FIVE

A FRIEND RETURNS

Veronica and Shandor watched the war from a distance. It was twilight and had been for some time. A few days of travel and several of Shandor’s “shortcuts” had brought them back to the Kingdoms where the days and seasons had become stuck. Here, it was nearly dark, but the weather was warm and muggy, like a hot August night. Lightning bugs rose from the grass around them, as off across a bay or inlet, brighter sparks flashed, followed by a low rumble like thunder.

“So that’s what cannon sound like,” she said.

“It is more fearsome when you are near,” Shandor said.

The fight was between a town on a little spit of land and three ships very much like the ones that had taken Aster and Dusk—and flying the same flag—a simple crescent moon on a dark blue field.

“I think this will be over, soon,” she said.

“Why do you say that?” Shandor asked. “They look well-matched. The city walls are high, and strong.”

“Sure,” Veronica said. “But see?”

Something big was rising up against the faintly violet sky, something with wings like a bat.

“I guess he has more than one of those,” she said. As she said it, flame spewed from the dragon’s maw onto the parapets of the city wall. They were too far away to see much more, but as with the cannon, Veronica guessed things were probably much worse up close, right now.

They kept watching until things finally grew quiet. The dragon was no longer in evidence, and the ships stopped firing their guns.

Veronica stood up.

“I think it’s time,” she said.

Shandor cultivated a sense of calm and acceptance, but Veronica began to see the cracks in that on the ride to the city.

“My horses cannot cross waves,” Shandor said. “But you can. I sense it in you.”

“Can you?”

“You are mistress of the depths,” he said.

“You make it sound kind of naughty,” she said, “But yes, I could swim after them, if I thought that would work. The only trouble is, the ship that took Aster and Dusk could fly—and I definitely can’t follow them in the air. Can you?”

“No,” he said.

“So this is what I’ve chosen,” she said.

“I would like to formally disagree with your choice,” Shandor said.

“You can wear a tuxedo, for all I care,” Veronica replied. “It won’t change anything.”

“You are strong-headed,” he said.

“A goddess, I believe you called me,” she replied. “When you made your marriage proposal, did you think I was just going to hang laundry or whatever? Is there a goddess of clothespins?”

“Whether you marry me or not, it is my wish you be what you are,” he said. “But I am due an opinion, I believe. You can correct me if I’m wrong.”

She regarded him for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “You are due an opinion. And if you can tell me a better way to get to Raggedy Man, I’ll listen.”

He nodded. “That’s the trouble,” he said. “I can think of no better plan.”

They were almost at the town. Fires were still burning, but it was mostly smoke, now. From inside, she heard a near constant babble of voices, screams, and moans.

“So you had better stay here,” she said. “You’ve been a big help. But I’m on my own from here on out.”

“I can accompany you.”

“There isn’t any point,” she said. “They won’t hurt me, but if you go in it could start a fight. A fight will call way more attention to me than I want. Or the wrong kind, anyway.”

“Understood,” he said. He sighed, then took her hand. “Do not fear your power, Veronica. If you are threatened, if you fear for your life, unleash it. But do not be overconfident. This thing that was the Sheriff—I have never felt power like that. Whatever he is, he is very old, and from very high and faraway. If you are pressed, retreat to the Marches. I will be there, waiting.”

She squeezed his hand.

“Thanks,” she said.

He raised her hand and kissed it. She felt a little jolt run up her arm, and for a moment she wondered what it would be like to kiss those pretty lips of his.

So she did.

It wasn’t long, the kiss, but she felt it all the way down to her knees. When she pulled away, she felt a little guilty, but she thought she could hardly be blamed for being curious. And now she knew a few things about Shandor that she had not before, at least for certain.

Anyway, where she was going, there wouldn’t be any more kissing, and odds were she wouldn’t be kissing anyone else ever again. If she did survive, she still had that year of service to old what’s-her-name in the well. Best not think too much about romance for the time being, and concentrate on doing what she could to end one or two people who needed it.

There were a bunch of semi-human goons at the gate. The Sheriff had bent his followers to suit his needs, and apparently the Raggedy Man was doing something similar, although the results appeared a little less—purposeful. The Sheriff had cultivated loyal hounds; the Raggedy Man’s hangers-on were more a random mishmash of human and beast. Some had ape-like features and long arms, some were more bat-like, others had scales like lizards or fish. Two of them were half possum, which wasn’t a good look for anyone.

Whatever they looked like, they acted like boys. They were armed with swords and spears, but two of them also had old-fashioned looking guns.

Since they were posted there to keep people from escaping the village, they didn’t notice her until she was close. Then they got all excited.

“Hey, how did you get out there?” one of them said.

“I’m coming back from my cousin’s house in the country,” she said. “What’s going on?”

Another, a crouching boy with rodent-like features, gave her a gap-toothed grin.

“You’re going on a trip, is what,” he said. “Don’t fight and you won’t get hurt.”

She looked at the smoldering ruins of the town. “Wherever we’re headed, it’s probably nicer than this,” she said. “Besides, fighting is not my style, boys.”

Despite her words, she had an abrupt urge to do just that. Escaping this handful wouldn’t be a problem, and with the water so near she could easily evade pursuit. She remembered when the Sheriff’s boys had caught her. They had almost raped her, and when they got her to the sheriff, things went even worse for her.

But that was then, in a high desert. This was now, a few feet from the sea. If anyone tried something nasty, they would be sorry, at least until they couldn’t feel anything at all. No, this was the best way to get where she needed to be.

She went with them onto one of the ships, where they put her in irons below decks. Veronica could feel the sea all around her, and if she closed her eyes, it was almost as if she was in it, among the sharks and jellyfish, and not chained in a dark, uncomfortable place.

Soon enough, however, her earlier fears were vindicated, for the ship left the sea and rose into the sky—taking her far from the comforting, profound waters below.

Billy blinked at Errol.

“Billy?” Billy said. His face was blank of emotion, and his pupils were so large they nearly eclipsed the rest of his eyes.

“No, you’re Billy. I’m Errol. Remember?”

Billy shook his head, slowly, as if to clear it.

“I felt,” he said. “I heard . . .” He looked around. “Saw her last around here . . .”

Errol saw a movement from the corner of his eye, a white shape through the undergrowth.

“Hey, Billy,” he said. “We’re kind of in trouble, here. Some guys are trying to kill us. Can you run?”

Billy stared at him, and his pupils shrank some.

“Little,” he said.

“Yeah. You’re little. So they aren’t scared of you, right?”

Billy kept looking at him like he was speaking Zulu or something, but now he knew the fish guys were back.

“Come on!” he said. He grabbed Billy’s hand and started running. Billy resisted for a second, then acquiesced. After a few strides, he was running faster than Errol, pulling him along.

An arrow zipped by, way too close for comfort. More followed. Errol was having a hard time keeping his feet under him. Billy was strong.

They had first met Billy in a village in the Marches. He was the adopted son on an old woman named Hattie, and no one knew where he’d come from. He traveled and fought with them until they crossed the Hollow Sea to the Mountains of the Winds, and there they’d had to fight a giant. It was a fight they would have lost if it hadn’t turned out Billy was a giant too, a giant who had decided to take a little break from being a giant and ended up with amnesia.

He and Aster had sort of developed a thing. He wasn’t sure how serious it was, or how far things went, but he knew Billy felt strongly about her. To save them and get them home, he’d become a giant again, and stayed that way too long—so long that he forgot about the little people he was carrying and their tiny, mortal affairs. Errol hadn’t been around then, but apparently Billy the giant had struck out for the places giants liked, which were very far from everyone and everything. According to Billy himself, once he was in that state, he wasn’t likely to ever give another thought to any of them, even a girl he had done a bit of making out with.

Yet here he was.

An arrow hit him in the joint of his shoulder plate and upper arm, and he felt a bright sting where the tip buried itself.

“Billy—” he started.

Billy jerked them through a canebrake, and after a minute, Errol realized something felt weird. In another moment he understood what it was—they were going uphill. After all that time in the swamps, he had almost forgotten there were such things as hills. Now they were chugging up one, through mountain laurel and hickory, steeper and steeper until the leaf litter and dirt gave way to slate. From then on they were climbing upward at a sharp angle.

Billy had long ago let go of his hand. It was all Errol could do to keep up with him. He seemed to have all but forgotten Errol existed.

Errol had been avoiding looking behind him. When he did, and saw how high they were, he felt a touch of vertigo. The swamps were a hazy green stain in the distance.

“Hold up!” Errol shouted. “I don’t think they’re chasing us anymore.”

If Billy heard, he gave no sign. He kept clawing his way up the glossy grey stone.

“Billy!”

Then he did stop, and so did Errol as they came to the top of a ridge running off to the right and left in a series of peaks so tall they vanished into the sky. Errol spent a few seconds teetering on the edge of what he conservatively guessed to be a seven-hundred-mile drop.

Billy was standing still, staring off into space, his chest heaving.

“Billy!” Errol said. “What the hell?”

Billy considered the drop below them for a moment before reluctantly turning left and running along the ridge.

“Billy!”

“Aster!” Billy shouted. He ran even faster.

Chest aching, Errol tried to keep up.

In human form, Billy was prone to the same weaknesses and feelings as your run-of-the-mill guy, so eventually he wore out, first leaning against a spire of rock and then slowly folding to the stone below his feet. He looked confused.

“You’re exhausted, Billy,” Errol said. “Take a rest.”

He leaned on the stone and slid down next to the giant.

It felt like they had been going forever. The sun moved in the sky here, but Errol suspected the day was going on much longer than usual.

The view was spectacular. His experience with mountains was limited. A few vacations in the Smokies and his last trips to the Kingdoms pretty much summed it up. But in his earlier trips here, he had either flown over mountains or been walked through them by a giant. It hadn’t been like this.

He had seen pictures of the Rocky Mountains. Relatively young, steep—sharp, for lack of a better term. These peaks were more like the Appalachian range with which he was familiar—old, worn, slump-shouldered mountains. Except that when they were young, they must have gone all the way to the moon, because they were still very tall. Most of those he could see the peaks of had “balds,” where their rocky skeletons showed through coats of soil and vegetation. Some of those were really fantastic—twisty spires of stone more fanciful than real. Here? Who knew? They might be the remains of ancient castles or dragon nests or something far crazier.

Some—in the distance—were tall enough they were capped in snow.

And the valleys—deep and green and lovely, all around. It was a nice place to sit and catch a breath.

It seemed impossible now that he had ever wanted to kill himself. Even if he had never learned of the Kingdoms, he knew there were sights equal to this in his own world: vast continents, amazing cities, people worth knowing, liking, loving. How had he ever let things get so small? It was like his entire world had shrunk around him and become an overcoat of pain he wore. He’d come to believe there was nothing beyond it, nothing out in the vast world to wake his wonder, bring him joy, lure him toward greater things.

Even then he’d had second thoughts, but they came too late. Without Aster it would have all ended. He would never have seen this or the Hollow Sea or any of a thousand places and things that had made him more, lifted him higher.

“Errol?”

Billy was looking at him.

“Hey,” he said. “You remember me.”

Billy slowly shook his head. His eyes looked nearly normal.

“It takes time,” he said. “Giants live a long time. But we live—slowly. And we don’t feel little things. So sometimes we become little, like this, just for a while, so we can . . .”

“I remember you told us that before,” Errol said.

“Yes,” Billy said. “Before.”

“But I also thought you said you would forget us.”

Billy nodded. “Thought I would,” he said. “Like I said, we forget the little things. Cool water, a breeze, the taste of food, pleasure . . .” he stopped for a moment, and his brow wrinkled.

“So?” Errol said.

He reached over and took Errol’s hand.

“Turns out,” he said. “Love isn’t a little thing.”

Errol felt a small catch in his throat.

“Love?” he said.

Billy nodded. “I didn’t know what it was, I guess. But I love you and Veronica. Mostly though, I love Aster.”

“Yeah,” Errol said. “I figured.”

He thought about releasing his hand, but Billy was still holding tight. Billy didn’t know it was weird, and no one was watching. Hell, why couldn’t he hold Billy’s hand? He’d held his dad’s hand. He’d loved it, the hard feel of that calloused palm.

Sometime before middle school, he’d started shaking it off. It wouldn’t look right to his friends. But if he knew then what he knew now, he would take his Dad’s hand and hold it as long and as hard as he was able.

“Are you hurt?” Billy asked.

“What?” he said. Then he realized he was crying. “No,” he said. “I’m fine. How did you find me?”

“Aster found me, somehow, in my head. She was in trouble. I tried to help her, but she was so far away, and she wasn’t calling hard enough. I got my hand through for a moment—then she was gone. But it made me remember. So I went back to the place where I left her last, and she wasn’t there, but I felt you were nearby. I looked for you. And found you.”

“You sure did,” Errol said. “Just in time. But where are you headed now?”

“The place she was—the place where I put my hand. Now that I’m like this, I think I can find it. He pointed off through the mountains. Then he started to get up.

“Whoa,” Errol said. “You’re human again, remember. I have a little food we can split, After that we need some sleep. I want to find her, too, but we won’t be able to help her if we kill ourselves.”

“Okay,” Billy said. “It’s only—she’s in trouble.”

“I know,” Errol said. “I know she is.”

“We won’t get there in time like this.”

“What choice do we have?”

“I can become a giant again,” he said. “For little while, if you can keep me from forgetting.”

“What if it’s too long?” Errol asked.

“It won’t be,” Billy said. “It can’t be.”

“Look, I’m up for it,” Errol said. “I’m lost in this place.”

“I’m always lost,” Billy said. “Except when I’m with her.”

“Okay, don’t get ridiculous,” Errol said. “Girls don’t like guys who are too sappy.”

“I’m not a tree,” Billy said. “I don’t have sap.”

“That’s not what I meant—” Errol began, but then he saw the little smile on Billy’s face.

“Kidding,” Billy said. “I remember jokes, now.”

He stood up slowly.

“Are you sure about this?” Errol said.

But Billy was already growing taller, pulling him along for the ride.

Something hit the ship hard. Veronica saw the timbers flex and as her teeth snapped together. Some of the other girls in the hold with her screamed, but many were so worn down into apathy they hardly reacted.

“What’s happening?” Someone yelped.

The ship shuddered again, and this time she heard explosions above her, all strung together like a chain.

A girl with dirty brown hair and freckles raised her head.

“We’re fighting again,” she said. “Probably to get more girls.”

“It’s already full in here!” Another girl said, her voice near breaking with hysteria. “We’ll suffocate!”

The next shock was a big one, tilting the ship a few inches. Veronica heard swearing above decks.

She guessed the freckled girl was probably right about them fighting. It put her in a funny situation. She didn’t want any more girls in the hold, because it looked as full as it could get without stacking people on top of each other, which would probably be fatal for some, which the Raggedy Man wouldn’t like. What she didn’t want was for the ship to lose the fight, because that meant she would get no closer to him. If she tried to get loose and interfere, that could spoil things, too.

It was probably best to sit tight.

The cannon on both sides kept firing until there was a titanic grating noise, and the deck tilted again, this time sharply enough that a lot of the girls went rolling or flopping toward the side.

“That’s another ship grappling us,” Freckles said. “I think we’re being boarded.”

She looked toward the ladder up to the hatch, and saw the handful of boys guarding them were gone, presumably to the deck.

It wasn’t exactly quiet, after that. They heard cries and screams above, but the hatch between them and freedom made them sound very far away.

Veronica turned to Freckles, who seemed to know the most about what was going on.

“Who do we think it is?” she asked.

“God knows,” Freckles said. “If we’re lucky, it’s some ship meant to liberate us. But it could just as well be pirates.”

From what Veronica could tell, they were still far above the water, so her most useful qualities were denied her. She was sure she could wile a pirate or a guardsman into releasing her, as she had done the boy in the Mountain of the Winds.

She would wait, though. No one here knew her, and if possible she wanted it to stay that way. If her plan to find the Raggedy Man this way was derailed, then that was how the cookie crumbled. At least she was probably closer to her goal.

The sounds of fighting finally subsided. A few moments later the hatch opened. The girls nearest it raised their arms and cheered.

Veronica, feigning disinterest, waited to see who they were so glad to see, wondering if she would share their sentiment.

Her heart was beating fine, these days, but almost stopped when she saw it was Dusk.

“Well, crap,” she said, under her breath. She scooted back farther into the shadows, as Dusk started giving a speech about how they were being liberated, how she would set them ashore if they wished, but if anyone wanted to stay and fight, to rescue more girls bound for a horrible fate, she would welcome them to her cause. As she spoke other girls came down, armed with swords and pistols and what-have-you and began freeing everyone from their shackles and chains.

She turned her head. If someone freed her before Dusk recognized her, she had a chance. Otherwise, she had a feeling she had another decapitation coming on, and the first one hadn’t been one little bit of fun.

She had to wait a long time before someone got to her. Her rescuer was older, eighteen or nineteen, broad-shouldered, with a fresh cut under her grey eyes.

“Stop. Rain, stop.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. The key was in the lock, but now the girl withdrew it.

“Veronica?”

She tossed her hair back and looked up with a pseudo-smile. “See,” she said. “I thought this was an exclusive cruise.”

“Bring her to my cabin,” Dusk said. “Keep her chained.”