“So you didn’t, like, learn about our school and pick it for some reason.”
Kevriac gave his head a vigorous shake. “I wrote out our story, and I gave it into the hands of a powerful sorcerer. I was told that a world with humans not unlike us would be found, and the token would be tried for a certain amount of time in a number of places. If no one heeded our call, it would be put somewhere else. We asked only that, if possible, helpers our own age be located.”
“Of course,” Nan said. “Adults would play head-games with you.” As she spoke the words, she felt a strange hesitation in the translation—then they came out, but they felt wrong.
Sure enough. “Head? Games?” Kevriac repeated carefully.
“They’d bully you,” Nan said.
His pale eyebrows slanted up. “Ah. Yes, that’s a thought, though I’d like to see anybody try to bully Warron. Or Blackeye. Or Tarsen—any of us, I guess. Not anymore.”
“That Workhouse,” Nan said in a hard voice.
“You have them too?” Kevriac asked.
“Oh yes. I’ve seen a lot of them—” Nan started, then she stopped. He knew nothing about her background. Why come out and tell everyone?
Kevriac scratched his head, then said, “So to continue. Blackeye has a notion that Todan will pay no attention to anyone our age who might be seen in the Palace, whereas strange adults would be arrested on sight.” Smiling, he added, “And besides, we thought it would be more fun this way.”
So he doesn’t know as much magic as I’d thought, but then he doesn’t know anything about Earth. He knows nothing about us—about ME.
This realization sent a vast sense of freedom through Nan.
“So what can you tell me about your world?” Kevriac asked. “I confess a boundless curiosity about such things. You have Workhouses like we do, and you know what they are like. That gives us something in common. Were you in one? If so, how did you arrive at that fate?”
Nan looked down at her hands. Here it comes, she thought. Either she told them that neither of her parents—who were both petty crooks and creeps—had wanted her, or she gave herself an entirely new background, one she could be proud of.
One that would give her a good start, for the very first time in her life.
And it’s not breaking the promise, she argued inside her head. This lie won’t hurt anyone, and it’s not like I’m trying to get out of anything unfairly.
She said cautiously, “It’s true I have been in our kind of Workhouses. That’s because my mother, the Queen, was deposed by a wicked Adviser.” As she spoke the words, fear mixed with a kind of thrill ran through her. The thrill was much stronger—especially when Kevriac’s eyes widened in amazement.
“You are a princess? But you came here,” he said. “You did not stay to fight to rescue your mother?”
A flare of warning flashed in Nan’s brain. They’re fighting to save their deposed Prince—idiot!
She said, “There’s no chance. To keep my life—and my little sister’s—I had to promise never to return. She’s with someone good now.”
Kevriac gave a sigh of empathy. “A hard choice,” he said. “But the right one, if you could not save a young sister else. So you came to help us instead. I honor you for that. And so will the others when I tell them.”
“Oh please don’t,” Nan said quickly. “At least, not in front of Joe.” When Kevriac gazed at her in silent question, she said, “I don’t want him to feel bad.”
“Then he does not know you? You did not read the book together? You came together, most certainly,” Kevriac said wonderingly. And—was that a tiny line of doubt between his eyebrows?
“We found the book at the same time, but we did not know one another. I am—was—a new arrival at that Workhouse, like I said. But we are allowed to read. Anyway, because we were both reaching for the book at the same time we decided to trade it, and after we read it, we decided to come here.”
“That is understandable,” Kevriac said, nodding. “Well I honor you doubly for the confidence.” Kevriac got to his feet and bowed.
Nan felt a little uncomfortable, but a lot more pleased. The admiration in his tone, and in his smile, was something she had never seen before in her life.
In fact, it felt great.
Six
Joe was having a wonderful dream...a blue sea...underground caves...
pirates...
Pirates?
He opened his eyes, and saw rough gray rock curving overhead.
It’s true! he thought joyfully, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the hammock. Taking a deep breath, he made another wonderful discovery: he smelled chocolate.
Unless this world had chocolate as glue and glue as chocolate, he was in for one of his favorite foods.
He had fallen asleep in his clothes, which he now just dusted off. No reason to waste time changing into the extra shirt he’d brought; he shoved his feet into his sneakers, then he looked around, wondering where the bathroom was.
“Choe-roblas,” Tarsen hailed him from across the room. “Hungry?”
“You can call me Joe. Robles is my last name,” Joe said. “Um...where’s the facilities?” The word came out strange.
Tarsen wrinkled his brows. “Fass—what?”
“Bathroom.” But that came out sounding like the word they’d used for the stream for bathing in. “Place to take a whiz,” Joe said, his face reddening as he pantomimed the action.
Tarsen stared in blank surprise. “You—want to make water?”
“Don’t you?” Joe demanded, exasperated.
“For a deadly insult, perhaps,” Tarsen said slowly. “But you’d leave evidence...”
“Huh?”
“Well we usually use The Spell,” Tarsen said. Then his jaw dropped. “You said there is no magic on your world—could it be you have not The Spell?”
Joe shook his head.
Tarsen looked astonished, and then he shook his head. “When we are very young, we are taught this spell...”
It took a couple of minutes, and a few tries, but Joe finally got the idea—and the hang of saying magic and letting go at the same time. It worked great.
Tarsen was still shaking his head over it when they started up the tunnel. “It was one of the first gifts the great magicians gave to the world,” he said.
“Practical,” Joe said, trying not to laugh as he thought, at least I won’t have to worry about where to take a dump in the middle of an adventure. “Is that chocolate I smell?” he added as they joined the others.
“Want some?” Sarilda asked, pointing to a ceramic tureen on a low table. “The cups are on the hooks.”
“And here’s something to eat,” Kevriac added, bringing in a platter piled high with round, toasted bread. Joe saw what looked like melted cheese on the bread, over something lumpy that he couldn’t identify.
The pirates’ hands reached out to grab a bread. Joe plucked a cup from a hook on the wooden buffet beside the table, and lifted the dipper in the tureen. Thick, foamy chocolate poured into the cup. He tasted it cautiously—and then took a more enthusiastic swallow.
“Wow this is good stuff,” he said. “Now I know I’m gonna like it here.”
Tarsen laughed.
Joe went on, “I was all set to tough out some weird foods, but I never expected I’d get hot chocolate.”
“I don’t think our foods can be vastly different,” Kevriac said. “I was told that travel between our worlds, and between other worlds on which humankind lives, has happened more than you’d think. That would mean the travelers must have brought and shared all kinds of things. Perhaps chocolate is one. It’s grown in the Summer Islands not very far from our islands. They use it for trade all over the world.”
“Eat up,” Blackeye said, waving a bread. “‘Tis already gold-two, and Warron is waiting to get you started.”
Nan appeared, her thin cheeks glowing and her red hair damp. Joe figured she’d tackled that ice-bath, and he mentally ga
ve her points for sheer guts. Likewise for the way she just marched up and grabbed a bread and bit into it, without first testing out those lumps. Ghack—what if it’s mushrooms, or something even nastier, he thought, swallowing more chocolate.
Whatever was under the cheese, she seemed to like it, because she took a bigger bite before she got some chocolate.
Joe knew his stomach would complain after a while unless he ate, so he picked up a bread and cautiously took a bite. The cheese was tart, and under it was something not unlike tofu. Odd, but okay.
Joe took another bite, and caught a funny look from Nan—but before he could say anything, Blackeye clapped her hands. “To work!”
A shadow loomed beside Joe, who crammed the last of his bread into his mouth. Warron grinned down at Joe, having come up as quietly as a kitten. For such a tall guy, that was pretty amazing, Joe thought—
—And that was the last chance he had to complete a thought for a long time.
With a whack on their shoulder blades from his long hands, Warron started them off at a run. They didn’t stop until they had to swim as hard and as fast as they could through rolling breakers to a barnacle-covered outcropping of rocks. Joe didn’t think he could keep his heavy, exhausted body from being dashed against the rocks by the waves—but somehow he managed. Nan’s crimson face was right behind him.
After that swim, while they were still in their soggy clothes, Warron dried them out by putting them through climbing and jumping tests. And he didn’t just watch. He ran, swam, and climbed alongside them, murmuring comments or instructions in his low, slow voice. He never seemed to hurry and he was never out of breath.
After that long test, Warron brought them back to the smooth sand just outside the cave entrance. Joe was all ready to drop down and spend the rest of the day napping, but Warron said, “Warmed up, eh?”
Joe stared wordlessly as the worn hilt of an honest-to-Errol Flynn rapier was pushed into his hand.
“Good weight for you?” Warron asked.
“Uh,” Joe said brainlessly. And since Warron seemed to be waiting, Joe made an experimental slash or two at a weed growing near his feet.
Warron’s white teeth flashed. “You’re not herding sheep, Joe.”
From behind came an explosion of laughter. Joe looked over his shoulder. There was the rest of the gang, watching expectantly.
“Well, hey,” Joe protested. “The closest I’ve ever come to one of these things is in the late-night movies.” ‘Late-night’ made it through the language spell, of course, but ‘movies’ stayed in English.
“The what?” Tarsen asked.
“Later.” Blackeye picked up a sword and struck the blade in Joe’s hand. “Now you learn something. And we practice. We do this every day, without fail, before we lose the sun.”
The others paired off, each hefting one of the blades. Warron gestured to Nan, who silently lifted her sword, obviously trying to copy the way Warron gripped his.
“Blade up.” Blackeye tapped Joe’s sword again.
“Wait,” he said, fighting again a hot flush of color in his cheeks. He gestured to his blade, with its wicked point and two coldly gleaming edges. Unlike the toy ones kids got at home, this thing was real. “Don’t we, like, get blunt ones? Or at least padding?”
“Today this one,” Blackeye said. “You can’t hit me, and I won’t hit you. You must get the feel for the real blade. Tomorrow, you’ll use those.”
Joe looked again. The others were using wooden swords. They still looked disturbingly real, though.
He swallowed. This is for real.
Then he had no more time to think. Blackeye demonstrated a correct grip, showed Joe six basic parries, and then she did her best (he felt as he desperately tried to fend her off) to skewer him.
His arm was aching and his fingers could scarcely grip the sweaty handle of his sword when she finally motioned for him to sit down. He saw that Nan had given up before him. They sat side by side and watched the others—ending with Blackeye and Warron standing back to back fighting off the remaining four members of the gang.
The motions were too fast for Joe’s exhaustion-hazed eyes to watch; he grimaced at Nan. “How’d you do?” he asked in English—and the words stayed in English. So I can bypass the language spell if I think about it.
Nan gave a sharp shrug. “Rotten.”
Her tone was flat and slightly wary, and Joe wondered if she was afraid Blackeye and the others would send them back to Earth. Joe laughed to himself. If you guys wanted some kind of kid karate champion, you should have gone yourselves, and not to libraries. What sport or karate kid has time to read books?
“Yah!” A shout from Warron reclaimed Joe’s attention.
The practice blade whirled, humming in the air; Tarly stumbled aside, and Tarsen leaped back, tumbling over and over. Sand flew in all directions—and Warron stood, facing his beaten foes.
“Not bad.” Blackeye rose and dusted herself off. “That was a good attack, Sar.”
“We worked it out together.” Sarilda pointed at Kevriac and herself.
“Show everyone tomorrow,” Blackeye said. “We need all the partner moves we can come up with.” She surveyed the Earth kids.
Joe grimaced. Here it comes—
“Tomorrow more practice, maybe another day as well, then we’ll go into the city and show you how to run on walls and a few other things. What do you think?” She looked back at Warron.
The tall boy lifted a shoulder. “Week, maybe two. Lots of practice.”
Blackeye nodded. “Right. A week, and we go for the Falcon.”
“Yee-ow!” Tarsen crowed.
“You mean—we’re okay?” Joe asked, amazed.
“Okay?” Blackeye repeated.
“All-purpose word where we come from,” Joe said impatiently. “Means yes, good, all right, I agree, or whatever.”
“Oh-kay,” Blackeye repeated slowly. “I like that.” Then her eyes widened in surprise, the meaning of Joe’s words having reached her. “I hope we are oh-kay.” She faced Nan and made a short, formal bow.
A bow? Joe was confused.
Nan said in a quick voice, “I am so glad to be here.”
The others all grinned, and Joe looked at them in perplexity, wondering what he was missing.
“Let’s go and EAT,” Tarsen yelled, turning a handspring.
Nan got up fast and joined Sarilda and Kevriac, but not before Joe caught a glimpse of her face. Like she was secretly pleased about something.
So Blackeye really did bow to her, Joe thought. Why? Why just to her and not to him? As he flexed his aching arm, he realized he hadn’t seen Nan’s sword fighting lesson. Maybe she was a lot better than me, he thought dismally. She can hardly have been worse.
He decided he’d ask Tarsen if he’d get up early and give him a little extra practice in the morning, and followed the others into the hideout.
o0o
Nan watched Joe talking to Tarsen about sword fighting, and felt relief balloon inside. She’d seen his surprise when Blackeye made that bow—and she’d gotten away from him as quickly as she could, hoping he wouldn’t ask any nosy questions.
Sometime I’m going to have to tell him about my lie, she thought. But he’s going to laugh—and worse, he’s going to want to know why I did it. She shivered, fighting off the old bitterness. That’s past now. Nobody can make me talk about Them anymore.
She followed the others into the big room with all the rugs and pillows. She was tired. It had been a long, hard day—several times she’d almost given up, but she kept reminding herself that they’d expect extra effort from a princess. At everything they’d done, Joe was faster and stronger. Only once had she done better, when they’d climbed up those nasty, barnacle-sharp rocks. Nan had found that she was more agile—at least now she was. By tomorrow, who knew what would happen.
She was not particularly worried. They want us here, she thought as she sank happily onto one of the big pillows. It felt good to know that they
’d been accepted, despite the fact that they were nowhere near as trained as the gang at the stuff they’d done today.
Kevriac gave her a shy smile. A smile for a princess. She wondered if just Nan would have gotten the same reaction, then thrust that idea away with loathing. I’m no longer Just Nan. Thank goodness.
She straightened her tired body just a little, and tried to look alert. A princess would never betray tiredness.
“So what’s this Todan guy like?” Joe asked then. “Besides being a scumbag?”
The word made it through, though it sounded weird.
Tarsen snickered. “Scumbag! Mudslinker is what we often call him.” He looked up and smacked his hands together. “Here’s the grub—at last.”
Sarilda and Tarly came out of a room Nan hadn’t seen yet. Sarilda walked slowly, carrying a big tureen, and Tarly bore a tray piled high with a food that looked like green carrots.
Tarsen leaped across the table to grab a stack of shallow bowls. He passed these out to everyone, and Sarilda ladled out a thick brown soup into each bowl. It smelled like onions and peppers.
Nan stuck her spoon in and stirred it around, waiting until the steam dissipated. She noticed Joe cautiously inspecting the lumps in his soup. A wave of scorn swept through Nan. What did he expect, American foods? You’d think since we made it here he’d be glad to eat whatever they eat, or at least try to get used to it.
Nan tasted the soup. It was hot and savory. By contrast, the green-carrot things were crunchy and tart. Watching Joe carefully test a bite, and the unmistakable relief in his eyes when he discovered that he liked the soup, Nan figured he’d never been forced to eat what was in front of him, whether he liked it or not. He’s spoiled rotten.
Or maybe that wasn’t completely true. The thing that was true, and that hurt the most, was the idea that someone in his life had actually cared what he liked to eat.
o0o
The next few days passed like a blur.
Blackeye’s gang were expecting other members to show up with food, as theirs was getting scanty. Joe’s offerings were gladly accepted, and the kids got used to each other faster, talking over and comparing various foods. The gang definitely liked canned chili, especially with some of their tart cheese crumbled over the top.