Paul Kidd - The Council of Blades

The breeze blew cool and calming; the promised headache never came. All she needed was a few moments of absolute peace, and she would feel her old self again.

On a fine silver chain about Miliana's neck, there swung a single rose-pink pearl-a large, teardrop-shaped affair that perfectly complimented her coloring. Feeling its unfamiliar weight settling on her skin, the princess drew out the pendant and eyed it with a soft, fond smile.

"Miliaaaa-naaaaaaa!"

The piercing summons caused the girl to close her eyes and freeze, waiting for a migraine headache to begin; luckily, the priest's spells had been first class. With an air of deep and quiet calm, Miliana managed to face Lady Ulia and her father with a smile.

Plucking out her skirts and sinking a wee curtsy, Miliana nodded her tall hat in gentle greeting to her stepmother. Her father-rigid, dignified, and foreboding-gave a brisk nod of his gray beard to his daughter.

"Ah. Miliana." The prince gazed at his daughter without any real interest. "You appear to be well. How do your lessons go?"

The man had hardly spoken more than five sentences to his daughter in her entire life. Cowed, Miliana made a set of suitably dutiful noises-the lessons went well, she found needlepoint occupied most of her time, and the lavender smoke which yesterday exploded from her fireplace was most definitely the result of diseased firewood. Her father nodded, not bothering to listen to a word she had to say.

Her duty done, Miliana turned herself to the ziggurat of silk that was Lady Ulia. Swallowing carefully, Miliana congratulated herself on her survival thus far, and wished Lady Ulia the best of the day.

"Lady Ulia-is it not a perfect evening? I trust you find the airs as pleasant as I?"

"Pleasant?"

The cry caused Miliana to draw a little breath in pain. Coiling her head backward atop its great abundance of chins, Lady Ulia Mannicci blinked in horror at the girl. "Have you heard what the caterers are doing to my feast? There is still no centerpiece for the table. I desired a great bird, and what am I offered? A cuttlefish of the most revolting size! I can hardly have a mass of tentacles splayed out amongst the silverware before all of our guests!"

The tirade of woes quickly lost its force; Lady Ulia had dragged in the whalebone and case-hardened steel of her corsets several inches too tight, and the constriction left her short of breath. The woman retreated into the solace of her waving fan and cast her eyes across her stepdaughter's decolletage.

Spying the pearly pendant about Miliana's tender neck, she suddenly snatched up a quizzing glass and bent her head down to examine the object in suspicion and alarm.

"A pearl?" Ulia blinked in blubbering surprise. "Sooth, it is a pearl. A pearl of the first quality!" Miliana's stepmother drew in a breath and examined her smiling stepdaughter with a great, foreboding eye. "And just where, my lass, did this come from?"

Something stirred under Miliana's hat. Peeling a dizzy swoop of headache threatening to emerge, Miliana attempted to turn her face into a model of unconcern.

"It just came from… an admirer."

"And who, pray tell, is this admirer?

"Well-I don't actually know." Miliana felt a warm glow as she felt the pearl between her breasts; she polished one of her reserve pair of spectacles to cover her unconscious blush. "Just… someone."

"A young lady does not accept gifts from unknown sources." Lady Ulia reexamined the pearl with a mixed air of outrage, pomposity, and scorn. "Particularly not young ladies who already have approved, valid suitors seeking for their hand!"

Suddenly, the entire palace shuddered to an enormous bang. Miliana staggered, went green, and clapped her hands across her aching brow.

Prince Cappa Mannicci stared in the direction of the guest quarters in alarm.

"Great Lords of Baator! What was that?"

Miliana looked up in alarm.

"It wasn't me!"

"Of course it wasn't you! How can a mere girl make an explosion?" The Prince separated himself from Lady Ulia. "It's from that boy's quarters… the one from Lomatra…"

Lomatra. The thought made Prince Mannicci turn a cold gaze to the palace's west wing.

"Tonight, daughter, you shall devote an evening to our errant suitor. This time next year, I wish you to be a Lomatran bride."

"Father!" Miliana's eyes blinked wide; appalled, she took a step closer to the prince. "Father, no!"

"I wish it. It shall be done."

Face set and angry, Miliana used the mask of her great lenses to hide her cold, determined eyes. Headache forgotten, the girl gave an obedient curtsy, then smartly turned about and marched herself away.

A Lomatran bride indeed! Miliana clenched a hand about her brand new pearl-Lorenzo's pearl-and felt it spread a spell of warmth past the fury in her soul.

She had a friend now-a real friend. And a more-or-less magical bird monster-thing to stay by her side. Between them, they would blow her father's plans straight to the Abyss!

Back in the courtyard, Lady Ulia watched Miliana leave and let a crease of suspicion gouge a line across her brows.

"Why, my dear, do you suppose your daughter is so compliant today?"

The Prince of Sumbria focused his attentions on the girl.

"Perhaps the seriousness of life has finally sunk home."

"Yes-or, perhaps, a double life…" Lady Ulia turned the horns of her great lime-green hat belligerently toward her prey. "There have been some very strange things going on within this palace.

"I think Miliana's activities deserve a closer scrutiny, my dear. It may prove to be the very-pearl-of the problem."

"Lorenzo? Lorenzo!"

Moving with all due caution, Luccio Irozzi peeked his head about his apartment's door, then edged into his quarters at the head of a band of nervous palace workmen. Moving like men venturing into a dragon's lair, the little procession scanned the room's bewildering array of pipe work, burners, and bubbling pots; they crept across the floor as though expecting pitfalls or showers of burning oil.

No new explosions seemed imminent. Luccio strode across the pitted carpet to Lorenzo's bedroom door, tried the lock, then rapped lightly on the woodwork with his fist.

"Lorenzo? Lorenzo, it is I!" The man's knuckles rippled as he drummed a dirty ditty on the door. "Be a good little pyromaniac and open up the door before I blow your house down…"

Movement came from behind the door-a hiss, an eerie flicker of light from under the doorjamb, and a sudden smell of scorching metal. A muffled and somewhat distracted voice wafted through to Luccio from the far side of the wall.

"Not now! I need five minutes."

"Five minutes?" Luccio puffed out his chest like a fighting rooster and nearly capsized a pile of glassware with his waving arms. "Lorenzo, my dressing routine has been disturbed. The delight of a hundred eager young damsels hangs in the balance! I have not a minute to spare, let alone five!" Pained by the potential disaster, Luccio hurtled himself against the portal in theatrical dismay.

"Think, Lorenzo, think! Consider their anguish; the screams, the wails, the suicides! Temples swamped as vast columns of poor, disillusioned girls sorrowfully line up to take their chastity vows."

The door opened just a crack, and a vague, disoriented Lorenzo stuck his head out into the room.

"I am trying to prepare a demonstration. Can't you leave me in peace?"

"Alas, O Lord of Soot, I wish it could be so." Luccio performed a bow and elegantly indicated the workmen ranked at his rear. "These noble minions of mine host wish to take possession of the famous painting of the sea goddess. It is to be prepared for display."

With a frustrated sigh, Lorenzo withdrew back into his room.

"It's in the sitting room, just by the door. Don't lift the covers if there's any dust around-the varnish is still not completely dry. And don't take the easel!"