for the telling.
"That was not Winston Argoss," Rozinshura said sharply. "That was a harmless old man. Argoss died in the train wreck this morning. He was shot by the bandits."
Sochir stopped, mid-sentence. He scowled at the interruption, but he could not ignore what was just said, and now everyone was looking at him.
"You must be mistaken," said Sochir after a moment.
"No," said Rozinshura.
"He must be Winston Argoss!"
Pookiterin saw his opportunity, and he strode forward, head high, his life in his teeth.
"Rozinshura is correct!" he declared. "That was not Winston Argoss, that was the murderer of Winston Argoss!"
Sochir stammered, and everyone else looked at one another. Pookiterin warmed to his tale.
"I have been tracking them for... for weeks! They are foreign agents attempting to assassinate their own ambassador. I nearly had them, but they waylaid me. They took my uniform in hopes of infiltrating the train ... and they had this sword. They were planning to frame Cussar rebels for the crime. I escaped and took this sword. I fought them. I injured the younger one, and the old one tried to shoot me. He missed, and I swung my sword at him, but he jumped in the river. I tell you he jumped!"
Sochir looked quickly to Vshtin to see whether he believed the story.
The High Commissar was very still, his icy silver-blue eyes on Pookiterin. Pookiterin looked like he might crack under that gaze, but he managed not to, and presently Vshtin turned to Sochir.
"You will debrief him on his activities," he said, and he turned back to the car.
"We should track these so-called agents," said Sochir. "If that's what they are!"
"Leave that to the local authorities," said Vshtin. "They know the territory."
And since he gave no orders to Rozinshura, the captain took it that Vshtin did not care whether the fugitives were found or not.
Pookiterin stepped forward eagerly. Perhaps he would get away with murder, but probably not. He was unlikely to stand up to interrogation. He'd tell everything he knew of the plot and more. The only question was whether the interrogators wanted to know the answers.
But for his knowledge, Pookiterin got to ride in the car, with Vshtin and the bodyguards, while Rozinshura and Tralkulo were left on the road. Sochir and his security men went trotting back on foot.
Rozinshura sent Tralkulo down to the dock to look around. She returned and reported that there was some blood on the gravel, but none on the dock. Also there was no body floating in the still water around the boats, which there should be if the man fell in dead.
"Then perhaps they escaped," said Rozinshura. He felt much better at that prospect.
"Should I fetch a troop to track them?"
"In the morning," said Rozinshura. "It's too dark to track."
"They might take a boat in the night and escape."
"That would be wise of them," agreed Rozinshura.
He sighed and turned away and started to limp toward home. Whoever was injured, he hoped it was not serious. The old man clearly needed some watching, and Rozinshura had no desire to find them, dead or alive.
Episode 42
The Mentor
Alex had no idea where to go, but he supposed that was all right because he couldn't actually go any place anyway.
His sprained left ankle hurt like hell, so maybe it was broken. The cut on his right leg was still oozing blood, though, so it was more important. He used the large handkerchief he found in the pocket of Pookiterin's uniform to tie up his leg.
He hadn't heard much of the fuss that went on up on the road above. He just saw a lone soldier come down and cast about. She spotted the blood trail, but didn't follow it. She had gone away. They'd be looking for him in the morning most likely.
And he couldn't move. Not much anyway. He might make it to one of the boats that were tied up by the little dock. It was the only way he would get very far on that ankle... but he didn't know where he would be going. Had no plan.
It seemed like it would be better to try to find Lina. She said he'd never find her, but she also said she lived in the village near the wreck... but he didn't know if she was telling the truth.
Or he could make his way back to the kitchen in the inn, and throw himself on Niko's mercy. Niko would at least feed him. Alex realized he was starving, and exhausted, and thirsty. He didn't know if he could make it up the steps, let alone back to the inn. And they'd probably arrest him.
He lay there in the dark under that upturned boat and considered ripping apart the jacket to make a pressure bandage for his ankle, but he was too cold.
Then he heard the sound. It was an odd sound; familiar and yet wrong. Footsteps on gravel and something ... crinkly. Like plastic sheeting.
The footsteps crunched closer, and a small light played across the ground. Alex couldn't see anything but dark feet and that light that flicked back and forth; a flashlight or lamp following the blood trail. Had the soldier come back?
Alex tensed, and tried not to make a sound as he strained to see more. The feet came to a stop beside the boat, and something dropped loudly to the ground.
It was a plastic zip-top freezer bag, wet but sealed up, with a first aid kit and a roll of duct tape inside.
"Alex?" said a voice. It was Thorny.
Alex rolled out from under the lee of the boat and Thorny knelt down. He was dripping wet, but he had another plastic bag with more first aid supplies: hand sanitizer, a towel, scissors.
"Thank God you're alive," he said. "How badly are you hurt?"
"Just a bad cut to my leg and a sprained ankle."
Thorny was unpacking his medical supplies. "We'll get it bandaged, and then we'll waterproof it with the duct tape. This river might be clean enough, but that muddy river back home... You don't want that water getting at the wound."
"Thorny, I'm not going back," said Alex. "This is home."
Thorny looked at him firmly. "You need urgent care. The emergency room. And, frankly my boy, you are not ready for this yet."
"I'm not ready?"
"Not yet," said Thorny. "Listen to me. I am your teacher. Your aunt told you you'd jump in the lake when you were ready, didn't she? Well, you didn't jump in the lake. I did. You did a fine job of getting me out of trouble, but you are not ready for this. Not, at least, until your leg heals up, and we have a chance to settle our affairs. I don't know how long it will take to sell my house in this market..."
"Sell your house? Thorny you don't belong here."
"Nonsense! Anyone with heart belongs here," declared the professor. Then he went on in a hushed voice. "This is the best thing that ever happened to... to anyone. Certainly to me. You can't shut me out of it. You can't leave me to explain your disappearance to the police, when you were last seen in my company. You can't do that to me."
He paused and examined Alex's wound in the light of the flashlight.
"Besides, I have a plan," he said. "I've been thinking about that paper you wrote, and what most of those heroes have in common. They're all rich. Zorro, Batman, the Scarlet Pimpernel; they all have enormous fortunes. That's what we need, Alex. That will allow us to do anything."
"They all inherited a fortune from their parents."
"And so did you, didn't you?"
"In American money. I can't use that here. There's no rate of exchange...."
"But there is!" said Thorny. "The oldest money exchange in the world; Gold. We both go home, settle our affairs, sell homes and cars, pretend to have become paranoid survivalists, and cash our money in for gold."
"I can see us bringing hundreds of pounds of gold in our pockets. We'll drown."
"Diamonds, then."
Alex paused. That could work. Maybe not for an enormous fortune, but for enough to get them set up. And who knows, maybe they could make multiple trips....
"It's settled, then," said Thorny. "We'll get you home, and we'll both drink enoug
h so that we can tell the people at the emergency room that we were smashed and tried juggling knives or something. And then while you're recuperating I'll sell my house, and you'll see if you have any of your aunt's things left. Perhaps she left some papers or something--"
"She did," said Alex. "I thought they were notes for a novel."
"Excellent! That will be our first priority, then. Do our homework. You'll have to teach me some of the lingo, too."
By the time they were done talking, Thorny had the leg bandaged tightly, and sealed it with duct tape. They taped up the ankle too, and with Thorny's help, Alex was able to hobble to the dock and look down in the water. He wasn't wearing the ring, and so he couldn't see any but one reflection, that of the Awarshi rocks and boats and woods.
He almost pulled back, thinking again about how he was home and how he didn't know if he would be able to get back, but Thorny locked arms with him, and tipped them in. Alex had time to think:
"I will come back. I will--"
Then they entered the water without a splash.
back to Table of Contents
"And What About Lina?"
an epilogue, or "credit cookie"
Lina waited in the shadows near the inn for Captain Rozinshura to return. He had not come back with the car. She didn't know where he was. She should give up and go back where she belonged, but she was afraid to. It was easier to worry about the book and the note and what happened to them.
Perhaps the captain had read it. Perhaps he had done the right thing with it -- he would probably know better than she did. But she did not know that he had, and she wanted to fulfill her promise to the