by Lionel Fenn
Slowly, Gideon refocused his eyes upward, to see a man whose face was not unlike the side of a mountain that had been carved into human likeness by an artist who had only the vaguest idea of what a human looked like. The brow was square, the eyes marble round, the nose skewed to the left, the mouth skewed to the right, the chin with a daring upward tilt, and the teeth, exposed in what surely had to be a grin, cleverly filed into points that meshed neatly when the mouth was closed.
The luxuriant raven hair that bobbed on the man's shoulders was coiffed in an exact replica of an eighteenth-century French court wig, the rakish hat was a black beret sans plume, and the clothes seemed to have been ripped off the backs of any number of fleeing creatures who were glad to be left with any fur at all.
Gideon was pleased to note his buttocks didn't do more than twinge, despite the fact that he was lying on his back.
"Get up," the man ordered, backing off several paces. The dagger gestured, in case he didn't speak the language.
Gideon rubbed his eyes clear of sleep and noted that the sun was still low on the horizon, and that sometime during the night his pacch-hide cloak had been stolen. He shivered in the chill morning air and groaned silently to his feet. Stretched. Worked his shoulders free of their stiffness. Yawned. But any thought of making a daring bid for freedom was stifled by the realization that the man with the dagger was not alone. There were four others standing in the road, similarly dressed and coiffed, though they had opted for sabers instead of daggers. They snarled at him fiercely. He looked for his sister and the lorra, and found them standing several yards to his left, in the middle of a circle of eight more similarly attired men who had, for the occasion, exchanged their daggers and sabers for bamboo-like staffs at the ends of which were star-clusters of rather long blades.
Gideon's cloak was draped over Red's back, and Tuesday was huddled beneath it, only her eyes and beak showing.
With a reassuring smile to them both, he placed his fingers on the handle of his bat and felt the holster slip open, felt the comfortable weight settle into his hand. He cleared his throat and said, "Good morning."
"Who are you?" the leader demanded.
"Who are you?" Gideon riposted, not to be undone by a man who wore clothes that didn't seem to be completely dead.
The man took a step forward and pointedly displayed his dagger. "I am in charge here. Who are you?"
Gideon casually lifted the bat to his shoulder and estimated the distance between himself and the snarling group surrounding the duck and the giant goat. A surprise offensive maneuver would be chancy, and he suspected that if Red had been able to dispatch those men he probably would have done so already. Which meant that those men were likely to be very skilled with their staff-and-blades. Which meant that the odds were decidedly against Gideon and without any socially redeeming qualities, such as living when it was over.
"We..." He nodded toward the others. "We're going to Pholler. Who are you?"
The man frowned and adjusted his beret. "Pholler?" He blew a curl out of his eye. "What would you want to go to Pholler for?"
"I think that's my business."
"You thought you thought that was your business," the man corrected with a sneer. "Now it's my business." The dagger shifted, aiming down toward his stomach. "Now, who are you and where are you going?"
"We're going to Pholler," Gideon said.
"Oh, right, you said that already." The man flung a loose pelt over his shoulder, blew at another curl, and glanced at his men. "A little cooperation," he said in a much lower voice, "would be helpful, you know. You are outnumbered, you are a stranger, and I don't think it's very wise of you to play games with me."
Gideon agreed.
"So, then. Where did you come from?"
Gideon pointed westward. "Chey."
The man took a step back, put a fist on his hip and squinted one eye. "Oh really? And how did you manage that, fly?"
"The stairs."
An immediate muttering rose from the quartet, echoed soon after by the octet. The leader stepped back again, pointed west, pointed at Gideon, slapped at a pelt on his chest that seemed not to be quite dead enough for its position, and snorted. "You were on the Trail of Stairs? You?"
Gideon was getting a little fed up with the delay, and felt his temper beginning to slip. He steadied himself and raised his head. "Right. We were summoned, and we came, and if you don't get the hell out of my way, I'm going to knock your head into center field."
The muttering grew louder.
The leader was taken aback by his defiance and, suddenly and clearly, had no idea what to do next. Gideon almost laughed at the man's confusion, but instead suggested they walk toward Pholler while they straighten out this misunderstanding. The man in the beret considered the idea for only a second before motioning to his men, who reassembled themselves into marching guard order—four abreast across the road behind Gideon, four abreast across the road in front, and two on either side. Red and Tuesday joined him, the duck on the lorra's back and uncharacteristically silent. Gideon looked at her, stroked her back, but she said nothing, not even when he retrieved his cloak and fastened it around his neck.
"Vondel," the man said amiably as they started off, boots hard on the road, staffs at port arms, and sabers in their sheaths. "Chute Vondel. I'm the commander of this sector."
"Gideon Sunday."
Vondel stumbled, looked at him sideways and stumbled again. "Not the Gideon Sunday?"
He nodded.
"Well fancy that. Boy, it just goes to show that you never know, do you? You're sent out on a mission to do one thing, and you end up doing something else. It's all very confusing." He checked his men, corrected one's stance, and sighed. "I really wasn't sent out to escort you, you know. I'm supposed to search the Sallamin for signs. I mean, that's what I do, you see. I search for signs."
"Signs of what?"
"The Wamchu."
Gideon recalled the red eyes in the sky and spent several seconds chastising himself for forgetting the evil tyrant in his haste to return to the arms of his Ivy.
"Did you find any?" he wanted to know.
"Of course not. He's not here."
They walked on. Gideon managed to get Red purring by scratching behind his ears, but he was still unable to get a sound from his sister. He was worried; she seemed all right physically, but there was something in the look of her, in the baleful forward gaze of her beautiful large eyes, that disturbed him. He thought he had seen that expression before, but he couldn't put his finger on it, and when he tried she nearly bit it off.
"Who sent for you?" Vondel asked.
"Ivy Pholler," he said.
"Oh my, are you in trouble?"
Gideon frowned. "In trouble? No, I don't think so. Why?"
"Because the only time she ever sends for anybody is when they're in trouble. She's very tough, you know. Very strong."
"Well, I'm pretty sure I'm not in trouble. I take it she's the boss or something?"
Vondel laughed, a high-pitched, pleasant, almost feminine laugh that sent several of his pelts flapping toward his waist before he could slap them back into place. "Not the top boss, no, but boss enough."
"I assume, then, that you'll take us to her."
"Sure. I don't want to get into trouble."
They marched on.
"But it is rather much, don't you think?" Vondel said. "I mean, I'm supposed to be looking for signs."
"But you didn't find any."
Vondel checked to be sure the closest of his men were paying attention to their marching and not to their leader. "Actually, I didn't look very hard. Which is not to say that I don't know a sign when I see one, but a sign from the Wamchu isn't all that hard to spot, if you know what I mean—a lot of bodies here, scorched earth there... it doesn't take a genius to know when he's around."
Gideon looked at the odd-featured man. "Is it bad?"
Vondel nodded, and his round eyes lowered their gaze to the ground. "Very bad. The a
rmies are doing their best on all the fronts, but it's difficult to do your best when you're dying. Rather takes the oomph out of your attack."
"The wind from your sails," Gideon said.
"Exactly. The spring from your step."
"Discouraging."
"No, not really," Vondel said. "We're managing to hold our own in most places. But it's the idea of it, you see. One enters the army with dreams of riches and glory, and instead one gets wounds and cold beds. Of course, the alternative is complete and utter subjugation, which is considerably more disheartening than having to spend the night on the ground."
The men muttered their agreement.
Gideon looked across the Sallamin in all directions, but saw nothing to indicate that titanic battles were being fought by thousands of soldiers on a side, or even that small groups of infiltrators were skulking through the stands of trees that here and there broke up the roll of the plain. It was, in fact, extraordinarily peaceful. And puzzling.
"Oh," Vondel said glumly. "You've noticed."
Gideon waited, hoping his silence would answer for him.
Vondel shrugged one shoulder, then grabbed for a pelt before it got away, replaced it and tied its serpentine tail to another just below it. "They really didn't expect to find anything anyway."
"I see."
"It's my first command."
I see, he thought.
"You're right," Vondel said. "It isn't my first command."
Gideon raised an eyebrow.
Vondel seemed to sag as he walked. "Yes, I know. But she was so mad when I made just a little mistake... I suppose it's the moral equivalent of standing in the corner."
Gideon wanted to ask what the mistake was, but kept silent.
They topped a rise, and if there hadn't been men behind him, Gideon would have stopped. Stopped to gaze longingly on the distant rooftops of the village of Pholler. Stopped to imagine that one of those buildings beneath one of those rooftops might well house the woman who had brought him here.
But he didn't. He carried on down the slope, looking at his sister and wondering, and looking at Vondel and wondering. Then, remembering a certain muscle-bound blacksmith, Gideon looked at his sister again and stopped wondering.
"Sis," he said sternly.
The duck swiveled its head toward him.
"You're talking to a duck," Vondel said, wondering.
The men muttered.
"Tuesday!" Gideon snapped.
She blinked slowly, but her eyes weren't focused.
"Excuse me, but are you really talking to that duck?"
Gideon lifted the duck off Red's back and stopped, and Vondel was just able to halt his men before there was a confusion of bodies that would not have looked at all dignified. Then the men were ordered to take a break, have something to refresh themselves, which they did, muttering, while Vondel stood politely to one side and watched as Gideon held the duck up and forced it to look at him.
"Tuesday, damnit, tell me it isn't true!"
Tuesday's beak fluttered, clacked, and a long swallow rippled down her neck. And finally, softly: "I can't help it."
Red, who was wandering over to the grass for a bite to eat, looked back over his shoulder and growled.
"Well, I can't!" she said to the lorra, and looked back at her brother. "I don't know, it must be hormones or something."
"Ducks don't have hormones," he said.
"The duck talks," Vondel said, his amazement drawing him to Gideon's side. "I heard it talk. Is it battle fatigue?" He blew a curl out of his eye. "Can you get battle fatigue looking for signs?"
Tuesday's eyes closed in what Gideon could only call a languid swoon. "Jesus H," he said in disgust. "You really are something else, Sis, you really are."
"Wait a minute," Vondel said, his eyes widening, a finger pointing.
The duck squirmed, but Gideon wouldn't release her. "Sis, this is too goddamn much."
Vondel seemed to be having trouble breathing, and his face was growing pale. "That's..."
Tuesday wriggled, nipped at Gideon's wrists, and finally broke free to flutter to the ground. "I don't care what you think," she said. "A woman is a woman for a' that, and you can't stop the march of progress."
"I already have," he said, pointing to the muttering men lounging on the grass. "And this is no time to get into this, Sis. We have work to do, remember?"
"Oh my," she said, wings out and spinning. "It's all right for you to get your glands in an uproar, but I'm supposed to be a nun, for god's sake?"
"That's the White Duck!" Vondel shouted.
Tuesday preened.
Gideon whistled to Red and, when the lorra reached his side, asked permission to ride on his back. When Red saw the fuss Vondel was making over the duck, he nodded, and Gideon swung up, looked down, and said, "Y'know, Red, I think we're in bigger trouble than the Wamchu."
"Oh, I don't think so," Vondel said as he knelt to gather Tuesday into one hand while the other skewered an escaping pelt. "I don't think so at all."
With a growl, Red warned Gideon not to ask, but he did. "Why not? What could be worse?"
"Agnes."
"You're joking."
"Oh no. She's fighting all of us. She says she has a score to settle, and she won't stop until we're all dead."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tuesday, for all that she was considerably larger than the average duck, was comfortably perched on Vondel's left shoulder. It was, for the most part, a fair arrangement—she was as close as she could reasonably get to the man she'd just fallen in love with, and she served at the same time to keep Vondel's hair from dropping into his eyes. And it would have been a perfect arrangement had the complication of Vondel's brother not arisen as they were climbing the western slope of one of the plain's higher knolls.
Gideon couldn't believe his ears.
"Chute," the redheaded lieutenant said, "you're being a fool."
Vondel's tone indicated an expression not only of smug superiority, but also one that could easily be construed as sibling tough-shittedness. "I am no fool, Morj. I am a man possessed by a very possessing creature."
"It looks silly! And you're the commander!"
"And you are making a fool of yourself in front of the men. Get control, man, get control!"
"Well, it isn't fair. I want to hold the duck."
"You can't."
"But I love her!"
Gideon looked over his shoulder, at Chute and his sister marching steadily on while a redheaded man just as tall and just as curiously featured as his brother strode backward in front of them. Tuesday was nuzzling Chute's cheek, but she was not in any visible fashion discouraging Morj, either. The other men didn't seem to care one way or the other; they were busily huffing up the rise and blowing hair out of their eyes.
It was midafternoon, and the sun in its westward trek seemed pale and unable to provide the warmth that would stop his breath from pluming over Gideon's shoulder, stop his cheeks from stiffening whenever the wind blew, his hands from reddening whenever he brought them out from the cover of Red's thick hair.
At any moment, probably when they reached the knoll's low summit, he would be able to see Pholler in greater detail. As it was, the Scarred Mountains' circular range was already high enough and close enough to break up the sky, and the forest at the range's foot was already clear enough to distinguish from the plain. He was close, and as long as the Vondels didn't get into a duel over his sister's affections, he knew they would arrive just before sunset.
"You'll pay for this, Chute. Authority can go just so far, you know, before it's challenged."
"You wanna fight?"
"No, I don't want to fight. I'm a civilized man."
"Civilized men don't whine and beg to carry a duck."
"Easy," Tuesday crooned. "Ducks have feelings, too."
"I'm sorry, my love."
"You'll pay," Morj warned. "You won't deny me again."
Gideon supposed he ought to be worrying about his sister
, but he was too preoccupied by Chute's comments about Agnes. Agnes Wamchu. The last and the most powerful of the Wamchu's three wives. When Gideon and she had met in Wamchu's former residence—now the home of Whale Pholler, who had done a lot of redecorating, particularly around the dungeons—she had been ordered to fry him. Destroy him. Wither him. Turn him to ash and blow the ashes away. And she had begun just such a sequence when luck had intervened and the session had been interrupted.
But he had never forgotten it.
Nor had he forgotten the agony he had suffered.
Though he had said nothing to Vondel, Gideon knew very well what score it was she had to settle—his victory over the other two wives, a victory that had led to their premature deaths, unless one believed that Fate didn't believe in premature anything. And since she had apparently broken away from her husband, who only wanted to conquer the world, it was logical to assume that the Wamchu was not doubly or, god forbid, triply angry at Gideon as well, and might even be temporarily setting aside his original plans in favor of new ones that put Gideon at the top of the list of things to do before conquering the world.
Agnes, he thought.
And whistled "There's No Place Like Home" all the way to the top of the knoll.
And once there, stopped because the men in front had stopped, and the men beside him had stopped, and Chute had come up to stand beside him with the duck on his shoulder and was shaking his head sadly.
"I think," said Gideon, "I know what your mistake was."
—|—
The village of Pholler still lay some distance away, but it was evident even from here that it was deserted. The wooden houses were quiet, the streets were quiet, the fields that surrounded it were stockless and quiet. Gideon braced himself on Red's neck and rose up to look around, scanning the occasional narrow roads that branched off from the main one, and saw no signs of movement. No people. No animals. Not even a decent-sized bird.
He slid down off the lorra's back and began walking. When Vondel tried to keep up, he waved the man back. He didn't want to know what the mistake was. He didn't even want to guess what the mistake was, in case he was right and would then be forced to strangle the man and spend the rest of his life listening to his sister complain about the one that got away. Yet he was also intrigued; he could not imagine what could have caused an entire population to flee their homes if it wasn't the approach of an army that was, at the best of times, unsavory. But there was no smell of burning, no destruction that he could see, no glimpse of an encampment that might have been deserted recently or not.
