Page 67 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

Chalotin explained that the Yellow Brick Road only went as far south as here because beyond Qhoyre, arcing first to the southwest and then toward the north, a fairly dry and passable berm already existed. Whether it was a natural feature of the land or the remains of ancient earthworks, no one knew, but if the companions left Qhoyre by the road near the Mango Altar they’d be safe and dry.

“Though if the rains to start, to be careful not to step off the high road,” said Chalotin. “Chalotin not to believe that your dragony cart is also boat.”

“Where will that take us, though? An endless circle around Quadling Country?” asked Ilianora. “I’m done with circling!”

Chalotin had had enough. She insisted that Little Daffy supply the salve that would regenerate her missing feet, and when the Munchkinlander came out with a small pot of something rather like cold cream, Chalotin took a portion on her finger and swallowed it. She grimaced but pronounced it useful, if not as a medicinal unguent then as a dip for fennel.

From off her shoulder she pulled a belted sack. Rain wriggled closer to look at it. A lake shell of some sort, larger than anything Rain had ever seen on the shores of Restwater. “What’s that, with all its points?” asked Rain, indicating the reticulated spine of it.

“Deep magic, you buy?” asked Chalotin. “Cheapy cheap for you.”

“What kind of magic?” asked the girl.

“You can’t buy magic,” protested the dwarf, and then, in a softer voice, added, “Of course, you can’t buy feet, either.”

“The Emperor is calling in all magic tools and torques,” said Brrr, thinking he might wheedle the shell out of the old biddy without having to fling coin at her. Nice to supply Rain with her first toy. “That contingent arrives from the EC and finds you with something powerful, you’ll need more than new feet to get away safely.”

“How magic could it be, anyway, if you can’t summon up your own feet?” said Little Daffy, playing along.

“It makes noise,” Chalotin told them, and showed them how to blow it like a horn. “The tip has to be broken first. But Chalotin say: this shell not to sing its voice. This shell to listen to. Conch to talk to you. Conch to tell you what it know.”

“No magic. No buy,” said Mr. Boss. “No good. No deal.”

“Well, we have no coin of the traditional sort,” said Brrr, hoping to force a negotiation of some sort.

“What does the shell say?” asked Rain, nearly breathless with hope. But the old woman scurried backward and shook her head. Without another word she headed down the lane, galumphing along as well as she could on her stumps.

“Wait,” called Mr. Boss. “One more thing.”

Chalotin turned but didn’t stop moving away.

“What are these white critters? Are they puppies?”

“They to be albinoid otters,” she replied. “Smart to avoid them. They to overrun Qhoyre for long long time. When the rice terraces burn, the otters they to lose their protective coloring. Before that no one realize they color from their diet. Now they safer among pale stone buildings than in green-purple swamp. So they to overrun Qhoyre and to mess in the silk farm

s and to eat the worms. Bad fall of letter-sticks. Bad tumble of dominoes.”

“What color are they usually?”

“Rice otters? Green of course. To swim in paddies and marsh.” Chalotin crab-walked away then, and Brrr joined the others in discussing how quickly they might get out of Qhoyre, while they still had their own feet attached. Teasing and tempting the nearer rice otters, Rain wandered about, disappearing for a time and appearing again, a child with her own shadowy concerns among the green shadows of a busy neighborhood.

“But what are you doing with that?” asked Little Daffy at dinner, when Rain showed up with the shell. She checked her purse to make sure Rain hadn’t stolen any farthings. “Did you steal any of my cash?”

She shook her head. “Stole the shell,” she replied.

Little Daffy and Ilianora lit into Rain, but good. Had she learned nothing about honor, about moral competence? What was she thinking?

“You told her you could grow her some new feet,” said Rain. The equivalency of the crimes was debatable, but the girl effectively shut up her elders anyway.

The company left the capital of Quadling Country the next day, doing a favor for their hosts without meaning to. In the early morning, before everyone was awake, Rain had tried to blow a sound from the conch. She couldn’t hear what noise it might have made, but some several hundred white otters congregated around the Clock. The pack followed the companions past the Mango Altar and out along the high dusty road into deepening jungle. The stink was horrific, but at least the pack lagged about a half mile behind them. It was like being dogged by a murky white afghan whose segments came apart and rejoined at will. Neither Rain nor the adults were sure whether to be pleased or alarmed, but they could hear the sound of humans cheering from the squat cityscape behind them.

“Is that why the book sent us south?” muttered Ilianora. “So we could liberate a foreign capital of its pests?”

“We could look at the book agin,” said Rain, slyly enough. “If you en’t sure it was telling us to go south, let’s see. Mebbe now it’ll say go north, or go to the desert.”

But the Grimmerie wouldn’t open for them this time. Perhaps, thought Brrr, it had heard Rain’s suggestion that Yackle was warning them to get away from it. It was sulking. Anyway, keeping its own counsel, much as any unread book does.

Maybe we would be better off without it?

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