by Lionel Fenn
"A few hours, my dear and most beautitious woman, is a lifetime for the butterfly, is it not?"
"I think," Tag said, "he's calling you a name."
"And a few hours ago," Lain continued, "I did not know you were embarked upon a quest of such import that our livelihood may well depend upon its outcome."
Gideon knew he'd hate himself in the morning; "Why's that?"
"If you lose," the man said solemnly, "we shall all surely die most hideously. Wamchu is most assuredly not a man to be trifled with, and worse—he takes you seriously."
"He does? He doesn't even know—" He stopped, remembering the mocking eyes, and the evil that lurked behind them.
Lain nodded knowingly. "And don't forget those he brought with him."
"Others?"
"He led three wives. Out of Choy, as you have no doubt surmised. You may take my word as fact, m'boy, that it wasn't for love."
They fell silent, then, while Boole led the men on a hunt for their supper. When they returned, strands of footh and other hapless creatures over their shoulders, Gideon had decided that, despite Lain's generous offer, he would have to refuse. The man was apparently known in the region, and any chance they had of entering the city without commotion would be ruined by his company. When he broached the subject, however, Ivy thwacked him sharply on the head with her palm and explained to Lain that he had no idea how things worked around here. Gideon admitted it ruefully. Lain then offered to find Gideon a forestry costume if he felt too much out of place. Gideon voiced a liking for his own jeans. Ivy wanted to know if they were going to have a fashion show, out here in the middle of nowhere, for crying out loud. Lain, ignoring her outburst and pouring a dollop of colorless liquid from a canteen hitched to his belt into a cup he pulled from his quiver, asked to see the bat and was astonished when he couldn't lift it. Ivy recommended they all get some sleep. Tag pouted because he couldn't lead a nighttime raid against the hordes of Wamchu who were keeping him from his sister and the duck. Lain passed the cup around, and Gideon took a sip, waited for the burning, and realized it was only water. Ivy lay down and closed her eyes. Lain's men had created their own campfire and were now singing love songs around it. Tag joined them. Lain passed the cup again, and Gideon realized it wasn't water after all.
And it wasn't such a bad night.
The air was pleasantly cool, there were stars whose light was a gentle winking silver, and the songs that sifted toward him from the other fire were tinged with the right sort of melancholy that made women sigh and strong men remember their mothers.
With his hands pillowed under his head, he asked Vorden Lain about the duck.
"It's a duck," Vorden told him.
"So I gathered. But I'm told it's not really a duck—as ducks of my limited acquaintance go, that is."
"Well, that's true enough."
"So what is it?"
Vorden looked to Ivy and Tag. "But you don't mean to say they haven't told you yet?"
"No."
"Then it isn't my place to do it, then, is it."
He may have slept, or he may have merely gone catatonic for ten hours. Whatever the reason, he soon found himself unconscious on the grass, embroiled in a dream that featured no cartoons or trailers—simply a pair of slanted red eyes, mockery in their mien and evil in their cast.
When he awoke, sometime shortly after dawn, he was drenched in perspiration and his skin was taut and cold. Ivy was beside him, awake as well and holding his hand.
"You saw them," she said.
He couldn't speak; he could only nod and look westward toward the city still hidden by the morning mist.
"He knows," he said tightly. "He knows we're coming."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Incredible, Gideon thought, what one can find in one's pantry when one is hunting for one's sister's rotten preserves.
He was standing several yards off the road, at the crest of a low knoll lightly spiked with broad-spreading shade trees. Before him, the plain stretched level and unbroken to the horizon except for a number of farms, clutches of small buildings, and the city of Rayn, which, from here, seemed to be constructed entirely of a yellowish soft stone. It was by no means a metropolis, but certainly large enough for the purpose of drawing to it hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of merchants, traders, and buyers every day. From his angle, he could see a low wall surrounding it and the streets on the other side running in concentric circles; the buildings were flat-roofed, all of a color, and none more than a single story in height save for the three-story square structure in the center. Pennants, flags, banners, and wash were strung between houses and shops in rainbow contrast, smoke curled from a chimney or two, and faint music could be heard on the light breeze that pushed his hair back from his eyes.
"Quite a sight, don't you think?" Vorden said as he came up behind. "Stirring, actually, if you care for such things."
"And you don't?" Gideon asked without looking away.
"For me, my dear friend, the byways of the forest, the vines that swing, the branches that hold, the trails that one must blaze before the sun settles in its nest. I do not hold with such accumulation of bodies as you see there below."
Gideon couldn't help a short laugh and slapped the man's arm as they returned to the others, sitting under a tree and watching the stream of people pass toward the city.
Not an hour after they had started that morning they had come to a crossroads, and their solitary journey was at an end. Suddenly they were engulfed by caravans, pedestrians, men and women on, for want of a better word, horseback, and long trains of carts and wagons drawn by animals that Gideon called oxen only because he dared not ask what their real names were. Chatter rose and fell, faces were turned curiously toward them, and once in a while a man would scowl at Lain's band of green-clad brigands as if warning them off.
Gideon rode the lorra, a decision not his but Ivy's, who declared that a creature like Red seen evidently on its own would be fair prey for thieves and those who would want to shear the animal of its luxurious coat. He didn't argue and rather enjoyed being the object of curiosity that wasn't backed for a change with a desire to slit his throat. He was well aware that before the sun reached its peak he would be facing a danger that increasingly made him wish he could start looking for a handy Bridge; in the meantime, he had no choice but to carry on, buoying himself with the knowledge that whatever it was he was supposed to do would soon be done. Rayn was ahead, and with it Glorian and the white duck.
"...just whistle."
"Huh?" He looked down as Vorden pressed an alabaster penny whistle into his hand. "What?"
"I said, I shall with great regret be leaving you now. There below is no place for me, my oddly bedecked friend. Boole and I will be off, green ghosts in the night, and you shall never know our passing."
"But the sun is out," Tag protested with a puzzled frown.
Gideon ignored him. "Nice of you to come this far, anyway, but why did you bother?"
Vorden smiled broadly. "The lady, m'boy, the lady."
Ivy seemed to blush when the woodsman turned his gaze to her figure, but she scowled at the last and gave him her back. The band hummed five-part harmony to find their pitch, and with a final handshake all around they were off, tramping across the fields in search of a Snow White with a house built for twelve. Gideon watched them for a long while, listened to their songs, and when he turned around he saw half the travelers on the road watching and listening with him.
But as soon as they saw his face they were off again, the silence broken by the creak of wooden wheels, the snap of a whip, the cry of a woman pinched unawares.
A deep breath slowly released, and Gideon nodded toward the slope.
—|—
Almost an hour passed after they had reached level ground again, and he realized that Rayn was larger than he'd thought from his vantage point above, and farther away. The sights, however, kept him from being bored.
Aside from those walking and riding with him,
there were increasing numbers of small wooden huts along the verge, neat and brightly painted and fronted by stalls and stands and tables filled with wares hawked by their makers. There was food, clothing, weapons, toys, utensils, figurines, jewelry, hats, boots, books, glassware, hardware, bats, candies, repairs-while-you-wait, palm reading, hair reading, artifacts...
"Hey!"
Gideon slapped Red to a snorting, annoyed stop, and Tag ran into the lorra's rump. Ivy, who had gone on ahead, turned at the shout and rushed back, her hand cupped around the hilt of her dagger as she scanned the crowds for signs of villains and mashers.
Gideon ignored her questions. He slid to the ground and headed back toward a small red shack, in front of which, on the ground, had been spread a brilliant white hide; and on the hide was displayed a collection of baseball bats whose price tags had been discreetly flipped facedown. The doorway was low, and he crouched in front of it, trying to peer into the darkness.
"What's the matter?" Ivy demanded. "We haven't got time for—oh, my goodness."
Tag stood with his back to the shack, glaring menace at those who might stop to watch, while Red sniffed around the bats, closed one eye, then strolled around the hut to graze for a while.
"Hello?" Gideon called through the doorway.
"Go away," a voice called back.
"I want to buy a bat."
"You can't afford it. Besides, you don't even know what a bat is."
"You didn't either, until I told you."
There was a startled pause, a rustling, and Gideon backed away as Whale popped outside. A moment was wasted in staring for identification before they grinned and shook hands, before Ivy sighed with relief and threw her arms around the former fat man, before Tag looked over his shoulder and gaped.
"Took your time," Whale said, gesturing that they should all sit on the ground. Then he rolled up the hides with the bats inside and tossed the bundle into the shack, scrubbed his mop of brown hair, and plucked at his wattles. "I was hoping you would find your way here much sooner. Time flies, Gideon, you know that, and we don't have that much time remaining before we must fly ourselves, in the manner of things."
"I fell in the ocean," he said.
"Oh my greens and stockings, how wet for you."
Gideon gave him a mock frown. "I suppose I should thank you, though, for getting me down at all."
Whale's long face swiveled questioningly to Ivy, who nodded sheepishly. "Ah, well, it was to be expected, don't you think? A man cannot truly hide his candle under the bushel if the basket is no longer empty, as the saying goes."
Gideon, averting his eyes from a cloud of dust raised by a passing cart, waited for explanations, but Whale only brushed himself off and rocked on his buttocks, smiling at Ivy and Tag and every so often humming a tune that sounded remarkably like one of those Lain's men had sung.
"Whale," he said finally, "Tag thinks we ought to storm the city at nightfall."
The thin man nodded thoughtfully. "They wouldn't be expecting it, I grant you that."
Tag applauded; Gideon silenced him with a look.
"On the other hand, I doubt we will have to resort to such drastic measures. As you can see... ah, but you can't, sitting down here like that, can you?" He laughed, and his cheeks flushed a faint pink. "I forget. You are a stranger. But you will see that one may just walk into Rayn as if one belonged there. As we all do, in one manner or another, so to speak. Getting in is the least of our little problems."
"What's the biggest?"
"Finding that which we seek, I would say."
Gideon mused, pondered, debated, speculated, concluded with an estimation of how long it would take him to climb back up Chey. All of it silently, and all of it in less time than it takes to spell it. "I don't suppose," he said after spitting out another round of dust, "there's something convenient like a palace or a governor's mansion or a tyrant's terrible tower in there. Like that building in the middle that I saw, the tallest one?"
"Could be."
"Sure it is," Ivy said impatiently. "It's where Wamchu puts his ass when he's in town."
Whale coughed with embarrassment at the language, but Gideon only nodded. "So then... what?"
"We overpower the guards," Tag said eagerly, "and—"
"Put a cork on it, huh?" Gideon snapped.
"On the contrary, my dear Gideon," Whale chided gently. "The lad is merely exercising his military and intuitive potential. He sees the difficulties and seeks a solution. As do we all—oh my, yes, we do, make no mistake about it, and I suggest that we take a little time to understand more fully that which we are about before we move on."
So saying, he rose and went inside, stuck his head back out, and beckoned to them. Tag followed immediately. Ivy took the time to straighten her garments as best she could, spending, Gideon thought, an inordinate amount of time in sunlit profile. Then she looked toward Rayn.
"It isn't going to be as easy as Whale thinks," she said.
"I didn't think so."
"Clever," she said, and took his arm, leading him inside to a room too large for the walls he'd noted on the road. But he asked no questions. He only sat in a comfortable albeit sparse reed chair and waited as Whale bustled around a fireplace, stirring a huge cauldron and tasting the contents and smacking his lips. When he was satisfied, he disappeared into a back room, returned with a pile of dishes balanced on his arms, and, with what Gideon decided had to be a third and fourth hand, ladled out the soup.
"Eat," he commanded jovially. "You'll need your strength."
Tag, his expression telling them all he had expected something more than soup, barely ate at all before muttering something about Red and leaving. Gideon motioned Ivy back into her seat when she made to follow, finished his meal, and wasn't surprised when Whale, at Ivy's query, allowed as how the main ingredient was footh.
"You people do eat a lot of footh," Gideon remarked.
"A staple," Ivy told him. "They breed twelve times a year. If we didn't eat them, they'd kill us all."
"Lovely."
"Skinned, maybe."
He set the bowl aside and leaned back, his palms pressed lightly to his cheeks. "Whale, what are we going to do?"
He shouldn't have asked; he knew, somewhere deep in his heart and throughout the now frozen marrow of his brittle bones, that he simply should not have asked and should not even be listening as Whale explained that they must gain entry to the Wamchu Hold, face Lu himself, and attempt to discover through clever means or foul the whereabouts of the duck. When Gideon reminded him that, from all accounts, Wamchu was unsavory as well as unpleasant, Whale chuckled and assured him that all would be well once they were face to face with their adversary.
"You have a plan?"
"You," Whale said, "have the bat."
Gideon blinked. "So?"
"You will dispatch him."
"Lu?"
"You."
"No. I mean, Lu?"
"Of course."
"With the bat?"
"Naturally."
"I don't know."
"Third base," Ivy muttered.
Whale flicked his eyes toward her, retrieved them, and went on to say that their only problem would be the guards. Some of them were bribable, some were corruptible, and some were so loyal they would lay down their very lives for the highest bidder.
"We, however, being without sufficient funds, must resort to other things."
"Like the bat."
"Oh, no. That's for Lu."
"Then how about those little balls?"
"I never go to parties."
He pleaded with Ivy silently, and she reminded the armorer of the bombs he had had Gideon use against the Pholler. Whale closed his eyes to think before finally shaking his head. And again, until he rose, clasped his hands behind him, and strode into the back room.
"Another concoction?" Gideon asked softly.
"Sometimes," she said. "Other times he just falls asleep."
"Wonderful."
&nbs
p; She gave him a rueful smile, then slipped off her chair and sat on the hearth. He followed a few minutes later, placing his hand beside hers, pretending to stretch a kink out of his fingers so that they brushed over hers. She sighed, apparently needing a lungful of air to clear her head of the unexpectedly heavy soup and the warm, comfortable glow from the dancing blue flames. He cleared his throat and raised his arms over his head, rolling his head about his neck, rolling his shoulders, arching his spine, lowering his arms again to sweep briefly over her shoulders. She took another deep breath and popped two of her buttons. He scrambled for them before they rolled into the embers. She scrambled after them, and they froze.
Their hands met.
Their gazes locked.
Their tongues flicked briefly over their respective lips.
"Gideon..." Her voice was hoarse.
"Ivy..." His voice was choked.
"My sleeve is on fire."
"Hey in there!" a voice shouted from the doorway as they leapt to their feet and proceeded to pound at her arm and the fire on her wrist.
Gideon whirled just as a scruffy little man with one eye patched darted in, stared, and finally blurted, "You the people with the kid and the big thing with all the hair?"
"The lorra?" Gideon asked.
"Yeah, that's the one."
"What about them?"
The one-eyed man pointed into the night. "They're gone."
"What?"
Ivy ripped off her blouse, dropped it on the floor, and began to stamp on it; the fire had moved to the bodice.
"I just saw them. The kid. The big thing."
"Where?"
"Out back there. The kid was on the lorra's back."
"So?"
Ivy cursed the blouse, the fire, and the fact that her bouncing braid was raising welts on her breasts.
"So these guys came up and took them."
Gideon took a single step across the room, grabbed the little man by his scruffy little jacket, and lifted him up to eye level. "What guys?" he snarled.
"Wamchu's guys. You know Wamchu?"
Gideon nodded.
"Bopped the big thing on the head, bopped the kid, and carried them off."
