In Harmony, the Light Lords all pulled back from their viewing mirror, regarding each other with some concern.
“Who let a piece of Harmony into the outsider world?” demanded Ladybird.
“It has always been there,” said Lord Kloakor. “It was how we discovered the outsider world in the first place.”
“Doesn’t she know?” said Lord Dreamer scornfully. “Is she so busy listening to herself talk at our council meetings that she hasn’t the faintest idea what is going on?”
Quillsmith sighed. “Listen carefully, Ladybird. The reason they are the outsider world is because we are the insider world. We are inside, they are outside. That little bauble your counterpart has picked up isn’t a piece of our world. It is our world.”
Kassa closed her hand around the bright white gem.
“So,” said Aragon Silversword. “How can we get most use out of this fragment of nice evil city? Suggestions, anyone?”
“I have a few,” said Kassa. “Mostly involving the digestive system of a flying sheep.”
Egg half-raised his hand. “I have an idea. It might be a bit chaotic, though.”
“Couldn’t be more chaotic than the day I’ve had so far,” said Kassa. “Hit me.”
“Bertie,” said Egg.
Kassa looked at him with an amazed grin. “I just knew you’d be good at coming up with plans. I’m ashamed I didn’t think of that myself.”
“Who is Bertie?” asked Aragon.
“Vice-Chancellor Bertie Peacock,” said Kassa gleefully. “Inventor of the postgraduate thesis and the Great Reversing Barrel and various other oddities in between. He’s the Lordling of Cluft and the most absent-minded old coot you’ll ever meet, but he also happens to be the greatest authority in Mocklore on magical catastrophes.”
Aragon blinked. “I thought you were the greatest authority in Mocklore when it came to magical catastrophes.”
“Are you kidding? I’m strictly amateur. Bertie’s got forty years on me. He was around for the Aardvaalk Massacre and the Giant Man-Eating Sea-Succubus and the Blue Death, not to mention the Great Badger Flood and the Vampyre Aelves and all the sparkly magic bits of the Fifty-Seven Year War. There’s priceless wisdom locked up in that head of his. We just have to drag it out of him.” She tucked the little piece of Harmony into one of her many belt pouches. “And to do that I have to drag him out of the draklight. Won’t be long.”
“Hold on,” said Aragon. “You’re going back into Cluft? It’s dangerous in there.”
“Dangerous for you, hero boy,” Kassa said lightly. “Luckily, one of this group is immune to the influence of the draklight, and it just happens to be me.”
“Entirely immune?” said Aragon. It was a fair question, considering that a half-feral Kassa had plunged a knife between his ribs not so long ago.
“So I get a little hot and bothered,” said Kassa. “Nothing I can’t control. At least I don’t turn into an entirely different person. None of the rest of you can be trusted in there, you’d revert to costumed idiots.”
“You don’t know how long your so-called immunity will last,” Aragon insisted. “What if this Ladybird figures out how to control you like the others controlled us?”
“She’s an incompetent little psychopath who has sniffed her own hair dye one too many times. I’m not unreasonable, Silversword. We don’t have an alternative plan. I don’t know if we’re ever going to get Cluft back and I am not going to lose any more territory. If Bertie can be of use to us, I’m fetching him. I know exactly where he is; I locked him in a cupboard when all this started happening. It will take me fifteen minutes, tops.”
“You always do this, Kassa. You haven’t got the faintest idea of how to solve the problem, so you throw yourself into jeopardy in the hope that the resulting chaos will work in your favour.”
“Chaos has been good to me over the years,” she shot back. “If I knew what I was doing, we’d be in real trouble.”
“I am not going to let you go in there alone.”
Kassa rolled her eyes at him. “You want to come with me? Noble and stupid. You’ll turn into the Cloak the second you step back into the draklight, and I’ll just have to knock you unconscious. Why put me to the trouble?”
“Because for once in our lives I’d like you to think things over for five minutes before rushing into an impossibly dangerous situation!”
“If I thought about it for five minutes I wouldn’t go, and then where would we be?” Kassa marched over to Lord Sinistre and righted his chair, then started rummaging through the pockets of his long leather coat. “Right, mister evil genius. Tell me about these villainous props you have in your pockets.”
Lord Sinistre eyed her. “There’s the Compelling Collar, and my spyglass, and several unnameable torture devices…”
“Any swords?” she asked briskly.
“Under here,” said Sinistre, wiggling around and patting his right hip. Kassa felt under the coat. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to get it out without untying me,” he added.
“Watch me,” said Kassa Daggersharp.
Aragon approached as Kassa dug under the tightly bound rope with her fingers. “Kassa, why do you feel that you need a sword?”
“Because I’m going into a dark, shadowy wasteland filled with students who were never that civilised to begin with,” said Kassa. She lay flat on her back and slid under the chair, still tugging at the sword that was apparently attached to Lord Sinistre, wedged under his coat by the rope. “They were challenging each other to duels when we left, it’s probably gang warfare by now. You wouldn’t want to me to travel unprotected, would you?”
The sword flew free from under Lord Sinistre’s coat and bounced twice on the road, making a loud clanking noise.
Lord Sinistre winced. “I say, that is an heirloom, you know.”
“Your city only came into existence a few months ago,” said Kassa. “It can’t be that much of an heirloom.”
“It happens to be the doomed blade of Dathazarrr,” said Lord Sinistre. “It was wielded by the first Lord of Drak two hundred years ago.”
“Interesting,” said Kassa. “I thought you told me Drak had only been around for one hundred years.”
That shut up Lord Sinistre long enough for Kassa to examine the doomed blade of Dathazarrr. It was long and very thin, light enough for a child to carry if it was a very tall child and you were the sort of person who let your child play with edged weapons. The metal was dark, with a silvery pattern picked out across the blade. The hilt was ornate, with black jewels set into loops and braids of dark, twisted steel. It would do.
Kassa extended her arm so that the tip of the blade was pointing directly at Aragon Silversword. “Tell me again where you’ve been for the last three years?”
“Kassa, this isn’t funny.”
“No,” she said, one eye on the dome of draklight that had enshrouded both cities, Drak and Cluft. “That’s what isn’t funny. I need to do something about it. Now, right away. It’s what I do.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “I’m not stopping you.”
She was instantly suspicious. “You’re not?”
“You’re so keen on getting yourself killed, why should I bother to talk you out of it?”
“Don’t you care?” she said in a small voice.
“You’re the one holding the sword, Kassa. You can do whatever you like. Of course, you’re holding it wrong.”
Kassa lowered the sword and stared at the way that her hand gripped the hilt. “This isn’t right?”
Aragon moved in beside her, altering the spread of her fingers and the angle of her wrist. “There, like that.”
“That does feel better,” she agreed.
“Of course, if you were taller I’d suggest this grip, it enables better control.” He took the sword off her to demonstrate, then smoothly held it at arm’s length away from her. “Ready to discuss alternative plans yet?”
Kassa glared at him. “That’s not fair.”
“How does this immunity of yours work?” Aragon asked in a low voice. “How do you know it won’t suddenly run out? Please think this through.”
“I have thought this through!” said Kassa. Since she didn’t have a sword any more, she drew a dagger from her belt. “The draklight is getting more powerful by the second and we have done exactly nothing to slow it down. Cluft is my home now. These are my people, and Drak has swallowed them whole. I’m doing everything I can to restrain myself from using magic, because the side effects from that could be catastrophic. Finding Bertie is the only constructive thing I can think of doing which will not automatically make things ten times worse, and why the hell are you looking at me like that?”
Aragon was staring at her. “You almost sound as if you know what you’re doing.”
Kassa stabbed him in the thigh.
Aragon fell backward, swearing profusely. On his way down, he let go of the doomed blade of Dathazarrr.
Kassa scooped up the sword and rummaged in one pouch, pulling out a small twist of paper which she tossed to Egg. “Scatter this over him and don’t let him follow me,” she said, then turned and ran full-tilt down the road until the seething mass of draklight swallowed her up.
Singespitter trotted after her at great speed, his wings lifting him as he passed into the draklight. He shot a scornful look over his shoulder which clearly said: As if I’d ever let her go into danger alone.
The three students stared at each other, and then at the bleeding, swearing Aragon Silversword.
“What does she do when you hand in an essay late?” asked Sean.
“You don’t want to know,” said Clio.
“Spell, now,” ordered Aragon through gritted teeth.
Egg opened the little twist of paper and scattered its contents. They were tiny crystalline granules, sparkling pink in the sunlight. To his horror, Egg suddenly felt a surge of power leaving his own body and boosting the spell. The dagger flew out at great speed, almost slicing off Lord Sinistre’s ear before it embedded itself in the grass on the far side of the Great Mocklore Road. The wound vanished, as did the blood, which presumably had been put back into Aragon’s veins where it belonged.
Aragon Silversword had not only been un-stabbed, but glowed with health. “Good spell,” he said, sitting up.
Egg managed to control himself, forcing the power back under his ribcage where it belonged. At least, he thought it was in his ribcage. Some of it was probably near his stomach, judging by how sick he felt.
The first thing that happened when Kassa crossed into the draklight was yet another costume change. This time it was another tight-fitting lace number with high boots, all in black. Kassa quickly used the doomed blade of Dathazarrr to slice the lower seams of the tight dress open, then slit the lacings of the boots so that she could shake them off and stride along in her stockinged feet. She didn’t have time to play the hobbling fashion victim.
The Great Mocklore Road had been laid down sixty years earlier, its meandering path specifically designed to avoid all the major battle sites, since the Fifty-Seven Year War had been in full swing at that time. The planned route of the Road had run straight through the most popular tavern in all Mocklore, The Boar’s Revenge, owned by one Wilbermore Tapster. Before the Emperor’s roadsmiths could demolish the tavern, Tapster got in first, cutting the building in half and dragging the two halves wide enough apart that the Road could run through the middle. It was a success, overall. He lost more than the average number of barmaids to carriage accidents, but travellers in a hurry enjoyed the opportunity to grab a beer and a ploughman’s lunch without stopping.
When Wilbermore’s grandson Cluft inherited the tavern (retitled The Split Boar) he made use of its prime location to sell education, and the Polyhedrotechnical College was born. The Split Boar was still an active tavern in these modern times, one of many that catered to the student population. As the Split Boar contained the entrances to many secret passages, it was also quite popular with staff who liked being able to escape in a hurry if earnest students came along to dispute an essay mark.
Kassa was relying on the secret tunnels to get her to Vice-Chancellor Bertie and remove him from the draklight before she was forced to use her new sword on people.
Some hope. There were people everywhere. They must be flooding in from overland as well as the roads. There were quite a few Axgaardians, and even a Zibrian or two. The siren song of the draklight had extended even further than Kassa feared. This was a serious situation, but she couldn’t help finding it amusing to see so many rough, tough Axgaard warriors (whose idea of formal attire was to bury their fur and leather garments in the ground overnight to get rid of the worst of the smell) forced into elegant velvet doublets and jewelled hose, trying to kill each other with spindly little rapiers and daggers instead of their usual meaty chopping and hacking weapons.
Still, they were trying to kill each other. Axgaardians were already aggressive, and the influence of the draklight was making it worse. Needle-thin blades flew back and forth, slicing through puffed sleeves and padded collars. The air was filled with flying swatches of mulberry silk and midnight satin.
Kassa elbowed her way through the dangerous crowd. She could feel the draklight working away at her mind, trying to find a way in. Morbid thoughts, violent urges, seductive impulses… “Stop it, don’t have time,” she said aloud, ducking as a large, bearded warrior whirled his beaded cummerbund over his head.
Singespitter landed on the bar, snarling. He was a nastier monster this time, with rows of spikes down the spines of his wings and claws. His several large red eyes glared at Kassa. A long drip of dribble slid out of his slavering mouth, plopping on to the wooden floorboards and burning a hole straight through them.
“Nice,” said Kassa, unable to help a shudder. “Hope you’re still on my side.”
Singespitter leaped down on the far side of the bar. Kassa followed him, sliding over the surface of the bar. She tapped one of the knots in the wooden floor and stood back as a trapdoor slid slowly open. “Demonic creatures first,” she said politely.
Singespitter gave her a dirty look and plunged down the creaky staircase. Kassa went after him, pulling the trapdoor closed behind her.
Now she just had to get to the administration cottage near the square of student residence, and the cupboard in which she had locked Vice-Chancellor Bertie for his own safety. That was the same cupboard in which the Great Reversing Barrel was stored, as well as all the most secret student files (or at least the most entertaining ones for reading out at conferences) and the petty cash box. The cupboard had been constructed from fourth generation steel-oak, one of the hardiest woods known to Mocklore. It was utterly secure, so Kassa was pretty certain that Bertie would still be there.
She had last seen the key several costume changes ago, but there would be time enough to worry about that.
14
The Great Reversing Barrel
Aragon was using Lord Sinistre’s spyglass to scan the dome of draklight, in the hope of spotting Kassa. Clio and Sean had got it into their heads to try to stop the various passers-by who were being lured towards Drak. They were having very little success, as they could only physically restrain one or two people at a time — as soon as they let go, the people in question would run straight for the dome of draklight.
Egg didn’t have the heart to assist in this fruitless quest. His head and belly ached from the spell he had amplified. He had performed magic. An actual spell. No wonder Kassa was so negative about the whole process. It felt horrible.
A bright orange raven flew overhead, circling around the dome of draklight. A lavender parrot followed, then a bright yellow kestrel. Next came the bats, in at least twelve different shades of pink and blue. There were insects, too, in so many different colours that they formed a flying mass of plaid. A low, urgent buzzing filled the air.
The birds, bats and insects did not seem as tempted to cross into the dome of draklight as the citizens of Mockl
ore were. Instead, they hovered around the dome, keeping their distance.
“Very sensible,” Egg muttered to himself. “Wouldn’t have thought they’d have it in them.”
Aragon trained the spyglass on the mass of winged things that were still coming, creating a wide circle of colours around the huge dome of draklight. “I’ve never seen birds act like that before.”
“Not birds,” said Egg. “Or bats, or flies. Those are warlocks.”
After getting turned around twice in the tunnels, Kassa and Singespitter found their way into the administration cottage. Like many of the cottages of Cluft, it had been built upside down thanks to the whims of a mad Emperor. Several of the windows had been broken, and scorch marks ran along the sloped and thatched floors.
The draklight was having a sinister influence over the highly susceptible students and staff of Cluft. Elegance had descended into anarchy. Kassa could hear shouts and screams from outside.
Time to work fast.
She located the sturdy wooden door of the cupboard and set Singespitter on it. The monstrous creature that Singespitter had become spat acid at the lock, then breathed a hot jet of flame on to it. Finally, Kassa hit the lock several times with the doomed blade of Dathazarrr, and the lock completely fell out of it.
It was dark inside the cupboard, darker than anywhere else in this draklight version of Cluft. Kassa took two steps into the blackness, and scraped her shin on something large which just had to be the Great Reversing Barrel. “If only I could fit a whole city inside you,” she murmured to herself. “My problems would be solved. Then again, you’d probably just reverse Drak from being a deadly threat into being an impossibly huge deadly threat.” She remembered the fate of the ham sandwiches and shuddered. “Or turn a city full of live people into a city full of dead people.”
Kassa peered into the blackness, trying to remember how far back the cupboard actually went. He should have heard her if he was in here, surely. “Vice-Chancellor? Where are you?”
Mocklore Box Set (Mocklore Chronicles) Page 75
