Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (10 page)

“That’s the one.” The mage pointed at an old-looking book
lying on a table all by itself against the far wall. “Open to the right page.”
He brushed absently at a blotch of yellow paint on his blue silk robe, smearing
it more. He bent over the book, and read something out loud, then he wrinkled
his nose, and said in Mearsiean, “‘The antidote is seen by sovereign hand.’ “Doesn’t
say what kind of royalty, does it?”

“Sovereign means ruler,” I said. “That much I know. It’s
pompous, but clear enough. Except, what if the sovereign was born, or
appointed, or crowned, or voted?”

Seshe said, “In Old Sartoran—which I had to begin studying
once, only it was so boring, it’s one of the reasons I ran away—words had a lot
of meanings.”

The little man grinned. “That’s right! They did, I remember
being told that much, before I fell asleep. Why can’t a word just do one job,
like a color, is what I asked myself?”

“And what did yourself answer?” I asked, which is one of our
favorite jokes, when Irene gets in a mood, and says things like
I ask myself
why I bother with you snackleodeons ...

“I don’t remember, I was usually snoring! Or sneaking off to
learn how to layer gilt over gloss.” The man grinned at my cackle, then hunted
over the oldest shelves of books, the ones whose titles had faded long ago. “Here’s
the Old Sartoran shelves. Maybe there’s one that translates over to Mearsiean.
How fun! This is almost interesting! More interesting that no one ever asked
that before. Or maybe they did, but didn’t get past the Intent spell,” he said,
tipping his head. “Well, have fun, girls, I’ve got a vase to finish. I never
get the shades right if I have to remix, and this one’s too pretty to throw
away.”

I joined Seshe at the oldies-but-moldies shelf. “Old
Sartoran.” I sighed in disappointment. To be so close, and then floobed by old
languages! “I don’t know it.”

“I remember enough. Why don’t you get some lunch? I may as
well see if my stupid lessons were worth something after all,” she said.

I gorbanzoed back down all those stairs, and had just picked
up a tart when Puddlenose sidled up to me. “Magic food,” he whispered. “Like
your pies. You can eat it, but it disappears somewhere inside.”

And just as he said the last word I heard his stomach
growling.

“I don’t think he’s quite human,” Puddlenose added.

We turned toward Dhana, who was flitting about in a far
chamber, where there was a shallow pool. She’d give a rainbow flicker, vanish
into the water, and appear on the other side, dancing again, her clothes
dripping—not that she cared. I didn’t have to ask, I knew we were all thinking:
what’s human?

I sighed and dropped the pastry back onto the tray. The
little man didn’t notice—he was busy painting tiny clusters of blue berries in
the centers of curling leaves.

Presently Seshe came racing in, her long hair swinging
against her skirts. “I got it,” she said. “I think.” She stopped, making a
face. “No, I think it’s right. It’s the word ‘sovereign’ as I guessed. But it
wasn’t the Evil Mage who laid the spell, it was someone else protecting the
queens
from
his spells, because of what he did to the queens’ cousins.
That’s why the Old Sartoran.”

The little man looked surprised. “I never knew that.”

“I don’t think whoever came between the Evil Mage and you
did, either.”

“My mother. She was a singer,” he explained. “She left me as
soon as I turned twenty, and here I’ve been stuck ever since.”

“Well, you might be free soon, too, if I’m right. The word
‘sovereign’ doesn’t mean royalty here, or at least it can, but it’s got three
meanings. One meaning is ‘remedy,’ and the second refers to someone born on the
other side of the world gate. The third is harder for me to figure out, but it
seems to have something to do with ruling.”

Everybody stared at her, and she turned red.

“Wow, then I can do it after all,” I said.

“Or me and Id,” Klutz said.

“Let it be CJ, just in case, because there is that thing
about sovereign meaning ruler.”

“I think I can figure that out,” the little man said. “If I
remember right, rulers were mages in the old world—which is how all this got
started. Do you know magic?” He turned to me.

“Some.”

“I suspect it’s a matter of holding it, not knowing a lot of
spells.” He sounded more practical than he had yet.

“Let me try.” I tried to sound braver than I felt. “And if I
turn into a statue, well, you guys remember where I am, so you can tell Clair
what happened.”

With that, the little man led us through new archways, out
onto a lovely terrace, where there was a shallow pool and a fountain. At four
corners of the pool, were four statues of girls.

We went to the nearest, a girl with a round, calm face. She
reminded me of Seshe, in fact, though she was smaller and maybe younger—more
like my age. On her lap was a kitten, frozen in time, and the girl’s hand was
cupped protectively over the little creature. Someone had made a plaque saying,
Child of Spring.

Next was Child of Summer. She looked a lot like Diana—the
spell had caught her swinging around, her hair out, her bony face strong, her
expression midway between a laugh and dismay.

Id said, “Now
she
looks like she’d know how to play
some good tricks on the Committee of Public Safety.”

The little man blinked, and Klutz said comfortingly, “Never
mind. He says stuff like that, but he doesn’t bite or howl at the moon.”

“Hey.” Id elbowed her.

We moved on around the pool. The third statue also laughed,
but her head was tilted, and she gazed off as if through the world gate, and
into other worlds. I can’t say why, but I liked the looks of her at once. She
seemed about thirteen, her curly hair hung unkempt down her back, and she wore
a summer tunic. Her feet were bare. Her plaque said,
Child of Autumn.

And last was the oldest—maybe sixteen—a tall girl with a
calm, steady gaze. She wore a complicated robe with a train. This was
Child
of Winter.

My fingers felt damp and my throat dry, but with everybody
watching, I wasn’t going to turn chicken. I figured, better a statue than
vanishing through that weird arch upstairs. Clair can undo statues.

And with that, I went up to Child of Spring.

At once I felt magic tingling all through me. As I neared
her, the air between us wavered—as if we were suddenly underwater. But I
concentrated on holding still in all the magi surrounding me, though it felt
like a million bees humming closer and closer. My hand buzzed as I reached up
and touched her eyelids, just like in Clair’s story.

For a moment nothing happened, and then I realized that the
air had cleared. The bee hum had faded. And the white statue slowly gained color.
There was no amazing sound like ice crackling or anything, just one moment she
was still, the next she took a deep breath, and looked up, head to one side,
and smiled.

The kitten sprang, all its fur spiked out. “Mew!” it
complained angrily, and bounded away.

“By cracky! You done it, CJ!” Klutz yelled, and did a
handspring, wiggling her bare toes in the air as she turned.

Child of Spring followed. I stood there, waiting to turn to
stone, and when I didn’t, I waded through the magical air to Child of Summer,
and touched her eyelids. She stretched, swing her arms, leaped from her perch
and bounded to Spring, and whirled her around in her arms, laughing.

Autumn smiled, yawned, said a word whose tone clearly
implied “Thanks!” as she twirled off her perch.

Winter gazed at me, said something in a language I didn’t
understand, as she put her hands together and bowed over them. Then she moved
into the palace—followed by a crowd of people who had suddenly appeared.

“Hey, all the statues are live again,” Id said, thumbs over
his shoulders.

The former statues followed the four queens inside, their
voices rising as everybody began talking. The queens walked to the inner
chamber off the one with the pool, where the little mage was waiting. He
grinned, hands out in welcome, a paintbrush clutched in one. “Here you are! I
never thought I’d see it!”

He led them to yet another door, which the four of them
opened just by laying their hands against it. Some new spell was broken, and
inside they went, into a room filled with color: silken wall hangings of pale
peach, wine-red upholstery on old carved wood chairs and tables, forest-green
hangings with golden embroidery. Portraits hanging on walls.

Three of the queens led the people in. Over the hubbub
girls’ voices rose, angry and shrill:
Well,*I* am the next heir to the
throne
! And *
I* am the second princess of
... They sounded like hens
when a thunderstorm is coming.

Autumn went over to the little mage and asked him something.
He opened his hands, looking apologetic.

Then she came to us. “You’re the travelers who set us free,
are you not?” Her voice was accented, but she spoke our language—or she spoke a
language we understood.

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“May I travel with you a while? I’ll have to come back for a
time each year, it seems, but the rest of the year I can keep looking.”

“For?”

“For my cousins, who were enchanted by that fellow’s grandfather.
I need to go find them, so they can be free of their enchantment.”

“Your cousins?”

“Laurel and Lael. I can’t bear to think of them walking the
world, silent and unable to make music or dance or laugh.”

“Okay.” I sighed. So much for the—

Klutz said cheerily, “How about our reward?”

By then I had a pretty good idea that any reward would be an
Attagirl and Hearty Thanks, and I was right. We stood around until Winter had
dispersed the worst of the crowd (a cluster of princesses still arguing angrily
at the far end of the pool about who had first dibs on the servants, once
somebody produced some servants), then Autumn danced up and kissed Winter. “I
am off to find Laurel and Lael.”

“May the wind stay warm and sweet,” Winter said, and turned
to us, hands out. “What can I give you? As you can see, the city is empty
except for stone.”

I would have loved a bag of enough gold to buy ship passage
with, but it didn’t look like they had any, and I wasn’t even sure they ate
real food. So I said, “We’ll just footle along—glad everyone is okay.”

Winter smiled. “If ever I may help you the way you helped
us, you’ve only to ask.”

We all said thank you, and out we bucketed.

“What’s gonna happen to all those princesses?” Sherry asked,
with her blue-eyed worried look.

“They go home,” Puddlenose said, shrugging.

“But if they were princesses from eighty years ago? Even
twenty?” Gwen asked, walking backward. “Will they be welcomed?”

Puddlenose snorted, and Seshe looked downward.

“Probably not, if their family is as grabby as royal
families usually are,” Puddlenose said.

By then we’d reached the top of a hill, where we could at
last see a sliver of ocean in the distance.

“So they find something else to do.” Seshe smiled. “It’s not
impossible.”

Autumn was at once ordinary and different. Her skin was one
of the bazillion variations of brown seen all over the word except in the
Morvende, who have sort of bleached out after a gazillion years underground.
She was kind of honey-colored, with rose in her cheeks, and a scattering of freckles.
Her hair was curly, reddish brown, her eyes the kind of hazel that changes a
lot.

Just when we figured she was pretty ordinary, she swooped
along a bunch of wildflowers growing along the path, plucked them, and worked
them into a garland. None of those flowers wilted, and when she was tired of
the garland, she took it off, poked her fingers into a stretch of barren
ground, put the flowers in—and they stood right up as if they’d grown there.

She and Seshe hit it off at once, talking happily about
flowers, birds, and animals, as we bucketed along.

We soon reached the harbor at the mouth of the river.
Already the news had traveled ahead of us, and there was a lot of
activity—people packing up, taking apart the shanty-houses, and so forth.

Puddlenose knew what to do. “If all else fails, you can just
about always get a job wanding,” he said.

Like I explained in the first notebook, magic has mostly
been used to make life better. There are spells to make water pure, there are
cleaning frames in most homes. You walk through the frame, and magic zaps all
the dirt from your skin, hair, clothes, even your teeth. And there are no
toilets, because by age two everybody learns the Waste Spell, which zaps human
waste from you straight into the ground.

But animals don’t learn the Waste Spell. Most cities have a
Wanders’ Guild. In other cities, wanding animal droppings from the streets is
done by people who got into trouble, and have to put in time doing service.
Sometimes they even have to live in jails while they do it. If you don’t want
to do service, worse thing happen—from being kicked out of the country to being
grabbed and stuck in mines, and in some countries, on galleys. Yuk! I guess
this is why a lot of people run away and become robbers and the like.

Anyway, wandering kids can just about always be assured of
wanding work in any place with a lot of streets and animals coming and going,
if there aren’t any more interesting jobs. Sure enough, after we went to the
harbor master’s building, we were given the wands and sent out in pairs to go
over the harbor roads, zapping away droppings from various animals drawing
wagons back and forth.

Klutz and Sherry just had to make up a game, counting the
different types of animal poo, and Id got silly about comparing colors and like
that. It sounds grosser than it was, since you wave the wand over the mess, the
air glitters, and the mess vanishes underground, just like the Waste Spell.