THIRTY

Friends Reunited

“Hey ho!” said Addie cheerfully as she came out from under the tree. “How are my tourists?”

I have rarely been so glad to see someone safe and well. Perkins, that is, and Addie a close second.

“Hey, Jenny,” said Perkins, and he gave me a long hug, whispering in my ear that he’d missed me. I returned the compliment gladly and unconditionally, but I must confess that his increased age—he’d put on ten years with Ralph’s Genetic Master Reset, remember—was not something I would get used to quickly.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “Not harmed in any way, I mean?”

“I’m fine,” he said, “but I can’t say the same for the kidnappers.”

“Dead?”

He just looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“Hail, fellow,” said Addie to Gabby, grasping his hand and shaking it warmly. “Good to see you again.”

“You know each other?” I asked, surprised.

“He’s my secret weapon,” said Addie. “Everyone should have a Gabby to look after them.”

“You sent Gabby to keep an eye on us?” I asked.

“Only to remain on standby in case anything happened.”

I looked at Gabby, who shrugged. “I should have said something, I suppose,” he said, “but I didn’t know until now that Addie was okay, and, well, I’m only in this for the rescuing.”

I thanked him anyway, and Addie quizzed him further.

“I found them two clicks northwest of the pod-poles,” replied Gabby. “They’d lost their transport and were about to be emptied by a Lifesucker. I brought them here by way of the dragon’s lair.”

“Was that wise?” asked Addie.

“Perhaps; perhaps not,” said Gabby, “but we made it without loss.”

“Except Ralph,” I said, “who tried to attack a Cloud Leviathan on a low-level feeding run. I think he had an exciting ride while it lasted.”

“And the others?”

I explained that Curtis had stolen the half-track with my handmaiden on board, and Addie agreed that Curtis would be heading toward Llangurig “almost certainly to sell Laura,” as Wilson had thought. She didn’t know, of course, that Laura was anything but a handmaiden—an odd one, but a handmaiden nonetheless.

“Laura sold?” said Perkins, who did know the princess was a princess. “That’s not good.”

“We’ll get her back,” I said, “whatever it takes. That’s about it. No, wait, we lost Ignatius.”

“Flesh-eating slugs?” asked Addie. “He never was a fast mover.”

“He tried to escape to the border in a rowboat and was shot down by anti-aircraft fire.”

“Wow,” said Addie. “I would never have seen that coming.”

“Neither did he.”

“If you don’t need me for anything more,” said Gabby, “I’ll be off. I’ve got some raw recruits to train in the risk-management business. Staff turnover is savagely high these days.”

We all shook hands, I thanked him again, and after politely refusing an offer of breakfast, Gabby was off at a brisk walk and soon lost to view over a rise.

We sat on the warm grass, and a picnic breakfast never tasted so good. Addie made tea in a billycan too, boiled over the residual thermo-wizidrical energy emanating from the runic markings on the fallen marker stones.

“So what’s the deal with Gabby?” I asked.

“He’s exactly what you see. Someone who assesses risk of death and steps in to intervene if the right conditions prevail.”

“Why didn’t he save Ralph?”

“Ralph wasn’t human,” said Addie, “and Gabby’s instructions are clear. If he had to rescue nonhumans, where would he draw the line? Tralfamosaurs? Rabbits? Ladybugs?”

“He was definitely a bit strange,” said Wilson thoughtfully. “He never ate or drank, and I didn’t see him sleep last night. He was still awake as I nodded off, and awake before me.”

“And me,” I added. “And he never took off his backpack. I saw him struggling to put it on just once, when he returned to camp this morning.”

“Listen,” said Addie. “Gabby is what Gabby does, and it’s best not to ask too many questions. There are some things out here that defy explanation, and Gabby—well, he’s one of them. Have you ever fully explained your Quarkbeast?”

“No,” I replied.

“He’s like that. Well, not exactly like a Quarkbeast, obviously, but you get my point. Don’t look too close. He may not like what you find.”

“Don’t you mean I might not like what I find?”

“I know what I mean,” said Addie, shooting me a look.

“So . . . what about the kidnappers?” I helped myself to another roll, this time with peanut butter. I saw Perkins and Addie exchange looks.

“If you’d rather not—” began Wilson.

“No, we should tell you,” said Addie, taking a sip of tea. “I tracked them to about five miles from Cambrianopolis, and then waited until dawn before walking into their camp. I told them my word of death was in the steel I carried, and that they could stay there alive if they relinquished Perkins or stay there dead if they did not. I knew they wouldn’t give him up, but it’s traditional to offer some sort of deal.”

“Three against one?” I said. “No offense or anything, Addie, but you’re not even half their size. Did you think you had a chance?”

“What I lack in weight, I make up for in savagery,” she said, “and no offense taken. I weighed my chances at about seventy-thirty in my favor. It would have been a hard hand-to-hand struggle, but I would have won eventually. I would have left them to the flesh-eating slugs, set free their Buzonjis, and returned with Perkins. When they took him, they would have expected me to do this.”

“Did it pan out that way?” I asked.

“It would have,” said Addie, “but for your friend here.”

I turned to Perkins. “What did you do?”

“She turned up and, yes, did the whole dopey tribal honor speech,” replied Perkins, “which was quite stirring in a simplistic, barbaric, and pointless-death kind of way, and I said that if she killed them, I wouldn’t come with her.”

“I told him he didn’t have a choice,” said Addie, staring into her teacup. “I would bind him like a hog and return him whether he liked it or not.”

Wilson and I looked at Perkins expectantly.

“So,” said Perkins, “I told her I would pop myself if she laid so much as a finger on any of them.”

I raised my eyebrows. Popping was the last resort for a wizard, a simple spell that caused a hemorrhage in the brain. Unconsciousness would be instantaneous, and death would follow.

“That put me in a quandary,” said Addie, “for it would be a triple failure. I would still have to kill the bandits, the Silurians and the Oldivicians would go to war, and the trophy in the argument—Perkins—would be lost anyway. There were no winners. So I did something I’ve never done before. I told them that I would not kill them, as there was no good reason for it, and that I would lose my honor to keep the peace between our tribes.”

“I’m getting really confused over this whole honor thing,” I said. “Isn’t a willingness to die and to kill for an abstract concept of dubious relevance a bit nuts?”

“I’d be the first to admit that,” said Addie. “Honor is kind of what you get when you weaponize manners, but if you’re brought up in a system where honor is valued more than life itself, it makes a lot more sense. Some. A bit. Anyway—they attacked me as they were honor bound to do, and I defended myself as I was bound to do, but killed them in self-defense. I think it was what Gareth had planned. He had dishonored himself by kidnapping Perkins in the first place and causing conflict between our tribes, then being the cause of me dishonoring myself, which brought dishonor upon himself. By attacking me, he allowed me to restore my lost honor by killing him, and, odd as it might seem, his honor as well. He thus died with honor, and I thank and respect him for it. We didn’t leave them to the slugs at all, and instead buried them with tribal honors, which is why we were kind of delayed getting back to you. The ground was hard, and we had to ride for miles to find a shovel.”

“I’m totally lost,” I said.

“Me too,” said Wilson.

“And me,” said Perkins, “and I was actually there witnessing it.”

“Okay,” I said, “what happened then?”

Addie continued. “We got to the pod-poles long after you had left, found your note, and followed your trail as far as the Hotax-attacked Range Rover. By that time it was late afternoon, and since Trigger wouldn’t follow, we decided to find a hotel in Llanidloes.”

“Who’s Trigger?”

Addie nodded in the direction of her Buzonji, which tossed its head impatiently.

“So the plan is now—?” I asked.

“Same as before, pretty much,” said Addie. “We’ll head into Llangurig and see if we can retrieve your handmaiden and the half-track and get some payback on that idiot Curtis.”

“And then?”

“You can see what Able Quizzler has to say for himself, I guess—and take it from there.”

This seemed the best plan, and after Addie had instructed Trigger to head on home, she led us toward a downhill path.

“Any news?” Perkins asked me. I showed him the latest note from the homing snail, and watched his reaction to “all other considerations secondary.” A look of consternation crossed his face, but was soon gone.

“They’re eager to keep the princess safe,” he said, “and the Eye is still our number one priority.”

“Maybe so,” I said, “but if Able Quizzler has no information about the Eye of Zoltar, I’m pulling the plug. We’ve lost two people already, and hunting Leviathans and a legendary pirate across Cadir Idris sounds like a fool’s errand.”

“Fair enough,” said Perkins. He pointed at Moobin’s note again. “What’s all this about a leap of faith?”

“No idea,” I said, “and why did Moobin want to tell you that all other considerations are secondary? Are we in some kind of trouble?”

“I’m not sure,” said Perkins. “Perhaps he just wanted to impress upon me the importance of this mission.”

We came to a thin line of beech trees on a ridge, and Addie pointed toward a town on the valley floor. “Behold,” she said dramatically. “Llangurig.”