Tarbaby Trouble [Mudflat 1]

by Phoebe Matthews

  Tarvik's rigid posture echoed her fear.

  Easy for them, they only heard the danger for themselves. For me it wasn't that simple. Occasionally, when a chart displayed extremes of emotion, I glimpsed a scene. A small scrap of genetic magic that I didn't want or need. But that's what I got, and my gut ached, because for a few seconds it was like looking at the wide screen version, bright color, masses of writhing bodies on a battlefield. Worse than a battlefield.

  There were warriors everywhere, pushing their way between village huts, slashing paths clear, broadswords swinging. None seemed to notice what they struck and they were hitting children, old people, and parents trying to wrap themselves around babies to protect them with their own bodies. God, those broadswords were evil, hacking through anything, blood flying, unarmed people falling, villagers, I suppose, and all that saved me from passing out was that I could only see the scene, not hear the screams from all those dying faces.

  And then I was back in the courtyard, listening to the devil himself.

  "I respect this star magic that gives you so many answers, although I do not understand it,” Kovat said. “But you, Stargazer, are of no importance to me and I do not want your opinions, do you hear me?"

  So even in La-La Land, tyranny ruled.

  The scruffy dog lifted his head and studied me through narrowed eyes as though he knew I talked too much. Ah, it must be a tone in Kovat's voice, I thought, something the dog recognizes as a danger signal. Clever dog. Stupid me.

  I shut up. No knowledge from my charts or mind would please a madman.

  "Is this all you can say, that my victory depends on a battle fought before the full moon?"

  I did not look again at the circle on the ground. If any further guidance lay there for this warrior who gloried in destruction, I wasn't going to search for it. Years of reading horoscopes had taught me when to quit. With great effort, I kept my voice steady. “I have told you all I have seen."

  "Well enough, Stargazer. When I return victorious, I will bring with me a crown of a warlord of Thunder and you shall have it as your prize. If you wish, I will also bring his severed head.” Damn, that sounded like a line from some sick fairy tale. He leaned toward me, whipped out his sword and jammed its point into the earth inches from the end of my toes. Guess it was lucky I was still so numb from the vision I didn't flinch. He liked that. His smile bared jagged teeth. “But if my armies suffer great loss and I cannot capture a crown, it will not matter to you. You will have no head on which to wear it."

  I lacked the courage to say, “Mister, blood soaked crowns are not my idea of what Santa brings."

  Didn't say it, but I thought it.

  That night when Tarvik did his bang-on-the-gate, I greeted him with a question.

  "After your father beheads me, who will you pester in the evenings?"

  He walked around me to the fire, stood with his back to me and poked at the embers with the toe of his boot. Dark oiled leather, no scuffs, live-in-a-castle boots. I guess that meant he had servants with strong hands and sheepskin polishing cloths. I used to find his clothes entertaining. But now I knew that every piece of gold was bought with the death of innocents, and that the slave who polished the boots was probably the last remaining member of his family and had had the pleasure of watching them murdered. Somehow silk tunics and tooled belts and rings and things became that cliché of “lost their luster."

  His head shook slowly back and forth, as though he was arguing with himself. I waited. When he finally turned to face me, there was something close to fear in his expression.

  "That won't happen,” he said.

  "Ah, you will stand courageously in front of me like a big letter T with your back to me and your arms held out and tell him that he has to chop you down first before he can reach me."

  "What?"

  "It's from one of those hero stories. This famous warrior defied a god or something."

  "Tell me the story."

  "Sorry, I don't remember how it ended, probably with both of them dead."

  "I don't like that ending,” he said. “Let's talk about something else. I know. Those pebbles you use with your circles, are they magic?"

  We sat down by the fire and I pulled the pebbles out of my pocket and spread them around on the ground. “Touch them if you dare."

  He looked at me though narrowed eyelids, then at the pebbles. Reaching out, he stirred them around with a fingertip, then picked them up one at a time to center in his palm and study. “Pebbles. Plain old pebbles. Different colors. Paint?"

  "The stuff Nance uses on our faces."

  "How can pebbles give you messages?"

  "Okay. Each pebble represents a planet. That's a moving star."

  "All stars move across the sky at night,” he said.

  "Yes, but they move together in a pattern, always staying the same distance from each other. The ones we call planets do not remain in the pattern. Each moves by itself across the sky at its own pace so that through the seasons and the years it will pass through the twelve constellations of the zodiac, uh, that's the path the sun follows."

  "Which is which?” he asked, peering down at the pebbles he held in his upturned right hand.

  When I touched his left hand, he turned it palm up also. I picked up the white pebble from his right palm and moved it to the left one, and when my fingertips touched his hand he looked at me, his eyes glowing in the firelight.

  Perhaps not the best place to start, but I did not know how to backtrack. “That's Venus, the brightest star in the sky, rising near the sun. It represents love."

  "Yes, I have seen it,” he said. “I did not know it had a name."

  Moving the yellow pebble, I said, “That one represents Mercury, a sign of wisdom. It travels so close to the sun it's difficult to see, but we keep track of it and know where it is."

  "How can you do that if you cannot see it?” he asked.

  Explain telescopes? Right after I explained that the earth was round and men really had gone to the moon. Okay, off to Disneyland and the wicked stepmother. “We have a magic mirror that we look through and it shows many of the sky's secrets,” I said.

  "So you do know magic."

  Moving the red pebble from his right palm to his left palm, I said, “This is Mars. It causes accidents and violence and I think it must be strong in a warlord's chart."

  "If you know magic,” he said, watching me with that intense look that tightened his face and worried me a bit, “you can use it to save yourself, can't you?"

  If Kovat lost his battle but returned alive, I rather suspected I would need something stronger than magic. The only way a telescope would help me was if I could use one to hit him over the head.

  "Jupiter is this large blue stone and it brings fortune and happiness. The green stone is Saturn. It can be both killer and healer."

  "If you know magic, use it,” he said softly.

  "Tarvik, are you paying attention to what I am telling you?” I scolded.

  "Go on, tell me the rest,” he said.

  "This speckled pebble represents Uranus, which brings change and confusion. And last is Neptune,” I said, and settled the lavender stone in his right hand. Was this place land-locked? “Have you ever been to the seashore?"

  "What's that?"

  "The ocean. Water farther than you can see, past the horizon, big waves breaking?"

  "No. You're making that up.” He looked down at the two metal pieces still resting on his left palm, the dime and the penny. “Then these bits must be the moon and the sun,” he said. “Is there a story about each star?"

  "Oh you! Yes, there is a story about practically every star in the sky and I cannot possibly tell them all to you."

  He tilted his hands so the pebbles slid out on the ground and then he plucked the white one up, holding it between thumb and forefinger. “Tell me the story of this one. Did you see it in my father's chart? The woman you mentioned. My mother did not leave him, so the woman you said he loved cannot hav
e been my mother. Are you saying he did not love my mother?"

  Oh I did so wish Kovat had told me to stop a bit earlier. What else was Tarvik to think? Very well, I would make a few guesses because who knew, if I had all the planets in the right charts, perhaps I would discover a few answers.

  I said, “I think your father had a first love that ended in heartbreak. Don't we all? But hearts mend and your mother was his true love."

  "Do you think so?” He looked so troubled, I felt a bit of pity for this spoiled boy, not a lot, but a touch. “My mother wasn't elf, well, perhaps a small bit. My father's mother was elf, you know."

  Well, strike me with a lightning bolt. “Elf? You had a grandmother who was really an elf? What did she look like?"

  "I don't know, never saw her. She left my grandfather right after my father was born. Elf women do that, run away. That's why I wonder if the woman you saw in his past was an elf."

  "Why would she be?"

  He shrugged, drew lines in the dry earth with a finger tip, then said slowly, “Elves are magic. The men never come down the mountain, but sometimes the women go looking for herbs and wander too far away. And get captured."

  "Your grandfather captured your grandmother? So was she a slave, then?"

  "No. She was his wife. But she left him. Elf wives always leave."

  "She left her baby?"

  "She couldn't take it back. The elf men wouldn't keep a halfling."

  That was all very entertaining, as good a fairy tale as I'd heard. I didn't know what to think. “So you think Kovat is half elf and his first love was an elf woman."

  "I know he's half elf. I don't know about the woman, but once he told me never to catch an elf woman because she could enchant me."

  Huh. All right, high in the mountains there was another tribe and their women were irresistible. I could buy that, but more than that, those women weren't about to be stay captured. That would explain the runaway wife and the runaway lover.

  Maybe that idea wasn't much consolation to Tarvik.

  Kovat's chart clearly showed his love for Tarvik. Good enough for us Stargazers who sometimes have to soften truth. “I saw his greatest love in his chart and it wasn't that first love,” I said.

  "Did this Venus star show you my mother? Tell me its story."

  The story of Venus? Don't think so.

  "I'm way too tired to tell you more tonight. Another time, if you can remember the names of all the pebbles, I'll tell you some of their stories."

  By then I'd have thought up a story about Venus that didn't feature hormones.

  After placing the Venus pebble among the others, he grinned at me. “You think I will forget. You are wrong. I will remember their names and I will remember you owe me a story for each of them."

  He stood in one fluid motion, then reached down and held out his hand and pulled me to my feet. When he reached the gate he did what I now thought of as his Tarvik parting gesture. He opened the gate, stepped out, then leaned back through the opening. “Stargazer, I like stories with happy endings."

  So now he wanted me, who could not control my own life, to change the stories of the planets themselves. Right, and happy ending or not, my boy, I wasn't about to serve up a nudie Venus on a mythological half-shell. When we got around to that story, the babe was going to be a dowdy woman in a spotted apron whose favorite hobby was cookie baking.

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  Chapter 8

  As though I had tossed an ember into a pile of dry brush with my reading of Kovat's future, the daily pace of our routine flamed into a roaring blaze that scattered before it all the slow, dull, sleepy activity of the temple and city. Nance rushed around me rearranging temple cloths, polishing candleholders and shouting instructions at me until I fled to the courtyard to escape her. When I pressed the gate open a narrow crack and peered out, across the valley and far hillside I could see the same craziness outside, people rushing up and down the dusty paths carrying bundles and shooing goats and chickens into pens.

  "Bolt that gate, Stargazer!” Nance shouted. “Hurry, I must fix your hair. Oh, that robe is worn shabby. Help me with this lamp. I cannot lift it alone."

  When I tried to help her, she rushed around me scolding and complaining until I shouted, “Stop! Gimme a break! What's going on?"

  "They will arrive soon and we must do so much to prepare."

  "Who will arrive?"

  "My lord Erlan and his lady Ober and daughter Alakar and all their court and army, as though it weren't your fault—"

  "My fault!"

  "It was you who told Kovat he would conquer if he attacked before the full moon, was it not? So instead of allowing a few moons to prepare for a campaign, he allows us only days. His brother Erlan is on his way with his army."

  "What have we to do with a campaign?” I asked.

  "Several hundred people arriving, someone has to bed them and feed them, many will stay in the castle, you think Kovat will let his family sleep in the stable or camp out with the army?"

  "Huh?"

  "And that's just the start because the army has to be fed, too, and then there's the tournament grounds to prepare, and ... oh, hand me that cloth. Nothing is polished! I think I'd better request some slaves to come scrub the temple, in case Kovat brings them in here."

  "Huh?” I was still in the dark on this one.

  "Who do you think must bless the tournaments and lead the welcoming processions and pray for victory?” she screamed at me.

  "Okay, I get that, we do the chanting thing,” I said. I helped her lower the heavy black ring of candles from the ceiling.

  "Chanting thing, yes, and if you make a mistake no one will care,” she scoffed. “And it will cost you nothing but your life. If the battle goes badly Kovat will punish you, which you will deserve, but he will also punish Tarvik and me for befriending you. I should never have allowed you into the temple.” As quickly as Nance had exploded in anger, she crumpled into tears, threw her arms around me and sobbed, “I did not mean it, Stargazer, truly. Only I am so afraid for all of us."

  "You should be,” I said. “You've pulled down the same candle ring we cleaned yesterday."

  For a clever and inventive girl, Nance could fall apart with alarming speed. I pushed her firmly down on a bench and made her tell me all the chores that needed to be accomplished. These I put in order, gotta-do ahead of should-do. Not having Nance's imagination, I could not see a scarf floating in a draft and devise a method to fly. No vague, outlandish possibilities clouded my direction. Nance's sobbing descriptions of what lay ahead were so beyond my ability to visualize, I ignored her and worked methodically at preparing the temple. I scrubbed stones and polished metal and straightened tapestries and candles.

  Nance did request help but was told that all hands were busy making preparations in the castle. Oh for a proper vacuum, a bottle of bleach, washer/dryer, and so on. Instead I washed our tunics in a kettle of hot water in the courtyard and hung them in the sunshine to dry, even though Nance saw no purpose in this activity.

  "No one can see them under our robes,” she complained.

  And no one but me would be able to smell them above the heavy odor of population, but I did not bother to mention that. I had quite enough on my mind, with the family of Tarvik's uncle expected soon. Included in that group was Alakar, Tarvik's promised, and although I didn't care who the boy married, I did wonder what it was about her that made her so special. Okay, I was plain old curious.

  Even if I had tried to picture Erlan, his wife, and his daughter from Nance's descriptions, I could not have guessed the depth of evil that lay in the heart of Kovat's younger brother.

  On the other hand, it gave me a whole new perspective on evil brothers.

  Darryl's brother, back in Seattle, was a smash wizard, the only one in the city because smash wizards are territorial and competitors disappeared. His skill was limited. That's how smash magic works and he wasn't the brightest bulb, anyway, but he had that smash thing down p
at. He could drop rumor and scandal into anyone's life and end careers as well as personal relationships. Went by the name of Rock and nobody has Rock on their birth certificate so that pretty much describes his self-image. He did a lot of the black leather and chains thing.

  A smarter me would have known there was a chain from Rock to Darryl even if it wasn't visible. It took a credit search and then a winding clue-strewn path through other records to wise me up. Big bad Rock was actually smaller and prettier than Darryl but that was misleading. Rock ran the show. He was the center of a scam scheme aimed at neighborhood politics, booked bets practically on the doorsteps of some fairly powerful folk, I kid you not, and even the well-heeled can be driven to nose-dive edge. It wasn't the money. Most could pay their debts. It was the exposure of illegal payoffs, none of which could be traced back to Rock or Darryl, that drove anyone who would otherwise fight back out of Mudflat, leaving Rock in charge.

  Okay, none of it made headlines in a big city, who cared about Mudflat? But it was there, a trail of schemes, in the bank's computer links. With me to provide the equivalent of inside info, the Decko brothers planned to toss their pebble outside the neighborhood and into city politics, watch the water rings expand, and when the local ships sank what was to stop them from going on and on?

  Mudflat was already a hellhole.

  "You jerk!” I'd screamed at Darryl after the third stalker phone call. “You think the local law won't track you back?"

  Because it would. Seattle cops avoid Mudflat, oh, they drive through slowly, sure, and don't stop and don't ask questions unless someone is actually out on a sidewalk flashing a gun. Mudflat doesn't want cop interference and the cops are smart enough to comply.

  Get some pressure put on by one cornered politician, a call to or from the mayor's office, and the boys in blue would be swarming.

  Gotta say this for Kovat's evil brother, he was ugly as sin but he had a whole lot more style than Rock Decko. Actually, the style was probably put together by his wife.

  They arrived amid flaming banners and flashing armor, a dazzling snake of color winding its way down the hillside to the city's edge to be met by Kovat, his warriors, his slaves and his templekeepers, looking for all the world like some Hollywood production. Or maybe more like a British film with all the reality of foot soldiers in worn-over boot heels, shabby mismatched clothing, filthy hair, and dirt ground into their blond complexions.