Had she not been dumped several inches deep into the mud, it might have dragged her off, at least for a bit, but the suction of the mud and Pernie’s determination not to let it get away were enough to flip the creature over onto its back as it reached the length of its tether so suddenly.
Its legs all went to spasms as it twisted and thrashed trying to right itself, at least all those legs that were not broken and hanging limply or jutting out askew. It did manage to get itself over, and it turned back at her, its eyestalks waggling furiously. For a moment she thought it was going to charge her, so she crawled back into the water and got to her knees. Her arm was extended to its fullest length to accommodate the length of rope she’d had to play out, and she leaned back against it and tried to haul the creature closer to the stream.
The creature flattened itself against the forest floor, spreading all its legs out until its body looked as if it were bread dough ready for the rolling pin. Pernie realized that if she pulled on the rope too hard now, it might slide down the bug’s length, break more legs, and then slip right off.
It seemed that they were at something of an impasse.
Which was fine. She didn’t need it to get wet anyway. She needed it to be afraid of getting wet.
She sent it another telepathic nudge. “I’m going to stand on you again,” she told it. “Do not move so quickly this time.”
She did not get a “no” from it, and instead, she felt its pain. Its legs hurt, the broken ones that she’d snapped trying to get the rope over its head, and the one that had broken when it hit the end of the rope just now. It seemed its limbs were very strong for grabbing and running, but not so much so when bent the opposite way.
She hadn’t thought about that part, or of the pain that would have caused.
“I’m sorry,” she thought immediately, sending sympathy along the way. “But it is your own fault for fighting me.” She approached the bug then, hauling in the rope, hand over hand as she drew near, keeping it taut and causing the bug to remain spread out in its attempts to prevent itself being dragged into the water that it so clearly feared.
She got right up to it, only a handsbreadth from what she thought of as its face. Its eyestalks tilted back to watch her, curving like a pair of snakes about to strike.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “So long as you do what I say. Let me see if I can’t fix your legs.” She knelt down, keeping tension on the rope all the while, and with her free hand, she reached forward and touched the creature on its shell, an angular bit of armor shaped like a slice of pie between its eyes.
She closed her eyes and began to sing the song of the wilted daffodil. It was a healing song that she’d learned from Master Grimswoller back at school. A simple song, meant for healing flowers and nothing more. But she’d made it work on Altin one day when it really mattered, and she thought she could do it again now.
She reached out into the mana that seethed and roared silently all around. She still thought of it as a scary place where great pink waves and purple swells rose and fell with terrible violence. It was everywhere, and there was a ferocity to it that both frightened her and filled her with awe. She knew that someday she would tame it all and be just like Master Altin.
She knew better than to take up a lot of it, though. Master Grimswoller had taught her that much, most of all. So she plucked up a tiny little bit of it, like pinching spilled salt from a tabletop, and she dragged out a sticky strand of mana, which she pushed into the place where her hand touched the insect on its head.
She sang the song of healing then, carefully and slowly, wishing as she sang the words she’d learned that the bug might be healthy again, believing that it would be best if its broken legs were whole. She imagined them growing straight and strong again as if they were but stems of daffodils slowly rising from the ground. She even felt bad about it too, for having broken them, and her spell was infused with the simple sympathy of a child, pure and uncomplicated, and the plainspoken thoughts of merely wanting pain to go away.
After a time, she felt that it was done, for the words of the spell were gone. Sung out to completion.
She opened her eyes, her returning awareness almost dreading to see the bug looming over her again, as it had not long ago when she had nearly nodded off.
It wasn’t. But it was standing normally again, no longer mashing itself down against the ground.
Pernie stood up and looked at it. It looked back at her with its bent gray eyestalks. “Are you still hurt?” she asked it telepathically.
It made no reply.
“I’m going to stand on you again,” she informed it with thoughts and words alike. Then she stepped onto its back just as she had before.
“No,” it conveyed telepathically as she did so, the sense of negativity. But she didn’t care.
She stood on it, drawing back on the rope, hoping it might help her balance if the bug took off again. Which it did, and the rope didn’t, and, while she did do a fair job of bracing for the speed of the bug’s acceleration, it simply moved too fast for her to stay aboard. She tumbled off sideways when it made its first sharp turn, which it did right away. Still, she managed to ride it for nearly the length of five full spans.
What she needed was some way to balance herself from side to side. She scanned the area all around, and finally she spotted a fallen branch lying half in and half out of the creek. She made to go get it, but the bug flattened itself out again, making an anchor of its weight.
Pernie grew irritated at this belligerence. She set herself at a sideways angle, braced her feet, and gave the bug a yank with all her strength. It flipped over onto its back, its legs once more scrabbling in the air. It flopped and twisted and got back upright, again scuttling to face her flat and straight on, perhaps even understanding that she might yank off the rope.
She wondered if it was smart enough for that.
She tried to run around to get a sideways angle again, but it rotated with her all the while, keeping its body lengthwise to her, its head down and pointed at her like a dart. She feinted right, then jumped left and gave the rope a yank. She wasn’t remotely fast enough to trick it, but she was strong enough to once again break one of its legs. Which prompted it to roll right back up into a ball.
“Stupid bug,” she said. “That’s what you get.”
She half dragged, half rolled the bug over to where the branch lay up against the bank. She pulled it out of the water and studied it. It was a little longer than she was tall, and rather crooked for all that length, but it was thick enough for what she needed it to do.
She snapped off all the forking branches coming off of its main length, having to stand on it with her foot and yank mightily before some of them would break. But after a few minutes’ work, she had a very crude sort of pole with which she could try riding her captured bug again.
She turned back to where it lay near the water, gazed down at its body rolled tightly up in its shell, and shook her head. “For such a big mean bug, you’re kind of a scaredy-mouse, aren’t you?”
She sent it a telepathic command to unroll itself, but all she got back was “no.” She was rapidly becoming convinced that that really was all the creature could say. She did, however, get the vague sense of pain again.
Impatiently, she once more cast the healing spell, again squatting down and this time laying her hand on the curving surface of the protective shell along the insect’s back. In a matter of minutes, it was done, and once again all the creature’s legs were whole.
She stood and stared down at it with a frustrated sigh. “Now listen up, you: I’ve squashed a lot of bugs before, and I’ve got no problems doing it again. You’re going to straighten out right this moment, or that’s all it’s going to be. You hear? I’ll break every one of your legs if you don’t start listening to me.” She sent that thought with all its conviction and imagery at the bug, her hands on her hips again. She was tired, it was hot, her face and tongue hurt, and the day was growing late now. The stupid elves would come find her any minute and take her back to the stupid cave.
To her astonishment, the creature unrolled itself. She smiled. “Good bug,” she said. “Now take me for a ride.” She took up her crooked stick and hopped upon the bug’s back again. It was somewhat awkward trying to manage the rope and the stick together, but she got herself situated as best she could. “Go on,” she said, sending the command telepathically.
The bug took off again, its acceleration so astonishing that despite having her stick to brace with, the slightest angular motion dumped Pernie right off again.
“Stupid bug,” Pernie muttered as she once more clambered to her feet.
She saw that the bug was standing nearby. This time, at least, it wasn’t flattened out and ready for another tug-of-war. That made her smile.
“Good bug,” she said. “Maybe you aren’t all the way stupid after all. Now let’s go again before the elves come and try to take you away.”
Chapter 11
A
high, hot sun heated the streets of Murdoc Bay as if the city were one great kiln. The general … frugality … that ruled in the city of greed often precluded the wasting of wealth on indulgences for the weak—indulgences that included such devices as awnings or trees planted simply for the purpose of throwing shade. The starkest example of this tendency could be seen along the landward edge of the wide avenue known as the Decline, up which Altin and Orli now strode.
The Decline was a back-and-forth boulevard that traversed the length of the great black cliffs beneath which most of the port city was built. It slowly wound its way down, taking nearly three measures to cross three hundred vertical spans, and ultimately brought the downward-destined traveler into the heart of Murdoc Bay, a city that was home to no small number of brigands, pirates, and thieves.
All along the rock-face side of the snaking boulevard were businesses—though such a designation could only be loosely applied for most, as more than half were surely fronts for one nefarious enterprise or another. These establishments, be they legitimate or not, were built one beside the next, their bare storefronts looking out over the edge of the sloping avenue and their back rooms carved deep into the rock. And most noticeable to Orli as they climbed was the fact that barely one in five of them offered the simplest accommodation of a shady overhang. As she and Altin made their way up beneath a blazing sun, she found it hard to imagine how so many businesses could lack even the most basic of commercial courtesies, that being something as simple as shade and an invitingly opened door.
Yet despite the heat and the inhospitableness of the street, it was up this ramped row of business that Altin and Orli went, the sweat running freely from them both. They were headed to the top of the cliff, intent on meeting with Roberto on its plateau. The top of the Decline marked the end of the city, and beyond it, there was naught but open wilderness, treeless and stark. Orli welcomed it. Rough, heat-blasted lands were at least honest, unlike Murdoc Bay. The sooner they were out of this place, the better, as far as she was concerned.
Orli’s hand rested conspicuously on her blaster, her fingers already curled around its grip and her lean muscles visible beneath her sun-browned skin, taut and ready to draw. Her eyes, hidden behind dark sunglasses, swept nervously back and forth. Altin kept her close, with his arm around her, his hand in the small of her back. He knew how anxious being there made her, and his green eyes scanned the faces and shadowy spaces between buildings, darting from one to the next, and up to the high places of the shallow rooftops where there were structures ambitious enough to encroach sufficiently into the avenue to make such things necessary.
Mainly she saw awe and admiration in the countenances of the people there, and no small amount of fear—fear of Altin, the Queen’s Galactic Mage. She wasn’t sure if it was because he was the Galactic Mage or because he was the Queen’s, but either way, she counted their journey fortunate in that his face had become so recognizable as to provide some measure of defense. Although, even with that working for them, she wasn’t fool enough to think his association with the crown, his title, or even his reputation as the most powerful living magician on Kurr would keep them safe in a city like this. His mentor, Tytamon, had been more powerful than he, and even Tytamon, an Eight, a wizard of nearly eight hundred years’ experience no less, had been struck down by a lowly fiend. And that had happened in Leekant, a much gentler city by far. A knife in the back was all it had taken to kill the greatest magician the kingdom had ever known, and Orli had been helpless to do anything about it. She held no delusions about Altin’s reputation being sufficient reason for either of them to drop their guard here in Murdoc Bay. Especially on the Decline.
So they walked together up out of the city, Altin nodding politely to those who would wave enthusiastically at the two of them and their celebrity, but mainly watching for anything provocative with the words to a fireball spell partway muttered upon his lips. He hardly needed words these days, not with his ring, but Orli knew that he muttered them out of habit anyway, holding the conflagration he would unleash to defend her only a half heartbeat away.
No fools dared tempt him, however, and neither fireball nor laser beam was let fly before they crested the cliff and found themselves looking out upon the dry lands that sprawled away from the city for measure upon measure, a vast expanse of prickly yellow weeds, squat, stunted trees, and enough loose, rocky soil to make a horse want to rub its hooves for thinking on it very long.