CHAPTER SEVEN
Iddo
III
Ez discovered that her cheeks were wet with tears. The vision was over, and although Iddo and Jack had spoken for several minutes, almost no time had elapsed in Real Life. Gramma Fark had just folded her arms and said, Fat chance, and now Iddo was telling her, “The remarkable thing about chance is that there’s really no such thing as it, fat or otherwise.”
Ez discreetly wiped her cheeks. Her fingers came away sticky with greenish goo. For a moment, she couldn’t for the life of her think why this should be. Ez stared at her fingers numbly. Oh. Right. The vexpids. She wished things would stop happening for a while. She needed time to process, time to come to grips with… with, well, everything. It seemed to her that since she’d first caught sight of Wilburn flying out the kitchen window, scarcely five minutes had passed without something astonishing, heartbreaking, or traumatizing occurring.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Gramma said. “There’s no chance I’m going to forgive you. Cowardly, arrogant… Why, you haven’t even apologi—” Her eyes went huge.
The little leather pouch that Iddo wore around his neck—wait a minute, had he been wearing that all along?—sprang open, and a tiny purple mushroom about the size of Ez’s pinky toe popped out, followed by two more tiny purple mushrooms and the tantalizing aroma of cinnamon.
“Iddo…” Gramma said cautiously, “you know, you’re the one who’s always talking about karma...” Unfortunately for her, the hongos, for of course that was what the purple mushrooms were, floated lazily up to Iddo’s mouth level, and crunch, crunch, crunch, he ate them out of the air. Gramma’s face turned scarlet. But then her gaze darted hopefully back to the pouch, from which yet another hongo was emerging. The mushroom bobbed in her direction, then halted a few feet away from her and zipped back to Iddo—crunch.
“You jackass,” Gramma whispered, leveling a trembling finger at him. Ez had never seen her so enraged.
Iddo, by contrast, looked delighted. “Hnggrrnt hnggrrnt hnggrrnt…” He gave his tail a little swish—the sync—a very precise and delicate clock-tick of a sync. The leather pouch vanished from around his neck and reappeared in Gramma’s outstretched hand, its cord wound neatly around her finger. Gramma’s eyelids fluttered in surprise. She yanked the pouch open and peered inside. She gasped at what she saw. Then she plunged a hand in and withdrew a fistful of hongos, which she unceremoniously crammed into her mouth.
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As she was crunching, Iddo said, “And this is for you, Ms. Totkins.” He lowered his head, tilting his horns and causing the silver ring that encircled the base of his left horn—surely that hadn’t been there earlier, had it?—to slide up the shaft to the pencil-sharp tip, where it hung perfectly balanced, a foot from Ez’s nose. Ez, who still sat with her back against the tree trunk, reached out carefully to take it. The glittering circle was as light as paper and as slender as a cherry stem, yet there was a surprising strength to it, she found, squeezing it gingerly at first, then with increasing firmness. The material was utterly unyielding.
“I suggest you wear that at all times,” Iddo said. “Starting now.”
Ez obediently slipped the hoop over her hand. It constricted to a comfortable snugness around her wrist, and a sensation, as of someone dragging their finger down all the piano keys in a row, shimmered through her body. “What is it?” she asked.
“Looks like an Astral bangle,” Gramma said energetically. Her color had returned and there was a keen spark in her eye. She squinted at the bracelet through the cracked lenses of her spectacles. “Darn things,” she muttered, whipping them off; then she muttered something else Ez didn’t catch. There was another gentle sync as the spectacles un-cracked themselves. Gramma replaced them on her nose. When she leaned in to take a closer look, Ez caught a powerful whiff of cinnamon. Gramma whistled. “Never seen one like this before.”
“Precious few exist,” Iddo said. “It is a class five Astral artifact of elvish fabrication, far more effective than the latest WizTech bangles. It would take an exceptionally skilled and exceedingly determined psychovate to penetrate its defenses. So long as you are wearing it, Ms. Totkins, your thoughts, and memories, and emotions shall remain your own, as will your dreams...”
“Wilburn should wear it,” Ez said quickly. “He’s the one who needs protection.” She began to remove the bangle.
“Other arrangements have been made concerning young Wilburn’s protection,” Iddo said. “Keep it, Ms. Totkins. That artifact is meant for you. Wear it. Always. Apparently, you need it to do your job.”
“What job?”
The yak shrugged. “Apparently, you don’t need to know what your job is in order to do it. I don’t know either. Those decisions are made well above my pay grade. My job was simply to requisition the artifact from the NEED —that’s the Nonstandard Existential Equipment Department—and deliver it to you, precisely as I have done. It would seem we all have many jobs to do in life, Ms. Totkins, and often the job we think we’re doing, the purpose for which we believe we are striving, is merely a pretense, a superficial incentive, as when the proverbial carrot is dangled before the proverbial ass. When no carrot is needed, none is dangled. That is the Path.”
“Who’s dangling carrots?” Ez asked in confusion.
Iddo arched a spectacularly shaggy eyebrow at her. “Upper Management,” he said.
“You mean… God?”
“Ehhh…” Iddo tipped his head back and forth. “More like the people that the people that the people that God put in charge of running the universe put in charge put in charge. Midlevel bureaucrats. Bunglers,” he added.
“When you say, other arrangements have been made for Wilburn’s safety…”
“Ah yes, I was referring to his newly forged apprenticeship.” Iddo grinned craftily. “Wilburn has generously agreed to take me on as his apprentice.”