Bronwyn missed the capital of Greater Frostingdung, stepping over it and back three times before she had the presence of mind to stumble backwards at an angle and take half a step and hop the other foot down with the first. This expedient threw her off balance and she landed rolling in the courtyard. Anas-tasia had disengaged herself from the Princess after the first miss and had flown the last seven leagues to the palace. Now she flapped above the Princess, hissing, “For mercy’s sake, Your Highness, take off those blasted boots.”
Bronwyn, only too glad to obey, sat tugging at them in the middle of the courtyard when something snagged on her foot and swore, then said in a voice very like Jack’s, “Ah, my Princess, I knew you would return to save us!”
“I’ll do no such thing!” she snapped, looking vainly around for him. She was already half wild with frustration and the overwhelming desire to rise and wield her sword where it most needed wielding, dispensing with this minor local dispute which had had the gall to involve her friends so she and they could move smartly along to the real war at home.
“The boots, boy—er—wherever you may be. Help your lady remove her seven-league boots or she will not be long for this country.”
Bronwyn stuck out her feet, though she still saw neither Jack nor anyone else. She was startled, therefore, though not at all displeased when the boots were sucked from her feet as if by the wind.
“Excellent,” Anastasia said. “I take it, young man, that you have some reasonable explanation for not showing yourself.”
“It is my hidebehind disguise,” Jack’s voice said from the direction of Bronwyn’s throbbing feet. “Mistress Raspberry made it. Is it not clever?”
But just then Carole stumbled out of the castle and ran toward them. “Bronwyn! You’re back. The Mother be praised! I was trying to rouse someone in the palace to help us, but Droughtsea’s put a sleeping spell on everybody, from the look of them. We’ll have to lower the drawbridge ourselves.”
“That’s not important,” Bronwyn told her, “Wait till you hear—”
A gargling scream rent the night. “Never mind. We have to hurry. Come on! Droughtsea and Loefrig have locked the Emperor and his men outside the palace and sicced monsters on them. We may be too late already.”
Bronwyn rose, digging her fingertips into her ears and wiggling them to try to stop the popping caused by the up-and-down movement of the boots. When the background roaring in her ears ceased, she could hear more clearly the scuffle emanating from the battlements.
The few sword-bearing men-at-arms outlined in the night sky above the ramparts all had their backs to the courtyard, and though they seemed engrossed in whatever was taking place in or across the moat, they did not seem to be embroiled in warfare, or even particularly upset over anything. They rather looked as if they were enjoying themselves.
Assorted screams, cries, and bestial shrieks were suddenly interrupted by Emperor Loefwin’s angry voice. “Dammit, what sort of moat monster are you, anyway, Tape? I’m the Emperor! This is MY palace! You’re supposed to be protecting me. Let me in now! I command it!”
The Tape responded with a high-pitched squeal. Bronwyn had no doubt it was citing some regulation contradictory to the Emperor’s interests.
“The drawbridge, Carole!” Rusty’s voice cried from the ramparts. “Lower the drawbridge! They’re being slaughtered down there.”
Carole tore the shield from her arm and tossed it to Bronwyn and ran, and Bronwyn, still trying to decide what was happening, scrambled to her feet and ran after her.
Rusty’s voice had been heard by others as well, and several of the soldiers detached themselves from the wall and clattered down the stairs.
The pulley to hoist the drawbridge was beside the portcullis and Carole threw herself upon it, feeling in the darkness for the handholds by which it could be operated.
The door to the guard tower banged open and a half dozen men, their naked swords drawn, rushed into the courtyard. Bronwyn stood between them and her cousin.
“Your luck is ill this night, villains,” she said. “For you have crossed Bronwyn the Bold. Prepare to die.” And so saying she slashed—and felt a thrill and shock when her blade connected with another, and yet another, as she fought the six of them back to the wall, her steel ringing on theirs.
However, the first time her sword bit into flesh, nearly severing a man’s arm, she found she had to scream her battle cry to keep from getting sick, and also to keep from watching his blood spurt. She knew that if she gave in to that sort of morbid fascination, her own blood would very rapidly join his on the ground. She tried not to think that what she was dealing her foe could very well be dealt to her—and might have already been dealt to her father.
A man on her right lunged at her with a broken spear and tripped, nearly impaling himself. He was saved by one of his comrades, who also tripped and fell against him, knocking him aside. Bronwyn thought at first they were simply very clumsy enemies, but when they all started tripping and tumbling, and when their fellows clattering from the battlements to aid them started falling down the stairs and over each other, she knew her invisible allies had come to her assistance.
Carole was still struggling with the pulley, and Bronwyn leaped over the jumbled bodies of three guards. Pushing Carole aside, Bronwyn grasped the wheel and turned hard, and it gave at once under her weight. As Bronwyn looked up, the bridge crashed down in front of her, braining what appeared to be a two-headed bear that had been about to tear the face from one of Loefwin’s game wardens.
Of the hunting party, only the Emperor had been mounted, and his horse now lay bleeding in the snow. Monsters and men alike staggered, still locked in combat, across the drawbridge, while the Tape snarled itself into ever higher and more indignant tangles. Bronwyn charged the cluster of beasts surrounding Loefwin and they broke apart to face her. She cut into them with less chagrin than she had felt attacking her human foe, and congratulated herself on becoming a hardened veteran so quickly. Then Loefwin beheaded two monsters with one swipe of his sword and she abruptly turned away and searched for opponents who weren’t inclined to bleed so alarmingly.
Invisible ribbons threaded through the melee, confusing the efforts of both sides. Bronwyn ignored them to slash a wolf-faced, five-armed boar savaging a game warden. But no sooner had she slain the beast than the man it had been attacking vanished, all except his sword arm, which hacked ineffectively and seemingly independently. Rusty’s disembodied voice cried, “Release him, fiend!” and something gave a windy scream before the man popped back into sight.
When the next monster Bronwyn tried to engage pranced four paces back, four forward, and chased its forked tail three times in succession, and the half-griffin to its right bowed and repeated its movements, she sensed Carole’s fine choreography at work. Soon she too could hear the tune but she didn’t find it inspiring to her own sore feet. Carole was evidently learning to discriminate between the musical tastes of people and those of monsters, though some of the Emperor’s goblinesque vassals twinkled their toes as they dashed about dispatching foes.
Bronwyn almost wished her cousin had not been so readily able to bring the situation under control, but glory give way to expedience under the circumstances. Sometimes even a natural-born leader had to control her lust for battle when the good of the common cause was at stake. Therefore, she didn’t begrudge Carole the full use of her awesome power to turn the tide of the battle with unsporting speed. Stepping over several bodies of various persuasions, she helped Loefwin, who had been driven to his knees, rise.
Loefwin slew a couple of monsters himself, and the misshapen beasts danced but also raked and snapped, and stank as if they’d already been dead several years. Under Carole’s spell, the creatures were dancing themselves to exhaustion, and were so vulnerable to the harvesting blades of the King’s men that Bronwyn almost began to feel sorry for them.
Carole stopped whistling for a moment, and two of the monsters, apparently either less sensitive to music or more terrified than the others, broke and ran, waddling and howling back across the bridge. The Tape’s long thin head nipped up from the moat and gobbled one of them whole. It made an unsightly bulge in the moat monster’s sleek form. The other galloped through the deserted streets between the blocky, whitewashed, iron-banded houses to the outer gate. No guards manned the outer wall that Bronwyn could see, and apparently the great doors had been left unbolted, for the creature flung itself against them and they gave, releasing it into the night.
“Perhaps,” Loefwin said thoughtfully, pausing before he brought his iron blade across the bulky neck of a half-bull, “we should spare these things. They’re useful for meat, after all. The men who allowed them entrance are another…”
A bat-winged horror swept down upon the Emperor, stabbing with its needle nose. The Emperor’s trained reflexes saved him, and he rolled aside, whereupon the flier buried its nose in the monster’s neck.
Bronwyn wheeled, her shield knocking aside the nose of another just in time. She looked up. A black cloud of the fliers hung against the moon for a brief flash, dispersed, and rained agony on the exposed party beneath it, stinging man and monster alike. Bronwyn had to dodge and twist, contorting herself until she felt like a rag to keep the shield in front of her. Some of the men began bolting for the guard tower—others fell, scratching themselves so hard they drew bloody circles in the snow.
Carole switched tunes and shrilled a retreat as she dashed for the tower. The monsters, released from their previous dance, fled back across the drawbridge. Only the men remained and Bronwyn slung one of the fallen ones under each arm to lug them to safety. They scratched and writhed so pitifully that she found it impossible to carry them, so she punched each of them in the head. They straightened right out, and she delivered them and returned to the courtyard for others.
Loefwin also carried wounded from the field. The screaming, crying, moaning, and swearing were so loud that Bronwyn wondered whether the sleeping spell was sufficient to keep the denizens of the palace in their beds. And why hadn’t the people in the village surrounding the castle sought to aid their Emperor? No doubt everyone knew when they were well off, and felt curiosity an unaffordable luxury.
The fliers reformed, blotting out the moon again, their spear-like stingers aimed at Loefwin and Bronwyn. Bronwyn shouted to the Emperor, who had his fist raised to knock out the victim he was trying to transport. At her shout, the Emperor looked up, and his passenger’s elbow caught him under the chin, knocking him backwards into the snow.
The other bodies, which had been levitating of their own accord, dropped like rocks and Jack, Rusty, and Gilles Kilgilles appeared, racing for the fallen Loefwin. Before they could reach him, however, something flew over them so fast it blew their hair into their eyes, and the bandy-legged, green form of Loefrig hopped down beside his brother and began dragging him towards the tower.
The fliers stormed down upon them, one striking Gilles, another hitting the frogman broadside, not neglecting to pierce him on the way. Bronwyn threw herself across Jack and Loefwin, her shield on top of them all, deflecting fliers as they charged. Gilles’ cries and Loefrig’s pitiful croaking made Bronwyn feel like crying too but she resisted. What sort of warrior cried in the middle of a battle? Her sort, she realized, as the tears flowed while she did her best to protect her remaining friends. She had no idea where Mistress Raspberry was, until she heard a flier scream and caught a glimpse of the lady crouched under an ornamental bench. Her pointed tongue daintily licked in a feather. But even if she changed herself into a flier, Rusty alone couldn’t hope to defeat the entire flock.
The fliers regrouped for another attack, but this time when they dispersed, it was to fall leadenly to the ground, burning as they fell, till they lay like dead coals in the snow.
A clod of brown fell beside one of them, and Bronwyn looked up, wonderingly. The piece of sky they had formerly occupied was now filled with flying horses. In a thrice, these were herded to a landing in the courtyard by Mirza, Mashkent, and the black djinn with the gold earrings. Bronwyn disengaged herself from Jack and the Emperor so Loefwin could rise to greet his deliverers. Mirza and Mashkent dismounted and made their sweeping, ripple-fingered bows, not to Loefwin, but to her.
“About time you got here,” she said, not ungratefully.
“We trust our arrival will be deemed Profitable to all,” Mashkent replied.
* * *
Bronwyn felt oddly invigorated by the battle, perhaps another legacy from her warlike frost giant ancestors. She had been victorious in her first fray! With that behind her, almost anything seemed possible. Now she followed her father’s teachings and did as he said any good warrior would do, ignoring her own compelling need to find out what the Miragenians and their flying horses were doing here and concentrating instead on evacuating the wounded from the field.
Those injured by the ordinary run of monsters or by weapons were cleaned and bandaged, while Gilles, Loefrig, and several others were mittened and restrained to keep them from flaying themselves and immersed in Loefrig’s all-too-familiar bathtub for the night to soak in oil. Four men had been attacked by hidebehinds, and two of them were missing in action. One simply could no longer see his left arm, though the visible end didn’t bleed and the juncture was smooth as glass and he could furthermore still feel the arm. The fourth had a see-through-ish spot in his middle, and kept glancing glumly down at it. A change of shirt did a great deal to restore his spirits, the new shirt covering the transparent wound where the cloth of the old shirt had simply disappeared with the man’s flesh and bone. Everyone reassured him that he was very lucky to be holding up as well as he was, considering.
The Miragenians had spread cushions and carpets around the fountain, along with trays of viands and sweetmeats and assorted nectars. Assuring Loefwin that the bill for this after-the-battle catering service would be absorbed by the firm’s diplomatic relations department, Mashkent bowed to Bronwyn.
She was rather reluctantly having her feet salved and massaged by Carole, who had been enjoying herself, acting as infirmaress to the soldiers, but had decided, since she didn’t want to miss what the exotic strangers had to say, that Bronwyn needed her ministrations more at the moment.
Mirza kept bowing unctuously to Loefwin as his uncle said smoothly to the company at large and to Loefwin and Bronwyn in particular, his glance bouncing back and forth between them, “Great Emperor, Illustrious Lady, please forgive our intrusion into your affairs. But when our esteemed guest left our company so precipitously, giving us no opportunity to complete the transaction we had begun, we were of course devastated. Upon questioning the servant who was placed at the Princess’s disposal, we learned that the poor child had witnessed the destruction of her father’s ships and the dispersion of his army into the sea at the hands of his enemies.”
Carole gasped and Jack’s eyes widened with alarm. He glanced at Bronwyn, who nodded sadly, but looked up sharply again when the merchant continued.
“Ah, yes,” the merchant said, with hands and eyes cast helplessly ceiling-ward, “The Ablemarlonians unleashed their secret weapon—a renegade wizard formerly in the employ of one of our competitors, a powerful man, but without business sense. The indiscriminate changing of climactic conditions sows havoc and upsets the source of the power to the Profit of none. Under the circumstances, we naturally understand the Princess’s untimely departure. Her filial devotion speaks so well for her, we could not but extend ourselves to offer aid.
“Therefore, we saw fit to consult with our senior partner and founder, Mukbar the Magnificent, may his Profit increase. With his consent, our firm has unanimously and magnanimously decided that, in view of the desperation of the situation, the lady’s valorous nature evidenced by the deeds on behalf of her host, her high birth, her breathtaking beauty—”
“Her rightful claim against your company?” Carole suggested suspiciously, paying no attention to the barefooted kick from Bronwyn, whose foot was still in her lap. Bronwyn might be taken in but she wasn’t. The news about the war was catastrophic, but she somehow felt the merchants were determined to profit by it rather than use it as an opportunity for a good deed. These people were related to Droughtsea, however distantly, and she for one didn’t trust them. They might have even tricked Bronwyn with a pool that showed illusions instead of reality, just to upset her so they could cheat her.
Mashkent overrode the interruption, but hastened to the point. “It seems we can make a deal. As you have seen, we have by happy chance brought to this land our fine flying steeds, a wondrous crossbreed between the giant golden eagle and the hornless unicorn, a beast of marvelous properties, the most miraculous of which are swiftness and ferocity in battle.” He turned to Bronwyn. “We are prepared to give you a chance to have your curse lifted entirely—not merely a partial clearing, you understand, but a 100% guaranteed bona fide cure and the use of these incomparable steeds to fly your allies here to the aid of your father. All of this we propose to let you have for the price of an insignificant boon we think you may be able to perform for us.”
“Now?”
He nodded.
“Oh fine!” she wailed. “I have lots of time to go running errands.” She wanted those horses badly, but what would be the point of having them if she had to delay flying to her father’s assistance while she performed boons?
Loefwin touched her arm urgently. “My dear Bronwyn, don’t distress yourself. If there is anything within my power that can be done to aid you, consider it yours.”
Bronwyn shot him a grateful look, though in truth she had no idea how or if he might help.
Mashkent was continuing. “Now, now, my dear Princess, rest assured that we value the expediting of your mission above all things, may our dinars decrease if we do not, but this task of which I speak is urgent, under the circumstance, though it is but a small matter.”
“Why is it just this one thing?” Jack asked suspiciously. “And if it is of such small value, why is it so urgent? Why can she not perform it later?”
“She may perform it later if she deems speed of more importance than supplying steeds to her allies.” Mashkent bowed to Loefwin and coughed delicately into his fist. “However, either she must perform the boon at once or we can provide horses only to her and her original companions. If she elects to do our bidding later, and is still able to do so, we would even be prepared to accept alternative payment.”
Mirza beamed. “Yes, a bit of Argonian real estate would be a fortunate acquisition, say, half the kingdom, or perhaps your first-born child. The promise of some such trifle would be perfectly adequate to induce us to consider letting you have the flying horses, but the curse would still be upon you, although if you could spare us half your kingdom and your first-born on account, we—”
“What’s the boon?” Bronwyn asked flatly.
“It’s nothing! So inconsequential I hate to mention it—” Mashkent fanned his brown hand dismissingly.
“A trifle, as my Uncle has said—” Mirza tried to look as if he were embarrassed to be a party to the solicitation of such a small favor.
Jack said to Carole from behind his hand, “Sounds to me as if these merchants have a worse dose of Bronwyn’s curse than she does.”
Mirza added, “In truth, we would never have bothered to come all this way to offer you so much for so little except that my uncle’s third concubine is pregnant and has a craving for these things.”
“What things?” Bronwyn demanded from between gritted teeth.
Mirza’s hands fluttered helplessly, as if they were trapped moths. “Oh—only one thing. A—um—it’s a pomegranate, actually.”
“Is that all?” Bronwyn asked with puzzled relief. “What’s a pomegranate?”
“It’s nothing—a snack craved by my spoiled darling,” Mashkent put in. “A little red fruit, hardened and filled with seeds. That is all. Nothing dangerous. But remember what you receive in exchange—the use of the steeds for you and your allies, the safety of your kingdom, the respect of your father and your subjects, your veracity established for all time, and as an extra added bonus, we’ll agree to grant you use of the charm we’ve prepared to provide temporary relief from your curse at no extra charge.”
“Are there any dark, mysterious strangers in your plan or long journeys over water?” Jack asked with narrowing eyes, naming the old standby phony gypsy fortunes.
“What?”
“Just wondering,” Jack grumbled. He too was remembering Droughtsea’s description of these men. The rebel Duke’s claim that they might represent the stationary forerunners of his people seemed more likely than he had first thought. Probably the Miragenians had cheated his own folk out of house and home, which was no doubt what had set gypsies roaming in the first place.
“Is this some guessing game,” Carole asked, “or do we get to know where this stupid fruit grows so Bronwyn can pick you one and we can use your precious horses to win the war before both our allies and our enemies die of old age?”
“It cannot simply be picked!” Mirza protested indignantly. “Naturally, as you would expect in view of the inducements offered for it, the pomegranate of which we speak is a rather special one—”
Loefwin, who had spent the last few minutes in consultation with the Chief Game Warden, returned his attention to Bronwyn and the merchants. “Pomegranate?” he asked sharply, his voice sounding as if he thought they had said ‘dragon’ or ‘hurricane’ instead of simply ‘pomegranate.’ What’s all this?”
Both merchants gave him long, enigmatic looks from under their turbans and his eyes widened and he shook his head in a palsied fashion. “Oh, I say. You can’t mean that pomegranate. See here, that’s no sort of thing to send a child in after. I’ll go myself, or send one of my men—”
“Your Duke of Droughtsea, perhaps?” Mirza suggested, sounding unlike either his jovial serpentine self or a bumbling apprentice merchant. He sounded bitter and menacing. “It would be unprofitable to allow you our steeds while you possess or could possess the pomegranate.”
“I—er—see your point. And I admit that business was a bad move. In fact, I deeply regret it and assure you—”
“As you assured the Mages and Kings of the Six that they were to have a relaxing feast?” Mashkent asked. “No, Your Imperial Highness. Forgive this unavoidable, and I trust you will agree, understandable, breach of your hospitality, but I must tell you that your word in regard to such matters lacks value with us.”
Mistress Raspberry spoke for the first time. “Besides, Your Highness, will you not need to gather an army if you’re to ally with Argonia?”
“How fortunate I was to marry into a family where there are so many women ready to remind me of my responsibilities!” Loefwin growled. “Yes, I’ll have to gather an army. And I’ll help Rowan with magic steeds or without. I just don’t like—”
But Bronwyn didn’t wait to hear what he disliked. She had made up her mind. Her father must have those horses—all of them, with Loefwin’s army on their backs. She faced Mashkent and said firmly, “I wouldn’t go after the nasty old fruit for all the—”
“For the sake of the Profit, give her the blasted charm!” Mashkent cried.
Mirza fumbled in the sleeves of his robe and brought forth a nondescript copperish chain with a blue-green leather wrapped stone dangling from it. With one of his ceremonious bows, he proffered it to Bronwyn. “Pray pass your buckler to your squire,” he instructed, as she turned the bracelet over in her hand, “and place this charm upon your wrist. It will enable you to speak the truth without your accustomed cumbersome circumlocutions.”
Bronwyn did as she was instructed, but wished they’d come up with something less likely to be in the way. Something like the slave bracelets would have been more functional. But the charm had the desired effect.
“Only direct me, good merchants,” she began, but before she could finish saying what she meant for the first time in her life, Jack interrupted.
“Hold a moment,” he ordered, laying an irritatingly protective hand on her arm and addressing the merchants sternly. “What is the catch?”
“Catch? Who is this louse-ridden lackey to speak to me of catches? Milady, control your minion!”
Loefwin looked as if he wanted to speak, but before he could Carole chimed in. “Watch who you’re calling a minion, peddler. Where Bronwyn goes, we go. She may not know much about magic, but I do. I got very high marks in magical ethics—well, the theory anyway, and I know as well as you do that there’s a price to every spell, a cure for every ill, an ill in every cure, or it simply doesn’t work. So it’s only fair that you tell us—what is it with this pomegranate? And while you’re explaining, why will we need to fetch it for you before she can be cured if this bracelet allows her to tell the truth anyway?”
Mashkent spread his hands on his knees to signify defeat. “Very well, so the bracelet grants her only the first three minutes of speaking the truth and then it is powerless. Is that so terrible? At least while wearing it she can give her word. Once she fetches the fruit, she will need no charm. As for the pomegranate, I am sure His Imperial Highness can enlighten you with far more authority than I. He was the one who loosed its powers. We merely want it returned to us and to Miragenia for…” and he was joined by Mirza as they both intoned, “the Profit of all.”
Loefwin, who had seemed eager to speak before, shifted uncomfortably under the accusing stares of the merchants and the curiosity of his guests. For a moment all was silent except for the ripples Anastasia made as she glided back and forth in the fountain pool, calming herself with her own movement. Loefwin cleared his throat and began awkwardly, “Wasn’t me that did it—not exactly. It was Fric’s idea, actually—Fric’s my other brother. You haven’t met him yet, Princess, but he’s the one who has the pomegranate now, and he’s the one who thought of it to begin with and organized the feast. I wasn’t even there. All I had to do with it was paying for Droughtsea’s services and directing the clean-up operation afterward.”
“Clean-up of what?” Anastasia hissed suddenly, poking her head over the edge of the pool so her bill was right beside his ear.
He jumped, looked to see who was speaking, and shook his head as if to say he’d now seen everything, before answering. “Cleaning up after Fric used the pomegranate on the charlat—mages—running the six countries that surrounded Frostingdung with their hocus-pocus and necromancy since I was a lad. When I first decided to unite these lands into a single, strong country under one competent, central authority, namely me, though my father held the Frostingdung throne at the time, I knew the first thing I had to do was counter the unfair advantages the kings of those other countries had over us honest normal Frostingdungian men. Fric—he’s the triplet you haven’t met—said he knew these fellows.” He flipped a thumb at the Miragenians. “He said they had a little plant could do the trick and that old Docho, who’s one of them, could get it for us for the right price.”
Mashkent snorted so lustily his nose-hairs waved like banners. “Do you think one of us would have done such a deed for a price so small we would be obliged to serve as vassal to another man? The one you call Droughtsea is an outcast and a poor bargainer. Not to mention a thief of the property of others, who commits foul deeds not for Profit but merely for love of mischief.” His voice and expression suggested that a person operating from such perverse motivation was capable of anything.
“As I was saying,” Loefwin continued, glaring haughtily at the merchant. “Fric told me what I needed was one of those pomegranate things. Well, I believed him, a bit, but I figured what I needed was an army, so I left the nasty stuff to Fric. He’s always been good at it. He had the banquet for all the Mages, Kings, wazirs and other fakers and gave each of ’em some of the fruit for dessert. After that lambs to the slaughter wasn’t in it for easy—he killed them right there while they were wondering where their abracadabras went. Me and the army mopped up the rest. Iron swords and iron bracelets will do a lot to subdue minor magickers.”
“But if the pomegranate was eaten, how’s Bronwyn supposed to get it back?” Carole asked.
Mashkent replied, “It is a different pomegranate, of course. A new one grows from a single seed of the original. Only one plant grows each twenty-one years.”
“How do you know Fric didn’t destroy all the seeds? How do you know this new plant exists?” Loefwin asked belligerently.
“We have seen it in the pool of visions, whereby the Princess saw the fate of her father. With that pool we may see all that is and has been,” Mashkent said.
“Hmph,” Carole said. “My Great Aunt Sybil can do that, and she only needs a crystal, not a whole pool.”
“It is not a rare magic,” Mashkent said humbly, “but it is one of great utility. It enabled us to see that the pomegranate is still within the castle of the Emperor’s brother.”
“And we want it,” Mirza said. “So the brother of the Emperor will not someday choose to employ it against Miragenia.”
“We must have it for the Profit of all,” the uncle reiterated piously.
“I must say, despite all the mumbo-jumbo, I agree that it’s a very good idea. Old Fric isn’t what he used to be, and I daresay a dangerous morsel like that would be safer in less unpredictable hands,” Loefwin said. “But I still don’t see sending children for it. Why not go yourselves if you don’t trust me? I’ll give you my seal to show Fric—”
The merchants looked at each other nervously and Mashkent said, “What? Risk the liquidation of our chief assets when this excellent young lady needs to earn the price of her steeds? That would be not only ungenerous of us, but foolish as well.”
From beyond the doors a high-pitched whinnying sounded, and the merchants jumped to their feet and ran out into the courtyard.
The black djinn writhed in the snow, his eyes popping and his chest heaving frantically as he tried to dig the thongs of one of Droughtsea’s senyaties from the flesh of his neck. A winged stallion soared above the walls and over the town. Droughtsea and Belburga clung tightly to his back.
“So much for the Duke and his palace coup,” Rusty said. “Good thing Mama’s not afraid of heights.”
* * *
The Miragenians finally agreed that Bronwyn, Carole, and Jack could ride the flying horses to Loefric’s domain, as long as they dismounted and released the animals at the border of Western Frostingdung and walked to the castle from there. Once the children were on their way, the Emperor would use the horses to gather the army. Warning that they would be overseeing the use of their valuable property from the pool of visions, the merchants loaded their injured servant between them and flew away.
Bronwyn and her companions were mounted and ready by first light, after the shortest possible delay to provision themselves, for the merchants had warned that they must eat or drink nothing that came from Loefric’s castle. Jack and Carole rode double on one of the horses, while Bronwyn rode another and Anastasia flew alongside.
The trip took most of the day, and had all the gay holiday air of a forced march, what with Bronwyn staring grimly ahead, Anastasia anxiously circling beyond the others in private little scouting forays, and Carole alternately making crabby, pessimistic comments and nodding in the saddle. None of them had had the time or inclination for sleep.
Jack supposed he too ought to act very serious and try to worry. Both his father and grandfather were with King Roari. But they were gypsies; they had been in tight spots before, and wet ones too, for that matter. Were they in his place now, they would not be worrying about him when they could do nothing—they would instead be enjoying a thrilling ride on the back of a magnificent beast. Never had he traveled so far so fast and on such a beautiful animal! If he couldn’t somehow contrive to take one of them back to his tribe with him, perhaps he could arrange to breed one to a gypsy mount—the foal of such a union ought to be worth enough to earn the gold required to fulfill his manhood test. He was uncomfortably aware that time was growing short. How sad it would be to help save the kingdom only to remain a perpetual boy.
By late afternoon the sun disappeared, fading into a sky of blank, colorless uniformity. Soon the forest thinned to a few trees and those dwindled to shrubs, then those too vanished into a vast gray expanse of parched wasteland.
Anastasia flew with her head angled downward, her sharp eye scanning the empty landscape. Just when Jack had convinced himself she was merely looking for something to eat, she descended from the sky in a dizzyingly swift spiral, as if she had suddenly grown too heavy to stay aloft. The horses followed suit, landing in a somewhat less abrupt manner, and the children dismounted.
“What is it?” Carole asked the swan, who stared incredulously into the gray land beyond.
“It is—it is as I feared. We are now in what is left of my own dear home, the Nonarable Lands.”
“That can’t be so,” Bronwyn protested. “The Emperor distinctly said that this was where we would find West Frostingdung.”
“Nevertheless these are the Nonarable Lands, more nonarable than ever, but I would know them anywhere. Ours must have been the first Kingdom to succumb to conquest, if Loefric implemented his fiendish plot from here. Poor Father! I knew someday our inability to raise archers would be the end of us.”
“Well, wherever we are, I suggest that we find the Prince and the castle and get indoors before the hide-behinds and monsters come out for the night.” Carole shivered.
“I think there is nothing so vigorous as a monster in this land,” Jack said, regarding the surrounding featureless aridity sadly. “There is no cover to conceal anything.”
They dismounted and slapped the horses on the rumps, sending the steeds winging back to their masters, and set out on foot.
Anastasia flew alongside them over what looked to be flat land, but what felt to the walkers as if it was one long upward slope. “Who would think all this gray, weedy gravel once was a garden of quicksand and bog, a home for the insect swarms, a haven for the playful serpent and slothful alligator?” the swan mourned. “Oh, my kingdom, what have they done to you?”
Whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant. The walking was vile. Small stones, just big enough to make the footing difficult and cause rock bruises, littered the ground. The sluggish sky bestirred itself now and began to boil, lashing out with a bitter cold wind that whipped through the few stickery weeds thrusting through the gravel and stung the travelers’ eyes with cold and flying dust, snapping right through the fine cloaks they’d borrowed at Loefwin’s palace.
When they came upon a deep scummy pool that looked as if it had been sitting there since before Loefwin’s war, Anastasia landed in the wind-rippled water, which sloshed up and down, leaving, when it receded, an unsightly green-brown ring around her sleek blackness. Her wings she kept folded fastidiously up over her back. “Is this all that is left of my lovely river?” she asked softly, and said to her friends, “Once there flowed a great river right here, where we are walking. It fed the swamps. No wonder they have vanished.”
“It has been many years since you saw your home,” Jack said kindly. “Perhaps this is not it. Perhaps you are mistaken.”
“No—I knew we were bound for my father’s lands from Loefwin’s directions. But never did I dream of this devastation. How I wish I’d followed my heart and fled in the opposite direction! The unspeakable wretches, that they should despoil my country so.” And without waiting for them to catch up, she flew away.
But they had only to walk a few paces beyond the pool before they topped a rise, and saw that a path stretched up to meet them. On first sight, it seemed to be made of broad stones, once white, now dirtied and stained to a slightly paler gray than the surrounding gravel. When Carole paused for a rest and sat on one of them, she found it even more rounded than she had thought. Since it wasn’t very comfortable, she reached down with her hand to rearrange it. It wouldn’t budge. Squatting, she pried it up with her ringers. Her hand slipped—under the rock, so she thought—but when she gave a long pull to loosen it she found she’d run her fingers through the eye sockets of a skull.
A rustle of wings announced Anastasia’s return. Carole quickly shoved the skull back into its niche. After all, it might be a relative.
The swan had scouted ahead. “I confess I grow almost as curious as I am distressed,” she said. “The central keep is right there, though shorter than I remember. But the rest of the castle is not there. I cannot think where it might have gone.”
They soon saw what she meant, and discovered the solution. The keep was centered in the customary fashion on a man-made mound, and had suffered less from what appeared to be a cataclysmic settling than had the rest of the castle. All that remained above ground of the outlying structures were the toothy merlons and the tops of some of the towers. Since these were as unrelentingly gray as the landscape, they had escaped Anastasia’s notice when she’d first flown over them. A wide ditch outlined the perimeters, but contained not the slightest drop of moisture. The path of skulls led straight through it to the door of the keep.
“The old place has certainly gone downhill,” Anastasia said with a pathetic attempt at levity. Carole glared at her, and wished the creature would stop dwelling so tiresomely on how painful it was to return home and find it ruined. While it couldn’t be easy for the swan to face such changes, she could at least have the good grace to do so in silence. Carole for one didn’t want to think about the subject and she certainly didn’t want to hear any more bad jokes about it.
Jack, hearing the catch in the swan’s voice and watching Bronwyn’s suddenly stricken face and Carole’s angry one, found that Argonia was not so distant as he had earlier felt. While a gypsy had no permanent home to return to, he had a sudden vision of himself flying his flying horse all over his native countryside looking for his people and finding them nowhere, their campfires dead for good. But again, he could do nothing about that now. As protector of these helpless females, it behooved him to think instead of their welfare and of the task at hand. “Your Highness,” he said kindly to Anastasia, “perhaps it would be a good thing for you if you returned to the palace—”
“And risk being stung to death by fliers again?” the swan said and sniffed. “No, thank you.”
“But see what this brother of the Emperor’s has done to your castle! I would not like to think what he would do to one of the people who used to live in it, and in your present form you could hardly defend yourself. You cannot handle weapons or maneuver well in a closed space and we—we might not be able to help you.”
She was silent for a moment, then said tiredly, “Oh, very well. I suppose procuring that so-unfortunate fruit must be the first priority and my presence might well be a detriment. I shall wait at the pool and if monsters of either the landlocked or flying sort attempt to trifle with me, woe betide them. Besides, I can always dive. Surely nothing can be alive in that water.” She started to take off, but turned back for a moment. “Before I go, pluck out one of my feathers. If you need me, burn the feather and I shall come immediately.”
Jack did so and she flew away.
Bronwyn had unsheathed her sword. Now, using the hilt, she pounded on the top portion of the door, which had sunk halfway into the gray and gravelly earth.
Jack was not perhaps quite ready for so much action, so quickly. Making the sign against the evil eye, he ducked back behind Carole.
“Oh, really,” the witch said reproachfully. When Bronwyn’s knock failed to bring a response, and the big Princess retreated a step with a puzzled, helpless expression on her face, Carole strode boldly forward and knocked smartly, three times. On the third knock the door gaped open on creaky iron hinges, one of which broke, and the cracked oaken slab skewed crazily aside, falling half off its frame to land inside the keep with a whoosh and a bang and a gust of musty, unclean-smelling air. Clouds of gray dirt billowed up and they all broke into fits of sneezing.
When they had recovered, Jack asked, “Do you think we should go ahead and enter?”
“I don’t see why not. He mustn’t mind visitors too much if he doesn’t even have a proper front door,” Carole said tardy. “Maybe he isn’t even home—”
“It does have that lived-in look,” Bronwyn, who had removed her bracelet at the beginning of the journey to conserve its power, agreed.
Another icy blast of wind cut across them, and this time it carried the first pellets of a hail storm. They ducked into the keep, stumbling on the sunken steps. Jack and Bronwyn pushed the door to and shoved it back into place as far as they could.
Inside it was dark, and outside the wind had taken up whistling, the hailstones rattling a fast tattoo against the walls. A long anguished baying echoed through the building. It seemed to come from beneath them, and Jack could have sworn the floor shuddered with the vibrations.
“Did you hear that?” Carole asked.
“Hear what?” Bronwyn asked through determinedly clenched teeth. “That was nothing.”
“A werewolf, at least,” Jack, whimpered. “We have been sent to our doom.”
“Nonsense,” Carole said, shaking herself. “Besides, there is iron on the door. We’re p-perfectly safe. Do you have that new tinderbox we got from Loefwin’s kitchen?”
“But of course.”
“Try to kindle a flame then, and perhaps Bronwyn can find a torch. There should still be one on the wall somewhere.”
Bronwyn edged back towards the door and followed along the wall with her hands. She took only two steps before barking her shins on something sharp, and several objects clattered, banged and rolled across the floor causing her to trip and flail about a great deal before she was able to regain her balance. But while she was flailing, her fingertips scraped across something that at least felt like a torch, so she grabbed, and when she had regained her equilibrium, held it out for Jack to light.
It blossomed with a light more comforting than the sun, at least for a moment, though it cast disfiguring shadows over everyone’s features. Jack made a face and said, “Oooh ha ha,” in a mock frightening voice, but then realized he really was frightened and making matters worse so he shut up.
As soon as his eyes adjusted to the light, however, he let out a low whistle. The torchlight, dim as it was, sparkled off the facets of thousands of gems embedded in mountains of treasure heaped all over the room. Gradually he could define the outlines of jeweled chairs, tables, dishes, chests, cabinets, clothing, weapons, armor, and all sorts of other articles stuffed into the room in careless piles.
“Anastasia would just love the way her family silver is being treated,” Bronwyn said in what was supposed to be a light tone.
“It is very messy,” Jack agreed, and began stuffing his pockets from the nearest pile. “I will just tidy up a bit.”
Carole stopped his arm in mid-filch. “If the Emperor’s brother is still living here, we aren’t going to charm the pomegranate out of him by stealing from him.”
“Do you really think anyone would notice?” Jack asked, but sullenly began replacing the gems and coins. He could always retrieve them after the pomegranate was secured.
The clatter the jewels made sliding back into heaps masked for a moment the slow tread rising a lumbering step at a time towards them. Jack froze, listening.
The steps faltered at what seemed to be a given point, like a doorway or a staircase landing. Labored breathing rasped through the room, louder than the hail. Then, with agonizing slowness, the steps stumped closer.
The man that finally faced them was not in the least formidable, except perhaps that he was formidably depressing. Not the sort one would invite to court, or even to a party. He was bent, sour-faced, and unsanitary-looking in the extreme. His clothing, which might once have been as rich as the garments jumbled around the room, was torn, stained, and so dirty its color was grayed into nonexistence. The tarnished metallic band with the empty jewel settings that trimmed a ripped sleeve dangled to the top of one of many rents in smelly old hose that sagged down his spindly legs. He had a yellowed filthy beard half knotted into a kerchief tied around his head. His watery eyes blinked repeatedly in the light of the torch while he smacked wrinkled lips over sunken gums.
“Bloody bones!” this apparition cursed in a muffled voice, “What’re you? Not that I care. You’re where you’ve no call to be. I’m calling the hounds.”
“No, sir, don’t do that,” Carole pleaded with all the little girl sweetness she could muster.
“Why not?” he asked, though he didn’t sound interested in the answer.
“Because,” Jack said. “Because we come from the Emperor—”
“Yes,” Bronwyn said. “We’ve been sent to board with Prince Loefric. We’re from the Empress’s Orphan’s Aid Benevolent Society. We were chosen as the most benevolent orphans available to fill positions as his wards.”
“Were you now? You call that benevolent, banging about in the darkness, bothering a man? Can’t imagine what we’d use orphans for, benevolent or otherwise, except dog food. Hounds do tend to languish on a steady diet of snake and rat.”
Carole began to get the feeling that this was not a nice old man, but one had to try, after all. “Please, sir, may we see Prince Loefric?”
The old man held his arms out, dropped them to his sides, turned his back, held his arms out again, and dropped them back again. “That’s all of ’im there is. Now you’ve seen ’im. Get out.”
Bronwyn drew herself up to her full regal giantess stature. She had been afraid from the first that, despite a conspicuous lack of family resemblance, this man was Loefwin’s long-lost triplet himself and not a servant. Had he been a servant, he would have been hanged on his own bell rope long ago, judging from the condition of the keep. To Jack and Carole she said, “How shortsighted of us, friends, not to have recognized the Prince at once by his splendid hospitality, for which he is so well known throughout the realm. I understand his last dinner party made history.”
“Did it?” the codger asked. “I’ll bet it did! Now, get out, if you don’t want to be served the same fare!”
“But it’s hailing outside—” Carole protested, and they were all quiet so he could hear the hailstones and the wind and take pity on them.
Instead he took pity on himself. “I’m too worn out to treat with brats this night. Come along if you must.” And he led them through the labyrinth of loot, picking his way back to a massive table, piled almost as high as the rest of the room with filthy golden and silver dishes caked with moldy messes. Without asking permission, Bronwyn lit four more torches from her own, and felt some satisfaction in watching Loefric cringe from the light. Then she joined Jack and Carole, who sat on the floor with their backs to a rolled tapestry.
Loefric glared at them. “Ah yes, children. One of the best of many reasons I decided not to return to the outside world. Same as ever, aren’t you, brats? Snot-nosed, greedy, and noisy.” Bronwyn wanted to point out that hers was not the nose that was dripping, but refrained and let him rant on. “Probably come to rob me, have you? Well, you’ll find nothing of interest here. Nothing. Just the dogs and me—and all this trash.”
“But these are lovely things,” Carole said indignantly, fully justifying with her acquisitive gaze the Prince’s estimation of her as greedy.
“Bah! Not one chair or bed gives comfort to these brittle bones nor rest to this aching head. Not one shirt or pair of pants is easy to wear or fits properly. No, most of them are for looks only. Can’t use them or they break or tear. Worthless.” And he spat at a priceless inlaid urn.
“You mentioned you have dogs,” Jack said, trying for a less controversial topic. “They must be good company for you. Do you hunt with them?”
The old man wheezed with such lung-searing bitterness he started coughing and had to wait until his breath returned to ask, “Hunt where? Hunt what? Shall I hunt the weeds around the keep or shall I venture into the Disenchanted Forest and hunt things that hunt me more skillfully than I can hope to hunt them? How did you come to be here without seeing that there’s nothing, nothing at all, to hunt? All dried up, withered away, given up and gone. Give us another year or so and we’ll be gone too.”
“If it’s so bad, why do you stay? Why don’t you go back to court?” Carole asked.
“What? Back to that madhouse? That’d be even worse. Oh, it used to be jolly, when the three of us were trying to see who could be King, you know, but there was never any question, not really, but that it would be Loefwin. And frankly, he can have it. What’s the good of all that so-called power? You tell people what to do and have fatiguing fights with them trying to get them to do it, and when they don’t you kill them and they still won’t do it, so what’s the point? I was going to be a great magistrate, run the legal branch. That was the deal Fwin and I made when I gave the dinner party. Now I ask you, how’s a man supposed to make a career of the law once he’s done in every wrong-doer and potential wrong-doer on the continent in one evening? Frankly, I rather miss all those chaps, tossing their balls of power around the room, raising the dead, that sort of thing. Entertaining, at least. But we couldn’t have it, you see, them carrying on with something they had and we didn’t. It wouldn’t do. We had to fix it so nobody had as much as we did, so that no one was more interesting than we were.” He blinked around the shambles of a room, and spat again at the hapless urn. “We succeeded.”
No one said anything for a moment and pretty soon he stirred himself again and said, “So. If you’ve come to keep me up all night with your childish prattle, you might at least tell me why I’ve been invaded. Or do orphans commonly wear fur-lined cloaks these days?”
Bronwyn had a fantastic tale ready but Carole cut in quickly, deciding forthrightness was the proper approach. “The pomegranate. We’ve come for the pomegranate. Your brother, the Emperor, said we might have it and you were to give it to us.”
“What do you want with that? Going to a potluck supper, are you?” he asked with a barking laugh ending in another fit of agonized wheezing.
Bronwyn wasn’t about to put her bracelet back on and waste some of its precious power to tell the old miscreant anything concerning the war or the bargain with the Miragenians. She felt sure if Loefric knew how much depended on the pomegranate, he’d not only refuse to help them, but would probably do something beastly that would make everything worse. Quickly she said, “It is for my sake that we seek the pomegranate, sir. Because I am cursed to tell only the truth, no matter to whom or of what I speak. I’m told only a smidgen of the pomegranate rubbed judiciously into the scalp over the truth centers of the brain daily for a fortnight will relieve me of the onerous burden that is mine.”
He sucked in his lips and said, “Hmph. I’d rather hear that my brother is intending to plant an orchard, but since he isn’t, I suppose your reason is as good as any. But make no mistake, that pomegranate and this keep are mine, not Fwin’s. I stole ’em fair and square. High point of my career, as a matter of fact. This garbage is all I have to show for it and I don’t mean to have you mucking it about, raising dust and making a lot of ruckus for nothing.” The mention of dust set him wheezing again. When the seizure passed, he appeared more composed, though his torch-lit complexion had faded from gray-yellow to paste-white and his voice quavered more than before, so that it barely emerged in a sly whisper when he said, “I’ll have to sleep on it. You whelps can’t just barge into a man’s keep and rush him about so.”
That seemed fair enough, especially since the guests were at least as much in need of sleep as their host, and what with the storm and the dark there seemed little that could be done immediately anyway. Still, as Jack was later fond of saying, had their mission been less urgent and had it not been hailing outdoors he would gladly have refilled his pockets and bade the creepy old chap farewell. He had thought from the beginning that this entire pomegranate business was fishier than Carole’s ancestry.
So the children made the best of things. They polished off some of the bread and cheese they had brought with them, though it was hard to remember one’s appetite in an atmosphere so stinkingly filthy and cold. The fumes from the torchlight hung in the stale air, making their eyes burn and their throats sting. Hail struck the roof and the sound ricocheted off the stone walls as loudly as the roar of an avalanche. The wind shrieked ear-splitting banshee cries and circled the keep, like a hungry monster looking for a way in.
The prince sat in his chair and ignored them while he slurped at gruel that must have been cold since the torches provided the only fire. Carole, who’d been drilled in manners, especially to those who were her elders or who outranked her, no matter how rank they were, offered him a share of her food. He declined everything by ignoring it, except for her entire loaf of bread, which he snatched up and began using to sop his gruel, which predictably dribbled into his beard in a disgusting manner. After that, he pushed his bowl toward the other dishes, and fell asleep slouched in his chair.
The children made themselves as comfortable as possible on the floor and the last thing Jack heard was Bronwyn saying, “It’s all very well for him to talk of sleep, but as for me, I shan’t sleep a wink,” and her lusty snores.