The crunching of footsteps on gravel warned her of someone’s approach. It was Dost. She tensed, staring at him.
He stopped a few paces away and lifted his helmet’s visor. “Curse this thing. Even I can’t breathe in it.” He chuckled in his horrible way.
She said nothing, waiting.
His blue eyes locked unblinking on hers. “I’ve come to warn you. The incident at the gate has angered Krueger. You may be in danger, for that...and other reasons.”
Other reasons? “And you’re worried because you need me alive.”
He put out a hand as if to touch her. She flattened her back against the seat, feeling Mogg shift as she did so.
He slowly lowered his arm. “I’m not stupid, or blind. I can see you hate me.”
“No.” She glanced down. “You scare me.” The urge to leave strengthened in her. She should go as soon as possible. Go to see Blissman, find out what she was and what she might become.
“Ah. Do I?” He blinked. “Well. I can see that right now there is no possibility that you will help me. No matter how worthy my cause.”
His cause? How could she be sure of his cause? Ellinca thought of the beheaded Grakk boy and her certainty wavered just a little. Was she taking the easy path? She should be doing what was right...not what was easy.
“So you are free to go and to decide.” There was a tinkling of metal as he placed something on the carriage foot tray. “I believe you’re the only one who can help me. Think hard before you decide.” Dost hesitated. “What you saw today... Imagine how it will be if our army overruns the whole Grakk territory.”
She could feel the weight of his stare.
“Leave a message with Blissman, if you care to. I’ve sent him word that you are coming. I think I can contact him when need be.”
“Tell me something...Dost.” His name had seemed to glue her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “When magi die...their creations die too. If you find and kill the bludvoik mage, you won’t be able help the Grakks at all. You’d be...” She wrestled for the right word. Dead seemed wrong. “...not around anymore.”
He went still. “I’ll deal with that when it happens. After all, I’m not precisely bludvoik anymore, am I? Um...” He tucked a thumb into his belt and looked away for a moment. “Take care, won’t you?”
With that he turned on his heel and walked back to the others.
Confused by his sudden sentiment she watched him go. Take care? She picked up the leather purse and peered within. Five gold grints! More than she had ever possessed. She slipped off the seat to the ground, grabbed the pack, shoved Mogg back inside. He wriggled in protest and tried frantically to escape. Why she thought “he” she could not say.
Metal... Ellinca glanced at her wrist. No, she shouldn’t use the gift from Sania. She patted her pockets and looked about. Her pack had of course been scoured clean of anything so tasty. Mogg’s nose snuffled eagerly at her hands, at the silver bracelet and the purse.
“Oh. These? You like these coins? No, not the bracelet. Can you smell gold? Here.” She dug out one of the coins. Accepting them had made her feel bad anyway. “Have one.” She tossed it into the pack. Mogg scampered in after it and she swiftly buckled the pack.
The argument had resumed with Dost’s return. It would be simple to slip away down the hill while they were distracted. Below was the all-day Wost streetmarket. Already the hubbub of frenzied business reached her ears.
Someone screamed. Abruptly the sound cut off. Looking through the legs of the quaggas, she saw a small boy clothed in a colorful assortment of rags struggling against Krueger. One large hand was clamped over his mouth. Something was spoken in rapid Grakk.
“Speak La’le here, always.” That was Dost.
“No one will miss him,” insisted Krueger. “We cannot let him go!”
Dayna, she could see, was distressed. “Krueger! This is not needed.”
“Yes. This is unnecessary and cruel. Release him. No one will pay heed to a beggar boy.”
“I will not take the chance. We should not risk...disclosure.” She guessed he had sought a word the boy would not understand. “I can dispose of him quickly.” His teeth showed white against his tanned skin.
Did she imagine it or did Krueger taunt Dost?
The boy struggled harder, throwing himself around. Krueger barely exerted himself to hold him.
Ellinca leaned forward, afraid to blink or breathe lest something awful happened. Should she do something? Was this to be murder? What could she do?
“Wait,” exclaimed Haddrash. “Boy, are you of the Urstani Click?”
The boy grunted what seemed an affirmative. He held out one palm which Haddrash peered at.
He nodded at something he saw upon it. “Tell your master that Gouge says to leave these people be. Remember that? Let him loose, Krueger. It’s okay. I have...dealings with the Urstani.”
“Deal with thieves? No!”
Eyeballs rimmed with white, the boy searched from face to face before plucking feebly at Krueger’s forearm. A choked gasp escaped him.
There came a tension in the air, a moment where it was clear something decisive was about to happen. Violence or surrender, either extreme would do.
Dost seemed to grow in stature and width. He let out a low growl and his hands moved swiftly. He pulled and held apart Krueger’s arms, releasing the boy as easily as one might shuck an oyster. The boy sprinted off, disappearing from view behind the stage, leaving only the fading of his footsteps.
Ellinca drew in a ragged breath. If Krueger ever thought she would betray them would he try to dispose of her? Leaving them was more urgent than she had thought. But Dost...surprisingly he had solved that without anyone getting hurt.
If only he were not a bludvoik. And whose fault is that? Of all the people to be a savior. Could he really be that good? That nice? It was unnatural. She nearly giggled at that. Unnatural was precisely what he was.
Now it was Krueger’s turn to stand defiant, lips thin with anger. He half-drew his sword then stopped, eyeing Dost, unmoving yet brimming with the promise of battle.
A small bird warbled from the trees on the perimeter. A breeze smelling of baked bread gently brushed Ellinca’s hair and stirred the seed heads of long grass by her feet.
Ever so slowly Krueger sheathed his sword, metal sliding home reluctantly. He made a small bow.
“My...apologies. To you all. I was...”
Dost grunted. In a few strides he reached a row of saplings. He lashed out with his fist, striking three of them in quick succession. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The trees toppled sideways, snapped in half.
Krueger licked his lips. “Once again. I do apologize, for my impetuosity.” He bowed again.
Dost turned, arms stiff, hands clenched. When he did nothing but stare down at his shaking fists Dayna quietly walked over. She rested a hand on his arm.
As if he woke from a dream, Dost started. He opened his clasped hands. From them shot a blue sparrow that flitted off, piping tartly as it threaded a zig-zag path through the treetops.
Dost bowed to Krueger as though nothing strange had happened. “Your apology is accepted. Please remember I want to stop this war too.”
So? He had an anger problem or something. He hadn’t killed the bird...just a few trees. It was nothing. Well, almost nothing.
Ellinca rested her forehead against the warmth of the quagga’s flank. Sometimes talking to herself was the most testing thing. She knew all her own weaknesses, her faults, her fears. To do what he asked, to help him, she’d have to touch him. The usual revulsion shook her. Why had she ever dreamed of kissing him when she couldn’t even bear to touch him? Of course, when she dreamed, he was whole again. If only it were that easy to change him back.
She knew very well what she should do. She’d been making excuses forever.
On the other hand it was so unfair. She was just a woman, not a noble leader of armies, not a brave soldier on a steed, not a prince or even a princess. She was a
little person who did the little things, like eating and sleeping and waking in the mornings with a crick in her neck and fleas in her hair.
I’m just me.
And on the other, other hand, here she was accompanying a royal-born bludvoik on his way to stop a war between two countries that hated each other. Madness. The world was upside-down. Some ingredient was missing too. She still couldn’t understand how she’d healed Dost when healing the animals had failed.
Ellinca squeezed her eyes shut.
She’d see Sir Blissman, and if she could do something to aid Dost...she would.
That resolved, she quickly checked to see whether she was still unobserved then set off down the hill at a fast pace, cutting across the road. On foot it took only a few minutes to reach the bottom.
On the way down, she stared in disbelief at a familiar stick-like figure below. It was Bertrand Jubb. His head crested above the level of the crowd like a mountain peak through a sea of cloud.
Scaling the fence was done in an instant and she found herself at the back of the markets. Ellinca did not have the tiniest inkling where to find Sir Blissman. There were no handy notes with addresses or any other items left inside the pack, only the very smug and fat Mogg, his eyes gleaming with flecks of brilliant gold.
How would he manage to hide the next time somebody searched her pack? Perhaps she should throw something in there for him to burrow under. No, he would only eat it, or whatever it was he’d done with the other stuff.
Chapter 21
To Blissman
She found Mr. Jubb by the apothecary’s stall, looking neater and more assured than before with his unruly black hair held back in a ponytail. His lace-cuffed wrist cocked, he held a glass dropper poised above his nose and sniffed as though it held the most delicate scent. From the alarm on the pharmacist’s face – he was a small, gray man as wrinkled as a raisin – it was not a perfume at all. In fact the label on the glass jar by Mr. Jubb’s elbow said Tincture of Alumpine. A skull and crossbones was stamped below in red ink.
“Sir! Sir!” The little man jumped up and down. “You must not do that! I cannot be responsible for your poisoning!”
“No?” Mr. Jubb put down the dropper and screwed the lid on the jar. “I’ll take a full three gillwags of it. Send it to my shop. Put it on my account.” He sloshed some alcohol on his fingers then wiped them with a towel. “And that as well.” Here in the city he was clearly in his element.
Ellinca held back the urge to sneeze as the alcoholic vapor invaded her nose. “Sir?” She went up and tugged on his sleeve, lifting her veil as she did so.
“What? Oh. You! Come with me!” He gripped her shoulder and led her down the side of the small shop, down to a spindly alley that led through to another street. Though up at the mouth of the alley the market-goers strolled past, it was safe to talk – any noise would be absorbed by the thick stone of the buildings on either side.
“Have you seen Sir Blissman? No. I would know if you had.”
She looked pointedly at the hand he still rested on her shoulder.
“Oh.” He snatched it away and flushed. “Sorry.”
“Mr. Jubb, I don’t know how to find him.”
“But you must see him. I’ll help you. Get you past Frope and the others. We must be careful. You’ll need other clothes.”
“Frope?” As she said his name her mouth dried. “He’s already seen me like this and couldn’t tell who I was.”
“His lieutenant had second thoughts. You and your companions are to be arrested on sight.”
“Oh.” Her mind raced through the possibilities. “He could only have recognized me. The others will be safer without me. I think.”
He tilted his head.
The reverse was also true. Mr. Jubb was less safe. “Thank you for helping me.”
“You’re welcome. Stay here.”
He hurried away, coming back a few minutes later with a bundle of clothes.
“Get changed behind there.” Again he flushed. “I’ll...wait out front.”
It was dark in the narrow space behind a meat vendor’s stall. There was a smell of blood and a carpet of plucked feathers at her feet. Dodo feathers were among them. She swore under her breath, vowing not to eat meat for the next day.
After peering about to be sure of privacy, Ellinca put down the pack in a clean spot, shrugged off the dress and flung on a blue undershirt, a long beribboned vest that came to her knees and a black coat. She rolled the tights back down. There was nothing new for her feet. Her sandals would have to do.
Last of all was a straw-blond wig like ones that had been fashionable some years before. It was smelly and smirched with black in places.
“Oh, well. From red to blond.”
Ellinca shuddered, turned it round in her hands and drew it on over the circlet of plaits that Dayna had created only that morning. She tied it snug with the string at the back. At least no one would connect her Barskolian disguise with this one. Guilt speared through her. The others were still in that distinctive armor. She had to warn them.
“Good,” said Mr. Jubb when he saw her. “Leave that.” He pointed at the backpack but she gripped it tightly. He shrugged at last and gave her dress to a beggar.
“Wait.” She showed the beggar a grint. His eyes shone. “This for you if you run an errand. Go up to the theater on top of that hill. If you see people in this odd sort of pig-snouted armor, go to the smaller man and tell him. Um...” It must not sound too suspicious. Even beggars could be patriotic. “Your costumes are too familiar. Change before you leave for the next play. Okay?”
He nodded vigorously, took the coin then darted away. Ellinca grimaced. It had sounded stupid even to her. But she had tried.
“You’ve wasted your money.” Mr. Jubb drew her through the throng to a rank of hansom cabs. He hired one, ushered her into the enclosed cabin and they were away – trotting smartly along a paved roadway as if instantly she had become one of the rich and haughty.
There was a little window in the door covered with a thin pane of glass. Nose squashed against it, she looked out. A stallion carried a black-robed lawyer, a gathering of dainty ponies trotted past with their topping of children, their nanny riding at the front. Then came a troop-carrier crammed with soldiers in leather and mail. Beyond, all along the edge of the road, were square-cut hedges of vibrant green – a green one only got by using a lot of water, gardeners and money.
“Shall I take this off?” Ellinca asked, ready to remove the itchy wig. Who would dare to stop one of these cabs?
“No!” He snatched her hand away. “People can see in!”
“Oh.”
At that trumpets blared and their cab veered to the side, stopping on the grassy verge. She found a handle and wound up the window. Her knuckles ached as she did so. Now she could see the road ahead. All traffic had pulled over, waiting. Then the tops of banners appeared, swaying as they were marched slowly forward. The Imperator’s golden liger was emblazoned on the black silk. Sections of royal lancers galloped past her.
A wave of cheering surged closer though soon it was underscored by the tramp of a vanguard of foot soldiers. Then there came the Immolators. The walking pin cushions – these were men inducted in the last day, men proud to die with the Imperator’s name on their lips. Glints of gold and silver struck her eyes from the pins, the blades and the killing swords. They might have been exotic jewels.
She remembered Ismalli, the young Immolator, and shivered.
Their eyes flickered as they examined the crowd. Even a traitorous fly would find it hard to get past them. Behind them came a wheeled dais that seemed to be powered by some hidden device. The dais rose in broad tiers and, at the top, was the throne of the Imperator, Uster the Fourth, the Burgla’le god-king.
She raised her eyes. The throne itself was the warsuit worn by the first Imperator, Argnaust ex Burgla’le the First. Strictly speaking, he was also the last, since none other had borne the name of Argnaust. Historians liked “firs
t” better.
“That warsuit was made by the trinketologist, Gorren Threadwell.” Mr. Jubb spoke. “Argnaust wore it to the Battle of Burgla’le Forest and died two days later from wounds. They can wear it but no Imperator has succeeded in using it since. Too heavy. Though one would-be thief died inside it, screaming loud enough to wake half of Carstelan.
“There’s something special about the souls of our Imperators.”
How smug. “Their souls? Why could it not be their fingernails, or...or their farts, or even their skin? We’re all different, in our own ways.”
“Hmph. Farts! Watch your tongue.”
It made her wonder. It couldn’t be souls, could it? Never look past the nose on your face, her uncle used to say. She smiled to herself. Skin was easier to see than farts, or souls. If she’d designed the suit it would be skin it detected. She turned to say as much.
Mr. Jubb looked distracted, as though he was bursting with something else he wanted to say. His fingers wound a handkerchief into a tight spiral then unwound it, again and again.
“Mr. Jubb?” Whatever was it? The Imperator would be past them soon. She put her head out the window again.
The armor was locked into place with the lower torso and legs forming the seat of the throne, while the upper torso was the back of it and the arms projected straight out like armrests. Every part of its surface was a jigsaw of black-enameled metal with golden edges and curlicues of decoration. Since no trinketologist had ever made a machine larger than a cat, every section of it must have been created independently.
It was beautiful, yet made to enhance its wearer’s five senses, his strength and his durability. One could walk through a fire in it. Only descendants of the Burgla’le line could wear it – as the famous thief had found out. Gorren had made just one gargantuan mistake: the strength to wear the body of the warsuit had been beyond all except for Argnaust.
The Imperator himself was a disappointment. Merely a well-dressed man with his head stuck in a helmet. Beside him on a small golden chair was a young woman with hair as black as a raven, a woman her own age with the saddest of eyes. She waved weakly to the crowd and smiled at nothing. Dost’s only sister – Princess Sasskia. But it was the Burgla’le armor, as it passed the carriage by a mere few yards, that drew Ellinca. She felt a desire to reach out and caress those glossy curves.
Magience: second edition Page 20
