Brechalon (9 page)

“
No.”

“
But they will if I don’t accede to
your demands?”

“
Don’t be silly, Prime Minister.”
Iolanthe leaned back, folding her hands in her lap and smiled.
“This is the original. There are no facsimiles. This is a
gift.”

Ewart Primula jumped up from his seat and
pulled aside a large portrait of His Majesty on the wall behind
him. He quickly turned the combination on the safe which was
revealed, and in a moment he had placed the paper and the envelope
inside, closed and locked the safe, and replaced the stern portrait
of the King. Turning around, his face took on a wary look, as if he
only just realized that there was a tiger seated across the desk
from him.

“
I don’t know what to say,” he said
slowly.

“
Don’t mention it, Prime Minister,”
Iolanthe smiled. This did nothing to drive the image of a tiger
from his mind. Neither did her next words. “I consider it my duty,
one I can perform again. There are a great many similar documents
drifting about, you know.”

The PM dropped heavily into his
chair.

“
As I understand it,” he said with
a sigh. “There are two battleships coming in for extensive refit in
the next few months—the Minotaur and the Indefatigable, if I’m not
mistaken. One of them could be held until you are ready. It is of
course, in the best interest of the empire to establish this
colony.

“
Oh, indeed it is,” replied
Iolanthe.

“
Is there anything
else?”

“
Oh, export papers and manifest
waivers, and things of that sort; nothing we need to discuss face
to face.”

“
Are you sure you don’t want me to
give you a government wizard?” More than a hint of sarcasm was
present in these words, but Miss Dechantagne appeared not to
notice.

“
No. When the time comes, we will
hire our own spellcasters—ones we can trust.”

She stood up and the Prime Minister walked
around the desk to take her hand, though he seemed far less
enthusiastic about it than he had on her arrival.

“
You can’t trust any of them,” he
said.

“
It is not a question of whom one
may trust, Prime Minister,” said Iolanthe. “It is a question of how
far. I will trust them precisely as much as I trust anyone
else.”

Chapter Six: Blood

Yuah Korlann woke so suddenly that for a moment
she didn’t recognize where she was. She was of course, in her own
bed, in her own small room, in the servant’s quarters of Number 1
Avenue Dragon—in Brech… in Greater Brechalon. She threw her legs
over the side of the bed and stuck them into her house shoes. What
a queer dream that had been.

She had been walking down a road. It had been
winter. Patches of snow lay here and there on the ground and some
of the trees were bare, although there were many evergreens. She
had been bundled up in a thick fur coat, far more luxurious and
expensive than anything she would ever really be able to afford.
She even had a fur muff. The most extraordinary thing though,
wasn’t where she was, but who or more precisely what, she was with.
It was an alligator, walking upright and wearing a yellow evening
gown. As they walked along, they talked about the strangest things:
the state of the Kingdom, literature, and religion.

Reaching for the glass of water on her
nightstand, Yuah saw the open book lying there. She had been
reading Night of the Snake by Ebrahim Detsky. That was the problem.
She ought not to read books like that right before bed.

Getting up and throwing the housecoat over her
night dress, she shuffled out the door, down the hallway and into
the servant’s hall. It was just light enough to see and she
realized it was a quarter past four when the wall clock sounded
four sharp chimes.

Padding her way on into the kitchen, she
thought about having a cup of tea, but that would have meant
starting a fire in the oven. Instead, she opened the door of the
icebox and withdrew a glass bottle of milk—one of six, and got a
glass from the cupboard. She poured her milk, put the bottle back,
and carried the glass into the servant’s hall, where she sat down
at the great table. As she drank her milk, she could hear the clock
tick-tocking in the other room. It seemed to get louder and
louder.

“
You’re up early.” At the sound of
the voice Yuah jumped, dribbling milk down her chin.

“
Heavenly days! What’s wrong with
you?” Both the exclamation and the question were out of her mouth
before she turned around to find Terrence staring wryly at
her.

“
Good morning,” he said.

“
Don’t look at me! I’m practically
naked!”

“
You’re kidding, right? You’ve got
more clothes on that an Argrathian virgin.” He stepped past her and
made his way into the kitchen.

“
I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” said
Yuah.

“
About Argrathians or about
virgins? Shouldn’t there be some cheese in the ice box? Oh, here we
go. Now where’s the breadbox?”

“
Why didn’t you just press your
buzzer?”

“
What?” He poked his head back in
through the doorway.

“
You have a buzzer in your room
next to the bed. When you press it, whoever’s on duty, I think it’s
Eunice, will bring you whatever you want.”

“
When did I get one of
those?”

“
Your sister had it put in a few
months ago.”

“
How much do you suppose that cost?
Oh, here’s the bread.”

“
You would think that you would
know. After all, it is your money she’s spending.”

There was a clattering of knives and plates,
but Terrence said nothing else until he emerged back from the
kitchen with a cheese sandwich on a plate in one hand and what was
left of Yuah’s bottle of milk in the other.

“
If I’m not worried about it, you
shouldn’t be,” he said, sitting down.

He took a bite of sandwich and they were both
quiet for a moment.

“
That’s your problem, you know,”
Yuah said quietly. “You never worry about anything.”

“
You’re overstepping yourself,
little maid. It’s not your job to worry about what my problem is.”
He drained the milk bottle and set it down, hard, on the
table.

“
Somebody has to. You’re hiding out
somewhere poisoning yourself, aren’t you?”

“
Shut the hell up,” he said,
getting to his feet.

“
You’re not taking care of yourself
and nobody else it either. I nursed you when you were little, but
who’s looking after you now?”

“
And just who did you think you
were, when you were nursing me? My sister or my mother?”

Yuah flushed.

“
I see,” Terrence stepped close and
leaned down to look her in the face. “You thought you were my
woman. Well, you’re not.”

Yuah felt tears flooding unbidden down her
cheeks. She wanted to scream that she wouldn’t marry an idiot like
him in a million years, but all that came out was “I hate
you!”

“
Yeah, welcome to the club.” He
stood up and tossed the sandwich onto the table, where it fell
apart and scattered.

Yuah jumped to her feet and rushed toward the
doorway, pausing just long enough to yell once more at Terrence.
She wanted to tell him that he hated himself so much that he would
never be able to love anyone else, but all that came out was “You
can’t have me.”

“
Why would I want a skinny little
bint like you?” shouted Terrence after her.

* * * * *

“
What do you suppose this is
supposed to be?” asked Arthur McTeague.

“
I suppose it was a city a long
time ago,” replied Augie Dechantagne, with an emphasis on the
second word.

The two lieutenants and the full platoon of
soldiers were standing on a smooth surface of stone slabs that had
been fitted together. There were steps here and there, breaking the
area up into several terraces of varying heights. In a few places
there were piles of stone that might have indicated that a wall had
once stood there, but there were no buildings. On the far side of
the clearing were a series of seven large stones. Each stood about
eight feet tall and they were roughly oval in shape. At either end
of the row were the remains of other similar stones that had once
stood in the line, but had long ago crumbled, either from exposure
to the elements or from ancient vandalism. Though those that
remained were weathered and worn, one could see that each had been
carved long ago to represent a dragon.

A loud squawk announced the arrival of eight or
ten creatures that burst out of the trees and ran across the
ancient stones. They were only slightly larger than the average
chicken and were covered in hairy feathers, though their faces
looked all too reptilian and their mouths were full of needle sharp
teeth.

“
Now, are those birds or
dinosaurs?” asked McTeague.

Augie shrugged, but pulled out a book from his
tunic.

“
And what’s that?”

“
That my friend is called a book.
People, not artillery officers mind, but other people, sometimes
read them.”

McTeague gave him a withering look. “What book
is it, you great tosser.”

“
It's Colonel Mormont's journal. My
brother sent it to me.”

“
Yes, I’ve heard of the chap. He
was here in Birmisia a few years ago, right?”

Augie didn’t reply. He was busy flipping
through the pages.

“
What does he say about those
little buggers?”

“
Hold on a minute. I’m
looking.”

McTeague folded his arms and waited. Several of
the men were chasing the small creatures around the edge of the
clearing.

“
Here it is. Here it is. I knew I
recognized them.” Augie held up the open page to a drawing that did
indeed bear a strong resemblance to the creatures in
question.

“
Buitreraptors,” McTeague read.
“Why do you suppose they all have to have such strange
names?

“
You know how these naturalist
types are. Besides, if you just went with ‘chicken-lizard’ and
‘turkey lizard’ you’d soon run out of names. Face it. That’s really
what they look like.”

A much louder squawk than those heard before
announced to all the soldiers that something larger and more
frightening than the skittish buitreraptors had arrived. A monster
burst out of the brush and ran toward the tiny creatures. It was a
bird lizard too, covered with feathers ranging from a deep
turquoise on the head to a light green around the legs, but it
didn’t fit Augie’s earlier nomenclature, if for no other reason
than size. Its body was as large as the biggest horse, its head
bobbing back and forth about seven feet above the ground, but it’s
long, feathered tail stretched straight out behind it to make it
more than twenty feet long. Though the puny wings would have made
any attempt to fly laughable, the clawed fingers and the huge
sickle-shaped clawed toes prevented any such jocularity.

The monster apparently had been stalking its
tiny cousins through the woods, but now that it saw the human
beings, it abruptly changed its targets. Why chase after a tiny
morsel when a much juicier and slower prey could be had? It needed
only to shift its weight and maintain the same stride to put it on
its new trajectory. With a leap into the air that amazed everyone
watching, the beast flew more than forty feet to land on top of
Private Holloway, clawing him and bending down to give him a
killing bite before anyone could react. A second later the beast
was peppered with more than twenty shots fired from all over the
clearing.

“
Kafira damn-it!” Augie shouted.
“Color Sergeant!

“
Sir.” Color Sergeant Bourne ran
toward him and came to attention.

“
Set up a perimeter watch. Make
sure all the men have chambered rounds. And prepare a burial
detail.” The Color Sergeant hurried off to his duties. Augie turned
to McTeague. “Come on.”

The two lieutenants stepped over to the giant
bird and Private Holloway. It was only too obvious that he was
beyond hope. His head had been bitten half through.

“
Nothing to be done,” said
McTeague.

“
Not for Holloway,” Augie
agreed.

* * * * *

It was a large spider crawling across his face
that woke Nils Chapman up. It tickled his right nostril and then
continued on its way down his right cheek and over his right ear.
He turned his head and watched it as it went over the edge of the
mattress. He didn’t want to get up. He wanted to count—one thousand
nine hundred seventy nine… No! No, he wasn’t going to do that. He
felt sick to his stomach. He had felt sick to his stomach ever
since he had seen the impossible undulating movement of the wall in
prisoner eighty nine’s cell. He hadn’t gone back to the cell since,
but the uneasiness, the slowly creeping nausea did not go
away.

He turned over and looked toward Karl Drury’s
bunk. The sadistic guard was not there. On the one hand, this made
Chapman happy, because he found that he was increasingly happy
whenever Drury was not around. On the other hand, if he wasn’t here
and he wasn’t on duty, he was probably in eighty nine’s cell,
abusing her. Chapman shuddered. He had become increasingly sickened
by Drury’s treatment of women in general and this one in
particular, but now he felt even more ill at the thought of the
cell itself, and the wall, and the strange writing, and the
undulating movement… he shuddered.