Sword and Sorceress XXVII (19 page)

Lionel nodded. “Though I must say, if I’d
known what hoops I’d have to jump through when Ali gave me my diploma and that
smile of hers at the commendation ceremony...” He stopped, shook his head. “Aw,
who’m I kidding? The way we clicked at the dance afterwards, no way I was
letting her go, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Crocker said, and Cluny felt the
warmth of his magic snuggle around her. “So how’s life afloat?”

“Terry?” Lionel pressed a hand to his
chest. “The stories I could tell you!” He proceeded then to tell some—pretty
funny ones, too—while they walked through more of the estate’s wooded hills, a
pool house visible through the trees at one point, a nicely-rolled tennis court
at another, and Cluny found herself liking him more and more.

The path wound around one last hill, and
Cluny had to gasp at the house, big and rambling as a glacial moraine,
perfectly situated in the landscape but still stately enough that she felt
somehow underdressed wearing just her regular old fur.

“Wait,” Lionel said, interrupting his
account of running across a school of flying cuttlefish. “We’ve got most of
high society stacked up in there noshing their way through as many hors d’oeuvres
as Rhys and Patrin can crank out.” He nodded toward a low hedge running along
some tumbled rocks that Cluny suddenly realized were a wall. “So unless you’re
dying to hob-nob with the big-wigs...”

Crocker shook his head and moved to the
hedge. “May I?”

Lionel folded his arms. “You never could
before.”

“That was a long time ago.” Crocker
flared his fingers, the pattern of pale violet fire in the air telling her he
was trying a lifting spell. Not sure he knew any of those, she tucked her paws
into her pocket so they wouldn’t show and reached out with her spatial senses
to see what Crocker was—

“Ah!” Shtasith rose from Crocker’s
shoulders, his wings drafting a cool breeze down over her. “A secret passage!”
He sliced through the air to where the hedge began, and Cluny saw it, then: a
handle in the stone work half hidden by branches.

“Froth and foam!” Lionel stared at
Shtasith. “It talks??”

“‘He,’ not ‘it.’“ The strain of the
casting barely touched Crocker’s voice. “Cluny can talk, too, but she’s kinda
shy.” He flicked his fingers. “Outta the way, Shtasith: that thing swings right
up where you’re hovering.”

Cluny stifled her smile and aimed a lift
spell at the door they’d so nicely pointed out to her. The false front of the
rock rose silently, and Lionel gave a low whistle. “So they really
are
teaching you things at that school.”

“More than I can say.” He grinned. “Like
how a firedrake’s handy when you’re heading into the dark.”

The glow of Shtasith’s eyes cast
swirling puddles of light into the rough tunnel beyond, stairs carved unevenly
into the floor. Lionel snorted. “Takes a bit of the fun out when you’re not
barking a shin every other damn step...”

Two solid minutes of climbing, then: “Hold
up, Shtasith.” Crocker pointed to a hole in the wall. “This is the library.”

Lionel reached through the hole and
pushed something, dusty air touching Cluny’s whiskers. “The coast is clear,” he
said, and he pushed the wall open, Cluny again amazed at how well the seams
were concealed. “You’ll be in your old room upstairs, Terry, and Lady Hesper’s
in mine across the hall.”

Crocker moved after him. “Then where’re
you gonna be?”

“East wing guard quarters.” He waggled
his eyebrows. “Just outside Ali’s suite, oddly enough...”

The library was large and well-kept, the
summer evening fading at the windows; peering over Crocker’s shoulder, Cluny
watched a portion of bookcase swinging shut. “Just like in the romance novels,”
she said, smiling up at Crocker.

A laugh from Lionel. “Wait. Squirrel
romance novels?”

Cluny felt her ears heat up, and she
slid down the front of Crocker’s robes into her pocket. “No, sir.” She put as
much shiver into it as she could, playing the nervous little rodent. “They’re
just the regular human kind.”

His moustache quirked sideways. “You
should talk to Ali; she’s addicted to the damn things.”

“Tell me about it,” a voice drawled from
across the room: a black-and-white cat giving them a half-lidded look from a
table. “My mistress can’t abide the things, so I’m forced to lead Her Highness’s
private book group when she wishes to discuss them.”

“Ah!” Lionel snapped his fingers. “Terry,
this is Beatrice’s familiar Lorn. Lorn, this is—”

“No need, Lt. Crocker.” The cat rose in
one fluid motion and bowed. “I had the privilege of attending the council
session where the truth about Sophomore Crocker, his familiar, and his
companion was first made known.”

Blinking, Crocker bowed back, and Cluny
said, “It’s an honor, Lorn. You’re a constant example to all of us.”

Lorn’s ears folded. “Yes, well, as the
mistress delights in reminding me, I’d be nothing but a rat-crunching farm
animal if she hadn’t—” The fur sprang up all over his body, the cat suddenly on
all fours, his eyes wide. “Something’s upset the—”

Magic crashed over Cluny, the sloppiest
transport spell she’d ever felt, and Lorn was on the carpet racing for the
door. “Mistress!” he yowled, the door flying open at the touch of his spell,
and he shot through into a hallway beyond.

“C’mon!” Crocker took off after the cat,
Cluny grabbing the rim of her pocket, Shtasith whooshing along beside, the
muffled thud-thud-thud of Lionel’s boots changing to a clattering as they hit
the slate floor of the hall.

Down a short flight of fern-lined
stairs, and Cluny could hear raised voices echoing ahead. “The gall!” Mistress
Elaro was shouting. “That you would dare suggest such a thing to Her Royal
Highness! It borders on the contemptible! You should—!”

“I??” And Cluny’s jaw dropped: this
second voice belonged to Hesper. “
You’re
the one soaking in contempt,
Beatrice!”

They rounded a corner and came into a
vaulted reception hall, windows looking out over the grounds, a good forty or
fifty formally dressed humans in various stages of bowing at the group that
Cluny could tell had just appeared beside the little bandstand at the far end
of the room, Crocker’s mother and Crown Princess Alison staring, Mistress Elaro
pointing a shaking finger at Hesper. “I’ll not have the princess spoken to in
that way! Unicorn or not, you need to know your place!”

Cluny had never imagined Hesper could
look frightening, but right then, her front hoofs spread and planted, her horn
lowered, her anger sparking the air around her—”You miserable little snip!” she
growled. “If your mind were any more closed, you’d need a warning sign on your
forehead!”

Mistress Elaro blinked. “That doesn’t
even make sense!”

“Enough!” Princess Alison didn’t raise her
voice, but Cluny could feel the power of her royal privilege, saw the rest of
the room reacting to it as well, Mistress Elaro and Hesper both pulling their
mouths closed and snapping their heads in the princess’s direction. “This is
not a matter to be decided lightly or in the heat of the moment.” She fixed her
eyes on each of the two in turn. “Lady Hesper, I have heard your request.
Mistress Elaro, I have heard your comments. Now!” She turned a smile toward
Crocker’s mother. “Perhaps we should get ourselves cleaned up for Lady Miranda’s
lovely dinner.”

Crocker had stopped at the edge of the
crowd, Shtasith on his shoulder, Cluny craning her neck to get a view between
the milling guests, but now she saw Lionel moving through them toward the
princess. Mistress Elaro stood with her arms folded, her frown as heavy as an
ice storm, while Hesper whirled and started for the nearest doorway, the humans
stepping aside, their fear and wonder stroking Cluny’s whiskers as the unicorn
passed, sparks still crackling up from her.

Giving Crocker a nod, Cluny heard him
sigh; he slid along the wall, reached the doorway at the same time as Hesper. “This
leads back to the billiard rooms, Lady Hesper,” he murmured.

“Good!” She continued stomping through
and into the hall beyond though her hoofs in the carpet didn’t actually make
any noise. “A pool cue to the head’s sure to make me feel better!”

Cluny couldn’t think of a delicate way
to ask. “I take it Mistress Elaro didn’t support your petition.”

Hesper snorted. “Mistress Elaro can kiss
my unshorn fetlocks! And now she’ll be whispering nothing but poison against me
to Her Highness all night!”

Shtasith drifted down to hover beside
her. “Fear not, my Lady. For we, too, have an agent in Her Highness’s camp.”

“Lionel!” Crocker snapped his fingers. “Yeah!”

“You—” Hesper’s eyes shimmered. “You’d
do that?”

Laughing, Cluny spread her paws. “After
everything you’ve done for us, how could we
not
?”

#

It proved more difficult than Cluny had
thought, though. After teleporting with Hesper back to the library for Crocker’s
suitcase, then upstairs to their rooms, not even Crocker’s status got them any
closer to Lionel than a third of the way down the head table. Afterwards, too,
the crowds around the happy couple proved too thick, the realm’s highest and
mightiest all trying to get a word with Her Highness and the young naval
officer scheduled to be named her consort Sunday night.

Upstairs in the deserted library, Hesper
gestured with her horn, the royal party down on the deck, the lanterns flickering
in the warm night breeze. “Yes, sending Shtasith would a bad idea with Beatrice
standing right there.”

“Ha!” Shtasith struck a claw against his
narrow chest. “I would fly swifter than the swiftest arrow!”

“Exactly.” Cluny shook her head. “Firedrakes
are still considered weapons, y’know.” She tapped her snout. “Crocker? Does
that secret passage go near where Lionel’s staying?”

He blinked, then smiled. “Hey, yeah!
After ev’ryone’s turned in tonight, we can just head over there!”

Moods lifting, they joined the party
till Cluny’s face went numb from holding her ‘woodland creature’ look and
Crocker had blushed and stammered his way out of every conversation anyone
tried to strike up with him. In their room, he collapsed into snores almost
immediately, and Cluny found herself being wakened she didn’t know how long
afterwards by Shtasith: “The house has fallen silent, my Cluny. Now is the time
to strike!”

Hopping onto the bed, she poked Crocker;
he sat up, nodded, was lacing his boots when he asked, “Is Hesper coming?”

Cluny blinked. “Let’s see if she’s
awake.”

Out in the hallway, moonlight drifting
from the skylights, Cluny tapped Hesper’s door. Hearing nothing, she extended
her spatial senses, felt the cabinets, the desk, the bed, but—

“She’s not in there.” She looked up at
Crocker, Shtasith across his shoulders, her neck fur crawling. “Did either of
you actually see her after we went down to the party?”

Crocker shook his head, the worried
swirl of Shtasith’s eyes showing his answer. Without another word, Cluny
scrambled up Crocker’s robes, and they headed down to the library.

The passage opened with the manipulation
of a few books, and Crocker carried them up several flights, then off through a
side passage and down a similar number of steps. He stopped at a section of
tunnel that looked no different from the rest to Cluny till he knelt and swung
one of the stairs up to reveal a maid’s cupboard beneath. Dropping into it, he
listened at the door, then slipped out into a darkened hallway. A few steps
brought them around a corner to another door, and Crocker nodded at it.

Taking a breath, Cluny sensed around the
space beyond, her little tingle growing. “It’s empty, too!”

Shtasith hissed. “I mistrust this
immensely! We must—!”

Sudden vertigo swept over Cluny, a burst
so violent and horrible, she had to shriek. Death magic! Somewhere nearby!
Crocker cried her name, then his power was stiffening around her like a plaster
cast, straightening her perceptions, Shtasith’s more energetic force blasting
the dizziness from her head; a much weaker shockwave—from a lock picking spell
of some sort?—then the feedback of that sloppy transport spell.

“Hang on!” she shouted, and flexing her
own power, she snapped them through the spaces between space to the reception
hall, Beatrice Elaro collapsed panting on the carpet, her dark hair a mop, her
clothes mud-stained, Lorn sprawled beside her.

The magistrix struggled onto her side,
brought her hands together with a crash, and her cracking voice echoed. “Guards!
To the main house! Everyone! That thrice-damned unicorn attacked me, and I
think she’s taken the princess!”

“What??” Cluny’s fur went as rigid as
toothpicks.

Mistress Elaro’s wild gaze shifted in
their direction. “Sophomore Crocker! We haven’t a moment to lose! I think I
disrupted her teleportation spell before she could get the princess away from
the estate, but—”

“That’s crazy!” Crocker yelled, his
magic jagged as pins and needles pressing into Cluny. “Hesper wouldn’t do that!”

“She appeared in my room!” Mistress
Elaro pushed herself into her knees, the sound of running feet coming to Cluny’s
ears, Crocker’s mother and father and a few guests and servants rushing into
the hall. “She told me she’d curse the princess if I didn’t support her
ridiculous request! We fought, and as she fled, I felt her power reach into Her
Highness’s room!”