"These are from Lapland, right?" Will said, fingering the tray. He lifted a knot. "What happens if I untie one?"
"We shan't ever know, shall we?" Dame Serena slapped his hand. "Drop it," she said, adding, "You're a regular font of mischief today."
"It was only a zephyr," Will said placatingly. He placed the witch-knot back in its rectangle with such exaggerated care that Dame Serena didn't notice that he had palmed the original knot, while leaving a carefully tied duplicate of it in its place.
The hour went quickly. ("Ten minutes, sir," Ariel said, and "Get stuffed," Will replied.) As Will was turning to leave, however, Dame Serena slid open yet another drawer. "There's something in here you'll want to see," she said. "This is Your Majesty's smallest territory. It'll take no time at all to inspect." Within the drawer were blue ocean waters with spouting whales smaller than earwigs and a mountainous island no more than a yard across, complete with harbors, a bustling port, and wee stone cities.
Holding his breath to avoid afflicting its inhabitants with a tempest, Will bent low to examine the tiny prodigy. But when he did, the land blurred before his eyes and he looked up to discover that he was standing in a pavilion by a white-sand beach. Bright tropical foliage blossomed all about him. "Where am I?" he asked. An elf-maiden, tall and lissom in a turquoise sarong, lounged against the railing. She was beauteous even beyond her kind.
"You can stop staring at my tits now," she snapped. "You'll wear your eyes out."
Will recognized the cheekbones then and gasped. "Dame Serena?"
"You needn't act so astonished," the elf-maiden said." It's hardly flattering that you find it so hard to believe that I was once a looker. As to where we are — this is the Land of Youth. We cant stay here long."
"Is this some kind of allegory?"
Smiling, the elf-maiden leaned forward and pinched him hard. "Does this feel allegorical?"
"No, I suppose not. Why are we here?" Will said, rubbing his arm.
"The Palace of Leaves may be an architectural wonder, but there's no expectation of privacy to be found in it. Its quite the fascist state, actually. There are spies and hidden microphones everywhere. But in the Land of Youth there are no such hazards, Marduk XVII and I used to come here to... well, never mind. But if his subordinates had known, I'd not have lived to such a disgustingly old age. We can talk safely here."
"Uh, okay, I suppose. What about?"
"They know you want to escape. Please don't try." "I am a prisoner in the palace, Dame Serena," Will said quietly, "and the first duty of a prisoner is to try to escape."
"Well, if you must, you must. Far be it from me to stand between an idealist and his conscience, however disconnected from reality they both may be. But not this afternoon. They're expecting you to try something then, and they'll be ready for you."
"How do you know this?" Will asked.
"I told you that Eitri was a gossip. We get together for tea in the afternoons. It's the only vice I have left to me."
The Land of Youth wavered and was gone, and Will found himself standing in the cabinet of curiosities again. Dame Serena, old once more, pressed something into Will's hand. It was the ivory fire-amulet he had failed to steal the other day. "Take this," she whispered. "Just in case you need it."
"Why, Dame Serena!" Will said in astonishment. You do like me after all."
"Oh, zip your lip, or I'll give you the back of my hand. You're a fool, like every other king I've ever known, and I'm doubly a fool for trying to help you." Her look softened. "But I've always had a soft spot for kings."
They were expecting him to make his move that afternoon. So of course he did.
Will was taking the air in the garden when Ariel said, "The Master of the Tests wishes to see you, sir."
"Florian? Send him to the reception room. Make him wait." "He says its urgent, sir."
"Then tell him I'll be with him as soon as possible, and an hour from now remind me that he's waiting."
Will stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit up. It was a deliberately provocative gesture, and one that engendered a response almost immediately. Eitri came running up, wringing his hands in alarm. "Sir! Sir!" he squeaked. "You can't smoke here."
"Why not?"
"There's a city ordinance against smoking in a government park. Which your gardens, technically, are."
"You have a smoking room, sir," Ariel said. "It's rather well appointed."
"Yeah? Well, I can't be bothered to go there." Will blew a mouthful of smoke in the general direction of his majordomo's voice. "So what're you gonna do about it?"
"I can't touch you, of course, sir. But I can dock all of the palace staff day's pay for every incident." Eitri, who had a gambling problem he fondly imagined wasn't common gossip, looked stricken. "If that is what you want."
Will cursed and threw the cigarette down on the ground and stomped on it. In a flash, Eitri was on his knees, sweeping the ashes into his hand. "Just... bugger off, all of you, okay? Leave me alone. If I can't smoke, at least let me have five minutes alone. Go away, both of you, and take the rest of the staff with you." Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Eitri said fervently.
"As you wish, sir."
The creepy feeling that Will always got when Ariel was near evanesced.
As soon as he was sure he was alone, Will flipped over the wicker table so that it made a basket shape with a short pedestal-well at the center, rather like the mold tor a bundt cake. He dumped the fruit from a large copper bowl on a nearby table and placed the bowl snugly atop the pedestal. Then he tossed the fire-amulet into the bowl and activated its rune with a muttered word. Heat washed up from it, not enough to make the canopy lift free of the ground — that would come later — but enough so that it tugged lightly against its guy lines. These Will untied from their stakes and retied to the edges of the basket. The tent poles he let fall to the ground.
He was ready!
Will hastily set several armfuls of potted plants into one side of the basket to balance it and then climbed into the other. "Sir? What are you doing?"
"My duty," Will said. He muttered a second word that brought the fire amulet to full power. Heat gushed up from the copper bowl and with a great whoosh the canopy overhead billowed as it filled with hot air.
Will untied the witch-knot and a brisk west wind sprang up, scattering napkins across the patio and pushing at the swollen canopy.
Alarmed servitors came running out on the roof just as the makeshift balloon lifted up into the air. Some crashed into the rose hedges and others ran around them, vaulting or stumbling over the new garden furniture. They leaped up, trying to catch at the basket, and failed. Will laughed into their upturned faces and—
"Enough."
The air grew cool. The canopy-balloon ceased to flutter. In the center of the garden Ariel had manifested in his physical form: a slim figure with a chalk-white face, lank black hair and a rooster's cox-comb. His mouth was twisted and bitter. Yet his voice was calm and dulcet.
Ariel raised an arm and twisted a hand and the balloon returned without fuss to its point of origin. Servitors ran up to hasten away the fire-amulet, to right the wicker table, to restore the scattered fruit to the copper bowl, to reerect the canopy. In seconds all was as it had been before.
They had caught him. But of course, there had never really been any question of that.