Anandra spat right after he mentioned the war. “We will not speak of that on this lovely day.”
“And you, my dear woman, will not spit on my floor. You are not a scuene, after all. I would never allow them into my kitchen, the foul creatures.”
“I apologize, my friend. I meant no harm. Except to the one who cost my parents their… As I said, we will not speak of it.” She rose from the table and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “We will be off now. Thank you for your fine food and kindness in letting us stay here.”
“You are more than welcome,” Phen replied, and he enveloped her in a tight hug. “You be careful,” he said softly, and Zeres nodded. “I don’t want one of my best friends getting into any trouble on her journey.”
“I will be, I promise. Iris?”
“Yes, I’m ready.” Iris cleaned her mouth on the napkin by her plate and got up. After saying her own brief good-byes, she exited the cabin behind Anandra. Once she was back under the morning’s slightly warm sunlight, she tried her best to steel herself for whatever might come next on their travels.
As they walked, she asked Anandra about the plants they passed by and the land they passed over, but after a while she ran out of questions and just enjoyed watching Anandra’s backside swish back and forth subtly as she walked. It would be worth watching for a great number of hours, she decided just as they reached a rise in the road.
Now the sun was much higher in the sky than when they’d left that morning. Iris had been handling the stretches of silence as best she could. What was it about this woman that drew her out into the open like this, making her want to chatter away like a squirrel? She’d asked Anandra more questions during these two hours of walking than she ever could have come up with when at home or at the college. More than she even would have asked Jane. But Jane was the one who usually carried the conversation whenever they talked, and Iris hadn’t minded that. She decided now that she did mind not knowing more about Anandra, and she got ready to ask her something, when suddenly, Anandra spoke.
“That’s the guard of the town we must enter down there. Once we are in the town, please don’t agree to barter or trade, because that could end disastrously. You do not know who is to be trusted and who is not. And I will need to be the one doing the speaking with the man down there. Not you.”
“Well, if you insist.”
Anandra chuckled softly. “I do, my dear, I do.”
The man at the bottom of the rise was sitting on a small wooden crate, peeling something that looked like an apple and humming to himself with his eyes shut. He appeared to be missing a leg, a beautifully carved wooden one in its place.
“How do you, beggar?”
“Quite well, dearie, quite well. What can I do for you?” He opened his eyes now, and they seemed filled to the brim with knowledge, lighting up as their intelligent gaze traveled from Anandra to Iris.
“I would like to enter Rivest. What do I need to give you in order to do so? I hear the usual price is answering a riddle.”
“It’s a nice day, innit? A nice day for a story. I insist I tell you one, and then we may talk about my fee for entry to Rivest.” The beggar shifted slightly in his seat and shut his eyes. “Once, once there was a good Queen who ruled our land with kindness and love at her husband King Eurus’s side. King Eurus wanted an heir, though, and for ten years Queen Selehn tried to bring him one, to no avail. Finally, in her thirtieth year, she became pregnant. He was saddened, when, upon entering the birthing chamber, there lay a baby girl in his wife’s arms. But what could the King do?
“After a while, he began to mistreat the good Queen, calling her names…ugly, worthless, and even unfit as a wife. And then…then a thief came to the castle. A female thief, mind you. She stole the King’s gold and stole his wife’s heart, and the two women took off into the wilderness after falling madly, madly in love.
“The King, though, he remarried, and the next Queen, Tressa, she definitely was not good. She ruled the land with an iron fist and an iron heart, raising taxes and enslaving those unable to pay, forcing the men and women to erect for her a magnificent statue with a labyrinth within it, one no mortal or being of magic could ever solve.
“As her power grew, she brought an evil dealer of magic to the castle and began to create evil things, things as evil as her. They were formed in clay and then became monsters, and they threatened to take over the—”
“I do not care to hear any more.” Anandra sounded as furious as she’d sounded when Zeres mentioned the war, if not a good bit more so.
“Oh, but I think your lady-friend is intrigued, is she not?” He nodded at Iris, smiled, and then continued telling the tale. “The evil Queen Tressa raised her monsters, and then she set out to take over the land. But she was unaware that someone else had also been given much magic, possibly more than her: the good Queen Selehn, of course. And so the two women met, and fought, and then…”
“And then what?” Iris was on the edge of her seat, or would have been if she’d been sitting down.
“And then, dearie, they disappeared, and so did the evil monsters, and were never heard of again.”
“Are you done, then, beggar?” Anandra practically growled out the words, and it was beyond obvious that she was not happy. “Now the riddle?”
“Yes, dearie, now the riddle. Why do the stars shine brightly at night?”
Anandra huffed out a sigh. “Oh, really? You’re going to go with one even a babe could solve? Well, if you must. The stars shine brightly at night because our first Queen gave the sky her jewels.”
“I see she gave you some too, missy.” And under his breath he added, “Grouchy missy, that is.”
“I heard that, beggar! But now you must allow us into Rivest. So, if you don’t mind—”
“I don’t, not at all.” The beggar lifted up his wooden leg, and the designs carved into it began to move and twist around on it. He tapped its foot on the ground three times, and the land behind him began to shimmer, somewhat like a mirage, and an image began to appear.
After a few minutes, an entire city had appeared before them, and many buildings, made of rose-colored bricks and of varying heights, spread out across Iris’s entire view. She could hear the bustle and chatter of what sounded like many people, and as she and Anandra began walking down the wide street that served as the entry to the village, she realized that they were passing through a marketplace. A gigantic one! Stalls lined each side of the road, which was wide enough for the many small carts pulled by various races and creatures, all passing them every few moments as they continued to walk. There were blue goat-like creatures, with curving horns and kind faces; foot-high people with their hair in black braids; and even one young man who seemed to be Anandra’s race, who bowed to her, and to whom she bowed back.
The stalls were just as varied as the people and creatures, selling different-sized glass jars full of powders and liquids, scrolls, colorful piles of what looked like spices and herbs, meat still in the shape of the animal—or person!—it had come from, and then, after five minutes or so of walking, they reached a building with a dark awning, and a sign, covered in some sort of foreign text, hung above its closed, shuttered windows.
“Wait outside,” Anandra told her. “Right outside. And don’t go anywhere,” she added, as though Iris didn’t get what her first two sentences meant.
“Sure thing, boss!” Iris said with a jaunty salute and a sarcastic tone.
“I am not your boss, I am your friend,” Anandra said, and with those surprising words, she entered the building, opening its windowless door and shutting it behind her.
“Well, then,” Iris announced to herself. “What to do now? Should I go somewhere?”
“You can go anywhere you like, young lady,” came a voice to her left.
That was what she got for talking to herself—an answer. The voice came from a woman wearing a crimson cloak and a tight satin dress. She also looked almost as young as Iris was, her beautiful
face empty of wrinkles and her blond hair luscious and shiny. “Young lady? But you must be only…I probably shouldn’t be talking to you.” Iris looked at the ground and began to rub the tip of her boot in the tan dirt.
“Maybe. But perhaps I can help you, too.” The woman smiled at her, a feline smile, sexy but also potentially untrustworthy. Still, Iris decided she could use all the help she could get in this strange place.
“How can you help me?” she asked the woman, almost afraid of what the answer might be.
But then she heard the sound of the store’s door opening, and Anandra came out, and by the time she reached Iris’s side, the woman was gone.
“Were you talking to someone?” Anandra sounded even grouchier than she had when she’d left Iris outside, and Iris guessed it was because she’d noticed her talking to the young woman.
“You sound grumpy,” Iris replied, trying to avoid answering and showing her what a bad liar she was in the process.
“Oh, I got robbed in the store.”
“Robbed?” Iris’s eyes went wide.
“Yes. The magic dealer in the store practically made me sell my first-born in order to get these stones,” she said, holding up a small bag with a ribbon tied around its top. “I had to pay her at least a month’s earnings from my deliveries and rescues.”
So that was what she did for a living. “Can’t you just make money with your magic?”
“Yes, but no one will accept it. They can all smell the magic on it, and all beings and people in our world find both its existence and its smell distasteful. Smells like a ripe scuene pen in mid-August.”
“What next? Where to, I mean?”
“To a meal. I will try and find us a proper place, one with proper food and proper drink. Follow me.” Anandra gave her a grin, looking as though she was glad to be there with Iris, or at least glad to be there.
Iris took in as much of the city as she could while they passed through it. She figured they probably wouldn’t be staying long, so she might as well take in its many curiosities and wonders while she still had the chance. It didn’t seem likely that she’d ever be able to return, and they might not even pass through another town on their journey to the Queen’s castle.
The city was full of interesting people, awesome beings, and far beyond a few other sights of great interest to Iris’s excited eyes and mind. She wanted to ask Anandra questions about everything, but she managed to limit herself to just five or six of them as they walked down the street, past more stalls and stores and what looked like restaurants and places to stay or live.
Anandra seemed more than happy to answer her questions. She sounded like she was in a jolly mood now, and Iris remembered as she walked that Anandra had called her a “friend.” Her friend. Iris was more than okay with that title. She’d come to like Anandra, including when she was outside of the bedroom and with her clothes on. Iris would be slightly sad when their time to part came at the end of this journey.
She was thinking that slightly sad thought when Anandra stopped in front of a door with a sign hanging above it, showing a man and woman drinking out of what looked like beer mugs, and with more unfamiliar text above the art, although this sign had a different language than the last one she’d looked at.
“Ready to eat?” Anandra started to open the door.
But then something made Iris look over her shoulder, and what she saw beyond it caused her to gasp and grab at the door’s handle for support. Less than five yards away stood a woman, facing away from Iris and heading farther away from her with a slow, smooth gait. She had long, curly white hair, and a loose, sky-blue summer dress hung down to her sneakered feet.
“No. No, it couldn’t be.” Iris blinked twice. No, it couldn’t!
But it was. It was her grandmother, Sallie, who’d raised her to the age of ten. And then she’d disappeared, and Iris hadn’t seen her since, despite looking for her everywhere and even going so far as to hire a private detective when she was twenty. Sallie had clearly loved her, and Iris had loved Sallie back. Of course, she still did. Seeing Sallie for the first time in over a decade, standing in the middle of Rivest in this magical, bizarre world, was almost too much for Iris.
But it wasn’t enough to stop her from taking off running in her grandmother’s direction. Iris reached her and grabbed at her arm, but it was as though she was made out of smoke, or mist, because Iris’s hand went right through her. Instead of being able to take hold of her grandmother’s arm, she felt her own arm being grabbed, and she stumbled as Anandra held her in place.
Iris whipped around. “Why did you stop me?”
“It’s not safe for you to run off like that.” Anandra sounded truly concerned, and Iris slowly let go of her tension, just like Uma had taught her to.
“It’s just that…I think…never mind.” For some reason, Iris decided not to tell her. She’d seem crazy, for one thing, because her grandmother was no longer there, almost as if she hadn’t even been there in the first place. And maybe she hadn’t.
“Whatever it is you think,” Anandra said, “I think we should go in and get our lunch. And possibly something with a bite to it to drink. You need to cool off, and it’s not just the hot sun that you need to get away from. Whatever you were running at, or for, it’s not there, and even if I can’t find out what it was, I still think it’s in your best interests to stay focused on our travels and letting me keep you safe.”
“Sure, you’re probably right.” Iris held in a sigh, just like she always did around Jane, who didn’t like her acting dejected, or “dramatic,” as Jane had usually called her when she’d sighed out loud.
“I am most definitely right!” The lovely grin was back on Anandra’s face, and she and Iris went back to the restaurant’s front door.
Just as Anandra entered, Iris heard a voice say, “I’ll try again soon, sweetie.” It was her grandmother Sallie’s voice, no doubt about it. Iris was glad that Anandra was facing away from her when she heard Sallie’s voice, because she knew the shock was shaping her face into an expression that would have led Anandra to give her the third degree. Possibly even the fourth.
They continued into a cool room full of people enjoying large plates of food and equally large glasses of alcohol. Most of the men were big and burly and hairy, and most of the women wore low-cut dresses and short skirts and too much makeup. Even the waitresses and bartender fit those profiles, the waitresses wearing short leather skirts and belly-baring, tight white tanks, and the bartender had copious amounts of dark hair peeking over the top of his shirt, more than enough of it to make up for his balding head.
“Sit anywhere you like,” a long-haired, curvaceous waitress told them.
“Sit by me!” an inebriated voice called out. It belonged to a man the size of an ox, or at least three times the size of Iris. Great, she thought, loads of drunk men whom I’ll have to share the ogling privileges with. Clearly, she and Anandra were going to be ogled as well, which Iris was far from happy about.
“Let’s eat and get out,” she said quietly near Anandra’s ear.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Anandra assured her. She sat at a table close to the door, in a chair that faced the bar and the bartender and had its back to the wall. Her choice of seat seemed to imply she didn’t mean her words to Iris. But maybe she always sat in a spot where she could see the whole room; maybe she always sat in a spot where her back was to the wall; maybe she was just paranoid.
Iris couldn’t blame her in a place like this, though. Certainly not! She did her best to keep from making eye contact with any of the men staring at her and Anandra, instead looking down at the menu the sexy and scantily clad brunette had brought them. She wasn’t nearly as hot as Anandra, but there was no harm in looking in a place like this. Iris knew—or at least hoped—that she’d be able to check her out more subtly and less creepily than the manly men scattered throughout the place.
She couldn’t read the menu, though, and suggested Anandra order for them. “Two
bowls of the fish stew, with extra bread. And your finest alcoholic cider.”
“We have erhna cider and that’s it. Is that what you want?” The waitress, whom Iris had first thought attractive, now had a very unattractive sneer on her face. Yep, Anandra was definitely better looking. Maybe she and Anandra, with their relatively untrashy outfits, didn’t fit in. From the way the heavyset man at the next table over was looking at them, though, they fit in well enough for the male customers. As the waitress walked away, Iris watched him warily out of the corner of her eye as he stared holes through her shirt.
“Maybe we should eat quickly after all,” Anandra said to her, also eyeing the creepy man. “I don’t like the way he’s looking at you, like you’re a juicy steak he’s about to throw on the fire.”
The waitress brought their food, and Iris was surprised to find out that the fish stew was rather good—rich, salty, and full of flavor. She detected some herbs, even, surprising for a place like this. The cider, though, tasted like rubbing alcohol with a hint of fake apple flavoring, and she noticed that Anandra wasn’t drinking hers very fast either, although that might have been to keep her wits about her. Either that, or she also found it to be disgusting. Iris hoped it was both.
They were almost finished with their stew when things took a turn for the worse. Iris tensed up when she noticed the man who’d been staring at her slowly rise from his chair and walk over to their table, scratching his crotch right before he reached them. How utterly…charming. He had a huge, flushed red nose, clearly a few too many cups into his drinking for the day, especially considering it was lunchtime and not even close to nightfall.
“Hullo, womens. How’s about you let m’ join ya?” He flashed his teeth at Iris, more of a look of hunger than a smile, as if he wanted to devour her like some sort of savage beast. Not that he was too far from being one.
“Stop staring at her,” Anandra ordered, and she gave him a very good glare. “Stop staring at her and leave us.”
Out of This World Page 5