Chapter 14
That Large Francis needed a disguise was obvious to the Dervish.
It surprised him that no one else had thought of it.
Then he remembered Edmund’s sheer delight at encountering the pillbug, and things made rather more sense.
Sadly, most people are not going to be quite as excited to meet an enormous bug as Edmund is.
Edmund seemed to think that they could just explain things to people as they went. The Dervish pointed out that if they got to a town of any size, it would be very difficult to explain to hundreds of people simultaneously that the insectile nightmare was friendly, really.
“She could stay outside of town until we were sure…”
The Dervish folded his arms. “Do you want to take the chance that someone sees her skulking around while we’re off trying to explain things? Because I guarantee that they’re going to stab first, ask questions later.”
Edmund’s shoulders slumped. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t want you to be right, but you are. And Archon’s Glory has thousands of people, and that doesn’t even get to the river crossing.”
He sounded so defeated that the Dervish was conscious of a strong urge to hug him.
Now where did that come from? He settled on patting Edmund’s shoulder.
“It will be all right,” he said. “We’ll find a way to disguise her and smuggle her into the city.
Then the librarians can sort it out.” Librarians, he suspected, would be more open-minded about a giant pillbug, particularly one that was interested in new reading material.
“It-would-be-wise. We-know-that-our-appearance-is-often-startling-to-humans.” Large Francis flexed her antennae worriedly. “We-had-encountered-several-in-our-journey-and-they-often-ran-away. I-have-made-a-sign-to-help-but-I-do-not-think-it-worked.”
“A sign?” asked Edmund.
“Yes-friend-Edmund.” Large Francis reached into her pack and pulled out a length of tightly folded cloth. She shook it out and held it up between two legs, forming a banner.
In clear block letters, it read: I DO NOT EAT HUMAN MEAT.
“Oh no,” said the Dervish.
“Ah…” said Edmund. “Um. That … ah … may not have the effect you intend?”
Large Francis looked from one human to the other. “I-do-not-understand. Is-that-not-what-humans-are-afraid-of?”
“Well, yes, sort of, but…” Edmund looked helplessly at the Dervish.
“It’s too specific,” said the Dervish. “If you deny something very specifically, people wonder why you’d even say it, unless you actually had done it. Also, most humans don’t really like being reminded that they’re made of meat.”
“Also most humans can’t read it,” put in Dog Violet. “A gnole can’t either.”
Edmund told her what it said. Dog Violet’s whiskers did something complicated and she put her hand over her eyes.
“It’s true, though,” the scholar added. “A lot of people still aren’t literate, particularly outside of cities. It’s possible that many of them couldn’t read your sign.”
“I-did-not-realize-this.” Large Francis looked worriedly at the banner, then folded it away. “What-should-it-say?”
“Property of Such-and-Such Menagerie, Large Reward If Returned Alive,” said the Dervish under his breath.
“Dervish!”
“What? It’d probably work. You know what people are like.”
“Yes, but it implies she’s an animal!”
“An animal that won’t get killed.”
“Yes, but the principle…”
“Principles are wonderful things for live people. They don’t do a lot for dead ones.”
Edmund looked as if he’d swallowed something deeply unpalatable. He shook his head. “Disguises,” he said firmly. “Surely we can think of something.”
They discussed the merits of various disguises for hours.
Most of the plans involved wagons they didn’t have and couldn’t afford, pulled by Sweetness, who wouldn’t have done it anyway.
There was clearly no dressing a twelve-foot-long giant pillbug up as a human, although the Dervish thought his suggestion of a dress with a very long train was rather clever.
“Dresses with long trains are reserved for brides around here,” Edmund told him. “But we’d have to swaddle her head like she was a leper.”
“Are you saying lepers don’t deserve to have nice dresses on their wedding day? Shame on you, Edmund. I thought better of you.”
“What? No! I mean, obviously they should—I didn’t mean—” He sputtered to a halt and glared at the Dervish, who had broken into helpless laughter.
“You’re too easy to tease.” The Dervish found that he enjoyed teasing the scholar far too much. He’d used to tease Angharad the same way. Though he had to admit, he hadn’t ever noticed if the tips of Angharad’s ears turned so charmingly pink when he did.
Which is a very silly thing to notice. Still, it’s a good thing Edmund’s not my type. Otherwise, between that and his hands, I might actually be in trouble.
Edmund got him back five minutes later. “Careful which tree you use!”
“What? Why?” The Dervish had been about to attend to a call of nature and paused with his hand in his trousers.
“The manchineel tree has caustic sap. Exposure to even a mild acid like urine can create fumes that temporarily blind you.”
“What?”
“In extreme cases, it can cause eye ulcers. And rain dripping through the leaves can cause lesions, particularly on … errrr … delicate tissues…”
“I knew these trees were up to no good!” The Dervish backed out of the woods, clutching himself protectively. “What do they look like? Which ones are they? Why does this place have evil trees?”
The sound of a gnole having quiet hysterics tipped him off. “Oh, very funny.” He straightened up. “Is this like barnacle pigeons?”
“No, no, they do exist,” said Edmund, wiping his eyes. “But they’re only in the tropics. Those are just ordinary pine trees. You can pee on them if you like.”
“I’m not in the mood anymore,” he said haughtily, an attitude he maintained for almost three seconds before the grin broke through. “There’s a thought. Maybe we can dress Large Francis up as a tree?”
“A walking tree, knife-man?”
“I haven’t worked all the kinks out yet. Besides, they’ve probably got walking trees in the tropics.”
Edmund bit his lower lip, clearly thinking. “There are stories, but nothing well documented. There’s a palm tree with aerial roots that supposedly walks by growing in the direction of water or sunlight, and letting the roots on the other side die, but nobody’s actually measured how far it travels.”
“It-is-probably-safe-to-say-that-it-is-slower-than-I-am.”
The discussion of possible disguises continued until Dog Violet, clearly exasperated, suggested that they paint the pillbug orange and claim she was a giant wheel of cheese.
“I-am-sorry-to-be-so-much-trouble-my-friends.”
The gnole sighed heavily, which apparently meant the same thing among gnoles as it did among humans. “Francis-bug is not trouble. A gnole is just…” She looked to Edmund and said something, combined with ears flattened to the sides.
“Exasperated,” Edmund translated. “We all are. If humans were not so ignorant…”
“It-is-not-unique-to-your-kind, friend-Edmund. For-a-long-time-when-we-met-humans-we-would-roll-into-a-ball-until- they-left. It-was-not-until-a-human-was-patient-enough-to-wait-that-communication-could-begin.”
“Yeah,” said the Dervish, “but there’s a difference between rolling into a ball and trying to murder someone.”
“The difference between herbivores and predators,” said Edmund glumly. “A human’s first instinct is to fight, a pillbug’s is to defend.”
“But-your-people-have-to-fight, friend-Edmund. Your-skeleton-is-so-small-and-on-the-inside. You-cannot-defend-yourself-properly.”
Even through the mechanical voice, Large Francis said that so earnestly that the Dervish had to fight the urge to laugh. I suppose by her standards, we’re like oysters popped out of the shell and still somehow wandering around. With knives.
“Or a human could be sensible and just run away.”
“Is that what gnoles do?” the Dervish asked.
“If a gnole can run, a gnole will. Only fight if backed into a corner.” She showed her teeth, a much more threatening gesture than her usual drop-jawed grin. “But then fight to win.”
“Do you know that gnoles have never had what we’d consider a war?” said Edmund. “Inter-burrow scuffles, and then generally only in times of extreme famine.”
“Ancestors defend us.” The Dervish, whose whole life had revolved, in one way or another, around war, could hardly imagine it.
“World is trying to kill gnoles plenty hard already. A gnole doesn’t need to help.”
“I find that a very commendable philosophy. I wish more humans felt that way.”
“Eh.” Dog Violet shrugged, first with her whiskers, then with her shoulders.
“Most humans not so bad. And gnoles don’t make things like humans make things.
A human sits around, thinks a bit, says, ‘Hey, what if a human gets this metal really hot and hits it?’ A gnole doesn’t think like that.
Burrow has gnole-smiths now, but learned from humans. ”
“I wish there were a burrow around here,” said Edmund. “Large Francis could stay there for a bit and we could go to the Temple of the White Rat and convince them to give us a closed wagon.”
“No burrow for a long way, book-man.”
“Surely-I-could-find-someplace-to-conceal-myself?”
“My fear is that we have no idea how long it will take us to get to Archon’s Glory and return.
Normally I’d say about ten days from here, each way, but …
well … given how things are going…” Edmund smiled wryly, a curiously charming expression given his usual earnestness.
“I don’t want to leave you waiting for months if we get kidnapped or eaten by bears. ”
“Normally I’d say that was unlikely, but it has been a long week,” the Dervish added.
“Your-luck-has-been-better-than-mine, friends-Dervish-and-Edmund.”
The Dervish considered his mental map of the area, which wasn’t terribly clear. “So we’ve been going east-southeast, and there’s a river to the south we’ll need to cross to get to this Archon place. What happens if we keep going east instead?”