“Yeah. Right. Well, then. Anything else?”
Petronio was loath to walk around this dangerous place without any backup, but he didn’t fancy the sergeant’s greasy hands dirtying his fine clothes. After a minute, the sergeant’s hands held a small but deadly pile — throwing knives, a slingshot, and two sticks with a chain between that had garotted a few cats when Petronio had been practicing. The sergeant briefly disappeared into the gatehouse with the booty, then stepped back out.
“Why visit the armories? Ya are an armory! Boys shouldn’t be tooled up like that!” The battle-hardened veteran shook his head, though part of him was wishing his cadets were this hard.
Petronio ignored his comments. As far as he could work out, what he carried was about average for Moss-side. “My horse?” he questioned.
“Yeah. He’ll be taken care of.” The sergeant hadn’t signed up to play the dogsbody, but that’s what he was now as he led the boy across the planked-out parade ground.
Petronio struggled to keep up as the sergeant strode straight into the fog. A minute later, a smooth trunk reared above them out of the gray blankness. A primitive set of stairs led up to a door in the bark. It was the only way in or out. There weren’t even any windows. Every step creaked. It was Flint’s warning system. The man was obviously paranoid, and probably with good reason.
Before they even reached the top, the door flew open. Petronio gasped. Standing before him was a legend come to life.
Commander Flint, leader of the northern armories, filled the doorway. His bronze breastplate glinted under the door’s gas lamp, covering a broad chest. His large surcote was gray velvet with embroidered lapels and his knee-high boots were of soft black leather. The face was smooth-shaven and almost handsome, apart from the kinked nose. The stories said it was broken in the street brawls as the young Flint rose up through the gang ranks. By the time he joined the military, he was already well versed in the art of war. The Commander’s hair was curly, the cut almost feminine. And the eyes, intense, darker than most Dendrans’, took in the sight of a young apprentice with no surprise.
“Sir. Visitor to see you, sir,” announced the sergeant. “Boy, sir. Says he has a message, sir. Told him where to go, sir. But he insisted!”
“Thank you, Sergeant.” The voice was cultivated, all hint of its northern roots flattened and smoothed out like a branchway. “You can now go back to your very important card game, hmmm?”
“Yes, sir. No cards at all, sir. On lookout, of course!”
“I wouldn’t doubt it for a second!”
The sergeant hesitated, wanting to see what would happen to the loathsome youth.
Flint merely stared until the sergeant retreated reluctantly down the stairs.
The commander turned to Petronio. “I am so sorry for this rude welcome to our barracks. Please do come in.” His graciousness was startling as he motioned the boy forward with a sweep of his hand.
Such politeness was unnerving. The apartment Petronio entered was spartan but comfortable. A camp bed, apparently unused, lay in the far corner. On the other side, underneath a map of the whole island of Arborium, was a desk covered in papers. The gas fire was turned down, murmuring in the background. In the center, there was a daybed and several seats around a sturdy wooden table.
“Come, you must be thirsty and hungry.”
Before Petronio could object, a dark red wine was poured into a thin-stemmed glass and handed to him. He drank gratefully and eagerly munched on the sweet pickled walnuts that Flint slid across the table as they sat down.
“It is so difficult to find these first-growth nuts. But they are tenderest when picked early.”
Petronio found this conversation harder than all previous threats. Flint’s charm was disarming, though underneath it lay steel.
“I could wake the cook and have something hot ordered up?” inquired Flint.
“No, no. You are too kind.” Petronio had seen his father in action. Two could play at diplomacy. “I have had sufficient.”
“Perhaps you would like to rest? We could talk in the morning?”
And allow his pack to be searched? Who knows what could happen to him in the dead hours. “Thank you for your offer, but sleep can wait.”
Flint sat back. The boy was precocious, that was for sure. He waited. If there was a message, it could now be delivered.
“Have you heard of Maw?”
“Ha! Very good!” Flint roared with laughter. “Our little island surrounded by a whole world of glass and steel, and you ask if I have heard of their empire? I am not entirely ignorant!”
“And I didn’t mean to imply that, sir.” Petronio was careful to keep the respect in his voice. This was Commander Flint, not a boy called Flinty. “Is your aim to defend the sovereignty of our kingdom against such usurpers?” He felt like he was talking out of a book. But somehow the language, carefully guarded like the fortress he was now in, suited the scene.
“Naturally. My duty is to the King. Even if he treats his beloved troops almost as exiles by stationing us up here. In his unchanging reign, there seems little required of us anymore. However, I swore on this sword, long ago.” Flint patted the scab-barded blade as if it were a beloved pet, not a killing machine.
Petronio had one card to play. He laid it on the table, in the shape of a purse that spilled its contents across the smooth surface. The rectangular objects caught the gaslight, glinting yellow as they chinked against each other.
Flint’s eyes were forced down, unable to hide their fascination. “If this is gold, it is in a currency I have never seen before!” Instead of the insignia of crown and leaf that stamped all of Arborium’s coins, these ingots each bore a set of engraved windows, one fitting inside another like acorns in a cup.
“There’s more. Much, much more.” There. Petronio had spoken.
Two responses were possible. An offer to bribe the commander of the armories was the highest treason. Either negotiations would begin or he, as traitor to Quercus, would be hanged like a crow from a branch.
Petronio waited for the answer.
16• FINDING YOUR ROOTS
“Help! I’m drowning … can’t breathe …” Ark was surrounded by utter darkness, closing in on him too fast. Even his voice was swallowed, reduced to a whispering croak.
“Hush now, boyo. No need to fuss. Yow’ve slept fer hours, but yow safe now!” The voice was rich, almost feminine, with a lilting accent he couldn’t quite place.
Hang on! That meant he was alive! Ark slowly surfaced from his dream. His sore hands, wrapped in a soft cloth, felt around him — rough surfaces, but comfortable. He opened his eyes. Both of them. Odd. The swelling in his right eye had almost vanished. “Where am I?” It felt warm and humid.
“More important, boyo, where did yow come from?” The man was sitting at the edge of what must have been a raised bed of moss and was, for now, Ark’s sanctuary. At least Ark thought it was a man, though with the strangest features he had ever seen. The man’s hairless skin was pale white, almost translucent, revealing a map of bluish veins running underneath. He wore a floppy white shift and loose linen britches, as if his skeletal frame had been wrapped in a sheet. His feet were bare and bony, whiter than any mushroom. The eyes, with magnified pupils that looked as though they were drawn by a child, stared back at Ark with concern.
“I was being chased.” Ark knew there was something more important than telling his story. He tried to think, then suddenly sat up in panic. “Mucum. My friend. Is he …?” He feared the worst.
“The big feller, with hair loike fire? Warghhh!” A grin cracked the man’s face in two. “He be snorin’ loike a good ’un! Let’s leave ’im be!” The man suddenly leaned forward as if he was an eager child ready to hear a story. “Go orn, then. Yow was speakin’?”
The last thing Ark remembered was Mucum’s cry and the shells quivering like a million dim gas lamps. “I was being chased by guards with swords…. I tried to warn the King, but they found me and …” Ark finally took in his
surroundings. The room had to be deep in the heart of the tree. The walls and curved dome of the ceiling were gnarled and fissured. In the gaps, gaslights flickered, filling the space with a drowsy warmth. Ark could hear a constant background hum and an odd clanking noise coming from behind the only door.
“The King? Well, we don’t have much to do with ’im down ’ere.” The man talked about Quercus as if the court was in another country. “Anyways. Oi was just checkin’ the valves before bed when Oi ‘eard a scream. Now, Joe, Oi says to meself, oh, that’s me name, boi the way!” Joe leaned over the bed and unraveled a long, stringy arm.
“Arktorious Malikum. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Ark felt unsure about shaking the thin, papery hand but found the grip strong and calmingly cool to the touch.
“Waarghhh …,” continued Joe, retrieving his hand. “That screech don’t sound loike a ratty to me, I says: What do yow think, Flo?”
Ark looked puzzled for a second.
“Sorry, loike. That’s moi daughter, Flo. Yow’ll meet her soon enough. She came skitterin’ along with me and we popped our old ‘eads through the porthole. There yow were. A pair o’ somewhat stinky boys, Oi must admit, clingin’ to the ladder … tide about to turn. What’s to do, eh?”
Ark looked at this tall, friendly creature with fascination.
“Couldn’t leave yer! Oi says to Flo, We’d better get goin’. She gave me a smile that would melt a mushroom and we reached out quick to pluck the pair of yer free loike nice bits o’ iron ore from the seam. It was a close run ’fing!” Joe shuddered, shutting his eyes for a second. “Your matey was a bit on the ’eavy side, but he warn’t nothing compared to a good load o’ rock. Mind yow, our little Flo was huffin’ and puffin’ like an enjin by the time she dropped him down. Yow were both out for the count boi then. Lot o’ gas ‘round ’ere, must’ve knocked yow out! Warghhh!”
Joe was a natural-born tale-teller, making near death by tidal wave sound like a jolly adventure. Ark smiled at the thought of Mucum being heaved over the shoulder by one of these slender creatures.
“As Oi slammed back the porthole and dumped yow in an ’eap on the ground, ’Er Majesty” — and the man swept his arms around to indicate the tree they were deep inside — “decided to blow. One second later and us lot would’ve been porridge.”
“Thanks!” said Ark, blurred memories of being cradled by this thin giant flooding back into his brain. “We owe you our lives.”
Joe sat back, an innocent smile crossing his face as he fiddled sheepishly with his hands. “Naw! Don’t say that! Not every day we get visitors! Moind yow, yow war a bit scratched up loike. But our Flo sorted yow out with some salve. Them scratches on them hands were pretty nasty and yow eye was loike a slug!”
“It’s been a rough couple of days,” said Ark, making the understatement of the year. His legs ached from the long climb, his fingers felt sandpapered, and his butt was tenderized by the fall through the kirk roof. He looked around for his clothes. There they were, hung on a chair, clean and dry. His bag hung over the back along with his belt. He hoped the feather was safe inside.
“Toime to get some grub on,” Joe announced. He stood and Ark’s neck craned up in awe as he worked out that Joe was well over eight feet tall.
Joe closed the door, leaving Ark alone to get changed. A minute later, a second door that Ark hadn’t noticed slammed open, and a tousle-haired Mucum stood in front of him, scratching his armpit, half asleep. “All right?”
“I think so. They saved us, you know.”
Mucum nodded.
“Did you know about them?” Ark pointed his finger at the door as if Joe might come back in at any second.
“A bunch of bald stick insects! They give me the treebie-heebies!” Mucum shuddered, remembering the tales his dad had told him about tribes of root miners burrowing deep underground. “Still, I guess the gas and iron gotta come from somewhere. But as long as there’s a good fire when I get home at night, and somefing in the pot, it don’t bother me.”
Ark looked around. “Home …” Even the word seemed foreign. He felt a sudden ache in his guts. “I miss Mom….”
Mucum suddenly looked away.
Ark could have almost hit himself. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
Mucum barely nodded. “History,” he muttered. Then his lips sealed tight.
There was an awkward silence while Ark tried to remember what Little Squirt had told him in confidence one day at work. There had been one last, small outbreak of the plague eleven years ago. Mucum’s mother had been one of the unlucky ones, though rumors had said she was getting better before she was taken away by the Holly Woodsmen.
Ark tried to change the subject. “The guards will still be looking for us.”
“They ain’t gonna come down ’ere, are they?” Mucum snapped.
And we’re farther than ever from the King, thought Ark as he unwrapped the bandages around his hands. He expected scabs at least, but there were only red marks.
Mucum walked around the room, peering into corners and prodding the moss bed. “Still, they can’t help bein’ ugly….”
There was a polite cough. “Yow be wanting some vittles,” said a voice from right behind him. Mucum turned, his face flaming red with embarrassment. The figure that held a tray bearing food was a smaller, very obviously female version of Joe, wearing a loose camisole that floated over her pearl-white skin.
“Th-thanks!” Mucum stuttered.
“Oi be Flo! And yow be that boy from far above what I held in moi arms!”
Mucum didn’t know where to put himself. Her smile was stronger than any punch. Bald, yes. But ugly? Two pairs of fluttering eyelashes were having a strange effect on him. “Ta … much appreciated.”
“It be moi pleasure! Oi says, Pa, can’t have the tide sweepin’ them fine young boys away! It was moi that washed yow … all over!” She stared at Mucum.
Mucum went even redder, as if his face was a firework about to explode.
“How old be yow?”
“Err …” Mucum’s normal self-confidence had suddenly vanished. What a stupid twig, forgetting your own age. “Oh! Fourteen.”
It was as if all of Flo’s birthdays had come at once. “Why, that be moi age, too. We be a right young pair!”
“Yeah …,” said Mucum. Same age, but she was at least a foot taller. The conversation was messing with his head.
Flo finally pointed to the tray. “Soup and shroom-bread. Moight not be what yow used to, but the warter is the freshest, deepest-root-seekinest stuff yow’ll ever slip between yow lips!”
Mucum wished the girl would stop looking at him but was distracted by a salty, rather enticing smell.
“Yow lot from up top be somewhat little. Yow needs to get some good grub down. Then yow might grows a bit, and catch moi up, warghhh?”
Mucum had never been called little before, but as the towering girl finally bent over to put down the tray, he felt like he was back in nursery school.
“I be leavin’ yow to it!” Flo bowed over and backed away, her eyes still filled with curiosity at the sight of these two tiny Dendrans — one in particular. A blink of her two hypnotizing eyes and she was gone.
“I think she likes you,” said Ark, stating the obvious.
“Suppose it beats hangin’ out in the sewers.” Mucum wasn’t going to admit to anything. He perched on the edge of the bed and grabbed one of the hot, steaming bowls. “Though I dunno what these lumps are!” He plucked one out of the broth with his spoon and studied it. “Eyeballs? Or worse …” Mucum’s lips turned down in disgust. “They could be goat’s —”
“Got it!” said Ark. “Mussels! That’s the answer!”
“Yup!” said Mucum, bending his free arm to flex a bicep. “Can’t help bein’ a handsome hunk! “
“Not those muscles!” Ark sighed. “Freshwater mussels, glowing in the dark!” He remembered the shells, opening and closing like a million pairs of hands in the deep water shaft. Diana always provided,
even down here.
“So, you can get ’em down yer? Yeah?”
“Yes, of course!” said Ark. He sat down next to Mucum and tucked in.
Mucum looked doubtful for a second, until his stomach got the better of him. After the first slurp of the nutty, briny liquid, he was won over, even forcing himself to chew the rubbery lumps. “This is a bit of all right!” he finally managed to say, dunking a lump of dark bread in the bowl to mop up the remnants. “In fact, I’m almost starting to feel like a Dendran again! Time for Plan B.”
“The Councillor’s men know I’m alive,” said Ark. “That makes me a target. But they’ve never seen you.”
“What, so you stay down ’ere livin’ the easy life and I’ll jes’ climb back up and get myself a few arrows in the gut? Thanks, mate!”
There was a knock on the outer door and Joe came bustling in. “How did yow loike our Flo’s hot pot?”
“Very nice. Thank you,” said Ark. “Joe …” Ark didn’t know where to start. Mucum was no help, avoiding his eyes. Ark tried again. “We’re in trouble. Or rather, Arborium is in danger. Traitors are going to overthrow the King at the Harvest Festival and destroy the island. And we’re the only ones who know.”
Joe frowned for a second. But his bleached white face couldn’t stay miserable for long. “Yas! There’s always strange goings-on up top. Never really concerns the loikes of us when there’s work to do!” He smiled again, as if all thoughts of revolution had dissolved into water. “I been prayin’ for a couple of helpers for many a day and ’ere you are, landin’ roight with us! Yow’ll be joinin’ me today, Oi think.”
“But we have to leave.”
“Leave! Leave! Yow must be kiddin’! Yow’re a gift, eh, miracle boys?” The subject was dismissed. Joe held the door open. “Are yow comin’ or what?”
Mucum shrugged his shoulders. If one of their treenage girls could pick him up as easy as a sack of potatoes, he wasn’t going to argue.
Ark didn’t know what to do. Either adults wanted to kill him because of what he knew, or they laughed off his concerns. The whole wood was going mad and it looked like they were both prisoners of the politest, strangest creatures he had ever come across.
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