The Sylvalla Chronicles

by A. J. Ponder

  Dirk pulled Sylvalla’s sleeve. “It’s said the locals can see in their wretched mist, and on days like this half the town comes out to murder silly foreigners and nobles caught in it—even their own kings. The last two, Phetero’s father and grandfather, were found dead after the mists descended unexpectedly. Both times their corpses were found the following morning, drained of blood. Locals deny this, of course, saying the mists themselves have a taste for royal blood. But who’d believe that when there are all these cutpurses to share the glory?”

  “You don’t scare me.” Sylvalla scowled, but she didn’t protest further as Dirk escorted her briskly into a side street. The cobblestones ahead disappeared into the rising mist. The buildings here vaunted such curious frontages as The Drowned Mermaid, The Happy Piglet, and The Keg. None inspired Sylvalla with confidence; even the signs were little more than amateurish cartoons. More functional than decorative, they were for people who needed a picture because they were unable to read. Hardly suitable lodgings for a young princess.

  Dirk seemed to read her mind. “Too dangerous,” he said, dragging her on.

  Sylvalla could almost smell the anticipation in the air as they hurried on past. It was unmistakable. The chips were down, and bets were being placed as to who would survive the night—and who would gain someone else’s fortune. Tonight there would be many winners, and the losers would most likely be dead.

  Dirk didn’t wish to bet. Neither did Sylvalla. There was no glory, or profit, on their side of the equation—and death on the other. To stay out of the game, they needed to find a decent hotel. And quickly.

  Peering into the gathering murk and noting the darkened shapes moving within it, Dirk pulled his sword from its scabbard. “Keep walking, it’s not far now.”

  Finally, he yelled in triumph as he pointed his sword toward a sign—two crossed arms in livid purple. The Kyng’s Arms was written underneath in a barely legible, ornate hand.

  To Sylvalla’s eye, it didn’t look much better than the other places, but she was outvoted by Dirk’s feet. He muttered something like, this way’ll be safer, and led them round the back of the establishment and down a mud lane (mud lane being a complimentary term for a darkened alley with more horse manure than mud,) to the stables.

  Sylvalla kept a firm grip on the reins of her pony as the stable boy came to greet them.

  Unkempt and rangy, his sandy locks scraggly around his shoulders, the boy’s gaze shifted from Sylvalla to Dirk without looking either of them in the eye.

  He held out his hand hesitantly, as though he were frightened that the horse, or Dirk, might bite it off. “Your horse is two coppers for the night, milady.”

  Seeing something was wrong, Dirk felt the need to give the boy his special speech, in case the boy was half as shifty as he looked. “Keep that pony safe, boy, for the lady pays well. Coincidentally, debts to me are paid in heads—for I am Dirk, Finest Sword in the West, and you have been marked.” Dirk thought it was a pretty speech. He’d used versions of it to great effect before, and no doubt it would come in handy again.

  The boy looked up at Dirk and scowled. He’d heard that kind of horse dung before. He was not impressed in the least, at least not in the way Dirk had intended. Dirk was now just another bully to be avoided.

  The stable boy quickly became impressed when Sylvalla threw him four coppers and displayed a silver piece. He was even more impressed after she helped him settle her sweet-natured pony into the stables.

  She smiled at him. “Look after my horse well.”

  After that, the look the boy gave Sylvalla convinced even Dirk of the boy’s willingness to walk over hot coals for the young princess.

  “Your c-c-c-coman-and-d is-is-is m-m-m—” the boy stuttered.

  “Excellent.” Sylvalla smiled again. The stable boy’s clothes didn’t fit, his hair was in desperate need of a haircut, and his eyes hardly moved from the rags wrapped around his feet, but he’d been good with Swift, and that was enough to convince her that the boy was all right.

  Dirk was still glowering, so Sylvalla took his arm and guided him out.

  They hurried through the thickening mist to the tavern. Dirk pushed open the door and hesitated. They stood at the threshold of the stuffy ale room. The sounds of gambling and raucous laughter was punctuated by patrons calling for ale from the serving wenches.

  At first glance, Sylvalla would have said that the clientele were a shady bunch. At second glance, Sylvalla revised her opinion. Downward.

  Dirk swept her past the commotion to a dimly lit corridor. The narrow passage was empty except for a rosewood desk placed where the wall ended and the stair alcove began. The landlady, slumped behind it, cracked open an eye at their arrival.

  She blinked rapidly awake and hoisted her torso off the desktop. “Sir. Madam,” she whined. “You would like a bed.”

  For a moment, Sylvalla thought the woman was asking a question.

  Dirk wasn’t fooled. “My oath, no. I want a room—with a bed. Preferably containing less wildlife than is your wont. What say you?”

  “All rooms are full at present. If—”

  “Bullocks. Great steaming platters of bullocks with horse-dung sauce. If you expect my lady and I to sleep with the flea-bitten mongrels, the vomitus mass in your common room, think again.”

  “It is indeed true.” She wrung her hands, before glancing at them sharply. “Only the king’s room is spare, and we are bound to leave it—”

  “For such excellent personages as ourselves,” Dirk interrupted.

  “Cough,” the landlady interjected, her eyebrows raised. “I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly. A poor old lady like me wouldn’t dare.”

  As she placed her hands meaningfully on either side of the purse on the table, Sylvalla saw a flash of metal at the woman’s wrists. At the woman’s other wrist more metal glinted, knifelike in the dark. “How perfectly lovely,” Sylvalla said. “Are those throwing daggers? I always wanted a set.”

  “Oh, how wonderfully observant of you, My Lady.” Dirk simpered at Sylvalla like a true court attendant. Then with deliberate forcefulness he turned to the landlady. “How much?”

  “They cost me thirtee—” the innkeeper shot a nervous glance at Dirk’s stare. She gulped and settled on a more realistic figure. “Um, ten gold.” These last words had not come easily. The innkeeper glanced up at Dirk’s eyes again, as if to see whether her answer had satisfied him.

  Dirk nodded and held out his hand. “Thank you.”

  The innkeeper’s eyes widened. The colour rushed away from her face.

  “They’re just for me,” Sylvalla said.

  Not that the reassurance helped. The innkeeper opened her mouth, and closed it again with a sickly smile.

  Something was wrong. Sylvalla looked to Dirk.

  Dirk whispered, “Ambush.”

  A flick of his finger and Sylvalla sprang at the woman, hoping neither of her throwing knives would make their mark before she could get there.

  Behind her, Dirk’s sword whistled … It cleaved the air just millimetres from the pulsing jugular of the new arrival—King Phibiam Phetero of Scotch Mist.

  The king gulped. Half a drop of royal sweat rolled along the sword-blade.

  The Magic of Little Things

  “Dothie, what are you doing?” Arrant asked, torn between curiosity and annoyance.

  Dothie raised his head and allowed his eyes to roll in contempt and frustration. It was very satisfying. “I’m a wizard, mud-for-brains,” he replied, as if that explained everything. It didn’t.

  “I had no idea,” Arrant drawled. “How interesting. Well, since you’re a wizard, and not doing anything in particular, in what way is it beneath you to organise lunch?”

  Dothie sighed. “Look, moron, magic is difficult. It isn’t just; wham, bam, hey presto, big nasty fighter is now a gnat.”

  “No? Fires don’t light themselves either. Water doesn’t flow uphill, and—”

  “You fool!” Dothie snapped. “I
need spell components that aren’t completely ruined. I need perfection! And whiny village idiots don’t exactly speed up the process. Be off!”

  Arrant failed to move.

  Toots clawed his shoulder restlessly. “This piece I’ve been working on for three nights now has only one use.” Dothie turned the dart-shaped piece of wood over in his hands and threw it at Arrant.

  Practised as he was, Arrant managed to avoid the missile as it rushed past his ear and burst into flames.

  “No, I take that back. Not useful at all,” Dothie muttered, adding a few unnecessary obscenities involving gods sensible people would fear to anger.

  Arrant didn’t stick around to listen. He’d taken the hint and disappeared into the bush. Before long he was whistling away happily to himself. Yes, there was work involved in this magic stuff, but his interest had been piqued in a way that had never happened before. He made a mental note to watch Dothie closely to discover whatever he could. Maybe he could learn a few tricks.

  Arrant knew not everybody had the talent to be a wizard—but even while his brain was saying don’t count on it, his fertile imagination threw fiery missiles and turned people into sand flies. It was a better daydream than most.

  Meanwhile, Fergus was off gathering water from a nearby stream. He walked a little way before spilling a fraction of the contents of one of the buckets. A rather large fraction. Fergus didn’t care much for fractions, or percentages, or carrying buckets of water in the first place. Carelessly, he spilt a fraction more until the bucket was so empty he knew he’d have to go back to get more. And as the last of the water sloshed down his leg he wondered why he was allowing those puny humans to breathe the same air as him.

  He’d had this argument with himself before. He could not have said how many times the murderous thought had run through his head, only to be quashed—temporarily. This time he decided they’d definitely die … after the next village. Just in case there’s trouble.

  So far, they had run into more than their share. It was to be expected, there usually is trouble in a city when a thurgle is in it due to their dim view of human laws and limited concept as regards the means of their enforcement. A little man saying, ’Allo, ’Allo, ’Allo—you’d better come down the station with me, then, doesn’t cut it with a thurgle. For All Sorts of Reasons.

  Fergus believed he was beginning to grasp the following basics:

  •Try not to kill people. Most especially try not to kill the local law enforcers.[24]

  •Theft should be avoided.[25]

  •Be careful where you put your feet. People don’t like you standing on them.

  §

  Still, he’d do almost anything for a batch of poppy seed cakes and a cask of beer … It was the one reason he kept them around. Fergus hoped his human friends might procure some for him. If he asked nicely. And so, Fergus temporarily forgot his decision to kill his fellow travellers.

  The Kyng’s Arms

  King Phetero stared at the sword Dirk was holding so closely to his jugular.

  Dirk stared back in utter horror.

  It is difficult to say whose surprise was the greatest. However, Dirk’s was the shortest lived, and that’s what counts.

  “Your Majesty!” cracked Dirk, his voice projected like a high velocity metal slingshot at a firing range.

  Everyone flinched: the king’s bodyguard frozen in slow motion behind the king; the landlady, her eyes as wide as a startled deer; and Sylvalla, who was coming to terms with the fact that her retainer was holding a king at sword point. Everyone flinched, that is, except the king himself, who was doing his best to stay absolutely still.

  Wincing, Dirk tried a new foray into awkward pleasantries. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

  The king swallowed, never shifting his attention from Dirk’s blade. This really wasn’t terribly surprising—most people give Dirk’s sword a lot of attention—even when it hasn’t whistled through the air to hover mere millimetres from the connective tissue that joins their heads to their shoulders.

  “D-i-rk,” croaked King Phibiam Phetero, ruler of Scotch Mist, and King of all the Known World except Avondale, Brisket, Kirkwood, the South Island and a few other places up north. The king tried to say something, only to find his wits had fled the scene—and, apparently, they’d taken all of his saliva with them.

  Sylvalla surveyed the scene with an odd calm from her precarious perch on the hardwood desk. She felt as if she were a hundred miles away and somebody else was hanging on like grim death to the arms of the lady innkeeper.

  In particular, Sylvalla noticed how the king’s bodyguard’s eyes flickered from side to side, his face a pale, sickly white as he found himself poised in a deadly precarious situation. For him, this would be an, oops, I lost my head escapade—whether the king survived or not. Sylvalla could almost see the thinking going on behind his shifting eyes—I can attack Dirk and die, I can wait this out and be condemned for dereliction of duty, or I can run like the wind and my family and I might be able to escape the city before anyone begins to look for us.

  The choice wasn’t hard. He bolted.

  Tempted though Sylvalla was to join the man, she felt the honourable thing to do, the heroic thing to do, would be to help Dirk. That being the case, she’d better act before the situation got really out of hand. “Company? How de-light-ful,” she declared in her best princess voice. (Sylvalla was pretty sure the book Etiquette for Young Princesses didn’t actually cover inviting kings into hostage situations, but she felt that this extract was a hideous enough pleasantry to cover the unusual situation.)

  Were the looks she received puzzlement, or shock?

  “The king shall be joining us in our rooms this evening,” Sylvalla informed the innkeeper—and the king, in case their brains were too addled to understand the first invitation.

  “But…” the landlady choked out. “You haven’t paid yet.”

  “Of course, I’d quite forgotten, I’m offering ten gold for the room and the daggers.” Sylvalla didn’t wait for an answer but palmed the daggers, released the woman, and raised what she hoped was a single arching eyebrow before dropping the coins onto the table.

  There was a slight hesitation before the money was taken and the room key pushed across the counter.

  “Don’t bother to bring food,” Sylvalla notified her hostess flatly. “Misunderstandings can be so fatal, and so very messy.”

  The innkeeper smiled nervously. She’d been planning something along those lines and was loath to scratch the idea. She had to get this pre-eminent hostage[26] released somehow. This fiasco was putting her livelihood at risk.

  “Shall we find your rooms, sire?” Dirk waved the king on up the stairs with one hand, while using the other to keep control of the situation by holding his very dangerous sword in a strictly professional manner.

  Now the initial confrontation was over, Sylvalla’s stomach decided to go into panic mode. If the innkeeper had been listening carefully, instead of worrying about her future, she would have heard Sylvalla muttering; “King … King What’s His Name? Frog Croak? No, King Croak, father of the Frog Prince.” Somehow, away from the safety of her father’s court, the phrase didn’t seem so funny, although the picture the maids had painted of him as a bellowing frog did help. It prevented Sylvalla’s stomach from tying itself into a fancy bow with which to present herself to the king—and eventually his gaolers.

  As she raced up the stairs behind Dirk and the king, throwing daggers at the ready, Sylvalla allowed herself a little sigh of relief. It could be worse, she thought. Thank the gods, he doesn’t recognise me. I’m keeping it together nicely. Everything is fine …

  “How lovely,” the king intoned just as Sylvalla was finding some kind of calm. “I am to be taken hostage by the gallant Dirk and the daughter of my close friend, King Avondale.”

  Sylvalla was torn between panic and indignation. The indignation was for her father’s sake, of course. It was terribly rude to refer to an established king by
his territory—as though he were but an ephemeral feature and not worth remembering. And what was this idiot’s name anyway? She should know, but her brain was frozen. It was something to do with croak, but the reference was so obscure she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. This is because there are limits, beyond which any given neuron has difficulty functioning.

  Right now, the two hemispheres of Sylvalla’s brain were throwing up more flaws than a pane of glass. She was having difficulty negotiating the stairs, let alone imagining how much trouble she would be in when this fiasco got back to her parents. Her mind could only nudge these limits and scuttle away to her comforting dream of adventuring. Safe, well-worn territory, in which holding up a king played no part whatsoever. Holding up a king—whatever his blasted name might be—was not an adventure, and shouldn’t be confused as anything other than what it was, an outrageously foolish escapade.

  What little remained of Sylvalla’s presence of mind focused on making sure nobody was trying to sneak up the stairs behind them. She hadn’t been taking much notice of the struggle of wills taking place between the two men in front of her and didn’t realise they’d been speaking until Dirk kicked a door. “Oak, nice and strong. Stronger than the walls,” he muttered, before unlocking it and shoving the king inside.

  Sylvalla followed them as quickly as she could, shutting the door and putting her foot against it. Just in case.

  Dirk threw her the key and she locked it.

  Now safely[27] inside the tiny room, the silence was deafening. Sylvalla’s ears surged with blood. Her eyes also flooded her brain with information.

  The cramped surroundings were filled with garish and overlarge purple furnishings. A gold-embroidered purple-velvet bedspread and matching rugs. A purple and gilt-leaf dresser with matching plush chairs. Equally hideous heavy purple shutters led to a tiny balcony. Sylvalla slammed them shut, her hand flaking the paint and revealing layers of gold, as well as dark, dense wood. Now only the faintest strips of smoky light slipped through the shutters.