Ozark Trilogy 3: And Then There'll Be Fireworks (14 page)

Troublesome had her sister gathered up in her strong arms, a comforter wrapped round her, and no more trouble than a tadling; she wasn’t even out of breath, despite all the stairs.

“You lead on, Silverweb,” said Troublesome, “you’re the one as knows how this is supposed to go. And I’ll follow. Can you hitch up a Mule? If you can’t, I can.”

Silverweb laughed. “I can hitch a Mule,” she said. “I can hitch up any living thing that walks this planet, and I can do a sight more than that. You just come along with me—and I thank you kindly for waiting for me.”

It took the Grannys’ breaths away. They stood there in silence—not the usual way of things—as the two young women left with their sleeping charge. And then they watched from the balcony as the gates were opened and the wagon that carried Responsible was pulled out of the Castle yard by a prime Mule.

“That’ll be Sterling,” said Granny Hazelbide, and Granny Gableframe nodded.

“It would be.”

“Whatever do you suppose is going to happen? There’s nothing out there in that desert to eat nor to drink, and those two didn’t gather up so much as a peachapple before they left here ...”

In the streets the people drew back, whispering under their breaths, to let the wagon through, and the parents held the tadlings up high to see. And above them, the crystal had lost its transparent clarity and was beginning to take on a pale garnet color, that pulsed along with the thrumming in the stone and in the air.

It was beginning to accumulate its charge.

Marktwain’s desert, the one and only desert Ozark had, was something of a mystery. For one thing, the rest of the continent would have led you to believe there could be no desert there; Marktwain was lush green farming land, surpassed only by the emerald richness of Mizzurah, all the way to its coasts in all directions. That you could go through the pass between Troublesome’s mountain and the others in its chain (not really much more than high hills, but the Ozark Mountains of Old Earth had not been towering peaks, either, and there was thus a precedent for it), and suddenly find yourself heading smack into a real desert—that was always a surprise.

It wasn’t large, and was called simply “The Desert”; if you’ve only one, there’s no special need to name it. The technology and the knowledge necessary to bind its sands with plant life and turn it green as the rest of the continent had been part of the Ozarkers’ equipment even at First Landing. When Marktwain’s population passed sixty thousand, the two Kingdoms of Brightwater and McDaniels all parceled out in towns and farms, the idea of keeping a desert for its unique character ceased to be anything but romanticism. But it was left alone, nevertheless, and it was a rare day when anybody did more than go to its border and glance out over its emptiness. The desert belonged, by treaty signed on First Landing, to the Skerrys.

Troublesome of Brightwater and Silverweb of McDaniels headed out into the desert, waiting one on each side of the wagon, and the few people that had followed them that far turned back and let them go on. It was one thing to be those two and go trifling with the Skerrys; ordinary folk had best mind their own business.

And it was as well they did. Troublesome and Silverweb had hardly crossed the first smooth ridge of sand, talking idly of the foolishness going on in Smith Kingdom with its clown of a King and its dithery females, and on down the ridge’s far side, before they saw ahead of them a group of Skerrys standing and waiting.

“How many do you think, Silverweb?” Troublesome asked softly, abandoning the ridiculous tale of the Smiths.

“I was told there would be forty-four,” said Silverweb. “It is a number significant to them.”

“Forty-four Skerrys!” Troublesome blew a long breath.

Not since First Landing had any Ozarker ever seen more than one Skerry at a time, and to sight one was so rare that it obligated the whole Kingdom where it happened to spend a day of celebration and full holiday in the Skerry’s honor. Just what the sight of forty-four might have meant in the way of obligations was difficult to imagine. It surely would have been a heavy burden of worry and debate, and Marktwain’s citizens had more than enough of worry on their plates at that moment.

Sterling stopped dead when
she
saw them, and would not take another step, and the two women hesitated, not sure whether to try forcing her on or not.

“What do you think, Silverweb?” Troublesome asked, measuring the animal with narrowed eyes. “Shall I encourage this blamed Mule a tad?”

Sterling’s ears went flat back, and she walled her eyes, to indicate what she thought of the idea, but Troublesome was not impressed. “You care to find out who’s meaner, you or me,” she told the Mule, “I’m ready any time.”

“I think I’d wait,” said Silverweb, “and see if we get some kind of sign.”

“Like forty-four Skerrys at once? Like a giant crystal over our heads?”

“I had something less outlandish in mind,” Silverweb answered. For example ...” And she pointed, doing it discreetly with the tip of her chin as befit a situation where the fine edges of manners weren’t well known, toward the Skerry that had separated from the group and was heading toward them.

“Is it male or female, I wonder?” Troublesome said softly.

“We don’t even know that there
are
male and female to the Skerrys,” Silverweb reminded her. “We know only that they are more beautiful than anything else that we have ever seen.”

And that was true. The one approaching them, moving over the sand with a gliding step like someone on ice, and at ease on ice, was blinding in its beauty. Much taller than Troublesome, who missed six feet by only a quarter of an inch, copper-skinned and its silver hair like a fall of water in the sun well below its waist, with eyes of purest turquoise, it lacked only wings to make it Angel. Angel of
what
was the question ... and nobody knew.

As nobody knew what substance of bone must be required to support the slender muscular bodies of a race that claimed eight feet as its
average
height. Or how many there were, or what they ate, or why it was they hated all water except the narrow trickle they held sacred.

Another time, Troublesome would have been adding up the bits of data, storing them in her mind to puzzle over later, as she did when faced with any mystery. But not now ... not when the Skerry smiled at them, leaned over the wagon, and lifted Responsible up in its aims and against its slender body, leaving the comforters and pillows behind in the bottom of the wagon; and then it turned, motioning with its head for them to follow.

Troublesome didn’t like that at all, and it distracted her attention completely. That was, after all, her own kin being galloped off with by a being that nobody knew whether it might eat her alive or keep her for a pet or skin her for her hide. But she hadn’t much choice, either, distracted or not; they were outnumbered many times over, even if they’d known what manner of living thing they dealt with ... and they didn’t.

The voice in her mind was gentle enough, but it was firm.

DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER, YOU THAT ARE NAMED TROUBLESOME, it Said, LEAVE THE MULE AND THE WAGON WHERE THEY ARE, AND FOLLOW US. NO HARM WILL COME TO YOUR SISTER OR TO ANY OF YOU—HOW COULD YOU THINK SUCH A THING?

Troublesome was not accustomed to mindspeech, and she didn’t like
that
, either. Two of the indigenous species of Marktwain were telepathic, then. It made sense, when you thought about it ... how else could the treaties have been negotiated? For sure. First Granny and the others had not landed speaking “Skerry,” nor would the Skerrys have been fluent in Ozark English. She’d never thought about it before, and it was only that she was so flustered that she thought of it now. It kept her mind off the possibilities up ahead, that she could in no way predict. But it was said that when the Mules mindspoke anybody they nearly destroyed that person’s mind in the process. The Skerry’s voice in her mind only made her think of bells, chiming. Deep bells.

THAT IS HOW YOU TELL, came the voice again, and she judged that there was laughter in it. THE DEEP BELLS ARE THE MALES, THE MIDDLE ONES OUR FEMALES, THE MIXED ONES THE SHEMALES, AND THE HIGH CHIMES ARE OUR CHILDREN, WHO DID NOT COME ALONG WITH US TODAY.

“Oh, now, that’s not likely!” Troublesome protested aloud. She was impressed, but she would push just so far and no farther. She had no intention of just
thinking
at anything, if it did stand eight feet tall.

YOU ARE QUITE RIGHT, said a different voice, THERE IS CONFUSION OF TRANSLATION. MY FRIEND MEANS THAT THAT IS HOW YOUR HUMAN MIND
INTERPRETS
OUR COMMUNICATION. YOU HAVE BELLS AVAILABLE TO YOU AS A MODE OF PERCEPTION; WE MAKE USE OF THAT MODE, FOR ITS CONVENIENCE ... OTHERWISE, YOU WOULD HEAR... UNPLEASING NOISES.

“Botheration,” said Troublesome, and hurried her pace to keep up. Beside her, Silverweb called ahead to the Skerry.

“She is one that would prefer privacy of mind,” said Silverweb. “You are distressing her with your invasions.”

“I’d live through it,” said Troublesome crossly. “I’ve lived through worse, and I don’t need mollycoddling.”

“There’s no need for it,” Silverweb answered. “I am here, and if they want to use mindspeech they can do it through me. I don’t mind it.”

“Not atall? Having your whole mind naked like that?”

Troublesome said it before she thought; and then she knew a deep shame, remembering the way she had lambasted Lewis Motley Wommack the 33
^rd
for expressing a similar dislike. And he had had it to bear, if he spoke the truth, over months—not just a few moments, as she had. It might very well be different with another human, instead of this alien creature; nevertheless, she was ashamed. She had not known what it would be like, nor had she made any attempt to
imagine
it.

“Not a scrap,” said Silverweb of McDaniels. “Anything in my mind, they are welcome to. My only problem is keeping up with youall in this sand—I’m not exactly short, but the rest of you are a good deal longer of leg than I’ll ever be.” She was silent a minute, and then nodded. “They tell me,” she went on, “that it is absolutely necessary for us to hurry—that the crystals charge quickly and we have no time to spare.”

All the Skerrys had in fact gotten far ahead of both the Ozark women, who had had no practice walking over dry sand and were floundering as much as they were stepping.

“If we don’t hurry it up, Silverweb, I’ll wager they’ll just pick us up and carry us, too.” fretted Troublesome, “like a couple of armloads of kindling. You fall down, I’ll smack you, so help me.”

“Your bark,” observed Silverweb, “is much worse than your bite. Why
do
you go on like that?”

Troublesome had the usual answer ready. “I have a reputation to maintain.” She needed it embroidered across her chest.

“Worked hard building it up, too, as I recall.”

“Far too hard to throw it away now, in the middle of a desert.”

Silverweb laughed, and stumbled, and hurried on as best she could. The Skerrys were leading them eastward, toward a line of rocks humped up on the horizon. Darkest gray, almost black, some of them
jet
black, against the sand. Where the sun struck them, rays of light split out like spears. It was hard on the eyes; what would it be like if this were not wintertime?

“The spring is there by those rocks,” said Silverweb. “Or so I have been told.” Her yellow hair was coming down from its usual elegant figure-eight of braid, something Troublesome had never seen happen before; she found that it worried her, and she stopped to coil the heavy weight of it back again, tuck in the stray ends, and anchor it firmly with the ironwood pins.

“Careful, Troublesome of Brightwater,” Silverweb teased her. “It begins with tidying up a friend in the desert, and first thing you know you are seized with a lust for helping people and taking in stray tadlings.”

“Nonsense—I just can’t abide mess.”

Silverweb only laughed at her. “That’s Responsible’s line, my friend,” she said, “not yours. You should see yourself.”

“Silverweb?”

“Yes?”

“What happens when we get there?”

“Whatever happens. Don’t dawdle. Troublesome.”

“It’s farther than it looks.”

“Save your breath, then!”

It was wise counsel; Troublesome hushed and concentrated on closing the gap between them and the rocks. And at last they were there, a few minutes behind the party of Skerrys. When she saw what they were doing, she would have rushed forward to stop them, but Silverweb had a firm and astonishingly powerful grip on her arm, and the voice of a Skerry rang, equally firm, inside her head.

WE ARE SORRY, it Said, TO BE DISCOURTEOUS ... IF ONLY WE HAD MORE TIME, WE WOULD OBSERVE YOUR PREFERENCES, BUT THE CRYSTALS ARE GORGING ABOVE YOUR CITIES. THERE IS NO TIME LEFT FOR NICETIES. TROUBLESOME OF BRIGHTWATER, SILVERWEB OF MCDANIELS, THIS IS WHAT MUST BE DONE ... PAY CLOSE ATTENTION, AND DO NOT FORGET ANYTHING THAT WE TELL YOU. TROUBLESOME, YOU SEE THAT ROCK, THERE WHERE THE WATER OVERFLOWS ITS BASIN?

The rock. Where the water overflows. Where her sister now lay naked, her hair loose in the water and her head pillowed on another rock set gently under it, where the water bubbled up out of some hidden source and poured over the still and lovely body. So frail, she looked!