by A. J. Ponder
SPECIALTY:Transmogrification
RESUMÉ: Currently residing in Scotch Mist, Dothie’s reputation stems from his unique ability to create a winged creature he calls Drosophila melanogaster[65].
After Dothie’s expulsion from Fairly University he became embroiled in what are now referred to as the Sylvalla prophecies. The extent of his role is much debated, but there is some evidence that he continues to pursue his wizardly studies while running a lucrative hotel, with the ultimate goal of gaining power, prestige and wealth beyond imagining.
PASSED: Wizard Finals, with honours, but only after he transformed a member of the Panel of Directors into one of his Drosophila melanogaster flies and refused to reverse the spell until he was promoted. “Any hesitation,” he’d threatened, “and you will all end up as tasty treats for my familiar.”
§
Dothie’s door shook with the pounding of an armoured fist.
“Go away!” Dothie shouted irritably, not in the mood for anything but sleeping off a hellishly-persistent headache.
“Open up, or I’ll break down the door.” The voice might not have been loud, but it was young and eager.
“One.”
Scrambling to get out from his covers, Dothie muttered, “Where in Hades is my bodyguard, Fergus[66]? This is his job. The incompetent moron should be here.”
“Two.”
“Thr—”
Dothie fumbled at the lock and opened up.
“You are the owner of this establishment?” a soldier-boy asked. Behind him the hallway was jammed-packed—and not with customers … well, some were very good customers, but they were on duty right now.
He peeked out the window. There were even more soldiers outside. Damn them all. “What’s your problem? I run a perfectly legal enterprise.”
“Not according to my orders.”
“Whose orders?
“The King’s.”
Dothie stopped blustering and sank back down onto his bed.
“What orders?” Dothie asked. If only Fergus were here, he would laugh at these pathetic humans. Wherever he was, he’d better get back soon.
“I cannot say, sir,” the boy replied, brown eyes fixed upon Dothie. His voice clipped as short as the bristle emanating from his scalp.
“What exactly can you say, child?” Dothie asked.
“You have been charged with several counts of murder, and I am told you are to be considered armed and dangerous—at all times. Give me a chance, and I will kill you, sir. I’d be delighted.”
Dothie snorted. Any sensible lad about to confront a wizard would have attacked already—unless he had other orders, ones he hadn’t disclosed yet.
“Come with me.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what for?” Dothie asked, taking a moment to put Toots on his shoulder.
The answer he got was the light touch of a sword on his back.
Dothie took the unsubtle hint and strode into the corridor—lined two-deep with soldiers. Squeezing past them all significantly slowed their progress. Dothie was led out onto the street at sword point. All the way, he wondered what had happened to the good-for-nothings Arrant and most especially his bodyguard, Fergus. “Where in the blue hades is that...” Dothie forgot his curse. There, in front of him, was King Phetero’s enormous purple and gold carriage.
His henchman Fergus was standing by the door. Arrant, the slimy worm, was actually sitting inside. And there, next to him, was a large man dressed in robes of royal purple, with a bejewelled piece of metal perched on top of his head.
The man held out his hand. “So you are Dothie the wizard. I hear we have a common enemy.”
The Funeral
Blue robes are for the Maiden,
Green for the Mother
Red for War and Black for Death,
The Harvester’s are Gold.
Brown robes are for Pestilence,
And Yellow for Disease.
Children, do remember
The seven gods so bold,
And forget the hidden shadows
Whose names are never told.
Sylvalla woke to urgent knocking. “Coming.” Her dress caught about her as she struggled out of a tangle of bedclothes, hand groping for her sword. She found it on the dresser, snagged her foot in the tangle of sheets and sprawled over the floor.
Cautiously, Sylvalla opened the door. “Dirk!” she said. “Go away.”
“Sylvalla, the dressmaker has come twice already with fittings.”
“Is she here?” Sylvalla asked, peeking her head around her new door. The sweet smell of freshly-cut heart-wood was overwhelmed by the caustic burn of lye in the hall—neither could erase the smell of death.
“No,” Dirk said. “I sent the old busybody away, but you’d better hurry. Here, have something to eat.” Dirk shoved a crumbly mess under her nose. “Francis brought you these pasties earlier.”
Sylvalla nibbled dispiritedly on a flake of crust. “Where is Francis?”
Dirk shrugged and gulped down the rest of the pastry. “Drink?” he asked, spraying crumbs.
“Ugh.” A jug of water with matching crystal glasses waited on the dresser. Sylvalla didn’t bother with the glasses. She drank her water straight from the jug, and passed it to Dirk.
“Better?” Francis asked, rounding the corner just in time to see his fiancé wiping water from her mouth and chin with the back of her hand.
“I guess.”
“Then you ought to go and see that dressmaker before she has an apoplexy. Shouldn’t you have a lady’s maid? Or have you scared them all away?”
“Mahrawyn is dead.” Sylvalla grabbed a brush—and then, for the first time in her life, walked straight to the dressmakers without arguing. But, as soon as Sylvalla walked into the room, her nerve almost cracked. Before she could back away, several ladies took hold of her and she found herself standing, arms as far away from her body as she could make them, terrified to move lest she be jabbed by the numerous pins holding the black garment together.
“Girl, you are a strange shape for a woman and not at all flattering to the eye,” the seamstress blathered as she bustled around the room, scissors in hand, tape measure over her shoulder. “There’s only so much I can do to give a lass curves when she has none.”
The titters were muted. Glances were exchanged and the seamstress’ ladies peeled away to attend to other tasks. “Hurry girls, hurry. The sun is up, and it’s almost time. Elissa, fetch some shoes from Sylvalla’s rooms. Surely someone will have the key. Why she came with boots I’ll never know. Run!” Snipping stray threads with a vengeance, she scolded, “I don’t know what they were thinking allowing you to sleep so long. And today of all days. The veil. Yes, good. At least that fits.
Sylvalla slipped her feet into the hideous black-sequined shoes Elissa had brought.
“Go on, off with you,” the seamstress ordered. “You’re late.”
Sylvalla blinked.
Luckily, Francis appeared. “My queen,” he murmured, hustling her away through corridors filled with mourners and well-wishers genteelly dabbing at their eyes with embroidered handkerchiefs.
“My lady, wait.” A servant called anxiously, fighting through the knots of people. “My lady! Don’t forget this.” He thrust a grey-brown object toward Sylvalla. A death torch.
Sylvalla blanched, before grasping the stone-coloured wood of the death-torch as though it was the heaviest thing she’d ever lifted in all her life. “Thank you.”
“No need. Go on, off you go, Your Majesty. Everyone is waiting for you, you know.” In an amazing feat of etiquette, he reverently shooed her through the great oak and brass doors onto the crowd of mourners. The guards decked in full ceremonial dress—small snatches of sky-blue in a mass of storm-cloud black. As if they were holding back the storm with nothing but borrowed authority.
A bier had been built in the centre of the courtyard, piled high with cherry branches. It was surrounded by a rainbow of priests and topped with Rufus
dressed in all his state finery. On each side, pools of fire burnt red and blue atop marble daises. Tishke stood by one—small and still; a diminutive reflection of the priest in black, clutching a torch identical to Sylvalla’s and staring coldly into the distance.
Light-headed with the pungent smell of wood and oil, Sylvalla almost threw off the ridiculous sequined shoes—stupid to worry about the shoes now, it was too late to do anything about them. Her eyes closed briefly, but the images in her head were worse. An endless parade of ghouls—their eyes and tongues plucked out, mouths gaping in soundless screams.
To thwart these soul-twisting horrors, she opened her eyes once again, to a nightmare that was not so easily dispelled.
A bell tolled and the small restless murmurings and shuffling feet ceased and fell into a drowning silence. The black-robed priest stepped forward and raised his arms. “I am the mouth of the God of Death, I speak the words of the dead.”
Turning toward the bier, he orated, “Go, our beloved King, ride your horse over the sky plains and lead it to water; as once you led us, your people.
Stupid! Stupid! Rufus was no rider. I was foolish to expect anything else. What hope can the gods give now he is already dead?
“Go, our beloved King, harvest the golden wheat of the sky and shower it upon the fields so...”
Rufus was no worker. Let him eat and drink and talk, and he will be happy indeed. Stupid priests. These were not suitable words for her father. Sylvalla hoped the gods, or at least the other priests, might know better.
“May Death forgive you,” the black priest continued solemnly, as he backed away. His black robes fluttered in the breeze, reminding her of the evil wizard Dothie.
Dressed in gold trimmed silk and linen, the priestess for the Mother took a half step forward. She waited until all eyes were upon her, before her rich voice carried her few words over the crowd. “May the good Mother look over her son and deem him worthy to be borne into a new life.”
The red god’s representative raised his sword high to the heavens and thundered, “May the God of War smite low your enemies.”
Sylvalla choked back a snort of contempt as he brandished the weapon in a poor show of swordsmanship. She almost didn’t notice as the priests of pestilence and disease, their rags as tatty as those of the poorest beggars, walked up to the king. They looked at her pointedly, and she held her breath until they turned away. Thankfully they did not speak. A demonstration to all of a healthy lack of interest from their gods. No small relief.
Rosy cheeked, gold of hair, the Maiden’s priestess followed. Standing barefoot and clad in a simple white toga draped with blue gossamer that shimmered alluringly, she dimpled as she addressed Rufus. “May the Maiden weave star blossoms through your hair and raise you high into your new kingdom.”
The crowd ahhed appreciatively.
Death came forward to cut off her performance.
“Let the fire raise him,” he yelled, waving his arms at Tishke and Sylvalla.
Sylvalla mirrored her mother as she placed her torch into the red and blue flames. As they caught fire, Death raised his black staff, high, then brought it down upon the bier in a mighty crash.
The staff broke in two, golden sparks flying from the artificial break. Some even landing propitiously on Rufus’ body as Sylvalla and her mother took their cue and touched their own brands to the kindling.
Only then, through the heavy haze of the flames, did Sylvalla feel brave enough to look at the body of her father. He lay in quiet repose, his arms folded across his chest, a simple gold circlet on his brow.
The heat intensified to a white haze that peeled the tears from her eyes, but could not extinguish her anger.
“By the gods, I will avenge you, my father, or I will die trying.”
§
From the palace guest rooms, Jonathan heard the rush of power as Sylvalla swore to avenge her father.
“The fool!” Capro Goodfellow roared. “The little fool. I cannot leave her for a moment, and already she is wishing things. Worse, vowing things. Will she never learn?”
“Father, you should have said.”
“Ah, yes, I should have, and I did, but I do not think the words were writ large enough or plain enough for her to see them. They did not fill the sky with blackened ink, nor set the ground to trembling–although her words just might. Foolish mortal, does she have any idea? Does she know what she has done?”
“No,” Jonathan said. “But do we? You may curse all you like, father, but her path is narrow and who can say what is meant to be at any place upon that road?”
“Enough!” Capro narrowed his eyes at his son, “You would take my own words, and use them against me? Come, let’s see what is happening.”
Stepping over to the castle window they watched the bright rush of fire as it ate away at branches and flesh alike.
“I wonder what she’s thinking now?” Jonathan said, and shuddered as he felt the echo of Sylvalla’s despondency and disgust.
Recklessness
There is a time for all things
Skeletal fingers tapped across Dothie’s desk. Irritated, Dothie waved at the animated bones and they scuttled away, crabwise, only to be ambushed by Toots. Reptilian tongue wrapped around finger bone, Toots munched dispiritedly before clambering onto Dothie’s shoulder.
Dothie shrugged. He was busy counting the stack of gold coins King Phetero had forked over to encourage Dothie to re-awaken his hatred for Sylvalla. Not that he really needed the encouragement, or the extra soldiers. Gaining revenge on the stupid princess was something he should have done a long time ago.
Still, it was difficult leaving this place and many of his priceless books and artefacts behind. A haven where he’d carefully hoarded his magic, cautiously searching out the same old forbidden knowledge that Phetero also seemed so fascinated by.
Now it was time for recklessness again. For a good cause: the destruction of Sylvalla.
So, the girl thought she was to be crowned? Not if he could help it.
Matters of State
Welcome to empty platitudes
Gold-toothed smiles
And deadly feuds
A slim knife of doubt stabbed Sylvalla as she entered the crowded throne room. In days, if her advisors had their way, she’d be nothing but an empty figurehead.
Worse, King Phetero would not be waiting for the twelve official days of mourning to be over. He would be figuring out how to attack again.
Sylvalla’s hand waved to the assembled throng as though it were attached to some kind of fancy clockwork toy. Turn, turn. A smattering of applause rang out. It was not enough, she had to win the assembly’s whole-hearted approval. The crier she’d employed to orate Phetero’s crimes entered. He was shaking so hard it was a wonder he didn’t drop the large sheaf of documents clutched in his puffy fingers.
Dammit, but I am a hero. Sylvalla reassured herself that Dragonslayer was at her hip. But that wasn’t enough. It was past time for secrecy, if she was going to be a hero, they needed some form of proof. She drew the tiny sword and willed it to grow.
The room broke into pandemonium. It quieted only after Sylvalla lowered Dragonslayer and began to speak, her voice ringing round the plaza. “The crimes of King Phetero must not go unpunished. His heinous acts include murder, intent to murder, kidnapping, and regicide.”
She nodded to the crier.
He cleared his throat and mumbled incoherently—before pulling himself together and turning to the crowd. “…as to the crime of murder, and murder by proxy, there are 131 counts, including the Duke of Wellick, witnessed by Lady Wellick and her son. The murder of Sir...
The crowd soaked up the drama, punctuating the list of Phetero’s crimes with angry taunts. Many had lost loved ones.
The death-toll was not just an assertion of everything they had lost—it was a message to the embassies of other countries—and so indirectly to their Kings and Queens—that supporting Phetero would be like inviting an arrow into th
eir own backs. But most of all, it was a call for war.
“She is but a weak and feeble woman,” Francis muttered to Dirk, “but, by the gods, she has the heart of a dragon.”
“Dragons. Do not talk to me of dragons,” Dirk said as he continued scanning the crowd for signs of trouble.
When the crier finished, Sylvalla spoke again. “It is time for foreign diplomats to go home to your kingdoms—and to safety. While you may have the luxury of growing old and toothless by your fires, Avondale stands to defend its people and avenge our king!”
The result was electric. Stamps and cheers overwhelmed any dissent as more astute thinkers realised loved ones were about to be sent to war.
“Now send for my military advisors,” Sylvalla demanded. “I will meet them in the throne room.”
Unfortunately, it was the political advisors and not the military ones that arrived first.
Red faced, the Royal Chancellor and the Grand Vizier bowed, their robes and hats uncharacteristically crooked. “My lady,” the Grand Vizier patted his tall hat back into place. “You are troubled and there are still four days of mourning left. Let us ease your burden for a little while longer.”
The Royal Chancellor nodded. “You should not rush into anything while you are overwhelmed by grief.”
Sylvalla needed to find a way to order them away—preferably before they figured out how to rule in her stead. But history suggested that accusing wannabe usurpers of trying to usurp her throne was the wrong way of going about things.
“My Lady, we—”
A group of women stalked into the room, squalling babies in their arms, and everyone turned to stare.
Sylvalla sighed. Knowing what was coming didn’t make it any easier. “You can’t all be holding the royal heir,” she snapped.
