The young iop Elely has come to Brakmar in an attempt to rescue her friend, Ruel Stroud, from the clutches of his creditor, the vile gangster Adelai.
Little does she know that the Rebellion, led by lady Evangelyne, as well as the imperial forces of Echo are preparing for the final battle. Soon the fate of the free peoples in the World of Twelve shall be decided...
Sound of the chimes was muffled by a velvety hand. The girl looked over her shoulder. All she saw in the darkness were silhouettes of the other girls, asleep on the cushions, and several bigger ones, the guests who couldn't be bothered to find their rooms. Against the narrow slit of a window, his back pressed to the wall, a guard was snoring.
She listened for a while. Then, slowly, carefully stepping over the ecaflips' fluffy tails and discarded shawls, the girl approached. The guard, a broad-shouldered iop, spotted with pale moonlight that flowed in through the latticed window. He was clutching a halberd. His breath was even and deep. Keys glistened silvery at the guard's belt, and her bracelet clanked against them. The girl withdrew quickly, but he only sighed in his sleep.
On the list of places Sparrow would like to go to, this one was definitely the last, long behind interiors of volcanoes and bowels of dragons.
The great hall of Adelai's palace, its walls so thick it was cold in there even at high noon, gilded to the ceiling, filled with iops in guards uniforms, courtiers and girls who stared at her emptily, tiredly.
"Nothing's changed" she muttered. Alibert pushed her forwards. It wasn't a strong push, but very sudden, and Sparrow nearly fell in between two couches. There were ecaflip women lounging on them, and they barely even looked at her. Sparrow only noticed how little they were wearing, not counting the jewellery that caught and multiplied every single speck of light. She swallowed.
"Move" Alibert growled, then pushed her again. The osamoda hung her head and allowed him to lead her among the couches and cushions, up to the wide steps to the dais.
An eye-watering mosaic of crystals and gold served as a background for a huge armchair in which Adelai lounged, exactly the same as Sparrow remembered him. He might have gained a little weight, but with what he already had, it was hard to tell. Peeking from among rolls of fat, his small eyes glistened as he saw the osamoda. She stumbled and nearly fell, only caught by Alibert.
Adelai nodded at a lean, greying ecaflip in a loose silk tunic, and he strutted up to them, but the enutrof held her arm like a vice.
"I hear there's a reward for this one" he growled before the majordomo opened his mouth. Adelai laughed a low, stomach-churning guffaw.
"Atta boy!"
"Reward?"
The old, fat enutrof rose. Swallow instinctively moved back, colliding with her guard.
"Be so kind and remember whose house you're in" said Adelai. He caught Sparrow's chin with a cold hand to turn her face to the light. Corner of her eye, she saw a huge iop by the wall, and a huge sword in his hand, but Alibert's hand stayed where it was.
"I have brought back a lost member of this household" the ex-innkeeper said calmly.
"Surely, not out of the goodness of your heart."
"Enutrof the Great has commanded us to seek gain anywhere and everywhere."
Adelai finally let Sparrow go.
"You don't look very devoted" he clapped his fleshy hands "but you're right. Take her to the girls' quarters" he ordered a slight caramel-coloured ecaflip who stepped out from behind a curtain. The cat curtsied before taking Sparrow's hand. As she was being led aside, the osamoda heard Adelai say "You'll have to wait till the evening, boy, for that's when I make my business. My treasury is sacred!"
"How far?" Sparrow hissed. Nellith clucked her tongue in reprimand.
"He's at the end of this corridor. It was impractical, holding him in the fridge" she continued "and he was still all shaky when I saw him. But don't worry, he's fine."
She stood on her tiptoes to get a small, grey bundle out of a tiny nook between the stone blocks in the wall. She handed it to Sparrow. It was metal-hard.
"The key" she said.
"I'd rather do this my way" muttered osamoda.
"Not every problem can be solved by summoning giant birds."
"It has solved several large problems" Sparrow snapped. These stone walls were grating on her nerves.
"You have to go to the back entrance" Nellith said "they'll be waiting there. Alibert and I will join you in Bonta. Here."
They were standing in front of a sturdy oak door. The osamoda looked nervously around the empty corridor, the cat nodded.
The door creaked. Ruel didn't look up, busy scrubbing at the mortar of the wall with a small stone. A couple of days before he had calculated that it would take about a thousand years to get through to his freedom that way, so he had no time for trivialities.
"Stroud!"
The stone fell out of enutrof's fingers.
"Sparrow? Are you crazy? What are you doing here?"
"Can we do this later?" an ecaflip hissed, the cute one, whose name Ruel's forgotten. She was standing behind Sparrow, looking over her shoulder. The enutrof slid off his cot.
"Hey!" Sparrow caught his hand before he managed to tap her sternum which was as good a confirmation as any that he was not seeing things.
"Let's go" she said. The old enutrof grinned.
The kitty, her costume jewellery (come on!) clanking, went before them, lantern in hand, showing the way to Sparrow, who held Ruel, like he was a sack of gold, utterly disregarding his protests. He could walk on his own! He wasn't an invalid!
"I can walk" he hissed for a thousandth time, and suddenly froze. Sparrow nearly fell over.
"What's wrong?"
"Did you see? Hey, kitty, give us light!"
The ecaflip turned. "No time!"
But Ruel, the weight of a girl on his arm almost forgotten, was already on his way towards the glint of gold in a side corridor. Here it was again. Definitely a coinage metal.
"Get this lamp here" he growled. Sparrow kicked his shin, tugged at his sleeve, nearly tore it off, but he didn't care. The gold was too tempting.
Ruel went forward to be doubly disappointed. First of all, the glint turned out to be brass, turned golden by the lamplight. And second of all, above the gold-coloured sheet of tin there was a large nose and a troglodyte face, with a tuft of red hair on top. The tin-clad sentry held a sword, a wide, sharp, quality blade that was unnervingly close to Ruel's bellybutton.
"Err... I'm selling these fine leather jackets" the enutrof said with a grin.
"Only today! One-time occasion!" the street crier yelled in a shabby little square in front of an inn.
"Unique opportunity for entertainment! Come see the terrible beast from the deep devour Stroud the traitor! Entrance: ten kamas! Onl-ugh!"
The hooded whoever-it-was ran straight into him. They pulled the crier up, but before he saw their face, the person was already gone among the dark alleys. On reflex, he checked his belt, but the pouch remained where it was supposed to be. Odd.
"Adelai throws his debtor to the kralove!"
"Could be worse" sighed Sparrow. Ruel, his eyebrows so high they very nearly flew off, moved his hand, and the chain clinked solemnly.
"I'd rather end up in kralove's maw, than in Adelai's palace" the osamoda shrugged, invisible anyway in the dark inside of the coach.
"Smartass."
"Maybe this will teach you to stay away from shinies."
"Sassy much? Who got you out the last time? Eh?"
With a sigh, Sparrow leaned against the wooden wall.
"Sides, bit late to learn stuff now."
"You'll be surprised" she whispered.
"Huh?"
"We've got everything planned. Stay close."
The hastily-built amphitheatre would creak when someone as much as looked at it funny. Alibert did his best to stay motionless, hands clenched on his knees, leaning slightly forwards to follow a small dark shape with his eyes. The coach disappeared behind the rugged rocks of brakmarian coast, then came back out.
Suddenly the enutrof realised someone was asking him a question, stressing the words so much they nearly cried.
"Excuse me?"
"Patience" said Adelai with a knowing smile. Alibert would rather not think about what the gangster knew. In the corner of his eye he was still watching the coach roll infuriatingly slowly towards them. Then his gaze shifted to the platform, built on the edge of a black hole that had something moving in it. He could swear he saw a tentacle.
"Something to drink?" Nellith, decoratively draped with a bit of golden cloth, nudged him, not really accidentally. Alibert gave her a stiff nod and the cat handed him a cup of punch.
Finally, the carriage stopped by the platform, amongst cheers from the spectators. Enutrof watched the familiar masqueraider hop off the perch and bow with a flourish before a small figure swathed in a black, hooded cloak, who was waiting for the two prisoners. The executioner slid their hard over the coach door which opened, revealing first a slim osamoda, then a chain she dragged after her, and finally an old enutrof, his beard tousled. They stood arm in arm. The executioner turned towards the crowd and in one motion threw the hood of her head.
Silence fell.
"And here's where I'd like to end the play!" the iop announced, throwing her cloak aside. Blindingly white tunic shone underneath it.
"Adelai! This is your last chance! Free my friends!"
The gangster's roar of laughter shouldn't have been a surprise.
"Well, I'll be! A little iop girl! Not even armed! Guards!" the mafioso bellowed, just over the enutrof's ear. The former mayor of Emelka had wet hands, as if he'd been just washing dishes. Tense, he stared at the masqueraider walking up to the red-headed iop.
She whistled out loud. A tiny yellow flash - and Elely was holding a sword.
Sparrow pulled the chain to trip the masqueraider, who crashed onto the boards. Music to her ears.
"How are we doing?" she asked. Elely, in a graceful pirouette, parried two large swords.
"Same as always!"
"That bad, huh?" mumbled Ruel. The iop had pushed the key into his hands. Now he was trying to wring them far enough to get to the lock on his manacles, ignoring Az, who sat on his shoulder, chattering. When a blade swished over the enutrof's head, the tofu seized the moment and the key. Then he opened the lock.
Alibert's hands clenched on the wooden railing. He didn't hear the roar of Brakmarians, yells, whistles, cheering. He didn't see pumping fists and thrown small objects. His gaze flitted from Elely, whirling and dancing, to Ruel, who started whacking the guards with his chain as soon as his hands were free. But on the wooden platform, undulating like an asp, a blueish tentacle slithered.
"Watch out!" he yelled, but the tentacle wrapped itself around Elely's leg.
Behind Alibert's back a girl screamed. He spun and felt his blood freeze.
"Adelai..."
The mafioso was gripping Nellith's arm. By the feet of the struggling girl there lied Alibert's spade.
"Little snake" the Brakmarian hissed. "I thought you were up to something, moustache-man. And that's your accomplice, is she? Got her to back you up on site, or had she been a plant all along?"
Nellith wheezed. She kicked the spade at Alibert, who picked it up never looking away from Adelai's beady eyes.
"I think, mister Adelai" he hissed "you can keep the money."
Sparrow stomped at the tentacle that was pulling Elely towards the edge. Az attacked it with his beak, the iop - with her sword.
"Like it's glued!" howled the osamoda. Elely thudded to the boards, pulled relentlessly.
With a scream she lounged forwards and hit her head on something that snorted and jumped over her.
The tentacle let go suddenly, as if it was cut. Elely rolled as far away as she could before looking behind her, at a mask that was rolling to a stop.
"Elely! " Nellith's soft hands caught hers, pulled her up.
"No need" the iop muttered. She looked around. Az was twittering, perched among Sparrow's white hair. The two enutrofs, back to back, stood with their spades ready over a huge pile that she realised was made out of those dumb guards.
The galleries were shaking from the crowd's cheer.
"Let's get our of here" she said. A belch echoed from underneath the wooden platform.
They parted ways at the edge of the city. The enutrofs, Sparrow and Nellith were walking to the nearby Pandalusia, where lady Evangelyne, along with queen Daihitsu and the Free Sadidan allies were preparing their armies. Elely, along with her faithful friend Az, took the zaap network into the heart of the Sadida jungle, carrying the news to Goultard and Adamai.
