THE QUEEN OF SWORDS

Chapter 1

It was a frosty afternoon on Maken Lane. Ice-clouds gathered overhead, and the baby chippury-crows were hopping to and fro, dashing towards their underground nests for a chance to weather the coming storm. Angel Scubgood walked purposefully down Main Street, talking loudly on her cell phone. 

“Oh, she did, did she? Well you can tell the Queen that I’m not baking any more bread for her. Not now, not ever!”

Behind the swarthy girl, a silver-furred basset hound loped, keeping a baleful eye on his charge. 

Angel gritted her teeth, casting a wary eye up at the gathering ice clouds. The storm was coming quickly. And fast. It was a little early for the ice king to be sending his clouds down to Marmaville. Angel wondered vaguely if there was some nefarious reason for the early intrusion. Or maybe he’s just bored, she thought with a snort. The annoying voice continued puttering in her ear.

“NO!” she shouted suddenly into the phone, stopping and staring down at the road. “Let me tell you something ‘Dave’, the last time I set foot in that god-forsaken castle, I lost half of my baking sheets to that incinerator you call an oven. Half! And your little creep of a kitchen manager tried to pay me with flour. What does he think I do, pay my electric bills with bath buns?”

The annoying voice whined apologetically and continued to prammer. Angel groaned and held the phone away from her face.

“You know” said the basset hound, catching up to her. “I rather fancy a night out at the Christmas gala. You never know… — Prince Denard might be there…”

Angel’s cheeks turned red. “Well I don’t” she said bluntly, turning her face away. “If Madame Troutface wants last-minute catering, she can find someone else to roll dough in that filthy outhouse she calls a kitchen. Besides, I already told Jugboat that I would go ice-diving with him.”

The basset hound shrugged. “As you wish, Fay-ley-lah.”

Angel glared at the dog. “Don’t call me that.”

The basset-hound smirked and neatly crossed his ears.

Several cold minutes later, the pair stepped around the corner of Gary’s pub and walked down the thin, shadowy lane which led towards the Maken River. The grey afternoon slipped into an early grey dusk as gentle puffs of smoke rose from the thatched roofs which lined the narrow street. Halfway down the street, Angel turned, and stopped in front of three nearly-identical row-houses — searching their equally dilapidated porch-fronts with probing eyes as she blew into her reddened hands. She pulled out her cell phone and sent Jugboat a quick text.

<Get out here you turnip. And bring the whale-suits, I’m FREEZING.>

She hit send and glanced upward. A dim light flickered in the top left window of one of the houses, and Angel heard a sudden crash from inside, followed by a string of curses. She grinned. Fucking Jugboat.

Seconds later, a figure with an egg-shaped head popped up in the house’s front window, hefting two large blobs, along with a massive black duffel bag, and plastic cooler.

“You’re gonna DROWN out there!!!” a haggard voice called from inside the house. “And it ain’t gonna be ME who picks out the bodies!!!”

“SHUT UP MOM!” the egg-headed figure shouted, pushing his way out the front door, and slamming it shut. Jugboat turned to Angel and grinned toothily. He wobbled down the front stairs, shoulders trembling under the weight of the gear, as he stepped over to Angel and heaved two thick, black wetsuits onto the ground. He dropped the massive black duffel bag next to them with a sigh of relief.

Angel shivered as she stared longingly down at the blubber-lined suits. After a few seconds, she glanced up and nodded at the red and white cooler in Jugboat’s hand.

“That better be what I think it is” she said. 

Jugboat looked over his shoulder, then turned back towards Angel and opened the cooler with a grin. “Coffee and Griffith’s” he said. “Had to steal my dad’s thermos…—” he glanced over his shoulder again— “…and my mom’s whiskey.”

“Well let’s go then” Angel said, brushing her hair back behind her ear. Jugboat closed the cooler awkwardly and stooped to pick up the heavy whale-suits. Angel reached into the pocket of her parka and removed a small paper parcel.

“Catch” she said, tossing the item at Jugboat, who was mid leg-lift. He yelped as it bounced off his shoulder; he grappled wildly with the whale-suits, before dropping them in the snow with a defeated puff. He wheezed for a moment in the cold air, before turning and picking up Angel’s snow-dusted parcel.

“Merry Christmas” Angel said quickly, stepping towards the whale-suits and pulling one over her shoulder with far less effort than her bony comrade.

Jugboat stood as he unwrapped the parcel’s neatly-folded wax-paper. His eyes lit up. 

“Salzberry scones?!” he said, wiping a strand of drool from his mouth. “How did you make these??”

Angel hefted the suit and shrugged. “You said they were your favorite.”

Jugboat beamed and strode up to her, engulfing her in a sweaty embrace. Angel coughed and turned her head away. “Okay” she said. “Okay! Yep! Okay, get off me!” 

Jugboat released her, though a grin remained plastered across his face. 

“I got you something too” he said, “but I—” 

A loud crash sounded from inside the house.

“JERALD! WHERE IN DAVE’S UGLY HELL IS MY TOM GRIFFITH’S?!! YOU BETTER GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE BEFORE I RIP YOUR EYES OUT AND SHOVE THEM UP YOUR—”

Jugboat winced, and glanced back at the house. “We’d better go” he said quickly, stuffing the scones in his pocket and bending over to pick up the second whale-suit. 

Angel nodded and looked over her shoulder at where her chaperone stood urinating on a telephone pole.

“Conrad” she hissed. “Come on!”

“Just a minute dear” the basset hound said, finishing his activities, and taking an idle sniff of the pole. “That Great Dane from Tilda Road keeps speaking absolute garbage about me on here. It’s a wonder I don’t call up Anne and tell her what her precious little poodle has been up to while she’s been off groping Mayor Hughes.”

Angel rolled her eyes.

The three of them set off towards the river — Angel and Jugboat each humping a whale-suit, and trading off between the cooler and the enormous duffel bag, while Conrad cantered airily behind them. The ice-clouds darkened overhead, as night fell over the river.

Angel breathed heavily as she hopped to catch up with Jugboat, whose strides were twice the length of hers. 

Jugboat scrunched his brow and looked up at the sky.

“Ice clouds already?” he said grimly.

Angel stared down at the ground. “I know” she said quietly.

Jugboat glanced sideways at her. He fixed a broad smile on his face and gave her a playful nudge. “Hey, I’m not complaining. More ice for us, right?”

Angel bit her lip. “Umm — yeah. Yeah.”

They reached the end of the road. Jugboat ducked under a knarled oak branch, and slipped down a thin path which led down to the Maken Pier. Angel followed him — Conrad muttering stuffily behind her, and letting out the occasional undignified yelp as he tripped over ice-coated tangles of tree roots and river reeds. As they reached the pier, Angel saw the brilliant outline of the palace silhouetted across the river — its twinkling Christmas lights reflected in the clear black river ice. Already, she could hear music drifting over the palace’s tall, buttressed walls, which jutted out over the edges of the distant riverbank.

Jugboat whistled loudly. “Wow” he said. “I forgot, the gala is tonight.” He chuckled suddenly. “Hey Ange, remember last year, when you let me and Tenny in the kitchen door, and we crashed the lobster bisque-off?”

Angel gripped her whale suit tightly as she pulled off her parka, and began to strip down to her underwear. 

“Yeah, I do” she said, gritting her teeth against the cold. “Do you remember when I had to pull you off of Meg McLave after you drank all of the leftover wine-samples and vomited in the chocolate fountain?”

Jugboat set the cooler down on the docks. “Ohhhhh……..— yeahh” he said, nodding slowly. He stooped over and popped open the cooler, removing a tall grey thermos, and a bottle of Griffith’s oak-barrel whiskey. He turned, and offered the bottle to Angel — blushing slightly as he caught a glimpse of her pale body.

Angel shook her head. “After” she said. “Besides, I’m freezing my ass off. Help me put this on, would you?”

Jugboat helped her don the thick, blubber-lined body-suit — carefully rolling the bunched sleeves down her arms, and legs, and clipping the cuffs to the edges of her thickly insulated rubber gloves, and blubber-lined flippers. He zipped the garment up — sealing it at the neckline; Angel sighed in relief as she was instantly insulated from the chilled October wind.

“Thanks” she said, rummaging in the duffel bag and pulling out her oxygen tank. She turned to Conrad, who sat near the edge of the pier, looking at her with eyebrows raised in clear disapproval of her dockside disrobing.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know” Angel said, ignoring the look.

Conrad licked the side of his leg and gazed ruefully at her. “Is that an official stance, my liege?”

Angel stuck her tongue out at him, as she adjusted her oxygen mask. “Maybe I should just order you to join us. Finally get those precious paws wet.”

The basset hound looked affronted. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Angel shrugged and secured the last strap over her forehead. 

“I don’t know” she said. “You’re the one who’s always talking about building kingly character.”

The basset hound assumed a pouting countenance as Angel flicked on her waterproof headlamp, and turned to Jugboat — now similarly clad. 

“Ready?”

Jugboat nodded. He rubbed his hands together and sat down on the edge of the dock, dangling his legs over the side, and brushing his flippered feet against the frozen river surface. Angel sat next to him, and together, they lowered themselves onto the ice.

“Do be careful!” called Conrad. “For my sake.”

Angel waved a hand over her shoulder. “Yeah, yeah” she said.

 *  *  *

The wind howled as the two scuba-clad figures flippered across the frozen river, moving towards a series of circular holes which lay at its center. Frigid black water rose and fell within the yard-thick ice-holes. 

As they neared the holes, Angel turned to Jugboat. 

“Which way you wanna go?”

Jugboat frowned and scratched his head. Then a sly smile spread across his face. He turned to Angel. 

“No” she said firmly.

Jugboat spread his arms wide. “But I haven’t said anything!”

“No,” Angel said again. “I know what you’re going to say, and I’m not doing it.”

Jugboat steepled his eyebrows. “Come on,” he said. “Just a little peek. Then we can do the main, or go to seal cove.”

Angel stared down at the river, then glanced upward, eyeing the palace, which loomed on the far river bank, nearly a quarter mile away. She reached a hand absently behind her, and tapped her oxygen tank. It rang with a dull, metallic sound.

Finally, she turned, and glared at Jugboat. “Fine” she said icily. “But when we run out of O2 under a shelf of solid limestone, I’m going to strangle you. Even if it’s my final act.”

Jugboat grinned. “Yes!! Ha ha!” He grabbed Angel by the shoulders and shook her. 

“It’s going to be so sweet. Tenny told me that him and Dezzard saw an ice shark down there. And there were these back channels, that led to a—”

Angel shoved him aside and stepped toward one of the ice-holes. She pulled her oxygen mask over her face and secured it.

Ice shark she muttered to herself. I should’ve stayed in and made muffins.

She stepped up to the edge of the hole, and opened her regulator — taking her first deep breath of stale canister air. She glanced over at Jugboat, who was lined up at another hole, some ten feet away. She nodded at him. Together, they jumped — plunging through the holes into the icy depths below.

The cold water sent a shock through Angel’s system. Though the whale-suit was thickly insulated, the water was below freezing, and the edges of Angel’s face were unprotected. She moved her arms and legs slowly — drawing another deep breath of oxygen into her lungs, as she stared out into the icy black water. The light from her headlamp shone into the river’s depths, illuminating the silent swirls of clear water, which drifted down towards the river-bottom, still many feet below. A shiver of excitement ran up her spine.

She felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see Jugboat floating next to her. He beckoned her with a hand, and she kicked after him — her flippers pushing the water backwards in smooth bands, and propelling her gently forward.

They headed south, letting the current usher them along as they followed the gentle curve of the river. The Maken River was not swift, but it was wide — carving a broad line between Old Lutch and the fishing towns and villages which dotted the shores of the eastern bank. Away to the north, the river rose in elevation, until it met the tributaries of still colder water which ran down from the mountains. Even Jugboat wasn’t brave enough to try diving up that way. The whale suits had their limits.

Angel followed Jugboat’s lanky form as he led them with smooth strokes towards the western bank, still many hundreds of feet away. Streams of bubbles escaped her mouth as she swam — the small spheres rushing up towards the frozen river surface, where they halted — trapped beneath the thick, clear ice.

As Angel swam, she stared down at the riverbottom. Thick, cracked plates of blue-green ice lined the river floor — layered in stratic formations that carved and twisted in hauntingly beautiful patterns. The plates caught the light from her headlamp, dispersing it in muted tones along their edges, before sending it back out into the still river depths. Angel felt a swirl of water tickle her face, and she turned her head in time to see a school of tiny glow-eels swim past her — their tails waving like little twisting flags. 

The eels were one of her favorite of the sparse variety of species which dwelled beneath the river — she often saw them near her and Jugboat’s diving-holes, where the small creatures fed on the microscopic algae which collected in the rare places along the river’s surface where air and water met. The school of glow-eels turned in perfect synchrony, and swam quietly alongside Angel for some time, before the gentle current carried them off further south. Angel watched them go.

After several minutes of silent swimming, Jugboat stopped, and turned around. He waved at Angel, and pointed upwards. She flashed him a thumbs up, and together, they headed for a spot on the surface, where some irregularity in the freezing of the river had left a pocket of air between the water and the ice. As Angel’s head cleared the water’s surface, she removed her oxygen mask, and sucked in several breaths of cold — but fresh — air. Jugboat’s head popped up next to her, and he removed his mask, shaking his head with a broad grin.

“Holy shit” he said, breathing heavily as he cast an eye at the shallow dome of ice overhead. “Did you see those cracks?” He let out a low whistle.

Angel nodded, tipping her head back gently as she floated on the cold water surface.

A few sparse rays of moonlight filtered through  a gap in the clouds above, and touched upon the air pocket’s icy dome, giving them a little light to see by.

Angel took another deep breath.

“Okay” Jugboat said. “We’re only about two hundred yards from the outer wall. Tenny told me where the main tunnel starts — its about forty yards right of the bridge. How you doing on O?”

Angel checked the gauge on her shoulder.

“About half” she said.

Jugboat nodded. “Same. We can check out the tunnel, then pop back out whenever we feel. Worse comes to worst, we can dip out at the holes Tenny and Dezz made last week, on the other side of the bridge.

Angel nodded.

Jugboat fixed her with a serious look. “You still want to do this? It’s not too late to back out.”

Angel looked up at the sloping ice-ceiling above, then lowered her eyes and met Jugboat’s gaze. She nodded.

A grin spread across his face. “Okay. Sweet. I think we should— ow!” He rubbed his blubber-clad arm.

Angel lowered a gloved fist back under the water. “Just a reminder” she said sweetly, a menacing glint in her eye.

Jugboat nodded, chuckling hollowly. “Right” he said, — still rubbing his arm. “You’ll strangle me.”

Angel pulled her mask over her face, and sunk beneath the surface.

*  *  *

Together, they kicked off along a large, swooping chunk of glassy ice which hung down from the frozen ceiling above. The edges of the water-swept formation glinted razor-sharp in the lingering moonlight.

Up ahead, Angel caught a glimpse of the outer palace foundation — a smooth wall of thick limestone, which hung like a ghostly curtain down to the riverbed far below, where it disappeared — plunging through the mud-frozen riverbottom, and continuing on through hidden layers of soil and strata, where, unknown to Angel and Jugboat, it was finally anchored with rows of metal pylons to the ancient slab of bedrock upon which Old Lutch was built.

As she pulled herself through the water, Angel squinted, and aimed her headlamp at the base of the foundation. She saw no tunnel, nor any rupture or break in the smooth wall. She gritted her teeth, and wriggled after Jugboat, who had drifted several yards ahead of her. They continued on in silence, only pausing when Jugboat stopped to get his bearings. He was a serious diver, and despite Angel’s ribbed remarks, there was no one else whom she trusted more below the ice. He adjusted their course slightly, leading them in a gradual northward arc towards a section of the foundation which Angel had rarely, if ever, explored.

When they were almost at the foundation wall, Jugboat held up a hand. Angel swam up next to him, and stopped. Together, they looked downward.

There — suctioned against the bottommost edge of the palace foundation, was a burgeoning, spherical flower of glimmering ice, its edges prising apart a particularly ancient-looking section of the otherwise clean-cut rock. A shadowy fissure had cracked its way through the flower’s frozen center, forming the mouth of a spiraling tunnel of blue-white ice, which plunged through the fractured stone wall, and disappeared into the hidden reaches beyond.

Angel marveled at the sight — the ice must have slowly cracked its way through the foundation over the past ten — or one hundred — years.

A low rumble sounded overhead. Angel glanced above her. The few solitary strands of moonlight were gone, and flakes of ice were beginning to collect on the frozen river surface far above. The storm had arrived. Angel swallowed grimly.

Jugboat flashed her a thumbs up, and dove down towards the fissure, releasing a cloud of bubbles from his mask. Angel followed him.

The base of the foundation was sunken deep — as deep as Angel had ever ventured to the river’s floor. She felt the pressure in her eardrums increase as she swam steadily downwards, careful to take her time, and let her body acclimatize to the vertiginous change in depth. After several long moments, she touched down on the icy, alien riverbed — feeling the bottoms of her flippers scrape dully against the frozen mud. Jugboat half-stood, half-floated on the river floor ahead of her — facing the fissure’s icy mouth. He turned slowly around, and held up his wrist — pointing at his glowing digital watch. He flashed Angel ten fingers. She nodded, and set her own watch to ten minutes. Any longer than that, and they would be running dangerously low on oxygen.

Jugboat turned back towards the fissure, and kicked off from the riverbottom. He swam stealthily between the ice-flower’s glimmering lips, and disappeared into the frozen crack at the flower’s center. Angel was about to kick after him, when she felt a strong current lash the water behind her. She whirled around, eyes scanning the water for a lone seal, or another school of eels, but she saw nothing. She sucked in a deep breath of cold canister air — trying to steady her pounding heart, as she turned back towards the fissure’s inky-blue mouth. She eyed it uncertainly for several seconds. Finally, with a last uttered curse at Jugboat, she pushed off of the riverbottom, gave a few steady kicks with her flippered feet, and swam into the crack.

—End of Excerpt—

©2022 by Conor Duffy, All Rights Reserved