“Oh, I disagree.” He winked playfully.
Ronin appeared at my side and folded his arms. “Stop flirting. She hates you. Now take us to the elf.”
Marcel’s good nature evaporated. “That ‘elf’ is the Queen of all Korvia.”
“I’m no Korvian,” Ronin said. “Take us to her. I brought a gift.” He motioned to me.
I waved at Marcel. “You’ll have to excuse Ronin. He’s not very good at gift-wrapping things.”
“The Queen is at dinner,” Marcel said.
“Then we’ll join her.” Ronin strode past him.
I followed with Marcel and Tammagan beside me. “Ronin will probably need a blanket to drape over his head while he eats.” I leaned in conspiratorially. “You got money on what’s under the mask?”
“Of course,” Marcel said. “I’m betting he’s an entitled, mercenary scumbag. Probably some nobleman’s third son. Mother ignored him. The usual.”
“How about you?” I asked Ronin. “You want in on this?”
Ronin growled and I skipped over a pace, keeping Marcel between us. “So how’s a guy your age become a general?” I asked.
“Skating by on looks, mostly,” Marcel said. “Helps if you win at war a little.”
We approached a glowing blue orb reminiscent of an ocean-themed bowling ball. It was surrounded by a stand and an armillary sphere of spinning brass rings not unlike my magitech computer.
Marcel cleared his throat. “Four for transport. Throne-room feast hall, orders of General Luc Marcel.”
The dials on the armillary flicked rapidly into a new configuration. The ball flashed once.
No change.
“I think your thingy’s broken,” I said.
Then I realized the room had changed. Or rather, we were in a different one entirely.
Marcel chuckled. “When we first used the teleporters it caused stomach sickness and an occasional random change to hair color or gender. But our artificers have adjusted them. Hardly notice you’re ’porting anymore.”
I looked at the orb. “One for transport. Room of endless kittens, orders of Magister Grawflefox.”
The room stayed the same.
“Rats,” I muttered.
“Your voice isn’t imprinted on the palace’s founding stone,” Marcel said. “But nice try.”
Floating white crystals lit the feast hall’s vaulted ceiling. I could have played full-court basketball in the space if I were any good at basketball. The dining table would seat eighty people and was built from intricately carved and stained wood inlaid with geometric cuts of glass at each place setting. The table and chairs floated legless in the air. I wondered why. Obviously, because magic, but less obviously: were table and chair legs really such an obstacle that someone felt it necessary to enchant them instead? Whatever the cause, it was probably my fault.
There was a fruit platter on one end of the table. The assortment of fruit was rainbow hued, but favored a berry the color of burnt-orange sunsets, swollen to a polish. There was a red wedge-shaped fruit I’d seen on Ipsus. Incongruously, there were also bananas. It made me realize that of all real-world fruits, bananas were probably the weirdest.
There was no Queen yet. Marcel sat us around the fruit platter and struck up a passive-aggressive conversation with Tammagan about city politics. I was pretty sure he wanted to draw her into a debate, but Tammagan never gave him the space. I recognized no names and realized I had less interest in fantasy politics than real-world politics. Probably why I’d made it a monarchy.
I bit into the burnt-orange fruit. It gushed orange-flavored nectar, sweet enough that I made improper sounds. It was fantastic until I chomped into the pit and nearly chipped an incisor.
The teleporter flashed and Queen Eliandra glided forth. A square-faced man with a goatee and funny cap kept pace with her elegant stride. She was nearly six feet tall and made more impressive by her bearing. Her silver dress gleamed the color of a knife’s edge and her golden hair was just as bright. For her face, I’d taken a bit too much inspiration from Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and constantly expected her to mimic that self-conscious laugh.
Instead she smiled right at me. My heart seized. “Welcome,” she said. She nearly floated into her seat and, though I’d cribbed from Pretty Woman for her appearance, I had to admit she moved and spoke precisely like the queen I’d painted her as. For once, my art had turned out the way I’d planned it. Had to happen eventually, I supposed.
The funny-hat guy sidled into a chair beside her. “Who is this?” He made a nuisance gesture at me. “He looks… malnourished.” I could see wiry power in hat-guy’s arms, and Marcel was even bigger. Either folks in Rune were really tough as a rule or the palace had one hell of a gym membership plan.
“Show respect, Nils,” Tammagan said. She was the last person I’d expected to defend me. “Magister Grawflefox has slain Magaran witches and dragons.”
Nils stroked his black goatee. “All by himself?”
Tammagan wore a well-schooled expression. The Akarri weren’t allowed to wield swords unless defending Queen Eliandra. I realized Nils was trying to catch her in the illegal act of killing monsters. “Ronin assisted him,” she said flatly. It wasn’t a lie.
“This Grawflefox fellow is a liability,” Nils said.
“He slew Asharra,” said Tammagan.
“That’s a problem. Asharra was a breeder. Mothered half of Dracon’s elite guard. He won’t take her loss lightly. He may declare war.”
“War is the last thing we desire,” Eliandra assured. “But let us not forget Dracon sent Asharra onto Korvian soil and razed seven city blocks. War may have already been declared; and not by us.”
“The Council wants peace,” Nils said. “Tribute may be our best option.”
“Dracon burned our last tribute.” Marcel had lost his flippant demeanor and his face was flinty-hard.
“So?” Nils asked. “He still accepted it, didn’t he?”
“So you didn’t have to hear the tribute screaming.” Marcel’s tone chilled my blood. “He promised a fair trial to those rebels and burned them instead. That’s upon our heads.”
“He’d have burned half the kingdom otherwise,” Nils snapped. “Now my spies report that he sacked Astor in search of a powerful wizard. Why do I have the strange sense that wizard sits in our midst?” Nils fixed his gaze on me. Everyone else did, too.
I stood and took a pencil from my pocket, holding it by one end, and tapped it on the table. “Behold: an ordinary wooden pencil.” I wiggled it in the air. “And now… it’s rubber.”
They stared. I sat down.
Eliandra cracked a wry smile that made me feel the slightest bit better.
Nils leaned closer, as if to speak privately to Eliandra, though we could hear him. A ghost of an emotion appeared on the Queen’s face, but disappeared before I could read it. “Lady,” Nils said. “The greater good of all Korvia is at stake. I will confer with the Council and we will advise you on how to proceed.” Then he faced us. “Captain Tammagan, don’t let the magister out of your sight. And, young man—behave. Or we’ll deliver you to Dracon in a box.” He stood and marched out.
“That guy’s evil,” I said.
“Pardon?” asked the Queen, who hadn’t once contradicted him.
“In case you’re wondering. Total bad guy. Probably in league with Dracon.”
Marcel scowled. “I’ve no love for Nils, but don’t make accusations you cannot support, wizard.”
Tammagan said nothing; nor had Ronin the entire time.
“Treason is a serious charge,” the Queen said. She gave me a steady look that demanded total honesty. “On what do you base your beliefs?”
“His goatee.”
Eliandra blinked. “His facial hair?”
“It means he’s evil.”
While Tammagan and Marcel both stared aghast, Eliandra’s expression humored me. “You hail from unenlightened lands, Grawflefox. In Korvia we don’t believe in a connection be
tween inward character and outward attributes like eye color, skin tone, facial hair, or the shape of one’s head.”
“It’s not everyone with goatees. Just advisors. Advisors with goatees are evil. Always.”
“Is he touched?” Marcel asked Tammagan.
“He prophesies strange truths. Don’t dismiss him so quickly.” She nodded to me. “Show the Queen your power.”
I sighed. “Fine. This will take time.” I didn’t want to summon a rune stone. Since no one knew how to produce them, they were liable to make me into a rune-stone factory. I had visions of slaving over canvas while getting whipped by an overseer. That’s why I’d never pursued a graphic design degree.
I removed my pencil and asked for parchment so they wouldn’t realize I had supplies in the Army vest. Dracon had tried confiscating my supplies, and I didn’t want the Council or Nils to do the same.
They brought me paper. I decided to summon something else from home, something I needed but that wasn’t too powerful. I sketched the outline for the box of art supplies wedged beneath my desk at home. It was an old printer box filled with pencils, paints, sketchpads, and folders. I hated that box. It was a testament to the forces of entropy that ruled my life. It took me fifteen minutes to find any particular thing inside it; its contents had been dumped out and hastily shoveled back in a hundred times. I had daydreams about organizing my supplies into a drawer or tackle box, but anyone who saw neatly ordered compartments in my future just didn’t know me very well.
I reproduced the box from memory. My recall was good enough to answer test questions by visualizing the page in a book where I’d read something. The visualization was sometimes foggy; other times I could damn near reread the sentence in my mind’s eye.
Tammagan reported the Akarri’s mission details to the Queen while I worked. Strangely, Marcel stayed to listen in—so they must have trusted him, since the Akarri’s whole mission had gone against Council wishes. At one point, they brought food. I ignored it.
When I finished, I sat up and spooned a single bite of soup into my mouth. It was cold. Only my bowl and Ronin’s remained full. He stared from behind that demon-shaped mask.
“What?” I asked him. “They wouldn’t give you a blanket? Dicks.”
The ninja made a devil-horns gesture at me, like he was telling me to rock on. But when the Queen covered her mouth I realized it was lewd.
“Time for the fireworks.” At the touch of my breath, silver light filled every line. Sparks hissed from the scribbles, sizzling atop the yellow parchment before spilling onto my lap. They were warm and charged my fine hairs with static.
Tammagan leaped back. Marcel drew his saber. The Queen stood abruptly and her floating chair skated across the floor.
Ronin leaned in.
I dropped the parchment flat and my box rose from the canvas as if carried on a clear-glass elevator to reality’s first floor. It grew to full size atop the parchment and sat there in full-color glory, a corrugated cardboard testament to my slobbery.
Eliandra approached and prodded the box just once. “Fascinating. What is it?”
“A box of art supplies from my home.”
“You summoned it?”
“I think. It could just be a replica. But I’m pretty sure I transported it.”
“But he can summon things as well,” Tammagan said. “Like he did with the serpents when the Magarans attacked.”
I stayed quiet. Guiltily quiet. That was a connection I’d hoped they missed.
“And the rune stones,” she pressed. “You have three we’ve never seen before. Did you fabricate them?”
I scowled at her. I didn’t know why it upset me—she’d have been dense not to put it together, and I knew for a fact Ronin was fully apprised of my capabilities. But rune stones powered nearly all their magical devices, and I didn’t want to get stuck producing an endless supply for their armies. “No one knows how to make rune stones,” I lied.
Eliandra placed her hand on my wrist. Her gentle touch and the assurance in her slightly-too-large eyes eased my anxieties. It was hard not to trust the woman I’d enthroned over an entire kingdom. “I bid your honesty. My word is iron. It cannot be broken. No harm will come to you for the truth, should you speak it.”
I held my breath and let it out in surrender. “I can make the stones. I’ve made three so far.”
The Queen nodded. She glanced at Tammagan. “I want our guest made comfortable in the dignitaries’ hall. See to his needs.”
“You’re certain?” Tammagan asked, and I could tell the dignitaries’ hall must be posh based solely on the elevation of her eyebrows.
“The lady said dignitaries’ hall. Chop-chop.” I clapped my hands and rubbed them together. “What are the odds it has free HBO?”
Ronin was halfway to the teleporter when Eliandra caught him in her gaze. “My old and loyal friend. Where are you headed?”
“To get the ship repaired. Once the lightning turrets are fixed, I want to take a run at Dracon’s southern border and scout his troop movements.”
“I have need for you here,” Eliandra said. “I want you permanently affixed to Magister Grawflefox. Protect him. Please go with Captain Tammagan and have your pick among rooms in the hall.”
Ronin bristled. “There?”
“For the cause.”
He growled and brushed past Eliandra in a dismissive way, fully unaffected by her beauty or status—fixed instead on me.
Ronin went to grab my arm and I lurched back. “No touchy. Why can’t I just heel?”
He took my arm anyway. “Because I’m taking you to your cell.”
“No way. She said dignitaries’ hall.”
The ninja was already marching me to the teleporter. “It’s for dignified prisoners.”
The shock of the betrayal left me temporarily limp in Ronin’s hand. Then I wrenched from his grasp and thundered toward the Queen, finger pointed. “You promised!”
Tammagan threw herself in front of Eliandra in an instant, sword hissing from its scabbard. Of all people, it was Ronin who appeared in front of me, getting between Tammagan’s steel and my vital bits. His grip steered me behind him. “I’ve got him,” Ronin said.
Tammagan’s sword tip never wavered. “See that you keep him.”
“You said ‘no harm’!” I shouted over Ronin’s shoulder at my creation.
Eliandra hadn’t budged. She stood behind Tammagan, hands clasped serenely in front of her and face devoid of feeling. “You will be kept safe.”
“As a prisoner!”
“Would you prefer to see how Lord Dracon treats you?” she asked.
Ronin pulled me away from her and soon strode side by side with me. I hewed more closely to him, seething at the Queen. “I didn’t make her that way,” I muttered.
His grip tightened so hard I thought it might pop my shoulder from its socket. “Silence,” he hissed.
I swallowed when I realized how much Ronin knew about my power. And he’d warned me before: if people knew I had made them, that I was their creator, it might not go over so well. I cleared my throat. “I mean, I didn’t make her out to be this way. Not from the stories people tell. I thought she’d be a good ruler.”
“She is an excellent ruler,” Ronin whispered.
“Not much of a person, though.”
“Not everything is what it looks like on the outside,” Ronin said from behind a dark porcelain mask. “There are hidden shapes to a thing and only a thin stretch of them appears on a sheet of paper.”
I shivered.
Tammagan lined up behind us and said, “Three for transport. Dignitaries’ hall, orders of Captain Tammagan.”
I blinked and we were there.
Chapter Two: Face to Face
Tammagan was stiff but professional toward me after defending the Queen from my accusatory finger point. Once teleported, Ronin traded me to her and disappeared into his room.
The palatial corridor and crown molding couldn’t hide the sterile ba
sement smell. I imagined it to be a prison smell. Light was cast by floating crystals, with no windows in sight.
My room felt like an upscale tent. The walls were pale canvas and a white-furred rug lay across polished marble, its four-post bed overflowing with scarlet pillows. Drapes offset a corner that featured a toilet and claw-foot bathtub. Beyond the canvas barriers, the room was bigger than a tennis court, with only the tented section decorated. The remainder was barren as a vacant department store.
It was the thud of my oaken door and the rattle of a lock that reminded me this room was a cell. Tammagan left her key in the lock, perhaps as a show of trust to take the edge off being imprisoned. It didn’t work.
“Why is this place so enormous?” I asked, peering through a gap in the tent wall.
“Small rooms are a rare commodity,” Tammagan said. “Most palace chambers are too large for common use. This whole infernal place is a hollow mountain. Before we got the teleporters working, it was a two-hour journey from kitchens to feast hall. One full of surprising peril. If I ever get my hands on who designed this place, I’ll flay him, god or not.”
“Maybe he feels really bad already.”
Tammagan chuckled darkly. “Bet I could make him feel worse.”
“No doubt.” I deflated into a wicker chair. After meeting Eliandra, I yearned for privacy to mope. I’d painstakingly created a judicious queen—then she imprisoned me an hour after we met. What did that tell me? “Maybe wisdom is overrated,” I muttered. And benevolence toward one’s people apparently didn’t correlate to benevolence toward foreigners.
Tammagan stood over me with one hand on her hilt—a soldier’s stance.
I sighed. “Please sit. You’re exhausting me.”
“Suspect it’ll be a long few days for you then,” she said, not budging.
“You going to stand at attention for my pee breaks? How about baths? Maybe I could use you as a towel rack.”
“No. I’ll search you before and after for contraband, though.”
I shuddered. “Basic pat-down or rubber-glove treatment?”
“I… think I can guess what the second one is.” She grimaced. “Pat-down.”
Mistakes Were Made (A Pygmalion Fail Book 2) Page 2
