The Dragon Queen

by J M Sanford

  The prince stared at him with narrow golden eyes, but said nothing. Possibly he was still processing being addressed as ‘old bean’. Royalty did so like to hear their proper titles used (they were worse than Mages for it) but that was one thing Morel refused to bend to. He might be a prisoner, but he was not a servant.

  “The sun will get further and further out,” he said again, and drew a large, loosening spiral in the air with his finger to illustrate the problem. “You see? Its warmth and magic will no longer reach us, and everything in this world will freeze entirely solid. Unless I can do something to stop it…” He still hadn’t decided exactly what. He wished he’d arrived with a real plan.

  “Yes. Set the sun as your first priority, for now, Archmage,” said Archalthus, for all the world as if it was his own choice. “I’m confident that you won’t disappoint me… this time.”

  Morel recoiled from the hint of danger in the prince’s voice. If only he could go back to the days when his magic had awed and delighted the dragon prince. No, to the days before he’d ever heard the name Archalthus. Or better yet, before… Well, he’d led a long life, with much to regret. He hauled his attention back to the matter in hand. Failure here would mean… Wait: what would failure mean for him here? Back in the old world, Archalthus had held the full ire of the Mage Council as a threat over Morel’s head, but now the Mage Council was a world away, entirely out of reach, for better or for worse. Failure here might mean death, but death was not necessarily as bad as what the Mage Council could do to him… The thought buoyed him up so much that he actually smiled. “If any Mage in any world can restore the sun to its correct path, then it is I,” he said with pride. “But I must have some source of power.”

  Archalthus, visibly surprised by Morel’s response to the veiled threat, was at an added disadvantage now that the conversation was turning towards technical matters of magic. “This world’s magic runs off its sun.”

  “Now, you’re not entirely wrong there, but you are oversimplifying. Naturally, if I’m to change the course of the sun in the midst of winter, I must have an auxiliary source of magic…” With a glance at Breaker standing by the door (if he was listening at all then he showed no sign of it) Morel leaned forward and lowered his voice. “There is a source of magic right here in the palace.” More than one, in fact, but he’d like to keep his second choice of the Argean’s mystery box in reserve. And keep quiet about it too, just in case it turned out that he was mistaken and the thing really was some worthless heirloom.

  Archalthus took some time to think, an earnest pupil albeit a hopeless one. “Yes, the stars that you took down –”

  “No, no,” Morel waved that notion away, “those piffling sparklers have no power of their own, only draw and store it from… Never mind that now. No, I have something far more powerful in mind.”

  Archalthus’ golden eyes widened as he came to the correct conclusion, and Morel almost felt like giving him a round of applause, although that probably would have been a step too far. “Ah, then you mean –”

  “Master, her Ladyship is here to see you.”

  Miss Hartwood looked rather lost and fragile standing there in the doorway without her usual twin guards, but she was as beautiful as ever. Months ago, Scarlet had packed trunks full of gowns and jewels for sending through to the new world, in readiness for the new King and Queen’s first official visit. Food might run short, and they might burn away all their fuel, but it would be another month or more before Miss Hartwood ran out of lovely dresses to parade around in.

  Archalthus cleared his throat. “Beloved one. What are you doing, roaming the palace alone? There are dangerous people here. Commander Breaker, there ought to be guards at Rose’s door at all times. Remedy this disgraceful failing.”

  The lady herself cheerfully ignored all of this. “If you’re not busy,” she said, alighting at her fiancé’s side, leaning with natural grace against the arm of his chair, “then we have time to talk about the wedding, don’t we, my love? You said we could be married just as soon as we had the crown. ‘The very day’, you said. ‘The very hour.’”

  “What a memory you have, my dear!” Archalthus remarked. “Of course, it doesn’t do to rush into these things. It wouldn’t do to look too hasty. For the sake of propriety, an engagement should be no shorter than a year –”

  “– and no longer than eighteen months, so we must make our plans,” finished Miss Hartwood impatiently.

  “You’re quite right,” Archalthus agreed. “I had just summoned Archmage Morel to discuss the necessary preparations.” He turned to Morel. “There is work for the Red Paladin: a suitable test of its strength in this environment, I’m sure.”

  When the prince had outlined his new plans for the Red Paladin (most of which were scarcely more important than fixing that dismal treeline), he dismissed Morel, who gladly left the lovebirds to their wedding planning. He had his own preparations to make, his own plans to finalise… although it would be safest to get the prince’s explicit permission before he went ahead with what he had in mind. In the meantime he went back to his workroom and collected the faulty golem, walking him around the palace, through lonely chambers and around echoing galleries, letting the nebulous thoughts drift around his mind, bumping off each other, as he kept an eye on the dimming and brightening of the golem’s heartlight.

  Suddenly the golem stopped, staring off down an apparently empty corridor. Morel peered into the gloom, but could see nothing, and was just considering whether he could justify summoning an additional light, when he saw the Argean trot through the junction at the far end of the corridor. The golem lurched after him, uncertain what to do, and Morel followed, keen to make any new observations.

  14: BLACK DIAMONDS AND SECRETS

  Archmage Morel was not the only one in the palace formulating a plan. When he’d come to visit Sir Percival again, bearing a sturdy walking stick as a gift for his new friend, Bessie had made her excuses to leave them to their conversation, and the witches to their knitting. It was late enough in the day that she ought to be preparing for bed, but instead she perched on the edge of the clawfooted bathtub in the guest bathroom and stared at her reflection in the tall mirror. She concentrated hard on being invisible. Keeping her eyes locked fiercely with those of her reflection, she couldn’t help but grin as she faded away to nothing. Relaxing her focus, she popped back into view. This might be the first time she’d worn her conjuring rings since the day they’d arrived at the palace, but she’d perfected the spell quickly, even here. Thanks to the White Queen for that one, of course, not to mention a couple of other useful spells.… Despite Greyfell’s cautions, Bessie rather liked Amelia (if nothing else it was nice to know a young woman somewhere near her own age and who wasn’t a dreadful snob) and she wouldn’t forget their friendship once she’d crowned herself Black Queen. Black Queen Bessie. Greyfell might scoff, but she rather liked the name. It had a piratical ring to it.

  She sighed. Honestly, she wanted Greyfell’s opinion on any number of things, where she hadn’t before, only now she didn’t dare speak freely. In the long hours of their confinement so far, she’d counted the number of eyes and ears in the decorative carvings: one hundred and eighty-two eyes watched the guest chambers; ninety-three ears were turned to listen in. She’d thought about trying to chip some of them out with the teaspoon that she’d stolen out of spite, but such a ham-fisted attempt would only draw more attention. She didn’t trust the mirrors entirely, either, and had watched them closely to make sure no unexpected faces appeared in them, but she was confident that Archalthus would draw the line at using magic to watch his guests in the bathroom.

  If she listened closely, she could just catch the drift of conversation from the parlour. It had been running on for the best part of an hour, and Bessie feared that Archmage Morel saw the conundrum of Sir Percival’s armour as nothing more than a briefly interesting diversion, that it spurred intellectual curiosity rather than a drive to ease someone’s suffering.
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br />   “Dreadful fellow,” the Archmage was saying. “This isn’t the first time he’s kidnapped a candidate Queen. This world… Archalthia, he calls it! Archalthia! Decades of my life’s work… Where was I? Ah, yes. It was intended as a wedding present for a girl now long dead…”

  Bessie filed this piece of information away for future use, hoping to hear more. Instead the old Archmage rambled on to the story of how, as a young apprentice, he had nearly been saddled with the Magename ‘Stinkhorn’.

  Bessie took a handful of brightly coloured spellpapers from her pocket and fanned them out. Blue, orange, green… Could she do anything with them? She sat there frowning and flicking the edges of the papers with her fingernail, until she accidentally struck sparks off one of the orange bangers. Stopping that at once, she folded the papers and put them back in her pocket. Judging by what Meg and Amelia had said, spellpapers might not work reliably here anyway. No, her plan was simple enough, she had only to get on with it. Turning herself invisible, she slipped out of the bathroom. As a ‘guest’ she could hardly take a step in the ice palace without a golem asking her if she was well and had everything she required, but Amelia’s invisibility spell would put an end to that nonsense, if only long enough for her to do what she had to do. She was glad too of the spell Amelia had shared with her for walking through doors. Of course, it had to be one of the ‘bodily spells’ Meg had advised against, and what’s more, keeping two spells in mind simultaneously is tricky for a beginner, but one achieves nothing without risk. Bessie took a deep breath and stepped through the closed door to the guest chambers. She stood a moment, holding her invisibility in mind, watching the golems unaware of anything amiss, and then she crept silently off down the corridor.

  The knife that she stole from the kitchen was long and sharp. She’d have preferred a proper assassin’s knife, which might have an enchantment or two on it to keep its edge, or help one’s aim be true. Nevertheless, if steel worked the same in this world as anywhere else, then it would do the job. Things would have been different if Rose had been a fellow student in the Antwin Academy: an Antwin-trained assassin generally declined to kill an Antwin alumnus, except as a last resort, but Bessie had already satisfied herself that Rose was no Antwin girl and thus fair game. Of course, under the rules of the Academy, Bessie really shouldn’t have been out to make her first kill for another two years, when her training would have been almost complete and there’d have been minimal risk of her botching it, but what could she do about that? She’d been dragged into the contest before she was ready, and all she could do was make the best of it. Concentrating on the invisibility spell helped her not to worry too much about the final stages of her plan, as she made her way stealthily through the palace.

  It took her quite a while to find what she was looking for, but she was fairly certain she’d found the Queen’s suite when she saw the two golems posted outside the door. Even if she was wrong, they wouldn’t be guarding nothing… She hesitated before approaching. Right then. Amelia’s door spell would get her in and out again with the guards none the wiser. She would cut Rose’s throat, take the crown, and leave the same way she’d entered. It sounded simple enough when you put it like that. But Rose was tall, eight inches or more taller than Bessie, so Bessie would probably have to stab her in the heart instead.

  Bessie’s breathing was too shallow, she felt dizzy. She stood a while out of sight and out of earshot, leaning her forehead against the cold wall, concentrating on breathing deep and even, so that her body would be ready for action; ready to strike like a snake and disappear swiftly into the night. She adjusted her grip on the knife to stab rather than slice, holding on white-knuckle tight to stop her hand from shaking. She recited the Three Rules silently to herself: Know your target. Strike swiftly and decisively. Plan your exit in advance… Right. Good. Ready? She slipped through the door and into the Red Queen’s private chambers.

  Finding nobody in the front sitting room, Bessie dropped the invisibility spell with a small sigh of relief. Maintaining it for so long had wound up a nasty tension in her head, something that promised serious pain if she tried to outstretch her abilities, and her bones tingled unpleasantly from the trick with the door. The clock on the mantelpiece read half past nine. Silently, Bessie crept through the sitting room, into a bedroom with an enormous four-poster bed carved from some undoubtedly expensive wood, and with a block of steps leading up to it. Nobody there, either: the heavy curtains were pulled back, the blankets and pillows straightened by some conscientious servant. Bessie didn’t know exactly what Rose did when she wasn’t hanging on her prince’s arm, but there weren’t a lot of activities here to entertain a spoilt brat like Rose. Not in the middle of winter, when soft and sensitive types wouldn’t care for long walks around the grounds, or rides across the countryside. Bessie might have to settle in and wait…

  But walking around the enormous four-poster, she saw what she’d come for. There on the bedside table lay the crown, gold and rubies shining as if with some inner light. Bessie had heard Harold’s indignant complaints that Rose had taken the crown and turned the diamonds red, and when she’d asked him what he meant by that, he’d all but rhapsodised about the time in the jade temple when Amelia had first laid hands on the tiara, causing its yellow stones to flourish into perfect star-bright diamonds. Glancing over her shoulder at the door where she’d come in, Bessie took a step towards the crown. Maybe, instead of killing Rose, she could just steal the crown. The Red Queen, with no training in combat or magic or anything useful at all, would pose no real threat once Bessie had the crown away from her. A couple of steps more took Bessie to within touching distance of the crown. Tentatively, she reached out and poked one of the rubies. It darkened to a truer black than she could have imagined in any jewel – blacker than jet, blacker than a moonless night – and as she stared it darkened further yet, its blackness drawing her towards it. She took a deep breath. Surely this meant she could still be Queen…

  The sound of dainty footsteps in the adjoining room made the Black Queen dive underneath the four-poster in the most unregal way. As the footsteps pattered closer, Bessie lay in the shadows, every swearword she knew ricocheting furiously around inside her head. She should have grabbed the crown, it was hers now. Better yet, she should have gone through with her original plan.

  Rose meandered through her evening routine, oblivious to the threat beneath her bed. Bessie, lying there with the icy cold from the floor seeping steadily through her clothes, gritted her teeth and silently cursed the merchant's daughter. A minute passed as Bessie counted out the seconds. Two minutes. If you’re going to sleep, for pity’s sake get into bed and start snoring quickly. No need to brush your hair for the hundredth time, or rub beautifying lotions into your stupid face!

  A piercing scream rang out, making Bessie cringe. “My crown!” Rose shrieked. “What…”

  Bessie peered out from under the bed. Rose, wild-eyed and breathing hard from the shock, had seized the crown in both hands. All colour had drained from the girl’s face, but the Red Queen’s touch had restored the rubies. Bessie, even in her disappointment, knew it was for the best that the crown had recognised the Red Queen as readily as the Black: there was no evidence now that she had been anywhere near it. If she could sneak back to the guest rooms in time, then it would be her word against Rose’s, which was hardly ideal, but the blood-red rubies might stand as testament to Bessie’s innocence. Why, Rose must have had a particularly vivid bad dream…

  Bessie made a quick start on her escape, crawling on her elbows underneath the bed. Her exit was still clear, and she would leave just as she had arrived… but then movement caught her eye: a spider as big as a crab-apple coming jerky-legged down the ornately carved bedpost beside her. Even in the gloom under the bed, she could see that the lines of its legs were perfectly straight and they flashed like polished metal. On its fat body, where some deadly spiders are marked with the shape of an hourglass or a fiddle, was a large and disturbingly life-like ey
e. Bessie froze. Her fears were confirmed when the eye blinked at her. She grabbed for the spider, and to her amazement was fast enough to get a fistful of cold hard metal legs, that jerked about and spiked her palm like blunted pins. The mechanical spider squirmed halfway out of her grip, surprisingly strong, and sank its tiny brass fangs into her flesh. Reflexively Bessie flung the thing away from her, into a corner where it skittered dazedly away into the shadows and was gone. Slipping on the invisibility spell, concentrating fiercely in preparation to tackle the doors, Bessie lunged out from under the bed.

  “You!” Rose shrieked at the top of her lungs. “You dirty little thief! You flea-ridden sparrow!”

  The old insult pulled Bessie up short, the full heat of her fury flaring up and overriding common sense. She turned to fix Rose with her meanest stare. “Call me that once more and I’ll –”

  “Guards!” the Red Queen screamed, and before Bessie could do much of anything at all, the door flew open.

  ~

  Back in the guest parlour, in a chair as comfortable as any feather bed, Amelia was listening to Meg talk. They’d traded many stories, trying to outdo each other with new ones, or falling into the comfort of re-treading more familiar tales. The fire in the hearth had died down to the faintest glow of coals, while Meg’s voice wove a world of fairies and lost children in the dark… when a piercing furious scream sounded somewhere nearby. Amelia gripped the arms of her chair as her heart raced. More screams in the dark. The dragon? She scrambled for matches. With a hiss, the flare of matchlight illuminated the hearth, and Meg sitting bolt upright in the opposite armchair, tightly gripping a poker, ready to strike.