New Lands (THE CHRONICLES OF EGG) (8 page)

I couldn’t send it because the chances were better than good that her father would intercept it. And then he’d know exactly where I was, and what I was doing.

Not that it would have been too hard for him to figure out I was headed for Pella in the first place.

My heart started to thump, like it always did when I thought about Roger Pembroke and how long it’d be until he came looking for me and the map.

Along with the fear came another emotion—a dark, nagging guilt that had been eating at me the whole time we’d been in Pella, and that lately had started to haunt me even more than the fear.

It had to do with my family.

They weren’t the greatest. Dad had always been a mystery, gruff and distant and impossible to read. He didn’t treat me ugly like my brother and sister did, but he wasn’t exactly kind, either.

Venus and Adonis were pretty horrible all around—vicious and stupid, each in their own special way. When she wasn’t insulting me, Venus used to spend her time fantasizing out loud about how some day a Rovian prince was going to pluck her from the muggy stink of Deadweather and make her his princess. If anybody suggested the odds of that were awfully long, she’d screech like a howler monkey and try to claw their eyes out.

I’m not sure Adonis was smart enough to even have fantasies. But if he did, they probably involved stomping on people who were smaller than he was. It was the one thing that never failed to put a smile on his face.

Both of them blamed me for our not having a mother, because she’d died birthing me. Pointing out that I was only a baby when it happened just made them more convinced I was evil.

So it wasn’t like I missed having them around.

But as nasty as they were, they didn’t deserve what they got from Roger Pembroke, which was death by drowning once the hot air balloon he’d tricked them into boarding finally dropped from the sky somewhere in the Blue Sea.

And he’d gotten away with it. He murdered three people, the only family I had, and nobody—not on the islands or the mainland or anywhere else—was going to come after him for it. Nobody was going to make him pay.

Unless I did.

I wasn’t sure how to avenge my family. But I knew I had to try. I’d always known it, even on the
Thrush,
when I was so scared I wanted to bug out and run away. At times like that, the fear was strong enough to push that dark, nagging guilt to the back of my head for a while.

But it always came back. And the longer I stayed in Pella Nonna, the worse it got. After a while, lying in the sun and listening to music with my belly full of food didn’t make me happy so much as anxious. And not just because I was sure Pembroke was still looking for me, but because I had a job to do and I wasn’t doing it.

I put aside the half-finished letter to Millicent and started to
practice the map again—not on the parchment, because I was afraid to leave a physical copy for someone to steal, but traced with my finger on the dark wood of the desk.

I was halfway through the map when the front door burst open and Guts entered, along with Salo, Illy, two other band members, and half a dozen of the gigglers.

“WHOOOOOOOO!”

They were in high spirits, which was annoying.

Salo slapped Guts on the back. “Tell Egg man big news!”

“Playin’ the palace tomorrow!” Guts said with a grin and a twitch. Lately, he only twitched when he was excited.

“We get you in, too, Egg man! You gon’ meet
Li Homaya
! Eat his food!
Se booya!
”

“Who’s
Li Homaya
?” I asked.

“Big man in palace! Leader of Pella. Been two months gone with army. Tribes in south give trouble, so
Li Homaya
go make them know who is in charge.” Salo pounded the air with his fist.

“I thought Cartagers got along with all the tribes,” I said.

“Ones that don’t give trouble, yeah. Other ones…pow.” Salo swung his fist again.

It was news to me that the Cartagers and Native tribes weren’t totally at peace, and I might have asked Salo more about it if I hadn’t had other things on my mind.

“Guts—can you not have the party here tonight?” The band and the gigglers were starting to settle into the overstuffed couches in the living room, and I knew once they made themselves at home, there’d be no getting them out.

“Wot’s yer problem?”

I lied. “I’m sick. I think it’s catching.”

Salo looked concerned. “Hey, Egg man—don’t make band sick. Big show tomorrow.”

“Well, maybe you should—HUUARCH!” I broke off the sentence with a loud, hopefully not too fake-sounding cough.

That did the trick. They were out the door in seconds. Guts was going to go with them, but I managed to get him to hang back.

“Wot’s yer
pudda
problem?” he asked once we were alone.

“We can’t keep putting it off. We’ve got to go find the Okalu.”

“Gonna. In a bit.”

“You said that last week.”

He shrugged. “Good week, tho’.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun.” That probably sounded a little too sarcastic.

“So’s you! Good here! Good fer you, too.”

“It’s nice and all,” I admitted. “But I’ve got to get on with finding that treasure.”

“Been missin’ a hundred years. Ain’t like it’s—”

“He’s going to come looking for me!”

Guts winced. I didn’t have to tell him who I was talking about.

“I don’t want to go it alone,” I said. “But if I have to—”

He shook his head firmly. “Ain’t gonna have to. Partners.” His eyes twitched a couple times. “Can I just play the palace ’fore we go?”

“When is it? Tomorrow night?”

He nodded. “Go the next day. First thing. Awright?”

“All right,” I said. “And…thanks.”

“Don’t gotta thank me. Partners.”

LI HOMAYA
—THE TITLE
meant “The Highest One” in Cartager, and it made me wonder how the King of Cartage felt about one of his colonial governors calling himself that—returned to the city late the next morning. An hour before he arrived, a pair of soldiers on horseback galloped into town through the city’s big double gates and started barking orders at the merchants in the marketplace. As the merchants hurried to pack up their tents and wagons, clearing out the courtyard, I asked Salo what was happening.

“
Li Homaya
coming,” he said. “Everybody have to stop work. Say hello.”

Soon a wide lane had been cleared down the middle of the courtyard, from the gates to the palace steps, and columns of soldiers from the fortress stood at attention on either side of the lane. Most of them looked sweaty and rumpled, like they’d all been woken from naps and forced to run there at double speed. But at least their purple uniforms were actually buttoned over their bellies for a change.

We stood with the band, packed in alongside the rest of the crowd behind one of the columns of soldiers. Guts was scowling. He hadn’t wanted to quit playing.

“
Pudda
stupid.”

Salo lowered his voice. “Quiet, Guts man. Soldier hear you, end up in dungeon.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yeah, man.
Li Homaya
big boss. Make all the rules.” He pointed behind us, where a soldier was dressing down a
frightened-looking merchant who he’d caught still trying to do business.

Salo elbowed Guts in the ribs. “Smile for
Li Homaya
, man! You go dungeon, whole band lose money.”

Guts wouldn’t smile, but he managed not to scowl as much.

Then a bugle and drum announced
Li Homaya
’s arrival. He galloped in, a large man with a moon-shaped face and a billowing cape, riding a white stallion. A squad of cavalry officers followed him.

As the crowd cheered—more out of duty than joy, it seemed like—he dismounted at the foot of the palace steps, handed the reins of his stallion to a waiting soldier, and climbed the steps to the portico.

His officers followed him up the steps while the rest of the cavalry entered the courtyard—a couple hundred surprisingly lean and tough-looking soldiers whose horses kicked up so much dust that an epidemic of coughing broke out in the crowd.

Once the dust had settled and the senior officers had taken their places behind him on the portico,
Li Homaya
faced the crowd and raised his hand in the air.

Everyone went silent. Their leader’s big head swiveled from side to side, taking in the scene. Even from a distance, it was pretty clear he was full of himself.

Then, in a booming voice, he began a long and boring speech, complete with a lot of fist-shaking and dramatic pauses. I couldn’t understand a word of it. The pauses were meant to give the crowd a chance to cheer him, and they did—but as I looked around, I saw a lot of stifled yawns and glassy looks.

Finally, he finished with a double pump of both fists, turned on his heel, and marched into the palace. The moment the door closed behind him, the cheering died away, the cavalry rode out, and the soldiers began to file back to the fortress.

Within minutes, the market was returning to normal. As the band got ready to play again, I noticed a line had formed at the palace’s main door. It snaked across the portico, a curious mix of people, both young and old, Native and Continental, with a few Mandars thrown in for good measure. Some waited in pairs, but not friendly ones—as they stood there, they bickered with each other, a few of them pretty viciously.

I asked Salo what they were doing.

“Want to speak to
Li Homaya
,” he said. “They have problem, need him to solve. He make rules. Decide everything.”

Soon the soldiers at the palace door started letting people in, and the line began to move. Every few minutes, someone would exit the palace, looking either joyful or angry—for the people in pairs, it was usually one of each—and another one would enter.

As the band played, I watched the people go in and out, amusing myself by trying to imagine what business they’d brought before
Li Homaya
.

Then a group of three Cartager men joined the line. They were a rough bunch, their clothes torn and dirty and their belts sagging with pistols and knives.

My heart skipped a beat as I realized all three of them were staring in my direction. They looked familiar, but I had no idea why.

I was racking my brain to think of where I’d seen them before
when one of them pointed—not at me, but just past me—and when I looked over my shoulder and saw Guts playing in the band, I remembered.

They were pirates from Ripper Jones’s crew.

I tried to get Guts’s attention, but he was lost in his music. The band had drawn a pretty big crowd, and I didn’t want to make a scene by interrupting. They were still playing an hour later when the three pirates emerged from the palace.

They sauntered down the steps, pushed their way to the front of the crowd, and stood sneering at Guts.

The second he noticed them, he stopped playing. Gradually, the rest of the band did, too.

“Ay, Gussie,” the tallest of the pirates called out. “Where you get tha’ hook, boy? You got new frien’?”

“We you frien’,” said another. “You come back wi’ us! Play for Ripper.”

Guts’s face was twitching up a storm. “Die first, ye
bada
scum.”

The pirates’ smiles disappeared, and they moved to draw their weapons.

Guts leaped up, raising his hook with a snarl—but in an instant, a dozen band members and townspeople had jumped in to stand between him and the pirates.

Some of the townspeople had weapons of their own, and angry threats rained down on the pirates from all around.

For a moment, the Ripper’s men stood frozen, stunned to discover that Guts wasn’t the friendless outcast he’d been on their ship.

The facts of the situation began to sink in. They all took their
hands off their weapons and began to back away, toward the street that led to the docks.

“You got lots new frien’, eh, Gussie? No worry. We see you a’gin.”

Guts looked too angry to speak. I decided to answer for him.

“Not likely,” I called out to them. “Burn Healy’s looking for your lot.”

Their leader turned toward me with a knowing glint in his eye.

“We loo’ for him, too. He gon’ have bi’ surprise wen he fin’ us.”

“We got new frien’, too,” added another, jerking his head in the direction of the palace.

I watched the pirates make their way out of the market, wondering what they meant by that.

Guts spit on the ground where the pirates had stood. “
Pudda
them
porsamoras.
I’m playin’ the palace tonight.”