The Width of the World

by David Baldacci

  But hang on! Had perhaps these people fought and overthrown the Maladons? That would explain the reference to past wars followed by peace. But how had the people done this? Were they magical? How else could they have beaten the powerful sorcery the Maladons supposedly possessed? After all, they had thrashed my kind, who were powerfully magical in their own right.

  And most telling of all, I believed we had run into a pair of Maladons twice already. So they were here. It was truly puzzling.

  I continued to read and learn as much as I could.

  I gazed at the picture of the motor and marveled how it could move without sleps, or horses rather, pulling it. Had this been created by magic?

  Before I knew it, the sun was coming up outside. I had forgotten to awaken Delph or Petra to take over my watch. But I was not tired in the least. My head filled with all this new information; my mind was swirling with questions and possibilities. But mostly questions, I had to admit.

  I moved back over to the window and looked out. With the sun up, I could see things quite clearly now. True was larger than it had appeared last night. I could now see spires of many buildings in the distance. Wugmorts — I caught myself — people were emerging from buildings. I waved my wand and muttered, “Crystilado magnifica.” Instantly, I was seeing all of this as though it were inches from my face.

  I noticed, gratefully, that the people looked like us at least; otherwise it would be awfully hard for us to fit in. And their clothes looked like the ones I had pilfered from the trunk. Again, a good thing. But, then again, we might stand out anyway. We were three strangers with a canine. How would we explain our presence here? A clattering sound caught my attention, and in my magnified line of sight came another motor speeding down the cobbles. It was followed by a second motor. The second motor looked different — it was bigger than the other and had more people riding in it. They rode in one lower and one upper level that constituted the thing. At one corner the bigger motor stopped and some people got off and others got on. On the side was a sign that read TRUE TRANSPORT. This must be how they moved from one place to another, I thought.

  “Blimey!”

  I whirled around to find Delph and Petra staring over my shoulder.

  “You didn’t wake us to take a watch,” said Petra disapprovingly.

  “I thought I’d just let you sleep,” I replied a bit lamely.

  Delph said, “Vega Jane, you can’t do this alone. I know I can’t do magic, but I didn’t fight my way across the Quag to be useless!”

  His words cut into me with the force of a hurled blade. Delph never talked to me that way. I glanced at Petra. I could tell she was pleased by Delph’s comments, which made my blood boil.

  I composed myself and said, “You’re right, Delph. But I’ve learned quite a lot actually.”

  I took some time showing them the clothes and the books and telling them of the new terms I had learned, like people and dogs and morning and horses and motors. They took this all in, though I could tell they were even more overwhelmed by it than I had been.

  Then I heard Delph’s belly rumbling.

  It was then that I realized I was starving. I looked in my tuck to find that my larder was basically empty. Delph and Petra did the same, with similar results.

  Even Harry Two’s expression was one of abject hunger.

  I decided on a course of action and parceled out the clothes I had found in one of the trunks. We swiftly dressed and put our old clothes and boots along with the spare new items in our tucks. I slipped the book on True into my coat pocket.

  Petra said, “But what now? We can’t go outside, can we?”

  I replied, “I’ve seen lots and lots of Wu —” I stopped. “I mean I’ve seen lots of people coming and going. And almost never did I see one of them hail another. I think this place is far larger than we initially thought. We only saw it coming in during the darkness. If there are lots of blokes around, then maybe, in our new clothes, we can blend in with them.”

  “But what about Harry Two?” asked Delph.

  “You saw the pictures of canines — I mean dogs — in the book. And I’ve seen four people walking ca —” I stopped again, frustrated with having to learn a new language so quickly. “DOGS!”

  Delph said, probably equally frustrated, “Can we speak Wugish for now?”

  I nodded. “Yes, but we can’t when we’re dealing with blokes from here. We have to start thinking in their language, Delph. And since only those from Wormwood are Wugs, we have to call the blokes here ‘people.’ ”

  “That makes sense,” he replied.

  “Maybe best we say nothing a’tall, till we hear some of them blokes talk,” suggested Petra.

  “That’s a good idea, actually,” I replied, giving her a smile. I wanted to like and trust Petra, I really did. And if she turned out to be a Maladon, I hoped I could kill her before she killed me.

  Delph nodded. “All right, then, but that doesn’t explain how we’ll get food to eat. We got nothing to pay with.”

  I hadn’t thought about this.

  “We’ll face that bridge when we get to it,” I said gamely.

  I returned us to visibility and we headed downstairs.

  We had reached the front doors of the place, and I had just opened them with my wand when a voice cried out.

  “Oi! What in blazes are you lot doing here?”

  I didn’t even look for the source.

  As we had so often done in the Quag, we just ran for it.

  WE SPRINTED AS hard as we could, turning corner after corner until we stopped, hunched over, breathless.

  “W-what-wh-who was that?” Delph finally got out.

  I shook my head. “D-dunno. But he saw us for s-sure.”

  Petra drew in one long replenishing breath and said, “He was some fat bloke in a long black cloak with a white collar around his neck. Older, gray hair. He had some papers in his hand. Maybe he works there. Doubt he was there last night or else he would have heard all the fighting.”

  I looked at her admiringly but also felt disappointed in myself. She had had the good sense to at least peek at who had yelled at us. I had just run.

  “We best budge along,” said Delph nervously.

  I followed his gaze to see folks on the cobbles staring at us as they walked by. Some were on two-wheeled things that were propelled along — at least it seemed — by their feet going around and around on short pieces of rubber attached to what looked like a gear. Strapped to the front of the contraption, where the rider placed his hands, was a wire basket to carry things. I had seen a picture of this in the book too. It was called a bicycle.

  We darted across the cobbles only to almost be hit by a motor coming through. The male behind the funny wheel raised a fist at us, and a great honking sound like from an enraged goose blasted from somewhere out of the metal-and-wood creation. We scooted to the other side of the cobbles and reached firmer footing where folks were walking.

  My heart beating painfully fast, I turned left and we trooped single file to another corner, where I turned right. And stopped.

  Wugs — I mean people — were queued up outside a shop. And I knew why. The most wonderful smells were coming from within. I could hear my belly rumbling. I thought I could hear Delph’s too, though that could have been my imagination.

  “Blimey,” said Delph, staring up at the sign over the shop. “Caspian’s Creations.” He looked at me. “What you reckon that is?”

  I said, “I reckon it’s a place to eat. Look.”

  There was a window in the front of the shop and we could see people seated around neatly spaced wooden tables. They had plates and cups and saucers in front of them and were chomping away using shiny metal knives and forks and spoons.

  “Reminds me of the Starving Tove back in Wormwood,” said Delph.

  “Reminds me’a nothing,” declared Petra. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Her tone and look were of absolute wonder. And it made me think, not for the f
irst time, that as bad as I had had it in Wormwood, it was but nothing compared to what Petra had endured living in the Quag.

  Delph’s and Harry Two’s face and snout, respectively, were pressed against the glass as they peered longingly inside. Behind a wooden counter there were males and females in aprons filling — I supposed — orders of customers. Behind them I could glimpse other folks dressed in white shirts and aprons laboring over stoves and pots and pans. Piled high in wire baskets on the counter were loaves of bread and stacks of pastries and chocolates. And on racks next to them were cakes and pies and … the most delectable puddings. I felt my head spinning.

  As I pulled my attention away from this splendid cornucopia, I could see paper and coin exchanging hands between those behind the counter and the customers. With sinking spirits, I could see that it looked very different from Wormwood coin. As hungry as I was, I dared not even try to use our coin, since it would give us away as not belonging here.

  Delph had evidently seen what I had because he said, “You reckon we can find something to do to earn some proper coin so we can buy food?”

  I looked around when I heard the noise.

  A large motor had pulled to a stop in front of the shop. The metal grille had a name etched on it: ZEPHYER.

  There was a bloke in front steering the thing with the big wheel. And there was a bloke way in the back. He was dressed in very fine clothes indeed. And he wore a hat that was very tall and very black. His nose was red and bulbous. He was yelling at the fellow in front, who jumped out and came swiftly around to the glass in the back of the motor where the other bloke was.

  The glass came down and the bloke with the high hat could be heard clearly.

  “I’m late. I’m late because of you, Wainwright. I don’t have time to eat a proper breakfast. You will go in there and get what I want. I can eat along the way.”

  The male called Wainwright, who was dressed in knee-high brown boots, a jacket with lots of shiny buttons and a hard-sided cap with goggles wrapped around it, said pleadingly, “But, sir, there is a very long queue.”

  “That is not my problem, is it? Deal with the queue as you see fit, but you will get what I want immediately. I will require the usual. Here is the money.”

  I watched as he opened a brown leather pouch he’d taken from his coat pocket. He withdrew a piece of paper and a few coins. Apparently this was called money. From here I could see that he had more paper and more coins in the large pouch.

  These were the moments in my life where clear choices could be made. Do it or don’t do it. Often, the decision was difficult. This time the choice was easy.

  The git obviously had far too much money. I was just going to relieve him of a bit, and he’d be none the wiser.

  I looked around and slowly withdrew my wand. I slid it inside my coat sleeve and held it by the end. I raised my arm and pointed my wand at the pouch.

  “Delph,” I said out of the side of my mouth, “I need another one of your little distractions.”

  “What?” He had observed what I had done with my wand. Now realization spread over his features. “Oh, right.”

  He looked around for a moment and then cried out, “Oi, what’s that, I wonder?”

  He pointed into the air and across the cobbles.

  “Look at that!”

  His deep voice was so loud and carried so far that everyone within earshot glanced sharply that way, including the two blokes at the long motor.

  “Rejoinda some of the, uh, money stuff in that bloke’s pouch,” I muttered under my breath, moving my arm toward myself.

  Some paper and coins shot from the pouch, zipped past the chin of the fellow in uniform, who was looking across the cobbles like everyone else, and landed neatly in my other hand.

  I slipped the paper and coin into my pocket and we joined the queue.

  “But that’s stealing, ain’t it, Vega Jane?” admonished Delph.

  Petra said, “So what? It’s how me and Lack survived in the Quag all that time.”

  “But we’re not in the Quag now, are we?” countered Delph sternly.

  “Do you want to eat or not?” I asked Delph.

  Well, that shut him up good and proper.

  We finally made it inside the shop and a bit later stepped up to the counter.

  A female in a long white apron with a matching cap faced us. Her skin was paler than mine and her eyes were large and round. Her long black hair was pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck.

  “What would you like, dearie?”

  “Um, what do you have?” I said timidly.

  She pointed to a board on the wall that listed lots of things. “All that there, plus what you see on the counter. All good; we make it right here in True.”

  Petra stepped up and said boldly, “What do you like the best?”

  The female smiled, looked at her and said in a low voice, “Well, I must admit, number four is my absolute favorite.”

  I looked up at the number four on the board. To my surprise, it was all things I recognized. “Sounds good. For the three of us.”

  She looked down and saw Harry Two. “Dogs outside, please.”

  “Oh, right,” I said.

  She said, ”He’s a cute one, he is. What do you call him?”

  “Um, Harry; just Harry.” I figured telling her his real name would only prompt questions I didn’t want to answer.

  “Why, the poor thing’s gone and lost most of an ear,” she noted, clucking sympathetically.

  “I know. He, uh, got into a fight with another cani — dog.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Delph tug down the sleeve that covered his blackened arm. And then I noticed Petra slipping her injured hand into her pocket.

  I quickly led Harry Two outside and told him to wait by the window. Then I went back inside and paid for our food. I handled the paper a bit funny but she didn’t seem to notice. She gave me back some other paper and a few coins and I put them away in my coat pocket.

  “Just the one glove, dearie, and an odd one at that?” she observed.

  My throat constricted a bit. “My mum gave it to me. I lost the other. But I keep it on for her.”

  “Well, ain’t that nice of you. I’ve got three daughters of me own. So I well understand, luv.”

  I smiled weakly and hurried off.

  We took a table near the window when another group of blokes was finished with it.

  When our food came, I took a portion out to Harry Two.

  When I rejoined Delph and Petra, my gaze caught and held on her.

  She was staring down at her meal like it was the most beautiful sight she had ever laid eyes on: scrambled eggs and bacon and fat sausages and warm buttered bread and hot tea and porridge topped off with a pile of kippers.

  She caught me looking and her face reddened and her features took on a look of shame. I reached out my hand and gripped hers with it.

  “I know what it’s like to be hungry. But I was never hungry like you and Lack were. So I say eat up and enjoy a very fine meal.”

  She thanked me with a smile.

  For the next ten slivers all we did was eat, swallow and drink.

  Delph mumbled between mouthfuls, “Looks like the food ain’t so different here.”

  Petra looked at him askance. “Maybe for you. I’ve never had such a feast in all my life.”

  I saw that she had no idea how to wield the fork, knife and spoon. So I used mine in a slow, exaggerated fashion, so that she could mimic me, without my telling her. I knew she would resent that.

  When our bellies were full, we rose and made our way out. Harry Two had long since finished his meal and was relieving himself against a corner of a building.

  “What now?” asked Petra, looking refreshed and ready to have a go at exploring True.

  Well, she had slept all night, but I hadn’t, and I was full-out knackered.

  “We find a place to stay,” I said.

  “But shouldn’t we look around?” she repl
ied.

  “We can do that while we find a place to stay. And then afterward as well.”

  Delph edged over to me as we walked along. “Where do you reckon the Maladons are, Vega Jane? You think they live here?”

  “Dunno,” I said. “Maybe. I mean, they do look like the other blokes.”

  “Are we sure there are Maladons here?” asked Petra.

  “Who in the blazes do you think those two blokes were last night?” I snapped. In my mind I thought the Maladons would be easy to spot because they would be hideous in figure and murderous of temper. The blokes last night were certainly murderous, but they looked like everyone else in True. That was a scary thought — not knowing who the Maladons were until they pulled their wands.

  Delph looked at all the bustling activity.

  “It don’t look like what I thought it would,” he remarked.

  Delph was exactly right about that. We had been told that the Maladons were evil and killers and, most important, victorious over our kind. That meant they were out here, ruling everyone.

  So why did everyone look happy and … free?

  We walked around True for a while. On every corner we turned down there was something new and different to see. The large double-decked motors I had seen from the church window now clearly appeared to carry folks where they wanted to go. They got off at certain places where there was a sign on a post with a picture of the motor carrying them. They paid coin, or money rather, for the ride.

  We watched folks walk in and out of buildings. Many carried packages and bags, and some had youngs in tow or in their arms. Some pushed around baskets on wheels that had very youngs inside of them swathed in blankets.