Poor World

by Sherwood Smith

  “‘Still must fight,’” Rel repeated. “True?”

  “Yes!”

  “So they all add up in circumstances and in time,” Puddlenose spoke with conviction. “We have only to figure out writer and broken light, and we’ll probably loose some kind of powerful, sinister magic that will instantly transform Kessler and the rest to multi-colored goo. Question is, what, or who, is the writer?”

  “R-I-G-H-T-E-R?” Christoph asked. “Or W-R-I-T-E-R?”

  “I dunno,” I said. “The first sounds like some kind of hero, which definitely isn’t me, but the second one could be me. Except how can I stick myself anywhere outside this blasted cell? And it doesn’t seem — as we noted in Rule Number One — ”

  “Nice sarcasm,” Christoph put in appreciatively.

  “ — that there is any light anywhere, broken or straight or even braided!”

  “What’s the most obvious interpretation?” Rel asked. “Everything else is literal enough.”

  “Righter could be right hand,” Christoph offered.

  “That would double for writer, too, wouldn’t it?” Rel asked.

  “Nope,” Puddlenose said. “She’s a leftie.”

  “Then it means the hand she writes with,” Rel said.

  “Okay, I agree,” Puddlenose said.

  “Me, too.”

  “So where do I put it?” I groaned. “We’re still stuck with the fact that there’s almost no light — ”

  Noises from beyond the top of the stairs shut us all up.

  I moved away from the iron bars nearest the itchfeet’s cell, and back against the stone-reinforced wall of mine.

  Torches glared against my vision. I shut my eyes.

  But then I heard Kessler’s voice.

  “Cherene, I want to talk to you.”

  Of course I ignored him. Oh, it felt so good to be acting the way one was supposed to act to a villain.

  I was so relieved to be quit with lies, to be acting and reacting on the footing I knew best — me, CJ Sherwood, Mearsiean, facing off a villain who wanted to kill people, me included. It was, in a weird way, a relief even to be in that dungeon, surrounded by friends, instead of pretending, for right and wrong were now clear-cut and I was incontestably in the right.

  What I refused to face was the cost of my betrayal to someone who’d been betrayed all his life by his own family and people.

  And I think that’s the reason he came down.

  At first he reacted like a regular villain, too. When I refused to answer him, one of the guards with the torches relinquished the light, unlocked the cell door, came in, hauled me up and slapped me on my already bruised cheek.

  I already knew that Kessler had unnervingly long patience when he wanted to. He was capable of standing there all day, watching that poopdeck knock me down (and remind me — slow as I am — just who held the power and who had given it up in a mindlessly stupid misfired plan) so I finally responded, but in as surly a voice as I could manage — and using his name.

  That no longer mattered. I should have seen that when he came himself into the jail, something he hadn’t done before. Hitherto the prisoners had already been dead in his mind, which was why Alsaes had had his chance to indulge his little hobbies. That had changed only when he had Puddlenose there. Shnit’s enemy. It wasn’t the others he hadn’t wanted knowing who he was, it was Puddlenose, the alternate heir — the one who rejected Shnit, but who also rejected Kessler and his plan.

  Why detail that awful scene? We both talked at cross purposes.

  He expressed his disappointment (without any discernable emotion in that soft, flat voice) that I’d turned out to be stupid, and blind.

  The missing ingredient was loyalty, that much I got. But I didn’t understand his version of that yet, so I didn’t see where my real failure lay.

  I just snarled — stupidly — ”You’re stupid, Kessler. Stupider than I am if you really expected me to kill Clair, who’s my best friend in the world.” And I yelled it, “Stupid!”

  “I’ve been called worse things by my uncle, when I was small,” he said blandly.

  “You’re just like Uncle Shnit!”

  “You’ll die the same way he will,” Kessler went on, “after you witness the completion of my plans.”

  “Oh, of course,” I yodeled, pouring into that sarcastic venting every pent-up frustration of days of fear, and anger, and blistering hot weather in a nightmare environment. “I couldn’t have possibly guessed!”

  Kessler said, “You caused a brief postponement, but nothing more.”

  That meant he had indeed assigned someone else to murder Clair.

  “ — and by tomorrow I will have people in key places in the world, readying us for the next stage. From now on position will be earned only by talent, and merit. And loyalty.”

  Was he looking for remorse? Or proof of my unworthiness?

  I saw us so thoroughly as victim and villain that there was no chance I would regret anything I’d done. Not when Clair’s life was the price of his wonderful New Order.

  Maybe he saw that in my face (which has never been accused of hiding my emotions) because he said then, “When the time comes to dispatch the primary assault groups to their targets, you will be upstairs to watch them leave. On our successful return, your lives will end. Good bye, Cherene. I am sorry it ended this way.”

  “I’m not,” I said, as forcefully as I could, though my voice shook.

  Kessler left, followed in silence by his guards.

  I dropped onto the dirt next to the itchfeet’s cell — as if their presence could make any difference in the bleakness of the situation. But somehow company was comforting.

  Except that left me wondering where the girls were. I didn’t know if Kessler had kept my betrayal a secret, or if they knew I was here and that their choice was either comply or die.

  Worse, maybe Dejain had used her zombie spell to force one of the girls to do what I had been slated to do. Except —

  “I knew it,” Puddlenose whispered. “It was the torchlight brought the memories back. That and seeing him without the benefit of a headache brought on by Alsaes and his handy-dandy thrashing cane. I remember him now, the nephew who managed to escape. Way back. Shnit first knuckled me to brandish in Kessler’s face, I guess to make him behave, or give up, or whatever.”

  There’d been something important in my previous path of thoughts, but it was gone now. I couldn’t think about Clair being splatted, I couldn’t. Instead I had to solve that riddle!

  “Broken light, broken light,” I muttered.

  “Sunrays with hiccoughs,” Christoph suggested.

  “Muzzle the ghost,” Puddlenose grinched, and there was a brief wrestling match between the boys.

  Well, we batted ideas back and forth, but they kept getting wilder and more worthless. Meanwhile, the hours moved inexorably past, oppressing my spirits. No one bothered with food, an unspoken reminder of the death sentence awaiting us all.

  Eventually I couldn’t stop talking. I hung onto the bars and told them everything I’d done, everything I’d been through. I hadn’t meant to talk about it at all, for what was the use? I’d failed.

  But they listened with sympathy (and Rel in silence, suspecting — quite rightly — that I would misconstrue his sympathy as condescension) and somehow, when it was over, my face still ached and my throat was dry, but I felt just a bit better.

  They went on to talk about their past travels until they, too, were tired.

  And then, despite everything, I slept.

  Fourteen

  I woke to the sound of noise.

  Flaring torchlight and heavy footsteps flung me forcibly from my dream of the cool, spring sunlight of Mearsies Heili into the horrible here-and-now.

  A pair of huge guards unlocked my cell, clamped their mitts onto my arms, and hauled me out, all without speaking a word.

  “Bye, CJ,” Puddlenose said in a casual voice — like there was no danger.

  “See ya later
,” I trilled, knowing my voice wouldn’t possibly come out sounding casual, or anything besides terrified. Better to be shrill on purpose.

  The clods stashed me in the upstairs cell, the empty one, and left.

  Of course I tried the lock — and felt the shock of nasty magic up my arm. So even though the jail was no longer guarded, we still couldn’t get out.

  Unwillingly I moved to the window, which looked directly onto Kessler’s place. His office was empty. People with identical serious, intent expressions marched in groups along the main street, some going this way, some back that way, all of them at top speed, grim of purpose. They didn’t seem to notice when they walked — splashed — right through the puddles left from the night’s deluge.

  The sunlight glared with all its usual strength, and the puddles steamed gently. Through the bars I smelled wet dirt, and I felt heat reflecting in. I was about to turn away when I saw a furtive movement at the side of Kessler’s building.

  No one else was around.

  Rasmusan scuttled up to my window. He weaseled glances right and left, his red hair plastered sweatily over his forehead and ears.

  “What happened?” he muttered. “I waited for ye — ”

  “Alsaes trapped me.”

  Another glance: left, right. “They find out about me?” He looked worried, sneaky, and full of bluff.

  “Of course not,” I said indignantly. “I’m no bigmouth!”

  “Better go. Hate this #$@!! but there’s no hope fer it now.” He stepped back once, twice.

  “Wait! Do you know what broken light is?” I asked. “It’s important. Could still save the world!”

  He gave me a peculiar grimace, like he thought I’d gone batso. “It’s water, o’ course,” he said. “Anyone uses ships knows that.”

  “Thanks! You’ve done it,” I exclaimed, sure with the inner conviction of a magical spell properly done that he was right.

  “Any time ...” He backed up a few more steps, smoothing his face into a blank expression, and slunk away.

  It was then that I put together the obvious. The spells that Dejain had referred to, the zombie-like actions of the people, all except the girls, and me, and Rasmusan, who’d talked about his ‘pertective’ talisman — I now understood what Dejain had told me.

  The people were enchanted. Not individually. She had made an all-purpose spell, which worked on anyone without magic protection, but was negated by our medallions. Clair had made those specifically to protect against general enchantments — and it had worked here. Similar spells had to be on Rasmusan’s talisman.

  One thing I knew about enchantments was that they were a group of spells bound by some sort of key.

  But my magic was useless, even if I knew what the key was, or even if I’d known how to break the spells. So I spent a minute or so wondering how long the magic lasted — probably not long — and how it was initiated, then I dismissed it all.

  Water.

  A small bowl of water sat in the corner of my cell. I crouched down, and with rapidly beating heart, thrust my left hand into it.

  Nothing.

  “CJ? What’s wrong?”

  It was one of the brothers in the cell across the way, talking in a language I’d never heard before — but its meaning translated right into Mearsiean.

  I straightened up and looked through the little barred window in the cell door. “No problem,” I said, unwilling to make them feel worse than they probably did already.

  Then I crouched again, and in desperation tried my right hand.

  Nothing.

  Nothing!

  I stared from right to left in dismay, feeling, at last, the sickening conviction that total defeat was leering bloodily at me, and that I had failed everyone and everything.

  Water dripped down my palm, across my fingers, making my ring gleam and flicker.

  My ring!

  It had taken all of that to remind me of my ring?

  Except wasn’t there the same danger that had faced me at the beginning, when I had considered summoning Clair and then rejected it?

  Clair was already in danger, and so was Mearsies Heili. At this point, which was worse, bringing her here to face it — hearing an explanation first — or being taken by surprise at home?

  And hadn’t the riddle maker hinted that there was a specific time?

  I did not know what circumstances might have been altered, but I did know that it was now time to try.

  I twisted feverishly at the stone.

  “Is anything wrong?” Again, one of the brothers.

  “No! Everything is about to be right. I hope. Don’t talk. If guards come in, keep their attention away from this cell,” I said urgently.

  I got the ring’s stone free of the clasps and tossed to the ground a pace away. It winked out — transferring — and was replaced two breaths later by white smoke, from which Clair emerged, coughing and waving her hands.

  “Pshew,” she gasped. “That’s awful. I’m going to have to learn how to fix that.” She looked at me, smiling with relief and joy, which almost immediately turned into concern when she saw the bars on the window. “It’s good to see you at last, CJ, but I also see that there is trouble.”

  I nodded like a puppet.

  “Are the girls with you?”

  “Not here in the jail, but here in this stink pile.”

  A brief grin, more relief, and I could tell she’d been worried sick. “So where is this stink pile, and what’s going on?” Her green eyes were alert, and she looked ready for action.

  “They’re about to take over the world,” I said, and as fast as I could I told her everything, from our capture to what I’d figured out about Dejain’s spells.

  “Ho,” she said when I was done. “Let me think ... let me think...” She wandered to the windows and looked out into the dusty street. I hoped Kessler wouldn’t come by and see her white hair, but I didn’t speak. My tongue was dry, my hands wet, and my heart tattooed against my ribs; for the first time in what had seemed a thousand years, I had real hope.

  Clair grunted. “I know. Let’s get busy! Starting with these spells on the bars and on the prisoners. If Dejain is using magic spells she took from Shnit, then I know the antidotes...” She performed them, did a transfer, and the three itchfeet appeared in my cell.

  She waited for them to recover — Puddlenose stumbling against the door, and Christoph shaking his head and rubbing his ears as if they buzzed. Only Rel blinked stolidly, then just waited.

  “Who’s up for some taking over the overtakers?” Clair asked.

  Puddlenose laughed, and grabbed Clair in a hug.

  “Whew,” Clair exclaimed, wrinkling her nose as she laughed. “Obviously no one here knows anything about cleaning frames — or baths.”

  “Not in the jail, anyway,” Christoph said, polishing his nails on his grimy shirt. “Now, what do we do?”

  “I’ll transfer those weapons, if you can tell me exactly where they are,” Clair said to me.

  “The practice blades,” I said, snapping my fingers, and told her.

  Clair listened, concentrated, did the transfer — and we had a dozen practice knives appear with a puff of hot air. They clanked onto the ground as though their shelf had been pulled away. Clair and I both jumped back, then Rel bent and picked them up.

  “Now,” Clair said. “If the people are enchanted, we need to get to the leaders. Alsaes, Kessler, and Dejain first. You can leave her to me — whatever magic was protecting this place had been dissolved, because my magic works just fine.”

  “It’s got to be because of the big transfers coming,” I said, realizing that indeed the riddle maker had been right. Dejain wouldn’t have been able to do multiple transfers with those wards over the compound. While I’d been trapped by Alsaes, she’d probably been busy dissolving all her wards.

  “First I need to get to Faline,” Clair said. “And talk her into using her shape-changing powers ...”

  o0o

  Faline and t
he other girls were, at that moment, squashed uncomfortably into one of the supply closets, which was now empty. It smelled of steel and the oils used to keep supple the snapvine strings for the bows, and the air was already hot.

  Faline wriggled in discomfort, with Dhana’s elbow jammed against her ribs and Seshe’s long hair tickling her nose.

  “Think!” Irene declaimed. “We have to come up with some kind of plan to get CJ out!”

  “How?” Sherry asked worriedly. “We’re all supposed to be somewhere else. If they catch us out of place, we’ll get splatted for sure.”

  “I don’t care,” Diana said tersely. “Better to be in the klink with CJ than stabbing a bunch of people whose only fault is bein’ royal.”

  “But THIS YAKKING is not GETTING CJ OUT,” Irene exclaimed dramatically.

  Faline could feel Dhana’s entire body tense. She hated it when Irene got dramatic during real danger.

  “So think of something and don’t bellow in my ear,” Dhana snarled, her voice thin. Then she sighed. “If only it was still raining — ”

  “You could switch form and get into the jail, but you’d never get out,” Seshe said.

  Faline decided it was time for her to contribute a comment. “Gnackle,” she said.

  Then she felt something weird dissolving her bones. She jerked, losing contact with Dhana. So she reached to grab at Gwen, wondering with desperate hilarity if gnackle had become some kind of Word of Mysterious Power.

  Then the transfer spell got her, and a moment later she felt the dizziness pass. She was astonished to find herself face to face with —

  o0o

  “Clair!”

  “Not so loud!” I said quickly.

  Faline sucked in a breath, I clapped a hand over her mouth, and Clair said, “I need you to use your powers, Faline. No time to argue. You can blame me as much as you want when we get home.”

  “Home,” Faline repeated when I lifted my hand. “Can’t you just turn everyone into frogs?”

  “Too many,” Clair said, grinning. “And if I start, that Dejain will know someone else is doing major magic, and will come in and zap me. I’m afraid it’s going to have to be the powers.”