The Fork-Tongue Charmers

by Paul Durham

  “Come on, Quinn,” Folly coaxed. “Let’s go get you licked.”

  Folly hurried Quinn back up the shore.

  Harmless returned his gaze to the sea, his eyes narrowing. “Folly and Quinn deserve to go home, but a strange tide now stretches from here to the Shale. The Luck Uglies will undoubtedly notice that Longchance is weakened, and I fear old ambitions may fuel hasty actions. Castles built on weak foundations soon crumble on their builders.”

  Rye wasn’t certain what castle Harmless was talking about, or whether the builder was Harmless, Slinister, or someone else entirely. But she suspected it must be the Fork-Tongue Charmers that weighed heavy on his mind.

  “I need to return to Drowning first to seal the cracks,” Harmless said. “And pave the way for you and your friends.”

  “Will Slinister and the Fork-Tongue Charmers listen? Are they even Luck Uglies anymore?” Rye asked.

  “Once a Luck Ugly, always a Luck Ugly,” Harmless replied. “Until the day you take your last breath.”

  “But what about your differences?” Rye asked. What she really wanted to know was what Harmless had taken from Slinister. What caused the rift that now threatened to divide a brotherhood that had survived in secret for generations? And so, finally, she just asked.

  “What did you take from him?” Rye said. “What have you hidden from Slinister Varlet?”

  Harmless looked at her somberly. He might have asked her how she knew, or made her rehash the details of what Slinister had told her. But Rye had never known Harmless to dwell over irrelevant questions. Since she had met him, her father had always done his best to answer her honestly. Sometimes those answers were cryptic, but the truth always lay nestled somewhere within his words.

  “Family,” he said simply.

  Rye was confused. “But Slinister is an orphan.”

  “And, as a Fork-Tongue Charmer, he chose to forego raising a family of his own. For all the joy it might bring, he saw it only as a weakness.” Harmless smiled at her fondly, as if to assure her that he harbored no regrets himself. “So the Luck Uglies are the only real family Slinister has ever known.”

  Rye already knew that, except for the High Chieftain, whose title passed by birth, children were rare among the Luck Uglies. She listened intently.

  “As you know, my father and I were forging a new path for the Luck Uglies. We agreed that we would rid the Shale of the Bog Noblins if our crimes would be pardoned—so that our heirs might one day walk outside the shadows and lead normal lives.”

  Harmless traced a line in the sand with the heel of his boot.

  “Slinister was furious. To him, every step the Luck Uglies took away from the shadows was a threat to the family he holds so dear. He too believed we should defeat the Bog Noblins. But rather than destroy them, he aspired to conquer them. Turn them into our own army against not only the House of Longchance but all of our enemies, so that all of the Shale might fly the Ragged Clover.”

  Harmless completed his drawing in the sand. It looked like an upside down letter Y.

  “When the Earl broke our bargain and banished us, it was Slinister and the Fork-Tongue Charmers who burned the village to the ground, ensuring that the Luck Uglies would be cast back into the shadows once again.” Harmless paused. “As I once told you, not all Luck Uglies are cut from the same cloth.”

  Rye was silent. It explained a question she had often pondered—why the Luck Uglies would have lashed out at Village Drowning one last time, ruining all of the good Harmless and her grandfather had worked for.

  Her eyes fell to the marks Harmless had made in the sand. A forked tongue? Or perhaps a fork in the road?

  “Just give it up,” she snapped. She stomped his drawing until it was just a blur.

  “Give what up?” Harmless asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “The High Chieftain’s Crest,” Rye said. “You’re back now. What about our family? You, Mama, Lottie—we can all go somewhere far away. Together. Somewhere the Earl or Slinister can’t bother us anymore. Give the Crest to another Luck Ugly. Why must it be your problem forever?”

  Harmless gave her a tight smile.

  “Because I assumed that burden and it is part of me now,” he said quietly. “It’s the skin I wear.”

  Harmless put his hand to his chest, unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt. Pulling the material aside, he revealed a tattoo Rye had seen but never taken particular notice of before.

  Over his heart was an elaborate knot-work outline in the shape of a shield. Inside its boundaries was a black four-leaf clover and crossed swords. The Ragged Clover.

  “Some choices cannot be undone,” he said.

  Rye was quiet. Maybe there was no such thing as easy answers.

  Harmless softened.

  “Don’t worry, Riley. I won’t rush off to Drowning lightly. You should head back to Abby and Lottie. Tell your mother I am well after the battle in Wick and that I’ll come see her as soon as I can.”

  Harmless gently touched her cheek with his palm before trudging off down the beach. There was a weariness to his gait that she’d never noticed before. Rye watched him until the tide washed away his footsteps in the sand. She kicked away a jellyfish that had wrapped its tentacles around her boot.

  That night the farmhouse lanterns stayed lit well into the early-morning hours. Waldron returned late from Wick and shared news of the Belongers’ grand plans to rebuild the fishing fleet, reinforce the seawalls, and restore Westwatch. Captain Dent regaled the children with colorful stories of distant ports. Abby cooked more food than they could eat, and when they had all finished, the table erupted with grateful belches. Even Waldron joined in, giving Abby the loudest “thank-you” Rye had ever heard. They hadn’t seen Knockmany since morning, so Rye left a full plate for him outside his empty potting shed.

  Finally, after everyone had gathered outside to help Lottie catch dragonflies to fill Newtie’s former cage, Rye and her friends settled into their blankets. Rye found herself counting the thatch in the ceiling even while her friends fell into deep slumber. Thoughts of Drowning weighed heavy on her mind. She wished Harmless could have joined them all for supper—who knew when they might have the opportunity again? She imagined he must be cold and hungry under the fishing boat, and would make a point to bring him something to eat at first light. She passed the hours restlessly, and when her coughs and heavy sighs failed to wake Folly or Quinn to keep her company, she allowed herself to drift in and out of sleep until the sky out her window glowed with pre-dawn light.

  Rye snuck out of the farmhouse, careful not to wake Waldron or her mother, and dropped to her hands and knees beside the fishing boat.

  “Harmless,” she whispered. “Harmless, are you there?”

  But when she looked under the hull, his makeshift camp was gone.

  Rye sprang to her feet, calling for him as loud as she dared. Had he already left? Why would he go without saying good-bye? Then her eyes fell on the small dark shapes that looked to have been carefully arranged all over the hull. She reached down and picked one up.

  A smooth, black stone. Dozens of them.

  “The Wailing Cave,” Rye whispered to herself. She was certain these stones were some sort of message. Maybe Harmless wanted her to meet him there. It was a port after all, albeit a secret one. Maybe he wanted her to come with him. Whatever the message, she needed to hurry before it was too late. She set off up the crushed-shell path right away.

  Rye gave the strings of shells a stiff shake as she peered down the cliff above the Wailing Cave. She didn’t necessarily believe in Shellycoats, but wouldn’t refuse their help should they have any to offer. Fortunately, the tides cooperated as she descended into the cave itself. She rushed into the grotto, stomping over the polished black stones littering the ground at her feet. The first rays of morning light now beamed down from a crevice high above, reflecting off the glass-like pool of water. Breaking the surface were six stepping stones, each spaced apart by the length of a man’s stride. They l
ed to a larger rock at the pool’s center just big enough to make an enticing seat.

  Rye stopped short and caught her breath. The seat was occupied. Rye had expected she might find someone here. Hopefully Harmless. But no Luck Ugly was waiting for her.

  Constable Valant smiled out at her wickedly from under his battered crimson hat, its flat-topped crown dented and its brim stained with salt.

  26

  Under the Crimson Hat

  “You!” Rye called out in shock. “What are you doing here? Your ship was sunk.”

  “Yes, very tragic,” Constable Valant said flatly. “But I already know that, of course. After all, I’m the one who scuttled it.”

  Rye couldn’t believe her ears. “You sank you own ship?”

  “Well, yes. Once it became clear we wouldn’t take the Isle without a struggle, I couldn’t let all those soldiers sail back to Drowning. They’ll serve my purposes just as well at the bottom of the sea as they would on Pest.” Valant clasped his hands over his worn leather vest.

  Rye took a step backward. “I don’t understand. And I don’t know why you’re here. Does the Earl value me so much he’s willing to conquer an entire island?”

  Valant shook his head. “The Earl values power and stature. With a little coaxing, I convinced him I could deliver not only your family but also this slippery prize none of his noble neighbors could seem to keep their fingers on.” He said prize with a roll of his eyes and a flourish of his hands to indicate the island.

  “Where’s your father?” the Constable asked, peering over her shoulder. “Hasn’t he come with you? Surely, after all those stones, he didn’t let you come alone?”

  It was Rye’s turn to be dubious. “You? You’re the one who’s been leaving stones for me?” She drew the one from her pocket and held it between her fingers.

  “Yes, in a manner of speaking,” the Constable said. “Although they weren’t so much for your benefit as for your father’s. Haven’t you shown them to him?”

  Rye shook her head. “No.”

  “What?” The Constable threw up his hands as if someone had spit in his soup. “Well, that ruins the whole effect. Don’t children share everything with their parents?”

  “You obviously don’t have children,” Rye said.

  “Obviously.”

  “If you think you’ll drag me back to Longchance, I won’t make it easy for you,” she said, summoning her courage.

  “Really, Rye O’Chanter,” the Constable said with amusement. “You still haven’t put it all together?”

  He stooped over and seemed to contemplate his reflection in the pool of water. He ran his hand through the waxed, fingerlike spikes of his beard and rubbed the stubble under his nose. The Constable rolled up the cuffs of his sleeves and, for the first time, Rye noticed a swirl of green tattoos ending at his wrists. He drew a sharp knife from a sheath at his hip.

  Rye took another step away.

  Valant pressed the blade to his skin and began to neaten his beard, scraping away the stubble that dotted his upper lip while peering into the reflecting pool. “Ouch,” he said, nicking himself. “I’ll be glad when I can be rid of this garish chin wig.” He cast his eyes on the blade.

  Rye turned to run the way she came, but a small, snarling creature blocked the tunnel in front of her. Its gray wrists and ankles were in shackles, tethered to the end of a long chain. Its nose twitched in her direction and it dug at the stones with fingers that ended at stubby knuckles instead of claws. Saliva soaked the rust-orange hair that hung from his distended jaws.

  This time Spidercreep wore no muzzle over his teeth.

  Rye hadn’t even noticed her choker, its pale blue glow matching the reflection from the water. She finally understood why Spidercreep didn’t seem to fear her runestones, either now or in the Spoke. He hadn’t seen them. Spidercreep had no eyes, only hollow sockets.

  Rye whirled back around.

  The Constable smiled. “How about now? Any idea what’s going on?” he asked.

  He held the knife close to his mouth, then licked it with his tongue. It was forked, the two ends moistening the blade like wriggling eels.

  And by then Rye understood. The man in front of her had never been a real constable at all.

  Slinister Varlet resumed shaving with the wet blade.

  Rye put a hand against the cave wall to stop it from whirling. It didn’t help. It wasn’t the cave but her head that was spinning. The Constable—that is, the man masquerading as a constable—just examined his reflection with a smirk over his elaborately whiskered chin. She blurted out the first of many questions that came into her mind.

  “How did you come by this Bog Noblin?”

  “I found him and raised him myself. He’s a pygmy . . . a dwarf version, I suppose.” Slinister continued to groom his beard. “For his sake, it’s good that I did. His own kind do not suffer weaklings. They would not have spared him.”

  Rye ran the stone in her hand over the cave wall as she steadied herself, the final messages of so many sons of Pest etched around her fingers.

  “I did eventually have to declaw him. Despite my best efforts to train him, Spidercreep just couldn’t keep his hands to himself. But his lack of sight makes his nose perfect for hunting.” Slinister returned his knife to its sheath and looked up. He removed a scrap of material from his pocket—the torn swatch of elbow from Rye’s coat. “One sniff, and he was able to lead me to you as soon as I arrived on Pest.”

  Slinister removed his ruined crimson hat and set it on the rock. It bore not only the damage from the sea but also a hole from the kiss of her mother’s arrow. With both hands, he carefully eased his leather helmet from his head.

  His scalp was shaven except along the top, where his long, sand-brown hair was plaited into a single, thick braid that now fell down the back of his neck. A deep, pink groove of an old wound ran like a ravine over one ear. The rest of his scalp was etched with a lattice of green tattoos, flicking back across his skull like fiendish tongues.

  Having shed the skin of a constable, Slinister looked as wild, bleak, and imposing as Pest itself.

  He followed her eyes to his head. “Tell me you’ve ever seen a more impressive scar than this one,” he said, running a finger over the pink groove.

  Harmless may have had more scars, but this was certainly the largest she had ever seen. “How did you get that?” she asked.

  “An axe.” He smiled, and cocked an eye. “Swung by none other than your very own father.”

  Rye was taken aback. “So that’s why you despise him so.”

  Slinister burst into a laugh. “Of course not. I can hardly blame him. After all, I would have buried one in his own skull had I been a step faster. But that’s all within the realm of fair play. I despise your father for what he took from me.”

  Rye had tired of Slinister’s game. She had no interest in his riddles. Harmless had already told her what he took—or at least what Slinister perceived as a theft. “You think he stole the Luck Uglies from you?” she asked hotly.

  But this time Slinister did not reply in riddle. His words were blunt. “No, Rye. What he stole was a greater treasure than that. The only thing of value on these isles—the treasure of the Sea Rover King.”

  Rye’s face fell. That’s what this was really about? The years of hatred. The fighting. For treasure? She felt a great fatigue wash over her.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Rye said, shaking her head. Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised that all of this was over greed. “I don’t know where it is.”

  “But I think you do, Rye.” He pushed himself up from the rock. “I told you once that I dreamed of you. Why was that?” Slinister’s eyes had gone wide. Without the red-rimmed sockets of his mask, she saw that they were flecked green like the sea and as sharp as splintered jewels. “I am of the Lower Isles. Born with a gift to perceive that which flows just below the currents of our consciousness. The Belongers would tell you it’s some dark witchery. But I’ve come t
o know it’s just a heightened awareness. A stronger intuition.”

  Slinister stepped into the reflecting pool. He didn’t bother with the stepping stones.

  “That Sight grows stronger when I’m around others who share it. It’s at its strongest here on Pest.”

  Rye retreated backward.

  “I’ve seen what I’m searching for, Rye—I’ve dreamed it. I have seen you in a place—somewhere cold and hard, a place battered by the sea. And that treasure is right there with you—right under your nose. So tell me, where is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Rye said hurriedly.

  “Yes, you do,” he hissed.

  “I don’t,” Rye said. But it was making sense now. There was only one place Harmless kept secret from all others.

  “Tell me,” Slinister demanded, and splashed through the water menacingly. Sand stirred and clouded the glassy pool.

  “I’ve never seen any treasure.”

  “But you know where it is.”

  Now she did. It could only be in one place. But Rye wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “No,” she said, her eyes flaring back.

  “This close now,” Slinister simmered, “you must realize that I won’t stop. Tell me, or everyone you know and cherish will suffer the consequences. Your family, your friends. I know where they all are right now.”

  Rye’s chest tightened. Her mother and Lottie. Folly and Quinn. Waldron now too. They were worth more than any amount of treasure. Whether Slinister could deliver on his threat she did not know. But if someone like Harmless called Slinister dangerous, did she really want to take that chance?

  “Tell me!” he boomed, and clutched his leather helmet feverishly in his fists. “If you do, I assure you they shall never be harmed at my hands. If not . . .”

  “Grabstone!” Rye yelled, and her words stopped Slinister knee-deep in the water. “It’s called Grabstone. South of Drowning at the edge of a shoal. Harmless has kept it a secret from everyone. There’s a room there called the Bellwether. If the treasure you seek is at Grabstone, that’s where it will be.”