The council of blades, p.21
The Council of Blades, page 21
Mannicci lifted a weary gauntlet, told them that he was their prince no more, and turned as a beggar thrust at him from the crowd. The beggar raised his knotted staff—Mannicci tried to hurtle himself away—and a blast of flame exploded out to rip the mob apart.
Bodies churned and voices screamed; the air stank of scorching flesh. Civilians fled in panic, trampling their own neighbors under their feet. Soldiers shouted, fighting through the tide as the city of Sumbria instantly went mad.
“The prince is slain! Prince Mannicci has been slain!”
Cappa Mannicci’s body had been utterly atomized. With him had died a score of citizens, guards, and Sumbrian nobility. Burned, wounded men dragged themselves across the blackened steps, cinders crunching beneath clawed hands as they screamed out in agony. From the council chambers, the remaining Blade Captains simply stood and stared as Gilberto Ilégo wandered over to the place where Prince Mannicci had died.
“The prince has been slain by the Blade Captains!” A woman reeled across the road, clawing at passing soldiers with burned hands. “They’ve killed him! They’ve killed him!”
“Ilégo ordered it!” A young noble clutched his injured, screaming father tight against his heart. “Ilégo’s killed him to secure his crown!”
“No!” Gilberto Ilégo ran blindly down the palace steps, standing amidst the ruin of his plans. “Brigands! It must have been brigands …”
“Brigands with a spell staff?” a soldier snarled from the foot of the steps in hate. “Aye—brigands with their pockets full of Ilégo’s gold.”
A dead assassin was produced—a mere rag hurtled back and forth between the talons of a growing crowd; the corpse wore Ilégo’s livery beneath its beggar’s rags. Ilégo screamed out his denials into an uncaring mob. He retreated as the first stones began to fly, then saw his own soldiers smash hard into the citizens. A wild melee erupted, bursting like a plague sore to spread its foul disease. Ilégo’s men fought to hold the crowd back from their master’s hide; soldiers from other families instantly lunged into the fight to defend the panic-stricken crowd. A crossbow fired, a woman screamed, and the fight poured through the city streets like molten fire.
Abandoned at the eye of the storm, Ilégo helplessly screamed out his innocence to the uncaring city walls.
“No! I didn’t kill him!” Ilégo tore his own robes between his hands. “I would have been prince! Me! Gilberto Ilégo, Prince of Sumbria!” The man reached out to running soldiers in appeal. “Why? Why would I kill him? I would have had everything …”
Ilégo slumped down into the cinders, and let the last prince of Sumbria drift through his grasp like sand. He sat in blank incomprehension as he heard his city tear itself apart.
“Svarézi …”
Ilégo’s eyes went wide as realization suddenly struck home. He lifted up his face and stared off into the empty sky. “Svarézi.”
Hurtling ashes to the winds, Ilégo leapt to his feet and felt his face drain white with rage. He shook an impotent fist at the clouds and bellowed out a wild scream of despair.
“Svarézi!”
Blades clashed in Sumbria’s streets, while all around, a city burned.
“Aaaaaaaaawk!” Tekoriikii tragically held up a small glass bottle, nudging it hopefully toward Lorenzo’s hand. “Aaaaaawk! Aaaaaawk!”
“Um … look, Tekoriikii, I know what it says on the bottle, but I don’t think it quite works the way you think.”
“Aaaaaawk!”
Sighing unhappily, the artist took the bottle, read the label, and began vigorously shaking the pot of Old Pappa Floonbat’s Patent Medicinal Hair Restorer. The bird, now miserably keeping an old gray military blanket draped across his rump, shuffled awkwardly about, then uncovered his plucked, bare backside.
Lorenzo liberally splashed hair restorer all over Tekoriikii’s featherless regions, then began massaging the medicine into the poor bird’s flesh. Tekoriikii whimpered and closed his eyes, slumped in apathy as he mourned the loss of his magnificent orange tail.
He could scarcely bare to look in the mirror to see if the tail feathers had begun to regrow; instead, the bird sat and stared miserably at the painting of Miliana leaning against the attic wall. He gave a soft, pathetic call deep in his throat and sadly closed his eyes.
Lorenzo turned his own face away from the painting. Bedraggled, demoralized, and crushed with guilt, the artist let his chin sink to his breast with a dull, unhappy sigh.
Tekoriikii curled his long neck around and placed his head in Lorenzo’s lap. The artist scratched wearily at the bird’s silly plumes while both creatures let their thoughts wander along the same sad paths.
Evicted from the palace, they now hid in cheap lodgings above a smelly old alchemist’s shop—one of Lorenzo’s main suppliers for esoteric chemicals. Terrified that Lady Ulia would silence them by the most obvious means, Lorenzo had managed a disappearing act and had lain low for many long, tedious days.
… Leaving Lorenzo and Tekoriikii all the more time in which to contemplate their failings. They gazed through the broad, wide-open window across the city roofs, and together sank into despondent, guilty gloom.
In the distance, a crowd’s shouting rose into a formless roar. Bedraggled and demoralized as they were, man and bird ignored the chaos and watched seeds spiral down from the sycamore tree that shaded the windowsill.
A bell rang as the door opened into the shop below; Lorenzo pricked up an ear in puzzlement as he heard the alchemist give out a single wild, despairing wail.
“I told you, we don’t have any rings of water breathing!”
“Oh, please!” The customer seemed in a high state of anxiety. “An amulet then? Maybe a necklace?”
“No! I don’t have anything …”
“Not even just a little one?” The customer’s cultured voice wheedled mercilessly. “Maybe just some water breathing potions, then? Just two or three on account?”
“Look, why don’t you just go away?”
“Just one potion? I can pay you tomorrow!”
Levering up the trapdoor in the attic floor, Lorenzo stuck his head through into the workshop, gasping in delight as he spied Luccio Irozzi. Luccio, now dressed in somewhat water-stained finery, shuffled on his knees as he pleaded with the shopkeeper. Luccio looked up and saw Lorenzo’s dangling face; flung out his arms and shot up onto his feet in pure surprise.
“Lorenzo! Lorenzo, where in Umberlee’s name have you been?”
“We’ve been in hiding.” Luccio rapidly slid a ladder down through the trapdoor. “From Miliana’s mother …”
“Her mother?” Luccio steadied the ladder, then swept his young friend into a hard embrace as he finally reached the ground. “You idiot—why didn’t you tell me where you’d gone? I’ve had agents scouring the city streets for days!”
Tekoriikii hung his head down through the open trapdoor; seeing his friend in conversation, the bird clamped claws onto the ladder staves and slid backward to the lower floor. His talons peeled great bright strips of wood shavings from the ladder as he fell.
“Onk gronk!”
Luccio eyed the bird in astonishment. Lorenzo bowed and performed introductions between his human companion and the bird.
“Luccio Irozzi, I present the firebird Tekoriikii; big on feathers and small on tact.”
Luccio made a bewildered bow; Tekoriikii replied with a warble, and ruffled out what feathers he still had in regal pride. The blanket draped about his backside rather ruined the effect. It began to slip, forcing the firebird to frantically adjust his attire.
The group retired back up into the attic, a place tastefully furnished with old crates and corn sacks stuffed with eiderdown. Tekoriikii turned himself about five or six times, treading himself a nest while the two humans settled themselves and uncorked a pewter jug of wine. Lorenzo nursed a tall, scorched, conical hat against his breast as he gazed in amazement at his friend.
“Luccio, what are you doing in an alchemist’s shop?” The young artist sniffed at the air with a frown crossing his eyes. “Why are you in an alchemist’s—and why do you smell of fish?”
“Never mind that!” Luccio snatched at his best friend’s arm. “Now get your things. We have to leave the city—right now!”
“Why? Luccio, what’s happening at the palace? Where did they take poor Miliana?”
“Oh—to the Velvet Gauntlet Finishing School for Wayward Young Ladies.” Luccio dismissed the topic with a hasty wave. “She’s safe enough—it’s we who have to worry. The whole city is in revolt! Didn’t you hear the riots outside?”
Riots! Lorenzo sat bolt upright, Miliana’s image branded hard upon his heart. He heard the firebird warble something to Luccio, and kept a vague track on his friend’s reply.
“Prince Mannicci’s dead. The noble houses are about to fight a civil war!”
Sycamore seeds came spiraling down past the open window—the tiny leaf-blades of the seedpods whirring around and around. Lorenzo leaned out and snatched one as it passed, then held it tight inside his hand as he stared blankly off into the sky.
“We have to rescue her!”
“What?”
“Miliana! Someone will hit on the idea of marrying her—or killing her—to control her father’s men. We have to save her from this finishing school!
“Tekoriikii—we’ll all escape from Sumbria together! She can finally be free!”
Tekoriikii roused himself, gaping wide his beak to give a keening scream of joy; the raucous sound set Luccio’s teeth jangling. The firebird tried to flounder clean out of the window to instantly begin a rescue, but Lorenzo caught the bird and held him back, dragging him bodily across the floor.
“Luccio—we need a feather restorer. There must be something …?”
“The hippogriff stables will know of some kind of spell.” The young courtier scratched one fish-scented hand against his brow. “I’m sure a veterinarian might be induced to make a house call.”
“Fine—fine, that’s great …” Lorenzo opened his hand and stared at the seed lying on his palm. “Fantastic … all right—so, we just get Miliana out of this heavily guarded school, escape a rioting city, and all run off to Lomatra once and for all!”
“But, my dear Lorenzo—how can you get your lady love out past the school battlements?” Luccio seemed quite at a loss. “For that matter the whole city is locked in! How do any of us escape the town?”
“Tekoriikii and I will manage Miliana; you get ready and meet us by the city’s water gate. I’ll need probably—what—three hours?” Lorenzo turned to consult with the bird, who replied with a nod. “Three hours to prepare.”
Lorenzo began gathering up charcoal, steel rulers, and an abacus. “Now, if I make us breathing tubes, do you think we can escape out by the river? We might need assistance—something to help us swim under the gate.”
“Oh, yes! Yes, certainly!” The mere mention of water brought stars to Luccio’s eyes. “But how do we finance the healing spell for the bird?”
“Tekoriikii—Tekoriikii, say ‘aaaaaah’ …”
Lorenzo wrenched open Tekoriikii’s beak, dove his hand down into the astonished firebird’s crop, and came up with an amber necklace and a silver whistle on a string. These rather shop-soiled items were slapped down into Luccio’s disgusted hands.
“There! Sell those, and use the money to buy everything we need.” Lorenzo paced rapidly back and forth, maniacally ticking items off against a list in his whirring mind. “We need a long rope, pulleys, ball bearings, a water barrel, four twenty-foot-long birchwood boards, a pole, woodworking tools, and the heaviest anvil in the city!”
“Right!” Luccio slung the loot into his pockets and made his way to the ladder. “When do you need it all by?”
“Twenty minutes.” Watched by a fascinated Tekoriikii, Lorenzo had begun furiously sketching plans on the back of an old shopping list left in the shop by some local sorcerer. “Meet me out front—in a wagon!”
Luccio made an exit, stage left. Tekoriikii the firebird waddled over and closed the trapdoor behind him; then leaned his neck across Lorenzo’s work and cocked one yellow eye up to the page.
“Gronk-nonk?”
“What are we doing?” Lorenzo smudged a line of charcoal with his thumb, deftly shading his design. “We, my friend, are going to rescue Miliana from the jaws of death! We are going to save her, give her back her hat, and make a new life all our own!” The inventor held his plans up against the light and gave a wild, triumphant smile.
“Now do be a good chap and see which way the wind is blowing. We’ll be rescuing Miliana before the sun goes down.”
The firebird eagerly floundered over to the window and stuck his head out into the breeze. Watched by bewildered crowds, the great bird lifted up his head, opened up his yellow beak, and shook the city rooftops with a ghastly hunting cry.
“Tekorii-kii-kii!
“Tekorii-kii-kii!”
The rescue party was on the way; Miliana’s worries would soon be at an end!
The Velvet Gauntlet Finishing School for Wayward Young Ladies stood coldly isolated from the temptations of the city streets; a blank, monolithic structure that spoke only of despair. Towering walls made from flawless, slick marble—utterly devoid of both window or handhold—had proved insurmountable to hundreds of lovesick suitors. The school balconies looked only inside to the open courtyard, where stood a white, empty pillar, there to remind the girls of the futility of pride.
The pillar also had a second use; disobedient girls were tethered to it through ice-cold nights. Since they acted like beasts, reason held that they should be treated as such. It served as a useful object lesson for the frightened girls.
Linked to the column by an iron chain, Miliana Mannicci stood stiffly in the dust and jammed a sewing needle through a highly incompetent piece of embroidery. Barefoot, dressed in a vile gray dress, and with her long hair stiffly braided back into a bun, Miliana bitterly kept her eyes fixed on the ground.
Needlepoint was just one more worthless female skill Miliana had never bothered to acquire; stealing a few bits and pieces from other girls had been enough to divert Lady Ulia’s ire. Now well and truly under supervision, she had no choice but to stitch and sew while planning her revenge.
They had tried to beat her with a cane and had suffered the inevitable results. Watched over by a pair of female tutors, Miliana was now treated with hostility and caution. She had already managed to stab one woman with a sewing needle, and could hurtle the things with enough force to penetrate naked skin. Held tight by her chain, Miliana felt her eyes smarting with hidden tears. Her spectacles hid her eyes as she jammed the needle through her sewing cloth, twisting the tiny blade like a stiletto as she let her mind dwell on vengeance and escape.
From outside the school, there came a distant swirl of sound; crowds yelling, or possibly cheering—the dim crackle of spells, or more of the Shou fireworks. Miliana lifted her head to hunt down the sound; a tutor raised her cane and instantly advanced.
“Keep sewing! The outside world does not exist! Good can only be discovered when the distractions of worldliness and wilfulness are flensed away.”
The teacher hissed with pleasure, keen to begin the flensing process anew. Miliana faced the creature like a wildcat and took a turn of her own chain between her hands—either to use as a garrote, a shield, or a flail. Her attacker balked, retreated, and began to stalk Miliana just out of reach of the deadly chain.
“Miliana Mannicci!”
The voice, which could have came from Lady Ulia’s evil twin, pealed out across the courtyard like a fractured temple bell. Miliana kept her thin body facing her opponents and flicked a glance at the stairs.
Standing up above the courtyard was the headmistress of the Velvet Gauntlet, a vast woman shaped like a cavalry regiment in a skirt. The woman seared her gaze down into Miliana, then dismissed the tutors with one snap of her fingers.
“Mannicci—since you are obsessed with the offal of the outside world, then you may wallow in offal indeed.” The woman stared at Miliana as though she were a particularly noisome form of garden slug. “You are a disgrace to the discipline of home economics. To the kitchens with you! You can squat there and work until supper time.”
Tutors edged closer, then decided that discretion was the better part of valor and simply tossed Miliana the keys to her chain. The girl unfastened the collar about her neck, let the chain, needles, and sewing drop into the dust, and walked under the headmistress’s hostile eye and deep into the school’s narrow corridors.
Miliana was frog-marched down the halls, then halted as locks, chains, and slide-bolts were duly wrenched aside.
The school kitchens were a true anteroom to the Abyss. Vats of hideous porridge boiled, while ranks of pans hung like dented battle helmets on the walls. The door was flung wide open, and Miliana found herself hurtled inside.
“My special provisions have arrived.” The headmistress’s voice boomed like the slamming door of a tomb. “I want the meat gutted and dressed, the vegetables peeled, the wine barrels decanted into proper bottles—and get those jugs of cream whipped before it’s time for my morning scones and tea!”
A trolley held a gigantic serving platter capped off with a silver chafing cover. Beside it stood a wine barrel almost six feet tall.
“It has all been thoroughly checked. The meat has been inspected, and the wine barrel has been pierced with a spear.” The headmistress fixed Miliana beneath a violent, suspicious eye. “We perform the same checks on outgoing refuse—lest you think you can hide in the bins and be tossed out with the other garbage tomorrow morning.…
“Now to work! And I want that meat sizzling within the hour!”
The door slammed, the locks snapped shut, and Miliana found herself alone in a wilderness of chopping boards and tethered cooking knives. She dejectedly wandered out into the room, noted that the fireplace chimney was blocked by an iron grate, and sank into a sad little bundle on the stairs.
