The Case of the Misplaced Hero

how she had brandished that sword.

  "Lina," he said. "Are you one of the bandits?"

  Her jaw dropped for a second, and then she covered her face and started to snort in a goofy laugh that didn't match her beauty -- but it made him laugh too.

  "Seriously, Lina, you brandish that sword like a pirate, and you don't have papers."

  "In the woods you don't need papers!" she protested. "Awarshawa is not totalitarian! Is Anarcho-bureaucracy."

  "Anarcho-bur.... What does that even mean?"

  "It means in the woods you don't need papers." She shook her head, and then she looked closely at him. "And what about you Mr. Nobody? You are not from the train!"

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because the captain kept asking and nobody knows who Alex is."

  "They wouldn't know," said Alex. "We... stowed away. That is, Thorny did. He ... had a nervous breakdown and ran away. I followed him to keep him out of trouble."

  "Where did you get on the train? What town?"

  "I... have no idea. I've been chasing him around for days."

  "Did you get on in Ertusk?"

  Alex was too smart to fall for that trick -- Ertusk, wherever or whatever it was, was probably nowhere near where the train was coming from.

  "I told you, I don't know."

  "I think you're a bandit too."

  "I won't tell if you don't," he said. She shrugged, so he went on. "So you need your book, and I need Thorny, and we both want to avoid the authorities. I think I have a plan."

  Episode 31

  There Once Was a Man From Michigan

  The colonel led them to the railway station, and then, after a nervous pause in which he paced back and forth, he led them on beyond the station, to a row of small sheds and warehouses along the tracks. He kept glaring back at his drunken guards, as if he wanted nothing to do with them, or with Thorny himself.

  And Thorny himself? He felt like a dog's dinner.

  And not one of your expensive, gourmet dog's dinners either. A cheap, half-rotten dog's dinner for which there had been a product recall issued.

  And yet.... for all he felt like death warmed over, he also felt very alive. This was not your ordinary self-inflicted hangover misery. Or even the misery of a misspent career. This was visceral and dramatic and gritty.

  It was poetic, that's what it was. Worthy of a literary masterpiece. He called out, as words came flowing into his head.

  "There once was a man from Michigan, who found himself in a fix again...."

  That wouldn't do. He wasn't in a fix again. This was the first fix of his ever lovin' life. This was new and fresh. But Michigan just didn't rhyme with anything else. Except... yes, that would do.

  "He hadn't the time, to come up with a rhyme," Thorny continued. "When the rotten guards threatened him ... with a gun!"

  "Shut him up!" cried the colonel. It was a ringing, pathetic cry, like a cry for mercy.

  One of the guards swung a wild roundhouse punch, and managed to land it on the side of Thorny's head. Thorny went down on his seat and the guard fell right on top of him, as though Thorny were a live grenade. My poetry is explosive, he thought.

  The colonel had no interest in poetry. He paced and seemed to dither, as though not sure what to do next. He looked down on Thorny and the guard with a look of pain and fear.

  "Shouldn't we kill him?" asked the other guard who was still standing.

  "Kill who?" said Thorny. In answer, and as if to validate Thorny's poem, the guard pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Thorny's head. This was more of an existential crisis than he was ready for. He struggled but didn't make it to his feet, while Pookiterin looked around nervously.

  "Yes... No! Not here," said Pookiterin. He flinched as a train whistle blew in the near distance. "And not now."

  "But Kinchin Colonel, maybe now is better. Before they get here."

  "Now is not better!" said Thorny. He struggled half up. "You don't know what's coming on that train!"

  The colonel flinched again. Yes, Thorny knew what was making the colonel nervous. He had been awake during that conversation in the larder, when the captain and the colonel were arguing over who would be on the train.

  "It could be a friend or an enemy, couldn't it?" continued Thorny. "Maybe they want me alive! Maybe they want to kill me themselves, did you think of that? After all that fighting you did with the captain to get me, you're just going to dump me in an alley? Don't be ridiculous! I could be your ticket to glory!"

  The colonel stood there, twitching. He looked at his guards and then at Thorny.

  "Glory?" he said. "You are an embarrassment! All three of you."

  "Then hide us! Then you can find out where you stand with the people on the train, before you do anything irrevocable."

  Pookiterin paused, surprised. "Hide all three of you, then? Yes, that will do. There is just time for that."

  He directed the guards to take Thorny into one of the sheds by the tracks, while he went off in search of something. As the guards tied Thorny up, hand and foot, Pookiterin returned. He did not enter the shed, but rather swung the door shut. In a moment they could hear the scrape of a latch and then the firm click of a padlock.

  All three were now locked in.

  "If he keeps going this way, he'll have everyone in the world locked up," said Thorny. The guards simply kicked him.

  Episode 32

  The Locked Larder Committee

  Rozinshura sat at the back of the larder, on the bench, looking down at the odd little book in his hand. Niko pounded madly at the door, while Lady Featherdale stood between them, uncertain what to do.

  "Niko, there is no need to make your hand bloody," said Rozinshura, without looking up from the book. "Listen first, then pound if you hear something."

  "Yes, Kinchin Captain." Niko, whose hand was sore, hunted down the lid of a crock to pound the door with if necessary.

  "Lady Featherdale," continued Rozinshura. "Was that man Winston Argoss?"

  "No, Captain, he wasn't."

  "Do you know him? Was he on the train with you?"

  "I've never seen him before."

  The captain let out a deep sigh and rubbed his head. None of this made sense. Lady Featherdale sat down on the bench beside him.

  "Do you think the colonel mistook him for Argoss?" she asked.

  Rozinshura shook his head.

  "This man was carrying secrets, so... Pookiterin did not make a mistake," he said. He stared for a moment and then burst out rapidly: "But that makes no sense! I do not believe this man is a spy. And I do not know where he came from. I do not know how he gets secrets. He makes no sense."

  He looked down again at the book, as though it held answers. It was an Imprish book; a cheap thriller. Such books were popular in Awarshawa, even though Awarshi soldiers and spies were always the villains -- portrayed as machine-like and single-minded beasts who kept coming even after being shot or thrown off a cliff.

  Not so very different from Awarshi propaganda.

  Rozinshura himself liked these books. The fact that the Awarshi were always defeated but never gave up, that seemed realistic enough. He had learned to read Imprish by reading many such books.

  So when he saw the childish code the message was written in, he recognized it right away. The boy heroes of such novels always used the same code; write the letters backwards. A silly, easy code a diplomat or a spy would never use.

  Would a professor of philosophy use such a code? Or even read such a book? More likely a professor would confiscate a book like this from his students....

  Rozinshura sat up.

  Perhaps that was how he got it. He wasn't given the message. He met up with this student named Alex, and he took the book. And then what? How did this man get here, so far from anything, and so very drunk, except by train? It made no sense.

  "Are you sure you have seen everyone on the train?" he asked the lady.

  "The tr
ain was a special hired for our delegation," said Lady Featherdale, "so there were no strangers among the passengers. But I don't suppose I know the crew. This may sound very imperial of me, but one doesn't notice a porter or a waiter. They're invisible."

  "A waiter!" exclaimed Rozinshura

  "You think he was a waiter?"

  "Who is invisible, but not invisible? Who becomes a hero to a drunk when he suddenly appears with a tray and a drink?"

  "Why, I suppose a waiter would fit that description." said Lady Featherdale. "What's the riddle about?"

  "Niko! Who is that boy, the one who was helping you?"

  "He is from the wreck--"

  "No, he is not. Who is he?"

  "He said his name is Alex, Kinchin Captain."

  Rozinshura buried his face in his hands. Right under his nose, with the plate of blootchkes. At least it was also right under Pookiterin's nose.

  "Did the colonel show any interest in him?"

  "No, Kinchin Captain. He was his usual arrogant self and hardly noticed him. That's why I gave him the keys."

  "Well, we have an advantage if we ever get out of here."

  "Captain," said Lady Featherdale, "do you think they will shoot us?"

  The captain paused for a very long time. "Normally I would say no, but if there really is a coup, it depends on who wins. The winners would perhaps worry about how Imperia were to react if they harmed you, but if we are in the hands of the losers?" He shrugged.

  "Oh," said her ladyship, looking somewhat subdued.

  "Listen!" hissed Niko. He pressed his ear to the door. "Somebody is here. I can't tell who. Should I knock?"

  Rozinshura nodded. Sooner probably would be better, for shooting or escaping.

  Episode 33

  Face to Face

  Lina lurked in the hall,