Part 33 (2/2)
”You've never been right,” said Nettle. ”You're only now just figuring that out?”
”No,” said Talen. ”I'm telling you, something inside is very, very wrong.”
It made no sense. Talen knew a Koramite boy in the district who had difficulty breathing and was always carrying camphor of peppermint about to clear his lungs, but this didn't feel like he couldn't get air. This felt like he did when he sprinted a great distance, except he hadn't sprinted, hadn't felt any awful exertion.
Talen fetched one of the last sweet almond small cakes and examined it. ”Taste this.”
”I don't want your nasties.”
”Taste it. I think our baker put come-backs in here.”
Nettle took the small cake, broke it, and examined the pieces. ”If anything's in here, then the baker must have ground it into powder.” He took a nibble and grimaced. ”Augh,” he said. ”There could be horse plop in here and it wouldn't taste any worse.” He handed the small cake bits back to Talen.
”What do you think he put in here?”
Nettle looked up at the tree Talen had jumped into. ”I don't know. That's quite a jump you made.”
”What are you saying?”
”I want to try something,” he said. ”Take the reins. Swing the wagon round and approach the spot like we did before.”
”Don't we need to get out of here?”
Nettle ripped a band of cloth from his tunic and wrapped it around his head to cover his bleeding ear. ”Just do it,” he said.
Talen climbed onto the wagon seat and took the reins. Then he turned the wagon around, and approached the tree as they had before. Nettle stood on the wagon seat as Talen had when he'd jumped. They rolled under the tree. Nettle leapt at the spot Talen had, trying for the branch, and grabbed nothing but air. He landed with a grunt and rolled.
He stood and put a hand back to his ear, leaves clinging to his back. ”How close did I come?”
He hadn't come close at all. ”Two maybe three feet away. You're about as lively as a pile of lead.”
”I don't think it's lead.”
”Inferior breeding then. What are you trying to prove?”
Nettle looked at him, sober as stone. ”Are you positive that girl didn't do something to you?”
Of course, he was positive. ”This odd exhilaration didn't start until we left the city gates. I'm telling you: it's come-backs. I'll bet your smelly little linens on it.”
”Maybe,” said Nettle. ”But what herb changes a man that much?”
”Maybe I've got stag legs,” said Talen.
”You've got the legs of a scarecrow,” said Nettle.
”Then you're a p.i.s.s poor jumper,” said Talen. ”Try it again.”
”I saw you up there, clinging like a bug. It wasn't natural.”
”Try it again,” Talen said. He didn't want to hear this. Lords, if this was sleth work, if that girl had somehow seeded some abomination into him-but it couldn't be. She hadn't.
Nettle climbed back up on the wagon. Talen wheeled around again.
”Concentrate,” said Talen.
Nettle crouched. He breathed deeply. He jumped. But he didn't come close to anything except spraining his ankle.
Nettle picked himself up and dusted off his hands. He looked up at the tree, then at Talen.
”Poor boy,” Talen said and made a small grunt of empathy. ”All your da's gold and cattle and you can't out-jump a runt like me.”
Nettle pressed his hand to his ear and gave Talen the eye.
”Don't look at me like that,” said Talen.
”Maybe sleth magic is like some mushroom that takes a while to work its effects.”
”She was on my lap and then almost immediately off again,” said Talen. ”She didn't have time to do anything.”
Nettle raised his eyebrows. ”She had time to kiss you.”
”Yeah, well. What's a kiss? Nothing.”
”Right,” said Nettle And then Talen thought about what the girl had said about coming up from the cellar and sneaking around the house in the night. She could have worked some magic then. She'd almost admitted doing just that.
”Rot those hatchlings,” Talen said.
Talen looked at the sweet almond small cake in his hand. ”What we need to do is get one of these to River. She can ferret out what the baker used.”
Nettle climbed back up on the seat. ”And if it isn't come-backs?”
”Then I'll become a sleth toy,” said Talen. ”And my first depredation will be to wring your neck.” He handed the reins to Nettle and climbed out of the wagon.
”What are you doing?” asked Nettle.
”Getting away from your stink,” Talen said.
Now that Talen had said it, he realized that he did smell more than before. Or that what he did smell was stronger. The smell of Iron Boy, the road dust, the woods, Nettle's clothes that had sat in a cedar chest-the scents all lay heavily in the air.
What's more, the itch in his limbs was building, almost compelling him to move. ”I'm going to jog a bit,” he said. ”All we've got to do is work these come-backs through my system. A few hours and I'll be right as rain.”
Hunger stood in a grove of trees smelling the dead hanging about him, smelling the burning boy on the breeze. The boy had been here. Been here recently.
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