P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

Now what? Jame wondered, receiving it back, its seal unbroken.

A commotion arose on the stair behind her.

Servants and minor priests alike hastily retreated to the edges of the room. Jame also withdrew, to be on the safe side. A contingent of ladies entered, one veiled, another in servant’s attire. They were led by a noblewoman so haughty in her bearing that it took a moment to realize that she was very short, almost a dwarf, mounted on very high heels. Trailing after them all came a handsome young man, heavily made up and dressed in a frilly robe.

“So, Nephew,” growled the short noblewoman in a surprisingly deep voice. Jame realized that this must be the redoubtable Princess Amantine, first lady of the court. “I understand that you have refused yet another match. Your half-sister Cella is, of course, heartbroken.”

The veiled lady clapped hands over her face. She might have been crying. Then her fingers slipped and a crow of shrill laughter broke through them. The servant whacked her on the back, at which she gulped and stood still, if subtly aquiver.

“Heartbroken, I say!” boomed the princess, glowering at her.

Krothen spoke behind a plump hand to the priest.

“Your Mellifluous Highness,” said the latter, with a respectful bow. “My lord wonders if Lady Cella’s heart was truly in this proposal. It was his understanding that she prefers to play with her . . . er . . . doll.”

The lady in question nodded so vigorously that her veil fluttered up, revealing a middle-aged face painted white, with buck teeth, protruding eyes, and no chin to speak of.

“Then go,” Krothen said to her in a nasal, not unkind voice. “Play.”

She gave a hoot of glee, grabbed the handsome boy by the hand, and scrambled off down the stairs, pursued by the servant. Two flights down they collided with someone. The new arrival could be heard lumbering up the stairs in their wake.

“Well!” said Amantine, drawing herself up and swaying ominously. “You still need an heir, Nephew. What will happen to this city after you are gone?”

“Where am I going, Aunt? Perhaps, like my father, I choose to stay.”

The princess stomped, and lost her balance. Servants rushed to prop her up.

“What my brother Kruin did was a disaster to his family. Need I remind you that on the male side only you and my dear son Ton are left? Here he comes now, to receive your blessing.”

A figure loomed, wheezing, in the doorway. Unable to enter it head-on, he turned sideways and sidled in, disarranging a coat of bright pink satin as rich as the frosting on a cake. While nowhere nearly as gross as Krothen, the newcomer could easily have made up three men, although he was hardly more than a boy.

“Cousin,” he said, still breathing hard and sounding petulant. “Why you have to live . . . at the top . . . of a damned tower . . .”

Krothen stopped him with a raised hand. “Please,” he said. “Eat.”

A servant offered the boy a platter of locust drizzled with honey.

“Ton-ton, no,” said his mother sharply.

He waved her off, took a dripping insect, and defiantly jammed it into his mouth. Krothen ate another candied slug. Prince Ton grabbed two locusts. Everyone watched first one and then the other as the royal cousins continued to match each other, insect against mollusk.

Ton started to turn green. Cheeks bulging, insectile legs a bristle between plump lips, he made a frantic gesture. A lackey ran up to him carrying a golden bucket into which he was copiously sick. His mother led him away with a grip on his ear that steadied her as much as it chastised him. Those above could hear her scolding her son all the way down the stairs.

Krothen sighed and flipped a fat, dismissive hand at Jame.

As he scooped up the remaining slugs and shoveled them into his mouth, she turned to go, bemused. Had the god-king of Kothifir just winked at her?

Several turns down the stair, out of sight from above and below, Jame paused, thinking. Her call on Krothen had only really been an excuse to visit the Overcliff; her true mission was as yet unfulfilled. In the spring she had sent her half-breed servant Graykin south ahead of her to gather information. He should know by now that she had reached the Host’s camp and have reported to her, but no sign of him had she seen. The bond between them told her that he at least wasn’t in severe distress. Instead she felt echoes of anger and frustration when she thought about him. However, would anyone tell the Knorth Lordan what she needed to know? It was time for a change—one she had been looking forward to for a long time.

Jame stripped off her gray dress coat and reversed it. The tailor who had sewn it had asked why she wanted a finished black lining, but she had only smiled. It was a poor substitute for the knife-fighter’s d’hen , still stowed in her luggage, but at least it was the right color. Unwrapping the tight cheche came as a relief to her burnt, flaking forehead. She considered winding the cloth around her waist, but guessed from Gaudaric’s white sash that to do so would mean something unintended, so instead she rolled it up and stuffed it into her jacket. From an inside pocket came a black cap. The gloves she already wore.

A sense of relief and release swept over her, as if at the shedding of too tight a garment. As much as she enjoyed being a randon cadet, this freedom was an older love.

“Welcome back, Talisman,” she breathed.

No one had yet come up or down the tower, but someone was bound to soon. Were those voices ascending? Time to be gone.

She had stopped near one of the suspension bridges leading to the nearest palace complex above the clouds. She stepped off onto it over the fleecy backs of clouds. At its lowest point, wisps curled over the steps and it swung gently underfoot. A murmur rose from the plaza far below as if from a distant sea lapping around the Rose Tower’s base.

The structure she approached now was another tower topped with an oversized cupola. The sun glowed off sheets of riveted copper and flashed from large, round windows like portholes, ringed with gold. A second smaller glass cupola sat on top like a blister, no doubt giving light to the chamber below. Smoke trickled up the brazen shoulders along with the sound of hammers. Inside, someone was bellowing.

“. . . of all the incompetent, block-headed fools . . .”

Jame stepped off the bridge onto a balcony. One of the round windows fronted it, its glass disc tilted open a crack vertically. She edged inside, emerging behind a high-backed chair which in turn was drawn up to a huge desk covered with paper work. Other tables around the circular room were piled high with scraps of disjointed armor and tools.

In the center of the room, a ruddy, bearded man in burnished half-armor over a white tunic was roaring at a cringing apprentice. His voice made all the surrounding metal ring. Some of it clanged to the floor and tried to crawl away.

“You sodding idiot, couldn’t you see that you had the thing on backward?”

Between the two was a large dog in fully articulated plate armor, trying wretchedly to scratch itself. Not only was steel in the way, but also its front and rear legs appeared to have been transposed.

Jame’s eyebrows raised. Itchy skin be damned. How could it even survive, configured like that?

The ruddy man grabbed the ’prentice and shook him until his cap tumbled over his eyes and his teeth chattered.

“Out of my sight, you . . . you loose screw!”

He flung the man away, straight into a hole against the opposite wall. A complicated, diminishing clatter followed—thumps and yelps generally associated with someone falling down a long flight of stairs.

Lord Artifice, for surely it was he, turned to consider the unfortunate canine.