Sagaria (41 page)

“’Ticularly in the hot weather,” added Sniggeroo.

“He didn’t wish to know that. Did you?”

Two pairs of earnest eyes looked into Sagandran’s face. He knew that, whatever he answered, it was going to be the wrong thing, so all he said was a vacuous, “I can imagine how he felt.”

“Anyway, if I might continue,” said Chortlette, dropping her gaze, her voice loaded with sarcasm, “no sooner had they got the old man planted—”

“Interred,” amended Sniggeroo. “That’s politer than planted.”

“It was in the ground, if you really want to know,” said Chortlette with the airy assumption of superior knowledge. “No sooner was old man Lamarod safely buried, than Lamarod the younger was appointed mayor of the city, and the very first thing he did was name it Wonderville.”

“Used to be called Slugsbreath, it did,” supplied Sniggeroo. “Did we say that before?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Because you forgot.”

“I did not forget. I was just saving it ’til last, is all, because it’s one of the best bits.”

“Liar.”

“So the first thing Lamarod did,” said Perima, “was to change the city’s name to Wonderville. What was the second thing he did?”

“Well, surely it’s obvious,” snapped Chortlette, looking up after giving her fellow steward a vicious dose of “the stare.” “He took the boring old city of Slugsbreath, where all everyone did was work every hour of the day and the night until they sickened and died, and he turned it into this glorious, marvelous, spectacular entertainment paradise of Wonderville.”

“And everyone’s been really, really happy ever after,” said Sniggeroo, turning away and leaning his forehead against the shop window.

“That’s right,” said Chortlette. “Because of all the ceaseless fun, like.”

After a period of silence, Sagandran and Perima came to the conclusion that the two stewards weren’t going to tell them anything more. In fact, the chimps didn’t seem in any condition to even walk. Sniggeroo started to slowly and
rhythmically thump his head on the wall. Chortlette was slumped down, staring morosely into the infinite distance and obviously not seeing the merrymakers who were jostling by in either direction on the busy street.

Perima and Sagandran, hand in hand, tiptoed away. Almost at once, they saw a big neon sign that made Perima tighten her grip.

“That’s where we’re going,” she said in a voice that brooked no disagreement.

So Sagandran told the purple-haired chimp at the booth the joke about the aardvark, the anchovies and the pair of wellington boots, and the chimp laughed uproariously, and Sagandran and Perima were admitted into the Tunnel of Love.

Evening came even to Wonderville, though perhaps it arrived a little later than for the rest of the world. Flushed and exhausted, Sagandran and Perima found themselves in front of a big building shaped like a lollipop and colored to match. It bore the words:

on its awning. Buffeted by the music and laughter that filled the street in front of the hotel, the two of them struggled in through the entrance. The handles on the big glass doors, Sagandran noticed, were shaped like clowns’ lips, and blew raspberries when you put your hand on them. The yellow-haired chimp at the desk didn’t think the one about the aardvark, the anchovies and the pair of wellington boots was particularly funny (in fact, he thought he might have heard it before), so Perima told him the one about the marmoset and the bathtub filled with warm ravioli. The yellow-haired chimp found it uproarious enough to book them a luxury suite of rooms, but it scandalized Sagandran.

“Where did you hear that?” he hissed as a bellchimp led them toward the elevator bank.

“Told you I hung out with the stable boys a lot, didn’t I?” replied Perima with a smirk.  

The suite the clerk had allocated to them had two bedrooms with a sitting room between. Sagandran lounged in a soft armchair while Perima fiddled around in the mini bar, eventually settling for a bottle of pineapple juice apiece. Dinner was out of the question after all the goodies they’d stuffed themselves on during the day. She tossed his bottle to him and went to stand by the window, straining to unscrew the cap of her own bottle.

“Look,” she said. “Fireworks.”

He gazed past her to see the night sky ablaze with fire of every imaginable color.

“Yes,” he said. “Fireworks.”

“I’ve had too much fun today,” Perima said dully.

“Me too.”

She summoned up a smile. “The Tunnel of Love was okay though.”

Sagandran blushed. It hadn’t been at all like when his mother kissed him. At one point he’d thought he was going to pass out for lack of oxygen.

“More than okay,” he said manfully, concentrating on his bottle of pineapple juice.

“But we mustn’t stay here.” She tapped her fingernails on the window. “Fireworks or no fireworks.”

“No, we mustn’t. Wonderville’s addictive, and if we remain here too long we’ll never be able to tear ourselves away.”

“Having so much pleasure and fun that we can’t enjoy any of it but can’t stop nevertheless.” She turned to look at him, the glare of the sky framing her head and shoulders. “I know now what Sniggeroo was trying to tell us.”

Sagandran sank further into his armchair. Wonderville was as much a trap as the “Pull HERE!” net had been and, beneath its allures and blandishments, far more dangerous. In the morning, they were going to have to use every ounce of their strength to break free of its temptations. They would have to accept the return of all the worries that had burdened them when they’d come here but Sagandran, perversely, found himself looking forward to that. The complete abandonment of responsibility was a burden in itself.

If they didn’t leave, the days would fly past – those precious few days left until Arkanamon’s war troops began laying the lands of Sagaria to waste. It would be so easy to forget the mission they were on, so easy to forget that Grandpa Melwin had to be rescued from the cruel clutches of the Shadow Master, that they must find their way to the Shadow World and steal the crystals from that world’s malevolent tyrant. So easy just to lie back and let the joys of the fun fair wash over them.

He heard the
snick
of Perima’s bedroom door as it closed behind her.

Sagandran sat up a little longer, his fingers wrapped around the Rainbow Crystal, reminding himself of all the things he and Perima had still to do, even though his mind refused to let him worry about them. Then at last he went to his room, undressed with the clumsily automatic movements of a robot, and threw himself across the broad bed just as the shutters of sleep came down. 

CHAPTER 6

T
HE
G
REATEST
I
NVENTION

lip was feeling seasick. He felt like he had been bouncing up and down in the old wizard’s pocket for months now, if not years. He knew it couldn’t really be that long, but it certainly felt like it. Every time Samzing had pleaded with Sir Tombin to stop running so that the wizard could get his breath back, Sir Tombin had responded with a stern, “No! The greater the distance between us and that pack of brutes the better.” Though the dignity of Sir Tombin’s pronouncements had been rather marred by the fact that he, too, was panting for breath.

Samzing was muttering as he ran. “My own silly fault, I suppose. I said I wanted a change of scenery, and a change of scenery is what I’m getting, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. More like the beach, and lots of pretty girls, and…”

After what felt like another decade or so filled with stumbling over roots, loud imprecations, slamming into tree trunks face first, and falling headlong into a stream, Sir Tombin at last called a halt.

“I think we’ve finally managed to outrun the worgs,” he said.

Samzing collapsed onto a scrubby bank, jolting every tooth in Flip’s jaw. “I think we outran them some time ago, old dear,” he gasped. “I haven’t heard the sound of pursuit for at least an hour, perhaps two.”

Flip popped his head queasily from the wizard’s robe pocket. There was enough moonlight for him to see that they were in another small glade. The
trees seemed younger and leafier than the ones they’d been among yesterday.

The Frogly Knight was sitting on an old, rotted tree stump, his hands on his knees, his head low over his chest. “Yes, well, it’s wise to be safe.”

“If you say so,” whimpered Samzing. He was staring up through the branches at the sky. A fluffy white cloud seemed to be mocking them.

“We should be well out of worg territory by now,” continued Sir Tombin, beginning to recover. “They’re not likely to dare follow us here, even if they
know where we are.”

“What kind of creatures live here then, if they frighten even worgs?” asked Flip pessimistically.

“Opposomes.”

“Opposomes?”

“The most maddening, infuriating, exasperating people in all of Sagaria.”

“Opposomes, you say, eh?” mused the wizard thoughtfully. “Not just posomes?”

“No, opposomes. They’re related to posomes, but are not the same. Posomes are, ah, the presentable members of the family, if you get what I mean. Speaking with a posome will drive you only
mildly
insane.”

Samzing’s voice assumed a wistful note. “I used to know a posome once. Frightfully decent fellow, he was. Ran a little shop in Spectram selling the most amazing things. I remember once when I was still a student I bought a …”

From what Sir Tombin had said about posomes, Flip reckoned that
Samzing’s once having had dealings with one explained quite a lot. “What are the opposomes like that they’re so maddening?” he said to the Frogly Knight.

“You really don’t want to know,” replied Sir Tombin heavily. “Just keep your, ah, claws crossed that we don’t meet any.”

Flip popped out onto the ground as Samzing struggled to his feet. The wizard tottered a few paces, then bent down and picked up a long fallen branch. “This will have to do,” he mumbled as he brushed dirt off it.

“Do for what?” piped Flip.

Samzing stripped away a couple of twigs, then propped himself up on the staff he’d made. “Do for leaning on. I’m an old man, remember. I’m not as agile as you youngsters.”

“But a little while ago, when we were fleeing from the worgs, you were leaping and bounding like a mountain goat.”

“Ah, yes. Well, there’s a simple explanation for that.”

“Oh?”

“I’d forgotten I couldn’t do it.”

Flip’s bafflement was interrupted by Sir Tombin, who was pacing up and down, surveying the trees around them as if he might learn something. “I’m afraid … I’m afraid I’ve lost my sense of direction.”

This was as puzzling to Flip as anything Samzing had said. Before he could work it out, however, Sir Tombin was speaking again.

“Let’s see now. I know we must have started from the north. After that, we turned east, I think. Either east or west, anyway. One of the two. At least I’ve narrowed it down to just two.”

His words trickled off into nothingness.

“What about Sagandran and Perima?” said Flip, hoping to cheer everyone up and realizing as soon as he’d asked the question that he’d done exactly the opposite. “And Snowmane. Did anyone see what happened to them?”

“Last I saw,” replied Samzing, still admiring the staff he’d made, “they were showing the worgs a clean pair of heels. Hm. Since it was Snowmane who was doing the running, I suppose they were really showing the worgs a clean quartet of heels. Never mind, they were escaping anyway. Safe. The horse had just shouldered that big ugly worg, what’s his name?”

“Bolster.”

“That’s right, Bolster. Thank you, Flip. The horse had just shoved Bolster smack on his rear end into one of those loathsome bonfires, and he was shouting something like—”

“He was very angry,” interposed Sir Tombin hurriedly. “I think that’s all we need to know, dear chap.”

Flip pursued the main issue. “Well, where are they now?”

“I should think,” said Sir Tombin, scratching his chin, “I should think they’re in the northern part of the Everwoods.”

“And what about us?”

“We’re probably in the southwestern part. Or it could be the southeastern part.”

“A long way away from where they are, you mean?”

“Not to put too fine a point upon it, young Flip, but yes, you could say that.”

“So, how are we going to find them? Or how are they going to find us?”

“That’s just what I’m trying to figure out. They should be safe so long as they don’t get snared by that ghastly amusement park that’s somewhere in those parts.”

“You could always ask one of the locals where we are,” said Samzing brightly.

“Yes, old fellow,” said Sir Tombin patiently, “but who?”

“Well, if it were up to me, I’d start with the chap sitting on that log over there.”

“Where?”

“There.” The wizard pointed.

Following the direction of Samzing’s gnarled finger, Flip saw a chubby little individual, refreshingly not too much larger than he was (well, only three or four times as big). Shaped like a human, he was sitting on a fallen, moss-covered tree and watching them with great interest, his eyes glittering in the moonlight. He
was dressed in a russet jerkin and a pair of tattered checked trousers.

“An opposome,” breathed Sir Tombin. “Of all the rotten luck.”

“Disgusted to meet you too,” said the little man.

“Why, you—” began Flip.

“Hush, Flip, hush,” said Sir Tombin. “You’ll begin to get the hang of it after a while.” To the opposome, he said, “We greet you, fellow traveler through these dark and mysterious woods. Do you perhaps know where we impetuous wayfarers might have found ourselves? We have journeyed far, and are bereft of any conception of the direction in which we might have been progressing.”

“Eh?” said the opposome, looking as if someone had just punched him in the brain.

“What my froggish friend means,” said Flip, stepping forward, “is, where are we?”

The opposome’s face lit up. “Then why didn’t the slimy fat idiot say so?”

Flip blanched. There was rudeness and there was rudeness (as he knew only too well from the time the farmer Fofa had imbibed too industriously of the year’s first crop of strong cider and started telling everyone what he really thought of them), but this stranger seemed intent on transcending even Fofa’s high standards of insult.

“Easy, Flip,” said Sir Tombin softly. “It’s just his way of speaking. I told you, you’ll get used to it. Remember, we don’t want to antagonize him. With luck, he’ll be able to tell us how to get back to a part of the forest I know.”

Flip took a deep breath. Sometimes it seemed to him that the greatest unfairness about being small was that there was so much less of you to keep your temper in. Still, he’d try.

“Where are we?” he repeated.

“Ah, time for the little twit with the silly pink tip on his nose to ask, is it?”

Flip gritted his teeth. “Yes,” he said.

The opposome gave an exaggerated shrug. “Well, duh. How do you think I’d know, stupid?”

“We were just hoping.”

“Well, I don’t know the answer to your lamebrained question, but someone in my village might. Come with me.” He jumped down off the log and beckoned them. “Assuming the old geezer with the stick is actually still alive, that is.”

Samzing sputtered, but fortunately, none of his sputterings came out as words.

“You can call me Willfram,” said the opposome, as if conferring a great privilege on a lower lifeform. “It’s my name, in case that’s not clear to you.”

They did their best to keep up with Willfram as he leaped nimbly from rock to rock and stump to stump, occasionally casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure they were still following. He seemed to be able to see perfectly well in the wan moonlight; Sir Tombin and Samzing, being not so lucky, tripped and stumbled a lot.

Flip, perched in the brim of Sir Tombin’s plumed hat, whispered down to the Frogly Knight, “You were right about them being exasperating. We’ve only exchanged a few sentences and I already want to stick his head up the rear end of a worg.”

“Just … just tolerate it, Flip. He’s really being extremely friendly to us. In his fashion. In the opposome fashion. Believe me, this is really quite mild compared to what opposomes can sometimes be like.”

The thought chilled Flip’s blood. “You mean, they get
worse?
”

“Believe me, they do. I once heard an opposome make a proposal of marriage. I had to wash my ears out every hour for a week.”

Flip gulped. “Bad, was it?”

It took hours for the opposome village to come into view. Seeing it there in the early light of morning, nestling between two wooded hills on the far side of a shallow but vigorously frothing river, reminded Flip poignantly of his home in Mishmash. Would he ever walk through the lanes of Mishmash again? The only major difference he could see from this distance was that, dotted here and there were some big structures he recognized as windmills among the rooftops. There was something wrong with the form of their sails though. Instead of being straight, they were twisted into all sorts of improbably crooked shapes. He shrugged. All would doubtless be explained in due course.

Willfram paused by the near end of a rickety-looking bridge and waited for them to draw closer. “For the benefit of any of you who’re even dimwitteder than the rest, that’s my village, Reversa, over there. Don’t just stand there looking like regurgitated prunes. Come on.”

He scampered out to the middle of the bridge and paused there, again waiting for them. His foot tapped impatiently.

Sir Tombin was the first to put a foot onto the bridge. It rocked beneath his weight, creaking ominously, the ropes supporting it making a dull throbbing sound, like the plucked string of a double bass.

“Is it strong enough for me?” he called ahead to Willfram.

“It’s strong enough for anyone,” said the opposome with a derisive laugh, “no matter how grossly obese they might be.”

Sir Tombin took another step.

“Perhaps if I climbed down off you?” suggested Flip.

“Wouldn’t make any difference,” muttered Sir Tombin tersely. “Don’t worry too much, Flip. Remember, even if this bridge collapsed, I’m a frog. I can swim.”

“Oh. Yes.” Flip didn’t like to remind him that he, Flip, couldn’t.

“Oh, stop being such a scaredy-pants,” yelled the opposome. “This is the best bridge in the whole wide world. Look!”

He began jumping up and down on it to demonstrate. As if obeying an unknown script, a plank promptly gave way beneath him with a loud rending sound, and he vanished with a wail of misery into the gap. All that could be seen of him were his fingers, tightly gripping the splintered edge.

Moving as quickly as he could while exercising caution, Sir Tombin moved forward until he was able to reach down and grasp the opposome’s arm.