New Lands (THE CHRONICLES OF EGG) (29 page)

“Just do.”

“Stop it! It’s creepy.”

I held my breath. This could go bad in a hurry.

But to my relief, Venus turned away from him and tottered back to sink into her pillows. Her headdress wobbled, but a little nudge from Venus’s servant steadied it.

“So I’m your queen,” Venus announced, pursing her lips in what I imagine she figured was a very queenly expression. “And everybody loves me. And Egbert’s writing a book about it.”

She pointed to the chief. “Over there’s your king. We’re going to be married. There’s going to be a
huge
party. If you’re very, very good, and you serve me well, you can come to it. Otherwise, you can’t. And you’ll have to stay in the pit while everybody else goes to the party. And also you might get dead.”

She gave a happy little sigh. “Now. Who likes my headdress?”

“I was just thinking about how gorgeous it is,” said Millicent. “It frames your face perfectly. And it
really
sets off your eyes—you’re quite beautiful!”

Venus beamed. “I know! Right?”

Then she looked at the rest of us. It took a second for us to realize we were supposed to chime in, too.

“Yeah! Beautiful! I love it, I really do.”

“It’s wonderful. You are a beautiful queen.”

“Nice, yeh. Like it!”

Her smile faded a little. She didn’t seem to think our answers were quite up to snuff. “So. You’re living in a hole in the ground. Right?”

“Yes. Thank you!” said Millicent.

We all nodded. Venus looked a little confused. I think she wasn’t sure if the “thank you” was sarcastic or not.

Then she frowned. “If I take you out of the hole. And I make you my servants. How will you serve your queen? Egbert wants you to help with the book, but I think he’s just being lazy.”

There was a pause as everybody thought about the question.

“How would you like us to serve you?” Millicent finally asked in a sweet voice.

That seemed to stump Venus. She scrunched her eyebrows together, making the thick smears of orange and blue makeup above her eyes bend in on themselves.

Finally, the orange and blue smears sprang up. She’d thought of something.

“I want my pony,” she demanded.

“Perhaps we could find one for you,” suggested Millicent. “Of course, we’d have to travel out of the city to—”

“No, no, no,” said Venus impatiently. “
They’re
supposed to get me one, and they haven’t.” She pointed behind us, in the direction of the chief. “I want
that
one. The one they promised.”

I heard the deep, gruff voice of the chief, his voice rising in a question. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kira turn her head in his direction. She answered him in what must have been Moku.

“Don’t you go talking to my king!”
Venus shrieked. She started to lurch to her feet, but the sudden movement sent her headpiece
careening wildly to one side, and while Venus and her servants were trying to keep her from choking on the strap, the chief answered Kira.

I risked looking over my shoulder. He was leaning forward in his chair, his eyes wide with interest. By the time Venus freed herself from the headdress and got to her feet, Kira and the chief were well into a conversation.

Dumb as she was, it must have dawned on Venus that this could work to her advantage.

“You actually understand him? You talk that gobbledygook, too?” she asked Kira.

Kira turned back to look at her. “Yes.”

“Don’t just sit there nodding! Ask him where my pony is!”

As Kira turned back to the chief, something caught Venus’s eye, and she suddenly screamed in horror.

“AAAAAAH! WHERE IS THAT BOY’S HAND?”

She pointed a shaking finger at Guts, whose stump was up near his face, where he must have raised it to scratch his nose. He quickly lowered it, his lip curling in a snarl.

“He lost it,” I said quickly. “Trying to serve you!”

Venus turned to glower at me.

“It’s disgusting! Get him out of here, Egbert! Right this minute! Don’t go bringing me one-handed subjects!
Eeew!
”

I scrambled to my feet and practically dragged Guts toward the exit.

“Gimme hook back, won’t have to see it,” he growled.

Venus didn’t hear him. She was too busy yelling,
“Eeew! Eeew! Eeew!”

The chief watched us pass, his eyes crinkling with amusement.

The warriors who escorted us into the room were coming forward to intercept me and Guts.

“MAKE EGBERT COME BACK ONCE THAT FREAK’S GONE!” I heard Venus yell, followed by a slightly quieter “Tell them that!”

The last line must have been directed at Kira, because I heard her call out in Moku. When she did, the warriors heading toward us looked at each other, unsure of themselves.

Then the chief said something, and all but two of them stepped back.

As the two warriors escorted Guts and me to the exit, I could hear the chief and Kira start talking again.

“Some family ye got,” he muttered.

“Tell me about it.”

I went with him as far as the corridor that led outside. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re going to get out of this.”

“Get my hook back!” he yelled as he left with the two warriors.

By the time I returned to the group, both Kira and the chief were on their feet. He was halfway to Venus, words tumbling out of him as Kira stood between them, listening intently. He finished, and Kira turned to Venus and offered a translation in a voice too low for me to hear.

Whatever Kira said, it made Venus screech with fury.

“LIAR! LIAR!”

I quickened my pace as Kira answered her. The response seemed to just make things worse.

“PUNISH! PUNISH! PUNISH!” Venus screamed, pointing a shaking finger at Kira.

The warriors ran past me toward Kira and Millicent, who were already retreating toward us in the face of Venus’s fury.

The chief was laughing. The blind rage of his bride-to-be, or whatever she was, was hilarious to him.

By the time the girls and I reached each other, the warriors had formed a wedge in front of them, and I had to quickly step aside or the men would’ve flattened me as they passed.

Kira and Millicent both looked frightened.

“What happened?” I called out.

“Rovians are coming! Any minute!” said Kira.

“There’s no time!” Millicent yelled over her shoulder at me as the warriors hustled them out of the temple.

“EGBERRRRRT!”

I turned away from the girls and back toward my sister. Her servants were flocking around her, trying helplessly to soothe her fury.

As I started toward Venus, the chief turned in my direction and headed for the exit, his stone-faced attendants following in his wake.

He was still laughing. As we passed each other, he said something to me that sounded like it was Moku for “good luck with
that.
”

When I got to Venus, I hit my knees without even being asked. She fixed me with a venomous look.

“You’re not to speak to those people anymore or I’ll kill you,” she hissed. “That savage girl especially. She told the most
disgusting
lies.”

“What kind of lies?” I asked, trying to sound meek.

“Not even repeating them, they’re so horrid. Ugh!”

Venus plopped down on her pillows.

“Drink!”

One of the servants took off like she’d been shot from a cannon.

“Are some…men coming…?” I asked.

“Yes!” She brightened a little. “That’s the
only
true thing that witch said. They’re bringing my pony!”

“And it’s…Rovians bringing it?”

“Yes! Tons of them. All on horses. Maybe
they
can translate all this babble without lying like filthy pigs.”

“Venus…”

“Queen!”

“My queen…”

“What is it? Don’t be a prat. Spit it out.”

“Those Rovians are very bad men—”

“Don’t you start, too!” she hissed.

“I know you want a pony. And I want you to have one. But the men who are coming aren’t friends of ours. They make slaves of the Natives. And—”

“Don’t!”

“—they’re the same ones who tried to kill you! All of—”

“AAAAAAAAH!” She pressed her hands to her ears and screamed, just like she used to back at home whenever someone told her something she didn’t want to hear.

“GET OUT!”

I got out of there so fast the warrior escorts had to trot to keep up with me. Time was precious, and the help I needed wasn’t going to come from my sister.

D
ad was waiting at the bottom of the temple steps.

“Wot’s she on about? I heard the yellin’.”

“I’ve got to talk to the others.” I started off in the direction of the pit.

“Can’t,” he said. “Only let ye near it if yer bringin’ food.”

I glanced back at the two warriors who’d followed me out of the temple. They stared back at me with blank faces.

I figured Dad was right. I went back to the temple steps, where I could sit and think. Dad followed me.

“We’ve got to get them out. We’ve got to leave here. Right away.”

“Wot fer?”

“Rovians are coming.”

“That’s great! Ticket out.”

“No. It couldn’t be worse.”

“How ye figger?”

There was no telling him what the problem was without
coming clean about the map. So I did. I didn’t know if Millicent would have approved, but she was in a hole in the ground, and I had to trust my own judgment.

It came as a real shock to Dad that the balloon accident was no accident, but he didn’t have trouble believing it the way Adonis did.

“Figgered it was a map,” Dad said. “Sumpin’ to do with that legend.” He shook his head. “Never shoulda trusted that weasel lawyer.”

I suddenly remembered I wasn’t the only person with a copy of the writing on the wall of the Fire King’s tomb.

“Do you still have the map?” I asked him.

He nodded, patting the pocket of his trousers. “Good thing, too—cut us a break with the savages.”

“What do you mean?”

“First we landed, seemed like as not they was gonna kill us. Then I showed ’em the parchment, and all a sudden we was honored guests.”

“They could read it?”

“Course. Same marks as wot’s on their walls.” He pointed to the temple.

I shook my head. “They’re from a different tribe.” I nodded at the warriors, lounging around with Dad’s shadow a short distance away from us. “These men are Moku. But they captured this city from the Okalu—the Fire King’s people. They’re blood enemies.”

“Huh.” He mulled that over. “Now ye mention it…dunno they read it or not. Passed it around a good bit. Looked confused, lot of ’em. But I put it to just havin’ part of it.”

“Part of what?”

“The map. Only copied the beginnin’. Get a flavor of it so’s I could take the measure of whoever was gonna read it fer me. Didn’t want to write down all of it, case ’ey’d steal it fer themselves. Frightful long to copy, anyhow. Ye really fit the whole thing in yer brain?”

I nodded. “I think so. I
hope
so. Had to wreck the original so Pembroke couldn’t get it.”

Dad stiffened. “Bloke better not’ve gone messin’ near me plantation,” he growled.

“He did more than that—he took it over for a while,” I said.

“Wot?! — —!”
he bellowed.

I nodded. “First he sent a whole squad of soldiers. Paid off Percy to help them. They moved into the house, dug up half the plantation looking for the treasure. When I got back, we had to run them off. Then Pembroke came back with a hundred men, and we had to stand them down, too.”

Dad was staring at me, his mouth open. I could feel the pride swell up in my chest. After all those years of getting ignored, smacked around, and picked on, he was finally figuring out it was me, not my fool siblings, who’d come through for him when the chips were down.

Growing up, I used to dream about a moment like this—when all the unfairness and stupidity of my family got turned around and made right in a heartbeat. In spite of all the danger we were in, I couldn’t help smiling.

Except I was dead wrong. He wasn’t gaping at me because he was impressed. He was just trying to do the math in his head.

“Four o’ ye? Run off a hundred soldiers?”

“Three, actually. And the field pirates helped. Sort of. Most of them skipped out when it got hot, to be honest.”

“They didn’t stab ye in the back? Not even the smart ones?”

“Not at first.”

“Don’t sound like ’em.”

“I think they were loyal enough to—”

“Ain’t no field pirate’s loyal.”

“Well, they certainly didn’t want Rovian soldiers on their land.”

“Ain’t their land. It’s mine. An’ why’d they let ’em in to begin with?”

“What?” I was starting to feel a little panicky.

“Said the soldiers moved in! Dug up half the plantation. Who let ’em do it?”

“Wasn’t me. I wasn’t there—”

“Field pirates were. Let ’em waltz right in! Then ye come back, an’ they flip to backin’ yer lot? Jus’ like that?”

“Well, kind of—”

“Wot’d ye pay ’em?”

“A share of the treasure—”

“Weren’t no treasure yet. An ’em Rovians hadn’t cut a better deal? That Pembroke richy weren’t smart enough to line some thin pockets?”