The Secret of the Swamp King (16 page)

That was the blow that ended the reign of the false Wilderking on Bearhouse Island. The sight of a civilizer striking down a feechie was like a shot of cold water in the faces of the Bearhouse feechies. It jolted them out of their shiny-hungry daze and demolished the last remnants of the false Wilderking's hold over their conscience. The atmosphere was thick with their anger, like the air before a summer storm. Lawmer felt it down his whole spine. He ducked through the door and barricaded it behind him.

The feechie storm broke with terrifying suddenness. Feechies closed on the stockade and climbed the palisades elbow to elbow, one right behind the other. Pobo Sands and Orlo Sands led the way, one on either side of the stockade. Feechies swarmed over the palisades like ants on an anthill. Before the first climbers reached the sharpened tops of the poles, the whole structure began to sway beneath their weight. The stockade had been built by feechie hands, and being the first wooden structure they had ever built, it wasn't very sturdy.

The stockade collapsed on itself in a jumble of falling poles and tumbling feechies. The civilizers were as exposed as soft, pink crawfish that had shed their shells. They flailed about them with their gleaming weapons, and several feechies fell. But it was only a matter of seconds before they were swarmed under by the very people they had lorded over for two long years.

But the Wilderking somehow slipped away from the melee. A flash of white at the edge of the clearing caught Aidan's eye. He saw the robe of egret plumes drop to the ground, and a tall civilizer in boots and tunic, now unencumbered by the trappings of the Wilderking, disappeared into the woods.

The false Wilderking ran south, toward the end of the island he and Larbo's band had not yet ravaged. Aidan picked up a bodyguard's sword and plunged into the forest after him. The ground on Bearhouse Island gave rise to a riot of vines and entangling brambles. Aidan tried to hack his way through with the sword, but there was little use.

The Wilderking had obviously taken a hidden trail. Aidan couldn't find a path. So he tucked the sword in his belt and climbed a nearby tree. Through the treetops he swung and soared, watching the forest floor for any sign of movement. He was within sight of the island's edge when he saw a rustling in the bushes below. Then, above a stand of sparkleberry bushes, a clump of brown, curly hair appeared.

Swift and light as a bobcat, Aidan tree-walked toward his prey. The Wilderking had made it to the shoreline. A flatboat was waiting for him at the water's edge. That's when Aidan crashed down on him from the treetops. The impostor fell hard onto his face. Aidan scrambled to his feet and stood over his prostrate enemy, sword raised and ready to strike if need be. But the Wilderking made no sudden moves. He hardly moved at all.

“Turn around!” Aidan ordered. “Look at my face.”

The man who called himself the Wilderking turned his head slowly to the side, then lifted one shoulder to face his conqueror.

Aidan peered into the narrowed eyes of his enemy, and his face turned white. He had known those eyes since the day he was born. Those eyes had watched Aidan grow up. Aidan had seen those eyes sparkle with laughter many years before. He felt his head grow light. “Maynard,” he whispered.

The impostor twisted his mouth into a sneering smile. “Hello, little brother.”

Aidan staggered back a step. The sword hung by his side, loose in his grip. “I don't understand.”

“Of course you don't understand,” Maynard snarled. “How could you understand a man going out and getting what nobody meant to give him? You've never had to work for anything. You've been given everything you've ever had. How could you understand?”

Aidan stood blinking. He couldn't begin to make sense of what was happening.

“You don't know what it's like to be a second son,” Maynard continued. It seemed he had practiced this speech many times to himself. “To come so close to being the heir to Longleaf Manor, but instead to spend a lifetime knowing that Brennus is going to get it, that self-satisfied moron, because he was born fifteen months before you were.

“That's bad enough. But then a lunatic shows up pretending to be a prophet and convinces everybody that
your baby brother is the Wilderking.” He waved a hand dismissively at Aidan. “You! The Wilderking!” He barked one short syllable of a laugh. “The fifth son! That was the last act.” Maynard pushed up from his elbow and rose to his feet, looking Aidan in the face. “I wish you'd explain one thing to me: How do you deserve to be the Wilderking more than I do? That's one thing I don't understand.”

Aidan didn't answer. He couldn't answer. Maynard's diatribe went on. “Then I saw what the feechiefolk did to the Pyrthens in the Eechihoolee Forest. I realized that if I could train them, arm them, I wouldn't have to depend on any half-wit prophet to make me the Wilderking.” He shook his head slowly, condescendingly at Aidan. “Where did you think I'd been these two years?”

Aidan spoke at last. “You have broken Father's heart.”

Maynard's smug little smile cracked for a second, but he recovered himself. “Father doesn't have a heart.” Then he added, more quietly, “Not for me.”

The two brothers stared at each other: the future Wilderking and the false Wilderking. A realization dawned on Aidan. “You wrote the letter to King Darrow, didn't you?”

Maynard laughed out loud. “Of course I did! One of my plume hunters dropped it in the mail wagon.”

Now Aidan was the one smiling. “It was your letter, you know, that made King Darrow send me to the Feechiefen.”

The irony wasn't lost on Maynard. His scheme to destroy Aidan had instead destroyed his own little
kingdom. But he merely shrugged. He gestured at the sword in Aidan's hand. “So are you going to stab me? Run me through? Cut me into little pieces?” Maynard stood with outstretched arms, baring himself to his brother's sword. Aidan didn't raise his hand. Maynard snorted. “I didn't think so.” He turned toward the water, stepped into the boat, and began to pole away.

Aidan stepped to the water's edge. “But, Maynard,” he called after him, “how did you do it?”

Maynard laughed his mean laugh. “Ask your feechie friend,” he called back. “Ask Dobro.”

Aidan stood at the verge of the island and watched his brother disappear around the buttress of a cypress tree. He didn't move, just stared at the upside-down world reflected in the black water. He was so confused. His dead brother was alive. And yet it didn't seem like good news. He thought of his father, who was so nearly broken by Maynard's death. What would it do to him if he ever found out about Maynard's life, the wickedness to which he had applied his energies these last two years? Maynard could hardly have hatched a scheme better suited to hurt his family, to violate everything Father had taught his sons about the responsibilities of Corenwalder nobles. But one question kept nagging Aidan: Was this all his fault? It was Aidan, after all, who planted the seed of this scheme in Maynard's head. Maynard would have never believed feechiefolk existed if it weren't for Aidan.

Aidan turned and ran into the forest. Low-hanging boughs closed above his head, blocking out the light and making it impossible for Aidan to tell east from west,
north from south. But Aidan didn't care. Ground vines reached up and slung him to the forest floor time and again. But he staggered on, unseeing. He pushed through thorny thickets, unmindful of the briars that raked across his bare chest and back. He sweated off the gray mud that had been his only protection from the vicious insects of the Feechiefen. But he didn't even swat at the bugs or slap at their stings. He was too confused and grief-stricken to care. For hours he blundered in the forest on the south end of Bearhouse. He was broken, bleeding, lost—both inside and outside. He couldn't even remember how to pray.

Then he blundered into a clearing. He stood on the sandy bank of a blackwater pond, a lagoon in the middle of the island. Huge live oaks, hundreds of years old, sprawled their sturdy branches over Aidan's head. Their beards of gray moss nodded reassuringly in the gentle breeze. The birds that roosted in their tops had begun their warbling evensong.

The pond was a perfect circle, a little spot of order and symmetry in the teeming, chaotic wildness of Bearhouse. This, Aidan realized, was Round Pond that Carpo and Pickro had spoken of, the planned site of a new, bigger forge that would use the pond for a cooling pool and the great oak trees to feed the fires. He rejoiced that this place of tranquility and beauty had been rescued from his brother. He threw back his head to gaze high into the crowns of the overarching trees. The most beautiful white flowers he had ever seen were suspended in mid-air, soaring from branch to branch. And Aidan
remembered what had brought him to Feechiefen in the first place.

Here was the spot described in the Frog Orchid Chant, where oak trees bordered a perfectly black and perfectly round pond.

Each orchid was a dazzling white, its wide mouth and three petals forming a body about the size of a bullfrog. And from that main body, two long streamers dangled, long and bent like the legs of a leaping frog. They grew on long stems arching from the high branches of the live oaks. When the breeze blew, the frog orchids bobbed up and down in midair like leaping frogs, their long legs coiling and stretching with the motion.

There were hundreds of them in the treetops, a whole squadron of frogs flying through the evening air. Aidan laughed for the joy of the frog orchids. He cried, too, for their beauty. His melancholy was cured. And a prayer was answered that he hadn't been able to pray.

The next day, the feechies lit the Bearhouse forge fires again. But this was the last time. They fanned the fires to a white heat only so they could melt their cold-shiny weapons and implements back to raw, unformed metal. North Swamp feechies and Bearhouse feechies alike spent a festive day throwing things into the fire and watching them burn—steel swords and axes, arrows and spears, iron shovels and hammers, padlocks and hinges—anything made of cold-shiny.

They planned a big fire jumping for that evening, but Aidan was anxious to leave. He had King Darrow's frog orchid, still attached to the tree limb it grew on, and he didn't want to wait a day longer than he had to, lest the orchid not survive the trip.

The feechies left the forge fires long enough to see Aidan off. He was nearly senseless from the head
butting by the time he actually made it to the landing. Before stepping into the boat, Aidan sought out Orlo and Pobo, who no longer answered to the name of Sands. Their heroics leading the attack on the false Wilderking's palisades had earned them last names. “Orlo Polejumble,” Aidan intoned with exaggerated dignity, “Pobo Smashpine.” He bowed deeply. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Tombro, Hyko, and the rest of the fire crew from the pine flats all cried, howled, and carried on to see the feechiefriend leave. Tombro tried to give Aidan directions to the spot where they had left Aidan's backpack and civilizer clothes, but all his landmarks were stumps and fallen logs, which mostly look alike to a civilizer. Carpo and Pickro offered to pole him back as far as Scoggin Mound because, as Carpo put it, “We was the ones what brung you here.” But Aidan was looking forward to a long boat journey with Dobro, his first and best feechie friend.

When Dobro poled off from the landing, a much-humbled Chief Larbo led the crowd in a farewell cheer: “Hee-haw for Pantherbane! His fights is our fights and our fights is his'n!”

Dobro and Aidan weren't alone in the flatboat. Benno Frogger was making the trip to the North Swamp too. He had decided to leave Larbo's band and rejoin Gergo's. It had been nearly two years since he had seen his mama, and he was in a hurry to get back to Bug Neck.

There had been so much to think about in the last day that Aidan had almost forgotten the last thing Maynard
said before poling off into the southern reaches of the swamp. “Ask Dobro,” he said, if Aidan wanted to know how Maynard had pulled off his scheme. How could Dobro have played a part in this? Aidan had to know what Maynard meant, and they weren't even out of sight of Bearhouse before he asked.

“Dobro, the false Wilderking—did you know he was my brother?”

“What?” Dobro asked incredulously, his face scrunched into a frown. Then a look of recognition dawned on his face. “Curly brown-headed feller? Looks a lot like you?”

Aidan nodded his head. His eyes narrowed. “How did you know that?”

Dobro sat down on the poling platform and let the push pole drag behind. His look of recognition was changing into a look of open-mouthed horror. “Did I … ?” he muttered. “Could I have…?”

“When I asked my brother how he did it, how he tricked a whole band of feechies, he told me to ask you.” Aidan's tone wasn't exactly accusatory, but neither was it the warmest Dobro had ever heard. “Did you meet my brother? What did you tell him?”

Dobro put fingertips to his temples, trying to think. “No,” he said. “It couldn't have been…”

Aidan was getting impatient. “What happened?” he urged. His voice was a little louder. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was coming up the river,” Dobro began, “up near the meadow where you set with your sheep sometimes.
I looked through the trees, and I saw you setting under that big oak tree. Least I thought it was you. I decided I'd drop in on you.”

Dobro thought for a minute, trying to get the details right. “No, wait a minute. It wasn't just me. Who was it with me?” He furrowed his brow in concentration. “Wait … It was you, weren't it, Benno?”

Benno turned around for the first time since Dobro started his story. “Huh? What'd you say? I weren't listening.”

“I said you was with me the day I dropped in on Aidan's brother in the sheep meadow.”

“Oh,” Benno answered vaguely. “Now that you mention it, I do remember that.”

“Anyway,” Dobro continued, “we dropped out of the tree to howdy you, only it weren't you. It was your brother.

“And the peculiar thing,” Dobro continued, “he wasn't surprised to see us. I mean, he was jumpified at first. I think we woke him up, if you want to know true. But it was almost like he was waiting for us to come. Ain't that right, Benno?” Benno gave a little grunt of agreement, but he had nothing to add.

“Well,” continued Dobro, “we howdied him, and he howdied us back. And it weren't long before he commenced to asking us all kind of questions about feechie ways. Wanted to know about your feechiemark, Aidan, and what it meant. Wanted to know where we live and what kind of weapons we hunted with and did we know
about the Wilderking and did we ever make war on other feechies.”

Dobro shivered to recall it. “Made me feel uneasy in my mind. I know I ain't been the keerfullest feechie in the swamp when it comes to civilizers, but even I ain't gonna answer that kind of question.”

“So what did you tell him?” pressed Aidan.

“Didn't tell him nothing,” answered Dobro. “Just hemmed and hawed, and first chance we got to climb back up the tree, we took it.”

“So you didn't give my brother anything that would help him trick Larbo's band?”

“Naw, Aidan. I promise. Cross my gizzard. Ask Benno.”

Benno nodded his head. “Dobro told true. He didn't tell him nothing.”

“And Benno didn't neither,” added Dobro. “I can vouchify that.”

Aidan's brow creased. He shook his head. “I don't understand,” he murmured. “Maynard told me to ask my friend Dobro.” Aidan tried to piece the whole thing together. How could Maynard have gotten a start on his scheme with no more than that to go on? How could Maynard have gone from that little bit of information—no information, really—to ruling a whole band of feechies as the Wilderking?

“Awwww hawwwww hawwww hawwww!”
Benno burst into sudden, violent tears.
“Awwww hawwwww
hawwww hawwww!
It was me what brought that rascal
to the Feechiefen! It was me what brought such misery and heartache!
Awwww hawwwww hawwww
hawwww!”

Aidan and Dobro stared at Benno, astounded, as he continued to wail. “Slow down, Benno,” Aidan coaxed. “What are you saying?”

“After me and Dobro was back in the woods,” Benno sniffed, “I made out like I had somewhere else to be, and we parted ways. I circled around and found Maynard again.”

“But why?” asked Dobro. His voice was full of hurt and betrayal.

“'Cause you had a civilizer friend and I wanted one too,” bawled Benno. “'Cause you and the rest of the band thought I was a know-nothing show-off, but here was somebody wanted to listen to me talk.”

Dobro looked down at his hands. It was true that he had never taken Benno very seriously. He had always waved off Benno's attempts to get attention and gain acceptance.

“So I told him everything he wanted to know,” continued Benno, “and then some. I told him how I never got the say-so I deserved from my people, and he said he knew what that was like. I told him how I was figuring on going over to Larbo's band where I could get some respect, and he reckoned that wasn't a bad idea.”

Benno reached into his side pouch and pulled out a steel hunting knife, identical to Aidan's. It had escaped the forge fires that morning. “And he give me this.” Benno sighed as he watched the sun play on its burnished
steel. “I knowed I had no business with a cold-shiny knife. But it shined as pretty as the sun on swamp water. And it made me feel special, you know, to be the only feechie in the band with a cold-shiny knife. Even if I never showed it to nobody, I liked to have it in my side pouch and know I was a little better than the folks around me, with their poor old stone knives.

“Every new moon, me and Maynard met in the sheep meadow, and he'd ask me questions about feechie ways. I felt just as smart and important as Chief Gergo hisself.

“Then one day Maynard asked me if I'd take him to meet Chief Larbo. I knowed that weren't a good idea. But I done it anyhow 'cause it made me feel important, you know, to say, ‘Chief Larbo, let me introduce you to the man can outfit you with enough cold-shiny to whup this whole swamp.'”

Benno started crying again, loudly, sloppily. “I wanted to show you I was somebody, Dobro—you and everybody else in the band who treated me like a no'count big-talker. I was mad at all of you. I just wanted to feel better.” He wiped his eyes. “By the time it was over, I'd done ruint a whole band of feechies, and we weren't too far from ruining this whole swamp.” He moaned like a wounded animal. “And I still didn't feel no better!”

He looked again at the hunting knife in his hand. The glint of the sun on its surface made little prisms through his tears. Then with a sudden, lurching movement he flung the knife into the deep blackness of the swamp. They watched the circles expand from the spot where the knife splashed down.

“Do you feel a little better now?” asked Dobro.

“Yeah,” Benno answered. “A little better.” A little smile softened his sorrow-crumpled face.

Aidan reached out to touch Benno's shoulder. “You're almost home now, Benno.”