Pears and Perils (17 page)

“It’s a long, impossible story,” Clint said at last. “One I don’t think you’d believe anyway.”

“Try me.” Kaia felt something, a tickle of hope in the gaping hole left behind when the pear was ripped away. She’d nearly forgotten about the rest of the legend. Maybe her only thread to something bigger hadn’t been severed entirely; maybe there was still a frayed strand that could support her weight.

“Okay.” Why not? At this point, one more person thinking he was off the deep end was so low on his list of concerns that Clint may as well give her the truth. “It all started after that ceremony. You see, for some reason it actually worked and Kodi was-”

“Cody?”

“Kodiwandae got too cumbersome to keep saying, so he let us use a nickname.”

“The god of Kenowai told you to use a nickname?”

“Told you that you wouldn’t believe me. Anyway, I wake up and he starts talking to me about finishing the ceremony and how he needs to get reunited with his realm. So after we get past the initial shock, he says he needs to go get the pear from the ceremony because it’s the only way he- Ooof.”

The “Ooof” in this circumstance was an exhalation of both surprise and pleasure as Dr. Kaia Hale surged forward onto Clint with a forceful kiss. It was quite proper (no tongue), but there was a ferocity in it Clint wouldn’t have suspected the good doctor was concealing.

“I’m not crazy,” Kaia muttered as she rose from the depths of the embrace. “I knew I wasn’t crazy. I knew it wasn’t just an electrical storm. I knew something bigger was going on.”

“Uh bu wha?” Clint was not exactly the fastest man at recovering his mental faculties after such assaults. Across the room, Falcon and Mano were staring unabashedly at the curious sight. They watched with some humor as Clint shook his head to steady himself then finally located coherent words. “You knew?”

“I didn’t know – not
Know
know - but I suspected, of course. It was just too strange, the way the storm popped up, the way the electronics were wrecked, and of course, the pear’s strange coloration.”

“
You saw the pear?
”

It was Kaia’s turn to leap in surprise as a wholly different voice exited Clint’s mouth. She was faster at acclimation than he, though, so she didn’t stumble on her thoughts as this new information was assimilated.

“I did; it was glowing a strange golden color. That’s why I took it from the altar in the first place.”

“You’ve got the pear!?!” Clint leapt from his own seat and swallowed Kaia in a lung-crushing hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. We’ve chased the pear here and then we lost the trail and now we were sure we’d never get it back but you have it so we can go to Denilale and I can finally go back to normal and thank you!”

Kaia laid her hand gently on Clint’s narrow back. “Had.”

“Beg pardon?”

“I had the pear. Past tense. Justin Goodwin stole it from me half an hour ago. That’s how my wrist got sprained.”

“But… how… why… how… no…” Clint’s body slumped against Kaia, the power in his muscles replaced by despair. Just like that, he was no long hugging her in joy; she was now embracing him in a vain attempt at comfort.

“I don’t know. Someone hired them to get it away from me. That’s all I’ve got.”

“So that’s it then. That’s really it. No trail, no idea where they went, only certainty that they’ll be turning it over to some mystery person that we don’t have any information on. It’s over.”

“Not quite, bro,” Thunder said, tufts of hair poking through the bandages of his newly-wrapped head. April was at his side, looking profoundly more relaxed than she had when screaming at the doctors that she wasn’t letting him out of her sight until she knew he was okay.

“Thunder, you okay?” Clint realized the others had gathered close during his conversation with Kaia, apparently quite interested in this new development.

“He’s fine. The doctor said he’s got an unnaturally thick skull that helped him absorb the blow,” April answered for him.

“Gift from Pop’s side,” Thunder said, presumably to explain. “But dudsey, there’s still a way to get back the pear.”

“What?”

“Well, this whole day the wind’s been blowing like a hooker trying to finance a house. Guessing that means slap-choppy seas and waves that make a surfer hard.”

“So what?” Clint still wasn’t getting the connection.

“So, we’re on an island,” Kaia said, realization dawning. “An island with only one port for local vessels. An island they might not have gotten off of yet.”

“Bingo Dingo,” Thunder said with a thumbs-up.

“We’ve still got a chance,” Clint said slowly.

We do if we hurry!

“Okay then, let’s go!”

“You know, some of us are here because we’re feeling very ill and don’t appreciate all the jumping, kissing, yelling, and antics,” an old woman three chairs over from them remarked.

“Um, right. Very sorry, ma’am. We’ll get out of here right away,” Clint apologized.

The group vacated the hospital waiting room immediately, leaving only the old woman who had complained, a carpenter who had drilled a nail through his hand, and pair of teens who were worried they had overdosed on mushrooms. The last pair was consequently not paying much attention to what was going on in this vein of reality.

“Honestly,” the old woman remarked to the carpenter. “Kids today.” The carpenter nodded to keep from crying out in pain.

17.

“I don’t give a damn about the weather, we’ll take our chances!” Dustin yelled at the harbormaster, an older man with skin the sea had weathered and beaten without mercy. His dark eyes sparkled through the scowl on his face; despite the public nature of his job, he took a curious joy in telling land-lovers who thought they knew more than he did right where they could shove it.

The Goodwin brothers were in the harbormaster’s office, a small room near the edge of the docks that was filled with filing cabinets and sun-stained yellow papers. It was hot in here; of course, it was hot everywhere in this region, but in these walls the heat seemed malicious, like it knew you had to stand here and take this small wrinkly man’s bullshit and it wanted to get in its own licks as well. They’d intended to skip right past his office and set sail immediately, but the industrial-sized metal lock on a thick metal chain securing their boat to one of the piers had forced a significant change in plans.

“Look, the winds are too rough right now for me to let you leave. Even if they weren’t, it wouldn’t change anything.” The harbormaster hoisted out a thick ledger and dropped it onto his desk with an audible “thunk.” He strolled through the pages, arriving at one in the middle of the book. He flipped it around and stuck his pointed thumb on a line near the top of the page. “See? Captain Johannes docked that boat with me, and only Captain Johannes is going to get back the key to the lock placed on it.” The harbormaster had taken to locking up boats that came in for safety. The thing being kept safe just happened to be the port fees that many sailors felt they were entitled to skip out on for one reason or another. Funny how after he latched their vessels to the docks revenue for the port had increased by two hundred percent.

The other brother stepped up to the table now, his face merely pinched while the other’s was red in fury. Then again, it might be red in something else; they both looked like they had some nasty swelling around their eyes.

“We paid that man a handsome sum of money to bring us here and back to Kenowai,” Justin said, his eyes wandering across the page’s entries. “Now that we’re ready to return, he has become conspicuously absent.”

The harbormaster wasn’t exactly surprised by this. It was a fool who paid for a return trip in advance, especially when dealing with Captain “One-More-Round-Of-Whiskey” Johannes. “So what would you have me do? Let you steal his boat because you’re having trouble finding him?”

“We can leave money for it,” Dustin offered. They’d barely tapped into the considerable operating budget Lawrence had provided them.

The harbormaster licked his lips, lips that had been stained forever-salty and chapped by his years serving the mighty blue seas. It was rare that one had the opportunity to make the profit from selling a boat without incurring any of its initial costs. Johannes was insured, as were all the ships that lasted more than one storm season here, so two foreigners making off with his vessel could play out well for the both of them.

“I won’t be letting you take advantage of him. If you want his boat, I’ll make sure you pay a fair amount for it. I plan to treat it like it was my own boat I was selling to you.”

Justin nodded his head understandingly. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”

* * *

Lawrence trekked along the rain-soaked road, the last village he’d passed fading steadily into the distance. Thankfully, the showers had ceased before he arrived, but he had an umbrella strapped to his back just in case. This region was known for unpredictable weather; some said it was retribution for a joke Felbren had played on a cloud god many centuries ago. Of course, most of the downfalls of the islands were heaped on Felbren’s shoulders through one story or another. Lawrence had read through all of them that morning, poring over every detail with exceptional care, looking for a few specific pieces of information. He’d gotten what he needed, though in the process he’d also begun to suspect that Felbren was less of a trickster god than a scapegoat god. Even if he was as precocious as the legends told, the idea that he could never become savvier in his methods to avoid retribution was ridiculous.

Lawrence paused to check the map he’d copied from one of the books that morning. It looked as though he were on the right path, but who could tell with the way the rain washed and redefined the roads? Fleetingly, he wondered if he should have hired a guide, then realized how insane such an inclination was. What would he have done, taken the poor boy with him then let him watch as Lawrence met with a god? No, his only options at that point would have been… well, they would have been time-consuming to do properly, and Lawrence was running on a tight schedule. He decided he would trust his navigating skills and the old map’s information to guide him forward. Lawrence was excellent at finding his way through foreign terrain, a skill he’d picked up along with many others during his time in the public sector. That had been some time ago, but he was confident the skills hadn’t atrophied beyond all usefulness.

A quick adjustment of his backpack and Lawrence was plodding away once again. The grey clouds gathered overhead, threatening to soak him but never quite following through. Perhaps they got the same vibe that most people got from Lawrence, that the stretched, thin smile was the tip of an iceberg no being wanted to see the depths of. Or perhaps it was just the way the wind was blowing. Either way, Lawrence would make it most of the way to the temple before the first cloud mustered up the gumption to begin releasing its load.

* * *

Justin resisted the urge to whistle as he clutched the heavy grey key in his right hand. It took some serious effort though. He was feeling uncharacteristically upbeat, thanks in part to the pear sitting in the knapsack he had slung over his shoulder. The rest of his cheerful mood was due to the excitement of getting to purchase brand new state of the art equipment for their business, plus an extra bit of joy from an entry he’d happened to notice when looking at the harbor master’s ledger.

“Justin, we missed the turn for our pier,” Dustin called.

“We didn’t miss it; we just have something else to take care of first.”

“What’s left to do? We got the pear, got the key, and bribed the harbormaster not to stop us when we set sail.”

“Yes, but the winds are beginning to settle down, so others will likely be allowed to leave port soon as well.”

“So what? You think the girl will chase us?”

“Certainly not; but it appears we aren’t the only ones after this little glowing fruit,” Justin replied, turning down a different dock and looking at the numbers attached to each of the massive silver locks.

“You think Lawrence hired someone else?”

“I doubt it. Though he did forewarn us that the contestants would be looking for the pear too.”

“Sure, but they had no way to know it was with the good doctor, let alone that she’d jumped islands.”

“I thought so.” Justin stopped in front of a nice, fairly new boat. It was considerably larger than the one he and Dustin had traveled on; theirs was little more than a rowboat with an engine that left three passengers very uncomfortably cramped. “However, I feel fairly certain that it was not someone else with the name ‘Thunder’ that signed this boat into the harbormaster’s log.”

“That’s my brother, always catching the minute details.” Dustin stepped forward to admire the sea-vessel in a new light. “Should we steal it?”

“If only we could. Somehow a man who lashes boats to piers when their owners are away strikes me as a bit too smart to use locks that take the same key.” Justin tried his key on the lock anyway, just to make sure. His suspicions were confirmed when it wouldn’t even fit all the way inside, let alone turn.

“Too bad, it looks a lot more comfortable than ours.”

“Agreed. Still, just because we can’t make use of it doesn’t mean we have to let it become a tool against us.”

“You know, Justin, I think I saw a few small anchors laying on the deck of a boat a few yards back.”

“Did you, now? I think we might just have some use for them.” People often thought Dustin was stupid, and while Justin agreed that his brother was dumber and quicker to anger than he, it didn’t mean Dustin didn’t have the occasional spark of insight. Justin felt a twinge of pride as Dustin hustled down the dock and leapt aboard the unattended small ship. He returned seconds later dragging a pair of anchors roughly the width of extra-large tennis racket. Justin accepted one then tested the heft of it in his hand. Yes indeed, this would do an excellent job.

“You first,” Dustin offered.

“No, I think you deserve the first swing,” Justin countered. “You’re the reason we succeeded, after all. If you hadn’t held off that crowd, I doubt I ever would have tracked her down in time.”