Free Back To The Divide by Elizabeth Kay Page B

could come around at any moment, and if you go back to finish him off you might not be so lucky a second time."
    "Lucky?" screeched Ironclaw.
    "Where are we going?" asked Betony.
    88
    "Geddon," said Thornbeak. "Andria strikes me as a very unhealthy place to be at present. I'll take you, and Ironclaw can take Felix. Tromm Fell's only a short flap away from Geddon."
    "About the --" said Ironclaw.
    "Not now," said Thornbeak.
    "If I cross the Divide on Tromm Fell to get back home," said Felix, "I'll find myself in Costa Rica, without a ticket or a passport, and there's a spell I have to find, and ..."
    "We can always bring you back here again," said Thornbeak. "Come on, let's go."
    Felix climbed on to Ironclaw's back and settled himself just where the hair turned to feathers. The brazzles took off, but they circled Andria since they didn't want to be seen. And then they were flying toward the mountains, and Felix started to tell them what Snakeweed had done to his parents. It was only as he was finishing the story that he remembered Betony's parents, too, had been turned to stone by a spell that went wrong.
    "There isn't a countercharm," said Betony bitterly. "You just have to wait for it to wear off."
    "How long does that take?"
    "Twenty years."
    Felix bit his lip. He'd be nearly the same age as his parents by the time he could speak to them again. How weird was that? And what would happen to him in the meantime? He'd have to stay with relatives and at the same time keep
    89
    the statues safe somehow. The difficulties were multiplying like bacteria in a petri dish and threatening to overwhelm him. And supposing the twenty-year thing didn't apply in his world? He'd lose them forever. What a reversal of fortunes. This time the previous year, his parents had been facing losing him forever. Whichever way around it was, it felt horrible -- the poison just had a slightly different flavor.
    "Permission to squawk now?" asked Ironclaw, with a sideways glance at Thornbeak.
    "Oh, go on then," said Thornbeak.
    "I've had a bit of inside information about the king and queen," said Ironclaw. "I think they're still alive, but they're being held prisoner somewhere."
    "Oh," said Felix dully.
    "Apparently," said Ironclaw, "they can only be rescued by a mythical being."
    "Don't you see, Felix," said Betony, "you couldn't have arrived at a better time. We just have to find out where they are."
    "I don't see why they're so important," said Felix, so overcome by his own misery that he couldn't contemplate anyone else's. "They don't do anything."
    "Of course they do!" squealed Betony. "They lead the dancing!"
    "Yeah, right, that's really crucial."
    "You don't understand, do you? The king and queen exist to remind everyone that there's more to life than mixing
    90
    potions and mining gold. They're in charge of fun. Fleabane's idea of entertainment is public trials and executions. I'd rather have a dance festival, personally." Felix didn't reply.
    "I think you've forgotten something," said Betony. "Who gave us the book containing the spell that cured you?"
    "The queen," said Felix, shamefaced. "Yes, of course I'll help."
    "You may question the prisoner now, Squill," said Fleabane irritably, picking a strand of dark red hair from the sleeve of the purple presidential robe he'd had made. When the young song merchant hadn't shown up for the trial, he'd had to get Pignut to sing the anthem instead. Pignut's voice had sounded like a cuddyak with indigestion.
    Snakeweed had laughed more than anyone and not just at the anthem. This trial was a ramshackle affair compared to the legal battles he'd seen on otherworld television. The court had been set up on the raised bit of ground on the lawn outside the palace that was used for dance festivals, and the prosecuting japegrin was none other than Squill, Snakeweed's old advertising director.
    "I've got quite a list of victims here," said Squill. "Two brittlehorns, Chalky and Snowdrift ..."
    "Oh, bake me a brazzle,"