The True Queen

by Zen Cho

  “Another favour!” said the polong. “You are like the Dutch asking for land.”

  “I have a letter for the Sorceress Royal,” said Muna, ignoring this cutting remark. “I could entrust it to a servant, but it is a communication of considerable importance and extremely secret. It must not be seen by anyone but Mrs. Wythe, and there is a spirit at her house now who must not know anything of it.”

  The polong was intrigued despite herself. “What sort of spirit?”

  “It is a very great spirit,” said Muna. “An emissary from the Palace of the Unseen, sent by the Queen of the Djinns herself. The message cannot fall into his hands. Will you take it to Mrs. Wythe?”

  Muna had decided upon this as the safest means of ensuring that her message was conveyed to the Sorceress Royal without anyone else’s coming to know of its contents, for she had learnt from the maid Sarah that several of the servants knew their letters. She thought it likely that for once the polong would not consider herself entitled to object to the task, for the carrying of messages was an errand eminently suited to spirits of her class—imps summoned forth from nothingness by magicians desiring a servant.

  Muna was right. After a pause the polong said:

  “Where is this letter?”

  Muna showed it to her. “Pray beg the Sorceress Royal to read it at once. It is urgent.”

  The polong raised an eyebrow. “You do know the witch desired me to be kept secret from the English? I was not to betray my existence by the least sign.”

  “Then you will have to find some means of delivering my letter to the Sorceress Royal without giving away what you are,” said Muna. “That is hardly beyond your powers!”

  The polong gave her a sharp look, but it was not disapproving. “You are cleverer than you look, child. I wonder what mischief you are brewing!”

  “You have the wrong sister for mischief, kak,” said Muna. “I assure you, if Mak Genggang knew what I intended, she would approve.”

  “I doubt that very much!” said the polong—but it took the letter and vanished in a puff of smoke, without further argument.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE Academy’s lessons were conducted in a well-lit, airy room, not too large for the dozen scholars in it—for their numbers had been swelled by several day students. None were as old as Miss Edwards nor as young as Miss Pinder, but their ages ranged from eleven to nineteen, and their abilities were as various as their personalities.

  Muna thought that to teach such a class must be very trying. Henrietta, presiding over the lesson, looked anxious and weary, scarcely recovered from the exertions of the night before. Still, her smile when her eyes met Muna’s wrought a remarkable change to her face, lending it an irresistible sweetness. Despite Muna’s worry about the trials that lay ahead, she found herself smiling back.

  “You have all met our guest Miss Muna,” said Henrietta to the class. “Since she has travelled such a vast distance to study with us, I thought I would invite Miss Muna to choose the spell we shall learn today.”

  She turned to Muna. “You will already have some notion of English thaumaturgy from your reading. Was there any aspect that struck you particularly—any form of enchantery you would like best to understand?”

  Muna would have liked to ask about curses and their correctives, but she doubted whether she would be able to introduce her curiosity about these naturally. She had no wish to divulge the true reason for her interest, for as an instructress Clarissa Midsomer was bound to hear of it—and Miss Midsomer might well be the curseworker in search of whom Muna had come to England.

  She hesitated, conscious of Henrietta’s expectant grey eyes on her.

  “I should like to learn a magic for revelations,” said Muna finally.

  “Revelations?” echoed Henrietta.

  Muna could not ask for a counterbane for the curse, nor for admission to the Unseen World. But it would be something to know what Sakti was doing, and how she was.

  “Like a spell for divining the future,” explained Muna. “But one that would tell you about—about the present.”

  Henrietta’s eyes softened. “I understand you. You wish for news of your friends and family.”

  “Yes,” said Muna, thinking of her fleeting glimpse of Sakti in the vision the polong had vouchsafed her. Perhaps it was unlikely that Henrietta knew such magic as would allow Muna to pierce the walls surrounding the Palace of the Queen of the Djinns and see Sakti—but Muna was very willing to be surprised.

  “I am not acquainted with any enchantments that would achieve the effect you desire,” said Henrietta. Before Muna could experience more than the briefest stab of disappointment, the Englishwoman went on, “But perhaps one could adapt a spell of augury for the purpose. I know one that might answer.”

  From a shelf behind her desk, she took down a tome bound in dark leather.

  “It is a formulation of Isaacson’s,” she explained, flipping the pages carefully, for the paper was delicate, yellowed with age. “A scholar of the last century. Mr. Wythe has a particular regard for his work. It will be an interesting exercise, and instructive for all the scholars, for the spell is incomplete by design.”

  She read out the formula, which consisted of two lines in English:

  Come forth, thou spirits, disclose thy design!

  My heart will receive it, be it pure or malign.

  “Mr. Isaacson was a better magician than he was a poet,” she added in a tone of faint apology. “But it is an ingenious spell, for the enchanter is obliged to complete the poem himself with his own couplet, and that gives the magic its direction. Mr. Isaacson argued that its being incomplete imparted the looseness necessary for a spell of augury. Since the future is not fixed, he said, there can be no fixity in the magic used to foretell what will come.”

  It was charming to see how seriously the girls who had entertained Muna with their gossip took their magic. Perhaps it was to be expected of Miss Edwards that, as the eldest scholar, she should be a model student, hanging on Henrietta’s every word. But even little Alice Pinder did not so much as fidget, and the high-spirited Miss Campbell’s countenance was alive with interest.

  “Presumably if you wished to study the present, you would only need to compose a suitable verse,” said Miss Campbell.

  Henrietta smiled. “Just so.”

  Not all the scholars were pleased to be called upon to compose poetry. Miss Pinder set to the task with all the unself-consciousness of youth, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, but Miss Edwards grew red and flustered as she worked at her couplet. She whispered to Muna that she did not know how she would read it out before the class without withering away from shame.

  “I should not think the elegance of the poem will make any difference to the efficacy of the spell,” said Muna, but this seemed little comfort to Miss Edwards.

  Her distress perplexed Muna, for this part of the task, at least, gave her no anxiety. In Janda Baik versifying was a pursuit to which nearly everyone was addicted. She had only practised the art in Malay before, but she was grateful now for the mysterious education she had received before the curse, for supplying her with such a command of the English language that the words came almost as readily. Her couplet might not meet the English magiciennes’ standard for elegance, since she was not familiar with the conventions that governed English poetry, but she did not fear disgracing herself—at least in the matter of composition.

  Magic was a different matter; she was not nearly so confident of her powers in that regard. When Henrietta said, “Should you like to make the first attempt, Miss Muna?” Muna’s stomach leapt about like a fish caught in a net.

  “I should be delighted,” said Muna, hoping her nervousness was not apparent. “Though I have never performed English magic before, so I beg you will not expect any wonders!”

  She showed He
nrietta the formula she had devised:

  The storm hurls the boat upon the shore;

  For a moment ’tis there—and then ’tis no more.

  Come forth, thou spirits, disclose thy design!

  My heart will receive it, be it pure or malign.

  “But the spell is meant to begin with Mr. Isaacson’s couplet,” said Henrietta, frowning slightly. “And I confess I do not quite see what connection your verses bear to the original.”

  “It is a pantun,” explained Muna. “That is one of the kinds of poems we like best in Janda Baik. The beginning need not have any obvious connection with the rest. The first half is an image, and the sense comes in at the end—that is why I used Mr. Isaacson’s couplet to conclude the poem. If it is a spell that looks into the future, perhaps if one turns it around one will see . . . something else.”

  Henrietta held Muna’s poem up to the light, studying it. “Well, we are wild for novelty here at the Academy,” she said, smiling. “I should like to see what happens—and so will the girls, I am sure.”

  Not without some apprehension, Muna spoke the words of her formula. Then, as the polong had advised her, she added in the barest whisper:

  “If you please!”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Henrietta.

  Muna did not answer, for she had perceived a flicker out of the corner of her eye.

  She blinked. Sure enough, there it was—a distinct ripple in the air, like the patch of vagueness above a pot of boiling water. Narrowing her eyes, she could make out a face, half-transparent and ill-defined, its features continually shifting—the face of a strange spirit. She had succeeded in summoning one, after all!

  Muna gulped, darting a glance at the English magiciennes. Some of the scholars were still scribbling away at their own formulae. Those who had completed their poems to their satisfaction—or had better manners—looked courteous and attentive, but there was nothing to suggest that they had noticed anything out of the ordinary. Henrietta’s forehead was a little furrowed, as though she were trying to discern a faint melody playing in the distance, but she, too, showed no sign of having seen the face.

  “What did you say?” said the face.

  “Oh, er,” said Muna. “The storm hurls the boat upon the shore—”

  “Not that bilge!” said the spirit impatiently. “It was the words at the very end I meant. What did you say then?”

  “‘If you please’?”

  “That was just it! And you were speaking to me?”

  “Yes,” said Muna.

  The polong had told Muna to seek aid from the fine ones—the many lesser spirits, invisible and fleeting, which were the stuff of all magic.

  “In magic, perception counts for as much as action,” the polong had explained. “Mortals have little of the former. To ask them to cast a spell is like asking a blindfolded man to find a path. But with the spirits’ magic you have stolen, you need have no anxiety on that score. You will be able to see the fine ones and address them, and gaining their ear is most of the battle. As for the rest, you will find a civil manner works wonders. The fine ones are so little used to being addressed with courtesy that I should think they will fall over themselves to help.”

  Muna could not quite believe magic could be achieved by mere flattery, and she was acutely conscious of the baffled stares of the English magiciennes, to whom it must appear that she was addressing nothing at all. But it was better to appear mad than powerless, she reassured herself; after all, most powerful witches were a little mad. Trying not to feel silly, Muna said:

  “It was you I longed to see, O great spirit, for I knew you could assist your slave if you wished. I beg you will confer a favour upon this unworthy mortal, who can do nothing without your aid. Pray give effect to my spell!”

  “Miss Muna, if I may ask,” said Henrietta tentatively, “to whom are you speaking?”

  “Sh!” said Muna. She waved her hand to show that she must not be interrupted.

  “Well, that’s doing the civil, ain’t it?” said the fine one. Its voice was a mere faint rustle, so that Muna had to strain her ears to distinguish the words, but there was no mistaking the pleasure in it. “It is a change from being pushed about, I can tell you. There is no bully like a mortal waving a spell in his hand. And the gels are no politer than the men. They are just as given to ordering one about, without so much as a ‘by your leave’! What is this spell you want doing? Give me the form of it.”

  Muna repeated her formula, glancing nervously at the perplexed Henrietta.

  “Ah, it’s prognostication you want, is it?” said the spirit. “But you have cast the spell the wrong way around, you know. With the best will in the world, I could not show you a vision of the future. However, if you don’t much mind what you see, there are other visions I could grant you. What are you after?”

  In truth Muna had already said what she wished to see. The image that began her poem, the reflection that foreshadowed the sense, was a transparent cipher. A storm had cast Muna upon the shore. Crawling over the sands, she had found Sakti—but now she had lost her.

  “I should like to see my sister,” she said in a low voice. “Can you show her to me, sir?”

  The spirit hummed. “We shall have to go backwards, for that is the direction of the spell. But—ah! Here is a vision worth seeing. If you would be so good as to lend me your eyes . . .”

  Before Muna had the opportunity either to consent or refuse, the creature pounced on her. It slithered into her nose and stole into the corners of her eyes.

  It was like breathing in a lungful of Mak Genggang’s sambal while it was frying in oil. The smell was extraordinarily pungent; it scalded the nostrils, bringing tears to the eyes. Muna bent over in a fit of coughing, her eyes stinging. She blinked away the tears and saw—

  * * *

  • • •

  THE light of home.

  Muna was conscious that her physical form was in a foreign land—that her body breathed a cool damp air, surrounded by staring girls in a classroom. But the rest of her was no longer in England. She hovered in the unforgiving glare of the sun, as it shone on Janda Baik, brilliant and omnipresent.

  The sky was a clear pale blue, with white clouds scattered across it like puffs of cotton. Janda Baik lay beneath her, a green gem cradled by the sea. The waves were a riot of reflected light.

  If she had been there in person, she would have been obliged to look away from the glare, but in Muna’s vision she was freed of mortal limitations. She saw, all at once, the island, the sea, the sky, and the dim world beneath the waves, where a mystery slumbered.

  The surface of the sea became still, transparent as glass. A shoal of rock rose out of the seabed—but no, it was not rock, for the two points of red light were a pair of glowing eyes. It was an animal, but such an animal as Muna had never seen or dreamt of: a serpent out of myth, large enough to crush the island in its coils.

  And yet . . . was it true she had never seen it before? There was something familiar about the serpent. Muna looked into its eyes and the skin on her arms prickled. She was visited by a sudden image of a narrow, pale face, above a jewelled pendant.

  Miss Midsomer’s necklace, thought Muna. A snake with red eyes and a broken-off tail. This giant serpent’s body was submerged in the deeps, however. She could not tell what its tail looked like—and besides, what could Clarissa Midsomer have to do with a monster slumbering in the seas off the shores of Janda Baik?

  Deep in the waters, the serpent was cold, but it did not regard the chill. It was only half-awake, and its thoughts were vague and slow. They consisted of a single refrain, repeated drowsily:

  I have been wronged, thought the serpent. I have been wronged.

  What had happened? A spirit so powerful did not lie on the seabed for unknown years to amuse itself. The serpent was not merely hibernating. It was ill—dying
perhaps—or else it was . . .

  Cursed, thought Muna.

  * * *

  • • •

  SHE emerged from the vision gasping for air.

  “Miss Muna? Miss Muna, do you hear me?”

  “Yes,” Muna tried to say, but she could not stop gasping long enough to speak. She attempted to rise, but she was thwarted by her legs giving away beneath her.

  Ready hands reached out for Muna, guiding her kindly and firmly into a chair. She was not to worry—she must sit and rest—she must sniff some sal volatile. A bottle was thrust under Muna’s nose, the scent of which would certainly have roused her if she were not already awake.

  “Oh no, please!” said Muna, pushing the bottle away.

  Someone had pressed a handkerchief into her hand. She raised it to her streaming eyes, and slowly England resettled around her, its soft colourless light blotting out the sunshine of Janda Baik. Muna became conscious of a pair of grey eyes fixed on her, expressive of the greatest concern.

  “Pray do not worry, Miss Stapleton,” she said. Her voice startled her—it was so thin and creaky.

  “Oh, but you are wholly pale!” said Henrietta, distressed. “Pray let me ring for water, or wine.”

  “No, no,” said Muna. “I am quite well.” She looked around for the spirit that had helped her, but the face was nowhere to be seen. Nonetheless she said aloud:

  “Thank you, great spirit! Your slave is grateful.”

  “Not at all,” said the faint voice courteously, out of thin air. “Pleasure to meet a mortal as has any manners at all! I didn’t know there was any such.”

  Muna allowed herself to droop in her chair. Her head was beginning to ache abominably.

  She had asked to see her sister. The fine one must have been confused. It had granted her the wrong vision. It must have been a powerful magic that the fine one had wrought, for the serpent’s slow, dragging thoughts had felt like Muna’s own—as though she had repeated those very words to herself, over and over again, through numberless solitary years.