The Lightning Key (Wednesday Tales (Quality))

by Jon Berkeley

  The captain gave a deep chuckle. “You won’t be able to use the fez as a form of identification once we reach Al Bab,” he said.

  “Can I ask you a question?” said Miles.

  “By all means.”

  “Why did you invite Cortado and Doctor Tau-Tau to dine at your table? I thought that was considered a privilege.”

  “You are quite right,” said Captain Tripoli. “However, a great Chinese general once said, ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.’ It’s a notion I’ve found useful over the years.”

  Miles thought about this for a moment. “So you can keep an eye on them?”

  “Precisely so,” said the captain. He got up and walked around the desk, extending his hand to Miles. His handshake was dry and firm. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wednesday. I trust you’re feeling a bit steadier now.”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” said Miles.

  “Capital,” said Captain Tripoli, opening the cabin door. “One other thing. It’s my pleasure to invite you and your companions to dine at my table also. And in your case,” he said with a smile, “I hope you will consider it a privilege.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  FEUDS AND MISDEMEANORS

  Captain Tripoli, dressed, pressed and chisel-sharp, sat at the head of his table and steepled his fingers as the ship’s cook, Airman Tang—who doubled as the ship’s waiter—spooned couscous and falafel onto his plate. The captain had taken the Chinese general’s maxim seriously, seating Doctor Tau-Tau at his right hand and the Great Cortado at his left. If you think Miles might have felt uncomfortable sitting next to the man who had beheaded Tangerine, and opposite the ringmaster who had attempted to kill him only that afternoon, you would be absolutely right. He fidgeted on his seat and surreptitiously checked on Tangerine about every two minutes, and he watched the hands on the stateroom clock to ensure that they had not actually been glued in place.

  Little, on the other hand, was as bright as ever. She was soon teaching a wind song to First Officer Barrett, who sat opposite her at the end of the table and happened to mention that he liked to play the accordion.

  “Might I ask what business takes you to Al Bab, Mr. Cortado?” asked Captain Tripoli.

  The Great Cortado seemed to have made up his mind to be on his best behavior. “I am in the business of animal performances,” he said. “I was for many years the director of the finest circus show on the continent.”

  “Is that so?” said the captain. “I keep a pair of ocelots at my home, although I have not had a great deal of success in training them.”

  “You probably don’t see them consistently enough,” said the Great Cortado with unusual politeness, and he and Captain Tripoli embarked on a conversation about the care and training of felines, frequently interrupted by Baltinglass of Araby, who prided himself on being an expert on anything that bites, stings, maims or dismembers.

  With the captain and the ringmaster otherwise occupied, Doctor Tau-Tau paused between mouthfuls and leaned a fraction closer to Miles. “I hope you realize that it was I who saved your life this morning, my boy,” he said in a low voice.

  Miles felt himself flush hot, and it was only with an effort that he managed to keep his voice as low as the fortune-teller’s. “It was First Officer Barrett who pulled me back in,” he said.

  “Naturally,” muttered Doctor Tau-Tau. “I could not risk blowing my cover by wrestling with the Great Cortado over your ankles. Instead I used my considerable psychic powers to alert the captain and first officer to your predicament, and just in the nick of time, if I may say so. If I may say so,” he repeated, “it was a timely move.”

  “Blowing your cover?” said Miles, ignoring the second part of Doctor Tau-Tau’s improbable statement.

  Doctor Tau-Tau glanced nervously at the Great Cortado, who was recommending to the captain a diet of chopped snake to give luster to his ocelots’ coats.

  “It’s vital that I play along with Cortado until I learn mastery of the you-know-what,” he mumbled through a mouthful of food, “so that we can be rid of him once and for all.”

  “You’re forgetting that the you-know-what is mine,” said Miles through clenched teeth. “You stole it from me, and you have no right to use it.”

  A wounded look appeared on Tau-Tau’s florid face. “My dear boy,” he said, “you know that I am always looking after your best interests.”

  Miles took a mouthful of food to stop himself from answering straightaway. Strangely enough he believed that Doctor Tau-Tau really meant what he said—at least, as much as he meant anything—but he could not forget the sight of his beloved Tangerine cruelly eviscerated in an empty bed on a stormy November night.

  “Since you’ve been looking after my best interests I’ve been almost sliced open by the Fir Bolg, nearly sawn in half by Cortado, and come within seconds of being pushed to my death from an airship,” said Miles in a loud whisper. “I’d rather you just returned the Tiger’s Egg and left my best interests alone, thank you.”

  Miles saw the Great Cortado glance in his direction at the mention of the Tiger’s Egg. A forced smile appeared beneath the ringmaster’s mustache. “I almost forgot,” he said, producing Celeste’s diary and placing it on the table in front of Miles. “My associate here blundered into the wrong cabin this morning and picked up this diary, thinking it was his copy of A Hundred and One Magic Tricks for Beginners. I only discovered his foolish mistake as we were dressing for dinner.”

  Miles took the diary at once and put it in his pocket. Doctor Tau-Tau said nothing and stared at the tablecloth, his face growing darker crimson.

  “I’d like you to return the other thing that your foolish associate took from me,” said Miles. He remembered what the captain had said at the porthole. “Then I might decide not to press charges.”

  Captain Tripoli fixed Miles with a stern look. “I have already said that my word is law on the Sunfish, Mr. Wednesday. However, I have no jurisdiction over events that happen outside the confines of this vessel. Old feuds and misdemeanors must be settled elsewhere, and there will be no further mention of them at the captain’s table.”

  The Great Cortado smirked at Miles. “That sounds like an excellent opportunity to put our differences aside,” he purred. “I don’t believe you’ve told me where you’re headed once we reach Al Bab.”

  “We’re on an educational tour,” barked Baltinglass of Araby. “A journey into the unknown.”

  “I always find a good map useful,” crowed the Great Cortado. “I picked up an excellent one for nothing in a little place in Cnoc. But, of course, you wouldn’t be able to read it, would you, old man?”

  “Master Miles is well able to navigate,” said Baltinglass of Araby.

  “Still,” said the Great Cortado, “it’s kind of the boy to take on the burden of a blind pensioner on an outing, if perhaps a little fool-hurrrk!”

  The Great Cortado did not, of course, intend to say “fool-hurrrk,” but before he could finish the word “foolhardy,” Baltinglass of Araby’s hand shot out with lightning speed and bull’s-eye accuracy and grabbed the ringmaster’s tongue. Baltinglass pinched hard with his thumb and forefinger, and tears came to Cortado’s eye. Little nudged Miles, and he fought to keep the smile from his face.

  The captain put down his fork. “Mr. Baltinglass!” he said in a commanding tone. “You are a guest at the captain’s table! Release that man’s tongue at once.”

  “My apologies, Captain,” shouted Baltinglass, giving Cortado’s tongue a tweak before letting it go. “Thought I heard a snake there. The old eyesight’s not what it used to be, you know.”

  The Great Cortado sank back into his seat, shaking with rage, and Miles could not resist returning his smirk. “Baltinglass has taught me a lot,” he said, “especially about preparing for the unexpected. He’s had a lot of experience in dealing with reptiles.”

  The Great Cortado leaned forward and fixed his one eye on Miles with a look of watery malevolence. “Per
haps you should remind him that I have a very long memory,” he said.

  Captain Tripoli cleared his throat loudly, and Airman Tang appeared at his shoulder. “We’ll take coffee now, Mr. Tang,” said the captain.

  Miles and Little thanked the captain for dinner and excused themselves. Miles was impatient to revisit the Realm, and anxious to check that his mother’s diary was still intact. They lit the lamp in their cabin, and Miles examined the diary by the flickering yellow light. There appeared to be nothing missing, including the inscription from Celeste’s gravestone that he had penciled on the last page.

  “Do you think they had a chance to copy this?” he asked Little.

  “They didn’t have it for long,” said Little, “and they spent at least part of that time trying to stuff you out through the window.” She looked at him and smiled. “We shouldn’t have split up,” she said.

  “But we didn’t know they were on board,” said Miles. “I wonder what Tau-Tau was doing on the Albatross that morning anyway?”

  Little shrugged. “Maybe he found it was more expensive to sail than to fly.”

  Miles climbed into his bunk and lay down. He was too tired to read, and he placed the diary under his pillow and rested Tangerine on his chest. The bear lay still, limp with stuffing deficiency, an unquestioning smile stitched on his face. At one time Miles would have talked to him about the events of the day, but lately he had begun to feel a little sheepish about talking aloud to a stuffed bear, and a bit less sure that Tangerine was really listening. Nonetheless the feel of Tangerine’s threadbare fur was as reassuring as it had ever been, and he smiled as he squeezed him tight.

  “I was in the Realm again this morning,” said Miles, “after I got that knock on the head from Cortado.”

  Little’s face appeared over the edge of the top bunk. “Really?” she said. “You found your own way in?”

  “I had to do that the first time too,” he reminded her. “But this time there was no lever. I thought you said it was the lever that opened the way in.”

  Little laughed, her face framed by a curtain of silver-blond hair. “Don’t be silly, Miles. You can get into the Realm any way you like, once you know where it is.”

  “How come it was a lever the first time?”

  “Because I suggested it,” said Little. “I tried to explain the way I go in, but you understand machines and solid things much better, so in the end I just told you to look for a lever.”

  “But how could it work if you just made it up on the spot?” said Miles.

  “In a dream your thoughts make the reality. It’s the same in the Realm. It’s not like in this world, where reality comes in big heavy lumps and it’s harder to think them into shape. That’s why you have to be very careful to control your thoughts when you’re in the Realm.” She lay back on her bunk and added through a yawn, “And whatever you do, don’t ever think of the tiger.”

  Miles listened to the steady rhythm of the airship’s engines. The sound seemed so familiar now that he wondered how he would get to sleep without it. “I called you when I was in the Realm,” he said after a while, “but you didn’t come. Is that because you weren’t asleep?”

  There was no answer but the wup, wup, wup of the propellers. “Now she’s asleep,” Miles muttered to Tangerine, and just for a moment he thought he felt the bear shift himself to a more comfortable position. Miles closed his eyes and smiled, and as the airship Sunfish sailed on through the starlit night he drifted gently into sleep.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  RASCALS

  Miles Wednesday, falafel-fed and floating at sleep’s edge, wondered idly what would happen if he had no dreams that night. What if he never dreamed again? One thing was for sure: He would not ever get to sleep if he didn’t close the porthole. Someone must have left it open, and his ears were as cold as ice. He opened his eyes, but there was no bunk above him and no pillow below his head. He was halfway out through the porthole already, suspended over the ocean in a freezing wind.

  “Not again!” he thought. He did not feel particularly worried this time. There were no malicious hands feeding him out into the sky. He seemed rather to be squeezing himself out, like toothpaste from a tube. His feet left the ship, and he began to drop through the air. It felt like he had plenty of time. “Little?” he said aloud.

  “Behind you,” said Little.

  He corkscrewed around as he fell. “Hello,” he said, admiring again the shimmering wings that sprouted from her shoulders.

  “Enough of the practicing, Miles,” said Little, who seemed to be a great deal sterner whenever he met her on this side of sleep. “It’s time to pick yourself up.”

  Miles spread out his arms and pulled slowly out of his dive. He could feel a powerful pull on his shoulders, and gave an experimental flap with muscles that he had never possessed before. It was neither bedsheets nor bare arms that were lifting him now. Miles felt a strong temptation to look over his shoulder, but he knew enough about the Realm to realize that one negative thought would make his new wings vanish like a summer snowflake. It was safer just to enjoy the sensation, and he let out a whoop of joy as he swooped upward. There was no airship to be seen, only the endless sky around him.

  “What’s this?” said a voice behind him that was definitely not Little’s.

  “Not one of us,” said another by his left shoulder. He was surrounded in an instant by an odd assortment of figures, spiraling and jinking so wildly that it was a wonder they didn’t collide. “Looks like a meatmade,” said one.

  “A what?” said Miles. It was difficult to get a good look at the figures who dived and soared around him. They all looked like people he knew but couldn’t quite identify. Maybe people he had known from Larde, or from the circus, except that he had never known anyone who could fly apart from Silverpoint and Little. These strangers seemed to fly without wings, he noticed, and to give off a sort of roaring noise as they flew.

  “It talks,” said one.

  “And flies,” said another.

  A long, thin character swooped in close to him and poked him in the ribs. “Usually they just sort of . . . drop,” he said.

  “What have you done with Little?” said Miles.

  “I’m here, Miles,” said Little. He almost didn’t recognize her. She was still Little, but she had somehow become less like herself and more like flying putty. She seemed to change in some indefinable way each time someone looked at her, and now that all the newcomers turned to look at her at once she became almost featureless.

  “She’s one of us,” said a voice.

  “You can’t hide from us, cousin.”

  “You is a Song Angel, no?” said another.

  “Yes,” said Little.

  “Sing us your song, then.”

  Little shook her head.

  There was a gale of laughter from the others. “Very quiet for a Song Angel,” shouted one. “Can’t shut ’em up, usually.”

  “What you doing with a meatmade, song girl?”

  “You teach him to fly?”

  Little ducked the question, and the questioner, with a neat maneuver, and popped up at Miles’s side.

  “Who are they?” asked Miles.

  “Chaos Angels,” said Little.

  “Rascals,” said one of the Chaos Angels. “Only the Sleepies call us Chaos Angels.”

  “What do you do?” asked Miles. “Apart from zooming about like jumbo flies.”

  “Jumbo flies!” One of the Rascals guffawed. “I like that!” He gave Miles a thump on the back that made him somersault in the air and drop like a brick for several seconds, and every Rascal instantly stalled and dropped with him, screaming and hooting in a terrifying way before bursting into raucous laughter as they pulled out of their dive again. Their laughter reminded Miles of jackdaws, and for a moment the entire flock of Chaos Angels turned into tumbling black-and-gray birds before they shook themselves back into shape.

  “Did she teach you that?” said one angrily, jerking his finge
r at Little.

  “I taught myself, I think,” said Miles.

  “Do that again,” said the Rascal, “and I’ll turn you into this.” He transformed suddenly into a thing like a rotting fish with dragonfly wings and a mouthful of odious teeth. “For good, understand?”

  “Sorry,” said Miles. He tried to hold the Rascal’s staring eye, feeling it would be rude to look away while the other was making such an effort to be repulsive.

  “Don’t apologize,” said Little in a loud whisper.

  “Sorry,” Miles whispered back before he could stop himself. The rules of the Realm were becoming very complicated, if they were rules at all, so he simply repeated his question and hoped for the best. “You didn’t tell me what you do.”

  “We make chaos, of course,” said Fish-fly, turning slowly back into a less hideous shape. “Ever had one of those days where you stand on a pin when you get out of bed; then you find the window’s open and it’s rained on your clothes?”

  “So you put them by the oven to dry,” said another.

  “And there’s only two slices of bread left, and they’re both stale?”

  “So you stick them in the toaster, but meanwhile the oven’s set your shirt on fire—”

  “So you throw a jug of water over it and realize it’s not water at all, but the last of the milk—”

  “And you’ve soaked the toaster and electrocuted the cat?”

  “And then . . .”

  “I get the idea,” said Miles. “You’re the ones who do all that?”

  “That’s us,” said Fish-fly. “Rascals, Inc. Sowers of finest-quality chaos to the gentry.”

  “Is it fun making chaos?”

  “It’s pretty boring, really,” said a Rascal to his left. “You meatmades are so inept you don’t need a lot of help to mess things up.”

  “I think we get by pretty well,” said Miles, who felt he should offer some defense of his kind.

  “Ha! Name one useful thing you make!”

  “Well . . .,” said Miles.