed the scene with his clear grey eyes. “Something wrong, princess?”

  Kassa was livid. “What did I say, Daggar? I said no pets!”

  “Sorry,” said Daggar shamefully. “I told him to stay in the cargo hold, but I think he likes you.”

  Kassa picked the sheep up bodily and flung it at Daggar. “Why is it on the ship at all?”

  “This sheep,” said Daggar with something approaching great dignity, “has followed us loyally for four months across mountain ranges, great gullies and a lake!”

  “We left it behind at Axgaard!” Kassa snapped. “Don’t tell me it caught up again!”

  “Well,” sniffed Daggar. “I think some people should be grateful instead of shouting all the time.”

  “Not every gang of pirates has a homing sheep for a mascot,” commented Aragon Silversword.

  “You stay out of this,” Kassa flung at him. “And you!” she added to Daggar. “I want that sheep off the ship at the next port. Furthermore, you have all now seen me in my lilac nightgown, which means I am going to have to kill you. Unless you get out of my cabin in three seconds. Two… One.”

  The door swung closed behind them. Kassa was alone. She fell back onto her bed, scowling angrily to herself. “Mutiny,” she muttered. “Bloody mutiny, that’s what it is. They’re all getting a bit too sure of themselves.”