A Hero's Curse (11 page)

Tig flicks his tail. “I’m going to scout around.” He flicks his tail again, letting me know which direction he is traveling and is gone. It was nice of him to say that. Usually he would just leave. Must be the fact that we are in a totally unfamiliar realm under the Valley of Fire. I’m glad to see he draws the line somewhere.

I sit on the bench and breathe in the smells and sounds around me: the chirruping from the square in front of me, the high pitched squeals and squeaks from what must be little Urodela playing. I hear “hello” chirruped often enough I stop thinking it is Cheep coming back. This seems like a wonderful place, constantly cool, and I’m not one to miss the light. I do miss the wind on my face. The bench I am sitting on has the same dry moss as my bed, but under my toes is silky smooth moss that must be manicured somehow. In my room the moss is a thick spongy texture that lets my toes sink in.

All morning and afternoon I sit and listen. The square in front of me is crowded. I wonder how they fit all of them down here. I am so used to our wide-open valley with the wind sweeping through everything, this could start to feel a bit claustrophobic. Tig wanders over and takes a nap next to me for an hour, and then he’s gone again. I’m itching to leave, to get home, but at the same time I want to stay. It seems so steady here. Calm. The world outside this tiny kingdom has tipped upside down, and I don’t know how to set it right. I don’t know if I can set it right. So I don’t complain about Cheep being absent. I don’t say anything. I just sit and listen and think. I don’t know what we’ll do when we get home. I don’t know if the mercenaries will still be at the house or if there is even a house left. I don’t know why Uncle Cagney let the mercenaries make it to the house. I wonder again if he is okay. If my parents are okay. Rather than make me reluctant to go home it just increases the urgency. I have to find out what happened. My thoughts wander from one worry to another, and in between the worries I just sit and let the sounds, smells, and moods wash over me.

My internal clock tells me it is evening when Cheep returns. He is less communicative than he was this morning. “I have discussed your decision with the queen,” he says.

“What decision?” I interrupt.

“Your decision to return home.”

“It’s not a decision,” I say, trying to keep my voice neutral. “It’s the only option open to us. It’s either go home or stay here, and we have to find out what is happening to my family.”

He is silent for a second too long.

“Going after King Mactogonii was never an option,” I say, cutting off his train of thought.

He ignores my statement and moves on. “You will leave the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow we will do what we can to describe a safe passage for your return to your region.”

I bite my lip. I had been hoping they could escort us all the way to the edge of the Valley of Fire, but we already owe them so much, and I know we have disappointed them. A twinge runs up my arm where the lava ripped my arm when the rock basilisk grabbed me. The words come out even though I know how selfish I must sound. “Could you escort us to the edge of the Valley of Fire?” I ask.

“Our realm of safety ends a good distance from your Kingdom of Mar,” says Cheep. “That’s lassertilla territory and there are no safe passages in that direction. We will do what we can, but we won’t send spotters beyond our own tunnels.”

He doesn’t take my hand. Instead Tig leads the way by keeping his tail brushing casually against my leggings. This new armor does make it harder to feel the subtle brush of Tig’s tail.

Cheep doesn’t speak in Lingua Comma the whole way back to our room. He chirrups to other Urodela several times. At our room the door swings shut with a resounding finality. There are mushrooms, fruit, and something like sweet bread waiting for us.

The evening is unusually quiet. I don’t even hear the usual faint squeaks from the Urodela. For a long time I sit in the darkness and stroke Tig’s coat, wishing Cheep wasn’t so upset. At some point I must have fallen asleep because I hear the pattering and chirrups that announce our captors have come back.

Cheep is there again, but this time breakfast is a hurried affair. “You have an appointment with the queen,” he says. I am freshly aware of how my hair must look after sleeping in moss for several days. Tig confirms. “You look like a scarecrow that got hit by lightning and then decided she still looked too nice—”

“I get it. Your honesty is painful.”

“I try,” Tig replies.

Cheep leads us in silence again, this time to what Tig describes as a mossy chamber with benches along the walls. We wait for nearly an hour before Cheep interprets several chirrups as our summons. Cheep takes my hand again and leads us in to speak with the queen. The room feels small. As we are led to low moss seats I elbow Tig for a description.

“Small room. The queen is here with four bodyguards and another Urodela. Then there’s Cheep and us, so not too much of a crowd. The guards are standing back at the door. We could probably take them all if we wanted to.”

The queen begins and goes on for quite some time before letting Cheep interpret. “You will leave tomorrow,” he says. “Our scouts say the safest passage back to your kingdom will be to go down the cliffs and around the Valley of Fire to the west, rather than trying to go back through lassertilla territory. We will escort you as far as the dry bed of the Redlan River. From there you will go over the cliffs near where the falls were.”

It doesn’t sound any easier than our trip in here, but I’m only too happy to hear an alternative to meeting a rock basilisk.

“The way back should only take a couple of days. At least, to get back to your Kingdom of Mar. It may take an additional day or two for you to make it back to your home.” He is silent for a moment, then continues. “The queen would like to tell you more about your King Mactogonii.”

I take in an audible breath, but the queen starts chirruping again. In a few moments, Cheep translates. “Your king only spent a few weeks here, but he had told the queen that he was seeking something which would destroy the daemon. He had been listening to testimonies for several days about the history of our exodus from the marshlands and descriptions of the daemon, when he got very excited and insisted on leaving immediately,” says Cheep.

Cheep chirrups back to the queen, and I have the feeling he is reminding her of details, which would make sense because he would have been present if there was any kind of testimony to be translated.

“He didn’t even take all his things?” I ask, fingering the tunic I’m wearing.

“No, he left a pack, including the clothes you’re wearing. Those clues plus a couple of other things he said led us to believe he wasn’t going far, that he was close to the end of his search. We thought he had found a way to kill the daemon.”

“Nothing like a little stroll around the Valley of Fire in the buff,” says Tig.

“He didn’t leave unclothed, Tigrabum,” Cheep sounds slightly offended, “he had his belongings and weapons. He was dressed for war.”

“Not sure how this matters to us,” Tig says.

Cheep translates back and then there are several moments of low chirrups from the queen and another of the Urodela. One of the Urodela leaves the room, and Cheep pipes up again. “It matters to everyone here. You don’t see Essie Brightsday, but it isn’t because you’re blind.”

“See what? You’re asking something that can’t be done!” I almost shout in the silence that follows. Cheep doesn’t bother to translate.

A shuffling lets me know that the Urodela are returning, this time there is more than one. An awkward scuffle sounds like they are carrying something. They shuffle over and one of them steps on my foot as they place something on the moss in front of me. They shuffle backward and a silence ensues, save for a thin rattling from whatever is in front of me. Tig is silent. I slip out of my seat and kneel on the moss. The thing is an Urodela. I can feel each of its tiny ribs. Where all the Urodela I have felt so far have felt cool and rubbery this one feels dry, hot and leathery. Its skin is shriveling. The arms move fractionally and a three-fingered paw clutches my fingers. The thin rattling gets faster and then it lets out a sad half squeak.

Cheep translates. “She said, ‘thanks.’”

I withdraw my hand and take my place on the bench again. “For what?”

“For coming,” says Cheep.

“What’s wrong with her?” I ask. The Urodela shuffle forward again, picking her up and carrying her out. “She’s completely gray,” says Tig. “No color at all.”

When the room quiets again, Cheep scuffs forward. “The Urodela are dying. Your people are dying. We think your king found something in the histories he heard from our old ones. You could listen as well, try to find what he found, and at the very least take it back to your people. Perhaps you can’t continue the king’s quest, but think of how you
could
help. Helping him is saving your people. You could try to think of where he would go. As a humani walker and one of his subjects you’re closer to him than we are. Where would he go? Why? What would he take? You say that the king disappeared, and this is the first any in your kingdom have heard of him. Get as much as you can from this opportunity before going home so that you can pass it on to others. We can show you the direction he went. We can guess with you where he might have traveled.”

“What’s wrong with her?” I ask again. The squeaks and whistles bounce around the room for several minutes before Cheep answers.

“She is from the upper city. The lake has receded, leaving that part of the city dry. Hundreds have crowded into the lower city, but there are still far too many left in the upper city. The water recedes, the moss withers, and we die.”

“But the Urodela seem happy here,” I say, trying to reconcile the dried up husk that has left the room with what I’ve heard so far. I’ve been trying to resist but my arm is itching so badly that I finally have to scratch it. No one seems to notice.

“They are excited to hope again,” says Cheep.

I give up scratching my arm and dig my fingers in the moss on the bench, twisting the strands between my fingers. “What do you need us to do?” I ask. I hear the signature hiss from Tig that tells me how he feels. Cheep issues several whistling chirrups to the queen and another conversation ensues before he can translate.

“We can get the old ones who are still alive together and you can listen to their accounts. The queen and her advisors will discuss their theories as well. I also have some memory of the histories from translating for King Mactogonii.”

“How long will that take?” I ask, unable to keep the concern and subtle aggravation out of my voice.

Cheep seems a bit taken back. “Several weeks I suppose—”

“We can’t wait several weeks,” I blurt, “we need to leave tomorrow. Can’t you just tell us what we need to take with us?”

“We don’t know what it is!” squeaks Cheep. The Urodela in the room shuffle around, and Tig sits up from lying on my lap.

Tig flicks his tail back and forth, and I know he’s keyed up for action. “Looks like these little salamanders are armed,” says Tig. “The guards have their pointy sticks again, but they look like they have something painted on the end of these. It could be poison.”

I can taste the tension in the air. The queen issues several low chirps, and I immediately feel the room relax. Tig sinks back down into my lap.

“I apologize. We don’t know where King Mactogonii went,” says Cheep. “He left through a tunnel that would exit at the Red Giants well north of Watangau Falls. We think he might have been trying to cross the Gray Wastelands, or maybe he was heading directly toward the Cauldron’s Crater.”

“But . . .” I encourage.

“But the tunnel he used is impassible. At least for us. As we’ve told you, he slipped away suddenly. The end of the tunnel is an ogre den. We couldn’t follow. So we can only hope that he made it past the ogres. Then, if he continued, he would have dropped off the Red Giants somehow.”

“What did he hear that made him leave?” I ask, genuinely interested.

“The queen has asked the same thing. I don’t know. There were many stories. That day was just like all the others. We believe the story he heard that day was a rather plain one. The Urodela who told his story didn’t even see the daemon. Just a hurricane-like wind that was on fire sweeping down through the swamp. His partner was killed, and he grabbed two of his little ones and made it under the swamp and then wandered for several weeks until he found the Red Giants. Climbed the Watangau Falls gap and our spotters found him.”

“He escaped under the water?”

“There was no water by that time. He escaped through the tunnels under the swamp.”

“What tunnels?”

“The tunnels that run under the swamp. There is a foundation of what was an ancient stone city many years ago, so the tunnels are rock and easy to navigate. Apparently many of them were filled with water when the marshes were full. Everyone knows this. All the old Urodela used to play in the tunnels and some Urodela even had homes in them.”

“I didn’t know,” I say. Of course, that doesn’t mean much. Uncle Cagney would probably know if that were important. I’ll bet he would even remember what the ruined city was called. I wish he were here. I wish he could hear what Cheep is saying. He would know what questions to ask.

“Is it important?” asks Cheep.