Sagaria (42 page)

“No damage done, I trust,” said the Frogly Knight, depositing Willfram on a safer bit of bridge.

“Our bridge has never done that before,” said the opposome crossly. “Must be all the strain of having to bear the weight of a dietician’s nightmare, and a clammy amphibian nightmare at that.”

Flip couldn’t keep the words back. “That ‘amphibian’ just saved your life.”

“Yeah, right. To put it another way, he almost killed me, being so fat.”

Sir Tombin put a hand gently over Flip’s mouth.

They reached the far side of the bridge without mishap. A sign there read: 

Flip supposed it was the opposome equivalent of a “welcome sign.

As they made their way along a twisted path toward the village, progressing in the peculiar hurry-and-stop-and-hurry-again manner that Willfram seemed to prefer, it became more and more obvious just how curious a place Reversa was. Everywhere Flip looked, he could see machines. He couldn’t even begin to guess at the purposes of most of them, but there was one suspended beneath an upstairs window that was clearly intended to increase the speed with which the clothes on the line beside it dried. Another device, which resembled a giant wooden spider with about twenty times as many legs as it should have had, clattered along the path ahead of them picking up windblown leaves. Flip made a resolution to steer well clear of any such devices he might encounter; all sorts of other objects were being scooped up and devoured along with the leaves, and he didn’t much fancy being one of them.

“The opposomes,” explained Sir Tombin to his two friends in a quiet tone,
“are dedicated to invention and engineering. If there’s something that needs to be done, some opposome or other will sooner or later devise a mechanism for doing it. Except that you most often find it would be easier to do whatever it was if you didn’t have to use the machine.”

They were among the streets now. The day had hardly begun, yet there were plenty of opposomes around and every one they saw seemed industriously engaged in constructive activity, as if they’d been hard at work for hours. The opposomes looked up curiously as Willfram led the strangers among them, but soon returned to their tasks: tightening nuts, screwing in screws or simply threatening bits of machinery with a hammer and a lot of bad language.

Willfram waved Samzing and Sir Tombin to a halt in front of a house that was much bigger than most of the others, and certainly more ramshackle. Whoever had built it seemed to have been incapable of getting any two surfaces at right angles to each other, and none of those surfaces or edges were straight. All over the front and sides there were mysterious protrusions that appeared to be supported by little more than faith and the occasional nail or piece of sticking tape. The window shutters hung loosely. One of the building’s several doors was a full ten feet off the ground. Of the house’s five visible chimneys, two stuck out horizontally.

“This is the house of the Great Inventor,” announced Willfram proudly. “You’re probably too plebeian to recognize its beauty, but it’s something you can at least hope to aspire to.”

Flip felt Sir Tombin’s gulp very close to him. “It’s certainly, well, different,” said the Frogly Knight diplomatically as they gazed up at the chaotic structure.

Willfram walked to the front door and knocked three times.

On the third knock, there was a squeaking sound and the door collapsed inward with a heavy crash.

“It’s supposed to do that,” said Willfram staunchly, leading them inside.

They found themselves in a small, cluttered room. Strange devices lay everywhere. Odd pieces of apparatus, some smoking or steaming, lay on or beside laboratory-style benches (or even on the floor, having fallen off them). The only illumination, aside from the small windows, was a naked light bulb hanging from the cobweb-festooned ceiling; it fizzed and blinked dizzyingly.

It took them a little while to realize that they were not alone. On top of a large, boxy machine sat a small figure with a pointed hat not unlike Samzing’s, but even more battered out of shape. He had a long gray beard like the wizard’s too; it was counterbalanced at the back by an equally greasy-looking pony tail. He raised his eyes suspiciously to glance at the newcomers, then went back to
what he was doing, his dirty, bandage-covered hands fiddling with an object consisting of a blown-glass globe with wires sticking out of it in unlikely places.

Willfram looked at him in reverence.

“Great Inventor, I found this motley group crashing through the forest like dung beetles in search of a quagmire.”

This time the Great Inventor paused a little longer. “Wouldn’t you have been better leaving them where they were? Somewhere, villages must be worried about losing their idiots.”

“They said they needed help. You know it is the duty of all opposomes to give help to those who ask it, no matter how physically repulsive and synaptically challenged the askers might be.”

“True, true,” said the Great Inventor, squishing his fingers through his beard. “I’m surprised you were able to keep your stomach content in place when you saw their faces. What help is it they want?”

“They need to find their way out of the forest.” Willfram hesitated for dramatic effect. “I’m sure the forest would be grateful to us if we helped them on their way with all good speed.”

“Well, certainly I would,” mused the Great Inventor.

“They don’t just
look
bad,” added Willfram. “They’re completely lacking in all the civilized graces. I’ve had not so much as an allusion to my lack of recorded parentage out of them since we met.”

Flip finally came to the boil. “Now, look here, you abysmal apology for an extremely short human being—”

Unexpectedly, Willfram and the Great Inventor smiled.

“Ah, that’s better,” said Willfram. “They do know some good manners.”

“Well,” qualified the Great Inventor, “the little one with the snotty nose does, anyway. Pity about the other two.”

Samzing growled. “That’s it. I’d wring your neck, you rude old toad, if your halitosis would let me near enough.”

A look of bliss crossed the Great Inventor’s face. “Much better. I’m still not going to tell you how to get out of the forest though.”

“Why not, fatface?” Sir Tombin tried in his turn to get the hang of the opposomes’ mode of speech, but failed miserably. “Oh, look, I hope you don’t mind that I said that, dear fellow.”

The Great Inventor glowered.

“Let me take charge of the negotiations,” said Samzing to Sir Tombin determinedly. There was a sparkle in the old wizard’s eye. Louder, he continued, “What’s the trouble? You too pig-ignorant to know the answer?”

“Ha!” exclaimed the Great Inventor happily. “Listen to who’s calling who pig-ignorant, eh?”

“Takes one to know one,” snapped Flip.

“But I’m still not going to tell you.”

“Gnatbrain,” remarked Samzing easily. “Why not?”

“Because I haven’t the foggiest idea how to get out of the Everwoods,” replied the Great Inventor. “Don’t you people know anything?”

“Ah,” said Samzing, the wind taken out of his sails. “That does present certain difficulties.”

“There’s only one way you could find out,” the Great Inventor continued, “but even if I told you about it you wouldn’t understand, so I won’t.”

“Come on,” said Flip to his two friends. “Let’s get out of here. This doddering old creep obviously hasn’t got anything for us.”

Sir Tombin seemed to think this was a good idea, because he turned toward the open door.

“Wait a moment,” said Samzing, holding up an arm. He addressed the Great Inventor again. “What’s this thing you say we wouldn’t understand, dotard?”

“Oh, nothing, pukefeatures,” responded the Great Inventor breezily.

“That’s right,” Willfram chipped in, “best not to tell these oafs about the Great and Wondrous Ship that Sails Through the Air.”

The Great Inventor gaped at the other opposome. “You sweet creature, you,” he said darkly.

Sir Tombin paused on his way to the door. “An airship, you mean? Er, puddinghead,” he added nervously.

“You’ve let the strogwort out of the bag now, darling,” hissed the Great Inventor at Willfram.

“Ahem,” said Sir Tombin as offensively as he could.

“Yes, yes, it’s an airship, buttfeatures.” The Great Inventor sucked air in whistlingly through his teeth, then seemed to come to a decision to tell all. “I only finished inventing it last week, so I’m not a hundred and fourteen percent certain yet that it actually works, but if it does work, one would be able to go high enough to see how to get out of the forest. In fact, you could even use it to travel right out of the Everwoods. But this is all hypothetical, because if you think I’m going to let fartwits like you pollute my airship, you’ve got another think coming.”

“I suppose,” said Samzing measuredly, “someone as morally corrupt as you would be open to a bit of bribery?”

“Ha!” said the Great Inventor. “And what makes you believe that scum-dwellers like yourselves would have anything I might want to exchange for a ride on my Great and Wondrous Ship that Sails Through the Air?”

“A few magical spells?” said Samzing hopefully. “I have a whole arsenal of interesting and useful conjurings at my disposal, and I might be persuaded to share a few arcane secrets. Hm?” He waited expectantly, then added, “Oops. Bottomfeeder. Meant to say that.”

“I don’t believe in magic,” said the Great Inventor testily. “There ain’t no such thing. D’you take me for a nice guy or something, you pile of garbage?”

“But—” began Samzing before Sir Tombin waved him to silence.

Quite right
, thought Flip.
Magic wouldn’t work for this crackpot. To make magic work you’ve got to believe, and if your mind’s dead-set against its very existence
…

“We have all sorts of treasures from distant places with us,” the Frogly Knight was explaining. “Ah, gooseberry.”

Have we?
thought Flip, and then Sir Tombin pointed toward Samzing’s back.
The old boy brought Sagandran’s backpack as well as his own. Oh, yes!
Flip clucked his teeth excitedly.

There were bound to be a few goodies from the Earthworld in there. Sagandran had shown him some of them. Once their purposes had been explained they didn’t seem so mysterious, but before that, their alienness was very, well, it certainly sent a tingle of excitement through the spine of a non-Earthworlder.

Samzing shrugged off the extra backpack into Sir Tombin’s eager hands. The Frogly Knight put it down on the floor and had its top unstrapped in a moment, then began rooting around in it. Flip, clinging onto the brim of Sir Tombin’s hat, could see the various things that came to the surface. A pair of socks.
Not much use
. Another pair of socks, but this time, even though they were rolled up, obviously full of holes where socks shouldn’t have holes. Better, but still not ideal. A toothbrush. I found that one really puzzling until Sagandran told me what it was for, but the Great Inventor might not. A length of string. That’s a pretty standard piece of equipment here in Reversa. A flashlight. Same as for the toothbrush, I’d guess.

But Sir Tombin was standing up triumphantly with the flashlight in his hand. “Here, goatbreath, is an invention from so far away that this world has never seen its like,” he said in a voice of impressive showmanship. “Tired of all those dusty dark corners where unmentionables accumulate? Fed up with standing on things the cat’s brought up because you didn’t notice they were there? Well, the answer is in my hand. The most marvelous, the most incredible, the most outlandish invention ever, er, invented. I give you, old nutty-as-a-fruitcake one, the incomparable Thing That Throws Bright Illumination Everywhere!”

“Got one of them,” snarled the Great Inventor. “It’s just a metal tube is all it is.”

“But wait,” cried Sir Tombin.

He pressed the side of the flashlight. There was a click, but nothing happened.

“It’s the other button,” whispered Flip.

“Just testing,” announced Sir Tombin with the kind of brash confidence shown by door-to-door sellers of vacuum cleaners all over the universe. “An extra special feature of this exquisite invention is that you have to
press the other knob.
”

As he spoke, he did exactly that.

A strong beam of light cut through the gloom, outshining the flickering light bulb overhead. The effect was startling, even for someone who’d seen it before. Flip squeaked and ducked, and Sir Tombin almost dropped the flashlight.

The Great Inventor did his best not to look impressed. His expression of disinterest was belied though, by the way his fingers kept clenching and unclenching; he was obviously desperate to get ahold of the gadget so they could start taking it apart and putting it together again.

“As I said, there is something truly inspiring about the Thing That Throws Bright Illumination Everywhere,” said Sir Tombin, lowering his tone conspiratorially.

Flip wondered where the Frogly Knight could have learned to deploy selling tactics so smoothly. There was much about Sir Tombin’s past that they didn’t know. Salesmen like this, though officially discouraged by signs pinned here and there through the village, and evicted by force if necessary, occasionally came to Mishmash. Flip had a whole cupboard full of useless junk at home to prove it.