Ozark Trilogy 1: Twelve Fair Kingdoms (3 page)

“Donald Patrick Brightwater,” said Ruth of Motley in a voice like the back of a hand, “you sound like a Purdy.”

“I beg your pardon, Mother,” said my uncle. “I hadn’t any intention of doing so.”

Strictly
speaking, it was not fair for him to be rebuked. As the ordinary
citizen was ignorant of what kept the Mules flying in the absence even
of
wings
, so was Donald Patrick ignorant of
the peril every Ozarker faced if we could not establish once and for
all a central government that could respond, and respond with speed, in
an emergency. The decision to maintain that ignorance had been made
deliberately, and for excellent reasons, hundreds of years ago, when
first the menace of the Out-Cabal had been discovered by our Magicians.
And that decision would stand, for so long as it was possible, and for
so long as disputations in political science, and intercontinental
philosophy, and planetary ecology, and the formidable theory of magic,
could be substituted for a truth it had been sworn our people would
never have to learn.

“First,” I said quickly, “there’s finding out where this attack is coming from. That’s the easy part.”

My mother crossed her long white hands over her breasts to indicate her shock and informed us that
first
we had to get that baby down out of that tree.

“Mother,
dear Mother,” I said, “you know that’s not so— that baby is all right.
Unlike the rest of us, that baby is protected from every known danger
this planet can muster up. Not so much as a bacterium can get through
that bubble to harm Terrence Merryweather McDaniels, and he will be
tended more carefully there than a king’s son.”

It
was only a figure of speech; there were no kings in our kingdoms and
never had been, and therefore no king’s sons. When First Granny had
stood on Ozark for the first time, her feet to solid ground after all
those weary years on The Ship, she had looked around her; drawn a long
breath, and said, “Well, the Kingdom’s come at last, praise be!” and
we’d had “kingdoms” ever since for that reason alone. But it had the
necessary effect. Thorn of Guthrie made a pretense of thinking it over,
but she knew I was right, and she nodded her lovely head and agreed
with me that the baby probably represented the least of our problems.
Except insofar as it stood for an insult to our Family and our faith,
of course (and it was at that point that I realized the Solemn Service
had been left unfinished).

“I
say call in the Magicians of Rank, then,” said Jubal Brooks, “and have
them to find out which one of our eleven loving groups of kindred has
set itself to bring the Confederation down about our heads.
Literally
about our heads.”

“No,” I told him, hoping he was right that it was only one. “No, Jubal Brooks, that’s all wrong. It would maybe be
fastest
, depending on the strength and number of the Magicians ranged against ours, but it’s all wrong as to
form
.”

“I don’t see it,” he said.

“A symbol,” said Ruth of Motley, spelling it all out for him, “is best answered by a symbol. Not by a ... meat cleaver.”

“And
what symbol do we propose to offer up for this motley collection—no
offense meant. Mother—of shenanigans? Cross our hearts and spit in the
ocean under a full moon?”

“A
Quest, I expect, Jubal,” I said, straight out. I had been thinking
while they were talking, and level for level, that seemed right to me.
And the women nodded all around the table.

“In
this day and age?” sputtered Donald Patrick, and threw up his hands.
“Do you realize the antiquated set of hidebound conditions that go with
mounting up a
Quest
? Responsible, you can’t be serious about this.”

“Well, it
is
fitting,” said his mother saving me the trouble. “As Responsible and
Patience have pointed out, the entire campaign against us to this- time
has been a single symbol, what would be referred to in classical terms
as a Challenge. OUR MAGIC IS BETTER THAN YOUR MAGIC, you see. No harm
has been done, where obviously it
could
have
been, had they been so minded. Very well, then—for an old-fashioned
Challenge we shall offer an old-fashioned Quest. It is appropriate; it
has the right ring to it.”

“Foof.” said Donald Patrick. “It’s absurd.”

“Indeed it is,” I agreed, “and that’s the whole point.”

“We might should ignore the whole thing,” he said. “For all we know.”

“We do, and there will be no Grand Jubilee of the Confederation of Continents of Ozark, Donald Patrick Brightwater—and yes, I
do
know, down to the penny, what all this has been costing us. Nor will we have another
meeting
of the Confederation, I daresay, for a very long time. Whoever is doing this, they would be
delighted
to have us ignore it all, and everybody snickering behind their hands
at us for cowards and weaklings ... and it is in the hope that we will
be fools enough to do that that they’ve kept every move to pestering
only and not gone forward to injury. If they can bring us down for two
cents, why spend two dollars?” I was completely out of breath.

“They have overplayed their hand,” said Patience, “with this matter of the McDaniels baby.”

“I believe so,” I said. “It was a mistake of judgment. They should of kidnapped one of Jubal’s Mules instead.”

“And
hung it in a cedar tree? In a life-support bubble?” Her brown eyes
dancing. Patience of Clark was clearly trying not to imagine Jubal’s
favorite Mule being cleaned and fed and curried up in the cedar tree;
and losing the battle.

“It would of been safer,” I said. “
I
might of been busy enough not to take it for anything more than a prank; and
they
would of had still more time to make nuisances of themselves—and
undercut the confidence in our security staff— before the Jubilee.”

“Responsible, that’s but eleven weeks away!” Patience broke in, the laughter in her eyes fading. “That’s mighty little time.”

“All the more reason to talk less and do more,” I said. “Here’s what I propose.”

I
would take our best Mule, from Brightwater’s champion line, called
Sterling and deserving of her name. I would make a brief and obvious
fuss around the city in the way of putting together suitable outfitting
for a journey of a special kind. I would let the word of the Quest be
“leaked” to the comset networks. And then, I would do each Castle in
turn, staying only just long enough at each to make the point that had
to be made. Responsible of Brightwater; touring the Castles on a Quest
after the source of magic put to mischief and to wickedness—just the
thing.
Just
the thing!

“Even Tinaseeh?” asked Jubal dubiously.

“Even Tinaseeh. Certainly.”

“It’s
a nine-day flight by Mule from here to Tinaseeh,” he said. “At least.
And you do a Quest, you do it by foot or by Mule, Responsible, no
getting out of
that
. Nine days, just that one leg of the trip.”

“As the crow flies,” I acknowledged. Not that it would of taken
me
nine days, but there was no reason to let Jubal Brooks know more than
he needed to know. “I will not head straight for Tinaseeh across the
Oceans of Remembrances and of Storms, dear Uncle. I am touring the
Twelve Kingdoms on solemn Quest, please remember. First I will go to
Castle McDaniels. Then a short flight to Arkansaw, a mere hop across
the channel to Mizzurah, on over to Kintucky, and then—and
only
then—to Tinaseeh. Then Oklahomah, quick around
it
, and back home.”

“But, my dear
niece
,”
he said—Jubal Brooks was stubborn, grant him that—”though it’s but one
day from Kintucky’s southernmost coast to the coast of Tinaseeh, that
one day will set you down not at Castle Traveller but on the edge of
the largest Wilderness Lands on Ozark. Larger than the entire land area
of this continent, for example; I strongly doubt you’ll do the trip
over
that
in less than three days. And you’d
still
have two days ahead of you before you reached the Castle gates!”

My
grandmother stepped in then; the man was getting above himself, but
tact, of course, was necessary. Men are a great deal of trouble, I must
say.

“Jubal Brooks,” she
said, firmly but courteously, “Responsible was properly named. I
suggest we do her the courtesy of trusting her in this.”

“Distances,” he began—the man was ranting!—”are distances. Name or no name—”

We
might of wasted a lot more time on that kind of thing, if there hadn’t
of been a knock on the door just as he was hitting his stride. For all
that we were in Council, we could spare time to answer the door; and we
did. Nobody was there, of course, leading Emmalyn to look puzzled and
Patience to look innocent, but it served its purpose.

I
dismissed Council with thanks, letting Jubal run down naturally as we
all filed out, paid a visit to the guestchambers only to be told that
the baby’s parents had gone with full ceremonial tent to camp in the
bed of needles beneath their son and her taking along the infant
daughter of a servingmaid to see to the problem of Vine of Motley’s
milk—a practical solution, if a bit hard on the servingmaid—and then I
ran for the stables.

So far as I was concerned, we were late already,

SO CLOSE TO HOME I didn’t dare take chances, and so I let my Mule fool about and waste hours in the air on the first stage of my journey, to Castle McDaniels. I wore an elaborate gown of emerald green; under it I had on flared trousers of a deeper green, tucked into trim high boots of scarlet leather with silver bells about the bootcuffs and silver spurs all cunningly worked. And I had over
that
a tight-laced corselet of black velvet embroidered in gold and silver, and it was all topped with a hooded traveling cloak of six layers black velvet quilted together with silver thread in a pattern of wild roses and star-in- the-sky-vine and friendly ivy. My scarlet gloves matched my boots and my riding crop matched my spurs, and around my throat on a golden chain was a talisman almost not fit for the sight of decent people, except that decent people could be counted on not to know what it meant and anybody that knew what it meant would sure not mention it. All in all it was a purely disgusting sight. When I flew I preferred honest denims, and over them a cloak of brown wool. And spurs and riding crop to fly a Mule were about as sensible as four wheels and a clutch to sail a ship—but none of that was relevant.

I was a
symbol
, and a symbol carrying out a symbol. I was, by the Twelve Corners, a Meta-Symbol, and I intended to look the part if it choked me. They, whoever they might turn out to be, would have leisure to compare the style in which Castle Brightwater did these things with their scroungy brigand on a mangy rented Mule. I would see to that, and I intended to rub it in and then add salt, if I got the chance.

I brought Sterling down smartly at the entrance to Castle McDaniels without raising so much as a puff of dust, and I called out to the guardmaid at the broad door to let us in.

“Well met. Responsible of Brightwater!” she hollered at me; and I mused, as I had mused many and many a time before, on the burden it gave the tongue to greet either myself or my sister Troublesome (not that many greeted
her!
). A regular welter of syllables, and I hoped the Granny that did it got a pain in her jaw joints. When I was a child, the others made me pay for the inconvenience, ringing changes on it all the day long. Obstreperous of Laketumoc, they liked to call me. Preposterous of Bogwater. Philharmonic of Underwear. And numerous variations in the same vein. On the rare occasions when my sister and I shared the same space, they liked to call us “Nettlesome and Cuddlesome.”

We have a saying, an ancient one: “Don’t get mad; get even.” It stayed my hand when I was young enough to mind such nonsense, and now I would not stoop the distance necessary to get even. But it still rankles at times. As when a skinny guardmaid bellows out at me before all the world, “Well met. Responsible of Brightwater!”

“Well met yourself,” I said, “and why not good morrow while we’re at it?”

“Beg your pardon?” She had a slack jaw, too, and it dropped, doing nothing to improve the general effect.

“As should you,” I said crossly. “The year is 3012, and
well met
went out with the chastity belt and the spindle.”

“I have a spindle,” she said to me, all sauce, but she must not of cared for the expression on my face; she left it at that.

“What’s your name, guardmaid?” I asked her while I waited for the idea to reach her brain that someone should be notified of my arrival.

“Demarest, I’m called. Demarest of Wommack.”

Demarest ... it was a name that had no associations for me, and she was far from home.

“Would you tell the McDaniels I’m here, Demarest of Wommack?” I asked her, giving up. No doubt the McDaniels, like myself, were having trouble finding Castle staff that could even begin to meet the minimum needs of their jobs. It made me sorry, at times, that robots were forbidden to us. True, they were me first step toward a population that just lay around and got fat and then died of bone laziness; I understood and approved the prohibition. But they would of been so useful for some things. Pacing off the boundaries of a kingdom, for instance, which had to be done on foot, every
inch
of it ... and letting people into Castles.