00
Fingers were too many
01
Great Hall of the Mad King’s castle was brightly lit by the magelight chandeliers, – ornate clusters of crystals with glimpses of the sunlight trapped inside of them, – hanging above the heads of the crowd. Walls of the Hall were adorned with carved wooden panels, portraits of the kings of the past, ancient weaponry and armor.
People standing along the walls were representing all the clans living in the North. A gathering, full of colour, both real, – as in “colourful clothes”, – and metaphorical, – as in “colourful character” and not a bit less colourful language.
And, of course, the most colourful character here today was sitting, – slouching, – on a throne. The notorious Mad King of the North himself. Strong and tall, almost two metres in height, he was resting his chin and a curly beard on his fist, glaring with the great annoyance at the two women standing in front of him in the middle of the Hall.
Those women were the Royal sorceress Tora Halfcour and her escort, the Royal rider Mylene – they’ve had just now presented the Mad King with a sealed envelope, containing the message from the Queen of Ynys island.
“Does she expect me to read her nonsense right away?” finally said the Mad King, holding the envelope up in front of himself.
“It would be much appreciated, Your Majesty,” said Tora calmly.
“Appreciated much? Bah!” King broke the seal and looked at the contents of the letter for a while as if trying to focus his eyes. “Donald!”
“Yes, my King!” from behind the throne appeared a young man, slim and stringy and energetic. “What would you want of me?”
“Bring me… Bring me my spectacles!”
“Here they are, my King!” young man presented the King with a pair of glasses he was holding behind his back.
“Thank you, Donald. I…” King twirled the glasses around and threw them up and behind his throne. “...Don’t need them.”
“Of course, my King!” Donald stepped away and followed the glasses, disappearing from view.
With that out of the way King started to read the letter, accompanying this process with “oh”s and “huh”s and more than one “bah!”
“What!?” he finally cried out. “What is this madness? Had that woman poisoned herself with her tea completely?”
“Listen all!” he proclaimed, raising his voice above the murmurs of a crowd. “Listen to this ridiculousness! ‘We, the Queen of all Ynys island, demand of you, self-proclaimed King of the North, also known among those claiming to be your subjects as the Mad King, and also of those who dare to pledge their allegiance to you, to adhere to the well-established rules of proper conduct, also known as ‘a formal etiquette’, and in the more than not very likely case of the Our Royal Majesty’s visit to your so-called court, to wear trousers.”
Crowd went silent.
And very confused.
And a tiny little bit angry.
“You heard that, all of you!?” Mad King shook the letter up above his head. “You see what I have to contend with? That woman threatens to undermine the very foundation of our society! Trousers! Trousers!? Donald!”
“Yes, my King?” young man peeked from behind the throne.
“You heard that? Where’s your trousers, Donald?”
“Oh!” man disappeared again, only to appear from the other side. “I… I had them… somewhere… Did I left them…?”
“Where?”
“In the Queen’s chamber!”
There were one or two chuckles in the crowd. Mad King shook his head.
“Well then,” said he. “Let me give you my answer in the form of numbered list. Donald, count for me, if you will.”
“Yes, my King!” young man stood beside the King, ready to count the fingers.
“Item number one!” the King proclaimed and Donald raised one finger up. “No!”
“Item number two!” the King proclaimed and Donald raised two fingers. “No to all!”
“...To all, my King?” asked the young man, looking at his hand suspiciously.
“Yes, to all. What, you’ve got too many fingers left?”
“No, just enough,” he waived the fist with two fingers sticking out in front of himself.
“Excellent,” the King nodded. “Did our guests get my answer?”
“Then Donald will show you out,” said he, not waiting for an answer.
Donald ran towards the sorceress and the rider, circled around them and darted to the doors.
“Follow me!” shouted he from outside the Hall.
When Tora and Mylene went past the doors, they saw Donald patiently waiting for them in the corridor.
“This way, lady sorceress,” said he much more quietly, gesturing for them to follow and leading the guests to a remote small room with a table – a served table of all things.
“I hope you’ll find the food suitable to your taste, if a bit simple, ladies. We’re used to…” said Donald, bowing his head. His words were cut short by Mylene, who, having noticed the food, rushed forward, picked a leg off of a rather large fried chicken, sunk her teeth in – and only then looked at Tora with a hungry question in her eyes.
“Riders these days…” Tora nodded in answer. Mylene immediately begun to chew.
“Thank you, Donald,” said the sorceress. “You may leave us. We’ll wait here for as long as needed.”
02
When the door had opened again – it was the Mad King himself.
“I see you’re enjoying your time at my castle,” said he, looking at Mylene, who was still chewing on something with great vigour.
“Indeed, we do,” said Tora, whose plate could testify to that with some leftover food.
“Mhgmgh!” said Mylene joyfully.
“Oh, Tora, where did you adopt this wondrous creature?” the Mad King took a sit at the table and nodded with a smile at the Royal rider.
“Long story… Four stories, in fact,” the sorceress answered. “And it was actually the other way around.”
“Mgm?” Mylene raised her brow.
“Oh, nevermind,” Tora shrugged. “King, you sure have something to tell us?”
“Yes, yes, I have,” said he stroking his beard. “Yet I don’t know how much of it needs to be said – and how much do you already know.”
“I wish I knew what I know,” Tora stretched her back. “But with how the story keeps skipping from place to place, it’s almost impossible. Just assume I know nothing.”
“Well then… I’m sure you will be pleased by the news that those men who were following you since you two left the Capital won’t be doing it any more. They had… an accident. Mountains here are a very dangerous place this time of the year.”
“What’s so special about this season?” asked Mylene.
“Oh, nothing special. Mountains are a very dangerous place all year round – especially if my men can help it.”
“You’re putting your mask back on, King,” said the sorceress.
“Can’t help it. And it’s not that bad of a mask, really. A bit mad, yes, but not that bad.”
“Put it away for a moment, please,” said Tora with a sigh. “Let’s talk weapons. Those that were smuggled here from Federation.”
“Acquired for a reasonable discount, you mean? We’ve got the last delivered this month – exactly enough to outfit all the men I need and keep some in reserve.”
“So now you officially have the strongest army on the Island?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘officially,’ – not that there’s some guy running around with pen and paper, keeping charts, – but you’re right. Nobody in the North would dare to challenge my power – not in foreseeable future at least.”
“And what of those… to the south?”
“You mean your Kingdom?” Mad King paused. “You know… even with those new rifles, the Unicorn is still no match for the Dragon. So, don’t worry – no matter how insistent herr Schlieffen could be…”
“Who!?” Mylene gasped. “That… that same Schloppen guy?”
“Yes, Mylene, that same one,” said the sorceress and turned back to the King. “But how can I be sure you won’t do what he wants? Or, most importantly, how do I persuade people back at the Capital that you won’t and that all this smuggling affair wasn’t just a big mistake?”
“You see, Tora, these rifles – herr Dreise did a really good job designing a very reliable weapon. Moreso, all the weapons we acquired are manufactured to a great quality. What I’m trying to say, basically, it’s that with proper handling and care it is impossible that they malfunction… And you see what’s the problem here.”
“Try shooting a mage with it…”
“Exactly. There’s a long needle there that actually strikes the primer which ignites the powder… A lot of precaution was taken to make sure that this needle won’t fly out of the back of a gun and in the shooter’s face. But try shooting at a mage – and that’s exactly what’s going to happen, as some of my men found out.”
“I can’t say anything about you using your men as the test subjects, but did you really had to shoot at the mages?”
“Oh, they agreed to do it! Look, Tora, I needed to... shall we say ‘persuade’… some of my more adventurous underlings. Some of them got all the wrong ideas – now they have something to remind themselves why those ideas were wrong. And better yet, they will be reminded about it every time they look in a mirror.”
“I wish I had something like that for people at the Capital…” Tora thought for a moment. “Maybe I should poke out someone’s eye or two? Or would that be too cruel?”
“But you probably should know that I’ve informed herr Schlieffen of the rifles’ inability to harm mages and our own inability to field enough mages to overcome that…”
“How honest of you, King.”
“I’m an honest man, Tora. Deep in my soul I am. Especially after I’ve got all I paid for.”
“And what was his response?”
“He promised us the solution for this problem. An ‘ultimate solution’ as he put it.”
“Did he? He’s not afraid of any unfortunate implications of his words, it seems.”
“To tell you the truth, sometimes I think he’s more mad than me… and I’m the Mad King!”
“What’s his solution, then?”
“He promised… well, he offered us more mages. To make us into mages. ‘The biggest invention of our age,’ his letter said. ‘Triumf of the science and the magic combined!’”
“Ultimate impossibility… It is impossible for normal human to wield magic – therefore they can be turned into mages…”
“How’s that even…” Mylene started, then caught herself. “Wait. That one, in the sewers – was he like that?”
Tora silently nodded and, seeing interest in the Mad King’s eyes, added:
“We’ve met one of mister Schlieffen’s… test subjects. Probably an early reject, who still knew a magic trick or two. Poor creature.”
“Dead now, I presume?”
“Unfortunately…”
“Hm,” Mad King thought for a long while, staring at the empty air and stroking his beard.
“Herr Schlieffen and his machine would be arriving here soon – I assume, you know when, you’re sorceress after all, and this is an event large enough for you to know. So, I just want to warn you, Tora: if you want to stop that man, you better make sure you do it before he gets here with his machine. Because if he does… I just might be mad enough to use it on myself.”
“Are you really not afraid of losing your mind?”
“I’m called the Mad King anyway – what’s the worst that could happen? And if I need someone to be smart around here, I have Donald for that.”
03
Lord Glenarvon’s mansion from the outside was giving the impression of a big old and uninviting place, slowly falling into the state of disrepair. Maybe on the inside it was warm and welcoming, but Tora and Mylene couldn’t see that as the butler, who opened the door, refused to let them in.
“Lord is about to return soon. Until then I’m not allowed to let anyone in, even if it was the Queen herself. Lord’s orders” said he and shut the door at their faces, adding to the uninvitiness of the place.
The only silver lining in all of it was a stablehand, who took their horses with a happy expression of the someone, who finally had found some sort of purpose in their life. It looked like he didn’t have enough work and was extremely bored – until those two horses came by.
“What’s with this place?” wondered Mylene. “First time in my life I see someone at the stables who’s actually happy to get more work.”
“Oh, you’ll see for yourself – lord Edward doesn’t like horses much and prefers other modes of transportation.”
“Other modes… Whatever those are, I hope he shows up soon enough – we’ve not travelled for three days to just stand and wait for hours.”
“Three days?”
“What…?” Mylene started, then her eyes turned sad. “You don’t… that ‘skip’ again? Since when?”
“Since the moment we were talking with the Mad King and you were stuffing your face with food.”
“Don’t say it like it was a wrong thing to do. When you, the mighty, are talking – simple humans like me could at least be eating. Something tells me, this lord here won’t be so generous with food…”
“Anyway, hopefully nothing of importance had happened during the last three days?”
“Nothing, really… It was pretty quiet. We just travelled through some countryside.”
“And I wasn’t pushed out of the bed anymore?”
“You most definitely weren’t!”
“What’s with that happy grin, Mylene?”
“What grin?”
“Your grin.”
“My? Why? No grin! No grin at all! See?”
“Good thing you have ears – you’ve grinned so wide that if not for them, your head would split in two!”
“I’m just happy we’ve arrived to our destination, that’s all! Even if I don’t like this destination at all, it still makes me happy!”
“Like that would be enough…”
“What can I say – I’m a simple girl, who’s very easily pleased.”
“Seriously?” Tora narrowed her eyes.
“Uh-huh!” Mylene nodded twice very energetically.
04
They didn’t have to wait for hours. Not even for a half an hour – as lord Glenarvon showed up from around the nearest hill, riding a contraption that in its most basic form probably would be better described as the ‘four-wheeled velocipede’. But that description doesn’t really do the vehicle justice, as it was extensively and outrageously modified and decorated, – to better reflect the social status and the eccentric nature of its owner. When moving, instead of the usual creaking of the wheels or the light sound of metallic chain being pulled, it gave of all kinds of dings and dangs – and most important of all: a loud horn sound with which lord announced his arrival, seemingly to the whole northern part of the Kingdom, so loud it was.
Vehicle came to a halt and out of it came lord Edward Glenarvon himself: a man in his late thirties, often described as “handsome”, “dashing” or “flamboyant”. Usually with a “most” attached to those words – and truly to describe him one would need to use nothing but superlatives. Lord Glenarvon was the very model of a modern gentleman.
With one little exception: he had a noticeable limp in his gait – and that was a source of a constant misery for the lord himself, who tried to conceal it in any way he could, preferring to either sit, stand still or move in his velocipede, but not to walk on his feet.
“Oh, isn’t it the Royal sorceress, lady Tora Halfcour in her own person? What a miracle! What an unusual sight in this forsaken lands! What did I do to deserve such a blessing? And who’s that wondrous young soul accompanying you, lady sorceress?”
“This is the Royal rider Mylene, lord Edward,” Tora was completely unmoved. “Also, to answer your first question – you know full well why we’ve come here. You’ve received a request from the Queen…”
“Yes, yes I did,” lord waived his hand as if brushing it off. “The most impossible and unusual thing had happened – that woman had asked something of me. She had a use for me! She sent me a secret letter! Something bad and horrible is definitely about to happen if she came to that… But was she angry while writing it? Was she embarrassed she needs to turn to the man she had exiled from her Capital?”
“Probably.”
“That’s good. Oh, that’s good. That’s magnificent, even!” lord suddenly turned his attention to Mylene. “Not as magnificent as you, my dear, but you really have to change your clothes – I understand the concept of the uniform in the military, but why does it have to be so plain and uninteresting and drab?”
“It’s practical, milord” said Mylene.
“Practical… You’ll go inside,” he pointed at the doors of his mansion, still closed. “And I get Jarvis and his wife to find you something more interesting to wear. Something more fashionable and more… tight. Believe me, you’ll look in the mirror and fall in love with the reflection – just with a change of clothes. Don’t look at me like that – I’ve got a really good selection of all things cloth and silk in there, left behind by various ladies that as some point in time visited this humble abode… I’m sure something from those rags will fit you – am I right, Jarvis?”
Muted coughing from behind the door was an answer.
“I’d rather not go in then,” Mylene turned away. “I’ll go check on our horses, To… I mean, lady sorceress.”
“And when the night falls, what will you do, Rider? Nights here are dark and cold...”
“I’m the Royal rider, I’m used to sleeping under the skies.”
“Oh, well then, forget about what I said… we can’t have the horses having you all to themselves, can we? Come on in – for nobody had ever said lord Glenarvon is bad at being a hospitable host!”
“...”
“Jarvis! Open the doors finally, would you!”
“As you wish, my lord,” came butler’s voice from behind the door.
05
On the inside lord Glenarvon’s mansion looked somewhat better than from the outside. At the very least, there’s been a noticeable effort of keeping it clean and if not repaired, then patched up. Sadly, the building was so old that the very patches that it was patched up with were in dire need of patching – but in some ways it just added to the charm. This house had history – which was great until the said history weren’t falling on your head or caving in under your feet.
“You look like you stepped into museum by accident, lady Rider,” said lord Edward, noticing how Mylene was looking around. “To tell you the truth, the only thing of note here is that piece of paper in the frame over on that wall. It is signed by the Queen herself and certifies that I’m officially, – and I quote, – am ‘mad, bad and dangerous’, as well as prohibits me from setting my foot anywhere closer than a hundred miles near the Capital under the threat of death. That is why I live here, in this desolate wilderness with a few carefully chosen servants… well, I guess it is they who chose to live with me and not the other way around, right, Jarvis?”
“Indeed, milord. This way you’re not posing a danger to the nearby settlements or yourself.”
“See, lady Sorceress? I should stop referring to them as the ‘servants’ and start calling them by their true name – ‘jailors’! That’s who they are!”
“If that’s what you wish, milord,” the butler bowed. It was very hard to tell if it was out of politeness or a simple mockery.
“Oh, I thought I could make do…” lord shook his head. “I thought, that any person who I’d find interesting could come here instead of the cesspool of the Capital – I’ve even ordered that stupid tower to be built!”
“Your tone tells me something went wrong with that plan…”
“Something went wrong? Everything went wrong, lady Sorceress! Turns out there’s astonishingly few people I could find interesting for more than a couple of hours. So few, I can count their number on the fingers of one hand and there still would be too many fingers left! Even more so, after that incident… I heard your chuckle, Jarvis… Incident, when a bunch of the young noblemen from the Mainland, who unfortunately were visiting me, emptied my wine cellar and bought all the cattle in the nearby village because some of them wanted a very fresh steak… Well, cellar could be replenished, but what use do I have for a whole herd of cows? They couldn’t get all the cows on an airship… Since then I have very few guests. And still too much cows.”
“But the mooring tower is still operational?” Tora asked.
“Oh, yes, it’s in the perfect working order! I wouldn’t agree on your visit if it wasn’t, would I? You can dock your airship here whenever you want, no problem. I have no idea why you would need it, though, but be my guests. This humble exile is just happy to be of service to those who exiled him.”
“Then I have to inform you that we’ll be in need of your services tomorrow,” said Tora in the most official voice. “Airship will be docking here at the morning, picking us up on board and leaving. Failure to provide a help in this case would be considered a crime of treason and punished accordingly.”
“Tomorrow already? So soon...” lord became solemn for a second, but then his usual flamboyant mask returned to his face. “Well then! As a good host I must at least treat you to some good food before then. Also, wine. There’s still some choice bottles left in the cellar… Jarvis, did you hear me?”
“Yes, my lord, everything will be arranged momentarily,” and the butler disappeared somewhere, presumably, in the direction of a kitchen to order other staff around.
“While that’s being organized… Lady Sorceress, lady Rider, follow me, please.”
06
Concerns, previously voiced by Mylene, turned out to be but a false expectations – table was full of dishes and the Rider didn’t lost her chance to sample as many of them as she could. Lord Edward observed this with just as much interest, as the Mad King did couple of days before, giving her a smile from time to time. But both he and Tora were eating very little – one could say that lord Glenarvon was definitely more interested in the contents of his glass than his plate.
Again, the same way as it was in the castle of the Mad King, lady Sorceress and lord Glenarvon used the pretence of sitting at the dining table to talk.
“So, milord,” Tora began. “It is regrettable that you don’t get as many guests from the Mainland as you used to… I hoped you would be much more informed about the situation there than we, in the Capital, are.”
“Oh, I’m still rather well informed,” he got his glass filled again. “Through letters, mostly, but still.”
“What do you think of the Mainland’s political landscape then? What do you really think about our current situation?”
“What I really think? With all that’s going on, and with what you’re about to do tomorrow – I don’t know if we, well, if our Kingdom really has a chance… You might win tomorrow. You most probably will” lord saluted Tora with his glass. “But in the long run… Will it even matter? Am I not mistaken by actually helping you?”
“That sounds like treason, lord Glenarvon” the Sorceress tensed. “Should I have you executed?”
“That might’ve been the best option, actually…” lord looked over his shoulder and in a raised voice added: “Don’t worry, Jarvis, you’re included in the will! You can stop eavesdropping now!”
Couple of muted coughs were all the answer they’ve got.
“With that out of the way,” he continued, “please, at least hear me out.”
“Here, on this island, this Kingdom of ours relies heavily on the magic to get things done. And this works to an extent – we’re unique, after all. We’re the only ones who’re allowed to use magic in industry. We’re the only ones who can produce impossible things – impossibly pure steel, impossibly sharp blades, impossibly precise instruments and so on, and so forth.
Magic – the art of the impossible.
But on the Mainland, in Federation, their Chancellor, he… He goes for the next best thing. Their steel, with the new cleaning process, may not be as pure as ours, but it is cheaper to produce and more abundant. Their blades may not be as sharp – but who needs a blade if they can reliably shoot an enemy from afar using those new rifles? And instruments… well, they do their job.
And Federation starts to flex its muscles all over the Mainland. It grows larger in every metaphorical way possible – building things to build even more things…
You sure know I have a daughter who works on the Mainland? Magnificent mind she is. Really good with numbers and formulas – completely unlike her father. Letters she writes back are filled with the descriptions of the machines I barely can understand… Machines, that are made to run computations with the speed, impossible for human brain, and do that without even a chance for a mistake. Machines, made to make other machines possible. Machines, that one day may be able to think, like humans do… Yes, I know it sounds like an insanity, but so was humans flying – and now you can just buy a ticket on an airship.
Federation creates marvels, – marvels of science, of technology, – but for the Kingdom, for… for us, aren’t those marvels more like monsters?
Tell me, lady Sorceress, will the Dragon be a match for the Hydra? Steel hydra brought to life by the steam and gas engines and equipped with an absolutely alien, mechanical mind?”
“You think that confrontation is inevitable?” Tora looked at him from under her brows.
“Oh, you’d know it is! Anyone with even a piece of a brain can see it – and you more than anyone! Federation is always hungry for resources – so where it have to go to get more? Squabble with the neighbours could easily plunge the whole world into the war it never had seen – even the most boneheaded of Federation’s politicians know that every other country just waits for the right moment to strike at them.
But this island? This island is a territory nobody would really defend… especially, if it will be a sort of official call for help from, let’s say, the Mad King trying to ‘overthrow the oppressors and claim the land that’s rightfully his’. Who will come to our aid? No matter what the Queen thinks…”
“Milord, you’re greatly underestimating Mad King’s gratitude to those who helped him to hold the throne. Or, maybe, overestimating how mad he actually is.”
“Not so mad at all!” Mylene chimed in and was rewarded with a surprised looks from both Tora and the lord. “What? That’s true, isn’t it? He felt like quite a reasonable man to me… when he’s out of his throne room at least.”
“Well, if lady Rider says so…” said lord Edward. “I may believe it, but no matter how reasonable he is – if pushed hard enough… and promised enough…”
“That’s exactly why we’re planning on stopping the one man who’s doing pushing and promising.”
“But that man will be just replaced with another one, doing the same with even more vigour.”
“Inevitably he will be. Still, that will take some time – and some time is precisely what we need right now. Along with some demonstration that the Kingdom isn’t as powerless as a lot of people think.”
“And what will we use that time and power for? Didn’t you hear all that I’ve said? How could we amass enough… I don’t even know… ‘power’ in one form or the other to beat that? For now the only ace up our sleeve were mages – but with all the things the Institute is doing…”
“You know about that too?”
“Oh, I’ve said too much… I really shouldn’t… I should drink less. I really should” lord clearly felt very uncomfortable letting such words slip. “Ugh… If I said ‘a’ I should say ‘b’ as well, right? Listen, lady Sorceress, I don’t know much. It’s all from my daughter’s letters and she doesn’t talk about it in detail either. It’s more of a ‘between the lines’ thing. Ruhr Institute is a place she fears, one that she tries to avoid at all costs. And yet, it constantly attracts more and more scientists, allowing them full freedom for their research – and I mean full freedom: financial, as well as legal or even moral. Everyone’s welcome.”
“You’ve read a lot between the lines, milord…”
“Let’s say we got rather good at exchanging information with my daughter.”
“Yet if we return to the previous point…”
“Yes?”
“You’re asking how we could amass enough power to stop the Federation – and the answer is: we can’t, realistically. But. What we can do – we can beat them at their own game. If you think that Federation will attack us trying to get the resources our island has – you’re wrong. Well, not entirely – but it’s not the coal or the iron they’re after, it’s one other resource. As their chancellor puts it, Federation is in dire need of the ‘living space’. They want to expand – and they have nowhere to. They need more land – but it all is occupied by now.”
“So they just want to conquer us to establish a colony? Laughable.”
“Oh, their plans go much further than that. By the quirk of history, our island is the only inhabited land that’s uniquely situated beyond the Sea of Storms – and as such is best suited to mount an exploratory expedition in the unknown parts of our world. Federation is looking for colonies, but our island won’t be one – it’ll be merely a forward base.”
“If that’s the case, why couldn’t they just buy out swath of the land… establish a resupply base… and go on their merry way?”
“Oh, that’d be so… civilised, right? Sadly, things got… complicated. Mostly, because of the Queen’s desire to annul, or at least get around the old treaty that prohibit our Kingdom from doing exploration and colonisation of our own. That treaty that says ‘we leave you alone, as long as you’ll be just a jail for the mages’. To make other powers to look the other way while we blatantly disregard that, some moves had to be made…”
“She let Federation escalate things to use it as a leverage? I don’t know if that’s somewhat clever or a monumentally stupid thing to do. I really don’t know. Only thing I know is… I need another glass of wine.”
“Either way, it looks like it’s worked. Where there is one airship, there will be more – one ship, one squadron, one fleet… not a big difference at this point. Still, if we could acquire more evidence that Federation planned the revolt and the conquest, people will look the other way much more often.”
“I see…” lord looked at the Sorceress through his glass. “But what’s the meaning behind telling me all of this? There sure should be something more to it…”
“Oh, I’ve just been in a very talkative mood…”
“Lady Sorceress, spare me…”
“Well, to be fair, it was the Queen’s idea… She wants you to step up and get in charge of all the our exploratory efforts. Even better if you could get your daughter back on the island – Kingdom could use the help of someone like her.”
“Hmm… That’s an interesting proposition… One, that I have to think about for a while…”
“Of course. To be honest, I’m not in the position to discuss any of it in detail right now – but I wish you knew about it beforehand. If all goes well, there soon will be another official letter detailing your possible future as the Explorer General in the Queen’s service. You’ll have time to think about it then.”
07
After that, conversation had dwindled down and after some time, when Mylene didn’t want to even look at food anymore and lord Glenarvon had enough of his wine, it was time to go to bed. Of course, even if she was given the bedroom of her own, Mylene immediately jumped on Tora’s bed – leaving the sorceress sitting on the bed’s edge.
“This is just so strange...”
“What? You jumping into my bed? I can’t see anything strange here.”
“No, Tora, I mean... I mean, this week we meet with people that’s all called ‘mad’ for one reason or another. And yet... And yet, they doesn’t seem any more mad to me than your average Capital citizen.”
“Oh, Mylene,” Tora leaned as far back as she could, putting her arms against the bed and looking up at the ceiling. “Nobody on this island is who they seems to be. Nobody. Maybe it’s because the very soil here is soaked with the magic. Most powerful spells this world had ever known were cast here, after all – it couldn’t left this place untouched…”
“You’re so quick to explain everything with the magic, to blame the magic… May it be, that’s just how people are? Maybe we just can’t be the same all the time. Or, maybe, we always want to be someone else – hence all the deceiving, all the trickery and stuff.”
“You’re saying ‘we’, but you yourself are nothing like that, Mylene,” the sorceress straighten up. “Somehow… Somehow you are exactly who you seem to be…” she ruffled the rider’s hair. Mylene smiled.
“Am I?”
“Back then, in the Capital’s sewers, you were affected by the amulet’s spell too…”
“You mean, when you’ve turned into adorable little baby Tora?”
“That’s not the point…”
“And I had to cradle you in my arms…?”
“You didn’t had to…”
“And I had to give you my cloak because your clothes were all torn after you’ve turned into that spiky tree?”
“Royal rider Mylene!”
“Aye, lady Royal sorceress!?”
“Stop wandering around with your fantasies and listen to what I’m trying to say!”
“Aye-aye, ma’am! I’m somehow turned out to be exactly who I am. And that somehow is a rarity.”
“It sure is…”
“Well then. What about you then?”
“Oh…” Tora’s mouth twitched as if she tried to smile but at the last moment decided against it. “I guess, I am who I am too…”
“Little cute baby Tora?”
“Just don’t go trying to cradle me…”
“Why not?”
“Not this night, Mylene. Not this one, please?”
“Next time then?”
“Next time, sure.”
“After we finish this?”
“Right after.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“...”
“Thank you, Mylene. Thank you for being so… so real.”
“Oh, it’s nothing! I can be real anytime you want!”
“Yes… Yes, you can. I wish I could too.”
“Why you…?”
“Mylene…” sorceress’ gaze turned very serious. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day...”
“Y… yes?”
“You need to have a good sleep. Go.”
“Is that an order, ma’am?”
“Yes it is: you are ordered to go to your room, Rider, and apply all you skills and abilities to get a best sleep of your life.”
“Aye, ma’am!” Mylene jumped up and saluted.
“As you command, Your Royal Sorceressness!” said she leaving the room.
08
It was a dark and quiet night.
Lord Glenarvon was sleeping in his bed, hugging the pillow, whispering in his sleep such words that could make anyone blush and ladies of the more sensitive kind lose consciousness. Pillow did neither. It was used to be whispered into.
Royal Rider Mylene had a best sleep of her life finally appropriating all the soft comfortable bed to herself. Her arms and legs were spread away like a star, delicate sheets she was lying on were all messed up and falling on the floor. She was happy and snoring.
In the darkest corner of her room Royal Sorceress Tora Halfcour was sitting and counting her fingers. Her messy long hair was constantly getting in the way, falling down on her face, getting into her eyes and obscuring the view of her hands – so she had to shove it aside and that meant she had to start counting from the start.
Tora Halfcour was
but a little empty shell
of a fictional character
desperately trying
to convince herself she was
real.
Fingers were too many.
