Back To The Divide (9 page)

"Slashes and gashes!"
swore Thornbeak. "I thought that monster was just moonshine. They said his remains were somewhere in the library, but I didn't really believe it."

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"Come on," said Ironclaw. "We ought to leg it. Even I know Harshak killed a brazzle in single combat, and history's hardly my strong point."

"What about Pewtermane?" queried Felix, pointing to the brittlehorn.

Pewtermane opened one eye. "Sinistroms don't mess with brittlehorns as a rule, and I'm only after Architrex," he said. Then he closed the eye again and went back to sleep.

Although the final tunnel was big enough for a brittlehorn, it was a different matter for a brazzle. "You two go first," said Thornbeak, ushering them in. Felix and Betony started off down the passageway. They could see proper daylight ahead of them now and hear the faint rumble of the sea.

"I'd better go last," said Ironclaw. "I'm the biggest and the most likely to get stuck."

"How come you've suddenly acquired such good manners?" queried Thornbeak. "I'd have expected you to be off down that tunnel without a second's thought for anyone else."

Ironclaw looked hurt.

"Oh, I'm not complaining," said Thornbeak, ducking as she entered the passageway.

Ironclaw watched her shapely hindquarters disappear into the gloom. Then he backed into the tunnel himself, so that anyone following him in would have his beak to contend with rather than his backside. I'll peck out his eyes if he tries to have a go at me, thought Ironclaw. I
will.

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***

5

***

When Harshak actually entered the tunnel, Ironclaw felt sick. He could see the sinistrom silhouetted against the opening, and he was big. Very big. Ironclaw carried on shuffling backward, feeling the ceiling of the passageway scrape against his back. Harshak was shortening the distance between them far too quickly. At least if he kills me, thought Ironclaw, my body will block the tunnel and the others will get away. And then he felt terribly noble, like someone out of one of Turpsik's epic poems. Harshak's eyes were glowing an irritating green; they were quite close now. And then the head was right there in front of him, and almost as a reflex action he fended it off with his beak. He'd put some force behind that swipe, and he heard Harshak thump against the wall of the tunnel.

[Image: The tunnel.]

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He shuffled back a few more steps, and suddenly he was sure that Thornbeak wasn't behind him anymore -- the air on his behind was just that fraction cooler. Good, he thought, she's out of the tunnel. She'll be able to get away now, and she'll take the youngsters with her. He felt a stab of pity for himself, tinged with pride.

And then the sinistrom was at him again, his lips drawn back in a snarl, strings of saliva hanging from his jaws and whipping from side to side as he launched himself into the air. This time Ironclaw got a proper peck at him. He felt his beak connect with something, but it was yielding and furry. Not the eyes, then. He couldn't in all honesty say he was sorry. And then he realized he was stuck.

He wriggled but only succeeded in getting more stuck. The horrible slurpy sounds from in front of him meant that the sinistrom was licking his wound. That wouldn't last long. Ironclaw tried to dig at the sand on the floor of the tunnel, but he was too tightly wedged to do much good. This is it, then, he thought. His mind drifted back to the problems he'd solved, the mathematical victories he'd won. He hadn't done badly. Not badly at all. He'd produced a fine son, and he'd even seen him as recently as six months ago. He'd chosen the right hen, no doubt about it. Or had she chosen him? He thought back to their brief and acrimonious courtship. He'd helped build the nest, hadn't he? Or had he? He remembered getting deeply involved in a particularly

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juicy probability problem.... Had he actually taken back those branches he'd collected?

The snarl came just before the leap. Ironclaw jolted himself back to the present, did a lightning calculation as to where the sinistrom's belly would be, and sliced upward. He missed the precise target, but he felt his beak connect with something, and he knew he'd done some damage. He heard Harshak hit the tunnel wall again, and heard a strangled yelp as he landed. And then he could feel something, down by his feet. Someone was digging from behind him. He had more movement already. Thornbeak hadn't gone after all; she was digging with all four legs, her talons loosening the sand, her paws scooping it out. He started to scrabble with his own claws, and it became easier and easier. And then he was squeezing through the final bit of the tunnel, and at last he was in the cave.

"Pretty impressive," said Thornbeak, glancing behind him at Harshak. The sinistrom was out for the count, lying on his side, his tongue lolling from his mouth. Ironclaw fluffed out his feathers and looked smug and completely forgot to thank her for her assistance.

"I think we'd better get away as quickly as we can," said Thornbeak. "Harshak could come around at any moment, and if you go back to finish him off you might not be so lucky a second time."

"Lucky?"
screeched Ironclaw.

"Where are we going?" asked Betony.

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"Geddon," said Thornbeak. "Andria strikes me as a very unhealthy place to be at present. I'll take you, and Ironclaw can take Felix. Tromm Fell's only a short flap away from Geddon."

"About the --" said Ironclaw.

"Not now," said Thornbeak.

"If I cross the Divide on Tromm Fell to get back home," said Felix, "I'll find myself in Costa Rica, without a ticket or a passport, and there's a spell I have to find, and ..."

"We can always bring you back here again," said Thornbeak. "Come on, let's
go."

Felix climbed on to Ironclaw's back and settled himself just where the hair turned to feathers. The brazzles took off, but they circled Andria since they didn't want to be seen. And then they were flying toward the mountains, and Felix started to tell them what Snakeweed had done to his parents. It was only as he was finishing the story that he remembered Betony's parents, too, had been turned to stone by a spell that went wrong.

"There isn't a countercharm," said Betony bitterly. "You just have to wait for it to wear off."

"How long does that take?"

"Twenty years."

Felix bit his lip. He'd be nearly the same age as his parents by the time he could speak to them again. How weird was that? And what would happen to him in the meantime? He'd have to stay with relatives and at the same time keep

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the statues safe somehow. The difficulties were multiplying like bacteria in a petri dish and threatening to overwhelm him. And supposing the twenty-year thing didn't apply in his world? He'd lose them forever. What a reversal of fortunes. This time the previous year, his parents had been facing losing
him
forever. Whichever way around it was, it felt horrible -- the poison just had a slightly different flavor.

"Permission to squawk now?" asked Ironclaw, with a sideways glance at Thornbeak.

"Oh, go on then," said Thornbeak.

"I've had a bit of inside information about the king and queen," said Ironclaw. "I think they're still alive, but they're being held prisoner somewhere."

"Oh," said Felix dully.

"Apparently," said Ironclaw, "they can only be rescued by a mythical being."

"Don't you see, Felix," said Betony, "you couldn't have arrived at a better time. We just have to find out where they are."

"I don't see why they're so important," said Felix, so overcome by his own misery that he couldn't contemplate anyone else's. "They don't do anything."

"Of course they do!" squealed Betony. "They lead the dancing!"

"Yeah, right, that's really crucial."

"You don't understand, do you? The king and queen exist to remind everyone that there's more to life than mixing

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potions and mining gold. They're in charge of
fun.
Fleabane's idea of entertainment is public trials and executions. I'd rather have a dance festival, personally." Felix didn't reply.

"I think you've forgotten something," said Betony. "Who gave us the book containing the spell that cured you?"

"The queen," said Felix, shamefaced. "Yes, of course I'll help."

"You may question the prisoner now, Squill," said Fleabane irritably, picking a strand of dark red hair from the sleeve of the purple presidential robe he'd had made. When the young song merchant hadn't shown up for the trial, he'd had to get Pignut to sing the anthem instead. Pignut's voice had sounded like a cuddyak with indigestion.

Snakeweed had laughed more than anyone and not just at the anthem. This trial was a ramshackle affair compared to the legal battles he'd seen on otherworld television. The court had been set up on the raised bit of ground on the lawn outside the palace that was used for dance festivals, and the prosecuting japegrin was none other than Squill, Snakeweed's old advertising director.

"I've got quite a list of victims here," said Squill. "Two brittlehorns, Chalky and Snowdrift ..."

"Oh,
bake me a brazzle,"
said Snakeweed. "The brittlehorns died miles away from where
I
was at the time. How am I supposed to have killed them?"

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"You used sinistroms."

Squill flicked through some papers. "I have written affirmations here that you kept two sinistrom pebbles in your safe."

"I'm not denying I had a couple of sinistroms," said Snakeweed. "I'm just denying that I ordered them to kill anyone."

"Why did you keep them, then?"

"I used to take them hunting," said Snakeweed. "They were very good at it."

There was a ripple of laughter from the crowd.

"Architrex exceeded his authority," continued Snakeweed. "When I was arrested he ran out on me, and sinistroms don't do that. I submit that -- somehow or other -- Architrex has developed free will. I was not responsible for his actions. There
is
a precedent. Harshak."

Another murmur ran through the crowd; everyone knew Harshak had been resurrected.

Fleabane beckoned Squill over, and they discussed it in whispers. Snakeweed heard Squill say, "But if we drop the murder charge, what's left? Magical malpractice?"

He smiled to himself. Things were going his way -- and they'd go his way even more if he could whisper a little illusion spell and use a bit of magic to sway his audience. He put his hand over his mouth so that no one could see what he was doing and crossed his fingers.

Eventually Squill stepped down and said, "Snakeweed

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will now be tried for the indirect murder of twenty-three diggelucks, a flame-bird ..."

"Indirect murder?" scoffed Snakeweed. "There's no such thing. You've just invented it."

"Do you deny that you marketed a number of potions that caused the deaths of the beings who took them?"

"I'm not responsible for people disobeying the instructions on the label," said Snakeweed.

As most of the potions that had backfired were those for diggelucks and tangle-folk, the japegrin audience nodded in agreement. They nodded rather more enthusiastically than might have been expected. Snakeweed suppressed a smile. His whispered illusion spell was working, although the effects wouldn't last all that long. But then, they only had to last long enough to get him off the hook.

"You employed diggelucks to mine for gold to finance your operation, using drilling spells," said Squill, an edge of desperation creeping into his voice. "But you didn't pay any attention to the normal safety procedures. And then you sold them cough remedies that hadn't been tested -- remedies that had serious side effects."

"I looked into that," replied Snakeweed. "It seems that the labeling of the potion was at fault. The labels were the responsibility of my advertising director. And my advertising director was
you."

"Fix!" shouted someone.

Fleabane stood up. "It's clear that the accusations leveled

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against Snakeweed are without foundation," he said, with a venomous glance at Squill. "Nevertheless, Snakeweed should pay for some of the misery he ... er ... inadvertently caused. We'll take the otherworld vehicle as compensation. And to demonstrate his remorse, he can help to restore our wonderful library to its former state. I sentence him to one month's community service."

A great cheer went up. One month's community service was a Cakewalk compared to being burned at the stake. Not everyone was equally as thrilled with the verdict, however; a lickit in the back row got up and left in disgust.

Fleabane felt pleased with himself. Freeing Snakeweed altogether would have been a dangerous move -- this way he could still make himself popular and keep him prisoner. And perhaps a little accident could be arranged.

However, the very next day posters began to appear demanding a proper presidential election. Someone started a Daft Party, pushing for a fire-breather as president, but one of the most popular suggestions appeared to be a brittlehorn called Pewtermane.

Architrex, or Grimspite as he was really known, trotted along the mountain path, reflecting -- not for the first time -- that Architrex was a much nicer name than his
real
one.

Grimspite had been pretending to be Architrex for a whole year now, but his dreams still took him back to the centuries he'd spent as a speck of energy inside a pebble.