Marya looked up when the door opened. Malcav hadn’t kept her waiting long, but now he merely stood there, watching her.
“Well?” Marya finally asked with as much respect as she could muster. “Are there orders . . . from the king?”
She was fairly certain that Malcav came up with her orders himself, but she couldn’t say that, of course.
“Not yet,” Malcav said. “You are to watch them today. They will receive their first task of seven.”
Still, he stood looking down his nose at her.
“Why me?” Marya finally burst out. “Or are there other groups like. . . this?”
He smiled coldly.
“No. You were the only one to – speak out boldly. The most boldly.” He’d broken out of his chilly mold and grown angry. “You spoke out against the king and his advisors! No punishment is bad enough for you.”
He went out quickly, slamming the door behind him.
Marya sat watching the glass tremble in its frame. What had gotten him so angry?
You were the only one to. . .
What had she done that was different?
She remembered saying that the king was a puppet king, directed by puppeteers even sillier than the king. Had she been the only one to say that?
It seemed that she had struck home. Perhaps Malcav was manipulating the king and didn’t want the king to notice.
Regardless, she had no choice but to obey Malcav. For now, she might as well enjoy her reprieve. It would doubtless be short.
Solldero Noy waved a tired hand at his enervated group, and they stumbled gratefully to a stop. Annersap remained on his feet, dignified and aloof despite the sweat dripping down his face, but the others collapsed to the floor, all except for Stern. Solldero signaled to her, and she walked briskly toward him, showing no signs of fatigue. Solldero himself felt mildly strained, but more from corralling the others than his exertions.
“I think we’re about to get our first assignment.”
Her eyes shone with anticipation.
“Shall I intercept it?”
“No.” He waved her back, straining to hear past the noise the other teens were making.
“It’s too early. They won’t expect us to be awake yet. Tell the others to be quiet.”
She hushed them with a single hissed command.
He was lucky to have her, Solldero realized, even if he was a little disappointed about the others in his group. She was the ideal second.
Sidling up to the door, Solldero pressed himself gradually against it, listening for the noise he’d caught before. It was louder now, and much easier to hear. Hoofbeats, just one horse, he thought. And footsteps, rapid and even. The horse stopped, farther away from the door than Solldero had anticipated. He closed his eyes, focusing like the dolphin his sister had once compared him to on the sounds bouncing off the walls outside. It seemed to him that the footsteps were moving toward the horse – and there was a thump when the rider jumped down. He wouldn’t be able to hear if they started talking, not with the others whispering and panting so close.
Solldero snapped his fingers softly and waved his hand at the far wall. He didn’t have to look back to know that Stern understood.
When silence reigned, Solldero could just make out low voices. One of them sounded like the man they’d met when they first arrived. Malcav.
“. . . give it to them?”
“No. This is the death group. I’ll handle it.”
Footsteps approached the door, and Solldero threw himself back, forcing himself to turn and face the others, who were watching him blankly.
There was a clunk just outside the door, and a sharp tap on the door itself. Solldero closed his eyes, listening until he was sure that no one was there. Then he opened the door and picked up the package that lay on the doorstep.
He looked down at it, noting the clumsy knots that tied it.
Whatever the words he’d heard meant, Solldero resolved to protect his group. Even if it meant protecting them from the king.
Zinnia Questel hung back as the other teens opened the package. She’d jumped an inch when the knock came on the door, and her heart was still thumping. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was in the package.
A movement caught her eye, and she saw their leader stooping to pick up the discarded string. He turned it over in his hands, looking at the knot. Zinn looked at it, too, but she couldn’t make sense of the misshapen bump.
“It says, ‘Open the door,’” Cay said. He frowned at a piece of paper in his hand. “Door isn’t spelled like that, is it?”
Zinn’s gaze turned to Cay’s scraped leg. He wasn’t favoring it; probably the bandage wouldn’t even need to be changed. She let out a small sigh of pleasure – it was always good to heal someone – and stepped back, flushing, when their leader glanced at her.
The blonde girl snatched the paper from Cay.
“Door is spelled d-o-o-r,” she said scornfully, glancing down at it. Then she gasped. “This is court writing!” She turned triumphantly on Cay. “I knew the king cares about us!”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Cay protested. “It just means someone from the court wrote that note.”
The tallest boy, a clumpy mustache adorning his upper lip, laid a long-fingered hand on the blonde girl’s shoulder. She flinched away, but he didn’t seem to notice. He plucked the paper from her fingers and read it.
“The spelling would appear to be incorrect, my young friend,” he nodded at Cay. “But I believe the writer refers to the Doar blockade, which was constructed in the reign of our current king’s uncle, to prevent trade with Calcor’Bolad, a country with recently altered political principles. The blockade is four miles long, making it the second-largest blockade in history. It is supposed to be impenetrable, but scholar J. Pergaill commented that this is because of the guards constantly patrolling the blockade, not because of its building materials. The actual ‘Doar’ is set slightly to the right of the center of the blockade. It is made of prythaium, a type of-”
He was interrupted by the shortest boy, who was snorting with laughter.
“Do you know everything?” Cay asked, staring respectfully at the mustachioed boy.
“Not quite. I shall someday.”
He spoke with perfect assurance, without a hint of sarcasm.
“Maybe someday you’ll know how to keep your mouth shut,” muttered Leera, waving for him to come inspect the contents of the package.
Zinnia watched the shortest boy bite his lip and shake with laughter, a lock of his dark hair wobbling over his forehead. Her eye caught on a loose thread in his shirt, then as he sat down against the wall, a drop of blood on his hand. Straightening, Zinn hurried over to him, her kit at the ready.
Finally, something she knew how to do.
Leera Stern shouldered her way past the boy with the pitiful attempt at a mustache to stand next to their leader.
“What are we going to do?” she asked eagerly.
“We are only three miles as the crow flies from the Doar blockade, but it is inadvisable to attempt to open it. Pergaill had a humor section at the end of Countries and Their Defenses, and one of the things he joked about was the impossibility of opening the Doar. Of course, the ways he suggested were-”
Leera stared the tall boy down.
“I was asking Noy, not you. Show-off,” she muttered, turning away. Then a new idea struck her. “How many guards are there?”
“There’s always a platoon in the nearest town, but four to six at the actual Doar. Not including the guards along the rest of the blockade. ‘It is easy to pick out Doar guards from any others, because they wear the distinctive pirra-pirra feather-’”
Leera cut him off again. It irked her that he didn’t seem to be taking her not-very-subtle hints.
“We could take them! I’m good at fighting, and you. . .”
Noy looked back at her, waiting.
Leera didn’t back down. She had seen the muscles in his arms.
“You must be good at something. Dagger?”
“I can throw a knife,” he admitted.
“So what if. . .” Leera closed her eyes for a second, imagining the thrill of battle – real battle.
“I could take two.” She was sure of this. She’d beaten Keern and her father before, and extra adrenaline would make up for a true enemy’s aggression.
“And you could. . .”
Noy shook his head.
“Maybe you could, and maybe I could, but the two of us couldn’t take six. There’s also the business of getting a knife.”
Leera’s excitement faded. She’d forgotten that the king’s men had confiscated their belongings when they first arrived.
“Wait. Friya Aztlán still has her things. Do you think they let her bring stuff along because she’s a noble’s daughter?”
Noy’s eyes lit up briefly.
“Get her.”
Leera snapped a smart salute the way her father had taught her, and strode off. Friya was sitting on her bed, head down, tying her hair with a long blonde strand. Leera shook her head. The girl had worn silk ribbons the day before. Would she really rather wear no ribbons than old ones?
“Aztlán.”
The girl looked up, fear gliding swiftly in and out of her eyes.
“May I help you?”
You wouldn’t have thought she was anything but a contemptuous noble. Leera swiftly revised her opinion of her roommate.
“Noy wants to look through your things,” she said more respectfully.
“Look through my things?”
“You can take out anything that’s just yours,” Leera told her impatiently. “We just want to see if you’ve got anything useful.”
Friya blushed and pulled out her bag.
“I’ll bring it out,” she mumbled.
Leera closed the door behind her, but Friya opened it almost immediately.
“Here.” She thrust the embroidered bag into Leera’s hands.
Leera itched to open it, but she offered it to Noy. The boy shook his head.
“Go ahead.”
He stood with folded arms, watching as she pulled out – clothes.
Soft nightgowns, warm sweaters, shoes, hats, scarfs: an assortment of clothes with such varied textures and styles that Leera looked up at Noy in bewilderment.
Joran Arundasi shifted uncomfortably as Zinnia bandaged his hand. He’d already cracked two jokes, and she hadn’t even smiled, although the brown-haired girl next to her had laughed each time. They hadn’t been funny, Joran admitted to himself.
“I’m fine,” he muttered, and Zinnia let go of his hand.
“Now you are.”
It had only been a bitten fingernail, but Jor didn’t argue.
He stood up and looked over at the rest of the group. The noble’s daughter was saying something, gesturing shyly at the heap of cloth on the floor.
She plucked several items from the pile and disappeared into a bedroom.
Joran wandered over, wearing his broadest smile.
The pretty girl pushed away a metal box, tapping her fingers in frustration.
“Locked. We should have asked her to open it.”
Someone said something about patience, but Jor reached for the box, shuddering at the feel of cold metal. Still, it was surely more human to help other humans than to avoid any kind of technology.
He bit at his longest fingernail and used the sharp tip to open the lock. Flipping open the top, he began to laugh.
“Not much in there,” he chuckled, shoving the box across the floor to bump into Solldero’s feet.
Everyone in the room turned to stare at him.
“How did you open that?” the pretty girl asked, narrowing her eyes.
Joran lifted and dropped one shoulder awkwardly.
“I just, uh. . .”
“It appears that our short companion has hidden talents,” the tallest boy announced calmly.
Jor folded his arms, then unfolded them. He didn’t know what to do with them.
“I’m just good with any kind of technology,” he mumbled.
“Why?” the girl pressed.
“My dad makes robots. He-” Jor managed to grin. “He’s taught me all about that stuff. In fact-” To his horror, his smile was slipping. He fought to keep his face cheerful. “In fact, kids – people – from my village used to say I’m part robot.” He laughed, a little too loudly. The brown-haired girl smiled at him encouragingly.
“I think it’s wonderful that you have that talent. It will probably be very useful, don’t you think, Zinnia?”
Zinnia looked taken aback to be addressed, but it gave Joran the few seconds he needed to put his expression in order.
“Hey, look!” he said as the bedroom door opened, and thankfully, everyone turned to look at the noble’s daughter.
Cay Vojen gasped, his attention shooting from the pungent block of wood that had been in the package to Friya, the rich girl he’d argued with earlier. Only now it wasn’t a noble’s daughter who stood shyly in the doorway, but a curious peasant girl, wide-eyed and confused.
“Sorry,” she said, her accent fresh from the country. Cay even thought he could smell the rough soap his aunt used to wash their clothes.
“I must have come to the wrong place.”
Cay’s jaw fell.
“Where’s Friya?” he asked in horror. “She went into the room, but you came out. Oh. . .” The others were staring at him. “I mean, it’s a clever trick. Or you look a lot like – you aren’t – you’re Friya. Obviously. I didn’t know you could act. And you can, very well. I mean, you fooled me, except I realized-”
The brown-haired girl put a hand on his arm, and Cay snapped his mouth shut while she took over.
“Friya, that’s a great disguise! We can hardly recognize you. How did you do it?”
The peasant girl melted away, but Friya’s face was so transformed with pleasure that Cay could hardly recognize her.
Across the room, Solldero held up a metal box.
“Can you use this, too?”
It was full of little bottles and tubes and what looked like cleaning supplies.
Friya nodded.
“Yes, but not as well as I’d like.”
“I might be able to help,” Zinn offered softly.
Solldero acknowledged this with a nod.
“In that case, it’s time to go.”
Leera stood up.
“To the Doar?”
Solldero nodded.
“We’ll need the wood that was in the package, and Aztlán’s clothes. Let’s go!”
Cay blinked as the other teens burst into activity. A salty tang hit his nose an instant before he saw Solldero at his side.
“Remember,” the dark boy said quietly, “You’re supposed to stay behind Arundasi, on the right. Keep a lookout for anything that might be dangerous. Do you remember the hand signals?”
Cay hesitated. All he remembered was that they were confusing.
“Left means right, right means left, if I raise my hand then drop, if I point forward, then scatter,” Solldero said rapidly.
“I still don’t see why they have to be so confusing,” Cay said. Solldero looked annoyed, and Cay bit his tongue again.
“Just remember them, all right?” Solldero was gone before Cay could answer.
Friya Aztlán slung her bag awkwardly over her shoulder. She felt curiously lightheaded. She should have been terrified that she was traipsing off to the Doar blockade to follow a plan that hadn’t yet been explained. Equally, she should have been thrilled that she was finally getting her life-long dream of a real adventure, complete with an opportunity to use her acting skills. Instead, her head and arms moved as if through water as she adjusted the hard strap, while her legs moved lightly and rapidly toward the door, following the leader.
The part of her that longed to become a peasant girl or an old woman or whatever she wanted was breathless with excitement, but the rest of her was still sheltered Friya Aztlán.
“Stay close, but not too close,” the leader was saying.
Friya shivered in the morning air, realizing that no matter how she felt, she was going on an adventure that was more dangerous than anything she’d ever done before. Why, she could be kidnapped, or threatened, or attacked. . .
Elle Tonarych gave her a friendly smile and squeezed her hand, and Friya calmed down a little. After all, she was in a large group, and nothing was likely to happen.
As her breathing slowed, she began to look around. Solldero had told them to look for danger, but Friya focused more on people’s clothes. One woman wore a bright red scarf, but the cloth betrayed her poverty; another wore mourning grey.
“Friya!”
Her gaze jerked to the other teens, who had stopped and were staring back at her. The leader gestured impatiently.
“Come on. You have a swivel point; pay attention.”
Friya didn’t mention that she had only the vaguest idea of what he was talking about. Instead, she walked up to take her place by the treasonous peasant boy.
He was still staring at her. She tried to ignore him, focusing on the colorful buzz around her, but eventually she hissed,
“Stop staring at me!”
“I’m just looking for danger!” he protested.
“Then look on your own side!”
They glared at each other, and this continued until they both smacked into the people in front of them: Friya into Elle, and Cay into Joran. The group, three quarters of which had stopped perfectly at Solldero’s signal, dissolved into chaos.
The leader whipped around furiously.
“Friya, Cay! What – why can’t you-” He groaned and buried his face in his hands.
“Leera, would you handle this?”
He swiveled slowly, apparently searching for danger, while Leera strode purposefully towards the guilty pair. Friya thought about telling him that the king wouldn’t allow the type of danger that might hurt them, but she caught sight of Leera’s face and remained silent.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Cay defended himself. “She keeps looking at me like I’m a traitor, when everyone knows that the king is too weak even to protect himself, let alone-”
He broke off with a yelp as Leera stamped on his foot.
“Be. Quiet.” She hissed through clenched teeth.
Friya scowled at Cay. Why was he so stubborn, so sure that he was right, with his coarse peasant clothes and yellow-blond hair? He hadn’t met the king like she had – well, seen him, anyway. They’d been at a banquet, with trays and trays of luscious grapes and exotic fruits just for an appetizer before the meal started. At the thought of food, Friya’s stomach rumbled.
Joran moaned softly.
“I’m hungry. Robots never get hungry, but us humans. . .”
Solldero, staring hard at a group of scruffy men, answered with a shrug.
“No money.”
“But surely the king would have fed us,” Friya protested, shocked.
“We’ll never know, will we,” Leera replied. “Our only chance of breakfast is in your purse.”
Friya glanced around to find the others all watching her. Did they expect her to spend her own money for the group? It wouldn’t last the whole week at that rate.
Elle moved quietly up next to her.
“Friya, you’re really important to our group. You’re wonderful at acting, and the way you can manipulate clothes – it’s like magic! We couldn’t do this without you. I understand that you brought your money for personal emergencies . . . but, well . . . we’re a group. I won’t abandon you.”
“Neither will I.”
The blaze in Solldero’s dark eyes startled Friya when he glanced over at her before resuming his guard. Friya looked back at Elle, who was smiling at her, not seeming to care whether or not Friya handed over the money. Friya had assumed that the others regarded her as an outsider, and she’d thought she didn’t care, but Elle’s words gave her the unusual feeling of both happiness and safety. She felt that she ought to pledge herself in return, but she couldn’t find the words. Meeting Elle’s blue eyes, Friya realized that Elle already understood, and she pulled her money out of her pocket and handed it over.
Elle Tonarych smiled her brightest at Friya. Poor Friya; she always looked so stiff and uncomfortable. It really was kind of her to give up her own money. Elle offered the money to Solldero, who glanced over the group and shook his head.
“You and Annersap can get us something. We’ll wait for you-”
Leera interrupted.
“By that building, where those bushes are.” She froze and looked guiltily at Solldero, who was staring at her. “I’m sorry.”
The silence stretched out, and Elle glanced from one to the other of them uncomprehendingly.
Leera shifted, biting her lip, and Solldero looked lost.
Elle began to understand: Leera had undermined Solldero’s authority, although it was probably more complicated than that.
“By the big tree where that family is sitting,” Elle blurted suddenly. She felt her face reddening. Too little, too late, probably, but she went on.
“Oh. . . I’m sorry. Where will we find you, Solldero?”
She tried to put as much respect into her voice as she could, and although the solution was weak, Solldero took it.
“Thank you for your suggestions, but phrase them as such in the future. We’ll wait for you by that building, near the bushes.”
Elle breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Cay, who was rubbing his foot, looking hurt and confused.
“What do you want us to get, Cay?”
He looked up, his bewildered expression changing to hungry anticipation.
“Meat pies! My aunt always made them for breakfast every other day. They-”
Seeing the expressions on some of the others’ faces, Elle hastily nodded.
“Sure. Yes, we’ll get some.”
She offered him a final smile, then turned and hurried after the tallest boy, whose long legs were already carrying him swiftly toward a cluster of food stalls.
Okner Annersap watched placidly as his companion bargained for a bag of small meat pies. He didn’t know who had invented those; he imagined that they had evolved from the common country fare. Possibly Gregar M’Sishon had been the first famous baker to serve them, or maybe that female baker, whose name he could not remember. Elle dumped a bag into his arms and said breathlessly,
“Do you think we have enough money for almond pastries?”
They looked doubtfully at the remaining money.
“This must last the week, correct?” Okner queried, adding it up in his head. “I doubt that our funds are sufficient to support many more purchases today. I suggest we buy bread and cheese.”
Elle nodded.
“I hope Friya will eat that. I think she’s used to better food.”
Okner shrugged.
“Unless she intends to mimic the Starvation Nobles, she will.”
Most of them were used to better food, but Okner was quite sure none of them would refuse to eat like the much-ridiculed nobles during a losing war where the only available food was coarse ‘corn bread’. Corn bread. . . now there was an interesting topic. Fritzlin, widely considered the country’s greatest expert on food history, had stated in multiple books that the first version of corn bread had been imported from Calcor’Bolad, but Okner disagreed. He’d noticed that at least two of the original manuscripts that made up Tarnn’s Book of Sky mentioned what sounded like the cheesy variant of corn bread as the food eaten by Arree and his birds. In fact. . .
Elle was clutching his arm, breathing hard.
“Okner. . . that man pushed me. Let’s go. . . let’s go! They’re coming. . .”
With his superior height, Okner easily verified this statement. There were at least seven men, and a few women as well – all looking angry.
“According to ancient legend, anyone who recites Savone’s Cloud Poem three times will be safe from danger,” Okner informed his companion. The angry group began to run, shouting and pointing at them, and the crowd around them drew back, leaving them exposed.
“However, I am not quite sure if that includes physical danger. Let us be off,” he concluded. They fled.
Unfortunately, more faces in the crowd were turning sour as the angry men and women shouted that the two teens were supporters of the king. Forced to slow, Okner waved his arms peaceably.
“Please, my good people. What evidence do you have that we support the king?”
“You’re part of one of them groups!” someone shouted.
This was true.
Okner lowered his arms.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a mounted group of the king’s soldiers trotting in their direction. The situation reminded him of an old saying: ‘Spear and javelin kill the same’. The soldiers would doubtless disperse the crowd, but there would certainly be a fight, and the two teenagers would be caught in the middle. In every direction, Okner could see only enemies – extraordinarily similar to the circumstances of the champion Vikdor at the Battle of the Thousand – and Elle’s grip on his arm was becoming painful.
What would Vikdor have done in his place? Okner asked himself. It was then that he recalled that Vikdor had had companions, which had fled. However, Okner doubted that his own group had done the same.
Elle’s breathing was close to sobbing; she was being crushed. The crowd was pressing closer, and they were not being gentle, even though the soldiers were now roughly peeling away the outskirters.
Okner smiled calmly.
“My dear Elle, have you ever heard the Therran battle cry?”
She shook her head dumbly.
Okner picked up the bag of meat pies.
He lifted his chin, arranged his lips, and pinched his nose.
Swelling his chest to its maximum, he rose to his toes and let loose the fearsome Therran howl.
As the pair burst from the crowd and sprinted toward the group of their comrades, Okner frowned. The last ‘ooahho’ should have gone up another half step.