Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) (25 page)

We moved off of the road around six-thirty in the evening and camped in a thicket next to a creek. After a cold supper of beans and hardtack we washed up and checked for damage. The captain tended to his horse like it was his best girl, of course. You’d expect no less. Romulus just shucked his boots, glanced at his perfectly-healthy feet, curled up like a hound, and started snoring. Boy, I wanted to whack him a good one out of pure envy. I had blisters on both feet, a hole in one sock, and a bruise on my backside from that diabolical McClellan saddle. To my mind, all the trouble that the Union commander had in taking Richmond could be put down to his having invented such a fiendish torture device.

On top of everything else, I had a surplus of livestock on my body. The lice and the fleas had to go. With Tyrell’s bemused permission I got a fire going a few yards from camp, behind a wall of briars. Having established as much privacy as I looked likely to get, I set our one small pot on the fire and boiled water. Then I stripped down to my near-black bare skin and scrubbed myself while my drawers and shirt bubbled away. It had been a darned lucky thing to have found that tunnel full of supplies. I’d pocketed a tiny piece of soap and an old towel along with the other goodies. They now gave me blessed relief. When I’d cleaned myself to where you could finally see the freckles again (Ma’s personal indicator of my cleanliness), I skimmed the indignant insects from the top of the water. Wringing everything out, I hung the clothes on a branch, wrapped myself in the towel as best I could, and tossed my overalls and socks into the pot. By the time they’d been de-bugged my short hair had dried and so had most of my under-layer. Pulling on the drawers and shirt, I stretched out on the towel in bliss. It seems a small thing, but being clean amidst untold grime is one of the great joys of living. That lesson would be re-taught to me quite a bit in the coming weeks.

By the time everything had dried out as much as I could expect, darkness had arrived. We were just a couple of days past the summer solstice, so day gave up with a grumble. I packed up my stuff, doused the fire, and returned to the main camp. Tyrell had set up a dog tent in my absence and rolled out a bedroll in it. He told me to crawl in and sleep for at least six hours straight, as I had the most aches and pains. He and Romulus would keep first watch in three-hour shifts. I didn’t argue with his logic. It was sweet innocent Mary Williams he was caring for, after all. Had to keep playing my part. After whispering to Romulus that Roberta and Ernie might show up, I went out like a drenched candle.

My new dream returned as clear and sharp as it had been the first night I’d had it. It being the third time through, I could start to think about what things might mean even while I floated in the dream. Romulus had to be the black dog, that seemed obvious. Tyrell might be the angel in cavalry boots, but who the other angels could be I had no idea. Marshals, maybe? If so, why no parrot feathers or mouse whiskers? And why did the Romulus-dog have a leash? I still couldn’t understand what the words in the sky were. Some might have been Iberion and Gaulle, though it was hard to tell because most of the time I couldn’t see the whole word. A few of them were in different alphabets. Hebraic, maybe? Arabe? Muscovite?
What’s that all about?

The people in foreign duds reminded me of the stories told about Washington’s Monument. Merchantry spies? Or Merchantry refugees? Or maybe they were people I would meet in the future. No telling how this dream thing worked. My first dream had been a taste of my future, but that didn’t mean that all dreams worked that way. If it warned of things to come then those Bullies were worrisome. I had a sick feeling that word would spread about how we’d treated them Saturday night. The next time we met they’d come loaded for bear.

That ship could be Roberta’s, the
Penelope’s Kiss,
my way to the Sceptr’d Isle. Eddie’s ambulance. Or his hearse. Maybe mine, too. The skulls on the beach worried me. So did those three armed strangers. I saw now that they wore dark-green clothes that were almost black, and masks covered their faces. All of them moved like dancers. Or cobras. Who the lady fighting them might be was vague. Me, all grown up? Ma? Someone I had yet to meet? Probably not Ma, since she came in a second later to toss me onto the ship. And what did the whale mean? I knew precious little about them, but this one didn’t seem like your normal harpoon-him-for-his-oil beastie. More like a god than a mere animal.

Afterwards I slept like the dead. No other dreams passed through my tired head. It bothered me a little that I didn’t have nightmares about what Venoma might be doing to Eddie, or what peril Ma could be in. Maybe the Stone protected me from the worst of that sort of thing, just like it made me stronger in my body and let me stay calm in a fight. Too bad it couldn’t prevent blisters or darn my socks. Now that’d be a magick rock to write home about.

It turned out I didn’t need a magick stone for the socks, just a Marshal of the Equity. A gentle touch on my shoulder woke me. For a moment I stayed fuzzy like you do when pulled from a sound sleep. Blinking, I saw Romulus, getting me ready for my sentry shift. He held out my socks, the hole repaired.

“Time to get up, Miss,” he whispered. “All’s been quiet so far.”

“You fixed my socks? That Marshals’ school’s real thorough, huh?” It embarrassed me a bit that he could do that and I couldn’t. In fact, I wasn’t much good at anything girlie. Ma would sigh sometimes and call me her firstborn son. That usually happened when I came home with a bullfrog, covered in Potomac mud, after winning three arm-wrestling matches with the local fellows.

“’Tweren’t nothin’. I always carry this with me for ‘mergencies.” I noticed that he held one of the tiny portable sewing kits that the soldiers called ‘housewives’.

“Thanks.” Pulling on my socks and boots, I crawled out of the tent. When I stood up and put weight on my feet, everything screamed in protest, from my blistered feet and achy butt to my back and arms. The last two must’ve been from all of the fighting. Twelve years old and I felt like somebody’s grandpa. This shaped up to be a long ugly quest. Maybe I’d save the world and then just fall apart like last year’s scarecrow in the middle of my victory ceremony.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” I whined, trying not to wake Tyrell. The Reb snoozed on the ground next to Al, whom he’d tied to a tree. Just to make sure that the horse didn’t disappear again, a slack rope had been tied around his neck and around the stirrup of the saddle. Tyrell used the saddle for a pillow, with his jacket for padding. If Alcibiades moved more than a few feet away the rope would tighten and jerk the saddle out from under his head, waking him up. I guessed old Al must’ve really had a talent for getting himself loose if the trooper had to take that kind of care.

“You sounds worse for wear,” said Romulus. “Feet OK?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Bad blisters. Dadburned boots. Shoulda gone barefoot, like a sensible girl. I may have to ride all day. That’ll be bad if there’s a scrap and I have trouble puttin’ weight on my dogs.”

“So to speak,” the Marshal smiled.
Whoa! Romulus has got a sense of humor. How about that.

Uh…yeah.” I tested my toes by trying to walk normal. Wincing, I made a disgusted sound. “Not good.”

“If they as bad as all that, we has to fix ‘em.”

I gave him a doubtful eye. “Fix ‘em? How? There some magick spell for that?”

He smiled again. “Actually, yeah.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve spillin’ chicken blood and chantin’ in Roman, I’m all for it. What do we do? Whatever it is, we have to get away from Tyrell. I don’t want him knowin’ about me yet.”

“Come along, then.” Romulus picked me up like I was the morning newspaper. He hauled me off to where I’d washed myself earlier. Setting me down on the bank of the run, he said, “The Stone and the Morphageus can do it.”

“Huh? Jasper can heal wounds?”
Wow! That’s more than most Army doctors can do, from what I hear tell from soldiers.

“If they’s somebody willin’ to accept the wounds from you.”

“There’s always a catch with magick, huh? Are you sayin’ somebody has to want to be blistered in my place?”

“Uh-huh. If they don’t make the choice then it won’t work.”

I looked at him for a long moment, a mosquito whining in my ear. “Nobody here but us, you know.”

“Oh, I knows it.”

“Awful kind of you, mister.”

“Way I looks at it, we’s all likely to live longer if you’s in one piece.”

I wasn’t as sure about that as he seemed to be, but gave him the benefit of the doubt. “Then you’ll have bad feet. How’s that help us? It’s just shiftin’ the burden to somebody else in the group. As a whole, we’re still crippled.”

“Not if I takes the wound someplace else.”

Aha.Clever.
“You can do that?”

His big head nodded. “Long as the wound itself gets transferred, the place can be different.”

“OK, then. How do we do it?”

“You just talks to Morphageus and asks. Then we holds hands and it happens. Easy.”

“Well, that sounds simple enough. Let’s---” A jolt hit me. Midnight had passed hours ago. “Oh-oh.”

“What?”

“My three days are up. His magick charge is gone.”

Romulus swatted a mosquito. He didn’t seem to have any worries about any black magick stain from that. “Did he tell you how to accept new magick?”

“Yeah. Said I had to do him favors and such. Or pull energy from Songlines.”

He held up a hand. “No Songlines until you knows how.”

“Don’t worry. He made that real clear already. We don’t want to leave a smokin’ crater here.” I waved the tin cup. “A favor it is, then.”

The instant I said it Jasper’s goofy voice rang in my head. “And I know just the one I want!” If he’d had hands he’d have been wringing them with proverbial glee.

“Why do I have this sinkin’ feelin’ in my belly all of a sudden?” I sighed.

“So little faith,” he pouted. “After all we’ve been through together.”

Rolling my eyes, I said, “That’s just why I’m worried. Romulus wants to accept my wounds. What’ll that cost me?”

“Fifty cents.”

It’s that easy?
“Really?”

“Oh, you wish, girlie. For a wound transfer? That’s heavy magick.”

I should’ve known.
“I ain’t gonna have to paint myself in colored rings and crawl around naked, am I?”

“Heck, no. This is easy. Trust me, you’ll like this.”

Three minutes later I felt as sick as I’d felt in a long time. Puffing away on one of Tyrell’s cigars, which Romulus had to pilfer from the sleeping captain’s coat, I just knew that my face looked the same color as the grass.
People choose to do this? For fun?

“If this is what adults do,” I croaked, “then I’ll stay a kid, thank you very much.”

Jasper laughed in my head. “Where’s your spirit of adventure? What kind of Stone-Warden can’t handle a little tobacco smoke?”

I waved a hand to try to clear the thick fog away. “Little? It’s like suckin’ on a locomotive’s stack.”

“Sweet ambrosia, I call it!” A satisfied breathing sound filled my ears. “You humans know how to live…when you ain’t bashin’ each others’ heads in and such.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, fix my feet. I held up my end of things.”

“Indeed you did.” The cup stretched out into Morphageus, Dread Sword of Nicotine Poisoning. “I have to be in my best shape for this.”

“Your Sunday-go-to-meetin’ outfit?” I asked, gagging.

“Yeah, somethin’ like that. Hold his hand.”

I reached out and took Romulus’ giant mitt with mine. He squeezed it gentle-like. It was warm and rough. My other hand gripped the sword’s hilt. It felt pretty much the same way, like a person’s palm.
I swear, that’s the creepiest part of this whole magick business.

“Are there magick words I have to say?” I asked, hoping that the more I talked the less I’d have to puff on that awful instrument of doom.

“Not for this. That’s Songline stuff. Just relax and let Uncle Jasper work his wonders.”

My feet started in to itching. As much as I wanted to scratch them, something told me that it wouldn’t be good for the spell. So I set my jaw and waited things out. Romulus clamped down on my hand some more. A light breeze blew away some of the foul smoke. Looking down, I saw tiny lights swirling around my feet, like blue-white fireflies.

“Where?” asked Jasper.

I sat fascinated by the lights and didn’t get what he was asking. “Huh?”

“Where does he want the wounds?”

I looked over at Romulus. “He wants to know where.”

“Upper arm, if you please,” he answered.

The second the words left his mouth, my foot-lights whirlwinded up to his burly left bicep, which he’d already bared. I felt a sting, as if a mischievous somebody had pinched my feet. My poor hand got crunched in Romulus’ fist, then released. The little lights sank into his skin like water into a washcloth. As they faded away, leaving the usual after-smell of brimstone and lily, I could see two nasty open blisters. The Marshal flexed his arm but showed no other signs of distress.

“Huh,” I breathed. My feet no longer hurt. In fact, every ache I’d had in my whole body had vanished, along with all of the exhaustion. I felt like I’d been reborn.

“No extra charge for the other stuff,” Jasper told me in a perky voice as I stripped off my socks and gazed at my pristine pink feet. “Now get back to our cigar.”

After dutifully sucking on the awful weed some more, and just as dutifully upchucking into the creek, I plopped down on the bank, Romulus patting my back. I guess he thought that could help, somehow. My sword looked like a cup again. Lucky thing it did.

Cigar stub still glowing in my hand, I heard Tyrell say from the edge of the thicket, “Ah, I remember my first stogie. How this takes me back. Since we’re all up, let’s breakfast and get on the road. Dawn’s coming soon.”

20/ Fredericksburg

I didn’t want to think how an adolescent sword might behave around a floozie.