Ice Country

“What if it were your sister?” I say,changing tactics.

“I don’t have a sister,” Abe says smugly.

“A brother?”

His face changes, softens somewhat. “I’d doanything for Hightower,” he says.

Huh? “Tower’s your brother?”

“Yah. So?”

“Uh, nothing. That’s great.” I try to keep myface expressionless even though I want to ask him what in Heart’sname is wrong with his brother. “Okay. So if Tower was a prisonersomewhere, what would you do?”

“I’d freezin’ bust him out and mangle theface of whoever put him there in the first place.” He stops,wrinkles his face. “Oh,” he says, seeing my point.

“Please,” I say. “Just do this one thing andI’ll never bother you again.”

Abe cringes, looks like he’s screaming but nosound comes out, punches his fist into his palm. “Heart-ice it!Why’d I ever hafta meet an ice-sucker like you?”

I don’t think he means for me to answer him,but I do anyway. “Because this ice-sucker sucks royal ice at highstakes boulders-’n-avalanches,” I say. “So you’ll do it?”

“Yah. And then you’ll never talk to meagain.”

“Deal,” I say, gri

~~~

We’re conspiring at Fro-Yo’s. Like wesuspected he might eventually, Yo bent a little and let us back inthe pub with the promise we’d pay him the last few sickles we owehim as soon as we can. He even cleared the place out so we couldhold our secret meeting here. He said he’d add the lost business toour tab.

Four ti

Abe leads the first part of the meeting. “Yernot Wes anymore,” he says to Wes. “Yer Buck, son of Huck.”

“Can I choose a different name?” Wessays.

“Nay,” Abe says, settling the matter.

“You already got him the job?” I ask,surprised.

Abe lifts the edge of his lip, the closestthing to a smile we’ll get from him tonight. “Course. I told you amillion times, I got power in the palace. But I didn’t know what hecould do, so they couldn’t place him. All you gotta do is tell mewhat yer good at.”

“Uh,” Wes says.

“He’s good at digging up rocks,” I joke,earning a sharp look from my brother.

“There ain’t much rock-diggin’ in thepalace,” Abe says seriously, not getting the joke. “But there’sple

“I can cook,” Wes says, pulling Abe’s gazeback to him.

“Perfect,” Abe says. “The king’s near alwayslookin’ for kitchen workers, on account of him killin’ most of ’emoff when his supper doesn’t agree with him.”

The three of us just stare at Abe, shocked byhis statement.

His lip curls again. “Jokin’,” he says,smacking his leg. We all breathe out at the same time, like we’vebeen collectively holding our breath. “Kitchen it is. You starttomorrow morning. Just go to the back gates and give them this.” Hehands Wes a type of gold coin I’ve never seen before. “Anyquestions?”

Wes shakes his head. “Good. Then it’s beenterrible knowin’ you all. Try not to git yerselves killed doin’whatever it is yer doin’. An’ don’t ferget: yer name’s Buck now.”He grabs his ti

“Yah, yah, son of Huck. I got it,” Wessays.

“Thanks, Abe,” I say, just before the doorslams.

“I hope I never see the likes of him again,”Buff says after he’s gone.

“You and me both,” I say, wondering whether Imean it as I take another sip of ’quiddy.

Wes slaps the gold coin on the table. “Right.I’m in. Now what’s the rest of the plan, or am I supposed to getJoles out all by myself?”

“Yah. That’s pretty much it,” I say.

Wes stares at me. “What?”

“Jokin’,” I say, imitating Abe’s voice.

“Very fu

“Really? I thought it was an icin’ dumbjoke,” Buff says.

“Right,” I say. “The real plan. Me and Buff,we just have to do what we do best.”

Buff cocks an eyebrow. “And what’s that?” hesays.

I grin. “Fight.”

Chapter Sixteen

We watch Wes fromthe morning shadows of the forest. He gets in without a hitch, thegold coin Abe gave him doing the trick.

So Wes is in. My mother’s taken care of, withClint and Looza looking after her. All that’s left is us.

It’s our turn to get in. And it’s not theeasy way.

We wait an hour before making our move, sothat no one links us to Buck—I mean, Wes.

When we stomp into Yo’s pub, every head inthe place turns our way. The door slams off the inside wall.

It only takes a moment for us to locate ourquarry. Coker and the other stonecutters sit at the end of the barin their usual spot, sipping on ’quiddy.

This will feel good, I think, crackingmy knuckles. Nothing like a good pub brawl to get the bloodflowing. And with Yo’s agreement to press charges, we’ll surely endup in the dungeons.

When I take a step forward, the door thundersshut behind us. I look back, wondering why Buff closed it so hard.Five heavily armed castle guardsmen stand just inside theentrance.

“By the order of the king, you’re underarrest,” one of them says. I immediately recognize him as BurlyGuard A.

Burly Guard B says, “Any resistance will bemet with violence.”

Then they grab us and bind our arms, leavingBuff and I staring at each other in wonderment as to what justhappened. Did Abe turn us in? Or did my constant rule-breakingfinally catch up with me? In either case, we’re getting exactlywhat we wanted: imprisonment.

My only regret: I didn’t get to break Coker’snose in the process.

~~~

The guards’ took more than a few shots at usas they dragged us along, and now my whole body feels like I slidinto a tree. Buff didn’t fare much better than me. His face lookslike he got mauled by a bear and he’s all hunched over as hestaggers along beside me, dragging chained feet.

But we’re in, although I’m not sure whatwe’re going to do now. The plan only went so far as getting usinside the palace and Wes figuring out a way to break us out of thedungeons. For all we know, he’ll never make it down there and we’llbe left to rot with the mice and creepy-crawlies.

“When will the king sentence us?” I slur tothe guard who’s prodding us along with some sharp instrument frombehind. A raunchy joke comes to mind, but I swallow it down with awad of spit.

“Consider yerself sentenced,” the guardsays.

I guess it was too much to hope that the kingwould personally attend to a couple of lowly tradesmen, but Ifigured it was worth a shot.

Through vision obscured by swollen eyes, Iobserve the palace. Despite his condition, I can tell Buff’s doingthe same. We’ll compare notes later.

The guard marches us through a high archway,made of a kind of white stone that seems to glitter pink under thebarest hint of summer sunlight infiltrating the cloud cover. Thehallway beyond is grand, adorned with all ma

I glance to the left and find a similarscene, except this one’s not in ice country, it’s in a land I’veonly heard tales about, a land far, far away, where they say thesun’s bigger than here. A land of endless water and deserts that goall the way to the sea. In the tapestry there’s a giant woodenvessel—they call them ships in the stories—bobbing on a widesplash of water, tied to a tree that looks curved and fu