Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (16 page)

Anyway, the lookout yelled that land was nigh, and sure
enough we started to smell a kind of muddy wood whiff that was different than
the sea. We spotted a lot of sea birds swooping and skimming and diving, and
finally there were the bumps on the horizon, and new land.

“We’re brushing Aleya,” Captain Heraford told us as we
sailed near. “You should be all right. Last time we were this way, there’d been
trouble, but nothing like the Chwahir.”

“Are you stopping?” Sherry asked.

“No. Nothing much for us here. We might poke north, see
what’s what,” the captain responded.

So when we neared the bay, we loaded up our souvenirs from
our raid. Mostly that was colorful clothes. I’d gotten to work on my Shoe,
which was one of the fancy boots discarded by Id, who’d grabbed two pairs. It
took a long time to layer on the spells, but I had the time. The result was,
I’d transferred the Shoe to beyond-space, but I could transfer it back by
saying certain words and touching my necklace. Then, if I said a couple other
words, I could kick a villain and a ball of air would boot ’em away from me,
kersplat!

Nobody wanted to be my guinea pig after the first couple of
experiments, though all the kids wanted to watch me launch someone besides them.
It was pretty funny.

So anyway, we loaded up our gear (Klutz had adopted that
horrible shirt, it was so ugly she could not bear to leave it) and the crew
rowed us ashore.

We waved, thanking them again and again. The last I heard
was, “If you are ever in Danai ...”

They set sail, and slanted away to the north, leaving us on
shore.

For a long time we didn’t see anything except low, scrubby,
boring land, pretty much like many other places.

We’d gotten food from the cook, so we were all right for a
couple of days of walking, at least. And a couple of days it was. I mean we saw
nothing, except some distant forest way far to the south. But we needed to go
east, so east we walked. And walked. And walked.

At the end of the first day, Puddlenose turned all the way
around, and said suddenly, “I think I know where I am.”

We all exclaimed variations on “Really? Where?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Kinda hard to say. I might be wrong,”
he added.

Okay, we could sure understand that. Unless there’s some
landmark they only have in one place, trees are more or less trees, rocks are
rocks, and so forth. This particular landscape was flat but rocky, only that
forest in the distance, so I could see mixing it up with someplace else.

We camped out, and started the next day, Id first making us
wait while he tried to figure out a way to tie all his clothes on so he
wouldn’t get overheated. Even though he hadn’t paid for them, he couldn’t stand
the idea of giving up any of his fancy clothes, Just In Case.

At midday, Puddlenose said again, “I really think I know
this place.”

And that night, “I’m pretty sure I know where I am.”

We camped again, and when he said it the next day, after
more of the same sort of boring countryside, nobody responded for a time. Until
Seshe said, “How can you tell?”

Then Puddlenose scratched his head. “If I’m right, I can’t tell
you.”

“What!”

Dhana crossed her arms. She was hot, dusty, tired. “How
annoying!”

Now, here’s a weird thing. I can be super mad at someone,
but I manage not to blast ’em with some choice pocalubes. But if someone else
says the mean thing I’m thinking, I grin and add a mental
ha ha!

But if the person doesn’t snap back—and Puddlenose never
does—then zap! I feel sorry for the first person I was mad at, and my mad
switches to the one who said something mean.

That’s what happened here. Puddlenose scratched his shaggy
head, looked around, then said, “Well, maybe you’ll find out why. Then you’ll
keep the secret, too. If it’s right.”

“I don’t know about right and wrong, but I smell lots of
water ahead,” Dhana said, her tone completely different.

We discovered we were on a ridge—though the land had seemed
perfectly flat—until we reached the edge, and below these rocky palisades that
we hadn’t known we were approaching lay a kind of market city with a lot of
tents and some open-sided buildings. It was built beside a wide, slow-moving
river that dumped into the sea not far away on our left; on the far side of the
river, straight east, was a line of very rocky-looking mountains.

“I was right,” Puddlenose exclaimed. He started forward,
then stopped. “Except I don’t remember a lot of guards.”

Some poking about revealed a narrow goat track going
downhill in zigzags. As we got closer to the market town, people veered widely
around a lot of clods in the sort of tunic and trousers and boots that most
military types wear in various styles, and each was loaded with pointy
things—spears, swords, knives, the works.

We reached the bottom, where a meandering road led from the
market to the mouth of the river. There, a bazillion houseboats floated on the
water, some connected by ropeways of various types, so it was obvious that they
didn’t all travel. Farther out—way farther out—ships were anchored. They had to
row in, which suggested a long, shallow beach.

Puddlenose started talking to the people coming out of the
market. Most of the older ones waved us away impatiently, some shrugged as if
they didn’t understand us. Many scowled, and a few looked back in worry.

Finally we got a family of traders with a kid near our age,
who spoke a very accented type of Mearsiean (which is related to other
languages).

“Bad king,” she said, walking backward.

The mother turned around and yelled at the girl in a
Hurry
up and stop blabbing
tone of voice.

The girl cupped her hands around her mouth. “Bad king
gone—then loyalists worse!” She made a spitting motion after the word
‘loyalist.’

“Are these fellows the loyalists?” Puddlenose yelled,
pointing at the warrior guys uglying up the landscape.

The girl yelled something we couldn’t understand, then her
mother yanked her around and they bustled away, carrying their baskets tightly
against themselves.

As we got closer, the traffic thickened. We followed some
people in, and got some weird looks, what with Id and all his clothes,
Puddlenose wearing those stupid boots again, plus a plumed hat, Gwen in the
fancy nightgown, Klutz wearing the terrible shirt with her skinny freckled legs
sticking out below, and her bare feet. There I was, more or less normal except
for the velvet cloak I’d pinched, and a very fine knife with a carved hilt
stuck through my sash (orange, yellow, and chartreuse stripes—pinched because I
had an idea about leaving it at PJ’s castle and seeing if it would start a new
fashion), and Dhana with Lord Snord’s black velvet cloak dragging on the ground
behind her.

No one showed much interest in us, other than some
skeptical, laughing, or disapproving looks as we wound our way into the crowded
marketplace.

Puddlenose took the lead. He seemed to know where he was
going. I could barely see anything, what with all the grownups going every
which way, some pushing carts, most carrying baskets.

We finally entered a huge square, which was surprisingly
empty, considering the throngs everywhere else. Here, we could see the rooftops
of a lot of open-sided buildings, and lots more tents and pavilions and temporary
booths.

But those weren’t what drew Puddlenose’s attention. He kept
on to the other side of the square, and the least crowded area—except for a lot
of those military guys roaming around looking tough.

“Ahah,” Puddlenose exclaimed, pointing to a building. Bars
divided the windows—and faces pressed between the bars. Lots of faces. All sad.
He turned to us. “When the local lockup is crammed, then either you’ve got a
rotten town, or else you’ve got a rotten leader.”

“How do you know that?” Dhana asked, staring from the
unhappy faces in the jail to Puddlenose.

“Because when the town is rotten, I usually get thrown into
the klink,” he explained. “They’ll have a million rules and the first one
almost always is that travelers are crooks. So they get a lot of free work out
of you. It’s especially true if the millions of rules are new. Then you look
for some villain who’s taken over.”

He looked at us expectantly.

“So, I guess we should get going?” Sherry said, her forehead
puckering. “I do so want to get home.”

“Me too. But first, what are you thinking?” I asked
Puddlenose.

“The people here are good ones,” Puddlenose said.

“These?” Klutz looked around.

“These are different, they’re traders. I don’t mean they’re
bad. Traders are traders. But the local people.”

“How do we tell the local people from the traders?” Id
asked, impatiently adjusting some of his clothes. The sun was warm.

“Ah ... well, how’s this,” Puddlenose suggested. “Let’s
spend the day here. Someone’s bound to speak some language you know. We’ll meet
at sunset, and compare notes.”

I looked Seshe’s way. She shrugged, hands turned out.

What’s one day, I thought.

So that’s what we did.

I mostly wandered around, looking at the things people made.
By the time I’d admired fine inlay boxes and fire screens and painted vases and
embroidered cloth and amazing weaving in both picture form and in pretty
patterns, I was ready to get back to my own art projects. I’d forgotten all
about spying out the local government.

But the others hadn’t.

When we met at an open air eatery where they served chicken
pies, we sat around a table, leaning in. Kinda like a football huddle over a
picnic.

“Local war lord tryin’ to get this kingdom,” Id said.

“What kingdom?” Sherry said.

“But not a Robespierre.” Klutz held her nose and waved. “Sounds
more like a bumbler.”

“What kingdom?” Sherry said.

“People are mad because there’s a big tax on things now.”
Dhana’s thin fingers flickered, suggesting rolls of coins. “I heard some people
complaining about it. ‘We’re taxed so those big clodhoppers can eat and march
around getting in the way,’ is what someone said. And somebody else said, ‘What
do we need guards for? We need guards to get us away from the guards!’ But one
of those fellows was right behind, and she got hauled away and stuck in the slammer.
Then more guards took her booth down, and carried off her goods.”

“What did everybody else do?” Gwen asked.

“Nothing. Just grumbled, and looked around, like to make
sure no more of the busybody guys were there.”

“What kingdom?” Sherry asked patiently.

Everybody looked at her. Seshe said, “I guess whatever lies
beyond the forestline in the south, there.”

“Don’t they just mean this market?” Dhana asked, her hands
fluttering outward.

Sherry said, “I heard. Three times. People don’t pay any
attention to me. They must think I’m stupid. Or can’t hear. But they said
things like, ‘He’s a king, but what does he want to be king
of
?’ And
another said, ‘Why do they keep nosing on about the other cities? I’ve been
coming here twenty-eight years, and I’ve never seen feature nor twitch of
another city.’ So I want to know, what kingdom?”

Z-z-z-t! Heads snapped Puddlenose’s way.

He grinned.

“All right, slobbinizer,” I gritted. “You’ve been dropping
ominous hints like a sick elephant—”

“Eeeuw, CJ!” Klutz bellowed with laughter.

“I
meant
tromping around!” I had to wait for the yuk
fest to die down, but after 400 years or so, it finally did. “Well? You want us
to stick our big feet into this mess!”

Puddlenose examined the moisture ring from his root brew as
though it held the Secret Message of Doom. When nobody said anything he looked
up. “The people are really, really nice.”

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.)