Back To The Divide (34 page)

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over lunch, on his first day in Andria.
"Did she take you to the castle? My little 'tin's been after me
..." He felt let down, somehow. It was all a bit too commercial.

"Well," said the queen, with a tinkly laugh, "if I've only dozed off for a few weeks the king may still be around. Let's go and look for him, shall we?" She jumped off the bed, put on her velvet slippers, and skipped to the door. "Come on!"

Felix followed her downstairs. The castle was no longer as silent as it had been -- people were waking up. A baby was crying somewhere, and there were sounds of activity from the kitchen, with someone loudly complaining that the ovens had gone out. The queen found the king quite quickly, sitting in the great hall, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"Oh, goody," she said. She smiled at Felix. "No offense, human boy, but the king is the best dancer I've ever met. I'm sure you'll meet someone else to marry, sooner or later. You've got good legs."

Felix grinned. Betony had told him what the king and queen were like, but he hadn't really believed her. They were figureheads, that was all, but they were frightfully
nice.
With Snakeweed out of the way, Andria could have its king and queen again, and the guilds could get back to running the place the way they had before. There would be dance festivals and fun once more, and the library would reopen. Thornbeak and Betony could go back to work, and Thornbeak could get Ironclaw's cataloging system up and

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running. He walked toward the exit, feeling very pleased with himself. He was quite sure, now, that Snakeweed had just been lying about his cure being temporary. He felt on top of the world. Not only had he rescued Thornbeak's chick, he'd restored the monarchy. Quite a good morning's work.

On the other side of the moat, the landscape outside had changed dramatically. The predator-hedge had completely disappeared, and he noticed a recently made road leading off into the forest, with a signpost pointing to Andria and Tiratattle. He could see Scavenjit's hollow tree in the distance, and when he cocked his head to one side and listened hard, he could hear Fuzzy squawking. It had worked. He had comprehensively reversed the spell; everything was all right. He realized he didn't need the fire-breather anymore -- the brazzles weren't all that far away, and the hedge was no longer an issue. He could leave the fire-breather here, and the king and queen could use it to return to Andria. They would keep Ironclaw's gold safe for him until he went to collect it. He went back to the great hall and suggested it.

"What a lovely idea!" sparkled the queen. "We'd be back in time for the fish-reels." Seeing Felix's expression of incomprehension she added, "It's a Dance-day that celebrates the end of net-mending week. We always do a quick turn around the floor to open the proceedings."

"There's something else I'd like you to do, when you get back to Andria," said Felix. "There's an otherworld vehicle

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there. If someone discovered how it worked, they'd make lots of them. They're bad news in my world -- they're no good for the environment. I'd like you to have it destroyed."

"OK," said the queen brightly. "I'm sure you know best."

Felix said good-bye and started to make his way back to the exit. But by now, word had gotten around. People kept stopping him to congratulate him, pat him on the back, offer him a glass of rainbow-juice. He was getting the full hero treatment, and he was loving every second of it. A child gave him some candy, and a lickit handed him a pot of jellied creepy-biters. A tangle-woman stuck a flower in his cap. When he finally reached the drawbridge, the wise-hoof saluted him.

"Wait!" cried a voice.

Felix turned around and saw one of the nomads chasing after him. He stopped.

"Bismettle Bisotti B'dil, at your service," said the nomad. "Your presence here is as welcome as driving rain."

It took a moment for Felix to remember that Bismettle came from a desert region, and this was a compliment.

"Anxious to gather news from home after my enforced repose," the nomad continued, "I consulted the ragamucky in room 8."

Felix had only had fleeting contact with ragamuckies the previous year, but he did know they were brownies and that they read crystal balls for a living.

Bismettle beamed at Felix, and then, rather unexpectedly,

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wiped a tear from his eye. "It can only have been you, a human being, who sold your scientific instrument to my brother at a most favorable price. The very next night a vamprey took up residence in his rafters. If he had not been experimenting with the wondrous light, he would never have seen it, let alone been able to kill it. My gratitude is greater than a cloudburst in the desert. I beg you to accept this." He handed Felix a small lacquered box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and malachite.

Felix opened it. Inside lay the most beautiful emerald pendant he had ever seen.

"It protects the wearer from vamprey bites," said the nomad. "It seems appropriate."

"I can't accept this," said Felix, realizing that the pendant was very valuable. He couldn't take it back to his own world, either. It was magic.

The nomad looked devastated. "It is not good enough? Then I must beat myself with a cactus and fast for a week."

"It's
too
good," said Felix, realizing he'd made a big faux pas.

"Surely nothing is too good for the wife of a hero such as you."

"I'm not married," said Felix. "Betrothed?"

Betony, thought Felix suddenly. I promised her I'd replace the shell necklace, and I've forgotten all about it. "There is someone ..." said Felix.

The nomad smiled, bowed, and took his leave.

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Felix crossed the drawbridge and made his way over to Scavenjit's hollow tree. Scavenjit had fed Fuzzy as soon as her beak became unstuck, and the chick was in a bouncy mood. Felix gave Scavenjit the storm-oracle, and she shrieked with delight. Then, with Fuzzy trotting along beside him, he went back to the brazzles, retrieving his jacket and the toadstools he'd collected along the way.

"Where have you
been?"
cried Betony as soon as Felix reappeared. "We've all been worried sick."

Thornbeak was looking absolutely furious. Then Fuzzy stepped out from behind him, and her eyes widened in amazement.

"Hello," said Fuzzy, casting a quizzical eye at Nimby, who was spread out on the grass, drying. "Been having adventures."

Grimspite sniffed the air tentatively, as though he couldn't quite believe what he was smelling. Felix had gotten used to it; Fuzzy had her very own perfume, which was a unique blend of baby's diaper, rotten fish, and oily feathers.

Thornbeak was suddenly too overcome with emotion to speak. The others besieged Felix with questions, so he smiled and held up his hand, and they fell silent and allowed him to tell his story. Modesty was a family trait back home, and showing off was frowned upon -- so he shrugged off their praise and made light of his battle with the predator-hedge. Thornbeak didn't really seem to be listening anyway; she just sat and looked at Fuzzy, dewy-eyed.

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Betony simply took him at his word and said, "It was all a bit of a cinch, then."

"Well, not really," said Felix, feeling his heroism was not being properly appreciated.

Betony looked nonplussed, so he tried to make everything more dramatic. It fell a bit flat, so he gave her the emerald pendant instead.

Her eyes widened in astonishment, then she flung her arms around Felix and gave him a rib-crushing hug. "A vamprey charm," she said. "I need never be frightened of those horrible things again. Oh, Felix, this is brilliant. Agrimony really
will
be emerald with envy now."

Felix then produced his bag of toadstools, the jellied creepy-biters, and the candy, and they had a strange but satisfying brunch.

Fuzzy studied Ironclaw and said, "You're my dada, aren't you?"

"Er ... yes," said Ironclaw. He glanced at Thornbeak, completely at a loss.

"Well, give her a quick preen, then," said Thornbeak.

Ironclaw shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. Eventually he said, "Er ... hello, Granitefuzz."

"Fuzzy," said the chick.

"We've renamed you Granitefuzz," said Ironclaw. "After an old friend of mine." The chick glared at him. "Fuzzy for short," compromised Ironclaw.

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The chick burped her approval.

"She's so precocious," said Thornbeak fondly. "I'm going to start her on a bit of historical theory in a few days' time. Then, hopefully, when she's a bit older and the library's open again, I can take her to Andria and have
two
assistants."

"She'd be better off knowing what two and two makes."

"Four," said Fuzzy.

Ironclaw's expression softened to pure mush. "She
is
rather adorable, isn't she?" he said.

"Can we get moving now?" asked Felix. "I really do want to get back and sort out my parents."

"Yes, of course," said Thornbeak. "I'll take Fuzzy back to Tromm Fell, and Nimby can take you and Betony to the Andrian Divide. Ironclaw will provide an escort, in case you run into any bother."

Ironclaw ruffled his feathers and flexed his wings and tried to look the part. Felix noticed he had one eye on Fuzzy and was clearly attempting to impress her with his cockiness.

"What about Snakeweed?" asked Betony. "He may not have a wand or the gold or a fire-breather anymore, but he's still out there somewhere."

"Leave him to me," said Grimspite.

"How are you doing?" asked Emily, appearing in the doorway and regarding Rutherford steadily with her close-set dark eyes. "Not too well," said Rutherford, sighing and leaning

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back in his chair. "I did a UFO sightings check, but there hasn't been anything in the right area for ten years."

"Do you still think it's something from outer space?"

"I haven't come up with a better theory. What about you?"

"I don't know," said Emily slowly. "I'll tell you one thing, though. The normal rules of physics don't seem to apply."

Rutherford laughed. "That's ridiculous."

"You'd have said turning someone to marble was ridiculous a month ago."

"OK. Tell me."

"Newton's third law of motion. For every applied force, there is an equal and opposite reaction. But there doesn't seem to be. The energy's doing a sort of half-twist and producing all sorts of weird results. One of which is turning living things to marble."

"One
of which?"

Emily took a deep breath. "I can light a match with a wave of my hand," she said. "When I was in that summer-house in the garden, I found a sheet of paper with a diagram of a hand movement and a sort of rhyme scribbled below it. There were two versions of it, and it was obvious what it was for. I tried them both, then I tried a few of my own."

Rutherford just stared at her for a moment. Then he said, "Show me."

She picked up a match, waved her other hand across it, and recited, "Don't fight; flame, light; ignite; burn bright."

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The match burst into flame.

"You flicked it with your fingernail."

"I didn't, Rutherford," said Emily, annoyed. "Watch me." She took another match out of the box and repeated the experiment. The match burst into flame, as before.

"How do you do it?"

"I think there's a sort of mental force I exert, in opposition to the wave of the hand. I don't even have to say the words out loud -- I can simply
think
them. It's a balance thing; get it right, and it ought to cancel out. But it doesn't. The match lights instead."

"It's magic, then," said Rutherford, smiling.

Emily didn't laugh. "Precisely," she said.

Grimspite watched the brazzles and the carpet take to the air and head off in opposite directions. There had been an emotional good-bye between Felix and Thornbeak, which he didn't quite understand, but it was clearly something to do with being friends with someone. He turned into the forest and followed the path. Before too long he picked up Snakeweed's trail, and shortly after that the delectable scent of bumbled butterbugs with pukeberry sauce and deviled creepy-biters. A restaurant, right out here in the middle of the forest? Then he remembered the castle. That was obviously where Snakeweed was going; there wouldn't be anywhere else in the vicinity that had a decent menu. The

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alternative would be a wooden shack, serving hunks of grimy bread with moldy cheese -- the sort of place that gives a whole new meaning to
dirt cheap.
He broke into a lope.

Lickit form was more advisable for the castle, so he transformed himself. Snakeweed was in there somewhere, he could smell him, but as he crossed the drawbridge he realized he'd have to pay to get in. He didn't have any money, so he said he was applying for a job as a chef and was waved through. As he crossed the great hall, he overheard snatches of conversation.

"Really nice, she was, not high and mighty at all."

"Watched my little Milfoil here do his dusk hop, and told him he'd make a great dancer."

"Andria will be back to normal now and about time, too. Snakeweed was a nasty piece of work. He never really got rid of Harshak, you know."

"Apparently a brazzle killed Harshak yesterday. The raga-mucky with the crystal ball in room 8 told me."

"She said Snakeweed's disappeared, as well."

"Good riddance."

"Did you see the queen's tiara? Beautiful, it was."

"Waved at me as the fire-breather took off."

"No she didn't, Mom, it was
me."