Sagaria (47 page)

The sound of that spectral laughter came bubbling up the stairs behind them. “We have no need to follow you, fools. You’re rats in a trap. We’ll burn you out.”

Perima paused and glanced back at Sagandran, her face filled with horror. He knew that his own must look much the same, but there was no way he was going to turn around and deliver himself into the clutches of the Shadow
Knights. Better to burn alive than give the Rainbow Crystal up to them. Besides, the hideous non-death of having his life energy drained from him was surely far worse than even the most horrendous of deaths. Plus, hadn’t the city itself guided them here, as if they might find salvation at the tower’s top?

Without speaking, they tried to climb even faster. Soon they could smell that nauseating scorched-sugar stench that had woken him this morning.

“How can they burn sugar?” Perima asked panting. “Sugar doesn’t burn that easily. It melts, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but not when you’re using a catalyst,” Sagandran puffed.

“A what?”

“Catalyst. It’s a chemistry term. In this case, it’s ash. Of which they have plenty from the burnt-down houses. When you put some ash on a candy stick and put a flame on it the sugar burns and releases smoke.
Chemistry
, Perima,” he added, at her disbelieving look. “Obviously these Shadow Knights are no fools. They’re probably throwing buckets of ash on the whole lower half of the tower.”

It wouldn’t be long before the thick, choking smoke of the Shadow Knights’ fire began rolling up the stairs behind them. If they were still within the tower when that happened, there was the very real danger of suffocating. The Shadow Knights would be able to take the Rainbow Crystal from his lifeless, unresisting form.

“Faster,” he croaked to Perima. It was a useless instruction – more of an exhortation to himself. She was going slowly but getting further ahead of Sagandran.

Another roar of uncanny laughter from beneath spurred him to yet greater efforts.

It couldn’t end here. Too much depended on him. So many people were relying on him and on what he was reluctant to acknowledge as his destiny. If Queen Mirabella hadn’t believed he could save Sagaria and restore the balance between the three worlds, she’d never have sent him on this quest. If Queen Mirabella could see him now, if she were here now, she’d surely know what to do. Sagandran might be the one with the destiny engraved on the building-blocks of the future, but Queen Mirabella was the one with the wisdom.

Then he seemed to hear her clear, calm voice whispering in his ear, as if she were standing right next to him. She was repeating what she’d said while bidding them farewell in Spectram.

You are the one Arkanamon seeks, and it will often be tempting to give way to the fear of that, but don’t underestimate yourself. Listen to your heart and you’ll find that roads open up for you even in your darkest hour.

Her voice gave new strength to his muscles. In a moment, he had almost
caught up with Perima. But the words Queen Mirabella had spoken seemed to mean nothing right now. There was nowhere for a road to open up. There was just the top of the tower, assuming they could even reach that. What were they supposed to do once they got there? Jump? Swing down on Lamarod’s pulley-and-wire contraption into the arms of a waiting posse of Shadow Knights?

Hopeless. The situation seemed hopeless. Then the meaning of the queen’s advice began to sink in. Never allow yourself to give in to hopelessness. If you do, everything will indeed become hopeless for you. Always expect the next road to appear before you, and it will. With a final spurt of agonized speed, Sagandran and Perima emerged on the flat roof at the top of the peppermint tower. Sagandran fell to his knees, coughing and retching.

Okay, road. Time to open up. You better do it real quick because if you don’t, we’ve had it.

Tugging at his arm. There was someone tugging at his arm.

Look up, Sagandran
. He looked up. Perima had managed to stay on her feet, and for a moment all he could see was her face looking down at him. Yet, there was something more. Something was peering at him over her shoulder. A big something, with bits sticking out all over it where bits shouldn’t be sticking out.

A broad green face.

A rope dangling. Perima had one end of it, and was tugging on it.

“I need your help, Sagandran!”

He never knew how he came to be standing beside her, his hands by hers on the rope, as they drew the big floating object –
a balloon, that was it, a balloon!
– down toward them.

Then a pair of bony arms sticking out of brightly colored robe sleeves reached out of the motley woven basket, grasped Perima under the armpits and hauled her upward and over the side.

Now that only Sagandran was pulling on the rope, the balloon seemed to want to make a bolt for freedom, but before it could do so, the scrawny arms reappeared and he, in turn, was dragged aboard. The back of his head hit the basket’s floor, and for a few seconds the world became a place of bright sparks and shifting veils of oily hues.

“Hon-est-
lee
!” squeaked a familiar high voice. “Always relying on your friends to get you out of trouble, aren’t you?”

Flip.

Sagandran thought the little guy was joking.

He hoped he was. It hurt to try and focus, but Sagandran did it anyway.

Perima, collapsed in a heap on the far side of the basket.

Flip, standing uninvited on Sagandran’s chest.

Samzing, hands on his hips, staring at him with a crazed grin of affection.

Sir Tombin, looking upward with somber concern as the balloon drifted toward the clouds.

His friends.

He was among them again.

He closed his eyes and allowed exhaustion to take over.

The moon was high in the dark blue sky of night. Below, the tree tops of the Everwoods were a sea of silvered waves.

By the time Sagandran had recovered consciousness, Perima had told the others all that had happened. He’d listened as Sir Tombin, constantly interrupted by irrelevant asides from Samzing and Flip, related the other half of the story. The Frogly Knight had located a couple of barrels of water with which the opposomes had wisely equipped their Great and Wondrous Ship, and he insisted that Sagandran and Perima drink as much as possible to resuscitate their energies. Food was a different problem; hunger couldn’t be staved off forever and they’d eventually have to set down to pick up some supplies, but for the time being the rumbles of their stomachs could be ignored. Getting rid of all the water they’d drunk was going to be another problem, especially for Perima, but their bodies had been so dehydrated that it would be a while before they had to solve that one.

Right now, Samzing was somewhere fiddling with the superstructure of the balloon. Perima was curled up on the floor with Flip in her arms, both of them snoring rhythmically.

Sagandran had tried to fall asleep like her, but sleep had refused to come. There were too many thoughts jostling around in his head. The Shadow Knights. Their brutal beating of Lamarod. Perima. Arkanamon. Queen Mirabella. Perima. The Rainbow Crystal. The fate of the three worlds. Perima. Grandpa Melwin. Snowmane, abandoned in the stables in Wonderville. Perima. Columns of cloying smoke.

Hm. Perhaps Perima turned up in his thoughts more often than she should.

Typical of her.

He leaned on the rim of the balloon’s basket with Sir Tombin, and gazed out over a world that seemed so still and peaceful. The stars watched them silently. From time to time, the balloon creaked in response to a fresh gust of breeze. It was as if they were isolated in some world between the worlds.

“Can’t sleep, young fellow?” said Sir Tombin amicably.

“I can’t relax. There’s too much on my mind. I seem to be the wrong person. I mean, it seems as if Sagaria has chosen the wrong person to place its trust in. I mean … oh, I’m not certain what I mean.”

“I understand,” said Sir Tombin, putting a friendly hand on his shoulder. “You know, when I first came into this body I felt as if I were just one of Nature’s jokes.”

Sagandran looked up at him. “But you’re not a joke. You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”

The Frogly Knight smiled in the moonlight and looked back out over the darkling forest again. He seemed to address his next words to the tree tops.

“I understand things a bit better now. The witch who cursed me was really (though she didn’t know it) giving me a challenge. You see, I’d always wanted to be someone else, to be more than I was, not just a humble frog sitting on a lilypad in an insignificant pond somewhere. She granted me my wish. She showed me what it was like being someone other than the frog I was.”

Sagandran thought a while. “I think I would hate it if somebody tried to turn me into something I’m not, into somebody else,” he said at last. “I may not be much good at a lot of things, but that not-being-much-good is a part of me as much as the bits I like.”

The Frogly Knight patted his shoulder again. “It’s those things that make you Sagandran Sacks and me Sir Tombin Quackford.” He nodded. “That’s what makes those bits as valuable as all the others.”

He returned his gaze to the stars.

“Still,” he continued in a slow, dreamy voice, “I sometimes wonder if ever I’ll find someone who … oh, never mind. It’s not important.”

“No. Please tell me, Sir Tombin.”

“Oh, it’s just that I wonder if I’ll find a lady who loves me for what I am, not what I almost am – as a frog, rather than as a man.”

Sagandran left him there, staring toward the invisible horizon, and nestled himself as best he could into the angle between the basket’s wall and its floor.

At last, sleep came.

CHAPTER 8

J
UNK
I
S
A
S
J
UNK
D
OES

nstead of waking up in a hotel room full of smoke, Sagandran woke to the songs of forest birds. Only, there was something strange about it. He lay there trying to figure out what. At last he realized. The sound was coming from below him. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, as memory rushed back.

Sir Tombin and Perima were at the rail, where Sagandran had been standing with Sir Tombin last night. The two of them were talking in low voices.

“Where are we?” called Sagandran, trying to pretend that the ache in his bladder belonged to someone else. The growl of his empty stomach was becoming overwhelmingly insistent too.

“We’re heading north,” said Sir Tombin, not turning. “That’s all I know. Samzing asked his searching spell to take us to Qarnapheeran, so I suppose that’s where we’re going.”

Perima grinned at Sagandran, then winced as she shifted her stance. He guessed that she was suffering the same bladder agonies as he was.

“Is there anything to eat?” he asked.

“Not quite,” said Sir Tombin.

“We were just talking about whether we could land the balloon and find something,” explained Perima. “Samzing would know – at least, his searching spell would – but he’s asleep and we wouldn’t like to wake him. He was up all night keeping the fire stoked and in between times improving on the Great Inventor’s handiwork, or so he said.”

“He didn’t break anything, did he?”

“No,” said Sir Tombin with a reassuring gesture. “He didn’t. I went round and checked everything as soon as he dozed off.”

“Then you’ve been up all night as well?”

“I’m used to sleepless nights,” said Sir Tombin in a tone that indicated he wanted no more discussion of the matter.

The sky was a wonderful clear blue. The air tasted as if it had been freshly made that moment, the reek of burning sugar a distant memory.

Just as Sagandran joined the other two at the rail, Sir Tombin stiffened.

“There.” He pointed.

A cluster of dark dots hung above them, near the sun. They were too far away to be seen as anything more than pinpoints.

Sagandran screwed up his eyes. “What are they? Gnats?”

“We should be so lucky,” said Perima, whose eyesight must be better than his. “They’re birds. Big ones, by the looks of them, and they’re heading straight for us.”

“Hawks,” said Flip authoritatively. It was the first time this morning that Sagandran had noticed his little friend, who was crouched by the feather in Sir Tombin’s hat. “They could be Queen Mirabella’s, I guess.”

“They seem a trifle more antagonistic than that,” said Sir Tombin. “I’m not sure I like how they are eyeing us off.”

One of the dark shapes had veered a little away from the others, and was plummeting toward the balloon. As it dived closer, Sagandran could see that it was indeed some kind of black hawk, only three times the size of any hawk that he’d ever seen. The sun glinted menacingly on its beak and the shiny black feathers of its wings.

With a cry of distress, Flip leaped down from Sir Tombin’s hat onto the Frogly Knight’s shoulder, then vanished somewhere inside his bigger friend’s clothing.

The first hawk plunged past them, a silent nightmare of bared claws and outstretched wings.

Sagandran ducked. “That was close.”

“Too close,” said Sir Tombin grimly, drawing Xaraxeer from its scabbard. The great blade flashed like a shaft of pure sunlight.

The other hawks were upon them now. Xaraxeer whistled through the air, and one of the birds veered away just in time to lose no more than a few feathers.

Sagandran had the feeling that he was nothing more than prey as he dived for the frail shelter of the basket’s wall, pulling Perima down with him.

The blade of Xaraxeer sang again, this time bloodying a hawk’s breast.

Samzing woke, moved his hands in a complicated flicker, muttered a few words of gibberish, then cursed when nothing happened; but he must have created some magic or other, because the birds were suddenly fearful of him.

“Fly back wherever you have come from, foul creatures of the darkness,” cried Sir Tombin. The formality of his words was curiously impressive, as if they were some ritual incantation.

The birds hovered in the air about a dozen yards from the side of the balloon, far out of the reach of Sir Tombin and the great sword, and stared at the travelers through icily hostile eyes. They gave a final defiant shriek, then wheeled away and down toward the tree tops.

“We’ve frightened them away,” gasped Perima, coming to her hands and knees. “
You’ve
frightened them away, Sir Tombin.”

“I fear not,” said the Frogly Knight, shaking his head gravely. “Whoever sent them had some other plan than to merely attack us, otherwise we’d never have fought them off so easily.”

“Sent them?” said Sagandran.

“Yes. Those hawks were trained. Their leader had a bright red tag on its foot just above the talons, didn’t you see?”

“No. It all happened too quickly.”

“They’ve gone to report to their master where we are. I fear that they were sent to hunt us by none other than Arkanamon. I hope I’m wrong.” Sir Tombin sheathed Xaraxeer, disregarding the few drops of blood that sullied the gleaming weapon’s tip.

“Not just that,” said Samzing caustically. He was leaning back in the wire basket and looking up the side of the balloon.

“While we were concentrating on battling the others, their leader was using the diversion to achieve their real goal,” said the wizard. “See?”

Sagandran peered, and spotted a flutter of sacking. “It tore a hole,” he said.

“Indeed, and there’s no way we can repair it. Damn!” The wizard flapped the sleeves of his robe vexedly.

“Flip could climb up there and—” began Perima.

“No, he couldn’t,” said a small voice from inside Sir Tombin’s jacket.

“He’s right,” said the Frogly Knight. He sounded resigned. “Even if our little friend could survive the climb, which I doubt, we don’t have anything with which he might repair the damage. The Great and Wondrous Ship has served us well, but now it’s going down. We’re already losing height.”

He was right. As soon as the Frogly Knight mentioned it, Sagandran could feel the balloon’s slow descent.

“It’s only a small hole,” observed Samzing. “So long as it doesn’t get any bigger we should be all right.”

Leaning over the edge of the basket, Sagandran eyed the tree tops warily. They were coming almost imperceptibly closer as the balloon drifted above them. In the distance, he could see open countryside and, far beyond, the purple of a range of steep hills. The hills seemed odd for some reason, but he hadn’t a thought to spare for them at the moment. The fringe of the Everwoods couldn’t
be far away. If they were lucky, they might reach it before the vessel came to ground. Just as long as that accursed hole didn’t get any larger.

Their descent over the next few hours was leisurely and steady. Since there was nothing they could do, the five friends were reduced to merely watching the trees coming nearer and nearer. Eventually, they could hear the sound of leafy branches moving in the breeze. The flat areas Sagandran had seen resolved themselves into neatly cultivated skewed rectangles: fields. In the middle of one of them was an odd upright smudge that he was able to identify tentatively as a scarecrow.

Then the base of the basket was brushing the topmost branches of the trees. The impact made the balloon stagger sideways, throwing the travelers almost off their feet.

The trees they’d touched were at the far edge of the forest. Beneath them now was scrub-covered ground, dotted here and there with larger bushes. Something Sagandran thought must be a fox looked up at them for a moment, then bolted in fright.

The basket skidded across the surface, making a horrible grinding noise. It lifted off again briefly, then hit a bush and slewed around sideways. Sagandran was jolted onto his knees and felt a heavy blow as someone else fell on top of him.

Flip let out a high whimper of terror.

Samzing shrieked.

But the Great and Wondrous Ship had come to a halt and they were all still alive. There was no sound for a long moment, save the long sigh of the sackcloth balloon collapsing in upon itself.

“We’d better not dally,” said Sir Tombin. “It cannot be long before the fire sets the sacking ablaze.”

Sagandran looked up and saw the Frogly Knight shaking Perima’s shoulder. She was trying to rub the side of her head, as if she’d banged it at some point during the landing.

Soon they were all standing well clear of the wreckage of the Great and Wondrous Ship. The sackcloth was beginning to smolder; it would be only a matter of moments before it caught fire. Sagandran was glad that they were well clear of the forest’s edge; the coming blaze should burn out safely here in the open. It might have started a major conflagration in among the trees. Now that they were safe, he was once again urgently aware of something else.

“I think that before we go any further I need to—”

“No need to explain,” said Perima, already heading determinedly toward one of the larger bushes nearby.

When he got back, Sagandran found that Flip had emerged from his
concealment inside Sir Tombin’s jacket. The little rodent was scampering around the scrub, pausing cheerfully to examine occasional items of interest he found.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Flip?” said Perima with a grin, rejoining the others from the opposite direction.

“What?”

“You’re supposed to be terrified?”

Flip stared at her incredulously. “What in the world are you talking about? Me? The Adventurer Extraordinaire? Terrified?”

Sir Tombin and Samzing were likewise looking at her blankly.

“Don’t you recall? Back at the worg encampment? When Sir Tombin told you that you could always allow yourself to be as frightened as you wanted when something was over?”

Sir Tombin chuckled, and soon the others joined in.

“All right,” said Flip with an exaggerated swagger of bravado. “I shall see what I can do.”

He struck a pose, and made himself look aghast. Soon his face was growing red under its fur as he tried to make himself as terrified as possible. At last he let out a long whoop of air.

“No good.” Flip shrugged. “Strange, that. Normally I have no problem at all being scared. I mean
cautious
. I’m very good at it.”

“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of other opportunities,” said Sagandran, sobering. “Those hawks must have reported back to their master by now. Who knows what lies in wait for us?”

It was a thoughtful party that, just a little later, set out on foot across the fields in the direction that Samzing’s searching spell was drawing them.

The direction of Qarnapheeran.

It was well into the afternoon when next they stopped. Sagandran had been right that the figure in the middle of one of the fields was a scarecrow; it looked at them with sightless eyes as they trudged wearily past it. Aside from the scarecrow there had been little of interest, just a succession of empty pastures and gated walls over which they climbed. Conversation had been sparse and desultory. Sagandran had expected that they might encounter a farmer or a laborer, but so far they’d seen no one except each other.