“Dad,” Kassa whispered. “Do you think I’m supposed to be dead yet?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Seems to me you’ll end up here sooner or later. May as well stay now you’re here. Save you the bother later on.”
Kassa scowled darkly. “Oh, that’s very comforting.”
A shadow fell across the cave floor. A woman stood there, dressed head to toe in pale grey leather. Her silver hair stood up in a high arrangement involving feathers and the defiance of gravity. Beads and baubles were slung around her neck and hips like so many coils of rope, and her face was strikingly old. “Hmm,” she said in a disapproving tone of voice. “Kassa Daggersharp. I presume. Better late than never. I suppose.”
Kassa stood up, slowly regarding this stranger. “According to everyone else, I got here early.”
“Not for me you didn’t,” snapped the grey-clad old woman, shaking her beads and feathers irritatedly. “You were due in Chiantrio on the dot of sixteen. And you never turned up. Still. Here you are.” She stuck out a wrinkled hand bedecked in complicated charms made out of bone and twisted bits of metal. “Dame Veekie Crosselet. Godmother-witch.” Her stone-coloured eyes moved up and down, regarding Kassa with intense and scornful interest. “Well,” she said grudgingly. “I suppose you’ll do.”
The godmother-witch turned, and motioned Kassa to follow her. Kassa hesitated, looking back at her parents. She had only just found them again, and she had so much to tell them, to ask them…
“Go on, will you?” snapped her mother. “Family duty is one thing. Professional obligations are quite another. We’re not going anywhere.”
Still unsure, Kassa tossed a salute to her father who was still trying to even out his hopscotch squares, and tripped after the stern and forbidding witch. “So what do I do first? We can’t use magic in the Underworld.”
“Magic is easy enough,” snapped her instructor. “Witch training is not about magic. You can pick that up on your own.”
“Then what are you going to teach me? What am I going to do?”
“Study,” said the witch succinctly, her long grey-clad legs making it hard to keep up with her. “Theories and practices. History. Moral philosophy. Dreamwork. Have you chosen a speciality?”
Kassa flinched at the stern question. “I’m a songwitch.”
“Not until I say you are! First you will study. Then you will prepare for your quest.”
Kassa stopped short, looking at the older witch in bemusement. “I have to complete a quest? How can I do that if I can’t leave the Underworld?”
The Dame spun around to regard Kassa with unblinking grey eyes. Eyes which reminded Kassa of something, or someone… “Well now,” said Dame Veekie in a voice of stainless steel. “Whoever said you couldn’t leave the Underworld?”
All around them, almost invisible to mortal eye, microscopic filaments of golden pollen clung to the walls of the Underworld. Here in the realm of impossibilities and paradoxes, the tiny spores began to reproduce…
9: Stitching up the Minestaurus
Daggar was beginning to worry. The string was nearly gone, and he was no closer to finding his way into the Palace than he had been before. If anything, he was further away. “Now, Singespitter, don’t panic,” he said bravely.
Singespitter sneered at him, lifting his stately nose into the air. Without hesitating, he began to trot along one of the tunnels. He could smell something. Something awfully familiar…
Daggar, not willing to be left alone in the darkness, hurried after the sheep. “Are you sure about this?” The string was taut in his hands. “Maybe we should head back and buy some extra string.”
Singespitter trotted confidently on. Daggar sighed, and let go of the tight string, which snapped back into the shadows.
Finally, after weaving his way through a complex series of tunnels, Singespitter screeched to a halt. Up ahead, illuminated by the strange greenish glow of the tunnel walls, Sparrow crouched on the ground, curled into a ball. Last time Daggar had seen her she was armed to the teeth and garbed in stout black leather and with steel-plated legs. Now she was defenceless, clad only in a knee-length black shift and leggings with a few rust stains here and there.
“Sparrow!” Daggar called out in surprise, his voice bouncing off the walls.
She snapped to attention, her head shooting up and her eyes gazing blankly at him. “You,” she said in a deadened voice. “What are you doing here?”
“Trying to cut corners, as per usual,” he said cheerfully. “Seems to have paid off this time.” He peered at her. “Gods, you look awful.”
She shrugged weakly. “I am dying, it seems. The Sultan tricked me into drinking the extract of time that I stole from the Brewers. The liquid gold. Now he is playing mind-games, holding me to ransom for my next dose, to keep me alive a little longer.” Her eyes lit up. “If you kill me now, it would solve everything.”
“Are you kidding?” Daggar demanded, kneeling down beside her. “I wouldn’t even know how to start! If this liquid gold stuff is what you need, then we can go into the Palace and get it. Easy enough. We can do that.”
Sparrow looked at him in bemusement. “Why? You hardly know me.”
“I know that I like you,” he offered, drawing her to her feet.
“Nobody likes me,” she mumbled drowsily, her alien accent slurring. “I am not a nice person.”
“Probably,” agreed Daggar. “But Singespitter likes you, and he’s always had impeccable taste in women. Except for his blind spot when it comes to blondes,” he added as an afterthought.
Sparrow almost laughed, pulling a shaky hand through her hair.
“Besides,” said Daggar, sliding an arm under her shoulders to help her walk, “I can’t go letting two gorgeous homicidal women die on me in the same week. It wouldn’t be fair to the world.”
“So how are we going to get into the Palace?” Sparrow did her best to pretend she was walking without assistance.
Daggar grimaced. “If you keep asking me difficult questions, we’re never going to get anything done.”
He kept his arm around her until Sparrow regained her strength and pushed him away. Now she strode ahead while Daggar tried to keep up. Singespitter the sheep trotted between them, making it quite clear that his allegiance belonged entirely to Sparrow.
“Do you think this is the right way?” she asked, turning her head only slightly towards Daggar.
A mighty roar filled the cavernous corridors, coming from up ahead.
“That solves that question,” said Daggar smartly, hooking his arm in Sparrow’s and trying deftly to swing her in the opposite direction.
Sparrow shook him off easily. “Be reasonable. Do you think we can reach the secret passage into the Palace without going past the Minestaurus? The creature must be between us and the deepest part of the Labyrinth.”
“I hate it when you’re logical,” Daggar grumbled. “Look at us. No armour, no weapons, you keep going yellow and falling over. How can we battle something that roars that loudly while we’re armed with nothing but a sheep?”
“We will have to think of something,” said Sparrow steadily. “The decision has been made for us already.”
Up ahead, beyond a convenient bend in the corridor, a monstrous silhouette heralded the arrival of something large with horns and teeth… It roared again, before rounding the corner.
Daggar fainted.
* * *
Mistress Opia pushed her spectacles further up her nose and smiled nicely. “Now you listen to me, young Marmaduc. I’m the Brewmistress. You know that. I can call up all sorts of nasty things to deal with you. I could fill your bones with steam if I really wanted to. But I don’t want to do that.”
Officer Finnley was quite pleased to hear it. “Erm,” he said nervously. “Would it help if I put him under arrest?”
“No thank you, dear,” said Mistress Opia. “A good thought, but probably not altogether practical.” She turned back to the Sultan, her mouth set.
“Now then, young Sultan-my-lad. It’s time you and I had a bit of a talk.”
“What is there to talk about?” asked the Sultan delightedly. “You can come and work for me now, like you used to in the good old days when my father was Sultan. He told me you could turn anything into gold. Well, I want the Palace re-gilded for a start, and then the city. Every temple, every cobble, every roadhouse. It will look so pretty…”
Mistress Opia stared at him, open-mouthed. “You seriously expect me to come back here? And spend my days churning out metal for you to redecorate with? I’m the Brewmistress of Dreadnought. That’s like expecting the Lady Emperor to come home and run her father’s poultry farm!”
“But you’re here now,” purred the Sultan. “So what are you going to do about it?”
Mistress Opia’s grandmotherly face took on a very dangerous expression.
Hobbs the gnome pulled urgently at Officer Finnley’s sleeve, and the two of them crept back out of the firing line. “Can she really do that?” whispered Finnley. “The filling bones with steam thing?”
“You betcha,” hissed back the gnome.
Finnley frowned. “I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. I mean, there isn’t anything in the rulebook specifically about filling bones with steam, but it doesn’t sound very nice.”
“Shut up, willya? I’m trying to listen.”
Finnley sighed, and leaned up against a heavy amber curtain. He barely noticed when a small hand plucked at his sleeve and a tiny whisper said, “Sssst.”
He pushed his head through the curtain opening and saw a quick blur of jangles and silk vanish behind a pillar. Curious, he followed. A girl barely as tall as his shoulder was waiting for him. She was wearing beads, mostly. With a few wisps of silk attached. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m a concubine,” she said, rolling her eyes under heavily-painted lashes. “Don’t you have those where you come from?”
“Well, yes,” he admitted uncomfortably. “But I think they’re kept indoors mostly.”
She seemed to be waiting for something. “Well?” she demanded finally.
Finnley blushed. “Well what?”
“Anyway, you’re one of those policemen, aren’t you? The Blackguards of Dreadnought? I recognised your uniform.” She sniffed with a certain amount of professional pride. “We’re trained to recognise men in uniform. Didn’t you come for the girl?”
This was more like it. Rescuing damsels and being heroic. “What girl?” Then an image struck him, a memory of the tawny-blonde thief kissing him into oblivion. “Oh, her. The one with the…armour. I think I’m supposed to arrest her.” He frowned. “Actually, I have a suspicion that I’m expected to hold her down while Mistress Opia does something really nasty to her, but I think I’d better arrest her instead.”
“You’ll have to be quick,” said the concubine. “That stuff she stole for the Sultan made her sick, and he threw her to the Minestaurus in the labyrinth.” She snorted, in a particularly unladylike way. “Typical men!”
Finnley stared at her. Somehow, he had lost the thread of what they were talking about.
The concubine stamped her little sandalled foot angrily. “Well? Are you going to come and rescue her from the Minestaurus or not? Then you can arrest her. Well, what do you say?”
Put like that, he realised he didn’t really have anything better to do.
* * *
Mistress Opia smiled her grandmotherly smile and rolled up her sleeves in a meaningful way. “It is apparent that you are not going to be sensible about this,” she said calmly. “We’ll just have to settle the matter with traditional methods.”
“What are you going to do?” asked the Sultan of Zibria delightedly. “Box my ears? Send me to bed without supper? Smack my wrist and tell me not to be so naughty?” His voice dropped to an exultant whisper. “Stab me with a knitting needle?”
“No,” said Mistress Opia steadily. “We’re going to arm-wrestle.”
This surprised Lord Marmaduc. He almost blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard,” she said, rubbing her palms together in brisk fashion. “Best out of three, winner takes all.” She looked at him over her glasses. Suddenly, she didn’t seem grandmotherly any more.
The Sultan laughed merrily. “You forget, Mistress Opia. I’ve seen you arm-wrestle before. I know your strengths and your weaknesses.” His hand slipped over a small knob on the side of his throne, and the ceiling opened up. Water gushed down over the Brewmistress, soaking her to the skin.
“Oi!” yelled Hobbs the gnome, suddenly taking an interest. He leaped forward to protect the Brewmistress, and was slammed to the ground by a pile of gold-clad guards.
Mistress Opia glared at the Sultan. “Clever boy. How did you know?”
“I’ve had my agents watching you, Brewmistress. You have been seen, turning things into gold without the aid of anything resembling potions or powders. And that can’t be done without magic. What did you do, make a pact with the gods? Or a pact with the moonlight dimension?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she hissed.
The Sultan raised an eyebrow expertly. “I know that water neutralises faery dust.” He raised the vial of liquid gold, and examined it. “And I know that this is not a natural substance.” He lifted the lid of the vial, releasing a cloud of golden fumes. “I hate to think what this is doing to the atmosphere. Still, all in a good cause, eh, Brewmistress?”
She snarled at him, all grandmotherly pretence wiped from her face. “You cannot make me work for you. No bonds will hold me!”
“It’s true,” he mused. “According to my agents, you can turn anything into molten gold, or gold dust. Well, almost everything.” He snapped his fingers, and two gold-liveried guards leaped forward, snapping wooden handcuffs around the Brewmistress’s wrists. She stared in horror.
The Sultan laughed. “Never had much luck with wood, though, did you? Apparently it’s the one substance you can’t transform. Maybe it’s because it’s so…natural.” His tone became hard. “You will spin gold for me. You will gild my city. You will make Zibria great again.”
“Zibria needs a half-decent Lordling,” she spat. “Not a blackmailing brat!”
The Sultan laughed. “Well, at the very least you will amuse me. And if you don’t amuse me, I’ll destroy your liquid gold.” He held up the vial teasingly. “It’s your only sample, isn’t it? And I doubt the moonlight dimension will be so accommodating a second time.” He waved negligently with the other hand. “Take her away. We’ll talk again another time.”
* * *
Daggar stirred, mumbling to himself. “Danger…death…canary errghh.”
“If you are awake,” said Sparrow sharply, “have some tea.”
Struggling with the misty consciousness that was tentatively making its way back into his head, Daggar opened one eye. He could see Sparrow’s hair and just beyond that, Sparrow herself. She was sitting straight-backed on a plush green chair, balancing a cup of tea and a saucer full of biscuits.
Reassured, Daggar opened his other eye. And screamed.
Without even looking up, Sparrow reached out her free hand and clamped it over Daggar’s mouth. “This is Magnus,” she said evenly. “Do not be rude.”
“It’s the, it’s the, it’s the,” babbled Daggar when she finally removed her hand.
“The Minestaurus,” commented the third person in the room. “A terrible nickname. It’s because of the resemblance to a bull, I know, and some old legend about me being nearly drowned in a soup cauldron. How are you feeling, by the way?”
“Oh,” Daggar gulped. “Dandy.” He looked around. Sparrow was perfectly relaxed, but that could mean anything. Singespitter the sheep was curled up in front of an open fire, growling contentedly to himself as he viciously attacked a plate of buttered crumpets. “Um,” said Daggar. “I didn’t expect you to be wearing a suit.”
Magnus the Minestaurus plucked self-consciously at his cravat. “Well, you never
know when visitors are going to drop in,” he said in a pleasant voice. Other than the suit, he was almost as Daggar had expected. An eight-foot man with brown fur, neatly combed, a bull-like face and horns. But everything else…
“Um,” said Daggar.
“Magnus will help us,” said Sparrow patiently. “He knows the way into the Palace.”
“Oh?” said Daggar, who had just been handed a cup of tea and jug of cream by the Minestaurus. “How nice.”
She gave him a hard look. “You are still interested in breaking into the Palace and getting the liquid gold to save my life?”
“Sure,” said Daggar vaguely. “Why not.” He bit into a biscuit and discovered that it tasted good. He took another bite. “Nice place you’ve got here, Magnus.”
It had been a cave once, but was now redecorated to within an inch of its life. Bookshelves lined the walls, stocked with hundreds of scrolls and parchments, and a few heavily-bound volumes. Daggar was lying on a particularly nice burgundy plush couch. The coffee table was polished pine, and a stylish mahogany hat-rack stood majestically in one corner.
“Thank you,” said Magnus modestly. “The conservatory’s really something to see,” he added.
Sparrow set her empty teacup aside and stood up. “We must be going.”
“Must we?” said Daggar in a dreamy voice. “I was just starting to get comfortable.”
“Please excuse him,” said Sparrow to Magnus, “I think he has reached his shock threshold.”
“Happens to everyone,” said Magnus cheerily. “Except me, of course. I’m unshockable.” He turned and peered thoughtfully at the many bookshelves which lined the walls. “Now, which one was the secret passageway?”
Suddenly the wall swung to one side, scattering epic poetry and muffin recipes in every direction. Two people landed heavily on the tasteful carpet, coughing with the dust. One was small, female and garbed in a skimpy assortment of beads, sequins and silken wisps. The other was gangly, male and wearing the uniform of a Dreadnought Blackguard.
The Mocklore Omnibus (Mocklore Chronicles #1 & #2) Page 36
