by Tad Williams
Cumber was still thinking about what Theo had said. "Yes, I suppose you're right. The doonies would rather come down in the world — they used to be quite a powerful clan, you know — than give up their beloved roads. And look at me! I think I'm so different, the first ferisher ever to take an advanced degree, but what do I wind up doing with it? Working as a helper in a great house instead of in a small one, that's all. Tidying up. I'm still a servant. I might as well be hauling firewood for some provincial farmer for a bowl of milk and a place to sleep in the barn. I couldn't stand to see the way Lady Aemilia left that laboratory, you know, and so long after she'd gone down to supper I'd still be there, putting everything back to rights . . ." He shook his head. "She wasn't all bad, though, Lady Aemilia."
Theo was watching a group of what looked like gamblers, mostly brownies and goblins. Someone had drawn a ring in the dirt near one of the fires, and two beetles were walking around in the circle — walking very eccentrically, Theo thought, as though someone were prodding them with an invisible stick to make them go in one direction or another. Finally one of the staggering beetles crossed the perimeter and immediately rolled over on its back as though the effort had nearly killed it, kicking its legs feebly as a cheer went up from the winners and the losers cursed.
"But you don't work for Lady Aemilia any more," Theo said as the collapsed beetle was snatched up and a new one was tossed into the ring next to the champion of the last bout. The shouting began again. "You don't have to be . . . whatever you were. Daffodil House is gone. If there was ever a time to change . . ." And me, what do I need — a boulder to land on my head? I've been yanked out of my own world. I'm a stranger. This is my chance, too — my chance to be something I can be . . . what? Proud of? Is that what I want? That elementary school civics stuff?
"You're right, Theo," Cumber said. "And you have helped give me my life back, give me this chance to do something different. I thank you for that."
"Me?"
"I would never have made it out of Daffodil House. I had given up. I would have died there."
"Well, you've saved me a few times. I think we're even." "Here we are!" said Doorlatch. "It is small, but it will be chummy and so friendly, I think."
Theo stared at the rectangular yellow tent. It leaned to one side, but it was a good eight feet from end to end and more than half that wide — quite reasonable for two people who had been sleeping rough in a park. "That looks like it should be fine."
"Splendid. I will just come in with you and introduce you to your new . . . what is the word? Tent-sharers? Room-companions?" "Huh?" But before he could ask any questions, Doorlatch had pulled back the flap and stepped in. It was a very low door, and Theo had to concentrate on getting under it without getting tangled in the flap. By the time he was all the way in, Doorlatch was already talking.
"Here are two fellows I have brought, and very fine fellows they are. Button himself has asked that you show them every courtesy and share your home with them."
The cramped interior of the tent was lit only by a foxfire lantern whose light had a faintly green-gray tinge, but it was enough to see that neither of the two people already in residence seemed exactly delighted to see their new roommates.
"Two more of Button's special friends?" asked a small, round-faced creature dressed in nothing but red overalls with silver buttons. The pugnacious face and fringe of orange hair made the stranger look a little like a tiny ginger lion; it took Theo a moment to realize that at least one of their new roommates was female. "That was the excuse you used to inflict Streedy on us, and the Well take me if we don't spend every night listening to him thrash and talk to himself. And when he farts, the whole room lights up like the signs in Strawflower Square! Makes it cursed hard to sleep."
"None of your joking, Mistress Twinge. You know you're fond of that lad." Doorlatch shook his grizzled head. "And he relies on you!" "Well, he does make a ghastly lot of noise," she said, but Theo could see now that she was smiling. "Right, bring 'em in. We might as well get crammed in together — probably won't have much less room than this in the cells under Hellebore's place after we all get arrested for harboring anti-Flower ideas. What do you think, Coathook? Guests okay with you?"
The tent's other inhabitant was a goblin, but a different sort from Button and Doorlatch, smaller and even more wiry, and with more black than brown or gray in his bristly hair. His yellow eyes blinked slowly as he considered Mistress Twinge's question. "Don't care," he said at last.
"Splendid!" said Doorlatch to this less-than-ringing endorsement. "It's all settled. You two newcomers get some sleep. I'll come back for you near midnight. Button's going to tell a story."
"A story? At midnight?" "Of course. Everyone will be there. Mistress Twinge, Coathook, help these two find their way around while I'm gone, will you?" Doorlatch backed out through the flap.
Something came flying across the tent and almost hit Theo in the head, but he got his hands up and managed to catch it. It was a battered metal flask, the kind that fit closely in a hip pocket. "It's wine. Have a swig," said Mistress Twinge. "Welcome to our humble home. We call it Poison Ivy House." Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Cumber Sedge, who seemed a little stunned. "Is that a problem for you? Are you one of those Flowerfolk like young Primrose whose sense of humor died of starvation years ago? Or is it just you don't like the idea of living with emancipated women?"
"N-no!" Cumber shook his head for emphasis. "No, neither of those things. I'm certainly no Flower." But he looked almost pleased to have been misidentified. "It's just . . . I've never met a wild goblin before."
"Coathook? He was born wild, but brought up here in the filthy bad City like the rest of us, right, Hooky?" The goblin didn't reply. "He's not the strangest here at the bridge," she said with a laugh. "He's not even the strangest living in this tent."
"I gather there are going to be five of us," Cumber said. "Ah, yes." Mistress Twinge gestured for Theo to hand the flask to Cumber, who took a careful sip, then a larger and more enthusiastic one.
"The stories are true!" Cumber Sedge was smiling now. "You pookas do have the best wine. What is it, dandelion?"
"And burdock. With a few bumblebee behinds to give it some sting." She laughed loudly but briefly. "Sting. Shite, but I'm funny."
"Is that what you are?" Theo asked. "A pooka?"
"Isn't it obvious? But I don't know your name, lad. I'm Piper Twinge of Blind Pig Street. You've met Coathook." "Theo. Theo Vilmos." His own name sounded odd to him now. It had been a little weird growing up with a Hungarian last name in the suburbs, where most of the other kids had been named Johnson and Roberts and Smith, but once he had moved to cosmopolitan San Francisco where he was surrounded by Nguyens and Battistinis, Chavezes and Khasigians he had never thought about it much. Now for the first time in decades he again felt awkward — it almost seemed he should be named Honeysuckle or Cauliflower or something, just out of courtesy. "And this is my friend, Cumber Sedge."
Why did Mom and Dad move up from San Mateo, anyway? he wondered. He had never really thought about it before. Dad was retiring and didn't have to commute to the city anymore, so it didn't really make any difference for him. Could it have been that . . . that Mom, or even both of them, wanted to be closer to me? It was a strange and novel thought, made even more strange by the still almost incomprehensible idea that they had not been his true parents.
"We are all well-met, then," said Mistress Twinge, breaking his reverie. "Although not everyone feels that way."
"What?" "Our friend, the young laird of Primrose, came mumbling and hissing past here a little while ago." She produced a cigar and lit it with a raspy flick of her fingers. Within moments the tent began to fill with foul-smelling smoke. "I tried to get him to tell me what was on his mind that had set him so palely loitering and he said something about a young mortal lad, or a not-quite-mortal lad, another stray puppy that Button had brought back. Seems he'd had a falling out with him, matter of honor, so on, woof woof woof — it
wasn't very clear. Primrose is a good lad, but he talks rubbish at the best of times. Anyway, he was in a dither about it. You've got a mortal name. You've just arrived. You're a friend of Button's, apparently. So I'm jumping to conclusions. Am I landing on anything?"
Theo blinked tears out of his eyes. Mistress Twinge's cigar in the small tent was almost as bad as being back in Daffodil House. Still, he couldn't help being amused by the little pooka-woman's easy manner — she was a bit like Johnny Battistini with a sex-change and a leprechaun makeover. "Yeah, we had sort of a run-in. A misunderstanding." But inside himself it was not so easy to dismiss. Primrose had clearly intended to kill him — had been only moments away from it — and you didn't just forgive and forget something like that as though it were a schoolyard argument. Theo took the proffered flask and drank. It burned a little on his still-raw throat, but it set something warm glowing in his stomach. His muscles relaxed and the smoky confines of the tent suddenly seemed comfortable.
Good God, he realized, I'm drunk on one long swallow. This shit is potent. It didn't help that he was exhausted. "Where can I lie down around here?" he asked, and suddenly realized that, uncomfortable as it might be for him to be crammed into such a small space, it must be more so for the ones who had already been living here and had become used to having that much room. "Just a corner. I'm dead on my feet."
"Can he fit in over by you, Coathook?" asked Mistress Twinge. The goblin scrabbled up a few carefully folded bags that looked as though they might have contained fast food about a century or so in the past — Theo could read the faded words "Willow Farms Fresh!" on one of them — and produced a bundle of dark cloth that looked too small even to be a prison blanket. "Have a bedroll?" the goblin asked. His voice was flat and his face didn't show much emotion, but he had very intense, bright eyes. "No? Use my cloak."
"That's really nice. Thanks." Theo spread it and stretched himself out on what felt like scratchy black wool. Beside the natural lanolin of untreated fleece, he could smell another scent, something strong, almost musky, but not altogether unpleasant. It was a bit like sniffing the interior of the big cat house at the zoo, he thought, growing groggier by the second. Or something else. The fox house? The wolf house? Do they have wolf houses at the zoo . . . ?
The last thing he heard was Cumber Sedge saying in a grim but almost proud way, "We were there. We were in Daffodil House when it happened . . ."
————— Theo woke up with a heavy, fuzzy head and a mass of aches where he should have had a body. The tent was dark, but some light leaked through from a fire outside. A shadow moving on the fabric of the tent told him he wasn't alone.
Theo poked his head out cautiously and saw the goblin Coathook sitting cross-legged before the fire cooking something, or perhaps just burning the end of a stick. The yellow stare swiveled toward him.
"Where is everybody? Is it midnight? Did I miss this story-telling thing?" Coathook pulled his stick out of the fire and examined it, then rubbed the point on a flat stone for a moment before putting it back into the flames. "Not midnight yet. The pooka took your friend over to the beetle game."
"Cumber doesn't have any money, so I guess that's safe." Theo wasn't sure what to say. "Thanks again for loaning me your cloak."
The goblin shrugged. "Won't need it much until winter comes. You use it. Friend of Button's, so." Theo sat down across the fire from him. The goblin moved very slowly, but gave the impression he could move much faster if he wanted to — and those eyes! Theo remembered his brief semi-dream about the zoo's wolfhouse. He looked at the dark, silent Coathook. Could a goblin be a werewolf? It seemed a bit much — over-egging the pudding. Mistress Twinge the pooka had said he was half-wild. What would wild mean in a goblin — was he one of those grims Theo had seen from the trains? They had been, as he remembered, distinctly impressive.
"Can you tell me a little bit about this place?" he asked. "I mean, I only came here because Button gave me a card that had the name of the bridge written on it. Everybody seems to think we're friends of his, but we don't really know him at all."
"He knows you." Coathook examined his stick again, tested the end with a finger. "He invites only people he knows are right. He lets the rest of us bring in other new folk." At the end of this, the longest thing Theo had heard him say, the goblin put the stick back in the fire.
"So he's . . . what, the leader?"
Coathook shrugged. "He's the smart one. The one with the ideas. He . . . knows things."
Theo shook his head. "I don't really get it. I mean, is Button sort of the mayor of this . . . tent city? Was he also the one who started it?" Coathook grinned. His teeth were yellow too, and quite sharp. "There have always been people here since the river changed. Poor people. Hungry people. Button helped them. But the . . . mayor?" He laughed, a noise like a wheezy cough.
"Maybe I'm using the wrong word . . ." "No, I know that word. Fairies who are chiefs of towns, of cities. Fat ones who make important-sounding speeches. No, Button is not that. He is not a mayor. I think he is a general."
It took Theo a moment to catch on. "You mean, this is . . . an army?" "Not yet. Soon, maybe." Coathook withdrew the stick to test the point again.
Unsure of what to think, Theo stared at the blackened piece of wood, scraped against stone until it had a needle-sharp point. "What are you going to do with that? Anything?"
The goblin nodded his head. "Oh, yes. If we do not soon get a chance to kill some of those Flower bastards, then I am going to go across the camp and stick this into the ear of a brownie I met named Wicker — all the way into his thinking organs." Again he let out the wheezing laugh but there was an unpleasant glimmer in his eyes. "Which will teach him not to cheat me at cut-stones."
"It will certainly make sure he doesn't do it again," Theo said earnestly. "Did I tell you how grateful I was for the use of that cloak?"
————— He left the goblin behind, not without a certain relief, and went to find some food. He hadn't eaten since he had shared bread with Sedge in the late afternoon and the day's walk had been a long one. Coathook had told him that there would be a meal after Button's speech or story or whatever it was, but Theo didn't want to wait that long — he wasn't actually certain he wanted to stay up all night just to hear some goblin-mullah toss parables or rabble-rouse or whatever it was the guy did.
The camp was an even stranger place by night with the birds gone and fires burning everywhere. Weird shapes loomed up before him, each more alarming and startling than the last. Theo still had to remind himself that the people around him weren't wearing Hallowe'en masks or hanging around backstage at some children's theater: they really looked like that. In fact, many of them probably felt that an arrangement like he had, with two eyes, two nostrils, and a mouth all laid out in a symmetrical fashion on the face (and only on the face) was downright disturbing. But since they were almost all polite enough to hide this sentiment, he decided he could be too. He nodded and smiled at two old women with storks' legs who were dangling their clawed feet in the river, and then smiled as he patted a small child with the head and tail of a fox. He did his best to keep smiling even after the child almost bit his finger off and the mother — or perhaps it was the father — came running after him, pointing and barking and calling him names.
By the time Theo was a few yards away the yappingly anxious parent could barely be heard above the general din of the camp, of fairy-folk laughing, shouting, and arguing. The place was so full of noisy life that he had wandered quite far from the tent by the time he noticed he had been hearing an interesting sound for some time now without ever quite being conscious that he was listening to it. It was music, at first only a distant drone and snap of drums with the occasional wail of what sounded like singing voices, but getting louder and more complex to his ear with every step.
Since he had been unlucky about getting himself fed (he had quickly realized that since he had no money he would have to beg food off people who clearly had little to spare) he now let h
imself be tugged across the camp by his ears instead of his stomach, following the exotic strains through several wrong turns that either nearly dumped him into the sluggish Moonflood or dead-ended him at its muddy upper bank, or landed him right in the middle of someone's private space — particularly embarrassing and even traumatic when one such private space proved to be occupied by two ogres making love. He did not stay long — in fact, he turned and ran — but the sight of all those acres of wrinkly gray flesh in spirited congress was something he felt sure would come back to him in nightmares for years.
The music drew him, although he couldn't say why, except that it was music, however strange. It was not the sort of thing he liked even at his most eclectic, altogether too alien, a kind of endless, whining drone that did not yield very much information to his untutored ear, but he had no other destination. Fairy children watched him pass, some with sharp interest, others with eyes dulled by hunger or illness. Can I catch the diseases they have here? he wondered. I sure as hell wasn't vaccinated for any of them before I came. The sudden worry only underscored how lost he felt, how strange. All these folk, some with wings, some with donkey ears, some so small he could barely see them by the light of the campfires, were part of a different world. He might as well have been the first man on Mars in some old science fiction book.
No wonder Eamonn Dowd wanted to write about it, he thought as he watched a group of children with dirty faces and wings playing an elaborate game with a stick and a wheel off what looked like a baby carriage. It's so different. It's not even like the fairy tales. You could live here your whole life and not understand how everything works, the assumptions, the rules. An abrupt realization that he might indeed have to live here his whole life brought an intense pang of homesickness. It's not missing cheeseburgers and television and things like that, it's missing a place where I know the rules. Where I know what someone means when they say something, where I'm not always having to guess.
