The Emperor's Ostrich Page 4

  She gazed over at Key, walking beside her. It seemed to her that there was a story behind his cryptic words, but the chatty boy didn’t seem to want to talk about it.

  They walked for a while, but Key, it seemed, was not a person who could bear silence.

  “Have you any family?”

  Thinking again of Mumsy gave Begonia a pang of sadness. How her mother would worry when she didn’t return home with Alfalfa by dark!

  “A mother and a younger sister.”

  “A younger sister,” echoed Key. “I always wished for a younger brother or sister. I myself am the youngest of a very large family.”

  Begonia pictured a family full of children who looked just like Key, twigs and blossoms and all. “How large a family?”

  “No one is quite certain.”

  Begonia forgot Alfalfa for a moment. “You’re joking!”

  Key shook his head. “They would never hold still long enough for my parents to count.”

  “But…!”

  “Twins, triplets, neighboring cousins … Once you have more children than fingers, and more piglets than children, what does it matter?” He sighed. “Tell me, does your younger sister look up to you? Admire your wisdom? Follow your example in all things?”

  A picture of spoiled, smug Peony flashed in Begonia’s brain. She let out a bitter laugh. “Hardly.”

  “Really?” Key picked a wild berry off a bush and offered it to Begonia. “I would’ve thought so.”

  “She tattles about me to Mumsy nonstop and says I do everything stupidly.”

  Key patted Begonia’s shoulder. “I’m sure you don’t do everything stupidly.”

  “Thanks.”

  They plodded along. Any other day, Begonia would have loved this long walk, reveling in the view around each new bend. The fields would have delighted her with their delicate green stalks of new vegetable plants rising up from the damp earth. These many-colored wildflowers, blooming in the hedgerows—on another day she would have picked a bouquet for Mumsy.

  But today she could barely notice any of it. All she saw was what she didn’t see. A cow.

  “I’ve taken the wrong road,” she said aloud. “I should’ve taken the forest path. That must be where Alfalfa has gone. Perhaps she’s gone searching there for some shade.” She pointed toward her left, where the forest made a dark border to the western horizon. “What if she’s been eaten by a panther?”

  “Let me see that map of yours again,” said Key. He pored over the image, muttered to himself, looked about, then held the map up to show Begonia.

  “Look. See there? The bush with the purple flowers? That’s where I’ve been … where we met a short while ago. And this is the road we’re on, and this one”—he traced his finger along the other fork in the road, the one headed due west that veered through the forest—“is the path we didn’t take.”

  Begonia shook her head. “I still don’t understand,” she said. “This map showed my home and my village this morning. It showed none of this territory. I’m telling you, I saw it with my own eyes.”

  Key pursed his lips. “See that cottage up ahead, beyond the bend? There it is on the edge of the map.”

  “So?”

  “So,” he repeated, “it wasn’t on the map half an hour ago, when you showed it to me the first time.”

  Begonia was unconvinced. “How can you be sure?”

  “A Finder of Things That Are Lost,” explained Key, with an air of injured dignity, “is also, conversely, and by extension, A Noticer of Things That Weren’t There Before.”

  Begonia bit her lip. Could it be true? Should she believe this strange boy?

  “But then,” she whispered, “that can only mean that the map…”

  “Changes?” supplied Key.

  “Ink can’t change!”

  “Moves?” inquired Key.

  “But how could it?”

  Key shrugged. “There are forces at work in the world about which we know so very little.”

  “Would you please speak normally?” Begonia cried.

  Key eyed her with a surprised expression. “All right then,” he said simply. “Magic.”

  7

  EMPTINESS, AND PALACE PLOTTING

  Late morning, in the palace.

  Five days had passed since he’d vanished, and still the emperor had not returned. An eerie quiet settled over his elegant dwelling.

  At first, all had been hustle and commotion in the hours after he disappeared. Searchers fanned out across the empire, hunting for their ruler, leaving the palace staff tense and watchful.

  Meanwhile, servants who’d known the emperor since he was a boy on his mother’s knee wept. The palace priest lit candles before the shrines of emperors and empresses past, praying that their great-great-however-many-greats-grandson would come home.

  The old chancellor seemed to age ten years overnight. He’d served the royal family since the current emperor’s grandfather had wielded the scepter, and he worked tirelessly now to find his missing young lord. In search of clues, he dispatched waves of diplomats on voyages to the halls of neighboring kingdoms to dance with the elegant ladies of those glittering courts. Was there a plot brewing? Had the emperor vanished at some king’s wicked hand?

  Many in the palace doubted the chancellor’s strategy. No earthly power, they said, could’ve produced that scream of mortal terror, nor caused those doorknobs to burn. Nothing born this side of paradise, the kitchen staff whispered, could do it. But others said, as they so often did, that cooks and bakers were a superstitious set.

  Neither the searchers nor the diplomats dared reveal what they were searching for, nor whom they hoped to find. The old chancellor warned the servants most urgently to be cautious and tell no one what had happened. No one must know that the emperor had vanished. For if the empire were to discover itself leaderless—if power-hungry monarchs from across the sea should discover that the great and wealthy empire of Camellion, that jewel of the Three Continents, that succulent peach dangling from the world’s Tree of Paradise, lacked an emperor to command its armies—then who could say what might follow? Wars and intrigues. Anarchy and terror. The end of an ancient empire, and the plundering of its treasures.

  Art galleries. Jewel-encrusted corridors. Carvings of rare and exquisite beauty. Pleasure boats and botanical gardens. What would become of it all? The Imperial Menagerie. Would its terrifying beasts be set loose to savage children in the streets?

  These and other dismal thoughts were all that remained to occupy the minds of the army of servants who no longer had an emperor to please. On they worked, and scrubbed, and sewed, and baked, as though he were still home. When he did return, all must be ready. There was a birthday celebration to prepare for, after all. How their hearts would soar to hear the sounds of his complaints and demands once more! They didn’t mind. It came with the job. Every job had its quirks. Scribes were squinty, bakers plump, harpists high-strung, and emperors domineering. Especially young ones. It was only because they were nervous. In time, they’d learn.

  The Guards of the Imperial Bedchamber drooped at their posts. The royal confectioners baked tiny pastries out of pure habit, but their hearts weren’t in it. The palace chefs set mousetraps and mourned over wilting lettuces the emperor would never eat. The Imperial Masseuse’s hands grew stiff, and the Singers of Songs for the Evening Shift sang mournful dirges into brass pipes to which no one turned a listening ear.

  The Keeper of the Imperial Aviary was the one person on the palace staff who wasn’t worried about the emperor. He mourned his missing ostrich, a tall and handsome male the keeper had nicknamed Lightfoot. The emperor, as far as he was concerned, could look after himself, but who would take care of Lightfoot? Would rude boys try to pluck his fluffy wing feathers?

  No, nothing was right anymore, reflected the butler, formerly the cupbearer’s second assistant. In the five days since the emperor vanished, the butler had been kept busy serving beverages to other nobles in the palace. Three, to
be precise: Count Rudo, the emperor’s cunning cousin; Lord Hacheming, an aristocrat descended from the royal priestly line; and Duke Baxa the Ruthless, the son of a captain in the former emperor’s army.

  These three were the emperor’s closest associates. Not friends, for this particular emperor didn’t know the first thing about how to treat others in a friendly way. But he did have people willing to lose to him at games to relieve his boredom, people to complain to, or complain about, as the mood suited him. Rudo, Hacheming, and Baxa were the emperor’s companions, and they lived in the palace. No one remembered their being invited. They appeared out of nowhere and made themselves comfortable, much as termites do. Each of them powerful, wealthy, and well-connected, they could be very dangerous to the emperor if they wished to be. They were among the first to hear of his disappearance. There could be no hiding the news from them.

  The Imperial Butler entered the small salon where the three had gathered after a late breakfast that morning. He carried a decanter of wine and three gleaming golden cups inlaid with silver animal patterns, neatly arranged on a crystal tray. He bowed low, then began to pour.

  “… leadership was a disaster,” murmured Count Rudo to the others. Sunlight gleamed off his glossy, oiled curls of jet-black hair and the solitary curl of his beard.

  “Gone for days now,” was bald, round Lord Hacheming’s deep, bullfroggy reply. He was, indeed, an amphibious-looking person, with rolls of neck that might have been gills, wispy whiskers dangling below his otherwise smooth-shaven face, and bulging toad’s eyes.

  “Shh.” Duke Baxa placed a finger over his lips and flicked his eyes, briefly, in the butler’s direction. His thin mustache quivered like a flung dagger impaled in a door.

  The butler poured out the last drop of Hacheming’s wine without spilling a drop, all the while keeping his face as placid as a moonlit pond.

  “That will be all.” Duke Baxa waved a hand at the butler, who soundlessly left the room.

  But he didn’t like it. Something didn’t feel right. So he did what he had never done before. He violated the sacred rules of buttling, rules drilled into him since he was a fifth assistant cupbearer. He lingered near the doorway, stilled his breath, and listened.

  “There’s no hint of a clue of him ever coming back.” That would be Count Rudo, with a voice as oily as his hair. “I tell you, the longer you wait, the more your chances weaken. Someone else will take the throne.” Wait for what?

  The butler heard the sound of a heavy glass being set down on a wooden table. “Patience.” Must be Baxa.

  “What if he isn’t dead?” said Hacheming. “Some servants believe he went mad. He could be roaming anywhere. Which means he could return.”

  “And how long do you think he’d survive as a madman roaming the countryside?” inquired Baxa. “No. We wait for the time to be right, and then we act. Our opening could come at any moment.” A swallowing sound. “The empire needs a leader. A real one, not that doddering fossil of a chancellor. Soon I shall provide them such a leader. When I take the throne, you’ll share the spoils.”

  Low chuckles, and the chiming sound of golden glasses clinking. The butler’s breath caught in his throat.

  “Hsst! Did you hear that?”

  The butler backed away as quickly as he dared, keeping his eyes on the door. Rudo’s shining hair poked out the doorway just as the butler ducked around a corner.

  Safe, the butler thought. For now.

  8

  A CHOOSY CAT, AND A HORRID BEAST

  Begonia marched along the road, fuming. She paused every dozen steps or so and consulted the map. She frowned and marched some more. She didn’t want to believe it. She longed to deny it. But she couldn’t.

  The map was moving. The face of the drawing, ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, changed.

  She watched over a long stretch of walking as an innocent-looking boulder slid slowly off the edge of the page and vanished. She remembered passing it hours back.

  “There’s no such thing as magic!” she fumed.

  Key shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “Those are children’s tales,” she said. “People talk about magic, but that’s just old-timey stuff.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Oh, would you stop that?”

  Key spread his hands out wide. “We’ve established the fact that the map is moving, a thing which we know to be impossible. What other explanation is there?”

  “There must be one,” Begonia insisted, “that we haven’t found yet.”

  “Maybe an ancestor spirit is moving it,” Key said.

  Begonia glared at him. “Nobody really believes that, either.”

  Key halted in his tracks and gaped at her. “You don’t believe in ancestors?”

  How, Begonia wondered, did she find herself trapped in a day where this odd boy interrogated her relentlessly?

  “Of course I do,” she said. “I believe they lived and died. I believe we owe them great honor and gratitude. We celebrate them in lots of ways. With rituals. And, you know, just with how we live.” She paused to think. What did she really believe, come to think of it?

  “And maybe,” she went on, “for all I know, maybe they do really watch us from … wherever they are. If they’re anywhere. But they’re gone, don’t you see?” She looked to see if Key did see, but if he did, he wasn’t letting on. “The idea of ancestors doing something, something real in the world, is just a bunch of stories.”

  Key’s expression bespoke concern for Begonia, and pity, as if she had a serious disease, or maybe a smut dangling from her nose. “What about demons, then?”

  “That’s different,” she said. “Who else steals eggs from the coop before I find them? Demons aren’t magic. They’re just … demons.”

  Key gave her a strange look. “Obviously.” He’d been shedding leaves and twigs for miles, yet still seemed to have as many in his hair as at first. He pointed to the map in Begonia’s hand. “Do you think demons are working that map?”

  “But that would mean Master Mapmaker is a sorcerer,” she protested. “I’ve known him for years. He’s always there, with his funny spectacles and pens, just scratching away.”

  Key shrugged. “And yet he gave you a map that moves.”

  “If only it could move to the spot where Alfalfa is.” Begonia began to stuff the map back into her pocket, then paused. “Map,” she told it loudly, “can you show me where my cow Alfalfa is?”

  The paper did nothing.

  “Mark the path that leads to my cow?”

  Still nothing. Not so much as a parchment corner rustling in the breeze. So Begonia moved on, heavy in foot and in heart.

  “I would just like to point out,” said Key, “that you don’t believe in ancestors or magic, and you don’t believe this is the work of demons, yet you’re begging a piece of parchment to help you.”

  She glowered at Key. “Perhaps I am becoming more open to possibilities.”

  “Perhaps you don’t speak its language,” Key offered.

  “You’re no help.”

  “You pierce my heart,” said Key. “A romantic lives for nothing but to be helpful.”

  The sun began to sink in the west. Its orange rays blinded them as they walked along, heading straight into its burning fire. Begonia wrapped her pink scarf loosely over her forehead and eyes and kept her view fixed on the path beneath her feet. She should’ve turned and gone home long before this, but it always seemed as though Alfalfa must be just around the next bend. One bend led to another, and now the day was gone. Where would she sleep? She’d never in her life slept away from home. How Mumsy would worry! She was miles from Two Windmills, all alone, save for this curious Key, and she might fall prey to who-knew-what? Panthers? Thieves? Demons that stalked the roads by night? Demons or no, desperate criminals or no, Begonia had overheard enough of the bedtime stories Mumsy always read Peony to know that tucked into bed at home, after dark, is where a girl should always stay.

  Up ahea
d, they heard a rumbling sound, and with it a yowling screech, as though a thousand demons sang together.

  Begonia gasped and hurried off the road into the tall grasses.

  “What are you doing?” Key called after her.

  “Shh!” she hissed, and waved at him frantically to get off the path. “Listen to that horrible sound!”

  Key watched the road ahead for what felt like an eternity, then joined Begonia.

  “It’s a wagon,” said Key, “carrying a tall cage. Whatever’s inside, it’s making an awful racket.”

  The tall, tottering vehicle rumbled along, swaying and glowing from the setting sun. As it approached, it revealed its cargo: angry cats. Dozens of them.

  The screeching and screaming only grew louder as the wagon approached. The horse, a sturdy fellow, snorted and tossed its head about frantically, showing the whites of his eyes. The driver sat hunched in misery on the seat-board. He wore a scarf tied twice around his head, and, still, he pressed his hands to his ears and moaned.

  “The poor horse,” Begonia said. “That sound would make anyone lose their sanity.” She rose and hurried after the wagon, then jogged to keep up with the driver.

  “Excuse me,” she cried over the chorus of cats. “Have you seen a wandering white cow as you traveled this way?”

  The driver kept his hands clamped to the sides of his head and ignored Begonia.

  She watched the kitties through the slats of the cage walls. They arched their backs and clawed at their prison bars. They trod on top of one another in their eagerness to get free. Their paws jabbed through holes in the cage and groped at empty air.

  “Poor things,” said Begonia. “I wonder what happened to them. I wish we could help.”

  One fluffy gray cat, she noticed, made no commotion. It sat calmly in the back corner, watching Begonia with gold eyes. As the wagon rumbled on, eastward, toward where Begonia and Key had come from, this cat poked a white paw out. It swatted at the latch holding the cage together and, with a few quick jabs, released the lock. The door swung open, and an avalanche of hissing, yowling kitties came pouring out.