The Dragon Queen Read online

  “I suspect their disappearance is more mundane than that,” said Percival, peevishly.

  Amelia continued to inspect the grain. Sir Percival was the only other person on board to have expressed any regret over Rose’s fate. She cleared her throat. “Master Greyfell,” she said, picking up her white mage, “I’m afraid, I think, you’ve lost.”

  Greyfell turned back to the board. “Hmm. Well played, Miss Lamb, and congratulations to your accomplice too.”

  Bessie grinned, apparently not much minding being only an accomplice, since it had still been a victory over her teacher. She might even assist Amelia on the rescue mission… Or perhaps not. Amelia remembered how Bessie had got her own way before – bringing about the downfall of Ilgrevnia, leaving Rose to her fate there. No. Foolish to look for an ally in Bessie, who hated Rose passionately. Amelia would just have to manage by herself.

  3: THE SNOW GLOBE

  That moonless night, the fire sprite in his cage cast the only light in Amelia’s cabin as she paced up and down, chewing on a torn fingernail. Sharvesh’s flight, slow as it had been, had taken them far from the place where the Flying City of Ilgrevnia had been banished to another world, and she could only hope that her snow globe and spell would still work at such a distance. She braided and pinned her long hair up out of the way. She wanted to be ready for a fight if there might be one, but it felt strange not to have the familiar twin braids lying across her shoulders, all their weight transferred to a solid mass at the back of her head, like a nest of tightly coiled serpents. Bessie had showed her this style, and said it was fashionable amongst Academy girls. ‘I said we’d make an Antwin girl of you yet.’ Amelia didn’t want to be an Antwin girl, a lady assassin. Yet a glance in the mirror showed an austere young lady who Amelia barely recognised. What on earth was wrong with being plain old Amelia Lamb, anyway? Except that plain old Amelia Lamb had been a bit boring. And, if anything, that dreamy girl locked in her distant tower would have been better suited to being a damsel in distress than to rescuing one…

  She realised she was distracting herself. “Now or never,” she whispered, determined to get this done before sunrise. “You behave yourself while I’m gone, Stupid,” she told the fire sprite, hanging his cage up on a coat-hook. Then she crossed to the other side of the cabin. It would be simply the worst thing if by mistake she ended up dragging Stupid along with her into the other world. Who knew what trouble the mischievous creature might get into, what dangers might befall him, if she took him along on her mission. She put on her conjuring rings and bracelets, jewels flashing sickly green in the low light. Then she took the glass ball from her pocket, frowning at the elegant spires of the miniature palace within it, the way the snow always swirled fiercely about it without having to be shaken. She wished she’d thought to get hold of a proper winter coat, but couldn’t allow the thought to delay her any further. She intended to be in the new world, find Rose and Scarlet, and out again before any of her travelling companions even noticed her absence. She certainly didn’t plan to be there long enough to catch cold. “Wish me luck,” she said. After one last glance over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, she took a deep breath, and quietly began to recite the spell.

  The words, held for days inside her, tumbled out in a whispered flood, faster and faster, until the final words rushed out on a sigh of relief that she hadn’t made any mistakes. But she was still standing in her cabin, goosebumps raising on her arms from nervous anticipation. She looked around, as if wood panelling and cushions might yet fade into snowfall and icefields if she looked hard enough. What had she done wrong?

  Whispering to herself, she turned to the back of her spell book and pored over the words she’d so carefully transcribed. Was it possible that she’d copied something over incorrectly? Or had she misunderstood the purpose of the snow globe entirely? Her teeth itched and she felt like she’d been dipped from head to toe in furry caterpillars. That made her pretty certain that her spell had done something, but what? She thought she could do with another look at the books that the griffins had given her, but she couldn’t even read her own writing with the way Stupid’s light flickered like a candle in a draught, and he moaned ceaselessly like a foreboding spirit. “Quiet,” Amelia warned him, for all the good it did. If anything, his moaning grew louder and his light dimmed in fear. The air was noticeably warmer and heavier than it had been before she’d started all this. Hot, even, and if it got much hotter, the sleeping passengers would surely wake up sweating beneath their heavy blankets. And they’d want to know what was going on. And… “Stupid, be quiet, please,” Amelia growled, thumbing through her spell book in vain.

  Outside, lightning flashed, and a roll of thunder shook the sky. The skyship shuddered violently, knocking Amelia off her feet. Shoving the snow globe back in her skirt pocket, she scrambled to her feet, grabbing hold of the edge of the bunk to keep from being thrown across the room. Fine time to hit a storm! Stupid cowered in his cage, his flames now acid yellow and flaring sporadically, sending shadows leaping around the cabin. Somewhere close by within the skyship, Meg shouted to someone, the edge of panic in her voice. Men’s footsteps thundered across the deck above her. Lucky the storm hadn’t hit five minutes earlier, when Amelia had been in the middle of her spell… Sharvesh managed to level off, then lurched again, rattling Stupid’s cage on its hook. Amelia could barely keep her footing with the angle of the boards, and with another bump her stomach flipped: Sharvesh was shaking and tilting towards a nose-dive. Amelia stumbled out of her cabin, searching for Meg. If there was anything anyone could do to save Sharvesh and all those aboard, Meg would be the one to do it.

  Amelia rushed out of her cabin, into the dark chambers of the skyship, conjuring a light spell as she went. Rain lashed the galley windows, and she could see nothing of the deck beyond. Her light sputtered and wavered, her mind rattled with fear. With great difficulty she pulled herself along the swaying galley by the arms and backs of the chairs that grew out of Sharvesh’s timbers. Sharvesh and her crew could be prepared for stormy skies, but this had come out of nowhere, and the whole galley rattled, pots and pans leaping off their hooks and hitting the floor in a dreadful racket. Amelia almost turned her ankle stepping on a stray chess piece, and she feared that she would have been better off staying safe in her cabin. It really was best to leave the skysailing to skysailors, so she’d found… As she dodged a wildly swinging frying pan, her light spell blinked out. Never mind: there was light beyond the galley. She threw open the door to the main deck. By the light of an enormous moon, pale clumps of snow sleeted across a vast and starless wine-purple sky, depositing a treacherous icy slurry on the deck, and soaking into Amelia’s clothes almost at once. Meg had been only just ahead of her – Amelia’s heart froze in terror as she saw her mother go sliding down the icy boards towards the bow, fearless of the featureless grey landscape of fog spread out below, and barely catching herself on the handrail. Amelia gripped the doorframe so hard it hurt. Please, don’t let the last words between the two of us have been about those wretched onions… But Meg soon steadied herself to join Captain Bryn, Master Greyfell and Harold all at the wheel, three men and none of them weaklings, but they had to fight the skyship for control. All Amelia could do was hang on tight and watch. They were levelling the ‘ship out, steering between crags and pillars of rock that reared out of the grey. More dangerous rocks lurked beneath the soft and treacherous layer of fog, Amelia knew it in her heart, but worse than that, a perfect arc of crystal breached the fog like the back of a whale, glowing like the moon. It was this unnatural feature that sat at the epicentre of the fog, steam rolling out from it in all directions. The Orb from Archmage Morel’s workshop: the enormous sister of the tiny snow globe Amelia had so thoughtlessly used. As the seconds passed, it began to dim.

  “Captain!” Meg shouted as the skyship veered past the Orb. “What’s going on? What was that thing?”

  The captain’s ears were folded tight against his skull, his fur bristlin
g with fearful anger, his tail lashing. “I don’t know! The magic is wrong!” he cried.

  “I can see that much! What happened?”

  “All was well. Easy skies for Sharvesh.”

  “Not now they aren’t. Where are we?”

  Clearing the worst of the fog, Sharvesh sank towards the field of moonlit snow, under tenuous control of her worried captain.

  Meg glanced over at Amelia still braced in the doorway, and Bessie who had just joined her there. “You girls: get under cover!” Meg shouted.

  Cowed and guilty, Amelia obeyed at once, sitting down at the galley table and pretending in the shadows not to exist, gripping the arms of her seat as Sharvesh made an uncharacteristically bumpy landing, creaking and listing alarmingly to one side, as grounded skyships are wont to do. The snow globe weighed heavy in Amelia’s skirt pocket, and she had a dreadful certainty that the miniature palace would be missing from it; that instead of a whirling snowstorm, it would show sheets of rain falling endlessly on the muddy winter’s fields of the world she’d left behind. She’d really done it: she’d transported herself. But she hadn’t meant to drag the entire skyship along with her!

  Satisfied that they were on firm ground, Amelia climbed out of her tilted seat. “If Meg wants me, tell her I’ve gone to find Stupid,” she said to Bessie. “I think I left him in the cargo hold and he’s bound to be upset.” It was true that the sudden storm and the equally sudden landing would have shaken the fire sprite into a frenzy of spitting blue and violet sparks, but Amelia remembered well enough leaving him in her cabin. She hurried back there, fast as she could in the dark, trembling with fear as the skyship began to tilt again, back the other way. Not such firm ground after all…

  Stupid’s cage had fallen off the hook, and Amelia rushed to pick him up. Far from exploding into a display of agitated fireworks, the fire sprite had cowered down in the bottom of his cage, his pale yellow flames shivering as if assailed by a strong wind. “Brighten up, Stupid,” said Amelia distractedly, as she took the snow globe from her pocket. “It might never happen.” The snow globe’s core was dark, disturbed by neither rain nor snow. She could see no muddy winter fields within, and though she thought she saw tiny distant stars, she couldn’t be sure they weren’t the miniature reflections of Stupid’s shivering flames, caught in the faults of the crystal. Still, her only hope was to reverse the spell before the others found out what she’d done. Drawing a deep breath, she began the spell again. Rapidly rattling off the words, she soon tripped over them, garbling the second line and having to start again. Three botched efforts later, she managed to get the words out right. Five long minutes she waited for the storm that would transport Sharvesh back to the real world. The fire sprite in his cage gave a sickly moan. The snow globe remained dark and lifeless. Amelia shook it, wondering if magic could get stuck, and if so, what on earth did she think she’d achieve trying to shake it loose?

  She muttered a couple of shockingly bad words she’d overheard Harold use in times of stress and frustration. Then, at the sound of footsteps approaching at a run, she shoved the snow globe back in her pocket and tried her best to make an expression appropriate to the situation, just as Meg threw open the door.

  “Thank the moon and stars you’re safe!” Meg exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Amelia in a hug that squeezed the breath from her. “When I couldn’t find you in the cargo hold… Oh, but your fire sprite looks like he’s seen better days! I think we’d better get off this boat – the magic’s all wrong here. Wherever here is…” she added, as she dragged Amelia and Stupid from the cabin and up onto the deck at a brisk pace. There they came upon a heated disagreement between Master Greyfell and Captain Bryn.

  “No, no. With the utmost respect, Sir, no,” the captain was saying, shaking his head in an exaggerated fashion as he pulled on his quilted coat with the pompom on the tail. “I have all confidence that Sharvesh may fly these turbulent skies, if only –”

  “This vessel is compromised,” Master Greyfell interrupted. “I know a trap when I see one. And you, sir, have blundered straight into it.”

  “There was no sign of danger at all!”

  “And that is what makes it a trap!”

  Amelia kept well out of it. She noticed that while Bessie was keeping one ear turned to the argument, she was also leaning out over the railings and peering at something far below. Amelia couldn’t resist her curiosity calling her to take a look too. At first she couldn’t make out what she was seeing in the shadows of the moonlit scene, but it appeared that Sharvesh had put out four long tree-trunk legs, so that her knees must have taken much of the force of the ungraceful landing.

  “How does she do these things?” Amelia murmured, for Sharvesh’s enormous legs joined to her hull as seamlessly and naturally as a horse’s legs join to its body. It was hard to see the nature of the enormous feet, buried in the snow.

  Bessie shrugged, hugging herself tightly in a desperate effort to stave off the cold. “That’s not the biggest mystery here, is it? What do you think? Is this something that black griffin set up, back before Ilgrevnia vanished?”

  “Well, maybe. Maybe…” Amelia found it a good time to change the subject. “Oh, but where’s Percival got to?” she asked, with a fresh twinge of real guilt: this was the first she’d thought of him since before her disastrous spell. “He can’t have slept through all of this, I’m sure. I’d better go and find him.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Bessie, keeping close.

  They didn’t have to go far to find the knight. He must have been reading when the storm struck, for he lay on the floor of his cabin in a heap of plate metal armour, motionless and gleaming in the moonlight streaming through the porthole, his book lying open beside him. Amelia rushed to his side, afraid to touch him when she got there. She conjured a light spell, but the moment she tried to look at Sir Percival, the silvery light puddled to the floor and evaporated into nothingness. She pulled herself together and summoned up another, which did exactly the same thing.

  “Stop that,” said Bessie, crouching opposite her and peering into the eye slots of the gleaming helm. She too hesitated to push back the visor – they had never known for sure what the knight was under his armour… “Sir Percival?” Bessie called, close to the position where she might expect to find an ear inside the helm. “Are you all right? Sir Percival!”

  At the sound of her voice, the suit of armour stirred and sat up clankingly. “What happened?” he asked groggily.

  The girls helped him to his feet, and he leaned heavily on Amelia as they returned to the deck to seek out their companions. Meg gave him an odd look as he emerged into the moonlight, but he was up and moving, so that would have to do for now. Amelia, knowing that she ought to confess what she’d done and where they were, couldn’t bring herself to speak a word. How could she have been so foolish as to trust the griffins?

  “Be ready with your knife, Elizabeth,” she heard Master Greyfell say quietly. “Whatever has brought us here could be lying in wait.”

  Before Amelia had the chance to invent some alibi for herself (which probably would have revealed the truth far more quickly than her silence) Meg pulled her away from Bessie and Master Greyfell, out of earshot, and began to fuss with a bruise at Amelia’s temple.

  “That’s a nasty knock you’ve had.” Meg dug in her ever-present bag for a bottle of some potion or other. “Let me see to that. Did you feel that burst of magic right before the storm? Nearly itched me right out of my skin.” The line of fine chain around her neck flashed in the moonlight, catching Amelia’s eye.

  “Is Tallulah all right?” Amelia asked, ignoring Meg’s question. If the strange magic here was poisoning Sharvesh and Stupid and Sir Percival, then it might get the faithful battlesnail too, shrunk to the size of a horse chestnut.

  “She'll be fine,” said Meg briskly. “She can take the cold better than we can.”

  Amelia had been more concerned about the reduction spell cast on the snail, but then s
he supposed if that had failed entirely, they would have known about it by now. “I’m worried about Percival.” The knight had sat down again on the deck, his armoured legs sticking out straight in front of him. He might have been staring out into the distance, although there was nothing to see there but endless snow.

  “He’s bearing up,” said Meg, keeping her voice low as she continued to dab and fuss at Amelia’s injury. “I’m more worried about little miss Black Queen and her bodyguard. All that shouting and bluff… This feels like a trap all right, and I think they’re the ones who set it.”

  Amelia seized this thought at once: she knew it wasn’t the truth, but it was a much more appealing idea, in that it didn’t lay the blame for this mess squarely at her feet. “Yes!” she whispered. “It could have been them, couldn’t it?” Somehow, this did nothing to allay her guilt. Back home, she’d never been in trouble for anything worse than the time she’d left a batch of cakes to burn and almost set fire to the kitchen, and she didn’t dare imagine the consequences of a mistake as dire as this…

  Meg was frowning. “Hmm. Could’ve been them, but why? Some complicated plot? Leading us back to the dragon, perhaps? Again, I’d have to ask why? Play along for now, but don’t let them get you on your own, and be on guard. Oh, and speaking of bodyguards…” She looked around. “Harold, come here and let me see to you!”

  While Meg fussed over Harold (much to his irritation: he was a sturdy young man and the storm had done nothing more than shake him about a bit) she quietly instructed him to stay close to Amelia at all times, and to defend her against any enemy at any cost. Harold had no magic, and he carried a sword entirely devoid of magical properties. Its steel was just like steel the world over: solid, honest and dependable as its wielder.

  Finished with attending to the minor cuts and bruises of her companions, Meg went walking around the deck of the stranded skyship, waving her arms about in a way that Amelia was sure she would have been chastised for. “Amelia, be a dear and conjure a light for me.”