Poor World (2 page)

We whizzed to the Junkyard. Using magic meant not having to search exhaustively round the area before we used the entrance, which we guarded assiduously.

While I recovered from the transfer-magic (it feels kind of like being socked in the stomach by an invisible fist at the same time you're whirled around a couple times in a barrel) Seshe and Gwen went into the kitchen. When the transfer-woozies passed, as they usually did in a few seconds unless it was a long one, I could hear them talking up lunch, mixing magic and actual preparation. Clair had given us food-magic spells ages ago, which made meals (and cleanup) easy.

Wondering what they'd concoct, I flopped down on the braided rug in the main room and stared up at the roots in the hollowed-out ceiling. I
didn't
have any premonitions — I just loved the way the Junky smelled when we first got inside. Kind of like wet loam, and trees, and the faintest mossy smell, and good food aromas overlaying it all. I looked at our pictures on the walls — pretty ones and silly ones — and I wanted to curl up with a history from some kingdom I'd never heard of, and read all the rest of the day. Or maybe go upstairs to the white palace, once Clair was done with morning audiences, and see what she could teach me in magic. I hadn't studied for a while. The weather had been too nice to be cooped up indoors.

Faline let out a whoop, scattering my thoughts.

I rolled over as Seshe and Gwen carried trays in. We all were soon busy chomping our way through tacos and other crunchies, favorite foods from two worlds and several countries. I was midway through my second taco when I heard noises at the tunnel entrance.

The others hardly looked up as Diana came down the tunnel at a run. “CJ!” Her dark eyes were narrowed. “Someone here to see
you
. Not a Chwahir!” She flung a braid behind her, and swiped at her damp forehead. “Asked for you by name.”

That got everyone's interest.

“Me?” I repeated, popping the last of my taco into my mouth. “Not Clair?”

“You.”

“Huh.” I dusted off my skirt — I was wearing my favorite outfit, a long green skirt, white shirt, and black wool vest — and got to my feet. “Then I guess I'll go see what's what.”

Diana didn't say anything more, but she ran down the lower tunnel to her room and reemerged a moment later buckling her knife belt around her waist. I decided maybe I'd better get my own — just in case. From Diana's attitude, I could already tell that whoever the mystery visitor was, it wasn't a kid.

“So what's this person like?” I asked as we trooped up to the cave exit. The other girls had all decided to come with — which was okay by me.

“Seemed friendly enough,” Diana said cautiously, and we all heard the unsaid
For a grownup.

“Definitely not a Chwahir?” Faline butted in, her slanty blue-green eyes crinkled in anticipation.

“They have to add insults when they talk to Mearsieans,” Gwen added. “It's in their military codes.”

“Well, we insult them,” I said.

Faline added, “And ours are
much
better.”

“Insults,” Irene intoned in a voice quivering with fake disgust. “We do not frivole our time away with mere insult. That's for the dull and habitual mind. What we gift our villains with are ...”

The exchange had all the flow and timing of lo-o-o-ong habit.

“Pocalubes!” Sherry exclaimed happily. Whatever else I've done, she maintains that my best invention was the pocalube — which is an insult of creativity and magnitude, never your popular or commonplace insult-word, prefaced by at least seven adjectives.

“Our pocalubes,” Irene declaimed, raising a finger skyward, “are Art.”

Diana waited till everyone was done before adding, “Friendly but condescending. Something about a proposition to put before you. But he seemed bored.”

“Adult,” Irene sneered in disgust. “Wasting his time with stupid little kiddies. The very worst kind!”

“Why, is what I want to know,” I said. “I mean, if it's some state thing, then he ought to go up the mountain and see Clair. Or one of the governors, if it's not a problem here.”

“I think it's someone from another country,” Diana said. “Accent.”

“So he doesn't know how to get up the mountain the easy way,” Seshe put in.

Well, there are plenty of signs,” I said. “But I guess I can send him — though I don't see why I should torture Clair with some sap of a grownup who looks down on kids,” I added, getting annoyed already.

“Except for the pleasurable thought,” Irene said in her prissiest voice, “of watching how she takes care of them.”

I pictured Clair's serious, squarish face, framed by her snow-white hair curling down her back, her smart, kindly grayish-green eyes, and how she manages, ever so quietly, to puncture the biggest blowhards with just a few words. I wished — hopelessly — that I had that kind of self-command. But no, I'm CJ, whose moods jump first and mouth jumps right in after, leaving brain trailing way behind.

Sigh.

“Just ahead,” Diana whispered, and everyone fell silent so our voices wouldn't echo ahead through the trees. “With Dhana. She made sure they wouldn't follow me and find the Junky.”

One glance at our mystery visitor, and I took an instant dislike — an impression intensified by the hostility in Dhana's posture.

The man was tall, and his hair under a jaunty feathered cap was longish and fair. He was dressed in woods-colored clothing — brown and green — but his tunic and trousers were not those of a common working citizen. They were the fabrics of the aristocrat, accented by his expensive high blackweave boots and the fancy hilt on the sword at his side.

His posture, a negligent attitude as he leaned against one of the trees, completed the impression.

Not that any of
us
were impressed. Dhana stood her ground, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. She obviously didn't trust this gnackle in our forest, and made no attempt to hide her reaction. Knowing what she was like when irritated, I wondered what their conversation had been like — and I secretly hoped, as I crossed the last few paces of the clearing, that she'd gotten some good ones in.

Not that she seemed to have made much of an impression on the man. He surveyed me from black hair to bare toes, then the faintest quirk of his upper lip into a sneer of contempt.

I stopped. The girls stopped behind me.

A couple quick, graceful steps and Dhana took up position at my side, her breathing short, sharp, and annoyed.

“
You,
” the man drawled, “are Cherene Jennet Sherwood?”

“I go by that name,” I said, instantly boiling by the way he'd emphasized the ‘you' — like he couldn't believe his eyes. “Why, is it yours, too?”

He ignored the crack. (Later on I found out that indeed, he'd been on the receiving end of a generous helping of Dhana's sarcasm.)

“We have a proposition to make,” the man said. His attitude made it clear he didn't care what I decided.

Ordinarily that would have served as a warning. I mean, why come and offer something if you don't really want to be accepted? If I'd looked beyond that, maybe things would have gone differently ... or not.

Anyway I didn't.

“That's nice,” I said in a sugary little-kid voice. Then, more normally, “Make it somewhere else. C'mon, girls.” I turned my back.

I'd taken about four steps when the creep gave a whistle that somehow managed to sound bored.

At once a whole gaggle of creeps — adults all, though some of them were youngish — efficiently ringed us, a couple from the trees and others from hiding places. I glanced at Dhana, who looked surprised. So, the creep had picked the time and place, huh? On
our
territory?

And without us knowing?

That was my first hint of real danger ahead. These weren't uncertain Chwahir, their eyes magically enhanced to see in the Shadowland but clumsy out in the daylight, who didn't know how to climb trees much less hide in one. These folk had all been well trained by someone.

I pulled my knife and whirled around — and because that slob with the feathered cap was smiling so smugly (he hadn't bothered to move) I said loudly — with as much disgust as possible — ”I might have known.”

Meanwhile, his whistle-squad was slowly advancing, tightening the ring round us.

I took a couple running steps and leaped, catching hold of a tree branch. From the edge of my vision I saw a long arm reach to grab me, just an instant before I swung out of range. Tree-climbing we're
very
good at; I swung, let go, flew, caught a branch just above where their leader still leaned.

Whoever was chasing me had misjudged my direction, and was further hampered by orders to grab-but-not-hurt, so I was able to swing my feet down and clop the leader creep on the side of the jaw, a hefty kick.

He hadn't expected it — he hadn't even looked up. He staggered, angry now. I laughed, even though my toes hurt, and reached for another branch. My plan was to drop out of grabbing range so I could get the girls into hand-holding reach and transfer us to safety — but I didn't get that far.

The man drew his sword, and took a swing at me. I kicked wildly, struggling too fast to get out of his range, suddenly afraid I was about to be sliced into cutties.

The flat of the blade thwacked me squarely across my stomach.

“Foof!” I dropped onto the grass below, a hilt hit behind my ear, and that was that.

I started waking up when someone dumped me onto a chair. A hard wooden chair.

My cheek leaned against a chair back, which hurt, and the back of my head and neck throbbed like a herd of horses had stomped me. Without opening my eyes or moving, I did a quick assessment of myself. No other hurts besides the back of my skull, good — bad, my knife, and belt, were gone.

I became aware of voices. Men's voices. They were arguing. Or one was. The other was too soft and flat-toned to ascribe any kind of emotion to. They spoke in another language — but of course I understood it. Clair had performed the Universal Language spell on our medallions as soon as she'd mastered the magic.

“... any kind of finesse? If I'd wanted them half dead I would have said so.” That was the soft voice.

“Your Mearsiean brat gave me trouble.” I knew that drawl.

The soft voice uttered a soft laugh. “That fat lip serves you right. How'd she get past your guard?”

“Kick. From above.” The drawling voice was sharp with annoyance now.

More laughs, quick ones, hardly more than a breath. Whoever Soft Voice was, he didn't have any more sympathy for Feather Cap than I had.

Then: “They're stirring. Out.” Then the sound of footfalls, and a door closed.

I peeked open an eye, to find myself looking directly into a man's face. He stared at me with as much curiosity as I stared at him — which surprised me so much I forgot to fake sleep, and opened both eyes to meet that interested gaze.

Light blue eyes, framed by black lashes, regarded me with no expression I could fathom. Something about the shape of those eyes was vaguely familiar. Not enough to recall anyone, but to draw attention to the odd shape. The underlid curved in such a way that the blue part didn't touch, like most people's. There was a rim of white underneath, which made his eye-expressions hard to read. His mouth was tight at the corners, also making it hard to read.

The rest of him was ordinary enough. Black curly hair worn short, medium height for a man, slight build, plain clothes: white shirt, dark trousers, no weapons.

He didn't speak immediately, and neither did I. We just stared at each other like that for the space of a few breaths, while my head throbbed, and then the man moved away.

A soft snort at one side reminded me of the girls. Trying not to move my head, I eyeballed the room. We were in a kind of parlor. The room was absolutely plain, wood walls painted a bland light green, a single window, and wooden floors unvarnished. We'd all been dumped into chairs, awake or not; Diana and Dhana both looked groggy, and Irene rubbed her temples. No one had her knife belt, I noticed, but we didn't seem to be in any kind of a dungeon — at least, I'd never seen one with planed wood flooring and green-washed walls. So what was this, some kind of interview room?

And who was that man watching us all like he knew us?

I said in Mearsiean, “Irene, you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, still rubbing and wincing.

“Seshe?”

“Here. I think.”

“F'line?”

“Dead and gone.”

“Diana?”

“Alive.”

“Gwen?”

“37% of the pieces here.”

“Get cut?” I asked, turning to look. Waves of headache fogged my vision.

“Yup,” Gwen said, wincing as she held up her arm. “I fell and sliced myself with my own knife, just like a clod — ”

“Just like a Chwahir,” Faline butted in, joking as always.

“ — but I'm okay.”

“Dhana?”

“Here. I think. But don't bet on it,” Dhana said crossly.

“Hey, CJ,” Sherry said, her big blue eyes rounder than ever.

Those and her cherubic face and bouncy curls make her seem like some grownup's idea of the model kiddie, but despite her angelic demeanor she has an endless taste for practical jokes, the sillier the better. In fact, I don't think she or Faline are capable of taking life “seriously” — which is why they are so much fun to have around.

Anyway, she said, “I'm gonna ask a stupid question. You know I have to ask it every time we get splorched into some kind of mess, just to get things started right. So we'll win.”

“Go ahead,” I said, feeling a small urge to laugh, despite my headache and the weird situation. Only Sherry could figure that silliness would actually guarantee our safety. “I've got my sarcastic answer all ready.”