TOM

by Dave Freer

  And then that red-haired bitch had counterattacked. Well. She’d got her comeuppance at least.

  But he still had an army, and he still had Duke Karst.

  And he still had a final defensive trap. The Wickedest Witch was burned to a crisp. If Hargarthius died, well, he could deal with whatever else remained. He would take control over this well of power… as he always intended.

  Then they’d learn a lesson Ambyria would never forget.

  CHAPTER 20

  IN WHICH WE ARE NOT AMUSED

  Tom found his second visit to the world of clubbing rather different, and less pleasant. He’d had to leave even his trusty broom behind or he could have used it on the fellow who stuck needles into him. That was why witches used dolls for that. They didn’t complain. Alamaya stopped him doing more than that. They allowed her to remain with him, on account of him being foreign.

  The clubbing world was strange. They didn’t seem to get that they were foreign, and he was a cat.

  But he was also a cat who was feeling somewhat better and no longer needing to hide away.

  They sent him for a Cat scan. They were very puzzled by his tail. The next time he went through their magic iron donut he put it down. Obviously the tail invisibility spell Alamaya had put on it didn’t work too well on the device. Well. It was a Cat scan after all.

  “You’ve been very lucky, Mr Tindrell,” said the young man that Alamaya addressed as ‘Doctor’. “Managed to miss your lung and any major blood vessels. It was plainly a very narrow-bladed knife. An inch either way, would have had you in in trouble.”

  “So can I go back to the tower now?” asked Tom. Misericords had to be narrow to stick in through chinks in the armour.

  “I think we need to keep you in for observation tonight.”

  Tom wasn’t too sure he liked being watched, but it did come with supper. Fish. And when he asked, milk.

  Emerelda had to admit that she didn’t really like giving away hard-learned secrets, but that under the circumstances it was justified.

  “It’s less hard than I expected,” said Hargarthius. “I can’t get down to the cellars yet, so wine is not available but can I offer you some beer?” he asked.

  “In the absence of wine that will do nicely,” said Emerelda. “It’s easier to access that place than most of the other dimensions, simply because it so very close. Things leak across. Look at the demon for instance…”

  “I’d rather not look at the demon,” said King Uther, returning from the upper stories of the tower. “Not after he seduced my late wife. Yes, I know, he was just doing his job, and he saved my grand-daughter. But I still don’t have to like him. You can draw me a mug too, while you’re at it. There is quite a lot of chaos out there, and I think it will be a good half hour before they can organise a battering ram. And the roof is overpopulated by a demon prince and his entourage sleeping it off in the sun. I closed the portcullis and a heavy iron door on my way down, just in case.

  “I didn’t know I had those,” admitted Hargarthius.

  “You didn’t. They’re new. The tower probably decided it needed them. I noticed it changed over the years. It’s alive, you know, grows to fit what is inside it. Ah. My thanks.” He took the tankard of beer. Drank. “You have no idea how nice it is to drink properly, instead of taking a beak-full and tipping it down your throat.”

  “Erhm. My liege,” said Master Hargarthius awkwardly. “I apologise that I may have treated you with some disrespect in the past… I wasn’t aware… I would have done my best to lift the spell.”

  “Think nothing of it,” said King Uther with kingly grace. “Besides, you were generally not unpleasant. You fed me, and I don’t think that you, or anyone, could have broken the enchantment. I was a party to it, in my folly. And a spell enacted with the will of the bespelled is hard to break. I had to kill Estethius, and I had to do so as a raven. That was my oath. Besides, I was spying on you.”

  “Spying on me?” Hargarthius shook his head. “But what was I doing wrong?”

  “Nothing. But I didn’t know that. I assumed at first that you might actually be Estethius. Once I had decided that no, you were simply too un-skilled at magic, and teaching yourself, well I decided you must be hiding him, somehow. I was very ready to kill you. But my ten years trapped among the gnomes had taught me a lot about patience and something about cunning.”

  “Gnomes are not mythical then?” asked Emerelda. The beer wasn’t bad, really.

  “No, unfortunately not,” said King Uther with a grimace. “After I managed to fly in here — the Enchantress Saliana had transformed me into a raven so I could fulfil the prophecy and have the raven kill Estethius, I found him in the pantry. I was… too hasty. He managed to knock me down with his staff and flee, closing the pantry door. When that door is closed… well, another opens, into Gnomandy. Unfortunately, there, spells are reversed.”

  “Unfortunately?”

  “Rather so. I was a man, stark naked, and trapped in a foreign country. I walked into their little village. They stuck out for bait in a roc trap in the gnome village. I learned the language, tried to talk my way free, all the while working to escape. It took me the better part of a year to escape, digging by night, hiding my tunnel with cobbles and rubbish they threw at me. First with my fingers, then with scraps of stone, then with a bone using the stream to wash my dug dirt away. Then it took me another nine years of living as fugitive monster and bandit — a giant to them — to trace a rumor of how I might get back. I had to climb down the cliff and fight monsters and search… I could not believe how fast my grand-daughter and the boy made it back from that place. I thought I might have to organize a military intervention. Still, it was safer for them, than here. Desperate times called for desperate measures.”

  “Er. How did they get there?”

  “They hid from the knights who had come in the hidden back door. I suspect it was not as hidden as you had thought. One of them chased me — as a raven — into the pantry. I managed to stop him going into Gnomandy, which turned out just as well. He broke quite a few jars. I thought that cheese might get him, but it didn’t. Anyway, I was bracing myself to going back through Gnomandy to the broom-cupboard, when the boy and my grand-daughter opened the door. I was expecting the Chief Wizard Kolumnus, but it was them. They were back and had found the golden vials. So I went ahead and killed Estethius, as he no longer had anything we needed, which freed me from my geas. Thirty-seven years too late, of course.”

  “You killed Estethius?”

  “Yes, thoroughly. I ate his brain to be sure.” The King rubbed his stomach. “Fortunately ravens are not squeamish, but it has given me indigestion. And now that I have my body back, the Corvin honor is redeemed, I expect you two to break that curse.” He looked down his nose at them. “And it seems I will have to reclaim my kingdom, because we have an infestation of Borbungs.”

  “What happened to the royal ‘we’?” asked Emerelda dryly.

  “I think I left it in Gnomandy,” said the King with a belch. “Pardon. I’ve been a raven for a long time, and they’re not known for the delicacy of their court manners.”

  “I don’t know how bad the infestation is, but it is going to be… interesting, convincing them that King Uther has returned after… nearly forty years, looking not much older. Maybe ten years or so,” said Hargarthius.

  “That’ll be the time in Gnomandy,” said King Uther. “I didn’t seem to age as a raven. That was about all it had going for it.”

  Emerelda looked at her empty tankard again, hopefully. She sighed. The amount of training one had to put into men, these days. “Your grand-daughter, King Uther, is your key. Alamaya is recognised, and accepted. There might be a few Borbung supporters among the nobility, but not that many. Most of the noble houses still bind to the Corvins. With her at your side, I think most of the nobility would also be loyal and recognize you. She’s… I would guess, not keen to rule. She was trying very hard to escape it.”

  “She was as
regal as any queen, facing down that Borbung!” said Uther. “I was proud of her. I thought it would be safer for her in this other world, Emerelda. But we may have to get her back.”

  “She seems to have grasped loyalty at last, if only to a cat. Well, he’s boy too.”

  “How long must he be with the leeches in this foreign world?” asked Hargathius. “And will they cure him? He’s the best famulus I’ve ever had, even if he does get underfoot, and ask far too many questions. And use a lot of ConifirSoul. I must admit I don’t like the smell”

  “The grey goo didn’t like it either,” said King Uther. “That and that broom of his. He stuck a neep’s eye on it, and it sucked like… like a pack of lampreys, but far more powerfully.

  “A neep’s eye! What will that boy do next?” asked Hargarthius.

  “I don’t know,” said Emerelda. “But we might as well use the technique to get rid of the remaining gel. That way we can get down to the cellars and find some wine.”

  So they did. They also found a former bouncer, who was singing religious songs, having been a newt and then not a newt, and buried up to his neck in grey furry jelly. As Emerelda was tired of cleaning and her bruise was sore, they took him upstairs to the kitchen, gave him a mug of beer and set him to cooking supper.

  He had more talent for that, than for being a newt.

  Tom was glad to be ‘discharged’. He was slightly disappointed to discover that he was not magically proof against being charged. “That would have been useful,” he said, as they climbed into the taxi. “Seeing as we… well I, have to go and rescue Old Grumptious. I mean he’s a curmudgeon who nearly squashed me, but he’ll probably forget he’s being attacked because he just thought of a new line of research.”

  “God-mama is just about as bad,” admitted Alamaya. “But… uh, there is my Grandfather… well, he looked like the picture of him in the hall of ancestors.”

  “The raven. Huh. Well, he never got distracted. Except by food. Where is this horseless carriage taking us?”

  “It’s one of my return-spells. God-mama prepared them for me. You remember. You used one.”

  “Yes, but that dropped me outside the tower… There’s an army camped there.”

  “Oh. I had thought of suitable clothes, but not of that.” She’d brought a small case in with her in the morning, and Tom had wondered when he put them on. But he was no expert in clubbing-world attire. The people in the ‘hospital’ place had stared, rather a lot. She looked like a Princess, but that was what she was. Yes, the taxi-driver had said: “Off to a fancy-dress, are you? Or is it a Frozen party?” but they always said strange things. The last one had accused him of being Count Dracula.

  She pursed her lips. “Hmm. Well. I suppose we’ll just have to go ahead then.

  “What?” asked Tom, puzzled.

  She shrugged. “They’re supposed to be rescuing me. The army and Chief Wizard and the Royal Council of Mages are mine. I am… I mean We are the heir to the Noble House of Corvin. They obey our orders.”

  “Not me. I’m just a cat-famulus. Might be an apprentice.”

  “Not you. Me!”

  “But you said ‘we’ and ‘our’. I heard you.”

  “That’s the Royal ‘we’,” she said loftily.

  “Oh. I could get the driver to stop and you could find a bush somewhere,” said Tom, sympathetically.

  “Tch. Not that. It’s just that I mean… well, I’m two people.”

  “Me too. Well, I’m a cat and a boy. It’s quite confusing, really.”

  “Well, then I’m three people. A cat, a person and the Royal Princess. So I… we speak in the plural. And WE are going to give this army its marching orders.”

  “We are?” Tom wasn’t very sure about giving orders. He didn’t much like taking them, and those knights had mostly been much larger than he was.

  “You could just leave me to do it,” she said. “I can drop you off.”

  “Uh. No.” said Tom.

  “You’re as brave as a lion, Tom,” she said, admiringly.

  Tom wasn’t. He just had the feeling that the Witch, and his Master might catch up with him, if he didn’t help her get away. And… well, he ought to do it. That last part was troubling. Not cat-like at all. Stupid. More like a human.

  “I did bring you a fake beard. A long straggly white one,” said Alamaya, comfortingly.

  They were standing on a new balcony some seventy feet above the field. Hargarthius tapped the mesh that enclosed the upper section. “I feel like I’m in a cage,” he said, grumpily. “We could watch from the roof.”

  “It is arrow-proof,” said King Uther. “I’m not so sure about the siege engines, when they get those working. At the moment they’re really not trying very hard. Settling in for a siege, I’d say.”

  “Hmph,” said Hargarthius, looking down on the ram. “That’s my door they’re battering on. They could damage it.”

  Emerelda looked up from the working she had laid out on the floor. “Do you two mind being quiet? I am trying to concentrate. Interdimensional magic-to-mobile-phone communication is tricky. It’s either that or Alamaya’s not answering.”

  “I think you’d better come and have a look at this, Emerelda!” exclaimed Hargarthius.

  So she stood up and did.

  A yellow cab was bouncing its way across the field of battle… well, carving its way through the fleeing besiegers toward the front door. Horses found the yellow apparition threatening. It seems that the footmen didn’t feel much better about it.

  “We’d better get down there in a hurry. We may need to sortie to the rescue…”

  “An army of three. Unless we call the leaper away from cooking breakfast,” said King Uther. “I hate to ask, but do you think you could manage the illusion of slightly more regal clothing? People do judge by appearances.”

  Hargarthius pushed back his sleeves, and picked up his staff. “Then there’ll be a fair number of newts judging by appearances,” he said, crossly.

  Emerelda smiled inwardly as they hurried down the stairs. Hargarthius’s appearance had certainly altered his behaviour, so maybe he judged himself by it. Anyway, she was somewhat magically recovered by today. She obliged King Uther. There was a finite amount of Newtering that any magician could manage at one time, so an army would over-run them eventually — but did any soldier wish to find out if that amount had been reached?

  The magician hauled at the lever to open the great door and portcullis.

  It opened in time for King Uther to hear his grand-daughter pronounce — in a voice which might well have frozen boiling lava solid: “We are NOT amused.” Unlike King Uther, Emerelda knew who her God-daughter was imitating. It was very effective, even on the sweating men who had just dropped their ram and seized weapons. Possibly the fact that one of them was now a very sweaty frog might have helped. “Have you not been taught how to bow?”

  It was quite amusing to see Alamaya dressing the part, down to the tiara and a long-trained gown, sparking with diamonds… well. Something like diamonds anyway, in appearance. She was accompanied by white bearded mage with a silver and ebony staff, in a hooded royal-blue robe. He looked a lot less certain of himself than she did.

  The Knight who had been directing the rammers had got control of his horse. He raised visor. And then brought his sword up in a smart salute. “Your Royal Highness!”

  Alamaya was glad that she recognised him. She gave him the slightest inclination of her head. “What is going on here, Sir Bonavius?”

  “Er. We’re laying siege to the evil magician Hargarthius’s tower. He’s er. Kidnapped you. Um. With the Wicked Witch Emerelda.”

  “We are not kidnapped, Sir Bonavius,” she said loftily. “And we do not think you should speak thus of our Godmother.”

  “Yes, Your Highness. If I can escort you to Duke Karst…”

  “You can have him brought here,” said King Uther in gravelly voice, or at least a voice that suggested crushing. “He has a great deal of explaining
to do.”

  The knight stared at him. So did Tom. He didn’t look much like a raven now. Except he did. He wore black, adorned with gold. He had a feathered cloak over his shoulders, trimmed with ermine. And he was wearing a crown.

  Alamaya curtseyed. “Grandfather!”

  King Uther walked out and kissed her, very formally on the cheek. “Spoken like a true Corvin, girl,” he said quietly. “But here comes trouble. You can get back to the tower…”

  Instead of sensibly getting inside, which Tom increasingly thought was a good idea, she shook her head, and turned to face the mass of knights riding up fast, lances lowered. “Anyone got a trumpet?” asked King Uther.

  “No. But this’ll do,” said the Witch, leaning in the window of the taxi-cab, where the driver still sat, mesmerized, and pressed the horn. The cavalcade slowed. “There’s only note, but let’s see if I can play the royal salute of Ambyria,” she said, cheerfully, and proceeded to do her best.

  It was enough to slow the van of the charge.

  “Too close and I start turning horses into newts,” said Master Hargarthius, hefting his staff.

  The knight who had been directing the ram was quick on the uptake. “Form up! An honor guard in front of his majesty and her highness.”

  “That’s a knight who will shortly have larger holdings,” said King Uther, “And soldiers who are going up in the world.”

  Tom was not convinced that ‘up in the world’ didn’t mean elevated on the point of a lance. He took a tighter grip on the shaft of this fancy-pants staff Alamaya had got for him, and winced.

  “The Doctor said you’re supposed to take it easy,” said Alamaya, noticing.

  “I’ll just go and have a little lie down,” muttered Tom, not moving. “If we live long enough.”

  The heavy galloping horses had slowed to a stop in front of them. The lead knight lifted his visor to reveal the grim face of Duke Karst. “Princess Alamaya!” He exclaimed.

  “Ahem” said King Uther. “There are going to be some grim examples made if we don’t get a royal salute, very soon.”