What had Madame Vadoma said about fire mosquitoes? Oh, yes. “Watch out.” That was helpful.
The gnats abandoned him as the mosquitoes zigzagged closer. His only option was to run, a notion that seemed equally sensible and stupid considering the unfamiliar landscape. He hurdled over a fallen tree, skirted a thorn bush, and leapt across a greenish-gray puddle.
And fell flat on his face.
Knocked breathless and unable to move, he felt one of the bugs land on his upper arm. The thing weighed a pound or more, and its heat radiated through the cloth of his shirt.
Being bitten by a fire mosquito was a lot like being bitten by a regular mosquito, he thought when the insect punctured his skin with its needle-sharp proboscis. But in the blink of an eye, he discovered that was where the similarity ended. For instead of sipping blood, the fire mosquito pumped a dose of scorching venom into its victim.
O’Neill summoned the strength to lift his head. He glimpsed the now disengaged attack mosquito hovering a yard away as if waiting for something. Its cohorts buzzed closer, looking eager to take their own stabs at him.
He managed to scramble to his feet just as a trio of little red and yellow flames popped out of the wound on his bicep and began to spread slowly, gnawing away the fabric of his shirt like voracious moths eating their way toward his shoulder. The agony brought him to his knees. He beat at the flames with the satchel — which only seemed to provoke them into growing larger.
He’d been a fool to undertake this quest without Scarff. Likewise, Mizella was a fool for thinking him capable of heroics. And now he was going to die far from home, alone in a swamp. Within five minutes, he reckoned, he’d be nothing but a pile of cinders and a sad story.
But no.
Surrendering was something he could not do.
For as much as he needed Scarff, he knew the old man needed him in equal measure. Their bond was deep, their father-son relationship more precious than all the rare treasures the caravan could contain. If he did not return and Scarff miraculously survived without the ibis feathers, who would make sure the charming curmudgeon made it north to see his elderly sweetheart come springtime? Who would remind him to change his socks or to comb the crumbs from his wild beard?
To surrender now would also mean that the girl he loved would never know that he’d adored her since they were small children playing in puddles and sword-fighting with sticks. He would never be able to confess that he hoped to marry her someday. Some other man, some stranger, would have the privilege of showing her the wonders of the world.
No, he could not surrender. It would take more than a few flames to best him when love was at stake.
And so he got up and ran, eyes frantically scanning the landscape for water. A stream, a rain-filled ditch, a large puddle. This was a swamp, wasn’t it? Did not the word “swamp” imply the presence of water?
Close behind him, the mosquitoes buzzed in unison.
Fire spurted out his fingertips. This was bad. Very bad. Once it reached his heart or brain …
The pond, murky and coated with olive-green scum, was a beautiful sight. He sucked in a breath and dived in. Down, down he sank, feeling his skin fizzle and cool as the fires relented. Overcome with relief, he grinned. Fusty water seeped between his teeth and bathed his tongue with bitterness.
With a prayer that the mosquitoes had given up and gone home, he swam for the surface. And then something grabbed his ankle. And his other ankle.
His lungs ached, begging for a breath of air, demanding it as he kicked and struggled against whatever gripped him. It was dim within the pond, lit from above just enough for him to see a female face appear inches from his own. She looked almost human apart from two finlike ears that stuck out of her moss-green floating hair, and rows of gill-like slits that laddered the sides of her neck. A swamp merrow, he guessed, vaguely recalling a Gaskin campfire tale about the fiendish creatures.
Merrow or no merrow, he would soon perish without air.
The edges of his vision blackened as unconsciousness loomed. He gestured at the swamp girl, wordlessly begging her for release or rescue. In reply, she moved closer, took his face between her webbed fingers, and covered his lips with hers.
His eyes widened with shock. His arms flailed in the cloudy water as they descended ever deeper. He felt a tug between his breastbone and spine: probably her magic tussling with his soul. Death by fire had not appealed to him and neither did perishing at the bottom of a scummy pond, his first kiss and his eternal soul usurped by a swamp minx.
The merrow clung to him for what seemed like an hour or a day, her kiss unrelenting, brazen, and alarmingly stirring. He was sorry about it. Sorry he had not been brave enough to bestow a more innocent first kiss upon the girl it was meant for. Hadn’t Scarff warned him often enough of the folly of hoarding treasure?
Not that it mattered now that he was going to drown.
A puff of air laced with magic expanded his lungs as the merrow blew hard into his mouth.
Finally moving her face away from his, she said, “The breath of life in exchange for a kiss. Had your lips and heart been impure, human, I would have confiscated your soul and left your body as food for fishes.”
Dazed, he nodded his thanks. His limbs and lips tingled. His lungs remained satisfied as the merrow towed him toward the surface.
“You could stay here,” she said lasciviously as they lingered in the shadow of an enormous lily pad. “Stay to breathe our lovely water, feast on the finest frogs and fishes, and be my darling mate until the end of time. I offer you this choice as a gift.” She ran a finger down his cheek and onto his neck, sending a thrill through his body. “Just here, you would have the prettiest gills.”
For an eternal half-second, something inside him yearned to say yes. The water was soft and warm, her caresses sweet, and he was hungry, hungry. But another face flashed before him, one infinitely more wholesome and not tinted green.
He spoke, his words forming bubbles between them. “No. I must go.”
“As you wish, then,” she replied. With a burst of strength unbefitting such a slender creature, she propelled his body upward and onto the muddy shore. He landed flat on his back, gasping. A thin, sparkling vapor drifted out of his mouth as the merrow’s magic abandoned him. Suddenly, his arm burned where the mosquito had bitten it, and his lips felt bruised and swollen. It was a miracle to be alive. He was not about to bemoan a couple of temporary pains.
He did regret the stolen kiss. But this was neither the time nor the place to dwell on that. That kiss had been the coin that purchased his rescue — and given him the chance to live to kiss someone less swampy someday.
When he sat up, his hand came to rest on the soggy satchel beside him. Another miracle it was for him to still be in possession of Madame Vadoma’s provisions.
“Kraa,” said a familiar voice above him.
Pilsner the raven circled twice, dropped a tiny scroll into O’Neill’s lap, and then lit on a stump a few feet away.
The note was brief, the handwriting small and precise. Madame Vadoma beseeched him to hurry back with the three ibis feathers, implying that Scarff’s condition was worsening. At the bottom of the page, she’d added a few cryptic words: Keep the violet vial close, for from it may spring your salvation.
He hadn’t a clue what the woman meant. Nevertheless, he rummaged in the satchel until his fingers found the small cylinder of glass. He dropped it into the breast pocket of his vest, figuring that qualified as keeping it close.
“Kraa, kraa,” Pilsner said, pointing his beak toward another scrap of yellow ribbon tied to a twig. Footprints in the mud, the right size for a Gaskin lass, led deeper into the woods.
“All right,” O’Neill said, getting to his feet. Smelly swamp water dripped from the tip of his nose. “Rest time is over. I do hope you’re planning to join me on this little jaunt, bird. Perhaps, wise as you are, you might help me find Mizella and the feathers and aid me in avoiding further mishaps.”
> Pilsner flew ahead, swooping under low branches. Every few yards, he’d perch and wait for O’Neill to catch up, sometimes taking the chance to preen his dark feathers or snack on a fat grub.
Onward they traveled for a mile or two, until they reached a wide, shallow creek spread thinly over the land. Dozens of cypress trees stood in the midst of the water, their ridged lower extremities resembling the legs of caricatured elephants. Green weeds swayed with the underwater current. Here and there, black turtles paddled with their heads just above the surface, their odd emerald eyes glistening. A few man-sized fish meandered past, long whiskers trailing alongside their dark bodies.
And on a sandy island not far enough away for comfort, four huge reptiles lay still as boulders. Alligators indulging in a midday nap, much to O’Neill’s dismay.
He scratched the bulging mosquito bite on his arm. “Should we turn around?” he whispered to the raven that now rode his shoulder. Instead of offering any wisdom, Pilsner launched into the air, flew across the creek, and vanished from view.
Just as the boy was about to lament the loss of his companion, the bird’s silhouette reappeared in the distance.
Returning to O’Neill’s shoulder, Pilsner dropped a scrap of Mizella’s ribbon onto the ground. Apparently, the girl wanted him to continue past the unfriendly-looking beasts.
“Blast,” said O’Neill, scratching harder at the mosquito bite. He pictured himself being chomped in two by a set of jaws even scarier than his accidental fiancée’s and then began to mentally compose a parting letter to his true love.
Something nudged his foot.
He gasped as he looked down and discovered, an inch from his boot, a gray-green alligator snout equipped with countless teeth. The gator’s twin eyed him from less than a yard away. He’d had no idea that the beasts could move so quickly and quietly — and no idea how to convince them not to have him for dinner.
“They want to give you a ride,” a tiny voice said from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and downward. Astride a plump spotted frog sat a little fellow dressed in leaves and crowned with an acorn cap. How a delicate-looking fairy survived in such a brutal setting was surely an unfathomable mystery.
The fairy directed him with a wave of the twig in his little hand. “Go on. Step on their backs. Don’t be a ninny, now. They’d never eat anything with two legs. It’s against their dietary principles, you see.”
“Well, that’s a fine consolation,” O’Neill said drily. “I’m all for trusting an alligator as long as it has principles.”
“Good,” the fairy said, as if oblivious to sarcasm. “They’ll bear you to the other side of the water, as the girl with the sharp teeth asked them to. I’d hurry if I were you. Word among the fair folk is that there’s a panther nearby that’s caught your scent, and unlike the gators, the panthers have a fondness for feasting on two-legged trespassers.”
Pilsner prodded O’Neill’s ear with his beak.
“All right, all right. I accept your kind offer, alligators.”
With a croak of approval, Pilsner abandoned his shoulder and flew across the water.
The alligators arranged themselves like a pair of skis. O’Neill set one foot on each of their wide backs. After a few halting steps forward, the reptiles waded into the water and started to glide along the surface, slowly and smoothly. O’Neill spread his arms wide for balance, but a funny sensation in his legs assured him that the alligators were using an enchantment to hold him in place.
Faster and faster the alligators paddled. Fear left him, and joy swelled in his chest. The swifter the gators swam, the more fun the ride became. He whooped loudly as they zigged and zagged through a maze of cypress roots.
Too soon, the gators crept up onto the opposite bank.
“That was amazing,” O’Neill said as he stepped off their backs. “Thank you. Sorry I don’t have anything to offer you as payment. Unless you’d like to share one very bruised apple?”
The gators grunted derisively and turned away from him.
“Wait,” O’Neill said. “Would you happen to know where I might find a golden-beaked ibis?”
Shaking their heads, they plunged into the water.
Pilsner lit on his shoulder. With a swish of his beak, the raven advised O’Neill to follow a path etched in the sandy soil.
The peddler boy walked with a spring in his step, grinning with delight as he replayed the gator-skiing experience in his mind. “Did you see that, Pilsner? That was amazing. I wasn’t expecting to have any fun on a day when I was set ablaze by an insect, nearly drowned, and barely escaped a merrow with my immortal soul. Goes to show you, doesn’t it? You never know what might happen next. I bet I’ll find those feathers fast, and —”
The ground gave way under his boots. The earth sucked at his heels, his ankles, his shins, and he started to sink.
“Pilsner! Help!”
The raven uttered a shrill cry and dived toward the satchel, pulling it up by the strap and preventing it from vanishing along with the boy’s hips. With another quick tug, Pilsner took full possession of the bag before swooping to stable ground.
O’Neill sank inch by inch as he watched the raven rifle through the contents of the bag, frantically searching for something. All too soon, the quicksand embraced his chest. The instant it covered his itchy-burny mosquito bite, the itching ceased. Did Madame Vadoma know quicksand could serve as a remedy? The likelihood he’d get to share this fact with her was dwindling as fast as he was sinking.
“Any ideas, bird?”
The raven shook his head and croaked sadly.
The boy prepared to hold his breath — as if that would do much good. The quicksand tickled his chin. Unlike the quicksand he’d read about in scientific journals, this variety seemed alive. Alive and determined to consume him.
And then he remembered the vial. Potential salvation, according to Madame Vadoma.
His muscles burned as he struggled to maneuver his arm through the thick muck. He gritted his teeth and fought to get his hand into his vest pocket. His fingers wrapped around the vial as the quicksand brushed against his lower jaw. He jammed his thumbnail into the cork, trying to pry it out, and when that proved fruitless, he used all his remaining strength to lift the vial up to his mouth.
He gripped the cork between his teeth and pulled it free with a pop.
A sudden rush of sand and mud swirled around him — and swept the vial out of his grip. The purple liquid, barely more than a thimbleful, spilled out, fizzling as it touched the dirt. And then, along with the empty vial, it was gone.
His last chance, his last hope of surviving, was gone.
Blast. It’s all over now, O’Neill thought as cool grit coated his lips and filled his earlobes. After he sucked in one final breath through his nostrils, he closed his eyes and prayed for a painless passage to the afterlife.
The quicksand belched as it swallowed him whole.
Down, down, he continued to move against his will. The sand scraped his skin. The weight of the earth pressed on his skull and crushed the last breath from his chest. Through his closed eyelids, utter darkness seeped. He struggled for a moment, trying to swim through the thick muck, but the motion only seemed to increase the speed of his descent.
In the ear-ringing silence, as he felt his soul breaking free from whatever tethered it to his body, he hoped he’d be missed. He hoped Scarff would not die of the cough or of grief. He hoped his friends would laugh when they recalled his pranks and smile when they remembered the kindnesses he’d done. He wished … he wished so many things.
Death tapped him on the shoulder, and he could not refuse its invitation anymore.
A shiver shook him as he surrendered.
But no. It was not him shivering. It was the quicksand quivering around him. The stuff was warming by degrees and slowly coaxing him upward.
His head popped out of the ground, and he opened his eyes. The soil around him had turned violet and translucent, like hundreds of gallons of g
rape jelly. He wriggled himself onto its bouncy surface and then rolled until he reached a patch of wonderfully scratchy grass. As he lay prone, Pilsner perched on his chest and nibbled the chunk of cheese pilfered from Madame Vadoma’s satchel.
After a vigorous spell of coughing up grit, O’Neill’s breathing returned to normal. He lifted his head to address the bird that had delivered the message to keep the vial close. “Pilsner, I swear if we ever escape this swamp, I’m going to buy you a wheel of cheese ten times your size.”
For a while longer, he remained on his back, relishing the sight of green leaves above him and the glorious feeling of air moving in and out of his lungs. Meanwhile, Pilsner pecked every fallen cheese crumb off his filthy shirt and vest.
A resounding growl brought him to his feet so fast it dizzied him. Pilsner shrieked in alarm and shot into the treetops. Some guard bird he was, too ensorcelled by cheese to notice approaching danger.
A golden-brown panther sauntered toward him, its pale green eyes fixed on his, its pointed white teeth exposed as it snarled. O’Neill’s heart drummed fast in his chest while he considered what to do next. Play dead? Run? Climb a tree?
“No, Calan,” Mizella said as she stepped out from behind a large pine. “You must not eat this boy. Rather, you should thank him. The truth is that I would not have come here and met you had it not been for him.”
The panther sat on his haunches like a housecat as Mizella strode forward. Dressed in a clean gown of red-and-green plaid, she was even prettier than O’Neill remembered — razor-sharp teeth notwithstanding. She laid a hand on the panther’s head, and he purred.
“You survived the tests of fire, water, and earth, as I knew you would,” she said. “I thought that if I made myself your prize, you would desire me, and that if I made you my hero, I would love you more. But now I beg your forgiveness, O’Neill.”
The Peddler's Reward Page 2