The Indigo King - James A. Owen [23]
Chaz chuckled. “‘Tis, ‘tis,” he said in agreement. “Been low tide for almost two hundred years, as I heard it said. The ocean’s still out there, somewheres, but no souls alive has seen it.”
“Strange pier,” Jack said. “If there’s no water, where do you moor the boats?”
“Hsst!” Chaz hissed, looking behind them. “You can’t just go round sayin’ words like that. Words kill, you know.”
“Sorry,” said Jack.
“Is that him?” John asked, pointing.
At the end of the pier, a shadow stood against a piling. A shadow with a very familiar shape.
John began to move closer, but Chaz motioned for him to hold back. Instead Chaz stepped to the far right side of the pier, where he could be seen in the dim light—but without getting too close to the figure at the end of the pier.
The shadow raised its head in alarm, then lowered it in resignation.
“Whatever it is you’ve come about, Chaz, I want no part of it. Go back to your game-playing with the Wicker Men, or better yet, go play some pipes outside the bone towers, and let the giants have some fun with you. I don’t care either way—just leave me be.”
“Weren’t my call to come seeking you either, you old goat,” Chaz retorted, “but I run into some fellows who says they knows you. Calls you ‘Bert’ or summat.”
At this the shadow stood upright, startled. “Bert? There’s no one else still alive who would use that name, not in this world, not unless …”
He pushed away from the piling where he’d been braced, and hobbled out into the hazy light. For everyone but Chaz, there was a shock of recognition, and for John and Jack, a further shock of seeing nightmares made real.
It was indeed Bert. But he had been changed.
The cheerily ruffled tatterdemalion of their first meeting was barely in evidence here. The clothes and hat were the same, but threadbare and shabby. He was thin, nearly emaciated, and his face haggard and drawn. There was no spark in his eyes, no twinkle. Neither of them had ever seen him without the twinkle, even in the grimmest of circumstances. But then again, neither of them had seem him without all his limbs, either.
Bert supported himself by gripping a small ash walking stick with his left hand—his only hand. His other sleeve was folded and pinned just below his elbow. And in place of his right leg, fastened just under the knee was a piece of wood wrapped in leather, which ended with a crude wooden foot inside his shoe.
Before John or Jack could say anything, Bert threw aside his stick and hobbled forward, grabbing John by the lapels. Weakly, but driven by surprise and rage, his hand shook as the younger man tried to steady him. Bert pressed close, eyes wild, and all but screamed at John.
“Where have you been? Where … have … you … been?!”
CHAPTER SIX
The Serendipity Box
Bert! “John said in choked astonishment. “You know us? You really know us?”
“Of course I know you, John,” the ragged old man said, finally letting go of John’s coat and brushing him away. “I gave you the Geographica. I helped the three of you learn your roles in the great clockwork mechanism of things that are. I stood by you against a great evil, and we saved the world, once. And then you let it degrade to … to … this,” he spat, gesturing with his good arm. “Here, you. Badger. Give me my stick.”
Fred jumped forward and retrieved the short ash staff, handing it to the old man. Neither he nor Uncas understood what was taking place, and so they remained quiet while the humans played out the drama.
Bert stood a few feet from John and Jack, forming a rough triangle, but he refused to look at either of them—not directly. Chaz stood farther back, observing.
“Fourteen years,” Bert wheezed. “We came here fourteen years ago, to … heh … SAVE you … to HELP you …”
“You said ‘we,’ Bert,” Jack said, interrupting. “Who else came with you? Surely not Aven?”
“No, not Aven,” Bert replied. “Your pretty ladylove stayed in the Archipelago, where she needed to be. She doesn’t love you, you know,” he added, almost conspiratorially. “Never did. Didn’t love