Once a Princess

by Sherwood Smith

  The pirate put his point down and leaned on it. “Sasharia Zhavalieshin?”

  “No, Snilch Gritchpea,” I said crossly, trying to unsuccessfully to wipe the sweat from my eyes but my arm was as sweaty as my face. “I’d like to go home now.”

  Devli claimed our attention by swaying then falling face down. Elva knelt and sniffed. “pepper-poison!” she cried.

  And, despite the many years since I had breathed this world’s air, there in my mind was the spell my father had taught me. Before I could think I’d muttered it. On earth for a time I’d practiced my father’s spells, but they’d never worked, or barely gathered magic. Here a sudden surge of power ran through me and zapped over Devli in a faint, coruscating light. He sat up gasping.

  Devli and Elva stared at me.

  The pirate gave me a pensive smile. “And you want to remain on a world where there’s no magic?”

  “Well at least they have aspirin,” I muttered. The backlash of powerful magic hit me. I sank to the ground and put my head on my knees.

  Chapter Three

  “We have listerblossom steep.” Elva sounded subdued.

  Steep was tea, that I remembered from childhood. Listerblossom, my mother had once told me was probably related to willow. It was remarkably effective as a fever reducing analgesic.

  “May I suggest a strategic retreat?” the pirate saluted us with his sword. “Half those boys are hiding inside, but they might combine and rush out for some more sport.”

  “Here.” Devli drew in a cautious breath, touched his arm, smiled. Then straightened up. “Hands together. I left a transfer token in a...a place of safety. Brace yourselves.”

  “Are you well enough to do a multiple transfer?” his sister asked, concerned.

  Devli’s eyes widened. “Oh yes. Better! Because that wasn’t an antidote. There is no antidote to pepper-poison. If you survive it, you sweat it out. That magic I don’t even know, but I recognise the effect. Its old Morvende magic, taught to Price Mathias Zhavalieshin.”

  They all stared at me, evidence of the previous generation’s problems.

  I pressed my hands to my eyes, someone touched my shoulder...

  ...and we transferred. But this time it was quick causing no more than an inward jolt and a twinge of queasiness. A short distance them.

  Dim lighting—smell of damp stone—I knew I was underground before I even saw the cave around me. The room was small and round with several dark archways leading off who knows where. In the center sat a low circular table on it a neat stack of pressed paper, an inkwell and a quill pen that Devli had obviously set up in case of need. The light came from a glowglobe set in a wooden holder. Next to the paper lay Devli’s transfer token, which had given him something to focus on in the absence of a regular destination chamber.

  Destination chamber more blasts from the past.

  “We are safe.” Devli bowed to me. “Devlaen Eban, journey mage, sworn to your father’s service.”

  “Elva Eban, navigator aboard the flipping squid. I...” Elva stopped, and shrugged. “I’m not a mage, but I joined Devli to help.” She scowled at the pirate, who leaned in an archway. “Devli’s group has been working to find your father, free him and restore him to the throne.”

  Devlaen whisked himself away somewhere behind me, but I was too tired to look.

  Father. Throne. Plots.

  Not again.

  “Sit down.” Elva peered worriedly into my face. “Cushions over in this alcove.”

  She carried the glowglobe through one of the archways, which opened into a smaller chamber. On the rock floor someone had spread an old carpet worked in green-dyed wool and on the carpet had scattered cushions. I dropped gratefully onto the nearest one, next to a short-legged table with ink, quills and more paper waiting, this time little message squares of various sizes. Elva set the glowglobe next to the inkstand.

  “Flipping Squid?” I looked up at her, trying not to laugh.

  Elva gave me a twisted grin. “Well I didn’t pick that name.”

  The pirate lounged down onto the pillows with an easy swing that suggested courtyard fights were nothing new. “Ships tend to change hands rather often off our shores. It’s traditional.”

  Elva muttered not quite under her breath, “So says a pirate.”

  “Privateer,” he corrected.

  “But you have no letter of marquee,” Elva retorted.

  “Of course not,” he answered, amicably enough. “How can I get one from the real king when he’s missing? And I don’t think I’d like to apply t the current king since it’s his ships along with carious other enemies who are my prey.”

  Elva sniffed. “Talk about stupid names.” She turned to me with a dismissive backoff-hand toward the privateer. “Ask his name.”

  “Zathdar is the name of my flagship.” He smiled. “It works well enough for us both.”

  Elva glared. “So why don’t you tell us your real name?”

  “Zathdar,” I repeated wanting out of that argument before it started. My head hurt too much. I gave him a mock frown. “There wouldn’t be any apostrophes in it would there?”

  “Apostrophes?” he pronounced the word in English. It hadn’t translated out in Khani.

  Seeing that Elva had stopped glaring and was curious I reached for the smallest Z’ath’d’ar in English.

  “Flyspecks.” The pirate turned the paper this way and that. “The letters seem clear, but the purpose of the flyspecks?”

  “Well in magic stories at home, heroes or villains have names that begin with Z,” I’d said. “And a lot of apostrophes. Just checking you know if you’re a hero—or a villain.”

  Zathdar compressed his lips into a firm line, as if he was trying hard not to laugh. “Perhaps the absence of flyspecks will serve as my proof that I am neither. Just an ordinary fellow”

  “Wearing a red vest with a lime green sash,” I interjected and he laughed.

  “Going about my ordinary business.”

  Elva snorted so loudly her sinuses probably buzzed.

  Before she could shoot an insult pirate-ward I grabbled on, “Dar I recall means spring in Sartoran, at least as a suffix.” I paused, remembering my father’s patient voice as he tutored me in tents while rain poured down, on the deck of a smuggling ship in an old castle tower. His graceful hands as he sketched out the Sartoran letters, which Khani had adopted. “Zath is storm”

  Elva crossed her arms, sitting bolt upright on her cushion. “It means hurricane. Who but a villain calls himself hurricane?”

  “The spring storms that come down on the other side of the continent are the fall storm up north” the privateer Zathdar said. `They come fast and are hard to fight out at sea. It`s a great name for a pirate ship. Privateer. So it works for me too. `

  I turned to him. “Do you have another name?”

  Blue eyes gazed back at me, their expression friendly but observant. “Jervaes is my family name.” His features were even. I couldn’t see his hair, or even if he had any, because of the bandana.

  “Jervaes. Sounds familiar. I think.” I turned to Elva. “Anything wrong with it?”

  She shrugged. “A common enough Sartoran name.”

  Devli reappeared smiling with triumph as he held out a heavy ceramic mug to me. He dropped down next to his sister.

  The smell was so refreshing it alone almost banished my headache. It also awoke emotions from my childhood, making my eyes sting. I slurped tea to hide my reaction, breathing in the aroma of a field of rain-washed and sun-drenched herbs waving in a gentle wind. The taste was fresh and herbal I drank the tea down and immediately felt better.

  Zathdar the hurricane privateer said, “Why don’t you tell us your end of things so we can put it together with what we know?”

  “Sounds reasonable...” I began, but Elva cut in.

  “No,” she stated, chin up. “At least not until you finds your way back to your ship.”

  Zathdar gave her a quick, challenging grin. “Why don�
��t you find you way back to yours?”

  Elva flushed. “Because I know my brothers friends they are all trustworthy. I know they mean to restore Prince Math to the throne, if Queen Ananda doesn’t want to rule on her won. If we can find out where he’s hidden. You showed up knowing our plan, followed us to the World Gate castle without any invitation...”

  “Saved you butts,” I put in, trying to keep things fair.

  “Oh I think the three of us could have gotten out without his sword waving around,” Elva retorted with commendable bravado, but even she didn’t seem convinced.

  Especially when Devli shook his head slowly but emphatically. “Bad as those fellows were we were no help, and Sasharia couldn’t have fought them alone. Without him we’d be in Prince Jehan’s grip right now. Or far worse war commander Randart’s.”

  Elva shuddered, then squared her shoulders. “I don’t trust this fellow. Too many unexplained coincidences.”

  “There aren’t any coincidences from my end.” Zathdar sat back on his cushion and clasped his hands around one knee. “One of my crew heard one of your friends asking questions all around lands end harbour, hinting at plots that include mages, world gates, and the name Zhavalieshin. They reported it to me. Some investigation led me to the mage students. They were quite easy to follow.” He nodded at Devli, who blushed.

  “It was our fault we kept our headquarters at cousin Nads house,” Devli admitted.

  Zathdar continued. “King Canardan was not too stupid to investigate the houses of the former stewards belonging to the old king, he was probably too arrogant. But obviously that changed. I believe the attack on the old castle which everyone who knows anything about magic knows holds a destination accessible to the world gate is proof enough that the king’s men were right on your heels.”

  Elva sighed. “Alright so we made some mistakes. But I still have questions.”

  “Well why not discuss them on the ride down to the river where I’ve hidden my flagship? Prince Jehan’s men will be busy searching all over and we cannot hole up in this cave forever.”

  Elva looked at her brother who spread his hands then at me.

  I copied Devli’s gesture.

  “Let’s go,” she muttered.

  Chapter Four

  She said those words at the very same moment that, away in time and space through the World Gate, sunshine dancing star Zhavalieshin (known since her thirty-fifth birthday as sun, which was the best damage control she could do with that stupid name she’d made legal back when she was twenty-two, complete with lowercase initial letters) picked up her cell phone.

  At the hotel-room door, Roger stood patiently. “Coming? We might not get a cab in time to make the curtain.”

  Sun said, “Sasha has never ignored my calls before. One more try.”

  Roger murmured, “Maybe she didn’t pay her bill?”

  Sun gave him an ironic look. “I may be an old hippie. And my daughter is a child of a hippie. But Sasha’s too practical to skip paying bills. You ought to know that by now.”

  “I know you two are half-crazy with all your talk of World Gates and what all.” He grinned adding under his breath, “But that’s part of the fun of being around you.”

  “Hello?” sun stood strait, her brows arching in surprise. “I take it you’re not my daughter Sasha.”

  At the other end of the phone Dougie quickly recovered his surprise at hearing a female voice. “Nah. I was hoping you’d know where she was.” How was he to know his dope connection wasn’t calling back? Stupid old bag having a blocked number. Everyone knows only drug dealers have blocked numbers.

  “I am Moira Muller,” sun snapped. “Who is this and why are you using my daughter’s phone?”

  At first Dougie had thought asking where Sasha had been a pretty cool answer like lob the ball back at whoever was calling. He wouldn’t have to explain why he had Sasha’s phone. But.

  Dougie said fast, “I’m trying to find Sasha. She like took off earlier. With some suit. I thought they were in here all afternoon.” He snickered at the idea of lawyers doing the horizontal Olympics and charging people for their time. “But when I tapped at the door like it you know opened. She aint here. Or the suit” he added.

  The lawyer again, Sun thought. Stick to the point. “What I am to understand is that my daughter was visited by, or is visiting, a lawyer, but that does not explain who you are, and why you are using her phone.”

  “Well it was just layin’ around”

  “Lying”

  “I am not!”

  Sun said with the quick sharp consonants that made it clear to Roger, at least, she was very angry. “The phone was lying there. Unless it was laying baby phones? Use the language properly, and tell me why you have my daughter’s phone, and who you are.”

  Dougie cursed the old bag Sasha the phone but only inside his head. He was about to sling her some bull but he remembered a show on which the cops traced cell phones. Crap! Maybe it hadn’t been such a hot idea to make his connection with someone else’s phone like he’d first thought.

  “I’m Doug. Roommate,” he muttered. And in a whine, “Like I told ya, she like took off with the bozo in the suit, and hasn’t come back. Her car’s out front and everything. I was hopin’ the phone would find her” “What is the address?”

  Dougie stared at the phone, appalled. What if this old broad really was a cop? He closed the phone and tossed it into Sasha’s closet. “Hell.” He slammed the door behind him.

  On the other side of the continent, Sun looked across the hotel room at roger. “I have to go back,” she said.

  “Back to what?” though he knew the answer.

  “To LA right now.” Sun’s eyes were tense with worry. “Sasha would never” she shook her head. “I have to find her. That strange message she left, and she won’t take my calls? Some idiot using her phone, obviously without her permission? I’m afraid I know where she’s gone.”

  Roger flung the hotel key card on the nightstand. “You’re not going to say something easy to hear or to believe are you.”

  Sun spread her hands. “If she went out of the world, it means she was taken against her will.” And when roger shook his head, she studied him, saying slowly, “You don’t believe me do you? In fact you never did.”

  Roger approached stopping halfway across the room. “What was I supposed to think? Oh I never thought you outright lied. And I do know the difference between lie and lay.”

  The feeble attempt at a joke did not bring an answering smile, only a troubled stare. He half held out a hand, but Sun stood there by the window of their suite in the Omni Hotel, below which the traffic of 52nd street hissed and honked, voices in at least three languages echoing up the buildings.

  He said, “I always thought your story was one of your hippie metaphors. Like your names the fact that the name you gave me is not the same on as on your passport, which isn’t the one you pay your taxes under. All your identities seemed your way of keeping your friends at a distance.”

  Her brows snapped together. “I was always upfront with you.”

  “I know. I expressed it badly. I’ve the time, the money, and I’ve always enjoyed being your cavalier sevente. No one else like the same music the same art the same kinds of conversations. And it was those things that convinced me; well you might change your mind one day. You might want more than a cavalier sevente with time and money. And the same taste in opera.”

  “You’ve been a good friend,” she said gently.

  “So what’s the bottom line here?” Roger asked. “What happens if you go to LA and get swept off to some mystery place? Though I can’t really believe it. Even the king is easier to swallow.”

  Sun rubbed her hands up her arms, which she’d kept in fighting shape, though she’d ceased to let herself believe she’d see Math again. Nor had she quite believed he was dead. Her one steady conviction over all these years was that she couldn’t bear to go back to search to discover there was no hope. She’d hoped h
e would find them. Like he’d sworn on his honour, on his hear, before he pushed them through the gate back to earth.

  And left them there.

  She wiped her eyes. “I can’t answer that. Maybe I’ve been weak. Chickenhearted. Trying to outrun the past.” She drew in a long steadying breath. “But one thing I can promise you. I’m going to find whoever it was who grabbed Sasha and I’m going to kick them from here to Pluto. Because even if I don’t rack many points as an ex-princess nobody, nobody messes with MOM.”

  Chapter Five

  “Tell me more about these flyspecks?” Zathdar asked presently. “In your world, the flyspecks on a written record signify someone chosen for a great quest? Or signify someone who chooses to thwart a seeker?”

  “Chosen by the writer.” I laughed.

  He just looked puzzled.

  The two of us were alone. The siblings had dashed off, Devli pausing only to grab the mug from my fingers. Until he asked his question, we’d just sat quietly, me with my eyes shut as I did my yoga breathing in an effort to get rid of the last of the headache.

  I sighed, not wanting to explain that I had actually missed Sartorias-deles terribly, so much that I had read every fantasy I could get from the library, and later, the bookstore. Most of those books were delightful, making me wonder if the writers secretly saw another world and just hid it behind the guise of fiction, for whatever reason. I’d read for escape, and also for answers hoping someone would have a story set here, though I had never encountered one.

  To tell the truth I badly wanted to come back, all my life. But I wanted to come back to dad, and a happy existence like my early childhood. I did not want to be taken back without my consent, especially to be thrown into what was beginning to sound like the same mess we’d escaped only worse. Because dad was still missing.

  Zathdar regarded me with that puzzled look. I did not want to talk about my dad to a pirate. So what was the previous subject? Oh yeah, apostrophes. “even when you love the stories, when you read a lot sometimes certain, oh what we call in English ‘tropes’ tend to show up over and over. I guess some writers read them when young, and think they have to use the same ones. Like the flyspecks in names.”