camwyn | LXG: Diary of a Mountie, Part Eight

I have taken the liberty of editing the parts that have gone before this, fixing some fairly grievous errors (most notably an NPC's gender) and adding or removing a few items in such places as were appropriate. It helps to have time to consult with someone else who was in the game on such a work as this; thank you,

batyatoon. I've also folded part 2a into part 2, where it belonged.

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven

Day Ten – Monday, August 17
Glasgow, Scotland
Three Fishes Inn

I suppose I could have written this last night, but if there's one thing you learn on the trail in the Yukon, it's that a man can only go so long without sleep and expect to do his best the next day. I expect most of us probably wanted nothing more than for the night to end. Not that today's likely to be any easier.

Prince and I didn't have to search for Miss Gale after all. Miss Poppins brought the pillow down all right, and Prince got the scent right away. Funny thing, though. When Danner went to open the door, there they were – Dorothy and Lord Wimsey, side by side. Lord Wimsey had his hand up to knock, but his attention wasn't in front of him. No, he was focused on Dorothy and I don't blame him one bit. That little girl had a pearl in her arms, a pearl as big as a man's head! Plastered with kelp, too, and smelling of salt and sea.

"Are you sure you don't want me to carry that?" asked Lord Wimsey. The girl shook her head.

"That's all right, Mister Wimsey," she said. "I can carry it the rest of the way. But you should get a nice soft blanket for it – oh, Miss Poppins, Mister Danner, everyone, look what we found! Mister Wimsey thinks it's an egg!"

An egg? That was enough of a surprise to take the words right out of my mouth. Out of everyone's, I think; even Cranston looked too stunned to speak. Of course, the silence only lasted a moment or two. Then the questions started to fly. They didn't get answered, though, because Lord Wimsey had found that blanket and was disappearing into the dining room. Dorothy went after him, and the rest of us followed.

"We found this down by the docks," said Dorothy. Lord Wimsey set the blanket down a little distance from the fire, and Dorothy nestled the egg into it. "There, that looks nice and warm. Aunt Em used to do that with eggs on the farm, sometimes, when the hens wouldn't sit right."

"Dorothy," I asked very quietly as the others started crowding around the egg, "what were you doing down by the docks? You were supposed to stay here with Lord Wimsey."

She looked up at me. "Oh, I know, Mister Preston, but you see I couldn't just sit around when everyone was doing something, could I? And anyway, Mister Wimsey asked what I wanted to do, so I told him I wanted to follow you."

Cranston and Swift had crouched down on opposite sides of the egg. Cranston looked like he expected it to leap up and bite him at any moment. Swift murmured something, tapping gingerly at the egg and looking to the others expectantly. "You could've been hurt, you know," I murmured.

Dorothy shook her head. "No I couldn't," she said earnestly. "I've got the Nome King's belt, you see. I can't be hurt as long as I'm wearing it." Sure enough, she still had on the huge prizefighter-style jeweled belt.

"We tested that," volunteered Lord Wimsey. "When Miss Gale here told me about the belt, I thought we had better make sure it worked the way she said it did. So I tried to hit her- with her full permission, I assure you," he added hastily, looking at me.

"Go on," I told him.

"Ah – yes. Damnedest thing, really – I couldn't do it. Couldn't even come close. My hand just bounced right off some invisible shield an inch from her head."

"Anyone got a stethoscope?" It was Swift. Miss Poppins began rummaging through her bag.

"So that was how Mister Wimsey knew I couldn't get hurt," said Dorothy. "After that, why, he said he couldn't think of a single reason why we ought to stay cooped up here, so we went out to look for you. Only he-"

"Gentlemen," said Miss Poppins firmly, "there's something in there, all right. I can hear it."

All of us turned to the egg. Dorothy had to edge between Danner and Cranston to get a proper look. It might've been my imagination, but it seemed to me that by the firelight I could almost make out a mass of some kind inside. It wasn't properly pearlescent any more, or at least it didn't seem that way. I suddenly felt sure that if I were to put my hand on it, it'd be leathery to the touch.

"I think it's moving," said Swift in a hushed voice. Sure enough, the thing gave a quiver.

"I think it's hatching," said Dorothy.

The thing inside gave an enormous kick, and my hand went straight to my service revolver.

"What is it going to do when it hatches?" asked Cranston, his eyes fixed on the thing. His fingers were flexing as if they itched to reach for something. "It could attack us."

"Well," said Dorothy, "if it's anything like a chicken egg, it'll think whatever it first sees is its mother."

"Do we want it to hatch?" That was Danner.

"I'm not sure we have a choice. It's right next to the fire."

"Maybe we'd better move it?"

"A wise idea," said Miss Poppins, and she reached for the egg. It spasmed again; her hand stopped. The thing inside gave one more mighty kick, and a piece of shell popped away.

I think we all held our breaths then. Now, I've seen birds hatch – geese mostly, and some wild birds – but I've never seen anything like this. The shell didn't fracture so much as tear, coming apart in slow motion and peeling away like the skin of an orange. I could just make out what looked like tiny fingers grasping at the edge of the shell for a moment before they vanished and the thing started kicking once more. A few more huge pieces fell-

"Oh, my!" gasped Dorothy. "It's a water baby!"

She was right, I think. I don't know what else you could really call a nearly human infant that had just hatched from an egg. I say nearly because no human child I know of has webbed, clawed fingers at birth, or glittering black eyes, either. It was a little girl, just the size of any normal newborn, and almost as soon as the eggshell fell away it took a huge breath and started screaming. We clapped our hands over our ears, but Miss Poppins dropped hers almost immediately. "It's all right, gentlemen," she said, raising her voice to be heard over the cries. "She's just crying. It's not like the harbour."

I lowered my hands, as did Dorothy. The others were a bit slower to do the same. Miss Poppins bent over to pick the child up, cradling it just as if it were a human baby. "There, now, little one," she crooned to it quietly, "hush, hush, all will be well. . ."

There was a knock at the door. Swift got up and opened it; it was Albert. "Here," he said roughly, thrusting a baby bottle full of milk at him.

"How did you-"

"I've got ears, haven't I? If you're goin' to be fool enough to hatch out mermaid eggs in my inn, someone's got to feed 'em, eh?"

"How did you know it was a mermaid egg?" asked Cranston suspiciously, rising to face the man.

Albert snorted, a sound of deep disgust. "Idiot. I'm not blind. Where else are y'goin' t'be gettin' a wee babe like that at this hour of the night? You got yerselves a mermaid egg an' hatched it warm, so you got one that looks like a human."

"What difference does that make?"

"Well, if you'd kept it cold you'd've hatched out the kind that wants t'kill you for bein' such fools as t'hatch out a mermaid egg on land! What d'you think-"

"And what if we'd left it in the box?" interrupted Lord Wimsey. "We found it in a wooden box, all surrounded by wet seaweed."

"Of course you did! That keeps 'em in stasis."

"There were an awful lot of those boxes," continued Lord Wimsey slowly, watching the man. Albert shrugged.

"That's no business of mine, is it? My business is this Inn, and not havin' it torn apart by angry mermaids lookin' for the idiots that stole their children. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got other things t'see to." He slammed the door before Lord Wimsey could say another word.

The only sound then was the popping and hissing of the logs on the fire. Miss Poppins was too busy feeding the infant to say anything, and the rest of us were thinking our own thoughts about what'd just happened. Eventually, Lord Wimsey cleared his throat. "You know, there really were an awful lot of boxes. . ."

"How many is an awful lot?" asked Cranston.

"Oh, several hundred, I should think."

Cranston glanced down at the shards of eggshell that remained, and then over at the baby. "That could be a problem," he murmured.

"That it could, old chap, that it could."

"We ought to check it out." He jerked his chin towards the door. "Think you can show me back there? I'd like a look at this myself."

"I'm coming too," volunteered Danner. "If anything happens-"

Swift started to say something, but just then Miss Poppins looked up. "That's quite enough for now," she said. "Mister Swift, Sergeant Preston, I'm going to have to ask that you remain here in case anything else turns up on our doorstep. Mister Cranston and Mister Danner will accompany Lord Wimsey. I trust the three of you will report back as soon as you have something to report on?"

They chorused their assents; she nodded. "Very well. Good luck, gentlemen."

When they were gone, Miss Poppins sat back with a sigh. Swift had gathered up the fragments of eggshell, I assume to analyze them. Prince sniffed at the blanket that had held the egg, but mostly just seemed interested in stretching out in front of the fire. As he did so, Dorothy – who had been very quiet the entire time – looked up at me. "What's stasis?" she asked softly.

"Hmmm. . ." I tried to think of how to explain it so a girl her age would understand. "It gets pretty cold in the winter in Kansas, doesn't it?" She nodded. "Have you ever found a frog frozen in ice?"

She frowned then, an earnest, puzzled expression. "No," she said at last, "I can't say I have."

"I see. Well, up in the Yukon, where I come from, it gets incredibly cold in the winters. Sometimes it gets so cold that the frogs freeze solid in the ice before they can get back to their holes in the riverbanks."

"Really?"

"Yes, really." I smiled. "I found a few of them myself when I was a boy. They're frozen in the ice just like that, perfect as glass. When the ice melts in the spring, though, some of them get out and hop away. They spend the whole winter frozen, but they come right back to themselves. That's stasis."

Dorothy nodded slowly then, but didn't ask any more questions. Just sat back and stared into the fire. After a while, she said, "It sounds like being an ornament."

"Excuse me?"

She looked back up at me. "Oh, when the Nome King enslaved the royal family of Ev, he turned them all into ornaments for his castle. An' then when we rescued them, well . . . I rescued Prince Evring first, and he said he didn't remember anything about being an ornament; just being sold to the Nome King and then nothing. Is that what stasis is like?"

"I – why, I don't know, Dorothy. You'd have to ask one of the frogs, I imagine."

She nodded and went back to watching Prince and the fire. I got up to stretch my legs, heading over to the windows. It's funny, but her question didn't seem to want to leave me. The Yukon's a huge, exciting place, full of all kinds of people with all kinds of dreams. Next to a city like London, though, or even just a city like this, I imagine it must seem pretty dull by comparison. Frozen and still, just like one of those frogs. I've seen enough to know better, of course, but. . . well. There are times when even a policeman's life seems like one long stretch of the same. Funny thing, that.

Of course, given that I was standing in a room with a man who'd invented an electric rifle, a woman who was feeding a baby mermaid with feet, and a girl who'd been to some kind of fairy land, there wasn't going to be much more of that feeling any time soon.

I came back around the table and sat down next to Dorothy. She yawned a little – it was, after all, pretty late for a girl her age. There came a knock at the door, and Albert poked his head in. "Where'd the rest of 'em go?" he demanded.

Miss Poppins looked up, setting aside the empty baby bottle. "Why, down to the docks," she said. "Is that a problem?"

Albert shook his head in utter disgust. "You're lookin' to get killed, the lot of ye," he muttered. "It's not safe to be on the streets tonight. I've got to lock this place down if you don't want to be fish food."

"Excuse me?" Miss Poppins' eyebrows rose at that. Even Prince looked up from his nap.

"D'you mean t' tell me you didna see the shutters? What did you think they were for, decoration? They're t'keep the unwanted guests out. Now, if your friends aren't back from this trip of theirs before I get all of the windows shuttered, they're just goin' to have to fend for themselves. I'm not openin' the front door once I get it locked."

Swift whistled, a long, falling note. "Sounds like we might have company," he observed as Albert left again. Miss Poppins' lips thinned, her only sign of visible emotion.

"We can't abandon them," I said. "We ought to go out and bring them back here ourselves. At least we'd have the rifles with us."

"That's true," said Miss Poppins, "but I don't think leaving is a very wise idea. If this place is about to be assaulted, then the last thing we need is for all of us to be outside when the danger strikes."

"But-"

"No buts, Sergeant. I'm terribly sorry, but we're going to stay here, at least for now." There was iron in her tone; I clenched my jaw a moment, then nodded. "Very good, Sergeant."

Dorothy patted my knee encouragingly. "It'll be all right," she said. "You'll see."

"You seem awfully brave for a girl your age," I said. I couldn't really think of anything else to say, and it was true anyway.

"Why, I suppose I am," she said, "but it only makes sense. I've had lots of adventures and I've never gotten hurt at all. So there's not really much point in being scared, is there?"

"No, I suppose there isn't." She really did seem to mean it, but something else occurred to me. "Dorothy – you say you've never been hurt. But what about the people around you?"

She drew breath to speak, then stopped. "I – I don't believe they got hurt either," she said slowly, "but then again most of them can't get hurt. There's the Scarecrow, he's made of straw; the only thing he's afraid of is a lighted match. And there's the Tin Woodsman, who can't be hurt either since he's made of tin. He might rust a little, but as long as he gets his joints oiled he's just fine. The Cowardly Lion's so big and strong that nobody's ever really managed to hurt him. So's the Hungry Tiger. And of course there's Ozma, but she's much too powerful a fairy for anybody to hurt." She sighed; it sounded much too sad for any child her age. "I miss them."

"Well," I asked carefully, "do they know where you are?"

She pressed her lips together for a moment – not like Miss Poppins, but more as if she was trying to hold words back and knew she was about to fail. "I don't KNOW!" she suddenly wailed, loudly enough to set the baby in Miss Poppins' arms to fussing again. "Ozma said she was going to look in on me with the Magic Picture every day at four o'clock, reg'lar. She said she'd bring me home if I made the signal then, only I did it every single day at four o'clock for four months when I came to the asylum and nothing ever happened!"

By now she was curled up into a ball, even tighter than when I'd made that first mistake of telling her I'd never heard of fairy countries. She really looked like she was fit to collapse into a puddle of tears, and that just wasn't right. All I could do was say the first thing that came into my head: "Four o'clock where?"

She sniffled, but blinked up at me, surprise coming into her saddened face. "Why – what do you mean, Mister Preston?"

Well, that seemed like a start – might as well see how much good talking did. "The world's a very big place, Dorothy. It's not the same time here as it is back in the Yukon, or Kansas, either. When it's ten o'clock at night here, it's two o'clock in the morning back in the Yukon, and four A. M. in Kansas."

That put a little bit of a frown on her face. At least it was a puzzled one. "But it only stands to reason it's the same time everywhere," she said slowly. "All the world's one piece, isn't it?"

I never got to explain the rest, because just then Albert came back. "That's it, we're locked," he said. "I'd get back to your rooms if I were you. And keep those shutters closed!"

Swift gathered up the bits of shell, and we headed up the stairs. By common consensus we all ended up in my room; if need be, we could always open the shutters for a moment or two and have a look outside. It was on the third floor, after all - what kind of danger could reach us there, unless the Sirens carried spears? I mentioned this to Miss Poppins, who seemed to think it was a sensible idea. The shutters stayed closed for the moment anyway, since there was no real reason to open them. Dorothy settled herself on the floor, Indian-style, and Prince curled up next to her. He's a good dog, Prince. Didn't even mind it when Toto clambered up and fell asleep on his back.

Swift tossed me one of the rifles and picked up one for himself. "Did yours give you any trouble at the docks?" he asked me. He had a look I'd seen before. A miner who's been in town too long wants to get back to his gold; I suppose an inventor who's gone a full day without inventing something wants to get back to his ideas.

"Seemed a little bright, if you ask me. Was it supposed to backfire on us that way?"

He shook his head, producing a screwdriver from somewhere. "Not really, but then again I'm not sure how much I can do about it. It's light, after all, and that radiates in all directions unless it's blocked. Maybe we should wear smoked glasses next time."

"At night, though?"

"Mmm, you're right, could be trouble. . ."

He'd already started mucking with the stock of the thing, and a thought occurred to me. "Swift?"

"Hmm?"

"I was wondering something. We had a little trouble communicating down at the docks."

"Yes, the wax."

"Right. I don't suppose you could invent something that'd block out the sounds of the Sirens' screaming, but let ordinary speech come through?"

A thoughtful, faraway look came into his eyes, the rifle forgotten. Ultimately, he shook his head. "Maybe," he said regretfully, "but not right now. I have some notes back at my lab on a metal that seems to have vibrational properties, really unusual ones. I'm pretty sure I can do something with it to make it absorb sounds, but that's years of testing and research away. Sorry, Sergeant."

"That's all right. Just thought I'd ask."

"What was that sound?" asked Miss Poppins suddenly. All of us - the half-asleep Dorothy included - looked up at that.

"I didn't hear anything-"

"There it is again," she said, turning towards the window. "From outside, I think."

"Albert said to keep the shutters closed," noted Swift.

Miss Poppins shook her head. "That's as may be, but we do have three compatriots outside. If they're trying to reach us-"

"I'll have a look," I said, getting up. Halfway to the window I remembered Albert's comment about fish food and jammed the wax plugs back into my ears. Then I shouldered my electric rifle and carefully poked the shutters open.

Nothing - at least not on the first pass. No sign of Cranston or the others anywhere. It all looked as normal as-

"Wait a minute." I pulled back from the window, looking over my shoulder. "Miss Poppins, is the dirigible supposed to be taking off?"

"Excuse me?" She came forward, baby in her arms, and had a look of her own. "Oh my. Well, I suppose if they couldn't get into the Inn. . ."

I wasn't really listening, though. Something looked wrong about the distant harbour. The water was frothing like the port of Skagway during a storm, but there wasn't a single tree or mast moving. If there was any storm at all, it was coming from under the waves. That, or something else was churning the water.

"I have a feeling there's going to be company soon," I murmured, and pointed out the harbour to Miss Poppins. "Unless it's already here."

She looked at me. "You're thinking they reached the dirigible," she said quietly. I nodded. "Well, it can't do any harm to check. Sergeant, how are you with children?"

"Er- well, Louise and I never had any children of our own, but- well, I've been told I'm good with other people's-"

"Very good." She handed me the water baby.

I wasn't prepared for that.

She couldn't have weighed more than a good-sized hare - six pounds or so - but I had the terrible feeling I might drop her anyway. I sat down on the foot of the bed immediately. Miss Poppins was saying something about keeping our wax ready and not opening the shutters again without some kind of signal, but I wasn't paying attention. I'd just enough of my wits about me to get one hand under the baby's head. She yawned as I did that, stretching one tiny webbed hand in the air. If it weren't for that delicate stretch of skin between the fingers, and the minuscule nails that resembled a puppy's first claws, it would have been very easy indeed to mistake that hand for a human child's.

"All right then, gentlemen," came Miss Poppins' voice, "I shall return shortly." She stepped out of the window, and Swift closed the shutters behind her.

** CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE **

(My apologies, but I really don't think the events of this night would have been written up in any more separate entries and I did want to get something up after several days without. When I have finished Day Ten I will do my utmost to combine the lot. For now, assume that he ran out of typing paper or something.)