And only then did Sparrow recall the tiny soothsayer predicting that she would battle the Minestaurus. “Damn,” she said explosively.
All the locals knew of the legend, or one of the many variations on a similar theme. Stories about the horned (and/or hairy and/or hoofed) man dwelling in the inner circles of the labyrinth were ten a penny in this neck of the woods. Every now and then, one of the many lion-skinned heroes of Zibria would stride in to make their reputation by slaying the beast, but none of them ever strode back out again.
A clean up job, with a little deadly danger thrown in for good measure. Huh. Sparrow leaned against one of the walls and closed her eyes. She could wait it out. According to the Sultan, who had revived her long enough to describe her condition in loving detail, her reactions to the time essence would overwhelm her again and again, drawing closer and closer together. Eventually, it would kill her. Either that, or she would starve first.
Starving didn’t appeal. She hadn’t even had breakfast yet. Sparrow stood up, forcing herself into a stiff-backed soldier’s stance. At least if she came across this Minestaurus creature she could go down fighting. The passage stretched endlessly in two directions. One way might lead her to daylight, the other deeper into the labyrinth. She sniffed the air in both directions, and it was equally stale.
There was an odd sort of light down here, a pale phosphorescence. Some kind of fungus, perhaps. Sparrow didn’t really care. She started walking, unsteadily at first until she regained her usual mercenary stride.
Halfway up the stairs spiralling to the Sultan’s Palace, Daggar started huffing and puffing. He sat heavily down on one of the marble steps, wheezing and red in the face. “Got to get fitter,” he muttered to himself in between wheezes. “Eat more vegetables, that sort of thing.”
Singespitter, who had been straining against the leash all the way up, gave his ‘master’ a superior look.
“Oh, shut up,” said Daggar when he finally had his breath back. “You’re no picture of health yourself, you know.”
Singespitter preened, well aware that he was a fine figure of a sheep no matter what anyone said.
“Right,” said Daggar, his voice slightly hoarse. “I suppose we’d better go—hang on a minute.”
He had seen the sign. Halfway up the hill, a little path led down and around, away from the stairs. All the sign with the arrow said was: Ye Olde Labyrinth.
“Let’s have a look, then, shall we?” said Daggar, cheerful at this apparent detour.
Singespitter frowned. The trail of little dandelions quite obviously led up the steps.
“Well, I know you fancy her, but me slogging my guts out climbing these stairs isn’t going to be much good if I have a heart attack, is it?” Daggar said reasonably. “We’ll just have a little look-see to rest our legs and then we’ll go on.”
Singespitter’s frown turned into a fully-fledged glare, and he almost growled menacingly.
“Just you remember who’s the boss,” Daggar threatened, tugging on the leash for good measure.
Singespitter did know who the boss was, and the sooner they caught up with her the better. He quite liked being around attractive young women, something which had never happened much when he was a human being. He had been very sulky after the Splashdance crew had so carelessly lost Kassa, but he missed Sparrow even more. It was something about that nice hay-colour of her hair…
“It’s the blonde thing, isn’t it?” Daggar accused, annoyed at Singespitter for dragging his toes into the gravel. “Like that tavern wench the other month, in Axgaard. The one with the braids. You had an unreasonable attachment to her, don’t try to deny it…” His voice trailed off as he saw where the path had led them. Abruptly, Singepitter stopped straining against the leash, and trotted eagerly forward. Daggar almost fell over.
It was a plaza, tiled in mosaic fashion with the floor depicting scenes of gory battle, great nobility and furry animals chasing each other’s tails. There was the mouth of the labyrinth, gaping open. Daggar almost expected to see blood dripping down from teeth above.
Around the entrance were several bronze plaques, obviously polished daily. “The Fearsome Labyrinth,” Daggar read aloud. “Wherein the hideous Minestaurus makes his bedde, and chews unwitting travellers by the hedde. Gawd, even Tippett could make better poetry than that.”
He read the other plaques, slowly taking in the various legends and history snippets pertaining to the Minestaurus and the labyrinth. “Here, Singespitter,” he said, for wont of a human to talk to. “It says that if you go through the inner circles of the labyrinth and out the other side, it leads to a secret passage into the Palace. Bit of a turn up for the books, eh? Lucky we came.”
Singespitter looked about as startled as was possible for a medium-sized sheep to get.
“Easy, isn’t it?” Daggar continued. “We get through to the Palace this way, catch up with Sparrow and, well whatever comes next. No bother with those nasty-looking guards.” He rummaged in a pocket and emerged triumphantly with a large ball of string. “You see? Easy. I’m surprised no one ever thought of this before now…”
If it had been possible for Singespitter the sheep to quirk his eyebrows sceptically—if, indeed, he had eyebrows—he most certainly would have been quirking them like mad. Instead, he resigned himself to following in his companion’s rather muddled and foolhardy footsteps.
Singespitter hoped they would run into Sparrow as soon as possible. She would soon get them sorted. Now, there was a girl with a good head on her shoulders.
Sparrow was freaking out. She ran this way and that, not noticing specific directions or distances or even if she was crashing into walls, which she was. Bruised and bloody from throwing herself against hard surfaces, she was almost weeping. Almost, but not quite. Trolls don’t cry, they don’t know how.
She thought she heard a familiar, friendly voice bouncing its way around the echoing tunnels of the Labyrinth, and that just about finished her off. She dropped to the ground, arms wrapped around her knees, shuddering violently. She was alone and she was going to die here, and now she was hallucinating.
Mistress Opia walked into the Sultan’s Palace in the same way that she walked everywhere—as if she owned the place. Hobbs the gnome scuttled along behind her, his eyes wide as he took in the expense of the various draperies and shiny bric a brac which littered the golden corridors.
Officer Finnley trailed along behind them, feeling like a third wheel on a two-wheeler chariot. He had hoped for adventure and excitement and all he had got was…well, adventure and excitement, but not the kind you read about in heroic epic. Nearly falling off a maddened flying carpet was exciting, yes, but it wasn’t the sort of thing he had in mind.
The Brewers were mainly pretending that he wasn’t there. Occasionally, Mistress Opia got his name wrong in her absent-minded way, as if she couldn’t tell the difference between him and her apprentice dogsbody back home.
It wasn’t right. He was a Blackguard. But Finnley was starting to realise that a Blackguard outside Dreadnought wasn’t much use at all.
They reached the inner sanctum. The guards tried half-heartedly to stop them there, but Mistress Opia just walked on through. She came to a halt at the big shiny throne, regarding its occupant with sheer disdain. “I suppose you’re quite pleased with yourself, young Marmaduc?” The grandmotherly tone had been replaced by something harder. And colder. “Just what do you think you are doing?”
Finnley turned his attention to the Sultan of Zibria, who was reclining on the golden throne, two stick-like legs dangling out from under his jewelled tunic. “I knew you’d come,” the Sultan said airily. “I wanted you to come. I don’t need any silly time-travelling potion, but I do need you. And if you don’t agree to my terms, I’ll have the liquid gold destroyed!”
For a moment, Finnley thought Mistress Opia was going to explode. Her face went all red, then all of a sudden her placid grandmotherly expression returned. “Better give it back to me, young man, befo
re you do yourself an injury.”
The Sultan of Zibria laughed. One of those laughs which conveys exactly how mad the villain is. He tipped back his head and giggled maniacally. “But then my mercenary girl would have died for nothing,” he said in a pleased voice. “And wouldn’t that be a terrible shame?”
8: Dealing with Your Own Demise
Kassa had always been an expert when it came to throwing tantrums, hissy fits and general rages, and this was the culmination of her life’s work. She screeched, wept, yelled, threatened, broke things and finally—to the fervent relief of the others in her immediate vicinity—stopped.
The Dark One peered at her from behind his throne. “Are you finished?” he asked nervously.
“Yes, thank you,” replied Kassa in an unnaturally calm voice.
Vervain the sprite squeezed himself out of the only black ceramic urn which had not been trashed during Kassa’s uncontrollable rage. “All that velvet,” he said sadly, looking at the clawed and ripped remains of the black curtains. Snatches of complicated mural showed through the ragged tears in the butchered fabric.
Kassa’s eyes narrowed. “Duck,” she advised her new guardian sprite.
Vervain whimpered and threw himself to one side as Kassa launched a small ebony statue at the remaining intact urn. As it exploded into little bits, Kassa took a deep breath and then exhaled. “Right,” she said sensibly. “What do I do now?”
The Dark One raised his head from under his cloak. “Well,” he said, trying to sound as if he wasn’t scared stiff of her. “You could always reunite yourself with those of your family and friends who are currently available, that is, dead. Or you could try a quest—they’re always popular in the first week. It helps you settle in, you see…”
“A quest in the Underworld?” Kassa said sceptically. “No, I think I’d better stick to the first choice. I have some unresolved issues with quite a few dead people.” She glanced at Vervain. “Do you want to stick around here for a while, and keep working on his Dark Majesty’s makeover?”
“Fine,” stuttered Vervain, wide-eyed and shaking. “Whatever you want. Just call me if you need me. Or not,” he added hastily. “Not is good.”
Kassa sighed. She had been dead less than a day—if such units of time were recognised up here in the Underworld—and already she had alienated the Lord of Darkness and her own brand-new guardian sprite. Things were progressing as per usual.
Ebony the goth was waiting in the corridor. She glided onwards, her feet barely brushing the floor. Kassa Daggersharp followed her, her own hob-nailed boots making a satisfactory ringing sound as they struck the stone pathways. “All right,” she said impatiently. “So where do they keep the dead people around here?”
“Where don’t they?” replied Ebony. “What kind of dead person are you looking for? We have all sorts around here.”
Kassa sighed. “Just take me to the cavern with the most rum in it.”
She was a diminutive woman with naturally reddish-blonde hair (which she dyed black, even in the Underworld) and a substantial cleavage. She wore leather knickerbockers, a close-fitting blouse of the ruffled white variety, and an eyepatch. “Are you sure about this, Bigbeard?”
A huge sea-captain type with a bristling big beard and a single golden eye laughed heartily at her disapproval. “Don’t be such a wet blanket, Nell! I learnt it off those imp fellas. Do it all the time, they do. Now come on, close your eyes and throw…”
Nellisand Witchdaughter—known to one and all as Black Nell—rolled her eyes at her husband’s antics. “I think I preferred it when you just drank yourself into a stupor,” she said, but followed his instructions and closed her eyes, tossing the small polished emerald high into the air. When it landed in one of the carefully chalked squares on the cave floor, she opened her eyes, sighed loudly and hop-skip-jumped her way through the interlacing pattern.
“See?” roared her husband cheerfully. “You just don’t know a good thing when yer see it!”
“Oh, I agree,” she flung back at him. “Heart-stoppingly entertaining. Is this really your idea of fun?”
His eyes lit up with an insinuating gleam. “What else did you have in mind, wench?”
Just as Nell hesitated between seducing her husband or throwing a brick at his head, she saw a familiar figure hovering in the cave entrance.
Kassa looked, for the first time in her life, completely at a loss. Her golden eyes flicked between Vicious Bigbeard Daggersharp and Black Nell, not quite able to cope with what she saw. “Dad,” she said helplessly. “Mother?”
Black Nell Daggersharp put her hands on her hips and scowled ferociously at her only daughter. “What the hell do you think you are you doing here, young lady?”
Kassa folded her arms defensively. “If you really want to know, I’m dead.” So there, her body language announced.
“You’re bloody not,” snapped her mother. “Don’t lie to me, Kassa.” She flung an angry glance at Bigbeard, who was absently rechalking his squares on the cave floor. “Bigbeard, tell her that she isn’t due to die for…”
“Oh, let the wench be dead if she likes,” said Vicious Bigbeard Daggersharp. “What ho, Kassa-girl. Come and play hop-skip-jump with me. Don’t mind your mother, she’s bein’ difficult.”
“Difficult?” shrieked Black Nell, white-faced. “I want you to tell your daughter to return to the land of the living, and all you say is that I’m being difficult?”
“Would you prefer bloody-minded?” he said mildly. He grinned at Kassa, showing off his missing teeth. “How did the pirating go, luv?”
“Oh, not bad,” Kassa said weakly. “I’m getting the hang of it. Well, I was. Before I died, obviously.”
“Jolly good. Kill anyone interestin’, then?”
“Afraid not. I never really got around to it.”
He shot a suspicious look at her. “Who did you marry?”
“No one, Dad. I didn’t have time.”
“Humph,” he said disapprovingly. “Could be worse. Could o’ been a McHagrty. Still got some sense, eh, girl?”
“How much worse do you want it to get?” demanded Black Nell scathingly. “Our daughter is dead, Daggersharp. Have you been listening to any of this?”
Kassa crouched down to Bigbeard’s level, kissing him on the cheek. He patted her hand with a vague reassurance. “Never mind, wench. Your mother was pretty narked at me when I turned up too. She’ll get used to it.”
“Dad,” Kassa whispered. “Do you think I’m supposed to be dead yet?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Seems to me you’ll end up here sooner or later. May as well stay now you’re here. Save you the bother later on.”
Kassa scowled darkly. “Oh, that’s very comforting.”
A shadow fell across the cave floor. A woman stood there, dressed head to toe in pale grey leather. Her silver hair stood up in a high arrangement involving feathers and the defiance of gravity. Beads and baubles were slung around her neck and hips like so many coils of rope, and her face was strikingly old. “Hmm,” she said in a disapproving tone of voice. “Kassa Daggersharp. I presume. Better late than never. I suppose.”
Kassa stood up, slowly regarding this stranger. “According to everyone else, I got here early.”
“Not for me you didn’t,” snapped the grey-clad old woman, shaking her beads and feathers irritatedly. “You were due in Chiantrio on the dot of sixteen. And you never turned up. Still. Here you are.” She stuck out a wrinkled hand bedecked in complicated charms made out of bone and twisted bits of metal. “Dame Veekie Crosselet. Godmother-witch.” Her stone-coloured eyes moved up and down, regarding Kassa with intense and scornful interest. “Well,” she said grudgingly. “I suppose you’ll do.”
The godmother-witch turned, and motioned Kassa to follow her. Kassa hesitated, looking back at her parents. She had only just found them again, and she had so much to tell them, to ask them…
“Go on, will you?” snapped her mother. “Family duty is one
thing. Professional obligations are quite another. We’re not going anywhere.”
Still unsure, Kassa tossed a salute to her father who was still trying to even out his hopscotch squares, and tripped after the stern and forbidding witch. “So what do I do first? We can’t use magic in the Underworld.”
“Magic is easy enough,” snapped her instructor. “Witch training is not about magic. You can pick that up on your own.”
“Then what are you going to teach me? What am I going to do?”
“Study,” said the witch succinctly, her long grey-clad legs making it hard to keep up with her. “Theories and practices. History. Moral philosophy. Dreamwork. Have you chosen a speciality?”
Kassa flinched at the stern question. “I’m a songwitch.”
“Not until I say you are! First you will study. Then you will prepare for your quest.”
Kassa stopped short, looking at the older witch in bemusement. “I have to complete a quest? How can I do that if I can’t leave the Underworld?”
The Dame spun around to regard Kassa with unblinking grey eyes. Eyes which reminded Kassa of something, or someone… “Well now,” said Dame Veekie in a voice of stainless steel. “Whoever said you couldn’t leave the Underworld?”
All around them, almost invisible to mortal eye, microscopic filaments of golden pollen clung to the walls of the Underworld. Here in the realm of impossibilities and paradoxes, the tiny spores began to reproduce…
9: Stitching up the Minestaurus
Daggar was beginning to worry. The string was nearly gone, and he was no closer to finding his way into the Palace than he had been before. If anything, he was further away. “Now, Singespitter, don’t panic,” he said bravely.
Singespitter sneered at him, lifting his stately nose into the air. Without hesitating, he began to trot along one of the tunnels. He could smell something. Something awfully familiar…
Daggar, not willing to be left alone in the darkness, hurried after the sheep. “Are you sure about this?” The string was taut in his hands. “Maybe we should head back and buy some extra string.”
Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles) Page 35
