Sagaria (50 page)

“Dry little
raisin?
” Flip exclaimed.

“Well, ahem,” the djinn began.

“What kind of a lousy djinn are you anyhow?”

“Well, as you’ve noticed, I’m just a tin-can djinn, master.”

“Well, you can consider yourself a canned djinn from now on.”

“Well, master, if you’ll allow me to explain. I can grant only small, insignificant wishes. So, your wishes have to be in proportion, you see.”

“So, that means you cannot conjure up the biggest, most magnificent palace in the world for me?”

“Um, no, more like a shabby-looking outdoor lav. Without a door of course … and, er, walls.”

“More like a hole in the ground, you mean?” said Flip, narrowing his eyes.

“That about sums it up,” admitted the djinn with a shameful bow. He grasped at the turban to stop it from falling off his head.

“This stinks!” Flip spat on the ground.

“Well, the can did,” the djinn amended. “It was wonderful to be released from that smelly can. You can imagine, thousand-year-old fish sauce that …”

“I meant
you
stink!” Flip said. “I should never have opened that rotten can in the first place.”

“Now, now.” Sir Tombin diplomatically intervened when it looked like it might soon get violent – and extremely so. “Just two questions, Mr. Djinn.”

“Yes, Master?”

“Can you take us to Qarnapheeran?”

“Um, not as such. I could try to move the little master.” He jerked his head in Flip’s direction. The djinn tried to ignore Flip’s glare. “But he would have to assist me.”

“You mean he would actually have to walk a few yards himself?”

“Er, yes, but I would cheer him on all the way,” the djinn said eagerly.

“All right, next question: can you kill Arkanamon for us? The necromancer who dwells in the Shadow World?”

“Arka-who?”

“I think we get the picture here,” Samzing said with a sigh. “What exactly
can
you do?”

“Well, practical jokes have been my strongest suit, I’ve always thought. Extremely loud and fake farts have been my specialty.”

“So, you know nothing about the Shadow World?” Perima asked.

“I was too hungover the day we had the lecture to go to it, and none of my classmates would lend me their notes afterward.”

“All of the others got sent off to live in beautiful cut-crystal bottles and serve great monarchs and mighty treasures. They can spout epic poetry to make your head spin, but me? When it came to graduation day and I was the only one who hadn’t passed, the dean of the djinn university said I was good for nothing except guarding junk. So they stuck me in a rusty old can and put me here in the Great Junkyard, but not even the junk wanted to release me. I’ve been stuck in that accursed can ever since.”

“Until I came along,” said Flip bitterly. “You’re not the only natural-born loser around here.”

“You know,” said Perima thoughtfully, “we’re going to the Shadow World
anyway, with or without your help, and we’re going via Qarnapheeran. Why don’t we take you along with us? At Qarnapheeran, maybe you’ll be given a second chance to study for djinnhood. That would be something to boast about to the other djinns, that you’d learned your craft at Qarnapheeran, no less.”

“But I’ve already lied and told them I took a postgraduate degree in djinnery at Qarnapheeran,” moaned the djinn. “I told you, I’m a swindler.”

But there was a trace of hope in his voice.

“Yes,” said Sagandran, cashing in while the going was good. He didn’t think he could bear any more of the little spirit’s histrionic misery. “You could come to Qarnapheeran with us. It’d be a tonic to have you with us.”

Perima frowned at him.

“Djinn and tonic,” he explained to her. “Get it?”

“I already had,” she said sourly, her frown remaining.

“Do you mean that?” said the djinn in a thin, tremulous voice.

“Of course we do,” Sir Tombin replied. He looked around at the others with an expression of resolute cheerfulness. “We’ll be glad to have you along.”

The djinn pulled himself half-upright. “But what use would you have for me?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something,” said Perima with a smile.

Suddenly the djinn, back on his feet again, was smiling as well. Sagandran thought he’d never seen a grin so all-encompassing.

“You won’t have to go back into that old can either,” said Samzing, rummaging in his robe. “I think I have, I could have sworn I had … ah yes, here it is.”

The wizard produced a big, shining green bottle.

“Here’s a new home for you, and it’s the right color too.”

Sagandran had never suspected that crusty Samzing could be so sentimental. It worried him.

The djinn clapped in delight. “It’s beautiful. At last, a real home.” He stared up at Samzing with something akin to worship in his eyes. “Finally, a home that doesn’t reek of rotten fish.”

“There’s one condition attached to my giving you this, this
palace
,” said Samzing, his eyes twinkling.

“What’s that, oh master?” said the djinn adoringly. “Anything. Anything!”

“That you never again speak to us in that atrocious rhyme of yours.”

“Done. It’s a blessing. I’ve always hated having to think up verse the whole time. It’s an obligation placed upon us djinns, you know, but now you’ve released me from it. Oh, thank you, master. Double thank you.”

“And the next time your bottle is opened, I would very much like to hear your most loudest and most drawn out, er,
farticus maximus
.”

“Oh really? You will be very impressed. I will exceed myself. Well, that’s settled then. Please let me have a look at my new home.”

“Go right ahead,” Samzing said mildly.

The djinn slowly dissolved into a wisp of green smoke and, with the sound of an inverse burp, vanished into the neck of the bottle Samzing held. The wizard produced a cork from somewhere and sealed the bottle with an air of finality.

“There,” he said. “Now we can have a bit of peace.” He tucked the bottle back into his robe.

“What a stroke of good fortune you happened to have an empty bottle with you,” said Perima. “And how very kind of you to give it to him.”

“Um,” said Sagandran, eyeing the wizard suspiciously. “What used to be in that bottle?”

“Ah, that’s not important,” said Samzing. “It contained something that I sometimes use as an ingredient when making certain kinds of potions. All you need to know is that it was empty when we needed it to be. Well, almost empty anyway.”

“What was in it?” Sagandran persisted.

The wizard coughed.

“What?”

“There’s nothing actually
wrong
,” the wizard said, looking up at the stars, “with the smell of rotting egg fumes. Is there?”

CHAPTER 9

Q
ARNAPHEERAN

he early dawn was still cold and gray. Morning fog floated ghost-like around the piles of junk. Sir Tombin was sleeping fitfully, but the others were all awake; they looked as if they’d spent as restless a night as Sagandran had. He wasn’t sure if it was fear of the Shadow World that had so disturbed his slumber or just the chill of the night – probably a mixture of both. He shook his head annoyedly. He could remember having nightmares, but already their details had evaporated.

By the time Sir Tombin was sitting up and looking around him, a light but freezing drizzle had begun to fall. It dampened not just their clothes and bodies, but also their spirits. Even Flip was looking quelled, his usual chirpy comments muted. None of them felt much like breakfast, which was a good thing because they didn’t have anything left to eat. Soon they were on their way.

Climbing the nearest slope of the Junk Mountains proved even more difficult than Sagandran had anticipated. Every time he put his foot down, the surface – bottles, cans, crumpled paper, rotted food, once, even a dead rat – shifted and slid under him, so that rather than walk, he was forced to adopt a tactic of taking each stride as a single entity, to be completed and established before he could start the next. The others were having similar difficulties, he saw whenever he risked raising his eyes from the trash immediately in front of him. They were all terrified of losing their balance and falling into the fetid garbage.

Snowmane was having the most difficult time of any, but typically, the stallion was making no complaint.

It was Sir Tombin who first spotted the pass.

“What a stroke of luck!” he cried.

Pausing to make sure his footing was sound, Sagandran looked up to follow the Frogly Knight’s pointing finger. Invisible to them before but clearly evident from the angle they’d now reached, was an elbow in the line of the Junk Mountains against the sky. The companions still faced quite a climb to reach it,
but it certainly presented a far easier prospect than crossing the range over one of the summits. He’d been trying not to think what it might be like to camp out overnight on the Junk Mountains; now, with luck, they wouldn’t have to.

This good news elevated all their spirits. Sir Tombin began whistling a jaunty tune as he scrambled up the slope and Samzing, despite their regularly shushing him, cracked a series of bad jokes (“What’s white and can see just as well out of both ends? Snowmane with his eyes shut.”). Flip, who’d decided that being curled up fast asleep in the pocket of Sagandran’s jacket was the best place to be today, woke and started giving a running commentary on the various items of junk that caught his eye. Perima took Sagandran’s hand and they climbed.

Soon they were standing in the nock of the pass, shivering in the cold and looking out over the terrain ahead. There wasn’t a great deal to see, just a seemingly endless, empty plain. No grass grew, and there were no signs of life at all. The sky over this drab tract was empty of birds.

“The Never Plains,” said Sir Tombin, his voice become dispirited once more.

Samzing spoke briskly, in the tones of one who’d been here before. “Easy enough to understand why it’s called that.”

“Yes,” agreed Perima. “You’d never come here if you didn’t have to.”

“Something like that,” said Samzing, grinning.

“Good thing we had to,” said Flip cheerily, “or we wouldn’t be here.”

It was a logic that was hard to refute. No one tried.

They started the painstaking process of slithering and sliding downhill over the slope of junk.

“How are we going to find Qarnapheeran in the middle of all that nothing?” gasped Sagandran as he and Perima drew alongside Sir Tombin. He suddenly clutched her hand more tightly as she almost fell sideways.

“I don’t know,” said Sir Tombin frankly. “Queen Mirabella told us it wasn’t a question of us finding Qarnapheeran. It’s more a matter of Qarnapheeran finding us, and deciding it wants to allow us to see it. That’s what our wizard friend,” he pointed a thumb back up the slope to where Samzing was dawdling, “told us as well. I think all we can do is believe them.”

“We’ll look a bit silly if they’re wrong,” observed Flip.

“And starve to death as well,” added Perima, breathing heavily in the aftermath of her near-fall.

As dismal and forbidding as the Never Plains might be, it was a welcome change to be walking on a flat and solid surface after all the uncertainties of the Junk Mountains. The rain did its best to forestall any lifting of their spirits. It grew steadily heavier until it was torrential, soaking them to the skin and blinding them whenever time they tried to lift their gaze from the ground. The packed earth underfoot rapidly became mud, so they were either skidding as badly as they had on the junk heaps or were having to trudge laboriously. Pace by pace, their feet were rising reluctantly with great sucking noises. When they looked behind them, the Junk Mountains were no longer to be seen. The curtains of rain masked them entirely from view.

“Are we sure we’re not going around in circles?” asked Perima. “I did enough of that back in Wonderville, thank you very much. I’m becoming quite an expert at it.”

“No, we’re going in a straight line,” replied Sir Tombin. “I’m sure we must be. I think.”

The more they talked about it the less certain they became.

“It’s not important,” cried Sir Tombin desperately at last. “It’s really not important to know which direction we’re going or which direction we’ve come from. All that matters is that we reach Qarnapheeran. The city will find us whatever way we go, so long as it wants to.”

“You speak wisely, Sir Frog,” came a voice out of the rain.

The raindrops made so much noise as they hammered into the mud that they barely heard it at first, but then the words slowly penetrated their minds.

“Who was that?” said Perima.

“Me,” replied the voice, this time identifiably behind them.

The companions turned as one. There was no one to be seen.

“Wh–where are you?” said Sir Tombin, his hand on the hilt of Xaraxeer.

“Directly in front of your eyes.”

The gray wall of falling rain slowly changed, outlines gradually emerging from its formlessness. Colors began to emerge: here a hint of vermillion, there a smear of turquoise. Before long, it seemed to Sagandran as if he were looking at a face supported by a cloud of different hues, then the hues themselves started to coalesce. At last he could see the figure of an incredibly skinny, incredibly withered, incredibly ancient man leaning on a crooked stick. Several long seconds passed as the figure came into focus as if, thought Sagandran, someone were adjusting the lens of a slide projector. Once he could see the face more clearly, he wondered if he’d been right in his assessment of it as that of an old man. Now it was more like the face of a bird. What he’d taken to be a long, crooked, bony nose was really almost a beak. The birdman was wearing a broad-
brimmed green hat, so that it was hard to see his eyes. His clothing seemed to have been sewn from a million brightly colored rags.

“Whom do we have the honor of addressing?” said Sir Tombin formally, removing his own hat and bowing low.

“My name is Fattanillo,” said the birdman. “You need know no more of me than that. The question is, who are you? Few people venture into the Never Plains, and hardly ever have I seen a band of them as strange and motley as you are.”

“Our business is our own,” replied Sir Tombin, “until we know to whom we speak.” Realizing his words might sound tart, he bowed again.

Sagandran took a step forward. “We’re looking for the city of Qarnapheeran. We were told by Queen Mirabella of Spectram that it was here in the Never Plains.”

“Queen Mirabella, eh?” said Fattanillo. “If you’re speaking the truth, you come on good authority. Is she still as pretty as ever?”

“Prettier,” said Sir Tombin before he could stop himself. “And ever more regal,” he added, trying to make amends. Blushing turned his green face a most curious shade.

“Great gams too,” interposed Samzing. He was looking thoughtfully at Fattanillo.

“We need to speak to the wizards of Qarnapheeran to tell them of the danger the three worlds are facing,” said Sagandran forthrightly, tired already of the word-dancing, “and we need to ask for their help. The goal of our quest is to reach the Shadow World, and Queen Mirabella told us that the only way to get there was with the aid of the wizards of Qarnapheeran.”

“Let me see if it’s true what you’re telling me.” The birdman put the tip of the forefinger of his free hand to where his chin should be, and once more faded slightly out of focus.

Sagandran felt a feather-light tickle in his mind.

“Ah, yes,” Fattanillo continued, regaining solidity. “Everything is as you say. I’ll be pleased to guide you the last small distance to the city.”

Samzing abruptly came to a decision. “I know you,” he said.

The birdman turned toward him. “I don’t think I—”

“It’s my old pal, Fats Fattanillo, isn’t it?”

There was a sudden tension in the rain-drenched air.

“Only one person ever called me that,” said Fattanillo slowly. “My … let’s call it my obesity … my
strictly temporary
obesity … it was just a phase I was going through, you understand. It was always a matter of opinion and everybody, save one individual, thought fit not to make mention of it. The one exception was perhaps the most scurrilous wizard ever to visit these parts, a
man of such moral degradation that birds fell stone dead from the sky rather than fly over his head.”

“Glad to know I made an impression,” said Samzing smugly.

Fattanillo began to laugh. “It’s my buddy, Fishface, isn’t it? I didn’t recognize you after all these years. There was only one wizard more despicable than myself, and I did my best to keep up with you through my student years. Fats and Fishface, the scourge of taverns and maidenheads throughout Qarnapheeran. Ah, those were the days. How exceedingly well met. What in the world brings you here?”

“Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that,” said Samzing loftily, then his voice hardened. “Mainly the fact that the abhorrent Arkanamon is trying to take over Sagaria and, after us, the Earthworld. My youthful friend here wasn’t overstating the case when he said the three worlds are in danger. Our mission is truly a pressing one.”

“Then I will take you urgently to Qarnapheeran,” said Fattanillo. “Once there, Fishface, maybe you and I could …?” He mimed lifting a glass to his lips. “There’s a lot we have to speak about that’s perhaps not for every ear.” The birdman gave a conspiratorial wink.

“There’s nothing would please me more, Fats,” said Samzing loudly, his face smothered in smiles, “but the urgency of our quest, you know? Perhaps we’ll have a chance, or perhaps we’ll have to wait ’til later.”

“I’ll hold you to that almost-promise,” said the birdman.

Sagandran cut in on the reunion. “Um, we want to get to Qarnapheeran, remember?”

Fattanillo drew himself together. “Yes, of course, and it’s to Qarnapheeran I shall take you forthwith.”

He showed no signs of moving from the spot on which he stood.