Sasharia En Garde (3 page)

I shifted my attention back to the female, who had to be
Elva. She wore a homemade shirt and trousers, her brown hair wrapped up on her
head. Her dark eyes, so much like the guy’s, quirked in puzzlement as she
studied me.

“Send. Me. Back.” I tried hard to sound polite. “Please.”

“Why?” Devli shouted from behind the screen. “When we
tracked you down, it was to discover you were not living as a queen and
princess should—”

Anger burned through me. “And when I was last here,” I
interrupted, “the would-be queen and princess were running for their lives,
grateful for stale bread, and eating it with one eye to the door that might
come crashing in. How is that any better? My waitress life might not be
prestigious, but it didn’t include any weapons or death threats.”

Elva flexed her hands. “But—”

“And I am not a princess,” I added, more quietly. “Sounds to
me like Canary is still king. My father is dead, near as I can tell.”

Elva said on a hopeful note, “But we have not determined
that your father is dead.”

“Either a person is dead or is not dead,” I retorted. All
these years of wondering, and there still was no answer.

“Or is missing—”

Voices shouted from somewhere outside. Elva whirled around.

I scrambled up, still woozy from the world transfer, and
staggered out of the Destination chamber into a big room. I was obviously in a
castle. Moss-splotched stone walls, arrow-slit windows down one side with
age-darkened, rotting tapestries between them, and two very dusty,
spider-webbed huge tables testified to a place abandoned for an appreciable
length of time.

“Devli.” Elva dashed across the room toward the farther
table. “I hear trouble.”

“Coming!” Devli squawked, amid increased sounds of frenzied
dressing.

She turned back to me. “You need more seemly clothing.”

“These are seemly where I come from. And if you send me
back, they’ll continue to be seemly.”

She frowned. “Did I misspeak? You attract attention dressed
thus, and it were better if—”

She halted at the ring of iron-shod boot heels outside the
main door.

Devli hopped out a second later, trying to fix the ties of a
greenweave shoe. Elva reached the table. She picked up a rapier and a saber and
tossed the latter to Devli, who let go of his shoe just in time to catch the
weapon with both hands.

“Hey,” he protested. “That almost knocked me in the head.”

“No loss,” Elva cracked, and I knew then they were brother
and sister. “Now pick up those outlandish other-world clothes, lest you want to
signal to every villain within a day’s ride where you were.”

As she nagged, she picked up the tie and the coat and tossed
them to him. He bundled them with the other things into a kind of knapsack,
which he slung round behind him. “Table,” he said to her.

Together they sprang to the closer table and shoved it
against the wooden door about two seconds before the latch rattled. A muffled
curse prefaced thumping and kicking.

My two hours of sleep left me struggling to catch up.
“Wait—”

“This way.” Elva used her sword to flick up the single
tapestry on the inner wall.

Her gesture sent up billows of dust. She sneezed.

“Why should I follow you?” I demanded.

Devli said, “It’s either us or King Canardan. I am afraid
there is no choice left.”

Canary? I’d already made one big mistake. I did not want to
risk another. I crowded behind Elva and Devli into the narrow passageway
previously hidden behind the tapestry.

An ancient magical glowglobe, dim enough to shed faint
light, revealed a narrow, moldy corridor.

Elva had pressed against the wall, and when I passed, she
closed in behind me. Except for our breathing and footsteps we were silent as
we dashed down the passage, which abruptly jolted right. Another ancient
glowglobe revealed a steep, cramped spiral stairway.

We shuffled down into darkness. All three of us trailed
fingers against the slimy wall to guide us as there was no handrail. Ech. I was
glad of my sandals. The stair mold was even worse than the walls.

Devli thumped into a solid door just before we heard a distant
wham!
from the upstairs room we’d
left a minute ago. Devli yanked the iron-reinforced door open. Sudden light
blinded us when we galumphed through a stone archway into a courtyard.

Elva pushed past me and led the way, sword up, looking
around quickly. “Come on—” she began, motioning toward what seemed to be a
stable from the smell emanating from the open door.

A stream of guys in brown battle tunics blasted through
another stone archway in the wall adjacent to ours. A few waved rapier-sabers,
and several wielded heavy straight swords. These had to be Canary’s
henchminions.

Devli scrambled in front of me, taking up position beside
his sister. The men fanned out, moving in slowly. A few gave me puzzled looks.

Someone barked out a short command. The henchminions raised
their swords, some upright, others holding the points outward. A couple waved
their swords vaguely. Both those swords looked awfully tarnished.

Devli and Elva valiantly tried to drive the warriors back,
but they were outnumbered and not well trained. Neither were the henchminions.
From the caution with which they circled in, trying to get past Elva’s and
Devli’s frantic sword swinging, it was clear the orders were to “take” and not
“kill” or we’d have been sliced and diced.

Still, the siblings retreated. I also retreated, my bag
clutched tightly to me. I was trying to think past my brain fog—and coming up
with nothing because I had no idea where we were, or who anyone was. I had no
weapons, no sleep, and worst of all, no caffeine to boot the brain.

Just then a cry from across the courtyard caused the leader
of the patrol to yell, “Out here!”

Great. Reinforcements.

The henchminions grinned, several relaxing, the rest
brandishing weapons expectantly. Their leader said to Devli and Elva, “Put your
weapons down.”

“Not likely,” drawled a voice from the archway behind us.

I whirled around. A tall guy sauntered into the courtyard,
sword in one hand, long knife in the other. Neither weapon looked tarnished.

Devli sighed, shutting his eyes briefly. “The pirate.”

“Pirate?
Pirate?
”
I repeated, trying not to bleat. “Pirates I
read
about. I never wanted to
meet
any—”

No one was paying me the least heed. Elva and Devli gripped
their weapons with renewed determination, though they didn’t seem to know where
to attack first.

“Come along,” the pirate invited the henchminions, waving
his knife to and fro as he passed me by with no more than a glance. “Come on,
men! Here’s your chance for glory!”

Canary’s goons sprang to the attack.

The pirate wore a fringed black bandana, a gold hoop in one
ear, a crimson woolen vest over a billowy shirt like those worn by the
siblings, only the pirate’s shirt had been dyed robin’s-egg blue. The vest was
both sashed (lime green) and belted. Full black trousers, high blackweave
riding boots. I wondered, despite the danger and my headache and everything
else, is there, like, a pirate code, where they have to dress like that? I
kinda thought pirates, you know, didn’t do rules.

Despite his severe lack of fashion sense, the pirate’s
fighting style left the siblings in the dust. He broke the front patrol line,
leaving Elva and Devli to deal with the outer two warriors. Then, as the
newcomers spread slowly out, stepping warily, he glanced back once.

“That her?” A brief head-to-toe from light-colored eyes, set
well apart.

“Yes,” Elva gasped, wiping her brow on her sleeve.

“Useless, eh?” the pirate commented, not missing a beat as
he disarmed two of the brown guys.

“We only had weapons for us—” Devli began. A knife, hitherto
hidden in the boot top of the patrol leader, thunked into his arm. “Oooh,”
Devli finished, staggering back.

Elva sprang to her brother’s aid.

I hadn’t meant to help anyone. I mean, nobody was on my side
as far as I could see. But that “useless” comment stung.

“The invitation didn’t include swords.” Anger smacked away
the last of the brain fog.

I slung my bag behind my shoulder and picked up a rapier
dropped by one of the guys the pirate had wounded. I hopped over the guy, who
lay groaning, rocking back and forth with a hand at his bleeding shoulder.
These rapier-sabers were heavier than the fencing saber back on Earth, but far
lighter than the clumsy straight swords.

Straight swords can break a rapier—if they connect. Rapiers
are fast. Especially if one knows how to use them.

Ah, there was another. I picked it up as well, and as three
men charged at me, whirled both blades around experimentally. Yep, heavier, but
good reach and a nice snap to the steel.

Fencing for sport has strict rules. My father had explained
to me when I was a child that dueling was also hemmed by rules, but warfare
wasn’t, a piece of advice that my mother and I had minded when seeking extra
training in martial arts. Which also has rules. Different ones, though.

So I used the two blades, the dust on the old flagstones,
roundhouse kicks and a fallen cloak, pinking all three in under a minute. It
was apparent their training was at best rudimentary—counting on numbers—whereas
I was hungry, angry, unpadded, and oh yeah, had been competing on fencing teams
for the past ten years. Fencing—and winning trophies. Only my fear of publicity
had kept me from doing anything professional with it.

And so I ended up fighting next to the pirate as the rest of
the attackers came at us, this time with no hesitation. The pirate flicked a
smile in my direction and whacked an attacker over to me.

I returned the compliment a moment or two later by tripping
one, who lunged at Captain Color-Challenged, took a slice across one arm and a
pink in the other arm, and retired from the lists. I didn’t kill anyone—I was
far too squeamish for that—but noticed that the pirate only wounded as well,
taking them with practiced precision out of the fight, but not out of life.

I was breathing hard and sweat ran down into my eyes when
the news clue-sticked me that there were no more attackers. They sat or lay,
most groaning, some bemused. There were fewer than I’d first seen. A bunch of ’em
had prudently found business elsewhere.

The pirate put his point down and leaned on it. “Sasharia
Zhavalieshin?”

“No, Snilch Gritchpea,” I said crossly, trying
unsuccessfully to wipe the sweat from my eyes, but my arm was as sweaty as my
face. “I’d like to go home now.”

Devli claimed our attention by swaying, then falling face
down. Elva knelt and sniffed. “Pepper-poison!” she cried.

And, despite the many years since I had breathed this
world’s air, there in my mind was the spell my father had taught me. Before I
could think I’d muttered it. On Earth, for a time, I’d practiced my father’s
spells, but they’d never worked, or barely gathered magic. Here, a sudden surge
of power ran through me and zapped over Devli in a faint, coruscating light. He
sat up, gasping.

Devli and Elva stared at me.

The pirate gave me a pensive smile. “And you want to remain
on a world where there’s no magic?”

“Well, at least they have aspirin,” I muttered. The backlash
of powerful magic hit me. I sank to the ground and put my head on my knees.

“We have listerblossom steep.” Elva sounded subdued.

Steep
was tea,
that I remembered from childhood. Listerblossom, my mother had once told me,
was probably related to willow. It was remarkably effective as a fever-reducing
analgesic.

“May I suggest a strategic retreat?” The pirate saluted us
with his sword. “Half those boys are hiding inside, but they might combine and
rush out for some more sport.”

“Here.” Devli drew in a cautious breath, touched his arm,
and smiled. Then straightened up. “Hands together. I left a transfer token in a . . .
a place of safety. Brace yourselves.”

“Are you well enough to do a multiple transfer?” his sister
asked, concerned.

Devli’s eyes widened. “Oh yes. Better! Because that wasn’t
an antidote. There is no antidote to pepper-poison. If you survive it, you
sweat it out.
That
magic I don’t even
know, but I recognize the effect. It’s old morvende magic, taught to Prince
Mathias Zhavalieshin.”

They all stared at me, living evidence of the previous
generation’s problems.

I pressed my hands to my eyes, someone touched my shoulder—

—and we transferred. But this time it was quick, causing no
more than an inward jolt and a twinge of queasiness. A short distance, then.

Dim lighting—smell of damp stone—I knew I was underground
before I even saw the small, round cave with several dark archways leading off
who knows where. In the center sat a low circular table, on it a neat stack of
pressed paper, an inkwell and a quill pen that Devli had obviously set up in
case of need. The light came from a glowglobe set in a wooden holder. Next to
the paper lay Devli’s transfer token, which had given him something to focus on
in absence of a regular Destination chamber.

Destination chamber. Glowglobe. More blasts from the past.

“We are safe.” Devli bowed to me. “Devlaen Eban,
journeymage, sworn to your father’s service.”

“Elva Eban, navigator aboard the
Flipping Squid
. I—” Elva stopped, and shrugged. “I’m not a mage,
but I joined Devli to help.” She scowled at the pirate, who leaned in an
archway. “Devli’s group has been working to find your father, free him and
restore him to the throne.”

Devlaen whisked himself away somewhere behind me, but I was
too tired to look.

Father. Throne. Plots.

Not again.

“Sit down.” Elva peered worriedly into my face. “Cushions
over in this alcove.”