Romulus threw me up over his shoulder and hauled me into a clump of trees, yet set me down as if I were a treasured soap bubble. Warm but soothing canteen water went down my throat. The Marshal acted like he took care of five-foot-tall beavers every day. Heck, maybe he did, for all I knew about him. Perhaps they had a secret Marshal school that the Equity ran in Marrakech or Timbuktu or Atlantis or wherever. Ernie and Romulus might’ve been thoroughly trained in ‘Enormous Rodent Hydration’. ‘Bully-Slaying’ and ‘Talking Tree Recruitment’ seemed to have been on their curriculum, too.
“I feel awful,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said. It occurred to me that he wasn’t just saying that, if Ernie had told the truth.
“How long has it been…since…?” Just how do you bring up the subject of when somebody had been magickally transformed from a dog into a slave? It’d never been covered at my school.
“Oh, ‘bout a year, I reckon.” He fed me some bread and an apple from my haversack. “Seems like fifty.”
“Is it hard? Bein’ human?” My skin started to jerk on my bones. Soon I’d be human myself, and I had an idea that it’d be just as raw a change as the first one had been, an hour before.
“Most days. Can’t smell nothin’, can’t hear nothin’. Back hurts from walkin’ on half my legs.”
“Sounds like my Granny, complainin’ about her lumbago. She told me to never get old.”
“You took her advice without meanin’ to.”
“Huh?” Now my bones began to jerk under my skin. That felt worse. It wouldn’t be long now.
“The Stone-Warden don’t feel the bite o’ time, they say.”
It struck me that finding out what that contract had committed me to would’ve been smart of me. “You mean I’m stuck bein’ twelve years old, forever?”
“Not forever. Just till your quest’s done.”
“And if it takes thirty years?” My stomach heaved. Whether from the shape-shift starting or the idea that I’d stay a kid till I hit fifty, I couldn’t be sure.
Ernie ran up Romulus’ shirt and clung to his shoulder. “Then you’ll have the best complexion of any matron on earth.”
“And the smallest bosom,” I pouted.
Roberta made a rude sound from somewhere amidst Pitts’ foliage. “Aw, bosoms ain’t all they’re cracked up to be, missy. More trouble than they’re worth, most days. Why, I once had a corset that fit so---“
Much as I wanted to hear about Roberta’s unmentionables, and how or why a parrot might wear them, my body had other ideas. The spell ended at that instant. I felt like I tumbled down a mineshaft full of spiders and straight razors. Dizzy and nauseous, I arched my back so hard that nothing but my head and heels stayed on the ground. Spit bubbled out of my mouth. I heard a faraway scream that got louder and louder, till it filled my whole aching, spinning head.
It was Jasper’s voice.
“Boy, oh boy! Nothin’ smells worse than wet fur! Get a whiff of you. Whoo!”
I looked at my paws. I felt them, rubbed them. Skin. Good old freckled Verity flesh, all pruned from being in the river so long. Romulus held up his mirror. My pug nose and blue eyes were there. Reaching behind me, I tried to grab the beaver’s tail, but it had melted away with my buck teeth. I was back in all my glory.
Jasper still blabbed. “Did you have to swim through every bit of fish poo in the river? The Canal and the outhouse episodes were bad enough, you know.”
“I just kinda figured you for an expert by that point,” I said aloud.
“Say what?” asked Ernie, with a puzzled frown.
I tapped my noggin. “Jasper. He’s back.”
“And better than ever!” the voice of Morphageus announced.
Switching to internal conversation, I told him, “You know, you were only gone an hour.”
“But what an hour it was! Giant beavers, talkin’ trees, gunplay, swimmin’ the mighty Potomac—without a paddle, I might add---”
“Hey, we had my tail. I thought it was pretty sharp work for a beginner.”
“I stand corrected.” With that the steel collar around my neck hopped off. My sword landed in front of me, hilt-up, its blade split into a pair of bare metallic feet. Jasper bowed to me. “Well done, Stone-Warden.”
I nodded back. “Thank you very much. Next time give a girl some warnin’ before you transmogrify her bones.”
“Can’t promise anything. Circumstances may dictate another snappy response. But we’ll try to develop proper teamwork.” Morphageus sprang into my hand, its blade whole again. I slid it into the scabbard.
Roberta looked down her beak at me. “What’s the plan now?”
“She needs to rest before we can take another step,” said Ernie. “This is as good a spot as any.” He waved his needle at Romulus. “Can you make us a hidey-hole?”
“Sho’ nuff,” the big Warden replied, standing wide-legged and flexing his huge arms. “Stand back.”
His broad strong hands blurred as he started digging between his feet like the dog he’d once been. Grass, dirt, and rocks showered behind him. In five minutes he’d made a hole deep and wide enough to hold him and me. No normal person could’ve done that, not even with a pick and shovel. Okay, one more amazin’ thing for my evenin’. We snuggled down inside it after scattering the removed dirt so as not to call attention to our hiding place. Ernie jumped in last, curling up on my neck next to the Stone.
“Roberta, give us a holler if anybody suspicious comes nosin’ about,” he said to our parrot ally.
“Aye-aye,” she answered, saluting with one blue-tipped wing. “I’ll keep a weather eye out for enemy sails on the horizon.”
The peach tree ambled toward us. “And I’ll guard you all, too. It’ll take a keener eye than most to spot you.” All the stars disappeared as Pitts settled atop us, his roots spreading over most of the hole and wriggling into the earth. To any observers we were just one fruit tree amidst a clump of others.
“When should we wake you?” asked Roberta. “When the sun peeks over the yardarm?”
“Not ‘less trouble come,” said Romulus. “Otherwise, let her sleep till sunset if need be.”
That proved to be a wise decision. I didn’t open my eyes till late afternoon.
* * * * *
Peeling open one gummy eyelid, I squinted at the single ray of dim sunlight that managed to slip between Pitts’ roots. No sound could be heard, even with my magick ears, except for the dull rush of the Potomac a hundred yards away. Well, that’s a blessin’. What I could hear, loud as a trumpet, was the call of nature. Time to move.
I took care to uncurl my legs, not wanting to wake Romulus or Ernie. They’d had a hard night, too. Hmm.Not to worry. They ain’t here. It looked like they’d been the ones to take care not to wake their fellow sleeper.
Pitts moved his ‘feet’ a bit to let me out. Standing stiff and sore in the midsummer sun, feeling older than the Blue Ridge Mountains to our west, I shaded my sleepy eyes. There was no one in sight, friend or foe. But now I could hear low voices from the other side of the ridge behind me. Not only that, I also smelled frying fish. Food. Oh boy! Last night’s bread and water had been a life-saver, but my belly now screamed that it wanted filling on a more regular basis than every sixteen hours. Trotting up the rise, I shrank Morphageus back into a tin cup so the sword wouldn’t bounce on my hip and maybe trip me. Nothing like a humiliating crash onto your snoot to ruin your reputation as the savior of world freedom.
The feast lay just over the ridge, in a cluster of high bushes, out of sight of anyone patrolling the river. A pit full of coals gave off much heat but little smoke. Romulus had found an old frying pan someplace and four fat fish sizzled on it. Ernie lay on a log, next to Roberta. Neither of them showed any interest in what sizzled in the pan. The little Marshal chewed on something grey and awful-looking; the red parrot just yawned. While my mouth watered at the prospect of an honest-to-goodness meal, my recent experiences made me wary.
“Anyb
ody we know?” I asked, eyeing the quartet of unfortunate bass.
Roberta shook her head. “Don’t think so. We did ask.”
“And they said…?”
“Nothin’,” Ernie told me. “And you know what the rule is…silence means assent.”
“I doubt that silence usually means ‘Oh, go ahead and eat me.’ I know my silences don’t mean that.”
“Have to agree with you on that one,” said Roberta.
“So we’re sure that these fellers ain’t part of an unlucky church choir that sang out of tune at a Merchantry function?” I asked.
Romulus shook his head. “Naw. They’s just fish.” He turned them over with his fingers. The pan looked like it’d been abandoned by soldiers when its handle broke off. A stick replaced the old grip. “Not sayin’ it be more right to eat ‘em because o’ that. They’s still dead, shape-shifted or not. It is what it is.”
I scrunched up my nose. “Maybe I’ll just eat somethin’ green and leafy instead.”
Pitts called up at me from his spot near the riverbank. “I heard that!”
Roberta whistled. “He’s a might touchy about vegetarians,” she whispered. “Says they’re just a bunch of murderers and thieves.”
“All in your point o’ view,” nodded Ernie. “I’m biased against cats me own self, but there you are.”
Throwing up my hands, I announced, “I’m gonna go visit the nearest clump of bushes, then dive into a fish dinner. If that makes me a bad person, so be it.” I made my way past the odd assortment of allies I’d collected, needing to piddle in the worst way.
“Keep yo eyes and ears peeled, miss,” said Romulus to my back. “No Bullies in the daylight, but they’s plenty o’ other trouble at hand.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied, starting to skip, “if anybody interrupts my elimination, then elimination is what they’ll get.”
It was quick work to climb farther up the hill, do my business, and start back down. While up there I peered about to see just where we were and where we might be heading. Alexandria was a distant speck upstream. I could just make out the masts of ships moored at its wharves. Other craft, both pure sail and those aided by steam, made their way along the Potomac in both directions. Washington almost seemed lovely from this distance, with the wind blowing away from me. The incomplete Monument and Capitol Dome, rising above the trees, looked like odd white fungi on a lush green lawn. It felt ever so much more peaceful, war or no war, to see it all in the sunlight. No monsters. Leastways, no monsters except the usual ones, those with muskets and cannon, bent on mass destruction of their friends and neighbors.
That thought reminded me that I stood in Confederate territory. I turned to look away from the water, at Virginia proper. Green fields rolled away toward the mountains, cut with a few fences, lots of trees, and the occasional road. A couple of lonely farms sat in the far distance, but I saw no movement around them. The owners had probably lost everything—cattle, horses, chickens, crops—to foraging troops of both armies. It occurred to me that we were in the ranks of the marauders now, competing for supplies with hundreds of thousands of armed men. I should make the most of what Romulus had on the skillet. Pickings might be slim for a while.
Romulus and I devoured the fish, aided by the last of our bread and canteen water, with a maximum of relish and a minimum of guilt. Ernie and Roberta preferred seeds, which might’ve upset Pitts but no one thought to inform him. I ate standing up, keeping my senses sharp for any surprises that might come our way. After our awful night I had already taken on the wariness of a wild animal. No matter how safe and sunny things seemed, I assumed that either the Merchantry or the war could cloud things up real quick.
“We travelin’ by night or by day?” I asked the group. There were advantages and difficulties with either, to my mind.
Roberta squinted through her spectacles and said, “Day means less monsters. Bullies can’t come out in the sun. Venoma can, but it makes her real weak.”
“No ghouls, trolls, or specters till sundown, either,” added Ernie, sitting on a log and burping.
Romulus buried the fish bones with a boot heel and commenced to put out the fire. “But we can fight a few o’ them easier than we can the whole Rebel army. Sometimes it be the everyday enemies that gits you.”
“At least we can see where we’re goin’ by day,” I said, looking around to make my point. “Night time means gettin’ lost or gettin’ ambushed.” I pulled my map of Virginia from the haversack and peered at it. The thing turned out to be too large a scale to show many roads.
I’d hung the Jasper-cup on my hip. He spoke up for the first time that day, in predictable fashion. “‘Why don’t we ask Jasper what he thinks?’” whined the voice in my head. “‘Oh, he’s just an enchanted object, what could he possibly know?’” I rolled my eyes and pointed to my belt, to let everyone else know that there was another opinion being shared. “‘Well, perhaps the poor benighted creatures whom he serves are tragically unaware that he has a map of the whole world at his metaphorical fingertips.’”
My eyebrow arched up at that. “No foolin’?”
“Do I look like I’m foolin’?” After a tiny pause he went on, “Don’t answer that.”
“He says he can navigate, no problem,” I told my friends. “But I still think I’d like to try movin’ in the light. It’d be faster, and the troubles we’d meet would at least be human, I expect.”
Ernie snorted. “Keep tellin’ yourself that, duckie.”
“She’s right,” said Roberta, spreading her wings to catch the afternoon breeze. “Merchantry don’t like to show its magick if it can help it. Whatever we meet in the daytime will more’n likely be humans, either paid or enthralled.”
“Unless they gets desp’rate,” Romulus muttered. “Then you can count on battalions of ogres and goblins.”
“Then let’s not push ‘em that far,” I suggested. “Keep our heads down and not rub their noses in anything.”
Ernie jabbed his tiny spear into the log, almost skewering his foot. “We’ll need a cover story. Something to deflect suspicion away from why a white girl’s travelin’ alone with a colored man in a war zone.”
“I’ll think of somethin’ directly,” I said, already going over possibilities in my mind. Jasper could help me develop them. “Then we’ll all have to learn the details and keep to ‘em.”
Roberta flapped up into the elm tree above us. Squatting on a thick branch, she said, “Daytime it is, shipmates. I’ll stand first watch.”
“We can stay put tonight and head out at dawn,” said Ernie, sharpening his knitting needle on a rock. “Get started after plenty of sleep. Might not get a lot of that the farther south we go.”
Having finished kicking out and burying the fire, Romulus straightened up. “Best refill the canteens. They’s a crick to the west a bit.”
“Why not use the river?” I asked.
“Crick water’s cleaner. And the Merchantry’s still lookin’ for us. Best not to show ourselves that direction. They has less eyes in the Confed’racy than they does in Washington. That’s why we crossed the river. They magick is considerable less across that water.”
I frowned and tagged along with him as he started off with the canteens. “The rules of magick don’t seem sensible to me. The Merchantry magick, the black kind, can’t work on or across flowin’ or deep water, right?”
He nodded. “True, mostly.”
“Then how can they function at all? The world’s full of oceans and lakes and big rivers. And how does our magick work in water? I swam in the Potomac for an hour last night, all shape-shifted. Shouldn’t that’ve been affected?”
“Cain’t say I’s an expert, but the way I understands it, strong life wants to fight black magick. And water is all life, missy. So Merchantry magick hits it like an egg against a wall. Course, not all walls is built sturdy. Sometimes they’s cracks and such that let some bad spells through. Even on the sea a Merchantry ship can sometimes call on harpi
es and change the weather. But they avoids that, ‘cause it’s just as likely to turn against ‘em. So they tends to use normal ways around water…simple boats or bridges to get across, guns instead o’ fire spells, that sort o’ thing.”
An idea came to me. “Then we can use spells around water ‘cause ours is life-magick, not death-magick?”
“Guess so. Our magick gets renewed by water and wind and laughter and such. Theirs is revived by hate and pain and things bleedin’. So we can work with water better than they can. Your spell held last night because it started on land. You prob’ly couldn’t have shifted while you was in the river. Still can backfire, though, so you gots to be careful. Deeper the water, more dangerous to the user. Ocean’s special tough.”
“How does an ostium work, then? Venoma talked like she was on her way to the Sceptr’d Isle.”
“Don’t know. They’s a kind o’ shadow world that the Merchantry knows ‘bout. That’s where Venoma lives. Maybe it bypasses the water somehow.”
“And we can’t use their ostia?”
“Ernie claims he saw a Marshal do it once. He weren’t sure how. Most times the place stays dead if you try. Nothin’ happens.”
“So if we went into the Monument right now…?”
“Just an empty room to us.”
“Then the Merchantry’s people must have a special charm or word or object.”
“Maybe so.”
We arrived at the creek, which turned out to actually be a sweet spring trickling out of a jumble of rocks. As Romulus dipped both canteens into it, making them blurble, I thought about the story we had to concoct to explain our presence in Virginia. The particulars were half-set and I was about to ask Jasper to help me edit them. I concentrated so much on it that I dropped my guard. Romulus couldn’t hear over the noise of the water. That’s how we got surprised.
The hammer of a pistol clicked overhead. A smooth Southern voice drawled, “Afternoon. Name’s Captain Laurence Tyrell, CSA. And who might y’all be?”
Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) Page 13
