As the elevator descended, and Chanda’s music began to wane, Liv held her breath, worried that it might fade completely, and the illusions would drop, exposing them. But the melody held, albeit faintly, and she guessed the pipe organ must feed into the air ducts somewhere.
When the elevator bell dinged, Liv was still hiding behind the white queen’s skirt, with Rina next to her, both still fairies.
The doors opened and the queen positioned herself in front of them, keeping them hidden from Mecha-Drake and the bearded wizard. They stepped off into the basement, into the dim light, the dank smell, and rows upon rows of boxes.
As the men rounded a corner, the white queen looked back and beckoned, almost seductively, for the two fairies to follow. Liv and Rina poked their heads around the corner to find the others standing over Lord Parris, the bisected first of mages, still lying exactly where he’d been before.
The chest sitting next to him with its lid open, however, was new. It was Scaggs’ chest, a five by ten grid of bloom stones with one row of five empty.
“Are the stones in place?” Drake asked in a metallic voice matching his copper body.
“One of my guards handed them to your man. Are you sure they can’t detect them?” And as the bearded wizard spoke, Rina’s eyes shot wide.
She mouthed as much as whispered, “Grandpa.”
“Don’t worry about that. The detection method they found in ‘Scaggs’ notes only works on the fake stone they ‘recovered.’ But your guard, do we need to worry about him? Is he reliable?” Drake asked.
“As reliable as the dead can be. Look, we need to talk on another matter, two of them actually.”
A copper knob spun into position on Drake’s forehead, much as if he had raised an eyebrow. “Your Majesty?”
“My son, Marco. His fever has returned. He’s not expected to survive.” The king shuddered.
Drake spoke softly, carefully, “I’m so sorry. I’m not… spark’s not particularly good for that sort of thing. Is he in pain?”
“When he’s not passed out from screaming.”
“Well, I do have something for that at least. What happened?”
“We don’t know.”
“Do you suspect the Church?”
The king-turned-wizard’s face grew grim. “Do you?”
“I mean…” Drake pointed to the split corpse. “Lord Parris, what say you?… Sorry, just making a point.”
The king nodded.
“And the other matter?”
“My granddaughter, Princess Alexandrina, went missing. We think at the same time as Marco took ill.”
“You think they kidnapped her? From the palace?” Drake sounded shocked. “No… well… that’s the problem I was telling you about. We caught Thelemule’s man outside, but not until he snuck two people in, one of them claiming to be the princess.”
“Is it her?”
“Could be. We’re looking into it, gently. The other, I think, is Scaggs’ apprentice. I ran into a snag trying to recruit her.”
“What sort of snag?” the king asked.
“She ran away on me. She’s more powerful than I thought.”
“Why’d she run?”
As Drake shrugged, Rina shot forward, right into the king’s face.
“He tried to kill her! Don’t listen to him,” she yelled.
“Rina?” the king gasped, relief in his eyes. “You look like a…”
“Fairy? And you look like a wizard.”
Drake spun, calling to the empty basement, “Liv? Olivia, are you there? Come on out and let me explain. Please.”
Remembering the exploding trees and thinking of her own skull, Liv didn’t move.
“Fine. Look, I was never planning on killing you, just threatening. I thought it would be easier—on you—if I didn’t give you a choice.”
Liv flitted up. “You put a death spell on Rafe.”
“Who’s Rafe? Is he dead?”
“My brother. And no, but he might as well be.”
“Okay, I can work with that.” Drake raised a finger. “Now, do exactly as I say, and I’ll spare his life.”
Liv was stunned.
“See? See how effective that is?”
Liv pointed to the empty grid cells. “What have you done?”
The king stepped in. “What he needed to do. What we all needed him to do. The Church would have us all living in a new dark age. They’d smash every spark lamp in Greatwen just so that they might be the ones to light a candle.”
“You’ll kill thousands of people?”
“What, no!”
“At Firstsong tonight?”
Drake shook his head. “A hundred at most. The hierarchy, the Inquisition, they always stay an extra hour.”
“So, you’re just going to murder them then!?”
Drake pointed to the corpse on the floor. “It’s not like they’re going to stop with him, and don’t forget, they have Scaggs.”
Puffing up as big as a fairy could, Liv flitted up to the king. “Only because you gave her to them.”
He stepped back. “To give her an alibi for the bombings. That’s why, well, one of the reasons why we’re moving so quickly, to save her life. In an hour, everyone who wants her dead will be ash. Every one of them has either committed murder, signed off on it, or been willfully ignorant of it.”
“You don’t know that, not for sure, and it’s still wrong. And what about the Shivari? You’re just going to blame them for your attack?”
“For—our—attack,” Drake cut in. “But you, at least, can take great solace in the fact that we’re not giving you a choice.” He looked at the bloom chest. “Now, if you wish to avoid a tragedy…”
As Drake traced a finger through the air, faint sigils appeared. He continued, “The problem is that Scaggs’ control mechanism only allows for so much delay, a few hours at most, so I’ve had to jury-rig something.”
The king waved his arms to make room while the white queen circled in behind Drake.
“Wait,” said Rina. “There’s something else.”
“Just give me a second. I’ve been resetting timers all day, and it’s not so easy from this far away,” said Drake.
Rina blurted out, “It’s important. Ulbrecht—”
“—See,” Drake interrupted as one of the sigils glowed brighter and ticked around. “Down to fifteen minutes.”
“Ulbrecht poisoned Marco.”
“What?” The king turned at that.
Metal pinged. Bolts snapped. Drake’s torso arched forward, straining. A rivet popped off his chest, and gears rattled to the floor as the handle of a silver scepter emerged from the copper plate that was his belly.
His throat let out a clicking, wheezing mechanical rasp as his body split in two and dropped to the floor next to Lord Parris with a clang.
Liv finally recognized that face. “Ulbrecht…”
The white queen took a smirking bow.
“What’s going on?” The king shrank back.
The queen booped his nose, giving him a single slow shake of her head.
Drawing spark into her hand, Liv readied an attack, and the queen yawned. Liv let fly, and the chamber flashed blue as the crack of lightning echoed off the walls, and in that instant, the giant was visible, carrying a massive black sword.
The flash faded, and the queen rolled her eyes. Then calmly, she turned and headed toward the elevator, her long legs crossing each other as she disappeared behind a wall of boxes.
The elevator bell dinged, and Liv heard the click of heels on its metal floor and then the soft impact of its doors closing.
“What in the Hells?” The king looked stunned.
“Ulbrecht is not what he seems…” But as Liv spoke the words, she couldn’t help but think, he’s exactly what he seems: a ruthless, creepy bastard. Her gaze snapped to the empty row in the bloom chest. “All those people, Firstsong. We’ve got fifteen minutes to warn them.”
“It’s too far. Can’t you do something… with your spark?”
“Like what?”
“Reset it, just like Drake was going to, so it goes off at the right time?”
Liv’s gaze snapped from the chest to the king, awestruck he was still intent on murder. One thing was clear, she couldn’t let him have those stones.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
As she examined the pile of gears covered in oil on the floor, what was left of Drake, she knew full well those weren’t really gears and that wasn’t really oil, and, trying very hard not to think about it, flew down to his iron coat, to his pocket, and pulled out his silver key.
Though it appeared ridiculously large, like the key to a city, Liv put a hand on either end and pushed. And weirdly, it shrank. If she widened her hands, it started reexpanding, but she got it as small as she could and stuck it in her pocket.
“Why didn’t Ulbrecht take that?” Rina asked.
“You don’t need it to go back to the foyer, and I can’t imagine those doors would be much of an obstacle for her, or him, or… it.” Liv shivered.
“So, what do we do?”
Liv bit her lip. It might be safer, for the king, if they left him down there with the bloom stones, but then he would end up with them, and that wouldn’t be so safe for everyone else. She needed to get him out of there, but she couldn’t tell him why. Not the truth anyway.
She flitted up to him. “Our first priority is to keep you safe. We need to get you out of here before whatever is going to happen happens.” Liv flitted toward the entrance.
“But he’ll be up there.”
“And whenever he’s done with that, he’ll be back down here.”
After a hesitant step, the king followed, with Rina flying after.
“Hold on.” Liv held her arm out, signaling them to stop before she rounded the corner. She flitted up to the elevator and pushed herself against the call button, then flitted back around the corner and poked her head out to watch.
The doors opened to an empty car. “It’s clear, come on.”
She groaned as soon as they boarded.
“What is it?” Rina asked.
“There’s only one button and no keyhole.”
“Was it like that before?”
“No, there were more the first time I was here. Maybe it’s an illusion, but I don’t know, I didn’t see the panel on the way down. Did you?” Liv looked at the king, and he shrugged. She pushed that one button, the doors closed, and the floor shimmied as they began to rise.
The doors opened onto the main foyer like nothing had happened: Music still played; devil waiters in black ties still made the rounds with trays; guests still drank, and chatted, and danced.
“Do you see her—him?” asked Rina.
“No,” whispered the king.
And then Liv looked up to see the white queen standing upside-down on the ceiling next to Chanda. The Shivari ambassador’s concentration still fully on the music, he was oblivious to her presence until she ran a finger up his throat.
The queen leaned in, put a hand on his cheek, and gently touched her lips to his. The music faltered, a single sour note.
She drew in closer, the kiss lingering, as Chanda squirmed and shivered but continued to play. More notes went sour, a whole musical phrase.
The room went pitch black as a reverberation, deep in the metal pipes, shook the air. Gone was the waltz, its rhythm forced into that of a march, played eerily on a minor chord.
The light rose, but not like before. It came from outside, dim and low on the horizon, filtered through a red haze.
The ‘white’ queen was white no more. The armor she now wore was the crimson color of blood with an ivory spade centered on her chest that matched the long curving sword in her hands.
She dropped from the ceiling, rolling like an acrobat, and landed on her feet just across the foyer.
“Oh shite.” Liv turned and pressed the elevator button.
The doors opened immediately—but to an empty shaft, a black bottomless pit.
Liv spun back just as the red queen swept her sword through the man made of glass. His torso shattered, a thousand beads spilling to the floor.
Liv turned to look at Rina, or rather where she had been, and a mottled-gray humanoid wasp shot toward her, its inhuman maw gnashing at her throat. Liv dove to the side, and the wasp creature disappeared into the thickening haze.
Bones rattled as she smacked into something: A skeleton in tattered robes, with flames spewing through its bone white teeth and empty eye sockets.
Darting for the side door, for the exit, Liv fled while blue flashes and cracks of spark erupted behind her.
The guild hall itself had changed too, gone was the polished wood and bright brass, now everything was tarnished, everything in decay. And when Liv pushed her way out onto the lawn, escaping into a shadowy alcove, she finally got a good look at herself:
Her arms were covered in the same dark carapace that covered the wasp creature…
…Then that must have been Rina, and the skeletal mage… the king.
Oh no…
Liv was racing back to the door when the other wasp creature shot out. She tried to yell, to scream, ‘Hey it’s me,’ but the only sounds that came out were angry buzzing and gnashing teeth.
The other wasp, Rina, kept its distance, darting forward in spurts, snapping its maw. Then it turned and shot off, buzzing for the outer wall.
Stunned, Liv hovered in the air as blue flashed in the distance from where Rina was fleeing. Liv darted toward it but stopped dead when she saw the snake atop the outer wall strangling the portrait people, one frozen in a scream while spark flickered from another.
A rush of wind came from behind, and Liv dropped down just in time to dodge an inhuman growl as it passed overhead. A sinewy wolf a thousand times her size landed on all fours, twisting back to bare sharp teeth.
Liv darted away, fleeing for the back garden. She glanced back and the wolf pounced, but it overshot, sprawling out on the grass.
Suddenly, pain shot through her knee as if she’d banged into something, despite being airborne. She looked down to see the edge of the garden pool, the water rushing up to meet her.
As she plunged below the surface, a shadow passed in the depths. For a second there was nothing, then two rows of sharp teeth rushed at her. Liv reached out with her spark and shot lightning into the water. Her jaw pulled tight with the shock of electricity. Her muscles twitched, yanking against bone, and the thing in the water, whatever it was, gurgled a mass of bubbles as it floated belly up.
Liv surfaced to the open air. Above, the wolf was in mid-jump, snarling down at her. It hit the creature from the pool, a reverse mer-shark that snapped back to consciousness, and the two locked claw-to-claw.
‘Everybody stop!’ Liv tried to scream, but it came out as angry growls and gnashing.
A bolt of spark shot from the mer-shark, and the wolf went flying. Its head hit the outer wall with a crack. Then before Liv knew it, the mer-shark was lunging at her with rows of teeth like daggers.
The air blurred crimson, steel sounding against bone, and the red queen stood there with her sword sticking out from the fish’s eye socket. She curtsied before ripping the blade free, and sent the body tumbling to the water.
Liv pulled spark into her hand and pushed, shoving the queen away. But the queen jumped with it, gracefully slipping back into the fog.
A moment of respite, nothing was attacking her. Liv couldn’t just leave Rina, or Stephan, or anyone, but she had no idea what to do, and she was heading around to the front of the estate, toward the exit, when an orange flash broke through the fog.
Not blue like spark, or amber like spark lamps. It flared again, a pale orange light… like fire.
She rushed toward it, past shadows and winged demons frozen in fear. It flared again with such intensity that the nightmare creatures blinked out of existence, just for an instant, replaced by people, regular people.
An instant later, the flare was gone, and the creatures were back, fleeing from the fire.
And then Liv plunged head first into a bald woman in a tattered white shift, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
“Back off, buzzboy,” growled Ms. Scaggs. “Unless you want to be a firefly.”
‘Wait!’ Liv tried to yell, but, you know, angry gnashing.
Scaggs raised her hand, flames flickering from her fingers, and Liv flitted back. This would be so easy if only she could speak. Just like when she was a cat…
Liv pointed down and shot two quick sparks, one right after the other, into the ground.
“Just pop the damned thing,” Thelemule groaned. He was in the fog behind Scaggs, lifting a spark weapon. “I’ll do it.”
“They’re people, you psychopath.” Scaggs shoved the gun down.
Liv flitted back and forth, then shot another pair of sparks into the ground.
“What the Hells is that thing up to?” Thelemule stepped back, bringing his gun up.
“It’s got a spark, doesn’t it?” Scaggs said.
Liv stopped dead in front of her and shot a single spark down between their feet.
“Oh Hells!” Thelemule lowered his gun. “It’s once for yes, twice for no!”
Liv repeated with a single spark.
“Songs! Liv?” Scaggs pointed her hand skyward and, with a whoomph, the air flooded with fire light, Liv looking like herself if only for an instant. “Liv!”
Liv flitted a step toward the exit.
“No, we need to stop this,” Scaggs spoke firmly.
Dissenting, Liv shot two more sparks into the ground.
“Fine then, we’ll follow you.”
With another spark for ‘yes’, Liv took off at full buzz, and Scaggs ran after, flaring fire whenever anyone got in their way.
A pair of snake heads were blocking the exit, both ends of the top of the wall, hissing at their approach.
“Are those people?” Scaggs asked, and when Liv answered with two sparks, the fire witch lifted her hand, and the snake heads melted.
Liv darted down the black fabric hallway.
Outside the air was crisp and cool, the stars back in the sky, and Chanda’s music barely a whisper on the breeze.
“Ollie?... Liv?” Rafe asked. He was leaning against Thelemule’s carriage.
Liv checked; she was herself again. Then Scaggs and Thelemule stumbled out. “You’ve got to get to Firstsong. Drake planted five flame blooms. They’re going to go off in…” she checked her time spell, “ten minutes.”
“Where is Drake now?” Scaggs asked.
“Dead. Ulbrecht killed him. He’s killing everyone.”
“Don’t we need to stop that?” Scaggs pointed back to the party.
“Yes but, you do Firstsong. I have…” Liv bit her lip, “an idea. Just go, stop the blooms.”
“Okay… Any clue where they are?”
“The king had a guard smuggle them in. Drake has a spy in the Church. He planted them. That’s all I know.”
“The king, is he in there?” Thelemule pointed back to the party.
“Yeah, but… he’s involved, so shite on him.” Liv shrugged.
“Noted,” Scaggs said with a smile. “Alright, get to it.”
Liv turned back to the hallway, and two steps later, heard Scaggs cough followed by, “Olivia. Love you.”
She should have said it back. She regretted not saying it back. But all she could think to call out as she plunged through the black fabric was, “Really?”
As she ran, the music returned to that macabre march, the corrupted version of Chanda’s melody, but this time the floor did not twist, no buzzing came from her back, and Liv found herself full-sized standing in the blood red fog.
A goat creature stuttered to a stop in front of her with anger in its eyes. Liv shot spark into its legs, and it dropped, twitching as she ran past.
She groaned to herself…
She’d lied. She didn’t really have ‘an idea’, not a good one anyway.
Hopping over the human portraits, now unmoving, Liv ran in through the side door and rushed down the hall.
A pair of harpies shrunk back, trying to escape flames being shot at them by the skeletal wizard. Next to Scaggs’ fire, it seemed pathetic, just an illusion, and Liv walked right through, passing the skeleton, the king play-acting.
“Damn it, you’re going to get yourself killed,” she snapped at him, then jogged on to the elevator shaft. It still looked like a bottomless pit, straight to the Bastard’s Hell.
Steeling herself, Liv drew spark into her hand. She let fly and the air cracked with electricity, flooding the shaft with blue light and, just for an instant, the elevator car was visible, its floor solid, its doors open.
Holding that image in her mind, she stepped off the edge and found herself suspended in midair. She turned to where the panel should have been, and readied her spark again, already feeling the chill in the pit of her stomach, the one that wasn’t exactly cold.
Liv shot another burst and, just for an instant, the panel was visible. All the buttons, and more importantly, the keyhole.
As the chill tingled up her legs, she stumbled toward the panel, slid the key into where the slot had been a moment ago, turned it, and then punched her finger at the memory of the button to the second floor.
Her vision fuzzing from the chill, she slid against the wall, feeling the shimmy of the car as it started upward. When it stopped, the foyer ceiling lay outside, upside-down as if it were the floor, with the floor of the main foyer hanging overhead, like a ceiling.
Liv stumbled out, and Chanda was there, just across the ceiling, playing the pipe organ in a trance.
“Stop! Stop playing!” She shoved him, trying to knock him off the bench, but bounced off like he was a brick wall.
His fingers stroking the keys, his face desperate, sweat dripping from his brow, he reacted to nothing. He just kept on playing that terrible melody.
Liv cupped her hands over her ears, trying to think of the original tune, the one from his whistle.
She puckered up and blew, getting it wrong, but Chanda’s head snapped up. His eyes glanced to hers, if only for an instant.
She tried again and again. And each time he glanced up a little longer.
Finally, Chanda turned to her and blinked. His eyes widened. His fingers stopped, and so did the music.
The room went pitch black, dead silent.
When the lights came back, everything was normal, still a disaster, still a slaughter, but a normal, non-nightmare one. They were on the second-floor balcony, the fog was gone, and sounds of people waking from a panic came from below.
That, and Chanda wasn’t whistling. She looked back—
In his place, an elephant’s head, with four tusks, three of them broken, sat on the stout shoulders of a man, who, in turn, was sitting in front of a pipe organ.
His arms were elephant trunks, and Liv was having the odd thought, ‘How the Hells does he play with those?’ when a shadow flitted across the room: Ulbrecht with his sword raised, flying at Bahdur, once Chanda, the Eluru prince.
Liv yanked at the last of her spark, ripping it from every recess, every nerve. She pushed off the ground and shot herself between the Eluru prince and the giant, a crack of blue lightning streaking from her hand.
And then Ulbrecht’s sword hit her. It ground through her sternum. Her rib cage rattled as it pinned her to the wall. She tried to free herself, to fight, but her body hung limp, and she felt cold… so very cold.
Ulbrecht’s face twisted in horror, in desperate panic and remorse.
As the world faded to black.
Don't worry, it's not that kind of story.
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Because of this chapter, at least temporarily, I've tagged the story for graphic violence, but wanted your opinion:
