Senrid

by Sherwood Smith

  TEN

  I woke up when a foot nudged my side, causing me to roll over. Feeling like a disassembled wooden toy, I groaned. Bright sunlight shone on my eyelids.

  I cracked them open (which took about as much effort as it would take to lift the average horse and set it onto the average roof) to find myself looking up into a round-headed silhouette that was very familiar.

  I groaned again, lifted a hand to block the sun, and Senrid’s curious gray-blue gaze met my own.

  “That transfer seems to have blasted our magic—including your illusion spell. I wanted to see what you really look like,” he explained, before I could croak out the insults already piling up in my head.

  My tongue felt sprained, and all I could do was grunt and wheezle and cough.

  And before I could recover, Senrid gave me a smile that looked to my bleary vision like a smirk, and moved away.

  While I lay there trying to recover from the smashing reaction of that monster magic-transfer, Senrid wandered about on the sandy beach. The air was balmy, and smelled heavily of brine; Senrid and 713 and Kitty and Autumn had never been near the ocean before, but the rest of us who had were reminded of shores at home.

  Blue-green waves crashed nearby, each foamy run of water coming in a little farther than the last, covering very white, very soft sand. Scattered about on the beach sat or lay the others, who regarded Senrid with wariness or downright hatred.

  Except 713, who looked tired and sick, and Autumn, who was just curious.

  Inland appeared to be a dense jungle, with no inviting pathway.

  Before long we were all awake, exchanging exclamations about where we could be (no one knew) and how we felt (nasty) and what was to come next (again, no one knew). All, that is, except Senrid.

  I ignored him as I yanked off Ndand’s heavy winter shoes and threw them as far from me as I could. Shoes! I never wore them at home, except on winter patrols through the woods.

  Autumn gave Senrid troubled glances from time to time. Kitty kept her back to him, and everyone else was too busy with our conversation, which circled round and round, punctuated by Faline’s jokes, and went exactly nowhere.

  Finally 713 observed, from the rock on which he’d been sitting, “Tide’s coming in.”

  “Nosy, ain’t it?” Faline commented, adding, “That’s a joke, ‘3, so you have to laugh.”

  The warrior gave her an absent grin, which was good enough for Faline. She liked the fellow, and didn’t like seeing him look so worn out. For Faline, a grin meant a person was next thing to feeling great. Nothing too bad could happen as long as people could laugh.

  Kitty put her hands on her hips and said loudly, “Maybe we’d better explore before that stinkard plans how to kill us next.” She sent a sour glare in Senrid’s direction.

  He sat there on a fallen log with weird scaly bark, his uniform sandy and grubby. Absolutely nothing could be read from his bland kid-face, except that sarcastic shadow at either side of his mouth.

  Just the sight of him brought back the worries and fears of the past couple of days, and since I no longer had to hold in my thoughts, I marched right up to him.

  “So what now, great and mighty king? Executions before lunch, or after?”

  He said, “Do you have access to your magic?”

  Truth to tell, I hadn’t tried—my head was still ringing Weirdly. I shut my eyes, reached for knowledge of the transfer spell, and felt the words skitter away like frightened mice. Words I’d worked and sweated to master.

  I opened my eyes and began forming an insult, because I was not about to admit any weakness to Senrid. But he’d been watching. He said, “I don’t either. I can frame a spell but not perform it.”

  “Good!” I know I was smirking.

  “We’ve been warded,” he said. “That means we’re all at someone else’s mercy.”

  “Oh, I’ve gotten pretty used to being at the mercy of rock-brained spackelodeons in the past couple of days,” I snarled. “This will be a refreshing change—whatever happens. It can’t possibly be worse, or more stupid, than you and your uncle.”

  “Want a bet?” Senrid fired back.

  I opened my mouth, but he was already looking past me.

  I turned, envisioning hordes of sword-waving villains, but all I saw was that the tide had come in farther. As you’d expect. Except that after a time wasn’t the water supposed to recede before it came in again?

  When I turned back, Senrid was walking away.

  So I rejoined the others.

  713 had shifted higher up the beach, studying the vast expanse of gray-green ocean with a very troubled look on his bruised, messed-up face.

  Leander, who hadn’t spoken much, announced that he was going to try to explore inland, and that functioned as a cue for everyone else to pick a direction in which to nose about.

  So we did. Senrid moved farther down the beach. It became apparent even to my jumbled mind that he’d already explored—having been the first to recover—and hadn’t found anything of help. But he said nothing, and one by one the rest of us reported the increasingly worrying news that we seemed to be stuck. Leander came back, sweaty and scratched, to say that the jungle was impenetrable except maybe by insects.

  And the tide kept coming in, a little at a time.

  After the futile search Faline and Kitty started making a sand-city, as if having fun might make this weird situation turn normal. Leander watched, and I could tell from his grin that he was waiting for a good chance to splat one of the castles and start a sand-fight. Faline’s snorts and snickers made it clear she hoped it would be one of hers.

  I helped for a time, until hunger and tiredness and leftover transfer malaise made it easier to sit on the sand, let the fading sunlight warm my skin, and watch. We didn’t seem to be in any great danger, and I was too tired and hungry and worn to plan.

  Kitty and Faline chattered happily, busy with roads and walls and tunnels between their houses. Beyond them 713 sat motionless until Senrid approached him, his back to us, and began talking.

  713 was a mess, but he was big. Would he take out Tdanerend’s nastiness on Senrid? He didn’t look angry, I thought, as I watched Senrid kneel down by 713, his hands gesturing as he talked. The ex-warrior didn’t look angry, or happy, or really much of anything—except maybe tired. But then he said something brief, and after a moment he made a gesture with one of his bruised hands, touching his fist to his heart. I hoped it was some kind of insult. Senrid’s back was still to us and I couldn’t see his face. He got to his feet, and walked up the beach toward the jungle.

  That was strange, I thought, closing my eyes. Did 713 get mad at him—or not? Marlovens! Who can figure them?

  And a voice spoke next to me: “What happened to my cousin?”

  Senrid! He’d circled around while I was thinking, and snuck up behind me. I jerked away, though Senrid hadn’t threatened me. But I was not about to trust him.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I said rudely, savoring the exquisite thrill of being able to say what I liked to a creep and a villain.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s why I asked.”

  “She’s safe from you,” I sneered. “That’s all you need to know.”

  “So you’ve got her locked up as a prisoner?” he retorted. The idea of Clair making anyone a prisoner boiled my blood. “Hah! She’s free to go anywhere she wants! Or will be, when Cl—when the spells are gotten off her.”

  “Cl—?” he prompted.

  “Clear off, nosy,” I snapped back.

  “Clair? She knows enough magic to undo my uncle’s tangle of spells?”

  I said, “If you think for one stinking second that you are going to add Clair to your little list of future pincushions, you can forget it, you rat-faced, lying gnackle! She’s going to help your cousin—something you will never be smart enough to understand the meaning of—and then she’ll send her anywhere she wants.”

  “Even home?”

  “Yes. Though I doubt Nd
and would be that stupid.”

  “But she liked home—when my uncle wasn’t scaring her,” Senrid said. “And as soon as I get back, it’s time for my uncle to retire.”

  “So you can run your own executions?” I shot back snidely.

  Senrid gave me a look of disgust and turned away.

  “Hah!” I yelled at his back.

  “Good one,” Kitty said, coming up next to me. “I heard every word, and didn’t he deserve it!”

  I shrugged, feeling somewhat odd. I mean, it’s one thing to exercise my grudge, and another to have someone cheering me on. So I tried to think of a subject change—but Kitty beat me to it. With a furtive glance Leander’s way (he was at the other end of the beach) she said, “Faline said you came from Earth.”

  “Yes?” I hated remembering Earth.

  “Were you of royal blood there?”

  I laughed. Couldn’t help it, even though Kitty looked a little offended. “Nope. Not even. In fact, where I come from, there aren’t any nobles, or kings, or emperors. And even if there were, I wouldn’t have been one.”

  I braced for more questions, but Kitty had obviously lost interest as soon as I said there weren’t any nobles.

  Autumn appeared from the other side of a thick-leafed plant right then, and gave us each a slight grimace. Her arms were laden with gourd-shaped fruits. “I found these up the shore a little,” she said. “They taste pretty good, and I waited, and nothing nasty has happened inside me.”

  “But you’re not really human,” I said doubtfully.

  “I am as much as Faline is,” she replied.

  That made sense—sort of. It means, when others have human form, they more or less work according to human rules. There are a few exceptions, but eating doesn’t seem to be one. Anyway, I waved and yelled, “Food!”

  The others came running, all except Senrid. Autumn handed out a fruit to each person. I’d hoped she hadn’t gotten him one, but she had. After a quick glance at him (his back was turned as he watched the sea) she laid his share on a rock, and moved away.

  I never would have been that generous. And though I promptly reassured myself that such a thought was perfectly justified, I couldn’t really hold onto it. So I turned away, and bit into my fruit. The skin was thick, a little like Earth banana-skins, except it tasted good. Inside, the fruit was a little like citrus and a little like pomegranates. It had a faint sweetness, lots of juice, and felt refreshing going down.

  I finished mine and buried the core in the white sand, straightening up in time to see Kitty take Senrid’s share off the rock and throw it, with all her strength, into the sea, where it bobbed about on the tide.

  Leander said something to her in a low voice, to which she yelled, “I don’t care!”

  I winced, not wanting to hear an argument, because I sympathized with both of them. So I wandered away, and found myself near Autumn. Her changeable eyes reflected the sinking sun, looking all greeny and browny and blue, as she smiled at me. Her skin was dotted with new freckles, which on her were pretty, just like Faline’s are funny.

  “I feel magic,” Autumn said to me. “I think—I think I have to look about for it.” She rubbed her hands up her arms, then opened them, palms turned upward. “I feel that I can do anything.”

  She seemed just an ordinary girl, standing there in her worn old dress, her ruddy brown hair hanging tousled down her back, but the way the sinking sunlight lit her so brightly, it seemed as if she glowed. Very hard to explain. She was both familiar—and different.

  “Well, if you find it, I hope it can get us home,” I said.

  Autumn grinned. “So you feel it too? This isn’t our world. I don’t know how I know, and nothing looks or feels or smells that different, but I know it.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Though that jungly-stuff sure looks different. I’ve never seen plants like any of those behind us. They look like plastic.” At her puzzled look, I amended hastily, “This disgusting stuff that everything is made of on Earth.”

  Autumn turned around to gaze into the shadowy depths of the jungle. Broad, waxy leaves waved a little in the cool breeze that now fingered through our hair. She shrugged.

  The others came toward us. The sun was sinking fast. Our long shadows were going dim, melding into one big shadow.

  Leander said, “I guess we ought to settle down and sleep right here on the sand.”

  I nodded. “Sounds good to me. A nice change,” I added in a louder voice, glancing Senrid’s way out of the corners of my eyes, “from the total lack of sleep that seems to be Rule Three in the Villains’ Handbook.”

  “Rule Three?” Kitty repeated.

  “What’s Rule One?” Faline asked, snickering. “You have to have a white beard, like Kwenz and Shnit, and mean faces?”

  “Oh, you have to be a liar, a coward, and a cheat,” I replied as loudly as I could.

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!” Kitty fake-laughed in a loud, hard voice.

  I added, glaring now at Senrid, “And Rule Two is, Kill Everyone Who Disagrees. A real popularity plus, and you’re sure to always hear the truth!”

  No answer.

  Leander shook his head a couple times, then stretched out onto a mounded sand dune. 713 was already asleep. He’d lain down not long after eating his share of the fruit.

  Before long we’d all settled down to sleep, and once I was comfortable, I dropped off fast.

  My dreams, bland enough at first, slowly altered into vaguely uncomfortable ones that featured wet, cold toes, but I didn’t actually waken until a sudden splash of cold water drenched me thoroughly.

  I sat up, gasping, to find that the tide had come all the way up the beach to where I lay. I had settled on what I’d thought was the highest point of the beach, not far from the jungle, but now I looked out at an unbroken expanse of water, fear scrunching my innards.

  The others, some of them wet, stood ranged along the edges of the jungle—which began abruptly, with thick, tough pale green plants growing out of the sandy soil. The blue-white light of dawn revealed somber, worried faces. 713 kept rubbing slowly at one arm, and he twitched his shoulders and winced as though his back hurt.

  At the far end of our row, I saw Senrid making motions with his fingers, his hands expressive of anger. Magic spell! Magic spells that were not working.

  Leander crossed to his side, and addressed a few words to him. Senrid looked up sharply, then out to sea, and then snapped his hands out as he said something back. Then Leander shrugged.

  To my surprise, he came back toward us.

  “Why did you talk to that disgusting stinkard?” Kitty asked, folding her arms across her front.

  “Truce,” Leander said. “No more execution list.”

  “Sure,” I said. “While we’re here. But what if he gets access to his magic first?”

  Leander said, “He told me—for what it’s worth—that he really hadn’t wanted to see you three dead, but couldn’t figure out a way around it.”

  I opened my mouth to scoff, but a certain vivid memory blasted my brain from inside—another near-miss execution not so long ago. Somewhere very different, with different people. I hadn’t wanted to see it happen, but I’d been unable to stop it—and it wouldn’t have stopped, despite my most agonized wishes, until someone else’s ambition did the trick.

  I hadn’t gone and collected the people for it, but someone could make a case for the whole thing having been my fault for picking a fight with a very, very nasty and vindictive villain.

  So I sighed, and was about to say, “Truce,” but first Kitty yelled, “Hah! Why even waste the time talking to a liar?”

  “I think,” Leander said, “we should not waste any more time talking at all, but get up into some of these trees—”

  Just as he spoke a big wave came rolling at us, sounding like a great ripping of sailcloth, and we dashed and floundered in the stiff, waxy shrubs, which tore at hair and clothing. Seawater foamed and splashed at our feet.

  The trees were rough and sc
aly but fairly easy to climb.

  The tide seemed to be coming in almost as fast as we climbed; within moments the water now swirled and hissed round the lower levels of the trees, covering the shrubs entirely.

  Kitty wailed in fright, crying, “I can’t swim! I can’t swim!”

  “Climb higher,” Leander called, holding down his hands to her when it became obvious that she also didn’t know how to climb trees.

  Poor Kitty clung to her branch as water splashed against their tree right up to their chins, fanning her silvery hair out around her. Senrid had gone up another tree; he’d taken off his tunic earlier, and now it was gone, leaving him shivering in shirt and trousers and boots.

  Ndand’s black-and-gold dress dragged at me, soggy and heavy. I was highest, so I saw the others one by one forced away from their trees. Kitty wailed, too frightened to hear 713 and Leander trying to reassure her. Farther away, Autumn scanned in one great, slow circle, and then, with a calm, deliberate movement, dove cleanly into the water.

  She did not come up again.

  Faline bobbed near me. I held out my hand to rescue her—and then a big, cold, gray wave washed over me. I clung hard, but the water sucking at my heavy, sodden skirts pulled me relentlessly away from the tree. The waves tumbled me into the water, the cumbersome gown now dragging me down.

  Kicking hard, I broke the surface. Sucked in a shuddering lungful of air, then sputtered and spat the nasty salty water out.

  Fighting to tread water, I wondered how long I’d last when something brushed my foot, and I kicked back at it in frightened reaction. Nothing. The touch again—tentative, and then a quick little tug on my skirt.

  I held my breath and peered down into the water, ignoring the sting. I made out a blurry shape: Autumn. Who gestured downward.

  Dive?

  She was already far below, tiny bubbles like pearls rising from her face. I became aware of the sense of magic tingling through my fast-numbing body. Autumn swam up to me, and showed herself drawing air in.

  I ducked my head again, and though my heart kaboomed in fear, I let a little water trickle into my nose—and it didn’t hurt!