Taco Del and the Fabled Tree of Destiny

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  The ninja’s eyes blink slowly. “Sleeping,” he says. “Why are you here at this hour?”

  “Looking for the broken table,” Lou ad-libs, and I just about fall over before I pick up my cue.

  “Dui. There’s a crack in one of the tables — the carvings, ni dong. I just found this guy tonight. Had to track him down and pry him out of the Li Po.”

  I make a drinking gesture and the ninja grimaces.

  “An artist should be more disciplined,” he says.

  I shrug. “We couldn’t find it anyway. I’ll bring this guy back tomorrow — sober — so the Master can show us which table needs fixing. Must be one tiny crack.”

  “The Master...expects perfection,” the ninja informs me, and his mouth twitches strangely.

  I bow again and beckon Creepy Lou toward the door. The ninja’s spooky eyes press against my back as I follow.

  “Deng!”

  Oh, shit, I think, and turn slightly, ready to bolt.

  The ninja is holding out a Doug sprig to me. “You drop this?”

  My hand wants to say "yes,” but I demure. “Not me. You?” I look to Creepy Lou.

  “Uh-uh.” He shakes his head.

  It strikes me suddenly that he hasn’t ticked or grabbed or stomped since we came in here. Interesting. I shrug and open the door and we’re outta there.

  In the outer hall, I slow my steps waiting to see if the ninja will follow. He doesn’t. And when he doesn’t, I scurry back to the door and put my ear to it. Nada. I take a deep breath. I turn the latch, I open the door a crack — an excuse for coming back making itself up in my glib little brain.

  I don’t need it. The ninja is gone.

  Damn. I was hoping to catch him making an exit, but the room is as empty as the thong around my neck. For a moment, I think of going back in, but I’m fresh out of good stories.

  “Let’s zhou,” I whisper, and we do.

  “Wo bu dong,” I tell Firescape when she is awake and scowling at me sometime later, “I don’t get it. I can’t figure out who this guy Chen is, or who he thinks he is. I mean, okay, the runes say he’s a rotten spot in the fabric of our fair kingdom. And the Dolores say he’s the Carrier Away of Souls. And I gotta admit, I’ve seen some guys around his place that sure look like their souls’ve been carried away somewhere. But he’s, like, saving all this religious art. What’s rotten about that? I don’t get it.”

  I see that my wife’s scowl has deepened. “Dammit, Del, can’t you keep outta trouble? You’re always in trouble. Every second of your life, you’re in trouble. You’re all worried about me being out in the street and here you are pokin' around some damned Carrier Away of Souls. It sucks. At least I got an AK. You got a-a twitchy guy and a Tree! What kind of protection is that?”

  I don’t get this either. I am not used to seeing my Jade in such an angst-ridden state. She is sitting up in our bed with her hands folded in her lap, her scowl flicking between me and Lou, who is kind of swaying back and forth in the middle of the bedroom. Behind him, I see Doug waving at me from the window, trying to get my attention.

  In a sudden flash of insight and flashback, I do get it.

  “You’re pregnant!” I tell her.

  She bursts into tears. Needless to say, I send Creepy Lou home and we discuss Master Chen no more this night.

  Later, I dream. I dream about Creepy Lou and me searching Chen’s gallery. But somewhere in the middle of the dream, it is the Mission Dolores we search, scrabbling through the dirt and debris. As we search, I know we are being sought, but whether by aliens or ninjas, or both, I can’t say.

  At the very end of my dream, a weird thing happens. Yeah, sure, dreams are weird all over, but this is like...an intrusion. Like somebody’s walking around in my dream with me, uninvited. And then, I hear this Voice that asks, “Are you an ear? An eye? Or merely debris?”

  Not only is this a pretty weird thing to say — kind of like a riddle, I guess — but this is not one of my familiar voices. It is one I haven’t heard before — a slippery, laughing Voice that oozes through my head like a snake. I experience a wild, weird, woolly moment of vertigo as if I’m being lifted into the air.

  I wake up with a jolt, let me tell you. Then, I get to lie there in the dark and think about whether I (or something else) is an ear, an eye, or merely debris.

  I am like that until morning, when I am informed that, once again, I have run out of time. In the morning, I learn that the aliens have taken the Farm.

  Seventeenth:

  I Discover Even Aliens Have Fairy Tales

  I can’t remember ever seeing Kaymart cry. She is crying now. Bags isn’t, but I can tell he wants to and is just being strong for Kaymart. I think they call that role reversal ‘cause usually it’s the other way around. Bags, he’ll cry over almost anything — an old tree coming down, a new tree coming up. But now, I guess seeing Kaymart weak means he’s got to be strong, so he just is.

  “It happened so fast,” Kaymart tells me through her tears. “They were just there with these...these weapons pointed at us, telling us to get out.”

  “But why?” asks Firescape. “What’d they want?” She turns to me. “I thought you said they brought all their own food. What’d they want with our Farm?”

  “They seemed most interested in the old museums. Especially once they saw how we were using them.” Kaymart manages a weak smile. “I think your Mr. Makepeace was a bit upset with us ‘ignorant squatters’ and our hatchery. Somehow I think he imagined he’d find the old aquarium stocked with exotic species.”

  “That was when they tossed us,” grumbled Bags. “Just like that. Damned marauders. Mannerless, uncivilized shits.”

  “Now, Bagsie....” Kaymart’s color is finally coming back. “That’s just about what they said about us. I think they took exception to being attacked with pitchforks and spades. At least they let us all go back and take some of our personal belongings.”

  “Some, but not all,” says one of their woebegone apprentice Farmers. He is the youngest, a usually scrappy little squirt named Hijack. He kind of reminds me of me when I was that age. “And who’s going take care of the seedlings?”

  This sends Bags off on what they call a tangent. “Hijack’s right, you know,” he tells Kaymart. “Who’s gonna feed your damned fish and tend your precious vegetables and monitor your hydroponics experiment? Who’s gonna do all that, old woman? Hm? You tell me. Any of those damned marauders look like botanists to you? Any of ‘em look like give a rat’s hindmost about superior strains of broccoli?”

  Now that Kaymart is recovering herself, Bags is edging toward losing his-self. All the little farmhands are looking from one to the other, wide-eyed and teary. I am preparing to say something helpful and merlin-like when Cinderblock makes a grim observation.

  “This,” she says, “is gonna severely jink up our food supply.”

  It doesn’t take a merlin to do the math — the Farm yields about one-third of our food crops — veggies, fruits and nuts mostly. Except for Kaymart’s experimental strains, all our grains are grown out at the Presidio. I look into Firescape’s eyes and know she’s thinking what I’m thinking.

  She puts it into action. “Cinderblock, pack up the Royals and move ‘em out to the Presidio. I’ll draw the Wharfside Guard over to set up a perimeter. If we lose that land, we lose Embar.”

  The two of them move like red and black lightning and my heart goes deep-freeze in my chest.

  “Be careful!” I shout after my beloved wife.

  She pauses at the entrance to the Royal’s private dining salon to grin at me. “Duh!” she says, and sails off, flying a banner of red.

  “You know, Del,” says Kaymart, “the Farm itself might not be in much danger. I don’t think Makepeace has any intention of trying to hold the whole thing. He’s only after the treasures, as he calls them, the things with historical significance. In fact, I’m not at all sure he could hold the whole thing, not if he intends to keep dividing his resources. Who knows — t
hey might even lose interest in it once they realize the buildings aren’t full of forgotten artifacts. We might be able to take back the parts that are important to us.”

  Bags is nodding. “Maybe we could even swing a deal with that rat’s hiney. Get him to give back whatever we care about so long as we don’t touch what he cares about.”

  Kaymart's puts a hand up to stop him. “What is it, dear?”

  My face must be doing one of its freeform expressions, ‘cause my eyes are wonky as hell.

  “He’s envisioning,” whispers Bags.

  I am. And what I am envisioning, among all this talk of treasures and galleries and dealing, is that Master Chen, with his gallery-o-magic is just the sort of individual John Makepeace would love to talk to. My blood thunders around in my head like it got elephant feet because I have the sudden intuition that Master Chen means to sell all that art he’s collecting to the aliens. Now, I’m mad as hell at the thought that some guy with delusions of Immortal-hood has plans to sell off bits of everybody’s history and faith. This makes me want to go down to the Tin Hau and give Master Chen a piece of my mind, but I realize I should save all the best pieces for John Makepeace.

  When I tell Firescape and my liege lord this, however, they are of different minds altogether. Hismajesty has refused to pack himself off to the Summer Palace with his family and has called upon my sweet wife to take the Farm back by brute force. My Majesty, I realize, is fighting mad precisely and exactly because he is scared more spitless than I am. I am uncertain how to take this revelation; should I give myself congrats for superior cajones, or should I lose more spit over the fact that my very King — the supposedly omnipotent and invincible leader of the sovereign nation of Embarcadero — has gone into omnipotent and invincible flight-or-fight mode?

  I do not want to fight. I’m no good at fighting. I’m better at talking. Except that, of course, where John Makepeace is concerned, I’m not even so good at that. I think it’s possible that we speak different languages that only sound the same.

  Firescape’s battle plan is for a hand-picked force of knighties to go in under cover of pre-dawn dark and take important prisoners. She has studied her tactical manuals carefully; this is the only strategy she envisions working against interlopers with superior firepower and armored winnebagoes.

  Against my best advice and abject whining, the plan goes ahead. Hermajesty and the Junior Majesties are moved quickly to the Summer Palace at the Presidio, which is just as quickly put under the added protection of the crack patrols from the Virgin, Wharfside and Union Square. The regular Presidio Guard isn’t that large; corn and rice don’t need all that much policing, ni dong. The next thing I know, they’re all cleaning their guns and getting out their black and gray skulking gear.

  I can’t talk to Jade when she’s like this. She’s not even really Jade, now; she’s 120 percent General Firescape and this is the first time she’s planned a raid this big against this strong an enemy. I don’t dare let her see that I’m nervous about her and the little Flannigan on board. So I say some protection incantations before the fact and insist on tagging along to lay down a cover of Chouyan when they go in.

  It’s two a.m. when they move into the Farm. Firescape and her troops melt into the bowu that rises from the grass like moist ghosts. They are like ghosts themselves — no one can see them, of that, I’m certain. I can’t see them and I know they’re there. In truth, they probably don’t need my smoke screen, they’re Firescape’s best.

  Anyway, they go in while I stand in the woods and make with Chouyan. I don’t know how long I been there, incanting, when I hear this sound like demons singing. I don’t know what singing demons sound like, really, but I imagine it’s like this sound that pierces the brain and vibrates the bone. I see lights shoot up into the trees where the knighties have gone and then there’s gunfire.

  I run toward the lights. All I can think of is Jade, and I wish for a split second that this were the age when men were in charge and women were supposed to obey them. Well, okay, so it’s just mythology, I realize, and Jade Berengaria Firescape Flannigan sure as hell wouldn’t have obeyed me even if there’d ever been such an age, but it was one of those panicky “if-onlies” that happen when your adrenaline’s gone rocket.

  I don’t get very far before I’m assailed by knighties flying out of the trees, looking wild-eyed and grim. I see Cinderblock and a couple of others I know. And finally, when I’m about adrenalined out, I run headmost into Firescape. She turns me about-face and pushes me into a run and we keep running till we’re out of the woods and back in the streets.

  “Que pasa?” I pant, when I can.

  “I dunno. I’d swear we were silent. Nobody saw us, I’m sure. There were three winnebagoes, some jeeps and tractors some big floodlights, no guards. I wasn’t worried about the lights, what with the Chouyan and all. We get about five yards from their camp and all hell breaks loose. There’s this sound like, like — ”

  “Singing demons?” I insert.

  “Yeah, I guess. Like that. So loud, it just about split my head open. Damn, Del! I don’t know what we did wrong. I’d swear no one could hear us or see us or smell us. I don’t know what happened, but they were all over us. People popping out all over the place with those damn guns. I mean, once we lost surprise, well, we didn’t have squat.”

  Our report to our liege is grim. We have wounded now, and are lucky not to have lost anybody. We didn’t lay a scratch on the aliens. The enemy has an early-warning system, which brings us to a renewed respect for the level of techno-magic John Makepeace is packing. We pack the entire royal household off to the Presidio, King and all, and I settle in for some earnest meditating.

  Since I have not slept much or well lately, my earnest meditating kind of morphs into some earnest sleeping. Normally, I would say this was an unfortunate evidence of my complete ineptitude as a merlin, but I dream — and it’s a doozy, as Bags would say.

  I’m in a smoky place and I think it’s my dream lodge, where I hear the Whisperers. But then, I get that this is the Tin Hau — his place, the Art Gallery. It’s full of incense and stuff and I know there are people here, I can feel them and they make me quiver.

  A Voice asks, “What have you brought me?”

  It is a snake’s Voice — a Red Dragon’s Voice, hot and slippery. Chen?

  There is movement, and a walking bit of darkness comes out of the smoke. It’s face is the face of a certain young monk’s, and the eyes are his eyes. They are as big and black and empty as ever, and they gleam like cold, polished obsidian. Nobody home.

  I vaguely see light now, and it seems to me the light is all around whatever the monk has in his hands.

  Okay, Taco, says my dream brain, this is important. Pay attention.

  The monk puts the lit-up thing on the empty stand in the gallery and I see that it is a folded strip of cloth with beads and bits of shell and feathers.

  “This is all?” asks the Red Dragon Voice, sounding peevish.

  “All, Master.”

  A hand comes out of the smoky darkness and picks up the beaded cloth and I feel as if the cloth is me. I can’t breathe.

  “More,” says the Red Dragon Voice, “there must be more. Do not fail me. Shall I demonstrate what will happen if you fail me ...Ho-win?”

  This must be his real and secret name, ‘cause the monk lets out this blood-curdling yelp and falls like his invisible puppet master cut his strings. He curls on the floor, his face lifted up into the smoky light. His lips move and he says, “Master, this is all that was found where you sent us.”

  “There is more,” says the Red Dragon. “There must be more.”

  A swirl of purple robes and I am lifted up again. There is a blur above me and it reflects the smudges of light like a golden moon. I think it must be a face. I don’t feel like looking at it right now though, so I let it be a blur.

  The Red Dragon speaks: “Is there more?” it asks, and I fall.

  This causes a drastic shift in
my POV. I am in my dream lodge again, in the fire and smoke, and the sand is gritty under my butt. On the floor in front of me, I see the beaded shirt, the pipe and the funny stick and ball with its horse-hair wig.

  Okay, the shaman stuff again. It takes me a moment to realize that something is missing; the beaded headdress is gone. And I’ve just been shown where it is.

  The meaning is clear as bluesky. Chen has somehow gotten hold of this thing and added it to his collection, and the Dolores are understandably upset. After all, it must be their stuff.

  I have just come to this obvious conclusion when out of the smoke of the Lodge comes a single word: Diablo. This isn’t spoken, exactly. I mean, it’s really weird, but if I had to put a sense to it, I’d say I smelled the word.

  Yeah, I dream-think, if I could sum up Chen in a word, that’d be it. And I sleep, smelling fir.

  Sleep isn’t awfully refreshing. I wake up knowing I got my work cut out for me. By the rustling of Doug’s boughs, I gotta go see John Makepeace and try again to reason with the man.

  When I head in that direction, Bags tags along.

  “As far as the Wiz is all,” he says. “I couldn’t bear to see the homestead and not be able t’go home.”

  When we get to the Wiz, I let Doug and me get sucked inside where I sit down to do some researching. I’m real curious to know what it is Chen’s after besides the headdress. The beaded shirt’s an easy savvy — that’s shamanly vestments, like a priest’s robes. The pipe, I get too, I guess. I mean peace pipes and all. But that horse-hair wigged stick, I don’t get.

  Well, as it happens, I learn more than I reckon I will. I learn the pipe is sort of a general ceremonial pipe, not just for peace. It’s like the Taoist-Buddhist monk’s little braziers sort of, or like Chen’s din; it’s where the ceremonial herbs are burned to get the spirits’ attention. And the horse-hair wigged thing, that’s a spirit rattle. The shaman uses it to get the spirits he calls up to focus themselves on what needs done. It’s more than that, too. The Books of Wisdom tell me it’s like a staff of power. Every shamanly, wizardly type got one, from Gandalf to Cinderella’s Fairy Godmom to...well, to me.