Rogue's Pawn

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “My lady sorceress?”

  I wedged heavy eyelids open to see the tent had cooled and darkened, the bright sunbeams gone. Darling gone. Dragonfly stood over me, her spiky wings a disturbing gray silhouette. I was groggy enough from the hard sleep that I couldn’t even feel pleased yet that I hadn’t dreamed.

  “My lady sorceress?” Dragonfly chirped again, my personal mechanical bird.

  “Yes—what?” I sat up and finger-combed my hair.

  “Shall I light the candles? It’s dark now. And you must go to the evening meal at Lord Falcon’s tent.”

  “Knock yourself out,” I said, looking around for my trunks, then it occurred to me to check that my words hadn’t translated literally. Fortunately she seemed to have the sense of them. She skipped about lighting little white candles that had been set out in the spaces between cushions. Looked like a fire hazard to me. And there were still too many cushions. I wished one into a philodendron, just to amuse myself. Reveling a little in the freedom. It came out silk, but at least it took up less floor space.

  I didn’t question how she knew what time the dinner started. For all I knew, she’d been assigned to me primarily as an alarm clock, since I still lacked whatever plug-in they all had that told them when things started. They seemed to have a kind of hive mind. Many of these people, in fact, seemed to have an affinity for insects. But then others tended more toward vertebrates. Something to ponder.

  Nature’s call forced me to instead ponder how I might relieve myself. I found a chamber pot behind a screen. Instead of looking for Restroom signs in this place, one apparently looked for a free-standing screen. I peed, but to my dismay, the pot filled up like any other. No magical vanishing. No convenient flush. I thought about wishing it away, but wasn’t sure where to send it. Along the road I’d simply availed myself of the great outdoors—an option I now missed. This was better than the bucket in my cell though. Not sure of the protocol, I left the pot there, covering it with the provided lid. At least it wouldn’t stink.

  Finding my trunks tucked against the back wall, I dug through them for a dress for tonight and immediately put my hand on the lily, wrapped up in a dress that needed washing. Peeling away the fabric, I watched in reluctant fascination as the crushed blossom unfurled its petals, smoothing the creases, returning to its usual redolence and shimmering with a just-picked glow. And everyone back home had been excited about how well Tencel packed.

  I longed for a microscope. With even just a dissecting scope I could break petals and watch them reform, try to pin down the mechanism. Following the rules of the mundane world, the cellular structures should recapitulate their original formation, in essence regrowing. But here, would they simply shimmer into place as if they had always been there, the way it appeared to work to the naked eye? I should try to make a microscope. Thanks to Dr. Jenkins I probably understood enough of the mechanics to do it. He’d believed a microscopist was only as effective as his or her understanding of the device. Never truer than now.

  For now, I needed to figure out a way to contain the dangerous blossom. Not that it would go crawling around the tent in my absence, like some kind of luminous blue spider.

  I hoped.

  I wished another pillow into a pedestal in the corner. Maybe the things would come in useful after all—at least the pillows provided a lot of raw material. I thought carefully about a bell jar that would fit against a glass bottom, with a rubberized air seal. Pleased when it came out just as I wanted, I placed the lily under glass. The heady sweet scent of it still swirled through the tent, but ought to diminish over time.

  I instructed Dragonfly to leave the overhead flaps open unless it rained, to ventilate the place. Which ought to help with keeping candle smoke to a minimum, too.

  In any good experiment, you tried to narrow down the effect of something so you could test one aspect at a time. This setup should serve to confine the effect of the lily only to sight. Though the whole magic thing skewed that—I’d probably have to encase it in silver to test whether it operated on another plane entirely.

  Satisfied for now, and feeling a bit smug about my solution, I dressed in a ruby-red dress that seemed appropriate for dinner with generals, if not for a strategy meeting. I mean, did you wear cocktail length or tea length when planning a war?

  Things my mom never taught me.

  I keenly looked forward to having many questions answered this evening, though likely not that one.

  I sat in front of the mirror Dragonfly had obtained, and studied my face while she brushed my hair. The witches in stories always seemed so vain in their obsession with mirrors. Now I understood. In a world where physical manifestations could change in a moment, mirrors were the only objective reality. Sort of objective, anyway.

  I’d learned to observe my face as if it were not mine. This became quite simple when you forgot who you were. How it looked when I wasn’t doing anything in particular could be informative, kind of like getting a resting pulse. I tried not to notice Dragonfly’s left wing brushing dangerously close to a lit candle. The damn things probably had no nerve endings. My face in repose looked sad. Grief with an undercurrent of dread. Shocking.

  While Dragonfly affixed Starling’s golden headband to my hair, I did my makeup. Through precise and small wishes, I applied the colors, shadows and brighteners I would for any party. I’d tried it first at Castle Brightness with decent results. Clive once told me that he didn’t think makeup made me look much different, just “more fuckable.” But I felt more confident. Facing Falcon, I needed every boost I could get. I’d undo it again afterward. I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed important to retain that ritual of fixing up, then cleansing for bed.

  I never could commit to tattooed makeup either.

  A horn trumpeted and a stentorian voice announced, “All rejoice at the arrival of Lord Puck!”

  I rolled my eyes at myself in the mirror, pleased to see the sparkle of sarcasm wipe away the sorrow. If I had to choose an expression for my face to freeze into, I’d take that one over the mournful-orphan-waiting-to-get-punished look.

  With an impressive jingling, Puck pranced into the tent. He wore a bright gold velvet uniform, one that might have been conceived by the costume designer for The Pirates of Penzance rather than for any military purpose. Copious medals dangled from bright ribbons, flashing in the candlelight. Puck pirouetted in a distinctly unmilitary way, gave me an elaborate salute, then struck a pose reminiscent of a flamenco dancer. I clapped politely.

  “You like it?” he gushed. “Don’t I look amazing? I think I shall wear it all the time, now that we’ve been deployed.”

  “You are certainly impressive.”

  “Oh, and you haven’t even seen the best part.” He untucked a helm from under his arm and plopped it over his bright strawberry curls. The gold of the helm clashed with his hair, but worse was the enormous plume of celadon ostrich-like feathers that now brushed the tent ceiling, though he stood near its peak. Dragonfly squealed with delight.

  “I’m speechless,” I said with a wide smile. Puck grinned back, with a wink for little Dragonfly.

  “You can design your own uniform, too—I’ve already arranged it.” He turned, holding his arm for me, just as Rogue had done. Thankfully I felt no charge when I laid my hand on his forearm as I had with Rogue. He clearly was the exception to so many things. Puck was looking Dragonfly over.

  “Fabulous wings! She’ll make an excellent beginning to your entourage.” The girl nearly simmered with pleasure. “But you need more pillows in here—better see to that.”

  “Oh yes, sir, Lord Puck, sir,” she breathed.

  I didn’t bother to protest.

  We strolled off through the tents, preceded by Puck’s knee-high page, his scrawny body in inverse proportion to his booming voice. The campsite whirled with activity more like a Brazilian street festival than e
ver. Striped and patterned tents glowed from within. Bewitchingly merry music played. Everywhere people had donned flamboyant costumes that looked vaguely martial. Clearly, understated was not a consideration. Everywhere they danced—whirling, jigging, swinging each other about. Puck grinned in delighted bonhomie at it all.

  “Will Lord Rogue be at the dinner?” I tried to sound casual.

  “Great Titania, no!” Puck giggled. “Rogue has no use for Falcon’s war. Won’t come near it. Why Falcon had to go elsewhere for sorcerous aid, you know.” He squeezed my arm companionably, then pointed in delight at some gremlin creatures, hands and feet locked to make themselves into a living wheel, rolling by singing a jingling song.

  The confines of Lord Falcon’s tent were relatively sedate. His dining tent, I should say, as he appeared to have several color-coordinated tents arranged in a little complex at the top of a hill with a magnificent view. Seemed to me like a magnificent target, too, but what did I know about military strategy?

  A long table was elaborately laid with crystal and gold. The people there similarly glittered in wild costumes, giddily telling each other stories of what heroes they would be. In this situation, where people weren’t talking directly to me, I could hear the sounds of the language better. If I focused in and dipped lightly over their thoughts, I got the sense of it, but otherwise it was more background music. Puck ditched me immediately after his page announced him—not me—leaving me to fend for myself like a disappointing blind date, while he showed off his truly outstanding uniform.

  Only one other female was present that I could see, though it was difficult to tell with the various conversational groups around the mostly empty table and people trickling in still.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. I squelched the part of me that longed to take refuge in kneeling. I’d break that bit of programming if it killed me. Another part of me—an original part—would rather be back at the tent experimenting with breaking the lily’s influence than standing here as just another wallflower at the junior high dance. Clearly this was why I’d spent more of my life in laboratories than at dinner parties.

  With one of their hive-mind decisions, the conversational groups dissolved and people sat. I moved toward a chair only to have a fair-haired man in wild purple with legs like stilts seize it, giving me a glass-green stare that made me shrink apologetically. I’d already lost this game of musical chairs. A frisson of dread shook me. Surely they wouldn’t try to make me kneel.

  “Lady Gwynn, your seat is there,” Lord Falcon growled from the head of the table. I cringed at the censure in his voice. I ducked my head and hesitated in the direction of his sharply pointed finger, toward the lone empty chair near the foot of the long table. “Puck—I thought you were going to train her!”

  “Not I, myself, and learn she did,” Puck returned happily. “But that doesn’t make her any more one of us than any foreign sorceress could ever be.”

  “We need Rogue for magic, is who we need, not this dubious prize.” Falcon frowned at me as I made the long walk down one side of the table.

  “You may as well ask Titania herself to kneel at your feet as get that to happen,” Puck returned with a jolly laugh.

  Trying to hold my head high, proud sorceress not cringing slave, I rounded the foot of the long table and slid into my chair several seats up. The group fell to feasting and toasting as soon as I sat. I sighed to find nectar in my wineglass. The stuff tasted not unlike fermented Hawaiian Punch.

  “Lady Gwynn, the fantastic foreign sorceress, are you?” said the man to my left. “I’ve heard tales of your exploits!”

  “As have I,” said a gentleman across from me in blush pink with contrasting puce medals. “I heard she defeated an army of barbarians at the Plain of No Trees all by herself.”

  “With only a bracelet of bells and a feather for tools,” said the man on my left, in a more sedate navy color that was, however, meticulously decorated with thousands of little silver sailing ships.

  “And turned their ships into swans that then turned and ate them to a man!” This from the blush-and-puce man’s companion, who wore a startling combination of Christmas red and green.

  They rattled on about my supposed exploits while I nibbled my way through the various portions laid before me. It seemed my PR team, whoever that might be, had been busy. None of the company seemed to need any direct information from me to fuel their excitement, so I decided not to contradict their impressions. Couldn’t hurt to be thought more than I was. Also, their words had that curious meaningless quality, like so much white noise. Shallow social talk that lacked any real thoughts behind it.

  “Is it true, Lady Sorceress, that you defeated the Black Dog?” My companions all stared in delighted horror at Blush & Puce, who gazed at me with tantalized curiosity, glass in one hand, dripping crimson tartlet in the other.

  “Blessed Titania, man,” the gentleman on my right sputtered. “Watch your mouth!” It almost went by too fast, but I nearly caught the real name he pronounced. Shhlynnnsomething.

  “Oh, pish tosh! Don’t be a superstitious old fart!” Several others chimed in, squelching the protestor. As one they turned their bright insectile eyes on me, awaiting my answer. I carefully licked my fingers clean while I thought. I tended to agree with the superstitious by now, and cast a wary eye at the night beyond the open tent flaps.

  “I believe I may have met him. But I think it would not be accurate to say I defeated him.”

  “You are not eaten, Lady Gwynn, or don’t appear to be,” said Navy Man with a lewd eyebrow waggle.

  “Or perhaps he did eat you—and thus you seduced him with your sweet flesh.” Blush & Puce giggled.

  “In that case she would be missing more than a few of her marbles.”

  “Nonsense,” said another voice. “Stories to frighten children with.” This was from the woman who sat several places down. The intervening men leaned back so she could bend her imperious gaze on us. Her hair was braided tightly enough that I couldn’t make out the color.

  “He seemed real enough to me, lady,” I said.

  “I imagine it would, to someone like yourself.”

  Someone like myself?

  “Lady Strawberry,” Falcon said from the head of the table, though he wasn’t looking up from his plate, “don’t torment the help. My pet foreign sorceress may yet come in handy. In the meanwhile, since you are all bored enough with my feast to dredge up foolish stories to tantalize one another with, let us discuss our war strategy.”

  Despite Falcon’s glowering demeanor, I welcomed this serious attitude. At last we would talk about the actual war and what the hell I was supposed to do. Enough of the frivolity. Falcon might be decked out in what appeared to be a medieval knight’s armor of mercury-bright silver—thank goodness for the soft candlelight or we’d have been blinded—but at least he seemed to take his generalship seriously.

  “Now,” Falcon began, “we shall start off with several land battles—ones with lots of infantry.”

  “And cavalry,” a man close to Falcon urged. He seemed to have a horse’s tail, interspersed with glittery strands, coming from his helm. “I’d like the cavalry to come to the rescue at the last moment, at least twice—maybe three times.”

  Several people agreed to that, generating a small discussion of whose helm decoration would look best streaming through the air as they galloped ferociously at the enemy. Falcon agreed to add in several more cavalry charges at various points in each battle. Lady Strawberry expressed a desire to bring in her stable of monsters to be ridden as well. The table, after much gory storytelling, decided the monsters should be brought into the thickest part of any hand-to-hand ground fight, so as to maximize goring, trampling and the sight of bodies being tossed into the air.

  “Lord Falcon,” said Navy Man. “You know I’ve been building my fleet of silver ships—when will
we have the naval battles?”

  Falcon frowned in thought.

  “Now see the great military strategist in action,” Navy Man whispered to me.

  “To have naval battles,” Falcon pronounced, “we will have to move some of the war to the sea.”

  “Or a large lake would do in a pinch,” Navy Man offered helpfully. Falcon nodded gravely.

  “So we will have to arrange to be pushed back to the sea—” he held up a hand when Navy Man took a breath, “—or a large lake. Perhaps after the cavalry charge comes in gloriously too late to turn the tide of battle?” This was greeted with great enthusiasm.

  “I’m at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party,” I muttered to myself.

  “We have not forgotten your role, Lady Sorceress,” Blush & Puce assured me.

  “Lord Puck, of course,” Falcon continued, “will be in charge of all magic.” To which Puck nodded enthusiastically, beaming at me. “All magics will be as spectacular as possible and should only occur when the battle is nearly lost. Won’t that be glorious? But wait! Lady Gwynn has no uniform at all. Puck! Why isn’t she in uniform?”

  “We’ve only arrived today, Lord Falcon,” Puck said. “I’ll design her and Lord Darling uniforms tomorrow.”

  I could just see what Puck would come up with for me. No, no, no.

  “Actually,” I inserted quickly, “in my land, the sorceress never wears a uniform, but rather a magic gown.” Falcon and Puck frowned uncertainly. “To set her gloriously apart from the fighters,” I added, which smoothed the group’s expressions into happy agreement, with several offering me suggestions for appropriate magical garb.

  Then the raucous hilarity fell into abrupt stillness. In one of those uncanny sea changes, the crashing waves of their merriment ceased. They turned their faces all in one direction, apparently staring at the tent wall.

  I listened, skimming the thoughts around me for a clue, then heard shouting from outside. Their grave watchfulness ignited into delighted interest. With shouts of merriment, everyone piled out of the tent, knocking over chairs and spilling wineglasses, to see that, just down the hill, one of the enchanting tents was blazing afire.