CHAPTER 1CHAPTER 1
 
I SHOULD HAVB known that something was very wrong when
the Mules started flying erratically. I was misled a bit, I
suppose, because there were no actual crashes, just upset
stomachs. The ordinary person on the street blamed it on
turbulence; and considering what they understood of the way
me system worked, that was as reasonable a conclusion as any
other However, I had full access to classified material, and I
knew perfectly well that it was magic, not aerodynamics, that
kept the Mules flying. And magic at the level of skill necessary
to fly a bulky creature like a Mule was not likely to suffer any
because of a little disturbance in the air You take a look at a
Mule sometime; it surely isn't built for flight.
 
Even someone who's gone no farther in magic than Common
Sense Level knows that the harmony of the universe is a
mighty frail and delicately balanced equilibrium, and that you
can't go tampering with any part of it without affecting
everything else. A child knows that. So that when whatever-it-
was started, with its first symptoms being Mules that made
their riders throw up, I should of known that something sturdy
was tugging hard at the Universal Web.
 
2              SUZETIE HADEN ELGIN
 
I was busy, let's grant me that. I was occupied with the
upcoming Grand Jubilee of the Confederation of Continents.
Any meeting that it doesn't happen but once every five hundred
years—you tend to pay it considerable attention. One of our
freighters had had engine trouble off the coast of Oklahomah,
and that was interfering with our supply deliveries, I was trying
to run a sizable Castle with a staff that bordered, that spring, on
the mediocre, and trying to find fit replacements before the big
to-do. And there were three Grannys taken to their beds in my
kingdom, afflicted with what they claimed was epizootics and
what I knew was congenital cantankerousness, and that was
disrupting the regular conduct of everyday affairs more than
was convenient.
 
So ... faced with a lot of little crises and one on the way
to being a big one, what did I do?
 
Well, I went to some meetings. I went to half a dozen. I
fussed at the Castle staff, and I managed to get me in an
Economist who showed some promise of being able to make
the rest of them shape up. I hired a new Fiddler, and I bought a
whole team of speckledy Mules that I'd had my eye on for a
while. I visited the "ailing" Grannys, with a box of hard candy
for each, and paid them elaborate compliments that they saw
right through but enjoyed just the same. And I went to church.
 
I was in church the morning that Terrence Merryweather
McDaniels the 6th, firstborn son of Vine of Motley and
Halliday Joseph McDaniels the 14th, was kidnapped, right in
broad daylight . . . when the man came through me cnur-
chdoor on a scruffy rented Mule, right in the middle of a
Solemn Service—right in the middle, mind you, of aprayer!—
and rode that Mule straight down the aisle. He snatched
Terrence Menyweather in his sleeping basket from between his
parents, and be flew right up over the Reverend's head and out
through the only stained glass window he could count on to
iris—Mule, basket, blankets, baby, and all, before any of us
could do more than gape. February the 21st, that was; I was
there, and it was that humiliating, I'm not likely to forget it.
The McDaniels were guests of Castle Brightwalei; and under
our protection, and for sure should of been safe in our church.
And now here was their baby kidnapped!
 
Although it is possible that kidnapping may not be precisely
the word in this particular instance. You have a kidnapping,
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms               3
 
generally there's somebody missing, and a ransom note, and
whatoot. In this case, the Reverend shouted an AAAAmen!
and we all rushed out the churchdoor; and there, hanging from
the highest of the three cedar trees in the churchyard in a life-
support bubble, was Terrence Menyweather McDaniels the
6th, sucking on his toe to show how undisturbed he was by it
all. And the Rent-a-Mule chewing on the crossclover against
me church wall, under the overhang. There was no sign of its
rider, who could make a claim to speed if to nothing else.
 
We could see the baby just fine, though we couldn't hear
him. And we knew he was safe in the bubble, and all his needs
attended to indefinitely. But he might as well of been in the
Wilderness Lands ofTinaseeh for all the good that did us—we
didn't dare touch him.
 
Oh, we had Magicians there skilled enough to put an end to
that bubble and float the baby down to his daddy's arms
without ruffling one bright red hair on his little head. If we
hadn't had them, we could of gotten them in a hurry. It wasn't
mat; it was a matter of diagnosis.
 
We had no way, you see, of knowing just what kind of magic
was on the forcefield holding mat bubble up in the tree and
keeping it active. Might of been no problem at all, just a bit of
Granny Magic. Ought to of been, if the man doing it couldn't
afford but a Rent-a-Mule. And then it might of been that the
mangy thing was meant to make us think that, and it might of
been that if we so much as jiggled that baby we'd blow the
whole churchyard—AND the baby—across the county line.
We're not much for taking chances with babies, I'm proud to
say, and we weren't about to be hasty. The way to do it was to
find the Magician that'd set the Spell, or whatever it was, and
make it clear that we intended to know, come hell or high
water, and keep on making it clear till we got told. Until then,
that baby would just have to stay in the cedar tree with the
squirrels and the chitterbirds and the yellowjays.
 
Vine of Motley carried on a good deal, doing her family no
credit at all, but she was only thirteen and it her first baby, and
allowances were made. Besides, I wasn't all that proud of my
own self and my own family at that moment.
 
Five suspicious continental delegations I had coming to
Castle Brightwater in less than three months, to celebrate the
Grand Jubilee of a confederation they didn't trust much more
 
4              SUZETTE HAPEN ELGIN
 
now than they had two hundred years ago. Every one of them
suspecting a plot behind every door and under every bedstead
and seeing Spells in die coffee cups and underneath their
saddles and, for all I knew, in their armpits. And I was
proposing that they'd all be safe here—when I couldn't keep
one little innocent pointy-headed baby safe in my own church
on a Solemn Day?
 
It strained the limits of me imagination somewhat more than
somewhat, and there was no way of keeping it quiet. They'd be
having picnics under the tree where that baby hung in his pretty
bubble and beaming the festivities out on the comsets before
suppertime, or my name wasn't Responsible of Brightwater
 
In the excitement we left the Solemn Service unfinished, and
it took three Spells and a Charm to clear that up later on, not to
mention the poor Reverend going through the service again to
an empty church reeking mightily of garlic and asafetida. But
the clear imperative right men was a family meeting; and we
moved in as orderly a fashion as was possible (given the
behavior of Vine of Motley) back to die Castle, where I turned
all the out-family over to the staff to feed and cosset and called
everyone else at once to the Meetingroom.
 
The table in the Meetingroom was dusty, and I distinctly saw
a spiderweb in a far window, giving me yet another clue to the
competency of my staff and strongly tempting me to waste a
Housekeeping Spell or two—which would of been most
unbecoming, but I never could abide dirt, eveh loose dirt—and
I waved everybody to their chairs. Which they took after
brushing more dust with great ostentation off the chair seats,
drat them all for their eagerness to dot every "i" and cross
every *'t" when it was my competence in question, and I called
the roll,
 
My mother was there, Thom of Guthrie, forty-four years old
and not looking more than thirty of those, which wasn't even
decent; I do not approve of my mother I said "Thom of
Guthrie" and she said "Here" and we left it at that. My uncles,
Donald Patrick Brightwater the 133rd—time we dropped that
name awhile, we'd wear it out—and Jubal Brooks Brightwater
the 31st. Jubal's wife, Emmalyn of Clark, poor puny thing, she
was there; and Donald's wife. Patience of dark, Emmalyn's
sistec And my grandmother, Ruth of Motley, not yet a Granny,
since Jonathan Cardwell Brightwater the 12th showed no signs
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms               5
 
of leaving this worid for all he was 109 years old . . . and it
was said that he still troubled Ruth of Motley in the nights and
scandalized the servingmaids in the chamber next to theirs.
And I could believe it. We could of used him that day, since his
head was as clear as his body was said to be hearty, but he was
off somewhere trying to trade a set of Charms he'd worked out
for a single Spell he'd been wanting to get hold of at least the
last five years . . . and the lady that Spell belonged to not
about to pass it on to him, if he spent five more.
 
As it was, that meant only seven of us in Meeting, not nearly
enough for proper discussion or voting, and you would of
thought that on a Solemn Day, and with guests in the Castle,
tbere'd of been more of us in our proper places. I was put out
about the whole thing, and my mother did not scruple to point
that out.
 
"Mighty nervy of you. Responsible," she said, in that voice
of hers, "being cross with everybody else for what is plainly
your own fault." I could of said Yes-Motnei; since she despises
that, but I had more pressing matters to think of than annoying
my motheE She'd never make a Granny; she was too quick
with mat tongue and not able to put it under rein when the
circumstances called for it, and at her age she had no excuse.
She'd be a flippant wench at eighty-five, still stuck in her
magic at Common Sense Level, like a child. Lucky she was
that she was beautiful, since men have no more sense than to
be distracted by such things, and Thorn was that. She had the
Guthrie hah; masses of it, exactly the color of bittersweet
chocolate and so alive it clung to your fingers (and to
everything else, so that you spent half your life picking Guthrie
hair off of any surface you cared to examine, but we'll let that
pass). And she had the Guthrie bones ... a face shaped like
a heart, and great green eyes in it over cheekbones high arched
like the curve of a bird's wing flying, and the long throat that
melted into perfect shoulders. . . . And oh, those breasts of
hers! Three children she'd suckled till they walked, and those
breasts looked as maiden as mine. She was well named, was
Thorn of Guthrie, and many of us had felt the sharp point of
her since she stepped under the doorbeam of Castle Brightwa-
ter thirty-one years ago. I have always suspected that those
Guthrie bones made her womb an uncomfortable place to lie,
giving her a way to poke at you even before you first breathed
 
6              SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
the air of the world, but that's a speculation I've kept to myself.
I hope.
 
"Well, now that we're thoroughly disgraced in front of the
whole world," sighed my grandmother, "what do we propose
to do about it?"
 
"This is not the first manifestation of something cockeyed,"
said Jubal Brooks. "You know that. Responsible."
 
"There was the milk," my grandmother agreed. "Four
Mundy's in a row now it's been sour straight from the goat. I
assume you don't find that normal, granddaughter"
 
"And there was the thing with the mirrors," said Emmalyn.
"It frightened me, my mirror shattering in my hand like that."
 
I expect it did frighten her, too; everything else did. I was
hoping she wouldn't notice the spiderweb. She was a sorry
excuse for a woman; on the other hand, we couldn't of gotten
Patience of dark without taking the sistci; too, and all in all it
had been a bargain worth making.
 
Patience was sitting with her left little finger tapping her
bottom lip, a gesture she made when she was waiting for a hole
to come by in the conversation, and I turned to her and made
the hole.
 
"Patience, you wanted to say something?"
 
"I was thinking of the streetsigns," she said.
 
"The streetsigns?"
 
"Echo in here," said my mother, always useful.
 
"I'm sorry. Patience," I said. "I hadn't heard that there was
anything happening with streetsigns."
 
"All over the city," said my uncle Donald Patrick. "Don't
you pay any attention to anything?"
 
"Well? What's been happening to them? Floating in the air?
Whirling around? Exploding? What?"
 
Patience laughed softly, and the sun shone in through the
windows and made the spattering of freckles over the bridge of
her nose look like sprinkled brown sugar I was very fond of
Patience of dark.
 
"They read backwards," she said. "The sign that should say
'River Street' . . . it says'Teerts Revir'" She spelled it out
for me to make that deal; though the tongue does not bend too
badly to "Teerts Revir"
 
"Well, that." I said, "is downright silly."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms               7
 
"It's all silly," said Patience, "and that is why I was
laughing. It's all ridiculous."
 
Emmalyn, whose freckles just ran together and looked like
she hadn't bothered to wash, allowed as how she might very
well have been cut when her mirror shattered, and that was not
silly.
 
I looked at them all, and I waited. My uncles, pulling at their
short black beards the way men always do in meetings. My
mothel; trying to keep her mind—such as it was—on the
discussion. My grandmothel; just biding her time till she could
get back to her embroidery. And the sisters—Emmalyn
watching Patience, and Patience watching some inner source
of we-know-not-what that had served us very well in many a
crisis-
 
Not a one of them mentioned me Mules, though I gave them
two full minutes. And that meant one of three things: they had
not noticed the phenomenon, or they did not realize that it was
of any importance, or they had some reason for behaving as if
one of the first two were the case. I wondered, but I didn't have
time for finding out in any roundabout fashion.
 
"I agree," I said at once the two minutes were up, "it's all
silly. Even the minors. Not a soul was harmed by any one of
the mirrors that broke—including you, Emmalyn. Anybody
can smell soured milk quick enough not to drink it, and the
other six days of the week it's been fine. And as for the
streetsigns, which I'm embarrassed I didn't know about them
but there it is—I didn't—that's silliest of all."
 
"Just mischief," said Jubal, putting on the period. "Until
today."
 
My mother flared her perfect nostrils, like a high-bred Mule
but a lot more attractive. "What makes you think, Jubal
Brooks," she demanded, "that today's kidnapping—which is a
matter of major importance—is connected in any way with all
these baby tricks of milk and mirrors?"
 
"And streetsigns," said Emmalyn of Clark. Naturally.
 
"Jubal's quite right," I said, before Thorn of Guthrie could
mm on Emmalyn. "And I call for Council."
 
There was a silence that told me I'd reached them, and
Emmalyn looked thoroughly put out- Council meant there'd be
no jokes, and no family bickering, and no pause in deliberation
 
8              SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
for coffee or cakes or ak or anything else till a conclusion was
come to and a course agreed upon.
 
"Do you think that's really called for, Responsible?" asked
my grandmother. She was doing a large panel at that time,
mounungdoves in a field of violets, as I recall. Not that she'd
ever seen a moumingdove. "As Jubal said, it's been mischief
only so fax. and pretty piddling mischief at that. And there's no
evidence / see of a connection between what happened in
church today and all that other foolishness."
 
"Responsible sees a connection," said Patience, "or she
would not have called Council. And the calling is her privilege
by rule; I suggest we get on with it."
 
I told them about the Mules then, and both the uncles left off
their beard-pulling and gave me their attention. Tampering
with goats was one thing, tampering with Mules was quite
another: Not that they knew what it meant in terms of magic, of
course—that would not of been suitable, since neither had ever
shown the slightest talent for the profession, and I suppose they
took flying Mules for granted as they did flying birds. But they
had the male fondness for Mules, and they had anyone's dislike
for the idea of suddenly falling out of the air like a stone, which
is where they could see it might well lead.
 
"It has to do, I believe," said Patience slowly, "with the
Jubilee. That's coming up fast now, and anybody with the idea
of putting it in bad odor would have to get at it fairly soon and
move with some dispatch. I do believe that's what this is all
about."
 
She was right, but they'd listen better if she was doing the
talking, so I left it to hec
 
"Go on," I said. "Please."
 
"I'm telling you nothing you don't know already," she said.
"The Confederation of Continents is not popular, nor likely to
be, especially with the Kingdoms of Purdy, Guthrie, and
Farson. And Tinaseeh is in worse state. The Travellers hate any
kind of government; they are still so busy just hacking back the
Wilderness that they don't feel they can spare time for anything
else, and they for sure don't want the Jubilee. A Jubilee would
give a kind of endorsement to the Confederation, and they are
dead set against that. And then there're all the wishy-washy
ones waiting around to see which way the wind blows."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              9
 
" 'A thing celebrated is a thing vindicated,'" quoted Ruth of
Motley. "They all know that as well as anybody."
 
"The idea," Patience went on, "would be to make it appear
that there's so much trouble on the continent of Maiktwain
... so much trouble in the Kingdom of Brighlwater specifi-
cally . . . that it would not really be safe for the other
Families to send their delegations to the Jubilee."
 
My conscience jabbed me, for she was right; and it had been
niggling at the back of my mind for some time. though I'd
managed to ignore it up to now by worrying about dust on the
banisters and coffee for deliveries for Mizzurah.
 
Donald Patrick scooted his chair back and stared at me, and
then scooted it up again, and said damnation to boot, and my
grandmother went "Ttch," with the tip of her tongue.
 
"Five years of work it's cost us," he said, glaring around the
table. "Five years to convince them even to let us schedule the
Jubilee! Surely all that work can't be set aside by some spoiled
milk and a few smashed mirrors!"
 
"Precisely," I said, flat as pondwater "And that is just the
point. You see, youall, how it will look? First, parlor tricks.
Then, a kind of tinkering—nothing serious, just tinkering—
with the Mules. And then, to show that what goes four steps
can go twelve, the baby-snatching. Again, you notice, without
any harm done."
 
"Aw," said Jubal, "it's just showing off. A display of power
Like throwing a dead goat into your well."
 
"That it is," I said. " 'See what we can do?' it says.
. . . 'And think what we might do, if we cared to.' That's the
message being spread here. Think the Wommacks will fly here
from the coast knowing their Mules may drop out from under
them any moment, to come to the support of our so-called
Confederation?"
 
"Disfederation," murmured Patience of dark. "A more
accurate term at this point."
 
"Patience," I said, "you hurt me."
 
"Howsomever and nevertheless," she said, "it's true. And
anything but a sure hand now will wreck it all."
 
We sat there silent, though Emmalyn fidgeted some, because
it wasn't anything to be serene about. Marktwain, Oklahomah,
and probably Mizzurah, agreed on the need for the Confedera-
tion of Continents; and their Kingdoms were willing to back it
 
19 SUZEITE HADEN ELGIN
 
as best they could. But the whole bulk of Aricansaw lay
between Marktwain and Mizzurah, and the Ocean of Storms
between all of us and either Kintucky or Tinaseeh; and the
three loyal continents all put together were not the size of
Tinaseeh. Since the day the Twelve Families first landed on this
planet in 2021, since the moment foot was set on this land and
it was named Ozark in the hope it would prove a homeworld to
our people, those of us who preferred not to remain trapped
forever in the twenty-first century had been in the minority.
 
The Twelve Families had seen, on Old Earth, what the
centralization of a government could mean. They had seen war
and waste and wickedness beyond-description, though the
descriptions handed down to us were enough to this day to
keep children in Granny Schools awake in the long nights of
winter, shivering more with nightmare than with the cold,
Twelve Kingdoms, we had. And at least four of them ready to
leap up every time a dirty puddle appeared on a street comer
and shout that this was but the first sign, the first step, toward
the wallowing in degradation that came when the individual
allowed theirselves to be swallowed up (they always said
"swallowed up," playing on the hatred every Ozarker had for
being closed in on any side, much less all of them) by a central
government. . . . And several more were in honesty uncom-
mitted, ready to move either way.
 
I ran them by in my mind, one by one. Castle Purdy, Castle
Guthrie, Castle Parson, Castle Traveller—dead set against the
Confederation and anxious to grab any opportunity to tear the
poor frail thing apart and go to isolation for everything but
trade and marriage. Castles Smith, Airy, dark, and
McDaniels, and Castles Lewis and Motley of Mizzurah, all
with us—but perhaps only Castle Airy really ready, or able, to
put any strength behind us. It was hard to know. When the
Confederation met at Castle Brightwater, one month now in
every four—to the bitter complaints of Purdy, Guthrie, Parson,
and Traveller about the expense and tile waste and the
frivolousness of it all—those six voted very carefully indeed.
That is, when we could manage to bring anything to a vote.
Only Castles Airy and Lewis had ever made a move that went
three points past neutrality, and that rarely. As for Castle
Wommack, who knew where they stood? One delegate they
sent to the meetings, grudgingly, against the other Castles'
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              11
 
delegations of four each and full staff; and the Wommack
delegate came without so much as a secretary or Attendant,
and spent most of his time abstaining. We were seven to five
for the Confederation—maybe. Maybe we were but two
against ten, with six of the ten playing lip service but ready to
bolt at me first sign of anything that smelled like real conflict.
 
My mother made a rare concession: she addressed me by
term of kinship.
 
"Daughter," she said, making me raise my eyebrows at the
unexpected mode of address, "what do you think we ought to
do?"
 
"Ask Jubal," said foolish Emmalyn, and I suppose Patience
kicked her, under the table. Patience always sat next to
Emmalyn for that specific purpose. Ask Jubal, indeed.
 
"Think now before you speak," said Ruth of Motley. "It
won't do to answer this carelessly and get caught out,
Responsible. You give it careful thought." She had finally
forgotten about her embroidery and joined us, and I was glad
of it.
 
"I think," I said slowly, "that things are not so far out of
hand that they cannot be stopped. Vine of Motley is crying
herself into hiccups up in the guestchambers at this very
moment, and no doubt feels herself mighty abused, but that
baby is safer where he is than in her arms. Signs and mirrors
and milk make no national catastrophe, and Mules that behave
like they'd been drinking bad whiskey are not yet a disaster
The point is to stop it now, before it goes one step further. The
next step might not be mischief."
 
"What is called foi," said'my grandmother; nodding her
head, "is a show of competence; that would serve the purpose.
Something that would demonstrate that the Brightwaters are
capable of keeping the delegations, and all their km, and all
their staffs, safe here for the Jubilee."
 
"I sometimes wonder if it's worth it," sighed Donald
Patrick. "I sometimes think it might be best to let them go on
and dissolve the Confederation and all be boones if that's their
determined mind! The energy we put into all this, the time. the
money. ... Do you know what Brightwater spent in food
and drink alone at the last quarterly meeting?"
 
"Donald Patrick Brightwalei," said Ruth of Motley in a
voice like the back of a hand, "you sound like a Purdy."
 
12
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
"I beg your pardon, Mother," said my uncle. "I hadn't any
intention of doing so."
 
Strictly speaking, it was not fair for him to be rebuked. As
tile ordinary citizen was ignorant of what kept the Mules flying
in the absence even of wings, so was Donald Patrick ignorant
of the peril every Ozarker faced if we could not establish once
and for all a central government that could respond, and
respond with speed, in an emergency. The decision to maintain
that ignorance had been made deliberately, and for excellent
reasons, hundreds of years ago, when first the menace of the
Out-Cabal had been discovered by our Magicians. And that
decision would stand, for so long as it was possible, and for so
long as disputations in political science, and intercontinental
philosophy, and planetary ecology, and the formidable theory
of magic, could be substituted for a truth it had been sworn our
people would never have to learn.
 
"First," I said quickly, "there's finding out where this attack
is coming from. That's the easy part."
 
My mother crossed her long white hands over her breasts to
indicate her shock and informed us that/iw we had to get that
baby down out of that tree.
 
"Mother, dear Mothei," I said, "you know that's not so—
mat baby is all right. Unlike the rest of us, that baby is
protected from every known danger this planet can muster up.
Not so much as a bacterium can get through that bubble to
harm Terrence Merryweather McDaniels, and he will be tended
more carefully there than a king's son."
 
It was only a figure of speech; there were no kings in our
kingdoms and never had been, and therefore no king's sons.
When First Granny had stood on Ozark for the first time, her
feet to solid ground after all those weary years on The Ship,
she had looked around hei; drawn a long breath, and said,
"Well, the Kingdom's come at last, praise be!" and we'd had
"kingdoms" ever since for that reason alone. But it had the
necessary effect. Thom of Guthrie made a pretense of thinking
it over, but she knew I was right, and she nodded her lovely
head and agreed with me that the baby probably represented
the least of our problems. Except insofar as it stood for an
insult to our Family and our faith, of course (and it was at that
point that I realized the Solemn Service had been left
unfinished).
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              13
 
"I say call in the Magicians of Rank, then," said Jubal
Brooks, "and have them to find out which one of our eleven
loving groups of kindred has set itself to bring the Confedera-
tion down about our heads. Literally about our heads."
 
"No," I told him, hoping he was right that it was only one.
"No, Jubal Brooks, that's all wrong. It would maybe be
fastest, depending on the strength and number of the Magicians
ranged against ours, but it's all wrong as to form."
 
"I don't see it," he said.
 
"Asymbol," said Ruth of Motley, spelling it all out for him,
"is best answered by a symbol. Not by a . . . meat cleavec "
 
"And what symbol do we propose to offer up for this motley
collection—no ofiense meant. Mother—of shenanigans? Cross
our hearts and spit in the ocean under a full moon?"
 
"A Quest, I expect, Jubal," I said, straight out. I had been *
dunking while they were talking, and level for level, that
seemed right to me. And the women nodded all around the
table.
 
"In this day and age?" sputtered Donald Patrick, and threw
up his hands. "Do you realize the antiquated set of hidebound
conditions that go with mounting up a Quest? Responsible,
you can't be serious about this'"
 
"Well, it is fitting," said his mother saving me the trouble.
"As Responsible and Patience have pointed out, the entire
campaign against us to this- time has been a single symbol,
what would be referred to in classical terms as a Challenge.
OUR MAGIC IS BETTER THAN YOUR MAGIC, you see.
No harm has been done, where obviously it could have been,
had they been so minded. Very well, then—for an old-
fashioned Challenge we shall offer an old-fashioned Quest. It
is appropriate; it has the right ring to it."
 
"Foof." said Donald Patrick. "It's absurd."
 
"Indeed it is," I agreed, "and that's the whole point."
 
"We might should ignore the whole thing," he said. "For all
we know."
 
"We do, and there will be no Grand Jubilee of the
Confederation of Continents of Ozark, Donald Patrick Bright-
water—and yes, I do know, down to the penny, what all this
has been costing us. Nor will we have another meeting of the
Confederation, I daresay, for a very long time. Whoever is
doing this, they would be delighted to have us ignore it all, and
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
everybody snickering behind their hands at us for cowards and
weaklings . . . and it is in the hope that we will be fools
enough to do that that they've kept every move to pestering
only and not gone forward to injury. If they can bring us down
for two cents, why spend two dollars?" I was completely out
of breath.
 
"They have overplayed their hand," said Patience, "with
this matter of the McDaniels baby."
 
"I believe so," I said. "It was a mistake of judgment. They
should of kidnapped one of Jubal's Mules instead."
 
"And hung it in a cedar tree? In a life-support bubble?" Her
brown eyes dancing. Patience of dark was clearly trying not to
imagine Jubal's favorite Mule being cleaned and fed and
curried up in the cedar tree; and losing the battle.
 
"It would of been safer," I said. "/ might of been busy
enough not to take it for anything more than a prank; and they
would of had still more time to make nuisances of them-
selves—and undercut the confidence in our security staff—
before the Jubilee."
 
"Responsible, that's but eleven weeks away!" Patience
broke in, the laughter in her eyes fading. "That's mighty little
time."
 
"All the more reason to talk less and do more," I said.
"Here's what I propose."
 
I would take our best Mule, from Brightwater's champion
line, called Sterling and deserving of her name. I would make a
brief and obvious fuss around the city in the way of putting
together suitable outfitting for a journey of a special kind. I
would let the word of the Quest be "leaked" to the comset
networks. And then, I would do each Castle in turn, staying
only just long enough at each to make the point that had to be
made. Responsible of Brightwatel; touring the Castles on a
Quest after the source of magic put to mischief and to
wickedness—just the thing. Just the thing!
 
"Even Tmaseeh?" asked Jubal dubiously.
 
"Even Tinaseeh. Certainly."
 
"It's a nine-day flight by Mule from here to Tinaseeh," he
said. "At least. And you do a Quest, you do it by foot or by
Mule, Responsible, no getting out of that. Nine days, just that
one leg of the trip."
 
"As the crow flies," I acknowledged. Not that it would of
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              15
 
taken me nine days, but there was no reason to let Jubal Brooks
know more than he needed to know. "I will not head straight
for Tinaseeh across the Oceans of Remembrances and of
Storms, dear Uncle. I am touring the Twelve Kingdoms on
solemn Quest, please remember. First I will go to Castle
McDaniels. Then a short flight to Afkansaw, a mere hop across
die channel to Mizzurah, on over to Kintucky, and then—and
onty then—to Tinaseeh. Then Oklahomah, quick around it,
•^ and back home."
 
"But, my dear niece," he said—Jubal Brooks was stubborn,
grant him that—"though it's but one day from Kintucky's
southernmost coast to the coast of Tinaseeh, that one day will
set you down not at Castle Traveller but on the edge of the
largest Wilderness Lands on Ozark. Larger than the entire land
area of this continent, for example; I strongly doubt you'll do
the trip over that in less than three days. and you'd still have
two days ahead of you before you reached the Castle gates!"
 
My grandmother stepped in then; the man was getting above
himself, but tact, of course, was necessary. Men are a great
deal of trouble, I must say.
 
"Jubal Brooks," she said, firmly but courteously, "Respon-
sible was properly named. I suggest we do her the courtesy of
trusting her in this."
 
"Distances," he began—the man was ranting!—"are dis-
tances. Name or no name—"
 
We might of wasted a lot more time on that kind of thing, if
there hadn't of been a knock on the door just as he was hitting
his stride. For all that we were in Council, we could spare time
to answer the door; and we did. Nobody was there, of course,
leading Emmalyn to look puzzled and Patience to look
innocent, but it served its purpose.
 
I dismissed Council with thanks, letting Jubal run down
naturally as we all filed out, paid a visit to the guestchambers
only to be told that the baby's parents had gone with full
ceremonial tent to camp in the bed of needles beneath their son
and heu; taking along the infant daughter of a servingmaid to
see to the problem of Vine of Motley's milk—a practical
solution, if a bit hard on the servingmaid—and then I ran for
the stables.
 
So far as I was concerned, we were late already,
 
CHAPTER 2
 
So CLOSE TO HOME I didn't dare take chances, and so I let my
Mule fool about and waste hours in the air on the first stage of
my journey, to Castle McDaniels. I wore an elaborate gown of
emerald green; under it I had on flared trousers of a deeper
green, tucked into trim high boots of scarlet leather with silver
bells about the bootcuffs and silver spurs all cunningly worked.
And I had over that a tight-laced corselet of black velvet
embroidered in gold and silver, and it was all topped with a
hooded traveling cloak of six layers black velvet quilted
together with silver thread in a pattern of wild roses and star-in-
the-sky-vine and friendly ivy. My scarlet gloves matched my
boots and my riding crop matched my spurs, and around my
throat on a golden chain was a talisman almost not fit for the
sight of decent people, except that decent people could be
counted on not to know what it meant and anybody that knew
what it meant would sure not mention it. All in all it was a
purely disgusting sight. When I flew I preferred honest denims,
and over them a cloak of brown wool. And spurs and riding
crop to fly a Mule were about as sensible as four wheels and a
clutch to sail a ship—but none of that was relevant.
 
17
 
18 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
I was a symbol, and a symbol carrying out a symbol. I was,
by the Twelve Corners, a Meta-Symbol, and I intended to look
the part if it choked me. They, whoever they might turn out to
be, would have leisure to compare the style in which Castle
Brightwater did these things with their scroungy brigand on a
mangy rented Mule. I would see to that, and I intended to rub it
in and men add salt, if I got the chance.
 
I brought Sterling down smartly at the entrance to Castle
McDaniets without raising so much as a puff of dust, and I
called out to the guardmaid at the broad door to let us in.
 
"Well met. Responsible of Brightwater!" she hollered at
me; and I mused, as I had mused many and many a time
before, on the burden it gave the tongue to greet either myself
or my sister Troublesome (not that many greeted her!). A
regular welter of syllables, and I hoped the Granny that did it
got a pain in her jaw joints. When I was a child, the others
made me pay for the inconvenience, ringing changes on it all
me day long. Obstreperous of Laketumoc, they liked to call me.
Preposterous of Bogwatec Philharmonic of Underwear And
numerous variations in the same vein. On the rare occasions
when my sister and I shared the same space, they liked to call
us "Nettlesome and Cuddlesome."
 
We have a saying, an ancient one: "Don't get mad; get
even." It stayed my hand when I was young enough to mind
such nonsense, and now I would not stoop me distance
necessary to get even. But it still rankles at times. As when a
skinny guardmaid bellows out at me before all the world,
"Well met. Responsible of Brightwater!"
 
"Well met yourself," I said, "and why not good morrow
while we're at it?"
 
"Beg your pardon?" She had a slack jaw, too, and it
dropped, doing nothing to improve the general effect.
 
"As should you," I said crossly. "The year is 3012, and
*well met* went out with the chastity belt and the spindle."
 
"I have a spindle," she said to me, all sauce, but she must
not of cared for the expression on my face; she left it at that.
 
"What's your name, guardmaid?" I asked hec while I
waited for the idea to reach her brain that someone should be
notified of my arrival.
 
"Demarest, I'm called. Demarest of Wommack."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              19
 
Demarest ... it was a name that had no associations for
me, and she was far from home.
 
"Would you tell the McDaniels I'm here, Demarest of
Wommack?" I asked her, giving up. No doubt the McDaniels,
like myself, were having trouble finding Castle staff that could
even begin to meet the minimum needs of their jobs. It made
me sorry, at times, that robots were forbidden to us- True, they
were me first step toward a population that just lay around and
got fat and then died of bone laziness; I understood and
approved the prohibition. But they would of been so useful for
some things. Pacing off the boundaries of a kingdom, for
instance, which had to be done on foot, every inch of
it ... and letting people into Castles.
 
She looked at me out of the corner of blue eyes under
straight-cut coppery bangs, and she tugged at the beUpull
hanging at her right hand, and in due course me Castle
Housekeeper appeared and opened the front doors to me. She
did not, I'm happy to say, tell me I was well met; but she called
stablemaios to take away the Mule and unload my saddlebags.
and she showed me into a small waiting room where a fire
burned bright against me February chill. And she saw to it that
someone brought me a glass of wine and a mug of hearty soup.
 
I settled my complicated skirts and maddening trousers, and
drank my soup and wine, and soon enough the arched door
opened and in came Anne of Brightwater, my kinswoman and a
McDaniels by marriage, to greet me.
 
"Law!" she said from the doorway, looking me up and
down. She was blessed with a plain name and plain speech
both, and I envied her the first at least.
 
"Look like a spectacle, don't I?" I acknowledged.
 
"My, yes," said Anne.
 
"I'm supposed to," I said. "You should see my underwear"
 
She agreed to forego that experience, and came and sat
down and stared at me, shaking her head and biting her lower
Hp so as not to laugh.
 
"Well, Anne?"
 
"Oh, I'm sure you've good reasons," she said, "and I have
sense enough not to want to know what they are. But I'll wager
not a single Granny saw you leave in that getup, or more than
your boots and your gloves would be rosy red."
 
I chuckled; I expected she was right.
 
29 Suzerrc HADEN ELGIN
 
"Welcome, Responsible of Brightwatel," said Anne then,
"and how long are we to have the misery of your company?"
 
Plainer and plainer speech.
 
"Can you put me up for twenty-four hours, sweet cousin?"
 
"In the style you're decked out for?"
 
"If you mean must there be dancing in the streets, Anne, no,
I'll spare you that."
 
"What, then? You didn't Just 'drop in' on your way to buy a
spool of thread somewhere."
 
Anne pulled her chair near the fire, folded her arms across
her chest, fixed her attention on me, and waited.
 
"I, Responsible of Brightwatel," I recited, "am touring the
Twelve Castles of Ozark, Castle by Castle, in preparation for
the Grand Jubilee of the Confederation. Which is—as you'll
remember—to be convened at Castle Brightwater on the eighth
day of this May. And I begin here, dear cousin, to do you
honoc"
 
"And because Castle McDaniels is closest."
 
"And," I capped it, "because a person has to begin
somewhere. There is one advantage; if I start with you, then it
follows that you're first done with me."
 
"Ah, yes," she sighed, "there is that."
 
She leaned back in her chair and sighed again, and I tried to
keep my spurs from making holes in her upholstery.
 
"What's required?" she asked me.
 
"One party," 1 said. "A very small one. In honor of my tom;
 
you know. In honor of my Quest.**
 
"In honor of the Pickles,"
 
"The Pickles? Anne!"
 
On Earth, we are told in the Teaching Stories, there was a
food called pickles, made out of some other food called
cucumbers. On this world. Pickles are small flat squishy round
green things, and they bite. They certainly are not good to eat,
even in brine, and we grant them a capital letter to keep the
kids mindful not to step on them barefoot.
 
"Well," said Anne of Brightwater, "it's just as sensible."
 
"It would be just as well," I said, "not to mention the
Pickles in your invitations."
 
"Responsible, dear Cousin Responsible. I despise parties' I
always have despised them, and you know it. Why don't you
be too tired, instead?"
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              21
 
The fire crackled in the fireplace, and a nasty wind howled
round the Castle walls, and I knit my brows and glared at her
until she sighed one more time and went away to give the
necessary orders. My mention as she stepped into the hall that
she'd best expect a comset film crew did nothing for her
expression, but she went on; and I got myself out of my spurs
and hung them over a comer of her mantel.
 
There could be no treason here—and that was what all this
foolishness in fact amounted to, of course, plain treason—not
m Castle McDaniels. The Brightwaters and the McDaniels had
been closer than the sea and its shore ever since First Landing,
and if there was anyone in this Castle who was not kin to me by
birth or by marriage, or tied to me by favors given and
received, it was some ninny such as stood guardmaid.
Nevertheless, a Quest was a Quest, and it had to be done
according to the rules. I had had a boring flight, tooling along
through the air and waving to passing birds; and I would have a
boring supper with Anne's boring husband, and then we would
all have a boring party and be boringly exhausted in the
morning. And then before lunch I would be able to lake my
leave for Castle Purdy.
 
At which point a thought struck me, and I pulled my map
from my pocket and unfolded it. Upper right-hand comer of
die pliofilm, the small continent Marktwain, with the Outward
Deeps off its coasts to the east. To the south of Marktwain,
Oklahomah, a tad biggec To the west, and dwarfing both, the
continent of Arkansaw, with little Mizzurah almost up against
its western coast and sheltered some from the Ocean of Storms
by its overhang to the north. Then across the Ocean of Storms,
in the northwest corner of my map, was Kintucky, big as
Oklahomah but with only the Wommacks to manage the whole
of it. And last of all, filling the southwest cornei; the huge bulk
of Tinaseeh, the only one of our continents to have an inland
sea, and its Wilderness Lands alone as big as either Kintucky
or Oklahomah. And the empty Ocean of Remembrances,
filhng all the southeast comer:
 
True, the most obvious route, and the one I had described to
me arguesome Jubal, was straight over to Arkansaw. But
Arkansaw was shared by Castles Purdy and Guthrie and
Farson. And those were three of the most likely to have
 
22 SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN
 
something to hide from me and require an investment of my
time.
 
An alternative that might save me time in the iong run would
be to fly straight on south to Castle Clark on Oklahomah, and
make a quick circuit of Castles Smith and Airy, both of
which—along with Clark—were loyal to the Confederation. I
could maybe do the entire continent in eight, nine days,
counting one to a Castle for the required ceremonial stopover,
before I moved on to Arkansaw and more reasonable sources
of trouble.
 
The McDaniels children found me poring over my map and
gathered round to look over my shoulder, all nine of them. The
room shrank around me; not a one of them that was not a
typical McDaniels, big and stocky and broad-shouldered (and
if female, broad-hipped as well). It got very crowded in that
room.
 
"This is a nice map you've got," said one of the younger of
the herd, a boy called Nicholas Fail-tower McDaniels the
somethingth—I could not remember the what-th there for a
minute. The 55th? No; the 56m. I was embarrassed; if there is
one thing expected of us it is knowing people's names, and this
boy was a second cousin of mine.
 
"What are you looking for, Responsible? It's a nice map,
like Nicholas says, but there's a lot on it."
 
"She's looking for the kidnapper—" said the very littlest,
and instantly clapped both hands over his mouth. "I forgot,"
he said around his fingers.
 
Either Anne or their father then had threatened them with
dire events if they mentioned that baby; still, it was a
McDaniels baby, and it was not surprising that they'd be
interested. Manners were hard to get the hang of.
 
"I am trying to decide," I said, ruffling the boy's hair to
show I didn't intend to take notice of his lapse, "which is the
best way to go when I leave in the morning.' Like you say,
there's a lot of choices."
 
The children hadn't any hesitation at all—zip due west to
Arkansaw, as any fool could see. Except for one of them. Her
name was Silverweb, and she was fifteen years old and not yet
mairied; perhaps it was her intention to become a Granny
without the bother of waiting around to become a widow. She
was a handsome strapping young woman, with a pleasant face;
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
23
 
die bound her hair back in an intricate figure-eight of yellow
braids that I could never of managed, and she carried herself
with dignity. I made a mental note to compliment Anne on this
daughter—her only daughter—who seemed to me to show
promise.
 
She laid a well-tanned finger that showed she wasn't afraid
of a little sun to my map, and traced a different route. Castle
dark, on Oklahomah's northeast corner. Castle Airy, at the
southern tip ... Oklahomah came very near being a trian-
gle. Then to Castle Smith, in the northwest corner: My choice
exactly.
 
"Do it that way," she said. "Then over to Arkansaw; only
an easy morning's ride. And you're at Castle Guthrie."
 
"Faugh. Silverweb," said one of her brothers, "she can't do
that at all. You heard Mother—Cousin Responsible is touring
all twelve Castles on solemn Quest. The way to do it is go
straight on to Arkansaw, then Mizzurah, men Kintucky, then
Tinaseeh, then end up in Oklahomah, and back to
MaricXwain."
 
"If she ever gets out of Tinaseeh," said another "Horrible
old place, Tinaseeh is, and full of things that would as soon eat
you alive as look at you."
 
"Not as horrible as your room!"
 
I moved out of the way so as not to get my costume spoiled,
grateful that the map was indestructible, and let them shove
and cany on for a bit to get it out of their systems. Silverweb,
calm among the turmoil, held fast that it would be just as
sensible, and twice as pleasant, and break no rules that she'd
ever heard of, if I went the other way round.
 
"But then she's got all that open ocean between Tinaseeh
and Oklahomah to fly! Look at it, would you? A person could
fly over that and never be heard of again—it must be ...
three days across? Five? Six?"
 
"It's got to be done at one end or the other," scoffed his
sister "Better to do it when the worst is over and she can take
her time. She'll be plain worn out, by then."
 
"What makes you think so, Silverweb?" the boy taunted,
for all he had to stand on his tiptoes to look her in the eye.
"She's Responsible of Brightwater, Silverweb, she's not a
tourist!"
 
SUverweb's chin went up and the blue eyes almost closed.
 
24
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
She took one stop forward and the boy fell back two. Second of
nine she was; it couldn't be easy. And the other eight all
male ... it was enough to constitute a substantial burden.
 
SUverweb. I added it up in my head—she was a seven.
Withdrawal from the world . . . that went with not marrying
. . . secrets and mystery . . - that fit the hooded eyes and
me intricate figure of her braids. From what I could see, this
one was properly named, and living up to it.
 
As of course she would be. There were no incompetent
Grannys on Marictwain to cause trouble with an Improper
Naming, as had been known to happen elsewhere from time to
 
time.
 
I let them squabble, Silverweb winning easily, and relaxed
as best I could given the way I was dressed, enjoying the sight
of them all if not the sound. I had my route chosen now—as
Silverweb had had the wit to lay it out, and it was not designed
solely in terms of distances and points of the compass. I would
do quickly the friendly territory of Oklahomah; and in that way
I'd have a bit extra where it was less than friendly.
 
The party was pleasant, more a dance than a party, and a
credit to Anne. She'd invited people enough to fill the Castle's
smaller ballroom, and had managed to muster a respectable
crowd, considering me short notice and a thunderstorm that
had already been scheduled and could not of been postponed
without distorting the weather for the next three weeks. Anne
and I stood in a comer back of the bandstand where the Caller
was hollering out the dances, both of us in slight danger from a
flying fiddle bow but willing to risk it for the sake of the semi-
privacy. I despised parties as much as Anne did, probably
more. and I couldn't dance even the simplest dances, much less
the complex things they were weaving on the tiles that night in
honor of my visit.
 
"Star in the shallows, flash and swim,
Lady to her gentleman and parry to him!"
 
"Wherever do they leam to do all that?" I marveled.
 
"Circle has a border to it, touch it and run.
Muffins in the oven till their middles are done!"
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms            25
 
"You should of been taught," said Anne- "They had no
right to leave you ignorant just because you might of enjoyed
yourself."
 
"There wasn't time," I said, which was the plain truth.
Plus, I was awkward, always had been.
 
"Braid a double rosebud, smother it in snow,
Swing your partner, and dosey-do!"
 
"Step on a Pickle in the dark of night,
Grab your cross lady, and allemande right!"
 
"It's not fail," she insisted. "I hear your brother's the best
dancer in three counties, and turning all the girls to cream and
buttec And I'll wager they saw to it that your sister learned
every dance that was worth knowing."
 
I snorted. "Nobody ever 'saw to it' that Troublesome did
anything, Anne of Brightwater What she wanted to do, she
did. What she cared to know about, she learned. Anything else
was just so much kiss-your-elbow"
 
"Sashay down the center; rim around the wall,
Single-bind, double-bind, and promenade all!"
 
I couldn't even understand these calls . . . dosey-do and
promenade-the-hall went by often enough to let me know it
was dancing, but the intricacies of it were beyond me. I
couldn't decide whether I minded that, either, though on
general principles I was not supposed to fall behind on
anything that mattered to any sizable proportion of Ozarkers,
"sizable" being defined as more than three. It looked to be hot
work, and I fanned my face with my blank program in
sympathy.
 
"Young people!" I said, ducking the bow. "They do amaze
me."
 
Anne gave me a sharp look, and I looked her right back and
.waited. Whatever she had to say, she'd say it; she'd said
enough about my blue-and-silver party dress, which was even
more preposterous in the way of gewgaws and lollydaddles
man the one I'd arrived in. And my high-heeded silver slippers
with the pointed toes.
 
26 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
"My daughter, Silverweb," she said to me, and I noticed
that she was talking with her teeth clenched, and spitting out
the syllables like she couldn't spare them, "Silverweb, my
dear cousin, is a 'young people.'"
 
"And a fine one," I agreed. "That's a likely young woman,
and I plan to keep my eye on her in future. I wager she'll go a
considerable distance in this worid."
 
"SiTverweb," Anne said again, "is fifteen years old. And
you, Responsible of Brightwater, you remarking on the habits
of these 'young people' like a blasted Granny, have had
precisely fourteen birthdays, and the fourteenth not more than
six weeks ago!"
 
It wasn't often I stood rebuked lately, not since we'd finally
managed to pack my sister off where she couldn't do any harm
to speak of or leave me holding the bag if she was bound and
determined to live up to her name. But this was one of the
times, and I had it coming. Not that we arc given to
considering only the calendar years on Ozark, we know many
other things more worth considering. But my speech had not
been genteel. It was the sort of thing my mother would of said,
and I wished, not for me first time, that I had the skill of
blushing. That, like the ability not to fall over my own big feet,
had been left out of my equipment. And the more ashamed of
myself I was, the more I looked like I didn't care atall—I knew
that. I only wished I knew what to do about it.
 
Anne of Brightwater was not as tall as I was, and she had a
usual habit of gathering herself in that made her seem even
smaller, but she was making me feel mighty puny now, there
mid the music and the boom of thunder A trick like a cat does,
puffing herself up to be more impressive.
 
"It is hard for Silverweb," said my kinswoman, spitting
sparks now along with the syllables, "seeing you come here,
dressed like a young queen and treated like one, off on a Quest
before all the world and it taken seriously—oh, they are, don't
you worry, they are taking it very seriously! While she stands
aside and must hear herself called *one of the McDaniels
children.' Had you thought of that?"
 
I had not thought of it, obvious though it surely should have
been. I looked at the tall grave girl who was a year my senior,
moving easily through the squares in a simple dress of giay silk
sprigged with pale green rosebuds, and her only ornament a
shawl of dark gray wool in a Love-in-the-Mist knotting, with a
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
27
 
pearl fringe . . . and perhaps the single wild rose in her
yellow hak I remembered the way I had sat that afternoon,
"watching the children," with a pretty fair estimate of the
expression that must of been on my face at that time, and I felt
a fool. Had I called her "one of the children" in her hearing?
Surely not . . . but supper had been boring, as expected, and
I'd not paid a great deal of mind to curbing my tongue.
 
"The mother lion defends her young," I said lamely, and the
nearest Fiddler got me back of the ear, making me jump.
 
"And a stitch in time saves nine!"
 
I winced and stared at the floor, and Anne drew her skirts
around her with a swish like ribbon tearing and went off and
left roe standing there all alone as she headed for the ballroom
dool; managing to tangle herself up with two couples in a reel
before she sailed out into the corridor and slammed the door
behind hec
 
She would be back later to apologize. After all, I had not
chosen to be Responsible of Brightwatec It was none of my
doing. A Granny had chosen that role for me and I filled it as
best I could, and no doubt there were good reasons. Some of
mem I knew, and some I could guess, though there seemed a
kind of fuzz between them and my clear awareness; others I
would learn in time, and some I would be told. When I was
buried they would be written on a sheet of paper narrow as my
thumb, in the symbols of Formalisms & Transformations, and
tucked between my breasts and buried with me. Somewhere, if
she still lived, there was someone who knew every one of those
reasons at this very moment, and no doubt the knowledge lay
heavy on her shoulders; I hoped they were broad.
 
I was behaving like a fourteen-year-old, I realized, and I
smoothed my ruffled feathers and set my quarrel with Anne
aside, along with the futile lamenting about my lack of
elegances. Spilt milk, all of it, and I'd spill gallons more
before I saw my own Castle gates again. The only important
question I needed to concern myself with was: could there be
mischief here, if not treason, despite the fact that the
McDaniels were close to the Brightwaters as our skins?
 
I listened, then, with more than my ears—my ears were too
fall of fiddle and guitar and dulcimer to be useful in any case—
and only silence came back to me. Here I might be annoying,
 
28 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
and I might be read up and down, but here I was loved, and
here the Confederation was seen as a worthy goal to be worked
toward. I found no small thing that I could worry about, and I
worried easy; nor would I be spending this night casting Spells
to troll for echoes that I might of missed hearing through the
music.
 
Thunder boomed again, less intimidating than Anne, and I
poured myself another glass of punch and retreated further into
the protection of the tall white baskets of flowers and ferns that
surrounded the bandstand. And seeing as how the McDaniels
set as fine a party table as was to be found anywhere, I had
another plate of food. I would be off in the morning early, I
decided, and skip the breakfast. That way I wouldn't have to
face Silverweb of McDaniels again and risk putting my foot
deeper yet in the muck than I had already, from being self-
conscious over slighting her so today.
 
My pockets were deep and my skirts full enough to hide
plenty of lumps. I made sure I had both a midnight snack and a
breakfast squirreled away before Anne came back to tuck her
arm through mine and tell me what a crosspatch she'd been
over nothing.
 
"It wasn't 'nothing,'" I said resolutely, "and I had every
word you said coming to me, Anne. But I want you to know it
wasn't meant to be the way it looked, and I wish you'd tell
Silverweb that once I'm gone. And I thank you for bringing my
manner to my attention here and now, close to home; it would
not be so easy if you were the lady of Castle Traveller,"
 
"Just use your head," she said, and tears in her eyes because
she saw I was truly sorry. Anne of Brightwater had a quick
temper, but a heart that melted at blood heat, nearly. "And
watch your tongue."
 
"I'm trying," I said. "I'll get the hang of it."
 
I had for sure better get the hang of it, and that with some
speed.
 
"You'll tell Silverweb?" I asked her. "Promise?"
 
"I'll tell her; And she will understand. Silverweb is a deep
one."
 
CHAPTER?
 
THE NEXT DAY I was able to be a little more sensible. Leaving,
I still wore my spectacular traveling outfit, but the minute I was
well over the water and out of sight of the fishing boats I
brought Sterling to a full stop in midair and changed into
something that didn't make what was already misery doubly
so. Balancing on Muleback for that kind of thing takes
practice, and properly fastened straps and backups, but I was
more than up to it—I'd had lots of practice. Mostly it requires
pretending you are flat on the ground, while at the same time
not exactly forgetting that it's a good ways down.
 
I took the Ocean of Remembrances at a leisurely pace; it was
a three-day flight from Castle McDaniels to the first landfall on
Oklahomah, and since I'd done Castle to coast in about
fourteen minutes flat I had time to make up over the ocean.
 
I cut the Mule back to half her regulation speed, and I
balanced a very small dulcimer—all I'd been able to fit in my
saddlebags, but not all that bad—over her broad neck, and I
sang my way dry through a steady wind and plenty of rain by
way of a Weather Transformation that it was fully illegal for me
to know. Sterling disliked the dulcimer, and she probably
 
29
 
SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN
 
30
 
disliked my voice even more; it was a good deal like her own.
Just as I was never called upon to dance at parties, I was never
called upon to sing (anywhere), and I reveled in my opportuni-
ty. here at a height where there was nobody to clap hands over
their ears and beg me to leave off tormenting them. I do know a
lot of ballads, not to mention every hymn in the hymnal, and I
enjoyed myself tremendously.
 
There is some inconvenience, of course, to making any
lengthy ocean voyage by Mule, our oceans being almost
completely empty of islands or reefs. A person could get
through one day without too much hassle, provided you neither
ate nor drank the day before nor during the flight itself. But
once you went beyond that single day the inevitable happened,
and considerable gymnastics were required of both rider and
Mule. (This was not the least of the reasons why Ozarkers for
the most part went by boat from continent to continent, and it
made it unlikely that I would meet any other citizen on
Muleback as I went along, which was all to the good in me
interests of modesty.) Only for the sake of a symbol would
anything so unhandy be undertaken by a reasonable person,
and few had that sort of symbol to deal with.
 
I had ample time to think about the distances and times of
flight that would be expected of me, when my throat and my
fingers got tired. Brightwater to McDaniels, one very long day,
and then three more to Oklanomah. Three days roughly for
each leg of the triangle from Castle dark to Castle Smith,
Castle Smith to Castle Airy, and back again almost to dark for
the best take-off across the channel to Arkansaw—that a day's
flight only, and a short day. Three days' travel for Castles
Farson and Guthrie, a day's flight to Mizzurah; two days there
and two to Castle Puroy Four days across the Ocean of Storms
to Kintucky, provided the ocean didn't do too much living up to
its name and force me to put in an extra day for the benefit of
the population. Ten days from Kintucky to Tinaseeh. Then the
longest leg over water ... the McDaniels children had not
been too far off in their estimate of the flight time from
Tinaseeh's southeast tip back to Oklahomah; it was a good five
days, even with fair weather and a tailwind. And then four
days home. Fifteen days, even cutting it very close, I'd be
expected to spend flying over water And far more than that for
 
T\velve Fair Kingdoms
 
31
 
die land distances, with stops at the same intervals expected of
anyone else.
 
Since I was all alone I indulged myself, and turned the air
blue to match the stripe between Sterling's ears, which were
still laid back in protest against my concert. I could of done the
whole trip, the actual flying time, in about an hour total, just
die amount of realtime involved in take-offs and landings, and
there was no time to spare with the Jubilee coming in May, and
February almost over. But whereas a Magician of Rank could
have done it that way and nobody would of done more than
maybe fuss mildly about people that felt obliged to show off,
having a -woman do such a thing would cause about the same
amount of commotion as a good-sized groundquake. And the
damage would not be repairable by stone and timber: I could
shave an hour here and half an hour there and get away with it,
but not much more, not without causing more trouble than I
could conveniently put an end to. The word would be well out
by now, and people in the towns and farms—and on the water
along me coasts, too—would be expecting to look up and see
roe fly by all in emerald and black and gold and silver and
scarlet, at reasonable points of time. Aeronautically
reasonable.
 
, I could think of no cover story that would get me out of any
of that time, except that (the Twelve Comers be praised) I
would be able to do most of my make-up time in the
Wilderness instead of over the oceans. The likelihood of
anybody observing me in mid-ocean once I got away from the
coasts was too small to be worth considering; I would do a
decorous few miles in sight of land, SNAP to a suitably remote
spot in the nearest Wilderness, and camp there to wait out the
time it "should" of taken me to fly that far Enough was
enough. Muleflight was fine for formal occasions, for short-
time travel, and for racing and hunting, but it was one of the
roost boring ways ever devised for going long distances.
Sterling, like any other Mule with a sense of self-respect,
refused to go through the completely superfluous leg move-
ments in the air that travel over ground or in the water would of
required ... it was a lot like sitting on a log (a smalt log)
floating through the air, and if it hadn't been for the wind
-Mowing past you it would of been easy to believe that you
weren't moving at all. Over the water even the wind wasn't all
 
32 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
that much diversion. It wasn't tiring, and twelve full hours of it
was no great strain on either Mule or rider, but, law, it was
boring. I intended to keep it to a minimum.
 
The coast of Oklahomah is peaceful land. Pale golden sand
sloping gently down to the water on one side and gently up into
low green hills on the otnei; and the weather always easy there.
There were boats out, farther from the land than I had really
expected them to be, and I made my arm tired waving at their
passengers before I began my descent. And managed to drop
my poor dulcimer into the Ocean of Remembrances in the
process. New motto: never try to balance a dulcimer across a
Mule's neck, keep from falling off the Mule, and wave to a
boat captain below you at the same time.
 
Sterling and I settled down toward the land, and I saw that
my expectations were correct; the word had gone out.
Although Castle Clark was no more than three miles up from
the shore, where it had a view that melted both heart and mind
as it faced out toward the sea, there was a delegation of some
sort waiting to meet me. I wouldn't have to hammer on the
gates of Castle Clark as I had had to do at Castle McDaniels;
 
we were going in in a small, and I hoped a tasteful, procession.
 
The darks' Castle staff wore dark brown livery, trimmed at
cuff and hem with yellow and white. Four of the staff were
there on Muleback (all, by their insignia, Senior Attendants),
me dark crest embroidered on their right shoulders. I had
always liked that crest; two stalks of wheat, crossed, yellow on
a field of brown, and a single white star above the wheat—
nothing more. It pleasured the eye and was a credit to the
Granny that'd devised it when the Castle was built.
 
"Good morning, miss," they said, which was a great relief,
and I good-mominged them back again. And then they told me
that dinner was waiting for us at the Castle, which pleasured
me even more. I hope to outgrow my appetite one of these
years, but I was hungry again.
 
"And a message from Castle Smith waiting, miss," said
 
one.
 
"What sort of message. Attendant?"
"Don't know, miss. I was told to greet you, ask you to
dinner; and say the message was waiting. That's all."
We turned the Mules, and they followed me, four abreast
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
33
 
aad a mannerly four Mule-lengths behind, across the sand and
up the hill ahead of us. The Mules had no objection to the hard-
packed beach, but floundered once we were above the tideline;
 
I me pleased to see that none of the animals following me took
the all too common Mulish tactic of stopping dead and refusing
to move, sinking deeper all the while into the sand. They were
well trained, and they struggled through the powdery stuff
without hesitation, though I'd no doubt they'd of said a good
deal if they'd bad the chance. Not one brayed, a sure sign of
good management in the stables, and once we reached the road
their hoofs tapped smartly along the white pavement. Very
orderiy, and I Liked order. I was in a good mood, and prepared
to be in a better one, as we went through the gates and
dismounted in the courtyard, and I was led straight on to a long
balcony on the second floor that looked out over the hills to the
sea.
 
There sat the darks. Nathan Terfelix Clark the 17th, with a
beard like a white bush trimming up his burly chest, and not a
hair on his head, in compensation. His wife, Amanda of
Farson, the one with the chins. Their three daughters, Una,
Zoe, and Sharon, and the husbands of the two eldest at their
sides. Let me see - . .it was Una that had scandalized her
parents by marrying a Travellei; and gone on to scandalize the
Families nearby by loving him far beyond what was either
decent or expected, and that would be him, Gabriel Ladder-
cane Traveller the 34th, in the suit of black. The Travellers
were unwilling to give up any of their ancient trappings, and
they dressed still as they had the day they stepped off The Ship
in 2021. Zoe's husband was a kinsman, Joseph Frederick
Brightwater the 11m, and looked pleased to see me. And an
assortment of babies, all of them beautiful. I've never seen an
ugly baby—but then I've never seen a genuinely new one,
either—I'm told that might dent my convictions.
 
And there sat Granny Golightly.
 
She gave me the shivers, and it pleased me not to have her
where I had to see her oftener She stood not quite five feet tall,
she weighed about as much as a Mule colt, and she was an Airy
by birth, which had been an astonishing long time ago. If my
reckoning was right, Granny Golightly had passed her one
hundred and twenty-ninth birthday recently; next to her I was a
flyspeck on the windowpane of time. I intended to go lightly
 
34 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
near hei; for sweet prudence' sake, and as befit her name.
 
"Hello there. Responsible of Brightwatel;" they said to me,
and waved roe to an empty chair in the sunshine. Dinner was
chowder—I counted eleven kinds of fish!—and dark ale, and
combread property prepared and so hot the butter disappeared
when it touched it, and a fine pair of salads, one fruit and one
vegetables. And a berry cobbler that I knew nobody at Castle
Brightwater could of brought off, including my own self.
 
Finishing that cobbler, and thinking back on the rest of the
meal, I understood fully how the Clarks acquired their bulk,
and I forgave Amanda her chins. What I did not understand
was the trim waists of the daughters, especially Una, who
accounted for five of the children. Perhaps since they had
grown up eating this way they had developed a natural
immunity- Or perhaps this was a company meal and they
usually ate like the rest of us at noon; I had, after all, been
expected here.
 
"Responsible of Brightwater," said Nathan Terfelix,
"there's a message here for you from Castle Smith. Man
arrived with it this morning almost before we had the gates
unlocked, and what he was in such a hurry for I have no idea.
Or interest. Knew you couldn't get here before noontime."
 
"Took off as fast as he arrived, too," Amanda added. "He
wouldn't even stop for a cup of coffee."
 
She raised her head and nodded at a young Attendant
standing near the door, and he brought me an envelope and laid
it in my hand without a word. He looked to be about eleven,
and if I was any judge his livery collar itched him; this must be
his first year in service.
 
"Amanda," I said as he backed away, "the young man's
collar is badly fit. Someone should see to it."
 
Granny Golightly cackled, which was trite.
 
"Not going to miss a trick, are you. Responsible of
Brightwater?" she demanded. "Going to see that our livery fits
the servants right, are you? You plan to inspect the stables
while you're here, and run your little white fingers up and
down the banisters?"
 
"I beg your pardon. Granny Golightly," I said. "I did not
mean to criticize."
 
"Lie to me, young missy, and you'll rue it," she snapped.
"Criticism you gave, and criticism we got, and I'll see to the
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
35
 
tadung's collar myself, this afternoon1. And to the careless
seamstress that made it too tight in the first place, whoever she
may be! All we need is sloppy staff giving Responsible of
Brightwater bits to add to her long list!"
 
This was ordinary behavior for a Granny, and I paid it no
mind; it had been years since I'd made the mistake of getting
into a wrangle with a Granny bent on public performance. She
went on like that for quite some time, under her breath, while I
turned the envelope from Castle Smith over in my hands, and
oie young husbands disappeared one at a time on mumbled
errands.
 
Creamy white papa; thick as linen, and an envelope that
ought to of held something of importance—which it had to
hold, if it could not of been sent by comset in the ordinary way
but had to be carried here by human hand. Seven inches square
if it was one, and the Smith crest stamped on it both front and
back, and an official seal! And inside it, all alone in the middle
of a sheet of matched paper like lonely raisins in a pudding, the
following words:
 
We regret that Castle Smith will be unable to entertain
you at mis time, due to a family crisis. Any questions you
might have can be asked there at Castle dark, and well
answered.
 
In cordial haste,
Dorothy of Smith
 
The eldest daughter of the Castle, Dorothy of Smith
. . . carrying out a minor social duty? Or what? Dorothy was
a pincher; I remembered her as a child at playparties and
picnics, always quick with her wicked little fingers, and
running before you could get a fair chance to pinch her back.
She would be fourteen now, just about three months older than
I was. And since she'd bid me ask questions, I asked one.
 
"Begging your pardon. Granny Golightly," I said, and the
Granny stopped her nattering and looked up from her cobbler.
"Amanda, do you or Nathan either of you know of any 'crisis'
at Castle Smith?"
 
Amanda looked blank, and Nathan frowned, and Granny
Golightly forgot her pose long enough to give me a sharp look
between bites.
 
36 SUZETTEHADEN ELGIN
 
"Crisis," said Nathan.
"What kind of crisis?" asked Amanda.
I waved the note. "Doesn't say," I said. "Just disinvites
me."
 
"Now that won't do, young lady," Granny Golightly
jumped in, "for you invited your own self on this particular
traipse-about! There was no call sent out from the Twelve
Castles, demanding the drop-in of Responsible of Brightwater
at her earliest convenience, not as / know of—and I would
know."
 
"Gently, Granny," said Zoe of dark, and leaned over to
pick up a baby. For ballast peAaps. "Gently!"
 
"Flumdiddle," said the Granny.
 
"I withdraw die accusation," I said, "and you are quite
right—I had no invitation. Not here, either but you've seen fit
to be hospitable and I thank you for it. I will remember it."
 
"On your list!" said Granny. "See there?"
 
"And," I added, "I will remember the way the Smiths set
their hands to the same plow—what to do with Responsible of
Brightwater, all inconvenient and uninvited. Unless—unless
there truly is trouble at Castle Smith to back this up."
 
Silence, all around the table. Mules braying in the stables,
and seabirds crying out as they whirled above us, but no
words, nor did I really expect many. Ozarkers do not talk
behind one another's backs, excepting always the Grannys,
who do it only as part of their ritual and are careful that it leans
to harmless nonsense.
 
"Anybody sick there?" I asked finally.
 
"Might could be," said Zoe. "It's that time of the year We
have a few people here down with fevers . . . nothing
serious, but fevers all the same."
 
"I was thinking more on me order of a plague," I said flatly.
 
More silence.
 
"All right," 1 said, "is mere marrying trouble there? Or
birthing trouble? Or naming trouble?"
 
"If there is," said Granny Gotightly, "Granny Gableframe
is there and she'll see to it."
 
"Responsible," said Amanda of Farson, "you're touring the
Castles, as I understand it, because you intend to find out who
hung the McDaniels baby in your cedar tree—"
 
"Flumdiddle!" said Granny Golightly again. Emphatically.
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              37
 
"Trite, Granny Gotightly," I said between my teeth, and she
wrinkled her nose at me.
 
"I say flumdiddle because no other word that's accurate sits
well in my mouth," she had back at me. "If all you wanted to
know was who did that foolish baby trick, you have Magicians
of Rank as could find that out for you without you setting out
on a Quest! Amanda, you can't see any farther than the end of
your nose."
 
"Gently, Granny," said Zoe again, and her sisters each
reached for a baby, too. They appeared to use the little ones
like a kind of armor in this Castle; any sign of tension and
everybody grabbed a baby. I wasn't sure what it signified, but it
was distinctive.
 
"What were you going to say, Amanda?" I asked, keeping
my voice as courteous as I could and hoping for a chance at this
Granny another day.
 
"I meant to say that the Smiths are easily ofiended. That's
well known."
 
"If they think you suspect them of doing that sorry piece of
business—and with you coming uninvited they'll for sure think
you do suspect them, since you've never done such a thing
before—you'll put their backs up," said Nathan Terfelix.
"They're stiffnecked and overproud. They won't bear being
spied upon."
 
"Do you see my visit as being spied upon?" I asked, taken
aback, and then regretted it; Golightly was on me quick as a
tick.
 
"Most certainly!" she said, little wrinkled cheeks red as
wild daisies. "Most certainly! And why not, seeing as that is
what it is?"
 
"Oh, my," I sighed, "this won't do."
 
"Now, my dear, that's just Granny's way of talking," said
Amanda. "You mustn't mind it."
 
Telling me, was she, about the Grannys and their way of
talking? Even Sharon looked embarrassed, and the silent Una
made a little noise in the back of her throat and stared down
into her coffee cup.
 
"Your Granny," I said quietly, "is doing what she's good at.
Stirring up trouble. Sowing dissent."
 
The old lady's brows went up, and I thought she was going
 
38
 
SUZETrt HADEN ELGIN
 
to rub her hands together with glee at finally getting to me. But
she waited, to see if I'd go on.
 
"I see no reason why youall can't know why I'm here," I
told them. "Nor why the tour of the Castles. For sure, 1 could
of found out without leaving my own bedroom—with the help
of a Magician of Rank, of course—"
 
"What are you up to with a Magician of Rank in your
bedroom?" Granny interrupted, scoring one point.
 
"—who kidnapped the McDaniels baby," I went right on.
"That's not in question. The point is that somebody, or some
one of the Families, is doing one piece of fool mischief after
another to try to make people back out of the Jubilee.
Especially people that've been against it all along and are Just
looking for an excuse to stay away. Finding out who's doing the
mischief is not really the point—though it serves as Quest
Goal, naturally, and I'll do it as I go along. The point is to show
that Castle Brightwater is not to be put down by mischief,
magical or otherwise."
 
"A symbol," said Amanda.
 
"A Quest for a Challenge," said Golightly, who knew her
business. "Quite right."
 
"But nobody here is against the Jubilee!" said Zoe, looking
both outraged and puzzled.
 
"Of course not," I agreed, "but do think, Zoe of dark!"
 
She jogged the baby a bit, and then she nodded.
 
"You couldn't go only to the Castles you suspect," she said.
"That would tip your hand."
 
"Green roosters, the girl's stupid!" shrilled Granny Golight-
ly, and Zoe winced. I thought I might have to take this Granny
in hand; and then I reminded myself sternly that the internal
affairs of Castle dark were none of my business, as long as
they remained allies of Brightwatec
 
"And why am I stupid, Granny?" demanded Zoe, and good
for her!
 
"She means," I said gently, "that the problem is not tipping
my hand—the Families that I suspect know who they are
already. Traveller; Purdy, Guthrie, and—I'm sorry, Amanda—
Parson. The reason for all this folderol is that a Quest must be
done in a certain fashion, or it is not a symbol. A Quest is one
thing, done under rigid constraints, one step at a time—"
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              39
 
"And plenty of adventures as you go along!" said Granny.
"That's required!"
 
"One step at a time," I went on, working uphill, "flying our
finest Mule, wearing my finest gown . . . and so on. Done
any other way, it's not a Quest at all, it's just the daughter of
Brightwater gallivanting around the planet uninvited and
unexplained. That would be something quite different, Zoe.
Brightwater doing this as a Quest, and doing it to the letter of
the rule—that says we mean business, and no mistake about
it."
 
The early shadows were beginning to stripe the balcony, and
the wind was coming up cold. The older children began
shooing the younger ones inside, and the dark daughters
passed along the babies in their laps to the staff to be carried in.
High time, too, to my mind.
 
"I see," Zoe said, rubbing her arms and drawing a shawl
around her shoulders from the back of her chair "Yes, that's
clear"
 
Nathan Terfelix pulled at his beard—which I would have
enjoyed pulling myself—and poured one half-cup of coffee all
around to finish off the pot.
 
"What do you think. Responsible of Brightwater?" he
asked; and there was no banter in his voice. "I take no insult on
the part of my wife—the Parsons have never shown sign of
love for the Confederation, and your logic can't be faulted. Nor
is she responsible for her family's doings on the other side of
Arkansaw, if doings there be. But what do you think of the
chances for this Jubilee?'*
 
"Fair to middling," I said. "Provided I do this right."
 
"I don't see it," said Sharon of Clark. "The Jubilee is a
celebration, a giant party. It's a lot of trouble for Castle
Brightwatci; but if they're willing, why should anybody else
care?"
 
I looked at Granny Golightly and waited for a remark about
the girl's stupidity, but apparently she didn't think twelve was
old enough yet to demand the attentions of her tongue. She
glared at me, but she held her peace.
 
"The Travellers," I told the child, "the Purdys, the
Guthries, the Parsons ... all of them want the Confedera-
tion set back to meeting one day a year like it once did, pure
play-acting with no muscle to it. And each Castle absolutely to
 
40 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
its own self the rest of the time. Every meeting, Sharon of
dark, the Travellers move to go back to that one day a year, the
Parsons second that, it goes to a vote, and it goes down seven
to five or eight to four depending. Every meeting . . . that's
the first thing happens after the Opening Prayer The Jubilee,
now, may look like a giant party, but it means a kind of
formalizing of the Confederation that's never been done yet.
Those Families would like to see it fail, like to see the other
Families do as Castle Smith has done here—send letters around
politely regretting that due to some 'crisis' they could not after
all attend the Jubilee. You see that?"
 
Sharon of dark drew her brows together and sighed. "Well.
it makes no sense atall," she said crossly. "Don't they know
anything? Don't they know that if it wasn't for the Confedera-
tion we'd have anarchism?"
 
"Anarchy, child," said her father "The word's anarchy"
 
"Well, that, then! Don't they even care?"
 
She was positively abristle with outrage, an<f I gave the
Granny credit for that; Sharon of dark had been properly
taught. I doubt she knew anarchy from a fishkettle, but she'd
learned it for a word to shudder at, and that was all that was
likely to be required of her
 
"Perhaps they don't care, Sharon," I said carefully. "And
then perhaps they only don't understand. If we knew the truth
of it, might could be we'd be able to change their minds on the
subject."
 
Amanda of Parson said nothing, there being little she could
say, and I paid her the courtesy of not questioning her on her
own sympathies, while her child nodded solemnly. Amanda
had been a dark by marriage now over forty years; it was not
likely that she still held to her Family's prejudices. Even if she
did, certainly she would not be involved in sabotage coming
from that quarter. A woman actively disloyal to her husband's
house would go back to her own, as a matter of honor; she
would not live as his wife and work against him.
 
"Speak openly. Responsible of Brightwater" said Granny
Golightly then, "and look in my eyes when you speak. Do you
suspect treason here?"
 
1 looked her eye to beady eye, and I spoke flat out. "For sure
and for certain, Granny Golightly, I do not. Nor, till I had this
scrap of paper from Castle Smith, did I suspect it on all of
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              41
 
Oklahomah. It was my idea that I'd stop quickly at each of the
three Castles here, where I knew the loyalty to the Confedera-
tion wasn't in question, and so doing gain maybe a little extra
time to spend in other places."
 
"She speaks the truth," said the Granny, showing an amount
of overconfidence that didn't specially surprise me. "And /
will speak the truth, returning her the favor and then we can all
get inside out of this blasted wind and get comfortable."
 
She leaned forward and tapped her skinny fingers together as
she steepled them, peering at me over the steeple. "There's no
trouble at Castle Smith," she said, "but not your treason,
either No one at Smith's doing magic as shouldn't be doing it,
or for evil ends."
 
"I wonder" I said.
 
"I'm telling you," she snapped, "and I know of what I
speak. You can cease wondering. I am the Granny of this
Castle, and the senior Granny of the five that share the
housekeeping of Oklahomah among us, and I tell you,
Uppity—-fourteen, aren't you! what an age for wisdom!—I tell
you there's no need to set your stubborn foot in Castle Smith.
It's as Nathan Terfelix says; they're stiff-necked and you've
insulted them, and they haven't the sense to see what you're
doing, any more than Sharon there did, or the babies."
 
"Not going would save me time," I hazarded.
 
"Don't go, then," she said, and stood up with more
creakings and poppings than an old attic floor in cold weather
"Who's there to suspect? Granny Gableframe, her that was a
Brightwater by birth, and a McDaniels by marriage forty-seven
years? Can you see her allowing such goings-on? And there's
whatsisname . . . Delldon Mallard Smith the 2nd, and twice
is enough if you ask me, no more gumption to him than a
nursing baby for all he thinks himself a power in the land. And
his three brothers, each of them as much a bully as he is, but
scared of him, more fools them . . . and all their poor
burdened wives, doing their best to clean up after their
worthless menfolk ..."
 
"Granny Golightly," I said quickly, "I think I follow you."
 
"That one," she said, shaking her finger under my nose and
not a bit slowed down, "that Delldon Mallard, now, he is just
stupid enough to set himself up proud and claim he should have
been made an exception of, though he knows very well you
 
42 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
skip a station on a Quest and you risk the whole thing. He was
a stupid little boy, he was a stupid young man, and he's
growing stupider with every passing year I can just see him
thinking himself fit to be an exception and sitting around his
supper table bragging that he's shown Brightwater a thing or
two! But he's a pool; pitiful, pathetic, puny fool. He couldn't
sour milk any way but spitting in it."
 
Whew! She was outspoken. Too outspoken. There were still
staff near us, and what their family allegiance might be was
unknown to me. And children, who are not always good at
guarding their tongues.
 
"Want me to hush," she said, her mouth twitching, "you
pass the Smiths by. Or I'll say the rest, to convince you—and I
know a passel more, young woman."
 
I was sure she did, and it was clear that she was prepared to
lay it all before us, and the devil take the consequences.
 
"Granny Golightly," I said, "I'll make a bargain with you,
if you'll hush now."
 
"State it!"
 
"You spread the word for me," I said, "with a suitable
story . . . some good reason why I did not go to Castle
Smith. You know the conditions on a Quest—mere refusal of
admittance to a location is no excuse. I need a plague, or a
dragon, or a bomb, or whatever you like, I leave it to you. But
something that will be sufficient to make by-passing that Castle
not a spoiling of my Quest! Something clearly and wholly
beyond my control, you understand me?"
 
"I do," she said. "And I'll see to it."
 
"Your word on it? And nobody else harmed, mind!"
 
"My word, given already," she said impatiently, "and done
as it should be. I'll spread the story and it will be ample, and no
edges lopping over My promise on it. Responsible of
Brightwater!"
 
I stood up then, too, and it was like a congregation following
the choir; they all followed the Granny and me and stood along
with us, and the servingmaids moved in to clear away the
tablestuff.
 
"Then I'll stay the night here, if you'll have me for suppci;
 
too," I said, "and then go on sometime tomorrow to Castle
Airy. The matter of Castle Smith I'll leave to Granny Golightly,
with my thanks."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              43
 
"Make it good, Granny," said Una—the first time she'd
spoken all that time except to chide or cosset a child.
 
"Never you mind," said the old woman. "I've been a
Granny a very long time now, I know my doings."
 
Maybe.
 
Since she would cover my tracks for me, it made no
difference if the guilty one was at Castle Smith; as had been
plainly stated, I had not even needed to leave home to find out
who that was. But the Smiths now ... I'd seen Delldon
Mallard Smith at meetings, and for sure had always found him
a pompous bore, with an "uh ... uh ... uh ..." for
every other word out of his mouth. But I didn't know there was
dry rot in his brain, which was how the Granny made it sound,
and it was of course a credit to the Smith women that I didn't.
If the men at the Castle were as foolish as Granny Golightly
had said them to be, plain out and aloud in front of one and all,
then there might be one or more of them fool enough to be
mixed up in this somewhere, or to prove a weak link at an
inconvenient moment.
 
It didn't matter; I decided. I felt quite confident about
Granny Golightly's powers of invention. By the time I landed
Sterling at Castle Airy some truly wondrous tale would have
spread from one end of Ozark to the other to explain why I had
not favored Castle Smith with a visit, and that was all that was
of any present importance. The rest of it could wait rill a later
time.
 
I followed them into the Castle, looking forward to my room
and a rest and a proper bathroom, and as a show of solidarity I
scooped up a random baby from a low bench in the hall under a
round window.
 
When in dark . . .
 
CHAPTER 4
 
CASTLE CLARK DID very well by me; a small formal supper for
twenty-four interesting couples, and the young man provided
for me able to discuss several other subjects besides Mules and
the weather and then a truly impressive breakfast on the Castle
balcony with what appeared to be half the county invited, and
both a Taleteller and a Ballad Singer laid on. I left happy;
 
dulcimerless, but mighty well fed, and my traveling costume
fresh from the attentions of Granny Golightly herself—who I'd
wager had not bothered to wash or press it but confined her
"work" to a Housekeeping Spell—and I went over the next
step in my head as Sterling and I headed out.
 
Castle Airy sat at the southernmost tip of Oklahomah; like
Castle dark it overlooked the sea, but there was a great
difference between the tender hills of Kingdom dark's
seacoast and the hulking sheer cliffs that Castle Airy sat on.
Their lands had no beaches; you pulled a boat up into the
sucking caves that pitted the lower borders of the looming
seacliffs at your own peril. Between the borders of dark and
the lands paced off by Daniel Cantrell Airy the 9th and his five
sons in 2127 lay a broad expanse of Wilderness. Technically
 
45
 
46 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
speaking, it was at least a three-day flight from Castle to
Castle, and considering the time involved it was going to be a
piece of luck for me that I could by-pass the visit to Castle
Smith after all.
 
I had no intention wAafsoever of spending three full days—
much less four—in the air According to the maps there was an
isolated stretch of thick forest roughly mid-Wilderness; once I
got beyond the area where people were likely to be around, I
intended to SNAP straight to that spot and spend two of my
days in a pleasant contemplation of the Wilderness, some long
naps that I was badly in need of, and catching up an account
book I had dutifully brought with me having to do with trade in
supplies for magic and a good two months out of date. I could
then fly in on the third day and join the Airys for supper with
all as it ought to of been.
 
Nor need I stay at Castle Airy long; they were loyal there.
They were as romantic . . . quaint, to put it frank-
ly ... in their loyalty to the Confederation as the
Travellers were in their resistance to it. Held a Confederation
Day every blessed year on December 12, with speeches and
bands and bunting and whatnot, the only one of the Kingdoms
to have such an innovation. Stamped the Confederation Seal all
over everything, and flew its flag beside the flags of Airy and
Ozark at the Castle gate. Any day now I expected them to
begin opening souvenir stands or publishing a Confederation
Gazette.
 
Why they were like that, it was hard to say; if we knew why
any Family developed as it did rather than in some other
fashion, that would be knowledge. I'd put that a sight higher
than any of the scientific discoveries that had earned their
originators a Bestowing of land in the past ten years. Or past
one hundred, for that matter
 
I jumped suddenly as a squawker flew by me, drawing a
bray of disgust from Sterling and scaring the squawker into a
plunge that I thought for a minute might prove fatal to the ugly
thing. It was a male, its blue-and-white-speckled comb rigid
with tenor and its raucous call twice the volume a female could
muster And I supposed it had lost its eggs, along with its way,
or forgotten the difference between up and down, assuming it
ever had known it. It surely had no business being two hundred
feet up in the air interfering with me and my Mule.
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              47
 
"Never mind the fool thing, Sterling," I said, and soothed
her with a sturdy smack to the shoulder "It's gone now, and if
it doesn't kill itself it's headed back to the farm where it
belongs."
 
The Mule snorted, reminding me of Granny Golightly, who I
was well pleased to have behind me this fine morning, and I
smacked her once more for good measure. What makes a Mule
think a whack on the shoulder is a caress is a mystery, but it
appears to be the way of it. Or perhaps they are sickened by
lovepats, and look on the thumping as some kind of comradely,
Afii/eworthy activity. Mules are the only creatures on Ozark
that are capable of telepathic communication with a Magician
but refuse to have anything to do with the process; then-
position appears to be that we should mind our own business
and leave them to mind theirs, and they maintain that most
effectively You try mindspeech on a Mule—say to let it know
there's a storm ahead and you'd appreciate it taking cover in a
hurry—you'll get yourself a headache that'll last you three
days. There are, among the Teaching Stories, two or three that
have to do with young Magicians looking on this situation as a
challenge and trying to force a Mute to mindspeech; they're
gory, as Teaching Stories go. Myself, I leave the mind of the
Mule strictly alone.
 
I stopped thinking about Mules and thought about landing,
which was going to be possible fairly soon. I hadn't seen any
sign of habitation now for a considerable time, and on
Oklahomah there was mighty little to block your view once
you got ten feet above the trees. I took one more look at the
map to be sure I had my coordinates straight, waited twenty
more minutes for good measure, and SNAPPED, to Sterling's
great relief. The less of this formal travel the better, so far as
she was concerned, and she didn't need to use her psibilities to
make that plain. Her braying didn't become exactly musical—
that would be overstating the case a tad—but it took on a
definite tone of musical intention.
 
The land below us as the air rippled and cleared was so
tangled that I pulled back up to give it another good look; I had
no desire to land in a bramble thicket or some such. There was
nothing down there but forest, big old trees with their branches
all twined and knotted in one among the other and their roots
humping out of the ground, and I was hard put to it to see a
 
48 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
break where we could set down. It would be dark down there,
for sure, and not a likely place to run into anybody, give it that.
Then I saw the glint of water to my right, a middle-sized creek
by the look of it from where 1 was, and I turned that way. We
could head down above the water and make a landing slow to
the bank, unless it was thickets all the way to the edge.
 
I had to try twice before we found a break in the
undergrowth—no wonder nor Clarks, nor Smiths, nor Airys
had cared to claim any of this stretch. It'd have to have
diamonds under it to make it worth fooling with. I finally
located a little bend in the creek where it eased back into a kind
of tumble of boulders, several of them big enough for a Mule
to stand on with a foot or two of space to spare, and I brought
Sterling down. Seeing as how I didn't want to slide into the
water and ruin my clothes totally, I brought her to a full stop in
the air first and then we stepped sedately onto the nearest flat
place. She was good, but she couldn't land naturally with no
room for a run-in.
 
And then I looked around me, and I was satisfied. There
could of been forty people in those woods within ten feet and
not one of us would of known the others existed, it was that
tangled. Dark! My, but it was dark. We'd come down out of
clear skies and a brisk wind and scudding little puffs of cloud,
all bright and sparkling; down here it was pure gloom. Very
satisfactory.
 
I had a microviewer with me, and six trashy novels on fiche
that I couldn't of gotten away with taking time to read at home.
I could feel my resolve to work on the account book fading
away at the very look of this place; it was designed by its
Creator for a good read if ever I saw a place that was, and the
serious stuff could wait. I would settle in here in this back-of-
nowhere and indulge myself while the chance lay there
begging to be taken.
 
I pulled the smaller saddlebag off the Mule's back and set it
down, careful it wouldn't slide, and set myself down beside it.
The first step, even before I led Sterling down to drink
(provided she waited for me to do that, which was not anything
to lay bets on), was to change my clothes. I was just pulling off
one of the last of my complicated garments when I got into
trouble I hadn't anticipated.
 
Whatever it was that had slapped me into that cold water had
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              49
 
been big, and because I'd had my head covered up in swathes
of lace and velvet I hadn't seen or heard or smelled it coming. I
hoped I'd given the dratted clothes a hard enough pitch to keep
them dry, but not hard enough to throw them into a bramble-
bush ... or I'd be spending my planned period of self-
indulgence manifesting a new set just like them, out here in the
middle of nowhere, by magic, with nothing but my emergency
kit and whatever happened to grow handy for makings.
 
On the rough principle that what had knocked me into the
water was not a water creature itself, since it had been on the
bank at the time, I dove for the bottom of the creek. It was
murk down there, naturally, no nice clear ocean all pretty with
water like a gemstone, but it seemed to be clean water, and
flowing, and mere were no deepwater weeds in my way to get
caught in. And about the time I was congratulating myself on
that, I discovered that I'd made a major mistake.
 
I'd never seen one before, but I recognized the shape of it
well enough when I got my eyes open, even through the dark
of the water and the stuff I'd stirred up going in. Only one thing
on this planet goes with six legs and is the size of the shadow
that twisted Just ahead of me (I hope), and I was in sizable
trouble. The cavecat can climb anything, and it can swim, and
it lives to kill; four of the legs are for running, and the other
two for slashing and clawing, and the clawing involves eight
three-inch razors to every paw. Not to mention its teeth, of
which it has more than it needs by a goodly number:
 
There are not supposed to be giant cavecats on Oklahomah.
Kintucky, maybe, just maybe, though I'd never heard of one
showing up there the past thirty years. But the way of things
was supposed to be that cavecats had been wiped out
everywhere except in the Tinaseeh Wilderness—where I was
convinced the Travellers not only didn't try to get rid of them
but encouraged them, just to keep everybody off. Never-
theless, this was not Tinaseeh, nor yet Kintucky, this was
placid, long-settled Oklahomah, with its Wilderness not much
more than a pocket hanky as Wildernesses go, and that was a
giant cavecat in the water ahead of me. Right smack dab ahead
of me. And I could see how, in this backwood tangle, the
Family hunts might of missed a specimen or two.
 
I didn't know how well they swam, but I knew if it got to me
it would drown me, even if it had to surface and just hold me
 
50 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
under with its middle legs while it had all the air it wanted or
needed. And I needed air badly, myself. The bottom was right
there, and praise the Twelve Comers, it was rocky—I gave
myself a hard shove off the cobbly rocks and shot toward the
light, with the cat right behind me, and I scrambled out onto
the bank and hollered for Sterling.
 
Mules. If she'd been there, where I'd left her not two
minutes before, I might have been able to SNAP out of that
particular hard place before the cat made it out of the water.
She wasn't there, though, nor anywhere in sight. Gone looking
for something edible, probably.
 
"Sterling, you damn Mule, you, damn your ears and your
tail and your bony rump besides!" I shouted, and then I made
the very close acquaintance of hundreds of pounds of soaking
wet cavecat.
 
It pulled me m with one front paw and held me to its chest,
which stank the way you'd expect wet cat to stink and then
some, and started off across the rocks on the bank. Almost
dainty, the way it picked its footing, and in no hurry atall- Uke
any cat, it intended to play with me awhile before it made its
kill, and no doubt I was an unusual play-pretty for the nasty
thing. If there'd been any people around here in a long, long
time we would have known there were still cavecats on
Oklahomah . . . and I made a note, as it carried me, that
when I got back—if I got back—word had to be sent to the
three Castles to clear them out.
 
It's amazing how much time a person has to think in a
situation like that. Time stretches itself out in front of you, and
everything goes to the slowest of all motions, and we went
positively stately over those boulders and under arches of trees
and through an assortment of bramble thickets. I was bleeding
badly, and I was pretty cross, but I didn't intend to let either
interfere with me staying alive. I relaxed, and let just enough
blood fall to keep the cavecat's nostrils contented, and sort of
cuddled back in(o its smelly wet embrace. And waited.
 
The problem was the selection of a suitable countermeasure.
Common Sense magic would only get me killed—would of
had me dead before this, considering the blood I ought to of
been losing. The cavecat obviously did not know how frail the
hides of humans were, nor that they could die from the loss of
their body fluids before it had a chance to have its fun.
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              51
 
Common Sense magic was not enough, nor Granny Magic.
The question was, would Hifalutin Magic do it, or did I have to
move clear on up to Formalisms & Transformations? (And
make up your mind quick. Responsible, things may seem slow,
but this animal is covering the ground at a smart pace and its
cave cannot be much farther away!) I needed to be ready the
instant it set me down and stretched out to bat me around
between its front paws and watch my interesting attempts to get
out of its reach—that instant.
 
I decided I was not expendable, and whatever firepower I
had I'd best use it at its most potent. There was nobody around
to see and wonder at a woman using that level of magic, and if
there had been I would not have been in any mood to care.
Formalisms & Transformations it would be, and all out—now
which one? I was a mite short on equipment.
 
The cave smelled worse than the cavecat, which I wouldn't
of thought possible in advance. Not that it was fouled—no cat
does mat, whatever its size—but it had lived there a long time,
and it was a torn, and it had marked out all the limits of its
territory with great care. It slouched in under a hole in the
ground that I doubted I would of spotted as the entrance to
anything, and it was suddenly darker than the inside of your
head- Not a ray, not a mote, of light was there in that
cave . . . I had the feeling it was small; no echoes, no water
dripping. Just a hole in the ground, perhaps, and not a real
cave such as we had flushed these creatures out of long ago on
Marktwain. Real enough to die in, however had I intended to
die. Which I didn't.
 
It stretched out, long and lazy and reeking, and laid me
down between its paws. And it stretched them out, hairy
bladed bars on either side of me like a small cage of swords,
and it gave me a gentle preliminary swipe with the right one,
and batted me back the other way with the left one, to see me
roll and hear me whimper
 
The Thirty-third Formalism was suitable, and I used it fast,
doing it rather well if I do say so myself. Lacking gailherb, I
used a strip of flesh from the inside of my upper arm to
guarantee Coreference; lacking any elixir; I used my own bloofl
to mark out the Structural Description and the desired
Structural Change. Make do, my Granny Hazelbide always
said; and I made do. It smarted. On the other hand, I would of
 
52 SUZETTEHADEN ELGIN
 
been embarrassed, dying in a place like this at the whim of a
creature with five hundred pounds of brawn and maybe fom;
 
five ounces of brain. It would not have been fitting.
 
When the cavecat lay purring quietly, content with the fat
white pig it now thought was what it had caught originally
(assuming it thought at all), and which I had Substituted for my
own skinny white form, I gathered my battered self together
and crawled on my stomach back out into what passed in these
parts for daylight. I found myself regretting very much that
there was no way to do a single Formalism—let alone a
Thuisformation—while being clutched to a cavecat's bosom.
Like a Mule landing, I had needed a little space, and I'd gotten
mighty beat up before it became available. I was going to have
a good night's work ahead of me cleaning up all this mess, and
maybe longer I looked like something blown through a door
with rusty nails in it, and most assuredly my appearance was
not anything that would impress the Airys if they could see me
now. Or before tomorrow morning, I rather expected.
 
"Botheration," I said, and hollered for Sterling one more
time. She turned up at once, naturally, now that I didn't need
her to save my life, and looked at me with the most Mulish
distaste.
 
"Don't like my smell, do you?" I muttered. I didn't blame
her; I didn't like it either. "Let's get back to the water," I said,
"and I'll do something about it."
 
I didn't know the coordinates, or even the general direction,
and I was too tired and too weak to SNAP even if I had known
them. So I just followed her tail. I could count on her to take
me back to where we'd landed, since she wouldn't be enjoying
all these brambles and brush any more than I was. I wanted
watci; and the medicines in my emergency kit, and the denims
I'd been about to put on when this adventure—
 
I stopped short, right there. I stopped, battered as I was, and
the elaborateness with which I blistered the air all around me
impressed- even Sterling; her ears went flat back against her
head.
 
"And plenty of adventures as you go along' That's re-
quired!" she'd said, had dear old Granny Golightly, and I'd
ignored her and gone right on talking without so much as an
acknowledgment that I'd heard her mention the matter Nor had
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              S3
 
I thought of it since. If I hadn't been so young I'd of thought I
 
was getting old.
This changed things.
 
Sterling brayed at me, and I hushed her
"Wait a minute now," I said. "Let me think."
 
There were but two possible readings. One, this had been an
accident, no more, and my simplest course was to heal rny
wounds and settle and furbish myself to appear at Castle Airy
as if I'd had no hair disturbed on my head since I flew out from
Castle dark. Two—this was Granny Golightly's doing—and
she had an amazing confidence in my abilities if it was, or an
outright dislike for me—and I should somehow or other
contrive to have myself rescued by somebody else ... or
whatever Clear things up just enough to stand it, maybe, throw
myself over the Mule's back at the proper time, and straggle
into Castle Airy a victim just short of death.
 
Foof. I didn't know what to do. From Granny Golightly's
perspective I'd been getting off easy; two Castles stopped at
already, and not one adventure to show for my trouble yet—
hardly the way that things were supposed to be laid out. Under
the terms of the Constraints set on a Quest, its success was
directly proportional to the number and the severity of the
adventures encountered along the way, and Golightly might
well have felt she had a duty to support me more than I might
of cared to be supported. And if Granny's story explaining my
by-passing Castle Smith was a cavecat mauling, and I showed
up unmarked and spoiled it—there'd be trouble. But how was I
to know?
 
Until Sterling and I made it out onto the bank of the creek
again, me fretting all the way and her whuffling, and there, in
the absolute middle of nowhere, naked and alone out on a bare
gray boulder, sat a pale blue squawker egg. No nest, no
squawkeL no coop. No farmer. Just the egg. Granny Golightly
was mean, but she wasn't careless; the question was neatly
settled, and a few more points to hec I wondered just how far
that one's range extended?
 
Well, it was dramatic, I'll say that for it. There I was at the
gates of Airy before the eyes of their greeting party, clinging to
Sterling's mane with one poor little gloved hand, my gorgeous
 
54 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
velvets sodden with blood and my hair hanging loose below
my waist in a tangle of brambles and weeds and dirt. I chose a
spot that looked reasonably soft, pulled up the Mule weakly,
moaned about a twenty-twe-caliber moan, and slid off grace-
fully onto the ground at their feet in a bedraggled heap. If I'd
been watching, I'm sure my heart would of ached for me.
 
They carried me into the Castle at full speed, shouting for
the Grannys (the Twelve Comers help this poor Family, they
had three of the five Grannys of Oklahomah under their roof),
and I allowed a faint "a cavecat ... a huge one . . . back
there . . ."to escape my lips before I surrendered con-
sciousness completely. (Under no circumstances did I intend to
undergo the ministrations of three Grannys in any other
condition but unconsciousness.)
 
I woke in a high bed in a high room, surrounded by
burgundy curtains and hangings and draperies and quilts. The
Travellers were addicted to black; with the Airys it was
burgundy. And crimson for relief of the eye. There was a
plaster on my chest, and another on my right thigh; a bowl of
bitter herbs smoked on the wooden chest at the foot of my bed,
and the taste in my mouth told me I'd been potioned as well.
 
I ran my tongue around my teeth, and sighed. Bitter-root and
wild adderweed and sawgrass. And wine, of course. Dark red
burgundy wine. And something I couldn't identify and didn't
know that I wanted to. Either none of the Grannys here held
with modem notions, or the dominant one didn't. Phew.
 
"She's awake. Mother" a voice said softly, and I let my
eyelids flutter wide and said the obligatory opening lines.
 
"Where am I? What—what happened to me?"
 
"You're in Castle Airy, child," said a voice—not the same
one—"and you're lucky you're alive. We would of taken our
oaths there were no cavecats left on this continent, but you
managed to find one, coming through the Wilderness. What-
ever possessed you to land in the Wilderness, Responsible of
Brightwater? Oklahomah's got open land in every direction if
you needed to stop for a while . . . why the Wilderness?"
 
I had expected that one, and I was ready for it. "My Mule
got taken sick all of a sudden," I said. "I hadn't any choice."
 
Time then for some more obligatories.
 
I struggled to a sitting position, against the hands of the three
Grannys who rushed forward in their burgundy shawls to hold
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              55
 
me back, and demanded news on the condition of my beloved
steed.
 
"The creature is just fine, child," said the strongest one,
pushing me back into the pillows with no quarter given. "Not a
mark on hec the cat was only interested in you. And I'll thank
you not to flop around like a fish on a hook and undo all the
work we've done repairing the effects of its interest!"
 
I sighed, but I knew my manners. I said a lengthy piece
about my gratitude and my appreciation, and swallowed
another potion which differed from the earlier one only in
being even nastiel; and at last I found myself alone with only
the three Grannys and the lady of the Castle and my obligations
settled for the time being.
 
The lady was a widow, her husband killed in a boating
accident years ago, which was the only reason the Castle had
three Grannys. It was in fact a Castle almost entirely of
women; every stray aunt or girlcousin on Oklahomah with poor
prospects and not enough gumption to go out as a servant came
here to shelter under the broad wings of Grannys Forthright,
Flyswift, and Heatherknit. And over them all, the beautiful
woman who sat at my side now, smiling down at me, Charity
ofGuthrie. A three she was, and she lived up to the number; in
everything that Charity of Guthrie did, she succeeded, with a
kind of careless ease, as if there was nothing to it at all. Her
hair fell in two dark brown braids, shot with white, over her
shoulders, and her sixty-odd years sat lightly on her as the
braids. The Guthrie women wore remarkably well.
 
"Sweet Responsible," she said to me, "we are so happy
you're here . . . and so sony that your visit has to be like
this! We had a dance planned in your honor tonight, and a hunt
breakfast tomorrow morning, and a thing or two more besides;
 
but obviously you must stay right here in this bed, and no
commotions. I've already sent the word out that you'll be
seeing nobody but us, and that only from where you lie. Poor
child!"
 
The poor child was all worn out, and could see that even
with an excessive pride in the skill of her Grannys this woman
was not likely to believe her recovered from the attack of that
cavecat overnight. Loss of blood. Loss of skin. Shock. Blow
on the head. Being dragged along. Whatnot.
 
Since there was no help for it, I gave up and closed my eyes.
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
56
 
I was going to see to it, one of these days, that Granny
Golightly paid dearly for this delay, not to mention all the
arithmetic she'd put me through working this out so that all
pans of it came out right aerodynamically. Aerody-
namicadamnably. Not to mention in addition the potions,
which were beyond anything in my personal experience to
date.
 
I slid down into sleep like a snake down a well, surrender-
ing. Tomorrow would be soon enough to try to convince them
that someone as young and strong as I was could not be kept
down by a cavecat, or even by three Grannys . . .
 
CHAPTER 5
 
THE WOMEN AT Castle Airy were anything but docile, and I
was no match for them. Under ordinary circumstances I might
of had at least a fighting chance, but I was not operating under
ordinary circumstances; I was being the badly mauled victim of
a cavecat attack, and I lost almost two precious days to that
role- I would dearly of loved to make up the lost time on the
crossing from Oklahomah to Arkansaw, but it would not do.
The sea below me was not an open expanse with a rare bird and
a rare rocktip to break it; it was the narrow shipping channel
between the two continents, and about as deserted as your
average small-town street. All up the Oklahomah coast and all
the way across the channel I flew, at the regulation sixty-mile-
an-hour airspeed for a Mule of Sterling's quality. It was proper,
it was sedate, and it was maddening; it was a number well
chosen, being five times a multiple of twelve, and the members
of the Twelve Families found it reassuring and appropriate, but
it was not convenient.
 
Below me there were at all times not only the ponderous
supply freighters, but a crowd of fishing boats, tourboats,
private recreation vehicles, and government vessels from a
 
57
 
58 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
dozen different agencies. Near Arkansaw's southernmost coast
I even saw a small golden ship with three sails of silver a craft
permitted only to a Magician of Rank.
 
It didn't surprise me. it warmed my heart, for all it made me
have to dawdle through the air We Ozarkers, from u»e
beginning of our history, even before we left Earth, had always
had a kind of lust for getting places by water. If an Ozark child
could not afford a boat, that child would set anything afloat that
it was strong enough to launch—an old log was a particular
favorite, and half a dozen planks nailed together into an
unreliable raft marked the traditional first step up from log-
piloting.
 
What was in some way surprising was that we had bothered
with the Mules; it hadn't been a simple process. When the
Twelve Families landed they found the Mules living wild on
Marktwain in abundance, but much complicated breeding and
fine-tuning had been required before they were brought to a
size where a grown man would be willing to straddle one on
solid ground, much less fty one. And the twelve-passenger
tinlizzies we built in the central factory on the edge of
Marktwain's desert were more than adequate for getting people
over land distances as needed, as well as solving the problem
of what to do with the most plentiful natural substance
produced by our goats and pigs.
 
But the memories of Earth, Old Earth, were still strong, and
we were a loyal, home-loving people. We hadn't been such
fools as to take with us on The Ship the mules of Earth, seeing
as how using that limited space for a sterile animal would of
been stupid; but every Ozarker had always fancied the elegance
of a team of well-trained mules . . . and the Mules were a
good deal like them. Especially in the ears, which mattered,
and in the brains, which mattered even more.
 
We had brought with us cattle and goats and pigs and
chickens and a few high-class hounds, but of all that carefully
chosen lot only the pigs and goats had survived. Most of the
other animals had died during the trip, and the few that made it
to landing or were born on Ozark soon sickened, for no reason
that anyone could understand, since we humans breathed the
air of Ozark and ate its food and drank its water with no ill
effects. And then to find the Mules! For all that they stood only
four feet tall and had tails that dragged the ground, they looked
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              59
 
like something of home, and we had set to breeding them for
size, and we braided and looped their tails. And "discovered"
that they could fly sixty miles an houc In the one most essential
way of all they differed from their Earth counterparts—they
were not sterile.
 
The people on the boats below me waved, and I waved back,
as I wound my way carefully above them, doing my best not to
fly directly over any vessel. Sterling was well trained, but there
were limits to her tolerance for the niceties, and I wanted no
unsavory accidents to spoil the image I was trying so hard to
establish.
 
It was well into afternoon when I began to head down
toward the docks that crowded Arkansaw's southeastern
coastline, and there was a chill in the air that made me
appreciate my layers of clothing. The docks were crowded,
almost jammed with people, some carrying on their ordinary
daily business, and some no doubt there to gawk at me, and I
decided that a landing would only mean another delay that I
could not afford. I chose the largest group of people I could see
that appeared to have no obvious reason for being on the
docks, and dipped low over them, gripping Sterling hard to
impress her with the importance of good behavior: My
intention was to fly low enough—but not too low—exchange
cheerful greetings in passing as I flew by, and then get on with
it. It was a simple enough maneuver something that could be
brought off by a middling quality Rent-a-Mule with a seven-
year-old child on its back. 1 didn't want the people down there
to think me uppity and standoffish, nor did I want to waste
time, so I chose my moment and sailed gracefully down the air
toward the waiting Arkansawyers—
 
And crashed.
 
Three Castles I'd visited now, without me slightest hint of
that disturbance of flight that had made me suspicious in the
first place. And now—not over a Wilderness where nothing
could suffer but my stomach, not over a stretch of open ocean
with the occasional freighter, but twenty feet up from a dockful
of sight-seeing women and children—my Mule suddenly
wobbled in the air like a squawker chick and smashed into the
side of a storage shed on the edge of the dock. The last thought
I had as / flew, quite independently, off her back, was that at
 
69 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
least we hadn't hurt anybody, though from the screams you'd
of thought them all seriously damaged. And then my head and
a roof beam made sudden contact, and I stopped thinking about
anything atall.
 
When I woke up, I knew where I was. No mistake about it.
The Guthrie crest was carved into the foot of the bed I lay on, it
hung on the wall of the room beyond the bed, little ones
dangled from the curving brackets that held the lamps, and it
was set in^every one of the tiles that bordered the three big
windows. Furthermore, the woman sitting bolt upright in a
hard wooden chair at my right hand, where turning my head to
look at her would put me nose-to-shoulder with an em-
broidered Guthrie crest, not to mention more clouds of Guthrie
hail, was no Granny. It was my maternal grandmother, Myrrh
of Guthrie, and I was assuredly under her roof and in her
Castle.
 
They had taken off my boots and spurs, but my clothing
showed no sign whatsoever of a trip through the air into the
side of a dock shed, nor did my body. I wasn't likely to forget
the thwack I'd hit that shed with, but I hadn't so much as a
headache, nor a scratch on my lily white hand. Being as this
was somewhat unlikely, I looked around for the Magician of
Rank that had to be at the bottom of it.
 
"Greetings, Responsible ofBrightwatci," he said, and I was
filled with a sudden new respect for those who found my
mother's physical configurations distracting. He had chocolate
curls, and the flawless Guthrie skin and green eyes, and the
curve of his lips made me think improper thoughts I hadn't
known lurked in me. He was tall, and broad of shoulder slim
of waist and hips . . . and then there was the usual garb of
his profession to be put in some kind of perspective. A
Magician of Rank wears a pair of tight-fitting trousers over
bare feet and sandals, and a square-cut tunic with full sleeves
caught tight at the wrists, and a high-collared cape that flows in
a sweep from his throat to one inch of the flool; thrown back in
elegant folds over one shoulder to leave an arm free for ritual
gestures. There'd never been a man that getup wasn't becom-
ing to, and the fact that it was all in the Guthrie tricolor—deep
blue, gold, and forest green—was certainly no disadvantage.
 
I shut my eyes hastily, as a measure of simple prudence; and
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              61
 
he immediately checked my pulse, combining this medicinal
gesture with a thoroughly nonmedical tracking of one strong
finger along the most sensitive nerves of my wrist and inner
arm. It was my intention not to shiver, but I lacked the
necessary experience; and I was glad I could not see the
satisfied curl of those lips as he got precisely the response that
he was after
 
"Responsible of Brightwatci; open your eyes," he said, in a
voice all silk and deep water, "and swoon me no fabricated
swoons. You had a nasty knock on your head, you broke a
collarbone and three ribs, and you were bruised, scratched,
abraded, and generally grubby from head to foot—but you,
and I might add, your fancy Mule, are in certified perfect
condition at this moment. Every smallest part of you, I give
you my word. That was the point of calling me, my girl,
instead of a Granny."
 
"Confident, aren't you?" I said as coldly as possible,
repossessing myself of my arm, and Myrrh of Guthrie
remarked as how I reminded her very much of my sister,
Troublesome.
 
"Neither one of you ever had any manners whatsoever' she
said, "and my daughter deserves every bit of trouble the two of
you have given her ... bringing you up half wild and about
one-third baked."
 
I took the bait, it being a good deal safer to look at her than
at him, and I opened my eyes as ordered.
 
"Hello, Grandmother," I said. "How nice to see you."
 
"On the contrary!" she said. "Nothing nice about it. It's a
disaster, and I'm pretty sure you know that. The young man on
your left, the one you're avoiding because you can't resist
him—and don't concern yourself about it, nobody can, and
very useful he is, too—is your own kin, Michael Stepforth
Guthrie the llth. You be decent enough to greet him, instead
of wasting it on me, and I'll guarantee you safe conduct past
his wicked eyes and sorrier ways."
 
There was only one way to handle this kind of scene; some
others might of been more enjoyable, but they wouldn't have
been suitable. I sat up in the Guthrie bed, propped on my
pillows, put a hand on each of my hips right through the
bedclothes, gritted my teeth against the inevitable effect, and I
looked Michael Stepforth Guthrie up and down . . . slowly
 
62 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
. . . and then down and up, and then I looked him over once
more in both directions.
 
"Twelve roses," I said, "twelve sugaipies, and twelve
turtles! You are for sure the comeliest man ever my eyes have
had the pleasure to behold. Me Guthrie. Your buttocks, just for
starters, are superb . . . and the line of your thigh! Law,
cousin, you make my mouth water, on my word . . . turn
around once, would you, and let me see the swing of your
cape!"
 
Not a sound behind me from Myrrh of Guthrie; and I didn't
glance at hec, though I would of loved to see her face. Michael
Stepforth's eyes lost their mocking laughter and became the
iced green 1 was more accustomed to see in Guthrie eyes, I
faced the ice, smiling, and there was a sudden soft snapping
sound in the nervous silence. One rib, low on my right side.
 
"Petty," I said, and found the pain a useful distraction, since
not breathing was out of the question. "Cousin, that was
petty."
 
The next two ribs sounded just like an elderly uncle I'd once
visited that had a habit of cracking his knuckles, and breathing
became even more unhandy.
 
"See where bad manners will get you?" observed Myrrh of
Guthrie. "And as for buttocks—at fourteen a woman does not
mention them, though I must agree with your estimate of
Michael's. Who will now leave us alone, thank you kindly."
 
I didn't watch him sweep out of the room. His mischief had
immunized me temporarily against his charm; you don't feel
the pangs of desire through the pangs of broken ribs.
 
"Uncomfortable, are you?" said my grandmotnei; but she
had the decency to move to the end of the bed where I wouldn't
have to move around much to look at her while we talked.
 
"I wouldn't have him on my staff," I said crossly, hugging
my ribs.
 
"He's an excellent Magician of Rank," she said- "Such
quality doesn't grow on every bush, and I've need of him."
 
"And if he takes to breaking your ribs. Grandmother?"
 
She chuckled. "The man has principles," she said. "Infants
and old ladies . . . and anyone he considers genuinely
stupid, I believe ... are safe from his tantrums. And do not
ask me which of the three categories I have my immunity
undei, or I'll call him back."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              63
 
I sniffed, and gasped at the result; the breaks would be neat,
and simple, but they were a three-pronged fire in my side. And
what can't be cured for the moment must be endured for the
moment.
 
"Grandmotnei;" I said, "while we're on the subject of
manners, would you care to explain why my visit has to be
called a 'disaster'? That strikes me as mighty sorry hospitality.
Castle Guthrie wealthy as sin from the shipping revenues, and
the peachapple orchards, and your share of the mines in the
Wilderness. You telling me you can't afford to put up one
girlchild for twenty-four hours?"
 
"It's the twenty-four hours that we can't afford," she said,
and she sounded like she meant it. "This is not one of your la-
di-da city Castles, we're busy here. Right now we're so busy—
I want you gone within the how, young lady. With your ribs set
right, of course."
 
"Not possible," I said firmly.
 
"Responsible," she said, "you exasperate me!"
 
"Mynh of Guthrie," I said back, "you bewilder me. Here I
lie, your own daughter's daughter three ribs broken by your
own Magician of Rank, not to mention whoever or whatever
was responsible for that encounter my Mule and I had with the
architecture that graces your docks—"
 
"That was not the work of Michael Stepforth Guthrie!"
 
"And how do you know that?"
 
Her lips narrowed, and she turned a single golden ring round
and round on her left hand. Her wedding ring, plain except for
me ever-present crest.
 
"I am not entirely ignorant," she said, which I knew to be
true, "and though he's skilled he's like any other young man, a
regular pane of glass. I know what he was doing at the time of
your undignified arrival."
 
"If he's as skilled as you say, he's equally skilled at
pretending to a transparency that's convenient for his purposes.
Who trained him?"
 
"His father And a Magician whose name you'll know
. . . Crimson of Airy."
 
Crimson of Airy . . . now there was a name. It was a
concoction absolutely typical of Castle Airy, and in dreadful
taste, but she had lived up to it. She was a one, and she had
everything that went with being a one, and of the five women
 
64 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
to become Magicians on Ozark in the thousand years since
First Landing, only Crimson of Airy had made any mark. If it
hadn't been forbidden, she'd have been a Magician of Rank
herself, no question; and I knew her reputation. That of the
father of Michael Stepforth Guthrie I didn't know, but my
never hearing of him—plus the fact that he'd allowed a woman
to meddle in his son's education for the profession—told me all
I needed to know.
 
Myrrh of Guthrie leaned toward me and I burrowed into my
pillows hastily, for it looked to me as if she was going to grab
my shoulders and shake me, broken ribs and all. But she
caught herself.
 
"I know what you're thinking," she said. "You're thinking
that it's our Michael Stepforth that's been souring your milk
and kidnapping babies and making your Mules giddy, purely
because he'd be able. I'll grant you he's that good, I won't
deny it—but he's been far too busy here to be involved."
 
"Too busy for such piddly stuff as souring milk? And
sending some trash into a church after one little baby, with the
Spell already set?" It's not that easy to scoff with three broken
ribs,, but I scoffed. "Dear Grandmornei;" I said, "with every
word you speak you undo three others. Either the man's a
humbler and an egotistical fraud—which I'll not accept, not if
Crimson of Airy taught him his tricks, and very lucky we are
that she's dead at last!—or he is more than clever enough to
tend to whatever brews here at Castle Guthrie and carry on all
that other mischief with one of his long clever fingers, just on
the side! And the latter, Myrrh of Guthrie, the tatter is the truth
of if"
 
"You say that only because you don't know what's brewing
here!" she hissed at me. "It's been weeks, if not months, since
he's had more than snatches of sleep ... the Farsons are at
our backs and at our throats, the Purdys are determined to ruin
us all and have ignorance and black luck enough to do it, and
you come here, now, at a time like this!"
 
"Grandmother!" I lay back, easy, and realized that I was a
rattled young woman and that the pain was fast getting to me.
"Grandmornei; what are you talking about? I agree that the
Purdys make bad neighbors; very well. Granted. They seem
forever determined to win whatever foolishness awards are
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              65
 
going round. But the only ruin the Purdys will bring is ruin to
themselves, and the Farsons have their own Kingdom to run-"
 
"You're ignorant," she said flatly. "Plain ignorant!"
 
It was possible, I was beginning to realize, that I was. I had
more than a strong suspicion that I had been deliberately
ignorant . . . and I would of given a large sum for the
intelligence reports that lay in my desk back at Brightwatec I
had read them, I would never have not read them, but had I
perhaps been reading them with a selecting eye for what I
preferred to find there, and ignoring patterns that would have
required some efforts?
 
My grandmother stood up suddenly, hurting me as she jarred
the bed and well aware that she hurt me.
 
"I want you up," she said, "since you won't leave. Up and
ablebodied. If you insist on meddling in our affairs because
Brightwater can't manage its own, then I intend you to hear
just what it is you're meddling in.' You lie there, and I'll send
Michael Stepforth—oh, hush your mouth, he'll do what needs
doing on orders from me, and no nonsense out of him!—and an
Attendant will be here in one hour to bring you down to the
Hall. Where we'll tell you what you've gone and blundered
into!"
 
"I know my way. Grandmother," I reminded her mildly.
"I've been here before."
 
"An Attendant will come for you," she said again. "I'll
hear no more of our lack of hospitality out of you, or from
anyone else. And a Reception and Dance in your honor this
evening, missy, as befits a Castle rolling in its wealth!"
 
My grandmother was furious, that was quite clear without
her slamming the door behind her and making all the crests
hanging about rattle on their hooks. I hadn't expected warmth
here, but this exceeded my expectations; I was amazed. And
where was her husband, her own sixth cousin with the utterly
prosaic name and the utterly prosaic manner? The most boring
of all the Guthries? Ordinarily he would at least have been
mentioned, if not present for our little altercation . . . where
was James John Guthrie the 17th in the midst of my welcome?
 
"A man's name is chosen for euphony," I said aloud, "and
James John Guthrie is not euphonious. It sounds like three
rocks landing on a pavement, and the third one bouncing."
 
Whereupon something replied, after a fashion. Considering
 
66 SUZEITE HADEN ELGIN
 
what I had said, "Shame, shame, shame, you wicked
chiiiiiiild!" did not really follow.
 
I topped it.
 
"Three times six is eighteen," I told the thing, and then
there were eighteen of them, and I was glad I hadn't decided to
say nine times nine.
 
"Really!"
 
"Shame, shame, shame, you wicked chiiiiiuiiiiild!" they all
said in chorus. Eighteen giant seagulls, four feet tall and a
wingspread to match, standing round my bed flopping those
wings and ordering me in perfect harmony to be ashamed of
my wickedness.
 
If they'd been real I'd have turned all eighteen into fleas and
deposited them neatly in the high collar of Michael Stepforth's
cape, perhaps, but I was far too miserable to waste my time
working Transformations on fakes. I closed my eyes instead
and let the pseudobirds do their chant while I tried hard not to
breathe, and after ten, eleven repetitions their creator finally
appeared in my doorway—not bothering to knock—and came
striding in, walking through one of his birds to reach my side.
 
"Look up, please," he said crisply.
 
"Why? To view your little flock? No, thank you. I don't care
for squawkers."
 
"Seagulls."
 
"They look like squawkers to me," I said. "Might could be
your Spells are faulty."
 
(I wished! I tried to imagine a faulty Spell worked up by
Crimson of Airy, and found the thought ridiculous.)
 
"You look up here or I'll put all the gulls in bed with you,"
he said placidly. "And you wouldn't like that; they're awfully
dirty."
 
It was a pain as bad as the pain in my ribs to have to put up
with his sass; on the other hand, I wasn't about to give in to the
temptation to do magic beyond my permitted level under this
one's nose. Much as some old-fashioned staple along the lines
of turning him into a reptile would have done me good, much
as I longed for the tiny satisfaction of maybe just snapping one
of his perfect fingerbones, I was not that foolish. Even if I
could have managed something like that with all my supplies
packed away in a wardrobe and three of my ribs broken, there
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              67
 
was no sense to giving him any further smallest advantage. I
lay still, and I looked up.
 
Hmmmmm. Structural Description . . . Structural
Change . . . Coreferential Indexes. All properly formal and
not a fingertip out of place. The double-barred arrow appeared
in the ail; glowing gold, quivering slightly, and the pain faded
away as the arrow did. Perhaps ninety seconds total time. I was
impressed. It always takes longer to undo things than to do
them, and more formal operations are required. He was as
good as my grandmother said he was. I grinned at him.
 
"Ask me no fool questions," he said grimly, "and don't
offer me any more of your uncalled-for and unappreciated
assessments of my person. Just thank me. please, and show
you have some breeding."
 
"Thank you kindly. Magician of Rank Michael Stepforth
Guthrie the 11th," I said promptly. "You are certainly handy at
your work, and I intend to mention it everywhere I go." And I
batted my lashes at him, and crossed my hands over my
breasts.
 
"Your Attendant will be along soon," he said, looking clear
over my head and out the window, "and you are now in perfect
condition. And leave off your spurs, you'll mark up the stairs.
We're waiting for you—patiently—down in the small Hall."
 
"And your bill? For services rendered, Michael Stepforth?"
 
"Courtesy of the house," he said. "No charge." He raised
both his hands in the mock-magic gesture of the stage
magician, fanning his fingers open and shut and open again.
And then he turned on his heel and swept out of the room, the
cape swirling about him. And the gulls made a soft little noise
and disappeared.
 
I thanked the Attendant and walked into the Hall, where I
had spent a number of reasonably pleasant Hallow Evens and
Midsummer Days over the years. There had been children
then, and costumes and candy, and cakes and beer and an
atmosphere of frolic. There was none of that today.
 
They sat in high-backed chairs about a table at the far end of
the room, filling a windowed corner through which I could see
the sun going down. Myrrh of Guthrie. The previously absent
James John, looking rumpled. Michael Stepforth Guthrie. Two
unmarried sons in their late teens, whose names I did not
 
68 SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN
 
remembeE And one Granny, whose name I did know. Whatever
else I might neglect, I did not neglect the Grannys; I had a file
on every one of them, and I knew it by heart, and they didn't
gather an Ozark weed that I didn't know it. This one was a
harmless old soul, name of Granny Stillmeadow, that
specialized in liniments and party Charms, and I chose toe
chair next to hers and let her pat my knee.
 
Supper appeared the minute I took my place, and by the time
I'd been introduced to the two boys it had been served and we
were well into it. And if Myrrh of Guthrie was serious about
the Reception and Dance scheduled for that same evening there
was surely no time to fool about. I didn't recognize the beast
mat I was eating, but I recognized it for a beast, and I knew
both the vegetables. And I was sure they wouldn't poison me in
front of the servants, so I fell to. And I listened.
 
Castle Parson, it appeared, had been sending bands of
traders across the Wilderness to the Guthrie docks, and offering
higher bids for supplies than those authorized to the Guthrie
personnel. The Guthries were willing to allow that that might
have been due to an unfortunate incident in which a charge set
by a Guthrie mining crew had caved in a gem mine on the very
edge of Kingdom Parson. However it seemed that although the
mine was in Wilderness Lands and therefore technically
common property, the Parsons felt that the Guthries were
demanding more than their share of the profits from the mine,
which meant their miners might just conceivably have been
harassing the Guthrie miners who set the charge. (What the
Purdys had been doing through all this, and whether they'd
been getting any of their legitimate share of the profits, was not
mentioned.) But it did come up that a Purdy had managed to
get himself killed—according to both the Guthries and the
Parsons, it was deliberate, which I found it hard to believe,
even for the Purdys—in a spectacularly disgusting way.
(Granny Stillmeadow was of the opinion that only a Magician
of Rank could of arranged it, considering the curious shape the
body had assumed before it was found.) And this getting killed
had happened in the Parson Castle Hall, while the Guthries
were there protesting the latest iniquity perpetrated by the
Parsons, and a Parson Granny had cried "Privilege!" and
they'd had to call a three-Kingdom hearing, which by law had
to be held on common ground in the Wilderness, and was still
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              69
 
going on, and that was costing an arm and a leg and another
arm. And a Purdy spy had hacked her ridiculous way through
the Wilderness to tell the Guthries that the Parsons were
stealing them all blind by working another gem mine on the
Purdy's southern bordei; tunneling from its Wilderness en-
trance clear under the Guthrie lands—which was something the
Guthries already knew—but, since the poor thing had ruined
herself for life scrabbling around on foot through the under-
brush and whatnot and getting lost over and over to bring
information that she had thought would prove the Purdy loyalty
to the Guthries, and since she claimed to have been assaulted
by a fanner in a ditch along the way (which the farmer denied,
but the Granny was of the opinion he was at least bending the
truth, if not breaking it), it made it a debt of honor for Castle
Guthrie to avenge when the fool woman fell into a well and
drowned herself—
 
That did it. That did it! To think that these were three of the
Kingdoms staunchly claiming that they should be left to
manage their own affairs! It beat all, and some left over!
 
"Wait!" I shouted. "Just stop!"
 
They all put down their silverware and stared at me, and the
Granny clucked her tongue.
 
"You interrupted, child," she said. "Ill-bred of you. Ill-
bred!"
 
I whistled long and low, and pushed my plate away from me.
 
"What was that?" I asked. "The roast, I mean."
 
"Stibble," said James John Guthrie, whose absence was
now well explained. He would be very busy indeed with all
this going on.
 
"Stibble?"
 
"Something like a pig and something like an Old Earth
rabbit."
 
"I don't believe it."
 
"Nevertheless. Granny there named it for us."
 
"How big?"
 
He made a measure in the ak Two feet, roughly, and about
so high.
 
"Did you like it?" he asked.
 
"Yes, I did," I said. "I just wanted a name for it."
 
"It's new," said James John. "Our Ecologist developed
 
70 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
it ... oh, about a year and a half ago. A little bit of this, a
little bit of that." •
 
"And made no mention of it?"
 
He raised his eyebrows and speared another bite of stibble
roast.
 
"You folks going hungry on Brightwater?" he asked roe
innocently. "Famine on Marktwain, is there? Starving popula-
tions on Oklahomah?"
 
He knew very well that the law said we all shared. If the
Guthrie Geologist had found a reliable new foodsource, the
announcement—and all details—was supposed to go out to all
the Twelve Castles, share and share alike. But I let it pass.
 
"There is no way," I said, "that I can remember all of this
hoohah about you Outlines and Parsons and Purdys."
 
"Poor things," said Granny Stillmeadow. "The Purdys, I
mean."
 
"And no reason why you should remembel," said Myrrh of
Guthrie like a scythe falling. "I don't recall asking you for
help. I don't recall sending any dispatches demanding rescue,
and we can handle it ourselves, thank you very much. IS you'II
just stay home."
 
"The wickedness of those Parsons," bellowed James John
Guthrie, "and the ineptitude, I might say the stupidity, of those
Purdys, defies belief, and brings a decent man to—"
 
"Talk too much," pronounced Granny Stillmeadow. "Shut
your face, James John Guthrie, the young woman's been told
it's not her concern."
 
Well! So she could granny when it was needful after all! I
patted her knee.
 
"Granny Stillmeadow," he said doggedly, "you have not
heard what those people did today. I am here to tell you—"
 
Granny Stillmeadow, and Myrrh of Guthrie, and I myself
fixed him with chilly stares, and Michael Stepforth cleared his
throat ominously, and both the sons looked down at their
plates, and the man gave it up, his voice trailing off while the
servingmaids came forward and took away all evidence of the
stibble roast, and the two vegetables, and the bread and butter
and gravy and salt and coffee.
 
"No dessert," said Myrrh of Guthrie, "because of the
Reception and the Dance."
 
One of the young women looked up at that and offered that
 
Twelve Far Kingdoms             71
 
there was a bread pudding ready in the Castle kitchen if her
lady wanted it, and no trouble atall, but Myrrh waved her
away.
 
"You do see," she said to me, "why I told you we hadn't
time right now to play games with you?"
 
No, as a matter of actual fact, I did not see. I'd never heard
such a tangle of nonsensical tales in all my life, and I couldn't
imagine how any group of supposedly competent grown-up
people had allowed things to reach such a pass. However I
now had a certain feeling of conviction about one thing—
whatever was going on here on Arkansaw, it was keeping the
Guthries so busy they had little time to even think about the
Jubilee, much less plot against it. That didn't mean I didn't
have my guard up, not with that canny Magician of Rank
sitting there to remind me. The Guthries could of put all this
together as one gigantic distraction, in the hope that I'd feel
obliged to stay on and try to settle it, for instance; that would of
been perfectly plausible. I didn't think so. It all had the ring of
truth, however ridiculous; but I wasn't putting it entirely out of
my mind. But I was reassured a good deal by the number of
lies I'd been told in the space of one brief hour . . . well, call
them distortions, lies may be too strong a word . . . and the
lack of craft behind them. The Parsons were feuding with the
Guthries; and the Guthries were feuding with the Parsons; and
the Purdys were caught in the middle trying to play both sides.
That much was obvious. The rest of it I wouldn't give two
cents foe
 
It might be I'd have to do some serious digging before I left
Arkansaw, and for sure I'd have to keep a wary eye and ear
from here on out on Michael Stepforth Guthrie, but I needn't
waste time at Castle Guthrie. Reception. Dance. A little
breakfast. And on to Parson.
 
It wasn't going to be a pleasant night, of course; the
Magician of Rank would see to that, hoping to provoke me to
some indiscretion he could use later on, and wanting his own
back for my shaming him before the Missus of the Castle that
afternoon. I could count on lizards in my bed, and sheets that
felt like bread pudding, and bangs and thumps and clanks, and
mysterious names dancing in the corners, and probably—no,
for sure—the whole room rocking and swaying all night like a
 
72
 
SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN
 
small boat in a high wind. I might sleep through some of it, and
then I might not. Depending on how ingenious he was. And
 
how spiteful.
 
I looked at him, and he looked back at me slow and steady,
that beautiful mouth curling and the lashes half-lowered over
the seagreen eyes. I felt my own traitor lips part, and I firmed
them tight, and I saw the devil dance behind those lashes.
 
I was learning; my sympathy for my mother's victims
increased.
 
CHAPTER 6
 
"RESPONSIBLE OF BRIGHTWATER," said the Attendant, in that
dead voice that seemed to have been droning on for hours and
hours. I gripped my glass, leaned on the table, and shook this
.latest hand; it belonged, said the Attendant, to one Marychar-
lotte of Wommack, wife of Jordan Sanderleigh Farson the
23rd. I didn't even bother to add up the letters and see what
number "marychariotte" came to, which was some index of
my exhaustion; she could be any number she chose, including
the horrible fom; she could be a one like Crimson of Airy and a
threat to my life and the Kingdom of Brightwater . . . I no
longer cared.
 
I stood in the line with the Attendant at my side, and the
people filed past and were introduced by couples, or one at a
time, and I had begun to suspect that they were recirculating
that line; it trailed out the Hall door and dissolved into a milling
crowd of faces and names I'd long since losfall track of. If a
single face had come around twice, or three times for that
matlei; I doubt I'd have been able to spot it—by now they all
looked just alike to me.
 
I was very nearly out on my feet, and the wine the Castle
 
73
 
74 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
staff kept pouring into my glass was no great help. White wine
I might have replaced with water and gotten away with, but not
red; nothing else liquid on Ozaric is that color, except blood,
and a glass of blood in my hand would of made a mighty poor
impression.
 
Michael Stepforth Guthrie had had some innovations to offer
on magical harassment in the guestchamber that had outdis-
tanced even my broadest expectations, and before long I'd
settled down to taking notes on his effects, since it was clear I
wasn't going to get any sleep. I'd been grateful for my virginity
before it was all over, since that had limited his legal span of
effects some, but nonetheless—when I'd given up all hope at
dawn and staggered out of my bed I'd been in sorry shape. And
then there'd been the requisite eighteen hours of night to Castle
Farson, which I'd had to do every one of its minutes in
plainstyle—no SNAPPING. So far as I'd been able to tell, the
whole continent of Arkansaw was innocent of empty areas,
even in the Wilderness Lands; Sterling and I had looked down
on a constant scurry of activity beneath us the whole time, and
had been promptly greeted by Arkansawyers of one kind or
another each time we landed for a brief rest stop.
 
And the Parsons themselves were terrifyingly efficient. Met
me at the door, fed me and wined me, saw me to a room to
change my bib and my tucker, saw me back down to the Hall
for this party, which was clearly intended to fill all the
remainder of this evening, and no discussion. Not a word.
"Welcome, Responsible of Brightwater, pleasant to see you."
"Beg your pardon, Responsible, but you've caught us at a
right busy time, we'll just have to make do." "Step this way,
please, miss." "Notice the view from that window, child, it's
much admired." "Fine evening, isn't it?" And on and on.
 
I could tell from the clustered packs of guests around the
Hall and the scraps of their talk that floated my way that it was
much the same stuff the Guthries had been talking. Perfidy,
wickedness, and ineptitude; the ghastly Guthries and the pitiful
Purdys. But no one brought any of it to my ears—we remarked
on my costume, and how pretty it was; and on my Mule, and
how handsome she was; and on the weather, and how fine it
was; and the party, and how pleasant that was. No more.
 
I'd made a few early stabs at talking of the Jubilee, and had
learned immediately that the Parsons were either far more
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              75
 
subtle than the Guthries, or else under some sort of orders
regarding the topics of their converse. "You'll be at the Jubilee
in May, no doubt?" (That was me, all charm.) "May is a fine
month, we always enjoy May!" (That was whoever, moving on
down the line toward the punchbowl, smiling.) I got flustered,
and then I got mad, and then I got grim; and as the evening
went on I reached a cold plateau of determination that floated
on my second wind and a very good head for wine. I stopped
asking, which got me no information, but at least deprived
mem of the satisfaction of ignoring my questions.
 
More hands. Something something of Smith, wife of
something something the 46th. Accompanied by himself, the
something somethingth. My teeth ached from smiling, my
behind ached from riding, and my spirit ached from boredom,
and it went on and on.
 
"There," said the Attendant. A variation.
 
"There?"
 
"That's the last of them. Miss Responsible."
 
"You're sure?"
 
"I am," he said. "That's all, and I can't say I'm sorry."
 
I looked, and it did appear that there were no more people
lined up to my right with their hands all ready to be shaken by
me guest of honor, Responsible of Brightwatec And a good
thing, too; the Farson Ballroom was huge, but it was straining
at the seams. I'd have said there were four hundred people
there; surely I had not shaken four hundred hands?
 
I set down my glass on the table, careful not to snap its stem
for spite, and gathered up my elaborate blue-and-silver skirts.
 
"Give my compliments to your Missus and my host," I told
him, "and tell them I'll be down to breakfast in the morning.
Early."
 
He raised his eyebrows, but it was not his place to question
my behavior, and I surely didn't give a thirteen what he thought
of it. If he thought I was going to fight my way through this
roomful of sweating phony smilers to find the Farsons. if he
thought I was going to thank them for their bold as brass
campaign to wear me right down to a nub, he could think twice
more. Manners be damned, I was going to my bed.
 
I showed him my back and went out the closest door, into the
corridor that led to the stairs toward my room. But I was being
watched; another Attendant appeared at my side the instant I
 
76 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
reached the door, carrying a bowl of fruit, a tray of bread and
butter, and a tall decanter of that accursed Parson wine.
 
"This way, miss," he said, and he led on politely, looking
back now and then as we wound up stairs and down corridors,
down stairs and through tunnels, round turrets with more stairs
and across echoing rooms lined with the family portraits of
generations of Parsons, until we came at last to a door I had
seen before and knew full well could have been reached by a
direct route taking maybe six minutes flat.
 
"Your room, miss," he said, opening the door to let me
pass.
 
"Thank you for the grand torn; Attendant," I said through
my teeth, and he bobbed his head a fraction.
 
"No trouble atall, miss. No trouble atall; I had to come this
way anyhow."
 
And then he set the food and drink down on a table and left
me, blessedly, alone.
 
I was so angry that I was shaking, and so tired that I was
long past being sleepy. The second was a point in my favor, as I
had work to do, but the first wouldn't serve. You can't do
magic, at whatever level, when you're in a state of blind rage.
(Well, you can, but you risk some effects you aren't counting
on and that may not exactly fit into your plans.)
 
I threw myself out flat on the narrow elegant guest bed,
kicking off only my shoes, and whistled twenty-four verses of
"Again, Amazing Grace." No way to tell which was which,
since I was only whistling; but I kept count by picking one
berry from the fruit bowl for every verse I finished, and setting
them out on my lap in sixes till I had four sets. By that time I
was a tad hyperventilated, but I was no longer furious; I had in
fact reached a stage of grudging admiration.
 
After all, the Parsons had given me nothing tangible to
complain of. I'd been properly met, a full complement of
Attendants in red and gold and silver livery at my beck and
call. I'd been dined and wined to a fare-thee-well. I'd had a
servant at my elbow every instant, and often half a dozen. I'd
been guest of honor at the biggest party I ever remembered
seeing, and formally introduced to who knew how many scores
of distinguished citizens of Kingdom Parson, and all their kith
and kin. And now here I lay in state in one of their best
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              77
 
guestchambers, and it had been my choice that I'd not stayed
below in the Ballroom to receive whatever honor had been next
on their list for me.
 
Thinking about it, staring up at the vaulted ceiling high
above my head, I chuckled; it had been done slick as satin, and
I had not one piece of information to show for all those hours—
nor one legitimate complaint. Well done, well done for sure.
 
I got up then and went into the bathroom, where I was
pleased to see that the facilities were not marred by any
nostalgic antiquation, and made myself ready for the night.
 
Three baths, first. One with hot watci; and one with cold,
and one with the proper crushed herbs from my pack. Then my
fine white gown of softest lawn, sewn by my own hands; I
pulled it nine times through a golden finger ring, and examined
it carefully—not a wrinkle, it was ready to put on. My feet
bare, and a black velvet ribbon round my neck; my hair in a
single braid, and I thought that would do. I had nothing really
fancy planned for this night, just a kind of easy casting about
for wickedness, if wickedness was to be found here. I didn't
expect any; for all their sophistication in handling one lone
inquisitive female, this Family was just as taken up with the
continental feud as the Guthries had been. I was Just checking.
 
I set wards, Ozark garlic, and well-preserved Old Earth
lilac, at every door and window, laying the wreaths so anyone
passing would be certain I slept no matter what went on. I
didn't bother warding against Magicians, just ordinary folk and
a possible inquisitive Granny; if the Parsons cared to send a
Magician, or better yet a Magician of Rank, to check on xne, I
wanted that person to come right on in. I'd be saved hours of
Spells and Charms that way, and I had nothing in mind for the
night that was forbidden to a woman.
 
I set two Spells, Granny Magic both of them, and the leaves
in the bottom of my little teacup formed unexciting figures both
times. I didn't need the bird to tell me there was travel in my
future, not with all of Kintucky and Tinaseeh still ahead of me;
 
and I didn't need the fine hat that formed high on the right side
near the rim to let me know diplomacy was indicated.
 
And then I moved up a tiny notch, with the idea of making
assurance doubly sure, and ran a few Syllables.
 
I said;
 
78             SU2ETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
ALE-
BALSAM.
CHERRYSTONE.
 
DEVIL IN DUNG.
EMBLEM IN AN EGG.
FOGFALL IN THE FOREST.
EGGSHELL IN AN EEL.
DUNG ON DEWDROPS.
COBBLESTONE.
BOWER.
ALE.
 
Now that's a simple bit, you'll agree. Your average Granny
might not be quite so free with dung, but I saw no flaw in it all;
 
and I cast my gold chain on the bed where I was kneeling at my
work, fully expecting to see it fall in yet one more reassuring
shape, after which I would call it a night and get some well-
deserved sleep.
 
Then I took a look at what I'd got, and backed off to give it
room, and backed off some more, and remembered Granny
Golightly. What was that old woman's range, anyway? Her and
her plenty of adventures required . . .
 
It loved me, that was clear It licked my face, and it licked
the velvet ribbon round my neck, and it slobbered down both
the front and the back of my gown with pure affectionate
delight, and rolled over on the Parsons' good counterpane to
have its stomach scratched, and even flat on its back it kept on
licking every part of me it could reach-
 
This the wards would never hold for, especially if it began to
hum to me, which was likely if it got any happier I scrambled
off the bed, with it after me anxiously, licking and snuffling and
falling over things at my heels, and I doubled the garlic and
hung a ring of it on the doorknob. For good measure I took my
shammybag of white sand and laid out a pentacle at the door,
with the door itself serving as one of the five sides. Only then
did I pause, doing it in the middle of the pentacle just to be
extra safe, whereupon it knocked me over and devoted its tiny
mind and heart and its enormous tongue to licking me
absolutely clean.
 
It was called a Yallerhound, though it was nearer brown than
yellow, and only by the most strained, courtesy a hound. Like
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              79
 
the giant cavecats, it had six legs; tike the Mules, its tail
dragged the ground; unlike the Mules, so did its ears and its
body hair It was seven feet long, not counting the tail, and
about five feet high, and its aim in life was to love people and
keep them clean. It had a purple tongue the size of a hand
towel, from the eager attentions of which I was already soaking
wet from head to foot. And it now had decided that my hair
wasn't clean enough, and would probably drown me before it
was satisfied about that.
 
I couldn't help myself, this was too much, and made twice
as awful because it would of won me no sympathy from
anybody—some part of me, somewhere inside, could still see
that it was funny. But most of me was at the end of all its ropes.
I lay down in the middle of the pentacte, making sure no part of
me lopped over any borders, curled up in a ball to protect as
much of me as possible from the damned Yallerhound, and I
bawled and cried and carried on till I was limp. The poor stupid
creature cried with me, keening high and thin.
 
When I woke up it was a quarter after two, and I was
ashamed of myself. Women, after all, are expected to cope.
There I lay, decked out all ladylike and delicate for magic, as
was proper; and there it lay, curled round me and humming a
tune in that thin little voice that went so badly with its size and
made it obvious that the creature was mostly hair And both of
us soggy in a puddle of Yallerhound lick—and the sticky tears
of two species. It was enough to rouse the last word I
remembered being spanked for using—it was enough to make
a person say "puke." Ugh.
 
I felt better for the sleep, however and whatever I felt was
all the Yallerhound cared about, especially if what I felt was
something positive. Now that I'd had my conniption fit, I had
to think.
 
To begin with, there was the source of this animal. No
Granny on Ozark (and so far as I know we have all the Grannys
there are) could teleport anything as big as either a giant
cavecat or a Yallerhound. I knew Granny Golightly had had
her signature on that cavecat back on Oklahomah, but it might
of been she'd only had to encourage one that was already there.
But I'd bet my velvet neckband it was on this Yallerhound as
well, and that was a different matter altogether Yallerhounds
 
80 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
don't just happen to turn up in bedrooms, popping out of empty
ail; and that had to mean she'd had some help. From a
Magician of Rank, who, other than me, would be the only
individual with enough skill and strength to bring this off. And
I had a pretty good idea I knew which Magician of Rank.
 
Not Michael Stepforth Guthrie; I thought he'd had fun
enough for a while. The one I had in mind was called Lincoln
Parradyne Smith the 39th, resident of that same Castle Smith
that had so coolly disinvited me to visit. Magician of Rank to
the continent of Oklahomah, and surely handy to good Granny
Golightly.
 
He'd have been delighted to help her; I rather expected that
almost any one of the Magicians of Rank on this planet would
of been. I'd been twelve years old the first time a sign from the
Out-Cabal had obliged me to convene a Colloquium of the
Magicians of Rank (and what a difference two years
makes ... I hadn't even noticed the attractions of Michael
Stepforth Guthrie). And I'd been warned to be prepared for
their hostility, but it hadn't been warning enough. It was like
sitting too close to a wall of fire to be shut in a room with them;
 
I flamed inside with the waves of hatred beating against me
from that crew of arcane males, and I'd been sick for days
afterward.
 
A strange sickness. I lay in my bed, so weak I could not lift
my head from my pillow even to drink, and perpetually thirsty,
and the skin of my body cold as mountain river water while I
burned and burned within. I had not known that so much pain
could be.
 
"They consumed your energies, child," our Granny Hazel-
bide had said, sitting beside me and holding my icy hands in
her warm ones, and every now and then letting a spoonful of
water trickle one drop at a time down my throat. "Sucked 'em
right up like a pack of babies at the teat; and they'll do it every
time."
 
I'd asked her with my eyes, because I couldn't talk—how
long? And she'd shaken her head.
 
"This first time, sweet Responsible, sweet child? No way of
telling, just no way atall. What you're doing, lying there on a
cross of ice and fire mingled . . . oh yes, child. I know! I've
 
Twelve Fear Kingdoms              81
 
never been through what you're bearing, praise the Twelve
Corners, but 1 do know! . . , what you're doing there is
renewing yourself. It may take days and it may take weeks and
there's not a blessed thing anyone can do to help you. But
there's one good thing—each time it will be shorter As you get
older, and stronger, and more experienced at this yourself
. . . why, you'll get to where you don't mind them any more
man a pack of babes!"
 
A spasm had racked me, all my muscles nickering under my
skin, and she'd sat there calm as a bouldei; it not being one of
roe times when she felt expected to cluck and fuss and dithec
She'd sat there eleven days, and when it was over she told me
I'd done well.
 
"A short time, for your first time," Granny had said, "That
speaks well for the future, child."
 
They hated me, one and all, did the Magicians of Rank—
though they no more understood why than the Yallerhound
would have. Nor why they should have felt compelled to come
at my call, me no more than a little pigtailed girl; nor why they
couldn't get up and go home, but had to sit and listen to my
pronouncements, as if I had a rank and they had none; nor why
their voices left them if they tried to speak upon the subject,
ever It was a mystery, and one that they weren't privy to, and
there weren't supposed to be any mysteries they weren't privy
to- They were, after all, the Magicians of Rank.
 
So, if one of them could do me a little hurt . . . just a
small hurt, you understand, just a plaster for their aching
egos ... I was in fact surprised that they'd chanced the
cavecat, it might have really hurt me; and I could be sure I'd
been watched every minute in the crystal that Lincoln
Panadyne Smith kept in his magic-chest. He must of been very
confident he could reach me in time if I couldn't manage by
myself, or he never would of risked it. The Yallerhound, on the
other hand, was just funny. It couldn't hurt me even if it wanted
to. which it didn't, short of falling on me by accident off a
Castle roof, or something of the kind.
 
"The Yallerhound,'* I said aloud, which delighted it and set
it humming up and down a nineteen-tone scale that was awful
beyond all imagining, "is a harmless creature. However, it
weighs almost one hundred pounds and a bit, and it eats more
 
82 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
than a half-grown Mule, and it will never, never stop licking
you."
 
We would of made a pretty sight. Sterling and me and my
saddlebags, and the Yallerhound riding behind me licking my
neck and my hair as we flew by. Not to mention the fact that,
given the magic I was supposed to be able to perform, we
would of had to drop like a stone. A Mule couldn't carry that
much weight, even if it was precious cargo instead of stupid
beast. I had to make up my mind what to do with the thing.
 
I could simply leave it here, a "gift" to the Castle, and claim
I had no idea where it had come from—which was, in a sense,
true. They'd never forgive me, and they'd probably shut it up
in the stables to die of heartbreak and the conviction that it had
done something wrong—but I could do that.
 
I could claim that their Magicians had sicced the silly thing
on me, and gain a few points that way, since they wouldn't be
able to prove that they hadn't. But the results for the innocent
Yallerhound would be the same, if I left it behind.
 
I could buy another Mule to cany it and take it with me—
thus guaranteeing that I'd took like a fool and be greeted like
one at every Castle left on my itinerary.
 
Or I could try to do something with more flair to it, and
maybe some justice. Like send it back to its Granny, O! True, I
shouldn't be able to do that. true, she'd know that I had. But
she couldn't tell on me without telling what she'd done, and
what she'd done was a pure disgrace. Therefore!
 
"My pretty Yallerhound,'* I said, frantically ducking the
purple tongue and encountering it all the same, "do you know
what I think? I think you should go right back to where you
came from! Poor Granny Golightly has got no Yallerhound to
love her, and I'll bet she's dirty as seven little boys dividing up
syrup in August. She undoubtedly, indubitably needs a Yal-
lerhound to look after her, don't you think?"
 
Its eyes got wide and its tongue paused long enough for me
to wipe my face off once. It had just enough brain to know I
was talking about it, as well as to it. I tapped it on its nose,
gently, and I scratched it on its hairy stomach, gently, and I set
to work.
 
Crystals were not my style, but I didn't need one- I had no
trouble finding my lady Golightly in my mirror; She slept
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              83
 
curled like a scrawny baby in a high bed on the third floor of
Castle dark, under a thick red comforter stuffed with
squawker feathers, and a smile of innocent bliss upon her face.
I dumped the Yallerhound right on top of the smile.
 
CHAPTER 7
 
I SAT IN THE LIBRARY at Castfe Motley, drinking coffee so
strong you could of stood a spoon up in it easy, still weak-
kneed from the recent shenanigans but pleased that I'd arrived
here without any unbecoming incidents. Sterling had flown
across the narrow channel to Mizzurah with nary a wobble, no
more creatures of any size or description had joined me as I
flew, and if there was an adventure headed at me for this station
on the Quest it had yet to arrive. And I was willing to wait.
 
We were even having a pleasant conversation—something
I'd been missing for quite a while now. Me and my host,
Halbreth Nicholas Smith the 12th, and the lady of his Castle,
Diamond of Motley. Just the three of us. There was a small
informal supper planned for the evening, I'd been told, and a
hunt breakfast the next morning, but no great to-do's. That
suited me; I had another slice of fresh hot bread with
blazonbeiry jam, braced myself against the coffee, and
relaxed.
 
Diamond of Motley was a placid woman, gone stout and not
the least bothered by it, with her red hair wound around her
head in a coronet of thick braids that was about as becoming as
 
85
 
86 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
measles but otherwise perfectly suitable. She had eleven
children and an unshakable serenity; just looking at her rested
me. Hearing her say that she and hers were looking forward to
the Jubilee delighted me.
 
"Diamond of Motley," I said, "that does me good! It's a
great occasion for Ozark, and it should be looked forward to.
I've not heard much talk along that line since I left
Brightwater"
 
"You've been where now, Responsible?" her husband asked
me.
 
"McDaniels, dark, Airy, Guthrie, and Farson."
 
"A shame you had to miss Castle Smith," said Diamond.
"Who'd of thought there was still a cavecat left on
Oklahomah?"
 
"/ wouldn't," I told hec "But I learned."
 
"Well, Smith's gain is our loss," said Halbreth Nicholas,
gallant as you please, "you're here the sooner Think you
missed anything in particular there?"
 
I looked at him, not sure what he meant, and he was tamping
down his pipe and staring into it like he was looking for omens.
 
"According to a rumor as came this way," he said carefully,
still eyeing the tobacco, "Smith wasn't expecting you any-
how . . . it's going round that there was a note sent asking
you not to come."
 
Ah, the close-mouthed Smiths; this would be their doing.
Gabble, gabble, gabble, all the time.
 
"As it happened, that's true," I said. "They sent me a
letter."
 
"Signed by?"
 
"Dorothy of Smith—the oldest."
 
Halbreth Nicholas lit his pipe and took a long draught. He
was a Smith himself, and head of this Castle only because
there'd been no Motley sons in the last generation. If my
memory served me right, he'd be the second cousin of the
blusterer that filled the same role at Castle Smith.
 
"She say why?" he asked me.
 
"They claimed a family crisis.'*
 
"Hmmph." He blew a fine smoke ring, and he watched it
rise, and he said no more. Which was only to be expected. I
wanted to say something comforting about everybody having
relatives they'd as soon they didn't have to own up to, but that
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              S7
 
load of thing was the proper remark for a Granny, not a Castle
daughter and I held my peace.
 
Diamond of Motley was not so inhibited—after all, it wasn't
her relatives. She asked me straight out, leaning over to pour
me more coffee and push the jam dish closer to my plate:
 
"Does it make you suspicious of them, child?"
"You know what's been going on at Castle Brightwalei;" I
said.
 
"Been on all the comsets. Soured milk, smashed mirrors,
kidnapped babies, and such truck. Everybody's heard all about
it by now."
 
"Well," I said. "it's one of those which comes first the
squawker or the egg things, to my mind. If Castle Smith is
guilty of all this mischief, then telling me not to stop by their
door makes them look guiltier On the other hand, if you're
guilty, doing something like that tips your hand so plain and
easy that you can't imagine anyone with half a brain doing it;
 
that makes them look as innocent as the babe kidnapped. On
the other hand, if you were guilty and wanted to look innocent,
doing something so outrageous as that would be a canny move.
It goes round and round."
 
"So it does," she said, "and what's your own opinion?"
The question put me in a very awkward position. There sat
her husband, him a Smith by birth and close kin to those at
Castle Smith this minute, and she asked me such a thing? She
was a typical six, and properly named, and her husband
stepped into the breach and saved me neatly.
 
"Shame on you, darlin'," he told her "putting the young
woman on the spot like that. How can she say right in front of
me and under my own roof that she suspects my close kin of
treason against the Confederation? At least let her finish with
her food before you throw her into a bog like that!"
"Oh," she said, "you know, I didn't think?"
"I'm sure you didn't," he observed, and he touched her
cheek gently. It was clear he doted on hei; and that was nice.
"But you must try, now and again."
Then he surprised me.
 
"Would you like to know what / think?" he asked abruptly.
"Indeed I would. If you're willing to say."
"I am," he said. "Delldon Mallard the 2nd, for all he's my
cousin, and his three brothers with him, never have had sense
 
S8 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
enough to pound sand in a rat hole. They're ornery enough to
do the kind of foolishness that's been coming down, that's a
point against them; and they're silly enough not to see that
they're surrounded on all sides by Families loyal to the
Confederation, and would be well advised to run with the pack
at least until the Jubilee gives us all a chance to see how the
land lies. But. and nevertheless,! don't think they could of
carried it off this long without making some fool mistake that
would of given them away—that's a point for them. And
furthermore, Granny Gableft-ame's at Castle Smith, and I don't
believe she'd put up with it for a minute, nor do I believe they
could put it past her, Now that, my dear, is what / think."
 
"And so thought the Clarks," I said, nodding my head.
"Including Granny Golightly."
 
"Wicked old lady, that one!" put in Diamond of Motley.
"Downright wicked!"
 
"Grannys aren't wicked. Diamond," said her husband
firmly. "They're just contrary, and it's expected of them. She's
a tad worse than some of the others, might could be ... but
she has an image to live up to."
 
"And," I concluded, "so think I. I don't believe Castle
Smith is in this."
 
"And the others?" They asked me together, right in chorus.
 
"The McDaniels and the Clarks, not a chance of it," I said.
"As for the Airys, you know how they are, I don't know where
they get it from. The Guthries and the Parsons, from what I can
tell and the tales they're spinning, are bent on carving up one
another and the poor Purdys along with them. If they've
thought of the Confederation in the last two months, I'll be
surprised, and the Jubilee? If they don't want to go, they just
won't. And everything you said of the Smiths applies to the
Purdys ... if they were playing these tricks they'd of
betrayed themselves early, early on."
 
"And us, my dear?"
 
I smiled at him, and had some more coffee. "I just got
here," I said. "Suppose you tell me how you feel about these
things."
 
"It won't take long."
 
"All the better"
 
"Mizzurah is a mighty small continent, and it's right off the
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              89
 
port bow, if you'll allow the figure, of Arkansaw and all that
feuding and carrying on. We've got the Wommacks and the
Travellers on our flanks, and a hell of a lot of ocean—beg your
pardon, ladies—all around, and nobody but Castle Lewis to
rely on should all of the others decide to move in on us.
Guthries, Parsons, Purdys, Wommacks, and Travellers, that is.
They have us cut off completely from Marktwain and
Oklahomah."
 
"Which means?"
 
"Which means we're in an interesting position, if you like
interesting, but a chancy one. You'll find the Lewises as strong
for the Confederation as the Airys, though a mite less drivelly
about it, and they'd stand firm in any crisis; but they're even
smaller than we are, they couldn't hold out a week. And we
couldn't defend them. Therefore, I tell you quite frankly,
Responsible of Brightwater, that Castle Motley stands for the
Confederation of Continents, and does so openly—but you
can't count on us for anything dramatic."
 
He was right, if unromantic. Mizzurah was the smallest of
the six continents, and it sat all alone in the middle of the
oceans with its three great neighbors hemming it on all sides.
Castle Motley was in no position to make rash promises.
 
"But you'll be at the Jubilee?" I asked him, hoping.
 
"We'll be there," he assured me. "You heard my wife; her
and the children, they're looking forward to it, and a lot of our
staff. It's a rare chance when we can get away and see
something besides our own Castle yard. We plan to leave very
shortly, as a matter of fact, because we're going by water
everywhere we can—no Mules for my household, thank you,
except flat on the solid ground, and no more of 'em then man's
absolutely required. But we can't offer you anything else but
our presence, and no daring political moves—you might as
well know that."
 
I wondered if he knew anything that I didn't, and couldn't
see what I'd lose by asking.
 
"Halbreth Nicholas, do you expect some daring moves from
somebody else?"
 
He knocked out his pipe and set it down, and then he
counted out his propositions with the side of one palm on the
flat of the other
 
90 SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN
 
"First," he said, "there's already those trying to scuttle the
Jubilee outright. Correct?"
 
"Correct."
 
"I think you'll be able to stop that . . . this Quest of yours
is an exaggeration, but it's caught people's fancy, and I believe
they'll come to see what happens next, if for no other reason.
Dragons and a tourney in the courtyard at Castle Brightwalei;
 
maybe?"
 
I grinned at him.
 
"Second," he went on, "assuming, as I do think we can
assume, that there will be a Jubilee, even if one or two of the
Families boycott it—and frankly, I doubt that strongly; like I
said before, every one of them is curious, and if anything's
going to happen they don't want to miss it—i/the Jubilee does
come off as scheduled, I look for a formal move to dissolve the
Confederation."
 
"Happens every time we meet," I said. "That would be no
surprise."
 
"Not exactly," said Halbreth Nicholas, "not exactly. No-
body's proposed that seriously within anybody's memory. No,
what always happens is the move to cut it back to one day a
yeai; and then that's voted down ... by how much depend-
ing on how the Wommacks are wobbling that month."
 
"My dear," said Diamond of Motley, "I'm afraid I really
don't see much difference. In effect, that is."
 
"Oh, there's a difference," he said, "yes, there is. True, that
ritual meeting would make the Confederation an empty
pretense, a regular little bug of a planetary government and not
worth spitting at. But so long as it met even that long, they'd
only have one meeting's worth of satisfaction. Brightwater'd
move to return to meeting four times a year, Castle Lewis'd
second, and the vote would go as usual—seven to five or eight
to four Dissolving the thing, meaning no meetings atall, would
be quite a different thing altogether."
 
I felt a chill between my shoulders ... not that I hadn't
had the same idea cross my mind, but if it came this easy to
him there might be many others sharing it.
 
"You think they could do it, Halbreth Nicholas?"
 
"I think they'll for damned sure try."
 
"But do you think they can bring it off? The vote has always
gone against them, even on the meeting cutback ..."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              91
 
"But weak votes, young woman, weak votes," he said
solemnly. "You can't count on the Wommacks, them and their
curse. It may well be you can't count on the Smiths,
considering this latest development. If all our neighbors pulled
out, I'm not prepared to say you could count on the Motleys or
the Lewises, either"
 
"Halbreth Nicholas Smith'" said Diamond of Motley, so
shocked her spoon rattled in her cup.
 
"My dear." he said, "we must face facts- Castle Motley is
not self-sufficient, nor Castle Lewis either If Alkansaw,
Kintucky, and Tmaseeh decided to blockade us so that no
supplies could be shipped in from Oklahomah or Maiktwain,
just where do you think we'd be? We can grow vegetables and
fruit here, and raise a goat or two, but that's about it. No sugar.
no salt, no coffee, no tea, no metals, no supplies for the
Grannys or the Magicians, no manufactured goods to speak of.
And where do you think our power comes from. Diamond of
Motley? It conies from the Parsons and the Guthnes, who can
equally well cut it off. No law says they have to sell to us."
 
"Our windmills," she said. "Our solar collectors—and our
tides."
 
I tried to imagine the population of Mizzurah managing with
its windmills and its solar technology and its tides, with all the
huge hulking bulk of three continents cutting off both wind and
water on three sides, and it raining or cloudy three quarters of
me year or mare, and I admired Halbreth Nicholas for not
smiling. She was a good woman, was Diamond, but she hadn't
much grasp of logistics.
 
"No," he said, but he said it respectfully, "I'm afraid they
wouldn't suffice. Diamond. The Lewises, now, they are just
pig-beaded enough that they might go the rest of us one
better!"
 
"Withdraw from the withdrawal, you mean."
 
"Exactly. And live on greens and goatmeat, and
bum . . . oh, candles, for all I know. They might. But not
us. Responsible, and I want that understood. I've many
families here depending on me and they're not expecting to go
back to Old Earth standards and the year 2000. And I don't
intend to ask it of them."
 
"You'd vote for dissolving, then."
 
"If it was clear that that was the way it was going—yes.
 
92 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
Regardless of how the Lewises might decide. It's not my
druthers, young woman, but it's the facts of life. We are
dependent on Arkansaw, Kintucky, and Tinaseeh, and there's
no way to change that short of moving the continent of
Mizzurah to a new location just off your coast. Are your
Magicians of Rank up to a project like that?"
 
Moving Mules was one thing; moving continents was quite
another; I didn't try to answer
 
"Law, but you've made a gloomy day of it, Mr Motley!"
said his wife. "I hope you're proud of yourself!"
 
I was quite sure he wasn't; in fact, I was quite sure he was
ashamed. He would of liked to hear himself saying that if the
vote came to end the Confederation his delegates would be
right there at the front telling the rotters to do their damndest
and to hell with them. Begging the pardon of any ladies
present, of course. That went with the image he'd of liked to
have of himself. But he was a practical man, and an honest
one, and he knew he'd do what went with that. Diamond of
Motley was right; he'd made it a gloomy day.
 
I went off to my room to rest for a while before supper, and
found a servingmaid waiting there, pretending—not very
skillfully—to still be unpacking my saddlebags and clearing
up. She looked eleven, but had the frail look of a Purdy to her,
too, which meant she was probably my own age or a bit more,
and her hair was falling down from the twist she'd put it in and
hanging down around her face. My fingers itched to set it
right—I can't abide a sloppy woman—but I didn't know her
and t couldn't take liberties.
 
"Hello, young woman," I said. friendly as I could manage
in my dreary mood, "are you having a problem with some of
those things? What is it, a fastening you can't get loose?"
 
"No, miss," she said, "I'm managing." And dropped my
hand mirror on the floor, smashing it to smithereens- No magic,
just plain fumblefingers-
 
"Oh, Miss Responsible, I'm sorry!" she said, and bit one
finger She'd be chewing on her hair next. "I'll get you another
one, miss, there's a hundred of 'em down in the comer of the
linen room! What do you fancy, something plain? Or a special
color? The Missus has a weakness for a nice pale blue, and
flowers on the back ..."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              93
 
Her hands were trembling, and her voice was a squeak, and I
stared at her long and hard while she dithered about the variety
of mirrors the Motleys had to offer for as long as I could stand
it, and then I told her to sit down.
 
"Miss?"
 
"Do sit down," I said, too cross to be gentle, "and tell me
what is the matter with you. And your name."
 
"My name? Is there something the matter with my name?"
 
She had to be a Purdy; her eyes were wild like a squawker
got by the neck.
 
"I did not mean to imply that there was anything wrong with
your name, young woman," I said, "I just asked you what it
might be."
 
"Oh!" she said. "Well, I hoped ... I mean, only the
Wommacks have women as aren't properly named, and—"
 
"That's not true," I interrupted, wondering if she'd had any
education atall. "I daresay there's no Family on Ozark that
hasn't had a girl or two Improperly Named over the years; the
Grannys aren't infallible. The Wommacks just did it more
spectacularly than anybody else ever has and got famous for it,
that's all."
 
As they surely had. It hadn't been a matter of naming a
Caroline that should have been an Elizabeth; they'd named a
girlbaby Responsible of Wommack, and it had been a mistake.
That's a sure way to get famous.
 
One more time, I thought, and asked her: "Will you tell me
your name, then, and what the trouble is?" And if she wouldn't
I fully intended to put her over my knee for her sass.
 
"Yes, miss," she said. "Ivy of Wommack's my name."
 
A two. She was properly named. And I was right glad I had
not let it slip that I'd taken her for a Purdy.
 
"And your problem?"
 
She stared down at the bed she was sitting on and gripped
the counterpane with both hands, silly thing, as if it wouldn't
of slid right off with her if she'd done any sliding herself.
 
"Oh, Miss Responsible," she said in a tiny, tiny voice, "I
have all the bad luck I ever need, 1 have more than anybody'd
ever need, and I don't need any more, and I'm afraid—oh, law,
miss, they say there's been a Skerry appeared!"
 
Well. That did take me aback a bit, and I sat down myself.
 
"Who told you so. Ivy of Wommack?" I demanded.
 
94 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
"Eveiybody!"
 
"Nonsense. You haven't talked to everybody."
 
"Everybody I've talked to, then,*' she said stubbornly.
"They're all talking about it, and they're all worried."
 
"And what are they saying? Besides just, 'There's been a
Skeny appeared.'"
 
"There's an old well, down in the garden behind the Castle
church, miss—the water's no good any more, but oh. it's
pretty, with vines growing all over it and the old bucket
hanging there, so it's been left- And they say that last night—
there were full moons last night, miss—they say there was a
Skerry sitting on the edge-rim of that old well. Just sitting
there."
 
"At midnight, I suppose."
 
"Oh yes ... just at midnight, and under the full moons.
Oh, Miss Responsible, I'm glad I didn't see it!"
 
She hadn't much gumption, or much taste. I would dearly
have loved to see it, if it was true. A Skerry stands eight feet
tall on the average, sometimes even tallei; and there's never
been one that wasn't willow slender: They have skin the color
of well-cared-for copper, their hair is silver and falls without
wave or curl to below their waists, male or female. And their
eyes are the color of the purest, deepest turquoise. The idea of
the full moons shining down on all that, not to mention an old
well covered with wild ivy and night-blooming
vines ... ah, that would of been something to see and to
marvel on.
 
Except there were a few things wrong with the whole
picture.
 
"Who told you they saw the Skeny?" I insisted. "Who?"
 
And I added, "And don't you tell me 'everybody,' either"
 
"Everybody in the Castle is talking about it," she said. Drat
the girl!
 
"Not the Master nor the Missus," I said. "I've been with
them these past two hours, and I've heard not one word about a
Skeny."
 
"Everybody on the staff. I meant, miss. It was one of the
Senior Attendants . - - he'll go far. they say he knows more
Spells and Charms than the Granny, and he's a comely, comely
man ... he was down there by the well last night with a
friend of mine"—she looked at me out of the comer of her eye
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms              95
 
to see if I was going to make any moral pronouncements
about that, but I ignored hei; and she went on—"and they saw
it, sitting there in the full moonlight, all splendid with the light
fair blinding on its long silver hair, they said."
 
"And then they told everybody."
 
"Well, wouldn't you?" she asked me, and I had to admit
mat I might have. You didn't see a Skerry every night, much
less under full moons at midnight in a Castle garden.
 
"But you notice they didn't tell the Family," I said. "That's
mighty odd, seems to me- Seems to me that would of been the
first thing to do."
 
The girl rubbed her nose and stared down at the floor,
scuffing one shoe back and forth. Not only sloppy, but
wasteful, too.
 
"The Housekeeper told us not to," she said sullenly. "She
carried on about it till we were all sick of listening—what she'd
do if we bothered the Master and the Missus with it
. . . bothered them, that's how she put it!"
 
"Well?" I asked hec "Do you have any inkling in your head
why she might of taken it that way?"
 
She sniffled. "I don't know," she said. "I just know I'm
scared. And it's not/air—I already had my share of bad luck."
 
"Ivy of Wommack," I said patiently, "have you given this
tale any thought atall? Other than to fret yourself about it, I
mean?"
 
"What way should I be thinking about it?"
 
"Well, for starters, where do the Skerrys live?"
 
"In the desert on Marktwain," she said promptly.
 
"Quite right. In the desert on Marktwain. The only patch of
desert on this planet, girl, and left desert only out of courtesy to
fee Skerrys. They were here first, you know, and it was desert
then."
 
"Yes, miss."
 
"And since that's true, and Skerrys can't live outside the
desert, why in the name of the Twelve Gates and the Twelve
Corners would one turn. up on Mizzurah, many and many a
long mile from its desert, and of all unlikely places, sitting on a
well brim? Skerrys hate water, can't abide water, that's why
they live in the desert!"
 
Her mouth took a pout, which was no surprise.
 
"Really," she said, "I'm sure I'm no expert on Skenys. and
 
96 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
it wouldn't be proper if I was, and as to how it got here,
my friend says it would have to be by magic, and she got that
from the Senior Attendant, and he's on his way up in the
world—he's no fool!"
 
"Tell me again," I said. "Exactly. What did they say?"
 
"Kyle Fairweather McDaniels the 17th, that's the Senior,
and my friend—never mind her name, because she wasn't
supposed to be out of her bed at midnight, much less with Kyle
Fairweather—they say that they were down by the well and
they saw the Skerry as plain as I see you."
 
"Walked right up and touched it, did they? Said
howdeedo?"
 
"Miss!"
 
"Then how did they know it was a Skerry?"
 
"Well, miss, what else is eight feet tall and has copper skin,
and silver hair as hangs down to its knees? I ask you'"
 
"It was sitting on the well. Ivy of Wommack, not standing.
You said so yourself. How could they see that it was eight feet
tall? And as for the copper skin, a bit of Hallow Even paint will
do that—I've done it myself, and I'll wager you have, too—
and a silver wig's easily come by."
 
"They were sure."
 
"Were they?"
 
"They were."
 
"They were out where they should not of been, doing what
they should not of done—"
 
"I didn't say that."
 
"Well, I say it, missy," I snapped at her, "and I say it plain,
and between their guilty consciences and the moonlight, it was
easy for anybody atall to play a trick on them. And more shame
to them for scaring the rest of you with such nonsense
. . . what trashy doings!"
 
"You don't believe it, then, miss?"
 
"Certainly not. Nor should you, nor anybody else."
 
She sat there beside me, quieter now, though she'd switched
from wrinkling up the counterpane to wringing those skinny
little hands that looked like you could snap them the way
Michael Stepforth Guthrie'd snapped my ribs. Only with no
need for magic, nor much strength, either,
 
"Feel better now. Ivy of Wommack?" I asked her finally,
and I hoped she did, because I wanted a rest and a read before
 
Twelve Pair Kingdoms              97
 
my supper I was willing to finish unpacking for myself, if I
could just get rid of this skittish creature.
 
"You know what's said, miss," she hazarded. I wished she
would stop wringing her hands before she wore them out.
 
"What?" Though I knew quite well.
 
"That if a Skerry's seen," she breathed, and I could hear in
her voice the echo of a Granny busy laying out the fines, "that
there has to be a whole day of celebration in its honor. A whole
day of no work and all celebration . . . or it's bad luck for all
the people that know of it. And I've worked this livelong day,
and so has all the staff!"
 
"That, I suppose, is why your 'friends' spread the news
around," I said. "Sharing out the bad luck."
 
"Maybe," she said. "Might could be that's why."
 
"Covering their bets," I said tartly. "If they didn't really see
a Skerry, no harm done. If they did, the bad luck that comes
from not following the rules gets spread out thin over the whole
staff, instead of just falling on the two of them. You think that
over, Ivy of Wommack.'*
 
She sighed, and allowed as how I might be right, but she
didn't know, and I occupied myself with sending her on her
way. She'd forgotten all about finishing my unpacking,
fortunately, and it took me three minutes to do what she'd left
and fix what she'd messed up, and then I stretched out on the
bed bone-naked under the covers and took up my most trashy
novel.
 
There was a certain very small, you might say tiny, bit of
risk here. For a Skerry to show up on Mizzurah, at midnight,
or at any other time, might fit right into some Magician of
Rank's idea of an adventure for this particular stage of my
Quest. And if so, I was asking for powerful trouble—maybe
not right now, maybe not for a long time, but someday it would
come—if I didn't speak up and demand the day of festival to
honor its appearance.
 
Furthermore, if a Magician of Rank had teleported a Skerry
out of its desert and onto the edge of the Motleys' well, the
Skerrys were not going to be pleased about that. Not at all
pleased. They'd asked precious little of us, when The Ship
landed; just to be let alone. And whizzing one around the
 
98 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
planet in the middle of the night was distinctly not leaving it
alone as promised.
 
I tried to remember when a Skerry had last been seen,
putting my microviewer down for a minute . . . not in my
lifetime, I didn't think. In my mother's, perhaps; it was dim in
my memory. But that Skerry had come walking out of the
desert on Marktwain of its own free will, and had walked right
down the street of a town on the desert's edge in broad
daylight. It had been an honor, and I believe Thorn of Gutnrie
said there'd been festival for two whole days. . . .
 
No. I made up my mind. It had to be a trick, played on the
Senior Attendant and his foolish lady friend, and no more. For
my benefit, perhaps, meant to distract me and delay me if I
believed it, but only a trick all the same. No Skeny would
cross all the water between Marktwain and Mizzurah and sit on
a well in the middle of the night for two young Castle staff to
gawk at. And no Magician of Rank would dare tamper with a
real Skerry in that way.
 
I was not going to take any such obvious bait, and that was
all there was to that.
 
I went back to my book.
 
CHAPTERS
 
I LEFT FOR Castle Lewis after the hunt breakfast, not staying
for the hunt itself on the grounds that I had to hurry, and since
that was obviously true no one made more than the objections
politeness demanded. Mizzurah was so small, and so heavily
populated, that anything but ordinary Muleflight was out of the
question, and I flew through a blustery spring day, sedate and
proper, and reached Castle Lewis only just before the sun
began to go down behind the low hills. Sterling was bored, and
so was I, and we did nothing fancy; just came down slow and
easy over the broad lawn that spread round the Castle, and
waited for developments. The wind was brisk enough that the
Mule was shivering, and I got down and took an extra blanket
from my pack and began rubbing her down.
 
Castle Lewis was small against the darkening sky, small and
tidy, with a central gate and two towers to each side, and a
tower at each of its corners. No frills, no fancy battlements and
balconies, just a plain small sturdy Castle, and I liked the look
of it.
 
The front gates opened as the sun slipped out of sight
completely, and three men came running out with solar
 
99
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
100
 
lanterns—economy here, I noted, and I approved. They'd been
well exposed and threw a fine bright light across the grass, as
they should do. One of the men put a shawl around me, very
respectfully; one took over the task of rubbing Sterling down,
making protesting sounds because I'd started the process
myself; and the other stood stiff as a pole, waiting for
something.
 
"Where is that woman?" demanded one of them, and called
over his shoulder: "Tambrey! Tambrey of Motley! What's
keeping you, woman? Responsible of Brightwater at your gate
half-frozen, and dropping with hunger and entirely tuckered
out, and what are you doing in there, counting your fingers to
see if you've lost one? Will you get out here?"
 
"I'm not that tired, Attendant," I said sharply, "and not that
cold, and not that hungry. I'll last the night."
 
"That doesn't excuse her, miss,'* he said firmly. "She knows
her duty, and she's expected to do it." And he turned his head
again and shouted "Tambrey!" and then made a remarkably
expressive noise of disgust.
 
"It's all right," I said, "never mind the woman. One of you
to take my Mule to the stables, and two to see me to my host
and hostess—I can surely make do with that?"
 
But they wouldn't have it that way, and we stood there in the
wind while a soft rain began to fall in the deepening darkness,
and I knew that I was up against it. The famous Lewis
propriety, man which only the Travellers' could be said to be
more extreme. I could stand there and drown, for all they
cared, I'd not enter their Castle attended by other than a
female, and I envied my Mule. At least she was going to be
warm and fed and dry, any minute now.
 
When Tambrey did appear, which to give her credit was not
many minutes later, she didn't come from the gates but out of
the cedars that bordered the Castle lawn. She was a pretty
thing, too, and I couldn't see her being a servingmaid long; her
hair was hidden by the hood of her cloak, but her face was
perfection, and I was willing to place my bets on the rest of her
 
The men grumbled at her, but she paid them no mind at all,
and from the way they dropped their complaining I was
reasonably certain they were used to that, too-
 
"Welcome to Castle Lewis, Responsible of Brightwater,"
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             101
 
she said, "and let's get you in out of this damp this minute and
a mug of hot cider in your hand!"
 
Oh yes. I had forgotten. I'd get nothing stronger than cider
from the Lewises unless it came from a Granny's own hand and
was vouched for as being the difference between my total
collapse and my blooming health. And not hard cider, either; it
would be the pure juice of the Ozark peachapple, mulled with
spices, and hot as blazes, and innocent enough for the baby
mat sdll hung safe outside the Brightwater church. The
Lewises kept to the old ways with a vengeance.
 
We went through the gates into a small square courtyard,
planted with low flowers in neat square beds, and raked paths
between them, and on to where the Castle door shone wide and
welcoming. In the door stood two I'd heard a great deal of, but
knew hardly at all: Salem Sheridan Lewis the 43rd, and his
wife, Rozasham of McDaniels.
 
"Here she is." said Tambrey, handing me through the door
like a package, so that the Lewises both had to step back a pace
to avoid me running them down, "Responsible of Brightwatel;
 
safe and sound! Miss, Salem Sheridan Lewis the 43rd; and the
Missus of this Castle, Rozasham of McDaniels."
 
"Thank you kindly, Tambrey," said the woman Rozasham,
and the beauty of her voice caught my ear I hoped she would
sing for us, later, if the quality of her speech was any sign of
her ability.
 
Salem Sheridan was another matter: His wife gathered me
into her arms as if we'd known each other all our lives; but he
snapped his fingers and ran everybody through their drill. Had
my Mule been seen to and stabled? Good. And had my bags
been brought in and taken up to my room? Good. And was the
mulled cider ready in the east parlor? Good. And would
Tambrey see to my unpacking? Good—and I was to have extra
blankets, mind, it was going to be cold. And would supper be
on the table mprecisely one hour? Good! And it was all "Yes,
sir!" coming the other way. It said something for Tambrey of
Motley's ingenuity that she'd been able to find her way past
this one and into the cedars—there'd be no sloppy staff here.
 
I had time only to wash a bit, tidy my hair, and change from
my traveling costume into something less elaborate, before
suppertime, the cider still burning my throat. I was traveling
light, as was necessary; there was the splendid traveling outfit,
 
102 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
the blue-and-silver party dress, the gown of lawn for magic,
some underclothes and a nightgown, a sturdy black shawl, and
one plainer dress that I'd not yet had an opportunity to wear
And that was all.
 
I held up the last dress and looked it over dubiously; it had
alternating narrow stripes of the Brightwater green and scarlet,
with a neck cut low in front and rimmed in back by a high ruff
of ivory lace that would require me to put my hair up. It had
long sleeves caught at the wrists with lace-trimmed wide cuffs
as well, and the stripes themselves were shot with silver-and-
gold threads.
 
I'd seen nothing like it here; only modest high-necked
round-collared gowns without ornament even to their cut. The
Lewis crest was a green cedar tree on an azure field, with a
narrow border of cedar-trunks russet round, and except for a
button or two that bore that device I'd seen only the plain and
the spare. Even Rozasham, presumably dressed for company,
had been wearing a dress of a heather blue with a skirt scarcely
full enough to swing with her hips as she walked, and plain
little round white buttons down its high front.
 
True, I was a guest. And true, the conditions on a Quest
demanded a certain amount of spectacle, and I had to abide by
them. But I could see nothing in the garments that Tambrey had
hung for me that would not of looked foolish at the Lewis
supper table.
 
Well, there was my nightgown ... it was moss green
flannel and had the proper cut and simplicity, and I couldn't see
that the Lewises would recognize it for what it was if I could
keep my own face straight. I belted it with a narrow braid of
gold cord, since it had no proper waist, and added a single
silver pendant—a small flower meant, I believe, to represent a
violet, but innocuous enough for any occasion—on a narrow
green velvet ribbon. Then I used a matching ribbon to tie my
hair back simply at the nape of my neck and looked at the effect
in the long glass mirror in my guestchambec
 
My grandmother would of been scandalized, my mother
would of fainted, but I was of the opinion mat I could get away
with it. I only bad to remember not to let a servingmaid see me
in it tomorrow morning when she brought up my pot of tea.
That would have meant the word going out mat I'd either been
too lazy to change into my nightgown and had slept in my
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             103
 
dress, or that I'd been so addled I'd worn my nightgown to
supper, neither of which would do.
 
Kingdom Lewis had just one product for sale—cedai; cut
from the progeny of the three seedlings the family had
somehow managed to nurse through the whole trip to this
planet, and which now they alone seemed to have the skill to
grow. Under any other touch the trees turned brown and died,
like grass not watered, but the Lewises had the green thumb,
one and all of them, and the rows of cedars grew stately in
every spare field of the small Kingdom and all along its narrow
roads. Even in the great Hall inside Castle Lewis, a giant cedar
grew out of earth left open for its roots in the time of building,
dropping its needles everywhere for the staff to sweep up but
smelling like heaven, and every windowsill had a small
seedling growing in a low bowl.
 
Nor^ad they stinted themselves in the use of the timber; The
Castle gleamed with it, and the table at which I sat down to
supper was a single massive slab of russet cut from me heart of
an ancient monster of a tree and rubbed till it glowed like coals
burned low in a hearth. They had had sense enough not to
cover it up with some frippery cloth, either, and had set chairs
round it of the same glowing wood.
 
Me in my nightgown, I drew one up and sat down, spreading
my napkin in my lap, and I said, "This table is beautiful,
Rozasharn of McDaniels. I've never seen anything to match
it." Nor had I.
 
"My husband's great-great-grandfather made it with his own
hands," she answered, "and I do its polishing with mine."
 
"It was a single plank?"
 
"That it was; they waited a very long time for a cedar to
grow the proper size for this, and while they waited the
Lewises ate off plain boards laid across trestles. Then the one
bee made this table and all the chairs . . . and no polish or
oil has ever been set to it except by a Missus of this Castle, all
these years."
 
"I've seen a few housethings made from cedar," I said.
"Chests, usually." And I stroked the satiny wood. "But
nothing like this."
 
"Magic-chests'" breathed a child at my right hand, and 1
aimed my head to see him better He was young, and his chair
not tall enough to bring him much above the edge of the
 
104 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
tabletop, but not young enough to be willing to submit to the
indignity of sitting on a stack of pillows; he made do by
craning his neck.
 
"My son, Salem Sheridan Lewis the 44th, called Boy
Salem," said his fattier from the head of the table, and he
introduced the other five children that had joined us for the
meal. And the Granny, the youngest on Ozark and one of the
sternest—fifty-nine-year-old Granny Twinsonel. I bid them all
a good evening, and helped myself to the soup.
 
Salem was a patient child; when the introductions had gone
all the way around and the grownups were eating, he said it
again, but this time he was asking.
 
"Magic-chests?" he asked me. "All of cedar?"
 
"Usually," I told him. "Because it keeps everything so
safe."
 
His dark blue eyes shone, and I found him a handsome child
despite the lack of three front teeth and the presence of a crazy-
quilt assortment of scrapes and scabs and scratches. I expect he
had fallen out of one or more of the cedar trees recently.
 
"What's in a magic-chest. Responsible of Brightwater?" he
asked me then, and he held very still, waiting for me to answer
Which meant he'd asked it before, and it had done him no
good. It would do him no good this time, either.
 
"Herbs and simples and gewgaws," I said casually. "And
garlic."
 
"In a cedar chest?" The child was shocked, and I chuckled.
 
As it happened, the Magicians did keep their garlic in their
magic-chests, but they saw to it that the smell of the stuff was
on hold while it was in there.
 
"That's right," I said. "Gariic."
 
"When I am a Magician of Rank," said the boy with utter
solemnity, like a Reverend pronouncing a benediction, "I
won't do that. Or 1*11 make a Spell to take the smell off so it
doesn't spoil the wood."
 
Smart little dickens, that one. I could tell by the twitch at the
comer of his stem father's lips that this was a favorite child—
the name told me that in any case—and that his promise was
noticed. But the Master of the Castle spoke to him in no
uncertain terms.
 
"When you are a Magician of Rank!" he said. "Many a
long, long year of study lies between you and that day. Boy
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             105
 
Salem, if it ever comes—which 1 doubt. And many a difficult
examination. You had best get your mind off garlic and
concentrate on learning the Teaching Story you were set this
week—you didn't have it right yet last night, as I recall."
 
"Or," added a sister who looked to be about thirteen, with
the same pansy blue eyes but considerably less scuffed up and
battered as to the rest of her, "you'll end up like your cousin
Silverweb."
 
"I'd not be such a ninny as that," scoffed the boy, "not
ever! You know that. Charlotte."
 
"Silverweb of McDanieIs?" I set my soup spoon down and
used my napkin hastily. "Has something happened to her?"
 
"Nothing serious. Responsible,*' said Rozasham of
McDanieIs, "and nothing that can't be mended. She's been left
too long unmarried, and this is where that sort of thing leads
to."
 
"I hadn't heard," I said. "What's happened?"
 
"Well," said Rozasham, "as I understand it Silverweb
decided you needed somebody to be guardmaid—or compan-
ion, who knows? to be company at any rate—on your Quest.
And that young one packed a pair of saddlebags, stole a Mule
from the McDanieIs stables, and started off after you."
 
"She didn't get far," observed her husband, handing the
meat platter down the table. "Her daddy caught up with her
before noon the following day and took her straight back to
Castle McDanieIs."
 
"For a licking," said the one they called Boy Salem.
 
"Not for a licking," corrected Granny Twinsorrel. "Boy
Salem, you'll never make a Magician if you don't leam to turn
on your brain before you begin rattling off at the mouth. Young
women of fifteen don't get lickings, it wouldn't be proper"
 
The boy snorted, and wrinkled up his nose.
 
"Not fail," he said. "Not fair atall."
 
"What did they do to her?" I asked reluctantly, not really
sure I wanted to know. I had high hopes for Silverweb, and I
bore a certain guilt for having ranked her when I was at Castle
McDanieIs.
 
"Packed her off to Castle Airy in disgrace," said Salem
Sheridan. "And to the tender care of all three of the Grannys
mere. Seven weeks and a day, she's to be servingmaid to those
"^nnys. I do expect mat will have some effect on her"
 
106 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
FOOT wretched Silverweb ... I knew what that would
mean. She'd hem miles and miles of burgundy draperies, and
then be made to take the hems out and do them over till her
fingers bled. She'd boil vats of herbs half as tall as she was,
stirring them for hours at a time with a wooden staff. And she'd
pick nutmeats—they'd have her doing that with bushels of
nuts, staining her fingers black where they weren't bleeding.
And scrubbing the Castle corridor floors with gritty sand. And
worse.
 
"Oh, what ever made her take such a notion?" I asked,
cross in spite of feeling sorry for hec
 
"Like I said," said Rozasharn, "she's been left too long
unmarried. Silverweb's going on sixteen, and that's far too old.
It's a wonder she's not done worse."
 
"And she may have," put in one of the older children. "Our
daddy says Silverweb of McDaniels could very well of dressed
like a man and kidnapped that baby out of your church,
Responsible of Brightwater! He says she's plenty big enough
and strong enough—and bold enough, too."
 
"I was there," I protested, "and I can't believe that, not
atall! I'm sure it was a man . . . and I'm sure it wasn't
Silverweb of McDaniels. She's a fine young woman. I give you
my word on that; she's just maybe a bit strong-minded."
 
"She ought to have a husband and two babies to occupy her
energy by now," said Salem Sheridan, "and I fault her parents
for that. Though I agree she's got to be punished for running
off, and for taking the Mule without permission, and me rest of
it. That's fitting, and expected."
 
"She'll live through it," said Granny Twinsorrel. "And
maybe she'll learn a thing or two about pride."
 
"Now, Granny—" Rozasharn began, but the woman cut her
off sharp.
 
"Pride is all that's keeping that one spinster," said Granny
Twinsorrel, "simple pride. Her father's offered her three
marriages, each one fully suitable, each of me men with land
and a homeplace and a good future ahead of him. And Miss
Yellow-Haired High-and-Mighty wouldn't accept any one of
the three. Two fine men from Kingdom Guthrie, and one of our
own—and none of them good enough for hec Pride, mat is,
and it'll lead her to no good end."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             107
 
"They say." said Rozasharn, "that she has ambitions. And
if mat's true, she'll make no marriage. Granny Twinsorrel."
 
She has ambitions. In front of the children, that would mean
mat Silverweb intended to become a Granny the hard way, and
go virgin to her grave; and there was no reason for a woman to
do mat unless she had her eyes out for a chance to become a
Magician as well as a Granny. Which was "having ambitions."
 
I frowned into my soup, but went back to eating it.
Silverweb was none of my business, and no reason for her to
come between me and my supper
 
The rock that whistled past my ear went into the bowl of
mashed sweet potatoes, which weren't enough to slow it down
any, and on beyond to hit the far wall with a resounding smack.
Whoever had thrown it had put considerable muscle behind it,
and I couldn't say it made my stomach calm. But not a one of
me Lewises moved, or paused in their eating, or turned a hair,
so far as I could tell. An Attendant stepped forward from the
door and picked up the rock, and went off with it somewhere,
while the Lewises went right on with their meal.
 
"Rozasharn of McDaniels," I said, my voice more a quiver
than I'd intended it to be, "how many more of those are we
likely to be favored with this evening?"
 
"Half a dozen, maybe," she said. "Maybe a few more,
maybe a few less."
 
"Well, don't you mind having rocks thrown at you like
mat?"
 
"Gracious, child," said Granny Twinsorrel, "those rocks
aren't being thrown at us. It's a bit of fuss in your honor—
started about the time you crossed the border of Kingdom
Lewis, I calculate, which is why we were a mite disorganized
when you arrived, and will stop when you move on. We don't
plan to pay the fool thing any attention, it will only make it
worse,"
 
"Nobody's been either hurt or bothered," said Rozasharn
soothingly. "You'll notice there's not even dust in the potato
dish."
 
"We can put up with it," said Boy Salem, backing her up.
"Besides, I like to see what it does."
 
What it did next may have amused Boy Salem, but it didn't
amuse me in the slightest. Nobody wants a live lizard in her
soup, and since Rozasharn of McDaniels was so calm about all
 
108 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
this I strongly wished it had been in her bowl instead of mine.
 
"Teh." said Granny Twinsorrel. "Now that was rude."
 
"Can I fish it out?" asked Boy Salem. "Is it real? Can I get
it out for you?" He was fairly hopping up and down in bis
chair
 
It was real enough, about four inches long, and a bright
poisonous green. It put back its narrow head and hissed at me,
and I fancied it was a little warmer there among the potatoes
and the jebroots than it cared to be.
 
"Never mind, Boy Salem," I said disgustedly "I'd best do
it myself, I believe."
 
Granny Twinsorrel's voice came sharp and sudden. "Don't
you put silver to it, young woman!" she told me. "It's not the
creature's fault. Use your fingers."
 
I knew that much, but I didn't sass the Granny; I reached
into my soup with two careful fingertips, caught the little
animal by the tip of its tail, and lifted it out into the air still
spitting.
 
"Can I have it?" demanded Boy Salem. The child was
outrageous, and his brothers and sisters stared at him in
amazement. Eben Nathaniel Lewis the 17th, twelve years old
and already with a rigid look to him like his lathee, turned that
look on Boy Salem in a way that would of frozen the child stiff
if it'd had any power behind it.
 
"A Spelled creature like that. Boy Salem?" said Eben
Nathaniel. "Your head's addled!"
 
The Granny stepped over to my chair and took the lizard
from me, which was a good deal more appropriate than letting
Boy Salem have it for a pet, and a servmgmaid slipped the
bowl of soup away and replaced it with a fresh one, and handed
me a new spoon.
 
Whereupon a small frog, same shade of green, croaked up at
me from among the vegetables. And I set the silverware down
again.
 
If this was the beginning of an adventure, I didn't fancy it;
 
there were quite a few nasty and downright dangerous things
that would fit into a soup bowl.
 
"Keep changing the bowls," ordered Granny Twinsorrel,
without a tremble to her voice, and we sat there while the
process went on.
 
Bowl three, a much larger frog, darker green.
 
Twelve Four Kingdoms             109
 
Bowl four, a skinny watersnake, banded in green and scarlet
and gold, and about as long as my forearm.
 
Bowl five had a squawker in it, which was at least a change
from me reptiles.
 
"Granny?"
 
"Hush, Rozasham," said the woman; she was made of ice
and steel, that one was, and she hadn't yet even bothered to
behave like a Granny . . . certainly she'd yet to speak like
one.
 
"You, young woman," she said, "just keep changing the
bowls; and you. Responsible, you keep taking the creatures
out. We'll see how this goes."
 
She stood at my left hand and I passed her whatever I got
with each bowl. I must say the children were fascinated,
especially when, after the tenth move, the bowl itself suddenly
grew larger
 
The Granny made a small soft noise—not alarm, but it
showed she'd taken notice—and Salem Sheridan Lewis set
down his own spoon and spoke up.
 
"I don't like that," he said. "I don't like that atall."
 
I didn't like it either and I didn't know that I was going to
like what came next in my alleged soup. There were several
possibilities ... it could go from harmless creatures to
poisonous ones, and I moved back from the table enough to
dodge if a snake that killed was to appear coiled up before me
next. It could go to nasty creatures, along the line of the
squawkei. but dirtier—say, a carrion bird. Or it could go to
things, and that left a wide latitude of choices.
 
"Responsible of Brightwatei." said Salem Sheridan, "put
your spoon in that bowl—this has gone too far"
 
But Granny Twinsorrel raised her hand, her index finger up
like a needle, and shook her head firmly.
 
"No, Salem Sheridan," she said, "we'll see it out awhile
yet."
 
"Responsible of Brightwater is our guest!" Rozasham of
McDaniels protested.
 
"As were Halliday Joseph McDaniels the 14th and his wife
and son, at Castle Brightwater not too many days past," said
the Granny.
 
"I am sorry about that," I said, keeping my eye on the soup
bowl as I talked, "but I was truly not expecting mischief right
 
110 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
in the middle of a Solemn Service. And I am sony that
yourall's supper is being spoiled on my account, I assure you."
 
"This is more fun than supper" said Boy Salem.
 
"This is more fun than a picnic," said Charlotte, and there
was general agreement among the young ones. And I had to
admit that from their point of view it was all very entertaining;
 
no doubt they'd be pleased to have me back any time, even if it
meant they all went hungry while I was there.
 
The entity responsible for all this fooled us, next go-round.
It was neither a coiled poison-snake, nor a carrion bird, nor yet
a loathsome mess of stuff mixed and coiled—another possibili-
ty—that gazed up at me. It made the children clap their hands,
all but Eben Nathaniel, who was old enough to know better
And I felt Granny Twinsorrel's hand come down hard and grip
my shouldec
 
"Is it real, too?" breathed one of the little girls, before Boy
Salem could put in his two cents' worth.
 
"Certainly not," said their big brother Eben Nathaniel with
contempt. "There's no such thing."
 
And the boy had it right. There was no such thing as a
unicorn, not on Old Earth, not on Ozark, and what sat before
me was only an illusion. But it was beautifully formed. About
eleven inches high, not counting the gleaming single horn all
fluted and spiraled, as pure white as new snow, with its flawless
tiny hoofs delicately poised in the soup broth and its beautiful
eyes perfectly serene, soup or no soup. It even had about its
neck a tiny bridle of gold, with a rosette of silver
 
"That now," said Granny Twinsorrel, "you'll not touch!
That's torn it. Just put your silver spoon in the bowl,
Responsible of Brightwatec"
 
The children were crying out that that would kill it, and
Rozashara of McDaniels was reassuring them that you can't
kill what doesn't exist, and Salem Sheridan looked grimmer
than a lot of large rocks I'd seen in my time.
 
Like a soapbubble, the instant my silver spoon touched the
soup, the creature disappeared with an almost soundless pop. I
sat there thinking, while Boy Salem—who had mightily
wanted to keep the little unicorn, and I didn't blame him, I
would of liked to have it my own self—was comforted. The
Granny picked up the offending bowl and handed it to the
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             til
 
servingmaid, who looked scared to death but managed to ask,
"Shall I try again, then?"
 
"One minute," said the Granny. "Just keep your places and
hold on. I intend to have my supper this night, and have it in
peace."
 
She plunged her hand deep into her skirt pocket—which
showed me she'd either been prepared for at least some of this
or always went prepared, just in case—and pulled out wards
enough to seal off a good-sized mansion. The noses of the
children quivered some at the reek of the garlic, and I.didn't
blame them. I was sorry I dared not take off the smell
. . . but we'd had scandal enough, I judged, for one evening.
Garlic that didn't smell and worked nonetheless would have
been an offense to decency, and we'd just have to put up with
the current odoriferous situation for the sake of the little ones.
 
When every door and window was properly warded the
Granny went back to her chair and sat down.
 
"Now," she said, "let us begin again, before we all starve
and none of the food left's fit to eat. Let the soup be served, and
give Responsible of Brightwater a different bowl again, and
put fresh hot broth in everybody else's."
 
"The Granny's put out," said the servingmaid in my ear, as
if I couldn't of seen that for myself, and she set down a fresh
bowl of soup at my place. Where it stayed soup, though I took
my first bite gingerly, I had no interest in something like a
mouthful of live worms and straight pins.
 
"Responsible of Brightwater," said Salem Sheridan Lewis
tfien, all of us sedately eating our soup, "because I approve of
the Confederation of Continents, and because I despise
mischief—not to mention treason—I approve of this Quest of
yours. Our Granny has explained clear enough the manner in
which it must be done and the reasoning behind it—and as I
say, I approve. But I'll be right pleased when you are safely
home again and we Families can go back to a normal way of
tife. Unlike Boy Salem there, I don't care for this sort of
thing ... it stinks of evil as well as the garlic."
 
Another apology seemed in order, and I made it, but he
waved it aside.
 
"You're doing what's necessary," he said, "and frqmwhat
, we've heard—and seen!—it hasn't been pleasant for you so far
No need for you to be sorry for doing your plain duty."
 
112 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
Rozasham of McDanieIs paused between two bites and
looked at Granny Twinsorrel.
 
"Granny," she asked, "is Responsible in any danger? Any
real danger I mean, not just folderols like this exhibition at my
table?"
 
"Don't ask, Rozasham," said Granny, "you'll only rattle
cages. Just eat your supper"
 
"There's berry pie," somebody said, and I was glad to hear
it. It would take more than a few creepy-crawlies in broth to
spoil my pleasure in berry pie.
 
"What I won't do," Salem Sheridan Lewis went on, as if
nothing had been said in between, "is have any celebration of
all this. It does not strike me as seemly in any way, and I won't
have it.'*
 
"But, my dear—" Rozasham began, or tried to begin; he
went right on without so much as pausing.
 
"I know the conditions," he said. "I know there must be
some mark of your visit, and 1*11 not interfere with the course
of things by denying you that. But it will not be a playparty, or
a festivity, or a hunt—nothing that implies I enjoy or condone
such devilment as we've just watched. Tomorrow morning,
after an ordinary breakfast—properly warded, if you please,
Granny Twinsorrel, and no frogs in the gravy for my breakfast
biscuits, thank you!—after ^perfectly ordinary breakfast, we
will have a parade. A solemn, I might say a dignified, parade.
Three times round the Castle, three times round the town, with
Responsible riding between me and Rozasham. That satisfac-
tory, Responsible of Brightwater?"
 
"Quite satisfactory," I said. "But I'd like to put in a word."
 
"Go right to it."
 
"I understand your feeling about what happened just now,
but I'm not at all sure that it's got anything to do with
wickedness."
 
What I meant was that I was a lot more convinced that I
could lay all this to Granny Golightly and her Magician of
Rank hotting up my Quest for me than to the traitor behind the
misuse of magic on Brightwatec But Salem Sheridan Lewis
was not interested in my opinions.
 
"Magic," he said, looking at me like a bug on a pin beneath
his gaze, "is for certain purposes. Crops. Healing. Weather
Dire peril. Naming. It is not for the usage we saw it given at
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             113
 
this table, and I'll have in the Reverend and the Granny both as
soon as you're gone to clean out the last trace of it. I have no
trouble atall recognizing sin when I see it, young woman."
 
I held my tongue.
 
"Now," he went on, "this parade. We'll begin at seven
sharp, and anybody not there on the mark will be left behind. Is
that clear? Not to mention what will happen to any such person
when we get back—I want our support set out unmistakable for
all to see, and be done with it."
 
"You stand for the Confederation, then?" I asked, while the
berry pie was being handed round. It might not of been
necessary, but I liked my knots well tied, and this was a man of
strong opinions.
 
"Responsible'of Brightwalei," said the Master of Castle
Lewis, in a voice like the thud of an iron bell-clappel; "if every
last tumtail Kingdom on this planet votes against us, Castle
Lewis stands for the Confederation. We'll be at the Jubilee,
never you feai. and our votes where they belong."
 
"Hurrah!" shouted Boy Salem. Unfortunately. An Atten-
dant scooped him out of his chair like a sea creature out of its
shell, and off he went—reasonably quietly—under the young
man's sturdy arm. There was apparently a standard procedure
in these cases.
 
I rested easy that night at Castle Lewis. Granny Twinsorrel
warded my room double, and my nose had grown dulled to the
garlic by the time I finally found myself in one of the high hard
narrow beds the Lewises considered regulation. Not even a
dream to disturb me. But the sun that came flooding through
my windows in the morning woke me early enough; and when
Tambrey of Motley knocked at my door with my wake-up tea
she found me already in my traveling dress, sitting sedately in
a cedar rocker waiting for hei, and only my bare feet to show
I'd not been up long.
 
I drank the tea slowly, enjoying the peacefulness of the
morning, and the well-run propriety—a tad constraining, but
well-run—of this Castle, and gave over my thinking to how I'd
doll Sterling up for this parade. It had to be elegant, and it
needed to be memorable, but I must not overdo it or I'd offend
my host. It was a neat little problem, and the kind of thing I
liked to ponder ovei, a good way to begin a morning.
 
114 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
I settled finally on something a bit beyond what Salem
Sheridan Lewis would of liked, and a bit less than what
Sterling would have—she was vain, even for a Mule. Rosettes
in her ears in the Brightwater colors, and streamers braided in
her tail—which I could triple-loop, for good measure—and me
in my splendiferous traveling garb.'
 
We went three times round the Castle, and three times round
the town, as specified, the people lining the streets in Sundy
best and cheering us on our way, holding up the babies to gawk
at the glitter going by. Salem Sheridan even unbent so far as to
put a single Attendant at the head of the parade with a silver
hom, and allowed him to blow one long note at every third
comec
 
But I did not get to hear Rozasham of McDaniels sing even
one ballad, not even one hymn. though I asked politely enough
as we returned from our three times round. That would have
been too much like frivolity to suit either Rozasham's husband,
or Granny Twinsorrel, 01; for that manei; Eben Nathaniel Lewis
the 17th.
 
"She sings in church," said Salem Sheridan, "and does a
very good job of it. And that's sufficient."
 
It was days like this that I could see the advantages of the
single state most clearly.
 
CHAPTER 9
 
THE PARTY THE PURDYS gave for roe went very well—I
threw in a little something here and there, of my own, to make
sure it would. The pies that would of gotten salt in place of
sugaring didn't after all—that got noticed in time. And the beer
mat had gone fiat because somebody left it sitting out overnight
acquired some new bubbles in a way that wasn't strictly
natural. And when Donovan Hihu Purdy me 40th got his boot
toe under a rough spot in the rug and was headed for a broken
hip sure as an egg's got no right angles, he managed to land—
without doing her any harm, and in fact she looked as if she
rather enjoyed it—in the lap of a woman of fine substantial
size. Instead of flat out on the floor
 
What I was doing was known as meddling, and it was not
looked on with any special favor One of the first things a girl
teamed in Granny School, right there at the beginning with
keeping your legs crossed and how not to scorch milk, was
"Mind your own business and leave other people be." I hadn't
forgotten.
 
Howsomevci; I was fed up to here by that time with listening
to every clattering tongue on Ozark meanmouthing the Purdys.
 
115
 
116 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
My tolerance had been first reached and then exceeded. I had
even realized, a lot more belatedly than did me any credit, that
I was guilty of the same thing myself. Taking that silly Ivy of
Wommack for a Purdy, for instance, for no other reason than
that she was silly and looked like she didn't eat right. There
was a name for it all, and not a very nice name either—
Prejudice, that was its ugly name.
 
And I'd had time to muse some on the essential meanness of
human beings. Isolated as they were, the Twelve Families had
had no people of black skin among them, nor any of brown or
yellow, either Probably there was a smidgen of Cherokee
blood someplace, from the long-ago days, but it had hundreds
of years since disappeared in the inundation of Scotch, Welsh,
and Irish genes that the Ozarkers carried. Only the brown eyes
here and there had survived our outrageous whiteness. And so,
lacking anybody colored differently than ourselves to make our
scapegoat, we'd picked the Purdys out for the role.
 
And of course they filled it, once elected, which encouraged
everybody to go on with it. Naturally they did. Nothing is more
sure to make you spill the tray you're carrying than knowing
for certain and certain that everybody's just watching you and
waiting for you to do that. Waiting so they can look at each
other; and all of them be thinking, even if they scruple to say it:
 
"Purdys! Really, they beat all!"
 
As I say, I'd gotten a bellyful of that, and it was on my list of
things to be tackled when I got some leisure again. High time
we took some Purdy daughters in hand and taught them what a
self-fulfilling prophecy was, and how to go about canceling
one.
 
We had a fine party, therefore. The food was good, including
those pies, and the drink was good, and the bouquet presented
to me with a nice rhyme on the Castle bandstand by three little
girls of just the sort I had in mind was fresh and beautiful. The
one sprig of blisterweed I saw behind a red daisy I threw over
the bandstand railing without anybody seeing me, and I had my
leather gloves on at the time. No harm done, and an easy job
later getting the poisonous oil off the glove.
 
The Purdys were plainly worried about how much the
Parsons and the Guthries had seen fit to tell me of then recent
doings, and I saw no harm in that. I dropped hints; and one by
one they took me aside to confess some piece of foolishness
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             117
 
and tell me how much they regretted it. Which is good for the
soul, the stomach, and the disposition.
 
By the time it was all over, and me tucked up in my bed—an
ample bed, for a welcome change, that a person could stretch
out in it without falling off on the floor—the Purdys were fairly
glowing. They'd done themselves proud, and done me honoi;
 
and nothing had Gone Wrong. And you could see what a new
and delightsome feeling that was for them.
 
I lay there and reviewed it in my mind as I fell asleep, and I
was well satisfied. It was a start, and I'd carry it further when I
got home. As for treason . . . not the Purdys. They were
doing well to just get through the ordinary day, without
introducing any magical complications.
 
And then the Gentle came to me in the night, and woke me
with full formality. I was not expecting that.
 
"Responsible of Brightwatec," it said at my bedside, "you
who bear the keys and keystones, daughter of all the Grannys
and mother of all the Magicians and all the Magicians of
Rank—awaken and speak with me!"
 
I can't say I was addressed like that often. It brought me bolt
upright instantly, clutching the bedclothes. There'd been a
Responsible of Brightwater hundreds of years ago who'd
perhaps been called all those things, and may have deserved
them, for all I knew, but it was a new experience for me, and
my teeth needed brushing, and I had not the first faintest notion
what I was supposed to say. This constituted a kind of
diplomatic exchange between two humanoid races, and for
sure required all the formality there was going, but how exactly
did you be formal in your nightgown and all mussed and
grubby from sleep, and taken wholly and entirely by surprise?
 
I'm ashamed to say that I settled for, "Dear goodness, just a
minute, please!" and added, "I shall return at once," for good
measure, hoping that at least sounded hifalutin, and bolted for
the dressingroom that went with my guestchamber in Castle
Purdy. There wasn't time to change the nightdress, but I did
add my shawl and tend to my hair and teeth and face, and I was
back in my bed propped up on the pillows for audience before
the Gentle could of counted to twenty-four Nervous, but I was
there.
 
This was a real Gentle, no baby trick like the Skerry on the
 
118 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
well curb; and it was waiting for me patiently, standing there
beside my bed in silence, till I should collect myself and
respond in some sensible fashion. I saw that it was a female—
she, then, was waiting for me patiently. I searched my memory
for the old phrases, and prayed they'd be the right ones.
 
"I am happy to see you, dear friend of the'Twelve
Families," I began, "more happy than I can say." Was that
right? I hoped so. "And may I know how you are called?"
 
She told me, and I found I could say it competently enough.
Her name was Tan K*ib; not too difficult for an Ozarker
tongue. It was for the sake of our rare speech with the Gentles
that we had added the glottal stop to our Naming alphabet all
those many years ago; for all the sounds of their language
except that one the alphabet of Old Earth served well enough.
(Not that the Gentles were interested in their name-totals,
despising all magic and anything to do with magic as they did.
But it delighted First Granny to put a twenty-seventh letter in
the alphabet. Three nines, nine threes—much improved over
the twenty-six we'd always had to make do with previously.)
 
"Greetings, Tan K'ib," I said slowly, "and I beg your
pardon if my words don't come easily . . . your people visit
us rarely, and we have little chance for converse. You honor
me; I thank you for coming and welcome you in the name of
Castle Brightwatet"
 
It was an honor, and no mistake. The Gentles were a people
so ancient we could scarcely bring the numbers to mind; their
history was said to be a matter of formal record for more than
thirty thousand years. By their reckoning we Ozarkers had only
just popped up on this planet like mushrooms in a badly
drained yard, and we merited about the same degree of
attention. They considered us a backward and primitive race—'
and were probably right, from their perspective—and they saw
us only when absolute necessity demanded. I had never seen a
Gentle before, nor my mother either; I believe that Charity of
Guthrie's mother claimed to have.
 
T'an K'ib wore only a hooded cloak, and wore that out of
deference to Ozarker morals, I assumed. A being that is
covered head to foot with soft white fur has little need for
clothing. She was not quite three feet tall, if my guess was
right (and I was good at judging such things), and I knew she
was female because she had no beard or neckiuff. Her eyes, the
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             119
 
pupils vertical like a cat's, were thick-lashed and the color of
wood violets, the deepest purple I had ever seen in a living
creature.
 
We understood the Gentles, after a fashion; they were
physically quite reasonable for the planet. The Skerrys, that
were the only other intelligent species native to Ozark—unless
you counted the Mules, and perhaps you'd better—we didn't
understand at all. Not how their skeletons supported their
height; not how their metabolisms functioned; not anything
about them. No one had ever found or seen or (praise the
Twelve Comers) stolen a Skerry bone, but whatever its
substance was it had to be something different from what held
us Ozarkers upright in our skins. The Gentles, on the other
hand, could be looked upon as roughly equivalent to furred
Little People without wings; and we'd been well acquainted
with several Little Peoples before we ever left Old Earth. The
Gentles did not alarm us; we alarmed them.
 
"And I greet you in the name of all the Gentles," she said to
roe- "We are troubled, Responsible of Brightwalei; sorely
troubled. I come to you on behalf of all my people to ask that
you put an end to that trouble."
 
I wondered what sort of power she thought I had, to word
her request like that, and doubted she would of known what to
make of me peeling pans of potatoes at Brightwater because
me Granny needed all me servingmaids to gather herbs, and
had set me to make certain of that day's mashed potatoes. We
had myths aplenty of the Gentles, and tales among the
Teaching Stories; it looked as though they might also have
myths of us. The idea that I figured in those myths, and maybe
prominently, made me uneasy.
 
"I will do whatever I can do," I said.
 
"You can do whatever is necessary," she said at once. "And
whatever is dyst'al."
 
Dyst'al. One of the few words of the Gentle speech that we
understood, and fortunate for us that they had not had the same
trouble learning our Panglish. Dyst'al meant something like
"unforbidden and permitted and not beyond the bounds," and
something like "good for all the people," and something like
"characteristic of the actions of a reasonable and wholesome
person having power," and something like "well mannered."
 
120 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
She was telling me, clear enough, what she expected. Whether
I could fulfill those expectations remained to be seen.
 
There was only a sliver of moonlight; she stood in the feeble
ray that fell through the near window. I would have liked some
light myself, because it was hard enough to judge the voice of a
non-Terran even when you could see the features of the face
clearly. 1 had learned that early, watching the threedy films
again and again. But the Gentle preferred the dark, would not
care for the exposure, and would be greatly offended if I were
to set a glow about her; I would have to strain my ears and hope
for the best.
 
"Be comfortable, friend Tan K'ib," I said, "and tell me
what it is you want of me. Will you sit here near me. so that I
may hear you more easily?"
 
She went to the foot of my bed and stepped handily up to sit
on its turned rail, using me blanket chest placed there as a kind
of step to climb on. She settled her cloak around her and let the
hood fall back, and by the feeble moonlight I saw that her ears
had been pierced five times—in each there hung five separate
tiny crystals. Five crystals; mis was no mere messenger, and I
bowed my head slightly to acknowledge her rank.
 
"May I begin?" she asked.
 
"Please do."
 
"We are the Gentles," she said, "or so you call us; we are
the Ltlancanithf'al. We have been on this planet for fifty
thousand years. In our caves the inscriptions name our
anscestors for more than thirty thousand of those years
. . . we go far, far back into time. My people, daughter of
Brightwatci; were here long before yours."
 
"That is certainly true," I said carefully.
 
"Our claims are prior"
 
"That, too," I said. "Of course."
 
"And when your people came here, and your vessel fell into
the Outward Deeps, and only by the grace of the Goddess did
any one of you escape to set foot on our land, your people
made treaties, Responsible of Brightwater Solemn treaties.
We ask that they be honored."
 
Oh, dear Never mind the slight conflict in the myths of the
Landing, this was no time to compare tales and quibble over
the identity of rescuers. The question was, what did she
mean—they asked that the treaties be honored? That any
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             121
 
Ozaricer would have violated the treaties was beyond concep-
tion, I would have staked my life on that. We do not break our
word.
 
"My friend T'an K'ib," I asked, "do you come here to tell
me that my people have violated their sworn oaths? A Gentle
does not lie—but I find that hard to believe."
 
And if I was wrong, and they had? 1 thought of blustering
Delldon Mallard Smith, the ugly man of the ugly
name . . . and I thought of the easy malicious ways of
Michael Stepforth Guthrie, and I cast around in my mind for
other possibilities. No Granny would of tampered, but the men
were another matter And if they had—what was I to do? I felt
four years old on the outside and four hundred years old on the
inside, and I hoped my brain was not as cold as the rest of me. I
longed for a pentacle, and my own Granny Hazelbide, and the
safe walls of my own Castle around me. And here I was, of all
unhandy places, at Castle Purdy.
 
"Responsible of Brightwater," she said, "I would not tell
you that we are certain; I would not go so far It may be mat
there has as yet been no violation. It is to forestall such a thing
that I am come to you this night."
 
"Tell me, then," I said. "I will listen until you have told me
everything that disturbs you; and I will not interrupt."
 
And she began to talk, in the faintly foreign archaic Panglish
me First Granny had taught her people, and that I had learned
from many boring hours listening to the microtapes while I
begged to be let go out and play instead. I blessed every one of
those hours now, seeing as I understood her with ease, and I
supposed she'd spent fully as many hours herself listening to
me Teachers of her people, who passed down the knowledge of
Panglish without benefit of tapes or any other thing but their
wondrous memories and their supple throats.
 
There was trouble, she told me. Much trouble on Arkansaw,
where the Guthries and the Parsons were even more openly
feuding than had been admitted to me, by her account. Where
me Purdys were frantic, trying desperately to play both sides of
me feud, but faced with an eventual choice made under great
pressure. There were, she told me, strange comings and goings
in the nights.
 
"There was a meeting in what you choose to call the
WUdemess Lands of Arkansaw," she said, "not three nights
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
122
 
ago. The men there were not all of Arkansaw, some had come
very far ... some wore the crests of Kintucky and Tmaseeh,
the Families known as Wommack and Traveller It went on all
the night long—our children had no sleep—and then, as
thieves comport themselves, all stole away at first light. A
Gentle does'not spy, I remind you; thus, I cannot tell you what
they spoke of. What we heard we heard only because a loud
voice in the night carries far in an ill-mannered throat
. . . but they were not telling each other pleasant tales to
while away the hours. That much was clear"
 
She stopped for a moment, and I waited, and then she went
on.
 
"It was sworn, Responsible of Brightwalei; sworn and
sealed—the Gentles were to be left alone. And none of your
magic was to touch our people, for all of time. Nor were we
ever to be part of your . . . feuding. If you have forgotten, I
am here to remind you—so read the treaties."
 
I let my breath out, slowly, wondering where in me the
knowledge was that I supposedly could put to use in circum-
stances such as these. I felt no revelations bubbling within me,
no sealed-off memories with their locks dropping away.
 
"Has a hand been raised against you?" I asked T'an K'ib.
"Any hand? Any weapon?"
 
"Not as of this night."
 
"Has any sharp word been spoken? Any threat made? Has
any Ozarker actually breached the privacy of your homes, T'an
K'ib?"
 
"Not as of this night."
 
"None?"
 
"You must understand," she said, no edge to her voice, but
firm, "that what you consider a hand raised, or a sharp word,
or privacy breached, may not be the same as what a Gentle
would so judge. There are many, many thousands of us in the
caves of the Wilderness Lands of Ozark, daughter of Brightwa-
tei; and we live in peace, and our lives are not tainted by
sorcery. We have made adjustments unasked, when the mines
of your people cut well beyond the limits given them, and we
have not begrudged those adjustments, though no law held us
to them."
 
I could imagine, thinking of the Parsons and Guthries and
Purdys, always wanting to cut just a little deeper into a vein,
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             123
 
probably shaking the Gentles in their sleep and filling their
homes with gemdust, or worse. And I was ashamed.
 
"When I return to Castle Brightwater," I said, my voice
harsh in my throat, "I will see that that is put right. That I can
do- There will be no more encroachments on your territory, and
where such has taken place, your 'adjustments' will be
readjusted. My word on it, and my apologies."
 
She made an easy gesture with her head, as if to show how
little this mattered; I, the Ozarkec, felt bigger and greedier, as I
was no doubt meant to feel.
 
"If it can be done. so be it," she said, "if not—what is past
is past. But if the three Families of the continent of Arkansaw
go to open war among themselves, and if the Families of
Kintucky and Tinaseeh join them, blood will flow in the
Wildernesses and it may well be our blood. That we cannot
allow, daughter of Brightwatec That would be in violation of
all treaties."
 
"Wat T'an K'ib? Your people fear war?"
 
I suppose I sounded foolish; she sounded indulgent.
 
"It is not an exotic word," she said. "Think of guns and
lasers and bombs and gases and missiles. All very small and
simple Panglish words, and well known to you."
 
"Dear friend, dear T'an K'ib," I protested, "Ozarkers do
not go to war—it was the violence of one human hand raised
against another much of it part of war and much of it without
any explanation but madness, that drove us here in The Ship
one thousand years ago. As a Gentle does not lie, T'an K'ib—
an Ozarker does not war.111
 
"You yourself," she pointed out, "have let pass the word
*fcud' without protest. Our Teachers are quite clear on me
meaning of that word, and it is violent."
 
"Ah, T'an K'ib," I said, almost weak with relief, "it is not
what it appears to be atall. This is a misunderstanding."
 
"Explain, please."
 
"You know of the Confederation of Continents of Ozark?"
 
"Your government," she said flatly.
 
"As much government as we have," I said, "and hard won.
Wi are at a tricky political crossroads, we of the Confedera-
tion. And the Families you name, the ones that have so
disgracefully disturbed the harmony of your homes, they are
not plotting violence. They are plotting against the Con-
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
124
 
federation . . . they are plotting the casting of votes, not the
launching of missiles! Nothing more. Tan K'ib; nothing less.
There is not even a question of dominance among them."
 
"That makes no sense," she said. "I beg your pardon if I
speak sharply, but it makes no sense."
 
"If." I said, "one thinks carefully of the Ozarkers—and no
reason, the Twelve Corners granted, why your people should
ever do anything of the kind—it does make sense. And no
offense taken. First, no Ozarker lifts a hand against another, not
since we left Earth; the only exception would be the occasional
child, that must be taught it can't hit its playmate because
there's a toy they both want at the same time, and the
occasional drunken fool, that is promptly seen to and differs
little from die child. I'd hazard that even among your people
the young and foolish must leam."
"Granted," she said.
 
"But what the dissenting Families want is not that one
should be superior to the rest, but that all should be equal, and
no dominance. What they want, Tan K'ib. is isolation."
"It is an absurdity."
 
"No doubt," I said reluctantly, my loyalty giving me a bit of
trouble around the edges. "Nevertheless—it is so."
 
"There must be community," she said, "and this is a small
planet. What you describe is anarchy."
 
I was reminded, a moment only, of Sharon of dark
. . . but there was a difference. This was no child who faced
me, prattling memorized cant from Granny School. This was a
diplomat, high in the ranks of a people whose sophistication
surpassed ours as Granny Gableframe's surpassed a babe's. She
knew quite well what anarchy was, and she knew what went
with it. No doubt her people had seen its effects a time or two
in their long history. No doubt it meant, to her and to them,
rape and pillage and murder, barbarian hordes pouring through
me cavehomes and tearing out the ancient tunnels as they went.
She had no reason to believe an Ozarker ungovemed would
behave any differently.
 
"They want to go back to boones." I said, wishing sadly
that there was some way to make her understand us—us aliens.
 
"It is not a concept that I know," said T'ah K'ib, "The
Teachers do not mention it."
 
"Nor is it a concept that will burden you unduly," I told her
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
125
 
"A very long time ago—by Earth reckoning—on the planet
from which my people came, there was a man whose name was
Daniel Boone. If he had a middle name, we have no record of
it—I'm sorry. And it is written that whenever the time came
that Daniel Boone could see the smoke of a neighbor's chimney
from his own homeplace, those neighbors were too near, and
he moved on."
 
The Gentles lived in chambers carved beneath the earth, and
it was said that they observed a stringent privacy of manneL
But they lived crowded close as twin babes in a womb, and
their families were not small. I doubted she would see much
sense to the story of Daniel Boone.
 
She was silent and small, sitting there thinking over what I
had said, and possessed of a kind of presence that much larger
creatures might have envied. I wished that we could have been
friends. I wished that I could have visited her—but the Gentles
saw to it that none but a very small Ozarker child could enter
die doors they set up. I would never know, unless 1 looked in a
way that the treaties forbid me, what it was like inside the
caves of the Gentles. And, I reminded myself sternly, it was
none of my business to know.
 
"Responsible of Brightwater?" she asked, finally.
 
"Yes, dear friend?"
 
"It may be that what you say is true, though it does not seem
reasonable."
 
"To the best of my knowledge, it is true, however it sounds.
And 1 believe my knowledge on this matter is reliable."
 
"I see ... I think I see."
 
I thought she would leave me then, but she sal quietly, not
even a shape any longer since the moonlight had waned.
Evidently whatever this was, it was not over
 
"Friend Tan K'ib," t hazarded, "do you want something
eke of me? You have only to ask."
 
"Your guarantee."
 
"Of no war? Consider it given. Of an end to mining beneath
your bedchambers and your streets? Of course, I guarantee it;
 
that it ever'happened was due only to carelessness, not to
malice. When I speak to the Families guilty of that, they will
be deeply ashamed."
 
"No," she said. She shook her head, and I heard the crystals
 
126 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
in her ears sound, softly. Little bells in the darkness. "That is
not all."
 
"What, then?"
 
"Whatever it is that your people are about," she said,
"however it may be, whether this desire to be a boons that you
describe to me, or a feud, or a greater evil . . . Your
guarantee, daughter of Brightwater, that we Gentles will take
no part in any of it! No part, however small! Not even by
accident ... as you say, by carelessness."
 
Well, I never liked lying. I liked lying to a Gentle even less
than I liked ordinary lying, since they did not lie, they were as
vulnerable to it as they would have been to the kick of a boot.
More so; the kick they could at least have seen coming.
However, there are times when a person does what she must. I
gave her her guarantee, all solemn and sealed and packaged in
phrases that made me fee) silly even to use them, and she went
away as unheralded as she had come, leaving me to toss
fretfully through the rest of that night. My conscience was raw
in me.
 
What I hadn't dared tell her was that there was only one way
that I could make my guarantees real. What her myths said I
had in the way of power I did not know; her people had royalty,
and perhaps the ancient rights that went with that. I had none.
 
I could do what she asked of me, yes. But only in one way.
Only by setting wards of the strongest (and from her point of
view, the foulest and most barbaric) magic known to me,
around every cave and every burrow and every smallest scrap
of Wilderness her people inhabited. It was a flagrant violation
of the treaties she had mentioned with every other breath; it
was also the only way that what had to be done could be done.
And at that it would have to wait till I was back at Castle
Brightwater and had all my laboratories and my Magicians at
my disposal—and I had not told her that, either I supposed she
would tell her people there was to be no delay.
 
I knew perfectly well that she would rather have died, and
all her kin with her, than be protected by the magic they so
abhorred—by "sorceries." For sure, it would nor be judged
dyst'al. And I did not intend to be the person that shattered
illusions that had lasted tens of thousands of years, or the
person that ended up with the lives of such a people and their
 
Tivelve Fair Kingdoms             n?
 
Mood on her hands. It might be there was some other way out
something I should have thought of, but it did not come to my
mind, and I was colder than I had ever been in my life; and I
gathered what little of my wits I had left about me. and I lied
 
CHAPTER 10
 
CASTLE WOMMACK sat high at the northwest comer of
Kintucky, in a landscape of tangled trees and thick ground
covci; steep hills and ragged cliffs and crags; only Tinaseeh
was wilder, and not by much. The Castle was bigger than it
needed to be, rambling along the edge of a bluff above a ravine
at the bottom of which there surely flowed a rivel; though I
couldn't see it from the air. I would of guessed it to be at least
twice the size of Castle Brightwatci; and larger than any castle
on Arkansaw, the Parsons' included. And I could understand
why, though I might privately question the use of so much time
and energy for a single structure. The natural stone it was built
of was abundant—if they hadn't used it to build the Castle
they'd of had to cart the stuff away and fill up ravines with it,
after all. Every time I flew low to get a look at the land I saw
stretches where boulders big as squawker coops were strewn
around like so much carelessly flung salt, leaving the vegeta-
tion to grow over and around and in between the jutting stones
as best it could . . . and I was not looking at the
Wilderness Lands, mind you. This was the "cleared" area of
Kintucky.
 
129
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
130
 
Furthermore, even the size it was, Capde Wommack was
dwarfed by the country round it, and looked like a doll's castle
more than a proper human dwelling. No doubt they drew some
comfort from its size through the long winters when the winds
howled down those ravines and ripped up huge trees by the
roots, to pile them in heaps against the bald faces of the bluffs.
I could see the point to it.
 
It was four days' hard flying at regulation speed from Castle
Purdy to Castle Wommack, and except for a brief stretch over
the Ocean of Storms between the two continents I had not done
any distance by SNAPPING. I was running out of anything to
read, for one thing. And then this country was new to me, the
Twelve Comers only knew when I might get back this way
again, and I felt it behooved me to see all I could and note it
 
well.
 
Once I left the coast of Arkansaw and was beyond the
shipping lanes, all the way over that vast country up almost to
the edge of the town built around Castle Wommack, I saw nary
a soul. There were farms—clearly very large farms, and why
not?—spread out over the surface of the land. And every now
and again I would see the telltale white line of a fence built of
that same stone, running along the edge of a cleared field, or
catch sight maybe of light glancing off solar collectors on a
roof. But not until I actually neared Booneville, the capital
(and only) city of Kintucky, not till I saw the Castle ahead of
me, did I begin to see people. Kintucky had only been settled
in 2339, just ten years before Tinaseeh, and the latest figures I
had for the whole kingdom showed under seven thousand
citizens living here. More than a third of those lived in or near
Booneville itself.
 
They met me properly at the Castle, and made me welcome;
 
Jacob Donahue Wommack the 23rd, a widower these past two
years, and his five sons and seven daughters, and numerous
wives and husbands. There was a band playing as I brought
Sterling down on the roadway winding up to the Castle gates,
and people lining both sides throwing flowers and waving
bright banners. Seven Attendants in green and silver Wom-
mack livery followed me up the ramp and through the gates.
And where I could catch glimpses of the streets and buildings
of the town I saw that they'd hung garlands everywhere mere
was something to hang a garland on. Booneville was decked
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
131
 
out for full festival in my honoi; and I was surprised; I
supposed it must come of the loneliness out here, and so few
occasions for any kind of partying. Considering the hasty
excuses for celebrations thrown together along my way so' far,
it made me smile; I tried, without any success, to imagine my
cousin Anne at Castle McDaniels going to all this trouble for
me, or the stern Lewises even countenancing such a fuss.
 
The inner court of Castle Wommack, inside the gates, was
the size of a respectable playing field; you could have raced
Mules there without much inconvenience. And they had it set
up for a fair; with long tables of food and drink, and strolling
singers and dancers, and a whole play being put on on a stage
that fit neatly into a far comer, and crowds of young people
nulling in their Sundy best. They led Sterling away to their
stables and then turned their energies to entertaining me, with a
dogged determination that was at first highly flattering. And
then, after a while, it began to make me uneasy.
 
I was sitting on a low bench with Jacob Donahue and three
of his daughters, watching twelve couples move through an
elaborate circle dance done to the tune of dulcimer; guitar, and
fiddle, finishing my fourth mug of excellent dark ale and much
too full from the food they'd been plying me with, when I
finally realized that things were genuinely odd. True—they
were celebrating my visit as no other Castle had even
considered celebrating it, so far as I could tell. True—the
sounds in the inner court, and those that floated in over the
walls from the town, were all laughter and song and merry-
making and pleasure. But there was something
strange . . . and then, all at once, I knew what it was.
 
The broad front of Castle Wommack, five stories high of
pearly white stone, forming a great muleshoe shape around that
court, had windows everywhere. I took time to count those on
the first story alone, and there were forty of them; multiply that
by five and you got roughly two hundred windows facing on
mis court, give or take a dozen for variations.
 
And every last blessed one of them was not only empty of
the people I would of expected to see looking down on the fair
and taking part from above us; it was closed tight as a tick, and
shuttered.
 
I clapped politely for me circle dance as it drew to its close,
and clapped again for the musicians, and took time to smile at a
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
small boy that had decided he was a juggler and was doing
three pieces of fruit considerable harm right under my nose.
And then I stood up, brushed off my skirts, and said: "I'll be
going in now, ladies; Jacob Donahue Wommack."
 
A daughter named Gilead, freckled and slender and twenty-
odd, stood up with me. "It's much pleasanter out here," she
said, "and 1 can recommend the cake they're setting out down
beside the stage; it's extra good lightcake, and you haven't had
any of it yet, I don't believe."
 
"The reason it's pleasanter out here," I said, measuring my
words to make them fall with proper force, "is because
whoever is in there"—I pointed to the front of the Castle
proper—"is suffocating."
 
"Daddy," said Gilead of Wommack, "1 believe she's
 
noticed."
 
"That I have," I snapped.
 
"My dear young woman," Jacob Donahue began, but I cut
him off short.
 
"I'll be going in now," I said. "If you care to come with me,
you're welcome; if you prefer to stay out here while your faces
crack, pretending to be having fun, that's your privilege.
Youall do just as you like—but / am going inside and see
what's back of your shutters."
 
I looked at them again, row on row of heavy wooden eyes all
shut tight and black against the stone, and I shuddered. A good
job they'd done of keeping me distracted, that I'd sat out here
for near two hours and not seen that!
 
"We'll go with you, Responsible," said Gilead, and the
other two stood to join us. "But roost of these people are
having fun, and I'm pleased that they are. It's a hard life here,
and not much in the way of party times—don't let's spoil it for
 
them."
 
The false cheer dropped off Jacob Donahue like a scarf off a
sloped shoulder as he stood up, slowly, and I could see that he
was in fact wholly miserable.
 
"Like Gilead says," he told me, "we'll come along
. . . but I'd be grateful if we do it without drawing any
attention. I've no more mind to spoil the others' day than my
daughters have. You, girls, you see to it that Responsible is
sort of tucked away among the rest of you, and don't act as if
we were in any hurry to get anywhere."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
133
 
We strolled, therefore, over to the Castle and in through its
front door My feet were itching to run, as much from
annoyance at my own thick head as anything else, but I did as
Jacob Donahue bid, and—eventually—we were inside.
 
Inside, and the door closed behind us, and the silence of an
empty church. Not one laugh, not one note of music, came
through those shutters, which was no doubt the intention. The
fair might as well of been back on Marktwain; it did not exist
inside this Castle.
 
"Well, well, well," I said, "this is a pretty pass! What's
happening here at Castle Wommack to account for this?"
 
From the top of a stairway ahead of me a woman's voice
called down, and I peered up in the dimness to see if I knew the
face that went with it, but it was a strangec She wore plain
enough dress to suit even the Lewises, her hair was pulled back
and tucked into a kerchief, and she carried a basin of steaming
liquid in her hands.
 
"We've sickness here, young miss of Brightwatec," she said
in a bitter voice. "That's what's 'happening* here! Me
Wommack, there's another three taken with it just since you
went out this morning, and I'm truly scared at the way Granny
Goodweather looks. ... I don't know what to do for hei;
 
and the Magician says he doesn't either—what next, I ask you,
Me Wommack? I'm at the end of my wits!"
 
"Your Granny is sick?" I asked. I was astonished. A Granny
was human, of course, but it was their job to tern/the sick, not
lie among them. It was obligatory for a Granny to suffer from
"rheumatism," that went with the territory, but I couldn't
remember any Granny ever being really sick for more than an
hour or two, or dying any other way than peacefully in her bed
at an age well beyond one hundred years.
 
"Both of them, miss," said the woman on the stairs.
"Granny Goodweather was taken first two days ago; and then
yesterday Granny Copperdell as well . . . and they'd both
been poorly, I'd remarked on that."
 
I turned on the Wommacks behind me to demand of them
exactly what they'd been doing about this—sick Grannys,
indeed!—but one look was enough to close my mouth. They
were Wommacks, that was all that was wrong with them;
 
they'd of done nothing, or as near to nothing as couldn't be
noticed.
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
134
 
The Purdys, now, were forever in some sort of mess, and
usually by their own stupidity. But they did put some effort into
their actions. (They would in fact have been better off if they'd
learned to put in less; usually they got themselves so entangled
and benastied that it took more effort to extricate them than it
would of just keeping them out of it all from the beginning.)
 
With the Wommacks, it was different. They were capable
people, and intelligent, and sensible. About most things, that
is. So long as whatever obstacle faced the Wommacks couldn't
be laid at the door of the famous Wommack bad luck, they just
turned to and took care of things. Bad luck, though, the
Wommack curse, the long burden of paying and paying for the
Granny that had laid out the Improper Name . . . anything
that seemed due to that, they just gave up on, on the principle
that it was no use trying in such a situation. This, I gathered,
was one of those situations.
 
I tucked up my skirts then and ran up the stairs toward the
woman that still stood there, the water in her basin getting
colder by the passing minute, if it was water, and paid the
family behind me no more mind.
 
"You're Castle staff?" I asked the laggard nurse, and she
nodded.
 
"Your name, please."
 
"Violet," she said. "Violet of Smith."
 
"Very well. Violet of Smith—take me this instant to the
sickroom, and let me see how bad things are in this place!"
 
"Which sickroom, miss?" she asked me. "We've nothing
but sickrooms on this whole second floor,"
 
"How many are down?" I demanded, but she only
 
shrugged.
 
"I've lost count, miss . . . might could be thirty, might
could be twice that."
 
"And both your Grannys."
 
"And both our Grannys."
 
"Well, take me to Granny Copperdell, then," I said, "and
set down that basin—whatever it is, it's no use to anybody
 
now."
 
She turned without a word, but I had to take the useless
basin from her hands myself, and I followed where she led me.
I could smell the sickness now, and I wanted those windows
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             I3S
 
open at the front of the Castle, and fresh air in here as fast as it
could decently be accomplished.
 
"Are many people sick in the town?" I asked her, wishing
she'd hurry.
 
"Oh no, miss," she said. "Not in the town. Only in the
Castle."
 
Hmmmph. That would be fuel for the dratted Wommack
curse, of course.
 
She knocked twice at a doorway, and then opened it and
stood aside to let me pass, saying, "That's Granny Copperdell
there in the bed, miss, and I hope you can do something for net;
 
for I surely can't. And I'm too busy to stay with you, so you'll
excuse me, please." And she was gone.
 
"Well, Granny Copperdell!" I said, making it a cautious]
challenge. "So this is how you run things!"              :
 
Hers was the only bed in the room, and she was tiny in it;
 
three featherbeds under her, I was willing to wager, and half a
dozen pillows propping her up in them.
 
"Land, who is it bothering me now?" came from the depths
of the bedclothes, and I saw an encouraging flurry. "Can't
leave an old woman to die in peace, can you? Come near me
and torment me again with one of your so-called Magicians
and you'll find out if I'm sick, I warn you, and me that's sick
and tired of warning youall! Magicians! Phaugh—what's a
Magician know about healing? No more use than— Well, who
be you?"
 
It did my heart good. She might be sick, but she surely was
not dying- She was behaving absolutely as a Granny ought to
behave, and that meant I'd get useful information here at least.
 
"It's only me, Granny Copperdell, Responsible of Bright-
water," I said. "And sony to see you so poorly. May I come sit
by you there?"
 
"Come ahead," she ranted, "come right ahead! Why ask? If
it's not one sort of meanness, it'll toe another . . . why can't
you stay home where you belong, 'stead of meddling in our
affairs, and tormenting an old woman as is about to draw her
last breath?"
 
I tried the bed, but it was impossible; you sank into the
featherbeds and disappeared from sight unless you weighed no
more than a Granny, and that did not apply to me.
 
136 SUZETTE HADEN EU3IN
 
"You get a chair and get yourself off my bed!" she ordered
me, whacking at me with a handkerchief like I was a gerdafly;
 
and I did so gladly, pulling the chair up close beside her head.
 
"Now, Granny Copperdell," I said firmly, "there's no need
for you to keep on with your carry-on. It doesn't impress me,
and I'll be no use here if I don't hear some sense and hear it
quick."
 
"Likely," she said. "Likely!"
 
"Granny, you know I'm right," 1 said, "you a Brightwater
by birth; and every Castle on this planet knows quite well why
I'm traveling round it. You're in a wild place here for sure, but
this high up the reception on your comsets is certain to be
perfect. You know why I'm here!"
 
"Took you long enough," she muttered.
 
"No comset on my Mule, Granny," I said. "I've been four
days, and all of them hng days, flying here, and I've landed
only to make my camp and sleep; I've had no news. If I'd
known there was trouble here I'd not of stopped for anything."
 
She sighed then, and settled back, and I plumped up her
pillows for her,
 
"Speak up. Granny Copperdell," I said. "For I've had not
one sensible word out of anybody else in this house—what am
 
I up against?"
 
"Three days ago, it began," she said. "You'd already oneft
Castle Purdy, I reckon."
 
"Started sudden?"
 
"A child's sitting on a windowsill, playing with a pretty and
eating a biscuit, happy and fit as a bird," she told me. "And
then in two breaths that child is burning alive with fever, and
racked head to foot with misery, and writhing like a birthing
,woman, fit to break your heart. I've never seen anything, not
anything, so quick."
 
I touched her forehead, though she pulled away from my
hand; it was blazing hot.
 
"What kind of sickness is it?" I asked her
 
"Well. I wish I knew that!" she said, fretting, and turned her
head side to side on the pillows. "Think I'd be lying here like
an old fool if I knew that? If I knew even the name, it might
could be I'd know what to tell the idiot females in this Castle to
do ... what's its name, that'shalf the battle wonany time."
 
"And the Magician doesn't know either"
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             137
 
I said that under my breath, thinking out loud, and regretted
it immediately. A Magician could set bones, and take out sick
and useless organs such as an appendix, and deal with cancers.
If it had been any of those, the Magician would already have
taken care of the matter And there was no Magician of Rank
on Kintucky.
 
"I'm sorry, Granny Copperdell," I said, before she could
start on me, "I wasn't thinking straight; just forget I said it. But
you help me . . . tell me the symptoms of this stuff. Even the
little things that you don't really think matter"
 
"High fever," she said, reciting it like a lesson. "Racking
pain in every joint and bone and muscle. That's likely the worst
of it, that pain. All the lymph glands swollen and tender,
especially in the armpits. A bloody flux, and pain high on the
right of the belly. Rash around the ankles and the hands, and a
flaming red patch over both cheeks. Sores in the mouth, sores
in the privates. . . . Hurts to breathe, hurts to swallow, hurts
to hear any noise much over a whisper—that's why the
windows are shuttered, child."
 
"What have you tried for it?"
 
"Everything a Granny knows, and some made up new," she
said. "And none of it any use." She was in no danger but she
was exhausted, and I was wearying her more. "I'm not a good
patient for you to be observing," she said accurately, "I'm
hardly touched with it yet, and tough as I am I doubt it'll get
much worse. You go look at the others and you'll see what it's
like."
 
"Can I get you anything, Granny, before I do that?"
"You can get on with it, and leave off pestering me!"
I plumped the pillows up again, and checked to see that the
water was easy to her reach, and I went on out and closed the
door behind me. She'd keep a long while yet.
 
Ah, but the others; they were another matter altogether I
counted fifty-one, and they were truly sick. Even Granny
Goodweathec She didn't so much as ask me my name when I
leaned over her, and that frightened me.
 
They lay in their beds and they twisted, slowly—I can think
of no other way to describe it. As if they hung from intolerable
bonds. One arm would stretch, the fingers spread like claws,
pushing, pushing till I thought the fingerioints would crack,
and then the other arm, pushing against some unseen wall. And
 
SUZ&ITE HADEN ELGIN
 
138
 
then the legs, one at a time, stretching till the soles of the bent
feet lay flat against the mattress. And no more would the foot
reach its terrible extension than it began to move back upon
itself . . . and then the arms would start. It was like a
horrible, endless, solemn, tortured, dance of death; and it was
very clear that it hurt them like raw flames. There were women
from the town trying to tend them, but I could see that they
weren't accomplishing much. Changing the bedlinens and
bathing flesh, bringing them water to drink and soothing the
little ones . . . that seemed to be it.
 
As for treason, the thought was indecent. The Wommacks
were so grimly convinced their whole household was cursed
that they considered the most absolute neutrality no more than
their duty toward their fellows. Even when they were without
other troubles to distract them, no Wommack took sides, for
fear their bad luck would rub off on the side they'd chosen.
With things as they were here right now, 1 could put all else out
of my mind and consider only this sickness.
 
As it happened, I did know what it was. But I wasn't that
surprised the Grannys hadn't recognized it, especially since
they'd come down with it almost immediately themselves.
They'd not really had time to think before their own fever set
in, and it was not a common disease.
 
I went down the stairs and found the Wommacks stift
gathered there silently, waiting for me, and I had a strong
suspicion looking at them that most—including the Master of
this Castle—would be in their beds themselves before the day
was out. Considering the number sick upstairs, they'd made a
brave showing, and I credited them for that; but not a one that
wasn't white around the mouth, and the red tinge coming up on
their cheeks, hectic, and a line of beads of moisture at the edge
of the coppery hair to betray them further. All that time out in
the sun with me had surely done them no good, and I'd of bet
the party food they'd put down lay heavy in their stomachs this
minute like Kintucky stone.
 
"I know what it is," I said to them, not bothering to dawdle
 
and back and fill.
 
"But neither of the Grannys had any idea, nor the Magician
either!" objected a thin boy by the name of Thomas Lincoln
 
Wommack the 9th.
 
"Well, I do," I said, "whoever does or doesn't, and the
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             139
 
Grannys would of known, too, if they hadn't been taken
themselves before they could run it down. What you have
upstairs, by my count, is fifty-one cases of something called
Andersen's Disease. Or, if you prefer less formality, some call
it deathdance fever—which does describe it. And looking at
youall, I see a few more cases to add to the count—you'd
better every one of you get to your beds."
 
"And those upstairs?" asked Gilead.
 
"You need capable people up there, taking care of your
lick," I said. "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 superstitious nonsense. And I was very grateful that
none of them knew something I wasn't going to take time to
flunk about right now, which was that Andersen's Disease was
Hot 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 nobody from Arkansaw," said Jacob Donahue
Wommack.
 
"I beg your pardon?"
 
"I say, we'll have nobody. Magician of Rank or anybody
else, from Arkansaw. Not in this Castle."
 
"In the name of the Twelve Gates and the Twelve Corners.
 
SUZETTC HADEN ELGIN
 
140
 
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 Brightwater," 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, men." 1 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 no corners—everything done strictly by rule, and strictly
by me 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 superstition gotten out of hand in far comers. 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
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
141
 
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 taws of things, Thomas
 
•   Lincoln. I'm sorry, but that's the straight of it."
 
^    "We should of sent for him 'Soonei," said me 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 Brightwater, don't be hard on the boy," one
 
J 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,
nobody would have been in any danger Not one person.
Now ... a lot of time had passed, and a lot of suffering
 
••'•- endured. Now, they'd be losing some of their own, to their own
.1 stupidity.
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
142
 
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 twelve-
square 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 Menyweather 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 me fact that the Granny had not opened her mouth
either to fuss or to oppose him—that Shawn Menyweather
Lewis the 7th could handle all of this without any further
 
attention from me.
 
"Responsible of Brightwatel;" Gilead's voice came softly,
men, "let me see you to your room. We're not completely
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             143
 
without breeding here, though it may look some like it at this
moment."
 
"No," I said, "you've shown breeding and to spare, Gilead
ofWommack. 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
handlethings ... us down here celebrating while your peo-
ple 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 ofWommack 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, 1 looked into his eyes, and him
 
144 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
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 11
 
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 Brightwaiei; 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
 
145
 
146 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
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 Timecomer
 
"I can't see round it," said Granny Hazelbide. "Nor can any
Magician, or even Magician of Rank. Can't anybody see round
it, for it's purely and wholly sealed off from this time."
 
You see I had not exactly forgotten it. More accurately, I had
just shut it away in that corner of my head where things that
didn't bear thinking about were stored. But I couldn't recall it
coming to my mind the past five years at least, which was
doing a pretty good job of keeping it at the bottom of the heap.
I had no trouble getting to it, when the time came. It had these
parts:
 
FIRST;
 
For a Destroyer shall come out of the West; and he will
know you, and you will know him, and we cannot see
how that knowledge passes between you, but it is not of
the body.
 
SECOND:
 
And if you stand against him, there will be great Trouble.
And if you cannot stand against him, there will be great
Trouble. But the two Troubles will be of different kinds.
And we cannot see what either Trouble is, nor which
course you should or will take, but only that both will be
terrible and perhaps more than you can bear
 
THIRD:
 
And if you fail. Responsible of Brightwatci; the penalty
for your failure falls on the Twelve Families; and if you
stand, it is the Twelve Families that you spare.
 
FOURTH:
 
And no matter what happens, it will be a long, hard dme.
 
Well, you talk of your curses' I recall suggesting to Granny
Hazelbide that the whole thing would be more suitable for my
sister, Troublesome, and no doubt that was true. And I
remember being told that things were far more often wisuit-
able, and for sure that was true. And then I had put it away, and
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             147
 
I believe I had expected it to be something I had to face along
around the age of forty-nine or so. That would of seemed like
giving me at least a running start.
 
Since it was thirty years and more before I had planned for
it, and since I was certainly not ready either to stand or fall,
and since I was in the middle of a Quest at the time, not to
mention a Grand Jubilee dangling just ahead of me, I chose the
most prudent course I saw before me. This was no time for
theatrics. This was no time for flinging myself in the teeth of
me winds to see what was at the very bottom of that teacup. I
was busy!
 
I knew him all right, and he knew me, and when I fled him
like a squawker hen flees a carrion bird he was laughing fit to
kill. I did not spend the night at Castle Wommack, nor so much
as go to the room where they'd put my belongings. My
weariness melted away like snow in the sun, a servingmaid
brought me my packed bags right there where I sat on that
bench against the wall, tapping my foot, and a stablemaid
brought round my Mule; and I flung the saddlebags over
Sterling's back and took off from the middle of the fair still
going on in me Castle court, while he stood on the steps with
his hands on his hips, laughing. What Gilead of Wommack or
any of the others thought, I had no idea, and I didn't wait to
see.
 
It was ten days' travel, regulation speed, from Castle
Wommack to Castle Traveller, most of it over Wilderness that
had never even been walked through, from the far northwest
tip of Kintucky to the far southern coast of Tinaseeh. And if
there was one person any ten flown miles I'd be mighty
surprised, which meant that I didn't have to be careful. There'd
be nobody around to appreciate it, and in my state just then that
was a blessing.
 
I SNAPPED straight from the edge of Kintucky's farming
country to the exact center of the Tmaseeh Wilderness—a five-
day journey in right on seven seconds—and headed Sterling
down toward the treetops I saw below me. I camped in a cave
that would have satisfied a human-size Gentle, and rested the
firil five days. I needed the rest. Then I waited two more days
for good measure, putting them to sensible use gathering herbs
'growing all around my camp; and I SNAPPED to the coast of
 
148 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
Tmaseeh's Midland Sea. I flew in to Castle Traveller in the
ordinary way, right on time.
 
By then I'd acquired a certain new respect for the Family
Traveller and a feeling that their name was a fitting one and
well earned. Tmaseeh made Kintucky look like a kitchen
garden.
 
"There it is, Sterling," I said as we came in. "Castle
Traveller, just as described.*' First, an outer keep of upright
Tinaseeh ironwood logs, standing side by side with their
wicked points an exact twelve feet tall—not an inch deviation
allowed anywhere. Then two inner keeps, made exactly the
same way, one within the other At the heart of the third keep,
the Castle itself, not much bigger than Castle Lewis. And there
was no town, though it had the name of one and one was
planned—Roebuck. The buildings of "Roebuck" hugged in
orderly rows to the walls of the Castle keeps. There'd been no
time yet on Tmaseeh for such a thing as a separate town.
 
According to the computers, there were exactly eleven
hundred and thirteen people on this continent, and all but a
half-dozen were Travellers, Farsons, Guthries, and a stray
Wommack or two. And every structure here was built of
Tinaseeh ironwood, which would not bum, and could only be
cut with a lasersaw, and which could—with sufficient pa-
tience—be tooled by laser to an edge that a person could shave
with. I had seen friendlier-looking places.
 
I was met at the gates of the outer keep by an Attendant, who
sent me under escort to the gate of the next keep beyond, where
they passed me on to a third to take me up to the Castle gates,
and not a word said the whole time beyond regulations.
 
"Greetings, Responsible of Brightwater; follow me."
 
I followed.
 
I had not expected parties here, or parades, or fairs. I knew
better A formal dinner—for twelve—I had expected. And I
was prepared for one Solemn Service after another; that would
strike the Travellers as entertainment enough. Ordinary Solemn
Service on Tinaseeh began on Sundy at 7:00 of the morning
and lasted past noon, to be followed by another session after a
two-hour break for dinner I had anticipated that a company
Solemn Service might well provide me with preaching enough
to fortify me against all the evil I'd have to contend with for the
 
7\velve Fair Kingdoms             149
 
next year or two. I'd expected a substantial edification of my
soul.
 
But I was not prepared for wh'at actually did take place,
which was that ten minutes after I'd freshened up—with an
Attendant standing in my door waiting with an eloquent back
to me, seeing that I didn't tarry over it—I was taken without
further ado to a formal Family Council. Hospitable, it wasn't.
and I felt a sudden steadying in my stomach. This—which was
glorified sass, by the look of it—was more in my line of
experience than what I'd just been through at Wommack. If it
turned out sufficiently extravagant it would even give me
something I needed badly . . . something to keep my unruly
mind in order yet a while.
 
The Meetingroom had walls of varnished ironwood, and it
held a group of people that appeared to be put together of the
same unappealing substance, seated in straight chairs around a
long narrow table. They reminded me of the side-by-side
upright logs mat fenced their keeps, and my traveling costume
stood out in the grim and me gloom like a carnival garb.
 
"Young woman," said the man at the head of the table, "I
am Jeremiah Thomas Traveller the 26th; be seated,"
 
I sat, and he named them off. His wife, Suzannah of Parson.
His three oldest sons: Jeremiah Thomas die 27th, Nahum
Micah the 4th, and Stephen Phillip the 30th . . . why he
wasn't Obadiah Jonas I couldn't imagine; perhaps Suzannah
had pleaded for some relief. His three oldest daughters still at
home—Rosemary, Chastity, and Miranda, every one of mem a
six. His brother, Valen Marion Traveller the 9th. And his own
mothec, now a Granny in this Castle, Granny Leeward. Not
another wife, not a husband, not a child; just the in-Family.
 
"And I," I said, "am Responsible of Brightwater As you
are aware."
 
"We are that," said Suzannah of Farson. "It could hardly be
missed." Her reference was to my outfit, which was in marked
contrast to her own dress of dark gray belted with black. I
smiled at her, sweet as cinnamon sugar, and waited the move.
 
"We have called mis Council in your honor," she said, "and
would like to begin. But you've had a long journey—are you
hungry? Or thirsty? We can have coffee brought, and some
food, if you need it."
 
"Thank you," I said, "I had breakfast before I left."
 
156 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
"Considerate of you," said Suzannah- "We have little time
to waste here on Tinaseeh. It's a hard land, and not meant for
the shiftless."
 
"Proceed, then," I told her "You've no need to coddle me,
I assure you; I'm perfectly comfortable. And I've been in
Council a time or two before. I expect you'll find me able to
tolerate yours."
 
"Are you trying to be insolent, missy?" said the Granny, her
mouth tight. "Or does it just come natural to you?"
 
I considered the question, and I looked her up and down,
and no looking away from her pale blue eyes, either; and I
decided that her question was serious, not just grannying, and
deserved a serious answer
 
"It's a cold welcome you've offered me. Granny Leeward,"
I said, "and not the way an Ozarker's brought up to treat a
guest. As it conies natural to youall to be unpleasant, it comes
natural to me to be unpleasant in return. I'm told I'm good at
it."
 
"Guests," said Granny Leeward, "are invited. You were
not."
 
"True enough," I said. "And you're not the first to point it
out to me."
 
"There are those," she said, "as would of taken instruction
the first time they heard it—and not needed a second statement
of the obvious."
 
"There are those," I said, "as let every little thing put them
off their duty. I am not one of those."
 
Silence. And then the Granny, who appeared to have been
designated spokesperson for this collection of alleged living
beings, began in earnest.
 
"I call for Full Council," she said.
 
"Seconded." And the ayes went round.
 
"Explain your purpose here. Responsible of Brightwater,"
she continued- "And speak up plain. It's a long table."
 
"There's been magic used for mischief on Marktwain," I
said easily. "You know all about that. And a baby kidnapped
from out of a Solemn Service, which is not decent. And in Full
Council it was decided that it might be a good idea to spell out
the particulars to the Twelve Families, as well as find the maker
of the mischief. And it was agreed that I was best equipped to
do that—and here, therefore, I am."
 
"You're a girl of fourteen!" she declared.
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             151
 
"You're a woman of eighty-six. Neither number is
significant."
 
"And what fits a girl of fourteen—it is of significance,
missy, for it means you've neither wisdom nor instruction nor
experience—what fits a girl of fourteen to go gallivanting
around the planet on a Mule, dressed like a whore, pestering
decent folk and creating trouble everywhere she goes?"
 
Well, she was a Granny of eighty-six, and I was a girl of
fourteen, as had just been stated. I took the bait she'd laid for
me as easy as if I'd never heard the word before.
 
Granny Leeward had been holding a black cloth fan, using it
to tap the table with to emphasize the ends of her phrases. By
the time she got to "everywhere she goes" she was holding as
pretty a nosegay of black mushrooms as you'd care to see
anywhere. And they had me.
 
Her hand didn't even quiver, though I knew the mushrooms
stung her—I'd made sure of that, while I was digging myself a
hole to fall in—and she laid them out before her on the table
and folded her arms.
 
"There's your answer," she said. "Just as I told you."
 
Jeremiah Thomas Traveller the 26th looked at his timepiece
and nodded with satisfaction.
 
"Well done, Granny Leeward," he said. "Three minutes
flat."
 
"Mighty sensitive to words, aren't you, child," said their
dear old Granny, "for someone who sets herself so high she
presumes to teach the Twelve Families their manners?"
 
Law, how it galled! I'd of given years off my life to have
back the last five minutes, and sense enough to do them over
right- But that's not how the world works, as I could hear
myself telling other people, and there was nothing I could do
but be silent and see where this would lead roe.
 
The Master of the Castle told roe.
 
"Personally," he said, "I was inclined to think Granny
Leeward was exaggerating some when she told us her estimate
of your abilities. I have daughters of my own, and they do
sometimes play about with Spells and the like, when they get
to be your age—it's a stage, and they grow out of it. But you
seem to have got somewhat beyond that. Responsible of
Brightwater"
 
152 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
"I sincerely beg your pardon," I said sadly '*l*m afraid I
lost my temper—and I'd ask you to lay that to my age, too, if
you would. It won't happen again."
 
"How could it happen at all?"
 
I didn't answer but he wasn't about to drop it.
 
"How does it happen at all," he insisted, "that a girl of
fourteen, whatever special place she may have in the frame of
things, is able to set a Spell like that one you just set, and her
against a skilled Granny?"
 
I saw Granny Leeward's lips twitch at that; she knew very
well no Spell nor Charm would have turned her fan into those
mushrooms. That had required a Substitution Transformation,
and an illegal one, and it had been incredibly stupid of me. A
simple Spell would of been more than enough ... I could of
just heated up the fan a little bit, and had my temper fit that
way. But the Granny wouldn't betray me to a male; she lowered
her eyes, and she kept her silence.
 
"I've studied a good deal," I said carefully, "and I've had
good teachers. Nonetheless, it wasn't nice of me. As I said, I
regret I did it, and I apologize, most respectfully."
 
"Well, Granny Leeward told us you knew a few tricks,"
said her son, "and that she figured it wouldn't take her five
minutes to prove she was right—and it took her three. I don't
mind telling you, young woman, I don't approve of it atall. I'm
sorry my family had to see it happen."
 
"And so is Responsible of Brightwatel;" said the Granny,
twisting the knife. "Pride," she added, "goes along before a
fall."
 
"I'm afraid 'sorry' won't cut it," said Jeremiah Thomas.
"No; I'm afraid it will take more than just sorry to make me
easy with something like you under my roof."
 
Here it came again; I didn't bother to ask.
 
"I'll have your sworn word," he said. "And I'll have it
now,"
 
"Sworn to what?"
 
"That you'll use no magic—not any level. Responsible of
Brightwatel; not even Common Sense—so long as you are, as
you yourself point out, the guest of this Castle and this Family,
and under my roof. Since it's clear you've no sense of what's
decent, you'll make do on mother wit alone."
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
153
 
"Are you that afraid of a few tricks?" I taunted him- "From
a girl of fourteen?"
 
"Indeed I am," he said, "indeed I am! This is a respectable
household, and me people within it not accustomed to scandal.
We follow the old ways here, and we have a wholesome
respect for the power of such as you, no matter how you come
packaged. If you came into my house with a loaded gun, you'd
have to give it up while you stayed here, as would you a flask
of poison, or a lasei; or any other such truck. And I'm a lot
more afraid of magic unbridled than I am of any of those."
 
He turned away from me then and spoke to the son that bore
his name.
 
"I hope you see," he said gravely, "and I hope you will
spread the word among our people, that this is what can be
expected when the old ways are not observed. I'll count on you
to go over it with considerable care when you speak to our
households next—might could be that will tame a few of those
not thinking in the proper way of the Jubilee mis young
woman's been sent around to sponsor"
 
"As a matter of fact, sil," the answer came, "it seems to me
it might be an excellent idea to discuss this whole thing at the
Jubilee. It would perhaps be instructive for the other Families
to hear about."
 
My gown was drenched with my own cold salt sweat, and
my hair clung to my neck like wet weeds. I'd found my guilty,
no doubt about that; it could hardly have been clearer if they'd
had it branded on their foreheads. The venom from around that
table, where almost no one had spoken one word, or more than
stared at me, was as real as my two hands before me, and it
battered at me in waves. 1 admired me cool control of this
Granny—most would have been setting wards.
 
It was a tidy trap, grant diem all mat. If I accused them of
using magic to wreck the Jubilee, or of turning it against Castle
Brightwatel; as I surely could have, there were ten grown men
and women in this room prepared to swear that they'd seen me
carry out an illegal act of magic right before their eyes, under
their own roof, and against one of their own- And they would
be telling the truth. If I'd been against the Confederation my
own self, I could hardly have done it graver harm, and for sure
I'd of been better off listening to my uncles, staying home, and
ignoring the whole thing.
 
154 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
And if I gave them the oath they asked for—as I would have
to do, no question about it, and their Granny there to see that I
left no comers dangling—there'd be no passing this night in
undoing by magic the folly I'd wreaked. I'd lie in my bed and
I'd pray, and I would maybe ciy some; but I'd do no magic.
Not even to look ahead and see just how much chance there
was of any solution to the problem.
 
"Well, let's have your promise," said Jeremiah Thomas.
"Our Granny assures us that your wickedness doesn't extend to
violating your own word, and she's proved she knows yout"
measure. No magic, Responsible of Brightwatei; for so long as
you arc within the continental borders of Tinaseeh. None."
 
He was very sure of himself; we'd gone from "under my
roof" to the whole-continent at remarkable speed. But then, he
was in a position where he could afford to be sure of himself.
 
"I promise," I said. "Certainly."
 
"Put your hands on the table so we can see—"
 
"Oh, Jeremiah Thomas," said Granny Leeward pettishly,
"that's not needful! What do you think she's going to do, cross
her fingers? This one does not play games."
 
"That I do not," I agreed.
 
"Nor do we," said the Granny. "Bear that in mind."
 
"It does not seem to me," said Jeremiah Thomas slowly,
"that just saying she promises is enough, in this case. Have
another look at those mushrooms there, making the table nasty
with their rot, will you, Granny Leeward? She might-^"
 
"She gave her word," said the Granny. "That's all that's
required."
 
"Let her give it in full, then," said her stubborn offspring.
"And I'll be satisfied."
 
I knew the sort of thing that would appeal to him, and having
no choice whatsoever, I gave it to him.
 
"For so long as I am within the continental borders of
Tinaseeh," I intoned, "I will do no magic, of any sort or kind,
at any level, for any reason whatever, no matter what may
come to pass—not even to safeguard this house or those within
it, not even to safeguard myself. My word on it, given in full."
There.
 
I saw the Granny's eyebrows go up at the phrase about
safeguarding their house, but she didn't say a word. I knew
then that there must be at least a couple of Magicians of Rank
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             155
 
in this Castle at this moment—I knew of three that very well
could be—and if there were one or two I didn't know about
besides, it wouldn't be past believing. She was far too calm,
knowing what she knew, not to have quite a backup behind her
own legal skills.
 
"Well?" I asked him. "Will that do it?"
 
"If Granny Leeward approves."
 
"Oh, it's enough," said that one, "and a bit more."
 
"In that case," he said, "we can get on with me business of
this Council."
 
I had thought tricking me into my present position of total
helplessness was the business of his Council; but it was
apparently no more than item one on the agenda.
 
"My sons have a few questions to ask of you, young
woman," he said. "We'll need a bit more of your time."
 
They wanted to know a lot of things. What arrangements I
had made for seeing to it that the Families would be safe at
Brightwater during the Jubilee—from "malicious magic," to
use their term, and their using it struck me as astonishing gall
considering that they were its source. It amounted to saying,
"If we come in with fifty vials of deadly poison to spread
around, what have you got on hand that will be able to stop
us?" They wanted to know details of the schedule for the
Jubilee; if, presumably, I had ways to keep it going, then how
much time would have to be "wasted" on frivolity before we
could get down to the real purpose of the meeting? What the
real purpose of the meeting was. Why I felt such an outlay of
time and trouble and money was justified, when there were
Wildernesses to be cleared and roads to be laid and wells to be
dug and windmills and solar collectors to be built and crops to
be planted and fish to be caught, and game to be hunted, and
other serious work that went understaffed and underfunded and
would grow more so while we fooled away time at Brightwatei:
 
What did I assume would be accomplished by this "gaudy
display" that couldn't have been taken care of at an ordinary
meeting of the Confederation of Continents? How many were
being invited from each Family, and how many had accepted?
Where would they be staying, and who'd see to their comfort?
Did I give my guarantee that it would be not only safe for
children, but an edifying experience—and if not, how did I
propose to justify leaving them all behind? Would all the
 
1S6 SUZETTE HAOEN ELGIN
 
Magicians of Rank be present at the Jubilee, and all the
Magicians, and for that matter; all the Grannys? And if so,
why—who needed them there and for what? And if not, why
not, and what would they be doing behind our backs instead?
 
It went on and on, and it was thorougher than could be
excused by any motive except wearing me out and humiliating
me, and rubbing my nose some more in my sudden "position of
servility to their will. I had no trouble with any of the
questions; they set them in turn, each son asking three, and
then politely yielding to his brother Every word I said was
information already available to them in Ae proceedings and
proclamations of the Confederation over at least the last three
years, and there'd not been a single Confederation meeting
where one of those sons—and sometimes the father as well—
had not sat as delegate. My throat got raw, and my back got
tired, and they went on and on, learning nothing they didn't
already know.
 
"That's enough," said Suzannah of Parson at last, long after
I'd decided they intended to keep it up all night.
 
"Granny?" said Jeremiah Thomas.
 
"Been enough a long while,'* said Granny Leeward, "and
you've made your point. I've heard nothing that made my ears
stand up, and you'll not wear that one out Just prattling at
her—your sons are showing off, and they begin to irritate me
some. You forget your own position on moderation, Jeremiah
Thomas?"
 
He flushed, and the sons looked whiter and grimmer than
evci; but he didn't cross her He Just pointed at the mushrooms,
now, I'm happy to say, a really stinking mess of putrid black on
their tabletop, and said, "What about those?"
 
"I'll see to them," said me Granny. "Never you mind."
 
"You wouldn't dare touch them," I said coldly.
 
"You think not, missy?"
 
"1 know not!" As I did, I'd have handled them with a great
deal of care my own self.
 
"I'll have them seen to, then," she told her son. "Comes to
me same thing."
 
Jeremiah Thomas Traveller stood up, then, and adjourned
the Council, took his lady on his arm and led us all out of there,
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             257
 
and sent me on to my room with another of his silent
 
Attendants.
•
 
I was right about the Magicians of Rank. When I woke that
night and felt the heat of my skin, I cursed myself bitterly for
not taking precautions sooner before I'd had my hands tied by
my own oaths. I could take the search for the source of the
epidemic at Castle Wommack off my long list of postponed
duties—I'd found it. And anybody that could bring themselves
•    to lay innocent women and children low with Anderson's
Disease, just for display, was unlikely to scruple at providing
someone like me with the same unpleasant experience. And
knowing that, I'd surely ought to of taken some steps to
i    prevent it; like a lot of other things, it hadn't entered my mind.
^      I sent word to Granny Leeward by way of the guardmaid
j?.    outside my door, and the Granny sent back a full crew. Four of
^ •'   them, all in Traveller black, though two of them had no right to
^    wear it. They stood around my bed and smiled down on me,
;H'    hands behind their backs.
 
H      "Twenty-four hours from now. Responsible of Brightwater,"
||    said one, "you'll be fit as a fiddle."
||      I felt the terrible need to twist and writhe, and my breath
^    bumed in my chest as I drew it, but I'd encountered pain before
^   that matched this and surpassed it. and I'd had some practice in
H    dealing with the stuff. I'd not give them the satisfaction of
^    seeing one of my smallest toes move while they watched; and I
"•    lay still as a pond while the spasms moved over my muscles
like live snakes, and I smiled back.
 
"I didn't know you were all still in training," I said, forcing
the words through a throat that threatened to shut tight on me.
"A competent Magician of Rank could stop this in twenty-four
seconds."
 
They went right on smiling, and allowed as how Granny
Leeward had said that it would do my soul good to have the
deathdance fever for twenty-four hours.
 
"The Granny gives you orders, does she? You don't mind
that?"
 
I was looking for a weak spot, but they knew what I was up
to, of course, and they ignored me. A smugger quartet of
elegant males I'd never laid eyes on, and they reminded me of
my mushrooms—before the rot set m, of course. There I lay,
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
158
 
foibidden to so much as wish on a star till I left Tmaseeh; and
there they stood, able to add a notch or two to their accounts
with Responsible of Brightwalei; in perfect safety. It would
have been too much not to expect them to enjoy it.
 
CHAPTER 12
 
T.   Now IT'S TRUE that when I proposed a Quest as the way to
^   demonstrate Brightwater's status, symbol returned in kind for
^   symbol given, I was completely serious about the idea. I don't
 
want that misunderstood. No Ozarker takes any formal
^   construct of magic—and a Quest is one of the most rigorous of
those—lightly. Like I said, you go tampering and tinkering
with an equilibrium as delicate as the system of magic, you're
' _ going to cause radical distortions in places you never even
considered would be touched. I was absolutely serious in my
choice. And the choice I made had had solid motivations back
of it.
 
Those that wanted to undermine the Confederation could
have gone about their task in the most mundane way, you see.
They could of simply boycotted meetings, straight out and
without concern for who joined them at it. They could of
started banging heads in the straightforward physical sense,
though the public outrage at that would of backfired on them by
tile third blow landed—still, they could have. More reasonably,
they could of used economic strategies of one kind or another
though for those on the wilder continents where self-
 
159
 
160 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
sufficiency was a long way off yet that might of earned heavy
penalties for their populations. But they had not chosen any of
those measures, nor yet anything like them. They had made
their decision to go at it on the level of magic—and the
principle of fighting fire with fire is sufficiently venerable to
make the idea of going back at them the same way look
perfectly sound. Fighting magic with science has never been
handy.
 
But let's grant it now and be done with it, the Quest was not
all I had available to me, by a long shot. True, they'd flung a
gauntlet and made a planetary display of a very special kind;
 
not so much what they actually did—as had been made plain at
that first Brightwater Council—but their clear notice as to what
they thought they could do if they took the notion. We couldn't
of just let that pass, not and kept our place among the Families
as the informal—but only actual—seat of central government
for Ozark, It was a dare they'd made, and a contemptuous dare
at that, right up to the baby-snatching; and I'd figured that last
move was made not so much because they weren't sure how far
they should go, but because I kept dawdling around and not
responding, and time was a-wasting. They'd meant to shake
me loose from my dawdling, and hanging the baby up in the
cedar tree did accomplish that,
 
But looking back . . . looking back and feeling a lot more
than the six, seven weeks older I actually was when I at last left
Castle Traveller behind me, I could see that I had gone butting
my head where it was not necessarily called foe Now that it
was all over but the dirty work I began with, and the dirty work
I'd piled up along the way, I could see all the other alternatives
I had censored right out of my head at the time.
 
I could have assembled the Magicians, from all three levels,
by a full call-up at Brightwaiei, and made some kind of
spectacular display of my competence mere; and then sent
them all back home to think about that awhile. I could of
delegated the whole process to the Magicians of Rank from
Marktwain, Oklahomah, and Mizzurah, and let them demon-
strate our magical strength to the others, with whatever
judicious behind-the-scenes string-pulling that might of re-
quired on my part. I could, for the Twelve Corners' sakes, just
of used the comset for a display of our abilities, planet-wide.
Or I could of seen to it that one highborn baby in every
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             161
 
Kingdom popped into a tree during a Solemn Service at the
same identical instant—my Magicians of Rank could have
managed that easily, and it would of put the rest on adequate
notice that they'd best pull back.
 
I hadn't considered, hadn't even brought up, any of those
things.
 
It was clear to me, as I headed away from Tinaseeh with my
ego as bruised as my body, that what I had really wanted had in
far too many ways been just what the Grannys were claiming it
was as I made my rounds. I had, I guess, wanted to show off,
and to do it personally and get full credit; and I had been
champing at the bit for an excuse to get away from Brightwater
and all the dull routine of my duties there, not to mention the
preparations for the Jubilee that others had had to carry on with
while I took my vacation. The speed with which I'd gotten
underway was the speed of guilt—I had just grabbed at the
Quest concept, all loaded with tradition and symbolic signifi-
cance like it was, for an excuse.
 
If there'd been any of the Marktwain Grannys present at that
meeting in February, they might well have found a way to stop
me; I wished mightily now that someone had. But neither my
mother nor my grandmother had had a chance against my
willfulness, and it was not the way of Patience of dark to step
in and take action unasked.
 
No, I'd had a dandy idea for getting away from it all for a
while, and had gone about it pigheaded as you please, and how
it was all to be managed now or at the Jubilee. I surely did not
know.
 
"Sterling," I said, looking down on the Ocean of Remem-
brances just before we SNAPPED over all that boring endless
water, "I've been a blamed fool. And I only hope I've learned
enough from it to pay me back."
 
She brayed at me twice, and slid sideways in a truly
spectacular wobble that set me grabbing the straps and fighting
for control of my stomach. They were still at it ... and I
smacked her hard on the shoulder, and held fast, and
swallowed bile, and got out of there.
 
I had a better understanding now of the lay of things, Castle
to Castle, there was that. I had a picture of sorts, thanks to the
Gentle, of the trouble brewing on Arkansaw and where that
 
162 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
might yet lead. I'd had a first look at my own personal
nemesis, foretold these nine years, and had gotten away from
him intact but for my pride, this time. And every one of the
Families, excepting the Smiths, had had a chance to deal with
me directly on its own turf. I suppose that would do for a short
list.
 
I was also tired, and ten pounds thinnei; and had been
mauled about pretty extensively, and had maybe ignored a
Skerry sighting because I hadn't wanted to bother with it. I had
allowed myself to be trapped by a passel of Travellers, like a
child, and had no way of knowing what action they might take
against me at the Jubilee with the new knowledge they had,
and their determination to make good use of it. And my
original task, the Goal of my Quest—bringing home the exact
name of the traitor or traitors—that still had to be done.
 
I've mentioned pride before; I have it in abundance. It was
one thing to admit to myself that Granny Golightly had had the
right of it and I'd just taken off because I wanted to gallivant. It
was one thing to admit that my fancy triumphant symbolic
Quest had been more a series of accidents and misfires than
anything else, when it hadn't been plain boring. Lying to your
own self is a sure way to go to hell in a handbasket, and the
time had come to 'fess up. But that was to my own self. I was
not about to go back to Castle Brightwatel; march into me halls
and say—to Jubal and Emmalyn's great satisfaction, and my
mother's—"Well, youall were right. It was a silly tiling to do
in the first place, and I'm worse off man I was before I left.
Begging your pardon." Oh no! Bruised ego, bruised spirit,
bruised body, all the blacks-and-blues of me notwithstanding, I
would arrive home with an appearance of having won mis one,
come what may. Come what may.
 
And that was why I was now coming in over Castle Airy,
instead of heading for home. Airy was a Castle of women,
used to cosseting women and always willing to cosset one
more, and I intended to take full advantage of that. I was going
to let Charity of Guthrie and her daughters and nieces and
cousins, and her three resident Grannys, feed me up and make
over me and listen to my troubles and spoil me generally until I
had accomplished what I'd set out to accomplish and could go
on home in a state of sufficient dignity to at least fool Emmalyn
of dark and Thom of Guthrie.
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
163
 
It was possible, if you were traveling by Mule, to fly into
Castle Airy through a great arch cut in its front wall over the
sea for mat express purpose. I slowed Sterling and we moved
in through the opening and down onto the easy-arced ramp at
its base, me with a wary hand on the Mule's bridle against
another of those wobbles, and straight into the sidecourt of the
Castle where the stables were.
 
A stableman came forward to see to the Mule and greet me,
and I slid gratefully down from Sterling's back onto the
flagstones of me court, and stood there a minute to brace
myself.
 
. "You weren't expected, Miss Responsible," said the stable-
man. "and you arrived a bit sudden. I sent a servingmaid as
soon as I saw you coming in over the walei; to tell the ladies;
 
somebody should be here directly to take you to the Missus."
 
"Thank you," I said. "I appreciate your courtesy."
 
"You took tired, miss," he said, and I admitted that I was
tired—but not how tired.
 
"It's been a long trip," I told him. "A lot of flying and a lot
of company behavior, which is worse. A day or two'll right
me. You take my Mule on, if you will, and see to her; I'll wait
right here."
 
He gave me a long considering look, and stood his ground.
 
"Believe I'll wait until somebody comes for you," he said.
"I don't care that much for the look of your eyes, nor your
peakedy face, and Charity of Guthrie'd put me back to peeling
roots in the kitchen if I went on off and you fainted or some
such trick. Your Mule'11 keep awhile."
 
I didn't argue with him—he meant well—and we stood there
in silence, me not being up to polite conversation and him not
seeming to mind, until a young woman came hurrying toward
us from a side comdoi. with Charity of Guthrie herself right
behind hec
 
Charity took one look at me, wrapped her arms round me,
and rocked me like a baby.
 
"Poor child," she said, "you're worn clear out. You're the
color of spoiled goat-cheese and not much more appealing-
looking. What in the world have you been doing to yourself?"
 
"I should of sent you a message I was coming," I said, all
muffled against the burgundy front of her dress. (And I would
have, too, if I hadn't known I could shave a bit off my traveling
 
164 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
time by not letting people know precisely when I was taking off
and landing.)
 
"Never you mind that," she said, "I'm glad you came, and
no warning needed. It'll be a cold day in a mighty hot place
when this Castle can't put up one scrawny girlcmid on short
notice. You're welcome here any time." And she hugged me
close again, bless hei; and bless her some more. I can't
remember when I've needed hugging worse.
 
She sent the man off with Sterling into the usual racket the
Mules made greeting one another, told the servingmaid that had
come with her to take my things up to the guestchamber I'd had
before, and led me straight up to her own sitting room where
she settled me in a rocker, with a quilt over my feet and a mug
of strong hot coffee in my hand.
 
The Grannys came drifting in, then, one by one, and the
daughters, and we soon had a roomful. And the Grannys lost
no time.
 
"Well, youngun, how'd it go?" said Granny Heatherknit;
 
she was senior here, at one hundred and eleven. "Your famous
Quest, I mean . . . did you do enough damage to satisfy your
craving?"
 
Charity of Guthrie's lips tightened, but I looked at her hard
over my coffee and she made no move to call them off. We
both knew mis had to be gotten through sooner or laid; and it
might as well be sooner
 
"Went well enough," I said judiciously. "Well enough—
considering."
 
"Considering?"
 
"Considering that not a one of you helped me in any way
whatsoever," I said. Bedamned if I'd count mat squawker egg
out in the Wilderness; Granny Golightly had owed me that one.
 
"Not a one of who?" said Forthright. "Not a one of what?"
 
"Not a one of you Grannys," Iretorted. "Nearthirtyofyou
there are here on this planet—"
 
"Twenty-nine, child, twenty-nine!" said Granny
Heatherknit.
 
"Nearly thirty," I insisted, "and you did not one thing to
help me the whole time I was gone."
 
"For which," said Granny Flyswift, jabbing the air in front
of her with her knitting needles, "for which there are three
good and sufficient reasons! One—this was your own tomfool
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             165
 
idea, and none of ours, and none of our advice asked before
you set out on it, hot out of here like a Mule with a burr under
its tail! Two—you know the conditions on a Quest ... ad-
ventures aplenty required and supposed to be unpleasant, or it
doesn't count—and Granny Golightly herself reminded you of
mat in case it'd slipped your mind? And three—the best way
for any child to learn that a flame'll bum him is to let him stick
his finger in it; that makes for remembrance."
 
"Yes, ma'am, Granny Flyswift," I said. I had it all coming.
 
"Now what did you learn that's useful to anybody but your
stubborn self, missy?" demanded Granny Heatherknit again.
 
Charity's daughter Caroline-Ann, sitting on a windowseat
with her skirts drawn up and her legs tucked undei, asked if that
couldn't wait dll I'd had some supper She was twelve years
old, and a lot like her mother
 
"No-sa," said Granny Heatherknit. "She's still able to sing
for that supper, and I'm right interested in her tune."
 
"Well," I said, "I learned mat a girl of sixteen as can put her
hair up in a figure-eight and knows all the modem dances
should not be called a child or treated like one."
 
The Grannys peered at each other and snickered; and I
wondered what foul task they had poor Silverweb of
McDaniels doing that very minute.
 
"And, I learned that a giant cavecat stinks, in more ways
man one. 1 learned mat broken ribs are as inconvenient me
second time as me first, and that where everybody's trying to
keep the corks in their homebrew nobody has much time for
me export trade."
 
"So far, so accurate," said Granny Heatherknit. "Go on."
 
"I learned that being licked to death is nasty."
 
"No argument with that."
 
"I learned mat just about anything propped up in the
moonlight and painted me right color is sufficient to turn a
guilty bead. I learned that one continent can hold two very
small birds, and only one of them have gumption enough to fly.
I learned that Just because a Granny isn't using the old
formspeech doesn't mean her garlic won't work."
 
"She's only fifty-nine," snorted Granny Flyswift. "Give her
time, she'll outgrow her notions."
 
"She did very well," I told the old woman. "Very well
indeed."
 
166 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
And I went on. "I learned that a Family truly set on a curse
can bring one down on them. And, last of all, I learned that a
person can't knit with both hands tied together"
 
"Think not?" said Flyswift.
 
"Well, / surely couldn't."
 
Granny Heatherknit scrunched up her eyebrows over her
glasses—which she didn't need and doubtful she ever would—
and I could see her counting.
 
"You left out Castle Purdy," she said. "What happened
there?"
 
"There's what I will tell," I answered, "and there's what I
won't." (And about the Gentle coming to see me—I wouldn't).
 
"Hmmmph," said Granny Heatherknit. "That might be the
most important piece of all."
 
"None of it," said Caroline-Ann of Airy sadly, "meant
anything to me. As usual."
 
To my surprise. Granny Heatherknit turned to her and spoke
almost gently; that girl must have a way with her
 
"Caroline-Ann." said the Granny, "if you keep in mind that
what Responsible of Brightwater's doing is trying to see how
much she can not tell—despite being asked most politely—
you'll understand why you found her remarks on the murky
side. She's riddling, can't you hear that?"
 
"It didn't rhyme," said Caroline-Ann. "I never recognize
riddles when they don't rhyme."
 
"Well, take the list she gave you and rhyme it, then," said
Granny Heatherknit. "Set it to a tune for us, Caroline-
Ann . . . good exercise for you, and we'll have something
new for tale-telling makings."
 
"Granny Heatherknit, that would be hard!" objected
Caroline-Ami, and that seemed to me accurate. "You don't
mean I have to?"
 
"Think you should," said the Granny, and the other two
nodded their agreement.
 
"Pheew!" said one of the huddle of girls on the floor below
the sill where Caroline-Ann was. "Glad it's you and not me,
Caroline-Ann!"
 
"Easy rhymes," said Granny Flyswift calmly. "Cat. Rib.
Bird. Knit. Suchlike. You can manage that, Caroline-Ann; we
give you three days, and then we'll hear it."
"Oh, blast!"
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             167
 
Caroline-Ann sat up straight and dropped her legs over the
sill, careful not to kick anybody. "Naturally 1 had to open my
mouth with three Grannys in the room! Botheration!"
 
I felt sorry for hei; but I needn't have; it took her only half an
hour to do the task set, and we had the song from her right after
supper that night. It went like this:
 
CAROLINE-ANN'S SONG
 
A girl of sixteen as can put up her hair
in a figure-eight knot, and can -do it alone,
and can dance through the figure-eights smartly as well-
mat girl is no child, but a woman full grown!
 
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwater:
 
That's what I learned.
 
The smell of a cavecat is ranker than bile,
and a cavecat's attentions are close to its chest,
and a cavecat that moves a mysterious mile
has a second rank odor that's risky at best!
 
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwaiei;
 
That's what I learned.
 
A rib as is broken will ravage your breath,
and the second time round it will ravage your pride,
and it's cold comfort knowing while choking to death
that none of the damage shows on the outside!
 
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwatei.
 
That's what I learned.
 
A cellar of homebrew with corks to be set
 
and a hot spell ahead as makes setting them hard
 
keeps a family home from the market and road,
 
58            SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
keeps a family corked to its Hall and its yard!
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwatei;
 
That's what I learned.
 
A Yallerhound's neither a hound nor a dog,
it's a bag full of water with a topcoat of hair;
 
it will drown you in slobber for the sake of pure love,
let the Yallerhound owner think well and beware!
 
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwatei;
 
That's what I learned.
 
A chair in the moonlight all painted with gold
is easily taken for royalty's throne,
and a conscience that's guilty can easily see
a scepter and crown in a rock and a bone!
 
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwatei;
 
That's what I learned.
 
Two little pretty birds sharing one nest,
hidden away in the littlest tree;
 
one has a leash on and sorrows to know it,
and envies the other that dares to fly free!
 
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwatei;
 
That's what I learned.
 
A Granny should cackle and gabble and nag,
and twist her tongue round to the formspeech
 
and motions,
 
but garlic still wards if she knows her craft right,
and as she adds years she'll no doubt drop her notions'
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwatei;
 
That's what I learned.
 
A Family as goes through its days set on gloom,
talking of curses and harping of fate,
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             169
 
eyes to the past and determined to suffer,
will get what it asks for served up on its plate!
 
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwatec,
 
That's what I learned.
 
A person whose hands are tied tight at her back,
a person who's bound like a goat to a spit,
a person in such a predicament can't
neither gather nor sow, neither broider nor knit!
 
That's what I learned, said the daughter of
Brightwatei;
 
That's what I learned.
 
And there was a nice pre-verse to it, too, for times when
there might be those singing back and forth:
 
What did you learn as you flew out so fine,
splendid on Muleback, dressed like a queen?
What did you learn, daughter of Brightwater?
Tell us the wonderful things that you've seen!
 
I could see how, throwing that in every time a verse came
round, you could use up a good part of an evening with that
song. And I was especially impressed with Caroline-Ann's
solution to die fact that there's no way anybody can sing my
awkward name. It was a fine song, every syllable and note in
its proper place, and it added a certain respectability to my
Quest, which was why the Grannys had demanded it, of
course. I expected to hear a good deal in future of this daughter
of Airy.
 
I passed two blissful days being mothered by Charity, and
teased by her Grannys, and generally catching my breath, and
by the end of the third day I felt able to face my role in this
world once again. I was grateful to Castle Airy for that,
because I had arrived in a sony condition. And I kept humming
Caroline-Ann's song.
 
And then on the third night, I set about catching myself a
serpent. Or serpents, as the case might be.
 
Jf     *     «I
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
m
 
I waited until all the Castle was sound asleep, and then I
took my three baths: one hot, one cold, and one of herbs. I
pulled my lawn gown through the small gold ring and saw that
it passed without wrinkle or raveling to show for the trip, and I
slipped it over my head. I put my black velvet ribbon around
my neck, and braided my hail. I set wards and double-wards,
which took some time; the guestchamber I was in had three
doors and eight windows, and there had to be a pentacle at
every one of them, and a double one at the corridor door where
the Grannys might pass in their night-prowls.
 
It was past midnight before I was finally able to climb up
into the center of my bed, set a pentacle round me with white
sand from my shammybag, and take what was needml out of
my pouch.
 
A bowl of clearest crystal, exactly the size of my closed fist,
crystal so clear you had to look twice to see it was there. A vial
of water from the desert spring on Marktwain that was holy to
Skerrys, Gentles, and Ozarkers, and exactly twelve drops of
that water poured into the bottom of the tiny bowl- My
shammybags—one full of sand, one of fresh herbs, one of
dried herbs, one of talismans. My gold chain, and my gold
ring. Everything else I needed was inside my head.
 
I laid them all out around me within easy reach, and I
crossed my legs and sat up straight, and realized that in no way
was I tired any longer Youth does have its compensations.
 
Now—we should see what we should see!
 
The needed Formalism was an Insertion Transformation; I
wanted a name where I had a null term now, and I wanted more
than just "Traveller" to fill that null.
 
I set down the Structural Index in a double row of herbs, and
the Structural Change I laid right underneath it. I set the bowl
of desert water in the space of the null term, and I made the
double-barred arrow with my hands above the water
 
"Let there be," I said over the whole, "a name, sub-N; and
let there be a filling of the null term, sub-T; and let there be no
alteration of the underlying structure, sub-S!"
 
The whole of it looked correct, but I checked it over one
more time, for rigor—
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
m
 
^  r^. ^ A ——
 
fy o^f - xvivs «^
 
^- ^
 
fV<Y ^ ^M«;iA\Ms
CX- \-v ^J
 
• •• •
^
 
—and then I closed it off with the symbol \y
 
I watched the water closely while it dimmed and clouded
and bubbled, and finally cleared again. And then I jumped like
a child stuck with a pin!
 
I'd expected a Traveller, naturally (and maybe half a dozen
more of them, one for every time I repeated the Transforma-
tion, since I could change only one term at a time); and I had
for sure expected to see a man! Despite the mention that
Silverweb of McDaniels was husky enough, if properly
clothed, to pass for a man and fly a Rent-a-Mule through a
church, I'd been convinced no female was behind any of this.
 
But the face that looked up at me from the water; no bigger
man my thumbnail but clear in every smallest detail, and
certainly clear in its utter terror; belonged to none of the
Travellers and to no man. ... It was Una of Clark.
 
Una, the silent domestic daughter of Clark, the doting
mother of five with the amazingly slim waist . . . whose
husband was a Travellei: Whose husband wore the Traveller
black despite all his years in his father-in-law's cheerful Castle.
 
I never, never would have suspected her Never! She had
seemed to me the dullest woman I'd come across on this
planet, up to and including the gawkiest and rawest serving-
maid Just decided to try her luck in a Castle and still not sure
where the doors were- And she had fooled me. Fooled me pure
and simple!
 
172 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
"Una of dark'" I said over the walei; a couple of times,
"Una of Clark?" Had it been Sterling looking out at me, I
could not of been more astonished.
 
Then I tensed—fooling me that well, she might have other
skills equally foolsome. If the water began to boil in that
crystal bowl again, or cloud over, I wanted to be ready to set a
new Transformation on it before she got away from me. But the
minutes passed, with only the sound of my heart beating loud
in the room, and there was no change—only the tiny, so tiny,
shivering figure in the water; and very gradually I had all of
hei, not just her face.
 
You can't speak, of course, when you're trapped in blessed
springwater by a Transformation, nor can you move. I
appeared to have her at my mercy, and I had the rest of the
night to decide what to do about that. Which was not so much
time; the clock had just struck two.
 
I was not precisely free in this; I could go just so far and no
farther Murder's murdei; whether you do it with a hatchet or a
Transformation, and it's not allowed. It would have tidied
things up, and I will admit it even crossed my mind, though
that shocks me. because I was so put out; but it could not be
done. A Deletion Transformation to remove Una of Clark from
the matrix of this universe was certainly possible, but it would
violate the primary constraint on all magic: it is not allowed,
ever, to change the Meaning of things. To do that is the use of
magic for evil, and the moral penalties for evil by hatchet are a
good deal less severe. They, at least, are administered by
people. I'd come within a hair's breadth of violating that
constraint when I tampered with Granny Leeward's fan, and a
very good thing I'd watched the shaping of that nosegay when I
lost the rest of my mind; if she'd cared to, she still could of
fanned herself with me mushrooms.
 
Since my choices were pretty rigorously constrained, it
didn't take me long to select among them. At twenty minutes
of three I had finished a bounded Movement Transformation,
and I faced Una of Clark, dry now in the night wind and back
to her standard size, on a narrow rock ledge at the foot of the
cliffs where Castle Airy stood. The waves crashed over the
rock where we were, and I motioned her to move back into the
small cave I'd noted as I flew in that day.
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             173
 
"Don't you come near me!" she screamed at me, and threw
up her hands before her face to shield it. "Don't you dare!"
 
"If you drown here, Una of Clark," I shouted back at hei;
 
tfae wind taking my words and making clattering skeletons out
of them, "if you fall into that sea that boils not ten inches from
the tip of your dainty white foot, it will be your own fault' And
I'll -not be mourning you, you'll have saved me a great deal of
trouble! Get back away from the edge, as I tell you now, and
into that cave—move! Get!"
 
"I'm afraid, I'm afraid," she whimpered, hunkering down
into the wind. "Oh, I don't dare move. . . . I'm so afraid!"
Drat the woman; I did not really want her to drown, and it
looked as though she might. The stone under our feet was like
glass, polished by the constant wind and water, and me wind
gusting high, and some of the waves were striking us to our
knees and more.
 
"Well, you ought to be afraid," I countered, "you surely
ought! That ocean is as near bottomless as makes no differ-
ence, woman, and you're going into it sure if you don't pull
back!"
 
I saw her sway as the spray was flung against her . . . and
fool that she was, she did move—closer to the rim of the ledge.
 
Law, I had no time for foolishness; I traced the double-
barred arrow in the air and Moved her myself, safe into the
narrow shelter cut by the water, and I followed her in just
inches ahead of a wave that would have had us both sure, not a
second to spare.
 
It was dark in there, and I set a glow around her and around
me, so that we could see one another The roar of the waves
was under us and all around us, too, it was everywhere, and
with each one the whole mountain seemed to shudder under
our feet; but we were safe enough there until the tide rose.
 
"Witch ..." she hissed at me ... a serpent she was,
right enough ... her teeth chattering, back pressed to the
cave wall and her bare feet curled to the curve of the hollowed
rock. And she said it once again, a good deal boldet "Witch!"
 
"Nonsense," I said- "I'm nothing of the kind."
 
"Oh," she said, "you're not a witch? Reckon you didn't
snatch me out of my bed and trap me first in some . . . some
noplace . . . where I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt noth-
ing, but your wicked face over me as big as all the sky, and
 
174 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
your eyes boring down on me, each of them big as a Castle
gate . . . and then you brought me here, you SNAPPED me
here! Think I don't know that's the only way you could drag a
decent woman halfway round a continent through the night
from her husband's side?"
 
"Oh, stop it," I said, and sat down on the bare rock in pure
disgust. I had been prepared to feel some challenge here,
maybe some respect for my opponent, but I was just plain
disgusted. She was the one responsible for what had been
happening to the milk and the mirrors and the streetsigns, all
right—the spring water does not lie, nor do the Transforma-
tions fail. But the interference with the flight of the Mules? Just
as I'd been too slow to see that when I should of seen it right
off, I'd misunderstood it completely when I finally got to it,
and gone to an awful lot of unnecessary trouble as a result of
my blindness.
 
"Here I thought the reason that everything was Just barely
over the bounds of half-done was cleverness," I said crossly,
wishing I dared smack her face and knowing the thought was
shameful. "Here I thought that just making the Mules wobble a
tad instead of making them crash was a way of showing your
finesse, and a way of hinting at what dread things you might do
if you chose to! You realize dial? And all along, all this
miserable long time, Una of dark, it was just that you aren't
very good at what you do! All along, with your piddling little
tricks, you've been doing the very bestyou could, haven't you?
Why, we had the whole damned thing clean backwards!
Damn!"
 
"Well, it worked, didn't it?" she spat at me, and she had me
there.
 
And then she hid her face against her shoulder and screamed
into the darkness, over and over that same foolish word—
"Witch! Witch! Witch!"—until I was nearly distracted. I
suppose that was what Gabriel Laddercane Traveller UK 34th
had used against hei; all through the nights of their marriage,
lying beside her in their bed, whispering while he stroked her
thighs and that slim waist, convincing her to tackle magic far
beyond what she was trained in or fit for or had any legal right
to even think of. If he'd truly convinced her that she was doing
battle against witchcraft when she raised her weak hand against
me . . . it did not excuse hei; but I could see how he might
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             175
 
have used that as a levee Especially with her far gone in the
sickness of Romantic Love; it would of served his needs well,
and paid him for his long exile from his father's house, and
explained why he'd put up with it over these long years instead
of taking her away. The threads that ran to this night were
sticky ones, and they clung.
 
"Well. now. what am I going to do with you?" I asked hei;
 
and myself, out loud. "What am I going to do about you, Una
of dark?"
 
I'd lost all taste for harming hei; she was only pathetic; but
she couldn't be allowed to go on with her mischief, bungling as
it was, all the same. Nor could she be allowed to go back and
talk about any of this, and I was by no means sure she had
brains enough to see that.
 
"Una?" I said sharply. "Una of dark? You look at me!"
 
"No! You'll turn me into something horrible if I do!"
 
Turn her into something horrible? What did she think she'd
done to herself?
 
"Look at me, you foolish, silly woman!"
 
She lifted her head then, and her eyes were like two huge flat
fish in her white face. Most unappealing.
 
"Una, what did you think you were trying to do?" I asked
her "Maybe if you tell me that I'll be able to see my way."
 
To my astonishment, she raised her hands beside her face,
spread her fingers wide as they would stretch, and recited
straight at me—
 
ASS.
 
BEDPOLE.
CHAMBERPOT-
DEAD OF THE NIGHT.
EGG-ROTTEN BIRD DUNG.
FISTFULS OF MEALY WORMS.
NIGHT OF THE DEAD.
POTCHAMBER.
POLEBED.
ASS.
 
I was flabbergasted. As nasty a Charm as I'd Tieard
anywhere, and bold as brass about it, terrified as she was. But
no elegance. No style! And put together all cockeyed to boot.
 
176 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
I'd seen six-year-old girls do a sight better than that, and
without anything nasty in it to help them along, either;
 
I said:
 
AIR.
 
BALSAM.
 
CINNAMON.
 
DENY ME NAUGHT.
 
EVERMORE WEEPING.
 
FOLLOW ME EVERYWHERE.
 
EVERMORE SLEEPING.
 
DOUBLE MY WORTH.
 
CINDERMAN.
 
BELLTONGUE.
 
AIR.
 
"And," I added, "if you'd like to go on to twelve syllables
and back, in twelve sets of rhymed pairs, I'm ready. But do
hurry, Una of Clark, because I intend to be in my bed before
breakfast."
 
By that dme, when she began to sob hopelessly, choking and
sputtering, I wasn't surprised. I wondered what her life was
going to be like, from this night on; she wasn't built for a
burden like this, and her husband had chosen a poor instrument
to break to his evil.
 
"See where foolish love will lead you?" I said to her
sorrowfully. "See where it will lead you, woman? bitofoUy,
into shame, into disgrace. . . . Why didn't you tell him to do
his own dirt? What would your father and mother say of you,
Una of Clark, if they only knew what you have done?'*
 
She only blubbered harder. and I was sick of watching her
 
"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," I said, "and I suggest
you listen to me more carefully than you've been listening to
your Reverend these last few years. For I'm not playing with
you, and 1 warn you—I'm no Granny, to just put toads in your
bed and rashes under your armpits and keep your cakes from
rising. You do understand that?"
 
"What are you, really?" she hissed at me. "What are you?"
 
"Nor am I a witch," I went right on, ignoring that, "for if I
were, you would have been at the bottom of that ocean long
before mis, and you know it very well. If I were a witch, Una
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
177
 
of Clark, I'd set a Substitution Transformation. And another
woman that looked just like you and talked just like you and
walked just like you and moaned in the loving arms of Gabriel
Laddereane Traveller just like you would go home from here—
but she would not be you. You would be feeding the fishes and
she would be only a Substitute, and nobody would ever know."'
 
"Go ahead, then—you can do it, why don't you, and leave
off torturing me?"
 
"Because I'm not a witch, I'm a law-abiding well-brought-
up woman, that you've caused a lot more trouble than there's
any excusing you for, that's why!"
 
"Then what are you going to do?" she whispered. "Make
me ugly? Make me crippled? Oh dear saints. Responsible of
Brightwater, what is it going to be?"
 
"Your mind is a cesspool," I said, staring at her "A
cesspool. Make you ugly and cripple you indeed!"
 
"Tell me!"
 
"What I am going to do is set a Binding Spell on you," I
said. "That and nothing more. Seven years, Una of Clark,
you'll say no word about this night or about what you know of
roe, or about what you've done. And seven years, you'll do no
magic you haven't earned the rank for You not even a Granny
or any chance of ever being one. ... I'll bind you seven
years; and then you're free to do your worst."
 
She went limp against the rock; I was glad mere wasn't any
place for her to fall to.
 
"The reason I'm stopping there," I went on as I made my
preparations, "is because I am nof a witch! And because I have
no desire to go beyond what's decent. You're a woman—and
you're a Clark by birth. I am willing to wager that in seven
years you'll achieve enough wisdom, that when the Spell is at
its end you'll guard your own mouth out of shame and simple
decency. I'm willing to take' a chance on that."
 
And if I was wrong. I could bind her then again, of course;
 
I'd be on the watch.
 
She just huddled there and bawled, every other word some
stuff about what she was going to tell Gabriel Laddereane,
more shame to her, and I got on with my work.
 
It took me only a little while, and then I Moved her carefully
back to Castle Clark, to the bed where—might could be—her
 
178 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
husband had not yet even missed her If he had, that was her
problem, and it was up to her to figure out some way to get out
of it. I'd done all I was willing to do, and more than she
deserved, out of regard for her Family, and pity for her folly,
and out of the kind of distaste that comes from dealing with an
enemy that's really no match for your skills. There's a game
called shooting ducks in a barrel—I don't play it. Never have.
 
And before the servingmaid tapped on my door with my pot
of morning tea, everything was put away. Every sign of the
wards and the pentacles swept deal; not a speck of sand from
my shammybags on the Airy floor And I lay there in my plain
nightgown with the covers tucked up around my chin, and a
smile on my face that suited my pose, like I'd not lifted a finger
all that weary night.
 
Now I could go home.
 
CHAPTER!?
 
I DON'T MIND saying that it went well, though it's bragging, for
it's no more than the plain truth. My leavetaking may have had
an unseemly abruptness due to my hightailing out of there
before my common sense (or somebody else's) could stop me,
but my homecoming went off as slick as I could possibly have
desired it. And the rough edges I well knew were there didn't
so much as show their shadows on the surface that was
available for examination to others.
 
I timed it so as to fly in to Castle Brightwater right at the end
of breakfast on a sunny April morning. And the last ten miles I
rode Sterling along me winding roads of the Kingdom,
between the hedges of butter-yellow forsythia newly in bloom,
and the fields of fruit trees covered with blossoms thick as
snowflakes. Every blade of grass and every new leaf and bud
was that perfect green mat comes only in April, and that was
what the Brightwater green was meant to stand for (and never
quite matched). And although the people didn't cheer me—we
didn't hold with such display on Marktwain, and hadn't for
hundreds of years—I knew they were glad to see me coming
back. I knew by the smiles on their faces and the fact that they
 
179
 
180 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
were out in the fields working in their Sundy best, and this not
Sundy. I kept my own face straight and pretended not to
notice ... in fact, I worked at really not noticing, seeing as
how if I arrived at Castle Brightwater puffed up with anything
that a sharp eye could spot as pride the family would be on me
like carrion birds on a new-dead squawkci; and I'd come out of
it blistered.
 
Nobody came out to meet me, which was reasonable
enough. I wasn't company here, I lived here, and I had to
whistle for a stablemaid to come take Sterling off my hands.
Then I stopped and indulged myself, just for a minute, since
nobody seemed to be looking. I never would of imagined I
could be so glad just to be home.
 
Ours was the first Castle built, and the Castle proper is not
one of the shelters the Twelve Families set up when The Ship
landed and they were new to this planet. The one the
Brightwaters built was made of logs that can't match Tmaseeh
iroowood even halfway for durability, but have kept well
enough under cover, and it sits within the front courtyard of the
Castle as a constant reminder—lest we should ever forget—of
our humble beginnings here. It had seven bedrooms round a
common room; and forty-four Brightwaters—men, women,
and children, and one fine hound that had quickly died—slept
and ate and passed their very limited leisure time under that
wooden roof.
 
When I was at home I hardly saw the loghouse, I was so
accustomed to it, but it was new to my eyes this morning, and I
let them linger on it, glad it was still there for the children of all
the Twelve Families to visit and play at living in.
 
And then I turned my eyes to the Castle itself, and it
pleasured me, too. It was perfectly square, and a modest but
satisfactory two stories high. It had twelve towers; one at each
cornei, one at the center of each wall, one on either side of the
front doors, and two extra in the front wall for fancy. The
Brightwater flag flew from every one of the tower roofs, and I
noticed that someone had polished the brass weathervane (an
Old Earth rooster that was one of the few material things
granted space in The Ship that could only be called a luxury),
and that it turned briskly in the wind at the top of the tower
spire where it had been fastened more than nine hundred years
ago. I smiled; they'd claim that was done for spring cleaning,
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             fSl
 
but I knew better—we were a good week away from spring
cleaning time. It was done to welcome me home.
 
I knocked at the Castle doors, and they slid apart without a
sound to let me in; someone had oiled them, too, for there'd
been a grating scrape to them when I rode out in February. The
Castle Housekeeper stood there casually watching three serv-
ingmaids polish the same banister over and over again, and she
looked up as I stepped under the doorbeam and pretended to be
surprised.
 
"Well, if it's not Miss Responsible," she said. "Good
morning to you, miss'"
 
"Good morning to you. Sally of Lewis," I said, and I
greeted each of the servingmaids by name as well, including
the one whose apron had a grease spot, for which there was no
excuse in my front Hall. "I'm home," I said.
 
"We see you are," said Sally of Lewis. "And we're glad—
it's been a long time."
 
It had been that; nearly eight weeks, and at that I'd made a
bit better time than I'd deserved.
 
"The Family's still having breakfast, miss," said Sally of
Lewis. "They're just finishing the coffee and there's still hot
combread on me table. The cooks happened to make extra this
morning."
 
It was amazing. I found mat not only was I anxious for some
Brightwater combread and butter, I was even anxious to see my
mother I believed I was even anxious to see Emmalyn of
dark, and I couldn't remember that idea ever passing through
my mind before. I had cleariy been away too long and was
.going weak in the head.
 
I went down the corridors to the room at the back of the
Castle where we liked to have breakfast and supper both. It
looked out on a wide field mat was a riot of wildfiowers in the
spring and a riot of scarlet and golden leaves in the fall, and
through which there flowed a quite respectable creek that you
could catch glimpses of from the windows- That creek had
been First Granny's only condition for choice of the Brightwa-
ter land. "I don't care what else it has or hasn't," she'd
declared. "Volcanoes, canyons, banana trees, swamps, any-
thing you fancy—but it has got to have a creek or I won't build
even an ourtmilding on it. Keep that in mind!"
 
"Well, Responsible," they all said as I went in the door And
 
182 SUZ&TTE HADEN ELGIN
 
various other equally original greetings. Gnumy Hazelbide
settled for "Decided to come back, did you?" and a full-scale
Granny glare.
 
"Sit down. Responsible," said Patience of dark, "and help
yourself to the combread. Unless you want to change first, of
course,"
 
I looked down at myself, at the black velvet corselet and the
silver-and-gold embroidery and the scariet leather gloves, and
all the rest of it. "No," I said, "I'll have my breakfast first.
And then I plan to take all this off, and bum it."
 
"You'U do no such thing!" said Granny Hazelbide, dropping
her silverware with a clatter onto her plate. "Waste not, want
not, young woman—you think money grows on trees? You'll
take that truck off and give it in to the staff for cleaning and
storing away proper; and then next time you take a notion to
play the fool you'll already have your fool outfit to hand. But
spare us your spurs, please—they clank, and furthermore,
they'll scratch the floorboards. And take off your gloves;
 
they'll be all over Mule."
 
Emmalyn of dark told me what a pretty outfit it was, and
how much she admired it, and how she had thought of that as I
left but hadn't had a chance to express her admiration, and I
thanked her politely.
 
"I think, personally," said Thom of Guthrie, "that it is a tad
Too Much."
 
"A tad!" exclaimed Granny Hazelbide. "Why, she looks
like a circus, or a—"
 
I interrupted with considerable haste, remembering how I'd
reacted the last time I'd heard the word I was reasonably sure
she was just about to use.
 
"Dear Granny Hazelbide," I said, sitting down and reaching
for the hot combread and the buttel; "you weren't here to
advise me when I left, you see, you were ailing. I left in
something of a hurry, and I did the best I could."
 
"Hmmmph," said Granny, "your 'best' is pretty puny,
Responsible. And I am scandalized that either your mother or
your grandmother let you leave this Castle looking like a—"
Well, there was clearly no hope for it.
 
"Granny Leeward of Castle Traveller said I looked like a
whore," I said blandly. If the word had to be used I might as
well do it myself and spare my sensibilities as best I could.
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
183
 
"Shows what she knows," muttered Granny Hazelbide
instantly, just as if she hadn't had the exact same word on the
tip of her fibbing tongue. "Had her way, you'd have gone on
Quest in a black nightgown and a bonnet, I reckon."
 
"I expect I would," I said. "I expect."
 
The same crew was there that had been at the meeting in
February; except that Jonathan Cardwell Brightwater the llth
sat beside Ruth of Motley, and the Granny was present. My
mother looked a vision, as always, in a gown the exact color of
the forsythia bushes; and she brought up the subject at hand
without preliminary, as always.
 
"Well," she said, "did you find out who we owe for our
sour milk? And all the rest of it? And did you find out who put
that baby up in the cedar tree? I am of the opinion, myself, that
the McDaniels are growing somewhat more than just tired of
camping under that tree and watching their baby through a life-
support bubble, and I rather imagine that if you could see your
way clear to do something about that they'd be properly
grateful. Not that I'd want to hurry your breakfast, of course."
 
Prick, prick, prick . . . that was Thom of Guthrie. Prick
you here and when you jumped, stick you somewhere else.
'     "Mother," I said, "I learned everything I went to find out,
and a good deal more I never suspected, and we can take care
of the baby matter in just a minute. I do intend to finish my
breakfast."
 
"Well?" she demanded. "Who was it?"
 
"Can't tell," I said, shaking my head with what was
intended to look like sincere regret. "I am sorry about that."
 
"You can't tell?" Jubal Brooks and Donald Patrick did that
in chorus, both outraged, and my grandparents looked at each
other significantly and said nothing.
 
"Told you she wouldn't," said Granny Hazelbide smugly.
'"She's ornery; always was, always will be. You'll get nothing
out of her"
 
"Not true, Granny," I answered, "you'll get a good deal out
of me. I will be calling Full Council later . . . after supper,
Mother, you needn't think about it now . . - to tell you about
a lot of things that need discussing badly."
 
"Your 'adventures,' I suppose," said my grandmother Ruth.
 
"They were not of my choosing, Grandmothel," I reminded
hei; "they went with the choice of measure to be taken, all duly
 
184 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
voted on by you and everybody there at the time. I'll take my
fair share of blame, but I warn you I'll not take what's not
coming to me ... and I learned a lot that will need tending
to before the Jubilee,"
 
Patience of dark looked at me like I'd said a broad word.
"Responsible," she said. "do not say that to me. Do not
even suggest that. We're going under for the third time already
in 'what has to be done before the Jubilee* . . . don't you
make it worse." And I knew then whose shoulders had taken
on the load for me in that part of the field while I'd been gone.
 
However, Patience meant food to prepare and rooms to clean
and suchlike, and training new staff. I was thinking of a
promise made to a Gentle in a Purdy guestchambci; and settling
the question of whether we should—or could—try for a
delayed celebration of the claimed appearance of a Skerry, just
in case. And there was the matter of the feuding on Arkansaw
to be laid out for them, and just how the rest of the Families
might fit in to that, and how that would tend to complicate both
the security arrangements and the seating ones.
 
I would not be taking up with them the matter of what I'd
done at Castle Traveller, nor what might be done in advance of
the Jubilee to forestall their putting my blunder to use; that I'd
have to deal with myself, in private, and I had a feeling in my
heart that I knew the answer already. Nothing to be done but
wait, and deal with it when it came, I'd wager, though I'd
search the timelines as far as my wit and skill would take me,
on the off chance. But that would not be on the Council
agenda.
 
Nor would the name of Una of dark. Much good seven
years of silence was going to do us if I didn't observe it myself.
 
"I found out who was back of all the mischief," I said
calmly, "and that we had the thing hindside to, and I put a stop
to it. There'll be no more wobbly Mules, I promise you. But
for the sake of the Families involved, there'll be no passing on
of names, either, from my lips or any others."
 
"Families involved . . ." That was Jubal Brooks. "Then
there were more than one."
 
"In a manner of speaking, Jubal Brooks," I said.
 
m a manner of speaking. The Travellers for sure—I'd not
been wrong in thinking them guilty; without the strokings and
whisperings of Gabriel Laddercane Traveller the 34th there'd
 
 
 
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
S8S
 
of been no shenanigans from Una of Clark. She'd of bounced
her babies on her knee, and doted on her husband, and died a
good woman. And no way of knowing who'd put Gabriel up to
mat, nor how many long years it might well have been
planned. And the Clarks for sure, by reason of Una's direct
hand. But only those two, 1 thought, only those two. I'd not
repeated the Insertion Transformation that night at Castle Airy,
to see if any other faces would turn up in my bowl of
springwater. I'd been rushed, and I'd been disgusted, and
there'd not been either the time or the proper mood. And to
make certain sure, I'd be doing that now I was home. I didn't
expect, however, to trap anyone else. If there'd been any other
name to babble, Una of Clark would of let it fall, in sheer
tenor
 
"You're mean not to tell, Responsible," said Thorn of
Guthrie. "But then you were always mean."
 
I smiled at my plate, and listened to Granny Hazelbide put
her in her place, which she did more than adequately. My
mother could not abide being left out of anything, even when it
was for her own good and clearly for the general welfare.
Granny dressed her both up and down, and she subsided. And
when that was ovci; we all walked down to the churchyard.
 
Vine of Motley and Halliday Joseph McDaniels the 14th did
cheer as they saw us coming, and I could see their point. Eight
weeks camped under that tree must have been wearisome, even
in the sort of luxury accommodations they'd provided for
themselves. And I could well believe that Vine of Motley's
arms itched to hold her own baby, instead of the servingmaid's
she'd nursed these past two months. In her place I'd of been
impatient, too, and I was glad I hadn't waited to change my
clothes after all.
 
"Hurry up," I told the Magician of Rank that had joined us
in some haste at the Castle back doors. He was called Veritas
Truebreed Motley the 4th, a name some found overly fancy—
which accounted for its only coming round four times in all
these years—but there was no quarrel with his skill. Once I'd
assured him that whatever held that baby couldn't be anything
much more complicated or dangerous than Granny Magic, and
clumsily done at that, he didn't waste either time or energy. At
fifty-three going on fifty-four he was a sure and experienced
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
186
 
man with his Formalisms & Transformations, and he made no
fuss whatever over bringing Terrence Merryweather
McDaniels the 6th down to his parents. He didn't even bother
with herbs; he just scuffed a few cedar needles into suitable
patterns, flicked his fingers with the supple ease of long
practice, and the baby floated right down to his daddy, gurgling
and cooing and obviously without so much as a heat rash to
mar his perfection.                                     •
 
"Oh, Halliday Joseph McDaniels, do give him to me!"
cried Vine of Motley. "Please let me have him!"
 
"Certainly, darlin'," said Halliday Joseph, grinning so I
feared he'd crack his face. And he passed the child over to
Vine of Motley and took the servingmaid's baby in exchange.
 
She popped up instantly and relieved him of that burden, and
I made a mental note that she was to be rewarded handsomely
for her part in all of this. Discreetly, but handsomely. Her name
was Flag of Airy, for the Ozarit iris that looked quite a lot like
me pictures we had from Earth; and she was, as I recalled, just
on fifteen, and wife of an Attendant that was a Clark by birth. I
thought that a small Bestowing of an acre or two of farmland
would not be out of place, and I'd have it seen to. Two months
was a long time to watch your own child suckled at another
woman's breasts, and to know mat your first task when you had
it back—if you had it back, because she would not of been
human if she hadn't worried that something might go wrong—
would be weaning that babe to a cup. No, a couple of acres to
put a small house on would not strain Brightwater, though me
land we still had to give away was almost gone—this was a
time that justified parting with it, even beyond me Family
proper And Flag of Airy would be pleased to be the lady of a
house instead of a servant in Castle Brightwater It wouldn't
make it up to her completely for what she'd sacrificed, I didn't
suppose; having no baby myself I was a poor judge. But it
seemed to me it ought to lessen the ache a little.
 
Happy! We were for sure happy that day. The McDaniels
insisted on packing up and heading for home at once (they
didn't say "before something else happens" but no doubt they
were thinking it), and nobody there that wouldn't of done the
same in their place, though we protested politely. But the rest
of us were in no mood for any kind of labor The air was
golden, the cedar sighed over us, and the churchyard was a
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms
 
187
 
credit to its Maker with white and yellow and purple violets,
sod young daisies, and all the spring Sowers of Earth that had,
praise be, taken to the soil of Ozaric without so much as a
dapple to their leaves to show strain. There'd be plenty of work
to do later, after supper; it would be a long Council, and we'd
all come out of it sobered, even with me keeping back the
worst of it.
 
For the moment, though, we weren't worrying about that or
anything else. I set aside my corselet and cape, my boots and
gloves—carefully, under the sharp eyes of Granny Hazel-
bide—and rolled up my puffed and beomamented sleeves to
feel the warm sun on my arms. We sent for a picnic from the
Castle. And we lay all through that day under the cedars (I had
to send the Lewises a note thanking them, I thought, while I
was tying up loose ends ... I had not known how much I
loved those three cedars they'd nurtured in our churchyard
until I lay there lazy under them and saw them with fresh eyes);
 
and we talked of minor things. The children ran wild and wore
themselves into stupors before it was time to head home for
supper, playing circle games and tag and hide-and-seek and
Little Sally Waters all over the churchyard, and wading in the
creek while their mothers scolded halfheartedly and turned a
blind eye and deaf ear most of the time.
 
I managed to tie down tight again in that comer of my mind
reserved for the awful my encounter with the young uncle at
Castle Wommack. That I would look at when the Jubilee was
over; unless, the Skies help us all, he came to the Jubilee. Stuff
mat away. Responsible, I told myself hastily; sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof, and if it happened I'd have to deal with
it then. I wasn't going to let it spoil my homecoming day, not
that nor any of me rest of it. Not this one day.
 
"Glad to see you appreciate your homeplace, missy." said,
my Granny, giving me a wicked dig in the ribs to be sure I was
paying attention. "Grass wasn't quite as green as you thought
it*d be elsewhere, eh?"
 
"Don't torment me. Granny Hazelbide,'* I pleaded with her
"I'm so comfortable . . . and so glad to be here! Leave me
in peace."
 
"Leave you in peace?"
 
"Please, Granny Hazelbide. Pretty please."
 
"Think you deserve peace, young lady?" she demanded.
 
]88
 
SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
"No. Granny, I doubt I deserve it atall," I said frankly "I
just asked for it—I didn't say I had it coming to me."
 
She chuckled. And patted my knee.
 
"All right, then," she said. "Long as you're staying honest
with your poor old Granny."
 
She didn't believe I was honest for a minute, nor did I, but it
appeared she was willing to call temporary truce. I closed my
eyes. so full of my undeserved bliss that I couldn't hold any
more, and took a nap. That at least, considering the way I'd
been having to spend my nights, I had earned.
 
END OF BOOK ONE
 
WHY WE ARE HERE
 
(A TEACHING STORY)
 
A very long time ago, and much farther away than you might
think, there were Twelve Families, all living on a world called
Earth—and they were purely disgusted.
 
Earth, it's said, had been green and gold and beautiful—a
gardenplace and a homeplace. But the people that lived there
had neglected it and abused it, year after weary year, till it was
entirely spoiled, till it was a ruin and a wreck and a pitiful,
pitiful sight.
 
The water was dirty and the air was foul; the creatures all.
were sorry and warped and twisted. They say the fish that
swam the creeks and rivers had become so strange that a person
couldn't even look at them, let alone eat them.
 
And then the people, they say, began to grow twisted, too.
Not in their bodies—though living where they did that was no
doubt ahead of them—but in their minds and in their hearts. No
person could be trusted in those times. Hurting, they say, was
 
1S9
 
190 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
done for the pleasure of hurting. And the things that were done
in those days, we are told, one human hand against anotnei; do
not bear repeating.
 
The Twelve Families, they were a patient people. They had
lived a long time on Earth, keeping themselves to themselves,
cherishing their homes and their kind, and they waited as long
as they could. But the day came, the day came, when First
Granny said, "Enough's enough, and this is too much!" And
everyone looked around at the patheticness of it all, and they
agreed with her
 
And so, in the year Two Thousand and Twelve—-as was
fitting—the Twelve Families took The Ship and left Earth
togethei. and went in search of a new homeworld. It had to be a
place enough like Earth so that they could fit there; and it had
to be hidden away enough so that they could keep themselves
to themselves forever and ever more. And they took with them
just as little as they possibly could from Earth, with First
Granny and the Captain standing right in the door of The Ship,
they say, throwing things out as fast as people carried them in.
 
"The less of that trash goes with us," said First Granny,
paying no mind to the complaints and the caterwauling, "the
less likely we are to have to do this every time we turn
around." (By which she meant every two thousand years or
so.)
 
And it would appear that she was right, because a thousand
years have gone by, and here we are still, and mightily satisfied
with our lot.
 
And what may have become of Earth we do not know; and
the less thought about that the better for us all.
 
HOW WE CAME TO LOSE THE BIBLE
 
(A TEACHING STORY)
 
A very long time ago, and a good deal closer by than you might
think, the Twelve Families and the Captain and First Granny
turned their attention to bringing The Ship down for landfall
nice and easy. Just nice and easy!
Made no nevermind that the fuel was almost all gone in The
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             191
 
Ship's engines. Made no nevermind that through near nine
years under solar sails spread round The Ship like petals of a
great lily to gather the solar winds, that fuel somehow had
changed. They still had to get down.
 
"Fool stuff's clabbered," said First Granny with total
contempt, tapping the toe of her high-topped high-heeled
pointy-toed black patent leather shoes.
 
"Fuel can't clabber," the Captain told her politely. "It's not
even liquid to start with, ma'am—begging your pardon."
 
"Same thing," said First Granny, sticking out her chin. "Put
it into any frame of circumstance that suits you. Captain Aaron
Dunn McDaniels, I don't mind! It's spoilt—as fuel—and that's
the same thing as clabbered."
 
"Yes, ma'am," said the Captain, as was proper But they
still had to get down.
 
They had never thought it would take them nine years to find
a new homeworld enough like Earth to live on, and lonely
enough to make neighbors an unlikely occurrence, and having
no other thinking creatures unwilling and unable to let them
share the land.
 
All the food was gone, and all the stuff for making more,
and nothing was left but the food seeds packed away dormant
in their sterile tubes waiting for new dirt. All of the clothes
they'd brought with them were worn out and raggedy and
getting too thin even for the needs of modesty.
 
And the animals, the live ones, they were getting what First
Granny somberly referred to as That Look. What might be
happening to the stores of embryos sleeping in their tubes, no
one could say till they were decanted; but it was worrisome.
 
Going on was out of the question, and had been the last
seven days. They had to get down.
 
First Granny took all the Magicians to the Ship's Chapel,
and they did what they could do. And Captain Aaron Dunn
McDaniels took all the crew to the bridge and the engine room,
and they did what they could do.
 
And nobody stinted.
 
But the fuel failed them just as they saw a green land rush up
beneath them—/itf/ as they saw it!—and The Ship went
crippled into what we now call the Outward Deeps.
* * *
 
SUZETTEHADEN ELGIN
 
192
 
Well, what's meant to be will be, they say, and that appears
to be true. For even as the water closed over the dying Ship and
First Granny told the children to stop their caterwauling and
prepare to meet their Maker with their mouths shut and their
eyes open, a wonderful thing happened. Just a wonderful
thing!
 
Forty of them there were, shaped like the great whales of
Earth, but that their tails split three ways instead of two. And
their color was the royal purple, the purple of majestic
sovereignty.
 
They met The Ship as it fell, rising up in a circle as it sank
toward the bottom. And they bore it up on their backs as easy
as a man packs a baby, and laid it out in the shallows, where the
Captain and the crew could get The Ship's door open, and
everybody could wade right out of there to safety.
 
They were the Wise Ones, so named by First Granny; and it
may be that they live there still in the Outward Deeps. Nobody
knows, and nobody needs to know.
 
And it was during that glad wading to shore just before First
Granny set her foot on the land and cried, "Well, the
Kingdom's come at last. praise be!" that the ancient holy
book—its name was BIBLE—was lost to the Twelve Families.
First Granny, she thought the Captain had it, it seems. And the
Captain, he thought First Granny had it. Naturally. And there
was a child of three that claimed he'd seen a Wise One swallow
it—waterproof, radiationproof, fireproof, crashproof box and
all. And for all we know that may be true. For sure it's never
washed up on any coast of Ozark, all these many hundred
years.
 
"Botheration," First Granny said when they realized it was
gone. And the Captain allowed as how he was deeply sorry.
 
"Well," said First Granny, "I suppose we'll just have to
Make Do."
 
And so we have, ever since.
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms          193
THE FLYING DULCIMER
 
(A TEACHING STORY)
 
A very long time ago, and much further away than you might
think, when the Twelve Families were preparing to leave Earth,
there was a young woman named Rozasharn- Now Rozasham
was a Purdy by birth, and it happened that the Purdys had a fine
and famous dulcimer It was of the sweetest fruitwood, and it
was cut slim-waisted and curled, and it had inlays of mother-
of-pearl in the shapes of hearts and roses and twining vines and
little mourning doves. It was purely beautiful, and when they
told Rozasharn it had to be left behind, she was outraged. Just
o»Jraged!
 
"Rozasharn," said First Granny, "we have on The Ship two
guitars, two banjos, two dulcimers, two autoharps, two
fiddles—which is one too many, if you ask me—two mouth-
harps, two mandolins, and a dobro. Each was chosen because
die man or woman that played it was the finest player we knew,
and it will serve to while away the time, and to be a model for
building more such when we land. But that's enough." And
men she gave Rozasham a curied-lip look and said, "You can't
even cany a tune, Rozasham, let alone play that dulcimer!"
 
Rozasham yes-ma'amed, but she went away bitter and she
wasn't about to give in. The Purdy dulcimer was the prettiest
she'd ever seen, and she intended it to go on The Ship no
matter what First Granny said.
 
So Rozasharn began to plan her magic. There was a Spell of
Invisibility, of course, but that took a lot of work to get going
and even more to maintain, and Rozasharn wasn't sure she was
up to it. A Spell of Distraction, on the other hand, was a
simpler mattel; and she decided to set one of those on the
dulcimer, to make it appear it was only her shawl. Rozasham
went through her motions and cast the Spell, and found herself
a bit embarrassed; she had in her hands a truly splendid shawl,
covered with hearts and roses and twining vines and little
mourning doves, and that was never going to get past First
Granny. "Back up a bit, Rozasharn," Rozasham told herself,
"or you'll come out of this blistered."
 
What she settled on at last was three Spells. The first was to
 
194 SUZETTE HADEN ELGIN
 
turn the dulcimer itself plain, and that one worked all right.
The second was to make the plain dulcimer appear to be a
shawl, and that one seemed to be in good shape to the eye,
although it was uncomfortable to her shoulders, since she
could still feel the pegs and the strings and the edges of the
wood; but she considered it her family duty to put up with it.
And the third was to take off the other two, and she tried that
out, and it worked. Nothing was left but to calculate the weight
she had to leave behind so no one would suspect, and that
meant leaving buried in her back yard two pairs of shoes and a
half-slip she'd never liked anyway, and she made it onto The
Ship right under First Granny's nose, the dulcimer draped
round her shoulders and looking for all the world like a plain
old shawl- Just like it!
 
Well, she would of been all right, would Rozasham—if
she'd had a little self-control. But when landing time came she
just could not resist letting everyone know the trick she'd
played, and as she stepped onto the land of Ozark she cast the
third Spell and stood there before everybody, holding the
famous Purdy dulcimer and looking like butter wouldn't melt
in her mouth.
 
First Granny looked her up and she looked her down, and
then she looked her up once more to be certain her eyes didn't
deceive hei; but she said nary a word. The Captain looked
sorrowful, but he didn't speak either And as the days passed,
and the Purdy s settled in and built themselves a homeplace,
Rozasham began to feel comfortable.
 
And then came the morning when the last stick was in place,
and the last curtain hung, and the last dish on die shelf, and
Rozasharn looked out her front door and there stood First
Granny with Macon Desirard Guthrie the 3rd at her right hand;
 
and young Rozasham's heart very nearly stopped. Macon
Desirard Guthrie was no common person, but a man skilled in
Formalisms & Transformations. If mere was a more handy
Magician on Ozark, Rozasham didn't know who it might be.
 
"Stand aside, Rozasham," said First Granny, "and let us
come in."
 
And Rozasham did that, most promptly, and there she stood
while Macon Desirard Guthrie went through his Structural
Descriptions and his Structural Indexes and his Rigorous
Specifications of Coreference and his Global Constraints and a
 
Twelve Fair Kingdoms             195
 
lot of other things of that kind and caliber; and when he got
through there were just three things that a person could do with
die Purdys* fancy dulcimer
 
You could hang it on a peg on the back wall of a dark closet.
You could put it in the bottom of a tight and heavy sack long
 
enough to cany it to some similar peg, should you be required
 
to move.
 
And you could dust if off, from time to time.
 
If you tried to do anything else widi that dulcirnei; such as
showing it off to the neighbors, or playing a tune, or even
moving it off its peg to peek at it your own self, it came flying
out at you like a hunting hawk; and starting in the center of die
room it would swoop in bigger and bigger circles, faster and
faster . . . Wheeeyeeew! Let me tell you, all you could do
then was dirow yourself on die flooi. roll under whatever you'd
fit undei; and pray it would miss you.
 
And nobody could put that diing back on its peg but another
Magician trained in Formalisms & Transformations.
 
And diat is the tale of die Hying Dulcimer of Casde Purdy,
and has someming to tell us about being proud of things.
 
The jump-rope rhyme goes like mis;
 
The Purdys have a dulcirnei;
 
it cannot make a sound;
 
and if you take it off its peg,
it flies around and round!
 
It'll hit you in die back of die neck,
as it goes flying by'
 
It'll hit you in die crook of die back,
it'll poke you in die eye!
 
It'll chase you round die bedroom,
it'll chase you down die stairs'
And all 'cause of Rozasham of Purdy
as tried to put on airs!