Poor World (3 page)

“Okay. Here goes.” Sherry groaned realistically, then moaned, “Where ARE we?”

“Right ... about ... here,” I snarled.

“Oh, what a relief to know!” Sherry snickered, and then added, “By the way, who's this pop-eyed floob watching us? Can't be a Mearsiean.”

“Dunno. Hasta be with that batbrain with the green feather. Since we're all here — wherever that is — and since I don't think we're under any dark magic wards, why don't you all move close to me, and we'll dust outa this dump. But I wish I could first blast that smirk-faced gaboon — ”

“Before you continue,” the man with the blue eyes said in slightly accented Mearsiean, “you should know that I can understand everything you say.”

Why did I think he didn't understand us? Probably because most adults never would have let us get away with all that foolery. Also, my head hurt like crazy, and my thoughts were not exactly clear.

But now we all turned to look at the man, who stood by the door, watching. His attitude was patient and his expression interested.

“Nosy, ain't he,” Irene snarled.

The rest of us were silent.

The man said, after a longish pause, “Did you understand the proposition we have for you?”

“Never heard it,” I said, not even trying to sound polite. If they'd asked
before
sticking me wherever this was, maybe I'd at least have tried for neutrality.

The man seemed slightly surprised, and I hoped that this meant Fatfaced Feathernose would be in trouble, if that had been the whole point of his polluting our forest. “Stay here. Rest a few moments,” the man said. “Let me remind you that I'll still hear everything you say. If I didn't know about you, I wouldn't waste the time.” His tone was too flat for it to be an adult buttering up the stupid little kiddies. Too matter-of-fact. Like he really
had
somehow studied up on us — a thought that gave me the stomach-wheemies.

He added in exactly the same tone, “And you can't dust out of this dump, either. It's protected by a magician — one of the most knowledgeable in the world. Your access to your own spells has been blocked for the time being, and there are general protective wards over the compound. Keep these things in mind.” He went out the single door, leaving it wide open.

“Well, what does the healer do when the sickies are all croaking?” Dhana asked, chin in hand.

“Hope. Watch for recovering symptoms,” I said glumly, after trying a spell — only to find a kind of white space in my memory where all my magic knowledge usually resided. This wasn't just a simple ward, it was messing with my mind, indeed a most sinister indication that the man's pet sorcerer was just as strong as promised. Trying to force myself to remember the simplest spell just made my headache pang.

“C'ja toss?” Seshe asked, glancing at the ring on my hand.

I looked down, feeling intense longing. If I took off the ring and threw it against something, Clair would appear — but then would her magic be blocked as well? And would that leave the country open to — what?

“Nay,” I said, speaking in the same sort of half-code. “Don't want to yank the superintendent and risk letting some insanitic into the Mad House.”

“So the sickies lie around 'n' wait?” Dhana made a face.

“Until the healer knows what they have — and where they got it. Hafta experiment,” I said, grimacing. The only hope we had was that these unknown adults weren't really listening to us, because no one who knew anything about us would be fooled for half a breath.

Sherry ran to the window and looked out. “This has got to be the most boring dump I've ever seen. Nothing out there but dirt and a wall.”

“Better than a Chwahir dungeon,” Diana muttered.

“Well, yeah, except you don't need a dungeon to klunk people,” Irene snarled.

Seshe murmured, “No one's made a threat yet. Let's not help 'em by starting ourselves.”

One look at Gwen's scared face and I nodded firmly. The boring green room was neutral. Things could go either way — which meant one could still hope that we'd be eating dinner in the Junky before long, commenting lengthily and with creative freedom about the stupidities of adults.

The dark-haired man returned just then.

“Come along, Cherene,” he said. No title — which was odd, since he certainly knew who I was. Not that I care, which I don't, but I was looking for, oh, signs of normal adult behavior. Adults tend to really care about titles and stuff. But then so can kids.

Anyway, I hesitated, not knowing if it was better to stay or to leave the girls. Then I remembered that I had no access to my magic. If anything happened to them I couldn't do much to save them.

I saw no threatening hardware in the man's hands or even at his belt, so I slid off my chair, figuring at least I was likely to find out what was going on. And hopefully without too much more nastiness.

I flipped a wave to the girls, who watched with varying expressions as I followed the man into a short hall painted the same neutral green, and through another door to a plain room much like the first, this one furnished with a battered old desk and a few chairs, and a window on the side.

The man sat down behind the desk and I sat on the chair farthest away.

“I presume you'd like to know why you're here before I begin with our goals. Am I right?”

“Didn't say otherwise.” I crossed my arms firmly. His accent — so slight — sent warning zaps into my achy head.

“Good. We've observed you for a long time. There are a number of youths in the organization, though none who can work magic. This had presented some problems. We did look through Mearsies Heili just after your young queen — Clevarlineh, is that right?”

He waited for corroboration.

“Yes,” I said unwillingly — as if her formal name was any kind of secret. She didn't use it much, which meant this crackaloon had really done some digging on us. Euw.

“After her accession, but I did not see you, nor was there any information about you. Since that time the case has been altogether different. Yet we cannot find out where you were born — and if you do not wish to tell me, it doesn't matter. Backgrounds are not important here. The important thing is that you meet certain criteria, among which are: you know magic but are not a ruler, and you meet our standards for achievement. Therefore you — and your compatriots — are here to be recruited into the organization.”

“We want to go home, that's what we want to do.”

The man got up and went to the single window, and while he looked out, he said, “I hoped to avoid pointing out the alternative choices, but perhaps it's as well. Come here.”

I hesitated.

The man turned his head, looking slightly impatient. “Come here. I'm not going to hit you over the head. You need to see something before you choose.”

So I walked reluctantly over and joined him at the window.

“Look.” He lifted a hand, then clasped both his behind him.

I looked out the window. This office was at the front of the building; outside lay a dirt street. I could see in one direction a hard packed dirt courtyard of considerable size. A few other buildings were in sight, all single-story, plain, and in the farthest distance a high wall.

Straight across the street from the office I stood in was another blank-fronted structure, with two windows, both of which were barred. On either side of the door stood guards armed with swords and crossbows.

Crossbows. Not even Chwahir used those things, except when they were embarking on a big war.

“That's a prison,” the man said. “Make no mistake about that. No mistake exists to those inside. We ask few to join us. Those who choose not to are sent there, and after a time, if they still refuse, the alternative is death. Those stupid enough to refuse to be part of my plans have to die, for as yet this is still a secret organization. None leave here who are not loyal.”

Now
I was getting scared.

“I have no tolerance for stupidity,” the man went on to say. “Stupid people, or ugly people.”

And that was my first hint that the man standing next to me was not only up to something I'd hate, he was insane.
Ugly people?

I was still trying to figure this out (like what was their goal, to establish a prettiness code for Sartorias-deles?) when he said, “There are three individuals inside the jail who have come to the end of their term of reflection. Your decision today will affect their lives; perhaps, if you join, they will during the course of another period of reflection see the wisdom of cooperation. One of them is of particular interest due to his skills. I really expected better of him, for a number of reasons, including the fact that I hate waste.”

“So who are these people?” I asked, thinking of the girls all together in the room next down the hall. He couldn't mean one of them.

“One of them is a cousin to your queen. Puddlenose? Puddlenose. A strange sort of a name.”

“It's not a name so much as an insult,” I muttered numbly. “Chwahir idea of a joke.”

“Yes, I thought he might be that boy. I'd begun to doubt. Now I understand that it wasn't coincidental that they were all together. The second is his traveling companion, ah ...”

“Christoph?” I couldn't help it. My voice squeaked.

“That's it. The third, the one with superlative skills, is known only as Rel the Traveler.” The man looked down at me, his manner one of waiting.

I turned my gaze away from those unblinking blue eyes to the prison, my hands clammy. “Oh,” I said, my head buzzing weirdly.

Between the headache and the horror I'd just heard, my mind was limping like a centipede with one leg. At least, I couldn't speak — and I scarcely heard it when the man said abruptly, “You can stay here and think it over,” as he led the way back down the hall not to the girls, but to a small windowless room with a door that locked behind me.

There I was left, to sit on an empty storage box in the dark.

o0o

The time passed slowly and miserably, and I'm not going to fritter away much space on my thoughts. After I'd pocalubed everyone (including and especially Rel, for making me get stuck with deciding for
his
life), I tried to figure a way around the mess. Escape, obviously, but how? If only I could talk to the girls!

But I couldn't. Even wall-tapping (I tried) didn't raise an answer.

Finally I heard the scrape of the key in the lock and the door opened. Light glowed in, and there stood the creep from the forest. He looked at me as if I'd turned into something small and squiggly that you find under a moldering stone, then, without deigning to speak, he reached down and grabbed my arm.

I stomped with all my strength on his booted foot and wrenched free, then with rage-shaking hands did the wipe-and-stomp-the-cooties routine.

And he reacted most satisfactorily — just like a villain is
supposed
to act! He frowned, anger flushing his handsome cheeks, and I grinned and ducked through the door just before he could grab at me again.

I scooted down the short hall and reached the dark-haired man's door. When I paused to yank it open, the creep behind gave me a vicious shove right between the shoulder blades. I stumbled, fell flat, jumped up and attacked! I got in one good scratch on his hand as he blocked a kick, then he swatted me with the other hand and I slammed into a wall hard enough to send sparkling lights across my vision.

“All right. That's enough.”

The man behind the desk sounded slightly impatient — which was apparently enough to send Lord Featherbrain skedaddling.

The door shut behind him.

“Well?”

I was fighting for breath — luckily I had too little in my stomach for barfing. But hunger, fear, aches all enabled me to resist the temptation to pull the usual CJ-Antagonizes-the Creep-In-Charge and snap back, “Well what?”

Instead I said, “I have to find out more about what you're doing here. But I don't say no.” I loathed my cowardice in adding that — but even more I hated the idea of three people being put to death on my account. Somehow I just knew this guy wasn't bluffing.

“Very smart,” he said approvingly.

“The girls — ”

“They said their decision rested on yours.”

“You mean, I could have said no for all of us — ”

“And you didn't know it at the time,” he finished. “Isn't that part of leadership, deciding for others?”

“Not blindly,” I managed to say.

“You weren't. Your first choice was admittedly limited, but if you'd rather be put to death while still ignorant, then we don't have the time to spend on you.”

“Oh.”

“You may have the run of the compound tonight. Feel free to explore. Except do not attempt the walls.” His tone didn't change, and I think it was the total lack of threat in his voice that made my stomach feel like it had dropped out onto the floor.

“I won't,” I said, and I added, hoping it would keep me from being followed, “and I never deliberately break promises.”

“I know,” he said, showing just the faintest hint of approval — and reminding me that, even though they hadn't managed to nose out my Earth-origins, they had apparently snouted out a wealth of other detail about my short life so far. “You're free to go, if you like,” he added.

What I really wanted was home — and something to eat — but getting away from him was a close enough second choice. Peeking out first to see if the featherheaded slugbrain was lurking around, I sidled out, glad to get away, even though the man really had seemed pleased. Somehow the idea of a villain being pleased with me was creepier than having one mad, even if it did seem to lessen the threat.

Or did it?

That's it, I thought as I slipped out into the darkness, looking carefully in all directions. It didn't lessen the threat.