Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (8 page)

By then I’d figured that the room we’d landed in was indeed a
Destination—but for goods, not people. I was trying to figure out the magic for
that as we ran like crazy down a street, around a corner, and into a square.
When we realized no one was chasing us, we stopped, breathing hard, and looked
around. Klutz was still fizzing with laughter, even though she was limping.

The houses were made of some kind of slatey-looking stone,
covered with flowering vines. People dressed differently than at home—not a
lot, but enough, so it was clear we were definitely not in Mearsies Heili.

“Where are we?” Gwen asked.

“It looks like afternoon,” Seshe said.

“It was afternoon when Clair sent me after you. It was
getting dark when we reached the Shadow ... and we slept ...”

“If Kwenz tried to send us to Chwahirsland,” Puddlenose
said, “then we have to be halfway round the world.”

We looked at one another.

“Can you transfer us back?” Seshe asked me.

“One at a time, maybe. The air is full of magic,” I said,
feeling potential around me. In fact, it felt a little like it does near the
Magic Lake, lots of magic almost glittering in the air.

I marked the tiles at my feet, memorizing them so I could
return, then began the spell—and felt that warning that meant a ward. I
stopped. “Nope.”

I tried again, cautiously, trying to tell if the ward was on
the area, or against my magic. The zap—kinda like static on a dry day—was so
quick, I knew the ward was on me, and I pocalubed Kwenz from here to next week
and back again the long way.

Sherry looked worried, Gwen scared, Seshe troubled, Klutz
and Id interested. Puddlenose grinned. He loved pocalubes, and had yet to hear
all my best ones. And he was used to travel. He obviously didn’t see any big
problem.

When I’d run out of good ones and found myself repeating, I
stopped, took a breath, then said, “Do you recognize that lingo the people were
gabbling?”

He shrugged. “Some words. Somebody or other told me that
most of the languages in the southern countries are more or less related to
Sartoran, so you can kinda figure things out. It’s been true, I’ve found.
Except for the languages that aren’t related to Sartoran. Then it’s
gibble-gabble,” he finished cheerfully.

“So what do we do?” I asked, thinking,
Clair’s going to
be so worried
.

“I’d say, we pick a direction, because east or west, we’re
sure to get home, if we’re really halfway around the world.”

Gwen said worriedly, “How do we get something to eat? We
don’t have any money. Do we have to steal it?”

“We’re good at that,” Id said, hooking a thumb at Klutz. He
added hastily, “If there are any bad guys around to steal from.” Obviously
remembering that he was a Mayor now, not the leader of a gang of street rats in
Paris where the adults were busy hanging and guillotining one another.

“Naw, it’s easy to earn a day’s bread,” Puddlenose said
reassuringly. “Kids are always on the Wander. Especially if there’s any harbors
around. And if there are harbors around, we could find a ship to take us home!”

Everybody liked that idea.

“If we’re on the big continent half-way around the world,
then we should go north—that way—and we’ll reach the sea.”

“Are there any kid pirates?” Klutz asked, rubbing her hands.
“Not mean ones.”

Puddlenose scratched his head. “Well, there’s one I’ve heard
about, but I don’t know if she’s real, or from history, or what. She fights
against bad kings and their navies.”

Everybody liked the sound of that, but as he didn’t know any
more, we started walking north.

The city, or town (I can never much tell which is which,
especially coming from a gigantic city like I had) had a few more streets,
first of shops, then of houses with gardens, then things like stables and
places where people did stuff with flax, and so on. It wasn’t a walled city,
just gave way gradually to farm areas; at some point a fellow paused in turning
soil over, leaned on his pitchfork, and waved, gabbling something cheerful that
sounded like he was talking backwards.

Then the countryside changed, with abrupt rises, falls, a
stream tumbling this and that side of the road, so we crossed a lot of little
bridges. When the road turned firmly west, we left it and kept going, always
either north or east, depending on what was flatter.

We eventually ended up on a cliff overlooking a low river
valley, dotted with villages, bisected by quilt-squares of crops. Here and
there stone castles jutted up, some turned into mansions, others with the old
walls and stuff, but covered with vines.

The thing that drew our eye was a city in the northern haze.
It looked white—from a distance a lot like our White Palace, which was made of
that weird stone we’d thought unknown anywhere else.

From this distance, it looked like a whole city made of
white stone. It didn’t even take any discussion: we all wanted to go there.

Puddlenose, used to ranging the countryside, found a path.
Since we were walking single file down a steep trail, there wasn’t much talk.
We stopped at streams to drink, but by the time the sun was sinking slowly into
the west, we were all really hungry.

When we reached the floor of the valley, Seshe said, “Why
don’t we go down river?”

“How can we pay?”

We looked at ourselves. I was in my usual outfit, except I
still had my crown. While the skirt had pockets, they were empty. Sherry wore a
frilly blouse and knee pants (no shoes, like Gwen and me) and Gwen a blue tunic
over kneepants. Seshe wore a dress, as usual, thin linen over a cotton
underdress, both undyed. Puddlenose wore his usual unremarkable shirt, pants,
shoes and socks, and Klutz and Id sturdy dark-colored clothes because they’d
been spying out the Shadow after third-hand gossip that an Important Capture
had been made.

“No gems or jewels other than our mayor necklaces.” Id
sighed. “And I’m not giving that up.”

“Yeah, because Clair gave it to us,” Klutz said, patting hers.

“And cuz it’s got magic on it,” Id said. “Who knows, maybe
she can find us by them?”

“No, it’s gotta be the same magic we girls get on our
necklaces, to protect us from being grabbed and shoved off clouds by the
Yxubarecs.”

Id squinted at my crown, then my ring. I could tell he was
thinking that Clair had given us that stuff, and it was worth plenty, with or
without magic.

I looked down at the ring. Wait! I could twist the stone out
and throw it ... but it would only bring transfer me to Clair, and leave the
others behind. And I wouldn’t know where I’d left them behind.

So forget that.

Id was still eyeing us in a way that made me suspect he
wanted to steal us food, if not sell our jewelry, but he was just waiting for
someone else to suggest it, so he’d know it was okay. After all, stealing was
how he’d spent his time as a kid. But like I said, he’d been trying to be an
honest person ever since coming to this world and being appointed a mayor,
instead of being tossed in the klink, like he’d expected. Klutz, too.

Dhana said, “Maybe we can offer some entertainment?”

“I think we’re good.” Seshe looked doubtfully at us. “But
will others think us good enough for pay?”

 “I’ll dance.” Klutz waved her arms and legs, then winced. “Ooogh.
Okay, I’ll sing.” She began squawking like a cockatoo.

That started off a bunch of our best insult songs. Since
Klutz and Id hadn’t heard a few of our newer ones, we sang those. Puddlenose
joined in on the ones he’d learned in his few days of visiting. He wasn’t much
for carrying a tune, but he sang nice and loud. Dhana stayed quiet, and at the
end of
Home, Home on Derange
said, “People will pay us to go away!”

Id said, “People don’t pay you to go away. They throw
sticks.”

Klutz jerked a freckled thumb his way. “He’s right.”

“Hmmmm,” Puddlenose said.

We reached the river, and a road alongside it. Just below a
village there was a wharf. We learned that a raft would go down that evening,
but they mostly carried stuff for traders, not passengers to be sung and danced
for. When our faces showed our disappointment, the man in charge laughed. “You
lot on the Wander?”

We all nodded.

“If you work at loading and unloading, old Ginsa’ll take you
on. Then she doesn’t have to pay the wharf hands.”

This turned out to be true. We got floated the rest of the
way, which was good, but we had to unload about ten billion heavy boxes into
wagons, which was bad. Also bad: we hadn’t had any supper, so our stomachs felt
flat against our backbones by the next morning.

But the tough old woman in charge seemed to like what we
did, because at the very end, when we were sweaty and tired, she grunted and
said, “Half the time the brats carry two boxes and run for it. Here, you can
have the pay I’d give the wharfers.”

And she handed us some copper coins.

We walked into the crowd. Klutz chortled, “I told you we
better not run,” and Id grinned.

o0o

After a good breakfast that pretty much used up all the
coppers (making Puddlenose comment that the pay was probably for one single
worker, even though she got all our hands) we set out toward the white city.

There were a lot of dilapidated houses along the
road—temporary-looking. That was odd. I had gotten used to things being built
to last. On Earth there had been lots and lots of new building, even if a lot
of it was really ugly, with garish lights and a lot of aluminum siding. On this
world, I’d thought they didn’t build for cheapness and “utility” (meaning
ugly), but from the look of that shanty-town, I was wrong.

The people didn’t seem poor or desperate. In fact, everywhere
we looked there were goods on display on tables and in wagons, all like a nice
market moved into the open, away from the crummy tumbledown buildings.

Because we couldn’t understand most of what was said, we
couldn’t ask questions, until we stopped for lunch at what seemed to be the
last inn before a long, empty stretch of road leading to the white city.

“You sure you want to go into yon city?” Seshe asked, when
we sat down at a table.

“Sure! It looks pretty,” I said. “Why not? Maybe we can find
out something about ships, there.”

A girl our age wearing an apron had come over with a basket
of bread. She said in accented Mearsiean, “You do not wish to go to Arthla.”

We goggled at her as if she’d grown a purple nose.

She stared back. “You do not understand me?”

“We understand fine,” I said. “How’d you know our language?”

“How you do know ours?” the girl answered back, grinning.
She was tall, friendly brown eyes, pretty hair worn back in braids. “I come
from Tser Mearsies, and you?”

“Oh, the old country,” Puddlenose exclaimed. And to us, “Where
Mearsieans came from almost 800 years ago.” Back to the girl, “We’re not in
Tser Mearsies, right?”

She grinned. “You’re in Bermund. Tser Mearsies is upriver a
ways south. My family used to be on the sea-trade, but when Arthla went stone,
they shifted to the river.”

“Went stone?” I asked.

She pointed out the open window. “You don’t want to go
there. I know how pretty it is. But you really don’t want to go there, unless
you want to get turned into stone.”

“Why do people who go there get turned into stone?” Seshe
asked.

“Because they want the reward for freeing the queens,” the
girl said, shrugging. “From the stone spell.”

The gang looked at me.

“Hey, I only know how to break one kind of stone spell,” I
said.

“And you have to be royalty,” the girl said, laughing.

The gang’s gazes snapped from the girl to me again, like a
bunch of cartoon characters. Whizz, zap!

The girl looked at my silver crown, then at my scruffy
clothes and bare feet. She said doubtfully, “Or the Evil Mage turns you into a
rock statue.”

“Wait, wait.” I waved my hands. “Evil Mage?”

“Well, none of us have
seen
the Evil Mage. My
grandmother told us the story. She said
her
mother saw the Evil Mage
when they all moved out of the city, and put up out here, in hopes somebody
frees the queens, so they can all go back home. Now, what’ll you have? We’ve
three choices ...”

We pooled the rest of our coppers, and got the most filling
stuff we could for what little we had.

Over that, we discussed what to do. Puddlenose thought we
should go straight to the white city and look around. Royalty and stone spell
were too interesting to pass up. Klutz agreed. Seshe was worried, because of
the talk about the city being full of statues from those who tried and failed.
Sherry got scared by the mention of Evil Mages, and Gwen would agree with one
side then the other. Dhana didn’t care, and Id wanted to run for the hills. He
didn’t trust white cities, evil mages, or any kind of royalty. “Except you,
because you’re not like real royalty,” he said, pointing to me. “I mean, born
royalty.”

Yes, that was the problem. I wondered if some sort of weird
magic would decide I was a fake, if I did try to break the enchantment.

But when the others finally turned to me, most of them
expectant, I said, “Sure, why not?

I didn’t say anything, but when we were done, Seshe walked
by me. “I don’t understand how any magic spell could know someone is royalty,”
she said, then added quickly, “or not.”

“I don’t know either.”

“Do crowns have special spells? I never studied magic. Did
Clair tell you they do?”

“Well, Six-Stix does, but all the magic was put on it. So
how else could magic know a crown is a crown? Well hey, if the situation looks
stinky, we can always skedaddle, right?” I loved the idea of defeating an Evil
Mage ... and getting a reward.

If, that is, if I could do it by dispelling some evil spell,
and not get myself into a magic fight, which I knew I’d lose.