Sorcerers!, page 5
Gideon stopped but didn't turn around. "Supposing it was," he said. "What then?"
"Why, then I would hope you'd come along peaceably," the voice answered. "You know better than to fight me in my own territory."
Gideon laughed and turned where he stood. "But you hardly go anywhere else lately," he explained. In his left hand he held the Evening Sun, rolled up. But from the fingers of his right hand now dangled a double page of the newspaper, hanging loosely in an upside down V. "Hello, Jack," Gideon said.
Jack was dressed in a military uniform, though there was hardly a square inch of cloth to be seen on him. His chubby form was covered, head to toe, hat to boots, with brass buttons, gold braid, and a host of bright ribbons and medals that made him look like a cross between a lost galaxy and a sterling silver tea service. "It's General Jack tonight," he said, and saluted Gideon with a drawn sword. His paraphernalia clinked and clattered pleasantly in accompaniment to his motions.
Gideon laughed again and returned the salute with his rolled up newspaper. "General Jack of the Park Patrol. I'm impressed. What is it that you want with me?"
"You're under arrest," said General Jack, visibly irritated. "I can't have you wandering all around the park like some vagrant, now, can I?"
"But I'm not wandering aimlessly," Gideon replied, gesturing with his arms, the darkness clinging to his coat and gathering behind him. "I've come to save the Lady Alice."
"Ha, then it's treason you're here for!"
"Well, I'd hardly call it that."
"There's but one penalty for treason," cried General Jack, raising his sword over his head. "Death!" he screamed, and charged toward Gideon.
Gideon had been waiting for that. He tossed the double page of newspaper into the air, and it beat its wings and screeched, raucously, its print-filled pinions cutting through the night in furious flight, its black eyes glistening, its beak sharp, its taloned feet strong and eager for pieces of the General's face.
They didn't quite collide.
The General stopped his headlong rush just in time, narrowly avoiding the eagle's inky claws on its first attack. His sword was in position and he was ready as the bird made its second dive.
General Jack swung his sword and cursed, the eagle swooped and screamed and ripped, and the air was quickly filled with metal buttons and shreds of newsprint. While the buttons fell to the ground, the pieces of newsprint formed themselves into tiny eagles and joined the fight, which put the General at quite a disadvantage.
But he batted the eagle gnats aside with his free arm, and kept slicing at the big eagle until he succeeded in cutting it nearly in half, at which point it fluttered helplessly to the ground, squawking. Its tiny companions rushed to its aid.
Before they could join together and make themselves whole again, General Jack, dark blood oozing from scratches on his cheeks and forehead, quietly spoke a Word. The paper burst into bright orange flames, spewing bits of ash that drifted aimlessly up and down the sidewalk. He didn't take his eyes off the pile until the fire went out, and twin streams of blue smoke curled up into the chilly night air.
"Well," he said, to no one in particular, since Gideon was gone, "I can see I'm going to need some help with this one." He slid his sword back into its scabbard, hitched up his pants, dabbed at his face with a handkerchief, and began to pick up the buttons that had been tom from his uniform during the fight.
Gideon came trotting up to Bastille Fountain with two freshly-made newspaper panthers flanking him. They growled when he stopped and lashed their tails back and forth, standing guard. Overhead the flapping of newspaper wings could be heard. Gideon felt safe for the moment. He turned his attention to the fountain.
Bastille Fountain wasn't fancy, but it was big—the main pool was a good twenty feet across. In the center, cement figures representing the four seasons, their features blurred and rust-stained held a second basin suspended in midair. A lazy four-foot waterjet burbled and splashed inside of that, spilling wet curtains over the basin edge and sending slick streams down the fingers that gripped its ornamental rim, drenching the arms, faces, and dresses of the seasons below.
Gideon leaned over the waters. "Alice!"
There was no answer, though strange ripples raced across the surface.
He called a second time, slightly louder: "Alice!"
Nothing.
Gideon stood up straight. "Alice!" he yelled. "Damn you, woman, wake up!" He dug into his coat pocket, pulled out a thick handful of coins, tossed them all at the raised pool. Some of them rang out briefly as they hit cement; others—the majority, actually—plopped as they fell into the water in both basins, a sound hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the fountain.
But the pillar of water moved now, turning, weaving, not quite stumbling, raising her hands gracefully to cover her face, while her hair, with a life of its own, cascaded out and down her back in black, starlit ribbons. Her robe was a thing of sparkling white foam that tumbled into the waters of the inner pool; when she tried to gather up its skirts, she found them caught in the unyielding cement fingers of the seasons below.
"Gideon!" Her voice was clear and sweet, and her bright blue eyes stared at him in surprise and distress.
"Alice."
"Gideon, help! I can't get out!"
"I know, my dear. I'm here to save you." He took a sheet of newspaper, folded it lengthwise, and changed it into a set of parapeted stairs that telescoped across the main pool and came to rest on the edge of Lady Alice's basin.
General Jack finished pinning a scarlet cross for bravery above and beyond the call of duty during the Crimean War on the last of the hundred and forty-two elm trees that lined the main walk. It had been a tedious task, making sure the correct button or medal was properly affixed to each trunk. The knowledge that Gideon was loose in the park and looking for the Lady Alice hadn't made things go any faster, either.
He took his hat off, tucked it under his arm, and walked slowly to the center of the walk. In spite of the cool night air, a thin film of sweat covered his bald, egg-shaped head, and yellow highlights from the streetlamps played across his features. He mopped at his face and the back of his neck with his handkerchief, then replaced his hat and drew his sword.
"Troops!" he screamed. "Attention!"
There were shadowy stirrings among the trees, and they untangled their branches over the walk, one from the other, destroying the leafy roof and letting the sky peep in overhead.
"Fall in!"
Now there was a rumbling and churning among the tree roots as knobby feet dug their way out of the ground, scattering black clods of dirt in every direction. The trees clambered onto the sidewalk slowly, but without any hint of clumsiness; the main impressions they gave off were ones of strength and immense weight. Their buttons and medals glittered balefully in the night.
General Jack, his arms crossed over his chest, the unsheathed sword held upright in his right hand, waited patiently until they formed four straight rows on the sidewalk. "At ease, trees," he said. "Now listen up. There's an enemy in the park. Your mission tonight is to find him and keep him from doing any mischief. Take whatever measures you think necessary, but I want him alive—" and here the General paused, and ran his thumb across his sword blade to check its sharpness, "—so I can deal with him myself." He paused again, and then yelled out: "Do you understand that, trees?"
"Yes, sir!" the trees yelled back.
"I can't hear you!" screamed the General.
"Yes, sir!" the trees screamed back.
"I still can't hear you!" he shouted.
"YES SIR!"
"All right! Now, who is your leader?"
"GENERAL JACK!"
"And who do you fight for?"
"GENERAL JACK!"
"And who do you die for?"
"GENERAL JACK!"
"And who do we fight?"
"THE ENEMY, SIR!"
"And what is his name?"
"GIDEON, SIR!"
"Let's hear it again!"
"GIDEON, SIR!"
"One more time!"
"GIDEON, SIR!"
"And what do we do to him—kill him?"
"NO!"
"Maim him?"
"YES!"
"Torture him, bruise him, and scrape him?"
"YES!"
"Tie him up, stop him, detain him?"
"YES!"
"Forward!"
"MARCH!"
"Forward!"
"MARCH!"
"Forward!"
"MARCH!"
They shrumphed off into the distance.
"Oh Gideon!" said the Lady Alice, "Hurry, please! I can't bear it any longer!" She frantically tugged at the section of her glowing dress still pinned by a last cement hand; this only made Gideon stop working with his newspaper crowbar because the material got in the way.
"I'm not going to save you if you keep acting like this," he told her in an even tone, trying not to succumb to the tension he felt. General Jack should have shown up a good fifteen minutes ago, or at least run into one of the traps Gideon had set along the way. But he had done neither, and Gideon could feel tremors of his magic at work in the park.
Dismayed, Alice let fall the skirts she had gathered up in her arms, and they splashed in the fountain waters, nearly dousing Gideon. "I'm sorry," she said.
"It's all right." He went back to work on the fingers, muttering spells—or at least something that sounded like spells—and prying with the crowbar.
Alice knelt and hugged her knees, wanting to watch his work more closely. But she ended up studying Gideon's face: his delicate, fine-boned features; his lips, normally thin and now compressed into a determined line; the three blonde curls that had crept out from under his hat to become stuck in the sweat on his forehead; the way his green eyes glittered with spell-kindled fires.
She reached out and took his hat off. "I really am sorry," she said.
"I said it was all right," he snarled back, snatching his hat from her and putting it on again. He started pushing harder on the crowbar, trying to ignore her.
"Now you're angry with me," she said, taking his hat away again.
"No!" he roared, loosening two of the cement fingers but dropping the crowbar in the water at the same time, where it reverted to a sheet of wet newspaper. He grabbed at the hat, but Alice hid it behind her back.
"Tell me you're not angry with me," she said.
Gideon glared at her. "I'm not angry with you," he said between clenched teeth. "Now give me back my hat."
She kissed him instead.
Her kiss was cool and sweet and fresh, and Gideon, after his initial surprise, drank deeply of it. In it, he could taste the bubbling cold of far-off mountain streams, hints of peppermint and clove and sassafras, the elusive flavor of honeysuckle rose, and the darker, heavier essences of wild blackberry and grape.
He had been furious with Alice at first, but then he quickly abandoned himself in her kiss. And once he did that, he felt the fear and worry drain out of him, leaving behind only confidence, composure, and a renewed strength.
It took him a second to realize the kiss had ended. When he did, he threw back his head and laughed loud and long, until the tears dripped out of his eyes.
The Lady Alice smiled when she saw Gideon had recovered his senses, and put his hat on her own head. "That's much more like it," she told him.
Gideon wiped the tears away with his coat sleeve. "Ah! You should have done that sooner, Alice!"
She grinned at him. His hat was far too large for her, and made her look like a thin pixie. "Everything has its moment, I suppose." Her blue eyes sparkled with amusement.
"I've missed you, Alice."
"And I you. Make me a promise."
"What?"
"When we get out of here—"
"You mean if we get out of here." He gingerly fished the piece of newspaper out of the water, turned it back into a soggy crowbar, and began wringing water from it.
"When we get out of here," she said firmly. She pushed the hat back on her forehead and rested her hands on her knees, her elbows jutting out at odd angles. "When we get out of here, let's go away together."
Gideon frowned. "Where?"
"Does it matter?"
"Well, it's just that we've been everywhere there is to go away to."
"Really?"
"Gideon applied the crowbar to the remaining cement fingers, but it bent because it was still too wet. "Try thinking of a place we haven't been," he said, forcing the crowbar back into its proper shape.
"Paris."
"We were there last fall."
"But I like Paris."
"Everybody goes to Paris." He changed the crowbar into a bicycle pump. "Pick someplace else."
"How about Egypt?"
"It's flooding along the Nile now," he said, working the pump vigorously and sending a weak stream of water out the end of the hose and into the pool below. "The peasants are all busy being farmers, and we'd only get in the way."
"New Orleans?"
"Too late—we'll have missed the Mardi Gras this year, and that's the only time it's worth going."
"Tibet, then."
"Nope." He shook the pump, heard water sloshing inside it still, and examined the open end of the air tube. "We went there at the turn of the century. You hated it—it was either too hot or too cold. The only reason you don't remember is you caught Tibetan fever, and I had to haul you all the way to Ceylon before you recovered."
"Oh." She stood up.
"But don't let that stop you. Try some other places." Gideon changed the bicycle pump into a walking stick, unscrewed the cap, and poured more water out.
"Why don't you just make a new one?" she asked him, grumpily. "You've got enough fresh paper."
"Waste not, want not," he answered. "And I'm not sure I have enough to waste—we still have to make an exit once I get you loose." He looked up at her and smiled. "You're not giving up so quickly, are you?"
"No."
"Then let me help," he told her, screwing the top back on the cane and sticking it under his arm so he could count on his fingers. "Should I start with continents or bodies of water?"
"Oh, stop being so boring."
"All right. Continents then. That would be Africa, Asia, Australia—"
"I have it!"
"Australia?"
"No, no, not there." She knelt and took his hands in hers.
"I've heard it said that the night is an uncharted ocean," she began.
Gideon looked at the sky doubtfully. "You're mad," he mumbled, shaking his head. "Stark, raving mad."
"But Gideon, just think of it—if the night is an ocean, then the moon must surely be a beautiful island," she said, standing up and beginning a dance of delight, whirling in slow circles, her arms outstretched, "and the stars like fishes—"
"Fishes?"
"Oh, yes, Gideon, and we'll bring the purple ones back with us to Avalon—" and here she became so tangled in her dress where the cement fingers held it that she stopped dancing and started tugging again. But even as she did so, a horrified look came over her face.
"All right, all right, I'll get it loose—"
"Gideon!"
"What?"
"Gideon, the trees are moving!"
Gideon looked over his shoulder, saw the burnt pavement and drifting ash that marked what was left of his sentinels, and then swore.
The southern half of the square around Bastille Fountain was quickly filling with cold, silent, walking elm trees. At the back of their ranks Gideon spotted a small, shining figure that could only have been General Jack; he threw his walking stick at the figure, and the stick swiftly whizzed through the air as if it had been shot from a bow, hitting the General with a satisfying thud and an accompanying oof.
Gideon leapt from the inner pool and hit the ground rolling so he could dodge the clutching branches of the nearest trees. He sprinted toward the open end of the square and, holding what remained of the Evening Sun perpendicular to the ground, wrapped newspaper castle walls around himself, walls that seemed to leap into the sky, reaching for the stars, towering over the turmoil.
It is unfortunate that Gideon wasn't inside when the transformation was complete.
It wasn't his fault, of course. It was the fault of one particularly surly elm tree, pinned with the scarlet cross for bravery above and beyond the call of duty during the Crimean War, a potent medal to be sure. This crafty, battlewise tree had entered the open square on the northern side, crept up behind Gideon unnoticed as he jumped from the fountain, and plucked him off his castle ramparts as they shot heavenward.
The other trees were quick to grasp the situation, and, since each tree wanted to be the one to turn the enemy over to General Jack, they all converged on Gideon and began a tug-of-war with him. General Jack, downed as he was by the flying cane, couldn't get to the scene in time to take control of the situation, so what followed wasn't strictly his fault.
Different contingents of trees had a hold of different parts of Gideon—his arms, his legs, his head—and when the General came hobbling up, bellowing commands indiscriminately, they all gave one last tug, one final effort to lay victory at the feet of their beloved leader.
Gideon came apart in their hands.
He came apart in dusty reams, in chunks of faded yellow Tribunes, in heaps of brittle Post-Dispatches, in wads of Manchester Guardians, Philadelphia Bulletins, Miami Heralds and New York Times, most of them early morning editions. When this happened, Gideon's castle wavered and fell, snowing pages of the Evening Sun everywhere.
Silence set in, broken only by the sound of water splashing in Lady Alice's fountain.
The trees lined up in awkward, embarrassed rows, trying not to notice the sea of paper in which they were wading but looking very guilty all the same. General Jack just stood there, leaning on Gideon's cane. He stared at the trees, stared at the litter of papers, glanced briefly but contemptuously at the Lady Alice, and then stared at the paper some more. He poked at the mess with the cane and cleared his throat.
"Listen up, trees," he said. "There's nothing that can be done about this now." He stuck his chin out proudly and surveyed his troops. "But there is one big job we've got to finish before we can quit for the night."
"Why, then I would hope you'd come along peaceably," the voice answered. "You know better than to fight me in my own territory."
Gideon laughed and turned where he stood. "But you hardly go anywhere else lately," he explained. In his left hand he held the Evening Sun, rolled up. But from the fingers of his right hand now dangled a double page of the newspaper, hanging loosely in an upside down V. "Hello, Jack," Gideon said.
Jack was dressed in a military uniform, though there was hardly a square inch of cloth to be seen on him. His chubby form was covered, head to toe, hat to boots, with brass buttons, gold braid, and a host of bright ribbons and medals that made him look like a cross between a lost galaxy and a sterling silver tea service. "It's General Jack tonight," he said, and saluted Gideon with a drawn sword. His paraphernalia clinked and clattered pleasantly in accompaniment to his motions.
Gideon laughed again and returned the salute with his rolled up newspaper. "General Jack of the Park Patrol. I'm impressed. What is it that you want with me?"
"You're under arrest," said General Jack, visibly irritated. "I can't have you wandering all around the park like some vagrant, now, can I?"
"But I'm not wandering aimlessly," Gideon replied, gesturing with his arms, the darkness clinging to his coat and gathering behind him. "I've come to save the Lady Alice."
"Ha, then it's treason you're here for!"
"Well, I'd hardly call it that."
"There's but one penalty for treason," cried General Jack, raising his sword over his head. "Death!" he screamed, and charged toward Gideon.
Gideon had been waiting for that. He tossed the double page of newspaper into the air, and it beat its wings and screeched, raucously, its print-filled pinions cutting through the night in furious flight, its black eyes glistening, its beak sharp, its taloned feet strong and eager for pieces of the General's face.
They didn't quite collide.
The General stopped his headlong rush just in time, narrowly avoiding the eagle's inky claws on its first attack. His sword was in position and he was ready as the bird made its second dive.
General Jack swung his sword and cursed, the eagle swooped and screamed and ripped, and the air was quickly filled with metal buttons and shreds of newsprint. While the buttons fell to the ground, the pieces of newsprint formed themselves into tiny eagles and joined the fight, which put the General at quite a disadvantage.
But he batted the eagle gnats aside with his free arm, and kept slicing at the big eagle until he succeeded in cutting it nearly in half, at which point it fluttered helplessly to the ground, squawking. Its tiny companions rushed to its aid.
Before they could join together and make themselves whole again, General Jack, dark blood oozing from scratches on his cheeks and forehead, quietly spoke a Word. The paper burst into bright orange flames, spewing bits of ash that drifted aimlessly up and down the sidewalk. He didn't take his eyes off the pile until the fire went out, and twin streams of blue smoke curled up into the chilly night air.
"Well," he said, to no one in particular, since Gideon was gone, "I can see I'm going to need some help with this one." He slid his sword back into its scabbard, hitched up his pants, dabbed at his face with a handkerchief, and began to pick up the buttons that had been tom from his uniform during the fight.
Gideon came trotting up to Bastille Fountain with two freshly-made newspaper panthers flanking him. They growled when he stopped and lashed their tails back and forth, standing guard. Overhead the flapping of newspaper wings could be heard. Gideon felt safe for the moment. He turned his attention to the fountain.
Bastille Fountain wasn't fancy, but it was big—the main pool was a good twenty feet across. In the center, cement figures representing the four seasons, their features blurred and rust-stained held a second basin suspended in midair. A lazy four-foot waterjet burbled and splashed inside of that, spilling wet curtains over the basin edge and sending slick streams down the fingers that gripped its ornamental rim, drenching the arms, faces, and dresses of the seasons below.
Gideon leaned over the waters. "Alice!"
There was no answer, though strange ripples raced across the surface.
He called a second time, slightly louder: "Alice!"
Nothing.
Gideon stood up straight. "Alice!" he yelled. "Damn you, woman, wake up!" He dug into his coat pocket, pulled out a thick handful of coins, tossed them all at the raised pool. Some of them rang out briefly as they hit cement; others—the majority, actually—plopped as they fell into the water in both basins, a sound hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the fountain.
But the pillar of water moved now, turning, weaving, not quite stumbling, raising her hands gracefully to cover her face, while her hair, with a life of its own, cascaded out and down her back in black, starlit ribbons. Her robe was a thing of sparkling white foam that tumbled into the waters of the inner pool; when she tried to gather up its skirts, she found them caught in the unyielding cement fingers of the seasons below.
"Gideon!" Her voice was clear and sweet, and her bright blue eyes stared at him in surprise and distress.
"Alice."
"Gideon, help! I can't get out!"
"I know, my dear. I'm here to save you." He took a sheet of newspaper, folded it lengthwise, and changed it into a set of parapeted stairs that telescoped across the main pool and came to rest on the edge of Lady Alice's basin.
General Jack finished pinning a scarlet cross for bravery above and beyond the call of duty during the Crimean War on the last of the hundred and forty-two elm trees that lined the main walk. It had been a tedious task, making sure the correct button or medal was properly affixed to each trunk. The knowledge that Gideon was loose in the park and looking for the Lady Alice hadn't made things go any faster, either.
He took his hat off, tucked it under his arm, and walked slowly to the center of the walk. In spite of the cool night air, a thin film of sweat covered his bald, egg-shaped head, and yellow highlights from the streetlamps played across his features. He mopped at his face and the back of his neck with his handkerchief, then replaced his hat and drew his sword.
"Troops!" he screamed. "Attention!"
There were shadowy stirrings among the trees, and they untangled their branches over the walk, one from the other, destroying the leafy roof and letting the sky peep in overhead.
"Fall in!"
Now there was a rumbling and churning among the tree roots as knobby feet dug their way out of the ground, scattering black clods of dirt in every direction. The trees clambered onto the sidewalk slowly, but without any hint of clumsiness; the main impressions they gave off were ones of strength and immense weight. Their buttons and medals glittered balefully in the night.
General Jack, his arms crossed over his chest, the unsheathed sword held upright in his right hand, waited patiently until they formed four straight rows on the sidewalk. "At ease, trees," he said. "Now listen up. There's an enemy in the park. Your mission tonight is to find him and keep him from doing any mischief. Take whatever measures you think necessary, but I want him alive—" and here the General paused, and ran his thumb across his sword blade to check its sharpness, "—so I can deal with him myself." He paused again, and then yelled out: "Do you understand that, trees?"
"Yes, sir!" the trees yelled back.
"I can't hear you!" screamed the General.
"Yes, sir!" the trees screamed back.
"I still can't hear you!" he shouted.
"YES SIR!"
"All right! Now, who is your leader?"
"GENERAL JACK!"
"And who do you fight for?"
"GENERAL JACK!"
"And who do you die for?"
"GENERAL JACK!"
"And who do we fight?"
"THE ENEMY, SIR!"
"And what is his name?"
"GIDEON, SIR!"
"Let's hear it again!"
"GIDEON, SIR!"
"One more time!"
"GIDEON, SIR!"
"And what do we do to him—kill him?"
"NO!"
"Maim him?"
"YES!"
"Torture him, bruise him, and scrape him?"
"YES!"
"Tie him up, stop him, detain him?"
"YES!"
"Forward!"
"MARCH!"
"Forward!"
"MARCH!"
"Forward!"
"MARCH!"
They shrumphed off into the distance.
"Oh Gideon!" said the Lady Alice, "Hurry, please! I can't bear it any longer!" She frantically tugged at the section of her glowing dress still pinned by a last cement hand; this only made Gideon stop working with his newspaper crowbar because the material got in the way.
"I'm not going to save you if you keep acting like this," he told her in an even tone, trying not to succumb to the tension he felt. General Jack should have shown up a good fifteen minutes ago, or at least run into one of the traps Gideon had set along the way. But he had done neither, and Gideon could feel tremors of his magic at work in the park.
Dismayed, Alice let fall the skirts she had gathered up in her arms, and they splashed in the fountain waters, nearly dousing Gideon. "I'm sorry," she said.
"It's all right." He went back to work on the fingers, muttering spells—or at least something that sounded like spells—and prying with the crowbar.
Alice knelt and hugged her knees, wanting to watch his work more closely. But she ended up studying Gideon's face: his delicate, fine-boned features; his lips, normally thin and now compressed into a determined line; the three blonde curls that had crept out from under his hat to become stuck in the sweat on his forehead; the way his green eyes glittered with spell-kindled fires.
She reached out and took his hat off. "I really am sorry," she said.
"I said it was all right," he snarled back, snatching his hat from her and putting it on again. He started pushing harder on the crowbar, trying to ignore her.
"Now you're angry with me," she said, taking his hat away again.
"No!" he roared, loosening two of the cement fingers but dropping the crowbar in the water at the same time, where it reverted to a sheet of wet newspaper. He grabbed at the hat, but Alice hid it behind her back.
"Tell me you're not angry with me," she said.
Gideon glared at her. "I'm not angry with you," he said between clenched teeth. "Now give me back my hat."
She kissed him instead.
Her kiss was cool and sweet and fresh, and Gideon, after his initial surprise, drank deeply of it. In it, he could taste the bubbling cold of far-off mountain streams, hints of peppermint and clove and sassafras, the elusive flavor of honeysuckle rose, and the darker, heavier essences of wild blackberry and grape.
He had been furious with Alice at first, but then he quickly abandoned himself in her kiss. And once he did that, he felt the fear and worry drain out of him, leaving behind only confidence, composure, and a renewed strength.
It took him a second to realize the kiss had ended. When he did, he threw back his head and laughed loud and long, until the tears dripped out of his eyes.
The Lady Alice smiled when she saw Gideon had recovered his senses, and put his hat on her own head. "That's much more like it," she told him.
Gideon wiped the tears away with his coat sleeve. "Ah! You should have done that sooner, Alice!"
She grinned at him. His hat was far too large for her, and made her look like a thin pixie. "Everything has its moment, I suppose." Her blue eyes sparkled with amusement.
"I've missed you, Alice."
"And I you. Make me a promise."
"What?"
"When we get out of here—"
"You mean if we get out of here." He gingerly fished the piece of newspaper out of the water, turned it back into a soggy crowbar, and began wringing water from it.
"When we get out of here," she said firmly. She pushed the hat back on her forehead and rested her hands on her knees, her elbows jutting out at odd angles. "When we get out of here, let's go away together."
Gideon frowned. "Where?"
"Does it matter?"
"Well, it's just that we've been everywhere there is to go away to."
"Really?"
"Gideon applied the crowbar to the remaining cement fingers, but it bent because it was still too wet. "Try thinking of a place we haven't been," he said, forcing the crowbar back into its proper shape.
"Paris."
"We were there last fall."
"But I like Paris."
"Everybody goes to Paris." He changed the crowbar into a bicycle pump. "Pick someplace else."
"How about Egypt?"
"It's flooding along the Nile now," he said, working the pump vigorously and sending a weak stream of water out the end of the hose and into the pool below. "The peasants are all busy being farmers, and we'd only get in the way."
"New Orleans?"
"Too late—we'll have missed the Mardi Gras this year, and that's the only time it's worth going."
"Tibet, then."
"Nope." He shook the pump, heard water sloshing inside it still, and examined the open end of the air tube. "We went there at the turn of the century. You hated it—it was either too hot or too cold. The only reason you don't remember is you caught Tibetan fever, and I had to haul you all the way to Ceylon before you recovered."
"Oh." She stood up.
"But don't let that stop you. Try some other places." Gideon changed the bicycle pump into a walking stick, unscrewed the cap, and poured more water out.
"Why don't you just make a new one?" she asked him, grumpily. "You've got enough fresh paper."
"Waste not, want not," he answered. "And I'm not sure I have enough to waste—we still have to make an exit once I get you loose." He looked up at her and smiled. "You're not giving up so quickly, are you?"
"No."
"Then let me help," he told her, screwing the top back on the cane and sticking it under his arm so he could count on his fingers. "Should I start with continents or bodies of water?"
"Oh, stop being so boring."
"All right. Continents then. That would be Africa, Asia, Australia—"
"I have it!"
"Australia?"
"No, no, not there." She knelt and took his hands in hers.
"I've heard it said that the night is an uncharted ocean," she began.
Gideon looked at the sky doubtfully. "You're mad," he mumbled, shaking his head. "Stark, raving mad."
"But Gideon, just think of it—if the night is an ocean, then the moon must surely be a beautiful island," she said, standing up and beginning a dance of delight, whirling in slow circles, her arms outstretched, "and the stars like fishes—"
"Fishes?"
"Oh, yes, Gideon, and we'll bring the purple ones back with us to Avalon—" and here she became so tangled in her dress where the cement fingers held it that she stopped dancing and started tugging again. But even as she did so, a horrified look came over her face.
"All right, all right, I'll get it loose—"
"Gideon!"
"What?"
"Gideon, the trees are moving!"
Gideon looked over his shoulder, saw the burnt pavement and drifting ash that marked what was left of his sentinels, and then swore.
The southern half of the square around Bastille Fountain was quickly filling with cold, silent, walking elm trees. At the back of their ranks Gideon spotted a small, shining figure that could only have been General Jack; he threw his walking stick at the figure, and the stick swiftly whizzed through the air as if it had been shot from a bow, hitting the General with a satisfying thud and an accompanying oof.
Gideon leapt from the inner pool and hit the ground rolling so he could dodge the clutching branches of the nearest trees. He sprinted toward the open end of the square and, holding what remained of the Evening Sun perpendicular to the ground, wrapped newspaper castle walls around himself, walls that seemed to leap into the sky, reaching for the stars, towering over the turmoil.
It is unfortunate that Gideon wasn't inside when the transformation was complete.
It wasn't his fault, of course. It was the fault of one particularly surly elm tree, pinned with the scarlet cross for bravery above and beyond the call of duty during the Crimean War, a potent medal to be sure. This crafty, battlewise tree had entered the open square on the northern side, crept up behind Gideon unnoticed as he jumped from the fountain, and plucked him off his castle ramparts as they shot heavenward.
The other trees were quick to grasp the situation, and, since each tree wanted to be the one to turn the enemy over to General Jack, they all converged on Gideon and began a tug-of-war with him. General Jack, downed as he was by the flying cane, couldn't get to the scene in time to take control of the situation, so what followed wasn't strictly his fault.
Different contingents of trees had a hold of different parts of Gideon—his arms, his legs, his head—and when the General came hobbling up, bellowing commands indiscriminately, they all gave one last tug, one final effort to lay victory at the feet of their beloved leader.
Gideon came apart in their hands.
He came apart in dusty reams, in chunks of faded yellow Tribunes, in heaps of brittle Post-Dispatches, in wads of Manchester Guardians, Philadelphia Bulletins, Miami Heralds and New York Times, most of them early morning editions. When this happened, Gideon's castle wavered and fell, snowing pages of the Evening Sun everywhere.
Silence set in, broken only by the sound of water splashing in Lady Alice's fountain.
The trees lined up in awkward, embarrassed rows, trying not to notice the sea of paper in which they were wading but looking very guilty all the same. General Jack just stood there, leaning on Gideon's cane. He stared at the trees, stared at the litter of papers, glanced briefly but contemptuously at the Lady Alice, and then stared at the paper some more. He poked at the mess with the cane and cleared his throat.
"Listen up, trees," he said. "There's nothing that can be done about this now." He stuck his chin out proudly and surveyed his troops. "But there is one big job we've got to finish before we can quit for the night."
