Heroes at Odds (36 page)

Taro and Marcus strode away in opposite directions. Bailey, my mother, and a handful of others followed Marcus. I, my brothers, Cars, Fiona’s housekeeper Cekina and the majority of the spectators followed Taro. Damn it. I would have preferred a much smaller crowd. I have never known Taro to feel apprehensive about an audience, but the weight of all those eyes would have to make his task more difficult.

Taro led us just around the corner of the manor, which caused us to be out of sight of Marcus’s party. I thought that was wise. Taro didn’t need to see how well or badly Marcus was doing.

Taro opened the paper and winced as he read it. We watched him read it again and again, at one point speaking the words under his breath.

Everyone was silent. I realized how easy it would be to disrupt Taro’s work simply by speaking loudly. Either Cars didn’t realize this, or he had some spark of honor after all.

After a short while, Taro gave the paper to Cekina. He took a deep breath. “Aloft and beyond the bristled green . . .” He came to an uncertain halt. He started again. “Aloft and beyond the green blades . . .”

Damn it, they weren’t even sentences that made sense. It was poetry. Or gibberish.

He started again. “Aloft the bristled blades of green . . .” He swore viciously and held out his hand. “I need to see it again.”

“Hey now!” Cars objected. “There’s nothing in the rules that allows that.”

“There’s nothing in the rules that forbids it,” Cekina retorted, giving the paper back to Taro.

“This is not right!”

“If you care to make a complaint, Her Ladyship is still in the inner garden. I can tell you, however, that Her Grace was both explicit and thorough in her instructions to me.”

I could see Cars seething, but he didn’t leave and he made no further objection.

Taro read the passage a few more times. He gave it back to Cekina and tried again. He was able to get out a couple of sentences, but then he needed to look at the paper again.

I heard some movement around the corners of the manor. I couldn’t have been the only one who did. I hoped that didn’t mean Marcus had already successfully recited his passage.

Taro looked at Cekina.

She shook her head.

“For Zaire’s sake!” he snapped. “This is a ridiculous waste of time, it has nothing to do with marriage or trade or managing an estate or anything that is useful, and who came up with all this ludicrous drivel that merely distracts from—” He pushed his hands into his hair and pulled it back from his face. “All right. Fine. If this is the way you want to do it.” He dropped his hands, squared his shoulders, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

He looked at Cekina.

She smiled and nodded.

“Thank gods,” he huffed. “That was farcical.”

I agreed. And while I was relieved he was able to recite the passage, the next step was going to be the more difficult. Deciphering that mess.

Except Taro seemed to have no difficulty picking a direction and striding out. Everyone followed. There was no sign of Marcus.

Taro took us through the gardens to the stone ridge that divided from the grounds immediate to the manor from the rocky cliffs of the whalers’ world. We followed the narrow winding path through the ridge. Seagulls screamed and the waves of the sea were capped with white. Taro scrambled up the rocky levels on the other side of the ridge, taking us straight to the same cave in which Fiona and I had been chipping out crystals. To the spike in the ground was chained a small wooden box. Taro knelt beside it.

Taro had had no doubt about where he needed to go. Now that we were at the location, the descriptions in the poem were obvious. But I would have needed more time to figure it out. Taro had had some time to think about the clues while he was memorizing them, but had he really been able to actually think about what the words meant while trying to memorize them? That would have been a challenging split of attention to maintain.

Or, well, it could have something to do with the fact that occasionally he spoke in phrases that sometimes sounded like gibberish. I knew there was always a kind of logic to them. Sometimes, in High Scape, one Source would say something baffling, and the other Sources would clearly understand what was said, while the Shields were left in ignorance.

So perhaps the riddle had made perfect sense to him.

The box was the length of my foot, the width and the height the size of my palm. The part of the box to which the chain was attached was solid iron. Taro pulled on the chain, but it was secure. He sat back on his heels.

I heard a sound from beside me. I looked at Cars and saw the smirk on his face. Was he merely feeling triumphant about Taro’s difficulty, or was there something about this box that suggested that Marcus, if provided the same test, would easily conquer?

Taro picked up the box again, sliding the tips of his fingers all over it, testing the strength of the corners and edges. He looked at the iron end again and frowned as he pushed against the surface.

Something about the iron would unlock the box?

Cars was still smirking. I noticed both Mika and Dias were intent in watching Taro. And the odd thing was the way they were moving their fingers, on the right hand, Mika up in the air and Dias against his thigh.

A box commonly used by merchants? If so, that was hardly fair. Marcus would have a clear advantage.

On the other hand, if Marcus had had to determine a location through poetry, he would have been at a disadvantage. He didn’t know the area as well as Taro. Perhaps this sort of thing was an attempt to keep the challenges equal.

We could hear the rush of the waves, the shrieks of the seagulls, the whalers at work, as we watched Taro fiddle with the iron side of the box. I couldn’t quite see what he was doing, just that he seemed to be sliding smaller parts of the iron around, and that he would tug on the chain at intervals, without success.

It was taking a long time. Too long.

Taro’s eyebrows drew together in a frown, and I could tell he was clenching his teeth. Again, I wondered if the attention of all the spectators was slowing him down. I wanted to send them all away.

I closed my eyes. Maybe one less gaze would make things easier for him.

What would be the use of such a box? To hold coins? Important papers? It seemed too big for one and too small for the other.

Maybe the events of the day would mean I would have to learn.

Taro made a sound low in his throat and I opened my eyes to see him put the box down, rising to his feet.

“Ha!” said Cars, obviously thinking Taro had given up, and I wanted to slap him.

Taro didn’t even look at him. He walked away from the mouth of the cave. For a breathless moment, I feared Cars was right.

Before I could say anything, before anyone could move to follow him, Taro picked up a huge rock, almost stumbling as he took his first steps with it in his hands.

“Hey, now!” said Cars.

Cekina held up a hand. “It is not a violation of the rules.”

Taro dropped the stone and crushed the box.

“Hardly requiring the highest of intellect,” Cars complained.

Dias grinned. “Got the job done, though, didn’t it?”

Taro pushed the rock to the side. Among the shards of the box was a white handkerchief. Taro unfolded the cloth, revealing a tiny stone sundial, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

We followed Taro away from the cave. From the direction he was walking, I figured that meant we had to go back to the manor. This was getting ludicrous. Maybe part of the test was physical endurance.

So we all traipsed our way back through the ridge, back across the gardens, and around to the front of the manor and the sundial. There was no sight of Marcus. I found that unnerving.

Here was the thing. Flown Raven had fewer sunny days than any other place I’d ever been. What use was a sundial?

Taro examined the top of the small dial, running his fingertips over the surface. He slid his palm across the face of the real dial. He frowned. He looked up at the gray sky. He held his hand over the large sundial, shifting it from place to place. Trying to create a shadow?

Apparently, that accomplished nothing for him. He stood back and inspected the little dial again, turning it over in his hands. Then he knelt and looked under the plane of the large dial, making a sound of triumph as he pulled out a small white bundle.

He set the bundle on the ground and unwrapped it, revealing six flat pieces of wood, each the size of my palm. He spread the squares out on the cloth, and then he scrutinized each one, front and back and all of the edges. He picked up two squares and seemed to be trying to hook them together. That didn’t work.

There were lines on the surfaces of the squares. I was too far away to figure out what they depicted, if anything. When I took a step closer to look, Cars growled at me.

Taro sat on his heels. He examined all the squares. He flipped them all over. There were lines on those sides, too. At times, he tried to fit two squares together, but that never worked.

It was taking too long.

Where was Marcus?

He laid them on the cloth, one right after the other. He exchanged two, then two more. Then he shifted them all.

Come on come on come on.

He changed two more pieces. Then he picked up the first two and shifted the edges against each other. Something clicked.

Oh, thank Zaire.

Taro picked up the next square. It clicked against the second square in his hand. Then he picked up the forth, but that clearly didn’t connect.

Damn.

He tried all the remaining sides of the remaining squares. None of them fit together. He put them all back down and pushed his hands through his hair.

Don’t give up now.

He stared down at the squares, rubbing his chin.

It took all of my discipline to refrain from moving closer. Not to help Taro. There really was no reason to believe I could do any better. I just wanted to see.

Taro placed the fourth square immediately under the first. They snapped together. Taro quickly fit the fifth square under the second, and the sixth under the third, creating a larger, perfect square. He flipped the whole thing over. He looked at it for a few moments, then rose to his feet and headed back to the manor.

I had to see. I looked at the square. It was an overhead view of pairs of dancers. I flipped the square over. The first smaller square had a figure writing at a desk. The second, the same figure speaking to someone holding a musical instrument. The third, the same figure standing over what looked like a table of food. The fourth, the figure was being dressed in a gown. The fifth, her hair was being styled. The final square was a picture of a receiving line.

A sequence of events Taro would have to work out before getting the final scene. A ball. The ballroom.

I ran to catch up with the others through the nearest door, and Taro took us to the ballroom.

And damn it, Marcus was already there. He was kneeling before a black box of wood and iron. There were smaller pieces of wood scattered over the surface of the box, and he was trying to fit them together in some way. Whatever he was making, he was at least partially successful.

There was another similar box on the other side of the room. That was clearly meant for Taro. I could think of no other reason to have both combatants in the same room unless this was the last stop.

Besides, Fiona was there, too.

Marcus was clearly in the lead.

He looked up as we entered. I tried not to glare at him. I tried not to be angry at him. None of this was his fault.

His gaze settled on me. I couldn’t interpret his expression. He stared at me for a few moments, and then he looked down at his hands.

Taro ran to the other box, sliding the last little distance on his knees. He scooped the little pieces of wood together and, to my surprise, he quickly and ably started fitting the fragments together without appearing to have to think about it.

I looked at Marcus. He was moving much more slowly, having to look at each piece and turn it over in his hands before finding where it would fit.

“Hurry!” Cars called to him.

“Quiet!” Fiona snapped.

From the base of what Taro was building, it was clear it was meant to be a three dimensional triangle.

“Marcus!” Cars hissed.

“I will have you removed,” Fiona warned him.

I found myself watching Marcus more than Taro. He was slower than Taro, but he was still ahead, and still making progress.

I could not believe how quickly Taro was working. He was having no trouble at all. It seemed to me that the longer I knew Taro, the more amazing things I discovered about him.

But when I looked at Marcus, I saw that he had completed his cube. He pressed it into an indentation on the top of his box.

A thought flittered through my mind. I wondered how Fiona had managed to get all the trinkets for the tests.

Taro pressed his triangle into the top of his box.

Marcus pushed the top of his box open.

Please please please please please please.

Marcus reached into the box and held up a necklace. He jumped to his feet and took two steps toward Fiona. Then he halted, taking a closer look at the pendant. He snarled and dropped it, racing back to the box.

It wasn’t the right pendant, not the one Fiona had described.