“If you insist on pursuing this to what is likely to be an unhappy end for every one of you, I will go ahead and tell you where you can find the Crub.” She looked around apprehensively. “But I don’t want my tribe brought into it, understand? Anything you hear, you didn’t get from me.”
Simwan nodded gravely. “Understood.”
“All right then.” The matriarch sat back. “But it’s going to cost you. Go over there, empty that, and bring the contents to me.”
It took them a few minutes to drain the peanut dispenser of its entire stock. As soon as this had been transferred to the langur habitat, one double handful at a time, the senior female once again moved as close to her new confidants as the metal barrier would permit.
“Hearken to me, balding cousins. The Crub dwells underground, in a deep, terrible place somewhere in the upper reaches of the park. I don’t know exactly where, except that it lies to the north of the Reservoir. Never been there myself. They don’t let us out much. In fact, they don’t let us out at all. But there have been some mice come through this way, and the occasional snake. They’re always looking to steal food from the different habitats. Occasionally we corner one, and in return for not eating it, we use it to catch up on the news.”
Simwan quickly fumbled for his map. The girls crowded around as he ran a finger over the lower half. “See, we’re down here, in the south end of the park.” Pushing his finger up the map, he quickly located the huge reservoir, moved on to the park’s northern boundary. “We can just go back outside and take a bus up to 110th Street. When we get off, we’ll be on the park’s northern boundary.”
The matriarch was shaking her head, her words slightly slurred because her mouth was full of freshly shelled peanuts. “Huh-uh, humans. Won’t work that way. If you go that route, all you’ll see is what Ord-folk see: just the park and its proper Ord places. According to what I’ve been told, the only way to get to the Crub’s den is to follow a Path of Singular Significance straight through the park from south to north. There are parts of the park that Ords never see, never experience, and can’t get to. The lair of the Crub lies in one of them.”
Simwan nodded slowly. “But you don’t know exactly where in the northern section it resides?”
“Afraid I can’t help you there.” Rising on her hind legs, the matriarch picked up a double handful of peanuts and started to walk away from the barrier. “Like I said, they don’t let us out. So I’ve never been on that path myself. And if I could, I wouldn’t, and you shouldn’t.” Looking back over her shoulder, she left them with five final words. “Watch out for the testudines.”
“Hey, wait! Come back,” Amber yelled. Their sole source of information ignored them as the primary primate sauntered languorously in the direction of her offspring and a quiet place to munch what she had scooped from the hoard. As soon as she was out of easy biting range, the mob of drooling langurs who had been tensely awaiting her departure descended on the remaining peanuts. Howls and screeching pierced the air as shells, nuts, and not a few hanks of fur flew in all directions. The excessive commotion drew the attention of a frowning zookeeper, persuading the Deavys to leave lest they be questioned about the disruption.
Wandering around the zoo, they debated how best to proceed.
“‘A path of singular significance,’ she called it.” Rose was so deep in thought she didn’t even glance up at the pair of tall, time-killing young men who passed them headed in the other direction.
“All we can do is head north and keep a lookout for visible signs and symbols,” Amber pointed out reasonably.
“And invisible ones, maybe,” suggested N/Ice.
“We’ll find it.” Simwan felt it incumbent on him to be positive. “If the monkeys could pick up that much information without even leaving their habitat, then we ought to be able to do better, since we can go anywhere in the park that we want to.”
“That’s right.” Amber’s spirits rose. “And once we’ve found this Crub’s burrow, we’ll step on in and take back the Truth.”
“And leave its owner with a firm warning never to return to Clearsight,” Rose concluded staunchly. “Right, Pithfwid?”
Pithfwid nodded. “Well, let’s get going. The Truth comes only to those who seek it.”
With their everyday, run-of-the-mill black cat trotting along between them, the Deavy coubet and brother exited the zoo through its front gate.
Then the weather turned and they were forced to take shelter halfway between the zoo and the Rumsey Playfield. Tired of being pushed and shoved up against one another, the irritated clouds overhead had set to arguing violently. The result of their infighting was a cold, steady rain that came down hard as the Deavys ducked for cover beneath one of the many weather shelters that dotted the park.
In the northeastern United States, thunderstorms were most common in the summer, but were not unknown at other times. One was passing overhead now. Bursts of lightning illuminated the park grounds and thrust the trees into skeletal relief. By this time, anyone with any sense had fled for the safety of anywhere that wasn’t exposed to the elements. The storm was violent enough to make Simwan wonder if it had been summoned forth by the Crub itself. But while lightning crackled all around them, none of it struck near the simple three-sided shelter under which they were huddling.
It was not long before the embedded storm cell moved off to the northeast and the downpour gave way to light, intermittent rain. While sufficient to keep most would-be joggers and bicyclists indoors, it was not nearly bad enough to prevent the Deavy offspring from continuing on their way.
Most Ords had some idea where lightning went (into the ground) and what subsequently happened to it (it dissipates). But it took sharp-eyed non-Ords like the Deavy coubet to spot what happens to the thunder. Like the lightning that gives it birth, thunder almost always rolls away to fade into the distance. Only the occasional rare outburst takes the shape of a disarmingly small plant. Very rarely did an Ord ever accidentally stumble over a thunderweed.
N/Ice was especially adept at locating the sudden, explosive growths. They tended to appear in the midst of dense clusters of other vegetation, locales that made them even harder to find. Having picked a small bouquet, she amused herself by giving each gray-green branch a liberating kiss before tossing it into the air.
“Will you quit that?” Pulling one of her music player’s earplugs from her ear, Rose snapped at her sister.
By way of reply, N/Ice stuck out her tongue, kissed another thunderweed, and tossed it high into the sky. At the apex of its arc, it dissolved away in a clap of rolling thunder. An Ord standing that close to such a detonation would have been deafened. Not so for the Deavys. Some of the learning games they had engaged in when younger were louder than any dissipating thunderweed.
Rose and Amber only relaxed when N/Ice had tossed away the last of the blooming thunderclaps.
To get to the central part of Central Park, they had to pass between two bodies of water: the Lake, as it was straightforwardly known, and the much smaller Conservatory Water. Though it was hard to make out shapes through the damp mist that alternated with the light rain, Simwan thought he saw only a couple of other hardy (more likely foolhardy) individuals. One was exercising a horse. The other, some rich resident’s thoroughly miserable-looking servant, was walking a pair of dogs. The twin poodles pulling at their respective leashes were clad in designer rain gear that the speculating coubet quickly decided held higher price tags than the entire clothing budget for the average family of four.
One didn’t see such displays of blatant ostentation in rural Pennsylvania. This being none of his business, Simwan had decided to ignore the dogs and their owner when the two pampered pooches began to snarl and drag their sopping-wet walker in his direction—and in Pithfwid’s.
The cat ignored them until they were very close. Straining at their restraints, they snapped and snarled, eager to
take a bite out of the lone black cat.
“I’m terribly sorry.” The poor servant charged with walking his master’s pets struggled to hold back the dogs and prevent them from assaulting the youngsters’ cat. He yanked hard on the two leashes. “Don’t worry about it.” Simwan raised his voice slightly to make himself heard above the rain. “Happens all the time.”
While the servant was focused on Simwan and Simwan was looking back at the servant, Pithfwid finally deigned to recognize the snarling dogs with a glance in their direction. It was a fleeting glance, very brief indeed. For barely a second or two, unseen by the walker, the cat’s eyes trebled in size and turned bright crimson, the vertical pupils flashing both fire and threat. Simultaneously, a remarkably deep yowl emerged from Pithfwid’s throat. Half of this lay below the range of human hearing—right where the growl of a hungry jaguar might be.
The two poodles backed up so fast they skidded on the wet pavement in their haste to take cover behind the legs of their handler. Distracted from the apology he was delivering to Simwan, the man looked down at them and frowned uncertainly.
“That’s odd. What’s got into them?” He bent toward the dogs. “Mitzy, Fritzy—did you see something?”
The dogs were paying him no attention. Thoroughly cowed, they stayed bunched up behind his ankles, trembling and whimpering, their eyes half bulged out of their heads as they stared at the former object of their curiosity.
“Shadows in the rain,” Simwan theorized aloud even as he threw Pithfwid a cautionary look. The cat ignored him, blandly innocent.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“Have a nice day.” Simwan smiled as he herded his sisters away.
As soon as they were alone again in the park, Simwan gazed disapprovingly down at the cat. “That wasn’t very good manners, Pithfwid. What if the Ord had seen you?”
“He didn’t,” the cat replied brusquely. “And I was mannerly. Dogs are conceived uncouth. Anyway, it’s not like I bit somebody’s nose off. I just put the fear of felinity into them.”
“Look!” Rose was pointing.
They were coming up on the Conservatory Water, with the more extensive expanse of the Lake just visible through the rain off to their left. At this rate, Simwan decided, they would reach the northern portion of the park well before nightfall, with a chance to locate and enter the Crub’s lair before their quarry suspected they were so close. That was assuming, of course, they encountered no delays.
Unfortunately, the first of these was waiting for them just ahead.
A group of them.
XV
A dozen shapes were visible off to the left of the Conservatory Water. Some of them, in twos and threes, huddled close together in conversation, as if proximity to one another could stave off the falling rain. A couple stood off by themselves, discussing unknown thoughts and vistas. What drew Simwan’s attention and put him and the coubet instantly on alert were the two teenage girls who were playing catch. It wasn’t their activity that alerted him. There was nothing overtly suggestive, much less threatening, about two girls playing catch.
It was the fact that instead of a volleyball, or a football, or a soccer ball, they were playing catch with a basketball-size sphere of ball lightning.
Now, the distinctive phenomenon known as ball lightning is not necessarily lethal, or even especially dangerous. But it is not something commonly found on a playground, not even in a city like New York. It was also not something suitable for a game of catch between two teenagers.
At least, not between two Ord teenagers.
“Hey, check it out,” a screechy, high-pitched voice declared ahead of them. Simwan had stopped, but it was too late to try and go around the group or to retreat without being seen. He and his sisters had been spotted.
Coalescing like a large family (or a small army), the dozen teens who had been idling in the mist started toward the Deavys. Simwan did not have to warn his sisters to be ready for trouble. At their feet, Pithfwid bristled slightly while doing his best to give the appearance of an ordinary housecat.
It was only as they drew near, emerging clearly from the mist, that Simwan saw that while the members were all more or less female, some were decidedly not girls. There was the one with the long brown tail and pointed ears, for example. And a duo of others who really were others: No more than five feet tall and stockily built, they had leathery skin that appeared distinctly leprous in the rain-muted, reduced afternoon light. That did not prevent them from wearing eye shadow and lipstick, or necklaces and earrings. Not all of the earrings, Simwan noted, were attached to earlobes. Then there were the leather-and-denim–clad, chain-wearing individuals who sported jewelry in even odder places. One had a set of alternating gold and silver rings encircling the very distinctive elephantine trunk that protruded from the center of her face. Another lit a cigarette by breathing on it. The gang smelled, Simwan decided, as distinctive and unpleasant as it looked, though the rain helped to mitigate the group’s aroma.
The tallest member came sashaying directly toward him, halting barely an arm’s length away. Though taller than Simwan, she weighed considerably less. Her body was more than slender. It was positively serpentine, an impression that was reinforced by the hypnotic side-to-side swaying of her upper torso. Ears that were almost invisible against the sides of her head—nearly disappearing beneath her shoulder-length blond hair—slitted eyes, and a flat, tiny nose completed the image of a female who was more serpens sapiens than high school cheerleader.
“Well, well, what have we here?” she hissed calculatingly. Dismissing Simwan with contemptuous indifference, she turned her lidless stare on the coubet marshaled next to him. “A babysitter and his three—or is it two—charges?” She ignored the cat at her feet as she indicated the gang clustered close behind her. “These are the Ictis. I’m Zamandire Gosht. Who the hell are you?” She flicked a glance skyward. “Kinda wet out for nurseys to be walking their babies. Whatsamatter? The cartoon channel off the air?”
No doubt the lanky leader of the gang was used to her appearance and attitude intimidating those she challenged. She had never previously, however, encountered any Deavys.
“All the cartoons seem to have been moved to the park,” Rose replied without missing a beat.
You could see the tension ripple through the gang members. Doubtless used to having their way, and scaring off anyone and anything that got in their path, it was clear that they were as unused to defiance as they were to sarcasm.
Zamandire slithered right up into Rose’s face, having to bend low to all but butt noses with Simwan’s uncowed sister. “You got a mighty big mouth for such a little twerp. If you’re not real careful, someone might make you eat those words.”
“I don’t like eating words,” Rose replied, unperturbed. “No nourishment, and too many of them taste bad.” She smiled deliberately. “I’m very fond of snake, however. Our mom usually serves it ground up and mixed with cashews and water chestnuts.”
Simwan readied himself. For an instant, it looked like Zamandire was going to jump right down Rose’s throat. Then the gang leader grinned and drew back.
“What a smarmy little big-mouth you are. You look just like your sisters. Triplets, are you?”
“We’re a coubet,” clarified N/Ice. “Two-and-a-half. And you’re right. Each of us is just like the other.”
“So if you want to have a go-round with any one of us,” Amber finished, “you’d better be ready to round-go with all two or three of us.”
“That’s very confusing.” Reaching into a pocket of her long black jeans, the gang leader withdrew what looked like a knife but was more akin to a fancy letter opener. Its black lacquer finish was covered with arcane oriental and Arabic symbols. “If you’re all the same on the outside, then you should look exactly the same on the inside, right?”
Simwan started to bring up his arms, only to have Rose firmly pus
h his hands back down. “No, big brother, you stay out of this.” Her attention returned to the muttering, hissing, growling gang members. “This is a girl fight.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rose,” he shot back. “A fight’s a fight, this isn’t the Clearsight Junior High playground, and these aren’t the rough-playing girls from the Wilson Memorial soccer team.”
Something pushed up against his ankles and meowed. Looking down, he saw Pithfwid play-acting at kitty-normal. Only the cat’s penetrating gaze hinted at the depths within. The look was full of meaning, which Simwan reluctantly comprehended. Hesitant and a bit bemused at seeing the cat side with the coubet, he obediently stepped back.
Amber’s right hand had slipped into her purse. “We don’t want any trouble. We’re just taking a walk in the park.”
Zamandire nodded slightly. Slightly, because her head seemed fused to, rather than mounted atop, her neck. “Only a walk, hmm? Well then, I suppose we might let you go. Just kiss my foot, turn around so I can kick you a good one, and go back the way you came.”
Rose had also dipped one hand into the purse she carried. “I don’t mind kissing your foot, but we can’t go back. We have to go north.”
“North?” The leader of the Ictis looked back at her gang in mock surprise. “But you can’t go north. Because you’re south of us, and to go north, you’d have to go through us.” She tightened her grip on the cryptically inscribed letter opener.
“You mean, like this?” Without waiting to see what mischief the letter opener might portend, N/Ice leaped forward.
Sprang would be more like it. Even Pithfwid would have been hard put to match N/Ice’s pantherish leap. Still, it wasn’t quite fast enough.
The Deavys Page 17