She heard thunder outside the mouth of the cave. It was raining with appalling violence, and water was coursing down along the floor past her feet and on into the deeper reaches of the mountain. No one knew how far the caves extended, for not even the slavers dared explore them to their end. Only the water dared do that.
It was morning, and now there seemed to be a break in the storm. The children needed to eat. So she led them out.
But she was mistaken; in a moment the rain resumed, and to her surprise it was freezing. Sleet battered them, making them hunch low and seek the partial shelter of trees.
She decided to go back to the cave, but it was too late.
The storm intensified into a hurricane filled with screaming demons. It drove her to her knees, obliterating her view of the cave entrance and filling her mind with fear.
The children cried, but could hardly be heard over the roar of the storm. She reached out, trying to bring them in to her for what scant protection she was able to offer. She realized that Fracto, the evil cloud, must be here, trying to destroy her. Fracto was one of the few things she could not readily befuddle by her illusions. Fracto had no illusions; he was simply destructive.
Blinded and deafened by the terrible storm. Iris went for the only shelter within range: a vulgar thyme tree. It was vulgar not in its appearance or attitude, but in the sense that it was a common, imperfect specimen with little effect on what was near it. Thus Iris and the children were able to huddle by it while suffering only a little distortion of time. It made it seem as if the storm had slowed, with the hailstones angling down at a lazy rate, bouncing slowly on the ground, and rolling in leisurely manner. The howling wind howled in a lower tone, as if tired, and blew the tree's leaves as if they were reluctant to respond.
She knew it was still daytime, but a great darkness was closing in all around them. Part of it was because of the density of the awful cloud, she knew, but that couldn't account for the rest. The children gazed around fearfully.
Even little Surprise seemed daunted. She didn't blame them; the effect was unnerving. She knew she should not have gone out into the storm like this; such weather was never to be trusted. But where was the darkness coming from?
Then she realized that it was because of the thyme tree.
It was slowing down the light itself, so that not enough could reach this spot, and that gave the darkness its chance. They would have to get away from the tree if they wanted more light. They couldn't stay here anyway, because the hailstones were piling up around their feet and making their toes deathly cold. This refuge was no refuge.
“Ch-children,” Iris said, her teeth chattering. “We m-must go on before we fr-freeze. I will m-make a Might to lead us to the m-mess hall.”
They nodded their little heads, dully. Even the slavery they faced was better than this bone-chilling cold.
Then something halfway good happened. The manacle on Iris' left wrist glazed over, wrinkled, and cracked partly open. The thyme and the cold were stressing it beyond its limit, and it was coming apart.
“Children!” she cried. “The manacles are being unmanned! Maybe we can get them off!”
They drew together in a circle, and pulled on the chain that linked them, and pried with sticks and banged with stones, and bit by bit the manacles came apart. One by one they pried them open and off, slipping their little hands free. They were no longer physically chained to each other.
But they remained socially and practically linked. None of them could survive this storm alone, and the children would surely perish if they escaped the storm and ran into the surrounding wilderness. Iris herself was little better off, because her illusion could not make a material change in her situation.
“Children, we are only half free,” she said. “We must get to the mess hall and get warm before we can think about getting away from here. I will make illusion manacles and chains, and you must act as if they are real, until we see a good chance to escape. Do you understand?”
They nodded. They understood all too well. They knew that the chain was only part of what bound them. Otherwise they could have escaped with Iris as a group. They knew how to play the part. They had learned how to survive in this awful situation.
Of course Iris herself didn't want to escape yet, because she had yet to identify the Master Slaver. But maybe he would show up before a good chance to escape with the children turned up.
Iris made a bright illusion lamp and sent it floating ahead. She no longer knew exactly which way the mess hall was, but anywhere was better than here. Then, as an afterthought, she caused the lamp to float down close to the hailstone-covered ground, and brightened it until it shone like a little sun. The ice closest to it melted, giving them a clear path. It was a good thing the hailstones did not realize that the light was illusion.
They followed the light, not much caring where it was going. The storm still raged around them, obscuring everything, but the little ball of light gave them comfort. It floated this way and that as the wind buffeted it, leading them along a tortuous path. It seemed to Iris that they should have reached the mess hall by this time, even after allowing for the curlicues of the route, but she didn't say anything for fear of alarming the children. She didn't dare let them be lost.
Then she spied a dim light ahead. She diminished her illusion light so that the slavers would not see it and forged on toward the real light, the children in her wake. The storm intensified around them as if trying to stop them from getting there. For a moment an icy blast of blown snow air swirled into her lungs and made her breath crystallize within them. She fell to her knees, gasping.
But she had to set an example. She put down her hands and crawled toward the light ahead, slowly drawing near to the huge heavy wooden doors of the building. The children crawled after her.
Then she hesitated. This didn't look like the mess hall.
It seemed to be a strange building. But they couldn't stay out here, and her limbs were already too numb to get her to any other place. They would have to gamble on this one.
She repaired her illusion as she struggled to her feet.
She made herself resemble a beautiful damsel in distress, and the children looked like cute wee lasses in worse distress. Actually this was all true enough; she merely enhanced their appearances so that anyone answering the door would find them appealing.
She conjured an illusion mirror, and by the light of its reflection adjusted her décolletage to show a bit more bulge of breast and depth of cleavage. Then she clenched her numb fists and jammed them at the doorbell, but couldn't break the ice that froze it. So she tried to beat her knuckles on the door, but they were too numb to make any sound. So she kicked at the door instead, and her lady slipper managed to make a faint feminine tap.
At last the door creaked forward. There was an old maid. “Why it's you. Iris!” the maid said. “What are you doing out there, with your knuckles numb and your cleavage getting iced over?”
“Magpie!” Iris exclaimed. For it seemed to be her old demoness lady-in-waiting maid who had helped raise her before she bloomed somewhat anemically into maidenhood.
“Close enough,” the other said. “I was just checking to see how you were doing. You seem to be locked into an interesting memory.” She vanished.
Iris tried to figure out exactly what Mentia was doing in her memory, but her chilled mind could not think efficiently enough to figure it out. So she took advantage of the open door to plod on in, with Surprise and the other children following. For that matter, what was Surprise doing here? She hadn't even been delivered until about seven decades later. But it didn't matter, as long as the building offered warmth.
When the children were all in, she pushed the door shut, locking out the dread storm. Immediately her extremities began to lose their chill, and the children looked better too.
But what was this building? Would they be welcome here? Or was this merely the prelude to worse mischief?
She decided to make a wild gamb
le. “This may be a strange house,” she whispered to the children. “Where the slavers don't govern. I'm going to abolish our chains.”
And the illusion manacles and chains vanished.
There was the sound of feet tramping along the floor of the hall to the door. Iris adjusted her illusory bust line, because that was her best line of defense. A man appeared, wearing a great sword. He paused, gazing at her artful front. “Now that's interesting,” he remarked.
Well, it was meant to be. “Kind sir,” she said plaintively. “I am a Maiden in Distress, and these are poor waifs in similar state. Will you help us?” She took a deep breath to accent the extent of her maidenly distress.
“Might as well,” he said. “I am the Knight Guard, here to protect this house from the ravages of dragons. Do you have anything to do with any dragon?”
“Not if we can help it, bold sir knight,” Iris said meekly.
“Then make yourselves useful,” he said sardonically. He turned on heel and toe and went back to his dicey card game board court.
Iris hesitated only two-thirds of a moment. “We can be most useful in the kitchen,” she told the children. “Besides, there should be food there.” So they trooped down the hall, following the smell of baking bread and curdling whey. It led to a large chamber whose entrance bore a sign reading HELL'S KITCHEN. That did not seem encouraging, but what else was there to do but go on in?
They went in. There was a huge fat cook in a white uniform with a hat that looked like a big popover muffin. He turned and saw them. “Get out of here, you rag-muffins,” he said. “The meal is not ready. I'm shorthanded.” He lifted one arm to show how short his hand was.
“But we came to help,” Iris said. “Many little hands make short work.”
“In that condition?” he demanded, staring at them, and Iris realized that she had let her illusion slip so that she was no longer a buxom creature with a low dress line and the children were no longer angelic waifs. Instead they were all somewhat cold, grimy stragglers. “Get the bunch of you to that tub and clean up first.” He gestured to a monstrous kettle in the fireplace. “I am the Demon Rum; report back to me when you're ready.”
Iris looked at the kettle. It was big enough to hold them all inside it at once. A horrible thought came to her. But she suppressed it. “Thank you,” she said, quietly restoring her cleavage.
He took a look, which was not surprising; if there happened to be a man alive who would not look when she Grafted that particular illusion, he was surely blind. “And eat something,” he said. “You look famished.” That was a remarkably perceptive observation.
“Thank you,” she repeated, deepening her cleavage and leaning forward. “But what should we eat?”
“Eat my hat,” he said, and tossed the popover muffin to her. Iris caught it, and found it solid and fraught with assorted berries, with steamy rich pastry between. It was big enough to make a meal for them all.
Iris tore the hat into several delicious pieces and passed them out. The children gobbled theirs down, and Iris herself ate ravenously under the cover of a more ladylike illusion. Of course they all got thoroughly gunked up with dough and cooked berries, but this was the time for it, with a good washing coming up.
The huge kettle was about half full of warm water. It would do. Iris made an inconspicuous illusion screen behind which the children stripped. Then she lifted each up into the kettle and had them start scrubbing themselves and each other. After the last one was in, she went behind the screen, removed her own clothing, crafted an illusion bathing suit, tossed all their clothing into the pot for scrubbing, and climbed in herself. The children were gleefully indulging in a splash and clothing fight, which was getting everything incidentally clean, so she let it be, covering it with an illusion of roiling smoke.
Surprise got into a fit of conjuring, producing things so awful that the other children made passionate choking and retching sounds: fresh vegetables. “It's my curse,” she said as she tossed cabbages, squash, broccoli, peas, beans, sweet and sour potatoes, turnips, tomatoes, beets, celery, and other disgusting produce at the others. Soon pieces of vegetable were strewn throughout the water. Iris reflected that this was probably the most enjoyment these children had ever gotten from vegetables.
In due course they and their clothing were pretty clean and the water was ugly dirty. Iris hung the clothing up by the fire to dry and clothed herself and the children in illusory matching olive drab uniforms. It was warm enough in the kitchen so that they were comfortable.
She led them to Demon Rum. “We are ready to work,” she announced.
“You have already done the job,” he said.
Iris and the children were surprised. “We have?”
“You made the soup.”
They remained baffled. “We did?”
“There in the kettle,” Rum explained. “Vegetable soup.”
They looked back at the kettle, whose fire was now blazing up to heat the water to boiling. “But—” Iris began, thinking of the way they had just washed their dirty bodies in it.
“Flavoring,” Rum explained as if reading her mind. “Secret ingredient.”
The children nodded, catching on. They would keep the secret. The very notion of tricking unsuspecting folk into eating vegetable soup was hilarious.
Their job done, they mounted the wooden stairs to the servants' quarters on the second floor. There was a nice chamber for them there, with plenty of cushions for sleeping on the floor. Naturally the children got into an enthusiastic pillow fight instead, and soon feathers were flying.
They did not stop until no pillows remained intact. Iris, distracted by concerns about exactly where they were and what might be their fate in this mysterious building, did not notice until too late. “Oh!” she cried in horror. “You have destroyed all the cushions!”
Then they heard the tramping of feet coming up the stairs. Iris could do nothing except craft a hasty illusion of pillows the way they had been before the door opened.
There stood the Demon Rum, with all their clothes in his short hands. “You forgot these,” he said. “They are now dry.” He gazed at the group with mild interest.
Iris realized belatedly that in her concern for the pillows, she had forgotten to maintain their illusions of clothing. All of them were standing naked. “Thank you,” she said, taking the bundle and holding it before her in the manner of a shield.
“There is one more task for you,” Rum said. “You must remove the feathers so that the cushions can be washed.”
He blinked as Iris let go of her pillow illusion. “Oh, I see you have already done it. Very good.” He gathered up the empty pillowcases and took them away.
Iris resumed breathing. How lucky could they get?
What happened then?” Surprise asked.
Iris was jolted out of her reverie. “Oh, you wouldn't care to listen to all that,” she said, concerned about infringing the Adult Conspiracy. She noticed absently that the train was passing through the city of Hinge again; it must have looped around.
“Oh yes I would!” Surprise said eagerly.
Iris realized that she had made a mistake. All children were eager to get past the Conspiracy, and of course that couldn't be allowed, lest adults lose their power over children. But maybe there wasn't too much forbidden material in the memory, and she could slip by whatever there was with an invisible ellipsis. This was after all a train of thought traveling to the past, so they were bound to explore memories. “Very well,” she said with only faint resignation, because the memory was an interesting one.
“Can I be in your memory scene again?”
“But that was long before you were delivered!” Iris protested.
“Sure, but you had children, so I joined them. I promise not to do any messy magic.”
At another rime. Iris might have been bemused by the anachronism. But if she could be with Surprise now, being physically twenty-three, why not be with the child when she was mentally twenty-three? “Ver
y well,” she repeated.
After all, memories were best when truly shared.
Iris woke next morning with a feeling of great loss. She knew she had dreamed of her Lost Love once again, the one she had never had in anything other than a dream.
With a lingering trace of unease she whispered into her pillow, “Oh, Power that Be, how long must I bear this loneliness?” But there was as usual no answer.
She glanced at the melting none-of-your-beeswax candle-clock and saw that it was still early. She quickly slid out from under her warm down-filled duvet, shivering as her bare feet met the slabs of golden-flecked sandstone and sky-blue turquoise that made up the royal checkerboard pattern of the floor. She hadn't noticed how elegant this chamber was yesterday. Of course the floor had been mostly covered by feathers from the pillow fight, and then they had had to go downstairs to work on another meal in the kitchen, and it had been dark by the time they returned. So this was really her first real chance to examine the chamber in detail. She was impressed. Who could have such a fancy chalet? It could not be far from the slave camp, because though they had gotten lost in the storm, they had blundered only a short time. But she was sure she had never seen anything like this in the vicinity.
The children, exhausted by their labors of kettle and pillow, were sprawled happily amidst their scattered cushions, still asleep. This was a blessing for them, too: to be suddenly well fed and cared for, instead of huddled in a dank dark cave. But Iris had what some might consider to be a suspicious nature; she wondered whether there was some hidden catch in this delight.
She stepped quietly to the lavatory, where there were wonderful conveniences of sanitation. When she drew back the pretty cotton/linen curtains shrouding the round bathing chamber she could not suppress a gasp of pleasure.
There was a steaming bath already prepared. “But this can't be for me!” she breathed, hoping she was wrong.
“Of course it can be, dear,” Magpie said, appearing beside her. “I made your favorite lemon verbena-scented bath. You can't expect to endure with a mere vegetable soup bath, now can you?”