Mearsies Heili Bounces Back

by Sherwood Smith

  ELEVEN

  Operation Rescue was about to begin.

  “Here’s my idea,” Puddlenose said. “We take three or four of the bigger sailors, capture Fudalklaeb, and force Kwenz to give up Clair in trade.”

  “Sounds good,” Captain Heraford said. “And I know at least half my crew would volunteer for some king-napping. But would Kwenz really do that?”

  Puddlenose grimaced.

  “We’d have their entire army after us,” I said. “Let me go in. Like we used to, when we had to sneak into the Squashed Wedding Cake.”

  “I’ll go with her,” Robin said.

  “Me too,” Puddlenose said.

  “I don’t feel right, yet,” Lina admitted. “And even if I did go, my white hair tends to draw attention.”

  Captain Heraford turned to me. “While you run your rescue, Cherene, I think I’m going to spy around the islands. Maybe there’s a patrol out there somewhere.”

  Fradrici said, “Bet you they’re spread too thin.”

  The captain agreed, looking out over the water at the coast of Elchnudaeb. “Those transports we slowed up, those must be the occupation forces. Well, I hope our allies kept slowing them up.”

  So the captain sent us ashore with one of the small single-sailed boats. We blended into the boat traffic in their main harbor, which looked pretty much like harbors anywhere. Including the Torns.

  The sailor the captain had sent stayed with the boat, and the three of us kids set out to explore. The sailor would keep in contact with the captain, while we did our job.

  Robin was around thirteen, a plain girl once from Earth, like me. Her last name was Hood, so she’d been given a joke name. Her sister’s name was Briar. The girls’ parents had had a million marriages and divorces and the girls were bounced around because nobody wanted them. Clair found them on one of her wanders, but Robin settled with Lina because she loved being by the sea.

  Robin was sober, kind, loved helping the kids who came through the Torns. She loved learning languages from them.

  They spoke a kind of Mearsiean in Elchnudaeb. They called it something else, and some of it sounded a bit different, but we could understand it, as we walked up past all the warehouses and trade buildings to the proper part of town.

  “Where should we get disguises?” Robin asked me, after looking around like there were spies behind every brick wall.

  I didn’t want to say Don’t do that! I didn’t know Robin all that well. I thought, If I act cheerful, she’ll stop acting like a spy on a life-and-death mission.

  “Oh, we’ll find ’em. Remember, we’ve crunched the Auknuges before.”

  “Crunched?”

  Now we’d reached a main street. It seemed to be built kind of like a chain—that is, it connected a bunch of broad squares, with buildings (mostly shops) on all sides, and fountains in the middle. There was a lot of traffic. I noticed that fancily dressed people occasionally appeared, most from a certain direction.

  As I headed us that way (Robin walking with her head down, so her short hair mostly hid her face) I said, “Crunched means splatted ... floobed ... had a run-in with, and we mostly won.”

  Robin laughed a little, then bent forward again. “Crunched! I met a cook’s apprentice off a trader once who said ‘crunched’ to mean really good food. She was from the very east end of the whole big continent. She said their food is mostly crunchy, so if something has a snap to it, they say crunchy for good.”

  “Hey, I’ve heard that!” Puddlenose said.

  I was only half-listening. Was that a spire ahead?

  Robin forgot to watch her toes. “But I found out in Colend they never ever eat crunchy foods, except in private. Isn’t that a funny thing? You can only make noise when you eat with your family, or your friends. Then somebody said that ‘crunch’ to the Chwahir means being stoned to death. Isn’t that awful?”

  “It’s true,” Puddlenose said.

  “Everything I’ve ever heard about the Chwahir is awful,” I said, as we rounded the corner of a big building and yes, there were spires ahead.

  Robin chattered about slang in different languages, and how much you can learn about people just by knowing what their words mean. I listened with half of my attention. I wasn’t bored—but I kept thinking, Let me find that out myself. I knew it wasn’t fair. But I felt a little like I was in school, while we were supposed to be looking for a way to rescue the missing girls.

  Puddlenose started in with stories from his travels, and how he’d managed to get himself into trouble by thinking something meant one thing but it really meant something else.

  Robin laughed a couple times, a nervous sort of giggle, and I finally thought, CJ, you squidbrain, she’s scared!

  Well, so was I—though not as much as I had been—but we sure behaved differently when scared.

  Anyway, the city was mostly brick, with pale slate also used. It was a cheerful looking city, busy, and the palace actually wasn’t as full of weird decorations as the Squashed Wedding Cake had been. The spires had a lot of fancy, curlicue ironwork around each, but no festoons, and no statues of Fobo and PJ. The palace was plastered a cream color, and the shutters to the millions of windows were painted a kind of gold, so the effect was, well, I hate to say it, but it was pretty.

  Robin suddenly stopped short. “We can’t go in there.”

  We’d stopped at the edge of an enormous square. It was crossed mostly by open carriages with fancy-dressed people in them. A few walked, or rather strolled, in the garden between the square and the palace.

  It was the kind of garden I really hate—all flat, geometric, the bushes clipped into shapes, the plants so pruned and clipped they looked like plastic. The few shade trees were all lollipop shapes, and I’ll bet a squad of gardeners race out any time a leaf dares to drop.

  But we could see. I didn’t spot any kids—and wasn’t sure I’d use a kids’ entrance, if they had such a thing, because it would probably mean PJ was around. I didn’t want him seeing us before we saw him.

  At the entrances (there were three, with balconies and French doors above, leading into what had to be ballrooms and the like) guards in powder blue and white stood to attention, with halberds.

  “Nope.” I started thinking of ropes—disguises—

  “Around back, where the servants go,” Puddlenose said.

  Robin’s brows went up. “Oh, good idea!”

  “Duh.” I smacked my forehead.

  So that’s what we did.

  No guards in back, and lots of trade carts and so forth going in and out. There were plenty of shade trees, and nothing carefully pruned. I guessed it was to hide the sight of servants and delivery people—plus, the gardeners weren’t going to waste time on those plants—but I thought the back side ten times prettier than the front. Including the fallen leaves.

  We got in without any problems. We just followed a bunch of prentice-aged kids returning from lunch, or chores, or something, and no one paid us the least heed.

  The Auknuges love to have servants in uniforms. All kinds of uniforms, the important thing being, the army of servants knows its humble place. We followed a bunch of people to a huge storage area, where grayish blue outfits were neatly stored, with aprons. Robin looked around with faint worry, but mostly excitement, as I led the way. My heart was pounding, but I kept thinking, it’s just Fobo and PJ, not the Chwahir. I can handle these clods, even without magic.

  “Now we get something to carry, and explore,” I said.

  So we each picked up a small stack of freshly ironed table cloths, and out we went. Puddlenose started off in one direction, but Robin stayed with me.

  The bottom floor was just about all for servants, and for the public who came to talk to the king, or to his officials. We searched everywhere—starting with the kitchens and the enormous laundry area. There’s magic for cleaning, but things had to dry and be ironed. I’d thought for sure Irene would be stuck doing hard work, but I didn’t find her scrubbing, sweeping, chopping,
or mixing.

  Up one floor began all the entertainment rooms. Ballrooms, of course. There was even a library, antechambers of all kinds, full of paintings and pictures and statuary. I looked carefully at the statues to make sure none were people.

  Biggest was the grand ballroom behind the throne room. Or, one of the throne rooms, we discovered after trekking a mile or two past grand paintings fifty feet high, and columns, and vaultings. Fudalklaeb had two throne rooms, the bigger one mostly shades of blue and gray and white stone, with golden fixtures up high where sticky fingers couldn’t make a grab. That one seemed to be for the lower classes. Then he had a smaller but fancier one for the aristos, made out of rose marble, and different shades of stone that fit around that.

  Once we got beckoned into a dining room, where a woman in a long blue-gray dress impatiently waved at us to set our table cloths aside. “The wrong ones—doesn’t anyone listen?” We had to set out some peach colored ones, making sure they hung exactly, and when more servants came in with silverware and dishes, we made good our escape.

  Meantime, Robin was listening to the blabbing around us. “Is PJ the Young Highness?” she whispered.

  “Has to be,” I whispered back.

  And not ten seconds after, some busybody in a long blue robe and a weird hat said, “You two linen girls? What are you doing up here?”

  “We were ordered to take these to the Young Highness,” I twittered, when Robin totally froze up.

  “Your steward should have sent me word,” the man said, looking so affronted his double chin pressed into three chins.

  “Oooh,” I said, like I was scared.

  Robin looked scared.

  “Run along. Make your delivery. I will have a word with Steward Kalb. We must have decorum, and you are not to be taking short cuts through the formal chambers reserved for the Quality! Get back to the servants’ hall at once!” He pointed toward an unobtrusive door behind an enormous marble table, so off we went.

  “We gotta hurry now,” I said as soon as we’d gotten inside the servants’ door, which opened into a narrow, absolutely plain, unplastered hall.

  “Why? He’s gone.”

  “Because he’ll yell at whoever Steward Kalb is, and Steward Kalb will yell back that he or she didn’t give any such order, and they’ll be looking for us. Fobo’s servants were all lazy and stealing from her, and they never paid any attention to us. I didn’t know about all these rules.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Divide up and go on the attack. You handle PJ. We’ll find him first. Ask him which of his billion crowns has Faline, then get her.”

  “How do I get him to talk to me?”

  “If he doesn’t just tell you because he has to gloat, then pull a tackle and tickle! He’s horribly ticklish.”

  Robin looked scared again, so I said, “I’ll show you.”

  We then discovered that PJ and Fobo had their own throne rooms! Who did they rule? I dunno, but each had a big room with a raised chair with a crown over it, though Fobo’s wasn’t 200 feet high like at the Squashed Wedding Cake.

  The throne rooms were side by side—and off one way led to PJ’s area of the castle. This area had younger people in it. They were mostly busy in the rooms where there were billiards tables, different gambling games, and so forth. There was even a long room for fencing practice, but PJ wasn’t in there.

  Then I heard his voice, whining and nagging. “Then you have to come into the throne room. I’ll dethide there. You know the ruleth. That’th where I alwayth make the dethithionth.”

  “Your highness, with respect, there’s nowhere to sit.”

  “Becauthe you’re thuppothed to thtand! My royal mother thayth it showth proper rethpect.”

  No ‘Mumthie’? Wow!

  I got an idea. Ran ahead down the servant’s hall to PJ’s throne room, Robin hard on my heels. I stashed the table cloths on a bureau as I whizzed past, zapped through the door, ran to the aristocratic door, and when PJ entered, I slammed the door behind him.

  “Keep it shut,” I said to Robin, who leaned against it.

  “What do you—how dare you—it’s you!” PJ started nastily and ended up wailing.

  I tripped him. It was easy because he always wore so much lace and gold braid and so forth, he could hardly move. There was a very scrawny kid inside all that brocade. Once I reached his ribs, I tickled away. He writhed so hard his enormous crown came loose from his head, and rolled around in a circle, clinking faintly on the marble.

  “Where are my friends?” I asked, lifting my fingers once.

  “GUA—”

  Back to tickling.

  The door rattled once, twice. Robin looked scared, but stuck to her post. As PJ writhed, trying to get away, I said, “I’ll stop as soon as you tell me.”

  The rattling stopped—his friends obviously weren’t all that thrilled about standing around in PJ’s throne room, watching him practice being the big cheese, because they only gave the door a couple half-hearted tries, and went away.

  “I’ll sit here all day if I have to,” I said. “Start by telling me which crown has Faline in it?”

  “Crah,” PJ gasped. “Crah.”

  I lifted my fingers. “Thith crown!” PJ gasped.

  “Keep talking.”

  He did—with the usual lisp, but I’m not going to write it. “My mother got the other. Personal maid. Gets beaten when she’s not obedient, ha ha, GUARDS!”

  Back to tickling.

  “Robin, take over,” I said.

  Robin may have been shy but she knew kids. She knelt on the other side of PJ and tickled away as he whooped and gasped and wheezed and writhed.

  I picked up the crown. It was enormous—the sort you’d expect to see on the noggin of the emperor of fifty universes. It had tiers of worked gold, with gems and jewels. There was a kind of archway loopy thing at the top, with a gigantic blue gem in it, and as soon as my fingers touched it, they tingled with magic.

  I looked down at PJ’s sweaty, gasping face. “Wow, that’s mean,” I said. And I wondered who thought of it, Jilo or PJ. Whichever one showed an actual imagination, if a nasty one.

  Ugh! I was mad. Mostly because it was so mean, but also because I kind of felt like imagination belonged to us. Villains shouldn’t have imagination. Especially when they used it against us.

  Anyway, I pried the blue stone out, then I marched to the nearest window, and heaved the stupid crown out. When it splashed below, I grinned.

  “Give me about five minutes,” I said, knowing Robin’d understand ‘minutes.’ Wishing I had a handy sailor to konk out PJ, I added, “If Puddlenose shows up, he can maybe tie him up or something, long enough to get you guys away.” I scrambled up and ran.

  Well, I figured Fobo’s own rooms had to be near her throne room, if PJ’s was near his. Sure enough, after racing around I found them—and then was guided by her shrieking orders.

  Since I was in a maid’s costume, nobody paid me any attention. Through a zillion chambers and there was Irene, her eyes puffy, moving painfully as she made an enormous bed all by herself. Standing nearby was a servant with a mean face, and a stick.

  “There you are, worthless slug,” Fobo said from the doorway—and didn’t recognize me. She didn’t even look at me. “Attend to that wig!”

  I walked past Irene, who glanced up, gasped, and then took hold of the sheet more meaningfully.

  I followed Fobo into the next room, which had mirrors everywhere, and an enormous makeup table that looked like it was for an entire stage of actors. As Fobo sat down, pointing to a wig lying on the floor like some kind of sleeping animal, I grabbed up a crystal holder full of powder and flung it in Fobo’s face.

  At the same moment, Irene threw the sheet over the head of her guard. I zoomed back in and tackled the clod at the knees as she shoved with all her might. The guard fell hard, fought the sheet, then froze when Irene stuck the stick next to his head. “Here’s a knife,” she said breathlessly. “Move, and you d
ie.”

  The guard stopped. I silently picked up a chair and quietly placed it next to her. She rested the stick on it, so it still poked the servant. We backed away, and I looked at all the millions of doors. Irene pointed to the right one, and we took off.

  We met Robin in the hallway. Her worried face smoothed as soon as she saw us. With her was Puddlenose—with PJ hanging over his shoulder.

  “I want to try my hostage plan,” he said.

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “I think he fainted.”

  “Hostage? Who’d want him?” Irene commented.

  We slid down the marble banisters to the floor below as yelling and shouting started in the floor above. Irene had a good idea—she flung her apron over PJ. We girls added ours, so he ended up looking like a swathed rug or something.

  We got out the back, when PJ started stirring.

  Puddlenose staggered, then looked about. We were passing the dairy yard. There were wagons; we ignored those, as none were hitched up. But there was a wheelbarrow. With a grunt, Puddlenose dumped PJ into it, then tucked the aprons around him.

  I watched, really uneasy. I hated this plan. But this was Clair’s cousin, who was older. “Sure you want to do this?” I asked.

  Puddlenose gave me a cheerful grin, but somehow there was something in his attitude, oh, like one of the girls when they were sure about something. If you try to talk them out of it, you find yourself in an argument.

  “Yep,” Puddlenose said, picking up the wheelbarrow’s handles. “See how they like it.”

  Well, that was that.

  The rest of the journey was uneventful, but full of way more trouble than it would have been with just us. We had to pause behind a shrub while Puddlenose tied up PJ, gagged him with his own silken sash, then restuffed the aprons around him. But we made it back to the shore, where there were fewer people.

  The sailor met us as the evening tide came in. I’d kind of hoped he’d refuse to take PJ aboard, but he just laughed when Puddlenose told him who the bundle was, and what he intended to do. So out we sailed to meet the Tzasilia, which had spent the day circling the islands.