A Hero's Curse

by P. S. Broaddus

  I hold it up for Tig to see. “Britches?” I ask.

  “Looks like the king’s to me” replies Tig. “Plate sewn into the leather. Looks like tough hide, too. It isn’t any hide I recognize. If it isn’t the king’s it must have belonged to a Hero or a District Guardian. The plate is black steel—engraved. They’ve been modified of course. The whole job has been cut down and redone with red thread. Definitely a bit standoutish.”

  The britches are lined with soft leather, as opposed to the outer toughness, so they actually feel pretty good. Next comes a leather jacket of the same material, with a particularly large plate sewn into the back. I suppose on a warrior it would only cover a portion of the back, but it makes me feel like a turtle. And it’s heavy. “I can’t go to dinner like this,” I hiss.

  “Well, don’t.”

  I shrug off the jacket.

  “How do I look, Tig? Is this decent?”

  “You look deranged. Like a blue nightmare.” His voice is flat.

  “Really?”

  “Your hair is a wreck. And your clothes . . . well, they look like something you people would wear: stiff, cumbersome, scratchy, hot, and covers everything. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it, but it does look like a tunic. Everything looks big on you.”

  It doesn’t feel like any of those things. The tunic is soft, cool, and flexible. The britches are heavy but comfortable. But that’s Tig. Next the little salamander brings out a pair of boots. They are hopelessly big on my small feet and skinny legs. They nearly come up to my knees.

  I kick them off and shrug. “I have my own shoes, but I’ll go barefoot for now. I love the way this moss feels.”

  “We’ll have to fix that before we leave,” says Tig.

  “True. My soft shoes would be torn to shreds on the sharp rocks outside, and I don’t want to go skipping through the Valley of Fire barefoot.” I try brushing my hair with my fingers but it feels pretty hopeless. Tig directs me to a basin of water, and that helps some.

  “Am I ready?” I ask a few moments later.

  “I don’t know, are you ready? I hope so. I’m starving. They didn’t give me anything yet.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I guess. You don’t look the best I’ve ever seen you, but considering you were just attacked by a rock basilisk, I’d say that ‘alive’ fits you pretty well.”

  Chapter 9

  Tig hops onto my shoulders and I wince. I’m still sore. Tig catches my flinch and adjusts immediately. It feels good to have him back on my shoulders, even if it is twenty extra pounds. Our salamander guide is joined again by several others. I do a test walk around our small room, letting my feet take a little spring with every step, enjoying the feel of cool moss.

  “The floor looks like a deep, blue, spongy carpet,” Tig says. “It’s giving off a glow, so the cavern is lit up quite a bit.”

  “Really? I’ll bet that’s pretty. It feels great.” I mean it. I have never walked on anything so delightful.

  “Also,” says Tig, “there are pinpricks glowing in the moss. They look a lot like the lights from fireflies, but they aren’t moving. I think they must be some kind of glowing plant.”

  We are quiet for a moment. I suppose the salamanders are letting us get used to our new surroundings.

  “Deep blue carpet sprinkled with glowing lights . . .” I murmur. “I’ll bet it looks like we’re walking on the sky.”

  A little three-fingered paw takes my hand and tugs until I follow. As we walk out of the room Tig spits and hisses, scrambling down and shoots between my feet, sending me sprawling. Since I was holding an Urodela’s little paw I assume it’s been bowled over as well. I jump up but end up stepping on a piece of Tig. He yowls and sinks his claws into my new pants. Immediately something flutters and snaps, like the sound sheets make when Mom hangs them out to dry in the wind. I hear Tig hurled away from me. He ends up several feet away, spitting and yowling. I drop to a crouch, trying to determine where the danger is coming from when the small three fingered paw takes my hand again. I flinch at the contact but relax slightly. If the Urodela aren’t running around squeaking we are probably going to make it. Tig stops spitting. He walks back over to me, but not without a low growl in his throat. I hiss back to let him know just how upset I am. That catches him off guard. He stops growling at me.

  “What happened?” I ask. I know he’s wound up, but I risk putting an arm around him anyway. He’s twice his normal size and shaking.

  “The biggest and ugliest toad you’ve ever seen,” he says, his voice defensive. “But that’s not why I’m shaking,” he explains, “the toad just startled me.” He growls one last time, and I feel him flatten his ears toward something off to my right.

  “Is it dangerous?” I ask.

  “Who knows. It would be if it sat on you. It’s the size of a horse.”

  I take an involuntary step back. “Uh, give me all the gory details,” I say.

  “Like I said, the thing is huge. About half your height, as wide as Cagney, huge flabby mouth and a crown of horns.”

  “That’s disgusting,” I say. “I’m glad I don’t have that burned into my brain forever.”

  “You would have hissed and spit, too,” Tig says. The Urodela holding my hand pulls me in the other direction, and I am only too happy to move away from the toad. Tig crawls up my arm, poking a head over my shoulder to watch the toad.

  “What happened when you attacked my leg?” I ask.

  “That’s why I was shaking. Things got really weird,” he says. “As soon as my claws sank in something in your new armor hit me hard—but not just one part. It felt like my whole body had been pummeled.”

  “Tig, I’m sorry!” I say, stroking his furry coat. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s almost gone. It’s fading quickly anyway.” He pauses, and I can feel him staring down at my new armor.

  “The Urodela are bumping against it, and they aren’t getting kicked across the room,” he says wistfully. He is quiet for another second, and then says what I am already thinking. “There must be some kind of magic in that armor, Ess.”

  A smile plays at the edges of my mouth. Tig has scratched me dozens of times—sometimes on purpose, and every once in a while by accident—but I don’t think I’ve ever been able to return the favor, unless you count mildly irritating him by tossing and turning in bed.

  “This feels a bit more fair,” I say. “Maybe you’ll think twice before chewing on me in the future.”

  He whirls on my shoulders and wraps both his paws around my neck, pressing his teeth against my throat. I don’t try to pull him away. That’s a great way to get your face torn off. Instead I scratch him behind the ears. Point made. He lets me go and moves back to the center of my shoulders.

  “Just remember who’s in charge,” he says and pats my head with a paw. He’s getting back at me for hissing at him. He knows I hate it when he pats my head. That’s why he does it so often.

  “Too bad our interpreter wasn’t here to give us a little warning about the giant toad,” I say.

  “Yeah, I wonder where he got off to.”

  A new noise starts in the distance. It sounds like hundreds and hundreds of squeaking, chirruping voices. Our two captors, or guides—I still can’t decide on their role, start a chirruping song of their own. The little salamander that has my hand sings to his friends, almost like he is announcing something.

  As if reading my mind Tig whispers in my ear, “This salamander leading us is short, red, and gives off its own glow. It’s walking on its hind legs, but of course, you probably knew that.” The little salamander behind me has its hand on my elbow, which is about as high as he can probably reach, half guiding and half pushing me along the passage. I give Tig a squeeze, mostly to annoy him. I’m not frightened; I can smell that we are safe, for now. The sound the Urodela make are like the spring peepers that sing at night in the early summer weeks, and it’s hard to be afraid of those.

  I wonder if our kingdom’s mi
ssing King Mactogonii was kidnapped or killed by the Urodela. That would explain why they had his clothes and armor—if it really was his. I draw a sharp breath at the thought—he might still be here, and these creatures could be dangerous after all. What if I get thrown in some damp dungeon-like cave, too? I feel my heavy leggings under my long tunic and think of the leather and plate armor back in my room. A warrior get taken out by the Urodela? Probably not. More likely if King Mactogonii was really here, he is already gone.

  A whistling squeak from the Urodela in front brings my thoughts back to the gathering—I hear an answering chirp several yards ahead. And then we are turning and walking down and past two salamanders who sing several times in answer to the chirps from our group. As we emerge from the tunnel into what feels like an enormous cavern, I hear hundreds, no thousands, of chirruping salamanders.

  From my shoulder Tig sucks in his breath. “There are reds and blues and oranges, and greens, and even some bright yellow salamanders bustling and scampering through a cavernous underground city,” he narrates. “It looks like a wild, colorful mess.”

  I let the music wash over me. It isn’t exactly a song but it has a rhythm that is soothing and exciting at the same time. It permeates the ground and shivers in the air. As my escorts walk me down a gently sloping path into the city I feel several small hands tag me. Tig, from his vantage point on my shoulders, tells the story.

  “You’ve got several little miscreant salamanders who are trying to be heroes and tag the blind girl.” His tail flicks around and catches me under the nose. “Ahh, looks like they are getting theirs from some of our guards.”

  “Do the guards have weapons?”

  “Short sticks with pointy ends.”

  “You mean spears,” I correct.

  “No, spears would indicate a long-handled weapon with a dangerous point fashioned of some type of hardened substance, usually a metal alloy. I meant what I said. Little pointy sticks that are probably too small to even pass for arrows.”

  “Oh. Do they look threatening?”

  Tig flicks his tail again. “Ess, if you deliberately attempted to hurt yourself with their pointy sticks, you might get a splinter.”

  The chirrups around us increase in volume and quantity. My sensitive ears are drinking in the music, but it is almost too loud. Tig chuckles.

  “More and more Urodela are noticing the girl in the blue shirt with the handsome and dangerous looking creature balanced on her shoulders.” Tig leans across my shoulders, taking a long look around the city, and I feel the crowds of Urodela pushing in. “There’s a whole gaggle of salamanders pressing in around our guards, trotting along with us. We’re the main attraction. Wish I had taken a little more ‘me’ time. I’ve been too busy playing nursemaid to properly care for the coat.” Tig’s whiskers tickle my ear. “There is a whole city down here. We’re in a huge cavern. The ceiling is far above us with that light-green moss growing on it. The homes are mostly one- to two-story buildings. I can’t tell what they are made of because they’re covered with moss. They’re pretty small compared to anything we’re used to. Not that we’ll be too put out. You might bump your head at the top of the door of some of these places but for the most part it just looks cozy. This whole city looks like one big fuzzy scratching post.”

  That makes me grin. “No sandbox though,” Tig mutters. “We’re moving toward the largest building in the city. This one is several Urodela stories high and is covered in the blue moss. We’re being marched up a long broad street that looks like some kind of main thoroughfare.”

  With the singing around me, Tig on my shoulders, and the pain gone, I feel calm. I even try to remind myself that I have essentially been captured by creatures I can’t understand—except for the one, I realize I didn’t even get its name—who are leading me . . . somewhere.

  Nevertheless, I can’t reason myself into being afraid. With the moist and springy moss beneath me I relax even more. My poor feet have taken such a beating that the moss feels wonderful. How does moss grow down here? I wonder. “Is all the moss on the floor still blue?” I ask quietly—not that it’s necessary. The chirruping song around us is so loud I doubt any Urodela can hear us.

  “Still that rich blue, and it’s growing over every inch of the floor in the cavern,” Tig says. “Something is glowing on the ceiling, too. Probably glowworms.” I can feel him arching his neck up to get a better look at the ceiling. “The glowworms on the cavern roof are giving off a twinkling green light.” Then he adds, “I guess it’s like having a deep blue sky for a carpet and green stars for a sky. Those colors are accented by the hundreds of little salamanders in various shades of red, orange, and purple.” He pauses before ending in his characteristic dry tone, “Of course, to take in this luscious landscape you have to live in a hole in the ground under a blasted rock inferno with vicious hunters as your door greeters. But if you can overlook the location . . .”

  Tig lets out a half purr that I know is his chuckle. “Salamanders are running out of houses and staring at us over moss hedges. They have huge eyes and no manners. All this color everywhere . . .” he pauses. I think he is about to wish that he had a bit more than gray and black in his coat, but instead he says, “Not very subtle are they?”

  The Urodela leading us halts. I barely turn my head to Tig for explanation. “We’re in front of the big building at the head of the street,” he whispers. “Several Urodela are already on the steps of the building, coming down to meet us. The Urodela in the center has a certain elegance. Looks like she’s wearing a braided head thing with sparklies in it. Huh, they look like they’re glowing, too. It must be the queen they mentioned. She’s raising her hand in a hushing motion . . .” Tig ceases his commentary.

  The chirrups and cheeps die away, and I feel hundreds of what must be wide bright eyes boring into us. I feel self-conscious and resist the urge to straighten the front of my long shirt. “The queen only comes to about your waist,” whispers Tig. “She’s giving you the once over.”

  The queen chirrups to the Urodela who are leading us. I turn my face toward the queen and think of saying something like “My name is Essie, and this is Tig, and we’re pleased to meet you” but I decide that sounds stupid. So I settle for “Hello” and a small bow instead, although it doesn’t come out quite like I wanted, with a cat on my shoulders and several Urodela holding me.

  At my greeting, an excited chirping breaks through the crowd of salamanders, and I again hear several of the high pitched, “Hellos” whistled and chirruped through the crowd. I assume the queen issues a hushing motion with her hand again, because the crowd goes quiet a second time and mostly still, although it sounds like some of the salamander-like creatures are still scuffling for a better spot. I hear chirruping in front of me. The furry lump on my shoulders whispers, “The queen is—” but is cut off.

  “Queen Crypthania the Eight Tens and Seven welcomes you, Lady Essie Brightsday, and your companion to the Kingdom of Crypta. The queen requests you join the Urodela for feasting and storytelling.” Another chirp from what I assume is the queen. She has a lower chirrup than the high squeaks around us.

  “She asks if Lady Essie Brightsday and your companion are healed from the attack by the Lassertilla?”

  “The what?” Then I assume they mean rock basilisks and nod, shifting my arm self-consciously. They probably want more than a nod so I try to follow up with an acceptance. “Sure,” I say. The word hangs in the silence for a second before Tig saves me by hissing in my ear.

  “We would be honored,” Tig says, his whiskers tickling my face again.

  “We would be honored,” I echo.

  “To accept the queen’s generous invitation,” he continues.

  “To accept the queen’s generous invitation,” I parrot.

  “For myself and my esteemed protector,” he finishes.

  I snort.

  “Thank you,” replies the Urodela. “Please, follow us then to the main hall.”

  I feel many tiny
three fingered paws grab my hands and the hem of my tunic and pull me up a gently sloping trail. Many more little hands try to help by grabbing an elbow or by simply pushing on my back—it seems every salamander wants to be a part of helping me up the steps. I feel a tiny Urodela foot under my own. I try to be careful not to step on any of the little toes that seem to be everywhere.

  Tig whispers in my ear again. “The orange salamander that has your hand has puffed up his chest and is swaggering so much he’s having trouble walking. He’s leading us into a long hall.” I can feel that the ceiling is lower than the great cavern, and many of the cheeps and chirrups filter away behind us. The salamander holding my hand leads the way down halls to the smell of delicious food.

  “Whoa,” says Tig. “Nice hall. We have before us low moss-covered tables, laid with hundreds of dishes. But I don’t recognize any of these,” he says, his voice suspicious.

  As we walk through what must be some kind of banquet hall, I listen to the Urodela around me. The voices are pleasant, but completely foreign. Nevertheless, amid the chirrups I think I identify cheeping laughter, and I still hear the occasional “hello” from some Urodela boasting his command of Lingua Comma. I feel like I am being paraded around the room, which Tig confirms. “Our guide has taken the long way around the table. Apparently it wants to get the most out of his position,” he says. I am seated, and a chair is even available for Tig on my left. A hush falls over the room, and I hear scrambling.

  Tig hisses from my elbow, “Everyone just stood for the queen.” I scramble up and nearly knock over my chair, but an Urodela grabs it just in time.

  I feel awkward standing, not really knowing which way to look.