“I don’t know either.”
“Do crowns have special spells? I never studied magic. Did Clair tell you they do?”
“Well, Six-Stix does, but all the magic was put on it. So how else could magic know a crown is a crown? Well hey, if the situation looks stinky, we can always skedaddle, right?” I loved the idea of defeating an Evil Mage ... and getting a reward.
If, that is, if I could do it by dispelling some evil spell, and not get myself into a magic fight, which I knew I’d lose.
On the other tentacle, if that Evil Mage wasn’t used to illusions, and pies, and the MH gang’s ways of doing things ...
“Yeah. Let’s go,” I said.
“Yay!” Klutz yelled.
Id sidled a look around and then joined in when Puddlenose hooted and rubbed his hands. We left, walked until dark, and then found a barn to hole up in. Puddlenose was the expert here, showing us how to make hay nests. The hay was really old, left over from last year, but it was comfy enough if you flattened it so it wouldn’t tickle your neck or face.
The next day, we bucketed along, and reached the outskirts of the city.
If you didn’t notice how empty of people it was, you’d describe it as a pretty city. The stone was not the weird stuff of our White Palace after all, but several different types of local white rock, some glistening, some not, with streets made mostly of pale gray or honey-colored brick. Carvings everywhere, with lots of arches, and flowering trees growing in circles with broad avenues leading off. The buildings were silver-veined marble closer to the palace, divided off by winding canals with pretty arched bridges all over, a style I was going to see again when I ended up in Colend, on another adventure later.
The closer we got to the central palace (which was several stories tall, with four big towers above the slanted golden roof) the more stone statues we met. Just about everyone was frozen in the act of bustling away from the palace, some looking back over their shoulders.
“Evil Mage, you think?” Gwen asked, after we passed another one.
“They don’t look surprised,” Seshe observed.
“What do you mean?” Dhana asked, frowning into the face of a tall, gaunt man, who scowled worse than PJ when Mumsie-dearest didn’t instantly give him what he wanted.
Seshe completed a circle around one. “Like they tried to outrun something.”
Once she said it, I saw what she meant. None of them had that look of “What’s happening?” you’d expect of someone confronted by an Evil Mage saying, I’m gonna turn you into stone, har har! They looked more annoyed, like “You can’t do that to me!”
We walked over a bridge larger than most, its arched supports and rails edged with carvings of festooned garlands. Here, we found more statues. Most were adults, though a few kids were there, too. We passed one girl who looked like a spoiled brat—she’d been frozen mid-flounce, a fancy dress flying out, her nose in the air, her mouth turned down.
“That,” Gwen said, “looks like a princess of the worst kind.”
“Makes me wonder how the spell knows who’s or what’s royalty. Like, is it kings only? Is a new princess okay? How about an archduke?” Klutz asked.
Id looked at her, his eyes wide under his unruly mop of blond hair. “Archdukes?”
“Sure! I remember somebody blabbin’ about ’em in Paris. They had a lot of ’em in that other empire, the one to the east.”
‘Hey, there’s somebody in there,” Puddlenose said, interrupting this talk. Just as well, because I couldn’t figure out whether to worry or not, and Sherry looked scared again.
We entered a huge room that looked like a throne room, a low couch cushioned with embroidered satin pillows at the far end, surrounded by lots and lots of bright color. The color, we saw as we got closer, was contained in round and oval and cylindrical shapes—vases and bowls and urns.
On the couch sat a plump little man, surrounded by paint supplies. The white marble of the room contrasted with all the tables and shelves full of containers of various sizes, and cups, and fire screens, all painted in what people call lapidary style: tiny, brightly glowing patterns and shapes, as if bejeweled. I rarely took much notice of such stuff, but these were beautiful.
The little man was busy painting a half-done vase, his pudgy fingers holding a tiny paint brush that looked like it had three hairs in it. Blue paint glowed at the end like a gem. He carefully touched it to a bunch of tiny cherries, and the contrast of blue and crimson made the colors seem to sparkle. Then he bounded to his feet, and addressed us in the local lingo.
“Can’t understand,” I said, mentally reviewing the pie spell. If we threw enough of them, maybe he’d slip and slide, and couldn’t chase us ...
“Are you here to break the spell?” He’d switched to Mearsiean, that same accent used by that girl we’d met the day before.
And he looked straight at me.
I turned to the others. The gang shrugged, sidled looks that meant You’re the princess, you do the talking, so I said, “Maybe.”
He sighed. “Well, I hope so.”
“What?”
“What?”
“What?” (etc)
He snorted a laugh, then sat down, and pointed at a golden tray full of tarts and biscuits stuffed with cheese. “Here. Have something to eat.”
Sherry stretched out her hand toward the tray, then snatched it back. “Are you the Evil Mage?” She pointed at the food, which smelled so good, my stomach was growling. “I don’t want to get turned into a frog!”
“I’m supposed to be a mage. And I learned what I had to, but oh, I do so hate magic. But I’m bound here until the spell is broken. I hate it here. It’s boring. Everybody hates me. Why should I have to pay for my grandfather’s ambitions?” He scratched his head with the end of his paintbrush. The wrong end—blue pain splotched his pale curls. I noticed that his clothes—blue silk robe layered over blue silk trousers—was all paint-splotched, too.
Puddlenose helped himself to some tarts, and sat on a hassock. “What’s the story?”
The little man groaned. “How many times must I tell it? Well, here ’tis. You know that many in this part of the world were born with magic, after they came through the world gate.”
I thought of the horrible Yxubarecs—but then they’d refused to give up their shape-changing powers, unlike the Mearsieans. Who’d been shape-changers way, way back.
I said, “We know about the Mearsieans, and the Yxubarecs. You’re not one, are you?”
He waved his hands. “You have it backwards! My grandfather came through the world gate, seeking the four who serve as queens here. It’s old politics from the other world—way before what you call the Yxubarecs were confined to their cloud—and has to do with magic. But, hmmm, the four ... well, call them sisters, in human terms. They loved this world. It’s a beautiful world, if you get to see any of it outside this city.”
Puddlenose waved an apricot tart in agreement.
“And they got along fine with the local beings. They were asked to become rulers, as they had so much magic. They agreed with the great mages here to lay down certain powers, and in return they could stay. My grandfather had thought to use those powers. They refused to join him in his plans, and thwarted him. In revenge, he turned them into stone. But the enchantment is difficult to break.”
“We heard—only foreign royalty can do it,” Klutz said, smacking her skinny chest. “We’re all foreigners, and we’ve got royalty.”
A bunch of thumbs all turned toward me.
The little man peered at me, his bushy blond brows raised hopefully, then he sighed as he bent to carefully mix a new shade of green. “So many come here, and say they are royalty. I’ve never met so many kings, princes, princesses—especially princesses—and the like. Well, here’s the rest. The queens’ cousins, who had taken human form, bravely tried to help out—and got stuck under a horrible spell that thrust them outside time to wander and never find rest or peace.”
“That sounds even
worse than the stone spell,” Seshe said.
“Yes.” The man dropped the paint brush onto the palette. “I’m tired of running a kingdom where no one wants me. I just want to paint, and to sell my works! But if I leave, then the spell becomes permanent. My grandfather wanted to start a dynasty.”
“What do we do?” I asked. “I mean, I take it the magic doesn’t work if you happen to be wearing a crown?” I tapped mine.
“Nope. All kinds of crowns on our statues, as you’ve probably seen. As to how or why it works, your guess is as good as mine, beyond the antidote riddle,” he said. “I never could master magic, my mind just wandered too much, always into colors. I’d read a spell ... and think about what color it might be painted in.” He sighed. “I know just enough to maintain things here.” He yawned, brought up his hand to cover his mouth, and the paintbrush in his fingers jabbed him with green paint just above one eye.
Puddlenose said, “What kind of royalty, can you say? I mean, were all those statues of people running away really fake kings and the like?”
“I guess so.” The little man shrugged again, and then reached down for a brush. But then he seemed to remember his manners, and folded his hands politely over his round middle. “In truth, I’ve often wondered why we had that many false kings and princesses about. Maybe it’s the thought of the reward that draws ’em. Or maybe some of them are real, but not real enough?”
Seshe said, “Can you tell us what makes them real? Do they have to be named as royalty on their name day, or what?”
Her tone was odd, making me once again wonder what her background was. And Puddlenose looked so fidgety, I remembered that his mother had been a princess, and that terrible Shnit of the Chwahir had tried to make him a crown prince, just out of cruelty.
And then there was me.
The little man shrugged. Didn’t take an atomic scientist to figure he didn’t particularly care.
Klutz made a sour face as she pointed at the guy—she didn’t think the Evil Mage was much on brains, though he obviously had plenty of art talent.
I said, “Is the antidote to the spell written down anywhere, even as a puzzle or clue?” Clare had told me about enchantments often having their antidotes put as verses, or riddles, or hints, as an added protection. Maybe he’d forgotten an important word or two.
“Oh yes. Up in the magic room, in the Winter Tower,” the little man said. “It’s so fatiguing to walk all the way up there, and for what? Boring books.”
Naturally the winter tower was the highest of the four, but since we were here ... and there was always that reward.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“All of us?” Id asked, tipping his chin toward the food.
“Stay if you want. Save some eats for us.”
Seshe and Dhana went with me—Dhana to look through the windows and sniff the air.
We pounded up and up and up the marble stairs, me thinking of the White Palace at home, and wondering how Clair was. Bet she was worried, which made me worry. I looked at my ring again, but shook my head. I felt I had to stay with the others.
At last we came into a room filled with book cases. They were jammed with hand-written and bound books, most of them looking really old. In the middle of the round room sat a couple of tables, one with a book on it, another bare. Between the book cases, in a circle, windows streamed with light. Dhana drifted toward the nearest so she could look out at the view.
When I turned around, I discovered Seshe staring at something. There was an archway I hadn’t noticed. A faint golden color glowed in the door, through which we could see golden furniture. On tables inside this chamber, someone had piled gems and coins and jewels in careless haste. All glittering in the light.
“Wow, what a stash.” I took a step forward. “Is that their treasure?”
Seshe turned away. “Might be. If so, that fellow doesn’t seem to be guarding it very well.”
“You know, if we grabbed some, we could probably buy our way home.” I took another step forward. “It’s not like anybody is using it.”
Seshe wrinkled her nose, and I could tell she hated the idea. Of course. It was someone else’s stuff. The other way to look at ‘if we grabbed’ was ‘if we thieved’. I sighed, turned my back, and began hunting along the books—until I realized I couldn’t read any of the titles.
“This was a waste of time,” I exclaimed, just as the Evil Mage appeared, panting.
“Thought I’d better come along,” he puffed. “Do you know, no one’s come up here in years?”
“Why not?”
“I think it has something to do with the Enchantment of Intent,” he said cheerfully. “The person who crosses this threshold with the intent to possess sees a door open, oh, right about there, with treasures and things beyond. And when they step through, snap!”
“Snap?” Seshe and I said together, as we whirled around to back away from that treasure room—as if the archway would turn into a mouth and pounce to bite us.
The archway was gone. Like it had never been. But I knew what I’d seen, and judging from Seshe’s round eyes, she’d seen it, too.
“Snap.” He clapped his hands.
“Where do they go?” I asked, edging back again, just in case, and curling my bare toes under.
He shrugged.
Wow, I thought. What if I’d been in a grabby mood?
“Two kings of Chwahirsland vanished that way, one right after the other, scarce weeks apart, I’m told.” The man chuckled as if he’d told a great joke. “The next one stayed away, but it didn’t do him any good. His successor, the one over there now, took the throne the usual way.”
Puddlenose had already made it clear that the Chwahir in recent centuries didn’t just hand off the throne. They took it. Shnit, the current king, had killed his entire family, except for Kwenz, who had been sent to the Shadowland. And Puddlenose thought another might have escaped as well.
“They haven’t bothered us since. That’s one good thing.” He rocked back and forth from heels to toes, the paint splotches on his outfit gleaming.
“Um, which book would have the antidote riddle or whatever, the thing about foreign royalty?” I asked, now completely rejecting the idea of touching anything in that room. Seshe also had her hands behind her, though she bent close to the shelves, looking at the hand-written titles.
“That’s the one.” The mage pointed at an old-looking book lying on a table all by itself against the far wall. “Open to the right page.” He brushed absently at a blotch of yellow paint on his blue silk robe, smearing it more. He bent over the book, and read something out loud, then he wrinkled his nose, and said in Mearsiean, “‘The antidote is seen by sovereign hand.’ “Doesn’t say what kind of royalty, does it?”
“Sovereign means ruler,” I said. “That much I know. It’s pompous, but clear enough. Except, what if the sovereign was born, or appointed, or crowned, or voted?”
Seshe said, “In Old Sartoran—which I had to begin studying once, only it was so boring, it’s one of the reasons I ran away—words had a lot of meanings.”
The little man grinned. “That’s right! They did, I remember being told that much, before I fell asleep. Why can’t a word just do one job, like a color, is what I asked myself?”
“And what did yourself answer?” I asked, which is one of our favorite jokes, when Irene gets in a mood, and says things like I ask myself why I bother with you snackleodeons ...
“I don’t remember, I was usually snoring! Or sneaking off to learn how to layer gilt over gloss.” The man grinned at my cackle, then hunted over the oldest shelves of books, the ones whose titles had faded long ago. “Here’s the Old Sartoran shelves. Maybe there’s one that translates over to Mearsiean. How fun! This is almost interesting! More interesting that no one ever asked that before. Or maybe they did, but didn’t get past the Intent spell,” he said, tipping his head. “Well, have fun, girls, I’ve got a vase to finish. I never get the shades right if I have to remix, and
this one’s too pretty to throw away.”
I joined Seshe at the oldies-but-moldies shelf. “Old Sartoran.” I sighed in disappointment. To be so close, and then floobed by old languages! “I don’t know it.”
“I remember enough. Why don’t you get some lunch? I may as well see if my stupid lessons were worth something after all,” she said.
I gorbanzoed back down all those stairs, and had just picked up a tart when Puddlenose sidled up to me. “Magic food,” he whispered. “Like your pies. You can eat it, but it disappears somewhere inside.”
And just as he said the last word I heard his stomach growling.
“I don’t think he’s quite human,” Puddlenose added.
We turned toward Dhana, who was flitting about in a far chamber, where there was a shallow pool. She’d give a rainbow flicker, vanish into the water, and appear on the other side, dancing again, her clothes dripping—not that she cared. I didn’t have to ask, I knew we were all thinking: what’s human?
I sighed and dropped the pastry back onto the tray. The little man didn’t notice—he was busy painting tiny clusters of blue berries in the centers of curling leaves.
Presently Seshe came racing in, her long hair swinging against her skirts. “I got it,” she said. “I think.” She stopped, making a face. “No, I think it’s right. It’s the word ‘sovereign’ as I guessed. But it wasn’t the Evil Mage who laid the spell, it was someone else protecting the queens from his spells, because of what he did to the queens’ cousins. That’s why the Old Sartoran.”
The little man looked surprised. “I never knew that.”
“I don’t think whoever came between the Evil Mage and you did, either.”
“My mother. She was a singer,” he explained. “She left me as soon as I turned twenty, and here I’ve been stuck ever since.”
“Well, you might be free soon, too, if I’m right. The word ‘sovereign’ doesn’t mean royalty here, or at least it can, but it’s got three meanings. One meaning is ‘remedy,’ and the second refers to someone born on the other side of the world gate. The third is harder for me to figure out, but it seems to have something to do with ruling.”