by Joel Ross
She sniffled and nodded. “I imagine we’re already on the outskirts of the estate.”
“Okay. Let’s stay away from water until we reach the clock, just in case the queen has any more surprises.”
“Why isn’t she weak?” Roz asked, taking a shuddering breath.
Ji gave a sudden laugh. “Why are we so strong?”
“What?” Chibo fluted.
“We robbed a coach, we escaped a kumiho. We cast a spell. A spell! Us!”
Sally lifted her muzzle in a fierce grin. “We saved a kid and found the water clock.”
“That’s right,” Ji said. “And now we’re going talk to Ti-Lin-Su and find the Ice Witch. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“As long as nobody spots us,” Roz said, gazing worriedly across the fields.
Nobody spotted them. Instead, they spotted the water clock.
An aqueduct sloped across the countryside toward a high, square platform of granite blocks. On top of the platform, nine black bowls dangled from ornate bronze beams. Beside the platform, three bronze tanks, engraved with scenes from history, revolved slowly to the sound of whirring and clicking and splashing. A mechanism like a weathervane tilted and spun between the tanks, its outstretched arms covered in bells and cymbals.
“How ingenious!” Roz breathed. “The water clock must chime different tones at different hours!”
“I haven’t heard any chiming,” Sally said.
“I suppose the gears are disengaged.” Roz frowned. “I wonder why.”
A dirt path led downhill from the water clock to a gently waving cornfield. Stairs zigzagged down from the granite platform toward a pretty little cottage shaded by palm trees. Coals and embers smoldered in a shallow fire pit near a mound of dirt. Bees buzzed around a bowl of fruit on a picnic table, while mango trees fluttered over a cheery chicken coop.
Ji assumed the clock workers lived in the cottage, but he didn’t see any. Still, the whole place looked peaceful and welcoming.
“Where is everyone?” he asked.
Sally cocked her ears. “Nobody’s here now.”
Ji eyed the coals burning in the firepit. “They haven’t been gone long.”
When he trotted closer to the clock, the scent of mango trees made his mouth water.
“Soldiers came through yesterday.” Sally gestured toward hoofprints on the ground. “That’s probably what I’m smelling.”
Ji peered at the barn. “You don’t hear anything?”
“Nope. I smell grilled turkey in the cottage, though.”
“Let’s eat!” Chibo piped. “Except shouldn’t we cast the spell first?”
“Maybe we should wait for a moon to rise,” Ji said. “And eat mangos for a while.”
“Let’s try our luck with the sun,” Roz said, heading for the stairs.
The top of the water clock offered a view of the rolling pastureland and the cornfields stretching toward Turtlewillow Manor. The aqueduct flowed into slowly spinning bronze tanks with beaklike spouts that triggered valves and spigots. Water splashed into the dangling black bowls. When full, they tilted and poured into a wide, shallow central basin.
“Looks complex to me,” Ji said.
“This should work quite well.” Roz propped Nin’s urn on the edge of the basin. “Everyone hold hands and . . . take care not to lose too much of yourself.”
A reflection of the sun glinted in the water. For some reason, daylight didn’t feel as mermaid-y as moonlight had. Still, Ji squinted and thought of Ti-Lin-Su. He couldn’t quite picture her face, but the gurgling of the basin reminded him of her water garden. The rippling pools, the splash of her tail . . .
He focused on the sounds. A minute passed, then two more. The blob of the sun’s reflection wobbled in the water’s flow, but nothing else happened.
“Doing this in the sunlight feels wrong,” Sally said.
Valves opened and gears clattered with a click-slosh-whirl. Water gushed from pipes and dripped from channels. Click-slosh-whirl. Ji stared at the sun’s reflection until his eyes stung. Ti-Lin-Su, Ti-Lin-Su, we need you, we need your help. Click-slosh-whirl. Bowls filled, then tilted, emptying into puddles that swirled through pipes.
“Use your wings,” Ji told Chibo. “You have the most magic.”
“I do?”
“Sprite power worked last time,” Sally said.
“Not entirely,” Roz said.
“I’ll try,” Chibo said, unfurling his wings.
“We’re too afraid,” Ji said. “We’re not pouring enough of ourselves into the spell like we did the first—”
The instant Chibo’s wings touched the basin, Ji felt as if he’d plunged into the swirling water. Without moving an inch, he was carried along like a twig in the rapids. His tongue thickened and his forehead itched. Claws sharpened from his toenails and—
“Shut up!” Sally said. “Listen!”
Ji didn’t hear anything except the click-slosh-whirl. “Nobody’s talking!”
“Shh!” said Roz.
“Oh!” said Chibo.
“Click slosh whirl,” said the water clock.
“See?” said Sally.
“What?” said Ji.
“Whick closh swirl,” said the water clock.
“That’s Lady Ti-Lin-Su!” Roz told him. “I know her voice!”
“Wish ogrsh lan,” the water gurgled. “Ays wish. Ice witch ogre lands.”
“I am magic!” Chibo beamed, his green eyes shining. “Did she say ‘Ogrelands’?”
In the basin, the sun’s reflection shimmered into Ti-Lin-Su’s face. “We heard you calling. . . . reached out at riverbank . . . help carry you . . . Shummer Queen heard too. Stay hidden. Wash fur traps. . . .”
“Fur traps?” Sally asked.
“For traps!” Ji snapped. “She’s saying ‘Watch for traps’!’”
“Orgrelandsh.” Ti-Lin-Su’s faced distorted in the swirling current. “Search for Ice Witch in the Ogrelands. She issh . . .”
“She’s where?” Ji asked. “Where in the Ogrelands?”
“Whee don’t know her eshact locashun. You musht shearch high and deep. . . .”
The image faded and Roz gasped. “No!”
“What?” Ji asked, as the spell shattered. “What’s wrong?”
“M-my fingers,” Roz stammered. “My fingers.”
She raised her three-fingered hands. Three-fingered, not four. Not anymore. She’d lost fingers, and her face looked more troll-like, her features coarser and her skin more granite flecked.
“This spell is a fire that burns our humanity for fuel,” she whispered.
“I can’t—” Sally growled. “I can’t cover my claws anymore.”
When Ji turned toward her, he almost whimpered. Her muzzle was longer and her legs were slightly crooked, like a dog’s legs. And Chibo’s shirt ripped as his hunchback swelled, while his eyes grew bigger than any human eyes.
Looking away, Ji touched his itchy forehead and felt lumps. “What’s on my head? What are they?”
“Bumps,” Sally told him, her voice more growly than ever. “Two little bumps.”
Chibo spread a second pair of wings, and Ji’s world narrowed into fear and disgust. Betrayed by their own bodies, warping into misshapen monsters. Losing fingers, growing horns. It was too much; the price they’d paid was too high. . . . And for a few minutes, horror won.
10
“EVERYONE BREATHE,” ROZ finally said, stroking Chibo’s bald head. “We learned how to fix this. We contacted Ti-Lin-Su and now we know to head for the Ogrelands.”
“Except what happens once we’re there?” Sally growled. “We still don’t know how to find the Ice Witch.”
“We’ll talk to Ti-Lin-Su again, or we’ll ask the ogres,” Ji told her as he started down the stairs of the water clock. “For now, let’s eat. I’m starving.”
“That grilled turkey does smell good,” she said.
While Sally prowled to the cottage, Ji frowned toward the mango trees. Thre
e blue-bat boxes—which looked like crosses between birdhouses and beehives—hung from the trunks, with dozens of flower petals littering the ground beneath them. Weird.
“There are coconuts on the palm trees!” Roz said, lumbering past.
Ji squatted to look at the flower petals—and they weren’t flower petals. “What the heck?”
“What’s wrong?” Chibo asked.
“There are dead blue-bats on the ground,” Ji told him. “Hundreds of dead blue-bats.”
“Poor blue-bats,” Chibo said, his huge eyes sad. “They’re so little and so blue.”
“The nobleman in the library coach said something about them dying off. That’s why he was returning to his estate—”
“And there are papayas on the picnic table!” Roz called.
Ji raised his head, like a deer scenting wolves. “Wait.”
“What’s that?” Roz asked, glancing over her shoulder.
Ji looked at the tomatoes. He looked at the mound of dirt beside the cottage, then at the fresh papayas on the picnic table. Fresh fruit, and the delicious scent of grilled turkey? No people anywhere? And where had the mound of dirt come from?
“Stop!” he shouted. “Roz, wait—nobody move!”
“Beg pardon?” Roz asked, and took one more step toward the picnic table.
Her trollish foot, barely contained by a patched slipper, touched the ground . . . and disappeared. Her other foot and both legs followed, because that wasn’t the ground: Roz had stepped onto a camouflaged sheet of canvas scattered with mango leaves.
Her cloak billowed and she disappeared from view, falling into a deep pit. A crash sounded and she shouted in pain.
Ji started running before he knew what he was seeing. The pit gaped in front of him—a trap big enough to hold a lion. The picnic table was gone, swallowed along with Roz. Nin’s urn rolled to a halt beside the smoldering fire pit.
“I’m coming!” he yelled, but took only two steps before a yellow cloud erupted from the pit, filling the air. He skidded to a halt. “Roz! Roz?”
“I’m okay,” she said, her voice shaky and muffled. “I—I landed on a sack of chalk dust or, or—”
“Chibo, get over here!” Ji yelled. “I’m lost in this dust! Roz, keep talking so we can find you.”
“What shall I talk about?” Roz asked.
“Anything!”
“Um, I could tell the story of Mino and Mano?”
“I don’t care! Just keep talking.”
“Well, Mino and Mano were the first two mages. When the Summer Queen took the crown, she performed a ritual to give them fragments of her power.”
“Sally!” Ji called. “Climb the clock and look out for trouble!”
“I’m on it!” Sally called from outside the dust cloud.
“What happened?” Chibo asked as a faint green wing sliced through the swirling yellowness. “Roz fell in a hole?”
“A trap,” Ji told him. “The Summer Queen knew we’d need a place like this.”
“A place like what?”
“Like with crazy currents.” Ji groped blindly forward. “She must’ve told her soldiers to dig a hole, and now Roz is stuck and—” A scary thought occurred to him. “And this yellow dust is a signal to them!”
“To who?”
“Her knights! I bet they’re hiding far enough away that Sally can’t hear them, just waiting for a big yellow cloud. Where are you?”
“Coming!” Chibo fluted from nearby.
“Yeah, and they’re coming too. Keep talking, Roz!”
“We’re almost at the pit,” Chibo said, taking Ji’s hand. “I can feel the edge with my wing.”
“Um, Mino and Mano wished to please the queen by growing stronger,” Roz said, her voice trembling. “Except they’d been granted power by the same spell. So, as Mino grew more powerful, Mano weakened. That’s the price of Balance.”
With the scaly toes of one foot, Ji felt the ground fall away. “We’re here, Roz!” he called, kneeling at the edge. “Follow my voice. Can you reach my hand?”
A crash sounded. “It’s too deep! I can’t!”
“They’re coming!” Sally growled. “I hear hoofbeats.”
“Keep telling the story!” Ji told Roz, mostly to keep her calm. Well, mostly to keep all of them calm.
“Er, Mino gathered power,” Roz said, “trying to save his husband. But the more power he used, the weaker Mano became. That is Balance. Remember how Isalida mastered woodland magic but lost her self and turned into a forest? Well, Mano died.”
Ji chewed his knuckle as she spoke. Soldiers were galloping closer every second, but how do you get a half troll out of a pit trap?
“If you strengthen one part of a spell, you drain another,” Roz continued. “You empty yourself, you lose yourself.”
“I see them!” Sally yelped from above. “A dozen knights, riding fast!”
“I have a plan!” Ji shouted. “Chibo, fly out of here. Sally, tell him how to reach you!”
When a breeze thinned the dust cloud, Ji caught a glimpse of Chibo soaring away. In the pit, Roz stretched upward but her trollish hands couldn’t reach the edge. Hoofbeats sounded, and a woman shouted orders. Ji couldn’t make out her words as he sat on the edge of the hole, his legs dangling inside. Okay. Here goes.
“What’s your plan?” Roz asked as he took a breath. “What are you—”
He slid in and landed on the cracked picnic table. He fell onto his butt and stared at the swirling yellow dust.
“Jiyong!” Roz said. “What on earth is your plan?”
“Ow,” he told her.
“Now you’re trapped too!”
Ji looked through the thinning dust toward the early evening sky. “Sally! Lead Chibo away! I’ll stay with Roz!”
“Is that your plan?” Roz scowled at him. “If you haven’t a plan, Jiyong, I warn you—”
“I have a plan!”
“What? To keep me company in a trap?”
“No!” he lied.
“If you get hurt . . .” Her eyes gleamed. “You have no right. You have no right to put yourself in danger for me.”
“We’re staying together. Sally was right. We stay together.”
Roz snorted in angry amazement. “You just sent her and Chibo away!”
“That’s different!”
“How is that possibly different?”
“Because shut your ricehole!” he explained.
“Jiyong,” she rumbled, her voice soft and dangerous, “I cannot allow this. We know where the Ice Witch is! We can’t let them catch us now. I’ll lift you toward the edge, and you’ll scramble out of here.”
He frowned. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You’ll come back for me,” she said, grabbing his arm. “You’d better come back for me.”
“Hey!” he said, trying to tug away. “Let go!”
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “But this is going to sting.”
“Roz, don’t—” he started, and she threw him from the hole.
The world spun: the sky, the cornfields, the sky, the water clock. Then he slammed to the ground ten feet from the fire pit. His arm ached and his side throbbed. Smoke stung his eyes, though most of the yellow dust was gone.
“Stupid troll,” he groaned to Nin’s urn.
“I heard that!” Roz said from inside the pit. “Now go and hide!”
A horse nickered nearby, and armor jangled. Ji didn’t waste time looking for the knights, though. He wrapped Nin’s urn in a tight hug, lifted it off the ground, staggered three steps, and—
Thunk.
An invisible hand shoved the urn. Ji lost his footing. As he stumbled toward the fire pit, he caught a glimpse of a crossbow bolt sticking from the urn. That was what had shoved him. Then he fell, and the urn, spewing dirt, rolled into the fire pit. Ji scrambled to pull it from the coals, but two more bolts stabbed the ground inches from his outstretched hand.
“By all the moons,” a woman said behind him, “you look more
monstrous than ever.”
Ji knew that voice. Lady Nosey was the daughter of Baroness and Baron Primstone . . . except her name was actually Posey. Ji called her “Nosey” because she looked down her nose at servants. Her twin brother’s name was Nichol, but Ji called him “Pickle” because he was always sour.
She sat astride an evil-looking warhorse, idly reloading her crossbow. She was petite and pretty, with gold-painted braids in her jet-black hair. She was everything a young noblewoman should be, except kind. Well, and except jeweled: she wasn’t wearing any jewelry, not a necklace or a bracelet or even a pinky ring. Nothing Ji could use to spark dragonfire.
Armored knights flanked Nosey. Two of them pointed crossbows at Ji’s chest, and the others held coarsely woven nets.
“I give up!” Ji raised his hands in surrender. “Just let me pull my urn out of the fire.”
“Perhaps if you ask properly,” Nosey said.
Anger tightened Ji’s stomach, but he didn’t know how long ant lions could survive in burning coals, so he bowed his head. “May I please pull the urn out of the fire, Lady Posey?”
“That’s not ‘properly’!” she declared, her warhorse prancing beneath her. “Her Majesty decreed that if my brother and I caught you, she would make us a duke and a duchess. You should address me as ‘Your Grace.’”
Ji stared at her. He was impressed despite himself. “No way. A duchess?”
“I know!” Nosey’s smile looked almost human. “Can you believe it!”
“Wow. I mean . . . wow.”
“Duchess Posey.” She holstered her crossbow with a flourish. “My mother will be over the moons.”
“That’s kind of awesome. With an estate and everything?”
She nodded. “A few thousand acres.”
“Whoa. You’re evil, but that’s cool.”
“Evil?” she said. “Me? You’re a beast and a traitor and a . . . beast! What is sprouting from your head, goat horns?”
“I’m not the one who’s a traitor! I worked for your family for years, and now you’re trying to kill me.”
“A small price to pay to protect humanity.”
“That’s easy for you to say!” Ji sputtered. “They’re going to kill Roz, too, and she’s wellborn.”
“Barely,” Nosey said, though her gloved hand tightened on the reins. “She’s barely wellborn.”