Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles)

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  20: Rusty Ballads

  The goth girls reclined in their recreation room, which was fully equipped with a swimming pool, a royal tennis court and a communal wardrobe.

  The huge split-screen on the wall flickered into life, delivering a multiple image of a man climbing a staircase.

  “One of those,” said Flipfairy Cream in a bored voice as she streaked her long, black hair with silver glitter. “A hero come to rescue a dead maiden.”

  “Not another one,” said Indigo Marshmallow, painting her mouth very carefully with her new inky lipstick. “That makes four in the last mortal moon. Bor-ring.”

  “I think it’s romantic,” said Peony Seashell, sticking her opal-studded tongue out at them all. “Why shouldn’t he come and rescue her if he wants to?”

  “Because it screws up the accounts something shocking, dingleberry,” said Indigo scornfully. “You know how the Dark One feels about paperwork.”

  Ebony (née Trixibelle Cream) who had just come in from a lengthy corridor-gliding session, would never do anything so inelegant as to chew her lip, but she certainly considered it. “We should find out who he’s after. Maybe it’s something to do with the disturbances we’ve been having lately.”

  As if on cue, a shudder ran the length of the Underworld, and the walls of the recreation room seemed to buckle.

  “Oh let me do it,” squealed Peony. “Please, I’ve never got to use the mind probe before!”

  Indigo opened the closest chest of drawer and pulled out a short sword in a hot-pink leather scabbard. “Do you know how to use it?”

  Peony snatched it greedily. “Of course I do. I just point it at him.” She drew the blade and pointed it dramatically at the screen. Immediately, a small machine in the corner began to make various whir-clicking noises, and a stream of thin paper issued forth.

  Flipfairy Cream leaned over and tore off the readout, scanning it with a yawn. “The usual thoughts. Sore feet, slight headache, surprisingly homicidal tendencies about the bronze twig in his belt…hot damn.” She let out a low whistle.

  Everyone stared at her. “What is it?” Peony asked excitedly, dropping the mind-probing sword on to the nearest armchair.

  Flipfairy Cream’s dark eyes lifted to meet those of her cousin Ebony, who still hovered in the doorway. “Well?” requested Ebony, still maintaining her calm and elegant poise.

  “He’s after the Daggersharp woman,” said Flipfairy in a tone of impending doom.

  Ebony’s face altered significantly. “Shit.”

  There was a discreet cough from the corner, and a figure unfolded from the velvety armchair in which she had been lounging. “Don’t sweat it, girls,” said Honey Sugarglass, sweeping back her elegant fall of midnight hair and hiking up her little black dress to show off the proportions of her extraordinary legs. “Just leave this to the expert.”

  The spiral staircase finally came to an end, and Aragon staggered off on to the solid ground of the cliff top. Behind him, the staircase vanished with a soft ‘pop’. “What do you know?” he said softly, looking back down over the edge. He had made it to the top without being dumped from a great height. Perhaps there was hope after all.

  “Hello, Aragon,” said a husky voice.

  He looked up. A woman stood a little way away from him, wrapped in an impossibly clingy black dress. She looked almost ghostlike. Her wild, dark red hair flew around her, tangling in the wind and making blood-coloured patterns on her diaphanous dress. Her gold eyes bored into him, and she smiled a dazzlingly familiar smile with her extraordinarily well-shaped mouth.

  Aragon got to his feet, staring at her.

  She glided forward, into his arms. Well, not exactly into his arms, because his arms were remaining firmly at his side, but her own arms slid up and around his neck. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she murmured, turning her face up for a kiss.

  Aragon Silversword reached up and carefully peeled one of her arms from around his neck, then the other one. He briefly glanced at her hands before letting them fall.

  She stared up at him, her golden eyes wide and impossibly hurt. “What’s wrong?” she whispered, the ghost of a tear hovering at the edge of her thick eyelashes.

  “I came here to find Kassa Daggersharp,” Aragon said acidly. “You’ll forgive me if I wait around for the real thing.”

  She stepped back, her lips thinning and darkening. The height and curves of Kassa Daggersharp receded, as did the wild red hair. A pale, slender goth girl with long dark hair glared at Aragon Silversword, crossing her arms. “How did you know?” breathed Honey Sugarglass, still using a fair facsimile of Kassa’s voice.

  Aragon favoured her with a thin smile. “The body language was wrong, the dialogue was wrong and the fingernails were the wrong shade of purple. Not to mention the fact that your Kassa Daggersharp was greeting a lover—and I was never that. Do you ever manage to fool anyone?”

  Honey Sugarglass turned her black-lashed eyes up to stare at him with an expression of pure elegant petulance. “If you’re not her sweetie, then what the glory gods are you doing here?” she demanded.

  It was a good question. Aragon seriously considered devoting some time to answering it. But later. Much later. He pulled the bronze twig out of his belt and tapped the disgruntled goth girl on the nose with it. “Take me to your leader,” he suggested with a quirk of his eyebrow.

  She pouted, but led him onwards, into the cavernous stone walkways of the Underworld. “Well, now. Is this a special occasion, or do you put on this performance for all the guests you get through here?” asked Aragon.

  “Technically we’re not supposed to let anyone through here,” Honey told him, snapping her chewing gum distractedly. “And as for your choice of maidens to rescue—well, we had to try and stop you.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “We have this prophecy thing,” explained Honey. “The goth girls. We’ve never told anyone about it before but the thing is, it’s always right. And it says that Kassa Daggersharp is inadvertently going to save the Underworld from total destruction. So we can’t lose her, you see.” She stopped, an apologetic look on her face. “Sorry.”

  “What—” Aragon started to say, but it was too late. The ground had already opened up and swallowed him. He was falling…

  “It’s very You,” said Vervain the sprite, resting his bright orange chin on his bright orange hands.

  The Dark One admired the canary-yellow suit in the full-length mirror. “It is, isn’t it.” He added a bright pink scarf and tossed it dramatically over one shoulder. “Very nice.”

  A loud knocking sound came at the door of the large dressing room, which was full of garbage bags stuffed to capacity with various garments in black velvet which were to be thrown out.

  When gods change their image, they go all the way.

  “Get that, will you?” said the Dark One casually, turning to check out his three-quarters profile.

  Vervain snapped his fingers and the door swung open, tipping three agitated imps into the room.

  “The Lady,” gasped one imp, his little black suit in considerable disarray.

  “Pomegranate,” gasped the next imp, groping for his displaced toupée. “Has…”

  “Taken over,” choked the third imp, who was nearly flattened under the weight of the other two.

  “Taken over the Underworld,” they all chorused together.

  “Of course, I told you,” said the Dark One impatiently. “She is to be my entirely platonic consort—obey her orders as you would my own.”

  “She…she said,” coughed the first imp, who had managed to scramble to his feet and was busily trying to tidy his buttonhole. “She said we have to obey only her, and you’re not in power any more.”

  “She said you were a has-been,” commented the one with the dodgy hairpiece. “And—she was going to streamline the operation and you didn’t have any part in the new dynamic parameters!”

  “That’s what she said,” the third imp agreed ferven
tly. “She said that, all right.”

  The Dark One puffed himself up, his face blazing with anger. “Did she now?” he snarled. “Well, let’s just see who is Lord of the Underworld, shall we? And find the Daggersharp woman,” he added as he started to march down the nearest corridor. “This is all her fault.”

  The floor tiles were surprisingly soft. Aragon had fully expected to have his brains dashed out on them, considering the distance he had fallen. But then, this was the Underworld. If you weren’t safe here, where would you be safe?

  A steady, girlish voice spoke aloud. “Hello, Aragon.” Pomegranate Wordernsdaughter sat on the throne. Her legs were slightly too short to reach the floor, and her long braids snaked in a puddle of hair beneath her dangling feet. “I didn’t think to see you again quite so soon.”

  Aragon Silversword raised an eyebrow as he pulled himself to his feet and looked around, taking in the throne room. “Well, well. You have come up in the cosmos. And in such a short time.”

  Pomegranate smiled at him, her childish face looking surprisingly mature. She was a hemi-god, after all. “I owe it all to your ditzy girlfriend,” she said, contempt evident in her voice. “She came along and abducted me, just at the right time. And now… I am in the position to offer you another favour, Silversword. The question is, do I want to?”

  Before Aragon could respond to this, there was a great thump against the double doors. “Pomegranate, what is all this?” yelled the Dark One on the other side.

  Pomegranate smiled beatifically. “You can’t come in,” she called out in a sing-song voice. “No one can enter the Lord’s throne room if I don’t want them to. I’m the Lord of Darkness now.”

  “But this is my Underworld!” the Dark One howled, beating on the doors with his fists.

  “Not any more,” Pomegranate called out in childish triumph. “You were running it into the ground. With proper administration, this place will be back on its feet in no time. You are not the one to do the job!” As if on cue, the Underground seemed to shake and ripple, as if in danger of being ripped apart. Looking up, Aragon saw a filmy layer of golden pollen-dust drift down from the ceiling.

  Pomegranate smiled dangerously. “I’m the one who can do it,” she repeated to herself. “Only me.”

  “Quite interesting,” said Aragon. “A prepubescent hemi-goddess megalomaniac. I’ve never met one of those before.”

  “Tread carefully, Silversword,” threatened Pomegranate. “Or I might change my mind about helping you.” She stared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowing. “You can see the Daggersharp woman if you want. She should be easy enough to find. You may as well. Neither of you is going anywhere until my files are properly in order, and that could take several levels of eternity.”

  Kassa had succeeded where no one else had—she had cheered up Rusty Ballads. Seated at the piano, she bawled out the bawdiest song she could think of. The imps crowded around her and joined in the choruses enthusiastically. Some improvised jaunty hornpipes in the middle of the floor, and others were clapping and stamping in delight.

  Even a few goth girls had crept into the previously all-imp tavern, drawn by the merry music and general happy noises.

  The bartender imp was weeping for joy, blubbering into a bowl of peanuts like his heart was broken.

  It was into this bedlam that Aragon Silversword entered by the side door. He stared at the happy crowd and at the woman in the centre of it all. He found a bar stool and sat down.

  The bawdy song came to an end. Kassa instructed the nearest imp how to play piano chords so that she could sing a slow, throaty love ballad. Most of the imps stared at her, either sighing or desperately trying to memorise the words she sang and notes she played. Various combinations of imps and goths made shy attempts to lure each other out to the dance floor.

  Aragon Silversword stayed on the sidelines, observing Kassa’s strange effect on people. Somehow, wherever she was, a party broke out. Or a major explosion.

  A thin, dark man in an outrageous suit stormed into the tavern, throwing imps right and left in an attempt to get close to Kassa. “What in the name of all that is holy are you doing?” he screeched. An orange sprite crashed in after the thin man, wringing its hands anxiously.

  Kassa lifted her fingers slowly from the piano, turning around and offering the newcomer a friendly smile. “I’m cheering up your staff. They were all so miserable, I’m surprised you don’t have a revolt on your hands.”

  “I do have a revolt on my hands!” insisted the Dark One angrily.

  “Well,” said Kassa calmly. “What did I just say?”

  Aragon found himself smiling. Kassa Daggersharp was a world-class manipulator, and somehow it was a great deal more entertaining when her manipulations were not aimed at him.

  “That hemi-goddess consort you brought me has taken over the running of the whole Underworld!” yelled the Dark One. “She has snatched the reins of power from my very hands!”

  Kassa smiled blankly at him. “None of my business, of course, but wasn’t that exactly what you wanted?”

  The Dark One stared at her in total incomprehension.

  “I mean,” Kassa continued, widening her glorious golden eyes at him. “You loathe this job. You said yourself that you never wanted to be Lord of the Underworld—that you hated being typecast in such a way. That you longed for someone else to take the reins of power from your hands…”

  The Dark One continued to stare. “I’m free,” he muttered in astonishment.

  Kassa clapped him on the back in comradely fashion. “That’s right. So what you should do now is go pack a bag and vanish before she changes her mind. It’s time for you to get on with your immortality, don’t you think?” She smiled at him—that smile which Aragon remembered so well. The one which assured her victim that everything was all right, and he should trust her implicitly.

  The Dark One continued to stare at her open-mouthed. Abruptly he sprang into action, kissed Kassa soundly and then tore out of the tavern at an astounding turn of speed.

  The orange sprite turned to follow, but Kassa interrupted. “Ahem. Vervain. Aren’t you supposed to be my guardian sprite?”

  Vervain turned his little orange face towards her and then looked away to the Dark One’s receding figure. He hunched his shoulders over and looked pleadingly at his mistress.

  “Oh, go on,” she sighed. “How will he cope without you to tell him what to wear? Just make sure they send me a half-decent replacement.”

  His eyes bright, Vervain shook her hand wildly and then ran after his new master. “Oh, Dark One! Don’t forget to pack all those new shoes I ordered for you!”

  Kassa sighed and turned back to the piano. The imps hungrily waited to see what she would play next.

  Aragon took the opportunity to give a light cough.

  Very slowly, Kassa turned around, and saw him sitting at the bar. Her face broke into the smile of a cat who knows where the mice are. She rose to her feet, walking at a steady, unhurried pace. Walking, Aragon noted, not gliding. This was the genuine article.

  Behind her, the imps all complained at Kassa’s departure, muttering mutinously to themselves. One of them attempted to bang out a few chords on the piano, but entirely failed to create any kind of melody.

  Kassa slid on to the bar stool next to him. “Aragon Silversword,” she said, widening those endless golden eyes of hers. “Not to sound pushy, but what took you so long?”

  21: Bodices and Snowdrifts

  Finnley McHagrty had just about had it with slaving in the kitchen as Mistress Opia’s dogsbody. “I’m a Blackguard, you know,” he muttered into the sink of soapy water as he scrubbed at the first instalment of dirty pots. “Graduated first in my class. With Honours. All I wanted was to be a hero.”

  “A hero?” said Mistress Opia in one of her nastier grandmotherly voices. “You’re dreaming, my lad. If you’re a hero, I’m the wicked witch of the Western Skullcaps.”

  Finnley glared at the cauldron he was sc
ouring. “You said it,” he muttered. “Not me.”

  Lady Reony danced into the kitchen, beaming all over her face. “It’s all going wonderfully!” she exclaimed. “Really it is. The Emperor almost thanked me for our hospitality!”

  She flung her arms around a sudsy Finnley and gave him a kiss. “We couldn’t have done it without you,” she proclaimed. “Oh, and you, Mistress Opia!” She hugged the Brewmistress, who looked completely shocked, as if she had never been hugged before. “Your cooking was marvellous. It actually tasted like food, which is more than I could have managed on my own.”

  Reony then spun around to see Sparrow and Daggar, who had just entered the kitchen. “Oh, both of you!” She flung herself at Sparrow, hugging her madly. “Thank you so much, and you do look marvellous in that dress. You must keep it!”

  Sparrow opened her mouth to say that she would rather die, but didn’t get the chance. Reony had moved on to Daggar, whom she kissed with rampant enthusiasm. Finally she released him, returning to hug Finnley again. Daggar emerged from the kiss with a wide grin on his face which he directed at Sparrow. She raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

  Having hugged Finnley and Mistress Opia all over again, Reony returned to Daggar. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you,” she gushed. “Please, don’t hesitate…”

  “Well, since you ask,” said Daggar quickly, diverting her imminent embrace into something a little more arm’s length than the lady seemed to have in mind. “Would you and that brother of yours have any snowboots you could lend us on the morrow?”

  Balancing a flickering candlestick, Finnley led a herd of herald-serfs and peacock ladies to their various chambers for the night. One of them, a glamorous girl with purple hair and an inviting smile, hung back to talk with him. “I like butlers,” she cooed. “What’s your name, handsome?”

  “Officer Finnley McHagrty,” said Finnley automatically.