by Alec Hutson
The once-baker’s boy stumbles, and he must twist to avoid a slash that nearly disembowels him. Glass tears his tunic and pierces his leather armor. He stumbles away, clutching at his side. The creature rushes to press it advantage, its red-streaked arm upraised, but the once-baker’s boy has fooled it, and he blocks its killing blow and drives Bright hilt-deep into its chest. A spider-web of cracks appears, and then the creature shatters. The sound is almost musical.
The once-baker’s boy retreats outside the princess’s chamber to examine the wound. The cut is not deep, but it is layered over an old injury, which has split open. He slices a strip of cloth from his tunic and binds it around his waist, wincing. He remembers other fingers gently probing the older wound, delicate fingers that had washed it clean, smeared poultices on it. The pale-haired girl had found him sprawled among the tangled roots of a great elm, deep within the Wilds, surrounded by the bodies of a robber prince and his brigands. She had taken him back to her cottage and nursed him to health, and come to love him. He still remembers her smell, lilacs and dried herbs, and the old sadness briefly rises.
He pushes it down. He must rejoice in the present, in this moment of final triumph. Glass crunches beneath his boots as he crosses the chamber and slips within the hanging silks. His breath catches, for she lies so still that at first glance she appears dead, or else carved from marble. Amber curls frame her milk-white face and tumble over the lacy fringe of a high-necked dress. The faintest blush stains her cheeks; her lips are a deep red. She is perfection, frozen.
His breath quickens as he leans closer. He finds that he is trembling. “My queen,” he murmurs as he gently strokes her hair. How many times has he imagined this moment? He remembers the first, crouched at the feet of a wandering minstrel, listening rapt as the shivering notes and mournful voice revealed a world beyond the kitchens and pitted streets he knew so well. A world of mystery and magic and beauty, where a boy once beaten for singeing bread could grow up to become the greatest hero of his age.
No doubt some of his adventures have already been spun into song. Many bards were trapped within Caer Calan during the black days of the siege, and they must have watched from the walls as he led the final sortie that shattered the Pashqua’s silken horde. Or perhaps a follower of the Mirthful One has brought to verse the tale of how he rescued the Laughing God’s crystal eye from the sunken city of Kabal-Zann. And the half-men tribes of the Burning Lands have their own songs, after a sort, but any concerning him would be a lament for the death of their great warlord and prophet, whom the once-baker’s boy slew under a molten sun while pillars of steam vented from the cracked and broken earth.
Will he sit in his great hall and listen to bards recite his deeds? An image comes to the once-baker’s boy. He sees himself at the head of a long oaken table, in a hall so high and vaulted that the ceiling is lost in shadows. A burnished circlet of gold rests on his head, gleaming in the reflected light of the fireplace. Nobles, resplendent in their finery, surround the table, laughing and jesting and toasting him with silver goblets sloshing over with wine. Across from him, at the table’s far end, sits his wife, watching him with the slightest of smiles. His eyes are on his beautiful queen, but his ears are only for the words of the bard strumming his lute by the fire, words that carry him back to a time when he was free, when the wonders of the world lay before him, waiting to be explored.
The scene dissolves in the brilliant daylight flooding the glass room. His lips are almost brushing the sleeping princess, yet he hesitates and pulls back. The once-baker’s boy lightly touches her forehead, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Then he turns and leaves the chamber, and sets his foot upon the first step of the great spiraling staircase.
As he descends, he considers what he has done, knowing that it might have been some final sorcery that compelled him to abandon his quest. But he does not think so. Soon he will saddle his charger and ride south; he will dine on hard biscuits, and sleep under the stars, and dream, perhaps, of a pale-haired girl.
A MUSICAL CLAMOR rose up from the porcelain tiles of the Scapanine Road as Julian de Nova Valencia lashed his horse on faster. His lateness for the soiree was now verging on being unfashionable. One of life’s great injustices, he had long maintained, was that only the splendidly wealthy could appear at the hour of their choosing. His own family fortune, accumulated by three generations of explorers and reavers, had been squandered less than a decade after his inheritance, and the transition from moneyed aristocrat to simple man of leisure had been jarring.
Julian was a gastronome, a seeker of rare delicacies, and for the past fortnight his imagination had been busy conjuring up what morsels might be presented to those attending the contessa’s soiree. And it was because of this, with his thoughts wandering among tables groaning with spiced eagle’s talons and the stillborn fetuses of red-tailed antelope, that he failed to notice the manticore.
His horse caught the scent first and slowed, whickering uneasily, but true to its proud heritage, the gelding did not panic – it was, in fact, the foal of Midnight’s Chase, that most excellent two-time winner of the Lancing Cross Derby.
The manticore coughed politely, and Julian blinked in surprise.
“Good heavens,” he said, his hand drifting to his pistol, “a manticore.”
“Good heavens,” replied the manticore, rising and stretching its great leonine body, “a fop.”
Bemused, Julian swept off his broad-brimmed hat. “A pleasure, beast. My name is Julian de Nova Valencia.”
The manticore shook its shaggy mane. “Greetings, Julian de Nova Valencia. It is good to meet a fellow traveler on this road. Perhaps we might walk a while together?”
Julian slowed his horse to a trot as the manticore padded up beside him. “Nothing would please me more,” he said politely, though in truth the beast’s presence did bother him a trifle.
He had seen photographs of manticores before, but the faded sepia prints rummaged from the trunks of his ancestor’s expeditions had failed to do this magnificent creature justice. The manticore’s body resembled a lion the size of a pony, dun-colored, with a pair of leathery wings folded upon its back. A glorious golden mane framed the oddest aspect of the manticore: its head was that of a large man, though its teeth tapered to carnivorous points.
Glancing at the broad, handsome features of the manticore, an idea struck Julian, and he smiled.
“Beast, what brings you to our empire, and most particularly the Contessa d’Veril’s demesne? For all these lands are hers, and she can be terrible when intruders arouse her fury.”
The manticore chuckled. “Julian de Nova Valencia, your words of caution are much appreciated. However, ancient and very dear friends have invited me to their den, and I must traverse these hills. It has been a long and tiring journey, through swamp and desert and steaming forest, and I have braved more fearsome dangers than your contessa.”
Julian held up his hands. “Of course, beast, I had no intention of dissuading you from your path. But might I offer a suggestion, by which both of us can benefit from this chance encounter?”
“Go on,” rumbled the manticore.
“Along this road, not too far in the distance, lies the contessa’s lovely estate, where I am in fact journeying so I might attend a soiree that will draw some of the empire’s brightest personages. And as you can see” – here Julian spread out his arms, indicating himself – “I cut a rather drab figure. But you, friend, are an uncommon sight in the Tarnished Empire.”
“I think I see the outline of your proposal.”
Julian smiled broadly. “You are as intelligent as you are arresting. I suggest we enter the soiree together, you as my guest, and we beg permission from the contessa to allow you to travel through her lands. It will be a marvelous spectacle.”
The manticore fell silent for a moment. Then, with a click of its teeth, it said, “Julian de Nova Valencia, there is wisdom in your words.”
“Excellent!” Julian cried, c
lapping his hands. “We are agreed. Now, beast, I would recommend you follow behind my horse by fifty paces or so, in order that I might explain your presence when we arrive.”
The manticore ducked its head and dutifully slowed as Julian spurred his gelding into a canter. When he had put a safe distance between himself and the manticore, Julian eased his pace, fingers stroking the ivory handles of his pistols. Poor, simple creature. An entrance with the manticore beside him would cause a stir, no doubt, but many of the celestial courtiers in attendance owned even more fantastic beasts. However, Julian knew that the contessa was a collector of exotic trophies, with an entire wing of her estate devoted to the taxidermical arts, and what would excite conversation more than the head of a manticore mounted on a plaque?
“For Nova Valencia!” he cried, pulling his pistols from their holsters as he wheeled his horse around.
“It is a marvelous specimen,” said Contessa d’Veril, her high silvery laugh shivering the delicate crystal latticework that draped the room. “You truly know my tastes.”
She sipped from her glass and tipped her head, the platinum stars and skulls woven into her midnight hair tinkling. Laughing again, she tossed back the last of her drink and studied the newest addition to her trophy wall.
The handsome face was frozen into an expression of shock, and there was even a bit of blood where the neck fused with the oaken mounting, but that could be improved upon at a later date; haste had been necessary so that the guests could enjoy this delightful present.
The contessa buried her hand in the manticore’s mane and stroked its neck, and was rewarded with a thunderous purr. “Old friend,” she said “did you have to eat the horse? It truly was a magnificent animal.”
THE MAN awoke.
He lay in a narrow bed in a small darkened room, his hands clasped upon his chest. Shapes hunched in the dimness: a low escritoire was pushed up against the wall, two high-backed chairs beside it, and the man could just see the lid of a chest at the foot of his bed. The wan light suffusing the room came from the grayness pressing against the single sepia-tinted window. Was it morning outside? Evening? For a long time he was still, listening to the juddering of distant engines, feeling his bed thrum along with that incessant growling.
Who was he? Why was he here?
Finally he sat up, groaning from the ache in his back and legs. It felt like he had been lying down for a long, long time. He wore a loose white shirt and black trousers cinched by a braided silver belt. He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and found a pair of black boots waiting. The man put them on.
He stood.
The first things he noticed were the items scattered across the top of the escritoire: a pair of ebony-handled pistols, a sheathed saber with an ornate cross guard, and a small round cameo bearing a woman’s silhouetted profile. He thrust the pistols into his belt and buckled on the scabbard. The cameo he left on the escritoire – looking at it gave him a tingling sense of unease.
Beneath the room’s window was a door, and after a moment’s hesitation he pulled it open.
He was on a steamship. The empty foredeck stretched in front of him, tapering to an upswept prow. Behind him a trio of smokestacks towered over the cabin he had just emerged from, unspooling thick black ribbons into the sky. A strong breeze redolent of the sea played with the lacy fringe of his shirt, and he had to brush his long blond hair back when it fell across his eyes. Dark shapes wheeled within the blanket of grayness above him, shrieking.
Slowly, as if moving through the thickened air of a dream, he walked over to the side and rested his hands on the metal railing. Beneath him the sea gnawed ceaselessly upon the rust-spotted hull. Before him was… nothing. An endless gray expanse. A mist that obscured everything more than a few dozen feet from the ship.
After a moment – or perhaps an eternity – he turned away from the grayness and gasped in surprise.
He was no longer alone.
A woman now stood in the doorway to his cabin. She was young, her pale face framed by dark, tangled curls. She moved towards him with the slow measured pace of a sleepwalker, but her wide blue eyes never left his face.
She stopped an arm’s length away and regarded him solemnly.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
Her brow crinkled, as if his question needed serious thought. Finally, she spoke, her voice soft and lilting.
“You saw me in the last humid days of the swollen summer, before the bursting of the world. It was just a glimpse as you rode your unicycle past the gazebos of Chalice Park. I was inside one of them, turned slightly away so you could see my profile. You would always remember my long graceful neck and sharp nose and the way my hair fell upon my shoulders.”
“I did? I don’t now.”
“I know.”
The man tried to keep the edge of desperation out of his voice. “What is your name?”
“That I cannot tell you. It was never revealed.”
“Where are we?”
“On a boat.”
The man reached out and gripped her arm roughly. “Yes, of course we are! And where are we sailing to?”
The girl cocked her head curiously. “We are not sailing. We don’t have any sails.”
“I know that! Where are we going?”
“To the city on the island.”
“What island?”
“The one we are going to.”
“That’s not –”
Something bellowed in the mists. At first he thought it was a horn, but the sound built to a crescendo, like the roar of a great beast. He whirled away from the girl, peering into the fog.
Nothing.
No, something. A shape, indistinct, coming closer, a great mound swelling in the grayness like a building tidal wave. His stomach turned to water as fear coursed through him.
Two round yellow moons appeared, hazy through the murk. They vanished for a moment and then reappeared, growing larger.
No, not moons. Eyes.
Breathing rapidly, the man fumbled for the pistols at his belt. Before he could shoot, though, the great creature broke the cordon of mist hemming the boat.
It was a turtle larger than a whale, its mottled shell looming over the steamship. The great burning eyes blinked again languidly, focusing on the man as he pointed a wavering pistol. Ramshackle structures clung to the beast’s shell like cancerous growths, linked by swaying rope bridges, and clambering toward the steamship were a host of ape-like creatures dressed in pirate motley: doublets of shining red silk, bright blue sashes, green bandanas that were bound around orange-furred heads and arms. They brandished cutlasses as they rushed forward, hooting and gibbering.
“Behind me!” the man cried, stepping in front of the girl as the first ape threw itself from the edge of the turtle’s shell and landed on the deck.
As it gathered itself to leap again, the man shot it with the ebony-handled pistol, and it crumpled with a gurgling shriek.
The shrill ululations of the creatures swelled at the death of their companion. The man backed away, keeping the girl behind him as more and more of the apes made the impossibly long jump from the great turtle’s shell to the boat. They rolled to their feet baring yellowed fangs, shaking their antique-looking cutlasses, screeching challenges.
“You will have to kill them all,” the girl said calmly into his ear. “They are the guardians of the island.”
“I don’t want to go to the island!”
“You do.”
Another ape rushed forward, and the man dropped it with a shot from the second pistol. He tried to fire again, but nothing happened. Damn, single shot! Cursing, he cast the pistols aside and drew his saber.
Immediately he found himself slipping into a fighting stance, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet. The sword felt natural, an extension of his arm. He had done this before.
Three of the pirate apes charged him, swinging their cutlasses wildly. He ducked under a blow and nimbly sidestepped another, then thrust out his
saber, leaving a line of blood across the chest of one of the creatures. Howling, the ape reeled away; it stumbled toward the boat’s railing and toppled overboard. The man blocked another clumsy attack, then skewered the second ape through its belly, and as he withdrew his blade, he slashed the throat of the third.
He paused, breathing hard, as the two apes slumped to the deck. Only one remained, larger than the others, its fur a deep russet streaked with fingers of silver. It wore a black tricorn hat decorated with a long feather that shimmered red and gold, and one of its eyes was missing, replaced by a puckered white scar.
This ape approached more carefully than the others had, edging closer with its great curving scimitar extended. The man returned to his fighting stance, waiting.
The ape lunged forward, and the man parried the blow. Twice more the creature attacked, only to have its slashes deflected. Snarling, the ape swung again, all pretenses of discipline vanishing, and the man caught the strike with his cross guard and with a flick of his wrist sent the blade spinning away.
The man leveled the point of his saber at the ape’s chest. “Who are you? Why did you attack us?”
Intelligence gleamed in the ape’s one eye, but for a response it surged forward shrieking, impaling itself on the man’s sword. The man nearly dropped his saber in shock, but managed to hold on as the pirate ape pushed itself farther up the length of steel, reaching with taloned hands toward his throat.
With a cry of disgust, the man ripped the saber loose and kicked the ape in its stomach, sending it sprawling backward.
