by Sharon Lee
“Also, Janice Wing and Sylvia Laliberte are researching how we can form a limited liability company—we’re going to need that, no matter which way this goes—and what a Twelve to Twelve LLC has to have in order to borrow enough money to buy the park’s land.”
She paused and looked around the room.
“The best outcome would be the leaseback, so that’s front burner, and if anybody wants to be on that committee, you give me a call or stop by the ride and tell me so. The backup plan is the bank loan.
“Bottom line. We all of us want the park to stay right exactly where it is, and we all think having an amusement park is important to the town, and to the—to Twelve to Twelve’s core goal of making Archers Beach into a year-round town, with a twelve month season!”
Brand came out of his lean, his mug tucked between his elbow and his side, and began to clap, loudly.
The entire room took it up, chairs scraping as people leapt to their feet. Someone whistled, piercing and high.
I clapped with the rest, the land showing me Jess, the center of all this adoration, red-faced, and moving her hands, palms out, like she was trying to push the applause away.
Another high sound cut the air—this one made by a coach’s whistle—and Michelle jumped up on a table.
“Folks, I’ve gotta open this restaurant to the public in ten minutes! If you’re staying for breakfast, grab a seat. Everybody else—I love ya, but—clear the decks!”
I moved out with the rest, keeping an eye peeled for Felsic. It was interesting that she’d come to the meeting. I wondered if it was her own idea, or if Peggy’d sent her.
Or both.
Whichever, I missed her in the crush and didn’t see her outside. The land, queried, showed me a piece of swamp, which I suspected was just behind the Sand Dollar—Felsic’s service.
All righty, then; I could take a hint.
I turned left, and headed for Heath Hill.
* * *
Mr. Ignat’ was sleeping with his back against Gran’s tree, legs drawn up, hands folded over his belt buckle, hat tipped down over his face.
I paused at the edge of the Center, looking about me. Mother was nowhere to be seen, but I did spy Mr. Ignat’s companion—or perhaps his partner—Arbalyr, the anti-Phoenix, asleep in the high boughs of a yellow birch.
Unwilling to disturb this scene of domestic peace, I turned to leave. After all, my question wasn’t—
“Good morning, Katie.”
Mr. Ignat’ had raised his head, and pushed his hat back. He was smiling at me.
“Good morning. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“It’s time for me to be waking up,” he said, rolling to his feet, and stretching. “Have you had breakfast?”
“I had an early meeting, instead.”
He glanced up, as if he could read the sun through the canopy of the trees. “Early, indeed. What was so urgent?”
“Trying to figure out how to save the amusement park. Got a couple of good ideas, and a bunch of good people working on them.”
“And the odds of success?”
I shrugged. “Not so good, is my guess. I wish my luck rating were higher.”
“Luck rating, Katie?”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize it, but apparently just by being here I’ve boosted the town’s luck. You’ve seen the new businesses, haven’t you? Hell, the push to try to expand the Season—that’s part of it, too. Not a responsibility I necessarily want, but if I’m going to have it, then I wish I had more of it.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Ignat’, “let’s go down to Bob’s for breakfast.”
I looked up into the yellow birch. Arbalyr, last seen with his head beneath his wing, looked down at me, gimlet-eyed and very much on the case.
“Sure,” I said. “There might even be a table for us.”
“I’m confident that our luck will hold,” he said seriously, and bowed gently. “After you, Katie.”
* * *
“Was there a particular reason you came to the Wood this morning, Katie?” he asked as we walked down the side of Heath Hill.
“As a matter of fact, there was. I wanted to let you know that one of the prisoners from the carousel took refuge in Saco Bay. Apparently, she’s not very strong, and has enemies at home. She’s been laying low until she felt up to introducing herself—which she finally did, yesterday. Borgan gave her twenty days and all the resources of the sea.”
“That is Borgan’s right, as Guardian,” Mr. Ignat’ said, after we’d moved a dozen steps further down the hill.
“I know it is,” I said. “It’s just…”
I turned my head to look at him and met his eyes.
“Mr. Ignat’, do you know who the prisoners—were? Jaron the Varothi was imprisoned for political gain by Prince Aesgyr’s enemies. Did you—did Gran—” That sentence wasn’t going even close to where I wanted it to go. I waved my hands and abandoned it.
“Your grandmother knows what the Wise told her about the prisoners,” Mr. Ignat’ murmured.
Let’s be clear here that Mr. Ignat’s not exactly the Wise’s biggest fan ever. Whether that’s because of a general preference for chaos over order, or something more personal, I didn’t know. And it occurred to me that I ought to.
“Why don’t you like the Wise, Mr. Ignat’?”
“Various reasons,” he answered promptly, “most of them having to do with the war with Daknowyth. I also object to their use of your grandmother’s carousel, and to their abuse of the Changing Land. This is a beautiful and peculiar Land; it is not the trash heap of the other five.”
Personal reasons, then, and well-articulated, too. I considered my next question as we walked across Gentleman Johnnie’s parking lot, empty at this hour on a Sunday morning.
“What was the war with Daknowyth about?” I asked.
He laughed.
“So simple a question! Say—simply—that it was about access. To jikinap. A very long time ago, power circulated freely through the Six Worlds, so that no world had too much, or too little.”
“Did we—did the Changing Land—have jikinap then?”
Mr. Ignat’ moved his shoulders, as if he didn’t quite know how to answer.
“From the beginning, the Changing Land has been unique. Power flowed here from the other Worlds, and of course, it changed. That power then flowed back through the other Worlds, where change was slow, and rare. The flow of changed jikinap kept the other five Worlds from stagnating.”
I remembered that the first story Borgan had ever told me had been about the creation of the Six Worlds, and how our greatest strength, right here in this World, was…change.
“Sounds like a good system that benefited everybody. What happened?”
Mr. Ignat’ sighed.
“People hungry for more power, for an established base from which to rule over and control other people, began to…build dams, to devise ways to attract jikinap, and capture it. Other people sought to minimize the effects of the flow from the Changing Land, and moved it, just slightly, out of alignment with the other Five Worlds.”
I blinked.
“How long ago was this?”
“Some while back,” he said. “Before my time.”
Okay, an epoch ago, make that.
“By the time Daknowyth mounted its war, the flow of power had long favored Sempeki. Daknowyth was beginning to die, for lack of sufficient jikinap. The Queen had to act, and so she did.”
“And lost.”
“In fact. But it may be said that the war itself created an imbalance in the systems, and Ramendysis arose as the greatest Ozali Sempeki ever produced.”
“By killing every other Ozali in existence, and absorbing their power.”
“Yes. And, as you may recall, the Queen of Daknowyth promised him her daughter, the Opal of Dawn.”
“Why yes,” I said drily, “I do recall something along those lines.”
Mr. Ignat’ smiled gently.
“The plan had been that Ramendysi
s, replete with the power of a thousand Ozali, would truly wed the Opal, who would then…release their shared jikinap into Daknowyth, reviving and restoring it.” He shrugged. “It might have worked, too. But by the time Ramendysis came to claim his bride, it was much, much too dangerous to go forward with the plan.” He sighed. “Neither the Queen nor her counselors had expected him to be able to control so…very…much jikinap. It was by no means certain that the Opal—that even the Opal—could have survived the sharing of their powers.”
Which was why the Opal had to be hidden. And the carousel had been the perfect hiding place, because there were already souls bound into it. Who was going to notice one more?
That was more or less where I’d come in, except…
“Wait.” I replayed the Queen’s plan, and shook my head.
“She was—the Opal was not only going to marry Ramendysis”—a risky, not to say outright dangerous, undertaking of itself—“but she would also have to kill him and herself in order to release his—their—jikinap into her Land?”
I mean—politics is politics, and the Queen of Daknowyth hadn’t exactly invented the marriage of state, but the rest of it—that was just cold.
“Not quite,” Mr. Ignat’ murmured as we crossed Fountain Circle. “In her own Land, the Opal occupies a position quite similar to yours, here in Archers Beach. Daknowyth would not have let her die.”
So—according to the Queen’s original plan—Ramendysis wouldn’t have survived his wedding night, but the Opal—and the Midnight Land—would have survived, renewed, and with a future before them.
I liked that plan better. Much better.
“So, how’s Daknowyth doing now?” I asked slowly. The question was tricky—time isn’t exactly synchronized between the Six Worlds—but it was the best North American English could do. I caught my breath and stopped, suddenly realizing, there in the middle of the sidewalk, half a block from Bob’s—suddenly realizing what I had done.
Mr. Ignat’ stopped, too. I looked at him in horror.
“I spiked her guns,” I said. “By killing Ramendysis here—in the Changing Land. Tell me I didn’t kill Daknowyth, too.”
“Katie…” Mr. Ignat’ took my hands in his. His smile was fond, which didn’t necessarily mean that I hadn’t killed Daknowyth.
“The Opal of Dawn is clever and resourceful; she reminds me forcibly of you. Therefore, she did what any clever and resourceful Ozali would do when the ether is on fire with power.”
“She took it in,” I said, feeling relief punch me, hard, in the stomach.
“Not only did she take it in, but she channeled it to her Land.”
I frowned. “How?”
“Remember that she is to Daknowyth what you are to Archers Beach. Her Land lives in her, as she lives in her Land. All she needed to do was to open her heart, and accept the gift the Changing Land so generously gave to her.”
He squeezed my fingers.
“Far from killing Daknowyth, you made it possible for much more of Ramendysis’ power to flow into it than might otherwise have been harvested. For the moment, the Land of Midnight is not only healthy, it is robust. And that’s your doing, Katie.”
“They’re in a position of strength,” I said, as we turned and continued walking toward Bob’s. “That’s why Prince Aesgyr took Jaron to Daknowyth.” I sighed sharply. “The Changing Land’s going to become a battlefield.”
“I…think not,” Mr. Ignat’ murmured.
“Any particular reason?”
“I think it has become obvious to all that the enemy is not Sempeki,” he said slowly. “Prince Aesgyr’s recent actions, in particular, lead me to believe that we will see a tightly controlled strike at a very specific target. Battles are messy; they are impossible to control and difficult to predict. Prince Aesgyr is far too canny to allow this…readjustment…to fall out of his hands.”
He reached past my shoulder and pushed the door to Bob’s open, gesturing me to proceed him in the racket of voices and the clatter of cutlery.
“Booth at the back!” JoAnn called from across the room, waving the coffeepot she was holding in the general direction of the back.
I waved and led the way to the last booth in the main dining room, right next to the kitchen door. A perfect place, really, to hold a conversation about almost any secret thing you can think of.
“Do you think the Changing Land will be…pushed back into alignment?”
“Returned to its original purpose and position?” Mr. Ignat’s eyes lit—by which I mean the blue flames at their centers momentarily flared. “It would be difficult, given how long the displacement has been in force. It might be necessary to build a conduit, rather than shift…”
“Mornin’, Mr. Ignat’, Kate. Coffee?”
“Good morning, JoAnn,” Mr. Ignat’ said, smiling up at her. “Coffee for both of us, please. Kate likes lots of cream.”
“If you run through what’s in the saucer, there, holler and I’ll bring more.” JoAnn filled our cups with brisk efficiency. “You know what you want, or do you need a couple minutes?”
“I’ll have a grilled blueberry muffin,” Mr. Ignat’ and I said in unison.
JoAnn laughed.
“Comin’ right up.”
* * * * *
She had rested all night in the arms of the sea, which had nourished her and cherished her.
Cherished, soothed, and much improved in strength, she refined her plans, and plotted her moves. Now, in the light of a new day, she tested the Borgan’s geas, found it adamantine—and laughed as she lay among the waters.
She had grown vainglorious in her imprisonment. Not even at the height of her powers, when she had been a goddess and a force to fear…Not even then could she have broken a command laid upon her by another god, standing at the center of his power.
So be it, then. The Borgan had given her twenty days’ grace, now reduced by a night. As tempting as it was to simply rest with the sea and gather her full strength to her, time pressed. If she could not be strong, she would be cunning. If she could not be invincible, she would seem vulnerable.
In no case would she fail.
It was time to return to the goblins.
Chapter Twenty
Sunday, July 9
High Tide 10:24 A.M. EDT
Mr. Ignat’ and I parted ways on the sidewalk in front of Bob’s. He was bound for Fun Country, and I was bound for the top of Dube Street, and a probable session with the maps and guidebooks.
The cat was sleeping on the fluffy blanket of inebriated elephants when I let myself in. She immediately opened her eyes, rose into a full Halloween cat stretch, and jumped to the floor. I pushed the door closed and stood still as she jogged across the room and wove around my ankles.
“Hi, there,” I said, leaning down to offer a finger. “I’m glad to see you, too, but you didn’t have to get up for me.”
She bumped my finger politely with her nose, and gave me a squinty-eyed cat smile before strolling off to the kitchen.
“The meeting went well,” I said, following her. “Jess Robald is shaping up into quite the leader of people. I hope she can lead them to answers that work, if not exactly to the Promised Land.”
I opened the fridge, got out the bottle of cranberry juice, and opened the cabinet for a glass.
“After,” I continued, for the cat’s edification, “I went up to Heath Hill. Mr. Ignat’ was in a forthcoming mood, so I got a history lesson. We stopped at Bob’s and had grilled blueberry muffins for breakfast, just like old times.”
I shook the juice until it was foamy, filled the glass, and put the bottle back in the fridge. Leaning against the counter, I sipped, gasping a little at the icy tartness.
The cat was at her food dish, crunching kibble with enthusiasm. She flicked an ear, which might equally have been a request to continue the fascinating account of my morning, or an appreciation of my brief silence.
“I figure to do a little still zone research,” I said. “You can help
, if you want, or you can go back to your nap.”
No response from the cat. Well, what did I expect? She was eating.
I finished my juice, rinsed the glass and put it in the sink. Then I crossed to the French doors, opened them and stepped outside for a moment to overlook the beach. It being Sunday morning, there weren’t epic crowds overflowing the beach, but there was a nice sampling of fun-seekers about, and a vigorous game of volleyball going on in the high, dry sand near the dune fence.
Nice day, I thought, taking a deep breath of salt air. It was good to be home.
I stood for another minute, just…appreciating the fact that I was home, the land making satisfied music at the back of my head, before I went back inside and opened up my books.
* * *
I was flat on my back on the floor, map and guidebooks to hand. One deep breath to center me, and another to clear my mind. Third—
Right then I felt a weight on my stomach, which moved up to my chest, and began pushing. Hard.
I opened my eyes, and lifted my head.
The cat smiled at me.
“I’m trying to concentrate here,” I said. Then I remembered that I’d told her she could help, if she wanted to. Obviously, she wanted to.
“For this job,” I said, “I need to be able to focus, and not be distracted. Kneading my breast bone is distracting.” I paused, and added. “If you want to lie on me, that would be a big help. I’m hunting, but inside my head.”
The cat smiled again, folded her front paws neatly under her chest and settled in, chicken-style. I could feel her purr, but I didn’t think that would create a problem with my concentration. Bowie’s purrs had focused me wonderfully.
I closed my eyes, feeling the comfortable weight on my chest. One deep breath to center; two to clear my mind; three, and I opened myself to the land.
The full riot of life and of living that was Archers Beach opened to my senses…diffidently. We’d both learned something in the course of our search for still zones. The land had learned to moderate itself.
And I had learned to trust that the land wouldn’t overwhelm me, and swallow me into itself.
