“You tried to invade us,” Egg said hotly.
“My world is dead,” Lord Kloakor growled. “Have we not been punished?” He straightened up, glowing with power, twice as tall as Egg. “Should we not take our own retribution?”
Egg felt the magic rise within his own body. He glared blazingly at Lord Kloakor and stretched himself upwards. Kassa had been wrong. He could control this power. Indeed, there was so much of it that he hardly needed to control it. He had merely to will something, and it would come to pass. For now, he willed himself the equal of Lord Kloakor, his body extending until he was the same height and size. He was glowing too, not a bright glow like that which surrounded Lord Kloakor, but dark as Drak itself.
“So,” said Lord Kloakor with a snarl. “The draklight did not vanish. It found a skin to hide inside. Do you think you can match me, boy? Harmony created Drak. It is not our equal!”
“Perhaps not,” Egg whispered. “But you are just a fifth of the whole of Harmony. All of Drak’s power is here, and my own as well.” He could recognise the draklight now, entwined with his own magic. So that’s where it went.
“Stop it!” screamed Clio. “Stop it, both of you. Do you even know why you are fighting?” She threw the package of salt squarely at Egg’s back.
He felt it coming, and pulled himself into two halves so that the salt sailed through the gap in his body and struck Lord Kloakor squarely in the chest. As Egg reformed his body, Lord Kloakor was knocked backward over the railings. He clung to them, one hand raised in a threatening gesture against Clio.
Egg reached out and took Lord Kloakor’s hand. He had never done anything so easily before in his life. He held the glowing white hand firmly with his own, and squeezed.
It was hard to think of this bright figure as being a Light Lord, a person in his own right. He looked so much like the Cloak, a character Egg had inked on to the page for the first time at the age of twelve. I created him. The Cloak screamed, a soundless scream that went on forever. The glow faded from his skin and the pale greyness was bleached away, leaving colourless skin like crumpled tissue paper which simply, a moment later, dissolved in the breeze.
Egg was slammed backwards by the force of the harmonylight he had sucked from the Cloak. His body skidded to a stop in front of the glass doors. Slowly, he brought himself under control, diminishing back to his ordinary form. He opened his eyes, and looked at Clio. She stood over him, her cheeks two red spots of anger. There was something in her cold blue eyes that he did not recognise. Fear? The danger was past. Didn’t she know that?
“Did you mean to do it?” she demanded. “Tell me it was an accident, Egg. Tell me you didn’t mean to go that far. Tell me you didn’t do it deliberately.”
Egg gazed at her, confused.
“Don’t you even know?” Clio said hollowly. To his surprise, she held her iron spoon out towards him, a threatening gesture. “Move away from the door.”
The iron was nothing to him. He was beyond such petty mechanisms now. He could think of a dozen different ways to remove it from her grasp. But this was Clio. He stepped aside, leaving the doorway clear.
She moved cautiously back into the pool room, the spoon pointed at him as if it were a wand or a knife. When she was far enough away from him, she turned and ran.
Clio was afraid of him. Egg stood up, feeling very strange. He had killed the Cloak. No, not the Cloak. He had killed Lord Kloakor. Did you mean to do it? Tell me you didn’t do it deliberately. Don’t you even know? He had killed Lord Kloakor, and Clio was afraid of him.
Egg staggered to the balcony rails and threw up, noisily.
Chapter 20 — The Biggest, Baddest Villain of Them All
Aragon Silversword and Lord Sinistre left a gang of kitchen hands and poison tasters in charge of the captured Light Lords while they and an elite team of footmen and scullery maids went in search of the others. They met Incendia Noir on the central staircase that spiralled above the entrance hall.
“Kassa is trapped in the ballroom with the Light Lord called Quillsmith,” she said crisply. “She’s asking for help,”
“She doesn’t do that often,” Aragon remarked. “Quickest way to the ballroom?”
“Side entrance or grand entrance?” Sinistre returned.
“As sidelong as possible.”
Sinistre smiled brightly. It was an unnatural expression on a face more suited to brooding snarls and seductive smirks. “I am rather enjoying myself,” he confided.
“So glad,” said Aragon sarcastically. “The door?”
“This way.”
They back-tracked across a corridor, then down another, passing a wall with a large Cloak-shaped hole in it. Egg emerged suddenly from the hole, wide-eyed and gasping for breath. “Have you seen Clio?”
“Not recently,” said Aragon. “Any sign of the Cloak, or whatever he calls himself?”
Egg composed himself. “Um, no,” he lied. “Not yet.”
Aragon’s eyes flicked briefly over him, as if he had spotted the untruth. “That should be our next priority, then.”
“Kassa said this boy would be of particular help to her,” said Incendia Noir. She eyed Egg. Power rolled off him in waves, crackling across the hairs on the back of his arms and making his eyes shine with a fierce intensity. “Now I see why. I can take over the hunt for the Cloak if you wish. Kassa requires your assistance, Chamberlain, and a quill pen.”
Aragon patted his pockets. “I usually carry one on me … ah.”
Lord Sinistre had proudly produced a huge, sweeping peacock feather with an engraved silver nib from one of his many pockets.
“Well, now,” said Aragon Silversword. “I can’t compete with that.”
***
“It’s a tricky one,” said Quillsmith. “Should I make the people of Drak bow to me in subjugation, or should I obliterate them all and start from scratch with people of my own making. What do you think, Kassa?”
She stared at the giant Light Lord. “You don’t want to hear what I think.”
“Oh, you’re wrong. I’m fascinated.”
“Wouldn’t you rather conquer Drak the good old fashioned way?” Kassa suggested, to buy some time. “March in, promise them something better than the previous leader did? I can’t imagine Lord Sinistre was entirely popular.”
“Popularity is irrelevant,” said Quillsmith. “But thank you for reminding me that I need to do something about him.” He held up the hand which did not hold the deadly quill pen, and made a motioning gesture. The door at the far side of the ballroom flew open and three figures — Lord Sinistre, Aragon Silversword and Egg — sailed over Quillsmith’s head, crashing lightly to the floor just in front of Kassa. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice them?” Quillsmith chided.
“I’m bitterly disappointed,” said Kassa. At her feet, Aragon held a large peacock quill behind his back. She took it, concealing it in her skirts.
“Lord Sinistre comes forward and bows on bended knee to the new King of Drak,” said Quillsmith, writing the words with his pen as he spoke them.
“Mocklore doesn’t have kings,” Kassa corrected, but Lord Sinistre was compelled to follow the stage direction. He walked across the shiny floor towards Quillsmith, sank to one knee and bowed his head in obedience. “They were abolished more than eighty years ago and replaced by Lordlings because kings had a nasty habit of starting wars all the time.”
“That sounds like a good tradition,” said Quillsmith. “Remind me to start several wars once I have finished this bit of business. A sword appears before Sinistre, former Lord of Drak,” he wrote aloud.
A sleek, silver sword appeared from nowhere, floating in mid-air before the Lordling of Drak, who stared at it in surprise. It was a pale, shinier version of the doomed blade of Dathazarrr.
“You know what I want you to do with that,” said Quillsmith. “Shall I write it, or will you do it of your own free will? I can’t decide which I would enjoy more.”
Slowly, Sinistre reached out
a black-gloved hand to touch the hilt of the gleaming sword.
“No,” said Aragon Silversword, leaping to his feet. “This will not happen.”
“Stay out of this, Chamberlain,” said Quillsmith. “There are no dishes to be cleared away, and I can’t think what other business you might have here.”
“I may be the Chamberlain,” Aragon said coolly, “but I am also Lord Sinistre’s Champion. No one may raise a hand or blade or pen to him while I live. You go through me to get to him. It is the way these things work.”
“That should not delay me too much,” said Quillsmith, amused. “Do you actually wish to fight?”
Aragon moved Lord Sinistre’s hand away and grasped the hilt of the gleaming silver sword. “If you don’t mind,” he said politely.
“I could take you apart with a thought or a word.”
“I know that,” said Aragon Silversword. “Don’t you think a duel would be more entertaining?”
Kassa grabbed Egg by his collar, pulling him towards her. “I can’t unwrite any of Quillsmith’s spells,” she whispered, trying to hand him the quill pen. “I’ve tried, but my magic doesn’t work that way. You’ll have to do it.”
Egg stared at the quill in quiet horror, his mind filled with the soundless scream that Lord Kloakor had uttered before he died. “I can’t.”
“You must,” she hissed. “The rest of us can’t move unless you release us, and Aragon is going to need your help. Quietly. Undoing someone else’s spell is nearly impossible, but there’s a chance if you use the same kind of magic. Quill magic. I’m a songwitch, so anything I do will be loud, musical and call attention to us. It also, quite probably, won’t work against that pen of his.”
“You said I shouldn’t use magic at all,” Egg said, starting to sweat. Could he use his power again, knowing what it had done last time?
Kassa rolled her eyes. “Don’t you know a last resort when you see one?”
Slowly, Egg took the quill pen. He could see how to thread his magic through it like ink. A thin rivulet of magic, nothing big and splashy. He could handle this. “Kassa and the others are released and able to move as they wish,” he whispered, tracing the shapes of the letters to form words with the pen.
“Good,” breathed Kassa, testing her feet.
Singespitter came to her side instantly. “What do we do now?”
“Stay still, be calm and prepare to run away very fast,” said Kassa.
“As if,” Singespitter said impatiently. “Give us some real orders.”
Quillsmith and Aragon moved to the far side of the ballroom, giving themselves plenty of space. “Hardly a fair fight,” commented Quillsmith, towering over Aragon at twice his height and still glowing with fierce white magic.
“Well, I didn’t want to be the first to say it,” said Aragon, gripping the sword-hilt and eyeing the pen that Quillsmith still held. “But my weapon is quite a bit longer than yours.”
Quillsmith smiled, his body diminishing to human-height. He stood opposite Aragon, still glowing. He extended his quill pen, and it became a thin, white blade. “Better?”
“It’ll do,” said Aragon. “Let’s fence.”
The two circled each other carefully, touching blades in a few preliminary strokes before launching into a full, fleet-footed duel.
Kassa turned her back on them. “While they’re distracted, the rest of you had better make yourselves scarce.”
Egg, hovering at her elbow with the quill pen still shakily grasped in his hand, wished for one desperate moment that she was including him in that request.
“I say,” protested Vice-Chancellor Bertie. “We haven’t done anything yet.”
Lord Ambewine and Prince Quenby added their voices to the grumbles, although theirs were somewhat less enthusiastic.
“Where did Incendia get to?” Kassa asked Egg.
“She went after Lord Kloakor,” he said, not meeting her gaze. “The other two were captured by Aragon and the kitchen army.”
“Well, then,” said Kassa to the professors. “One fearsome Light Lord still at large, to be captured like the others. That sounds like a mission. Off you go.” She glared hard at Singespitter and Sean McHagrty. “I don’t suppose either of you could be convinced to join them?”
“Wouldn’t want to go anywhere we weren’t invited,” said Singespitter, grinning.
“What he said,” said Sean. They were both staying put, with her.
As the door closed behind the three professors, it opened again to admit Clio, who was rather subdued. She looked quickly at Egg, then away from him.
“Ah, Clio,” said Kassa. “I wondered where you had got to. You can choose between the mild danger of tracking Lord Kloakor, or the grave danger of staying here with the rest of us.”
This time, Clio looked at Egg longer and harder, realising that he hadn’t told anyone the truth. “Here, please,” she said, turning to Kassa. “Why is my uncle duelling a Light Lord?”
“Oh,” said Kassa, glancing at the figures of Aragon Silversword and Quillsmith as they danced backwards and forwards across the floor, their swords flicking in lightning-quick movements. “He gets these ideas from time to time. Not always badly timed.”
“Aragon’s the better swordsman,” said Singespitter, his eyes darting back and forth as he watched the duel. “But … is Quillsmith getting taller?”
Almost imperceptibly, as he was forced to concede further ground to Aragon, Quillsmith’s brightly-glowing body expanded, giving him the advantage of height. If you looked closely, you could also see that his feet hovered a touch above the ground.
“Cheating,” said Kassa. “Hardly surprising, I suppose. Do something about it, Egg.”
Egg jumped. He had not expected to have his magic called upon again so soon. “What?”
“Stop Quillsmith using his Lordly powers,” Kassa said impatiently. “Make it a fair fight.”
“Won’t Quillsmith notice if I do that?”
“Probably, but I think we’ve got all the mileage we’re going to get out of this little distraction. Oh, wait a minute. Take the compulsion off Sinistre first, then help Aragon.”
Egg concentrated, writing a quick sentence in the air to release Lord Sinistre, who still knelt in the middle of the ballroom, his head consistently bowed in the direction of Quillsmith. The darting movements of the duel had meant that his head was force to flick back and forth so many times that he was in danger of getting whiplash. The moment Lord Sinistre was released from the spell, he keeled over in exhaustion.
Egg turned his attention to the duel. If he placed a spell on Aragon instead of Quillsmith, it might be less noticeable. “Make Aragon’s power equal to that of his opponent,” he wrote, murmuring the words as he did so.
“Good plan,” approved Kassa.
Instead of bringing Quillsmith down to Aragon’s mortal level, the spell brought Aragon’s power up to meet Quillsmith’s. For every extra inch in height, or moment of levitation that Quillsmith took, Aragon equalled him. He, too, began to glow brightly white.
While Egg watched the cut, parry and swipe of the duel, it was hard to put Lord Kloakor out of his mind. Aragon, with the extra height and bright white glow, looked so like his counterpart. It almost seemed to Egg that the glowing figure of Aragon was the Cloak, surrounded by that strange, flickering garment…
With a step, twist and slice, Aragon moved in for the kill, finally disarming his opponent. The white sword flew in a shining arc across the ballroom, becoming a quill pen again, out of reach.
Aragon deliberately tripped the unarmed Light Lord, forcing him flat to the ground, with the silver sword at his throat.
Quillsmith laughed, a throaty chuckle which sent a new shudder through all the walls of the palace, and even of Drak itself. The city shook under and around them. “Did you really think I would let you win?”
“I suppose honourable behaviour is too much to hope for,” Aragon conceded.
“Not again,” muttered Lord Sinistre, strugg
ling to his feet. A dozen mirror tiles from the ceiling smashed around him. “My poor city.”
The shaking and rumbling increased tenfold. More tiles fell from the ceiling. The staircase that encircled the great hall shuddered and cracked away from the wall. A fissure opened in the floor. The whole palace was about to come crashing in on them.
They could hear the cries and screams of the people of Drak throughout the city as buildings collapsed and streets began to crumble.
“Stop it,” grated Aragon, bringing his sword down in a mighty killing stroke, enough to sever Quillsmith’s head from his body. The sword passed harmlessly through the Light Lord’s neck, then dissolved into silver sand.
Aragon flung himself away.
Quillsmith floated into the air and hovered above their heads, laughing.
“Stop it,” begged Lord Sinistre, tormented by the sounds of his city in pain.
The shaking and crashing and screaming only increased. Quillsmith laughed harder, with greater glee. Every window in the ballroom smashed outward in an explosion of glass.
“Stop it,” said Kassa Daggersharp, and everything stopped.
In fact, the crushing destruction of the city continued, it was only the dreadful, dreadful sound of it which had been momentarily stopped by a soft silence. Quillsmith stopped laughing. He turned to Kassa. Everyone was looking at Kassa, wondering what she would do next.
Kassa sang. Her voice was awful and beautiful and relentless. No one could quite make out what words she was singing, but after half a minute of her song, the palace stopped shaking.
The glowing light drained from Quillsmith’s face, body, self. He struggled for a moment, not quite understanding what she was doing to him. By the time he did understand, it was far too late to do anything about it. Kassa was draining him.
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