The Lightning Key (Wednesday Tales (Quality))

by Jon Berkeley

  Nura folded her arms and frowned darkly. “The boy needs help to cure his father,” she said.

  “There are plenty of healers,” said her mother.

  “Look at the boy’s face, Mother,” said Nura. “Look beyond his teeth and his eyelids.”

  The old lady stared at Miles for a moment, then she closed her eyes and sank back into the pillows.

  “This is Celeste’s son,” said Nura gently. “Your grandson. His name is Miles, and he did not die in the orphanage after all. The Egg in the bear is the one he inherited from Celeste, and he needs our help.”

  The old woman said nothing. She lay among the pillows, breathing slowly as though she had fallen asleep. Eventually she opened her eyes again. “There’s nothing we can do for him,” she said. “His father is a ghost in a stone. How can that be cured?”

  “What used to be my father is still alive,” said Miles. “It’s just a part of him that’s trapped in the Tiger’s Egg, along with the tiger.”

  “Impossible. Even the greatest shaman could not do what you describe.”

  “Maybe not,” said Miles. “This was achieved by an idiot. He was trying to cure my father of a broken heart. He told me that he made his potion too strong, but I think now that he tried to use the Tiger’s Egg in the cure. I know this man well, and if there’s a way to get something completely wrong he’ll find it.”

  “You can’t fix this with further meddling,” said the old woman. “My advice is to return the Tiger’s Egg to its original owner. Where was your father when you needed him? You owe him nothing.”

  “I can’t do that,” said Miles, fighting back the tears. “I don’t know what my father went through, but I’m all he has. Besides,” he said, “I can’t return it to the Fir Bolg without fulfilling Celeste’s bargain.”

  The old woman sat up sharply in the bed as though she had just swallowed a mouthful of strong mustard. “The Fir Bolg?” she choked, and Miles saw Nura wince as her mother turned to her with a furious look. “You told me she bought the Tiger’s Egg from a one-legged antique dealer in Calcutta.”

  “I didn’t think there was any point in upsetting you,” said Nura.

  “Well, I’m upset now!” said Miles’s grandmother. “No wonder Celeste came to a bad end. The Fir Bolg are shiftless little troglodytes, and no good ever comes of dealing with them.” She turned to Miles, and her face was like thunder. “What was the bargain? Speak up!”

  “They wanted to be freed of their fear of the light,” said Miles. “Celeste promised to find a cure for them in exchange for the loan of the Egg.”

  “That would be lunacy! What was the term?” asked the old lady.

  “Twenty-one years. It expired when I turned eleven.”

  The old woman clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “They will consider that binding on you, boy.”

  “I know,” said Miles. “I’ve already met them. They only let me go in order to find the Egg and bring it back.”

  “My advice is not to return the Egg to its original owners under any circumstances,” said the old lady. “Pay no attention to any bargain they may claim to have made. The Fir Bolg would break their word at the drop of a hat. Take the thing and throw it in the sea.”

  “He can’t throw his father in the sea,” said Nura with an exasperated gasp.

  “It’s not his father,” said the old woman. “It’s a pebble.”

  “You always told us that a Tiger’s Egg was the most precious thing known to man,” said Nura.

  “A pure one would be a great treasure,” said her mother. “This one is flawed, and no use for anything.”

  Miles stood up and put Tangerine back in his pocket. “It was nice to meet you,” he said, more politely than truthfully. “My father is more than a flaw in a stone to me, and I’ll do everything I can to find a way to bring him back.”

  He turned and left the room, and heard his grandmother’s voice echoing along the stone passage as he went. “I forbid you to get mixed up in this, Nura. Do you hear me?”

  Miles Wednesday, clean-eyed and sharp-clawed, lay under cool cotton sheets beneath a high ceiling in the house where his mother was born. His mind was racing and sleep seemed far away. The possibility that he had found the way to restore his father at last seemed very real, but big answers have a habit of bringing new questions trailing after them, and this one was no exception. Would Barty Fumble’s soul survive being returned from the Tiger’s Egg to The Null? And even if it could be done, would that turn The Null back into Barty Fumble after all this time, or would it just become a giant hairy monster that could actually speak to you as it tore you limb from limb? What if he was wrong and the extra soul in the Tiger’s Egg was not Barty Fumble at all, but a retired postman or a fugitive nun from Casablanca? There was one final question too that for some reason he found it hardest of all to face. Supposing he did succeed against the odds in freeing his father from the Tiger’s Egg—what would happen to the tiger himself?

  There was one thing he knew for certain: Bluehart would not stop searching for him, and sooner or later Miles would run out of tricks. He had been lucky so far, but the thought that he might regain his father only to lose his own life made a mockery of all his plans. He would have to find a way to tackle Bluehart head-on. He looked across at Little, lying in the other bed. The starlit glow on her skin was so faint now that he could barely see it.

  “Are you awake?” he said.

  “I am now,” said Little.

  “I’m going back to the Realm,” said Miles.

  Little propped herself up on one elbow. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.

  “You don’t need to come,” said Miles.

  “Going on your own would be an even worse idea, Miles.”

  “I know what to expect now,” said Miles. “I’ll be able to take care of myself.”

  “You’ll only alert Bluehart,” said Little. “You’ve cheated him so many times he’s going to make it really bad for you.”

  “What can he do that’s worse than killing me?” asked Miles.

  “A Sleep Angel doesn’t kill you,” said Little. “A rock slide or a snakebite or double pneumonia kills you. It’s a Sleep Angel’s job to conduct you to your next life, and there’s lots of ways Bluehart could make that much worse for you, believe me.”

  “All the more reason for me to go back,” said Miles. “Bluehart tricked me out of the chance to make my own defense the last time. Why would he have dragged me away from the Council if there’s no chance I could change their minds?”

  Little sighed. “What would you say to them?”

  “I’ve got the Tiger’s Egg,” said Miles. “They’ve been searching for it for years without success, and I could agree to hand it over as soon as I’ve used it to restore my father, if they agree to let us live in return.”

  “All right, Miles, but I’m coming with you. Let’s just make sure we don’t lose sight of each other for a second this time.”

  Miles smiled in the dark. “Okay,” he said. He lay still and tried to relax, but if you have ever tried to make sleep come quickly so that you can defend yourself before a tribunal of shape-shifting angels on a charge of stealing a tiger’s soul, you will know that the more you try, the less likely you are to sleep. That’s just how it was with Miles. He could hear Little’s slow, even breathing, and he could imagine her waiting impatiently for him to find her. He hoped she didn’t head for the Council thinking that he’d gone ahead of her, and he wondered . . .

  “Are you just going to float around like a blob hoping and wondering things, or can we get going?” said Little’s voice.

  Miles opened his eyes in surprise. “Where are we?” he asked. He seemed to be in the middle of a gray cloud.

  “Instead of ‘Where are we?’ try ‘Where do we want to be?’” suggested Little.

  “At the Council, I guess,” said Miles. The cloud around him at once began to condense into figures of all shapes and sizes, milling restlessly about. There was
a great deal of shouting going on, and somewhere in the distance the Storm Angels were rolling thunderballs through the flickering sky.

  “Blend in,” whispered Little at his ear, “quickly!”

  Miles looked around him and let himself flow into what looked like an average shape. “How will we know each other?” he said, turning to look at Little. She looked like herself, but less so, he thought, but she gave him a mischievous look and stuck out a bright green tongue for an instant. He pictured his own tongue in electric blue, and stuck it out experimentally.

  Little laughed. “That’ll do,” she whispered.

  The angels seemed to spend most of their time in a vague or changeable form, taking on sharper definition only when they wanted to be seen or heard, and Miles noticed that he could follow the discussion as it passed through the assembly like ripples of clarity. Most of the time there were several ripples on the go, spreading and jumping in a bewildering jumble of argument. He could not tell how any of the discussions actually got started, so after listening for a while he decided to throw the dragon into the henhouse, as the Chaos Angel had put it.

  “What about the Tiger’s Egg?” he said in a loud voice, when he felt nobody was looking directly at him.

  “What about it?” asked an angel in the center of the melee.

  A figure on the far side replied immediately, “It hasn’t been found yet, has it?” and to his surprise Miles caught a momentary flash of emerald green in the speaker’s mouth. He couldn’t see the angel clearly, but Little was not by his side where she had been a moment ago. The crowd was too dense to force his way through, so he shut his eyes briefly and imagined himself standing beside the other angel. When he opened them again he was on the other side of the crowd.

  “Well done,” whispered Little in his ear.

  Miles turned around in time to hear a cold voice from a tall, smoky angel in the center of the assembly. “Bluehart has been charged with the recovery of the Egg.”

  “Well, he’s not doing a very good job, is he?” said Miles. He knew that he would become more visible as the other angels turned to look at him, and without giving it a second’s thought he made himself slate gray and smoke-edged like the Sleep Angel he had answered. The effect was dramatic. The other angels seemed farther away without actually having changed position. Even Little seemed to shrink somehow. He felt a surge of strength spread through him, and he spoke again. “The boy who hides the Egg has given Bluehart the runaround for months. How hard can it be to track down one boy?”

  He was beginning to enjoy himself now, and did not see the alarmed look on Little’s face. “Miles,” she hissed, but before she could say anything further a quiet voice came from just behind him.

  “That’s a dangerous game you’re playing, meatmade.” Miles glanced over his shoulder to see Fish-fly, the Chaos Angel, looking at him with a glint of amusement. He felt a heady confidence at his newfound ability to change himself at will. “I know what I’m doing,” he said.

  “Is that so?” Fish-fly chuckled. “Do you know you’re wearing Bluehart’s face while you’re badmouthing him to the Council?”

  Miles turned around with a sinking feeling. Several angels stood in front of him, their stone-dark eyes peering at him closely. “What’s the game, Bluehart?” said one of them, and in a flash he remembered how closely Bluehart’s features had resembled his own. His mouth felt dry and he licked his lips nervously. The Sleep Angels recoiled at the sight of his electric blue tongue. In the distance the rumble of thunder grew louder.

  “He’s not himself at the moment,” said Little, a slight tremor in her voice.

  “That’s right,” said Miles. “I think I need some time off.”

  “Time . . . off?” said a Sleep Angel.

  “Time off.” Miles nodded. “The boy . . . that is . . . I have a feeling he’ll surrender the Egg when he’s finished with it. Then I can, you know . . .”

  “ . . . reexamine the case,” finished Little.

  “That’s a bit soft for you, Bluehart,” mocked the Chaos Angel from behind him. “What happened to your plan to send the boy back as a tapeworm inside a swamp buffalo?”

  “Well?” said the assembled Sleep Angels with one voice.

  Miles glanced at Little in the hope that she would be ready for what was coming. He took a deep breath that seemed to leak out between his ribs before he could get the benefit. “I’d send the lot of you back as tapeworms if I could,” he began.

  A ripple of shock ran through the assembly, and the Sleep Angels’ stony faces became even stonier. “That would teach you some humility,” Miles went on. He looked again at Little, who was starting to dissolve around the edges. He was not entirely sure he would be able to disappear at will himself, especially with the attention of a hundred stunned angels fixing him in place, but it was too late to change course now. “Then with you pebble-heads out of the way I could start running this place properly” he said.

  There was an enormous crash of thunder as he spoke. The cloud lit up inside, giving a brief glimpse of a fabulous network of galleries and domes that opened out from one another like an endless hall of mirrors, and it seemed to Miles that every eye in the entire Realm was turned on him. He closed his eyes, which seemed to him a necessary part of disappearing. A hand gripped his shoulder and began to shake him. He pulled himself free and opened his eyes to see Nura leaning over him.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “You were having a bad dream.”

  Miles nodded, struggling into a sitting postion. He looked across the room and saw to his relief that Little was sitting on the edge of her own bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “It’s early,” said Nura, “but you must get up.” She opened the shutter on the arched window, letting in the pearly dawn light. She turned to him and smiled. “I’ve spent the night thinking about yesterday’s events,” she said, “and I’ve decided I will have to honor the Great Cortado’s request and have you all beheaded.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  HEADS IN THE SAND

  Nura Mahnoosh Elham, night-wrapped and rose-fingered, ushered the Great Cortado and Doctor Tau-Tau into the courtyard and invited them to sit. A jug of iced water and a pot of mint tea sat on the mosaic table. She poured two cups of tea, spilling some on the tiles. “I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s a little dark in here.” She crossed to the lamp that hung on the opposite wall and turned up the light. Doctor Tau-Tau raised his glass to his lips, but no sooner had he taken a mouthful than he gave a choking gasp and sprayed himself, the table and the Great Cortado with tea.

  The turbaned Great Cortado leaped up with a gasp of anger; then he stopped as he saw what had so startled his accomplice. Even Cortado himself seemed momentarily shaken, but he collected himself and forced a smile. In a corner of the room the severed heads of Miles, Little and Baltinglass of Araby sat carelessly on a carpet of sand, dark red stains blooming around each of them.

  Doctor Tau-Tau’s face changed like a traffic light from red to green. He stood up abruptly, sending his chair crashing to the floor, and stumbled wordlessly out of the courtyard, a pudgy hand clasped across his mouth.

  “I’m sure he knows where the bathroom is by now,” said Nura coolly. She righted the wrought-iron chair and sat herself at the table. “You must forgive me for not fully trusting you yesterday,” she said. “Your visit was a little unexpected after all these years. However, when these bandits turned up I realized you were a man of your word, and I had them dealt with appropriately.” She poured herself a tea and took a sip. “I have given your proposal some thought, and have decided to go with you to find the grave of the Egg’s maker. I don’t think Doctor Tau-Tau will be able to effect your transformation on his own. He doesn’t even know about your plan, does he?”

  “He knows only what he needs to know,” said the Great Cortado.

  “I will require full payment up front,” said Nura.

  “I don’t think so,” said the Grea
t Cortado with an unconvincing smile. “I’ll pay half your fee now, and the rest when the process is complete.”

  Nura shrugged. “Very well,” she said. “We will leave at sunset and travel in the cooler hours. In the meantime I would caution against using the Tiger’s Egg unless absolutely necessary. The transformation you want to achieve is an ambitious one, and if the power of the Egg is depleted from overuse your chances of success will be far slimmer.”

  She stood up. “Now I have much to do. We will meet at sunset by the well at the bottom of the steps. You may collect your squeamish associate on your way out.”

  The Great Cortado paused in the archway and took a last look at the severed heads. “One other thing,” he said. “I would like the boy’s head boxed to bring with me.”

  Nura raised her eyebrows. “It won’t smell that sweet after a few days in your saddlebag,” she said.

  “Tau-Tau doesn’t smell too good either, but he has his uses,” said Cortado with a strained giggle. “You can pack it in ice, can’t you?”

  “It will cost you extra,” said Nura.

  The Great Cortado sniggered. “It will be worth every sou,” he said, and he went in search of the distressed fortune-teller.

  Now, picture if you will the grim scene in that leafy courtyard. Beneath the well-tended plants sit three human heads on a bed of sand. The heads belong to people we know well—a grizzled old man who has crossed every continent and whose fire has been rekindled by the spark of his young companions, a small girl who has learned that love is the heart of friendship and loyalty only its skin, and a boy full of courage and hope whose dream of weaving a family from the scattered threads he has inherited seems so close to completion. There they sit, their eyes closed and their lips sand-coated, as the echo of a door slamming far below them seems to put a final end to their story.

  It will probably not surprise you to find that it is no such thing. One of the boy’s eyes opens a fraction, and he attempts to spit out a mouthful of sand, which merely dribbles down his chin. Little laughs. “Even I can spit better than that, Miles,” she says. The three heads squirm and wriggle in a manner that’s quite unsettling to look at, and that only makes them more uncomfortable than they already are.