Jack entered from a side corridor, not the one leading to the great hall or the wing in which their party had been quartered. He looked disconsolate and somewhat unfinished, as if he needed someone tall looming over him to complete his appearance. He carried Bronwyn’s shield hooked over his left wrist, and held it on his lap as he sat down beside Carole.
She patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “Rotten trick, wasn’t it?” she asked in a comradely fashion, then added reasonably, as much to herself as to him, “Of course, I’m sure Rusty wouldn’t have sent her off if it wasn’t fairly safe, and one could hardly expect even Bronwyn to walk to that Miragenia place in seven-league boots while carrying us piggyback. It just seems pretty poor that she didn’t bother to say goodbye.”
Jack asked irritably, “Why do you dwell on these matters when I know as much of them as you do? You insult me. Bronwyn’s absence troubles me not in the least. Do you think I suffer from the want of one woman, however glorious?” He made a derisive noise to show that he did not, then let his shoulders sink and nodded slightly, “But it is true that I am worried.”
Anastasia stopped circling to glare at him, hissing, “Since you have just made it abundantly clear that your concern is not centered on Bronwyn, are you going to inform us of its topic or is it time for riddles?”
“I will tell you,” Jack said with dignity. “For unless I am wrong about my suspicions, I am right.”
“That makes sense,” Carole said.
“I mean to say, if there is one thing a gypsy knows about, it is deception and alas, this time it is I, the gypsy, who have been deceived.”
“You? No!” Carole said encouragingly.
“Me, yes,” he acknowledged soberly. “The Duke of Droughtsea said to me last evening before dinner when I was making a little tour of the castle (strictly to acquaint myself with its structure, you understand, in order that I would not become lost) that I must leave a certain tower room at once, because it was the treasure room and I, a stranger, was not allowed so close. So naturally today I went back to the same room when I was sure he was occupied with Rusty’s ugly mama. It is nothing but a bathing chamber! A servant was cleaning it and left the door open. I could see inside most clearly. No jewels, no monies, no valuables of any sort. Very disappointing. Not only, you understand, because there was no treasure after all but also because,” he looked very offended at this point, “a nobleman thought he could get away with telling an untruth to a gypsy.”
“Well, I could have told you he isn’t a very trustworthy person,” Carole said. “He looks mean. I’ve thought so all along. And Rusty told me after lunch today that she thinks he tried to kill Bronwyn. That was one reason Rusty made her mother help Bronwyn leave for that magic country so quickly.”
“Yes, but killing is one thing. Lying about a bathing chamber is something different. He can have no reason to lie about such a thing.”
“I don’t think old Docho needs a reason to be sneaky and rotten,” Carole said, tossing the top of a decapitated flower into the pool. The flowers weren’t even real. They were made of some kind of cloth.
Anastasia craned her neck over the edge of the fountain and asked, hissing as viciously as Carole had ever heard her hiss, “Docho? Is this Docho a Bintnarangian mercenary?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Carole said. “He’s a Duke. The Duke of Droughtsea, I believe. But as we’ve been saying, he is not a very savory type.”
“Ah, if only I could have been spared this! It can be no other, and if he is here, all is lost. Oh, Carole, Carole, why did you not tell me of this sooner?”
“Sorry. If I’d known you wanted a guest list, I suppose I could have asked Daisy.”
“You never tell me anything! It is because I am a swan, is it not? The unenchanted are always so inconsiderate! So unkind! Whenever you have another of your own sort with whom to consult, you neglect entirely to keep me informed.”
“You’re getting sidetracked—and loud,” Carole warned her in a low voice.
Jack didn’t help. “It is hard to remember you are more than a mere animal,” he admitted.
“Docho the mercenary is part of the reason I am an animal,” she said with tragic dignity. She stroked a couple of feathers on her back, as if considering whether to tell them more, and then added, “He is also the one who sold my sisters and me into captivity.”
* * *
Bronwyn had heard of shifting sands, but this was ridiculous. The vast white-crowned mountains ahead of her were not made from sand, nor was the brilliant city with its ornate arches and spires and multi-colored onion-shaped domes a sand castle. Even more to the point, the broad gleaming band reflecting the city in its green depths was certainly water. If it wasn’t, she’d drink it anyway.
She didn’t don the boots again, for the city was much closer than seven leagues, she was sure, so she scrunched her toes up and crabbed painfully across the hot sand for some distance. The morning sun reached the middle of the sky and dipped down again to torment her eyes, so that she sometimes couldn’t look at the city or the water for the blast of brightness surrounding them. Surely her eyes were being scorched out of her head. To prevent that, she looked down at the sand instead of ahead, which was a good thing. Had she put her bare foot down in the spot for which it was headed she would have stepped on the snake.
The snake didn’t seem worried about it. It didn’t coil or hiss or rattle or anything like that. It raised its bright green head and flicked its forked tongue a couple of times and said in good Argonian, “Bless me, if it isn’t a little girl giant! On your way to the city, are you?”
Talking swans were one thing, and she almost understood about the moat monster, now that it had been explained to her by Carole, Mistress Raspberry, Jack and Daisy-Esmeralda. But this talking snake was not possible. Actually, she wasn’t sure any snake was possible. She’d seen Ollie, of course, and the Tape, and the dragons, who were supposed to be related and also the snow under which the ice worm was supposed to sleep. But a little green snake, this size? What was it, a monster’s version of a Little Person?
Whatever it was, it seemed to be expecting her to answer, so she said, “No, I’m just out for a stroll, taking in the desert air so to speak. Brisk today, isn’t it?” She congratulated herself on the cordiality of her reply. Before her recent experiences, she probably would have told the snake she’d come to conquer the place single-handed and the snake would have bitten her and that would have been that.
The snake seemed to appreciate her attitude. “Sorry if I seem curious,” it said. “But we don’t get too many visitors out here.”
“Are you from there?” She pointed to the city.
“Oh, yes. I was sunning on the wall and saw you coming and thought I’d just come out for a slither and see what you wanted. What was it again?” the serpent asked slyly.
“Oh, nothing,” Bronwyn said, digging a little hole in the sand with her toe.
“Well, maybe so, but people seldom come out all this way just because they’re in the neighborhood. In fact, not everyone sees the city. A person has to have legitimate business here or they never find it.”
“Is that so?” Bronwyn asked, thinking that for a snake, this creature knew a great deal.
“It is. Why don’t you wear your boots?”
“One never knows when one might want to go wading,” she said, “so I thought I’d be prepared.” It was a lie, but not a bad one, she decided. Sometimes her curse accidentally made good suggestions. The snake had evidently decided to take its slither beside her, probably to keep her under surveillance. When she finally stepped into the wide river, feeling the pleasant coolness slide like silk over her burning feet, the snake laced its way into the water ahead of her, keeping just in front of her shins.
“You’re not poisonous or anything, are you?” she asked it, still worried that it might just be looking for the right moment, from its point of view, to bite her.
“Seldom,” it replied, “And I assure you my i
ntentions are honorable. I thought you might like a guide to show you through the city—to take you wherever your business must be conducted. Miragenia is an unusual place and you might easily stray.”
“How can I stray when I don’t want to go to any special place?” she asked. The snake didn’t dignify that lie with a reply, which might have meant it was catching on to her curse. She couldn’t be sure. So she asked, “Do all the animals here talk?”
“Certainly. Except a few of the very stupid ones, mostly imports from elsewhere. I was remarking to Mizmir just the other day—”
“Mizmir?”
“A dromedary of my acquaintance. This water does feel nice, doesn’t it? Though not as lovely as your average sunny wall—”
“Naturally not,” Bronwyn agreed. By now her entire body was absolutely awash with pleasure and she managed to stoop down a little and make the water come to her waist. Even getting her curse removed seemed poor enticement to leave the sweet wet river for the elaborate but stifling confinement of the city.
“So congenial to meet a person with the discernment to share my views on the subject,” the snake said. “But I don’t know if the wall is wide enough for you to have a nice stretch. The dust in the streets is lovely too, though. Follow me.” It writhed ashore. Its conviction that its services as a guide were indispensable seemed to be catching, for Bronwyn found herself following it, telling herself regretfully she could come back and wade when she wasn’t a liar anymore. A ruler had to expect to make some sacrifices.
But her skin burned and what had been wet dried instantly as she followed the snake to the gate.
“Since you had nothing particular in mind,” the serpent offered, “Perhaps you’d care to see the marketplace.”
“Perhaps,” Bronwyn said eagerly. Maybe the snake had second sight. She cursed her curse for not allowing her to tell the helpful creature exactly where she wanted to go, but it seemed to be taking her in the right direction. Belburga had said a firm was responsible for the curse. A marketplace should be an excellent place to find a firm.
The snake ss’d itself importantly ahead of her for one or two paces, then said, “If I continue to slither in the marketplace, I shall no doubt be trodden upon and damaged. Have you a pocket in your gown?”
Carry a snake in her pocket? What a revolting idea! But it had been a nice enough creature so far, much nicer than some of the people she had just left, and if it had wanted to bite her, it had had plenty of opportunity before now. Truly, it would be most ungrateful to offend the little thing, so with goose pimples and ripples of low-grade horror along her spine, she let it slide up her arm and into her breast pocket, near her heart. If it hit her there, at least she’d die quickly.
The snake sensed her discomfort under such intimate circumstances as it had not been able to earlier, and quickly reassured her. “I was only being cautious before. I’m not in the least poisonous. As it may have occurred to you, now that you know me better, I am a magic snake. I don’t say that to impress you. Everything in Miragenia is magic. And everybody.”
“Everybody?” She found that curious. In Argonia there were some magic things and some people who could practice magic, like Carole and Aunt Maggie. But by and large, everyone was fairly ordinary, though not so ordinary as in Frostingdung, where everything was ploddingly, unattractively ordinary—except the monsters, of course. Miragenia promised an interesting change.
The promise was more than fulfilled. The marketplace was unlike anything she’d ever seen in her life. In Argonia, everyone appeared to be normal enough, though there were hints of the dwarfish, elvish, giantish or whatever about many of the folk and they often dressed in odd and elaborate costumes and talked strangely—though not, now that she came to think about it, more strangely than she did. Rarely would she see someone obviously magic—a tiny Little Person, a mer or a dragon. Most of those sorts of magical people and beasts required a special environment or were for other reasons unsuitable to appear in court.
But here nothing looked even remotely ordinary. For one thing, the people who looked like regular people had the irregular habit of floating about on various colored mists which covered them from the hems of the outrageous looking robes they wore on down, giving them the appearance of being footless. Also, animals walked on hind legs and people on all fours and some horses wore the heads of people and some people wore the heads of animals. Many of these beasts and people and combinations of the two (or more) also seemed either less opaque or more sparkly than was common anywhere Bronwyn had ever visited.
Not only that but a great many animals she had never previously encountered roamed the streets. One small hairy one which was vaguely man-shaped with a pushed-in, ugly-endearing face wrapped from forehead to crown with an orange bandage walked by on its hands while juggling orange fruit with its feet and waving a banner with its tail.
“What’s that?” Bronwyn asked.
“Just the usual juggling monkey,” the snake replied. “And not a very good one at that. He dropped an orange during the last full moon and his agents have not profited by him since.”
“That is a shame,” Bronwyn said, having no idea why such an animal would need an agent or how the agent would profit by him.
Other animals even stranger than the monkey passed them on the narrow, crowded streets of the market, which fairly exploded with noise and colorful cloths and pots and strings of things hanging and strong musky and flowery scents that made Bronwyn feel a little faint, in combination with the heat and the dust and the general unfamiliarity of everything. The snake pointed out several dromedaries, which were uglier than a Frostingdungian on a bad day. The beasts were very tall, with long faces more like that of a moose than a horse, had dun-colored coats and were cursed with pathetically humped backs. Their agents, if that’s who the people fussing with them were, tried to disguise this with fancy blankets woven in gaudy geometric patterns and hung with bells and tassels everywhere a bell or a tassel could possibly be hung. One of the dromedaries carried a small pavilion on its back, and before the snake could warn her, Bronwyn, curious, pulled aside the curtain hanging from the structure’s pointed roof, which was just about eye level for someone of her height. A pair of angry black eyes flashed out at her from amid billows of pleated gauze.
“You mustn’t do things like that,” the snake hissed from her pocket. “Come, let’s go to the main market.”
“In my country, snakes like you are executed for nagging princesses of the royal line,” Bronwyn said.
But no matter how many stalls and tiny shops they passed, the snake wouldn’t let Bronwyn watch the men lying on spikes or climbing ropes into thin air or have any other fun. It kept urging her forward to the marketplace, though she could have sworn half a barefooted league before he allowed her to halt that they had been in the marketplace all along.
Finally, when they stood before a shop three stalls wide and jammed with carpets, baskets, bottles and lamps of all descriptions, the snake suggested they stop, which she was glad to do. Spicy cooking smells wafted from doorways all around and it was all Bronwyn could do to keep from drooling all over the snake’s head. Some of the smells were coming from the shop in front of them, and Bronwyn hoped the man who sat weaving in the doorway would think about knocking off work pretty soon and offer them something.
He seemed completely absorbed in his work, though, shifting back and forth to balance the pattern of carefully tied knots in carmine, azure and gold teardrop shapes. He had the rug about half woven, and since he was weaving on a large frame instead of the horizontal loom the weavers at Queenston usually used, his work was by now above his head, so that to reach the next row he would need to stretch a little higher. But as he reached, the rug upon which he was sitting obligingly lifted from the ground and floated a thumb’s length or so above it so the man didn’t have to exert himself quite so much.
Bronwyn clapped her hands, delighted. “Oh, that’s just what I need! I can never reach anything.”
&nb
sp; The man, who had a white beard and wore a blue bandage on his head with a blue jewel where it wrapped in front, turned to them. “May the Profit increase,” he said politely, and waited for her to speak. Before she could, the snake crawled out of her pocket, down her arm and plopped onto the ground beside the man, who said, “Ah, Mirza, you return. Then this must be she.”
“She is. But first, by the Profit, would you be so kind as to bring your unworthy servant his basket.”
The old man bowed. “Hearing and obeying,” he said, and turned away completely from his weaving, whereupon the rug on which he sat dumped him unceremoniously on the ground.
He picked himself up and ducked into the shop.
“That rug is fit only for weaving,” the snake told her. “As soon as he tries to do anything else on it, it dumps him. Rebellious, unprofitable item.”
The old man reappeared carrying a narrow-mouthed, bowl-shaped basket. He lay the basket on its side on the ground and the snake crawled inside, whereupon the old man set the basket upright, produced a flute from his robes and began tootling a weird tune that Bronwyn was sure would have made Carole very happy.
As the old man played, the snake undulated upright out of the basket, stretching up and up to three times its original length. While stretching, it broadened, broader in some areas then in others until at last it was as large as the old man. Then it misted all over, and when the mist solidified, Bronwyn saw that the snake was a tall bearded man and the mist was his robe. He stepped out of the basket, tripping slightly as his right foot finished forming before he quite had it free. “Blast!” he said. “Really, Uncle, we must get a larger magic basket for this trick.”
“We will,” the old man promised. “But you know how the overhead eats me alive. And magic baskets have gone up fantastically since the drought took the best reeds—”
“I know, I know,” the nephew-snake, Mirza, replied, then bowed low to Bronwyn, making a wrist-twisting, finger-waving motion with his right hand from forehead to chest to waist as he bowed. “Great Lady, the firm of Mukbar, Mashkent, and Mirza Magicks greets you in the name of the Profit and with great enthusiasm. We have long awaited your coming.”
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