One thing was certain. It didn’t taste like fruit.
Queasy, I sat in a dark corner of Crenen's quarters, on my own one-layer rawhide bed until Crenen arrived that evening. He threw aside the door flap, stomped into the tent and flung himself onto his rawhide bed, his demonic grin exchanged for a pouty lip. He mumbled and stormed in his native tongue for a minute or two, then glanced at me. The grin crept across his pale face as he sat up.
“You make decent bed, Strange Coward Boy. Even though small and we thought furs suffocate when you try.”
The furs would what now? “Pardon?”
“Pardon?” Crenen repeated. “Pardon what?”
“Er, what did you say?”
“Oh, you so small, thought you would die under heavy furs.”
I scowled. “I may be small, but I’m not weak.”
“Ha! Could have fooled,” Crenen replied. He turned his attention to the door. “Tall Strong Jerk. Come!”
In entered the strong silent guy and he bowed his head to Crenen. I was struck again by his considerable height; he was at least six-foot-six. His hair was the same black as everyone else's, worn short except for two long pieces looping around his ears. His bangs were longish, hanging in his eyes. I stiffened. His irises were blood-red, glimmering in the torchlight.
“We hungry,” Crenen announced, and Tall Strong Jerk produced the second bowl of foul fruit I’d prepared.
Crenen took the bowl and sniffed. Wrinkled his nose and tossed the bowl onto the dirt floor. “This not fit for even Small Red Fuzzy.”
At least I wasn’t the only one who thought so.
Tall Strong Jerk gazed at the fallen bowl as he spoke. “Master, the Small Red Fuzzy must be addressed as furapintairow, for it is sacred.”
“Small Red Fuzzy not fitting of being sacred. We bite too, yeah?” Crenen ran his tongue along his pointed teeth. I was impressed that he didn't cut himself in the process.
“Master, you do not have venomous fangs,” Tall Strong Jerk said quietly.
“Don’t need poison to get point across, yeah?” Crenen folded his arms.
“Of course.” Tall Strong Jerk inclined his head again.
“In any case,” Crenen looked at me, “Sick Nasty Dog refuse leadership of whole clan, but still demanding Strange Coward Boy’s return. Sick Nasty Dog stupid, yeah?”
Who was stupid? Didn't it stand to reason that if this Crenen guy gave up his right to lead these people, he wouldn't be able to order them around like he was obviously used to doing? Why give up his privileges? Was it merely a game to him? If so, it was the most ridiculous game I'd ever heard of.
“Yes, Master,” Tall Strong Jerk agreed, bowing his head again. I figured it might be easier on the guy if he just got down on all fours and stayed there to grovel at Crenen’s feet.
“Stop, Tall Strong Jerk. Bowing stupid.”
“Yes, Master.” Tall Strong Jerk hesitated, unsure how else to react, since his normal response was now the issue.
Crenen rolled his eyes and scooped the gooey fruit off the ground, reached up, and smeared it on Tall Strong Jerk’s face. I gawked (something I seemed to be making a habit of).
“What we say, we say, yeah? No bowing, Tall Strong Stupid Jerk.”
Tall Strong Jerk did well to hide his irritation. I only saw his clawed hands twitch. “Of course, Master.” He did not bow.
“Now, Strange Coward Boy need decent nourishment. Come to think, we need decent nourishment.” Crenen clapped Tall Strong Jerk on the back. “Get decent nourishment before Strange Coward Boy show signs of dying. Weak already, after all.”
I decided I despised him, not that the feeling would help me in the least.
4
Menial Chores
It was true I felt weak. It hadn’t been that long since the fura-whatever had bitten me, and before I could make a full recovery, I was chased through thorny woods by half-crazed ninja people. Suffice it to say, I was still feeling feverish. The adrenaline rush was long gone now, and I was determined to spend what little strength was left in my arms on picking up my crude spoon and devouring my food.
Tall Strong Jerk had brought each of us a sort of broth, along with a piece of stale bread and a flask of water. Crenen grumbled about this meal even as he ate it. When Tall Strong Jerk left us to dine alone, Crenen addressed me.
“Strange Coward Boy sick, yeah?
“I’m fine.”
Crenen watched me with one raised brow, then shook his head. “Bandaged fingers not lie.” He put his bowl to his lips and drained its contents.
I glanced down at my right hand where Jenen had doctored my bite mark. “It’s just a cut. That doesn’t make me sick.”
Excellent.” Crenen tossed the empty bowl aside and stood. “Come. We show what morning duties are belong to you.” He beckoned me with his hand. “Come, come. Sleep comes to you who lays down after long hard day and closes eyes, yeah?”
I decided not to speak.
I followed him outside and through the encampment, enjoying the night air. No one was around and, though each tent glowed dully from within, everything was silent. He took me beyond the camp, past the sentries (I didn't spot Mr. Ugly), to a small spring that gurgled happily in the moonlight. I glanced around for some sign of sharp teeth, maybe in the form of river rocks, since everything else that was happy around here appeared to share that trait.
“Strange Coward Boy bring fresh water in Dead Animal Bag.” He raised his tan flask. “We like water cold, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“Excellent.” He grinned, flashing pearly fangs in the full moon whose light made the spring glisten.
“So, tell,” Crenen said as he scouted around the spring’s edge. At last he found a big rock and plopped down on it. “How Strange Coward Boy know Sick Nasty Dog?”
“I just sorta met him,” I answered, annoyed that I was stuck explaining my predicament when all I wanted to do right now was sleep.
“Bad luck,” Crenen said with a heavy sigh.
It was my turn to raise my brow. “How?”
He contemplated for a moment. Shrugged. “Sick Nasty Dog is stupid. Bad luck meet him like accident.” He gazed up at the yellow moon. I followed his eyes and spotted two moons. Well what do you know. “Strange Coward Boy believe in balance?”
I kept staring at the moons. “Uhm. I suppose so.”
Crenen went on. “Day, night. Sun, moons. Black, white. Good, bad. Boy, girl. Predator, prey. Love, hate. Nature, yeah?” He counted on seven fingers as he spoke, then held them up for me to see. “Nature is being law; govern us whether we like or not, yeah?”
I nodded. Where was he headed with this? I knelt in the squishy mud beside Crenen's rock, too tired to stand anymore.
“Excellent. Strange Coward Boy not too stupid.”
Considering the source, I decided to take that as a compliment.
“Why Strange Coward Boy here?” he asked, glancing at me before turning to gaze at the moons again, metallic eyes glowing in their light.
“I really don’t know.” I listened to the wind rustle the leaves nearby. I decided I’d better ask the question weighing heaviest on my mind. “Uh. Am I dead?”
He blinked. “Is Strange Coward Boy ghost?” He leaned over and poked my arm with his claw. “Feel whole enough, yeah? We not kill you, so why be dead?”
“I’m not from here,” I said, wondering if everyone else was unaware of the fact that they might be dead. “I slipped and landed in a puddle, and then—”
“Puddle?” Crenen straightened abruptly, eyes intent, pointed grin gone. “You come by Small Wet Puddle?”
“Yeah, I, um, slipped and fell into a puddle and woke up here.”
“No wonder!” He sprang to his feet upon the rock. “Sick Nasty Stupid Dog cannot have Strange Coward Boy ever, now. He knew, and yet…” Crenen jumped to the ground and started to pace, mumbling under his breath again in his native tongue, brow furrowed.
What the heck? I decided I
'd better ask out loud, whether he was in a bad mood or not. “What in the heck is going on?”
Crenen stopped and leaned close to my face. “What this 'heck' Strange Coward Boy speak of?”
“Uh...” I grimaced. How does one explain slang to a person who can’t even speak properly? “Never mind.”
“Strange Coward Boy come from Heck, yeah?”
Well, if I came from Heck, I had certainly landed myself in the real Hell now.
“So, what does a puddle have to do with anything?” I asked again.
“You come from Small Wet Puddle, enter here, and speak Stupid Nonsense Language. All bad signs.”
“Oookay. How is that bad?” Aside from my own dilemma, which he seemed to care little about.
“Vendaeva.” He began pacing again.
“Ven-what now?” The word was familiar.
“Vendaeva! Vendaeva!”
It didn’t help, but I decided not to press the issue. “So, what does this puddle signify?”
Crenen looked at me like I was a worm. I squirmed like one beneath that gaze.
“Simple, Strange Coward Boy from land of Heck.” My name kept getting worse. “Vendaeva say of traveling through Small Wet Puddle bring great big change in Paradise, yeah?”
“Paradise.”
“Paradise here, dolt,” he said, mistaking my tone for an inquiry. “Anyway, Small Wet Puddle is transport from other place—like Heck, yeah?”
“Just how does that work?” I asked skeptically.
“Don’t ask pointless question, Strange Coward Dolt.” He stuck out his foot and kicked my forehead just hard enough to hurt.
I prayed “dolt” wouldn’t stick, as the dull throb in my head blazed.
“Now,” Crenen stood, “look like Sick Dying Person. Up. We go back.”
I wondered if Sick Dying Person was real, or just another of his nonsensical comparisons. Standing, I wobbled and fell back down, landing in the mud, unable to gather the strength even to catch myself. My vision darkened. The cool clutch of mud suckered my face.
“Stupid Strange Sick Coward Dolt Boy from Heck!” was the first thing I heard when I woke up. Quite the greeting. I groaned, trying to ignore the splitting headache that seemed to find my head the perfect home. Crenen was kneeling before my furry bed, looking down his nose at me.
“Had to carry back to camp. Find out Stupid Strange Sick Coward Dolt Boy from Heck really is sick. Liar!”
“I never lied,” I lied.
“Did so.” He whipped away the cloth I hadn’t known was sticking to my forehead and flung it into a bowl of water, sending droplets into the air. Several landed on my face. “Bandaged hand mean nothing? 'Only scratch,' say Stupid Strange Sick Coward Lying Dolt Boy from Heck.”
Oh boy.
“You never said you were dumb enough to get bitten by a crazed furapintairow. Lucky thing you’re not dead, though that may have been easier to deal with in the long run,” he grumbled under his breath.
Something had changed in his tones.
I mulled over everything he’d said and gawked. (Stupid habit.) While his accent was still there, it was considerably less noticeable, and his English was nearly as good as my own. Perhaps it was a fluke?
He slapped the cloth back on my forehead. Water trickled into my eyes as my forehead stung. I decided to try an unusual tactic to calm him down. “I’m sorry.”
“Come from Small Wet Puddle and bring bad fortune, yet expect we forgiving you? Useful as dead dog, yeah?”
I refrained from pointing out that if I really was dead, and this really was Hell, a dead dog might be of some use. Instead I quietly wondered why my arrival signified bad fortune. Knowing I wouldn’t get a straight answer, I held my tongue in that point.
Now Crenen was speaking as before. That was one question I was determined to ask. “So, how come everyone speaks English really well but you?” The instant I finished my sentence I realized I’d made a mistake. Crenen’s gold and silver eyes flashed and my breath retreated. Was he sensitive about his accent? Or—
He dumped the bowl of water over my head. I yelped. Icy water seeped down my neck and ran along my torso, forcing a gasp from my lungs.
When I turned to give Crenen my own withering glare, I was just in time to see him stomp through the door flap, leaving me alone in his rawhide tent. I forced myself to sit up, shivering as the water ran further down.
“What the freak did I do?”
“Crenen doesn’t like English,” a familiar voice said from the shadows of the tent.
Jenen.
I watched him emerge from the darkness, his metallic eyes flickering in the light from the torch. A torch? I studied the hole in the top of the tent I hadn't noticed before, which allowed the torch’s smoke to escape. The torch itself was held up on a slender wooden stick jutting from the ground.
—Back to Jenen.
He moved closer to the bed and handed me a small cup. I glanced at its contents. It appeared to be water. He could have killed me by now, if he'd wanted to, so I doubted the water was poisoned. Or was I being too optimistic?
“So.” I looked back at the newcomer. “Why doesn’t he like English?”
“It’s a second language to We of Paradise,” he said, “but we’ve all taken to it for the coming of Vendaeva—all except Crenen. He’s...very stubborn.”
“What is Vendaeva?” I put the cup to my lips for a sip. It had no odor and tasted like water, but I was pretty sure liquid poisons were scentless and tasteless.
“Well, in one sense Vendaeva is prophecy. In the other sense, Vendaeva is you.”
I swallowed wrong and began to cough. Me? What was he talking about?
“It was required—in order to read the prophecy we needed to learn the language of English, and in that prophecy, it said we needed to know the language of English in order to communicate with Vendaeva—the coming of One from the Puddle.”
My eyes narrowed. This was sounding more and more like something from a fantasy game.
“Of course, the coming of One from the Puddle,” —couldn’t the name be at least a little bit cool? — “spells possible doom for We of Paradise. There are some who desire to kill you—furapintairow included. I’m not sure how Crenen feels concerning your arrival—he refused to learn English, so it is possible he will have you executed.” He paused, allowing the idea to sink in. “But not yet. He believes he needs you to convince me…” He trailed off.
I raised my eyebrow. “Yeah, about that. Why does he want you to take over leadership of these clan people or whatever?”
Jenen frowned and turned his mismatched gaze to the torch’s dancing flames. “These 'clan people' have a name, you know. They are of Yenen Clan.”
I was beginning (yes, just now) to wonder what the significance was between Crenen, Jenen, and now this Yenen thing. All three names were way too alike to be mere coincidence. What was it that tied them together? I was well aware that Crenen and Jenen resembled each other in a remarkable way, but Tall Strong Jerk also looked similar upon reflection, and I had seen no other Yenen clan members closely enough to know if that was the general appearance of their people or not. Except Mr. Ugly, who was probably adopted, and originated from a clan of frog people.
“So, are you part of Yenen Clan, too?” I ventured.
“No.” His tone was sharp, clearly telling me to back off.
I did as suggested, casting about for a topic change. “Um, so, I’m supposedly this Vendaeva thing that’s got everyone concerned. What’s Vendaeva mean, anyway? I mean, do I have some kind of significant role to play in the lives of, uh, You of Paradise? Do I have some bad guy I need to slay, or some terrible curse to prevent?”
“You have good instincts.”
Yup. Definitely something from a fantasy game.
“So, what’s my mission?” I decided if it remained true to the usual rules, once my task was complete, back home I went. Unless I woke up first. Call it optimism, but I preferred a long, drawn-out dream to being pe
rmanently dead.
“It’s not so simple as that,” he replied. “And I'm not the one to tell you...”
A predictable response. It just couldn't be easy, could it?
Jenen turned his head toward the tent flap, one pointed ear perking up. He glanced at me, put a finger to his lips, and stepped into the shadows. Just as he vanished Tall Strong Jerk entered the tent and rested his red eyes on me.
“Come.” He motioned toward the open flap. “I'll show you your morning tasks.”
I thought about reminding him that I was still not feeling well, but his stature made me hesitate. Maybe the healthy choice was to keep my mouth shut. I got out from under my furs, hunched my shoulders, and followed him from the tent.
Never had I been so happy to see the sun. I breathed in the fresh morning air as the light permeated my bones.
“Feeling better?” Tall Strong Jerk asked.
I looked up at him and nodded, unable to suppress my wide smile. “Much.”
“Master Crenen thought you might.”
I studied his face. Perhaps I could get a few answers from him. I was hesitant because of his unnatural height and creepy eyes, but what if he could supply me with all I needed to know? That way I wouldn't bother Crenen and get another bowl of water dumped on my head, and it seemed that Jenen wasn't willing to give much away.
It was worth a shot. I opened my mouth to ask my first question as Tall Strong Jerk began walking. “Let's go,” he commanded. I had to run to catch up.
We wound our way through camp, and I took the chance to get a closer look at Yenen Clan. Every clan member had black hair done up in various strange styles. Most wore black, with some loose, colored garb wrapped around them. Today they continued with their chores; some of them stitched up rawhide; others polished daggers; yet others dropped dirty clothing into bubbling cauldrons and stirred them with long metal paddles.
A Liar in Paradise Page 4