The Assassin Princess (Lamb & Castle Book 2) (13 page)

White Queen and Black Queen walked briskly together through damp and dingy tunnels. Though the palace above had been warm and alive with the glow of lamps and chandeliers, there was no light in the tunnels below, bar the lantern that Commander Breaker had left behind. The other cells had all appeared to be empty, their barred entrances like the gaping mouths of spiny deep sea fish, all dark beyond those long iron teeth. Leaving the cells behind, the girls had entered a maze.

“If I tell you the charm to open any lock,” said Amelia, her voice echoing down the dark and dripping tunnels, “will you teach me the spell for those wings of yours?” It seemed a fair enough trade and the friendly thing to do. As she understood it, that was how witches did things: sharing their spells with their sisters, their daughters, their friends.

But Bessie only turned to shush her, her face fierce in the flickering light of the lantern she carried. “We must be silent as cats in the night,” the little Black Queen whispered. “We don't know who or what might be about, down here in the dark.”

Amelia turned over this unpleasant thought a long time in silence. The two of them had walked a good half an hour without seeing even one other lantern lit. These tunnels must not be in regular use. Or at least, if they were habitually used, it was by something that could see in the dark…

Past another locked door, a grinding, growling noise in the distance made them both hesitate, and Amelia heard a regular thud, the footsteps of some enormous creature, out there in the dark. Fearless, Bessie crept forward, the lantern held high. She disappeared around a corner, but her quiet voice echoed back to Amelia: “Come on! It's nothing to be afraid of.”

Though Amelia didn't agree, she didn't like standing around in the dark much either, and why should she waste a light spell when Bessie had a lantern? She scurried down the corridor, round the corner, and almost fell straight down a flight of stairs. Bessie had to grab her by the sleeve to keep her from falling into the source of the great noise – an open rectangular pit filled with cogs like the inside of a giant's pocket watch. Gears the size of cartwheels turned on shafts as thick as a man's arm, ropes on pulleys quaking as they disappeared into the bottomless black depths of the pit. Rickety wooden steps led up and over the machinery, with little to protect those who wished to cross from a long fall and an awful death.

“Did the builders of the Flying Cities never think to put in guard rails?” asked Amelia crossly. Her lovely tower at home had rails and guards in all the necessary places: the stairs, the roof garden, the landing stage, so that she'd played safely as a child and never had to worry what might happen if she missed her footing.

“We're deeper here than I ever went in Iletia,” said Bessie, and Amelia guessed that this must be what Meg had meant when she talked about the machinery that held the Flying Cities upright. “Nobody would come down these tunnels unless they needed to fix something. Our dad would've given us such a beating if he'd caught any of us on these levels…” The girl shrugged off her strange bout of nostalgia, and peered over the edge of the rectangular pit, where a frayed rope ladder led down the sheer stone wall. “All right, turn around,” she said, “we need to be aiming higher if we're to find a way out.”

They journeyed onward, from time to time hearing the grinding and clanking of the arcane clockwork that ran the Flying City. Bessie always steered them carefully around it, while Amelia’s lock-charming spell proved its usefulness time and time again. The oil in their lantern had burned out, so that they were relying on light spells, taking turns to summon little white lights like tiny full moons that bobbed along above them. They climbed higher whenever they chanced upon any staircase, until at last they came to a storeroom half-filled with merchants' crates, like the cellar beneath the shop where Amelia had hidden from Bessie not so long ago. Amelia tried to read the words stencilled on the crates, but they were faded almost to nothing and in no language she'd ever seen. Most had been broken open, their contents long since stolen.

Bessie was busy seeking stairs to a door or trapdoor that might lead them into the shop above, and then out into the open streets. “I was afraid of that,” she muttered. She turned to Amelia, pointing out the tumble of broken bricks and stones that blocked the stairway in the corner of the storeroom. “When you got us out of that cell so quickly, I knew it couldn’t be that simple. I don’t suppose you know a spell that might help here?”

Cobwebs and dirt covered the crude blockage. It wasn’t the first stairway or arch they’d discovered blocked off in such a way, and Amelia guessed that if the cursed prince had ordered Ilgrevnia's basements to be converted into one enormous dungeon, he'd done so long ago. “If only Meg were here…” Meg would have shifted the tons of rubble in no time at all, the same as she'd shifted all that earth to bury the giant snail and keep it safe; the same as she'd summoned miles and miles of fog to hide their skyship from the Black Queen's sight. Amelia didn't dare even try, for fear that she'd exhaust herself halfway through the heavy task.

And again, Bessie said wearily “All right then, turn around. We'll find another way.”

Amelia's feet were sore, her stomach growling, and she was beginning to wish she'd never bothered to escape the cell. If Archalthus appeared right in front of her, she thought she’d hand over the crown at once and beg to be his Queen… “Will you tell me more about the City you come from?” she asked Bessie, hoping to take her mind off her feet, her stomach and her nerves.

“What's to tell?” Bessie muttered, frowning. “You've been to Flying Cities before, haven't you? They're all very much alike, as far as I know.”

“Do you have fairy tales in the Flying Cities?” Amelia thought perhaps there might be enough magic in day-to-day life above the clouds that the Citizens had no need of fairy tales.

“Of course we have fairy tales. I'm a little old for such things, though.”

“No, no! Stories are good for journeying – they pass the time. Please tell me one.”

Bessie sighed. “All right then.” And reluctantly she began. “Once upon a time, two kingdoms were at war: a nation of men pitted against one of trolls. I expect you've heard this one before.”

“Not at all! Please, go on.”

Trolls are huge and fearsome beasts, but men are quicker and more numerous, and most mages refused to take a side. All this made for a drudgerous war that went on for years, with little chance for glory on either side.

Two soldiers, Padrig and Paol, wandered lost in a strange land. For days they saw no one – man nor beast – until they began to fear the war was lost and all were dead. As they trudged through the mire of troll swamps, they sang songs of their homeland to keep their spirits up, but they despaired of ever seeing the land they loved again. Their homesickness grew until they began to lose all fear of death at the hands of the enemy. Every morning and every night, Padrig whistled the national anthem, clear and piercing, unafraid of being discovered.

One morning, Padrig and Paol woke to find a terrible fog had descended upon the land. Padrig – who had been the bolder of the two friends ever since they'd been little boys, thought they should continue their journey, while Paol thought they should wait. What difference would a day make, when they were so far from home? The two friends argued, and Padrig began to whistle the national anthem as he did every morning just as they set off. At the first verse, he stood and shouldered his pack. At the second, he consulted his compass and turned to the north, striking off and fully expecting his friend to follow, willingly or not. At the third verse, his whistling faded to nothing. By the time Paol had got up and run after where Padrig had disappeared into the fog, they'd become separated, unable even to see their own hands in front of their faces. They shouted to each other in the unearthly thick fog, but at each shout, their voices seemed to grow more distant. Soon, the two friends had lost each other. Paol ventured on through the fog, hoping at each step to stumble against his old friend's heels, but he was alone, stumbling only against leafless black trees.

Bessie, despite her initial reticence, began to warm to the telling of a tale that was clearly familiar to her. At first she’d kept her voice quiet for the sake of stealth, but as she progressed, her whispered words began to take on the character of a tale told in the dead of a winter’s night beside a guttering fire.

Paol thought he must give up all hope of ever finding his friend again, even when a cold thin rain began to fall and the fog began to clear. Then, as the sky darkened, he swore he heard the sound of Padrig whistling the national anthem. Though the sweet notes were distant at first and ghostly in the fading mist, Paol thought the sound grew louder as he hurried through the bare trees and the bracken. At the first verse, he stopped and stood breathless, straining to hear where the music came from. At the second verse he headed into the woods, reciting the words in his head. At the third verse he hurried faster, knowing time was short… and there the anthem concluded, and the whistling stopped, with Padrig still nowhere to be seen. Paol, marching on in the direction of the last note lingering amongst the raindrops, soon tripped over what turned out to be his friend's shield. Before him, shadowy and huge in the grey haze, stood a terrible figure, horned and shaggy, with blazing eyes and breath that streamed from its wide nostrils like steam from a kettle. Paol recognised it at once for a trollbeast, one of the mounts of the troll soldiers, one that crushed infantrymen beneath its enormous feet, and gored them with its dreadful horns. And round about the terrible figure of the trollbeast lay the contents of Padrig's pack, the shreds of his uniform.

Not thinking for a moment of his own safety, Paol drew his sword, intent to strike dead the monster that had devoured his friend, or else die in the attempt. He lunged at the trollbeast, which roared like a lion and swatted him aside as easily as a cat swatting at a mouse. Paol picked himself up and tried again, but again the trollbeast threw him aside. Eventually, breathless and defeated, Paol stood back, his sword still held at the ready although he trembled with exhaustion. The trollbeast watched him, yet it did not charge. It could have – no,
should
have killed him easily, and put an end to his misery.

“What trickery is this?” shouted Paol: at the trollbeast, at the forest, at the whole world. The trollbeast flinched, and just for an instant Paol thought his adversary must be just as sick of the war as he was. But the trollbeast's mouth was meant for tearing flesh from the bone, not for speaking words, so it said nothing, only staring at Paol, its eyes burning like two coals in a fire. Paol turned away, tired of the fight, tired of the war, tired of this desolate land far from his home and all he loved. Should it turn out that the creature had been toying with him only to pounce and strike him dead as he walked away, Paol no longer cared. He threw down his sword in the dead leaves, sat down with his back to a tree trunk, and there he slept.

At dawn, the sweet tune of the national anthem woke him, and for a moment Paol's heart was bright and free, before he remembered the strange protracted battle of the night before. At the first verse, he got to his feet, seeking the source of the music. At the second verse, he followed the sound to the clearing where Padrig's belongings lay scattered. At the third verse, Paol saw the trollbeast, whistling as the tears rolled down its hideous face, and he recognised at last his friend – transformed by some evil spell into a servant of the enemy.

“Are all trollbeasts our own brothers, turned against us by evil magic?” Paol asked, although Padrig could neither know nor answer. “Come now,” said Paol. “Let us carry on homeward.”

And so the two companions continued on their journey, supporting and encouraging one another just as they had before, until it was as if no evil magic had ever befallen Padrig, for his mind was still Padrig's mind, stubborn as a mule, and his heart was still Padrig's heart, full of affection for his friend who he loved as a brother. And when he whistled the national anthem at dawn and at dusk, his voice was Padrig's voice, if only for three verses at a time. Along the way, the two companions saw the bodies and the bones of slain trolls; saw the villages of men rebuilding and recovering themselves from the horrors of war. Though it gave Paol strength to see men at work in fields and forges, and know in his heart that the war was won, he kept Padrig out of sight of strangers, after once a gang of farmhands chased them with pitchforks. Of course, Padrig feared that the people of their own home village would react in the same way, but Paol reassured him that they
must
recognise their son, their brother, their workmate, no matter how the war had changed him. They were two weary heroes returning home, and they would be greeted with the warm and gentle welcome they must surely deserve.

How wrong Paol was. On their return, Padrig's erstwhile friends and family cried out in horror to see the trollbeast. They slung rocks and rubbish at the son who they'd sent away to war with tears and kisses. They took up their pitchforks, their scythes and hammers, advancing as a mass that they might vanquish the massive trollbeast through their united numbers. But Paol stood between the mob and his brother in arms, drew his sword against his own people, and refused to be moved. “Run then, brother,” he said to Padrig. But Padrig would not run; would not leave the village of his birth in such shame. He would rather face death. And with this in mind, he began to whistle the national anthem.

At first, the villagers were horrified. What a disgusting trick! What a cruel prank! For shame, to teach the holy anthem of their beloved country to this disgusting trollbeast! And still Paol stood with his sword in his hand, insisting over and over that this beast was their dear friend Padrig. Until, at last, Padrig's father agreed that nobody – least of all a trollbeast! – could whistle quite as tunefully as Padrig could, and one by one the villagers could do nothing but accept the truth of Paol's story. Even changed by the enemy spell, he was still Padrig, and what could they do but take him back into their lives and their hearts?