Sagaria (39 page)

“I guess so.” Sagandran was dubious, but couldn’t think of any reason to disagree. “You think the bird’s made us able to understand the local language when it’s spoken too?”

“Only one way to find out. Come on.”

They pushed their way along the path in single file. Perima took the lead and Snowmane followed them uncomplainingly. The thin, leafy branches of the bushes and low trees to either side raked the horse’s flanks. After they’d been going for a couple of hundred yards the path broadened, and they were able to make better speed. Almost without them being aware of it, the path turned into
a roadway made up of little green pebbles which were closely packed together and the same color as the grass. The next sign they came to read:!

“Hip?” said Sagandran. “That’s what Dad says when he’s trying to be just-us-two-boys-together. Oh, well.”

“What does it mean?” Perima was grinning.

“Sort of, well, having fun, I guess. Like the other sign said. That sort of thing.”

“Maybe we could both do with a bit of fun.”

He doubted it. Swimming together, that had been fun. Wonderville sounded as if it was some sort of carnival, with rides and shows and everyone yelling at the top of their voices; and sticky candies that tasted disgusting; and even stickier warm drinks that tasted even disgustinger; and small children screaming because they’d lost their mommies or throwing up because they’d eaten too many of the sticky candies that tasted disgusting; or drunk too much of the even stickier warm drinks that tasted even disgustinger. Everything cost about three times as much as you’d thought it would but nobody liked to say that this place was absolute hell because, after all, they were there to have fun. If anyone ever admitted that the whole scene was utterly ghastly, they’d be spoiling the fun, fun, fun for everybody else, wouldn’t they?

The sort of fun that Sagandran loathed at the best of times, in other words. Wonderville sounded no fun at all at the moment while he was worrying himself ragged about the fate of his friends and, for that matter, about the fate of Sagaria and the Earthworld.

“Oh, come on,” insisted Perima.

On the other hand, Perima would be in this Wonderville place with him, and that would make everything at least tolerable.

He hoped.

Besides, this had to be the biggest attraction around here, and for a long way. If Sir Tombin and the others had stumbled across it in their flight, well, they were at least as likely to be here as anywhere else.

“Don’t forget,” he said, puffing after her, “that we can’t stop long, and make sure you don’t mention I’m carrying the Rainbow Crystal.”

She snorted disparagingly. “I’m not entirely stupid, you know,” she cast back at him.

They followed the road around the bulge of a little hill, and slowly they began to hear the sounds of distant merriment. Sagandran’s heart sank. It seemed that his dire predictions had been only too accurate.

A big banner was stretched across the road, secured at each end to a tall birch tree. At the base of the birch on the left stood a large green box. There was writing on both, and Sagandran no longer marveled at the fact that he could read it. The writing on the banner said:!

They were almost under the banner before they could read the poster that had been pasted to the side of the box.

“No turning back,” said Perima more confidently than she could possibly have felt as she pulled Sagandran up to the box.

He looked at it askance. “Easy enough to say we should put our worries in there,” he said, “but how do we actually do it?”

“Through that opening in the middle, I should think.”

Maybe it was because she could be so exasperating that he liked Perima so much. “Yes, but how?”

“I think we already have,” she replied, turning to face the road leading to Wonderville.

It was true! Sagandran was still anxious about Sir Tombin and the others, but he no longer felt the anxiety. Yes, it was true that the Rainbow Crystal was an enormous responsibility because it held the welfare of the worlds within its glittering facets. That was an inescapable fact. But the thought of this no longer troubled him. The future may hold nothing but doom, disaster, misery and death for him, but it didn’t seem to matter. That was the future, after all, and it wasn’t here in the now.

He hurried after Perima and grabbed her hand. “okay,” he said, feeling his
mouth broaden into a smile, “we’re off to the carnival.”

A couple of minutes later, they saw it.

Perima stopped dead in her tracks, twisting Sagandran’s wrist. “Wow!”

“Wow, indeed,” he breathed.

They were looking at a small city, but this was no ordinary city. The buildings were shaped to resemble various toys and candies. Here there was a teddy bear with birds flitting between its bristly ears, over there was a striped candy walking stick that looked as if it belonged in a giant’s Christmas stocking. A huge tower rearing toward the clouds appeared to have been built out of peppermint rock. At the edge of town, boats floated on a sickly-pink lake of what looked like cherryade. Various structures scattered here and there were obviously carnival rides of some kind, though Sagandran could only guess at what some of them did. On the far side of the city loomed the biggest roller coaster he’d ever seen, its sides (like those of all the other rides) painted in brilliant poster-color red, green, yellow, blue and orange swirls, and abstract shapes. Everywhere there were people, people, people, swarming like delirious termites.

The road that had brought Sagandran and Perima here headed between the pillars of an elaborate gateway painted in the same lurid hues as the roller coaster. The gate, which was an eye-jarring lime green, was closed. Beside it stood what looked like a chimpanzee, except with bright blue hair. Standing perhaps as tall as Sagandran’s waist, the blue-haired chimpanzee was dressed in a much-dented suit of armor that looked as if it had originally been made for someone several sizes bigger, and the same was true of the ornate helmet he wore.

The guard – Sagandran supposed the chimp must be a guard of some kind – looked up, saw them approaching, jumped in surprise, and vanished through a small doorway cut into the gate. A moment later, they heard the clangor of a bell being diligently rung.

“What’s all that about?” said Perima, peering after the chimpanzee.

“I haven’t the first idea.”

As they came nearer, the gate creaked open. Sagandran expected the guard to reappear and demand an admission fee from them (which would have been awkward, because they hadn’t a coin between them) but they were able to walk in through the gate without any hesitation. As they passed through the entrance a flourish of trumpets splintered the air.

“Ow!” cried Perima, clutching her ears.

“Another two customers,” came a bellow somewhere off to the side. If that was the miniature chimp they’d seen, his voice was a lot bigger than he was. “Fetch the mayor! Fetch the mayor!”

There was a flurry of motion at the top of the peppermint tower, and they
could make out the small dark figure of a man. As they watched, the silhouette started getting larger. It took a moment or two for Sagandran to work out that a thin wire stretched from the top of the tower to the gateway, and that someone was careening down toward them, suspended from a pulley wheel.

“Stand back!” shouted Sagandran suddenly as he realized what was just about to happen.

Perima took a couple of paces backward, and not a moment too soon. A bundle of green and yellow landed with a thump exactly where she’d been standing, and lurched a step or two before catching its balance.

“I’m gonna get that right one of these days,” said the bundle, straightening to reveal itself as a short, stout man dressed in a multicolored smock and a bulbous top hat that balanced impossibly on his head. His nose was like a doorknob; his sweat-slicked hair like seaweed mashed firmly down onto his skull. His grin made Sagandran think, for some reason, of overstuffed pillows. A thought flashed across his mind that perhaps this person was really quite thin, but each morning someone took a bicycle pump and inflated him until he filled his skin.

The newcomer opened his arms to them. “Welcome to Wonderville!” he boomed. “Welcome, welcome, oh
welcome
to Wonderville!”

The man produced an object from his pocket that looked vaguely like a stethoscope except that, at the end where the chest piece should have been, there was what looked like the bowl of a meerschaum pipe. Unlike the grim visages you usually see on meerschaum pipes, this one displayed a gaudily colored clown’s face. The clown’s face wasn’t smiling, which Sagandran thought was creepy. On reflection, he’d rather have had the grim visage. But there wasn’t any time for reflection. Before Sagandran could move, their welcomer put the clown’s face to the boy’s forehead.

“Don’t worry, my lad. This is just my merry-o-meter. My diagnostic aid. It tells me how long you’ll need to spend here and what activities will be vital to your successful cure.”

“Successful cure from what?”

“Don’t speak so loudly,” shrieked the man, jumping a foot in the air and putting his hands to his ears. “Everything you say when the merry-o-meter is on you is magnified a thousandfold. If you sneezed, you’d deafen me for life. And please don’t belch.” His eyes watered as he gingerly replaced the clown’s face on Sagandran’s brow. “I need hardly add that farting’s not a good idea either.”

Perima giggled.

“Sorry,” mouthed Sagandran, not even daring to whisper.

After a pause, the man removed the merry-o-meter and held the clown’s face in front of him so that he could stare it in the eye.

“Well?”

The clown licked his lips loudly. “What would you like first, boss? The bad news or the worse news?”

The man with the doorknob nose glanced at Sagandran. “I, ah, I think perhaps it would be good to have the worse first. Get it over with, sort of thing.”

Sagandran opened his mouth to say, “Neither,” then shut it again.

“I ain’t ever,” said the clown’s face with a heavy sigh, a sigh belied by the cheery, thick-lipped smile the face wore. It sighed again, even more heavily, clearly striving for effect. “I ain’t ever seen a case this bad, not in all my—”

“Get a move on, merry-o-meter,” prompted its master.

“He is a-suffering, this boy is,” this time the sigh was so preternaturally heavy, Sagandran could feel his feet vibrating in his shoes, “he is a-suffering from … wait for it, wait for it, from
fun deprivation.
”

Everyone gasped, except Sagandran and Perima.

“So what does that mean?” said the latter in a skeptical voice.

The clown’s face tried to roll its eyes in her direction but succeeded only in looking as if it might splinter. “Fun deprivation,” it explained laboriously, “is a chronic and progressive wasting ailment. If left untreated it can lead to … but that’s more than a young lady like yerself needs to know.”

Perima fumed.

“Let’s just say,” the merry-o-meter continued, oblivious, “it can turn into something very nasty indeed.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Sagandran.

The merry-o-meter ignored him too. “So what I prescribes is” – it drew a surely unnecessary breath and then spoke very quickly, as if creating one single, impossibly long word – “get-a-jester-costume-from-the-masquerade-shop-and-dress-up-in-it-and-for-the-next-ten-days-do-the-sky-coast-ride-
backward
-a-f-twenty-four-times-per-diem (that means each day, boy, if you didn’t know).” He took another whooping great breath and continued. “And-two-visits-to-Pirate-Cove-per-diem-too-one-each-after-breakfast-and-dinner-with-an-extra-one-after-Sunday-lunch-and-daily-stopovers-at-Adventureland-and-a-ride-on-the-tea-cups.”