Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles)

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  “So someone is going to combat something called a Minestaurus,” said Aragon tiredly. “The chances that it might be me are…?”

  “Unlikely,” she admitted grudgingly.

  Aragon raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Have you been telling everyone that they’re going to combat the Minestaurus, just in case you get the right one?”

  The soothsayer brightened. “How did you know?”

  “Oh, go away,” he said darkly. He wouldn’t have let himself get into a stupid conversation like this a year ago. A year ago, he would have let the whole thing drop. Admit it, his subconscious said smugly. She said she would change you, and fifteen moons in her company has done just that. You miss having her around!

  The minor soothsayer stuck out her tongue and ran away. Aragon continued onwards, stopping only when he saw the embossed doorway proclaiming that this was the dwelling of the Sacred Swami of Zibria. All questions answered daily, even the really hard ones about mathematics and philosophy.

  You want her death to have meant something, Aragon’s subconscious continued relentlessly. You want to understand why you had to lose her, what made it possible for her to die before fulfilling any kind of destiny…

  “Enough!” Aragon said aloud. “I will go inside, ask my question, get my answer and get on with my life.”

  Ri-ight, said his subconscious, but not very loudly.

  The Swami was taken by surprise. “I beg your pardon?” he said, peering over his bifocals. “Could you repeat that, young sir?”

  Aragon took a deep breath. He should have been suspicious as soon as he found out that the legendary Swami of Zibria lived in a terrace house in the Mystic District rather than in a goat hut on an isolated mountainside somewhere. This was not at all what he had expected. The room was wrong, for a start. There should be more occult paraphernalia lying around, fewer comfy chairs and portraits of kittens. The Swami should not be wearing carpet slippers. That should be a goblet of eagle’s blood or a bottle of dragon tears, not a blatant mug of cocoa congealing on the desk. Was that a plate of chocolate digestives over by the sideboard? Aragon had a nasty feeling that it was. “I wish to know the meaning of death,” he said again.

  The Swami, who despite the carpet slippers was decked out in swathes of brightly coloured silks and a beaded turban, looked uncomfortable. “Well,” he said hesitantly. “Death is death, isn’t it? What exactly do you want to know? My son,” he added for effect, rather belatedly.

  “I want to know what happens when someone dies,” Aragon said patiently.

  “Oh, said the Swami, relieved. “Is that all? I can do that one.” He leaned back in his easy chair and put his feet up on a little embroidered footstool. “All righty, there are two schools of thought on how to solve this question of yours. In the profession, we call them the Easy Way and the Hard Way. You see, the Easy Way to find out what happens after death is to throw yourself off a cliff.”

  “Indeed,” said Aragon stiffly.

  “That’s right,” said the Swami cheerfully. “And the Hard Way is to spend twenty years travelling to distant climes, seeking out the wisest and most ancient of mortals and allowing them to share their time-honoured wisdoms with you. I can give you a list, if you like. And after twenty years of soul-searching and philosophy, then you throw yourself off a cliff.”

  Aragon stalked out, slamming the study door behind him.

  The Swami’s plaintive voice followed him. “I don’t suppose you want to know the meaning of life? I can do you that one, no extra charge!”

  Aragon walked away from the Mystic District, angry and confused. Only when he saw a priestess in a purple robe hurrying in his direction did he remember his earlier plan to get to the bottom of why Kassa had died. He could not remember if Lady Luck’s colours included purple, but he hailed the priestess anyway. “Do you belong to Lady Luck?”

  She halted in front of him, her jade green eyes surprisingly hard. “I’ll belong to any god you want me to,” she said in a cool, calculating voice.

  It turned out that there was a Temple of Luck in the city, and the priestess gave Aragon a series of detailed instructions for finding it before hurrying off towards the Mystic District on business of her own.

  Aragon had a suspicion that she was wearing armour under her holy robes. Dismissing the thought (and the obvious clanking sound) from his mind, he walked off in the direction of Lady Luck’s Zibrian sanctum. Had he remained in that area much longer, Aragon would have noticed his old shipmate Daggar, who was busily tracking the purple-clad priestess and trying not to be spotted.

  It was considered polite for deities to keep a fairly low profile in the cities they were not patron of, so the Temple of Lady Luck was actually a lean-to built on to the back of the same gaming house that Aragon Silversword had visited previously.

  He purchased a bag of assorted praying accessories and gained entrance to the shabby little building. Inside, the temple was rather more spectacular. Gold tapestries and bunting hung from the walls and a hundred mirrors busily illuminated the central statue, a portrayal of Lady Luck in all her glory, sculpted in bronze and crowned with a garland of silver peacock feathers.

  Aragon lit his stick of incense and wafted it haphazardly around. He opened a small bottle of sacred oil and poured a libation at the feet of the statue. “Now you listen to me,” he said in a voice of icy calm. “I am going to find you, goddess, and when I do, you had better have some answers for me.” He shook a handful of dried rose petals over the statue of the goddess and tossed the empty accessory bag aside. “She wasn’t supposed to die, was she. Was she?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he turned to stalk out of the temple, but the sound of laughter gave him pause. As he turned, slowly towards the altar, he saw a cloud of beige smoke coalesce into the goddess herself. Lady Luck posed dramatically for him. “So masterful! Such passion throbbing within the veins of such a cold fish.”

  Aragon regarded her with icy calm. “It was you, wasn’t it? When we were in the Witch’s Web, Destiny cursed Kassa to be in the hands of Lady Luck.”

  “Curse?” said Lady Luck in mock horror. “Some might say it was a blessing, to have the personal attention of such a goddess.”

  “You killed her!” he accused.

  “Silly boy. Gods aren’t allowed to kill mortals, it’s a rule. Well, actually it’s more of a subsection within the rules. Anyway, it doesn’t happen.”

  “But Kassa died.”

  Lady Luck held up her hands in a mock attempt to pacify him. “Oh, I’m not saying that the rules can’t be bent. If there happened to be a major glitch in the cosmos, an undestined death might slip through. But what does it really matter?” She shot a teasing look at him. “What do you care?”

  Aragon opened his mouth as if to say something, and then turned his back and stormed out of the temple.

  Lady Luck watching him go, admiring him openly. “Oh, this one is going to be fun.”

  There was a shimmer, and green-haired Destiny appeared in the temple. “Him as well?”

  Lady Luck chuckled. “I can play with them all if I want to. You didn’t object that time when I pumped their precious ship full of holes and sent the Daggersharp girl’s entire crew into the Cellar Sea.”

  “Well, no,” admitted Destiny plaintively. “But that was funny. This is just mean!”

  “Life is mean, unkind and cruel,” said Lady Luck. “Immortality doubly so.” A flicker of light brightened her cool eyes for a moment. “And Destiny the cruelest of them all. Watch closely, sister my dear. The game is afoot.”

  7: Take one Giggling Villain…

  Sparrow the mercenary marched through the Mystic District, her tawny-blonde hair hidden from view by the deep hood of her purple robe. The role of a priestess would suit her for a little longer, at least until she made it safely to the Palace. Not that the Palace of Zibria was such a safe place these days. The whims of the Sultan were getting more and more perverse, and every loyal servant took life and sanity into their
hands just by stepping over the royal threshold.

  Then again, she wasn’t a particularly loyal servant, so that was all right.

  Hopefully, this was the last time she would have to face him. The liquid gold would be enough to buy back her freedom.

  A diminutive soothsayer emerged from a little side street, pointing her finger unwaveringly at Sparrow. “Beware!” she shrieked in an eldritch voice, “For you shall battle the Minestaurus this day, and all for the sake of your own golden greed!”

  “Go back to school,” snapped Sparrow, not even breaking her stride.

  The soothsayer, not used to being treated quite so harshly, burst into tears.

  Sparrow kept marching at her soldier’s pace until she had climbed the steps at the end of Cauldron Row. The steps coiled high, up and around until finally leading their way to the Golden Palace. “Take me to the Sultan,” she said as she went inside. Two of the little liveried guards had to break into a trot in order to overtake her and pretend that they were leading her in the direction she was already heading.

  One had to run full tilt in order to reach the big embossed doors and announce her presence before she had crossed fully into the chamber. “Miiiistress Sparrow, secret agent and royal mercenary-type person,” he called desperately before tripping over his feet and landing in a heap on the gold tiles.

  Sparrow stepped over him and continued marching, pausing only when she was face to face with the Sultan of Zibria. She did not prostrate herself as many of his servants did, but she did unbend enough to kneel at his feet. After all, it had been a long walk. “Eminence, I have returned from afar with the prize you charged me to seek out,” she said, removing the vial from the second secret compartment behind her breastplate, and letting the leather wrapping fall away to display the contents.

  “Excellent, Sparrow,” murmured Lord Marmaduc of Zibria, tasting the words on his tongue. “You have done well.”

  “Indeed, Eminence,” replied Sparrow, raising her jade-green eyes to meet his own small black ones. “I trust this has fully paid my debt to your service.”

  “Ah, that’s right,” said the Sultan, snapping his fingers as if her had forgotten something. “You wanted to leave, didn’t you?” He shook his head. “So sad to lose such a fine agent. Where would you be today if I had not taken you in, a poor little refugee from Trollsville?”

  Her eyes set hard. “The debt is discharged. You offered me my release if I brought you the liquid gold.” She brandished the vial, and it gleamed in the lantern light.

  “Indeed I did,” agreed the Sultan with a nasty smile. “And you tasted it, of course. Otherwise you would not have returned to me in such good…time.”

  Sparrow hesitated. He was baiting her deliberately, setting her up for something. She was weary of these royal games. “As you instructed, Eminence.”

  “Indeed I did,” mused the Sultan, stroking his straggly beard. “Very well, the debt is discharged.” He waited a beat, just long enough to see the tension in her posture ease slightly. “Such a good servant you are, Sparrow, to give your life for my pleasures.”

  Sparrow stared up at him, thin-lipped. “You would order my execution as a reward for a successful mission, Eminence? Or is it just that your pride is hurt that I wish to leave your service?”

  “I don’t have to order anything, my dear,” said the Sultan with a certain degree of malicious pleasure. “You are already dead. As dead as the proverbial dormouse with a doornail through its skull. You might say.” He smiled pleasantly, and then he laughed out loud.

  Daggar hurried through the streets of the Mystic District, only screeching to a halt when he saw a minor soothsayer by the pavement in Cauldron Row, sobbing and hiccupping noisily. Forgetting his mission for a moment, Daggar pulled out a giant handkerchief and sat on the pavement beside the child. “There, there,” he said in a vaguely cheerful voice. “What’s all this, then?”

  “It’s my vocation!” the young Soothsayer wailed. “I was doing my best, and this nasty lady shouted at me!”

  “Never mind,” said Daggar, passing over his handkerchief. “Have a good cry. This lady who yelled at you, was she about my height? Purple robe, armour, pretty green eyes?”

  The minor soothsayer nodded, blew her nose and started sobbing even more loudly.

  “Well, never mind,” said Daggar cheerily. “I don’t suppose you saw which way she went, did you?”

  The child nodded twice, blew her nose again and then pointed up the street. “She followed the steps,” she sniffed loudly. “Up to the Palace.”

  “Righty-ho,” said Daggar, getting to his feet. “Keep the hanky. Hope you feel better, least said, soonest mended and all that.”

  As he hurried off in the direction of the Palace steps, the little soothsayer got to her feet, sniffed noisily and rearranged her white rags. Then she pointed a finger shakily in his direction. “Beware, scoundrel!” she cried in a voice of holy doom. “For thou shalt also combat the Minestaurus this day, yea verily, and for no reasons other than mindless lust and a misplaced sense of honour!”

  Daggar glanced behind him and gave her the thumbs up sign. “Right, fine, see you later,” he called cheerfully.

  He hadn’t heard. Either that, or he hadn’t believed a word of it. No one took you seriously when you were thirteen. The little soothsayer made a face at his departing back, and felt a bit better.

  Sparrow looked at the Sultan, incredulity, fear and anger fighting for ascendancy. This explained everything. The dizzy fits, the sallow complexion of her skin…the clumps of dandelions which grew wherever she trod; which even now were pushing their way up from under the richly embroidered carpets. All side-effects of taking the liquid gold—what was it, a drug, or a poison? She should have stolen the dustsucking instructions along with the vial.

  “I apologise, my dear,” said the Sultan of Zibria with a smarmy smile. “But it’s worked out rather well for me, all things considered.” He raised the vial and tipped it slightly, admiring the quality of the golden substance. “The value of this essence more than makes up for the loss of such a fine agent as yourself. And it leaves you free to do another little job for me.”

  Sparrow stood up straight, determined not to shake. “The last job I did for you cost me my life,” she said coldly. “I do not think there is anything you can offer to outweigh that.”

  “Oh, but you are wrong,” said Lord Marmaduc in his infuriatingly delighted voice. “It’s a little cleaning up operation, you understand. With a certain amount of deadly danger, naturally. Normally I would not waste an agent of your calibre on such an undertaking, but under the circumstances I don’t really have anything to lose, do I?”

  “What is in it for me?” asked Sparrow bluntly.

  “It’s simple enough,” said Lord Marmaduc. “If you do happen to succeed, I might see my way to giving you another precious drop of this.” He lifted the vial of liquid gold, teasing it so that light gleamed off the yellow-stained glass. “Not enough to allow you to travel in time, but enough to stave off the withdrawal effects.”

  “Until the next time,” Sparrow snorted. “I will not be your slave, Eminence, not even for my life.”

  His eyes took on a strange shimmering quality. “Consider, my dear, whether you have a choice.”

  Soldiers filtered into the sanctum, clothed in the golden livery of the Zibrian royal household. Two by two, they lined up at the back of the room. There were twenty of them, possibly more. Sparrow tried to focus her shaky vision on their bright-buttoned uniforms, but gave up. “I can take them,” she muttered sullenly.

  “In your present condition?” the Sultan replied with a tiny smirk. “I think not.” And he gave her a quick kick in the centre of her breast plate. Hardly even a nudge, but to Sparrow’s extreme embarrassment it was enough to knock her off her feet. She crumpled in a heap of armour and hair, with only enough energy to mutter one word in retaliation, “Bastard…” before lapsing into unconsciousness.

  “Well now,” s
aid Lord Marmaduc in a thoughtful voice as he nudged the unconscious woman with the pointed toe of his elegant sandal. “I wonder who told her that.”

  Mistress Opia had knitted enough wool to cover a medium-sized sheep, and the flying carpet was fast approaching the city of Zibria.

  Officer Finnley, bleary-eyed from motion sickness, raised his shaky vision to see their goal. “It doesn’t look much like a golden city to me,” he said bleakly. It was more white than gold, made up of marble pillars, greyish temples and pale cobblestones. Only one building, raised high on a hill, was remotely yellowish. It was surrounded by men in bright gold livery, and looked remarkably like a royal palace. Even the gilding here was faded, however, touched up with a paint which was more butter-coloured than gold.

  “You can’t believe everything the gossip minstrels tell you,” said Mistress Opia, unreasonably cheerful. “It looked very pretty once upon a time.” She clapped her hands. “Come on, carpet-my-lad, take us down to the Palace. I want words with that young popinjay, the Sultan.” She removed a wicked-looking hatpin from the cabbage roses on her large floral hat, and tested the point thoughtfully.

  Sparrow lifted her muzzy head as consciousness flooded back into her brain. She didn’t know where she was.

  Yes she did. She had seen these stone walls before, scrawled with threatening hieroglyphs, in the outer circle of the labyrinth under the Palace. She had joined a tour party once, interested in utilising the benefits of a secret passage into the royal quarters. But she had given it up as a bad job—the tour only went as far as the outer circle, and no one could give her any information on the inner mazes. It had seemed like too much work for little benefit.

  But this was not the outer circle of the labyrinth. The hieroglyphs were older, dustier, and had not been touched up with paint. The floor tiles were chipped and faded with time. She had no way of knowing how deep into the labyrinth she was.