Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (14 page)

Or the next time.

Or the next.

Each time I fingered that ring when they made me slog back
into the klink. The others saved some of the disgusting food for me, which I’d
eat as fast as I could so I wouldn’t have to taste it. Then I’d try to
sleep—but then it would happen again. Usually Sherry’s voice followed, when she
begged for water. One time she yelled, “I want water! His feet stink!”

“Hey,” Id yelled. “That stink is
your
feet!”

“Yours!” everybody else hooted and howled and bellowed.

I never noticed when Dhana vanished, just, finally they
tried sticking me in a room by myself. I guess I was supposed to be scared, but
I was so tired I just wanted to sleep.

Well, sure enough, Shnit decided to amuse himself with holding
a trial. Only I was so tired I couldn’t follow half of what they were saying,
only that the crimes of trespass, insolence, and a bunch of other gunk must
either be punished by hanging or burning. But I could get clemency by
cooperation, if I just told them where The Heir was hiding.

I kept my hands down in my skirts, sniffed (I had a juicy
cold by then) and thought, If I have to leave the others, I will ... but only
if they’re really going to croak me. Clair would be so mad at me if I let them
do that!

Back into the clink for me, to prepare (how do you prepare
for anything in a barren cell?) for Execution At Dawn.

Well, you know I didn’t get sent to the Pearly Gates (or,
ahem, to the Barbeque of Doom) because I’m writing this. Of course, you don’t
know if I’m writing this as a ghost.

Well, anyway, I mentioned I hadn’t noticed that Dhana had
vanished, because Sherry had finally gotten her bucket of water. They’d used
half of it to drink, but left their faces grimy on Puddlenose’s account. Then
the clods took the water away ... with Dhana in it.

Her idea was to somehow find her way back home. If she had
to swim the oceans, she would, though she did not like salt water. But no
sooner had she swum down the channel the castle had cut through to drain its
rain runoff to the river outside the walls, when she saw some figures sneaking
up to the walls.

She’d been watching the river side, her old habit. That’s
how she’d gotten interested in humans in the first place—watching Clair and
Sherry playing around near the Lake.

So when she saw these obviously non-Chwahir sneaking around,
out she popped, nearly scaring them to death. Suddenly they were holding
weapons, but she said impatiently, “What are you doing?”

She said it in Mearsiean.

The lead pirate gaped, then said quickly, “So there
are
Mearsieans inside! Our contact said that they had children from the homeland
imprisoned.”

“You’re from MH?” she said.

The fellows looked at one another, then one said, “A few of
us. But we’re here to rescue them, if we can find our way to them.”

Another held up a tool. “We have means to get through locks.
But finding the prisoners, that is our difficulty.”

“That I can help with,” Dhana said cheerfully, and so that’s
what happened.

They waited until full dark. There were still a million
guards around, but the fellows were super quiet and quick, and we would find
out later that Shnit had spells on his guards to make certain they didn’t do
any thinking on their own. As long as the routine was uninterrupted, they
didn’t pay much attention on their dreary rounds.

So the next thing I knew, my door opened, a voice I didn’t
know said, “Run with the others!”

I was so out of it I just did what I was told. Seshe and
Puddlenose ran on either side of me, and when I staggered or swayed, they were
there to give me a shove in the right direction. We bucketed back through all
the dark halls, someone behind us making muffled, furtive clinks and
clicks—locking all the doors again.

We splashed into the castle stream, and I nearly drowned
until I figured out how to just lie in the water and let it carry me. But then
someone yelled something, a hand shoved my head, and I gasped in a tiny bit of
air before I went under, down, down, under the cement wall, then came up in the
river flowing down to the sea.

We didn’t see much—the land was flat, marshy. I thought I
spotted Puddlenose fighting with someone, but he was being pulled from sucking
mud, and then we were splashing through small, rippling waves out to a
dark-sided boat.

“Get in,” a Mearsiean voice said. “You aren’t a fish—don’t
breathe in the water!”

Some of us were panting at the run, after so many days in
the dank with little to eat. I had just enough brain left to look about me and
count that everybody was present.

Then I saw the sailing ship, a black silhouette against the
gray gloom of a cloudy night. It was impressive, the body long and graceful,
its masts leaning a little back, as if it was going fast but it was still, only
one small sail filled with the breeze. At the very front was a figurehead of a
laughing mer-girl, hair blowing back, arms upraised as though she was casting a
spell on the sea.

We reached the side, and someone extended down a rope
ladder. Grownup hands reached for us to help, but I didn’t want any grownups
throwing me about any more. Finally someone just hauled the ladder in, with us
clinging to it like a bunch of mice.

We clambered over the rail to the deck, and stood there
swaying more than the ship was moving.

Someone handed me something—and my hand closed on my crown!
I was vaguely aware of Dhana as she handed Id and Klutz their mayor necklaces.

The deck seemed to lift under my feet and my knees almost
buckled. The fresh air was cold, the wind driving against me and I was taken by
a violent yawn.

A man loomed over me. “I gather from Etc. that you are the
leader of the troupe.”

I tried to curtsey, my hands flailing, and fell with a
splat. Again I yawned.

“Never mind,” the man said, chuckling. “We can continue
after you all get some rest.”

Rest! Someone showed me down a hatchway, along a narrow sort
of hall, and into a tiny room. A bunk had been built against the inward curving
hull of the ship. I flopped down ... and didn’t wake up until much later, when
the little room flooded with light. Shifting light, with slow, writhing ropes
of light moving up the opposite wall.

I looked overhead. A round air hole, like a window, was
open, letting in air and light. The cabin was tiny, not much more than the
bunk, a stand with water and a basin, and above on a wall dividing my cabin off
from the next one, a railed shelf with a couple of books. On the inward curving
wall, someone had affixed an old chart.

I got up, washed in the basin, which glittered with magic.
Magic!

I remembered that sense of magic in Shnit’s throne room.
Cautiously I tried my magic—just an illusion spell—and it worked! Shnit had
removed all the magic on me, which was pretty much limited to Kwenz’s nasty
ward. As yet Shnit hadn’t discovered that the magic on my necklace and ring
must have interfered with whatever horrible spells he’d tried to stick on me.
And he hadn’t had time to try anything new before we’d escaped, so ... ha!

I gulped down a good drink of water, and then went out,
running my fingers through my hair. My cabin opened into a bigger sort of room,
oddly shaped, with cabins fore and aft, and a door to what had to lead to the
galley, from the smell of baking biscuits.

Opposite the galley end was a ladder going up, with a hole
cut into the ceiling. I climbed up that, and found myself in the sun and air of
the upper deck.

I looked around at the netting, the people practicing
cutlass drill at the narrow, front end of the ship, others up in the tops
practicing doing things fast with sails. When I spotted Puddlenose at the wheel
at the back end, I said, “Is this a pirate ship?”

Puddlenose grinned. “Chwahir think so. But they’re
privateers.”

“What’s that?”

“Legal piracy.” A tall man with a weather-browned face
appeared. He smiled suddenly. “Legal to one side, anyway. We operate out of
Danai, near the Chwahir border, but we trade in all the harbors of the Elgar
Strait. When the Chwahir and their allies try to expand by sea, we attack ’em.
If we take the ship, we sell it, can live like kings for a month, or like a
person for a year.”

“What happens to the clods?” I asked, as wind tangled all
the hair I’d finger-combed. But it felt so good after all that moldy, dank air,
I didn’t care.

“Over the side.” He made a motion like rowing.

“The smart ones go away and actually have lives,” Puddlenose
said. “Because anyone loses a battle in Chwahirsland, Shnit has them killed as
an example.”

“Yeeech.” I looked around more slowly.

Puddlenose was actually steering the big wheel, which was
amazing. A couple of young men stood behind a kind of bureau thingie that I later
found out was the binnacle, where they kept the timer, the rope to the ship’s
bell, the watch’s log book (different from the ship’s log which the captain
kept), some charts, and lanterns, all trimmed and ready for use. Some other
seagoing stuff, too.

Everybody was working.

The man swept a bow and said, “Welcome to
Tzasilia
, o
Princess.”

I gave him a fish eye, not trusting any adult who acts
courtly.

“Despite appearances I do have manners.” He grinned. “I am
Captain Heraford.”

“Great. Then you can drop ’em and act normal,” I crabbed. “Where
is everybody?”

“Told you.” Puddlenose laughed and the captain kept smiling.

“I am glad your exalted position has not denied you the
opportunity to disport with those of lowlier degree,” the captain said. “Your
friends are in various places about the ship. One above—”

“Dhana, hoping for rain,” Puddlenose put in.

“—and three at the sides, alas. I’m trying to get them to
drink ginger-steep. It really does work, but they seem to be averse to
swallowing.”

“Seasick,” I translated. “Ick!”

Puddlenose said, “You wanna take a turn steering?”

I rubbed my hands. “I’d love to!” Then I looked up at the
tall masts, and down the gently sloping deck, and said, “Uh, how long does it
take to learn?”

“About ten breaths.”

I hopped over to the wheel, which was as tall as I was. I
took hold of the spokes, and felt the strength of water against wood.

Puddlenose looked the captain’s way. Captain Heraford just
lifted a hand, as if to say, go on.

“Okay. If the mate of the watch, which is the boss of the
ship right now, or the captain, tell you different, you do it. But right now
just keep the wind on this side of you.” Puddlenose tapped the side of his
head.

“I can’t really see ahead, though, with all those sails
blowing,” I said nervously. “What if I bump into something?”

“That’s what the lookout is for, high up,” Captain Heraford
said. “In these light airs, we need all sail abroad. We’re running as fast as
we can, which isn’t very. But the Chwahir can’t run very fast either, if they
are in search.”

I took over the wheel, and Puddlenose stretched. “Now for
some grub.”

“Wait! What happened? How’d we get rescued, anyway?”

“Here’s the easy part. Dhana turned into water, or whatever
she does,” Puddlenose explained. “She got to the river right about the time
Captain Heraford and some of his fellows reached the wall and were trying to
find a way in that wouldn’t get them seen. That is the weird part—how they knew
to come.”

Captain Heraford had been doing something with an instrument
and the sun, and bending over a chart and the binnacle log book with a couple
of the other sailors.

He straightened up, then said, “There are a number of us
privateers, but ... for some reason, someone seems to have noticed me.” He
looked around as if he expected a giant squid to leap up from the sea, or a
comet to fall. “A magic-sent message, that the boy the Chwahir nicknamed ‘Etc’
had been recaptured and needed rescuing.”

“Okay, that’s truly weird.” I made a face.

“It’s happened before,” Captain Heraford admitted. “Only
those times, the prisoner was someone important outside of Chwahirsland, and we
gained a handsome reward. This time ... the message was more specific. No
reward attached.” He hesitated, his gaze just touching my little crown, then
moving away. “But aimed at me.”

Puddlenose had been frowning. “I was too foggy to ask. But
when you left—”

“Locked all the doors behind us. Made it look as if magic
did the deed,” Captain Heraford said. “Then Shnit Sonscarna can only blame
himself.”

Puddlenose sighed. “I know some of those grunts. They’d do
what they could to make my life easier, some of ’em. My uncle sure didn’t. They
can’t help that miserable life. I don’t want ’em killed on my behalf.”

“That’s why the care with the locks,” Captain Heraford said.

The weather slowly clouded over. That’s what Dhana had been
waiting for. The wind rose, and one of the grownups took over the wheel, which
was starting to get tough for me to hold. The crew was made up of men and
women, no kids, though. All ages. One thing we all noticed: most spoke
Mearsiean. And a few of them
our
Mearsiean.

But we didn’t ask any questions—we girls had gotten used to
that when we joined Clair’s gang. If people wanted to tell you about their
background, they would. Oh, maybe if there’d been a pirate kid I would have
asked, but not grownups, even the young grownups, like Fradrici, one of the
watch mates (bosses of different deck crews) who kept cracking jokes almost as
much as Faline. In fact he was a kind of grown-up Faline—always kidding—though
he was brown instead of colorful.

The sickees finally consented to try the ginger tea, and
when they did, they felt better enough to join us for breakfast.