by J M Sanford
Then the door opened and Harold looked out, glancing all around the corridor, his gaze skimming right over Amelia. “Sorry,” he said to the guards, looking awkward. “Um. Beg pardon, what’s the time?”
“The time is seventeen minutes past ten,” said one of the golems. “Is all well? We heard raised voices.”
Harold shook his head, distracted by the effort of trying to spot someone who might or might not be there. “Some old troubles dug up, some hasty words,” he said, as if it was nothing, as if all was resolved and forgiven, though his face told a different story, to anybody who had eyes.
Trying to breathe quietly and not cry, Amelia ducked down and slipped between the two golems. They didn’t even blink. Past them, she broke into a run.
Out of the golems’ earshot, she gave herself over to crying without restraint. A trail of echoing sobs and teary splashes marked the invisible girl’s headlong flight through the ice palace, but nobody pursued her. She cringed whenever she remembered what she’d called Meg, but she dropped her invisibility spell when she regained her senses enough to realise that she was only wasting her energy on it, something she could scarcely afford to do here. Everybody hated her, but if they wanted rid of her, then she was quite able and ready to oblige them on that count. Every time she heard distant footsteps, or saw the dark figure of a person’s shadow or the light of a candle through the translucent walls, she altered her aimless course to avoid them. She found a dark alcove to sulk in for a while, until the physical discomfort of the cold bit through her bad mood and forced her back out to keep moving and keep relatively warm. “Stupid ice palace.” What on earth had its builders been thinking? How much magic would it take to hold it together once summer came? She humphed. Ice wine glasses and ice chandeliers and ice fireplaces… what a lot of nonsense. She couldn’t even practice her own magic properly, which she might have done to while away the dreadfully long hours. In her wanderings she needed her lock-charming spell a handful of times, measuring out what little magic she could still use after dark, and balancing the boredom of sulking alone in empty corridors against the nastiness of a mouth full of rust every time she had to use the spell. She picked her way through a room full of musical instruments, moonlight shining on brass shells and tubes everywhere, towards an enormous organ with pipes like a cluster of coppiced beech. A long, sad sigh breathed through metal airways somewhere nearby, and Amelia froze. Something here was alive, and she didn’t know what. Warm air wafted past her ear – she jumped, stumbling over something she really hoped was a bagpipe by the way it squealed horrifically when she stepped on it, and only just caught herself against the organ, scraping her palm down its long rows of ivory teeth. The organ shrieked in response, and then began to howl all of its own accord, a sad and enormous sound that filled the room with its echoes. Everything shuddered to its song. Other things in the jumble were coming to life, sluggish in the night, not only fluting and moaning beneath the cacophony of the organ, but some of them were even moving towards Amelia in whatever manner they were able. “Stupid ice palace!” she cried as she stumbled out of the room of enchanted instruments, though nobody could have heard her over the organ, “Stupid magic! Leave me alone!” Someone must come running to find out what had set off the commotion, and she could only pray that the troublesome griffins would get the blame.
Slowly it dawned on her that she was quite lost, and that only brought on yet another wave of tears. The layout of the ice palace was utterly ridiculous, full of dead ends and flights of stairs that went nowhere. The idea had crossed her mind that the Archmage was either working on the ice palace while everybody was supposedly in bed, shifting whole wings of the palace as a design afterthought, or he was deliberately toying with her. That or she’d got lost all by herself, which was an even more irritating notion. At this rate, the golems would have to come and fetch her again, dragging her back to the guest rooms in disgrace, taking her conjuring rings as they’d taken Bessie’s… She stopped herself short, drawing in a short sharp breath of cold air that stung her nostrils. She didn’t have to let it come to that, did she? She’d had quite enough of being helpless and useless, and she was already out of view of any guards. A thought struck her, dizzying in its audacity: what if she could succeed where Bessie had failed? Not murder, of course, but what if she could take that crown back by herself? Now, while nobody would be expecting another attempt so soon after the failure of the first. She stood alone, thinking carefully. Not just yet, she decided. It had been reckless to shift through the closed door like that so late in the day, with the sun and its magic well below the horizon. She shouldn’t push her luck, even though invisibility here was not significantly harder than it had been back in the real world, now that she’d got the hang of it. By morning, it would be easy. She might not have a knife, but it should only take one or two well-placed fireballs to keep her out of the stony grip of the guarding golems. There was still the small problem of not having the faintest clue where in the palace she was, but she could overcome that if she put her mind to it.
16: THE PRISONER BENEATH THE ICE
As the sun rose, Amelia could feel the fields of magic strengthening in the air. She’d already learned that if she sort of squinted, she could definitely almost see the planes of magic, like the heat haze shimmering along a road on a hot summer’s day. She summoned the smallest of light spells, staring the wavering light into submission before letting it blink out. Her control was better than when they’d arrived and she still had quite a bit of magic at her fingertips, although it wasn’t an easy thing to measure. Keeping an ear open for the matched footsteps of patrolling golems, she slipped unseen and unheard towards the grander parts of the ice palace. Voices echoed through the chilly chambers, two people up rather early, if Amelia hadn’t completely lost track of the time. A witch’s instincts prickled along her skin: something interesting was going on, just out of earshot. She stood still and strained her ears, but to no avail. She’d have to get closer. And yet, she felt real trepidation at the thought of employing the invisibility spell she'd put to such good use so many times before. Yes, the sun was up, magic filtering into the world and her veins, but Bessie had warned her about the mechanical spider; warned that where there was one there would almost certainly be many. Neither of them knew for sure if they’d see through Amelia's spell, and everywhere she went she imagined she heard the skitter of tiny metal legs. She was already in trouble – could she make matters any worse? Probably, and if she didn’t know exactly how, then it was only because she hadn’t stopped to think it through long enough. She paused to take off her boots and carry them in hand as she stalked towards the source of the voices. The ice tiles here were almost unbearably cold under her stockinged feet, but her determination overpowered the physical discomfort.
Down the corridor, a large archway opened onto… a library. A beautiful, beautiful library, ranks of bookshelves filled with leatherbound tomes. It smelled so much like home that she could have cried. As she crept closer, the conversation began to come into focus. She pressed herself into the shadows cast by the tall, deep bookshelves, and listened closely. One voice was old, elderly, ancient… and tremulous not just with age but with anxiety. “…a matter of pure luck that I’d transferred him to the cellars here. I wanted him out of the way… well, you can appreciate how much space he takes up. And of course, the danger if he’d ever got loose in Ilgrevnia! A dragon’s innate magic is…”
“Mighty? Compelling?” the second voice suggested for him, rich and melodious, unmistakably that of Prince Archalthus. “Perfect for the task.”
“Not something to be trifled with, I was going to say.”
“Absolutely not,” agreed the prince.
“So I rather wanted him out of reach of temptation, too!” the Archmage laughed nervously. “But his magic is hardly perfect, all things considered. Certainly in a properly distilled form it ought to be powerful enough, but the preparations required have been most taxing, and…” his voice trailed off.
“Are these your plans?” said the prince.
Amelia didn’t dare peer around the bookshelves. She didn’t expect to gain anything by trying to steal a glimpse of the Archmage’s arcane blueprints.
The Archmage had gathered his thoughts. “You understand that this could kill your brother? Extracting his magic against his will… I won’t be held responsible for the consequences.”
“I have no lingering affection for my family,” said the prince, in a matter-of-fact way that made Amelia’s skin crawl. “My brothers in particular,” he added darkly.
“No, no, quite true. You’ve… you’ve certainly demonstrated that…” Morel agreed, with another fit of nervous laughter.
“He has lived long enough on my mercy, and I will be King. No more discussions. If you are prepared then we must begin at once.”
“Ah, something we can agree on…” There was a tremendous rustling which must have been the Archmage gathering up his papers.
Amelia realised that she must either risk her invisibility spell and follow them, or slip away and take what she knew to her companions. Making her choice in a split second, she ran.
She was badly out of breath before she found the guest chambers again. Sneaking past the golems was almost unbearably difficult with her heart pounding and her lungs raw, but she managed it, slipping into the parlour.
“Finished with the waterworks, are we?” said Meg brusquely, apparently unsurprised by Amelia’s sudden reappearance. She was busy with some sewing project or other, stabbing the needle through the cloth with unnecessary force. “You’ve missed breakfast, and don’t go thinking we saved anything for you. Eggs, sausages, crispy bacon, fried bread… we finished it all off even without Harold’s help. You hurt his feelings pretty badly last night, so he’s still sulking in his room over that.”
The thought of greasy fried breakfast on a growling stomach, and of Harold’s unhappiness at her hands, combined to make Amelia queasy, but there was no time for any of it. “The Archmage has a dragon,” she blurted out. Let Meg not think she was holding any secrets back this time. “Another one, I mean. A prisoner. Somewhere in the cellars. He and the prince are going down there now to, to –”
“What? Slow down, girl. Don’t forget to breathe.”
“A dragon!” Amelia did then take a deep breath. “There’s another dragon in the palace. Locked up, for now, but they’re going to take its magic and make the prince king.”
Meg frowned. “That’d be quite something, if it’s true.”
“It would spell disaster for us, if true,” said Greyfell.
“It is true!” Amelia could have burst into tears again right there. “I heard the Archmage talking about it! I was in the library, in spitting distance of him and the prince: they could have caught me and taken my rings away! Weren’t you worried about me at all? I could have been doing anything, out there on my own.”
Meg gave her a look over her spectacles. “You were sulking, up ‘til an hour ago when last I saw. Believe me, I’ve been keeping an eye on you.” She indicated a nearby ornamental table, where beside a crystal vase of beautiful pearl-white leaves sat a chamberpot full of clean clear water, although Amelia couldn’t tell what that had to do with anything. “Ah, but I haven’t showed you scrying yet, have I?”
Scrying? Amelia was dimly aware what that meant. She glanced again at the crystal clear water in the chamberpot. And with all of Meg’s usual elegance.
“It’s clean,” said Meg, as if reading her mind. “And it does the trick. Come along, Amelia: you’ve still got a lot to learn, and not a second to waste, it would seem.”
Mean old hag. Those three words bounced around the inside of Amelia’s head like gleeful naughty imps, so loud she could barely think of anything else. It had been a horrible thing to say, and she hadn’t meant it… had she? She approached the repurposed chamberpot.
“Scrying: lesson number one,” said Meg, briskly. “Take one flat reflective surface, such as a mirror, a bowl of water, or a muddy puddle, in a pinch.” Her manner might appear cheerful, but an icy undercurrent to it drew Amelia obediently to Meg’s side as the witch began to work. “It gets choppy,” said Meg, of the bowl of water which had darkened to ink black and then taken up as if it was a miniature sea caught by a sudden storm. “The local magic won’t play nicely with this spell, but if you concentrate hard enough, you can still see what’s going on. ‘Course, this would be so much easier if we had something… Perce, did you say that stick belonged to our friend the Archmage? Reckon he used it much?”
Percival brought the walking stick. It wasn’t the mage’s usual staff, but the top of it had been worn smooth and glossy at some stage by the repeated press of the Archmage’s hand. Amelia watched the water carefully. At her side, Bessie jostled for a better look, tight-lipped and sharp-elbowed, but Amelia was bigger and better padded, and refused to move aside. If she squinted and tried to look about an inch beyond the churning surface of the water, she could see images flashing, jumping maddeningly from staircase to staircase, doorway to doorway. Gradually they began to slow and settle, to reveal a shambling robed figure holding a lamp, the prince strolling behind him down a broad ramp leading to enormous double doors, barred and locked. The old Archmage made slow work of unlocking the doors and hauling back the bars, and slowed progress further by stopping to light torches on the rocky walls of the cavern beyond, picking his way between the stalagmites that clustered round the dragon like a fairy ring. It didn’t take many torches for Amelia to be absolutely certain of what she saw: the second dragon. It lay curled up and chained in the cavern beneath the palace, the huge muscular coils of its body flaccid and heavy, its breathing deep and slow. The monster’s head was half-buried in its great foreclaws in a strange attitude of shame or misery. Its wings, no doubt too wide to stretch to their full span inside the confines of the chamber, were folded tight across its spine. Where Archalthus’ scales had burned red-gold, this dragon was as pale as the moon, reflecting the torchlight more like highly polished silver, rivers of flame shimmering across the surface of its scaly hide with each breath. This was not just any dragon, Amelia realised: this was the White Prince.
“Impressive,” whispered Percival. “I can’t recall another mage ever managing to capture a dragon alive. There have always been rumours, and yet –”
“Shush, Perce,” Meg hissed. “I don’t need a history lesson right now.” She glanced at Amelia. “Pay attention, girl.”
Amelia obeyed. Don’t just look; see. See the black chains criss-crossing the dragon’s body, each one as thick as a man’s arm, connecting collar and leg-irons to rings sunk deep into the rock walls. No chamber of ice to hold the dragon, but solid rock. See the white circle painted on the ground around the dragon, and the sigils around it, far too advanced for Amelia to read, although she marked that no part of the dragon exceeded the circle. See, beneath the wicked claws, the muzzle clamping the beast’s terrible jaws shut, and the steam drifting from its nostrils. But the Archmage’s breath steamed, too, so maybe that was just the cold, and maybe it wasn’t. See how Prince Archalthus kept his distance, sticking to the shadows.
The lighting of the lamps woke the white dragon. He stirred and opened his eyes, grimacing at the brightness. How long had he waited, shackled in the dark? Amelia remembered the White Prince’s description from Greyfell’s tale: the cruellest master… his heart like thin ice… but did he really deserve to be imprisoned like this, a prince of dragons stripped of his power and pride, muzzled like a dog and locked away alone?
Morel stood in front of the white dragon, keeping a measured distance from the potential strike of the massive head on the snakelike neck. Only a faint murmur of sound travelled through the surface of Meg’s magical spying glass, and it was impossible to make out what the Archmage was saying to the dragon as he began to mark out a new series of sigils in chalk, all around the cavern. The dragon watched groggily.
“Morel said taking the dragon’s magic against his wil
l might kill him,” said Amelia.
“More likely he’ll try to strike a bargain,” said Meg. “And then we’ll all be up to our necks in it… You see the Circle of Holding? It shouldn’t keep a dragon for more than half a minute. So what’s he doing differently?” although if she expected an answer to that question, then she was out of luck.
The Archmage said something that made the dragon jerk away as if stung, scrabbling backwards, flinching when he backed up against the edge of the Circle of Holding, his crown of white horns scraping stalactites from the roof of the chamber. The iron muzzle unlocked itself and fell to the ground. When the dragon stretched his jaws wide, they felt as much as heard the massive sound of his roar rumble up through the structure of the ice below their feet and all around them. Flames jetted from the white dragon’s throat. Just in the nick of time, the Archmage cried out a spell that flung up a shield of ice between himself and the dragon, but even so the flames tore through the ice, spraying near-boiling water across the chamber. Bessie gave a shout of surprise, “It breathes fire!”
“Of course it breathes fire!” snapped Amelia. “It’s a dragon!”
The ice shield melted away as if it had never existed, but the white dragon turned its attention to its bindings rather than the cowering mage. A second jet of fire scoured away a section of the Circle of Holding. A third jet heated a length of the arm-thick iron chains to a glowing red; it snapped like rotten old string when the dragon wrenched on it. The mage gathered his wits. A pillar of rock slammed down from the ceiling, almost spearing the dragon – the beast’s reaction would have been much too slow if the shot had been on target. The dragon dodged another stalactite spear, and another, and then one tore through its wing membrane. The dragon screamed. As the images scattered for good in the churning water, the last the watchers saw was Archmage Morel retreating back up the ramp, staff raised in defence. Prince Archalthus had vanished altogether. Stepping back from the repurposed chamberpot, Meg was talking to herself, half muddled plan of action, half swearwords.
