The Fiuri Realms (Shioni of Sheba Book 5) (12 page)

W
ith a
ting
as though a bell had chimed, the crown of the realm dropped onto Azurelle’s shoulder, bounced off her clasped hands, and rolled away down the train of her dress–miraculously, not shattering into a million shards. The Blue Fiuri lifted her eyes to gaze in utter incomprehension at the party standing at the end of the footbridge. A thousand gasps filled the chamber with a sound like a breeze rustling leaves.

“Azurelle!” Shioni recognised that Fiuri! She must know her past! In a trice, Shioni slipped between her guards and set off at a sprint across the footbridge.

“Stop that Fiuri!” someone bellowed.

The soldiers came pounding behind, but Shioni was fleet of foot, not to mention desperate. Focus on her friend! Beat the soldiers fluttering down into the footbridge, duck a grasping hand, spring over a net somehow cast into her path.

Shioni smashed into an unseen wall. She shook her head. Gold-robed Green Fiuri fluttered closer to her, muttering their spells. A powerful force gripped her body, crushing her against the footbridge. “Azurelle?” There was no sign of recognition on that face … but she knew her! She knew! Shioni could not understand. “Azurelle?” she groaned again, trying to reach out to her friend.

Suddenly, another Fiuri stepped onto the dais. Small, and dapper-winged, with a roguish flip of dark green hair, the Green Fiuri stared down the footbridge at her.

Tazaka!

There could be no mistaking the molten power of his yellow-eyed gaze. His eyes blazed with an unnatural glow, as though small suns burned in his eye-sockets. There was warmth, but not of a comforting kind. It burned. It examined and judged. It made her wings droop and her heart squirm like a trapped fish. Behind his power, Shioni sensed a mind of eerie brilliance. Arresting as his magical power was, Shioni’s greater shock was Azurelle’s blank-faced response.

It sparked fury.

Beneath the crushing of Tazaka’s Fiuri magicians, her own strength swelled. She cast them aside. For a second time, she felt a strange outward punching of power which shimmered like a rainbow veil, and the pressure lifted. The magicians fell back in their massed ranks as though she had clouted them all simultaneously. Shioni scrambled to her feet.

Lord Tazaka’s antennae twitched in surprise. “Seize her!”

Two Yellow Fiuri soldiers grabbed her arms. The magic blasted them across the chamber. The magicians redoubled their chanting, casting spells and wards, but her magic simply shimmered through a range of colours, and Shioni slipped past them with the ease of a fish wriggling upriver.

“Stop her!” roared Tazaka.

Arrows skittered across her path. Most deflected away from the running White Fiuri as though abruptly terrified into bolting in the opposite direction, but one ricocheted off the footway and pierced her left calf muscle. Stumbling, falling, Shioni cast herself at her friend’s feet.

She gasped, “Azurelle, darling, don’t you know who I am? Please …” She clasped Zi’s hands. Could she not remember, even now?

Azurelle just stood in place like a beautifully-dressed doll, a faint expression of confusion creasing her features. Zi asked, “Who are you? Why are you here, strange Fiuri?”

“Don’t you know me? I’m Shioni. Please, say you know–”

“Get away from my Queen!” Tazaka kicked her in the ribs.

Shioni groaned, lifted into the air by the brutal force of his kick, but somehow her crazy, uncontrollable magic acted as a springboard, throwing her back at Lord Tazaka. The Green Fiuri leader half-lifted his arms in defence before Shioni slammed into him.

Fragments of memory swirled through her brain. “You evil … Fiuri stealing … Kalcha!” she snarled. Lord Tazaka tried to punch her in the gut, but Shioni lifted her knee to deflect the blow. They scrapped briefly, her fingernails clawing his eyes and cheeks, before a bright green light flared between them.

BOOM!

Shioni shot into the air, which stretched like an elastic band before snapping her back at Lord Tazaka a second time. An evil little grin played around his lips as he brought a large, glowing green gemstone out of his robes and raised it aloft. The light flared. Shioni slammed into the platform, grounded, stifled by a force a hundred times greater than Tazaka’s magicians had thrown at her. Shioni’s teeth clacked together as something struck her jaw, and her vision wavered through darkness. Pain blossomed in her head. Her magic seethed and fought back, flashing through myriad colours and roiling like a coruscating ball of lightning, before his green Fiuri power snuffed it out with the ease of a hungry monster bolting down a snack.

Shioni slumped.

“Ah, nothing like a warming battle to waken the blood,” Tazaka gloated. “So, White Fiuri, we meet at last.”

Azurelle plucked his sleeve. “What is this child doing, disturbing my coronation?”

“She’s a renegade and nothing to worry yourself about, my petal,” Lord Tazaka soothed, with a smarmy smile that made Shioni nauseous. “How are we today, Princess Annakiya? With the power in your royal blood, I shall complete my schemes. No Fiuri will be able to stand against me, not even those foolish Blues.”

Great leaping hyenas! She remembered!

Tasting blood in her mouth, trying to shut out the pain in her leg, Shioni gritted out, “Then it’s a good thing I’m Shioni and not Annakiya, isn’t it, Tazaka? And you can stuff your evil alliance with Kalcha up your nostril and–”

Tazaka’s brow darkened. Lofting her into the air with his power, he snarled, “How can this be? Kalcha promised!”

“Oops,” said Shioni. Pitching her voice to carry, she shouted, “Tazaka has been exiling Fiuri to another world where an evil magician steals their Fiuri powers–”

“Shut your proboscis!” yelled the Green Fiuri.

The green light tried to squeeze her mouth shut, but there was a tiny glimmer of magic still alight within her, matched to her defiance. Shioni cried, “His great power comes from another world! Kalcha captures Fiuri and wrings the magic out of them! Tazaka is a traitor and a murder–”

“SHUT IT!”

A blast of magic slammed her against the dais. All was black–for how long, she did not know–but when Shioni opened her eyes again, it was to see Lord Tazaka approaching Azurelle with the runaway crown held in his hand and a smarmy smile for his audience, every bit in charge once more. She glanced around. Her friends were still at the far end of the walkway, under heavy guard. Judging by the bodies lying about and Yellow Fiuri soldiers limping away for treatment, Iridelle must have attempted to come to her rescue.

Shioni was forced to look on helplessly as the big Green Fiuri crowned her friend with due ceremony, and the trumpets played a fanfare over the polite clicking of thousands of fingers, as the nobles cheered their new Queen. Azurelle, Queen of the Green Fiuri. Shioni could not withhold a tear that slid down her cheek. Well, her vain but steadfast friend had attained her dream now–only, this dream came furnished with a wicked husband-to-be.

Tazaka beamed. With deep bows in every direction, he cried, “We’ll be married in a month, according to the traditions of the Greens, may our wings fly together, forever!”

More clicking, and cheering! Lights and fireworks and displays of magic! The Halls of Endless Light rippled to a glorious celebratory display as Tazaka’s magicians made flowers blossom and fragrant petals rain around the room. They evoked scenes of Fiuri life and triumphant battles and more.

Shioni remembered everything now. What could a Human do, on Fiuriel? How would her friends Viri, Iri and Char respond if they knew what she was … an alien, a monster, even? Her heart felt so burdened, she feared it might stop beating for sheer shame and despair. But nothing about her newfound memory changed her Fiuri-ness. She was still Shionelle, the little White Fiuri, and Azurelle apparently had no memory of who she was. Tazaka had to be controlling her!

Her eyes narrowed. Things might look hopeless, but maybe there was a chance …

After a long time of lapping up the applause and celebrations, Tazaka turned to Shioni. At once, there was a hush in the great hall.

Lord Tazaka stroked his pointy beard. “Now, little Fiuri, what shall we do with you?”

Azurelle waved her hand vaguely. “I’m so happy today. Why don’t we just let her go? Soon, we can be together, o Tazaka, my precious tara-petal.”

“Maybe I will let her go.” Shioni could not believe his words. Lord Tazaka kissed Azurelle’s fingers. “You’re more beautiful than a sapphire’s heart. You will be the greatest Queen the Greens have ever known. We must not spoil this day with a judgement. But we must reveal this creature, so that all might know the true nature of the danger that I overcame today.”

Zi slipped her arm through his. “Ever my gallant protector.”

What Azurelle needed was a sharp slap! Shioni fumed, knowing Tazaka’s hold over her friend would not easily be broken. What she needed was one of the Big Chief’s nectars, something to restore Zi to her true, bubbly self, not this lifeless, expressionless creature Tazaka had made her.

But, a restoration? Was Tazaka about to turn her back into her Human self?

“My fellow Green Fiuri, members of the greatest Fiuri clan of them all!” Tazaka shouted. “It is ever in the moments of our greatest joy, that we must remember how evil can slip among us in the most cunning of guises. Always, we must be vigilant! We must protect ourselves and our caves and our families from the schemes of our enemies.”

He pointed dramatically to where Shioni floated in the air, a couple of wing-lengths from him. “Look at her! A Fiuri child in appearance. So sweet and innocent, yet this Fiuri walked right through the wards and spells of twenty highly trained senior magicians. I warn you, my friends, that there is a terrible monster concealed here, a monster who would steal the very magic from our larvae and carry them off into the tunnels to feast upon their entrails. Look. Watch as I unmask her true nature.”

Suddenly, the clips and buckles of her wing harness loosened themselves. The awful material slid off her shoulders as if it had come to life, and although Shioni trembled, she could do nothing to stop Tazaka. Here it came. She was about to make everyone scream and faint as she turned into a huge, galumphing Human.

“Flutter your wings, White Fiuri,” Tazaka said, maliciously. “Show us how very white you are. Has any of you–any one of these Fiuri gathered here today–ever seen a White Fiuri? One with four wings and no colour?”

Shioni cringed at the silence. Somewhere, a male voice screeched and someone shushed him.

Lord Tazaka was strutting up and down the dais now, waving his hands. “That is because you have never seen a Fiuri such as this, here in the Fiuri tunnels. Because this creature comes from
up there!
” Over the rising tide of shouts and exclamations of horror, Tazaka shouted, “Yes! It is true, for I, with my great magic, have discerned the true nature of this monster! And though I cannot prove it yet, I swear that only our Blue Fiuri enemies have the power and the gall to employ this freak, a larvae-murdering drinker of Fiuri blood, sending her among us in the guise of a Fiuri child!”

Clearly, outlined in the doorway of the Halls of Endless Light, Shioni saw the shock and horror on her friends’ faces. They believed Tazaka.

“Friends, this White Fiuri’s power is the same ancient power which destroyed our great Fiuri civilisation and chased us down into the caves. It is the same power which roams the world up there, seeking ways to annihilate any Fiuri who dares to stand against it!”

His voice rose to an impassioned shriek that echoed throughout the great hall. “This monstrosity, this cunning assassin, is a creature of wild magic!”

T
Here MIght have
been something comical about petrifying the very pollen out of an audience of thousands, Shioni thought, if it were not so sad. And, if it did not terrify her also.

Poor Azurelle. How could she withstand Tazaka’s power? In real life, Zi would have died rather than marry her nemesis. She had one month. And from what Azurelle had told her in the past, Lord Tazaka would not be taking a new bride for love. He wanted revenge, not happiness. Meantime, Azurelle’s best and depressingly human friend was powerless, trapped in a magical Fiuri dungeon with no magic, no hope, and her neck firmly stuck in a noose of her own making. Wild magic. The idea made her retch. Surely, Tazaka had to be lying? He was using her as a way to foment war against the Blues.

To cap it all, her friends hated her.

What a perfect day.

As Shioni shifted on her lumpy pallet in the corner of her dungeon, her chains clinked and burned against her skin. The burning was due to Tazaka’s personal addition to her bonds–his biliously green, all-conquering magic. Its tendrils coiled around the metal with the tenacity of vines. “Don’t want you entertaining any thoughts of escape, Shioni,” he had sneered, before the transparent dungeon door slammed behind him. As the door was as thick as Shioni’s arm, she knew only an elephant could break it down.

At least her wings were free.

Princess Annakiya might even be jealous of her slave-girl–her former slave-girl, Shioni corrected herself with a half-hearted grin–having such an adventure on Fiuriel. She had wings! She had flown in the air like no Human ever before!

The buzzing of many wings made her glance up.

The dungeon door groaned open. A soldier snarled, “In you go. Go get comfortable with your friend, you traitors.”

“Viri?” she breathed. “Iri? Char, you didn’t.”

“Oh, we did,” said Chardal, rattling his chains. “It’s all the fashion around the Green Caverns.”

“You idiots,” she complained, realising what this meant. “You prize pollen-brains, you stupid … stupid … friends! You can’t do this. Please …”

Viridelle laughed, “You silly larva, it’s a bit late for protests, isn’t it?”

“We’ll call you a few names too, if you’d like,” sniffed Iridelle.

Shioni had not cried until now, but her throat was so tight, and the horror and delight brewing in her stomach such a toxic mess, that she could not help the tears that slid down her cheeks. What had her friends done? Why did they still believe in her?

Iri knelt beside Shioni, and wiped her cheeks with her thumbs in the Fiuri way and touched antennae. “Darling petal,” said the huge Fiuri. “You didn’t think we’d leave you? We made promises, all of us. Lord Tazaka still needs to kiss my knuckles.” She made a fist and mimed a punch, which was curtailed by her chains. “Treating my friend like a common criminal. Ha!”

Viridelle was trying to appear confident and in charge, but a suspicious sniffle seemed to catch her unawares. “Well, at least Chardal’s
delighted
to see you,” she said, in a tone that made the scholar change from green to pink in a heartbeat.

“What did you do to get yourselves into this dungeon–Iri, you’re hurt.”

“Caused a bit of trouble,” said Iri. “We split up and started repeating what you told Tazaka in every marketplace in Green Central.”

Viri said, “Char, can you see to Shionelle’s leg? They’ve done a terrible job on that arrow wound. Oh, Shionelle, it was almost worth it just to see you punch Tazaka in the nectar-hole. That was by several tunnels my favourite part–
smack!
Chop!”

Softly, Shioni said, “Call me Shioni, Viri. It’s my real name. And, you need to know I’m not really Fiuri at all.”

“Of course you are,” Iri said, stoutly.

She gazed at Chardal, working on her leg. “Iri, petal, I’m not. I’m more of a monster than you can imagine. I’m Human, I come from another world, and when I’m not masquerading as a White Fiuri, I’m so big, you’d be about the size of my hand. Look, let me tell you all about Kalcha, and what I think Tazaka’s up to–”

“How do you know Azurelle?” Char interrupted.

Shioni sighed deeply. What would her Green Fiuri friends think of her after this? “Well, my story starts in a place called Africa, which has animals you’ve never imagined, when the King of West Sheba bought me as a present for his daughter, the Princess Annakiya, to be her slave …”

When she had finished telling her tale, Viri, Iri and Char sat back, stunned.

Then the Green Hunter said, “So, you’re a Human, er, creature. With wings. Who has no idea where she comes from or who her parents are, doesn’t know much about her magic, can’t tell us how she came to be a Fiuri, and has cloudy-nectar thoughts about what wild magic is?”

“Um,” Shioni agreed.

“But we know what kind of person Shionelle is,” Iri said.

“How’s that?” asked Viri, clearly still puzzling everything through.

“We know her heart,” the big Fiuri said earnestly.

Viri snapped, “Honestly, Iridelle, I don’t know what you have in that imbecilic head of yours sometimes–”

“Shut your nectar-hole!” Everyone stared at Chardal. He never shouted, unless it was in excitement. “For once, pull your proboscis out of the detail, Viri, and listen to your sister. Iri, what were you saying?”

Viridelle nodded. “Sorry, Iri. I’m just–” she swallowed and whispered to the wall “–I might look brave, but really, I’m just … scared.”

Iri smothered her twin in a huge hug. “I do love you, wasp-tongue.”

“Love you right back, muscle-flower.”

Chardal prodded Viri in the ribs. “And you call me the soppy one?”

“Oh, come here!” Viri pulled Char into their hug. The scholar gasped as Iri’s muscular arm locked around his neck. “You too, Shionelle–Shioni. I don’t care what you are, you need a hug.”

After a while, the Fiuri untangled themselves with assorted chuckles and a clinking of chains. Char said, “Shioni, what we know is that you’re the kind of person who cares so much about her friends–”

“–you’d rather put yourself in Tazaka’s dungeon than see Cave Seventeen suffer,” said Viri.

“Well, I was going to mention a few other things,” said Char, so firmly it stopped Viri’s chuckle in her throat. “I’m sure your Human friend Annakiya would have her own story to tell, and the rest of the realm of Sheba. And I think your story is inspirational, Shioni–which also happens to be why we’re down here with you.” He clapped his hands and wings simultaneously, breaking the mood. “Now, that’s quite enough girly hugging and emotional friendship-type nonsense for one afternoon.” His audience shouted with laughter. “Because we’re in here and Tazaka’s out there and your friend the new Queen of Green is about to marry the real monster. And I want to know what we’re going to do about it? And when? Ideas?”

Looking between her friends, Shioni caught a very silly smile on Viridelle’s lips as she regarded Chardal with unguarded admiration. Uh-oh, she thought. If she was not mistaken, Chardal had just earned himself a new admirer.

Viri drawled, “For a peaceful scholar, you’re sounding rather Hunter-ish over there, Char.”

Chardal ruffled his already wild green hair with his hands, before whispering slyly, “How are those miniature Black Messenger Wasps in your wrist-guard, Green Hunter?”

“Alive,” she said, shaking her head in amazement. “How did you know–”

“A Hunter secret? Oh, come on, pollen-brain. Buzz the wings and keep up. I’m ten caverns ahead of you.”

Shioni giggled at Viridelle’s expression. What kind of wasp had bitten Chardal? The Hunter tapped her wrist, which made a very tiny humming noise. “Alive.”

“Right,” said Char. “We need your father on the case, Viri. Lord Tazaka is clearly controlling his stooges with a nectar concoction.”

“Nasty nectar?” asked Iri.

“Nasty nectar?” grinned the scholar. “Perfect description. I foresee that your father might want to favour the forthcoming royal wedding with a gift of his latest and most amazing nectar, Fiuriel’s Breath–which will be modified with a few ingredients we will send him. You see, I have closely observed Azurelle’s behaviour, and that of the other key members of Tazaka’s leadership group, and I’ll bet you one stink-flower to all the nectar in your father’s storehouse, Hunter Viridelle, that I can tell you exactly which nectars he’s blending to make everyone obey him so nicely.”

“You stole the recipe,” said Iridelle, folding her arms.

Chardal reddened.

“Char?” asked Viri, very sweetly. When she received no answer, she nodded to her twin. “Can you make that lying little larva confess, Iri?”

Iridelle cracked her knuckles purposefully, making Shioni shiver and exclaim crossly. Ouch! The boy-Fiuri flinched and found the tip of his truthful wing, as the Fiuri saying went, in a single wingbeat.

“And the legend of my brilliance was developing so nicely,” said Chardal, so mournfully that everyone laughed. “Fine. Iri, my second cousin on my father’s side is Tazaka’s servant in charge of food and tasting for poisons.”

“Aha!” Viri crowed.

But Chardal put in quietly, “And it is nasty nectar indeed, my friends. Now, I’ve an equally nasty tingling in my wingtips that says Lord Tazaka will not let us moulder in his dungeons for long. Too much trouble, you see. He’ll want us out of the way. So, Viri, we need to send two Black Wasps to Blue Central and two to Green Seventeen. Can you arrange that?”

Viri nodded. “Dare I ask how you knew I have four Black Wasps?”

“A good Hunter is always prepared,” said Char. “Now, turn out your belt, Hunter Viridelle, and show us all those nice implements you keep hidden there.”

“Iri, now’s a good time to whack the scholar,” said Viridelle, loosening her belt.

“I’m quite comfortable right here,” said Iridelle, “shielding all your naughtiness from the guards. Carry on, sister. Write your messages in that super-secret Hunter’s Tongue which nobody outside of the Hunters’ Guild knows about.”

Viri’s furious clucking had Shioni in stitches. Her friends! They were just the best–after Azurelle and Annakiya, of course. And Mama Nomuula. Would she ever see Castle Hiwot again, and smell those gorgeous baobab blossoms which hung over the courtyard in such heavy sprays, the branches bowed almost to the ground? At least she had half-foiled Tazaka and Kalcha’s plans for the Princess of West Sheba.

So, where on Fiuriel would Tazaka send a group of rebellious Fiuri who had accused him of murder? Somewhere as unpleasant as he undoubtedly was. The Cracks, perhaps, or deep into the dangerous core of Fiuriel itself?

Barely had Viridelle released her final, thumb-sized wasp and it had nipped away beneath their cell door, when another clattering of armour and weapons announced the arrival of a large posse of Yellow Fiuri soldiers, accompanied by a dozen Green Fiuri magicians. Lord Tazaka was taking no chances.

The foremost of the guards, Captain Hazzuriel, smirked at them. He growled, “Judgement awaits. Don’t keep Lord Tazaka waiting.”