Page 66 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

At ground level, the stuccoed administration buildings showcased an extravagance of softstone carvings both profane and devotional. Above them, ornament was abandoned for louvers, weathered out of plumb, and perforated screens of raffia or stone. Shabby, genteel. The hulks of Rice House and Ruby House and the Bureau of Tariffs and Marsh Law—titles carved not in Qua’ati but in Ozish even Rain could now read—loomed beside soapbone shops that wobbled on stilts above household pork-pen and pissery. But government house and grocery alike featured spavinned roofbeams. To swale away monsoon-burst, Brrr later figured out. Sensible in that climate, though the first impression was of a dignified old city in its dotage.

The Quadlings swarmed about the companions without evident panic. “They never heard of the Clock,” said Mr. Boss under his breath. “How bizarre. They don’t want a glimpse of the future from us. We could retire here, no?”

“No,” said Ilianora, spooked by the crowds.

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sp; To Brrr’s eye the Quadlings seemed louche and convivial. They’d survived all attempts by unionist ministers to convert them, preferring their own obscure dalliance with fetishes, radishes, and the odd augury by kittle-stones. Stalls on the edge of market squares might be shrines or chapels, or then again they might be the tipping place for one’s household refuse. Little Daffy, with her Munchkinlander’s lust for a good scrub, was appalled. “It’s not even the nakedness behind those loincloths,” she said. “It’s that you can see they haven’t even washed well back there.” With aggressive cleanliness she took to pumicing her own face on the hour.

When the company paused for the night in a blameless nook, natives emerged from alleys and mews-ways to bring rattan trays of steaming red rice and fresh fruit and stinking vegetables. They set their offerings before Rain as if she were their local girl made good, and skittered away. “Monkey people,” said Little Daffy.

Rain showed no particular interest in this population to whom, Brrr conceded, she did bear some resemblance. She tried to make friends with the myriad hairless white dogs who cowered everywhere, under open staircases of cedar and rope. Rain put out rice and then fruit, and they would venture forth to sniff at the offering, but scurry back. She tried with some of the brown vegetables, the ones like voluted woody asparagus, and they also turned up their snouts at that. Then she arranged some of the asparagus into a few words—FOR YOU. EAT. So they did.

“How does she do that?” asked the dwarf of Brrr. “Have you any idea?”

“I’m the muscle in this outfit, you’re the brains,” replied the Lion. “As long as they don’t come and eat us, I don’t care how she does it. Are they dogs?”

“Or rats. Or weasels.”

The torpor of the climate induced a lethargy that the companions didn’t mind indulging; they’d been moving about for some time now. Easier to have your meals delivered than to press on with no assurance of decent foraging ahead. “We’ll know when it’s time to go,” said Mr. Boss, from the hammock he had strung between the post of a bat house and a nearby wrinkleroot tree. “Climb up here and get cozy with me, wife.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon and that’s a see-through hammock,” protested Little Daffy.

“They don’t mind.” And it was true; the Quadlings acted on their impulses when so inclined, without shame or secrecy. Interestingly, Rain seemed not to notice, either. The innocence of that child, thought Brrr, was troubling when it wasn’t refreshing.

The dwarf and Little Daffy didn’t budge from the vicinity where they’d stodged the Clock. “We have to guard the book,” they reminded Ilianora languidly. “You’re feeling antsy about our prospects, you go find someone to talk to.”

Brrr’s wife held out as long as she could, but finally she wrapped her shawl so tightly around herself that only her eyes showed, and she began to explore the town on her own. She was looking for someone who could translate Qua’ati for them. She found an old woman in a tobacco shop whose feet had been chewed off by an alligator but who could hobble about on sticks. Ilianora persuaded her to come back to the Clock. The nearly deaf old woman agreed to answer what of their questions she could in exchange for a salve that Little Daffy swore would regenerate her feet—but not for a year, which would give them plenty of time to get far away from her. “Anyway, she’s not going to run after us protesting, is she,” murmured Little Daffy to the others, sotto voce.

Her name, as near as they could make it out, was Chalotin. A bitter orange rind of a woman passing herself off as a seer. Brrr, who not long ago had spent some intense hours with old Yackle, could tell the difference between chalk and chocolate. Chalotin was rather thin chalk.

Still, for an old broad she pivoted about on impressively flexible haunches. She ran pinkish fingertips over her perfect ancient teeth as she told them what she knew.

Yes, she said, though the Emperor’s forces got no love no more, no more, they still made a preemptory show of authority every now and then. The only way they ever arrived was the High Parade, the route the company of the Clock had taken—what was left of the Yellow Brick Road. Quadlings let them pass as long as they marched in dress uniform rather than field garb. They never came in the rainy season, though. Or never yet.

“So they could tromp in any day,” confirmed Brrr in a soft roar, that she could hear him.

Yes, her shrugging expression implied. Wouldn’t put it past ’em.

“Where do they set up?”

“One of the government houses.” Warming to her subject, she told them that the EC had once kept a firmer grip on Quadling Country, dating all the way back to the days of the Wizard, when the extension of the Yellow Brick Road first allowed swamp engineers to come in and cull the mud flats of their rubies.

“Emeralds from the northeast, rubies from the south,” said Mr. Boss. “No wonder the Emerald City got so powerful, filching from all over. I suppose there are diamonds in hidden caves in the Vinkus?” He looked at Ilianora hopefully. “We could all maybe get filthy stinking rich back at your place?”

Chalotin didn’t care about rubies except to say that in the act of diving for them, the swamp miners from the EC had upset the crops of vegetable pearls harvested out near Ovvels. It had taken three decades for the agrarian economy to begin to recover, she said, and she predicted it would take three decades more before the natives of Quadling Country could rise to the level of poverty they’d once enjoyed.

“We are no longer friendly to our overlords,” she finished, spitting, but smiling nicely too. “We are polite but we don’t let them to stay. Not after the burning of the bridge at Bengda. That massacre. Not after attack by flying dragons.”

“Dragons,” said Rain, looking up. “Have you seen a flying dragon?”

Chalotin made a gesture to ward off the notion. “When the EC to set flying dragons upon us, oh, years ago, a full five miles of swamp burn south of Ovvels. That much Chalotin know for herself, back when Chalotin could both to walk and to swim. But no dragons since then, no no.”

“So why aren’t your patriotic fellow citizens tossing us out on our arses?” asked Mr. Boss.

She replied that the presence of such a young rafiqi required of the Quadlings basic hospitality and even assistance. She indicated Rain when she spoke, but Rain had lost interest and was crawling around in the dirt, pretending to be one of those white hairless dogs.

“How do we get out of here then?” said Ilianora. “We don’t want to be cornered in Qhoyre if the Emperor is about to send a brigade in after us.”

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