The council of blades, p.13
The Council of Blades, page 13
A hand slithered across Miliana’s rear. The girl lurched about and slapped the greasy paw away.
“Don’t touch the royal rear!”
The noble bravos had descended from their perch upon the fountain. A dozen young noblemen arrogantly planted their feet upon the steps and tables, leering at Miliana. They ringed the girl and pushed her back against the soldiers’ table.
“Hey, little weed—we can show you some magic!”
The innkeeper hovered in the shadows wringing his hands; he was powerless to interfere with gangs of noble youths, who could wreck his tavern on a whim and remain above the law. Soldiers, forbidden weapons larger than a poniard inside the city walls, watched the bravos’ long rapiers in dismay.
Seemingly oblivious to the very real chance of a brawl, Miliana fixed upon the bravos’ leader and blew the trailing veil of her hat out of her eyes.
“What was that, pumpkin pants?”
The noble thug did indeed have puff-pantaloons which looked remarkably like he had sheathed his upper thighs with a pair of prize-winning squashes. Stabbed by the laughter of the soldiers, the man confronted Miliana and made an obscene gesture with his hand.
“I said, come with us and we’ll show you something!”
Miliana settled her hat on her eyes and snapped a cantrip toward her foe; the man’s pants temporarily tightened by three sizes, making his eyes bulge in alarm. Miliana gave a drunken laugh and gaily reeled aside.
The bravos—twenty young blades armed to the teeth—all started forward; here and there, a nervous soldier toyed with the idea of rising to his feet. Miliana laughed in rosy-cheeked scorn, too tipsy to care, as she and her friends were overshadowed by certain doom.
Into the center of attention, there rose a slim figure dressed in ink-speckled velvet, who held the chief bravo at bay with an elegantly pointed sword.
“I believe you owe the lady your most profound apologies.”
Lorenzo held his rapier competently en garde. It was a strangely hilt-heavy weapon, and it never wavered as the bravo ripped out his own blade and advanced.
“Come then! Let’s fillet the rooster, then rob the hen!”
He slapped his sword against Lorenzo’s blade—and it proved to be the worst mistake he’d ever made. The man screamed as a spark leapt the gap between the blades and sizzled up into his hands. He jerked backward like a puppet tugged by its strings and ended up in the fountain at Tekoriikii’s feet.
Miliana adjusted her spectacles and looked at Lorenzo’s sword with addled respect.
“S’great!” The girl waved a hand with an eager, drunken laugh. “How did do do dat?”
“Bottled lightning! The charge is stored in the hilt.” Lorenzo seemed to forget the stunned crowd of bravos and tilted his sword hilt toward the girl. “See? Science at work again. We can replace magical blades with these.”
“Izzat so?” Miliana seemed to be having trouble focusing. “Are they cheap?”
“Oh, yes, I just drained the charge out of a blue dragon one night when it was asleep. Anyone could have done it.” Lorenzo swelled his chest with pride. “I have three more bottles at home. They screw into the hilt after every use. You see, one bottle only works one time.”
“Lorenzo!”
Miliana crammed her hat over her ears in rage, but it was too late; the secret had been sprung. The horde of wealthy street thugs instantly lost their fear and began to close in upon the isolated pair. Lorenzo paled and tried to hold the tide at bay with rapid little flickers of his blade.
A great whir of feathers suddenly filled the sky. Lofting up from the fountainhead, Tekoriikii came into the fray. The creature landed on the pavement between Miliana and Lorenzo and the encroaching horde, hissing like a viper as he began his display.
Head held high, the bird advanced. The sight of a giant orange peacock/rooster/phoenix in an angry mood served to check the attack, as arrogant young nobles lowered blade tips in surprise.
“What is it?”
“Is it a phoenix?”
One boy, deliberately slipshod in his expensive dress, jabbed in the direction of the bird with a golden sword.
“It’s a table bird—nothing more.” The boy signaled to his companions to attack. “A beak’s no match for a blade!”
The bird danced high and the bird danced low, shuddering its tail feathers in a fearsome display. A man took a step toward the princess only to be met by a ferocious hiss and a swelling of the great bird’s breast. Another step, and a bigger intake of breath from Tekoriikii. Nervous nobles lost their fear and formed themselves up for a charge.
“Kill the thing! Kill it and take the girl!”
With a roar, the nobles ran at Tekoriikii. Standing his ground, the bird hurtled forward his head and gave vent to a terrifying scream.
The noise made the whole world jerk in fright. In front of Tekoriikii the flagstones blasted apart. Tiles shattered on rooftops far across the square, windows burst into a mist of fragments, and a woman’s diamond earrings cracked clean through. Even from behind the bird, Miliana’s spectacles abandoned their grip on this life as the lenses promptly crumbled clean away.
For the bravos, the effects were more catastrophic. The men spun back in agony, with blood spurting from their ears. They shrieked and writhed across the cobblestones, dropping one by one as Tekoriikii stalked after them in rage. The last man fell, and the bird shook out his feathers and scratched dirt on the unconscious bodies in contempt.
Lorenzo stared at Tekoriikii in shock.
“Yes, well, I suppose you could call that ‘sacred, untouchable, and extremely dangerous.’ ”
Ignoring the astonishing display of power from the bird, Miliana stumbled forward, ruffled Tekoriikii’s crown, and waved merrily to the soldiers.
“Let’s take ’em to the honey barge!”
Every evening, the offerings from Sumbria’s many outhouses and “seats of ease” were collected by the honey carts and driven to the riverside. Here, a stinking, reeking barge took the glutinous mass far along the shore of the Akanamere as a gift to distant farmers’ fields. Miliana and the strutting bird led a procession to the barge, which bobbed on the docks at the center of a wheeling storm of flies. A few coins to the attendants, and soon the unconscious bravos were buried neck deep in the manure; Miliana stood waving a handkerchief as the soldiers and Tekoriikii cheered the barge on its way.
Heaving out a wine-sodden breath of satisfaction, Miliana slung an arm about Tekoriikii and another about Lorenzo and crushed them tight against her heart.
“A drink for Lorenzo-o an’ a drink for Tekii-thingie!” The girl dragged her companions into the midst of the soldiers with a hoot of pure glee. “Justice! Ol’ Lorenzo was right. We all gotta make it as we find it.”
“Maybe we had just better go home?” Lorenzo plucked timidly at Miliana’s sleeve. “It’s getting late, and …”
“Late?” Miliana crowed like a morning cockerel and lit the streets with a pure sound of joy. “No! I wanna dance for justice!”
A bottle was uncorked, and soldiers called for their sweethearts and their wives. Someone with a lute struck up a tune, and Miliana tried to dance an Aglarondian folk dance with the happy bird. Free of Ulia and deliriously at ease, Miliana lost herself in a whirl of joy.
Lorenzo could only watch and give an anxious sigh.
“Squaaaaawk!” Tekoriikii flapped his wings in alarm, sending shadows chasing far along the empty, moonlit streets. “Squaaaaawk!”
Miliana loosed an urgent groan, and Lorenzo took her down off his shoulders and helped her over to a wall. For the fourth time since her disappearance beneath a table at the tavern, the girl was thoroughly sick; great soul-rending heaves tried to clear her of the alcoholic poison crawling through her brain.
Lorenzo simply sat down at her side and helped to support her through her suffering. When she had finally done, he pulled her small, frail body into his lap and wiped her streaming eyes and nose. Tekoriikii passed him a water gourd and Lorenzo made Miliana rinse her mouth, then cradled her softly as she shivered in his arms.
“Wh—why can’t I be … magical?”
The girl whimpered the words into Lorenzo’s hair, clawing her little fingers through his clothes. With an anxious expression in his eyes, Tekoriikii nudged at her and made a whistling sound.
Lorenzo agreed.
“You are magical! We both saw you cast a spell.” He tried to coax Miliana’s face out of the shadows. “Hey—you’re a sorceress!”
“No …” Miliana hung weakly in Lorenzo’s arms, hiding away her freckles and her tears. “If I were magical—really magical, then maybe I might get a wish.”
“What wish?” Bird and nobleman both hung close, locked anxious gazes, and tried to coax the girl out of her shell. “What wish, Miliana?”
Miliana emerged—small, brown, and crushed by one inarguable misery.
“If I had a wish, then maybe I could be pretty. Really pretty.”
The girl hid her face away from Lorenzo and the bird.
“Someone beautiful. Just—just not Miliana. Just for one single day …”
The girl clung against Lorenzo’s chest and wept. Locking tortured glances, Tekoriikii and Lorenzo quietly stroked at Miliana’s hair.
“Princess Miliana is beautiful. And I’ll prove you wrong. Tomorrow I’ll show you just exactly what I see.
“I’ll show you. I’ll make you open your eyes.”
“Glub glub!”
Sick, swaying, and miserable, Miliana’s whisper barely carried to Lorenzo’s ears.
“I’m just so frightened. So frightened …” The girl curled fingers into Lorenzo’s tunic. “I wanted to be like my father. I wanted to be … to be … proud.
“But I’m just so scared of the … futility. The dances and the husbands.” Miliana swallowed back another surge of nausea. “Don’t let them put me in the finishing school. I’d rather die … I’d rather die … I’d rather die …”
Crying herself to sleep, Miliana hung like a rag doll in Lorenzo’s arms.
Tekoriikii spared the girl a long, sad gaze, and then quietly led the way back home. Behind him, Lorenzo hoisted Miliana like a treasured child and wandered carefully back to the palace doors.
From his perch high up in Miliana’s attic, Tekoriikii had most of the Mannicci palace under his muddle-headed gaze. Holes in the roofing gave him a splendid vantage point for viewing the central courtyards and the stables, the kitchen doors and the colonnades. He saw the slim, gray-headed Prince Cappa Mannicci escaping for his early morning ride before his wife could stir from bed and exercise her tongue. Soldiers marched and servants cleaned; bright bunting was wound about every object found readily at hand. All in all, the Festival of Blades had begun with a flawless summer’s day.
Waddling happily across the floor of his gloomy kingdom, Tekoriikii bathed in beams of light and listened contentedly to the dawn chorus of birds. A marvelous new treasure had come into his life, and the bird need only close his eyes and sigh just to savor its gentle glow.
His journeys had first brought him to a treasure trove of people and places, songs and lights; it had brought him a bounty of shiny baubles, and day by day Tekoriikii’s collection grew.
And now, most miraculous of all—the journey had given him a friend.
Hanging his head down through the broken ceiling, Tekoriikii watched the human girl in her sleep. She fed him food and taught him songs; she had shown him magic picture books, and recited aloud from the pages for hours on end.
And yet last night the little female had been so very sad.
Her lack of plumes was a terrible, crippling disfigurement. The male human Lorenzo kept a feather in his hat as though making up for the lack. Tekoriikii turned his head this way and that, regarding Miliana as she slept off her wine, and pitied her for her naked, unsightly skin.
She needed cheering—and Tekoriikii had just the thing!
With a bright burst of inspiration, the bird jerked his head back up through the hole. He warbled happily, and did a little dance to celebrate his own magnificent cleverness—Tekoriikii, the handsomest and smartest of all the birds!
Tekoriikii’s sleeping nest consisted of green branches, leaves and twigs all lined with the finest silk taken from a massive set of underwear found hanging from the palace washing line. The bird upended a great sack made from a set of Lady Ulia’s frilly pink drawers and spilled a dragon’s hoard of jewelry out across the wooden floors.
Spread out in all their glory, Tekoriikii’s gems simply stunned the eye. There were great rubies and strings of emeralds. Zircons and costume jewelry rubbed shoulders with sapphires and pearls. Bits of mirror and polished glass had caught his eye just as surely as platinum and gold. All in all, the bird’s collection made an eccentric display.
Rooting happily about amongst a king’s ransom in jewels, the bird pulled out a few choice pieces and hung them up from rusty nails to turn and sparkle in the sun.
Three offerings glittered before the bird’s giddy yellow eyes: a looking glass, a rope of emeralds, and a single, gigantic rose-pink pearl.
In addition to being the most handsome creature ever to stalk the world, Tekoriikii was an educated bird. He knew that nothing could cheer a female quite so much as finding herself being courted and so, therefore, secret advances would make Miliana smile.
She must be given a gift—enough to let her know how deeply she was honored, for few females were ever chased by a male. It simply wasn’t done. The flattery would raise her spirits, and Tekoriikii would be glad.
The bird considered his potential offerings. The mirror? Too bright and shiny. She must not be overwhelmed by the very nature of the gift. The bird peered this way and that at his own reflection, and moved on.
The emeralds? No. Too dull; too common. Although they sparkled, they were the same color as fresh new leaves and, that being the case, she might not value them. The bird regarded the gigantic pink pearl with pleasure, and then took the offering up into his bill.
The pearl had been regurgitated from his crop this self-same morning. With a brisk wash beneath a rainwater pipe, the gem sparkled bright as morning dew. Tekoriikii hopped down the broken hole in the ceiling and landed on the bathroom floor with a distinct, feathery thump.
Miliana turned over in her bed, groaning in distant agony. Beside her bed there lay a bucket as well as a pointy hat, which presumably was for use if the bucket should grow full. Tekoriikii crept toward the girl with exaggerated stealth, cunningly laid the pearl pendant on her pillowslip, then withdrew to gaze down at her in love.
Very, very small, and speckled delicately with brown; she should not let her lack of feathers distress her so. After all, not everyone could be a handsome firebird.
Tekoriikii drew the blankets up around Miliana’s slender neck, clucked like a broody hen, then hopped back up into the ceiling to go about his own affairs.
The Palace of the Manniccis decked itself out gaily for the Festival of Blades. The ritual never failed to amuse Miliana, who thought the candy daggers and swords now being hung from all the roof beams were particularly inappropriate for a happy festival.
Passing along the courtyard, Miliana maneuvered oh-so-carefully, balancing her head atop her neck as though it weighed five hundred pounds.
Miliana had just been through the most unspeakable experience of her life. She had awoken to find herself still thoroughly drunk; the whole bed had been spinning, and the room shifted like a child’s kite blown willy-nilly through the sky. She had somehow made her way to the palace shrine and had begged a blessing against poison from the family’s private priests, claiming that she had eaten Lady Ulia’s infamous blowfish casserole. Now, with her bloodstream purged but her body still feeling as delicate as glass, the girl took a quiet turn about the palace and tried to gather strength for the evening’s affairs.
The breeze blew cool and calming; the promised headache never came. All she needed was a few moments of absolute peace, and she would feel her old self again.
On a fine silver chain about Miliana’s neck, there swung a single rose-pink pearl—a large, teardrop-shaped affair that perfectly complimented her coloring. Feeling its unfamiliar weight settling on her skin, the princess drew out the pendant and eyed it with a soft, fond smile.
“Miliaaaa-naaaaaa!”
The piercing summons caused the girl to close her eyes and freeze, waiting for a migraine headache to begin; luckily, the priest’s spells had been first class. With an air of deep and quiet calm, Miliana managed to face Lady Ulia and her father with a smile.
Plucking out her skirts and sinking a wee curtsy, Miliana nodded her tall hat in gentle greeting to her stepmother. Her father—rigid, dignified, and foreboding—gave a brisk nod of his gray beard to his daughter.
“Ah. Miliana.” The prince gazed at his daughter without any real interest. “You appear to be well. How do your lessons go?”
The man had hardly spoken more than five sentences to his daughter in her entire life. Cowed, Miliana made a set of suitably dutiful noises—the lessons went well, she found needlepoint occupied most of her time, and the lavender smoke which yesterday exploded from her fireplace was most definitely the result of diseased firewood. Her father nodded, not bothering to listen to a word she had to say.
Her duty done, Miliana turned herself to the ziggurat of silk that was Lady Ulia. Swallowing carefully, Miliana congratulated herself on her survival thus far, and wished Lady Ulia the best of the day.
“Lady Ulia—is it not a perfect evening? I trust you find the airs as pleasant as I?”
“Pleasant?”
The cry caused Miliana to draw a little breath in pain. Coiling her head backward atop its great abundance of chins, Lady Ulia Mannicci blinked in horror at the girl. “Have you heard what the caterers are doing to my feast? There is still no centerpiece for the table. I desired a great bird, and what am I offered? A cuttlefish of the most revolting size! I can hardly have a mass of tentacles splayed out amongst the silverware before all of our guests!”
