Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (36 page)

“Well, we could just visit the main trade centers. And see
if we can contact the leaders. Tell them to get ready to rise. If you figure
out the magical end, wouldn’t it be a good idea to send some signal and have
all the locals throw out the Chwahir?”

“Could they?” I said doubtfully.

“They might be able to now,” he said. “When his force is
spread so thin. If he gets those reinforcements from the home country, it’s
going to be a whole lot harder to kick them out again. And I don’t know how
well our alliance has done in holding them back.”

Puddlenose said, “Another thing. We got free yesterday, but
now they know we’re all free. And that we’re here.” He stuck a thumb at himself
then at me.

“And they’ve got to have some kind of lair nearby, to always
be on call,” Lina said, making a face. “Because they sure came quick last time.”

“I think Jilo’s in charge of the search,” Puddlenose added. “Him
and his pals. If they keep chasing us, sooner or later they’re going to figure
out where the Junky is.”

“All right. Then let’s have two plans,” I said. “People
who’ll do that contact-and-throw-off-the-Chwahir floob.”

Captain Heraford put up his hand—and so did the sailors, so
fast I had a suspicion they’d talked it out beforehand. I got hold of my
fuming. They were on my side, and they hadn’t just bulled in and taken over.

Lina put up her hand, followed by Robin. “I think that
sounds like mayor business,” Lina said. “You know, maybe I’d better go back and
see if our people headed for the hills. Just like in the bad old days. I bet
anything they did. If so, we could rise, too.”

I groaned out a loud sigh. Psheee—eeeuuuu-oooow! “So that
leaves us to lure that spackle-nose Jilo out ... we need some kind of decoy.”

“We could do that,” Puddlenose offered. “I’d like a fight.
See what ol’ Jilo is made of when he’s not sneaking around throwing magic at
people behind their backs.”

A couple of the younger sailors stirred, but I ignored them.
Oh, I could imagine it—seemed like a fine plan—but I had a better idea. Seeing
Seshe sitting there reminded me.

“How about a better decoy?” I asked.

Everybody said, “Who?” or “What?” except for Faline, who
said, “Spackle-nose!”

“PJ.”

I waited for the hoots, laughs, and
What???
s to die
down.

I said, warming to my idea, “We dress him up as one of us.
Let him go. He’ll get bagged, and Jilo takes him to Kwenz—he probably doesn’t
even know PJ, since the Auknuges were thrown out of MH around the time Jilo got
demoted into Kwenz’s heir.”

“Demoted?” the captain asked, puzzled.

“Well, since they’re lower than slime, I figure, rank with
them has to go lower, not higher. Lowest of all is Shnit.”

“Now that almost makes sense,” the captain said, grinning. “I
salute you!”

I turned to Puddlenose. “Well? It’s not like you’ve done
anything about a ransom. And if Kwenz recognizes PJ, especially if you know,
first Jilo thinks he’s one of us—”

“Who, Jilo’s one of us?”

“No! If PJ thinks Jilo—I mean, if Jilo thinks
PJ
is
one of us, well, maybe he’ll get into trouble for stupidity!”

“PJ?” Sherry asked, brow puckered.

I smacked my forehead. “Pil—that is, Jilo. Hey, that’s a
great name! Pilo!”

“Pilo and PJ!” Irene exclaimed.

“But PJ will tell Jilo who he is,” Dhana said.

“Who listens to his whining? Jilo won’t!”

Puddlenose clapped his hands and rubbed them. “And so we
lure him out, and capture him, instead. And ransom him to Kwenz!”

“Yeah!” Everybody yelled.

“That’s it, then,” I said, relieved. “I’ll go get PJ. See if
he’ll do it.”

I didn’t want to talk to PJ, but I figured it was my plan,
so I should see it out. I went to the opening to Puddlenose’s room and called
down, “PJ!”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Do you want to get out and go home?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you have to agree to something.”

“Whaaat?” he whined.

“You have to get dressed in normal clothes, and pretend to
be one of us.”

“Ugh,” he said. HE!

“UGH!” I honked, disgusted beyond measure that he would dare
to express disgust!

But he agreed. So we put together an outfit from our stores.
PJ is a whole lot smaller and scrawnier even than you’d think, so it took a
couple of tries to find things that fit, and as most of us hate shoes—and those
are girl shoes—we didn’t even try with those. But he almost looked human when
the idiotic brocade-gilt-lace-gemstone-mess was off him.

The pirates had let him go through the cleaning frame, so
that and regular food instead of the awful stuff he usually ate had cleared the
pimples to purple patches. He almost looked human, if you didn’t look at his
expression.

We blindfolded him again, took him out, led him far away,
and then took off the blindfold. “Now. Just keep going,” I said.

He glowered in suspicion. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. I hope you can manage that much.”

He stomped away, the curled toes of his shoes wiggling with
his disgust.

As he gradually vanished beyond a shaft of sunlight slanting
down, mottling the grass, I said, “And there goes a really dumb idea. You were
right, Seshe.”

“I dunno,” Seshe said softly. “Maybe I was wrong.”

“What?” three or four of us turned to stare at her.

“Think about it. He had nothing to do for days but sit and
listen to us having a good time. Not ordered, no false social occasions. Just,
you know, everyday behavior. Has he ever seen that?”

“All he did was whine,” Faline said, waving a hand. “He
wouldn’t even listen to me when I tried to cheer him up with a joke or two.”

Seshe shrugged, and that was that.

Sure enough, Jilo and his gang swooped down on him. As they
muscled him off to Kwenz (and I was right—PJ was yelling wildly, but Jilo paid
no attention to his mix of threats and accusations against us) Puddlenose and
Dhana followed them, hoping to find Jilo’s HQ.

The rest of us stayed around—and later on that day, when
Jilo and his friends came back, we were ready. Whether Kwenz got mad at Jilo or
not, there was no way of knowing. But one thing for sure: he thought like a
kid, because here he was, just as we predicted.

We ran, hid, jumped on twigs to crack them. We spread out in
order to cause them to divide up. Jilo soon separated off from his gaggle, following
a trail of footprints Irene had stamped into the ground so even he could find
them.

As soon as we were pretty sure he was as isolated as he’d
get, I stepped out from a tree and flopped on the grass, pretending to be
asleep. After I gave a few snores louder than a herd of buffalo, Jilo spotted
me—I heard footsteps—before he could get within a few feet, I zoomed up and
into a tree.

He ran along below me—straight into our trap, heh heh.

And before long, there he was, blindfolded, tied up, and
dumped into PJ’s former chamber.

“Let me out of here,” he demanded, looking up at us with
those creepy all-black eyes.

“Don’t be an idiot.” I gloated, remembering what he’d done
to us. “Ooops, too late for that. Don’t be more of an idiot.”

Sherry said earnestly, “Look, if you don’t act like PJ—er,
Prince Jonnicake—we’ll send food down.”

Silence. Faline grinned, her face purple as she tried not to
laugh. Even Jilo didn’t want to be compared to PJ!

“You put the grab on us, so it’s only fair that we do it to
you,” I added. “And,” I couldn’t resist adding, “we aren’t doing anything nasty
and disgusting like turning you into creepy stuff. Like you did.”

“You don’t know enough magic,” he said snidely.

So much for my being superior.

“Yes I do,” I shot back, though it wasn’t true. At least it
wasn’t true because I didn’t want to do anything that nasty.

But I wasn’t going to tell him
anything
.

We stayed like that for a couple of days. I kept at my end
of the hideout. Later on I heard teenage boy voices arguing, and went out to
nose. Puddlenose leaned in the doorway, laughing, as Jilo said something I
couldn’t hear. He sounded angry. I didn’t want to know what they were blabbing
about, especially as they did it in Chwahir.

Dhana and Seshe, our best now that Diana was out, reported
that the forest was full of searching Chwahir.

Then came a sailor late at night, saying that Wesset North
was ready to rise—and the Chwahir were suspicious. They had increased their
patrols, looking for someone to bag and to blame, according to the captain.

So it was time to act.

“We’re going upstairs,” I said, though my insides jellied at
the thought. “Seshe, if we have any sleepweed, put it in Jilo’s food, so he’ll
konk out.”

This was done, and we left—but then I remembered that 1) we
didn’t have our own transport spell any more, and 2) I couldn’t do magic.

I didn’t want to take the long way, and so I whistled up
Hreealdar, the horse who turns into lightning. (Or maybe he’s lightning that
takes horse form.) Anyway, I went up first, and snuck into the White Palace,
which was almost deserted. The captain was right—the Chwahir were all below the
cloud-city.

I went straight to Clair’s magic chambers, though I almost
didn’t find it. An illusion spell made the door look like a wall—but just when
I hesitated, the spell sort of blurred, I put out my hand, and only found air.
Inside, I searched through the magic books to try to find a way to break the
spells on me ... but what I found I could barely understand. One thing was for
sure. If I tried and blew it, the ward could double on me somehow, and make me
vanish into the between—where people went who lost control of a transfer spell.
Typical black magic nastiness.

Baggies! So magic was definitely out.

Once I knew the others were upstairs, I ignored the
pocketa-pocketa of my heart, and marched to the throne room, whispering
pocalubes to keep my courage up.
Baggies. Baglionettes. Klonkliobags.
Snarkleodeon
. And there was Kwenz—busy with some books of his own.

He looked up sharply. “So it’s true. You did leave the
Holder.”

His tone was not promising.

“I did, because it’s my duty, so get offa that thar throne!
I’ve got your heir, and if you don’t go away, we’ll cut him into bits and turn
them into cricket pelts.”

Guards appeared, and flanked me.

“No,” Kwenz said.

The guards grabbed me. At a motion of the Finger of Doom,
one pulled a knife and jabbed me in the back of my neck with it.

“You have one chance to tell me where the wards are—”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I screeched.

“Kill her.”

Just as lightning started at the side of my neck the rest of
me oozed into darkness. As I passed out, I heard noises.

o0o

When I came out, Seshe was sitting beside me. “I wrapped up
the cut,” she said.

“What happened, what happened,” I tried to croak. It came
out sounding like
warble wark!
But Seshe understood.

She said, “First, Puddlenose clubbed Kwenz from behind. The
guards were too busy looking at you, and so Puddlenose got right behind Kwenz. So
we have Kwenz, and Jilo, and used the threat over them to get the guards tied
up and locked in a cupboard. But Chwahir captains keep coming around looking
for Kwenz to get orders. They obviously don’t know what to do, and Puddlenose
said they get terrible punishments if they do things on their own. But that’s
not going to last long. We’ve got to find Clair.”

I got up, though it hurt to move. “Meet in the kitchens—if
the Chwahir aren’t there.”

“No, they all seem to be downstairs, waiting for orders.”

“I hoped capturing Kwenz would somehow fix things, but it
didn’t.”

Well, the other kids joined me. We sat at the table where
we’d shared so many happy meals, but no one smiled now. The faces around me
ranged from solemn to anxious. Faline looked so pale her freckles stood out.

I said, “Puddlenose, you were the last one to see Clair.
Tell us again exactly what happened.”

He went through the whole stupid story one more time, very
carefully. It was pretty much like he had described it when aboard the
Tzasilia
.
“... and then it was like she sank through the floor, and she was gone.”

“Sank through the floor.”

He shrugged. “That’s what it seemed like to me.”

“What’s right below? ... Nothing. Just the mountain. So much
for that idea.”

We sat in gloom while I thought over everything, including
my dream. Not that I put much stock in dreams, but it had been so vivid. Only
the dream had just been weird, bright colors and no recognizable ...

“Oh.”

Everyone stopped talking.

“Oh.”

“Uh, CJ? Hurting too much?” Irene asked, pointing to my
neck.

“What’s right below the throne room?”

“Mount Marcus,” everyone said (except for Dhana, who said, “My
Lake,” and Faline, who said, “Gorbaggio”).

“The caves.”

Silence.

“Yes!”

“The caves!”

“She must be there!”

I said, “Who’s going with me?”

Now everybody looked out the windows—at the floor—the
ceiling—the sugar bowl.

“Then I’ll go alone.” By then my neck was throbbing badly,
and I felt dizzy and weird. “First thing come morning, then.”

It was late, but no one had had a bite to eat all day. And
so, despite the situation, Seshe tried the kitchen magic—and sure enough,
waiting beyond time was Janil’s last meal for us, hot and ready. I have to tell
the truth, the sight of mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, string beans, and
roast chicken made me feel like crying.

From the continued silence, I was not the only one.

We ate, being ready to run at the first sign of trouble. But
there wasn’t any. The Chwahir were all busy searching below, either for Jilo or
for the mysterious attackers, because we didn’t know it, but the sailors had
begun by burning down the Chwahir barracks in a bunch of places, and attacking
their outposts, and stealing their horses.