Quest SMASH

by Joseph Lallo

  Ruko jumped up, blew a gust of frost-rimed air from his nostrils. He whirled at Tandor. Hesitated. Midnight-black eyes glared at Tandor from within the deep shadow of the hood of Ruko’s cape.

  No, you will not kill everyone. You will do as I say. I am the master.

  Another snort of air, this one audible. Ruko whirled again and brought his fist down on the driver’s seat with such force that the bench creaked. The bear let out a deep growl.

  I am the master, Tandor repeated. He grasped for icefire and pulled it close around Ruko. The boy didn’t move, yet Tandor could feel his anger strain against the icefire bonds. Did servitors ever break free of their masters? What happened if they did?

  The door thudded shut behind him.

  Draped in furs, Loriane and Myra shuffled into the street. Loriane had her arm around Myra’s waist. The girl was crying, stopping every few paces.

  Ruko settled into the driver’s seat with a loud thump. He yanked the hood over his head and snatched up the reins so tightly that the bear grumbled.

  Tandor pulled harder at the threads of icefire. Careful.

  Loriane and Myra climbed onto the sled, very, very slowly. Tandor handed Loriane a few rugs, which she tucked around Myra. Tandor sat next to Loriane, on the far left of the bench, pressed against her because the sled only comfortably seated two people.

  He released his hold on the icefire threads a fraction. Ruko snapped the reins. The bear loped into action, bouncing and kicking its hind legs in a way that was an indication that the animal was annoyed.

  But now that they were underway, Ruko settled. He navigated the sled through the winding streets, avoiding busy thoroughfares. Through alleys and gaps between limpets, Tandor caught glimpses of fights, people running through streets with burning torches, buildings on fire, billowing smoke. The stench hung low over the Outer City.

  Further, out over the plain, eagles circled, silvery shapes in the moonlight, Knights, no doubt looking for traces of the Queen. So many of them. Were there any Knights left to guard the city?

  Tandor couldn’t repress a smile.

  While all the Knights were out looking for Jevaithi, he might not get a better chance to get into the palace, at least not any time soon. After a string of disasters things were finally looking up for him.

  Ruko, to the City of Glass, as fast as you can.

  Again, he saw the face of the girl.

  Yes, we’ll go and rescue her now.

  Ruko flicked the reins. The bear increased its pace and soon, the sled left the twisted streets of the Outer City behind and came out into the open. Down the slope, past the festival grounds and onto the ice plain.

  Myra was crying with every bump, and Loriane tried to comfort her. She cast Tandor poisonous looks. Did she have the faintest idea how pretty she was when she did that, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly apart?

  “Loriane, I love you.” He gathered her in his arms and kissed her.

  She pushed him away. “Spare your breath. You’re up to something and I want to know what it is.”

  “I’ll tell you.” He kissed her again, tasting victory, in her, in the speed of the sled, in Ruko’s anger. “After we come back.”

  “Now.”

  “No. After. Loriane, I love you. I wouldn’t do anything to put you in danger.”

  “You swear you will tell me what this is about? I’m getting rather sick of your secrets.”

  “I swear it.” When I’m on the throne, you’ll be the most powerful queen ever.

  “Deal.” She gave him an intense glare that said I’ll believe that when I see it. And she turned her attention back to Myra.

  No one said much during the rest of the trip. Ruko urged the bear on as much as Tandor would allow it. Myra cried, but much less than before.

  When the sled passed underneath a group of circling eagles, Tandor cast out a cocoon of icefire so they wouldn’t see the sled. That was easy to do here, on the deserted plain, not so once he got into the city, where people with Thilleian blood might see it. The Knights didn’t seem to be all that interested in who went into the city, though, because another sled ahead of them received no attention from the eagles either.

  The tall buildings ahead grew and grew, dark and jagged silhouettes against a sky too dark for dawn and too light for midnight. Soon enough, the sled moved into the shadows of the buildings. Here, it was pitch dark and bitterly cold, with an icy wind gusting over the plain.

  Ruko slowed down at the gates.

  By the wan light of a single icefire globe, the three guards on duty were questioning a young noble man who was trying to leave the city, and waved Tandor and Loriane through, without much of a glance at Ruko’s cloaked form. Myra was again crying and a noble man with a heavily pregnant woman in his sled could only be bound for the palace.

  Once in the streets, the strong pull of icefire tugged at him. Golden strands of it snaked through the air, crawled up walls, slithered down windows, hugging all forms and structures that had once belonged to the ancient culture that had given rise to icefire. Tandor drank in the delicious feeling. By the sky lights, he could do it. The children were here—he could feel them. Together they could tame the Heart. Tonight, the throne would be his.

  The sled arrived at the back entrance to the palace.

  A twisted iron and glass structure hung as an arch over the entry to the courtyard in front of the passageway that led to the palace birthing rooms. A few snow-dusted sleds stood in the open space, and a single bear dozed in the corner of the yard. Two guards stood at their post, one leaning against the doorpost, his eyes half-closed. The other guard had his back to the courtyard. As the sled swished through the open gate, he turned slowly, and as he did so, his eyes widened.

  Tandor’s heart jumped.

  Stop as far from the door as possible, Ruko.

  Had the man seen anything? Since when did Thilleians stand guard at the palace?

  The bear halted with a snort and a grumble. Tandor rose and pulled the hood of the cloak further over Ruko’s head. Ruko batted his hand away, but Tandor grabbed the cloak’s sleeve.

  One of those men can see you.

  Loriane helped Myra up, but when the girl stepped from the sled, she gave a cry and sank to her knees in the snow, clutching her belly.

  Loriane glared over her shoulder. “This is ridiculous, Tandor, couldn’t you have stopped a bit closer to the door?”

  “No I couldn’t.” He glanced at Ruko.

  Myra struggled back up. Loriane put her arm around the girl’s waist. When they shuffled away from the sled, she said over her shoulder. “You do remember your promise, don’t you?”

  “I do.” I will do more than that. I will put you on the throne, my queen.

  By the skylights, he loved her.

  Tandor waited while Loriane and Myra shuffled crossed the courtyard to the entrance before stepping off the sled. Ruko stirred and rose from the driver’s seat.

  Wait here.

  Tandor’s heart was thudding. The man’s attention had gone to Loriane and Myra, who were at the entrance to the palace. Myra had stopped walking and was having another crying fit, but the guard still glanced at the sled even as he spoke to Loriane.

  Ruko snorted audibly and jumped into the snow.

  No, you can’t come inside. He’s seen you. Stay here.

  Ruko took two huge steps until his chest almost touched Tandor’s. Cold radiated from his blue-skinned hands that could snap a man’s neck.

  Ruko was half a head taller, but Tandor didn’t back down.

  What’s this?

  A blue hand lashed out and grabbed Tandor by the collar with such force that he could barely breathe. The image of the girl again. Ruko’s young lover.

  Set me down.

  Ruko’s eyes met his, black and deep as the ocean.

  Set me down. More forceful this time.

  He couldn’t use icefire in front of these guards, or he would have
lashed Ruko without mercy. What was it with the insolence? Who was the master?

  If you don’t behave, I’ll turn you back into a cripple boy.

  Slowly, Ruko let go of Tandor’s collar.

  Tandor drew a grateful and welcome breath, fresh air into his lungs.

  Loriane and Myra had gone inside and Tandor was acutely aware of the guards’ gazes in his direction.

  Don’t you dare do that again. Stay here.

  Icefire flared in a web of strands coming from Ruko’s hands. Images of the girl burst into Tandor’s mind. He thrust up his golden claw, slashing through the net. Ruko held on, but wasn’t strong enough. The network of strands shattered into diamonds. Tandor ducked to avoid the projectiles and grabbed a handful of Ruko’s cloak. Icefire crackled the length of his claw.

  What’s this, Ruko? I am your master. I command. You obey. I tell you it’s not safe to come inside—

  In his mind, Ruko ran across the courtyard, grabbed the two guards and snapped their necks.

  No, you can’t do that. There are many more guards inside, and we can’t fight them.

  More images of violence. Blood in the snow.

  No, Ruko.

  Dark forms of guards and Knights slumped in heaps, their limbs bent at impossible angles. Dismembered shapes barely recognisable as human. Blue hands slashing through flesh and blood. Bones snapping.

  Ruko trembled.

  No, Ruko.

  The cloak was yanked from Tandor’s grip with so much force that he stumbled backwards. Ruko walked away from the sled.

  There were images of the front entrance of the palace, the steps dripping with blood. Severed limbs, heads torn from bodies, eyes staring lifelessly at the sky, Knights’ badges defaced, their swords bent and molten, crossbow bolts between their eyes. Noble ladies in the snow with their clothes ripped off bloodied torsos. Nail and teeth marks in alabaster skin.

  Tandor grabbed as many strands of icefire as he could muster and, never mind the guards, lashed them around Ruko’s form.

  You obey me!

  The strands met resistance. They stretched and snapped, and hit the glass and metal arch over the courtyard entrance. The structure glowed and gave out a shower of sparks, while Ruko ran underneath, out the gate.

  Tandor stumbled back a few steps and stood there in the middle of the courtyard, panting, to regain his balance, the horrific images fading from his mind.

  “Uhm—sir?” one of the guards asked. “Are you all right?”

  Are you all right? That was not what they had asked last time Tandor had encountered palace guards. Maraithe had to officially pardon him. He’d had to kneel before the throne, pushed down by a Knight when getting to his knees with his recent wound was difficult. The pain, oh, the pain.

  Maraithe sat on the throne, with two rapist Knights next to her, with her hands folded over knees. Her face looked drawn and pale. In his mind, he still heard her screams as she pushed out, unaided and denied medicine, the children he would never hold. It happened here, in the palace, a place stifled with haunting memories.

  Tandor forced a smile. “I . . . tripped. I’m sorry. My son . . . he’s at a difficult age . . .” A disaster. There was no way Tandor could get Ruko back under control alone. Servitors never disobeyed their masters. Never.

  “Oh. I see.” But the tone of the man’s voice said that he didn’t see at all, and worse, that he was expecting some kind of explanation, but there was no time for that now. Ruko was on the rampage and would kill anyone he encountered, and the only means of stopping him—Ruko’s girl—was inside the palace dungeons.

  He said, nodding at the door, “I’d like to wait inside, if I can. The lady . . .” He shrugged, feigning indifference, but his heart thudded. He had to get in, even if he was alone and helpless against the power of the Heart.

  The guard eyed him. “Your breeder, sir?”

  “Yes.” Tandor kept his face impassive, no matter how much he hated these impersonal family arrangements.

  The guard waved him through, but when Tandor looked over his shoulder, he noticed how both guards were leaning close to each other, and one was pointing into the courtyard.

  The man had seen something: either Ruko or the icefire. Since when did the palace have Thilleian Knights?

  And then he heard Loriane’s voice, That’s your life, not mine. It happened fifty years ago, Tandor. Could it really be that the citizens of the City of Glass were forgetting the clan feuds?

  No, he decided. There were the Brothers, still teaching the Thilleian ways, and his mother, and all the people whose businesses had been destroyed by the Knights. They deserved revenge for what had been done to them.

  Tandor would give them revenge, even if it was the last thing he did.

  Chapter 28

  TANDOR STOPPED in the darkness of a niche and pulled a cloak of icefire around him. He cast out his rays of power, and compared the picture that the rays brought back to him with the map he had memorised.

  Getting into the palace was one thing, finding the entrance to the underground passages quite another. He’d been lucky so far that no one had come out of the birthing room to question him on his presence. Most of the Knights were at the Newlight festival; he’d planned it that way. But he could never plan for what he found in the catacombs. Right now, what he needed most was luck.

  The trail of icefire led him into the darkness of the corridor. Here, the walls were ancient and bleak grey, spotted with age and rust. The icefire trail oozed from an ink-black hole at the end of the passage. Tandor plunged into darkness. It seemed his mental probe found the stairs to the underground chambers. His footsteps echoed in the staircase that seemed to have no end, zig-zagging down and down. A metal railing disintegrated under his touch, caking the steps with flakes of rust.

  With each step he descended into the bowels of the building, the tang of cold increased. The vapour of his breath froze in his hair and on the collar of his cloak. Icefire called beneath his feet. Down, down, down. His lungs laboured to take in the stale, breathless air, laced with an unpleasant smell.

  On every corner and every turn, he stopped, listened for footsteps, voices, slitherings or panting, jingling or clinking.

  There were no sounds other than his own.

  The stairs ended in a dungeon room where a single torch cast its flickering light over three walls of solid stone. The entrance to the stairs broke the fourth wall. There were no other doorways.

  Tandor walked around the walls, inspecting the rough stone. From his time spent in the dungeons, he remembered the layout of the passages and cells.

  Stupid, really, for Rider Cornatan to hold him prisoner in the dungeons all those years ago. Did the man know what icefire could do, of how he could scan and map the entire underground section of the palace, all its levels, its ramps and staircases, even down to the white lines painted on the floors by generations long past?

  The flame on the torch flapped with a rancid breeze.

  Tandor smiled. Of course.

  That breath of air had to come from somewhere and had to be going somewhere. This was not a dead end at all. There was an illusion at work in this room.

  For all he hated icefire, Rider Cornatan had no qualms using it, for the Knights of course would be unable to see the wall where Tandor saw it. With that knowledge, Tandor again walked the perimeter of the room, probing with icefire. This time, he found the passage, opposite the exit to the stairs. He pushed his clawed hand through the wall, then his other hand, his foot, and when it looked like his limbs were being eaten by stone, he walked through himself.

  The familiar cold of icefire tingled his skin. A strong construction, this one, and he recognised in it the mark of his family. This ward might have been in place since his grandfather had left the palace, and he was the first of his family to walk through it since that time.

  The Thillei are coming home.

  He could see himself walking up the steps of his mothe
r’s house . . . no, she would come to him, here in the City of Glass, where he sat on the throne his grandfather had been killed defending. His mother would fall to her knees for him.

  Your Majesty. Yes, he could get used to that, especially when coming from his mother’s mouth. It was time that she learned who was doing all the work and who had the right to get the top spot.

  He had entered another passage which slanted away from the bottom of the stairs at a weak angle. An orange glow of fire or torches flickered at the very end. There were no wall niches, nowhere to hide.

  He had not encountered anyone, but if the Eagle Knights still used his grandfather’s wards, they would also use the listening bugs, or would maybe use his grandfather’s famed live model of the palace, as his grandfather had described in the diary. If that was the case, they would know exactly where he was and where he was going.

  There was no way of knowing how much the Knights had learned of using icefire, and what devices they were using. And this might all be a trap.

  Yet, the children were here. He could feel them close by, perhaps in the chamber ahead.

  Fires burned in the hearth at the opposite wall of that room. People moved back and forth, silhouetted against the glow. Some carried heavy things. The figures looked strangely out of proportion, with thick arms and legs, and with large heads. When he came closer, he saw that they were wearing baggy suits. Hoods covered their heads, sealed by a plate of glass in front, through which the occupant of the suit could look out. The low light and the reflection in the glass made it impossible to see their faces. Chevakians needed to wear suits like that when they came to the City of Glass, not southerners . . . unless icefire was extraordinarily strong, like it would be around the Heart. They’re using it. It was clear as it should have been before, when he encountered the sink. The Knights aimed to use this energy they couldn’t see, or, for that matter, control. That’s why they needed the children, as test subjects, as vessels and conduits for icefire. It was such lunacy. The children had no experience with using icefire, plus they weren’t servitors. At crucial moments, they would never do as their masters wanted.