James Roy - The Gimlet Eye

There had been a time when she was part of all of that, back before it became quite so random. As an apprentice magician, she had been close to the Navigators’ Guild. She’d even come to count Chief Navigator Stelka as a friend, and had often been at the gatherings when the next vortex had been sought, found and entered. But since the Archon had died and his nephew Florian had taken over, there seemed little rhyme nor reason to the vortexes they passed through, and the worlds into which they led.

But then, over time, and as the Navigators were demoted one by one, there did appear to be a logical explanation for the worlds to which they travelled. The thing was, Quentaris had become no better than the dreaded and despised Tolrush. Quentaris was now little more than a pirate city, sending out scouting parties, then raiding parties, before heading into the next vortex to do it again. Except no one that Tab or any of her friends spoke to seemed to agree with what was happening, so who was in the scouting parties? Who was following the orders of Florian?

Everyone Tab had grown to know and trust within the upper echelons of the Quentaran government had either been demoted, corrupted or in some cases, had simply vanished. Most of the magicians had disappeared. Their former leader Stelka was in a dungeon somewhere, charged with breaking some ancient law that had never been removed from the Constitution – something to do with pigs and sheep sharing a pen, or so it was rumoured. The former Quartermaster Dorissa and the other magicians had been exiled to a dark, haunted corner of the city, and Captain Verris hadn’t been seen for months. Tab had enquired after him, and was given several different versions: a landward scouting expedition that had turned bad; an uprising in one of the rougher parts of the city that had led to several of the authorities dying, including Verris; one person had even whispered to Tab that he’d died of a broken heart after his favourite horse was lost overboard. All Tab knew was that even as a one-time pirate, Verris would never have approved of what the new Quentaris had become.

At least she still had her friends, she mused. Philmon’s work as a skysailer was more hectic than ever, now that Quentaris was constantly plunging through vortexes. He complained about the number of repairs required, but as Tab always reminded him, at least he wasn’t shoveling anything. Amelia, who had been well on her way to qualifying as a magician was serving drinks in a tavern now, and Torby… well, she still visited Torby from time to time, but he wasn’t the same. He was a shell, still haunted by the effects of his torture at the hands of Krull and his Tolrushian henchmen. He’d seemed to improve for a while, after the equens had been to Quentaris, and had even begun to grow in confidence with his magic. But in the weeks and months following the death of the Archon, he’d worsened once more, and no one was quite sure why. Nowadays he lay in a never-ending state of staring awakedness on his bed at the end of a row in the Grendelmire Infirmary. He just lay there, day after day, occasionally twitching, but never speaking. With her friends, Tab would visit him when she could, but they always left wondering if he even knew who they were.

And then there was Fontagu. For a time, just before the Archon’s death, Fontagu’s star had been on the rise. His underhandedness forgotten or forgiven, perhaps both, he’d performed in several plays at the New Paragon, the rebuilt version of the famous old playhouse that had once held pride of place in the bustling eastern end of the city. The original Paragon had burnt to the ground during the battle with the Tolrushians. But it had been rebuilt, and was, for a time, back better than ever.

Fontagu had been in his element. He’d starred in a number of plays, had directed one or two, and had even started writing his own. But then the Archon died, and the bottom fell out of Fontagu’s world. It was a complete mystery to him, how someone so handsome, so damned talented, could go from the most celebrated Simesian actor of his age to a nobody, twice!

‘I don’t understand,’ he’d said to Tab, often. ‘Me! Me!’

‘You were too close,’ Tab replied on one of these occasions. ‘All that business with the equens, and the herdsfolk – you were a part of all that. It’s not your fault, though. Florian just wanted to clean out everyone who had anything to do with the old days.’

‘A new broom?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Which is exactly what I need if I’m going to keep doing my job at the Flegis Arms. Sweeping! Me, sweeping the floor of some commoner’s drinking hole! It’s an outrage, Tab!’

‘You could try being a bit more grateful.’

‘Grateful?’

‘Yes! Amelia didn’t have to help you get a job at her tavern. She put in a good word for you, and now you’ve got work. If you think about it, you’ll realise that it could be worse.’

‘How?’ Fontagu looked up at her with the most pathetic hang-dog expression. ‘How could it be worse?’

‘You could be locked away in a dungeon, like Stelka. Or exiled in Skulum Gate, like Dorissa and Moreon and Aylia and all those other magicians. Or you could be missing altogether, like Verris.’

Fontagu grunted. ‘At least if you ask anyone where Stelka is, they can tell you. But ask anyone where that great thespian, that arteur Fontagu Wizroth the Third is, and they'll offer a one-word reply: “Who?”‘

Tab had to smile then. Once her friend got into one of these moods, it was almost impossible to lift him out of it.

Tab chuckled to herself as she fluffed up a stack of straw in one of the stalls. If there was one thing that had never changed – would never change – in Quentaris, it was Fontagu.

‘When you’ve done that, you can see to the shickins,’ Bendo said from the door. ‘They need fresh water. And check for eggs.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Tab replied. Then, once Bendo had left, she muttered, ‘There’ll be no eggs, you idiot – they’re roosters.’

She picked up the water pail from near the pump and headed over to the shickin pen. A little larger than a turkey, and at least twice as ugly, the shickins had been taken during a recent raid. All sorts of weirdness came into Quentaris after these raids, and it was all very well for Florian, tucked safely away in his new palace. If anything dangerous or infectious was brought aboard, he’d get plenty of warning, mainly in the form of common Quentarans dropping dead. It had only happened a couple of times, but he hadn’t seemed too bothered. In fact, he’d been entirely silent on the matter.

‘Were there any eggs?’ Bendo asked, peering into the pen.

‘No, there weren’t any eggs,’ Tab replied. ‘These shickins are… not laying yet.’

Bendo scratched his head. ‘I don’t understand. I was told by that man at the market that they would be terrific layers.’

‘You’re right, it is weird,’ Tab said. ‘Give them time.’

‘But how much time?’ Bendo leaned forward and growled at the birds. ‘Eggs out of you, or you’ll end up in a broth.’

‘You tell 'em, sir,’ Tab said.

Bendo scowled at her, trying to work out whether she was mocking him. ‘Yes, well,’ he said at last. ‘When you’ve finished with the shickins, you’ve got a visitor.’

‘Who is it?’

‘That lad who’s always hanging around – the skysailor. Don’t be too long. I’m watching you closely.’

‘I’ll be quick,’ Tab replied, letting herself out of the pen and latching the gate. ‘And I’ve heard that shickins lay better if you sing to them.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes, everyone knows that,’ she said. Then she dropped the pail by the pump and ran to the gate at the far end of the courtyard.