Shards of a Broken Sword

by W. R. Gingell

  “Well, there’s no need to be smug about–”

  “I want to stay here.”

  “Why didn’t you say so right away?” Kako demanded. She sounded slightly miffed. “There are dozens of free rooms, and I’m sure if you’re polite enough about it the Keep will arrange a dragon-sized one for you with access to the open air.”

  Rafiq, his heart glad, said: “You don’t mind?”

  “Mind? Why should I? You’re pretty easy to live with, after all. Besides I want to know about the sword.”

  “I see.” Rafiq, struggling between disappointment and amusement, said: “I’m to be useful to you.”

  “Oh, well, I’ve gotten used to you already,” said Kako, shrugging. “I’d rather have you here than anyone else.”

  All things considered, thought Rafiq, his smile a little less rueful, that wasn’t so bad of a place to start. “Where do you live in this bewildering old heap?”

  “Usually downstairs,” Kako said, springing lightly from her chair. She was significantly more cheerful than she had been earlier. “Though when there are no challengers I keep the passage open between here and home–”

  “The palace.”

  “–yes, the palace. Then we can come and go as we please. I always sleep here, though.”

  Rafiq, thinking of tiny Miyoko walking the halls alone, said: “You let that little scrap wander the halls here?”

  “Oh yes, the Keep loves her! Almost as much as it loves me, as a matter of fact.”

  “Me, on the other hand,” said Dai’s voice from the doorway; “It positively loathes!”

  “You shouldn’t have tried to force it to make new rooms in winter, then,” said Kako. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just making sure you’re not dead,” said Dai, smiling somewhat maliciously. “We all are.”

  “All?”

  “We’re all here,” said Zen, ducking beneath her arm. “Even Father is here. You’re in a lot of trouble, young lady.”

  “But–”

  “Akira isn’t here,” Dai contradicted. “She’s still in a state meeting.”

  Zen, with a likewise gleeful malice, added: “A state meeting that Mother ran away from when the passage disappeared, by the way.”

  “By the way,” echoed Miyoko, kicking at Dai’s legs to make room for herself.

  “It disappeared?” Kako’s eyes found Rafiq’s: she looked surprised and very slightly uneasy. “It shouldn’t have done that!”

  “That’s what we thought,” said a familiar voice from the door. Dai immediately vacated the doorway, as did the other two, and Rafiq was left to wonder how he could ever have thought that Kako’s mother was a servant. She was entirely regal. Even if she hadn’t been wearing the royal seal in her head-dress, she would have been obvious as royalty today.

  “My dear little clever one, you could have found it in your heart to come over and tell us you were safe,” she said. She said it in a kindly—even a gentle—voice, but Kako went pink.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know the seventh Circle would make the passage disappear.”

  “What happened?” asked a deeper male voice.

  Kako’s father, Rafiq thought. The man’s eyes were on him, thoughtful and faintly challenging. If those eyes didn’t have ingrained lines of good humoured amusement beside them, Rafiq might even have thought them hard. Nor was he native-born Shinpoan—so that was where Zen had inherited his eyes—though he spoke Shinpoan like a native.

  Kako, who hadn’t noticed anything amiss, said: “We entered the seventh Circle. I’ve got an idea that the Keep did something very big while we were in there, because it wasn’t Constructs and copies of ourselves this time.”

  “I died,” said Rafiq. He was becoming rapidly more certain that it was the truth.

  “Me too,” Kako said, her mouth quirking in an involuntary grimace. “I think the Keep might have created several alternate timelines. That would take enough of its power to drain all the non-essential magics around the place.”

  “We should be able to prove or disprove that,” said Kako’s father. He had forgotten Rafiq in his interest. “It’s far more likely that it’s a simple case of timeline manipulation, though. What other non-essentials were drained?”

  “I haven’t checked yet,” said Kako. “And it can’t be manipulation, because–”

  “Don’t let them start talking, Mother!” said Suki in despair. “They’ll never stop!”

  Rafiq found himself grinning. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to Suki’s plea: Kako and her father continued to argue back and forth about the relative merits of timeline manipulation and alternate timelines. Dai and Zen, who were both listening intently, occasionally interposed a question or comment. To Rafiq, it sounded like the same thing with a different name.

  Queen Shiori, who must have been used to the babble of almost incomprehensible debate in the background of her days, smiled at Rafiq and said: “I’m glad you came through safely, my dear.”

  Why was it, wondered Rafiq, that the queen always made him feel like a fledgling before its tutor? Not quite grown up and slightly gawky. He said: “So am I, your majesty.”

  “I’ve been drawing up citizenship papers for you. Do you still intend to remain here?”

  “Yes, your majesty.”

  “Well, we might have to go away for a little bit in a year or two,” said Kako, suddenly attentive. “Rafiq knows something about a magical artefact that might be very useful in chasing out the Fae. I just need to do some experiments on the bit I have, first.”

  “We’ll talk about that in a year or two,” said Queen Shiori, her eyes flicking from Kako to Rafiq. “Now that I’m assured you’re safe, my little clever one, I think I really must return to my meeting. My darling, will you walk with me?”

  She was addressing her husband, asking a question that Rafiq knew very well wasn’t the one spoken. He saw the brief passage of silent communication that passed between the two of them, and then Kako’s father nodded. “How could I resist?” he said. There was a smile in his voice, but it was less pronounced when he said to Rafiq in passing: “We’ll talk later, I think.”

  Rafiq nodded silently, very aware of the curious eyes of Dai, Zen, and above all, Kako.

  “And Mee has lessons,” said Suki firmly. “So does Zen.”

  Zen grumbled beneath his breath, but allowed himself to be shooed away to the door. “Wait for me before you start working on the shard,” he said beseechingly.

  Dai, catching the pointed look that Suki sent her, said: “Don’t even think about it, Suki! My tutor doesn’t want to see me again until he’s had a chance to see if he can prove me wrong about time-release mechanics in preservative spells.”

  Suki cast a look of weary long-suffering up at the ceiling and towed Zen and Miyoko away.

  Dai collapsed languidly into one of the chairs and said: “Ugh! What a nasty little room this is.”

  “I know,” said Kako, not at all offended. “Why do you think I don’t live here?”

  “Well, why not fit it out for Rafiq? Open out a few of the windows and turn the dressing room into a flight-run?”

  “Now there’s a thought,” Kako said. To Rafiq, she said: “So Mother has been drawing up papers of citizenship for you! She seems quite pleased that you’ll be here with me, actually.”

  “Well, you’re a sort-of dragon and he’s a sort-of human,” said Dai, shrugging. “It’s a good match.”

  “Match?” Kako looked startled and a little confused.

  Rafiq’s eyes sought Dai’s in silent pleading. She was looking sarcastic and more than slightly malicious, but after a moment her eyes dropped. She said: “Well, if you have to have someone in the Keep with you, he’s a good choice. He’ll be able to keep up with you, at any rate.”

  Kako laughed suddenly. “Oh, there’s no doubt about that! What do you think, Rafiq? Do you think you’d like to live up here?”

  Up or down didn’t matter, of course. So long as the K
eep housed Kako, Rafiq would make his bed in the smallest and dankest of its rooms. But this room at the top of the tower– this room had enough space for a much larger dragon than Rafiq. Or perhaps, in time, two dragons.

  “This will be just right,” he said.

  End of Book Two

  The First Chill of Autumn

  Shards of A Broken Sword

  3

  W.R. Gingell

  For my mother. She loves Playing Hearts best of all but the dedication for that one was already taken so she has to put up with this one instead.

  Sorry, Ma.

  The First Chill of Autumn

  The Summer of Youth

  Until she reached the age of seventeen there were four certainties in the life of Dion ferch Alawn.

  The first was that her parents were always wise, always right.

  The second was that her life would always fall into the same orderly rhythms as it had thus far.

  Thirdly, she had no doubt that she would one day be queen.

  The fourth thing of which Dion ferch Alawn was absolutely certain was that the tall, ebony-skinned man she saw in her bedroom mirror meant her no harm.

  As it turned out, this was the only thing in which she was entirely correct.

  Dion was three when the Fae arrived. She watched the first stately audience from the Upper Gallery as the Fae swept gracefully through the Audience Hall below, tall, graceful people with beautifully tragic faces. She felt her nurse’s fingers pinching at her shoulder and knew she was being reminded not to gape and point. Dion knew dimly that it was a Very Bad Thing for the Princess Heir to gape and point. She wished she could be as free as her twin sister Aerwn, who didn’t care about the nurse’s pinching fingers, and gaped and gasped and bounced to her heart’s content.

  The Fae came in small numbers at first, fleeing from a peril in Faery that was talked about in hushed tones. The Guardians were said to be Fae of the worst kind; beast-like warmongers who had already taken over much of Faery. Dion heard the whispers, but never much more than whispers, despite her awe-struck observation of the Fae who arrived from week to week. The homeless Fae each asked for and were granted an audience with the King and Queen, and most were settled in Harlech. Dion also heard the mutters around the castle when it became known that the Crown—and by proxy the people—were paying for their resettlement and daily food.

  Before long there was a steady stream of Fae arriving every day. Some of them settled in Harlech, some in other Llassarian cities, and still more of them moved right in the castle itself. Soon the maids were all Fae, swiftly and gracefully performing their duties. The footmen morphed from a group of well-trained and orderly men into a regiment of perfectly starched, perfectly beautiful Fae.

  By the time Dion and Aerwn were five, their tutors were all Fae. Aerwn, naturally graceful and quick to learn, blossomed beautifully under their tutelage. Dion, who always felt clumsy and awkward around the Fae, felt herself becoming even more stiff, careful, and silent. Despite that, she discovered that the Fae had a great deal to teach even her. She didn’t find that she grew more graceful or more silver-tongued, like Aerwn, but she did begin to learn that there were other things in which she could excel. The Fae, upon learning that Dion had a decided talent for magic, patted her on the head and gave her spells to learn. She applied herself assiduously, and had the pleasure of feeling that she had surprised her tutors when she effortlessly performed the spells for them. Dion thought that they were a little more careful with the spells they gave her to learn after that, but they didn’t stop giving her spells, and before long she had her own Instructor of Magic.

  Dion had become so used to the constant presence of the Fae in her life that when the tall, black Fae first appeared in her oval dressing mirror, she didn’t think more of it than to feel in a vaguely embarrassed way that she was the one who was intruding. After all, Fae were free to come and go wherever they pleased, and Dion knew not to question or challenge the Fae rudely.

  Fae thoughts are high and wise, she knew. A Fae always has a reason for what the Fae does. It is not for mortals to question or upbraid.

  So Dion hurried past her mirror whenever she was in her suite, hastily averting her eyes whenever she saw that the tall Fae was back. She was so used to being observed and tested by then that being watched even in her suite didn’t seem unusual. And the Fae, apart from the fact of his actual presence, wasn’t intrusive. He didn’t do much more than stand there, though sometimes he seemed to be talking. Since no sound came through the glass, Dion assumed that he was talking to other Fae on his side of the mirror, and still abashedly avoided it as much as she could.

  A few months after her seventh birthday, Dion sprained her ankle. If she was really honest about it, thought Dion, as with most things in the twins’ lives, it wasn’t so much that she had sprained her ankle, but that Aerwn had sprained it for her. It was Aerwn who had bullied her into climbing into the saddle of their father’s horse; Aerwn who confidently asserted that she could and would climb on right after you, you scardy!; Aerwn who had opened the stable door for them both; Aerwn who seized upon Dion’s foot when their father’s horse charged grimly for freedom, dashing herself and her sister to the unforgiving paving-stones of the stable.

  And of course it was Dion who finished the day in bed, her face whiter than usual and her sprained foot very carefully elevated. The Fae were too sensible to heal human injuries quickly without reason—Dion herself had been taught how dangerous it was for the human system to be brought to rely upon magic for its healing—and she had been put to bed for the afternoon with the promise that she would be better tomorrow.

  It was only after the solicitous rush had dissipated and Dion’s nurse had withdrawn to the next room that Dion saw her dressing mirror had been angled so as to give her a reflected view of the outside world. Or it would have done, if the tall man wasn’t reflecting still more strongly from the glass. Someone must have done it in a spirit of kindness, but Dion wished they hadn’t made the effort, because it meant an agony of embarrassment in her attempts not to look at it. First she gazed at the gauzy sweeps of her canopy, then toward the window; now at her bedposts and then at her toes. Looking at her toes had the unfortunate result of bringing her into direct eye contact with the man in the mirror, however, and Dion looked away awkwardly. At last she settled on pretending to read a book, her face carefully shielded from the mirror; and began to feel the stiffness in her cheeks relax a little. Dion liked reading, though if poetry were excluded, there weren’t really many books to read for pleasure. Previously popular books, with their old prejudices and ancient enmity, were frowned upon by the king and queen. The castle had once had such books, Dion knew, but with the Fae had come the Cleansing: the washing away of all previous conflicts and anything that could be used to incite unrest. It was necessary. But Dion remembered some of the tales that had been read to her only a few years ago, before the Cleansing, and the new, correct books didn’t hold quite the same sense of wonder or adventure.

  By and by, Dion began to notice a golden glow to the edges of her book. It haloed the wrist and the hand that were holding the book aloft, a soft, magical luminosity that made her reach out to touch it with her other hand. It was ethereal but somehow heavy in the air. Dion caught a breath in her throat and dropped her book, her eyes flying at once to the man in the mirror. He was looking right at her, and on the mirror was an embossing in the same gold that formed curlicues up and down the glass. Dion, her mouth as wide open as her eyes, watched in fascination as the curlicues gained form and structure, and became words.

  The words in the mirror said: Don’t they teach you about sound?

  “Sound is vibration,” said Dion doubtfully, sitting up with difficulty. She wasn’t unsure about what sound was: she was unsure why it mattered. She had been right at first: this was a test. “I haven’t seen– that is, the magic is beautiful. How do you– do you mind telling me how you’re doing that?” He waited so long to respond that she had
flushed and added hurriedly: “I’m sorry! Of course, you can’t hear me. How silly of me,” before the golden curlicues reformed to add: What does that tell you?

  “You c– can hear me!” said Dion foolishly.

  The words in the mirror swirled apart and then together again. I can read your lips. Face the mirror, please.

  Dion turned her head a little more. “Well, vibrations. You speak, which makes the air vibrate, and then those vibrations play against– oh! Oh, I know!”

  The glass in the mirror was stopping the vibrations from coming through and getting to her ears. That’s why he seemed not to make any sound though his mouth moved. Dion wriggled painfully toward the edge of her bed, a pale reflection of herself grimacing and haltingly stumbling forward in the mirror. The Fae, who somehow seemed more real than she did in that reflection, simply waited. Dion’s ankle ached and throbbed, but she continued doggedly on until she could place her palm on the mirror. She wasn’t yet proficient enough with magic to affect things she wasn’t touching, and she regretted it more than ever now.

  The Fae waited for her without impatience. He didn’t seem to be concerned with her pain, though Dion thought that he watched her very carefully, and when she at last laid her palm against the mirror, damp with sweat, he gave her a single, short nod. It said well done, though the mirror didn’t.

  Vibrations, thought Dion, and sent a tracery of raw magic into the mirror. In the mirror, the Fae spoke, and she felt the vibration of it against her vein-work of magic. The mirror was too thick to allow the vibrations through, and Dion was wary of softening it. Fae though he might be, she wasn’t sure she wanted him stepping through the mirror along with his voice. She left her tracery of magic where it was, and opened up the thread that linked his side to hers into a small spider-web on her side of the mirror.