As soon as she finished straightening out the tangled straps, Tsai handed her a big bowl of pale brown kernels. The kid had cooked this. No way Tsai managed it. Plain, fluffy, and lightly salted, just the way she liked it, if she had to eat rice at all. She missed oatmeal something fierce.
When all the bowls were empty – and it took the kid a thousand years to eat his – the slithering toad stuck its head over the side of the upper bunk. “This one is curious to hear the swordlings’ announcement.”
Weaver’s chamberpot. She’d forgotten the beastie was up there. It hardly ever talked when she was inside the wagon.
Tsai shuddered, but lifted her chin. “I think we found Land’s End. At least we found some really weird stuff. Skeletons bigger than houses.”
The kid’s swollen eyes got big. He almost smiled. “Hreshith bones. We must be close.”
“This one estimates the objective is ten to twenty diurnal periods distant.”
The kid kinda drooped.
“We heard you the first time, toad.” Why did the monster have to spoil their good news? And just when it looked like he might forgive her for slugging him.
Nah, that would be too easy. Wasn’t there anything she could say to win him over? Sure, make him feel like he’s in control. “What do we do next?”
He just sighed. “Repair the harness.”
Sheesh, what a one-track mind. “We’ll do it tonight, kid.”
Tsai gathered up a bunch of tools and handed half of them to her. “It won’t take long. I’ll show you.”
The kid didn’t bother to get up to watch them work. He had to be hurt. Maybe hurt bad.
Lorel stood, crouching a little to keep from banging her head again, and glared at Kyri-thing. “How bad is it?”
It knew exactly what she meant. It peered over the edge of the bed, down at the kid. “This one inspected the wounds, which appear shallow but quite painful.” It even used words she could understand.
“Tattletale,” the kid grumbled.
“This one shall continue monitoring said wounds in order to prevent infection, but this one believes they will recuperate efficiently.”
Yeah, she could count on the monster taking care of its hatchling, in its own cold – and big-wordy – way. “You need me to do anything, kid?”
He just glared at her. “I don’t need you, period.” He stretched out on her bed and pretended to sleep.
Well, she wasn’t sleeping in the top bunk with the toad. She yanked both serdil-pelt blankets off the upper bunk before the critter remembered to lay on them and spread one over the kid’s tiny body.
Weaver drowned in tears, he was so little. How’d she ever fall so low as to hit him?
Tsai had already fixed most of the straps, and was working on the last one. She didn’t look up when Lorel sat down beside her. Did the turtle turd think she’d been messing with the kid to get out of work?
Weaver’s cold toes. She was trapped inside this teensy airless box with a monster, and both of her best friends were mad at her. Her only friends. Anywhere.
Her whole life had gone wrong someplace. Long before today. And she didn’t know how to fix it.
Chapter 17.
Four days passed. They traveled onward for miles uncounted. By him, anyway. The miles didn’t matter anymore.
His shoulder started to heal. His blackened eyes faded to green. A bored Tsai’dona admitted to a knack of weaving baskets from dry grass.
And he started talking to one overgrown chunk of bahtdor bait again.
At the moment, he needed to collect dinner. He dropped his new harvesting basket in the dry sand just above the waterline.
Careful to keep his boots dry, Viper limped after a receding wave and grabbed the strand of seaweed before the ocean could drag it away. Hauling the seaweed one handed to ease the ache in his injured shoulder, he slogged back to his basket and shoved the wet plant inside.
Thunderer, that water was cold.
Another wave crashed toward him. He grabbed up his basket and fled before the incoming wall of green water.
In just one wave, the waterline moved fifty feet up the beach. If the tide got much higher, their campsite would drown.
He’d better get back, even though his basket was nearly empty. Lorel or Tsai’dona would catch something, even if it was another foul-tasting gull.
Light glinted in the sand, and he hobbled forward to inspect it. What in Menajr? It looked like a cream-colored, triangular rock the size of his outstretched hand, but while one side was rough and flat, the other two were knife-like and serrated. The surface material reminded him of a tooth.
He squirreled his new treasure under the seaweed. He’d ask the Kyridon about it tonight.
Three fish flopped desperately on the beach to his right, flashing red and gold in the sunset. Viper grinned and scooped them up. Not quite an empty basket, now.
Further down the beach, something scuttled toward the ocean. He limped over to investigate.
It was a huge crab, measuring over a foot across the carapace. A king crab, if he remembered correctly. The girls could chase after seabirds with their silly rocks. He brought home the delicacies.
He settled the crab atop the fish and seaweed, and tied the basket’s lid on tightly. The girls would laugh at him if dinner walked away.
Another wave roared toward him, spraying him with gritty froth.
He’d better get higher ashore, and quick. The Kyridon said the riptide would get worse the farther north they traveled. Getting caught in the undertow would ruin his afternoon.
By the time he got back to camp, the girls had moved the wagon much higher on the beach and had started a new fire.
Tsai’dona wandered inland, collecting driftwood. At least somebody was doing her share of the work.
Lorel sat staring at a pot of boiling water. She looked up when he walked into camp. “Sorry, kid. We didn’t catch nothing. We’re stuck with rice for dinner. Unless you found some more weeds to go with it.”
“You can’t do a thing without me. Don’t worry, I won’t let you starve.” He set the basket near the wagon. “I take it that’s melted snow? Good. Go fill a bigger pot up with sea water. If you can manage it, of course.”
Lorel shrugged. She grabbed a kettle and headed toward the ocean.
At least she’d had enough sense to bring out a canister of rice – but not to try and cook it. He measured two cups of brown rice into the boiling water and stirred it briskly.
The camp seemed under control for the moment. He clambered into the wagon to collect his cooking herbs.
The Kyridon raised its snout from the top bunk. “The hatchling is excessively punitive with regards to the swordling.”
“Well, I haven’t forgiven her for punching me. Look at me. My face is still purple and green. She did more damage than the serdil.”
“Perhaps the clout will cause the hatchling’s cranium to grow. This one finds the hatchling astoundingly vain.”
“It’s not what I look like.” He yanked the salt jar out of the cabinet, nearly tearing the door off its hinges. “It’s the principle of the thing. She had no cause to hit me.”
“The swordling feels that the hatchling had no cause for molestation. Or incest, as the case may be.”
“Molestation!” He turned and glared up at the serpent. “I didn’t do anything to her. And I’m not related to her.”
“The swordling considers the hatchling to be a sibling, hence to be trusted.” The creature watched him steadily. “The swordling considered that trust violated, yet it has behaved far more sensibly and honorably than the hatchling.”
“I’m not her brother. And I didn’t do anything.”
“The hatchling is closer than a sibling. Even yet.”
It might have a point there, even if the rest of its assertion wasn’t true. He measured dried oregano and basil into a teacup while he thought about it. “Maybe. I think… No, I know you’re right. I’m pretty stupid sometimes.” Though he still
didn’t understand why she’d slugged him.
“The hatchling is not obtuse. The hatchling is thoughtless. If the hatchling does not learn to analyze everything it does, it must necessarily fail. In the little things, as well as in the quest.”
“I think I understand.” Well, he understood he should be nicer to Lorel. Analyzing everything he did sounded scary. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know himself that well.
He crawled out into the cold air and hobbled to the cook fire.
Lorel sat alone by the fire, watching flames lick the sides of both pots. Had she offended Tsai’dona, too?
They weren’t going to complete this stage of the Kyridon’s quest if they couldn’t work together.
He stirred his teacup of herbs into the boiling rice. “Maybe you could set up a couple of spits?” he asked without looking at her.
“Right way, kid!” She leaped to the chests behind the wagon and grabbed the copper rods he normally used on coneys. “How many?”
“Three. And tell me when the salt water boils. I brought you a present.” He untied the basket, and jabbed his good hand deep inside – quickly, since he didn’t want to get pinched – and pulled out the flailing crab.
Tsai’dona whistled and strolled closer. “That’s a big one.”
Lorel laughed and caught the crustacean before its struggles made him drop it. “That’s one present I’ve been hungering for. I ain’t had a crab dinner since Crayl.”
“The rest of our supper is still in the basket.” He took back the crab. Blast, that made his shoulder hurt. He handed the creature off to Tsai’dona. “Pull everything else out so we can put this handsome fellow back to bed.”
Lorel chuckled and retrieved the fish and seaweed. “We’re having one Loom-busting feast tonight.”
“Well, we ought to. There hasn’t been anything to celebrate, just lately.”
Lorel nodded and cleaned the first fish, working not three feet from the fire. What a mess. He wished he had two good arms so he could do it himself. But he didn’t scold her.
She started gutting the second fish. Messily. “We’ll get it right, kid. Then we’ll rescue the world.”
Tsai’dona shoved a spit through the first one, at a rather odd angle. Well, it would still cook, sooner or later. She looked at the seaweed dubiously, but followed his instructions and wrapped some around each fish.
No, he didn’t know if that would work. But it ought to keep the flesh from drying out too fast. And while he lived in Sedra-Kei he’d gotten addicted to roasted seaweed. This would be the first of many experiments.
To keep himself from jumping up and taking over, he ran his fingers through the sand. Something odd caught his attention. He plucked several fingernail-sized pebbles out of the grit.
Not mere pebbles. Round, red, glistening crystals. Lucky stones. Gemstones? He wasn’t sure what they were. Garnets maybe. But they were lucky. He was lucky, to have such sensible, crazy friends.
He absently tucked the red crystals in his coat pocket for later study.
Tsai’dona arranged the spitted fish in a bizarre configuration. His mother would lay a bahtdor egg if she were to see it. But he felt too lucky to complain.
Definitely lucky, for an almost-fourteen-year-old boy who still hadn’t learned to think. High time we corrected that oversight, as Trevor would have said. High time.
***
The next afternoon, the Wind Dancer’s silver tent hovered above the sand at the horizon.
Viper settled the reins in his lap and rubbed his tired eyes. “I don’t know why I play at guiding these horses. They don’t need any direction to follow the beach, and I’m going turybird mad from just sitting here.” He didn’t dare read while the girls rode beside the wagon. One big disadvantage to reconciliation. They’d both been sticking way too close. “Maybe I’ve taken a brain fever?”
Lorel kneed her horse closer to the wagon. “Looks like the Loom itself, don’t it? But them’s the bones we told you about.”
Tsai’dona rode her mare closer. “Amazing, aren’t they?”
“I thought I was seeing things.” He waved at the apparition. “It looks like a castle.”
Neither girl would understand his first impression of his goddess’s holy tent. They’d never met a culture who chose to live in tents, and who thought building in stone was insane. If they made it to Setoya, his friends were in for a shock.
“Way out here?” Lorel shook back her tangled hair and laughed. “Ain’t nobody living out here.”
“There’s only one other thing it could be.” He stood up on the platform and tried to see ahead. Why hadn’t he bought a spyglass? Because they cost ten times as much as the wagon had. He sincerely wished for one now. “Those are Hreshith bones.”
“We’ve found Land’s End!” Lorel’s victorious howl made Nightshade dance with excitement. Even quiet Sumach pranced like a parade horse. “It’s time we got to work making the toad’s weapons.”
More than time. He’d begun to worry it was already too late.
“I’m gonna go look see!”
“No, wait, it’s farther than it seems.” His rear end thumped down on the driver’s bench.
Lorel laughed and urged Nightshade into a gallop. Tsai’dona whooped and galloped after her.
They were going to kill those horses someday. Neither of them had any sense at all. Not that he had room to talk.
He lifted open the door and peered into the depths of the wagon. “I think we’ve almost reached our goal.”
“This one comprehended the conversation.” The Kyridon’s serdil-pelted head appeared in the doorway. “This one believes this group will attain its final goal tomorrow. The hatchling must be patient.” The serpent retreated back into the darkness.
He’d have to be patient for everybody. Lorel would be furious about having to wait another day. He hoped the Kyridon had a particularly good reason for going on. No, that it had a reason Lorel could understand, good or ridiculous.
At midday he called a halt to allow the team to rest. He unfastened the traces, which Tsai’dona had somehow fixed so they came off more easily, and turned the horses free to graze.
“The hatchling stands amazingly still. This one observed the hatchling’s viewing of the north wind for over an hour.”
He jumped guiltily. “I was thinking.” Or rather, dreaming of going home to Zedista. He owed Trevor a decent funeral, at the very least. Abandoning his teacher’s body in the labyrinth felt like cowardice now, but he hadn’t even thought about it in his rush to flee Zedista.
“The hatchling reflects excessively and accomplishes naught. Of what did it contemplate?”
“Lorel isn’t back yet.” As good an excuse as any. He didn’t want to explain Trevor to a snake. “I was wondering what she found.”
“The hatchling was fantasizing.” The serpent shook its flat head slowly. “This one might express optimism that an overactive imagination could be useful to a wizard. However, this one mistrusts that supposition most steadfastly.”
Viper laughed and went to harness the team. If he didn’t have sense enough to eat lunch, he’d earned going hungry. He’d wasted enough time daydreaming.
Wizards must have a lot of imagination, come to think of it. Else they couldn’t do the amazing spells he’d read about. Which reminded him, he’d never become a third-level sorcerer if he didn’t study more. Writing his own book was all fine and good, but he needed to know about more things than serdils and endless beaches.
He climbed up to the driver’s bench and jiggled the reins. The team plodded forward.
From a concealed compartment in the driver’s platform, he pulled out a book wrapped in waxed leather. It was time he finished Olgin’s Treatise on the History of Na. Yesterday he’d read about how the Mindbender Altrada created the empire of Nashidra. She’d been even more incredible than he’d guessed. What a mess Na was in those days.
He settled into a comfortable slump and began to read.
When the wagon
rattled to a stop, he nearly fell off the driver’s bench.
“There you are, with your nose in a book, again.” Lorel sprawled beside Tsai’dona on a flattened mound of grass, both of them staring morosely at the wagon.
“Where have you been?” he demanded, hoping to change the subject as quickly as possible.
“Right here.” Lorel sighed and pointed upward. “Get your face outta that book and see.”
Enormous silver bones loomed above him. The skeleton dwarfed the wagon the way a bahtdor dwarfs a mouse. Long spines crested the backbone, dagger teeth filled the vast mouth. A small village could be set inside the ribcage, or all of the tents of a Setoyan tribe.
Awe swelled within his chest. Awe that anything so large could exist, and astonishment that he was one of the few living humans to ever see its remains.
“Look ahead, kid.”
Far to the north were several mounds of shining silver. They looked like a series of castles or cities. Or like a Hreshith graveyard.
“So that’s what it meant.” He leaned down to hide his book away.
Lorel frowned. “What’s what what meant?”
He laughed, but she only snarled at him. “Well?”
“The Kyridon said that our goal was farther north, and that we should be patient.”
“I’m all out of patience!” Lorel jumped to her feet and howled like a serdil.
Tsai’dona leaned back and slapped one hand over her eyes.
“Look at it this way.” Viper jiggled the reins, and the team plodded forward. “If we go over to those bones, we’ll have a wider choice of materials to make the weapons with.”
Lorel kicked sand at a pillar-like rib. “What you wanna bet that there’s lots more bones past those.”
“It’s likely. The Kyridon said we wouldn’t reach Land’s End until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” She smacked her fist into her hand and trotted beside the wagon. “I can last until tomorrow. We’ll go see what’s past them old bones.”
“Fine. But stay closer to the wagon. It’s near enough to dusk for the serdil to start hunting.” He pointed his thumb at the stinky, partially-cured hides nailed to the siding.
Serpent's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 3) Page 25
