Free Gods and Pawns by Kage Baker Page B

made?”
    “Oh, it’s just—” The little girl clapped her hand over her mouth. “It’s—just some stuff. That’s, um, lying around.”
    “I notice it’s a much darker color than the earth of the plain,” said Mendoza, with an interrogative stare like a hot poker.
    This is not the way to ask, Lewis transmitted. Mendoza gave him an impatient look, but subsided as he said: “In the Land Beyond the Sunset, you see, we have no such earth. It’s, er, pink.”
    “Pink?” Tanama looked enchanted. “Like Cajaya’s dress? Really?”
    “Yes, and all the trees grow on flat ground,” said Lewis. “In straight lines.”
    “How strange! That must make them hard to water, when the rains stop,” said Tanama.
    “Oh, our master is clever. He has spirits that fly about with jugs of water tending to them,” said Lewis. “They’re called, er, amphorae. Have you ever heard of such things?”
    “No,” said Tanama. “We use gourds for that. Oh, dear, one of the beds broke. Shall I go get you another one?”
    “Most kind! But I wouldn’t hear of you fetching such a heavy piece of furniture, little goddess. If you’ll show me where another bed is, I’ll bring it back myself,” said Lewis, as smoothly as he was able. Tanama, however, bit her lip and backed off a pace.
    “I’m not supposed to—that is, Father says—”
    “It’s all right,” said Mendoza quickly. “I’ll just sleep hanging from the ceiling again. Don’t trouble yourself.”
    “Thank you!” said Tanama, and ran from the room.
    Lewis and Mendoza exchanged glances.
    “I had been about to tell you,” said Lewis, “that the royal family seems to be keeping a secret.”
    “I’d guessed as much.” Mendoza turned her head and eyed the doorway. “Something other than the obvious secret ingredient in terra preta ?”
    “I’m afraid so,” said Lewis. He told her what he’d overheard, and she frowned.
    “Why would a drooling inbred idiot be considered a bargaining chip?” she said.
    “Perhaps a negative one? In any case, I’m afraid we don’t have much choice,” said Lewis. “Company procedure, and all that.”
    Mendoza sighed. “Pass me a guava. It’s going to be a long night.”
     
    They sat up in silence as the night darkened. The soft mist became driving rain, thundering down on the broad leaves of the tree canopy above the house; soon there was a counterpoint of plink s and plonk s from pots hastily placed in rooms Lewis’s thatching had not yet reached.
    Breathing deeply, Lewis attuned himself to the night. Under the drum and spatter of the rain, the fearful song of a million tree frogs chanting their lust. He made out the slower rhythms: mortal heartbeats, mortal breathing, a drowsy conversation, the popping of embers in a low fire. The creak of a bed frame: someone was tossing impatiently.
    There were the scents, too: the smoking fire fragrant as incense, the sweetness of overripe fruit, the bitterness of mold. Over all, the immense raw wet black smell of the night outside; under all, a faint mortal reek.
    The mortals grew still. The conversation drifted into snores. The impatient sleeper lay quiet, finally at peace.
    Lewis waited until he thought he could hear centipedes rustling through the garden mold. He opened his eyes and looked at Mendoza. Her eyes were wide and vacant, dreaming awake. Gently he took her hand. She turned her face to him blindly; gradually she pulled her consciousness to the here and now, and met his eyes. He smiled and rose to his feet, taking her with him.
    They walked out into the dark house.
    A black corridor stretched before them, and only faintly glowing mushrooms along the baseboards gave any light; but they needed none. Silent they proceeded over the damp flagstones, through the vacant wing of the palace where they had been housed. Empty rooms opened black mouths, all along the wall to their right; now and again an arcade opened to the left, where rain gurgled in all the cistern runnels of the