“What are you doing?” Seldom asked.
“I think it’s working,” Diamond said. Then with a calm voice and a fetching little smile, he added, “I did this with my finger today.”
“Did what?” his father asked.
“There was a monkey inside our house. He bit off my finger.”
Merit stared at his son’s uninjured hands. Then looking at the foot and leg, he realized they were not two separate objects anymore. The flesh on both was turning soft and strange, tendons emerging to kiss and then join together.
“And how did you get here?” Merit asked.
“Inside the Happenstance,” the boy said happily.
Merit looked at Nissim.
With a quick clear voice, the Master replayed the journey to the Ivory Station and the strange men following them and how he did what he could to protect Diamond and the other children. There was an unfortunate incident after the blimp. Nissim was cornered and had no choice but use his knife.
“You killed that man,” Seldom said. “I knew you did.”
Nissim sighed and rubbed his empty hands. “No,” he said. “I just crippled him.”
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then Nissim told how Merit’s son, alone and entirely out of his element, had found his way to the Ivory Station. Diamond even managed to avoid a stranger who knew his name . . . a high-voiced man who might have been Archon from the District of Districts.
“What’s that?”
Nissim described the encounter, adding, “But your son has better recall. Diamond has a fabulous memory for details.”
“He does,” his father agreed.
Gray toes were turning pink, and the foot wasn’t dead anymore.
To Merit, Master Nissim said, “I have some private matters to discuss, if we can speak alone.”
Merit rose again. His knees were old again, cracking like dried twigs. His gray work clothes were waiting to be worn again. Dressing, he said, “Someone needs to speak to the delegate, warn her that our work has found a big delay.”
The man who vomited had his chance to escape.
Joyous but baffled, the other men stared at the wiggling toes.
“Leave us,” Merit told his crew. “Go anywhere else, and I don’t care what you do with yourselves.”
The men laughed good-naturedly, but they took their time retreating.
Elata was jumping up and down, hugging herself.
Seldom said, “This is magic. It’s like nothing ever, ever, ever.”
But what impressed Merit more than anything was the calm, stoic face on his only child.
Nissim stepped close to the slayer. “Other people know about the boy.” That was worth saying twice, and with a whisper, he added, “I think I know what happened. I’m guessing, but someone called your home yesterday. Someone knows too much and threatened to tell about your son, and your wife left the boy alone to meet with the caller. To plead with him or bribe him.”
“Except we don’t have money,” said Merit. “And believe me, Haddi isn’t the kind to beg.”
Nissim sighed. “I don’t know the full story. But whoever is responsible, it’s fair to say that Diamond was lucky to escape and find help, and we were extremely fortunate to find our way to you.”
“I’m going to stand up,” said Diamond.
The other children offered hands to the wounded boy. But he flexed both feet and stood up on his own.
From a distance, ten grown men stared blank-faced at the impossible, and then a moment later, in unison, they let out a shout of approval.
“That’s one explanation for what’s happened, yes,” said Merit. Then he took a deep breath, thinking hard about everything.
Seldom knelt down, conjuring enough courage to touch one toe. “Do you feel that, Diamond?”
“Mostly.”
“Leave him alone,” Elata said.
Then three of them began to laugh, hands touching.
“Thank you,” said Merit. “For my wife and for me, thank you so much.”
The butcher smiled, relieved to be at the end of his trial.
But Merit looked down the valley, gazing up at the wilderness and the heavy green canopy leading into the shrouded distance, staring at home first and then the District of Districts. He didn’t know what he was searching for, but his eyes narrowed. Then he quietly mentioned, “There is one problem with your story, however.”
“Where is your wife?” Nissim asked.
“No, I think I know where she is,” Merit said, looking at the world’s center. “But I have to think like a hunter, you see. I know how to chase, and I understand how to build a workable trap. And I think that if the Archon or whoever wanted to steal my son, he would have been stolen by now.
“No,” said the corona slayer. “Our enemies, whoever they are, were consciously, carefully driving you.”
A sorry little sigh came out of Nissim.
“I’m afraid,” Merit said, and then his voice stopped. He turned and looked at the children, saying, “Someone feels very confident. The trap is inescapable, they think, and they want the boy here. For good reasons, for their reasons. Whichever. They want Diamond here.”
“Do you know why?” Nissim asked.
“Well,” Merit said. “A story comes to mind, yes.”
TWELVE
Diamond tried jumping on his two feet, measuring the aches and his body and discovering that the pain had become very small.
“You’re shorter,” Seldom said.
Diamond agreed. “My hurt leg got shorter. And I think the other one did too, maybe.”
“To keep you balanced,” Elata guessed, giving him a rough hug.
Father had been talking to Master Nissim. But now he turned away and with a big voice called to his crew. The men had just reached the tents, and now they were coming back. Except for one person who Diamond hadn’t noticed before—a woman who wasn’t part of Father’s crew.
Something was wrong with the woman. She had a very long face and a peculiar stance, pitched forward on her overlong arms, big eyes staring out from her heavy, misshapen head.
When Seldom saw her, he made an odd little sound.
With a doubting tone, Elata asked, “Is that a papio?”
Seldom nodded and his feet ran in place.
The strange woman said a few words, and one of his father’s crew paused, laughing nervously when he pointed at his own foot.
The papio kept staring at Diamond.
Father walked out to meet his men, and they gathered close around him, letting him speak quietly for a little while. Everybody listened intently. They watched him as if nothing else mattered. Then they started to move away, alone and in pairs. Some broke into shuffling runs. Father called to one man by name and brought him back again, putting a hand on his shoulder, giving him encouragement along with extra orders.
“Oh, the papio’s leaving,” said Seldom, disappointed.
The woman had a different gait than people. She walked easily on two strong squat legs, but pitched forwards slightly, and where the ground rose she used her arms to help climb across the raw, slashing coral.
The last man was sprinting for the farthest tents.
Father returned, watching the ground as he approached Diamond. His face looked tired and thoughtful and very serious, but then he brought up a smile and a sudden wink.
“That was a papio,” Seldom said smartly.
“She’s our official delegate,” Father explained, looking only at his son. “This is their realm. We pay them to use their ground as an abattoir, where we can safely butcher the coronas.”
“Like your butcher block at school,” Elata said to Nissim.
“On a Creator’s scale, yes,” the Master said.
“But we’re very sloppy butchers,” Father said. “Normally this carcass would be hacked to pieces, organs and scales and flesh and skin mixed however seems best, and then we make five roughly equal piles as the delegate watches everything, coming forward afterwards to choose two piles for her people. The first pile is to pay the papio for using their land, while the other pile is our gift or our tribute, depending on how you read the history books.”