Back To The Divide (15 page)

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while there was just pain and panting and slipperiness. Then she was out, and the two of them scrambled up the bank on their hands and knees and out of danger.

Felix turned his attention to the brazzles, and his eyes widened in horror. The river was in full spate now, and it wasn't just carrying twigs and branches any longer -- whole tree trunks were tumbling along, catching on promontories, and freeing themselves again. Ironclaw was trying to reach Thornbeak, but he was no swimmer. Then one huge uprooted tree appeared, traveling very swiftly in the middle of the river and veering straight toward them.

Both Felix and Betony yelled at the tops of their voices, but there was nothing anyone could do. They watched in disbelief as the tree hit both brazzles head-on and carried them away and out of sight. It all seemed to have happened in an instant. They both ran along the bank for a little way, but the water was moving much faster than they were, and pursuit was futile.

"It's all my fault," said Felix bitterly. "I should have said something."

"Said what?"

"That wadis can flood really suddenly. I'm such a featherbrained
idiot,
I should have realized. All that lightning we saw in the mountains, the distant thunder. Our own personal fireworks display? Yeah, right. Although it wasn't raining
here,
it must have been pelting down up
there.
What on earth are we going to do?"

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"I don't know," said Betony. Her clothes were sodden, and she was shivering.

"Do you think they could survive something like that?"

"I don't know," said Betony again.

Felix put his arm around her and they sat on the bank for a while, not speaking. The river rushed by, regardless, and he saw the corpse of some animal pass them. He didn't comment, and he didn't know if Betony had seen. She didn't remark on it, anyway.

After a while he said, "We're not going to get any sleep after what's happened, so I suggest we start walking downstream. The river will slow down eventually."

"When it reaches the sea," said Betony.

"Long before that," said Felix. "Come on."

They trudged on until dawn, one weary footstep after the other. The river was more sluggish now, and they were able to refill their water bottles. Gradually it got shallower and narrower, and piles of debris began to appear, washed up on the newly exposed sandbanks. Felix saw the bodies of two of the gazellelike creatures and another animal he couldn't identify, but there were no brazzles.

"Maybe they got out," he said. "Maybe they're holed up somewhere, waiting for their feathers to dry."

"And maybe they're at the bottom of the river."

The grief was so all-enveloping that it actually numbed him; his face felt abnormally rigid. And now the gravity of the situation itself was just too enormous for tears. And now

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they were stranded in a desert, with no hope of retracing their journey -- they'd be dead by the evening, in that heat. They just had to go on until it became too hot to walk, find some shelter for the day, and hope.

They carried on walking until the heat became too much, then they selected one of the rocky outcrops and sat down in the shade. They drank some of their water; not quite enough, really, but they had to ration it. The sky was an unbroken gradation of blue, from cyan at the horizon to ultramarine above, and the silence was complete. Felix looked at Betony and realized that she had been crying, but so quietly that he hadn't noticed. "I'm going to climb to the top of this crag," he said, "before the stone gets so hot it blisters my feet through my shoes. See if I can spot anything of interest."

"It's almost a sheer face, Felix."

"I'm not the same person I was this time last year," said Felix. "I've got muscles." He flexed his arm, trying to make her smile. She didn't react. He let his arm drop again and said, "I've done some rock climbing. I can see a route up."

Betony just nodded in a lackluster way.

Felix scrambled up the outcrop, thinking his way up it, planning each handhold, testing each tiny support before he put his weight on it. Eventually he made it to the top and stood there for a moment, breathless and triumphant. Then he wondered whether the breathlessness was a sign of anything else. A cold wash of fear went through him, and he sat down

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so abruptly that he jarred his spine. He sat there for some time, waiting for the dizziness, waiting for that old about-to-pass-out feeling. Gradually his breathing returned to normal. He felt silly and irritated with himself; he was perfectly all right. He stood up again, shaded his eyes, and scanned the landscape. In the distance, a little column of dust was rising. He wished he'd had the sense to bring a pair of binoculars with him -- then he wished Ironclaw had been there, with his magnifying vision. And then he did have a good cry, but he made sure he'd finished it before he climbed down to Betony and told her what he'd seen. "There's a dust column moving in a straight line toward us, at a regular speed," he said. "Someone riding some sort of animal is my guess."

"Yes, but what sort of someone?" said Betony.

After a while, a shape began to emerge from the murk. As they watched, the outline did take on the form of an animal with a rider. If the person was hostile there was nowhere to run anyway, so they stood their ground and waited.

The creature was the same sandy color as a camel. It had humps, too -- but four of them, and the rider was mounted in the middle, although he was almost entirely hidden by his clothing. He had a fierce tanned face, with a tattoo on one cheek and slanting dark eyes. He was wearing a curved scabbard, and there was a spear slotted into a leather loop beside him. Felix swallowed nervously and tried to appear calm and in control.

"He's a nomad," whispered Betony. "I've heard of them,

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but I've never met one before. And the animal's called a quaddiump."

"Greetings," said the nomad. "This meeting must be as welcome to you as a puddle. What are you doing, all alone on the Skeleton Plain?"

Felix told him what had happened, although he kept quiet about looking for the riddle-paw.

"I have seen no brazzles," said the nomad. "But I can take you to the nearest oasis." The breeze was quite strong, and for a moment the material that swathed his head was blown to one side and a pointed ear revealed itself. He's a member of the elf family, thought Felix, but a different sort of elf than Betony. His skin is brown, his eyes are brown, and his hair is black. The nomad leaned down and offered his hand, and Felix climbed up beside him. Betony did likewise, and then they were on their way. The quaddiump moved with a peculiar swaying gait, and it took a while for Felix to acclimatize to it. They didn't stop for lunch -- but the nomad shared his gourd of fresh water with them and some bread and dried fruit.

The sun was sinking low in the sky when they reached the oasis, and the little stone buildings cast long, deep blue shadows in the sandy streets. There were palm trees here, proper palm trees with dates on them, and the houses looked like those Felix associated with Moroccan or Tunisian villages, except that they were circular, not square. They eventually came to a halt, and the quaddiump went over to a water hole and drank deeply.

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Betony and Felix thanked the nomad, who directed them to an inn and said good-bye. The inn was called the Offal House. It was one of the circular buildings, rather larger than the others. The rooms would have made a pattern like the segments of a bisected orange but with the middle missing, for in the center was a garden. Low tables and cushions were placed in between little palm trees and flowering plants, and people were sitting on the cushions eating and drinking.

Felix and Betony copied what the others were doing and found themselves faced with a totally unfamiliar meal, consisting of a ricelike cereal with vegetables and slivers of something liverish. It was a bit on the slimy side, but it filled them up. "Paying for this is going to clean us out," said Betony. "Ironclaw ..." Her voice faltered. She swallowed, took a deep breath, and went on, "Ironclaw and Thornbeak had the gold in their leg-pouches."

The next morning, Betony handed over the last of their money to the innkeeper.

"Don't despair," said Felix. "I'm going to sell my flashlight."

Betony stared at him, aghast. Then she said, "But, Felix, it's scientific. You've always said that you don't want any scientific things on the loose over here, any more than you want magical things in
your
world."

"The battery will run out eventually. And then it won't work anymore."

"I hope you know what you're doing."

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"You've got a better idea, have you?"

Betony scowled. "No. If we're going to find the brazzles we need transportation."

"Find them? You're optimistic. Shouldn't we look for them first?"

Betony bit her lip, and her eyes brimmed with tears. She wiped her hands angrily across her face and looked away.

"That came out wrong," said Felix. "I'm sorry. We mustn't give up hope."

"I haven't," sniffed Betony. "It's just that I lost my necklace in the wadi, too."

Felix felt even guiltier. He'd had no idea that the shells he'd strung together on a silver chain the previous year had meant that much to her. "I'll get you another," he said. "I promise. One that will make Agrimony emerald with envy."

"It'll cost you," said Betony, with a watery smile. "Agrimony's envy doesn't come cheap."

They made their way to the market and offered the flashlight to one of the traders. He asked a lot of questions about it, and Felix felt he had to come clean and explain that the light wouldn't work forever.

"It is like a glass offal-dish, then," said the trader. "Once it is broken it cannot be mended. How much do you want for it?"

Betony took a deep breath. "Ten gold pieces."

"Ten gold pieces?" squealed the trader. "Would you beggar me? It is better to itch all over than endure the worries of poverty. Five."

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"Eight," said Betony. "And it's worth twice that. It's a scientific instrument."

The haggling went on for a while longer, but eventually they settled on seven gold pieces. As they were about to leave, Betony asked the trader where they might find a riddle-paw.

His eyes widened. "No idea."

"No idea at all?"

"Go to Kaflabad. It's the biggest town for miles; someone there may be able to help you."

"Thanks," said Betony, stuffing the coins deep into her pocket. "Right," she said as they walked back across the market square, "if we're going to look for Ironclaw and Thornbeak first, quaddiumps aren't going to be much use. We need something that can fly."

"A fire-breather?"

"Yes. Let's find the stables and see what they've got."

But there weren't any fire-breathers; the stables were just for quaddiumps. They found a cafe and sat at one of the tables, drinking an herbal infusion and wondering what to do next. A nomad noticed Felix's blue eyes and asked his name.

"Felix," said Felix.

"Felix what?"

"Felix Sanders."

"Felix Sanders what?"

"Just Felix Sanders."

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"We have three names," said the nomad. "I am Fettle Fottle F'dal."

"I have a middle name," said Felix. He didn't like it much, so he always abbreviated it. "It's Matt."

"Ah," said Fettle. "We, too, often name our children after a beloved possession that has died."

Felix had to think about that for a moment -- then he realized that Fettle was probably referring to a magic carpet. Suddenly, he remembered the one he'd encountered the previous year, which had been employed as an elevator at the conference center in Tiratattle.

"Did your parents replace their carpet?" asked Fettle.

"No," said Felix, not really concentrating, as he was wondering whether a magic carpet might be the answer to their transportation problem. "They got a car."

"Ah," said Fettle, "a
car.
Is this a big car-pet?"

"Not exactly," said Felix.

"And did it have a good sense of humor? A carpet is like an onion: It can make you laugh or make you cry."

"It broke down at a railroad crossing once," said Felix. "I suppose you could call that having a warped sense of humor."

Betony kicked him on the ankle.

"Sorry," said Felix, "I'm a bit preoccupied. Is there somewhere you can buy magic carpets around here?"

Fettle gave them directions, and they finished their drinks and made their way to the bazaar.

Betony cheered up a bit. She'd never ridden on a magic

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carpet, and they were doing something positive about finding the brazzles. They went to a storeroom and surveyed the selection of floor coverings on show.

"Is the only difference their size?" asked Betony.

"Certainly not!" answered a high female voice indignantly.

Felix gulped. The speaker seemed to be a small red-and-cream mat.

"Some of us have enhancements," said a deeper voice. This came from a multicolored rug the size of a double bed.

"And some of us, no names mentioned, are second- or even
third-hand,"
said a rush mat.

"Experience of life is an added bonus, not a disadvantage," replied the multicolored rug gravely.

Reject that one, thought Felix. No sense of humor.

"I'm a racer," boasted a long thin carpet with a short pile. "Came in second in the T.T. last year."

Felix's mouth dropped open. The T.T. was the name of a motorcycle race on the Isle of Man.

"The Textile Trophy," explained the racer.

"You need a license to pilot a racer," said Betony, pointing to a notice on the wall.

"You don't need one to fly
me,"
said another carpet. This one was a beautiful cherry red, with an intricate blue-and-cream design in the center, and its fibers were so silky that they gleamed when the light caught them. There was a white fringe of tassels at either end.

"Let me introduce myself," said the rug, its voice