Teeuh pumped her wings for a moment. “I'm on my way,” she said, suddenly fluttering away in to the air with her staff. She returned before long, convinced that it was indeed the beginning of the great bluff and announced that she was going back up to keep an eye out and wait on everyone to get there. Bart sprang into flight and followed. He wasn't one for flying at night, but he allowed that following Teeuh would be better than the bother of bobbing along on a swaying shoulder.
It was surprising work finding their way up in the dark, having to go around and clamber over all manner of rock and boulder without losing their footing, so that it was already going slower than they had imagined. Half way up, Daniel stopped in the sliding talus to look out over the countryside and listen to the utter silence.
“What scratchy-head do be for eyeballs?” said Maxi, coming up beside him.
“I can't believe how dead and barren it is,” said Daniel. “I don't hear a single sound out here except for the wind. See the mountain ridge over yonder on the far side of the valley?”
Maxi nodded his beetle brow and peered into the distance.
“Right beyond used to be Loxmere, the very kingdom where I am court wizard, right now, seven hundred and fifty year ago. I know every league of the Ash Mountains, from here all the way down to Cwm Eryr, where King Hebraun slew the Golls. And every single mile I've ridden is covered with tall forest and lush meadow. Are we where we're supposed to be? Am I clean turned about?”
“This be head-nod right-where,” said Maxi.
“So they cut down every last tree and then what?”
“Farmed it,” said Philpott.
“But how could raising food kill the whole countryside?”
“Well they have to keep spraying more all the time to get the same crop yield until whole areas give out and shut down. Besides, they don't want people getting away with living on the land. Threat to them, don't you know.”
Daniel had not the faintest idea what spraying could possibly be. “I'm right well aware that occasional people are poor farmers, but I've never in my life heard of someone so evil that he could poison everything alive,” he said as he shook his head and went back to climbing “And what is that horrid choking smell?”
“Just plastic,” said Llygad. “They must have an incinerator burning at the prison or the mine.”
When at last they reached the top of the bluff, Teeuh and Bart met them with the news that they had discovered a cave in a ravine running back from the bluff face about a half mile ahead. “And about a mile beyond that is a perfect hidden lookout on the crown of the bluff overlooking where the prison is, right adjacent to the mine,” said Teeuh. “The biggest problem with it is that it's just beyond a guard house that we'll have to be right careful to stay hidden from.”
The cave was an ideal place to sleep hidden and out of the weather, if it turned out that they needed such a place, but they chose to press on to the lookout, darting from rock to rock as they carefully swung wide of the guardhouse, so that they could be certain to have their camouflage netting completely pitched and anchored well before the earliest possible light. Once they had that done, they crawled to the edge underneath its cover and peered over.
“Look at this!” said Philpott, pulling aside the sleeping bag he had just spread out to lie on. “It's a human skull. I thought it was one heck of a light rock.”
“I've been picking up animal bones the whole way up here,” said Llygad. “But I sure missed any of them being human.”
“Bart and I saw a human skull back yonder, while we were waiting for you all to climb the end of the bluff.” said Teeuh.
“So those moving lights, down there,” said Daniel. “Can you tell what they are?”
“Rumble-snake of coal-hopper cars,” said Maxi, peering through some binoculars. “Coal train.”
“How about people?”
“Straight down below,” said Teeuh. “I see prisoners in what ever that thing is, coming out from directly underneath us, heading straight across to the prison.”
“Truck, what be,” said Maxi. “Leaving mine.”
“Can you make out faces?”
“Most of them looking wrong way,” said Maxi. “But each every one I see be stranger-people.”
Chapter 23
“Look straight down,” said Teeuh. “Two more trucks. That's what you called them? Leaving the mine. And it looks like they are also going straight across to the prison.”
“Stock trucks,” said Philpott. “Ton and a half. They'd be for cattle if they weren't hauling prisoners. Or sheep. Horses would jump out.”
“Hey Bart,” said Maxi. “Fly down and see if Kellen and Cait be in one of them.”
Bart immediately became Morrigan. “I will if I must,” she said. “But it's 'way too dark for me to see faces if I'm high enough not to be seen.”
“If Daniel holds my staff for me,” said Teeuh, “I can fly over the trucks and double back from the prison. I'll have to stay up high enough that they won't see me, but if I fly with these here things you've been calling binoculars, I might well recognize one of them. In fact using them from here, I think I already see a green head in the first truck.”
“Go!” said Morrigan. “or they'll get clean across.”
Teeuh was already aloft, fluttering high into the black sky over the valley, flying with everything she had to overtake the first truck.
“Well I hope nobody looks up,” said Llygad. “'Cause I can sure see her, even if she is 'way up there.”
“You're following her, for one thing,” said Philpott. “I admit that those pale green luna moth wings stand out. But with her darting about, 'way overhead like that, who could hit her with a gun?”
“Maybe not, but I'm afraid somebody's going to see her fly back here.”
Someone did look up. Just as Teeuh managed to spot the green haired fellow in the first truck, he looked right up at her. The instant that she clearly saw his face, she began beating her wings with everything she had, bouncing higher and higher, straight up into the sky until she was certain that no one on the ground could possibly be following her, before flying away for the bluff. At last, she dropped straight down and scurried under the camouflage netting.
“Wow!” cried Llygad. “We completely lost track of you. I never expected you to show up from that direction.”
“Good!” said Teeuh, pausing for a moment to catch her breath and pump her wings. “The better the chance that no one at the prison watched me come.”
“Did you see anyone?” said Daniel, handing back her staff.
“Kellen and no mistake,” she said. “But I had to break it off at once or be seen.
And we'd better hope that I wasn't. And it was hopeless to follow him with it all lit up where he was a-going...”
“Let's see what I can do,” said Morrigan, suddenly diving off the bluff into the blackness, as everyone rushed to the edge in time to see her turn into Bart in a tumble of feathers as she fell and then fly straight for the prison.
“So you didn't see Cait?” said Daniel as he sat back from the edge.
“She might have been on one of the other trucks,” said Teeuh. “But I'd 'ave been spotted had I tried to find her. Besides I'm not certain I'd recognize her.”
The last truck was driving through the prison gates as Bart landed in the shadows behind it and turned at once into a pot bellied prison guard, like all the others standing about. He overtook the truck as it stopped, smacking his hand with his e-truncheon as he rushed along, nearly at a jog. “Fates!” he said as he stopped short and hefted his heavy belly. “How do the men in this age stand it?” He whisked at the front of his shirt as if he had spilt something down it and resumed his hurried gait the moment his belly was gone.
By the time he was abreast of the first truck, all the prisoners had climbed down from it and were being marched inside and down a long hallway. He got a glimpse of a bobbing green head at the far end, but it vanished altogether long before he managed to catch up.
>
The hall looked like it divided and went both ways up ahead, but when he got there he came to a warder's station to one side of an electric door where a huge fat man sat with his clipboard, sweat glistening on his lardy rolls of jowl between his chin and collar. “Hey!” he barked, the juice of his chaw darkening his scowl. “I've not seen you before. You lost?”
“Trying not to be,” said Bart. “I'm new. Trying to learn the layout.”
“Yeh? Where y' supposed to be?”
“On my break. Just trying to get a feel of where everything is, don't you know.”
“No I don't,” he said, shifting his chaw. “I only went where I was told when I was new.”
“Actually,” said Bart, “with this being my first day on the job and no one bothering to show me about, do you reckon I could go have a look about in there?”
“Whew!” said the warder with a shake of his jowls. “That's one bushy tail you got, governor. All right. I'm going to let you in, but you have fifteen minutes. If you're not back here buzzing that door before then, you're staying inside until the next shift. You got that?”
Bart nodded.
The warder punched a button where he sat, and with a buzz and a pop of the latch, the door came open. Bart rushed right in and stopped short at the sight of three levels of cells facing a huge gallery, echoing with isolated voices and clangs. To his immediate right and left were staircases connecting the levels. “I'll never have enough time,” he said as he swung 'round the corner and charged up the steps to the top level to hurry from cell to cell, peeking in as he passed by. “Hey shit face!” he barked, banging on a cell with his e-stick as a brown head of hair pushed out from under a blanket. “Oh boil it!” And on he went, looking for the green head of hair.
He was becoming most anxious about how long this was all taking, when in the last cell of the next level down he caught sight of a green head hanging in dejection, studying the floor. “Kellen?” he said.
Kellen looked up in surprise at hearing his forename being used. “Is this a double shift?” he said warily.
“You look terrible,” said Bart.
“What's going on?” said Kellen. “Am I being set up?”
“Why would I be doing that?”
“Your surprises have been a nightmare...”
“Listen,” said Bart, lowering his voice. “We've come to get you out of here...”
“Look. I know better. What do you want?”
“No. We really are. Listen. I'm Bart...”
Kellen began shaking his head.
“Rainbow Bart. You know, Maud's crow. Surely you knew all along that I was Morrigan the skinwalker. I always had the idea that I saw it in your eye. Your dad knew me as Changing Woman when he was Talking Father. I'm here with Maxi, Teeuh and the wizard Daniel.
Kellen gave a great sigh and stopped shaking his head.
“I need to know two things,” said Bart. “When's your next shift? And where are they keeping Cait?”
“She's dead.”
“What?”
“They killed her,” he said, giving the iron grate of his cell a sudden shake. “And I'm staying here until I get the stinker.”
“Yeh?” said Bart with a dubious cock of his head. “Well I'm afraid we're getting you out of here. You've a lovely, but very sad and lonely daughter back home who's counting on it.”
“Nia or Tess?”
“Tess. Nia was taken to the capitol. But we're doing everything we can to find it and get her, too. You could help with that. Look. Cait's gone. You get the curse who killed her a hundred times over and you'll never bring her back. And you know very well that she'd want you to look after Nia and Tess. And this is the only, only chance you'll ever have to get out of here. What do you say?”
Kellen had to think about it long enough for Bart to let go of the bars, turn about once and look back in.
“All right,” he said with a heavy nod. “But if I cross paths with the son of a bitch on the way out, I will kill him.”
“And I'll even help you. Now when's your next shift?”
“Tomorrow afternoon at three.”
“And it ends at?”
“Eleven.”
“Watch for us both times, said Bart as he turned away to leave. “I have no idea which it'll be.”
“Wait! How is she? How's Tess?”
“Fine. But the fat man won't let me out if I'm not down there on time.”
“Hole?” said Kellen, dangling an arm out of his cell. “No way if it's Hole.”
Bart was already trotting down the metal steps. He rang the buzzer on the door at the bottom and waited. He was about to ring it again when the peephole slid open.
“Bushy tail!” said the pair of eyes.
“Well I'm here for you to let me out,” said Bart with an anxious nod.
“Was I supposed to let you out?”
“Yeh, you said...”
“I'll have to check,” said the pair of eyes as the peephole slid shut.
“Check?” said Bart, not knowing in the least whether he was late or not. “Damn this!”
He had just turned about and was pacing in agitation, pausing now and then to glance up at the three levels of cells, when the peephole behind him slid open. “Bushy tail!” said the pair of eyes.
“Well?” said Bart, turning right about.
“Was I supposed to let you out?” said the pair of eyes.
Bart was at a complete loss for an answer. Just as he was about to begin sputtering, the door buzzed and opened with a pop of its latch. He stepped through at once to find Hole heaving with laughter. Suddenly Bart was a shaggy lion with his paws on the desk, belching out a spittly roar into Hole's face.
Hole fell off the back of his stool with a squeal and hit the concrete floor with a sound like canvass and old melons.
“My word, Mr. Hole!” said Bart, now fully returned to the bushy-tailed guard he had just been. “Whatever are you doing down there? I just wanted to thank you for the look about the cell block. I'll be on my way then. All right?”
Hole gave another squeal with an unsuccessful lunge to sit up.
Bart went out whistling as if he were walking with his stick and valise on a sunny day. At the sight of the locked gates outside, he stepped into the shadows between the parked trucks, turned into Maud's old crow, and with a lunge, flew away into the black sky.
* * *
It had been several hours since Bart's visit, but Kellen still lay awake on his bunk thinking about it. He knew each one of the people Bart had mentioned, even Daniel. They made up a formidable handful to be coming for him. “But if Teeuh's here with the Great Staff and Crystal Heart... Damn!” he thought, sitting right up with a clap of his hands that echoed from the far corners of the cell block. “And no way she wouldn't be. I've never seen her without it. Even in this day and age, that pair of tools together gives her the most powerful instrument on the planet. Makes her the most powerful Fairy who's ever lived. Come tomorrow, I'm simply going home!” Suddenly he sprang to his feet in the darkness. “Whee-oo!” he yodeled out in the great echoing gallery.
“Shut the pit up, dumb ass!” hollered a nearby inmate. “If I don't get back to sleep, I'm going to make you drink out of Hole's toilet tomorrow!”
“Good!” cried Kellen. “Make it on my break and I won't be dying o' thirst for once!” He gave a giddy dance about and sat down on his bunk as the laughter, muttering and epithets died away. “And it wouldn't have any magic killing drug in it, either,” he thought. “It would be nice to have a bit of magic to set fire to Smiley's eyeballs on the way out.” Now he was shaking furious all over again. He felt like crying except that his crier had long gone dry. He gave his head a frantic shake to quit thinking of Cait. “Ah!” he said, managing to picture himself seeing Tess, but that made him think of poor Nia at the capitol and once more the relentless anger burnt.
* * *
Tess and Daniel were hurrying along the path from the mushroom ring in the woods to the tree hou
se castle on the far side of the meadow. They were in such a hurry that they were running and Tess was having trouble keeping up. She thought that they might be late for their wedding, but each time she asked where they were going, Daniel would tell her that if that if she could not go any faster, they would never get there at the same time that they left, which meant that there was no point in going at all. And now he was even disappointing her by insisting on speaking in Drake's voice.
“We'd better get going,” said Drake as he gently shook Tess's shoulder. “It may even be daylight.”
Tess lifted up her head from the rolling pawns on the chessboard. “Wow!” she said, rubbing at the red print on her cheek from the bishop she had slept on. “If my skinny's tried to wake me, I'm in a lot of trouble. Can you walk me home?”
“Let's go,” he said as they hurried to the stairs. They were quite relieved to find
Poot finishing a tattoo between the shoulders of an enormous trolldame as he chanted to the rattles of the troll on the stool, but when they stepped outside, the hint of light in the east had them leaving Broadstreet at a jog. And they were quite out of breath by the time
Drake helped her clamber up to her unlatched window, waved goodbye and disappeared around the corner.
“Wait just a minute!” she murmured as she stepped in through the window. “That door was closed. And I locked it.” In spite of her relief to find the white towel still covering the skinny on the shelves by her bed, she tiptoed into the kitchen in a rising panic. She found the kitchen skinny in the big saucepan by the stove, where Jasmine apparently forgot to remove it, covered with its lid. She put the lid back and switched on the light. Now she was furious as well, for the kitchen and living room were a chaos of scattered beer bottles and food. There was a plate of something with tomato sauce face down on the rug. An odd smell of scorched sugar hung in the air. Nothing had been spilt on the stove, but on the table she found a pair of strange pipes made of cardboard tubes with ashes tumbling out of the aluminum foil bowl of one of them onto the fresh hole burnt into the table cloth. “Rush!” she said, still looking about. “That's the very stuff I smell on the kids at school. Fools.”
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