Heir Apparent

by Vivian Vande Velde

  I wondered if that was just coincidence, or if somehow the people at Rasmussem knew that I hate mint. But I thanked her, even so.

  "One hour," she reminded me.

  Uldemar woke up then and asked, "Have you thought of any way I can help you?"

  "You've been a help already," I said, "contacting everyone for me, and finding the dragon."

  "Still..." he said.

  "And Xenos has me going to his father to pick up a magical hat that will help me."

  "Well, then, let me bring you to his father."

  "I have the seven-league boots," I reminded him.

  "But what if his father doesn't live seven leagues away?"

  "Excuse me?"

  Uldemar explained, 'The boots take seven-league steps. No more, no less."

  Seven leagues, I calculated—no doubt helped by Rasmussem's subliminals—was about twenty-five miles. "You mean I can't take, like, a half step? Maybe if I only wore one boot?"

  "I'm afraid not," Uldemar said. He had taken out his scrying glass, and he set it on the table. He cast his magic spell and said, "I see he lives beyond Fairfield. I could take you there; then once you have what you need, I can calculate exactly how to get you to Old Hag Mountain in seven-league increments."

  "All right," I said. "Thank you. How can you get me to Xenos's father's place?"

  "I can turn into a horse and carry you."

  "That would be wonderful." I thought about it for a moment. "Ahm, I hate to be rude or anything ... but when you transform into an animal ... ahm, does that mean you can ... ahm..."

  "I'll still be blind," he said. "You'll have to guide me."

  Well, maybe wonderful had been a slight overstatement. Maybe this would be... OK, I hoped. "And what payment do you want?"

  "Well, I certainly don't want to eat centipedes or to wed any of the queen's remaining sons. How about twenty-five gold pieces?"

  It was expensive, but I said, "Yes."

  We packed some food, since I'd seen that these things always took longer than I guessed.

  "Good-bye," Kenric told me. "Good luck."

  "Keep everybody out of trouble while I'm away," I said to him.

  Uldemar turned into a handsome bay horse, already saddled. His eyes were still disconcertingly blank.

  I climbed on and blew kisses to those who came to see me off, which was Kenric, Orielle and Wulfgar, King Grimbold, and Captain Penrod.

  We rode over the drawbridge, and—after we'd passed—I heard the guard order the bridge to be taken up.

  Nothing.

  Oh boy. The ghosts were coming with us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Xenos's Dad

  Actually, Uldemar was very surefooted; and if we didn't make as good time as I had with the horse I'd ridden last night, we made better time than I would have walking.

  "Let me know when you get tired," I told him.

  He threw his head and whinnied.

  We rode through Fairfield at a time my subconscious insisted was between midafternoon and vespers, though I would have called it somewhere around five-thirty of a summer afternoon.

  For a blind guy, Uldemar was certainly good about landmarks. Periodically he would return to his own shape to say something like, "We should be coming upon a pond ahead and to our right." And, "We'll be going through some scraggly trees, but there's a meadow beyond." And, "As soon as we reach the stream, we'll turn to travel into the sun."

  "Have you been here before?" I asked.

  "No," he answered. "I saw it all in my scrying glass."

  It took about an hour beyond Fairfield before Uldemar said, "The house is on a hill after the lightning-struck elm. It isn't," he added, "much of a hill."

  And there it finally was, a neat little house with a little garden around it, all on top of a grass-covered hill.

  Reverting to human shape, Uldemar put his hands to the small of his back and stretched. "Does it look promising?" he asked.

  "Hard to say." I turned him so he was feeing in the right direction.

  The hill was about fifteen or twenty feet tall, steeply inclined except in front of the house, where it sloped more gently and there was a flagstone walk.

  "There's a path," I told Uldemar.

  "Lead on."

  I took one step onto the walk.

  And couldn't take a second.

  I could lift my foot up, but I couldn't put it down. I felt like a mime walking into a giant wind. Something I couldn't see was keeping me from moving my foot forward.

  "Princess Janine," Uldemar said, "there appears to be something in my way."

  "There appears to be something in my way, too," I said. "But I can't see what it is."

  "Drat! Has it gotten to be night already?" Uldemar asked.

  "No. I can see perfectly well, but when I try to move my foot..." I still couldn't move it forward. I tried to one side. I tried to the other.

  The other worked.

  "Oh," I said. "Here we go." I took another step forward. But then I was blocked again. "No, wait," I said.

  I looked down at the walk. Each flagstone was big enough to accommodate a person's foot. They were various colors, set in what appeared to be a random pattern: a heathery blue, rose, gray, black, and cream. I was currently standing on a rose-colored stone, and the stone behind me was rose, too. The one directly behind that was cream, but the one I had crossed over from was another rose. I took a step to the left, onto another rose stone. "I think this path is color-coded," I said.

  "Lucky me," Uldemar said.

  There wasn't another rose touching the one I was on, but there was one two over. I stretched my leg and stepped onto the new stone.

  "It seems," I said, "as though we can only step on the rose-colored stones." But then I looked back and saw that he was on a gray one. "Or maybe not. Uldemar, can you take a step, not exactly to your right, but halfway between forward and right?"

  He did, and he was able to move.

  I revised my analysis of the situation. "It seems as though whatever stone we first step on, after that, that's the only color we can step on."

  Uldemar went back to his original stone, then backed off the path entirely. "I'm going to let you handle this," he said.

  "OK." I made my way more or less forward for about a dozen more easy steps. The path even let me jump over three stones to get to one that was rose. But when I tried to leap over four stones, I bounced back as though a rubber band attached me to the previous rose-colored stone. There were no other rose ones to step on from where I was, so I had to back up and find my way down another pathway. After following that for a bit, I once again came to a place from which I couldn't step or jump to another rose stone. From where I was, I looked toward the doorway of the house. All the stones near the stoop were cream, black, or gray. No wonder I wasn't getting anywhere on the rose path. I made my way back to the start.

  Uldemar was sitting on the lawn. "Back already?" he asked. "Did you get the hat?"

  "Not yet," I told him, and started again, this time using the gray stones.

  But no matter how I tried, there was one stretch I couldn't get beyond—where there were too many rose, blue, cream, and black stones in between the grays.

  Again I made my way back.

  Again Uldemar turned his face expectantly in my direction.

  "I'm trying the cream ones now," I explained before he could ask.

  What was it with the Rasmussem people and mazes?

  But this time, eventually, I made it to the front stoop. "I'll be back as soon as I can," I called to Uldemar.

  He waved cheerily.

  I knocked on the door.

  A little boy answered.

  I realized I didn't know Xenos's father's name, so I was left to say, "I'm looking for Xenos's father."

  "That's me," the kid said. He looked about five.

  "Not Xenos's child," I said, creepy as that idea was. "Xenos's father."

  "That's me," the kid repeated.

  Cute. Like
when people let their toddlers record the message for their answering machines. I hate that, too. "Is there an adult home?" I asked.

  "Look, honey," the kid said, "if I gotta tell you one more time, I'm going to slam the door in your face and go back to smoking my cigar in peace: Xenos's father—that's me."

  He was holding a cigar in his pudgy little hand, I noticed.

  OK.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "You took me by surprise. Xenos said to go to his father—that would be you, I see now—to get the hat that allows the wearer to step out of the time stream. Or was it step into the time stream?" I tried to remember what Xenos had said. "Something like that. It doesn't stop time, but it makes it seem as though time has stopped. To an amateur."

  "Honey," Xenos's father said, "you've got to learn to stop dithering. I know what hat you mean." He held the door open for me, and I stepped into a tidy hallway. There was a hat rack with an assortment of hats on it, and I was already sure the one I was going to get was the ugly pink faux fur with the rhinestones and the ratty peacock feather.

  "Stand here," Xenos's father said. He pointed to a spot where there was a big red X on the floor.

  "Why?" I asked suspiciously.

  "I'm bored," he said. "Humor me."

  I stood on the center of the X.

  "Now I'm going to ask you three riddles," he said. "If you answer them correctly, I'll give you the hat."

  "And if I don't answer correctly," I guessed, "that coatrack is going to come over here and beat me to death."

  Xenos's father shook his head in obvious distaste. "You have an unhealthy imagination, young lady—anybody ever tell you that? No, if you don't answer correctly, you get another chance."

  "One chance?" I asked.

  "As many as you want."

  My suspicion must have shown on my face.

  "I'm an old man," Xenos's father said, despite his appearance. "Nobody ever comes to visit me. Everybody comes because they need to pick up something Xenos promised them." He gave a baby-toothed grin. "Humor me," he said again.

  Well, I could just give him the ring and demand the hat, but what if I needed that ring later?

  "All right. What's the first riddle?"

  "The first riddle is this: You see those woods outside this window?"

  I nodded.

  "That part wasn't the riddle," Xenos's father explained.

  "I already guessed that," I said.

  "Kids today. Anyway, you see the woods. My question is this: How far can you walk into those woods?"

  I had no real sense of where I was, much less how big the woods were. And what did he mean, how far could I walk into those woods? Was there something blocking the way, a river or a cliff, something or someone danger-oils? Or did he mean how far could I walk before I tired out? Or how far in one day?

  I decided it was time to clarify the rules. "I don't have just one guess?"

  Xenos's father smacked his palm against his forehead. "If I was a stickler, I would call that your answer. Once the riddle is asked, you aren't supposed to say anything except the answer to the riddle. Haven't you ever done this before? You're lucky I'm a patient man. And I already told you, you can try as many times as you want. Now: How fir can you walk into those woods?"

  Anything I said would be just a guess. So, remembering my boots, I answered, "Seven leagues?"

  The floor opened under me, and I went flying down the fastest, slickest slide I'd ever been on, through a black tunnel, popping out a hole at the bottom of the far side of the hill the house stood on. Several of the catacomb ghosts had been caught at the same time I was and had made the trip down with me. They liked it—I could tell, picking up their excited psychic energy. They didn't have to worry about concussions or contusions.

  I rubbed my bruised elbows and said the kind of words my grandmother grounds me for. Shakily, I got to my feet and walked back around to the front of the house.

  Uldemar asked, "Got the hat?"

  "Not yet. Xenos's father likes riddles. He wants to know about these woods here. Do you have any idea how big they are?"

  "Square acreage?" Uldemar said, and I realized that would be no help at all, because the woods could be long and skinny, or a square, or who-knew-what? "Do you want me to check my scrying glass?"

  "No," I said sulkily.

  "What, exactly, did he say?"

  "He said, 'How far can you walk into those woods?' And the trouble is, I don't know these woods."

  "The trouble is," Uldemar corrected me, "he's not asking you a question; he's asking you a riddle."

  I thought about it and groaned. I went back to the flagstone path and once more picked a way, using only cream-colored stones, to the front stoop. It was faster this time than last, but I still had several dead ends and reversals. I banged on the door.

  Xenos's father opened it. "Hello," he said. "Care to play a riddle game?"

  I followed him indoors, and he once again positioned me on the X.

  Looking satisfied with himself, Xenos's father once more said, "The first riddle is this: How far can you walk into those woods?"

  "Halfway," I answered. "After that I would be walking out of the woods, not into them."

  "Very good!" Xenos's father cried. "See, you aren't hopeless after all. All right, the second riddle is this: Two great armies are about to do battle, the Great Army of the North and the Great Army of the South, and they meet exactly on the equator. After the battle is over, the bodies are too mangled to identify. Where do the survivors get buried?"

  "Well," I said, "but which army won the battle?"

  Too late I remembered his warning that I wasn't supposed to say anything except the answer to the riddle. The floor disappeared from under me. I tried to grab for the edge, but I was already going down that slide so fast it felt as though my butt was about to catch fire. This time, I could definitely hear a whispery ghostly, "Wheel"

  After I hit the ground and the dizziness passed, I went back around to the front of the hill. Uldemar was sitting on the lawn, trying to make music with a blade of grass. I said to him, "Two armies meet at the equator and fight a great battle. After it's over, where..." I sighed, having caught up to myself. "Never mind." The ghosts could have told me that one.

  Once again, I picked my way up the front walk and knocked on Xenos's father's door. I was beginning to get faster at this. "Are you enjoying yourself?" I asked.

  "Immensely," he admitted.

  He stood me on the great red X and said the long sad story again: "The second riddle is this: Two great armies are about to do battle, the Great Army of the North and the Great Army of the South, and they meet exactly on the equator. After the battle is over, the bodies are too mangled to identify. Where do the survivors get buried?"

  I said, "The survivors don't get buried."

  Xenos's father gave a great drag on his cigar. He said, "I haven't had this much fun since Xenos had a cold and was sneezing centipedes. All right, here's the third riddle: Where was Moses when the lights went out?"

  That one I knew. "In the dark."

  "There. See," Xenos's father said. "I don't know what you were worried about."

  I said, "Those riddles were hardly the quality of the riddle of the Sphinx."

  Xenos's father shrugged. "Egyptian humor. Personally, I don't get it. Now for your hat." Sure enough, he picked up the awful pink one. But then he reached into the crown of the hat, and pulled out another, a crumpled knitted ski cap the color of March slush. "So, I'm assuming Xenos told you all about this. Don't bother answering; that's what's known in the business as sarcasm, dearie. The hat lets you keep moving when all about you is still—that part he told you, I'm sure. What he probably left out is that once you put the hat on, whatever you're doing—whether it's stealing money from the poor box in church, or spying on the boyfriend when he's out without you, or sneaking back into the house so your parents don't know you climbed out the bedroom window—"

  I interrupted. "Those are pretty lame reasons to be using
a hat that lets you avoid the time stream."

  "Do I criticize you when you're giving examples? All I'm saying is that whatever you're doing, you only have a limited time to do it. Ironic, isn't it? Get it? Time/time?" He shook his head. "You don't get it."

  "I get it," I assured him. "How long do I have?"

  "If you count like this," he said at a leisurely pace, "one Rasmussem Enterprises, two Rasmussem Enterprises, three Rasmussem Enterprises ... then you'd get to three hundred Rasmussem Enterprises, and the hat comes back here."

  Nothing like a little bit of blatant self-endorsement. And what he was saying was that I had five minutes. Five minutes.

  "The hat..." I said.

  "Comes back here," he finished.

  "With me?"

  He shook his head.

  "Leaving me..."

  "With your hand in the poor box, or your face pressed up against somebody else's window, or climbing up the stairs to the second floor while your father's sitting there watching you."

  Or, in my case, face-to-face with the dragon.

  "Yeah," Xenos's father said, taking another drag on the cigar. "I didn't think he'd told you. Any questions?"

  I sighed, but said, "No."

  Yet again the floor swallowed me, and I went skittering down that slide through the hill and out the other side. Luckily, I managed to keep hold of the hat. But I was going to be a mass of bruises even before meeting the dragon. More and more ghosts were joining me for each ride.

  I picked myself off the ground and yelled up to the house, "Ever wonder why nobody ever comes to visit you?"

  Still staggering, I rejoined Uldemar. "Got it," I told him.

  He had the decency not to say, "About time."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step (and Other Trite Nonsense)

  Sitting at the bottom of Xenos's father's hill, Uldemar did his calculations of exactly where I had to step to have the seven-league boots take me to Old Hag Mountain. The trouble was that the direct route was not divisible by the seven leagues each step would take me, so I had to head off southwest to a certain point, then turn and head due east. There was also a minor detour to avoid a step that would have landed me directly in someone's kitchen.