Authors: Ysabeau S. Wilce
And if I went back, I’d still be Flora Segunda. Always second to the lost Flora. I’d be trapped in family obligations, in duty and honor. I’d lose my chance to be my true self Nyana, to have a job I’d earned, to be my own person, to see the world. And I’d lose Tharyn. I did not want to lose Tharyn.
“You know one of the things I miss most about Califa?” Tiny Doom asked quietly She stood next to me, but I didn’t turn to face her.
When I didn’t answer, she said, “It’s stupid, but I really miss the waffle dogs at Waffle Doggie Diner. We used to go there, late, after hours. It was always packed, so cheerful. You’d see the strangest people there and no one ever paid any attention to me. It was comforting. I am almost afraid to ask if it’s still there.”
“It’s still there,” I said. “Poppy and I ate there a week or so before I left.”
“Do they still have pigeon-fat fries?”
“Ayah.”
“And orca bacon burgers? They were Hotspur’s favorite.”
“That’s what he had. With extra blue cheese.”
“Ugh, disgusting.” She shuddered and I shuddered with her, for she was right. Then she said, “I shouldn’t lecture you. I haven’t the right. I’m sorry You must do as you think best. You are an adult now and can make your own decisions.”
“All the decisions I make are wrong,” I said bitterly.
“Do the best you can,
Nini told me.
And let the chips fall where they may.
That Tharyn, do you like him?”
“Ayah, and he seems to like me, even though I’m hopeless.”
“We are all hopeless in our hearts. I can see he does like you, very much. Go with him if you like. Enjoy him. Love him. Have adventures with him.”
“What about Bilskinir, Paimon, the rebellion, the last Haðraaða, all that?”
“Aw, fike ’em. They got along without me, they’ll get along without you. You have to follow your own Will. If it isn’t your Will, don’t force it. I forced it, and look where it got me. What do you want? What is your Will?”
When it’s your true Will, you’ll know it,
Nini Mo said,
without having to think about it.
I thought about it, and I still didn’t know.
T
HARYN
, F
LYNN
, and I left Fort Sandy the next morning, on borrowed horses, along with Sieur Taylor’s cowboys. Before we mounted up, I paid a quick visit to the corral, where I fed Evil Murdoch half a pound of sugar and got spat on in thanks, then went to the post hospital, where I said goodbye to Munds. His shattered knee had earned him an early discharge, so he was in a pretty chippy mood; he thanked me profusely for saving his life.
As we rode off the post, I saw Major Rucker standing in the ramada of the COQ, Sally beside him. He waved, but I thought he wasn’t as much saying goodbye as making sure that I left. No fear of that, Major Rucker. After we crossed the river, La Bruja jogged up on Evil Murdoch and fell in next to Sieur Taylor.
“Nice day for a ride, Taylor!” she hollered. Whatever the magick was that kept her going, it must pretty strong, for even now that I knew she was just a reanimated corpse, I would never have guessed. She was greasy, dirty, and her hair looked a rat’s nest, but none of that awfulness was corpsey at all. Her current body must be fresh. Once again, I decided not to wonder where she got her supply.
Don’t spit in your own well,
Nini Mo said.
“Nice day for a drunk, you mean,” Taylor hollered back, but I knew now that the drunkenness was part of the act. La Bruja might look like a pickler, but Tiny Doom was always stone-cold sober.
Tiny Doom went all the way to Hassayumpa with us but never dropped her cover. That was just fine with me. For now, I knew all I wanted to know. Maybe someday I’d be ready for more.
We spent the night in Hassayumpa and caught the stage to Angeles the next morning. The cowboys rode off at first light, but the stage didn’t go until midmorning, giving us time to lay in a hamper of chow at the café and for Tharyn to take an order from the general store. Tiny Doom had vanished into the saloon as soon we hit town and I hadn’t seen her emerge, but when Tharyn and I got to the livery stable, she was already there. She traded insults with the stage driver as the freight was loaded, and I fed Evil Murdoch the last of my breakfast burrito. He didn’t seem particularly appreciative, but he didn’t try to bite me, either. I guess that’s as grateful as a mule can be.
“I’m glad I’m not riding your spine all the way to Califa,” I told him. He snorted mule goo all over me.
“Oh, ya leave ol’ Murdoch alone,” La Bruja said. “I’ll fatten him up and when you come next, ya’ll think yer riding on a featherbed.”
“Major Rucker told me not to come back.”
“Oh, Pow, don’t mind him. Yer gonna work for the Pacifica now—we get mail sometimes, and send it, too. Speaking of which, can you deliver this letter for me when you get to Angeles?”
“Who told you I was going to work for the Pacifica?” I asked.
She grinned. “I hear things on the wind. Ain’t I got the best hearing?”
“I’ve not been officially hired yet.”
“Consider it a trial run, then.”
I took her letter and slipped it into my jacket pocket. The other passengers were boarding the stage; Tharyn had already climbed inside. La Bruja kissed Flynn’s nose and hoisted him up onto Tharyn’s lap. She said something to Tharyn that I didn’t quite catch, then turned back to me.
I was the only passenger left. The driver bawled at me and Tharyn leaned out the window, calling, “Come on, Nini!”
“Adios!” La Bruja said cheerfully.
“Adios!” I said.
“Come on, girlie! Git yer moving!” the stage driver bawled.
Tiny Doom smiled a mossy green smile and said in a low voice, “Don’t fret, honey. There’ll be time for us yet.
Dare, win, or disappear!”
“We’re leavin’!” the shotgun warned. I climbed into the stagecoach, and Tiny Doom slammed the door, then slapped the stairs up. With a jolt that threw me right into Tharyn’s lap—squishing Flynn—the stage lumbered forward. By the time I got myself out of Tharyn’s lap and leaned out the window, all I could see behind us was dust.
“What did she say to you?” I asked Tharyn.
“That she’d skin me alive and make my pelt into a coat if I let anything happen to you,” Tharyn said, and laughed.
The trip to Angeles was grueling. Across the Sandlot Dry Drive—forty-five miles with no water—then through the Grivalda Pass, down into the Palma Valley and eventually into Angeles. It took four days. The stage halted every few hours to change horses, take on passengers, drop off or pick up mail or freight, and give us a chance to piss and eat, but otherwise we bounced along, day and night.
The chow hamper stood Tharyn and Flynn well, but the rocking motion of the coach made me feel so pukey that I had to resort to the bottle of Tum-O I’d picked up in Hassayumpa. I spent most of the trip in a stupor, lulled by the heat and laudanum, buttressed from the worst of the jolts by Tharyn’s furry bulk. If he’d been traveling alone, he would have reverted to his bear form and run the distance in half the time, so I knew the slow trip grated on him.
On the fourth afternoon, a cool breeze began to waft through the open window, and the dust was leavened with the smell of orange blossoms. The road smoothed out, and the mules put a spring in their steps. I rousted from my haze and looked out the window to see green rolling hills, festooned with grazing cattle, and long, low valleys filled with orange trees. We rounded a curve, and there on the horizon was a distant blue smudge of sea.
The stage had barely hit the outskirts of Angeles when a kid on a shaggy pony rode up alongside it, shouting that the Infanta Sylvanna’s flotilla had arrived in the City It had been escorted by three Kulani warships and the Dainty Pirate’s flagship, and the Warlord had retired in her favor. As soon as we disembarked, I wobbled over to the news-hawk standing in front of the apothecary shop and bought a copy of the
Angeles Monitor,
so fresh the ink was still wet. On the front page was an engraving of the new Warlady and a copy of the speech she had made upon her arrival in the City.
Tharyn reading over my shoulder, I scanned the speech quickly The new Warlady praised her father’s wise rule, thanked General Fyrdraaca for her loyalty to the City, expressed gratitude to the Virreina for providing her with such a fine education (did I detect a whiff of irony there?), and announced the formation of a new alliance between Califa and the Kulani Islands.
This was not exactly a declaration of separation from Birdie rule, but it was a start. Tiny Doom had been right. If the new Warlady was already making alliances with one of the Huitzil Empire’s rivals, then she wasn’t nearly as Birdie-ized as everyone had thought.
“The Virreina isn’t going to like that one bit,” Tharyn said as we headed toward the hotel. I glanced at him; he didn’t look particularly happy about any of this exciting news. But he had had no stake in Califa’s freedom. Nor, any longer, in Kulani matters.
I did.
But I wouldn’t if I went with Tharyn to Porkopolis.
In the zocalo, a horn band was playing the Califa National Anthem over and over while people danced and sang, and a portable grog-shop did brisk business. The rousing choruses of “Cierra Califa!” gave me a twinge of nostalgia.
You cannot toy with old sweetness,
Nini Mo said. I swallowed the twinge down.
At the front desk of the Angeles Hotel, the clerk knew Tharyn, of course, and greeted him effusively Tharyn introduced me as his new assistant, and after I signed the guest book, the clerk flipped it around and squinted at my name.
“Nyana Romney,” he read. “Huh. I thought you might be someone else.”
“Why is that?” I asked warily.
“Well, I got some mail here for a Flora Fyrdraaca, and I thought she might be you ’cause in both cases I was told that this here Flora Fyrdraaca is a young woman with red hair, and you are the only young woman with red hair I’ve seen in a long time.”
Fike. Who would have left me mail at the Angeles Hotel? I was dying to know, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit that I was Flora Fyrdraaca. The Dainty Pirate might be safely far away, but Buck could have noted me deserted by now, and put the guard on me.
“What kind of mail?” Tharyn asked.
“Luggage, Sieur Wraathmyr. A big trunk. And a letter.”
Tharyn said smoothly, “Flora Fyrdraaca, did you say? I know her. She was in Cambria when last I was there. Look, I’m heading that way once I leave Angeles. Give the trunk over to me and the letter, too, and I’ll be sure they are delivered.” To my surprise, the clerk agreed to this suggestion. He rang for a bell girl, and while she fetched the trunk, he fetched the envelope from a mail cubby. I recognized the handwriting on the envelope even before he handed it to me: Buck.
The cold wind of guilty discovery blew through me, mixed with a dose of paranoia. How had Buck known I would be here? I glanced around, almost expecting to see her—or a provost marshal—hiding behind one of the potted plants, but the lobby was mostly empty. Judging from the roar, the rest of the guests were celebrating in the saloon. The bell girl appeared, wheeling a luggage cart, and there was my trunk, last seen aboard the
Pato de Oro,
so long ago! How the fike had it found its way here?
Well, no matter how, I was awfully glad to see it. I’d expended most of Poppy’s mad money at the sutler’s store in Sandy, replenishing my kit. I couldn’t keep wasting divas on new pairs of drawers. Of course, I’d have no use for my uniforms anymore, but I could sell them and use the money to buy an outfit more suitable to an express agent.
The letter from Buck—briefly, I considered tearing the letter up and throwing it away. But no matter how much I might regret it later, I had to know what the letter said. I clutched it as we followed the bell girl upstairs, and my grip left sweaty marks on the paper. The bell girl showed us into the room, accepted Tharyn’s tip, and left us alone.
“When I’m clean, I’m going to head down and book us passage to Porkopolis.” Tharyn tossed his furry jacket and his satchel on one of the beds. Flynn took possession of the other, lying down with a happy sigh.
“That’s a good idea,” I said.
“The short route is north, through the Northwest Passage, but that means putting into Califa first.”
“Is there another way?”
“Perhaps. I will see.” He didn’t ask me who the letter was from, and I did not offer the information. I sat on the bed until he went down the hallway to the bathroom, and then tore open the envelope.
The note was short and to the point, scrawled in Buck’s own hand. It said:
Darling:
I heard what happened. They though you drowned, but I have been to see your" friend” and I know you are still alive. I’m sorry, Flra. I should have trusted you. I’m sure you are thinking I’m pissed, and I was, but I’m not anymore. I just want you safe and home. ‘We’ll figure out what will happen next together. I've sent copies of this letter to every town along the coast, hopping that it will find its way to you eventually. If we are to succeed in our plans, I need your help. I love you very much.
—
Mamma
P.S. No questions asked.
My "friend”? Fike. Buck had been to see Paimon. She’s the Head of the House Fyrdraaca; he would owe her Courtesy and have to see her. What had he told her? Surely he had been circumspect. Didn’t he owe his loyalty to me? If he had told her everything about Tiny Doom and all I’d done ... my blood turned to slushy ice at the thought. But then, if he had told her everything, surely she would not beg me to come home.
Tharyn reappeared, shiny clean. “Who is the letter from?”
“My mother,” I said. “She wants me to come home.”
“Oh.” He put his furry jacket on, saying casually, “And will you go?”
“No. I’ve made up my mind,” I said. “I’m going to Porkopolis.”
“Good.” He sounded relieved. “I’m off, then. I will meet you back here later, ayah?”
“Ayah.”