by Paul Kidd
"We are defeated, but we are not destroyed!" Ilego's voice fought to overcome a reawakened roar. "No, not yet! But division can still be our undoing!"
He spoke as though the great battle had not yet been lost and won; flushed and bickering noblemen snatched at the offered straw and began to listen.
"Colleagues! Sumbria is the most powerful of the Blade Kingdoms. As an individual state, we command the greatest wealth, the greatest intellects, and the finest military equipment. And yet we have found ourselves locked into a futile war for years! Rather than taking our place as rightful leader of the Akanal, we have squandered our energies in an endless war with Colletro-and over what? A valley. A single valley." Ilego's voice rose suddenly into a sharp pitch of scorn. "One valley! When the Blade Kingdoms hold a thousand such penny-plots of land!"
Cappa Mannicci shot a sharp, deadly glance at Ilego. The elegant Blade Captain ignored his prince, skipping his eyes across him to grip the crowd with his gaze.
"And why? Why have we wasted our energies on such a futile little war?" Ilego whirled and flung an armored hand at his prince. "Because the Manniccis have commanded it! The Mannicci vision has locked us into a squabble only fit for schoolyard brats. A squabble with a kingdom who could just as well have been our staunchest ally all along!"
The slim nobleman had first won their attention, then eased their hurts-now he shocked them with an outrageous revelation. Men stared at him in disbelief until Ilego passed copies of a letter out into his colleagues' hands.
"I have here a message from the Blade Council of Colletro. A new council! Newly elected, for new times!" Blade Captain Ilego's voice soared like a falcon on god-sent winds. "The old prince is overthrown, and Colletro offers us its blades, its science, and its sorcery. In short- their new, princeless council has asked to merge with Sumbria to form a single great kingdom! At a stroke, we can double our realm in ferocity and size!"
Prince Mannicci launched up to his feet and slammed an open hand against the table, but his angry rejoinder was drowned beneath the uproar of the crowd. Ilego triumphantly orchestrated the furor, letting the volume build until a paid clique led the Blade Captains into howling for a vote.
A few thousand ducats had been spent, and spent well; a flood of anger-like any other flood-is best handled by carefully constructed channels. Prince Mannicci tried to speak, only to be shouted down by young captains asking to see the muster of his men. With no troops beneath his banners, Mannicci lacked the right to even take the floor.
Standing on the table, Blade Captain Furioso-stout, black-haired and wild-shook a copy of the Sumbrian constitution in Mannicci's eyes.
"We demand a vote! A new prince-one with a better plan!"
Ilego smiled, feeling the day's events play straight into his hands. Above him, Furioso let himself be whipped on by the churning crowd.
"Two-thirds majority, Mannicci! Two thirds insist on a vote… an immediate vote. The Articles of Association demand that an election be held for the crown!"
Orlando Toporello-his armor still scarred and unclean from the battle three days before-slammed his battered sword across the tabletop.
"No! We are not a mob… to blame a prince when we have failed him at arms!"
"Ha!" Triumphant at the crest of the crowd, Furioso bit his thumb at the old man. "Can an old dog never leave off sniffing the backside of its old master?"
Toporello gave a bellow of rage and flung himself at Furioso; Furioso's page tried to block the old man's path and took a sword cut in the cheek as Toporello flailed at the packed mob of jeering nobles with his blade. A dozen arms held him back, crushing him in a press of bodies as they kept Toporello and his prey apart.
A vote was cast, yet no one counted the blades that flashed into the air; Mannicci's rule was cast away, and a dynasty lay broken. A hundred voices soared and jeered as Cappa Mannicci sank down into his chair.
Radiant, Ilego opened his arms to the crowd.
"Then it is our will that we have a new prince! A new prince, right here and now!"
Before Ilego could have himself nominated by his paid lackeys, Toporello slammed his sword across the table, broke the blade, and cast the shards away. He turned, signed for his sons and officers, and drove a path to the doors. Gilberto Ilego climbed onto the table and bayed across the assembly like a wild, triumphant ass.
"Where to, Toporello? Will you not cast a vote with your brethren?"
"Never!" Toporello's parade-ground shout almost stripped the plaster from the walls. His huge voice stilled the rabble like a thunderous magic spell.
"To sell our honor to Colletran hands? To cast aside a prince who has served us long and well?" The old man whipped out his hands as though trying to fling them clean of dirt. "Do it if you will-but these are no colleagues of mine, nor do I care to remain within their fellowship!"
"And where will you go?" Ilego made the question into a fabulous little joke. "Will you pack up your toys and refuse to play?"
"A free company is what we once were-a free company we remain! House Toporello takes its blades elsewhere!" Orlando cast a glance that ripped lines of fire across a dozen men. "You, Marello-and you, Ambrosi! Join the jackal pack-but make way for better men!"
Toporello turned to go. Suddenly, a young captain jerked out from the crowd and followed at his heel. They were joined by a second, then a third, all small holders who commanded scarcely two hundred men. Ilego cast them out and let his wild voice echo through the hall.
"Then go! But forfeit your palaces, your holdings, and your lands!"
"My jewels were stolen, and the loss never killed me. We've concentrated upon fripperies and forgotten where we came from-who we are!" Standing in the doorway, Orlando Toporello rammed his old-fashioned helmet down across his skull. "Roll in your furs and sweetmeats like a pig in its own dung! A soldier's domain should be bounded by his breastplate, nothing more!"
The dissenters marched away en masse, leaving chaos in their wake; the contempt of Toporello had left a schism in the hall. Half the nobles shrieked out demands to give Gilberto Ilego the crown, while others leapt forward offering their own names.
Cappa Mannicci gathered up his last few rags of dignity and left the chamber. His movement instantly stirred a new furor; for a whole lifetime, this man had ordered Sumbria's lives. Now, men shrilly clamored for advice, pawing at his robes. Ilego saw his chances of an immediate election begin to fade away and leapt down to pursue the departing crowd.
On the steps of the council chambers, a vast mob of citizens had collected in a swirling mass. There were soldiers and tinkers, fishwives and priests. The whole population clamored to Cappa Mannicci for their answers, parting about him like a sea of pleading hands.
Mannicci lifted a weary gauntlet, told them that he was their prince no more, and turned as a beggar thrust at him from the crowd. The beggar raised his knotted staff-Mannicci tried to hurtle himself away-and a blast of flame exploded out to rip the mob apart.
Bodies churned and voices screamed; the air stank of scorching flesh. Civilians fled in panic, trampling their own neighbors under their feet. Soldiers shouted, fighting through the tide as the city of Sumbria instantly went mad.
"The prince is slain! Prince Mannicci has been slain!"
Cappa Mannicci's body had been utterly atomized. With him had died a score of citizens, guards, and Sumbrian nobility. Burned, wounded men dragged themselves across the blackened steps, cinders crunching beneath clawed hands as they screamed out in agony. From the council chambers, the remaining Blade Captains simply stood and stared as Gilberto Ilego wandered over to the place where Prince Mannicci had died.
"The prince has been slain by the Blade Captains!" A woman reeled across the road, clawing at passing soldiers with burned hands. "They've killed him! They've killed him!"
"Ilego ordered it!" A young noble clutched his injured, screaming father tight against his heart. "Ilego's killed him to secure his crown!"
"No!" Gilberto Ilego ran blindly down the
palace steps, standing amidst the ruin of his plans. "Brigands! It must have been brigands…"
"Brigands with a spell staff?" a soldier snarled from the foot of the steps in hate. "Aye-brigands with their pockets full of Ilego's gold."
A dead assassin was produced-a mere rag hurtled back and forth between the talons of a growing crowd; the corpse wore Ilego's livery beneath its beggar's rags. Ilego screamed out his denials into an uncaring mob. He retreated as the first stones began to fly, then saw his own soldiers smash hard into the citizens. A wild melee erupted, bursting like a plague sore to spread its foul disease. Ilego's men fought to hold the crowd back from their master's hide; soldiers from other families instantly lunged into the fight to defend the panic-stricken crowd. A crossbow fired, a woman screamed, and the fight poured through the city streets like molten fire.
Abandoned at the eye of the storm, Ilego helplessly screamed out his innocence to the uncaring city walls.
"No! I didn't kill him!" Ilego tore his own robes between his hands. "I would have been prince! Me! Gilberto Ilego, Prince of Sumbria!" The man reached out to running soldiers in appeal. "Why? Why would I kill him? I would have had everything…"
Ilego slumped down into the cinders, and let the last prince of Sumbria drift through his grasp like sand. He sat in blank incomprehension as he heard his city tear itself apart.
"Svarezi…"
Ilego's eyes went wide as realization suddenly struck home. He lifted up his face and stared off into the empty sky. "Svarezi."
Hurtling ashes to the winds, Ilego leapt to his feet and felt his face drain white with rage. He shook an impotent fist at the clouds and bellowed out a wild scream of despair.
"Svarezi!"
Blades clashed in Sumbria's streets, while all around, a city burned.
"Aaaaaaaaawk!" Tekoriikii tragically held up a small glass bottle, nudging it hopefully toward Lorenzo's hand. "Aaaaaawk! Aaaaaawk!"
"Um… look, Tekoriikii, I know what it says on the bottle, but I don't think it quite works the way you think."
"Aaaaaawk!"
Sighing unhappily, the artist took the bottle, read the label, and began vigorously shaking the pot of Old Pappa Floonbat's Patent Medicinal Hair Restorer. The bird, now miserably keeping an old gray military blanket draped across his rump, shuffled awkwardly about, then uncovered his plucked, bare backside.
Lorenzo liberally splashed hair restorer all over Tekoriikii's featherless regions, then began massaging the medicine into the poor bird's flesh. Tekoriikii whimpered and closed his eyes, slumped in apathy as he mourned the loss of his magnificent orange tail.
He could scarcely dare to look in the mirror to see if the tail feathers had begun to regrow; instead, the bird sat and stared miserably at the painting of Miliana leaning against the attic wall. He gave a soft, pathetic call deep in his throat and sadly closed his eyes.
Lorenzo turned his own face away from the painting. Bedraggled, demoralized, and crushed with guilt, the artist let his chin sink to his breast with a dull, unhappy sigh.
Tekoriikii curled his long neck around and placed his head in Lorenzo's lap. The artist scratched wearily at the bird's silly plumes while both creatures let their thoughts wander along the same sad paths.
Evicted from the palace, they now hid in cheap lodgings above a smelly old alchemist's shop-one of Lorenzo's main suppliers for esoteric chemicals. Terrified that Lady Ulia would silence them by the most obvious means, Lorenzo had managed a disappearing act and had lain low for many long, tedious days.
… Leaving Lorenzo and Tekoriikii all the more time in which to contemplate their failings. They gazed through the broad, wide-open window across the city roofs, and together sank into despondent, guilty gloom.
In the distance, a crowd's shouting rose into a formless roar. Bedraggled and demoralized as they were, man and bird ignored the chaos and watched seeds spiral down from the sycamore tree that shaded the windowsill.
A bell rang as the door opened into the shop below; Lorenzo pricked up an ear in puzzlement as he heard the alchemist give out a single wild, despairing wail.
"I told you, we don't have any rings of water breathing!"
"Oh, please!" The customer seemed in a high state of anxiety. "An amulet then? Maybe a necklace?"
"No! I don't have anything…"
"Not even just a little one?" The customer's cultured voice wheedled mercilessly. "Maybe just some water breathing potions, then? Just two or three on account?"
"Look, why don't you just go away?"
"Just one potion? I can pay you tomorrow!"
Levering up the trapdoor in the attic floor, Lorenzo stuck his head through into the workshop, gasping in delight as he spied Luccio Irozzi. Luccio, now dressed in somewhat water-stained finery, shuffled on his knees as he pleaded with the shopkeeper. Luccio looked up and saw Lorenzo's dangling face; flung out his arms and shot up onto his feet in pure surprise.
"Lorenzo! Lorenzo, where in Umberlee's name have you been?"
"We've been in hiding." Luccio rapidly slid a ladder down through the trapdoor. "From Miliana's mother…"
"Her mother?" Luccio steadied the ladder, then swept his young friend into a hard embrace as he finally reached the ground. "You idiot-why didn't you tell me where you'd gone? I've had agents scouring the city streets for days!"
Tekoriikii hung his head down through the open trapdoor; seeing his friend in conversation, the bird clamped claws onto the ladder staves and slid backward to the lower floor. His talons peeled great bright strips of wood shavings from the ladder as he fell.
"Onk gronk!"
Luccio eyed the bird in astonishment. Lorenzo bowed and performed introductions between his human companion and the bird.
"Luccio Irozzi, I present the firebird Tekoriikii; big on feathers and small on tact."
Luccio made a bewildered bow; Tekoriikii replied with a warble, and ruffled out what feathers he still had in regal pride. The blanket draped about his backside rather ruined the effect. It began to slip, forcing the firebird to frantically adjust his attire.
The group retired back up into the attic, a place tastefully furnished with old crates and corn sacks stuffed with eiderdown. Tekoriikii turned himself about five or six times, treading himself a nest while the two humans settled themselves and uncorked a pewter jug of wine. Lorenzo nursed a tall, scorched, conical hat against his breast as he gazed in amazement at his friend.
"Luccio, what are you doing in an alchemist's shop?" The young artist sniffed at the air with a frown crossing his eyes. "Why are you in an alchemist's-and why do you smell of fish?"
"Never mind that!" Luccio snatched at his best friend's arm. "Now get your things. We have to leave the city-right now!"
"Why? Luccio, what's happening at the palace? Where did they take poor Miliana?"
"Oh-to the Velvet Gauntlet Finishing School for Wayward Young Ladies." Luccio dismissed the topic with a hasty wave. "She's safe enough-it's we who have to worry. The whole city is in revolt! Didn't you hear the riots outside?"
Riots! Lorenzo sat bolt upright, Miliana's image branded hard upon his heart. He heard the firebird warble something to Luccio, and kept a vague track on his friend's reply.
"Prince Mannicci's dead. The noble houses are about to fight a civil war!"
Sycamore seeds came spiraling down past the open window-the tiny leaf-blades of the seedpods whirring around and around. Lorenzo leaned out and snatched one as it passed, then held it tight inside his hand as he stared blankly off into the sky.
"We have to rescue her!"
"What?"
"Miliana! Someone will hit on the idea of marrying her-or killing her-to control her father's men. We have to save her from this finishing school!
"Tekoriikii-we'll all escape from Sumbria together! She can finally be free!"
Tekoriikii roused himself, gaping wide his beak to give a keening scream of joy; the raucous sound set Luccio's teeth jangling. The firebird tried to flounder clean out of the wind
ow to instantly begin a rescue, but Lorenzo caught the bird and held him back, dragging him bodily across the floor.
"Luccio-we need a feather restorer. There must be something…?"
"The hippogriff stables will know of some kind of spell." The young courtier scratched one fish-scented hand against his brow. "I'm sure a veterinarian might be induced to make a house call."
"Fine-fine, that's great…" Lorenzo opened his hand and stared at the seed lying on his palm. "Fantastic… all right-so, we just get Miliana out of this heavily guarded school, escape a rioting city, and all run off to Lomatra once and for all!"
"But, my dear Lorenzo-how can you get your lady love out past the school battlements?" Luccio seemed quite at a loss. "For that matter the whole city is locked in! How do any of us escape the town?"
"Tekoriikii and I will manage Miliana; you get ready and meet us by the city's water gate. I'll need probably-what-three hours?" Lorenzo turned to consult with the bird, who replied with a nod. "Three hours to prepare."
Lorenzo began gathering up charcoal, steel rulers, and an abacus. "Now, if I make us breathing tubes, do you think we can escape out by the river? We might need assistance-something to help us swim under the gate."
"Oh, yes! Yes, certainly!" The mere mention of water brought stars to Luccio's eyes. "But how do we finance the healing spell for the bird?"
"Tekoriikii-Tekoriikii, say 'aaaaaah'…"
Lorenzo wrenched open Tekoriikii's beak, dove his hand down into the astonished firebird's crop, and came up with an amber necklace and a silver whistle on a string. These rather shop-soiled items were slapped down into Luccio's disgusted hands.
"There! Sell those, and use the money to buy everything we need." Lorenzo paced rapidly back and forth, maniacally ticking items off against a list in his whirring mind. "We need a long rope, pulleys, ball bearings, a water barrel, four twenty-foot-long birchwood boards, a pole, woodworking tools, and the heaviest anvil in the city!"
