"That's not right. That's not how it goes."
Akachi spoke so hotly that it was a stark contrast to the gentle scene: Chiyo, propped up on pillows, still in sickbed from the infection that followed hot on her healing wound; Michel, at the head of the bed, with a face so benign it glowed in satisfaction; Akachi, beside her, fidgeting not only her feet but her hands so that it seemed her rickety chair might give out any moment with one last, gasping creak; and the nurse, on the door side of the bed, reading from Ghulmarquean Fantasies, a tome comissioned by Michel's mother, the Marquessa, to provide censored versions of Alsantian myth.
What had stoked Akachi's condemning and critical fires was the Ghulmarquean variation of The Hare and The Unicorn, the myth Akachi loved best in Worlds class, for it was a fascinating story of betrayal and transformation. When a bear wizard hired a hare thief to steal a bathing unicorn's pelt--for unlike the brutish unicorns in service to Ghulmarquean knights, this unicorn was divine, and her pelt a covering that concealed her true beauty—the hare saw the disrobed unicorn, desired her, and kept her stolen pelt as leverage to force her to do his will. When she was unwilling, he donned her skin, and she was then as powerless to resist him as she would be to deny her own self. Moreover, when the hare felt half of the unicorn's power, he wanted to wear the pelt forevermore. In her delirium, the unicorn said, 'Though I am there, you are not here.Though we breathe the same air, we still must share.' Folding her sparking feathers, she caressed his face with her six-fingered hands, then tapped the hare between his eyes with the softest touch of her horn.
Impatient for his prize, the bear lumbered to the stream and saw blood streaming from the unicorn's horn and thee hare's brow. Though compassion gripped his magic claws, rage raised the bear's hackles to curse both beasts.
"Because you pawed and toyed with her immortal heart, I make you a new beast--a proud animal with a shrunken heart and eyes swelled by an ambitious light. Your former kind will run in fear, and even when you breed like a pestilence you will only find companionship in yourself. Cat, vanish from my sight. "
The bear turned to the unicorn. "Because of your intemperate foolishness, which trusted wild Alsantia with not only the image of nobility but the beauty of truth, the hare's heart turned to greed, my heart whirled with curses—one which yet flutters on the tip of my tongue—and the cat steps into woods, fields, and human cities, to slay as he pleases." Picking up the skin, he said, "you are no longer yourself, my lady. Let me help you." Having shrouded the unicorn in her pawed and rumpled pelt, he straightened her frowsy mane as best he could, and said, "this becomes you now and forevermore."
The unicorn panted and whinnied until her neighs took on a keening shape, for her power of speech was gone. Moments later, she forgot her sorrows and followed in the cat's trail. From this day, unicorns were mindless in Alsantia.
The bear was not spared from his own injustice, for not only was he unable to stomach two curses, and took to sleeping half the year away, but being unable to forget the beauty of truth, he now wanders the world half-blind.
The moral to this dark fable: when injustice breeds injustice, thieves are confounded with angels. Like most Alsantian myths, you could go mad trying to find an allegory in "The Hare and the Unicorn," for while there were many consequences and a moral, good and evil were not so clear cut as they were on Earth.
Akachi had always shuddered when hearing this, one of the darkest fables of Alsantia, and in hearing the redacted Ghulmarquean version, her lips curled in a contemptuous snarl. Not only was the bear wizard now a skin-wearing hunter, but the hare was a human thief, the unicorn was a Marchioness, and the transformation replaced by the hunter's arrows putting out the thief's eyes for daring to look at the river-bathing noblewoman.
"I like this version. It's more symbolic." Michel leaned back and crossed her legs.
"Yes, but it's less mythic. He isn't tortured by the Marquessa! They're all tormented by the gods."
"What's the difference?"
"The original is about hubris, and this one is about your mother's tyrrany."
"How do you know it's my mother?"
Akachi turned to the nurse. "Read her the dedication."
"Should I?" The nurse peered over her spectacles at Akachi, then bowed her head to the book. "To her honorable and esteemed Marquessa of Ghulmarque."
"Yes, but when was that written?" asked Michel.
"You mean rewritten."
"Akachi, you'll pick a fight about anything! What happened to you?"
"And you think I'm the one that changed."
"Aren't you sarcastic!"
"Aren't you outspoken. Once you were as quiet as a mouse."
"Should I crawl back in my shell? You'll argue all day about a fairy tale transformation, then resent my changing for the good."
"They're not fairy tales. They're the true history of Alsantia."
Michel scoffed. "I doubt that."
"You didn't see Oji change, Michel. You didn't see the dwarves."
"There are dwarves on Earth."
"Why are you so difficult, Michel?"
Michel puffed out her chest, as if she meant to deliver a scathing retort, then, as if remembering herself, uncrossed her legs, put her hands on her knees, and said, in a measured tone, "Mother said I would bear this burden myself, that neither you nor she could help me."
"Am I your burden, Michel?"
"Of course not. You're my best friend, and that will never change, no matter the difference in our positions." When Michel held out her hand, Akachi didn't know if she meant her to shake it, hold it, or kiss it.
"What difference in our positions?" At Akachi's loud indignation, the nurse waved her hand in front of her mouth in alarm. While Akachi didn't want to take the hint, neither did she want to disturb the nurse, who was not only kind but had bent so low in accomodating them that if she bent any further, her spine would shatter.
"As you say, Michel, what difference? We're still best friends." While Akachi desperately wanted to believe her promise, when the words stuck in her mouth, and she forced them out in a slight stammer, she knew the promise would be a lie once the question had an answer.
"Forgive me, Michel. I have my duties."
"Mother won't mind. Right now, your duty is with me."
"What duty is that? Entertaining? I didn't know the Marquessa had any entertainers left." When Michel's face twisted at this, Akachi said, "I can read the ending later. Thank you nurse. See you later, Chiyo."
Chiyo nodded. Talking was still difficult, for infection had inflamed her eyes, nose, and mouth. While the nurse's skills were uncanny, it was only now healing.
When Akachi lingered in the doorway, Michel only said, "let's hear the end, nurse. Then read us another fable."
***
Watch your shadow. While she didn't want to look, when the horrors above squirmed and changed their shapes, Akachi couldn't help looking up from her painstakingly swept heap of manure and straw. The Marquessa's decorations had attracted ornaments, not only crows, but rats now darting across the chain to the swaying moveable feast. Both the winged and four-footed vermin clambered gingerly around the other feeders while looking for their spot to pitch in and peel away whatever shreds remained.
Clean your paws; wash your soul. In the Mansion, Akachi had a habit of looking heavenward when she folded her hands in prayer. Now this abomination would block the skies wherever she went from here. Like so many angels of death stuck to a web, their hoary hoods were shredded by paws and talons, their robes tattered like the proper uniform of a minister of death, and their heads gleaming white and chattering in the breeze, as if only chatting about the weather, having exhausted any gossip about where to spread death in the land.
Love not the light in the darkness;it is the brightness of your eyes. Having followed this morbid thread to its grisly conclusion, Akachi upbraided herself for casting Michel's mother as a monstrous spider that strung up hapless servants. This wasn't Earth, she reasoned; who knows the trials of an Alsantian ruler? Perhaps the rumors were lies, and these were spies that deserved this grisly end, conspirators that might have opened the gates to an opposing army. She had heard of such things, like the Trojan Horse of Greek myth. The Marchioness might be the clever hero, so clever that her intelligence was believed wickedness.
A beast's tail has its own soul. Coming to the end of the Animalyte creed, Akachi thanked the Shining One for testing her faith. While this world of beasts, beastly dwarves, and brutish humans argued that serving and saving yourself were the only wisdom once could expect in life, Akachi kept to the letter and spirit of the creed as she stood by Michel through thick and thin. The matter of the tail disturbed her, however; not that Oji was the Shining One, but only a forerunner. When she found the keepers of the faith on Alsantia, if their god was an animal, would it accept prayers from one not made in its image?
When an immense rattling echoed in the courtyard, servants popped their heads out windows and doors, and by the time the rattle terminated in a gonging clank, a number of guards filed from the barracks, inspected each others' uniforms, then made for the gatehouse.
At the sound of pummeling hoofbeats, Akachi ducked inside and hurriedly swept the open stables into a central pile, which she then scooted into the smallest stable, intended for the pony taken on a mid-morning excursion by the Marquessa's son.
"What lackey makes his prince wait?" His voice was drenched with contempt and oozed with cruelty that lurked for an opportunity to snap. Imagining a cross between a panther and a turtle, Akachi was not disappointed by the neckless, musclebound brute staring from the stable door. Dressed in a mantle of shining black fur, and crinkling oiled leathers draped with gleaming chainmail, the ugly being--she knew not if he was a mannish boy or a boyish man--crooked a finger, clucked his tongue, and said, "come here, boy."
"I am here. We're both in the stable." When she realized this sounded insolent, her face burned, but she couldn't help adding, "have you seen one?"
"What? A stable?" When his voice cracked in an absurdly high squeak around the first syllable of 'stable,' it revealed not only that he was a mannish boy, but his incredulity. Akachi gathered that he was not used to being talked to in such a fashion.
"No. A girl. I'm not a boy."
Now the mannish boy's face burned. "It's a manner of speech, peasant, short for stable boy, which you would know if you weren't an outsider. We're going to sort out all you Ephremians, so it's good you're here." His smile wrinkled sarcastically. "In Alsantia, not the stable."
"I'm from Draden. I'd rather not be in the stable or Alsantia."
"I will communicate your wishes to the Marquessa." He sneered. "I doubt the last people she showed the door to the next world like the view."
Akachi frowned to disguise the chilled slither in her guts. "Say what you like, not that it would have any effect. I'm the Marchioness's friend."
"If you're here on favor, why are you in the stable?"
"Everything in Alsantia is a mystery to me."
"The manure is plain enough, even to a peasant outsider like yourself." The mannish boy snickered.
"Will you be helped?" While this came off more insolent than Akachi had intended, she was pleased with the deep-cut scowl that creased the boy's face.
"No, thank you. I'll help myself, if you'll have the goodness to move your wicked self away from the stalls."
"Wicked self moved," said Akachi, now standing under the loft, into which she then climbed to look down on the boyish man and his minions, who trundled in to stable eight horses, after which the prince ordered grain and water portioned into their troughs.
"Most of your work's done, boy." His voice curled maliciously around 'boy.' "After bathing and combing our steeds, go to your playmate. Just how do you play? Isn't she blind?"
Akachi thought of warning him about the Marquessa's sensitivity to her daughter's handicap, an extreme touchiness that resulted in the courtyard's hanging display. First thinking to keep it to herself, since this evil person meant her no good, she relented, having reproached herself for breaking the spirit of the Animalyte creed. "That's a delicate subject to the Marquessa. They would tell you if they could." Akachi pointed at the tattered bones.
"She knows her prince, even if you don't." Having let this sink in, Prince Vemulus dipped into an abrupt and sarcastic curtsy ending with a waggish little wave, then hurtled the door to clatter against the wall as he stomped into the courtyard.
As the stable's bottom floor was crammed with soldiers, she watched from the loft. Hearing the drum of light feet—a patter she knew well—on the outside ladder, she crawled to the window and smiled down on Aito.
"Have you heard?" he said.
"About the prince? He was just here."
"He's not alone," Aito said ominously.
"You mean his men. They're here now."
"They're just a drop in the bucket. Come see, Akachi." Aito dropped a few feet to the ground and looked up expectantly.
Looking down into the stable, and seeing that there still wasn't room for resuming her daily duties, Akachi backed through the window to climb down the ladder. "We have to be quick, Aito. I don't want to get on her bad side."
"Whose?" They talked breathlessly as they sprinted for the courtyard wall.
"Who do you think?"
"One's just like the other these days." Aito ducked under the swat of Akachi's open hand.
"Don't say that! She's still our friend! Michel would never do that." Akachi jerked her thumb towards the dangling bodies.
"Who knows what she might do." When Aito ran up the steps, Akachi followed, and both soon stood on the battlements. It was such an eyeful that Akachi slumped against the wall, propped her elbows on the sill of the embrasure, rested her chin on her fists, and gawked.
While the outer wall cut off half the magnitude of Prince Vemulus's army, the sprawling tents received endless streams of soldiers from the legions still marching in, and the smoke of cooking fires settled like a black mist over eastern Ghulmarque.
"Are they at war?"
"What do you mean they? If Ghulmarque's at war, then we're at war."
"I'm not from Ghulmarque!"
"Tell that to them."
"But they're with the prince, aren't they?"
"It doesn't mean they don't mean us ill," said Aito, "for the Prince is either here for conscripts or food."
"They won't want us for soldiers," said Akachi.
"Nor do they want us for food—though I wouldn't put that past Vemulus—but if they're here for their grocery list, it means famine for Ghulmarque. While the Marquessa's family and friends will be spared starvation, our duties will increase as the people weaken."
"If it wasn't for Michel, I would say we should go."
"We'll take her ladyship with us." His emphatic voice rang hollow from slumped shoulders and a wincing face, as if Aito was less than pleased about the prospect.
"Her ladyship?" Akachi fumed.
"She is a Marchioness."
"It's only a title."
"That's everything to these people."
"Michel isn't 'these people,' Aito! She's our friend."
"Thank the Prince. If she wasn't, we'd be ransomed from her dungeons to the eight winds of Alsantia."
"Ransom? Michel wouldn't allow it."
"Michel is not Marquessa, and her mother may be proud, but she doesn't dote. She'll do as she likes when the money comes in, and make it up to Michel later. As we've seen, Michel is easily placated."
This was too much for Akachi. She pushed away the battlements and half-ran from Aito, her voice shivering more from anger than from the chilled breeze. "You speak as if she's a baby. She's no baby, Aito. Do you think I'm that replaceable? That Michel can do without her Akachi? I don't think so."
"That's how Michel may see it at first. But don't you think she'll relent and forgive her own mother? As the Marquessa plays to her vanity, and entrusts her daughter with the well-rehearsed rationalizations a tyrant uses to console their wickedness, might they not seem equally reasonable to the Marchioness?"
"Call her Michel, Aito."
"Moreover, don't you think the Marquessa sees and envies your friendship? Why else would she prescribe our duties the day after our arrival? Who does Michel see more: you, stuck cleaning stables, or the Marquessa, haunting the same halls as her daughter?"
Akachi's face burned, and tears streamed. While Michel had been nearly the same, her new elegance of manner now seemed an insidious glamour cast by the Marquessa.
Where before she was deferential to Akachi, now she bragged about Akachi's many qualities, but also those of her mother, Aito, Chiyo, Chiyo's nurse, or any other worthwhile subject, as if Michel was now so brilliant that she illuminated others by the radiance of her own good will.
This tyrannical goodness streamed from Michel in conversation, so that while Akachi was never much of a talker, and moreover enjoyed friendly silence, now she couldn't get a word in edgewise. As this growing frustration now grew into fully-bloomed anxiety, Akachi knew it was just as Aito said--she was losing her friend by degrees.
When Akachi leaned over the battlement by the stairs, Aito leaned beside her, this time so that their arms and shoulders touched. "How would we get her?" Akachi asked.
Aito looked away from Akachi and clasped his hands. "Wouldn't she come with us if you asked? I didn't think she was that far gone."
"Based on what you said, you believe she carried the rope for the executions."
"Even so, I've never thought of Michel apart from Akachi. That's a more unlikely separation than Earth from Alsantia."
Akachi looked at Aito shrewdly. "What does that mean? Surely they were never one."
"Alsantian science is just as egocentric as Earth science, Akachi. Many Alsantian philosophers claim this is the prime world, and it was Earth that diverged from the original reality."
"Why change the subject? Not that it's not a fascinating idea."
"Because we assume Michel will diverge from the Marquessa, and that the history we're in now—not only Alsantia, but this Alsantia—is the world in which she comes with us. But if we're in the world in which she sides with her mother, we join the hanging decorations."
Dread descended as Akachi realized the truth of Aito's words. There was no room for error. If trusting Michel meant any deviation in their escape, they would, at best, trade drudgery for the dungeon, or at worst, die in the gory manner Aito described.
"What if we don't tell her?"
"Akachi, you can't be serious."
"We could come back for her later. We'll get reinforcements."
"From where? Earth? The National Guard won't go to Alsantia."
"While I'm not as quick as Berangere or Michel," said Akachi, "I've been thinking about everything that happened to us, and dwelling on what I've overheard; we're the children of important Alsantians, and hidden on Earth to escape the tyranny of the Regent."
"That is essentially correct."
"Then who am I, Aito? Why haven't you told me anything about my family? Can't my parents help? Aren't they important?"
"You don't understand, Akachi..."
"Don't I? Even if my parents are schoolteachers, they could be allies. What about Oji's people? If the cats won't help friends of their church, other talking animals could help us."
"What's the point if you lose your reason for going on?"
"I'm won't drop dead if we leave Michel." Akachi's forceful assertion was weakened by a tear sliding to the corner of her lips. When that eye blurred, she wiped it, then saw something that made her rub her eyes again. "Do you see?"
"You mean the army? Yes, the marching's dying down, and it's a miracle the cookfires haven't spread to the Luskveld."
"No, Aito. Look again."
"Show me where."
"I'm not going to point."
"What am I looking for?"
"I shouldn't say that, either." Akachi looked left, then right, then behind her, and seeing no other listeners, whispered, "I saw Lucien."
Aito perked up, but slowly scanned the grounds between the inner and outer walls, as if taking in the sights. "I see him. Is that Conrad?"
While the taller boy was hooded, he was the right height. Lucien's hood, having slipped to his shoulders, revealed a leaner face and shaggier hair, but it was distinctly the face of their friend. Behind the two boys were two smaller figures, one as wide as the other three put together. This one trundled along like a toddler, as if unsused to walking on two legs. The four figures walked along the dirt path snaking from the main gate to the servants' quarters.
"Whatever you do, don't wave."
"I know. They could be slain as spies before Michel speaks to who they are. But what do we do?"
"We can't do anything."
"We must stop them! They could be killed."
"We'd be guilty by association, Akachi. They're on their own."
"Then there's only one thing to do. Escape. Right now."
"Without a plan? Without any idea of what to say to Michel?"
"We have to leave her. It's either her or Lucien and Conrad, and she's in no danger of dying."
"We still need Chiyo." Aito's attention shifted to something over Akachi's shoulder. When she began to turn her head, he grabbed her forearm and peered intently in her eyes. "Shhh."
Wresting her arm free and pivoting with a sudden wrench, Akachi saw only a tiny bird hopping along the battlement, from the crown of one crennelation to another, and cocking its head so that she seemed targeted by one of its eyes.
"Is that a wren?"
"Of one kind...or another."
Akachi took his meaning. Now it seemed not only to watch, but observe and listen.
"How long has it sat there?"
"I don't know. While I saw it spring from the wall behind you, there's no telling how long it perched there."
"It might not be a talking bird."
"Unless you snoop for hands, there's no way of knowing for sure."
"Of course there's a way," said Akachi. "Hey, bird!"
As Aito darted down the battlement steps, the bird stopped in its hopping advance and popped into the air to land facing Akachi. When its feathers bulged on a mouthful of air, it swelled twice its size.
"Who is the Queen?" it belted out, and when Akachi did not answer, it repeated itself, singsong, like a mynah.
"Excuse me," said Akachi. "Are you a talking bird?" When she realized her question was so patently obvious as to need no answer, she became flustered, and added, "I mean, do you really talk, or are you imitating?"
"Where lies the throne of Alsantia?" asked the wren. As Akachi pondered how best to answer, the bird again chanted its question.
"I don't know," she admitted. "But I know Prince Oji."
At this, the bird fluttered from one crennelation to another, then back again, screeching, "Where? Where? Where?" As its excitement seemed genuine, Akachi now believed the wren intelligent, and its conversation attributable to its strange manner.
"I don't know where," said Akachi. "Unless you mean where do I know him from? While he saved my life, and I'd be proud to know him, I don't know him well." Akachi refrained from mentioning that Oji was once her pet, as it might not go over well with the zealous animal. "I thought him an everyday cat. On Earth, that's all we had. Do you know of Earth?"
"Heirs and crowns!" This time, the bird did not wait for a response before yammering it over and over again, after which it hopped to Akachi's shoulder and peeped, "there's no time, treasure!"
While Akachi had been rattled all day long—not only by Aito's suggestion that Michel's pretentiousness meant death for their friendship, but by being belittled by Prince Vemulus, by glimpsing Lucien, and now by being pinned down by an unrelenting bird—it was soothing to hear the tiny bird's flattery. "Did you call me treasure," she cooed, but when she reached for the bird perched on her shoulder, it nipped her finger to make its point.
"Descend!" pipped the wren. "Dive!"
"As I only have feet, not wings," said Akachi, "we'll take the steps." That Akachi took the steps two at a time, however, could be attributed less to the bossy wren and more to the rush of her own pounding heart, for she finally felt like she was getting somewhere in Alsantia. While Lucien leaped from the Marquessa's wagon into who knows what adventures, Akachi had swept dung from stables; even sweeping a tame unicorn's manure didn't make her feel special, and she was not only intensely curious for, but envious of Lucien's story. She would find her way forward if she had to crash full speed ahead.
The Ghulmarqueans were so engrossed in their preparations to receive the army that their blank eyes and grim mouths not only seemed cut from stone, but gave neither passing glances nor grunts of warning or acknowledgement. Akachi had expected no less, for the Ghulmarqueans seemed as afraid of her as of the Marquessa. From force of manner and Elderlich upbringing, Akachi gave pleasant smiles and excused herself as she tore through, though she may as well have been invisible.
Having made his way to the servants' keep--a tiny tenement joined by a curving stone conduit to the Marquessa's stately castle, like a tumor linked to a grander cancer--Aito was about to barge in, when Akachi sprinted the last fifty feet and laid her hand on his shoulder.
She was not prepared for the explosive consequences, as the high-strung boy leaped ten feet forward, braced on the keep wall, then turned with clenched fists and a savage grimace, which soon melted into shaking hands and a sheepish grin. "I'm sorry, Akachi. I knew you were there."
"What would you have done if I was a soldier, or Vemulus?"
"We absolutely must not run into Vemulus. If you see him before he sees us, you have my permission to lock me in a closet."
"Do you know each other?"
"No, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has special orders regarding me. I'll tell you later. We don't have time. They've made their way inside by now. Come on."
When Aito ducked inside the servants' keep, Akachi followed. The hallways were crowded not only by cooks and scullions, but Ghulmarquean guards pressed into kitchen duty, signified by the aprons draped over their tabards. Here and there, Akachi saw other castle workers recruited for kitchen work to meet the expanded demand.
As Aito set a brisk pace in the crowded corridor, they had no opportunity to talk until they passed the greater galley, an enormous kitchen that could have swallowed the Mansion of the Shining Prince and its parking lot. As the capacious space was thronged to capacity by milling kitchen staff and castle workers, and the galley's double doors were jammed by an overflow that blocked the corridor, they had no choice but to wait, and Akachi pulled Aito into the recess of a closed door.
"Why are they making so much food for nine extra settings?"
"It's enough for an army, isn't it?"
Akachi was stunned. "Didn't they bring their own food? What about all those campfires?"
"I overestimated Vemulus," said Aito. "When he saw that he didn't have enough, he detoured to Ghulmarque, and ordered the Marquessa to supplement his own cooks. I'm guessing she doesn't like that."
"Why would she? Why would anyone follow him?"
"Remember where we are, Akachi. It doesn't matter if he's popular. He's the Prince. Even if he isn't the Marquessa's favorite, he's the heir to the throne. One day, he'll call all the shots. Speaking of popular, you have a new friend."
"Yes." Having squatted on Akachi's shoulder as if the bunched sleeve was a nest, the wren's legs were invisible, and its wings nearly so, folded so seamlessly against its body that it now seemed like a rubber duck, an impression which its wide, lifeless eyes supported.
When the room was full, they passed by quietly, sparing only a glance at the veritable army of cooks and assistants loudly marshaled by a head chef that must have been very short, for though his voice raged from the the other side of the crowd, nothing could be seen of the speaker. As they turned down the next corridor, his bellowed instructions subsided to a low roar.
Having passed both larders and the dry goods storeroom, they came to the small kitchen staffed by Gevrar, the wizened old tea master who brewed all the hot beverages in the castle, not only tea and cider, but kelvur, a beverage not unlike bitter coffee, made from the ground root of a Ghulmarquean weed. Perhaps because he was both the sole steward and the lonely worker of this tearoom, and toiled in a zone unusually free of judgment and interference, he had tolerated Akachi's efforts to befriend him, and outside of the royal family, Chiyo's nurse, and the stable workers, he was the only Ghulmarquean she knew by name. Seeing her pass, he smiled and beckoned her over.
"Not now," hissed Aito. "We'll miss our chance to meet Lucien."
"Gevrar is a patriot. If I act suspicious, he'll report it."
"Aren't we leaving Ghulmarque?"
"I'd rather sneak out than get chased. I'll catch up. Head for the offal pit."
"Uggh. Why there?"
Akachi only sighed. "No one goes there by choice, Aito. Except stray dogs."
When Gevrar again waved her over, this time with irascible fire in his eyes, Akachi scampered into the tea kitchen.
"Have you heard, Akachi?"
"About the prince who's no prince? I've met the goon."
"Shh," Gevrar whistled severely. "You should be more concerned about the friendly soldiers who will moonlight as bandits. They've come with hungry bellies to steal our food—as is their patriotic right, long live the Queen—and, more to the point, their officers expect a certain standard at their table."
"You mean they're here to guzzle your tea."
"My tea?" Gevrar smiled, but his brows knit darkly. "I suppose it is, in a manner of speaking, though in truth it's the Marquessa's tea." He dropped to a whisper. "And don't tell her I said so, but by the Alsantian pecking order, it's also the Queen's."
As Gevrar's patriotism no longer fascinated Akachi, by stages he seemed to crinkle, until the nice old man was no longer recognizable as such, and an ugly, toadying wreck tottered under the patriotism that had shelled over his crabby self-interest, all of his depth only a trick of the shell's convoluted chambers. "What do you need, Gevrar?"
"What do I need? That cuts a little too quick, Akachi."
"I'm sorry, Gevrar. I'm on an errand for the Marchioness."
"When you've finished, I could use some help, if she'd permit it."
"I don't see why she wouldnt, if she hadn't asked me to serve the family table." Akachi grimaced, as if this was an onerous task, for not a single servant liked the Marquessa's consort, who was thought a supercilious and overweening snob even and especially when he tried to please or praise the help.
Gevrar winced, as if in sympathy. "Better you than me. Could you bring me something small?"
"Not a table leg?"
Gevrar snickered. "No, not that."
"Oh, you're serious!"
"Well, not a gravy boat or silverware, just a dainty from the table. Though I have the wherewithal to make pastries and breads, the meat goes entirely to the galley, so it's nice to get a cut I didn't beg from the galley master."
"I could swing for that in time of war. Would you have me join the swinging party outside?"
"Don't remind me," said Gevrar. "Every time I go under that stench, I fear something will fall off—and then I'm reminded that Falor owed me money."
"He's paid his debts, Gevrar."
"Almost." Gevrar said it in utter seriousness. "They're almost off the chain."
Hearing "swinging party" and "off the chain" so close together reminded her of the music and reality shows Michel had made her watch on Earth, and given the context, Akachi could no longer suppress her snort of laughter, though it was utterly wrong, completely macabre, and squeaked out by surprise. When Gevrar's meaning settled in—that in Ghulmarque, the Marquessa had dominion not only life but death, and she let them rot on the chain not only as example, but because it was believed that it extended their suffering in the afterlife. "Sorry, Gevrar. Your friend didn't deserve that."
"Friend?"" Gevrar scoffed. "A friend would pay what he owed. I'll admit I miss his stupid practical jokes, though if he soured one more pot of tea, it would have been the end of me." Gevrar turned his wet eyes to the pots on the stove. One wafted such a spume of minty steam that it freshened the small kitchen, and would have overpowered the neighboring pots, had Gevrar not incubated them under lids, which he now lifted, one by one, bending down his nose to inhale, after which he patted his face with his apron. Gevrar turned to stare at Akachi. "Are you still here? Weren't you on an urgent errand?"
"You're right. Goodbye, Gevrar." Akachi turned and dashed through the swinging door.
"Wait!" called the old man.
Akachi was already sprinting so fast that it was five more drumming footfalls before she could stop, and her momentum was such that she nearly fell over. "What?"
"You're coming back after your errand, right, Akachi?"
If Gevrar's eyes were watering before, they were now unwavering. Did he suspect anything? She had acted perfectly normal. Was it the goodbye? She could kick herself for being so gushy about the old crab.
"Did you forget dinner, Gevrar?"
"Oh, of course. Send that friend of yours then."
"I'll see what I can do." Akachi smiled and waved, then rushed down the hallway. Why did she wave? Akachi asked herself, cringing inwardly at the stupidity of so telltale a sign. When the guards came by, Gevrar's tale of her suspicious behavior would lay the first piece of the puzzle, police work would jigsaw her direction of travel and accomplices, and soon Akachi, Aito, and Chiyo would be swinging off the chain.
As it had been at least ten minutes, Akachi did not bother heading for the servant's entrance, but went directly to the offal pit. While the butcher's room was bustling, not only with the butcher and his sons hacking meat, but the guards assigned to assist, they were in such a bloody frenzy of butchery that she slipped by the open door. When the back door, which led to the trash bins and the offal pit, was also slightly ajar, Akachi dropped to a creep, then inched forward to rest her hand on the doorknob.
It did not seem right that Aito would leave it open, when that might draw a worker near to close it, after a peek at who they shut out; it seemed inevitable that someone followed Aito, and moreover, that her friends were on the other side, unable or unwilling to enter, leaving Akachi alone in the castle with the wicked Ghulmarqueans.
Alone. While Akachi was familiar with the concept, it was a strange, harsh thought. For years. she had not only slept in the bed next to Michel's, but they had walked everywhere, ate together, watched the same shows, and read the same books. Longing for these days, Akachi nearly turned back for Michel, then remonstrated with her crushed spirit that this was neverending captivity despite whatever ambiguous status she held at the Marquessa's pleasure. Leaning forward the rest of the way, Akachi peeked through the crack in the door. While this left her in a strained position, she was unwilling to risk another footstep, as just then scuffling boots echoed in the back lot.
Caught between offal reeking through the gap and fumes rising from the butchery behind her, Akachi retched, and a hot tear slid down her cheek from the effort of fighting puke, blurring her vision momentarily, so that she couldn't be certain of the dark streak passing in front of the door. Having mastered her disgust and wiped her eye, she saw only the offal pit, its perimeter blasted with slop and tatters when the butchers lazily missed--not nearly as often as they hit, judging by the heap of flesh protruding from the hole like a gory mountain haoled with flies.
Growing accustomed to the slanting sunset which filled the back lot, Akachi flinched from the squirming offal heap, where stray cats and dogs joined the rats in tearing at the meat, as if they forgot their natural enemies in the delirium of a carnivorous Eden of not forbidden fruit but a flesh buffet.
It was a nauseous but awesome sight; the offal pit having never risen to this level before, Akachi wondered just how many soldiers the Marquessa was obligated to feed? She hoped they were not choosy eaters, as there were not only sectioned cows and pigs, but a massive horse, well past its prime, that Akachi recognized by the white marking on its partially-peeled forehead. A few more tears fell when she remembered feeding this horse, not hay but the oats reserved for the warhorses, then her own apple, saved from her evening meal at the Marquessa's table. The Marquessa's consort had facetiously said, "take the whole bowl, if you please. Michael won't sleep knowing her friend goes hungry."
As she wept, she sniffled, rested against the door, and was knocked sprawling when it blasted open.
It was Vemulus, with a tiny dart in his cheek and a wild-eyed grin curling into a gloat. As the musclebound prince clutched a tiny winged person by an arm as short and limp as an earthworm, Akachi could not be blamed for thinking he fought the writhing vermin for this prize.
"Your maggot has a face!" As Akachi's rattled vision cleared, she added, "that's no fly. Is that a fairy?"
Vemulus snorted. "Yours?" His growl was so phlegmy that it sounded like he was choking on another fairy.
"What?"
"That." Vemulus dangled the tiny winged man.
Akachi's face grew hot. She was getting tired of this monosyllabic conversation. "What? The fairies? Are they fairies?"
"Are they fairies?" Vemulus, in mimicking Akachi, produced a ghastly roar, as if some diabolic terror bubbled up from the underworld. "Don't you know this one?" As Akachi was still sprawled on her bruised posterior and scratched palms, he stooped to dangle it in front of her face.
Akachi's breath caught, for whatever it was, it was a wondrous creature. Its wings were an iridescent, pearly cream, its skin was reddish-violet, and it wore such pristinely manufactured miniature armor and weapons, both of some chitinous, ruby-red substance, that it would have driven a human craftsman senseless, nerveless, and gibbering mad to mimic such fine detail. While its cheeks were mashed, and its arm black from Vemulus's cruel grip, Akachi thought it among the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
Since most of her sheltered life was lived in the Mansion of the Shining Prince, her list of beauties was mostly Alsantian, aside from the grandest myths of Worlds class. It must be admitted, however, that there is a world of difference between a described beauty and an indescribable one, and faced with the latter, Akachi was struck speechless.
When Vemulus gnashed his teeth, roared, and shook the whimpering fairy, Akachi jumped up, raised her hands in placation, and cried out, "please don't kill it!"
"Then you know this monster?"
That Vemulus called the fairy a monster was such a gross injustice to the fairy that Akachi laughed nervously, and when Vemulus responded by such a deeply contracted scowl that his nostrils pinched, his brow creased in a deep black slash, and his jaw thrust out yellow teeth, Akachi waved her placating hands and said, "I don't know it. I swear. If it's a spy, the Marquessa will want to question it."
"What spies? Is your Marquessa a traitor?"
"No. By the Prince, no." Akachi's eyes went wide. It was out before she could think.
Vemulus dropped the half-dead fairy to grab Akachi's shoulders by both hands.
"What Prince? You're the traitor, then."
"I only meant your highness."
Picking her up in both of his meaty hands, as if he was the towering offal pile animated to undead life, Vemulus cracked her so hard against the wall that her lungs were knocked breathless and wheezy, her eyesight dissolved in gray and red haze, and one tooth chipped as the rest rattled.
While Akachi was not a trained fighter, she was one by nature, and when it seemed this might be the end of her--for who would punish the prince after he pinned whatever treason he liked on her corpse--she lashed out with both feet. One boot, still caked with hay and manure, streaked his neck with that ordure as she gouged his adam's apple, while the other jammed against his breastplate, jarring her knee with an agony she instantly released in a drawn-out scream of anguish. When Vemulus gagged, his hands flew from her shoulders to his throat, and Akachi fell sprawling on her tailbone with such an excruciating clash that she rolled on her side and cried until her eyes blacked out from the pain.
When the door banged open again to a scramble of footfalls, thrashing bodies, and growling--not Vemulus's flimsy human growling, but animal growling that chilled her blood--Akachi rolled over to crawl for the door. It was hopeless, she knew, but if she could reach the door, she might prop something against it and trap Vemulus inside.
"Akachi!" While the noise was familiar, its echo was distorted into a dizzying vortex. When hands clamped under her armpits to hoist her up, her kicks flailed the wall, knocking them to the floor.
"Akachi!" As the plaintive voice was underneath her, she rolled over, then staggered to her feet. The tall boy winced as he stood.
"They're coming!" Akachi turned from Conrad to see Lucien, Aito, and an enormous raccoon, all sitting on a groaning Vemulus. For a moment, Akachi thought the petite blonde girl was Michel, until she noticed lighter hair, smaller features, and eyes that stared back.
"We'll never get away," groaned Aito.
"The prince is our safe passage," growled the raccoon, lifting the enormous prince over his broad back, and lumbered through the door.
They made their way around the snarling, snapping, and squirming pile of hungry animals and offal, and halfway to the outer wall, before anyone said it.
"This is kidnapping," said Lucien.
"He's the leader of those murderers massing in the woods," said the raccoon. "And we can't get away without him. If you want, we'll release him once we're away, but it won't earn you any favors."
"I'm with Jgorga," said the girl.
"Akachi, this is Isola," said Lucien.
While Akachi tried a weak nod, her head was bobbing from being knocked down three times, and she shook from fear and adrenaline. Her tongue fished around her cracked molar molar. If there were dentists in Alsantia, would they also do sickening, gory work like the dwarven eye doctor?
"If this is Akachi, where's Michel?" Despite Conrad's rude reminder of her long friendship, Akachi suppressed any trace of rancor from her face, but couldn't help the tears trailing down her cheeks. When the raccoon barged through a curtain of vines that hid a narrow passage in the outer wall, she was grateful for the concealment of the dark corridor.
""I didn't have time to tell them," said Aito.
"We still don't have time. She isn't coming." When no one questioned this, Akachi shouted, "you don't care, but Michel will! You're out of your minds to leave the best of us out of sight in a broken world!"
When Aito and Conrad tried to lend the weeping girl their shoulders, she shuffled toward the sunset creeping down the shadowy hallway.