Heidi came through.
She glanced back to see what I was looking at.
“Oh. These things again.”
“You’ve dealt with them before?”
“Eighteen months ago, thereabouts. Some idiot—not you, Borrick—”
He’d just stepped through himself. At the word ‘idiot’, he shot a look between Heidi and me that was part wounded, part indignant.
“—must’ve tracked their seeds back through someplace like Ostiagard or Pharo, because wherever they were native to, they’re all over the place now.” She turned her nose up. “Ridiculous things. Can’t imagine how much energy they waste, flailing about like that.”
“Oh,” said Borrick, his tension leaving him—still thought we were quietly slagging him off while he caught up, I guess. “Exu trees.” He peered at the one that had almost decapitated me—if, you know, it were traveling at anything faster than its relatively sedate speed. “I used to be quite impressed by them, until I learned they spread like weeds.”
“Uh huh,” I said. My interest had diminished. The trees were interesting, I’d give them that. With a touch more speed, they’d be bloody dangerous—imagine one of those trunks coming down on you with a particularly violent spasm. Ouch. That’d leave one killer headache.
Shrinking Decidian’s Spear back to its glamoured form, I reattached it to my belt. “So where are we going?”
Heidi glanced about. “There,” she said, and pointed. Between the twitching, gliding woodland, I could make out a shoreline—when the trees’ movements permitted it, anyway. A river cut through here. And there was—something else.
I frowned as the dark smear was obscured from view again. “What is that?”
Borrick’s eyes gleamed. “You won’t believe this. Come on.”
After having spent time up close and personal with an Antecessor, and seen the true nature of the universe, I didn’t think there was anything that could really shock me at this point. Regardless, I followed Heidi and Borrick as they trekked, picking out a careful path between the trees. Not easy—the canopy was fairly low, with boughs all the way down to chest height, so it was a stop-start process, watching the few feet ahead us of for a suitable gap before proceeding.
The exu trees’ seeds were spilled all over the ground. Small, conic things, they reminded me of Cornetto cones, but in miniature, and green. Also, with tiny barbs on the bottom end. Must’ve been what stuck them to some poor Seeker’s clothes. I’d have to do a fine job of picking them off of my own, unless I wanted to see London overcome with the things.
Couldn’t deny that it’d give botanists an exciting change of pace though.
The seeds were only maybe half a centimeter across. But the carpet of them was ridiculous. There must be millions here, perhaps billions or even trillions in the whole forest.
And they stunk. Because that was the other thing that hit me when I stepped through the gateway—the smell. The scent was like perfume, something with flowers, but close to rancid. It permeated the air with a nasty, acidic tang. And stepping through the carpet of seeds, crushing them under our boots? It made the smell a whole lot worse.
“This is disgusting,” I coughed, from behind Heidi and Borrick.
“Yes,” said Borrick. “And this is coming from a man who spent months commanding an army of orcs.”
“How are your leather-skinned friends, by the way?” Heidi asked, laying the sarcasm on thick. “Have you had them try to kill anyone else just lately?”
Borrick regarded her with a flat look. “They did not kill you. I had your American friend in my custody, recall? And he was returned without a scratch.”
“He was bait,” Heidi said. “You would’ve had them kill us if it meant you’d get to the Chalice Gloria first.”
He gritted his teeth, expression grim. “Can we not let bygones be bygones? We’ve all made mistakes.” His eyes flickered over to me, and I wondered—was he indicating Heidi’s mistake in talking to Lady Angelica about my life? Or alluding to my own failure to stop Manny from—
“Fine,” said Heidi. “Don’t think this means I trust you though.”
Borrick stopped. “Do you forget—” His gaze fell upon me, as I slipped through the space between twisting trees that he and Heidi had just passed. His words died in his throat. After a moment, he finished, “What happened, before.”
“Oh, I sincerely doubt I will ever forget that,” Heidi retorted, eyes flashing. “And if you’re blaming me—”
“It was you who—”
“Can we just move?” I said wearily. I’d hardly raised my voice; still, both Heidi and Borrick looked round, as though I’d shouted over their burgeoning disagreement to silence them. “I’d kind of like to get this over with.” I screwed up my nose. “It really does stink here.”
“Yes,” said Heidi, shooting a pointed look at Borrick, “it does.” Then she slid past him, toward the riverbed, without a look back.
He pursed his lips, and stalked after her, long jacket flapping about his hips with the force of his stride. It was well coated in exu burrs already.
The river slowly revealed itself through the seething mass of trees, first in strips as the trunks flexed and permitted a moving window to it, and then all at once as we finally stepped out of the woods.
The river itself was some ten, fifteen meters wide. It moved gently between two sandy banks, where it was nestled perhaps halfway up. The water was clear, enough to see black fish darting about the bottom, which was maybe three meters down. A layer of exu tree seeds had been sown upon the water’s surface. They clumped, and sailed from right to left, where a babble suggested that the river soon poured over a small hump.
All in all, it was a fairly standard river.
Except for the slot machine dug into the sandy embankment.
I stopped and stared at it. This was the dark smear I’d seen through the trees—this fruit machine, looking like it could have been plucked from any arcade around Britain’s coasts, and deposited here.
The machine was on.
Its lights pulsed, illuminating the reels to a vibrant chiptune. Prizes were printed over the case, by the reels themselves—two apples won five coup, three exu tree seeds paid fifteen coup, and if you lucked out and scored a row of 7s, you were awarded the unspecified GRAND PRIZE.
“What is this doing out here?” I asked.
“Crazy, isn’t it?” asked Borrick, stepping close. “How is it even powered? Unless …” He stooped down low and began digging out the sand about the machine’s base, searching for a power cable, running from—where, exactly?
“Who cares?” said Heidi sharply. “Mira—we need you for this.”
“Me? For what? If you’re hoping I’ll rack up a win, you’re sadly mistaken. Those things are a rip-off. Besides which, I don’t have any coup.”
“It doesn’t take coup.” Heidi pointed at Borrick. “Coin. Give.”
He frowned. “I’m not a dog.” Regardless, he dug in his jacket pocket, and retrieved the pouch the Mira coin was stored in.
“This is the only coin that will fit in this slot,” said Heidi.
Sure enough, the coin slot was a very long one, three and a half inches tall, and maybe half as wide again as a £2 coin.
“Technically, I think you could fit a lot of different-sized coins in there,” I pointed out.
“Fine, pedant. It’s the only coin for which that slot is designed.”
“Right,” I said. “Well, fire it up then.”
“We’ve tried,” said Heidi.
To demonstrate, Borrick approached the fruit machine’s front. He made a show of placing the Mira coin into the slot. It disappeared, clunking away … and then it was ejected from the coin return at the bottom of the machine.
“We’ve tried a hundred times,” said Borrick. “It won’t accept it.”
“Tried rubbing it on your jacket?” I asked snarkily. “That sometimes helps.”
“Ha ha,” said Heidi flatly. “The machin
e won’t accept it.”
“So it’s not working then.”
“No—it’s working. Mira … it’s you who has to do it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How are you so sure?”
Borrick lifted the coin, so my sedate, embossed face looked out at me. “Did you forget whose picture is printed on this thing?”
“The Queen’s bonce is on the back of every coin in England,” I said. “Yet unless she’s had a gender reassignment and picked up a nasty drinking problem, I’m pretty sure it’s not her I typically see sinking cash into the fruities down Clacton.”
“Come on, Mira,” said Heidi. She took the coin out of Borrick’s hand—snatched it, almost—and joined me. “You can be sarcastic all you want—but you must see how clear this is. The Antecessors want you. We tried it without you—”
“Thanks.”
“—but at this point, it’s obvious. You’re the only way forward.”
She extended the coin to me.
“Please, Mira,” she said. “You know what it’s like to have lost someone.”
I pursed my lips. I could do without hearing this damned sob story again.
But tug at my heartstrings, it did. And besides—I’d agreed to do this, regardless of how silly it all felt. So I took the coin from Heidi, stepped to the front of the machine, and plunked it into the slot.
A series of clunks—
The machine ate the coin.
In return, the reels lit up. The chiptune changed.
SPIN! announced that the one-armed bandit was ready to be played.
Heidi sucked in a breath.
Borrick looked positively enthralled—like a kid taken to their very first sweet shop—but a massive one, with shelves and shelves of jars and tubs and bars of chocolate and bags of boiled sweets …
“Pull the arm,” Heidi whispered.
I resisted the urge to tell her that I wasn’t an idiot, thanks—it would only draw this thing out—and gave it a yank.
The reels spun into motion. They whizzed round, the chiptune blaring louder—but they kept turning, all of them, getting quicker and quicker, so the images on them blurred—
“You’re supposed to press the buttons to stop the reels,” said Borrick.
“There aren’t any!” True enough, the entire face of the machine was devoid of them. It had the arm and coin slot, and only that. Even the coin return didn’t have the usual (generally non-working) button to demand a refund of the last unspent money paid in.
The chiptune rose to a frenetic screech. The reels’ whirring grew to a pitched scream—
“Pull the arm!” Heidi cried.
I yanked it again—
All the reels stopped.
7 7 7
I stared.
We all stared.
And then a voice echoed, as if it came from within our heads—
“SOMETHING FUN,” it boomed, “FOR THE RETICENT.”
A grinding noise—the sandy bank under out feet began to shake, spilling little dunes down into the water, carting more exu tree seeds down to float in clumps downstream …
“What’s happening—?” I asked.
The machine gave a violent shudder.
“Mira,” Borrick hissed. He grabbed me by the arm, pulled me backward as—
The fruit machine descended into the sand, swallowed inch by inch, lower and lower … until the arm vanished, the wall of rewards—7 7 7 – GRAND PRIZE! was the last of them, emblazoned right across the top of the nameless machine—and then it disappeared. The vibration continued, so the sand spilled over the top of the fruit machine as it sunk into the earth …
And then it was gone. The woods were quiet again.
We stood there, alone, staring at the spot where the slot machine had vanished, deeply, deeply confused.
“What,” I breathed, “was that?”
“Uh …” said Heidi.
I turned. She’d pivoted, looking out over the water.
I followed her gaze.
Where moments ago the water had been topped only with miniature rafts made of exu burrs, there now floated a tree trunk. It lolled easily beside the bank, as though it were tethered there, though no such tether held it in place.
A long, rectangular hole was carved in the top of it, like a flume boat.
Borrick clapped his hands together. “We’re going sailing.”
I pursed my lips, catching a look from Heidi that indicated no, she was no more excited about this than I was. Still, what else was there to do? We boarded, and as soon as the three of us had stepped into the log boat—
It shifted away from the bank with a lurch, moving into the center of the river.
“Whoa,” Borrick said, crouching low and clutching the sides of the vessel to keep from going overboard.
“Careful,” Heidi said.
“Remind me,” I said, “why is it I’m taking pole position here?” Right at the very front of the boat, I’d get to see—what, exactly? I had no idea what this challenge involved. Realistically, I should be at the very back of this thing. Or on the shore, watching from the sidelines while this pair of chronic backstabbers were carted off into the rapids. “I feel like my only reward of note here is to be the one to absorb all the splashing, and being your sponge seems a pitiful incentive.”
“The challenge required you to activate it,” said Heidi. “It’s not unreasonable to think that it also requires you to take the lead.” She shifted, and the boat moved beneath her. “Also, I don't fancy being waterlogged.” Under her breath she muttered, “Again.”
“Take the lead in doing what?” I demanded, twisting to glare at her. “I’m very much in the dark here.”
“That’s hardly my fault,” Heidi said.
“Of course it is! You showed up at my doorstep with a coin that has my face on, and a request that I help. I have no idea what I’m doing. I might end up fending off giant piranhas or something.”
“Those aren’t piranhas,” said Borrick, leaning over the side of the boat to peer down into the river.
“You don’t know that.”
He frowned. “They’re only little things.”
“Small things can cause a whole lot of pain,” I countered with a pointed look at Heidi.
“And disappointment,” Heidi added, the implied meaning clearly going over her head.
The log reached the center of the river—it had moved really quite slowly, long enough for this entire conversation to unfold—but now it stopped dead, like we’d thrown an anchor down with a chain only long enough to stretch straight from boat to river bed and locked us in place.
We waited.
“Come on then,” I said to the woods. “Do something.”
As if on cue—
A projected waterfall filled the air before the boat, rising out of the water as if sprayed.
Now both Heidi and Borrick gasped.
“Antecessor,” he whispered.
I felt no such exhilaration. My eyes narrowed.
If I didn’t know it would do no good, I’d leap to my feet, swing Decidian’s Spear to its full length, and hurl the thing at it.
But it was a projection, only that—perhaps even a recording.
No—couldn’t be that. The Antecessor that had spoken in our minds had promised a fun challenge ‘for the reticent’. That could only be in reference to me. And hadn’t I already seen one of these pseudo-gods alter a connection for us today, to guide us quite blatantly back to my hideout rather than going straight to the cut-through via Bank?
No, the Antecessors were here right now—watching.
“YOUR PRIZE,” it said, the voice seeming to come from somewhere between my ears, but to the back of my head.
Before us, a triangular pyramid materialized. About the same size as the coin I’d just deposited into the fruit machine, it hung in the air and spun about its apex lazily. Separated from me by perhaps two arm lengths, it was distant enough that I could not just lurch forward and grab it—or make out the patt
erning on its faces.
“GOOD LUCK.”
The waterfall/Antecessor projection dispelled—and we were off.
The pyramid moved first. Whizzing off like the Antecessors’ version of the golden Snitch, it zipped away down the river—and then the log boat surged after it on a sudden wave that careened into us from behind, pushing us forward with enough force to send me reeling backward into Heidi, and Heidi into Borrick—
“Ow!” Borrick yelped. “My back—!”
—and him, evidently, into the rear ridge that kept all three of us from tumbling out into the water.
“Grab it, Mira,” Heidi called over my shoulder. Her voice was deafened by the sudden surge of water all around us. The river had gone, in one moment, from sedate and calm to a torrent—and we were carried along it, atop the winding pathway it carved through a woods that was alive with shimmering, flexing trees—
“How long do you think my arms are?” I cried.
“So stand up!”
“And go falling into the river? No, thanks.”
“I’ll brace you! Come on.”
Once again, I had to keep myself from retorting a sharp, “No!” just on principle. But why? We were hardly raging down actual waterfalls, contending with sharp, pointed rocks. The body of water we were carried on wasn’t even that deep—a few meters, if that. Worst that happened was I got bowled over, got a bit wet, and Heidi and Borrick had to take the lead. He’d be better at it anyway; he at least had an inch or two of extra reach than I did.
Besides which, there was one other thing, the most important of all: the quicker we got this quest done, the quicker I could return to my family home in Essex. I could hang up my Seeker coat, give my father back his compass, hand Decidian’s Spear over to the Order of Apdau, and retire—permanently.
So, on unsteady legs, I rose.
The log boat rode the waters at a brisk pace. It bobbed and rocked, not very smooth at all. My clambering up added an extra bit of sway to it, so I had to crouch low to avoid going over straight away. Done though I might be with things, if that happened, I at least still had some dignity—and careening overboard the moment I began to rise would be mightily embarrassing. Not because of the Antecessors watching—they could shove Decidian’s Spear up their backsides, for all I cared—and not really even because of Heidi and Borrick. I just knew it was a shame that I’d never live down in my own head.
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