Sandy stared down at them in silence for several seconds. Leaning forward, she swept her arms around all the clothlings on the cart, including the ones who hadn’t spoken. She hugged them with exquisite gentleness, and since she was still holding me, I got to hug Gumbo’s back. Oh, my. Whatever that clothling was stuffed with, it was certainly firm and springy!
“Thank you for reminding me that I can use my powers for good,” Sandy murmured. Releasing them, she laid me on her shoulder, scooped up the reins of her rocking horse, and dropped onto its back.
“That way,” she said, pointing a finger down the road. Quite how she knew which—ah ha! Because that was the direction the librarians had come from, and they had just been to the border themselves.
The horse reared way back, whinnying with passion. His rockers hit the path again with a jolt of forward speed. As we raced along, he spoke up. “So… what is my name?”
Solemn and confident, Sandy answered, “You have to choose who you want to be.”
“But I want to be who you want me to be!”
Sandy’s voice dropped to a murmur meant only for me clinging to her shoulder. “I definitely cast that spell way too hard. I hope the capitol is okay.”
“Restoring order seems like something a princess would be particularly good at,” I whispered back. Then I perked up, and pointed at a passing signpost. “Here!”
We took that branch. There were still more unmarked intersections than marked, but as long as we headed in the general direction of Here, after a couple of signposts we would find one that was legible to point us the right way.
That lasted right up until a path led to a wall of brambles, with an opening leading inside. Distorted mirrors lined the walls.
I grimaced. “Well. This is unfortunate. My map did say there are branches of the Maze all over There, and I believe Belle Tower mentioned it as well.” Pulling myself up into a sitting position, I fumbled with my shoulder bag for my book. Not that its crude maps were likely to help, but I would try.
Sandy made that unnecessary, pointing past the rocking horse’s head to the ground right in front of the gate’s entry-way. “Do you think that’s trustworthy?”
An arrow stolen from a signpost fit into its own carefully shaped indention in the path. Whatever the original worn-out message had read, someone had freshly carved “HERE” onto the wooden surface, and with a rather elegant calligraphy.
It pointed inside the Maze. In fact, it pointed straight at another arrow set into the floor of the Maze, pointing off to the right. Two arrows, in fact. The other pointed toward us, and read “THERE.”
I blinked. That did not seem sufficient, so I also adjusted my glasses, pulling on the wobbly earpieces. “Not only do I believe them trustworthy, Miss Sandy, but I believe our librarian nomads have scouted routes through the Maze’s extremities. How clever!”
Sandy’s soft cheeks tightened, and her pink lips pursed as she considered that. “How long do you think they’ll stay accurate before the Maze changes?”
The seams of my smile pulled tight as pride for my fellow clothlings washed through me. “Until there’s a new witch to change the Maze, Miss Sandy, and you’re the only person qualified to appoint one.”
That got a laugh. She nudged the rocking horse into action, and we followed the shiny corridors of the Maze around a few turns. Sure enough, at the next intersection was another pair of arrows. We followed those, and only two more arrow sets after that came to an exit back into the woods.
“Quite a narrow branch. I wonder if we could have gone around it?” I speculated.
“We did, while I was trying to get lost. This was shorter and faster. Speaking of which—geeyup!” At Sandy’s sharp cry, the horse rocketed down the trails again.
That was the last obstacle until we reached the edge of the forest. The way the trees and bushes clustered thickly into walls meant that we charged right out into the dead grey grass on There’s side of the border before we even knew we’d reached the exit. When we saw what was suddenly looming in front of us, Sandy yanked on the handles, and the rocking horse reared, screamed, and whinnied.
For another second, we skidded closer and closer to the shiny mass of nothing, but as uncomfortable as that was to watch, we stopped well before hitting it. The forest was awfully close to the boundary here. The leaves practically touched the Dotted Line looming over us.
Beneath the Dotted Line ran a crack in the air, like the one we’d seen in the throne room, but bigger. Much, much bigger. From underneath the Dotted Line is more open spaces than walls, but the jagged opening into nothingness blocked this entire gap at ground level. Spikes of it reached up through the stone to the river, and who knew what mess that was causing?
I hadn’t had a good look at the first crack. Now I didn’t want a good look at this one. Staring at it was… uncomfortable. Not painful or scary or anything, aside from the natural anxiety of being a few yards away from a hole in reality. It looked weird. Aside from “shimmering” I had trouble putting a color to the jagged blob, and unless I focused my gaze, wandered away as if sliding off the surface.
At least it made no noise.
No, the noise came from someone on the other side, in the affable, dignified drawl of a capitol guard. “But the bricks keep falling in, Sergeant.”
“Stack them up faster! Her Royal Humanity said to build a wall, so we’re going to build a wall!” insisted a less patient guard.
A third guard’s voice insisted, “It’s no good, guv. I stack them up faster, they fall in faster. Do you think we should have brought mortar?”
“Naah. It’d dry before we got here,” drawled a fourth guard with a slow, sleepy voice.
The Sergeant barked, “Gentlemen, we are the Princess’s Elite Ninnyhammer Brigade. She said so herself! And this is a crucial mission she’s entrusted to us! I know it’s difficult, but she wouldn’t have given it to us if it wasn’t, would she?” He sounded a bit desperate by the end.
“Naah, it stands to reason,” agreed the sleepy guard.
“Right,” agreed the Sergeant, so sharply I could hear his nod. Relieved and satisfied, he echoed, “It stands to reason.”
“Bricks still fall in, Sergeant,” said the first guard.
A new voice interrupted. It wasn’t like the guards’ voices at all. Grinding, with sharply enunciated words and fierce impatience, it said, “The wall is to stop citizens from falling in until Her Highness can close the gap. Build it waist high and farther away from the edge.”
“Yes, sir,” mumbled the Sergeant hurriedly.
Sandy and I inhaled sharply, and gave each other a worried look. What an unpleasant voice. In her case she breathed all the time, of course, but not so dramatically. However, my heroine was nothing if not brave. Silently, she dismounted, picked up a stick that had fallen out of the forest, and walked right up to the rift.
It felt worse than being at the edge of a deep hole. The weird sparkliness reached the ground, went through it, and there seemed to be no limit. Holding out the stick, Sandy poked the tip through what was probably the edge of the anomaly.
With a squeak, she let go. Rather than straight down, the stick fell into the emptiness, and after a couple of seconds was hidden by sparkle.
“Miss Sandy!” I declared, gripping her neck. Uselessly, but it was all I could do to express my worry for her.
“We’re safe. It pulls, but not very hard,” she whispered.
Alas, she remembered to be quiet in the presence of enemies too late—which was still better than my not remembering it at all. The first guard asked, “Did you hear that?”
“Sounded a bit like the Usurper, didn’t it, guv?” asked another.
“APPREHEND,” snarled the horrible thing.
“Any idea how?” said the Sergeant, confused.
“…NO.”
The first guard sounded curious, and only a couple of feet away. “It was like she was right—YIPE!”
“Grab him!”
“HELP
!”
“Got him, guv!”
“Don’t let me fall in!”
As the guards babbled in panic, Sandy chewed on her lower lip and looked around. There was just no way to get to the other side to help that wouldn’t take several minutes at least.
Groaning with strain, a guard muttered, “Coo. Aren’t you heavy.”
“HERE,” growled the thing that liked to shout. A couple of seconds later, metal clanked and thumped, the distinctive sound of a bunch of guards falling into a heap.
“Thanks, guys. Never been more scared in my life,” said the first guard.
Sandy and I sighed in relief. That didn’t make much noise, and she tiptoed back to the edge of the woods. There she took me off her shoulder, and sat me on the comfortably padded leather head of the rocking horse, so we could talk face to face.
In whispers, of course. She started. “I messed up badly with this one, Heartfelt. Those rifts might tear Here and There in half.”
I hated seeing her eyes so wide and haunted. Leaning up, I patted her smooth—human skin really was exquisite to touch—cheek. “As fond as I am not of Princess Charity, it sounds like she’s using your stolen powers to fix the problem.”
She shook her head. In There’s eternal night, her yellow hair looked like honey with ashes in it. “She won’t be able to.”
Oh, my. “No? Why not?”
She sat down on the butt of the rocking horse, which started to roll back from her weight, but pushed itself forward to keep our heads even. Hands propped on the saddle, she explained, “Magic has worked the way I thought it does since we got here. It comes naturally. That’s part of being a witch, Belle Tower said. This doesn’t look like magic to me. Witch magic can’t fix it. A princess’s authority can’t fix it.”
My mittens squeezed the yarn of the rocking horse’s mane as that prediction sent a thrill through me. “Then what will happen?”
Sandy, of course, noticed my fear. She gave me a gentle smile, and leaned over to touch her warm, solid forehead to my cap. “It will be okay,” she murmured in a softer tone. “We can’t fix it, but we can cover it up. I have ideas that should seal that hole. It will still be there, but it will be closed and not threaten anyone until a human who has the right powers arrives to heal Somewhere properly.”
I sagged, literally. It felt like all my cotton slumped into my legs. “That will be more than sufficient. I suppose Charity will manage something similar.” Which raised an interesting prospect. What if Princess Charity fell into one of these rifts while repairing them? Would it send her back to Elsewhere?
No. If mirrors led back to Elsewhere, it didn’t make sense that these would. We’d gotten a good look into this crack, and seen something fall in. Whatever fell in wasn’t destroyed, and didn’t go Elsewhere. It went Nowhere. That might be better than disintegration, but not by much. In the case of a human, either they would have the power to climb out again, or be stuck in some variety of nightmare stasis. Charity falling in would either be useless, or too horrible a fate for Sandy to desire. If Sandy didn’t want it, I didn’t want it.
So much for that idea.
Sandy took a deep breath, signaling she had something else big on her mind. “Heartfelt, what did you think of… that voice?”
My mouth twitched. The stitches prevented me from actually rubbing my lips against each other, but that felt like a proper way to express concentrating on a grim topic. “Princess Charity expressed frustration at how harmless her troops are. I suspect she is fixing that by creating a new model of soldier that is larger and more ruthless. Most likely she wants them to be more intelligent, but from listening to it I suspect she does not know how to achieve that. Still, a straightforward viewpoint and total obedience would seem like a large improvement in mental power to her.”
She nodded, her own lips tight. “That’s about what I thought. If she’s making a special army to fight me, I’m going to need… monsters.”
I blinked. “Oh, my. Tumbles?”
She shook her head, so quickly strands of hair flicked against my face. We were leaning very close together indeed. “Not ready, and I like him where he is. New monsters. Where do clothlings come from, again?”
Not sure if that question left me more scared or excited, I answered, “I believe the bundlish make them.”
“Where?”
Pulling out my book, I flipped around and squinted at the pictures under the night sky’s gloom. As bright and shiny as it looked, the rift produced no actual light. Ah, there we go. I pointed at the far northeast corner of a partial map. “Bundleberg.”
Chapter Twenty
Of course, we had to get there first.
I was learning to enjoy navigating There. Over Here, you picked a road and meandered through a lazy countryside, deciding if you felt like stopping at any of the beautiful landmarks along the way and chat with the people who contribute their little part in making Everywhere happy. There, if you wanted to go somewhere, the twisty little maze of forest paths would get you somewhere. Not necessarily where you intended to go, but somewhere.
Fortunately, I had a map.
Sort of.
Pointing at a page in my book, I leaned my head back and called up to Sandy, “Bundleberg is in the Northeast corner of There. It might even back against the mists. The next landmark South of it on my map is Candlemas. So, we follow any signs to Bundleberg, and try to take the path to the left of any signs to Candlemas!”
She grinned down. I rode on the saddle right in Sandy’s lap, and hadn’t really needed to shout, but our still nameless horse tried hard to slide as fast as Harrison, and I felt like wind should be rushing loudly past us. Sandy felt it too, and raised her voice. “That’s a name to conjure with. Metaphorically. I wasn’t talking about witchcraft.”
“I like to imagine that it’s a giant candle growing from a wax elemental underground, and little fire sprites melt free the candles that will be used to make dargons,” I said.
Her grin widened, and she let go of one of our horse’s handles to give my cap a fierce, affectionate rub. “That was so imaginative. Heartfelt, we’ll make a human of you yet.”
My heart glowed so bright I felt like I’d melt into it.
Our plan seemed to work. At least, we kept seeing signs pointing to Candlemas or Bundleberg. Where in Here you could see towns or towers or stone giants or gardens in the distance, There we’d pass things like a nearly human-sized vulture sitting on a branch above the road. It let out a deep, threatening croak as we passed.
I started to wave and greet it back, but Sandy put a hand over my mouth and shrank away, declaring, “Eek! Faster, noble steed!”
As much as I loved Sandy, her acting was terrible. It still convinced both our horse, who whinnied and put on a burst of speed, and the vulture, which bobbed on its perch and flapped its wings in happy pride, scattering soot from triangles of felt.
My heroine was such a nice person.
We passed through another branch of the Maze that librarians had marked a route across. Then another, which had been dealt with a bit more finally. A straight path from entrance to exit had been completely cleared, leaving wood paneling where the corridors had run, and ground down dirt where there used to be walls. We could see into the mirror-lined passages easily as we rode past.
As we rode through, I pointed at the ground. “No broken glass, Miss Sandy. This happened long ago. Something so dramatic, it is surely a human’s work.”
“Interesting that Belle Tower didn’t close the gap,” she mused.
I shook my head. “If a human did this, I don’t think she would dare.”
She chuckled, eyes narrowed in thoughtful amusement. Or amused thought. Was there a difference between those descriptions? “I’m getting the feeling the inhabitants of There are made of a little sterner stuff than you’re used to. Belle Tower didn’t fold right up facing me, and I’m her direct boss, the witch of witches. She could have reclaimed this.”
Rubbing my mitten against
my chin, I considered that. “In which case, she may have helped the librarians along. Perhaps she doesn’t like how the branches of the Maze restrict traffic, and only wants people to get lost who intend to get in. There might be bridges elsewhere. Or tunnels. Do you think we’ll get to—”
“WHOA!” shouted Sandy, and as the rocking horse reared back, I was forced to stop talking and focus on holding onto the pommel and my book and, most importantly, squealing in fright!
We skidded to a halt a few feet away from a tangle of brass wheels and twittering birds.
“We wouldn’t be behind schedule if you looked where you’re going!” chirped one, waving his wing in accusation.
“You were the one who wasn’t looking where you’re going!” tweeted the messenger bird in front of him.
“I wouldn’t have to look where I’m going if you looked where you were going.” The first bird folded his wings over his puffed out chest, beak lifted in confidence of his unimpeachable argument.
An extremely fat bird off to the side propped her wings on her… well, she didn’t really have hips, being mostly spherical. Butt? Anyway, it was the same position, and she sounded quite cross. “I was watching where I was going, but you two came zooming out of nowhere and smacked into me!”
A fourth messenger bird bobbed its head, with a particularly high-pitched chirp. “I saw you all rammed together, and thought it was what we were supposed to do!”
“And me!”
“And me!”
One, two, three, four, five… six. Yes, six messenger birds, with their monocycles in a heap.
Sandy crouched down among the bickering birds, picking up their circular brass vehicles one by one, squinting at each as she turned them around to watch the inner ring spin. “It looks like they’re not damaged.”
I slid down onto her knee, pulling my wobbly, badly-sewn-on glasses against my face as I leaned over to examine the mess still on the ground. “Aside from being stuck together, I believe these three are functionally intact as well.”
Sandy put one down, rolled it forward and back, and finally pushed it over to its owner. “You three could go on your way right now, if you want.”
A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There Page 30