Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) (24 page)

The bird landed on the lip of a trash bin and cocked its brilliant head.

“Axa say go ahead without!” the parrot croaked.

“Go to Bilskinir without him?”

“Ayah,” the parrot replied. “Quickly!”

It launched up and off into the darkness before I could ask it why, where, or—most importantly—how. Bilskinir House sits on the edge of the Pacifica Ocean, a full six miles from the City line. I doubted very much that the Point Lobos horsecar was running, and it would take me hours to walk out there, even if there was no traffic at all. But I had to get there, and quickly.

You gotta do what you gotta do,
Nini Mo said.

What would Nini Mo do? She would beg, borrow, or steal transportation—anything to get where she needed to go. The first two options seemed unlikely to be successful in this hullabaloo. That left the last.

So that’s what I did: I stole a horse.

H
ORSEJACKING
turned out to be surprisingly easy. I left the alley and jumped back into the flood of people streaming up Turk, with the idea of heading toward the horsecar barn at Turk and Division. If it was still standing, perhaps I could take advantage of the confusion to help myself to a ride. Getting through the panicked crowds was hard going—in fifteen minutes I barely made it half a block, and I was stepped on twice, almost run over once, and pushed, shoved, kicked, and yelled at many times. But then, as I reached the intersection, the Goddess granted me her favor.

Ahead of me, the hordes parted and a horse trotted straight toward me. It wore a saddle, but its reins were dragging, and by this I guessed that it had been tied up somewhere, jerked free during the earthquake, and bolted. Its head was bouncing nervously, and its eyes were rolling back and forth, trying to look everywhere at once. When the horse saw the fountain on the southwest corner of the intersection (a monument to some victory of the Warlord’s), it rushed over and plunged its muzzle happily into the water. Carefully, slowly, I sidled up, slow and casual, and took hold of the bridle, coiling the reins around my hand.

No one shouted at my daring, and the horse didn’t jerk away Instead, it turned to me, nuzzling me somewhat gratefully. Horses feel better when they have company, and I can’t say I blame them—you always feel braver with two. The horse ducked its head again, slurping more water, and when it was done, it turned an inquiring eye my direction as if to say What now?

The saddle was pretty fancy of well-worn tooled leather, studded with conchos. The stirrups were too long, but I would have to wait until I got out of the crowd to shorten them. I used the rim of the fountain to mount up, and even then, I had to hop pretty high, for that horse was big—at least eighteen hands. The advantage of being mounted was immediately clear. People who weren’t going to move for the 135 pounds of me were quicker to get out of the way of a thousand pounds of horse. Within a few minutes we had veered off Turk and started out the Lobos Road. The road was also clogged with people, but by the time we reached the Presidio crossroads, the way had cleared enough that I could give Sieur Caballo his head.

He took it and flew. The wind rushed through my hair and stung my face, the dark night a blur around me. My brain, which should have been on the future, was fixed on the past. Fixed on Udo. I was a total idiot—I should have seen the danger of Springheel Jack’s boots earlier. When Valefor said that the boots were the source of Jack’s power, I should have realized he meant it literally The boots wore the man, not the other way around. When the boots had lost their host, they turned to the nearest replacement: Udo. They had beguiled him and turned his own weakness—vanity—against him. How could I have not seen that? No wonder Udo had been acting so strange. I should have realized he had not been himself.

But I couldn’t do anything to help him, not yet. All I could do was hope that he wouldn’t do anything foolish—rob the Califa National Bank or cut all his hair off, for example. And as soon as the City was safe, I would find him and figure out a way to get him unenscorcelled. Ayah, Udo had been a complete and total snapperhead, but I couldn’t let Springheel Jack have him.

My brain churned with recrimination against myself, and with fear that by the time the City was saved, it would be too late for Udo. And that maybe it was already too late for the City—that the Loliga was close to exacting her revenge. Round and round went these thoughts, and then, suddenly, we crested the edge of the Pacifica Playa and there, high over the Pacifica Ocean, was Bilskinir House, a black silhouette against the star-flecked sky.

The road to Bilskinir’s front gate starts down on the Playa and then crawls up the cliff, and only at low tide is the foot of the road dry. Alas for me, when I arrived, the tide was high and the bottom of the road was flooded. By my watch, it was just one o’clock in the morning. I couldn’t wait for low tide, whenever that might be. But from my previous dealings with Paimon, I knew he could control the weather around his House. Surely he could pull the tide back and let me in.

“Paimon!” I shouted.
“Paimon!
"

Sieur Caballo splashed along the tide line, toward the causeway. He was lathered and thirsty, but I had nothing to water him with, poor boy. I petted his sweaty neck; he dipped his nose down into the surf and then tossed his head, snorting salt water. The wind was roaring straight off the ocean, blowing my hair in my eyes, and freezing my ears into lumps of ice. I flipped my collar up, which helped only my neck. But that was better than nothing.

“PAIMON! LET ME IN!” The wind and the pound of the surf tore my screams into shreds, tossed the pieces aloft into the night sky, where they were lost. The bulk of Bilskinir, rearing above me like a colossus, remained blank. Not a single light shone through its blackness. If I had not known that the hulking shadow was a House, it could easily be mistaken for a lofty rock formation. Where was Paimon?

The ocean began to slosh—waves wiggling not in a forward surge, but in a muddle, as though someone was stirring it with a giant laundry stick. A roaring rattle drowned out the ocean’s pound, and Sieur Caballo shied suddenly, scrambling out of the surf and away from the cliff face. I almost slid off his back; my thigh muscles were whining with pain. Rocks scattered down the cliff, splashing into the water; first a few, and then a whole bunch. I hung on to the saddle horn as the horse bounced back onto the beach and shied down shifting sand. Then, suddenly, the aftershock was over. The ocean went back to its natural pounding; the sand blew only with the wind, and Sieur Caballo stood with his head hanging, somewhat abashed he had almost lost his cool. I patted his neck to show him that I didn’t blame him one bit.

Now we stood at the bottom of Bilskinir’s foundations, and the cliff reared sheer above us. When I looked straight up, the perspective listed, so that for one horrible moment it appeared the entire House was about to fall upon us. It remained completely dark and impenetrable.

"Paimon, please let me in,” I mumbled. Still no answer.

There’s always a back door,
Nini Mo said. Bilskinir sat high above—if there was a back door, it had to be here, below, set in the House’s foundations. And then I remembered the map I’d found in
The Eschata
—hadn’t it said something about back doors? I dismounted and used Sieur Caballo’s bulk as a shelter from the spray; I dug the map out of my dispatch case and opened it up, sparking an ignis light, so I could see it in the dark. The scale of the map was much larger than I had remembered it, large enough that Bilskinir House and its surroundings were rendered in pretty close detail—so close that even the individual tidal pools were marked.

“Back door, back door,” I muttered, scanning the map—finding Avenue Bilskinir, Grand Gardens, Seal Rock, Point Lobos Road, and then: “The Haðraaða Gate (Bilskinir’s Back Door).” According to the map, the entrance was on the south side of the cliff, not too far from where Avenue Bilskinir, the main drive, began.

A Direction Sigil is one of the simplest sigils there is (and one of the most important, too, for rangers always should know which way to go). It took me only a minute to charge a piece of driftwood with my desired terminus. I didn’t remount, just tucked the reins under my arms. I’d done a pretty good job with the Direction Sigil—my Will to get inside Bilskinir was pretty darn strong—so I could hardly keep hold of the charged driftwood, it was pulling so hard. We clambered over slippery rocks, across sandy shoals, hugging the bottom of the cliff. Then, up ahead, a welcoming light glittered in the darkness. The charged driftwood jerked galvanically, flew out of my hands, and splashed into a tidal pool. No matter, I didn’t need it now.

The source of the light turned out to be a small notch in the rocks. Warm air was curling out of the cleft, fragrant with the most delicious smell of fresh-baked cookies. Ginger cookies, if my nose knew ginger cookies, which it does, as they are my favorite. Who else would be baking cookies on such a blustery night but Paimon? On my last visit to Bilskinir, I had discovered that his savage and horrific appearance was merely the outward shell for a deeply domestic interior.

“I’m sorry I have to leave you, but you’ll be all right,” I said, patting the horse’s nose. He nudged me doubtfully; but he would have to take care of himself. I pulled his bridle and saddle off, but he didn’t immediately wander away, just stood there staring forlornly as I clutched my dispatch case to my chest and squeezed into the cleft.

Immediately the roar of the wind and ocean ceased. The rocky walls were slick with water and claustrophobically narrow, but at least the air was warm. I couldn’t see where the diffused light was coming from. Behind me I heard a sad whine from Sieur Caballo, who hadn’t given up on me yet.

The passageway was twisty and in some places so tight that I had to squeeze sideways to get through. But the smell of baking cookies carried me onward and provided a distraction from the unfortunate realization that if there was another earthquake, and Paimon could not hold his foundations firm, I would be squashed for sure. Normally I am not claustrophobic, but despite the increasing warmth of the air, I was soon in a cold sweat.

The light began to fade, and the passage became merely a crack. I took my dispatch case off, and swung it by its strap. I turned sideways so I could crab along in the dimness. Rock scraped my back, rock scraped my nose. The crack got thinner and thinner; for one bloodfreezing moment, I thought I was stuck, wedged between the walls like a slice of cheese between two pieces of bread. Desperately, I sucked everything in and then—panic surging, clothing tearing—was through.

The passageway was still narrow, but at least I no longer had to walk sideways. The light was now so dim I could hardly see my hand in front of me. I had a collapsible lantern in my dispatch case but no room to dig the lantern out. I tried to ignite another ignis light, but my Will was starting to falter, and the resulting spark wasn’t very bright. Still, it was better than nothing.

Maybe this wasn’t really Bilskinir’s Back Door. Maybe the map was wrong. Maybe this was just one of Bilskinir’s air vents—I’d reach the end and find myself in Bilskinir’s furnace. Or maybe Bilskinir’s garbage chute. Or even—as an acrid smell began to cancel out the delicious cookie odor—one of Bilskinir’s drains.

Save your fright for the campfire,
Nini Mo said. Instead of thinking fearful thoughts, I should put all my energies into believing that the map had not led me astray. Just a little farther, and then, if I had to, I would turn back.

The passage began to narrow again, this time horizontally. First, I was stooping, then crouching, then bending, and then finally crawling along on all fours. Although the ground was sandy, it was still cold and damp, and scratchy on my hands and knees. Now I pushed my dispatch case before me, and soon I was on my tum, slithering like a worm, rock again scraping my back. My ignis light fluttered and gave out, and darkness descended, as heavy and oppressive as the rock pressing down upon me. I stopped crawling and rested my forehead on my dispatch case, sand grating on my cheek, then took a deep breath so as not to be overwhelmed with panic.

There is no way out but through.
My knees and hands were sore, my shoulder sore, and I was out of breath. And terribly thirsty, too. I managed to get my dispatch case open, and fumbled for my flask. After a drink of water and a piece of chocolate, I felt better. Hadn’t Nini Mo been in tighter squeezes? Had she given up? I could lie here in the darkness and die a worm, or keep going and do my duty If I gave up now, died, or went back—Lord Axacaya would know me for a failure.

“For this we are rangers,” I said, and my voice sounded weak and fearful.

“For this we are rangers!” I said again, and this time my voice sounded stronger, though still slightly wobbly.

“
For this we are rangers!”
Now my voice sounded powerful and bright, and I felt better. Worm, worm, worm, I went, and slowly the darkness began to lighten and the passageway widen a bit—not enough so that I could stand upright, but enough that I could get off my tum. A sonorous hum filled the passageway, and ahead of me, a silver light appeared. The hum grew louder, turned into a buzz, like a million cicadas rubbing their legs together. The air ahead began to sparkle and glow, as if each atom were on fire. When I swallowed, I tasted the Current. Then, a Vortex—a magickal portal—popped into existence, some five feet ahead.

The Vortex filled the passageway, whirling like a pinwheel with diamond-bright edges sharp enough to cut through the Waking World, to slice a door from here to somewhere else—who knows where? The Vortex whirled toward me: my bones began to vibrate, my teeth began to buzz. I was trapped like a bug in a rug. I ducked my head down, clutched my bag, and tried to brace myself. My hair grew stiff with static. A hot howling galvanic charge surrounded me—the dizzying sensation of falling—I opened my mouth to shriek, and sucked in water. Choked, and then...