The Blue Shoe

by Roderick Townley

  “I’ve got you, old girl! You can’t escape!”

  It was beginning to look like a draw when Gert suddenly twisted her head and bit Slag hard on the wrist.

  He said something to her then that, on consideration, we will leave out of our story. Ask your parents.

  But as bad as what he said was, what he did was worse. He grabbed poor Gert under her chin and yanked mercilessly hard. It wasn’t clear what would happen. Either he’d pull her back into the cell or her head would pop off.

  At that moment, Slag was distracted by a flittering shadow overhead. Then something struck him hard. The cell spun dizzily as he fell.

  Sophia stood over him. She was holding a shovel in her hand and watching a bump grow on his head. The thought crossed her mind that she should draw a face on the bump, so that her tormentor would have two bald heads, a big one and a little one. Two heads, she giggled, are better than one.

  But there was no time for nonsense. She tossed the shovel aside and set to work pushing down on Gert’s shoulders. From below, Hap and Shadow were pulling on her legs.

  There was a soft plock! and Gert disappeared. A moment later, Sophia followed.

  Slag lay sprawled on the stone floor, his mind somewhere between wakeful and woozy, until rough hands shook him and he opened his eyes. A guard was trying to rouse him.

  “Oh!” Slag felt the back of his head. The shovel lay beside him. Smart as he was, he put two and two together and came up with a headache.

  “Stop them,” he groaned.

  Soldiers ran to the jagged hole in the floor, and two managed to wriggle down into it before a muffled explosion suddenly knocked them flat, rattled the jail bars, and sent a great cloud of choking black smoke into the room.

  Twenty-four

  HAP’S EARS WERE still ringing from the blast as he pulled Gert along with him through the tunnel. It would have been hard enough to see even without the smoke that left their eyes burning, but they were safe now. It would take days for Slag’s men to dig through the dirt and rocks dislodged by the explosive charge.

  Glancing ahead, Hap saw the silhouette of Sophia suddenly collapse.

  “Sophia!” he called. Her strength had given out, and once again the boy found himself carrying a friend over his shoulder.

  Twenty minutes later, dripping with dirt and smeared with soot, the little troop burst into the cavern of the Aukis to discover that a ceremony of some kind was in progress. At the sight of the intruders, the males let out ferocious yowls. They brandished picks and spears and even a few rocks that lay at hand.

  Behind them, flickering candles encircled a platform where someone—someone quite short—lay wrapped in a blanket.

  Hap looked questioningly at Shadow.

  “Baen Hus,” the old one explained.

  The males, hearing the elder’s voice, glanced at one another and began lowering their weapons. Several touched their foreheads and gazed briefly upward, the universal Auki gesture of respect. But they clearly didn’t like the idea of humans in their midst.

  “Steondan her,” murmured Shadow, gesturing to Hap to back away.

  “Baen was my friend, too,” he answered.

  Shadow merely shook his head. Humans were bad luck. They had no business in Auki rituals.

  So Hap backed against the wall, where Gert helped him lower Sophia to the ground. The girl was awake but confused.

  “We’ve got to get some food in her,” said Gert.

  Hap whispered to the elder, who nodded. One of the Auki warriors was called over, and soon a bowl of steaming rat-tail soup appeared.

  “Here,” said Hap, crouching beside Sophia and holding the bowl to her lips.

  “What is it?”

  “Wonderful stuff.”

  She took a sip, made a wry face, then sipped some more. She chewed unquestioningly on the gristly rat tails and soon had finished the whole bowl.

  “Ah,” she sighed, leaning back.

  “That was good. Got any more?”

  But Shadow had already left to join the ceremony.

  “Have to wait,” Hap murmured.

  She nodded. She seemed stronger than before and was sitting up. The three of them, half hidden by stalactites, watched in silence as the funeral resumed—the communal moan, the rolling about in the dust, the ritual slapping of faces, the shouted prayer to the goddess, and finally, the placing of gemstones on the eyelids of their fallen friend.

  Six males then lifted the body and carried it to the Auki burial vault, after which each mourner stepped hard on his neighbor’s foot for luck, concluding the ceremony.

  Soon after, an Auki maiden appeared with another bowl of soup. Her eyes were red from crying and her cheeks pink from slapping. This time, Sophia was well enough to realize what she was eating.

  “Oh, no thanks,” she said with a slight shudder.

  “I couldn’t drink another drop.”

  They made an odd-looking group: Hap, Sophia, Gert, Shadow, and two Auki warriors, sitting around a circular rock. At first, the warriors had trouble accepting the idea of working with humans. That is putting it politely. They spat on the ground. To get beyond a generation of hatred required all of Hap’s skills. But in fact, he was his own best argument, for it was impossible not to like him. Had he not carried their beloved Baen Hus for miles through rat-infested tunnels?

  The most conclusive argument, though, was time. There wasn’t much of it. In two days, if their information was right, Slag and his gun-wielding goons would reach the Great Blue, the gem at the heart of the Auki religion. The slaves working in the mines did what they could to mislead their masters—digging in wrong directions, feigning illness, disabling machinery—but the traitorous Pec, the Auki foreman, always discovered what they were up to. Two days at most, and all would be lost.

  The Aukis finally agreed to cooperate. What remained was to come up with a plan. Hap suggested they set up a meeting immediately.

  “Let it be so,” said Shadow.

  Hap hesitated.

  “There is something you should know, Shadow. This meeting—”

  “Hwaet?”

  “I know there is someone whose name I should not speak.”

  The Auki’s eyes narrowed.

  “He may be there.”

  “Not!”

  Hap sighed.

  “No meeting with the traitor,” Shadow flashed.

  “Do you want Slag to win? Do you want to lose the Great Blue? It’s your choice.”

  The elder and his warriors exchanged glances.

  “Ye ask much.”

  The little group sat in silence.

  At last, Shadow Reader lifted his head and nodded.

  “You’re not going without me,” said Gert.

  “Or me, obviously,” Sophia put in.

  Hap frowned.

  “You fainted last time, remember?”

  “I was starving!”

  “You’re still too weak to travel.”

  Shadow shook his head.

  “Females,” he muttered in Auki.

  “Bad luck in the tunnels.” The warriors nodded vigorously.

  “What’d he say?” said Sophia.

  “He said it sounds like a fine idea.” Hap took the elder aside. In a low voice, he explained that it would save a lot of time to give in.

  “Look,” he said, “you can’t win an argument with Sophia. It can’t be done. She’ll wear you down, and you’ll end up giving in anyway.”

  Aukis do not smile, but this one came close.

  “I think,” he said, “she is your luf-wif.”

  “Please,” said Hap, half laughing, “don’t say that!”

  “I see what I see.”

  “She’s just my annoying friend. I’m telling you—”

  “I think,” said the Auki, “ye want her to come.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “So all right, she comes. And her large friend.”

  Hap gave up trying to convince the reader of shadows that he was not a r
eader of minds. His luf-wif!

  Twenty-five

  HAP HAD NEVER imagined what it would be like to hike up treacherous inclines in dark tunnels with two strong-minded women and three bossy Aukis, all talking at cross-purposes. Shadow and his warriors knew the mountain inside out and had the advantage of clawed feet. They scampered ahead, then had to wait while Hap slid about in his worn-out shoes and Sophia complained of stubbed toes.

  The biggest challenge, Hap knew, was getting the word out about the meeting without alerting Slag’s men. Now that Gert was a fugitive, she could no longer stroll into headquarters as she used to.

  But her cousin Mag could—Mag, who was married to the much-hated ferry captain, Ulf.

  Shadow wanted nothing to do with her. Wouldn’t hear of it.

  “You don’t have to talk with her,” countered Gert. “I’ll get her the message, and she’ll pass it to Silas.”

  “My father?” said Hap.

  “Of course, your father. He’s our contact.”

  Gert knew where Mag could generally be found—in the camp’s laundry shed, where she worked when she wasn’t driving the prison wagon. Reluctantly, Shadow showed the way that led there.

  While he and the others waited below in the tunnel, Hap and Gert climbed a wobbly ladder to the shed. As Hap creaked open the trapdoor, the voices of women reached him through billowing clouds of steam.

  But then he heard a male voice, the distinctive, strangely nasal speech of an Auki. That was odd. One seldom met with Aukis outside their tunnels. It was even rarer to hear them speak human.

  This one sounded irritated. “Is it not Tuesday? Is not Tuesday the day for shirts?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me,” answered a rough-voiced female.

  Mag, Hap realized.

  “The starch didn’t come till this morning,” she went on. “You know how your friend is about unstarched shirts.”

  “How long?”

  “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “Well, hurry. Mr. Maurice isn’t used to waiting.”

  Maurice, thought Hap. So this must be one of his errand boys.

  Now that he listened closely, he realized that he recognized the voice. It was that cruel little creature with the face like a rotted turnip, the one they called Pec. Hap still had a mark on his cheek from Pec’s whip.

  Gert was listening, too. She was just behind Hap on the ladder. This was a healthy-sized woman—“big-boned,” as she liked to say. The ladder, if anything, was little-boned. A moment later, with a creak and then a crack, it gave way, and Gert thumped to the dirt below, nearly crushing Sophia. Hap managed to hang on by the upper rungs.

  Above, silence.

  Suddenly, the trapdoor flew open. Peering down was the fierce-faced Pec, his long nose wobbling. “You!”

  Hap and Pec stared at each other, their minds racing in opposite directions. All Hap could think was that he had to stop this creature from calling the soldiers. He reached up and grabbed hold of a hairy ankle.

  “Craahhh!” cried Pec, sounding like an angry crow. He pulled out his little whip and swung it down smartly, again and again, on Hap’s hands and head.

  Hap cried out but didn’t let go. Instead, he pulled himself halfway into the room, hands bleeding but still holding on.

  The whipping grew more frantic, and finally Hap’s grip loosened. Pec hopped away as the boy struggled to his feet and stumbled after him out the door into the cold. It was no use. The Auki was speeding down the snowy path, hooting with glee.

  The boy held his bloodied hand against his chest.

  “Hap?”

  He turned and saw Big Mag the mule driver. She was holding a white shirt in her hand.

  “Here,” she said, and wrapped the shirt, French cuffs and all, around his wound. She led him back in.

  “What will Maurice say?” said Hap.

  She shrugged. “He’s got plenty of other shirts.” She tore the cloth in strips and made a proper bandage. “Why’d you come? You’re taking a chance.”

  “We need your help.” Hap led her to the trapdoor and called down to Gert.

  The two women exchanged quick hellos, and Gert explained the plan.

  Mag nodded. She was used to carrying messages. “And you’re all right?” she said.

  “Hip’s a little sore. You should do something about that ladder.”

  “Complainer,” said Mag pleasantly.

  “Can you make it tonight?”

  “With luck.”

  The women exchanged a look, and Hap was struck by how similar they were, with their heavy faces and short, curly hair. Neither could be called fat, but you wouldn’t want to get on either’s wrong side. Gert was known to crush walnuts in her elbow, and Mag (if the story could be believed) had once carried Jack the mule across a stream when the animal was spooked by the current.

  “You take good care of my cousin, you hear?” said Mag, throwing Hap a pretend frown.

  “I promise.” Wincing, he managed to descend the ladder one-handed to the place where it had broken off and jumped the rest of the way.

  Immediately, Sophia wanted to know what the bandage was about.

  “Tell you on the way. Slag’s men will be here any minute.”

  And so they were. In fact, Hap and the others almost didn’t make it to their meeting that night. There was a close call with guard dogs and a partial tunnel collapse.

  They had to double back several times to confuse their pursuers. The worst part was toward the end, when they’d safely reached the tunnel opening and realized the sun hadn’t set. They were too close to Slag’s headquarters to venture out in daylight.

  “Did you say Mag will be seeing my father?” said Hap, huddling against the tunnel wall.

  “She’ll pass him a note,” said Gert. “That’s how they nabbed me. I was bringing him news to get out to the others.”

  “But isn’t he a prisoner? How would he—?”

  “He puts it in his songs. You didn’t know that? He puts the news in code, so Slag won’t figure it out, and then he sings it.”

  “And someone is listening?”

  “We have people in the kitchen.”

  Hap shook his head in admiration.

  “There’s another way, too, but it’s not always possible.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Heat pipes. Don’t worry,” she said, seeing his confusion. “One way or another, you’ll have your meeting.”

  Hap hesitated. “Will he be there?”

  “Your dad? They keep a pretty close eye on him. I don’t know.”

  Hap took that to be a no. Another no. It gave him a grinding feeling in his stomach to think his father was so close but out of reach.

  At last, it was dark. The little troop made their way up a moonless path to the ledge above Slag’s headquarters.

  There to meet them was Markie, his one good eye bright with welcome. “Hap! Well done!” he said, giving his friend a shove. “And this must be Sophia. Just as pretty as you said.”

  Hap objected, his face reddening. “I never—”

  “So why are you blushing? Hi, Gert.” They shook hands warmly.

  At the sight of Shadow Reader, he touched his forehead and tilted his gaze upward, in the traditional Auki sign of respect.

  The elder nodded cautiously.

  “Sorry, that’s all the Auki I know. It’s gotten me through a lot of scrapes.” He led the group to the cleft in the rock wall. As they went in, Sophia gave Hap a mischievous jab in the ribs.

  “What’s that for?”

  She grinned. “You were blushing.”

  “Was not.”

  “Happy likes Sophie.”

  “Stop that.”

  Inside, Markie found a lantern in the usual place. He lit it and led the way, sending ghastly shapes against the walls. The way was familiar to Hap from the last time, but the farther he went, the more nervous he became. Nervous about Shadow, mostly. He’d warned him who would be at the meeting, but the old Auki
was unpredictable.

  As the path sloped downward, stalactites grew more numerous, suspended from the ceiling like an army of hanged men. A faint glow appeared ahead. A final twist in the path and then, sudden as a magic trick, the great cavern opened before them—the jagged ceiling, the bright fire in the central area, and…no one!

  There was no one there! Shadow and his followers glanced around nervously, aware they were totally exposed. Slowly, they drew their knives.

  If there was little trust before, there was less now.

  “Markie,” Hap whispered, “where is everybody?”

  His friend held up his hand. For the next minute, the only sound was the crackling of cedar logs and the occasional creak of bat wings overhead. At last, a man’s face appeared over a low stalagmite. Another head appeared, this one topped with a miner’s cap. Then another face, and another. Before long, a dozen men and several women stood silently around the edge of the cavern.

  Shadow Reader and his Auki warriors were in a crouch. Firelight glinted off their knife blades.

  Hap turned to the Auki elder. “Freondas,” he said. “These are your friends.”

  Shadow did not look convinced. Before Hap had stumbled into his life, he’d had only the worst kinds of run-ins with humans.

  The humans were equally doubtful. They didn’t trust Blueskins. Ulf was the exception. They tolerated him because of Mag.

  “Listen, everyone,” Markie called to the miners, “we’ve got some nervous Aukis here. Let’s just have our leader step forward. Mag, you come, too.”

  A large woman and a small, long-nosed, human-like creature stepped into the open. Ulf and Mag certainly made an odd couple, but the sight of them made Hap smile. The more he knew them, the more he felt they belonged together.

  Obviously, Shadow didn’t feel the same.

  Hap kept glancing from one to the other. The contrast between Ulf’s seaman’s outfit and Shadow Reader’s rags and skins was striking.

  “I heard ye might be here,” Shadow said, lowering his brow.

  “I’m with the untergrund,” Ulf replied.

  “Ye mean, you’re with the humans. Ye even smell human.”

  “I won’t say what you smell like.”

  “Tell me, was there no Auki maiden that pleased ye? Did ye have to turn your back on your kind and marry— this?” The look he shot Mag was not printable.