‘Defection?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You know, a foreign agent who decides to join the other side? A Librarian fled her homeland and joined the Free Kingdoms. My son is in charge of helping her grow accustomed to life here. Ah, here’s our ride!’
I turned, half expecting another dragon, but apparently we two didn’t warrant a full-size dragon this time. Instead, a coachman rode up with an open-topped carriage pulled by rather mundane horses.
‘Horses?’ I said.
‘Of course,’ Patty said, climbing into the carriage. ‘What were you expecting? A . . . what is it you call them? A pottlemobile?’
‘Automobile,’ I said, joining her. ‘No, I wasn’t expecting one of those. Horses just seem so . . . rustic.’
‘Rustic?’ she said as the coachman urged his beasts into motion. ‘Why, they’re far more advanced than those bottlemobiles you Hushlanders use!’
It’s a common belief in the Free Kingdoms that everything they have is more advanced than what we backward Hushlanders use. For instance, they like to say that swords are more advanced than guns. This may sound ridiculous until you realize their swords are magical and are, indeed, more advanced than guns – the kinds of early guns the Free Kingdomers had before they switched to silimatic technology.
Horses, though . . . I’ve never bought that one.
‘Okay, look,’ I said. ‘Horses are not more advanced than cars.’
‘Sure they are,’ Patty said.
‘Why?’
‘Simple. Poop.’
I blinked. ‘Poop?’
‘Yup. What do those slobomobiles make? Foul-smelling gas. What do horses make?’
‘Poop?’
‘Poop,’ she said. ‘Fertilizer. You get to go somewhere, and you get a useful by-product.’
I sat back, feeling a little bit disturbed. Not because of what Patty said – I was used to Free Kingdomer rationalizations. No, I was disturbed because I’d somehow managed to talk about both excrement and flatulence in the course of two chapters.
If I could somehow work in barfing, then I’d have a complete potty humor trifecta.
Riding in the carriage allowed me a good look at the city’s people, buildings, and shops. Oddly, I was just surprised by how . . . well, normal everyone seemed. Yes, there were castles. Yes, the people wore tunics and robes instead of slacks and blouses. But the expressions on their faces – the laughter, the frustration, even the boredom – were just like those back home.
Actually, riding down that busy road – with the castle peaks rising like jagged mountains into the sky – felt an awful lot like riding in a taxi through New York City. People are people. Wherever they come from or whatever they look like, they’re the same. As the philosopher Garnglegoot the Confused once said: ‘I’ll have a banana and crayon sandwich, please.’ (Garnglegoot always did have trouble staying on topic.)
‘So where do all of these people live?’ I asked, then cringed, expecting Bastille to shoot back something like ‘In their homes, stupid.’ It took me a second to remember that Bastille wasn’t there to make fun of me. That made me sad, though I should have been happy to avoid the mockery.
‘Oh, most of them are from Nalhalla City here,’ Patty said. ‘Though a fair number of them probably traveled in today via Transporter’s Glass.’
‘Transporter’s Glass?‘
Aunt Patty nodded her blond-haired head. ‘It’s some very interesting technology, just developed by the Kuanalu Institute over in Halaiki using sands your father discovered a number of years ago. It lets people cross great distances in an instant, using a feasibly economic expenditure of brightsand. I’ve read some very exciting research on the subject.’
I blinked. I believe I’ve mentioned how unreasonably scholarly the Smedry clan is. A remarkable number of them are professors, researchers, or scientists. We’re like an unholy mix of the Brady Bunch and the UCLA honors department.
‘You’re a professor, aren’t you?’ I accused.
‘Why, yes, dear!’ Aunt Patty said.
‘Silimatics?’
‘That’s right; how’d you guess?’