Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales (15 page)

When they had passed, Cole pushed himself between Valrune and Briar. He stood touching noses with his son. “This was to be your engagement party, Valrune! How could you dance with that girl—that stranger?”

Dax rushed up to Briar's side and tried to steady her.

Sherman spoke so quietly to Briar that she could barely hear it. “Keep your hands behind your back, and let us leave this place.” Briar only acknowledged his statement with a flick of her eyes. They had to somehow get Leon from Orpion, not escape from Murbra Faire. Not now, anyway. No matter the cost, Briar was not about to leave without her friend.

Orpion continued her subdued stroll from the ballroom, people on either side bowing in her wake. Valrune responded to his father in a hushed tone. “I do not wish to be married to the ward of that monster!”

Red-faced, the king tried to remain hushed. “It is not for your own sake that you must do this. You are no longer a boy. And for the sake of your kingdom, you must bear a man's burden. Mark my words: in a week's time, you two shall be wed.”

It was then that Briar heard gasps and mumbling from the crowd. She looked up to see that Lady Orpion had turned around with her snow white teeth bared and her hands upraised. Blue flames sat within the Lady's own hands. They flickered in her palms, like candle wisps; they were small and shapeless. But they were enough to signal that someone with the gift of dragons must be present, for flame ignites flame—or so went the lore.

There were none present that had such a gift. But the flames
could also signal something momentous. She inspected the small blue dancers in her hands with curiosity, and then with outrage. They had never before appeared when with the king or his court.
Yes
, she thought,
something is different
. Then her face warped into an awful smile, like one who discovers a terrible truth. She locked eyes with Briar and growled like a beast ready to pounce.

Her voice punched through the crowd's growing murmurs. “Guards!” she shouted. “Take them!”

“It's too late,” Sherman said. “Keep your hands hidden, if you can.” Before Briar could respond, she, Dax, and Sherman were in the tight grips of Orpion's guard.

Chapter 19

The wolfguards dragged them with their rough black claws to the dim stone chambers beneath the palace. The walls were wet and moss-dripped, with the smell of bodily waste so thick that Briar could taste it on her tongue. Thick smoke from flickering wall torches hovered at the ceiling.

Dax and Sherman were shoved roughly into a rusty-barred cell. The ceiling was so low that Dax had to bend forward quickly to avoid knocking his head. Sherman skidded on his sleek coat and one of his hind legs was soiled with something slimy on the floor—blood or excrement—he couldn't tell.

One of the guards was especially harsh with Briar. He tore at her arms, bruising and cutting them, then he dragged her so often that her dress tattered and her elegant shoes became fallen casualties, lost down some dark corridor. He used such force to throw her into the cell with the others that she slipped on the sludge-slick floor and landed sharply against a stone wall. Barefoot and degraded, her eyes filled with tears. She slumped, exhausted from struggling against the guards, and afraid of what might happen next.

“Sweet dreams, talebreaker,” the wolfguard said. He pulled off his masking helmet and Briar saw his grotesquely disfigured face contorted into a savage smile of yellowed broken fangs. It was the head of the wolfguard from the tavern. He laughed with a phlegmy cough, and then leered at Briar with his white glazed eye. “You'll be lucky if you get the mines.” He spat on the floor and wiped his lips with the short hairs of his forepaw. “That's where all talebreakers go to rot.”

He slammed shut the gates, which squealed with a shrill scream of iron on iron. He secured the padlock and then sat near the door. He muttered to himself, keeping a watchful eye on the group. He chuckled darkly and spat some more. Nearby him was
a flagon of ale that he had dug out from beneath some rancid, oily hay in an abandoned jail cell. He polished it off with the contents trickling from the corners of his wolf-mouth down his pelt. It wasn't long after that he was sprawled out across the pile of straw, fast asleep and gurgling in his saliva.

Briar stared at the throbbing abrasions on her feet and ankles. She shivered—not from cold, but from residual fear and adrenaline. It was unbelievable, and Briar replayed the scene in the ballroom over and over. She stood face to face with the woman who had murdered her mother. She felt Orpion's evil breath and the burning chill of her touch. She confessed to murdering her mother, and she relished retelling the story.

Briar wanted to think about anything else, and she tried to force her mind to shift. She wanted to cry, but found that she couldn't. She told herself that now was not the time for tears. She didn't know what to do exactly, but she decided that tears would not help—not now, and maybe never.

The Lady Orpion saw through her disguise. She knew who Briar was, probably from the moment their eyes met in the ballroom. Perhaps she had some idea even before that. And now Briar knew, without a doubt, her mother's fate. She had always been alone in the world, but for the first time, she felt it fully. There was always the hope that there was a connection for her— somewhere in the world. But now that small shred of comfort was torn away. The pain in her ankles surged, but she could scarcely distinguish it from the ache in her soul.

Dax sat on the floor across from Briar, with his back against the moss-slicked wall. He stared at the stone floor with the look of an animal headed to the slaughterhouse. “This is it,” he said. “We're toast.” It wasn't in his nature to give up, to see only darkness—or nothing at all. But he couldn't help himself.

Sherman ignored that and trotted over to Briar. He sat beside her for a while quietly regarding her. Finally, he nuzzled her a bit and wrapped his fluffy tail around her. She looked up at him. He
didn't return the look, but he nodded in silent approval. Now it was clear to both of them that Myrtle and Poplar were right. Briar was indeed the one named in the Omens—or at least everyone around here seemed to believe it. She didn't feel at all like the hero they imagined. And in the dank and the smell of decay in the cell, she couldn't understand how she would ever be able to save anyone—including herself. But whether or not the so-called Omens were true, it was clear that the Lady Orpion was not about to test them out. Briar realized that even if the Omens weren't true—and really, how could they be?—she was a sacrificial offering. She understood that once Orpion eliminated her, the Realmsfolk, would lose hope. And with hope gone, the Realms were a low-hanging fruit for the Lady.

The sound of stone grinding upon itself filled the cell. Briar and Dax looked in all directions for the source but saw nothing. Finally, one of the stones from the floor dropped down, away from the others. Tarfeather raised his head and peered around the cell with his ears tucked back.

He lifted himself from the hole with one hand, while in the other he carried a chunk of the floor-stone. He popped it into his mouth and crunched. Pebbles and sand cascaded down his rounded golden belly on to the floor. He licked his fingers and picked up the crumbs with his sticky saliva, smiling as he slurped them off. “Why Marge, I simply
must
have that recipe,” he said like an old-time actress.

Dax said, “Now that's gonna require a dental plan.”

“One more thing Tarfeather bringery,” the dwaref said. His eyeholes glowed mischievously. He reached down into his tunnel and pulled out the king's pillbox that he had pilfered from the carriage. “With these little babies you'll have enough pep all day!” he said like a movie character. “Briar Blackwood getery boy-friend,” he said in his own rasp. Then he gave a proud fanged smile.

“Jeez, enough with the boyfriend,” Briar said. “Even if we get
out of here, the palace is crawling with Orpion's guard. We'd never be able to reach Leon and get out of here alive.”

Dax's face lit up with realization. “Not necessarily,” he said. He stood and then he paced. “I've seen you do this before,” he said. No one could follow what he was talking about. “Do what?” Briar asked.

“Act. You can
act
like Lady Orpion,” he said. Then a manic flair lit his eyes.

“If you were in your right mind, you would have never suggested this,” Briar said.

“No, it can work,” Dax said to Sherman. “I've seen her do this before. It's like she transforms into the character she's playing. You can't even recognize her.”

“Remarkable,” Sherman said. Then he sized Briar up once more with a squint.

“Dax, this is stupid. Let's think of a better plan than one that involves me
acting
like a murderous—”

“Wait a minute,” Sherman said. “Your friend is right. This
might
work.”

“Are you out of your minds? There's like a bazillion guards and monsters all waiting around for Lady Orpion to execute me so they can chew on my bones for an afternoon high-tea,” Briar said. She caught herself saying it all too loudly, and she finished her thought in a loud whisper. “No way!”

The guard snorted himself half-awake. Everyone stood still, holding their breath. He grumbled something unintelligible while he leaned more, and then a bit more to one side. He finally drooped completely flat onto the straw and stone, and slept taking great whistling breaths.

“Hold out your hands,” Sherman said. He seemed to have a glimmer of some secret in his eyes.

Briar shook her head. “Forget it.”

“You know,” Sherman said. “Myrtle and Poplar tried to convince me that you were the girl—the one we'd waited for. But
I couldn't see it. You were rough, cynical, sarcastic—”

“Hey, Pep-Squad, is this leading somewhere?” Briar asked.

Sherman continued, “—but when the Lady Orpion turned around with flames in her hands—I knew. Right then, I knew. Briar of the Black Woods, this is not how your Tale ends. And it need not end at all if you just survive past your sixteenth birthday. Prove the Three Omens and learn an enchantment from me. Give me your hands.”

Briar exhaled like it was the last breath she'd ever release. She took off her long gloves and held out her hands. “Now I've never done this before, but in the books of dragon lore, I believe it goes something like this—”

Sherman drew a series of geometric shapes in her upturned hands with one of his claws. “Close your eyes,” he said, “and imagine the Lady Orpion standing before you.” It took Briar a few moments to settle down. But slowly, as though stepping through a fog, she saw the Lady Orpion, her finger again poised at her throat. Immediately Briar felt a burning sensation in her gut. The tingling moved to her hands. She felt her heart pumping until it was the only sensation she could feel. Suddenly the blue flames appeared, engulfing her hands like two torches.

Tarfeather audibly drew a deep breath, and he clutched the pillbox to his quivering golden chest.

“Look very carefully at the details of her face,” Sherman said. His eyes were closed and tiny electrical currents, thin bolts of lightning, sparked from his paws toward Briar. “Allow her to come closer…closer…Let there be no gaps,” he said in a trance-inducing tone. Dax began to fight a wave of sleep that suddenly overcame him.

Briar imagined herself standing closer to what she hoped was actually an imagined Orpion. Her pale skin, the color of death, seemed smooth, waxy, and unnatural without any flaws. It reminded Briar of marble statues she had seen in a mortuary. The Lady's eyes, pale green with slits for pupils, burned with an ice-
cold rage. And yet, the more deeply Briar fastened her gaze and looked beneath Orpion's rage, the more clearly she saw something that seemed like pain, or hopelessness.

Then Sherman used his fuzzy snout to nudge Briar's flames toward her face. Like soap bubbles, the two translucent fires detached from her hands and became a single, luminous one that engulfed her head.

Dax and Tarfeather stood watching in amazement as Briar's face began to twist and warp inside the glowing blue fire. Then the flame worked its way down the rest of her body until it completely enclosed her. Briar's white silk corset and shimmering gown changed color, darkened, and transfigured into flowing black robes. Then she floated up off the cell floor, her limbs loose, her neck lolled back limply. The currents of shimmering blue flame swirled around her, twisting the robes tightly around her body so that they became a dark cocoon. The torches that once flickered outside the cell extinguished, and the world became as nothing in darkness.

“Briar,” Sherman whispered. “Briar, answer me.” But the cell was silent, save the guard's drunken snorting.

“What's happening?” Dax asked.

More stillness and silence.

The torches guttered and then flared back to life. Standing at the far end of the cell, gazing down upon them all with green reptilian eyes, was the Lady Orpion.

Tarfeather backed up against Dax. “Sweet Jesus. It's a monster!” he said like an old movie reel.

“Briar?” Dax asked. “Sherman what did you do?”

The Lady standing before them examined her robes and felt the skin of her face. “Dang Sherman. This feels so weird.” Briar looked and sounded identical to Orpion and the others in the cell had trouble convincing themselves that it wasn't.

“I didn't do anything,” Sherman replied, though he was as entranced as the others. “—except help Briar along. This is her
magic alone.”

Briar needed a few minutes for her mind to fathom her new appearance. It sickened her to inhabit the Lady's body. But she also realized that with Dax's plan and Tarfeather's seed-pills so that they could walk through the bars, this just might work. She looked up with Orpion's wicked smile. “Let's go kick some gargoyle ass.”

The guard believed he was following Orpion's orders when Briar commanded him into the jail cell and told him to allow Sherman and Dax to tie him up with a thick jute rope. Then they gagged him with a rag that had, by the look of it, been used to mop up blood. They left him there, bound and muzzled and safely padlocked away, then sneaked down the lonely stone hallways, following Tarfeather.

Briar soon realized that no one wanted to cross the path of the Lady Orpion, not even her own wolfguards, so making progress down the hallways was easier than she initially thought. Doors slammed shut and people darted away when they saw her coming. Briar shivered from time to time as her bare feet met cold flat stone.

Dax walked alongside Tarfeather, who seemed certain of the way to Leon's hiding place, despite being blind. “There are so many hallways, doors, and staircases, Tarfeather. How is it possible that you know the way?”

Tarfeather grinned. “Are you sayin' I can't do it? Well, are ya'?” he mimicked an old movie actor. Then he said in his own gritty voice, “Usery nose, usery ears. Long time livery in palace.”

They had journeyed through so many different passages that Briar lost track of how they might even return to the cell, let alone find their way out of Murbra Faire.

“It's almost as if Cole created this labyrinth of hallways to hide from something,” Briar said.

“Or to keep something in,” Sherman wondered. He pricked
up his ears and jogged with a nervous prance, scanning the halls in all directions.

Without slowing his pace, Tarfeather turned back to the three. “Just what are you trying to hide? You'll never get away with it!” he said, sounding like a daytime drama. Then he motioned with his claws like a tiny flicker, urging them to keep up. Finally, after several more stone corridors and short staircases, he stopped in a nondescript hallway next to an ordinary door, which seemed very much like dozens that they had already passed. “Sshh,” Tarfeather said. He pressed one of his wrinkled ears to the door.

“Boy-friend inery Gelid room,” he whispered in his gravel-voice. He pointed to the door with his sharp golden finger.

Briar reached into her robes and pulled out the cell phone that Myrtle and Poplar had returned to her. She turned it on, and miraculously it still had about half of its battery power left. She began thumbing the device and in a moment, Dax's pocket began to buzz.