by Paul Kidd
Miliana calmly followed Lorenzo through the door into his studio. Two easels stood by the door, one empty, and one holding another shrouded canvas. Lorenzo slumped in sudden calm as he saw the full easel; he looked to Miliana in relief, and grabbed at a corner of the cover sheet.
"I'm sorry-it's this one here. Now, just stand there and behold! I call the work simply 'Beauty' "
The blanket flipped back, and Miliana wreathed her face in smiles.
"Why-it's stunning!" Miliana was honestly in awe. "Lorenzo, you're a genius!"
Lorenzo beamed, basking in Miliana's good opinion. He puffed up his chest in pride as the girl strode forward to take his hand. She leaned closer to the canvas to study the careful layers of brush strokes, paint, and glaze.
"It's magical!"
"It is not-it is merely… inspiration." Lorenzo bowed with reverence to his cherished colleague. "You said last night that if you had one wish, it would be to be beautiful. Perhaps this small token will show you how I feel. It is, of course, yours-a gift I hope that you will cherish."
Miliana regarded the canvas at arm's length with rapture shining in her eyes.
"Oh, Lorenzo, don't be silly! It has to go on display in ten minutes' time. This is something for the whole world to see."
"Really?" The artist pulled at the collar of his tunic as though it had suddenly grown too tight. "Well that is v-very courageous of you."
"Courageous? It is a celebration of art, of form! It is a thing of the spirit-not merely a painting of the flesh!"
"Exactly!" Thrilled, Lorenzo stepped forward to worshipfully take Miliana's hands. "Yes, that's it exactly! Oh… oh, Miliana, you understand!"
"Well of course I understand." Miliana Mannicci laid an adoring arm about Lorenzo's waist and gave the man a squeeze. She stood with him to regard a beautiful painting of a sea goddess rising, singing, from the waves, riding the great sea dragon of the deeps. "I never knew just how-how sensitive you were. This panting is utterly wonderful!"
The artist goggled at his painting in shock, and all the color drained from his face.
"This isn't the one…"
"What?"
"This isn't what I was trying to show you…" Lorenzo flung himself wildly about the room, peering behind settees, ripping open cupboards and setting a small green furry creature to flight. "Where is it? Where in the Abyss has it gone?"
"Calm down." Miliana made an easy gesture with one hand, playing the role of the quiet scholar as Lorenzo whirled past in a frenzy of despair. "Tell me what it looks like, and I'll find it for you."
"Well, the working sketches are in there!" Clambering atop a wardrobe, Lorenzo burrowed like a crazed mole through a vast wrack of scorched plaster, old papers, and half-eaten pickled eels. "I put them in your lap in the other room. Those were the drawings for the painting!"
Utterly serene at the eye of the storm, Miliana lifted up her hems and cruised gently on into the other room. Through the open windows, she saw the fireworks demonstration light the sky with stunning starbursts, streaks and blasts. She breathed a sigh of appreciation, frowned at the deafening storm of noise, then spied Lorenzo's drawings lying abandoned on a chair.
Miliana retrieved the pile of drawings, spread the top ones out across a tabletop, then looked down upon them with a ladylike little smile.
She thoughtfully adjusted her spectacles and with an expression of vapid good humor on her face, she turned toward Lorenzo.
Firework flashes lit the room as Lorenzo lunged through the door.
"Did you find the drawings?"
Miliana made a gracious, inquiring little motion over the pile of sketches.
"Lorenzo? I'm… naked."
"Oh, good!" The artist came forward to the table with a relieved little sigh. "Yes, those are the ones…"
"Lorenzo? I'm naked!"
The girl's voice broke in outrage as realization finally struck home. Snatching up a fistful of sketches, she flipped through them in a daze.
"You drew me naked! I don't believe it-you drew me naked!" Every detail had been recorded-every muscle group, every soft, sweet curve-every gossamer float of hair. "You drew me naked!"
Appalled at her reaction, Lorenzo timidly crept forward, wringing at his hands.
"B-but I told you I was using you to help me study. You're the one who inspired me into researching anatomy!"
"I didn't mean my anatomy!" The girl held up another sketch, turned it upside down and blanched quite pale. "Oh, my gods!"
"But it's a celebration!" Lorenzo waved a hand across his drawings in pride. "You thrill me-you fascinate me! You've shown me a type of beauty I've never known before. I just wanted to show the Miliana that no one else has ever seen."
"My mother's bloody midwife never saw me like this!"
The artist began a tactical retreat.
"Uh-you see, I invented a thing called a peri-"
Miliana lashed out at a tower of glass tubes and wildly crashed them to the floor. The chemicals instantly ate through the carpet, the floorboards, and into the wine cellar below. "I trusted you! I even… I even-ooooh!" The girl tore her hair in rage at her own weakness and stupidity. "You lecherous, spying little-"
"Now, now, Miliana…" Lorenzo pathetically held up his hands like a thief trying to hold a dragon at bay. "Look, it's all in the name of science-of art! Comparative anatomy-your mother and yourself! I just got more and more interested in you."
The girl answered with an incoherent scream. She ripped off her hat, pulled out a strip of notes, and began frantically memorizing the symbols written on the page.
Lorenzo cautiously retreated behind a padded couch.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to fry you like an egg, you little lump of sputum!"
Sparks raged about Miliana's hand; she whipped back her arm, shrieked in sheer, vengeful release, and flung a lethal dart of magic fire at Lorenzo's eyes.
The artist screamed like a frightened mouse and wildly dove away. The dart punched a hole clean through the furniture, sending burnt feathers blasting up into the air. Cursing like a wildcat, Miliana burst into the adjoining room in hot pursuit of her prey; a pointy-hatted psychopath, she stormed through the shadows and squealed in rage.
"Come out and die like a man, you little ball of pus!"
Something tried to race for the door; Miliana gave a predatory howl, pumping energy into a dart which stabbed like a lightning bolt clean across the room. A chair erupted, stone blew apart-and somehow a blackened but unharmed Lorenzo sped free and dove beneath a table.
"Miliana! Miliana, we can talk!"
"Go choke on your own bile!"
"Miliana? Miliana, now let's be reasonable!" Lorenzo saw the room light up with another sizzle of sparks and tried to cram himself backward into a flower pot. "N-now I realize, in retrospect, that I may be guilty of having slightly overstepped a hidden social line…"
"You sniveling little wretch! I'll get you for this if it's the last thing I do!" Miliana kicked over a table, powered by a seething, blinding rage; Lorenzo had scuttled off beneath a maze of furniture. "I'm going to make you eat bricks of your own sun-dried urine!"
"Miliana! Miliana, we're supposed to be getting betrothed!" Lorenzo helplessly tried to placate a monster. "I mean-you are the princess? So that means our parents want us to wed! You wouldn't hurt someone your parents want you to marry, would you?"
Distant lab equipment shook with fright; Miliana gave a roar of triumph and hurtled the workbench aside to reveal Lorenzo scuttling like a rat across the floor. The girl shot her firebolt and watched it streak straight at her victim's rear.
Sweat had fogged up her lenses; the firebolt missed Lorenzo, passed through a jug of cherry-flavored fluid, and instantly triggered a titanic blast of power. The chemicals exploded, blowing one whole wall out of the apartments. Blinking with amazement, Miliana and Lorenzo found themselves sailing through the sky and out into the courtyard.
They landed in the fodder pile; artist, sorce
ress, rubble, rats and all. Terra-cotta roof tiles slid down from the walls with a crash like a thousand breaking dinner plates. Miles of paper chains and bunting then cascaded down across the pile, festooning scorched ruins with little lights and candy swords.
Skyrockets burst and Catherine wheels blurred; overhead, Tekoriikii squealed as a great black hippogriff slammed into him from below. Miliana rose up out of an astounding pile of rubble, dust and ash, dimly reaching out to take her crumpled pointy hat. The dazed girl blinked about herself trying to remember what was wrong.
There was something she had to do…
Miliana felt a fluttering piece of paper land itself across her face. She peeled the paper away, saw that it was an exquisitely detailed sketch of her own naked rear, and finally felt the world jump into focus.
Yes! Kill Lorenzo!
A soldier lay half buried under fallen tiles. Miliana dazedly ripped herself up out of the ruins and took the enormous halberd from the soldier's hands.
"Can I borrow this?"
A fearful racket started overhead-screams and howls-a piercing eagle screech. Miliana ignored it all, her stunned mind fixed on a single thought as she tottered up across the ruins of Lorenzo's rooms.
A head popped up out of the rubble; Miliana took one look at Lorenzo, lifted up the halberd, and raced toward him with a manic battle scream. Wailing in abject terror, Lorenzo took off like a rabbit. Overhead, a mighty battle filled the air with feathers, wings, and screams, while a thousand skyrockets shook the heavens with a deafening crash of light.
9
"You and I-two creatures almost from different worlds! Who knows what adventures might greet the explorer's eyes? The pounding pulse-the alien touch of scents and dreams. We owe ourselves the experience-let us seize it while we may!"
One eye blackened, and the sharp mark of a woman's handprint standing sharp and red across his cheek, Luccio Irozzi wandered disconsolately through the plazas of the Mannicci palace, reciting his little litany in puzzlement. His evening had somehow gone sadly astray. Now, with the firework display lighting up the world and shuddering every windowsill, the entire party population had crowded onto the balconies to marvel at the unprecedented show. Having been beaten nearly comatose by a dozen eligible females, Luccio decided to take a break and reassess his romantic strategies.
"You and me are two creatures almost from different worlds?" Luccio changed the timbre of his voice and tried again. "You and I? Yes-you and I are both inhabitants of far, far different worlds…"
It didn't seem to work quite as well as it should. The daughter of Blade Captain Toporello had somehow managed to pour the contents of a flower vase into his tights, and it felt as though some of the rose stems might still be down there. Dejected and defeated, Luccio made his way into the deserted courtyard and sat himself down beside the bubbling waters of the ornate fountain.
A note written on mother-of-pearl had asked him for a tryst here at midnight; Luccio scanned the deserted courtyard and hung his head with a disappointed sigh.
Fireworks burst and blasted overhead like a war between the gods; crowds made "oohs" and "aaahs" of appreciation, sounding like the ebb and flow of distant seas. The rear courtyard suddenly dissolved into a noisy chaos of bellows, shouts, and screams, while the whole palace shuddered to an unseen blow.
Having lost the party mood, Luccio ignored it all and sadly trailed a finger into the cool water at his side.
A penniless father had left Luccio the heir to an empty house and a world of debt. Without funds, there were no mercenaries-without mercenaries, no votes, and without votes, a gentleman had no influence at all. Disinclined to don a metal suit and join the troops himself, Luccio normally faced his misfortunes with a flippant smile.
Heaving a sigh, Luccio laid himself back against a marble statue of a spouting dolphin and let his velvet cap fall to the ground. Spray from the fountain kissed his cheek as he closed his eyes to the flash and glitter of artificial stars.
"It's true, really. I don't really have anything to offer. Nothing but poor old Luccio-who, frankly, is not much of a prize. No fortune, no mansion, no votes, no ties; a simple promise of devotion doesn't hold any water these days."
A stream of ripples in the fountain drifted to a halt; the whole world seemed to draw a quiet breath.
"It never really seems to work out for me. There's nothing to fall back on but myself-and I keep wondering if that's anything to offer to a girl.
"But a real girl-someone just… different. Someone who could maybe see that there's a prize here for the taking… now that's a dream worth having!"
Behind Luccio, a pair of startling lavender eyes shone beneath the waters. Tall, delicate, fish-finned ears rose quietly up into the air.
With his back to the water, Luccio ran his hand across his brow.
"When I close my eyes, I can see you drifting there in front of me. You and I-two creatures almost from different worlds. Who knows what adventures might greet the explorer's eyes? The pounding pulse-the alien touch of scents and dreams. We owe ourselves the experience. Let us seize it while we may!"
A figure erupted from the water with an excited squeal and clasped Luccio in its arms. A curvaceous, scaly body, bright eyes, and wild pink hair flashed briefly in the light of fireworks as the nixie locked Luccio in a passionate, soaking kiss. With a shout, the man spilled backward into the freezing waters while the nixie damsel drew a breath, crammed his face up against her impassioned breast and happily wrapped him against her scales.
Cool and quiet in the darkness, Lorenzo stated his case with an admirable degree of calm.
"Look-traditionally, all beauty is judged by ultimates; the perfect figures, the studied poise… you know the kind of thing." Lorenzo sat cross-legged on the floor of a cupboard, trying to be the voice of sweet reason in the storm. "I merely determined that if I wanted to define the actual basics of beauty, I would have to try to discover the beautiful within a subject who exhibits absolutely none of the… ah… the actual… that is, none of the accepted attributes of feminine…" The artist stumbled, sensing himself sliding into even more trouble.
Lorenzo's refuge shuddered as Miliana's halberd blade viciously hacked its way in through the door.
"Come out of there, you-you suitor, you! Open that damned door!"
Inside the cupboard, Lorenzo watched his barricades and makeshift locks splinter one by one. He tried to keep himself adrift inside a sea of studied calm.
"I realize that I have behaved badly-nay, inexcusably. I can only say that what I did was done from the most pure of motivations, and that my respect for you is utterly sincere. Nor did I realize until last night that you were actually my… intended.
"Now perhaps we ought to get the nude painting of you back into hiding before it goes out on public display."
"What?"
Miliana hurtled the halberd aside, rammed a fist through the broken door and undid the lock with one sharp tug of her hand. She dragged Lorenzo out into the light and shook him like a stick insect in her claws.
"What do you mean it's going on display?"
"Well it's… it's the only painting that's missing!" Lorenzo felt the words being squeezed bodily out of his throat by Miliana's grasp. "Someone must ha-have taken the picture to put up for the ceremony!"
The girl released her victim, turning herself quite green with shock.
"Was it anything like those-those sketches?"
"Um…" Lorenzo tried to see a way to somehow escape with his life. "Um-no…"
Miliana felt a brilliant ray of hope. "No?"
"Well… yes." Lorenzo felt the sweat pour off him as he glanced at the halberd leaning against a nearby wall. "Um-quite a lot like them actually."
Scorched, torn, and wild, Miliana hoisted Lorenzo up to his feet, turned him about, and dragged him toward the ruins of his apartment.
"Come on! Get the painting of the sea goddess! It's going to take both of us to carry it!"
Confused, Lorenzo felt himself
being propelled across the rubble by a freckled amazon in skirts.
"Aren't you going to kill me?"
"I'll kill you later. Now help me get that painting back!"
Standing on a balcony that faced off across the Akanamere, Lady Ulia Mannicci stood in splendor, wearing a hat that would have done justice to the goddess Umberlee herself. Puffing out her indignant bosom, the lady watched the brilliant fireworks with an air of irritation and disdain.
"Miliana should be here to applaud this display! Cappa, my dear-where has your unruly daughter hidden herself now?"
Prince Cappa Mannicci scowled and scanned the crowds, then signaled for the services of an aide.
Standing proud and hostile amidst a crowd of haughty elves, the lady of the Yuirwood threw her cloak back from her pale shoulders and pushed free from the crowds to confront her awesome hostess.
Ulia turned to face the elf like a stone giant confronting a sprite. The two women met eye to eye in a strange fellowship of mutual anger and pride.
"I am called Lonereed Silverleaf, of the Clan of Wandering Spray." The slim queen tilted her angry silver eyes. "I have come here as a guest to your house, and I claim a guest's right of justice!"
Ulia's bodice swelled like a galleon's sails before a storm.
"Justice, you ask? Then my dear, it is justice you shall have!" The human woman gazed down from the celestial heights of her pride. "How have you been wronged within my city, and under my roof?"
"Theft!" The elf drew her robes tight against her narrow frame. "My most prized of jewels-a love gift from my people-has been stolen from me. Stolen! And the thief has the insolence to wear the necklace right here before my very eyes!"
"Then this outrage shall be dealt with at once." Ulia took the elven woman by the arm and led her away from the thunderstorm of fireworks outside. "Tell me the identity of the thief."
Lady Silverleaf raised a long index finger and summoned a figure from among her courtiers; Brightlightning Dragonsbane strode forth and knelt before his lady's feet. Lady Silverleaf indicated the man with a wave of her hand.
