Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles)

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  “I think perhaps we should be somewhere else,” said Sparrow. “Do you have the ship?”

  Daggar patted a pocket reassuringly. “I’m sure there’s something we’re forgetting, though.”

  Sparrow snapped her fingers. “That lowdown, dustsucking Emperor bastard.”

  “Um,” said Daggar. “Strictly speaking, Silversword isn’t an Emperor yet, so please don’t call him that if we see him. It will only give him ideas.”

  “We must stop him becoming Emperor, yes?” said Sparrow.

  “Too right,” said Daggar fervently. “From what he said about his motivations, our best chance is to rescue Kassa and get those two together.”

  Sparrow raised an eyebrow. “This Kassa is dead, in the Underworld?”

  “Apparently so.”

  She leaned down and plucked up a handful of dandelions from under her feet, shaking them furiously. “The Underworld which I have destroyed, according to the Sultan.”

  “Never said it was going to be easy.”

  “We should begin by finding this Silversword person.”

  “Yes,” agreed Daggar.

  “And I shall beat him to within an inch of his life.”

  “Only if you’ve been good.”

  Aragon Silversword reached an apple orchard at the top of the hill, looking down at the pillars and avenues of Zibria. Now there was a city he was heartily sick of the sight of. He would just call in to get some supplies and then—what? Where would he go next?

  Perhaps he could head towards the land-bridge, and leave Mocklore altogether. Aragon was tired of madcap adventures. Perhaps outside the Empire he might have a chance to regain some dignity.

  He reached up to pick an apple from the tree which towered above him.

  “Are you sure about that?” asked a golden voice.

  Aragon looked up. In the branches of the tree sat Lady Luck, combing her beige-blonde hair with an air of complete abandon. “I’ve had just about enough of you, too,” he snarled.

  “That attitude isn’t going to get you anywhere!” she replied haughtily.

  Aragon picked the half-grown kitten out from the larger of his belt pouches, and brandished it at her. “Do you see what you’ve done?”

  “You rescued her from the Underworld!” said Lady Luck in surprise. “And turned her into a cat, how ingenious.”

  “It isn’t her,” he snapped. “The cat is just…carrying her.”

  “I’m sure that makes all the difference.”

  “Why are you doing all this?” he demanded. “Why kill Kassa off in the first place?”

  Lady Luck shrugged lazily. “To prove a point, of course.”

  “What point?”

  “I don’t remember. Was it so very important?”

  Aragon turned his back on her and started walking. “I don’t care anymore. I’m not interested.”

  Lady Luck appeared in front of him, sticking out her lower lip. “Aren’t you? How dull. I won’t bother with you, then.”

  “Thanks,” he said, continuing to walk.

  She didn’t follow this time. “Do you really want to know?” she called to his receding back.

  Aragon whirled around. “I have had enough witch, sprite and god games to last me a lifetime,” he growled. “If you wish to tell me, then tell me.”

  Lady Luck made an elegant shrug. “Because I could. The OtherRealm is challenging the Underworld, and they have both provided such delicious chaos and confusion that the cosmos didn’t notice one teeny goddess sneaking an undestined death through.” She laughed out loud. “We are more tangled in rules and regulations than you mortals. Why should I resist the decadent urge to do something naughty, if I knew I could get away with it?”

  He stared at her. “You are totally immoral.”

  “I’m a goddess,” Lady Luck said. “We’re not like you. Why should we even care about you? We have our own games to play.” She patted her beige-blonde hair into place, and vanished.

  Aragon stuffed the kitten back into his pouch and headed for Zibria. He found a tavern, ordered lunch and sat at a table, not eating the food which had been put in front of him. For some reason, the staple ingredient in Zibrian cooking was the olive, which he had never found particularly appealing at the best of times. His platter was heaped with olive-stuffed bread, various vegetables of the dried and pickled variety, black olives, green olives, some puffy green-and-black rissoles and a single tentacle of some poor unsuspecting sea creature. He could only assume that it had been fried in olive oil.

  The kitten was curled up at his feet, lapping from a saucer of goat’s milk.

  Aragon contemplated the future. It didn’t look any more cheerful than it had an hour earlier, so he took a bite of fried tentacle. It tasted like salty rubber, but was strangely compelling. He took another bite and chewed, slowly.

  Something white thudded into the window beside him. Very slowly, Aragon turned his head to look at it. It was a sheep. A very agitated sheep, waggling its face at his through the glass. Aragon turned back to his plate, selected a piece of pickled pepper, chewed and swallowed. Then he looked back up. The sheep was gone.

  “Oh, so now I’m going mad,” he said conversationally to himself. “Thank you, Kassa Daggersharp.”

  A moment later, the door to the tavern was flung open and Daggar Profit-scoundrel marched in, accompanied by his sheep and a dangerous woman in a black shift and leggings, the type usually worn under armour. “See!” Daggar announced to the room in general. “I told you that trainee soothsayer in the Mystic District knew what she was talking about.”

  “Oh,” said Aragon Silversword. “It’s you. I think I would have preferred insanity.” He ate a piece of dried fish. At least, he assumed it was dried fish. The alternative was too unpleasant to contemplate.

  Daggar joined him at the table, grinning all over his unshaven face. “Have you been to the Underworld yet?”

  Aragon regarded him suspiciously. “How did you know about that?”

  “I have my sources.” Daggar’s grin widened until it almost fell off his face. “Who would have picked you for being such a soft touch? Did you find her?”

  “More or less,” said Aragon icily. He bit down on a piece of pickled lettuce and spat it out hurriedly. “What do you want?”

  “Well,” said Daggar. “As far as I can make out, we can rescue Kassa!”

  Aragon gave him a long, flat look. “Kassa is gone.”

  “Ah, but we have a timeship,” said Daggar, tapping his nose confidently.

  Aragon stood up, pushing his plate to one side. “Try not to be quite so stupid.” He picked up his cat.

  “No, really,” Daggar said with great enthusiasm. “An honest to gods time-travelling ship! We can go anywhere. We can go back and stop Kassa being killed. Or something.”

  Aragon tossed a few coins on to his plate and picked up his cloak. “Goodbye, Daggar.”

  Daggar turned frantically to Sparrow. “He doesn’t believe us.”

  “If you remember,” said Sparrow coldly. “He did not believe us last time. His not believing us created that future. We have to show him the truth.”

  Aragon turned around and stared her in the eyes. “I don’t know who you are, but you are correct. I prefer not to make a fool of myself when people are spouting fairy tales.” He headed for the door, tucking the cat back into his belt.

  Daggar stared glumly at the remains of Aragon’s dinner. “So what do we do?”

  Sparrow reached Aragon before he got to the door, and tapped him smartly on the shoulder.

  He turned irritably. “What now?”

  “I have wanted to do this for the next twenty-three years,” said Sparrow, the troll-raised mercenary. And she laid him out with a single punch.

  Aragon woke to the strong smell of salt and seagulls. He lifted his head and looked around with bleary eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “We kidnapped you,” said Daggar cheerfully.

  Aragon looked at the deckchair in which he ha
d been dumped, trying to figure out why it was yellow. Then he saw the rest of the ship. “What have you done to the place?” he managed to say, staring at the glowing goldness of it all. “Kassa’s going to kill you.”

  “With any luck, she will have the opportunity,” Daggar told him. “If you suspend your disbelief for about a minute, I’ll tell you how.”

  Aragon stood up carefully, testing his jaw. “That was quite a blow. Who’s the girl?”

  Sparrow, who was busily combing burrs out of Singespitter’s wool, looked up with her narrow jade-green eyes.

  Daggar stuck up a hand hastily. “Give him the benefit of the doubt just this once. He doesn’t know you’re secretly an evil, flesh-eating troll.” He smiled weakly at Aragon. “Don’t patronise her. It’s not worth the pain.”

  Aragon regarded Sparrow thoughtfully and then turned his attention to more important questions. “Where are we going?”

  “Where it all started,” said Daggar. “Chiantrio. We still don’t know exactly how and why Kassa died. If we’re going to change the past, it’s best to equip ourselves with all the information we can.”

  “A vaguely sensible plan,” said Aragon. “Where’s my kitten?”

  Mistress Opia and the Sultan duelled ferociously, throwing objects and magic gold dust at each other. “For the last time,” he gasped between breaths, avoiding a particularly devastating blast from the Brewmistress which set one of his favourite tapestries on fire. “Will you come and work for me?”

  “Never!” she screamed.

  “What have you got left?” he demanded. “The last evidence of your precious liquid gold is gone. You’re never going to be the most famous Brewmistress. Why not win fame as the Brewer who gilded Zibria from head to foot?”

  “I did that for a Sultan once!” she shrieked. “His heir let it fall to ruin. And I can always get more liquid gold!”

  “Oh, really?” said the Sultan sceptically. “You think you can deal twice with the moonlight dimension?”

  “I know I can!” She rolled across the floor, narrowly avoiding the large sideboard Officer Finnley and Hobbs the gnome were hiding under. Triumphantly, she snatched up a handful of the dandelion trail Sparrow had left behind her. “I promise you anything!” she screamed into the flowers. “Whatever your price, I will pay it! Only give me more liquid gold!”

  A split second later, the Sultan stared at her and began to laugh. “You can’t say they don’t keep their promises!”

  Mistress Opia glowed gold. The substance slid under her skin, behind her eyes, coursing through her veins. She stared at her own outstretched hands in horror.

  It was then that the two death-canaries, following the tangled trail of dandelions and the scent of human mingled with liquid gold, flew in through the open doors. Mistress Opia leaped back out of their way, and crashed into the sideboard containing the cowering Blackguard and the gnome. The death-canaries, true to their orders, crashed into her.

  The resulting explosion took out most of the West Wing. The Sultan himself only survived because he had the foresight to throw himself behind the most solid tapestry in the room. Of the various other guests, uninvited and otherwise, who had been in the room before the explosion, no trace was ever found.

  26: The Other Dame Crosselet

  Busily throwing up over the rail, Daggar raised his sea-green face briefly to shout, “Land ho!”

  Aragon came up from below, hurling an armful of glittering swords, knives and blunt instruments on to the deck in disgust. “Just look at this mess! This time-travelling essence of yours turned all our weapons, clothes and food supplies into gold, a singularly useless substance. What am I going to do for a sword?”

  Daggar sat down on the deck with a thump. “Why do you need a new sword? What happened to the one you bought from the ice-sprites?”

  Scowling, Aragon brought out the two pieces of his transparent silver-steel rapier. “A three-headed Pomeranian bit it in half.”

  Daggar fell about laughing.

  Sparrow frowned. “Did you say not something about ‘land ho’?”

  “Yep, we should be halfway up the beach by now,” replied Daggar, still chuckling. “Where did you find a three-headed Pomeranian?” he asked Aragon.

  Sparrow looked over the side of the ship and commanded it to ‘stop’ just in time to prevent them from colliding with a palm tree. “Why exactly are we here?”

  “This is where we find out exactly how the Sacred Bauble managed to kill Kassa without leaving a mark on her,” said Aragon. “And if you’re right about this time travel thing—”

  “We showed you,” Daggar insisted. “Twice, didn’t we, Sparrow?”

  “Admittedly the Cellar Sea looks much the same no matter what year you travel to,” conceded Sparrow. “You will have to take our word for it that the gold swirly lights meant something.”

  “You’ve certainly changed the ship,” Aragon agreed. “I’ll just assume that you can’t both be completely insane, shall I?”

  “You half-believe us,” said Sparrow. “And we got you here. It is a start.”

  “Not enough has been changed yet,” warned Daggar. “I’m not going to relax until we’ve got Kassa back. She’ll keep him on the straight and narrow.”

  Aragon looked from one to the other, suspicious. “Am I missing something?”

  Sparrow gave him a long, hard look. “Let us say that if we do not rescue this redhead of yours, the future is going to be rather unpleasant.”

  “But on the bright side, you will get to inflict your miserable personality on as many people as possible,” added Daggar. Sparrow kicked him sharply in the leg. “Oof.”

  Aragon’s stony gaze flicked from one to the other and then he turned, vaulting over the side of the ship to the beach below.

  “Be quiet, pebble-brain,” snarled Sparrow to Daggar. “We do not want to make the future any worse than last time around.”

  “Fancy me being involved in an act of inter-dimensional sabotage!” chuckled Daggar. “Kassa would have been so proud.”

  “If we get this right, she can still be proud,” said Sparrow. “Just what is so special about this Captain of yours, anyway?”

  Daggar looked wistful. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that when she’s around things seem to happen. Explosions, mostly. Bright colours and sparkly lights.”

  “She sounds a riot,” said Sparrow dryly. Then, nodding towards Aragon Silversword, who was pacing the beach heavily and muttering to himself, she asked, “What does he see in her?”

  Daggar jumped down on to the sand and reached up to give her a hand. “That’s the big question, isn’t it?”

  Sparrow leaped down without assistance, landing neatly. “Do you think he has asked himself?”

  Daggar grinned broadly. “Endlessly. Ooh, look. A native.”

  A stunning maiden clothed in two coconut shells, one garland of tropical flowers and various strategically placed fern fronds stood on the beach path, in the very position that Kassa had been when the sacred bauble hit her.

  Aragon moved towards the maiden, and Sparrow and Daggar hurried after him, dragging Singespitter by a new rope from the ship’s stores—like everything else in the ship, it was glowing and gold.

  “Have you seen a white bauble about so big?” asked Aragon, holding his finger and thumb slightly apart. “Last seen, it was heading in that direction.” He pointed over her shoulder.

  The maiden smiled, shook her head slightly and batted her eyelashes.

  “What language do they speak?” hissed Daggar.

  Aragon stared steadily at the maiden. “Mocklorn,” he said. “Like everyone else. They may have a different name for it, as the Anglorachnids do, but everybody in the world essentially speaks the same language.”

  “Except trolls,” grated Sparrow.

  “If you say so,” said Aragon. He turned his piercing gaze back to the maiden and turned it up a notch.

  Her wide, vapid eyes became more and more uncomfortable under the icy
stare until finally she ducked her head and looked away.

  “That’s better,” said Aragon calmly. “I think you’d better take us to your leader.”

  The Sacred Festival was finally coming to an end. The maidens of Chiantrio unhooked the decorations from the trees, the young men cleaned themselves up after the ceremonial bloodbashing duels, the matrons tidied up the sacrificial food leftovers and the older men buried the giant warthog carcass.

  The Chief President Elect of the village was a large man with a hideous, bone-sharpened smile. He wore ferns and flowers like the other village men, but had topped off the ensemble with a silk cravat and white leather running shoes.

  The distressed maiden ran to his side as soon as she entered the hut and bowed her head in shame. “I failed to act stupid enough, papa,” she whispered.

  The Chief patted her head. “Never mind, Leilorei. It is not important. Run and help your mother gut the pheasants for lunch.”

  The maiden nodded solemnly and made a speedy exit.

  “Now, then, my friends,” said the Chief President Elect. “How may I help you?”

  “We want to know how Kassa Daggersharp died,” said Aragon bluntly.

  “Ah,” said the Chief. “The young woman with the hair? I remember her well. But I’m afraid I cannot help you.”

  A spear carrier beside him snickered and whispered something to the Chief President Elect, who nodded and grinned nastily. “Jagh, garahrog ia!” he chuckled.

  Sparrow’s face went very flat and she pushed Aragon roughly aside. Then she leant down and shoved her face into that of the Chief. “Yagkh dorogh!” she snarled.

  The Chief looked slightly taken aback. “It is unusual for a woman to be so fluent in our secret holy language,” he choked. “Let alone a foreigner. I am impressed.”

  “Secret holy language?” snapped Sparrow.

  The Chief turned his attention back to Aragon. “We did investigate the death of your…captain. The results revealed that the blame belongs in its entirety to the local witch, Dame Veedie.”