SPARX Incarnation: Mark of the Green Dragon (SPARX Series I Book 1) (6 page)

Paplov laughed and passed me a handful of shafts, with a smile on his face that stretched a mile wide.

Chapter IX

The lizard handler

T
wo days later, on behalf of the council, we commissioned a blue-tail and handler to carry us south to the Outland Trail. The trip to the Stout town of Proudfoot would be easier on Paplov that way. He could be stubborn about getting his hiking in, but it had been raining straight for two days. Given Webfooters’ sorry record for maintaining the Mire Trail, that time of year blue-tails were the preferred mode of transportation into and out of town for anyone sensible, especially during wet spells. Year by year, the corduroy portions of the beaten track slowly unfurled, but still more than half lay undeveloped.

While packing arrows in the shed with Paplov, I caught sight of one Mer Andulus strolling up the road to our hut. He wore the same tans, leathers and floppy hat as that night at the Flipside. Both hands gripped the worn, leather straps of his backpack as if they were suspenders. The old prospector chewed his whalebone pipe as he walked, and sent a thin stream of smoke trailing over one shoulder and up into the fresh morning air.

“Just a sec,” I said to Paplov, and ran out to meet Mer at the twig gate to our yard. A light drizzle feathered my face, coating it with a warm, thin film. The prospector looked a little damp himself.

“Gidday-gidday,” he said as one long word, out of the corner of his mouth. “Glad to see yer up and about.” He pulled the pipe out. “On my way to your bog to stake our interests. Any chance you can get yerself together? We can swing by and pluck yer partners out’a bed at the Flipside.” Mer’s voice was fully animate – nothing like the tired old coot I had him pegged for when he first emerged from his shadowy seat on the Flipside patio. His weary eyes with the bags underneath were a testimony to hard living, and his weathered cheeks to an outdoor lifestyle.

“Is that all you’re bringing?” I said, motioning to his pack.

“Pick, hammer and shovel,” he said. “The rest is already out there.” He laughed to himself. I could not help but smile back.

“Sorry, but I’m off to Proudfoot today on a diplomatic errand,” I said.

Now that sounded important
.
With a squint of one eye and a slight rise of the chin, Mer gave me an examining look.

“Horses won’t be seen for another two weeks, give or take. Are ya taking a lizard or flip-flopping?”

“Blue-tail,” I said.

“Yep. What else,” he said. It was not a question.

“I’ll be back tomorrow. But then shortly after I’m off to visit… an Elderkin associate.”

An Elderkin associate? “Yes,” I should have added.
I am so important that I regularly meet with Elderkin nobles, and they always ask about when I can come back to honor them with my presence. I might mention your name to
them…

Mer raised his eyebrows at the mention of Elderkin and then just shrugged his shoulders at the change in plans.

“What are you going to do out there, in the bog?” I said.

“Well, everything we discussed I s’pose.”

I waited for a long moment while the prospector took his time to give me that evaluating look of his again, all the while stroking his tangly beard. His eyes measured my worth.

“You don’t remember, do ya?”

“Well…”

“I worked six summers with a frog-faced old-timer by the name ‘a Clop. Remembered everything to the N’th degree, ‘cept all the stupid things he did after a few barkwoods.”

“Oh.”

“Oh is right. Let me remind ya’s. I’m off to check on that spot where the ole glowing tree spit turned up – lookin’ fer staking posts to see what’s claimed by HME and what’s not.”

“Who’s HME?”

“Harrow Mining and Exploration – they’re just about everywhere in the bog lands these days, according to the town clerk, Old Remy.”

“I know him,” I said. Paplov relied on Remy a lot for anything to do with maps.

“Problem is though,” said Mer, “half the claims data’s in his thick head, so’s I have to go find the stake posts myself. Remy only seems to know where they’re s’pose to be, but where they’re pounded into the ground is what counts. Interest’n he says this one’s the first claim south of the trailhead.”

“Humph,” I said.

“By the way,” Mer went on, “we’re going equal splits on the financial side, ‘cept you and Gariff get double weight, ‘case you don’t remember that either.”

“OK.”

“OK is right. And don’t forget you promised everyone a treasure hunt day.”

“Who’s everyone?”

“Well, myself fer starters, but I might not make it. The two Stouts, the well rounded Pip, as you might say, and the girl you were making googly eyes at. That’s everyone.”

“Oh… OK.” My knees shook a little at the fact that none of this sounded familiar. I must have looked stunned to the prospector.

“Nud, you ready?” called Paplov from the hut.

“Well, alrighty,” said Mer Andulus. “Hope ya have a good one, and catch ya at the Flipside. We’ll keep it fast and loose ‘till then.” He turned to go.

“Wait,” I said.

The prospector halted and looked back over his shoulder.

“Nud?” called Paplov.

“In a minute,” I called back to Paplov.

I turned to Mer. “Can you swing by the Flipside on your way out anyway?” I said, “…to pass some news to Bobbin – the round one.” Mer gave me a slow nod. “Tell him to be ready to hit the trail in a few days, right after the Elderkin… meeting. Bobbin can tell Holly and the cousins.”

“Gotcha covered,” he said. “And while I’m out and about in loon goop, I’ll keep an eye on the trail and an ear on the Handlers’ Post then.”

Mer took a step back and raised a hand in salute. “Go easy,” he added with a nod.

“Go easy,” I replied with half a wave. The words felt strange, borrowed. I could never own them the way he did.

Proudfoot lay cradled between two rivers, a full day’s march away. Any delay would see Paplov and me on the trail at dusk, which is never a good idea in the open wetlands or along the forest edge. I convinced Paplov to have us dropped off midway.

When the handler finally arrived, only half-dressed it seemed, Paplov took the seat up front with him and I sat in the rear with the baggage. The handler wore naught but tattered shorts, a wide-brimmed hat, and a belt with a long knife in its sheath. He was so thin and wiry that the bones in his elbows and shoulders looked as though they might punch through his leathery skin. He didn’t seem to care about the drizzle. I doubt he would have blinked if it rained newts. Wyatt was a real bogger.

“How do you keep the flies off,” I said to him. “The midges must eat you alive out of town.”

Wyatt glanced back and flashed me a one-tooth smile. “Bugs don’t bug me anymore,” he said, “only snot-nosed little boys do.”

Snot-nosed? I’m almost sixteen!

Paplov laughed at the look on my face, and louder still when I wiped my nose with my shirtsleeve. He leaned over to whisper something.

“Don’t mind him,” he said. The whisper was loud and the bogger could not help but to hear it. “Old Wyatt’s just sore.”

“Damn right I’m sore,” he said. “Eleven years as a prisoner in Harrow is enough to make anybody sore.”

“Prisoner? How did you get out?” I said.

“Well, they let me go when I finally gave them what they wanted – a secret I swore I would never give up.”

“What?” I asked.

“Are ya sure ya want t’know?” he said.

I nodded.

“The one I swore it too ‘disappeared’ – poor bastard. They told me I was next. I never gave them any more than the half of it anyway.”

“Is that true?” I said.

“’Course it’s true,” said Wyatt. He shook his head in frustration. “Look at that, a snot-nosed kid calling me liar. Are you calling me a liar?”

I shook my head.

“They’ll come looking for the other half once they figure it out,” said Paplov.

Wyatt didn’t answer. He just kept his eyes to the trail and handled the mount. It was common knowledge that the youngest of the riding lizards – the so-called “blue-tails” – were paired to the oldest, grumpiest handlers. That was certainly the case with Wyatt. That isn’t to say that young riders make better handlers. Young blue-tails can be difficult to control and tend to go off on their own or flip over, whereas older redheads are so worked in, even a novice can handle them.

Although the topic had grown stale, a question still burned inside of me. Asking Wyatt another question felt like pulling out his last tooth, but I did it anyway.

“When you were in Harrow, did you see any other prisoners? I mean anyone you knew, like another Pip… or someone?”

Wyatt looked to Paplov. They stared at one another without either saying a word. I didn’t know what it meant, but it meant something.

“Nope,” he said. “Not a one from the Trilands.”

Wyatt loosened up a bit by the time we reached the watergrass homes. The first bit of gossip out of his mouth concerned a crazy story about a glass trinket with a firefly trapped in it, waved around by some party-boy at the Flipside a few nights back. “I was there,” he said, “And with my own two eyes I saw him holding it over the pretty girls’ heads, begging for kisses. Then I heard he got a slap instead from some girl. Half the town is talking about it!” I shrunk down between the traveling bags and felt my face, wondering if it stung a little.
Maybe.

It seemed as though I had managed to contain my secret for little more than half a day, and the count for those in the know was substantial: two friends from the Hills, one Webfooter who worked at the busiest establishment in town, a pretty Proudfooter I had never seen before who also worked in the busiest establishment in town, a traveling prospector who had been just about everywhere and that I had never seen before, and a tavern full of patrons from lands far and near.

Soon, the conversation migrated to politics – it always did with Paplov. As the blue-tail strode along, I could see that the handler kept himself in tune to the lizard’s every sway and step. The subtle calls, the slight taps on the sides of the lizard’s neck, the pushing and pulling of the reins – it all blended together in complex ways to form one simple command: “GO STRAIGHT.” At times, the handler would grunt and squeeze his bony ankles into the lizard’s sides. And every so often he’d follow with a string of frustrated remarks, pull a fish out of the side bag, and pitch it well ahead. Our mount dashed at the offering, scooping it up in his bridled jaws, mid-stride. As we rode on, I noted that whenever the lizard began heading off-course or became a little testy, the handler would squeeze. Whenever that wasn’t enough to set her straight, he’d toss her another fish. They didn’t teach that at the riding school – all reins and whip.

By the time we met the misty bog, the morning air felt heavy, still and silent.

The ride along the Mire Trail was mostly uneventful. We were alone on the trail that morning. The slow rhythm of the lizard’s stride and gentle lurching after bait had me nodding off before long.

I had fallen asleep, probably for only a few minutes, but sleeping nonetheless, when a sudden jostling and the handler’s angry shouts brought me out of slumber. Without known cause, the lizard darted off the trail and into the bog. The handler’s fish went flying as he grasped the reins, pulling back with both hands. We all bounced and shook violently on the lizard’s back as she zig-zagged from hummock to hummock. The girl’s pretty blue tail detached in the commotion. It twisted and writhed on a patch of thick moss.

It took some coaxing, a few long tipsy moments, and more swear words than I ever heard strung together before Wyatt was able to rear the tailless blue-tail and get her back on track.

“No worries,” he said when the lizard was nearing calm again. He spoke partly to Paplov and me, but mostly to his mount. His tone was reassuring. “She’ll get us to the Outland no problem, just you wait and see, with time to spare, I’ll wager.” He stroked her neck and looked back to where the tail used to be.

“Everyone all right?” he said. “Lose anything.”

Paplov gave me a quick once-over and inspected his gear. “All good,” he said.

“Well,” Wyatt admitted, “something’s got the ole girl spooked. I’ve run this route many a year and none of my lizards have ever been so skittish. It might be a good idea to make arrangements now for safe passage on the way back.”

Paplov nodded. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was all just a show to drum up more business. Either way, the handler eventually brought us as far as the Outland Trail, as promised. It was as far as Paplov would allow. Riding lizards were outlawed in Proudfoot ever since one young Stout had gotten himself eaten and another trampled, all in a span of two spring months. On top of that, the full journey would be costly – more than the town was willing to pay out, so any farther would have to come out of Paplov’s pocket.

Before Wyatt turned back, Paplov arranged for the old bogger to meet us for the return trip.

We journeyed the rest of the way on foot, as Pips normally travel. Paplov and I had not said much to one another along the way. With about an hour left to go before meeting the Dim River, he finally started in on the diplomatic particulars of the visit.

“We have important work to do today, you and I,” he said. “This evening, at Lord Mayor Otis’ manor, I am to debate Proudfoot’s proposal to extend their agricultural region by draining a sizable portion of our wetlands. In return, they are suggesting a minimal lease fee and reduced prices for some crops. But they want the option to increase rates due to the heightened mineral exploration activity in the area as well, claiming that if a mine springs up on their property, the cropland will be devalued and they won’t realize projected future gains. I’m not giving in to that one – if a mine springs up the property value will increase substantially.”

I had reviewed the documents in detail the night prior, and was well acquainted with the particulars of the mission. But in usual form, Paplov saw fit to highlight the main points en route.

“Look! Is that a white raven? Over there. On top of that old dead tree.” I said, pointing to the treetop.

Paplov looked up and nodded in acknowledgement. “Humph, lucky. I’ve seen that one around these parts before. Anyway, as I was saying: Lord Mayor Undle and the Webfoot council are mostly in favor, but they feel the lease fee is too low and it was pointed out that the reductions—”