The Deavys (4 page)

Rose arrived first, panting excitedly. “Where?” She stared into the waterfall, trying to locate the source of her brother's excitement.

“Up higher,” he instructed her, “and more toward the other side.”

“I don't—oh, there they are!” Bending slightly at the waist to get a better angle, she pointed out the golden shapes that were behaving slightly differently from the other glints of light that filled the falling water.

“Good spotting, brother,” Amber complimented him as she, too, tracked the now decisively identified creatures.

“It wasn't me.” Reaching up, he stroked the cat clinging to his right shoulder. “Pithfwid found them.”

“That's only logical.” The cat purred as it lifted its spine against the caressing hand. “After all, they are living in a cataract.”

“Hi there,” Simwan called out, extending a hand outward, palm facing up, as he had been taught to do during a period of home-schooling whose subject matter had nothing to do with ordinary chemistry or biology. “If you don't mind, we need to talk to you for a moment.”

For a few seconds, lights with legs seemed to coalesce into a hovering ball of shimmer. Chancing upon the intensely bright phenomenon, an Ord would have shaded his eyes and moved on. Simwan and his sisters knew better. The skippls were considering their request.

Separating itself from the center of the glow, one shard of light sliced in their direction, dancing delicately across the water from ripple to ripple, until it stood gleaming in the steady flow. Then it performed a short but impressive hop to land neatly in the middle of Simwan's proffered, outstretched palm. Once removed from the water that was its home, it was much easier to make out the skippl's twiggy, delicately feminine limbs. Set apart from the distortions caused by sunlight, her face now stood out clearly. Like the limbs, her features were narrow and minimal, as if someone had taken a pencil and sketched a few short, quick lines of face onto a beam of sunshine.

“Whatdoyouwant?” Her high, musical voice reminded Simwan of the upper reaches of a piccolo. He had to strain to make out the reply. Skippls talked almost as fast as they moved.

“Something stinky this way came,” N/Ice told it. For good measure, she made herself go an ichorous shade of green, like pea soup that had been left out too long in the sun.

“Something ferocious, fat, and full of evil, bearing with it stolen Truth.” Pithfwid punctuated N/Ice's colorful effort by taking a deep breath and making himself turn a color that might best be described as that of chromatic vomit.

Words and color-cues had the intended effect. Glistening like a melting bracelet painted by Dalí, the skippl nodded, turned, and pointed. Light flashed in two different directions at once. It was an impossibility of physics—but then, so were skippls.

“Surenoughsawitpass. Wentthataway, movingfast. Biguglyug. Redeyesfullofawful.” The slight shiver in the skippl's voice as she spoke was more full of meaning than any lingering spoor could have been.

Despite the lowing cloud cover, there was still enough glare off the surface of the stream to force Amber to shield her eyes as she peered across the creek. “Was it still heading east when you saw it?”

The skippl moved to the very edge of the water, beyond whose cheerful supportive gurgle she could not long survive. “Theywere.”

Close by Simwan's right ear, Pithfwid muttered softly. “‘They'? There were more than one?”

Light flickered and flashed: the skippl's way of nodding. “TheCrubwasnotalone. Travelingwithescort. Nastythings.” If light could be said to shudder, the skippl certainly did. “Smelledbadthey. NotasbadasCrub. Hurttolookatthem.”

Straightening, Simwan stared off into the forest, wondering exactly how much farther it was to the highway. “If the Crub had company, the trail should be stronger.”

“Truthyouspeak.” The skippl prepared to return to her watery home. “Overhearwaygoing. AllwaytoNewYork.”

“New York?” Amber swallowed hard. “You mean, New York
City
?”

“Yes,” the skippl responded. “Theytalkingaboutit. Whilepassthisway. GoingNewYorkCity. Theysay. Crubhome.”

And to think, Simwan mused, that he had worried about how they were going to find the Crub if it had holed up somewhere in the vicinity of Clearsight. But if it had gone to New York … Even an oversize Truth-thieving fiend like the Crub could find a place to hide itself in New York.

“It doesn't matter,” declared Rose, breaking the silence that followed the Skippl's revelation. “We have to find it and get the Truth back, no matter where it's gone to. We have to for Mom's sake. We promised Mr. Gemimmel. We promised ourselves.”

“Besides,” added Amber, “it's the only chance we have of stopping the development. People have to know the truth, and for them to know the truth, it has to be around.”

A daydreaming N/Ice had to be reminded not to let herself drift off into the trees. She came back to reality, and the ground, with a thump as her feet once more made contact with the earth. “So, all right, then. We'll go to New York. If that's where the Crub has gotten to, that's where we'll have to go.”

“Uh, N/Ice,” Simwan reminded her, “you girls are just twelve.” He didn't add that he was only sixteen. “Mom and Dad might not want us traipsing off to the big city, much less on a potentially dangerous hunt for the emperor of all rat-things.”

Rose and Amber and N/Ice exchanged a tripartite look before turning back to him with what could only be described as expressions of sisterly pity. “Big brother,” Rose told him gently, “you didn't
really
think that's how we were going to put the request to Mom and Dad, did you?”

“Well, I …” he hesitated.

“I believe,” Pithfwid murmured from his perch on Simwan's shoulder, “that your sisters have something of a more feline bent in mind.”

“If you mean sneaky, shifty, and devious—” N/Ice began.

Amber cut her off. “Leave it to us to think of a way to get permission. You're going to have to act as chaperone, at least in name, so I suppose we'll have to let you in on it.”

“Once we have whatever
it
is,” Rose concluded confidently.

“Notathingtochase, istheCrub,” exclaimed the skippl worriedly as she listened to their conversation. “Becareful, youngsolidones. Blessingsofwater, maytheycoverandprotectyou.” With a hop and a slide and a jump, the skippl was gone, returned to the cataract from whence she had emerged.

Simwan glanced skyward. It was getting late, he realized. And looking more and more like rain. They might as well start back, especially now that they knew the Crub's destination. He'd only been to New York once in his life, and that was when he had been about the coubet's age. Now it appeared that he was going to go back, but this time in the company of his sisters and not his parents. And Pithfwid, of course. To find and bring back the stolen Truth.

If they all caught cold, standing out in the damp and the wind, no one would be going anywhere, he knew. “Let's get moving. You guys can tell me all about your plan on the way back.” He started off along the trail they had made.

“Plan? What plan?” exclaimed Amber innocently. “We don't have a plan, brother. But we will by the time we get home, won't we?” Rose and N/Ice chimed in with equally chirpy confidence.

What they didn't know as they left the stream and its apprehensive cohort of skippls behind was that the always-chary Crub had done one last thing as it had hurried on its way toward the big city accompanied by its noisome band of escorts.

It had been careful to leave in its wake something considerably more dangerous than bad smells.

IV

I'm cold.”

Simwan looked over at Amber. During fall and winter, she always seemed to suffer more than any of them, while expanding like a flower in the sun come the warming balm of summer. With a sigh, he slipped out of his flannel shirt and draped it over her shoulders. She smiled affectionately up at him.

“You know, big brother, most of the time you're just a big pain. But not all the time.” In the absence of his shirt, her words warmed him.

Hugging herself against the rising chill, Rose studied the surrounding trees. The slowly setting sun and the darkening clouds overhead notwithstanding, this early in the evening it still seemed colder than it ought to be. Humidity began to condense around them, uncertain whether to assume the aspect of fog, mist, or actual rain. A bunch of Ord kids might easily have found themselves lost in such surroundings, but not the Deavy offspring. Whenever the path forward threatened to become uncertain, they simply relied on N/Ice, who could see the Way Clear even in the midst of a roaring nor'easter.

Moisture finally made up its mind, and it started to rain.

“Rats!” muttered Rose, drawing the collar of her sweater tighter around her neck. Seeing the startled looks on the faces of her siblings, she hurriedly corrected herself. “I mean, darn. Or damn. Or diamondiferous.”

Simwan frowned at his sister. “What has that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” she shrugged. “I liked the alliteration, and if I also happened to accidentally hit on a near-spell, who knows—I might conjure up a diamond.” For emphasis, she scuffed at the damp earth with the toe of her left sneaker. This action exposed a single earthworm, suitably outraged, but unfortunately no diamonds.

Amber found herself shivering, and wasn't sure it was from the cold.

Riding high on Simwan's shoulder, Pithfwid was sniffing the air intently. His eyes were open wide, the pupils expanded, and his ears were cocked attentively forward. From time to time his head would jerk to one side or the other, like a gun turret trying to home in on a target. Except for his violet eyes, whose color rarely changed, he had gone entirely gray to match the weather.

“Relax,” Simwan told him. “I'm getting wet, too. It's not raining hard, and I don't recall that the weatherman last night said anything about a chance of heavy showers.”

“Isn't that,” the cat replied. “I sense something else heavy.”

Simwan went into immediate alert mode. Pithfwid was no hypocondricat. If he felt something was wrong, it usually was. “Where?”

“In the woods.” Feline eyes searched, searched.

Simwan made a disgruntled sound. “That's not real helpful, Pithfwid.
We're
in the woods.”

“Tell me about it,” murmured the cat. “And we're not alone, I don't think.”

Wordlessly, the girls clustered closer around their big brother. At such times their innate sarcasm took a hike and they were much more his trio of little sisters than they were their usual irritating, know-it-all selves. It was also at such moments that he wished he really was bigger.

On his shoulder, Pithfwid did get bigger, as his gray fur bristled. “Not far away now,” he hissed. “Not nearly far away enough. Keep vigilant, be prepared.”

“For what?” an increasingly sodden and somber Amber wanted to know.

“I smell a Furk a-lurking.”

Cat eyes were not the only ones that widened at Pithfwid's announcement. As he scanned the dark, dripping trees that suddenly seemed to press closer in all around them, their bark peeling away like flayed skin, Simwan struggled to remember the right words that were to be used when encountering such an apparition. Glancing around, he could see that his sisters were doing likewise. Their lips moved as they recited incantations they dearly hoped they would not be called upon to declaim. Rose was rummaging around in her jeans for suitable charms.

Her actions induced Simwan to check his own pockets. The resulting inventory was less than encouraging: a couple of leftover chocolate bites, three quarters, the Leng army knife his cousin Terious had sent him from Nepal, a paper quip (for binding together several otherwise unrelated words into one smart-ass comeback), a surplus of laundry lint, and some brightly hued rubber bands. Looking down briefly from his scrutinizing of the surrounding woods, Pithfwid examined his human's puny available resources without comment.

“Oh!” Pulling up so suddenly that Amber nearly ran into her, N/Ice went half ethereal as one hand went to her mouth and she pointed with the other. At least, Simwan realized as he took up a defensive stance just in front of his sister, they no longer had to worry about the Furk stalking them.

It was right in front of them.

If N/Ice hadn't pointed it out, they might have walked straight into it, Pithfwid's efforts to safeguard them notwithstanding. This was not because they hadn't been paying attention, but because a Furk is so extremely hard to see. Found only in forests, Furks are the dark spots that fill up the places between the trees. They're big, and shadowy, and like trap-door spiders, they know how to sit in one place without moving while waiting for their prey to stumble right into them. Furks are the reason why the phrase, “The forest just swallowed him up” was invented, only these days most people have forgotten the why of it. Or, at least, the Ords have.

Realizing it had been recognized, the Furk let out a roar and charged. Well, not a roar, exactly. The sound that emerged from the opening that appeared in the exact center of the onrushing, dynamic shadow was more of a groan, the sound a breeze makes when it's been stabbed by an appalling metaphor. In place of arms and legs, the Furk reached out with puffs of gloom. One brushed Amber's back, causing her to break into a wild sprint. She knew for sure now that what had been chilling her had been a different kind of cold.

“Pithfwid!” Ducking to his left, Simwan saw the cat spring at the onrushing Furk, twisting in midair to avoid a slashing arc of dreary. Landing on all four feet, he flashed sparks from the tips of his ears and paws as he spat a challenging hiss at the lumbering creature. Fully enfurryated, the cat had become a streak of bright yellow fur striped with black: a giant bumblebee with indigo eyes. It was a startling sight.

Startling enough to momentarily draw the attention of the rampaging Furk away from the scattering children. Whirling, it struck downward with surprising swiftness. Swift as the blow was, it wasn't quick enough to catch Pithfwid, who darted to one side. Roiling darkness struck the ground. The rounded depression it left when it drew back was filled with dead grass and one cluster of murdered wildflowers that had not been alert enough to get out of the way.

From three sides now, the Deavy coubet was flinging every imaginable kind of spell at the amok Furk. It was the sorceral equivalent of the shotgun effect: blast the target with enough of the right kind of bullet, and accuracy was rendered moot.

“
Fellay tarmagent oot!
” Rose was shouting, her hands writhing over her head in serpentine choreography complex enough to please a plethora of pythons. Coils of purple smoke, impervious to the lightly falling rain, traced a helix around the lumpen mass that was the Furk.

“
Serseshawn peretel prestilong!
” squealed Amber as she flung at their attacker handfuls of mud gathered from near her feet. Where the intentionally addlepated dirt struck the Furk, anti-smoke began to rise from the dimness that was the body of the creature itself.

“
Take a hike, fart-wart!
” screamed N/Ice in a voice that was half choir-girl soprano, half thundering pillar of doom. The vibrations alone were enough to cause the Furk to halt in its tracks and turn away from the cat and toward the coubet.

While he continued to dodge and dance and make impertinent faces at the creature, doing his best to distract it from both his sisters and Pithfwid, Simwan marveled at the skills of the cabalistic choir that was the Deavy coubet while at the same time desperately trying to think of a way to tender some real help.

“Pithfwid!” he yelled again.

On the other side of the Furk, the cat was leaping and pouncing furiously: darting in when the creature's attention was distracted by one of the girls' spells, skittering backward when it returned its attention to him. What with the drumming of the rain on earth and forest, the uncoordinated but enthusiastic spell casting of his three sisters, and Pithfwid's hissing and growling, it was hard for Simwan to hear himself. Straining, he just did make out what the frenetic cat was trying to tell him.

“Your pocket! Use what you have in your pocket!” As a fist of doom descended toward him, the cat sprang to his left, struck the underside of a tree branch, did a complete backflip while changing color from black-striped yellow to dark blue with gold highlights, landed on his feet, and tore at the Furk with one paw. Ripped away, a puff of solid dark, like congealed pudding gone bad, spilled to the ground. The Furk howled in pain and tried to corner the cat against the base of an especially large oak, but the continuous chanting of the coubet kept it distracted.

Pocket—what was the cat talking about? Simwan still didn't know how to use his Leng pocket knife effectively. Even if he did, the tools it contained seemed far too puny to do any damage to something the size of the Furk.

Of course—the three quarters! Silver. That had to be it. Digging them out of his pants, he approached the Furk from behind, measuring his step while madly wiping rain from his eyes. Where to aim? At the eyes, surely—except that the Furk had no eyes. At least, none that Simwan could see. Where then? The mouth seemed the most likely target. With luck, the creature would swallow the poisonous currency before it was aware of what it had done. But he'd have to be fast, and get in dangerously close to make it work.

Seeing his human maneuvering for position, Pithfwid surmised Simwan's intention. Almost daintily, the cat side-stepped another downward blow and darted to his left, toward the crouching, weaving teen. Simwan held his ground, hoping the Furk would continue to focus its attention on the cat. Sure enough, it gauged the distance between them—and lunged. Pithfwid waited almost too long. In the cat's defense, it's hard to estimate the speed at which something that's made of little more than nothing can move. A few tail hairs were lost as the creature's upper appendages slammed together right where the cat had been standing and bristling a nanoinstant before. The frustrated Furk let out a muted howl of exasperation that echoed through the woods.

Seizing the resultant opening, Simwan let fly with the quarters. He had the great good satisfaction of seeing them soar right down what passed for the Furk's gullet. The vaporous mouth shut sharply, with a dull, damp
thump
. For an instant, the creature staggered back on its hindquarters. A smile appeared on Simwan's face.

It disappeared quickly as the Furk whirled and swung wildly at him.

He ducked, stumbled backward, nearly lost his balance, and found himself standing next to the wrathfully chanting Rose. “I don't get it—it was a perfect throw!” Collecting itself, the enraged Furk turned toward him and his sister.

Something small but solid bumped up against his legs, bounced away like a pinball off a high-score bumper. “Not the currency, you dolt!” Pithfwid yowled. “The chocolate, the chocolate!”

Dazed and confused, blinking and bemused, Simwan didn't stop to ponder the apparent absurdity of the cat's command. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out the couple of pieces of chocolate. Dark chocolate, as if that had anything to do with it. Should he unwrap them first, or just remove the outer paper and leave the inner foiling on?

“Throw it, throw!” Pithfwid was screeching. Looking up, Simwan saw the Furk all but towering over him, both of its massive if seemingly insubstantial upper limbs raised high above its head preparing to strike downward and smash him and his sister into the earth as if they were nothing more than a couple of loose twigs.

He heaved the chocolate.

It struck the Furk high up, right between its upraised limbs. There followed a brief instant during which absolutely nothing happened. Then a dark brightness appeared at the juncture of the Furk's arms. They rocked back and forth but did not descend. Having snuck up behind it, Amber and N/Ice were casting spells at it as fast as their lips could move: all to no avail.

The dark brightness spread, sliding smoothly across the Furk's form as slickly as spilled Kool-Aid on a glass tabletop. The Furk began to tremble, then to shake. A high, mystified moan rose from somewhere deep inside the quivering monstrosity. With a sound like bubbles crying, it burst, shattering in all directions and covering everything within twenty feet with fragments of wet, slimy Furk.

“Eewww!” Amber began picking pieces of burst Furk off her damp but otherwise unblemished sweater. Her equally dismayed sisters were doing likewise.

Panting hard, clearly tired by the effort he had expended in distracting the creature, Pithfwid sidled up to Simwan. Using one paw, the cat flicked a piece of Furk off his small, pink nose. “Blech. Filthy stuff. Exactly the sort of being one would expect the Crub to enlist on its behalf.”

“But …” Simwan was staring at the lumpy mess that occupied the place where the Furk had been standing, “chocolate?”

“Chocolate is nothing but sweetness and light. As a human, you, of all creatures, should know that. And if there's anything a Furk can't abide, it's sweetness and light. Not to mention the complex bioflavinoids and other powerful chemical compounds that chocolate contains. Fortunately, those leftovers you swiped from your parents' last dinner party were
real
chocolate, not the fake stuff that's just made with cocoa butter.” He licked his nose. “Seventy-one percent cocoa, I'd say.”

“Huh?” Simwan commented succinctly.

The cat sighed. “Never mind. One day you'll understand, and be the better for it.” He glanced skyward, blinking away a raindrop. “We'd better get moving. I don't think this storm is going to get any worse, but I am sure it's not going to get any better. If you all come down with colds, it'll make catching the Crub even more of a difficult experience, if not a deadly one.”