Brechalon (6 page)

“
May I help you?”

“
I’m here to pick up a hat for Miss
Dechantagne.”

The woman nodded and left. Zeah sat back down
and waited for what seemed an inordinate amount of time to get a
hat, but at last she returned. She had a box, a hat box naturally,
but it had not yet been tied shut with the usual bow.

“
Would you care to see it?” the
woman asked, opening the lid.

“
Um, no.” Zeah turned and stared at
the horrendous pink wallpaper.

The woman shrugged and went back out through
the door. Zeah had never looked at any article of clothing that he
had picked up for Miss Dechantagne, and he wasn’t about to start
looking now. It wasn’t that there would be any impropriety. It was
simply that, as Zeah’s luck ran, there would be something wrong
with the hat. Not having much in the way of fashion sense, of
course, Zeah would have no idea that there was anything wrong, and
even if he did, he wouldn’t know what that something was. When Miss
Dechantagne found the flaw in the apparel, she would ask Zeah if he
knew anything about it, and he wouldn’t be able to say that there
was no way that he could know anything about it because he had
never seen the article in question before. He had seen it. All in
all, it was better if he didn’t.

Taking another trolley, one that had many
passengers though none of them soldiers and none of them odd
looking men in brown bowlers, Zeah arrived at Avenue Boar near the
banking district. The Prescott Agency was here, occupying the same
columned, white building that they had occupied for more than fifty
years. It was the job of the Prescott Agency to place top quality
servants in the wealthiest and most important of Greater
Brechalon’s homes. Zeah was at least as well versed in the protocol
here as he was in the millinery shop. He walked up to the second
floor to Mrs. Villers’ desk and told her what he needed.

“
I’m afraid that won’t be
possible,” said Mrs. Villers.

“
Wha… what?”

“
I’m afraid that won’t be
possible.”

“
Wha…why not? You don’ t have
anyone to place?”

“
Oh, no. It’s not that. We have
people to place, but you want someone with experience.”

“
Yes.”

“
Well, how can I put this? None of
the experienced people want to work for her. They’ve all heard the
stories.”

“
The stories are, um… well, not
exaggerated exactly… but still.”

“
I understand,” said Mrs. Villers.
“You are the head butler and I would be shocked if you spoke ill of
your house. I certainly wouldn’t want you to. But you see my
dilemma. I have several very promising looking
newcomers.”

“
Um.” Zeah stopped and examined the
ceiling for a moment. “Yes. Send them around.”

He looked back at Mrs. Villers.

“
Mr. Korlann?”

“
Yes?”

“
Was there anything
else?”

“
Um… no.” Zeah turned and headed
for the stairs that led him down to the first floor and out onto
Avenue Peacock. All in all, he thought it might have been better if
there had been a flaw in the hat.

Chapter Four: Memories

Nils Chapman looked through the small window in
the armored door at prisoner eighty nine. The warden was once again
away from the island and Chapman was happy to note that Karl Drury
was gone as well. Chapman had spent the previous weeks trying to
find out anything he could about the lone occupant of
Schwarztogrube’s north wing. He didn’t know why, but he felt
compelled to find out all he could about her. The prison didn’t
have any open records and asking the warden would have invited
dismissal, so he had quizzed the other guards and the south wing
prisoners. From the former, he hadn’t gotten much—only that she was
an extremely dangerous, extremely powerful magic-user. From one of
the latter though he had gotten a name—Zurfina.

“
Zurfina,” he called out. “Is that
your name? Is that who you are?”

Slowly, very slowly, the head came up until he
could see the two grey eyes peering from between the dirty, blond
hair like the eyes of a tiger looking out of the jungle—filled with
hatred.

“
Are you Zurfina?”

Slowly the fire in the eyes died, and the eyes
turned glassy. Then the head dropped back down. Though he called to
her several more times, prisoner eighty-nine gave no more
indication that she heard or understood. Eventually he gave up and
made his way back to the south wing, so he didn’t hear the words
that came from the cracked lips.

“
One thousand nine hundred sixty
eight days. One thousand nine hundred sixty eight days. One
thousand nine …”

One thousand nine hundred sixty eight days
before, Zurfina the Magnificent had been moving through the throngs
of people in Marcourt Station. She was not dressed as the other
women in the station, or anywhere else in the United Kingdom of
Greater Brechalon. High-heeled leather boots and leather pants
matched the spiked leather collar around her neck and the
fingerless black leather gloves on her hands. The black leather
corset, worn as a shirt, left her white shoulders bare as it did
the two inch star tattoo above each breast. No one noticed the
bizarrely clad figure though. Zurfina was a master of obfuscation.
To everyone else at the station, she seemed nothing but a
non-descript brunette in a brown dress with an appropriately large
bustle. To almost everyone else.

Zurfina had her ticket on the B511 out of Brech
to Flander on the south coast, where she had already arranged to
meet a boat that would take her to a ship bound for Mirsanna. There
was no way that she could stay in Brechalon any longer. The
government had refused to accept her independence. They would have
her join the military or they would see her destroyed. They had
already sent a dozen wizards and two sorcerers against her. But
Zurfina was the greatest practitioner of sorcery in the Kingdom and
was more than a match for any wizard.

A man in a brown suit stepped out from behind a
pillar. To the other people in the station, he seemed nothing out
of the ordinary, but to Zurfina he glowed bright yellow and was
surrounded by a sparkling halo. She didn’t wait for him to cast a
spell. She pointed her hand toward him and spat out an
incantation.

“
Intior uuthanum err.”

Immediately the man doubled over, wracked with
uncontrollable cackling laughter. But before Zurfina could smile
appreciatively, she was thrown from her feet as the world around
her exploded in flames. She had been hit in the back by a fireball,
and only the fact that she had previously shielded herself
prevented her from becoming a human candle, as four or five
innocent bystanders around her now did. Rolling to her feet and
turning around, she found that she faced not one, but four wizards.
The one who had evidently cast the fireball was preparing another
spell, while the other three were casting their own. Her shield
protected her from the lightning bolt, and the attempt to charm
her, but one of the four magic missiles hit her, burning her
shoulder as though it had been dipped in lava.

“
Uuthanum uastus corakathum paj--
Prestus Uuthanum.” Zurfina ducked into a side alcove as one of the
wizards turned to stone and her own shield was replenished. Several
more magical bolts struck the stone wall across from her, creating
small burnt holes. Peering quickly around the corner, she saw the
four wizards just where she left them, the three trying to use
their petrified comrade as cover. Looking in the other direction,
she saw that the wizard cursed with laughter had recovered and he
had been joined by two more.

Seven wizards—well, six. That was a lot of
magical firepower. But then Zurfina looked across the station
platform. Directly opposite her was the open door of a train; not
the B511, but a train bound for somewhere else. If she could reach
it, she could get away. She glanced quickly around the corner
again. The smell of burnt bodies mixed with thick black smoke in
the air, but though there was plenty of the former, there was not
enough of the latter for Zurfina’s taste.

“
Uuthanum,” she said, and a thick
fog began to fill the station platform.

“
Maiius uuthanum nejor paj.” The
three wizards to her right suddenly faced a dog the size of a draft
horse, snarling and foaming at the mouth, and they felt their
spells were better aimed at it than any blond sorceress.

Turning to her left, Zurfina cast another
spell. “Uuthanum uastus carakathum nit.”

The cement that formed the other end of the
platform turned to mud. The petrified wizard, deprived of his
secure foundation toppled over onto one of his comrades crushing
him, while the other two struggled to pull themselves from the
muck. Zurfina shot out of the alcove and ran toward the train. She
had almost made it, when Wizard Bassington stepped into the open
doorway in front of her.

She stopped right there in the open,
unbalanced, unsure now whether to run left or right or back the way
that she had come. She felt uncomfortably like an animal caught on
the road in the headlamps of an oncoming steam carriage. Bassington
didn’t move. He stared at her with his beady eyes. His eyes went
wide though when Zurfina reached up to snatch something out of the
air. Normal, non-magical people couldn’t see them, but he could—the
glamours that orbited her head were spells cast earlier, awaiting
the moment when she needed them.

She crushed the glamour and pointed her hand at
the spot where Bassington stood, just as he dived away. The
entryway where the wizard had been, and the passenger coaches on
either side of him exploded, lifting much of the train up off the
track as metal and wood shrapnel and human body parts flew in every
direction. The flash knocked Zurfina herself back onto the cement
and sent her sliding across the pavement and into the far wall.
Before she could get up, she was hit with a dozen bolts of magical
fire, some but not all of them deflected by her magic shield. It
was a spell of weakening, followed by one of sleep though that
finally dropped her head unconscious to the ground. The last thing
she saw was Bassington’s hob nail boots walking toward her. That
was one thousand nine hundred sixty eight days ago.

* * * * *

Two thousand twenty one days ago, Zurfina
ducked into her lodgings on Prince Tybalt Boulevard. She had a
second degree burn on her thigh and blood ran down her arm from a
bullet wound just above her elbow. She bolted the door then
staggered across the room to the dresser. Opening the top drawer,
she pulled out a brown bottle of healing draught and splashed a
generous amount onto first the bullet hole and then the burn.
Finally she took a large swig. She turned quickly, raising her hand
as the door opened. But she lowered her arm again when Smedley
Bassington entered.

“
I locked the door,” she said,
taking another swig from the brown bottle.

“
Are you alright?”

“
A fat lot you care, you bloody
bastard.”

“
It’s not my fault,” he almost
whined. “I told you what would happen. It’s not too late. Go with
me to the Ministry of War. One word and it will be over. Everything
can go back to the way it was.”

“
Not the way it was,” she spat. “I
wasn’t the Ministry’s lapdog before. That was you.”

“
Zurfina…”

“
Uuthanum,” she threw a quick
gesture in his direction, which turned into a knife in the
air.

“
Uuthanum,” he said, sending the
knife in an arc around the room and back at her. In midair it
turned into badminton shuttlecock.

“
Uuthanum,” she sent it back to him
again, now transformed into a squirming serpent.

“
Uuthanum.” As it sailed at her
again, the snake became a rose.

Zurfina snatched it from the air and winced as
the long pointed thorns bit her hand. “Son of a bitch!”

“
You can’t get away,” said
Bassington.

“
No?” Zurfina gestured and was
gone, leaving the wizard alone in the room.

That was two thousand twenty one days
ago.

* * * * *

Two thousand nine hundred and seven days ago,
Zurfina reclined across the park bench and took a deep breath,
savoring the smell of the white rose that Smedley held to her nose.
She shifted slightly, nestling her head more comfortably in his
lap. A light breeze was whipping around her and as she looked up
into the sky. She could see clouds floating by at a surprisingly
quick pace.

“
You haven’t given me an answer,”
said Smedley.

“
An answer to what?”

“
An answer to the most important
question in my life.”

“
And what might that question
be?”

“
Infuriating woman,” Smedley
snapped. “You know what question. You haven’t yet told me whether
you’ll marry me. In antediluvian times, I’d simply have hit you
over the head with a club and pulled you by the hair back to my
cave.”

“
Yes, well.” Zurfina’s
charcoal-lined, grey eyes slowly rose to meet his. “Then I would
wait until you were asleep and slice your throat with my stone
knife.”