Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures)

by Terry Kroenung

  The demon, or whatever it was, broke off and squatted just out of sword range. Cocking her head, she croaked, “Surrender yon Stone, and thy valiant self, man-spawn. I must needs take thee to the Proprietor. If thou dost this, thy companions shalt live.”

  Those companions now stood behind me. Romulus woozy but upright, Ernie back on his shoulder. Eddie stood tall beside them, ready to start swinging his crowbar if I gave the word. “I don’t know who this Proprietor is,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt, “but if you work for him, I’ll have to pass on the honor. As for my companions, you’ll have to earn their lives.” Ooh, Verity the Valiant, givin’ as good as she gets!

  “I accept thy challenge,” she said, almost with a laugh. A gob of foul yellow slobber shot out of her horrible mouth with a steamy hiss and hit Eddie dead in the face. His every muscle seized up and he dropped like a felled tree. Before I could react she’d slithered past me, scooped him up, and bounded onto the Monument’s stairs.

  “Thus thy choice,” she said, holding the limp Eddie in one hideous hand like a rag doll. “Present thyself to the Proprietor before the turn of the full moon, if thou desirest ever to see this child alive.”

  One enormous foot banged open the enormous iron door behind her. A sick greenish light came from inside the Monument, silhouetting her. Venoma backed up into it. As soon as the swirling radiance touched her, she and her prey vanished.

  The light blacked out. So did I.

  Eddie was gone.

  9/ The Dread Pirate Roberta

  I tried to imagine a fierce pirate with a tough-talking parrot for a girlfriend. It gave ‘henpecked’ a whole new slant.

  Next thing I knew I lay sprawled face-first on the grass, my throat so raw from screaming that no sound came out. Though I’d thought that my muscles couldn’t have hurt any more than they already did, that turned out to be wrong. From straining to move the whole world to get Eddie back, I’d reduced myself to a giant mass of pain. My hands felt broken from pounding the ground. Dirt filled my fingernails from clawing at it, too. Goo from my nose and eyes ran down my face. A roaring in my ears drowned out everything my friends seemed to be saying to me.

  Somebody gripped me from behind in a bear-hug as I tried to stand and rush the Monument. Since a four-inch tall mouse wouldn’t be up to that, I gathered that it was Romulus and not Ernie. And it had to have been a friend, because Jasper made no move to defend me. That didn’t stop me from kicking his shins and biting his fingers.

  “Lemme go!” I tried to shriek. It came out as a whisper. “We gotta help him!”

  “He gone, chile,” Romulus said with amazing gentleness, as if quieting a panicked horse. “When Venoma gets ‘em, they stays got.”

  “I don’t care! We gotta try!”

  Ernie cleared his throat and hopped from Romulus’ shoulder to mine. “The ostium’s closed. As soon as they disappeared it shut down. It’s designed to do that, so nobody can follow.”

  Curiosity started calming my rage. “Ostium? What’s that?”

  “A sort of gate that lets the Honourable Merchantry travel between worlds. No one can use it but those buggers. Step through one and it takes yer where yer wants to be in the blink of an eye.”

  I began to breathe a little easier and felt my bunched muscles relax a bit. “Travel between worlds?” Seems like every time I get the answer to one question tonight, three more pop up in its place. “How many worlds can there be?”

  Romulus let go of me. I slumped back down to the sun-baked earth, but didn’t let my eye off the Monument door. He said, “The Comp’ny’s magick’s made ev’ry nation into its own world, miss.”

  I thought of the odd stories folks told about the Monument, how people in antique clothes would walk out of it. “So if I was to go to, say, the Papal Fief, what would I find?”

  Ernie and Romulus traded glances. They seemed to be having some sort of unspoken debate. After a long pause Ernie said, “Fer starters, it ain’t June 1862 there.”

  My tired mouth managed to make a pthht sound. “Ain’t polite to tease kids.”

  “I only wish I were teasin’, ducky. No matter where yer go there---Rome, Florence, Venice—it’s June of 1508.”

  The face I made felt the same as you might see in a lunatic asylum. Just when I’d started to accept that there were magick swords, horrible-toothed monsters, and Bullies in my world, this new thing hit me. “1508? Like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci 1508?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  “What about Imperium Sacra? Iberion? Gaulle?”

  “1642, 1488, and 1804. Same month and day as here.”

  I gave him another pthht! “That’s crazy!”

  Romulus nodded. “We ain’t sayin’ otherwise, chile. The Hon’rable Comp’ny’s ten diff’rent kinds of crazy.”

  “What? You expect me to believe that every country in the world lives in it a different year? How come nobody knows about this?”

  “Some do,” said Ernie. “The ones that work for the Merchantry know it. Others, like us in the Equity, have found out but keep it a secret until we can undo it all. Some people suspect, but refuse to let their minds accept it.”

  Romulus stuck his mirror back in his pocket. “And some folks tries to tell. They’s the ones that gets Bully visits.”

  I still couldn’t buy all of this. “Impossible! People travel between countries every day. Even if you could make this happen, it’d all come apart in a week.”

  Ernie shrugged. “We’re told that every country has a glamour spell. When yer go there, and the Merchantry strictly controls travel now, you’re made to think that you’ve stayed in your own world and time. Yer do your business, have a holiday, and so forth, seein’ and hearin’ only what you expect to see.”

  “How can the Merchantry control travel? Or anything else? I’ve never even heard tell of these people and you’re sayin’ they have charge of the whole shootin’ match.”

  Swooping Ernie off of my shoulder, Romulus said, “Have to school her later. More trouble comin’.” With that he nodded east. I turned my head, afraid of what new horror might be heading our way. What now? Can’t they just be happy with the misery they’ve already spread on me?

  Since no work was being done on the Monument, the government had decided to use the wide grassy space around it to pasture Army cattle. When we’d made our way west while being chased by the Bullies, we’d come in from the north. The herds had been penned up farther south and east, so we’d not run into them. Now they were about to run into us.

  Cows…we were being attacked by a thousand mooing cows.

  On our farm in Maryland we’d had cows. It had been four years since we’d moved, but I still remembered their fuzzy flanks and sloppy snoots. Our cows had been like cute puppies the size of hay wagons, content to munch on grass and submit to my clumsy milking. But the cows coming at us now must’ve been the ones who’d had enough. Maybe they were Confederate cattle, in the pay of Jeff Davis. Whatever the reason, they ran at us as if we were the cause of every bovine indignity ever suffered by a cud-chewer.

  “Are they witched?” I asked, backing up as fast as my wobbly limbs would take me.

  “No,” said Jasper, “just whipped. There’s men behind ‘em. The Honourable Merchantry never uses magick except when it must. Too valuable to waste.”

  “Nice of you to wake up,” I mumbled, heading for the Monument stairs.

  “You’re not the only one tired around here.”

  “I thought you were the all-powerful magick blade of destiny?” I could see that we weren’t going to make it to the safety of the Monument. The cows had surprised us. Now there’s an epitaph.

  “Nothin’s all-powerful, especially in magick. You really didn’t read your contract, did you?”

  “Sorry, I was too busy havin’ an attack of the heebie-jeebies.”

  Romulus pulled me back against the Monument wall, hoping that the herd would bend around us. I had no such hope. There were too many sh
arp horns sticking out of the oncoming mass to miss us. Back a ways I could see the men that Jasper had told me of. They were rough-looking soldiers. At least, they wore Union uniforms. Who knew what their true occupation might be? Their paychecks most likely came from the Merchantry somehow. Whips in hand, they were driving the cattle straight at us, without a doubt.

  I brought up Morphageus in its shield-form, but I knew that it would just stop the horns. It couldn’t protect us against the enormous weight and momentum of that many beasts. We’d be crushed flat. One of those men would pull the Stone from my dead neck and deliver it to the Proprietor. My great world-saving quest had lasted all of two hours.

  “Looks like this is it,” I said, hugging Romulus and nuzzling Ernie. We hunkered down, all tensed-up and waiting, while the ground shook with our imminent destruction.

  But the crush never came. At the last moment the mooing mass turned aside and headed north. I opened one disbelieving eye to see what had saved us.

  Seagulls. Dozens of screeching seagulls. Could this night get any stranger? I oughta write a book.

  The flock of birds darted into the faces of the drovers and the lead cows, beaks slashing at their eyes. Some of the gulls tore the whips out of the men’s’ fingers. Others fluttered their wings at the animals nearest us, forcing them to turn away in panic. It looked like the birds knew just how to herd cattle. While the rest of the flock chased the men east till they were out of sight, their leader dipped a wing and glided over to us. It landed on the railing of the stairs we’d never managed to get to. This bird sure stood out from the other gulls, mostly because it wasn’t a gull at all.

  Nope… a large scarlet and blue parrot.

  Perched with a proud air, it cocked its crested head at us, opened its hooked white beak, and said in a salty feminine voice, “Ahoy, Ernie!”

  “Hey, Roberta!” my mousie friend said with a wave. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  “Had a bit of a headwind or I’d have been here sooner. Like tryin’ to tack against a gale.”

  Ernie grinned and looked at me. “Told yer.”

  I frowned. “Told me what?” I still worked at absorbing this new development. Talking parrots I’d seen, but never one that spoke in full sentences and sounded like Captain Kidd.

  “That Pitcairn’d show. Well, his lady, at least.”

  My eyebrows went up. “His lady? It’s a parrot.”

  That parrot gave me a sour look. I now noticed that it---she---wore round gold-rimmed spectacles. “Who’s the rude shrimp?”

  Romulus chuckled. “This be the Stone Warden.”

  “This kid? She has Morphageus? Well, waddya know! We’re doomed! Abandon ship.”

  “Hey!” I said, hands on hips.

  Ernie jumped in. “Lady Roberta, dread pirate of the seas, meet Verity Sauveur, dread slayer of Bullies.”

  “That ain’t sayin’ much. Any fool with a mirror can do---”

  “And she just fought Venoma to a standstill.”

  Roberta shook her head so hard that her glasses almost flew off. “Well, shiver me timbers!” she crowed, thrusting out a wing to me. “Put ‘er there!”

  I reached over and shook her feathery ‘fingers’. “Pleased to meetcha, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am!” Her eyes widened, making her look like a snapping turtle. You have thought I’d called her a dirty name. “Let’s have none o’ that. You just call this old bird Roberta, or Bert, or Bob in a pinch. First Mate o’ the Penelope’s Kiss I am.”

  Romulus snorted. “Pitcairn’s first mate, you means.”

  “I better be his only mate, or I’ll have his guts fer garters.”

  I tried to imagine a fierce pirate with a tough-talking parrot for a girlfriend. It gave ‘henpecked’ a whole new slant. “Well, Roberta, thank you kindly for comin’ to our rescue. Don’t know what we would’ve done otherwise.”

  “Think nothin’ of it, shipmate. Aloysius would’ve come himself, but the Yankee blockade’s tighter than a virgin’s knees. Even worse now, on account o’ McClellan’s so-called offensive. Cap’n’s got the Kiss stowed down the coast, close by Cape Charles. It’d take a keen eye to spy her. We towed her up an inlet, far enough so’s the Navy won’t spot her easy. Then he sent me to find you. Good thing, too, seems like.”

  The seagull flock wheeled around from the cattle herd and floated just over our heads, making a horrible racket. Now I could tell that what I’d taken for typical seabird squawks was actually some of the rudest language I’d ever heard outside of an Army camp. To make it worse, they had women’s voices. I started to wish that the Stone hadn’t made me able to understand animals.

  “Have to pardon these ladies,” said Roberta, “but they spend too much time around sailors. A shame, really. Most of ‘em was hatched in the better sort o’ nests.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard worse,” I fibbed. “Can’t complain after the service y’all did us.”

  One of the gulls fluttered down next to the parrot. Her wingtips and the ring around her yellow bill were a rich black. “Our pleasure,” she growled. “The Merchantry’s been no friend to our kind.” She turned her beak to Roberta. “Bert, the drovers are runnin’ so hard they may not stop till mornin’. I spoke to the head cow and she said she was sorry and that if she’d know’d that these folks was our pals she’d have charged the other way.”

  “Right kind o’ her,” said Roberta.

  “I told her so. If things’ve calmed down here, I’ll take the girls back out to the bay. Fish’re runnin’ about now.”

  Roberta turned her head in all directions. “Seems safe enough. Merchantry may send somebody else, but we plan to get movin’, so p’raps they’ll miss us. Thank ye kindly, Mabel.”

  With more profane screeches the gulls flapped away to the river, then turned to follow it south and east toward Chesapeake Bay. They’d fly right over the two great armies which were about to duke it out near Richmond. When they did, the amount of civilized discourse in that region would drop in the worst way. Imagining the comments Mabel and her friends would make as they looked at how humans settled their disputes brought a smile to my face. I hadn’t done much grinning that evening.

  “Bert’s right,” Romulus said. “Merchantry’ll keep the pressure on. More folks comin’ fo’ sho’.”

  Ernie agreed. “True enough. The blighters want Verity to come to them, that’s why they snatched young Edward. But they won’t want to depend solely on that. We can expect their blasted agents to try to capture her, just to make sure.”

  “Then let’s get movin’. If the Kiss is at Cape Charles, we got’s a long way to go, most of it through Confed’rate territory.”

  I could see that the prospect of crossing the river and traveling through slave-holding Virginia didn’t set well with Romulus. He’d only been free for two months. What colored man would want to willingly enter Rebel land, no matter how vital the mission? Heck, I didn’t relish the thought myself.

  “Do we have to go through Virginia?” I asked, hoping that a better plan would present itself. “We wanted to put the river between us and the Bullies, right? Since that didn’t happen and we already fought ‘em off, why go into more danger than we have to?” Even as I said it I knew what the answer would be. Because Eddie needs us.

  “Don’t we wish there was a better way,” Ernie said, hopping into my hand. I raised him up so we could talk face-to-face. “But the Merchantry’s base is in London, so it’s to Europa that we have to get, ducky. To the Scepter’d Isle. That’s where the Proprietor will be, and where they’ll take Eddie.”

  Romulus sighed. “And the only way we can get there is on Roberta’s boat.”

  “Ship,” she squawked, correcting him.

  “Ship, then. Merchantry has mos’ other ships under they control.”

  “So you’re tellin’ me,” I said in a glum tone, “that our one choice is to cross over two hundred miles of Confederate territory, hunted by both Rebels and the Honourable Merchantry, with no money, no horses,
no map, no friends, and pretty near no food. We have to find our way between two huge modern armies that’re about to fight the biggest battle in the history of Northern America, then cross Chesapeake Bay through a naval blockade. Once we do that, we get on a pirate ship, run the blockade again, hopin’ we don’t get sunk by the Merchantry’s private navy, and sneak into the Scept’red Isle, which is protected by more magick than you can shake a stick at. Then we have to somehow find Eddie, probably in some horrible dungeon guarded by ogres and trolls, and steal our way back out the way we came, all without bein’ witched, shot, stabbed, or drooled on by Venoma.”

  Ernie smiled, I think. “That’s why you’re the bleedin’ Stone-Warden.” He turned to Romulus and Roberta and winked. “Mind like a steel trap, she has.”

  “I just hope’s we don’t end up in a steel trap our own selves,” said Romulus.

  Roberta flapped her scarlet wings. “I say we all shut our traps and get outta here. Brace for action, clear the decks, and run up the bloody flag.”

  I sighed. “This is it, then. We’re off for Virginia.”

  And here’s hopin’ Eddie’s still in one piece…and that he’s still human.

  10/ Honourable Merchantry

  A chaos spell.

  Every country in a different time, Irlann filled with literary characters, Scandia hip-deep in fairies and dragons and trolls. Total lunacy.

  Before we took a step toward Virginia the argument started. I wanted to go home first, to check in with Ma and make sure she was okay. The others considered that a real bad idea.

  “They be waitin’ fo you,” said Romulus, shaking his big bald noggin. “Comp’ny knows where you live. Ain’t worth the risk.”

  Ernie agreed. “You’ll be strollin’ right into an ambush, missy. Bullies right and left, I’d imagine. Better if we just head for the bloomin’ river right now.”