The Unwilling Aviator (Book 4) (13 page)

His uglier half snarled and pushed past Cheatum. The man grabbed Ruth by her legs and easily lifted her. He strode to the rear of the cart and pushed her into the mess. Then both men climbed atop the box, and Cheatum made a flourishing wave with his arm. "Now to home!" Cheatum ordered him. The tough man rolled his eyes, snapped the reins, and the cart rolled down the street.

Pat and Fred pushed aside the straw and watched the cart disappear from sight of the doorway. She grabbed Fred, hauled him to his feet, and tugged him to the entrance. "We need to get aboard that cart," she replied.

Pat raced forward and half-dragged Fred along with her. She climbed into the cart and Fred scrambled inside behind her just as they broke out into one of the busy streets. They hid behind the side board and covered themselves in old tarps and sheets of metal. Fred winced and pulled out a miniature statue of a dwarf whose poky hat had stabbed his side.

He held it up to Pat. "What do you think they do with these things?"

"Quiet!" she hissed.

The cart passed a small group of guards who scanned the area for the fugitives. The fugitives ducked and waited for half a street before they peeked over the rear again. The street was a busy mess of tourists and locals, all out buying, talking, selling, and walking. Their cart bounced down the roads to the northwestern point of the city. The plain mud-baked buildings that were squished together were crowded out by large houses with high walls around green yards. There were even a few buildings with two floors, and at the windows sat flower boxes that sprinkled petals onto the clean streets.

The cart stopped at the gate to one of these magnificent homes. It was surrounded by a high wall of baked mud and covered with whitewash. Pat took advantage of the pause to drag Fred and herself out of the cart and to the wall. The gate was opened by a servant and the cart rolled inside. Pat pulled Fred along the wall to the left side of the perimeter where sat a small alley. She released him and nodded at the top of the wall. "Let me climb onto your shoulders so I can get a look inside."

"Why couldn't we just go inside with the cart?" he argued.

"Because we might have been caught, now help me up," she ordered.

"How about I levitate you?" he suggested.

"How about no?" she countered.

"Fine, I'll do it to myself," he replied. Fred grasped his sticks and changed them to his staff. He focused on floating into the sky with his feet hovering over the enclosure walls. His efforts were turned upside down when his feet sprang from the ground and flipped him so his head brushed against the ground. Pat leaned down and tilted her head to show off the smirk on her lips. "Don't say a thing," he ordered her.

"I was merely going to suggest you tell your master to give you more practice," she replied.

"Yeah, right," he growled. He felt dizzy as the blood rushed to his head.

"Can you right yourself?" she asked him.

"I think sooo-!" Fred's effort to flip himself over made his feet fly into the air and him with them. He grasped the top edge of the wall and changed his staff back into sticks. His legs slipped over the edge, but his feet scraped the side and he scrambled onto the top. He rubbed his aching head and glanced over the edge of the wall into the enclosure.

The yard was a menagerie of green plants and trees which were punctuated by pedestals on which sat statues. The yard between the wall and the house was occupied by a half dozen gardeners and cleaning servants going to and fro. The house stood twenty yards off, and in the center was a square garden. It would be impossible to skirt all those pairs of eyes.

Inside the house Fred saw people moving about, and in the center of the square house was a courtyard. He caught a glimpse of Ruth as she was placed on a tall pedestal in the center of the courtyard. Cheatum stepped up beside Ruth and stroked her hair with his hand. Fred shuddered.

"Can you see anything?" Pat whispered.

"Too much," he muttered.

"What?"

"They put Ruth in some kind of courtyard," he replied.

Pat frowned. "By Phaeton. . ." she mumbled. Her eyes snapped up to Fred. "Get down before you're seen. We must return to the inn."

"And leave her here?"

She sighed. "Ned will have a much easier time rescuing her than we will," she pointed out.

Fred frowned, but slid off the wall and landed beside her. "What if we waited until nightfall?" he suggested.

She rapped him upside the head. "Have you forgotten about your required practice flight today? You need a squire or you'll be disqualified."

Fred rubbed his head and scowled at her. "You don't have to remind me so hard. Besides, how are we going to get through the city without being seen?" he reminded her. Pat opened her mouth, paused, then shut it. He grinned. "See? We need to stay here until tonight."

Pat furrowed her brow and her eyes fell on his staff. "Are you able to make us invisible?" she wondered. Then her eyes widened and she shook her head. "What evil god placed that in my mind? We may never be seen again," she added.

"I can try," Fred defended himself. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece of meat.

Pat caught a whiff and wrinkled her nose. "How long have you been holding that?" she asked him.

"Since Tramadore. Fluffy's been catching food on the way so I haven't needed to feed him much," Fred told her. He tossed the meat to the ground, changed his sticks to staff, and held the stone point toward the meat. His eyes focused on the meat while his mind focused on the meat disappearing. The end of the staff glowed and in a blink of a moment the meat vanished.

Fred beamed with pride until Pat leaned down and patted the dirt. "Um, Fred?" she wondered.

"Yeah?" he replied.

"Where did you send it?"

Fred blinked. "Do what?"

"You transported the meat to somewhere else. It's not here," she told him.

"I did?" Fred knelt down beside her and patted the dirt. The meat wasn't there. He raised his eyebrows. "Wow. Never done that before."

Pat frowned. "Yes, you did. In the Valley of the King. You transported all of us from the battlefield into the valley."

Fred scrunched his face. "I did?" He leaned on his staff and frowned. "I guess I never thought about what happened there. I thought I got knocked out and Ned saved us."

Pat scrutinized his confused face. "What do you remember?"

He shrugged. "Nothing after Ruth dropping me and me making that earthquake," he told her. A smile slowly slipped onto his lips. "So I saved the day more than I thought?"

"Yes, and I wish you'd do the same right now by transporting us where the meat has gone, if we could only figure out where that is," she replied.

A loud, high-pitched scream from over the wall caught their attention. The pair stood and listened to many feet pound their way to the source of the noise. "What is it? What's wrong?" they heard Cheatum yell.

"It's a rotten piece of meat, sir," someone replied. "It wasn't here a moment ago, and you can bet it's an evil sign. Someone's tossed it here to attract an evil monster, and you can be assured it'll come today. It's all because you've carried a trapped one into the house."

Cheatum scoffed. "I don't care what superstitions you have, just pick it up and get it out of here. The thing stinks."

Fred cringed, but Pat furrowed her brow and glanced at Fred. "On second thought, that may not be a good idea. Let's walk back to the inn."

"I second that," Fred replied.

CHAPTER 15

The pair hurried through the streets, ducking in and out of side streets and alleys. Two long hours later they reached the muddy square. Fred paused to scratch Fluffy's head, and followed Pat into the inn. Upstairs they found the unconscious Crash in the chair, but the room was otherwise deserted. They whipped their heads to and fro, but neither Ned, Canto, nor Percy were anywhere to be found.

Pat stepped a few feet into the room and noticed a slip of paper tucked into Crash's ropes. She strode over, snatched it up, and browsed the contents.

Fred came up behind her and looked over the indecipherable scribbles. "What's it say?" he asked her.

"Dear Fred, Ruth and Pat. Gone off to ensure your spots in the required practice flights. Don't dawdle too long. - Ned. P.S. Canto and Percy haven't returned. If you happen to find them, advise them to take a view of the stone in case we should need to take it. P.P.S. Please feed our guest another drop of the 'medicine' before you leave." Pat growled and crumpled the note between her hands. "Phaeton give me patience not to murder him," she mumbled.

There was an echo of her groan, and that came from their 'guest.' Crash's head swung to and fro and he shifted in his bindings. Fred and Pat whipped their heads to each other.

"Where's the vial?" they asked at the same time. The pair searched the room and found the vial on the nightstand beside the bed. Fred popped open the cork while Pat hurried to Crash's side.

"Hurry!" she hissed at Fred.

Fred rushed to the chair, but he tripped over a loose rotten board and slammed face-first into the floor. The vial sailed across the room and crashed into the wall, shattering the glass and their hopes of a clean, unconscious kidnap victim.

Crash raised his head and his bleary eyes glanced around the room. "Where am I?" he slurred.

Pat pulled her sword from its sheath and knocked the blunt end of the blade against the back of his head. He slumped forward and didn't stir. Fred glanced at Pat with shock written across his face. "You hit him," he commented.

Pat sheathed her sword and frowned at her handiwork. "It was necessary. Ned has already kidnapped him, and to let him go now would risk our mission. We must hope Ned has another vial of valum venom."

"So what do we do about Ruth?" Fred wondered.

Pat shook her head. "I don't know. It would be simple to wait until dark, but you both must be at the practice flights. Without Ned we don't have a competent castor-"

"Hey!" Fred protested.

"-or at least one capable of transporting her away from the garden," Pat amended. She sighed and sat back down on the bed. "If only she would have touched the amulet," she murmured.

Fred's eyes widened when he was struck with a thought. "What if she touched the amulet without touching the amulet?" he suggested.

Pat raised her head and glared at him. "I swore I knocked Crash on the head and not you," she mused.

"But what if we had something of hers, a hair or something, and that brushed up against the amulet?" he persisted. "Maybe that would release the magic-"

"-and free her from the stone! By Phaeton, Fred, you might have something there!" Pat exclaimed. She jumped from the bed and raced out of the room. Fred followed her to the room shared by the girls and found Pat kneeling beside the bed. Her eyes scanned the blankets, and she let out an exclamation of joy and snatched at some invisible object. She held it up and showed it was a hair. "This was dropped when she was human. It appears that anything left from her human self doesn't change to stone."

"Maybe there's still magic inside it," he pointed out.

"Let's hope it's enough to awaken the rest of her," Pat replied. She tucked the hair safely into her pocket, but paused and frowned. "But how are we going to get inside and reach her?" She clasped her hands behind her back and paced the floor. "There must be a way of distracting them," she murmured.

Fred's eyes widened. "We can distract them with that curse!" he spoke up.

Pat stopped pacing and rolled her eyes. "That's just superstition. The only curse you caused them was with a lingering smell."

A sly grin slipped onto Fred's face. "Then we'll make a better one." He rushed out of the room before Pat could get an answer from him.

She rolled her eyes and followed him. "Boys. . ." she grumbled.

Fred led Pat outside to where their steeds were housed near the opening to the square. At the sight of his boy Fluffy lifted his head and wagged his rear. "Come on, Fluffy we're going to need you," he told the cantankus.

Pat came up behind him, and whipped her head between the beast and the boy. "Are you mad? What could we want with this beast?"

Fred petted the cantankus' neck and grinned at Pat. "He's going to be the monster that invades the household," he told her.

"With Fluffy following us we'll be sighted by the twinners and the guards," she pointed out.

Fred stood and whipped out his staff. "Not if I hide Fluffy like Ned hid my clothes," he argued.

Pat crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Do you even know how he did that?" she asked him.

"Um, he knocked his staff against my head and focused on changing my clothes?" Fred suggested.

Fluffy lay down on the ground, covered his face with his paws, and whimpered. "For once we agree on something," Pat told the poor cantankus.

"A little more faith here," Fred scolded his pet. "I'll try to make you look like a horse, but you won't be a horse." Fred raised his arms and Pat scurried back out of the way of his magic. "Now hold still. This shouldn't hurt."