Back To The Divide (16 page)

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emanating from different bits of its surface. "I'm brand-new, and I'm the very latest design. Top of the range. My name is Nimblenap, Nimby for short."

For the first time since the brazzles' disappearance, Felix burst out laughing.

The rug rippled with displeasure. "What's wrong with Nimby?"

"It's an acronym," said Felix. "Not In My Backyard."

"I can land just about anywhere," said the carpet, offended. "From the smallest backyard to the most inaccessible mountain ledge."

"Felix is from another world," said Betony, not wishing to waste time in explanations.

"Well,
shuttle my weft,"
exclaimed the rug in an awestruck voice. "What an honor it is to meet you."

"Creep," said the rush mat.

"Smarmy idiot," said someone else.

"We'll take the polite one," said Felix, pointing at the cherry red rug.

The haggling took a long time, but eventually a price was agreed upon: four gold pieces in exchange for the rug known as Nimby.

The carpet undulated with pleasure and followed them outside like a hovercraft. They climbed aboard. Felix was a little apprehensive -- although Nimby was large enough for them both to lie down if they felt like it, a tilt of more than thirty degrees was going to be bad news.

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Their purchase took off, and the oasis rapidly became a tiny speck. "Where to?" Nimby inquired.

"There's a big wadi to the east. Can you find it and fly along its length? We're looking for a couple of brazzles."

"Your wish is my command," replied Nimby. "Hey, I've been wanting to say that for ages.

[Image: Nibble and Felix.]

You're my very first masters, you see."

Felix suddenly realized that the rug was going to have to bank sharply to go in the right direction, but there was nothing to hold on to. He needn't have worried. The sides of the carpet bent upward, so that they were traveling in a sort of cup. The rug completed its maneuver with commendable

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smoothness and flattened out again. Felix heaved a sigh of relief.

"I can even create a roof for you, if it rains," said Nimby proudly. "Not that it ever does around here, of course."

It was a depressing reminder of the storm in the mountains, and conversation ground to a halt.

They found the wadi with no difficulty. The water level had dropped considerably, and they followed the course of the river until it dried up completely. Nothing.

"I think we'd have seen
something
if they'd drowned," said Felix, trying to be optimistic. "Brazzles are huge, and the water's not very deep anymore. We'd have seen a couple of humps, surely?"

"Well, what's happened to them, then?"

"They're probably looking for
us."

"Maybe something's eaten them."

"It would have had to make quick work of it," Felix pointed out.

"A pack of somethings, then. I don't know what scavengers you get in deserts, but I bet there are some."

"There certainly are," said Nimby, trying to be helpful, and he described a creature that sounded more like a saber-toothed tiger than anything else -- except for the fact that it had two heads and six legs.

"Shut
up,"
said Betony. "We don't need to hear things like that right at this moment."

"Oh, dear," said the carpet. "Have I put my fringe in it?

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I should have added that there haven't been any seen around here for ages. Where do you want me to go now?"

"Kaflabad," said Felix.

"Oh, how excellent," said the carpet. "I'm really going to see the world with you two, aren't I?"

"How
do
you see things?" queried Felix. "You don't have eyes like us."

"Sensory receptors all over the place," said the carpet proudly. "Woven in. Oh, by the way, you mustn't let me get too wet, or I'll lose my voice."

Felix stifled a giggle. A carpet that could catch a cold?

"I speak with my fibers, you see," the rug explained. "By rubbing them against one another."

Betony gritted her teeth and scowled. "Are we just going to abandon all hope of finding Ironclaw and Thornbeak, then?"

"Of course not," said Felix. "But they won't know where
we
are, so they'll try and find the riddle-paw, because that's the only rendezvous that makes sense."

It did make sense, and Betony nodded.

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***

9

***

The carpet had to cross the mountains to reach Kaflabad, but it wasn't anything like the ordeal for Felix that crossing the Andrian mountains had been the previous year. Pale green crystalline formations protruded from frost-shattered rocks, sparkling in the sunlight and dazzling the eyes with their brightness. They were like no other mountains Felix had ever seen -- staggeringly beautiful but impossible to climb, with their razor-sharp pinnacles of clear olive-green crystal. Once on the other side of them, they could see Kaflabad in the distance.

"The buildings are enormous," breathed Betony as they drew closer. "Bigger than the palace in Andria, even."

Felix could hardly believe his eyes. The buildings rose like wedding cakes, tier upon tier, each level slightly smaller than the last, clearly visible above the city wall. Some were rectangular, some were square, and some were pyramid-shaped. Narrow ramps wound their way up the walls, and he

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could just make out people -- and quaddiumps -- toiling their way to the top. The number of tiers varied considerably, but one of the buildings was absolutely enormous. They're ziggurats, he thought, just like the ones the ancient Sumerians built. I saw a picture once, in a bible.

"I probably ought to land in the main square," said Nimby. "There will be a carpet rack there somewhere. Nobody can steal me, of course -- I belong to you, and I won't unroll for anyone else." He began his descent, and Felix saw other carpets flying around with people sitting on them, although none of them was as big or luxurious as Nimblenap. Most of them were just doormats, really.

The buildings in the square were mainly two-tiered, with a balcony running all the way around. The carpet rack was clearly visible: a set of glass shelves with a transparent roof of some sort over the top. As soon as they disembarked, Nimby rolled himself up, and they placed him on one of the shelves.

"Parking costs one silver piece per day," said the manager, bustling over. He would have been good-looking in any world: hair as black and glossy as a raven's wing, skin the color of runny honey, features as fine and chiseled as a Greek statue's. A faint perfume seemed to follow him -- nothing cheap or tacky or flowery; sandalwood, maybe. He wasn't a being with whom Felix was familiar.

Betony passed over a gold coin, and the manager gave them their change.

Felix glanced around the square. Apart from a few

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nomads, which he identified by their plain bright clothes and the scarves concealing their faces, all the people were the same race as the manager. "What
is
he?" Felix whispered to Betony.

"An amberly," she whispered back.

The women were tall and slim, and they moved with a flowing grace. They wore turbans made of the same patterned material as their clothes, and they held themselves very straight and carried all sorts of things on their heads. Their wrists, ankles, and necks were festooned with jewelry, which, appropriately enough, seemed to be made almost entirely of amber and silver.

"They're all so beautiful," said Felix admiringly. "I think they may be what we call peris. I've been reading up on mythology since I visited your world, and the Persian fairy -- the peri -- seems the best fit."

"Really," said Betony in an offhand voice. "Anything else you'd like to lecture me about while you're at it?"

Felix blinked. What on earth had he said to upset her? Maybe she felt out of place among the beautiful people of Kaflabad. She was very conspicuous, with her blond hair, her slanting green eyes, and her grubby tunic. Most of the red dye had washed out of Felix's hair in the wadi, and it was now back to its normal brown. For once
he
was the one who attracted the least notice. On the other hand, it might have nothing to do with her appearance -- she could simply be upset about the brazzles.

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"Let's hit the town," he said, trying to cheer her up. There was no point moping about; they needed to get some information. "Where shall we start?"

"The bazaar, I suppose," said Betony. She glanced down at her tunic. "We could get some new clothes."

This seemed like a good idea. Kaflabad was very hot, and what they were wearing wasn't terribly practical as well as being unusual. They made their way to the market, bought a flowing robe each -- blue for him and green for her -- and changed into them immediately. Betony swirled the long skirt around her ankles and perked up. When they'd added headscarves to the outfits, wrapping them around their faces to protect them from the dust like the nomads, neither of them attracted a second glance.

"Lunch?" suggested Felix.

Betony nodded enthusiastically, and they treated themselves to a first-rate meal in a restaurant. When they'd finished, Felix casually asked the waiter whether he'd heard of any riddle-paws in the vicinity. The waiter looked at him as though he were completely insane and shook his head. They left the restaurant and tried asking a few passersby, but they drew a blank every time. It was only when they were passing a stall selling little carved statues that Felix noticed one that did look a bit like a sphinx. He went over and started to haggle for it.

"That's Leona herself," protested the shopkeeper. "Sculpted from life, so I'm told. The artist must have risked

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his neck to carve that one. Two gold pieces, come on, you know it's worth it."

Leona herself? This was a bit of luck. Felix gave in, bought the little statue, and asked where he might find the sculptor.

"Down by the dye-market," said the shopkeeper, rubbing the coins together as though he couldn't believe his good fortune.

"You were telling the truth, weren't you, that he carved this from life?"

The shopkeeper grinned, his teeth very white against his brown skin. "That's what he told me." All of a sudden, he didn't sound the least bit convincing.

Felix and Betony headed off for the dye-market. They found the sculptor with no trouble at all, treading some skeins of wool in a vat of gorgeous purple-blue liquid. "It's just a sideline, the carving," he said. His legs were blue to the knees.

"But did you see her?"

"Who?"

"Leona. The riddle-paw," said Felix, keeping a grip on his temper with difficulty.

The sculptor sucked his breath in between his teeth. "The riddle-paw," he said. "Now, there's a creature to conjure with. I expect you want to know what they're really like; that's what I get asked all the time. And seeing as you obviously have taste -- you bought one of my statues, after all --

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I'll tell you. Big, but not as big as the tales that are told of them. Their hair is brown -- but sometimes it's black, or red, or blond. And they have deep voices -- well, the males have deep voices but the females don't -- apart from the old ones, that is. They eat their food raw. Or cooked. And they ask riddles. That do you?"

Pathetic, thought Felix. "Where is she?" he asked.

"Who?"

"Leona."

"Oh, miles away. She's terrorizing the town of Sebeth at the moment."

"Where's that?"

"West," said the sculptor vaguely. "Can I interest you in a statue of a triple-head?"

"No thanks," said Felix. "Do you know anywhere we might be able to buy a map?"

"There's a bookshop on the other side of the main ziggurat," said the sculptor. "You could try there."

They found the bookshop easily, but to their astonishment only a few volumes were really expensive -- the old ones. The rest were very cheap. Betony picked one up and leafed through it. "It's been printed," she said, amazed.

"Hot off the press, that one," said the amberly bookseller.

The knowledge of printing has spread like wildfire, thought Felix; is there anywhere in Betony's world that hasn't taken it up?

"Delivered by triple-head, only last week," said the book-seller.

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"We've got our own press up and running now, of course. What can I do for you?"

"We'd like a map of the area," said Betony.

"Certainly," said the amberly, handing one over. "How about a newspaper as well? All the latest news from Andria."

"OK." Felix passed him two silver coins in payment, and they went outside. Before they turned their attention to the map they leafed through the paper, which turned out to be two days old. It had been printed in Kaflabad, and said things an Andrian paper would never have gotten away with.
" 'Concern deepens over the king and queen of Andria,'"
Felix read out loud. "
'There have been no sightings of either monarch since the abdication, and ugly rumors are circulating. Most people suspect Fleabane of foul play, but the lack of evidence rules out further action. The current thinking is that while the king and queen were still alive they could be reinstated, and that their complete removal was the only way to ensure that this didn't occur.

"Depressing," said Betony. "I liked the king and queen, even if they were a bit feeble. I hope Ironclaw's information was correct and they
are
still alive. Let's look at the map, then."

For the first time Felix saw Betony's world laid out in front of him. There was Andria, by the sea; Tiratattle, Geddon, Tromm Fell -- and Kaflabad. Beyond Kaflabad was just a mountain range with the word
unexplored
printed across it. There were many other places to the north and south he'd never heard of, but Sebeth just wasn't there. Felix went back into the bookshop and complained.