Paul Kidd - The Council of Blades

"But my dear, I though you'd wear your little fairy costume. I did so like the wings." Lady Ulia picked up Tekoriikii's head. "What an amazingly stupid face! You operate it as a sort of puppet, I suppose?" Miliana's stepmother hoisted up Tekoriikii's tail. "Do you put your hand up here?"

"No!" Miliana lunged forward in alarm. "No… it's… the glue's still drying."

"Oh, of course. Please don't mind me, child. The evening has me so very, very tired." Ulia rolled her eyes and sighed. "Thirty guests. Did I tell you? We have thirty guests!"

"Have we really?"

"Yes-now what did I come in here for?" Lady Ulia bustled herself out into the palace corridors. "Now do get some sleep, child. The ball is tomorrow night. There's the Sun Gem to receive, elven ambassadors to welcome, and I still have no idea where I shall show this silly painting from Lomatra…"

The great lady cruised off into the darkness in a confused babble of her own woes, and Miliana gratefully slammed the door shut behind her. Miliana wearily wiped sweat back from her eyes and prayed that Ulia had been mollified for yet another day.

From beneath Miliana's pillow, a muffled voice nervously explored the air.

"Glub glub?"

"Yes, she's gone." Miliana peeled herself away from the wall. "You can come out now."

Tekoriikii had hidden himself by the simple ruse of stuffing his head under the eiderdown. Inch by inch the creature cautiously emerged; his beak now looked a distinctly ashen shade of gray.

He had been lucky; a close encounter with Ulia could age some creatures by twenty years.

A light tap came at the sealed shutters of Miliana's window. The girl ignored the noise and made her way over to the bed, where she tried to prop up the bird and bring the life back into his limbs.

"Well it's your own fault, you know. All princesses are guarded by monsters. This one's just a bit louder and more powerful than most." Miliana removed her spell scrolls from inside her hat, which now had a pungent smell of sun-dried toads. "Come on-cheer up, eat your biscuits, and we'll go and have some fun."

A sharper rap came at Miliana's window. She briefly scowled, removed her spectacles, and polished the lenses on Tekoriikii's tail.

There it came again! Sharp and brief, like a night bird smacking into the shutters, or a branch flicking at the walls. Miliana heard the sound for a fourth time, rose, and opened her shutters to scowl out into the night.

A stone smacked her right on the brow. With a curse that would have made a drill sergeant blush, the girl fell back from the window half blinded in pain. Like the well-brought-up young lady that she was, Miliana furiously snatched the rock and pitched it straight back down into the dark. A rich, meaty thump followed by a piteous wail of pain rose from the courtyard below.

Lorenzo staggered out into the lamplight, looking up at Miliana with accusing, wounded eyes.

"What did you do that for?"

The girl leaned from her balcony, wondering if she should let down her hair; Lorenzo could then climb into reach so she could strangle him. Miliana rubbed ill-humoredly at her smarting forehead and glared down at the young man.

"Did you throw rocks at my damned window?"

"I wanted to quietly attract your attention." Lorenzo drew stares from three passing gardeners, a night watchman and a maid. "I want you to come out with me, in secret!"

Miliana glared at the staring servants through spectacles that shone blank as ice.

"He's the jester for tomorrow night. He's just practicing his routines." A maid looked at a gardener, seeming timid and unsure. Miliana sent them scuttling for cover with a roar. "Haven't you people got work to do? Or does Lady Ulia have to come on another inspection tour?"

The courtyard cleared with unbelievable speed and Lorenzo was left alone amidst a cloud of dust left by fleeing servants. He looked about himself in awe, then stared happily up at Miliana's face.

"I'm planning a fact-finding tour of the city. Will you come? We could take our feathery friend…"

"Shut up!" Miliana pegged her shutters open one by one. "Just climb up the jasmine creepers before somebody sees you!"

Shouldering an untidy parcel-his sketch pads, books and pens-Lorenzo made a creditable show of swarming up into the princess's balcony. He sprang into Miliana's rooms without the slightest hint of terror or embarrassment.

"Isn't it the most incredible night? The moon looks utterly entrancing. I've been doing that anatomy work I discussed with you, and so I suddenly just had to see you." Lorenzo tipped his cap to the girl and lit the room with an innocent, boyish smile. "Hello old bird! How do you do?"

Tekoriikii warbled, lowered his lashes, and fluffed up his plumes, obviously feeling his old self once more.

Lorenzo unshipped one of his books and spread it out across Miliana's tabletop.

"I've found him, by the way, in Groonpeck's Field Guide to Terrifying Denizens of the Air, with special appendices for Acheron, the Elemental Planes, and the Abyss." Lorenzo swept open the volume and proudly pointed to the page. "He's a firebird!"

Miliana, Lorenzo, and the bird all craned to stare at the book; it contained a picture of a handsome orange bird with a great overabundance of tail plumes. Even Miliana couldn't fault the likeness. She polished her spectacles, leaned over the book, then lowered her frames down her nose to regard the bird across the wire rims.

"Is that what you are? A firebird?"

"Gronk nonk!" Tekoriikii flapped his wings, then lifted his beak up in pride. "Kadoodle gronk nonk!"

"He says yes." Miliana bent down to examine the book with a frown creasing her speckled brow. "It has firebirds listed as 'sacred, untouchable, and extremely dangerous; avoid at all cost.' "

"Well… Groonpeck was never the greatest of scholars." Lorenzo closed up the dusty old tome with a bang. "Anyway-there we are! Let's take him out and show our firebird the city-state of Sumbria."

"How?" Miliana recoiled in surprise. "Everyone will see him. I don't want Ulia to find him and serve him up for tomorrow's evening meal!"

"Just tell people he's a pet. Have you seen some of the things people are dragging about on leashes out there?" Lorenzo briskly slung his pack across his back. "Anyway, no one will even know we're out. We're going to sneak over the walls."

"And just why have you decided on this little expedition?"

"Well, I have to let my chemicals brew. Tomorrow I've been asked to demonstrate my new light lathe for the kind gentleman who patronized the project." Lorenzo swaggered in pride. "The mixing tanks don't explode anymore. The fault was in having metal storage tanks; the acids slowly burned right through. I've just had two glass ones blown, and it's all holding just perfectly. I think the results might surprise you."

Miliana rolled her eyes toward the apex of her hat with a sigh. "Pray, please don't do anything to ruin the ball tomorrow, or Lady Ulia will use your tanned hide as a hearth rug!"

"Lady Ulia?" Lorenzo let his mind search through the neglected cupboards of his short-term memory. "Oh yes-your mother… A most fascinating woman. I've been trying to determine her bone structure for my comparative anatomy project, but I'm not strictly sure that she actually has any bones."

"She doesn't need them; her arteries are stiff enough to hold her up." Miliana met Tekoriikii's eyes, and the firebird nodded in eager agreement. "You still haven't told me why we're going out into the city in secret."

"It's traditional." Lorenzo innocently spread open his arms. "We're supposed to go in mufti."

"What's mufti?"

"I think it's a type of cart." Lorenzo looked to Tekoriikii, who only shrugged his wings. "Since you're not allowed out of the palace, I thought we'd secretly drop a rope from the rooftop and go see the street festival. You seemed scornful that I knew so little about the masses-so I think it's high time we ceased bickering and met the masses face-to-face!"