The Ozark trilogy Read Free Page B

grandmother; nodding her head, “is a show of competence; that would serve the purpose. Something that would demonstrate that the Brightwaters are capable of keeping the delegations, and all their kin, and all their staffs, safe here for the Jubilee.”
    “I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it,” sighed Donald Patrick. “I sometimes think it might be best to let them go on and dissolve the Confederation and all be boones if that’s their determined mind! The energy we put into all this, the time , the money ... Do you know what Brightwater spent in food and drink alone at the last quarterly meeting?”
    “Donald Patrick Brightwater,” said Ruth of Motley in a voice like the back of a hand, “you sound like a Purdy.”
    “I beg your pardon, Mother,” said my uncle. “I hadn’t any intention of doing so.”
    Strictly speaking, it was not fair for him to be rebuked. As the ordinary citizen was ignorant of what kept the Mules flying in the absence even of wings , so was Donald Patrick ignorant of the peril every Ozarker faced if we could not establish once and for all a central government that could respond, and respond with speed, in an emergency. The decision to maintain that ignorance had been made deliberately, and for excellent reasons, hundreds of years ago, when first the menace of the Out-Cabal had been discovered by our Magicians. And that decision would stand, for so long as it was possible, and for so long as disputations in political science, and intercontinental philosophy, and planetary ecology, and the formidable theory of magic, could be substituted for a truth it had been sworn our people would never have to learn.
    “First,” I said quickly, “there’s finding out where this attack is coming from. That’s the easy part.”
    My mother crossed her long white hands over her breasts to indicate her shock and informed us that first we had to get that baby down out of that tree.
    “Mother, dear Mother,” I said, “you know that’s not so— that baby is all right. Unlike the rest of us, that baby is protected from every known danger this planet can muster up. Not so much as a bacterium can get through that bubble to harm Terrence Merryweather McDaniels, and he will be tended more carefully there than a king’s son.”
    It was only a figure of speech; there were no kings in our kingdoms and never had been, and therefore no king’s sons. When First Granny had stood on Ozark for the first time, her feet to solid ground after all those weary years on The Ship, she had looked around her; drawn a long breath, and said, “Well, the Kingdom’s come at last, praise be!” and we’d had “kingdoms” ever since for that reason alone. But it had the necessary effect. Thorn of Guthrie made a pretense of thinking it over, but she knew I was right, and she nodded her lovely head and agreed with me that the baby probably represented the least of our problems. Except insofar as it stood for an insult to our Family and our faith, of course (and it was at that point that I realized the Solemn Service had been left unfinished).
    “I say call in the Magicians of Rank, then,” said Jubal Brooks, “and have them to find out which one of our eleven loving groups of kindred has set itself to bring the Confederation down about our heads. Literally about our heads.”
    “No,” I told him, hoping he was right that it was only one. “No, Jubal Brooks, that’s all wrong. It would maybe be fastest , depending on the strength and number of the Magicians ranged against ours, but it’s all wrong as to form .”
    “I don’t see it,” he said.
    “A symbol,” said Ruth of Motley, spelling it all out for him, “is best answered by a symbol. Not by a ... meat cleaver.”
    “And what symbol do we propose to offer up for this motley collection—no offense meant. Mother—of shenanigans? Cross our hearts and spit in the ocean under a full moon?”
    “A Quest, I expect, Jubal,” I said, straight out. I had been