He was not ready for the arrival of the Mearsieans, especially when CJ marched up scowling, having discovered that not only were they last to arrive, but someone had gone ahead and made Rel the boss of the camp. He overheard her remark to the air that it seemed all you had to do was be a hulking boy and everybody fell all over trying to put you in charge.
Hibern also heard that, and to forestall anything else from CJ, climbed up on a rock and called out, “Listen! Now that everyone is here, and we know that Liere is a prisoner, we need to figure out what’s next, unless anyone wants to return to Sartorias-deles?”
She had hoped that most would raise their hands, the Mearsieans first.
No one did.
She went on firmly, “Rel is in charge of the camp, so listen for your jobs, and everything will be faster.”
Rel sighed as he glanced across the fire into CJ’s bright, derisive blue gaze. He wished even more strongly that he could have had one night of real sleep before facing CJ’s temper.
Atan had been watching. Her own temper simmered.
Hibern took in Atan’s anger, Rel’s stolid expression, and CJ’s lifted chin, and her heart sank. No matter how far you traveled, even to another world, you brought your trouble with you.
She climbed down, wishing she had kept her mouth shut. Rel sighed, and stepped up beside the rock.
With that many people crowding around, there was the inevitable tangle, exacerbated by Kyale, who loathed dirt, eating off sharpened sticks, and sitting outside, and by Glenn, whose grief found expression in a series of small irritations, beginning with the lack of proper protocol and ending with his sister’s weird, irritating counting of steps and fussing with twigs and rocks so that they were square or parallel.
Rel attempted to avoid the Mearsieans in hopes they’d go off and play. But no, Clair kept them waiting for jobs.
Rel thought up some easy ones to get rid of them, but halfway through, Kitty pushed through, shrilling indignantly, “There are bugs over there! I can’t sleep anywhere with bugs!”
“You can have my spot,” CJ said in her most goading voice not two paces from Rel. “Unless King Rel gets mad, because whatever King Rel wants is so important.”
Rel wasn’t aware of the red flash of irritation until it happened. He reached with his fingers, gave CJ’s shoulder a flick as he said, “Just clear out.” He meant to add something about how they’d just arrived, and they could wait until the morrow to work, but the second his fingers collided with her skinny little body he knew he’d regret it, that he’d broken his own code.
CJ had recoiled to avoid his touch, but when two of his fingers collided with her shoulder she was so furious that she sucked in a breath and shrilled, “He hit me!”
On the other side of the fire, Lilah whirled around, her eyes rounding with honest horror.
Rel gritted his teeth. It had been a gesture of irritation, but he may as well have socked her.
“Sorry,” he said, knowing that that sounded as if he really had hit her. But anything he said would make the situation worse.
Clair said, “Come on, CJ. The sooner we pitch in, the sooner we eat.”
“Did you see that? He hit me!” CJ felt the falsity of every word, like biting into an apple that looked fresh but was rotten. But she couldn’t seem to help herself, as a lifetime of pent-up anger forced her to the summit of self-righteousness.
“Well!” Kyale’s voice rose as she eagerly climbed that summit beside her. She gloried in all the shocked eyes.
CJ’s mind flooded with angry joy, but her triumph—see? He really is a bully—died when she caught the contempt in Atan’s face before she walked to the other side of the camp, where she sat with Tahra and Arthur, her rigid back squarely toward the Mearsieans.
And here was the most tenderhearted of the Mearsiean girls, her big blue eyes almost tearful as she whispered, “Did he hurt you? I never thought Rel would ever . . .”
CJ sat down next to Clair, her gaze on her lap, her stomach boiling with a sick sense of wrong. She knew what getting hit was like. The actual touch had been barely a flick, but she’d sensed the irritation Rel had tried to hide.
She knew she was being unfair. That she had lied. Somehow that made her even angrier. It was all Rel’s fault or she wouldn’t have had this problem at all! But . . . that stomach-churning sense that she’d lied, that her sense of moral superiority was completely fake, kept her silent, furious with rage.
She stayed where she was when someone called for music; she forced laughter when Falinneh and Irenne acted out the play they’d worked out over the past few days; she clapped hard when Tahra recited a long, boring poem about some old war in the flattest voice ever; she watched without enjoyment as Dhana rose and danced light-footed around the fire, the flickering light playing over her soaring form as she leaped and twirled.
Finally, finally it was all over, and CJ was the first to leave, staking out the soft grass under a broad tree. Gradually the other girls appeared, except for Clair, who remained at the fireside, a small figure staring down into the flames.
Clair became aware of a quiet conversation on the other side of the fire; she lifted her eyes, but her vision dazzled, and all she could see were silhouettes.
“. . . know what to do,” Atan was saying. “It’s like in the forest group in Sartor, one ill-tempered person can break the group into little groups. Kyale likes to see things stirred, and Lilah is upset, which means all her friends are upset. I wish we could send them both away and let them figure it out, except I feel so for Rel, after what happened in Everon.”
Ill-tempered, Clair was thinking. It hurt the more because right now, it seemed true, if you didn’t really know CJ, the most loyal friend ever.
Puddlenose sauntered up to the campfire, the firelight under-lighting his square face. “Put CJ in charge.”
He wandered away.
Atan sighed sharply, but Clair understood. “I think he’s right,” she said, though she hadn’t been invited into the conversation. But they were talking about her friend.
Atan sighed again, as if she were trying hard to get rid of her own bad temper. She said, “How is that going to help? Unless she’s figured out how to defeat Siamis, rescue Liere, and send Detlev back to Norsunder forever.”
Clair sat back, trying to fit words to the emotions she was feeling, then was surprised when Hibern, filled with a kind of cautious hope, said slowly, “There’s this ballad where I come from. It’s meant to be funny, but it kind of fits. Tomorrow, put CJ in charge of all the camp jobs. Everything that Rel’s been doing, or asking people to do.”
Atan repeated doubtfully, “Everything?”
Clair said, “I think that will do it.”
But she felt like a traitor as she retreated through the quiet, leaf-scented air to the grassy area where the other girls lay. Insects sang and chirruped in the distance as she curled up by CJ and Sherry.
Sherry was already asleep. Clair could see starlight reflecting in CJ’s eyes as she stared upward. So Clair rolled over and stared up at the stars through the leaves. She thought she recognized some of the twinkling patterns, though they looked sideways to what she was used to. She still felt a sense of shock at the idea of two moons, but there they both were, on opposite sides of the sky, one small and one big, though only half lit.
Clair whispered, “Are you all right, CJ?”
“I’m fine,” CJ muttered. “I just want to find Liere, and go back home.”
“We could talk to Hibern. Maybe she’d send us back. I’m sure not all of us are needed.”
“No, we better stay. They think everything is my fault,” CJ whispered bitterly. “I have to help rescue Liere. In fact, I have to be the one to find her, or I’m a gigantic villain, worse than Detlev, Siamis, Kessler, and all the rest of them combined.”
If she brought up Rel, Clair vowed to tell her.
But CJ didn’t, and Clair stayed silent, hoping that CJ’s bad mood would break before morning.
CJ was too angry with everyone, but herself most of all, to speak Rel’s name.
Clair’s warm hand stole over CJ’s. She gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, then Clair sighed and turned over, leaving CJ staring upward.
* * *
—
In the morning, the noise of those early to rise got everyone else stirring, yawning and stretching, talking and laughing as they brushed grass off their clothes. They wandered to the center of the camp, where Atan was sitting on a log. When the Mearsieans approached, she said in a clear voice, “Since you object to whatever Rel does, you can run the camp, CJ.”
Atan pointed to an axe by her feet. “You’d better start by fetching the firewood, since we’ve already burned all the gleanings. There is a fallen log over that way.”
CJ looked at the circle of faces, some hard, a few friendly, but nobody said anything until Clair came up beside her. “Want help?”
CJ lifted her chin. “No.” She meant to say that anything that galoot can do, she could do better, but the words stuck in her throat.
She grabbed the axe and marched off, glad to get away.
The fallen log lay some hundred paces off. CJ walked around it, trying to decide where to begin. As she did, she argued mentally with friends and enemies, vilifying Atan and Rel and justifying herself, but every word seemed to escape into the air.
Meanwhile, here was this gigantic log.
She hefted the axe, and hit one of the dried branches, which splintered into a thousand bits, splinters hitting her hands and face. Ugh!
She marched to the big end of the log, and swung the axe as hard as she could.
The blade bounced off the log, twisting so hard her fingers stung painfully. She wiped her hands on her grimy skirt, and tried again. This time the blade landed awry and bounced away without leaving a dent. She tried again, and got the blade to stick, but when she tried to pull it out, she had to tug hard.
Three more hits, and she’d made three little gashes that weren’t even close together. Her palms were fairly tough from a lot of tree climbing, but even so they were beginning to sting with promised blisters if she kept it up.
But she had to, right? Because . . . Because it’s my fault.
Smack! A chip flew off, nearly clipping her ear. The axe fell to the grass.
Footsteps whished through the grass, and there was Rel, looming like a mountain. CJ hunched up, braced for war.
Rel sat on the log.
He said, “They think you’ve got a grudge against me.”
“I don’t,” she shot back.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s something besides that. I know our first meeting was bad, but you had worse experience with Jilo.”
CJ jerked her shoulders in a shrug.
“I think you’re envious,” Rel said.
“I am not!”
His eyes crinkled briefly, but he didn’t laugh. “You’re not envious of me. That is, I know you don’t want to be me.”
“Ugh,” she said, crossing her arms.
This time he did laugh, a brief, voiceless huff. “I don’t think you want to take away my friends. Or my life. It’s what you think I can do, isn’t it?”
“How do you mean?” she asked warily.
“You seem to think I should be smiting Norsundrians, but you don’t see that I’m not that far ahead of you, except for size and a few years. Or maybe it’s the size and the years that’s the problem? Someone once said to me that when things like size, and age, and strength are a problem, then maybe they were used against a person, instead of to protect them.”
CJ fumed. She suspected that ‘someone once said’ was really ‘when we were talking about you,’ but far worse than that was remembering her life on Earth. Oh, yes. Size and strength were definitely used against you there.
Envy.
She squirmed, hating the word, an old and familiar enemy.
Maybe he was right. To lie to herself was to lie to the world, that’s what Clair had said once. She’d seen how envy came out of anger.
CJ sidled a look at Rel, who sat there as patient as a mountain. Waiting. So she looked within herself, past the ugly memories, and forced herself to endure the nastiness.
Anger was like that. She’d think she’d gotten rid of it, but there it was again. It was worse than the time she’d fallen on the sandy blacktop at school and scraped both her knees, then had to run to the restroom and endure the torture of wiping the sand and blood out of the scrapes. Every time she thought she got it all, and she could dare to go back to her classroom (because if the teacher saw she’d get into trouble for running, which was against the rules, and then she’d get into worse trouble at home for being in trouble at school), she’d look down, and there was more blood. And she’d have to use that rough paper towel again, which hurt worse than fire.
“But everybody thinks you’re perfect,” she said bitterly. “And you are.” And I am so, so not.
“No, I’m not. I’m good at some things, and bad at others, just like anyone else. I can’t learn magic. The strange words don’t stick in my head. I can’t draw. I could never build a loyal group like you have with the other girls. I don’t seem to be able to settle in one place. And as far as size and strength are concerned, they don’t guarantee wins. Every time I tangled with Kessler, I lost. I’m only alive because he decided not to kill me. But he could have.”
At the mention of Kessler’s name, all CJ’s anger whipped away like smoke before the wind. “I hate thinking about him,” she said fiercely, not wanting to be reminded of the terror of those days.
“But you’ll have to. We all do. Senrid said that he’s in charge of guarding yon city. If we want to rescue Liere, we’re going to have to get past him.” He picked up the axe. “That’s for tomorrow. Today, this is the sort of thing I’m good at. I’m glad to do what I’m good at. Same as anyone else.”
CJ watched him heft the axe and chop the wood in exactly the right place. He’d split off the rotten bits of the branch she’d first attacked, creating a good pile of firewood, before she said, “They want to make me do all the chores.”
“Oh, I think if you help me, nobody’ll say a word. They’re all hungry, and want a hot breakfast more than anything else. And Leander found some wild olives so we can crisp the potatoes.”
CJ swallowed. “Let’s get to it. Maybe it’ll be faster if you chop and I stack.”
They did, working in silence. She was relieved at first, but as the stack of firewood grew, so did the thing inside her, until it felt like a stone the size of a bowling ball.
When Rel said presently, “That should be enough,” CJ sucked in a deep breath and muttered, “I’m sorry.”
Rel took in the tight fists and the black hair swinging, hiding CJ’s averted face, and did not make the mistake of taking that surly mutter as insincere. He had a pretty good idea how much that apology cost her, and how humiliated she’d feel if he gave in to the laughter fluttering behind his ribs. Or made a speech.
So he grunted, “We’re square.”
And saw her skinny shoulders drop away from her ears.
Another silent fifty paces and they entered the camp together, each carrying a stack of firewood. Nobody said anything. Atan watched narrowly at first, but when she saw Rel’s brief smile, and heard CJ talking as if nothing had happened, she decided to act as if nothing had happened.
Everybody else fell into their usual patterns, except for Kyale, who found time to whisper to CJ, “I hope you told him off. Those boys are so bossy, but Senrid is the worst of all.”
CJ sighed, relieved to have it over. Except it wasn’t over, not with Kyale saying things like that, and the looks she got from Atan and others. They thought she was a villain. And, even worse, that tiny voice way, way inside
: I was acting like one.
To Kyale she said tiredly, “We gotta think about how to get into that city now.”
Kyale wandered off, disappointed, and Clair stepped up beside CJ, her smile pensive. “Are you all right?”
CJ side-eyed her. “Why didn’t you tell me I was being a bat-head?”
“Because that would have made you madder,” Clair answered.
CJ scowled, knowing it was true. “I hate anger. Getting angry makes me angry!” And when Clair snickered, she muttered, “I don’t know how to get rid of it.”
Clair watched CJ sigh, her bad mood obviously gone as quickly as thunderstorms pass.
If you figure it out, CJ, she thought, you could fix the world.
* * *
—
The group was finishing up clearing their campsite when a sweet, heart-catching cascade of pure, clear notes echoed through the forest.
“Oh,” Kyale breathed, sitting down abruptly on the log she’d disdained as filthy the day before. The air scintillated with color, something that usually annoyed her, but this time it and the sounds matched so perfectly that she clasped her hands and stared.
“What is that sound?” Hibern asked.
“Some kind of bird?” Arthur asked, for once not absent.
“I’ve never heard one like that,” Leander said, as he peered under his hand through the bluish-white light shafts in the wooded shadows. “I think it’s coming this way.”
“Hide,” Senrid said.
“I don’t think that could come from any Norsundrian,” Lilah said. “It’s sounds so pretty!”
Atan murmured, “I’ll bet that’s what people were saying about Siamis right before he took their wits away.”
The Mearsieans bolted up trees with the ease of long practice.
The melodic cascade intensified, and CJ hummed a counterpoint below it; that meant she was memorizing that melody, possibly for making a song later. Clair’s eyelids prickled, though she couldn’t have said why. And over on the rock, Kyale noticed that, as usual, nobody else saw the colors like gleaming ribbons in the air. And she blinked them away as a couple of pale-haired figures walked into the clearing.
A Sword Named Truth Page 74
