Poor World

by Sherwood Smith

  I took a breath. It quavered. I took two more, and when I knew my voice wouldn’t wobble, I said, “If I were home I’d go off and sulk, but we don’t have time. The attack is Wednesday or Thursday, and I don’t know what to do. Look. Where’s the guy who got monogrammed?”

  “Upstairs. One of the cells with the windows. So they can watch for when the guards come for them next.”

  “I take it they don’t repair their handiwork?”

  “They haven’t yet,” Puddlenose said sourly.

  “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.” I let myself out of the cell again.

  Rel said, “CJ, I’m sorry I misjudged.”

  “Mp.” I fled, embarrassment driving me headlong.

  Eight

  Shnit.

  My first experience of evil. Real evil, not the petty, amoral indifference of Earth, or the small-minded silliness of people like Glotulae of Elchnudaeb, who had taken advantage of a kid inheriting MH in order to carve out a corner just so she could preen as queen.

  Shnit liked destroying things and people because he could, and he liked causing pain — and watching it. Once he’d taken a horsewhip to me, hitting me thrice, just because I’d defied him. Probably no one had back talked him for decades — excepting maybe Kessler — but I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that one of those strikes had managed to slice through my winter-clothes and cut my skin, which turned infected through neglect.

  Remembering that nasty episode is what made me stop by the first cell just inside the door. There I found the brothers who’d been the intended victims. The one lay on the bare ground, the other in the corner. They both looked weary and worn.

  The one lying down was shivering despite the warm, still air. The guards had put water in for them. I took off my vest and tore it into strips, using it and the water to clean the mess.

  The older brother watched with a kind of bleary bemusement, as if he didn’t believe I was real.

  “You don’t want an infection,” I explained.

  “D-does it m-matter?” the one mumbled.

  “It always matters,” I said.

  The older brother nodded slightly. “The wool. The dye. Won’t it hurt him?”

  “Not to worry,” I said, grinning. “Made from the wool of a black sheep. I’m that kind of person.” I snarkled.

  The fellow was maybe an old teen, or a young man. He gave me a weary smile. “Your name?”

  “CJ.”

  Having finished what I set out to do, I left my vest for them to use if they wished, and I exited before the messed-up brother could embarrass me with gratitude.

  Then, remembering what I’d told Kessler, I walked back to the practice areas and ran out all my feelings on the obstacle course. Having the vest gone did help, just a little; I hoped Kessler wouldn’t question its being missing. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to stuff like clothes. Unlike Alsaes, who loved fancy uniforms and rank markers and suchlike junk.

  Just before dusk I retreated up to the wall to sit and think. But as usual I couldn’t think, all I did was worry endlessly about everything that had happened, and why couldn’t I figure a way for us to escape?

  Finally I slid off and took the long way back, my feet kicking the dusty barren ground, my eyes on the stars so I could at least escape that place visually. For a short while.

  Just as I passed the first building, a storage facility awaiting stage two, a hand closed round my mouth and another around my arms, pinning them to my sides. I gasped, struggling wildly, but of course I hadn’t a hope — those mitts belonged to a grown man, and he was plenty strong.

  Alsaes? I fought harder.

  The man shifted grip, squashing me against a very sweaty-smelling shirt, and a voice hissed in my ear: “Don’t make a sound or I’ll cut that scrawny neck in two.” And something sharp jabbed between my shoulder blades.

  Cut my neck in two? I thought with a weird urge to laugh.

  “Get in there like a good kid,” the voice said, dragging me back to the storeroom door. “Kessler’s gonna miss you, but only for a little while.”

  For the first time I actually felt some hope. This was not Alsaes, and unless it was some kind of nasty ploy on his part, it seemed that this guy was a kind of ally! Unless it was a trap ...

  A candle guttered, sitting on a box. I ducked my head, wrenched free, whirled around — and the short, stocky, pug-nosed man facing me wasn’t Alsaes.

  His knife flashed up and I squeaked, “No! Wait!”

  “You won’t scream?”

  “Of course not. Are you on our side?”

  “What side?”

  “Are you in favor of Kessler’s plan?”

  “No, but you ain’t gonna tell ’im that, cuzz I’ll — ”

  “You fathead, I’m not either!”

  “Either gonna tell?”

  “No.” I hopped up and down in an agony of impatience — struggling not to yell. “Not on Kessler’s side.”

  “Now that I can’t believe. Why, just t’day I saw you standin’ next o’ him so’s you could get a good view o’ that poor @!#! they were — ”

  I blinked, squashing the urge to snicker.

  Weird, how different worlds — and countries on them — have totally different kinds of cussing. On Earth, I didn’t understand a lot of the Forbidden Words that adults used all the time (and got mad if kids used), but I knew that most of it had to do with either sex or religion, and sometimes having only one parent, or bathroom stuff.

  Well, I came to Sartorias-deles where you don’t have to do bathroom stuff — you do the Waste Spell instead, which is why the cities are so clean — but the sex stuff just doesn’t seem to be a problem, or not the same problems as on Earth. Nor is having one parent, because of the Birth Spell. Sartorias-deles doesn’t have organized religions, not in a world where time and space between worlds are mutable, as someone later said, and where souls are distinct, whether you’re living or dead. If you want your soul to stay in the world, you go to Norsunder, and try to beat their system. And a nasty, thoroughly evil one it is, too. No one talks about Norsunder, and wishing someone would go there is really, really bad. Cussing can also sometimes be bathroom products, if you get my drift, because if you do it it’s deliberate and a deadly insult.

  But that’s general, for the world. Different countries have different traditions, and those can change over time, I’d discovered. Like, in one place, hinting that someone wore blue shoes was a terrible insult — and I had no idea why until I found out it had been a really old political mess, some two hundred years before, and the blue shoe people were considered such liars and traitors that wearing blue on your feet was a reminder. Or a challenge.

  Anyway, obviously I don’t know who will be reading this — or when, and how things might change — and so I figure you can imagine your own cusswords instead of hearing his, which might just sound silly.

  Most of them sounded silly to me, except for the ones about soul-sucking Norsundrians, which sounded creepy. We knew little about Norsunder’s inner workings — and wanted to avoid learning.

  “I didn’t want to watch that execution,” I said in my fiercest whisper, cutting into his stream of bad words. “Just as soon be standing on my head. I hate Kessler, I loathe Kessler, and that goes double for that splat-gummed slobbering spittoon-face of an Alsaes. I’d do anything to get out of this dump, and take my friends with me. Satisfied?”

  “Sure,” the man said. He sat down on the ground next to the candle on the box, and I dropped down nearby. He was very stocky, maybe thirty or so, with red hair, and shifty eyes, looking everywhere but ever so briefly at my face. “At least, you’ve said more’n I have — and then there are your visits to the prison.”

  “So you do have a plan?” I asked, trying not to get sidetracked worrying about how many people had noticed my visits to the prison — and what they might think.

  What Kessler might think.

  “Was plannin’ to kidnap ye, create a little chaos, mov
e in n’ slaughter Kessler — or try. Now’t I think on it, might not work.”

  Remembering what Dejain had told me, I said, “I dunno, unless you’re really, really good at slaughtering.”

  The man snorted. “Never seen’m pick up a blade. Not once.”

  “He practices when you’re asleep,” I said. “And supposedly wears out a couple of tutors. I believe it, too, only because of what I know about that family. They would be good at killing people. Had any alternative plans?”

  “Just thought o’it,” he admitted. “When I seed you anklin’ along all alone. Had another idee, but it stinks as well. But if you are an ally, at least we have two. How many friends in the jail?”

  “Three. Maybe five, now.”

  “Good. Any real young?”

  “Nope. Youngest is more or less my age.”

  “Hah.” He laughed, and I realized he’d meant that anyone my age was too young. But then he shrugged. “Bust ’em out?”

  “Depends.”

  “On?”

  “Magic is Dejain’s end of the Plan. There’s some kind of spell on my three friends.”

  “So?”

  “Don’t know if I can get around her or not.”

  The man rubbed his face, and then gave me a look like of course only adults could plan. “Look. If we c’n get those friends o’ yourn — more the better — sprung from the slammer, we got #$!@. In the confusion, we move in, kill the magician, pick off the rest.”

  I sighed. There seemed to be a lot of ifs in that plan, but I sure hadn’t come up with anything better. “I guess it’s worth a try. Where do you come from, anyway?”

  The man looked at me in surprise. “Y’don’t place my accent? Name’s Imar — ”

  “Your name?”

  “Eh? That’s my country!” He laughed, and then squinted at me condescendingly. “Never heard o’ anyone named for a great country — or even a little one.”

  “Sorry.” I sighed. I really didn’t like this man, but he seemed to be the only ally I was going to get this side of the jail, except the girls — and they were all depending on me.

  “Simple misunderstanding, if ye don’t get about in the world,” he said with a forgiving smirk. Ugh!

  Then he leaned against the box. “How’d I get here, you’re askin’ next, no doubt. Well, it sure was one of my bad days. M’Ma’s pertective talisman goes to sleep, some days, I suspect,” he said, touching something under his shirt. I saw a glint of a metal chain at his neck. “I wake up sitting in a chair, thinkin’ I been blasted by some #$!!@ right to *&$! and this %#&! asks if I wanta join up an’ rule the world. I say if I say no? He sez you die, and I say I’ll be #&$! if I’ll croak — I’m in, and I’m about to sling over an alias an’ he addresses me by name and gives me the lowdown on my life, and I say may you go straight to Norsunder an’ he grins and says I’ll be there an’ laborin’ hard before he even thinks of visitin’ me if I don’t watch my tongue and I say I am watchin’ it!”

  The man stopped and drew a breath. “Phew. Could use a beer. Ale. Wine. #@$!, a cordial would do — but that $%#^&! Kessler don’t like drink, says it slows ye down. Anysome he laughed at me, and that was that. Insane, I call it.”

  I nodded fervently — and I didn’t mean about the booze.

  “S’then Alsaes takes us to the mess — there was a bunch o’ us, gathered in this room nigh Kessler’s — and then the barracks and then Alsaes says what you do think o’ the Plan and I say it ain’t worth #$@! but he gives me a look like me might soon be usin’ my skull for a ship ornament so I turn it into a joke. They started runnin’ us next day, and whew! I really could use a drop of something proper.”

  Proper would be hot chocolate, I thought — except any kind of hot drink sounded terrible, in that weather. “So,” I said. “You have any idea where we are?”

  “Norsunder’s #$%!”

  “Um, besides that.”

  “No one knows, or ain’t sayin’.” He frowned. “Weird, how little they talk to any purpose. Plan, work, food, that’s it. Just mention the plan and they don’t get distracted by nothin’.”

  Much later in my adventures I would have taken this as a warning, but at the time I scoffed, “Of course they don’t think. Or they wouldn’t have joined in the first place. Listen, I think we’d getter go or we’ll be missed.”

  “True enough.”

  “Meet tomorrow? Sunset?”

  He nodded and we parted, leaving in different directions.

  Kessler was in his room working when I got back. I asked for (and got) dinner, then I gathered my courage — such as it is — and, mindful of my strange ally and our possible plans, asked about the communicator thingie.

  Kessler didn’t leap up and strangle me, or send me to the jail. He seemed perfectly willing to set aside his work and explain. So this wasn’t a crazy-trigger, I thought as I looked at it in his hands. Unlike names. And the jail. And weakness.

  The communicator was indeed just like one of those Earth things I vaguely remembered from this entertainment called TV. It was cleverly made, very simple to use — and I didn’t give any hint that I recognized the source. But it made me wonder who had gone to Earth — and what ideas they’d brought back, something that not only gave me the stomach-wheems, but made me feel more than ever that I was struggling against a current that was way too deep for me. “... apparently takes Dejain considerable time to make one,” Kessler finished. “After the first stage of the Plan is complete you’ll have one of your own.”

  So I’ll never have one, I vowed, and was taken by a fierce yawn. And no wonder! What a long, horrible day!

  But Kessler looked at me as if I’d pulled kittens out of my ears, and I blurted without thinking, “Kessler, when do you sleep?” Then I clamped my teeth on my tongue, thinking that if simple things like mentioning the jail triggered his temper, personal questions were sure to get me into even worse trouble.

  But again he surprised me, giving one of those laughs. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “I don’t,” he said.

  “How’s that? I thought everyone slept?”

  “Dejain gave me a spell just this year. It has speeded my productivity enormously. You said you have nightmares as well. You want the spell?”

  “Not me! I love to sleep! Well, I do when I don’t have those nasty dreams — ” I’d almost said when you’re poking around at night spying on people, and shivered, figuring I’d better get out of there before I did say something that would get me killed.

  “Someday you’ll be glad to escape it,” he said.

  “Well, I’m way too tired to escape it now,” I responded, and left.

  It was the earliest I’d ever been able to konk. I fell asleep at once, and zonked so hard that if Kessler’s army had tromped through, complete with drums and trumpets, I don’t think I would have missed a snore.

  Then I woke up so suddenly and completely I thought that dawn had come. But my room was still dark. I looked at the doorway. No one was there. The door was closed.

  So I got up and eased it open. The hall was equally dark. There was no light from Kessler’s room, not even a glow along the floor that would indicate he was in there, working with the door closed, but I smelled a trace of candle in the air. So that meant he’d done the bed check and went out, leaving me alone in the building. I was desperately thirsty, and I also wanted to write a note back to the girls.

  I had no idea what time it was, but it felt like midnight — or maybe somewhat before.

  I tiptoed down the hall. Even though no one was there, my heart slammed against my ribs. As I stepped into the office I felt the spookiness of Kessler’s presence. I stopped by the little table and quickly poured and downed a glass of water from the pitcher that was always there.

  Then I tiptoed toward the desk, careful to make no sound — I didn’t want to cause the glowglobes to light up. I peeked out the window. The guards were still in place at either side of the prison door, one staring fixedly up over the roof, and the other at
the ground. What a dreary duty! Were they being punished, or tested, standing there at night?

  I wasn’t about to ask.

  I ducked under the window sill just in case, then reached Kessler’s desk. Just as I stretched out my fingers to the top drawer, I wondered if magic traps lay in wait. Cautiously I extended my fingers, brushing them through the air around the drawers. I felt nothing.

  Did I dare? I knew I would have no other chance. Pen and paper belonged to Kessler, and if I asked for some he would probably give it to me — and then expect to read whatever I’d written.

  I edged up and stared at the desktop. Neat stacks of papers lay there. I squinted at them in the pale light reflecting from across the street. The top paper in each pile was written on. I was not going to mess with any of those. What I wanted was blank paper.

  So I eased the top drawer open, and found two or three fountain pens and a bottle of ink. The second drawer contained papers in files. The first one had a sketch affixed to it. I tipped it up toward the light, and the lines swam into focus: Alsaes!

  Did the featherbrained idiot write papers for Kessler to keep, or was this Kessler’s file about Alsaes? I pawed through the papers inside: no blank ones. I couldn’t read the tiny writing in the dark. The next files also had sketches on them. Various commanders? I half recognized some of the faces — at least two tutors. Then I got a shock. A slim folder, with only a few sheets of paper in it, had a picture of me on the outside.

  I looked closely. Yep. The starlight was not tricking me. It was a hasty sketch, but I’d know that face anywhere! Intensely curious, I pulled a sheet out. The writing on it was Chwahir. I puzzled out a few words — a tutor was commenting about my abilities on the obstacle run. Bleh.

  Losing interest, I put it back, and leafed through the remaining files. No blank pages in them, but at the very bottom was a neat stack of fresh paper. I pulled four or five out, then saw that the top one had a few words written on it that had been crossed out. I was going to put it back, but decided I could use the other side.