Another silence, then, “After all, you did say you wanted adventure.”
And after another silence, and a multi-kid variation on the Evil Fish Eye sending radioactive rays at Puddlenose (who just drew pictures on the table with the water) I said, “This is not the first time you’ve gotten mixed up in this kind of stuff.”
He just shrugged and gave us a fake smile.
I leaned in so he would see me giving him the ol’ hairy eyeball. “What are we s’posed to do with a gaggle of grownup bad guys? We would be soooooo great fighting ’em, and what else is there?”
“Your magic?”
“I don’t know any spells for getting rid of bad guys.”
“Why don’t you do what you did for that clod with the magic, before we got grabbed by Shnit’s gang?”
“I don’t have any shrinking stuff anymore.” I turned out my pockets. “That was the last of it. And I don’t know that magic—it takes ages and ages to make, is what Clair told me.”
“Yeah, but you could freeze ’em. Just long enough so the locals can do whatever they need to.”
I considered. “I do remember the stone spell. I think. I’ll do an experiment or two, but one thing for sure, it’s long and complicated, or will be for me. Maybe I could prepare a token, and lay the spells on it ... but you’d have to get all the bad guys together in a group. Otherwise, soon as I stone one of ’em, the others will either squash me, or run.”
“So we’ll get ’em all together,” Puddlenose said.
“How?”
“I have a plan.”
“What?” everybody said.
He rubbed his hands. “They have all these rules, right? And so they must have a lot of penalties. So we,” he said happily, “are going to get ourselves slated for execution!”
o0o
First we played tricks on them. This was while we were trying to find out which of them was the head snake.
Not that that took long. The one in charge had a kind of throne in their main building, which had once been a huge stable, and they were in the process of changing into a kind of fortress, making their prisoners haul rocks and build walls. (We noticed the angry prisoners weren’t exactly whizzes about doing the work.)
After a day or so of itchweed in all the bunks, nasty spices in their food, mud dropped into their boots (at least Id said it was mud, but I noticed he’d been over at the makeshift stable), and stuff like that, the bad guys were complaining to their leader worse than anyone complained about them.
Especially when the prisoners started laughing at them.
The head snake, who we started calling King Grumblespit and Grubsnakegrundge and suchlike because ‘grun’ was at the beginning of his name, ordered them to go out in groups—and they could use their weapons on anyone not obeying the rules.
By the third day, most of the market knew something was going on, and so, though all the grownups were being really really obedient—with the kind of exaggerated, nasty politeness that school principals are especially good at when they hate kids—they were waiting to see what would happen.
And none of them turned us in. In fact, if they saw us, they looked away like hoo, see the pretty cloud?
We helped hustle things along by the fourth day, gathering in the center and making loud speeches about how rotten King G was. Most couldn’t understand us, but enough could that the word spread, and there was soon an enormous crowd.
The whole contingent of bad guys arrived, swords waving menacingly, and forced the crowd back, so they could surround us and march us into the main building.
There, the leader faced us (that is, he sat down, then shot up again, then hastily swiped off the tacks Klutz had planted on his throne, then sat down again).
He found an interpreter, who said in passable Mearsiean, “Who are you?”
We all turned to Puddlenose. This was, of course, the opportunity of a lifetime.
With a straight face, Puddlenose started unloading his name. The interpreter reddened, then gave it to the King Snake as Puddlenose said the words, but the fellow figured out there was something fishy, growled a threat, and so the interpreter translated.
There were snickers and rustles among the listening bad guys.
The clod cursed, but Puddlenose spread his hands and said, “I can’t help it! That’s my name!”
“What were you doing out there?”
“Wasn’t it obvious?”
“Answer the question!”
“Okay, okay, don’t snap my nose off. I was yelling insults about your rule, of course.”
The clod snarled, then turned to the rest of us, and demanded our names. Of course we delivered the aliases we’d chosen, except that Id kept changing his mind. “No! It’s Gasbaggio Snackleblat! No, it’s Horsefeed Funnelbelch! No—”
“Take then out and kill them all,” the head snake roared.
Puddlenose was grinning like a maniac.
Id looked nervously at me—after all, he and Klutz had been here before.
“I hope you’re ready, CJ,” Klutz muttered.
“I think so,” I said.
Out they marched us—and I waited until the clods were all in a row, ready to watch the show, then I flicked out the rock I’d made my token, gabbled my spell, and before the arrow squad had even lined up (and everybody was watching them) the head clods slowly turned grayish and just ... froze.
“It worked!” I squeaked.
Puddlenose gaped. “There was a doubt?”
Well, everybody went nutso then. Some of the guards chased us, but we scattered and ran all over, until the guys found themselves isolated from each other, and surrounded by angry people. Oops.
Somebody who spoke our language came up, and I explained that the spell would only last a couple days at most—that was the best I could do.
“It’s enough,” he said, and loped off somewhere to tell someone.
Well, the result caused us girls to remember that, even if Puddlenose wasn’t as good at some stuff as we were (like pocalubes, climbing trees, thinking up funny skits, and so forth) when he had ideas during traveling, it was an excellent idea to listen.
What happened next was both exciting and frustrating. The secret turned out to be away in the forest. Now, the bad guys had been sent out in gangs to search, but they couldn’t find the rest of the country, though they knew it was there.
After what we did (and someone recognized Puddlenose) we got invited into the secret: under the ancient redwoods, there was an entire warren, a city. Maybe even bigger. Like the Junky, only centuries old, with decorated tunnels and huge caverns with houses inside, and glow globes that dimmed to look like stars at night, and during the day, somehow got sunlight in them, which they reflected to look like day. So they had fruit trees growing straight and tall because there wasn’t any wind, and lots of flowers and grass, and waterfalls that fed carefully bricked meandering streams.
We only saw a tiny bit, because we couldn’t understand the people. Puddlenose told us, “They are really big on storytelling. It goes on all night, with others doing pantomime, kind of, which is how I knew what was going on. Sounds a bit like songs and chants.”
I looked around the cavern we were invited into. “I’m coming back some day. But when we can understand.”
The others agreed.
We left the next day, and promised to keep the secret—which is why I haven’t written down any of the details. I figure, anyone who reads these probably knows about them, as the cities are more known now, but the accesses might still be secret.
Nobody’s getting them from me!
TEN
“Home!”
We had to cross some mountains. We hired horses, as we still had plenty of coins left over from our raid. We paid a kid Puddlenose’s age to take us over—he hired out as a caravan guide, and we were officially a caravan, even though we didn’t have any wagons or stuff. That was fun. He told stories about his travels, and added to Puddlenose that kids could get that kind of job
, if you could just find a powerful mage and enough coin to get the Universal Language Spell.
That got Puddlenose excited, so what with that, and the bitter cold high up in the mountains, and the fact that we’d been away so long, we were more than ready to get home.
We only had one incident during that trip. Couldn’t really call it an adventure, because the word ‘adventure’ suggests to me a lot of action. This was very late at night, when we were all camped around the fire. Suddenly the guide sat up, looking around. Dhana was already alert, poised, and then I heard it: rustles and the crunch of gravel.
We were being surrounded.
What to do? Magic, I thought. What? Too many, and out of sight, meant I couldn’t try that stone spell trick. No, it had to be something they saw.
I know! I sat up, whispered the illusions spell, then I started chanting loudly and waving my arms as an illusion took form just above the Fire Stick’s flame. I made a ghostly version of Dhana, and made it do one of her slow, spooky dances, her fingers wavering like smoke.
The noises ceased abruptly. I whispered another illusion spell as the first began to fade, and then began chanting pocalubes slowly. The others got the idea, and began chanting back, adding silly words droned in low voices.
So that freed me to begin a bunch of illusions—I made creepy monsters with talons, then sent them drifting out toward the darkness ...
The rustles and footsteps hustled away much quicker than they’d come.
The guide left us at a ridge that led down to dry land that swiftly turned to desert. It was boiling hot, nothing but glaring blue sky overhead, but he told us if we hurried, there would be oases along the way. Dhana nodded—if there was water, she’d find it.
“This has to be the Senyavin,” I yelled. “I just feel it.”
No one argued.
Well, desert is boring and hot, so skip a bunch of days, until at last, at last we saw Mt. Marcus on the horizon, and the cloudtop and the white castle, hazy and sun touched.
We reached the forest at last.
Tired as we were, we ran harder, wanting to reach the Junky—see the girls’ faces—get something to drink and eat. I just wanted to flop on my own bed, in my own room, and look at my drawings on the walls, and not move.
But then we heard voices—angry kid voices.
“The girls,” Seshe panted, running next to me.
“It’s the clods,” Dhana hissed, and sprinted ahead, spotted a stream, and vanished. She reappeared in a rainbow of droplets. “This way!”
She veered, and we followed, leaping over mossy logs, running around old, tangled shrubs, ducking through hollows formed by old trees, until we reached a clearing I vaguely remembered. It was the one where we’d first met PJ’s slobs!
Jilo and his pals were on horseback, the girls ranged in a line. When they saw us, eyes and mouths rounded in surprise.
And the Chwahirs’ eyes and mouths rounded in disbelief. I looked away from the creepiness of those round black eyes, as Jilo and his gang took in our dusty selves, with the hats, boots, swords, extra clothes, and all the rest.
“Where have you been?” Irene demanded, hands on hips.
I glared at Jilo. He had to know where we’d been sent, or rather, where we were supposed to end up: with Shnit! Now that I knew just what that meant, I boiled with rage.
“So the summons spell did not function,” he said to Puddlenose.
Summons? What did he mean by that? Not that I was going to ask a Chwahir anything—I’d just get lies and nastiness.
“Later,” I said to Irene. “What’s going on here?”
“We told them to get lost, and I think they were about to ride us down. Or try.”
“And see what they get!” Faline hefted a mud ball.
Jilo whispered to his pals. I whispered spells. As their hands tightened on the reins, I quickly passed out pies.
“Oh wow,” Puddlenose breathed. “I never thought I’d get to be in one of your pie fights.”
As the Chwahir started the horses forward, I yelled, “Ready, zero, launch!”
Pies whizzed and splatted.
Three connected, one hit a horse on the neck, and one sailed harmlessly to squelch onto a tree, but that was enough to cause the horses to sidle, rear, and whinny.
Jilo had ducked, but he got hit anyway because four people threw pies at him. So he was covered with honey-cottage-cheese-pea-soup-treacle-raison-and-cherry glop.
“You think that will stop us?” he said.
“Then it’s war—war to the pie!” I yelled.
“To the pie?” Jilo asked.
I said, “Sure. Oh, I know you Chwahir like war to the knife, but we like more imagination. Also, Clair doesn’t like killing.” I didn’t add that I didn’t either. I did add, “So if you do any, she’ll get angry.”
“And then what?” Jilo asked derisively. “Kill us?”
“No,” Sherry said, her eyes round. “She’ll just turn you into statues or something, and let future rulers decide what to do.”
“Until then, the birds all get target practice on your solid stone heads,” Irene put in. “Hey, just like they are now!”
Jilo looked around, up, down, then gave us a peculiar sort of smile, as cottage cheese plopped from his black clothes to the ground.
He muttered something in Chwahir and left, without another word. All we heard was the rustle of horse hooves in the grass, the creak of saddle gear, and then the Chwahir were gone.
“Home,” I yelled—meaning the cloudtop. If the Chwahir were poking around, they just had to be trying to find the Junky, and I didn’t want them sneaking after us.
As soon as we got in range, we transferred Upstairs.
We found Clair in the library. As soon as she saw us, her anxious face turned bright pink and happy. She clasped her hands. “I knew you’d be back!”
As the girls began talking at once, Clair separated off Klutz and Id, and thanked them for going to Puddlenose’s rescue. “But next time, let me know first, and we’ll plan something,” she said. “People have missed you. A lot! We even had volunteers finish the flower-and-bird decorations in your big receiving room. Just because they want you back.”
Klutz and Id made faces—they’d talked a little about how dumb it was to both go off investigating, and leaving the province with no one in charge.
“What did we miss?” Klutz asked.
Clair filled them in—not that there was much. Except for the northern border and the constant worry about Kwenz, there really isn’t much in the way of official government stuff in Wesset North. The Guilds do that. Klutz and Id make sure no one cheats anyone else, but mostly they plan the best parties and festivals, and contests, they decide if the Guilds are locked in some disagreement.
They quickly finished up their talk, then Clair transferred them home to their Destination room.
Then Clair turned to me, and pointed at my ring. “You didn’t use that.”
“It would only transfer me,” I said.
She nodded. “Of course. I wonder if I should change the spell, so it brings me to you, because you are more likely to be with the girls if something happens.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said.
“Tomorrow.” She gave a nod.
Well, we got baths, food, and then it was story time. It took a while because everyone interrupted everyone else, and Faline kept asking us to go back to the play outside of Arthla. Irene muttered jealously that she gets left out whenever something special happens. Diana wanted to look at the swords and knives (I gave her the one I’d brought, after telling the others about my idea of starting a fashion with the ugly sash).
But at last it was done, and we all trooped off to bed.
Except I couldn’t sleep, so I went out in my nightgown to find Clair. It felt so good to be in my own nightie, in the White Palace again!
She was in the library, pulling down book after book.
“Trying to find a way to learn that Language Spell?”
I asked.
She grinned. “I think I’m going to have to seek it elsewhere. Problem?”
“I can’t sleep yet. I keep seeing those horrible goggle-eyes. That Shnit is the creepiest sneeble I ever saw in my life. He makes Kwenz seem like ... like ... well, not like a friend, but—”
“Not as threatening?”
‘Yeah. The way he stared at me, like he recognized me. Or—or was almost able to recognize me.”
“That’s weird,” Clair said, her upper lip wrinkling. “That’s almost as creepy as everything else about him.”
“Who could he mean? What could it mean?”
“I don’t know, but one thing is clear: he knows a lot more about us now. This is not at all a good thing.”
“No. So tomorrow, while you fix my ring, we start practicing. Speaking of practice, we ran smash into Jilo and his creeps on our way in. Wow, were they surprised to see us. Our being sent far away has to be a plan they flubbed up, but he called it a summons spell.”
“A summons spell? Maybe that’s something Shnit demanded of his brother,” Clair said, frowning. “In case Puddlenose was seen. It is wonderful that they did not recognize him, but that won’t be true anymore.”
I’d been elated, but my good mood popped like a balloon meeting a pin. “Of course. Jilo probably galloped straight back to report our being home—and Kwenz will make sure to send a detailed description of Puddlenose. Ugh! Shnit will be extra mad that he had him, then he got away!”
“He is extra mad all the time anyway, from what I can tell. Anyway, as for us here, the girls have often seen Jilo and his cronies poking around in the forest.”
“That can’t possibly be good, either. They don’t want to burn it down, or cut it, do they?”
“I don’t know. It could be that they’re looking for our hideout, like you guessed, or even to see if you had returned. Kwenz communicates with the Auknuges—oh! I can’t believe I didn’t tell you! What with your trip—”
“That’s it.” I smacked my hands together, then explained what I’d vowed about lock-picking and the like. “If we’re going to be coming up against all these villains, we need more tricks,” I said.