Ozark Trilogy 3: And Then There'll Be Fireworks (10 page)

“Lewis Motley,” said Jewel simply, “you are either mocking us or you are stalling for time, and whichever one it is, it’s not to be borne.”

“No, I am not!” he protested. “Responsible of Brightwater
mind
spoke me” —she had gone far beyond just mindspeech, but he would not talk of that before two women, even to defend his actions— “every day, day after day after day, till I was nearly mad with it. I would be sitting working, I would be eating, I’d be seeing to a problem in the stables, I’d be talking as I am now, with one of the Family ... and suddenly she was there, in my mind.” He shuddered. “There’ve been many females that tried to tag along after me, but they had at least the decency to do it in the flesh, where a person could see them and have a fair chance at getting away. Not Responsible of Brightwater! Oh no—not that one.

“And so you did what?” Troublesome held her breath, waiting.

“I sent for the Magicians of Rank, and asked them all to come here on a matter concerning Miss Responsible of Brightwater, which they were willing enough to do, let me tell you; and I told them what she’d done—because she’d gone far, far
past
the bounds of decency—and I asked them to make her stop.
That’s
what I did. But not for the smallest wrinkle of time did I intend anything of the sort you’ve described to me, Troublesome. I meant them to reason with her, threaten her perhaps, set a small Spell on her ... just stop her unspeakable mucking about in
my mind!
Never did I mean them to hurt her ... Jewel, tell her. Little sister, explain to this woman that I never meant them to do her harm.”

Jewel of Wommack nodded, her eyes the color of river ice in late afternoon.

“He is mischief incarnate,” she said slowly, in grave agreement, “but he would not do anybody deliberate harm. He simply does not
think
—he never did. And now, because of his selfish temper, if the Grannys are right we have this dreadful time of trouble all to be laid at my brother’s feet. For all time. Congratulations, to the Wommack Curse!”

Troublesome gnawed at the end of her thick black braid, dust and leaves and all, a gesture Thorn of Guthrie had tried in vain to break her of.

“Lewis Motley Wommack,” she said carefully, “what did Responsible say to you when you asked her to stop it? Did she just refuse, say no, flat out with no explanation? That’s not like her ... not that any of it is like her ... but what did she
say
to you?”

The man’s face went cold and hard, and now it was Jewel’s turn to clap her hands to her mouth, because she suddenly understood, before the answer came.

“I never asked her,” he told them, voice like granite and a face to match. “She was
in
my mind; she knew how it repulsed me ... It would have been a very cold day in a truly hot place before I stooped to beg that vile little—before I stooped to ask Responsible of Brightwater to stop her foul behavior.
Ask
her, indeed—what do you think I am?”

Troublesome stood up and went over to a window, turned her back on him and on the Teacher, and stood staring out into the tangled woods beyond. She was shaking from head to foot, and her teeth gritted to keep them from chattering, in spite of the whiskey, and not until she had it under control did she turn round again, even through the spectacular bout of tongue lashing that Jewel of Wommack turned on Lewis Motley with. He had been told in baroque detail what an utter, despicable, pathetic, unspeakable, pigheaded, stupid, fool
male
he was, with elaborations and codas and emendations to spare, before Troublesome said another word. And when she did speak, her voice was hoarse with rage restrained.

“Lewis Motley Wommack,” she said, “I cannot explain this, and I shan’t try. I have no way of knowing the truth of it; I never knew even that Responsible had the skill of mindspeech. But I swear to you, and I know whereof I speak: my sister would never have knowingly done what you say she did. If she did it, she was bewitched, or mad, or anything else you fancy—but she would not have
done
that. Saving only Granny Graylady, there’s not an Ozarker alive more scrupulous about privacy than my sister. And you ... you never even asked her. You couldn’t
stoop
, to one small question. Lewis Motley, I would not be you and bear the burden of guilt that you will bear. Not for any power in this Universe.”

“I tell you— “ he began, but Jewel’s hand came down hard on his arm and silenced him.

“You’ve told us,” said Troublesome. “You’ve told us all I care to hear from you. You’ve answered the question I came to ask, and the Grannys were right. It took all the Magicians of Rank to put my sister to sleep, apparently; it will no doubt take all of them together now to wake her up.
All
of them; now when the ships are not running the oceans, and the Mules are not flying, and the Magicians of Rank are scattered to the four corners of the world ... four of them somewhere in the wilds of Tinaseeh, if they still breathe. And somehow, we will have to get them all together at Brightwater and have them undo this awful thing. And I’d best get on with it. The crew was half mutinous all the way here. Not a cloud came up they didn’t charge me with having caused it just by being on their leaky old rowboat. I’m not anxious to leave them waiting for me any longer on your coast.”

“I’ll ride with you,” said Lewis Motley at once. “I know the shortest ways—we’ll save time.”

Jewel of Wommack stood up, put one slender finger in her brother’s chest, and pushed. It was a measure of his state of mind that it brought him to a full stop; ordinarily, he was about as easy to stop as an earthquake.

“You will not,” she said flatly. “You’ve done enough. You’ve done so much more than enough already, my beloved brother, that your name will go down in history—be satisfied with that. You may well have destroyed an entire world for the sake of your pride—be satisfied with that. And I will ride with Troublesome of Brightwater to the coast to see if her ship has waited for her. And if it hasn’t, I will see to it that a way is found to get her home, if I must call in every man still able-bodied on Kintucky to turn his hand to shipbuilding “

“I would feel better if— “

“No doubt you would!” she cut him off. “I haven’t any interest in you feeling better. You have a lifetime ahead of you to spend trying to ease your guilt, but
I’ll
not help you! And besides that, they wouldn’t obey you, Lewis Motley. Not as they will me, if that proves needful.”

Lewis Motley closed his eyes and made no more objections. She was right. Not a man on Kintucky that would not, if a Teacher asked it of him, build a ship or a cathedral or a rocket or anything else she might demand. It had been planned that way, and it had gone according to plan; the Teachers were not just respected, they were reverenced. He could not command that sort of loyalty.

And then ... there was the way his head was whirling. It could not be true, but what if it were? What if Responsible had not known, really had not known, what she was doing to him? And he had not even given her the chance to stop?

He had seen it himself, it was what had led him to her bed, scrawny plucked creature that she was; there had been something special about her, and he had been determined to investigate it. Was it his curiosity, and his pride, that had made Ozark a wasteland ... and how many deaths lay at his door?

He could not have ridden to the coast, he realized, as the two women left the room and slammed its door behind them. He could not, at that moment, have risen from his chair.

It was cold at Castle Brightwater; bitter bone-stabbing cold, the cold that comes when the skies are full of snow that refuses to fall; and the sky was a leaden sorrowful gray. No fires burned in any of the Castle fireplaces. The people in the towns and on the farms were better off by far than those at the Castle, because it had been for the most part a clear and sunny winter, and the solar collectors on their roofs had been adequate to carry them even through days like this one. The problems of keeping warm a hulking stone Castle designed with all the traditional drafty corridors and stairways were considerably more formidable.

Troublesome had gone through the gloom of the Castle like a wind added to the drafts that already whined there, with a fine disregard for the staff scuttling out of her way and the just-barely tolerance of the Family, shouting for Veritas Truebreed Motley the 4
^th
, the Castle’s very own Magician of Rank. “Where
is
the man?” she had demanded as she tore up and down the halls and through the parlors, and “Where has he
gotten
to?” She got nothing for her troubles but shrugs and raised eyebrows, but she was accustomed to that; ten years’ practice being shunned toughened you up some.

She found him at last, by the simple expedient of looking everywhere there was, up on the Castle roof rubbing his hands together and cursing fluently in a spot where a tower kept off the wind but let the dim light by.

“It’s a fine thing,” he observed, glaring at her, “when it’s warmer outside the place you live in than it is
in
side, in the dead of winter. I’ve a good mind to move into that hotel down by the landing. I’d be more comfortable there, and I’m sure the company would be better. How did you find me, anyway?”

“Used an algorithm,” said Troublesome.

He made a face, not appreciating that word in her mouth, and went on as if she’d not used it. “And it’s finer
yet
, when a man can’t even find privacy on the bestaggering roof of a bestaggering
Castle!
First, it was one of the Grannys; and then it was Thorn of Guthrie—curse her narrow pointy little soul—and now, the Twelve Gates defend us all, it’s
you!
What’s next, ghosts and demons?”

“Morning, Veritas Truebreed,” said Troublesome calmly. “Nice to see you, too, I’m sure.”

“What do you want with me?” the Magician of Rank demanded, cross as a patch. “Whatever it is, the answer is either no, I can’t or no, I won’t—there aren’t any other answers at the moment.”

“Might could be you’re right,” she said, “and might could be you’re wrong. Long as we’re being all binary here.”

“Troublesome, you’ll provoke me,” he warned her, and she let him know how alarmed she was at that prospect.

“Besides which,” she added, “you were already provoked before ever I set foot on this roof. And you may go right on being provoked till you choke, for all I care.”

“Well?” Veritas Truebreed was blue with cold and purple with outrage, but he knew quite well she could outlast him. “Speak up, woman; what are you here tormenting me for?”

Troublesome looked him up and down, noting that he’d abandoned the elegant garments of his station for something that looked more like a stableman’s winter wear. Something nubby and bulky, with a thick lining and a narrow stripe and a capacious hood. It showed good sense on his part.

“I want you to wake up Responsible,” she told him.

“You want me to what?”

“I’ve been to Kintucky and back, Veritas, and I— “

“You’ve been to
where
?”

“
As I said
, Veritas Truebreed, I’ve been to Kintucky and back—never you mind how, just let me tell you it wasn’t easy and it was hardly what you might call a holiday excursion—and I’ve heard the whole sorry tale from the lips of Lewis Motley Wommack the 33
^rd
his very own self, and you’d best hop it. Time’s a-wasting.”

The Magician of Rank stopped rubbing his hands together then, and blowing on them, and he leaned back against the stone of the tower, closed his eyes, and groaned aloud like a woman birthing.

“Only you could have brought this upon me. Troublesome of Brightwater,” he said at last through clenched teeth, when he’d done with his groaning, “only you! We don’t have trial and misery enough already; now we have to have
this
. Oh, for the power to do just one tiny Transformation... I’d turn you into a slimeworm, with the greatest of pleasure, I’d step on you with my shoe heel ... no, I’d set
fire
to you, right at the tender end where your little yellow eye was, and then— “

“Demented,” said Troublesome.

“What?”

“You’re demented. Mad. Plain crazy. And I’ve heard enough and a few buckets left over from you. I’m not
interested
in the twisted inventions of your imagination, Veritas Truebreed. I am interested in having you wake up my sister—bringing in all the other Magicians of Rank you need to help you at it, if that’s required, and I suppose it is, though it’s mighty curious that it takes nine-to-one odds for one small female like Responsible—and I’m interested in seeing if the Grannys are right that that will improve things around here a tad. Either you leave off your drivel and come along to get started on that, or I’ll push you off the roof—how’s that for managing without Formalisms & Transformations? Nothing fancy, O Mighty Magician, just shove you right off and let you try the effect of the stone down there in the courtyard on the very same body you came into this world with. You’ll squash, I expect, and the Holy One knows you deserve it.”

He opened his eyes and sighed, and she wondered impatiently what was next. There are only just so many meaningful noises in the sigh & moan & grunt & groan category, and he was running through them at a great rate.

“It can’t be done,” he said simply, and that surprised her. “I’m more than willing, but it—cannot—be—done. Don’t you think we tried?”

Troublesome hunched down beside him and regarded him seriously. This didn’t look to be at all funny, if he spoke the truth.