Sagaria (48 page)

Sagandran and Flip, who was back on Sir Tombin’s hat, were exchanging friendly insults in an attempt to cheer everybody up a little when Sir Tombin raised a hand.

“Listen,” he said, stopping. “Can you hear anything?”

Distantly, Sagandran thought that he could discern a sound he recognized.

“Hooves,” he wailed. “The Shadow Knights. They’re somewhere nearby.”

The wayfarers were in a slight concavity in the ground. Looking around them, all they could see were its slopes. The horse, or horses, must be somewhere beyond the low ridges. There was nowhere to hide. The largest of the bushes might be big enough for Flip to scurry behind, but the rest of the companions were going to be caught in the open.

Sagandran glimpsed Samzing’s face out of the corner of his eye. For some reason, the old wizard seemed unconcerned. Did he have some Shadow Knight-repelling spell up his sleeve? Yet Queen Mirabella had warned him that Arkanamon was a powerful magic-maker in his own right, so Samzing should be as wary as any of them of Arkanamon’s minions.

A big shape came into view over the edge of the little dip. The afternoon sun was almost directly behind it, so that even when he narrowed his eyes, Sagandran couldn’t make out what it was. Sir Tombin was holding one hand up to his face to shade it against the piercing sunlight, while the other was drawing Xaraxeer once more. Perima had adopted a stance of defiance, every inch the haughty princess.

Then the oncoming horse moved further down the slope, and they could distinguish it.

Sagandran felt a great balloon of laughter rising inside him; laughter and something more: relief, release, he didn’t quite know what.

“Snowmane!” he cried, rushing forward with his arms wide.

Behind him, Samzing was cackling gleefully. “My little secret from you all.”

Perima reached the stallion before Sagandran, and was fussing over him. “You poor thing,” she murmured into the horse’s ear. “You must have been following us all night. How in the world did you find us? How did you escape?”

“I’ve never tried that one before,” said Samzing in satisfaction, coming up more slowly behind them. “I thought to myself,
I wonder if my searching spell could be adapted so that, instead of helping us find someone, it could draw someone into finding us?
And I was right, it could indeed be done, but I didn’t know until a moment ago that it had worked. Some people might be tempted to write me off as an old wizard past my prime, but if those young whippersnappers could only see me now they’d—”

“Oh, do stop congratulating yourself, there’s a dear chap,” said Sir Tombin. “We all think you’re the bee’s knees, and let that be the end of it.”

“Not even the cat’s pajamas?” said Samzing, sounding crestfallen.

“Oh, all right then. The bee’s knees and the cat’s pajamas. Now do hold your wind, old bean.”

The next few minutes were lost to complimenting the stallion on his epic journey. The details of how he’d released himself from the Wonderville stables must forever remain a mystery; perhaps the Shadow Knights had spitefully turned all the horses loose. Perima checked the restless beast all over, satisfying herself that he hadn’t acquired any new scars to go with the old ones, and finally pronounced him unscathed. He had obviously been galloping hard, because his sides were frothy with sweat, but he tossed his head and whickered gladly that he was among them once more.

Snowmane singled out Samzing for special affection, as if he knew only too well who was responsible for the reunion.

“At least somebody appreciates me,” grumbled the wizard sullenly, but he allowed himself a grin when he thought that no one was looking.

Whoever had stabled Snowmane back in Wonderville hadn’t troubled to untack him, and now Sagandran’s eye was caught by the horse’s saddle bags.

“We’re in luck,” he cried, having unbuckled one of them. “Food.”

It wasn’t the best of food – hard stale bread, a few apples with wrinkled skins, and nobody was willing to risk the cheese – but it was better than nothing. They lolled around in the scrub eating hungrily while Snowmane went off to forage for some grass. They were all so tired from their strenuous adventures of the day before, not to mention the long night in the skies, that they could easily have fallen asleep, but Sir Tombin wouldn’t let them.

“Come on, lazybones,” he said, nudging Perima with a foot.

“I’ll have you know that’s a Princess Royal you’re treating so rudely,” she complained, but there was no real malice in her voice. “If my father could see you now he’d probably burst a blood vessel over the impropriety of it all.”

Her quip, idly meant, brought a worrying thought to the surface of Sagandran’s mind that had long been buried deep. How would Fungfari react if he ever learned of some of the things his daughter had gotten up to in the past few days? Fights and flights were one thing. Sagandran vaguely thought that these were generally to be avoided by princesses of the blood royal, but probably accepted as part of the job when they did happen. Skinny-dipping in forest pools and, in particular, long journeys through Wonderville’s Tunnel of Love were in a different category. It wasn’t as if they’d actually done anything wrong, he tried to reassure himself; still, he was pretty certain that the monarch would be horrified to discover that his high-born daughter had been consorting so casually with a mere commoner.

Sagandran shrugged. That was something they’d have to face somewhere down the line, assuming Fungfari ever found out, which he certainly wouldn’t from Sagandran’s lips – or Perima’s, he was prepared to bet his life on it.
He hoped. Anyway, they might not survive long enough to face Fungfari’s wrath.

They tramped on through the waning afternoon. The plain was beginning to seem as endless as the Everwoods had been. There were no fields now, just uncultivated scrublands. They’d climbed over the last wall some while ago. No one except Flip was prepared to ride Snowmane – even though the stallion seemed willing enough, he’d covered so much distance through the forest during the night that he must surely be too weary to be subjected to an extra burden.

Before them, the ground rose into the foothills of a range of higher peaks. Sagandran guessed that they’d probably camp somewhere in those foothills for the night, resting ahead of the steeper climb. He hoped that they’d find something else to eat; the effects of the tough bread and soggy-tasting apples had long worn off, and his stomach was voicing its discontent once more. He scanned the jagged horizon, wondering if they’d find anyone living up there. The sight of a coil of chimney smoke would have been a welcome encouragement, but there was no sign of any habitation at all.

Sagandran tripped over something and stumbled, almost falling.

“What the heck?”

He looked back and saw a rusty tin can half-sticking out of the ground.

A tin can? Here in Sagaria?

Looking around, he noticed other bits and pieces of garbage littering the area. He’d been too intent on the mountains to see what was underfoot.

“Someone’s been dropping their junk here,” he said stupidly.

Perima giggled at him, which made his foot hurt for some reason. He hoped that he hadn’t twisted his ankle. He glared at her.

“We’ve been walking through the outskirts of the Great Junkyard for the past half hour or more,” said Sir Tombin. “Is that ankle of yours all right, young man?”

Sagandran put his weight on it. There was a small throb, but nothing to worry about. “I’ll be okay.”

“This is only the beginning,” the Frogly Knight went on, nodding. “The wind blows occasional detritus far afield from the main region. You’ll have to be – we’ll all have to be – more careful as we continue. Make sure you don’t touch anything if you don’t know what is, and even if you do, you’d be wise to be wary. Some of the junk here has been around for centuries or longer, and who knows what kind of diseases have been using it as a breeding ground.”

Perima made a moue of revulsion. Sagandran knew that his own face must look much the same.

“Isn’t there any other way to Qarnapheeran?” she said.

“If there is, which I doubt, it would take us many days to find it,” replied Sir Tombin. “I do not think that we have the luxury of spending longer than we need to on this journey.”

As Sir Tombin had predicted, the trash on the ground thickened as they walked on toward the mountains.

Suddenly, Sagandran did a double-take. Those were no ordinary mountains. Instead of being upfoldings of the land, they were monstrous heaps of garbage. As the afternoon sun’s rays caught them, they shimmered like galaxies because of countless metal edges catching the light. He had the feeling that he and his friends were great star cruisers questing through the universe. The sense was enhanced by the almost complete silence that hung everywhere, as if the sky itself was mourning the abandonment of so many billions of articles.

He said something of this to Perima.

“It’s just trash, Sagandran,” she said, smiling.

“Be careful what you say,” said Samzing, overhearing.

Her eyes boggled. “Huh?”

“It’s a common misconception,” continued the wizard portentously, “that inanimate objects are totally devoid of higher feelings.”

“It’s not exactly surprising that people think that,” commented Perima with heavy irony.

“Don’t mock me.” Samzing’s voice was unusually mild. “Every time you handle something, whether it’s a toy you’re playing with or a can you’re opening, you give it a little bit of your soul. You give it a meaning and a purpose, and it soon becomes accustomed to having these. Can you imagine the feeling of shock and abandonment when you just throw the object away? Because non-living things don’t speak, we assume they don’t think, but they do, and they can hear you too. If you knew what they were thinking, it might make your heart bleed.”

Sagandran felt a rising tide of laughter inside him. He couldn’t believe the old wizard was saying this in all seriousness. “But we’ll never know, will we?”

Samzing pierced him with a stare from those clear blue eyes. “You think so, eh, young know-it-all? Just watch this, then.”

The wizard dug among the pockets of his robe, cursing when he couldn’t immediately find what he was searching for. At last, with a victorious “ha!” he produced a little purple bag.

“What’s that?” said Perima.

“Speech tinsel, of course. Don’t you know anything, girl?”

“Speech tinsel?”

“Stop repeating everything I say. Now, let me see if I can remember how to use this stuff.”

Sir Tombin, who’d been observing everything in amused silence, chipped in. “Do we really have time for this, dear chap?”

“Yes,” the wizard retorted sharply. “It’ll be educational for these young ignoramuses.”

Moving with exaggerated carefulness, he tipped a little pile of silvery dust from the bag into his palm. Clumsily retying the top of the bag one-handed, he brushed his hands off together, sending a spray of the dust high into the air, where the breeze took it. As the dust spread out over the discarded junk around them, they could hear the sound of voices. They were quiet at first and then grew in volume until, Sagandran thought, it was as if he and his friends were standing in the midst of a crowded market place where everyone was talking at once, each trying to outdo the next in recitals of their woes. He couldn’t make out what any of the voices were saying, just occasional snatches of a word or a phrase, but it was obvious that all the speakers were bitterly miserable.

“It’s as I told you,” said the wizard, looking at Sagandran, then Perima. “All of the things you see here in the Great Junkyard are heartbroken that their usefulness has ended, that they were just dumped here, that they are no longer wanted.”

Sagandran still couldn’t quite believe it. He could see that Perima, too, was doing her best not to look skeptical. Perhaps this was merely another of the wizard’s tricks.

“It’s not merely another of my tricks,” said the wizard, startling Sagandran. “No, I’m not reading your mind. That spell wore off long ago, as I told you. I’m just reading your face. I’ll bet you your mother can do that as well.”

Sagandran nodded ruefully.

“Do you see that beaten-up rocking chair over there?” said the wizard. The chair he pointed to was tipped backward at a crazy angle on top of an ancient, bundled-up mattress. It had been painted once, but now the color had faded to a sort of sludgy gray, and great patches were missing. Two of the struts in the back were broken.

Samzing marched over to the chair, lifted it off the mattress, and set it on the ground. It began rocking to and fro, making Sagandran think of an old lady sitting on her porch watching the twilight grow.

“I wasn’t always like this, you know,” the chair suddenly announced.

“I can quite believe it,” said Samzing, lowering his voice, his tone respectful. “Do tell us.”

The chair heaved a long, sad sigh. “I was built many, many years ago, and with great care and skill, by a master of the art. I was the finest piece of carpentry you ever did see. Fine folks dressed in expensive clothes sat on me. More times
than I can rightly remember, I’ve followed the course of someone’s life from when they sat on me as a small child, weighing next to nothing, all through their adulthood until their most advanced age, when once again they seemed to weigh little more than a feather.” If the chair had had a handkerchief and an eye, Sagandran would have expected it to wipe one with the other.

“I suppose,” whispered Perima, “if all you ever saw of someone was their bottom, you’d be able to write a very unusual biography of them.”

Sagandran pretended that his snort was a sneeze.

“My life would have been easier if I hadn’t had any feelings,” mourned the rocking chair, “but—”

“Bah, humbug, piffle and nonsense,” cried another voice.

Sagandran turned, alarmed. Not far away, lying twisted over on its side, was a bed whose springs jutted out in a host of strange directions. Perhaps it was the bed that went with the mattress the rocking chair had been lying on. It seemed to be angry.
Though
, Sagandran reflected,
it’s hard to read the moods of a smashed bed.