The Ozark trilogy (49 page)

And she threw in something extra about lying in beds after people made them.

“The
Smiths
are to blame,” Donald Patrick sputtered. “Youall make it seem to have been me-”

“Nope,” said Responsible. “Not you by your own self, you can spread that blame around for a considerable distance. But you
were
Chair, mind-and you could have ordered the Smiths to sit down and shut up, as was proper, and gone on to conduct that meeting as it should of been conducted.”

Donald Patrick Brightwater’s face was a ghastly white, and sweat stood out on his forehead.

“I was taken completely by surprise,” he said, almost whispering. “I was expecting everything to go in order, and then all of a sudden there stood Delldon Mallard in his purple velvet and his crown, and all those Attendants kneeling all around the room, and his wife up in the balcony being crowned a Queen . . . I swear I didn’t know what was happening till it was over, and too late!”

It had gone far enough, and Ruth of Motley slid smoothly into the breach.

“Son,” she said, “anybody would of done the same in your place. I recall you weren’t feeling yourself that day anyway, and you shouldn’t of
tried
to force yourself to go on with the chairing of that meeting.”

“You know how Donald Patrick is, Ruth,” added Patience of Clark. “There’s no way a person can get him to think of himself, not if he’s convinced there’s a duty to be done and his name on it.

“Responsible had no intention to criticize you, Donald Patrick.” That was Thorn of Guthrie, adding her careful bit to the orchestration. “She’s just upset that things went like they did.”

They went on, soothing the men as automatically as they braided their hair in the mornings; and Responsible let them handle it. For one thing, she had no intention of pointing out to them that her purpose in cutting off the comsets so quickly was not revenge-it was just the most effective leverage she had for forcing the other eleven Kingdoms to fall to at once and get their affairs in order. They had to be weaned, and she knew no swifter means of doing it. If this pack of her relatives couldn’t see that on their own, so be it; she had other things on her mind.

For example, she had a trip to make down to the stables-to see a Mule.

Responsible began by making it very clear to the Mule what she was prepared to tolerate.

“Sterling,” she said, leaning over the front gate of the stall, “you give me one of those headaches you’re so good at passing around, I’ll give you one with a two-by-four. I hope that’s clear?”

The Mule rolled her eyes and flattened her ears, but it was no more than a ritual response, the same way the two-by-four was a ritual challenge. Sterling was breathing as easy as stirring thin soup-an angry Mule huffed and went on till you could hear it a hundred feet off.

“I
won’t
have it,” Responsible warned. “I
mean
that. I’ll potion your oats and do an Insertion Transformation that’ll mean things you never dreamed of in your tail; you hear me?”

The ears came up, and Sterling made a gentle whuffing noise

 
“All right, then,” said Responsible, and unlatched the stall. She went inside and went over to the Mule, and laid her face for a second-all any Mule would tolerate of such stuff-against its neck. And then she leaned back against the stable wall, noting it needed a new coat of whitewash, and waited.

THE OUT-CABAL CALLS YOU.

“
Drat
you, Sterling!” Responsible clapped her hands to her head. “What did I tell you? Gently, you ornery creature, gentlyl Human minds are not suited for that blasting away you do--
mindspeech,
we use!
Not
mindbraying!”

The Mule whuffled again, and thrashed its tail.

MY APOLOGIES, DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER.

That was better, though not yet exactly pleasant. Responsible nodded her approval, and dropped her hands.

“Go on, then,” she said. “And mind you don’t forget.”

THE OUT-CABAL HAS ASKED ME TO PASS ALONG A MESSAGE TO YOU, AND WHILE I DON’T LIKE THEM, NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL, I HAVE A CERTAIN REGARD FOR
YOU,
DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER. THEREFORE I WILL TELL YOU WHAT THEY SAY.

“And tell them what I say in return,” Responsible reminded her.

IT WOULD BE A WASTE OF MY TIME, OTHERWISE.

“All right, then . . . What do they want this time?”

The first time, she had been only ten years old, and she’d been scared half out of her wits. Like the Grannys and the Magicians, she had known the Mules were telepathic, but along with that knowledge went a stomach-twisting familiarity with the stories of what had happened to various foolish humans that had tried to take advantage of that fact. The Mules out-Ozarked the Ozarkers; they kept themselves to themselves, and they intended that everybody else should do likewise. When Sterling first mindspoke her, Responsible had waited, holding her breath, for her brain to be battered at and bounced around her bead like a child’s play ball. It hadn’t been that bad, but it hadn’t been any fun, either; the only good thing about that first time had been that it hadn’t taken very long.

They were the Out-Cabal, they wanted her to know; they represented a group of planets called the Garnet Ring; their resources of magic were sufficient to simply remove Ozark from the sky like blowing out a candle, if they so chose-under certain conditions established by their laws, which it happened had not yet been met, lucky Ozark-and they were merely setting up relations.

The second time, three years ago, they’d directed her to call all the Magicians of Rank together at the Castle and put them through their paces. They’d wanted an idea of what, precisely, the abilities of “the current crop” were. And Responsible had gone outraged to Granny Hazelbide, and been told in no uncertain terms how to proceed. “You get those men here,” the Granny’d said, “and you lose no time.
No
time!” She’d done it; and she’d lain near dying for eleven days afterward from the effects of their hatred. The Magicians of Rank didn’t take kindly to a twelveyear-old girl in pigtails being able to call them in and set them to doing Formalisms & Transformations like you’d show off a fancy Mule team at a fair-and they took even less kindly to not knowing why they were unable to refuse her, or why they were unable to speak of it afterward. Nine Magicians of Rank, all concentrating their hatred on her over the course of the long day the OutCabal had requested . . . Remembering, Responsible shivered. She wanted no repetition of that pain, beside which the pain of deathdance fever was no more than a needleprick to a careless finger.

THEY PUT YOU ON NOTICE, said Sterling, THAT THIS PLANET IS NOW UNDER THEIR FULL SURVEILLANCE.

“It has
always
been under their surveillance, so far as I know.”

FROM TIME TO TIME, SINCE YOUR PEOPLE CAME TO THIS LAND, THEY HAVE CHOSEN TO WATCH YOUR BEHAVIOR AND YOUR DEVELOPMENT. NOW, IT WILL NOT BE FROM TIME TO
TIME. IT
WILL BE AT
ALL
TIMES.

“Why? What makes us so much more interesting all of a sudden?”

YOU ARE A PLANET RULED BY THE LAWS OF MAGIC, NOT THE LAWS OF SCIENCE; THUS, YOU FALL WITHIN THEIR INFLUENCE.

“That has always been so,” said Responsible stubbornly.

BUT OTHER THINGS HAVE CHANGED. UNDER ONLY TWO CONDITIONS DO THE LAWS OF THE GARNET RING ALLOW THE OUT-CABAL TO INTERFERE IN THE AFFAIRS OF A MAGIC-BOUND PLANET: WHEN THERE IS A PLANETARY CATASTROPHE, SUCH AS FAMINE OR PLAGUE OR WAR, THAT THREATENS TO DESTROY ALL THE POPULATION

“I know the laws!”

DO NOT INTERRUPT ME, DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER!

Stars danced before her eyes, but she knew she deserved it. “Sorry,” she said. “Beg your pardon, Sterling.”

AND THE OTHER IS: WHEN THE PLANET IS IN A STATE OF ANARCHY. THAT IS TO SAY, WHEN HUMANS HAVE THE GOOD SENSE TO RUN THEIR AFFAIRS AS MULES DO. I FIND THIS SECOND CONDITION FOOLISH. Responsible didn’t doubt that for a moment.

“There are differences between humans and Mules,” she said.

Sterling’s silence was both eloquent and insolent, and Responsible longed to pull her braided tail.

PLEASE TELL THEM, she said instead, switching to mindspeech herself for discretion’s sake, though she’d set wards before she came in, PLEASE TELL THEM THAT WE FACE NO PLANETARY CATASTROPHE. WE ARE WELL FED, WE ARE IN FULL HEALTH, AND WE ARE NOT AT WAR NOR HAVE WE EVER BEEN.

There was a moment’s silence; then, I HAVE TOLD THEM, said Sterling.

AND TELL THEM, STERLING, ESTIMABLE MULE, THAT WE ARE NOT IN A STATE OF ANARCHY.

After the pause, the Mule stamped a front foot for emphasis.

THEY SAY THAT DOES NOT APPEAR TO THEM TO BE FULLY ACCURATE.

IT IS, said Responsible, A MATTER OF DEFINITION.

THEY DEFINE ANARCHY, the Mule responded, AS AN ABSENCE OF GOVERNMENT. YOUR GOVERNMENT WAS THE CONFEDERATION OF CONTINENTS, WHICH HAS NOW FALLEN. THEREFORE, THEY SAY, YOU ARE WITHOUT A GOVERNMENT.

THEY ARE IN ERROR, said Responsible. WE ARE NOT WITHOUT GOVERNMENT ... UNFORTUNATELY, WE HAVE AN
EXCESS OF
GOVERNMENT.

The pause was longer than usual.

THEY WOULD LIKE AN EXPLANATION, said the Mule finally.

PLEASE TELL THEM: WE HAD ONE GOVERNMENT, THE CONFEDERATION OF CONTINENTS. THAT HAS BEEN DISSOLVED, LEGALLY AND BY DUE PROCESS. AND NOW THAT IT NO LONGER EXISTS, WE HAVE
TWELVE
GOVERNMENTS, EACH SEPARATE AND SOVEREIGN. WE ARE TWELVE TIMES AS GOVERNED A5 WE WERE BEFORE THE CONFEDERATION FELL. PLEASE TELL THEM THAT, STERLING, EXACTLY AS I HAVE STATED IT.

She waited, then. A Mule in the next stall brayed in what she would have taken for sympathy in any creature except a Mule. Mules did not sympathize.

THE OUT-CABAL SAYS THAT THAT IS ONE POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION OF THE PRESENT SITUATION.

IT IS THE
ONLY
POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION!

THEY DISAGREE, DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER. I TOLD YOU ... I WILL TELL YOU AGAIN: THEY SAY IT IS ONE POSSIBLE WAY OF LOOKING AT THE MATTER.

AND?

AND WHAT?

AND WHAT ELSE? WHAT ELSE DO THEY SAY, STERLING? ARE THEY MOVING AGAINST US IN THE MORNING, DO WE HAVE THREE DAYS TO PREPARE, ARE WE ABOUT TO BE TURNED INTO A SMALL DENSE CUBE? WHAT WILL THEY DO NOW-WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?

PLEASE BE STILL. I AM LISTENING.

BEG YOUR PARDON, said Responsible again.

DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER, THEY SAY THAT YOU ARE NOW UNDER THEIR CONSTANT OBSERVATION. THAT IS HOW THIS BEGAN; I AM NOT IMPRESSED.

WHAT DOES IT
MEAN?
WILL THEY TELL YOU?

IT MEANS THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY YOU SUGGEST, BUT THAT ONLY BY WATCHING ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT, EVERY DAY AND EVERY NIGHT, CAN THEY DETERMINE WHETHER YOU ARE RIGHT OR WRONG. THEY HAVE NO RESPECT FOR PRIVACY, THAT IS OBVIOUS.

THEY WILL SEE TWELVE ORDERLY GOVERNMENTS, GOING ABOUT THEIR AFFAIRS. TELL THEM THAT. TELL THEM THEY CAN WATCH TILL THEY FALL OUT OF THE SKY, BUT THEY WILL SEE NO FAMINE, NO PLAGUE, NO WAR, AND NO ANARCHY. TELL THEM THEY HAVE MY WORD ON THAT.

DAUGHTER OR BRIGHTWATER, I APOLOGIZE ... THEY ONLY REPEAT THEMSELVES. THEY SAY THEY WILL BE WATCHING. AND THAT IS ALL THEY SAY. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO ADD.

Responsible braced herself; the Out-Cabal liked to end their conversations with a little exhibition of the potency of their arcane skills, and there was no predicting what form it might take.

ALTHOUGH THEY HAVE SAID THEY HAVE NOTHING TO ADD, Sterling said disgustedly, THEY HAVE ADDED SOMETHING.

YES?

THEY SAY NOT TO WAIT-NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. THEY SAY THAT THEY ARE NEITHER CRUEL NOR UNREASONABLE AND THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE TROUBLE ENOUGH ON YOUR HANDS. THEY SAY THEY FEEL NO NEED TO ADD TO THAT.

She refused to thank them; she closed her mind firmly so to indicate. But she was nevertheless grateful. Once it had been a whirling column of lightning that had chased her all around the stable; the second time it had been towers of flame ringing her in, burning up just to the distance where the heat began to be torture, burning just long enough to cause her genuine fear, and then flickering out and leaving no mark behind. Not a charred spot, not a singed stalk of grain. Only the stinging of her skin and the heat of her clothing. If they felt obliged to be more spectacular each time, she couldn’t bring herself to look forward to it. Not that either of their displays so far had been anything she couldn’t of done herself. It was the things she’d heard they could do, and not knowing what to expect, nor how far they’d go, that made it uncomfortable.

She marched back to the Castle, getting angrier with every step she took-she was halfway there before she remembered the wards, and had to go back and take
them
off-and went to find Granny Hazelbide.

Who had, she discovered, acquired a partner.

“Hello there, Granny Gableframe!” she said, almost surprised out of her mad. It wasn’t like Grannys to go visiting; they didn’t have time.

“Evening, Responsible,” said the Granny.

“Granny Gableframe,” explained Granny Hazelbide, “is asking for our hospitality.”

“Only for a little while, mind,” put in the other. “I’ve been Granny-in-Residence at Castle Smith now over thirty-law! over forty-years, and it’s been nothing but outlandish misery the wholetime. What I fancy now is a little house in a near village, if you can spare one, where I can granny for decent folk for a change, instead of that pack of . . . unspeakables . . . at Castle Smith. Seems to me Granny Hazelbide needs no help here.”