by Zen Cho
“You are acquainted with these fairies, then?” said Bartholomew.
Damerell’s eyes passed over the women.
“I have not the least idea who these people are,” he said.
Henrietta drew herself up, assuming a magisterial air.
“The hour is arrived,” she boomed, “ye who were once known as Paget Damerell!”
Damerell’s mouth twitched. Rollo quaked at the sight. Poggs had an inconvenient sense of humour and often found amusement in things no one else thought droll. If he should give way to laughter now . . . !
There was no need for Rollo to worry, however. Though he could not know it, Damerell was nearly as nervous as Rollo.
“The use of the past tense is rather worrying!” said Damerell.
“We bear a message from your sworn brother, the Supreme Emperor of the Dark Heavens,” announced Henrietta. She paused.
In truth Henrietta was not altogether reconciled to the message Prunella and Zacharias had concocted with Mr. Hsiang’s assistance; she doubted whether it was right to repeat such paganisms.
It was a view with which Muna had some sympathy, but the two naga breathing down her neck put paid to any reservations she might otherwise have had—it was true that one of them was friendly, but his teeth were just as large as the other’s. Since Henrietta did not speak, Muna interjected:
“What Miss—my mistress means to say is, the Emperor sends his best compliments and he should be obliged if you would return to the heavens directly. You have suffered quite enough to atone for your sins and he begs you will come with us now to the northern skies. There you will be restored to your rightful position among the stars, looking down upon the trivial joys and sorrows of mankind.”
Damerell received this extraordinary message with composure. “I should be honoured to accept your master’s invitation. Permit me a moment to gather up my possessions.”
He looked around his cage, then said, “Here is good news! I have nothing here that I wish to keep. We can be on our way directly.”
“Don’t you want your poetry?” said Muna.
“My dear madam, the opportunity to be free of my poetry is the greatest attraction of your master’s offer,” said Damerell.
“Here,” said Bartholomew sharply, “what’s all this about packing?”
“Your servant’s manners leave much to be desired, sir,” Henrietta told Damerell. She cast a withering look at Bartholomew. “You ought to have him whipped.”
“I am not a servant!” said Bartholomew, but the visitors’ demeanour and grand friends had impressed him. He said, with grudging civility, “You ought to know Damerell is Threlfall’s prisoner, reserved for the Fairy Queen’s delectation. I cannot agree to his leaving on any account.”
Henrietta waved her arm, her vast sleeves lending a magnificent dismissiveness to the gesture. “I am not acquainted with the Fairy Queen, but want shall have to be her master. I suppose you think this gentlemen is a mere mortal!”
“Why, I know he is,” said Bartholomew. “Looks like one. Smells like one.” He looked wistfully at Damerell. “Tastes like one, too, I’d wager!”
“You are fortunate gaming is frowned upon in the northern heavens, for we should certainly profit from your error,” said Henrietta. “This gentleman is not the mere puny Englishman he appears, but the Deity of the Unborn Star, robed for the brief span of a mortal life in human flesh. He was the childhood friend of the Supreme Emperor of the Dark Heavens and erstwhile favourite of that illustrious god, our master.”
This revelation so astonished Damerell that he fell into a fit of coughing. It would not have convinced anyone who was familiar with mortal laughter—Rollo knew it for what it was, and glanced nervously at his brother. But the mortals Bartholomew encountered were rarely in a humour to laugh, and he took no notice.
“Ridiculous!” he sputtered. “Damerell was never a star. Was he?” There was a thread of doubt in Bartholomew’s voice; this was Fairy, after all, where all manner of unlikely things might be true. He turned to Rollo. “It ain’t true, is it?”
“Why,” said Rollo reflectively, “it ain’t uncommon, you know, this sort of thing. Don’t you recall, Barty, how the Fairy Queen used to do the same to her friends and relations? When any of them displeased her, she would take their heart, depriving them of the best part of their magic, and pack them off into exile. She said it learnt ’em manners.”
Muna had fixed a celestial expression upon her face, from which it was beginning to ache. For some reason Rollo’s words made her shiver. A memory came back to her—of being submerged in the depths of the sea, watching the rippling image of the sun through the water . . .
She shook herself. The memory belonged to the serpent she had seen in her vision. There was no reason her heart should tremble in her chest, or her breath come short. Whatever had befallen the serpent had nothing to do with her. Yet she found herself speaking:
“Where did the Queen exile them—these friends and relations?”
“The mortal realm, generally,” said Rollo. “Used to send a horde of them away on the seventh Tuesday of every month.”
“The seventh Tuesday . . . ?” said Henrietta, frowning.
“But why did you never mention this before?” demanded Bartholomew. “It is just like you, Rollo, to let everyone believe you had united yourself with a mortal, when a word of explanation would have saved a world of trouble. When I think of the scandal you caused—the family conferences—the aunts’ complaints—your want of consideration makes me sick!”
Two puffs of smoke rose from his nostrils. Henrietta and Muna edged away from him.
Alarmed, Rollo stammered, “Well, I can’t say I knew, as such. I just meant that it don’t seem unlikely.”
But this only served to aggravate his brother further. “Do you mean to tell me you did not know your own bondmate was a constellation cast down to earth?”
Here Muna intervened, much to Rollo’s relief.
“Really, sir, I am surprised at you,” she said to Bartholomew. “The Deity of the Unborn Star was ignorant of his true nature—and if he knew nothing, how were his friends to have any idea of it? No one remembers their past lives. Our master took particular care to ensure that Mr. Damerell should be no exception. His mortal existence would have been no punishment if he could recall his former glories.”
“I should have thought it would make the punishment all the worse,” said Bartholomew. “I mean to say, I would feel it all the more if I were kicked out of Threlfall and knew it.”
“But it is clear you, sir, are a being of keen sentiments and refined nature,” said Henrietta. “Mr. Damerell was quite different. He was entirely reprobate. It was felt if he could look back upon his noble past, he would not feel his degradation as he ought.”
“There is something in that,” Bartholomew allowed. “But why was he degraded? I mean to say, what crime did he commit?”
Rollo saw Henrietta exchange a panicked look with Muna; it was clear they had never got so far as to invent a crime for Damerell to have committed. Before he could grow too anxious, however, Muna said:
“My mistress is loath to pollute the air of Threlfall with the name of his crime. I am afraid to say, sir, that Mr. Damerell was”—her voice dropped—“an inveterate gambler!”
Bartholomew nodded with a worldly-wise air. “Ah, the usual story! Gambled his way to ruin—lost all he had, I suppose?”
“On the contrary,” said Damerell, “I begin to remember all. I won with such regularity that it impoverished all my acquaintance, and it was necessary to teach me a lesson. I am now chastened and regret being so unfeeling.” He bowed to Henrietta and Muna. “Shall we return so that I may tender a suitably grovelling apology to my old friends?”
“But you can’t go,” objected Bartholomew. “I said.”
“You don’t mean to say you are wi
lling to affront the Imperial Lord—the Dark and Mysterious Sovereign of the Upper Heavens?” cried Henrietta.
Fairies were invariably snobbish and Rollo’s family was no exception, but even these grand titles did not move Bartholomew. “That is just what I do mean,” he said. “Either it is he or my aunt who is to be incensed, and I should much rather vex your Imperial Lord than my aunt Georgiana. And if you met my aunt, you would know the reason why! Do not you agree it is much the safest course, Rollo?”
He turned to his brother. As he gestured, it exposed the tender spot just below his foreleg.
Out of the corner of his eye Rollo saw Muna nudge Henrietta. But Henrietta was already drawing from beneath her voluminous robes an elegant filigree hairpin, inlaid with kingfisher feathers. She stepped forward and stabbed it into the soft flesh under Bartholomew’s leg.
“Ow!” cried Bartholomew.
Muna seized Henrietta’s arm, dragging her out of the way as the dragon whirled around, opening his jaw.
“We’ll have none of that!” said Rollo. He caught his brother’s jaw between his teeth, but they had scarcely begun to struggle together when Bartholomew staggered. His eyes rolled back in their sockets. For an endless moment he stood, swaying. Then, with all the ponderous majesty of an ancient tree being felled, he crashed into the dust.
Muna and Henrietta leapt away just in time. They huddled against the cave wall, panting.
“You ha’n’t killed him?” said Rollo, awed.
Henrietta smoothed down her dress with shaking hands.
“Oh no!” she said. “That is to say, I hope not! We enchanted the hairpin, but it is only a sleeping charm. We used to sing it over the infants at Mrs. Daubeney’s school. Mr. Wythe said it ought to work even upon grown dragons if we put some of Fairy’s magic in it, since it is such stronger stuff than the atmospheric magic we have in England.”
“Quite right,” said Damerell from his cage. “That is why Rollo and I sought Mrs. Wythe’s assistance. Mortal magicians are more powerful in Fairy than they realise, since they are so accustomed to making the most of thinner magic. The least breath of air in Fairy contains a stronger draught of magic than many thaumaturges will ever taste.
“It was an ingenious idea to employ one of your quaint schoolgirl charms, Miss Stapleton,” he added, bowing to Henrietta. “No fairy would have expected that.”
“Had not we better get you out of that cage, sir?” said Muna. “Surely we should get away as soon as we can.” She glanced at Bartholomew’s slumbering bulk.
“I am entirely of your mind, madam,” said Damerell. “But first . . . Miss Stapleton, if you would allow me to examine your weapon?”
Henrietta gave him the hairpin. He brought it up to his eyes, saying to Muna, “We have not been introduced, but Rollo mentioned you. We are very much obliged to you for passing our message to Mrs. Wythe. I must say I had not realised that the fame of our Academy had spread so far abroad as to draw our foreign colleagues to us.”
“The Sorceress Royal is the friend of my mistress, Mak Genggang,” explained Muna.
“Indeed! I recollect the lady. A witch of considerable parts. Now, this is a fine piece,” he said, admiring the hairpin. “And the charm is ingenious. Inducing sleep is not its only effect, I think?”
“Prunella altered it a little,” said Henrietta. “She added an alexiteric to counteract the effects of any Fairy magic. Even if the dragon were to wake prematurely, he would find his magic inhibited for a time.”
“Very clever,” said Damerell. “The charm is not wholly exhausted, I think. What do you think, Rollo?”
Rollo lowered his head to the cage to study the hairpin. He saw Damerell’s hand dart out between the bars, but he did not realise what it intended until he felt the pricking in his neck. He looked down, catching just a glimpse of the light gleaming off the silver pin embedded in his scales.
“Poggs!” he cried, but his tongue would not shape the words of reproach that sprang to it. Damerell’s face dissolved into vagueness as insensibility drew Rollo into its embrace.
* * *
• • •
“OH, Mr. Damerell!” exclaimed Henrietta. She sounded as shocked as Muna felt.
Muna had planned to remain only till she had seen Mr. Damerell out of his cage; then she had meant to create a distraction and slip away. But she forgot her plan at the sorry sight of Rollo sinking to the ground. She leapt forward, drawing the hairpin out of Rollo’s flesh, but it was too late. The naga stirred and whimpered but did not wake.
“How could you?” said Muna. She tucked the hairpin away in her robes, out of Damerell’s reach.
But Damerell ignored her. “I beg you will take a step back. Two yards’ distance should suffice.”
To the women’s astonishment, one side of the cage fell over at his touch. Damerell stepped out, as composed as though he were alighting from a hackney coach outside the Theurgist’s Club.
“The air of liberty,” he remarked. “All the sweeter for not being perfumed by the effluvium of princesses past!”
“Could you do that all along?” demanded Muna.
Damerell inclined his head. “It is an old cage, and the Threlfalls did not account for the operation of blood upon metal. Several of the bars have nearly rusted away. But if I had broken free before, I should not have enjoyed my liberty for long before Bartholomew devoured me.
“You need not feel sorry for Rollo, my dear girls,” he added. “When he wakes he will agree that I only did what was necessary. His aunt stopped up his magic, you see, and unfortunately the nature of our contract meant that in consequence my magic, too, was bound. Mrs. Wythe’s alexiteric will neutralize the fetters Rollo’s aunt placed upon him, which should mean that I shall regain access to my own magic.”
“But won’t it cancel out your magic too?” said Muna, far from reconciled. It did seem hard on Rollo that he should have gone to such lengths to arrange Damerell’s rescue, only to be downed ignominiously by the very man he sought to liberate.
“I think it will not,” said Damerell. “I am still—mostly—mortal. I do not owe all my magic to Fairy.” He rolled his shoulders and shook out his sleeves, breathing deeply. “I believe it has worked. I feel myself grow stronger already.”
“Still, I don’t see that there was any need to knock out poor Mr. Threlfall,” Muna protested. “We could have supplied all the magic we needed.”
“We are in the heart of Threlfall, madam,” said Damerell. “We shall need all the magic we can get.”
His tone was gentle, but it silenced Muna.
“But how are we to bring Mr. Threlfall away?” said Henrietta, gazing at Rollo in consternation. “I know he only wished us to free you, but we cannot leave him here!”
“No, indeed,” said Damerell. He considered his fallen bondmate. “But it is true he is rather unwieldy as he is now.” He placed his hand on the naga’s head, muttering a formula under his breath.
Under the effect of the spell, Rollo changed. He lost his golden sheen, his scales sinking into his flesh and his hindquarters retracting into his person. By degrees he transformed into a young man—slight, blond and, since of course dragons did not generally wear anything but a ferocious expression, quite improper for a lady to look upon.
Henrietta and Muna sprang back with a shriek, covering their eyes. Damerell hoisted Rollo up and slung him over his shoulder.
“I beg you will not mention that you saw Rollo en déshabillé,” said Damerell. “Poor fellow, he would be so abashed! We must hope it will not occur to him to wonder what happened after I struck him down. Come along.”
But the words had scarcely left his lips when an enormous voice like a foghorn blared out, making Muna jump.
“Good morrow, Bartholomew!” cried the voice. “Is Rollo out a-flying?”
Henrietta and Damerell blanched, exchanging looks of dismay.<
br />
“Who is that?” said Muna, for recognition was patent on both English magicians’ faces.
“Mr. Threlfall’s aunt, Georgiana Without Ruth!” whispered Henrietta. “Oh, sir, what shall we do?”
“She was not supposed to return till the evening,” said Damerell, vexed. “Damn! It is a judgment upon me. I was a fool to believe I had any hope of preserving this coat!”
16
GEORGIANA WITHOUT RUTH
THE DRAGONESS GEORGIANA Without Ruth heaved herself into her cavern with no very light heart. She had worn herself out in representations at the Fairy Court, but its stewards had remained obdurate. She had not even been admitted to the Fairy Queen’s presence, for the Queen was busy, said the stewards.
The Queen had never been too busy to receive the chief representative of Threlfall before. But seeing protest was fruitless, Georgiana had left with what remained of her dignity.
“Well, Bartholomew, I have tried to put off the evil day, but there is nothing for it,” she said. “We shall have to surrender our guest after all. What poison has been poured into the Queen’s ear I do not know, but she is persuaded we mean to unseat her. We must assure her of Threlfall’s loyalty, or we are lost! It is a pity—I had hoped to avoid the sacrifice—but it cannot be helped. Why, what’s this?”
Bartholomew was stretched out upon the ground, lost to the world. A golden dragon crouched over him, its face in shadow.
A mortal might have thought the scene was hardly one to cheer a mind so burdened with cares as Georgiana’s. But she cried out, in surprise mixed with delight:
“Rollo, do not tell me you have overpowered your brother!”
“We had a disagreement,” said the golden dragon indistinctly. “Ought I to eat him? I confess I don’t like the thought! Besides, I have caught my dinner already.”
If not for the fact that the dragon’s voice was muffled, Georgiana might have noticed that Rollo did not sound like his usual self. But he held three rabbits in his jaws, which could not but impede his speech. Besides, she was too overcome by his accomplishment to be detained by trifles.
