The Indigo King (6 page)

“Did you really kill a giant, Scowler Jack?” Uncas asked. “They sure seemed t’ know
you
.”

Jack sighed. “I’m sure if I had, I’d remember it, and if I was the Giant-Killing type, I probably wouldn’t be as afraid of that lot as I actually am.”

“Oh,” the badger said, deflating slightly. “But,” he added, brightening, “y’ did speak t’ them very boldly.”

“That he did,” Fred agreed. “Very boldly indeed.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Jack said, sitting heavily on a soft-looking patch of dirt. “I think we’ve run far enough. And I’m knackered at any rate.”

John scanned the horizon in the direction from which they’d come. “I think we’re okay for the moment. But I think our plan of approaching whoever is in charge of the tower is right out.”

Jack pulled off one of his shoes and examined his foot. “Bugger this for a lark. I’ve gotten a blister. I hope it doesn’t get infected.”

“A blister?” John snorted. “I’ve seen you take cudgel blows that nearly took your arm off, you’ve been stabbed by swords, and even shot with an arrow—and you’re complaining about a blister?”

“It’s a really
big
blister,” said Jack.

“Here,” Fred said, hopping forward. “I can help with that.”

The little badger started flipping through pages in the Little Whatsit, humming to himself as he did so. Then he seemed to settle on the page he wanted, scanned it twice, then replaced the book in his coat.

“I’m going to need the penknife, please, Scowler John, and Scowler Jack, tell me—are any of your coins silver?”

“One of them,” Jack said as John handed over the knife. “What are you going to do?”

“This’ll sting a little, and I’m sorry for that,” said Fred, “but I can keep it from getting infected.”

Jack removed his stocking and let the animal examine his blistered foot. Fred clucked and purred over it a moment, then swiftly lanced the blister with the knife. As it drained into the cloth Jack pressed against it, Fred used the knife to scrape tiny slivers of silver from the coin, which he then ground to a fine dust between two stones. Finally satisfied with the powdered silver, he pressed it to the wound, then bound the foot tightly with a strip of cloth from his coat. Standing back, he handed the coin to Uncas and told Jack he could replace his stocking and shoe.

“It’ll sting a bit, there’s no helping that,” Fred repeated, “but it’ll be healed in a few hours, and it won’t get infected.”

“Amazing,” said Jack. “How is it you learned this?”

Fred patted the book in his pocket. “The Little Whatsit,” he said proudly. “I told you—it has something about everything in it.”

“Handy, that,” said John. “I’d like to take a look at it—but later. I think someone’s followed us.”

There was a bulky shape moving along the road some distance back, coming straight toward them. It was too small to be one of the giants, but large enough to be worth hiding from.

Jack led them under one of the stilt-houses and under the fallen archway of a house that had been burned. With any luck, they’d blend in with the protruding ribs of the frame that were sticking out of the rubble.

“I think something must have died,” Jack whispered, wrinkling his nose and checking his shoes. “It smells horrid over here.”

“Uh, that would be me,” Uncas admitted sheepishly. “I stepped in a puddle. Sorry.”

“Wet badger fur,” Jack groaned, nodding. “Charles never told me it was this bad.”

“Quiet,” said John, hunkering down. “It’s coming.”

The thing that followed them resembled a motorcar, but it had no engine. Instead it was drawn by two skeletal-looking horses with bandaged heads. With horror, the companions realized that these were dehorned unicorns. And the appearance of the carriage’s driver gave the impression that he’d happily have done it himself, and then used the horns as toothpicks just for spite. He stepped down from the carriage and looked about, eyes narrowed. From their concealment, the companions could see he wore a great gray trench coat and a matching top hat. His beard was full and black, he was all of eight feet tall, and he wore a blue rose on his lapel. A Cossack, out on the town.

Then he opened his coat.

Where his torso should have been was a great wicker cage, and through the weave they could just make out the shapes of small creatures moving about inside. At first John thought they might be monkeys, but then the large man stopped and opened his chest to let them out, and the true horror was laid bare in the chalky moonlight.

They were children.

Little boys, perhaps ten but certainly not as old as twelve, and thin as bamboo. They were filthy, and dressed in rags. Each had a thick iron ring fastened around its neck, which was connected to a leash held by the man. The dozen or so boys who emerged from him spread out at his feet, sniffing the ground.

“Ah, my little Sweeps, my precious Sweeps. Finds us the manflesh. Finds us it, and make Papa happy.”

“Yes, Papa,” the children answered in unison.

As the companions watched from their hiding place, the Sweeps began a revoltingly fascinating transformation. They bent low, walking on all fours and sniffing the ground. And as they went, they began murmuring phrases that at first seemed like nonsense.

“I love my vegetables,” said one.

“I stabbed my sister in the eye,” said another.

“My farts smell like flowers,” said a third.

And as the boys voiced these obvious lies, their noses began to grow. Some grew longer than others, but all of them soon had noses of extraordinary length, and their search picked up the pace accordingly.

“Good, good, my precious Sweeps,” purred their “papa.” “Finds us the man-flesh. Finds it now, for your papa and the King.”

The man and his Sweeps were looking around the stilt-houses on the opposite side of the road, far from where the companions were hiding. For a brief instant, John and Jack both harbored the notion that they could sneak away, but then one of the Sweeps stood stock still, like a chipmunk. It sniffed the air several times, and then turned and looked directly at the companions.

The Sweep ran to its master and whispered to him, and the great man and his hideous children all turned around and began to move across the road.

Suddenly a ball of flame erupted in the center of the road, throwing a blazing light over the whole area. For a moment the Sweeps’ master locked fury-filled eyes with John, but he retreated from the fire, pulling all the children back inside himself. Mounting the carriage, he wheeled the unicorns about and disappeared over the hill.

“That was lucky as all Hades,” John said, rising from where he’d been crouching. “Very lucky.”

“It weren’t luck, really,” came a muffled voice from above. “The Sweeps can withstand a lot, but the Wicker Men hate fire more than anything.”

A thin, limber man dressed in tattered clothes dropped down from the stilt-house to the left of them. His face was wrapped in cloth save for his eyes, and his arms were bandaged to the fingertips. From the blackened cloth, they could tell he’d been badly singed in saving them.

“Naw,” he said, waving off their concern. “I’s been burned worse, see?”

He unwrapped the cloth from his face to reveal old scars along his right cheek and chin. The companions all gasped in shock—but not because of the scars.

It was Charles.

“Scowler Charles!” Uncas said joyfully. “Of course it be you who rescued us! Of course!”

“Who’s Charles?” said the man, eyeing the badger suspiciously. “I only helped you out ‘cause I hate the Wicker Men. It weren’t to save you lot of idiots a’tall.”

“These are scowlers … uh, scholars, not idiots,” Fred said defiantly, “and they are two of the greatest men in all the world.”

“It doesn’t matter why,” Jack said, offering a hand that was studiously ignored. “Ah, I mean, there’s no one in England I’d be happier to see right now.”

“England?” the man asked. “What’s an ‘England’?”

“What kind of question is that?” John sputtered, spreading his arms. “
This
is England. This country, where we live. England. Great Britain. Home.”

The man looked puzzled. “I don’t know where you blokes come from, but this is Albion. Always has been, as long as anyone can remember. There are some what call it otherwise, but not aloud, not unless they be brave, or foolish. The king’s minions, like that one what just run off, have seen to that. I shouldn’t even be sayin’ as much as I have.”

“Either way,” John said, “we are truly grateful for your help. I’m John.” As Jack had done, John stuck out his hand, which the man finally shook.

“Strange, stupid travelers from afar, you can call me Chaz,” he said hesitantly. “Welcome to the Winterland.”

PART TWO

Fractured Albion

CHAPTER FIVE

Tat terdemalion

The fishermen had wondered about the cart, and the scrawny horse that pulled it, and the solitary driver who had waited with it by the river’s edge for nearly three hours. He was unshaven and unkempt, but wore robes of great quality and worth. His cart was battered and poorly kept but could withstand such treatment because its builders had been masters of their craft. And the steed was thin, but its bearing was noble. This driver was, despite the appearances, a great dignitary, or even possibly a king who sat in his cart next to the river.

The wild-eyed look he wore, coupled with the fact that he seemed to converse only with himself, encouraged them to leave him be. The fishermen moved their nets farther down the river and left him to his own devices.

The king (for that was, in fact, what he was) had been lured to the riverside by a promise. All he need do was wait for the man depicted in an illumination he’d been given, then deliver him to the distant tournament that had already commenced. And for this, the king would be given his heart’s desire—or at least, the fulfillment of the family obsession. It never occurred to him to wonder how his benefactor had discovered the location of the Questing Beast, but the promise itself was enough, and made it worth his effort to try.

When it was nearly dusk, the autumn light had faded to a haze that painted the belly of the clouds gold and crimson. As the sky grew dimmer, the king’s patience finally found itself rewarded when a shortish, slightly discombobulated man came staggering up the embankment.

He was more disheveled than in the illumination, but the manner of dress was the same, and he was here, in the appointed spot, at (almost) the appointed time. The king lowered himself from the cart with a grunt and a groan and bowed his head in greeting.

The odd man he’d been sent to retrieve spoke strangely, almost unintelligibly. Perhaps he was an idiot. Either way, the king reasoned, he needed to communicate his intention. With a series of half phrases and pantomimed gestures, it became evident to the man that the king was there to offer transport. He clambered into the cart, sitting next to the king, and stuck out his hand in greeting. The king looked at it oddly for a moment, then gripped the man’s wrist, as if looking for a concealed weapon.

The man laughed uproariously at this and said something the king finally realized was his name: “Dyson. Hugo Dyson. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

The king loosed his wrist and nodded. “Pellinor,” he said, tapping his chest. “Pellinor.” With that he grasped the reins and clucked his tongue at the horse. They were three days late and still had a long way to go.

Following their familiar-yet-still-a-stranger liberator gave John and Jack time to observe and evaluate him. He was, for all that their senses could accrue, Charles. But at the same time he was, as he insisted repeatedly, not.

Some of the scars he bore were fresh, but others were years old. He had not come here in a trice, as they and the badgers had done. It was possible he had gone through one of the doorways, as their hapless colleague had earlier, and found himself thrust backward in time—but that wouldn’t explain why he didn’t recognize them, or worse, why it seemed as if he had no memory of the Charles they knew at all.

Chaz was obviously uneducated, and he spoke with worse grammar than Uncas. He bore some of Charles’s mannerisms, and certain speech patterns were familiar, the cadences, the tone.… But both the scholarly rationalism and playful inquisitiveness were gone. What remained was the shape of Charles, his outline, but it was filled with fear, and distrust, and overwhelmingly, the basest of instincts: to survive at all costs. This was made clear right away.

“Get rid of the animals,” Chaz had said, to the badgers’ great dismay.

“We’re not getting rid of anyone,” John stated firmly, backed by incredulous nodding from Jack. “They’re with us, period.”

Chaz shrugged. “Have it your way. But they smell, and that means death here.”

“You aren’t a garden of roses yourself,” Fred pointed out.

“Fred!” Uncas exclaimed. “Mind your tongue! This be Scowler Charles you be addressin’!”

“There you go with that ‘Charles’ business again,” Chaz said, irritated. “My name is Chaz, not that it matters to you. And you owe me a life-debt.”

“For what?” asked Jack.

“Saving you from the Sweeps,” said Chaz, “but I’ll consider it paid if you give me the fat badger to roast.”

Uncas couldn’t decide whether to be offended at being called fat, or horrified at the idea of being eaten. Fred just bared his teeth and stepped in front of his father.

“You must be joking,” said Jack. “These aren’t merely animals—they’re our friends!”

“Thank you,” said Uncas. “I think.”

“Where we’re from, Chaz, we don’t eat our friends,” John explained.

“I thinks you’re
here
now, not where you’re from,” Chaz replied. “But I’m not really that hungry anyway.” With a last look at the badgers, he turned and trotted off. About twenty yards away, he turned around, a silhouette against the hillside. “Well? Are you idiots coming or not?”

There had been little choice. And as obscured as it was by strangeness, the voice that beckoned to them was their friend’s voice. So they—all four of them—followed.

Chaz set a pace that was swift, but not impossible to keep, even for the badgers. They were slowed only by bewilderment, remorse, and no small amount of fear. It wasn’t a scholar who had looked at them, but a predator. And it ran contrary to animal sense to follow a predator into its own lair.

A short distance farther on, John unconsciously checked the time on his watch, noted the fixed hands, then smiled ruefully and put it back in his pocket.

“Why don’t you carry one that works,” suggested Jack, “and keep that one in another pocket to show Priscilla when she asks about it?”

“I can’t quite manage the deception,” John admitted. “It seems like a small thing, to be sure—but when I tried it, I found myself fussing about with them and worrying about which one was draped on the waistcoat and which was hidden … and then I forgot, and Pris saw the other one, and the hurt in her eyes was excruciating. So it’s the Frog-in-a-Bonnet time or none at all, I’m afraid.”

“Perhaps you could ask Father Christmas to give her a good watch this Christmas, to be passed on to you,” Jack said, grinning.

“That’s not a half-bad idea,” John said. “I’ll have to ask him about it the next time we’re in the Archipelago.”

Jack turned his head, but not swiftly enough for John to catch the look of doubt that crossed his features. Bantering about home and family was one thing. But mentioning the Archipelago brought them both back to the present dilemma, and the creeping despair that was becoming impossible to push away.

It took longer for the companions to get to the small village where Chaz lived than it might have if John or Jack had been in the lead. The entire area seemed deserted, and the only other structures they saw were more of the odd stilt-houses that pockmarked the roads. But Chaz had insisted on taking a circuitous route that roamed back and forth across the entire countryside.

“It’s because of the Wicker Man,” he finally explained when the others pressed for his reasons. “He was out looking for you lot in partic’lar, and there’s no telling how many more are doing the same. Their Sweeps follow your scent, an’ so it’s best to leave a trail that’ll confuse ‘em before they finds you.”

“How many more
what
might be out looking?” asked Jack.

“Wicker Men,” Chaz replied without turning around, “and their Sweeps. That wasn’t the only one, you know. And there are other creatures too. Some better. Most worse.”

“We saw the giants,” John said. “Should we be talking aloud, with them lurking somewhere back there?”

“Oh, the giants is no worry,” Chaz said breezily. “They can’t be loosed until they been summoned, an’ …”

He stopped as if he’d said too much, then scowled at John. “Be that as it may, mayhap we shouldn’t ought t’ be talking aloud, anyroad.”

After another hour of Möbius loops, Chaz finally brought them to his strange abode. Unlike the dozen or so stilt-houses that clustered nearby, it was set into the side of a hill. It had a round door that was lightly camouflaged and heavily fortified. Through the doorway, they could see that the ceilings were low, but it seemed a good enough place, if not really one suited to guests.

The area itself was more intriguing to Jack. It was disconcertingly familiar. The trees, what remained of them, were bare, but the soil itself, the reddish hues, the texture … It was all the same, along with the spot nearby where the quarry should be.…

And then he knew.

It was the Kilns, Jack suddenly realized. Home.
His
home, at any rate. His and Warnie’s, and Jamie’s. Chaz had brought them to the one place Jack most wanted to be, except it wasn’t that place at all—it was a place that looked like home but was really in some hellish otherworld in which they were trapped, perhaps permanently.

“So how have you managed to survive on your own?” Jack asked.

“I makes do,” Chaz said after a moment. “I scavenge, mostly, and trade a little of this, a little of that. But I gets what I needs.”

“I think I need some sustenance,” said John, “if you have anything you can spare, Chaz.”

“My stores is scanty, save for roots and a bone or two,” said Chaz, eyeing the badgers while trying to look as if he wasn’t, “but it may be enough for a thin soup, since we have nothing else t’ put in the pot.”

“Soup—thin or not—sounds fine to me,” Jack said, folding his arms and standing protectively in front of the badgers. “I just wish we had Bert’s magic stone to help it along.”

“Ah yes,” said John. “His Stone Soup. Meal fit for, well, a king. Or a group of lost scholars.”

“Who’s Bert?” Chaz said without looking up from his dinner preparations. “Not that I really care, but talking passes the time.”

“Are you sure he’s not Charles?” Jack whispered to John.

“Heh,” said John. “Bert’s our mentor, Chaz. A great man. And I really wish he were here.”

“Maybe he is,” offered Fred. “If Scowler Char—uh, I mean, if Mister Chaz is here, and he’s almost like Scowler Charles, than perhaps others we know are here too.”

“Everything here is upside down and sideways anyway,” Jack said, indicating their reluctant host. “Perhaps Bert goes by Herb or Herbert or George or some such.”

Uncas nodded sagely. “Th’ Far Traveler can be knowed by many names.”

For the first time it seemed as if the conversation had engaged Chaz’s full attention. He stood abruptly, ladle in hand. “Far Traveler? This Bert fellow is also called the Far Traveler?”

“Does that make a difference?” asked John.

“It does if I knows a ‘Far Traveler’ and not a ‘Bert,’” Chaz replied, suddenly animated. “Is he really a friend of yours?”

“Friend and teacher,” said John. “I think what we need is to get some food and rest, then get our bearings in the morning and see if Bert really is somewhere hereabouts.”

Chaz dropped the bowl of roots he’d been pulling out of a cupboard and turned to them, incredulous. “Are you mad?” he exclaimed. “Why would you possibly go about during the day?”

“Why would that be a worse plan than traipsing about at night?” asked Jack. “What with giants and Sweeps and Wicker Men roaming around.”

“There are worse things than them what serves the king,” Chaz said slowly, “an’ they go about when the sun is high.”

The fear in his voice was enough to convince them. The companions ate the meal he prepared, then stretched out on the dirt floor as the sun began to rise, to sleep until dusk. And so none of them saw the raven Chaz kept in the cage in the rear of the house, or the name he wrote on the note he tied to its leg before he turned it loose into the harsh Albion daylight, closing the door behind it.

When the sun had finally dropped to just a sliver of blood-tinted light on the horizon, Chaz finally opened the door again, and they began the journey to find the Far Traveler.

Chaz led them south and west, to the channel that was the nearest access to open waters in that part of Albion. As they journeyed they could see more towers in the distance. None were close enough for the companions to worry about being sighted, but they kept watchful eyes all around, just to be safe.

It was still fully night when they reached their destination, a small hamlet Chaz called Trevena. It consisted of fewer structures than the village that had been the Kilns, but all here were on the strange stilts. The largest of them, made of stone, was at the edge of the beach, surrounded by a courtyard. A wooden bridge ran up at a slope to the front door, which was open.

The courtyard was bare rather than clean; and the shack simple rather than orderly. Spareness might resemble cleanliness, but it cannot disguise the bleak dreariness underneath.

Chaz passed over the bridge and through the shack with a proprietor’s ease and opened the door at the rear of the building. “He’ll be out this way, on the pier,” he said, gesturing. “Follow me close-like.”

The pier, which was itself a generous description, was high off the ground, but short. The beach dropped away sharply, since there was no longer any water flowing underneath, and the sand stretched out into the darkness.