Ozark Fantasy - Twelve Fair Kingdoms Part 16

"Not townswomen wandering around wondering where to fling

water next. It's no trifle, this disease, people can die of it! Why haven't you sent for help?"They looked at me, and I looked back, and I said a broad word, not caring particularly if I did shock their sensibilities. They hadn't sent for help because, being the Wommacks, they figured it would be no use anyway. Bad luck was bad luck, and those as were marked for death would die, and a lot of similarly superst.i.tious nonsense. And I was very grateful that none of them knew something I wasn't going to take time to think about right now, which was that Anderson's Disease was not contagious. If they'd known that, and it running through their castle like wildfire, I daresay they'd of just given up and died on me on the spot; I had no plans of telling them.

"Shame on you!" I said. It was uppity of me, and not kind, especially toward Jacob Donahue, who was a good fifty years my senior. But I was thoroughly disgusted. The idea of half a hundred people stretched on the rack for the last three days while helpless hands were wrung and mournful moans were made about the Wommack curse... it turned my stomach. Eventually I would have to face the problem of just who among the Magicians of Rank was behind this monstrous cruelty, but not now. Now what mattered was putting an end to that cruelty, and without delay.

"You need a Magician of Rank here," I said, "and you need him at once. There's two good ones on Arkansaw-"

"We'll have n.o.body from Arkansaw," said Jacob Donahue Wommack.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I say, we'll have n.o.body, Magician of Rank or anybody else, from Arkansaw. Not in this Castle."

"In the name of the Twelve Gates and the Twelve Corners, Jacob Donahue Wommack, why ever not?' I shouted at him. "Have you seen those people upstairs?"

"I've seen them. I live here."

"Then-"

"They're feuding on Arkansaw," he said doggedly, "and have been

these past six months. No talking them out of it, either-we've had good men trying. And we want no part of it.""At a time like this, you-"

I was so furious it's likely just as well that Gilead cut me off.

"Responsible of Bright.w.a.ter," she said, "since distance makes no difference to a Magician of Rank, then it also makes no difference where he comes from. Do think of that."

True enough. Since a Magician of Rank was not only allowed, but expected to take his Mule by SNAPS instead of trundling along at sixty miles an hour, and since there was, strictly speaking, no time taken up by that process except leaving and landing, she was quite right.

"What will you accept, then?" I asked them, trying to sound a tad less arrogant.

"Anywhere but Arkansaw," said the Master of Wommack.

"Anywhere atall.""From Castle Motley, then," I said. "I don't know the man well, I've only seen him once or twice, but they say he's highly skilled. To go on with, he's a Lewis by birth, and that means he cuts nocorners-everything done strictly by rule, and strictly by the book. And we'll have Diamond of Motley send a Granny along as well, to give him a hand."

"You think it's worth a try?" asked Gilead.

"I do." Worth a try... I had no stomach left for arguing with these people. If and when I ever got back home, and the Jubilee over and done with, and could put my mind to something new in the way of planning, I would tackle the problem of superst.i.tion gotten out of hand in far corners. We for sure wanted the people accepting the system of magic by which this planet functioned; to lose that would be roughly comparable to losing photosynthesis, or gravity, or two and two coming up five. But this was 3012, not 1400 of Old Earth.

Some balancing needed doing, clearly, or this crew would be throwing entrails and dunking for witches.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a kind of icy voice spoke up to

point out that the list of things to be seen to in some vaporous unspecified "later" was getting longer and longer; and I told it to shut up. Now was not the moment for either accounting or reform.

"Jacob Donahue," I said, "will you show me where your comset room is, so that I can send for help? Or do you plan to stand there like that till everybody upstairs is dead in their beds?"

That brought him out of it, as I had expected it would.

"I'm not helpless, young woman," he said, "nor yet crippled. I'll send the message myself." And he spun on his heel-staggering only a little at the turn with his fever-and left us, with his children

staring at me accusingly. I'd made their daddy unhappy, and they didn't care for that.

There was a low bench against the wall beside the Castle door at the

foot of the stairs; I went on down and sat there, leaning my head gratefully back against the chilly stone. I was trembling all over.

And young Thomas Lincoln came over to stand in front of me.

"Will the Magician of Rank be able to fix everybody?" he wanted to

know.

"Well," I said wearily, "those as aren't too far gone, yes-he'll be able to fix them about as fast as you can say 'Magician of Rank.' He won't be able to help anyone that's really near to death-that's interfering with the laws of things, Thomas Lincoln. I'm sorry, but that's the straight of it."

"We should of sent for him sooner," said the boy.

"That you should."

"Wommacks don't care to be beholden," he told me stiffly.

"Then Wommacks must live with the consequences of their

doings," I said right back."Responsible of Bright.w.a.ter, don't be hard on the boy," one of the daughters pleaded, but I wasn't interested. If they'd called for a Magician of Rank the instant their Grannys had said they didn't know what sickness they were dealing with, n.o.body would have been in any danger. Not one person. Now... a lot of time had pa.s.sed, and a lot of suffering endured. Now, they'd be losing some of their own, to their own stupidity.

The time had come for another judicious lie, and I mustered up the

strength to provide it."It will spread to the town unless it's seen to," I said, "and on beyond-it's stuff that spreads like wildfire. Only two things have kept that from happening before this, you hear me there? One is the size of this place, with you able to keep everybody in a room of their own; that's helped. But primarily, my good Wommacks, what's kept your illness inside this Castle is nothing but good luck. Plain old miraculous twelvesquare common garden variety good luck. Now you think on that."

A drop in the bucket, but mine own drop.

"And if your father should happen to forget, because he's got the stuff himself and I'd judge his fever's headed for this roof, the name

of it is Anderson's Disease, and the access code for the computers is somewhere in the 441's. If-"

And there sat a Magician of Rank, in full regalia, with Granny

Scrabble of Castle Motley seated before him on his Mule, right in

the front hall on the clean-scrubbed flagstone floor.

"Mercy!" I said, and decided to stay where I was. They could get down off that animal's back, and call for an Attendant to take it away, all by themselves. I was duly impressed.

"Shawn Merryweather Lewis the 7th," said the man, "and Granny Scrabble. Both of Castle Motley, at your service."

"It's all upstairs," I told him, "and there's enough of it to last you.

Fifty-odd sick of Anderson's Disease. And two of them Grannys- you might see to those two first, so they can help."

I watched them up the stairs with a feeling of relief as wide as the Castle front; it was a pure pleasure to put some of this in other hands and know they were capable. I could tell by the set of his shoulders, and the way he wasted not one second-not to mention the fact that the Granny had not opened her mouth either to fuss or to oppose him-that Shawn Merryweather Lewis the 7th could handle all of this without any further attention from me.

"Responsible of Bright.w.a.ter," Gilead's voice came softly, then, "let me see you to your room. We're not completely without breeding here, though it may look some like it at this moment."

"No," I said, "you've shown breeding and to spare, Gilead of Wommack. I give you my word-nowhere on Ozark, in no Kingdom of the Twelve Families, have I been treated with the ceremony I was treated with here. And I can't really say as I expect Castle Traveller to top you. It just wasn't the best way to handle things... us down here celebrating while your people were in that pitiful state upstairs."

"We weren't thinking clearly... or maybe we don't know how to think clearly," she said in a voice both dull and bitter."Gilead," I said, "it's not lack of breeding you've shown this day, but lack of proportion. Lack of balance, Gilead. And I lay it to just one place-you are sick yourself; of course you can't think clearly. Now I'll take you up on the offer of the room, because I'm worn out, and I intend to sleep the rest of the day, unless I'm needed. But you'll take me nowhere-I want every one of you to your own beds, and that right smartly-and I'll see to myself. Just give me instructions. So many flights of stairs, so many halls, so many doors -I'll find it, you just number them off."

Gilead of Wommack stood there, rubbing the end of her nose with one finger and frowning, all of them looking like they'd drop around her, and me doing my best to be patient. And then she said, "I know!" and put her arm around Thomas Lincoln. "Thomas Lincoln? You go holler at your uncle to see Miss Responsible to her room! Move, now!"

His uncle. I thought a bit; who would that be? I kept good enough reckoning of the Families near Marktwain, and could give you the names of all direct lines on Ozark, but I hadn't every aunt, uncle, and cousin at the tip of my tongue.

And I had forgotten this one. I had forgotten all about him, or I would have run like a baby that's pulled a Mule's tail by mistake. I'd heard about him, more than enough to warn me off and make me careful, especially since my experience with Michael Stepforth Guthrie'd provided me with some new data on my current state of vulnerability to manly charms... but I had purely forgotten all about him.

When he stood before me, I looked into his eyes, and him smiling, and knowing; and I saw that I could fall forever into those eyes, and drown for all of time, and still not get to the bottom of what lay behind them. I was not ready for that yet, not by any number of long shots.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

I had been warned about him, most certainly-I'd been properly raised-but I had only been five years and one month old. Me and fourteen other little girls, all at Granny School together. All listening to the Teaching Stories and getting them by heart, like any other little girls. And my own beloved Granny Hazelbide, holding me tight between her bony knees, and pinching my chin between her first finger and her thumb until it hurt, so I couldn't look away.

"Pay heed, now," she had said, scaring me as well as the others sitting in a circle on the floor of the schoolroom watching. "This has come to Responsible of Bright.w.a.ter, as it happens, but it might of been any of you, any one of you! Might could be it still will... you pay heed."

He had been there in my five-year-old palm, which was already hard from climbing trees and weeding with an Oldtime Hoe, and already quick with every kind of needle (some of them not very nice). And in the leaves at the bottom of seven cups of tea, made seven times on seven consecutive days. And in the swing of the golden ring on its long chain. They'd tried again and again to read a fartime that hadn't him in it, but all in vain; he was always there.

It was called a Timecorner.

"I can't see round it," said Granny Hazelbide. "Nor can any