Hostiles (The Galactic Mage series) (71 page)
Read Hostiles (The Galactic Mage series) Online
Authors: John Daulton
Orli smiled. “Thank you, Master Needlesprig. You are very sweet.”
He turned to his small audience and presented her to them: “Is she not the most beautiful creature to ever set foot upon Prosperion?”
Kettle clapped and cried and tilted her head from side to side, her cheeks aching from smiling for so long. Pernie, still seated on the bed, made a face and poked at Orli’s regular clothes, the plain trousers and the blouse she’d been wearing earlier in the day.
“What’s the matter child?” asked the royal dressmaker to that face. “Do you not recognize genius when you see it? This gown is a cloud brought down from the heavens for our sweet Orli to ride upon.”
Pernie muttered something awkward under her breath, but Perfuvius had already moved on, his capacity for paying attention to a child long past. He glanced over at the hourglass, unable to make any sense from the time ticking down in alien numbers on the tablet nearby.
“Oh my, we’ve got to get your shoes.” He spun to face Kettle. “The shoes, woman! Where have you put the shoes?”
“I had ‘em brung upstairs, all the boxes in ta’ the master’s suite,” she said. “I’ll run and fetch ‘em now.”
“Be quick about it,” he snapped. “We dare not be late.”
“Oh, they won’t be startin’ a thing without this sweet girl,” said Kettle to that. “But I’ll get ‘em quick all the same.” She hoisted her skirts well over her stout ankles and nearly sprinted up the stairs.
Master Perfuvius glared at the hourglass as if it were speaking the most horrible profanities. He gasped aloud a few times, then flipped an exasperated expression at Orli when five more seconds passed and still Kettle had not returned. “What can she possibly be doing up there all this time?” he gasped. He called loudly toward the stairs up which Kettle had run only moments before. “Woman, the shoes, I say. Where are the wedding shoes?”
In answer, Kettle’s voice came down that same narrow passage anxiously. “Which ones?” she shouted. “Which ones? I canna carry ‘em all! Ya sent a spider’s worth!” She seemed all aflutter, as if making a selection incorrectly might jeopardize the universe, and leaving a pair behind akin to neglect of the most heinous kind.
“By the gods,” huffed Perfuvius. “Must I do everything!” He stormed off after her, insisting, “They’re marked, woman, they’re marked. We eliminated the others yesterday.”
Orli watched him go, her own smile nearly as wide and permanent as Kettle’s had been since before the sun was up. This truly was the happiest day of her life. She looked at herself again in the mirror. The dress fit so perfectly, it set her figure off to all its best effects in every conceivable way. Her hair, like it had been at the ball that seemed so long ago now, was once again a gleaming pile of white gold upon her head, glittering combs and supporting enchantments holding everything in place. Altin would be surprised indeed. No more tomboy in hunting pants, at least not tonight.
Her eyes went absently to where her regular clothes lay as she had the thought, and she saw Pernie still wearing a pout as she absently prodded at them.
“What’s the matter, Pernie?” she asked, turning and going to sit beside the child on the bed. “You look like something’s bothering you.”
“It’s not,” Pernie said, though it came too flat and too rapidly to be believed.
“Well, you don’t seem very happy. Aren’t you happy for us?”
“No.” That came out abruptly, and then Pernie turned away. She scooted off the bed and moved across the room to Orli’s new great chest, where she began to flip its heavy brass latches up and down, making as much noise as possible with them and clearly intent on blocking out anything Orli might have to say.
“Why not?” Orli pressed anyway. “You know I love Altin very much. And he loves me. We’re going to be together forever and live here all the time.” Orli went to her again, moving around her so she could face her again. She crouched down so she could look Pernie directly in the eyes. “That means you and I can be friends forever now too. You can teach me all sorts of new things about Prosperion, just like you helped me learn the language all through the summer last year. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“No,” Pernie said. She flipped open the chest and looked inside, hiding her face from Orli’s earnest eyes. She made a point of pulling out bits of clothing, tossing them aside and wrecking all the careful folds.
“Pernie,” Orli said then. “Please, tell me what’s wrong. You can be honest with me. That’s what friends do.”
Pernie stared reverently down into the chest, never looking up at Orli squatting beside her there. Something about her aspect had changed. “So what are you gonna do with this?” she asked.
Orli looked into the great chest, following the child’s gaze to where her blaster lay. Her pale brow furrowed beneath the majestic coiffeur Perfuvius had made. “Nothing if I can help it,” she said. She watched Pernie staring at the weapon and shook her head some. “Is that what this is all about? My gun?”
Pernie looked at her then and smiled. “You won’t need it anymore,” she said. “Not with Sir Altin to keep you safe. You could give it to me. Then we could be friends.”
Orli was still frowning. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea. How about when you get older? Then we can see about getting you one. Roberto can show you how to use it so you don’t hurt anyone.”
“He’s already showed me how,” she said.
“Well, still, I don’t think you need to have a weapon like that just now. It’s pretty dangerous for a little girl.”
Pernie made a face at that. “No it’s not. Master Altin said I can keep Master Spadebreaker’s pick and it can cut through anything. Roberto said this can’t cut through lots of stuff.”
Orli heard Perfuvius and Kettle at the top of the stairs. She stood and shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not until you are older. But you can have it when you turn eighteen, how’s that?”
“Miss Pewter,” called the master dressmaker, sounding as if he were finally coming back down the stairs. “Let’s hurry now. It’s almost time to go.”
Orli turned toward his voice as Pernie pulled the weapon out of the chest. Orli heard the click of the safety and spun back in time to see Pernie glaring up at her with the darkest look in her narrowed eyes. And then the child fired, point-blank at Orli’s heart.
Chapter 55
A
slender hand pushed the blaster away, green-fleshed and barely a blur, appearing just in time to direct the weapon down and away from Orli’s tender bosom. The bright red line of the laser vanished through the gauzy skirts of her wedding gown instead, passing through them so closely that she could feel the heat against her thigh. She’d barely gasped, barely had time to realize what Pernie had done, and then it was over. The shot was fired and Seawind was standing there with his hand still on the gun.
Pernie blinked up at him, bewildered by his arrival, but her first instinct was to pull the gun away. She yanked at it with all her strength, several long tugs, her jaw set and her expression indicating that she was intent on having another shot. Though, perhaps not, for the child had nothing to say.
The elf caught the girl’s gaze in his own when at length she stopped pulling at the gun, and for a time the two of them simply stared into one another’s eyes, Pernie’s blue ones as fearless and studious as were his forest greens.
Shadesbreath appeared beside her as this went on, manifesting silently at her right hand like a wraith from the grave. “Let go,” he said as he gripped her wrist gently in his gray-green hand. He could have opened her fingers with the press of his fingers there. She swung her gaze around to see who it was, her eyes flung wide upon recognizing him. He glanced at the weapon, a negligible movement of his head, then looked up to his elven companion with a nod. He repeated the soft command. “Let go.”
She opened her hand mechanically, and watched the gun rise as Seawind lifted it away. Seawind nodded to Shadesbreath. “It is done.”
“It is,” the royal assassin confirmed.
“I will take her.”
“I will tell the Queen and fetch the pet.”
Seawind and Pernie vanished as Kettle and the royal dressmaker came into the room. Kettle saw them go and began to scream. “Pernie! Pernie!” she cried as she rushed forward into the empty space, but it was already far too late. She stared blankly at where the girl had been, her eyes wide, her mouth wider. But there was nothing she could do. She spun on the assassin standing there instead. “What’s that monster done with mah baby girl?” She squared up to the leather-clad figure and looked as if she might grab him by the throat. “Where is that wee child gone, ya filthy murderer? Ya got no right ta take her, so ya can go right now an’ get her back. I’m givin’ ya three seconds an’ then yer gonna get it good. And don’t think ya won’t neither, ‘cause I done fer worse than the likes a’ you.”
Shadesbreath looked into the florid face of Kettle whose whole body was swelling up like a fighting rooster, and whose eyes looked as if they might begin to steam. His own eyes narrowed, as if he were thinking, as if he had to search for the right words to say. Apparently he found them, for he simply replied, “I understand separation will grieve you. But it is as it must be.” With that he vanished, leaving Kettle to gape into the air before her as she sputtered and spewed, repeating his parting words over and over again.
“It must be? It
must
be?”
Orli could only stare with her, still stunned by having nearly being shot and just as wide-eyed and stupefied as Kettle was.
Perfuvius Needlesprig III glanced back and forth between them for a moment, but all he could think to say was, “By the gods, Miss Pewter, what have you done to my dress!”
The End
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