“Never mind that. Do you not want to be Sultan?”
“No, not really,” he said after a moment’s thought. “I’d much rather be a librarian. I was thinking of restoring the old Labyrinth—it’s a sewer at the moment, you know—and installing my library there. What do you think?”
Sparrow gave up. Changing history was going to be harder than she thought. “I think it is a good idea, your Highness. Bound to be a success. Popular with the tourists.”
“You know, I hadn’t thought of that?” said Prince Magnus happily.
As the party progressed, Tione ended up dancing with the Sultan, trying to teach him the tango. “Is this a new dance?” he asked, puffing with the exertions.
“Quite new,” she said airily, allowing him to get his breath back. Then she narrowed her eyes, her secret police skills kicking into action. “What’s behind that tapestry? It keeps twitching…”
“No!” cried the Sultan in alarm, but before he could stop her Tione had swished the tapestry aside. She froze, her skin and clothes fading to a pale grey colour.
“What have you done to her?” yelled Cutlass Cooper, lunging forward with his sword flashing in true pirate style. Two guards grabbed him and held him out of harm’s way, shielding his eyes and closing their own as they did so.
“Gosh,” said Princess Medusa, who had been waiting in the alcove to make her entrance. She slipped on a pair of wire-rimmed sunglasses and smiled apologetically. “I wasn’t ready.”
Daggar tapped Tione thoughtfully on the head. She remained inert, a concubine-shaped stone statue. “I thought so,” he said grimly.
Princess Medusa, garbed in an amazingly full-skirted pink crinoline-gown, sidestepped the struggling Cutlass Cooper who had been sensibly disarmed by the guards. She turned to Sparrow, offering a pink-gloved hand in greeting. “I’m terribly sorry, really I am. Were you very close?”
“Never mind that,” said Sparrow quickly, taking Medusa’s arm in what she hoped was a suitably girlish way. “Such a fascinating skill you have. How did you acquire it?”
“Fascinating skill?” choked Cutlass, outraged by Sparrow’s attitude. Her hand slapped out and shut his mouth as she glided past, arm in arm with the Princess Medusa.
“I was born this way,” sighed Medusa. “Daddy was cursed, you see. All his children were to be monsters. At least I look all right. Poor Magnus doesn’t stand a chance in the real world.”
“I do not know about that,” said Sparrow. “I like the tall, dark and rugged type. Is the curse broken now?”
“I suppose it must be,” said Medusa, straightening her sunglasses. “I’ve got three mortal brothers in the nursery, which sort of suggests they found a way around the curse, don’t you think?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Sparrow, casting a glance at Queen Polynesie, who looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
Daggar moved towards Sparrow, smoothly disentangling her from the arm of Princess Medusa. “Just popping outside for a breath of fresh air,” he announced brightly, pulling her towards the door.
No one at the Royal Party protested, except for the pirate Cutlass Cooper who still twisted and struggled in the firm hold of the Zibrian palace guards.
“Right,” said Daggar in the corridor. “This is when we leave. Immediately. Where’s Singespitter?”
Sparrow frowned. “We are not finished here.”
“Oh yes we are,” growled Daggar. “I’ll make this simple. What happens next is, the Sultan sends the Tione-statue to Emperor Timregis as a gift, Cutlass Cooper breaks out of the Zibrian dungeon, follows and rescues her from old Timregis’ private collection, somehow managing to break Medusa’s spell. I don’t remember all the details, but you get the drift. Somewhere along the way they fall in love, get married and before this year is out our Tione produces bouncing twin babies, one of whom grows up to betray my Uncle Bigbeard and shove a sword through his gullet. Meanwhile, Cutlass impresses the Emperor so much by his daring style and derring-do that he is named Imperial Champion and stays that way until some young bastard named Aragon Silversword comes along in ten years and takes his job. This is all family history, and I don’t really want to go through it twice. We don’t fit into the equation. Tione belongs in this time, no matter which time she comes from originally. I think. Time travel’s a bitch, and I think we should stop now before it becomes a habit. Everybody happy? Good.”
There was a long pause as Sparrow thought about this. “Time to fetch the sheep?”
Daggar nodded tiredly. “Time to fetch the sheep.”
14: The Great Pomegranate Quest
Kassa dressed carefully for her quest, tossing aside her usual wench garb in favour of something more dignified. She had commandeered the slinkiest black dress owned by the goths, but it had taken some sewing and altering to get the outfit just right, none of the goth girls having a chest larger than size ten.
Finally it was finished, a clinging sulphurous gown which glowed blackly around Kassa’s skin. She carved a hefty slit up one side, but somehow the fabric always swirled around in such a way that she never flashed any leg, even when she wanted to. She borrowed a length of the Dark One’s black velvet collection, which she wrapped around her shoulders as a mantle. The glimmering blackness of the costume was offset with what jewellery she had been able to find: a thick gold torc for her throat and a dozen silently-jangling bangles hung heavy with gold coins.
She wrinkled her nose as she examined the effect. “I prefer silver.”
“No silver in the Underworld,” said the Dark One gloomily, watching her drape herself with bracelets. “Nor even a copper penny or a stainless steel fork. No one thinks to send me any different metal for a change, it’s all gold torcs this, gold coins on the eyelids that and gold funeral vases the other.”
Kassa turned slowly. “You take the funeral vases?”
The Dark One looked shifty. “Maybe.”
Kassa regarded her new outfit critically in the full-length mirror for one last time, and then turned back with a satisfactory swish. “I’m ready to go.”
“Now,” the Dark One said sternly. “You do realise that you’re not mortal anymore. You can’t stay out in the real world for very long or you will fade into the scenery. Literally, I might add.”
“But I’m not going to the real world, remember?” Kassa said between her teeth. “I’m going to the Cloud Dimension, whatever that is.”
“Still and all,” said the Dark One. “It’s not the Underworld.” He opened his hand to reveal a tiny black jewel which flew to her gold torc, firmly attaching itself to the centre of the metal collar. “If something goes wrong and you end up vanishing, your essence will attach itself to this, and we should be able to bring you back here.”
Kassa stared at him. “What if I don’t want to come back?”
“Then you will be a small, shiny black rock for the rest of eternity,” he replied without blinking.
She scowled deeply. “Anything else you want to tell me?”
“Yes,” said the Dark One. “Don’t try to send any messages to your loved ones. It will only confuse them.” He made a godly gesture, and a long, obsidian-black corridor opened up in the wall. “You might want to hurry,” he added.
Kassa started running along the corridor. The goth dress clung to her ankles, warning her that this was not a dress to wear while running. She slowed to a swift walk, her eyes firmly fixed on the light at the end of the long tunnel. The light grew brighter and brighter…
The tunnel was spinning, or Kassa was spinning. Certainly one or the other. Possibly both. Patches of sky whirled through her dazed vision, and the last traces of the comfortable fog which had enveloped her senses for so long just whirled soundlessly into space.
She could think clearly now. She screamed. Then, because the noise she made was the only sound in the tunnel at all, she yelled for a while. The circle of light swam towards her at a sick-to-the-stomach speed until all she could see was light exploding behind her eyeballs.
Then the light dimmed. Kassa could feel its warmth wash away from her, drifting away from her skin.
She opened her eyes, and her vision was awash with fluffy whiteness. She looked around, marvelling at the view. A landscape of cloud stretched in every direction, forming valleys and mountains and a squat, cozy-looking castle. In the distance, she could just make out the tiny shape of someone climbing the tallest of the purple-white mountains. “Poor fool,” she muttered to herself. “All gods are bastards. You will just reach the top and those clouds will open up and dump you back at the foot, bet you anything.” She thought about waiting around to see if her prophecy was fulfilled, but reflected that it might be a better idea to get on with the quest at hand.
Kassa arranged her black mantle in a suitably dignified manner and began walking towards the castle. After knocking in vain against the big front drawbridge, she wandered around to the ornamental garden in hope of finding a servant’s entrance.
The kitchen door was open, and the smell of baking wafted out. Kassa sniffed hungrily and wondered how long it had been since she had eaten. Then she remembered that she didn’t need to eat any more, because she was dead. What a depressing thought.
A young girl with excessively long brown braids and cookie dust on her nose was shaking a tea-towel out on to the steps. She stopped when she saw Kassa. “Oh,” she said. “The Dark One’s proxy, I assume. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked cookies.” She put her hands on her hips, defiantly.
Taking from this remark that she wasn’t going to be offered any of the freshly-baked products she could smell, Kassa responded by putting her own hands on her own hips. Her figure was rather more impressive, so this upstaged the younger girl’s attempt to gain the upper hand. “I’m looking for Wordern’s daughters,” she announced.
This failed to invoke any reaction on the girl’s face. “What do I look like, chopped liver? You’d better come in, I suppose. Wipe your feet.”
Kassa followed her in. “Not you. I want one of the older ones. The eldest, if possible. It’s traditional.”
“I am the eldest,” said Pomegranate, taking a warm cookie from the bench and sinking her little white teeth into it. “What you see is what you get.”
Kassa stared at her. “But you don’t look more than twelve years old!”
“Eleven and three quarters,” replied Pomegranate evenly. “I’ll get my coat.”
“I can’t do this,” said Kassa in horror. “I can’t send you to the Dark One, you’re under-age!”
“Look,” said Pomegranate, scooping the cookies into a foil bag. “I may not be suitable for arranged marriages and all that bedroom stuff that I’m supposed to be too young to know about, but I am ready to run the Underworld. It’s my destiny, like it or not. You wouldn’t deprive a girl of her destiny, would you?”
Kassa said nothing. Her eyes had that startled bunny look in them that suggested she wasn’t going to be saying anything for a while.
Pomegranate sighed. “You can carry my suitcase.” Nearly swallowed whole by an enormous fur coat, she led the way to the obsidian tunnel, her long braids trailing behind her in the cloud. “Well?” she said impatiently, turning to look at her abductor. Kassa still looked bemused. “Gods,” Pomegranate muttered, shaking her head in disgust. “I don’t know what he sees in you.”
Kassa’s attention returned vaguely. “Who?”
Pomegranate pointed to the shadowy figure still patiently trudging up the distant mountain. “Him. Poor sod. He’ll get to the top and those bloody little cloud divinities will drop him right back down to ground level. It’s their idea of a joke.”
Kassa stared at the mountain, trying to spot something familiar in the distant shape. “Who is it?”
“Your feller,” Pomegranate said patiently. “The sap who has been running around like a less-than-sane hatter trying to rescue you from the Underworld. Hah,” she added gloomily, just for effect.
Kassa grabbed hold of the younger girl’s furry sleeve. “Who is it? I don’t know anyone who would do that for me…all the men in my life are cowards or traitors.”
“Aragon Silversword,” said Pomegranate with a smirk. Eleven-year-olds should never look that smug. “I kind of liked him. Though he’s got rotten taste in women. Are we going through this tunnel or what?”
The tunnel opened wider, making a black and swallowing noise. Feeling the pressure as it began to suck them in, Kassa struggled to remain where she was. “Aragon,” she breathed. “I have to…”
As she tried to break into a run, Pomegranate’s surprisingly powerful arms gripped her. “Oh, no you don’t. You’ve got an abduction to perpetrate. Time for the soppy romantic stuff later.”
“But there is no other time,” Kassa protested. “This is my only chance!”
Pomegranate held on tightly. “Too bad. I can’t abduct myself, it’s against the rules.”
The tunnel sucked them both into the Underworld. Kassa struggled against its insistent pull. A tendril of grey-green vine wound around her waist, tugging her sharply into the darkness. She felt several of her bodice laces snap as she flew back, landing heavily in a bed of purple marigolds and sun-coloured foxgloves.
“So,” said Pomegranate, trying to untwist her braids from a spiralling thorn bush. “This is the Underworld.”
“No,” said Kassa Daggersharp, wiping her own hair out of her eyes. “It isn’t the Underworld.”
Pomegranate frowned. “Then where are we?”
Kassa fumbled with the laces of her bodice, knotting them back together. “I don’t know. But I have a nasty feeling about that mist.”
A greyish mist hovered on the edges of the woodland scene, blocking any view there might have been. The mist was alive. Somehow that seemed obvious. Tiny sparkles of light glittered within its cloudy depths, like thousands of curious little eyes.
“This is the OtherRealm!” gasped Kassa in sudden realisation.
Pomegranate had painstakingly managed to unwind one braid from the thorn bush, only to discover that the other one had tangled itself up in the meantime. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “Not even gods are safe in the OtherRealm. No one ever goes there.”
“Witches do,” said Kassa slowly. “The final stage of initiation. I think this is all my fault!”
“Well, I’d assumed that.”
A hoarse, unreal cry sounded in the midst of the glowing mist. “So,” said Pomegranate, finally wrenching her second braid free of the thorn bush. “This is the fair country. The kingdom of the lost. The land of the fey.”
“All that and more,” agreed Kassa. “Now, all we have to do…”
The mist pounced. It poured itself around them, snatching at their ankles and catching them up in its snarls. Pomegranate opened her mouth and the mist stuffed itself inside, gagging her. Kassa tried to lash out, but the ethereal white stuff only bound her tighter.
Pomegranate spat out the gag of mist. “They can’t do this to me. I’m a goddess!”
“No, you’re not,” said Kassa. “You’re a jumped-up glitch of existential angst who only escaped being turned into a puff of green smoke by having your classification changed before the decimalisation went into effect. Your life is halfway between dull and non-existent, which explains why you were so willing to follow me to the Underworld. Now shut up, and let me think.”
“How do you know so much about me?” asked Pomegranate in a small voice.
“I’ve read your file. Much was prophesied in the year I was born.”
“The Year of the Sculpted Concubine,” sighed Pomegranate. “I came into being that year too.”
Kassa blinked. “But you’re–”
“I may look eleven and three quarters, but I’m actually twice that,” said the hemi-goddess sourly. “It’s still young by usual godly standards. My sisters and I came into being fully grown, but Wordern was getting on our nerves so we decided to go through childhood just to wind him up. Then the Decimalisation went into effect, and we were robbed of our
godly powers.” She wriggled awkwardly. “Each of us got one talent in compensation, and mine was an immunity to time. So I’m stuck looking like this forever. Great talent, eh? Still, it could be worse. My sister Octavy is immune to space. At least I have half a chance at a social life. Were you planning to get us out of this at any stage?”
“I might have half a chance if you stop wriggling!” Kassa drew in a deep breath, closing her eyes and opening her mind to the cosmos. She could feel the webbed substance within the mist that bound them together. Every time Pomegranate struggled, the mist squeezed in closer. “Stay still.” After a moment, Kassa exhaled and opened her deep golden eyes, blinking awkwardly. “I can’t use magic here. I might blow us up, or make things worse.”
“If this is your initiation, why did they send you somewhere you couldn’t use magic?” complained Pomegranate.
“A witch’s ability isn’t all about magic,” said Kassa slowly. “It’s about thinking like a witch. Do as you will, and harm none.”
“So, what would a witch do in this situation?”
Kassa’s palm was squished hard against the side of her right leg by the bindings of mist. She flexed her hand and dug her fingernails into a handful of the slinky fabric of her goth gown. There was a rending sound as the fabric tore. Kassa slid her hand into the tear, pressing her hand against her bare leg.
By twisting her head around, Pomegranate could just get a glimpse of what was going on behind her back. “You’re going to use sex appeal?” she said dubiously.
“Better than that,” said Kassa Daggersharp, her hand closing over the black leather sheath which was strapped to her thigh. “I’m going to use a knife.”
As she drew and brandished her stainless steel knife, the mist bindings parted quickly, anxious to avoid contact with the cold iron. “Now, I don’t want to hurt anyone or anything,” Kassa warned. “But we’re leaving.”
Wiping the remains of the mist from her hands, Pomegranate ducked hastily as a flock of tiny-winged wyrdings screeched overhead, also trying to put distance between themselves and the woman with the knife. “If this is your initiation, should you be trying to escape?”
Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles) Page 41
